you [Music] good evening i'd like to call to order tonight's meeting of the isd 191 burnsville eagan savage school board the date is may 14 2020 and the time is 6 30. i'd like to start by welcoming um our audience thank you for joining us even uh remotely our work continues and we always appreciate knowing that our community is tuning in so thank you with that um director hume would you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which i stand one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you all right we will start by approving tonight's agenda i will take a motion to approve the agenda so moved moved by director shot second second seconded by director chester any discussion hearing none all those in favor of approving the agenda please signify by ms kenny would you please call the role hill i miller alt paul wigger hi chester aye shots aye career all right and the motion carries thank you first on our agenda tonight is winter activities recognition and i'd like to invite bhs activities director and associate principal jay lepper to share the accomplishments of these outstanding students typically we have students attend our meetings so we can congratulate them in person while we are not able to do so this spring it's still important to us to recognize their achievement mr lepper welcome and thank you for joining us to share a little bit about these outstanding students thank you chair alt superintendent battle and members of the board as always we had some outstanding performances by our students in athletics and activities this past winter and i'm happy to share those with you tonight first of all youth in government minnesota ymca youth and government is a youth-led opportunity that allows young people to engage with the workings of government through experiential learning it involves 2500 middle heist middle school and high school students each year in a variety of programs burnsville high school students are able to join the local delegation which is offered through the ymca and participate in events this year 11th grader sophia heminy was elected to serve as chief justice of the supreme court at yig 2021 she was also awarded the ymca servant leadership award for promptly stepping into an appointed official position in the supreme court on the first day of the yig conference and coming more prepared than expected ninth grader ellie hubby was elected to serve as the speaker of sibley house at yig 2021 and bianca freebie was elected to serve as the speaker of humphrey house at ugg 2021 senior maddie moore was selected to serve as president of global forum at the model united nations 2020 which was originally planned to take place in march congratulations to these bhs elected officers and their success in yigg this year one act play the burnsville high school competition one act play won the section 3 double a championship at simley high school on january 29th and advanced to the state tournament on february 7th at o'shaughnessy auditorium at the college of state catherine's in st paul directed by amy stead the team performed the insanity of mary girard by laini robertson student performers were michaela barcenas gavin blix michael gettle matthew mcguire emma warrenick sata canoe and cecilia johnson stage crew included kiana kali gabe hubbard helen huang richard tamayo mason thiel jacob holtz slider maddie moore casey hennessy and camille white makeup and hair crew included aurora anderson anna herman and elizabeth laurenson miss stead the director noted i could not be more proud of all the effort these students put into their work congratulations to amy stead and students on having such a successful season vhs and metcalf middle school quiz bowl teams burnsville high school quiz bowl team finished 6-0 to win the south suburban conference quiz bowl championship on february 11th which took place at burnsville high school this is the fourth time in the last five years that the team has been crowned south suburban conference champs they qualified for the naqt high school national championship which would have taken place over memorial day weekend in atlanta burnsville juniors joe schatz and wyatt isaacson finished second and third respectively each with over 65 points per game senior chance persons was fifth with over 55 points per game rounding out the meddling field sophomore eric gordon the remaining member of the championship burnsville team placed 21st overall in scoring in addition to the varsity tournament there was a junior varsity tournament in which 20 teams participated and most schools fielded at least one additional team burnsville c finished undefeated 5-0 to win the championship junior varsity team members included sophomores emerson drayton greta nisel and carter stewart and freshman paul martineau metcalf middle school quiz bowl team also qualified for nationals team members include 8th graders matt trussell tim trussell josh trussell holland boyam aiden josephs and noah lightnitz congratulations to advisor les moffett and the team for their continued success weight lifting on march 7th burnsville high school's boys powerlifting team won the minnesota state powerlifting championship and the girls team was named runner-up there were four individual state champions two state runner-ups and two third place finishes burnsville lifters set seven state records samuel hino who has four state records elietta thorne who has three state records marshall harrison and oscar villatoro romero were all named state champions for burnsville runners-up were bradley brua and brianna bork max zitnick and casey jensen finished third place in state then at the minnesota state olympic weightlifting championships in cannon falls seven of the nine lifters made the podium and burnsville took third place in state chase fangam ellieta thorne kayla gantt siddique oware and nathan lee were runners-up in third place was natalie thorson and dylan fisher congratulations to the powerlifting and olympic weightlifting teams as well as coaches justin lerfald and justin decker robotics three burnsville robotics teams advanced to the minnesota state championship after competing at tournaments hosted by burnsville robotics at burnsville high school on january 18th and 19th the wiring warriors a fifth year team and high voltage a rookie team earned their spots at state by winning the saturday event in an alliance with an eagan based team the wiring warriors won an award for their innovative design of a robot component collins aerospace innovative award while high voltage took home an award for their programming the control award sponsored by arm inc seventh year team the pride won the stratasys award for incorporating 3d printing and computer-aided design in their robot the think award for excellence in their engineering notebook and the inspire award for overall excellence in their season performance which advanced them to the state championship the pride wiring warriors and high voltage joined 45 minnesota teams who qualified at the ftc state championship at the washington technology magnet school in saint paul on february 7 8 2020 the pride team includes students gerald johnson katie fritz livia selby ryan fours nathan wilder ethan jacobson sarah leipmitz and noah lightnings the wiring warriors include students jacob pelenius eloisa roscoe wilmow orvis murphy and ashton thompson the high voltage team includes nala stevenson ian park owen sapansky blake haasey and joseph bong congratulations to these teams and their incredible season chess the metcalf guest team collected some well-deserved hardware at this year's minnesota state scholastic chess championship held march 7th and 8th in bloomington bringing home the gold for the metcalf team were harrison stage joseph santos soren leafglad and mitchell kellen individual tournament placement trophies were awarded to harris harrison stage sixth place mitchell callum seventh place thornleaf lab 10th place big shane bauer 12th place joseph santos 14th place past primus 17th place in david santos 20th place nearly 250 players participated in the event in addition the metcalf a team was named traveling league champions outstanding players league performances were by mitchell kellen owen crick jake chainbauer jj johnson and harrison stage brian rivnick a retired district 191 math teacher who was the first recipient of the district 191 spirit of excellence award in 2016 has been the longtime chess coach at metcalf he said that the team was committed from day one of practice in october to winning the state middle school chess title in their final season and they certainly accomplished that goal congrats speech congratulations to sophomore elie shelberg who qualified for nationals in the humor category at the minnesota state speech tournament in april ellie competed against 30 other schools in our district and was one of three individuals sent in her category to the national speech and debate tournament which is now online the tournament would have been hosted in albuquerque mexico and is a multi-day tournament starting on june 17th to compete this year submit a video of her piece that will be judged live by qualified national judges this is ellie's second year competing in speech and it's incredibly difficult to do what she's done and we are proud that she is a burnsville's first ever national competitor since speech team coach catherine ryder in addition sophomore umith azad was an original oratory finalist at the national qualifying tournament both students put in tremendous amount of work and have a natural talent for public speaking it's astounding what these students have accomplished as only sophomores stated a writer and to the rest of the team your work hasn't gone unnoticed and we're proud of the culture and passion for speech you've cultivated congratulations to ellie umith as well as coaches catherine ryder and derek tano girls hockey this year's girls hockey team won the section 3 double-a championship the team qualified for the state tournament after a dramatic section final win against egan this was burnsville's first trip to the state tournament since 2014 which was also the last time the program had won a section game burnsville went into the state tournament with a 19-7 and two record they faced top seeded edina in the class double-a state quarterfinals at the accel energy center in saint paul on february 20th team members are avery sachek caitlin procco hannah benfer ali erlog aubry nelvin zoe dunden zoe chadwick sammy bolby kendra distad katie katzmerick olivia carlson emily howard gabby gramacki megan newts maddie lauren klein madison crumholtz morgan hanson emma tilbury olivia tilbury and maria wyden head coach is chris lepper and assistant coaches are karissa thompson aaron goodell and randy johnson student managers were allison coplan and lan wells congratulations to coach lepper and the team on a phenomenal season deca in spite of their season being cut short burnsville high school deca is proud of the strides they made this year and the successes of the students who qualified for the international career development conference which was originally planned take place in nashville at the end of april with nearly two-thirds of the students qualifying for state this year's burnsville chapter of deca has been the most successful to date more than 2 400 students competed at state a record for minnesota deca and burnsville had five students qualify for finals the following students qualified for deca state the largest number of students in the history of burnsville high school ushmill azad hannah benfer monsterad blanco lopez bennett oates lindsey brown kirsten buckner alexa colonello maddie dahl savannah drum bianca freebie nathan grenky becca harder najeeb hassan megan holly sam hino kevin huang dane coonerman megan hopkins ellie hufdy emma hovdy sahim ibrahim lucas johnson grace kaufman gavin kellen reagan kennem's charlie krueger barisa livu kent luvu isabella lee christine mina grace millhoft matthew nguyen dot wynn marshall noring jacob norton zoe olson sophie potter brianna reuter jocelyn reuter destiny robinson ava shovine garrett sauer anthony tran daniel vasquez and ariana driscoll churlin the following students qualified four finals emma hughday who is a state officer and the first officer in burnsville history qualified in two events marketing communications role play and community giving project with lucas johnson lucas johnson ranked in the top eight for business services marketing role play event and qualified for icdc in a team event with emma hub d in the community giving project matthew nguyen qualified in business finance role play event anthony tran placed in the top eight for food marketing role play event and qualified for thrive academy at icdc marshall noring placed in the top 12 for business services marketing role play event and qualified for thrive academy at icdc each deca student has contributed to this year's becca program and they have been wildly successful said megan malone deca advisor i am impressed with the way these students represented burnsville from its membership involvement to the leadership of the officers i couldn't be more proud of our chapter congratulations to deca advisers megan malone and michelle carroll and to deca members on a fantastic season hosa hosa or future health professionals formerly known as health occupation students of america is an international student organization recognized by the u.s department of education and the health science education division of acte whose mission is to empower hosa future health professionals to become leaders in the global health community through education collaboration and experience david wilkins a junior was selected for the position of vice president of middle school relations for the state of minnesota hosa in the selection process david made two virtual speeches wrote five essays provided several references and had an interview during his term of office in his role david will be communicating with middle school hosa groups throughout the state of minnesota and helping schools to create new chapters at their sites david states that his burnsville high school teacher and werner dempsey first introduced him to hosa while he was a student in healthcare core curriculum class certified nursing assistant class and the medical terminology class which david says opened his eyes to the healthcare world and showed him what he is capable of through each new experience band and choir allstate we had one student who made 2021 all-state symphonic band jacob miller trombone we also had one student who is in a 2021 all-state band alternate calvin york flew burnsville high school also had students chosen for mmea 2021 all-state choir sophia kemeny was placed in the 2021 allstate soprano alto choir and haley robinson was chosen as an alternate for the 2021 all-state choir mmea's all-state considered the top program of its kind across the nation develops high school musicians and schools music programs the allstate program supports secondary school music ensembles mmea members and member students students in high school bands choir and orchestra audition for all state spots in march judges listen to the students evaluate them on their overall musicianship and technique and may april the mmea allstate committee chooses the final roster they consider scores and mmea's placement policies 565 students are selected then for the seven all-state groups all of the young musicians meet in february to rehearse and perform at orchestra hall as part of the mmea midwinter clinic and that concludes the winter activities recognition thank you again chair all superintendent battle and members of the board for allowing me to share the many great accomplishments of our students and staff thank you very much mr leper