January 21st, 2020 meeting of the Hopkins School Board

001Board is officially called to order. Our first order of business is open agenda. I have one open agenda card. Were there any others? Wonderful. So the Hopkins School Board appreciates hearing from you, our community members and constituents. We realize that not all people can come before the school board to address us here at our public meetings. And so we encourage you to reach out via email or phone. You can find our contact information on the district website. Those speaking before the board during open agenda are limited to five minutes. And it should be noted that personal attacks by anyone addressing the school board will not be tolerated and persistence in such remarks by an individual or otherwise disruptive behavior behavior shall terminate that person's privilege to address the school board. So tonight we are welcoming

002Brett Grendel from Grendel Mechanical. Welcome. Thank you for having me. My name is Brett Grendel. I am the owner of Grendel Mechanical, and we worked on two construction projects in the school district this summer, the Hopkins High School Cafeteria Edition and Remodel and the Harley Hopkins Family Center. I'm here today to raise awareness to some troubling matters that we experienced on these projects. I want to provide a high-level view, as I know that I would want to know about these matters if they occurred within my organization. So what happened? The school district breached the contracts they wrote and was late on making payments of over $1.8 million to our company. This was over 62% of our contract. These late payments occurred in July during the thick heat of the summer projects. We could have stopped

003work. We did not. We continued in good faith for the benefit of the school district. From talking around, it appears that none of the school's contractors on the nine projects going on in the district were paid on time during that time cycle. Per the contracts written by the school districts agent UNESCO our company is entitled over sixteen thousand dollars in interest Which we have not yet received to make matters worse on these projects The school districts agent their construction manager did not follow their own specifications Regarding the holding of coordination in installation meetings per their specification section 013 100 project management coordination 1.7 part C and F. This is arguably their most important duty to a successful construction project. Their lack to conduct these critical management tasks created damage to our company in the execution

004of our contracts. Another troubling matter is that the school district's agent wrote an illegal specification for our sole source provider that violates Minnesota statute 471.35. on the specification of supplies and equipment. The violation of this Minnesota statute, per statute 471.37, is a criminal gross misdemeanor. I was shocked when this sole source provider attempted to charge our bank account for over $12,000 with no authorization from our company. This action violates banking and PCI bank card compliance laws. This sole source provider also oversupplied seven barrels of product. is refusing to take them back and provide us a credit for the excess amount. The school district's agent has not been uniform in how they demanded the project specifications be adhered to by the contractors and by themselves, and in doing so subjecting our firm to adverse treatment. The

005school district's agent verbally abused our skilled craft laborers during the projects, at one point telling them they were going to have to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day. I literally had to talk to a senior UNESCO staff member and tell them these people are not slaves. Another senior UNESCO staff person physically threatened me with his fist in my face and his nose one inch from mine, all while two other UNESCO staff people just sat there and watched and did nothing. The school district staff has not provided records requested under Minnesota's Government Data Practices Act after multiple requests for copies of these PDFs. In spite of all these breaches of contract, illegal specification, unpaid interest due, and illegal attempts to withdraw money from our bank account, our company worked in good faith to

006complete the onerous punch lists from the school district's agents. The projects are complete. The school district owes our company $215,246.65. The school district has not and is currently not in compliance with Minnesota's prompt payment of local government bills law. The school district is at risk due to its actions and those of its agent. As one leader to another, this is a matter that needs oversight and executive attention. I don't know what's going on in the school district and how it handles construction projects these days. I do know that I find it deeply troubling and creating burden on our company. I'm here today simply to raise attention to these serious matters, and I think that you should find out what's going on in the district's construction projects these days. And I do appreciate the time. Thank

007you. Thank you, Mr. Grendel. Yep, thank you. Mr. Grendel, if I could ask you to please confer with our Director of Business Services for a moment before you leave. Thank you for being here today. Thank you. Our next agenda item is Student Board Representative Reports. We have two of our student board representatives with us tonight, our Senior Board Representative Joe Ramlett and our Junior Board Representative Elliot Berman. Who would like to start? Looks like I got the hand from Elliot, so I have no choice. So a pretty full report actually this week. It may be hard to believe, but sooner rather than later, the year will be over. That kind of set in today. For those of you who don't know, I am a PSEO student at North Highland Community College. And today I submitted

008my graduation application. to receive my associate's degree this spring and it was just like wow it's almost over so that's hard to believe but also very exciting. Some news in the world of Royals sports a couple weeks ago I believe a video was made by an organization following the girls basketball team It's about 20 minutes long. It's a vlog-style video, which stands for video blog. And it highlights. They actually did a couple following-page beckers. the star of the team. And then they made one for the whole team as well, which is, they're too long to show, but they're pretty good videos. And I would highly recommend that you just look up Hopkins Girls Basketball on YouTube and they'll probably come up. Recently, last week at the high school, again, towards graduation this time at Hopkins,

009the senior panoramic picture was taken, which is always a momentous event, trying to get the entire senior class into the Lindbergh Center and sitting still and not screaming the senior chant. But I think it went well. There was a very charismatic photographer who tricked us. So I am looking forward to receiving my copy of that and seeing if I blinked or I'm looking off at something. And after that... Mr. UF and Mr. Coker kind of co-advise graduation and the senior checkout process. And Mr. UF is the AP government teacher and very involved in civic engagement of students. And he coordinated bringing the Young Democrats Club and the Young Americans for Freedom, which is the Republican club, to make a plea to students to vote in the... primaries those who are eligible old enough to vote

010and then also caucus if possible so that was exciting to see and and I think good to kind of remind everyone like it's time to you know do do what is a privilege and what is a right and and what is expected Of course, let's see, was it yesterday? Yeah, all my days are messed up. Yesterday, of course, was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. I had the pleasure and opportunity to attend the UNCF and General Mills MLK Day breakfast at the Armory yesterday morning with the keynote speaker, Eric Holder, 82nd Attorney General. Oh, the video. And also talking about voting and voting equity, gerrymandering, that kind of thing. And then related to UNCF, which is the United Negro College Fund, which provides crucial scholarships for students of color, high school students and college students. And

011then also a local event related to Dr. King, Sweet Potato Comfort Pie. run by a Golden Valley resident, which is a nonprofit organization that provides sweet potato pies as community building catalysts kind of for change and discussion and discourse and recognition. And so their annual event. was Sunday, and we distributed 91 pies to community members to give out as recognition to other community members for their contributions to equity, justice, that kind of thing. Last week there were two very well attended orchestra concerts that spanned anywhere from fifth grade to high school seniors. They were the district orchestra festivals. They spanned all kinds of musical talent as well and ability. Of course with the elementary school kids just learning. There was a new... This year they added having backing tracks playing with the elementary school kids,

012which I personally thought went very well, gave them kind of something to play off of. So hopefully they continue to do that in the future, and it would definitely be worth going to next year as well. As well, last week was registration night, which is where rising sophomores and juniors and seniors could speak with department faculty and counselors and learn about different classes and different opportunities, learn about PSEO, CIS, AP, different opportunities available to students. Coming up next week are the Winter One Acts on January 30th and 31st and February 1st at 7 p.m. The Royal Productions team has been putting a lot of hard work to produce these kind of short theatrical productions. They're usually five or six every year and one of them is a competition piece under the MSHSL that is competed

013in much like any sport. And so I know that they would greatly appreciate. community member and board attendance at that. And then finally, a couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to attend. a conference through lead MN which is the two-year college student association for Minnesota Community College students I Participate in that because I'm a member of student Senate through Pseo and at that meeting or at that conference we set our legislative agenda for This session much like what LAC is doing right now And one of the things that came up was requiring FAFSA completion as a high school graduation requirement, which is a very interesting concept, I think. Something that might not be on the docket for this year, but could come up in future years. Once I'm gone, so just want to put

014it on the table, but kind of just as a background over 30 million dollars of possible Pell Grant funds are not being our go unused every year because Minnesota high school students do not complete the FAFSA only about 60% of high school students do complete the FAFSA in Minnesota and other states have done this requiring FAFSA completion to graduate high school and they've seen seven or eight percent increases in seniors who end up in either two or four year institutions the following year. They qualify students for more than just federal aid, some private scholarships or foundations require FAFSA completion as kind of a benchmark. And then... Also, it is becoming less and less of an equity issue. There is still, of course, you know, it's a multidimensional issue of some students might not want to

015go to college, some students are going to join the military. The states where it's been done, you can opt out for any reason. And the FAFSA itself, despite all the news coming out of D.C. right now, in December was actually simplified. They removed the verification process, which... prevented a lot of students from completing it and took a number of questions off, which will go into effect next school year, next October. So that is just a little background on that. Hopefully that can maybe be investigated, if not by the legislature, possibly by our pioneering district. And that might open up opportunities to students that were not there before. And that is all I have. Thank you for allowing my extended reporting. Joe, I just wish you had your finger on the pulse of what was happening.

