February 8th, 2022 meeting of the Hopkins School Board

001Board is called to order at 7 PM. I'm chair Jen Bouchard. I'd like to welcome our community members who are here with us in the room this evening and those who are joining us via the YouTube live stream. Our first agenda item is open agenda. This is one of the two periods during our meetings when we take public comment from members of our community. the open agenda public comment period at the beginning of the meeting is for items on the agenda we also have a public comment period at the end of the meeting for items not on the agenda i've received two public comment cards both for items not on the agenda so we'll look forward to welcoming our community members who are here with us to the table at the end of the meeting

002for those comments Next, we'll move on to our reports, and we'll start with our student board representatives' reports. We have two of our fantastic student board reps at the table with us this evening. Imani, should I turn it over to you? All right. So my name is Grace Riley. I'm the 10th grade Hopkins representative. And today it's going to be kind of a more serious topic that I want to discuss with you guys. There were two protests in honor of Amir Locke yesterday and today at Hopkins High School. And these started after it was announced that there wouldn't be any support circles this week for processing Amir's death as there was in the past. Students were very angered at the lack of accountability and representation and started a protest and walkout in Mr. Locke's honor.

003The student-led protest took about maybe an hour, hour and a half, starting at the beginning of fourth block and went about midway through fifth block. Some of the notable students that spoke were Cameron McNeil, Kiera Bailey, Murad Isak, and many more. Several students expressed their outrage about what Amir had to go through and talked about their own experience with police and being discriminated against. And then one student decided to share an experience he had days earlier on February 2nd. He stated that when he walked into class, his teacher approached him and asked if he knew what day it was. The student thought this would finally be a great opportunity to talk about Black History Month because none of his other teachers had yet. But much to his regret, his teacher simply responded, it's Groundhog Day.

004This led to multiple students coming up to share that none of their teachers had talked about Black History Month at all. Teachers were also called out by students for feeling judged and experiencing racial prejudice at the hands of their educators. And Mr. Adams and Ms. Ali were the few who were asked to speak during the protest by students, and they both expressed their disdain for what happened with Amir and the general experience of the Black Hopkins scholar. These students read poems, spoke freely, and chanted for accountability during the walkout. And during the second protest we had today, which again was about an hour and a half, we had the honor of having Jarrell Miller, former Vikings player, and Errell Brown come in to speak. And Hopkins was home to many returning and new voices today

005during the protest. And all in all, the protests were deeply eye-opening for scholars and staff alike. Hopkins students plan to take part in Blackout Wednesday tomorrow in honor of Mr. Locke and all those who we have lost due to police violence. Thank you very much, Grace. At the beginning of your report, you mentioned that students were upset that there weren't circles and places to process the trauma resulting from the killing of Amir Lack. Have those support systems been put in place? Currently, they have not with past riots and things that we had going on, not in the school. The riots were not in the school. I want to make that very clear. But with everything that was going on in Minneapolis earlier in the school year and last school year and different events that we've

006had around Black Lives Matter this year, there have been those circles. So I guess it was just kind of generally assumed that there would be the same treatment for Amir and when there wasn't really an explanation why. Thank you. Thanks for sharing all of that with us. Any other questions or comments for Grace? Thank you, Grace. Imani, we'll move to your report. Okay, so hi, I'm Imani and I'm the senior representative. Just before I start my report, I just wanted to add something to the question that you asked. So there have been some students who are interested in starting the Black Student Union group again, just so that there can be a place for students of color and especially Black people to talk about these issues. And so since we've been having these protests and

007time to speak, more students in the high school have been interested in starting the Black Student Union again. So yeah, but anyways, so my, since it's the second week of term three, there's not that much to add, but some things that have happened at the high school are last Friday morning, there was a presentation on, from a group called Haiti Outreach. And basically this group works, well, their working base is in Pinyon in Haiti, and they work to provide clean and safe water and build latrines in rural areas in Haiti. During that presentation students learned a lot about the history of Haiti and then how the program works and how many workers they have in Haiti and then how many they have here. The group mostly focuses on development over relief, but relief is given

008when needed, but they focus on development just so that there can actually be progress in Haiti and so that Haiti can grow. Other than that, Spring sports registration did open, so those sports will begin early to mid-March. From January 27th to 28th, there were interviews for the new Collaborative Lab School partnered with Thrive Ed. Some students, including myself, got to be a part of the interview process. There was a student experiences group and then a traditional interview group. So I was a part of the student experiences group. And we basically got to take part in a lesson, I guess, of how each interviewee would teach in a class. Moving on, the course registration for the next academic year happened last week, so during the first week of the term, and is still sort of going

009on this week. From February 17th to 18th, there are midterm conferences. And then also from the 17th to the 21st, we won't have school. So that's a five-day break. So people are pretty excited about that. And then lastly, this week, hardograms are on sale at the high school until Wednesday. So on Valentine's Day, the Hopkins. Royal Productions team will go around and give people their surprise Valentine's Day performance in their classes. And yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Imani. You mentioned our collaborative lab school, which is a collaboration between Thrive Ed, a nonprofit, and Hopkins Schools. And so the interview process that you and a team of students were involved in, it's for the engagement guides in traditional education programs. We call them teachers, right? The engagement guides, the adults who will be working

010with the students. Is that right? Yeah. Basically, in the student experiences group, the interviewee would be an engagement guide, basically. So they would come up with a lesson that's more based on making a connection with the students and the engagement guide, not just a traditional teacher standing up at the front and students sitting down. It was just more project-based, I guess, if you could say, or more interactive. That's fantastic. What a great process. Yeah, I bet it was interesting to be a part of too. Yeah. Thank you Other questions or comments for you money? Yes, I was going to ask what comes next in that, now that the interviews are done, or at least partially done. Do you know what steps come next? I'm pretty sure they were going to begin site searching for where

011the school would be located. I'm not sure if they did want students to be included in that. uh the shannon who was the leader of the who was a well not leader but who contacted the students about this opportunity said that they may ask some students to be a part of it but we're not sure yet so site searching for now is all i know thank you yeah lots of excitement ahead with the lab school so thank you imani for all your your updates next i'll turn it over to dr mary perry reed for our superintendent's report Okay, thank you, Chair Bouchard, and good evening to board members and student board members, colleagues, parents, community members in the audience, and also in the virtual space. And thanks to you, Grace and Imani, for your student

012board reports. It's always very useful to hear directly from you, and we appreciate your balanced perspectives. sharing what's challenging but also sharing what we can celebrate as well. So thanks to both of you and I do have a few slides and there's so much to celebrate in Hopkins which feels really good because You know, the last few weeks have been very, very challenging. And as teachers and other staff here in Hopkins, across the state, and also across this entire country, have shared that this particular school year has been a very, very difficult year. And so it does feel good to recognize all of the amazing things happening in Hopkins, especially after a stint of... lots of people being out sick and staffing shortages, you know, pivoting to distance learning at secondary for a few days.

013There's... We're coming back up and lots of great things. So on this slide here, we did on February 1st, we celebrated the Lunar New Year. So a few of us wore red on that day and we took our staff photo in the Eisenhower Media Center. I do have to be honest that I did wear a red jacket, and a teacher asked me if I was celebrating the Chinese New Year, and I did say yes, but it was, I wore the red jacket by accident. Well, just randomly. We appreciate your transparency. So it felt good to be included, but it was just one of those pleasant. coincidences. So that was nice. And then you see our Hopkins High School musicians on the right. Our students performed in a choir concert on January 18, directed by our

014interim choral director, Randy Rexroth, who was partner to Rick Rexroth, who himself is a social studies teacher, yet directed in all girls. choral group called Midori. So the Rex Roth choir director, choral director team has been very busy. And I do want to just... celebrate Gatewood Elementary, one of our six elementary schools. If you've been paying attention to local and even the national news, they have been in the spotlight for quite a few weeks now. So first, there was a very sweet embrace by two kindergartners. You see there in the picture, two kindergartners in a classroom during a history lesson. about Dr. Martin Luther King, and so that picture was posted on social media and has been visited thousands and thousands of times. Hopkins was also recognized on the Today Show on January 28th with

015that photograph. So that has been very sweet and special for the school. Also, the outdoor immersion, the kindergarten outdoor immersion program at Gatewood Elementary has been in the news quite a bit, both on NPR and one of our local news networks. We have recently surveyed the parents of our kindergartners in those three sections. So we have a one-pager on survey results that we'll be sharing with our community. But parents who responded to the survey said that 95%, so 95% of the parents who responded shared that their kindergartners... are very happy in school. And so this is just really exciting that our new outdoor immersion program is not only thriving, but kids are happy. They're focused on academic learning in an outdoor, environmentally focused environment. And it's just really exciting to see them in the news.