quite an accomplished quite an accomplished group of students with a real variety of gifts and talents board members i'll open it up for um comments questions seeing none um thank you very much again mr leper for for sharing our students accomplishments we are so proud and i look forward to hearing back again about more accomplishments in the new new school year thank you thank you thank you for having me uh next uh i would like to invite uh brian gersich assistant superintendent and principals brad robb john bonneville angie pohl and erica nesfig we are going to receive a report about school closures and year-end celebrations welcome all uh thank you cheryl uh superintendent battle and board of directors on behalf of the entire team appreciate the opportunity here to present to you some of the updates and maybe some of the things that have been a bit more fluid as a part of our process for transitioning to new school boundaries and as we talk about that and we mention our new boundaries uh it is a result of a lot of things that have already been uh that have gone on this school year uh when in the fall our district deemed it was prudent for us to close two elementary schools and a middle school and further transition into new boundaries for our district as a result of those change uh changes and so again as much of our focus this year has been on um opening eight new elementary schools and our two new middle schools with our focus and i think you'll hear some of that as we come through it's also about how are we working to transition families and staff into this new reality of the new boundaries as we look at our presentation this evening uh we'll start with a little bit of an overview of kind of our general grounding and process which certainly is the result of a number of meetings both with our leadership but certainly among our principal groups themselves as they did a lot of work throughout this process both to develop the process and agreements um as well as talking about those boundary transitions activities how did we work hard to make sure that we welcomed new families and staff into these new eight elementaries and two middle schools as part of these shifts then we'll talk a little bit about uh some of the activities that are going on uh for those sites that are closing um again we want to maintain that positive focus of all the opportunities that this is going to provide for our district but there's also a need to focus on positive closure uh and celebrating shared history that has gone on at those sites for sutrail mw savage and for metcalf middle school and again talk a little bit about some of the planning as well as some of the adjusting as a result of the reality of our current conditions and why we're you know here in a remote board meeting uh with a worldwide pandemic uh just as kind of a of a note is you know we've seen this throughout our process and from the beginning in the development of the guiding change framework and process we did talk about putting things through the lens of our current reality our desired results and the means by which we are accepting to be able to get from one end to the other because we've gone through various iterations of this throughout different stages of this process i didn't want to bring back the entire guiding change document which can be a little daunting but really just highlight some of the unique aspects of the current process as it came through our guiding change and when we look through that we're talking about many students will be attending new schools and reiterating that it's not just students from sites that had been closed we redrew all of our boundaries utilizing an equity lens throughout this process knowing that all of our sites were going to have some kind of change as a result of what we of the work that had gone on over the course of the school year certainly there's a lot of uncertainty and that means there's a commitment to communication communication is key throughout this process as we make sure people have the information that we need and certainly while it feels like this has gone on a long time since last july this still was a fairly aggressive timeline to get all the things done on top of the day in day out things we have of running schools and school districts uh so it was part of our reality which means we had to call that out and name that so that we are committed to the fact that we're going to do this again with our desired results equity and engagement throughout that process within our populations uh talk about developing new community pride in our new schools and again i think our principals are going to talk about that quite a bit uh providing answers to the community sooner than later again it's that that comes right on back to that commitment to communication uh unacceptable means certainly to not consider our timelines and as we created this in the winter still ahead of us were things like staffing and registration in kindergarten roundup and the other kinds of things we needed to make sure as a team we were planning things out and we had multiple layers of timelines to ensure everything we were going to be working on certainly unacceptable to fail to consider the physical or the needs of our staff and certainly to ignore the unique needs of our different schools and you'll see some of that within our group as well when we talk about our overall purpose statements again a theme already has been consistent communication and really the the focus that we have as a team and i appreciate the work of erin tinklenberg and the communications department that really helped us articulate kind of our purpose statements and uh the commitments that we had throughout this process and the first was we know that by consolidating to eight elementaries and two middle schools it was about efficiencies we're looking at the positive that's the underlying why we know that if we can use our resources um more efficiently we have the ability to maintain better programming for our students and as dr werner said a number of times to our community groups he likened it to smoke up the smokestack comparatively to programming for our students we know we've got great programs that we wanna that we wanna protect adjusting boundaries will help address inequities again moving away from sites that in our current reality are racially and social economically identifiable or isolated sites big variations and the great work of that boundaries committee to make sure that we were developing new boundaries that were going to be equitable uh a key point not meant to be third by a lack of importance it is a key point no matter where our kids go to school they're gonna have teachers that love them that care about them playgrounds libraries and opportunities to learn and i think hopefully that comes through so through some of our narratives today that as our principals were in you know a few months back able to give tours to families to introduce them to staff that's what they were experiencing was some amazing people in our district regardless of where you go we have amazing teachers and that is a critical talking point that we have to continue to to express to our families and to our community schools will work hard to build community they've been working hard um and district 191 schools and programs will come out stronger as we are more efficient and take that comprehensive action that we knew that was important to do what i've got and i'll transition here to bring our principles forward we have two of our elementary principles that i'm excited to have with us john john bonneville now dr john bonneville principal of sky oaks elementary brad robb from ron after brad and john talked through a little bit about the elementary perspective of this process erica nessfig will be joining us as will dr paul principles at eagle ridge and nicolette middle school respectively um if i could have brad and john join us at this time um good evening uh thank you for the opportunity to share a little bit about our process as elementary schools to really make sure that we're welcoming our families all throughout our district to our schools so as we became more aware and it was more imminent that two of our schools at the elementary level were going to close it was important for us as principals to be very coordinated and and work collaboratively collaboratively to ensure that all of our families we're getting some of the similar similar welcoming processes and that we're very thorough in making sure that our families feel welcomed and have a good sense of what our schools are all all about this this table that you see here is is one of our working documents that we had we began these conversations um all the way back in october as as again we we might have anticipated something and so it was important that we were well planned and that we thought through many different aspects and and there were things that we decided to do and things that we talked through to see if this was going to be the best for our families but this document here is is to show you how we coordinated all of our work together uh and there's multiple things that we decided to to follow through on and that's on the next slide so one of the things that was uh that really stood out is providing opportunities to build community and building community uh between schools that might be closing or also just families moving to different schools and so you can see a list of different opportunities that we provided whether that's going having a joint pto meeting with principals um from other schools at uh like for instance muhammad saleem principal william byrne and myself went over to sioux trail to join their their pto meeting we would have scheduled weekly family tools uh tours uh once we began to know the students and families that would be within our new attendance boundaries making phone calls to those families to welcome them um personal phone calls from the principals um with a spring open house and i want to tell you a brief story about that in a moment um and then we anticipated having like carnivals and some of those end of the year events that are really important to schools and ensuring that our families all across our district are invited to those we even did some coffee with the principals where again muhammad saleem and myself went over to sioux trail um and and uh provided an opportunity for families to come and meet us um and just get to know each other there was no agenda it was more of a hey here i am i'm here for you uh we want to make sure that this works really well and then sending out messages uh through postcards the one particular thing that we did was this this open house and just i'll share it for my experience at ron is we created this open house that was that was to really highlight the great things about ron with our current families and with our prospective new families and making sure that our communities coming together in a way to learn about what happens at ron elementary from the tv news studio to what is happening in fifth grade for instance and so we also had district administration come and make sure that that our families were aware of some of the great pathways that that will be coming to our elementary schools next year as well as representatives from the middle schools to welcome our fifth grade families into the middle school as we would have some of our sutrail families who might be going into sixth grade next year last thing is is we got some really positive feedback about that open house and uh it's important that we get that message out and that feedback was shared community-wide um about just a really positive event there iran and so we're really proud of the work that that we did many staff members joined us for that uh for that night and it and many of our current families pto families um really stepped up and made that night just a wonderful experience great and then um as i take it here a little bit further um with the elementary transition plan um as brad shared um we met very regularly to make sure that we were kind of on the same page and what we were trying to accomplish as a group uh to make sure that was cohesive and and consistent as possible um and um out of that we really um uh promised each other uh that we were gonna hold to that to make sure that uh this was this was a a a unified approach in making sure that we were welcoming all family students and um into in through this process um so that was pre covet then covet comes right and now we have um a different reality as we've kind of moved through the last couple months here and our our plans have changed some um however the essence of what we've been trying to accomplish in those in those connections with families with with our students and that hasn't changed um so i'm going to share some examples of things that we're doing um district-wide uh at each of our elementary sites um that get at that that consistent consistency of message however are unique to each of the sites and i think you'll i think you'll see that it really is a positive experience and effort uh by all to make sure that that we're making the best of of this transition and so that when we come into the in the fall uh we're in a really good position uh to uh to continue on uh with that community building so you can see here some of the things listed uh one of the one of the big things here is the open door pantry um we had that at a few of our sites before but now that has expanded to a number of different sites including uh sky oaks uh neil and sioux trail i know that hidden valley had done that before um and in our first event with that we we served we were able to deliver almost 8 000 pounds of food so really meeting a community need and and doing that in different parts of the district at the elementary sites you also have staff parades and those opportunities to get out into the community so right away you know elementary is is gifted at this i'm going so how can we make sure that we stay connected and they always are ones that think outside the box right um so you can see here some examples of gideon pond had done one uh just as this was happening um and then and obviously ron elementary and uh i know there are others that are in the process of planning those events now especially now that the governor has lifted the stay-at-home order um so so those are those are unique they're unique things uh within the community and uh definitely pieces that we continue to plan and um um hold uh as we uh move in here to oh geez there's not that many days left uh of school um moving on other pieces that we've done um is in the beginning the uh the planning stages would be those summer connections and activities what are those things that we'll be able to do that we weren't able to do necessarily to connect with families here at the end of the year um you know what might that look like uh so right now uh there are a number of things that are being planned in that stage burn and vista view i know have has some things that they're thinking about picnics or things in the park or some sort of activities where we can bring people together um obviously following the social distancing guides and those in those pieces um curbside celebrations so as we're doing the chromebook collection and the and the materials delivery what are those things that we can do knowing that we already have families coming in what are some things that that we can do to make sure that we're celebrating that um they're being there um making those connections with communities so um i know that vista view uh is is planning something very uh special around that but i know that also uh the other buildings are gonna be doing things the mess and making sure that we're connecting uh during those opportunities