001I 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. Dave doesn't have attendance, so I'm going to keep going. Y All right. Next up is the agenda approval. Is there any additions, Brian? It looks like Yep. I had two additions. Uh HFA signed up to speak out of the forum and um we have an employment adjustment um for someone we just approved at the last board meeting. We had the salary wrong. So just looking for that. All right. Does anybody have any questions regarding changes to the agenda? If not, I'm looking for a motion to approve the agenda. I'll make a motion to approve. I'll second. There's a motion and a second.
002Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. Opposed. Motion passes. Next up is the consent agenda. Oh, next up is open forum. Rules for open forum. Three minutes per speaker. Open forum shall not take a more than a total of 15 minutes. No complaints about individual staff members, about students, or about other persons at a public meeting. All presenters will conduct their business in a manner that meets community standards for decorum. The board will not take action on items presented in the open forum. The board may respond in writing at a later date. Does anybody wish to speak the forum? Go ahead, Joe Ranger. Sweet. Hi. Good evening. Uh, I'm not going to read from the script. Uh, good evening. My name is Joe Ranger. I've been a teacher at Hickley Fson for uh,
00316 years now. Well, we're working through 16. Um, I'd like to claim that I'm just a science teacher, but I've taught more classes uh, in this high school than I care to admit that are outside my area of expertise. Uh, taught somewhere between 1,800 and 2,000 students in my time here. I believe that I have served Hickley Fenderson to the best of my abilities. I've taught members of your families, volunteered, coached their sports, uh tried the fine work of your small businesses, and I've tirelessly worked to try to uphold the values of community in the school district. Uh Hley Fison's motto is that every student, every person is known, valued, and challenged to succeed. And I wish to discuss um some of the school board goals that we've have. We have many schoolboard goals. Today
004I wish the one to talk about the one that is ultimately what does it mean to be fiscally responsible. Now I know what you have here is a tireless thankless job. I understand that innately and I appreciate all the work here that we do. My goal here is for us to think about the plans that we've had in place and the policies that we've looked at for all 16 years that I've been here. As far as I know, for 16 years, the school board goal is always to save 25% of our annual budget. And I from my understanding and my research, we have never undersshot that goal. I'm not here to ask you to break the bank, but there is plenty of reason to look at the idea of reducing that overall savings goal to
005something a little bit lower to provide for our students, our communities, and our families. We've heard a lot this year about the reductions that need to be taken place and what it means to be financially responsible. We have young men and women here that have heard that and have seen that and we've all felt the hurt. What I'm asking you to do is to consider the ideas that we are trying to stop the bleeding per se. We're trying to stop losing students. We're we need to try to stop giving people reasons to go other places. I'm standing in front of you as a staff member, as a father, as a parent of kids that are in this district and they are looking for help. Um, you know, we have our finances be public and I'm
006not asking you to go deep into the well, but what I'm asking you to do is to put the responsibility back into kids to get them to stay here, to provide things for them that maybe we're not used to. Um, it's not a question of ignorance, and I don't want to call it negligence, but we're looking for the ideas to just put our best foot forward and not immediately assume that these things that need to just be on the chopping block. Um, investing in our schools isn't just about education. It's about building a thriving community. We're trying to in, you know, invest in student resources and staff retention. That's another big school board goal. We want to try to hire the best people and keep the best people here. It's hard, especially when we have
007a lot of new teachers, to tell them everything is going to be okay. It's hard to look at young people and tell them that everything is going to be okay. Every dollar spent on education comes back in form of a stronger economy, safer neighborhoods, and a better future for everyone. What I'm asking to do is just think about for to take a hard look at not just doing the status quo. things that we've been doing for 16 years and watching it go up and down and up and down. I'm advocating for doing more for our students and having than saving a quarter of every dollar to save money on an imaginary purpose that is neither intentionally defined or inherently apparent. Let's try to as we are as transparent as we can. Let's try to take
008that time, take that effort, take that idea and push it forward. Let's try to promote that positivity by saying, "Hey, we see that this is working." And you guys respond very well to a lot of this. We came last year and said, "Hey, we need more help. Hey, we need more help." And you guys continue to do that. you provided more resources for us, especially at the high school and the elementary school with our dean of students and they're doing great work and wonderful jobs. What we're saying is we see that help, we love that help and we still need more. We can't work in a skeleton type system. Um, and personally, I would love to see just come here, come experience what we're seeing every day. And then and then look, we can make
009make better decisions when we're all in this um together. Thanks for your time. Joe, can I ask you a question? I love questions. Are you being are you specific about staffing? Is that what you're saying? you know, if we adjust the budget, are your is your focus on stacking or what are some of the areas that you're reb um there's the answer to that question will always be yes. The answer to that question is always going to be yes. But whenever the intense needs that we have in our area are not getting they are never getting smaller. In my 16 years the intense needs are always getting larger and larger and larger and it becomes quite a bit of a of a juggling session to try to juggle all of the needs of everywhere. You
010know it's it's is staffing always important? Yes. We need more people, more, you know, fully trained, highly qualified staff that will do the best they can with the kids that walk in the door because we don't get to pick and choose. And so staffing is a a very big part and I'm not sure how big of the budget comes out of staffing, but it probably is a payroll is probably a large part of it. But we always need, you know, highly trained staff that are willing to come in and work with the kids every day. And it's and it's tough. I mean, we get the emails once a month of how much more need that we have. So, that's I think that's a big part of it. You know, the facilities are are great, but
011it was it was tough to see in the audit that they have this much more money than we thought and then get a really big quick turnaround on the gym floor. Not that I'm saying that it doesn't need it. I mean, I came straight from practice. like it does, but that's kind of a tough switcheroo real quick to to go from one thing to the next to see and it's tough to talk to other people about because they need, you know, more communication, more ideas. When we have a goal, what is the goal? What is how does the goal drive ourselves forward into what's coming next? A question for you. A lot of questions. these things that you're saying we're kind of missing. Okay. How will that raise grade point average and how do we
012raise that because would that attract more students? So, fundamentally grade point average is not my favorite way to look at things. Um, my best example that I use with kids is my dad. My dad was a Marine. uh he didn't like school very much. He didn't do school very well for himself, but he still had to do enough in order to make it through. A kid that works their tail off every day and gets a C minus is more important than the kid who sits around and gets an A because it means more to them to work all the way through. So grade point average isn't always the best way to look at it. Now, when you're talking about like test scores and things like that, that's a that's a one-time deal. That's also tough
013to measure success. That's why we take multiple levels of things and we're trying to chart growth and see progress and things like that. I mean, kids need stuff. When we're when we reduce down in staff, it puts heavy pressure on the kids to take the few electives that are available when it's there. If you only want if you really want to take welding, the only thing available is fifth hour is study hall or whatever else, you might have to wait a cycle and sometimes that's when we lose kids, you know? So, it's a it's a tough balance. I wouldn't want to be in Katie Har shoes or Joe's shoes when it comes to doing scheduling, but like having more availability to me seems like a better problem than having less. Can I fill in real
014quick? Yeah, please. you know, uh it's hard in a small district. The more things you can offer kids, uh the more you have a chance of hooking them, you know, whether it's a sport, whether it's an an elective, uh whether it's a college in the school course that you can run or you make a you know, make a a priority to run. Um, you know, in the in the recent past, we've talked about uh daycare, uh, preschool options, like those are things like it might only it might cost whatever 40,000 to hold on to six students. So, it doesn't really pay or break even. Uh, but in the grand scheme of things, you know, we're we're talking about wrestling here. Like those are things those are small things that might only serve a few students,
015but it might hold uh, you know, hold more people together. And it's kind of a symbiotic thing because uh you know when you've got kids are very social and so their enjoyment of their education is is a lot about who who's who's in the building and who's productive and who's working hard to be a C minus student, you know, that type of thing. So it's really hard to quantify how those things build off of each other. But point of my rant is offering things even if it only impacts three kids per grade that really starts to kind of snowball in in my opinion. So, right. And if I can add to that, I just want to say one thing quick first though because we have three minutes left to open forum. So, I is there
016anybody else here that wants to speak at open forum? Okay, then please like I forgot what I was trying to say. looking at that's okay. I appreciate it. Um piggy piggybacking off of that, you know, with the daycare piece and looking at um we've tried to have a lot of efforts into bringing in new people into our district. We have we talked about the developments being built across the town across I don't live here. I don't know where they are. Um but I think at the end of the day, those are great conversations to have, but I think an even greater conversation to have is what are we going to do to keep the kids that we do have right now? So whether that's increased staffing so that way we have less students in classes.
