001The Monday, February 24th, 2020 Invergrove Heights Community Schools Board of Education meeting is called to order at 5.37 p.m. We are meeting tonight at Pine Bend Elementary School. Our school district's mission is to inspire, innovate, excel. A community commitment. Board Clerk Hanson, can you please take roll call? Certainly. Member Schaefer? Here. Member Hanson? Here. Member Nordstrom? Here. Member Lonsberry? Here. Member Stensgaard? Here. Member Warren? Here. Member Clardy? Here. Member Quorum? Thank you. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda items tonight? So moved. Second. Carrie and Sherry, any discussion? All
002those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. We'll now have Superintendent Bernardson introduce the district highlight for tonight. Thank you, Matt. It's my pleasure to introduce our district highlight. And this district highlight is actually something that formally took place last week, but we wanted to make sure to bring it forward tonight to our board meeting. Last week in Minnesota was School Board Recognition Week. And it's a week to really highlight and thank our school board members for the work that they do both in... providing leadership to our public school district, but also in the service that they provide to our kids. And we in Invergrove Heights are very fortunate to have an outstanding school board, a school board that really understands our mission of inspire, innovate, excel, a community with commitment. So on behalf of
003our school district, we want to thank all of you for the work that you do as a school board member. And I think I've often shared with you my dad, who watches these things regularly, often says one of the hardest jobs there is as far as being an elected official is being a school board member because you're working with people and their children and their future. And we want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the way in which you do and serve our students here in Invergrove Heights. So I'm going to walk around and hand out some certificates because even when you're adults, you get certificates. Mary Frances Clardy, thank you. Thank you. lynette stansgard jerry lounsbury thank you cindy nordstrom rachel hansen jerry warwick and matt shaper and it would
004be great if we could all give them a round of applause thank you thank you okay uh the board was notified no one has signed up for any non-agenda item this evening so we'll move on to the consent agenda Do I have a motion and a second to approve the consent agenda as presented? So moved. Second. Mary Frances and Rachel, thank you. Any discussion? Oh, that was Lynette. I'm sorry. We're so far away. Any discussion? Just a clarification. On the field trip was for 2021, not 2020, correct? That's correct. The band MEA trip was. New Orleans. New Orleans is for 2021, correct. Any other discussion? All those in favor? Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Up on the screen we have our donations for the school district this past month. Your generosity and support of our
005schools and the community are very much appreciated as they do make quite the difference for our students and our staff and our schools. So thank you very much. So for our information items tonight, we're going to start out with Principal Kunal Cooper providing an update on Pine Bend Elementary School. All right. Thank you all for coming out tonight. This is a great opportunity to highlight all the great things that we're doing here at Pine Bend. And I also want to thank all the families and everyone that came out to tonight. All right. So Pine Bend. Let's see if I can work this right. Our theme this year is In This Together. beautiful beautiful picture of our students here the reason why we chose this theme this year is that because we knew we had a
006lot of things coming up this year new curriculums and construction and you know anything that you do is new it's takes everybody especially in education it doesn't say it's not just one person we all are involved in this community our students and our teachers and our staff and you all too as well I'm going to give you a little picture here of, let's say, 30,000 foot view of some data and a picture of our school and our demographics. So our demographics, we are 55% white, 23.9% Hispanic Latino, 7.9% African American, 5.6% Asian, and 5.9% two or more races. Our English learners, 18.7 percent. Special education students, 10.7 percent. And free and reduced, 41.1 percent. Now to highlight our achievement here, this is from the MCA test last year, 2019. We scored in our math achievement
007at a level of 63.3 percent. which was higher than the state. And then in our reading achievement, 56.3%, which was two points lower than the state. But once again, we're going to continue to improve on that. And I'll talk about things that we are doing to improve. This part here looks at our growth. And that's one of the most important things. It's about where you start and where you're going to. Our academic growth for math is that 78.9% of our students Medium and high are getting, showing growth. So medium to high growth in math. That is amazing. That is 78.9% of our students. And then academic growth in reading, 75% medium to high growth. So over the majority of our students are receiving medium to high growth. Our EL students, this here is showing that
008on target to... average to target to meet their goals. 81.2% of our EL students. That's amazing. Statewide is 61. Here at Pine Bend, 81.2. Here at Pine Bend. Looking at our gifted and talented students in math, this was on the MAP growth test. And some really high growth. If you look at our fourth grade, they made almost a 12-point growth here in their MAP growth in their math. Reading, once again, our fourth grade, six points. And third grade and second grade, a little bit above two. Now... This is just some of the things that we're doing. If I wrote down everything, it would be about four or five slides, and I don't think we have time for that. I want to get these students up here. So support for all of our learners, we have
009our after-school targeted services, and that's one of our biggest keys here is our after-school targeted services program where it's broken up where there's a set time for math and a set time for reading to really target those students who need that support in those specific areas. New this year are Fontans Pinnell, Fontans for grades K and 1, once again to help with that literacy, that reading. Our targeted title services, which is work with K through 3 third grade students. Also, our teams do a weekly collaborative team meetings. And our really big focus this year has been on our PLC process using the fours, going through the four questions. And once again, we're all in this together. So our teams, to keep it going, is that they keep a booklet as they're meeting to highlight all
010of the great things that they're doing. And they take pictures of the students and show their growth. And once again, it's something that we do as a team, because we're in this together. We have our volunteers to work with our gifted and talented students, once again working with all students. Our volunteers, I can't thank our volunteers enough for coming in and helping us out. And our Engage 199 that our grades two and three, our teachers are going through, once again to incorporate technology into the classroom more. And then new this year is our second step Caring School Community SEL curriculum that our fourth and fifth grade teachers are digging into, once again, looking at the social and emotional. Now, I have to highlight our core skills here because that's just as important as the academics.