016And then also across all of our sites, We are celebrating Black History, February's Black History Month, and with Black History being American history, of course, we want to make sure that Black History is represented in the content that students learn in their social studies classes. But February is also a good time to dive in. And so at Gatewood, it was really special. Last week, they've been doing a school-wide read aloud every day. So just a 20-minute read aloud. All of the kids get on the Google Meet. And so I was the guest for one day. I read Change Sings by Amanda Gorman. And then Dr. Nolan. turns on a song and there's a school-wide dance-off. And so literally he's blasting music through the PA and everybody is moving and shaking their bodies for a minute

017or two after the read-aloud and it just really was special. And there's lots of other, you know, Black History celebrations and learning and events across our sites. I did want to put a district spotlight on our amazing educators here in Hopkins. It's really incredible that we have four teachers who have been nominated for the Minnesota Teacher of the Year Award. So this spring, Minnesota will name its 58th Minnesota Teacher of the Year. We have Karin Brinkhoff at Glen Lake, Sarah Gleason at Meadowbrook Elementary, Scott Stillman at Glen Lake Elementary, and Rachel Volkman at Gatewood Elementary. You know, we have incredible teachers here in Hopkins. I was just talking with one of our assistant principals at the high school today about an incredible science teacher who, you know, we wouldn't be surprised if she lands on

018this list. But it's wonderful that our states have this opportunity to recognize a teacher of the year. Obviously, the number of individuals who would be eligible and qualified and would be amazing candidates exceeds the quantity of one. But it's great that we have four in Hopkins. And just like Grace mentioned earlier, I did want to just share an acknowledgement of the student-led protests that we had at the high school. I believe yesterday and today we did receive a report that they were... that they were very expressive, but also peaceful and organized. Here are a couple of photos from the auditorium event that was held this afternoon. And for those of you who may not have heard of a statewide student-led organization, there are a group of students who meet across the schools and typically... put

019together an organized response and then posted on social media and that's how our scholars across all you know metro and probably even outstate secondary schools come to learn of you know a potential opportunity to engage in peaceful protest and so we think about amir locke's family during this time as that was a completely unnecessary and tragic event I also wanted to recognize two high school scholar athletes. So Elsa Bergman, who is an athlete in cross country, Nordic and track. So Mr. Harris, you must know Elsa. And then we have Mitchell. I do not know how to say Mitchell's last name. Do you know how to say it? Dolinchuk. Okay, thank you. Okay, so these two scholar athletes are recipients of the Region 6AA AAA Award. And so this is an award that goes to high

020school seniors, students who... have a cumulative GPA of at least 3.0 or higher and have participated in athletics and fine arts activities. So congratulations to Elsa and Mitchell for this big award. Additional Additional scholars to celebrate at our high school on January 24, the Hopkins High School Math League competed in their fourth meet for this year, and the team has finished first in the section and is currently placing ninth in the state out of 163 teams. So that is a big deal. The last regular season meet is on Monday coming up. and then the state meet is in March. So there's a picture of some of those scholars, truly scholars. I've heard these competitions are extremely fierce, very, very high levels of math topics, understanding and intellect, and congratulations to all of those students. I

021also wanted to just take a moment and recognize our enrollment team. So we had a very in-depth enrollment report earlier by Dr. Lightfoot and Jolene Goldotti and Pam Carman. Enrollment is key, as Nick shared. Enrollment drives revenue in our district. So how we attract our students and families, how we serve our students and families, and you know, everything that we do to support the enrollment process is very important. And so I did want to share just a couple of details about this team. We have now dedicated an enrollment manager to this office. So that's a new addition, a new person who is focused on bridging the priorities of the marketing team, as well as making sure that all of our marketing and recruitment efforts translate into increased enrollment. 90% of the enrollment processes are now

022online, which is huge. And finally, we have an enrollment specialist who focuses on providing frontline support to families. So this is a really important team to our district, and we are thankful for how they support the district's efforts as well as all of our families. And then finally, and I am going to end with a video, one of the Gatewood Elementary videos, but finally I did want to share, so at the end of every superintendent report, we just focus on one of the six system goals. And so for this evening, I wanted to bring attention to our equity goal. We recently heard results from the equity audit. which is encouraging us, the findings are encouraging us to ensure that all of our learning translates into actions and results. And so one of our key equity

023goals is to use data to identify where disparities and disproportionality exists in our system. And so we want to... whether it's race or income or language-based disproportionality, bias in our programs, the way we track students, any patterned discrimination. We want to use data to identify where we have a gap, and we want to make sure that we're leveraging the instructional and leadership actions that will help us close access and equity gaps. And then let's... Play this video. Sorry. Subaru. This is where I might calmly ask for help. Oh. But you don't want to call for help in public because then everybody sees a simple thing that you haven't thought of. Oh, it's not. Can you all hear? Can you hear it? Okay. It's fun because you get to make forts and play with sticks and

024stuff. At Gatewood Elementary School, kindergartners are giving a new program a top grade. After the pandemic and all the isolation and all the being inside that the kids have done, this environment is not only healing for them, but they're thriving in it as well. This year, the public school launched a program called Outdoor Immersion. Okay, this is going to be really fun. For its 75 kindergartners. It's very, very productive. Our students really like being outside, especially when it's geared around play, but then also activities. It's activity-based, and it's also project-based. Most days, 50 to 75% of the learning takes place outdoors. Yes, even in January. Kindergarten teacher Ellen Dishinger says teachers aren't just teaching the benchmark standards, but also activities like measuring snow or tapping maple trees for syrup. They can climb on stumps and

025trees. They can dig in the snow and pick up heavy things and build stick forts. Do your penguin walk over to number four. And the engagement has just been incredible. So they get their, sort of their wiggles out and they're able to focus much better. The school also has a naturalist on staff who works with all grade levels. He says he recently built this hoop house for protection from the wind, and that evolved into a lesson as well. The kids noticed that it was warmer inside. In fact, it melted all of the ice and snow off of the ground. That led to a greenhouse gas discussion and global warming and just all kinds of connections. Next year, the outdoor immersion program will expand to first grade, and the school year after that, it will become

026a school-wide program. Reporting in Hopkins, Ellen Gallis, 5 Eyewitness News. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much. There are so many things to celebrate across the district as we continue to grapple with the challenges that are happening within our larger society and within our schools. And so it can feel really, well, it can be really easy to get bogged down. And so to have these reminders of all of the fantastic things that are happening in spaces across the district was really powerful. So thank you. Questions or comments from my board colleagues for Dr. Mary Perry-Reed? All right. 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 and a second to approve the agenda. Any discussion? Seeing

027none, 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. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Next, we'll move to our treasurer's report with Treasurer Adams. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. As is customary, the first report of the month always involves and includes the enrollment report. And kind of a surprise this month, we had 49 fewer students this month than we had on January 1. And that was after we had increases steadily over the last four months of 2021. The decreases were split evenly between primary and secondary schools. And

028even with a dramatic decrease, we're at 165 scholars over revised projection and 231 over our original projection. But it was kind of surprising to see that big of a drop in a single month. And maybe in the enrollment discussion that we have later, we can address that. Maybe there's some perceived reason for that. Expenses of note this month include $109,000 to District 287 for January services. And we're a good municipal citizen. for all the municipalities that we serve. And that's evidenced by the amount that we pay for utilities to each of our municipalities. $6,584 to the city of Minnetonka for the month for utilities. $5,587 to the city of Hopkins for utilities. $2,339 to the city of Golden Valley for utilities. And in addition to that, we paid $32,501.53 to the city of Hopkins for

029election costs. And that kind of reminds us all what we have to pay every time we conduct an election. And one of the reasons that... Well, this is one of the reasons I've been lobbying along with the LAC the legislature to eliminate the need for us to do a referendum every time we do it operating levy increase or operating levy renewal It costs us $32,000 to conduct an election and every one of those renewals passes So, and across the state, they all pass. So it begs the question, why are we spending that kind of money for something that has 100% approval? So I will continue to work on that along with the LEC at the legislature. In addition to that, we paid $14,562 to the city of Minnetonka for December ice time for the girls

