001So, >> okay. So, it is six o'clock, so we'll call the meeting to order. All members are present except for Cheryl. Um, so we will start with pre-ish items. >> All right. So, uh, we will start with our elementary school principal. So, Mrs. Akerson, if you want to come on up and tell us what's happening. I will fill in We've had a busy couple um months looking at February and now into March already. Uh we wrapped up uh winter conferences with just over 96% of our families attending winter conferences. So just want to say um and extend a thank you to families for making that a priority and and coming in to join us. We celebrated I Love to Read Month uh throughout the month of February and we uh closed it out with our
002schoolwide book opening through Book Blast. And I just wanted to provide um a little bit more context about Book Blast and how it was an opportunity for our students to build their home libraries. Each student uh was encouraged to send out 10 invitations to friends and family members and then those funds went right back to the students. So it was not a school fundraiser went right back to uh kids and um all of our students received a minimum of two books up to 10 books total. And so we had like three pallets come in um with boxes of um packages, one for each student with their name on it with their books inside. And so I'd like to share with you our book blast video here. Um you can see the excitement from our opening
003day. All right. So you could see the joy across the faces um as they opened up their books and they were able to bring those home. Um with I love to read month. I also included our new display this year uh recognizing our millionword readers. And you can see we already have quite a few readers that have reached the millionword mark. And some of them up there have um two and three million words as well. And so each um milestone they get a an additional star. And so that's hanging up um outside of the office to recognize students. Um, so that's been a fun addition to our hallways this year. Looking at March, we recognized Kennedy Hoskins as our um, school social worker and um, she serves over 60 of our elementary students in small
004groups working individually on academic, social, and behavioral skills. So, just wanted to say a sincere thank you for the work that she does. March is also music in our schools month. uh backed by popular demand is our March music madness. So Mrs. Strand puts together um a bracket of different songs and this year's focus is happy feelgood songs and so she shares um little clips and songs um in the bracket and then students vote and those songs proceed forward. um some titles that you might recognize. Walking on sunshine, happy together, best day of my life, Here Comes the Sun, and more. It's been fun to hear those uh being played throughout. Um also big in March is our food drive. And so I wanted to add um this flyer for um our community to take
005a look at. I know this was put on social media as well, but uh really giving back to our community um is what we are doing through the food drive. Upcoming dates, uh we've got end of the third quarter approaching quickly. We've got um no school for students on the end of the the quarter break day. And then Thursday, April 1st, I wanted um excuse me, April 2nd. I need to change that there. um is our school of excellence celebration. And so um I've included the official community invitation here. Uh we are including community members, family members, um you as the board as well to join us on April 2nd at 1:15. The cover of the invitation was designed by one of our students. And if you scroll down, >> oh, >> um, here is
006the invitation. Um, April 2nd at 1:15 in the Pays Gym, we did put a RSVP link so we can accommodate seating for families. Um, each student at the elementary is getting um an invitation to color and design to bring home to their families tomorrow. So, we're excited to be able to invite the community to help us celebrate in receiving the School of Excellence Award. >> Are there any questions for Cassie? >> No, but I do have a thank you, Cassie, being on the board for the Panzo Community Service Center and what you folks have done in the elementary school for many years uh as far as March food drive. Uh thank you so much for that and especially this year uh because of things that have happened uh you know towards the end of last
007year and then what we've seen going in as far as this year uh is really needed as what you folks do to help out other folks within our community. So thank you folks so much. >> Our benches are filling up quickly with food items. >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Mr. Rasmmanson want to come on up and tell us what's been happening at the secondary building. >> Good evening everybody. We've had like Cassie mentioned a a busy month since we last talked and so I just highlight a couple of the things that have happened. Um so on February 25th we did have our student reach presentation. Uh we did two presentations, one for our middle school students and one for our high school students. um a gentleman named Eric Samuel Tim along
008with a band called the Wonder State was here and so they performed live music and then he came up and gave this powerful presentation on uh the power of words talking about the fact that it's okay not to be okay and that you know if we're feeling things we need to seek out help and so um just a really powerful me um message you can see in here that he did live art drawings there's some pictures of that uh one of the drawings that was kind of a really cool aha moment is um he drew that middle Einstein painting and he started drawing it upside down and when I was watching I was like why is he drawing a big rock like what's this and then he flipped it over and it was Einstein. It
009was just this really cool moment and I had a lot of fun watching our middle schoolers come in because as they walk in there's this live band playing and they have smoke machines and um all sorts of stuff going on and they it was like walking into a rock concert. It was just such a cool experience for him. So that was awesome. So, I I appreciate student reach. Thank you for every year they come here and they offer presentations and so I'm really thankful for them. Uh we did have middle school egg day just uh last week here. Um our eighth grade students participated in middle school egg day. Um this is middle school egg day is this hands-on experience where we bring in outside community members to give students different learning experiences in the