011There, that's a picture of the green team last year, and we did a waste food audit. We was one of two schools to do it, and we made some great, great achievement with that. So with our waste food audit, we decided to track our milk waste because milk was one of the biggest things that we found out that was a waste in the cafeteria. So pre-audit, 8,000 pounds of milk was wasted per student per year. We tracked this data from February to May and we decreased by 32 percent. So we went down to wasting only 5,000 pounds of water. So awesome that those kids set that up and they led that with Dakota County. Also, other things that we do is that we have a locker clean out that we do every year where we
012take at the end of the year, we take all our materials, whether it's recyclable or reusable. And so we only end up with 2% trash at the end of the year. And all reusable materials go over to Hilltop Elementary for their summer academy program. So once again, that's from the locker clean out. 147 pounds of reusable material collected. 103 pounds of recyclable. And once again, all school materials for the Hilltop Elementary. And that's our waste food audit. Also, along with that, we do have a new student ambassador program. The student ambassador program are fourth grade students that welcome new students into the building. Once again, we do have student council, among other things, core life skills. Now, that picture there is the group of students that we have here tonight, our garden club. As you
013know here, we started a garden club a couple of years ago that's led by our EL teacher, Patricia McCabe. They do tons of things around the school that comes back into the cafeteria. I could brag some more about them, but I'm going to have Ms. McCabe come up here and just share a little bit, along with the students, about all the great things that they're doing. Thank you for having us here tonight. I'm also a master gardener, and I'm very passionate about the environment and gardening. I have an oldest daughter who's an entomologist, and I have a youngest daughter who's an atmospheric scientist. I also have a son in medical school. So I really love the sciences, and I really care and am passionate about the environment. And I just think kids don't... I don't
014appreciate the environment enough these days. I just notice I'm afraid of insects and things outside and they don't want to get dirty. So I'm here to change all that. And so I wanted to start a school garden. And I have started a school garden at my last school that I worked at. And there are some issues to it. But I know that I need to start small. So I got a grant from the Minnesota State Horticultural Society. It's called Garden in a Box. And they give you the garden beds and the dirt and the plants. They're three foot diameter beds. They're pretty small. Here's our first installation. They gave us four. They know that a lot of school gardens fail. So they want to start you out small as well. And it's, you know, there's
015a lot of reasons why it's difficult to maintain a school garden. But I've been building... momentum and volunteers and I've been building enthusiasm and excitement around the garden. So I have some garden club members here to talk about that. So we've been, so we've put in four beds and then we had 10 beds last year, so we increased it by six. We also put in a pollinator garden up front. There were some garden beds that were put in by another master gardener. in the courtyard where they're building our new school, our addition. And so I had the garden club move those plants out front by the flagpole, because that was like an eyesore, really, from drums that were not well taken care of and a lot of weeds. So now we have the garden club
016taking care of that, and it's beautiful. It was amazing. It grew really well, and it is amazing what you can grow in these three-foot beds. We have... We have harvested a lot of tomatoes and lettuce, and we grew corn and carrots and radishes and strawberries, and we just grew all kinds of stuff. So you do it right, and you know what you're doing, you have a lot of success. So I have five of my Garden Club members here, and I think I'll start with Vinny. He was one of the very original Garden Club members. I only had five. It was only me and I'm like if I'm gonna have kids out in the garden and we only have four beds I'm like I gotta start small and what I can handle. So Vinny, do you
017want to just tell them what you have liked about the garden club over the years? That I get to pick vegetables and I get to replant. Okay, and then this is Hennessy. and she's in the Garden Club right now. I have a winter session and we will be growing plants outside in the winter and we'll talk about that in a little bit. And I had a winter session as well last year. So you want to talk about what you like about Garden Club? What I like about Garden Club is that we get to learn new stuff about gardening and plants. Okay, and we'll get to what the new things are in a little bit. And Brian? I like how we learn about new sorts of plants and it's really long, difficult names. Okay, Isla? I
018like that we get to learn about plants and how they grow and we get to learn how to take care of them. Okay, Jeff? Something I like about the Garden Club is getting the bulbs out of the soil and planting the sprouts. Some other things that we've done is we've cooked for the school cafeteria. There's Genesis in this picture. We made kale chips, we made salsa, and we made pesto. And that year we made a cabbage salad. So again, we make enough produce that we can even serve it at our school lunch. And right now, the kids in Garden Club are learning about ecosystems. I thought it fit our theme in that we're all in this together and how all of nature is important. And we're actually learning about the school forest and the web,
019the food web in the school forest and how that all works together. And we are going to be planting some native plants. Jack or Brian, you guys want to talk about what we're doing? You want to tell them a little bit? You want to show them this? Okay, there's a kidsgardening.org carton to carton contest. And I asked the kids if they wanted to do it, and they did. And you have to collect mill cartons. You want to keep going? And reuse them. So, and then we plant native plants in the cartons. And we have little greenhouses for the teachers can plant. The plants went to their students. And the boxes came from Brian at the coffee center. So again, we're reusing. We're going to be building shelves in the garden for these greenhouses. They're going
020to go outside. So they're all native perennials, hardy perennials. And the seeds have to go through a stratification process. And so it's good for them in the winter. It actually makes, it's better than grow lights. It'll make them hardier. They need to go through the fluctuation of temperatures and the wind to actually be sturdier plants. So this is actually a better way than growing them under green lights. We're going to put that poly on that, and we're going to build some shelves with some of the wooden pallets from our construction crew. So we're trying to use, you know, reuse and re- and recycle as much as we can and contest there's $5,000 15 the top prize is $5,000 15 prizes and the idea is there's different categories like environmental stem healthy eating and environment I
021guess art and art oh yeah you guys and so Jackie want to tell them kind of what we're doing with the art part So what we're doing... The model out there. We haven't done it yet. So we're going to make a little model of like a tree and animals and stuff. Of Minnesota school, of a Minnesota forest. Yeah. So we're going to take the cartons. They're going to build like a deer and rabbits and squirrels and things that you would find in our school forest. And... We're going to do a little web model just across from my room in the hallway with the cartons. So kids are pretty excited about that part. So that's something we'll be working on this week. And you guys have anything else to add to any of this? Okay. Do
