001Good evening. This meeting of the Hopkins School Board is called to order at 7.04 p.m. I'm Chair Jen Westmoreland, and as has been our practice recently, we are going to go around the table and introduce ourselves. So we will start with our, you know, I was going to say our new clerk, but he has been in the role now for two months, and is just doing a remarkable job. So we'll start with Clerk Ross. Good evening, Hopkins community members and community at large. My name is Jason Ross. I have three children who attend Tanglin Elementary. I have two fourth graders, one first grader. I have been in the community now for the past... It's going to be 10 years on April 7th, if you are counting. So I've officially would be here 10 years in
002about a month. And my wife and I moved from St. Paul and moved to Hopkins. And we liked what Hopkins represented from a socioeconomic diversity and just from a diversity and different walks of life. And we've enjoyed. the welcoming community and active participants in different types of opportunities such as having the children play in rec sports where they're able to play with their friends and meet different community members. So thank you. Hi everyone, my name is Tanya Khan. I have been living in Hopkins for about 12 years. My kids both graduated from Hopkins High School and Hopkins Schools. They're currently attending the University of Minnesota. The reason why we really appreciated Hopkins was because of its high academic standards and its wonderfully diverse student population. My children were always welcomed, and we have a phenomenal
003staff and student body at Hopkins. That's me. Hi, everyone. My name is Shannon Andreessen, and I have been... living in the district for 15 years. I have two children who went through the district, a ninth grader at West Junior High and a junior at the University of Minnesota who was well prepared by Hopkins to be incredibly successful there. Chair Jen Westmoreland she her pronouns. I have a sixth grader at Eisenhower, Xinjiang I am a proud graduate of Hopkins schools have spent most of my life in this community and This is my second term on the Hopkins School Board Steve Adams treasurer I don't want to tell you how many years I've lived in the district, but it was before open enrollment So we moved here so our kids could be in the Hopkins School District,
004and they're both grown adults and Very successful in their careers having spent all their formative years in Hopkins schools in classrooms I am Katie O'Shea Peterson I am finishing up my Finished up my third year entering my fourth year on the school board and I have a fifth and a sixth grader at Meadowbrook And I am Rachel Heartland like many of my colleagues I moved here for Hopkins schools and have lived in this community for six and a half years now or so and my two Elementary schoolers go to Meadowbrook, and my junior high student goes to North Junior High, and we have also participated in early childhood community education and extracurricular activities all over the district. And I have been on a brief break from the board table for a variety of reasons, but
005I'm very happy to be back here in community with you and to welcome anyone who's in the room and watching remotely. Thank you, and our superintendent, Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. Good evening. I'm Rhoda Mary Perry-Reed, superintendent. I have a fifth grader at Eisenhower. She'll be at West next year. I have a ninth grader at North who will be at the high school next year, and I have a stepson who's a kindergarten para at Eisenhower Elementary. Thank you. So we appreciate our community joining us via the YouTube live stream, and we have some community members here with us tonight. Our next agenda item is open agenda. This is typically the time when the board hears public comment. There are two options for giving public comment at a school board meeting. You can record a message before the
006meeting begins, and we would play that message publicly. There are instructions for how to do that in the board packet. We did not receive any voice messages this evening before the meeting began. And the other option, of course, is to visit us here in person and to fill out a public comment card before the meeting begins. Hand it to me and I will call you up to the table to give your comment. And I did not receive any public comment cards this evening. So we will move on to our next agenda item, which is reports. This is normally when we do our student board representatives reports. We do not have any student board representatives with us at the table this evening. I don't see any on the Google Meet, but I just want to double
007check. Okay, so next we'll move on to our superintendent's report with Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. Thank you. I'm kind of sad that we don't have any student reports. They're always very interesting. Yes. Okay. Elise, do you mind? Thank you. All right, well I'm happy to be with all of you this evening I have a few slides that will help showcase all of the great things happening with some of the many great things happening in our district so One of the favorite parts of my job is being invited to be a guest reader in our elementary schools. And so I was in Miss Allison Wolf's class, who is also one of our three Hopkins Teacher of the Year semifinalists, by the way. So that's really exciting news that we have three Hopkins teachers on that short list
008of esteemed. Teaching professionals here in the state of Minnesota miss wolf teaches first grade Spanish immersion at Eisenhower and If you get invited to do anything in her class, you better be well prepared and organized. She runs a very tight but loving ship. That classroom is like a family machine. It's really magical to watch. But Miss Wolfe invited guests to read biographies of famous people with Latin American heritage. And so I asked our library media specialist, Jeff. shepherd to help me select a biography and so I chose we chose a biography on Celia Cruz who was a Cuban singer who left her homeland and later became known around the world as the queen of salsa and I what I kind of like about this picture is her hair kind of matches mine in the picture
009which It's not really a district highlight. It's just more of a fun feature. I think you need the dress, too, for the next show. I was thinking about that. And look at her royal blue dress. It's exactly our branded color. Maybe Jolene will like that. She does. Okay. So I just really enjoy reading for our elementary students and it's really nice to see them well educated and well cared for in our classrooms. This next slide, I was fortunate to have a brief visit with our State legislator Kelly Morrison at Meadowbrook Elementary and on that slide you'll see the names of other legislators who serve the Hopkins residential or attendance areas and this week is a big week at the Capitol. I mean there's every week at the Capitol I think is a big week but
010for school and district leaders this is a big week because many of us will descend. on the Capitol at some point this week and engage with our legislators to advocate for increased funding and for other measures that will help us serve our students and families and staff at higher levels. I know that members of our Hopkins Legislative Action Coalition will also visit the Capitol this week. So it's nice to have face time with our legislators. One fun fact about this visit is that we observed a cluster of students around Principal Sawatsky and they were all guessing her age. SHE DIDN'T TELL THEM, SO THAT WAS GREAT. AND SHE HAD A FEW SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROPOSED POLICY TO FORBID suspensions at the kindergarten through grade, I think, two or three level. And so it was
