001Have two options for giving public comment. One is to leave a voicemail. Instructions for how to do that and the number to call are contained in our board packet. The other option is to visit us in person and fill out a public comment card located in the back of the boardroom before the meeting and hand it to the board chair, which would be me, before the meeting begins. We did not receive any voicemails this evening. And we do not have anyone here to comment in person. So we'll move to our next agenda item, which is our reports. And we're so lucky to have two student board representatives with us tonight. Angel, are you on the Google Meet? I am. Hi. Hello. Thanks for being with us. How are you? I'm great. Thank you for having
002me. Sure. Did you have a report this evening? Yeah, really quick. So it's the start of the second term. I know that a lot of students are getting situated with new classes and different opportunity hours. Recently, I've been made aware that there isn't much going on right now with committees. I've been in touch with a couple of other students, a part of the student board as well, who have yet to hear anything. Also, just with schooling in general, I know that so far so good with, you know, in person again. I know a lot of students are feeling a lot more confident in the academics, being in person and being able to be more in touch with their peers and their teachers. I heard that the annual fall play is happening and that should be
003taking place. I don't quote me on this, but I believe the first play takes place the 17th. So that's exciting to hear and really just excited to be back. So, yeah. Wonderful. Thanks, Angel. It's great to hear your voice. Any questions for Angel? Well, thank you for being with us. Do we have any other student board reps on the Google Meet? All right. Then we'll go to Grace Riley, who's here with us in person this evening. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. I have a quick update for everything to do with sports at Hopkins. Last week, all official fall sports have ended, and we're making the transition into winter sports. Most of them start either this week or next week with a few, like gymnastics, I believe, starting. in two weeks. And then just to wrap up
004fall sports, we had two dancers from Hopkins compete in the Miss Dance Team competition. Their names were Cameron McNeil and Jazara Hall. And Cameron placed 13th overall and Jazara placed ninth. And Miss Dance Team, for those of you that don't know, is a competition for individual high school dance team members. And they go and they participate statewide in individual solos, which are choreographed by the dancer and their dance coach. So some really exciting stuff there. And then for start times, I know we talked about it in our meeting earlier today, but I've reached out to a couple students and more specifically students of minorities and single income household students. and Just to kind of relate it all back to start times, their general consensus is that they're worried about how they're going to be able
005to get to school. Relating it to myself, I live in a single income family and other than like rides from friends or getting on the bus, I'm not able to get to school. So there's a big concern with some of those people about the starting earlier versus later and the change that will happen with that. And then as well as starting... Starting later means ending later. And that's a big concern for some of our students that take AP classes with the expected one, one and a half to two hours of homework per class per night. As well as some of our juniors and seniors who are doing PSEO, that's been a struggle for them to think over how they're going to align their schedules and if they're able to align their schedules with some of
006the classes they're taking. And then as well as students with jobs, I know for my job personally, I can't start work later than five o'clock. And I've spoken to, like I said, other students about this as well. And they feel that in order to continue their job, there would be a sort of a scheduling conflict if we were to end school at say, I don't know what time you guys were thinking necessarily, but. They were worried that they wouldn't have enough time to do their job and do their homework and really balance it all. And when asked kind of like what they thought would be a way that that could all happen, they said something similar to the Friday schedule so they could still get here on time and then maybe still leave at that
007same time, which I know is not typically ideal. But they feel that if we could kind of... implement some things like that with the earlier start times and keeping that same schedule, that that would be really beneficial to them. And that's all I have for you guys. Thank you. Questions or comments for Grace? Thank you for doing that work. Of course. That's great. Angel, are you still there on the Google Meet? Yes. Oh, good. What are your thoughts around changing the start time to later for junior high and high school? Honestly, I kind of agree with her actually, yeah. Because I know I can heavily relate to, you know, having like one current ride to and from because I live in Brooklyn Center. So I'm pretty far out from school already. And I usually work.
