November 23, 2020: ISD 199 School Board Meeting

001The Monday, November 23, 2020 Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education meeting is called to order at 5.39 p.m. We are meeting tonight in the district boardroom. Board members have been given the option to be present in person or virtually while abiding by state guidance for meetings in public places. We ask that all public members in attendance wear face coverings indoors and maintain a safe distance of at least six feet from other individuals. We will continue to conduct board meetings this way following the guidance of health officials to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This meeting is being recorded. Access to the recording will be made available on the school district's website as soon as possible. Our school district's mission is to inspire, excel, I'm sorry, inspire, innovate, excel, the community commitment. Board Clerk Rachel Hansen,

002can you please take a roll call? Certainly. Thanks, Matt. Member Clardy? Here. Member Schaefer? Here. Member Warwick? Here. Member Nordstrom? Here. Member Stensgaard? Here. Member Lonsberry? Here. And Member Hansen here. We have a quorum. Thank you, Rachel. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance, flag, United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. We have a motion and a second to approve the agenda items tonight. If you could, please state out loud, motion by member, your name. And then if you are making a second, please say second by member. And that way we can be heard and recorded properly. So do I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda items tonight? Motion by Nordstrom.

003We'll go Nordstrom first here. Do I have a second? Second by Lawrence Berry. Okay. Thank you, Kerry. Any discussion? Any discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. District Office Support Staff Tracy Lout will assist by calling out individual board members' names for roll call voting throughout tonight's meeting. Tracy? Member Schaffer? Aye. Member Wark? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Member Spensard? Aye. Member Nordstrom? Aye. Member Lonsdale? Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With seven out of seven aye votes, the motion is carried. We are going to start off tonight with Activities Director Will Short highlighting our fall activities. Will. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having me tonight. I just want to start off by saying that this is one of the most challenging seasons that I've ever been a part of as an AD. Obviously,

004my coaching staff and the athletes were put to – can everybody hear me? Yeah, okay. Well, we can't hear you. I am not muted anymore. We are okay on the virtual here. Matt, can you hear me? Yes, I can. Dave, Sherry, Lynette, any luck? Sherry, can you hear me? Wave your hand. I don't see you. I think it's in the district office. They need to get their cell phones rolling. Do you want me to go forward, Matt, or do you want me to wait? Why don't you pause for a moment, and we'll see if we can get caught up from the boardroom. Thanks. Cindy says they can hear us. And just so everybody knows, we are still recording as well. Hey Will, can you hear us? Yes, I can hear you. Alright, we're ready to

005rock. Alright, go ahead Will. Thanks guys. Okay, as I said, I started earlier. I just was mentioning that it's a very difficult and challenging year to go through the COVID protocols that we had to go through to have our seasons. It was a big challenge and a big undertaking, but I think between the coaches and the athletes, it turned out to be a really special experience for all those that got to participate in a 80% season, which is what we got for pretty much all the sports and activities that we were a part of. Tracy, you want to go next slide? Kevin Robinson and I had many conversations about how we were going to run marching band. And he did a lot of work with the kids outside, spaced six feet apart. For the first

006time in maybe, I don't know, 30 years, we didn't compete our band at any competitions or parades. But they had over, they had a number of performances. They performed at 55 different sites across Invergrove Heights. They were doing parades and they did shows around our community. And they also did a shows around our school. They also performed. At the Rock Island Swing Bridge, as you can see, many retirement communities and senior livings. One Halloween performance. And then, of course, the first football team, they performed at halftime there as well. And they were outstanding as usual. And you see the names of the leaders in their program. Kayla McMonagle was our drum major. And you can see the student leaders there. There are many of them. And there was just an outstanding group. And I think

007if this marching band would have got to compete outside of just their performances, I think we would have got the accolades that we usually get. But it was a testament to them. And they had a great time. And as I saw them at the performances around Immergrove and in our stadium, they were having fun and they were enjoying their time with the band. And why don't you show the next slide there, Tracy? Some of the events, you can see the distancing, the masks, the challenges that they work with throughout the year. But an outstanding year for the band. And they will be back strong as ever next year, ready to compete in all of their fall parades. And obviously, there will continue to be the pride and joy of the school. They do a great

008job. And maybe, just maybe, we might see them. in a pep band situation at a hockey meet down the road. We'll see. We'll see how COVID goes, but a great year for the marching band. Tracy, let's go to the next slide. The fall dance team was also a tricky situation. We had a couple setbacks early in the season. And then, of course, we got back on track and the girls got to practice. And they did get to perform at two football games. And we started a new tradition. Some things that are going to come out of COVID we might hang on to. And this tradition is we're having a fall dance team night in the stadium. And we did that this year. The dancers come in, they do performance after performance in front of the

009crowd. And there's no football game. They're just going to dance. And it was a lot of fun. We had that this year. And the team was led by Casey Kropp, Katie Honcho, and Taylor Plenty. And you can see the awards down there, the team awards. And Katie, why don't you show the next slide? You see the picture there. That's in the stadium where all the girls got to perform just for them. One fall dance night out in the stadium was a lot of fun for the girls. It was a great season for the fall dance team and helped prepare the girls. Number one, they had a great time. They got to be with their friends. They got to dance. And it also helps prepare them for their winter comp season. Many of the girls who

010do fall dance go right into winter comp competition here for the winter season. So outstanding year for the fall dance team. Next slide, please. The girls swimming and diving team had their own protocols because they were working out of the Grove. and their season started in August. And right away, Tanya Iverson, I got to tell you, she just took to it and said, what do we need to do? We'll find a way. We'll get it done. We had two pods going the entire season. And just to make sure that we were always kind of keeping certain girls away from other girls. So if we had a breakout somewhere, we could continue to swim. We were, we ended up fourth place in the conference and fifth place in section one. Anja Heikkinen, Kirsten Iverson, and Brooke

011Von Berg were our captains. And then our all conference, Stella Anderson-Moy, Emily Hagelin, Madeline Noe, and Erin Orn. And all conference, I don't mention Kirsten Iverson, Tiffany Nguyen, Keegan Perea, Philomena Sands, and Brooke Von Berg. We also hosted, and I got to give Tanya Iverson a ton of credit. bringing in three teams. So we had a four team event where we only had two teams at the same time in the Grove. We sectioned them out, timed them in, they came in, they swam against each other and then they left. And then we brought in the next two teams, they swam and then they left. It was a logistical problem, but they worked it out and we ended up having a section tournament. And we did have two state qualifiers. As you know, we didn't get

012to participate in state tournaments, but we did. We would have had two state qualifiers in the girls team. Erin Orn in diving and Madeline Ngo in the 200 IM. And Erin Orn was also one of our seven athletes that signed a Division I National Letter of Intent. She'll be diving in New Mexico University next year. Tracy, go to the next slide. And so some of the fun and gathering. with the swim team and you see the masks. The pictures that they took were in their pods. Obviously, they come right at you, they snap a picture, and then they move on. They try to stay, you know, every time you're in a pool or you're in a situation where you're in a pod, you don't want to be within six feet of people for more than

013six minutes. So they can snap a photo real quick and then separate, and that's what they did. But you can see the fun that they were having. Another great season for the girls swim team that continues to have outstanding coaching and outstanding athletes. And we continue to grow that program and we're consistently putting athletes into the state tournament and competing at a very high level. Next slide, Tracy. Coach Gerber and the cross country. You know, when we first started out with the protocols, we thought cross country would be this easy activity for us to run because it's outdoors and it's individual. It ended up being almost more challenging than we expected because of... When you're running and you're breathing so hard and you're right on top of the other runners, they really were having problems

014because they were feeling that there was issues with people breathing in the air behind them and running close to each other. And so we ended up going through COVID protocols and we ran all of our meets at St. Croix Bluffs. and we only had two teams at a time to separate the runners as best we could. So it's kind of a different feel when you're only running against one other team. There's not a pack, and it's a little bit different, but it was an outstanding season. As you can see, some of the highlights, boys won their first competition in over 15 years. Boys finished fifth at the conference, had their lowest point total of 30 years. Boys beat Hastings both times this season. First time ever since Hastings joined the conference. So you can see

015our, those of you who remember our cross country after we went through a few coaches a few years in a row, we were really struggling. And as Coach Gerber has solidified their program, our numbers have consistently gone up and our performances have consistently gotten better. Girls finished third at the conference, their second highest finish in the past 30 years. We were led by Gabriel Alvier, Henry Cleary, Breckin Graydon, Crystal Bonilla-Rios. Breckin Graydon was seventh in all-conference. Abby Lindquist was 16th in honorable mention. And the boys had Caden Schrant, 14th all-conference, Gabe Alvier, 17th honorable mention, and Nathan Schauer, 23rd in honorable mention. You can go to the next slide, Tracy. You can see some of the runners and some of the things that they were doing. It was a great season for the cross country

016team because we're getting better. We're getting stronger. We have more kids out than we've ever had. And Coach Gerber has got our program running. It is really, it's up and coming in the conference and people are continuing to talk about the improvement of the assembly cross country program. So if you run into Coach Gerber, congratulate him on an outstanding job that he's done with his two teams. Next slide. Well, last year we just missed with the girls tennis team making the state tournament. We lost in the section finals four to three to Egan. And this year was a banner year for the girls tennis team. They went 13 and two in the season. Now they did only play conference schedule, but they didn't have two losses to Matamidi who also won their section. They won

017section four AA and would have been the state entry, not a four AA. The captains were Aaron Borchardt, Sarah Borchardt and Kayla Freeman. We were the section three double A team champions and we would have been state entrance for the first time since 2008. We had four all conference players this year, Claire Tomke, Sarah Borchardt, Erin Borchardt and Kayla Freeman. Our MVP was Claire Tomke and our most improved was Sarah Borchardt. We also got to do one live stream from the tennis courts of the section final match. And that I went out and I actually. It's been interesting. I'll tell you about the color commentating of our live stream. So similarly, if you don't remember, we got into a BoxCast situation. BoxCast is a live streaming company, and we got sponsored by T-Mobile. And so

018it became free to the district and free for all our parents and anybody else to watch any of our live streams. But remember, these are not professional productions. So the broadcasters or the people who are putting on the live stream are just teachers. Or in the case of the section, girls tennis section finals with Will Short, I was doing the live stream. And I got some interesting comments after I got through with it. But I tried to stick to the facts and enjoy the match. But it seems I was a little biased toward the assembly girls, which I'm not going to apologize for. Tracy, go ahead and give me the next picture. Here's a team with the right after they won the section championship, they came together, took a team picture. We would have been

019in the state tournament. Great year. Nate Trestman's a young coach. He's in his fifth year. And I got to tell you, I know he's been in front of the board before. He is passionate about girls tennis and boys tennis, and he works extremely hard. And it was a great year for the girls. And it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. And so. Girls tennis team, state entrance, outstanding job. We'll go to the next slide. Just a reminder, the girls didn't get to have an individual tournament, which is, it was kind of an interesting, we can have a team tournament, but we can't come together and be across from a court in an individual tournament. So it's been kind of an interesting decisions that the league has made on some of

