The Edina School Board meeting was held last Monday, May 13, with School Board members participating virtually from the Edina Public Schools Transportation Services Center and the South Metro Public Safety Training Facility.

The meeting started with Dr. Stacie Stanley’s “Excellence in Action” segment, where members of the Edina community are featured for their contributions. This month included Cornelia Elementary School’s fifth-grade craft bazaar—a 44-year fundraising tradition run by students. To represent the event, Teacher Heather Edam was joined by students who presented their works. “Each student will choose a charity [to research]…and will write a persuasive essay that they will use to encourage classmates to chose their charity,” Edam read. The fifth-grade classes vote for their top two charities, and the “winners” continue to give their presentations to other classrooms after which they all finalize one charity to donate their money to. This year, the fifth graders donated $3,824 to Jack’s Basket, an organization that provides support to families having children born with Down syndrome.

This month’s meeting saw no public comments. “Just a reminder to our community members that you are welcome to join us even virtually, you just need to fill out the form that is posted to [the] Edina School Board section of our website,” School Board Chair Erica Allenburg said.

The School Board discussed a request for an additional District Professional Calendar Day on the 2024-25 Calendar featuring a presentation made by Jody De St. Hubert, the Director of Teaching and Learning. The district currently has five professional development days—three days are dedicated to specific district and building collaboration and the other two consist of conferences and professional development. The proposal would mean adding another day in the spring of 2025 for specific collaboration. “The…main factor that is involved in this conversation is [the] READ Act,” De St. Hubert said. “We are really really excited to be implementing it…[but] it is requiring a lot of professional development time.” The request will come back for board approval in June.

The discussion was followed by a Policy Review on Policy 103, 714, 716, 717, 718, 720, 721 801, 802, 804, 808, and 813 led by the School Board Policy Committee. The committee consists of Mert Woodard, Dr. Frannie Becquer, Dr. Jody Remsing, Dr. AnneMarie Leland, and Nathaniel Lindley. Changes included eliminating redundant and outdated sections, considering recommendations, defining terms updating citations, and correcting mistakes. Policy 801 will be re-discussed for action in June and the discussion on Policy 103 was postponed to the next meeting.

The discussion segment ended with a marketing update presented by Daphne Edwards, the Director of Marketing and Communications. Edwards started by reviewing the 2023-24 Campaigns & Initiatives, which included Early Childhood Screening, Kindergarten, Social Media, and Competitive Shopping. “We want to start conversations with Edina resident families as early as possible,” Edwards said. In conversation, she noticed appointments for Early Childhood Screening were booking up quickly and months in advance, which resulted in the decision to increase capacity to better serve Edina families. In the past school year, the department added another 40 appointments per month, piloted a postcard program, and “ideally” increased revenue by just above $14,000. 

Edwards also talked about advancing kindergarten enrollment events by four weeks to keep up with competitors. “We are really feeling some pressure now that Blake has opened a stunning early learning center that has grades pre-K through one,” Edwards said. “We know that [Our Lady of Grace] opened a pre-K center and told families ‘If you really want to get into our kindergarten, you probably need to be in our preschool.’” She announced the debut of a middle school event for students and parents, scheduled for November 2024, at both Valley View and South View Middle School that aims to retain resident enrollment. The presentation ended with the 2024-25 new campaigns and initiatives, which included concepts for assessing the Edina Public Schools shopping experience, Professional Learning Community ambassadors, and high school and eighth-grade retention. There is a design, pre-production, and production in process regarding the early learning study, a middle school sneak peek, and a middle school marketing video, respectively.

The School Board then moved on to their action items, starting with Response to American Indian Vote of Non-Concurrence for American Indian Education Aid, presented by Dr. Becquer. The American-Indian Parent Advisory Committee (APAC) had previously presented a Vote of Non-Concurrence to the school board with 15 recommendations and per Minnesota statutes, the board has 60 days to provide a written response to the APAC. The School Board’s response was discussed and approved.

The next action item was the Intermediate School District No. 287 – Long-Term Facilities Maintenance Expenditure Budget – Fiscal Year 2026, presented by Woodard. The board unanimously approved the budget for fiscal years 2026 through 2035, adopting the resolution affirming the District’s portion of the fiscal year 2026 expenditures of $65,384. Following the budget, the 6-8 English Language Arts Curriculum Adoption Recommendation was presented by De St. Hubert and passed. 

Then, Allenburg and School Board member Michael Birdman presented on the School Board Election Resolution – Even Years. “I’m not a huge fan of this, I think it’s the right thing to do from a budgetary perspective,” Allenburg said. “I am concerned about school board elections getting lost in the regular year elections with everything else that people are voting on so I would just [encourage] the community of Edina to still pay attention to their school board elections.” The resolution was approved.

The action items ended with Policy Review on Policy 403, 407, 409, 410, 431, 432, 435, 437, 439, and 812 with discussion led by School Board member Karen Gabler, which were all passed.

The meeting concluded with community updates from Stanley, who read off a few emails she received. She noted the artwork that is currently on display at district schools and the Edina Library, a parental story of support for the Edina Unified program and the Spanish Cultural liaison, and a final parental story of support towards the Early Learning Center. “When I hear the emails that are sent and I just think about the presentations that were given tonight, when I think about the work that was recognized at our Core Planning meetings, and I think about what I’m saying…it just makes me so proud, and I hope that it makes our community proud to know that just what an amazing experience it is to attend Edina Public Schools,” Stanley said.