016It's like you're not out there doing anything. Thank you so much. Elliot. To kind of build off what Joe said, especially with registration occurring last week, Friday, sophomores and juniors registered for classes for the next year. One of the new classes included yoga and me which several classmates have expressed interest in being that it's an opportunity to relieve stress throughout the day. This week is finals week at the high school you can feel stress and lack of sleep in the air but the school and teachers have been very very considerate of all the students they supply dogs during lunch therapy dogs which is always fun and helps the students. Today was also the second meeting of Hopkins High School March for Our Lives, a club dedicated to stopping gun violence in schools and communities. They

017discussed what would their ability to make actual change and brainstorm ideas on how to engage the community today. Some ideas brought up were to make voter info ballots, allowing an easy sheet for voters to look at wondering which candidates and their positions on gun rights or gun control. Last week principal Bollinger started his first advisory board committee To kind of build off of what's been happening in the school concerning people of colors experiences with either other students or with Teachers at the school and how they been able to either not gotten the help they needed from they're white teachers or Have been able to receive help from other people of color other teachers of color So that is very good step forward in a process of making sure everybody at Hopkins High School is heard

018and feel safe and secure and where they're at Thank you so much, Elliot. I'd like to recognize Elliot as well for his service. Our Citizens Financial Advisory Committee, which we'll hear from later on. It's really wonderful to have a student rep on that committee, and we're so happy to have you at the table. Thank you. With that, we'll move to our superintendent's report. Dr. Mary Perry-Reed. Thank you. Well, Elliot mentioned information to appear on voters' ballots, and so that's related to the topic of my update for this evening. So I attended this really interesting event held at the Federal Reserve Bank in downtown Minneapolis on January 13. The conference was called Children First, a community conversation on educating all children. And the three-hour event was facilitated by the Federal Reserve President, Neal Kashkari, and co-facilitated

019by former Supreme Court Justice Alan Page. Preceding this event... There was a white paper that was produced by researchers who are staffed at the Federal Reserve who studied the racial disparities in student outcomes across Minnesota. Perhaps some of you have read that lengthy report. And not new information, we've known for a long time that we have race and income-based disparities in our educational outcomes, not just in Minnesota, but nationwide. And unfortunately, many of the gaps are widest here in Minnesota out of 50 states. And following that report, then President Kashkari and Justice Page co-wrote an op-ed that was published in the Star Tribune. So these leaders invited tons of legislators, district leaders, university deans and presidents. school district leaders to the to this conference was a very well publicized event and They opened there were

020a couple of panels the closing keynote was provided by Attorney General Keith Ellison And the big idea that was unveiled at this event is to amend the language in the education provision of our state constitution to elevate the importance of providing all children with high-quality public school education and thereby... hopefully and ideally increasing the level of accountability that we all share in providing children with high quality education in our public schools. So as I was listening to people speak at the event, it seemed that the theory of change that was at play. is if we as leaders and educators and parents and citizens here in Minnesota care enough about the persistent disparities in our state's education outcomes, then we will support a big, bold move such as a constitutional amendment because their idea is that

021this would serve as a key driver for policy change throughout the system. So very interesting conversation. Changing the state constitution was identified as a key lever because the researchers had uncovered in their research of what was being done in other states to spur statewide improvement in education outcomes. They discovered that other states... sought voter approval to amend their state constitutions. And they found an example in Florida's state constitution. So in Florida, they elevated the language in their education provision. This prompted policy change, and they've seen statewide education improvements over a 16-year period of time from 2003 to 2019. So super interesting. The next step is for this to be contemplated in our legislature because legislators would have to approve this in order for it to get on the ballot for Minnesota voters to approve any

022amendment to the state constitution. So very fascinating. Stay tuned. And in the spirit of not just statewide improvement, but district-wide transformation here in Hopkins, one entry point for Vision 2031 system transformation is in our space and environments. So I would like to show you a video showcasing the flex spaces in many of our schools. student-centered flexible learning spaces. I love it. Like the day it got finished I'm like, when can we use this space? I'm really excited too. There's so many different types of chairs as you can see. It's more dynamic than a standard classroom where you're all cramped together. You're like... There's lots of spaces for people to move around, like move chairs and like clap. Yeah, I like it because it's more comfortable and I don't know, I just feel like when you're

023in here you get to move around a lot more. It's a good space for students to do extra work and stuff. I like how it was designed and I like being able to have a little bit more space and also being able to have a separate room to work in instead of everyone just in the classroom. It feels like they're listening to us more and giving us more options to learn. Everyone has a different learning style, so some people might not be able to learn when there's too much noise, and then the people who work well in those kind of group, louder situations also have that option. So it's better for a myriad of people. Thank you. Thank you so much. With that, I would look for a motion to approve the agenda. So moved.

024Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. And I would look for a motion to approve the consent calendar. So moved. Is there a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. We'll move to our treasurer's report. All right. Thank you, Chair Bouchard. The mid-month report always includes an enrollment report, and I can report that on, what is it, January, the first school day in January, our enrollment was down three students since the December enrollment report. It's been 20 fewer since October 1st, which was our first enrollment report. It was interesting to note that enrollment is down by 40 students in grades 8 through 12, but it's up by 20

025in K through 7 since October 1st. This is not unusual, although it's a little steeper than typical, but as people like Joe complete the requirements they go off of our attendance or enrollment report, so It's not uncommon that we see some decline at the at the senior high and the secondary levels After October 1st on the expense side we are 50% through the fiscal year as of December 31st and Expenses were running at 41% of budget that compares to 40% budget at this time last year. Some expenses of note. $12,865 to the city of Hopkins for ice time for the boys hockey team for December. $5,698 to the Minnetonka Ice Arena for ice time for girls hockey for December. So less than half as much. I don't know what the deal is. If we got

026a better deal at the Minnetonka Ice Arena. It's about half the price at least for the month of December $6,949 for snow removal on December 30th a day when there was no school, but obviously we had things going on at various buildings throughout the district $2,734 for water and sewer service for Golan Valley $4,441 for water and sewer service for Hopkins and $6,353 for water and sewer service for Minnetonka. So you can see how much of our budget is going to our cities. And then $59,176 for natural gas, which is our primary source of heating for the month of December. So with that, I move that we approve total disbursements in the amount of $1,988,988.57 for the period December 28, 2019 through January 13, 2020. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Any

027further discussion or questions for Treasurer Adams? Elliot has a question. Yes, Elliot. The girls hockey team is split with the St. Louis Park girls hockey team. So is it possible that you guys share that cost? It's possible, yeah. Thank you for pointing that out. I forgot that. I don't know if they practice at St. Louis Park at all. It's a combined team. Right, right. But I don't know which ice they use. But you're right. Maybe the St. Louis Park district kicks in some amount too. Excellent. Thank you, Elliot. So I have a motion. Oh, I'm sorry, Tanya. I'm just curious. You said that. In 8 through 12 The treasurer doesn't receive that information I'm not sure anyone in the district does but No, it is good to occasionally we do drill down and Survey parents

028who have left the district and yes, you know why but The reduction in overall enrollment is typical through the course of the year we tend to lose lose some students Thank you any other comments or questions. I just wanted to note the most significant loss looks like is Seniors whole 12th graders so that right is likely due to early graduation But I do think it would be systematic practice where we ask families for feedback or we know with certainty Right. What is the reason that each family is living at the other grade levels? And I know that we we take in that information anecdotally I'm just not sure if there's a systematic process that we use I Think the last time we surveyed students their parents it was due to moving so You know that's

029something we don't have a whole lot of control over we can we can follow up with a brief report to the board on that Wonderful any further comments or questions? So I have a motion in a second to approve the treasurer's report all in favor. Please say aye aye all opposed nay Motion carries. Next, I'd like to welcome our Citizens Financial Advisory Committee to the table. And as you're coming up, I'll provide some context to our community. So the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee, or CFAC, in conjunction with our district administration, provides annual budget parameters for the board's consideration. These parameters are in the form of recommendations for use by our director of business services to Rio Chap and duca to develop the 2020 2021 budget and we're so grateful to our community members with deep

030wisdom and experience and financial services for their guidance. Thank you. Welcome if you could introduce yourselves, that would be fantastic I'm Warren good road former member of the Hopkins School Board Val Dahlman, parent and grandparent in the district. Luke Jacobson, parents of a first and third grader in the district, and I think this is my fifth year on CFAC. Taro Chapinduka, director of business services. Wonderful. Welcome. And Mr. Jacobson, I understand that you're going to summarize the report for us. Since September 2019, the CFAC committee has met three times to review the financial health of the district. By consensus, we feel the district continues to maintain good financial health. We continue to recommend maintaining an unassigned fund balance near 10% to maintain financial health. And there are concerns the unassigned fund balance is trading closer

