Superintendent's Scoop

Hope this finds everyone well. In this newsletter there will be an update to the District's SOD status, adverse weather reminder, Health and Safety reminder from our School Nurse, and an additional Gratitude Walk along with updated concert and athletic dates.

All the images you see are generated by Grok AI. I got sick of searching "The Google" for images that are not protected by copyright. This is my first foray into AI Images - looking forward to an interesting journey.

The next Board Meeting is December 9th at 6 pm.

Again, for those who find it helpful, there is a TRANSLATE button.

Have a great week as we continue to close into Christmas and Holiday Break from December 23 - January 1.

At some point winter weather will impact us. Communication-wise, my goal is to get the information out as quickly as possible - hopefully the night before. Area superintendents work together, along with District Transportation, to assess the potential impact. St. Charles will not make decisions in isolation. Also note, our focus is we want kids in school learning every day - but, safety of getting kids to school is a massive consideration in making decisions to close. Expect to receive text, voicemail, and emails from JMC Blast immediately when the decision is made to close school. I will also contact local news to communicate the closure.

In addition, St. Charles School Board has continually held the idea that Snow Days are important aspects of Minnesota culture. We want families to connect during these days. We want kids to go over to a neighbor or grandpa's house to help shovel the driveway. We want kids to bundle up and frolic in the snow. These are all important aspects to Minnesota that we experienced as kids. St. Charles believes in giving these opportunities to families rather than the stress of e-learning days. Take the opportunity to find fun when the snow is piling up.

St. Charles has seen an uptick on students missing school with symptoms similar to the flu. I asked our School Nurse to draft up a communication to go out with some helpful hints.

Hello St. Charles Families,

We hope you all had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Holiday. Unfortunately, our district has seen a significant uptick in student and staff illness following the long weekend break. Our district is currently seeing an increase in the number of students/staff with gastrointestinal illness (stomach flu) and pneumonia. To prevent a widespread outbreak of these illnesses in our district, please consider the following guidelines:

*Keep your child home for a fever of 100.4 or greater. Please do not return to school until your child is 24 hours fever-free without the use of medication.

*Keep your child home if they are experiencing vomiting and/or diarrhea. Please do not return to school until your child is symptom-free for 24 hours, and feeling well enough to participate in classroom activities.

*Keep your child home if they are experiencing a severe or extreme cough. Consider reaching out to your child’s primary care provider to discuss evaluation for pneumonia, influenza, etc.

*Remind your children to use good hygiene habits:

*Wash hands frequently with soap and water for at least 20 seconds.

*Use hand sanitizer often, but soap and water is preferred.

*Cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing.

*Drink plenty of fluids, get a good night’s rest, and eat breakfast before coming to school. Do not share water bottles, lip balms, etc.

*If you haven’t already gotten your flu shot and/or COVID-19 booster vaccines, it is not too late. Contact your healthcare provider or our local pharmacy for vaccine information.

Our custodial team will work to properly disinfect high-touch surfaces, drinking fountains, and restrooms as much as possible. Our teaching staff will work to disinfect high-touch surfaces within their classrooms on a more frequent basis.

If you are unsure whether or not your child should attend school, or if you have questions/concerns about your child’s health status, please reach out to our district nurse, Ms. Justine Reinhardt at jreinhardt@schs.k12.mn.us or 507-932-4420 ext 1158.

Thank you in advance for helping us keep our buildings as healthy as possible.

Below is the Gratitude Walk from October. Enjoy.

The last time I shared my visits into classrooms was late September. Fortunately, I was able to see several classrooms with completely unique experiences.

The first is Mr. Henry's Physics class. His lesson required dropping a watermelon from the roof requiring students to measure speed and all the other aspects to go along with such an experience. He was unsure if the students were going to be able to come to an appropriate conclusion with the experiment, but apparently they did. Experiences like these connecting learning to dynamic experiences are memorable. Thanks so much for sharing Mr. Henry. As you can see in the photo, students were engaged and ready. Part of the assignment was to record the watermelon all the way through from drop to splat to help aid in analyzing the experiment.

