001There are two options for giving public comment. One of those is to leave a voicemail before the meeting begins, and there are instructions for how to do that in the board packet on the board page of the district website, and that voicemail will be played publicly during the meeting. The other option is to attend the meeting in person. fill out a public comment card and hand that to the chair, which would be me, before the meeting begins. So we have no voicemails for this evening. I have received one public comment card from a community member who is in the audience with us. And so I'll read through our guidelines for public comment and then invite that person to the table. The Hopkins School Board believes that hearing from our community members is crucial for implementing
002Vision 2031. If you wish to contact the board via email instead of publicly commenting at a meeting, you can do so via the district website. At board meetings, our public comment will be received both in person and via voicemail, as I have outlined. And we have two public comment sections during the meeting. The first, which is happening now, is for items on the agenda. The second is for items that are not on the agenda, and that happens at the end of the meeting. Here are the guidelines for public comment. Please keep your comments to three minutes or less. Public comment is for input only. Members of the school board will not respond directly to public comments that are made at this meeting. No specific action will be taken at this meeting in response to comments
003that are made or issues that are raised during the public comment period related to items not on the agenda. If the board determines that action is appropriate, that action will occur at a future board meeting. A district representative may follow up with you after the meeting. I will recognize one speaker at a time. Only those speakers who are recognized will be permitted to speak. Individuals who interfere with or interrupt speakers, the board or the proceedings may be asked to leave. Personal attacks on any individual including any other speaker during the public comment session are unacceptable as our obscenities or profanity Persistence in making such remarks will end the individuals opportunity to address the board and may result in the individual being directed to leave I will rule out of order any statement that would violate
004state or federal law, school board policy, or the privacy rights of an individual. Minnesota's open meeting law prohibits the discussion of private educational data during an open meeting. Accordingly, during the public comment session, no person may discuss private educational data on an identifiable student. The open meeting law also requires the board to close a meeting for preliminary considerations of allegations against an employee. Accordingly, community members who have concerns about an employee or want to file a complaint or allegation against an employee are encouraged to contact the superintendent directly. Repeated violations of these time, place, and manner restrictions may also lead to the meeting being briefly recessed. Community members will have an opportunity to be heard within the limits of the law and subject to the time, place, and manner restrictions above. Thank you for your
005willingness to participate in public comment this evening. And with that, I'd like to welcome Lila Bouchard to the board table. Welcome, Lila. I am trying to get my stopwatch set up here. Okay. You can begin your comment now. Hello, members of the Hopkins School Board. My name is Lila Bouchard and I use they, them pronouns. I am speaking in favor of the resolution supporting transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive scholars. It's important to protect trans, non-binary, and gender creative kids, especially while laws are being proposed and passed across the country discriminating against us. The Eisenhower QSA, Queer Straight Alliance, gave input on this resolution. Part of Vision 2031 is centering student voice. It's important for you to understand that the queer students helped create this resolution based on what we experience in our schools. I am
006grateful that the board passed the gender inclusion policy in 2021, but there is still much to do to make sure students, staff, and teachers are respecting the identities of queer youth in Hopkins Public Schools. I am asking you to vote in favor of this resolution. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Lila. Thank you, Lila. Next, we'll move to our reports and we'll hear from more of our students. With our student board representatives report, we are so thrilled to have three of our brilliant student board reps at the table this evening. And who's starting? Grace. For those of you that don't know, my name is Grace Riley, and I'm the sophomore representative for Hopkins High School. And I am going to be touching on a little bit more of a sensitive topic first. Unfortunately, over
007spring break, a heartbreaking event struck the sophomore student body. The passing of fellow sophomore Derry over spring break was an event that deeply affected the student body. She was remembered and grieved in a moment of silence in the beginning of the sophomore meeting yesterday, in which was shared news of her death by gunshot in addition of her name being honored at graduation. Grief circles are being set up this year, similar to the ones that we had for the George Floyd and when all of that was happening. And those will be during lunch hour and during opportunity hours. Does anyone have questions about that at all? I did provide our board with an update, so thank you for mentioning dairy at the meeting this evening. And then on to a much lighter topic. Term four has
008officially started, and students are talking about potential summer opportunities in most of their classes with counselors and teachers alike. And then as we head into the spring, sports like track and field have started and their first meet is this month. And then Ramadan has also begun and Passover is starting soon. So many prayer and fasting spaces have opened up for our Muslim and Jewish students. And that's it. Thank you, Grace. Any questions or comments for Grace? Thank you very much. Who's up next? hydrating. It's important. Thanks, Oscar. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. I'm Oscar Wolfe, the junior representative. If I seem a bit frazzled, it's because Grace is right. Track has begun, and I just sprinted here for my pole vaulting practice. So yeah, but I also am touching on a bit more of a sensitive
009subject today, but a really important one, and that's mental health in the high school right now. As you may know, just before spring break, every student at the high school was required to attend a mental health awareness panel. As I was sitting at this panel, I looked around at my classmates, and I was really struggling to find a single student who wasn't on their phone or talking to their friends or doing their homework. And that's because when it comes down to it, mental health awareness is no longer the issue. Students are aware. One of the issues they were talking about at this panel was how has the pandemic affected mental health? We know. It's our mental health. So having it told to us again isn't... bringing more awareness than we already had. And in addition
010to experiencing it firsthand, we've had these types of meetings many times now. We've done this sort of thing. We know the vocabulary. We know the procedures that are supposed to be taken. We know the warning signs to look for. In general, I would say that Hopkins students are very much aware of mental health. But that doesn't mean that the problem is solved because the problem has shifted from what I can see. It's not awareness now. It's a missing link between resources at the high school and students who need them. Students don't know what resources are available and they certainly don't know how to access those resources. at the panel, I was actually talking to the girl sitting next to me. And she was telling me that she recently met with a grief counselor who apparently