011wonderful to have the student support and restorative culture specialists be able to spend a few minutes with our legislator. So thank you for that visit, Senator Morrison. Okay, so I wanted to share with our community that it was really, really fun to host seven virtual State of the District sessions with our community. I was going to ask a woman on Jolene's team, Megan Chilman, who helped moderate how many total people signed up. We didn't have as many attendees as we had sign-ups, but I think we had more than... more than 200 attendees. I was thinking closer to 250, but we'll get that number accurate and share it with our community. We are planning on recording a State of the District session and then sending it out to all of our staff and families so that
012if they didn't get to attend, they can just watch a recording. And we are also following... these virtual sessions with in-person engagement opportunities with our first one happening on Monday evening at Tanglin, working with the Tanglin Parent Teacher Organization. So I think it will be, you know, in this sort of quote unquote post-COVID space, I think it will be really wonderful to engage with our community, to talk with parents and staff and students. and to make sure that what parents want and expect and need and what our students and staff want expect and need are aligned with what they're experiencing so we're being very intentional with these these visits and we're hoping that folks get as much out of them as we do One of the in-person engagement sessions that we have already hosted is
013a session that we had at Harley Hopkins. So this was just this past week, and it was really nice to have lots of parents stop through, but also staff. Now, we didn't have a lot of three- and four-year-olds stop through, though. But it was nice to engage with parents, with grandparents and aunts and uncles of our littles. and also to visit some of the classrooms. And so I want to thank Sarah Chauvin for helping to coordinate that, and I know she had a lot of help from her team, which includes Angela Sandock, Kathy Willett, and Jennifer Mullen. And also our school board vice chair, Shannon Andreessen, was there as well. So thanks for being there. So this is a highlight for our junior high scholars, our very own great Gatsbys competed at the Lego League.
014high-tech kids state championship tournament and get this they won first place out of 445 teams for their innovation project so that's a big deal and pictured on the right is the press release regarding their first place award so we're really proud of lucien gavin and fiona And they are currently filing for their second provisional patent for this year's invention. So this is a small but mighty group of scholars, and we can't wait to see what else they can do in the area of robotics. I'd love to recognize the amazing effort. of our Hopkins Education Foundation and hosting the Royal Bash a couple of Saturdays ago. Our parents and community donors contributed more than $250,000 to support Hopkins schools. We're truly grateful for that support. And these resources will be aligned with our elementary literacy. our
015academic support center at the high school, and the launch of our certified nursing assistant program at the high school. And so I know that our community is very excited about all three of these programs. One of the features of the bash that I really enjoyed was the small jazz ensemble guided by our band instructor, Nora Teichast. It was really nice to sit. with a couple of parents and listen to their performance. Another Hopkins High School highlight is the recent Royally Speaking performance, which was a collection of soloists and dance artists and poets. All of these performances done by a few of our black students and staff at Hopkins High School. The Minneapolis Choir known as KNOWN, K-N-O-W-N, that's the name of their group, also performed, and they were really fabulous. It wasn't a standing room
016only audience. We had many more attendees, I think, last year. So hopefully, what I was hoping is that it was recorded because the whole show was truly, truly moving and phenomenal with a lot of amazing student talent. And so the good thing about a smaller audience is there was enough food for everyone to have seconds and thirds. And then one final, well, a couple more high school features, actually. Orchestra instructor Allison Swigum hosted a spotlight concert a couple of weeks ago held at our high school. And this spotlight concert featured our orchestra students as well as a local musician, an indie pop singer-songwriter by the name of Jeremy Messersmith, who... the audience really fell in love with. It was a special treat to have him in Hopkins because he's apparently well known throughout the state
017of Minnesota and has been featured in the New York Times. So that was a wonderful concert to attend. And then a final high school focused feature is I wanted to introduce our term to scholars who were recognized by their teachers. And so there is a video that showcases these scholars as introduced by teachers who talk about all of their strengths. And some of the words that were used to describe these students include accomplished, kind, focused, determined, thoughtful, and hardworking. So congratulations to our high school term two scholars. Today, I had a wonderful opportunity to shadow Lou, our virtual EDU school leader. And Lou had a very busy day. She recently observed a model MTSS meeting. facilitated by Dr. Camphy and her staff at West. And then one of her meetings today involved dissecting her notes
018and identifying MTSS, which stands for Multi-Tiered System of Supports, identifying MTSS next steps for virtual EDU students and families. She also met with a number of staff about specific family needs. She had a meeting with Brett Stringer, who's a data specialist that is split between Gatewood and Virtual EDU, to talk about data support for Virtual EDU. She conducted a mini learning walk in the fourth through sixth grade virtual classroom, and that's pictured on the left. And then... She and Tiffany hosted an all virtual EDU staff meeting, and you'll see a picture of those folks on the right. And I just want to compliment our virtual EDU staff and leaders for delivering a model of instruction that really does meet the needs of one of our target populations. So we have a subset of families who
019work and learn well from home. They need flexibility. They thrive in a virtual environment, and there are other considerations that help them choose virtual EDU. I want to thank our communications and marketing team under the leadership of Jolene Goldati for helping us figure out how to market this really important school and way of learning to our broader Minnesota community. So there's a lot of work that we're doing to scale. virtual edu and to ensure that the programming and the learning experiences offered within that virtual setting and as we're evolving into a blended learning model uh... we we we know that this needs to continue to be part of our portfolio of schooling in hopkins as we move into the future of school so thanks very much too uh... to our school leaders, Tiffany and Lou,