010area of egg. Um and so we had representatives from South Dakota State University. They led presentations on natural resources and food science. Um, our students did a metalworking demonstration led by McDow. Uh, we also had groups come in who led floral design stuff. So, they got to experience a whole bunch of different career fields in egg and hopefully to start igniting some passions and looking at, you know, potential career fields in the future. Uh, registration and conferences. On February 26th and 27th, PEL schools held our our winter conferences. uh families got to meet with their students leadtime advisor um to uh get some data and to prepare for next year and register. So I thank families for engaging in that process and coming in and uh being a part of our winter conferences. Looking ahead,
011we have a bunch of things coming up here pretty quick. So Cassie started we have a March food drive over here as well. our student council is arranging that and um um we're looking at um as donations come in, students get um tickets to win potential prizes. And so we're kicking off our big food drive. Uh then this Sunday is our soup sandwich and song concert. And so there's a soup dinner along with um a silent auction and then um a bunch of different music presentations. So the dinner goes from 4 to 5:45 and then right afterwards the sixth and seventh grade band performs at 6:00 and then the high or 8th through 12th grade bands and choirs perform at 7:15 to 8:00. So come out and enjoy a wonderful night of good food and
012and good music. Upcoming dates, March 20th, we're looking at the end of quarter 3. March 23rd, we're looking at uh no school. And then we have April 3rd and 6th are our um our no school. And then we have April 7th is a two-hour late start. And then April 8th, I just want to I'll put this out there and we'll send more information, but that's when our school begins MCA testing. We'll start with the reading test on that day. So just want to make families aware of that. Uh as you can see down there, I left out my goals and that's sort of my presentation for this evening. >> Okay. Any questions or um comments for Mr. Again, I just want to thank you, Jesse, for my pleasure. Thank you. >> All right. Thanks, Jesse.
013>> All right. So, it's been a little bit since we've heard about our activities. So, we'll invite Mr. Hendrickson up and find out what's going on uh in the world of activities at this time of the year. >> Yeah. So, we put a lows on the winter season and now we're shifting quickly into the spring season. Uh we're thankful that we've had this warm spell. So, hopefully that means when uh any other additional snow or rain comes that it should disappear quite quickly. Uh we've had practices start today. We had track and field and softball start and then baseball started their arm care week this morning as well. And then we've had past couple of Mondays we've had some solo and ensemble contests for band and choir. And then Jesse just mentioned the soup sandwich
014and sound coming up on Sunday. And then uh three consecutive Mondays. I think it's the 4th, 11th, and 18th of uh May. We have concerts for band and choir there, too. So check those out. Uh winter season is a long one. We appreciate the crowd for coming in all the way from, you know, starts in November, goes all the way into March. Uh definitely makes a better environment when we have a packed gym and hopefully we get a home court advantage because of that. I know our our athletes and um participants appreciate that. Um boys basketball, we finished the second time in three years we finished as conference champions. A couple weekends ago we had individual state tournament. We had Brooklyn Binsfeld, Tyson Maher, Jameson Maher, and Nolan Wberg made it. Uh so it was
015fun to go down on that championship Saturday to cheer on Tyson. Um, we had a huge contingent of Bulldog fans there to support him and and our other wrestlers throughout the week, too. So, that was just cool to see. As we begin the begin the spring season, we're continuing to work on finalizing schedules. Most of them are done, but we're just kind of adding a couple things here and there and finalizing things as golf courses kind of get everything squared away. Some of them have new management. Um, some schools have different admin things like that. Just trying to get all those different schedules finalized. So, there's just a lot that goes that goes into that. And then uh I just encourage our families to continue to check our online calendars for all that. And then
016get our forms and fees taken care of either on Infinity campus or in the office. And then have a lot of our JV and C squad baseball and softball games covered, but then we'll work on getting junior high games. So we my yearly pitch to if you know anybody out there, if you have somebody that's back home from college or anything like that, we're willing to help train some people. we can provide the equipment so we can get some of those junior high games covered. So I was just talking about our scheduling platform. Next year we are transitioning to bound. So all the conferences around us are transitioning too. To the north we got Granite Ridge. To the east we've got the right county south we've got conference and to the west we've got West
017Central. All these conferences including our central Minnesota conference are switching to bound. So, it's uh the company that runs our current online platform was bought out by somebody and they've kind of decreased the functionality of it. I know schools are very frustrated and um kind of irritated with how the transition has gone which has kind of fueled conferences wanting to switch to this different platform. And then there are schools that have had this platform for one or two years already and they just love it. They said it's much easier to navigate. there's a lot less um chance of schools messing up a schedule here and there where things get miscommunicated. Uh so should be a lot easier transition, but we'll I'm in the process of doing the onboarding and there's a lot of steps to