011comes to the high school every week. And she said that it was actually a really helpful experience. It was really positive. It was really good for her mental health. And it helped her cope with a loss that she experienced. The problem was that she really could have used that grief counselor a few months ago. But she had no idea. No one told her that we had a grief counselor. I consider myself pretty involved with stuff at the district. I had no idea that we had a grief counselor. And that trend is not just observable with me and this girl. I would say it's pretty much the entire student body. There are a lot of students who want mental health resources but just don't know how to get them or what's available. I think that there's
012two main reasons for this. Number one, there is no simple way to access resources at the school right now. You can go to the, what do we call it, the resource mental health center? Wellness center, thank you. You can go there, but you need a pass for that, so it's not, you can't just walk there. And it's also not totally clear what you do when you get there. and online is fine for setting up meetings. But the other issue with this is that it's not clear who you're supposed to go to with what issue. It's not clear what the differences are between a social worker and a psychologist and a counselor. Students don't know if they have issues with anxiety or they're having an issue with a friend. They don't know who's the appropriate person
013to contact. So those are really the two contributing factors from what I can see. It's not clear how to find these people, and it's not clear who is the proper person. So I think the focus of mental health efforts at Hopkins should really be correlating to the shift and not focusing so much on awareness. Not that that's not a valid thing to focus on. It's extremely important, but we've done it. So I really do think it's time to shift to... telling students exactly what is available for them and specific instructions on how to find these people. Students, especially students in less than ideal mental states, are not necessarily going to make that first step. So we need to go to them, telling them what's available. And I think that this could take the form of
014emails. This could be announcements. This could be physical posters or signs in the school. I think that the website could also be updated to summarize it more effectively. There are some very helpful links and explanations on the website, but there isn't really one explanation of everything. Even a frequently asked questions page specifically about mental health could be really helpful, and just sending out a link to that website to students. But I think that all of those measures would be really helpful. shifting to connecting students who need resources to the resources available. Or what about like a submit button on like class link page? Definitely. That's right there on the laptop or the iPad. Anything that would make it easier for students to get to. Definitely. We have actually there's, that's a really... Good idea. We
015have on the Chromebook, I don't know if you can see it, but we have like sort of a default thing where you can just click on there and then there's a bunch of like links that students would need to get to quickly. Adding something on there just specifically about mental health would be really easy, really helpful. I had a question. Are you aware of the loop, the Hopkins loop? I don't think so, no. Yeah, because that kind of is what you just talked about. It was created last year, I think, and it lists a lot of those resources and also pulls in community resources as well. So maybe making that more accessible to students would be. Helpful absolutely because we have we have resources from what I know we we do have resources It's just
016that most students don't they don't know they don't know about the loop. They don't know about anything available So, Oscar, like, at this presentation that all students had to attend, they talked about mental health and the importance of paying attention to it, but didn't say, and here's how you access? There was a very, very brief slide that they actually didn't even really talk about. They sort of just skipped over it, and it said, here's what's available, and it had, like, a photo of the staff and stuff, which was fine. But I think that there should have been a much stronger focus on here's who's available, here's exactly what they do, here's what issues you should go to them with, and here's where they are. Here's their email. Here's everything. That's really helpful. Thank you. Have
017another question about access so when can Students go see these mental health practitioners like can students get a pass to go Do that during the the school day? You know, what what are the time slots that are available that you know of I? Have I've met up with my counselor a few times mostly about academic things and You what I've done is sign up on the website beforehand and I actually just to show how real the inaccessibility is the way I sign up for it every time a few months ago someone emailed me the link so I look up the email every time because that's my fastest way to get to it I search in the name of the person who sent me the email to get to the link to the counselor page Because
018it's just not it's not convenient but I get you can get a time slot and then tell your teacher like I have a meeting with my counselor at so and so time and then leave class then. But that's pretty predictable. The bigger issue is when students need something. right then and there, it's not always an option to just leave. Like you can be questioned in the hallways for what are you doing out here? Where are you going? Which is understandable, but it does make it more difficult. Absolutely. Thank you so much, Oscar. I have a slightly unrelated question. What are your events? pole vault pole vault pole vault a specialist all right i didn't i don't think they had pole vault when i was in high school did they have pole vault as a track
019yeah oh yeah it's been around for a long time yeah in high school sure because i wanted to do it and then i tried it once i was like oh never mind maybe nobody did it at my school I was in track at Minnetonka, and they had pole vault back in 1968. You might have skipped it in 1996 then. It was phased out. Well, thank you. Imani. Okay. I don't really have that much of a huge update, but on May 20th, a club called For the Culture is... Oh, I'm Imani, and I'm a senior rep. Sorry. On May 20th, a club called For the Culture is planning a culture night where students can come in and represent their culture either by bringing food or clothing, music, doing like anything, performing arts and stuff like that.
020We're not sure where we'll hold it, probably in the auditorium at the high school, but we're still planning that out. We, the sophomores, had their class meeting on Monday, right? And then we had, the seniors had our meeting today, and then the juniors have their meeting on Monday. But at the senior meeting, we sort of talked about, well, graduation is in 58 days, specifically. Who's counting? Me. Yeah, so cap and gown distribution is on May 23rd, and the senior recognition and scholarship night is on May 18th, so a few people are looking forward to that. And AP exams are coming up in the beginning of May, but I've heard that because of Eden Mubarak, some of the AP exams are conflicting with that, so some people might have to. Or this AP... I'm not sure
021what they're called, but the people at our school who work with the AP College Board are going to try to help students who do practice Eid Mubarak have their test date pushed to the later one, which is like late May. I'm so sorry to interrupt. It's not called Eid Mubarak. It's called Eid al-Fitr. Oh, sorry. Just letting you know. Okay. Yep. And yeah, that's it. Thank you, Imani. You have some exciting news about your plans for next year as well. I am not committed yet, but I'm going to commit this week to American University. Fantastic. Congratulations. Thank you. And when is that culture night? When? Yeah. Oh, May 20th. May 20th. Okay. Excellent. Thank you to all of our student board reps. Next, I'll turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry-Reed for the superintendent's report.