020and really to all of the different leaders and staff who are supporting virtual EDU. And then this is the final slide, and I would like to... close by honoring Ashley Beard, who is a Hopkins High School student and really beautiful human who recently passed away after suffering from Huntington's disease. Ashley. is remembered and she was remembered and celebrated yesterday at New Hope Church. We had a whole busload of students, probably nearly 50 students, both students with IEPs and also regular education students who were serving as student helpers. a number of staff and administrators who spent time with Ashley's family yesterday at the memorial services. Her family organized a ton of photos. There was a table of Ashley's toys, and Mom Wendy invited people to take a toy with them when they departed. And all in
021all, she was remembered as... a young woman who was full of life, had a really vibrant and fun personality, and was a friend and sister and daughter to many. So it was a really nice service, and I just want to thank Lori and Judy, her teachers. Actually, Ashley had a lot of teachers and paraprofessionals who worked closely with her. I know that Fonda and Brian also supported that team. And if you see the stuffed bears that Lori and Judy have, those bears were made out of Ashley's favorite shirts. So it's a really nice way to remember her. And I will close with that. Thank you very much. Any board member comments or questions for Dr. Mary Peary-Reed? With that, I would look for a motion to approve the agenda. I have a motion. Is there
022a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Next, I would look 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 to approve the consent calendar. Chair Bouchard, can I interject just to make a comment on one of the items in the consent calendar? Yes, I was just going to ask if there was any discussion. Oh, sorry. Yes, go for it. um look at me not following robert's rules um i just wanted to make a note that um For the first time, I think, I believe since I have been on the board, we have received a vote
023of resolution of concurrence from our American Indian Parent Advisory Committee, which means that we are meeting the Minnesota state standards for American Indian education. And I just want to thank. our american indian parent advisory committee for working alongside us to make sure that we as a district are meeting the needs of our students and i i feel like their guidance has opened my eyes and has made me a better parent and school board member so Thank you. Thank you. And we have a representative from APAC in the space with us tonight. We're really grateful for you being here and for representing in person. And we're grateful to the entire group and really happy to read the report with the vote of concurrence. I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar. Any
024further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Next, we'll move on to our treasurer's report with Treasurer Adams. Thank you, Chair Westmoreland. Kind of a brief report this time because there were only 12 days, actually 11 days, I believe, that were in the last financial period. I did notice numerous charges for copier and printer rental, numerous charges for substitute teachers. We seem to be using a lot of those this year. Numerous charges for boys' basketball and boys' hockey officials. And then finally, a charge for a DJ at Sweetheart's Dance that was held on February 11th. So with that, I move that we approve total disbursements of the amount of $384,127.88 for the period of February 17, 2023 through March 1, 2023. I have a motion to approve
025the Treasurer's Report. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the Treasurer's Report. Any discussion? Seeing none all in favor. Please say aye aye all opposed nay motion carries Thank You treasurer Adams, we will move on to new business and I will turn it over to dr Mary Perry read as we welcome assistant superintendent lightfoot and the team to the table to talk about our finalist selection for employee benefits Thank you chair Westmoreland, so dr. Lightfoot's approaching the table. We also have Julie Katz Merrick our benefit specialist and Everything extraordinaire in the area of health insurance and then our Blue Cross Guest sorry sir. I don't know your name, but I'm sure your team will introduce Tony Tony. Thank you for being here. So yes recently we had a
026request for proposal to select a third party administrator and We would like this team to tell you all about us a very strong finalist and Dr. Lightfoot should I turn it over to you great. Thank you We'll also have Director Chapenduka with us this evening as well. As you are aware, we did go out for RFP for our third-party administrator for our benefits program. As we had discussed with the board, we were hopeful that we would have strong proposals come forward as we haven't had a change in third-party administrators in over two decades. So part of our look and our work was to bring our self-insurance committee together. We are very fortunate to have a very active group with our self-insurance committee. Representatives from all of our labor groups participate in that. We had a
027long, long set of finalist presentations, and we were very impressed from the quality. And as we did our debrief, it was very clear that we had really an outstanding proposal from Blue Cross Blue Shield, and our group did recommend that we move forward with that. We did want to kind of highlight a couple items from that and give Blue Cross Blue Shield the opportunity to really be with us as we continue to work toward launching this partnership. And I do want to note all of the work that the committee members have done. I do also want to note the amazing work that Julie has done and will continue to do as we make this transition. This transition will work us toward our July 1 implementation, which means that we have a lot of work in
028a really short period of time. We will move forward with our open enrollment period coming up in really around May. So we have some good programs that you'll hear about. programs that we're looking forward to developing. And I think overall, we were really able to look at a focus on wellness, which I think you'll see. And we had spoken about from all the really driving components about the workplace culture that we are looking to establish and provide. And we know that our employee benefits really matter because as many people make decisions around where they're working, their health insurance, their experiences, within the organization, their ability to look at additional opportunities to maintain their own care over time become essentially important for us to make sure that we are working toward that number one employer of
029choice. So with that, Julie, any other things that I missed? No, you covered everything. All right. Torero, anything else that I missed in our introduction? I think we're good to go. All right. Well, then with that, Tony has prepared a little bit of information for the board. And then after we walk through these slides, we'll certainly be open to additional questions that any board members might have. Great well, thank you all so much for having me here tonight as I said, I'm Tony Pavelka I'm the senior sales executive from Blue Cross who worked with the Insurance Committee as well as the broker in order to get to the point. We're at today The points that I wanted to talk about were really really two main pieces health equity Which I did a little research on
