October 2, 2014 Meeting of the Hopkins School Board

001I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Hopkins School Board to order. Today is Thursday, October 2nd, and the time is 7 p.m. Our first item of business is open agenda. Open agenda offers the public an opportunity to address the school board regarding issues or concerns related to the school district. It appears that nobody's here right now for the open agenda. But the board appreciates the individuals who do come forward and value such commentary and comments from the community. And we are also, as a board, aware that people cannot always come before the board, and so we would like to remind members of the public that you may visit the school district's website at www.hopkinsschools.org. to use our contact the board email form located on the school board webpage. Board members, district phone numbers

002are listed and we welcome your messages. The next item is the approval of the agenda and... part of the approval of the agenda we will be at the request of board member McIntosh Coleman moving item H from the consent calendar and discussing that one after the action on the consent calendar and that has to do with the Q comp goals so with that I would the other Item is under new business. We will also be taking action Looking for action on the world's best workforce summary so with that I would look for a motion on the agenda I still move with those additional changes that the agenda be approved second been seconded and Moved and seconded all those in favor. Please say aye aye opposed same sign the Agenda has been approved Next item is

003the approval of the minutes. I would look for a motion on the approval of minutes Second it's been moved and seconded all those in favor. Please say aye aye Opposed same sign The minutes have been approved then the next item is the consent calendar minus item H And so I would look for a motion on the consent calendar. So move. It has been moved. Is there a second? Second. Seconded. All those in favor of the approval of the consent calendar, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. The consent calendar minus item H has been approved. At that, we will then move to the discussion of item H, which is the QCOP goals. And I'm just going to ask Nick and Diane to come up here because they've got the contractual and process background for this.

004Thank you. Mr. Chair, as I've read through... the QCOP goals which we thoroughly and have for years supported that effort and we still do. My question really kind of falls into just a lack of clarity about a couple of things. And one of those being is that as I went through that, my question first of all would be Are the QCOP goals based on the district's initiative or building initiatives? That's a great question. QCOP goals are determined by each school site. All right. So having heard that, it then cleared up as I went through the list of all 10, 11 schools all went for the reading other than one. One of our elementary schools went for the math. Is there any way that we try to encourage as growth continues in the areas and reading

005now continues where we're seeing the growth of moving to areas as i.e. math, i.e. science, which is another one. But moving on further to the goals themselves, as I read through them, my question is, what is the purpose? All buildings, elementary, their purpose was to aggregate the data for four grades, from three to six, and I'm looking at that and thinking for reading, what is the value? to buildings or to us or to them of aggregating data for all four grades as opposed to a grade. It's another really good question. Actually, Director Coleman, we do both in terms of at the school level, data is collected for each grade level and for each individual student. But the QComp goal format that the MDE requires requires us to identify grade levels in the format that you

006mentioned. Because as you know, grades three through six at the elementary level are the grades in which students take either MAP or MCA tests. We can choose either of those tests as part of our QCOMP goal, but those are the grades in which those tests are given. Okay. And understanding that is that when I looked at the aggregated data, and let's take one school like Alice Smith. from grades three through six they came up with the spring of a 65.8% in reading in all four grades. And then they are looking at trying to then move that 2015 spring to 67.8%. So when I look down the list where everybody basically is trying to increase two percentage between spring and spring of 14 and spring of 15 is if that's if every building is doing that

007then every building is Not determining for themselves whether or not they want to go less of an increase or more of an increase. Everybody is going to. Is that according to MDE as well? It's one of the options. The MDE guidance to us is to create what the MDE calls SMART goals, those specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. So, of course, in each of our schools, we are working towards 100% of students reaching their growth target. But in terms of creating a goal that's... As the state would call it, a smart goal, where the goal percentage is attainable. That's been our practice. Of the two, which makes sense. Okay. My last question goes to the statement, and as I did the reading the overview, which really concerned me about... Here we're moving, taking this and

008moving into the world's best workforce, which a lot of this just kind of parallels and move right into that. Well, when I read both that first and second paragraph, kind of left me kind of dangling out there. And yet you've clarified what MDE is setting up for us in terms of what we are following their guidance and direction of one content area. And, okay, so that was great. But where does that then, as we move forth with QCOM, my last question. is regarding the PLCs. That's an integral part as I've read through this. How do we continue to maintain? That time for the teachers and everybody to be able to work through that so we figured out the most effective way to do that we've figured out a very effective way to do that within

009the capacity that we have so One of the things that really good point that you bring up many years ago when when dr Schultz had the role that I currently have Data retreats were fairly new in our district. I think John may have held the first one and we as a district at that time didn't use data as a regular part of our practice. And what I would say now, even though we still have data retreats, most of our classroom teachers look at data on almost a daily basis. Our PLCs meet at least twice a month. And so, for instance, each PLC is also required to set two SMART goals during the year. So if their school goal is reading, then oftentimes the PLC, whether it's a third grade PLC or an English language arts

010department PLC, will often set a SMART goal for their students in the area that their school has set as a QCAMP goal. That clears that up. Thank you. You're welcome. Wait a second. I have a question, too. I just wanted to ask. I wanted to ask about the high school goal and just a clarifying question on the QCOP goals for the high school. As I understand it, only the grade 10 would take the MCA test. And so the goal that we have relates only to grade 10. You're right in that grade 10 is the only grade at the high school that takes the MCA reading test. And if they would choose a math goal, and they have some years, then it would be grade 11. But one of the neat things about the high school

011choosing reading, we were just in a conversation, Nick and I and Dr. Schultz today, with Principal Johnson. And they've been talking school-wide in terms of how, and we talked about this in our preschool workshop around academic vocabulary, how every teacher is in essence a reading teacher, and how do we support students learning vocabulary and reading skills in other content areas like social studies. And it's not an expectation that those instructors teach reading skills, but there's an awareness. that reading proficiency goes across content areas. So by choosing a reading goal, almost every staff member at the high school would be able to contribute to that effort. But in terms of the QCOP goal-setting process, if you set a reading goal, then that is pretty much limited to grade 10. The test result, yes. State law requires

012it to be a nationally normed specific exam, so we really are limited at the high school level as to what we have options to consider. So that's kind of interesting. And the MTAAS testing, what? The MTAS is a special education assessment. I think Linda is here. She knows better than I, but it is a test that is created for students where it would not be appropriate in terms of their IEP to take the MCA. So they take the MTAS as an alternative measure of their learning. the goal of increasing by two points really only applies to the MCA yes in the high school okay okay well it's a little more enlightenment on that does anybody else have any any questions okay I would look for a motion approving the Q comp goals so moved second

013is there any further discussion on that Okay, all those in favor, please say aye aye opposed same sign the Q cop goals have been approved. Thanks very much. Thank you and with that then we will move to our treasurer's report and we will look to treasurer Steve Adams to update us Thank you, Chair Goodroad. I've reviewed the check runs for the last two weeks. Some of the things I noted, we're getting a lot of final and almost final expenses for the construction at Tanglin and Meadowbrook. We paid a bill for over $700,000 for new HVAC at Tanglin, which... I'm looking forward to touring and seeing some time. It's still projected to be done around November 15th. Okay. Some landscaping, storage pod removals, new keys and locks for some of the doors, and the active whiteboards

014have been reinstalled there. So that made up probably about a quarter of all the expenses in the last. two check runs. We still have not closed the books on 2013-14. That should happen on Monday. We're still waiting for some final invoices from District 287. We made one large payment to them for their services for last year, and we've just got a couple small ones yet to receive and pay, but we should be able to close the books on Monday. That's essentially it for the you know my report on that any questions I do so um on the small outstanding bills to 287 That's costing us money getting our audit done and waiting and waiting and waiting When what's the point when we say I'm sorry, but we're not gonna pay you because we Monday Monday,

015okay just want to make sure that we are Clear to them because we are what four months post end of our business our fiscal year. Yeah Three months I think but anyway, yeah so We get some invoices coming in late, you know from them and I think there was some from from our transportation Carrier that came in in August sometime for the previous year, but that happens so any other questions? If not, I move that we approve expenditures in the amount of $4,412,391.45 for the period of September 11th through September 24th, 2014. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the expenditures. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. And the treasurer's report has been approved. Next item on our agenda is reports. And at this point,

