Duluth Public Schools - Regular School Board Meeting March 19th, 2024

001good evening it is Tuesday March 19th and we are the isd709 duth public schools regular school board meeting we are um meeting once a month and we this is a a formal meeting where we take action vote on different resolutions and different contracts ask questions hear presentations from our superintendent and our student School Board reps along with um any input from our leaders or any questions from Schoolboard members again this is isd709 duth public schools it's our regular Schoolboard meeting and clerk zamboli will take role member banks here member Durk Gater present member ller Kemp here member Lal here member Mike Cel is excused I am here and member Williams here superintendent Magus here assistant superintendent bonds present Deputy cler kazun here um executive director of HR sance present um board secretary pette here and

002our student School Board Representatives um Damon ritsko here Lissa Miller here and Mia Patronis here thank you we'll rise for the pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you I'm looking for any um um agenda items that we might need to place or is there any questions on the agenda that we've been presented since um last week if not I'm going to look for a motion to approve the agenda tonight so move we have member eer with a motion to approve the agenda is there a second member Williams seconds it and um again if there is no additions the agenda will be approved by our vote all

003those in favor say I I opposed motion carries 60 we do have an agenda thank you so our first notice on our agenda is um number five and it's school and Community recognition and I'll call on assistant superintendent bonds thank you thank you board chair and good evening board and Community I am pleased to recognize tonight Cindy Miller uh Cindy Miller is the library media specialist at kden elementary school and the district's computer science lead this year Cindy applied for and was awarded a $10,000 Grant to promote Equitable and inclusive Pathways in computer science through the in feem makers Awards contest sponsored by Infosys Foundation USA the funds will be used to build maker spaces in our elementary schools media centers provide Tech Tool schols for middle schools and to develop a stem sympathy sympathy

004which is a stem event Sydney Miller is also and has gone above and beyond this year testifying that you heard earlier today at the state capital on legislation that could potentially protect schools and libraries from outside groups that seek to remove books from libraries based on opposing viewpoints or messages ideas or opinions the books can we are so thankful for Cindy for her passion for our students and our school libraries congratulations thank you I'm going to present that to her as well as of course ours as well so congratulations we're going to take a um a photo in a moment but I know Cindy does want to share some information so Cindy okay thanks um thank you uh for the acknowledgement and the opportunity to tell you about the infy maker Awards grant that I

005brought to our school district can you hear me okay in the microphone the infy makers Awards contest by infosis Foundation USA is open to Educators from K12 schools universities colleg colleges libraries museums maker spaces and youth serving nonprofit organizations using maker education to promote Equitable and inclusive Pathways for K12 plus students in computer science 10 winning Educators from across the country received a $10,000 Grant and the opportunity to participate in the making computer science inclusive cohort a professional learning experience facilitated by digital promise from January to August 2024 the grant is flexible funding that can be used for materials projects research Community engagement and more my winning project has three parts uh first I want to build maker spaces in the library media centers in all of our elementary schools including the treatment and residential

006schools in the maker space students learn soft skills like collaboration perseverance and communication and they use inquiry and creativity they design Tinker create and improve their prototypes I've already made great progress in planning inclusive and Equitable lessons I've ordered and organized supplies like magne tiles glue markers and snap circuits and I'm design designing the PD for our library Elementary library media Specialists the second part of the project is for middle school when I wrote this Grant application oh I have to be able to look at you at this part um when I wrote this Grant application our new and reworked Middle School courses were not on my radar I wrote the grant to include just a few tools for short exploratory courses I will carry that I will carry through with my commitments of this

007grant but funding will be needed for um the complete courses that are now being offered okay um we'll talk about that on another day um the third part of the project is one I'm really excited about I'm going to arrange a stmy stmath event um in duth public schools I will build connections with Professionals in the city who use stem that's science technology engineering and math in their careers and organize an event where elementary and middle school students can get real life view of how people use stem skills in their careers we'll use a science fair Booth format students in small groups will visit a booth and learn from an adult for eight minutes or so um each and then rotate to another and learn more invited to this event will be people from the

008healthcare industry civil and chemical Engineers land surveyors branches of the military transportation and Logistics Prof professionals and people who work in the hospitality and Beauty service Industries I hope to spur student interest in stem and the CTE courses that we offer in duth public schools and Foster connections to professionals to further our CTE Pathways thanks again for acknowledging my infy makers award oh Jill you're coming up here um um thanks for acknowledging my infy makers award Grant and allowing me to use the mic to tell you about it tonight I'll be in touch with more information about what we need for our middle school computer science courses wink at Jill thank you and a picture would you like to take questions first and then come up for a quick picture any feedback first how about

009that and then take a pictures yeah I don't have my glasses so I just wanna I've known Cindy for years and years and she has done so much for this District in so many ways but I just um uh appreciate the fact that you took the time to write a grant which which is um uh hard enough often and um that you really uh looked at a broad scope across the district scope uh in um wanting to use the funds and so just again applaud you respect you tremendously thank you member eer I just would Echo everything that um Rosie said I think that about this 10 10 $10,000 grant that you're bringing back to the district and the dividends for a distri district and our kids and the education and and professional development for

010our teachers will far out weigh that $10,000 it will it will do so much for us and so much for our kids um and just showing younger teachers out there to go for those grants to do those things to um spread their passion and love and knowledge and I I really appreciate it and I can just tell from watching you how passionate how engaging and what a gift you are to the district so thank you thank you um superintendent magas sure and i' I'd reiterate much of what's been said already um I could I could go on in in Greater detail but one thing when you when you came up to the podium one thing I think about is how often I see you you're in so many different leadership roles and you're so present

011and you're so positive and you're always focused on what's best for kids and what's best for our schools and I think you're just an incredible role model to others and I just want to say how much I'm uh deeply grateful for your work thank you and I'll just conclude like this is a drop the mic moment that's what we call it when we just are incredibly you know like there can't be it can't be beat we just drop the mic here thanks whoever wants to be in the picture pictures you and again after spending some days down at the capital ourselves um lobbying and speaking you know Cindy I'm really glad you're there and the handout you brought as well and I just I have talked with um Senator kunich who's you know quite involved

012as the financial chair but also you know she's a retired librarian so she's passionate and so I can imagine when you come with your you know your background your experience and what you can do with money she's going to open up a little bit more so we'll talk so next on our agenda board is the reports of the superintendent and under those are the reports from our student School Board reps it's also our superintendent's report and then just a review of some upcoming schedules of meetings and events I'll turn it over to superintendent Magus thank you and I'm just uh casting here a moment one second so thank you and again for our superintendent report we have a few things to cover but we always start with taking a look at our mission vision and

013values and this is something we worked on very hard over the course of the past few years and I'll I'll read our mission vision and uh just the titles of our core values our mission is that every student every day will be empowered with learning opportunities for growth creativity and curiosity in preparation for their future and a global community and our vision is that duth public schools provides an academically engaging safe and inclusive environment with high expectations and responsible use of resources and our core values are learning Excellence Equity collaboration and belonging we're really grateful for all the work that's been done to put together our strategic plan as well as our desired daily outcomes it's given us a great deal of focus as we move forward tonight as uh was mentioned already we have

014our student reports uh then a little piece on negotiations um some budget updates uh some information on our referendum as well as some legislative advocacy and then opportunity for other if there are any questions so let's start tonight with our student reports and I'm not sure who would like to go first tonight you know I'd love to go first but I'm not done yet so I can go first today thank you okay thank you Miss Miller um first off i' like to say that our robotics team DNA um number 49 is headed to Denver this weekend to compete in the first Regional competition there and then I would like to say congratulations to the Denfeld speech team as they continue to compete perform and succeed over the past few weeks the team has captured the

015first first place trophy in the category at Princeton the third place team trophy at Forest Lake and many team members received members for the top finishes senior Jackson chedz has captured two championships medals in poetry in the past two weeks Junior Reagan Kern had captured four four Championship medals in drama in separate tournaments Junior Maria opet op has medled as and has been on top three the past two tournaments in discussion sophomore's Nissa Johnson and Natalie Anderson also continue to win top medals at every tournament and last and last Saturday at our national qualifying tournament junior Reagan Kern took first in drama and will be advancing to the National speech tournament in June in Iowa and our our team continues to show up on every tournament on Saturday since January 13th and shares their voices

016and represents Denfeld Hunters Spirit our boys basketball and girls um were in play playoffs this month and the ended the year with motivation for the next year so congratulations to all of our seniors um students are taking trip to Costa Rica um through the Spanish education and then there was an auction through that and the fundraising closed on Monday March 18th um inside the school um bar students of the week is Antonio a faith B Samantha m huitt n and Isabelle f eye times for students in nth grade and 10th grades and juniors and seniors are doing self-expanding social emotional lessons each week eighth grade orientation was on Tuesday March 5th and was well attended lots of information was shared the event was shortened to the presidential primary election in Minnesota so that was a

017little push back there um ninth grade bingo was n9th grade bingo on Fridays during win and is being sponsored sped by link crew slly every Friday now sophomore fre field trip was on March 13th to conu construct tomorrow as the deck at the deck or field trip to La lulac tribal and Community College I've Heard lots of good feedback um students versus basketball game March 1st um they the students won and everyone had a lot of fun it was very interesting um act signups to prepare for the test was on March 11th our counselor had us everyone get together that already signed up so they can prepare Junior night was today um March 19th 5 to 6:30 p.m. College counselors for the next steps and admissions were there March 27th field trip to Lake Superior

018College for juniors and seniors registration ends on 22nd bus expectations are being reviewed this week for n9th and 10th graders and those in special education um moving on to like more of clubs things um BSA is going to to do a pottery night monthly which is very exciting um we had a lot of success for the first one so that will be something that we're looking forward to um officer officer elections are Wednesday during wi uh women's History Month dress up days we have like a spirit week for that um so Monday is like a girl Jersey day Tuesday women are superh heroes superhero day Wednesday on Wednesday wear pink Thursday A Day In Her Shoes wear wear the shoes of a woman you love Friday Fe feminism is for everyone class color day so