030the Hopkins public schools public website before our presentation last week and see that we are just really aligned in terms of what Blue Cross is doing around health equity and a lot of the things I saw on the website, stuff that I've heard here tonight already in the board meeting, it's been really good and refreshing. The other piece is going to be, what are we doing to help? keep costs more affordable for people. Probably not make them go backwards, but keep them from growing as quickly. So with regard to health equity, the slide you're seeing here just really shows that we're truly a state of disparity here in Minnesota. When you look at that difference in the left-hand column, the difference in mortality rates, screening rates, optimal diabetes care, based on race in Minnesota and
031the Twin Cities, it's just absolutely evident and in our face all over. We also know that income and geography can play a critical role as well. Bukata Hayes, who's our VP of Racial and Health Equity, recently spoke at the state capitol, actually talking about universal meals for students. And in that conversation at the capitol, he referenced how important it is to recognize these very things we're seeing on the slide here and really get to work to combat these inequities. Because the fact is that 80 to 90 percent of health care is shaped by factors outside the doctor's office. So these things do matter, and they matter not only intrinsically, but also to the bottom line for the district and the employees as well. If we move over to the next slide, this is just a
032slide kind of showing what Blue Cross has been a leader in the community in addressing health equity issues. As part of our work to organize around this issue, we've created an infrastructure within our organization with health equity coaches, racial justice facilitators, and diversity training at all levels throughout the organization. Bukat and his team have worked with external partners in the community and among our clients. to help guide similar conversations as well and share learnings that we've had, best practices and resources. When we're operationalizing in this space, we're using that data that we acquire through all of the members that we touch and all the other places we're involved to develop strategies to really drive results around health equity. We've adopted and shared some formal policies around health equity, gender identity work, as well as making
033an effort throughout or across our plan to be very cognizant of the language that we use. Some of the highlights that we've done in the community, we've done supporting work around narrative change for the next generation of participants in high schools with 360 journalism and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. We're partnering with the University of Minnesota Mankato to provide scholarships to further the pipeline for health professionals that are culturally competent. Again, we've done that advocacy I mentioned previously for universal free meals in schools. One of the neat things we've done is create a flex fund that's dedicated to housing stabilization services for members who are enrolled on MSHIP in our roles. And then lastly, our Blue Cross Foundation has provided funding to 18 different grantees for early childhood and Healthy Start services. This is super
034important because research shows that the public actually gets a 16 to 1 return on investment. for every dollar that's spent for early childhood services. In addition to that, our public website has landing pages that highlight this industry-leading work we're doing in gender services, as well as a bevy of other free resources for clients and really any employer that's interested to go out to our free public website to use those resources to guide their work around racial health equity and DEI. Moving on, the other piece that I wanted to talk about was just that question of, well, that's great, you're paying claims, that's wonderful, but what are you doing to reduce the total cost of care? Basically, the answer to that is everything we do is about reducing the total cost of care and looking at
035it from that holistic lens. So total cost of care really equates to affordability, which is a key topic for employers as well as employees trying to pay their medical expenses and their premiums out of their pocket. It's really about lowering claim costs, managing trend, and providing quality care. And there's four really key components to what we're doing. We start with our network, which we have the nation's largest and really best network in terms of leveraging discounts and benefit design, along with some high-performing networks, I know which is one of the pieces that the school district is looking at here. And then benefit design tailored to your population. As we get to know your population, we can make recommendations for specific benefits to really... bring the right benefit to your employees and their families that are
036covered on the plan. The last piece around that is value-based contracting, which gets away from the old school model of just paying providers for doing more and more services and gets them to be able to be in a spot where they're actually being paid to deliver more high value services, closing gaps in care, maintaining and increasing the overall health of the population that they serve. We've been working in that space of value-based care since 2010. And I'm happy to say that today, 75% of the claims that we pay in Minnesota are paid through contracts that have an enhanced value-based care component. So we're really starting to see even increased traction with our larger care systems and those that make up the high-value network or our Minnesota high-performing network. Clinical programs that we have also focus
037on member health, population health management, caring for the entire population. care management for specific individuals with high touch needs, as well as real condition specific programs for musculoskeletal concerns, diabetes, behavioral health, et cetera. And then cost protection on the back side is supported by analytics, insight-driven analytics in our system. Payment integrity, which basically means really like... Full-body cavity search scrubbing claims to make sure that they're being paid correctly and that our provider partners are billing things correctly So that your dollars are being spent as you intend them to be spent and then fraud waste abuse prevention programs as well The last piece of that is member engagement I'm going to talk a little bit more about that in a moment, but that really supports advocacy for the members and efficient health care system navigation that
038improves outcomes. Where people know where to go and know how to get there, it helps them get better results. So really with all of what we're doing here, we're focusing on reducing the total cost of care while focusing on the health of our members. On the next slide, I wanted to just highlight one of the pieces on the previous slide talked about integrated pharmacy and medical benefits. I know that many of the solutions that were reviewed, I'm assuming by the Assurance Committee, talked about what's called a carve-out PBM, where you have your medical claims payer and then you have another outside pharmacy benefit manager that pays the drug claims and negotiates those pieces. Blue Cross is all about, in our preferences, the solution that we brought for Hopkins is our integrated model where we work.