018that. So look for that to be rolled out sometime in July, August before we kickstart the next school year. So lots to lots to get ready for that. And then uh just want to thank the Psville water and transfer. I know it's going to be a busy spring again with a lot of different events and mother nature is very unpredictable with how all that goes and they do a great job of being flexible of making things work and communicating with us. If things don't work, how can we make it work with maybe using some bands or moving to a different date or changing times and things like that. So, just definitely appreciate all that they do to help make it possible for our people to get to where they need to go. >> Any questions
019about our activities? All right. Thank you. Appreciate being here. All right. And then we'll move into community education. Uh Chris want to come on up and let us know what's happening with community. All right. All right. Kind of a short one, so we'll get through it here pretty quick. But we had information night on Thursday night. There were 15 families in attendance and handed out some other uh for families who couldn't show up, handed out information. Our registration opens March 16th for the 2026 27 um preschool and wrap up program. So March 16th we get get rolling. Um we have some for early childhood we have some special events. We have uh our spring pooling here at the high school in the high school gym on the 26th and then um shortly after that our
020ECF classes start. We have enough registrations to run both classes and hoping to fill out a little bit a few more families but they're um we have a good following. So that's that's very encouraging. Um the and then our last special event will be the uh early child early childhood playground dedication and big truck night. And so we'll I'll get some invitations out you book by the next uh board meeting for you so you can mark your calendars. Um our spring catalog is finished. We're proofing it and hopefully just going to be able to send that to the printer before Friday. I always like that day. That's just a big load to get done. So, I'm happy to have that done. And then, uh, we also have our summer p we opened up our summer
021pause and the 2026 pause that which will also be in the catalog, but we opened it up and let all of our parents that are in our program know. So, we're starting to take registrations for those programs as well. We have some upcoming events uh at the pack in the auditorium. Uh there's uh we just had a large volleyball tournament uh this last weekend and on the 22nd there'll be a youth wrestling tournament. Um then we have March 26th the it's a free concert uh St. John's uh men's chorus. That'll be in the auditorium at 7:30 p.m. Uh we have a author uh mystery author panel the that great rivers is hosting um uh on the 27th and then on 28th is a talent show. So that is a big weekend for um auditorium usage
022and uh great arts events. And then uh the uh chamber will have their annual Easter egg and Easter event and that's their poster up there on April 4th. Saturday, April 4th, they'll be hosting an event at the pack. So, um our our pack is going to be a busy place. >> All right. Any questions for Chris? >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. All right. Ah, technology. Leah, let's hear what's going on in the world of technology. It's been a little bit. Welcome. Thank you. I'll just share a few highlights of what the technology department has been working on this year. Our goal really has been to make sure that technology supports learning while also keeping our systems secure and running smoothly. Um, the aviation program, uh, thanks to the grant secured by Tim
023Wher, the aviation program upgraded its flight simulation computers. These new machines are amazing. They run the aviation software much more effectively and are also used by students in marketing, innovation, and drafting classrooms. Um, uh, first grade iPads, we updated the iPads used in the kindergarten and first grades were were beginning to age and struggled supporting some of the apps the teachers prefer to use. by choosing or by purchasing new iPads for first grade, we were able to move the next newest ones to kindergarten. So, we were able to refresh two grade levels with one purchase, which really helps stretch our technology budget. Um, I wanted to bring up AI. That's that's a big thing. It's becoming more common in education and our districts working on how to use it thoughtfully to support both teachers and
024students. Our licensed staff are able to utilize AI tools like Chat GPT, Google AI, and Magic School AI. These tools help teachers create lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes, and project ideas more efficiently. Um, the benefits we're seeing is reduced lesson prep time, ability to create more personalized learning materials, and using tools already available to us without additional costs. right now. Um AI is really being used as a support tool for teachers, not a replacement for instruction at this time. Um protecting student and staff data data remains one of our top priorities. We use security tools such as light speeded filters, GoG Guardian, Google Workspace security features to help protect students devices and our district district data. Uh we also regularly review our systems using tools like our forigate firewall or light speeded clever and Apple school
025manager to identify and address potential risks. This is a big behind the scenes part of our job making sure our systems stay secure and that student data privacy requirements are met. Um we have created a structured device replacement plan to keep staff and lab computers up to date. Laptops are on a six-year cycle and desktops are replaced on an eight-year cycle. This helps us plan ahead and avoid a large replacement cost over all at once. Um, as we did last year, the plan is to students in grades 6 through 12 will return their Chromebooks at the end of the school year for some summer storage and maintenance. This helped helps us account for all the devices, complete repairs and up updates, and reduce the amount of devices that are lost or damaged over the summer.