022Thank you, Chair Bouchard, and I'm grateful to Elise for sharing a brief slide deck, and thank you, Grace, for acknowledging the loss of Dariana Davis's life. I was very upset to hear about that and spending a couple of days, a couple of hours, excuse me, at the high school today. We spent some time with some students who clearly have been harmed and traumatized by her death. So we'll be thinking of her family and hopefully we'll find a way to celebrate her life after giving her family space to grieve. So thank you for acknowledging that. You know, we haven't met as a school board since mid-March. So since then, there have been a few things that have happened. For example, we had St. Patrick's Day. I mean, normally we don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day all over
023the district. However, at Alice Smith, we have a 100% Irish employee. Her name is Eileen White. Have you met her? She's our data specialist at Alice Smith. She speaks Irish, and here she is in the picture on the left. And so I learned a little bit about how they celebrate St. Patrick's Day in Ireland. So that was very cool. And this is quite obvious to all of us, but our girls did win the state title back on March 19, beating St. Michael Albertville 72 to 56. And this was our eighth state championship, believe it or not. And so the high school did a fantastic job of honoring. our powerful and amazing athletes in the mall at the high school that following Tuesday. So that was a nice celebration. And I would like to acknowledge again
024Rachel Volkman. So if you remember, we had four teachers from Hopkins who were nominated for Teacher of the Year, and one of our teachers has reached the level of semifinalist. So the Teacher of the Year program in Minnesota is in its 58th year. It's the oldest and most prestigious recognition program. in Minnesota to honor excellence in public education. Candidates are pre-K through 12th grade and also include early childhood family education and adult basic education teachers. And so we're very proud of Rachel, who is a semifinalist, and the current Minnesota Teacher of the Year, Natalia Benjamin, will announce her successor at the... at the awards dinner later on. I think it's in June. We can let you know the exact date. But that's a really exciting highlight for our district. Also wanted to share that Congressman
025Dean Phillips was in the house over at the Little Theater at the high school on March 24. So he spoke with about 75, I think you were there. Were you there, Oscar? I thought I saw you. Were you there, Grace? I was not. Not? Okay. Imani, were you there? No, I was at Model UN, so I couldn't. Oh, okay. That was the week. Okay. So I think there were maybe 70 kids in the little theater. So it was a considerable audience and really engaging talk that he provided, sort of a civics 101 class. And what I thought was really interesting is that he had all of these photos depicting a day in the life of a U.S. congressman. So I thought that was really interesting. And then... We had several metropolitan superintendents who stopped by
026the high school to have a roundtable with Representative Phillips following that student talk. And so he asked us, you know, what are all of the important issues that we are paying attention to right now that we want federal support around? So it was a great conversation. Also celebrating our... athletics and activities department. So beginning on July 1st, we will experience a pretty dramatic transition. Our current AD, our current Athletic and Activities Director, Dan Johnson, will be starting his new adventure as the Executive Director for the Minnesota Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association. That's a mouthful. And he has been with us for 26 years, believe it or not. And so we are completely grateful and indebted for just all of his service, his devotion to students and their engagement in co-curricular activities. He's really a phenomenal person,
027has been a tremendous leader, and has been assisted by Nicole Hancock and Aaron Brown, and of course, Sherry Reese, who recently retired. So we just wanted to celebrate this fabulous department and also welcome. Jared Ellerson who will serve as our new athletic and activities director over there at our high school and Jared brings many years of experience and You know some really interesting things that he's done in his life. So we're excited to welcome. Mr. Ellerson to Hopkins starting July 1st Okay, so We I'm going to talk about Paige just a little bit and then one more update and then we'll and we'll come back to this slide for a video that our very own Kevin Noonan put together so over the break we had the opportunity so our high school principal principal Ballard sent
028out a Hopkins all invitation for folks to contribute to a video a welcome home and good luck video for for Paige Beckers, who of course was playing in the final four. So it was really just a fun experience for everyone to come together and for that video to be made. And we're really proud that she returned. And obviously they did not win, but what a tremendous accomplishment to be from Hopkins, to... go all the way to the University of Connecticut and come back within just two years to be in the final four. So we're really proud of her. And there's so many news articles if you need to catch up. There's several videos and news articles, but we will end with a fun video in just a moment here. And then finally, I do like
029to include just a system goal focus. So as you know, we have six system goals for our organization and two activities, one aligned with our learning goal around personalized learning in every classroom and one goal around culture, which is increasing our building a workplace that focuses on wellness. and people experiencing wholeness by increasing trust and sharing power. That's our culture goal. Wanted to share that right before the break on March 22nd, we had our third quarterly gathering between union and district leaders to just talk about the many issues that are affecting folks across. roles and positions within the organization, but also to talk about what's going well. One of the things that came out of that was a request for transparency around our budgeting and staffing. So we are preparing weekly Hopkins All messages starting
030this week to share information about where we are with our budgeting and staffing process so that Hopkins employees feel like they have access to that information. And then for the learning goal, I wanted all of you to know that our K-12 music teachers have been meeting for quite some time now to learn more about Vision 2031. They implemented the lab operating system to identify some of the root causes around why student enrollment and engagement seem to dissipate after grade six in music. They identified Vision 2031 aligned ways to increase personalization and engagement and enrollment in music. And so they put together a fabulous presentation for each other and for leaders right before the break there, I think on March 24th, with some recommendations for us to consider. And we'll be following up to meet with
031them and talk about what... can be done both now and also long term. We do want to provide our students with access to high quality music experiences. So it's really important that we pay attention to what they uncovered and to what those recommendations are. And so let's, at least should we end with playing the video that Kevin Noonan from our communications and marketing team put together to celebrate Paige. Hey, Paige, I just want to congratulate you on making it to the Final Four. I'm proud of you and everything that you have accomplished this season. Good luck tonight. Go get them. I'm going to be watching. Oh my gosh, it's Paige Beckers! I know her! So proud! Go get them! You're amazing! I can't wait to watch you win tonight in person. I've got your picks
