001okay well go and get started welcome to the Columbia Heights Public Schools Independent School District thirteen board meeting for Tuesday April 14th 2015 like to call the meeting to order at 703 if you would please rise for the Pledge of Allegiance welcome again everybody and Laurie if you would please do the roll call thank you our mission statement call me hates public schools create worlds of opportunity for every learner in partnership with support of small town communities by challenging all to discover their talents unleash their potential and develop tools for lifelong success our core values are community excellence collaboration integrity respect courage and innovation for the agenda approval adjustments announcements and correspondence we'll look for a motion to approve the agenda Thank You Laurie thank you any discussion all those in favor say aye opposed
002motion carries and the announcements are April 21st Tuesday 5:30 school board listening session April 21st Tuesday at 6 p.m. school board Subcommittee on policy in the superintendent's conference room April 28th Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. regular school board meeting here in the community room may 12th Tuesday 7:00 p.m. regular school board meeting here in the community room may 19th Tuesday at 5:30 school board listening session in the Family Center and then May 19th - 6 p.m. school board work session here in the community room and it's any correspondence there is no correspondence tonight thank you moving on to communications to the board citizens and employee representatives at this time any citizen or employee may briefly address the school board the board will listen to brief remarks ask clarifying questions and if desired we request that the
003administration follow up the board will not take action at this meeting on requests presented at this time moving on to the consent agenda which includes the minutes of the March 10th and 24th school board meetings the personnel report and treasurer's report for February 2015 I would entertain a motion to move that forward so moved second grant discussion maybe none all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries at this point we'll be moving into a closed session in accordance with Minnesota statute 13 d 0.05 preliminary consideration of allegations against an employee the board will adjourn to a closed session of contributions that one I would to move that forward would entertain a motion now acknowledgement of contributions resolution whereas Minnesota statute 123 be point zero two permits school boards to receive for the benefit
004of the district request donations or gifts for any proper purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated in that behalf the board may act as trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district and for the benefit of the pupils thereof therefore be it resolved by the school board of Columbia Heights Public Schools Independent School District number 13 that the school board accepts with appreciation the contributions detailed in the background in the amount of 11,200 and sixty one dollars and forty-five cents the detailed background is in monetary value age annoy donation of seven hundred twenty two dollars and fifty seven cents was made to Highland Elementary by target take charge of Education for student needs a donation of five hundred dollars was made to the Columbia Heights High School by Empire petroleum
005partners for student needs a donation of one thousand seven hundred thirteen dollars and forty three cents was made to Columbia Heights High School by target take charge of education first for the students needs a donation of $200 was made at the Columbia Heights High School by the archer family for band in art seminar to New York the donation of three hundred and five dollars and forty-five cents was made to Columbia Academy by Target take charge of education for the student needs and then the following donations were made to the Columbia Heights High School scholarship program Constance and Paul Hanson $25 Christine Wenberg $25 Janice and Keith Olsen $50 Roger and Karen said Louis key $100 and foreigner for ham two hundred dollars that he Justin two hundred dollars Jane and Steven Swinehart one hundred dollars
006Albert ogni fifty dollars Harlan and Doris doning fifty dollars Bernard and Sally debar $30 Gerald and Diane bolt twenty-five dollars Ronald and Marybeth Margo $50 Robert and Francis you $50 Kathryn and LH McAvoy was $100 club and Eva Cove Austin was $100 Pamela's secret sin was $200 Robert and I he Benson was $200 karma dogie was $200 Gordon and an Olsen $200 Patricia and Marvin Sawada $50 Janet Larsen $50 Elaine Narbo $50 Janet Vaughan a hundred and fifty dollars Howard in Nancy Hornibrook hundred dollars a drap $100 Kathleen and John Keane $150 North East State Bank foundation $500 bill strife five hundred dollars for the Lions Club two thousand dollars and the Kiwanis Club Columbia Heights Fridley two thousand dollars value in kind donations of coats hats and gloves to the Valley View Elementary from
007st. Philip's mitten and hat makers estimated value of $100 and donation of hats to North Park Highland and Valley view's schools from mr. and mrs. Howard Hague estimated value of one hundred and fifteen dollars our total fiscal year 2014-2015 monetary contributions to date is fifty-seven thousand seven hundred forty nine dollars and 87 cents and in accordance with Minnesota statute 13d Oh point zero five preliminary consideration of allegations against an employee the board will adjourn to closed session at 7:14 so we are going to return from our closed session go back to an open meeting at say 737 and moving forward discussion reports information items reports from members of the board board members will report on board activities since the last version regularly scheduled meeting of the Board of Education with Molly tonight I had several
008meetings with other members of the board Larkin Nichols and Palmer thank you all for your time and I also had an opportunity to meet with superintendent Cathy Kelly additionally I went to the Highlands bike bingo and Book Fair last Friday which there was a great turnout that was fun and also attended the school board subcommittee and policy meeting before this I attended the a MSD meeting last week which was informational there was a lot of information from the Education Commissioner to the group and talked a lot about the current state of the education funding bills over at the legislature and about the funding targets that the governor the Senate and the house and the need to increase the funding and funding pre-k and emphasizing the need for a pre-k that and the need to help
009different things some of the goals that we need to achieve that we can achieve of resources if properly funded about like the 90 percent graduation rate by 2020 kind of stuff and that no group has a graduation rate under 85% meeting prior to this meeting also had the pleasure of sitting on the second interview committee for the Columbia Academy principal and had had the pleasure of talking about director Holmgren we map has been very active since we last met we map has attend an executive committee meeting and the board meeting and we've talked about hiring an executive director now that the schools will be conveyed to Minneapolis and and Robbinsdale the executive committee has a job description we they're well along in the process of hiring the are working on hiring the executive director I
010guess of particular interest the board voted to reduce the per pupil funding requirement to down to sixteen dollars per student as opposed to nineteen dollars so save some money there is a district we've met with superintendents through with the member districts so I believe we have a lot of good inputs so we map should be very focused on being customer friendly and providing what the member districts need in terms of equity training and an integration I also attended the Twin Cities North Chamber Business Council helped fill in the business community with what's going on at the school and the school district this evening and then a couple lines meetings thanks to grant the new library they were showing the Cathy Kelly member Lewis and went to the policy committee some policy committee this before this
011it's about it thanks it seems like it's been a while since we've been here although it actually really hasn't been all that long well I I did attend the the forum for the final for the final three candidates for the the principle position over at the Academy that was very nice great candidates it was really wonderful to see I really really enjoyed it and then I also attended the 916 board meeting we did a final approval for the funding for the Lake Elmo facility which is going to be the next generation of Karner blue so it's a lot of the lessons that they learned over at Karner blue they're going to apply them at this new facility and that will serve the east side of the cities at least in the north so they'll have