020these things, but that's what we had an opportunity to play and so we played it. The boys soccer team had another outstanding year. Coach Keller, and I can say this without hesitation, continues to be one of my most popular coaches with the young men. They absolutely love playing for Coach Keller. He gets the most out of young men and they really enjoy playing for him. Our captains this year were Ryan Ekstrom, Andrew Jeffers, and Ben Hatcher. The boys, and I'm biased when I say this because I'm the AD, but we lost two games early in the season. Our first two games of the year were against Montemita and Hill. And we had some kids out with quarantine and they were some significant varsity players. And our first two games, we did not play at full

021strength and we lost them both and we were 0-2. We came back and we got ourselves right back into the mix and played right. through the conference championship. We lost. We ended up tying Hill, or excuse me, losing to Hill a second time and cost us the conference championship. But the guys played right to the championship, and it was a great year. One of their other losses came in their semifinal team match against the Academy of Holy Angels, the returning state champion, and a very, very, maybe one of the best soccer games I've seen in my life. Went back and forth. There were eight goals in the game. At one time, we led 2-0 for most of the game. Then Holy went on just a great – they had three great goals, some of the

022greatest goals I've seen in high school soccer. Then we tied it up at 3-3. They got a fourth to go up 4-3, and they got one right at the end of the game when we pulled our goalie and ended up 5-3, but it was a great game. Tracy, why don't you go to the next slide? We did have a second team all-state player in Andrew Jeffers, and that is voted on by the Coaches Association. Jeffers, Hatcher, Luke Vandermeer, and Ryan Ekstrom were also all-conference. And we had honorable mentions of Kieran Boyd, Sam Sheffley, and Mitch Barrowman. One of our soccer players, Sam Sheffley, ended, great thing about COVID, he ended, he played all the way through his soccer season, and then he jumped on and joined the football team and has been kicking extra points

023and kickoffs for the football team. So another advantage of a COVID fall sports season. So it was kind of a nice situation for Sam. Go ahead in the next slide here, Tracy. Our girls team had another really good year. They broke through on a couple of things, and I'll talk about them in a minute. They finished 6-4-2. Their captains were Zoe Boughton, Kate Carlson, and Ella Larson. They had a couple of really big season highlights to draw with Hill-Murray. At the time, they ranked number four in the state. And we got our first win over South St. Paul in regular season since 2010. And let me tell you, being somebody who's had to sit through the same league South St. Paul games, that was a satisfying win for me. And I think a lot of

024our fans and for Nora Austin. And of course, as we sit in here and I talk about. it's not always about wins and losses, but you know, when you haven't beaten a team for 10 years, it's nice to finally win one. And it was nice. It was a good experience. And Nora has been working with this group of girls and, and I think they had, they got a lot out of, out of the girls this year. Zoe Boughton and Ella Tosito were all conference. Laura Bowles and Abby Boughton and Abby Jeffords were all conference honorable mention. And Abby Boughton and Zoe Boughton were both all state. first and second team. So really great year for the girls soccer team. Tracy, you want to show the girls? Next slide, please. There's the girls. We did have

025one snow game, so you can see them. That was right before their section game. We did go indoors for their section semifinals. We were unable to get enough of the snow off the turf before that game, so they played indoors in their section semis. They ended up losing in the section semifinals to the Academy of Holy Angels as well. Holy Angels went on to be the section champion. So nice year for the girls. Nora Austin has been an outstanding coach for us and teacher and staff member. And again, I can't say enough about how hard she's worked with that program. Tracy, next slide. So the two sports that started late. So remember, if you just go back in time, we started the other four sports right in August. And then late September, we started volleyball

026and football. Volleyball was scheduled to play 14 games and they were all conference. It was a double round for girls. They ended up being nine and two. And unfortunately, and I say unfortunately, when I tell you why, you'll understand. So we went nine and two and we didn't get to play three of our conference matches because of COVID protocols from other teams. We were not impacted at the time, but the teams that we were supposed to play with were, which is just part of how it goes. On Thursday of last week, we were supposed to play South St. Paul. And unfortunately, they were out with COVID. And we had beaten South St. Paul handily the first time through. And then there was another game with Matamedi that wasn't going to get in because of the

027lockdown or the shutdown and the pause in sports. And so we ended up missing those two games. And we'd missed one earlier that we could not make up. So we ended up only playing 11 games in North St. Paul and Hill-Murray. both got to play 12 games in the conference and they each finished 10 and two and we finished nine and two. And so we ended up second in the conference, but only because we didn't get to play our matches. So it was unfortunate because it would have probably been the first time we would have been in a conference championship situation in volleyball in quite some time, but it was still a great year. And if you happen, if you happen to watch any of the live streams, there's a, there's two new stars. Mikayla

028Hench and Gretchen Schwans have been live streaming every varsity volleyball match and they have like a 60 viewer followers that follow for the live streams every week for the game. So it's gotten to be a fun thing. Our captains were Abby Hepper, Brynn Rogers, and Molly Stein. Victories over perennial powerhouses Tartan North and Hill-Murray, including their first win in Hill-Murray since 2008. Abby Hepper, Bryn Wajard, Molly Stein were all state academic. The team we serve gold academic awards and our Metro East Conference awards are still to come. They just finished their season on Friday, so they still have their upcoming awards to be talked about, much like football. I can tell you, go to the next slide, Tracy. This team was a lot of fun to watch. They had some great seniors. They have a

029nice crew of juniors. They have two very talented freshmen. And they have what I believe Naomi Romslo is going to be a future superstar for us. She's the sophomore there you see holding the volleyball. We've got some really nice players coming up for the girls' volleyball team. We're going to be very good for years to come. And remember, next year, we go to a four-class system in volleyball. Which means when we get to the section tournament time, we won't be competing against the schools double our size. We'll be with schools very much in similar size with enrollment numbers as ours. And I think we'll be a very competitive volleyball team in the future in sections and state tournaments. Next slide. Our football team, we just finished our season Friday night. So all of their awards

030are still to come. They will have many. The team finished five and two on the year. Our captains were Zach Soule, Justin Work, Andrew Bozen, and Andrew Burgum. I'm extremely proud of this program. And it was very difficult to get kids in and out of the locker room, get them dressed. get them in and out of the building, wait train, try and get out and plan a season around COVID protocols. And it was a lot of work for both the athletes and the coaches. This was not an easy process to get football in. We ended up getting all seven of our games played. We lost two very, very close games. We lost a one point game to Henry Sibley last seconds. And then we got beat by Hill Murray late in that game as well.

031But we were very competitive, could have easily been 7-0. Coach Manson is proving that he is a coach who can rally his troops, get them to be excited about playing for them, give them a great experience beyond football, wins and losses, but an experience that will last a lifetime. And I'm very proud of this group. I just have one more picture of the football team here. Tracy, if you can give me that. There's the guys coming out and we had blue helmets this year and white helmets. That was a lot of fun. And our end zone club has been putting and investing a lot of money in this team and trying to get them to be competitive as they can be and extremely proud of the football team and what they've accomplished this year. There'll

032be some words to come for a lot of the athletes on this team. And when we know we'll forward them out to Katie Sheridan and she'll share with the district. Next slide here, Tracy. The only other thing I have to bring up and I promised that you guys could get a look at this is this is our Touch Pro site. Tracy, why don't you open that up and let's just kind of go through this. This is our Touch Pro site. This is what I talked about, which would be replacing the Hall of Fame that was on the wall up in the Commons area. There's now a touch screen. Not a great time to be putting a touchscreen up in the commons area with COVID because it's a touchscreen. But in the future, it's a great

033thing. And so, Tracy, if you just click on Spartan History and Hall of Fame down there. If you just click on Spartan History and Hall of Fame, yep. And then if you go Hall of Fame, and then you hit inductees. So right now we've got all of the accolades. You can hit view all here, Tracy. All of the Hall of Fame people are in there and all of their accolades are in there. Their pictures are being downloaded as we speak and we'll have pictures up. And so you can go through and look at every person who's in the Hall of Fame at this site. Tracy, you want to go back to the homepage? It's on the bottom. Click home. Yep. Go back. Go back again. Go back again. Now pick Spartan history and Hall of

034Fame again. Here's another thing that click on your bookstore, Tracy. So one of the things that we got was every yearbook in the history of Simley High School is now online. And anywhere you are in the country, you can click on this webpage. And Tracy, pick a year, any one you want. And there it is. And you can go page by page, that whole yearbook. And you can see all the things that happened that year. This is a great hit for the kids and for the staff at Simley High School. This is a lot of work to get this up and running, but we finally got the yearbooks done. Tracy, could you close that now for me, please? And then if you go back and go Spartan History and Hall of Fame again, just so

035you know, remember we're focused on not just and go academics. So one of the things that was an easier download and you go, just click top 10 there, Tracy. Before we move to vows and salutatorians, which we will start downloading, we went through and we downloaded all the top tens before the vows and salutatorians, which we will be putting in. But just pick a year there, Tracy, any year. So 1994, here's your top ten from that year. And so then each year we'll put our valedictorians and our salutatorians in there, just like our top 10. And so our academics are going to be featured on this webpage as well. And then of course, our fine arts and activities, we'll be downloading marching band pictures. And basically what we can do, Tracy, go back to our

036homepage. One of the things that we can do here is we can go back and if you go to go back here, if you go athletics, just go athletics there, we'll have the ability to download each team from each year. And so if you were just on a team from 1974, we're going to have your picture there. Now I've got four. four file cabinets of four drawers each of pictures and history of Assembly High School sitting in our back room. I've kept it. And our goal is to make sure that this gets archived onto this site so our history is never lost. that if somehow somewhere a file cabinet is gone, we have record of it on this. And this is what many schools have gone to. The Touch Pro site are how you can

037solidify your history and that there's a record of it somewhere along the way. And so I'm really proud of this, that we got this started this summer and we're continuing to add to it each and every year. And so it's still a work in progress. We have not gone public with it because we wanted to get, and one of the... Part of where we got the money to do this was through Homecoming and they were a big part of our Hall of Fame. So we wanted to get our pictures of our Hall of Fame members up before we went public. And so that they could go in and see the pictures and see what we're doing with the money. And like I said, I'm just waiting on some downloads and some pictures to get them

038all put into place. And then this will be up and running. We'll launch it to the community. That's it for me. Does anybody got any questions? I know I shared a lot. Anybody got any questions about the season or about Touch Pros? Well, I just want to thank you for the adjustments that have been made since August to set things in place so that our kids can have as good of an experience as possible and as long experiences as possible. And I know sometimes people think these things just turn around really quick, and they do. But they don't turn around really quick without a lot of hard work and a lot of coordination to make things happen behind the scenes. So thank you very much. And also, you have a new assistant as well who's

