001all right I promise meeting to order this is the regular meeting of the Northfield Public School Board today is Monday October 26 2020 and the time is seven o'clock P.M we are present this evening in the Northfield high school media center in accordance with with Governor walls stay safe plan this room has been set up in accordance with the plan's social distancing guidelines in addition all those present at the meeting will be wearing face coverings for the duration of the meeting also attending tonight's board meeting via teleconference are Aaron Bailey director of Community Education and Val mertistoric Director of Finance this meeting is open to the public via live stream the recording of this meeting will be posted on the district website as soon as possible Dr Hillman there were a number of items in
002the table pile yes there are several items in the table file there's some policy committee recommendations there's an operations update that includes a preliminary report from our 30-day pulse survey a number of appointments and a leave of absence and then I regrettably also need to request that the board remove individual action item number one this evening the memorandum of understanding between the alc Randolph and Tri-City United high school if we've been working to try to get our attorneys to review that mous the board had requested and we just have not been successful as of yet I talked with our attorney about six o'clock and I just didn't feel we had enough time yet to be able to get that done so we will bring that back it's not time sensitive it's not it doesn't have
003to be done by this but we try to be ahead of the game but we just don't have all the data that we that you had requested so we're just gonna have to postpone that and remove that from the agenda this evening okay all right thank you very much if there's no there's no uh to the uh adding these items to the agenda as we move forward no objections is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented moved by Jeff is there a second a second by Alan all those in favor of the agenda as presented say aye aye oppose motion carries public comment we now have an opportunity for residents business and Property Owners parents students and employees of the Northfield Public School District to address the board to accommodate the public comment
004portion of our meeting we made available on the district's website the ability for the public to submit feedback to the board via email by 5 pm today all submissions that follow the district policy regarding public comment would be read Now by myself board chair we had no public comments submissions so we can move on with announcements and recognitions Dr Hillman yes we uh we have several this evening or a few this evening first we want to thank sheldahl flexible Technologies who has been a supportive member of the North Field and surrounding communities for the past 65 years and as part of their commitment to support the local community and to support the health and safety of our children and staff they donated 7 000 masks to local schools 700 of those masks were donated to
005Northfield public schools and we want to thank sheldahl for their commitment to safety for our children and our staff so thanks to sheldahl uh we have some really good news to report on the Athletics front congratulations to our boys soccer team Laura the section one double A Champions uh and just by uh by adding note uh they actually won the final two games in the thunderstorm because the weather was let's just say early onset winter and we're very fortunate to have that resource within our community so that we could just play those games locally under the bubble out and done this and so congratulations to the Raiders class section one double A champions while there's no cross-country state tournament this year but four runners would have qualified for State Martin Bryce Nathan amundsen Nicole tierbard
006and Anna for board and so congratulations to those Runners on what would have been a state birth and in our girls swim and dive Zippy hanafel is the section diving champion and the 200 medley relay of Lee fossum Lindsay Sunday Ellen barley and Anna shiglowski broke the pool record by a tenth of a second so congratulations to them and I want to share with you that about a week or so maybe 10 days ago we got an email from uh head football coach Baba Sullivan indicating that Northfield high school was going to take part in an initiative called where the zero the zero the zero initiative and what it is is Rashad Bateman of the University of Minnesota football team changed his uniform number to zero this year as a symbol to indicate there is
007zero tolerance for racism in Minnesota's culture and then is it called to action to end racism in our society the Raider football team decided to participate and they are supporting the zero initiative by wearing the zero stickers on the back of their helmets and committing themselves tolerate zero racism on their team and in their community so then Joel Olson our activities director tweets this photo and this little statement which then gets picked up and Amplified by none other than number zero himself or Sean Bateman All-Star receiver for the Golden Gophers and that caught the attention of Fox 9 News who was here today to do a little story on the Raider football team and their commitment to ending racism in our community so we thank coach Sullivan and the football team we have talked about
008our anti-racism framework and we've talked about how symbolism and individual Behavior are important and I think that by participating in this where the zero program we're doing both right wearing the zero on the back of the helmet is a symbolism that we are committed to anti-racism and then it also is a gateway to talk about our own individual behaviors and so I'm really proud of how our District's anti-racism framework has now started that that the flywheel that we talk about is starting to spin where people are picking up on those goals and they are taking them and they're implementing them in their own spaces without having to be directed to do so so really proud of our Raider football team and then happy that they got a little bit of press with it today also
009want to encourage you uh to take a look at the activities calendar for this Saturday Halloween night we have a very uh special presentation by our Northfield High School drama Department we all know and adore Bob Gregory bjorkland our longtime theater director and when the pandemic hit he made an interesting choice because he wanted to make sure that there was some kind of theatrical performance for the fall but he also knew how things were not predictable so he selected very appropriately The War of the Worlds radio program and so the high school fall play will be the The War of the Worlds it's simply a radio show that we're going to do on the football field and so that way we can have people in the foot in the stands and so uh please check
010the activities calendar for times but again so thankful for Bob and thinking ahead about what kind of flexible show could we do that regardless of the public health circumstances that we would be able to they've done a lot of their practicing via zoom and so we're very excited to uh to see that unique product action only as our theater Department can do so those are the announcements for this evening okay Amy I just want to ask Dr Hillman if you'll send out the information to all of us about the War of the Worlds presentation I absolutely can yes thank you okay great so we'll move on now for discussion and reports our first item is the summary of the public hearing that just took place regarding the 20 20 21 world's best Workforce plan and
011returning to do that director of instructional Services hope Langston so this is an opportunity board members for us to ask questions make comments on hopes presentation eight first thank you hope I love your enthusiasm and your knowledge and you are very positive person when you present these things and I really appreciate that I am wondering if you would speak a little bit more on how the Portage students do or do not fit into how we can take these various measurements going forward you touched on it some but like will they be able to take the ACT well they you know how do you see the Portage students in relationship to the world's best Workforce plan so we know that um they weren't part of that math testing they were they will be required to be
012part of MCA testing should that take place um they would be considered just like the students in our district so that part would be done ACT Testing yes we will offer it to them they have the option to participate in PSAT testing um via like two weeks ago um so that again will be up to the individual family to decide if that's something they want to participate in but we we do anticipate having our Portage kids be part of required State Testing other questions comment great report and I was so excited to see the kindergarten results it's just it's a really nice thing to see and continue to watch life's friends and again wonderful work on the data Summit with the students they were so enthusiastic last year about it and I know it was
013a huge lift so thank you for all that you did with that um my questions are sort of centered on the career and college ready piece and I know Amy had asked about this back when we had the high school school Improvement plan and this came up again this the idea of career ready versus College ready came up during the Northfield promise Council of Champions um meeting so I wanted to follow up because it looks like a lot of the actions that we have are more focused on the two year and four year which is great um but I'm just wondering about the career Readiness piece and this question came from a Community member and I know we had really engaged a lot of the businesses early um when we were looking at some of
014this and you know we still have we've had that career fair but I'm just wondering um when you look at the data it looks like there's going to be students that are going to need remediation and have to positively pay for that if they were to go on so I'm just wondering if there are things that actions that we can take that are more focused on the career Readiness piece and not just the college readiness and I know that part of this the world's best Workforce is defined by what MD wants but I'm so this is sort of more open and probably broader than the world's best Workforce but I just wondered if you could address that a little bit I think that's a great question and I think the um the visibility of that