031to the board required level of 6%. The budget for the current year ending June 30th 2020 is expecting to have higher expenses than revenue Which will likely decrease the fund balance from seven point seven percent of June 30th to 2000 or will decrease the fund balance compared to seven point seven percent at June 30th 2019 and eight point six in the prior year To increase the fund balance closer to 10% over time and align expenses with revenue, we are recommending the following as highlights, as parameters for the budget ending June 30th, 2021. Restructure the budget model from an expenditure-based model to a revenue-based model. We're projecting a 2% increase in the per-pupil allowance with modest increases in enrollment that is unexpected to stabilize. Project a 3.5% increase in salaries and benefits, which is based on

032current contracts that are in place. Align available resources to support Vision 2031. And other programming to support the district's continued ability to attract and retain students in today's choice-driven environment. And lastly, we're recommending to change the practice of funding budget gaps with OPEB or severance trust funds and move closer to funding these in the budget year at the 100% level, which would then expect to increase the fringe benefits in the budget. The funded percentage of these is currently at 76%, and is potentially looking to get down closer to 70%, 71% at the end of this budget year. And that's kind of down compared to a 10-year historical of 74% to 88%. We want to thank the board for the opportunity for input. and for all the work that you do. And I also wanted to

033make note that we were impressed with Torero and enjoyed working with him as he tackled a lot in his first few months on the job. Thank you. Thank you so much. So before we open up to discussion, I would look for a motion to support the recommendation that the board accepts the Citizens Financial Advisory Committee report. I have a motion. Is there a second? Second. Excellent. So now we can open up the discussion and invite board members to ask questions to the members of CFAC. I had a question maybe just to get the ball rolling and provide a little more context for our listening public. In the report, you mentioned kind of shifting the way that we do budget from an expenditure model to a revenue model. And I'm wondering if you can explain Kind

034of the reasoning behind that and also what that process looks like I'll start trail can step in but it's looking more at Historically it's been it's based on expenditures and looking at more Revenue which for a school district is students as they're their source of revenue from state funding as a primary source as well as other programming And it's kind of a simple example It doesn't have a huge impact on the budget would be paper in the expenditure based model you maybe say the cost of papers increased two to three percent so that's what you would budget for the cost of paper but the revenue model we're looking more at the number of students like in a building or program and saying all right if if the students in this school increase by 10 their

035paper budget should increase by 10 plus whatever the cost factor is and so those a school or program that has a decrease in students would then experience a decrease in the paper to correspond with the decrease in students. Thank you. I was wondering if Director Chapman-Duke or someone else from CFAC might be able to comment on the year-over-year impact of seeing two and two on the formula from the state in terms of the increase on the formula we get in a context where there are real cost drivers to what we actually have to pay. So can you just talk a little bit, you know, for the benefit of our public about why we find ourselves often in a position as a school district, like many other school districts, where we're having to make these cuts

036year in and year out, even in a context where, you know, our local taxpayers are maybe seeing their local levy increase. We're still having to make cuts. Sure, I can start and the CFAC members can chime in. I mean, as we know, our largest cost driver is staffing. So... staffing meaning salaries and wages and our benefits account for about 82% of our total expenditures when we look at the revenue increases we are getting from the state it's sitting at 2% and if we go back to the last two three years when we've been negotiating with the different bargaining groups, the biggest which is our HEA representing the teachers. We have seen that the shift has been an increase of about 3, 3.5%. If you take those two factors, it's not apples to apples. We are

037receiving 2%. We are... negotiating at 3% and that really kind of shifts how our expenditure model looks like. So we definitely need to go back to the drawing board and see how we can... twist the way we are negotiating with our bargaining groups, considering that we don't anticipate any increase in our revenue from the legislature. We are looking at special education, and our cross-ups is about 40% for special education. If you factor all those elements into play, that 2% is eating up. right upfront and we end up in a budget gap where we start looking at other sources of funding, the main being our fund balance. So just to summarize, if I'm understanding you correctly, even in a growing district like Hopkins, when you're getting 2% from the state but your teacher contracts are costing

038you 3.5 and there's other inflationary increases, a district like Hopkins, like many other public schools, is having to deliver the same amount of programming for less money year in and year out. And it puts us in a really... tough position, so it's a message to our public but also our lawmakers that we really need to figure out how to in order to right size our budgets right size how we think about public education funding in the state of Minnesota It's not a unique situation to Hopkins It's it's when you when you've got your funding at 2% increases and you're one of your largest your largest expense by far at over 80% of your budget Increasing at three to three to five percent It's hard to make the math work Thank you for that context. Any

039other questions or comments for our CFAC members? Could you I've got another one could you speak a little bit about there's a couple of recommendations in this report that are unique to our situation and again for the benefit of our public looking ahead to our budgeting process and anticipating some of the cuts that we're gonna have to Be taking on in the year and years years ahead to the specific recommendations One is that we not let our unassigned fund balance dip below 8% this year. We It will dip below 8%. And the other one is that in years past, folks have looked at how we've done our budget process carefully. We've actually taken money out of this OPEB. retirement fund in order to cover gaps in our budget. And it was a new recommendation from

040CFAC this year that we no longer engage in that practice. So can you talk a little bit more about why you made those recommendations and how that's likely to get carried forward in terms of if we take these recommendations, the impact on how we have to be thinking about our budget process for 2021 school year? I can just say that, you know, as you look at your budget, you have your general fund, which is the major fund for your programming, and of that, you know, about 80-some percent is... staff salaries and benefits. But the main issue is, are your revenues exceeding your expenditures? And there's obviously two things that you can do. One is you can try to increase revenues, but the bulk of the revenues do come as a result of the per pupil

041funding formula by the state of Minnesota. And so then the other thing is, of course, to look at where your expenditures are and try to create efficiencies in your expenditures and look at the one thing, you have a contract with your staff, but the actual number of staff. that are working is something that you have some control over. And obviously as student levels fluctuate, then you have to look at the staffing levels to cover that. And those are a couple of areas that you look at in order to get the revenue and the expenditure in line. you're going to build your fund balance back up. Basically, the only way to do that is to have more revenue than you do expenditures. And that excess then will go to the fund balance and that is how

042you'll get it back up to the 8%. But we recognize that as a committee, that the school district as a budgeting process is a big ship and you can't turn that ship. easily because it's made up of a lot of contracts and it's made up of a lot of longer-term expenditures. And so you have to look at it at an incremental pace over a number of years and try to get the expenditures and the revenues more in line so that you can have some additional monies coming in that you can then apply towards your fund balance. I was going to add too, we thought about recommending a level of OPEB funded balance, but ultimately decided against that. And instead of kind of use the language like change the practice, but we wanted to recognize that

043the OPEB level is projected to go to 70, almost close to 70%, which is on the low end of where it's been the last 10 years. So it's more to change the practice and maybe that's even coming up with what the minimum minimum is there's other implications to that too We know are there recommendations? About where that funding level should should be for districts overall So based on the recommendations from our actuarial advisors, so our funding, I mean, if everything was normal, we should be sitting 800%. We should be funding our other post-employment benefits 800%. But our actuarial advisors actually recommended that at least we need to be funding our OPEB at 90%. just like Loke alluded earlier on, that we are sitting at about 76%. Because the main reason why we have these other

044post-employment benefits resources is for our retirees. We might not be using that money right now. At some point in time, we'll need to use... those resources as some of our tenured staff start to retire over time. And we'll need to have those funds available for us to start paying out. So what we've been doing is we need to put funds into this trust fund. We've been putting about $500,000. we are paying out about $2 million out of that fund. That's where the difference really comes into play, where we are not able to at least in the immediate fund those trust funds to the max 90% or ideally 100%. It probably also have an impact on the bond rating. I think we have one of the best ratings in the state. So in order to get

045our fund balance where we need it to be, in order to get OPEB where we need it to be, and in order to sustain the kind of bold investments that we want to make in Division 2031, it's going to mean in the months ahead as we look at our budget, we're going to have some fairly tough choices to make. And Hopkins isn't alone in those kind of tough choices, but we're grateful for the parameters that you all have laid out and helping us think through how to achieve that. I'd like to point out that we are not alone in this I was at the Minnesota School Board Association meeting last week and you know Bloomington is facing a shortfall. They're gonna have to make up this year's significant Seven-digit shortfall and Robbinsdale has been fighting

046this for years. So They're probably gonna have to be doing some cutting there, too. So the fact is the state legislature just does not Great a lot a lot us enough money to keep up with inflation So I think this is a chronic problem that every every school districts gonna have any other questions or comments for our CFAC members so I have a motion and a second to Accept the citizens financial advisory committee report all in favor. Please say aye aye all opposed nay Motion carries. Thank you so much to our Citizens Financial Advisory Committee for your guidance. And thank you for all of those hours of hard work. Thank you. Early hours. Early hours. Thank you. Wonderful. Next, I'll invite our Director of Community Education and Engagement, Alex Fisher, and One Voice Coordinator, Holly