030hockey team. And we paid $18,675 to North Hennepin Community College for fall tuition. for our post-secondary education options for our students that are enrolled in that. And that just saved our parents of those students $18,675 in tuition. So you're welcome. There was $74,000 for two... projects, a parking lot project at Alice Smith, which I'm not sure what it is. I imagine it's paving, but I'll have to check that out, and a turf project at the high school. And we had numerous refunds for canceled late start childcare days. When we decided to dispense with late start days for the rest of the year, that involved us issuing refunds. to parents who had already prepaid for that. And the most intriguing item in the list of checks this time was $3,800 for the removal of a, quote,

031giant tree at Gatewood Elementary. So I hope there's video of that somewhere. I'd like to know how big that tree was. Don't they need those trees? What's that? Don't they need those trees? That's what I thought. I'm sure that would make a great education project for the kiddos over there. At any rate, with that, I move that we approve total disbursements of $3,659,391.33 for the period January 12, 2022 through February 1, 2022. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the treasurer's report. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Next, we'll move into new business. I'd like to invite our Citizens Financial Advisory Committee CFAC members to the table. Just a little bit of context

032for our community members watching from home. We had the opportunity to engage with our CFAC members during the workshop this evening. and we're looking forward to sharing the report and recommendations with you now at the meeting so that you can understand a bit more about the financial realities facing us as a district as we move into our budgeting process so i'll turn it over to dr mary perry reed Thank you, Chair Bouchard, and welcome to all of you. Thanks very much for being here this evening. So I would like to welcome to the table Luke Jacobson, Amay Blatz, Warren Goodroad, and Andy Kosemba. Welcome to all of you. We also have on CFAC our board members, Steve Adams and Katie Peterson and Director Chapenduka leads us through this process with lots of help from Dr.

033Lightfoot. So the role that this team plays is to review a lot of our data enrollment. trends and data, our audited results, any current or projected information about state funding and contract negotiations in order to prepare some parameters and recommendations for our school board. So there are three, four, five. Pretty, not intense, but lengthy meetings involved, followed by this lengthy report that hopefully you as board members and our community members find to be full of information and hopefully written in a way that you can understand and follow some of the thinking that has been provided by CFAC. So we'll let our partners here. provide some more information about the report and to I don't know if you have additional framing. I don't have anything additional. I think I'll give it to Mr. Jacobson and maybe

034have the CFAQ members introduce themselves and you can give us a summary. Thank you. So Luke Jacobson, kids in third and fifth grade in the district. I'm a Blatts two daughters at senior as well as a fifth grader I'm Warren Good Road. I don't have four children that all graduated from Hopkins I don't have any children here now, but I've been on the school board for the two terms I'm Andy Kosemba. I have a daughter at West and a daughter and a son at Eisenhower Thank you so much for being here this evening Luke if you'd like to Give us the report. That would be wonderful since december the cfac committee has met virtually four times to review the financial health of the district we are thankful to the board and staff for their leadership

035during these times that continue to be challenging the district is expecting a small increase in enrollment for the current fiscal year ending june 2022 and is projecting small increases in enrollment in the near near term which is comparable to peer districts State funding comprises just over 60% of the district's revenue. It increases in state aid is expected to remain below district increases in wages and benefits, which comprise 82% of the district's operating expenditures. the district's unassigned unassigned fund balance was 10.6 million or 10.1 percent of operating expenditures at june 30 2021 and a balanced budget is anticipated for the current fiscal year so that the unassigned unassigned fund balance should remain over the cfac recommended level of 10 percent at june 2022. cfoc looked at scenarios based on different increases in state aid and increases

036in wages and benefits In all scenarios for the fiscal year ending June 2023, expense growth is expected to outpace revenue growth, resulting in a budget shortfall. CFAC continues to recommend that unassigned fund balances not be used to cover any shortfalls. If shortfalls are covered with the unassigned fund balance without taking corrective action, the budgeted shortfall amounts will... be compounded in the unassigned unassigned fund balance will quickly decrease below the board policy of six percent cfac reviewed peer data and acknowledges that peer districts are in similar or even worse financial situations with state aid not keeping pace with wage and benefit increases of roughly three percent per year and flat enrollment growth in a choice driven school environment For the fiscal year ending June 2023, since expenditures are expected to exceed revenues, it will be necessary

037to find efficiencies in services and programs while continuing to align with the district's Vision 2031 goals. With that, we thank you for the opportunity for input and open to any questions or comments. Thank you very much. Questions or comments from the board? Well, as a... member of the CFAC committee, I'd just like to thank the people that participated and acknowledge that it's a very imprecise science right now. In fact, I'd say it's more of an art to determine a budget. Given the fact that our legislature cannot seem to finish on time, you know, it leaves us to kind of guess at where we're going to end up. in terms of funding from the state for the coming year. And right now they're supposed to adjourn on May 23rd, but if history is any indication, they

038aren't going to make it by that date. Last year I think they went until June 28th, maybe, something like that. And it makes it very hard to project where your revenue is going to be when... It hasn't been determined yet, and yet we're required as a district, and every district is, to do a forecast and do a budget for the coming years. So we're making our best guess estimates as to where our revenue is going to be coming from. A further complicating factor this year is that we have not reached an agreement yet with the Hopkins Education Association. I think we're close, but we've got to make some assumptions about that as well. So we're kind of in a gray area with respect to both revenue forecast and expense forecast. But I think this group

039has done a great job in trying to land on something that approximates what may be reality over the coming year. So we're hopeful. And I think the small amount of... excess expense over revenue, which is only about one and a half percent of our projected budget, might be easily addressed within our budget. So we're hopeful. Thank you, Director Adams. I'd like to echo your thanks to our CFAC. We really rely on your recommendations to help shape our budgeting process. So appreciate all of the time and the expertise that you bring to this process. We talked about this a bit during the workshop, and Director Adams just referenced how unpredictable our funding can be from the legislature. And it surprises people in the community. who I talked to about education funding when they learn that our

040revenue from the state is not tied to inflation or cost of living increases. And of course, when we're negotiating contracts, we are providing cost of living increases. And so this was mentioned during the report, but I just want to underline that one of the differentials to keep in mind here is that we're projecting 2% from the state. and then we're looking at a three percent increase with our teachers union contract so that alone creates a deficit situation that we're looking looking to fill at the cost of about 1.5 million, which as director Adams mentioned, is about 1.5% of our overall budget. So just to to kind of summarize for our community what we're looking at, you know, as we we enter into the budget process ahead. cfac has consistently given us really great recommendations about

041our unassigned fund balance and the importance of keeping that fund balance healthy and so i'm really appreciated seeing that those similar recommendations this year in the report they also mentioned during the the workshop i mentioned to a couple community members who are here this is like the replay a little bit of the workshop You know, we've done a lot of hard work, certainly staff, our CFAC, and at this board table over the past three years, restructuring our budget. And I'm trying to imagine where we would be right now. if we hadn't done all of that work and um it's a very scary thought like if i think about it too much i probably won't be able to sleep tonight so i'm really really happy for for all of the work that we've done that has

042gotten to this point where we will still have some difficult decisions to make surrounding the budget but not nearly as difficult as if we hadn't done all of that work to lead up to tonight so thank you I just talked for longer than I thought I was going to. So wondering if my board colleagues have any further comments or questions. Chair Bouchard. Yes, Director Adams. I'll add one other thing that's vexing for the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee. The state legislature has not increased our funding or funding for any schools over the last 20 years that have been commensurate with inflation and if we were to have kept funding equal to inflation you're increasing their rate equal to inflation over the last 20 years we'd be looking at over 500 more per student in revenue and

043you add that to, take that times 7,000 students roughly in our district, you're looking at a substantial amount of money that we wouldn't have to be cutting this year if the funding had kept up with inflation. So I also serve on the Legislative Action Coalition. We continue to ask our legislators to support us in increasing funding at least to the level of inflation and to factor that in. But for 20 years, they have not done that. So that's one of the things that we're trying to address. And I mentioned to our legislators at our legislative breakfast a few Fridays ago that, you know, we've been underfunding education for 20 years. And now we've got a surplus. What a surprise. How'd that happen? Well, we defunded education, and now we've got a surplus. That's how it

044happened. So we try and remind them that it's important for us to keep up with inflation and to factor it into our forecast going forward. Thank you. That's important context. We certainly appreciate the work our Legislative Action Coalition does. And we invite our community in joining us in advocating for public education funding that's tied to the rate of inflation. That alone would eliminate so much of the unpredictability that we have to navigate as we go through this initial budgeting process. So, excellent. Any other questions or comments? So again, we had the opportunity to discuss this during the workshop. So grateful for your presence here this evening. And with that, I would look for a motion that the board accept the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee report. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second?