015career fair that happens in the spring that brings kids to the middle school and brings high school over to the middle school is that first foray into like choice for for kids in our Middle School um and so I think the process kind of begins there and as they move through the high school we know again this is something we've looked at we've studied and we know that kids who were taking like CTE classes at the middle school do not often continue those courses in high in the high school simply because they're scared they can't fit them in their schedule right they're having to make choices and that's one of the things about Northfield is we offer a lot of choices but what that means is you know kids may not be able to proceed
016down a path at the high school that they may be weren't at the middle school um so I think that in terms of the testing metrics which is really what we're talking about here giving that choice to kids is is the first step now when you looked at the results for this year for the active Placer which is really the first time we've ever done this those numbers did not look great but those kids will continue to retake that active Placer and I expect that their scores will improve just like kids who take an act multiple times often see a score increase so they what was really special about that day for those 32 kids that took the accuplacer was as they came out they sat with someone in the torch Department who knew about
017accuplacer sports and actually sat one-on-one and discussed hey what do you want to do when you graduate here's here's the score you got because they get their score instantly here's what that can mean here's maybe what you want to do and if that score wasn't where it needed to be and I think that was an amazing thing to watch and so the numbers don't necessarily tell that story but I think it's you know it's a shift for us it was a shift for us to offer that you know choice and I think you're only going to um get better about kids not only seeing that they have a choice but also the community accepting that there is another pathway besides a four-year traditional college degree so I think we have work to do on that
018but I think we we have taken those beginning steps and I think we just need to continue on okay let's go ahead so just that's great and I'm that discussion sounds I mean how meaningful that had to have been um I'm wondering about the timing so could they have that discussion and then if they'd already registered make some different choices I wasn't sure how the testing date fit with the high school registration so their registration for course right so you said that you know that one of the discussions was okay this is what you want to do here's here's what you might want to think about they I mean that happened in our testing date last year last year right so so what prior to this the fall registration period this year it's March 2nd
019so I know that's going to be super tight but I think that kids you know can still make changes within a certain window so I'm hopeful um that those conversations guide some of that course selection it also worked in the opposite way Ellen where a student came out of there with an actually pretty high mass score and had no idea that that they you know could think about a four-year college so it kind of worked in both directions um but the timing is tight but we sign up for that early spring for that very region um and so it should work out okay in terms of letting those tests inform what they take the following year great thank you great question uh Tom I'm following on that um two and a half ACT test prep
020potentially during like uh the flex hour or something is there an accuplacer test prep if possible so the academic act if not the torch the towards folks do help kids get ready for that most explicitly in math but uh but there's not this the typical coursework that you would see for ACT prep and then um so 32 kids took the eggplacer how many took roughly like the Act and the military and do some just not take any test so um where it's just not appropriate for them to take the ACT we had 10 kids take the ass back and I think it was a I think we had five kids who didn't take any tests last year um and again those were on a case-by-case specific to to the parent and student desire to afford
021the appropriate test for that student so I'm expecting we really were anticipating this year that we'd be continued to see some movement towards capitalizing on that choice um and it was a little over 300 kids who ended up taking the ACT but again Act was the default right so if they didn't send back that card with a choice then they took the ACT two other schools have copper poll percentages um I'm not sure I don't know of any other schools actually officially offering a choice like that um that would be I'd actually be happy to follow up on that for you Tom to see um if that if I can find any other districts who who have done this in a formal way like we have um but so I don't have an answer for
022you tonight but I'm happy to look into that that decision to offer that choice and this really actually goes to what Ellen's question was too when we started to go if you remember the state paid for every student to take the ACT several years ago and then when the state stopped paying for it we continue to pay for it as a district because we looked at it as a metric that we thought was important you know in the school system as we were reviewing several years ago our approach to career in college readiness we as we've said all along one size doesn't fit all and so I very clearly remember it's in the district office conference room looking at how it was part of the achievement and integration goal setting process along with this career
023in college right in this discussion that led to the choice and so I I agree I I don't know of anybody who offers any kind of choice because the accuplacer you get this instant result you basically take it if you're going to go to a community or Technical College and they take they have you take it right there and then but we know that that is the Gateway you know for a number of those uh for those Community and Technical colleges so I I do believe we're one of the few if not the only one who is offering this Universal testing day Choice do other people take accuplacer absolutely but they're doing it at the technical college when they go to register are there other kids to take the ASAP of course there are but
024I don't know of anybody who's packaged it together that you pick one of the three and everybody take it on the same day and it does go to the point of that recognizing that the ACT isn't for everyone and that if you take the ACT and that is not what your long-term goal is now you have taken something that you may not be as as uh successful on as if you were to take a different assessment that better aligned with your post high school plans so I think we could might be able to say we're Innovative on this even right yeah but that's it so I think we only got one year where they actually pay for everybody and then that was quickly done so um so it is a significant cost to the district
025and uh and it and it's worth it we agree that it is important but we also agree that we families and students need a choice about what what they want to do for their post-secondary path excellent from um so you always have lots of information lots of acronyms and I appreciate getting the explanation of those I feel like there was something new that I noticed this time which was the hegarty curriculum and I was wondering if you could this may be review just explain who where this is being implemented what it does and how we might see the results of that um so Haggerty actually there's a guy Michael hegarty he has since passed away but he's the one who developed this this curriculum in foundational skills and and we know that um we have
026learned a lot about how kids learn to read and Neuroscience and cognitive science has has informed us right about how the brain learns to read and we know that there's some skills kids need to have in place and securely in place if they are going to become proficient leaders and those are those phonemic awareness skills like rhyming blending segmenting um syllabication and the hegarty curriculum is is written over 35 week period with very explicit building of skills in all of those for the mix those eight phonemic awareness areas and kids who have this curriculum go on to become proficient readers at a higher rate than can you do not so for instance Saint Dominic's in their partnership with Groves Academy um is using hegerty as well and we I found out about it actually through
027access training um and MDES very strong belief in the program um knew that we had interest in it so in move for move five last year the kindergarten team at Bridgewater wanted to implement Hagerty applied for move by funding got it and the pandemic hit but the more I learned about it this summer the more it became clear like wow for a minimal effort in terms of time and teacher training this is something that could pack powerful punch for our kids so we have funding available through an mde grant called the tier one Fidelity Grant and we use that funding to purchase the product talk to teams of teachers this summer about implementing it to all of kindergarten and all of grade one are are using the program right now where I think we're going
028to see that play out is you know historically from our data that our kids come in ready for k at a certain level but maybe don't always maintain that growth by the end of kindergarten um and we know there's some skills that that need to be explicitly taught and we believe that this is the vehicle that I've already curriculum the vehicle that it's going to allow us to do thank you other questions comments oh I'm sorry Tom go ahead divide in the attendance you talked about like looking at it from a family unit are there other things other things that stand out that are causing low attendance um well we do know that I guess if we're talking about a pandemic year or a non-panda transportation can sometimes be a barrier um if a student
029needs to stay home and care for younger siblings that can be a barrier uh there's kids I'm just talking anecdotally what what I've heard um kids who maybe are choosing to work certain days rather than come to school um so there's kind of a host of of things that that are part of a family unit that we can look at and help a family think about other ways to to make sure that their kids are attending school other oh I'm sorry Tom did you have another question other questions or comments I've had a couple questions um so that the hegarty curriculum is it's really interesting um is that work well with CCC it's augmenting it but our teachers finding that you know that it's maybe throwing off the scope and sequences CCC or it's obviously