In early discussions with Board members this past summer, a couple noted the importance of using the "bikes" the district purchased through a grant. I did not fully appreciate the importance of this purchase until being invited to Mr. Kobs PE class. I assume my experience of learning how to ride a bike is similar to most of yours - maybe not. My dad pointed to a two wheeled device with pedals and said - "That's a bike. Learn how to ride it." Well, like any son or daughter tasked with a unique challenge, I did learn. The irony is no one truly taught me to ride a bike. My brother and I used our bikes to ride three miles down a highway to go to baseball practice or eight miles to get to the lake - that was it. The finer points were never mentioned. After watching Mr. Kobs teach students rules like ABC (air, break, chain), ride with safe distances between the rider in front, and use the "power position" to get started, it began to dawn on me how fortunate St. Charles is to be intentional about bike safety. The last element I really want to note are powerful teaching strategies used by Mr. Kobs. Consistently, he applied repetition to directions, individual students repeat the directions, and then the whole class repeated in unique and varied ways. As a high school teacher, I was not great at having students verbally repeat critical aspects of my instruction or routines. I did apply the strategy, but not as effectively as I should have. Thanks so much, Mr. Kobs, for letting me see your world and the use of our very own bikes.

Mrs. Campbell introduced me to her world and reading real fiction. For some reason it did not connect that Mrs. Campbell is married to Chef Jeff - well, now I know. A couple elements struck me as I watched Mrs. Campbell work with her students. One, teaching students to read and appreciate "dialogue" as a critical element in reading. What I like about what Mrs. Campbell did is she had students read dialogue to each other in pairs from a piece of fiction. It forced the pairs to really think about how authors use dialogue. It also gave Mrs. Campbell the opportunity to work the room seeking verbal clues in assessing individual students' ability to read. She was able to give direct feedback and strategies such as "You skipped a part. Read it again but use your pencil to track the words." She also asked comprehension questions about what the characters are thinking or what predictions could the reader make based on what students read. Thank you so much Mrs. Campbell and for letting your husband cook us great food.

Every year, the state of Minnesota and the Department of Education (MDE) share with school districts what is called a UFARS Compliance Report. In this report the SOD% is shared. The percentage is calculated by dividing the District's Fund 01 Expenditures by the Fund Balance. When school districts go beyond a -2.5%, they are placed into SOD. In essence, districts must file a plan with MDE on what the district will do to get out of SOD.

There are several factors that lead to school districts finding themselves in this environment: declining enrollment, expenditures are higher than revenue, unexpected expenditures like damaged roofs or other, operating costs increase unexpectedly, etc. Many times, there are several factors that interrelate: some controllable, some not.

SOD Percentage:

FY23 = (3.83)%

FY24 = 2.43%

Explanation (the numbers shared are directly from the UFARS Compliance Report from MDE):

District Expenditures declined from a high of $11.5 million for FY23 to $9.9 million for FY24. Between FY22 (1002 student enrollment ADM) declined to FY24 (946 student enrollment ADM), that equals a 56-student enrollment decline. For St. Charles, every student ADM is just over $10k per. It roughly equates to over a half million dollar decline in state revenue over two budget years.

To counter act that decline in state aid and higher expenditures, many sacrifices were made by the District prior to the close of FY24. Most of the sacrifices made were from staff in both people and operational cuts.

The result, the FY24 Audit shows a positive Fund 01 balance of $242,049 in contrast from the FY23 ($443,219) negative balance. This is a tremendous difference and tremendous progress has been made. This progress is worthy of celebrating. It's been a tough couple years where many people sacrificed. The Superintendent and Business Manager are committed to making sure the District continues to build on the St. Charles Fund 01 balance. We know how important "people" are to teaching and learning - people make all the difference. This is our focus and will continue to give every resource possible for a positive instructional environment.