April 27th meeting of the Hopkins School Board

001Okay, let's get started. This meeting of the Hopkins School Board is called to order at 7.07 p.m. I am Chair Jen Bouchard, and I'd like to welcome all of our community members joining us via the YouTube live stream, as well as our community members who are live and in person with us this evening. first agenda item is open agenda and while we're in this pandemic space we have two options for providing public comment to the school board one option is to leave a voicemail and the instructions for that are in the board packet for each meeting and of course the other option is to come before the board and and present a comment in person So this evening we received two voicemails and we'll play those first. The first voicemail is from Ben Carls. Hello,

002my name is Ben Carls and I'm a parent in the Alice Smith community. Dear members of the Hopkins School Board, Superintendent Mary Perry-Reed and listeners at large. I want to acknowledge the amount of work it takes to manage a school district in the midst of our dual pandemics of COVID-19 and systemic racism, especially regarding the discussion around access and equity to gifted and talented services and activities, access to which has been largely held by and centered on white privilege and people and white ideas of what it means to be gifted. This is a complex work with many moving pieces that many of our community members, even those in education, do not fully understand. In recent discussions on our Parents for Hopkins Public Schools Facebook page concerning changes to the models for delivery of talent enrichment

003and development, there has been much pearl-clutching, much fear-mongering, and much disinformation shared. Responses have been centered on selfish needs and not on larger communities. And while it's understandable that all parents want what's best for their individual scholars, the blatant whiteness and hypocrisy of even our most well-intentioned responses needs to be addressed. And it has been. Vision 2031 and the equitable access and innovative ideas are what drew us to the Hopkins School District and keep us there while our white neighbors in Edina pushed for us to open and enroll, as they did to Edina. No thank you. I did not need to expose my family to that entrenched vast white privilege and supremacy that is Edina Public Schools. My children and all of our children deserve better, and that's what Dr. Mary Peary-Reed's thoughtful, substantive, and

004clear response to the open letter on the Facebook page is. A vision of better educators. and providing better education. I support her vision and work 100% as both a parent of non-white scholars, as an educator myself, and as a community member invested in the future of Hopkins Public Schools. I have faith that every teacher and leader in our district is gifted and talented themselves and can do the work. We know differentiation is real and works well, and we know that our scholars who have advanced needs will be met, as they always have been. It'll just look different than what we grew up with, as it should. Instead of the pull-out model benefiting some, the push-in model benefits all, and the vision of inquiry-based, social-emotional learning, and personalized instruction truly is the best practice. It decenters

005the idea of what it means to be gifted and who qualifies for these services by expanding, not limiting access. It challenges the idea of being smart. as being good at doing school. A system deeply entrenched in whiteness and white ideas of what it means to be smart. These ideas are damaging and harmful even to our white scholars and I applaud the district for taking actively anti-racist measures to address the decades of damage these programs and all of our public schools across the nation have done to our scholars of color. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Carls and our next voicemail is from Ellie Kretz. Hi my name is Ellie Kretz. I'm the mom of a Xing Xing kindergartner doing distance learning this year. I'd like to comment on the new development model, the talent development model.

006Apologies for not being in there in person. We are about one month away from being fully vaccinated. I'm calling to support the new model and happy that the district is using a research-based approach to test new methods for our students. I personally have worked for two Fortune 500 companies over the last 20 years or so, and we need employees in corporate America and in the workforce who can critically think and solve problems that are different from anything we've seen before. We need employees who are adaptable, work hard, and handle challenges with social and emotional intelligence. The problems we deal with cannot be taught or anticipated, but we need people who rise to the challenge and have a solid knowledge base to solve these problems. We need people prepared to solve our next generation problems, which

007quite frankly, we don't even know what the problems will be in 20 years. For me personally, I attended a small rural elementary, middle, and high school 30 years ago with a model very similar to the one we are currently doing in Hopkins. We pulled kids out, identified them as gifted and talented, and then put them back in the classroom. As Dr. Mary Puri-Reed stated, I was considered high achieving because I quickly memorized because I learned that that was a key to success. If I was able to memorize, I was able to get good grades. But in no way was I or am I gifted. It was a remarkably inequitable system that labeled kids as either gifted or non-gifted at a very young age, when really the goal should be teaching our kids how to problem-solve

008and critically think. Many of us have spent the past several years questioning why our fellow citizens can't read data and facts and make decisions. Many of us have said that we need to start teaching critical thinking in schools so that when these students become adults, they're able to... to discern what is fact and what is opinion. Now the district is trying, it does sadden me that people are upset. I realize that change is hard, but it sure seems like we should be able to modify learnings and teachings that we did 30 years ago in order to be more effective and more equitable. Thank you for your time. Be safe and be well. Thank you, Ms. Kratz. We also have two community members who are here in person to give public comments. So first, I'd like

009to welcome Jennifer Cameron to the table. Hi, school board and community at large. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you. I wrote down a few things to make sure that I clearly communicate what I have to say because I feel passionate about this particular subject, which I'm sure is no secret. I know that these issues are complex and I feel really passionately about the support that our educators have from the district and also from the school board. I believe that our teachers know better than I or frankly anyone here what it takes to be successful at their jobs and when a teacher historically has asked me for help or resources my only answer to them has ever been yes I don't seek to find them a better tool I don't make

010suggestions on how they can better reach their goals I don't ask them to ask someone else And so I was asked to start a petition on behalf of staff, students, and parents in the Hopkins District. I will share that with you when your meeting is done. I'm also sharing it with our legislature because I fully acknowledge that many of our issues stem from the fact that our schools are not adequately funded. But I do recognize that there is a conflation of these two issues between budget decisions and a changing learning model. The staff across the district, in fact, 102 of the 177 signatures that I have are staff on this petition. They have really expressed to me directly that they're frustrated with how little support that they get from the district and how mired in

011language that the communication is that comes to them. Most certainly there are systemic issues that contribute to the challenges that we face, but I really believe that we can't ask our teachers to solve all of society's issues. We look to them to provide all the solutions for these complex social issues that we have from hunger, where schools can send home food, to behavior issues, where we provide counselors, to hugs, all of the stuff that we ask for our teachers to do that are above and beyond teaching math. I personally actually think a school-wide enrichment model is a fantastic idea. I love the idea that all children will have access to our really highly capable and trained gifted and talented educators. I believe in our teachers. I think personalized math instruction Sounds amazing. The models that

012we're seeking to imitate are rich and they can be really rewarding. And the data does show that they can be successful. I had a conversation with a parent who had a very rewarding experience at a Hopkins school, specifically as it relates to personalized math instruction, working in conjunction with the gifted and talented model. But given the state of affairs and the wide gap of achievement in the classroom, I really believe that our administration needs to listen to our educators when they say they cannot provide this level of differentiation inside the classroom without help. I really believe that the district knows that. parents react adversely to a PR campaign without concrete information about how these things are going to be executed. And so if the teachers had come to parents and said, the district has this

013great idea, we love it, they've given us support, they've engaged us in the development of this model, we're receiving the resources that we need to execute, then I think parents would be right on board. I think those changes wouldn't present such a scary a scary change. But they didn't say that to me or our community. They said there aren't resources and they said they weren't engaged in this and that they have as much or more trepidation about how to execute these models as we do or I do. So when I look about what the school-wide enrichment model has to offer from field trips to imagination fairs to outdoor immersive experiences, I'd like to just point out that these activities have not historically been funded by the district or our state for that matter. Field trips,

014imagination fairs, all of this is funded. by PTOs or by grants that get written and I don't hear ideas or funding resources coming to provide these really rich experiences. This super cool Gatewood greenhouse was not provided by the district. It was provided by a grant outside the district. you know, science clubs, art supplies, cool instruments for the music class, all of these cool STEM outside the box incredible things that will create a school-wide enrichment model have not been provided by the district. They have been provided by parents or PTOs or grants outside of our regular school funding. NEVER BY OUR DISTRICT OR OUR LEGISLATURE. SO As I have had these conversations, I really have learned more about how the district works and about how funding works and about how paras are traditionally let go at