039been very helpful in getting things put in place as well. So maybe you want to just mention that as well. Yes. We, Devin Dietrich, what took over for Kim Madigan last year, she had a really nice job for me. Young, energetic, very bright lady. And she got offered another job and she got a. higher salary and she's young and she moved on. And then I was very fortunate to get a veteran of athletic administration. Her name is Nancy Gotsky. She came over from Hill-Murray and she had been doing the exact same job at Hill-Murray as she's doing now here at Hemp. Interestingly enough, she's very good friends with Kim Madigan. They did the same job. We were in the same conference. And so Nancy knew Kim. And so when Nancy left Hill-Murray, she... She applied

040and it worked out that we got her and she's been outstanding. And I got to tell you, I think we're running very effectively again. We've got new systems in place. We've got our new registration program, Smart Schools, and that is up and running. And the great news was Nancy was working on the same affinity program at Hill-Murray. And so when she walked in here, she is better at it than I was. And so that was outstanding. And, you know, as we've gone through COVID and we've had to make schedule changes and redo volleyball and football schedules in a week, bus schedules, event workers, announcer scoreboard workers over and over again. And now we just finished completing our adjusted winter schedules. And now we will be changing those again. It is a huge logistical challenge when

041we make these schedule changes that. quick and we keep talking to the league letting them know in our athletic departments that this is not as easy you can't just tell us a week before and say hey by the way you're going but we're kind of this is the age of COVID and we do what we need to do so whatever they tell us we're still waiting on we know our season has been pushed back to December 18th for winter But what we don't know is if the seasons are extended. We don't know if we should be rescheduling the whole month of December into March. We don't know if we should be going to conference-only schedules. We don't know a lot at this point about winter schedules. We just know that we're in a pause and

042we're going to be back on the 19th. So that's where we're at. And just so you know, if you have any questions about that, the only sport that did start before the pause was dance. And our coaches are now in virtual coaching with the dance team right now. And Julie Mollison is working virtually with her team. The rest of the team, we can be active with our athletes virtually, but we're kind of by the same rules as we were before the pause in that we have to, we can talk to the athletes. We can kind of check in on them. We can suggest workouts, but we can't focus completely on our sports. And so our coaches are going to be touching base. All of our winter coaches will be touching base with the athletes virtually

043during the pause, but technically we're not in season yet till after December 18th. So that's where we're standing. All right. All right. Thank you, Will. Any, any, any questions for Will? The nice thing is we, we know where you work. So if we do have questions, we'll ask you there. Thanks, Will. I'm going to have Director of Community Education Barb Beers highlight some other fall activities tonight. Well, once again, Will steals the show and I have nowhere near that much information. However, we have been doing a few things. For our elementary kids, we tried a few in-person classes but didn't really get a lot of sign-up. But we have been getting some traction on art kits to go. So if they want to do art on their own, they can pick up kits and do

044it. So that's been popular. We did, thanks to Will sending Ben Kissling my way, we did put together a middle school rec sports program that met two days after school for the A group and two days for the B group and had some good turnout there. And I think the kids had a great time. So that was fun to see and hoping we can continue that. Well, obviously not in distance learning, but when we're back. Our theater group did a radio show this time and I heard it was great. Unfortunately, Jim was so working on getting all those kids working together that he forgot to record it. So we don't have a recording, but he is talking about doing that kind of a show all season. And so they're looking at trying to get a

045Christmas carol in before the winter break. And we'll see how that goes because that certainly, they can do it all virtually. They can all work from home. The kids had a great time. They did all their own sound effects and everything. So it sounded great. And the other thing that's still going is driver's ed. Thankfully, the state let us do driver's ed online. So that has allowed those kids to still continue with that. But now with the pause, we're going to get backed up in behind the wheel stuff again. But anyway, we've been keeping some things going in addition to our essential worker child care. Thank you, Barb. Yes, thank you, Barb. Any questions for Barb? I do have to say, Barb, that I can serve as a witness that the theater performance was excellent.

046I wished I would have had time to listen to it, but I was co-opted by West St. Paul to help them with training lifeguards that weekend. It's an admirable job, so that's okay. Well, I'm hoping to catch the next one. Perfect. Okay. If there are no questions, we'll move on. Thank you, Will and Barb. Let's see, the board was notified no one has signed up for any non-agenda item tonight. So we'll move on to consent agenda. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented? Member Stensgaard, so moved. Second by Hanson. Thank you. Do I have any discussion from the online people? Any discussion online? How about discussion from in the boardroom? Any discussion? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Ward. Aye. Member Clark. Member Hanson.

047Aye. Member Spencer. Aye. Member Nordstrom. Aye. Member Lonsberry. Aye. Member Schaefer. Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With seven out of seven aye votes, the motion is carried. As on the screen, you can see our donations for the month of, or this past month. Your generosity and support of the schools in our community is very much appreciated, as they do make quite the difference for our students and our staff. So thank you very much to everyone. For our information items tonight. We have Principal Jerry Cicchiella with us tonight to share an update on Simley High School. Jerry. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jerry Cicchiella. I'm the principal at Simley High School. And I have with me tonight Heidi Klukas. She's an assistant principal who you know very well. She's been around for many years. But you may not

048know Sam Van Hefty, and he'll be joining us tonight and doing some presentation as well. I'm just waiting for our PowerPoint to load up. And we'll begin. Tracy, if you can go to the next slide. And you can recognize the district's mission and vision. I won't read it again to you, but to note that it's there. If you could go to the next slide, Tracy. This is Simley High School's mission and vision. We've had this mission and vision statement and actually our guiding principles since 2008. One of the things that we've noticed or that we've recognized over time is it's time to enhance this or revise our mission and vision to bring it into alignment with the district's mission and vision statement. But as you see, our mission and vision is to prepare each student

049to earn a degree or credential at a post-secondary educational institution. And we've constructed our system at Simley, the number of courses that we offer and the different programs and pathways that we have available for students. to meet that mission and vision. You can also see our guiding principles and of the two that are all of note, but equity and relationships are critically important to us and we can talk about that as we go through the presentation. So this year, if you can go to the next slide. My administrative team and 11 teachers, actually this was Dave's recommendation this summer to take a look at the book by Ted Dintersmith, What School Could Be. And so 11 of my teachers and my administrative team have gotten together this year for a book study. And we talked

050and we're just looking at the concept that Dintersmith talks about with the goal of realigning our mission and vision statement. with the district's mission and vision and incorporate peak concepts that Dentor Smith advocates. And those concepts are, this is nothing new to anybody who's been around education or has an understanding of intrinsic motivation, but talking about what the purpose of education, what's the purpose of the assignment? Is it really important to memorize the presidents all in order or is it important to know the concepts behind that? What are the essential skills that are necessary to expand on that knowledge? Where do students, student agency, where's that first student voice in this whole process? Do students have a choice as to how to put the information together and present it? And then how do we strengthen

051and deepen their knowledge and mastery of those concepts? It really falls in line, if you remember a few years ago with Daniel Pink's book, Drive, about autonomy, mastery, and purpose being the cornerstone for intrinsic motivation, getting kids excited about. School by getting them involved and giving them some choices to how they approach their learning So it's one of those things that we're taking a look at this book is guiding us in that direction I'm gonna thank Dave for suggesting the book it really has it's been an interesting read and it's gotten my staff fairly excited about the changes that we need to make to our mission and vision again when we started in 2008 when I took over Simley high schools mission hadn't been resigned revised since the probably since the beginning of the school

052open. So we needed to make some adjustments and now it's time again to go back and revise and enhance what we're doing. Go to the next slide. So just Part of that process, to give you a description of what we're offering now, you know that we have 199 online and we have 287 students who are enrolled, 9 through 12. The number of teachers that we have who are teaching one or more classes online are 36, and we offer 92 courses online as well. Now, we do have some low enrollment classes that we offer through Edgenuity. And I think we have about five students who are taking classes that because the enrollment was so low, we couldn't offer the course. Like there may have been one or two people who signed up for the course based

053on course registrations. But we wanted to accommodate those students. And so we went to Edgenuity and asked them if they could provide the content for the courses so we could continue to offer those. courses online. So, Edgenuity is a big part of our program for those kids who signed up for those low enrollment classes. We wanted to make sure that they were able to get those as well. We also have, and you're well aware of the tri-district, we wanted to give you a report on the enrollment at tri-district. Usually we have 10 slots available in each area. Business and entrepreneurship, we have 12 students enrolled. We have 10 in the healthcare and medical field. And then four in transportation, business, and technology. And honestly, just a personal... Note on that one, I think that's probably

054for me the most exciting. I love cars. I think in my second life, I'll be a mechanic. It's just the greatest program, and I hope we can get more students interested in taking those courses at Tri-District in that area. We certainly haven't had any trouble getting kids signing up for the other areas, but the career in transportation tech is just a really important area that we should be able to get more students involved with. If we can go to the next slide. One of the things through the metro area we've been talking about so much is about the failure rate of students across the metro in school districts. And so we took a real close look at this. We wanted to compare Tri 1 of 2019 to Tri 2 or Tri 1 of 2020. And

055right now we're just finishing the trimester up. So this data is based upon eight-week trimester reports. In Tri-1, we had a failure rate for no credit rate of 5.9%. We had 171 students who had one or more Fs or no credits on their transfer for the report card. We had 390 classes that were failed for an average of 5.9%. And we've seen a two-thirds jump in that. So we went with, we took a look at our eight-week progress reports, and what we've noticed is that we have about 427 students who have a no credit on their report card. And the number of classes that have a no credit, the total number of classes is 1,226, or an 18.6%. no credit rate. It's a little bit confusing, but we had to pick a number to base

056that upon. And if you take a look at a trimester system, with 1,100 students, you have a seven-period day. You have 7,700 possibilities. Not all kids take seven classes. So we picked 6,600, and we used that number to base that. And we had to figure out a way to come up with a percentage. And that seemed like the most logical way. Most kids take six classes a trimester, which comes out to about 6,600 per year. or per trimester. So it's important that we have kind of a measuring stick that makes sense for us because other schools have five period days and six period days. We wanted to know what that was. But the most important thing with this, while we do have a two-thirds increase in the number of students carrying a no credit is,

057what are we going to do about it? I mean, that's the critical element for us. And so if we could go to the next slide, we'll talk about that. And then I'll pause if you have any questions about this. So Sam is going to talk about some of the interventions that we've done already with our teachers, but focused interventions by teachers making contact with students. And we have some data regarding that. Another item that we're going to do is we're going to be extending our grading period, grading window for T1 so that we give kids an opportunity to make up the work if they didn't have a chance to get it done or if we can encourage them to do some additional work. We're going to review the grade book, grade books, teachers' grade books,

058and look for students who are within striking distance of getting a pass for a grade. And those students are typically within 45% to 59% of passing their classes. So what we want to do is push them to get the essential elements done in that class to push them over the top. Sometimes you, some kids will fail classes that are, you know, they might be at 56%. If they had just done one more thing, one more assignment, one more report, they could have pushed themselves over the top. So we want to identify those kids, reach out to them. with our counselors, administrators, and teachers to encourage them to get that work done. We also have credit recovery through Odysseyware, and we have students enrolled already in those programs with Susan Barnard, who does an excellent job