026We've also created a more efficient pickup process for openhouse to make the device distribution faster this fall. Um overall, our focus continues to be supporting teaching and learning while maintaining secure and reliable systems for our district. Um thank you for your continued support of our efforts. Appreciate it. >> All right. Thank you, Leah. Any questions for Leah before she's bolting off the hot seat? Thank you. >> Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. All right. And the person who loves the hot seat, come on up, see really hot lately. >> Oh yeah. The big thing for me this last month has been staffing. >> You know, covering trying to get it all clean, keeping the building clean as we can here. A little short-handed. So appreciate every all the help we've been getting for that and so
027on so forth. So um it's been posted. I'm getting a few interviews now. So keep working for it. So other than that, we've been working on that science room. It's pretty much painted. Uh looks like the shelves for the cabinets will be coming here in about 3 weeks. Nathan's been having a little trouble with his uh router thing to make them, but uh he's working on it. He said about 3 weeks old, so that'll be nice. um get that moving forward again and looking like a science room. And uh been working on that Hall of Fame wall. Had the caps class kind of helping out with that. Um making more room because we're out of room for the Hall of Famer pictures. Uh so we'll be able to get a couple more years out of
028it before we decide what we're going to have to go forward with them Hall of Fame pictures and so on and so forth. And then air handlers, of course. Uh started digging into that uh district office one with the AC unit, getting quotes on that AC unit, see what that's going to run us. Um working on the ones over the top them five years where uh they're not communicating. So any questions? >> Maintenance. There's always maintenance. >> All right. Moving on to achievement and immigration plan presentation. Uh so Cassie, you want to come on up and I'll pull up the document here. Sorry, just had a kind of a break. Yeah, I know. Oh, just is not in another window. It should bring the call back here. >> Bring the call back here. Thank you.
029All right. >> Wherever it went, we just brought it back. >> There we go. Okay. So, um I wanted to share this. That's what I was struggling with. Here we go. All right. Um Cassie, do you want to just uh take it away and then I'll fill in as >> I'll jump right in. Perfect. Um so in the fall, if you recall, um we provide an overview and update of our um civic plan and readiness plan. Um and so right now you're going to see a plan that's for um the fiscal year 27 through 29. So we have one foot in our old plan and one foot here in our new plan. And so tonight is really giving you an overview of our new plan. um as we look up look to wrap up our
030old plan at the end of this spring. And so if you recall, achievement and integration is just that looking at how do we provide achievement opportunities for our students and provide integration opportunities. Um and so because we partner with these other six districts and you'll see an R I racially isolated district and a adjoining um because of our um diversity. We join in Melrose, Long Prairie, Grey Eagle as an adjoining district as well as Albany Sock Center, BBE and Osakus. And so we collaborate together under the Lake Wagon collaborative to provide integration opportunities for our students to get to know other students across districts. So I wanted to bring that forward um as we get started because the achievement and integration plan has three goal focus areas. Uh one being achievement disparity, one being integration
031and then the third one is um uh teacher equity and giving our students access to uh highly effective teachers. And so what you'll see tonight is our plan and we will um get a signature from Rachel and then this does get submitted to MDE for their review and approval as well. Um so looking at um our first uh piece we have our goal one looks at the achievement disparity. And so when we look at achievement disparity, we identify where do we have achievement gaps across our district. Uh do we have subgroups that are underperforming than other groups? And so we typically look at our free and reduced and our nonfree and reduced population. um because of our um minimal numbers and racial diversity um we really want to stay away from identifying groups that are
032identifiable. So if we have a small group of students, right? And so we want to make sure that we're looking at um uh groupings where we can't identify students because of the size of our district. Does that piece make sense? >> Okay. So we look at free and reduced and nonf free and reduced students and we have recognized there is an achievement gap there and so our job is looking to close that achievement gap and so we're looking at again uh similar to our last plan the area of reading and so we'll look at our non-free and reduced and our free and reduced eligible students in second grade through 10th grade closing the fluency achievement gap. Um, and we want to close that gap by 1% year after year. And so for a total of
033a 3% reduction in that gap by 2029. So one thing that I'm going to add is that this might sound a little bit familiar because when we were talking about the the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness and the the district's goals, um, very very similar. They're measured a little bit differently, but it's again about closing that achievement gap. Okay. And then within each goal, we need to identify our strategy. Which strategy from the list that is provided are we going to use? And in this case, we're going to use the family engagement initiatives to increase student achievement. And a couple different ways, kind of three areas that we'll do that is to continue providing our explicit instruction through reading interventions. Uh you've heard a lot about um personal learning plans. We'll continue that work. um
034grade level meetings, data meetings to determine um who's not meeting the benchmark and how do we meet their needs. So through our MTSS process, the second area um which will be new for us is hosting literacy nights um where we invite families in um to have uh some learning strategies um some fun of course with literacy activities and maybe some take-home uh resources to get families engaged and how might they work with their readers at home to increase uh reading skills And then thirdly, increasing participation in parent teacher conferences. Um really utilizing that opportunity to talk about how our students are doing in the area of reading and what might they do using our personal learning plans as that stepping stone from school to home. Um and so you know working with Mr. Rasmmanson and
035myself, how do we help families understand where um where kids are at in the area of reading? We've got some measurable pieces there um that are outlined um measuring those in years one through three. The second goal um as a district we're going to be looking at increasing um staff competency around cultural awareness and traumainformed training. So, how do we respond to students coming to us with varying needs, various uh cultural background? Um, and so we'll do that through professional development opportunities, working closely with our district-wide staff development team. So, how do we provide ongoing training year after year where 100% of our certified staff would participate in that training? And then lastly, our goal three um is similar to the previous plan. Again, working with our collaborative of the other districts with that integration
036piece. Uh providing students opportunities to get together with the other districts um to learn about cultural awareness and um how can we expand their experiences outside of Paytonville. And so we'll continue. Um I think I've mentioned before we did an in-person gathering at the beginning of the year. This last one was virtual and then we're going to end the year with another inperson because that was wellreceived by the groups of students across the districts getting together in person. And so we've got some key indicators there too and and things to measure with different surveys and whatnot. Um then just to summarize um kind of what Janelle spoke to is this is really about um creating efficiencies with the programs and with the goals that we're doing across the districts um and to eliminate duplicative programs.