015the end of a contract and then rehired again at the beginning of a year. And I've learned a lot about the legislative process. I've gone to these legislative action committees and listened to things at the state and Senate. debates. So I'm learning a lot about how this happens and I understand that some of the onus does not fall on board members or administrators. And I do believe that even people who disagree with me, I think we all want the same things for our kids. I think we just want them to have a rich, rewarding, diverse experience that prepares them for life after. Hopkins schools. But I want to follow the lead of our teachers. I believe that they know what's best, not admin teams, not politicians, not these top-down ideas that you know don't come

016from within the four walls of our elementary schools or in our case. the round walls of our elementary schools. I'm eager to hear from teachers and staff in our district that feel they are supported, that feel they have resources and tools to meet these new challenges. And if we can hear from them that they say, we've got this, we love this, we can make this happen, we can make this work. then I'm all in on that. But I'm just not hearing that. And so I really want to impress upon you that I'd love to see evidence that the teachers are actually being engaged in this and I have not seen that yet. I know that there's task forces and leaders on special assignments, but I'm talking about the teachers who are in the classroom, who

017are working with second graders and how they can address the needs of all 32nd grade kids performing at all different levels in the classroom and be able to successfully meet each of those kids where they are and address their challenges and keep them focused and keep them moving forward and lift up the ones who have fallen behind because of this craziness that we've been in for the last 18 months. So I think what I'd like, if there's anything that you can take away from what I'm saying. is that we have an incredible resource in our buildings. The Hopkins teachers are amazing. I know that there's things being done at Alice Smith, for example, that are these blended classrooms and can show how a gifted and talented kid who was otherwise maybe receiving GT services in

018this model as we expected to see it. are experiencing something even more rich and even more rewarding and are not losing momentum in their learning. And we need to hear from them to show us how this works and not from the top that can't give us these concrete examples of how this works. Thank you very much, Ms. Cameron. Next, I'd like to welcome Sam Black to the table. Good evening. Thank you very much. My name is Sam Black. I live in Minnetonka. I appreciate your time. I also am, I guess, aware of the firestorm I sort of caused with the Facebook post this week, and I appreciate that open forum of discussion and that I'm allowed to come in here and at least make a statement a little bit along those lines. I listened to

019the workshop presentation that was about 15 minutes ago on the changes that you're planning to the math curriculum and how it's taught in elementary schools and that is I feel like it's a surprise to parents I know I saw the timeline of how it's been supposedly been planned for four years but it didn't see much discussion in there about parents and maybe we don't know much about how to teach math or how to reach the same goals but to me it was a little bit of a surprise and I really want to be open-minded. I really want to be open-minded that it could work and it may be the greatest thing since sliced bread but it seems pretty radical to me and I'm sure I'm not the only person just radical to be making changes

020to specifically to how math is taught, but frankly to just the whole independent learning model for kids. I don't, frankly, I think teachers are really valuable and I don't think that algorithms and laptops are the things that we should be relying on to help our kids know which direction to learn. And I get nervous about that. The idea of personalized math sounds really great. The way it was described against the... current model of accelerated math was a little a little unfair the way it seemed it sounds perfect if there was 30 teachers to teach 30 kids but the model that was was shown on the screen showed three adults in the room and and a lot of little groups and pods that was interesting first time i'd seen that as well um it has potential

021but again it seems pretty radical to do um I'll get back to that in one second. I have one question, a group of questions, and one request. But I briefly want to address the white privilege comment that we heard as a group on the voicemail. I just think that everyone and every parent has the right and the responsibility to stand up and fight for what they think is best for their kid. And I'm offended that that... somehow paints me as a bigot or a person who doesn't care about other people. And that really frustrates me. And I came up here at the risk of looking like that. Okay. So please understand that. My questions that I want the board to really consider is what outcomes are you looking for with the new math system? Because

022I haven't, I'm not aware of what the outcomes are that you're seeking. Is it better test scores? Is it... what kind of test scores is it test scores at the top level and the bottom level is it sat test scores when they're in high school or is it map tests what are you looking for or is it based upon how many kids are able to qualify for seventh grade advanced algebra right and by the time they're done with elementary school what are the metrics you're looking for right and i didn't hear any of that i just hear uh sort of a lot of education gobbledygook um and not real firm numbers um number one request oh and as well the other number i'm nervous about is what this is going to do for enrollment i

023really am concerned about how the greater community perceives these sort of changes because it will feel like opportunities are being taken away and some students and families will open enroll or be directed or pushed to enroll open enroll or go to private schools and i think that there's something you might want to track with this metric in mind my last request is this is this is this is as selfish as it gets but my 10 year old daughter told me recently she her name is ivy she has dyslexia and a 504 plan but she is whip smart at math And she had told me recently that she wants to be an astronaut when she grows up, right? And so naturally, I'm fighting like mad to make sure that she doesn't lose opportunities and doesn't feel

024like the program that she worked her butt off to be a part of during this whole pandemic year evaporates in front of her face and that she's no longer in the advanced math class. So my begging to you is if you're going to make a radical change like this, consider... adding it for the younger grades and then gradually moving it up to the older grades because it will feel like something's taking away from my child this next year and it will be hard for me and if you have an expert reason excuse and an explanation that you can give to a fourth grader please do because i'm not able or confident to explain that to her so help my kid reach for the stars keep it and see if you can grandfather it in for

025the next next two years thank you very much thank you mr black So thank you to all four of our public commenters this evening. It is not the practice of this board to respond right away. But please rest assured that a district representative will follow up with you within two business days. And, you know, I confidently speak for my board colleagues when I say that community input is really crucial. um for us to to operationalize vision 2031 in a way that meets all of our scholars needs and so um i really appreciate um what ended up being a bit of a discourse right the way that the comments came in um this evening all right chair bouchard yes I just had a quick clarifying question. When you were playing back the messages, the public comments

026that were the voicemails, the screen that was shown showed that there was something like 4,197 public comments. i'm hoping that someone can clarify and that there really were only two messages and we didn't just pick the two we wanted to play out of 4197. you saw the extension number not the number of public comment okay great thank you i just wanted to make sure thank you thank you vice chair andre's wow I don't think we'll ever be that popular. One can only hope. Excellent. Let's move into our reports. We'll start with our student board representatives reports, and I will turn it over to our cohort coordinator, Elliot Berman. And I will toss it to our sophomore cohort coordinator, Bella McCoy. So I'm Isabella McCoy and I'm the 10th grade cohort coordinator. Many students are partaking

027in after school sports and clubs. I hear many positive reports about sports and how students love practice. Many students are also currently preparing for AP exams in May, myself included. This is a tedious process, but teachers are offering lots of resources to help everyone prepare. We are in the fourth term, which means we are nearing the end of this school year. On Monday 4-19, there was a statewide walkout hosted by Minnesota teen activists for the death of Daunte Wright and many others from police brutality. The walkout was 47 minutes, and there were four minutes of silence at the end. This walkout was something many students found to be important, and I'm very glad to say our school participated in it. It is important we take time to recognize and remember the people of color we

028have lost to police brutality. I know lots of students, including myself, care a lot about this issue, and I think this is another opportunity to remind Hopkins we need to continuously focus on being all-inclusive and making sure people of color feel safe at Hopkins. The anti-racism discussions Hopkins have are something very important and I'm glad that resource is there for students. Thank you. Thank you, Isabella. I saw Angel on here earlier. Um, but do not see. Now, and I will go with my report. So, hi, my name is Elliot Berman senior cohort coordinator. As, as I said, we are approaching the end of our school year for senior specifically. This is the week that everybody's making their decisions about what. the next year, next four years might look like for them. So if you want