017If you are in the elementary school and if you ever want to my door is always open. I would encourage any one of you to come to my room and you can see that it is the cleanest most welloiled machine class I have ever had because I have a very small class. I can connect with each kid and it has been an absolutely the most enjoyable year I've ever had in this school district. Sorry. Sorry Brighton. your class was your class was two seconds a second number two number two so um I think if we can start to have conversations about what are we doing for the kids that we are servicing now word of mouth will spread on that and be like hey they are looking out for students best interests they are valuing
018and they are being challenged to succeed thank you I have two minutes left of open forum if anybody wants to speak otherwise we'll move Okay. Uh, hi. I'm Dan. Uh, I've been, uh, here a lot over the last few months. Um, this is my son, Brighton. Uh, we we're we're big into wrestling. That's what I mean. That I I love I love that sport. It's his third favorite. Uh, but it's my favorite. That's so cool. Um, I spend a lot of time talking with the teachers in the school district. Um, volunt Jamie and I, my wife, uh, spend a lot of time volunteering. And when I say volunteering, I I mean volunteering to make sure that we have a baseball team, we have a football team, we have a wrestling team in the school. We
019spend quick math over a thousand hours a year doing that. And I'm trying very hard to get something at a high school level. And it starts right now. This starts tonight to make sure we can progress into a high school level uh with the wrestling program. Uh baseball, it's well established until it's not. And it that's a struggle that we're dealing with. Um, we don't have the kids that we had when I was in school 20 years ago, 24 years, 21, 22 years ago. I'm well aware I'm aging myself. Thanks a lot. Um, but all these other schools seem to have that and we got to keep progressing. I don't want to give up here. This is where I grew up. Some of you, I rode the bus with you. I I get gas at
020your gas stations. I do all that stuff. I see you guys every day. Every day. And I just I want to I want to keep it here. I want to be here. I'm I'm I'm a Hinkly kid. I love it here. I don't want to change it. I want to be a part of this forever. Um so I just help us out. I'm willing to help you guys. Help me. That's all I'm asking. That's all I Thank you. Thanks, Dan. Would I keep it under that two minutes? Yeah, you got it. Next up is the consent agenda. Does anybody wish anything for the consent agenda? All right. Then I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda with changes. I'll make a motion. There's a motion and a second. Is there any discussion? All
021in favor? I opposed. Motion passes. 6. Moving on to budget considerations. Um admin team has been working on some ideas. Nothing that we're asking for action on. Um just things that we've been thinking about. None of this is fun to talk about, but I want to talk about where our revenue projections are as of at least last week. Um, and and the two columns that I'll kind of compare to are the last two where we were last year in June and where we're projected to be um depending what happens at the state legislation with the state legis legislation here in the next month and a half. Um, a lot of numbers are pretty consistent. I guess I want to highlight um this compensatory revenue because that's the big one that's was very unexpected. Most of
022the numbers if they're down it's tied to what our either enrollment is projected to be or what our average daily uh membership which is basically our enrollment factoring in attendance. Um and certainly we know our attendance is is down this year. So that's why most of these numbers are down. But the compensatory revenue um is about $280,000 down and that's not because of enrollment. That is because um the state has kind of changed the formula for how how that gets impacted or reported. Um typically you may have heard or know we send home what is typically called free and reduced lunch forms. They're really called educational benefits forms. Um we saw and I guess I will rewind you you see a little bit of flux here in the beginning um we saw an increase because
023if you remember during co the federal government paid for lunches and breakfasts that went away we that's where this kind of spike came in last year the state had a hold harmless they had already been talking about changing how they come up with this revenue uh last year last year they decided to stay with the old method um we actually did better. Now the state is back to let's use our new method for determining this. Well, meanwhile we have less families filling out those forms. Um they're going by direct certification now instead of by both direct certification and free and reduced lunch forms. We don't have as many people filling those out. Um there the governor's bill proposed bill does talk about still putting money back towards that. So there is a hold harmless. Um
024right now that's not approved. So if if that doesn't get approved, that's why I have factoring in 280 roughly $1,000 less. That that's a big part of of why we're or the biggest part of besides our enrollment, why we're looking at decrease in revenue. The other part uh I have in here, we've talked a lot about special ed revenue. Um that number has been right around that 2.4 million that we've talked about. We have reports from staff from administration. Our special ed numbers do go up have been continuing going up. We're not factoring more in right now because also part of the governor's proposal is to take away some special education transportation funding. So, um, when when working with elders on this, we thought we're pretty comfortable keeping it the same because we know our
025special ed enrollment or special ed needs are increasing. Um, however, we don't know for sure what's going to happen at the state. So, that number is another one that we're keeping an eye on. Otherwise, a lot of these numbers are pretty consistent. There's been a lot of questions what's going to happen with revenue from the federal government. We have not heard um anything that title 124 is going away. May it come from a different entity maybe. But the the federal government has said, at least that I've read, that title dollars are not going away. The other big part the federal government helps with is with lunches. Uh we have not heard that's going away. So, we're not anticipating right now an impact to our federal income, but um I'll just kind of with the revenue
026part bring you to these last two numbers. That's where I come up when we start talking about $800 or more thousand is is our revenue for our general education fund is down um by that much. again, mostly because of enrollment, but the biggest dollar amount one would be that compensatory aid. Um, are there questions that you have on at least where the revenues projected as of a week or so ago? You said special ed transportation funding is going to go down possibly. Yeah. Is the requirement still going to be still going to be required to transport with less just as much? Yes. Yep. So then it brings me to just kind of what we've been talking about. Um I'll talk about fund balance first, which my math could be uh enjoyable to follow here. But
027if if you rewind back to June of 24, that's when we set the current school year's budget. Uh at that time we were predicting that our fund balance as of 7124 which would have been the start of the this school year would be 4,241,548. The audit just came back. Um so our fund balance was actually 4,763,916. Um so then we take that number and we have to factor in what our revenue and expenses were for this year. Of course we're still in March. We don't know how that's going to end, but if if we use those predictions that we made at the end of June, um at that time after revenues and expenses and using our fund balance for uh possibly food service and community education, when we went through that, we were predicting then
028that the fund balance would end at 4,341,259. Now just using starting with the actual fund balance um and everything else being the same um which of course it's not but if everything else would have been the same the prediction at that time knowing what the starting fund balance would be would be 4,863,321 and please stop me if I lose you in in my kind of story um to meet the district policy which again is based on what we predicted the budget to be in June Our current fund balance policy is 25%. Um and that's of our general fund um expenses. So to be at 25% um fund balance would be at 3,863 240. So now with the new actual fund balance um with starting with what our fund balance actually was putting in the predictions
029we would be predicted to be at 29.5% which is $693 $693,82 more. Again that's if everything we predicted in June goes according to what we planned. Um, simply we h I mean the easiest example of not everything going to plan is we haven't been able to hire all of our support staff that we planned and and when we predict new employees coming in, we kind of pick a salary. Some we pick high, some we pick low. Now we have actual salaries in there. So those numbers are not perfect, but that's taking what we knew um in June with what the audited fund balance was. So, are there questions on the first five? My only question is last year when we when we did the budget, we thought we were going into our fund balance to
030about 22 something%. But without the hirings, it went without the hirings, we had more interest come in and we got a little better special ed revenue than we had thought. And the state before that and the state doesn't take all the enrollment loss all at once. It's a gra it's like a formula. It's a gradual. It will come a little bit now, a little bit later. It will they don't take all 800 some odd thousand away whatever the dollar amount is. But I guess what I'm saying is we didn't start at 25% last school year. We went into our fund. we were predicting to go in cuz if if you remember we also added at that June board meeting six positions. So I had presented a budget that revenue and expenses matched and then we
031used fund balance to hire six more positions after that or keep back six more positions. Um the board did vote to approve spending out of the 693,000 up to 300,000 to replace the high school gym floor. Um we have sealed bids coming in so we'll know that exact we have quotes but we legally have to get sealed bids. So that process is in place. Uh we will have those numbers for the next board meeting so we know exactly what that is. Um, we talked last meeting that we do need to use LTFM funds before we can use fund balance which in our LTFM funds we have 133,000. So of that 300,000 first which is what we were saving in LTFM4. So we'll take the 133,474 um and then after using LTFM and fund balance for
