001Hello everybody. I'm excited to see all of you here this evening. Just wanted to let you know that yes you are in the right place. We're going to start off our board meeting with a recognition of the artists whose work you see on the walls here. And I would like to invite all of my... board colleagues to come down here to the front so that we can recognize our amazing artists in the district. And then also just to let people know that if you are here to fill out a public comment card, that time has closed. I've got them in my hands and we're all ready to go on that. So just one minute, I'll put them down and we'll get started. Okay, so welcome everyone. If you want to come down further and grab
002a seat, there's a few down here in front. But what we will do is as we read out the names of our extraordinary elementary artists, you can come and walk down the Royal Blue Runner. And we have a certificate for you and we would like everyone to see you and acknowledge your amazing work. So let's give a warm welcome to our students and their families. So your support and encouragement play a vital role in nurturing all of our students' creativity and passion for the arts. As we admire the artwork displayed around us, let's remember that arts education is about much more than the final product. It's about the process of learning, exploring creativity, and developing essential skills like communication, fine motor skills, and emotional intelligence. Our students have worked hard to create these pieces and
003you see them. around the room here on the walls of this boardroom and your our students dedication is evident in every brushstroke and color choice through their art they have learned to express themselves handle constructive criticism and enrich experiences Let's take a moment to appreciate the joy and fun that art brings into our students and all of our lives. It's a chance for students to engage with school, reduce stress. and develop social, emotional, and interpersonal skills. We also want to recognize our fabulous school leaders and especially our art teachers and staff for guiding and inspiring our students. So I hope, I know we have at least one. So Jennifer Silas, Miss Silas works at Meadowbrook, and Molly Worden. Are you here, Molly? Let's give her a round of applause, too. And Renee Funk, are you
004here, Renee? Art teacher from Tanglin. Well, we have to give her a round of applause. Okay. We're very grateful to our art teachers and all that they do and help our students create. And now we're going to recognize each of our talented young artists. So when you hear your name, students, then we'd like you to head to the back of the Royal Blue Runner. See Principal Sawatsky from Meadowbrook? She's showing you where to stand. And then when you hear your name, you're going to walk up the Royal Blue Runner toward us. And we have a certificate for you. And then you can, if you want to fist bump with our board members or... whatever you'd like. And please stay up here so that we can continue to recognize you until the program is over. So
005are you ready, kids? So you can go to the back now. If you are going to be recognized, feel free to head to the back. And we're going in alphabetical with your last name. So we'll start with the A's. Okay, these kids are adorable. All right. Is Calvin Albersman here? congratulations Calvin what about grant Albersman is grant here Carl Anderson Kila Arnold Zoe Bowman hazel Chapman Devlin chatter G and I fit if I mispronounce your name just grab this microphone and give us the correct pronunciation Michael Clayton Renata Cruz Maximillian Cummings Isla Dahlstrom. Stay up here, Max. Irish Delahunty. Maxim Edelstein. Fiona Eder. Sophia Eichten. Sophia, did I say your last name correctly? Miss Sophia? Did I? Okay, good. She's like, what? Aaliyah Elmy. Annabelle Emond. Winthrop Flanagan. Landon Foster. Logan Gilbert Everly Guston Noah
006Hartman Daisy Herr Odessa Hoyne Jacobson Smith Matthew Jahia Jahia Simon Jeffrey Simon Jeffrey Victoria Karablanova Nora Klein Ivan Cause Elliot Latimer Luca Lujes. Riviana Moore. Mikayla Nugent. Margo Olson. Mikayla Winn. Margo Olson. Avery Rucker. Frederick Schaefer. Jaylen Scott. Ingrid Sharp. Ruby Solomonson. Maisie Stroke-Schultz. Clara Tasman. Jean T. Ziu. T. Ziu? Zhang. Jean Zhang. Zhang. Thank you. And I think it's Nusi Vang. Wrong. Robert Westlund and Oliver Wheeler. Is Hazel Chapman here? No. Is there anyone here that we didn't call your name yet? Once again, congratulations to our talented young artists. We are so proud of you and can't wait to meet you to grow. Here for a photo op for your parents. Come on down all the way. Have you ever seen this many cameras come today? No. Miss Silas. Miss Silas, can you come
007up? Miss Silas. Miss Silas. Everyone got their photos? We'll send the certificates to your teachers. I'll share it with the team. I'm going to take it home. In general I'm glad we didn't ask her. I know. I forgot to tell you about John. I realized as soon as we were talking because that's my son's friend. Well, thank you all for joining us this evening. You are certainly welcome to stay for the rest of the board meeting, but we understand if you'd like to continue your evening elsewhere. You certainly made our night, so thank you for being here once again. And we will get started with the rest of the meeting. Is my mic on? And that will take us to our board meeting, which is public comment, our open agenda. Some comment cards filled out,
008but I wanted to make sure that we were all aware of Ongoing discussions that the board had about our public comment It used to be, and it is still posted as such, that we have two sessions of public comment, one at the beginning of our meeting and one at the end. The one at the beginning was reserved for items on the agenda, and the one at the end was reserved for items not on the agenda. We have agreed as a board to discontinue that practice and to... put all of our public comments at the beginning as long as they fit within the half hour allotted to that agenda item. And it is, which at that point, if we have more public comments than will fit in a half hour, we will then use our time
009for overflow at the end of the meeting. So this... This today at this meeting we have nine public comments, so we will not Get to that threshold so we will be able to hear all our public comments at the beginning of the meeting and look forward to doing that. We have comment cards submitted. There are two ways to make public comment to the Hopkins School Board. You can submit your public comments via voicemail, and the number is on our website to do that. And then you can also appear here in person and fill out a public comment card and address the board in that way. Before we get started, I'm just going to go through a little bit of our protocols around public comment. We appreciate your input. We like hearing from our community. But
010we have the following guidelines. You may speak for three minutes. A timer will appear on the screen so that you can Be sure that you are making your comments within the allotted time. Members of the school board will not respond directly to public comments that are made at this meeting. A district representative may follow up with you after the meeting. If you have written comments, we would appreciate having a copy, which will improve both our understanding of your concern and our ability to investigate and respond to the issue you raised. Personal attacks by anyone addressing the school board will not be tolerated. Persistence in such remarks by an individual or otherwise disruptive behavior shall terminate that person's privilege to address the school board. And with that taken care of, we will go ahead and first
011listen to the two voicemails that were submitted for public comment at this board meeting. And then we have seven speakers. My name is Emily Ward, and I would like to comment on an item not on the agenda. I'm here again to talk about school bathroom safety, particularly for transgender students. So improved safety is beneficial for all Hopkins students. If you're thinking, why are you talking about bathrooms again? Let me tell you that you are experiencing the tip of the iceberg. Between May of 2022 and the end of the last school year, our Hopkins Families of Gender Expansive Kids, Parents and Caregivers Group has spent over 150 hours discussing problematic nature and impacts that unsafe or inaccessible bathrooms in Hopkins schools have had on our kids. This includes about 10 hours spent on site visits to
012each facility in the district. Why do we keep talking about bathrooms? Because substantive action to improve safe access to bathrooms, a basic, boring biological need, has not been taken by the district. No positive momentum trending toward district-wide improvement has been shared. So I'm asking you to please do what we have done and spend the 150 person hours looking at solutions. To the best of my knowledge, Hopkins District did not even apply for the Minnesota Department of Education Vendor Neutral Restroom Grant last year. I'm asking you to use some district person hours and apply this year. Yes, large-scale plumbing and infrastructure change across multiple facilities is an expensive proposition, but starting does not require making large-scale change all at once. Sustained, incremental change can be a place to start and trend toward positive. Please start that