030seems like it's blending well with that curriculum CCC actually is a is a proponent of of hegarty and so when um you know we've had a couple meetings with CCC just about how to proceed with this pandemic here um and responding to school closure last year um they are totally on board with hegarty with any new thing that we add you know we have a mixed response right so we are just working to to celebrate some of the wins that people are seeing with the program and and amplify those stories to kind of get other folks on board um but it's it it really is easy to deliver this this curriculum and so we're sort of banking on that and the fact that it can be done virtually or in person it's a routine that
031wants kids learn it becomes pretty regular the eight lessons don't have to be all done at one time so we are you know coaching people like hey you could do one of these while you're waiting in line at the cafeteria and you can do another one while we're waiting a line at gym and so they're they're really you know eight very short exercises that you do with the students and we're just helping teachers see how they can fit that in excellent and you indicated uh kindergarten grade one is that the only grade that are available or is there there's actually it starts Pre-K okay and we have two two Pre-K classrooms um just delivered the materials to them there's a backlog in the cards for hegarty because I think it's getting a lot of demand
032um and so we I just delivered those last week so two pre-ks all of K all of one second grade can use it um but it's the same program as in first grade it's a it's a one-two combo it's called primary so we opted to just do first grade and first grade really um the team that came together and worked on uh critical core this summer they were all in and took it back to their first grade peers and and that was like first grade to say the first grade level to say we are we are doing this so um so really it's cane one okay excellent um so then it to Ellen's point just the huge wins with with kindergarten and and those those um those metrics and um you know so Kudos go
033to you and of course Aaron for the incredible work that you have done with with the preschools um I was wondering is the Mother Goose curriculum still an option for our in-home day yes providers you want to weigh in on that sure up we are still using some mother first time curriculum for in-home daycare so we've also pushed out some other options we're not using it quite um at the same level we did in the last two years partly we don't have the same access to the Mother Goose curriculum time um as we did in those two years that we had the grant this week in some areas put together packets that we have left last um leftover packets that we had that we could still put together and then in other in other areas
034we have continued to work with our in-home child care providers to kind of see what worked well for them out of that and how we can continue that in other ways excellent excellent um so then my question about kindergarten that we were doing the Savers test is that not the yes that actually that window's open right now okay um something that's super exciting about that the Sabers again that can all that is meant to be delivered in in an in-person classroom setting so the Ford Expedition will not be evaluated using Savers it's normed for in school settings um and so that window is open right now but one of the big steps forward with that test is we used to do it on Google forms and it was uh some some messy data cleanup and
035uh again the Brilliance of Chris nessit she figured out how we could put it in Skyward and so teachers are actually completing it in Skyward so that record now travels with the student so we'll be able to really look at some some Trends and um and track a student students you know progress over time with social emotion with that social emotional metric before it was all just living in Google Sheets and I could put it together in a tableau dashboard but it's nice that you know by the time you get kid gets in Middle School you actually have a social emotional history in in the Skyward record so that was I think a big Leap Forward we're all ready to launch that last spring and then the pandemic hit but they're doing it right now
036and they're doing it in Skyward and we think that's going to be a a good win for the district so excellent um and then you and I briefly talked um at the short break we had about the standardized tests for the state so I thought it was interesting um if you you know you were talking about the timeline and the decision-making process and how many challenges that there may be and when we may know as a district what type of Assessments will be done this year yeah I you know typically believe it or not the process that you know the procedures manuals generally published in October November it's already published for this year um and then the process itself starts in December with some special education coding that gets done and it's pretty labor intensive
037for our special ed teachers and I am really hoping they will make a decision before we ask teachers to engage in that process but we have to go move forward as if it's going to happen until they tell us it doesn't and right now there is no federal waiver for this year in place and that's why we were that's where we're in the situation we were last spring because there was a federal waiver for all states there have been a couple states that have requested their waiver this year it has not been granted um and so it's a winning game at this point yeah you know and we just talked about the you know just Statewide we know how many districts are in different learning models and you know two of our largest districts continue
038to be in the state or continue to be distance learning and you were talking about assessments and having parents have to be there and it just seems like an incredibly challenging feat to try to do that so um I guess you just have to wait and see how it plays out but it seems very problematic and really not um not valid when you have people in all different learning models models you know well I think um those are my questions but I think we um I one thing that I was so anxious for you to be here in person is of course for us to thank you for your incredible work and we all know this is the first year you have done this report solo um with the retirement of Mary Grace Hanson who
039is our director of teaching and learning and now your new position as the Director of instructional services and just doing a phenomenal job and you think about walking into this role and the realignment of how we were you know we were providing the the support at the um at each of the the buildings and to have all of the new positions your new positions and then being in the midst of distance learning and then not knowing how this year was going to happen you've just done such a phenomenal job and we didn't even mention then you were added Portage on top of it which was really creating an entire new platform of delivering instructions to 627 44 640 the new running total uh 640 students so I hope we just owe you a huge debt
040of gratitude and to Amy's point you do it so it was such positivity and and the can-do attitude and and there has to be times that there are probably times you just cry but you know you just kept moving forward and we just so appreciate your work and so thank you for this amazing report but for what all of the work that we know about has gone into this report into the results that we see in this report and your recognition of the challenges but your your um positivity and saying we can do this so thank you thank you thanks and I couldn't do it without the team so and and Dr Hellman so thanks to him and we have a great team that's been able pivot and and fill some needs so I I
041feel like I'm the lucky one so we are very lucky that you have the chosen to support in the Norfolk School District so thank you very much all right thanks okay so we will move on now to our next item for discussion which is the policy committee recommendations um as a reminder to board members those policy recommendations were in the table file so if you want to access your table file to create to review those so again this is um Dr Hillman can explain but as you know this is just the first reading so we have an opportunity to talk through the policies that we would not make any formal action on these policies until our next coordinating so Dr Hill nothing like talking policy after whole blanks and gives a presentation if that's not
042totally unfair I don't know what is but uh so we have we actually have three policies that we're bringing to you for the two-step consideration process uh the first one 419 is really some updates statutory updates uh to our tobacco free environment policy last spring one of the things that the legislature did get done uh was some vaping awareness and prevention requirements fortunately the school district has been doing some vaping prevention instruction in our middle school health and our high school health programs for some time so we're already in compliance but the policy does uh talk about making sure that that vaping anti-vaping instructions be really clear we're not teaching people anti-vaping instruction will happen at least once in the middle school once in the high school and then in addition you're going to see
043that there's any time we update the tobacco policy there's a number of definition changes and and part of that is because of the way that products develop and markets evolve so you'll see that there's a number of different parts around definition of things so that is really what the the base changes to 419 are this is the msba model policy recommendations so uh you will see that that is is basically that on 419. when we go to 5 16 this is around student medication and in student medication it's one of the few policies that we bring to you a short policy and then also ask you to act upon procedures you know most of the time procedures that a company policy are things that you empower the administration to develop this is one that we
044ask you to approve both when you take a look at the changes in the procedure it really has some specific things we have made some minor modifications to the model policy around making sure that for example in in D we really highlight Middle High School and area Learning Centers as opposed to Secondary School we're learning people don't always know what the word Secondary School means so we're trying to make sure that we separate those pieces out then you're going to see that in letter h this really appears to be the fact of wanting to have it more than one person with the form that a lot of the form that is giving permission to students to take medication so basically what the the new approach is is to make sure that at least more than