047Magdatz, to the table. This will be informational, and so we can engage in discussion, but no board action is required, so we won't need to make a motion in a second. Mr. Fisher and Ms. Magdans will be presenting on the Minnesota Student Survey, which is conducted by the state every three years. It was administered in 2019, and this was the 11th time that Hopkins has participated. The survey is voluntary. And it's been conducted every three years since 1989. Contains data about student life, including attitudes, behaviors, and general wellness indicators in Hopkins Public Schools. Welcome. Thank you. Thank you. Hello, Superintendent Mary P. Reed, Chair Bouchard, and school board directors. Thanks for having us tonight. I'm honored to be here to talk about the Minnesota Student Survey. Hopkins has an impressive history of valuing the Minnesota

048Student Survey as an important tool that helps us to better understand the needs of our students. The survey is best utilized as a tool for action, where together we can celebrate areas of success and respond to areas of concern. To my right is Holly Magdans. As you mentioned, Chair Bouchard, Holly coordinates the One Voice Coalition for Hopkins Public Schools. Hopkins One Voice unites our schools and community to reduce student substance use and better support student mental health and wellness. Part of Holly's role is to coordinate the administration of the survey across our district and take the lead in analyzing and sharing the results. Tonight, Holly will share some highlights from the 2019 data from our Hopkins students and answer questions, which will hopefully lead us to new possibilities for action. Welcome Holly. Thank you. Excuse

049me. Thank you this is my Third time presenting to this Hopkins School Board the Minnesota student survey results as Mr. Bouchard mentioned it's the surveys conducted every three years and Here at Hopkins and across the state of Minnesota. We last administered the survey in the winter months of 2019 And kind of, I'm gonna tonight just briefly go over some basics on the Minnesota Student Survey. I know we have some new board members here that might not be as familiar. And then we're gonna look at some of the highlights from our Hopkins results in terms of what students are telling us regarding school and learning, general health and wellness, mental health, as well as substance use and non-use. And then we'll together explore some areas for school, family, and community response. And as my colleague Alex

050mentioned, the Minnesota Student Survey is an extremely rich data source, but it's best utilized for action. If we survey the students and never look at how our own students in our community answered the various questions, then I would argue that we are doing them a disservice. So again, we have a strong history here of utilizing the data here in Hopkins. to better understand the changing needs of our students, and then together to program plan and strategize for how we can better support our students and their needs. And just a couple examples of how we've utilized recently the data results and past surveys to shape student support strategies involve... integrating the Hopkins Minnesota Student Survey results from 2016 into the Trauma Sensitive Schools course that we offer staff here. It helped form a Student Mental Health

051Advisory Board, as well as the development of wellness centers at the junior highs and high school, and some various substance use prevention strategies I'll highlight in a little bit. So every state in the country is required to conduct a survey like the Minnesota Student Survey, some sort of an anonymous survey that really looks at risk and protective factors facing our kids. Minnesota has one of the most comprehensive surveys in the country. The reason it is so comprehensive is that it's census style. So every public school district in the state of Minnesota is invited to participate. So because of that, we have a huge and very representative sample of our students across the state. The survey is voluntary and anonymous. And one just point I always like to mention is that as with any survey, it

052has its limitations. It's one source of information, but of course we know that there are limitations inherent in any survey. You can see here just how broad the Minnesota student survey is covers a lot of different areas of student life only older students are asked questions on adverse childhood experiences and sexual health and the younger students particularly fifth graders are asked some questions in a more simplified and age-appropriate manner So I want to highlight some recent changes to the survey that are very important to note for this discussion. In the state, before 2013, Minnesota surveyed grades six, nine, and 12. And then in 2013, the state made a really big, big change. They decided to change which grades would participate in the survey to instead of six, nine, and 12, to five, eight, nine, and

05311. So we do have that ninth grade cohort. We can look back into the very early survey administrations. But starting in 2013, we didn't have trend data that we could look at with those new grades. Now in 2019, this is exciting, we have actually three data points of those fifth, eighth, and 11th graders. So we'll be looking at that today. And then in 2016, the state shifted to an online survey administration, which just was an adjustment for districts across the state to do that. 2019, it went very smoothly. And then every survey cycle... the state of Minnesota, and this is a partnership between the departments of education, departments of health, human services, and public safety. They do make a few question changes each survey cycle to better reflect what our kids are experiencing today. For

054example, in 2016, the state added questions about vaping to the survey. I'll go into that later. And then in 2019, they added more questions on vaping. So just to get a sense of participation rates statewide, over 81% of public school districts participated. That was approximately 170,000 students in grades 5, 8, 9, and 11. And at Hopkins, we had very high participation, as you can see with those grades. And now I'm going to go into school. So I'd like this discussion to be or presentation to be more conversational so if there was any Clarification items or anything that jumps out feel for feel free to jump in and ask your question But I also will be a long time at the end for discussion. So one of the things that I'm noticing on this chart is

055the mental health, the long-term mental health behavioral or emotional problem lasting six months or more. And I noticed the 11th grade sees a pretty big jump. Do you know why? I'm actually going to address that in just a little bit. Yeah, so we'll start with a couple questions on school. Again, the survey is huge, and with the limited amount of time, we had to kind of pick just a few highlights. But you actually, in your report, I believe, have more slides than I have here, just for the sake of time. So overall, we can see here, from 2013 to 2019, pretty steady rates of students caring about doing well in school, which is great. Students were asked, at my school, teachers care about their students? And we had, again, pretty high rates there as well.

056There are two new questions on the 2019 survey about educational options post-high school. And in this question, only ninth and 11th graders were asked whether an adult in my school has helped me think about educational options for after high school. As you can see here, we're just slightly above the state average for that question. And then one I think fits in neatly with Vision 2031 and the transformational... ways of approaching our students, is increasing opportunities of job shadowing. And here students were asked whether an adult in my school has helped me find career-focused field experiences such as job shadowing, apprenticeships, et cetera. And you can see here we're lower than the state average, 37% of 11th graders saying that they've experienced this kind of opportunity. So I think, and we can just further discuss at

057the end. Here we looked at just 11th graders in Hopkins. And again, these students took the survey last year, so the 11th graders last year would be 12th graders this year. What is the main thing you plan to do after high school? And we have 68% of students stating they plan to go to a four-year college or university. And I wanted to graph out just sort of how this compares. to the state and over time. So at Hopkins, we've seen a decrease for 11th graders reporting that they plan to go to a four-year college or university right after high school. And you can see where actually the red line here represents the state and how they answered that question. And you can see we're just kind of more closely mirroring the state average with that

058question. There are quite a few questions on the survey about bullying and we for the sake of time had to synthesize Kind of some of the main points But we did find across every bullying question fifth graders reported the highest rates of bullying and bullying tends to it decreases as students grow older and We did see in 2019 some positive decreases and Hopkins students reporting cyber bullying from 2016 The survey started asking questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in the last survey cycle, or two survey cycles. And this is just a snapshot of how Hopkins students, and only ninth and 11th graders were asked these questions, how students describe yourself or themselves. And you can see here, students are given the option of heterosexual, straight. I don't describe myself in any of these ways,

059bisexual, questioning not sure, gay or lesbian, pansexual, and I'm not sure what this question means. The survey also asks students in grades eight, nine, and 11 if they are transgender, genderqueer, or genderfluid. And you'll see here the percentages answering yes, no, I'm not sure what this question means, or I'm not sure about my gender identity. In terms of some general safety, health and wellness topics, one of the safety questions students are asked is whether they feel safe at school. And here we looked at how Hopkins answered this question from 2013 to 2019. And just to get a snapshot of how we compare to the state, I just looked at 2019 here. You can see across the grades, Hopkins students answered either a little bit higher or right at the state average for school safety. The

060survey also asked students how much sleep they get on an average school night. And this here is just 2019. Our Hopkins students and the state average from grades 5, 8, 9, and 11. And the survey, I chose eight hours or more just as sort of a standard for best practice for sleep. But you could break this data down to seven hours, six hours, five hours, four hours. And mental health. That is an area back in 2016. We saw quite alarming increases that we have given a lot of attention to and Unfortunately in 2019 we have noticed both at Hopkins and the state Continual increases and students reporting mental health concerns, which we'll talk about and then we also will talk about some of the strategies We've been developing and I know mr. Stanley following this

061presentation will give you more of an update on that Students are asked whether they have a long-term mental, behavioral, or emotional health problem lasting six months or more. And eighth, ninth, and eleventh graders are asked this question. And this is one that we saw big increases in 2016, especially in the eleventh grade, and we saw continual increases again here in 2019. with almost a third of our 11th graders reporting a long-term mental, behavioral, or emotional health problem. If we were to divvy out this data, all the mental health data by gender, both at Hopkins and the state, girls are reporting higher rates of mental health concerns than boys across the board for every question. You can see here on the text box here that Minnesota was actually similar, a little bit lower than our results

062here, but pretty close. And is that, you said that girls are reporting higher rates. Yeah, so this is boys and girls combined. So if we were to graph all boys and girls separately, we'd have fewer boys than 31% and more girls. And that's just across the board. We don't have drill down data as to a specific type of mental health issue. Actually, I'm going to get to that. Yeah, this is what's I think kind of helpful about this question. Is it? It represents students that are saying that they've been dealing with a mental health problem for six months or more. So in this case, it's not an acute situational issue. And fifth graders were asked two questions on emotional well-being. They were asked whether they worry a lot. And here we have 36% of Hopkins