013sustained incremental change now in the 2024-25 school year. I'm asking you to take another look at the report we provided to district leadership after our facility audit in 2023. What incremental action can you start now? Can you triage and develop initial plans of action? Can you assess architectural feasibility so you're ready to act when funds are available? Can you require, at the district level, that gender neutral bathroom access is considered when any other construction work is being planned at district facilities to piggyback on that opportunity or save future costs? Are you reviewing the Minnesota Statute passed in 2023 that allows funds to be used for remodel or construction of gender-neutral single-user restrooms at each school site starting in fiscal year 25? Looking back on your day, most of you probably did not have to do
014a risk assessment before using the bathroom. You did not have to show up at work or school or even a school board meeting at Eisenhower and not know where or even if there was a bathroom you could use safely. You may have even had the privilege to not have talked about bathrooms at all, and I envy that. Thank you. Hi, my name is Allison Mann, and I am calling regarding the issue of full-time para support and lack thereof this year for the kindergarten and first grade classrooms at Eisenhower Elementary. I have a first grader who experienced a really wonderful para. support system last year when he was in kindergarten and I am seeing the disruption that not having parent support full time in the kindergarten and first grade classrooms is causing already this year for
015the teachers to have to manage 20 plus students and in some cases between 5 and 10 with high needs and lots of one-on-one attention. It has been challenging for both my kindergartner and my first grader this year to get the support and attention that they need and certainly not at the fault of the teacher. These women in this case are doing an amazing job supporting my kids and I'm so grateful for them. and i do hope that this issue will be taken very seriously by the school board and the leadership team at eisenhower elementary and that we can do something to implement more para support and up to full-time support for the remainder of the school year it is absolutely crucial for these students to have additional support from trained staff and specifically staff who
016are bilingual for these immersion classrooms. Spanish is the program that my two children are in, and I am backing the other parents and the teachers in this situation to try to get the support that they need to benefit all of these students. Again, my name is Allison May. Thank you. That ends our voicemails that were left for the public comments section, and we will move to the comment cards that were submitted for this evening in person. And I would like to invite Kendra Theory, did I say your name correct? Yeah. To the board table to speak with us about pair support and class sizes at Eisenhower. Thank you for being here this evening. Yes, thank you. Get right there is great Okay, good evening members of the school board My name is Kendra theory and
017I'm here on behalf of 92 parents and community members who have signed our petition in just the past week We are deeply concerned about the significant reduction in para support and increased class sizes for kindergarten and first grade classrooms at Eisenhower this year Last year each of my twin kindergarten my twins kindergarten classes had a dedicated para and the first grade parents shared that there was a dedicated first grade para for the spanish classrooms this year that support has been drastically cut putting a noticeable strain on both teachers and students we know that there are budget constraints but we believe it's critical to prioritize para support especially for our youngest learners in these foundational years Work in an environment that almost celebrates failure. We say fail fast It's better to try and fail quickly than
018continuing down a path. That's flawed hoping that it will get fixed along the way This path has been taken for six weeks and it's clear. It's not working The parents and community members who signed our petition believe that restoring full-time para support in kindergarten and increasing support for first grade is essential. We've also noticed that other schools in the district have maintained this level of support, and we're trying to understand why Eisenhower hasn't. We're just asking for equitable resources so our students get the help they need. We're also seeking transparency around class sizes and how staffing decisions are made so we can better understand and ensure that our students receive adequate support. I hope the board will support us in finding solutions. Thank you for your time and attention to this important issue. Thank you.
019Thank you. Thank you. Next, I would like to invite Sarah Memmon to the board table, also speaking on paraprofessional support in K and first grade. Thank you for being here. Forgive me for speaking quickly. I wrote a lot. My name is Sarah Memmon, and I currently have a kindergartner enrolled in Juntos at Eisenhower. I also have two younger children that I hope to enroll in Juntos in the coming years. As a Hopkins graduate myself and with three young children entering the education system, I am dedicated to working together to create a healthy community of learning for our students and our educators. I'm here today to discuss my concerns regarding the lack of paraprofessional support in the kindergarten classrooms at Eisenhower. Parents and caregivers were assured at multiple orientation meetings at each kindergarten classroom was assigned
020one full-time para, their full-time teacher, and a cultural ambassador to float between the classrooms. More than one month into the school year, it was brought to my attention that this is not the case. The lack of transparency and communication regarding this change is quite concerning. Upon further investigation, I learned that my daughter's teacher has a dedicated para in the classroom from 7.35 to 8.15 a.m. meaning that approximately half of the time the para is in the room to assist, the school day has not yet started. In her correspondence with me and other parents, our school's principal has asserted that there is frequently another adult in the classroom. The use of the word adult is an important distinction, as it does not allude to a certified educator. I have come to learn that the other adult
021referred to is the student ambassador, who cannot fully support two kindergarten classrooms simultaneously, nor is it their job to serve in a paraprofessional role. The lack of paraprofessional support in the kindergarten classrooms concerns me for the following reasons. First, kindergarten is a monumental transition for young learners. With the added stress of immersion in another language, it is not feasible for one teacher to meet the social, emotional, and academic needs of all 26 students in the classroom. Second, we all know that teachers are an invaluable resource that are already stretched too thin. To ask teachers single-handedly handle 26, 5, and 6-year-olds, while also tasking them with teaching a curriculum, is asking for teacher burnout and turnover. We have amazing teachers at Eisenhower. We need to be heavily investing in keeping them, and part of doing that
022is offering them support they need to run their classrooms. Not to mention the added stress of the new WIN model. I don't see how one teacher can teach 26 children to read to reach and meet each child individual's needs in 30 minutes a day of reading. If they were to spend one minute with each child, they would eat up the entire 30 minutes of reading time, and there is no possible way the educational needs of each child will have been met. The third is safety. We have heard from the teachers of our youngest learners that the fire and lockdown drills are not going well. Tasking one adult to guide 26 squirrely five-year-olds outside of the building in a safe and efficient manner is simply too much. Thankfully, there has not been a need to enact
023these policies during a real emergency, but schools in America face a tremendous threat of gun violence, and a teacher not having the resources to keep their students safe in the event of an emergency is frankly unacceptable. My final point is in regard to the burden that this lack of teacher support puts on children. My own child has been put in a position, effectively acting as a para for a child in her class on multiple occasions. If the child is acting out, she is often the one to correct the student as she is the one sitting next to the child. On one occasion, the child attempted to run away while coming. Thank you so much. I have these written down. Yes, that would be great. You can give it to Natalia and she'll make sure we
024all get a copy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Next is Bergen Baker in classroom support. Welcome. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. Good evening, everybody. My name is Bergen Baker. I have. Twin kindergartners in Prof. Juan Ro's class and Maestra Pame's class, respectively, and I don't have anything prepared tonight, but I do want to throw my support behind these wonderful women behind me who have organized our community of parents at Eisenhower, Eisenhower students, to address the immediate need of full-time paraprofessional support within kindergarten specifically. At fall conferences, I was concerned to learn the fact that One of the main deciding factors of coming to Eisenhower was that full-time paraprofessional support within the Junto Spanish Immersion Program. That support was not any longer being offered. Additionally, we've received some conflicting information