045one other person the principal and or the designee have access to the form so again that's something that had come from a legislative change uh you also see some pieces around what can be brought and who has to bring it that's a new section section n release or surrounding controlled substances and then how do we get rid of something how do we get rid of medication when people have left it behind sometimes people move and they leave their medication with us and so this part of the procedure now defines how do we get rid of any medications and if it's a controlled substance we work with the police force to be able to take that off site for us and take it to the box so that just describes that particular area there there is
046also in our policy committee we actually had a question um there's a section that was is not underlined that actually had to do with times when this policy does not apply and so we reached out to msba to ask them what do they mean by this and uh they said well these are the things that are listed in statute of what it doesn't apply so we put it in for the policy as optional one of which is uh before and after school activity so we're going to continue to take a look at that between now and the next time is it even is it even necessary do we want to make sure that we are keeping uh medications that people have to take it for if they need something for before or after school activities
047as a policy Community we try to brainstorm you know what would they be talking about there but the School Board Association said it was just something that had been listed there was a list of exceptions to the required policy that was in the statute and that they just included it because they wanted to make sure they complied with what the statute had said so we may have to leave it in we may be able to take it out where we just learned that today so we're going to take some additional look at that so that is that particular policy or the policy and procedure surrounding [Music] um student medication policy 607 has some machine some modest changes to grade level the organization of grade levels and it's really surrounding the kinds of documentation that we
048can require for someone to enter kindergarten so just simply goes through and talks about that the district May request documentation that verifies the student falls within the minimum and maximum age requirements for admission to a publicly funded pre-kindergarten preschool kindergarten grades one through twelve it identifies um the records that we can ask for and then if it does also give the out of an affidavit from a parent so a parent can you know create an affidavit indicating that the child is of the appropriate age it also defines what kindergarten and what pre-kindergarten are and I think these are just again some cleanup kinds of things based upon feedback from school districts over the years about making sure that we do have the documentation you know you do we have long had an early entrance approach
049for people wanting to come to kindergarten early but we know that there's a lot of pressure on people to get their students in the kindergarten so we can request are they actually old enough if they're not we could certainly have them go through the early entrance procedures but this just provides the district an opportunity to be able to request those Rapids so those are the three policies again this is first reading uh we'll bring them back to you the next time and ask for formal approval then I I'm sorry I didn't catch this there's the policy committee but I have a question about policy um actually the um the procedures yep uh section m says procedures for administration of drugs and medicine at school and school activities shall be developed in consultation with the school
050nurse blah blah the School District administration shall submit these procedures and any additional guidelines to the school board for approval is that this list of procedures yeah so the procedures include approving the procedures that is apparently correct Amy so I have a couple questions or comments on each one so looking at policies 419 if I read this right so this is just clarifying it um no one is uh allowed to use tobacco products on school grounds but staff and Personnel can possess products is that right can you show me which section are you looking at um I'm looking at where the two well it's kind of in general so so 2A talks about no one being able to smoke or use this tobacco and then to be talks about um violation of this policy occurs
051when any elementary school middle school or secondary school student possesses any type of tobacco tobacco-related devices so that is just the students right so the so you could have a staff member with cigarettes in his or her pocket walking around I mean I'm just wondering how that works and all I'm okay with it I just want to make sure I understand yeah so I believe that the possession as I uh reflect on this I it is it is not legal for someone under the age of 18 to possess um it is legal for someone above the age of 18 to possess now if we had an employee walking around with a pack of cigarettes in their pocket we would talk with them about that that's not an appropriate piece but it's not necessarily against the
052policy to possess offer the example I see would be if a person who did choose to smoke left those you know cigarettes in their car right that wouldn't be a violation of the policy but it would be right for a student so I think it's it's delineating between the ability to possess which is someone 18 or older well now 21 or older actually in our field right because of the back of 21. uh versus someone who's not and so again Professional Standards would we would not accept someone walking around with something that was clearly tobacco related but it wouldn't be against the policy for them to have something in their car or if our schools in a purse or in another uh place where how to say right okay that's what I thought but I
053was just making sure um and then I just a comment for um again policy 419 this is 2D and it talks about well not solicit or accept any contributions or Gifts of money Etc and it seems like this is also connected to 809.1 and I don't know if we need to you know go back and double check to make sure we've stated the same thing in 809.1 or whether we need to refer them to 809.1 or or make that connection really so 809.1 if you remember has a section that we will only enter into agreements that I'm trying to remember the language that talks about that that aligns with the school district vision and ideals and things like that and clearly this would be an i this would that we would not be allowed to
054do that because we have this particular policy as well so I think that my sense would be I'm not sure that you need to have anything else because 809.1 talks about that we would only enter into agreements thank you for the language yes so that uh sponsorship shall not be granted the businesses foundations or corporate whose products or practices were encounter the district vision mission or policies of the school district so taking care great uh then my question on policy 516 um I was just wondering if the school nurses had reviewed this at all or especially the procedures and if that makes if it makes sense with what they're actually doing yes I mean I think the have they seen this yet okay that will be part of our process here again they are already
055operating under this policy because it's not this is not a new policy there are simply some changes around how we get rid of stuff so we will we will certainly talk with them about making sure that they have any concerns about um however I also want to point out that these are you know msba policy revisions that are based in statute so um it may not matter what we've done in the past right because we have to you know and frankly I think that we have already been doing the take it to the Box we've been doing that already and I know that we have had Bart or the school resource officer help us with some of those things so but we will certainly make sure that they have the see the revisions between now
056and the next time we have you look at it and um also the way I'm reading this is that even the secondary students can't bring any over-the-counter medications to school is that right I'm not sure let's see the uh which section you're referring to I'm looking at policies Z right now oh letter D okay procedures like students may bring so they so they should so if you if you look at D it says um middle school high school and area Learning Center students or their parent or Guardian shall bring the medication to the nurse's office so every all medical correct even over there over the computer I'm curious how many students actually do that with certain over-the-counter ones but well and and that may be very well be the case but we've had long-standing practice
057that you know you're here to bring your back in fact you're supposed to have permission to have you know certain Overcomer medication like Tylenol and things like that so it's a matter of making sure that it's all you're right just like any other policy or any rule that we have in any organization there are people who may not follow it and if they were to not follow we would certainly correct them to have them bring it to the nurse's office in that case does it make a difference if they're 18 or not uh no because they are a student at school and it's taught that this procedure would say that the permission would make a difference right they could give themselves permission but the policy would still say the procedures excuse me would say they
058shall still bring that medication to the nurse's office okay okay and my last question is on policy [Applause] and I just keep I'm looking at the definitions and the definition of pre-kindergarten and I just um as a as being a program designed for students younger than five years of age on September 1st and I know there are people who might have a very young students say who was born at the end of August who don't want to start their kid into kindergarten have just been as a new five-year-old would they be ineligible then to stay in like a ready for k or a pre-kindergarten program yeah so they would not be ineligible but I'm going to look I'm going to check into that because there are two terms in here there's terms of preschool and