063fifth graders reporting that they strongly agree or agree that they worry a lot. You can see here that that's increased. And for fifth grade, again, sometimes they feel bad without knowing why, either strongly agree or agree. We saw increases there as well, particularly from 2013. And students were asked a couple of questions on signs of depression and signs of anxiety. This is whether students reported feeling down, depressed, or hopeless several days or more in the past two weeks. And in 2019, the state of Minnesota added questions on anxiety. That was a big gap we felt in 2016. There weren't any questions really pointing at signs of anxiety in students, anxiety-specific questions. And this question here represents students reporting that they have been bothered by feeling anxious, nervous, or on edge at least several days or

064more in the past two weeks. And this compares Hopkins to the state. Very challenging information. Students reporting ever seriously considered attempting suicide. Seeing increases with that as well. And then compared to the state, the state averages were a little bit higher than Hopkins as well on this. And I think an important area to look at is treatment. So students are asked, have you ever been treated for a mental health, emotional, or behavioral problem? And you can see here more of our students are getting treatment than the state average. And one point I didn't mention in the beginning that I meant to is we have the capacity to really further analyze this data. So we can break it down and look for associations. We can't look for causations. But one example would be we could cross

065tabulate how students, for students reporting mental health concerns, whether those same students, and we can do this through statistical software, if they also receive treatment. So we can see that whether those students are accessing treatment or if there's a gap there that we need to address. And Mr. Stanley, after me, will be discussing more about some of our district wellness strategies. But I just wanted to point, since the 2016 Minnesota Student Survey, some of the new strategies that we've implemented to better support student mental health. One was that Hopkins One Voice and the high school applied for and received a Hopkins Education Foundation grant. to create some sort of a student mental health campaign. We weren't sure what that was gonna look like. We wanted it to be student-led. And that ended up forming into

066the Royals United Student Mental Health Advisory Board. That's done some great work. We also started a partnership with Alina Health and the Change to Chill program that focuses on stress management, kind of universal stress management strategies. We're starting a new peer helpers program at the high school this year that's getting off the ground as we speak. Mr. Stanley will speak more about the wellness centers and the special appeal from the Hopkins Education Foundation and other strategies. And I'm going to wrap up by sharing data on substance use and non-use, as well as a couple adverse childhood experiences. So one point that we really like to get out is that both at Hopkins, across the state, across the country, teens tend to greatly overestimate how much their peers are using any kind of substance, alcohol, tobacco,

067marijuana, vaping. And so we really like to get this information out because at Hopkins for 11th graders, we found from the survey that 68% reported never having used marijuana, never having vaped an e-cigarette, and never having used alcohol. And we anticipated that this would be, that vaping would be a topic that we would see very great increases in between 2016 and 2019. Here you can see what our student vaping rates with about a quarter of 11th graders using an e-cigarette or vape in the past month. And I just want to point out here that 2016 was right around the time that Juul, the Juul product entered the market and that just greatly blew up the vaping epidemic. And I can certainly answer more questions about that after. And as I mentioned before, we have the

068capacity to look. Farther back with ninth graders on questions that haven't changed in the survey One positive finding that we had is that we've seen decreases in ninth grade marijuana use dating back to 2001 We did see in 2019 some increases particularly at the 11th grade level I think a really valuable series of questions on the survey involve perception of risk of harm. So students are asked, how harmful do you feel it would be for people to use various substances? And both at Hopkins and the state on the left, you can see that students have had a decreasing perception of risk of harm for marijuana use. This is one or two times per week. Which I didn't put in the graph, but the THC content in marijuana continues to increase as well. And then on

069the right, students were asked for the first time in 2019 how harmful they perceived vaping. And I will note that this survey was administered before the... the health advisory came out over the, in August, with the severe lung injuries and deaths related to vaping. So this question may look different if it was asked today. And I wanted to just point out a couple areas of substance use prevention where we've really utilized the survey data. One is vaping prevention. About two years ago, we had a student group, Student Health and Wellness Committee, actually bring forward the issue of vaping as something that they were concerned about amongst their peers. And that had really catalyzed a lot of leadership in our district, particularly student-led leadership around vaping awareness, which led to Governor Walz and his team coming

070to do a listening session this past October at Hopkins High School. And some of those, The findings from that listening session will be used to inform, have already been used to inform policy, state policy on vaping. And we've done a lot of collaboration with Hennepin County. We know parent disapproval is a very strong protective factor against substance use. That's something that we've cross-tabbed in previous survey data. And that's something we'd like to get out to parents. Also the social norms strategies of just really getting out the accurate information about what the student use rates actually are. And it's the majority of students are choosing not to use at this point in their life. We integrate the data into health classes and parent messaging. And again, 2019 will shape new strategies as well. I'm just going

071to wrap up quickly with adverse childhood experiences. This is a very important part of the survey. The Minnesota Student Survey asks, has eight different categories that are considered adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. Students are asked whether they have a parent or caregiver who either currently is incarcerated or has been. Whether they live with someone who drinks too much alcohol, if they live with someone who uses illegal drugs or abuses prescription drugs, if they live with someone who is depressed or has mental health issues, and whether they have experienced verbal, physical, sexual abuse, or household domestic abuse. And in 2019, actually, the question about living with someone who is depressed or has mental health issues was added for the first time. And this was the most frequently reported adverse childhood experience in the survey, both here

072at Hopkins and the state, followed by a parent or guardian who is in jail, prison, or has been in the past. And now I'm going to round up with next steps. We presented to cabinet last week and we talked quite a bit about further data analysis that would be helpful Looking at some of those associations and data so we can better understand what our students are going through and what some of the risk and protective factors are again, we can't Through the data. We can't find causation. We can't answer that why? but one really interesting kind of discussion that came out of cabinet was having listening sessions, potentially I've been listening sessions with students, for instance, going into sixth grade classrooms for the fifth graders that answered that question, the question about worry, for instance,

073last year, and ask them, what do you worry about? And really get to better understand perhaps some of the whys behind the question according to our students themselves. So there's some really, I think, different and engaging ways that we can work with our schools and students and parents and community around this data to really better support our students. And now I would like to open it up to any questions or discussion. I had a quick question about that. When we look at this data, do we take into consideration that three years ago, the 11th graders now are three years, were three years younger than the last time? Yeah, that's a great question. Because I think... Our 11th graders this year had some significant mental health issues happening, and how does that factor in? Yeah, that's

074a great question. So the reason that the state made that 5th, 8th, and 11th grade cohort is because we can look at how students in 5th grade answer questions, and then three years later, well, we don't know if they're exactly the same students. We know that most of them were 5th graders either in this district or in this state. most likely, and then we can see how they answered. So you can see those increasing trends for things like mental health concerns. In terms of going specifically into grades, I think that's a perfect example of how buildings or students could help us better understand the data by looking at what happened, what are experiences that may have shaped this change. Holly, thank you. This is always enlightening. And I know it's colored my thinking in the

075past on approaches that we can take and should take with our students. What's your plan for communicating this information to the community and to parents? Do you have a rollout plan for that? It's always kind of a million-dollar question. How can we get this in? sizable, digestible, impactful way. We've offered presentations before with low attendance. Understandably, it's very hard for people to come to something else. I want to agree that Alex and I have talked about this year is thinking differently about how we do get this information out. While we can share a report like this, even electronically to parents, I think engaging more around the discussion, even putting a couple like. breaking it down into a couple bullet pieces maybe for an event for a concert for a game and really just Try to

076get some of the highlights of the survey out there in a way that feels like it makes sense And we also I do want to do a better job of getting the information out to students that I think that The students took the time to take this survey and they should know that we're using it and want to help support them and work together with them to better understand how we can help them. So that's an area I know we really want to improve this year. One thing I'd add there too is next week we'll be presenting to schools and community in partnership at the skip meeting. So it'll go out to the community there. Sure. And we hope to kind of leverage their ideas to see how they might use the data. We talked

077in cabinet last week about, as Holly mentioned. having students discuss some of the slides in class with some guided conversation questions and led by a teacher. So those are some ideas, but we do have the data for three years, and so we can continue to look at ways to use the data. It's very rich data. I know that. And, you know, there's certain... certain connections you can make using data analysis, but the why part is rarely answered, and I think that's where it gets into discussions with students. Sometimes you can see things like, oh, there's a spike in e-cigarette usage about the time the Juul came out. That is a partial explanation of why, but then you gotta ask, well, why would kids be drawn to that? and you need to get their answers so

078it makes more sense but it's always uh it's always an intriguing discussion thank you both i've been looking forward to this meeting um one i guess the the biggest question for me is regarding the mental health topic um portion of the presentation um Obviously, the survey is anonymous. It's not linked to any individual. And I know that there's been a considerable amount of work done at the secondary level for having resources available for mental health support, social emotional health. It may be more of the kinds of things that are requiring the student to be proactive, which... is partly an issue. But I guess my bigger question is what are we doing, what can be done, and this may also be able to be answered in part by Mr. Stanley, for like, for example, the fifth