012a pretty good so the kids aren't gonna have to travel as long and this is gonna be another cade facility that primarily serves students with autism and some other types of difficulties in addition to that we got our first draft of the final report of the the study for either redesign or repurposing of capital view that report was fairly extensive so I don't think we really need to go into it this evening but at some point I'd like to get everybody's did allow everybody to see that and see it ask questions and stuff like that it's it's fairly extensive report so it wouldn't fit into the update that's oh and I had a meeting with with member Lewis and thank you so much we finally managed to make it happen thank you Thanks I had
013an opportunity with Superintendent Kelly and I had a meeting with remember Lewis as well I attended the chair meeting and then I was part of the subcommittee policy meeting that we had this evening and we move on to the superintendents report mr. chair and members has concluded its candidate search and as people have said we really did have a robust pool of applicants and as you know mr. Dwayne burkas is the recommended cannon for this position and on the consent agenda tonight we are sure they're all kidding aside with his experience in the field of education and his familiarity with instructional strategies in core curriculum and he has real commitment to give 110 percent we feel that he will do nothing but enhance student achievement implementation of college readiness and improve building climate director of
014teaching and learning through that time so he's going to be a very busy man the I remember mayor or my alluded to we did have a big a MSD meeting with Commissioner conceal yes and some folks from congressman clients office talking about what was going on there but that was so confidential she told us we couldn't tweet her talk about it that was interesting in today's 21st century world so we listened carefully one takeaway that superintendents were really tried it for by the Commissioner was that she felt superintendent we're not being supportive enough of the early four-year programs and I think what superintendents tried to see they kept the Commissioner to see is that we need money on the formula 1/2 of cash for organizations and it's not that anybody is opposing anything but a
015universal four-year-old program for some who just started doing all-day kindergarten this year is a big leap and in this case facilities is still an under painting questions that nobody is addressing is where do you put the kids for the four year old program I would I'm proud of this district because we're taking a small step next year regardless of what the governor the Senate or the house decides and that we are going to have some we've expanded and you'll know this but expanded our four year old program to the 15 12 to 15 hours a week and that'll allow us to have them a group in the morning and in the afternoon and we're diverting some of our general fund dollars to that task and so we will start our own pilot like we did
016with all-day cave and just see how the one thing that is that we can't cash flow the district currently there will be large reductions so when I'm when I'm looking at is working with Bill on the what-ifs so we still have our assumptions that hopefully we get a one that's we're not going further than that and then I had the pleasure of meeting with both the Anoka County attorney Tony Palumbo and the chief of police Scott needle about future collaborative partnerships was prevention and says that he like other attorney generals have County attorneys have forfeiture dollars and that the chief of police was willing to partner with that and he also came out the next day for another meeting with her admin team for an even larger partnership with the Big Brothers Big Sisters program
017some of their executive board members some of their admin staff and their CEO because they really feel like our district is the district that could benefit from that program and they're willing to invest more of their staff or raising their staff from 0.5 to a full-time person to work and hats off to the high school because they're thinking of doing some mentorship programs and Highland and principal fort is I would like to take the Highland program and expand it to vallivue and so that's where those partnerships are going that's what we're talking about there we also had a very productive meeting in this room with st. Anthony to Brighton Columbia Heights and the st. Anthony New Brighton staff and as part of our integration efforts they're working on a joint summer school enrichment class and
018it will be for eighth graders and it will focus on Ray and it will be eligible for high school credit as well and have both writing experiences here on campus and have extended day programs where they go out and see do learn about it and as important that they have breakfast and lunch together so that they build long-term relationships that work at equity and an appreciation for diversity and just getting to them know the neighbors in the in the neighborhood and so we have two excellent teachers that are middle school teachers selected one from Saint Anne and one from Columbia Heights I'm they're gonna begin writing they'll have tactical support from the office of teaching and learning in both curriculum and staff development and from st. Anthony and assessment and we're really hoping that this
019will be the first steps in something very good between the two districts when it comes to be student to student and since they're also part of our we map collaborative it's very nice to be collaborating beyond just the parameters we've ordinarily had it we met but as member district to member district learning from one another and with our kids has been very busy on the admin side we've been dealing with the conveyance at the schools as it relates to staff that has put our staffing on pause because we needed to see if there were people that would claim positions in our district and we had to send over all of our vacancies administrative and instructional and see if anybody wanted to claim them this week so we look forward to that being I had a
020delightful meeting with director Holmgren and principal wróblewski and the k-12 activities director we met on k12 activities and issues and future planning and some of that Matthew is here tonight to give you an update on the activities part of that and then I did meet with many of you and also as part of the school board Subcommittee on policy and I have one other thing to say is that I want to thank board members for accommodating their schedules so instead of a school board work-study of which only the people that are because we have so many policies to get through that in order to keep our record untarnished to get everything done by the end of June and so thank you for that we need the time to spend on policy so thank you thank
021you okay we will move forward next up on our agenda is Minnesota State High School League transgender process I know that there were some board members that had requested some information regarding the policy and we have Matt Miller and principal Valesky here to provide us with some of the information regarding that policy thanks for coming guys good evening board chair Larkin superintendent Kelly members of the board as activities director mr. Miller gets ready for our presentation as we prepared for this presentation this evening we've had a number of meetings with region 5 Triple A members which we are part of and we've also met with the director of the Minnesota State High School League Dave's speed dad stead excuse me as well as athletic director from Hopkins High School and also our Region five triple-a
022representative mr. Dan Johnson regarding this issue chair Larkin superintendent and Cathy Kelly members of the board it's my pleasure to provide you information about the transgender eligibility process first and foremost mission here at Columbia Heights Public Schools is to create worlds of opportunity for every learner in partnership with supportive small-town communities by challenging all to discover their talents unleash their potential and develop tools for long life success we all know our core values tonight I want to focus on with this presentation collaboration and respect some information here with the State High School League the oversight of the Minnesota State High School League is by state legislators in really when Dan and I met with the executive director Dave stead the the message regarding this eligibility process was the state high school he does not discriminate
