001The Monday, November 17th, 2025 Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education meeting is called to order at 5.30 p.m. We are meeting tonight at Simley High School. As a reminder, all public comment during ISD 199's regular school board meetings must be related to a specific item on that night's agenda. ISD 199 holds public listening sessions prior to all regular board meetings to allow participants to speak on topics that are not on the agenda. More information on public comment and public listening sessions can be found on our website. This meeting is being recorded. Access to the recording will be made available on the school district's website as quickly as possible. Our school district's mission is to inspire, innovate, excel. A community commitment. Board Clerk Larson, will you please take roll call? Of course. Member Larson? Here.
002Member Dukes? Here. Member Klinger? Here. Member Pearson? Here. Member Warwick? Here. Member Nehemiah? Here. And Member Lonsberry? Here. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Do I have a motion and second to approve the agenda item? Motion by Member Klingner. Second by Ward. Motion by Member Klingner, second by Member Ward. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. I'd like to invite activities director Will Short to highlight fall activities. Good evening. Again, I always want to thank the board for having us for a night. Obviously, we had an outstanding fall. Just a lot of amazing things happened this fall.
003You're going to get to hear from the athletes tonight and some of our senior leaders. And I just want to emphasize how activities are so essential to the student experience. how our athletes and our students that are part of our activities tend to have higher GPAs, higher graduation rates. They're in school, they have better attendance. It's just a really crucial part of what we do here at Simley High School and across the district. One of the sports, we don't have our senior leaders from the tennis team here tonight. They are playing hockey right now, so they couldn't be here tonight. But they wanted me to mention a couple of things. They had a phenomenal year. Not necessarily on the scoreboard, but in relationships and building a program. We only had a couple seniors this year.
004And so we had a very young team. We won four matches. We finished fourth in the conference. And so we had a nice tennis season. McKenzie Reese went all the way to the semifinals in our Section 1 tournament. Very interesting thing for the board to understand about sections. We sometimes are in Section 4. which is kind of a metro area section. Sometimes we're in section three, which is kind of a metro area section. But sometimes we're all the way down in section one. And in tennis, we're in section one, which we go all the way down to Rochester and we're down in that area with schools our size because we get pulled south. And while we are in that middle class, there's now three classes of tennis. We got pulled south. We're in section one.
005Mackenzie Reese did make the semifinals. She ended up fourth in her section and really represented us well. And we're going to be a very good team. We'll be very competitive next year down in tennis sections. You know, one of the things that I always like to... talk about one being a coach and an athletic director I always like to try and recognize what what sports do for kids and and what activities do for kids because we have athletes and students who are in our arts and theater here tonight not only did I talk about GPAs and dropout rates and graduation rates but also time management responsibility goals setting working as a team. They're all things that we're talking about every day at our extra curriculars and we're building those skills for all of our students.
006And so you can hear some of that as these students come up. These are some amazing young people here tonight with us. So first off, I'd like to bring up one of our captains and senior leaders of our volleyball team. Oh, give her a clap. Our assembly volleyball program was pretty big this last year and it continues to grow each year. We're really young. We had no seniors this year, which will make it so much more fun to have more seniors next year, more leadership. Our younger players have a lot of athleticism and skill, which make it even more fun also. Our goals are really high. We will have... really competitive season next year. This year we're 11-11 and the games that we lost we were right neck and neck with them so it'll be
007fun to see how that goes next year. A lot of people go out for volleyball because of how fun it is and I think the environment is really welcoming and just wanting to get better every day. Our coaches like to call our program a two-year plan this year because we're going to have the same team next year with two additions, which is kind of interesting because that doesn't really happen often. But we faced a lot of ups and downs. Each day we pushed and supported each other as we grew. We all built strong connections. Showed up every time we stepped to the court and our coaches really helped with that. They made us really good players, but they also just focused on making us better people. Some fun things we did, we had a really
008far away tournament. The bus ride was there really fun. Les played music. We got Chipotle on the way up there. Our last section game was probably one of the most fun games that I ever played in. Just the energy of it, the attitudes, it was really fun to see, which will be good to lead off on next year. We had a really good signature win against Southside Paul. We swept them in three sets, which is really fun. Our team bonding was really fun. We just got together, watched some film, and ate. That's it. Thank you. Ava does a nice job. She's outstanding, one of our senior captain leaders that is really going to help us be a great volleyball team next year. I wanted to point out something before I carry out the next group.
009One of the things that all students are dealing with in this time and this age is social emotional learning. And the NIAAA came out with just out of the line that a time when student mental health is a major concern nationwide. Activities give kids a place to belong, a peer group to connect with, and an adult mentor who invests in them. That sums it up right there. I mean, that's what we want, especially with the time and the pressures that these kids are under. Activities just are crucial in their lives. Come talk a little bit more about that. Our football leaders. Come on up, guys. My name is Vicente Ostongo. I've been playing football here about three years. This year, most of the time I played the most. We didn't end the way we wanted.
010I played a record of what, 2-7? But at the end, I think in my opinion, it's not really about the record itself. We are such a small team. Usually teams are super big and it's hard for everyone to be close and everything. But everyone on the team had a good bond. We all ran along together. You know it was a pretty emotional year because last year, about last year, this year, we lost to Mick, Logan, Logan Hammond. So I feel like that brought us together a little bit, a lot. Our motivation going through and helped us keep going. Although we didn't get the wins we wanted, we still were there every day at practice working, trying to get better. Yeah. I feel like the football team has such a strong... It's like a family. We
011just have fun together. We don't have the record that we wanted, but it was a great season. I had fun. I'm Christian Urbina. I'm a junior. I feel like through football, the coaches, they help build us and the young men, and they teach us good. life skills for life or even beyond football and it just helped us stay in our groups and work together, push every day even though we didn't have a big team we had a lot of young kids that had to step up to fill up the spots I feel like. That will be good. We didn't move that much seniors this year. So we have a lot of people that are coming back next year. I feel like it will make us better and our bond will be stronger next year. I'm
012Brian Guillen and I despise the record. You know, we had a lot of fun moments including our Bemidji tournament. We've actually placed the best we have in like three years, four years. So that was fun, you know, getting along with teammates, being together. It was really good and our win on homecoming was phenomenal. It was phenomenal. It was our best night by far. And just every single practice was just excellent because it was a purpose to it. Thank you. Let's start with points of Nelson. Activities are one of the tools that we have for equity and access. Programs open doors for students from all backgrounds to explore interests, discover talents, and build confidence. Many students rely on activities for structure support and a safe environment after school. We'll talk a little bit more about that.
013Our leaders of our girls soccer team. Come on up. I'm Grace, I'm a junior. I'm Marina, I'm a junior. I'm Chloe, I'm senior captain. Throughout the season we faced tough opponents including men who were ranked in the top ten of the state and we held the defending state champions and then the soon to be champions Manamita at three holes. We matched our men's from the wins from the last couple seasons and we have a record of eight wins, eight losses, and one tie. In our eight wins of the season we outscored our opponents 26 to 5 and we started off our season with three wins against Apple Valley, Burnsville, and Rockford. Some fun things we did this season include helping the neighbors collect items for food donations during the IGH parade, naming players of the
014game and giving those players the boo-boos. As well as enjoying multiple team pasta dinners and taking a team dog walk to Dairy Queen. A huge win this season was our game against a section opponent, Richfield. We scored eight unanswered goals to win 8-1 and leading the charge was senior captain Josie Johnson, scoring four goals. Our biggest win of the season was beating crosstown rival South St. Paul 2-1. Our first goal came off an own goal where South St. Paul headed the ball back, headed the ball over their goalkeeper, and we scored the game-winning goal with less than two minutes left in the game. Before our last regular season game, instead of training at Simley, we took a trip over to training house in Eagan with our trainer Erica and enjoyed many perks along with a
015relaxing morning. After we were ranked third in the section, our season unfortunately came to an end in the section quarter finals against Highland Park, which we lost 2-1. We played really well but couldn't finish any of our chances. Our three senior captains, Chloe, Josie, and Ella were named to the all-conference team, and Marina and Grace were named to the all-conference audible mention team. Our team was named a Silver Academic Team with a GPA of 3.51 which is really good. Although we will graduate eight seniors this year, next year's players are excited and looking forward to the pre-season and continuing to strive to be better than before. Thank you. The next three activities that we're going to bring up all have historic things that happened during their season. Either they had record-breaking performances or they did
016something for the first time in the history of art schools. So we'll start. We have the girls' senior leaders coming up. And I'll talk about this. Girl swim. Hi, guys. How are you? This season has brought a lot of changes like good and just new. Yeah, it was a lot of new things that happened. We did have switching of coaches, which I think was Iverson and then going into Coach Lynn and her ideas and trying to adapt to her style of coaching, which has brought us like more together. It seems we've worked a lot with the community within our sport and like the girls. It felt more like a family, more like. tight knit and more of a good community instead of little cliques that we've also had trouble in past years. But we really
017work together this year in supporting everyone and all those things. Yeah, with our new coaching staff going in, a lot of the girls, pretty much everybody on the team had experienced our past coaches. So we had that all in mind, and then going into it this year, we really had to be open-minded, and we had to bring in and take a lot of leadership with us captains, and also just the girls on the team. Had to take more leadership to ensure that things we wanted to do continued to happen, and it was a lot of adjusting, but our team did really well with it. And even our younger girls are showing a lot of leadership, so we're really proud of that. And as for swimming, our practices have become a lot harder and longer, so...