025from administration regarding the decision behind pulling this paraprofessional support. And I think we all have the same goal to help our smallest learners succeed. And we'd love to work with the school board and we would love to work with administration to restore success to our students. So thank you for your time. Thank you for allowing us to be here. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to invite Mara Pease to the table. And please correct your name if I didn't do it correctly. Thank you. Thank you. Welcome. Hi. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Dr. Mara Pease. I want to thank these ladies for their bravery and courage to come here and speak today. This is not in our comfort zone. We come from many different backgrounds, but not being used to this. So what I want
026to say is a couple of things. I have a first grader in Juntos. We were concerned to learn that our daughter is behind grade level in reading. And when we were asking about support, we were told there is no support. not a group and that we could hire a tutor, basically. That is deeply concerning as I was checking in with lots of other parents of other kids in the district and outside of the district who said that they had indeed a recovery specialist or a reading support person that seemed to be very standard in their district. Secondly, I have an incoming kindergartner to Juntos. And I want to speak as a psychologist about the social, emotional, and the psychological development of children who are the age of five. As many of you may or may
027not know, that's below the threshold of when you can really start diagnosing kids with things like ADHD and social anxiety, different anxiety disorders. And if we don't, if you're below that, they're not going to have all the coping skills that they need to regulate. So you're going to see a lot of externalizing behaviors instead of things like hitting. I saw it when I volunteered in the classroom last year. I saw it. a chair be kind of picked up and thrown at a child. I saw a revolving door of kids coming in and out because they're not kept for a specific amount of time outside of the classroom. So they were coming in dysregulated still and they were going out and coming in and going out. So the paraprofessionals were instrumental last year. And the fact
028that they're being pulled this year, frankly, scares me as a child, having a child coming in with anxiety. not knowing how he's going to fare. If he doesn't, he's a neurotypical child, and he can concentrate well, but he has perfectionism, and he will get really dysregulated if he colors out of the line. And who's going to help him? Who's going to sit next to him and say, hey, it's okay, let's try again, if there's nobody in the classroom that's going to help besides the teacher? So I thank you all. I hope you listen to us. Thank you. Next, I would like to invite Ashley Andrew to speak on media centers. Welcome. Hello. Okay, so as you guys have seen me last year when I was in here, you may recognize me because I spoke on
029behalf of media centers last year. I have a third grader and a first grader in Juntos this year. And at the Eisenhower Elementary and the Junchos program, although I share many of these concerns as well with staffing at Eisenhower and rumored ideas of what might be happening with budget cuts next year, I come tonight to share with you an update on what has happened since the media changes have been made last year. Currently, each of our schools are allotted seven hours of media para professionals each day. That's what I do. With the exception of the high school, that's allotted two media paras under the current budget. As I said before, I work in the media center at Eisenhower Elementary, and I voice my concerns throughout the changes that have been made since last year in
030the media centers. And I think it's important that I come to the school board meeting tonight to give the members insight into the current situation in our media centers this year. Currently, we only have four DLSs that have been hired and are working across our 10 media centers in our schools. We were promised six at least last year, and they still have not been hired, even though there was interviews in the summer. We also were allotted two media paras over at the high school. We have only been working with one all year long and have not hired another media para. This is putting, obviously, added stress on each media para in their school and also on our DLSs because we are working with little support from them. I've also expressed that I have... I've expressed
031to my current boss that the two large elementary schools in the school district, being Eisenhower and Meadowbrook, have a large student population in comparison to the other school districts. And I would like some people to look into how it's not equitable because they... We can't see the same amount of classes every single week as like Glen Lake can, for instance. I see eight classes some days and Glen Lake is seeing three and I have the same allotted hours. I've brought that up to multiple people and I've been told that nothing can be changed this year. Again, I will reiterate something that another parent said and I think it's good to make mistakes. I think it's good to try things and try something and if it doesn't work and people that are in the positions working
032them are telling you we need more staff, I would like to be listened to and heard that maybe we could have hire another para between the two large elementary schools so that we could still see each of our students every single week like the smaller schools can without seeing eight classes a day. That, to me, is equitable. We currently have one high school parent working, and she has now put in her notice because she's so overworked. And as a district that claims to be one of our top priorities claims to be equity, it sure is disappointing to be met with such an inability to collaborate and change course and be solution-oriented when there are issues of equity being brought to the attention to the people in charge. Thank you for your time. Thank you. I'd
033like to invite Laura Jack Jack eesh to the table to speak about pay for special education paras and There's other things. I'll let you it's yokish. Oh, thank you My name is Laura Yokish, and I am an employee at Hopkins West Middle School. This will be my third full year with the Hopkins School District. I was hired in April of 22 as a RTI reading para, and I held that role until June of 2023. Due to funding, that role was eliminated going into the 23-24 school year. At that time, I applied and interviewed for a learning support para position at Hopkins West Middle School. After interviewing for the position, I was offered it and held that role for one school year starting from August 2023 through June of 2024. Due to budget cuts, that role
034was reduced and they only had space for one learning support para. I was given two options to move to North Middle School in the same role as learning support para or stay at West and transition to be a special education para. In my conversation with Sarita Mate, the principal, I decided I wanted to stay at Hopkins West Middle School and asked if I would receive a pay cut if I accepted the role as special education para, knowing I would be moving from a class six to a class five. As she recommended that I should reach out to Carl Yancey and Brian Stanley, I talked to Carl in person. He said he would look into it if I would receive a pay cut. In May of 2024, I still hadn't received an answer to my question.
035On May 20th, I sent an email to Carl and Stanley asking if I would see a pay cut by changing classes. Carl responded, thanks for reaching out, and I will talk to Brian. I still had not received an answer to my question. In August, when I looked at my estimated terms of employment in Skyward, it did not reflect the change in my role or status. On August 14th, I notified Brian Stanley and HR that the change had not been made. That same day, Brian responded that he did a new status form change, putting me at a SPED para at West Middle School. It did not include that I would be receiving a paint cut. On September 27th, I noticed that on my September 30th pay statement that my hourly rate for SPED para position was
0362039. My original pay rate when I was a learning support para was 2097. I emailed HR, Sarita, and Brian asking about my pay cut and the reason I was not notified that this was going to happen. Later that day, Julie responded that typically I would receive a notification from Skyward. That notification was an automated message from Skyward that was extremely hard to read, and I did not understand what it was saying. Following Julie's instructions, I was able to locate the two automated emails. Julie sent an additional email on September 28th stating that after reviewing the history of the form that she did make a mistake and that my hourly rate should not be 2039, it should be 2059. That is still 38 cents lower than the rate I was receiving last year. She did mention