032to go all the way. Good luck! We're so proud of you, Paige Beckers. You're an inspiration for our community. We are so proud of you. We are so excited for you. And we want to tell you... Good luck, Paige! Paige, it is so fun watching you and the UConn women. Best of luck in the final four. I'll be rooting for you. It's really cool to see you hop into LUM. I have such success on and off the court. Congratulations, Paige. It's going to be wonderful to watch you this weekend. Not only are you great on the basketball court, but it's obvious that you are such high class and character. No matter what happens in this tournament, we are proud of you because... You are such a wonderful young woman who will use her platform for
033good. I just want to wish Paige good luck and congratulations on making it to the Final Four. Congratulations Paige for making it back to Minneapolis for the Final Four. We're all proud of you and let's go win it all. Congratulations for all your accomplishments. Just keep on being the incredible human that you are. We are so proud of you. What you're doing on the court's amazing, but even more so what you're doing off the court. For the first time in my life ever, I'm going to say, go Huskies. I want to say thank you for sharing with the world how amazing our youth are from the Hopkins community. Have a great career. Congrats P on all the amazing accomplishments and making it to the final four. Good luck. Just want to wish you good luck
034tonight and I'm coming to you from Hutchinson Island, Florida on my spring break where the whole restaurant is cheering you on. Go, Florida! So very proud of you, all that you've done, all you continue to do on the court and off. Have a great tournament and best of luck. We are so excited to have you back in Minnesota and wish you and your team the very best of luck. Congratulations on making the Final Four. We're wishing you luck and we know that you're going to take it over once again. Go UCOPS! It's game day. Go get them paid. Hopkins is so proud of you. Go Huskies. I will be watching you tonight. You were awesome in high school and you're awesome now. We are rooting and cheering for you. You are doing amazing work both
035on and off the court. Keep up the good work and let's get this W. Well, that whole experience was very special. So hope you enjoyed the video. Thank you, Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. That was uplifting. Questions or comments from my colleagues? I'll just mention the first time I saw Paige play, she was an eighth grader. And my wife rarely attends games with me because... She can't take the tenseness of them. But I came home and I said, there's this kid, this little kid playing with the varsity now. And I told her about the dribble that she did. She got the ball at the far end, dribbled down towards the basket, saw people in front of her, dribbled behind her back, weaved her way into the basket and made the layup on assistant. I said. wow, you
036don't see that much in an eighth grade kid anymore or ever. So it was quite astounding to watch. So it was fun. It was fun watching her grow along since that part, since that time. She's a great person. Yeah. Excellent. Well, with that, I would look for a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second I have a motion in 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 in a second to approve the consent calendar any discussion? Seeing none all in favor. Please say aye aye all
037opposed nay Motion carries next we'll move to our treasurer's report with treasurer Adams Thank You chair Bouchard I'm gonna be improvising a bit here tonight. My printer broke at hand at home. Oh no, so I couldn't print off my normal Treasurer's report so I emailed it to myself My email isn't working. I'm doing this from memory. Foiled at every turn. But at any rate, some of the... notable expenses this time. We've got a whole bunch of lunch refunds and we continue to get them every week. And apparently what happened was that once lunches became free through the summer meal program as part of the USDA, people didn't have to pay for them anymore. And so we've been refunding meal. deposits to parents so there were I don't know about 50 of them this time I
038think you can tell the winter season is wrapping up we had a number of expenses for sports officials for boys and girls basketball for gymnastics and so we're closing out that season and moving into the the spring season We made a payment of a hundred nine thousand to district 287 for services for the month of March and we made a payment of about eighteen thousand to the University of Minnesota for tuition for PSEO post-secondary educational attend the U and we pay the tuition for that. So they get to really benefit from their high school experience and maybe end up with half a semester's worth of credits at the university. And that's all I can remember. With that, I move that we approve financial disbursements in the amount of $5,245,517.17 for the period of March 9,
0392022 through March 28, 2022. I have a motion. 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. And I'm impressed that you did that all by memory. That was still quite a bit of detail. Next, we'll move into new business. And our first item is policies in first read, our school board meeting agenda. And I will policy and I will turn it over to Vice Chair Andreessen. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. I would also like to invite. Assistant Superintendent Nick Lightfoot to our virtual table to discuss this policy. We reviewed it in the policy and monitoring committee and then discussed it in our workshop earlier for for context
040and reference we decided that we needed to review our policy on meeting agendas due to the fact that i don't think it has been revised at quite some time and that board practice has moved out of alignment with our policy and so we reviewed it to get things back in alignment and to also give our community and also board members clarity around the process. So are there any questions or discussions from my board colleagues? Would just add a bit of additional context that we did have a robust conversation around this at the workshop as vice chair Andreessen mentioned and we talked about not only the language changes, but what this looks like functionally and Looking at both this issue of providing draft agendas to board members and then also really tightening up our procedure around
041posting both the agendas but also all of the accompanying materials five business days in advance so that board members and our community has ample time to to review that before the the board meeting we also acknowledge that just in our lived practice we know that there are some things that change between when packets are posted and the board meeting Board agendas are not officially finalized until they are approved like we did at the beginning of this meeting and so in those cases when there are changes made between that five business days in advance and the meeting that board members will be notified of those changes and that you know we are of course trying to limit the the number of changes that are made between posting and the meeting True Bouchard. Yes, I'd like to
042ask director injuries and for the public's benefit when will the agenda for our board meetings be? published no Made available. Yes I believe that the Agendas will be made available five business days prior to the meeting Draft agendas will be provided to the school board members 15 days prior to the meeting. And any supporting documents that are on a non-action item. So something that... doesn't need to be discussed. I mean, something that is being discussed but not acted upon will be two days prior to the meeting. And if an action item is required, those will be available five business days before. So for our Tuesday meetings, that would be the Wednesday prior? Correct. All right. Thank you. And if there are any changes to the draft agenda, those will be, board members will be notified.