023discriminate against any child I'm gonna talk about title nine in the amendment of 1972 some facts from there title nine prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex and education programs and activities that receive federal financial assistance from the US Department of Ed it applies to inner scholastic intercollegiate Club and intramural athletic programs I don't mind continued that online purposes the term schools refers to recipients of federal financial assistance that operate educational programs or activities the minister Minnesota schools that receive state and federal assistance must follow state and federal laws rules regulations as applicable the State High School League state and federal laws rules and regulations guide aesthetic participation for all students in Minnesota schools participation in athletic and fine arts programs by students and member schools of the State High School League is guided by
024the Minnesota school's annual resolution for membership the transgender eligibility process is effective 2015-2016 school year know what was established this is the Minnesota State High School League created and it created an eligibility process for transgender students that aligns with federal law to ensure there's zero discrimination against any child we are the 34th state to adopt a transgender eligibility process and it is highly protected protected excuse me by the Office of Civil Rights so what is it it all this process outlines the appeal and eligibility process for a student who desire our desires to be identified as transgender within their school's activities so the eligibility process number one the student end guardian must produce the following to the school in writing explain that the students consistent gender identity that defers from their birth declared gender several
025statements from different individuals that affirm the student's gender identity a written statement from a health care professional that verifies the students sincerity held gender identity step two the school then passes the outline of appeal outlined appeal information on to the Minnesota State High School League Executive Director from there this the State High School League passes on the appeal information directly to a federal judge who makes the final ruling approximately ten days after the Minnesota State High School League appeals submission you can submit this appeal electronically to questions where this has actually been applied in the state of Minnesota that your someone has gone through this process the process that's been presented tonight will not be on effect until the 1516 school year when we met with the athletic director from Hopkins High School he did
026have a asset that the the high school did make accommodations for and worked with and I think mr. Johnson did state correct me if I'm wrong the number of studies he's been there for 16 years and amount of students he's overseen is about 40,000 students so he's encountered one student of transgender over the past 16 years but accommodations were made to make sure that students felt safe just two points of emphasis that we have here is that for example two years ago the Columbia Heights high school wrestling team had a female student participate within a wrestling program the accommodations made were a locker room for her to weigh in with a female trainer present and then she was also made accommodations for locker room as well what we've also heard on research as well as
027personal information by transgender students is that this is not a locker room issue this is they're not looking to really be in other people's lack room they want to participate and they really want their privacy and not to be involved in going into other locker rooms they just want their own privacy and to be involved in participating like all other students as far as I can tell that this has always been the case for a long time for females trans turn to the male that's always been the case they've always been able to participate it's just that the other the other to participate in the same way it's more probably a more unique situation I just wanted to point that out this is really nothing new it's just it's just another another group is being
028added into this know this is a eligibility process so if a student approaches me in states that he or she is transgender then the appeal process starts immediately so that that will start I would have to submit to the state to go through the procedure and submit all the documentation to the State High School League so it's for participation at that point yep it's and it's it's male to female so females can participate in male sports so if a female wanted to plan my football team she she could so then you'd receive instructions I think the advice we got was just ask him usually the accommodations from what I heard at the seminar that I went to as usually the accommodations are pretty reasonable missile State High School League when they voted on this how
029many members they had it was 18 to one and we have to follow yes we are a member of the state high school and again emphasize the point that I think Dan was making an allure alluded to it's people's concerns aren't about accommodations it's you can give someone their privacy their locker rooms it's whether or not they meet the the the require one of the requirements but the the steps of the process to be considered transgender to be able to a male to be able to play and participate in a female sport and that's really not about whether or not we can accommodate and it looks like the process is out of our hands I mean it's we take the information it goes on to the and then our responsibilities at that point fall back
030I'm not the easier part which is making the accommodation would originally take in the seminar did they didn't have the process we don't know it's coming so thank you for the update I've had a few people ask me questions and try to make sure that they yeah I want to thank you for clarifying this I know this has been controversial and I think when you talked about privacy that has been the heart of the controversy so I'm glad to hear that that were respecting students privacy anybody else have any questions or comments regarding the transgender policy okay thank you on is to the k-12 activities update and I'm Matt Miller our activities director will provide us with an update everybody okay I'll talk about this sheet in once a couple slides so it's my pleasure
031tonight to give you all update on the activities what has gone on this school year and then future plans for next year and also plans for this summer that we have for all of our students not just students in athletics our specific activities so our mission I did go over a mission but really focus on creating worlds of opportunity for my students in in the act in the activities Department K through 12 with with this presentation I really want to focus on excellence and integrity of our students and right now we can talk I didn't put this sheet on a slide because it's way too many numbers and it would be hard to read but in front of you is a list for the past seven years of our participation numbers and along with that
032my slide is we are increasing in our participation on the backside of the participation data is participation in our fine arts programs and in our theatre and also in some activities like knowledgeable math team speech and robotics and I'm doing my best to dig back through some files to get data I know what that page is not full but my activities are really important to me too and I want to make sure we are staying on the up-and-up in the activities Department are not just athletics but my activities too so we have increased 33% of 40% this year for students participating in athletics and activities so I reached my goal this year but also it puts more pressure on me next year because I want to increase it five to eight percent again this year
033we hired about seven coaches in our programs in there all acclimating really well to our students to our staff in there and they're pleased to be here at Columbia Heights I put in here I hired around 17 coaches last year so seven to seventeen is that's a big positive from my office to majority of athletic athletic programs have improved in their winning records and then this year we I teamed up with Casey and on our activities web page to make a user friendly for our families stating to hit make sure our schedules are there to make sure you can communicate with the head coach and Casey has put on there how many views it's actually hit and where we're thousands and thousands of people are looking at the athletic webpage which is it a big