059Pre-K and so I'm gonna we will check on that definition because I agree with you there are people who will have their they'll hold their student back and in this particular case or they'll they'll delay their students entering the kindergarten is what I can really say we'll check into that and find out if I we certainly would not want to invalidate those students opportunity to do that right or keep them from being able to attend school for a year you know they might have been in ucfe all that time and then all of a sudden can't go all right well and and to be clear too in this particular case it is not and that is simply a definition right and if you really think about the rest of this if you think about C
060for example it is simply talking about the minimum and maximum age requirements and you'll see that there's there's um publicly funded pre-kindergarten and preschool so I will check on that I think this is a difference about who may qualify for State funds for the publicly funded pre-kindergarten okay yeah thank you for checking for that this is great I can just go ahead well just um if children are age eligible to enroll in kindergarten they are not eligible for pathway funding if that helps just clear a little of that up too so I think that's what I would that was really what I was just saying that you could be if you were five on August 30th and parent wants to delay your entry for another year you wouldn't be eligible for another scholarship but would
061you currently eligible to enroll yes you would be eligible to enroll Amy and at times we have put students who would benefit from another year of pre-K we have School Readiness dollars we can put them on they're just not eligible for the state-sponsored pathway funding dollars if they're action age eligible to enroll in kindergarten so I think that might need to be clarified a little bit with that um 3B definition okay we'll take a look at that and those romantic questions thank you rob you have a question or comment uh I just had that I have the statue open that has these definitions and both the kindergarten and the pre-kindergarten definition are from the for that language is in the statute so so I think you know if we wanted to add something about eligibility
062for enrollment that would be in addition to the statutory language but yeah then and then it goes back to that this particular policy is simply defining the organization of grade level it's not necessarily eligibility right so that's we will still look in and just ask a couple of questions about it but I agree we want to be careful if they've taken the stat the definition directly from the statute great great good question great questions Amy thank you and you came up with [Music] awesome [Music] um other questions comments board members have okay great well thank you um so again as this was part of table file so we realized that not everyone maybe have had the chance to thoroughly read through this and with the intention of approving these policies at our next board meeting
063if you have a chance to review these in the coming two weeks and have any questions or comments for uh Dr Hillman or Anita at that time you could get to them so we can have uh final copies ready for and just to be clear the reason they were in the table file is because our policy committee met on Thursday afternoon and we couldn't get it into the oh yeah that's totally understandable especially in light of of the policy committee continuing to do this great work and despite everything going on so thank you um we will move on now to a financial update Director of Finance Val murdersdorf welcome Val thank you good evening so uh just a couple quick items to updates we did submit our application for the federal Affairs funding so that
064as a reminder is three different um calculations and allocations that we received and we did apply for about 267 000 of the largest portion of that to go to cover the cost of the emergency Child Care from last spring so we did find out early last week I think that they had approved our application so we will work through that so that's been included in the audit um speaking of audits they were on site last week for one day they've been doing quite a bit uh remotely as you could imagine but then we're on site one day last week to go through some of the paper intensive type things that are a little easier to do in person um so far off that is looking well because it is pushed back a little bit this
065year marriage has been that they will um [Music] meeting in November so that's just and we did submit an application um for a small amount of that cares funding through good newcoming they have an application admitted that today um so we'll see if that we have a really small number of students from the cube Colony so I'm not sure if they admitted ask how many students on that so they might prioritize funding for districts that are more solidly serving than you County but we did apply for it and then we did update our ADM calculation and estimates on the MBE website to make sure that they had our most up-to-date numbers to document that that from what we had projected and that is a big thing that they were appreciate they will lock down that
066system and use those numbers are next financial forecasts but it also will recalculate our our aides when they do that in their process to make sure that we're not getting overpaid for anything because we certainly don't want to be a feedback fund um based on that calculation so those are kind of the big ones that we've got going on right now um but I would be happy to answer any questions right now questions comments board members have I had to talk to Dr Hillman I saw that the um the Star Tribune had done a story about parents choosing just to delay the start of kindergarten for their students and that made a ton of sense and Dr Hillman indicated possibly half of our projected shortfall is parents choosing to delay kindergarten and clearly that's nothing
067you could have foreseen at the time when you were doing projections so yeah it was kind of a double whammy because this was the the year where we had a really small um birth number five years ago so we were already projecting this smaller kindergarten class um but when I did the um the detailed analysis it was about 30 that were not mad yeah that's a big number Tom so does that mean next year we're going to be on the high side for kindergarten um I would say that that depends a lot on what the pandemic is doing but I mean obviously that would be our hope is that they would if they would do our senior later keep an eye on that and welcome us will we be are they spread out around the
068district what were you have problems done stewardly difficult well I was just gonna say um I from we as they don't know because they went from other students I don't do my enrollments estimate by building I'm doing sister twice so I'm not sure if there was one building that was really really short in kindergarten Matt might have somewhere from that but hopefully it's it's spread out I would say um typically with that large of a number it would be unlikely for it to be fairly concentrated but it's the first time for everything yeah so just some anecdotal thoughts uh number one Sibley for years has been a solid four section kindergarten building and we're at three sections this year there so but we do have a tool guide K-12 we just actually haven't used yet
069and we'll need to find out who these students are and then code them appropriately but we can actually take a look at grade levels by neighborhood now it's not foolproof right because we don't know in that mix who is going to choose to go to Saint Dominic who's going to choose Prairie Creek um you know although but it may be able to give us a better sense of what we're looking at for next year now the good news is you know that because of the construction projects that we've had at the elementary schools you know we do have some flexibility you know at our buildings even at Bridgewater where they they maintained a four section a class which you may remember they also cycled out of five section fifth grade last year so there's even
070some flexibility at Bridgewater and of course at Greenvale Park we've built those is to have a fifth section as part of those those wings so we think we're in good shape for space even with a larger kindergarten class potentially coming next year other questions or comments so I have a question how the Auditors are working virtually are you that that seems like a challenge um it's it's a it's easier than you would think um so they have actually been uh positively for them they've actually been rolling this out for probably the last three years so um part of the I would say that other thing in general has a pretty high staff turnover because it's um you're driving constantly and away from home and so it's there's a pretty high turnover rate and so they've
071been working I would say industry-wide to find ways to keep people at home more and so this is one Avenue that they've been rolling out the last three years so they have an online portal that we have access to and they basically structure all of our audit requests so there are things that I do every single year the same work paper um updating the numbers making sure everything ties out and so there's lots of things that I'm just rolling forward and fixing up and making sure they cut out and then I upload that document our finance software is actually a remote desktop that they have access to through Region 5 which is super helpful that makes it significantly easier because they can just log in and run a report versus having me send every single
072report or data that they're looking for so they actually download our trial balance exploded in their system and so those pieces go really smoothly the parts that are pretty labor intensive paper wise are the single audit which is the audit of our federal programs so this year they test our Child Nutrition program and they actually tested the asset funding for the Emergency child care because that was a pretty significant dollar amount and they had test special ed the year before and so they try to kind of rotate the programs that they're testing and so that's been an interesting process just because the official guidance on what they're supposed to test isn't even out yet so they kind of pursue um it was all payroll that we called it obviously so they just selected a sample
073and we provided the documentation for that and then the application and the approval and those sorts of things we didn't even receive formal email or letter from MVD like I I just had to screenshot the serves window to show that the application is not responded and active so we're kind of making making things work as we go but um they do have a pretty easy to use portal and they just put documents out there and um different requests and it has due dates and all that stuff so it works pretty slick but there are just a few things that are for instance some nutrition part of the testing is The Greener news applications and they have to test 40 of them and see any supporting documentation so they would have to scan all of that