029to follow the HHS Decision Day Instagram, they are posting different things about what each senior is doing next year and the next four years. It's a really cool thing to go check out. Tomorrow, Girls United, a club leaded by my fellow up here, Linda Miyakundi, they are hosting in school the Denim Day, which is what the purpose of supporting survivors of sexual assault and educating people about all forms of sexual violence along with that the school has been doing some very uh eye-opening and forward-thinking with April as sexual assault month. One thing that I want to point out, which is really cool and really neat thing to see, is a wall of survivors. So the opportunity to give visibility to people who've experienced similar acts of violence in the past and kind of connect and

030know that you're not alone and you're supported by your community. So it's very nice to see that welcomed in our high school. the support for it all. Spring sports are back in session. These sports haven't been in session since spring 2019. These students are beyond happy to be back on the field, in the pool, on the track, doing their thing. And it's been a really big booster for seniors and juniors who got to miss out or had to miss out on a lot of that last year and fall sports this year with football not being attended by students. So those super fans are out there at the baseball games cheering everybody on. And it's really bringing that momentum back to the... community spirit back to a Hopkins student. So everybody's very thankful for that and

031happy that things are getting somewhat back to normal. Elliot, I saw Angel join the call. Angel, do you have a report or you just want to say hi? Yeah, sorry. I'm currently in my car on my way home. Extra corrective activities going on. So currently on the road at the moment. Sorry about that to everyone. No problem. Please drive safely, Angel. And it's good to hear your voice. Yeah, it's good to see you guys. Thank you, Isabella and Elliot, for your reports. Really good to be in community with you tonight and wondering if any of my board colleagues have questions or comments. Okay. I'm sorry. Yeah, Isabella and Elliot, you as well. Thanks for mentioning the walkout at the high school. I was, and thank you, Dr. Mary Perry-Reed for your support of our students

032in that effort. I'm curious, how many students participated? Was it most of the kids in the school? Or can you share a little bit about the participation in that? Yeah, I can share a little bit about it. Unfortunately, I actually was not there. I was at home, but I actually heard all about it from all of my friends, including my sister, who's also she goes to North Junior High. And something that I was really happy to hear about was that like seventh graders, there was tons of seventh graders who spoke, who shared their voices and opinions on it. And I thought that was so amazing to see that like. our younger generation was really standing up for what they believe in. I think that was something really cool to see. And I was like so

033happy to hear that my sister had participated and she knew a lot of people who were speaking there. I think we definitely had a really good turnout rate. I definitely saw some videos on social media of a lot of students. A lot of people I knew were there. And hundreds of schools had participated across Minnesota. So I think that was something really great to see. Yeah, it was a really good thing. It was kind of set up and put together by the high school and some student groups, but it was really led by some junior high groups, especially a North junior high group, which I think was the coolest thing to see. They definitely have the passion and the... The need to change Hopkins, and it's some familiar faces that I've seen before and I'm

034really excited to see what they bring to the table in the coming years when they have chances to be in positions like on the school board rec program or on one of the other many committees that we have. So really good turnout. I know a couple board members, the superintendent was there. I don't know if there'll be video tonight, but. there was some video captured of the of the session or of the of the walkout um and it's being put together uh for a larger audience thank you both any other questions or comments from my board colleagues with that i'll turn it over to dr mary perry reed for the superintendent's report Thank you so much, Chair Bouchard, and thank you to our student scholars, our board reps, for presenting this evening. The student-led protest

035really was remarkable. One of the things that really struck me was, and to answer your question, Director Peterson, there were between 400 and 500 students seated in the stadium seating in the field, and what was... truly amazing is there was a four minute moment of silence during which all of the scholars were completely silent. It was magical. And then the talks and the open mic session and the support that scholars were giving each other was really like earth shattering. I thought it was beautiful. The principals were there and also spoke to their scholars and the whole thing was really great. So I look forward to those videos. Elliot, are you putting them together? Yes, I am arranging them. Nice. Okay. Well, wonderful. So normally I have some slides to share, but this evening I just

036wanted to speak directly with board members and our community members in attendance without slides. I'd like to talk a little bit about leadership and empathy. Every Tuesday morning, I meet with our nine cabinet members who are the system leaders for Hopkins and also provide leadership to the major departments in our district. These are the leaders who help me report critical items to the school board and to our community. And this year, there has been an enormous... amount of work leading our district through the dual pandemics and I'm so grateful for the cabinet team. I'm grateful for our principals who also lead very thoughtfully and I'm also extremely appreciative of our staff, our scholars, our families, many of whom you know just like our visitors who are with us this evening and virtually in the space

037do so much to partner with us. participating in this, what really has been a collective experience of teaching and learning and surviving and thriving even during this difficult year. And because leadership matters, we take our cabinet sessions very seriously. We engage, we study, we reflect, and we often change course when feedback suggests that we do so. We try as frequently as possible to start our meetings by getting grounded in our collective why. Why do we do this work? How will we demonstrate our core values? What do we believe about high quality service to our scholars? And in what ways do we provide best practice leadership? And this morning, before we arrived at our lengthy, more technical agenda, what about empathy? whether and how we demonstrate it especially when our schedules become super crazy busy So

038we discussed how we might build empathy as our key cornerstone of who we are and what we do in Hopkins and this conversation was informed by an interview that I listened to an MPR about a medical professional who teaches doctors how to call up and demonstrate empathy for patients not just because it's critical for patients. to see and feel empathy from their doctors, but also because having and demonstrating compassion and empathy for others is something that mitigates burnout. And so I immediately thought about teaching and learning and leading teaching and learning and how relevant teaching empathy to those who have medical patients. is as important as us cultivating empathy here in Hopkins, empathy for our teachers who have been through so much, empathy for our students, for our families. And not only did our Hopkins

039stakeholders back in 2017-18 tell us that empathy is a critical trait that we need to cultivate in our scholars, as cabinet leaders, we believe it's an important trait. to show up across our entire organization. It's vital for our health and wellness work, and it has to be part of our strategy in becoming an anti-racist institution. So lots of deep thoughts about empathy and how we might build it throughout the Hopkins School District. Secondly, with empathy in mind, I want to acknowledge the difficult week that Plymouth Middle School students, staff, and families are surely having as they navigate the aftermath of a young person bringing and discharging a gun at school. And it is with empathy that we think about that student and his family, and it is with empathy that we consider everything the school.

040and the district community is going through right now. In Hopkins, we do have a safety and security committee that will meet to review our own safety protocols and security measures as we center student safety. And finally, with empathy in mind, I want to thank the parents and members of our community who have been incredibly engaged in the last two to three weeks via email communication, voicemails, and even quite a bit of social media dialogue. parents and community members have communicated both support and concern about the quality of our district communication regarding Dante Wright's death and student-led protests. We have also received positive support and constructive feedback around some of the evolutions in our elementary programming which we described. earlier this evening during the board workshop and often it's it can be difficult for us to

041to navigate just the sheer amount of community dialogue and questions. But we work really hard to provide a thumbs up to what's accurate and we also work hard to dispel misinformation or shift the narrative so that it's accurate and productive. But overall, I really want our community to know that we value the parent engagement. even and especially when it pushes our thinking and we do lean into being accountable to our stakeholders Because as a couple of our speakers mentioned earlier, what we all share or have in common is a love for our scholars and a desire to serve each of them at the highest quality level. I'm personally very excited about the work we are doing in Hopkins to cultivate the type of scholar who will graduate, whether it's in class of 21 or in

042three or in five or in 13 years. to be able to successfully navigate the complexity that we know this world will offer and bring to our scholars. So thanks for the opportunity to share with you this evening. And I would entertain any questions. Thank you, Dr. Mary Piri-Reed. Any questions or comments from my board colleagues? i appreciate the time you took with empathy to to address some of the the major conversations and themes that have been coming up in our community over the past three weeks so thank you for that director cool i saw you on mute yeah i was going to kind of echo what you were saying and also Chair Burchard, you had mentioned that there would be a reach back out to those individuals that made a comment. Can you give just

043a little bit of what that looks like? Yeah, absolutely. So it typically depends, you know, on the nature of the comment, if there were specific questions that were addressed to the board and members of the administration. um we work together to provide you know specific answers to those um certainly an acknowledgement of the concerns and any additional information that can be provided um that's helpful you know to move the conversation forward and put us into a place where we're all working together for for the betterment of our district anything to add to that dr mary perry reed No, I think you're right on, Chair Bouchard, and thank you for the question, Director Kuhl. Somebody on our team will get back to Ms. Cameron and Mr. Black and also... to connect with the two individuals, Mr.