034positive for my department too so I'm gonna go through some fall highlights then winter highlights then spring highlights and then where I'm going to touch on some winter summer activities that we're doing so this fall we had Schoolhouse Rock and we had a couple new directors and it went really well good turnout we had a new director for our fall play our our town Jill Jungers took over that and she did an amazing job boys soccer went to the section finals we lost in overtime to do sell and we also added AC squad team so that on your chart here we are growing our soccer program is growing so we added a team so we're we have a Columbia Academy team and we have three full high school teams which is a positive our football
035team went to the section finals again and then Darius mock is invited to the all-star game which is held at Saint Cloud State at the end of June girls soccer improved their winds from the previous year and that was done with a new head coach girls swimming clad in collaboration with Cathy Kelly and Bill Holmgren we added a diving coach which was a huge positive for the program and more students can now participate in diving adaptive soccer was one game away from entering the state tournament they went to the section finals girls tennis increased their wins from the previous year and our volleyball team increased their wins from the previous year we host a tournament a 16-team tournament I in our Highlander Center and I am getting emails from all around the Metro for teams
036to join that tournament but we're fall was 16 but it's a big positive to get other schools in our Highlander Center because it's a great venue and we added see a team at sea Columbia Academy for volleyball winter highlights we now have three levels of Robotics we have a high school team we have a Columbia Academy team and we have an elementary team this activity is really growing in the state of Minnesota so I'm pleased to have it at all three all three levels Columbia Academy participated in the state tournament and then the high school team placed 21st out of 63 teams at Regionals down at the U of M Destination ImagiNation we had had an additional team at Highland future problem-solving is now at the high school level knowledge Bowl is bursting at the
037seams I have to look at getting an additional coach next year because our numbers are so big and then dance team competed in sections this year and that was the first time in four years we've actually competed in sections Visual Arts Whitney Meyer is a what can I say she's an artist and she received a gold key for her photos that she had taken and then she also received an American were presented at the U of M in only five students in the state of Minnesota to get this award so that was a huge honor for her to get wrestling we had three state entries and that was the first time in over ten years they actually have three go to the state tournament girls basketball tied in a school record for tollerant wins in
038a season which is 12 boys basketball their highlight of the season was beating Totino grace in the section playoffs as we did lose to Tino last year so it was their highlight of the year to beat Tootie no grace girls gymnastics our assistant coach of our assistant coach got coach of the year for our sections so that was a big honor and our boys swimming added diving Ben Bardell he was three points away from the going to state going to the state tournament so we're expecting him to over state next year spring highlights the spring musical Adams family right now Jill jugglers is working hard and I hope she's done with practice because we have MCAS tomorrow there's 72 participants in in the spring musical the dates are up there please come and support our
039kids it will be a great show I promise you that destination excuse me imagination one of the Highlands team participated in the state tournament last weekend so that was pretty cool they did not make it to Worlds but they did make it to the state tournament track and field has over a hundred participants which is really helping my forty percent of student participation so we're bursting at the seams and track and we're expecting to return to the state tournament synchronized swimming I have two new coaches and they are doing really well we just hosted Forest Lake tonight and they're they're doing really well so one I'm very pleased with them in the pool boy Stannis just won the New Prague tournament last weekend so they are seeing some success and we're expecting one or two
040players to make the state tournament to spring highlights continued girls lacrosse I have two news baseball would just be st. Paul Johnson last Friday CA has really strong numbers which is a another positive for my programs because now we're starting to get healthy at the Columbia Academy which is our feeder programs which will affect varsity play down the road softball we are expecting to return to the section finals with our all-star pitcher Quincy gross and then Quincy also received the Athena award so I will be taking her down to a ceremony May 1st and she'll be presented an award there in front of hundreds of people visual arts this weekend I will be traveling with Diane Scully to the purpose Center and then we have over 20 pieces of art there for the Minnesota State
041High School the art show this summer were busy so we have football workouts in camp we have strength training all all summer we have volleyball workouts we have gymnastics camp that includes younger younger students from the elementary really getting them involved in gymnastics we have a girls basketball league that meets on meets on Monday nights here in the Highland Center and we have over 12 teams that come in and play basketball and are in our gyms and then we have regular weekly workouts for a boys basketball next I'm working on to finalize a 2015-16 school activities handbook for our athletes and coaches really to raise the bar and give my students and put in writing high expect for them because I I do believe they can reach highest high expectations I just want to hand
042them them to them and I want to get this hand book into our parents hands too and lastly is a tri Metro Conference update and the schools are listed up there there there are ten schools in our current Conference on the bottom of this is two schools have approached the conference to join one is spectrum high school and the other ones st. Croix prep and spectrum is appealing at the Minnesota State High School League to be placed in a conference so I will find out later in May if spectrum is placed in the tri metro now st. Croix is not going to the State High School League they want to be accepted in by asking so there they are not going to be forced in by all means to the Tri Metro Conference however spectrum
043might be so there's a presentation on April 30th that I'll be attending and representing the Tri Metro for Columbia Heights any questions I got one question super glad all the participation has gotten do we have any I mean do we have anything place that average sure we've adopted on with we're aligning with the State High School League so our expectation for students is that they're on track to graduate so students to participate in any activities that Columbia Heights needs to be on track to graduate so it's not a grade point average a sliding scale it's on track to graduate now in the future could we put that in the handbook absolutely it's at this time it's not going to go in the handbook but again raising the bar creating that culture of academics and excellence
044for my kids is is on my radar right now we don't have that standard correct and we would have to adopt that in our school district because the state high school he doesn't have a grade point average as much as important I think it's it's very important that education comes first yep and with the new handbook there will be great checks for my athletes right now they're sporadic but I am going to mandate my coaches to me checking in with their athletes it's gonna be probably every three weeks that they need an update that their behavior is positive not only in the classroom but in the hallways and the lunchroom but also that they are passing their classes this conference yes conference yes it is with my hope Ted that we stay stable there are