037How do we streamline the work that we're doing? Um and so we're connecting those together. So, um Rachel will get a a copy for her to sign. Um and then we will send that out to NDE for approval and we'll get that budget piece uh sub any questions on the achievement and integration plan. >> All right. >> Okay. Sounds good. Thank you. >> All right. Um moving on to winter benchmark summary. Um, Mrs. Rasmmanson, would you like to come on up? Um, are you do you want your over I didn't I didn't know. Is this just you or were you going to include your >> Great question. I would you guys like to come up here and join me at this little table. >> I I I put it on because I knew that you
038were the spearhead, but why don't we'll tap into them if we need to. How's that? Perfect. Okay. >> Taking that as a no. All right. Um, so I think this is a always a a meeting that I I get good feedback on and I was excited to see kind of um how our information is coming in our winter benchmarking and uh so without going too far down a wormhole, I'm going to just turn it over to you and then I'll just interject when I feel it's necessary. >> Sound just what I do. >> All right, for the next one. Do you want to drive that? >> For sure. >> Okay. There you go. Let you >> just click. Nope. Okay. >> All right. So, we want to remember the overall mission is to be able
039to equip our students with academic, social, and personal skills so that they can be successful in their career and in our community. Main focus. So, first we're going to take a look at reading assessments. Um, just a reminder, we use FastBridge assessments. Um and with the new read Act legis legislation um most schools in Minnesota are using FastBridge as their um point of assessment. And so I one of the things on my list of things to do is to reach out to FastBridge and say, "Hey, since everyone in Minnesota is using FastBridge now, can we get some state comparison data?" That would be awesome. So, um, first we have early reading, which is kindergarten and first grade. The little stars up there are the winter benchmarks. So, that's what we just completed. And the fall
040um, shows where they came in at. That's kind of fun to see from last year. The district um over here, these were fall, winter, and spring from last year, which is beautiful. And that's exactly what we want to see. Um and so it's fun to see that trajectory is the same for those. >> So let me can I just say one point? Um when we met with our uh our district advisory committee um they gave us some feedback in the way that we presented data and and they said it would be really helpful instead of comparing last year's kids to this year's kids, can we just compare how our grade level students are doing? So, what you're going to see in that kindergarten slide is that um the kindergarten is the kindergarteners from the fall
041to winter, not last year's kindergarteners compared to this year's kindergarteners. Okay. So, they so the data is structured a little bit differently this year. Um and that was really based on feedback from our our advisory committee saying this would maybe help us understand the data a little bit better. Okay. Perfect. There we go. Perfect. So, um then we move on to fluency. And fluency with our students is we give them three grade level um probes and then they read each one for one minute. and it takes the middle of the three scores. Um, and we know that fluency, how many words per minute our students can get, correlates very closely to comprehension. So when we are looking at the CVI thing we are looking at, but we also take comprehension into consideration as well. So
042we have second through fifth grade up there. Fluency is looking great for our district. Um, a little extra star on there for you. Sixth through 8th grade next. Okay. So, 9th and 10th grade. This was the first year again because of the read act, we are um required to give an extra assessment to our students who are not reading at grade level. Well, in our district, we have uh decided that not reading at grade level is not passing the fluency test and the comprehension test. And then once they don't pass those, then we give what's called the CAPD assessment. Um, but with ninth and tth grade, they test, but we haven't given that given them the CDMR fluency test. In the fall for 9th and tth grade, whoever didn't pass a reading, then we gave
043them the CVMR. Um, and it's a one- on-one 3 minute each for each student. So, um, the MTSS team from the elementary came over and we met with those nth graders then and 10th graders. In the wintertime, we thought we would just do it the exact same that we do all the way down to uh, second grade. and we gave that assessment to everyone. So if you look at the fall score, those are just the students who didn't pass the A-reading test who were tested. And so that is kind of wonky. I would say that's not that doesn't um portray our student populations. And then if you look at the winter score, that is more accurate to where our kiddos are at. I mean, I do love how much we have increased since the since
044the fall time, but realistically that's about where we are at for 9th and 10th grade. And then we'll continue to do that in the future, too. And then we have our A reading scores. And A reading is comprehension. Um, and these are A means adjustable. So, as a student gets one wrong, it gets a little easier and then it gets the district overall from fall to winter and then second through fifth grade. And then the secondary as well, 6th through 11th grade. And we have um 11th and 12th grade are wonky again a little bit because if there are students who are doing school to work and they aren't here during lead time, then we are um trying to track them down to be able to come in and take those tests during one of