044Carls and Ms. Kretz, who left voicemails. So really appreciate everyone's input. And we think it's important to acknowledge the input, but also to answer any specific questions. For example, one question. that i typed out was what outcomes are we looking for in our new math model so we need to you know of course we're thinking through those but we need to make them plain to our stakeholders as well thank you any other board member questions or comments with that i would look for a motion to approve the agenda so moved i have a motion is there a second second i have a motion in a second to approve the agenda any discussion Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Director Adams. Aye. Director Ahmed. Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Kuhl.

045Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Next, I would look for a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. I have several motions. Is there a second? I'll second that. I have a motion and a second to approve the consent calendar. Any discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson? Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Director Adams? Aye. Director Ahmed? Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen? Aye. Director Kahn? Aye. Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Next, we'll move to the Treasurer's Report. And Director Adams, I'm glad you're with us this evening because when technology failed us last time and I had to do an emergency Treasurer's Report, I received quite a

046bit of feedback that mine was subpar. So I'm going to turn it over to you for a legitimate Treasurer's Report. I'm sorry I didn't go back and review it. Sounds like it might have been entertaining. Yeah, this is typical for the middle of the month report. We've got the enrollment figures. And in March, our enrollment increased by 11 students. I'm sorry. Yeah, in March, it increased by 11 students. I got this wrong. It was April. THE APRIL ENROLLMENT REPORT. WE INCREASED BY 11 STUDENTS SINCE MARCH. AND 10 OF THOSE WERE IN GRADES 1 THROUGH 7. SO IT HAPPENED PRIMARILY AT THE LOWER GRADES. WE'RE 11 AHEAD OF OUR INITIAL HEAD COUNT AS OF OCTOBER 1ST. BUT WE'RE STILL AT 102 STUDENTS LESS THAN WE BUDGETED FOR THIS YEAR. SO WE'RE experiencing what every district in

047the state seems to be experiencing which is a reduction in enrollment due to COVID. On the expense side we're 75 percent through the fiscal year. Expenses are running at 63 percent compared to 67 percent at this time last year so we're doing a good job on holding down expenses. Expenses of note include nearly 20, well, 26,254 ClassLink annual software renewal. I'm not exactly sure what ClassLink does. I think it's a way to consolidate login IDs for various applications. There's $96.50 for the Million Meal t-shirts for the drivers. We have been, throughout the pandemic, been providing free meals to students and their families throughout the district. And some of those have been delivered. Most of those are picked up at the schools, but some of those have been delivered by some of our school bus drivers

048in the district. So we're thankful to them. And we've passed the million meal. Mark, I think it was about middle of March. So we were celebrating that. And then just as an example of how we... show our dedication to our students. There was a $4.80 reimbursement to a staff member who mailed supplies for distance learning to one of our distance learning students. So we're very concerned, obviously, about all of our students, even those that are doing distance learning. So with that, I move that we... approve total disbursements in the amount of $2,551,054.76 for the period March 30, 2021 through April 12, 2021. I have a motion to approve the Treasurer's Report. Is there a second? I'll second. I have a motion and a second to approve the Treasurer's Report. Any discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson.

049Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Director Adams? Aye. Director Ahmed? Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen? Aye. Director Kahn? Aye. Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson, aye, and Chair Bouchard. Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Next, we will move into new business, and we have some policies to discuss this evening, so I will turn it over to Vice Chair Andreessen. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. I appreciate all the work that has been done on these policies. with the monitoring committee, which is made up of Director Kuhl and Director Peterson, as well as Assistant Superintendent Nick Lightfoot. Just wanted to create a little bit of context around these policies. The first is Policy 102, Equal Education Opportunity. And we have been working on that in talking about it in the broader context of other policies

050that we have on the books that dovetail nicely into providing additional clarification around issues that are important to our scholars and also to our staff and wider community. And so with that being said, our other policy that we will be reviewing tonight is our gender inclusion policy, which is one of those that we identified that will help clarify and provide additional information around for our Hopkins Public Schools community. And with that, I invite Assistant Superintendent Nick Lightfoot to give us more details around these policies. Certainly. Thank you. It's good to be with you this evening. We have two policies that are in front of the board in first read. The first is Policy 102, which is our equal education opportunity policy. You will note that the monitoring committee did review this policy and made specific

051changes in Section 2A, specifically to involve our work more deeply in authentic inclusivity. So you will see the addition of additional class status for consideration in paragraph 2a. That was really the majority of conversation that we focused on as a monitoring committee. Otherwise, no specific changes were fully identified for policy 102. I would invite any other monitoring committee members to speak say anything more fully and would be available to the board for any additional questions related to policy 102. just a quick comment that i'm fully supportive of the the inclusion of the more specific language especially right there at the beginning i think that it makes the policy much more powerful and able to do what what the intent is so i appreciated that inclusion Any additional board member comments or questions about policy 102?

052Looks like we can move ahead. Great. Next policy is the gender inclusion policy, as was discussed in the workshop. An incredible amount of energy, insight, input has gone into this to be in front of you in its first read. There have been some additional pieces of information that were brought forward in the workshop just to outline for the full board in the conversation. We will adjust, of course, the Roman numerals to reflect each of the paragraphs correctly. So we'll make sure we get that editorial item taken care of. There were a couple other items that were of note. Specifically, the one that we wanted to pay full attention to was the section on privacy and that we would look toward the more broadly inclusive term of gender versus what our original language stated as transgender

053to be more fully inclusive in the paragraph on privacy. So that was the change that was recommended. That has been tentatively put into the language, of course, pending approval in first read. We would certainly make that change to the policy and are certainly open for any further discussion or insight or further clarification that we're able to provide for members of the board at this time. Thank you. I just wanted to provide a little bit of context for our community that perhaps was not part of the workshop, in that the work on this policy specifically began two years ago and involved work with staff, administration, board member, Chair Bouchard, and in particular, I think the the most important input was from our scholars across the district at our high school our junior highs and then the

054work this year has been led by students involved in our school boards equity and inclusion student advisory they have worked really hard given us lots of concrete input on this specific draft and how we could make it better and how that a policy like this can have real and direct impact on student experience in Hopkins public schools. Thank you, Vice Chair Andreessen. Just to add a bit to that framing, I had a lot to prepare for the meeting tonight, and so I didn't do something that I really wanted to do, and it was to get permission to name some names of staff and scholars in our district who are really instrumental in creating the first draft of this policy in 2019. And so because I didn't get your permission, I'm not going to speak your

055names at a public meeting, but you know who you are. And so thinking about our GSA advisors at the junior highs and the high school, the scholars who are involved in those groups, we spent hours together in conversation and our transgender student group at the high school in 2019. And it is really exciting and in some ways, Long overdue and I don't want that to to come off as a criticism because I think that we've done some really important work between 2019 and now and I also know that there are scholars and families across our system who have been waiting for this policy and So the fact that we're at this point tonight in so many ways for those of us who connect to this policy in deeply personal ways um feels like a relief