019freshman is purple sophomore is white junior is gold and Senior is green and then staff is gray and then some updates with Dash um Dash is the after school program they are doing so much things so um they have a change makers day on March 28th um and then they'll have twice in April where uws is going to go to Denfeld um it's 4 to 5 p.m. everyone is invited and it lifts up students youth voices and hands-on experience exploring issues today including workshops and exploring Solutions students and staff from the college will be involved so it also be like the students from the college in that major um book genre speed dating um the dashboard had a youth leadership team and the LI the DU Public Library on March 6th for the event in

020the West Commons from 3:30 to 5:30 and they like basically had speed dating with different genres which I've heard great feedback they plan to do that more often the dashboard is talking about activities for the summer transition Academy which is being planned they're thinking like rock climbing archery and some really fun activities to get outside Golds is planning a crunch time on March 27th Wednesday for the end of the quarter and asking for like some more volunteers from link crew link crew and NHS for tutoring Hunters license um some updates on that students 15 and younger have to be passing their classes but those who are 16 and over have to be on track to graduate to en or enrolled in credit recovery to attend like home games um and then the drama club they'll

021be bringing a few people for the what the Constitution means for me on Thursday I will be performing so you guys are all invited it's free um so that's exciting that some that students are going and then there's also going to be a culture night at LOL um Denfeld D some there like a little field trip for Denfeld students to go there in tend and to help volunteer update for bathrooms um the feedback from kids is that hygiene products are not being as stocked as usual I talked to Mr tuskin he's kind of emailed the engineering but I'm just taking that out there that it hasn't been stocked every single time when a student has walked in which is a problem and then um and then update with the bathrooms for modering um staff modering

022bathrooms um to like ensure safe and accessible uh they take students first names and make sure that the bathroom is not over capacity so basically they sit in front of the bathrooms and then when they walk out they cross their name out um from feedback it's been pros and cons I would say the accessibility for like not having all the bathrooms especially being late but so far far has been helpful for having less distractions in the bathroom and that is it thank you thank you very much Mi um member Miller and who would like to go next student represented Patronus looks like you goad all right so some updates on East High School last week was our red and gray spirit week and this year's theme was Shark Week week so we decorated the school

023accordingly and we had an after school basketball inter mural which we called Shark Madness over a hundred students played and there was even a group of teachers that competed the last two remaining teams got to play their final game at our assembly on Friday for all of the school to watch and also at that assembly three students who are voted on by the student body were crowned to be top dogs east has recently installed a new safety measure in side of our school the building has two um sets of glass doors in our entryway and the one that opens onto the cafeteria has been covered with our School logo so this prevents anyone from seeing into the school but also allows people to see out not only is it a nice branding visual it is

024a really important safety piece sophomores um they took their annual trip to the deck for con construct tomorrow where they got to experience Hands-On activities based around the traits 10 students from the math team went to State last week and they placed 17th out of 162 teams the drama club has begun rehearsing for this year's spring production which is a musical called the 25th Annual putam County Spelling be it will be performing the second weekend in May I get to be part of it so I think it'll be a very fun time the track season has also started and triy outs for soft cheerleading boys tennis and baseball are all coming up within the next two weeks all 8th through 11th grade students have registered for next year's classes many students have given feedback that

025teachers explan explanations of courses as well as the course handbook have set them up for a very successful signing up of classes a representative from East Key Club aelia Stephy is attending a key Club conference in North Dakota to learn more about leadership and how to make improvements on our Key Club organization in our school promom just announced this year's prom theme which is a Night Under the Stars which will take place May 4th at the deck during when there have been many tutoring opportunities that have been made available for students next Thursday the advanced AC capella chir is hosting a talent show at ordine middle school there are various music and dance programs that showcase some really extremely talented students at East and that is all I have for this month thank you thank

026you student representative Patronis and then now we are on with student representative Risco I have a slideshow again so where'd she go she poofed one second think she might have oh she's over there so she's working that out one moment with present and the anticipation is building all right 21 slides and 10 pages later here we are um hello everyone I'm Damon ritzo and this is my monthly report for March March was a very exciting month for the alc since febu since February 29th the alc has gone on four field trips within the span of nine days we have we may not have sports but the alc is Infamous for our field trips on Wednesday March 6 to 2024 the alc went on an all day field trip to three separate places throughout the day

027the first place we went was Northwood Technical College in Superior Wisconsin for a college tour where we went all over the building looking at looking And discussing the multitude of careers that are available to be achieved at NTC the machine tool class was about working with coding to help manufacture Parts with the automatic machines as seen on the top middle and right pictures for students learning students learn coding and put that coding to use by making actual parts for all types of things such as parts for making the machines that were making the parts in the first place car parts and even just screws to put your bed frame together the list goes on students that attend this class will gain the basic skills necessary for safety operation M safely to safely operate Machine Tool

028equipment at the beginning and intermediate levels through group lectures and demonstrations they will learn safety setups proper feeds and speeds of machine tool equipment an advanced lab opportunity is available for students demonstrating comp competency in safe operation of machines the beginning level class in is Machine Tool operation one which is a four-year class into the intermediate level is Machine Tool operation to which is a two-year class there are many other options that fall under the Machinery umbrella but this one specific speically this one specifically was covered during our tour of the college during our tour we were brought all around the building and saw all of the beautiful agriculture architecture I know what I'm saying and how homie and inviting the building in the surroundings felt the inside of the building really did feel like

029a warm cozy place to study and some of the structures were absolute masterpieces nursing classes first off those are actual mannequins that the students use in in place of actual people okay now that's out of the way the nursing course has many many options not just working with people directly one can become a nurse anyone can become a nurse and there are courses that span within anywhere from within one year to six years the options are Limitless like Limitless like working in a nursing home don't know why you want to do that but to being a pharmacist a veteran a veterinarian someone who works alongside hospice or just regular store-bought nurse for those of you out of the loop cosmetology isn't the study of comets shocker it's the study of Hair and Nail Care have

030you ever gone to out to get your haircut or gone to get your nails done those are cosmetologists here there are are courses that range from half a year to 5 years depending on how devoted you are at the career on the left is Anna Callen and on the right is Katie flug they were our tour guides for this trip and were incredibly helpful in answering questions that were incred and were incredibly kind to all of us during our duration at Northwood I wanted to give both of them a shout out because they both did an incredible Job showing us around and they were truly the backbone of this whole trip after we ate lunch after that we ate lunch there we said our goodbyes and went to our next destination of the day World

031of Wheels is a place in Superior that is a roller skate SL rollerblade rink we were there for about an hour and everyone had lots of fun and was just enjoying themselves I myself brought my own roller blades and the whole experience was enjoyable as a whole the last place we visited was a career fair that was being held a few blocks away from our school building these careers focused on some trade careers such as construction and electrical companies but the majority of the careers that were being promoted were careers that you'd most likely have to go to college for and careers that you you'd have to be there for the next 10 years 10 plus years there's about one job there that could be considered a summer job it was a grocery store I

032believe but other than that there weren't many short-time jobs that could get you by in the meantime but I'm sure that they got some employees but I personally thought it was a bit of a waste after that it was about 3:30 p.m. and that's how we wrapped up our day on Tuesday March 12th 2024 an ENT the entirety of the alc went to the deck in Canal Park to go to this career fair again another career fair will be completely focused on the trades there was Heavy Equipment operation electricians Brick Layers Architects you name it it was there what the career fair was about the career fair was about bringing people to the attention of these many many careers that are out there 80% of the trade careers don't need anything higher than a high

033school diploma to get you to get the job the other 20% do require some type of higher education but most of that but most of those jobs have programs so you get paid to learn how to do the job the actual careers that I could get on camera were plumbers pipe lifters and steam lifters limited Energy electrical iron workers and metal sheet workers these careers at least the majority of them are hard manual labor jobs that obviously not many people are going to want to go into that's a part of the reason why they pay so well jobs like these can accumulate up to and over six figures a year and some jobs it's actually closer to seven even we spent about an hour to an hour and a half there before we went back

034to resume our regular school day on Wednesday March 13th 2024 select students from East Denfeld and the alc were invited to take part in the 2024 youth Summit in St Paul Minnesota near the Capitol building the youth Summit is where lgbtq plus youth can gather together and share their experiences meet potential new friends and join the community and join the community together in one place this year over 400 students from schools across the state gathered together it was a little chaotic I'm not going to lie but it was 100% worth only getting three hours of sleep to be there so as you can see that the event technically started at 8: amm we selected East Denfeld and ALC students actually departed from duth a little after 8 and didn't get there until just before the

035Affinity spaces block was about to begin sometime between 10:20 to 10:35 due to the bus company screwing up the order of for the bus that was supposed to take us down there they thought that the staff had scheduled for it for Thursday the 14th instead of Wednesday the 13th we were supposed to leave at 6:30 in the morning but had an hour and a half late start to the day um I'm aware that the text is small so I'll read what the text says starting from the top left in the Box we are excited to introduce Affinity spaces this year these sessions will run between Workshop block one in lunch from 10:30 10:35 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. Affinity spaces are place for those with specific identities to share experiences stories and support affinities spes are

036not open to those that do not identify with their titles if you do not hold any of these identities listed you are always welcome into the Ally Andor questioning space moving over to the right these are the titles of the different Affinity spaces provided experiences of rural queer youth sharing Ace and AO stories queer young people of Faith Affinity space queer bisexual and middle sexualities living in larger bodies latine Affinity spaces and then it says it again in Spanish Hong in Southeast Asian lgbtq plus youth transgender expansive Affinity space the black lgbtq plus Affinity space disability and neurod Divergence Affinity space and finally Ally Andor questioning affility SP Affinity space I chose the queer bisexual and middle sexualities Affinity spaces to go go to and this is the description of what the space was about

037the queer bisexual and midal sexualities Affinity space is open to all participants who identify as pansexual bisexual queer omnisexual polysexual or multisexual of any kind this will be a chance to share our community's prize Pride Joys and successes while also holding space holding space to consumate over the Erasure discrimination and unique challenges we face the presenter for this Affinity space is Anna L as seen in the picture who goes by she they pronouns and is a Minneapolis St Paul parent and outfront Minnesota volunteer lunch ran from 11:15 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and from 12:15 p.m. to 1:05 p.m. was the workshop block two I don't have information about what the workshop blocks were totally about but here are the events that took place during this time J queer Dungeons and Dragons or D and D