022you have any questions about what we're doing? I think this is awesome. Just incredible. What's your favorite vegetable or plant that you've got to participate in? planting from the very beginning and watch grow and then actually eat or try? Kale. Kale? Ooh. All right. Anybody else? The corn? How was the salsa? Really good. Yeah? It turned out really good, yeah. Do you guys remember what we found on the corn? Brian, you got to tell them about that. It was this fungi that you can eat on the corn. It was like... Cuit, lecuche? Is that how you say it? So actually it's a delicacy in Mexico. So some of our Mexican students have actually tried that. We call it corn smut. It's this black fungus that's in the air. We have actually been learning about fungus
023too. How that's a fungi is very important to our ecosystem. Yeah, there's this black fungus, and we got it on our corn, and it looks kind of scary. But it turns the kernels black and big, but we learned that people eat that. It's a delicacy, actually. In Mexico, we weren't brave enough to try it. We have a picture of that, too. I also have a Facebook page that I communicate with the parents, so you guys can all check it out more. It's called Pine Bend School Garden on Facebook. Do any of you take and grow plants at home then? Have you grown some plants at home since your garden club? Yeah? My dad made a bed for my mom, and we plant. plants in there, but a problem we have at my home and school
024is that squirrels eat them. And rabbits and deer. At my grandma's house, in the spring, we plant cabbage, we plant tomatoes, we plant peppers. I love what you're doing. I love the experience that you're having, but hearing you talk about it, because it's like In the olden days, we'd have people write all this stuff down, but the storytelling that you're doing is the same process. And it's deeper. Because you can tell someone else what you're doing and how to do it. This is cool. We have some real... Brian and a couple other students, they really have a lot of knowledge that they can lend to me and other kids as well. I just have one question. So whenever you have your things planted, is there ever anything in your stuff? that you wish wasn't in
025there? Like, do you ever find any weeds? Do you? Okay. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't just me. You guys have weeds too? Yeah, but she used to plant everything really close. I cram these beds full. And we do something called companion planting, which if you want to learn more, you can look at my Facebook page. Companion planting. So you avoid the weeds by planting plants? Yeah, so there's very little weeding in these raised beds. There's more out in the pollinator garden. But yeah, we plant things very close. You know, if you think of like the native three sisters, that's the companion planting, how the plants all work together. And they actually improve flavor. And there's a whole chemistry about that. And there's more to learn about that. Wow. Very cool. Thank you.
026Excellent. Excellent. Thank you so much for taking the time to come this evening. Parents, thanks for bringing them. You're welcome to leave if you'd like. Thank you, Mr. Cooper. Thank you. All right. Back to our second information item tonight. Superintendent Bernardson will present several district policies for a first reading for review. Thank you, Matt. Our policy committee, and actually it's our policy committee that was done with their work after the January meeting, has provided us with some policies for their first review. Just want to remind everyone that we go through a process of reviewing these policies that start with district staff. We also use guidance from the Minnesota School Board Association. Then that final review before they come to the board is done by our policy committee. We do have four policies that we're bringing
027forward for the first reading that have no changes. Those policies are policy number 407, employee right to know, exposure to hazardous substances, 409, employment publication, instructional materials, inventions and creations, 426, employee supervision of relatives, and 429, teacher transfer process. Those policies have no changes, but again, they have no changes, and we review these policies on a three-year cycle, so that's why they are in this category. We do have some policies with minimal changes. The first one is policy 408, subpoena of a school district employee, and the changes basically are all those provided by MSBA. Otherwise, we didn't make any changes based on that. Number 412, expense reimbursement, and this is something we're required to have. Of course, 421, gifts to employees and school board members, and this is a complete MSBA policy, and we added
028some definitions. And then 423, employee-student relationships, just put this in a different format, so that's what constitutes the changes. And then 427, workload limits for certain special ed teachers, and this is the biggest change and was an order, or something where we switched things between sections to make sure it was more clear for people. And then our policy 529 had significant changes, and this is staff notification of students with history of violent behavior. And this is a policy that's not required under statute, but one that we choose to have in place. And we really simplified this policy so it would be one that would be much easier to implement and put in place. And this one, in addition to the normal process, we also took time to have this reviewed by our school principals and
029also obtained some legal advice as well to make sure we're in compliance since it is one that we choose, but there's also a statute related to it that we want to make sure we're in compliance with. And once again, this is a first reading of these policies, and we would bring these policies or will bring these policies back or plan to bring them back at our next regular board meeting in March. Very nice. Any questions for Dave at all or the fellows and committee members? Thanks, Dave. Thank you, Tracy. Next up, we'll have Director of Business Services, Heather Owney, share a 2020-2021 budget update. So as part of our budgeting process, we're bringing the board constant updates at work sessions and board meetings. And this is our first fact sheet, and we'll update this as
030we go with more information as we have it. But we start with the current reality, the 2019-20 school year, and just an overview of that. The total district budget, $47.7 million. Our fund balance policy is 8%, which allows for that six weeks of operation. State portion of our revenue is $35.7 million. Federal portion is about $1.6 million, and local portion is just under $9 million. And then our local levy approved portion, which is part of that local, is about $3.3 million. 2017-18 special ed cross subsidy is 3.7 million and the reason we put that on there from 2017-18 is that's the most recent publication from MDE because they published that report every year but it it's behind a couple of years and that's just a an underfunded mandate. The projected 19-20 fund balance is 8.33
031percent and that of course is within you know above that eight percent fund balance policy. And then as we look through budget, we always keep in mind the district budgeting priorities, the strategic plan, class size, which is staffing ratios and support guidelines, and quality programming, which is based on Minnesota state standards and the ISD 199 strategic plan. Another reminder from the past is the 2017 referendum priorities, and that's that $3.3 million that we get in revenue. The operating levy to maintain class size, increase career and college readiness, increase vocational and technical opportunities, support student behavior and mental health. And then our capital levy is to access to digital content, vocational and technical tools, computer software. I think this one goes on to the second page. Classroom furnishings, large musical instruments, and textbooks and curriculum materials.