056and i have said this many times especially when we're talking about our board goals that we gave our policy and monitoring committee such a heavy lift when we wrote those board goals and that this was one of the components that reflects our our board goals and so just really deep appreciation to our policy and monitoring committee for that work this this Policy is important for me first and foremost because it reflects the values of our Hopkins Schools community as articulated in Vision 2031. And it also aligns with the Minnesota Human Rights Act. And, you know, for our community members who are not as familiar with our policy process, we vet our policies through our district legal team, you know, to make sure that they are aligned with the latest legal qualifications and guidance, you know,

057regarding, in this case, gender. I guess it would be, I think, helpful to our community, too, just to provide a little context around process. I'm, like, inhaling my mask, so I apologize. I'm not my most articulate at this moment. our so our policy and monitoring committee work really hard um to bring these these fully fleshed out policies before the board and for a policy like this where we know though there will probably be some robust discussion we bring it to the board during a workshop which we did this evening and tonight we'll vote on it in first reading And then we'll vote on it at our next meeting and second reading where it will appear on the consent calendar. So between this first reading vote and the second reading vote, our policy and monitoring committee

058has designed a community engagement opportunity. So for folks who are listening tonight and who are throughout our community who would like to give input on this particular policy. Vice Chair Andreessen, I'm wondering if you could share a bit about that with our community right now. Absolutely. It's modeled after the budget engagement sessions that were previously put on by the district and the school board. So we will be live streaming. There will be board members from the monitoring committee on the Google Meet as well as staff and administration who can help guide the discussion. You can submit your feedback, questions, comments on a Google form and they will all be responded to. They may not all be shared out publicly in the response. So it is on Thursday, April 29th at 5 p.m. And you will

059be able to access that via our website, Hopkins Schools. It was also sent out through principal newsletters, so people are aware of when and how they can engage with the board around this topic. Thank you very much for providing that information. I think it's really important for the board to be able to do that before we do the final. So any other comments or questions from your colleagues? Okay. So with that, I would look for a motion that the board approve policy 102 and gender inclusion and first reading and direct the administration to prepare the policies with suggested revisions for approval and second reading at the next meeting as part of consent. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the aforementioned policies

060with suggested revisions for approval and second reading as part of consent. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Director Adams. Aye. Director Ahmed. Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Next, we will move to our resolution specifying personnel to be terminated or placed on unrequested leave, and I'll turn it over to Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. Thank you so much, Chair Bouchard. As I mentioned in my earlier update, how challenging this year has been, I would like to explicitly talk about how our staff in Hopkins have responded to the difficult conditions and circumstances brought on by the pandemic. And as such, the idea of losing any staff at all due

061to budget constraints or program shifts is very difficult. idea. Our staff in Hopkins are truly like no other. They have consistently, they consistently rise to the occasion. They have demonstrated flexibility and patience and courage and very high levels of stamina and resilience this entire year. And although There have been health concerns too numerous to count. Our staff have set aside personal needs in order to be there for our students, and we appreciate this very much. I want our community to know that we have spent many hours every week for the last few months to work through our budget and to seize every possible opportunity to be thoughtful and intentional, not just about how to minimize. staff reductions, but also how we will communicate clearly and with transparency. Because our enrollment drives revenue, we are in

062a place at this time where our budget next year will not support our current level of staffing, and this is a pretty terrible reality that many districts are facing this spring, thus school boards. have the unfavorable task of approving staffing reductions. We are thankful that some of our ESSER funds are able to support positions that are ESSER allowable. However, we are mindful that this is one-time unsustainable and non-enrollment driven money. So with that framing and with this difficult agenda item facing the board, I would like to thank Dr. Lightfoot, our HR expert for helping our board and community understand tonight's staffing resolution. Thank you, Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. As has been stated, this is the difficult work that's ahead of us as administration and you as a board in aligning our fiscal resource with our available

063staff positions. The resolutions that are before you this evening are the next in the series of resolutions that are designed to walk through our fiscal resources, align the FTE. and then make sure that we provide notice to those individuals who are impacted by the decision this evening. So with that, there are specific resolutions tied to specific contracts and I'll walk through those with you this evening. The first is the determination and non-renewal of temporary teaching contracts. Temporary teaching contracts are those contracts that develop throughout the course of the year. Usually those are based on leaves of absence or other unanticipated staffing needs that might develop throughout the course of the year and they are designed for a temporary period of time. These contracts terminate based on that end date and as such the first resolution

064does remove those temporary teaching contracts for this year and that would be the first resolution that we would put in front of the board. I'm available for questions and after those questions we do need the roll call vote of the board to move this resolution forward. Any comments or questions from my board colleagues? Chair Bouchard. Director Adams. Yes. This is one of the unpleasant jobs of a school board member that we have to go through every year. And I can feel how personal it feels. My wife was an employee of the district for 42 years, and she had to go through this frequently, especially earlier in her career. It's always painful, but some of those people do get hired back. So be mindful of that. I would ask Dr. Lightfoot, do we vote on all

065resolutions as one or individually? Thank you, Director Adams. We do vote on them individually as separate resolutions. So we'll walk through all of those for this evening. And I'll outline each in a little bit more distinct detail as to the details that are associated with it specifically. Thank you. Chair for charge. Director. Dr. Lightfoot, I am wondering if you could just explain a little bit more with the contracts that these individuals receive at the beginning of their temp employment. Is it very clear that this is coming at the end of the year, or how is that communicated so that this is not a surprise, understanding that this is done every year? Thank you. Thank you Director Coole for the question. Yes as a limitation on the temporary contract that is specific that it is for

066the duration of this year and or a specific period of time. So for example sometimes contracts are developed for maternity leaves, other leaves of absence, specific periods of time and so those are discussed with the employee at the time of contract so that the individual knows the duration of the contract as well throughout the course of the year. If that's a little bit more helpful detail there. I'll start over. Just trying to get some clarification around this larger budgeting process that we go through as a district. The last The conversation that we had about this, I believe we were able to talk about more specifics around staffing and a number was given kind of an estimate of how many staff that we thought might not have their contracts renewed. And I'm just wondering if you

067could clarify. Is that what we're looking at right now? Has that number shifted? Is there a reason behind that that you could share with the board and the community? I will do my best. With each of these resolutions, there are different kind of layers of contracts as identified with this resolution. These are specifically tied, like I mentioned, to leads of absence or different kinds of circumstances that change throughout the course of these. So for example, temporary contracts, we have an individual who needed to go out on sometimes medical leaves or other kinds of components. They will return the next year, but these individuals who are there for that short period of time, the board has to take its action as well to end that contract. So while this temporary contract isn't necessarily tied to specific

068components of budget, It is generally tied more to leaves of absence and or specific needs that may have developed throughout the course of the year. In the next set of resolutions that are more of those probationary contracts, those contracts and the unrequested leave contracts are the two that will be more specifically tied to the budgetary components where we have more impact and the deeper impact because of the fiscal resource that we need to consider. Great. Thank you. I just wanted to make sure that we were all understanding where this was coming in in the budget discussions. Thank you. Any additional board member comments or questions on this first resolution? Okay. With that, I would look for a motion that the board adopt the resolution for the termination and non-renewal of temporary teacher contracts. So move.