074in um help those worksheet and so some of those pieces are just easier in person from does that answer your question yes that's really interesting to hear the process thank you any other questions comments were about thanks for all your great work Val as always um next our operation update um there was um some information in our packet but just a reminder the table file was the pulse survey of parents and employees so Dr Hillman yeah so for uh super events operation update number 10 we like to number things now and we've been doing this for a while so the first thing I want to share with you this evening is just talking about that monthly anti-racism discussion that our staff are having uh hope Langston referred to it during her presentation earlier but as
075hope said on the third Wednesday of each month we're using that professional Learning Community time to have this district-wide focus on anti-racism and racial equity and we're using the time to discuss those issues every session so far the two we've had we have started with a district-wide webinar where I show the graphic that I put into your packet about our anti-racism framework I talk about anything that we've done in the last month to address any one of those areas and then we have an activity and then we have a debrief time and we're really modeling this several of our administrators have participated in the courageous Leadership Institute through Minnesota State University Mankato I'm part of the superintendents racial Equity leadership Network which follows a very similar program and so we're using a strategy that we've
076learned as part of that by having some kind of activity and then the time for intentional and directed discussion so the first month we watched uh the second episode of Emmanuel I chose uncomfortable conversations with a black man if you've not seen this series I encourage you to watch it um Emmanuel is a former NFL player and he really is able to make these very difficult discussions about race accessible for lots of different folks and so we use the second episode of that in September again with some follow-up questions for discussion and in October staff read or they could listen to an essay that was published in the New York Times on the day of Representative John Lewis's funeral representative Lewis wrote a um wrote this essay that he asked to be published on the
077day of his funeral it's very powerful if you have not read it if I would encourage you to do so and then again a series of questions at the end and if the last question is we ask each person to make a powerful action commitment based upon what they learned in that session so we'll continue this monthly throughout the entire year this is really to get people more and more comfortable about discussing issues of race with their colleagues and and using an anti-racist lens to approaching their work here in Northfield Public Schools I'm gonna come back well we'll do that we'll go ahead if you look in your table file I did include the initial review of the 30-day pulse survey and so uh that's it was in your table file today and we administered
078the 30-day pulse survey so talking with our friends at Studio education we're replacing our annual surveys with the 30 and a 90-day pulse survey because as we talked to our friends from student education because that this year is so different than anything else looking at something that's more specific to what we're working through and having something that we can react to more quickly than our typical survey Employee Engagement parent satisfaction District Services action plans we they have suggested this we have the choice we took their recommendation to do these pulse surveys we had a thousand one 167 parent submissions which is in line where we're pleased with that and and 379 employee submissions we have read all of the all of the comments have been read we're still analyzing the comments for themes in each
079of the surveys so when you take a look at the parent and guardian survey results there are some pretty big wins here and in fact talking with KK Owen who is our student education coach she told us that undoubtedly we're on the top tier in the country of the hundred and some however many other partners they have as part of student education all the uh all the schools who are participating gave the same questions but when you look at um number one we need to be incredibly proud of this I am confident that my child's school is handling the covid-19 challenge to keep my child safe 4.21 on a five point scale and when you agree when you combine the agree and strongly agree category is 85 percent of parent submissions selected either agree or
080strongly agree with that statement I think that's a testament to our staff to our teachers to our custodians to our nurses to our building principles and to everyone who worked so hard over the summer to plan for a safe entry into the safest safe as practical entry to the 2020-21 school year as you keep looking through I'm confident that my child's school is focused on the social emotional well-being of the child even with one of the lower scores at 3.91 um 72 percent of people of breeders strongly agree with that I have the resources needed to help my child learn 3.95 73 percent here's one that I'm really proud of as well which is something that we if you know we've heard about this a little bit before in some of our other surveys about
081people wanting more access to their teachers I have access to my child's teachers would have needed 4.14 83 percent of people either agreed or strongly agree receiving feedback that's another area we continue to work on and making sure that parents know what feedback is um confident that my child will not fall behind in school this is something that we're seeing nationally right people are very concerned about what this year is going to do for their child and so we are one of the ways that we're planning to respond to that is we're going to bring back both on the employee and the parent side our webinar series that was so well received last spring and we're going to dedicate a couple of our webinar series to let's talk about what does being behind what what
082do you worry about when you're thinking your child is behind what are some things we need an unprecedented level of partnership with families what are the things that you can do at home to work and we really talk about that um trying to help understand that the entire Globe is in this mess right and so behind is something that is subjective to a certain extent now the thing that we do know is that unfortunately during this time the opportunity Gap is just we know that that's expanding faster than what we are able to keep up with simply just by the nature of the pandemic but we're going to focus on talking with families about what are the things they can do to help us um so that they make sure that they and the things
083that we're already doing so for example pulp Langston mentioned before that we are using the sips intervention nearly universally you know this year and that's because that does have the opportunity to accelerate reading growth by at a year and a half so that's a departure from the norm in order to try to make sure that students don't fall behind if that makes sense so number one it's going to be sharing with families some inside baseball but what do we do to keep kids from falling behind and then what are some things that they can do to help again we are seem to be universally um applauded on our communication as you see I receive timely communication on changes that occur at my child's School a 4.16 with actually 86 percent of respondents agreeing or strongly
084agreeing so while certainly at any time one of the dangers of the continuous Improvement model is that if you're not careful you can feel like you're never good enough right Anthony but tonight we celebrate these wins we celebrate the work that our staff have done to earn some really excellent scores and the fact that our families know that we are prioritizing health and safety and talking to them about what we're doing so we take a moment and we reframe and we say yep these are some great wins now what's next and what are the next things that we can do because we know that we're just continually trying to get better when we look at our staff scores uh we are there are some areas that we would need we need to look at for
085some improvement there but at the same time when you look at these four scores I feel confident our school system is creating a safe work and learning environment 68 percent of our staff who took the survey agreed or strongly agreed with that if you look at I am aware of what is occurring in our system to meet these challenges again 67 percent agreed or strongly agreed finally I'm I'm confident that our school system will overcome these challenges almost 60 percent said they agreed or strongly agree to that now the one that is the lowest as I'm involved in providing input to overcome these challenges so that's going to be an area that we're going to be looking at because there are ways for people to be involved we're just maybe not sure that we have
086marketed those well enough or really explained to people here's how your input has been used because we know that when we get the data from the people who are closest to the action that that's where some of the best Innovations and some of the best strategies can come so we think there's two parts to it one you know over the summer we did have around 100 people many of whom were paid or to come in and to work on some of these committees but again that was a smaller set and then each building does have a covid-19 team and most of those buildings are taking feedback they're providing reports to their staff so we're going to look at again this is what we're going to bring back at least a monthly webinar that Cheryl Hall
087our covid-19 coordinator and I will run will do q a sessions as part of that so that people can ask their questions directly we'll highlight what are the ways that they can provide input if they if they think there's a better way to do something because we're all about process Improvement and so making sure that those channels and and Protocols are available as that people know how to provide their input and then Define what input and feedback really is at your places of work as well sometimes folks don't think that their feedback was heard if their suggestion wasn't implemented and so really being clear that uh you know there's lots of suggestions that might be very good we may not be able to do all of them for various reasons and if we can't then