037that we are still in bargaining for paras. I'm well aware because I am on the bargaining committee. I still to this day have not been fully compensated for the hours to be bumped back to 2059, but I'm still going to be short that 38 cents per hour. Last year as a learning support para, I was placed into classrooms and the flex space to support students and teachers. This year as a SPED para, I have been placed in- Thank you for coming this evening and for your comment. Thank you, Lori. Thank you, Laura. All right, that concludes our public comment section for- this board meeting and we get to move on to the reports section. Our first order of business in reports is our student board representative reports and we are lucky enough to have five
038board reps here this evening and I will let you all take it away. Who goes first? Hi, my name is Sufjan Osman. I'm a new board rep and I'm a freshman. And start things off, the St. Louis Park Police Explorer Program is taking place soon and ages 14 through 21 can apply. But they're especially looking for juniors. And also the robotics mini trials, which is a competition for the robotics club, is happening pretty soon. And then end of quarter or term one at Hopkins High School is going to be happening November 1st. So students are trying to turn in assignments and have no missing work. Hi, Iris. I'm sorry. Don't know I might have missed this. Did you introduce yourself and say what year you are? Yeah, okay. Thanks. Sorry. Hi. I'm Iris I'm also
039a new board rep. I'm a freshman So the volleyball sections game for varsity is today and it's actually happening currently So good luck to everyone who is competing in that We also have a digital learning day this Thursday, which is really great. So this is promoting mental health for a lot of students who get burnout or feel like they have a lot of things to do during the school day. It happens once a month on Thursdays. They get to sleep in, and it's usually about two hours of work. This is also an opportunity for students who want to do more. So students can take this day to work at a job that they might have or volunteer. I know someone who would volunteer at an elementary school and did, it was a teacher's aid for
040a specific. music class in elementary school. So that's really great for students. There's also Principal T on these days. So this time it's on budgeting. Last time it was on safety policies. So you can learn all about that with our principal. And then the last thing that I have is about winter drum line. So this is something new where Hopkins is partnering with St. Louis Park. It is open to anyone. You don't need any musical experience beforehand. And it's for 7th through 12th graders. So it's a super fun drum line that you can do, including all sorts of different percussion instruments. Thank you. You also get to be in the raspberry parade. that's a different drumline Oh drumlines are great yeah that that's the marching band this is the winter drumline but it's also partnered
041with st. Louis Park so they're easy to get both we also have a new sophomore student board representative Eloise who is unable to make it to the meeting tonight As fall sports are coming to an end, many sports are having their championship competitions. The Boys and Girls Varsity Cross Country Team have their sections tomorrow. The JV Girls Swim and Dive Team have their JV Championship meet on Friday and Saturday. And the Varsity Football Team has their first sections game at Lakeville North on Friday. Today, juniors had the opportunity to take the PSAT, which is the preliminary SAT. This exam is a shorter version of the SAT and serves as the initial screening for the National Merit Scholarship Program, which identifies students who score in the top 1% nationally. Participation in the PSAT is optional and
042not required for graduation. Testing started at around 8.40 a.m. and ended around 12.40 p.m. Today, there was also a sophomore student council town hall meeting. The student council had one spot open for sophomores, and multiple hardworking scholars decided to campaign for that spot. These scholars had been campaigning on social media as well as putting up posters around the school, and today they answered questions from the student council as well as from the student body at the town hall during Royals Connect. Sophomores could get a pass to the town hall, which was in the mini theater. Voting will happen on the 25th. Manuel do you know how many juniors took the piece out today? I do not know. No, I see principal Ballard finding out I can wait. It's like did any Sorry praise. Oh, that's
043all right Hi, I'm Praise. I'm a senior student board rep. That actually feels so crazy to say. But yeah, on the topic of senior things, the early action deadline for college applications is approaching very quickly, faster than we think. It's November 1st, and there's been lots of discussion in the air and I guess kind of like anticipation for submitting those applications and just preparing for the next stage. In addition, also kind of related to college, the advanced... placement or AP African American Studies class is taking an HBCU tour trip. It's set to take place in 2026 with registration happening now. A civil rights slash HBCU tour that they'll be going on will be to Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. They'll be visiting sites like the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the National Center for Civil and Human
044Rights, as well as taking tours of the Whitney Plantation and the Lafayette Cemetery. They'll also be touring Spelman and more. House Colleges and in addition Xavier University of Louisiana. And then this one, the Hopkins High School HOSA chapter, or the Hopkins High School HOSA Future Health Professionals chapter will be attending the annual Fall Leadership Conference. That's also happening on November 1st, so on that early action deadline. It's taking place all day at the Brooklyn Heritage Center and Brooklyn Center, and it's hosted by the entire Minnesota HOSA. So there will be tons of different chapters there. Within Fall Leadership Conference, or FLC for short, there are various technologies to experiment from, demos, and guest speakers and also a multitude of stands by universities and companies to learn from. Some examples include displays of most surgical tools
045used in live surgeries, information on volunteering, CNA training, and job opportunities. Thank you. Hi, my name is Mia Osmond, and I'm also a senior board rep. So there was a virtual college planning event for families on Monday, October 21st at 7 p.m., and then there will be one again on Thursday, October 24th at 1 p.m. And this event basically focuses on two- to four-year college planning cycles for all families, not just seniors. And for those who wish to pursue something other than college, there will be a separate night planning. planning night that will be held for those. And then to find the link to those Google Meets would be on Ms. Ballard's newsletter. And then AP exam registrations opened up October 1st. So students who are in AP class first term or who are independently
046studying for it can register and the registration closes today. So if anyone is like taking an AP, they got to hurry up and get it done. And then Obviously, if you qualify for educational benefits, you can get it at a lower rate, but that would have required you to apply or sign up for it the first week. And yes, okay, so there is also an increased number of students deciding to start walking to class after the bell rings. Starting October 15th, students who are in the hallways after the bell rings without a pass will be sweeped to a location in the school and given a reminder about the importance of being on time. After the second reminder, the scholar will remain in a classroom for the rest of the day. Exceptions are made and not
047limited to those who were waiting for the bathroom, using the bathroom, on the way to the school nurse, or were looking for an adult to help resolve conflict. So far, this has been extremely successful with the number of tardiness decreasing for all but first block. In the newsletter, it said that 250 to 300 scholars who do not ride the bus arrive to school late each day. There is still room for improvement, but overall, this implementation was great. Even more, some students feel as though school has become much safer as a result of this. And finally, to wrap things up, we are looking for junior board reps to take on after me and Praise leave. So hopefully before winter break, we have a full team prepared. Thank you. Are you encouraging applications? Yes. Okay. Yes. Inquiring
048minds would like to know if you're... pursuing an independent study in AP this year? I am actually. What topic? I'm doing AP Lit. By yourself? Yeah. Okay. Okay, so I was originally planning to take the class this year, but then there was not enough room. Sorry, I'm going on a whole tangent. But there was not enough room in my schedule, and I had to choose between either CIS French 5 or AP Lit. And I was like, okay, I want the college credits from French, because if I fail the AP exam, like, I won't get the credits. So I was like, okay, I'm going to just take French 5. And then I was like, okay, but I could self-study for AP Lit at least, you know, like, even if I don't have the class. So, yeah.