008I usually work at five or after five, depending on when I get home. So it can definitely be a struggle, especially with commute times. And I know the winter coming up, that is also going to be a big concern because it gets a lot harder to travel from place to place. in the cold, especially with Minnesota being known for its infamous winters. Don't remind us, Angel. We might be heading into it at the end of this week, at least a little sampling. Unfortunately, yes. Well, thank you. This is all such important food for thought. And as you continue to engage with your colleagues at the high school, please let us know what themes are emerging. It's really helpful for us as we take into consideration the pretty complex decisions that we're going to have to
009make on the 23rd. So appreciate it. Wonderful. Well, with that, we'll move to our superintendent's report with Dr. Mary Peary-Reed. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. So always lots happening in Hopkins, and sometimes it's a small task to just identify a short list of items to share because the list of wonderful things happening is very lengthy. But you can see these cute kiddos that we sometimes refer to as scholars who are very happy to be learning outside. And it's wonderful to have our outdoor immersion experiences for our students to benefit from. A couple of district highlights, as our school board members know, but perhaps community members listening in hopefully are delighted to hear that our incumbent candidate, Jen Bouchard, and two additional candidates running for school board, Rachel Hartland and Jason Ross, were the top three. individuals
010who received the highest votes and will begin their four-year term being sworn in in January. So on behalf of the Hopkins School District staff, students, stakeholders, I personally am very excited and I know that there's a lot of energy and enthusiasm around these three individuals. So congratulations to these leaders and we really look forward to... continuing to work with you, Chair Bouchard, and we look forward to working with Rachel and Jason as well. I wanted to share that last evening I had the opportunity to serve on a live, in a panel conversation that was live streamed via Facebook with our Hennepin County Commissioner, Chris Latondris, who is a former Hopkins School Board member, along with Congressman Dean Phillips, YZ, Mayor, Johanna. Mountain and we talked about the American Rescue Plan funds and other federal funds
011that have been allocated to state and local governments, school districts to to address the needs brought on by COVID. So it was a very rich and also short discussion, just one hour long. We each got to present how we have used federal dollars. I talked about how the myriad of ways that we've used our federal funding to support students and families during this time and also identified as some... things that we need to continue thinking about such as expanding mental health support for students and for staff and Thinking about our homeless and highly mobile families and the unique Support that they will continue to need School spotlight. I wanted to put a spotlight on our Hopkins athletes. You know, there are so many wonderful athletes, too many to mention here, but these are students who
012are not only devoting a ton of their time engaging in rigorous academics, but they're contributing. many, many hours every week during one, two, three seasons of sports. And so currently we have hundreds of student athletes and their parents and caregivers attending a chemical awareness and mental health meeting. It's literally taking place as we speak in the high school space. Our Hopkins girls cross country team placed seventh at the state meet. Recently, we have 10 seniors who are signing national letters of intent tomorrow, and that's always very exciting news. And then, of course, winter sports has begun with dance and hockey, gymnastics, basketball, skiing, wrestling, boys swim and dive. So much to go to for any of us who like to have multiple activities per week. Lots of scholar athletes to support. And I love this
013picture. Look at how happy they look with the little markings, the rainbow markings under their eyes. That's really cute. Okay, and then our department spotlight. I don't know if you've had the opportunity to meet Jessica Glidden. She is so wonderful. She was also spotlighted in our Hopkins update. that gets mailed to our community members. So she's a really wonderful addition to our district staff. She is serving as the American Indian Cultural Liaison and Program Lead. She's really well connected to our American Indian scholars, to their families. She has a warm presence. She's extremely knowledgeable and she's very, very... in tune with her own cultural Native heritage. So in the newsletter, she talks about what excites her about Vision 2031. She loves the core value that aligns with her Ojibwe values, specifically humility of heart. and
014she is enjoying passing on teachings to scholars to just prepare that next generation of learners and citizens and leaders. So I personally just love Jessica, and she has really blessed us with so much support and service. I always try to have a system goal focus. I wanted to let our board and community members know that all leaders have either turned in their goals, which were due on November 1st, are in the process of turning those in. And then for this evening's focus... In accordance with a quote that I find very powerful, excellence without equity is not excellence. And I saw this in the... the findings that we reviewed today with members of the Symmetry Systems Unlimited team, which is our partner organization that conducted our equity, our district-wide equity audit. So it took more than
015a year to complete this very small team of extremely devoted and experienced educators because, you know, COVID completely interrupted the process. but they provided a very thick book with all of their research and findings and organized it in a way that will be easy for us to review and then identify next steps. So we will be reviewing that as cabinet and school leaders, reviewing the data, and we'll also be scheduling a presentation for all of you. And then finally, I do want to end with a wonderful video that was put together by Kevin Noonan, who is... an exemplary member of our communications and marketing team. We love Kevin's videos. We needed a video to include in our presentation to teacher candidates of color at a recent U of M recruiting event. So this was held
016on Friday, October 29, and a couple of us went over to the U and spent about two hours with... approximately 25 teacher candidates and you know really our goal and our teachers of color our teacher candidates of color will have significant choice in where they where they serve where they land and so you know we were just working our darndest to have them see Hopkins as a perfect possibility. for where they might land. And as you know, one of our success indicators for Vision 2031 is that our staff and student demographics will match. So we have a lot of work to do to increase the number of teachers of color who serve here in Hopkins. I'm gonna end with this video. That's, I don't know, is that it? Maybe it is, okay. Hopefully it is.