069I have a motion. Is there a second? second i have a motion and a second that the board adopt the resolution for the termination and non-renewal of temporary teacher contracts any further discussion seeing none clerk and clerk peterson director adams director ahmed hi director andre oh vice chair andreason hi director khan Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. And I'll turn it back to you, Dr. Lightfoot. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. The next resolution is the probationary teaching contracts. These contracts are individuals that are directly impacted, as I mentioned before, either through budget, non-renewal. And as part of our actions here, we have done our diligence to look at the available funds. What Director Adams noted is an ongoing effort for

070us when we continually re-look at the changing landscapes and sets of circumstances. What we do know is throughout the course of the summer months and even prior to and up into the start of next school year, we have ever-changing sets of circumstances where we have individuals who, for whatever life reasons, may make different decisions. have different impacts in their own lives and teaching positions become available that aren't available right now and we're continually mindful of those individuals on the list and are ever mindful of any additional funds or opportunities that we can consider to bring individuals back so know that that is a continual work of our administration as we continue to monitor and adjust the staffing needs from now until the start of next school year But as it stands right now, we have

071done our work based on the previous resolutions to look at the available funding, the available level of positions that we have to staff at the present time. And that is the resolution that is here with our set of probationary teaching contracts. Just so people understand, these are individuals in their first... three years of employment with the district or are coming to us from another district where they might have had a continuing contract and this is their year of probation as part of those statutory requirements these individuals go through a different process than those individuals who we've offered a continuing contract and that continuing contract requires an unrequested leave of absence which i'll go through in the next resolution but this one is specific right now to the probationary contracts any board member questions or comments

072on this resolution director peterson um dr light can you help me understand um when we rescind a probationary contract but then perhaps re-hire once funds allow How does that affect that three-year period for that teacher? Does, is it, let's say next year, would that be year one then again? Do they start over or would that be considered year two for them? Okay. Thank you. Yeah, it's continuous. And we look at continuous service throughout the course of the three years. There's a statutory requirement that a year, quote unquote, is 120 days. So as long as it meets that 120 day term for that next level of contract, it's considered to be a continuous set of employment within a district. And that counts for those three years. Thank you. Any additional board member comments or questions on

073this resolution? I'd like to briefly just join in Director Adams' expression of empathy that he gave during our conversation about the first resolution. As I was preparing for tonight, I saw myself in each one of these resolutions at some point during my 20-year teaching career, both in K-12 and as a faculty member. I'm still technically, after 11 years at the same institution, an adjunct. And so this is something that I experience every year. And so I'm right now, as we're voting on it, experiencing a very high level of empathy with the staff members who will be leaving our system and hopefully be able to be hired back at some point before next fall. Any additional comments or questions? Chair Bouchard? Yes, Director Kuhl. This is probably more in general. I'm not sure if this is

074for Dr. Mary Prairie-Reed or Dr. Lightfoot. But during our conversations a couple of months ago, we talked a lot about the predictable staffing model. and that of course has guided a lot of these decisions. And one of the questions that we discussed on and off during that discussion is kind of the review process that once we get into that and each school and principal has a chance to really review on how things are going and deciding if something may need to change or um have pressures or issues we talked that there will be a review process not necessarily to hire more people but to try to find better ways to you know run our budgets can you give us just a little bit of a reminder of what you are thinking about or planning for

075each of the principals to be doing as they review how this predictable staffing model actually executes at each of the schools. Thank you for the question, Director Kuhl. I think I understand it, so I could start, and then perhaps Director Chapinduka or Dr. Lightfoot can jump in. So our next step in this process is both budget and staffing oriented. So as you know, we are using a new digital platform called My Budget File that will help principals be able to interact in very immediate ways with their budgets, with their predictable staffing model, and with all of their discretionary dollars so that we can be super specific staff to staff. both salaried as well as hourly employees who is included in that staffing model and what adjustments need to be made. And so the next step

076is for principals to receive more detailed training on how to navigate and use MyBudgetFile, which is sort of like their budgeting tool, right? And it also helps them manage the staffing process with a great deal of certainty. So that's the most immediate next step. And then what needs to happen is as principals work through paraprofessional and clerical and other staffing adjustments or changes or assignments. Then we begin to get a very clear picture, school by school, who is doing, who's in what role, who is doing what, and how that's reflected in the budgeting platform, my budget file. So I think this is the review that you've, that you asked about. I'm not sure if I'm answering the question directly, but, you know, we meet with our principals literally every week. will continue that process but

077now in terms of like how some of the budgeting decisions have reflected in staffing decisions which then inform the way that programs will be shaped or developed or continued then you know principals will also be closely working with their teacher leadership teams so there are multiple ways that principals are going to be multiple methods principals are going to be exercising and just moving forward in this budgeting, staffing, programming process. I'm not sure if that helps, Director Coole. It does. I think you answered almost exactly what I was looking for. The only piece maybe that's missing for me is I'm assuming this review or this constant conversation that's going to be happening at the school level, that will be happening after the beginning of the school year next year, meaning while class is happening, so that

078they're constantly reviewing if there is challenges in the classroom. Would you mind restating the question? I think I'm not clearly understanding what you're asking. Sure, I will do my best. So a lot of the conversation, a lot of your answer I understood as being before the school year starts for next year. And my question is... where will the review process be after school starts to address any issues that may come about based on staffing. Is that a little clear? Oh, sure. Okay, I'll begin, and then, Nick, if you want to follow. Sorry, Dr. Lightfoot. So, yes, that's really clear. So because many of these systems are new, we probably won't have as many meetings next year as we did this year, but we will continue being in concert with our school leaders to... to do

079that review that you're referring to. Every spring we do go through a specific set of staffing exercises, but because these systems are new to us, we will begin those meetings much earlier in the year so that we're all growing our familiarity with MyBudgetFile so that we're all growing familiarity with how comfortably principals have staffed their programs and like you said what challenges or opportunities they are facing and sharing with each other and presenting to us so we can partner with them so we'll we'll just stay in constant communication and be really thoughtful about what that partnership and review looks like we're not gonna you know stop it on like the mid-June of this year and start up during spring or staffing season of next year no we'll we'll start right right right back up in

080the fall if that makes sense. Dr. Lightfoot, is there anything you'd want to add to that? The other item that I would draw attention to within the budget is that we do have a targeted staffing space where we do have funding available that is marked for us to consider with, for example, enrollment fluctuations, other scheduling issues that may result. So we're in constant contact over the course of the summer as well right up until the start of the school year and making sure that we can adjust. and consider where resources can be placed based on additional information that happens from now literally until the start of next school year and as you identified director cole throughout the rest of the school year as well kind of bringing us circling back to some of those temporary

081contracts sometimes that are necessary as well thank you very much and i do apologize that my question was hard to understand i was working it out in my head sorry Any other board member questions or comments on this resolution? Okay, with that, I would look for a motion that the board adopt the resolution for the termination and non-renewal of probationary teacher contracts. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to adopt the resolution for the termination and non-renewal of probationary teacher contracts. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Director Adams? Aye. Director Ahmed? Aye. Vice Chair Andreessen? Aye. Director Kahn? Aye. Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes,

082zero nays. Motion carries. And I'll turn it back to you, Dr. Lightfoot. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. The last resolution that we have this evening is the proposed placement on unrequested leave of absence. As I noted before, there are different kinds of contracts that are afforded to individuals and after three years of probationary service in a specific public school district, an individual attains continuing contract status. and as an individual obtains continuing contract status, what we need to look at is a process called unrequested leave of absence, which means that while we have a placement on unrequested leave of absence, individuals that are placed on unrequested leave of absence have first right to positions that would open up into the future. So this is not per se a termination of a contract. It is a placement on

083an unrequested leave that extends for five years. So when we in Human Resources look at the placement, we know that individuals on this list are the first to recall to specific contractual language that we have. And when we look at these unrequested leave placements, these placements are because of the lack of funding or the lack of registrations, changes within programs, uncertainty to what the program will be able to deliver. And then once we have specific information regarding registrations, program information, or as I said before, one, two, even three years into the future where we may have different staffing needs. we have an obligation to consider this continuing contract. And so your vote this evening is a proposal for the placement on unrequested leave. Individuals are given a period of time based on a proposed placement