016we will move directly to the superintendent report. Well, I'll just share briefly on some of the things that I've been part of. We met this week with our Edina partners. Once a year we meet with technology, teaching and learning, and equity and talk about places where we make intersections. And each year the partnership grows. The technology folks have had a couple of staff development. and that is, there are ideas coming out of that. Staff development idea of having a combined Edina Hopkins summer conference for teachers, so that's another idea that we're looking at. So that's exciting, you know, and also, you know, with the... With that type of scale brings in some savings and also brings in Bigger names because the groups are larger. So we're excited to continue with those conversations. I've been meeting

017with house candidates Just as they call I have met with a couple of them to talk about our school district just finished up the goal setting conferences with all the principals and it's exciting to to get a sense of what they want to achieve in their schools. So I want to thank Nick and Diane for being part of that goal-setting conference. And then the National Weather Service. has asked me and John Wetter to we're going to put together a one web page for superintendents that we can go directly to to get the correct information for winter weather and John Wetter and the National Weather Service reminded me that we could be a month away from snow. So thinking about snow, it seems like we just started school. So with that, and the start of the

018school year continues to be real smooth and construction's moving along. So it's exciting. And we, October 14th. we're we'll have a tour of of tanglin and meadow brook and i believe that that's on the board calendar isn't it bobby yep so i will do that before the board meeting and come back here um have a light meal and then start our board meeting okay that's it thank you anybody have any questions or john Okay, then is there any other board member reports? Wendy since the policy we don't have any policies on the agenda tonight But the policy and modern committee have been meeting and we have some exciting We're doing some exciting work on our policies with the world's best workforce coming forward We kind of have to change some of the things we're doing

019so we're we're looking in our school district system accountability Which is policy six one six and so we'll bring that we're working with Diane and Nick and to bring forward some changes there because we have to make some changes and a whole bunch of other policies coming forward. So don't worry. We'll keep you busy next week. Thank you. Go ahead Betsy. Thank you. Mr. Chair. I want to remind everybody that next Tuesday October 7th is our LAC candidate forum we have seven house seats that represent part or part of the Hopkins School District and according to min post there are 20 races this session or this election to watch and four of those races are within the Hopkins School boundaries so we highly encourage you to attend on Tuesday night October 7th, 7 p.m. here

020at Eisenhower. It'll prove to be a very interesting evening, I'm sure. Tomorrow morning, the Association of Metropolitan School Districts has their monthly meeting, and Governor Dayton and Jeff Johnson will be our guests tomorrow to talk about the election and have our two gubernatorial candidates there to talk about education. So that should be very interesting. I am now serving on the Minnesota State High School League Board of Directors, and for the past two days, we've had discussion around the transgender student-athlete policy. So just a very quick update for you. We had two hours of public comment last night and we had about 30 minutes of public comment today. We discussed the issue for about two hours and made a decision to table a decision until December. In that time, we have a brand new draft that

021was just created yesterday and we will be... Working with MSBA, MASA, and other educational leaders across the state to bring them all to the table, look at that new policy, and make a decision in December because we don't want it to go on any longer. Each of us board members on the state league have received hundreds of emails. They estimate collectively we've received over 10,000. So it's obviously very... emotional discussion very emotionally charged discussion and I will continue to keep you updated as we move forward thank you thank you Betsy anybody have any questions for Betsy on that anybody else Irma I was going to say to Betsy good luck I know that's a challenge and of course it's great working with Dave he's an excellent person to work with But anyway, I'm coming before

022the group to talk about WEMEP. It's that this year, again, we're offering the cultural collaboratives for 2014-15. So anybody who want to take a look at this is very much welcome to use this one or to order one. I'd like to point out is that the Joint Powers Boards members and the groups that we represent are really being encouraged to be and to take a part. There are some issues one way or another about how people feel, and that's good, but we want to sit around and massage all of that so that we can work together for what's best for all of our 10,000 plus kids. I'd like to also point out just for Hopkins benefit is that we have an enrollment 2014-15 from Hopkins of 32 of our learners from this community are at

023the Fair School Crystal and that's grades four through eight. We have 36 that are at Fair School downtown. kindergarten through three, and grades nine through 12. Actually, it's about 7% of that population of students that we serve that, well, actually 7% in both of those schools from Hopkins. So it's not a big number, but we also have a remaining allocation given to Hopkins for eight other students who might opt to want to apply. So that's so much for what we're going for. Thank you. Irma, I have a question. Is the cultural collaborative workshops open to the public? You know what? And I think speaking of that, Jill and I just met because I've been asked to serve for the Professional Development for Joint Powers Board. And how do we engage the public? And my my

024take is if you want to go go so I would say yes Just don't send me the bill Chair Good Road I Other than attending the LAC meeting last Friday, that's all the outside meetings I've attended. But I would like to mention that recent or former Hopkins graduates were featured in the Star Tribune this week. And specifically, Jay Bates was referenced in an article about the transgender policy that the State High School League is considering and talked about his very positive experience as a transgender student. in the Hopkins District. So I felt very proud of that. And as you may recall, Jay was our speaker at graduation, a student speaker at graduation last spring. The other one was John Street that was referenced in an article in this morning's Star Tribune as being involved in

025what was, as it turns out, a breakthrough study done on Monarch. butterfly migration that was conducted when what year was it 70 75 i think when he was a student of jim gilbert's when jim gilbert was our our natural resources teacher and his was the first butterfly to be tagged and and counted in mexico to prove that yes monarchs do really migrate so That was a breakthrough. Steve, is that in conjunction with the new exhibit at the Science Museum that's coming up? Yeah, there's a movie about the whole process. Flight of the Butterflies, I think? I'm not sure what it is. It's at the Omni. It's at the Omni Theater at the Science Museum, and John was invited to the premiere of it in Washington, D.C. last week. So anyway, I thought it was very

026interesting how things that you do even as a junior high student in the Hopkins School of History can have worldwide impact. That's great. Thank you, Steve. Anybody else? I just want to highlight again the Legislative candidate forum that's going to be Tuesday in the boardroom at 7 p.m. And the public is invited and we really encourage the public to come because we have a number of Interesting races in the Hopkins School District for the Minnesota legislature So with that We will move on to new business and the first item under new business is the legislative action coalition and We have two of our board members will be involved with that as well as our community members and John I don't know if you have anything you wanna I'll just first of all say thank you

027to our community members for our lobbying efforts at the Capitol for our children here in Hopkins and I've met with them a couple times, exciting group and Steve and Betsy are of course doing a great job with it so I'll just turn it over to Steve. Thank you. I'll ask the other citizen members to identify themselves here. Shannon Andreessen, parent of two students. Emily Wallace-Jackson, I'm the co-chair of the LAC. I'm Katherine Callahan, I'm the liaison for the LAC. We've met, what, four times now, I think? And we've had a lot of discussions about what we should have in the 2015 platform. And I thought I'd recap some of the discussion that we've had and look for input from the board. John's passing out a copy of our 2014 platform. We intend to do something

028very similar to that for our legislators this year. hopefully in time for the breakfast that we have for them. Thank you. We've agreed to hold over three items that have been in our platform since day one. One is increasing education funding and talking about it as a constitutional priority. Secondly, to fully fund early childhood education for at-risk students. That's something that we've been doing ourselves for quite a while as a board, but We'd like to have more funding from the state right now I think our funding only covers about the state funding only covers about 27% of their districts cost for ECFE for the at-risk children and Then fully the perennial one fully fund special education And some of the other items that we've had in previous platforms, and I think you'll find them in

029last year's, is to reform education funding by linking it to an inflation factor, which is not currently being done. Of course, refrain from creating new unfunded mandates, which usually falls on deaf ears. And replacing MCAs with MAP tests. because we think those MAP tests and the teachers have told us they're more useful to them for measuring student growth. And then the one that we've had for the last couple of years about maintaining the current law regarding annexation and detachment from boundaries. And then last year we had an item in there about reforming the world's best workforce law to be more... descriptive as to what they're looking for so we could include these again I mean these are some options there's some other ones that we've talked about and we've asked for input from staff on