049impressive thank you yes all of you are role models for many people in this space over the age of 30. any comments or questions for our board reps when does the the tour take place the civil in college tour it's happening in 2026 unfortunately so mia mia won't be able to attend oh i was so sad to hear that Well, I want to thank you all for your great reports. It feels really comprehensive, and I like that you each kind of have your own focus and talk about things that are important to you. And I'm glad to hear that. That students are feeling like measures being taken are making them feel safer. That's cool. So thank you. And that takes us to our superintendent's report. And welcome to our new board reps also. Yes. Thank
050you, Shannon. Chair Andreessen. Well, we are past MEA, almost at the one-quarter mark into the school year, and many important things happening with teaching and learning and student activities across our spaces. I was reading yesterday's... Welcome back. Newsletter to Alice Smith staff where Principal Navidad reminded teachers that students had been out for nine consecutive days. So that was the full MEA week sandwiched between two weekends. And so his reminder was for teachers and staff to help students get reaccustomed. with expectations and routines and practices so they could have a successful return back to school. And returning students to school after a break is very important work that school leaders, teachers, and staff do so that students can transition seamlessly. So we thank our school staff for that work. Also at Alice Smith was a successful
051read-a-thon held prior to the break. Parent Tim Hawkinson and other PTO parents coordinated a number of readers, including some high schoolers and community members who showed up as guest readers across all of the classrooms. And as a reader, I myself enjoyed my time with Ms. Wu's kindergartners and Mr. McKusick's third graders. Additional literacy activities across our district includes more than 300 teachers trained in Volume 2 of evidence-based reading instruction during the break. Our FastBridge screening has been completed for all kindergarten through ninth graders, and common literacy assessments are being developed by kindergarten through grade five teacher reps across our system. Earlier during our workshop, you heard from our MYP or Middle Years Program IB coordinators, Ms. Wilcox and Ponsalat. And as Dr. Nolan shared with us during our school spotlight at last board meeting, Gatewood
052and Eisenhower elementaries are seeking IB authorization, which is a significant undertaking requiring teacher professional... learning and building strong teaching and learning resources for those schools. Here is a slide showcasing PYP or Primary Years Program Day at Gatewood Elementary where students spend the whole day working outside. as a team learning about animals and exploring nature with scientific tools and inquiry. At Gatewood, each grade level has what they call a staycation, a whole day where they stay at school and work with the naturalists, Mr. Ike and outdoor para Miss Rachel, while teachers are working on their IB unit writing and collaborating with one another. So this model gives teachers professional learning time. and does not require the extra expense of an off-campus field trip for students. On October 8, our elementary youngsters had fun at the band's
053superhero showcase held at Hopkins High School. Over 300 high school musicians united the community with music, face painting, and fun activities for all of the children. Later that week, the 21st annual Young People's Concert delighted preschool and elementary-aged kiddos with Disney-themed music, interactive games. and a chance to meet Disney princesses, of course. Guests were even encouraged to wear their pajamas for the occasion. Students at our high school are engaging in mock elections during lunch Friday, November 1, after learning about the election process during their Royals Connect time. These are a couple of the slides featured in the content presented to all students. Royals Connect teachers were asked to hype the election and click through slides that show what's on the ballot. President, Senator, Representative, and the Minnesota Constitutional Amendment. The mock election ballot looks like
054a real Minnesota ballot. and students have to check in at a table to make sure they only vote once. They also get stickers to show they voted. Winners will be announced by the end of the day on November 1st. And we'd like to thank our social studies teachers and Principal Ballard for teaching and promoting civic engagement to, are all 2,000 students voting? Wow, that's a lot of kids learning about the process. Thank you. Also at our high school, all of our student club leaders are meeting a few times with Minnetonka police during their principal advisory time. The purpose of this time is to build relationships with law enforcement professionals as well as help the... law enforcement professionals feel better connected to Hopkins High School. They're also working to improve relationships between police in the minoritized
055communities we serve at Hopkins High School. Additionally, scholars have requested support from law enforcement partners navigating complex topics around sexual assault and chemical use and abuse. The meetings are facilitated by the City of Minnetonka's Community Liaison and DEI, or Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator. Thank you to all involved. We really appreciate the learning that I'm sure will be reciprocated both for students and the law enforcement professionals. And I'm going to ask our principal of Meadowbrook Elementary to... Approach the table, Principal Sawatsky. You may walk the royal blue runner. And before we transition to our school spotlight, I just want to celebrate the progress that we've made toward our Vision 2031 success indicator that says that by 2031, our staff demographics will mirror our student demographics. Racial diversity in the teaching workforce benefits all students, not
056just students of color, but also white students. Teachers of color often provide more culturally relevant instruction and better understand the challenges faced by students of color, which fosters trust and allows adults to serve as role models for our students. Teachers of color often have more positive perceptions of students of color, which can lead to better academic and behavioral outcomes. The presence of teachers of color can reduce harsh disciplinary actions and improve academic engagement and performance, particularly for black male students. For instance, having just one black teacher in elementary school can significantly reduce high school dropout rates. and increase college aspirations among black boys from low-income backgrounds. And I believe we've all heard of our partnership with Black Men Teach, which is an organization that is building a pipeline of black male elementary school educators. And
057our two partner schools with that organization are Eisenhower and Tanglin Elementary. Now, despite the benefits that I just mentioned for having teachers of color in our classrooms across America, 40% of U.S. schools have no teachers of color. Here in Minnesota, fewer than 6% of teachers identify as non-white, and in Hopkins, we are at 21%, which represents significant progress, but we still have room to grow. So I just wanted to provide that information for you. as board members in our community. And at this time, I'm very pleased to introduce Principal Natalie Sawatsky, who is an amazing school leader. She leads one of our two largest elementary schools, Meadowbrook, over there in Golden Valley. And Natalie and I saw each other at the Golden Valley Rotary, where we talked about ethnic studies. and the work that our
058IDL team and Principal Ballard are doing to promote ethnic studies at our high school. And at Meadowbrook Elementary, one of their secret, well, one secret sauce is the principal, and the other is their focus on project-based learning. So welcome, Natalie, Principal Swatsky, to help our board members and community better understand. Meadowbrook Elementary and all that you're doing for students at that amazing school. Well, thank you for having me. And I was going to, I could tie into your comment about teachers of color. And I got an email today from a family who has middle schoolers now, but said, just thank you for the opportunity for our child to have a teacher of color when they're at Meadowbrook. So that was a nice touch point. Did that come from a family of color or a white
059family? from a multiracial family. Multiracial family. Very meaningful. Yeah. Well, it has been a great start to the school year at Meadowbrook. and like probably one of our strongest starts and maybe it's because this is going into my fifth year and I finally figured something out, I don't know. But a lot actually comes from our real intentional focus on relationships and routines in the first six weeks of school. So this year we welcomed about 38 new students and about 15 new staff members and A handful of those new staff members, I think five, come from increased special education programming at our school. And so there are positions that we hadn't had, like there were new additions to our staff. And I looked at enrollment today and we're staying steady at about 750 students. And I
060just accepted one new kindergartner today off our wait list. So always exciting. And something else really exciting was that we had our school carnival this fall a few years ago after the pandemic canceled a school carnival. We moved the carnival to the fall and had it outdoors because at that time we were still being really careful. And we realized that this is the way to go. And having a fall carnival really sets the tone for a community. It's a time to have fun together and celebrate one another. And we raised some money for our community as well. But the focus being just having fun together. Another part to our strong school start was an all-school assembly. So as a introvert myself, sometimes the thought of an assembly is like... very scary. But made a commitment
061to really finding an opportunity to gather as a whole school community around some common values and beliefs. And so we wanted to make sure we introduced our new staff to the community and review our school-wide ways of being. So if you want to play the video, Natalia, this is how we introduced our new staff. Oh, do you want to just fast forward a little bit? It was set. Welcome to our first assembly of the school year. So we're going to give them, we're so proud of them for getting up and doing this. Introduce yourself. Yeah. Small groups. Yeah. We had a little fun. We're thinking about how we can utilize our veteran teachers at the next assembly. That's amazing. And then that side picture that you see, those are our, refreshed school-wide ways of being
062when I was at the board table maybe last fall we talked about our process for setting school-wide ways of being we came we Kind of gathered feedback all year on how those were going had a student leadership group Talk about how those were going and then came back together this fall to kind of refresh and restart So we reviewed those at our assembly as well And so when I was thinking about, well, why has this been such an amazing start to the school year? I think that a large part of that has been our focus on restorative practices. So we, like I said, have reset our school-wide ways of being and have increased in our promotion of them. So they're part of morning announcements. Students are making videos for our news program, Good Morning Meadowbrook,
063of student content regarding the ways of being. They're just in a lot more of our daily activities, community building circles, as discussion points to. We're continuing community building circles in all classrooms at least twice a week, and we have staff community building circles four times a year, so where we gather and take care of each other, just like we take care of students. And then we've engaged in a lot of professional learning this fall around restorative practices, and you'll notice that sometimes it's been the whole staff, and other times it's been just our fourth and fifth grade staff, and that's because our k through three staff have been really involved in letters and so when they are at letters training we have time with our fourth and fifth grade teachers and specialists to do some