017Hopkins is unique. It's unique because of its people. I feel like I'm part of an inclusive community, and everyone's goal here is to help all their students reach their full potential, and I just love being a part of that. It's been great. I felt really welcomed by established teachers. 2020, that's when I was hired, second year of the pandemic. So it was a challenging time to come into a new school district, so all that support really made a big difference. I have been teaching at Hopkins for 14 years. All the colleagues... We are very cooperative and help each other. The new teachers can always get help whenever they need. We have a staff that they're free to speak. They can be authentic. They can ask questions, those critical questions that really are going to make
018a difference in our world. You can chart your path here. And it doesn't mean you'll be alone on that path. There'll be people with you, but you'll also get to see so many different... other ways of navigating the world because of who you're with. Our whole community is very much like what the world looks like. And I can talk from experience coming from a school where 90% of the student body was from one cultural background. One of the first things that I thought when I came to visit was I feel like out there in society. The real world is a very diverse one and Hopkins is that. And it wasn't always that way, but has become quite a place of diverse perspectives, experiences, languages, races. I think it's crucial for scholars to see themselves in
019their educators. It fosters a sense of belonging, and when students feel like they belong, they do better academically and they do better socially. So I talked to some of my scholars that I work with, and that's one of the main things that they say is we appreciate seeing more people who look like us in the building. Somebody who can stand in for me if I need it, but also that role model. When I was getting my room together, two sisters were walking out in the hallway. One peeked in my room, I could hear her whisper to her father. You know, being my first year, I kind of got tears in my eyes because it made me realize that I have an opportunity for children to see themselves in me. The way school has worked for
020the last century has not serviced all of our scholars. We need to actively and unapologetically disrupt those systems that create those discrepancies. That takes equity training. That takes anti-racist training. That takes a restorative culture. We've been doing the work. We have a team full of administrators that are committed to doing the work. I've seen in my three years being here that work being done. I'm very satisfied with our staff and our community as a whole. I only see us getting better. Sometimes my language is different, my delivery is different, and I think that is a benefit not only for our Brown students but for all students. With staff comes programming. comes new ideas, fresh ideas. Our school is sort of like a pile up. You know, we want everybody to bring something to share. This
021just feels right. We're a diverse community that cares deeply about one another. We are a family. I have never worked in a district that in its values has the word love in it. That may come across to some as, oh, they're just saying that. But I assure you, this is something that our teachers live. and model every single day. So joining this school district, a school district that is courageous and has equity at the forefront of everything it does, we have an opportunity now to change the status quo and really do what's best for our scholars. I want to work there. No, I want to be part of that. That's a great video. That's great. That was really inspiring. That was wonderful. Any questions or comments for Dr. Mary Puri-Reed? Thank you for doing that
022and representing Hopkins and working hard to bring great people here. Appreciate it. The whole team. Thank you. I watched the live stream discussion about the American Rescue Plan. allocations last night and just you know I'm constantly impressed by Dr. Mary Puri-Reed but especially in that context last night she you know really had an explicitly anti-racist approach to how she was describing our allocations and and the work that we've been doing here in hopkins and our approach on on mental health and social emotional wellness and really supporting all of our families through it and just gave really specific examples of the important work that that we've been doing here in the district and just was a real shining star on that panel last night so thank you for representing hopkins thank you well with that i
023would 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 none all in favor, please say aye aye all opposed nay motion carries Next I would look for a motion to approve the consent calendar so moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? 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 go to our Treasurer's Report with Treasurer Adams. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. As is customary, the first Treasurer's Report of the month, we report on enrollment. And for November, we had nine additional students since October 1st. mostly at North Junior