084to consider that, to ask the board to consider something different. And then what will come before you on May 18th is the final placement and that action would specifically place an individual. So the resolution tonight is the proposed placement. Then what we do is we communicate with those individuals. They have time to consider if they have any additional questions. It gives them another layer of due process for them to make sure that they have additional opportunity to ask specific questions that the administration responds to. And then after that, if needed, we will engage the board. And if no further question, then we will bring forward to you the list on the 18th of May for final placement. I know that gets to be a little bit complex. So I am more than happy to clarify

085if there are items that I explained that need further clarification for any board members. Dr. Lightfoot, I know that this third resolution has caught the eye of some of our community members who had questions about the Title I individuals who are on this list. And I'm wondering if you could clarify a bit more there. Sure, I'll do my best. For the title program, right now we're considering the available funding that's available and the program designs at each of our elementary buildings. and as those are continually in process right now and we aren't certain exactly where all of that staffing will follow, what the exact programming will look like and is that is still in flux right now since we do not know the exact specifics of that, we have the proposed placement. Once we do

086know the specifics of what that looks like, especially on the unrequested leave, we would do the recall. as quickly as we can once we have the specific funding available that we know we can sustain with title programming and once we know exactly what the hours would look like or the program components would look like we can certainly adjust once we have that specific information thank you that was helpful any additional board member comments or questions hi uh chair bouchard vice chair andreessen Thank you. I just had a quick question about the, you mentioned once we know where the funding is for specific areas, then we might be able to have some other, anyway, we'll have a better idea of what kind of resources we can have available. Is that dependent on the legislature right now?

087Is it Could you just give me a sense of why word flux? Yeah, I can. It's a combination of both. I think, as has been mentioned, it's a combination of what the sites are developing with their title plans. As part of their spring work, our sites are finalizing those title plans. They are looking at the available resources, how they are utilizing those available resources. They are in conversation with staff and as you're aware under the title legislation in part with their broader community. developing those. And so I do believe that there's additional information that will be forthcoming regarding those title programming opportunities as well to the board. So once those are finalized, it will be in concert with what the staffing needs will be as well. Does that help? I was going to add some

088context to that, Director Andreessen, on top of what Dr. Lightfoot said. So when we are budgeting, especially with our federal programs, we are budgeting at the best assumption we have. We don't get the allocation right away until around July, August, the actual allocation for title dollars. So we are using the best assumption because of the fact that it's tied to our free and reduced as well as the Title 1 Part A allocation formula. And then once we get the actual information, we should later on in March come back to the board with an amendment to the budget because at that point in time, we know how much funding is coming into the system. And I know there's been talk about maybe getting some additional title dollars is being discussed at the federal level. But we

089don't have all that information as we try to get the budget approved by the board as required by statute in June. Director Chapman-Duca, I believe you went on mute. Okay. So I don't know, where do you want me to start? I think you said that we will have a better sense once we get information from the federal government. I think you said, was it July? So around so from like the programs around July August, that's what we'll get the actual better sense of the allocations will get but usually when we look at the historical and how much we've received in Federal programs. We are always very close to to those allocations Director Chapman duke a you're on mute again. Oh, I wonder are we delay? Maybe because I wasn't on mute and then i think

090we were just on a tech delay okay that makes more sense all right So I just want to summarize. So we're in a place where we're still waiting to find out what our actual Title I allocation is going to be. So that's the budgetary component. And then at the same time, building leaders are thinking through what the structure of their Title I services delivery will be. And once both of those components come back together, and we have that information for the board and for the community, there might be the opportunity that some of these folks who are being placed on unrequested leave would be called back was there anything wrong in what i just said that's correct okay thank you chair bouchard can i just do a quick plug yes so i i know that

091you mentioned that um title one funds are at the federal level are based on free and reduced lunch application rates within a district. And so I want, I know in the state legislature, there was some movement to be able to use the prior school years free and reduced lunch numbers to apply to this year because we have seen our applications plummet during the pandemic. I don't know. where anything is at on those lines, but I just want our community to be aware that this is yet another way in which districts are looking at reduced funding and in particular for this specific programming or not programming services in our schools. Thank you. Any additional board member comments or questions on this resolution? So with that, I would look for a motion that the board adopt the

092resolution for the proposed placement on unrequested leave of absence. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second that the board adopt the resolution for the proposed placement on unrequested leave of absence. Any further discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Director Adams. Aye. Director Ahmed. Aye. Director Andreessen? Aye. Director Kahn? Aye. Director Kuhl? Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Thank you, Clark Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Thank you to Dr. Lightfoot for walking us through the three resolutions and for engaging with all of our questions. next we will move to our transportation update and i'll turn it back to dr mary perry reed okay very good thank you chair bouchard so um we did have an opportunity at our workshop earlier

093to talk a bit about transportation we shared details of the pending transition within our transportation department and services regarding closing our contract with mti and partnering with lake country We welcome this opportunity to have Lake Country help us build and provide high quality busing and transportation services to our scholars pre-K through transition plus. We did mention earlier that when we first met with Lake Country, we were really impressed with what we experienced as natural mission alignment between Hopkins Public Schools and Lake Country. So we are really excited to work with this team. as we think about transportation services that are truly student-centered, flexible, and even innovatively structured or routed. So with that, I would invite Director Chapenduka back to the virtual space, also Director Agate, our current Director of Transportation, and Lake Country CEO Paul

094Spakowski and his team who will help us and our community members better understand this particular and new contract. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Miripi Reed. Again, good evening. Good evening, Chair Bouchard, respective board members, staff, and the community. With me tonight, I have Mr. Paul Spakoski, who is the owner and CEO of Lake Country Transportation, as well as Mr. Derek Agate, our District Transportation Supervisor, Mr. Ryan Klingian, who is the owner and President of Catalyst Sourcing, as well as Mr. Chris Boyce, our Procurement and Purchasing Coordinator for the District. As alluded to by the superintendent during our workshop, we did give some highlights of our intent to get into a contract with Lake Country Transportation to provide transportation services for the district. I'll probably just give some high-level point of views on what that contract

095looks like and we'll open up this discussion to the board if you have any other questions you may have. So from a high-level standpoint, what we are looking at here with this new contract and what we've worked on and negotiated with Lake Country were key components which have to do with a safe, efficient, and transparent student transportation system for the district which is aligned to our vision 2031 which is aligned to our reimagining of our programs and services within our district. We've worked with Lake Country to put drivers at the center and heart of the operations by making sure that we pay our drivers at and above the base with a premium affected into the contract. Because for our system to really operate efficiently, we need engaged and experienced drivers who are actually the wake-up

096call for our students every morning and the goodnight call for our students as they get dropped every evening to their families. We also looked at how to enhance our technology, providing more tools to families in as far as one applications which avail families to know where the scholars are and when the scholars are dropped off or picked up from their different bus stops. We also fitted in other applications which will give live access and information to families as they check on their routes or at the beginning of the school year or if there's any change to the routes during the year, they'll be able to get all that information. Lake Country will also be providing new buses. with enhanced cameras in their system as well as the opportunity to be able to identify students as

097they get into the buses so that we don't have any situations where students end up getting into the wrong buses. Part of what we also negotiated with this contract were looking at efficiencies and putting into play some fair contractual relationship. which are based on route fees which are affected using a true runtime. We also looked at increasing efficiencies, one with their busing services, not just looking at the big buses, but also factoring in small-scale transportation modes. moving students between different activities and programs. So in a nutshell, that's what this contract which we are bringing to the board entails as we get into this relationship with Lake Country, which I anticipate will be a long-term relationship and we'll be revisiting with them as we start to develop the processes together. And I would invite Mr. Spassky.