045their other classes. And that can be really hard when they have core classes that we don't want them to be missing to have them take those. So I would say 11th grade is a little more accurate. And then 12th grade is kind of a little off. So then we move on to math assessment. And that's what this is, a picture of what that composite score looks like for math for kindergarten and first grade. and then for the district overall, but then second through fifth at the elementary and the secondary. And then this is our beautiful MTSS team that I'm so proud of and appreciate them so much. We have our social workers who are part of the behavior um aspect or behavior portion of MTSS and they do a wonderful job. Um it's been really
046fun working with both of them this year and collaborating on some interventions with them. Um and then we have our math specialists over here at the secondary and our reading pair professionals and then um reading specialists. We really could not do it without any one of them. Um, we have an outstanding team and it's a pleasure to work with each and every one of them. Board members, are there any questions about um the benchmarking for this winter? >> The last one was on that. Okay. So, explain what happened from fall to winter. So, we look at some of yours and it shows an improvement. Theory being that they're not in school. all summer long, right? That doesn't show it. >> So, what's going on? >> Because that's something we've dealt with. This isn't new. Um
047something we're dealing with and that's my gut is telling me we were not figuring it out. >> Or is that happening in all the schools in the state? >> Oh, so yes. >> Yeah. Are they changing are they changing the rules, changing tests, or what is ex what's happening here? >> Go ahead. I Okay, so a few things and I think we could say similar to the A-reading test as well. >> Um, same thing. So we have been focusing so much on um developing our tier 2 and tier three reading supports which means tier one is classroom instruction. Everybody gets the same. Tier two is, oh, that kiddo is struggling a little bit with math and reading, so what can we do to help them? And tier three is this one kiddo is really struggling
048with these areas. What can we specifically do for them, not group of them? Um, we've been pouring into that for reading, comprehension, and vocab comes after fluency. So, we are seeing a drastic upswing in our fluency scores. Um and it's really exciting to look at the longitudinal scores over the past five years because they are going up. Um next in line then is the comprehension and vocab and there is absolutely some systems work that we can look at. Um but naturally comprehension and vocab a reading comes after fluency. after fluency and being able to read automatically, that's when the kids are really starting to dig into understanding what it is they're reading. Um, so two years ago, um, and at the middle school, we just got new curriculum this fall. New curriculum takes a good
049three years in order for teachers to first, second, third to make sure that we are all um spending time on similar parts of the curriculum because there are so many things. I was just talking to Jennica Schwz for sixth grade reading and she said I could if I did everything in the unit according to that what they're telling me it would take me a quarter like it would it would take so much and it's supposed to be a two week little guy there. So um there's a lot of teacher discretion there and I think some really good conversations that can be had at grade level meetings and have been having um looking at math. Math is our next focus. We had to really dig into the reading portion of it. And now that we have
050a welloiled machine with reading, we are looking at math. We're looking at math curriculum for um the elementary and secondary. And actually um was the another math curriculum meeting yesterday or today after school or tomorrow. Um that is actively something we are looking at. um the the structure of MTSS supports for math. We have had a a math position open for the tier 2 and tier three extra help um since last spring and we weren't able to get anyone for that and we've kind of shifted things so that we're able to use the resources we have here to start digging into that and so we um started a peer mentoring program not started we are using the existing peer mentoring program to take a student someone's beautiful daughter over there um to take a student
051who is willing and able and trained them in the interventions and she is actually going into kindergarten. She has four students she's worked with and four out of four are showing growth on their progress monitoring. So that is very exciting. Um and then math in fifth grade as well. Diana Keer has a power half hour that she's worked out in her system for that. And so we're getting them in there. Um Miss Jacobe is trying to get in for different math interventions. math it. I think everyone is like ready and raring to go and we need some time and money to be able to get the curriculum and to put some things into place. So I think if you look at the scores up there, remember that each percentage, it could be 3 to 5%
052is one student depending on the grade. And so, um, math does, if you can click to the next one, there are a couple grade levels that are a little, um, more than others. And then the other ones, I would say, are pretty darn similar in from fall to winter. And you're right, that's not what we want to see at all. But please know that that is absolutely part of the conversation. That's part of the planning and process. And we are absolutely digging into that and there is no magical reason or magical solution but it's something we are absolutely digging into >> is the I guess I've talked with various parents and I guess I struggle with it also in school I enjoyed math >> but now is it a requirement that we have to teach