045Second. I have a motion and a second to accept the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee report. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Thank you so much. I'll pass it back to Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. A continued thank you for your service. And I want to make a note, this is a 30-page report, so this is a lot of work. And we're grateful to each of you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. Our next agenda item is policies in first read. We'll welcome Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot to the table, and I will turn it over to Vice Chair Andreessen, who chairs our monitoring committee. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Just wanted to bring forward for the full board's consideration some policies that the monitoring committee reviewed. I believe that

046there are not a lot of changes. We did have some robust conversations around implications of certain things and policies, in particular with our weapons policy, and made changes to reflect those concerns. And I will turn it over to Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot to go more in depth on each one. Absolutely. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you this evening. We have four policies that the Monitoring Committee has been working on. We'll begin with Policy 501, which is our weapons policy. As Vice Chair Andreessen noted, there were some substantial changes based on state statute definition changes to dangerous weapon. So those have been included based on the model MSBA policy that we did review. Those changes have been added to, and we are recommending the replacement of the previous policy with the modified model school

047board association policy related to the weapons information that's contained here. We would be open for any questions in particular that might be pertinent to policy 501. Thank you. Any questions or comments from the board? Sure, we shared yes director Adams Nick in the in the last version of this policy I recall we had a long discussion about whether or not Anyone could carry a weapon on campus under what under any circumstances and we finally agreed that it had to be For someone to be able to do that it had to be approved by the board as I recall because the original original policy said with approval of the principal and a number of our board members did not feel comfortable with that so they wanted it to have to go to a higher authority. I

048haven't well I've read through this as much as I could but I didn't see any reference to board approval or anyone's approval in order to carry a weapon on campus. Do you or Vice Chair Andreessen Know if that that policy still exists. I believe that this is Correct me if I'm wrong For it's within the student section Okay, so this is I think specifically it talks about that this does not apply to Non students or non-employees The policy does not it only pertains to students and we're following Minnesota statute I think it does apply. So you look in section two, no student or non-student, including adults and visitors, shall possess. So, Steve, I'm remembering the conversation you're referring to. And I think what we settled on in the previous policy iteration was the board or

049the board's designee being the superintendent. And I think like the practical implication of that would be that it wouldn't have to come before the board like to vote on the weapon that the superintendent would make that call. But I'm having trouble now remembering which policy version that was. If it was like if we've revised it since then. We've gone through several iterations. Yeah, because we've gone through several iterations. But I think it was in regards to people that had a valid carry permit and whether or not they would be allowed to do so on campus without having to go through an approval process. I still think they should, but I don't know if the law allows us to put that restriction on there now. What I hear you referring to, Director Adams, I believe is

050under the exceptions in the old policy, what we had written under Section 4B. 8 is possession of dangerous weapon, BB gun, or replica firearms with written permission of the superintendent and school board. That was the language that we had. Model MSBA did not have that as part of its Section 8. What it identified was written permission of the principal or other person having general or control. and supervision of the school or the director of a childcare center. We certainly can reflect the language that we had in the original policy. If the board would be comfortable with that modification, we certainly can make that to item eight. Well, I'm just wondering if state law allows us to do that absolutely does does it you can go higher with the Written notification and the review of that

051Even the note in the policy from MSBA does identify that a board can go in that area I'm higher for its own requirement of what that notification would look like So we certainly could and have done that in the past as well. Okay I'd feel better if it imposed that if we impose that restriction. I know how the rest of my board members feel. So I'm trying to think through the practical implications of that. So would we want to write it as the board's designee and specify that that's the superintendent? I mean, it's just I don't want to repeat myself, but it's similar to what I said before. Like, what would that approval process look like? Would it mean that the board is going to vote on this specific weapons case? Or are we authorizing

052the superintendent to make that call? That would be something to consider. Personally, I feel comfortable with our principals making that call. But would wonder if our principals would like an additional layer of backup so I guess what I'm saying is I I don't I don't feel like I need to to vote on that as a board member. I feel like that's impractical But just thinking through some of these These implementation issues. I'm just trying to imagine who would need to carry a weapon in in a school other than a personnel, one of our police from one of our municipalities. I can speak to a couple of those when we've had training situations when our facilities have been used for specific crisis training events or other kinds of situations when we've been asked for permission at

053the central office level when we've had some of those experiences. But those have been very isolated and rare. Is that a situation where students are in the building or is it more facilities are being used? No, those are usually, well, they all have been off school hours, usually on weekends or evenings or other times of day when students are not present. What is the expectation for the trap shooting team or coach? Is that completely off-site? To my knowledge... Yes, and if there is under any kind of certain program there, that would be in collaboration with the director of athletics and the high school principal. If there were for any reason necessary for that club competition or the sports activity that would be associated with it. I do believe I read here where it does not

054apply to the parking lot. Someone can have a weapon in their vehicle. As long as it's locked. There's a specific exception under Minnesota law. Yeah. So, oh, yeah. For firearm safety or marksmanship courses or activities for students conducted on school property. That's an exception. But they don't practice on school property. I know that. So it's hard to imagine that there'd be a need for them to. Yeah, they're done school property there other than perhaps in a car to go to practice after after school I too am seeking more clarity around I'm looking at section B Three and four under that person's authorized to carry a pistol under Minnesota statutes while in a motor vehicle or outside of a motor vehicle for the purpose of directly placing a firearm in or retrieving it from the trunk

055or rear of area of the vehicle From what I hear you saying we're able to to restrict this policy More than it currently is is that something that we could restrict that we're not allowing firearms in the parking lots. And I'm trying to, again, always thinking through the practical implications of this and wondering what the negative implications would be if we restricted having firearms in parking lots. Yeah, so actually that is delineated from state statute. State statute 609.66 is dangerous weapons. And so the dangerous weapons are very specific about those exceptions. And that is an itemized specific exception directly stated. ability to look at the approval is within the school control. Your question was regarding the principal. And can we modify the principal? Yes, we can. Can we modify the specific language to the exception

056of what that exception is? That we cannot. Okay, I see. So we can modify the process through which we grant approval for these exceptions, but we cannot modify the exceptions themselves because they're codified in statute. Absolutely. Thank you for helping me think through that. I got a little mired in the nuance there. Okay. And a specific statute we put in place so that we could reference it, that it's not coming from the school board. It's coming from statute. That's helpful. Because I think both Director Peterson and I were reacting to this as parents. So. Yeah. Fair and an important perspective to bring So what is the appetite of the board for adding in? Another layer of approval or just having that approval happen at the higher level for example at the at the superintendent's level

057Well, I would favor it being done at the superintendent level. I don't think we need to have a board meeting every time we're you know considering someone carried again on the school premises, but I trust our super our superintendent's judgment. I don't know how she feels about having that responsibility What kind of additional information would be helpful to the board so for example we have a holistic school safety team that we could discuss this with or I don't know what other information the board might need to feel more comfortable. Dr. Lightfoot, can you think of any operational challenges that would arise that would be a negative if we decided to augment the permission level to superintendent versus principal? The reason I am more likely to say no is that we don't get... significant numbers of

058requests they're very rare yeah and like I said have been very isolated to specific sets of circumstances it's not as if a volume issue would result because These don't they just don't happen frequently And if they do there's usually a specific need like there is a course or there's something else you know there is a Documented need that is usually described in the request That's helpful So dr. Mary peer reviewed would not be inundated by By requests is what you're saying Well, when was the last time? I mean, it certainly hasn't happened in the last five years. Do you remember a time in your tenure? I was going back eight to 10 when we had the request where they were doing some training with regional police departments. And we're doing that training localized here for

059our school properties so that people could practice in space. But that was the last request that we had. And that's one of those circumstances that we were talking about earlier where the buildings would be emptied of students and staff and this outside entity would be using our facilities and, of course, have to adhere to our policy if they're in our facilities. So, okay. Well, let me phrase the question this way. Are there any board members who are opposed to changing that permission level from principal to superintendent? i would favor it okay yeah i'm in favor of it too okay so it looks like um we can we have enough support to go ahead and make that change okay anything else on this policy great thank you that was really helpful i think we can move

060to the next one dr lightfoot All right, then 505 is the materials distribution policy. There were no changes that were recommended to that distribution of non-curricular materials on school property by students and employees. There again, this was a review. So if there are specific questions on 505, happy to answer those or be of additional information as is helpful. Any board member comments or questions on this policy? I think we can move ahead. All right. Then also, as we've discussed, 457 is our policy information as it relates to vaccination and testing. As is modified here, you will see that we have removed the mandatory requirements that were associated if an individual was not fully vaccinated for testing. As we've discussed, those modifications have been made so that testing is available to anyone at any time that

