Owatonna Public Schools Board Meeting 5 24 2021

001right good evening everyone and welcome we're the otana school board it is monday it's the 24th of may it's 5 30. i'm going to call the meeting to order eric our attendance we're missing deborah hopefully she'll be able to join us uh would you all please join rise and join me in the pledge i pledge allegiance to the plague 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 our first item tonight would simply be to approve the agenda as it has been presented we have motion and a second any further discussion on this hearing none all in favor with an eye any opposed that motion carries i'm going to turn things over to mr elstad for our mission moment

002great mr chair members of the board audience members thank you for being here tonight i will have to tell you i have so missed people and seeing people in our boardroom tonight is just so heartwarming to me so thank you for being here we're starting out tonight we start every board meeting by honor either students or staff that are part of our mission moment our mission is inspiring excellence for every learner every day but within that we have four commitment areas and one of those is 21st century learning equity safe and caring community as well as high quality teaching learning tonight members of the board i'm happy to present to you some recipients of i think some pretty high quality teaching and learning but also just demonstrating leadership and and certainly the ability to not

003only get things done in the classroom but also in the extracurricular activities we have honored some of our student athletes in the past one of our things around 21st century learning is really around well-rounded students and when i have the honor of introducing students that not only excel in the classroom and perhaps even athletic activities but also our fine arts activities such as speech and music it is my honor to do so tonight so i'd like to call your attention first we're going to honor we have four people from four students from mountain high school that participate in our state virtual speech meet this year um and i will say that watching a virtual speech meet is kind of like a fine mechanic because there are a lot of things that happen within that but

004we were so blessed to have four members so the four that are joining us tonight are julia christensen megan copeland fardoza farah who you've heard from before in the in the board meetings was she was a winner of a major scholarship in the united states senate as well as jackson heyman and these folks competed in the state meet and i guess what i'd like to do is if you want to remove your mask you certainly can to speak tonight just tell a little bit about the area that you're performing at this at the state speech meet and uh maybe what your place was or what you're most proud of if i could ask for that so jackson you want to start yeah so um at sections i got third and you need to place the

005top three to go to state and it was just such a fun experience um i am in drama so i take a piece from a play cut it down to about 10 minute minutes memorize it and then perform it it's typically a saturn type of piece but it was a lot of fun this year different but fun good thanks jackson megan i am in extemporaneous reading which means we have a book and at each meet we draw three passages and choose the one we're going to perform and we never know what we're gonna have 30 minutes to prepare you know makes it kind of interesting and i just love the category you get to do all kinds of character voices and kind of some drama and so there's some happy and some sad passages and

006it's just been a great experience and i just think i've grown so much as a speaker i got second place at sections at states i did not make it to finals but i had a great experience and i learned so so much from the other state competitors great thank you megan julia um i am in humorous interpretation um i have a 10 minute script from either a play or a book or something along those lines um similar to megan mine has a lot of characters um and mine was about a tupperware party it was really funny and it had a lot of crazy different characters i played sixth place in finals and it was such a great experience especially since i was among mm-hmm thanks julia ferdoza so pretty much what that is is kind

007of like debate seminar in a form of a discussion um our topic this year is global wellness so that ranged anywhere from racial issues to the health health industry to economic issues to a lot of different stuff overwhelming um and i think it's a place to stay this year on place seventh overall [Music] very cool thank you to all of you congratulations to all of you for rep not only doing so well but representing owatonna high school so well and at this point board members like to open up for any questions you might have or comments for our state speech entrance i have a lot of questions but you don't have that much time but i'm just so glad you're here and congratulations to the four of you that's just so exciting well thank you

008all for inviting us we really um appreciate that and we're honored i'll just make a comment i have to tell you guys are so inspiring even to have four of you go to state so i watched my children move through these stages and some of you might um know them or have competed with them i found the work and the effort you guys are putting in really will pay off i mean it's um it's great life skills you guys are grabbing on too so congratulations to each of you to get to state that's really it's really great how many are seniors and i would add too that megan has been selected as a graduation speaker this year as well so she's going to take i don't know if we're going to use cartoon voices or

009other voices maybe though you never know megan what are your plans for next year so next year i'm doing a transition program for a year at the academy for the fun just to make sure i'm well prepared to go off on my own and then i'm gonna go off to school for court reporting and then maybe from there if i find i'm interested in other areas of law move on to that for you great anybody else couldn't be more proud of the four of you thank you glad you were here thank you very much hang on because when you are excused from here you get a very coveted hashtag go a ton of proud t-shirts because i know a ton of we have a t-shirt for everything and then what i'd like to do is

010take a few photos if you can i think mr cath is going to join you outside for a photo or two as well and uh then i'd like to bring our next group up so thank you so much we're very proud of your efforts and thanks for being here tonight thank you guys thank you okay now we are going to have we have uh three of our four uh music award winners so elise sam would you prefer sam or samuel sam's good okay all right let me find who i ask right so elise sam and audrey please join us at the table so as many of you are aware certainly our board is aware how important music and fine arts are to a well-rounded education certainly owatonna high school has had a long tradition of

011outstanding musicians these are three of our latest most outstanding musicians this year i was able to take in band orchestra and choir concerts in the last couple weeks and i don't know if i left any of them without tears in my eyes but that's beside the point but i would tell you that this year there were the john philip sousa award winner that's really given by the high school band director to any student it is restricted to one per school per year or two in the rare event of a tie which is exactly what we had this year this award recognizes superior musicianship dependability loyalty and cooperation and this year the john philip sousa award winners were elise egbert and sam bugler so welcome we'll talk a little bit more about you in a minute

012the national school orchestra award is the counterpart to the soosa band award it's the highest honor that you can bestow upon a member of a high school orchestra and it recognizes excellence in playing and contributions to the ensemble this year this year's national school orchestra award winner was audrey franklin and then not here this evening but just learning of this award on friday night the choir directors award uh is honoring outstanding members of the junior or senior high school chorus and that award winner this year was zach liebel i would have been able to watch these musicians in fact i've got to perform with a couple of them before which was even more fun but we're just so grateful to have such young budding at musicians i just hope that you continue to expand your

013music as you move forward because it's kind of that love that you establish it just goes on for life i hope all of you have plans if it's not at the collegiate level that you're performing with chamber groups community groups because they need to hear you and hear you play your instruments that's for sure or sing or sing so uh with that uh congratulations and thank you for being here tonight but i'd like to turn over to board members if you have any questions of our music award winners what instruments do you play i play are you are any of you planning to pursue music like in your next chapter uh i'm going to keep playing drums and play in the jazz band because i'm going to go to drake university and i'm going to