064restorative culture work So we've been talking about what goes into tier one, meaning what does everybody get as far as practices that are inclusive of everyone. And then what things are in tier two. So those might be specific interventions based on student need or assets that we see that students have and we could amplify. And coming soon, we're doing a tier three and tier four Tier two and three professional learning with the loop consulting collaborative for our fourth and fifth grade and specialists on election day. So we're looking forward to that as well. And then, of course, yes, project-based learning. I couldn't come here and not talk about project-based learning. And so I welcome you all to this event happening at Meadowbrook around project-based learning. What is it? Why are we moving that way? And
065what are some real-life examples happening in our classrooms? We actually have second-grade teachers coming who are going to talk through the process of planning and delivering a couple units that they've... been developing over time so if you're welcome to join us if your time allows love to have you that's what i have that is not mine that's george's yeah okay thank you principal swansky thank you appreciate you being here are there any comments or questions from my board colleagues I would just like to say, can I say something? I would just like to say I really appreciate the gatherings that you all do over at Meadowbrook. Your school culture just seems so collaborative and just together. Even last year when we did the mock, what was it? The mock swearing in. The mock swearing in
066for me and Mayor Harmon. It's just a very good community school that just has a lot of vibrant personalities. I just think that Meadowbrook is just the bomb. So you're doing a great job. Thank you for just making it a home for the students over there. It's a good way of putting it. I have one other comment. Yeah. I saw a kid I recognize in one of those slides, and so that's our home school and was the reason that we moved to this district. We have always felt really at home and taken care of at Meadowbrook, and specifically with regard to project-based learning, there are some teachers there that are absolute masters, and so I really appreciated your comments about thinking about these ways to... I don't know if utilize isn't the right word. That's
067kind of a cold word, but to like. build off of your veteran teachers experiences with that because I've had kids and my own children and their friends and their classmates building websites and writing books and building these crazy projects that they have come up with themselves and partnered with their teachers and all of your staff to work on and I'm endlessly impressed by it and I think you that's just something to really be proud of I'm glad you're here tonight I just had a A quick question about the project-based learning at Meadowbrook event. When is that? It's the 28th at 630. Great. Thank you. And then just a quick follow-up question. I appreciate that you were mentioning restorative practices and how you're doing PD around that, specifically with the older. teachers, could you talk a
068little bit more about how that kind of is going to be implemented like tier two and tier three? Because I know often that, like, how are you collaborating, I guess, with the assets that we already have in the system? And I'm thinking of our special education practitioners. Yeah. So Repeat the first part because I had something and then I was sorry. It's okay. I kind of Back to your two tier three restorative practice. Oh and how fourth and fifth grade I was going to mention that with our panorama data Which is our social-emotional screening data? We noticed that with our sense of belonging measure It has decreased over time but when we zoomed in it really was about fourth and fifth grade students and How they felt in relation to their peers and are their
069peers showing them respect? that they feel they deserve. And so a lot of our focus for the tier one, tier two has been identifying students that are demonstrating a lot of respect to their peers and then how do we amplify those things or how do we help all students kind of combat the negativity bias that we all have. That was something we just talked about in our last PD in that, you know, Hearing something negative or having a negative experience you only need to experience that for a tenth of a second before it becomes a memory But something positive that you experience it takes 12 seconds to actually become a memory So our brains are wired to focus on the negative So we talked about what are things that we could do in the whole
070class that would bring out the positives of all students and One idea we talked about was about secret admirers. And so at the beginning of the day, every student gets a name of a student to watch during the school day. And at the end of the day, in closing circle, you share something positive that you saw that classmate do. And we had a few other examples like that and then left it just with teachers to kind of choose a pathway that they think they could implement in their class. That's great. Thank you. Anyone else? Thank you for being here. I appreciate learning more about Meadowbrook. Well, thanks for recognizing our art students tonight, too. That was exciting. It was really exciting. Yes. Thank you so much, Natalie. Dr. Mary, if you're ready to have a
071question. Just real quick, you said 40% of schools across the nation don't have teachers of color? Correct. I do have to say that. I feel proud of where Hopkins is, but also, and that anecdote that was shared, I feel really good about, but also I'm conflicted because the fact that a family mentions that as a highlight of their educational experience is, like, I hope we get to the day where it's... something that will not be commented on, that it's so normalized. So normalized. That it is something that, yeah. And that we achieve our goal in Hopkins of having our teacher and staff demographic match our student demographic. And I like that we are on our way, but also recognize the work that needs to be done to get to our goal. So with that we
072oh sorry any questions for dr. Mary Perry read before we move on No, so that takes us to our approval of the agenda and I did want to mention for our our viewing public that Director our clerk Thompson Put his location. He is out of town. He put his location so that he could virtually attend the meeting however due to conflicting priorities, he is not able to attend this evening. So I just wanted you all to know that we're aware of that. He let us know that he would be unable to attend. So with that, I would look for an approval of a motion to approve tonight's agenda. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please
073say aye. Aye. Any nays? Seeing none, the agenda is approved. That takes us to our consent calendar. This is an item that contains items provided to the board with information considered to be more routine in nature. If the board deems an item to be necessary for additional discussion, a motion will be made to move that item to new business. I am looking for a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any nays? The consent calendar is approved, and that takes us to our treasurer's report. Treasurer Hartland. Wonderful. Thank you. Good evening, and thank you to any community members who are tuning in tonight. I wanted to
074note that... There is the new format of the Treasurer's Report, and it should be posted to our agenda, and it's considerably condensed and much more readable and short now. At this moment, it's not sorted either by alphabetical order or by date, but in the future, it should be sorted alphabetically. And so I have one ask of the school board, and I did send this to you via email as well, but that would be... to look that over if you have a chance and provide any feedback because we do have a small window where we could make some tweaks to that if there was a thing we collectively wanted to see on that report I did have a meeting with business services today and we spent quite a bit of time talking about how the district's
075beginning to realize some of the time savings and financial savings that were one of the original goals with integrating our systems with Oracle. And there's still some follow-up work happening to ensure that all the professionals in our different buildings and departments comply with our new. processes and that all of our vendors will actually submit invoices electronically. There's been a bit of a learning curve there. But past practices when getting invoices funneled to the right person, that was more decentralized, which led to some inefficiencies where either work was being duplicated or potentially there were invoices addressed to someone who might not even work in our system any longer. And so now that a greater and greater percentage of those invoices are being submitted through one process, one department, one system, leadership can actually better see where
076we might be, say, paying two different vendors for the same product. And we could either consolidate the vendors or negotiate better group pricing. So I'll be reporting on some of those success stories as they come up. And of particular use, especially as we go in to talk more about the budget or levies. On the new board report, you can see specific expenditures broken down into those paid for by local grants and donations, by federal and state grants, and our current capital project levy. So those are on pages nine and 10. Some expenses of note are $468,396 paid to our two different vendors for transportation. $32,141 to Xcel Energy for electrical services at various buildings. $43,289 to Connect Gas for natural gas service to those buildings. Some of those expenses are larger than normal and represent
077a couple to several months of charges, either due to the vendor's own billing cycles or due to our process of onboarding the vendors into our single electronic system. We paid $11,816 to District 287 for our share of the educational and support expenses associated with Hopkins students in that district. We paid $5,000 for CPR training, $4,500 for academic and curriculum materials at Breck, and $1,050 for support of Academy of Holy Angels, which are non-public schools in our district. Here in the district, we have a lot of infrastructure that needs maintenance and inspection. And in this recent period, we paid $2,880 to clean grease traps in our kitchens, $12,000 for fire and sprinkler inspections in our buildings, and $24,000 to evaluate and repair uneven or unsafe sidewalks. Let's see. And with that, I move that we approve
078total disbursements in the amount of $2 million. $312,471.37 for the period of September 28, 2024 through October 15, 2024. Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The Treasurer's Report is approved. And that takes us to unfinished business. I will invite Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot to the table to talk about Hopkins policies. And Vice Chair Ross. Thank you chair and recent so we have two particular policies that My board cohort decided that they thought more homework was going to be necessary and warranted So the monitoring committee our committee met together And we discussed both 255 and 256 There was changes that hopefully you guys have access to the links. You can see the changes noted. So I will pass it over to
079Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot to, you know, if he wants to add anything more color commentary than what I've already have here. And we could open it up to any particular members if they have any questions or concerns. Thank you. Good evening. Good to be with you. First on the old business, unfinished business, is 255, the school board legislative program. There were specific concerns that were raised regarding this, so the monitoring committee went back. made those adjustments and modified some particular language as part of this. I would note in item three that I believe the word including was missed in the change. The board will annually designate a legislative action committee including community, parent caregivers, and school board member voice, just to make sure that that would read more smoothly to capture the intent of what was
080there, but we'll make sure we add that in the published component. But other than that, if there are additional questions or comments on 255, we'd be happy to address those or additional comments, questions by any monitoring committee members as well. Thank you. I appreciate that inclusion. That was my question about in Section 3. And then also, because I can't help myself, I would add a comma after voice. I need it. But I appreciate the monitoring committee taking our feedback from the discussion at the table. I think this looks great. So we get an A on our homework? Is that what you're saying? A minus. Yeah, we forgot a comma and a word. Okay. All right. We'll take it. And it's a redo. Anyone else? Okay, I think we can go to the next one. Great.