another big thing would be fifth grade send off messages this is a big deal and when i think about sky oaks in particular this being my last year there it this was a really important thing to be able to do so uh we we've planned um a video um to our just specifically our fifth graders uh making sure that they know that we're thinking about them because it's an important step and we want that to um to make sure that they they feel supported and know that they're gonna continue to be strong ambassadors moving in um into their next phase of life so um those are those are also um really unique things that that are happening at our buildings fall open houses obviously um you know we we did not have that opportunity with the with the carnivals to bring people in uh but this really presents a great opportunity to really focus in and and make sure that we have those open houses scheduled and planned and ready to go here this coming fall and then of course beyond having the these activities and engagement plans for our community and students we also are very being very mindful of staff and how those changes are happening how are we welcoming people uh our staff who are coming from buildings that are closing and transitioning and what are those things that we're doing to make sure that that they're feeling welcome uh into um these new uh our new buildings and and what that's going to look like so um i know there's plans um around how do we do that specifically getting pond is doing a one-to-one teacher bridge uh bridge building zoom so utilizing technology and and making sure that they're feeling connected uh staff are feeling connected as they come into their new spaces and really develop that new sense of community uh and vibrance in in um in our current uh transition and then of course um one of the last pieces here um that i'll share are videos that reach out to our students and families so these are things that we we've done um occasionally over the last uh number a couple months here and uh an example there that i shared is uh you know we miss you uh sky oaks did a video right away after at the beginning and uh it really just reminds and and it reminds the students community uh and others that we're here um this this isn't our first choice but we're definitely gonna be or doing the very best we can to make sure that we stay connected with their families and and welcome them um so there's a lot that uh that we've been able to stick with with the planning before this was all hap before this happened but as you can see there's a lot that's happening beyond um or now postcode and that is ever evolving but some really really strong community efforts and making sure that we are uh keeping that uh that sense of community strong here in bridgeville so we'll switch gears to middle school good evening we're very excited to share some exciting things happening at our middle schools during this time of transition so our three middle schools have worked very closely together to plan for a smooth and positive transition for students and staff we've really focused on merging our communities and building new middle school communities together so you can see what we accomplished in january through march in this timeline in january a really important step that we took was deciding to implement web which stands for where everybody belongs and web is a middle school transition program that empowers our 8th graders to be web leaders who are positive role models and mentors that support our sixth graders with their transition throughout the school year in february coordinate coordinators were selected from each of the middle schools and they along with erica and i attended training for web we discussed how we could take what we were learning about web and use it to support not only our incoming sixth graders but also our seventh and eighth graders that are making transitions to new middle schools we are currently completing our recruitment of student leaders from each of the buildings and we're going to ensure that we have eighth grade leaders that are coming from metcalf to nicholats and from nicolette to eagle ridge in february our counselors had a chance to visit each of the elementary schools and get kids excited for middle school help them register for classes and just get to answer kids questions they also helped our current middle school students register for classes we offered student-led tours in both of our middle schools in february and march and those were on tuesdays and thursdays during the school days so that our families could come in and experience our schools in action and you know see student learning taking place we hosted our explore middle school nights in march and saw over 700 people between our two buildings so staff from metcalf also attended both of those events and were a friendly familiar face for our students making this transition also in march we brought all middle school staff together for a middle school summit where we immersed ourselves in the middle school mindset we built community amongst all of the middle school staff and we engaged in professional development around how we can effectively and equitably meet the needs of our middle learners so after march um due to a distant learning we had to modify those plans a little bit um but we still have been working hard to make new connections on the next slide i will show a little bit about what our next steps were then um so this spring we reached out to the incoming students both angie and i have created welcome videos from the principals and staff and we've emailed those out sent those to schoology all of those sorts of things so students are watching those with those videos we also sent surveys to get feedback from students for instance we asked our incoming sixth graders what questions had they had about middle school and some of the questions were about schedules lockers and what about the swimming that we hear about so then i had this some teachers sixth grade teachers create a video answering those questions to help introduce the students to the teachers too and of course we sent surveys to our sixth and seventh graders and we asked them you know what do you like about your current middle school and hope to see at your new school interestingly enough overwhelmingly students responses were the best thing about their middle school was their teachers family connections has also been part of our work for instance recently at nicolette they had a chess club meeting to make future plans for the transition and the communication department is helping us to create a virtual tour which is narrated by some of our current students we've also been working to welcome our new staff members we've had both angie and i had one-on-one meetings with each new staff member that was 39 meetings for angie at nicolette i had about 15. and then as we put together our new building leadership teams we made sure to balance those with new staff too both middle schools have also been doing what we call a virtual staff lounge on friday and that's during the lunch time we do zooms and we invite our new staff members to come have lunch at their new school as we look towards summer we have lots of ideas that will depend on the minnesota department of health guidelines but if possible we'd really like to have some visits to the school in july and august also summer will be a time that our web teachers will really be working with our web leaders to get them prepared to lead our sixth graders they're already planning zoom meetings and possible small gatherings to prepare those students and then as we look at the first day of school we're excited that we're just going to have our sixth graders and web leaders and hopefully make that transition to sixth grade much smoother and more successful to our students our seventh and eighth grade teams will also incorporate some of the web activities at first week so that those new to our schools feel welcomed and that they belong and then as we move into summer obviously things are always changing as we kind of know with coven 19 we're just going to keep finding new ways to connect with our students all right thank you and as erica noted i think a big theme for a lot of the presentation that we're doing now the one we'll talk about with graduation and the theme for all of our work uh as leaders over the course of uh the last quarter has been adaptability and making the best decisions with the information that we have and that information has at times changed by the minute and so there have our decisions and our planning and other kinds of things and as noted on the front end what i wanted to do was give a little bit of an idea of the things that our teams had been working on at the sites that were identified foreclosure again a lot of that is about the how do we honor history and provide some positive closure through those sites and what you'll see here through all of them is kind of a two-fold approach the original plan and some of the things that they had been looking to do and some of the adjustments that they have made and continue to make and as somebody had mentioned before i think it was uh john bonneville who mentioned how you know teachers are very resourceful and are very creative and there's a lot of crowdsourcing of ideas that go on with social media and as ideas come up that fit within parameters of social distancing and our health guidelines we're certainly looking to give the room for our teams to be able to be creative and continue to adapt and evolve with those uh but looking at mw savage certainly their original plan had talked about an enhanced track and field day a fifth grade send-off uh books for every student in a yearbook a school dance and a last day of school assembly as they've adjusted you've already heard a little bit about the parade ideas they've talked both about the contents of a parade like you just saw the pictures of kind of a driving through the neighborhoods as well as some of what they call the reverse parade which is kind of like enhancing some of that curd side drop-off with some kind of a socially distant acceptable way for teachers to display signs and wave to students as they're coming through to let them know that you know certainly our teachers are missing our students and our students at uh mw savage talking about having special cards for kids with books and yearbooks towards the end is still part of their planning at sioux trail their original plan had an entire sioux trail celebration week talking about the history of sioux trail they talked about activities like a lip dub video and if you're familiar with that it's students lip syncing throughout the course of a particular song and going from student to student or staff to staff community walk all school service project and assembly a picnic and a reception for both community members as well as student and staff alumni as well as a community kind of a big photo kind of that post covid19 certainly they have also engaged in that driving parade uh handed out goodie bags via a curbside uh pickup system uh end of year video john mentioned the videos and i know there was already one video uh out there from sioux trails uh custodian mark mark is it glendi uh who created a video so if board members hadn't seen that uh certainly uh prod superintendent battle to send you a copy of it quite neat yearbook handout weekly fun pride activities all a part of that they are also looking if possible and there's a lot of those if possible kinds of scenarios if possible the pto was hoping to host something possibly at a later time of some kind of gathering that they had initially talked about for that closure uh for sioux trail it just all depends on what the guidelines are for the state of minnesota the department of health and then metcalfe original plan had talked about a community level i'm sorry community and a grade level barbecue carnival field day drama all school dance and a staff student talent show more recently they are also talking about some of those variations of parades some giveaway kind of momento type items they've had kind of a metcalf fun fact kind of a history type thing they've been working on and again also working creatively with their pto for other possible opportunities to celebrate things in in the current environment before we conclude or as we conclude i just want to say a special thanks certainly to the four principals uh that have joined us tonight but to all of our principals um they've worked really hard and have been very creative and they've continued to commit to this commitment and making this a positive transition when i know that the entire team is really busy uh you know it's it's a it's a very different world educating through distant learning and supporting teachers and families and students in this kind of environment um so again i really appreciate that i know that they're very committed to developing those relationships with their families and i think when they do get that chance as we talked about on the front end we got amazing teachers and caring people that are ready uh to serve our families as they join their new sites and share out that concludes this presentation thank you very much and thank you all for for joining us and giving us some insights into everything that all of you have been working on uh i'll open it up for questions and comments to board members if you use the raise the hand feature looks like the handwriting thing may have been disabled so okay uh uh director schatz did you have a question as well oh okay so we'll go director sorry so first just thank you to um everyone who has put so much time and effort into this it's it has been um nothing but disruption um these last couple of months and um i'm immensely grateful for all the work that's been put into this recognizing that not only is this the a difficult transition for us at the end of the school year but also with these three schools um that are closing for which we very much wish had the opportunity to celebrate and honor everything that has gone on not only this year but in years past so thank you to everybody who um have put put so much time and effort into this i know the community teachers um as staff and students parents everyone is really grateful for the time that you've put into this so that's my comments chair alt thank you very much uh director chester yeah i also want to thank everyone for the thoughtfulness that has gone into planning for for the distance learning for all the ways that the teachers and the schools are expressing their care for the students during this time i know my daughter just loved the parade going through our neighborhood for ron and and watching the all school assembly that was quite amazing too that was all virtual and so despite all of the uncertainty there there is that high level of engagement that that i know that my students are feeling and so i'm incredibly grateful for all the the thoughtfulness and the opportunities that all of the staff are are doing to think outside of the box to to engage with the students as well as the families thank you very much director chester any other comments or questions uh director hall wicker [Music] without crying um as one of the parents of kids who will be at a different site next year um the open houses were so valuable and i appreciate every second of time that everybody put into it um my older daughter got all of her questions answered and we got to look at the school and i think it really um it eased a lot of our anxieties and actually got them quite excited for the upcoming year um which you know it's hard because you look forward to summer um uh but i just i mean everybody's worked so hard and um just as a parent it's been amazing seeing everybody coming together and um