018Which made us, like, more motivated to, like, reach our goals that we wanted for so long. Yeah, because we've done a lot of goal setting. Especially this year, we were working on a lot of the mental aspect of swim and dive, which is a big part of that. More than you would think. So we were working on that a lot and then when it came down to it we saw incredible improvement just from our first couple weeks. Like Eileen, she's a middle schooler, she's becoming a phenomenal swimmer. She dropped what was it 26 seconds in a 500 knot. 26 seconds, that's a big drop. Like usually we drop like maybe a second, a millisecond, but 26 just from how Coach Glenn has been coaching us and been motivating and Just supporting us in general has
019definitely made a big thing happen. And then another big thing that has happened this year besides having more people go to sections and then also section finals was we've had Mia Doolittle. She made state this year and she just competed on Saturday. She got fourth in everything so really insane of her to be a freshman and doing all that. And she also broke our school record, which is also the historic moment that we bring to you guys. 1997? Yeah. Yo! She went with Jenny. Yeah, and we cannot wait until she, like, probably, like, breaks her records and, like, all these, like, other things. And we also have Lauren, Gloria, they're coming up, too, like, being those, like, big swimmers, and so we're really excited for that. We've got a lot of potential making it up
020to the state. So yeah, and then we've also brought in new traditions with like Coach Ling and like all these things that we've made captain's hats for like the upcoming captains that will be called on next year. And just like more positive things have been a lot more positive team Bonnie is emotionally and also getting a lot stronger. It's looking good for next season. So yeah, Mia did break the school record in the 100 backstroke and then she broke it again, she broke her old record again later on at the first round of the state tournament. So yeah, we're very excited about all the girls in the swim team in the future. Next I'd like to bring out another historical team, the cross country capitals. Come on up. Hi, my name is Nick Abrahamson. I'm
021a senior captain this year. And I'm Dylan P. I'm a junior. So early on in the season, we had many tough practices to start getting everyone in shape. The team showed lots of strength and that's a toughness through these, still performing well in many of our first meets. As the season progressed, we have many big personal records and breakthroughs. Many of the PRs came from our younger runners too, showcasing the bright future that our team has in store. This is important since we are only graduating two seniors this year. As championship season began approaching, we started focusing more on recovery in order to make ways for some big times to be ran at conference and sections. We also finished up our annual Spartan XE games. Around this time, for these games, we split up the
022team into smaller groups which compete in different games which are usually held once a week. This helps the team bonding along with helping people enjoy the sport more. We also worked on some goal setting around this time to help visualize and think about what we want to get out of our last few games. At conference, despite some bad weather, we were able to finish third on the boys' side, along with having a strong showing on the girls' side, which included an individual conference champ and a fifth-place team finish. We had four all-conference runners, along with two all-conference honorable mention runners at this meet. Then, at sections, our big goal was to qualify as a team on the boys' side. In this race, some younger runners really stepped up and our boys were able to win
023the section for the first time in school history. On the girls' side, we also had many big PRs along with the fourth place finish of the team and an individual sections champ. Overall, we had eight state qualifiers and four all-section runners at this meet. At state, our boys were able to finish 10th, marking the end of an incredible season. On the lead, our freshman girl qualified for state, also did great in capping off the girls' season, finishing second in the whole state, which is the highest finisher ever in program history. We also had two all-state finishers on the boys' side with me and Vadim, our other senior, both finishing top 20. Overall, this was a very successful season, and we hope to carry much of this success forward into future years. Thank you. Lot of
024high school administrations here, and I think they would agree with this comment school climate and culture deeply impacted by activities when students feel connected they attend school more consistently the behavior improves they contribute positively positively to the learning environment school spirit and shared experiences whether it's a soccer game Whether it's a theater performance or a cross-country meet, help build pride, unity, and identity across the school district. One of the things that happened this year, and I'm about to bring up the boys soccer team, is a school got behind a soccer program. We had over 400 students participate, whether as a fan or in the game at U.S. Bank in the boys soccer state tournament. That's almost half of our school district was a part of that game. So we come to talk about the boys
025soccer team, the captains and leaders of the boys soccer team. Hi, I'm Michael Hernandez, senior captain of the boys' soccer team. This season we went 18-2-2. We were undefeated at home, undefeated conference champs, section champs without conceding. We had three all-state players, two of which were Mr. Soccer Connors, one being me and the other being Elvis Hernandez, our first Mr. Soccer winner in school history. We went into the state tournament ranked number two. It was our second appearance in school history, not having been there since 2009. Some of our team had even had one that we got third place. Michael just talked about all of our successes on the field. I'd like to talk about our successes off the field because I think this team has been the most team-like team we've had in years.
026We've never had more unity between everyone working towards this common goal that as the season progressed we saw could become achievable. I think a big part of this was our coach, David. His entire work throughout the year was to organize us into this one group. And he organized I-18 dinners at his house, I-17 dinners at another one of our captain's house. But along with this unity yelp between us, he was trying to make us become prepared for our future. Because I know he used, because he said we got to the third place of the state tournament. And we don't realize, because we are all thinking, oh, we can go to the final. We want to go to the final. We didn't realize how far and how much this actually means to the community and stuff.
027How Mr. Short said, we got everyone behind us. We have however many people who show up to US Bank and support us. We don't realize since we're only 16, 17, 18 year olds that we made a lasting impact on this community. And it won't hit us for a few years, but we'll always have this with us. I'm not a kid. I'm a junior. And they both talk great stuff. So at the start of the year, we started training in June. And at the start of the year, our goal was Wednesday. And we didn't win state, but what we've done this year is just crazy. Undefeated at home, undefeated conference champs, section champs, like all of that is great. But again, like Drew said, we've become so close as a team. Every practice was the funnest
028thing I've ever done. I would come to school and go, I practiced. I would be so happy. And one of the sad parts is when we lost, we were all like, okay, we're going to come to school, we're going to have practice, and the next day we're going to have our next game and hopefully win. And when we lost, it was it. I wasn't sad that we lost. The experiences were over, essentially. And next year, we lost eight, nine seniors, and it's just going to be very different. And I've talked to Michael, Elvis, a lot of them, and we became so close, and without them, it just won't feel the same. So it's just next year, hopefully, we're going to have to work twice as hard, and hopefully we're going to get back. So one
029of the mentions, one of the things that you've entrusted me with being the activities director is hiring coaches. And this year in the fall, Nora Austin was named the section coach of the year in girls soccer. Dan Gerber was named the section coach of the year in cross country. David Alvarez was named the section coach of the year for boys soccer. So I got something right. So that's all good. And I've got a few more things, highlights come up. A couple of these students you've heard from already, but they're going to come up and talk a little about their marching band experience here this fall. We were both in the marching band. Unfortunately we are not the drum majors of our marching band. Our drum majors were Noah Pearson Jr. He is very good. He's
030definitely the best band kid you could ever meet. And then we also have Lisette Thornay, which is also, she is an amazing saxophone player. They did a lot for us this season from Russian Band. We had a lot of experiences, especially for that one parade that we got rained out on. We all piled in like a clown car into our trailer and like rode ourselves home. So that was definitely really fun. We also had our NOCA parade, which was one of our most recent ones and one of our last that we did. We like get to dress up in like fun Halloween costumes. We get to play Thriller and all these fun things. What really was the highlight of our band season was having all these newcomers come in and learn very quickly our performance
031and the music. That was very impressive. So I think we definitely give a lot of props to Liseth and Noah for being very patient and all of our rest of our section leaders, which was me and Tommy. Just to get the time to get to know the new ones, which is mostly freshmen, and to teach them all the things that we got taught as freshmen or sophomores coming into Merchant Den. So, yeah. And Tommy, do you want to say anything? Clearly, I'm impressed with MAD. It was a... big improvement compared to the past years and I was really impressed. Like you said, new students. I was amazed. I was like, how are we going to do this? And we just made it through. There's a lot of goal setting and everything was really nice. And
032Ms. Pash definitely helped too. She was great. This is her second year here and she's been really great. One more highlight to discuss and that is if you didn't know we made a little bit of adjustment on how we do our theater program here at the high school Even though Chad sex hour is an amazing community head director Before he got control that we kind of made a decision to put it back in the high school activities It seemed like it fit better with the high school activities department so I was about to kind of get my hands on it and and One of my big jobs was hiring a director and so that was my first step in the process and I've had a couple of a couple of theater students here tonight talk
033about their experience so come on up. Hi, my name is Nadia and I'm a junior. And I'm Ami, a senior and I'm the stage manager. Um, Nico, where do I even begin? He's really been one of our greatest directors I've at least worked with. I guess I started performing eighth grade and ever since I just... I mean I've had great shows. I've enjoyed the characters I've played but I feel like Nico has just done such a wonderful job with handling and managing things and putting everything sort of in a neat box. I like he cared more about what we did. just everything in the past. Other directors were fine, but there were some ups and downs, but this one felt like he knew what he was doing. He knew what we needed to do to
034get where we needed to get, and I think he really cared a lot about what we did for not just ourselves, but for everyone who comes and watches the shows that we perform. I felt like I was more engaged on stage. I felt like I got to be myself a bit more. And obviously as an upperclassman, I now have to be sort of a leader and not really the greatest, but you know, there's a lot of room for improvement. I try to do my best to be more welcoming and be able to sort of, you know, give us like everything that we needed to... help others succeed. I'd say that was the nine years of theater in this high school. This was the best show I have ever participated in. I feel like we did
035really well. Me and Mr. Short even approved. Leading Ladies was a phenomenal production. That stage was beautiful and I laughed so hard several times. Some of those one-liners you guys have in there, it's really funny. I genuinely agree. So I am going to miss them. I can't wait to see what they have on this and in future shows. Thank you. Thank you. Well, I just want to close tonight. I just appreciate I like to say this to all of you is I'm always appreciative that I still have the opportunity to work here at Simley High School. I believe in Simley High School. I believe we have phenomenal students. I think we have a phenomenal staff and I love what we do here. And I know the impacts that activities have on these kids' lives and
036I'm fortunate to be a part of it. So thank you for hearing us all tonight and have a good night. Alright, thanks all of you. Thank you. All right, thank you all for coming sharing Now we would like to invite director of community education Chad sex hour to introduce the assistant activities director and facilities coordinator This is the toughest spot to be in that fall on those guys Not easy, but it's fun to see the 199 away Right here right relationships belonging engagement And I get to see some of that right here as well, right? I'm pleased to introduce our Assistant Activities Director and Facilities Coordinator, Jackson Ryan. Jackson is a proud ISD 1989 graduate from the class of 2016. He has served our district in numerous capacities, including a paraprofessional, assistant coach, building supervisor,
037and other roles as needed. I think he even drove a school van at one time and did some things in that capacity. I think Jackson probably sat back there, right? His long-standing commitment to ISD is evident in his breadth of service, his willingness to support students and staff wherever and whenever it's needed. His current role, Jackson is responsible for enhancing, supervising, and promoting middle school activities, athletics, and community education programming. He also serves as the point of contact for coordinating both internal and external use of district facilities. Jackson has been very intentional in building strong relationships with our external user groups, reaching out to youth associations, scholarship organizations, community bands, for-profit businesses, and local dance organizations. Jackson's professionalism, dedication, and integrity have already made a significant impact in our department and the broader school community.