014get a music monitor nice good for you i'll be playing and singing through college nice where good thank you i have you know personally i have a son that plays a cello and um he has come home a couple of times admiring how well audrey plays and uh you get to hear that every once when your own kids are really providing testament to that so we're just so grateful again to have you here and i'm so grateful that this community really honors music so with that you get to leave here and get one of those coveted t-shirts as well but thank you again and congratulations and good luck to you as you branch out and always keep music in your heart thank you and thank you parents for your support for years and years of

015lugging instruments home yes thank you for coming tonight we appreciate you and that concludes mission moment for this month but what a really special time yeah that is great uh as we move on item five tonight which is our public forum was there anything that was turned in anybody i did not receive any cards this evening regarding public forum okay we'll continue you have a do you have an item you want to speak on i'm sorry oh okay okay i'm sorry no i did not receive any cards this evening okay all right very good we'll move on right um out of respect for the students as they were here in the room i mean keeping some consistency we asked for masks but now that the students have departed feel free to to d-mask um i'm

016going to turn things over to mr ellstad for some inter um introductions with mr calf well we're going to just take a brief pause i'm sure mr kath is out taking photos right now with some of our students but we have slowly you have been getting reports from our ohs career pathway initiative moving forward there are some items tonight that i think mr kath is excited to share with you in regards to updates but also a couple of the things that i think are and i'll i don't want to steal his thunder if you will but remade we have have made remarkable progress with our staff because it isn't just flipping a switch and saying we're going to do career pathways now it truly is finding a way to invest in what we're currently doing

017so that we're not replicating our efforts but also looking where are our weak spots so that we can start to backfill courses and so as he returns he will explain to you kind of where we're at in this process along with explaining the materials that were given to you tonight these brochures actually were created by ohs staff and they really call out kind of and and lay out a pathway for students so mr kath right on cue so i'll turn it over to mr kath yep and you can feel free to remove your mask now that the students have gone corey so thank you thanks for the opportunity to be here this evening to share a little bit of our update on career pathways um specifically the last time when we were here we talked

018a little about that we were rolling it out for our ninth graders this year so we're looking at a four-year rollout of how we are introducing our pathways program and specifically making sure that we're getting all the work done so then that way it engages those students as they go through without also leaving behind our 10th 11th and 12th graders that are there right now wanting to make sure that there are some of these aspects that we can introduce to them and expose them to to give them college and career preparedness um that we're doing that so a lot of that what we're discussing tonight what i'll share with you a little bit here is actually keeping us on that track and really excited about the opportunities that will be forwarded for our students a

019few things uh we have really worked on definitions of what it looks like to be a part of this program and specifically the purpose behind it first and foremost you'll see kind of our design up on the top there and we're going to use a lot of branding that way because we want to make sure that we have not only visuals but also a clear pathway defined for individuals as they're journeying through the program itself so as we're looking at that the first ones you'll see up there is compass that's the first opportunity that we have for connecting with our students um encompass truly is our opportunity to engage them over four years with their social emotional learning as well as their guidance office for uh career pathways and specifically looking at their course registration

020and their movement forward that way but just ensuring that they have a broad compass or a guide on throughout their four years on what they're prepared for then encompass within career pathways ensuring that our core curriculum is solid that it is a solid tier one um for every single student that there's a guaranteed curriculum for everyone that is viable that guides them for the required courses they want to take but then also further engages them in areas of electives and career preparedness for courses that are very specifically designed for a field of study um with that then comes global electives and global electives are those areas where students will get an increased world view specifically areas of like world language music our arts programming all of those then encompass a well-rounded student and want to

021make sure that though that students are exposed to those as well and then that leads us to our specific pathways and capstone opportunities for students when we had discussions over the last two years one of the things that we really wanted to make sure that staff knew is what career pathways is designed to do as well as make sure that we are defining what it is not intended to do too because there are times where you design a program or design opportunities for students and they have an unintended consequence and we wanted to make sure that we were very articulate in uh ensuring that what we want to do for students is there and that is our motive and that's our goal but that we also are sharing on what we don't want it to

022end up doing for students so i think that's important for us to look at career pathways is designed to give all wichita high school students a competitive edge that is exactly where we want to be we want our graduates um to have the edge over all other graduates throughout the state of minnesota and throughout the nation um so they have have and are exposed to career readiness or specifically career areas that no other will have access to second make sure we engage students with a compass team and an education that is aligned to their individual passions so again we go back to that idea or concept around individuality and ensuring that every student has an individualized plan for their education third we want to design our and define our course pathways that align with rigorous

023post-secondary education and our career standards we want to make sure that we have opportunities around advanced placement college in the schools pseo opportunities for students as well as rigorous areas that are designed around our cte or our career and tech ed areas create local partnerships ensuring that our business community is really streamlining and aligning on what our curriculum is because it meets the needs of their businesses so when they are hiring our students they know that they have individuals that are well trained and well aligned to work within their career areas make montana high school an essential driver in our workforce training and development so that our students are ready when they uh get that cap and gown and walk across that stage that they are ready to enter our workforce and are competitive in

024all areas of industry then last but not least give families resources in their college and career planning and so i gave to you tonight um four brochures uh as well as an alignment on configuration and these have become kind of our guide guideposts for our students so from ninth all the way through twelfth grade these are aligned to guide on questions and answers for families as they're starting to look at what their journey and what their pathways should be all about it provides the essential questions for families as they then start to navigate what four years of high school should look like as well as what four years of a pathway structure or a pathway program should offer their student um beyond just asking some of those um questions it's also going to go deep

025into how you are aligning um the choices that you're making uh with specific career areas as well as then essential questions about how are you selecting those courses what are those things that align uh with skills and assets that you bring to the table or just career interest that you have and then last but not least provide students with guideposts of things that they can do within our naviance program which is aligned through our compass to ensure that students have an online platform for all of their learning uh as well as then it aligns well with them for some of their research for college and career interests that they have towards the future as you look at these um they are very different um ninth grade uh starts with not only um trying to understand

026yourself but to understand your school what role do i play in our uh in our school in our building and how am i exploring different interests that i have not only in the classroom but also on co-curricular then as you go into 10th grade it starts to really begin to define your compass and your pathway i'm starting aligning it too then how are those courses that you are choosing how are they aligning now towards capstones and experiences that you might have post-secondary then 11th grade specifically helps students to design and define what their capstone experience is so in other words are you taking an alignment of courses that will provide a field of study or an area of study for you that would allow you to get a certification maybe um some college credits right

027away or a specific mentorship or an internship within our own community within a business area and then last but not least um 12th grade putting all those pieces together and making sure that they're well aligned so that our students by the time that they're done in june that they are ready to hit the ground running and feel supported throughout their journey so a lot of work has been put into the this uh these brochures specifically to assure that they uh align our families to what our schools and sequences as well uh one thing we've been working very very hard on this year is to ensure that our families have that structure too but that it's not just about us trying to provide that for your child but that we as a team can make sure