061we have. any need for rapid tests. We also have weekly PCR tests that we have secured for us in the district. So modifications that have been made in particular with this policy are the removal of the previous requirements that were associated with required testing and those modifications have been made according to the discussions that we've had with you as a board and reflected accordingly. So that's 457. additional questions that we could address on this policy questions or comments from the board We had the opportunity to discuss this policy during a workshop in January, again at our workshop before the meeting this evening. And I know you're about to talk about the masking policy, so I'll reference that as well. I think the changes to these policies and looking at how they interact with each other

062really reflect the changing conditions of the pandemic. what we know now about science-based mitigation strategies as it pertains to omicron specifically and is just you know honestly the latest iteration in policy making that this board has been doing for the past over two years as we continue to navigate the pandemic and really with our priority being on keeping our community as safe as possible questions or comments on this policy All right, I think we can move to the last one. Certainly, and in parallel with that testing and vaccination work, what we also learned from conversation with our scholars was that there was a concern about being able to direct concerns that they had about compliance with the face covering policy and needing to make sure that there was a space that identified that if individuals

063in our community had concerns around noncompliance that they were seeing occur. that the building or program administrator would be responsible for taking the questions or concerns that were coming their way and report and take the age-appropriate actions to correct any noncompliance. So we have that element that was added based on that information that we received. That's been reflected in the face covering policy. Any additional questions on that? I've got a question for Imani. What's been the compliance regarding masks at the high school? So right now I'm pretty sure the principal said that if you don't have a mask on and you're seen without a mask, you'd get a warning first. And then the second time, I'm not sure if your guardian would be called or you would be sent home, but one of those two.

064So obviously more students are wearing their masks, but in the hallways, not really enough still yet. Like if I mean, they'll have their mask down and then if they see a teacher, they'll just put it back up and then move on. So, yeah, not really enough yet. So it's what, 90 percent compliant or would you guess or 80 or 50 or maybe 80, 75, 80, 75. Yeah. OK. I'm disappointed here. It's not higher. And just for context, Director Adams, I've had some conversations with students and community members that feel like having a way for them to voice their concerns about lack of fidelity with wearing masks is really important for them to feel safe. And we're taking away that kind of onus on, you know, students to enforce a policy that we have made. And

065so I think it's really important that we added this piece so that students don't feel like they are responsible for ensuring their safety. And to add color to that as well, the students shared with us that fidelity and wearing the masks is not just students, but also with staff. And actually more so with staff that concerns on how does the student report those concerns while protecting their privacy. Well, thank you to the students who came forward and shared their experience and priorities with the board. Really, really appreciate that. Any further discussion on this last policy? Okay, thank you, Dr. Lightfoot. You're welcome. With that, I would look for a motion that the board approve the policies in first read and the board direct the administration to prepare the policies with suggested revisions for approval in

066second reading at the next meeting as part of the consent calendar. I so move. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. i have a motion and a second to approve the policies in first read and direct the administration to prepare the policies with revisions for approval at the next board meeting as part of consent is there any further discussion seeing none all in favor please say aye aye all opposed nay motion carries next we'll move to our enrollment update and i will turn it over to dr mary perry reed Thank you, Chair Bouchard. So we had a very good presentation and set of questions and discussion earlier during the workshop when Nick Lightfoot and our Director of Communications and Marketing, Jolene Goldati, and our business and HR data scientist specialist, Pam Carmen, were

067able to present. lots of information about enrollment here in Hopkins. So we look forward to presenting that information for any community members or parents who are maybe tuning into the meeting and would like to hear this report. And I appreciate all of the time that's gone into all of this analysis so that we can make some good decisions about how to market and recruit, how to provide a quality enrollment process for first-time families. how they might inform activities like Kindergarten Roundup, for example. So thanks to the team, and Nick, we look forward to hearing from you. Absolutely. We'll jump right in, and as Dr. Mary P. Reid identified, we have some other individuals who are in the virtual space who can accommodate any additional questions that might have. come forward from the workshop or additional

068questions that people might have as we go through the information here that's presented. This presentation highlights the information that was included for the board in the packet of materials that you received as well. So this really kind of takes some of the highlights and draws those highlights out together. So we'll go ahead with the next slide. The next slide really talks about, as we mentioned in the workshop as well, key items that are part of the past enrollment experience that really inform the projections. Part of the work with the enrollment that you see in front of you this evening is really based in the revenue elements that tie back to the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee report that you received earlier in this evening's meeting. That is the revenue element, and that revenue element is part

069of the complete picture of when we look at the financial health of the district. When we look at that, some of the opening items that are very important for us as we look at projections and we look at revenue, or what the changes have been from previous years to the year that we are in. If you take a look at 2021, you will see the enrollment increase that is outlined there based on what we have experienced this year. You will also see 12 minus K. That's another important factor for knowing 12th graders who have graduated and the incoming kindergarten class so that we can consider that impact and then look at the total overall impact of where other growth or decline might have occurred within the system also. So that's what you see there in

070this slide. Any questions about the 12 minus K net enrollment impact or K-12 annual change? Well, only that we're certainly headed in the right direction. Absolutely. And as you can see, there's some variability year to year in part. Sometimes that's determined on birth rates within Hennepin County. We also use that as a data point as well so that we can look at in any of our zip codes what those birth rates have been, what we anticipate possible enrollment to look like. So we utilize that information as well. Next slide. Part of also what we look at when we look at the fall seat counts, end-of-year ADM, it's important to understand that while we do look at K-12, we also have some other programs that do contribute to our enrollment numbers. Specifically, you will see along

071the side there, early childhood, school readiness, WALT, West Alternative Learning Center, part of District 287. All of those do have impacts on the overall district ADM. Another piece that we wanted to make sure that was understood was that a lot of the information in the packet you see can be based on October 1. That is the state consistent data. When it looks at data to utilize for its purposes, it is the constant date of reporting. But what we're actually paid on is the end of year ADM. So it's an important factor when we look at the overall impact of ADM that we look at what's happening throughout the course of the year as well. So questions on any of the fall seat count information? Just for the understanding of everyone watching by ADM, is that

072the average daily membership? Absolutely. Thank you. Happy to unpack those acronyms. Yes. Average daily membership. And that means how many students are attending on any given day. Thank you. Dr. Lightfoot? Yeah, go right ahead. I just might want to add in response to Director Adams' question about the January. That's why we're actually looking at this because we did notice that loss in January. And I've done the numbers. I think Jolene and her team are doing some more work on understanding what's happening around it. But 67% of those that left were because they either moved to homeschool, moved out of the district, or they moved out of state, or they moved into a care and treatment plan. The other 33% were between open enrollment out to either a public school or a charter school. And Shalene,

073I don't know what your team is doing, but... Yes, we're... Thank you for... bringing me into that um so we're currently looking at the 33 of those who have left for um for a different choice than hopkins and looking to survey them to better understand what led up to that choice and kind of what's going on there so that's work that we are currently um doing right now all right director adams for the unasked question great any other questions on fall seat count end of year 8 a.m Okay, next slide. As you can see overall from this slide, this is the information when we look at the increase from year to year. What we show here is that in 2017, we were at 1650 with our open enrollment in. As we look at 2021, 2022,

074we're at 1931. So we can continue to see that increase. What we look at is in general, that number has held steady. And as we look at our projections and we look at where we are this year with a January 15th deadline for open enrollment. We are on track again for that number as it reflects the continued interest and applications for open enrollment into Hopkins. Questions on this? All right. Next slide represents the top six incoming districts. You can see that right now out of that 1931 scholar number that we have, we are represented in that number are 42 districts. Scholars from 42 school districts choose Hopkins in that. We did take the top six districts so that you can see that outlined there, and that is presented for you. In the next slide, what

075we also look at with open enrollment. uh are where we are on a grade by grade level basis so that you can see that in our k-6 buildings that there is variability in different years and different times depending on how much open enrollment we have and what we're able to take within spaces created so that grade two you can see we have 161 grade six we have 111. the secondary we do see a larger increase in our uh requests for open enrollment specifically entry points of seventh grade and tenth grade what you will see is eighth grade representative of the highest in that 712 band at 185 and 10th grade 146. By school site, you can also see that we do vary in part. Proximity plays a role when you look at Meadowbrook and you