045a couple schools that are on the fence right now of looking for another place another conference but it's not the majority it's one or two and the reason why they would be looking for other conferences is because of their size not because we're not work we're not meshing well because this year we it's been all positive with the Tri Metro so and those changes are I would hear by the middle of June if a couple of schools are looking and it would be a year out so next year the schools in our conference will stay in our conference it's it's always a year ahead but for the majority that it is it it is consistent it's significantly grown and quite a few of these complements on keeping the webpage current - I think's I'm sure
046with the weather there's been a lot of hits check on that yes schedule I for one - yeah Bend and they've been current I mean a very reasonably current to be able to make accommodations for especially the outside sports and stuff if they get postponed or canceled so yeah thanks thank you for doing that because I know my kid don't tell me anybody else thank you Matt thanks we're gonna next up is going to be information regarding the Anoka broadband update presented with an update of the broadband Brian evening chair Larkin members of the board sprintin Kelly tonight I just want to kind of give you an update on the Kinect Anoka County broadband project more so in the sense of the agreement that we signed and I'll just kind of step through that some
047of you know what that is some of you have no idea what that is depending on if you're on the board or not so I'll kind of give you an update or a brief overview of what that is and then just kind of what what's going to be coming forward to you at a future meeting you know like we always are doing now we're looking at our mission statement and every presentation creating worlds of opportunity for every learner when we talked about this broadband project this really was a project working with the community it took a lot of courage for all these members to get together obviously it was a grant there was a lot of dollars associated with it so it was easy to do when you had all of that but we had
048to collaborate and respect each other and to come together to come to common agreement with this so it was great it was a great project throughout the whole county but as far as the service agreement goes the service agreement was like I said it was all the whole County it's not just about the school systems it's about police fire Public Works libraries the schools colleges cities the county building so I was connecting everybody together in Anoka County and again like I said this was an agreement that the school board approved in 2011 so what we're looking at now is in that agreement it was a it was in a five-year term and it was it was an agreement that was the entire agreement as a whole was said that every five years there would be
049a renewal to the agreement if all the parties agreed so what we'll be bringing forward at a future meeting is is that amendment - you know extending that agreement another five years so again just a brief overview of that like I said it was it was a lot of money was million doubt millions of dollars it was mostly through a federal a our a grant or ARRA grant and you can see the numbers of how many and how many buildings and how many institutions we were bringing together with this this this project so it was it was a large number throughout the county so some of our focus benefits when we entered into this project expanding bandwidth talked a lot about that with levy and the importance of that with the initiatives that we have
050through all school systems redundancy you know if we're gonna have expectations about how we're using this online world for learning we need to have redundancy because we need to make sure that that's highly available we want to expand those on learning online learning opportunities and again we have to have that connection to do that obviously disaster recovery is a big play piece of that because if we have all this data we need to make sure we don't lose all this data so having this again that bandwidth connection to outside organizations whether there'd be a ties organization or whether that be if there's a third party service that we're doing for does that using for disaster recovery it's important to have that and of course ultimately we want to save money working together as a whole
051versus individually so again I kept talking about bandwidth in the focus on bandwidth and this is that's really where we're gaining your biggest bang for our buck right now is that bandwidth and there's a national organization state education Technology Directors Association similar to the coast and organization consortium of school not working our for school networking which I am a member of that kind of looked at it across organizations like St there's another one you probably have heard of and they came up with a standard looking at what is really needed 100 megabytes per second for a per thousand students and and they said okay looking at that and where we were how much do we know in two to three years how much do we need so by the 1718 2017-18 they're looking at a
052thousand lights or a gigabyte per second per thousand students and to make that make a little bit more sense of where we are right now where we need to go look at this so the national standard is on the far left it's a it's right now it's a hundred megabytes per student currently this year we're at a hundred and fifty megabytes per student for our districts so we're exceeding the national or recommend recommended national standard so we're in a very good position this project has helped us helped us to be in that position so in all likelihood we wouldn't be in this position right now if we didn't have that but now you look at the national standard expectation or what they're saying will be needed in 2017 18 it's you can see it's quite
053a bit higher and actually it's 10 times higher so they're looking at 10 10 times growth over the next two to three school years and in need and you can relate that to what we're doing in our school district in our expansion and in that personalized learning initiative our focus on college and career readiness and you know how we're growing that out and the devices that are coming along with that you can see that as we are expanding and growing how that need is gonna grow and not just in the quantity devices but how much we're using those devices so again you know we wouldn't be where we are right now without this so it's extremely important I believe that we continue it so you know in a following meeting you'll have that the actual
054amendment to the agreement we'll get the agreement to you so you see that and will be will be I'm asking to have that agreement renewed for the next five years so does anybody have any questions about that I know it's pretty read if I know some of you weren't really involved in that five years ago four to five years ago and they agreement it won't get us to that national standard but it it gives us the ability let's put it that way to get to that national standard with it with that project there's a capacity to that ring we're working on other ways to men to ensure that we can get to that you know that that agreements not going to thereby get us there by itself but it definitely gives us the ability to
055get there even New York like every day there's there's a cost associated with it and right now it's the cost isn't gonna go up and compared to what we were paying for transport costs using a third-party vendor like Comcast or someone else it is it's a lot less so it really did you know it made a cost effective us to jump to where we are now so we really jumped we jumped from 60 megabyte connection for our entire district to a 450 which gets us to about 150 per thousand students and we made that jump just by signing on to this agreement so it was it was definitely a effective way for us to to do this as far as you know are all the other parties yeah as far as I know they all
056are I I don't see why anybody wouldn't just based on cost and based on what were able to to achieve with it for some of them they may be getting less benefit than other than we are but just just from this the sense for some of them it may not be they're getting additional bandwidth from this they may have all the bandwidth they want from somewhere else but this does give it more done Nancy which is really important so each person has their their benefit to this and some of them have more than others right now for us it's it's the two biggest are the bandwidth in the redundancy that we have with it which we wouldn't have without it so you know and there's others but those are the top two by far with