079grade cohort. Obviously we can't track the 41% of fifth graders that are saying that they feel down without being able to explain why, but is there any way or any resources that are being currently done or planning to be done where we can kind of either re-survey or pick students out and then also at the secondary level so it doesn't necessarily have to be so proactive. Great question. And I do think Mr. Stanley will be able to more specifically address the strategies being implemented in the elementary schools. But at Cabinet last week, we had a very rich discussion including Working with fifth graders and or current sixth graders. We still have to figure that out I know the elementary principals are meaning to discuss they've heard this information And are meaning to discuss how they

080would like to kind of proceed in their buildings with working with that that fifth and sixth grade group in terms of better understanding some of the mental health concerns that they are going through whether it be through discussion or some type of a survey or And then also following up with that Yeah, so basically I think that that's just one on one key piece that we're looking at starting with And again, we welcome all ideas We can't hand every kid a PHQ-9 and say, here, fill this out and tell me how depressed you are. No, absolutely. It's a little bit of extra work, Holly, but I'm thinking through there are opportunities where parents are. Meeting with us in large numbers for example registration right so they might not carve out time in their calendar to

081come and hear a presentation specifically about Minnesota's student survey results, but They're coming to X school at X time to register their kid for next year their student for next year and how do we strategically capitalize on those opportunities and say, by the way, this is a stressful time for your child. Here's some data that we uncovered. Here are some talking points. And not that we would expect that right away, but I bet we could put our brains together and be thoughtful about the when and the where. So it's a twofer, right? Absolutely. They're registering and doing something else that they... they have to do. Yes. And they're getting some really interesting and provocative information, right? I mean, this is very compelling. This will move parents who maybe don't typically have these kinds of conversations

082with their child to actually have a conversation like, wow, 40% or 60%, is that my kid? And I think a... opportunity we have in this information is to provide that support and talking points to parents or to students and give them some really Tangible tools as well. Yeah, I completely agree one Partnership we have is with the Hopkins athletic department at the high school We have a mandatory chemical and mental health awareness meeting. It's required of all the athletes. That's very unique Compared to other school districts and that's one opportunity where parents and students are in the same space together it's a really Have some of those discussions and I think we are constantly trying to figure out different ways. We could grow that kind of a model and improve I think a report like

083this really underscores the really important role that one voice plays for our district and in our district. It really is that critical linkage between this just being a lot of really provocative, important information, but to have a program that translates those insights into... real action. That's the thing that's jumped out to me the most about your report tonight. So thank you for all the work that you do on that. And yeah, I mean, I think it was literally within days of the state had the aggregate data before it was given to districts, obviously. But I think it was within days of the state receiving its aggregate results, for example, that the Walls administration moved forward on the vaping piece because it had shown Like a basically a doubling in in you should usage and really

084underscored that this is an app an epidemic and that there's urgency around it so you know good data is a foundational for good public policy and good programming and intervention and when that state Your good data came out the main highlights were vaping and this is against a level concerns around vaping, mental health, and some decreases in some of the educational feelings about school indicators. So it wasn't a surprise that we would be similar in some of those concerns. But I do, you know, again, I think we have to look at areas we celebrate with the data. And I think the fact that our kids feel safe and supported are areas that we should also be talking about and celebrating and always trying to to strive for better. Well, you're very good at presenting this

085data, so it would be probably easy for you to do this again. Oh, yeah. Sorry. I pretty much can do it in my sleep. During board meeting, not a great idea. To be videotaped, right, and then we feature it on our website, and maybe we'll have parents who will listen to the whole thing, or maybe we can provide them with, access points for here the fifth grade data, here the eighth grade data, here the 11th grade data. Or just pull this video and link it to the website. I just think it's so important how our students feel about themselves and feel about school are part of the conditions for learning. Absolutely. Right? So we have to be thoughtful about what we do with this data and how we share it. Absolutely. And as a parent

086of two students, I find it really important to know this information. And a lot of it actually is you feel relieved. I mean, looking at that substance abuse, I mean, all you hear about as a parent is all these dangers. And I think it's nice to have access to this information on a personal level as a parent. Great. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Excellent. Any other questions or comments? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. See you in three years. Probably before then. I think I'm coming back in February for community ed. Next, I'd like to invite our Director of Special Services, Fonda Contreras, and Special Services Supervisor, Brian Stanley, to the table. This is also an information and discussion item, so board action is not required. They'll be updating us on our

087student wellness initiatives. And so this update is an outline of the work done in Hopkins to address the needs of mental health and social emotional learning. So perfect follow up to the presentation we just heard. And of course, these efforts are in place to support the holistic needs of the 2031 graduate. Welcome to you both. So I will start and this is more anecdotal information that we have So during the 1819 school year as you know, we started the wellness centers at all of the secondaries It was two nights at the high school one night at each of the junior highs and we did not see the attendance that we wanted to see and so we took a step back and asked our students what they wanted to see. And so we kind of revamped

088things in this year. We've created calming spaces at each of the secondary sites. And right now, I think the totals are over 180 times that students have signed into those spaces. And actually, that was early data just at North. So just North alone had 180 students. And it could be students counted more than once, but each time they go, they're recording their time. And so they're using that space as kind of a calming space to be reflective, to do the mindfulness. And so we're seeing a much higher success rate with that. In addition, all three secondary schools are now offering what I need, which is win sessions offered each week, and it includes a variety of wellness activities. These sessions are routinely for students to self-select, and we're seeing success with that as well. And

089just to add on to the wellness centers, you know, we really, they kind of came out of the crisis situations that happened at West. We knew that our students were struggling with their mental health. The Minnesota data that Holly just presented really indicated. that we needed to have some level of support. And when we opened those, we really did expect students to come in droves. We were prepared for nine, 10 students. And the reality is, is we had less than a dozen students access Northwest and the high school collectively in that model. So that did give us a pause and say, we know that the students do have these mental health issues, but we kind of started shifting the conversation. What I tell people now is mental health. We all have it. And a lot

090of times when the term mental health is used in a sentence, it is always followed by crisis, disorder. disability, diagnosis, and really what we're trying to shift is the narrative around mental health to a more proactive discussion and narrative where people have a mental health literacy where they can engage one another on a day-to-day conversations, just like we do around reading and math has its own language. How can we incorporate a mental health or student wellness? And we talked about fifth, eighth, ninth, eleventh grade. We should be talking early childhood. We should be talking kindergarten and be talking about resilience. factors and protective factors in promoting those. So when students do encounter issues throughout the course of their day, throughout their educational career, they understand the coping skills and know that they have allies that

091know how to talk about that in common language. So just wanted to, and so the wellness centers have now really taken on more of student driven type approach and it really came out of the work that Holly orchestrated and some of the school-based mental health professionals last year as we engaged various groups and now North Junior High and the high school have provided what used to be conference rooms fully to wellness centers. They have now been revamped with a new feel to it. HEF, through their grant, provided thousands of dollars for us to kind of give the physical appearance of something that feels much more student welcoming as well. Yes, so if you're at the secondary sites stop in and we also are trying to launch one in early childhood For to start our young

092ones being able to have a space to help them self-regulate and if I can put in January 27th I didn't get this in the board report I don't think and maybe I did from three to four is the open house at the high school Wellness Center Which is part of the guidance center now too and you can see the new revamped physical space in there, too The second project well do we want to pause after each one and inquire questions? Would that be a better way rather than getting lost and too much information at once? That sounds great any questions or comments? Yes Where is the new Wellness Center? I've walked through the administration offices in there used to be a little Room there across them all in the student services centers look a big

093fishbowl Yeah, when you walk in the door you just take a quick hard right and it's the one of the old conference centers right there, okay? And it's a decent sized room that now has been transitioned fully out from a conference room to the Wellness Center And then at North Junior High, it's in the Student Services Center as well, which is in the back corner through kind of where the students come in to see the school nurse, to see the guidance counselors, the social workers. So there's supervision that's available in case it is a crisis situation. And we're still working to figure out the space because we have to provide constant supervision to those spaces as well. What we can provide at West Junior High that allows that as well. Okay. I had a question

094just regarding the HEF grant. Obviously, there's a certain amount of money that will last, I don't know how many years. How many years will it last, do you think? The special appeals was for two years, so we're in our second year. The first year, I think, was about a little $70,000 plus. This past year was $109,000 to the various initiatives that we did. Now, we have been meeting with HEF, and there might be some additional work that we do this third year as well to really kind of bring that to what I just talked about in terms of how do we... Create a symposium where we bring more community into talking about mental health in a proactive manner rather than from a crisis Yeah, and I think we're learning based You know we have multiple