076see that the two districts that we do have higher open enrollment from are Robbinsdale and Minneapolis. It's part proximity to where that school is located with Meadowbrook. Questions on that? All right, the next slide shows open enrollment into Hopkins Choice programs. These are the number of open enrolled scholars who are part of these programs. We have outlined those programs, Huntau, Shinching, Virtual EDU, Alice Smith, Eisenhower, and Eisenhower-Shinching. As we look at the Huntau's program, that is part of Alice Smith and Eisenhower, respectively, now. You can see that reflection in the open enrollment with these specific programs. It is a total number. It is not new open enrollees this year. It is just a total number of those as a percentage of the, not as a percentage, but as a number of individuals who are part

077of the program. So I asked this question during the workshop, but would like to revisit it for a moment for our community members who are watching the meeting. Director Goldati, could you speak to the efforts that are happening within Marcom right now around virtual EDU and marketing that opportunity as both an opportunity for in-district students, but also an open enrollment opportunity for students outside of our district? Sure, I would say it's a partnership between Marketing and Communications and also our fantastic IDL team. So with the 90, well we have 94 students right now who are open enrolled into virtual EDU that they're currently a part of our program, but we do believe that it's a pretty, has a pretty strong open enrollment reach. With online schools, you can expand the borders quite a bit and

078we can actually offer programming to any student in Minnesota. So we really want to better understand, like, that's a great problem and we need to, like, understand who would be best served by online programming offering offered by Hopkins and what do they want from us. So we have partnered with Market Research. firm, Frankie and Farilla. We have used them before. They helped us do our brand refresh and identity work that was completed about two years ago. So they know us well. And they're just helping us figure out like how we, because there's a lot of ways we could go with virtual EVU as I will tell you. And we want to know like what is the most viable and what is the most competitive. There are several online schools that have opened this last year.

079Prior to this year, there was like five. And I think there was like, you know, a hundred or so applications that are out this year of school districts wanting to pursue online programming. So we have competition. We need to figure out who we are and where we want to go and who we want to market to. So that is the work that we are engaged in. i don't want to put anybody on the spot but i do see that dr tiffany is on the calls and she is a virtual edu expert so if she has anything to add i'd like to offer that up as well good evening everyone um thank you for that lovely handoff um this is tiffany and um We are doing exactly the work that Jolene is describing for us. We're

080looking at what are our best pathways to amplify who we are in Service Division 2031 and where are our target markets to continue to expand open enrollment in the virtual EDU community and at Hopkins as a whole. So I'll toss it back to the board community if you have any questions for me on here. Thanks to you both and your teams for doing that important work and really happy that we have the opportunity to work again with Frankie and Fiorella. That team was so helpful with our rebrand and I know that they have a lot of insight into market research strategies and processes. So thank you for updating us. Okay, I think we can continue. All right, next slide. End of year ADM, or these are the enrollment projections as we look at 21-22 through

08126-27. These are based in the formulaic way that we look at the cohort advancement, and we look at that cohort advancement to give us indications from previous years about what we see on a grade level to grade level transition, as well as entry points into kindergarten. probably one of the most challenging to figure out is what that kindergarten number looks like because you never know who you have until they're actually here but we do our best with some factors that i'll hit in a couple other slides but as you can see for the aggregate that number and i think you saw that in the cfac report as well looks to remain consistent around that 7 000 mark as we anticipate our future years and do our future fiscal planning with that. You can see we

082have been inclusive of all of the programming within Hopkins to come up with that ADM projection. So that also was outlined in your packet. Any questions on that? All right, next slide. We also, as we take a look at all of the enrollment and from a holistic perspective, also take a look at open enrollment out. Currently, as you will see, there are 37 different public school districts that we open enroll out to. Top four represent 87% of the total open enrollment out. And these have been consistent for over a decade as we've been tracking the open enrollment and pretty consistent measures. These are the four that we do take a look at, in part with their proximity to us, just like you see proximity being part of our reason for open enrollment in, you see

083proximity balancing for open enrollment out. Next slide. When we take a look at charter schools, charter schools are also a consideration for us when we look at open enrollment and different public options that are available to individuals within the Hopkins community. What you'll see is you look at on the side, we have been watching the ESLA impact. As you will note, ESLA was a program that was located in the Hopkins School District and has relocated into the Edina School District. You will see the change in 19-20 to where they are now in 21-22 with the overall impact in kindergarten and grade one. In addition with our Juntos program that we have at Alice Smith and with our Juntos program at Eisenhower, we know those numbers are capturing the need for families that were able to

084serve in that capacity. You will see the increase of Eagle Ridge Academy. Eagle Ridge Academy. was smaller than the Isla population, and that has shifted. At one point, Agameem, the classical academy, when it was located in Hopkins, prior to its move out of Hopkins, was the leading program that we were watching in addition to Isla. And based on their proximity, those change, based on families' abilities to access those programs and continued interest in those programs as well. So question on charter schools. All right, then as we've been looking at the demographic of our open enrollment in as well as our resident district, we tried to make sure that we could document for you what it looks like with our resident scholars attending Hopkins and our non-resident scholars attending Hopkins. Percentages of free and reduced students,

085paid students. We are pretty close to mirroring what it looks like in Hopkins with our resident and our non-resident. The next slide as well walks through from our students of color and our white students. You can see resident scholars attending Hopkins. You can see the non-resident scholars attending Hopkins. And in the last category, resident scholars attending elsewhere, as we noted in the workshop. It's difficult because we can't always get essential information from individuals we are not familiar with or who have not interacted with us in some capacity. We do our best, but sometimes when scholars move in and we don't, families move in, we don't have a touch point. So some of that information is information that we, at this point, don't have specific federal race ethnicity for. So that's the best we can do

086with the data we have at this point. Questions on the demographic? I have a more general question. I'm thinking back to our workshop discussion and directors Heartland and Ross asked some really insightful questions around qualitative data and thinking through like. do we do we truly understand the reasons why people choose hopkins versus other options and director goldadi you had a really great answer about some of the work that's happening in marcom around systematizing these processes and i wonder i'm wondering if you'd share that with our community sure thank you um so one of the things that we're putting into place in a more formal way is So when families leave Hopkins, we want to make sure that we're having some sort of a connection with them. I know a lot of schools informally will reach

087out to families to understand kind of what's going on, but like as a system, and certainly from a marketing communication lens, we want to make sure we're understanding that too. So we're putting systems in place to make sure we have a connection with every family who chooses to leave Hopkins for a different experience. And similarly, we want to be connecting with families who are choosing Hopkins, open enrolling in, and to help us understand why they're choosing Hopkins. And the thing ideally we'd like to do is we've done that market research that I mentioned two years ago. We really have sort of like a brand personality as part of that. And so we want to be kind of making sure that we're on point. Are people choosing us for the reasons that we think they're choosing

088us and that match sort of like our brand? The other thing that we're doing too is we're looking at other data points to sort of try to measure where enthusiasm is. As I mentioned in the workshop, you have Gateway Elementary who tends to have a lower open enrollment rate, but who has this really exciting new identity as an environmental school. And as Dr. Mary Perry-Reed showed in her presentation, a ton of press and enthusiasm. And one thing that Dr. Nolan was sharing with me is that, you know, in one week he's had 15 tours. And so those are things like we track on our website because you go through our website to schedule tours. And so we're looking at that and seeing, like, is there an uptick in some schools? And are some schools maybe

089underperforming what we would expect as kindergarten information sessions are starting? We're looking at, are people going to our website? Are they registering for those sessions? Are they going to the enrollment page? We're really looking at analytics. And so there's a lot of different data points beyond just the qualitative to try to help us understand where we're kind of overperforming and where we need to do a little bit more, if that helps. That's very helpful. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions at this point? I would just like to add to the comments about gathering this qualitative data. And I did ask about it in the workshop and it's very important to me and I was heartened to hear that there is a renewed effort to gather some of that information. And I think that not only

090will it pay off in the direct experience of students and their families, but also it's evidence of us living their Hopkins values, you know, being critically thinking and having an open mindset. And so I look forward to seeing kind of how that data collection plays out both how families can be more involved in providing that data and how the leaders can access it and utilize it for decision making. Excellent. Okay, I think we can move ahead. All right, next slide, please. Fun kindergarten fact. As of February 1st, 2022, we have 600 scholars enrolled in kindergarten. And I'm sorry, I'm having a Jeopardy! Deja Vu flashback because for some reason I've been watching it last week and I'm like, wow, this kind of reads like a Jeopardy! question. It sounded great. Your voice was very animated.