081256 was school board and superintendent performance evaluation and planning. You will see that the work that we did was on the framework section, noting that the board and superintendent will annually create and approve an evaluation tool to address their important roles and responsibilities. Hopefully clearing up any confusion that was related to the previous language. Any comments or questions? Yeah, one comment just definitely want everybody to notice we did remove the word word assessment inventories Just so you guys didn't miss that You're welcome. Oh wait, we saw Thank you, I think it looks great and I'm impressed that you were able to incorporate Discussion around that so I think we were all very confused Well, we're kind of a good committee. Yeah. You know? Just getting things going. We've got a really good vice chair. Appreciate
082it. So do you want to include all of the policies together, or do we want to? So I think that we need to approve these because it's in a separate section. Yeah, in first read. Great. So I would look for a motion that the Board approve the above policies in first read. Further, the Board directs the administration to prepare the policies with the suggested revisions for approval and second reading at the next meeting. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? See none all those in favor. Please say aye aye any opposed the Policies 255 and 256 have been approved and that takes us to our second round of policies Vice chair Roth Thank you again Chair Andreessen, so we have four policies
083here we're going to review with the cohort 303, 303.1, 351, and 413. Inclusive of these links, you also have links to the MSBA model policy for 303 and 413. So I will hand it back over to Assistant Superintendent Leifert. Thank you. 303 is the superintendent selection process policy. No real substantial change. Making an editorial change in the language in Section 2. That is the only change that we would be looking at as we look toward the use of inclusive language. But 303, if there are any other comments or questions from monitoring committee members, open for questions on 303. Chair Andreessen? Yes. I do have a question about the impetus for changing that language. Is that a legal or other kind of, you know, best practice? I'm just trying to understand why it was changed. I
084think it comes down to what Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot mentioned earlier, is having more inclusive language. The word chief executive officer could have been deemed disrespectful. So we connected, I don't want to put words into your mouth, but we connected with one of our coordinators. our indigenous coordinator to make sure that this language one under get better understand it was it deemed offensive to particular or any groups that are reading this particular policy and then um one of my other cohort members um director was moreland suggested maybe we use some level of inclusive language to ensure that it's still You understand the role of the superintendent, but make sure that it's inclusive to understand that this is the ultimate decision maker. But what is a different wording that we could use other than chief executive officer?
085Got it. Makes sense. So that was a reason for why we updated the language to make it a little bit more inclusive. Okay. Sounds good. I just wanted to make sure we didn't demote Dr. Mary Peary Reid here. I'm looking out for you. Anything else you feel like you want to add? All right. 303.1 is the next. In 303.1, interim appointment. There is no suggested change. Questions, comments on 303.1? All right. Similar then to 351, no recommended changes as well, development of regulations. Comments or questions regarding that? All right. Then 413 is the last policy that we have in front of you this evening. In 413, there are and have been changes in definitions, and we wanted to make sure that there again, we looked at the statutory language as well as inclusive language and
086built all of those changes within what we have as 413. You'll also notice that in the model policy, There is also additional language change based on the 2024 Minnesota Legislature as it relates to specific sections in the policy. Happy to explain any more of those in further detail or any other questions regarding the suggested changes for definitions and language in use in 413. I just had a question. Are these definitions in alignment with... the Minnesota Office of Civil Rights. Language comes from the Minnesota Human Rights Act in Minnesota statute, reflecting that language to be inclusive. In addition, there was state law change, as I mentioned, in 2024 to family status, familial status. You'll see those changes in the model policy. We changed our gender identity language to match the Minnesota Human Rights Act. There also
087is change that has been made. to sexual orientation definition in the 2023 legislature. All of those would be added to reflect those changes and make sure that it does mirror the work that's been done on Minnesota statute. I have another question. Chair Andreessen? Yes, Treasurer Hartland. This policy contains kind of special instruction at the very bottom of it for dissemination and review. And I see no changes were made to this section. Is it part of the onboarding every school year that students say get age-appropriate versions of this? And does this policy get reviewed at least annually in compliance with the state law? Because it's kind of called out as separate from our... Absolutely. So, yes, in answer to your question on a couple of those, right now, just so you're aware, we are going back
088through handbooks to make sure that our handbooks do reflect. The student handbooks have links to specific policies. We've asked for all the handbooks from every school for that purpose of beginning in one of our other policy work for the monitoring committee. student handbooks to make sure that those links are put into place. So that work is ongoing and underway. And so, yes, this is, as you'll see there, appears in all student handbooks. So we do have that information. Different places present that in different ways. It may present differently at the elementary than it might at the high school level. But the expectation is that information is communicated and information is shared and, as applicable, specific training happening in specific ways. There are different ways that it's done. I would say probably the piece related to
089staff. is that I am very pleased to say that the recommendation for some of the changes for the more inclusive language did come from a staff member who happens to be here in the audience and I'll thank Riley for bringing that information forward because it's wonderful when you do present this information to staff and staff say there might be some better ways that we can be looking at this. And so that initial work that came forward was actually from the distribution of the policy to the staff members. I'm so thankful and reflected on that as well. Thank you. Thank you for reaching out about that and for being here tonight. Grateful for your collaboration. Thank you, Riley. I did also want to say that this is specifically a co it's in the 400 series. So
090it is specifically a policy for staff. And so I was happy to know that it actually is included in staff handbooks and that staff is interacting and engaging with it. So thank you so much. Chair Andreessen? Yes. I do have a quick question to you then, or just in general. So is there a kind of mirrored or corresponding student version of this as well? Or how does that work, that relationship between this policy and students? Does it apply? The student policy is, our student policies are in the 500 series. Oh, okay. And also I think the educational, Equity 100 policy is where we do a lot of that work. Okay. More at a higher level. But yeah, that's a good question. Perfect. Thank you. So if students wanted to know about specific, not that this
091doesn't apply to them, it does, but it's not specifically. For them it's for employees Well, one of my comments was going to be you know, does man and woman imply adult right but it since it's for staff yes, of course, right, but you know, I'm Thinking splitting hairs maybe but like oh, there's not a man right or a woman or whatever both or neither because they're of age, right? So Appreciate that any other questions or comments on this policy? Thank you. And again gratitude To our staff member for bringing this to our attention and partnering so that brings us to the end of our policy revisions in first read I would look for a motion that we I'm gonna get to my language. I'm deep in policies here The board approves the above policies in