030and these are some of those maybe Emily you want to read those restore local control on couple new funds from specific can you restore local control on couple new funds from specific programs like all-day kindergarten So just to give school districts more flexibility. Resolve conflicting mandates. Linda Gardner was talking to us about this in a recent LAC meeting. So there's sort of a conflict between the special ed mandate that you can educate kids up to age 21, and then this new state push to increase the percentage of students graduating in four years. It's supposed to be 90% or more. And so there's sort of a tension there. If we can provide services to special ed kids after they're 18, they may not be ready to graduate. Allow one year delay for new immigrant students in

031taking the ACT as part of the graduation requirement. I believe that came from Superintendent Schultz, if I'm correct. When there was a grad test. first-year immigrants were allowed to pass on the test in their first year if they were not native English speakers. So and the new requirement for every student to take the ACT does not have that. as an option. So maybe you could speak to that, John. Well, I mean, it's just, I remember when we first had the MCAs that it was a rule that everybody took it regardless of how, but it's ridiculous for a new immigrant student to take the ACT because the, first of all, the ACT is very contextual and loaded with culture and a lot of language and then expect them to take that. You know, it's, Some of

032our students haven't even been in school, so I think it's a real necessary plank. These last two on here would have an impact on our overall district scores if we're required to graduate special ed students in four years rather than seven or give brand-new immigrant students a requirement to take the ACT in their first year. I have a question about both so the graduation mandate isn't that I thought because I asked Diane about that it's a federal measurement right Diane could you come up here talk to us we need a mic I think there's tension in how the two are being interpreted right right yes there is some relatively new calculations for graduation rate that are part of the No Child Left Behind Act. where we calculate graduation rates based on four-year, five-year, and six-year

033blended rates, which is way more math than I could do at this table. But it does not always meet the needs of individual students, particularly students who might have special education needs. And I love the plank that Dr. Schultz brought to you. Not only for a new immigrant students, but at this time in the ACT testing and I don't want to take a lot of your time but districts nor the MDE have the power to waive students from taking the ACT So even the department can't waive students So I went to a session at the August assessment conference where the MDE is hoping the legislature takes some action to allow districts or even the MDE to waive the requirements for some students such as ELL learners. And right now the only special education served students

034who can be waived. those students who take the M task the test we talked about earlier there are many other special education students whose teachers and parents may not think the ACT is appropriate for them but at this time we can't waive that requirement when that's a waived requirement does that does that have to go through any kind of approval process right now no one can waive it the way the legislation is written the department can't waive it nor can the district waive it That's state legislation, isn't it? Yes. Yeah, so the state. So the No Child Left Behind Act requires the graduation calculations that we're using, but the ACT test. is part of the world's best workforce, assessment requirements, and in the legislation, the way it was written, we don't have the ability to

035waive the ACT testing for individual students who may be English language learners or who may have special education needs other than students who take the MTAS. How is the ACT measured? Is there a measurement, or it just says we have to take it? You just have to take it. So what if they're absent? I mean, well, I said, is there a, they just have to take it by the end of the year? They need to take it, and I think you may have a proposed agenda item later this fall. When Dr. Schultz and Nick and I spoke with Principal Johnson today, there are a lot of different elements of that requirement that the high school is trying to sort out as our other school districts. So we will bring you more information later this fall,

036because that's a really good question, Wendy. Thank you. But the high-stakes test that the grad has been replaced by the ACT so it's still going to be a requirement that every student take it but Is Steve is there a is there do we have anything? regarding the ACT testing in terms of our recommendations Well in the past we've lobbied for the ACT to replace the grad Because there was a disparity. You could pass, you might get a high enough score on the, a student might get a high enough score on an ACT to get admitted into a college, but they would not be able to pass the grad test. So it was, it didn't really make sense to force them to take this unrelated test. It was not. a prerequisite for college admittance. So we

037lobbied for that to be consistent. So we got our way on that, but there's some other issues associated with ACT testing. Some of the other planks that might be an option, I kind of trolled through the AMSD recommendations from previous years on... their platform. One is for lobby the legislature perhaps to do board approved property tax levy increases up to a maximum that might be an inflation. rate, determine who knows how. Allow board-approved levy renewals. There is some momentum, I think, in the state to do that because there's a lot of people that even our own citizens say, well, if it's just a renewal, why do we have to go to the polls and vote on it? Why can't the board just approve it? So there might be some momentum to do that. AMSD has

038also suggested some funding to expand programs to earn post-secondary credit might be another option. So we're looking for your input on all of these and what you think the priorities of the LEC should be as we put our platform together. Or anything new that you're hearing. Yeah. Emily, I wasn't sure. We talk about it's a biennium, so it's a funding year. A funding year, right. Right. Did did you talk about that? I thought we talked about that at one of the meetings Yeah, yeah, there was a little control on couple new funds. Although restore. I gotcha and we also had talked with John hope just about you know, what a reasonable percentage increase is Based on what we've asked for in the past the maximum I think that the school districts ever asked for is

0394% But you know wanting more money, but trying to be reasonable in our request and then the local control piece And and that was John's point specifically is that we've been receiving some new funds, but they've been targeted toward programs like all-day kindergarten. So the legislature may say we gave you new money, but really it was new money that was put right into a specific program. It wasn't money that we as a board were able to decide where it best should be used. Something that we might consider this year is asking for an increase, but asking for it to be an open. Dollar amount so that we as a local board can can make that decision of where where we should best go Well, I do say I do like the inflationary increase if if

040that could get passed That would elite that at least would allow some better planning to happen versus waiting until May 30th when we're trying to approve a budget that we had to think about in March. If we knew consistently that we knew what CPI was, that that was going to be the increase, it makes our budgeting process a lot cleaner. And it's something we've asked for for years and years and years in our platform. And also, we don't ask for CPI, but this implicit price deflator, which is the better. Right. I think one thing that's always amazing to me, and we say this when we lobby, is that the health and human services area gets inflationary increases. And that's part of the legislation. And it is not for education. That doesn't seem fair. Yeah, so

041I mean I if if I were in a focus on a couple in a budget year Right, I would I would rather take that than restoring local control. I I have a little bit of a Board approved levy renewals. I actually think that that has to be a community conversation and by having a vote You do have a community conversation on the levy renewal and it's either positive or negative vote on what you're doing in the district. So, you know, tax levy and clearances, again, I'd like that might be a nice one to be able to have. So that's where I stand on a couple of those. Can I ask a question about the teacher evaluation and QCOP? I had heard that there might be a, and you can clarify. yeah there in fact Nick

042sits on the committee legislative committee where they're trying to figure out how how Q comp fits in with the teacher evaluation and vice versa and outstate in districts that don't have Q comp how they can have support as well as resource to do their evaluation. So that committee will be making some recommendations in this session. But Outstate got money for it. We did not because we got QComp. So I was wondering, I had heard that there was maybe going to be a way for us to use QComp. Well, we can use the QComp. We're using our QComp as part of our teacher evaluation. I'm not sure how many districts got some money for evaluation. Did any of them? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. We had to pay. Yeah. So I was wondering if that, I heard

043that there might be a way for us to get a waiver so we could use what we already did instead of having to do the one they proposed. I don't know. I'm not sure. Some of the stuff is in process and in committee, so I don't. That's part of this discussion, too, is that that's something that the LAC can research. And if we see that there's evidence of a specific movement on that, or if we're working with our partners at AMSD and MSBA, it's something we might consider putting on our own platform. Because that costs us $200,000, where we didn't get money for that. And there's a levy component to it, also, because we levy for QCOM. Along the same lines, there's a move by schools to expand, other school districts to expand alternate facilities

044eligibility to more than the 27 districts that currently are. I think it's up to 30 some now. But to allow them to levy for alternate facilities too. I don't know how you would feel about that. You know, my feeling, like if you compare the two issues, for example, I mean, they have a criteria, and the criteria is, I think, a fairly fair criteria for determining alternate facilities funding. And, you know, it's a straightforward criteria. And if somebody wants to go in and legislate or ask for, you know, broadening that in some way, you know, that's one thing. But on QCOP, What bothers me about that is that on the funding for teacher evaluation, I... I'm concerned that that process is not fair, that they're trying to take money from one pot and say, well, we