057the initiatives that we have in the district thanks Brian thank you next up is the state longitudinal edge occasionally Attah system easier called sleds an update from our current director of teaching and learning Dwayne Jerell Arkin super Jane Kelly members of the board pleased to be here tonight to talk to you about sleds the chair Larkin said a long name but basically data on college and career readiness and so a big part of what we are working on as we talk about worlds of opportunity for every learner and obviously excellence is the name of the game that's where we want our kids to get in their k-12 pre k12 experience so that they have access to college and career sleds has data available to the public really all that relates to college and career readiness
058so proficiencies in math and reading by measured by the MCAS a CT high school graduation what percentage of our high school graduates enrolled in college last year what percentage completed their first year of college and what percentage of those took at least one remedial college course so all of that's available online the one thing I'll say and the data that I will show is from the 2013 school year and the reason for that is there's a delay in this because obviously you have to kind of wait and see how kids do after they've graduated and then that data is you know I have to go I should say after they've graduated and gone on to that first year of college and completed it so there always is going to be a more of a delay
059in this data but we thought it would be interesting for you to see what is current what is on there right now and see how we compare to state averages so here you'll see just a breakdown of some of the key data that is there again this is on sleds and you can see that it does repeat some things like math and reading proficiency for us and for the state includes our AC t-- scores that you can see our slightly below state average but we've been pretty steady as has a state over the last few years you can see the percent graduated from high school after five years in the 2013 school year what percentage of those enrolled in college and fall of 2014 you can see that we are at 58 percent of our
060students that graduated in 2014 so this is data that was always hard for us to get the top part portion there is data that we had through an MDE but this these last three rows are really new for us to be able to get this data and know then that of that group what percentage completed that first year of college successfully 84 the state and 76 for us and then we also can find out how many of them had to take remedial courses which is big because that is really a great measure for us if our kids are actually college or career ready and you can see that we are higher than the state and that would be something again that we all need to to work on there would be a goal area to
061to bring that down to at least the state average and even lower so we also can break it down them by our demographics you can see here that in some areas we are trailing in other areas we are leading the state in terms of that those three key pieces of data that we look at through sleds that we don't have available through MDE I think that you'll notice Asian in American Indian are two other ethnic groups that are not part of this and there just simply isn't enough data the numbers aren't there for them to calculate that for us there was a relatively small populations in Columbia Heights measuring also this for English learners and for free FRP free and reduced lunch those students who are getting free or reduced lunch it's a measure that
062the state uses for socio-economic levels so you again concede that we're leading I think one of the things that's perhaps really fun to see is how far we're leading the state and especially that English learners by 20 percentage points very close to the state in our free reduced lunch although our first-year completion for free reduced lunch again well above the state average the other thing that the sleds data can show us which is again interesting data that we can't get or could not get before is what percentage of them are enrolled in these different kinds of institutions so four-year college public college you can see that we're pretty close to that state average two-year college though maybe maybe not surprising giving we are a high free and reduced lunch district higher 43% quite a bit
063higher than the state I thought an interesting data point here though was the Minnesota private where we are also above the state and I would not have predicted that so that was an interesting data point for me and then you can see that most of our kids stay in Minnesota not many of them leave over a quarter of the state does but Columbia Heights just 6% where do they go again interesting data for us to look at you can see that across the state that our University of Minnesota system really gets the three those in the top three spots for us it's MCTC which runs the power of U which is a program which basically gets kids through two years at MCTC for really no cost everything if they qualify is covered including even textbooks
064Augsburg also has a very great program for kids coming out of things like college possible or kids from poverty kids from second language is they do a great job of that as well a lot of our kids take advantage of that a lot of our kids go to the U of M it's close it's a great school they have an opportunity sometimes to stay at home save some money that way work so that is also a very popular choice and then rounding it out st. Catherine and the University of Minnesota Mankato so interesting for us as we look at where our kids go weird things as that message resonated for kids and helps us I think also in knowing where we can turn and and find out how our kids are doing it really gives
065us a good chance to talk to kids that we used to really not know unless they kept in touch with profound other teachers here or somebody in in the administration we really did not know where a lot of our kids ended up and how they were doing so that's all 2013 data and so unfortunately we don't have much yet to show you from our last cohort our last graduates so you can see what we do know we know what our graduation rate is for four years and five years you can see that we're at Abid right now again a hundred percent of enrolled we know that that's a group of kids we can keep track of so we know that all of last year's avid kids are in college enrolled in in college and the
066same for college possible and I hope that you'll have a chance to hear from both of those organizations they are doing incredible work in our high school and we'll be very curious though to see that total figure for how what percentage of our kids are enrolled in college and so that we would anticipate possibly coming out sometime this summer my guess would be once they're able to see how many of those kids actually completed the school year and the update to the sleds program I just wanna say I agree with you these are great metrics for us to see you know kids for college it's really I think been able to open up a door to see what goes on after graduation which we really need to know if we want to see our kids
067are graduating this will be what will really be interesting too it's such new data that we don't have the data piece that's missing here obviously is what percentage of the kids that enrolled in college graduate from college and so that will come we'll get that two-year mark this year that's something I'm noticing which is which is absolutely wonderful is there is almost zero achievement gap across all of these groups for completing the first year of college yeah if anything the traditionally the traditional groups that we look at get the support they they're obviously getting the supports because they're being successful as a matter of fact this is wonderful this is one it's gonna be wonderful to see to see when when we get to the four years and and so on I've always been so
068excited about this for so long and this is if I remember correctly this is public data anybody can go and look this up you can look in you can look up any one of the schools you can you can drill down into almost to the classroom not yet not to the classroom but yes you can almost yeah I'm sure it's data that will increase over time and easily easily accessible to the public and I think in our work with college and career readiness again just really vital data for us to be able to measure how well we're doing in this area one thing I noticed there's a 43% going to a two-year school yes for Community College or tech school which would be probably empty and ZT c or anoka-ramsey and how important is we're