024High, where there were seven new students there. So at this point, we're 208 students over our revised projection for this year, and 274 over our original projection. So quite an increase that we're experiencing, and pleasantly surprised, and we welcome those new students. In terms of expenses, expenses of note include, speaking of social emotional learning, $26,076 for something called Second Step. It's a three-year license for K-8 social emotional learning software. So we'll be implementing that, or if we haven't done that already. We paid $98.51 for our annual IB, International Baccalaureate fee. We're wrapping up expenses for the ventilation project that we did at the high school over the summer. Paid $76,000 to wrap that up. You know, one of the things that the district does that some parents aren't aware of is that we provide band
025instruments for some kids for certain instruments. And we just purchased about $7,800 worth of new instruments. I don't know which schools they went to, but there are new band instruments that are going to be at use. for our students within the district. $250 to the Roseville School District for a robotics tournament that's coming up. And $22,475 for the University of Minnesota tuition for the fall semester. A lot of people don't realize that we do support secondary educational options, SEO, and many of our high school students take the opportunity to attend the University of Minnesota and we pay the tuition. So that's $22,475 that parents do not have to spend for college tuition. So it's a great opportunity. So with that, I move that we approve total disbursements in the amount of $3,558,136.87 for the period
026October 19, 2021 through November 2, 2021. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the treasurer's report. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Thank you, Treasurer Adams. Next, we'll move on to new business, and our first agenda item is policies and first read. I'll turn it over to Vice Chair Andreessen. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. I'd like to invite Assistant Superintendent Nick Lightfoot to the table to help us discuss the list of policies that you have. before us tonight. We discussed them each at our policy and monitoring committee meeting and we'll turn it over to Nick for details. Greetings. Good evening. You have the packet of information that has been distributed, and you'll see the list
027of policies there. I'll go through those for you this evening. We'll start with 401, which is the equal employment opportunity. There were some suggested changes mirroring the work that was done in our equal educational opportunity work with Policy 102, and you'll see that reflected in 2A. to make sure that we are being mindful of how we are looking at being consistent with our policy language as we look at statements and policy to be inclusive. So you'll see that element. You will also see in the regulations that we have made appropriate changes there as well to highlight our inclusivity. As well, you will see the model MSBA that we worked off of in doing the work with 401. So with that, any specific comments, questions, anything that I can be helpful with in addressing related to
028Policy 401? I appreciate how specific you were in the wording changes. It truly is much more inclusive. So thank you to the committee. Any other questions or comments? I think we can move forward. Great. Thank you. Next one, Policy 404, Employment Background Checks. As you will note, no specific changes here, just a review by the Monitoring Committee of this as well as the MSBA. So you'll see in this nothing in addition to speak to any change, but would offer the opportunity for any questions or comments related to 404. I think we can keep moving. Great. 406, related to 406, there were some specific changes that were made with the revised model policy. There was some specific work done with the Minnesota School Board Association to reflect changes in statute. You will note that there has
029also been some general revision with 406. All of that's included and we did go through those items and those elements in 406 to keep that information consistent with the new recommendations. Are there any questions or comments related to 406 that I might be able to address at this time? The information shared during our workshop discussion gives even more robust context to this policy now. So that was a well curated discussion and I'm going to give credit to Vice Chair Andreessen and Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot on that. And also Director Kuhl who asked the question that initiated the discussion. Thank you, Director Kuhl. Additional comments, questions on 406? I think we can move ahead. All right. 413, again, 413 is reflective of our work in mirroring Policy 102. You will also hopefully see that mirror in 401
030with our equal employment. As well, when we are looking at harassment and violence, we wanted to make sure that we were inclusive as well. Status as we look at definition of protected class, as you will see noted throughout the change in policy as well. Minnesota School Boards Association did initial work of their revisions for 2021. We have modified those slightly to make sure our language is the language that's driving the definitions of protected class within the policy. So you will see that being more inclusive given the work that we've done over time. So that is also written into 413. There are specific questions. I am more than happy to address those within 413. Just structurally, I like how you do the definition work up front and then including protected class throughout. It makes it much