053them new math because even the parents are struggling to help their kid with new math and I feel that's I mean >> that's why we're struggling. >> Yeah, that would be part of the curriculum. Um and so the new math curriculum that we develop or sorry that we adopt it really depends on what's in that curriculum. Um, I think that there are different approaches and we've kind of gone through a cycle of teaching new math for the sake of teaching new math and we've kind of the pendulum has kind of come back a little on we want to teach g kids how um I know my kiddos in second grade when they bring their sheets home. There are some things that Sophie used to be able to go to Jeffy with or I would push
054her in that direction because his brain operates like that. And then there are some that Come on. Come on. Almost relax. Heat. Heat. Yes. Happy. Heat. I want to elementary and our barriers and again we don't know the other barriers because we haven't had the applicants and so you know if there's nobody out there applying then it's hard for us to bring somebody on board so to go back and I've said this before when I first got on the school board we were right on the line straight across the board and I can remember specifically having a long conversation with the superintendent at that time. Well, we were cutting out extra hours for the math department. Okay, it was like three or four hours. So, I would consider that a good halftime person. I don't
055mean to be bad here, but I'm not seeing the change. Which tells me that we need to look at this and figure out what it takes. Just because we can't hire somebody, we have to figure out how to get through that because we're taking groups of kids. If you bring new curriculum in and it takes three years for people to get caught up to teach it, does that mean we sacrifice two years of kids education that they have to have for the rest of their life >> while we're doing that? I'm not sure I get that, >> right? >> You know what I'm saying? Or do we bring something in that's simpler to follow? Um, but I know this stuff can be done. I've been reading a little bit about Mississippi and stuff like that
056going on down there. I'll tell you what, we should all open up our eyes here a little bit. They went from the bottom of the the bottom of everything. They have no money hardly in their schools and they brought these kids to the top. I go back to one meeting. I mean we talk a lot but um I go back to a meeting that I had at one of the conferences and it was with a person that was involved with uh the educational department of the state of Minnesota talking about mathematics. She herself took kids in a program that was failing and in one year turned them around. One of the things she talked about was if you talk to kids about math. >> Okay. How do you get rid of that? How do you
057make it exciting? How do you make it interesting? Let's compare it to to reading. You have lots of things out there that can generate, but how do you do that? She and I don't recall. She had a whole method of what she did, but it was in one of the the metro communities where they were having lots of trouble. She turned it around in one year. But I think we need to look at this because we talk about the MCAs. Okay, so we have the MTAs and we'd like that to look really good. We can't have another program that tells us exactly what this is telling us, just in a different format, right? We didn't have a program that is achieving, that is growing, and it's going the right direction. And we need to make
058those analysis pretty fast because each group of kids that goes through when they graduate from our school, what did we miss in their education that they need for the next >> 50 60 years? It's it's really important. >> So anyway, >> yep. And I think that's why um why you did see a recommended dedicated math position in the budget last year and that's why the plan recommended to have full I don't know uh Thomas and I were at the capital today and they they were talking about um a lot of the work with the readact um and essentially kind of eluding uding to math is next. math is coming and we um there's a group of us that were part of a um kind of a um a district uh resource training and solutions had
059an opportunity for us to get to come together and essentially look at our goals and what is it that we're working on and what do we need to be doing and how are we aligning our work and um and we asked some questions about um math because we we brought our concerns. We need some support. We need some tools. We need some resources for interventions just like we have for math or for reading, I'm sorry. And um I would say even within the resource training and solutions, Minnesota Department of Ed, they don't agree on how to do it either right now. So when we're looking for guidance and resource, we're saying, "Okay, we got to just figure it out internally. what can we do instead of waiting for we don't have a person what can
060we do inhouse um and it's it's something it's it's not just sitting and waiting for resource and MDE to figure out which direction we should go but trying to build on what we do know and use the resources that we do have um to try to make some progress >> well it takes me back a little bit and I believe that 100% we need to figure it out on our own. But last time we went over this, I thought there was an area that the graphs had changed slightly because MDE had MDE had changed the process or something. I don't recall exactly what it was, but along with that dropped all the history. Okay, if you're dropping all the history, you're just telling me your new process starts here and we want to see where
061it goes. I have no interest in that. I'm interested in how we achieve from this process to this process. That's why math programs keep on changing because we're not analyzing them back to where we were. We're taking this glorious new idea and trying to do analysis forward and as soon as you get the end of it, seven years later, they start a new program. This state is gone. Well, we have kids involved here. It's it's what they're leaving when they graduate from our school with that's important. All the rest of it doesn't really count. We have to figure it out. No, >> is that not required to >> is that a required curriculum to do like like the new math and and have a special licensed math teacher? I mean, I hate to see it