039We as a nonprofit organization work with Prime Therapeutics, who's our pharmacy benefit management partner. That's also another nonprofit organization to really work together because we do this all the time on all of our insured business. They're our partner. So we have great channels open, communication open. We have one medical policy across both medical and pharmacy. And so we're sharing data. That's the natural course of business for us. So the slide here just kind of shows we're managing that total cost of care together with prime as opposed to an outside entity That might have own its own motives or shareholder profit motives that sort of thing. We're using combined Actionable data constantly and then the other nice thing is it's a great member experience for your people that are covered one ID card one customer service
040No transfers. No being told. Oh, that's a pharmacy question. You got to call somebody else. We handle it all in-house Because we're doing that, we did a study over the last few years of groups that have that integrated pharmacy versus the carve-out. And we see what you see on the right-hand side of the slide. The integrated model provides for a 17% lower probability of hospitalization, 13% lower probability for ER visits, and an overall lower spend of $422 per member per year. And a member in our world is, if I'm a family of five that's covered on the plan, that's five members. based on having that integrated pharmacy model. So we're really excited to bring that to the school district. And then lastly, just something that's pretty new for us, we just brought it online here
041this year, we've been working on this, is our new navigation and engagement tool, Blue Care Advisor. And that's a web-based tool, but it also faces internally within our organization to help share data with every customer service rep a member might interact with, every care manager and others throughout the organization as well. Blue Care Advisor is really that high-tech, high-touch... system and has an integrated ecosystem. So if you've got point solutions that you're purchasing through Blue Cross and even some outside ones that we may be able to integrate, they'll go to one spot. Your members will go to one spot to see everything that's available to them. And the system also will point out to them based on their utilization, the way they interact with the system using. AI and machine learning, as well as health
042assessments that they might take, to point them in the right direction. So we see a lot higher member usage rates when members are accessing their benefits that way, in a way that makes sense to them and is really personalized toward them. The well-being focused of Blue Care Advisor, it really integrates that personalization, including what we call next best actions or recommendations. So when I filled out my health assessment, I said I was interested in health coaching for weight management. I now see that as a recommendation for me until I take that action, and then it checks that off the list, and it surfaces something else for me. So that really tends to drive engagement because people can see that this is working for them. We also bring that approach to our health care provider searches.
043There's ability to turn on prevention incentives and then condition-based campaigns through the system, the way based on claims data as well as how I interact, that can target members based on their health needs. The last piece of this is we're using all that data really to show value and return on investment for you as the purchaser. Provide transparency. There's a great... We showed it during the meeting, a mission control dashboard that shows what's going on with your population as they use this system. And ultimately, we're using that data that we get to guide our members with those recommended next best actions. So we're bringing value to the member. by giving them better health and opportunities to participate in programs that you're paying for, and to you as the employer by over time using that data
044to decrease healthcare costs, and really I think to bring that peace of mind where you know that the system is set up to bring members what they need at the time that they need it, and also we can give you that data through mission control to customize communications to segments of the population with issues that are important to the school and to help you get to those folks as we see them in need. And I would just add the information that you see here was all presented to the insurance committee. I think some of the other things that were spoken to, Julie, you might as well, some of the other kind of components that we already have that could be integrated in. So, yeah, we're evaluating some other programs associated with Blue Cross, some that
045we currently have and some that may be new. and be able to look at that full suite of options and hopefully tailor the experience more into one space on one platform that, as was mentioned, would be more user-focused as one of our desired outcomes. Part of the other desired outcome that we had was making sure that our RFP... was a sound financial decision and we were very pleased with the information that came forward looking at the proposal from a cost perspective director chap and duca anything else that you would add on those terms thank you dr lightfoot uh not really i think the proposal came out is the Low speed, which definitely we understand in terms of our... Director Chapaduka, it's hard for us to hear you. The volume is low, which might be an
046issue on our end. And then there's some feedback. And you're saying important things. So I want to make sure that we hear you and that our community hears you. Can you guys hear me? We still have the feedback issue, which will not become more pleasant as we turn up the volume. But that is one option we have, would be to turn up the volume on our end. Okay, just give me a second. Thank you. I appreciate it. The feedback is coming. I think it has to be on so that people on the Google Meet can hear it. Sorry about that. Can you guys hear me better now? Much better. Perfect. Thank you. Okay. What I was just going to say is... Unfortunately, the feedback is back. Well, I think as I'm speaking, I'm seeing, like,
047there must be the microphone around Dr. Lightfoot. Oh. Is there another option, or we can go with this if this is... THE BEST WE CAN DO. WE CAN ALSO MOVE ON TO SOME OTHER QUESTIONS AND THEN COME BACK TO YOU FOR THE FINANCIAL PIECE. OKAY. OKAY. THANK YOU, DIRECTOR CHAPONDUCCA. SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR THE PRESENTATION. Really pleased to see you lead with health equity in terms of values alignment with our work here in Hopkins. It's very important. And it was interesting to hear about all the other work that Blue Cross Blue Shield is doing in terms of advocacy and narrative work and all of that. So appreciate that framing. Certainly sounds like a lot of great features for our employees, which is important. As somebody who has my personal insurance plan through my