028that your pathway is well refined and what career pathways is not limiting choice or promoting a single pathway we have decided uh as a team and as a school that we do not want to limit a student into just one pathway so they don't define themselves as just one but they can explore multiple pathways along their journey at ohs we do not promote one vision for success post high school it isn't just about a four-year college or a two-year college or going right into a specific career field that what we want is um to make sure that individual is celebrated for the choices and where they see their journey taking them and ensuring that all options are available to students we would not limit um to current um career paths and courses in other words

029we are always seeking to better ourselves and to figure out how can we expand to meet the current needs of industry within our own community state as well as country and then last but not least we are not about creating barriers to success so as we look at all of this we are examining as a foundational piece that you have set for us as our board to ensure equity for all and that is that we want to remove barriers on and remove obstacles to access for students to ensure that everyone has opportunity in all courses and in all career fields that we have as well as all their learning needs too so there are pathways so this was probably the the largest piece of work that we did this year and that is to take

030our three pathways themselves and that's what this sheet that you've got as well um is aligned to and that is to take the three paths themselves and start to align them to what we call a field of study so it isn't just about business communication and info tech but what are specific um fields of study that fall under those so for us we broke those down into four specific areas business management financial services and administrative systems so we have courses that fit under that categorical then hospitality tourism and event services arts design and innovation and then communication media and public relations so our goal was that with all of the courses that we offer at the at o'tower high school that are not core required courses so in other words not your english 9 your

031english 10 your pre-algebra things like that but all of our elective courses and areas of study must fit under one of these categories otherwise we begin to question why do we offer the course what is the purpose of that course as we move forward and what we're excited to see is that it showed us some areas of gaps where we know that we need to align our curriculum better and create stronger fields of study but it also showed us that there are some areas that we are well defined in fields of study and opportunities for coursework and so on the sheet that you got um it also further delineates on the actual forces that fall under those categoricals as we were doing those fields of study though one thing that we noticed is that if

032you get too specific with them we started to compete against what different colleges and universities offer or what they require for specific areas of study and so we had to keep them broad enough so that it gave access points for all students but we didn't want to get them so specific that we started to compete against who i shot for that and now my college that i would like to go to i didn't take some courses that would be required in their definition of that field of study so we were very careful in how we aligned these to ensure that students always had options as they were as they were designed and developed corey how many in going through this process and aligning everything how many courses did you get rid of i would say

033as of right now we have not gotten you know thrown out any courses um but what we have noticed is that we know that we need to redefine what some of those courses are offering and specifically what the curriculum is going to align to because many of them do have kind of a they have an origin within a pathway but now they have to be further defined for it so for instance one would be like a youth service leadership we know that we want that to be a precursor to our um grow your own or our intro to education um and so because we know it's a great mentorship opportunity for students and so when we're looking at that we want to further define where the curriculum is so it's kind of pushed us that

034way to take a look at it um further though on the opposite side is that there are some courses that we've looked at to say within our uh physical education and health and specifically in pe about where does team sports fit in where do some of those courses um align with on some of the health and wellness and how can we further expand those to ensure that then they help a student define where their birth path is and i imagine you review classes and courses every year every couple years to make sure they're where they're supposed to be did this make that process easier and more efficient for you as far as okay here's the course here are the gaps that aren't necessarily meaning what the goal in the direction we're going with or did

035it make it trickier with the same trick trickier okay how can is because we started to define what is our purpose and mission in the courses that we are offering yeah because um students you know and specifically courses compete for kids uh and that is which course do i want to take what best aligns with where i see myself moving forward and so as we started to define this and look at this is our passion this is our mission this is what's guiding our students because we know that these are going to set them up for success college career readiness post-secondary or post high school how do we want to make sure that our courses are aligning that way now with that though i would say that it just created more questions for us of

036how can we further define and align them which then is going to really be successful because we will be able to see how all of our courses align to a specific career or field of study for students and students are really excited about that because now they're going to see how if i take these three in succession or if i look at the course offerings in this area that it will lead me to a mentorship an internship a inquiry project that i could do or a specific capstone experience that is unique to that field of study and so that's what we're excited about because it will start to expose greater depth of learning for our students which is truly what we mean uh what we stand for yeah can i ask one more question can

037you go back to a comment you made about the not going too deep into the subject matter so that you're not competing with college oh say more about that i'm not trying so for instance um let's go on to the second one here which is the health sciences and human services in the area of health sciences we could have looked at pre-med as a specific field of study and just talked about pre-med if we would have gone as as tight as pre-med what would have happened then is we would have had to look at all of the colleges that offer pre-med and make sure that if we were trying to share with a child about hey this is what you need to make sure that you're competitive to go um to college and be successful

038in this field of study or this next course of action that you need to take um here's what you would need but what we start to find is whoa all of those uh colleges are very unique and different in the scope and the focus that they have that if we would have guided a student to say this is your field of study and how you know how focused that would be we all suddenly said we have to step back from that because that truly isn't our goal is to tell them exactly that you're getting ready for the u of m pre-med program what we want to say is that we are introducing you to a field of study that will make you competitive anywhere you want to go and as you hit your 11th and

03912th grade year and really start to define which program you want now you've been set up to be able to do that and then that really opened us up to the fact that's why compass is so important why you have to have a guidance counselor a career navigator a department so specifically in this situation our science department that can say yeah this is what you would need if you want to go into that field of study then post secondary and so uh it was and that was trial and error we really learned that as we started defining this and creating it is that we wanted to make sure that we kept the um the avenues wide open for our students so they were as competitive as they possibly could be um so within health and

040human services we have the health sciences field we have education and human development human services and wellness government law and public safety and we're really excited there are about three areas in here that we right now have departments looking at for next year adding some courses to that we're very excited about some of the refinements in these areas and students are guiding that conversation about areas of interest that they have but right now we don't have some course offerings within and so we're excited to add those to it and then last but not least is our engineering manufacturing and agriculture and that is split up into five specific areas ag food science natural resources power transportation and technical systems manufacturing architecture and construction and engineering and so we have as you can see um through

041these uh specific uh areas or courses that align to fields of study and then right now then developing and uh initiating internships and mentorships that students would have as well as certifications that students can get that will allow them to enter specific careers next steps and outcomes then um so if you look at this kind of broad picture that is here it starts with compass moves us into our core and global electives students start to find their pathway and then it leads them to capstones and we know that that is really where our kind of final initiative right now as we move forward we will be doing curriculum design and training for compass and naviance this summer uh really making sure that our compass program specifically our advisement program that we had to kind of

042put on the back burner this year um due to the fact of the focus 19 and the fact that we really could not pull students into an advisement type program for this school year but we want to make sure that we make that more robust for our students and we're really excited about the curriculum that will come forward in that a lot of those icanns are outlined on the back of this where you'll see under naviance we have an expectation that we align all of our curriculum to that we are excited to hire a career navigator and to find student-centered outcomes for pathways with them how will they align on the work that we are doing to actually engage students that they are ready uh and the fact that uh how do we create those