038tell your story queer sex ed gender transition for teens Q&A therapeutic art making and journaling healthy lgbtq plus lgbtq IIA Rel relationships trans and interex solidarity 101 let's talk about gender identity yes and connection improv exercises is to get to know each other and lastly lgbtq plus inclusive schools advocacy and self-care I personally went to the healthy lgbtqia plus relationships mainly because I have a girlfriend who is a transwoman who sadly couldn't attend the summit and even though we have a very strong bond I wanted to know if there was anything else that we could do to make our strong bond Bond stronger here's the description for this Workshop we are we all deserve healthy relationships whether they're romantic or platonic join my health Educators for this activity filled relationship relationships Workshop to reflect on

039what is important to us in healthy queer relationships learn more about how unhealthy relationships can impact the queer community and practice healthy communication and Boundary setting skills the presenter for this Workshop is Nicole oh jeez lowski I believe who goes by any all pronouns and is a my health 14 and young adult educator at 1:15 p.m. to 2: p.m. we were given a closing performance by a local music artist sim1 sim1 is a local artist who is based in Minnesota and calls the state a home during during this performance we listened to six of her songs played live with backup dancers and even a small smoke machine it truly was an amazing way to end the day and she was one and she is one of my new favorite artists my personal favorite song from

040her is Meet Me Online MMO and would 100% recommend listening to that song their Instagram Tik Tok and their website are there if you ever want to check them out on one of their many platforms now here's the description of her and her music unsubscribed from reality as we know it sim1 is a vocalist producer and performer using Euro dance hyperpop and alternative Aesthetics to inspire a Renaissance of early 2000s Rave culture and that is how we ended the day on Thursday March 14th 2024 this day is known as Pi Day because it's 3:14 3.14 haha funny math joke due to this day my math teacher Mrs Jane dutin bought 20 pies some being pumpkin Cherry blueberry and apple these pies were free for students all day long and to take as much as they'd

041like I personally took two slices of pumpkin pie and that was enough for me to round off the day from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. the students and staff were welcome to a free hour of bowling pizza and fun above are some pictures I took while we were there and it's clear that even though not everyone was good at it everyone was indeed having fun now how did I do I got 15 cutter balls yeah I had about 28 points by the end fun times cre conclusion thank you for sitting through this very long presentation I'll be answering any questions you may have after the meeting is officially adjourned thank you so much to our student representatives for very robust presentations I think uh it's really great to get a glimpse into the lives of

042of all of our students and all of our high schools um the and I'll just cast back up here one sec so again I mentioned that we have a few other topics to cover and um first one is negot iations we're very pleased to bring forward as we heard in our listening session two not just one but two two-year contracts which will we've negotiated with the duth uh little typo there duth federations of teachers this agreement marks significant investments in the district's commitment to educational Excellence ensuring that teachers are recognized for their invaluable contributions to shaping future Generations so this teacher contract will involve a 6% increase for the first year followed by 3% in the second year and the second uh contract includes 2% raises in each of the subsequent years uh from 2025

043to 2027 we're also continuing our director and individual contract negotiations but I'm very thrilled about this this uh new teacher contract that we have as I mentioned and as we've heard before it really is focused on honoring our teachers to really think about the um the the pay issues that we have to make sure that that teaching is is an attractive position it's important for retention as well uh there's a lot of research out there that shows that if you lose a teacher on average with the amount of cost to hire a new teacher and train them up it's about $20,000 so we we think it's important to invest that money rather than hiring and rehiring people as we go to recognize our great teachers that we have and put it into uh salary increases

044we also recognize uh that there have been some changes with our our contract language to allow for uh changes in our our elementary middle school and high school schedules and I think this is really historic too to make sure that we have a qu high quality program even better than what we've had before but spanning from kindergarten through graduation uh these programs will all be enhanced and changed uh for years to come so I'm very very proud of the work that's been done I'm also very pleased with the Labor Management relationship that we have I think that it's been very very uh positive POS we were able to negotiate and um I mean I I think when we've heard about negotiations around the state or we've looked at some of the past negotiations it was

045a very very positive positive experience and I think that it was one where we all looked at what are our mutual objectives and how can we obtain them we also uh are talking a little bit about the legislative platform and advocacy uh we worked really hard on our our advocacy with the 2020 2 4 legislative platform at duth and St Louis County days as well as the msba and masasa day at the capital uh that was just yesterday and we had uh attendance there from from uh two of our board members from Member laugher Kemp and uh chair lold and again the priorities of our legislative platform focus on increasing the funding formula redac funding permanent funding for unemployment insurance and School meals increasing uh resources for cyber security safety career in technical education special

046education and solar projects we're also seeking greater flexibility with operating levies and long-term facilities maintenance so those are the things that we're focused on and it's really important for us to to continue to get the message out there we have heard uh from many that the budget will be tighter with legislation this time than than we we were maybe hoping for so there isn't likely vast or even really significant increases in um those Appropriations ations I know we have a special piece related to special education funding for duth to retroactively reimburse us for a million of the $6 million that was lost due to a funding anomaly uh we did hear from the governor's office this week that that was not part of the the governor's um agenda that was announced yesterday so we they

047they encouraged us to consider it again in the future but it won't be moving forward at this time uh at least not from the governor's office and here are some photos of some of the uh times that we had um not as exciting as roller skating photos but fun fun nonetheless uh where we've we met with various members of uh the the Senate and House of Representatives and then we even have our own chair there uh testifying or or sharing uh their experience on the Omnibus uh policy Pro Provisions meeting they they allowed for representatives from various school boards to share their perspective and it was really great to see member lold sharing those perspectives and then as you see uh various meetings with with local and Regional representatives and uh was very grateful I'm

048very grateful for the work that was done with the board also with the administration but I think it was really the combination of all of us including uh representative uh representatives from the teachers union from the DFT Ethan Fischer was with us and when we're meeting with one of the Senators they said I think this this is the first time that I've been uh lobbied at the same time by a school board member administrator and union representative and so I think uh we're we're beginning to forge new Pathways in what we do and how we do it and so I'm very grateful for uh the Partnerships that we all have as we advocate for the children of duth uh as far as referendum updates and we have uh we've been scheduling uh staff meetings at

049each district site we also have community and PTA meetings at each of the sites coming up additional social media and newsletter updates that we put in place we're updating our billboard that's out there you you'll see a very nice student uh produced photo of of some uh work being done in the auto shop but we're moving from kind of that preliminary getting ready for the referendum uh messaging to Stronger messaging related to voting and uh upcoming dates early early voting those things so that will be changed in the next couple of days here we also have a new student video uh from story north that I'll share with you in just a minute we have an upcoming uh um opinion column that I'll have in the duth News Tribune and then yesterday there was an

050opinion piece in the duth News Tribune that was uh shared it wasn't like a straight endorsing of the referendum but it was uh very very positive about why we're moving forward and what we're moving forward for so I recommend to the public if they haven't read it yet to to give it some uh a chance and again though however we have to make sure that we're we're trying to get the word out as as much as possible this isn't about for for our point in convincing people of voting yes or voting no we just want to make sure that people are out there voting and one thing that we've said in our sites is that we've worked really hard to make sure that the community is able to have a full conversation about that that's

051why our school board our previous School Board voted to make sure that all of our election sites were open we wanted to make sure that we had uh all of those sites open even though it costs a little bit more for the district it's important for that Community conversation also we wanted to make sure that it wasn't done during the presidential election I think that all of us know no matter what your political beliefs that the political or that the presidential election is going to be um intense and I think it's important for us to be able to have a separate conversation about the referendum where it's not lost in that political uh chatter and so it's important for us to have that May 14th um um referendum vote also speaking of voting March 29th

052is when early voting can start which happens to be the day before my birthday so please vote as a birthday gift to me whether it's a yes or no vote we just want people out there voting and then the duth area Chamber of Commerce uh at their March 26th executive board meeting I'll be doing a presentation regarding a referendum and the uh chamber will be choosing whether or not they want to endorse the referendum and then we'll also be uh putting together a packet that we'll share with each of the businesses that are part of the uh duary Chamber of Commerce so that they'll have background information on the referendum and then they can choose whether or not they want to include it in a uh newsletter or something of that sort just so that

053we can spread that opportunity for conversation then we have uh two videos the first is one uh student it's a student video that was produced by story north and I'll play that one for you and the second one is from captiv media so hopefully it'll work hey it's rean Kar from Denfeld high school did you know that you have the chance to shape our future in education in deloo this may we're voting on something big upgrading classroom Tech and boosting support for our technical education classes imagine the possibilities if you vote Yes it means $5.2 million every year for top-notch technology cyber security and training for our teachers and get this if you turn 18 before for May 14th you can vote too so this video was uh produced by story north Productions and it

054was a free um or a something that they gave gave to us as a um sorry I'm trying to get out of this exit no there's no escape button Escape thank you for the guidance as I've mentioned during our referendum we need to make sure that staff are well supported with technology advice and and so that they're able to to navigate uh the world of the future uh successfully and sometimes it comes from we want to make sure that our youth too are are highly skilled so that they can they can help uh other folks like myself and so this is a Captivate media uh piece on referenda versus bonds versus levies in our district funding for buildings and programming comes from a lot of different sources most Revenue comes through through a combination of

055State funding and locally collected property taxes however this funding alone does not meet all the needs of our schools almost all Minnesota school districts ours included also depend on additional funding from their community Through voter approved bonds and levies even though they both require voter approval via a referendum by law bonds and levies pay for very different things a bond referendum helps fund building projects this might be putting a new roof on a school updating old classrooms or adding additional space when a bond is involved it's paying for physical spaces helping to improve or add to the buildings where our students learn levies on the other hand provide funds for what happens inside classrooms and schools there are two types of Levy requests that come to voters operating and capital projects levies operating levies help