048employer, employer has that separate pharmacy component and it is just really, really hard to navigate, especially when you have kids and partners involved. And so appreciate that integrated aspect. And then the dashboard, that seems like it's going to be very user-friendly for our employees. So that was all great information to hear. Wondering if my board colleagues have any comments or questions for Mr. Pavelka as we wait for Director Chapman-Duca here. Chair Bouchard. Yes. I also was really excited to hear about the equity focus that Blue Cross Blue Shield is bringing. I think to the beginning of the forefront of the conversation, but I just then had some specific questions about what that means in terms of coverage for our employees and our community. So is it something that translates into Blue Cross Blue Shield being
049very... willing and able to cover mental health and also trauma-informed care. I know that that is something that is really important right now, especially to our staff, as we've been dealing with the ongoing ramifications of the pandemic and also different things that have happened across our communities. Yeah, and I think that's very important. It all falls under the category of behavioral health in terms of some of those issues. I mentioned a little bit about gender services. That's been something we've seen with a lot of our public sector clients, that that's extremely important. I would really encourage you to go out to our bluecrossmn.com website at your leisure and just type in gender services. There's a whole piece of information there. We actually employ a gender services consultant, which is a role that I don't think
050exists in any other health plan in Minnesota and maybe not anywhere else, who steps folks through that. Other parts of the behavioral health piece, it's actually been very interesting for me to learn from a sales perspective in doing presentations, you know, to like the insurance committee presentation and this one as well, just how robust that is in terms of all the services and the folks that we have that back up those pieces. And any of the other care pieces that we're talking about, we are going to be really on the bleeding edge of bringing pieces into the health plan to provide coverage for them. There's like community advocacy pieces that we were the first plan in the state to allow for coverage for things like that. Again, a lot of this has been in response
051in recent years to some of these real things that I don't think any of us thought we'd find ourselves in this situation. Situations created by the pandemic. So yes, I think the answer there is we're going to have an option to cover anything that is important to the district that's coverable under ERISA guidelines under a plan. And I would just add briefly some of the great work that Julie has been doing with our health broker and our wellness consultant is gathering data from our employee population with our most recent wellness survey. Julie, just a couple highlights of that that you think might be relevant to some of this? Sure. Just like you had mentioned. behavioral health services are the number one factor that many of our survey participants listed Peer connection was another one that
052they mentioned but after I don't have all the final results I got high level today But that is something that I worked with our Jill from Marsh. We've been already starting working on different programs through Blue Cross that we can Provide to our staff and mental health is number one. Thank you Staff and their dependents. I think that's also key to point out that you know, we want to make sure that the dependents on our medical plan are also Available to get these services as well Thank you Excellent. Thank you director Chapman do go we will Come back to you. Hi. It's nice to see you Well good to see you. Thank you chair was more lens Can you guys hear me better now? You sound great, yes. Okay. I apologize. I don't know. Maybe
053it's my background. I'm at home. The only thing I was going to add is actually Blue Cross Blue Shield came out as the lowest bidder out of the whole entire process. So we're definitely looking forward to a great partnership with them. And also the effect that will be actually... using one platform. If we compare to our current structure where we are sitting in different platforms in terms of health and wellness, we must come with an integrated approach to health and wellness. That's an added advantage and I hope it will increase participation across our system. Thank you, Director Chapunduka. How many bidders did we have? I was trying to think, Julie. For our medical insurance, we probably had, I would say, six. And then we had three pharmacy benefit companies put a bid in. Okay. Thank
054you. If there are questions and comments from my board colleagues. I just had a curiosity question. I was just wondering if other third-party administrators or providers are also focused on health equity or are you on sort of a leading edge with that? I'm sure just because in the general community where we're seeing RFPs or requests for proposals come in everywhere, it's becoming very common to be included everywhere. I will say I do think that the competition is playing catch up a little bit with Blue Cross. We've been on the forefront of it. Like I said, Bukata Hayes, he's a VP of Racial and Health Equity. I don't know that that position exists at other third-party administrators or carriers in Minnesota. I think we're in a very competitive state, and the competition is wonderful, honestly, so
055I think they will move into that space, but I do feel Blue Cross is on the leading edge there. Thank you. Thank you. Other questions or comments? The last comment I would make, and I tried to echo it in the presentation, but it takes a lot of people to go through this process. So I just want to put it out there that we had many members that gave up time to look at review proposals. Julie did excellent work throughout the whole process and continues to lead in that space. And I just feel grateful that we have the team that we have here in Hopkins working on this because it's a self-insurance plan, which means that we're all invested and it's all to our benefit. And the more that we can do that together, the better
056results that we achieve. So grateful to have the team working on it that's working on it. Thank you. Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot, could you help us understand the process moving forward? So this evening was a board information and discussion item, no action needed. When will our action be needed and what will that look like? That will look like us finalizing the terms of the conditions. That would be on a consent. So you will see a contract come forward with third party administrator that will be on the consent agenda. So prior to that, we wanted to give you the background so that sometimes you just get a document and you may wonder, what was all this? What is this? And we wanted to kind of bring this forward so that you could see all the work and