045want you to do Q-Comp and we want you to do teacher evaluation with that money. And then at the same time, they're going back to everybody else and say, well, here's money to do teacher evaluation. And so it seems to me that that... That the issue of fairness needs to be looked at with that whether or not we're being punished by teacher evaluation lack of funding because we were a district that adopted Q comp so I mean whether that's fair whether that's not it's a you know, I would imagine it's fairly complex, but I hope I would think from a legislative position we could certainly advocate that the state make sure that's a fair process like the alternative facilities funding I think it's a fair process you have you know a certain you have certain

046numbers of criteria that you have to meet in order to do that yeah all right Any other issues you think we should point forward? The other thing I wanted to ask in terms of your presentation, this MDE has some interesting graphics on showing the lack of education funding keeping up as a result of not funding to the level of inflation. Right. And if you could... Get a copy of that and include it. Got copies. I just didn't bring them along. But, no, we're back to the funding level. After taking into account inflation, we're back to the funding level for the year 2000 now. So, you know, we haven't had any inflationary, you know. Increase, you know since then essentially in fact, we went through a decrease if you look at you know buying power and

047during the Pawlenty administration, you know, we We suffered decreases on a yearly basis any other hot-button issues Well, I guess I would say since we're in a biennium and it's a funding year I would focus on those pieces that really Can happen and it's all going to be funding and we're not going to know until May whatever 21 at 1159 What everything looks like let's hope we don't have another world's best workforce I'll boondoggle at the 1159.30 seconds. But, I mean, I think sometimes having a huge platform is fabulous, but I think also having a smaller platform where you focus on three or four key things that are going to be top of mind anyway and you can rally other districts around, like tying to inflation is. sometimes a way to get more done. You

048guys accomplished an amazing amount when you're over there and are really great about talking to everybody and they know us because of you and the cool stuff we do but maybe just focusing on two or three that allow us to really fund our schools in a biennium. And to Chris's point, you actually made me think of something. You said when we go over there, this year we'll be doing less of going over there and more of inviting them here. With all the construction happening at the Capitol, it's really not a great environment for us to be lobbying. So look for, we'll keep you updated, but look for opportunities to interact with our legislators when we have them here in our buildings. We have a couple of different tour type things. we're thinking about in the

049breakfast the last few years we've had legislators come in to look at our ready for k program and so we feel like a number of them have come through those tours and learned a lot so we've been brainstorming other ideas about what to highlight possibly the ib program at the junior high or maybe juntos i don't know we're trying to think of other creative things to highlight Well, I think one thing that would be great is to highlight we have spent... nearly a hundred million dollars upgrading our facilities as a result of the alternative facilities funding and you know I think it would be great if we could show the legislators you know what what that has meant in terms of our kitchens and what that has meant in terms of our energy usage and

050our roofs and things like that that you know it's not some of us maybe not all that exciting but to everybody but But I think that, you know, seeing the facility is important, and that's important. Can I just ask a point of clarification on alt facilities levy? So we get to levy it because we meet their formula of age of buildings and all of that. If they expand the alt facilities levy ability, it really doesn't affect how much we get. It helps. other districts so by us supporting it for other districts it doesn't cost us anything and it might gain goodwill with other districts for them to come back around and help us you know buy into the inflationary work or whatever we'll say you know we won't say no to that removing alt facilities

051that we say And it's interesting because we do talk about it as if it's money coming from the state, and it's not. It's money in our own community. It's got nothing to do with state funding. So why they even are involved in the conversation, I'm not sure. I don't know. So that's why I'm just thinking sometimes you have help you out with this. It's really a local control issue. Right. All right. What's interesting is no matter what our platform is, the issues that surface during the session, take precedence. And the things that we end up lobbying legislators about at the end of the session are totally different than what we thought they would be going in. So who knows what we might find this year? I'm not sure. But it might be all about transgender

052athletes for all I know. I mean, you know. Yeah, our idea with the platform and the planks and the research we do is more just to set the table and to educate them and to let them know how these different things impact Hopkins. And we talk about that when they come here for the legislative breakfast. And, you know, we start off talking about those things, and sometimes pieces of that relate to very specific, detailed bills. So I think it's really an important thing to do. But ultimately when the bills come up we have to react to those things and we do But I think we've we have had some impact, you know, the bullying bill last year was substantially changed I think largely to input from our our district both the LAC and administration You

053know I can think of some other ones in the past that maybe World's best workforce maybe didn't get changed as much as we wanted But I I think it turned into something we can live with at least so you know issues like that We do have some input over there And I do I also think that when we talk about the importance of funding the schools and we keep coming back. They've heard the argument, but if we keep coming back and say, you know, that's still important. It's still, and I think in the end when it comes down, a lot of the funding issues probably come down to budgetary targets and what they think they can live with. But at least it does keep it. front of them that we still need to catch up

054on our funding. One thing that isn't on there is the health insurance. I don't, you know, that's always in the background. That was an issue last year. I don't know if it's going to be again this year or not. It seems to keep coming up, and we react when they bring it up. I think the boundary one may be an issue, too. It depends on who's elected. Right, exactly. So we'll just kind of wait and see with that. It's too bad to spend so much time and energy on it, but we'll address it if we need to. Exactly. This is an information item. Is there anything else you would like to? I would just thank you for your time. And if there are issues that you hear about and think might be important for us

055to know, please send Steve or me an email, and we'll be happy to bring it back to the LAC. So thanks. And we'll be back in December with our platform discussion and hopefully approval. Thank you very much for the time and effort that you put into bringing this forward and representing us at the state level particularly. The next item of business. is the assessment results for 2014, the MCA results, and the state required assessment matrix. I'll just give Janine and Diane a chance to transition here and get set up. I think it got unplugged, Janine, when you... Janine, I think... These two pieces. There you go. You've heard a little bit already through the in the hearing about assessment scores. This is the the annual results of our students performance on the 2014 MCAs and

056and the reasoning and Diana put a always put a lot of work into this and and these still are charts that you have that we've maintained uh... uh... that that we that we put together at not close for five years ago we had a group of board members these are the charts that you wanted to see so uh... gonna turn over to uh... diane to startup start presentation over very pleased to be here again this evening and thank you to dr jim for uh... all of her work on this report and the work that she's going to do and talking to you tonight We're very pleased with the results of the work of our students. We feel like our MSA results this year have a lot to celebrate, and primarily, again, the work of our

057students and their parents and their teachers. So we're very, very pleased about that. As you may remember, in the elementary grade, students in grades 3, 4, 5, and 6 take both the reading and math. And in grade 5, they take the science test. At the junior high level, we have students in grades 7 and 8 taking both reading and math. And the science test is given only in grade 8 in the junior high years. And then at the high school, as you might remember from our earlier conversation, grade 10 takes reading, grade 11 takes math, and science is given in the year in which students take biology, which in our high school is most often grade 10. So we have a broad span of students who take these tests These are accountability tests required by

058the state of Minnesota and they are part of the Minnesota's compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act So as we looked at our results this year, and I know you've read the report But we were very pleased to see in reading In almost every student subgroup our students exceeded the performance of the state Even as we compared our results from last year to this year and Janine will go through this with you briefly In a short time you might remember last year was the first year in which the MCA reading test was aligned to more rigorous Standards the Common Core standards that had been adopted in reading the state of Minnesota so we are pleased to see as much of an increase as we saw both across grade levels and comparing year to year

059what I want to always remind us when we compare results from year to year we're comparing different groups of students so even though that information is very important the unique qualities of every student group reflects the strengths of their group and in some cases the challenges Mathematics and reading at the elementary have been taken online for the last couple of years. This coming year, for the first time, the high school tests will be taken online. So not only will our younger students take online tests, but our older students will be taking online tests. And later in the report, we'll get into some other impacts of testing on the high school. So we believe we have a lot to celebrate. I'll have Janine go through. Briefly the figures that she created and then I'll talk a

060little bit about some of the new state testing requirements That particularly impact Hopkins High School and all of the high schools in our state and then we're here for your questions and conversation Good evening Honored Board Chair and the members of the Board, I'm very pleased to here present our Hopkins MCA test results for 2014. in spring and also we'll do some comparisons versus the state of comparisons versus Hopkins schools performance in the previous year and I am very pleased to see this year the results we have a lot of things need to celebrate and our district really moved toward a very good direction. And so you can see we present a lot of charts here, but I'm going to just point out a couple highlights and then I will leave that to you to