059with that program. And we're going to steal an idea from the middle school. I know Ben Kissling has been bringing targeted kids in to the middle school. Feeding them breakfast and lunch and then having them sit in the cafeteria spaced out obviously, but having a quiet space where they have Wi-Fi access, somebody there to help. That's an idea that I was just made aware of and it's a great one and I'm gonna, we're gonna steal it for Simley High School and start that process right after Thanksgiving in our Spartan Center. So those are the things that we're going to do to intervene with students. Any questions about information so far? Jerry, I'm not sure if you have the ability to determine this, but is there a, do you think that there's a general sense that

060the assignments or the missed work are those mainly on distance learning days or hybrid days, or is it just? It is what it is this trimester so far. Well, it's interesting that you mentioned that because we're in the process of doing a survey and I think Sam's going to talk about the respondents already. I think we have over 600 student responses to find out exactly what that answer is to that question because we need to know what teachers are providing contents in a way that's user-friendly and which aren't and how do we help those teachers develop those. I mean the good news about if there is a silver lining to COVID, it's in the ability of our teachers to reach our students electronically through the different media and different mediums and we have to find

061out who does it effectively and then share those concepts with other people. So it's a process but Sam will talk about that just a little bit later and maybe show you some data on that. based on his report. That's a great question. The only way to know is to ask kids. Again, it's the agency thing about testing them what they think about how we're presenting that information and getting it out to them. Good question. Can I ask a quick question also, Jerry? I'm wondering from the staff point of view, having to do both hybrid and distance learning and their workload and the back load. And I'm wondering. Is there assignments that are not corrected that are not actually showing up in the scores yet and the impact of that possibility? Cindy, I'd be lying to

062you if I told you the workload wasn't heavy. I live with the teachers going, I mean, you're teaching online, my wife is teaching online, and I've seen the stress with my staff. If you're teaching both online and hybrid, it's hard because you're doing a double prep. And so we've done everything we can do within the contract to give teachers as much time as possible to prep. Are there students who don't have work turned in yet? The answer is absolutely. And that's why we need to reach out with them. And Sam has some data that will give you some information about how that's gone. And he'll be talking about that in a few minutes. But you're 100% on target. The workload is hard. It's difficult for teachers. So we have to do everything we can do

063to support them right now so that they can provide for our kids, for our students. Great question. I totally understand that the workload is very difficult right now. Jerry, I was wondering if there was any conversation about the relevancy of the topic, going back to the book that you're mentioning. Was there a conversation about is the material relevant that the kids need to have to pass? And then secondly, Is there flexibility? Are they able to adjust? Is there conversation about adjusting the work, whatever it is? to get the student to pass any of those conversations? No, great question. First of all, let's talk about flexibility first. I think my staff, I got a great staff, great group of teachers, and they're willing to be, by and large, flexible with kids to work with them to

064try to push them over the top. Yeah, so I see that flexibility on a daily basis and Sam and Heidi can address that, note that Sam and Heidi too, so that you can talk about your experience with that. But my perception of that with teachers is they've been very flexible with kids. Are the assignments all relevant? The honest truth is there's lots of, there's some traditional teachers at Simling, but the process for getting people to look inward and reflect on what they teach and how they teach it has basically just started, Sherry. I mean, we've got some very traditional teachers and for instance, an AP teacher is kind of structured in what they have to cover. but there could be you could give students more agency more choice and how within that framework of how

065they want to present that material one of the conversations i had with some of my social folks was social studies teachers um was i would never teach social studies like i used to teach it by the book i wouldn't do that i would have the students tear that information apart give them choice and how they want to present the material and then critique them on that material I mean that would be just one way to get student agency in the system and how much of it is relevant to them. So that process has just started. Conversations in mathematics like what should be the terminal course for mathematics after four years in your math sequence? Should it be advanced calculus or calculus or should it be business statistics? So those are the kind of conversations we're

066starting to have and I think It's pretty exciting actually. It's an exciting time to be a teacher and looking at and having people reflect on what they're doing and how they're doing it. Jerry, I have a question. I guess I'd like to, I'm wondering if you're seeing some trends, like some students that maybe were not participating last year or different communities. And I'm wondering if some of that might be like a language issue. And just wondering if you're able to break it down demographic wise or if that's something you can swing back to us on. I think that the, and Heidi and Sam can talk about this as well, but our equity work that we've been doing at Simley High School with recruiting students to get into AP classes, like last year we had an

067advanced course option fair where students recruited their friends to take advanced courses. So one of the structures that we built is not only advanced placement courses, but we built a whole section of of concurrent enrollment courses where students are taking college level courses while they're in high school. And I'm going to show you that data in just a minute. But it's that recruiting piece because we reached out with focus groups last year and found out that our messaging wasn't reaching students of color. They knew what it's, they knew what they could, they knew that we had the courses that were, you know, the advanced courses and the concurrent enrollment courses. They knew they were there, but they didn't know that they could take them. Not sure how we missed that, but so we went directly

068into the classrooms to recruit students based on the information that we got out of the focus groups. And I've had the opportunity to have one focus group again this year, but that was right before COVID started. And it was only the first six weeks with nine graders. So we just haven't had a chance to get back into the classroom with those focus groups. But our messaging had to change. And we had to directly... recruit students to take and encourage them to take these courses and why it was an advantage to them. And we have some data to show you in just a minute. So yeah, we had to make some adjustments based on our messaging. Heidi or Sam, do you want to add anything to that? These questions are excellent. Not at this time? Okay.

069All right, we'll get to it. All right. Any other questions before we go to our next slide? You actually have a question Jerry sorry, you're just gonna get a question from all of us I guess. That's great. So I share your concern a little bit about the that increase in the in the credit no credit percentage on the last slide. You had talked a little bit about the conversations that you're having in the high school. Are there any conversations around different, being a little bit more creative in your grading. I think when the board originally was talking about the credit, you know, pass fail or pass no credit, the intent was to do no harm, essentially, for our students. And it seems like maybe there's some harm. In respect to? You know, if our... If

070our kids aren't, or I don't want to say kids, if our young adults are not getting the credit that they need to graduate, then that's, to my mind, is a little bit harmful. 100%. That's why we're here. Well, exactly. So is there any, so are there conversations about adopting a different? this is not a clear question so I apologize um being a little bit more creative and how you're grading things so that it So that intent of do no harm is carried through during a time that is extremely challenging for all of us. Well, I can tell you with the group of 11 teachers that are in our book study, and Dinter Smith talks about this, there is talk about that and those concepts of grading differently, possibly by a rubric, having students create and

071assess presentations. have panels. I mean different there are different ways to do that but that those conversations are starting. I think the biggest thing the biggest connection to grading and getting performance out of student right now with our current system and with the one that we're hopefully evolving to is relationships. Making those personal connections with kids. If you can get a connection with the student they'll perform for you. You know you wonder why students aren't like me. There are many teachers that students are never late to their class and you wonder why aren't you late to this? You're late to other classes. Why aren't you late to this class? Well, it's because of the connection that they have with teachers and that connection I think we've the outreach that we've done this fall has been

072actually phenomenal, but it we still have a ways to go. And I think that grading conversation is evolving. Remember teachers have gone through that system that's taught them the traditional way of grading over time and we typically teach like we were taught unless you're very reflective about your practice. So that process has started. We're not nearly where we need to be though I would say. Heidi or Sam do you want to jump in on that at all? I mean, Heidi, you probably know our staff a bit better than Sam. Yeah, and I can talk about, I mean, one of the things, and I think you're, you know. Rachel, you're speaking to how are we going to ameliorate the situation once we still have a couple weeks left in the trimester. We really hope that we

073will have fewer no credits. Those eight-week grades were now, they're almost three weeks old. And so students should know what is what you need to do. Let's get it done. Let's try to get over the finish line here. But... We're going to extend our incomplete deadline. Normally, students have 10 school days to complete incompletes. We'll extend it. I mean, I'm the one who makes those changes and transcripts and students complete, and I don't have any interest in closing the window, if that makes sense. Another thing we're going to do is, again, identify those students who are close. to passing and reach out to them and get them, you know, access again to the curriculum that they could complete in order to pass the class. So, you know, I think unfortunately some of the, just from

074my experience, until students really see, oh, I didn't earn credit for that class, you know, then the motivation starts. I mean, unfortunately they're teenagers. I, you know, they're like, oh, really? Oh, okay. Now I'll do it. You know, I. And one thing that is, again, looking for benefit in our COVID scenario right now is that our teachers, when we're in distance learning, they don't have their normal study halls and other duties. And so what we're asking them to do is to reach out to those students personally and say, hey, look, you're, you know, you're almost there. here's what you can do and um and just try to try to get those students going and moving towards you know proficiency but I mean at the end of try one it's not like it's not like we're

075closing the book on those grades and those students never have a chance to to um complete the learning if that makes sense we're gonna do everything we can so yeah it's a it's a different time for sure One area that I would, a specific example in math class, let's say you're taking integrated algebra two and you've missed a couple of core concepts in the first trimester. Our teachers are willing to go back and have you pick up those sections or areas or standards that you didn't make. successful progress and help you with that and then that grade could change moving on. We can modify those grades as we go forward. That's something that we're doing. Actually, that happens regularly. So other questions before we move on? Well, let me show you a little bit of

076data to kind of get you thinking about what we're doing so you can have a broader view of it. So can we go to the next slide? Yeah, I want to talk about and this is this is part of that data that we were I had mentioned Sam Absolutely. So earlier this fall with all of the the changes to parent-teacher conferences I have to say this was a first and I hope a last year where we have to think about how to structure parent-teacher conferences in a unique way to provide for social distance We added a piece that was called one-to-one targeted support time and that was time dedicated in our parent-teacher conferences week for teachers to make those outreach phone calls to families. So whether that was directly to students if they had a

077cell phone number or to a home number we were able to track that data as well by having teachers, counselors, administrators that made calls. logged those phone calls as well. And throughout that time, we were actually able to reach nearly 1,100 families, whether that was, excuse me, whether that was over the phone or via voicemail. A number of teachers were able to also set up Zoom conferences later in the week after reaching the phone call. And we had a very, very positive response from students, from parents, and from teachers as well. And while I'll show you some feedback that we got from teachers in a minute, just an anecdotal piece that I received from a teacher. He said, I've been teaching here for, you know. I think his direct words were longer than I had

078been alive. I don't know if that's true. But he said that he had more parent contact in this week making phone calls than he had had in years. And so he really hopes that this is something that continues on even after COVID. So Tracy, if you wouldn't mind just clicking once, we should see a circle there. And that really shows us. the feedback that we got from teachers. We wanted to make sure that we were listening to them and finding out from them what things worked and what things didn't in the way that we did conferences this fall. And so in teachers responding to this survey. They were asked, one of the questions was to grade this targeted support and office hours time on a one to five scale, one being it was terrible, five