056pay for staff classroom materials and academic programs capital projects levies often referred to as technology levies fund improving technology within the classroom with devices to help amplify student learning and the infrastructure needed to support all of the devices These funds can also be used for network security as well as school security no matter the type levies support learning in the classroom another way to think about bonds and levies is that bonds help build the classrooms levies provide funding for the learning that happens in them remember bonds are for buildings levies are for learning on May 14th our district is going out for a technology Levy this funding will help us provide our students and teachers with what they need to be successful for years to come and as we look to the future we know

057that strong schools equal strong communities learn more about bonds and levies as well as the upcoming referendum by visiting our website and don't forget to vote on or before May 14th so it's important for us to make sure that we are um that we are just one sec let me click here anyway so it's important for us to make sure that we are informing the public well about our uh referenda and that we have the opportunity to to make sure that people can make a very conscious decision again we're not urging people to vote Yes or no we're just making sure that we have good Community conversation I know that there are uh different advocacy groups out there there may be people that are that are um working more towards the yes Vote or working

058towards the no vote and it's important for those uh organizations to be able to get get the message out there so that we can have good dialogue as a district and it appears to be stuck there we go I think it's because of the size of the videos that are embedded into that slide so related to some budget updates I think it's we we we have some things that we've reported on through the uh HR finance and committee the HR business committee but just a few things that I wanted to share as part of my superintendent update you'll find that across the state and country that there's a lot of deficit uh facing deficit spending in part due to the end of emergency relief funding we've heard for many years about that covid Cliff that's

059coming and the covid cliff is now and so uh the federal funding that we've had for our schools we had over $30 million since uh 2020 $30 million but it has to be spent by the end of June and so basically that money is is coming to an end and we' we've used that money very successfully for interventionists for technology for enrichment uh and all schools across the country are kind of getting ready for this this drop off of that funding if you think about the um Association of metropolitan school districts here the bigger school districts in the state there's over $300 million of budget deficit that they'll be dealing with collectively and Minneapolis and St Paul alone uh Minneapolis is facing a budget deficit of over $90 million and um the St Paul Public

060Schools is facing a budget deficit of over 105 million so we do have some deficit to deal with for next year as a district it's about six million for next year and we do have some ways that we want to uh focus on that those changes for next year the um basically duth public schools with suppor of leadership we've planned well for this change but we do have some shortfalls if you remember several years ago we didn't really have money in our reserves reserves are meant for for challenging times and so we were able to build up reserves over the course of the past four years and now uh there's there's a need for us to consider uh looking into some of those reserves to help uh cushion the blow as we we uh scaffold

061off of the the fiscal cliff that we have before us if the ref referendum passes we will still need to find uh reductions but the impact will be decreased by about $2 million not for next year because it doesn't go into effect for next year but the year afterwards because we're using currently approximately $2 million out of other budgets in the district to pay for the technology that we have in place so if the technology budget passes or if the technology referendum passes that will reduce the amount of reductions we need in future years by about $2 million a year so that's another reason why we're moving forward with a referendum at this time again it's going to be critical that we seek budget reductions that have minimal impact on our students I think that

062has to be our primary objective as we work together we want to make sure that you know the it's hard to pick anything that that doesn't have effect on students but we want to think about what has the most direct effect on our students and really always use that as our primary driver in decisionmaking and really as I mentioned we're we're looking at moving forward with a two-phase process of the budget reduction and reallocation because it's not always just about reducing budgets about it's also about reallocating money from within so that we can make sure that our strategic objectives are are funded so phase one of what we're hoping to do uh would focus on addressing needs for the coming year uh we would be looking at about $2.3 million in non-personnel budget reductions so

063we'd be looking at a variety of things and we can sh we'll share more starting at uh you know our our um through the committee the whole and also through our HR business meetings but we're also uh looking at hopefully using some of the assigned fund balance with if board approves so uh to create that offramp for the Esser spending so we had some property sales here as a district as as we know we uh sold historic um historic Central for a couple million dollars as well as sold the property behind us for about $7 million so that money has been used somewhat for technology as it is but we're also proposing using some of those funds uh for the coming year to to decrease the blow that we will have and I think we're

064in a lucky place as a district because we we read about many other districts Rochester St Paul uh an Noah hennipin many many many other districts throughout the state are having very serious reductions for next year even across the river in in um Superior they're reducing by $6 million we will be looking at reducing in by $2.3 million in non-personnel reduction uh but really that's that's that's the easy part it's not easy but that's that's the part that we're we're uh moving into with um an ability to make some some quicker decisions but the second part the phase two really needs to be a deep collaborative process and it needs to involve the board and it needs to involve other stakeholders as well we want to make sure that there's robust conversation that we have

065great transparency and that we have everything on the table so that we can prioritize first by creating a process document called a guiding change document that would guide us towards what's our current reality and what's our vision for what we need to create and how are we going to get there and really My Hope Is that we can use the uh April board work session for some of that work so that's something that I'm I'm seeking U input from the board on because I think it will be important for us to really uh make sure that we're very well grounded in what we'll need to do starting in April and then moving through the following December working all together to make sure that we have significant conversation about what those budget reductions and reallocations would

066look like so we would wrap that up um probably February of this this coming year so we've we've got about a year to do it but I think to do to do it well we need to make sure that we we have that robust process and I'm sure there might be questions on that or anything else in my presentation and I apologize that the end of my presentation was kind of a stark reality of where we are budget- wise but I think it's important for us to uh celebrate the things we're celebrating like the negotiations having passed the great student reports uh the the things we're doing with the referendum and it's also important for us to take stock in our current reality that we we do need to tighten our belt in certain areas

067member banks so can can you go back to the slide for just a moment the previous one I I I know I understand that but can you talk more about the 2.3 million in non-personnel budget what could that look like if you could just that it's it's important for us to make sure that we uh notify people through the organization too as far as what those things that we're looking at might be because any reduction you make is going to have impact on people right so if if we um let's say we reduce just a few things that we're looking at is reducing the amount of overtime that we're allowing people to to to use I think facilities is a different story because facilities we have a shortage of workers so if we have people

068that are able to work overtime to make sure our buildings are clean when we don't have the other people to do it that's going to be a different circumstance but we need to reduce the amount of over time we also uh have spent quite a bit in in uh professional development travel and so thinking about our travel funds and and uh reducing there that would be another example of something that we would reduce in uh so I don't really like the term lwh hanging fruit but in some ways we're looking at what are some of the what are some of the low lwh hanging fruit elements that we can we can look at to tighten up uh there are there are a few things that I think it's important for us to have conversation on

069uh and PE to be H like people aren't going to like necessarily some of the reductions that need to take place you know like we me might need to look at the um for instance the the floating Subs that we have for our buildings that's something that we've enjoyed and has been been helpful uh and we all have to do cost analysis to see if that increased the amounts of overloads that we have but we're looking at what are the areas that we can we can make reductions in where it's not going to have significant negative impact also as um sometimes if if there are U people who are moving out of positions or things of that nature I think it's important for us during this time to examine is it a role that might

070be shifted and absorbed by a couple of people rather than rather than renewed and replaced because we know that if we're going to have significant budget reductions that will involve reductions of administration and teachers and other staff members we want to make sure that we're we're being thoughtful now so that it doesn't all come next year so those would be some of the examples and I i' love to provide the board with more information and at the same time I want to make sure that that internally that we have an opportunity to uh share this with principles and others too because I think some sometimes I get get ahead of my skis and I share things at the board table and realize that it's of course also important for us to make sure that our

071our te teachers and teacher leaders and and uh bargaining units are informed as well as our building leaders uh to ensure that that there's um coherence and and in what we do but really that three 2.3% represents about a little under 2% of our whole budget so it it does have impact but if you think about a household budget if you were to you know look at a 2% tightening of the budget there there are some some things that are probably extras you know that I know you like Starbucks but you know maybe maybe you're going from from the Vante down to the the uh Grande or something right so I think that that's that's really what we're looking at again it's not to say that these won't have impact or that they won't be

072felt but we really tried to look at uh what are the non-personnel changes that we can make for this this year so that we can really have that robust dialogue and that robust uh process that we need to make sure that we we make the right choices for the coming year other districts have not had that luxury other districts have had to come in and make major major reductions I was talking with uh my colleague um from from Anoka hennipen and at their district office alone they reduced by 50 50 positions for next year and so I think it's important for us to realize that we have to put our seat bels on and we have to be thoughtful about what that conversation looks like and I think it should also serve as a reminder

073of why this referendum is important to us that not that this the referendum won't cure all of our ills for the budget uh situation that that we're all facing but it will lessen the impact and so I would urge people to really strongly consider that when they're making a choice at The Ballot Box and also as if they're deciding whether or not they're going to work to help to try to support uh the referendum uh conversation in the Community member Lor Kemp yeah thank you thank you for that um let's see I got kind of four things now but um I I'll start with uh just appreciate um in your updates U highlighting delut days and the the really power of the work we all did together with staff and uh uh of all staff

074and and and as well as our teachers um Jill and I heard yesterday from people who still were talking about how powerful the duth delegation was so uh thank you on that for for staff who took the time to to do that and board members as well um and then the the second thing I guess I just wanted to comment on I really appreciated the student reps all talking about the construct tomorrow you're many updates but I I want to just kind of zero on on the construct tomorrow event um uh some of us have gone to that every year as board members it's a great event um and um it uh you know uh superintendent Magus was a part of a press conference where he highlighted the importance of the the day and the

075training but also he really tied it into our referendum as well and and so um uh it was a great day thank you all for highlighting it there's so many different career options our kids have and we start training them with our CTE classes and and the importance of getting the funding that piece of the funding for the referendum for CTE uh and then I guess the other couple comments and then um uh suggestions uh will be my last thing but um I you know I think we all are looking forward to um uh the discussion or the the vote uh around our our teacher contract and I just want to you know personally thank uh Teresa and Simone and John uh and Anthony for all of the work that you did uh at the

076time um uh Ethan here so I'll thank Ethan as well and his um negotiating team but uh uh it's um and all the updates we did in Clos session as well that you kept us um a part of as well so just uh thank you U being a part of negotiations uh in the past and being on a negotiating team myself I know the commitment so a huge uh just thank you on that um with our April um Retreat I'm just wondering uh thank you for your questions uh member banks um if uh we can have an agenda sent out a little bit ahead of time so that if we there's things that as different board members we see as we're talking about the budget that you know I need to know more about this