061give some questions and we can have some discussion. The first chart is the overall picture compared to Hopkins schools versus the state. The solid bar are the Hopkins and the dash bar are the state performance. You can see the bar represent the percent of the student proficient in Hopkins higher than the state in all reading areas. and in most of the mass areas. Some grade levels in mathematics are very comparable. So overall picture is very encouraging. And for the reading test, we have grade 6 and grade 10. It's like 7% to 9% higher, 8% and 9% more students reach proficiency level than that of the state, which is very, very, I would say, significant. And for the math, we also see that grade 6. And I don't want to compare grade 11, but you can

062see grade 11. They are doing relatively much better than the other grade levels. Grade 11, it's... Grade 11 this year moved to MCS3 and last year they are still using MCS2 so the other grade levels moved to MCS3 for several years. So grade 11 is kind of new this year. And so I'm not recommend to make assumptions that grade 11 did better than last year. But yes, they are doing better in terms of after compared the percent equivalent from the state, then we can tell they are doing better than last year. But that number, I didn't put that here. So this chart is very positive. And the next two charts, we will try to give you the comparison within the Hopkins scores. So we want to compare ourselves. Although the student population is not necessarily

063the same, there are a lot of changes. But overall, we compare ourselves. You can see the dark bar is year 2013 and the lighter green bar is 2014. Almost every grade level did better for reading except the fourth grade. And the fifth grade and sixth grade, they are making two or three points of gains in terms of student proficient. And the next chart is for mathematics. This is our second year for the mathematics go to the MCS. Oh no, this is not second year. That's the 11th grade. The math performance, we can see most of grade levels are much higher than last year, except the grade four and grade eight. And we also notice the third graders, doesn't matter if it's reading or math, they are doing very well. in terms of first year they're

064taking MCI tests. Third graders did very well compared with other grade. and which we are thinking since the board had a third grade initiative, so we use that to encourage the student at the grade one and the two and working toward the high end and that may be the effect on our third grade. So we'll keep on watching that, but that is really The next chart is MCS science. And you know that MCS science given to fifth grade, eighth grade, and high school. We always a little bit concerned about our elementary school science. And this year we making big gains compared to the previous year for fifth grade. So we are catching up with the state performance for the fifth grade science. And I think we had all kind of activities going on with our

065science instruction including the STEM. And the next two charts compare the Hopkins versus the school district in our surrounding area as well as some district have a similar demographic student population. So you can see that Hopkins is right here and the state is right here. This is reading. And for two years, we are keep comparable and we see the other district in our, when compared to the similar student population, Hopkins School District did much higher than those school district. For the next one is the mathematics. The mathematics, Hopkins here, this is a state. And I want to point out that quite a few districts this year, the math dropped a little bit, but Hopkins went up. And that is... kind of like beat the odds, you know. Hopkins really working very hard with mathematics, and

066I know Michelle, our math coordinators, they worked with detail for each grade level group, and they have generated effective instructional strategies so that you can see it's reflected on our achievement test. Start from this chart. It's kind of a busy, but I think it's important to show you when we desegregate our student population, you can see when we compare the state, not just one or two groups are higher than the state. Almost every group except one group here, this is for reading, is ESL. It's not as good as the state. Every group is higher than the state. So I think that we worked very hard to try to narrow the gap. This is a very good sign. We want to reach our goal. Then the next one is the mass. We have very similar situation

067except we have Hispanic group. and ESL group a little bit shy than the state and the free reduced, the student who eligible for free reduced lunch a little bit shy than the state. The other group still higher than the state. So we keep on working with the student group and we want to reach our goal goal to narrow the gap. This one is science. Science, this one we can see we have similar performance than the state except a little bit lower than the students who are eligible for free reduced lunch. The ESL and Hispanic students are a little bit lower, but it's rather comparable. The last chart actually is Why don't we hold on that? Yeah, let's just not talking about that. It's a totally different topic. So in summary, we feel our hard work

068for the staff and the student showing the... results and our results really demonstrate Hopkins is moved to our right direction and we'll keep on working on that. And as we mentioned in the report and Director Coleman asked me earlier, all of our teachers use this information but it's just one piece of information that they use on our students. It's very important. We take it seriously, but we look at MCA results along with common formative assessments, along with PLC conversations, along with MAP testing, along with unit tests. So the information we get from our MCA results inform all of us in terms of how our students and staff are doing and where we need to spend more time. But they're just one important part, but just one part of the way we look at student learning

069in Hopkins. So before we go into the... little bit of the new assessment picture that we'll be implementing this year based on the state legislation do you have any questions around the MCA results a little bit about just over the last couple years the changes in curriculum that in timing that we've done in science yes this I'm glad you mentioned that as dr. chin mentioned our elementary science results are not as strong as we want them to be one of the things that we did a couple of years ago that I hope has contributed to our steady improvement is that we took a look at we being elementary principals me Tony Schwartz and instructors from each school to say how much time are we teaching science and what we found is that it was extremely

070variable every student was having science instruction, but in some grade levels, and it wasn't terribly different from school to school, there was a variety within each school, where in some schools, students were getting science all year throughout the year, and other schools, students were getting all of their science in the first semester, and then they got social studies the second semester. And so we did, I think, a fine job, thanks to the teachers on that committee and the principals of... setting some parameters for science instruction in terms of how often it needed to be taught, not at the same minute of the day, but that it should be taught throughout the school year. It should be taught a specific number of times per week. So I believe we can say with confidence that all of

071our students at all of our schools are getting more consistent science instruction in terms of the time spent on science than perhaps we had a few years ago. One of our challenges in science, and you've been so supportive of our RTI work, and I would not attribute our challenges and achievement totally to this, but as you know, our response to intervention program gives students additional math and additional reading. And in some cases, not in all cases, but students who get the additional math and the additional reading are pulled out of something. schools work really really hard not to pull them out of coursework that is important to them and also not to pull them out of things that they really blossom in like art or music but we do know there are some students and

072we hope for it it's for a relatively short amount of time but we know that there are some students at the elementary who probably missed some science instruction because we've decided that the additional reading or the additional math is more important for them during that year Thank you. You're welcome. Does anybody have any questions? Go ahead, Irma. I don't know. Maybe I should wait until you finish on. Because my question is around the fact that we advertise, we publicize STEM, number one, led by science. And that's starting in kindergarten. We're testing in grade five. So now I mean as a district you just need do we need to sit around talk about What we can do and how we can better be accountable for the fact of the very thing that we proud ourselves and

073I Think that's a really good question director Coleman one of the things I wonder about The MCA science tests are set on the science standards. They're not right now specifically aligned to STEM instruction. So what I wonder about, many of our STEM science units are problem-solving units. The test format does not always lend itself to problem-solving, where it's more of a scenario-based kind of test. So what I wonder is if we need to do a better job, and actually Tony Schwartz has done this at the junior high and at the elementary now, of giving our teachers some sample, not test questions, but formats that test questions might be in so that students get a practice in solving a problem, even though it's not the same as the test problem in science. Because I agree with

074you, Irma. Our STEM work in Hopkins is very strong, but it has not yet reflected itself in our MCA scores, other than we're seeing a steady improvement in our scores, but they're not yet where we want them to be. Thank you. You're welcome. Steve, go ahead. Thank you, Chair Goodrun. I was... We're kind of bleeding here into the world's best workforce Discussion too, but our ELL kids don't seem to do as well as they do statewide. I'm just wondering how many How many students are considered ELL? Do you know what the number is? I don't have that in my head, Steve, but I could sure get that for you. What I can tell you is, and you'll have a board report related to ELL later this year, which wouldn't be reflected in these test results.

075We have 100 more ELL students this year. in 14-15 than we had last year. And our ELL percentage has remained relatively the same over the last five or six years. It's usually been about 6% of our student population. For some reason, and we don't know yet what the contributing factors are, maybe it's housing, maybe it's communities that invite their families and friends to come and live near them. So this year, 14-15, we have a significant increase. population, but it's still a relatively small when I compare districts like Minneapolis or districts like Saint Paul that have a much larger percentage of English language learners than we do. So I can add to that, but I don't have a very specific helpful answer for you. First of all that. ESL take MCA test as a different regulation.