043partnerships uh with our community to ensure that they have uh robust opportunities for internships and mentorships as they enter uh enter the workforce engage ohs staff and community partners in ongoing partnerships um actually on wednesday we are initiating that uh we are brainstorming right now um areas of industry within and businesses within our own community that would align to the different fields of study and they will be able to give us some names and partnerships that are already there as well as them brainstorm some that we have not um forged uh partnerships with um had the opportunity to uh to discuss with sealco works and just mention that we were looking for some people seven emails immediately uh businesses that watch a partnership with us right now on this to make sure that they get

044people in their door um to have job tours internships mentorships for our students as well as to guide our alignment of our curriculum too to say how are you utilizing this how does this concept work within your industry in your field um that will make our coursework even more engaging because it will meet the needs of our current industries curriculum design and implement implementation for capstone experiences uh we have a lot of work that are going that is going into that so that we know that as a student takes a succession of three courses that that third course on that if they are going to have a capstone experience within it that it truly meets what our expectations of that are as well as then gives them that edge and a connection to current practice

045within that career could you give an example of that what would create a capstone yeah um so one of them that we are looking at within our new high school would be um your foods three class would be a culinary where you were actually looking at what would it be to own your own restaurant your own catering business and that you are aligning to say how would i create a business portfolio or a profile that would allow for me to engage in that industry right away so the capstone experience would be something where you would actually create a business plan around an industry like that another capstone experience would be right now in our magnet program our students that take magnet for two years um creating portfolio of journalism or stories that they have written

046they actually um submit those to snow which is a a statewide run on student newspaper or a student journalism program and they will rank and look at those uh those submissions and then rank that that student's portfolio and so when the student graduates and has that capstone experience they will now have a portfolio to be able to use for future uh resume builder or for uh interviews and things like that that are absolutely aligned to what a career within journalism would look like so we wanted to be as real as possible so that capstone experience really is because of a succession or a focus of multiple courses that prepare the student to be able to create that capstone another one that's really good for us right now is our grow your own that students can

047take up to three aligned to nine graduate or high college credits that they can take in the area of intro to education critical race theory as well as human development so they would have a whole semester of college courses ready for their introduction into education pretty amazing for our students and what they will take that in that intro to ed course is be able to actually leave lessons within an elementary classroom or a high school classroom that they're interested in teaching in and have that as a introduction into their future career so pretty exciting thank you yeah and um last but not least then we also want to do some capstone recognition uh right now we know we want capstones placed on the students transcript because it will be a great discussion point for our

048school it will be unique to otana high school to be able to have that on our transcript but on top of that then it will be an opportunity for us to to recognize our students that have hit those milestones and have taken it upon themselves to complete a capstone uh because of the succession of courses that they've taken so exciting uh a lot of work ahead of us we know that as we refine and define um that these are living documents this is a living program that will change all the time because our courses change as well and it should these shouldn't remain stale and stagnant this shouldn't remain the same every year this should dynamically shift as our students needs shift as well as careers and industry changes as well because we know that

049we're trying to prepare students for careers that we don't even know yet uh and so we need to make sure that this changes with that and so even though we have i think created a good foundation for this or a framework for it um it will consistently uh be revamped and made sure that it meets the needs of our students so they are as competitive as possible with that there was a lot of information but i'm really excited about it uh and as you look through these um if there are questions that you have but just know that um our families will be presented um this this fall our ninth and tenth grade families will be coming in we are still going to use the 11th and 12th grade even though we've only rolled out

050for ninth grade so we're going on a four year plan here so our ninth and tenth graders will be presented with this uh next year as a very defined format we're still going to present the same topics for our 11th and 12th graders because again they deserve that opportunity and so many of these courses are already designed and many of our 11th and 12th graders are already taking them in succession and so we want to make sure that they know how these are aligning to college and career readiness questions i do have some more questions um at what point are you going to be assigning a mentor to the students it says that you're going to provide one for every student yep so that would be through our compass program so that is uh when

051they come in as freshmen they have an advisor that they will have and it's a great question because we have just decided this at our last month's meeting um that when students come in they will have in ninth grade a general advisor that will uh be with them for their ninth grade year helping them to align to the the goals that we have for ninth grade and then that will follow then to tenth grade and then what will happen is that once they hit to eleventh grade they will actually register for which area of career pathways so which pathway that they align to the most at that at that time and they will be given a an advisor for their 11th and 12th grade year designated by that pathway and so we will be training

052and creating a curriculum based on those specific pathways that will then allow for students to further explore as well as in their advisement will help them uh in their course selection um post-secondary or career choices that they're making to ensure that they are getting extra guidance within the pathway that they uh that they want to be exposed to at a greater level will you be hiring more people or will you be assigning other teachers you know who are willing to do that actually it is one of the models that we currently use that all of our teachers including myself are an advisor to a group of students so i currently have 14 students that i advise mine are 11th graders right now and so all of our all of our teachers are trained as advisors

053within specific areas and it'll be further refined because now we're going to also create a curriculum that is aligned to the specific pathways themselves and so they will be trained depending on which pathway that they would desire to be the advisor to thank you and so we're really excited about that because i think it will be more meaningful for our students too that it isn't about 12th grade or it isn't about 11th grade it will truly be about now as an 11th grader and you are interested in the health and human services how would you start asking those questions which courses are you taking right now to explore within that and then making sure that the curriculum itself is um specific to that and so for instance made in oatana days we really are excited

054about actually using made in watanadas each of the three pathways and make sure that that is really meaningful for our 11th and 12th graders that way just a couple of quick questions um i signed the 9th and 10th grade 4.5 courses right are kind of prescribed or required credits yeah yep so then the electives are about what three and a half because we're still yes okay and what happens in 11th and 12th i guess i'm interested sort of in the elective how much room is there for electives or what does that look like yep so the average student has around um 14 electives that they would have throughout their so about half of their their curriculum is elected now it all depends on where a student wants to go because they may have uh you

055know we may only require three math courses um but their field of study that they would like to go would say you need to take four um math courses because that is a better alignment for where you see your career field um within that you might say that you only need to have two years of a foreign language for your score some would say you don't need any foreign language uh with you within your field of study that you want to go into but what we want to do is make sure that we are giving as much opportunity for students and that they can start to see from freshman year in alignment of course is where they can say you know what if i am interested in arts design and intervention and innovation i can

056look at these classes and start to say how would that look over four years because i also don't want a student to take spanish one two three in freshmen only up to their first semester of sophomore year what are you going to do in 11th and 12th grade and how that actually contributes to the work that you're doing in whole scope if learning a foreign language is important to your career and so how do we design a for a year but we also know that freshmen it's a freshman they're brand new to this and they're trying to figure out you know what what are the courses that i want to take and we want to make sure that we don't bombard them uh with decisions that they have to make on their own that are