043All right. Thank you. Other comments or questions? Okay. 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 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 in a second to approve the policy in first read any further discussion Seeing none all in favor. Please say aye aye all opposed nay motion carries Next, we'll move to our resolution supporting transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive students. There's a bit of background provided in the packet. Over the past month, I had the privilege of working with Hopkins scholars and staff to collaboratively craft this resolution in support of
044our transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive scholars here in Hopkins schools. I met with the QSA, the Queer Straight Alliance, at Eisenhower Elementary. and worked with our LGBTQ plus liaison who also leads or advises the GSA at West Junior High. and our two staff members who advise the QSA at Eisenhower as well. This resolution also contains recommendations that were brought to the board by our equity and inclusion advisory student group last spring that have not yet been fully implemented. I want to thank Vice Chair Andreessen for reminding me of those components to make sure that they were included in the resolution. I am in communication with board members and board chairs and other districts. We are not the only district looking at passing a similar resolution, especially given attempts to limit the rights of transgender, non-binary, and
045gender-expansive scholars, both here in the state of Minnesota and across the country. So I know Osseo is considering, the Osseo School Board is considering a similar resolution. and i can update the board as i hear more about you know what other districts are are taking this action so the resolution is linked in the board packet and i guess i'll open it up to discussion first to see if there's any questions or suggestions about the language and then after we have that conversation then i can read the resolution into the record and we can vote on it at that point I did just have a question about within this resolution, there are links. And I'm wondering, are those going to be preserved somewhere so that people can get refer to? Like I noticed our gender inclusion
046policy is in here, which is great, but just wanted to make sure that those were preserved because I think they expand the impact of this resolution. I think that's a great question. That was certainly my intent by including them. I am actually going to ask Elise to just give me a nod if we are able to preserve those when we archive the resolution. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Yes. I just wanted to say that I think this is a timely and important topic and exactly in line with our Hopkins values and I'm pleased that you went through the effort of liaising with those people in our district and I'm happy to have this before me. Thank you. Appreciate that. Chair Bouchard. Yes. I'm certainly in favor of this resolution. I would just like to also
047note that there's a bill that's been introduced in the state legislature in the House to support some of the initiatives that are mentioned here, but primarily for... funding gender neutral bathrooms in school districts. I think it's going to be about, I think the bill includes about a million and a half in funding that school districts can apply for to make those possible. Whether it gets through the Senate or not is another question, but at least there's some possibility that there might be some financial support to implement some of these things that we're referring to here. Thank you for that great additional context. May I ask one question? Yes. At the very end of this, it says, not only do we call on elected and appointed officials at all levels of government in the state of
048Minnesota to create policies and enact practices to protect the rights of transgender, non-binary, and gender-expensive youth and to create the conditions for them to thrive. Does that, as a new board member, does that verbiage of we call on, does that involve? us doing any other formal, I don't know, notification or proposing this directly to our governmental leaders in the state. So I think the the act of passing the resolution Clearly articulates to the public, you know our priorities and our action items I think that's step one and you ask a great question, you know, is there like a follow-up action item that happens? You know particularly pertaining to that last piece after we pass the resolution, I guess I would ask our LAC members what you think the best course of action might be there.
049I was going to say, I believe we can make a copy of this resolution available to all of our legislators so that they're aware of what our public stance is on this and ask for support for that bill that's in front of the House right now. So, well, we could take that up on Friday if this passes. So great timing. Thank you for asking. I think that that that sounds like a great course of action. One thing that it just struck me as I was reading through this. I'm wondering, I know that one of the things that was brought up is it's not just bathrooms, but also locker rooms. And there are. I think for a lot of school districts, that's where the money comes in. Transforming locker rooms to be gender inclusive can be
050quite costly. So I'm just wondering within this language if there would be, if we wanted to include locker rooms at all or if that's something for another time. Was trying to see if we could include it in the section that addresses bathrooms The the word multiple is tripping me up there me too. So I'm certainly in favor of including it. I would probably just add another clause Basically like saying the same thing that the bathrooms clause says removing the term multiple and inserting locker rooms if the board wanted that. I certainly feel good about that. And also it might be an element that we find at secondary versus elementary schools. Oh, true. Yeah. Yeah. And of course, I'm just thinking about what the, you know, how this gets operationalized just in terms of. It's easy
051to change a gendered bathroom into an inclusive bathroom. It is difficult to build a new locker room or even maybe to create an existing space within a locker room. I just don't know what the structural pieces would be. So yes, it absolutely needs to be a priority. And I just wonder about... timing and cost and things like that. So I think we have the opportunity here to signal it as a priority. And then that operational piece could come after. I mean, so basically what we're saying is like, we need this to happen. And then it's, you know, your job and your fabulous team's job to figure out. the how, if that feels comfortable to the board. So I can just try it real quick here and we can always remove it. Are we gonna amend
052this? Is that the? Yeah, I'm just adding another clause after the bathrooms part that we will ensure there are, so I'm removing multiple, there are gender inclusive locker rooms. In schools that currently have them, is that? Or a movement toward gender-inclusive changing spaces or something? That we support a movement. How about that we support gender-inclusive facilities? Where appropriate, I think. For changing clothes? That sounds a little clunky. I don't know how prescriptive we want this to be. That's my concern. We're too prescriptive. Could we say that we'll support gender-inclusive options within changing spaces? Yeah. I mean, is there a problem with staying in locker rooms? Well, I do wonder. I mean, a locker room is a changing space that has lockers. I don't think the lockers is the issue. It's the changing space. Okay, I