031more readable and streamlined, yet still has the impact that we would want this policy to have. So thank you for those changes. You're very welcome. Anything else related to this? I think we're good. Okay. Then lastly, 456 is our staff ethics conflict of interest policy. We added a little bit of a change in six to make sure that we also included instructional data and intellectual property. But that was really the only specific modification that we made to 456. Would entertain any questions that are there related to 456 as well. And it looks like we are good on that one as well. Thank you very much, Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot. Thank you. One quick thing I noticed, Dr. Lightfoot, and I do want to make sure that the board is aware that we have been... Absolutely honored
032to have a student on the policy committee. Yay. Yes. So Parker has joined us and they have been integral and really making sure that we're reading through these with, you know, our equity lens in place. And I did notice Dr. Lightfoot that I think this last one for 56 still had some he or she's that we were looking to replace with days and all of our policies. So I noticed that towards the end of this one that. this one hadn't been updated with some of that. Thank you. We will update that. I believe we updated 413. That was the other one where we noted the need for that as well. But we will go back and double check that. Thank you, Director Peterson. Yep. We will do that. Sure. Thank you very much, Director Peterson.
033And thank you to Parker for their hard work on the policy committee. That's so great. I'm so glad that they're part of that. Yeah, it's been fantastic. Their input is robust and, you know, which... is unexpected and fantastic. So we're like, it makes our meetings way more fun too. So that's great. Now I'm even more jealous of policy. You all know how I feel about, I'm going to get back on policy during this term. Dr. Mary Priory had a question. Dr. Lightfoot back to policy 404. We've had a lot of questions from like principals and other leaders around background checks for volunteers. So with this just need for extra adults in our schools. What is the policy that we need to pay attention to to make sure that we can welcome? parent volunteers who have
034been vetted? Yep. Great question. This one is employment background checks. So when we have an employment issue, like someone who we are, you know, working with that employment relationship, that is specific to this. Under our volunteers policy, when we do have parent volunteers that would be working directly with young people, we do have that requirement that they go through a background check to make sure that if they are working alone and have the possibility to be unsupervised with a student that we do take that high level of review when we have that. We do cover for those background checks because we want to recognize that someone is offering their volunteer service for us. And at the same time, we want to make sure that we've done our diligence. So there's a separate volunteer policy. Thank
035you. Wonderful. Thank you. Any other questions or comments? I would look for a motion that the board approve the above policies in first read and that the board direct the administration to prepare the policies with suggested revisions for approval in second reading at the next meeting as part of the consent calendar. So moved. I have a motion and a second to approve the policies with suggested revisions. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. Thank you, Assistant Superintendent Lightfoot. Next, we'll move on to our updated MSBA resolutions. They're back. The resolutions are back. And I will turn it over to Vice Chair Andreessen. Never last. So as some of you may be aware, we... submitted the resolutions that we approved on October 5th and got feedback
036during discussions with MSBA about how we could maybe make one of them more effective. So you will see that there is what I'm bringing before you tonight is a proposed language change to the fully fund school nutrition programs resolution that we passed. So I will read you the new language of the resolution. Part of this is informational in nature and allow you to ask any questions you might have about that change. So it is the new language is therefore be it resolved that Hopkins School Board urges the legislature to move toward fully funding public school nutrition programs so all Minnesota families have equitable access to healthy meals contributing to overall community health and food security. So we will eventually need to do a roll call vote on this. I think it makes sense right now
037to ask any questions you have of Vice Chair Andreessen before we vote on this updated resolution. Chair Bouchard? Yes, Director Kuhl. Director Andreessen, is there any of this language that you're concerned with or do you feel comfortable with all the suggested additions? I am not concerned with any of the new language. Sure. Dr. Mary Peer Reed. Vice Chair Andreessen, I was just wondering if we partnered with the Director of Nutrition Services on this. I'm sorry if I missed that. I have spoken with Director Makura on this issue as I've been going through the process, including last year. Perfect. Thank you. Chair Bouchard. Yes, Director Adams. I'll just make a comment here. And I've already discussed this with Director Andrees. I feel like MSBA wanted us to kind of water down this resolution. I was not