095data points throughout the district and now I think what we need to do and we have been very successful Holly I mean not only is One voice coalition where we very fortunate to have Holly in this district and she takes it from that data level and she's been Probably leading the Wellness Center Recreation this year and working with the school-based mental health professionals facilitating. What can it look like differently than it has in the past to? So I do believe that we are learning information about what we can do long term to sustain some of the work that we're doing. And a lot of the initiatives here are hopefully kind of guiding us through that process, kind of this action research. I had a question about on-ramps to mental wellness. What you mentioned before, is

096it always student initiative that gets them into a wellness center or to see a therapist? Do we have any other on-ramps? Yes, and we'll get to some of those things too throughout the report, but just the Wellness Center usually it is student initiative They kind of seek that space out to kind of help Get themselves regrouped and the wind sessions have been instrumental in introducing that so the wind sessions like I was at Norchinger High this past week during a wind session last week. And they were doing, I don't remember the term, but the wellness center had literally, it seemed like 20 kids in it during the wind session because it was a counselor-facilitated group as well. So I think once you have the students see it with their eyes, they learn about it, it

097makes sense to them versus hearing about it and that, hey, this wellness center, that's still abstract. Through this wind process, we've been able to give students a first-hand experience, and I think it has kind of challenged their initial paradigm or belief on what it was to, oh, this is kind of cool. This is where I can actually access and take care of myself throughout the day. Second piece on there is the Upstream project. I know that the school board members, beginning I think last year, last fall, and I'm talking 2018 at this point, I think, started to engage Upstream, which is really a collaborative effort between Move Forward, which formerly was Teens Alone, and Chapin Hall, which is a research arm of the University of Chicago, really around ending student homelessness, as well as... what

098they refer to as early school leaving or what we call dropout in America. We are the first school district in the country piloting this project Two other districts in the in the country are looking at it. They had phenomenal results in ending Homelessness student homelessness and early dropout in Australia with this research project. It was duplicated in Canada Hopkins was approached and we were forward thinking that how do we begin to think about kind of, it's a metaphor, right? Upstream, not waiting until a family is actually homeless to be able to try to mobilize our resources because that takes a lot more time and it's costly and a lot of times didn't have the results that we wanted in order to sustain. Upstream project involves a student survey. We had to build quite a few

099firewalls and precautionary things to protect student data because this... survey did have the ability for a small select few of us in the district to be able to identify individual students to be able to see did they demonstrate indicators through their survey responses of either becoming homeless or early dropout. We just got those results back right before winter break. We are now in the process of beginning the implementation of connecting with the students that did identify with indicators. And the idea is kind of the best kind of way to describe it is kind of a care team approach. We've always been doing this work, but it's been in silos. We have multiple different agencies in the western suburbs and school personnel, but really what we were doing is identify, refer out, and then kind of...

100What what would really happen who would come to the table this idea is we identify we work with the student get them to agree what long with the families if they want the partnership with move forward and then move forward has allocated a full-time case manager to the high school for this project and a full-time case manager that splits her time between north and west and they become kind of like care coordinators and make sure the right hand and the left hand are working in collaboration with one another to try to help stabilize a family that may be becoming homeless in the near future or if a student is at risk of dropping out as well. And this will also have implications for us to do some longitudinal data to look at what are the

101trends, what are the resources that we might need to allocate or think about as a school district within our own school-based mental health professional resources proactively as well. Any questions or feedback around the upstream project? I think one thing I'd just like to point out to our board members and our public is this is really an exciting and innovative program for Hopkins. I mean, Brian, you said that we're the first in the nation. At our most recent steering committee meeting around it, we had a gentleman who's the lead for the governor's interagency task force on homelessness. We had someone from the county who are looking at. this Hopkins model as something that could potentially be scaled countywide, statewide. We've got two more years before we'll have all the data on it, but even before we

102get all of the data, just looking for early indicators that some of the things like... This upstream screening process could be replicated other places even before we have the full results of this pilot. So this is really an area where Hopkins is a leader. And I'm really, really thrilled at how this has been rolled out so far. I don't think this has been recognized publicly, but I want to thank Vice Chair Latondras for bringing this opportunity into the district because it was through one of your connections from your time in D.C. that this all came together. So incredible, incredible work, groundbreaking work. I just have a question about the survey. So it's given at the secondary level. Does that mirror what was done in Australia and Canada? Has there ever been discussion just kind of

103generally in regards to the upstream project about administering the survey at the grade school levels as well? It mirrors what was done in Australia, kind of the 7th through 12th grade. Some of the language had to be changed because of... how the Australians described different student behaviors. And it did have to go through the Institutional Review Board in Chicago, because it is a formal research project. And as a result, some of the focus areas, specifically around mental health, had to be abandoned, because there was that, obviously. worry that more harm would be done by asking those questions and would the school have the capacity to support students quickly that when they reported something along the lines of at risk for mental health concerns. So it really kind of narrowed the focus as well. But one

104of the things that I mean now we're kind of Chapin Hall in particular is kind of dissecting the data and looking at was the survey did it target what we wanted to. Because I think 57% of our students completed the survey after starting it. So was it too long? Or was it that our students have taken multiple surveys kind of under this umbrella as well? And it's difficult for them to probably understand we are differentiating that we had the ability to segregate the data all the way down to the individual student and provide that support too. Or that could have been a reason why they were hesitant to report too. So we'll be learning a lot through what Chapin Hall does as a research arm, just on how do you do a survey of this

105fashion in a manner that captures and students and families are willing to support and engage in. Next we have mindful kids through relate counseling so at all six of our elementaries this year We started the intervention group students were identified through the SAT team or the student assistance team by their teacher with parent consent to participate in an eight-week group, so the next stage would be to identify another group of students to participate in the closed group and they focus on self-awareness and emotional regulation. through the counseling services and so Group one is ending and we'll be starting the second group the social workers The school social workers will be the co-facilitators for this next go-round and Brian and I just met with the folks from relate counseling last week and They asked if there

106were ways that we could expand or what other things do we need? And so we kind of threw out maybe some summer planning and programming and They were really excited so we haven't put anything in the works But just throwing out ideas and they said we have staff they'd love to work and we don't usually do much with them And so it's a way to keep kids connected to services that they may not otherwise get over the summer So more to come on that that was a Friday meeting We threw it in the air and they grabbed it so more work to be done And they're doing some amazing work around trauma-informed therapy as well and all that they've just started too. So that really piqued our interest as well. And this is the first

107time that Mindful Kids has been offered on-site at a school. It's always been offered at the Relay Counseling at a pretty hefty fee. Cost to families so the one piece that's missing from this is how do we involve parents in this as well? So we're dialoguing about that But there is email communication that goes to families and to teachers to make sure that they're aware of What is being in the language that's being introduced so it can be replicated or reinforced outside of that small group, too? But through this I think we're also building our own capacity with through our counselors and social workers to kind of vision What would our own model of something of this nature look like as part of our MTSS model, too? And then next we have second step curriculum

108that we ordered for elementary schools this year and I think so often schools have focused on academics, and now that we're seeing new learning around the needs of our students in a different way and just recognizing that need to kind of be able to meet the needs of students as they are, we're kind of looking at how we give tools for teachers so that they can feel comfortable supporting students, but then also, like, is there a curriculum? based on the data that we're getting, what are the needs of students, and how do we teach those social skills. And so the social skill curriculum for elementary this year is second step. And we've seen kind of the rollout. It looks different at some of the different sites. But as we get more into this work and

109discover the need, just working with staff on... Meeting the needs of the whole child and not just that academic need so it's new learning for all of us as we go through this journey Dr. Charm a co-boss echo boss at Eisenhower. She started at Eisenhower and Alice Smith And it's kind of aligning the curriculum with national work being done around collaborative for academics social and emotional learning through Castle so Feel like we're still in the developing stage on this too of how does it look? How do we make it so that it's just not another thing but it's embedded in what we do the panorama survey so one of the things that after the first year of the HEF one of the discussions that we had was One, have we even truly identified what needs

110to be addressed? Especially from the students communicating to us. A lot of times you don't do an intervention before you do some type of assessment and data collection that really truly define that problem. So Panorama Survey, we found, and they are across the country. In my eyes, they probably have the largest student body to pull from from information, and they allow us to kind of identify. what areas of social emotional learning we want to target within our district so we were able to design our own survey based on what principals and school leaders were believing kind of that presented the highest priority for them so the survey has been done now uh third through sixth grade k through two does have the capacity to do it but research says that a first grader and their

111self-reporting around social emotional learning may not be the most reliable. Plus, we haven't taught them that language, so this would be the first time. So that also speaks to, if we start introducing this language in kindergarten, it will be important. But teachers do have the capacity to complete a survey on students, so I would envision that would be part of our SAT team, that all of a sudden a student is presenting with some SEL concerns. This would be a way to do some baseline assessment in order to assess if your interventions are being effective or not. We are now in the process of understanding the data because it has the capacity to look at district, individual school, individual grade level, down to the individual classroom, down to the individual student as well. So once again,