088I think we need to come back and explain here's a suggestion we heard we can't do that because of X Y and Z it could be something that's a state rule it could be a variety of different things of why we might not be able to do something but I think making sure we follow up even if a suggestion was not necessarily implemented talking about that we heard that concern and why it wasn't something that was for consideration so those are that those are the results of that survey so far again we just got these results last week our District Administrative team spent 90 minutes with our student education coach KK Owen last Wednesday going through these results in detail the rollouts will look a little bit different than what you've seen in the past
089we will be doing the large rollouts like we normally do um it'll be a it's not going to be partial it's just going to be a more efficient rollout and it will most likely not necessarily even be a Zoomer in person we'll be working through a variety of different strategies to respond to the feedback but at the end of the day after 30 days of being here we asked people for what they thought we've taken their feedback and we are taking action steps based upon that feedback and that is what the continuous Improvement cycle is all about I'm going to go back to my the operations update and I just want to share with you just a very briefly about considering learning model changes so we have seen the infection rate in Rice County be
090above 20 infections per 10 000 residents over the past two weeks I think it'll be really the next couple of days are pretty critical um actually uh I will tell you that it will be above 20 again this week because the data cutoff is on Sunday we had really been progressing really great and we had seen reductions in the cases significantly and then we got nailed on Friday and Saturday with pretty substantial numbers but today we had two cases in Rice County we'll take that right but we were back up above 20 cases per day on Friday and Saturday of this week um we're trying to figure out what the pattern you know is it is it a matter of when some testing results come back um so I believe will be above 20 for
091a third week in a row now if today is two and if we we have some other big numbers that are coming off the 14-day rotation if those are replaced with smaller numbers we could be back under 20 actually within just a matter of a few days we have a 33 coming up that's supposed to come off and probably at the end of this week and if that's replaced with a three or a four right that takes that 14-day rolling average down significantly and what's interesting is remember that that grid that I'm referring to was developed back in July and was intended for the opening of the school year but since we've had kids back in school in some cases in Minnesota from the middle of August we have learned that there's a bunch of
092other data points that actually may be even more relevant than what we started with and to be clear not criticizing because it was a scientific based approach to begin with and then we've just continued to learn and evolve so there are some other things that we're looking at we're looking at exclusion of students because of positive covid-19 cases or close contacts and thankfully we have had very few people other than the person who has been infected who have had to be exclude there have been some others but it's not been substantial you'll hear about school district an entire team you know who's out for those kinds of things and right now so far we have and that can change in an instant right but so far it appears the protocols that we have in place
093are working well we are also taking a look at the are the cases that we're seeing a result of student to student or teacher to student Transmission in every contact tracing process we do we try to determine that so far we have no evidence to suggest that the Transmissions have taken place at school and that's actually something you're hearing across the state in many many different places um when we look at that it is is five percent or more of the population of the school out because of influenza or covid-like illness symptoms and so by way of example we had started looking at this quite some time ago because of some concerns we had at Sibley but when I gave you the report last week Sibley's four day average had been at 1.96 the middle
094school has been averaging between two and three percent a day and we're looking to get all of that data rolling for each school because we think that that's an important harbinger of what's Happening we look at the Rice County share right so if we look at norfield has about a third of the population of Rice County but when we look at the total cases so far Northfield has had about 20 percent of the cases from Dundas or Northfield and it's not just Northfield City proper that's anybody who has a Northfield or Dundas ZIP code right so it actually does capture some of the people in the townships compared to um Faribault that has had 71 percent of the cases so far we're also looking at having multiple data points and we're in constant contact with
095Rice County Public Health we did have an incident command team meeting last Friday Julie sits on that representing the board and again Sarah colder and the team at Rice County called Opel said they do not recommend making a learning model change at the elementary as and yet we're going to keep watching it we know that the darkest days of the pandemic are ahead of us the next 12 weeks are really going to be tough right not only here but across the country and so we're going to continue to work on making sure that we are following the pro because what we know is that when we're following the protocols we have the ability to mitigate transmission and what we know is behind what what the scientists will tell you is behind the current increases as
096a combination of what is called coven fatigue which is now transitioned to cobit anger which has been coined by a couple of scientists about people just being angry that we're still dealing with this and then letting down on the protocols the biggest engine of transmission right now are small family gatherings where people are very comfortable with each other and they're not following the protocols so we will continue to use our convening power to Market that wear your mask wash your hands say six feet apart follow the protocols no one is perfect right there are times that we know that we've not done it correctly either but these are the key things to keeping us in school if we can follow the protocols and convince our friends and neighbors to do this we have a very
097good chance to keep kids in school if we don't they're going to be home and it's it's going to be a matter of time if we don't keep doubling down on these important things and then encouraging people to get tested I think that that's another thing you're going to start hearing about more and more around the especially trying to think about how we can efficiently test segments of asymptomatic people because that's the other part that is driving this right now are the asymptomatic transmitters and so thinking about how we're going to have to see how the County Public Health and how Minnesota uh role is that out but you're going to be you've read you can read about it Governor Wallace talked about it today you'll be reading about it uh some very interesting case
098studies between colleges of who've implemented regular testing and those who haven't I won't go in that to into that tonight because I care about you in the time so um but that is the that is where we're at with how we're making learning model decisions there may be other things that Force our hand to make a learning model change at one school maybe not the others so we'll continue to watch those cases we'll continue to use a as full of a data set as we possibly can have to make the best decisions that we're able to so that's my report for this evening I'll be happy to answer any questions Amy thank you Dr Hillman um I have a question about the pulse survey yes and it's about the parent Guardian survey in particular yep
099I am wondering if that was all parents both Portage and regular yes uh I would be curious to know if there if you analyze it separating out the Portage parents and if there is a difference in how they're responding we have all the data disaggregated so I just didn't I don't have with me right now but I'm not going to guess but there were more than 100 it was at least 150 Portage parents who took the survey now I can't pull their responses out of the overall but I do have a disaggregated showing by each building including Portage okay yeah I said I'm just wondering if they're happier or less happy than this general population but you say you can't really pull them out that way I actually can't I do I do have the
100port I have each building separated I just don't have that with me this evening okay I'd love to see that sometime I'm happy to get it for you thank you other question comments bro also on the pulse survey um for the parent and guardian results I am confident that my child's school is handling the challenges to keep my child safe 85 which is really good and then it's a similar question for the employees I feel confident that the school system is creating a safe work environment that's 68 so it's a pretty a bit lower so I'm wondering if that's just because actually being in the building there's a little bit more anxiety or or what accounts for the difference that parents think that it's safer than the than the staff do yeah so I think
101I think my analysis would be that you're you're right on I think frankly when you read the comments that we did from the parents people are thrilled to have their kid back in school right and what they're feeling is that the general protocols that we have implemented are successful and they may it does make them feel safe it's a different piece if you're the one enforcing the protocols every day right and when we know from our staff survey is that this is a full-time gig just getting people to follow the pro kids are doing a great job right they're doing an excellent job because they're doing very well but there's that pressure you know on us to make sure that we're following the protocols 100 of the time and we're working with children ages 5
102through 18 right or earlier than that actually because the ncec is part of the survey as well and I think the fatigue and the challenge of making sure that everybody is doing what they're supposed to do and that the mask isn't you know below the note I mean there's there's all those kinds of things that are part of the all day everyday that I think is just it's wearing our staff as I mentioned the last time I think people are exhausted because this is I'm not only teaching right I'm I'm doing that normal stuff but I'm also trying to make sure that I am helping remind people about these protocols that we know are important but it's it's tiring so I I personally think after we're having all of the comments I think that that