putting their best foots forward so i just want to thank everybody so much great thank you very much um couldn't say it better thank you all um fellow board members um principals assistant superintendent gersich um really appreciate your time this evening thank you with that uh we will stay with assistant superintendent gersich um we'll be receiving a report about graduation ceremonies for the class of 2020. and chair alter we see in the graduation ceremonies front slide they're just trying to make sure great thank you uh thank you again and then this time on behalf of our principals and myself again i appreciate the opportunity to address the board with this team this is kind of a mixed emotions presentation on one hand i'm really proud of the work that our administrators have done with their teams at their sites to work hard to find a way to celebrate the class of 2020 and to make graduation special the difficult side is this is not something that as an educator we want to be doing uh graduation is these are the culmination of what we do and why we're here and it's such a special symbolic thing to talk about doing that in a format that is different than what we're used to is a challenging and difficult conversation and i know that that's more most difficult for our students uh who had a vision of what their graduation ceremonies were going to be like and here tonight we're talking about alternatives to that to that program and again i want to stress i'm absolutely delighted with the efforts of our team on this it's just a really difficult kind of presentation to do under those circumstances because it's just not how uh we operate it's not how is a school we like to celebrate uh again the culmination of education in the public space and what we do one of the things i miss the most about you know having been out of education for a short period of time um just from a general overview of the presentation though uh talking a little bit first just about the why why are we here and why is there a need uh to adjust and this is something uh that we've been talking about for quite some time but as we'll progress through the slides you'll notice that you know some of the ambiguity was taken away uh from md with a pretty you know direct statement about what this is going to look like but from the beginning of social distancing this has been on the horizon and we've been discussing and planning and again kudos to the team as a part of their hard work on that and then what we will do is kind of share what some of those general plans are for celebrating uh the graduating classes for 2020. uh principal dave helke will be joining to talk about specifically what they've been doing at burnsville high school principal kelly ron we'll talk about what's been going on at burnsville alternative school and then i did get a chance to meet with both jennifer mittendorf and jason sellers about what they're planning for the best and abe uh ceremonies respectively and we'll give you an opportunity i will present kind of their their thoughts on what they're thinking on those as well uh from a perspective of the why here's something that had been communicated whether it was two or three weeks ago from governor walls and the state of minnesota about kind of how they're looking at restrictions and social distancing and stay-at-home orders or stay safe minnesota or however those things are termed is that three-way balance between public health social distancing and well-being and as they look at this slide and it's titled from the state of minnesota factors to consider when loosening restrictions certainly it was a good visual that talked about as we were internally having a conversation factors to consider we're talking about a large gathering like a commencement ceremony um for graduation and again realizing that societal well-being would be to conduct a ceremony like graduation a celebration of the graduates in a large group setting and yet does that conflict with the social distance expectations groups of 10 or more people as well as the general public health another visual that's been used by the state of minnesota the the turning of the dials um certainly a large graduation ceremony thinking of burnsville high school a large group of people in a stadium certainly when you look at the social settings that dial is all the way over to sporting venues and concerts things that just really are not deemed as safe by our department of health and it really does make that traditional looking celebration whether it's in the moraz center or on the football field unrealistic in this time and again we've been talking about that for quite some time and trying to develop alternatives uh as recently as last friday it really was clear that those alternatives were the option that was what we really had was the statement was pretty straightforward and clear indoor graduation and ceremonies held in outside in stadiums and football fields are not permitted again it really made it pretty clear it was about the most direct uh feedback instructions and guidance we've been given by the state of minnesota and the department of education throughout this entire process and so when we you look at that and we just look at our general parameters things we've been talking about from the beginning and again that previous slide just came into fruition from last friday throughout the process ensuring that we're monitoring the department of education and the department health parameters uh and stay within that within our planning we want to make this special for the class of 2020 and really you know as the principals will talk about taking a look at those critical components of the traditional graduation and trying to maintain those as much as possible as well as looking for those other creative ideas that can help make this special and unique under the circumstances uh certainly the principals will talk a little bit about the need to utilize feedback and ideas from staff and students really having a holistic approach and bringing in those outside ideas and of course as i said in the previous presentation maintaining flexibility throughout as we get new information we will make decisions as best we can based on the information that we have it has been the theme of everything we've been doing in district 191 since you know mid-march when all of these uh realities came through and even when i talk about flexibility earlier today we were having conversations about additional things we could be doing and i expect that those will continue right up until graduation itself actually happens at this time i would like to invite principal dave helke he's going to talk us through a little bit about the conversations process and what graduation planning is looking like at burnsville high school and then again kelly ron from burnsville alternative high school we'll discuss a little bit about what's going on at boss good evening first of all can you hear me perfect i'm not sure i'm not sure what's going on with my camera i've never not had my camera work so i apologize for that but good evening chair alt good evening i'm superintendent battle and members of the board of education uh first of all i would have never thought that i'd be here presenting and sharing plans for a alternate graduation at high school especially a alternate graduation where we can't bring people together due to a pandemic there's been a lot of talk about adaptability and change and i would say that truly has been the the mantra of the last couple of months um i'd also be um remiss if i didn't acknowledge just you know the mixed emotions that our seniors are feeling and experiencing um you know i've had a chance to talk with some of them over the course of the last a couple of months and you know truly there's there's just a lot of emotions um and rightly so i mean their their year came to a very abrupt end um they've missed out on some activities and events and uh obviously they haven't been able to be together as they close out their educational career the other thing though i do know is that in this class especially they have a lot of resolve and i know that they're not going to let themselves be defined by their circumstances and they really are going to look at being defined by their accomplishments so that's what brings us to graduation that's what graduation is all about um it's a ceremony to celebrate their accomplishments and a ceremony to honor what they've what they've done so as you can see on this slide we started talking about graduation back at the beginning of april um it is the most important thing for seniors and it is the biggest celebration that we do as as school districts and so um really at the beginning of april i had a meeting with our senior class officers um graduation was the number one topic and uh that really was more just talking about what could be the possibilities um you know we didn't really know what was going to happen at that point in time but it was important to have the conversation and to you know at least talk about all that could happen or could be shortly after that i started meeting with theresa muser our graduation coordinator and abby katzmerick my administrative assistant um and then brian and again a lot of the conversations were just around um you know hypothetically thinking about what what are the things we could do if we're not able to bring bring everybody together um to celebrate in a traditional sense um also um you know had shared with staff had another meeting with seos met with used zoom and met with um senior leaders from some of our leadership groups black student union burnsville strong seoul student council um and had a chance to just hear from students some of the things that they really felt were important about graduation we continued that with a senior class meeting i had a little over 200 seniors join us for a zoom webinar and after that they had a chance to complete a survey and that that really helped us um as we were moving forward with our planning because it highlighted for us um some of what students felt were the key components of a of a ceremony and that was the the wearing of the cap and gown being able to capture that cap and gown moment um they also talked a lot about the individual recognition you know hearing their name and being recognized individually and then obviously ways that they could celebrate um together with each other with families and friends um we also on that survey asked how likely they would be to come and participate in a future event in early august that you know would be kind of a graduation gathering senior send-off and we had close to 80 percent had said they would likely or very likely come back for that throughout all of these conversations one thing did become quite apparent is that having graduation at our high school and when the weather's nice having it in paige stadium means a lot to our kids and families they really they they just they want to be in that atmosphere of paid stadium so um a lot of good conversations and what's not on this some table is throughout this whole period around the metro as part of our minnesota association of secondary principles and 80 percent of our conversations have been around celebrating the class of 2020 and what are you going to do for graduation how are you going to handle graduation uh also in there you see that we did have some uh initial consults with um burnsville community television um with jeff andrews who helps us out as our moraz center coordinator um i've said all along that uh you know i can i can do a lot in terms of the concepts and a lot in terms of the ideas but i am not the technical expert so we wanted to make sure what we were thinking about was something that actually um would be possible so that brought us to early may um where we were able to put together the the recommendations that include what i'm going to share here on the next slide so we kind of broke broke things into three areas first of all pre-graduation activities that actually go right up to when we would do the virtual ceremony the actual virtual commencement and then looking out to that future event some type of a a senior send-off and so pre-graduation um we always have had the luxury of um students being able to come and get their caps and gowns um in school um so you know it's always exciting when that day comes where they're able to pick those up what we're going to do this year is we're going to put together a graduation package and that will include their cap and gown it will also include their diploma cover we are going to create official programs that look just like every other ceremony that we've done um and those will be distributed um on thursday may 28th um so that week after memorial day and we actually are also going to have that distribution um separate from where they drop off their chromebooks and things just to provide a bit of specialness to the uh to the occasion um and and then they'll have all the elements um that they need we wanted to give them that diploma cover so that obviously um there can be a lot of photos and things that they can take um even prior to the ceremony um and then we're working on developing a pre-ceremony so much like um a pre-game for a sporting event we'd like to put together an approximately 30-minute um really would be a picture and video um tribute type um event that would that would stream out and the idea would be is that we would pull in pictures you know reminiscent of this past year and then we're also looking at um getting some video congratulatory statements from from other folks possibly including um alumni and and other local um people so that would play prior to the virtual commencement and then we felt it was really important to um have the commencement on the day and at the time that we had planned um a way to really celebrate and help our seniors provide closure to the end of the year and be excited about the fact that they just completed school so we will be streaming the ceremony virtual on june 5th at 6 p.m um i know it will stream on this slide youtube channel and i also know there's a couple of other channels that it's going to be streaming um on the ceremony will include um the traditional reading of graduate names by teacher name readers we have the seniors vote on teachers like they do every year um and so the teachers will um be dressed in their graduation robes and they will be reading the names as student pictures will be going across the screen this is this was one of those things that was called out specifically in the survey and uh i know that um hearing feedback from other individuals or reading feedback and some other virtual ceremonies the the personal touch makes a big difference as opposed to just a bunch of us as adults putting together some speeches congratulating the class so we wanted to keep the ceremony as true to what we do as possible um the minnesota chamber orchestra released a rendition of pop and circumstance that is absolutely beautiful that we can use without having to worry about copyright and so um that will be playing at the beginning as we fade into the welcome we will have student speakers um and superintendent battle will be speaking and as i said we'll also be recognizing each of our students and then we're planning on coordinating that with some type of community recognition that same evening and that planning is still in the works and there's lots of different ideas that are starting to come together but we felt it was important that there'd be something that could you know just community-wide um bring bring the community together and celebrate our graduates and then the future event seniors talked about um that's really going to be dependent on a lot of guidance from the state but if we can do it we