098Spasowski, sorry if I misspelled your name again, to the table to maybe provide us a high-level view of Lake Country. Thank you. Thank you, Torero, Chair Bouchard, and fellow members. Thank you again for the opportunity. to be here this evening. I know in the workshop session I expressed and want to express again that we are very excited to be partnering with Hopkins and it really is exciting for us as a team when we hear about the vision that Hopkins is going after for Vision 2031 that really aligns so much with who we are as a company and the values that we also embody. It just makes it where this is really going to be a special partnership where we can come alongside you guys and help you deliver on those goals and with the relationship

099with Derek and transportation and the updates we'll be giving him on a consistent basis. I really do believe this is going to be an upgrade for Hopkins. Oh, I think you're muted. Were you guys able to hear what I said before? Is there any questions that you guys may have that have maybe come up in the last couple hours? Well, thank you very much, Paul, and the entire Lake Country team that joined us during the workshop. It was really wonderful to engage in some dialogue with your team and better understand who you are and how you'll be serving our Hopkins scholars and families over the next, hopefully, many, many years. And just very grateful to be in partnership with you and grateful to our team on the Hopkins side who did um a lot of

100heavy lifting to to reimagine what our transportation might look like to better serve our families here in hopkins so thank you very much any comments or questions from my board colleagues excellent so I think we do need to do a formal contract approval. It is not on the agenda as such. So, Torero, could you just give me a confirmation there that we do need to formally approve the contract? Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Yes, yes, the board needs to formally approve the contract. Okay, thank you. So with that, I would look for a motion that we approve the contract with Lake Country as included in the board packet this evening. So moved. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to approve the contract with Lake Country. Any

101further discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. Director Adams. Aye. Director Ahmed. Aye. Director Andreessen. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Kuhl. Aye. Director Peterson, aye, and Chair Bouchard. Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have seven ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. Next, we'll move on to our board member reports. Who would like to go first? I'll go, Chair Bouchard. All right. Director Adams. Yes. On April 9th and 10th, I attended the final two days of the NSBA conference, which was done totally online, of course, this year. And got to hear two of the keynote speakers, Soledad O'Brien, who had spoken as a keynoter before at NSBA, and Eddie Galaud, who's Eddie Galaud Jr. He's a professor of African-American studies at Princeton. Yeah, both were very enlightening Worth listening to I attended some other special

102sessions as well In every Friday now during the legislative season I attend the MSB a chat on Fridays from 9 to 9 30 and Always get some interesting Perspective on what's going on at the Capitol in the legislative session It was noted this well, I guess it wasn't by Ellie's by MSBA but It was noted that a letter from the LAC was read on the floor of the Senate in the last week regarding civics the decision or the attempt to move civics from ninth grade to 11th and 12th grade. LAC had written a letter to all the committee chairs and our own legislators. We didn't think that was a very good idea, and that was read on the floor of the Senate. And then, of course, LAC meets every Friday also, so we've been doing

103that. I will note that I saw today, this afternoon, it was announced that Lane Bell, who is a Hopkins teacher at our HAP program, the Hopkins Achievement Program at the high school, is now one of nine finalists for Teacher of the Year. It started out with 75. nominees. It's been whittled down to nine, and so Lane is one of those nine. So we look forward to hearing what the results are later this spring. And I would just also note that there's a lot of negotiation going on at the state legislature right now. Both the House and Senate have put forth their omnibus bills. They are very far apart. The Senate omnibus bill only allocates 152 million for K through 12 or E through 12 education. The House bill is 752. So you can see there's

104a lot of gap there that needs to be negotiated. And unfortunately, even though the House bill does provide for additional funding, it also has 88 new mandates for school districts in it. And of course no funding tied to any of those mandates. So that's it's going to be a challenge to to Come to some agreement between the two parties and I'm willing to start a pool as to when the the final date of the session is I think it's going to go into special session and maybe two or three so That's my report Thank you, Director Adams. Any other board member reports this evening? Chair Bouchard. Director Kahn. Hi. So I just wanted to report that I attended a meeting held by the Education Services Advisory Committee on April 15th. And at the meeting, the

105discussion focused on pathways to careers. There were two teachers there who were talking about Hopkins involvement in helping our students be prepared for future careers. And it was really eye-opening to see how many partnerships we have in our Hopkins business community. I was really happy that I heard that our students had Cargill invest $25,000 aimed to encourage Hopkins students who were girls in the finance-focused type of careers. So $25,000 is a lot of money, and I'm so grateful that Cargill did that. Another thing that I was really excited about was that Hopkins students apparently created a marketing pitch to Caribou and that pitch was so successful that Caribou's marketing team used it. And the third thing that I wanted to recognize is that there are a lot of you know, things that Hopkins schools are

106doing to help advance our students' careers, such as being creating programs like DECA, an investment club, the financial decathlon, and Hopkins Shark Tank. So that's my report. Thank you, Director Kahn. I'm really curious what the slogan was. Yeah, they didn't discuss what it was. I wish I could have even seen a clip of that. I think one of the teachers does have it, though. That's really cool. Thank you. Vice Chair Andreessen. Yes, thank you, Chair Bouchard. I wanted to just follow up with Director Adams' conversation about the Education Omnibus Bills and the work that the LAC has been doing to advocate around things that are important and have an impact on Hopkins. We have I think it's also important for our community to advocate at the legislature about getting rid of the education savings accounts,

107which is a fancy name for school vouchers, which we'll be taking as that bill is now, as it is written, it increments. increases incrementally over the years and at the end we'll be taking millions of dollars directly out of public education funding. So that is an important thing to advocate against it. And I think that money is even part of their 152 million that they're saying is their funding for public schools. It's absolutely not. So I think everyone in the community should be talking to their legislators about that and the impact it will have on their students' educational outcomes. I also was disheartened to see that an amendment that was presented at the Senate to take out their language around restricting student participation in sports along gender lines was defeated. So that language is still

108in the Senate Education Omnibus Bill despite all our advocacy on that, but I did want to thank the members of our community that showed up and emailed and called their senators and chair of that committee, Senator Chamberlain, to get that language removed. We were successful in that the amendment to add it into the House Education Omnibus Bill was defeated. So thank you all for the calls and emails. It does make a big difference. I also wanted to say that I think that the delivery of a petition with 177 signatures on it from Hopkins Public Schools community to demand the legislature start funding fully funding schools so that School boards are not in this position every year to not know what kind of resources we're going to be able to put into our classrooms and to

109give to our educators is going to be powerful. They respond to parents. They need to hear your story. I really hope that all of you can take some time to talk to your elected officials and tell them what education means to your family. and why they should be fully funding your child's future. So thank you. Thank you, Vice Chair Andreessen. Any other board member reports this evening? Okay, with that, I would look for a motion to approve the incidental reports. I so move. I have a motion. Is there a second? I second. I have a motion and a second to approve the incidental reports. further discussion i'm like so bad right now clark peterson i'll turn it over to you all right so um i was going to come up with a name for you

110and i couldn't make one up on the fly so i'll just go with an exhausted board chair that works Nappy nap board chair. She needs a nap, everybody. Send her home. All right. Director Adams. Aye. Director Ahmed. Aye. Director Andreessen. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Kuhl. Aye. Director Peterson. Aye. And Chair Bouchard. Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have six ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. And with that, I would look for a motion to adjourn. So move. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second to adjourn. Any discussion? Seeing none, Clerk Peterson. Director Adams. Aye. Director Ahmed. Director Andreessen. Aye. Director Kahn. Aye. Director Poole? Aye. Director Peterson? Aye. And Chair Bouchard? Aye. Thank you, Clerk Peterson. We have six ayes, zero nays. Motion carries. This meeting

111of the Hopkins School Board is adjourned at 9.05 p.m. Thank you all.