076The ESL student who were in Hopkins less than a year, they don't need to take reading test. However, they have to take math test. And giving that is the regulation, then... have to think about Hopkins ESL population. We have ESL students, most of them are relatively new for the United States, so like two or three years, and our average is no more than two or three. However, some big district and some... Some districts have a large population of ESL. Their ESL students tend to be a little bit longer time in the United States. When I was in St. Paul, they can keep the ESL student in their program for more than 10 years. Really? Well, that is another reason you'll see why the state ESL student results is better than ours and so uh that

077that seems a pattern however i don't feel like that's a fair comparison and steve 11 of our student body is english language learners okay so about 600. 600, okay. And how do they get counted? If they're, say, Asian and ELL or black and ELL, do they get counted in both categories? Really good point. Almost all of our students are counted in multiple groups. Okay. Because they're part of, as Janine has laid out here, all of the students are part of the all students. Then they're part of either male or female. Then they're part of whatever racial, ethnic identity they have. They may qualify for free reduced lunch. They may also receive special education services. They may also receive ELL services. So some students and their achievement is reflected in quite a number of groups. Okay.

078And how about our Somali students? We've got Asian and we've got, you know. Somalis count as Africa, America. As parents identify their racial identification, they would choose black. Okay. If you look at the Spanish student, Hispanic student, and since they don't take reading test, So our Hispanic student is higher than the state. And because those students who are new, not taking reading. But for math, they have to take math. So that is because they are ESL students, they have to take math. our Hispanic students did lower than the state. That gives you some picture about our student population. And they self-identify as being members of these groups, right? I mean, it's not like... The racial identification families choose when they enroll. Okay. The ELL services is determined by an assessment done by the ELL department,

079and then students are identified for service as ELL students. Okay. I think we have a lot to celebrate. I do too. I think we've come a long ways. And this is not my favorite test. I like the MAP test because this doesn't really show the growth of our kids. This is one day. So I think we should be really proud of where we're at. I'm so proud of our students and their families and our teachers because they work hard every day. And they don't work hard because they're taking the MCA test. They work hard because it's the right thing to do. But it's nice when the MCA results reflect that hard work. Absolutely. Other questions I ever just like to make a comment. I'd like to echo a Director Donovan's comments. I think this is

080a lot to be proud of I wish I knew why it's happening You know what where's the best way to spend our money as a board? You know is it? Is it breakfast in the morning, or is it our STEM program, or what? I would say it's a lot of what you've supported. I would say a lot of the preschool support you have given as assisting students. I would say the support you're giving, whether it's to our Gifted and Talented program, to our RTI program. I just think so many of the things you support contribute to student success. directly say, well, this is causing this, but all the good things that you're helping us work on, I think do contribute to that. I would like to, I don't know that I'd like to, but I

081would like to inform you about the new testing just so you're aware of some of the new protocols this year. We won't be giving you totally results about it, but the biggest changes are at the high school. And here's again another area to be thankful to you. The additional testing that's required by the state as part of the No Child, not, I keep saying that, the world's best workforce, most strongly impacts the high school. The MCA continues to be in place at the elementary grades. The MCAs continue to be in place at the junior highs. We in our district, as you know, have given the Explorer test at the junior high for a long time. This is a new requirement for many districts, but we've been doing it for quite some time. But at the

082high school level, we will continue to need to take the MCA. Pertinent to the conversation about our ELL students, all of our ELL students take the ACCESS test, which is for English language learners, and it's actually four tests, many of which have to be assessed individually. They have to take reading, writing, speaking, and listening tests. Then when I get down to the high school, the 10th graders will continue to take the MCAs. The ELL students at the high school will take the ACCESS test. The 10th graders will take the plan test which they have done for quite some time But now there's a new test at the high school called the compass and we will be told by the Department of Education which students need to take the compass and That will be D will

083be determined by how students do on the plan the explore in the plan test So we'll get a list from the state students who don't meet whatever the state criteria will be on the explore and the plan test and they will have to take the compass test sometime between their completion of the plan test and when they take the ACT and then as you know in the conversation all of our students will be taking the ACT as a requirement so the testing protocols at the high school have increased significantly Our high school does stellar work. They're working already to get organized. But again, this is a piece of legislation that did not come with additional funding. So you generously provided additional funding for the high school test coordinator. But in terms of the amount of

084training that Chening will be doing with all of the teachers and all of the test coordinators, and the work that is being done at the school level is significant. Technology is another one. And Ivor's whole department is helping us work with that. So there's a lot going on in terms of new testing, and it is impacting the high school to the greatest degree. Diane and Janine, or maybe Ivor, can you comment which of the tests are going to be online versus paper-pencil? All the MCAs from grade 3 to grade 10, grade 11, they are all online. There is no paper test for MCA, including reading, math, and science. iPad and computer or just the computer? Just the computer. They're not yet ready to use on the iPad. Not for iPad, not for templates this year.

085Next year might. and the compass is online. COMPASS is a diagnostic test and the student who didn't meet certain cut points in plan test and also they didn't get proficiency for MCA, they need to take COMPASS. However, that is not a small percent of the student. We have a, because the cut score is pretty high. So we have like 150. around that kind of student need to take compass. So that is four subject areas including writing. encompass so that is our line and the plan test and plan and explore paper paper paper pencil tests they are given by the a CT company it's part of the education assessment system so they come from explore plan and a CT they are all similar so if you take explore, they will predict your plan test results. If

086you take a plan test, they will predict ACT test results. So that's called the Educational Assessment System. Access are all on paper. So that's about it. Oh, there is another test we didn't even put it on. It's called OPA. It's optional for the local assessment prepared for MCA. It is online. They are going to offer reading and math, and the student can do two times for math, one time for reading, which offered for third grade through high school. And that is also online. So you can see the impact on Ivor in his department as we move to the majority of testing being online in terms of scheduling and training and Just the hardware preparation and software readiness. It's it's a massive part massive Does the ACT test have the writing component in it and then

087does that count like yes sent to a college a CD plus writing is what they they want us to Juniors this year they will take that in April. Okay. This Compass test, this is new this year, right? This is new and ACT is new. Although a lot of our kids took it anyway, but it's mandatory now. It's new as a requirement, and it's new that it's funded by the state. So for some families, that will be very helpful. And how did COMPAS fall out? Is that out of the World's Best Workforce Law? COMPAS is the requirement for the school. who help those students who are not ready. So this is just another checking to see whether the school will help them get ready to the college. So that's the compass coming. And did that come

088with any funding? The state paid for all this. For the tests, but not for the local work that gets done. So if you're an eighth grader, you're going to be taking five different tests this year. Four. If you're an EL student. If you're an English language learner student, you'll take four. Otherwise, you would take reading, math, and science in the MCA, and you would take the Explorer test. And then we also do map testing on kids too, right? We do that for all students at the elementary in grades three, four, five, and six. The junior highs don't always test all students with MAP tests, but they test a lot of them. Okay. And what our hope would be, it hasn't happened yet. Our hope would be, I know there has been conversation that at some

089point the state might be able to deliver more information through the MCAs than we currently get on a timely basis. But at this point, it's not there yet because we would like to be able to say we would drop. Perhaps map and if the MCA gave us better information, but it doesn't yet And there's a new vendor doing the testing for MCAs this year? New vendor, which is why Xining has to retrain everybody. Right. Do we have any confidence that it's going to be any better than the previous vendor? We haven't had any experience yet. I'm not holding my breath on that. We were told their server is much stronger than the previous vendor. But we didn't have good experience working with Pearson, so we'll see all three years. Maybe they make some good progress.