would be looking at something in early august that we would love to host them in paige stadium to give the seniors um one more chance to come together so it's uh you know it has been quite the ride but i did tell the seniors during the senior class meeting we are all willing to put 150 to 200 into this because they deserve the recognition and we want to honor them like all the classes that have come before them and then the only thing i'll add here in conclusion is just a public thank you to um theresa muser to abby katz merrick to aaron tinkleberg and his team and jeff andrews on burnsville community television and many other people in the background that are helping put this together so thank you so much for allowing me to share this evening good evening can you hear me yes um i'm kelly ron the principal at burnsville alternative high school and um for our graduation ceremony uh we also had a committee that's been meeting since early april to discuss our plans for creating a personalized graduation ceremony for our graduates we have a staff committee we also did a student survey and then this week we were lucky to speak to most of our graduates as we delivered lawn signs to them outside their residences and they came out to receive their graduation yard sign and we were able to get a picture of them for our graduation ceremony to personalize our ceremony more um so we too are going to have virtual commencement much like vhs um it will be similar to the ceremony we've had in the past with student speakers those of us speaking will be dressed in gowns cap and gowns we'll have district administration some of our teachers are speaking we have four student speakers we have an alumni speaker that will be coming in to tape their part of the ceremony as well we will also be reading names and showing student pictures as their names are read um for our ceremony our ceremony will be broadcast at the time that our graduation was scheduled on june 4th at 5 00 pm and then will also be sent to families and the district communication team will be helping us be able to do that for presenting diplomas when students pick up their caps and gowns from boz on may at the end of may we are not giving them their diploma cover at that time one of the things that we heard from students both in our survey as well as in person was that they really wanted us to see them in their cap and gown and they wanted to see us as part of their graduation ceremony so we are developing a drive-through presentation on this presentation here on this slide it had mentioned a parade format to students homes and we still may do that if some students elect that and that is their choice for us however when when we delivered our yard sign to our 67 graduates we realized that that is not feasible to complete in one day um so we are moving towards creating a drive-through type of format at boz um following social distancing and then um at that time whatever the number of allowed staff participants from boz will be that's how many adults we would have there if it's 10 or if the number goes up by june 4th we would obviously follow those guidelines we would have staggered times for students as well of when they would come to receive their their package and for us that would mean a clear diploma cover um they would have a a photo that we would give them that we've created and framed for them with teacher messages on the back individualized for each student that we will give them at the time of their graduation and then a class t-shirt we would give them at that time as well and then much like dave had just mentioned for bhs we will be creating a separate video that we will send to students after the ceremony that kind of documents highlights of the drive through ceremony as well as some snapshots throughout the year much like the boss ceremony typically shows if those of you have been to our graduation before that slideshow will be sent to students along with some photos from our drive through diploma distribution and all in all our our students are very excited about having a situation that involves seeing their teachers it was definitely a highlight to hear from them and hear how excited they are to graduate and although many of them are not happy about the circumstances of having to have some of it be virtual um they are just overjoyed with their graduation and their experience at our school thank you thank you kelly dave moving on to the burnsville egan savage transition or best program uh they do have 16 graduates from that program and what they are planning is kind of a curb side similar to what kelly had just alluded to there are some guidelines where they can allow some of these in-person contacts they will all be taking precautions when they do these these curbside kinds of things wearing masks or gloves socially distancing allowing things to be passed on tables versus person to person very similar to what you might see in some of our pickup lines for serving meals even though in this situation what they're going to be looking to do is they'll have things kind of outlined with chalk arrows and measured out so that the graduates can exit their vehicle pick up their diplomas a t-shirt uh have an opportunity for a photograph where they're holding up their their diploma again very good to to monitor and acknowledge that they're going to be going through some social distancing guidelines and following those department health expectations and then creating a video uh for students with various messages uh and this is an opportunity uh where they are asking and whatever the process might look like to to gather volunteers or others that if there's messages uh that can be delivered as a part of that video from uh from doctor battle from members of the school board uh to our best group uh i know that they would certainly look forward to that and i know that's a part two of dave talking about his ceremony in the various pieces of the virtual environments there's definitely an opportunity here as we're looking for alumni and community leaders and board members who may want to offer those messages of congratulations to the class of 2020 personalize that opportunity uh please know that we'd like to work through those opportunities with you for those who may be interested or chair out however the group may want to decide or divide or otherwise certainly we're open to ideas but with videos we have an opportunity to piece a lot of things together the other one thing i wanted to note about the best transition program and the best ceremony is just to acknowledge that most if not all of our students uh did previously come through our uh go through a commencement ceremony a traditional commencement ceremony earlier best program is a transition program for our students ages 18 to 21 so they have come through and previously gone through a commencement with their other graduating class so this is an additional ceremony for our our best students abe also has a typical graduation they are planning a virtual commencement as well they're going to have graduates picking up a packet would include the the cap and gown uh ged certificates a photo opportunity and then they will also be creating again that virtual ceremony with the celebration the pictures and some some spoken words they will have their streamed i believe that's the same date and time as the original abe ceremony thursday june 4th at 6 o'clock and again they will be reading the names very similar to dave's description of how they were going to do things at bhs as well and just as we conclude here certainly a major note of thanks to all of our committed staff and teams uh both kelly and dave as they were describing it made it clear they've got a lot of people working on these they're committees chairs teachers secretaries whomever are really helping to make this special for the class and doing a lot of work to try to be creative to find ways to recognize these students making the best of an unprecedented situation and again unprecedented is a word that i feel like is almost i've become numb to it because we hear it so often during the pandemic but it's the only thing that really fits there's really never been anything we've had to do like this before when it comes to our graduation ceremonies we will continue to monitor and follow that guidance from the department of health we're going to be flexible because that's again the theme of what we've done and as new information comes forward kelly articulated this before they're currently looking at a design of 10 people to try to hand out those diplomas or do other things if that's expanded their group can expand provided they follow the social distancing guidelines at that moment and as was alluded to throughout the process working with city officials to recognize graduates in as many unique ways as we possibly can i also want to just say a note of thanks to all of our students our families i know that they are also looking for creative ways out in the community to support our school district our teachers our graduates during this time there's just been a lot of support across the board as we've worked through this process and that concludes our report great thank you very much board numbers uh questions or comments you're old i have a question dr carrier yes what is our role in responsibility in the ceremonies that have been described uh us brian would you like to answer that i believe um we may participate we may attend the virtual graduations attending the virtual graduations and as noted before if there is uh a desire to record a message and i think that could be uh dave i'm not sure if you had a limit to that or open to all board members to offer those words that we would record we could we could have that done in a studio or board member could record those messages on their own and those could be inserted those various virtual ceremonies as well so it would be an opportunity on behalf of the board and i guess i would defer if there's a desire to open that up or if there are designees that would want to split out those various sermons to offer those words of behalf the board i think there's an opportunity for flexibility here this is just not your normal environment and i do know that um the communications department has been working with dr battle and myself as well in terms of making statements in terms of the the request for board member comments with best just to let fellow board members know um i will coordinate with dr battle and most likely someone in the communications department will you can reach out to somebody in the communications department and we'll figure that out any other questions comments i wanted to um reiterate um heartfelt thanks um this is a tremendous time and um i know we're all heartbroken for um the fact that what is what our traditions typically are with a graduation that we're going to have to shift but the silver lining is that we are able to do that shift and and honor and celebrate our graduates um in in each of the the different programs i'd also like to in particular thank principal helke for being so proactive in taking a lead on discussing graduation recognizing that you know even before we knew where we might land that this really is um the major milestone and we need to get that right for our for our graduates so um thank you for being so thoughtful in um your conversations with families and with students it's it's it it's very reassuring to know that um we've been able to land on in a place where our grads feel um they are getting um the the recognition and celebration that they that they deserve uh so with that thank you all appreciate the presentations uh and next we are moving to uh dr battle uh stacy silvein executive director of human resources and lisa ryder executive director of business services uh we're going to receive a report about covet 19 and the potential financial impact as we know it today thank you chair alt and directors of the board so tonight the three of us will give a uh update with information known so far about the financial impact of the offering the major tasks we have been delivering education through distance learning serving meals to the community children 18 and under as well as providing child care for our first responders and health care workers to give you an overview of tonight's presentation we will start off with uh legislative man matters that would be both minnesota legislature as well as our governor and federal legislation these are fluent situations as you know the uh minnesota legislative session ends on may 18th um many of the bills proposed have not been adopted and so this is a very fluid situation next we're going to discuss some school district funds impacted fiscal year 2019 20 as we close out this year we'll give you a little bit of information about summer school and just today governor walsh gave an executive order about summer session and mde provided more information the staff and i we are still reading through those documents um and then fiscal year uh going into fiscal year 20 20 21 and then uh executive director sylvan will have some human resource topics so i'll start us off with the minnesota budget and proposed legislation um last week the minnesota management budget budget office provided an updated budget projection it shows that unfortunately we are now facing a deficit of 2.426 billion for the current biennial this is almost a 4 billion change compared to the february forecast revenues are expected to be 3.611 billion lower and spending is expected to be 391 million higher um commissioner franz did note that the state does have a reserve of 2.35 available to help mitigate the projected impact and in addition the state will be receiving over 2 billion in federal covet 19 relief aid and i'll discuss that a little bit later governor walsh has directed all of his commissioners uh to explore any and all options um to address this budget shortfall and so uh staff and i will be staying tuned as i'm sure you and other citizens of minnesota will also be staying tuned both the house and senate are advancing legislation to address the impact of covet through their policy bills right now there's no new funding proposed um they're just making sure that we get the funding promised and that we also have some flexibility in current funding sources um moving on first the senate finance committee has heard uh bill 4494 and that's to establish broadband access uh grant program as you know one of the barriers for our distance learning has been our access across the state of minnesota uh there is an equity um i do want to before i move on to the next slide really highlight our two um organizations that are really helping superintendents as well as school board members learn about all of this funding and they keep us up to date and that's the association of metropolitan school districts uh 41 districts of which we're a member as well as the minnesota school boards association and so the information today uh really comes from uh those two organizations moving on to the next slide the senate is also uh looking at 4257 to provide funding from concurrent enrollment teacher training so really that money will help with our teachers as you know in this new time of distance learning we hope some of that will uh help for the new reality for our teachers and also establishing innovation zones and so i think we have created just our amazing staff instructional staff educational assistants it's innovative what we've done and so i wanted to include this because it does permit schools to design new ways to personalize learning and empower teachers the next uh legislation is coming from our minnesota house on the next slides so the house ways and means uh committee uh did pass 4415 to require school districts to retain and pay