032the remaining we would still have 527,276 questions on that part. So things we're considering um first I guess I'd like to talk about capital budget. Um, in my opinion, a fund balance is kind of like our own personal savings account. Um, once you spend out of your own savings account, it's kind of gone. Um so my thought which does end up impacting our total budget um and impact what our cuts would need to be um if if we use kind of capital type purchases that is a way doesn't have to be the way but a way to um spend that one-time money on one-time things where if you put it into salaries and and I'm not saying we can't those always keep growing and going and and are still here. So that's they kind of
033both would help each other. I mean if you put it the salaries, okay, we have more for fund or capital. They kind of both work both ways. But some ideas I had with the capital budget. Um as you can see, we are total right now at 464,000. My hope was to reduce that down um to 50,000 less than we spent last year. Um, the state only gives us, which I can go back to revenue. The state gives us operating capital. Angela, I may have to number here. $140,000. So, we have to spend $140,000 on capital. Um, that's what the state gives money for just for capital projects. I think I told you the wrong number earlier. Um, we could reduce this all the way down to that. Um there are some there are projects in
034here that we would still get. Um just we wouldn't spend them all off capital. We've always historically, at least since I've been here, the state has never fully funded what our capital projects are. We have always funded more um than what the state gives us. Uh but there are items on this list that we could bring that down and it really doesn't matter. My thought was um out of technology get some of these computers ordered now um because we don't know what could or may happen with tariffs um same and we've heard that may affect technology as well as some of these bigger um things that Keith has um garage door we need to do but there are things in this list where I could bring that down either so it's lower uh by what
035we were thinking as of now 50,000 less than this 200 133 or I could bring it all the way down to 140 which is what the state gives us. Um other areas we're looking is and these next two are because of where our potential class sizes are or our enrollment is up to seven teachers at Hinckley Elementary. One would have to be replaced the one is because of lensure um up to 6.2. The point 2 is is we have a staff member requesting to go less than full-time. So up to 6.2 at the high school, but four of those would re be replaced um because of lensure. Uh we have a request from our speech person uh to poss we're still looking she's still looking at it, but she has made the request to possibly
036move to 6. With that, we would probably need to hire an SLPA as our speech needs are still there. Um, we're going through classroom material budgets now, but our kind of with the way we set it up this year would roughly be a cost of4500. Um, talking with Mandy Hardold to reduce athletic costs by about 10,000. Now, that would be not necessarily going to game. That's not mean means not trimming games or anything. It's ordering equipment, things like that. Can we make things that we have last another year? Um we have some reduced summer work time. Um the other areas that we still need to look at is our other areas. Um we need to look at custodial food service um and and district office as well. We need to look at all those areas,
037but these are the ideas of where we're at as of now. Um, but we know we need to look at all areas of our district to to see if if we can find other areas where maybe we're overstaffed. Um, some, like I said, there are positions that would need to be hired back. Most of these are because of lensure. There are five teachers and and again, we roughly pick what a dollar amount would be. Um, if the speech person does go down to 6, we would likely need to hire back or hire a second SLPA. Um so with all those proposed ideas and then adbacks um we're we've cut about 678,000 and I should have said I'm starting at about that $800,000. Um so that leaves we haven't cut all 800,000 plus we want to
038give people raises. Um certainly want to do that. We have negotiations coming up for our teachers. our support staff will negotiate and uh half of our managers will also negotiate. Um some other things that we can talk about um things that were kind of added during COVID is why they're on the list and we've kind of talked about these before. I'm not saying that we're going to they're just things that did get added. um the high school, the second dean of students, the second nurse, and like I said, um at that time during CO, we also added HR, and we need to look and see if there's anything we can do in food service, custodial, transportation, and there may not be, but we are looking at those as well. Um questions, I'm talking a lot.
039Um does help us out with speech? Not with speech, only part C to B. So they do birth to two, they do some of the home visits, but then when it comes to so they have a they have an SLP that does some of that speech stuff, but when they're transitioning into the threes and that's when our speech person gets involved. So they still have to do some of that trans transitional stuff as well as those last few like home visits. We have shared that position in the past with East Central. Um I don't know where that our numbers are so high that I don't know that that would be realistic, but yeah, there's three schools that share that part C and B person, but I think only two for the speech. And do we
040fund the transition program, too? Because a lot of our students still get speech with transition. It's funded by Pine City, East Central, and Hinckley Finlesson where it's divided by the number of students we have ADMs in that program or 18 to 22 year olds. Yeah. Yep. Um, now kind of going back to fund balance. So, back to after paying for the gym floor using LTFM funds. Um, like I said earlier, we have about 527,000 above what we thought um at least back in June. So, here were some of the examples that I had out of capital that we would do that. And again, why I have some of the technology on there is if the board's open to that, uh, we could get those ordered sooner than later before technology may maybe it doesn't become
041a problem. But that's why we specifically pick technology off that. Um, and then I was just picking some bigger dollar amounts to get there. Gas bus is obviously um the most expensive on there, but um and we could certainly use fund balance to do more. Like I said, we we could reduce capital all the way down to that 140,000, but these were the ideas that we came up with for then for now. Um which if we did that, that would leave our fund balance still above uh 253,000. Again, ideas we could do for that. We could put that into the general fund. Just put it there. That would help with staff, maybe save positions, help with not having to cut as much, would help with negotiations. We could spend more on capital. Um, a couple
042other things we're waiting or one other big part we're waiting to hear at the state. Not that there's not going to be others, but um they funded summer employ un unemployment the last two years out of the last uh budget coming from the state. They have enough in the state budget to fund June. We don't know what's going to happen for July and August. If the state doesn't cover that, the district does for our district 3 months, which would be July, August, and the following June. That's and it's hard to predict, but it's between 250 $300,000. Um, I have not factored that in yet. The governor's proposal does have money to cover that. Again, we're not going to probably know that until May. Um, and the other part, um, is, and we've talked about this
043from years past, do we want to keep our fund balance at 25%. Do we want to drop it? We've talked in the past all the way down to 20. Um, do we feel comfortable spending more than that as we go? you know, what do we want to do with our fund balance? Do we want it to sit at 25% as we head into next year, or is there some flexibility um like the board's given, or is there more flexibility to go all the way down to 20%. Um, like I said, we talked about compensatory. We'll talk about um co-op sports here in a little bit. Um but thoughts that was a lot of talking by me or questions or clarifications. The summer unemployment is there any look at that changing or is that going to
044be cuz after this year it would be up to the schools to fund it fully. Correct. And is has there been any legislative talk about changing that? The governor proposed funding it. I don't know how long that his proposal would fund it. it would fund it at least for this going into next school. It would cover July and August. Um I would hope June since that's part of the fiscal year. I don't know how long term. So there's talk but I don't know where that's heading. It should cover two years, right? It's a bianium budget they hold together. So it should cover the next two years. Unfortunately, there's still a lot of unknown and we I mean they're set to they're supposed to be done by May 19th. Um hopefully they are. If they're not,
045I mean we we kind of have to wait and see what happens and and if there are any other things that, you know, we don't know about that we may have to do as well. But it's the hard part is try waiting and seeing so we get the best picture yet if we do need to make cuts. Also the human being side of even though cuts are hard giving people a fair heads up if we have to go down that road. So by our next meeting in April, we'll see class sizes. What's coming in? I I would anticipate following feedback from tonight that you'll start to see reductions coming on the next board meeting. Um may not see all of them until maybe more maybe in May and June. Um, again, it's trying to keep
046as many programmings and staff as we can, but also waiting to see what the state's going to do. Uh, but I would anticipate you'll start to see some of these uh even as quick as our next meeting in a couple weeks. What is the estimated um percentage of the budget that is spent on staff? I was right. I didn't get to the percentage part. So, our budget's roughly uh 17 million. I did was running just some staff. We spend about a little over 11 million on staff cost. So, 1117, whatever that percentage is. Pull my calculator. I got you. You got me. 60 64.7% So if we went down if we changed the fund balance to 202 what would that you say every% of our yeah every thousand be about 150 give I mean maybe