038real happy with the fact that they're trying to be more tentative. I think this is going to be a real issue when we go off the summer meal program starting next fall. And I'd like to be, I wish it were a little more strident, I guess, in trying to get the attention of the legislature to deal with this issue. But anyway, that's just an editorial comment on my part. Certainly I'm in agreement that we can do, if we can do anything to make free meals available to students and families, we ought to do it. I just wish the same urgency was afoot over at the legislature. Is part of the political context too that... And I don't mean to speak for MSBA or their staff, but it's something that's in my mind that we're not
039quite sure what's happening at the federal level. If meals will be extended, if we will move toward fully funded school meals for all, which I would like to urge the federal government to act on sooner rather than later. But I'm wondering if part of the... The reason behind the suggested change is there is some gray area here and we won't we would not perhaps want to urge the Minnesota legislature to fully fund the meals if there is something coming from the federal government. Right. All that to say let's feed kids. Let's do it yesterday, right? So the urgency remains. It's more a fact of like, where is the funding gonna come from? And who has the political will and courage to make it happen? Yeah, yeah. Well, I look forward to the discussion that we
040have at the delegate assembly over this resolution. It was pretty robust last year. I expect it to be the same this year. We'll be anxiously awaiting the summary. Yeah. So with that, I would look for a motion that the board approve the presented resolution for the MSBA Delegate Assembly. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the presented resolution for the MSBA Delegate Assembly, Clerk Peterson. Awesome. Thank you. Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. Director Adams. Aye. Chair Bouchard. Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have six ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Thank you, Vice Chair Andreessen, for your work on this. I mean, this has been over a year in the making. Yeah. Oh, yes. Yeah.
041Two years in the making? Yeah. And certainly your research started before that point. And so thank you for keeping this front and center. I know we have support from other school board members and other districts as well. We do, yeah. There is one more resolution. Oh, that's right. I apologize. We've got more work to do before we can. That's right. One more roll call. Okay, here we go. And so part of the... adaptations to the resolution that we passed on October 5th was pulling out the compensatory funding piece. So you might remember it as a section that started with the title, no more applications. And so the reasoning behind pulling that out of the resolution was that there seems to be a lot of appetite and political will to get this through the legislature this
042session And so while the reasoning, the rationale behind it is identical, it's now its own separate resolution. So I will go ahead and read that language. Therefore, be it resolved that Hopkins Public Schools urges the legislature to move away from free and reduced price lunch as a primary factor. in computing compensatory revenue, replacing it with a model that more accurately reflects community need. Does anyone have any questions about that resolution? Vice Chair Andreessen? Yes. Do you feel like peeling this segment out, and this is more your kind of gut reaction, do you feel like it then sort of dilutes the ability of one or the other to be effective? No, I definitely see that this issue needs to be taken care of actually before we can move forward with fully funding school meals. One of
043the things that... I think that we find when we start digging into it is that this is perhaps what might be called an unintended consequence of providing meals to families is that we get less of those applications completed. Again, I don't think families should have to complete an application in order to get an educational benefit, but... That's where we're at. And so in order to hold school districts whole and not lose a bunch of funding that we rely upon, we need to find a different measurement and metric in order to continue to fund schools through the compensatory funding model if we can't use those applications. Cool. Did that make sense? Mm-hmm. So since this is a policy year at the legislature, the idea is that this could be moved through quite easily. And so it's
044an incremental step in getting us to universal school meals. Chair Bouchard. Yes, Director Adams. I'll just share with you that I... took this issue up with the superintendent of the Monaga School District, who has also been very vocal about providing free meals for kids. And he is totally in support of this and would offer their support at the delegate assembly. But he says we gotta do it this year because he's retiring at the end of this year. He wants this as part of his legacy. So we've got to work extra hard at the legislature this session. Let's get it done for Monaga, you know? That's right. That's right. Well, I'm already having conversations with some legislators. Does he have a higher immigrant population? Not an immigrant population, but there's a religious sect in his district
