July 10, 2023 Regular Meeting

The only school board meeting for July was held in the school district office, 5 school board members attended. I was not able to attend this meeting but have listened to the recording on the district website. The link to the meeting video: https://youtu.be/_fBdhY9RVRE

As per all regular school board meetings, public forum was an option, but no cards were presented. As a reminder, if anyone desires to speak at public forum, you need to arrive, fill out a comment card, and turn it in to the board prior to the 5:30pm start time of the meeting. Also, please know that the board will listen to all comments but does not respond at the time of the comments. After the meeting, concerns will be addressed by the chair of the board, Mark Sebring, or our superintendent Jeff Elstad. Please see details here: https://www.isd761.org/our-district/school-board/meeting-dates

During board forum, Mr. Sebring and Mr. Schuster gave updates from the recent facilities committee meeting. These updates include new high school move in to start this week by office staff. Furniture is being moved in. Final touches and finishes on all three floors… hopefully this includes any “punch list items” as I became familiar with this term when my husband did contracting work in the past.

Mr. Elstad was absent at this meeting and I see no Administrative Report to review at this time.

The Consent Agenda was approved, which is a single vote to approve a grouping of votes all at one time. This vote included previous school board meeting minutes, the disbursement report (treasurer’s report and board payment report) and the personnel report. Documents are available online for review.

The next vote was to approve ongoing membership into the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL). The MSHSL was founded in 1916 and its mission statement is: “The Minnesota State High School League provides educational opportunities for students through interscholastic athletic and fine arts programs and provides leadership and support for member schools.” The MSHSL Handbook has specific information regarding the policies and bylaws that school districts must abide by. In 2014, MSHSL made its statement regarding transgender student participation in school sports and fine arts programs. From the Child Protection League, “The Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) made its controversial 2014 transgender policy. The MSHSL policy left the decision on these matters up to the schools but implemented a subjective appeal process for student/school disputes over the matter.” https://cplaction.com/hs-athletics/#MSHSL

This is what I could find regarding the appeals process:

300.00 Bylaws: Administration of Student Eligibility 2022-2023 MSHSL OFFICIAL HANDBOOK, p. 61-62, section 3. https://www.mshsl.org/sites/default/files/2022-07/MSHSL%20Handbook%202022-2023%20300%20Series.pdf

The board approved ongoing membership in the MSHSL. As I understand it, there are no other organizations even similar to MSHSL and therefore opting out of this membership could be very detrimental to our students and the district. Given the benefits of athletics and fine arts to our students, and MSHSL being the only option for us, whether or not you agree or disagree with all the policies, maintaining membership seems to be the best option at this time. As it should be, parents are the primary defenders and protectors of their children. If there is a concern that you as a parent or guardian have for your child in any classroom, sport, activity, locker room, bathroom, or school event, please bring your concerns to the teacher, coach, director, principal, or if needed, the superintendent. As an aside, I found this article written in 2022 about the origins and history of Title IX and the permission of female athletes to compete in school sports https://www.mshsl.org/about/news/league-news/title-ix-and-sports-medicine-have-grown-together.

The next vote was to approve the Long-Term Facilities Maintenance expenditures and revenues 10-year plan required for the MN Department of Education. This was approved and the link can be found on the website.

Lastly, the vote to approve gifts to the district was done recognizing another gift for instruments by Music Boosters of Owatonna, and then adjournment was declared.

In follow up to the last June meeting I attended and noted the increasing financial needs for special education, I started doing some research. While this is a large topic, I was shocked to see that the rate of autism diagnoses has risen dramatically. In the 1970s, the rate was about 1 in 10,000 children. Today, the CDC estimates that 1 in 36 children are diagnosed with autism and this spike seemed to start in the late 1990s! As I stated before, this deserves attention and research. More to come!