038We are very blessed to have Jackson and I look forward to working with him throughout the next many years. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
039Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Like he said I was doing multiple things throughout the district. I was reading what I wrote. Just give you a background how much this community, this world means to me. My name is Jackson Ryan. I'm a staff member at IGHF middle school currently working at the time I was in CARES CID in the CARES CID department. I have aspirations and goals of being a leader and a voice and most importantly a relationship builder at IGHMS. When applying for the job, I hope to see true Nebroglobe Heights and all its potential. My goal is to create an environment that is second to none. I believe the
040transition from middle school to high school goes far and above just academics. Having a place that can provide athletics and activities at a top-count rate is very important to me. This is what molds our youth, how we develop and grow, and is central to our process of being responsible, strong, and innovative Spartans. My biggest asset I bring to the table in Nebroglobe Heights that is that Inverdell Heights has been my home for 20 years. This is a community I know and understand. When we are successful and striving for opportunities, you can feel the love and the appreciative of the entire community. In conclusion, after college, my goal was to come home to Inverdell Heights. So far, I've done that. Being involved with an endless number of sports at Simile, both on-field and off-field. I've worked
041with Simley High School AD Will short for five years and at that time I have learned philosophy and ideas that I believe I have also adapted. Working with a multitude of staff, I have learned that team building and team making is not built with one voice. It will take all of us working side by side, collectively and collaboratively, sharing ideas, sharing some strength to help grow our great community. I wrote a lot more, but I have read too much. Overall, I'm very appreciative of being back in my hometown, working with these middle school kids every day and seeing kids grow and being able to bridge that gap from middle school to high school is something that's very important to me. And thank you for the opportunity. Thanks, Jack. Thank you. All right. Do I have
042a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda items? So move member, Jimmy, I am second by member Pearson. All right, I'm for me. Yeah, and the second member Pearson any discussion all those in favor aye opposed the motion is carried Thank you to those who have donated to our school district this month Your generosity and support of our students and staff is greatly appreciated Now we get to hear from Simley High School. Please, Principal Gillen will provide an update for us. Is everyone? Chad stole my paper tote. Oh, sorry. But I did bring my own distinguished alum. It is a really cool thing to see sort of that whole picture right from the student side all the way up to some of our alumni. So just a good reminder of the school district
043and how we're forming and shifting lives. Not just while they're here but after as well too. Good evening everyone, my name is Carrie Gilliam, principal at Simley. Next to me is Alyssa Gardner. She is a new face for all of us, a phenomenal hire. We hired her after Matt drugged a physician in the middle school and has really hit the ground running and done a nice job. She'll talk about some of the things that she's been working on. And then many of you know Cullen Berg, assistant principal as well too. As I mentioned, alumni of Simley High School. and has been heavily involved in the work that we're doing to support students. And these fine human beings, it's just incredible to kind of listen to their stories. And ups and downs of the sports season
044aside, it was really just about the experience that they had the whole way that kind of shaped such a marvelous fall that we've started on. You'll notice too, welcome assembly, IMC, this looks a little bit different than the last time we were here last year. We did some facelift items up here, some new furniture. And if you haven't looked in the back there, our new American Indian Ed Resource Center. We also hired over the summer Mari Mansfield at the district level and she's done just a phenomenal job of building that resource center for students and staff as well too. So if you have a chance tonight, you haven't stopped in there, definitely take a peek because there's some really cool stuff in there that she's doing. I want to start off with this graphic. I
045think most of us have seen this. As we talked about, and you heard the students talk about the 199 way, really about belonging, relationships, and engagement, how that shapes our day-to-day operations, our conversations. and everything that we do. This is our North Star at Simley. I have a quote in my office that really resonated as I was listening to the students talk. It's by Maya Angelou. And it talks about how we might forget what people say, but we don't talk about, or we don't forget how it made us feel. And I think for us at Simley, when we think about the 199 way, it's really about that feeling. How do kids feel they belong? What does that feeling of belonging mean to them? How did they feel when they formed relationships both with their peers
046and with staff? And then as you heard, some of those engagement pieces, how did that make them feel as they navigate these four years of high school too? So that is our goal, really to help each of our layers, their students, staff, and family feel a certain way when they're here as a Spartan at Simley High School. Just a quick snapshot of our student school enrollment. It has not changed a ton. This looks pretty similar to what it did last year, still hovering around a total enrollment of 1,065 students. One area to highlight, our alternative learning program. That's a really neat program. If you've not been up there, they have 31 students up there, which is pretty incredible to think about. Most of the students are up there all day with two teachers. They do
047have one class down here in the high school, fifth hour. But they're really a nice group of juniors and seniors that are working on their skills, their career, college readiness, and their graduation credits as well, too. So kudos to the two teachers, Krishna Uraj and Kay Martin up there. They do a really nice job. So I just wanted to highlight that as part of our enrollment. Enrollment by ethnicity has not changed either. A lot of the same numbers that we saw last year. And then also by other criteria as well too, hovering around the same as we've had in the past. So really maintaining a nice group of students. You heard from many of them earlier tonight. As I've noticed in my now full year at Simley, we just have a nice group of kids.