077or I need to know more about that that would be helpful um and then if we can just maybe provide things that have been helpful in the past when we've had these budget discussions um we can kind of give some input ahead of time so um I I I think using the retreat in April for for part of that discussion will be good but if you give us an Avenue to uh say what what we need our win uh for that Retreat that would be really great I would be um very very uh grateful to get input from from the board because really I I serve at the pleasure of the board and I'm mean that from a sense of I need to make sure that you're well informed so that you can you can

078uh make the tough decisions that you need to make as representatives of the community and sometimes answering questions and dispelling um certain certain um information that's out there is important one one thing that's come to my attention and I know there was a letter to the board recently was about the uh percentage spent on Administration for the district as compared to around the state and there was actually through bared there was a uh process with coding of expenditures and we talked about that in the fall but I think it's important to reiterate here because it's very very important we are not double spending on Administration here what happened was is the expenditures for Esser when we bought all the devices when we did uh many of those other other things all of those expenditures went

079under because they came from certain budgets you know it was um assist assistant superintendent budget and superintendent budget those were all categorized as administrative expenditure so even though they were devices and smartboards for for the schools it was listed as expenditure for administration which then made it look like we have 8% Administration in the district we have to be perfectly transparent there have been a small number of positions that were added from an administrative perspective there were also a greater number of positions that were added that were teachers on special assignment and things of that nature that we're supportive in nature but we're going to have to look at all of that uh again as we said we want to look at what what affects the students least and I think it's important for us

080to look at that but I want to be really clear that there wasn't a huge um oversizing of administration that it was partly through that uh budget U coding piece so that would be an example of something that if you're having questions on that we could help clarify during the uh board work session coming up so really if if you think about what you have for questions and I also have um um um executive or assistant pette is is is setting up the one-on-one session so we can talk there too and we can start Gathering ideas and make sure that we have that robust conversation as we start member L for K okay I'm gonna I'm gonna ask some questions then I'll go to member sidowski so I just want to do a shout out

081to there was a picture of Lissa and um superintendent magas and I just want to um share with our community and those um that Lissa was there because she spent the week as a high school page representing um our community and I know she did a really great job and typical she didn't share that with us in her update or report but it was really um wonderful and I I would love to um stay connected to how we can move ahead with um having other students um apply and and be down there so it was great to see her there and I'm really proud of your work down there and then I I just so can you tell me what our Reserve is right now or what it is typically or what is our Reserve

082because we had this conversation on coffee and conversation this morning with school board members and people were sharing what their reserves were and what they were using it for and when they use it yes and so it's important to us to look at um our different fund balances we have assigned fund balance and unassigned fund balance and if you could uh just share a little bit about about that hi hi um good question so the assigned fund balance is at 17,5 188,000 the unassigned is sitting at a minus $673 it it was to the good of 7 million last year but our budget was overspent by 6 million so that Drew that down okay the unassigned so the 17 million is sitting in the assigned fund balance and um as superintendent megga said we would

083we probably will be coming forth with board approval to um use some of those funds to offset our overages next year um we can do that but we have to go to the highest level which is the school board we would not do that without your permission and can you explain just a little bit um and we talked we spent quite a few hours on things yesterday uh and we've spent quite a few so some of this is fresh with us but the reason why the unassigned fund balance is in the negative is because we knew that there was a placeholder piece for the eser spending yes correct so um the Esser spending is really a Ono one we we spend 8 million we we drew down 8 million to offset it but above and

084beyond that we also spent an additional $6.5 million uh from the general fund and if it's it's on the E far's compliance table so anyone wants to have some fun I love to look at the numbers it's all there and we had money sitting in the unassigned fund balance that we can use for labor and benefits and anything else in the general fund and that offset that million so we now are sitting with a minus 6,000 $753 but that money is not technically in our cash it is money that we don't have going forward to use to offset any overages I can't I don't so is the seven is a seven so what would it take what's what needs to be in our reserve for a three-month kind of cushion well the district spends between

08510 and 12 million a year a month in payroll and bills okay I know say that number again 10 to 12 million payroll alone is close to 7 million um you know I always say our accounts payable desk is a $2 million desk so 9 to 10 million on a a decent month but we have sometimes it hits a12 million Mark but we average between 10 and 11 uh a month okay I just want to thank um HR director sance for the um highlights of the contract for us that really helps us weed through uh a 72 page maybe contract with a lot of red lines and different things so we like the highlights as well but we'll dig into it as well um so okay so April 25th is our our Workshop we wanted

086to get it earlier but um just wasn't that was a I mean we wanted we wanted maybe to move it up and try to find a date maybe a attached to another meeting we were having but actually we settled on April 25th um executive director zunich can you just clarify again for the board and the community the $17 million where that where that came from because I know you didn't mention it uh superintendent did but you didn't mention it when you spoke a moment ago can you just share again where that $17 million sure came from it came from our so we were at a $10 million Mark for the last three years and that is money that is just set aside uh for curriculum technology and um Capital expenses and that balance kept slowly

087um growing and then we sold the land for 7.6 million and then the hawk sale so all that money goes into the assigned fund balance because we should not be using it for labor and benefits but we can if need be we are in a situation as superintendent Mega said um we are for forunate that we have that little cushion but it would it'll only last um a temporary amount of months my last question is my last question would be in the coding that we did for the kind of anomaly of of looking like we spend a lot of of administra administration can that be changed can you go back into the system and change the coding so it just kind of doesn't nope we really can't those are um and those are audited accounts

088budget codes they were approved by mde and the administ it says Administration costs but I'm looking I have my uars manual up and where our technology was coded to program 108 it's called administrative technology services and supplies so those are eup far's um words and um that are put into the system we cannot control those um our Auditors are very strict they came in and said how did you spend your eser money and they review all of that and mde does as well we have what we call a chapter 10 um grid and it has to pass a test we have a 17-digit budget code and every part of that sequence means something you know it means the fund if it's an expense if it's a site what program it goes to what Finance it

089group it goes to what object code if it's a salary or a benefit or if we're buying paper or a book and then uh the last three digits represent a course code which is an internal um identifier for us so all of these numbers they may look like their Administration but I have everything right here in front of me it was for the most part technology but even the E far's manual calls that administrative technology services member sidowski yeah I just wanted to Echo um member laugher Camp's gratitude for um everyone who was involved with the negotiations um it's just uh kind of a historic moment I think for duth public schools and I'm really proud of um the contracts that we all created together and um you know we all need to be I

090always say we need to be in the boat paddling the same way and it certainly feels like after we were done lobbying down in the cities it it felt that way and um thank you member loal for sharing um what others noticed too about us all being down there together so just wanted to Echo gratitude for everyone involved in that process and also just wanted to say um thank you for the referendum updates superintendent Magus um also wanted to say thank you to um board secretary pette for always sending out the calendar invitations to the board for um the different referendum um just meetings um Outreach that we're doing um collectively as a board and then um today my computer just went dead but um the chamber event so just kind of thank you in

091advance for keeping us updated on how we can help um spread the word about the referendum in our community so thank you and just to comment on that if if you don't mind or to comment on some of the other questions and such I think um given that the board Workshop is not taking place until the end of April it might be beneficial for us because I know not everybody's on the HR business uh committee it might be beneficial for us to have some of the like you know 2 by two and and two 2 by3 meetings so that we can uh inform board members and and get people up to speed so we'll be reaching out for that too because we want to make sure again that you're very well informed about our our

092current status and as things come sometimes things come to this was something that we knew about we've been talking about the SR Cliff for a long time but I think it's important that everybody is extremely well informed as we move forward to I think it was member ller Kemp but we'll go to Member eer First yeah and I um as chair of the HR Business Services committee I just want to add just a little bit of context because we heard executive director um executive director zunich talk about spending down our unassigned um fund balance and we did and that was a conscious Choice by the district we had certain priorities and um things that we needed to get done at that time that was important especially as we were working through covid and supporting our

093students and our teachers and so those were conscious decisions that wasn't done as if um we didn't think about how that money was going to be spent and pulling that money out of that unassigned fund balance to go ahead and support students and um staff needs in our budget so those were things we knew that were built into our budget as we pulled that money out I just want to make sure that our public is aware that we're very thoughtful when we think about um our OB our fiduciary responsibility to our public in making sure that we're spending our money the best way that we possibly can in a responsible manner the other thing I want us all to think about and just remind our public as we move forward and think about some of

094the um belt tightening that we're going to have to do as a district we as a district with support of our staff and especially our teachers union as we've gone through some um pretty significant language changes in our contract having to do with changing what our elementary school model looks like um what our Middle School model is going to look like and then what our high school model is going to look like as we move forward making changes that are going to better serve our students and better support our staff and those changes come at a come at cost so during this time um where we do have to think about belt tightening we are also going to be expanding and enriching um our students lives in the Deluth Public Schools thinking about going through

095when our kindergarteners walk out until our graduates cross the stage um we will have been making an investment in our schools in our children and in our teachers so we do have some difficult decisions to make it is always difficult to think about budget red uctions but what I really want all of us to keep in mind at the end of it is that we are expanding opportunities for our kids and we're using the money that our public has graciously giving us very well so it is going to be tough we will have a lot of decisions to make but um we are having to make and having to shift these resources because we've collectively decided that schedule changes and supporting our teachers and staff are what we need to do next to bring those

096test scores up and to make sure that we're offering an equitable quality um future forward education so I just wanted to give us a little texture and a little context as we think about all this moving forward so thank you thank you very much that is was extremely well said because I was I was kind of feeling too like the the way things were phrased were we're putting it putting it out there in a way that like that this wasn't something that we've planned or something that we've done but really as you've said this this is this is not just about budget reduction it's about reallocation we've we've allocated money to make sure that our teachers are respected and paid reasonably we've allocated money to make sure that our our high school schedule and middle

097school schedule uh result in better graduation rates and and greater engagement and greater delivery on those desired daily experiences and really reinvesting in our Elementary schedule and and uh literacy instruction so that our outcomes for kids are improved and so really this has been we when when uh when I started there there were we were we didn't have much of a a a fund balance we've been able to build that up but we built it up part part partly knowing that we wanted to make these Investments and also that we were going to have to be thoughtful about what the the uh tailing off of eser spending was so this is and I would say this is not just this board it's been past boards I think about the work done by uh previous boards