069doing with the no grams in the connection coming up oh it's gonna benefit kids so much here so yeah I think that's a good point a lot of our kids that tuition can be a big barrier and I think that programs like the power of you or this early college program through Noah Ramsey open open doors assert that once we hit those averages we keep going because we're yes that's a good point you know it's can be an intermediate milepost but the goal has to be much higher than the state average and obviously you know with with our district the goal is that all kids graduate college and career-ready and how we define that I think is is important this is one really great measure for it I think there's other measures that we'll also
070have to look at it doesn't measure everything in terms of what there is out there for careers but this one to me seems to be one maybe one of the best sets of data that we can collect to really get an honest appraisal where we're at I also like to say that the growing numbers that obviously people have been said is a lot to do with how the school board has done prior like our predecessors how much of an impact they have made to and everybody else like I'll just pushing for excellence you know we had a district we brought back kids that are in college and just happened two of them ended up two of the four English learners and really amazing to see how far you know determination and that will to learn
071will take you and succeeding in college just like they did here thank you sir okay thank you good night next up is the Highland parking and bus reconfiguration good evening chair Larkin members of the school board and superintendent Kelly um very quick very quickly tonight is hum bring you some information as you know we've been working on projects for this summer and we have our bidding done for our our drive improvements our parking improvements for Highland Elementary School I've included the bid tab in your packet the great news is here at this point our lowest bids at 350 2000 we actually estimated this at 460 so we are well well below budget very excited about that too and give us a more opportunity to do some other things so we are working with that company
072to make sure nothing was missed but in two weeks I will be bringing that contract to you at our next board meeting we also at because of the word the price came in we will be looking at accepting the alt the alternate one bid which is to match up our outside lighting with the new piece to what we have right outside here we have to already move one of these poles because the way the drive is going through and we will be putting all new lighting in it should be a lot brighter outside out here too so that's what that alternate one is with new lighting here in the horseshoe is there any questions just a comment thank you for saving $75,000 I appreciate that I'm sure you can find something say we're very excited
073about that you can really good to some options for others that's wonderful as you said a piece of that's going to go to the lighting correct yeah so yeah it's it's very exciting they have any questions when do we get started this this will actually get started right after the fourth of July because we're not going to be digging out here while we have the Summer Academy and these in the buildings but as soon as that project that that program is over right after the fourth of July that's when and we'll be digging up so there will be not any you'll have to come and walk up to visit us here and once we get to the fourth of July into about the second week of August and we are preserving the green space the
074green in the horseshoe correct yeah well there's a the configuration of the hora will change a little bit when you come into the horseshoe you'll be going out the same place so there'd be a little diagonal piece added so a little bit of the green space will be will be gone so be more of like a circular yeah you know when you come around the other side of the Hera shoot it'll angles back over to the other side that way we're keeping the high school parking separate that you're looking at being safer I'm just keeping those traffic pieces separate because right now we mix little kids with big kids and cars and buses and I'll go on the same Road so we will be separating all that okay thank you thank you fighting mmm we'll
075move forward to our action items it's the health insurance the health insurance I also in you in your board packet you can see our final prices for the for the company that the health insurance committee decided to go with and it is again the same plans we have now with the coop I just want to touch again on on the coop but really what it is I had a good discussion with Ted a few days ago talking about self insurance and I I guess I want to point out when we talk about the coop it really isn't just buying insurance like if I went straight to Blue Cross and buy insurance the the coop is really co-op with many many school districts it really serves as a self insurance product that we're just part of
076with all of these different school districts so what happens is we pay our premiums it goes into a account and but the only money that comes out of that is what X we have to pay for claims so anything left over that account stays in that account so if we have extra money left over the next year just like a like a self insurance would then it lowers our rates for the next year so it kind of works the same as a self insurance except we have a lot more districts involved so there's a lot less risk so what happens is we have one one school district I really had a hard time one year they are really a lot of claims all the school does is kind of help them have a lower rate
077the next year and vice versa and that happened with us a couple years ago we we definitely were using more than we were paying in and we didn't have a big you know rate increase come and hit us so now it's a very nice collaborative approach that we work with other school districts and it really is a self assurance it's as a hybrid self insurance product and you can see now we also I talked about we went back and asked them if you remember they said well we'll give you a two percent decrease and then we'll guarantee a nothing more than five percent in the second year we went back and talked to them and said we rather have just a zero percent and then guarantee is only a 3% increase that way our rates
078aren't bouncing up and down for our employees they've agreed to do that so as for next year we have a 0% increase everybody's cost exactly this why I shouldn't say exactly the same you see there's a little bit of rounding for an example if you look at the very first one that's our most popular plan the rate this year's 603 dollars and 49 cents all next year's you owe me six hundred three dollars and fifty cents and it really uses some rounding pieces so it's gonna be very small small changes but it really is the same as what people are paying now our employees are paying now and I get tired it's a little frustrating how the new law has kind of taken a lot of us out of the process and it really sits
079with our biggest union which is the teachers really make the decision on this but I still need to come back to you and say here's the rates and what do you think and is that okay if we go with these rates so that's what I'm asking you tonight the district's contribution is determined by the contract that we have with each unit not which plan we choose that's that's really that's absolutely correct by contract with all of our unions we pay so much per month for their insurance product so no matter what this cost is that comes through with premium the school district a is the same no matter what per employee I mean it varies if they're on a family or single plan but we pay the same no matter which plan we're not so
080when we looked at just going totally self-insured there really is lot more risk because if we were short the district has to pick up the gap we're with this this way we don't have any other risk whatsoever except for what we have in our contracts to pay for employees limits our exposure yes it does so ultimately the the plan that's chosen which the employees had input and more effects their rates than it does what the district has to pay yeah absolutely yes we pay a straight dollar mom for a single policy and a straight dollar amount for a family policy and it's it's consistent through every single one of our contracts okay okay I get a motion to move this forward second by Ted discussion hearing none all those in favor say aye Hey motion