090We'll see. Who's the new vendor? Pearson I thought the person was the older Pearson was a vendor two cycles ago and really had it was a Air air air for several years and now they chose Pearson. Okay. Yeah Well, I don't want to have our students restarting restarting the test seven times next year Irma, do you have a question go ahead? Diane's considering the compass is going to be given About a half year before the ACT, ACT. What kind of funding are we going to make available to have somebody work with Compass Kids if in fact the purpose of that is to help them prepare for ACT? And a half a year, I don't know how it can be done, but, I mean, why do it unless we're going to provide service or help? My

091appreciation is that high school is working really hard on their intervention model for students. So my guess is those students who are struggling either on their MCAs or in their plan test and are asked to take the Compass. Their teachers are already looking to see what courses are those students taking? Are they taking the right coursework? Are they getting intervention help either during the student day, during task? In the after-school support program, you support it again. The after-school now is four days a week. So my sense is that the high school staff and administration will be directing students to every intervention that's available. But again, there's no... The state pays for the COMPAS test, but it doesn't pay for the additional remediation we might be able to develop. Maybe that's what we can add for

092LAC. Again, as we talk about, it's one thing to give us part, but if you don't give us a total, then it's not doing what? One thing that high school is doing is that there were some courses designed for prepare the grad test. So now those tests are changing to prepare for graduation requirements, such as ACT composites as part of the diagnostic test to... push the student work toward ACT. One thing good about that is the course that designed for grad had a much lower level in terms of requirement and if I'm not interpret wrong that grad reading is target on the eighth grade reading level. However, right now the COMPAS is target... ACT, you know, English reading level. So they are much higher end. So the courses that was designed for grad, now they

093are going to redesign to tailor that for these purposes. So there are some funding can move around, you know, to meet the new target. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else I want to ask a couple questions Related to the in the test results for figures two three and four where we're looking at grade level from one year to the next and my basic question is Do we look or compare these results to the map test results? for the for those grade levels and you know we finding a fairly tight correlation between those test results how well do the MCA results correlate to map results Oh particular um they're like from one year to the next looking at in figure two three and four we're looking at one year compared to the next year and map I

094think lends itself fairly well to that I may say Reversed is true. That means the MAP test, they designed to align the Minnesota standards. So when we have our MAP test results, they purposely align the item to meet the Minnesota standards. So given that is the efforts the company is doing, the correlation is really high. It's like 89, 85, you know, things like that is always the case because they can, they code the item to align to our state test when our student take the math test. So I'm not sure that makes sense to you. So usually these two tests are very comfortable. And we see something interesting happen is our MAP test results kind of like consistent with the MCA results if they are fluctuate across years. And the only thing sometimes is... Puzzling

095is some students doing better for MAP test and some students doing better for MCA test. So I never be able to figure that out which one will better for which. But our district always use both tests to identify the QCOM. And because we need to use multiple assessment indicator to measure our student performance. So I think because these two tests are very correlated, highly correlated, so that's the reason we're doing that. And then the other thing that I wanted to talk about was that in the junior highs, now we will be... implementing more immersion programs. And so I was wondering if we would be looking at breaking out the test results for immersion students as one of the categories. That's a really good question. We haven't. Had that conversation before. When Janine, at the elementary

096level, when she provides schools with their individual school results so the principals and the staff can work, she does provide Eisenhower Elementary results and Shinching results separately. So we're able to see that, and they're able to see that. At the junior high, given that this is our first year, that will be interesting to consider, Warren. And particularly as I think of the Junto students as well. That's a really good question. Okay, well, I don't know if anybody has any other questions. Thank you for another enlightening discussion. And again, I echo what everybody has said about celebrating the progress, and I think we are progressing. We're not where we want to be, but we certainly are progressing. There's always places where we need to shore things up and part of it is time adjustment too. So

097that's going to be interesting to see. But the other thing is we are providing additional resources for reading and for math. And that's something that we have to look at too for the other testing areas. if we need to, particularly with the results for ELL and for the free and reduced lunch. Thank you. Thank you very much. And Diane, I think you'll be... I'm staying right here. As we move along, if you need to refill your water glass or whatever. I think I'm okay, thanks. We're moving on to the World's Best Workforce Summary, which will be a discussion and an action item. So with that, John. Just for those who are tuning into the board meeting right now, we had a hearing on the world's best workforce at 6 o'clock where Dr. Schimelfending and Dr.

098Lightfoot presented the summary of progress to meet the world's best workforce legislation. Now they're, Dr. Lightfoot and Dr. Schmupf, are you here to answer any questions? And I will also direct the public to the teaching and learning area of the website. And you can find the World's Best Workforce Matrix. And you can find links to see how we have met the reporting for that legislation. And I think the only other question that probably is out there with a little of ambiguity, maybe, Nick, I know we'll be talking about this in the future, but maybe if you can just give a little bit of background on how the integration piece fits into this and how that will, the process for that as we move forward in the spring. Sure. There are two separate components of really.

099MDE requirements. Those districts that receive any integration aid from the state have specific requirements for reporting. Part of the goal setting and reporting requirement under the achievement integration revenue statute is that you report on specific goals in order to overlap those goals with the world's best workforce plan. Part of the interplay between the two is that when you do The report for the World's Best Workforce, you also, as part of that World's Best Workforce report, include the achievement and integration goals as part of that work. So even though they are separate, there are some common components that are part of them. So what you see in the report for the World's Best Workforce are specifically one item of that achievement and integration report, and that is the gap. reduction that we spoke about in the

100hearing and as well that is really a key component of one of the key components of the achievement and integration plan that we are part of and do receive revenue for so that is a separate component in addition we do need to have an achievement and integration an achievement and integration plan. That achievement integration plan and a budget is usually submitted in March. And while the two have a common element, in theory, in the future, we can probably report on both at the same time. But because of the way the cycles are working with this new legislation, this year we will have to have a report separate in February because of the reporting requirements. So we'll have that in February. In the future, we look to hopefully be able to combine these two and kind

101of have all of that information for you in one place. But because we have certain reporting requirements that are specific to achievement and integration that require posting and analysis that is separate and timely, we have to do that in February. So that will be coming in the future. So we'll have a hearing on achievement and integration in February. And in the future, we hope to be able to combine those. And then... Board members, the recommendation that we're giving tonight for a motion later on is that the board approves the World's Best Workforce Summary as presented. So with that, we'll move to questions. Go ahead, Ermi. Yeah, on the front page of our overview for this part, the Summary of Progress, I've noticed that math was completely... avoided or eliminated or missed on that front part

102and I know it's in here but where we address and put down the readiness the proficiency and reading I you know that is a really good question these were the elements that the template that the MDE provided that we were required to report on and they didn't yet have a requirement to report on math. Right but that's isn't that the piece where we as a district can certainly put because we consider that a very core value as we look at the workplace is that If we can't do the reading and the math, I mean, can't we just say, hey, Hopkins strongly supports both reading and math? I don't know. And yet when I went through the document, I see that we address math and we address the reading piece. But I really think that it's

103important for our community and for us as a board to support those parts that we know without question. that is really important as we get into the graduation and closing the gap. Those are two key pieces that we really need to address. Maybe nobody else feels that way. Well, no, what you're asking us is to go over and above and beyond what the MDE is asking us as our world's best workforce report. I'm saying as a board, if we support something, yes. Okay. I mean, I don't know what you think about. I think you're right, Irma and Diane. The math is reported throughout there, and I think on our primary issues for summary of progress, just add a bullet that says. math progress. Yeah, I think our community should know that even though the state

104is not asking, but here we are as a board, we really feel strongly that the reading and math are really key. It is interesting that the state wouldn't include math. Yeah. I'm sure maybe it was an omission on somebody's part. Well, I believe we do cover the math scores in our annual report to the community, do we not? I mean... And we just covered them in our recent report. We cover them thoroughly. Betsy, did you? Oh, you didn't see? Well, I just wonder how many of our community are going to read the World's Best Workforce report. I think they're more likely to read our annual report, so I'm not troubled by it. Betsy? My only comment, other than it's, you know, thank you for your work and putting it all together, is that this should

105be included in our candidate workshop when we have candidates for the school board because it's a really nice overview of everything, a lot of what we're doing as a district and how we're supporting students of all kinds. Warren? I have a comment, and then I have a question for you. So the comment is, even though we sort of sometimes belabor the world's best workforce, I think the intent of the legislation was good, and I think the intent of what it's asking us to look at is valuable. It's a little onerous in the reporting function, but I don't think the intent is bad. So I think we need to make sure that we understand that really our job is to create the world's best workforce, and that's why it exists. And we have to get our

106kids ready right now for jobs that we don't even know are going to exist when they leave our doors or leave high school. So the intent is good. So I think that we need to make sure we communicate that we understand the intent. It's sometimes how that is played out as a problem. My question to you all is I seem to see this number consistently through everything we do, every goal we set at 2%. So tell me why we are in love with 2%, 2% in QCOP, 2% in this, 2% in that. I'd love to know where 2% comes from. There isn't any magic to it, Chris, other than as we've... Gained a lot of practice around submitting smart goals to the state the the part of smart that the specific measurable a is attainable