047that's a little high 140 to 150 for every percent so that's quite a bit of money depending how low the board would be willing to go and I know we can't vote on that today but just to hear your thoughts so we can prepare and and I can certainly bring a recommendation at the next meeting for our fund balance if there's openness to that. Um but then it also gives uh Mrs. Scholar, Mr. a lot more and I a little idea of knowing. I mean without knowing if that makes sense. Well, if you spend your savings account without any chance of getting it back in a savings account. Okay. So, how would we get it back in a savings account? No, our students. Okay. So, have we identified why they're not coming here? Why they're
048losing? I mean, in a real honest way. And if there's changes to that, because I know it wouldn't be immediate, but it would be a gradual thing. Biggest feedback I got, and there's certainly others, was a lot of because of behaviors that are happening in the schools. Okay, I've heard that, too. How how do we solve that? I know you can't kick kids out because the state says you can't. So, you can't get rid of the bad apples. consistency from the top to the bottom. I think there's huge. Who do we copy that has similar population and has it under control more under control? Any any ideas there? I'd say enrollment in our general area has decreased across no matter what school we're at. Every principal I've talked to, that's been the case. Maybe not
049as high as ours, but because there's other options. Maybe a PSO or online school. Home school and online school. Okay. On we saw a lot of kids go to online school this year. Well, in our our our amount of kids open enrolling in Dinkley is down what, like 40 30 something, correct? Yeah. We we have less kids and and less kids came here uh from other school districts this year than compared to other years. So behavior has been an issue for a long time. It's not just recent. So when you look at it, behaviors um has this been a conversation probably especially since co I mean behaviors have always been here in at least my tenure but I would say they've got the the more well all schools will have behaviors. they probably in my
050opinion they've gotten more significant more often since coming out of co um that's my opinion now I'm not in the classroom but it it seems like you know from Joe and Bonnie I hear about things that we'd only hear about never or once in a blue moon more often um I think the frequency is more often um especially since co ended Were there any other changes that occurred? You know, so we're trying to pinpoint some things. So consistency is obviously one thing. You know, co changed a lot of things, but were there was there anything else that was changing in that time period? any curriculum. Is there any Well, we had superintendent principal change multiple times. Well, not superintendent but principal multiple times. Um, our curriculum hasn't changed. Well, amplified changed in reading and math,
051but that we're on you're on year three of it and year three of math as well in some Well, in some grades didn't All the child cares in this area have gone away. And how many have been lost in the last two years just at HSN 100? Yeah. Yeah. In two years 100 kids 100 kids at Inkley Elementary. So I mean and in that time almost all if not all in our district have closed. There might be one or two home inh home ones. Yeah, a couple have opened up within the last year and a half. I think they fill up pretty quickly. Yeah. Um, our early childhood program used to be kids for not even at 40. And I think statistically people aren't having as many kids, but that's not that's not the now
052problem. Yeah. I think the census says they're out there. Yeah. their feelings about first the extra fund balance ideas or and then I guess the second question is once that extra that we weren't planning on is spent is there are there feelings about reducing that for going into next school year? So my first qu you know are there feelings about other ways to spend that excess that we weren't saving for it happened. Um and then followup is there feelings about coming in under 25% as we set the budget for next year. Well I know we're getting late in the game for a gym floor. I mean we're getting close. So if they can't get the gym floor done by August, could that get pushed off one year and then we put anotherundred and whatever of
053LTFM in there. So then trying to find my numbers. We have 133 in there. Is that from one year or 2 years? 2 years. So roughly about 60 65 roughly,000. So then we would have almost 200,000 in there. But I'm guessing the cost of the floor is going to unless they would probably let's say hold the unless they hold the code if they can't get it through. Yeah. And I won't know their timeline till I know and we meet next Friday. Is that correct? The 10th. Yeah. A week from this Friday. Oh, twoth. A week and a half. Yeah. So I won't necessarily know their timeline till I know which company. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can try, but they're sealed bids. I don't even know who was What was the deadline on those bids?
054You remember, Frank? They have to be in the Thursday before we open them. So, they come in Thursday, we're opening them the next day, and then we have a board meeting Monday after. So, I don't remember the dates off the top, but they come in Thursday, we open Friday, board meeting Monday. So they're due by the 10th when we 11. That's only I guess that's one of my um thoughts if and on those bills there's no completion date. It's just we're asking for what it would cost to do that. Yeah. Then not a completion date. We can ask the companies who reach out to us, you know, what would be your completion date. We didn't put that in the bid quote. When we start getting class sizes, um, can we get like state average, area
055average with that? So if we went below the 25% are you looking at overall lowering it to say 22 23 or just like last year doing like a one time yearly thing? It's a good question. We don't have to change a policy. We don't we don't have I mean the board we could lower it without changing the policy. Correct. Which which we thought we were doing in June. You you all don't have to change the policy but could still spend it. Um has it always been 25%. I can the policy has stated to try to stay at I believe so. I know when we talked about it, it was uh earlier in the school year, we have the highest fund balance around percentage-wise. Um, which is a good and can be a bad thing. I
056mean, yes, if there's a catastrophe, we have prepared ourselves for that. We don't want to be where some of these school districts are with having operation debt, things like that, having to go up for we don't want to get there. Um but we especially in the last couple years we we are at the top of the at least region five six between here and St. Cloud at the top of the list. Um I don't know that we need to be the top in my opinion but we don't want to be the bottom either. I'm being flexible. Yeah. I'm okay to be facing you. I would like to see like you said we have on this what we're considering to reduce all areas transportation maintenance food service district wide if And is a bus necessary for
057next year? I mean, is that I know our fleet is getting older, but with decreased enrollment, is it something that can wait a year or two? Yeah. I mean, we could possibly I mean, these big purchases, if they could We How many extra buses do we have? Proofs. Probably five. Are we Are we trading some buses in? Can we trade some buses in or are they worth that much to trade in? Probably not. Basically scrap. Yeah, I think they'll give you a scrap price for bus. There was somebody that we had used before. They would take the bus and give you x amount of dollars for the bus and then you could purchase parts back from them. It's kind of like a a salvage yard type situation. No cash involved, just a credit so you
058can He didn't purchase a bus last year. We purchased one in 20 two. Yeah. Last year we bought Van. This school year we bought vans type three. Um, we bought a bus last school year, correct? Are are all five of those extra buses DOT inspected and like ready to go? Yeah. So, they're in good running condition. So, they are passing DOT as you guys saw. They are also getting old. I think our oldest we purchased in ' 07 or something like that, maybe even maybe before. We have some old buses, but they are passing DOT. Correct. Um, so could we? Yeah. Is it hard to get a bus like it was a few years ago? I don't think so. Um, seems like all the parts and everything are, you know, it's not like the co
059days where everything was you couldn't get this or you couldn't get that. And so if say we approve a bus next month, how fast are you going to get that bus? that I didn't ask him. I guess usually it's September or October when we get them. I don't know if they can go faster. That's what the last one was. We got it in October after school. After the school year started and I think we ordered middle of April. Do we ever run out of buses in like say spring sports where you got all five of them being used? If I can find some more drivers. Yeah, it's more we run out of drivers, not the buses. Not as of yet. There's a few days upcoming that are questionable. I got three things going on in
060this direction. [Music] But you have the buses to go there. It's just the licensed drivers. Yeah, I mean we we don't have to get a bus if that's just we've been trying to stick to that every other year. So, we update our fleet, but our five in reserve are good to go. We were off because we couldn't get one the one year. Yep. We missed a year. We missed a year getting one. Yep. We didn't a long while. When I first started, we tried to get two some years. Um, we haven't done that for a long time. I don't know that we'd be in a position to get two next year, but Bruce and I can certainly talk more about that. Yeah. Nor do I think we probably need to. I mean if we see
061enrollment come out um different things but are we running the same amount of bus routes that we were with 80 less kids? Um I think we took one out but our type threes go up and one of those drivers help with those type 3s. So it might not be, you know, taking as many buses out, but the drivers are still going to get our type three kids to and from. Can you take other students in those or does it can it only be for type three? Yeah, it's supposed to be kids with special transportation needs. So they have to have like I correct with uh special transportation written in there. Yeah. Has to be written in there. And how often do those get looked for? Yearly. Yearly. Real and some sooner, but yearly at minimum.