079being it was great. And 93% of our staff respondents rated it as a three or higher, meaning that, again, it was a useful. piece of time and they were able to reach out to families. So again, I think with the positive response from teachers as well as from families, it really showed that this was something that worked in engaging our students. And speaking with engagement, Tracy, if you wouldn't mind clicking to the next slide. One of the other focuses that was brought up before and has been a focus of our PBIS team this year has been reaching out to students and hearing their voice. getting their perspective on how things are going. I know I can speak for myself with all of the changes in distance learning. I sometimes have to remind myself to put

080myself in a student's shoes and get their perspective on things. So last week as we moved to distance learning, we asked students to fill out our student engagement survey. and there are a number of different questions that are on it. We've had about 610 students. That was as of about three o'clock this afternoon. I think there has been some more and we will be accepting responses through this week. And we wanted to hear from students feedback on a number of different things. Some of the things are listed there and some of the questions were, you know, what if anything are you nervous about in distance learning? What are some strategies that a teacher has used in class that has helped you feel successful? What is something that a teacher has done that has been an

081effective teaching strategy for the entire class? And one of the things that just from a tertiary look at the data that we've seen is breaking up activities into chunks. Some of these classes can be quite long and being in a Zoom meeting for an extended period of time, it's tough to maintain focus throughout the entire time period. So breaking things into smaller activities. And then one of the other pieces was identifying a teacher and or adult that you feel comfortable with going to if you have questions or if you're starting to feel like you're falling behind in grades. And we intend to use this data to really identify which teachers are doing a great job in building relationships and reaching students. And what are some ways that we can use those teachers practices to help

082out our entire staff and help with their instructional practices. So we're waiting for that data to come in and share that with staff. We're hoping to have that as the new trimester begins. Yep. And I should also clarify, I'd be happy to share this as well with any of you if you are interested. Okay. Next slide, Tracy. Heidi, you want to talk a little bit about equity team? Sure. So, our equity team this year, they are, I think especially right now during distance learning, feeling an urgency and a purpose and they're pretty fired up and ready to go. And in response, just to kind of comment also on member Clardy's question earlier about, we know that there are some students who are being missed. We're working hard with our equity team on different strategies to

083get the word out to students who don't speak English at home and to make sure that we have systems in place to support them. And on our equity team, we have both our, one of our EL teachers who's... long-standing EL teacher Leah Reyes as well as Susie Stenglein who teaches Spanish and heritage Spanish and they have definitely helped us with putting some procedures in place to make sure that students are connected. And anyway, so we're continuing to partner with Equal Opportunity Schools and we're doing our student and staff survey right now to help identify students who would be well-suited and interested in participating in our most advanced courses. And again, the focus on that is making sure that our most advanced courses reflect our student population as a whole. And so it's identifying students who

084may not come to those courses in traditional ways, but where they might need some outreach from a member of the equity team or a counselor to just say, hey, you could do this. You indicated in the survey you're interested in this area. This is something you can do in here, so we'll support you. And also EOS provides us with support and training for our equity team. And what they've... been focusing on is a train the trainer model our equity team is feeling ready and eager to start leading colleagues in equity work around, and I'm kind of skimming down one, but I'll go back to the student group in a minute, around culturally responsive teaching within our staff. And I think now more than ever, when students are feeling that they are, you know, they're not

085in school with their friends, how can we make sure students are seen and heard in the curriculum and are seen and heard by their teachers? Because... What our data over the last few years has shown us is that students are most successful in our classes and they can identify those classes and those teachers where they have a very strong sense of belonging. And that is particularly true of students who are traditionally underrepresented in our AP and honors, et cetera, courses. And so... the equity team is really laser focused on how can we help staff with simple ways even in zoom where you can increase student engagement increase student voice and make sure students feel like that they're part of something and that you are there to support them we are establishing a students of color

086leadership club there is one already in going in the middle school. And so we have some rising ninth graders this year who are interested in starting one at the high school. And so we have our first meeting on Wednesday with, there's some members of the equity team, me, and the invitation went out to... whole bunch of kids so it might be a giant zoom meeting I think there's some buzz hopefully we'll be able to get going with that and again this is something our students have asked for they're looking for leadership opportunities and we are looking for as many ways as possible we can listen to them and get awesome ideas from them about how we can make our our curriculum in our school more welcoming and inclusive place And finally, the equity team wants

087to start an optional book study cohort for those who want to delve deeper into courageous conversations. And that's kind of building off of what we did with Ginger Smith's work, talking about how we can reimagine our schools and with a specific focus on equity and inclusion. And that is we're going to be... we're going to be kicking that both our regular CRT training and the information about the optional book study off after winter break. So we're excited. This is all teacher-generated ideas and people volunteering to lead their peers. So I'm super excited about this. I think it's going to be very cool. Thank you, Heidi. Can we go to the next slide? So Heidi mentioned the 18, actually we have 19 different advanced placement courses that we offer. I'm not going to spend a great

088deal of time talking about advanced placement because this is a pretty well established program at Simley High School and it basically targets a specific group of students to be perfectly honest with you. We recruit for it for students of color, but it's difficult to make the breakthrough. I think if I'm not mistaken, we're about 21%. students of color that rate needs to be higher for students who are taking advanced placement courses. Now one thing I will mention about AP is the College Board changed their requirement. Students have to pay up front to order their test. That's why we've said part of the reason that we've seen a reduction in the number of students taking the advanced placement, but you'll see the real reason or I think that the reason that has the most effect in

089just a second. So we ordered again 491 tests. That's a little more than last year but significantly less than in 2019. I'm going to go to the next slide and this will explain why. So if you take a look at this slide, and I'm going to have to shrink this down a bit. So these are courses that we offer that are concurrent enrollment courses. They're courses that offer college credit, and it hits a different cohort of system. Typically AP students, if you're taking Advanced Placement Lang, you're not taking Communications 11. If you're taking AP Lang, typically you're not taking the writer's workshop, which is the U of M concurrent enrollment class. But let's just take it, for example, communications 11. It's impossible, or I shouldn't say impossible, it's next to impossible for you to get

090out of Simley High School without the option, this is anybody now, for getting the option of earning college credit. If you're not taking communications 11 typically, you're taking either CIS Writer's Workshop or you're taking AP Lang. And so those are the courses that are the core for our 11th grade English courses. We have 154 students who will be earning two credit, two transcripted credits through Inver Hills. And I've broken down the possibilities for potential tuition saved, but you can see that if all 154 students signed up for Comm 11 successfully complete the course, they'll earn 308 transcripted college credits. And each one of those Ember Hills, and I picked the lowest number for Ember Hills as a range, but it ranges from $117 up to $300 in credit at Ember. And I just picked 117

091to estimate the total amount. But you can see the number of students who have signed up for concurrent enrollment classes. And Tracy, can we go to the next slide, please, so we can see the totals? So we have 12, right now we have 12 concurrent enrollment classes running at Simley High School. And this has just been structural changes within our system. We haven't added any teachers. We've just changed the curriculum so that students could earn college credit while they're in high school. And you may think that Spanish 4 is a misprint. but each semester that they're in, Spanish students are in Spanish four, they earn five credits at Ember Hills Community College. And that's all transcripted credits. So we have 379 students currently up from about 176 last year who are taking concurrent enrollment classes.

092And where the estimated credits earned are 1397 for a potential savings to the citizens of Inver Grove of about $500,000. That's just concurrent enrollment. Now, if I can go back one slide, Tracy, if you could do that, or go back two slides, actually. I just want you to compare one more. Look at the number of advanced placement tests given, 491. There's about 300 students taking advanced placement courses, and it's typically not the cohort that you saw taking concurrent enrollment classes. Now, can I have you go forward three slides? This is our post-secondary enrollment options numbers. These are students who will, some of them will take advanced placement courses, but also take courses outside of Simley High School, like actually on the campus of Denver Hills. You can see, and other places, you can see how

093the numbers have stayed fairly steady. The five-year averages started at 64, ranged to a high of 87 in 1920. and is down to 75 now and I think that's directly related to the number of courses that we offer at Simley High School that are concurrent enrollment. I think that is such an important program to us. It draws kids in, it gives them a reason to do their work, they're earning transcripted college credit and we all know that education, like it was for me, is the way out of poverty. Any questions on that data that you just saw presented to you? So we hope to grow this program. Again, we haven't added staff. We've just modified our curriculum. We've changed the direction of our curriculum and found ways to incorporate concurrent enrollment into the core of

094Simley High School. I would... I just think it's such an important thing where kids can get an option to take college classes while they're in high school. It's such a good thing. And again, it's not only just the college level thing, but it's the possibility for credentials as well. Like our CNA class, I think we have 40 students enrolled in that this year as well. And they're getting stackable credentials based on what's happening. It fits directly in with our mission and vision. And I think it's an important thing for our students and for the families of Invergrove. Go to the next slide. Just wanted to talk about what the future may bring. Heidi, you want to talk a little bit about this? Sure. The two pathways for concurrent enrollment that we're working on fleshing out

095are in the medical pathways, which is pretty well established. We've had the, we started with the EMR EMT program, added CNA. and plus the tri-district program as well and and also human services that is an interest area for our students so you can see the introduction to social work and the multicultural awareness and the helping profession both of those can be are part of the required electives that can be applied to either the medical pathways or the human services pathway at Ember Hills. And those are two year programs that prepare students to transfer maybe to a four year nursing program, which actually they're now offering four year nursing programs in person at Ember Hills. And one of those credentials is CNA that you have to have first. or maybe transfer to the U and pursue

096a degree in counseling psychology or something like that. So these two pathways are definitely very flexible and they interact a lot. And so it makes sense for us to try to offer courses. in which students could choose either pathway or really anything and get credits at Simley. Another thing that we're looking at, the next two, criminal justice and sociology, those are some high interest areas for students. And I see in particular sociology, I do all the transcripting of the PSCO credits onto the Simley transcript each semester. and the most popular classes that I see are sociology, psychology, and also the intro to literature and writing and research courses. We were able to add intro to literature and writing and research this year because we have a teacher who's earned her master's and is now credentialed

097and we're hoping to partner with another district. to be able to add criminal justice, which is definitely an interest area for our students, as well as sociology. And that will further, hopefully, incentivize students to take the courses here at Simley rather than going elsewhere and taking them in PSCO. So that's why we're looking at those pathways. One of the things that we're spending a lot of time, you've heard me say that we restructured our curriculum in some way to allow for these courses to work. And it's identifying the courses that really have existed for a long time but aren't relevant and making modifications to those. So we change them to be high interest for students so that they can see what the relevance is to the courses that they're taking and how it applies to

098their future. Can I go to the next slide, please? So trying to tie all this together, the equity involving students through surveys, getting their voice in as far as the courses that they're taking and the structure of the way they're presenting the materials and are engaged in the classrooms, focusing on those relationships, being mindful of outreach and drawing targeted support in for students, along with offering those post-secondary options for all students. we think is critical and we think the data supports the trend that we've been working on for the last few years, last 12 years of enhancing those opportunities for students. Any questions? About anything that we've said tonight. Appreciate your time then. I want to thank you for listening and letting us present to you. Thank you. Thank you, Jerry and Heidi and Sam