053see. So that there could be, and that would give then the district flexibility around what that looks like. Like currently how those spaces are shifted is just creating private spaces for everyone, right? Or the district could then. have a space within each locker room that is gender inclusive. That's my thinking. Yeah. And I mean, this is already encoded in the gender inclusion policy, right? Isn't there a piece about that? Access to facilities. Each student shall be granted access to facilities, including restrooms, locker rooms, and changing areas that align with the student's gender identity. Perfect. So we're not really doing anything that we haven't already done, I guess I'm trying to say. Just kind of reinforcing that. And there is some. You know, I originally had right under the now, therefore, be it resolved. I originally
054had that we recommit. But I think that what we're doing with this resolution is both committing to what we've already committed to, recommitting to whatever we've already committed to in the gender inclusion policy and adding some more pieces, for example, calling on, you know, local electeds and state electeds to do these things. Right. So. I think it's fine to add it in here as kind of a reminder that that's something that we support, but I don't think it's necessarily doing anything that we haven't done before. In that same respect, do you care, especially given certain movements in other states and school districts, to call out sports in particular, or do you believe that that's covered adequately in her? Can you give me more information about what that would look like? I think that it would
055be a matter similar to what you're saying where it does restate. I mean, we do in our gender inclusion policy do specifically say that all students have a right to participate in physical education classes, intramural sports, and the interscholastic athletics in a manner that aligns with their gender identity. I know that it is somewhat of a hot button issue in certain locations. I wanted to make a very clear blanket statement about that in this resolution. And I only bring that up because we reiterated the changing room piece as well. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but now I'm just thinking procedurally. If we already say in the first clause the full implementation of the gender inclusion policy, I think that we can actually remove the piece about the clothing changing spaces because it's already in
056there. The bathroom piece is in response to hearing from students that like... yeah, we have gender-inclusive bathrooms. They are not in accessible places, and there are not enough of them. And so that, to me, adds a bit to what's in the gender-inclusion policy because saying, like, hey, yeah, we have them, but we actually need to do better around this. So how do we feel about that? Like, I mean, basically just kind of going back to... how the resolution was before we added the clothing changing spaces. Personally, I'm okay with that. But we will verbally put our superintendent on notice, right? That we expect action on this. Well, I think, yeah, it's a reaffirmation of our values. And then also, you know, there are so many things that we learn, right, by listening to our scholars.
057I mean, that's why we have our scholars at the table. we can craft this policy that we think is great. Then we go in and start talking about how it's being implemented and you start to see some of these gaps and holes. I think a resolution can be a way to shore those up a bit and be more specific in what we're looking for, especially with that bathroom piece. Anything else? The next step would be for me to read it into the record and then we could vote on it. Read away. Okay, here I go. Resolution supporting transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive scholars. Whereas the Hopkins School Board values are transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive scholars. Whereas as school board members, we are entrusted to prepare young people with better futures through an equitable education, including
058an understanding of and respect for gender diversity. Whereas we acknowledge there is a coordinated nationwide attempt to restrict the rights of transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive youth. Whereas we are committed to ensuring transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive youth do not experience trauma, and harm. Whereas we are committed to creating environments in Hopkins schools for our transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive scholars to show up as their full selves, experience safety, and thrive. Whereas transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive youth are protected from discrimination by the Minnesota Human Rights Act. Whereas, to quote one of our fifth grade Hopkins scholars, we say to our transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive scholars that you are loved. and it's okay for you to be who you are. Now, therefore, be it resolved by the Hopkins School Board as follows, that we commit to
059practices within the Hopkins School District that protect and affirm our transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive scholars, including the full implementation of our gender inclusion policy and the review of all Hopkins School's policies to be gender-expansive and inclusive. And that we support gender and sexuality alliances and queer-straight alliances in our schools. And that we support ongoing professional development for district staff on gender-affirming practices, including the creation of a staff guide, as recommended by our scholars. And that we support updating our curricula to be gender-expansive and affirming, paying special attention to health and wellness and social studies classes, as recommended by our scholars. and that we support hiring and retaining transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive employees so our youth have visible role models and representation. and that we will ensure there are multiple gender-inclusive bathrooms in all schools
060and district buildings, and that they are in locations that are accessible and comfortable for scholars, and that we will audit our systems to remove solely binary language from all aspects. I'm going to add the word gender there, gender binary language from all aspects and change forms and school documents to use gender-inclusive language. And that we will require new technologies, apps, and programs, use gender-inclusive language before buying subscriptions or making purchases. And that we call on elected and appointed officials at all levels of government in the state of Minnesota to denounce and reject attempts to limit the rights of transgender, non-binary, and gender-expansive youth. and that we call on elected and appointed officials at all levels of government in the state of Minnesota to create policies and enact practices that protect the rights of transgender, non-binary,
061and gender-expansive youth and create the conditions for them to thrive. With that I would look for a motion that the board approve the presented resolution supporting transgender non-binary and gender expansive scholars So move I have a motion. Is there a second second? I have a motion and a second to approve the resolution Did you have something? well, the issue is that our System leaders lost the audio. Oh, no. I wanted to communicate with Steve in the IT room over there. We're good in terms of community members being able to hear the whole thing. Okay. Oh, the community. Okay. That's what I wanted to make sure of. Great. Thank you. Thank you. So we have a motion and a second that the board approve the presented resolution supporting transgender, non-binary, and gender expansive scholars. Is there