057not supported so in other words as we design this and as we look at it who is going to be there on their team to help align that and this is probably the first step to do some of that because most of our parents just see it by departments math department art family consumer science they don't start to see it in career fields and this will really shift the way that we have those conversations thank you you can ask a very quick follow-up to that initially when this was rolled out this seems much friendlier it seems as though the students have much greater flexibility with their additional courses and that they they don't have quite as much in the way of the required courses am i reading that right we have not changed requirements i

058will tell you that much so this has not altered that at all of what is required of a student as they go through their four years um but what i think it does is it aligns it better so that it is not as confusing so students are starting to see that um all of my courses align and can can point me in the right direction as i start to see some areas of focus that i want to to have in other words it isn't just about a 9th grade year 10th grade year how do i fill in the electives fill in the electives but to start saying we need to look at a four-year plan that actually is designed around some areas of interest for them it starts to give them a broader picture and

059gives them uh rather than filling in boxes which are your poor period day it's actually more meaningful and purposeful to say no let's make sure that we're filling those in with areas of interest that you have uh and so as you start to break that down families look at this and go oh my gosh they have a lot of opportunities to take electives very much aligns to their interest areas how do i make sure that we don't just front loaded or back loaded in their senior year and we tell parents that that students need some of those interest areas in ninth grade don't just give them all their generals and just you know and go heavy on their their freshman year let them explore something that might be brand new to them or a career

060field that they want and so that those can be spread across their four years um i have a question um so again i feel like i'm aging myself but there used to be i think thursday morning meetings or tuesday morning meetings whatever those used to be called tmm's so i don't know what the t stood for so um so my understanding of that was that it was kids that basically were similar alphabet and they were in a in a room um are you going to try and gear that toward the at least junior year to be more based on their areas of interest yeah um what we want for freshmen though is that as freshmen come in we want them to get acclimated to what school can do for you and so in other words

061um for our freshmen in general we want to expose them to all areas of interest and that's where naviance will give us the tools to do that where they will start to take self-assessments that will really guide them to say what are those things that right now by taking those interest inventories are pointing me towards specific careers and then as i look at those uh areas of interest um which ones actually stand out to me as you know what those do truly align to what i'm interested in and so we know with freshmen that we want that as well as just to allow them to understand that high school is very fun it's an opportunity for you to engage get connected and build incredible relationships that are meaningful for those four years and so we

062also don't want to go so heavy with career and college focus at that stage because that's not necessarily where they're making those decisions where they're making those decisions in ninth grade is whether or not i'm going to graduate and whether or not school is for me and we know that through link crew we know that through good research that ninth grade is a year that a student makes a decision of is four years and am i going to get out of here with a cap and gown and that and carrying that diploma and so we know that's very important to get them engaged in really really meaningful relationships and so we're going to hold off on saying that you need to make a career or a college decision i want you to decide that you

063care about your school and that you know that your school cares about you and so that's what we're going to do in 9th grade then as we shift that focus and start to see where are you interested and what does that look like that's then where 10th grade says now not only are you engaged you know that you're cared about here but now the courses that you select truly will have definition and meaning for you as you lead towards your future and so 10th grade's then going to be about why am i choosing the courses that i'm taking why are they of interest to me and how do i go to the next step with those because then now they'll actually make me ready for college or for the career that i want to do

064and that's where 11th and 12th grade you will register for uh the compass or the tuesday morning meeting used to be called um that that will be aligned to one of the career pathways and that will then really dig you uh into an opportunity to look at careers as well as college as well as courses that are very much aligned and then really encourage you to take a capstone that is going to allow you to be absolutely exposing great depth to that area of interest okay excited for it yeah very exciting and i'm a 9th grade parent so or at least going to be so very exciting um so one other question so i know at least with my older three they struggled they all took choir and so it was a skinny and so

065i think every one of them ended up with a study hall have you looked at expanding more options so that there's something other than a study hall opposite of a skinny yes so we're looking at many more options around uh what our band choir and orchestra schedule would be but we also have avid we have reach we have a bunch of courses that truly are uh that what we have done uh and it's my old hat as a creating the master schedule at another high school is aligning those together so in other words it's not just about music kids but you align a lot of those clustered programs that have to be and then you can kind of divide and conquer by offering multiple um skinnies at that time which then also aligns to students

066areas of interest so in that way they're not all forced into one course or one selection and so uh bill uh whitehead who is assistant principal he truly develops that master schedule and has gotten so good at making sure that we align that better and we are moving even greater towards that on top of that we're also trying to make sure that we align our core curriculum to truly core and that is that um so a ninth grader when they come in for uh for science should not necessarily choose three different levels of science when you come in as a ninth grader you are better off having one area that then meets the needs of all of those students in other words you have a core curriculum that is well designed to say that this

067is going to set you up as you then try to expand to maybe a college in the schools or an advanced placement or things like that and so we are designing our ninth grade curriculum to say that you don't divide at that time because actually what it does is it limits the ability for you to take other courses because if we only offer three of that course now you are stuck to take it in those three holes that it can be offered so we are trying to streamline that so that in our freshman and sophomore years that we are aligning our curriculum better and that we are meeting the needs of the kids in the class rather than having to rename a class and that i think people will grow to appreciate because it truly

068is individualizing the learning while they're in the classroom not by name only well all i have to say is thank you i mean this looks wonderful i love the fact that you've got these little activities that they can you know again is that awful mom that says oh do you want to get involved now i have a list so thank because i'm like what are you involved in and if you're not involved i'm gonna figure out a way for you to get them done they'll be they need that um they need to know uh that that's how you make those uh relationships or develop those um connections uh among your peers and so we want that for our students and we keep pushing hard for it uh because uh mr octopus does an amazing job

069making sure we have a robust offering uh within our school as well as our advisors just there are so many individuals that are doing so much for our kids we want to make sure they get connected right away freshman year okay thanks thank you to stay let's see trying to think of how to word this do students have to keep a specific grade point average to stay in their elective classes um you know if they're falling behind in their core things is there how do you handle that yeah so what we do is uh we meet the needs of students as they're moving through any course so if they're registered for 10th grade english and they are starting to fall behind we have teams of people that will be there to meet their needs and

070to to assist them specifically the classroom teacher the classroom teacher um hits remediation and intervention um at any stage of the of the course and that's really what we're designed to do but if a student is struggling um there are times where we will say that yes you need to repeat a course because if you did not pass that course and it is a requirement for graduation you will have to repeat it it could be repeated in numerous ways it can be through night school it can be through our summer school offerings but it can also be a repeat within within the school year and that would yes take away one of the blocks of opportunity for a student to take a further elective course but we also know that a student needs to meet