092first read. Further, the board directs the administration to prepare the policies with suggested revisions for approval in second reading at the next meeting as part of consent. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The policies in first read have been approved. And that takes us, thank you, Assistant Superintendent. Thank you, Nick. I appreciate you being here this evening. And that moves us to our board member reports. As we have started doing, I would like to invite all board members to introduce themselves as we go around the table. And then if you do have a report, please include that. And I just wanted to do a reminder of... Being invited to
093Meadowbrook also reminded me of requests that I've been getting from board members about visiting other school sites other than the ones that we have been assigned to. And so just wanted to encourage board members to, if there is something going on at your assigned school that you think other board members would benefit from. to learn about and to come and participate in please do include that in your board member reports something like the carnival at meadowbrook or i know gatewood had a family fun night and so if we just want to start including that so that other board members get opportunities to go to other sites that would be great so director roper would you like to start or going around the table Sure. My name is Brooke Roper. I am serving my first year
094on the Hopkins School Board. I go by she, her, her pronouns. I have two wonderful students in the district. No major reports for me. Prior to coming, I did attend the Educators of Color Networking event held over at North that was hosted by. which she did a fabulous job hosting. And it was really refreshing just to be in this space with so many amazing educators and just staff from Hopkins. I just look forward to attending more and being involved more with that group. And I don't have any other updates. Thank you. Treasurer Heartland. Thank you. I am Treasurer Rachel Heartland. This is my third year on the board. I use she, her pronouns and have three students in the district at three different buildings. I, let's see, trying to remember over the past couple of
095weeks, I have participated in Meadowbrook's efforts to kind of bolster their staff and feed them during conferences. I have participated in the North Middle School's kind of burgeoning PTO, and there is an opportunity for North Middle School parents to join that PTO. Everyone is automatically a member, and so that first meeting is coming up on next Monday, which I believe is the 28th. Co-coached one session of the middle school robotics team and felt very out of my depths and attended some parent meetings for the high school robotics team and Let's see you know past couple weeks feel like they've been something of a blur But those are some of the things that I've participated in. Thank you. Thank you Good evening. I'm Rhoda Marie Perry Reed superintendent. I have provided my board update but one
096thing that I'd like to mention is a few superintendents are partnering to Travel to rural, Minnesota to provide presentations on the budgeting process that We're engaging here in the city. So I'm partnering with David law who's the superintendent in Minnetonka? We're traveling to Sartell, Minnesota on Monday the 28th, I think. I don't know where Sartell is, but apparently there's lots of superintendents coming to these presentations and hoping to learn from us. I'm hoping that we'll learn from them, and we're also wanting to strengthen relationships between metropolitan area and greater Minnesota superintendents, so it should be fun. Thank you. My name is Shannon Andreessen. This is my fifth year on the school board. And I have one graduate from Hopkins Schools and a junior at the high school. And I also serve as a special education
097para at Gatewood. Good evening. My name is Jason Ross. I have three kids in the system to Six graders at North and then I have one third grader at Tanglin This is now my third year and my first term and I do not have a board member report I'm sorry. I forgot I have a report Do you mind if I just quickly, I just wanted to say that the LAC has been meeting and we're starting to work on our platform. We're waiting for more information from AMSD before we finalize things, but also just talking about how we. what is most important to Hopkins. We did meet with cabinet and also talking about how can we get in conversations with the community members that we hear from. less often than others in order to inform our
098advocacy at the legislature. So Director Roper and Treasurer Heartland and I are working with community members to make that platform meaningful to our families and our community in Hopkins. And then I am also working on getting a professional development session for us as a school board around school finance and I'm meeting with the person who did a training for education evolving that I went to and she's amazing and I wanted to make sure that if any of you have specific topics or things that you would like covered in school finance, which is a very complex topic. She gives great context about the history and then goes into how it works specifically in Minnesota. Please just shoot me an email. I'm meeting with her tomorrow. So just let me know what you would like covered and
099I can talk with her about that. Hi, I'm Jeming Zhao. I'm in my first year on the school board. I've got two kids in the Shunshin program in the fourth grade and first grade, and I do not have a report. Hi, I'm Dr. Jen Westmoreland. She, her, I am in my seventh year on the school board. I am a proud graduate of Hopkins Public Schools, and I have an eighth grader at West Middle School who is now a self-taught harmonica player, and I could not be more proud. I was serenaded in the car. I didn't know they had taught themselves to play the harmonica, but they had, and they just started playing in the car. and i almost drove off the road i was like what is happening so you know like Parenting, it's a
100journey. I have been working with leaders at the county level, at Hennepin County, to increase resources for school districts to implement restorative practices. So, of course, I'm there with my school board member, Hat, on advocating for resources for Hopkins specifically, and then also acknowledging the larger context that a lot of our school districts really need support. And there are some phenomenal community groups who are doing this work really effectively, and we need to channel resources to them. So a lot of leaders are talking about youth and wanting to engage in prevention so that youth don't participate in high-risk activities that could be harmful to themselves and others. But there doesn't seem to be a sense of urgency around putting resources toward that. And we in school districts know how important that is. So I just
101continue to be a voice at the county for that. So I attended a fall festival in North Minneapolis. I've been spending quite a bit of time in North Minneapolis, and I often run into Hopkins School District families. And it's a great... way to get to know people understand the experience that families are having in our district and the event that i was participating in over the weekend there was a coat drive a winter warm wear drive and there are so many new arrivals coming to our community who need resources especially as the weather gets colder so a way for folks to participate that in that resource provision here in our community through Resource West. Resource West is doing the annual winter warm wear distribution right now. And there are still some needs there. Really the
102best way is just to donate to Resource West and then they can figure out what they need and what to spend that on for the winter warm wear. But that is going on right now and I'll be over there tomorrow. I think that's it. Thanks. Thank you. Chair Andreessen, I forgot to say something in my update. So I've been following the recent food recalls that have been happening. There's just been tons of it, like 10 million pounds of prepackaged meat and all. And from some of our favorite stores like Trader Joe's and that. I'm saying that because there was an article that said that school districts may have received some of this meat. So it might be really good to check in with our nutrition services just to make sure that we're following those recalls
103because it's a high level of listeria that's in this meat and it's deadly bacteria. So I would hate for any of our students to be contaminated. But I'm not I don't know if any Minnesota schools are on the list, but it's just really worth checking into. Just wanted to make that note. I'll let her know. Yeah, thank you. Anything else? I would look then for a motion to adjourn. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. Any discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are adjourned at 8.54 p.m. Thank you, everybody, and thank you, Iris, for staying for the whole thing. It's a long meeting.