103is partially where the disconnect is in addition there are always a little bit of differences in how people may view what is enforcement of the protocol right so um what is there are different standards right that different people think about how this should operate and how this should operate some people think that the current protocols that we have are far too many others think maybe you could even do a little bit more we Endeavor to follow the safe learning plan of Minnesota and so I'm going to give you by way of example an example around face Shields right so with face Shields it says that there are some very specific situations where a person can wear a face shield as opposed to a face mask I'll tell you for some people it is never okay
104to wear a face shield right for some people that's their expectation but the safe learning plan has a very clear set of expectations specifically for teachers that they have the ability to shift to a face shield when a mask would otherwise impede instruction so sometimes you'll see people have they will I'm welcoming kids into the class I've got my mask on I'm going to give direct instruction I'm at the front of the room and the lesson I paint my mask off I put my shield on I deliver the lesson as soon as the lesson's done I put my mask back on and my face shield comes off we also have I'm gonna I'm gonna say approximately 20 uncomfortable estimating this about 20 students throughout the entire District who have a medical document we've required medical
105documentation to switch to a shield right so there's about 20 students throughout the district who have provided medical doctor documentation that they should wear Shield versus a mask and so you know for again for some folks that if you can't wear an ass you shouldn't be here that's that's not the way the safe learning plan works so I think there's a couple of different parts but I think it's that varying level of comfort with the protocols some people wanting a higher standards some people think there should be a lower standard and then at the same time I think the fatigue of making sure that these things are followed appropriately is something as wears on possible this is something that will continue to come back and talk with stefa we're going to do the same survey
106at 90 days right so we're looking for an improvement in those scores at that time good point on the disconnect um as always thank you and I think that one thing that I I think need to feel really good about is the parents really appreciating the level of communication that they're getting and I think that you know you know it's it's really kind of finding a sweet spot of how much information you communicate how much you know how often you do it and I think that really continuing to fine-tune how those messages are going out I mean the dashboard is an excellent example of how to provide that really good communication to parents and that information and for some again it's some it's too much information and some it's not enough so I just applaud
107you for continuing to fine-tune how we're communicating the information we're providing and being open to making changes to to address but to have 80 is it 86 feeling like they're they're just really feel good about the level of communication I think it's really huge besides a lot of other numbers here that are really really good so thank you for all that great work it is our pleasure to serve okay so we will move on now to the consent grouping as a reminder there were a few um Personnel items in the tables file to be added to the consent grouping is there anything anyone would like to pull from the consent grouping for separate consideration okay is there a motion to approve the consent grouping from moved by Allen is there a second second by Amy
108all those in favor of the proof of approving the consent grouping say I I opposed motion carries we'll move on now to items for individual action as Dr Hillman had indicated we will um revisit the um memorandum between the alc Randolph and Tri-City United schools we will present that at our next board meeting on Monday November 9th so our only item for individual action tonight is the world's best Workforce so is there a motion to approve the 2021 world's best Workforce annual report as presented by Amy is there a second by round questions comments all those in favor say aye aye opposed motion carries so we'll move on now to construction update number 35 Dr Hillman yes if we take a look at construction update number 35 we love to see those check marks uh
109checked off on four of the five buildings and we'll see that there's the final rough into one overhead electrical work is on track to start drywalling the week of October 19th that was last week keeping and sanding that we did the 26th looking to start painting the ceilings um and other painting the first week in November window frames and glass are on order so you'll see there's still just a few punch list items remaining at the three projects that were complete and I did I was the guest speaker at rotor last week I did deliver an update and provide some information about the district's Construction Products we had some good photos and that was fun to share with the community we did we do have a new matterport scan of the of the new Greenville
110park facility but I was just not confident I could get that to run well over Zoom to do that for the rotarians but we're getting that work I don't think we've got that on the website it is on the website so if you take a look we've got it updated remember the matterport scans they're the ones that's like the Google Street View that you can go through so you can feel free to share that with others as well so very exciting things are going along while we we did have to talk with that Longfellow there was we had some concerns from area learning staff about the noise at the area Learning Center and there's a few parts of the project that were much louder than others so we've spoken with them and uh with Knutson
111and they're going to try to make sure that anything that's really noisy is done on Wednesdays when students and staff aren't there because it's the distance learning day and then also moving some of the items to before and after school hours but I've been assured that the bulk of the real noisy stuff is behind us at this point I did have a chance to tour through there about a week ago and it's coming to life you can see the studs are up you can see the offices uh it's and I I toured the boardroom as you think about we have four board meetings left potentially in this space and what I'll tell you is that the new board space looks pretty fantastic so it's going to be a market shift for us and I think
112that's going to be something we're all going to enjoy the new offices are looking great against that practice that balance between being practical and you know being a very good product for the community excellent thank you questions on the construction updates I do appreciate knudson's willingness to do that it matters work matters yeah it's just really amazing technology and they they've had to come in on weekends to do that work so we really appreciate their their efforts to do that especially in light of not being able to have the community tour those buildings which I know they would they would love to do so it's a great great way to provide that um view for them so um that is it for the agenda thank you everyone for an excellent meeting our future meetings Monday
113November 9th as we have discussed a few times we have the special board meeting on Friday November 13th at 1 pm which will be via zoom and that will be um to Canvas the election results and we thank Anita she's been doing an amazing job of keeping track of that and all that we will have to do to um to do that important work of canvassing the elections results then another our other regular board meeting in the month of November is Monday November 23rd so regular board meeting us are at 7 pm in the Northfield high school media center and our broadcast um live stream for the public so with that I asked for a motion to adjourn join yes so the special meeting we have to come in and sign something for that right
114yes I'm sorry thank you for um for reminding me of that so it will um board members would need to come in to sign the documents the um the canvassing results documents if there is a board member who isn't able we are able to accommodate an electronic signature so if that's a concern or an issue if you want to get to either myself or Anita we can set up electronic signature for anyone who isn't able to just swing by the district office that data to do yes Amy so we all have to meet at the same time for the meeting and then signatures or we're going to meet by zoom and then everybody comes into a sign or yes we would meet by zoom and then everyone during it would have to be after the
115meeting so it does have to be after we formally canvassed the results at 1 pm it shouldn't take long and then we just need a corn for that or does every board member needs to do that okay so we would just need a quorum for the one o'clock Zoom meeting but then all board members are required to sign whoever whoever is in the meeting okay okay so so point of clarification then so we will have the one o'clock Zoom meeting on Friday November 13th if any board members aren't able to be there if you want to let me know that would be great and again we just need forums so we need four of us that would be available and then in turn those for whoever is in the zoo meeting would then be to
116come to the district's office to sign or in the case if you're not able to do that we are able to do a large electrified it and it's not a huge inconvenience for board members to just stop and it doesn't have to be all at the same time it's whenever you can get there that afternoon and and um I need a year in the office till 4 pm so it would be between the the meeting itself shouldn't be long so I would imagine most the earliest you could get to the district office would likely be around 1 30 and then get there by 3 45 between so if that's problematic for anyone let me know because again we're just required for them good thanks Tom for that participation so we have um we have a
117motion to adjourn yes it was a move by Tom is there a second second by Jeff so we have a motion and a second all those in favor say aye opposed we are adjourned thank you [Applause] it was