071those basic requirements of what an ohs or an oatama diploma is all about but for the most part what we do is we give the students multiple options on which to um stay on track and to guide them as they as they're moving forward but there is no gpa requirement for specific electives there may be prerequisites for an elective so you wouldn't take spanish two until you passed spanish one for instance so there would be certain prereqs that you have to take for succession of some courses because you have to prove mastery of some topics before you can move on to another one okay um going back to the compass meetings would we continue to have those next year yes um and then what would they look like going like starting in 11th and 12th

072grade when you said we would be assigned to like more of a specific teacher what would those meetings start to look like compared to yeah so what we were doing is um they were doing them once a month um and really what we saw is that that uh that was not enough to truly engage in a relationship uh with with the advisor so next year we're proposing it would be every other week that they would be meeting with their advisors and then following uh that we are looking at at some point time we would like to see weekly engagements within compass because we believe that we can create a robust curriculum within them that are going to engage students and really have you guys truly see the the meaning of this and saying yeah this

073is a time where i really am making uh plans and that i am engaged with this advisor who is answering questions for me that are going to help me uh take better courses um be prepared for college uh and make sure that i am making sure my high school is even more meaningful and so the the idea of the concept behind that then is that as we get better at it then we know that it's going to require more time but so next year we're looking at every other week within that then actually looking at an alternative daily schedule around that which would also involve some intervention time but then once you hit that 11th and 12th grade you would register um for and your compass uh based on one of the three areas and

074then you would be with 11th and 12th graders in that compass and what we thought was really beneficial to that uh was the fact that you would be with seniors who are making plans towards college as an 11th grader being able to see that and as 11th graders i'm choosing core and curry you know curriculum and i'm having exposure that uh such as ortana you know made in horton days or if we brought in certain industry leaders um to talk about internships and mentorships that you are at different stages of uh what your development is in different courses you might be at uh of course one in a field of study where somebody might be a course three in a field of study and the questions then would be able to feed off of one

075another so that you would see mutual benefit from having 11th and 12th graders within that compass and that it isn't so driven by what grade you're in but by your aspirations for what it is that you would like to do post high school okay that sounds really cool thank you yeah what else the questions i just have some closing comments and mr cath corey i'm so pleased with the leadership that you provided for this you came into this in fact just about two years ago you were interviewing for the position of high school principal here yes it was yes yes it was yes it was but you came in here the vision had been somewhat established about what we were doing and mr randall kind of walked that up to a point where now was

076ready to start putting boots on the ground and really starting to get more definition around what this looks like i'm so pleased with the work that you and your team have done and that includes your staff as well just how you've guided this process every step of the way knowing that you've hit little bumps and hurdles along the way that you've worked around with the staff but within this i see so much student empowerment and that's exactly where we want high school education be we want high school students to have the guidance that they need but be empowered to make the decisions on their own because we know their investment level goes up when they are empowered the other parts of this is you've taken again this vision to reality this is concrete kind of

077things that we hang on to that our students are now going to be part of the other parts of that is you mentioned kind of the progression of courses with freshmen the freshmen coming to you now have a much different experience than they did five or six years ago because they are coming in with some really really valuable sort of uh exploratory opportunities the board invested resources and middle school exploratory options in a different schedule for our students so they're coming to you hungry for i've had photography i've had you know i've had uh musical theater i've had all sorts of exploratory now mr cath what have you got for me and you've got something for them right now i'm really pleased with that and the last thing is you have taken what was a

078comprehensive high school to a connected and now aligned high school experience thank you for your work on this well thank you and i want to say it is not my way it is our way um the team of career pathways that i was able to engage two years ago really had a vision for this but needed that alignment and truly that's what we worked on these last two years and we do believe that our families will see it but most importantly our students are going to see this very very closely and it will usher in how we use our new building and our new school as well as how our community accesses our students that way too so thank you thank you thank you we are going to move on item 7 tonight which is

079just general information anybody have any questions that showed up in your enrollment report or any of the other administrative reports just one quick one what does vpk stand voluntary preschool yeah and so it's a it's a program well it's a program that was set aside as a grant we received and so they go through the voluntary sort of preschool program and then that uh prepares them better for generations any other questions question for amanda regarding the enrollment report amanda is certainly ready to answer any questions okay we're going to move on um items for uh discussion no action required board forum uh danielle you mind if i start with you down here in this end yeah um there's not much new with me just um starting off like end of the school year things about

080to take my ap exam next um tomorrow um i just became nhs president for next year oh congratulations daniella yeah um and yeah just like wrapping up a bunch of end of the year activities um especially for the student council we're doing like powderpuff event and a few other weight um activities throughout the week the homecoming yeah homecoming part two and then um last chance dance on friday it's our first and last dance that's it thank you debra i don't have anything nothing for me i'll defer to a little bit later okay uh i have two quick things for you with regard to um board forum the first would be engage oatana and i know that this is something that we have heard about in uh upward setting uh but it's worthwhile to continue to

081repeat it and and lift this up this is a fabulous tool for the community to connect and provide insight and input with regard to in our particular case specifically what's going to happen with the existing high school property the second thing i would bring to your attention and this is something that sarah just brought to me tonight there appears to be um a meeting that would be happening in september so we have time to explore this but the steele county historical society is planning a luncheon as part of women's history month and specifically they're asking for a board member to attend the luncheon on behalf of the school district to participate in a panel discussion and what they're focusing on is how did kovid challenge your school district and how will it change education in

082in the future so if this is something that sounds appealing to you sounds interesting to you and you'd like to be how long is the luncheon yeah well it might be there a while uh but they would like to know by june 15th so i'll circle back around with all of you at our next uh board meeting and we asked that question but i think the date of this september 9th if you are interested that's what i have for board forum laurie i don't have anything for this evening i have nothing well i have facilities met prior to the board meeting and the ground is officially broken on the new high school yay they were able to start a little bit early um because of the weather but starting lots of utility work 30 of

083the work happens underground fyi which is really thirty percent so yes off the top of your head do you like what's the timeline for that thirty percent you won't really see anybody his comment was a couple months before you'd see anything above ground especially if we keep getting rain i know the rain is not helping their situation at all but so that was a fascinating little percentage for me so but summer projects um are either starting june 7th at a handful of elementary schools with hvac upgrades and updates but the oec has already started and so they're doing their graduation ceremony out at the fairgrounds so yeah that's it from facilities anything to add to that nope beautiful okay i'm going to turn it over to mr ailstadt for some comments on the administrative report

084thank you just a few updates for you and i'd like to keep you updated as where the legislature is currently at so you'll note that last week they parted ways but they did set a budget target at least there was a handshake on a budget target with both the senate and house leadership within that budget target we don't know specifically what that means for us yet from a financial standpoint i'm assuming we'll learn about that as we move forward this friday is the last day for them to come to agreement on some policy terms and so we'll see where that leads all headed towards it looks like a special session which i believe has been scheduled for monday june 14th which coincides with our next school board work session so i may have an update