098that we've had uh thinking about the the leadership that we had uh from previous Finance directors all of that was laying the the foreground so that we're not facing some the same challenges that other districts around the state are we still have challenges but the challenges are quite a bit less than they would be otherwise so thank you for your leadership as a board and thank you to past leaders who on upon whose shoulders we're standing member ller Kemp thank you uh well said I'm glad I'm working on this board with you member eer uh well said um uh superintendent uh megas you were you must have read my mind because the the when I put my light on it was just wanting to do um some additional trainings uh or meetings um on the

099budget and also just uh again thinking about kind of how we've had these discussions in other years I'm wondering if our April um Committee of the whole meeting can include a more training as well on just the budget uh you know information that we all should have uh anyway so if we can maybe talk about that to help prepare for that uh Retreat so we're kind of coming all at the T same table with knowledge I think that would be good and maybe if if others want to provide input to uh chair lold or or to to me directly on on preferences but we could also look at maybe reducing the number of other uh presentations so that we're not doing you know a deep budget dive for for three hours and then having three

100hours of presentations because we want to make sure that our our minds need need to be fresh around this because it's a a critical uh time sensitive piece for us so I'll also work with uh assistant superintendent Bond who coordinates that that agenda with our progress monitoring calendar that we all put together to uh reallocate time it's not just money but we need to reallocate time as well I don't see any other green lights on superintendent Mega so are do you have any closing remarks before we move away from the the superintendent section here just think about third graders and xylophones for just a moment because that was a nice reset for all of us and again to to reflect on uh Cindy Miller's award and the great great things that have happened with negotiation

101I think that that we we have a lot to celebrate tonight and I just want to say thank you for allowing me to be a superintendent in such an amazing district and work with such amazing people so next on our agenda is the um just the schedule of meetings and events and Patty's been um executive secretary pett is really great at giving us those weekly updates and so I know those are attached to board book and are there any questions or concerns about that weekly event also attached to that sometimes too is our weekly events our other information that Patty is sharing with us too so um you know kind of look at that yes and you know School Board reps sometimes you know late nights or long meetings you know please feel like you

102know you can you have to get to where you need to be so you're ready for school tomorrow but we appreciate you always being here so we're going to go to um the report of the standing committee is number seven so I'll turn it over to assistant superintendent for his brief remarks on the committee of the whole thank you and good evening again everyone um we held the committee of the whole on March 4th uh there were several topics uh presented at that time Jennifer Garbo the coordinator for the office of American IND education and I provided a brief overview of the annual compliance of concurrency and non-c concurrence um we also provided a midyear update to the action steps that were taken for the 2022 2023 non-c concurrence that was given and and we

103reviewed the recommendations from the 2324 vote of non concurrence that was provided by the APAC committee Mrs Garbo and the um e parent uh advisory committee chair um Amber greens Sky provided a update related to the um the department of American IND education um they're going through a time of transition and time of change the new coordinator started in January and the APAC committee also was reestablished and um Amber green sky was um moved as the chair for that committee the department is also in the process of strengthening its existing goals identifying uh barriers for students success and exploring New Opportunities both within the district and outside of district with regards to Partnerships Sally white um the student achievement coordinator and classroom teacher London good provided an update related to our modern classroom project that's

104underway in the district du schools is wrapping up its second year of training teachers in modern classroom um it is a self-paced blended learning Master based instructional model Mrs good provided and shared her experience and training as she implemented in her fifth grade classroom our final presentation of the night was provided by Taylor Dixon from iea uh they were uh requested to provide a complete assessment of our current District security practices including the review of buildings as well as the district's written emergency operation plans Taylor provided that update and we will have additional updates provided by her and our climate committee and our other um Emergency Management committees as well and that was the um C agenda thank you any questions again thank you for that review and we both all know we all know

105that our committee of the whole meetings are rich and interesting and full of great um information that are vital and I just really appreciate um the three that we had and and and also um really it's important that we did the safety audit and we had Taylor come and present and realize that you know we really are taking that element also seriously about you know where we're at with school safety with with buildings and doors and routes you know we've we're really impressed with that so I I I appreciate the fact that the district's willing to invest that money to bring in the experts to go through all of our buildings and and give us a plan for that our next um Committee of the whole is our human resources and business service and I'll

106turn it over to chair um eer to again bring us through the the HR business meeting this was a great meeting as we I think we ripped through it in 30 minutes it was one of those meetings where we got the agenda quick and we got it made so let's talk about that um meeting on Monday March 11th we had no guest presentations and we moved right into our department reports we started out with our human resource um our staffing updates as we look it's always good to see the number of new hires versus the number of retirements res ations and Le leave of leaves of ab absences we also have um some other updates in terms of our HR department we did have um as we are moving away from some of those Esser

107positions those notices were sent out before the February break and are also um will be sent out during March the majority of those positions will be reposted um is do I have anything else to add to that piece nope great I always like it when I get things correct and I don't screw them up um on February 15th executive director Teresa Severance attended the Minnesota Public Employee rbor Labor Relations Association Winter conference where the topics went from legislative changes to the public employment labor re um Relations Act and also some continuing education as we figure out our earn sick and safe time and how we Implement those changes and then also um to continue to learn how to work with our all of our unions and move our district forward we we have some benefits

108updates we all know that our 1095 C's were going uh C's are going out as it's tax time so we all have to get our paperwork you can see um looking in our agenda you can see the hiring updates for certified and non-certified staff We are continuing to look for pair professionals and of course maintenance we're really in need of our school custodians our engineers and our Master electricians and please please please if you know anybody we desperately need bus drivers and bus helpers so that we can make sure to run all of our routes on time I know as a parent in the district every once in a while you end up with one of those notices talking about a bus um schedule change or a route a route change as we try to

109deal with people that have um sick time and vacation in our transportation department so we encourage anybody to apply to become a bus driver um as we've all heard and we are all thrilled about with our contract negotiations we um collectively between our duth Federation of teachers and our administrative team have come up with two two-year contracts so that's great for us I especially am I'm happy to hear about that as the chair of the HR Business Services because it allows us to project out for our budgets um many years without having to think about those continual contract negotiation so um this is great news for our district and I know that I'm going to be very excited to be an enthusiastic yes on both of those contracts this evening we are still in active

110negotiations with our um education director Association and we um are still waiting to start our um contract negotiations with our clerical unit and also our districtwide instructural administrators Association and then our National Conference of fireman and Oilers contract is going to expire in July 1st 2024 so while we've done a tremendous amount of work we still have some um contracts to settle but I know we're looking forward to getting those done as well so that is our HR monthly Department service or summary report next we move on to business services and we take a look at our enrollment report and as I always like to yip about every um month we continue to have more students than what we budgeted for so that's always great news to make sure that we're filling our classrooms in

111our duth Public Schools so that was our enrollment report for this month my next favorite maybe it is my favorite report is the Child Nutrition report I love to come and be a publicly elected official and get to talk about um the milk contract and commodity prices and pizza and all sorts of fun things so we are getting our summer meals for 2024 planned um we will have those summer meals for all um students for all kids and students under 18 the eligibility um excuse me we this in what am I doing right now oh so we will again be a provider for SC Summer School meals and I don't believe we know where we're going to be hosting those meals yet but when that information is available will get it out there as soon

112as possible am I right yay and then here's exciting we're looking at our commodity purchases for the school year of 2020 2024 to 2025 um for over 15 years our Child Nutrition department has taken all of its almost all of its commodity dollars to purchase fresh fruits and vegetables through a Department of Defense program um we will be spending this year around 275,000 in fresh fruits and vegetables as well as and this sounds appetizing ground beef crumbles so those sound delicious um diced chicken and other proven favorites and quality and taste so our budget for the next two years is going to be somewhere in the range of $372,000 so that is our Child Nutrition report for the month moving on to facilities we um always like to talk about and uplift our facilities Department

113that have completed quite a few work orders through the month um continuing to make sure that our schools are safe and healthy for our students we had an auction of surplus items um the 24th of February at our Garfield building and we did make around $32,000 on that I believe um we continue to have some capital and construction Pro projects our Smith Bell and clock has begun the repairs on the clock tower at Denfeld every day I look up to see if it's done yet but the hands aren't there but they will be soon um we are working on the duth news trib Tribune building on some schematic designs for that building about how it's going to best serve our students and staff um we also have a bid for the home Croft parking lot

114renovation um we're working on some projects at L Elementary continuing to monitor the Lincoln Park School pool project to make sure that we can get that um pool up and ready for our students we've also sent out a quote for our Lincoln Park Middle School School filter replacement portion and then um we also um again are going to be in need of custodians and Engineers to um help keep our schools clean and safe for our students so that was our facilities report for the month technology um for this technology report we did not have any eBid rfps or any bids we continue to see a tremendous amount of activity over the district um as our students and our staff are working hard um and using our technology and then moving on to Transportation Transportation the

115biggest thing that we see in transportation is Staffing is continuing to be a challenge and I know that our um human resource human resource department and all of our school is continuing to look for bus drivers and see um what an attractive job it can be to help our kids get to where they need to be in the morning we like to thank Joe because when when we have um when we need somebody to drive those buses Joe is always there to sub in routes and do that hard work so we are very thankful to Joe um we know that our staff is getting worn out this time of year just because of the demands placed on them and our buses um are still having some issues because of age and rust but we have

116gotten two used buses and we're getting ready to put them into service are they in service yet or we still waiting on the buses we have the now so they have them are they out driving routes yes yay so our new buses are out driving routes um and then Jill five more vans so those are going to be we're um we'll be voting on to make sure we can purchase those five vans so that's going to be great so that is our transportation report we have a recommended resolution that we'll talk about later um acceptance of donations to the duth public schools I want to thank all those people that donate generously to the students and staff of our duth Public Schools your generosity is always appreciated by all of us as we move on