057energy and effort that goes into making this happen for all of our employees and, as Julie so well pointed out, the dependents that come with us as well. Well, thank you. We appreciate that. And from a transparency and alignment perspective, it's important for our community to hear this information as well. So thank you very much for being with us tonight. Thanks for having us. Thank you all. We will move to our next agenda item, which is policies in first read. And Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot is going to stay with us. And I will turn it over to Vice Chair Andreessen. Thank you chair Westmoreland as you can see there are policies before us today to discuss that the policy and monitoring committee has reviewed and also we enjoy our Student board rep on that committee who
058helps us work through these policies and that is much appreciated. I wanted to bring the full board into alignment with our racial equity impact analysis tool that we use when we are looking at all policies. I think most important for work at this level with the board are three questions that I want us all to keep in mind. What are the equity impacts of this decision? Who will benefit from and or be burdened by this decision? And are there strategies to mitigate any unintended consequences of this decision? And with that, I will turn it over to Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot to walk us through each policy individually. Thank you. The first that we have this evening is Policy 611, which is homeschooling. You will note that the Minnesota School Board Association model policy did make some
059specific changes. Those changes were related to statutory information that should be included. Those modifications have been made in Policy 611, along with some editorial items, I'm sorry, editing items and grammar correction. Other than that, those were the specific changes that were there in Policy 611. Questions for me on 611? Chair Westmoreland. Yes. I'm just curious, how many students do we have in the district that are homeschooled? How many people will this affect? I would have to double check that and we can get back to you on that. Okay. I wouldn't want to misspeak and it isn't a number that is always in front of me, but we can work with our business office and our... our data collection for that because as far as a process, the administrative services office, our administrative assistant serves as
060the point of contact liaison. So we'll track that information and we'll get a final count and then make sure that we have that for you. Thank you. Any other questions on 611? Okay, we can move on to 612.1. Sure. 612.1 is the parental involvement policies for Title I programs. It is a statutory requirement that we have this. As you will note, the items for change were not at all needing any modification in 612.1, so you see it as is. There was also no modification that was recommended since 2016 from the model school board association policy. Questions about 612.1? Looks like we can move on to 615. Okay. 615, as you will note from what we included, 615 had some significant revisions that were specifically designed to reflect Minnesota statutory change. Therefore, as we did this
061review, we looked at the Minnesota School Board Association policy. and are recommending the adoption of 615. I should note that as we look at the adoption of 615, we are also doing work to make sure that the language is inclusive, and we are continuing with that. What we thought that our first set would be would be the substantial adoption of the terms that have changed according to statute, and then what we would look toward is we would look toward ways that we could look at utilizing inclusive language to Note that we can reflect that in the policy itself, but we also wanted to make sure that we were mindful of the required changes, wanted to move forward with those first, and we'll have additional work that will be ongoing to reflect that language change. So
062when you say that there will be additional work, should we expect to see this policy come back before us or kind of what does that look like process-wise? Sure. We do it a couple ways. When we have, for example, terms that are substantial, our policy on policies states that those are the terms, I know, isn't it? Those are the terms that we bring in front of the board. If we have work where we are making grammar edits, if there are editing items that are there that don't change the substantial meaning but add value or clarification, that those can be done in that update and don't require board approval. We can run those through the monitoring committee, bring those to the monitoring committee for feedback on that language, make that language change, and that language change
063doesn't need to run through the board committee with the full board. Does that help? Yes, thank you. Chair Westmoreland. Yes. Just a note. There's a reference in this policy to something that I had not heard of before, which was the Minnesota test of academic skills. And when I did some research on that today, I found out that that is going away and it's going to be replaced by MCAs. So that will require a future. change is going to be over a period of several years, but that's one of the things that Will probably be before the next You know a board two years three years down the road So we'll look toward that I should also clarify one of the clarification points that the monitoring committee Did ask for and I confirmed with director Ertl
064Was the note that EL students new to the United States are required to take all assessments? We did double check that and that is a statutory requirement so We have done the diligence so far with this policy, but as noted when legislative sessions end There are often many changes that we have to go back and take a look toward, especially as it refers to specific policy information. Thank you. Any additional questions or comments for Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot? So with that, I would look for a motion that the Board approve the above policies in first read and that the Board direct the administration to prepare the policies 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
065a second to approve the policies. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Next, we will move on to our resolution calling for executive session. This executive session will be for our superintendent's mid-year review and our Hopkins Education Association negotiations. We are permitted by Minnesota Open Meeting Law to call executive session for these two activities. And in order to do so we need to approve the resolution that is printed under this agenda item in the packet and that requires a roll call vote and so clerk Ross will be called into service here. So I would look for a motion that the board approve the resolution calling for executive session as printed in the packet. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I