085for you if they've taken a vote that day where we actually amanda and i have been talking a little bit about we hope that they'll do some initial runs with the district run so we can kind of see what the impact will be financially one of the things that came from melissa ortman who's the speaker of the house was about the historic investment in public education and one of the things i want to be real leery on with that is they're tying federal one-time federal money in with that conversation and while i recognize that the federal funding is really important to our district to help us recover from cobid um it's also one-time money and there's a steep cliff with that because it comes to an end that finance those financial resources are gone and

086so we do need the state legislature to continue to fund annually our school districts so that we can make sure that we are at least keeping close to what would be the rate of inflation um so again um we'll see what comes about and maybe on the 14th i'll have further update with you on that uh just a quick covet update and perhaps we can kind of to move away from these updates but i wanted to make sure that you knew the cases have actually cut nearly in half since last week we're starting to see a real sort of progression in the right direction we're seeing less students that have been impacted other than if they've been impacted by a family member the crew the safe learning plan is still in place and since our

087last board meeting governor walls changed the mass mandate but one part that was left out of his message was acceptance schools because we do have a number of students yet that are not vaccinated and we want to make sure that they're safe throughout the rest of the school year what i would add to that is the way that the safe learning plan reads leads us to will be expected to wear mass in school during the instructional day up through friday june 4th starting june 7th which now becomes more of a staff we are changing our model to follow the business sector response which is optional mass for staff when they're in the building but again they will be optional at that point and likewise when we come to summer school for our 612 population that

088starts summer school particularly 9 12 with some of their credit recovery massively optional for them as well we are waiting for additional guidance though for our k5 students and how are we going to move forward with that that'll be decided at a later date there was also some guidance provided last week late last week so graduation will be completely maskless this year or mask optional now remember we're going to be outside so we're all hoping that it rains now and it doesn't rain on sunday june 6. that would be great but it also applies to any extracurricular activities that are outside of the instructional day so at our high school last night i was at an event for our robotics club and because it's outside of the instructional day masks become optional for parents and

089students in the building or outside of the building so that was an added little piece there because as we think about concerts unfortunately we just wrapped up our last concert before that guidance came to fruition but we still any extracurriculars award evenings which we have starting this wednesday at the high school can be a mask optional for staff and students and then just one quick strategic planning update we have one more full day with our strategic planning team on june 8th and then the work shifts to you folks because they have done some amazing work about really gathering that desired daily experience and then we worked through something in our last session which is called the theory of action and what it was was really trying to say if you believe that these things are

090important and this is important then that should lead us to inspiring excellence for every learner every day so we work through a lot of those statements and activities we are going to be working on a district vision card at our next session but that's really leading towards and directing towards the board work that you will do is to step set the strategic roadmap which then we backfill with an operational plan as i'm looking at my colleagues that sit on the cabinet that will really be our work then the operational plan about how we make those things come to fruition and i would point out that as per mr cath's presentation one of the desired daily experiences that was very clear from our parents is that they want relevant uh career preparation opportunities for our students

091and that's exactly what we believe our career pathway program is going to deliver so that's just a real quick snippet i'm excited to share our work thus far with you and look forward to that as we move forward um and i believe those are all the updates i have for you this is terrific thank you i have one question yes please um so i think there was an article from msba that came out regarding the summer funding that just recently got approved um did that change anything that you were planning i did notice that the funding was available to use until 8 of 2022 yes so we are working in fact um that was something that came we had cabinet on tuesday it came out i think on wednesday of last week so that's one

092of our agenda items tomorrow to discuss we have a fairly robust summer program that we have developed thus far but we also know that if it's been a little more difficult this year to find staff that will help us with that because even though you might want to offer more we have a staff that's really tired that has been through one of the most extraordinary years ever in education and we recognize that so i think that allows us an opportunity though of not only maybe during the school year but other events as well that we can tie even moving into next summer as well but we are doing some exploration we've got the tana trailblazers which i think is just offering more enrichment opportunities through our community education program we're still doing mines at work

093for k-8 and then we're doing a lot of credit recovery pieces we're adding some pieces to that including uh those students that maybe fell a little bit short in credits um if they are involved in a really valuable or valid work experience that we can provide them some work experience credit as part of their recovery because we know work is important to most of our students in the summer so again the dollars are there it doesn't compute to a lot and so as you start to look at it the new dollars that were assigned is about 160 000 or so but we had some before that time but then we they added about 160 000. the part that i think we're going to be exploring even further though is we've had at least one staff

094member come forward and offer to provide some additional mental health supports for our students this summer which is going to be a critical bridge for us because as i've stated all along although we saw some of the academic gaps develop the bigger gap is just the reconnection for our students in the mental health gaps that might have been established so that's going to be a critical part of our summer programming so we'll have a lot more detail with for you i think on june 14th which is kind of before we get things really cranked up for the summer we're just starting at that point but um i have a really incredible team of people that are three of which are sitting in the back of the room that are helping us craft that and staff

095it and fund it and so we've got three critical people right here to do all that so yeah thank you thank you board representation at graduation is nikki and tim tim perfect that's fun it's a great day yeah it will be a great day because we're going out to hong kongs when they announce names i have sunblock yeah and black robes so prepare yeah yeah okay good we're going to move on uh consent agenda uh quick reminder here is we are approving the minutes from april 26th and may 10th the disbursement personnel reports does anybody have a reason to believe that we should pull anything out and vote on it separately hearing none will entertain a motion nope i move to approve the consent agenda second we have a motion and a second any further

096discussion eric we'll take the roll call yes julian aye nikki aye lori hi mark hi deborah what are we doing this is everything agenda distinction putting all these things together correct okay tim hi and now myself tonight seven o'clock carries thank you we're gonna move on to item 10 where there's some board action that is requested starting with item a i'm going to turn things over to mr elstad for the 2022-2023 school calendar so this is a calendar that we have been working on and found michelle crawl has taken this and provided some guidance and the calendar committee of the district which includes multiple different voices has provided input in this as well so this calendar is prepared for you for your consideration of approval tonight just a couple of highlights for you just as

097a quick reminder we have started to make it a practice that we do start right before labor day which allows us an opportunity to get a few days under our belt with different open houses and things like that we're also continuing to engage in our k-5 uh preschool sort of conferences for parents which we found to be really beneficial to really begin and kind of maintain those relationships and so everything else pretty much falls into line there's really nothing to uh necessarily call out with this calendar but we always like to approve calendars at least 18 months ahead of time if we can because we do know planning takes place for families so i would entertain any questions that people have about the calendar at this time okay hearing none we'll entertain a motion to

098approve so moved second we have motion in a second all in favor with an eye any opposed she carries i'm going to ask that amanda hallman uh make her way up to the table item b is the self insurance the final bid acceptance good news right yes good news so um as most as you'll recall uh this past school year we made the decision at the district to move from the southeast service cooperative um to go self-insured um and that has been very successful for us um trend in the market right now is about seven to thirteen percent um and we work with national insurance services our agent of record to take a look at our last 24 months of claims and really trend that forward to give us a projected dollar amount for actual