062Everything is in for sports, right? If they're purchased with special ed dollars, which we have a couple vehicles that have been there needs to be special ed kids on board. Um, most of our I think we have two that have been purchased that way. Uh, the rest of ours have been bought with general ed money so be used for So that's fine. Yep. Okay. That that is something we could do, which I guess I'll save that when we get to the transportation stuff. How much do we spend with SCR? It's a good I don't know that dollar amount off the top of my head. We don't want to know and our and our costs continue to go up this way. Um, yeah, they have salaries and inflation and things like that, too. My if I
063don't know I'm going to if we ever left, we could never hire the staff that SCRED provides to cover the needs of our um special ed kids. We'd have to have OT, PT, special ed director probably. Um, without even thinking of all the names, but I'm guessing it even if it was cheaper, we'd never find all those positions. Um, be really hard to do. So, that's one benefit of being in that co-op is yes, we spend, but we have all those high need unique cases covered. But, I can get that dollar. I don't know that dollar amount off the top of my head. But as I understand it from asking in years past when you weren't the superintendent, we have to be a part of something. So then we would have to go like to
064Rum River. No, I don't know if we have to, but we would have to have all those resources depending on who's enrolled and what their IEPs say. and um you know having special ed administ you know we get a lot of education the three administrators on special ed law but we didn't go to special ed school for our degree that I'd be a little nervous and it's huge for us like the the people that we can contact and get answers for like instantaneously and making sure that we are following the law because I mean that's what you run into when you have IEPs these are federal documents fedally legal documents that you have to follow. So, it probably keeps us out of a lot of lawsuits to be honest. Like that's that's what they do
065on that support side of when those kids who are serviced by an IEP find themselves in a in a difficult situation, they're kind of they're the experts in it. So, that's where we're able to kind of tap into some deeper education and supports. What about the services to our PT and OT? How often do you see that? I mean, because they're split between multiple school districts. Yeah, they're generally overseeing all six SCRED districts. So, a lot of their support is indirect. So, they're working with our special ed teachers to how have them know how to how to like work with their PT or their OT or they're working with the DE teacher. Um, most of those 90% are indirect services. So, there's some that are [Music] seen six times a year. There's some that are
066seen three times a year. It just kind of really depends on the need of the the student. [Music] Now, did they also have an issue with having their um the school psychologist? Do they have school psychologists on staff? We have two. We have two at this year. Okay. Because didn't they have to hire essentially your temp agency there for a bit? Last year we had a virtual school like other questions you have or thoughts. I'll probably bring some of these or some ideas. It doesn't necessarily have to be these, but you said, like I said, you may start seeing some reductions as quick as our next meeting, but any other feedback as we or ultimately I build the budget for next year. I think you should have some options about going below the 25 if
067necessary. Not saying that we're going to, but I'd hate to see it go down to 20. Do a lot of schools have ranges? Like ours is very specific. Are there some schools that have like ranges of like we'd like to keep it between Good 20 and 25% so you can kind of keep those numbers? Good line. Good question. I don't know. I I can research that. And the other thing is, is there a plan in case federal funding is lost? I haven't heard we're going to lose it. I mean, if if federal funding is gone, I mean, back to that's you know, that's another four or $500,000. Um, I haven't heard that, but so no, I don't currently have a plan for that if that happened, but everything I've heard is that we are not
068losing that money. That's what I have on that topic. Yep. Is that it? All right. Then we're going to move on to co-op transportation. So, a very similar document to what we had um last month. I do I had our our community education coordinator and activities director pull up some numbers um which I've heard may not be perfectly accurate um but these are the numbers that they gave me. These are grades. This year's grades, so 24 25 students. Um, what I was told is girls hockey for high school is 712, boys hockey is 1012. Um, wrestling can be 712, and gymnastics is 712. Um, I know we have some gymnasts who do participate that are not on this list, but I believe it's because they are in an independent gymnastics um or something not affiliated
069with the school. I think um, you know, having a little conversation today, I wonder if our bo boys hockey numbers are not accurate because they go through Pine City's community education and the same would maybe be be for girls hockey. Um, but these are the numbers that I ran as far as how many kids if if we did it this year, what grades they'd be in. Um, and assuming they all moved forward. Uh, having some other conversations. I do think if transportation was provided, these numbers would likely go up. Um, don't know about all four sports, but I would anticipate them growing if if transportation uh was provided. I know specifically the person I talked to today was talking about wrestling that more kids who did stop uh would likely come back. Um we talked
070about cost one way. I guess that's what I heard the board was more supportive of than going both ways. Um so if you go all these are high-end costs. If we provided one way, I think especially if we were going south, uh, wrestling, hockey, and gymnastics, they wouldn't be three different standalones. Um, they would maybe be combined together. So, um, those costs would likely not be as high, but without knowing which kids are going, um, that's how we ran the numbers. And same on the bottom for if a bus was to be provided. Um, I was talking starting to talk about a little bit just um if if the board the board had asked me to look at this. If if we needed to buy type three transportation, which depending on numbers, we could have
071to buy up to two. Um, one going south, one going north. One way to fund one of them. Um, we do have some MA money, which kind of go back to the last conversation, has to be used on special ed. Um, we could buy another vehicle for special ed and repurpose another one. Um, if we needed two type 3 vehicles. Um, first of all, the MA money we have about 27,000 and at least the last couple vans we bought were 34,000 somewhere around there. 32,000. So, it wouldn't quite cover the entire purchase of one van. If we needed to buy a second, that's roughly 30 35,000 um more than that. I I do think um it is something that would be good to do for ours. I struggle um when we had just talked about
072needing to cut up to $800,000 or more putting ads in place. Um I I hear, you know, the four different groups, uh three different sports and and their requests. I just struggle with um the unknowns and adding potential costs to our district. But um the board wanted to bring this back this month. Um I do worry on the flip side. Does it we don't want to lose more kids. I I I get that completely, but with with our budget being where it's at, I just struggle recommending making any ad even if it's one that would be good for some students. And I do think this would be good. I just struggle with adding or recommending to add more cost when we're looking to cut over $800,000. Can I speak to hockey on that hockey person
073to give some information on the hockey? Are you just giving us numbers? Um, and also just to say it doesn't really apply to hockey in the same way it would like I would focus more on building like wrestling that's going to be here as a sport. But now is the time to bring that back. I love wrestling. My brother was a wrestler. I managed it here too. And I think that is doable. Our hockey timing for it to even need busing. No, I'm a I'm an eighth grader who may get pulled up to JV next year. So, you're looking at the earliest like freshman year even mattering and the and what we also know is they have to leave uh class early. So, you're looking at schedules not even matching their with practice times. So,
074I guess I would focus more attention on the wrestling group. And yes, the numbers are not accurate. there's there are a few more hockey players in there, but youth time doesn't matter. It's all over the place. Um and we're grateful to have sports pass covered to the extent that they are. We're um for us transportation is not you're talking boys or girls? Both. Both. Okay. But primarily right now boys and they go to P City. Yes. and my daughter would be a seventh grader here playing hockey also. But um that's also not something that I would ask the school to mental transport for girls kind of thing out. So I knew that would be a lack of getting funding or transport is not going to if it was just wrestling that you know I'd say