032And then we did this a little bit different this year by bringing into just some to show some of the major increases and decreases in revenue and expenditures between 2019-20 and 2020-21 school year to show where some of the differences come. A 2% increase in revenue, which is 129 more per pupil, generates about $459,000. The inflation rate on those referendum dollars is about $100,000. The comp ed revenue increase is due to more eligible for educational benefits. So just getting more of those free and reduced applications in, it doesn't necessarily mean that the need has increased or decreased, but there has been an effort to really get families to do those applications this year. And that was about $63,000. additional revenue and projecting a decrease of about 27 ADMs and this may vary with some of
033the the projections that are done you know from TJ at the director of learning for the next year this is a little bit more conservative because we're talking about staffing ratios and and budget so about 27 ADMs would be 297,000 and a decrease to our revenue There was a one-time funding in 2019-20 for Safe Schools, and that was $126,000, so we don't have that again in 2021 unless they decide to add something again spontaneously. And we're doing some changes in the special ed revenue by moving some of the special ed revenue to tuition billing, which we worked with MDE on. And that generates about $230,000. And there was also special ed revenue increase on the formula of about $298,000. So just special ed alone has increased over $500,000 in revenue. So that's really helped us
034in this budget. The expenditure changes, contractual salary and benefit increases of over a million. Retirements, savings of about $183,000. A reduction of 1.0 FTE is just based on the ADM and the right sizing. That's kind of something that could be overages. It just depends on where everything falls, where the student population falls. But it's tied to that $297,000. And a Safeway busing contract for our regular ed transportation increased about $50,000. And then severances change from year to year, but we have a little bit less of a severance payout because we have less people retiring in the year. So the current, the 2020, sorry, I'm going to say this wrong. The 2020-2021 projections are a budget of $48.3 million in both revenue and expenditures. So they'll be so close to the same that it's a flat
035or a net to zero where we don't have. a surplus or a deficit and really the key to that is a lot of that special ed funding that we had and just some of the creative revenue things that we worked on with mde to make sure that we were able to cover where we were a little bit we would have had a deficit otherwise so what that means is any additions to the budget any increases in fte or items would mean a reduction or reconfigure reconfiguration elsewhere in the budget and then our timeline Last month, we did the budgeting, guiding change parameters with the school board, both at the work session and the board meeting. And then today, we're going over this fact sheet. Then March through May, we're really just continuing bringing these updates
036to the board. And in June, on June 8th, the budget would be shared with the board at the, sorry, June 8th meeting. And then at the June 22nd meeting would be where we'd be able to adopt the budget with the board's approval. So just a couple other pieces that budgeting, guiding change parameters, the main piece of that was to align with the school board fund balance policy, align with the school district mission and strategic priorities, and maintain financial stability. And our process has really been for cabinet to meet with each school principal or department lead and talk about the good and the bad, things that have worked well, things that aren't working so well, and then their needs for the upcoming school year. Then we take any of those. needs or requests for the upcoming
037school year and go through those with principals and cabinet and the board and decipher what changes we need to take away and add for the following school year. That's what I have. Just want to remind board members we've been using a fact sheet to help. synthesize and be able to make it so that everybody can see where things are at and as you progress through the budget process to help align so that you and our district leaders and our district staff can better or easily understand what the budget situation is. As Heather mentioned at the end of her presentation that we're kind of at that zero right now where if we need to add anything we need to do a corresponding adjustment in another place. But at the same time, we talked a little bit
038at our work session about we feel that our budget... status right now is far better than a lot of our neighbors and for that we're quite thankful but one of the most important things that we do along the way is we continually work to try to right size based on the number of students that we have and we're even working to get better at that and be a year or two or three down the road thinking about that so that's a part of our decision making so that we can be as responsible as we can be and make sure that things are flowing in a way that's more level than having ups and downs along the way. And at the same time, I also want to share this is not a funding year at the
039legislature. That was last year. So the legislative session, of course, there's proposals out there with the state having to fund balances, but we can't go to the bank with that. That's just a proposal. And then next year would be another funding year when it comes to the legislative session. So I want to thank Heather for the work that she's done to get it synthesized so that we can see it in this format and hopefully make it easy for you and others to understand what our situation is. Any questions at all? A couple questions. When you're doing the process where you're going out to the buildings as a cabinet and you're talking to the buildings and going through it, are they able to see each other so they have an understanding of each other's needs? And
040or is the cabinet sorting through that? Later in the process. We haven't gotten to that one yet. We've started. We're really taking all the notes right now from those meetings. And I'm costing out each request so that we have an overall idea of what we're looking at. How much would it cost to add that FTE or get that item or, you know, some things could fall under LTFM, you know, just really sorting through. And then as we do that. then I believe is it leadership meeting or principal meeting that we bring it back to them. We want them when we have those meetings to be really forward thinking and we don't really talk a lot about budget because we don't want that to stifle their thoughts. We want them to be really open and anticipate
041what they may need to help things to progress. But then when we get into this conversation, then it's about, okay, if you want to do that, are there any adjustments you can do to make that happen? and this information is is public or this right here this is sheet will be okay yeah we'll have it on the as a part of board book and then i'm sure katie will use it in some context because we'll update a month by month as we go along and the second part is sometimes when we need a new fte it's due to um increasing in student enrollment which equates to backpack dollars which then helps that side of the funding as well You can see why Heather's probably a little more conservative when it comes to the ADMs by