048We really do. We have a nice group of students in our population. And so really proud of that piece. They're just kind and good human beings. At the start of the year, we talked about, we formed a guiding coalition, which is our staff teacher leadership group. And we really dove into this question, how are we preparing our Spartans for that next step after high school? And they formed two goals. One was the connectedness goal. Teachers thought it important to really focus on how are we connecting to each other, to our students. How are we connecting students to students? We talked about increasing that sense of belonging and relationships, expanding those universal experiences for all students in our community, intentionally working to connect students to the curriculum, focusing on student agency and empowerment, bringing student voice
049into the classroom, and having student voice also present in school activities and events. Our second goal really was around those core life skills and the teacher group identified five core life skills that they thought were really important. They are self-awareness, collaboration, communication, problem-solving, and risk-taking. So from there, they've built these two goals into their professional learning communities. They're looking at data, breaking down the data, working it into their daily instruction, and really making sure that these two goals align with that 199 way that we looked at at the very beginning. We're also learning a little bit as a group, too. We're reading this book, Street Data. I don't know if any of you have ever picked it up. But I thought this little paragraph on the back was kind of a good synopsis of the
050book. It says, education can be transformed if we eradicate our fixation on big data, like standardized test scores as the supreme measure of equity and learning. Instead, focusing on fixing and filling academic gaps, we must envision and rebuild the system from the student up, with classrooms, schools, and systems built around students' brilliance, cultural wealth, and intellectual potential. Street data reminds us that what is measurable is not the same as what is valuable and that data can be humanizing, liberating, and healing. I think that really embodies the work that we're doing at Simley this year. I'm going to turn it over to Cullen. He's going to dive into our goals a little bit and talk about each of them a little bit more individually and what's been going on at the high school. So for us
051at the high school our connectedness really starts with reaching out to the middle school when students are in eighth grade. I spend quite a bit of time down there getting to know students and then from there really it's getting them started with one career. For those of you that do not know, Link Crew is our junior senior leaders that come together and we do a freshman only day to start the school year. We also continue on with our Link Crew group throughout the year. We have, I think this year it is seven different sessions where they're going into freshman classrooms, working with kids on academics, social skill pieces, kind of learning how to play the game of school a little bit more at a higher level. And then we end the year with what we
052affectionately have termed as the ninth grade Olympics. That's an opportunity for all of our groups to get outside. We spend I think three or four hours out there. We try to cater to all different kinds of interests. We have some things that are a little bit more athletic for some of the kids. We also have some art contests, teamwork initiatives, problem solving. And so really for us, that's a big piece of it. And then we create spaces for our student voice. We have a lot of different clubs at Simley High School, and we are continually updating those and allowing kids to show interest in different things. But through that come a lot of community and cultural celebrations that we have. For the last few years, I've been lucky enough to be the administrator on duty
053for an IFTAR event, and that is really amazing. as we go through that. And then community outreach such as family connections. We're also working with the group in Invergrove right now for the Light Up the Island that's going on. We're talking with our... Our industrial tech teacher is leading a group through fabricating some elements to create a really unique lighting fixture for that. So that's been really fun. It's really cool to see the kids get to spec something out that they never even imagined before and problem solve and figure all of that out. And then from there, sort of pitch it to somebody and have a conversation. And then also it allows us to plan for the future what this may look like for some of the others that come through and making this a
054regular thing and creating those community partnerships. Couple last little pieces that I would like to highlight. Homecoming, Carrie has been super open to getting back to what makes school really important, which is a lot of that connectedness. We've had the best turnout that we've had for homecoming in over 10 years, which has been pretty mind-blowing. We also played a... giant game of rock, paper, scissors throughout one of the days. Just creating opportunities for kids to interact, to form a community not just around clubs, activities, sports, but just within the school day and I think that that's really important. Kids also got to challenge teachers in the rock, paper, scissors contest, which they absolutely love. So that was a really interesting piece. And then we had our typical pep fest, but then we did something different
055with some of the coordination doing that during the school day. So again, really focusing on instead of making that, hey, this is an evening event that if you have a ride, if you have money, if you have whatever you can get to, no, no, no, let's throw that out the door. Let's make it about our community and our school community. And so doing that during the day helped a lot. Last piece, I promise we're getting there. The other thing I'd like to highlight is exactly what Will highlighted. It was really fun this year to see all of our kids and our students and our families come together through soccer. One thing that I think is probably the most amazing about that run is when we played Monticello in the quarterfinal game, that's... I don't know
056if you're familiar with how far Monticello is at 3.30 on a weekday. We had like 60 to 70 kids that went up to Monticello to watch their peers play and literally drove an hour and a half, got there about 10 minutes into the game just to be part of that experience with them. Like those pieces are invaluable when we talk about school culture because what we're seeing is you don't just have to be an athlete. You can be present and buy into what's going on within your community culture and with your peers and still have that home in that place. So that's what I'll say about the connectedness as we talk to our next goal. That was building core life skills. Carrie already mentioned self-awareness, collaboration, communication, problem solving, risk-taking were pieces that our guiding
057coalition really identified there. But part of this is teaching these skills and teaching these things expressly to students and talking about where they're seeing it within their education and where they would apply that for other aspects of their life. As we get down to talking about the land up the island, they're doing that. They're doing the problem solving. They're communicating. They're identifying what are they looking for for us to fabricate? How are we going to do it? Well, metal is really expensive and heavy. So how do we problem solve that? And they came up with using PVC piping. So those pieces, I think for us talking about those things. helping kids to understand where they are building some of those skill sets within the curriculum, within the work that they're doing, I think is really
058important because then we sort of get into that place where we're talking about metacognition, right? Thinking about your thinking. And those are high level things that will help our kids continue to grow and build. And then the other piece that I would add is we're actively changing our instruction. In the math classrooms, we're using building thinking classrooms, which is where the kids problem solve, collaborate, work together on a math problem, and it allows the teacher to kind of bop around the room and support as needed. But really, now they're learning how to collaborate with each other and lean into a partner, lean into somebody in their group if they don't quite have an answer, and work on it and workshop it together. I don't know of a more applicable skill. than that, that they're going
059to use the rest of their lives in a job within their families. So for us, really it's showing those pieces, it's showing how that's connected to their life after high school, how it's connected to jobs, to family, how they're going to support themselves, and then even looking at their own experiences right now in current jobs and where those skills come into play there. So for us, we really believe that if we pull our kids in and create that opportunity to have them connected with loving, caring adults in our school setting, that will also help us continue to build those core life skills. Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. I just want to go back to this picture because I think there's such great emotion here. I do feel bad for the young man
060in the corner. But like looking at, so this is one of our freshmen. This was the rock, paper, scissors competition. She was the winner. I mean, looking at her freshmen, classmates in the back, the parents that were here for coronation, the excitement of, you know, we had two students that were MCs. You see Will there, Tyler Chavez, just the amount of... Joy and I think in that photo is incredible so and the energy in the room and the energy in the room Yeah, everybody was locked up. It was a little worried about the chaos Okay So as we dig a little bit deeper into our goals, I want to focus tonight on a couple of really cool things that we're doing. We're building our concurrent enrollment and advanced placement courses up. I think that's one
061kind of shining star for Simley. As I talk to other high school principals in the metro, we really are leading the way in concurrent enrollment, especially. And so Alyssa is going to speak to that a little bit. We've also been really intentional with our career in tech ed and experiential learning. As most of you know Career Tech Ed is kind of hot right now. Some of the pendulum has swung that way as we look at workforce needs. So I want to highlight some of the things that we've been doing especially with our tri-district capstone classes. And we'll talk about our emerging school store as well too. And then get into some post-secondary planning and just kind of highlighting how are we supporting students to that next step in their lives. So, Alyssa, start over here.
062Hi. So I, just briefly, in terms of concurrent enrollment and advanced placement, we have 18 concurrent enrollment course offerings here at the high school, and then nine AP classes that we offer. And we did just finish the end of our AP testing registration window, which they moved to significantly earlier because testing is still the first two weeks of May. All AP testing has gone to digital testing. This will be the second year of all digital testing. So that's been quite a shift as we navigate the world of AP testing. More so though, I do want to focus a lot on concurrent enrollment because it is coming from other high schools and districts. It is really unique here, the way that we really invested in concurrent enrollment and the way students really invest in it. There's
063a lot of opportunities here inside of our building that also allow for a lot of equity and access that I haven't seen in other places and I think one of the one of the biggest things is that there's there's a really big effort to ensure that our concurrent enrollment offerings are meeting our student needs. It's not about like what do our staff want to teach? It's about what our students want to be taking. and where do they want to be engaging. And so thinking specifically about like our medical terminology and anatomy and physiology like there are students in ninth grade who are alike. focused on getting to that class and their students do it's the first advanced class they take but they are just locked in ready to really work to that level because it's
064a really high interest class for them at but it's at the college level and they are really rising to the occasion to be able to achieve at that level our biggest partner is Inver Hills Community College and DCTC and they've been just a really great partner in this I think it's been really wonderful to work with them and see the ways in which they're they really want to uphold that standard college level and all of the responsibilities that come with being involved in a college level course but there's still just a little bit of that flexibility to work with us when student situations arise like it's not you know there's there's a little bit of forgiveness when we need it because college high school students are still really looking and trying to figure some things
065out there's challenges they face that we can't proceed so they've been a really wonderful partner and then we also offer which is a photo from the class, which is CIS Writing Studio. So that's through the University of Minnesota. It's College in the Schools. This class is currently offered for 11th and 12th graders. And the University of Minnesota is sunsetting this course, but will be moving into their College in the Schools course 1301, which is University Writing. And so it's up a level. It'll be only offered to seniors. But what's really neat about how Sidney offers it, there's two sections. for the full year and it's co-taught with one of our multilingual teachers and so they work really hard to ensure that we're really encouraging students into the class that might not otherwise want to or