099for all that great conversation. Just want to re-ask one last time if there's any questions for either of them right now. Thanks for the continued perseverance in recreating our education here. We have great students and we have a great staff. We really do. Thank you. Okay, our second information item for the night is Superintendent Dave Bernardson introducing several district policies for a first reading for review. Dave? Thank you, Matt. In accordance with the board's commitment to a three-year policy review cycle, the policy committee met on October 26th and reviewed the first half of the 700s of the non-instructional policies. We also reviewed the 522 Title IX sex discrimination, non-discrimination policy. grievance procedure and process policy policy which is currently known as the district's 522 student sex non-discrimination policy And what you see before you're on

100the screen tonight before you are the policies that we're bringing forward with no changes, which would be 701 establishment and adoption of the school district budget, 701.1 modification of school district adopted budget, 702 accounting, 704 development and maintenance of an inventory of fixed assets and a fixed asset accounting system. 705 investments and 706 acceptance of gifts. Again, these policies are being brought forward with no change recommendations. And then those with minimal changes are 701.2, which is fund balance. 703, which is annual audit, and 707, which is transportation of public school students. Again, minimal changes recommended for those three policies. And then there is a total revision to 522, Title IX, sex non-discrimination policy, grievance procedure and process. It's currently our 522 student sex non-discrimination. And this policy, based on some federal revisions, was in need

101of a total revision. And again, these policies are reviewed by our committee on the 26th. They're brought forward to use our first reading. And they'll have a second reading for review at our next regular meeting on December 14th. And I also want to thank Tracy Lau for her assistance in working with our staff to adjust the policies that require minimal changes until revisions, but also ensuring that the ones mentioned with no changes were indeed in need of no changes. For sure. Yeah, thank you, Tracy, for working on these. Any questions for Dave or Tracy or the policy committee? Okay, we'll go on. We'll keep Dave on the spot here and introducing your goals for this school year. Thank you, Matt. We do have a timeline for the establishment of superintendent goals and that timeline starts

102or actually is a sharing of goals in November and then goes all the way through the final review of those goals in June, July. And I do share that these goals, while they say they're superintendent goals, they're the goals of our district and our leadership team as we work. through and do the best we can to further the educational process for our kids. Three areas of focus are leadership and culture, organizational management and community, our communications and community engagement. And the goals are focused on, as you heard from Simley High School, in regards to equity goals. This year are focused on equity. They're focused on health and safety, which I hope you can all understand. That's the school year in which we live in. While it's important every year, it's even heightened this school year.

103And then learning and how we pivot with learning. Within leadership and culture, goals are focused, or the draft goals are focused on really listening and learning in regards to the racial equity and social justice landscape. within our school district and really looking to further listen and gain information from our students, staff, and families in regards to these topics. And also in collaboration with the board, we're having some small group racial equity and social justice conversations with our students, alumni, and community members. And our goal here is to really listen and learn so that we can further develop our professional development plan moving forward. Sometimes we can be quick to act and we can miss some steps and we feel by going through this process, it'll help us to really landscape, get a landscape view of

104where things are within our school district. and community but also to develop a scaffolding approach to furthering this professional development for our staff within organizational management focusing on this a safe and positive district climate through relationships which is something we focused on but also really looking to look at our learning models to ensure that as we pivot as we adjust as we learn throughout this school year both in hybrid distance learning and 199 online and hopefully also in person how we can further the learning experience for our kids and I think that's a big aspect associated with what you heard from Sydney High School today. Lots of pivoting going on but what can we learn for those pivots and how can we adjust to make sure that things are the best they can be for

105our students but also for our staff because as Cindy mentioned there's a significant burden placed on our teachers right now and a part of this listening is listening to them and knowing how we can adjust and help them move forward. And then with all of that is communicating effectively and authentically and really making sure we're getting information out to our staff and our families and our students as best we can to ensure that they're aware of what's going on, how we're moving, what we're doing, what is happening to ensure that these learning environments are safe and are pivoting to support our kids in their learning. And then within that, we'll be doing surveys throughout the year to gain that information because when you listen and learn, It's important to hear from everybody as best you

106can and give them an opportunity so that we can then make adjustments throughout the school year so that we can again improve that learning experience because we know this year is different than any other that we've experienced. These goals are put forward in a draft form and they'll come to you as an action item in December. But in the meantime, I'll also be having one-on-one meetings with each school board member to talk about these goals, to look at any revisions that may take place before we get to December. But again, I want to share their superintendent goals, but they're also our leadership team goals and they provide us the focus for this school year. And our goal is always to strive to set goals but then to have those goals become a part of our

107standard work as we move into the future so any questions you have tonight or i'll look forward to those questions as we visit one-on-one as well in advance of our december meeting i also wanted to note that as a part of this process and we do have a mid-year progress update that takes place february march and then a final uh review of the goals that takes place in june july all right Thank you, Dave. Any questions once more? Okay. Thank you, Dave. We're going to move on to our committee's reports, and we'll start off with Lynette. Can you give us an update on facilities committee? Facilities did not meet this month. All right. That was an easy one. Rachel, finance committee. Thanks, Matt. Now, the finance committee did meet this month on November 9th. to

108discuss the monthly check register, year-to-date spending analysis, CARES Act funding, as well as an audit update and OPIP review. And then the committee met again on November 18th to discuss a budget update that I believe we'll be discussing tonight as well. All right. Thank you, Rachel. Mary Frances, do you have an update on personnel committee, please? I do. The Personnel Committee met on November 9th to discuss Spartan Kids Care Contract, the Principal Contract, and an employee investigation. Okay. Thank you. And then I do have an update on Policy Committee. Policy Committee met prior to tonight's meeting to discuss the second half of the 700 Non-Instructional Operations Policy Series, and then several... annual policies. Kick it back to Mary Frances for our first membership report. Do you have an update on Equity Alliance Minnesota for us?

109I do. Equity Alliance met on November 18th, and they were approached by an architectural firm with an opportunity to become an equity consultant for them. And at this point, they're not aware of any other firms that are doing that with architecture firms. And then they have already started two equity audits. And that concludes my report. All right. Thank you. Lynette, do you have an update for us on our AMSD membership? Yes. Our last meeting was held on November 6th, and the agenda included a number of topics, obviously an election update given the date, legislative organizational updates, state budget development process, legislative opportunities and challenges, and then a legislative platform discussions within small groups. Okay, thank you. And stick with you for a Best Foundation update? Yes, Best Foundation, the full board of directors met Monday,

110November 16th, and we had a full treasurer's report, which included an internal audit and annual report. There was a president's report. We've had a number of discussions. on disbursements of the 2020 scholarships starting up and some different things that they need to do for the insurance policies and whatnot. We had a business discussion and then all of the committees updated. So a big focus right now for the committee is to continue trying to be creative in fundraising. So there was a kickoff with Club 199 and then lots of virtual plans for the spring gala using what looks to be now a new software called DonorView. So it was a very good meeting. I can't say enough about this group. Highly motivated, energetic, and just really passionate about what they do. That's it. All right. Thank

111you, Lynette. Let's see. I have an update on MSBA. The MSBA 2021 Leadership Conference is scheduled to be held virtually this year over three days on January 14th, 21st, and 28th. So they're breaking it up. We'll have roundtable discussions, skill sessions. and what they're calling some lunch and learn opportunities. And then this past week, I also took training for a pre-meeting for our delegate assembly, which is occurring virtually on, I believe it's Wednesday, December 2nd. So that's next week. And then Cindy, do you have an update on Intermediate School District 917 for us? Yes, I do. The ISTU 917 school board meeting was held virtually on November 10th. The agenda included personnel and policy updates, a revenue and expenditure report, an operational focus of 2020-21 update, and a presentation of returning to learning plans. Okay.

112Thank you everybody for those updates. Appreciate it. That means it's action item time tonight. And we are going to start off with Director of Learning TJ Anderson Schmill introducing the recommendation to approve the 2021-2022 Intra-District Transfer and Open Enrollment Parameters. TJ? Thank you, Matt. The inter-district transfer process is a process that we traditionally use for our elementary schools to provide our district residents the opportunity to request to have their students attend a school other than the one assigned to them by their attendance boundaries. And in that case, if approved, transportation is always the responsibility of the family. For 21-22, just as we had revisited with the board a month ago, we've added an addendum for that school year in the event that... We are still working through COVID, which we hope is not the case,

113but we just want to be proactive. And so that addendum extends that inter-district transfer process just a bit to also include our middle school and high school, because we know that there might be times that a family does request a different school or in the case of COVID, a different learning model. And so that addendum provides the inter-district transfer process. to include families requesting to have a student attend an elementary school other than the one that they're in, or for any students who are in 199 online in grades K through 12, to have the option to go back into whatever the building learning model is at the time. So during the 21-22 school year, whether it's between schools or from 199 online, back to that in-building learning model. acceptance of students under the inter-district transfer

114process would not increase staffing. It would not increase class capacity in accordance with Minnesota Department of Health guidelines, nor would it increase transportation capacity in alliance with Minnesota Department of Health guidelines. And if transportation space to the homeschool was not available, or if a student was requesting a school other than their homeschool, again, those transportation arrangements would remain the responsibility of the parent or guardian. For our elementary schools in a traditional year, first acceptance of students under an inter-district transfer is always determined after staffing thresholds for the school year have been set as that inter-district transfer is not to increase the number of students at a grade level beyond 95% of that staffing threshold. Again, in preparation if we do need to respond to anything like COVID. Also that increase in staffing requirements would not

115happen under an inter-district transfer and again we'd want to be looking at class capacity and transportation capacity in alignment with Minnesota Department Health guidelines. Inter-district transfer requests would be granted on a space available basis and accepted until we've reached capacity. and all transfers would work through the Department of Learning and the Director of Learning. If it's determined that a student's home school does not have the capacity to accept a family's transfer request, the family may request to transfer to another district elementary school. And families always have the opportunity to request to change back to their home school, whether it's at the trimester level or at the end of the school year. Or families would also have the opportunity to remain in the school that they transfer to if they do choose to. In a traditional

116school year, oftentimes we have kindergarten students who do request an inter-district transfer for the upcoming school year. We do give priority and preference to kindergartners who have siblings enrolled in the school that they're requesting. That would be first priority. And then we also give priority and preference to kindergartners who have a daycare that's located in the school's attendance area. There is a first submission deadline for priority and that is January 30th. We also have that same opportunity for students who are in grades one through five. And again, preference giving to those who have siblings in the receiving school or who have verified daycare. After that January 30th priority deadline, we continue to process transfer requests in the order that they're received, making sure that we still give preference to siblings and to those who have.