107and Janine has often Suggested to us that a 2% increase is an attainable goal. It's not it's not a an easy goal and in some cases as we see for some of our student groups we haven't yet even made 2% but that has been her recommendation in terms of what a smart goal is that it's attainable it's relevant and it's time bound so that's where it comes from so could we ever push ourselves Go to 3%? We could absolutely push ourselves. Not to say that 2% isn't pushing ourselves. And what I would also say, and I know you know this, every teacher I've ever worked with wants 100% of their kids to achieve. No, I understand. So the idea of a small numerical percent doesn't reflect the commitment to all students of growing. We can

108put whatever number the board feels most I'm fine with the 2% I just sometimes think absolutely what a number like that out there it becomes The number and and yet I know everyone is working hard to get that but it's sort of like alright I made my 2% Yeah, what you what more interesting piece that you just said was in different their percentage points in different subgroups. So unfortunately, because we have to put one goal out there, we can't goal set by different percentages in different groups. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure we could do that. And what I would tell you, and I know you know, as teachers work with individual students, they probably have an amount in their mind that may not be a numerical goal, but they see where a student is in

109their proficiency and see how far they can push them forward. So I think in the classroom, teachers would probably say they have a goal for every student, not a student group, because as we know, students are in multiple groups. So it's really the goal that they have for individual learners in every classroom. I think sometimes it's self-fulfilling sometimes to put it out there. And unfortunately, we have to. I understand all of that. It's a really good question. I wanted to ask a question. Now that we've looked at the MCA results, and so when we look at the various groups in the MCA results, for example, in reading, and then the MCA achievement gap results that are included in the World's Best Workforce, I'm trying to figure out, Which graph tells me more? I think they

110tell you different things. I think they tell me different things. So I would say that in some of our figures in this report that Nick described in terms of our achievement gap, they tell us the gap between these required groups of students that we have to report on and other students. And yet we see in the MCA results every student group in most cases is performing above the state and some student groups are growing beyond those at the state. One of the factors that is exists in our district is some of our student groups that are not in this achievement gap reporting requirement perform much higher than the state. So for instance Our white students are very high performers. So in some areas, even though our Asian or our black or our Hispanic or our

111free and reduced lunch students are growing, the gap still exists to a significant extent because our white kids are growing as well. And we want all of our kids to be growing. We don't want anyone to stop growing, but we need to accelerate the growth of those underperforming groups until they get to a better spot. So I think that as I look at it, the figures give me different information as part of the same big picture. I appreciate that explanation. And of course, as Chris has talked about, it would have been nice had the state been more... put as much time and effort in the front end of trying to talk about the achievement gap in relationship to the world's best workforce as they did about bullying. But the... You know we were sort of

112stuck with what they did at the last minute in terms of the legislation on how we how we report that and so My understanding of the achievement gap is that it's What the achievement gap really is, is it's a predictor that a certain segment, a student segment, is likely to do poorer on testing results based on other factors than the average or than the majority. actually the the the figures that we have in the world's best workforce are based on not a prediction but they're based on the actual gap that exists in Hopkins between the student groups that are required as part of the world's best workforce which are American Indian Asian Hispanic black and free or non free reduced lunch and again students may be in more and more than one of those groups

113so the figures you see here are the actual numerical gap based on MCA scores between those student groups and the other student groups so non ELL students students and other racial groups So it's not a predictor as the figure in this report is not a predictor. It's actual achievement levels and the difference between those student groups and groups not identified in this figure. So is that, when you say it's compared, is that compared to an average? It's compared to the actual achievement. So the gap between white students in Hopkins and the gap between American Indian students in Hopkins in reading, and this is just an example, in reading was 26.5% in 2013, and in 2014 it was 8.6%. So the achievement gap decreased, but there's still a gap. And that probably wasn't a very good

114example to use because we have a very small number of American Indian students. So the change from year to year is heightened because it's a very small number. So it's the difference in actual achievement between these student groups in Hopkins and white students in Hopkins, as measured by the MCAs. Okay. Go ahead, Duby. I mean, based on what you're describing, it's exactly our demographic, the subgroup of the white student happens to be the bar that's set. In essence, that's what it is. Hypothetically, any one of these groups, American Indians, could be the bar. If the white subgroup was below that, that would be the gap because essentially all our students should be progressing regardless of. their gender, their race, whatever it may be. So that's what it comes down to. They just happen to be

115the group. That's where the gap is. We'd like to have it somewhere close. It's just a reference point. Like you said, some of the groups, I mean, I work in or volunteer in the schools, and I don't see a large American Indian population. I can attest to that, which we don't know. It's not as big of a group. And we've got some groups that are, you know, It is skewed. A Somali family that's emigrated here is not. It's the same as a group of African American family that may have been here for 100 plus years. It's not a language barrier versus culture versus whatever it may be. And same thing with Asian students who may be adopted and placed into a or find themselves in a situation where they're in an affluent white family as

116opposed to a family that's Hmong. who doesn't even have a written language that they know of as a part of their family. So there's different groups, but the essential part, and this goes back to the percentage, it's a realistic target. I mean, we know we'd get there when we're not even talking about targets because there's not a gap. and all the students are progressing and making the achievement. But I do know from volunteering in the classrooms, there's a world of difference between some of the kids and what they bring to the table. I particularly would place more emphasis on the same school. Is that the term? The subgroup? If you look on there, the second largest group after white would be students that are in the same school for multiple years. Seems to be one

117of the big ones. And if you look down the line about the effort we put into early childhood and tie it into what the Legislative Action Coalition's platform is, plank number two deals a lot with early childhood education that seems to be showing the results. And hopefully in another year or two, you'll see when it's the first group that goes through for the MCAs. It seems to be, I mean, at least that's initial, regardless of what demographic group they're part of, they were doing quite well, and it was because money and programming was put towards that. We'll leave it to the state to sort it out, but it doesn't move us one way from our program if we believe in it like you were saying before. Just to piggyback on that, you remember this MCA

118is a point-in-time snapshot, and it's giving us a number of a gap. And I just still really have an issue with the word achievement gap. So I think, you know, what we're trying to do in this report and this World's Best Workforce is to almost reframe it and make it opportunities and create, by all the work we're doing, is... increase the opportunities that our children have to learn to decrease to actually make their scores better and they're learning better and they're where they're going to go with their lives better so unfortunately we're stuck with language that is not ours to use yeah go ahead I just want to say, again, there's a lot to celebrate, and we should be really proud of all the hard work we've done. And I was at the high school

119today for conferences, and I talked to David Bratton, who's the financial literacy. And so this is the first year it's required. I happen to have a daughter in it. And he said he had six parents sit down with him tonight and tell him. And I was there at 3 o'clock, so that's a lot of parents in a short amount of time. How thankful they were that. We were doing this because it brought conversations home and opened up all that because money is hard to talk about. And there's different values for different families of money. And one dad sat down and said, this should be a required course. He's like, well, it is. And actually, David Broughton, thanks to David, has been invited the last two summers to the New York Stock Exchange. to share with

120educators the work that we're doing here and the fact that it's required. And there are teachers across the nation that listen to his experience. So it's something else that you've provided for our students that doesn't happen everywhere. And then I have one more question. I just would be interested, and I asked you this before, and I know you don't have the number, the graduation rate if we took out the students who are there longer. So our graduation rate for our students that do graduate in four years? Yeah. And not our special I guess that information for you. Yeah, and I'll give it to John Any other questions comments? Yeah, would you read the yes the motion? The motion would read that board approves the world's best workforce summary as presented so moved Okay, it's been

121moved and seconded To approve the world's best workforce summary. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed, same sign. The motion carries. With that, we then move to incidental reports. There are no incidental reports and notices, reports, and communications. Please note the... field trip and the survey results on public education in Minnesota. Chair Goodroad, I would just urge all the board members to read that survey results presentation. I found it very enlightening. Thank you. And I'd also like to thank again the staff that stayed here and helped us with all these reports. So that was great. With that we look for a motion to adjourn so move second okay all those in favor please say aye aye opposed 906