062any further discussion? Seeing none all in favor. Please say aye this requires a roll call vote. Oh, I'm sorry. It does require a roll call vote I Did not want to deprive. I should be void. I know I don't want to deprive clerk Peterson of the honor either So thank you for catching me clerk Peterson over to you. Right director Heartland Director Peterson aye director Adams aye chair Bouchard aye vice chair Andreessen Aye. Director Kahn? Aye. Director Ross? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Next, we'll move into our board member reports. It's been three weeks, so I'm sure we have a lot to talk about, and I'm wondering who'd like to go first. I'll do it. Great. Unfortunately, my board member report also did not get printed or
063emailed to me. So I'll do this from memory also. Well, I did attend the final game, the championship game for the girls basketball at Williams Arena. Saw the superintendent there. a lot of parents, a lot of students. And one of the questions that was raised by me, and I found out later a lot of other people, why were all the Hopkins kids wearing pink? And there was a concern that... Maybe it was in memory of someone that had passed away from cancer or had acquired cancer somehow. So I asked one of the students that was there, I said, what's the deal with the pink? They said, well... St. Michael Albertville's colors are blue and white also. The same hue of blue. So we wanted to distinguish ourselves from that for the TV audience. So not
064to be alarmed. There was no crisis or anything, but it was a great game, and it was great to see the girls finally get a championship after three difficult years. not being able to play that game. LAC continues to meet on a weekly basis, although we took last Friday off due to spring break. We had a MSBA, well, MSBA recommended that we have a meeting, they call it Day at the Capitol, but it was, in our case, a Zoom meeting with our legislators. And Shannon, what day was that? Do you remember? March 20th? I don't remember. Something like that. Okay. Anyway, the day before our last LAC meeting, and we had pretty good participation. I'd say at least half of our legislators showed up. We discussed our concerns, the status of some of the bills
065that have been introduced at the legislature. the effect of just redistricting on many of their districts and I can't say that there was anything that you know resulted from it, but we were Concerned because the the deadlines for introducing finance or yes finance bills was last Friday and the deadline for introducing policy bills was the Friday before that. So it was the day before the first policy deadline was, and we talked about the ramifications of that. And they acknowledged that, you know, with it being an election year, the Senate is not being very helpful in getting things through. We'll see what happens. And I asked the question, are they going to end on time this year? And I think it was Representative Joachim said, well, absolutely, because there's no requirement for them to pass anything
066this year, any funding bills, because last year was the funding year. So that's usually what drives the extended. and the extra sessions. And because there's no real deadline, she said, yeah, we'll end on, I think it's May 20th this year is the deadline for adjournment and we'll meet that. So, which I also know means there's gonna be a lot of stuff left on the table that will not probably be acted on, unfortunately. So, and then, Last weekend, Director Hartland and I attended the NSBA conference in San Diego. And interesting, this year they really were reluctant to hand out hard copy documents. So they wanted everyone to use their phone to download things and the app for the conference. I still have not been able to download it or get it to work. So I don't
067know if you had any experience with that. So we were kind of operating in the dark with our app. But I did ask for and got a hard copy and used this as my guide during the conference. And some really good sessions, some really kind of mediocre sessions, as is typical. Some great keynote speakers this year. The lead keynote speaker on Saturday was the guy that started the company FUBU. I guess he's on the Shark Tank, a show I've never watched. So I don't know all the characters on it, but it was Damon John, who's the founder and CEO of FUBU. and very inspirational about how he basically started with nothing in the Bronx and you know made a or Queens and Made a career and made a company I always go to one called
068Turning high poverty schools into high performing schools William Parrott and his wife Budge I can't remember her first name Seemed to do this just about every year and it's always interesting finding out what Different districts are doing and turning high poverty schools into high performing schools But as I've discussed with our superintendent before it's one thing to do it in one school It's another thing to do it in a complete district and That hasn't changed. There's no real district that's turned all of their schools into high-performing schools so But it's still interesting to hear how much impact in family income has on achievement at least on standardized tests, so I Didn't bring one of my other show-and-tell items but the first session that I attended was about the characteristics that make for a good graduate
069and they really urged everyone to do what we've already done which is create a profile of your graduate that you wish to have them achieve and The thing that was interesting to me was they talked about all the characteristics, and we've talked about it too. It's things like collaboration. It's things like creativity, critical thinking. Four Cs, I know. But I said, isn't it interesting that none of the standardized tests that we use to measure student performance measure any of those? So it really tells you that our assessment tools are not being, well, not being very accurate and not being very relevant in the current environment. And the things that corporations tell us are important for their employees are those same things. We've got to do something to redo our assessments in the in the US
070and in the state of Minnesota I You know, it's called the Minnesota comprehensive assessment. It's not very comprehensive And also we got recognized Where is it for once we received a magnet award And I'm not sure who did the application for this. Well, it was Director Kahn's idea, and then we worked collaboratively on it. Okay, excellent. I think Alex Fisher and Holly Magdans, I think, worked on that. Okay. So they did a great job. Yeah. Director Hartland and I attended the Magna Award ceremony in reception and came back with our Magna Award. Oh, yay. And I'll turn this over to Superintendent Mary Perry-Reed to decide where to hang this. Oh, wow. Looks nice. Really nice. Yeah, thank you for receiving it on our behalf. Sure. I was disappointed there weren't more Minnesota districts, at least,
071represented at the conference, including Richfield, who also got a magnet award. They didn't send anybody that I know of, anyway. But, yeah, it was a great time to, you know, not only get a lot of professional development done, but to fraternize with our... our cohorts in school boards across the nation and in Minnesota. Robinsdale sent quite a... and I understand Minnetonka was there. I never saw anyone from Minnetonka, but they were agonizing over the selection of their superintendent, their new superintendent. So maybe they were otherwise occupied. I did see my good friend, Glenn Nelson, who's been on the board in the Red Lake Reservation, or Red Lake School District on the reservation in Red Lake. for 31 years. I couldn't believe it when he told me that. And he's rethinking whether or not he's going
072to run again next year because he's reached the advanced age that I am. Thanks. Thanks, Glenn. But anyway, he's a great guy, and it's always interesting to find out what's going on, taking place on the Red Lake Reservation and in their school district. So I got up to date with him. So that's my report. Thank you, Director Adams. Who would like to go next? Can I just ask you a question, Steve? Did you go to District 287's presentation? I did. I attended it. I won't say the room was packed, but because it was the last day first thing in the morning, but there were there were surprising number of attendees and Just got peppered with questions. You know a lot of districts are considering going without SROs I found out Denver is one that is