112vast amount of data. And what I like about Panorama is that it aligns with CASEL and Second Step. So all of a sudden you can say, hey, my classroom is struggling with growth mindset. You can look at the second step curriculum and say, these are the activities that promote growth mindset as well. So it's really teacher friendly. But once again, it's. one of those where we got to put our hands around it. And we did, HEF funded this, and they're also willing to fund the on-site training once we get a second data point on what does all that data mean and what can we start doing with that data. So we'll be doing another survey later in the spring, but leading up to that, working with the school counselors and administrators to look at, here's

113the individual data for your schools, and thinking about what do we have right now as the playbook that Panorama offers that the counselors can access, but I also would really make sure that the alignment and the teachers know you can look at your classroom in particular and say, these are the second step activities I want to put forward over the course of the duration of the school year, too. And it's a real simple survey. It takes less than 15 minutes, and it's very, very forward-thinking. Everything is worded in a positive way. So I was very impressed with this panorama survey and the way it's developed. One other thing that I didn't put in here for sure was we just are about to complete a Partnership with part Nicollet and the growing through grief we were

114awarded I believe was a twenty three thousand dollar grant that we wrote in partnership with growing through grief to create a trauma informed or trauma aware Ness training for our teachers how to engage students around their grief cycle as well as the other piece that within that training is about how to manage your compassion fatigue and your self-care as an adult as you try to support your students too. And as I look back, you know, from the tragedies at West Junior High, this is the one thing that we were... in our comprehensive response, the compassion fatigue, and the self-care to make sure that our adults that are working with students are taking care of themselves so they can give everything they can to the students and families as well. So that's finishing up, and it's

115once again another thing that I believe Hopkins is going to be a leader on. It developed an online training as well as an in-person training and a protocol. for schools to use locally, state, and even nationally that if something of this nature, if a tragedy of a student death happens, here's what you need to do all the way from your attendance clerk all the way up to your superintendent on everyone's responsibilities. So it's a comprehensive response to ensure that the needs of our students, families, all stakeholders are met during this time too. Yeah. Wonderful. Any comments or questions? Thank you so much for your holistic and very data-driven work. It's really incredible. And thank you for your support. We appreciate it. Thank you, Board. Thank you. Wonderful. With that, we'll move into Board Member Reports.

116Who has something to share? Well, I have a few things. Community meetings that I was a part of. these past two weeks. So I went to the Alice Smith Elementary PTO and they are gearing up for Winterfest. So if you are free on January 31st, come over. It's a lot of fun. And even though you can't get cotton candy anymore, there will be really great treats. I was sad about the cotton candy. I also went to the Lyrical Power Open Mic Night that was at the Depot, which was amazing. There were a lot of staff and students and community that came together, and it was absolutely wonderful to see everyone up there being empowered and speaking and singing their truth and their experience. It was wonderful. Was at the MSBA conference that was leadership conference,

117which was really great Got to see some exciting programs that are going on around the state And one of the things that I felt was there were two Workshops that I went to that were particularly powerful One of them was using student voice to change adult mindsets, and I feel that that aligns very nicely with our vision 2031 And then also universal screening, implementing that into the Austin public schools resulted in their student participation reflecting in their gifted and talented programs, reflecting their overall student population. And then also partnering with public health for mental health programs, which is something I think Hopkins does really well too. I went to the Special Education Advisory Council meeting where I got to hear a lot of the mental health and social-emotional learning initiatives that we heard about tonight.

118And I think that in particular from parents from that perspective, we were very encouraged to see that all students in Hopkins are going to start receiving the instruction that... our students have been receiving for a very long time and how we can leverage those resources to help everyone, all the students in the district succeed. So that's my wonderful. Thank you. I'll go next. Go for it. Two Fridays ago, I attended the AMSD Board of Directors meeting, and Commissioner Steve Grove from the Department of Employment and Economic Development spoke and talked about some things that... They're doing with higher ed and and with employers to try encourage internship programs or apprenticeship programs And then also a Thomas Kottke and Annie Krapik to health care professionals presented on the vaping epidemic and Some recommendations to schools about

119what they could be doing about it, which we're already doing so I felt confirmed in our practice. And then, as Shannon mentioned, the MSBA annual conference, winter conference was last week. I attended a couple of interesting presentations. The attendance on Friday was severely limited, as you can imagine, with the threatened snowstorm. But I attended the roundtable and actually presented at the roundtable that morning. with Aaron Vandal and who's responsible for the school lands trust for the state of Minnesota and We're making progress first of all We had been pushing for years for independent from the DNR And that has finally happened and so even though he's still got an office in the DNR building He is independent and can make his own decisions now so that's a that's a productive step forward. The other thing

120is they have some money now. He has gotten $13.5 million from Congress to acquire land outside of the boundary waters for the school lands trust and to swap it for land within the boundary waters. Right now, several thousand acres of school land trust lands are within the boundary waters. And as such, we can do nothing with that land. We can't mine it. We can't log it. We can look at it. that's all and So it's not productive for the for the purpose of The the school ends trust in for the students of Minnesota So the plan now is to swap those lands within the BWCA for land outside the BWC that we can put some productive productive Economic use to and he's got all kinds of ideas about new things to do which some of

121which I hadn't even thought of But we can sell Royalty carbon carbon credits on land that's within the school trust to generate revenue so We won't be totally dependent upon mining and logging To generate money for the school trust lands. So that was a very positive meeting And then I went from there to one conducted by Hopkins Session conducted by John wetter. Who's our I don't know what would we call him staff meteorologist for? for the school district but he and a meteorologist from the US weather service in Chanhassen presented and it was fascinating. I didn't realize all the different issues that have to be considered before you can cancel school essentially. But the thing that was surprising was that up until about five years ago they didn't really include schools in their in their

122alerts that they sent out and they were focusing more on emergency managers for cities and counties in some major corporations and really when you think about it the weather affects schools probably more than it does any other government government entity so I think John is to be congratulated for reorienting the weather services focus to include schools. And I was one of two people that attended it because the weather was so lousy that so many people went home early that day. Thanks, Steve. I wanted to mention that I attended the Educational Services Advisory Committee, which was very cool, and Fortuna was there too. And they were telling us about... how they are moving away from the traditional way of learning where students were expected to memorize copious amounts of facts and then be tested on that.

123Instead, you know, they're going to be given materials and they're going to work as a team along with the teacher to guide them. But it won't be, you know, rote memorization and then you have to write out the answers and everything. So I thought that was awesome because I think you have to utilize all. aspects of learning in order to do well in that. And the other thing that I learned was that our, where is it? Our community education advisory committee had met, and they really want to reach out to diverse families, and their ideas are to go off-site location to offer courses. They talked about adding classes, about finances and financing, which is really important for people to know. And then they were talking about programming for the entire family instead of, you know,

124just... Catering to the parents they're going to involve having the kids with them too and possibly have child care provided and then I attended the MSBA as well. And there I was recognized for being a person of color serving on a school board, which I thought was amazing. And I got to stand up and they recognized all of us who were new members. And we're a small bunch, but we're going to build. And there was a woman named Marnie. She is a school board for... St. Paul, and she's doing incredible work. And along with that, Kim Ellis was recognized, and she was given an award, which was very cool. And so Marnie is going to get together with a bunch of us and possibly create a coalition for Asians. So I thought that was cool.

125Wonderful, thank you so much. Say one other thing. I'd like to mention about the MSBA conference When the governor spoke he used a line that I created several years ago. We have a garden the lack of school board autonomy And I pointed out to our legislators, I think it was about three, four years ago, that the Mosquito Control District of the metropolitan area has more autonomy in setting their tax rates than we do as a school board. And he's used that line now for two years in a row. Does he credit you? No. We know that I feel a little warm spot my heart when he uses it. That's a new revenue stream for the district royalties Two really quick items. Number one, on January 8th, I attended the steering committee meeting for the Upstream

126Project, which we heard about today. In attendance at that, as I mentioned, was the governor's lead for the Interagency Task Force on Homelessness, represented from the county. We have some amazing, as part of this board, we have youth. board, so those youth board members were there, and our lead from the Pollad Foundation, who's generously supplied $600,000 for this project. And I thought that it was striking that in a context where we were sort of going through all of this new data about what's happening in our district, yeah, just how every single stakeholder brought something really unique and important to the table and Yeah, we'll be learning more about that project in the months and years ahead, but it was just a really gratifying time. We've been furiously working at the Hopkins LAC, our Legislative Action

127Coalition, on finalizing our position papers on our platform items in anticipation for the start of the 2020 legislative session. And between now and the next board meeting, so Friday, January 31st at 8 a.m., we will be hosting our legislators here. for our annual legislative kickoff breakfast and we have a pretty good number of them already confirmed so your uh community advocacy in action to try to get increased funding for public schools and everything else that we're prioritizing as an lic this year thank you great with that i would look for a motion to adjourn So moved. And a second? Second. I have a motion and a second. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. All opposed, nay. Motion carries. This meeting is adjourned at 9.05.