117daycare in that receiving area. Afterwards we do do a blind random lottery process if we do have more requests then we have spaces and after that we do start a waiting list for families. And then lastly, as we look at numbers 9 and 10, again, unless it's a family moving from 199 online back to their home school, if they're requesting a different school, again, transportation would be the responsibility of the family. And so in addition to this 21-22 process is for middle school and high school. And that is only for students who are enrolled in 199 online and requesting to go back into the building model. And just like elementary school, acceptance of that transfer may not increase staffing requirements. class capacity or transportation capacity beyond what the Minnesota Department of Health sets as guidelines

118for receiving students. If there's not transportation space available on the bus based on Minnesota Department of Health guidelines and the family would still like the student go back to the building model, they would need to transport for that trimester. We will accept those requests on a space available basis in collaboration with the building principal and the director of learning. And if for students there's not space available within that building learning model based on health guidelines, the families will always have an opportunity to request a change in learning models at the trimester level. That is the intra-district transfer process. The other process that we're looking at together tonight is our open enrollment process. And our open enrollment process does provide the opportunity for any non-resident families to attend ISD 199 by board resolution and by statute.

119The board has the right to limit open enrollment of non-resident students to a number not less than 1% of the total enrollment at each grade level. As we look at the district-wide open enrollment process, and we start with secondary, so those would be students in grades 6 through 10, open enrollment is limited to 95% of the staffing threshold for each grade level per school year. We don't include grades 11 and 12 in the staffing enrollment thresholds due to additional enrollment considerations in those grades, such as concurrent enrollment, PSEO, and other enrollment options. In terms of our students in grades K through five at the elementary level, that open enrollment is limited to 90% of the staffing enrollment threshold for each school and grade level within a building. And those requests do process through the Department

120of Learning and the Director of Learning based on the parameters set by the school board. Under statute there are priorities and preferences for students for open enrollment. The first being if they have a sibling currently open enrolled in the district. The second would be students who are part of a Minnesota Department of Education approved achievement and integration plan or a district that has an achievement and integration plan. or any students who have parents or legal guardians who are Minnesota residents and employees within our district. Those students by statute are given priority over students who don't fit those criteria for open enrollment. Just like inter-district transfer, there is a priority deadline for open enrollment that is set by the state of Minnesota and that is January 15th. So any enrollment, open enrollment requests or applications that

121are received before January 15th are processed and we do communicate with families by February 15th if we do have space available and their application is accepted. If the number of applications exceeds the number of spaces, by statute we do a blind random lottery drawing. And then after that point, we also start a waiting list and students are ordered in priority as they were in terms of preference for sibling preference, achievement and integration districts, as well as staff students. Any applications that come in after January 15th are always processed in the order that they're received, again giving priority based on those three priority categories above. And according to statute, we always notify our families within 90 days of receiving that application of any space available. Just like our inter-district transfer process, there is also a waiting

122list and so families can ask to be put on the waiting list and as spaces become available, we take students and families off that waiting list in the order that they're received. It is important to note on number six because we do have multiple elementaries. While we might approve open enrollment at the elementary level, the district always retains the right of building assignment for a student and we notify families of building assignments no later than June 30th. In terms of our Athenaeum program, once our resident students have been accepted into Athenaeum, then our open enrollments are accepted up until the class size thresholds. And any resident students who were during the school year outside of our district boundaries may apply for open enrollment and may are allowed to finish the school year at their current

123school. It is important to note that when students do open enroll into the district, As long as they remain, they may continue their enrollment all the way through grade 12 at their assigned elementary school, unless they're extenuating situations which would require the district to balance class sizes between buildings. And always parents and guardians of open enrolled students are responsible for transportation to and from the school district. Both of these processes, the inter-district transfer process and the open enrollment process, were shared with the board at the February 9th work session. And we are recommending that the board approve the inter-district transfer process and open enrollment process for the 21-22 school year. Thank you, TJ. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2021-2022 inter-district transfer and open enrollment parameters? motion by Nordstrom second

124by Warren thank you any discussion and we'll open it up to our virtual members first any discussion from virtual any discussion thank you TJ I just want to comment to the public that we've seen this and we've worked on it with TJ during work session as well so we've been briefed on all the sections and we put work into it prior to tonight's meeting as well thank you thanks Cindy Any discussion from inside the boardroom? It's just one of the many things that have to be adjusted by people, by the district office, by all the folks working here, you know, as well as policies, but the processes to make sure that we can support all these different learning environments. So I really appreciate the due diligence in all of this. Lynette? Any other discussion from

125in the boardroom or virtual? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Clardy. Aye. Member Hanson. Aye. Member Stensberg. Aye. Member Nordstrom. Aye. Member Lonsberry. Aye. Member Schaefer. Aye. Member Ward. Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With seven out of seven aye votes, the motion is carried. Next up, Director of Business Services, Heather Ahney, introducing the recommendation to approve the 2020-2021 budget revisions. Heather? Thank you. The 2020-2021 budget was created in a collaborative way. collaborative effort from January to May of 2020 and then adopted by the board in June of 2020. So obviously a lot has happened since then and our budget needed some revisions. I'll start out first by just going through the numbers and then we can talk about the reason for the changes. Our general fund budget, you can see that the expenditures

126are higher than the revenues by about a million dollars. Our prior projected deficit spending in the adaptive budget was $204,000, and the revised projected deficit spending is $1,001,464. The student activities, although staying the same, I changed how this reads just so it's subtotaled after our 19-20 audit as that comes to a close, our auditors ask that we present it in this way. And food service, the adopted budget was a deficit spend of $182,746 and the revised projected deficit spending is $557,016. Community Ed was an adopted deficit spending budget of $132,601, and the revised projected deficit spend would be $395,283. The debt services, OPEB and OPEB Trust would all remain the same, and then the employee benefit trust would go to zero. That would be moved into the general fund. So then we can talk through

127some of the reasons behind it on the next slide. The general fund, the changes within this revised budget includes the CARES Act funding that has been awarded to the district, includes the projected additional costs due to COVID and the additional staffing due to the hybrid and online learning. and a reduction in ADM as compared with the original projections. And that decrease in enrollment is not unique to our school district. That's felt across the state in most school districts. And predicting enrollment is always a challenging effort, but the drop in enrollment that we experienced was unexpected. This also includes the building and department and little carryovers from the prior year. And what's not included is any fund balance transfers to food service or community education funds to support those deficits funds. And there's also some new

128aid from Dakota County through CARES Act funding that they were able to redistribute that just came through today. So we didn't have that included in time, but it's about $128,000 in additional revenue. And then food service. This does include some staffing adjustments based on participation. projection, a more positive projection of increased participation. We've had some pretty low participation this fall, but we're changing some things beginning on November 30th, going from five meals per week to seven meals per week, offering two evening pickups per week at the middle school, and then changing it from a closed program for just for our students to being open to all students 18 and under, and they do not need to register for those meals before picking them up. So it's very similar to what we had in the summer.

129What's not included in there is transfers from the general fund if needed at the year end. And Trinity Education, staffing adjustments based on participation in preschool and child care are included in this budget. Some CARES Act revenue, a small portion of that is being used for child care costs. They have some grant proceeds as well and not included would be any transfers from the general fund at year end. And then that the flex fund that I mentioned that we changed to zero in during the audit for 19-20 the auditor said that due to a change in accounting principle that we should run everything through our general fund. So we've just moved those over there and those we always budgeted at the same expenditures as revenues went at it to zero. The possible, well. We will

130need third quarter budget adjustments because we're in an ever-changing world. So in the spring of 2021, we can expect that we'll have some adjustments based on salary and benefit changes, interest, interest income, facility rental, parking fees, and athletic revenue adjustments just based on what we experienced throughout the year. And then if there's any average daily membership, that enrollment changes. And if any aid is adjusted from the state or federal government, that would need to be revised as well. And this has been shared with the board previously. So tonight I would like to ask for the board's approval of the 2020-2021 revised budget. Thank you. Thank you, Heather. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the 2020-2021 budget revisions? Motion by Member Clardy. Second. Member Stensgaard. Thank you. Any discussion? And we'll start

131with boardroom. Any discussion in the boardroom? Matt, I'd just like to share, Heather mentioned Dakota County and CARES funding was allocated to Dakota County and within that allocation, those dollars could be allocated to the county, to the city, to cities within the county, to school districts and other entities. And Dakota County superintendents addressed the county regards the potential of attaining funding from them, from their CARES allocation. And I want to thank Commissioner Atkins for working. with me to bring that forward on behalf of the Invergrove Heights Schools, because as Heather shared, that is providing us another upwards of $125,000 to help support us as we move forward into the school year. And it's not very often that the county is involved in the educational process, but I want to thank county commissioners, county staff, and

132Commissioner Atkins for that support. Very good. Any other discussion from the boardroom? Virtual members, any discussion? Heather, could you just comment on the food service and our ability to provide seven days of meals instead of five each week and what that cost is to the families and why we're choosing to do that? The revenue that we receive is based on the participation that we have. So an increase of meals per week could increase our revenue so that we're able to continue at staffing levels. The question it's open to all ages 18 and under and there's no cost to families and that is through June 30th, so they don't have register can come and pick up meals at All the building locations and there are eight satellite stops that the buses drop off. Did I answer

133everything? Yep. Thank you. Any other questions or discussion from virtual members? I guess I'd like to just reiterate with that piece that for the public that you realize that we're not just about providing academics. We're right here as an example of we're providing meals as well for our students who are in our attendance area. Thank you, Cindy. And I just want to call out the foresight or the opportunity that the Dakota County superintendents had in talking to the county for those funds. So thank you for doing that. One last call for any discussion from board members? Okay. Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Hanson. Aye. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I.