045that has very large families. Oh, I see. And low income. And so the school is the source of nutrition for a lot of those families up there. Context is everything. I'm sorry? Where are they located? Managa is about 10 miles south of Park Rapids on Highway 71. I've been there. Of course you have. The home of St. Erho. Erho? Erho. Oh. U-R-H-O. Oh wow. It's a made up saint. They just wanted to celebrate something the day before St. Paddy's Day. So. I gotta check this place out. It's gateway to the pines. I'm learning a lot tonight. Were there any other questions or further discussion about this resolution? With that, I would look for a motion that the board approve the second presented resolution for the MSBA Delegate Assembly. So moved. I have a motion. Is
046there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the second presented resolution for the MSBA Delegate Assembly. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Thank you. Director Kahn. I thought you were going to go. I know. Sorry, that was surprising. Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen. Aye. Chair Bouchard. Aye. Director Adams. Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. Director Kuhl. Aye. Six ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Thank you. Next, we'll move on to agenda item C. We will canvas the election results, and I'll welcome Director Chapenduka to the virtual part of the hybrid table. That's a thing, right? Well, thank you, Chair Butchart. First of all, I want to thank all the community members who participated in the elections. and all the candidates for the sacrifice and congratulations to the three upcoming board members for the
047elections. According to Minnesota statute 126C.17, subdivision nine, between the third and the 10th day of the school district election, the board shall converse and declare the results of the election. The school board election was held on Tuesday, November 2, 2021, to fill the expiring terms of Directors Jane Bouchard, John Kuo, and Fatou Ahmad. The recommendation is for the board to approve the results of the school board election conducted on November 2, 2021. by adopting the proposed resolution, canvassing results of the elections. A total of 21,517 voters of the district voted in the election of three school board members for a four-year term on the board. Jen W. Bouchard, 6,026 votes. Jason Ross, 5,371 votes. Rachel Hartland. 5,371 votes. David Larson, 2,804 votes. Sarah Vey, 1,673 votes. And there were 272 write-ins. So the recommendation is
048for the board to approve the canvassing of the election and declare Jen W. Bouchard, Jason Ross, and Rachel Hartland as newly elected board members for a term of four years, starting the first month of January 2022. Thank you very much, Director Chapenduka, and thank you for reading the resolution so that I didn't have to talk about myself in the third person. So I would look for a motion that the board approve the results of the school board election conducted on November 2nd, 2021 by adopting the proposed resolution canvassing returns of votes of the school district general election. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt the resolution. Any discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Excellent. Director Adams. Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen. Aye. Chair Bouchard.
049Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Kuhl. Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. Six ayes and zero nays. Motion carries. Thank you, Clerk Peterson, for always keeping it interesting. And to Jason Ross and Rachel Hartland, if you're watching, this makes it official, and we are so thrilled to welcome you to the Hopkins School Board to engage in our collective work. Thank you, Director Chapenduka. Next, we'll move to our board member reports. Who would like to go first? Well, I've got a very short one. I heard the pen tap. I figured you were warming up. LAC continues to meet. I was not able to meet with them last Friday, but I did on October 29th, and we're working at putting together a platform for the coming legislative session. On November 2nd, the election day, I voted and got to attend
050two election parties, one for our school board members, new school board members, and one for Councilperson Deb Calvert for the Council of Minnetonka. On November 5th, last Friday... I attended AMSD in person for the first time in 18 months and heard a presentation by Dr. Todd Beach, who chaired the Social Studies Standards Review Committee. And it was a very interesting presentation about the things that they considered, the things they discussed before coming up with the new social studies standards. which will not be implemented for five years, but at least the work has been moving forward. And they never met in person. That was kind of interesting. Everybody met via Zoom or some similar distance communication. We also... awarded the Friend of Education Award to Paula Forbes at that meeting. Paula's just a wonderful consultant that
051we've used here in the district before. And besides being a very talented consultant, she's just a great person. And she gave a very superb acceptance speech. Very deserving. She got the award primarily for the work that she did for Reimagine Minnesota, which is all about things that we can do to eliminate the so-called achievement gap in school districts across the state. And it ended up being nine principals that they recommend that every school district adopt. Anyone that hasn't seen that ought to read it, I think, because it's very precise and very prescriptive about things that school districts can be doing to make sure that every kid gets an adequate education and a quality education. And then we approved the AMSD legislative platform in five position papers in the same meeting. But it was great to