081carries thank you very much on topics well one thing that came up with this is I went to look at the contract language for the various units and I don't have I don't have couldn't find my contracts it would be nice I think for me to have all the contracts in one place and one binder that we could you know from the superintendent on down to look at and have as a reference so just throw that out there um I just bring it up I think it more work sessions well you know I would like to see that we have more discussion with each other and stuff that we talk about as just board members I know the administration brings things up and you know the time that it gets done it gets kind of
082late so it'd be nice just you know see other people's opinions before it gets pretty late like more 5050 regarding topics so do you feel like you're not getting enough discussion with the k-12 activity tonight or is that the discussion you're talking about okay and that leads me kind of what we're gonna talk about one of the things that's been kind of a thing that we've been and working towards as a group is to have what I guess I would call a board focused work session and the policy piece got in the way this month as far as this because of our our goals to get everything done prior to the end of the year so the intention is is in May the plan is in May as is that there's been topics that have
083come up and in you know with different people that you know that's where we're gonna be headed with that okay and I ain't know and Ted was in the chair meeting with me as well and Kathy had brought up time after this and I think initiated initially both you know personality sales I think when Ted had talked with Dennis cheese burrowed he actually brought some stuff forward and it takes it even a step further were and they both Ted and Kathy have some thoughts on that and I'm gonna let them kind of build on it but it's it's leading down that path that you're you're mentioning as a direction that were already headed okay let's work with Dennis cheese burrow he asked him the question he said is there ever anything I'm paraphrasing because I
084wasn't part of the conversation but that words dude as a team to understand perhaps their style or their personality or some kind of quiz or some kind of metrics that people use and and so Dennis talked to me he said actually they he's worked with a lot of boards in the metro area and across the United States of course on all kinds of things this is an easy thing it's a it's a team-building thing to do to get to know one another through a governance lens and who the people are that you're working with on the team and he said I will send you some information and so at the chair meeting tonight prior to this board meeting I he suggested that there's this kind of fun book that doesn't isn't very invasive but it
085just talks about what color is your personality and maybe some of you are familiar with it some of you are not but it just it's it is a something that we could all take online as a playful thing about our personalities and we'd get assigned a color I haven't done it myself so he's just description again and then Dennis would be willing to come out in June and work with us on what this means about our personalities and then through with governance lens talk about how do you apply the different personalities around the table to get to yes or have conflict or whatever it is knowing the styles in talking about it I with the chair and with the vice-chair I know that folks had talked about let's do some and me and then maybe
086we should carry down and it's kind of traditional for a lot of the boards and sometimes we haven't gotten to it because we've been to do some mini retreat things throughout the year we spent a lot of time on evaluation last year a question I'm meeting talking about other words be is is is doing as a board and that's fine and that's very serious work but this is a more playful idea of getting to know one another better and then in talking to Ted tonight he also had an and we might be able to use in temper would you like to explain what that is and where you found that sure yeah I'm serve a couple other boards one board that I serve on did this exercise and if you ever taken the myers-briggs it's
087similar to that where identifies specific personality traits and then it's really insightful because once you learn the traits of each individual board member you can better relate to them because you know where they're coming from so that's the power of doing this so one of the things I suggested was first of all you know what you're putting this in the update it's too hard to explain starting with the color the colors indicator like I said would be willing to come out for us and he'd be willing to do a Tuesday but in June before a board meeting if we wanted to do something from five to seven or if we wanted to consciously have a shorter board meeting where we have fewer items in June which it would be after graduation so we could schedule
088the quiz indicator I personally think for me just as an ex officio member something would be kind of fun and playful to do as a team that's the mystery of a dog not gonna really give you the book we have to take the quiz we're gonna do something like that after a board meeting could get a little bit late something that we're gonna find some questionnaire personality question whatever is is something that Ted already has I guess I would ask people to if we want to proceed it's something to do and it's it would that I have the date because he's it would be June 9th it sounds like I guess I was just thinking that this is this is something that I would almost prefer to do not if I have a board meeting
089or something either before after you know that's just my opinion yeah just be able to concentrate well you will take the indicator before right so you probably know what color you were the mystery something where we got together and then even Dennis comes I think we could really do this is a yes and and I think that Dennis will do two hours on it with us or an hour and a half but then I think part of the value then is as you're seeing is reflecting on it and then coming back and then at our next work study maybe looking at what Ted has as an indicator and discussing what we've reflected on from the last one and talking some during that work study like we do for the evaluation process because you're right learners
090sometimes you reflect your meta conjugate about and then you come back and go that's an insight I think I want to share that so we could allow some time at the next work study to really concentrate on that an alternative because the one that I took takes about an hour to get done and fully analyzed and so I my suggestion was they're both good ideas once playful the other ones a little more but I think that from what I heard one is style ones personality and I think there's value we can do both so we're thinking we're thinking June 9th we would do Dennis and then we would probably send you a link before then and then process that and then an hour hour next just like we worked on evaluation at our next work
091study we would could reflect more on that and in addition to that we would do the leadership style quiz I'm just gonna call it that for now it's the one so it is more like a myers-briggs which would be different than right you'll get four letters describing yourself yes so are we okay with that other thing I would mention I think Don was talking to people as they came in must be the celebration they can get the money it would be worth someone's time to just pull up the district calendar right now it's so full of different things going on from the play and it's not unusual this is a very busy time of the year all the bandages it's an acquire concerts or wrapping up for the year but if you looking for something
092to do you should not be so I mean there's you should not be hard-pressed to find something to do in our community right now the retirement bills the teachers although teachers the support staff the clerical anybody that retire says I'm not really coming I don't like to be part of I don't want to be on the spot and all that kind of stuff but they really do look forward to it once they get there it's really about them and then they really look forward to receiving their bill from the board and anybody's that's their hands out the bells and presents in them everybody there retires it rings the bells together so it's really kind of a fun way to everybody who retired the year before come back next week listening session and they think it's
093I don't think I know it's Molly and I you're doing the listening session that in place of the actual work session will be the policy so that would be Molly in Grant Wood Tuesday off oh my gosh thank you Wednesday okay we'll adjourn at 911