075focus more on wrestling and building that as a sport that is here but how can we if it was just wrestling and we took a type three it'd be almost 3,000 if we ended up needing to take a us uh cuz numbers went up it would be 10,000 a little over 10,000 but I'm saying if so they're all so all but girls hockey ourself correct they would take one bus it would leave right after school right move events so you it's really just a gymnastics number to look at on the high end cuz they would ride in the same vehicle am I that would be my yes like it's not three no we we drop if we did it we'd go to Pine City drop off wrestling and hockey, then go to Rush City, drop
076off gymnastics. So, the most it would be would be that 14 14,000, right? With a bus. With a bus. With a bus. Yeah. Cuz they would we would be taking separate vehicles. the the issue with a bus just which we talked about if not even just the cost is it's hard to find licensed CVL drivers and all of our current drivers are on route. So that would be the hard part. Not that it's impossible but if if everything was the same from now to September or whenever you know winter season started hard to find drivers with CDL license. Um, I did also find out I had someone ask find out what our other co-op schools do. I did hear from Mora. Mora does provide transportation for two for swimming and for oh, I don't remember
077what else, hockey, girls hockey that they co-op with and Rush City told me they uh they co-op with Bram, which I didn't know that, but they co-op with Bram and do provide transportation uh for those. I asked them both if they had a a minimum because we had talked about that last month. Morris said no and and Rush City didn't answer that question. Rush City, Bram, Wrestling, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. It's kind of split almost 50/50 like they practice at Rush and they practice at Bram half are at Bram the meets half at Rush City. Yeah. Once they got the numbers up to a more equal and they split practices Wednesdays they stay at their home. Yeah. Where we were at at home. I think we used to do it
078that way. Am I right? Hley and Pine City used to split it or was it always that was kind of the gray area where I was quite around there. Um but uh it used to be when I coached when I was 21 22 you did Pine City strictly came to Hankley. That was it. Um and then Hley started having more wrestlers and it just sorry and we end up having to go back down there. But like I said earlier uh last month um if we can get numbers they are fully willing to split that that time. Some here some down there practice time. Yep. Yep. So that that would cut your cost literally in half again too. You know, it just Yeah, we look at transporting two days a week likely with that cuz they
079talked about mimicking the rush. So, two days a week kids would go to Pine City. Two days a week the Pine City kids would come here and then Wednesdays and practice in your home location. I'll take that responsibility of trying to get that that those numbers up here. All right. Just need a little bit of help on the front side. Lower cost for two days per week. And this is the cost for hiring. What if there's a volunteer driver? Are we then it would just be then it would just be uh if if the it's just paying for gas really at that point and if we had to buy a vehicle but all this fod I don't even remember what WC stands for. Thank you. Work comp. Um it's just paying paying the gas and
080the mileage and then whatever tear but yeah. And if there's a volunteer, does that affect hired staff having the opportunity to drive if they wanted to? I guess it's up to the school board. I mean, I I will say all of our current hired people are driving. Yeah. I mean, we would have to hire if we were going to hire, we'd have to hire someone specific for this or in conjun conjunction with someone else. So, I don't think it would affect our current Yeah. drivers cuz they're already driving. are already being utilized. All all the practices happen right after school. Correct. Yeah. So that that that's that's what we're going after. Just get them down there at 3:00 or 3:15 3:30. Yep. We're good from there. So just get them. Yes. Just getting them there.
081That's it. If we did have somebody offer to drive to volunteer their time to drive, um that would be like a type three vehicle. If it changed to a bus, I'm not sure if that person would be willing to go and get their bus license. But as it stood right now, there was one person willing to drive the route south. And how many students can Seven can fit in our vans? Seven students. Six. Well, we can get nine if I mean that's full. I mean it's not like we're going to nine including the driver. So it' be eight participants. Do you guys know anything about the volunteer or the person that has volunteered to drive? Have you heard anything about that? Yes. Okay. All right. I think I know he spoke to both Mandy and
082I too. So, okay. So, it could be more than one person. It's probably the same person. Okay. Yeah. They would need to do a background. Yeah. All done. Everything and it's all done. Everything is done. So, we're not talking whole lot of money to volunteer. Well, what if a bus is there? Are they willing to get there? I mean, because if these numbers truly are going to go up, I mean, seven's not a lot of kids. No, you're not even like, we're looking at a bus here. We're not looking at a type three. But would it would we be just looking at a type three for next year and then the following year if it goes up then we have to explore the other options for a bus? Most what it seemed like to me.
083most likely cuz then when the word gets out of like hey like this is actually a feasible thing but that would even happen this year it doesn't take very long to hit seven I mean well especially if we're doing wrestling hockey and gymnastics right once they find out there's transportation you know we have we have to plan on a bus like that were to get out for next time it could like what happens if we can't find somebody to drive You don't know that. I mean I mean our our routes take precedence o our routes would take precedence over driving to practice. Yeah. I mean we've had to cancel other athletic things from very rare but last year we had to cancel other athletic things cuz we got to prioritize getting kids home. That might
084have been two years ago. Two years ago. Hey Joe, do you know if that volunteer was willing to take wrestling, gymnastics, everything the whole I spoke to him about it and he I told him it kind of be like a oneshot deal all the way down. So boom, boom boom and come back and perfect. Sound like he was okay with that. Yeah, that's how I understood it as well and verified that. So awesome. Though there's no gymnastics on here, but if they heard it was obviously I get it. They hear there is transportation. Maybe they would, but as of right now, there's isn't. I agree with that. Anyway, you almost got to have two numbers here. One with just a few kids and then 3 months later, you get a whole bunch more. Uh we
085prepared to go to the higher number. I mean, you have to we have to plan for we have to plan for these numbers. So, we need to find I mean that's great that somebody wants to volunteer, but in reality it's going to be Yeah, you'd have to plan. I mean, we hope it's a bus, which is a great thing, you know, the most, you know, gymnastics being the furthest or girls hockey that those are the two numbers with the bus that we'd be looking at. Ryan, that's your tab for the driver staying, too. Oh, sorry. Sorry. These are the two numbers. The 25,000 if we take a bus to girls. Thanks, Joe. 25,000 for girls hockey up to 14,000 for Janette because they just could go all the way to Brush City and come back
086and the added if we if the board decides to I would think we would have to buy at least one type three vehicle if if we're throwing girls hockey there probably two um like I said one could probably mostly be covered with MA dollars which doesn't come out of our general fund or our fund balance. It's a restricted fund balance. Um, but there's a possibility we'd have to buy up to two vehicles which would be which could be used for other things during the day. could be used for other things and other things would come. I think Joe is volunteering to get his license. I I have robotics in the winter, so I'm a little busy. But I'm going to make a shameless plug that, you know, there's a lot of other schools that I
087go to that also have 15 passenger vehicles for some reason or 12. It makes it type three. I know we we fight about this all the time. I'm just saying like somehow in some way, shape, or form, they're doing something special that we are not. And they're not private schools. They're public schools. You drive down to Rush City and I took a picture and I sent I sent it. Every time he goes somewhere, he sends me a picture. Send a picture of this thing. And I'm sure maybe they have to have their little B bus license or something too. But a bus license with a 15 passenger van that I could use for robotics. And I would definitely consider my options. I do think you'd have to have your bus license. I'd consider my options.