117to our consent agenda we have our HR Staffing report that you can look at that would be located on page 15 we also have our financial report and our fundraiser and I looking through all of those I didn't see anything of note in our financial report um everything is continuing to be to move forward I guess executive director zunich we did have some um additional about $1.9 million added to our revenue and then we had about close to the same as we went out and our expenses that's correct this was I'm presenting you with a revised budget Yep this is for the revised budget so if you have any questions about that please ask and then we'll be happy to talk about them that was our financial report look at our fundraisers as well where

118am I at so we have fundraisers for Delo Spanish um to their Delo Spanish club so that's exciting for them and we have one bid RFP and quote that's for our home Croft parking lot reconstruction so that is currently out we had no contracts change orders or leases and then we moved on to our expenditure contracts located on those expenditure contracts you can see our buses and our vans we also have some um work done through our Office of Education equity for some black History Month um occurrences that happen during the month of February events not occurrences events some events that happen during Black History Month we also have some things for special services as we go in our um into our community and serve our littlest of Scholars so those were our expense contracts

119we had no no cost contracts and then we have a revenue contract on page 63 let me get there that has to do with Nordic auction and this is um having to do with the sale of items we talked about earlier of around $333,000 so that was our Revenue contract and then lastly when we look at our grant applications these were extremely exciting to look at these Grant applications we had a mini Grant application from Laura MacArthur Elementary for $500 this is going to be used to support PBIS in our schools um we love to support that and especially for Our Little Learners over at Laura MacArthur we have a couple from Minnesota Arts grants um another one for aead regional Arts Consortium written by Rachel Lal for Denfeld music for about $15,000 between the

120two grants and I just want to sit with this for a minute to provide music lessons from Community AR artists for our students in band Orchestra and choir to cover 200 lessons for one and then for the second Grant to provide over a 100 additional lessons so that is incredible work and I just wanted to lift that up for all of us today we also have another duth Public School Grant of around $3,000 so that we can get kits for um DNA and genetics work to be um used in our science classrooms I love hearing that we also have another one from Minnesota start Arts board for around $10,000 as part of our Head Start Grant one of the goals is walking the talk of equity and inclusion and this um Grant will allow us

121to um focus on en closing the opportunity and achievement grant for populations that have been historically underserved by our school districts community and community at large this program is going to work to represent um to increase representation of people of color in our classroom and that's happened over the past three years as well the duth preschool has partnered with local bipac artists for a 10-week artists and Residency program which is been well received by our classroom students and family and folks in our community this program has committed $110,000 annually to support this program which allows us to have these bipac Artisan residency for eight of our 12 full day classrooms so th this is just an exciting I looked through these Grant applications for February and I was just my heart was singing Because thinking

122about all the opportunities that may be opened up for all of our students in the duth public schools so on that very exciting note I would like to um end my report and open up for any questions just a comment oh yeah sorry question sorry nope just was I was going to move on but I was just going to say uh once again I just want to say how much I appreciate the the HR Finance AG your business services uh I should say committee because it does provide a lot of Direction and Leadership to what we do as a district and um you serve as as a Rudder for many things that we do thanks thank you it's fun seeing no other questions we'll go on to our last committee report it is our um

123policy committee it's led by chair ller Kemp thank you thank you and again thank you for your report um I do have one comment about the Head Start by the way that really came from parents when I was on their governing board that discussion started a couple years ago and they really kind of work through to make that happen so I I'm very I was very excited to see that and I know um member Sadowski is on that committee now and and can celebrate with them and share when if we can get out too so thank you thanks for for a great report so uh yeah we had our policy committee on Monday March 4th it seems like a long time ago a long time ago uh and um we did not have any policies

124for the first reading um uh policies for the second reading um which um yeah uh in February I kind of talked a lot about this policy uh so it's policy 811 our playground installation and maintenance and uh as I always do I'll read the purpose of this policy is to establish criteria and procedures for the installation and maintenance of playgrounds on District operated property this includes when Community groups fundraise or apply for grants for playgrounds to be located on District owned property for playgrounds that are are installed by the district and for playgrounds that are currently in place and uh just again uh a big committee um of folks who are involved uh with uh uh redoing or um um with this policy and uh thank you Teresa for for your leadership on that as

125well and bringing the different stakeholders together uh so this is a again our second reading um with the second reading we'll be deleting policy 34 45 5115 and and policy 7115 and much of those policies are contained in this new policy so um uh and that'll be on the consent agenda uh and then the second policy for second reading is policy 604 instructional curriculum and again uh the purpose of this policy is to provide for the development of course offerings for students uh and um as we talked about uh last time it it covers um our Elementary Middle School offerings um it covers um uh uh career planning uh CPR uh offerings uh the parental curriculum Review Committee uh and so this is the second reading for that and with this uh policy we delete

126policy 6041 6125 and 61 130 and then policies for review um are um our policy it says uh 37 or 375 request for proposals and we've renumbered it to uh 725 because again we're all moving to the 100 series uh and uh one of the things we added to this this policy uh is just the purpose so it's consistent with our other polic so the district administ the purpose of this one is uh the District administration is authorized to enter into a joint purchasing agreement with the state of Minnesota to allow the district to purchase goods and services listed on the state's contract indexed at the prices and terms available to the state the district is not required to obtain bids and quotations quotations for purchases made from the state's contract index furthermore Administration is

127authorized to purchase goods and or services from other governmental or School District cooperatives or joint purchasing Ventures established through a competitive bidding process so that's the purpose of this policy and um uh because it um the substance of it uh and uh hasn't changed we just need to have one reading on it uh and so um uh that's policy 725 uh and then uh regulations um again more for information is 604r instructional curriculum that follows the 604 policy and then uh uh 3075 R which again should be 7 um 25 R uh which is the bids quotes request for proposal so that the process um for that so all of this information again is not going to beond the consent agenda we also did onboarding because my committee had two new Schoolboard members on it

128so I want to thank uh Patty pette uh for spending the time with us as we onboarded our new board members uh on the process behind policies and a little bit history of the four-year policy committee so that is my uh report any questions comments superintendent magas I two want to say thank you to Patty she does a lot to make sure that she is helping us Shepherd our policies and u a lot of what she's put together think about the new spreadsheet with drop- down menus and things like that that we've used it's it's really uh a very positive step in the right direction and it's a systems Improvement for us I'd also like to as a policy committee celebrate something that I don't know if most people know this uh because it was

129news to me as of a week or so ago uh that the Minneapolis public schools they were looking to to adopt a gender inclusion policy and a lot of times they'll look you know when we we are looking to the cities for what Progressive policies can can we find that are focused on equity and Minneapolis public schools actually used the duth policy is their model to advance equity in their district and so uh I'm pleased with the work of of our team in putting that together as well as the policy committee and it's just kind of a little Kudos that we're not just serving as a as a um leader here in in the Northlands and for duth in the the area but for the state so thanks for the policy committee for that work

130thank you uh member Sadowski and I were at a training a week ago for officers uh and and we uh uh had many people asking us about that policy uh as well as people uh really uh uh there was some good discussion also around our public participation policy both our policy but also how similar it as to what other school districts are doing uh and so we had some really good discussion with Schoolboard members around the state around that policy too but really we were we walked out of there pretty proud about the gender inclusion policy didn't we uh amber yeah yeah so thank you seeing no other lights on again too just a shout out to the the whole policy committee and the journey that you've been on for four years and taking on

131new members and now going going forward to it policies are are really a big part of our our work and it's great to have a team that does it and then as as other board members we can watch the committee meetings and we can read the the policies and then listen to your report and and ask our questions but it's really a great system that we have so thank you so that concludes our committee reports and then they're on the consent agenda so we will move forward and I guess um I'm going to kind of Step outside the box a little bit it probably could have come up maybe under consent but I just realized that um just all board members I think have said something I probably haven't but you know we are going

132to uh approve a a contract for our teachers bargaining unit and with our our teachers and staff and it's now going to be on the consent agenda so we won't really have a chance to to just other than vote on it say how appreciative of we are of the hard work and um looking at the language and looking at the salaries you know there's just a lot of great um things that are coming there I I'll note that um you know we're really applying to uh increase the salaries of our first year teachers and and that's important and I I think that we're we have been making gains um in our our extracurricular you know um salaries and so I appreciate the work that we do there as well and just again um a really

133celebration time for tonight when we when we pass it on the consent agenda if we do which I think we will I will okay so now we can go on to uh number eight and that's just general board committee updates I was going to try to pull up Patty and I couldn't pull it up but I think all the Committees that we have been assigned to but when I when I tap on the link on my Chrome it doesn't come up if you want to put it up on the on the screen share that would be great but uh again Schoolboard members not only attend uh our regularly scheduled meetings you just heard reports from but we are assigned committees and um so you can kind of see where where those committee assignments are that

134are the general School District committees and I'm just asking if there's anyone that wants to share anything of any of your committees that you went on um this month I memb owski yeah I'll just give a brief update about the Head Start policy Council I appreciated member laugher Kemp kind of highlighting the work that they did for that um grant that you talked about member eater um but we met on um last week on March 14th from 5:30 to 7:30 at L I've really enjoyed our meetings we're in one of the ojibway immersing classroom so it's been um before this attending these meetings I had never gotten to go into one of those classrooms and so it's fun to see um some of the things that they worked on at the last meeting is um

135approving a new org chart um which highlights how policy councils are responsible for the direction of the Head Start programs in our district so you probably can't see it here but here's the Head Start policy Council and then the school board and there's a little arrow showing how we uh work together so that was that was good to look at putting that back there um they also looked at some policy and procedure around student you know if there's an accident that happens with a student um and it needs an injury or incident report so they looked at that policy they looked at the budget uh the head start budget's going to be a little tight next year actually very tight was the words that was used and I think in part of that has to

136do with the decisions we're making about where we're you know prioritizing or spending um but they know that and they're planning for it um they also talked about um just how dry it's been and apparently dust on the playscapes has been um an issue and so some of them we going to go out and maybe spray the playscapes um and so I don't know you never you don't really hear about that this time of year in Minnesota so that's um a little unfortunate and then they talked about how next year there's going to be a full blending of preschool classrooms um so the the voluntary PK they call it VPK and the School Readiness and the Head Start are going to be um Blended together a little bit next year and that's going to really