066or without that extra push really open themselves up to the opportunity of taking that college health course in high school and so something i think we really see is students gaining a lot of confidence and just feeling like this sense of readiness for college that they maybe wouldn't have had otherwise. And that's just been a really beautiful thing to see. The two teachers for that course have worked together for many years. And so that partnership and the way they really balance ensuring that it's meeting student needs and really helping them rise to the level of college-level writing is really pretty beautiful. And then something else that's really unique, I've never seen this done in another school, but there's an advanced course fair that's student run. And so coming in January, there'll be a fair that
067the students. There's you know some staff partners that help them kind of organize it, but the students do all of their own Presenting on the advanced courses they're in which is kind of my dream for how we build the course catalog is like what do the students have to say about the classes and how they explain it to other students so knowing that there's this opportunity for every student in our building to go in And learn from their peers as to what are the advanced courses what's in it for them And why would they want to take it? I think I'm really excited to be a part of that this year, so that's our next look ahead I want to highlight our Career and Tech Ed and Experiential Learning program. So you're looking at our
068Tri-District CAPS Business Program. As you probably remember, Tri-District CAPS is a CAPS program that we share with South St. Paul and Two Rivers. And we send a number of students to this program every single afternoon. And in the first half of the year, they really work on the business kids especially work on resume skills and building their their cover letters and things like that and learning the skills in order to go out onto the work site. And then the second half of the spring semester they actually go out and do an internship. So a really unique opportunity that you don't see at a lot of Metro high schools. And this was earlier this fall they got to do a Mississippi River Barge lesson. So this is a floating classroom on the Mississippi River and it
069was put on by Cargill. You can see the gentleman in the bright yellow Cargill shirt. and GF Piping. And these two industry leaders came together to put on a session for our kids to help them to understand the importance of, like cargo for example, how does food get from one place in the country to another? And what's the importance of the Mississippi River in that? And so he was helping them through a project where they had to design a barge and figure out how much food the barge could hold. in order to get up and down the river effectively and efficiently. So just a really cool opportunity. You can see a couple of our assembly students there. Just a different way of learning and kind of like Cullen was saying earlier, getting kids that learning
070that is applicable and maybe something that they want to do or not do in their futures. And so we've seen a lot of success with our tri-district capstone program. It's just a really unique opportunity. The other thing I'd like to highlight, and I asked Emma to stay, we have an emerging school store. And I want Emma to hear this because it's the power of one email, one request, one student idea. Last spring, Emma emailed me, just out of the blue, and was like, hey, I would like to start a school store. And I said, sure, let's do it. And we happened to hire a new business teacher who had a lot of experience with DECA and school stores. And I connected those two even last spring. And from there, an idea was born. And so
071right now, we're kind of in the process where we're about to do a soft launch. A couple of you walked through the other day and saw some of the products. Do you want me to talk about it? And if you'd like to talk about it. Come on up. As you can tell, I'm a part of a lot of things. Like what they've told you, I've been in all these AP classes. Well, not all of them. That wouldn't be possible. But I have been a part of these AP classes. have done the fair thing that you did talk about. It is really fun seeing all the different classes. But back to the school story. It all started in Ms. Tishmak's class. She was teaching research and writing. It was part of the Inver Hills Community College
072course that you could take. And we did that throughout the whole year. And one of our big projects that we get to work on is, what was it called? It wasn't a career project, it was... It's like a persuasive speech almost, or writing. Yay! It was to what was a great project is our grant project that we had so we come up we look in our like school handbook to see what we would like to change or add to the school and What I thought was pretty interesting how we haven't had a school store And I've gone to two rivers for like swim meets and stuff and figured out and also hitting um That they've had school stores and like merch inside their schools, and I was like wait a minute we should also have
073a school store here. And I did find out that we did at one point and then got rid of it sadly. So I made my project about getting a school store here and producing Simly swag, which is just Simly gear with just Simly because we've also been recognizing that we have a lot of specific swag stuff like swim, fan, football, soccer, and not just Simly gear, you know? So, yeah, it all started in her class and then, yeah, Miss Tishma told me that some of these ideas actually did get grants and actually took off, which was really exciting for me because I could really see this happening in our school one way or another, which was really exciting when I talked to Miss Gelland about it and she happened to have Mr. Spriter, like... join
074our team and it was actually really great and so far we have painting done we have our little section and what you saw right yeah yeah yeah and um what we're working on so we got paint we're looking on putting a spartan head on the back to make it more spartan and so just Blue and red, you know, and so and then we also have our clothing ordered. We did get a little donation from And so we do have our clothing beginning worked on and ordered me also getting drinks put on and we're also looking to decorate for this Wait, where's the location? Is it over by the old counselor? Yes, the counselor's office is still in the spot. It's just like right next to it. Yeah, we're planning on calling it Spartan Swag Shack
075to commemorate the older name that we had. the Simlishack or Spartan Shack. Yeah, so and we did put out posters of a QR code wanting the school to get involved because we want them to like get excited that like something like this is going to be happening. So we did put our QR code out there and they voted and they really like Simlishack but like we also wanted something a little more updated. So, you know. That's awesome. Thank you. Before anyone goes, you said something that will stick with me for a long time. it was about mr. Sprider you said that mr. Sprider joined our team how much that means to hear that that means that you're viewing the school not only as a students but as the adults and as everybody working together and
076that's huge so thank you for sharing that I just wanted to hear that impact because I think that's so cool to have a single thought and idea and then come to fruition less than six months later. We'll make sure we know when to stop opening. We'll invest. We'll have a lot of smart things. I'm excited to spend my money at the Swag. Spartan Swag. Okay, and then the last piece. I'm starting to feel like Chad having to follow up with students. So looking ahead to some of the college planning pieces, we did have the annual college fair here on October 28th. So all 10th, 11th, and 12th graders visited. And it was really fun to see them walk around and engage and meet the students that were kind of staying back, you know, like asking
077them questions. You could get them to go up and actually approach an adult and ask them questions. And so there's a lot of engagement. We also administered the PSAT that same week, so 40 students took the PSAT on October 28th, sorry, the college fair was on the 30th. And then we've also, this fall so far, had 15 college reps visit, and a lot of our juniors and seniors will sign up for those events. New this year is we did a full implementation of the direct admissions program through office of higher ed. Is that something you all are familiar with? Okay, so direct admissions is newer to the state as of just a few years ago and what happens is we essentially GPA can qualify students to a different tier and that tier means that like
078they're automatically admitted to specific colleges within Minnesota and so we had 213 of our seniors qualify within direct admissions for automatic admission to Minnesota colleges and then that tier kind of delineates which colleges they're automatically admitted to so that means they don't have to submit an application they don't have to pay a fee to apply. They do have to, once they decide which of those they are serious about wanting to attend, there are some additional steps they have to take, but it's just automatic admission to a number of colleges for free for them. And so it was a little bit of an undertaking to kind of get all the technical pieces together to get it. And once we sent the report off, students just got an email saying like, oh, you're accepted to all these
079colleges. And that happened the day before our college fair. They all got their acceptances, so they could kind of go around with that in mind of knowing where they'd already been accepted to. How many did you say guest direct admissions? 213. Out of? 241. Wow. That was just automatically done, or did they have to say, hey, I want to be a part of this? It was an opt-out. So we sent the information to families ahead of time, and they could opt out. And it was a very small amount of students and families that chose to opt out. So yeah, pretty high acceptance rate and then there's, like I said, there's the five tiers and so even within those five tiers at the top tier is a 3.5 GPA or higher and then certain credits that
080they have to match and 66 seniors qualified in that top tier. So that was pretty impressive as well. Can you share like which colleges? So OHE doesn't have, they have a site where they list all of the colleges, but there's not a nice really way where they're like, oh, tier five means all of these. But it's, I mean, it's. a very, very large portion of all of the colleges in the university. Yeah, the Minnesota State colleges. So, thank you. And I will say, too, it's huge for our kids. A lot of kids think, well, my GPA is this. I'm never going to get into college. Or could I even try? And so it really helps kids understand, hey, you can get into college. This is for you. So it is, as we talk to kids,
081it is a game changer for students as far as their post-secondary went. Just because just things happen to change over the years once you get this letter for some kids who were thinking I'm going to college, this is great, and they have a plan and their families might already be working on this, but what is the guidance or where are they getting their guidance for funding college? Because that is becoming a more and more daunting challenge every day. Yes, it's fast changed. And I know there used to be a newsletter and I don't know if I just don't have a kid who's old enough for it anymore. I don't know why I haven't seen one in a while. Is there something that kind of helps our kids know here's how you here's how you help
082pay for college or here's scholarships available? What is what is the? Yeah, what are we doing? So in my past life of administration, I was a high school counselor. And so that's something that working with the counseling department here, that's a huge part of the different presentations and really connecting with them. And I will say that as in reading up on direct admissions. The state has actually found a huge increase in students applying for FAFSA since implementing direct admissions. And so I think that's a huge piece of students knowing right away, like, hey, I'm automatically accepted and that piece is done. That that's like one last barrier and so they can spend a lot more of that energy on connecting with counselors getting the FAFSA completed There was a huge FAFSA chain a couple years
083ago that really complicated things. So I think It's been a I think they've been able to take a lot of their energy off the actual college application piece and be able to focus on that So there has been a huge increase just across the state in general in applying for FAFSA And then I have not obviously been here one full year yet to see what the full round of programming looks like But coming from a counselor lens I would assume counselors do a lot to work with students anywhere from one-to-one meetings All the way up to just general class like the senior going to see the classroom. I'm going into senior classrooms presentations really I know avid does a lot of planning with that. And so having those two cohorts of students that are really
084able to learn that and share out with friends as well. There typically are a lot of resources for if you need someone to sit down and help you, we're here and this is how you access us. So do we not have a newsletter anymore about it? Like a senior newsletter? Yeah, like the senior college. Are you referencing the former career college newsletter? Yes. I don't agree. I think it's all through, it's all more across the board now where it's not just specific to career and college planning. We've already had one stop shop for kids rather than a double stop. Yeah. Okay. Exactly. I know it's on their website too, but it really, I think what I have found is those personal connections. Like really seeking out the students that need that extra layer of support