134I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. I. Let's see, Director of HR, Michelle Carroll, will now introduce the recommendation to approve the principal contract agreement. Michelle? Thank you. So the district has reached a tentative agreement with the Invergrove Heights Principals Association for the contract period of July 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2022. The terms and conditions of the agreement agreement

135include steps and a $2,500 increase to the salary schedule in year one and $2,000 increase in year two. The district contribution towards health insurance will not increase during this contract period and the annual district 403 match will increase from 3,000 to 4,000. In addition, language was added to the contract to provide pay for unused sick days to a principal that retires with 15 consecutive years of service in the district. A retiring principal may receive pay for up to 100 unused sick days. The first 50 days will be paid at $75 per day. Days 51 to 100 will be paid at $100 per day. The total cost to the district for this tentative agreement is 4.35%. for the contract period. It is recommended that the Board of Education approve the collective bargaining agreement between Invergrove Heights

136Principals Association for the contract period of July 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2022. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the principal contract agreement? Motion. So moved by Nordstrom. Nordstrom, do I have a second? Second by Lounsbury. Thank you. Do I have any discussion from boardroom members? Any discussion from the boardroom? Any discussion from our virtual members? Any discussion from anyone? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy. Member Stensgaard? Aye. Member Nordstrom? Aye. Member Lonsbury? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Member Ward? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Aye. Thank you. With seven out of seven aye votes, the motion is carried. Thank you, Michelle. You're welcome. And I guess we're sticking with you, though, here. Yeah, we have one more. One more. Michelle introduced the recommendation to approve the

137Spartan Kids Care Contract Agreement. Michelle? Thank you. Thank you. It's been interesting negotiating during a time, during this period of time, but we've been very successful, so thank you. The district has reached a tentative agreement with Spartan Kids Care for the contract period of July 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2022. The terms and conditions of the agreement include a 2% increase to the salary schedule in each contract year. The district contribution towards health insurance increases 3% each year for single and family coverage. The contribution towards two-party coverage will not increase. Vacation language and days were updated to reflect the same benefits as other non-licensed staff who work year-round. This includes a collapse of years of service increments from four to three and an increase of three vacation days for 12-month employees. The total cost to

138the district for this agreement is 4.15%. The recommendation is for the Board of Education to approve the collective bargaining agreement between Spartan Kids Care employees of Invergrove Heights Community Schools for the contract period of July 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2022. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the Spartan Kids Care contract agreement? I'll move by Nordstrom. Go Nordstrom. Second. Warwick. Stansgard. Stansgard. Thank you. All right. Do I have any discussion from our virtual members? I just want to reiterate something Michelle said right before the start of this. I want to thank Michelle for working on this, but also the... the working groups that we're doing these agreements with. It is a difficult time to do these things and we all knew they needed to get done,

139but some good work was put forth by everyone here. So thank you. Any discussion from boardroom? Any discussion from anyone? Board will now vote by roll call. Tracy? I'm Bray Nordstrom. Aye. Aye. Member Longsberry? Aye. Member Schaffer? Aye. Member Ward? Aye. Member Clardy? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Member Stensgaard? Aye. Thank you, Tracy. With seven out of seven aye votes, the motion is carried. Thank you, Michelle. You're welcome. Thank you. Okay, we're on to our comments time here and we'll start with Superintendent Bernardson. Dave? Thank you, Matt. Congratulations to our students, advisors, and coaches that took part in the fall activities and athletics. These opportunities are so important to our students' learning experience and their health and wellness. And we just really value their opportunity to be able to participate. Also, thank you to the Simi

140High School leadership team for providing us with an update this evening. If things were typical, we would have been meeting at Simi High School this evening. And I also thank the staff for the way that you're listening and learning to improve the student experience for kids at Simi High School. And as shared by the SUNY High School leadership team, we are nearing the completion of trimester one and much of our focus will be given to providing our students with supports they need to really get over the top for this first trimester. Also want to thank our students, staff, and families for their continued commitment, flexibility, and grace during the course of the school year. We know it's a much different school year and we're all doing the best we can. Our hope, of course, is

141to have in-person learning as soon as possible. Until that time, though, we're going to give all that we can to support student learning in addition to the health and safety of our students and the health and safety of our staff as well. It's not going to be perfect, yet we'll do the best we can, and our staff has the will to do all they can to be as perfect as possible, and they're going to take every opportunity possible to support our kids. But at the same time, I want to share. that while the academic experience is very important and we value that, we also put a high degree of value into the social emotional health of our students, but also the well-being of our staff as well. So thank you to everybody for their continued

142grace and flexibility as we progress during the school year. Thanks Matt. Thank you Dave. We'll start our board comments tonight with Sherry. Thanks, Matt. I'd like to first thank Mr. Scala, Ms. Klukas, and Mr. Van Hefty for their high school update. And to Mr. Short for the fall sports update. Congrats to all of our students, student athletes. I'd like to reiterate, thank you for the conversations on how our schools can look differently and listening to the kids. I'd like to also reiterate member Hanson's concern with the no harm and changing and grading during this time of COVID. And as Mr. Van Hefti had reminded us sometimes he had to step back and put yourself in student's shoes with this disruption. Let's get those kids to earn that credit. And finally, this week of Thanksgiving, my

143message is to have a grateful heart. And as you're feeling grateful, please reach out to someone who feels isolated with a call or a window visit or a walk if possible. Let's take care of each other. Let's understand each other. Let's also listen to each other and find hope in all of this disruption. We will be stronger for it. Well said, Sherry. Thank you. Mary Frances. I guess I first of all wanted to start out and just thank the community members for their continued donations to our schools. This is one big community and without you, you know, we couldn't do this. Moving on to the Jerry, thank you for your passionate discussion about our students at Simile and the effort that your whole staff and community are involved in. That was very meaningful. I was

144really excited about the Touch Pro site, the yearbook thing. I think that is so amazing. I wish we had it at my school where I went to school. I'd like to see my picture. um anyway um just thank you thank you for all your hard work staff and i really appreciate the passion it's it's just it's continuous and for the parents i hope you enjoyed the virtual conferences i think it was something that was nice where you could actually have that private time with your your student and the teachers so thank you thank you mary francis uh Rachel. Sorry, I was having trouble unmuting there for a second. Thank you so much, Matt. I'll start by just expressing my gratitude to our high school leadership team and also to Will Short for talking to us

145about what our students have been doing in the fall. I also appreciated Barb's update quite a bit, but we see her every board meeting, and so what you say is always so wonderful. somehow feels, uh, I'm just gonna stop talking about this right now. Thank you all for, um, moving forward, just talking about our, um, parent-teacher conferences that have just taken place over the last few weeks here. Um, that one-on-one model as a parent was just fantastic, and what is really great to, um, have that inside view into, um, just how dedicated all our staff are to what our kiddos are doing and how they're doing during a time that's very challenging. You know, as a parent to elementary kids, you don't always know if what you're saying to your kids is really getting across

146and how they are really processing what we're all going through. So having that touch point. is just incredible. And just last little bit here as we are going into distance learning, I would just like to encourage parents to be kind to themselves and kind to their kids. We all have a lot on our plates and especially with the holidays, just historically a time when there is a lot of pressure on us. to give yourself as much slack as you can because, well, yes, our intent here is to do no harm. That can have a lot of different, that can apply in a lot of different ways. So be kind to yourselves, be kind to your kids, and enjoy the holidays. And make sure that you're reaching out for help if you need it while we're

147doing this distance learning. Thanks, Matt. Thank you, Rachel. Lynette. I'd just like to say thanks to everyone for their flexibility and willingness during the change in our education style, for the continued diligence in providing the best for our students, staff, and community. Your hard work and willingness to do things differently is truly seen. For example, 1,100 phone calls being made during conferences. makes a difference and you're doing things differently and it's so appreciated. I just want to say congrats on the fall activities and I really appreciated the online opportunity. I miss being in the gym but I had a blast listening to Gretchen from volleyball. She was hilarious. She would take phone calls and come in and make greetings to people that she knew was online watching so she could get your name called out.

148I'm really impressed with what our students were able to do and do so well. I know a lot of hard work and great attitudes were at play here, so thank you for all of your efforts in making that happen. And lastly, I'm just so grateful to be a part of this 199 family, and I say family, and I wish you all a safe and happy Thanksgiving. Thank you, Lynette. Cindy? Yes, tonight's my night of thankfulness. As a board member, I'm thankful for the resources, not just financial, but food, the skills, the talent, the learners, the technology. I'm also thankful for the talents that we saw evidenced through reports from Simile High School, coaches, students, athletes, academics, admin, the school board members, my co- leaders and the Invergrove Heights community. I'm also thankful for patience, kindness,

149creativity, and passion for each other and for listening and learning that we continue to reach out to our community and each other to listen and learn. Because as I tell my students every day, we're always, all of us are teachers and learners every day. I'm thankful for the positive things that people are seeing during the COVID time. There's positive coming out of it, and we're recognizing those things like conferences, new styles of learning. The dance team has a new routine they're going to do for the future. Online opportunities are only as good as the person pushing the button. The machine cannot do it. It's the people behind it. And we're all living that. And I'm thankful for that. Thanks, Matt. Thank you, Cindy. Carrie. Yeah, I just want to echo what has already been shared,

150but it's always a pleasure to hear and get a sneak peek into the schools. Obviously, it's even better when we can be in the schools and seeing the student athletes and the students in different activities. I'm sure tonight we would have heard a little snippet from the band and all of that. We certainly miss that, but I just was writing different notes and the word adapt just kept coming to mind that faculty, administration, staff has had to adapt, students have had to adapt, families have had to adapt, and none of it has been easy. And, you know, I am grateful for the... the silver linings with COVID and I pray that we can, um, you know, uh, add to them as this virus gets under control and we can, you know, decide what we want

151school to look like when we go back because I think we all agree that we've learned some helpful tips that can help enhance the delivery system moving forward. And, you know, I am a mother of four children who are now distance learning. And so with other parents, solidarity, peace, and be kind to yourself and be kind to the teachers. And I do. Just want to reiterate, I do think there is an on ramp. And so maybe what you will be experiencing next week will be built upon in the next few weeks that let's not look at next Monday as okay, this is what we get for the next few weeks. So with that, just practice kindness. Thank you, Carrie. Start out by, you know, I know we've had many a thanks tonight, but I just

152want to reiterate to, you know, Jerry, Heidi, Sam, thank you for informing us about Sydney High School and a lot of the thought that's gone into. you know, how curriculum is going this year. Some of the, you started off with some of the changes that we know need to happen, you know, when it came to your mission statement. You know, just, you know, being forthright and transparent with that too, that we, you know, while we have something that's really good here, there's always... good work that can be done as well. So it's a continuous improvement thing and we're all looking to continue down this path of how can we bring opportunities to our students and how do we put them in a position to be successful. So I appreciate the work the three of you

153and the rest of the staff is doing towards that. I want to thank Barb and Will for the fall activities. Once again, it was about creating opportunities for our students to have more than just academics. We all know that activities and athletics are a part of a well-rounded person. And we want to make sure that we can give the people of our community, of our student community, the opportunities that we can offer. And to be able to offer those opportunities, a lot of hard work went into creating games, creating just activities from middle school on up. So really appreciate that. And it was fun to see, you know, I did not get to go to anything in person, but I saw, you know, live stream. I saw Town Square Television had volleyball as their game

154of the week, I think last week. And then the theater performance was a Zoom webinar. And so many different mediums in order to see our students flourish. And so then I just want to thank staff and thank our students and thank our families and thank our community members in Invergrove Heights in this district for bearing with us as we go through this time. It's not without its hurdles, but... You know, as long as we keep working together through this, we'll come out of the other side better, I believe, because we are learning. We are innovating right now, and we are creating positives. It's a tough road, I know, but we are creating positives that we will use for the future. So thank you to everyone. Due to busy holiday schedule usually, maybe not so much

155this year, but we typically do not schedule a work session in December. And so once again, there is no work session in December. The next regular board meeting will be held on Monday, December 14th at 5.30 p.m. And it is our annual Truth in Taxation presentation, which begins at 6 p.m. So, do I have a motion and a second to adjourn tonight's meeting? Motion by Ward. Second by Lowensberry. Okay. Ward will vote by roll call, please. Member Lowensberry? Aye. Member Schaefer? Aye. Aye. Member Ward? Aye. Member Clarty? Aye. Member Hanson? Aye. Member Stensgaard? Aye. Member Nordstrom? Aye. All right with seven out of seven aye votes the motion yeah motion is carried to adjourn the meeting at 8 0 4 p.m.