042making sure we're at the lower end rather than the higher end because we'd much rather add later on than think about having to reduce later on. Thank you, Heather. Thank you. Very informative. Okay, we'll hit upon some of our committee reports. Rachel, do you have an update on Facilities Committee? I do. The Facilities Committee will be meeting on March 9th. All right. Gary, with an update on finance committee? Yes. We met on Monday to discuss a year-to-date spending analysis, the monthly check register, the 19-20 budget revisions, and the 20-21 adopted budget. Thank you. Gary, do you have a personnel update? I do. The personnel committee met on February 10th to discuss updates on insurance and labor management committees as well as a review of the role of the personnel committee and there will be an
043extracurricular activities committee will be starting in March. All right, thank you. And then Policy Committee, Mary Frances, do you have an update for that? Yeah, we met tonight prior to tonight's meeting and we discussed several of the district policies, specifically 509 and 601. Membership reports. Cindy, do you have an update on Equity Alliance Minnesota for us? Yeah, I do. We met last Wednesday and we met in Roseville at the Roseville District Office and we had a presentation. We always have a presentation from the district and they talked about their educational equity curriculum and instructors. instruction compass that they developed and they use this when they're going through the curriculum decision-making and they have been spending they've spent a three years in the collective knowledge creation and they you this kind of reminds me of how
044we developed our mission statement it starts kind of in the classroom and works its way up to the boardroom and then back and forth and they have a saying we belong to each other that's their like And I heard Quenell say what he said about their year that was their mission up there. And one course, and I talked to TJ before, that it was really intriguing when they were presenting to me, it's their U.S. history course. They don't have a set curriculum going into it, and they're very inquiry-based. And it's built together with the students as the students sign up for the class and show up in class, which I thought was really cool. And they've worked closely with the Minnesota Humanities Center for the past three years. And they're working really hard at inclusive
045PD and CRTC in their PLCs. And, you know, all the acronyms in education. Culturally responsive teaching curriculum? Yes. That's what it is. And so the question I asked when they were talking about this, because they talked a lot about how they want the voice of everyone to be involved in it, I asked if at their PD, do they have students there, or do students help plan that? Because student voice was such an important piece to them, and they said they hadn't thought of that, but it probably would be a really good idea. So more to come. I think it was interesting. And then they rolled out, Equity Alliance Minnesota did a revamp of the website, and so they go out to the website, and it looks new. And along with that came some new literature,
046and they shared new literature with us. They're now doing equity audits, and they go out to districts, and they provide an equity audit of, like, where are you right now? And they're working heavily with the Shakopee school districts right now, because, you know, as an organization, we're trying to be... Meet the needs of people other than just district members and so they're doing some outside consulting they have focus groups And then that one thing they are meeting the need for there's this new thing in licensure. It's professional educator licensing and standards board approved cultural competencies. There's a whole new component on the licensure. And they're trying to fit that niche and provide training. And they have a whole piece on that training. Another training is Middle School Business Innovation Academy. It's a two-week summer program
047that is together. And then hopefully you saw the article in AMSD that was Get to Know Equity Alliance. And it goes over some of the... The new direction and the things they're doing they talked a lot about all the professional development they're providing in different places around the state and at different meetings and organizations and I think they were at MSBA and and they talked about a youth executive board is also presenting and I think they were at wherever they were just at they were like the highlight of the I now have the acronym, but I don't know what it stands for F REC leadership anybody know that one Leadership Institute was January 30th, and they were the highlight of the whole conference apparently. So that's our update. Thank you, Cindy. Lynette, do you have
048an AMSD update for us? Well, I am the new AMSD rep. However, I wasn't able to attend the first meeting. I had to leave town for a funeral, but Dave shared the meeting notes with me. The next meeting is going to be on March 6th. In this meeting, the legislative priorities were shared by AMSD Executive Director Scott Cronquist along with surrounding area superintendents. the agenda also included information from mde or minnesota department of education i had to throw out that acronym commissioner mary catherine ricker and a legislative panel that was presence and they had a question and answer session so i will be there on the next one hopefully thank you i do not have any updates from msba i don't know if anybody else has any but nothing nothing too much going on there
049right now Dave, do you have an update from ISD 917? Yes, and as a reminder, a school board rep to Intermediate School District 917 is Jill Lewis, and they had their last meeting on February 4th. Their agenda included approval of their 19-20 revised budget, a joint powers agreement, maintenance payments to member districts, and a resolution directed administration to make recommendations for reductions in programs and positions. And the Assistant Director of Principal Technology Coordinator and Secondary Principal Contracts were approved for 2019 through 2021. Okay. Thank you, Dave. On to our action items for tonight. We will have Director of Learning T.J. Anderson-Schmidt introduce the recommendation. to approve the achievement and integration budget and plan for school years 2020-2021 through 2022-23. Well said. It's a tongue twister. The proposed achievement and integration plan and budget overview that
050I'm going to share was shared with the board during the work session earlier this month. And just to ground all of us, the purpose of the Achievement and Integration Program through Minnesota statute is to pursue racial and economic integration, increase student academic achievement, to create equitable educational opportunities, and to reduce any academic disparities that would be based on students' racial, ethnic, or economic backgrounds in our Minnesota public schools. any school district that creates an achievement and integration plan is required to follow four different equity criteria and to ensure that those plans also have three different goal types the equity criteria are to ensure that all of our students and families have access to rigorous high quality educational experiences decision making initiatives and resources that we're focused on participation and so that's enrollment and meaningful participation
051in our rigorous career and college readiness and other academic programs as well as any enrichment or extracurricular programs as well that our programs are representative as we look at our school culture our climate and our staff that we're inclusive that our students and families can see themselves in all that we offer and what we offer is culturally relevant and representative of our families and our students And lastly, that the outcome efforts are focused on creating measurable outcomes that are not predictable by race, ethnicity, or economic background. As I shared, we are required to have three different goal types in our achievement and integration plans. The first goal type is looking at reducing the disparities in academic achievement among all students. And then specific categories of students excluding gender disability or students receiving English language services.