088All right. So, you're volunteering for your bus license. You're volunteering to get your bus license. If I can take it to robotics and do whatever a day without driving, I don't have to take all three of times. That's mileage. Yep. Times 52 round trips. So, so, but then earlier, so Tiffany had mentioned not being as concerned about the girls hockey because they're figuring something out. So, then I would probably take that off of my mind, but then I've also had the question posed to me that I had mentioned earlier with girls hockey is why are is girls hockey connected with Moose Lake, not Pine City? Is that something to reevaluate? Maybe not at this point maybe. No, but like for down like years. Yeah, I don't remember the why. Bonnie maybe remembers the why. Pine
089City's recent I mean girls within the last what four or five years. Mhm. Uh yeah. Yeah. It's just that down the road, you know, if we're looking at doing a bus, would it make sense to have everyone go along the way? Only thing about is having to go double A strangle me right now. Sorry. And you have we'd have to get them here. Yeah. And so some of the students that aren't here probably wouldn't even qualify for girls hockey riding the bus. And that would be a year, two years down the road. I can review my memory with Bonnie and try to remember the why. Sorry, but that was a question that was just to me. Yeah, I I know what I've heard, but wouldn't take much for jogging my memory. Okay. Co-op transportation. Is
090there any more questions? If not, I am looking for a motion. [Music] I don't think I know how to read it right, but I would make the motion to approve moving forward with co-op transportation for one way. For one way, the trees. I mean, I I mean, the goal, I think, is to grow it. And then I think if we grow it, we keep these students here. And I know it's like one of those risks, you know, like we're looking at budget and it's really tough, but if we can keep students here, I mean, we've exhausted a lot of different options of enrollment and what we can do and there is a need like we're hearing the need. If we can keep the students that we have here and if sports is that reason, I
091think it's worth a shot. Do you have any statistics on you mentioned last time sometimes they give a wrestling they go to basketball. Do a lot of families move to another district. Yeah. So last year we can only speak to the wrestlers that we lost from sixth to seventh grade last year but we had two different families that two families wrestlers of wrestlers. That's which means well we had we had so we had um five wrestlers and one hockey so there's six kids that left our school district last year moving from sixth grade to 7th grade which is the first year because that's and they got up and moved their household to the other they still live in Hankley just went to Pine City the other so then that family is is transporting them to
092that school the school picks I was picking up and then I don't know what I I don't I the Pine City I think Pine City will pick him up right here. Um he lives just across the street you know. Um so the school will pick them up right here at the high school and then they drive down to Pine City. Um the Mora they she works there so she's able to just bring them to school but yeah the bus will bring them right to their house. Yeah. So they don't have to move. No, they didn't have to be a student. They have to move. They just switch schools. And that's like I said, that's every year, every couple years, you lose a handful of kids to that or you have the kids that quit wrestling
093because they can't Oh, sorry. with that. Are you It is not going to take away from transportation. I mean, that's just a given, right? Yes. That it doesn't take away from our transport. Getting our kids Well, we legally have to get our kids home would come first, right? So, if we don't find a driver, this doesn't happen. It doesn't work. Absolutely. But I think we give it a shot. No. Right. Yeah. I'm just clarify safety here. We almost have to budget a school bus and a driver because we want it to grow. So if it does grow, we got to be prepared with the budget. Yep. That's what you're saying. Yeah. Okay. And I would like to with no minimum because if it's that situation where you know if we say there's a with a
094minimum of five kids and say we have you know that many type three it be less money. Yeah. then we're not hurting families that have chosen to stay in the district because of sports and then finding out that sorry we don't have enough to participate. So that would be my motion if that makes sense. I second that motion. Is there any discussion? All in favor say I. I opposed. Motion passes six. We are moving on to daycare. Uh I met with a couple board members with a community member staff member um who came to us and asked if we'd be willing to open a daycare at Hinckley Elementary School. We had a follow-up meeting with the same two board members and Mrs. Scullard. Um some of the reasons and I just chose some of them.
095the the individual shared a lot of the things we've heard um that Hinckley really needs a daycare. We just talked about a little bit ago that there's only one maybe two uh locally that are often filled or there's not spots. We know from previous conversations when we were talking about Finson that there's quite a need for daycare uh in all of Pine County, but but Hankley as well. Um, we believe Hinckley will have open classrooms next year. Four or or maybe we don't know all that yet, but we think there'll be four classrooms that could be open next year. The person who came forward was willing to be the point person, was willing to help the district with writing an application, was willing to work as a daycare provided by the district. Um, there would
096be some needs. Um, there's probably more than I just have on this. We know um we would need a playground that's appropriate for birth to four years old. Um that if if the board was on favor with that, we kind of need that anyway at Hingley Elementary and really in elementary anyway as our playgrounds are appropriate for grade ages six and up. Um so that'd be a two-part benefit. We know we would need some CS, classroom supplies, and probably fencing around the playground. There's probably other costs, but those were the ones um that I know about for sure. Um, we talked back in August about costs roughly for staff, um, and rates that we could charge, which I had, this is what Anna had shared with us, so it's why it says Finlesson is that's
097just what it said roughly. And we were looking at toddlers at the time. Um, but roughly we were looking at salaries for teacher and we called them assistant teacher classroom aid. Again, depending how many uh students we have, how many staff we have. Um, at the time, Anna kind of broke that up. If we had one classroom, she broke it up. If we have two classrooms, so just doing m if we had up to four classrooms, that number could be doubled. Now, most of that would be funded for by families. Um, I, you know, we would have to build it. we wouldn't necessarily hire two classrooms if we didn't have kids for two classrooms. Um, and then she ran rates for us with anywhere if we charged 170 bucks an hour, which I believe is
098what the county reimbures a day. A day, I'm sorry. Um, sorry. Um, yeah. No. Yeah. And but commonly in the area, you know, I've heard that you could charge 240, 250, maybe more. But these were the numbers um that Anna had pulled for us back in August. She put down the 80% revenue just for attendance, but you can kind of see what the revenue would be uh based on how many kids come in. The other tab I shared also came from Anna was just some data um that she had shared with us about child care centers, what the ratio of of staff to child would be. Um this person who came forward was interested in working with any age group or all age groups is is kind of what she said. Um, and then you
099can kind of see what the rates of some local daycarees around us, what they're charging families. So, as we met with the individual, we talked um about just kind of what the process would be and and the first process, which the board had talked about three years ago, approved. Um, then we got to August and didn't do it. But we we talked about now should we apply to run our own daycare out of Hankley Elementary School. Um and while we're going through that application kind of do some more investigation into costs. Maybe put a survey out. I don't know perfectly how to do that survey cuz I don't know everyone who's having infants, but put a survey out to the community um to see what the need is in Hankley. um not voting on this
100tonight, but just the thought was to have a conversation as a board tonight to see if you're interested and then maybe go as quickly as voting on applying to open or run a daycare at our next board meeting in April. Um the individual we met with did meet with Leslie Solder and Anna Riser. Um it sounded from that conversation that the grant that we had talked a lot about was not available to us. I I will say I took a text today. Um not much came out of it. Just kind of wondering if if we were doing it and I said we're discussing if we want to consider doing it tonight. Um but wondering the board's thoughts or what information you'd want me to gather um as we lead to kind of two weeks from
101now if we want to talk about applying to run a daycare at Hley Elementary School. And certainly the board members that were with me can add in. Bonnie was with Canadian. Um, that's my summer. Well, we did a lot of talking here about one chson and actually before that uh they I'm not sure who came up with these statistics, but at that time there was a need for 200 daycare children in Hankley and 75 in Fison. Now, as other ones have been built like in Sandstone, if that number's come down, not sure the radius they were talking, uh it was just school age kids or families that are in the school. I don't know how they got to 200 or the 75, but they stressed a number of times at a number of meetings I've
102been at with Lesie Solder and Pine County Group, it is the number one econ economic driver in a community. So number one, you talk to a lot of people who travel a long ways for good daycarees. Not to mention a daycare teaches these youngsters so many things you it's hard to believe. Um 2 years old, they know the alphabet, they know color, so they start to read and identify their name. And they've got a real jump on education. probably help our grade point average, make all the teachers more successful, all those things. It just brings the quality of students up. It becomes sorry, it becomes a u a driver for attendance in school. That's what I got. So the daycare grants then that must be there must be two other facilities because that daycare grant