hourly employees and address the finance formula glitches the bill does not make an exception for budget-based layoffs for programs without dedicated funding streams nor does it make up for the loss of fee revenue that districts are experiencing including 191 realizing our nutrition and community education funds and executive director writer will give you more information about that also looking at the bill 4542 it allows for some formula adjustments for distance learning uh some technical corrections and routine adjustments that uh our finance people will have much more information about those uh the nuances of those adjustments uh the next slide uh we have three bills and i did include the links because it's ever evolving it's ever changing um and yet for your information it really addresses our internet access across the state as well as learning grants for schools now i'm going to move on to the federal legislation the federal uh the cares act included two funds first the elementary and secondary school emergency relief fund on the governor's emergency education relief fund and i'll tell you a little bit about uh what the federal government uh the purpose is um and the flexibility that they have given to uh governors including our governor walls so the first um congress set aside three billion uh and directed states to allocate 90 to school districts based on the state's title one so this is connected to our title one allocation and counts and so governor wallace has extreme latitude in the distribute distribution of the funds and um governor walsh did want input from a school district so amsd sent out a 2020 member survey to ask about our priorities for this federal funds for our state and i gave a link to the survey results that have been published but i do want to share a couple of highlights so 37 out of the 41 member districts completed the survey the superintendents highlighted the financial concerns about cost associated with ensuring school health and safety loss of fee revenue and securing technology and internet access for students and families other priorities from those 37 member districts were child care technology because access isn't equitable we were better poised in other districts because of our 2015 levy and so we did have devices and we did have funds whereas several other districts did not even have the devices to give to their students third priority was summer school programming and fourth was professional development and so just want to reiterate the legislative session for minnesota is scheduled to end uh may 18th not sure if we will have a special session or not uh the situation is fluid and then we hope to have a final information to present to the board in june um and so at this time i'll turn it over to executive director stacy silvine you mean cheryl dr battle members of the board um the areas that i'm going to be addressing um deals with one of the earlier uh relief packages that came out with the family's first chronovirus response act and really if i were to kind of put this into a quick little phrase it's really to mitigate the impact of leads and layoffs and it's you know there's uh for the leaves portion there's uh two high-level types of leaves that have been made available to employees an emergency paid sick leave and then the expanded fmla or family medical leave act and i'm not going to get into the weeds on these because there are so many different levels and situations in which employees would need to kind of see if they fall into one of the multiple categories as to whether they're eligible for these the first one is more of a short-term self-quarantined type of effect where up to two weeks would be granted with the maximum daily amount of 511 511 or 5100 over two weeks this has again a number of different scenarios in which the employee would have to qualify for and this goes beyond the liability that the district already has for sick leave that we provide through many of our negotiated agreements with our unions so both of these are outside of the normal negotiated lead packages that are available to our employees so with the reasoning behind that is the the the act really was written in a manner so that folks didn't have to try to make a decision on spreading the virus or taking care of themselves or family members or risking t um bringing the virus back home to family members that are vulnerable or working so it was meant to help mitigate that choice a little bit for folks the second one was an expanded fmla and again that's up to 12 weeks where 200 daily or 10 000 now the difference with this one is the first two weeks of the fmla are not paid for under this provision so but the the rest of it is picked up under this fmla typically for employees would they would be able to use their available sick leave vacation any other type of leave that they might have towards the the 12 weeks again this is outside money and it isn't impacting their lead bank they can supplement or they can use part of it to extend beyond the 12 weeks up to this point we've had 47 employees that actually have accessed one of these two leave options for anywhere between three to 47 days and roughly about seventy two thousand dollars has been the cost for that programming again that is not our typical leave cost this is above that's related to covet the second area is the layoffs um to this point the district has not either furloughed or laid any of our employees off um we have done everything that we can to to honor the requirements that were given under the executive order that we continue to provide meals for our families and our community and for the students and so that because we're a primary source for many of our students as far as the meals is through the district so we continue that as well as the child care for first responders and district employees and distance learning some districts took different paths or different ways of interpreting the fee based programs tried to eliminate those staff and then use other staff within their district and we we chose the professionals that were trained and certified in the areas to do the jobs in which they were certified to do and ironically it wasn't it happened quite frequently where hr directors were saying hey are you having problems having your eas fulfill the responsibility for child care you know how are you folks filling child care we laid all of our folks off well we didn't lay our people off we used who we had that was trained to do those positions um and and i'm not everybody is is making decisions based on the information that they have their local contracts their local budgets and and we're all in this together in a sense of trying to make the best decision with the information that we have at this point in time that's there is no right or wrong it's just what we have at this point in time so briefly i kind of went over the difference what is the difference between a furlough and a layoff furlough would be for a short amount of time usually very temporary a layoff is some of the things that we did with our unrequested leaves of absence releasing our probationary teachers in the upcoming weeks when we released some of our um non-licensed staff that those would be layoffs furloughs would be a shutdown for two weeks reducing hours for a temporary amount of time with the expectation that you're bringing those employees back once your work is is available again they have different some different rules following behind that next slide please um just also to let you know up to this point we have about 140 to 150 applicants that have applied to the bureau of unemployment insurance roughly two-thirds of that that amount are former employees that no longer actually work for the district but we are impacted to pick up a portion of their unemployment even if the next employer releases them or lets them go so unemployment has tails uh wherever somebody works there everyone's picking up a portion of that going forward so roughly about 35 to 40 of the folks somewhere in that area are current employees and again we haven't laid anybody off so these are folks that have taken it upon themselves to apply for unemployment and the way the bureau at this point is acting is they're just granting they're granting the unemployment they're wanting to make sure that people have what they need at this point in time and they'll figure everything out on the back side and we have as as well as many other districts have been trying to contact the bureau following through with what we're obligated to do and saying hey this person is still working or appealing this decision so we'll follow the process we'll do what we're obligated to do and we'll let the bureau decide on the back end how they're going to handle it we have notified the union leads that we haven't laid anybody off the folks are doing this one of the things that we have heard back is any money that has been given more than likely will be expected to be returned so you know folks are they need to be careful as far as um moving forward with this if it doesn't really apply to them so um and that really is are the two different areas that we're working on right now the numbers are it's kind of slowing down a little bit again as the school year is moving towards winding down close to two-thirds of our employee population will be moving towards our summer summer break so we will have you know close to 100 days to kind of figure out what next year is going to look like and have a little bit better information for that and we'll see how this fall plays out as far as where we are with the virus believe this is for you lisa good evening gerald dr battle board directors as we take a look at the impact to our school district for kovic 19 we first needed to take an assessment of exactly what would we anticipate would be the factors for each of the various different operating funds that we would expect to see an impact so as we took a look at the general fund we were seeing that there was technology hardware software internet connectivity for families that was clearly going to be a need greater than what we may have anticipated previously additionally there's a loss of rental income of space which became evident immediately as we closed down our rental of facilities the targeted services knowing that we were no longer able to continue that program for the time period it was planned and that it was closed we will not see as much revenue in the area of targeted services as we had anticipated and the requirement also within the executive orders to continue paying our bus contractors so in the general fund these are the key points that we knew right away we needed to be paying attention to as we took a look at the food service fund we knew that meals were being provided to the community under 8 19 years of age and it was a different number of meals that we were found ourselves serving based upon what we had previously been serving our families and students with the continued need to cover our salary and benefits of employees who are within the food and nutrition program but on leave or those that are working on the food distribution we had a risk of losing employees that we may need at a later date and the unknown length of period of time that this would be continuing the utilization of our current inventory of food that we had in our coolers and our freezers and making sure that the meals that had been planned on our calendars for a monthly meal service now needing to be looking different and yet how could we use that inventory to pre create those meals for families and not have wasted food and the negative balances on our family meal accounts all of those factors we know we from the beginning needed to be keeping an eye on as well for the community education fund community services fund we have required cancellation of all programs classes and activities that occurred immediately upon covid becoming a factor for us the loss of revenue from fee based programming we had a need to re provide that child care at no charge during school day being required in the executive order not knowing how long that would continue or the need from day to day so we had registrations that took place for many of our health care providers but we're finding we're the backup so they don't always necessarily actually bring their children to us either so there's a question every day as to how many will show then we have our risk of losing employees that we may need if we were to lay them off and as you heard from director sylvain we have not done that and the unknown length of time in knowing those factors of those three different operating funds for the fiscal year 1920 we took an extensive review of exactly what it is that we have happening on a line item basis and so the next few slides show a few points across these same funds that i want to make note of we are assuming there are no federal reimbursement funds for general fund activities we anticipate i mean assuming that there would be no federal reimbursement funds we would anticipate a declined revenue compared to budgeted now we do know that there are federal funds coming our way what we don't know is exactly what our allocation will be so this is just a question in the air at this point in time when i review things we know that we have a loss of of revenue at this moment we are assuming there will be savings related to substitute costs and the amount is still being calculated at this point in time we are we are receiving the invoices for the month of april which is our first month full month of not utilizing substitutes and so that's really kind of our our benchmark indicator of what we could anticipate for the month of april as far as may 2 and um for that period of june that we would normally have maybe had subs in the first week so therefore you can see where that's still kind of in the air because we just don't know those bills they haven't all been fully submitted yet in march we had to communicate with our bus transportation providers a 10 discount for transportation was negotiated with them as our current contract actually didn't have us paying them anything but due to the executive order requiring that we needed to continue paying we needed to negotiate that process we did take note of the fact that if there were more than eight routes per day that we were asking them to help us with that there would then be the need to pay them actual costs for anything above eight routes um that covers their cost of fuel and um operation of those actual vehicles versus the 10 discount which which is assumed that wasn't the case as you take a look at the general fund there is a link here to your document and i'll make this a little larger here for you so as of may 8th in taking a look at things we we know we know this much about our general fund i'm running down this as if i'm looking at an income statement so um our revenues let's start there our tax revenues we know we're expecting to see a delay what this means for us is both dakota county and scott county notified us the fact that they were not going to enforce any penalties among our our our community members should they be paying their taxes for may 15 late they were going to have till july 15th i believe to make that payment to the counties and during that period of time with that delay by them that meant then our payments from the counties would also be delayed so for us this is more of a cash flow matter and we know in the end there may be more delinquent taxes we're recording at the end of the fiscal year but the reality is we're still going to have that full amount to record as revenue and the cash flow piece is going to be our challenge to make sure that we've got that covered so we've been taking a look at our cash flow analysis as we go trying