099claims that we would have potentially for the next school year and then we also took a look at obviously the revenue how many members we have currently enrolled in our plans which is for 453 members at this point and so when you compare those two what we actually came down to was we needed projected the increase of five percent so we are below the trend of the seven to thirteen and as you'll recall the last two years we've had some significant increases we've got a sixteen percent one year and twelve and a half the following year so really proving successful and and doing exactly what we wanted to do is really to help us manage our health insurance claims um and bring that in internally so we're hoping as we move forward um we'll be

100able to build some reserve balance within our health insurance fund which will just help us as we move forward to hopefully continue to bring these increases down even further as we move forward which obviously saves the district and our employees want to give us the really quick bird's eye view what's the difference between being self-insured and going out so being self-insured means we take all of our claims all the revenue all of that comes through the district being part of the co-op means that we're part of a membership of all sorts of organizations and so we really fall to the fact that we're obviously all those claims from everyone's entities fall together and so if another entity has a really high claims experience and we have a really low one we're still stuck with all

101of those high cleans within this pool um and so what that does for us is it creates you know sometimes a higher anticipated increase than what we would normally have if we just looked at our own claims experience so moving to self-insured really just is a way to help us better manage our own claims where we're not risk adverse to other people's things and other people's experiences just a question or two so you know i think covert is kind of a unique year on a lot of fronts and was our consultant able to help us understand w were we in line with other districts in this culinary i mean i think some elective surgeries and stuff may not have occurred that you know it's just so abnormal so did they help on that front and

102then what what does that mean for our future or how do we so afterwards spreading claims forward we did have a cold with factor placed in those trends just not knowing because you're right there were some certain procedures that people chose not to do we did have a few um pretty high significant ones that weren't necessarily related we had some higher fans this year now we anticipate as people start to venture out and actually go to the doctor we're going to see some additional pains there but we did fill that into the trend as we move forward so we feel confident that the numbers we're projecting will hopefully cover any of that increase in activity and then one other quick question i know you noted the insurance committee can you remind me who sits on

103that committee so we have a representative from each of our union groups that sits on the insurance committee um and then um obviously our hr representatives and the business officers yep and we met a week ago yep um and very very good meeting and then maybe just wanna so are they able that committee are they able to help educate our insured population about this plan and sort of what it means for them and i mean do they have any anecdotal comments or what's your sense on that so we work really hard with so yes yes and we also work hard with national insurance services we do an open enrollment for our employees every year so this year it'll be in july and so we work with them to set up individual meetings where employees can

104actually go and meet with one of the representatives to talk through our plans and have an objective person that's outside the district kind of present here's the out-of-pocket cost for each of these plans and how it would impact you and that's been very valuable for our employees we found a lot of success with that um so we'll continue to do that as long as our employees want that yeah yeah that's great news any other questions anything to have no i just think and i appreciate the work that amanda has put into this going i don't know if anyone knows going to self-insured is not as easy as just sort of saying guess what we're going to do tomorrow there's a lot of extra planning and work that amanda and her staff have had to do

105along with our consultants as well to kind of walk us through that but to get to where we were have the trepidation we had about what covid might mean to us and then to move forward this way it's just a real investment we've made that time up front has been important but now we're reaping the benefit of that and as we move forward and continue to build a little base where we can take on these you know maybe market calls for 10 percent or more and we get to a spot where we can kind of keep those within a reason so that we know even how to financially plan better you know three to five years maybe down the road so anyway good work thank you okay would one of you be kind enough to

106introduce this motion i move that the board accept the self-insured health insurance renewal with blue cross blue shield as presented i'll second that we have a motion and a second any further discussion all in favor with an eye any opposed mission carries uh item c um turn it back over to mr alstead the 2020 2021 official school calendar so let's hope that this was our one pandemic and we don't have to ever travel this before but as kind of an annual piece that the board has done at the end of every year we do justify the calendar to make sure that we are fully recognized for a public record that we did have to adjust some of the calendar dates mostly on a given year it's because of inclement weather but this year we have

107some things that were called out and so one of the things you'll note that's color coded in the calendar that was presented for you for consideration is you'll see some that were in orange which means those are transition days something we hadn't experienced before when we were transitioning from uh fully you know online learning to a hybrid back to in-person learning again so just a few different nuances with that and then we do recognize that there was one official snow day this year and i think that happened on monday march 15th if i'm not mistaken and so um what you're being asked to consider tonight is just kind of just public acknowledgement of this calendar to make sure that we've justified everything that's necessary for the department of education but also to meet our district

108requirements questions i have a question um so i believe that again memory may not serve me correctly but that the teachers had to have a day if they were doing both online and in person does that wednesday need to be recognized in this calendar we don't because it's recognized still as an instructional day it just happens to be an ear e-learning day or distance learning day we've called it all year long which accommodates then the need for additional prep time which they have inserted into that wednesday for our secondary staff and then our we adjusted our elementary instructional day to accommodate that as well we were back in in-person learning for most of our elementary in fact i think if i were to stick to a percentage i would say 90 of the year was

109in person for elementary students because we built a different model with just using our interventionists and so on to have a classroom but um yeah so that's all been adjusted for it was all accounted for we did have to request one additional transition day at the end of the year from the department that they granted us because we made that switch back in what was now late march from sort of the um well it was from hybrid really to in person so okay thank you anything else any other questions somebody have that motion queued up i moved that the board approved the revision in the 2020-2021 school calendar removing march 15 2021 as a school day for grades k through 5 due to inclement weather second emotion a second all in favor with an eye

110any opposed motion carries last tonight would be gifts to the district one more time mr ilstat yeah two gifts recognized tonight there's a 500 gift from federated and mutual insurance company to our owatonna high school boys track program and as we see every once in a while a 250 anonymous donation was made to the husky angel fund and this is a fund that helps cover lunch costs for families or students that are having a hard time paying for their lunch costs or other things one thing i would recognize is that over the course of this year and then moving into next year we believe that the federal government is going to continue to fund lunch for our students and so um this covers a number of things that has covered lunch in the past this

111year we're using the husky angel fund for other things like um could be that they need to have opportunity to pay for driver's ed classes things like that so it meets a number of different needs questions one last time somebody introduced this for us i move that the board approved the resolution for acceptance of gifts as presented second we have a motion and a second eric's going to do the roll call jolene aye nikki aye lori hi mark hi deborah aye tim guy and i'm myself and i 7-0 pass motion carries thank you very much felt so good to have people here tonight oh my gosh it felt good and it was packed um for the students that that brings us to the end we will entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second we

112have motion in a second all in favor with an eye opposed good meeting motion carries thank you for