103was uh P technical community college and then there were it was meant for three. Yeah, it was a mystery. They wouldn't tell us who the third one could be or the second or third. We believe that they are going to open a site in Hankley. What we've heard is they don't have and I don't know I haven't heard this with my own ears but what I've heard is they may open a site in Hankley. They don't know who's going to run it. Um and I heard the third part went to Willow River um for their daycare that's in the school. Oh, Willow River is going to have a daycare in the school. Any idea how many children are there? I don't know. I can find that out though. I don't know. Well, they were going
104to offer us 30,000 for the Finson thing if we voted, but we voted down. So, we lost the 30,000 cuz they didn't we didn't as a board think that 30,000 was enough to make it start up. Are those other grants still available with the um there's couple other organizations that the donations? Yes. We don't know that. I don't know that there may be other grants out there. I don't know. We could ask about the Was it one donation 1,000 and what was the second one? Yes, that was for all of all of it was for the donation. Okay. That would maybe not be available if it went to him. Correct. Yeah. How did So with looking at it at the school, would it be year round? the the individual said they'd be willing to open
105be open year round and days off other than probably holidays. What are your thoughts? Uh I think it's there's things we would have to think about like um I think it's a great idea to start there. I think having something on site, something close to the freeway. So, I mean, you're not going to get just our school kids there. You're going to get community members that are driving to wherever for work. Um, I think it's a good entry point into our school. Um, obviously I the thing I look at is the educational component of the rest of the kids in the school and how do we like divide and conquer per se. Um the end of the building that I'd be looking at for that would be we could seclude them there. Um we have
106an area that we could turn into a a playground for that age of student. Um I think bathrooms could it'd be a wonky thing, but we could make it work. Um, I guess one thing I might dabble with down the road would be a secured entrance just for the daycare people so they're not like going through the whole building as they're dropping off at all different hours. But is it doable? Absolutely. Would it be less cost to have it at weekly versus than listeners? less cost startup cost. Um, I'm guessing probably similar. I guess I don't know that like Finison we would have had to we were talking about removing the band room, putting them somewhere else. I think there I mean the rooms were there but location of other classrooms were were needed to
107be moved. These classrooms will be empty just due to some enrollment issues anyway. So, we don't have that additional cost. The playground does need to be done. Uh, I worked with a couple vendors this week. Uh, we could get a really decent startup for about 40,000. And that's it's not huge, but it does in that space at least allows us to build onto that in in due time. And like Brian said, we need something for our preschool anyway. I think the costs would be pretty similar depending how many rooms we open and what kind of fencing apparatus you know we'd need to put around for safety um a benefit every room I believe I'm accurate when I say every every room already has sink um so we wouldn't have that problem um and bathrooming I
108don't know what all the rules are if we were going down to infant but bathrooming would work Um, we'd have to figure out if food if our food service could feed. You know, I'm sure there's some rules between what MDE covers and what they don't cover. I don't know if they go all the way down to toddler probably who's eating, but we'd have to investigate that, but I'm sure other schools do it. So, I'm sure there's some kind of framework to figure that out. shirt to get it started according to um the application for playground equipment. The only thing that's needed is three pieces of durable outdoor large muscle equipment per group. So, we don't even have to to start up. It doesn't have to be a huge expense. I guess we'd just have to
109cross that with MDE because if our preschool kids are going to be using it as well, we've been getting by with I know we've been getting by, but we're liable. We shouldn't be Well, it said like what age groups for all for that's toddler through Oh, toddler. Toddler and then preschool. It says not No, the new Hinkley, isn't it? Birth up. Oh, yeah. What? Because this Oh, wait. I don't know. I don't know. I guess I don't know what what I assume they're opening birth up, but I don't know that for a fact. Okay. And I don't know for sure when they'll be ready to open. Um Oh, wait. Are you talking about? I'm talking about the one. Our ours or the one with the If we did No, if we did it here at
110the elementary school, we was there like we heard before application takes six months. Um we don't know that for fact. So if we started in April, what 6 months from then, Octoberish, maybe September, October, we could be ready. I'm thinking age group. Like what we had talked about that day. I I I hear you. What I what we talked about that day was like we would like to start an infant room, infant, a toddler room and school age room. Like a whole family that has we're going to have to take our four-year-old program down to four days a week. So then that fifth day, they're going to need somewhere to go. Uh they talked about only charging when the kids were there, so you're not running into the same daycare um issues that some of
111our families were running into um in the past. Um if if we had kids to, you know, fit that bill. So potentially three rooms, right? Is that what you just said? That's what toddler. So then how many staff would be required for three rooms? How many kids? Yeah. And then square footage of the room as well. Yeah. I mean, I mean, we kind of compared to what the Pine County site was going to look like, and I think our rooms will be fine. We have to get Melvin in to to do some accurate measuring, but I know it's 35 square ft per child, but I don't know that that was what age that was. I think it's like six in how big the rooms are that you have. [Music] Um I believe preschool 782 ft
112toddler 594 and infant 376 per how many kids? Um probably that's the 1 to 1 to 4 1 to 7 1 to 10. Uhhuh. Same ratios up there. So you need at least three staff and then somebody overseeing it. So four probably four if we had three rooms probably at least four staff just to give them breaks and so you know daycare doesn't run on just an 8 hour shift. You know some start at 6:00 a.m. Some might get picked up at 6 depending on our hours but I would think if we had three rooms at least four staff. Is there any advantage, excuse me, of the operator that runs the program of them basically leasing the the rooms and they take over the operation for like a dollar a year? Would there be any
113advantage to the owner of that thing? I don't know. Sarah, can you answer that? Or would you It wouldn't be I don't think it'd be an owner. I think it'd be a staff member. Okay. So, it' be a districtledd. Okay. What if it's not a district employee? Just a personal person that basically if a private person came in with their license. Is that what you're asking? Yeah. Basically, if we gave them like free rent or something. Yeah. I don't I guess it would look different because it would be if it's in the elementary school, it' be more center instead of a home base. And with home base, it's like one adult to like two infants, three toddlers, and like three preschoolers. But if you put it in a spot where there's going to be a
114lot of children, you'd have to have an adult for each ratio of that child in each. Do you know what I mean? So it wouldn't be a benefit for Okay. So for a center, there's more the ratios are different. Mhm. They're higher. [Music] He got me the name at the end of the video. [Music] BBD I think it's a good idea that we do something. I thought to fill this was a good idea also. Is there more information Leo or anyone that if we have this as a action item to apply that you want answered or as best I can do in two weeks? Is there any cost involved in applying for grants two years ago? Uh for grants or for the daycare whatever or two years ago when we approved applying it was $500.
115I don't know if that's gone up since then or not. [Music] So, I would I would like to know if the playground if if we could discuss the school garden as the playground if um the fencing is um up to par. Yeah. I don't think the fencing would be the post would be, but the fencing just replace the Yeah. I don't know what you would for fencing around there. That's cuz right now it's essentially chicken wire. You see a lot of them with just a cycle together. Yeah. Is anything happening with the school? the weeds grow really really well. I I've asked for somebody to and it's just want to do something that it just it's so it's not being used somewhere else. So it it it would be actually a really great space for
116our uh preschool playground aka here program. And is that close proximity to the uh close enough? Yeah. I mean, definitely doable. That's good. Good exercise to walk that wherever it is if it's in the back. So, it doesn't say how far a trans has to be from the facility. I don't I didn't see that. I didn't see anything, but think about a lot of them are just attached to the building. You part of the building is No, that's what I was wondering if it's a ways away. Is there any Oh, if it's too far. Yeah, like what's the I didn't see. We can hold off later about talking about building a new gym cuz that'd be all right, too. But we can wait on that. Now, I mean, we need one cool. Well, if you
117think of any other questions, you can always let Brian know. Obviously, we'll we'll have this on the April um board meeting. Yep. Um does anybody have any other questions? I should have asked that first before I otherwise we're going to go on to um the school weapons policy 501. Yeah, I'm putting this now because it's a mandated policy that I can't find a link to anywhere. Um, and the last paper copy I can find is from 2004. So, just doing a first reading. This is coming right from M MSBA. We follow this, but we need to have the policy uh available to us. So, but I did sign it in 2022. You did? I sent it to you. Yeah. And the link you sent when I go to open it, there's just not a link.
118It doesn't exist. So, I can't find it anywhere other than 2004. So, we need to get that uh approved. So, any questions on this policy? If not, we will be approving it at the April board meeting. Yes. And we're at the end. I'm just looking for a motion to adjurnn the meeting. I'll make the motion. Second. There's a motion and a second. All in favor? I opposed.