091Okay, great. Not that I'm trying to reflect that in any way, shape, or form. I think they need a new host, right? So not that we want you to leave. Exactly. What we're looking at here is 600 scholars enrolled in kindergarten. We tried to go back and look and say, when was the last time we had an experience like this? And really we had to go back to 2003, 2004. with 570 students at that time. So really, I mean, we're looking at a significant number this year as we plan for the kindergarten. And we know, as we spoke with the board in the workshop, that we know that we have the largest number of holdbacks that could have gone but didn't. We know we had some kindergartners that went to a year of private kindergarten

092and now are starting public kindergarten. So we've had... numerous experiences there we've seen some increase in our early entrance so we know that that number of 600 is in part uh and due to the decrease that we saw in 2021 for that year when it was lower than expected. So it is kind of an adjustment. And as we look toward the projection for next year, being conservative around that 545, 45 mark. So we wanted to just make sure that we were aware of what we have experienced this year. And then when we look at our kindergartners on the next slide, you'll see that that kindergarten breakout is that school-based, we have 458. Our virtual EDU, 13 kindergartners in Shenzhen, 53. Our Juntos at 76, kind of for that kindergarten composition. As we said before, one

093of the more difficult points in the next slide. is that we try to get close, if you will, with the enrollment projections on kindergarten. And in part, what we have to look at is Hennepin County birth rates. What is the, of that percentage, what a capture rate do we have for kindergarten? We have seen that kindergarten capture rate increase this year. Another contributing factor, and when we talk about a capture rate, what we talk about is those individuals that are in Hopkins and those individuals that are in Hopkins that are choosing Hopkins. uh in lieu of looking elsewhere because what we also know is that when families choose hopkins they stay in hopkins and that's an entry point that we want to be incredibly mindful of with all of our communication marketing uh enrollment efforts

094as well any questions on the enrollment projections versus the actuals and then the last slide that we have for the group is any questions in general any questions or comments Well, since I've mentioned this several times, this is sort of the replay of the workshop. I appreciated the opportunity to have this report happen the same night as we received the CFAC report, because as we mentioned during the CFAC conversation, so much of our budget planning is driven by enrollment. So to have the opportunity to do the deep dive into some of these numbers, to... to look at these predictions for next year and to understand not only what's been happening this year with enrollment, just on the face of it, quantitatively, but also taking a look at some of the systems and processes that are

095happening behind the scenes. I think it was a really nice complement to the CFAC presentation. So I appreciate the thoughtfulness of the team and your preparation of this presentation. Yeah, I'd like likewise like to Congratulate the group and doing a very thorough presentation Answering a lot of the questions. I think the only questions that remain are the qualitative ones that our new board members have brought up and That's going to take some more in-depth analysis, but You always wonder when people leave why do they leave and it's it's nice to have an answer to that so It's good to find that out, but very thorough Data, thank you Nick in team So this was a board information and discussion item. No action is needed. So we don't need to take a vote on anything Dr.

096Mary period any final words on this agenda item? No, I think that, kind of like you said, Director Adams, when we receive our families, because every number on every one of those slides represents an actual student, how we care for and serve those students is really important, and how we... care for and serve our staff who support and educate these students is also a core function. a core responsibility of our team, of our organization. So I appreciate just the richness of all of the information and it just makes me think about all of the things that we're doing well as we support and highly educate our students and all of the things that we have to continue working on and strengthening so that our families won't leave, so that they will stay. And of course,

097you know, the reality is that There is no organization where every single person is experiencing happiness and high levels of satisfaction all the time. And it's still something that we strive for, right? So thank you very much, Dr. Lightfoot and Ms. Carmen, Director Goldotti. Thanks for your efforts. And it's really good information. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Lightfoot and team. Now we'll move into our board member reports. I'm just going to go for it, Director Adams. All right. Thank you, Chair Boucher. Well over the last we had three weeks since our last meeting that's extraordinarily long in our world But most of my time was consumed Consumed during that period with CFAC meetings and LAC meetings because we we had our Legislative breakfast for a virtual legislative breakfast again this year on January

09821st And the day prior to that, we delivered an actual breakfast to all of our legislators so that they could have something to munch on while they were listening to our presentation and discussion. But on the 21st, we had 11 of our 12 legislators who represent our district attend, which I think was a record. I don't think we've ever had that high attendance before. It was, as I said, well attended, and I think it ran smoother this year than it did in previous years. We're getting the hang of virtual briefings. February 4th, I attended the AMSD meeting with Susan Brower, the state demographer, attending. That again was a virtual, I attended virtually, she attended virtually. But she had some interesting insights, not unlike what we heard tonight from our enrollment group, but talked about the

099changing demography of the state of Minnesota and what we can expect in the next century and the next decade. And even next century. But she's a very engaging speaker, and if you ever have a chance to hear her speak, I would highly recommend it. And I would just like to recognize the passing of a legend of the Hopkins staff, Norm Craigseth, on January 22nd. Most people today probably don't remember Norm, He was one of our, well, he was hired as a head football coach in Hopkins High School in 1958, which I think is the year they moved into this building. And he started the school's first ski program. It's hard to imagine that we, at one point, did not have a ski program. But Norm started the first one and went on to win numerous

100state championships in cross country, downhill, and ski jumping. We used to have a ski jumping team, believe it or not. So he was really a great athlete. It's hard to imagine this, but he graduated from Duluth Central in 1949 and is arguably one of the state's most accomplished all-around school athletes. He earned 23 varsity letters in seven sports while in high school. Can you imagine? playing in seven sports when you're a high school athlete. And following that, he attended and graduated from Northwestern University. And then times being what they were, he served on a Navy destroyer for two years during the Korean War and continued to serve in the Naval Reserve for another 20 years thereafter. But hired as a football coach in 1958. He retired from teaching and coaching in 1986. So most of

101you probably don't remember him and maybe weren't alive when he was around. But at any rate, besides that, he had a lot of participation with the Vikings in the NFL. He was a member of the original chain gang for Vikings home games when they started up in Minnesota. He was part of the officiating crew for Super Bowl XIV in 1979. He officiated the first NFL game at the Metrodome in 1982 and the inaugural NFL game outside the U.S. at Wembley Stadium in London in 1983. And he was a member of the Hopkins High School Athletic Hall of Fame, the Minnesota State High School League Hall of Fame. in the Northwestern University Athletic Hall of Fame. So just an amazing life and an amazing career. And he will be missed by the people that knew him.

102So Norm, I never attended this school, but everyone in the Lake Conference knew of Norm Craigseth, I can tell you that. He was legendary, not just at Hopkins, but in the entire Lake Conference and across the state. So that's my report. Thank you As a non-athletic person my mind is kind of blown right now How someone could letter in seven sports so yeah and do all of those other things. So thank you Other board member reports chair Bouchard. Yes director Khan have a brief one I had the pleasure to attend School, I'm sorry. I'm so not used to this one My face mask. It's just Anyways, I attended this school mentorship of color group, which had about 20 attendees. It was really great to see Thrive Ed featured there, and they talked about co-design, and

103there are two workshops that they launched which elevate students' voice and choice. And they also presented a brief... presentation of their restorative justice practices and what they're doing to implement them. Have we had Thrive Ed, by the way, here to talk about what they're doing? Not at the board table? Not at the board table. Individual board members I know have interacted with the organization, but that would be really interesting to have them visit us during a workshop. That's what I was thinking, that they're so awesome and, you know, they've introduced so many great things. It'd be good to just have a nice feature of them. That's a great idea. Thank you. Other board member reports? Chair Bouchard? Yes, Director Andreessen. Thank you. I know that the members of the board were made aware of what

104happened last week, but I wanted to give all of you an update as the board representative to District 287. A week ago, there was a shooting outside District 287's South Education Center that is located in Richfield. All involved, including those now in custody, were District 287 students. The collective trauma we are experiencing is heavy and heartbreaking, and I am grateful for the outpouring of support to the district from across the state, as well as the thoughtful supports that District 287 has put in place during this time. centering students, families, and staff's safety and well-being. I attended a vigil for the student who lost his life, Jamari Rice, outside South Education Center last Thursday. Families, staff, and students were there holding space for grief and healing. I appreciated all of the board members, including Chair Bouchard,

105who showed up to help our community process and grieve this tragedy. Yesterday, I was part of a conversation with Resmei Menakem, who helped us as leaders process the ways in which systemic racism is showing up for us in this moment. Throughout the past week, I have been impressed with Superintendent Lewandowski's focus and centering of our students, our staff, and those who are most impacted by this trauma. Resume charged us all to continue this focus and to practice communal healing. not bowing to the urgent calls of white supremacy, not retreating into the silence that reinforces the institutional racism that we failed to protect our students from. We must insist that the humanness of our students, all of them, are centered and develop a communal voice focused on healing and abolition. We must hold that space, pause,