085and guidance. And I do think, like Alyssa said, that's the power of that direct admissions is it gives you a good idea. you know, who we can touch base with at a little deeper level. And that also leads into as well thinking, you know, working with counselors and just looking at their role in supporting all students across the spectrum and getting to know them early on. And so all of our counselors are going to be going into ninth grade classrooms two weeks from now to be... I think first and foremost kind of reflecting on quarter one grade. So you've had your first report card now in high school. What does this mean? How do we read it? And then going through graduation requirements and doing just a lot of reflection on like we've had a
086little bit of experience here in ninth grade. What do we need to adjust? What are our goals? How can we better kind of reset for the rest of the year? And that's just the beginning. And then they lead up to doing a lot of four-year planning with the ninth graders. And so coming up in January, they'll be back in classrooms setting up course planner and thinking through what you want your four years to look like here. And that would time with that advanced coursework college fair so that students are really getting a lot of exposure. And with the counselors getting in really early into those ninth grade classrooms, they get to know them. The students get to know their counselors, how to access them. And really build those plans and think just really critically about
087what are the goals in high school and how can we meet them? We're really looking at, as Carrie said, how are we building kind of pathways for students to understand, hey, I really like this class in ninth grade, so what could my 10th, 11th, and 12th grade look like and how could I really be aware of these opportunities? So counselors are really supporting being able to just carry a lot of these hats and be able to help students get the information they need. In addition, one other exciting thing is the bilingual SEALs. So we've historically always offered the bilingual SEAL assessment here. We're moving it. Previously, it was offered in April, I believe. late april late april we're moving it up to february this year so that um students who earn their bilingual seal for
088their transcript will be able to be honored at the spring award ceremony um so they'll be able to receive that acknowledgement and in addition it's always been students in the heritage spanish class who take it as well as a few other students that one of the coordinators might be known as multilingual and this year we're working on pulling reports of different home languages spoken and reaching out to all of the families and students them know that this is an opportunity that they can take advantage of and so students based on the the level they achieve on that assessment can earn a significant amount of college credits within world language that then transfer to elective credits here at the high school so it is a pretty great opportunity and so we really want to ensure that
089students and families are aware that they can sign up and take this assessment and it's that you may basically get a stamp on their transcript saying they're bilingual and so being able to send that out to their colleges to employers is a really high achievement. So in summary, our work continues. So as we think about the rest of the year and beyond, part of our goals, strengthening the PLC cycle with our teaching staff, making sure that there's consistency across all departments, really to support student achievement. Expanding the visibility of core life skills in classrooms. We've talked a lot about really intentionally calling out those core life skills. So students understand and as Colin mentioned what the industry is looking for, what the workforce is looking for, whether it's collaboration, communication skills, risk-taking. We are really
090intentional about teaching kids and having that common vocabulary, teaching kids core life skills. Continuing to develop the academic pathways and mentorship experiences, as Alyssa just talked about, and then deepening those student belonging initiatives as well too, making sure that our students feel seen, valued, and heard. And I just want to tie this back to that daily desired experiences. As I walked out... My first day of school, I noticed this message, don't forget to smile. And I just think that's one of the most important things about high school is just the joy that you find in the day-to-day. So everything from homecoming when we can dress up and be silly to some of our athletic celebrations, our Hispanic Heritage Day, and the cultural celebrations, the academic awards, just all the reasons why it's just good to
091be a high schooler. Just highlighting that and just really super proud of that. That's all we have. Do you have any questions for us? Or comments? We'll take them. Anything. I really like the comment about just the intentional connecting to the curriculum. I think that goes to the street data about getting away from some of the MCA results and standardized things. It is about learning, and if you are learning something and you can see yourself using it and you can understand why learning is important, I think that's just super powerful. So to know that you're leading in that way and then to hear the examples of how kids are doing that. the school store being one, the light of the island being another. I think that's really powerful. Yeah. I agree. It's just super cool
092to sit back and watch kids work, basically. You know, kind of like you heard the energy and enthusiasm from Emma. I mean, she's off and running. Like, I'm not going to stop her. So that's really super cool. Is she a senior this year? She's a senior this year. Yeah. But there are 13 others that are involved in the school store development, and then they're hoping to expand it to a DECA chapter. So building in other opportunities to be successful for kids who are not just on the field or in the classroom, but different stages where kids can find personal success. I think it's about them finding value in the things they're learning because that creates a different sense of buy-in and belonging. And when they see those things come to life in front of them,
093those are the sparks of actions that create a clear pathway for an individual to be. It's very evident when you are here that you get the feel from the students and the staff as Emma shared that this is their school and that's so important because that's what also fosters that desire to learn and to grow and to do the things that you hope kids will take away from high school experience and I want to thank these guys because they set that tone. They set that tone of listening and one of the things I get a kick out of whenever I come over here is if you go in the office There's almost kids in the office. I don't know why that is, but there are always kids in the office. It's because they want to
094be there, not because they have to. And that makes all the difference in the world. Yeah, I was going to say that. I don't know if you'll be here for the end, but in the visit, it was so great. Walking down the hallway, she got stopped every couple seconds. There was a kid whose name she knew, and they were talking about a thing. We were fist bumping. We were like, it was just, you could tell that you were. Not just the principal of the school, but even their principal. It makes me think about my principal, Mr. Brown, and how that was my guy. I still think about him now, my experience being his assistant when I was in fourth block. You could tell that you were their principal and that you were important to them,
095not just that they're important to you. I thought that was really fun to see, especially at high school. It's an interesting place to be. It was an interesting place to be, but it didn't feel like you were just, you know. moving through like it was collective and I thought that was that was probably my favorite part about just being here and seeing you in the space that felt like y'all's like this is our house our home and we're here together yeah it was a nice though it was just so nice yeah I don't know if you'd hear it at the end but yeah you have to say it now that's important make the kids feel seen valued heard welcome. Emma comes back in 10 years and sees the school store she's going to say oh
096by the way I... She will be working there. But it's the same thing that Jack spoke to that Colin spoke to I mean that's this is the power right of planting the seeds and letting them grow. two other long sitting here perfect yeah that's going I just sat there thinking just when you thought I couldn't get better like I I don't know if I have a 10th graders I think she's a softball picture down there but You know you only hear so much from the kid at home. I've been coming in hearing all these things But she's the one who's already like I know where I'm going to college. I'm ready and she was at the college fair She came and said well when are we going to go tour Mankato? Don't push it. We
097still have a couple more years. I've been there a couple times already. I'm like give it till summer. But just all of every time I'm still digesting all the things Fantastic things that are happening. Yeah Totally. You can just feel the energy. You can feel the energy from what you guys are talking about I don't have kids in school anymore, but I used to. Thank you, your leadership. I can just feel it. The connectedness that you have, and Shanna gave us the example of seeing that herself. So thank you, truly. Thank you, and welcome to the district. And, you know, I just think, was it a few years ago that the... shifted away from the designated college and career counselor to incorporating it within the counseling office and I just think how neat that you
098have that background as well as you know it's because We obviously still care about college and career. I have a junior and a sophomore and then two younger ones. It's all brand new for us right now with our junior. And so I appreciate that there are resources that we can tap into as well to help navigate the next step. I just wanted to add one thing because everybody said everything that they need to except for that career tech ed learning piece. That also brings me back and I'm always this guy but the referendum in 2017 is we said this is going to be a place for some of those opportunities that kids can get anywhere from here. It doesn't just have to be one way and I think that has been so intentional and Just
099cool. I mean I've been in that advanced welding course we went over and we saw robotics Some of the things that are offered that you were showing us. I'm so excited for this Simley Island thing, but that What you showed us on a boat. I mean that that's really cool. That's cool. That's just straight-up cool. And we've had last year I think we had some paramedics coming. I mean and so that is promises kept and I really think that I just love seeing that happen. I think especially with AI now and so many jobs shifting and changing, but we're always going to need equipment and welders and bricklayers and people that are running businesses. It's the importance. And that is, like you said, where we see kids come alive. And they're still able to get
100rigor in traditional core academics and everybody and that's awesome too but that the opportunity. And with like that they're getting their English credit with that tri-district course too so they are getting the you know the core curriculum through the lens of business so that's just a really it's cool opportunity to watch the kids. I would encourage you we have a new um There's a food system sustainability and natural resources course. Super fun course down at Dodge Nature Center. So if you go to James, go down there and check it out. They were running around Jason Chittenden's other day. Not my jam, but it is somebody's jam, that's for sure. Very cool. Well, thank you very much. Yeah, thank you all. Thanks for being here tonight, too. All right. Now we will move to the first
101reading for review of policies and Superintendent Bergertson will introduce several policies. Thank you. The Policy Committee reviewed the following policies in October and these policies had no changes, minimal changes, and limited changes and they'll be brought back to you at our next meeting on December 8th for your actions. So we have no changes to 407, employee right to no exposure to hazardous substances. 408 subpoena of a school district employee minimal changes to 305 policy implementation 404, employee background check, and 409, employee publications, instructional materials, interventions, and creations. And then again, limited changes to 406, public and private data. And once again, these will be brought back to our next regular meeting on Monday, December 8th. And if you have any questions you need to share this evening or at another time, please share them with
102me. With Tracy who helps develop our policies and our three policy committee members. Thank you. Any discussion? Alright, we will move to committee reports. Darcy, will you please give an update on policy? The policy committee met prior to tonight's meeting to go over several policies from the current cycle and the MSB policy newsletter. Thank you. Membership reports. Dave, will you give an update on AMSD? Yes, AMSD met on November 7th and their agenda included looking after talking about some of the key challenges that school boards face and superintendent school boards particularly focused on funding and school safety. I have one addendum. The facilities, finance, and personnel committees have not met this month. So rather than having three different people repeat that, we'll just wrap it up there. Shana, will you please give an update on
103the IGH Best Foundation? Yes. The Best Foundation is probably meeting right now. We will be there in a little while, right? Yeah, we'll be there soon. Okay. But they are meeting. Great. Liz will you please give us an update on MSBA? The MSBA Leadership Conference is going to open January 15th and 16th. Make sure you register and attend. I think Darcy and I both asked our band director apply to be presenting a band or music group at the conference and we got it. She got her Quotient. if you weren't gonna come, come in. Just come for that. Yeah, so that's exciting. And Dave, will you give an update on Intermediate School District 917? Yes, they met on November 11th and their agenda just was their routine agenda. Great. All right, moving on to action items.