073eliminated their SROs in all their schools. And that's 111,000 students. So it's a substantial district. And I sat next to some student board reps from Baltimore who have suggested it in their district, but they're getting pushback from the adults, of course. And I thought, student board reps going to a national convention? Maybe we ought to do that sometime. I see some interest. You want to go to San Diego next year? Next year it's in Orlando. Although we're not going to be members of it next year, apparently. It'll be somewhere. It'll be something. Not by our choice. No. By MSBA's choice. Great, thank you. Who else has a board member report? I have a slightly shorter version of Steve's. I'm also on the LAC, so I just kind of am. I should have left something for
074you to talk about. He's a little shadow. Well, the one thing that I was going to say. I guess a couple things. I did greatly enjoy my time there. I did enjoy meeting other people from nearby school cohorts and Minnetonka apparently sent everybody and they, like Steve said, they were highly focused on the one. the topics related to superintendent selection, but I was impressed with the range of topics that was from LGBTQ issues to SROs to superintendents to finance to international baccalaureate. And I really benefited from it and then got some bonus time with Steve and Donna learning about the kind of history of our district and the sorts of things that we might have on our radar or have the board has. undertaken in the past and Steve and I kind of made a
075point to attend different sessions so that we could spread out our our knowledge gathering to bring it back and so I guess I'd be kind of interested on if there's like a formal follow-up maybe I don't want to volunteer us for too much Steve but is there we usually have some sort of a debrief at a at a board workshop I'd be happy to work with both of you to schedule that when it works for you. Some of us did attend virtually. And when it works for you. No, it's fine. How was that experience? Because I didn't really. Good. I attended last year virtually as well. And I really like the way they do it. They're very skillful. You do get exhausted when you attend in person. I put on more than 10,000 steps each
076day because it's a big convention center and the rooms aren't necessarily, you know, all co-located. So a lot of working, a lot of walking, a lot of working. And that's all I have. Great. Thank you very much. I just had a quick update from District 287. All member districts business directors have approved bringing a long-term facilities maintenance bond issuance for 4.8 million in project funds. The issuance is for the fall of 2022. And we are Charged with bringing every member district is going to bring the resolution to our our home district So look for that coming our way. Thank you How much is the bond for? I keep nothing in my head It is for 4.8 million, okay And every district will have a portion of that that they will have to apply. And it's
077based on the student enrollment in District 287. They did it in a graduated manner. Great. Thank you. Other board member reports? just have a couple of quick things to share. So at our last meeting three weeks ago, I shared that I was appointed to HEALS 2.0, which is a task force convened by Hennepin County attorney, Mike Freeman, to address carjackings that are done by youth. There are those of us in the room too, who wish to expand the conversation to talk about how our youth are impacted by violence in many forms. So... The first meeting I attended was. in in march earlier in the month and there were about 30 government officials legal experts city and county staff including police education leaders business leaders faith leaders and community leaders who were in the room it
078was a hybrid format so we were all there in some capacity and so the the format was listening to presentations this time around it was by faith and community leaders a hennepin county judge judge talking about what happens when youth are arrested in association with the carjacking. And then representatives from the Orono and Minneapolis police giving their perspectives. So I don't know when this is going to be, but I've been asked to present at a future HEALS 2.0 meeting about how public schools in the county can work collaboratively to support our scholars and their families, kind of looking at this more holistic approach to community safety, how we can... keep everyone in our community safe, including our youth, and do this while continuing to dismantle the school to prison pipeline. So I've been consulting with
079board chairs from Richfield, St. Louis Park, Minneapolis, District 287, and Robbinsdale to make sure that there are multiple perspectives that are brought forward on behalf of the education community. I certainly don't want to... be perceived as speaking for all public education leaders and so we are working together to kind of craft some talking points and just some context from our various districts and dr mary pierre reed's been helpful of course with that I've also been meeting with community leaders, including Commissioner Latondras, City of Hopkins leaders, staff from Relate Counseling, Resource West, and ICA to gauge interest in building out a coordinated support model for youth in our community. This would be similar to the Brooklyn Bridge Alliance for Youth that's up in Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn Center. It's essentially a nonprofit that facilitates partnership between
080cities, schools, nonprofits, the county, to holistically meet the needs of youth and their families. So what we know to be true, and Oscar pointed to this during his board report tonight, is that we have a wealth of resources in this community, and not everyone knows how to access those. We are also doubling up on resources. And sometimes we are spending... public dollars doubling up on resources and services and support. And we're doing this because we don't know what other agencies are doing and all of the levels of resources and funding that are out there. And so a model like this would really allow us as government leaders to spend public dollars much more wisely. and to address the needs in our community the specific needs in our community and instead of kind of like guessing
081or or saying like oh well i'm sure resource west has it covered right and maybe they don't have it covered and maybe there's something that we could be doing to partner more effectively with them but in order to do this we need that overarching structure um so at this point we're we're in the conversation phase um commissioner latondris's office is really interested in um in working on this. And so kind of the next step is I'm bringing forward in partnership with Dominique Pierre Toussaint, who's the engagement coordinator for ICA. We're bringing forward a proposal at a meeting with basically everyone I just said from this list. Molly Cummings from the Met Council is also in that room on Thursday to see if we could hire youth and young adults from our community to help research
082a model that would work well for us here and build out a proposal that then we would take around to the different entities. and invite them to be a part of it and get input and do all of that. So I'm energized by this. I think it could be really impactful for youth and families, and I will keep you updated on the evolution. Okay. Well, with that, I will 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 7.27 p.m. Thank you.