052The second goal is to increase racial and economic integration. And then the third is to reduce disparities by increasing equitable access to effective and more diverse teachers among all of our students. The Achievement and Integration Program aligns beautifully with our strategic plan. One of our strategic directions is creating a culture of racial equity. And as we revisit our leadership agreements, we see a lot of commonalities between what we've committed to as a school district and the purpose of achievement and integration. Our leadership agreements are... to ensure that we're holding high expectations and guaranteeing achievement for all of our students, that we lead courageously for all students and confront any achievement gaps with intentional conversations and practices. that our work together is to create a racially conscious and student-focused culture, and that as leaders we ensure
053safe, welcoming, and engaging environments, resulting in productive relationships for all of our families and our students within our community. So as we look at our achievement and integration plan, it's based on four, I'm sorry, five different goals. Those five different goals are meeting the three different goal types that I shared just a little bit earlier. Our first goal is that the percentage of students in all racial and ethnic and free or reduced meal student groups in our testing grade, so that would be grades three through eight, 10 and 11. or enrolled for a full academic year and are not proficient in our reading and math assessments, the MCAs will decrease by 50% by 2023. And so what this goal does is it's focusing on achievement disparities. And we're looking at increasing outcomes for every student
054group. But not every student group is achieving at the same rate. And so as we look at that decrease, you can see that there are differences in the amount of increases needed in order to reach that goal. We have multiple strategies that we're focused on to meet that goal as a school district Our first strategy is our Academy of powerful parents in combination with community liaisons Our Academy of powerful parents is really focused on family engagement and supporting student achievement We know how important relationships are with our families and our students and our Academy of powerful parents helps kind of clarify some of the pieces of school that sometimes aren't always transparent for all of us, but it also helps us build relationships with our families. Our community liaisons currently, we have a community liaison
055who works with many of our Hispanic and Latino families. She's a Spanish speaker. We also have a community liaison in our American Indian Family Program. Both are integral through Academy of Powerful Parents, but also during the school day with families and helping students navigate any questions or concerns that they may have in the system. Our second strategy is our kindergarten readiness camp. It's a two-week summer camp that really focuses on supporting students with their transition to kindergarten. We target largely students who have not had other early childhood experiences or access to pre-k, but the real focus is on supporting kids through social-emotional learning, developing early literacy skills, and really just getting them excited about school and feeling comfortable about kindergarten. And our community liaisons are there for kindergarten readiness camp as well. Our third strategy
056is an elementary reading specialist. Really focused on supporting students' reading achievement through not only strong core instruction in the classroom, but supporting intervention for students who need additional support, whether that's in small groups or one-to-one. And then our fourth strategy is really... supporting and creating habits of mind for academic success. And what this focuses on is increasing students' critical thinking, their literacy, their math skills, and really self-efficacy across the curriculum. A lot of this is done through our AVID school-wide strategies at both the middle school and the high school, through tutors and partnerships. We have a new partnership with Inver Hills Community College where students are coming in as peer mentors to our middle school and our high school students. supporting them with study habits and then we have a student success coach in the
057middle school as well as the transition program of link leaders and web at the middle school in the high school I think many of us know that the first day of school for sixth graders they're the only kids in the building and same thing for our ninth graders and we have upperclassmen who are helping support the students as they transition into those new school environments but That relationship doesn't stop that first day of school. That mentorship continues throughout the year. Our web and link leaders go into advisories. They go into homerooms. They create additional activities for kids throughout the year. And it's been very well received. Our second goal is to increase the graduation rate for all of our students. And as we look across our student groups by race and ethnicity, as well as
058free and reduced lunch, we're looking at decreasing the percentage of students who are not graduating within four years by 50% by the 2022-2023 school year. And we also have multiple strategies to support this goal around graduation. and reducing achievement disparities. The first strategy is one I referred to earlier as we're looking at habits of mind for building academic success. The next strategy is really increasing rigorous coursework and concurrent enrollment options for all of our students. We're looking to really increase the participation of underrepresented student groups in our coursework. And so this strategy has multiple partners. We're working with equal opportunity schools. equity Alliance Minnesota is helping provide professional development for our teachers we have post-secondary institution partners to increase access that would include partnerships with Dakota County Technical College we have quite a few concurrent
059enrollment classes at Ember Hills Community College but more of those classes are coming into the school setting so our students are able to earn that college credit but in the high school environment and we're adding more and more classes all the time That also includes high school credits in health and physical education as part of a summer program so kids can get a jump start on some of their credits in the summer to open up their schedules to explore other credit opportunities during the year. As we look at increasing access to rigorous coursework, we're also looking at summer programs to provide a boost to students. And so we have an AP skills camp in the summer. Cindy had referred to this a little bit earlier. We're partnering with Equity Alliance Minnesota as well to provide
060access to our middle school students to the middle school innovation camp that's happening at the University of Minnesota. It's with faculty out of the Carlson School of Management and students are working on leadership skills and other soft skills in the summer as well. And then this is also supported through our tri-district career and college readiness collaborative. And then the sixth strategy under increasing our graduation rate is creating innovative credit recovery models. And we're really looking at how we're supporting strong core instruction at the secondary level, but also how we can support students within the classroom when they do need intervention or when they do need foundational skills and providing opportunities to recover course credits within the class. before we wait until the end of the trimester to know that a student wasn't successful and has
061to make up those credits. A lot of this strategy is around professional development with our secondary staff on how to utilize small group instruction, conferring, but we also have the opportunity through Odysseyware software that helps the teachers customize the learning content for students. provide additional foundational skills, but also provide enrichment for students who are ready to move on and move at a faster pace. Our third goal is around increasing students' level of comfort and their ability to initiate and maintain positive relationships with peers from different backgrounds. This particular goal, we're using an instrument called the Student Engagement Instrument to help us know if we're on track for how students are feeling as they're building relationships with others through the system. We do have strategies around this particular goal as well. The first is helping support
062the development of students' cultural identity, their ability to build relationships and also promote kindness and empathy with each other. This particular strategy is focusing on building not only students but also teachers' cultural fluency and competency, but also providing students with leadership opportunities and training. this work has some different activities our my culture your culture professional development series it's a six hour series it's three different sessions that's offered to all of our new staff coming in through our new staff cohort but it's also been extended to all of our staff throughout the district this does also meet the Pelsby requirements for cultural competency that Cindy was referring to earlier We're also looking at partnering with equity alliance To provide students with opportunities due to ethnic studies research for our sophomores and our juniors We have a
063kindness retreat for all of our students across the district in grade 5 courage retreat in grade 7 and then our youth executive board Which would be our high school students who are working with equity alliance, Minnesota and other youth executive members across the metro area as well And then earlier I had referred to our Where Everyone Belongs, our web leaders and our link leaders in the middle school and the high school. And then the last strategy around creating this culture is around social-emotional learning. And we're really working to support a positive school and classroom climate for all of our students and all of our families to build that school-wide culture of kindness and respect through the explicit teaching of social-emotional skills such as empathy, responsibility, problem solving. And this is being supported at the K-5.