to make sure that that can be received most districts in the state have debt payments that are due february and august and so with a debt payment of august 1st receiving our tax payment july 31st doesn't work very well for us so we have already reached out to the counties to inquire of them being able to give us our final payment at least a few days early to allow for the three-day credit enhancement program to be paid in advance of the due date august 1st as you take a look at state revenues we are expecting to continue those see those continue as normal we do expect the amount of the general education funds generated from targeted services will be less as i mentioned earlier but it's a little too soon for us to determine exactly how many adms we're talking about so that's in the process as is normal of being calculated but it's a it's an end of the year calculation that takes place without finalizing that data through mars with regard to the state revenues i'll talk further about that in the future about what a change in that metering might look like at this point for this fiscal year we're not anticipating any metering change for federal revenues we will align the revenue to the amount that we actually expend so we need to be cognizant of not having too much of a 15 you know more than a 15 carryover at the same time it's um it would not be surprising that if we under spent we would then also see lesser revenue but we'll be matching that that makes sense to everyone all right so then um not knowing exactly how that those expenditures are gonna finalize it's a little soon for me to give you any exact numbers but that's that's something we're keeping an eye on for our local revenue this is where we see our miscellaneous fees and donations so this is interest income this is uh participation fees for activities athletics um miscellaneous revenue donation or donations coming in through revenue those are all down right now compared to budget by 645 000. that's a that's a total amount as of may 8. as we take a look now to our expenditures within the general fund there were some clear avenues of of savings that seem to be coming through and we're going to keep an eye on these to kind of finalize these at this point in time the number for substitute cost looks to be approximately at least 300 000 savings uh utility costs is approximately a hundred thousand dollar savings that we are hoping that we can see come through um and then we we know that we would likely have a larger amount unspent for prior committed funds keep in mind this is the year that um any carryovers we saw coming in from last fiscal year we did not distribute them to our school sites and in addition we have been very um mindful of our budget situation and have had not spent a lot of those unspent dollars from before anticipating those could help us in bringing up that fund balance at the end of this fiscal year us you know assisting us as we looked at projected fund balances uh now we're just gonna have to determine how much of those savings can be applied into the future or how much must be used for the impacts of covid19 keeping in mind that the board approved a revised budget for fy20 anticipating 1 million 79 990 spend down of fund balance pre covered 19. going back to our presentation moving on to the food service fund we anticipate the reimbursement rate for meals served um during this period of coverage we'll cover our costs of staff actively serving those meals they may not cover all the costs related to staff using their earned sick leave and the supply costs for developing or creating those meals we are um waiting to see about that there's a lot of discussion in our conversations with peers regarding the revenue that would normally have been spent statewide they say will be reallocated to school serving meals so what we don't know is how much is that really going to be will we see much more of an increase there in the revenue to help with those costs or not i'm taking a look at the link that is attached for food service and i'm going to make this larger as well for you this here is a draft also as of may 8th and while we are not collecting revenues from our families for daily meals we are collecting from the federal summer food program which is what we're functioning under and that does allow revenue again to cover the cost of our food service staff preparing the food and the supervision of its distribution there are additional cost factors of the additional staff given the fact that we must be uh social distancing and being very cognizant of the health requirements and so therefore there's there's additional staff time materials and um to be able to just deliver those meals curbside as well as via the buses to the sites in a safe manner and those are significant costs to us there's also a great deal of discussion at this point across the state with regard to what expenditures they're going to continue to allow us to use food service fund revenue for there's some discussion from the federal government that we are not able to cover our costs of those staff members who are not actively serving the meals so if they're if they're using their leave they're saying we can't charge that to food service at this moment and we are actively advocating for that not to be the case we believe that fund balance that exists in food service exists because of the um the program and how it's run and how it's been funded over the years and the purpose of a fund balance is to assist when times are lean we believe that those dollars should be available to cover the costs of the very same food service people who earned that leave within their fund so that's something that's up for debate and we're waiting for guidance from the federal government mde is understanding our concern and they don't necessarily disagree they just feel their hands are tied at this moment so given that the categories of expenditures under discussion include costs of approximately four hundred thousand two million dollars in range so the challenge will be how much of it can be coded under fund two and how much must go to the general fund for coverage additionally uh we have not done this in the past as we have not considered any to date of our negative food service meal account balances as being uncollectible law says that once you do determine that amount to be uncollectible it must move to the general fund and be covered there and it cannot be covered by funds food service fund balance so that is something that this year we will also need to address keeping in mind the board approved a revised budget for fiscal year 20 anticipating 142 7555 spend down of fund balance pre-covet 19. we began the year with an available food service fund balance as of june 30 19 of 1 million 14 178 dollars moving back to the presentation and covering next our community service fund and the financial impacts we anticipate the greatest deficit in the community services fund is due to our loss of revenue and ongoing salary and benefit costs to fulfill the governor's order to to serve our community child care needs without charging a fee during the school day we will likely require a significant fund transfer from the general fund to be determined yet prior to the completion of the fiscal year 20 audited financials so taking a look at the link for community service and i'll make this a little larger as well this too is a draft as of may 8th and only includes those actual bills paid to date the largest and most significant impact is the inability to collect revenues for services that began right away march 16th approximately one million dollars at this point in time this loss of revenue exists while we continue to incur the full cost of our staff working within community services providing the child care required under the governor's executive order additional costs were incurred for materials for the mid for the edge program which has been cancelled for the summer these costs are largely for admission to field trip locations which are an expenditure at this time but will be used in the next year as extensions have all been granted at this time for the reuse in the next year without all of the costs determined yet the best estimate at this point in time is that we can anticipate a need to cover a range of 1 million to 1.5 million dollars of lost revenue and additional costs at your end keeping in mind the board approved a revised budget fy 20 the current year anticipating a 111 two hundred ninety five dollar increase to fund balance pre-coveted 19. the available community service fund balance as of june 30 2019 is zero the fund balance of 319 842 is available and restricted to school readiness programming from previous years so in summary of these three you will see that there's about a 1.4 million dollars to a 2.5 million dollars of excess expenditures over revenues and it's a very high level estimate at this point in time with many assumptions being used as of may 8 2020. our debt service fund we can anticipate the delay in receipt of our may distributions as i mentioned of levy funds for both dakota and scott county and although we may have additional delinquent dollars that might be calculated in the receivables at the end of the year we're still going to be recording 100 percent of our revenue that's earned does that make sense even though we may not receive it by june 30. we have already discussed with scott county and the desire to receive those funds earlier as i mentioned and we'll be doing the same with with dakota county like i said earlier it's really more about that cash flow now our summer school we are working through guidance that is starting to be delivered now regarding what that needs to look like and we we strongly want to provide a summer school for our students we know our families are interested in this and we want to be able to do something to continue serving our students as we feel as though they just they just need that connection so given that we anticipate both the 912 credit recovery programming and the eighth grade summer stem academy programming that will likely be approved to run this summer we're just working on what it needs to look like for the k-7 summer targeted services as at this moment there's guidance now coming out we just need to kind of work through that i do know that jason sellers has been actively advocating for this um authorization and working really closely with people at mde to to make sure that they're clear on what it is that we would we would need to see if the case seven is approved we know that it will be a distance learning format maybe a hybrid at this point we'll have to kind of see how that goes um which you know leaves some concern from a financial perspective because that likely means that our amount of seat time that we're able to actually count towards that adm is far more limited and you can't necessarily fund a program as well as you could um if it were in person and so that's going to be a challenge for us but i i have every confidence that you know the people we have involved in designing our programming they understand this and they know how that works and so it's just at the top of our minds and and we're working through that process i want to now switch gears to the future so for fiscal year 2021 and beyond we anticipate we've had lots of conversations i want to make mention of the fact that this year for example um or this month excuse me masbo has had a virtual conference we normally have a three-day conference in may didn't take place this year so this this month we have a month-long virtual conference going on which has been really ideal in the fact that we have had a number of different sessions that have been spread out across the month giving us the opportunity for time to absorb ask questions and get answers at a subsequent session so it's been very very helpful for all of us most of the conversation that's been held generates more questions so um we are fortunate to have the opportunity to um to make that happen and i i can't when we go on these zoom calls and you see 150 people attending it's it's quite amazing that you know that's how many people are engaged in these conversations on a regular basis so given that we all have been talking about what does this mean for the future and so these are a few of the points we do anticipate the impact will last at least two years as many of these things that require levy adjustments it will take two years for us to see that come through an example is unemployment costs we're going to pay those unemployment costs now up front and we're going to only see those funds come from our taxpayers down the road in the form of an increase in the levy uh known unemployment costs okay said that concerning with the fy21 funding formulas there's a question will they reduce the two percent increase that has is in prince statute we do not believe they will make that action it's possible but we don't believe it will happen so at this point in time we're just crossing our fingers on that one hoping it doesn't we do anticipate beginning in fy 21 however that they will probate our funding this happened some years back and when that does occur this is what it means to us the state is cash basis school districts are modified accrual basis so although we won't receive our full 90 and 10 percent the next year as we currently do and say we saw something like a 60 40 split it would mean we would receive 60 percent of our funding we would have to record 100 of that funding as earned in that year but we won't see the cash until the following year for that 40 percent so therefore it's really cash flow matter and i anticipate we will need to then gear up for some opportunities to either do a short term borrowing scenario and or stage or tax aid anticipation certificate with that that means additional interest costs that we can anticipate for those years and we need to be planning for that additionally we have discussed the fact that increased funding for fiscal year 22 or fiscal year 23 given the projection that we've seen from the state we're all assuming it will be zero percent increase on the formula so most people are modifying their future adjustments in their models and using a zero percent increase one thing i want to make mention of for the current year at this point in time we're still actively negotiating certain contracts within our own groups so everything that you've heard me say about our current status for the operating funds is dependent upon the finalization of where all of those contract negotiations fully land and what those actual costs are compared to the dollars we had included in the budget and so at this point in time it's just too soon for me to know that for sure i have been kind of keeping track of which ones have been settled and when is it the retro pay is actually paid out to kind of figure that out but it's it's just too soon for me to give you any numbers at that point so i just want to make mention of that as well and that concludes our report great thank you all very much uh for pulling together this report um board members questions comments uh director shots i don't have a question i guess there's just um too many unknowns for me to have um you know very specific questions and uh at least i know how speculation is not your favorite thing to do when this is concerned so but i will say i appreciate you know the the work and the thought that's got into it um you know from from everyone's perspective and um and i think we have done you know i think our our goods our sound financial practices from the last you know few years and you know beyond um are putting us in a good position now to um to not only be able to forecast some of this but as much as possible but to put us in a good position to understand where