066have a motion and a second to approve the resolution calling for executive session. Any discussion? Seeing none, I'll move to Clerk Ross for the roll call vote. Okay. Chair Westmoreland. Aye. Director Hartland. Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Andreessen. Aye. Treasurer Adams? Aye. Director Ross? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Ross. We have seven ayes, zero nays. The motion to call an executive session immediately after this meeting carries. Next, we'll move on to our board member reports. Chair Westmoreland? Yes, Director Adams. A rather brief one. how many days after the last board meeting, was the Hopkins Education Foundation Bash, which I attended and have attended every year that it's existed. So I'm proud of that. I had to crash the first one. How did this one rank? It was in the top ten. And then
067had a great time, and it's always heartening to see how much support that we get from our community and from HEF. And very thankful that we have that organization, too. do our R&D for us, you know, our research and development. So they do a great job. Then on March 3rd, last Friday, I attended AMSD in Little Canada. Listened to a couple of our legislators, Steve Swodzinski, Senator, and Representative Lori Pryor address the assembled there and online. Talked about their, I wouldn't say what their priorities are for the current session, but their assessment of what might pass in this current session. And they were customarily vague about what might happen. So a lot of negotiation going on right now at the Capitol. So much of that is being done behind closed doors, unfortunately. And then we
068had the LAC meeting. on Friday and Tomorrow LAC is going over to the Capitol and we'll have our LAC day at the Capitol Starting at 8 o'clock So we got to be there early So that's my report Thank You director Adams Chair Westmoreland, I had a couple reports. Great. On February 14th, there was a skip meeting, and it was really nice because a lot of members from our community had joined us, including our Hopkins Police Department and some other groups. And it was great to see that they want to transform skip a bit. in order to improve communication between community and family and our schools. And so they really want to exchange ideas between our various partners. And I did bring up mental health and how we really need to focus on making sure that
069our families and our students are doing well. Thank you. And another thing that I went to was our mentors of color group. And it was really nice that I found out that Alice Smith in particular is reading a book together called Me and White Supremacy to combat racism, change the world, and become a good ancestor. The book is by Leila F. Saad. I think that's her last name. And it's wonderful that so many, I was told that so many of our Alice Smith staff are participating in reading this book together and discussing it and having these great honest conversations about, you know, racism and how they can improve themselves and communicating with everyone. So, yeah, those are my two things. Thank you. Chair Westmoreland. Yes. I just quickly wanted to mention that I was invited
070to be part of the PYP training that happened last week. with Eisenhower and Gatewood as Gatewood, well, as Eisenhower continues its transition and Gatewood starts its transition into that program school-wide. It was really illuminating. One of the things that I really appreciated about that training was the breadth of staff that were invited to be a part of it all the way to office staff. to educators in the classroom. I felt like that was a new practice, but a necessary one that everyone is being trained in the things that are directly impacting our students. Excellent. Thank you. Any other board member reports? I do have a brief report. Great. In addition to the LAC activities that I participated in and will participate in tomorrow, I did get the chance to attend the State of Our District
071address, which was very informative and related to a more personal thing that I've done as a... board member and community member recently. In our kind of cool little neighborhood enclave we have, we've had a lot of family turnover. We've had a lot of new families move in to our district and within five houses of me there's not one and not two, but there are seven little girls that are either between newborn and age three. And so I've had an opportunity, like those neighbors have become friends, and I have had the opportunity to really personally speak to the good things that Hopkins does and all the reasons that they should be excited about being part of this community. And they are excited to get their copy of the state of the district. And then additionally, I
072participate in a committee in Meadowbrook to... their staff appreciation committee. And so we've done a variety of events to recognize kind of the Valentine's holiday. And then recently they had conferences there, which are a big lift for the teachers. And so then we provide meals for them during those days. Excellent. Thank you. So I have a brief report tonight. Next time will be longer. I'm working on a couple of things in collaboration with our city of Hopkins and Hennepin County partners. Commissioner LaTondris and I have been keeping each other very busy. So I'll have more reports on that next time. I wanted to make sure my board colleagues in our community knew that I was recently appointed to the Local Progress National School Board Steering Committee. So Local Progress is an organization dedicated to bringing
073together local elected officials to keep our communities moving forward, share best practices, engage in professional development. The organization does model policy work, issues briefs. They offer communications assistance to local. electeds, advocacy resources. There are a lot of great case studies for progress on their website, trainings, that type of thing. And the organization nationally is looking to... to really expand its school board program. So 12 of us from across the country were selected to lead that work. And my goal is to get a Hopkins case study as part of the local progress kind of collection of materials because as I talk with colleagues across the country, there are some We know that there are some really wonderful things that we're doing here in Hopkins, and I think that it's important to share that on a national
074stage. So we had our first meeting last week. It was really energizing to connect with school board members from across the country who are engaging in similar work to the work that we're doing here in Hopkins. So looking forward to continuing to be part of that group and really grateful for the opportunity. I want to make sure our community knows that Resource West is hosting a fundraiser next Tuesday on March 14th from 4 to 7 at Hopkins Center for the Arts. It's called Gathering to Grow. It's a community celebration. There is going to be an art component, music, other... performances, other community organizations that will be tabling at the event, so some resource sharing, and a great time to get together to celebrate Resource West. Of course, donate money, as Director Adams reminded us last
075time, donate money to Resource West as well, and be in community. So I hope that you can join us. Okay. So we have no incidental reports this evening, so we will move on to adjournment. And I would look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to adjourn. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. This meeting of the Hopkins School Board is adjourned at 8.17 p.m.