064level through two different curriculum selections. One is Second Step and the other is Caring School Community. Our middle school is working through mindfulness practices right now as well in their advisory and this also comes through social emotional learning professional development for teachers. Our fourth goal in our achievement and integration plan is to increase all of our students' access to effective teachers who are trained in culturally responsive pedagogy. And so this goal is aiming to increase the percentage of staff who are participating in this cohort from 30% to 90% by year 2023. Those professional development opportunities, again, I referred to a little while ago, but the My Culture, Your Culture, Success in the Classroom Professional Development Series, any new staff member coming into the district already participates in this learning as part of their tenure process,
065but it is also something that we're working with all of our staff on. Equal Opportunity Schools up in the secondary level is providing professional development for all of our secondary staff. We have equity coaching through Minnesota Equity Alliance and each of our buildings is on a continuum of developing site-based equity teams. And then we have partners through Equity Alliance Minnesota, Metro State and the University of Minnesota to support culturally responsive teaching practices. And then lastly, our fifth goal is to increase the hiring of racially and ethnically diverse teachers and administrators from 6.7% in 2019 to 20% of new staff candidates each year by 2023. We're really focusing our efforts to recruit and retain and support staff who are culturally responsive and representative of our students' racial and ethnic backgrounds. The focus of this goal would
066be providing additional funding to support advertising on job search engines, to have more of our staff be able to participate in job fairs, to provide district tours for prospective teachers. and also to partner with urban teacher preparation programs including Metro State, St. Thomas, and the University of Minnesota. But our goal is not only to recruit our staff, it's to retain our staff as well. And so part of this strategy includes monthly affinity groups with our staff of color. And then our achievement and integration plan, those are written and carried out for three years. And so what I just shared is a 2021 through the end of the 2023 school year. and then each year we receive achievement integration revenue and we write a new budget each year and so what you see that was shared
067with you during the work session earlier this month is our adjusted revenue for the 2020-2021 school year we had a total of $680,442 out of the achievement integration program Of those dollars, at least 80% must go directly to serve students. No more than 20% can go to professional development. And then no more than 10% to administrative or indirect costs. We have a breakdown here of the different strategies that I shared with you earlier and how they fit in those different categories. Our services such as kindergarten readiness camp or AVID or equal opportunity schools, our reading specialists and so on, those make up about 92.9 or almost 93% of the proposed achievement and integration budget. Our professional development is making up 1.2% of that budget. i do want to say we do a lot of professional
068development and while only 1.2 percent is proposed in this budget we do utilize staff development dollars we utilize title two dollars to also support those different efforts that i shared with you this is not enough um but we have a we don't have as much flexibility around some of these other areas to use other budgets um And then our administrative and indirect costs come at 5.9%. That includes the stipends for all of our Academy of Powerful Parents leaders, our Equity Alliance Minnesota membership, a portion of my salary as the Achievement and Integration Leader, and then our resources to support human resources recruiting and affinity groups for diverse staff. I just shared our new three-year proposed achievement and integration plan and our proposed budget for the 2021 school year, and we are requesting your approval. Thank
069you, TJ. Do I have a motion and a second to approve the achievement and integration budget and plan for school years 2020, 2021 through 2022, 2023? So moved. Second. Any discussion? Just a point of clarification, just because I know some people might be looking at the numbers here. The Equity Alliance membership and services is at $75,745, but that includes services and membership. Yes. And so down here where you see the membership, when it's only $40,000, that's why those two numbers don't match up. because some of the student programming yes is part of that 75 right exactly so the 75 000 only 17 000 of that is actually our membership fees to belong to equity alliance minnesota the remainder um almost 20 and i'm sorry not almost 20 almost 50 000 of the services is direct
070student services So that would be like supporting kindergarten readiness camp, innovation camp, AP skills camp, the youth executive board, those different things. Any other questions or comments? Put a lot of work into this, and I applaud you for it. It is a very big group effort, but we will take your thank you. Thank you. And I suppose each year you evaluate how you're doing on those goals. Absolutely. Yeah. adjust as needed for the following year. And just to, Carrie was asking about the, could spend more on professional development, but the flexibility with this money is more for student programming than other funds are. Exactly. For example, Dakota County Technical College Transportation. To get that funding, we can use this. Right. Instead of using professional development money right in here right professional development and that money
071can come from somewhere else Exactly, okay, so by no means is this enough to exactly cover everything that we need to do But it gives us a little bit of flexibility and budgets that we couldn't pay for these things with yeah So you're very creative. Thank you. We are all very creative Any other discussion okay all those in favor Aye. Opposed? Motion carries 7-0. Thank you, TJ. As that was our only action item of the night, we will move on to some... Comments starting with Superintendent Bernerton. Thanks, Matt. First of all, I want to thank, you know, Cooper and Pine Bend for hosting our meeting this evening and for the great rundown on the body of the school and as well as getting to hear from some of our students about the work that they're
072doing here that really bonds them together. I also want to just share that our 199 Advisory Committee, which is made up of parent representatives, community representatives, and a city representative. met on February 6th and we talked about our budget, we talked about legislative priorities. One of their burning questions was why are the school district bounties the way that they are? In other words, why does Invergrove Heights in the city actually serve three school districts? So we provided a summary of that and that information will also be included in the next edition of the reporter. And then Mary Garrison and Abel Riadiki, so our Director of Special Services and Assistant Director. joined to discuss with them how we work with student behaviors, supports, and training and actually set them through a little bit of training as
073well. And they were very excited about that and very, I think, had some eye-opening experiences about all the work that we do to make sure that our students can be as successful as possible. So it was very well done and much thanks to Abel and Mary for spending the time to do that. I'm spending a good amount of time right now visiting with students at their schools. And as always, it's very enjoyable, but it's even more enlightening to hear what students have to say. And they really like the idea that if we're going to be providing an education to them, we surely need to hear from them about how they perceive things and what they would like to have happen for them. Also, we want to remind people that there's lots of registration opportunities going
074on right now for preschool and kindergarten. And we really like people to get that information to us as soon as they can. It helps us with our future planning. Also, just on the student end, Our middle school and high school have had some sessions for kids during the day on vaping. We had middle schoolers over at the Performing Arts Center hearing from the American Heart Association. Then I had a chance to sit in on a biology class that was also getting that presentation. So our younger kids or our high school kids hearing about vaping and alike. And that's very encouraging for them to get information so they can understand about the choices that they may choose to make. I want to thank and actually share that our winter activities are... have concluded our reaching their
075last portion of the season i want to congratulate our students athletes on their great success and wish those that are still in session the best as they move forward also today i received a letter that matt corey one of our simile high school teachers has made the cut to be one of 36 semi-finalists for minnesota teacher of the year which is very exciting not only for matt but also for simile high school and also for a school district And then last but not least, just want to thank you again as we did at the beginning for your service, not only just because it was School Board Recognition Week, but to let you know day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, how much we appreciate the work that you do and
076how it really sets a tone for what takes place in the classroom and your dedication and service to our school district community is applauded and much appreciated. Thank you. That's it. All right. Lynette, would you like to start us off? Sure. It is always such a pleasure when we get to go to the schools and a treat when we get to hear from the students. I just... It really shows how evident it is, how much you care in your presentation tonight. I love the mission and vision, everyone in this together, because that's what it's really all about. Just the whole thing warmed my heart. And then to hear the Garden Club and what they're doing, it's those things that make such a memorable and special education that we're providing here. Congrats to the BEST Foundation.