we are at um financially you know at least from that standpoint and um actually had a um as far as the even like that the chromebooks here the tech the tech piece of that you know for our students what we were able to provide for our students i actually had a comment from a board member from another school district today who said how impressed she was with 191 and our ability to roll out that technology so quickly for distance learning to all of our students and that was um that was nice to hear you know this is a um a board member um who uh who admires a lot about what is happening in 191 in a lot of different levels but um specifically about that our our ability to respond to this distance learning crisis um with the ability to help our students as much as possible so thank you to everybody for the work that's gone to intuit and for the past work that clearly is setting us up for some good um a good foundation for the next couple of years of uncertainty thank you director shots director miller yes um thank you i'd just like to echo a little bit of what uh darcy was saying there i i um i appreciate dr battle and and lisa very much the work that's gone into this um there is obviously uh too much to speculate on right now that it would be appropriate to ask a lot of detailed questions but um i think that just you know for me the biggest pieces um that i've tried to speak about and reiterate is that i don't want to get caught with some large um surprises um so i appreciate that you're staying on top of it and keeping an eye on it that's the critical piece uh challenging conversations are hard to have and potentially in the future bad news is going to be hard to deliver but if you have um let us know that that's a possibility and that's the best you can do and i appreciate that thank you thank you director miller any other comments or questions cheer alt i'm asking this question of all of us even the administrators i've tried to follow the governor's comments but the community's service fund that's in trouble due to having to cover the child care it has there been any any hints on how that how school districts may be reimbursed for that coverage for that child care coverage does anyone know so dr batta yes so um director courier it's related to that federal legislation and so the governor has discretion and so that's related to the amsd survey and so number one was the child care so there are many districts like us that are uh have lost the revenue but we've had the expenditures so that's what we're hoping we'll get some relief but relief but as uh executive director writer said we don't know how much the portion uh lisa i don't know if you have anything to add from masbo no i'm hearing pretty much what you've said just waiting to see so it's a truly unknown at this point i would say there's been quite a bit of advocation from those in the community services fund you know the directors across the state so i have no doubt mde fully understands our situations i think there's there was some hope that general fund fund balances would be able to cover those those differences um but i think that's something that we're all just going to continue advocating for the fact that similar to like if you have a storm damage in your home you hope just to be made whole by insurance i mean i think no one's looking for you know give us extra money we're just looking to be held whole right um and to bring us back to where we were but that's the question of whether there's that possibility because we don't have insurance to cover this thank you one other note it's not only k-12 the federal uh relief funds is for post-secondary also so i haven't heard much from higher ed about what they're asking for yeah okay thank you and i also know um through our our advocacy groups amsd and minnesota school board association and masa their their advocates are are talking with legislators and advocating on our behalf express expressly on this topic so we'll keep our fingers crossed board members any other comments or ques uh director chester yep um so going oops there you go um for going to the layoffs of the furloughs and with human resources director silvein um i know that we haven't as a district taken any action in terms of uh doing any extended reductions or layoffs have we um asked so one part of the reason i was thinking about it and just thought of it now um is have any staff had to have their hours reduced at all or have or of those that are current staff that are seeking unemployment are any of those part-time staff because i believe that if there's a reduction in hours people can go to collect unemployment for the hours that they're being reduced yeah the folks that we're committed to as far as either full-time employment or um us well typically 25 to hours or more if if we have a commitment to those folks that will impact their benefits we have not reduced their hours for our casual employees i say casual and it's a very loose term our part-time employees that may pick up anywhere from you know five to 20 hours a week um we're using them to round out our needs but somebody that may be accustomed to getting 15 hours a week maybe closer to 10. just as the needs go but it wouldn't be our our our full-time employees our steady employees that are especially those who are benefit eligible um it would be more of our casual week to week scheduled employees and again that would just be a reduction in the hours in which they're scheduled it wasn't any official furlough or layoff thank you any other questions or comments all right seeing none um i had a couple um going back to um darcy's and eric's comments on the on the levee i uh was speaking with a parent um earlier this week and she said you know now that we're in distance learning i feel like i could write a letter to the editor every single week thanking our community for supporting that that tech levy back in 2015 that we really are in a in a great position and um she just told me that you know the experience that her children are having in distance learning um certainly doesn't mimic the classroom but um she's very satisfied with with their experience so um yeah we can't thank our community enough um lisa specifically questions on that shift that you were talking about the potential shift um i remember there being a comment from uh the county about escrow tax payments still going through that those would not be forgiven do we know number one um can we confirm that that escrow payments are expected to be received and do we know what portion of our you know our funds come from those so that we at least know the balance of what will or won't be paid um so we do know that our escrow payments that are scheduled will be paid on time may 15th your question of what percentage for dakota county and for scott county of our proceeds our escrowed i have yet to gather that information but i can get that from each county and share that out with you um the concern related to that however is really more about the fall impact because that may change for a lot of people with regard to that which is escrowed come fall and so the real concern out there is more about the impact this may have on us all in the fall um just because you know there's an opportunity for either those who can't afford or whatever to take place and and there could be appeals to tax returns or text statements and all of that which goes into it and so those which are escrowed now may not necessarily be escrowed in the fall and i would say given that i wouldn't ask you to go find that information because it's again another unknown and just for clarification you had talked about summer school funding um am i understanding you correctly when you say that if it's um if we have you know part of the the students time is at home distance learning and the other part is in one of our schools we only are reimbursed for for that time in the schools so i have not yet followed through all the guidance that has just just come out in the last day or two uh what i can say is um prior to that this is what we're hearing if you were doing synchronous learning face-to-face those minutes count minute for minute right for those for that seat time but our current distance learning program is being funded regardless of how many minutes the teacher is actually face-to-face with students you know we're basically getting the full adm right that is not allowable in the summer summer learning program with synchronous learning being the only way that you can gain those minutes so if i spend and you know 15 minutes for the student that's all i can claim is 15 minutes i can't use the three hours now in our past summer program that we did this last summer which was so beneficial for all of our students and so helpful to us financially uh we went to a seven day or seven hour day program and um that really benefited students we were able to do a very um whole program one that was academic as well as enrichment and it just it worked really well we were able to provide breakfast and lunch for students and it was just positive all around so the concern is now knowing that we would need to do this um distance we're looking at at most three hours and then beyond that we have yet to figure out what that might look like and more concerning is is the timing of how much will we actually be funded for it makes sense well well knowing that the guidance just came out we'll just um i look forward to hearing back on what everyone discovers thank you and i guess i guess just to wrap this up it really um this board has become accustomed to having um some tough discussions challenging discussions around challenging finances and together we have weathered the storm and i think looking ahead again at all of the unknowns it may well be that we find ourselves in that same situation as a result of covid come fall and just be open to receiving whatever you know information and guidance we can from our staff so um thank you all very much appreciate appreciate all the time that went into this report um let's see next we are going to the superintendent's report with dr battle thank you chair alt and members of the board um it's mid-may and we're three weeks away from the end of the school year and i just want to spend a little bit of time telling you about some traditional end of the year celebrations that we will be continuing um so next week tuesday may 19th i will deliver state of the district address and it will stream on youtube starting at 1pm on wednesday may 20th burnsville high school will host its scholarship night with foundation 191 that will also stream on youtube starting at 6 pm as you heard earlier about the graduation ceremonies for burnsville high school burnsville alternative high school the best transition program and adult education uh programs those will also be streamed um and those will all happen the week of june first and details will be on our website um lastly two final events that are typically held to honor and celebrate staff members versus the 191 community of excellence award ceremony which was originally scheduled for april 7th the winners for these awards have been announced and shared with the public in fact there was an excellent excellent feature story in the sun this week newspaper about william byrne elementary principal mohamed saleem who is this year's leadership and action award winner and they also mentioned some of the other staff so we still plan to create a video to honor this year's winners on the exact details are yet to be determined that concludes my report for tonight thank you very much dr battle i will ask is our student representative here yoda heat i know i think she was um hello hello welcome hello okay okay um thank you charles dr rattle and members of the board last thursday i met with dr battle and mr helke virtually to discuss the involvement of future board representatives and here are some things that we came up with we know that we want this opportunity to be available to all students regardless if they are in any school leadership groups or not we thought it would be a good idea if each club or student group at the high school recommended or designated representatives so that we would have a wide variety of student voices from groups like bsu seoul burnsville strong and many more so it includes those in student groups but is not limited to them in this way the future board rep would also be able to keep up with all the student events and activities that will be planned another thing that we thought was important was that this group should be structured like a club that meets regularly so that it works with student schedules and is in general an organized group for the meetings we were thinking that they should be once a month before the first board meeting where the report will be given so that the students of this group can converse and highlight what they think is important to be included in the report together rather than one student writing on behalf of everyone also mr hilkey brought up the idea of this group possibly meeting with the high school administration about once a month or when necessary so that there isn't any disconnect between student leadership and administration an area that is a little more tricky to figure out is how we are going to involve the middle schoolers in this process so that all of you get to hear from students across the district and not just the high school but this is something that we will continue to work on and plan with the help of our new school board rep and in terms of the new school board rep the student council executives and i met yesterday to discuss next year's executive board and we've put in our recommendation for next year's school board representative and are now just waiting for it to be approved by the high school administration so once that is done i will let you all know and that concludes my report thank you that's great yoda heat thank you um i am going to make an exception board members do you have any questions or comments for yoda heat no i i just really appreciate um hearing this progress here to heat and just um knowing that you know thanks to you and and your efforts especially during this time um that we're going to reinvigorate this role and student input to the school board so um really nice work thank you so much thank you and i will now open it up to board member reports individual board member reports i don't see any all right no board member reports um so uh turning to the consent agenda although word action is required it is generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items in the event a board member wishes to discuss an item that item will be moved for separate consideration is there anything that board members would like to separate seeing then i will take a motion to approve some move moved by director hume second second seconded by director shots miss kenny would you please um do the roll call vote yes abigail alt hi jen hallwiger hi leslie chester hi darcy schatz aye dede courier hi scott heum aye eric miller hi and the motion passes thank you uh we have no new business on tonight's agenda so i will declare us adjourned we are going to adjourn to a student performance and achievement committee of the whole um with amina oftdoll director of curriculum instruction and assessment and anna rosselli assessment coordinator presenters do you need a minute or two before we begin um no i think we're ready to go taking the time to meet with us we uh ms roselli and i are really pleased to be able to share this information about our district assessment plan uh i think that as we go through and discuss uh in future meetings data that uh is indicating our students progress it really might be helpful for you to also know exactly what the comprehensive plan looks like and how