137um help us meet the needs of our families um they've been slowly reducing the number of halftime preschool programs and you can correct me if I'm wrong assistant superintendent but I think we still have about three half day preschool programs um but what we've been hearing from our families is they want fulltime and I mean a lot of our families are working and they need that component and we want to make sure our littlest Learners are ready for kindergarten as well um and then there's a few other things they got another grant for circles of security in the classroom which is really great um attachment based um proven curriculum for teaching parenting skills and then they were working on their end of the year event at the Great Lakes Aquarium which is going to be

138on May 9th so that'll be all for the head families not seeing any other um committee reports just um this is not a committee but I just want to um um congratul or thank the school board members that were continuing our intentional visits into schools to you know um be um taken into classrooms by the building principal by you know sharing and and seeing how the lunchrooms work and all of that we've been to kden ALC AEO Myers Wilkins MacArthur ordine East East High School Chester Creek am I missing any Lakewood orine is that or so Lakewood okay so thank you and we'll continue to put those invites out and um encourage you to also send an invite and then invite us so it it will help it will help so I'm moving on then

139it brings us to our consent agenda and on our consent agenda is a a number of things like approval of minutes approval of action items um that come under our committees and diploma requests and field trip requests um data sharing agreements we're going to approve the policy readings that member ller Kemp shared with us and we'll approve the committee meetings and so that's on the consent agenda I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda so move and a second is there any discussion all those in favor of accepting the consent agenda um say I I opposed motion carries 60 um that brings us to the um it brings us to the resolutions from our committee reports so looking at our first one under 10A members owski has this resolution and we're going to

140vote on all of these at the end except for the contract funds did we I think we're I think we're voting on this one okay we're voting on this one okay on the donations we are voting on the donations separate we do that on a roll call yeah yeah so this is um I move resolution B- 3-24 d418 um and this is the acceptance of donations to duth public school um and I don't think I need to read the whole thing but that's the resolution and I'll highlight a couple of them um one of them was mentioned earlier an in-kind donation from Kevin Jacobson for the future forward referendum videos there were some contributions to Head Start From Jane killow um and then a donation um to ler park for um items for Lindell setting

141three class room and then a donation to pedmont from Salem Lutheran Church which was an in-kind donation of um groceries hats and mittens different basic needs items so we'll do a roll call vote on that uh member banks yes excuse me excuse me yes uh member eer yes member lafler Kemp yes member lold yes uh yes and then member William yes okay motion carries oh maybe we need it let's do a second thanks second perfect so motion carries 60 perfect and so we'll go on to the special resolutions and we can take a d oh just a cuz D and E are not resolutions so yeah okay we we'll vote on them all separate so um special resolution a um representative Williams okay uh resolution s 3-24 d419 um Schoolboard member attendance at msba slm

142masasa day at the capital resolve that Independent School District 709 St Louis County Minnesota pay cost incurred as per District policy for school board members to attend msba Ms masasa day at the capital is there a second to that resolution second member zosi seconds it all those in favor of resolution um sp-3 d24 d49 19 say I I opposed motion carries our next resolution um is 11b and it is member laugher km I I move resolution HR 4020 uh resolution deith Federation of teachers be it resolved by the school board of Independent School District 709 St Louis County Minnesota that the collective targeting agreement between Independent School District 709 and the duth Federation of teachers a summary of which is in the hands of all school board members be approved and adopted for the period

143of July 1st 2023 to June 30th 2025 inclusive and that the chairperson and Clerk of the school board be hereby authorized to execute and the agreement on behalf of the school district is there a second second member Bank seconds any discussion I I could have shared now that what I shared earlier and I won't just a really quick question just for clarification just in case the public would like to know so this is retroactive to July 2023 correct yes correct see no others we have a motion and a second and um we'll do a roll call vote so that we can all say our yeses I should say that uh member banks an enthusiastic yes member Derk eer an enthusiastic yes member ller Camp proudly doing a yes member lawall ecstatically doing a yes um

144I vote very much yes I can't think of anything else so um and member Williams yes perfect MO passes our next resolution will be read by member eer this is resolution HR 32-42 the resolution for the duth feder Federation of teacher contract resolved by the Minnesota school board of Independent School District 709 St Louis County Minnesota that the collective bargaining agreements between the Independent School District 709 and the duth Federation of teachers a summary of which is in the hands of all school board members be approved and adopted for the period of July 1st 2025 to June 30th 2027 inclusive and that the chairperson and Clerk of the school board be hereby authorized to execute set agreement on behalf of the school district is there is there a second to the motion second member Bank

145seconds and we'll do a roll call vote on this contract as well member Williams yes I vote Yes member Lal now you're going in a different order so I don't have my my my verb uh or my adjective are paying attention here okay I'll say um a future forward yes member laugher Kemp uh so glad we're doing another two years yes um member Durk eer so glad to vote on a second to your contract yes and member banks and absolute yes okay motion passes motion carries good motion okay um we still have um d and e the approval of modified 2023 2024 school year calendar and approval of a 2024 2025 school year calendar um superintendent Magus do you just want to highlight the these two items on our agenda sure I will uh briefly

146and then I'll turn it over to assistant superintendent Bond who uh worked on uh facilitating the scheduling committee basically the schedule changes are uh needed or the calendar changes are needed due to the contract changes and uh really part of it for this year is really addressing a change at the end of the year needed for for professional development and next year it's around making sure that we have the days for professional development in as well and I think this really speaks to the one of the primary things that we were both collectively looking for in the um negotiations was making sure that we had time for professional learning for our Educators to make sure that they have the respect and and opportunity to learn as much as possible so that we can better serve

147our students but Mr Bond you want to address what we're doing in our calendars yes I'll start off with the 203 24 if we can take a look at that calendar and if we go into the month of June you will see a change where it says June 5th is the students last day that is a change um so students will have one less day of schools um and then you'll see there are two additional professional development days on June 6 and June 7th so one less day for students but two additional professional development days on June 6th June 7th also as part of the contract there's a another professional development I'm going to air quote day because there are eight hours of professional development um that will be done asyn asyn um or um

148so before those uh two days so staff are required to participate in eight hours of um professional development prior to the two days which again is on June 6 and June 7 so it's a total of three professional development days at the end of the school year as superintendent expressed um it's to make sure that our staff are well prepared as we exit for summer and make sure a lot of items are shed up before against uh our staff leave there's a number of additional trainings that are required I'll just remind the board that the state has moved forward with um a sign ific training related to literacy called the read act this will allow staff to not only um have some opportunities to uh receive some training as it relates to that as indicated

149by um member Derek eer there's also some um other refinements that have happened within our schedules namely the middle school and the high school schedule has changed and as a result of those changes um we are making sure that our staff are prepared to teach potentially longer periods of time with students so there's training that will be provided for some staff as relates to that and just the anticipation and preparation that's needed for a change in the schedule moving towards a 7-Day uh seven period day so there's a lot of Need for training and support and just Readiness before our staff exit so we're really excited about the three days at the end of the school year for that um training that will be provided so and we also want to make sure that we

150um let our community know right away and so this was all anticipation that the uh great anticipation of the contracts would be approved and so we're ready to communicate that out to families this change so any questions related to the 20 uh the current year 23 24 member L Kemp oh I'm sorry I I didn't have a question but I I think you answered my thoughts I was having um about just how we're going to let our families in particular and the community know ASAP so they can plan those two days especially child care so thank you thank you we have communication ready again we're hopeful um that the Cal that the contracts would pass so if we move over to the 2425 calendar again we are really excited about the change here again the

151DFT and administration had the shared common goal of making sure that our staff really had opportunities um for professional development so we are pleased that we have been able to add professional development days so in this new calendar for next year you will see several days of professional development they are in on my screen they appear to be gold so I'm not sure what they appear to be on yours on my screen you'll see uh in Gold those days namely October I'm just GNA point out a couple October 14th November 27th December 23rd uh February 24th May 27th um and then of course we still have uh professional development days on the very on the front end of the school year as well so again we are really excited about um the changes that will

152allow embedded um staff development for our teachers and other staff as well and more information will come with regards to what those profession Prof professional development days will look like also I wanted to point out on here highlight that we were also um excited and we move forward with another change and that day is the October 14th date it shows as a PD day um we know that's a pretty choppy week for our students but we wanted to take a step forward with honoring indigenous people day and so this allowed us to um provide that opportunity at least our students will not have to be in attendance but our staff will be in attendance uh engaged in professional development and a part of that day will focus on um indigenous um education and professional development

153and around culture and and so forth so more information to come on that but again we want to um I want to Spotlight and recognize that we have moved forward with um honoring our American Indian um students and community and um honoring the culture and Heritage by having that as a PD day for staff so those are some of the highlights and um that I want to point out questions M ller Kemp just because I can't do the math fast enough but um um can you can you just confirm then with this new calendar how many days our students will be in class okay 169 169 okay 169 so and again and thank you for that because I don't have that written down here but it will be 169 and just know that we as

154a result of this the professional devopment days um are being um we able to provide those because the new schedules will have just a few minutes um added that then will allow for the professional professional development days to occur so we that's how we were able to successfully um get these additional days U embedded in the calendar so again a lot of new information that will be provided and sent out to our families we're really excited that this is moving forward and with the contracts and we are ready to communicate this out to our families because they are waiting to hear about the calendar for next year and so we're going to get this out as soon as possible as well seeing no other lights on for the the items we're looking then for a

155motion do we do we need to vote on each one okay so I'm looking for a motion to approve the modified 20232 24 and is there a second so it is member ller Kemp with the motion and member eer with the um second on the approval of the modified 2023 24 school year calendar are there any up so we have a motion and a second are there any questions seeing none all those in favor of this motion to approve the 2324 calendar say I I opposed motion carries 60 that moves us to um 11e I'm looking for a motion to approve the 2425 school year calendar I'm looking for a motion thank you member banks we have a motion do I have a second member Williams is a second are there any questions seen none

156all those in favor of the approval of the 20242 school year calendar say I I opposed motion carries 60 we're on number 12 it's questions and anything other good night seeing none we we're making a motion to adjourn so we can say goodbye we have a motion by zidi um a second by member eer um we um all those in favor of adjournment say I opposed motion carries we're adjourned