104We will begin with Superintendent Bernardson introducing the recommendation to approve several policies for a second reading. Yes, as mentioned before these do go through our policy committee and they reviewed these policies in both August and September So we've got no changes, minimal changes and significant changes and they were shared with you at our Well, let's go to no changes. We have no changes to 301 school district administration 304 superintendent contract duties and evaluation, minimal changes to 303 superintendent selection, 501 school weapons policy, and 528 student parental family and marital status non-discrimination. Then we had significant changes to 306 administrator code of ethics and 533 wellness. And those significant changes really were In 306, we're to reordering in the additions to the education administrator standards. And the major changes to 533 wellness had to do with
105major edits throughout the policies surrounding physical and mental health and emotional well-being of students. So this evening, we're asking the board to approve these policies for their second reading. Thank you. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the policies presented for a second reading for review? Motion by member Dukes. Second by member Gamioa. Motion by Member Duke, second by Member Nehemiah. Any discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. All right, Superintendent Bernardson will introduce his areas of focus for the 25-26 school year. Thank you. Yeah, so these areas of focus, while they are maybe termed as a superintendent goal areas, they are really the goals or focus areas for our team. And those focus areas always resolve, revolve around our strategic plan. And we have three different areas
106that we're really focused in on, the first being leadership and culture. And what we're looking at or what our focus area will be in that. area will be to advance initiatives that strengthens inclusivity and supports student learning growth including as you heard from Simley High School the 199 way with students staff and families and actually with that 199 way we're going to add another one to that in our work moving forward which is community. because we want to make sure our community is also reflected in our 199 way. And as you've heard about before, our learning framework and then our community of practice, which is really how we develop and support our teachers in their goals for development in their practice as far as how they meet the needs of kids. In organizational management, we're
107wanting to enhance the execution of our strategic roadmap and refine our safety practices and develop a new data system to support student learning. So as you know, that strategic plan is our North Star. Our safety practices, well, safety is our number one priority. We're always refining and looking at ways that we can ensure that our school is safe for our students, staff, and community. And then we have a data system that does support student learning, but that data system is going to no longer be available to us. So we're going to look into different systems. And that data provides really information to support where teachers go with student learning next. In other words, to support the growth of our students. And then with communications and community engagement. We really want to amplify employee wellness. Wellness
108is something we really want to highlight because we know that if our staff is feeling valued and feeling that they are supported in ways beyond just professional development, but in their wellness, that they will even be more successful in what they do. Speaking of success and what they do, we really want to amplify what we're doing to recognize our employees. They do phenomenal things for our kids every day and we want to further recognize that. And then on the second aspect, we want to really communicate aspects that are associated with both of our referendums, but we also have a capital projects piece where we really want to amplify so that our community better understands. how those funds are being applied. But we also know that that'll be something that you'll have a future discussion on
109about May about how we approach the capital projects and an existing levy as well. So these are the areas of focus that we're really zeroed in on for this coming year and will also be aspects that will provide you with a mid-year and end-year update in regards to the progress of those focus areas. Thank you. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the superintendent areas of focus for the 25-26 school year? Motion by member Larson. Second by member Ward. Motion by member Larson. Second by member Ward. Any discussion? Also want to share that these were shared with all of you at our work session last Monday as well. My only I think these are lofty goals and I think the evidence that we see in these are from nights like tonight They're
110the updates we get in our work session It makes me think of our most recent work session and there was a bulleted list of one department's many many jobs And I think all of that falls under your leadership and it's just good reminders of all the work that's done by everybody Any other discussion all those in favor? opposed The motion is carried All right, Director of Instructional Technology, Caroline Little, and Director of Learning, Megan Blazek, will introduce the recommendation to approve the 2627 Intricters District Transfer Process and Enrollment Program. I'm solo tonight. Megan was not able to be here. So tonight I'd like to bring forward the open enrollment and inter-district transfer parameters for the 26-27 school year. These parameters are reviewed each year to guide the next year's enrollment process. And we always get
111them approved by the board before we open up enrollment for the next school year, which will... happen sooner than we know it. So to go over the open enrollment parameters First we look at the capacity limits in each grade level. So for open enrollment we're talking about non-residents of Invergrove Heights boundaries and we do cap this enrollment based on our staffing thresholds at each grade level. So in grades kindergarten through fifth grade we limit it to 90% of the staffing enrollment threshold within each building. at any grade level. In grades six through 10, we limit our open enrollment at 95% of our threshold. And currently our grades 11 and 12 are not included in that calculation because a lot of our kids will go off and do PSEO and for other reasons their class sizes
112are. calculated differently than some of the other grade levels that we're talking about. So at 90% when we get to that 90% we close open enrollment for K-5 and we'll get to that 95% we close open enrollment for grades 6 through 10 and part of this is so that we ensure that we have space for Inverbrook Heights residents students at those grade levels in schools as well. There are some priority criteria that we use when we look at open enrollment applications. The first one is that students who have a sibling who is currently open enrolled in ISD 199, those students are given priority. Students who have a parent or legal guardian who is a Minnesota resident and an employee of ISD 199, they are also given priority. And then lastly, students who are part of
113a Minnesota Department of Ed approved achievement and integration district. We use those three things as priorities ahead of other students if we have to look at a whole pool of kids. We do have a timeline for open enrollment that is based on statute. So the first timeline is applications that are received by January 15th. Collect all those applications by January 15th depending on the space that we're looking for in our projected enrollment Sometimes we would have to do a lottery if there are more applications than we have space for and that is just a randomized lottery that's done by district administration The notification of those families happens by February 15th. So they will know by February 15th if that application has been submitted by January 15th. After that, we ask families to have a commitment
114to us by March 1st so that we know what our space looks like moving forward. After the January 15th deadline, any open enrollment applications that we get in, we take on a first come, in the order that we receive them. If there isn't room, we always offer a wait list for families at any given grade level. Just a couple things to note overall for open enrollment for elementary requests families can request Which school they want to be enrolled in but we can't always guarantee based on the numbers and all open world students their families have to provide transportation the only exception for that is if family who already had a student enrolled like an Athenaeum that would be one exception and then around transportation so they have one other exception and that is if they
115are able to bring their student to a district bus stop where we have room on a bus we do provide that opportunity but that's not very doesn't happen very often it doesn't happen very often and we Like Dave said, we always make sure we check with our transportation department to make sure that there is room on the bus. But we like to work with families to the best of our ability to help get kids to school. So those are the open enrollment parameters. The other part of this is the intra-district transfer process. And in that process, this is really for our elementary schools. It's for families who are asking to go to a school that is not their home school based on where their house is located or their home is located. So we have
116a process for this as well and we do use thresholds for this process as well. So at any of the elementary schools, if a grade level is at 95% of its threshold for that grade level, we close that for intra-district transfer. Again, because families do move in and out of boundaries, and we always want to be sure that to the best of our ability, that we have space in those grade levels for movement throughout the school year. For this one, our priority application deadline is April 15th. This has changed this year from a June 30th deadline. We want to give families an opportunity to get those requests in earlier and then they will be notified by April 30th. That way, again, families can plan better for the future and where their student will be attending
117school. and with the inter-district transfer process we do start a waitlist if there isn't room so we do keep a waitlist going sometimes depending on projected enrollment and what we're seeing at certain times of in the enrollment process usually kind of early summer is when we start a waitlist often as we're kind of waiting to see when those new enrollments are coming in. With inter-district transfer, families are also responsible for transportation. Again, that exception would be, sometimes people are actually requesting to go back to their home school that's within the boundary that they live in. So that would obviously be an exception because then the busing, they could get busing there. Or again, with the Athenaeum program too. Those students are provided transportation once they're accepted into that program Both the open enrollment and inter-district
118transfer processes were discussed at our work session last week And we went over some questions there. So tonight I'd like to ask the board to approve the 2026-2027 open enrollment and inter-district transfer Thank you do i have a motion in a second to approve the 26 27 inter-district transfer process and open enrollment parameters presented published by member pearson second by member clinger all right motion by member of pearson second by member clinkner any discussion I think the only thing I would add is we have some questions for you. And just so the public's aware, we discuss this a lot at the work session. Thank you so much for your presentation that night, too. And I really appreciate this inter-district transfer deadline change of April. So families know what they're doing for the summer and can
119get ready. That's really nice. I was recently asked why we do this in the first place. And it's an interesting question because sometimes we forget the why. Open enrollment is the opportunity for people, as Caroline said, from other districts to come to our district. And since we receive achievement integration funding, we have to provide that opportunity. But we put these caps in place because we want to maintain the class sizes that are here. And the same can be said for inter-district transfers. Because you hear us many times, especially even during referendum time, we say that we want to maintain class size. And without these parameters, we would not be able to do that. It would be wide open. So this does ensure that we're maintaining the class sizes for our residents. And that's who is