106and only then move forward. Because our students, our families, our communities need more from us. Our individual niceness is woefully inadequate. The 287 Board will continue to have conversations to process and to define our role in supporting the superintendent, the families, and the staff of the district. and I will continue to update all of you. Thank you very much. Thank you for your leadership during this incredibly difficult time for the 287 community, which is all of our community because Hopkins Schools is part of District 287. And thank you to the rest of the 287 board and, of course, Superintendent Lewandowski. Navigating this is incredibly challenging, and your words are really powerful tonight. Thank you. Other board member reports this evening. So I'll close with mine. I too wanted to recognize that throughout the Twin Cities,

107community members are mourning the deaths of Jamari Rice and Amir Locke. Black lives matter unequivocally, but as we've seen time and time again, our society continues to fail our black community members in countless and traumatic ways. One of the guidelines of the Courageous Conversations framework, which is a framework that we've used here in Hopkins, is to speak from a place that is personal, local, and immediate. So with that in mind, as a white person elected to lead in a racially diverse school district, I have a moral responsibility to work alongside our community to put an end to these atrocities. As conversations about how to achieve community safety have intensified across the metro over the past few months, I've been working closely with community leaders, members of our Hopkins and Minnetonka City Councils, Hennepin County Commissioners,

108and Metro Area School Board Chairs to ensure that community and public education leaders and professionals, students and families are at the tables where these conversations are taking place. I think the one thing that we can all agree on is that there are no easy solutions to these long-standing systemic problems that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. But what many of us do know is that we need holistic, collaborative, and research-based ways of addressing the underlying systemic factors that lead to violence in all of its forms, including police violence. And we need action. We need to take responsibility as public school systems for our role in perpetuating systemic inequities and redress this harm. And because we view problems and solutions from unique perspectives, community and education leaders and professionals, students and families need to be heard

109and understood. Just today, over 1,000 students from across the metro area gathered in front of the governor's mansion with powerful stories and insights. If you'd like to watch some of the live stream from that protest, Georgia Fort, who is a local journalist, has it on her Facebook page, and you can watch the stream. As we heard from our student board reps, Hopkins scholars exercised their First Amendment rights at the high school yesterday and today. They must be heard and centered in this work. So as opportunities arise in the near future to be part of this work on holistic community safety, I'll make sure that the board and members of our Hopkins Schools community are aware. This work is no doubt challenging, and we have no choice but to do it because the lives of the

110brilliant young people in our community depend on it. Last call for board member reports. We'll move on to our second public comment section of the evening. This is reserved for comments on items not on the agenda. Mr. David Brooks, I will invite you up to the table as I read through our public comment guidelines, and I have to get my stopwatch ready here. So we believe that hearing from our community members is crucial for implementing Vision 2031. We have some guidelines in place for our public comment period. Please keep your comments to three minutes or less. Keep in mind that public comment is for input only. Members of the school board will not respond directly to public comments that are made at this meeting. A district representative may follow up with you after the meeting.

111I will recognize one speaker at a time. Only those speakers who are recognized will be permitted to speak, and 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 are obscenities or profanity. Persistence in making such remarks will end the individual's 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 state 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 section, no person may discuss private educational data on an identifiable student. The

112open meeting law also requires the board to close a meeting for preliminary consideration of allegations against an employee. Accordingly, community members who have concerns about an employee or want to file a complaint or allegations against an employee are encouraged to contact the superintendent. 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 both listening to that very, very long introduction to our public comment period and for your participation in public comment this evening. Let me just pull up my stopwatch here. And you can begin. Thank you. Good evening. Thanks for having me. It is unfortunate that I, a parent

113simply wanting an educational experience that engages and challenges my scholar, must stand in front of this board on behalf of my student to bring to your attention that this outcome for him and his peers have been put at risk. As stated in our letter to the board signed by a grown community of supporting families, the removal of a dedicated and proven math curriculum, specifically algebra covering linear, nonlinear and additional topics in preparation for geometry and algebra two, needed by our scholars in the fall does them all a great disservice and is of benefit to no one. If this is to be the case, there has been no communication plan and mitigating ideas put forth fall far short of meeting the need. To be clear, If it is the administration's intent to have students with a

114vast array of learning needs and associated learning plans in a single classroom, that strategy, as well-intentioned as it may be, would be flawed. It would present an untenable situation for our teachers and not meet the needs of our scholars. Furthermore, charging our staff with the creation of a new curriculum at this time for one year of use when they already have a program, a proven curriculum in their hands seems to me and them a misuse of their already burdened time. I recognize that this body may not be making these decisions, but I humbly request inquiry and remedy of the item at hand by working with our staff to reinstate a classroom setting and experience that fully provides the academic rigor for our students needed on their learning journey. specifically a classroom dedicated to teaching linear,

115nonlinear, and related topics without redundancy to already achieved learning at a pace and with a format needed by our students in preparation for geometry in eighth and algebra two in the ninth grade. It has been both eye-opening and disheartening to speak to other Hopkins parents with scholars at the elementary level who see firsthand the erosion of academic opportunity for their children, and as a result have left or about to leave the district. It is transparent that planning and communication gaps and implementation choices made to date have resulted in a degradation of service to our scholars, of trust from our community of parents, and of alignment with our teachers. Moving forward, I would hope that there is continuous validation of how vision 2031 is translated into implementation and that as changes are being proposed which impact

116our students and staff alike that the administration diligently outreaches to and promotes discussions with our students our staff and our community I have a deep appreciation for the Hopkins School District and what it stands for, and will remain optimistic that we can work together toward amazing outcomes for all of our scholars. Thank you for your time and consideration. I would only add that with enrollment decisions looming in the days, not weeks ahead, that while general guidance has been very reassuring, an actual plan communicated to the parents would be of utmost priority. Thank you. Thank you very much. Was I in three minutes? You clocked in at 2.59. Oh, good. Thank you again. Thank you. Mr. Brooks, are you able to email a copy of that? I can, yes. Okay, thank you. Thank you. I'd like

117to invite Allison Farrow to the table. The good news is I don't have to read that whole thing again. All right. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight and for the work you do for our district. My name is Allison Farrow, and I'm the parent of a sixth grader at Tanglin and a ninth grader at North. My sixth grader was actually mentioned at a recent board meeting for his involvement in the FIRST Robotics LEGO League competition. We moved into the district two and a half years ago from California. We specifically chose to buy a house in the Hopkins District because we'd heard good things about the schools and wanted to be part of the community. I'm here tonight to speak about the elimination of the seventh grade accelerated algebra course. I signed a group

118letter but also wanted to voice my concerns individually. To start with, I find it unacceptable that this change was not clearly communicated to the community. Not learning about changes firsthand erodes trust with parents. I'd hope that the board gives clear guidance to the schools on expectations around communication. I reached out and discussed with the principal the issue and while I felt heard, I didn't feel reassured that the decision was well thought out and ready to be successfully implemented next year. I still just don't feel like I have a clear understanding why the change is being made. I believe equity factored into the decision and I totally understand and acknowledge that there should be a consideration, but simply eliminating an advanced course doesn't seem to solve the problem. I think it would be better to look

119at how course offerings are presented to students and families and how we can expand what students engage with these courses. Part of why we chose Hopkins is its emphasis on meeting students where they are and excellence for every scholar, as written on the wall behind you. Eliminating a class that clearly meets the needs of some students doesn't seem like living into these core values, and I'm concerned that options are being taken away from high-achieving students that hinder them from meeting their full potential and achieving excellence. You know, it's not clear to me that this change was made with any considerations of the impact it has on high school math pathways. You know, it may impact which classes students can take in high school and impact college opportunities. You know, one of the biggest regrets my

120ninth grader has was actually not taking accelerated math in seventh grade when we transferred into the district. She was able to take it in eighth grade and then allowed her to take geometry this year. But in order to take the classes she wants to take in high school, she's still having to double up on math classes and give up electives. And finally, it's not clear to me that change was made in consultation with teachers. We've asked so much of them in these last two years, expecting them to adjust curriculum and not try and meet the needs of a broader range of students in a single classroom seems like a heavy burden. So I urge you as a board to stay true to the value of meeting the needs of all students and ask the junior

121highs to reconsider eliminating the class and instead focus on expanding the students that can be served by it. And going forward, I ask you to require schools to be transparent and communicate potential changes, providing evidence and justification to support them. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Could you email your comments to us as well? Thank you. And because I told David you clocked in at 2.58, so this is like a very impressively timed segment. Yes, thank you both. With that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. 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 9.04 p.m.