052get together with... some of the people I hadn't seen in 18 months. So that was fun. Thank you, Director Adams. Chair Bouchard, I have a quick one. Director Kahn. I got to meet with Somali families in our outreach program. And it was led by Chantelle Burgess, Alex Fisher, and Nasra Abdullahi. It was a very nice meeting. Families were able to openly express what their needs are. And actually, I was very surprised that we can host a job fair for them. So I wasn't aware of that, but that's so wonderful that our school takes that extra effort to really help out families. And one of the things that came up in the meeting was that there are a lot of students that parents are concerned about because they're falling behind. And their request is to have
053some kind of tutoring sessions in possibly each of the individual schools that we have. um and yeah that was it thank you director khan so um was the job fair is that the the event that's happening on november 20th that's being organized through community ed um i did not get the date okay sorry yeah yeah um so i know that there's one coming up here on november 20th at eisenhower from 10 to 1. and of course all community members are are invited to that so thank you very much My turn. Yeah. You're like, just go. Yes, so election day was great. I served as an election judge and got to see some of our former student board reps showing up to vote and bringing others to vote, which I was incredibly thrilled to see. very,
054very grateful for those who chose to put themselves up for election to serve our community, but in particular, the Hopkins School Board, and just very, very thrilled that we had a good turnout and that people voted, and we have some new colleagues to welcome, and Chair Bouchard will be. with us for another four years. So very excited about that. I was also really excited this weekend to attend the American Indian Round Dance celebration that was held at North Junior High. It was a powerful event. It started off with competitive singing and drumming. And there were a lot of competitors in it. Even I think the youngest person competing looked to be around six or seven. And that involved drumming as well as singing. And then they moved into the round dancing and everyone was invited
055to be part of that celebration. The American Indian Movement hosted the event and provided most of the resources needed to have such a large... event at our school and the Indian Health Board was there with lots of information and a table. Meal was served and attendance was, I thought, pretty good. So yeah, I'm very, very grateful to Jessica Glidden for bringing something like that to our community. It was... Again, a very powerful and moving experience. I have never been to a round dance celebration before, so it was really powerful. And then I also got to go to the Mentoring the Mentor webinar through MSBA. the day after I agreed to be a mentor. I was like, oh, how fortuitous. And so one of the things that they mentioned as being part of that is attending
056along with your mentee the phase one and two training workshop. So looking into that, because I mentioned one of the things that Director Coole, you brought up that they can say a lot of things in general, but then if you're there as the mentor, you can say, well, in Hopkins, we do X, Y, and Z. So it was informative and that's it. Thank you so much. got one addendum to my report. No, you already went. All right. I just wanted to point out that besides school board races, elections on November 2nd, there were 65 school districts in Minnesota that had operating levies on their ballot. And this time around, 75% of them passed. That compares to like I think it was 51% in the last election passed So it was a great day of support
057for shown for school districts across the state No, that was a very important addendum. I'm glad that you That you added it. Hey, well for my board member report. I just have a message of thank you So thank you for reelecting me to the Hopkins School Board and for your continued trust in my leadership. As a community, we've been through a complex and difficult, edifying and transformative journey together over the past four years, especially as we've navigated the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and the ongoing impacts of systemic racism and oppression in our nation and right here in our community. As an educator and a school board member, being part of a team, creating innovative and deeply humanizing learning experiences, empowering students, eradicating entrenched disparities, and making structural changes to better serve our community is really...
058what I figured out it's what gets me out of bed in the morning and it is my why. So to be able to do this work in the community where I was raised in partnership with all of you has truly been the honor of a lifetime. I ran again because I know that we have so much more work to do and I have so much more to learn about how to do it right here in this time and place. I'm grateful every day for the opportunity to serve alongside these dedicated and insightful board colleagues who are also pretty fun. Our phenomenal superintendent and staff here in Hopkins. really beyond excited to welcome Jason Ross and Rachel Hartland into this collective work and to build a board culture with them. So my deepest thanks. And with
059that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to adjourn. Any discussion? Seeing none, all in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. This meeting of the Hopkins School Board is adjourned at 8.04 p.m. Thank you.