077I didn't get to go this year, but I heard it was a huge success. My daughter said it was very busy when she was volunteering. I think the new setup was really well received, so thank you for all that are a part of that. And to all the winter activities that are winding down, we had such a successful season, dance and swimming, basketball is just getting started, fingers crossed that we might have a big year, but game by game. And then if the weather stays this way, maybe we'll actually have spring sports start on time and not have three, four baseball games in a week and run out of pitchers. But just a good week here, and thanks to all of you. Those presentations might take 10 or 15 minutes for the budget and for
078yours, but we know that lots and lots of time are put into those, so we appreciate it. Thanks, Lynette. Mary Frances. I just want to piggyback really quick off one comment that you made about Pine Bend. I'm really impressed with your increase your scores, your achievement scores in the reading and the math areas. So, and your students seem happy. On a side note, I'm just trying to continue to stay grounded and part of it is just really to continue to learn about the school communities and i spent some time today over at the high school i just dropped in i thought i was going to do a self tour but the principal was very gracious and he guided me through and going back to tj's presentation it was really clear that the Coursework was very
079rigorous and I saw just like all aspects. I wasn't really clear with the concurrent programs that were going on and I was just in awe to see. see what's going on and to understand that students could actually come out with a CNA and you know not have to be able to have like a living wage. So I applaud all the work that's going on in the district and clearly it didn't just start at high school. It's been kind of a you know a pathway from elementary school. Thank you. I don't have a lot in the way for comments tonight, but I wanted to echo what Lynette said about having our meetings in the schools. They are always my absolute favorite ones that we do all year. Just hearing about the good work that our students
080are doing and how much you care about, I can tell you and all your staff, how much you care about the students here. It's just, words fail how heartwarming it is, but it really is just incredible to see when we're here. So thank you for having us. Yes, Mr. Cooper, it's always good to see you and I can hear your passion and I just think it's really fun that students are learning more than just reading and writing and how to grow things, take care of our environment, eat more healthy options. I do not have a green thumb, so maybe I could come and learn something from them. And also, just as I'm out and about in the community with our kids, one comment that I heard a lot this weekend when we were with our
081daughter at a traveling basketball tournament was the families just love the small-town feel of Invergrove and how... you know especially those who grew up in more rural communities they like the small town nature but close to the city and how their students just have lots of opportunities so this is just a plug for families and students that there is a place for you you belong and there are lots of different activities from the garden club to sports to theater to debate that you could plug into. And then lastly, thank you to Katie Sheridan and all of your work with social media. Again, a plug to the community. It's a great opportunity to just get a glimpse of what is happening in our schools. And it's, yeah, it's fun to see. Yeah, a couple of things.
082I'm wearing my other hat. The best applications, so seniors, they should be applying right now for your scholarship applications for the class of 2020. And they are due Monday, March 2nd at 3 p.m. So I've been answering a few questions. I've been talking to a few college students, helping them find their unofficial transcripts. And teaching never stops. So onward with that. It's kind of fun, though, because sometimes they walk out your door and you're not sure where they end up. So to see some of the things they are dealing with is kind of interesting. I am reading a book, Gutsy Women, and I'm going to leave you with two quotes from there. One is from Maria Montessori. The greatest gifts we can give our children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.
083And the other one fits right into our report, TJ, and the work she's been doing from Esther Martinez. Don't teach me my culture. Use my culture to teach me. Thank you, Cindy. Sherry? Lots of thank yous tonight. Thank you to Connell tonight for your leadership here in this Together theme. Love it. The Garden Club students were great tonight. Thank you to them. I learned something about planting. Plant, what'd she say? Plant it really close together so that you won't get weeds. So I'm excited about that. I'm going to try that this year. We'll be over to check it out. I don't know if I'll be making salsa like you guys, but thank you to that. Thank you to Heather tonight for the budget update. Very clear and precise on all that. TJ for a presentation
084tonight on all those goals. goals and programs that we provide just yeah, just amazing amazing programs and and just the In this together. I mean everybody is and like you said it's just I'm just so impressed with all the people that work to see this to see this work that needs to happen and Very passionate about all of that Also, thank you to my fellow board members for your dedication and everything to our students and the staff at ISD 199. I've said it before, I'm very proud to be a part of this team. And also, a lot of you know that I've been very interested in mentoring. And Treehouse is an organization for kids ages 12 to 18, and it provides support groups and mentorship. I'm happy to announce that the Invergrove Heights South St.
085Paul chapter has begun. And it takes place Tuesday evenings, 530 to 9. It includes a meal at River Heights Church on Cahill. And we're looking for mentors and support group leaders. Thank you, Sherry. First off, I have to thank Principal Cooper for having us here tonight and providing an update on... what i believe we've all perceived as great things happening here all in this together and you know it's it it shows i i think um you know with the different we had the gardening club here tonight but um you know continue to just see um not only you know the whole district but pine bend flourish and and appreciate that so thank you um had the opportunity to attend the Best Foundation dinner, carnival, I should say, and that was a great time. I've attended
086a few times over the last five, six years, and once again, it's a great foundation, great time, and I hope that it worked out well for the foundation. that donations were good. So a great time. And then also just finally a good luck to all the sports and activities that are coming down here to playoff time. It's been a good winter session, but we'll see how playoffs go. So it should be fun. With that. there is no work session in march so our next meeting will be the regular board meeting that'll be held at the simile spartan center on monday march 9th at 5 30. so everybody just make sure they come in through the right doors there do i have an emotion and a second to adjourn the meeting tonight rachel and sherry thank
087you all those in favor aye motion carries at six 53 p.m. Thank you.