120the number one priority in all of this, is our residents that reside within the school district. Thank you. Any other discussions? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? The motion is carried. All right, that brings us to our comments at the end of the meeting. Thank you. First I want to thank our activities director, Will Shortz, and our assembly high school leadership team for their information share this evening. It's always great to hear from kids and hear about kids. And a lot of great things happening at the high school level. Speaking of students, we had our first student advisory council meeting last week. That's with the 4th, 7th, and 11th grade representatives from different schools. And we spent some time on the 199 way. and they provided us examples of what the 199 way looks, sounds,
121and feels like for them and what they desire that to look like as well. Amongst a couple of other things, we do take a tour of the district office and it's always enlightening to hear when we ask them what they think the total budget of our school district is. And it goes anywhere from $500 to a million dollars and then we share 60 million to mouths go wide open. And then as we were having that conversation, our payroll person chimed in and said, oh, by the way, every payroll is about a million dollars. And the kids just could not fathom that that was even possible. So it's just a lot of fun, and they provide a lot of perspective. We also have our 199 Advisory Council coming up on Thursday, and that's an opportunity for,
122we take people from PTSAs, PTOs, community members, and it's that opportunity to build district ambassadors. and get perspective from them as well in regards to how our school district is working. And then I got asked as soon as I walked in today, do you think there'll be school tomorrow? Because there's a little bit of a weather front going on, coming our way supposedly. And I just want to remind people that we do have emergency weather procedures. They're on our website. It's something that we have a very robust communication system around. And one of the things I'm looking forward to, and it may happen tonight, that typically when there's just a flake of snow, I get emails from kids and they are phenomenal. As I shared with a couple of you, it seems like every year
123there's a high school student that takes it upon themselves to be the... Email so they can communicate out to everybody else. I'm trying So it's one of the fun aspects of this job But it's also one of the parts that I could say that it's not the most enjoyable But then that is getting up and deciding whether we have school or not the emails are phenomenal But just want to remind people that that information is available On our district website and remind people as well that we have a short week next week with the Thanksgiving holiday So there would be no school next Thursday Friday again I think we got to hear from Emma. Emma's gonna do something big someday. She's all ready to go. So thank you. Thank you. Board Member Larson, will you
124begin with? Board member comments. One of the last days of the last school year I was getting text messages from my daughter's friend saying, Sarah, please, what can you do? We can't go to school tomorrow. It's not going to be safe. So I luckily was not getting that at 4 a.m. So thank you for taking that burden for everyone. It's hard to believe we're talking about snow already and that fall activities wrapped up. Always wonderful to hear from the students. what they have to say, and I think I say it every time, it's the relationships and the team building. It's not always about what's up on the scoreboard. And congratulations to Mia Doolittle. There's another... Another fantastic athlete, Spartan in the making as a freshman, broke a record from I believe it was 1996 or
12597. My sisters and I were swimmers and we were headed up to Duluth last weekend and my older sister was trying to get a hold of Jenny Watchhorn who held that record to see if she knew yet that she came down and I guess Mia wants to meet Jenny Watchhorn too someday. I think that I believe the oldest girls record is from 1984-85 which is by the current girls and boys swim coach the 500 so I think Mia is going to take that before she's done here at Simley as well personally so congratulations to her and as I said the presentation from my school administration here just Continues to blow my mind the fantastic things. There's a lot of people who are always why are they so focused on? Career and college readiness all this,
126you know, let them be kids let them do this but This is preparing the students so they know what they want to do when they leave here, and I think that is absolutely fantastic Thank you I will second what Sarah was saying. I think the fall activities presentation was so meaningful to me and I just kind of put some words in all caps. Excited, brotherhood, positive, goal setting, mental aspect, positive, unity, lasting impact, close, better, wonderful, best. And I thought, what a cool, what a cool thing. to come out of these fall sports. And I do have a son on the football program, and I know there were some struggles. And there was a loss of a student last year from an illness. And the things that each one of these teams gave to those
127kids, and then the play, and the band, and everybody getting to fill their cup in different ways through these activities is really phenomenal. So kudos. And that's it. Thank you. Who are member Dukes? Yeah, same, some of the same things. I think the boys soccer team thing is so fun. I was thinking about like myself. I literally took the light rail for the first time. To watch them and it was so fun. First time I had been in the stadium and it was just like I got to have this experience with them too and it'll go down and something. I remember so very excited for them. The thing I thought about a lot was like just coaches in general as they were talking and anything some of the coaches I had, Coach Haynes, Coach Joyner,
128all those people who like believed in me in a way that I wasn't sure about. When I went to college I remember I was skipping a class and I didn't know that the professor knew Coach Haynes and the next time I went to class he literally stopped me and was like would you like me to call Coach Haynes and tell him that you just don't want to come to class and that's like. But I'm in college, you can't call my coaches. And he sure did, and I got a call. And I had to take class twice in a row. And so it's like these relationships that they're building with these coaches are like those things that they'll take with them and carry, and they're important people to them. And coaches are often people who are
129teaching classes or working at jobs and coming to volunteer. It's such a community of its own, and I think that's so fun. The Spartan swag shack. I'm going to be first in line. I can't wait because that just excites me so much. When I was in college, we ran the cafe downstairs. I was a business student, and that was our thing. We learned about the balance of the books and the order of the inventory, and we were all our own little entrepreneurs, but we were running the cafe downstairs, and to see them have that experience in high school is top tier. And then we went on some school visits, which was fun. I think what stood out to most other than what I said about here at the high school, there were some posters at
130the middle school where they were writing letters. They were answering advice columns, essentially, and writing, the sixth graders are writing responses to like help other people. Like, oh, you had an issue talking to a friend. This is what I would do if I had an issue talking to, and it was so fun to like see this idea of like community and just all the different aspects because who, who, who? Who's thinking that and it's like posted on the wall when your student work everywhere and it was just such a nice experience to see You know the 199 way live and in person. So I think if you're you know ever wondering what we're doing I think you should just go walk around and see I think it's really evident the good work that's going into
131putting students first and letting them lead the way in the decisions that we're making with them. And with that, that's it. Thank you. Or member Pearson. It can be very challenging and very tough to lose a leader that you really enjoy working for or that you've just become accustomed to. And what I've heard from these high school students is a lot of new coaches, a new-ish band director, a new theater director, a new soccer coach, a new swim coach. And one of the things that the swim team mentioned is they were adapting to a new coach, her ideas, her leadership, and just having to... change with that and how they had to step up as a leader and I commend them because being able to adapt to a different style of leadership is something you
132were going to need as an adult. And so when the high school administration was talking about these core life skills, I'm like that was one of them, is getting them ready to be able to adapt to that because that can be challenging. Speaking of the high school administration, when we were here a little bit earlier, we were peeking in on the new Native American high school space and the Native American liaison, and just had a chance to ask her briefly, so you're new to the district, what's the most surprising thing about being in the district? And she said, how kind, how nice, and how inclusive and welcoming everyone has been. I think that that fits so strongly with what we saw from the administration here tonight is that it really is making its way into
133every aspect of the school. So thank you so much to the high school administration for setting that tone. Thank you. Board Member Warren. Well, I'm very repetitive here, but that is my word that I circled, kind. I love it when Principal Gilland talked about how she just feels the kids are so kind here, and serves second year here. So it was wonderful to hear that. Just kindness is so important. I'm really excited about that lighting project, and I can't wait to drive by and see that, the light up the island. just read about it today and I didn't know that our kids were involved so that's wonderful and then yes to our students our student athletes that came in tonight for sharing their time and their experiences so thank you for having them come in
134thank you board member Kleiner Yeah, super proud of the students every year. Any season that we have students talk in front of us, it's always, it gets me almost emotional because I'm just so proud of them and I pick up on how proud they are of each other. And I just think about those teams that were mentioned that they have kind of up and coming young people and some transitioning of seniors leaving that just creates a neat opportunity for students to be leaders. I just wrote down that that also requires adults that encourage kids to lead and I think we saw that all over the place tonight in different spots and then I just kind of ended with my thoughts about dedication. I think I've said it before but I mean there's people in this
135room that are pushing into a 12-hour day and it's our job, it's their job, but everybody we do those things and I was at the swim meet on Sunday to cheer or um Anyways this weekend to cheer Mia on and as I was there I looked around and I saw a little short kind of up in the area and I thought Would anybody have known if he wasn't there and I just think that that's an example of dedication on behalf of all of the adults in the system that People show up for kids and that's what makes our school special Thank you Yes, in November, the month of gratitude. How cool to have former students want to come back and work here and to care so much about this community and this place. I heard
136it from Jack Ryan and Mr. Berg about... helping the middle schoolers get comfortable to adapt to high school. It's just, it's so thoughtful and relationship driven and you know, I think when people feel deeply cared for, they settle. they settle in and they're able to think more clearly and creatively. Um, and so I, um, thank you, superintendent Bernardson for, um, making relationships the center of what we do here. And, um, yeah, so I'm grateful to be part of this district. Upcoming meetings. There is no work session in December. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, December 8th at 5.30 p.m. at the district office with the annual truth in taxation beginning at or after 6 p.m. More information on upcoming board meetings can be found on our website. Do I have a
137motion and a second to adjourn tonight's meeting? motion by member Klinger second by member Dukes all those in favor aye