062settle, but can't we hire a a second tier math teacher just so we can get our math up? >> So, Am I going down a rabbit hole here? >> Well, yes and no. I mean, like, so, so the rabbit hole of um the state of Minnesota, Hillsby, is our is the licensing board that requires they they tell us um >> they dictate the rules. >> They tell us who we who can teach math. Um um there are some ways if we have if we find somebody who um is really good with kids and they get numbers and they can they can teach math, we have some avenues and some platforms and some tools, but we got to find that person and then we can try to work through that. Um, but we we aren't able
063to if we hire somebody that's not licensed, we have a lot of steps that we have to take in order to keep them on and then they have to be showing that they're working to get their license. So, there's just a lot of hoops that you have to jump, >> I guess. And I don't want to single out our math teachers now, but I just I would have to agree with Bruce. I think the last five, six years we've really struggled in in math and I know the other schools have too. >> Yeah. >> I don't have an answer either. I mean, I feel for you, >> but I think we keep we need to keep the conversation at the table and I and I think that's that it needs to become part of part
064of our planning and it needs to become part I I don't disagree with you. >> Y >> All right. Thank you. Thank you. If you think of the person I have a a person that I I'm listening to um who's connected >> them in the somewhere. I have I don't throw stuff away. So I >> if you find it I would love it but I will be in the office next week. >> I know I got it somewhere. >> Thank you for putting this together. >> All right. Um so I'm gonna welcome her to the hot seat. She doesn't have to say anything. I promised I I but I will invite Amanda to come up as we talk about um budget revisions. So, um this is really the time of year we've uh you're going
065to notice this is coming a little bit sooner than it has in previous years. and we've we've had a conversation around um why that's important to try as we're moving into budget season to really have a a a comprehensive understanding of where our current budget is. So, uh let me um push play and I will share that. Okay. Uh so the 2526 budget, this document is going to be the same as you've seen as it's been proposed on this on this link. Um here is the actual um the actual revised budget. I'm not going to spend a ton of time on here because I have narrative and explanation that's going to kind of walk you through this, but this is the document that you're going to see presented um at the end of March for
066the budget revision approval. Okay. Um, so let me go back to the this document and we'll start walking through the specifics of it. Okay. Um, so this first document is uh really the summary of all of those areas. Um, this is what the budget was based on. Okay. This is what was approved in June. And then you're going to see um the and I don't know why it got a little bit blurry, but the second slide is the revised budget. So, we've kept the number of students the same um because as I've shown you in in um in past meetings, our our student enrollment is kind of so we try to keep that unless we would have something really substantial, we keep it pretty consistent. Okay. Uh where you're going to notice the biggest difference
067is I'll just pull out the general unappropriated fund. You're going to notice the biggest difference there. Um where we have uh tapped in a little bit to our um our fund balance and it's going to be a little bit of a deficit and I'm going to speak to you as to why that is. Okay. So um our original budget assumptions. So this is again the same document that was shared with you when the budget was developed. And um you're going to see as I mentioned that the budget was maintained at 8898 ADMs. When it comes to expenditures um this document includes all of our settled contracts for our teachers, pair professionals, food service at will and administration principles and custodial maintenance remain unsettled. Okay. But those are the two the two um units that have
068not yet settled. Okay. Um you will see uh one of the areas that we talked about the math but the math position has currently been removed from the budget because it has not been filled. Okay. Um I do expect that's something we can talk about for next year as we look at how we structure this. Um but it did not seem to make sense to maintain that in the budget in the revision um as we're in March. Okay. Food service, there were no substantive changes from our preliminary budget. Um as with our capital funds, there are not any substantive changes. Uh we've kept those um everything within there has been as we've kind of predicted it. The one piece that um that I will acknowledge is that we have not yet um expended any money
069for the softball fields. That that is going to continue to be an ongoing conversation, but it is uh it is remaining so that it it's available if as we continue to move down the planning process. Um ongoing building and maintenance needs, there were no substantive changes from the preliminary budget. um and debt service. There are also no substantive changes. These were the variables that we spoke about when we were developing the budget. So then I'm going to kind of walk into some of the areas of consideration strategic plan review that's in process and and that has uh we're um on the the next remaining steps of that. Um as Maria talked about the CAPD that was an area that we had to take Whoops, I'm sorry. we took into account um that we had not
070yet um we didn't know what that was going to look like for the number of students and how much that was going to cost. Um so the secondary team and and Maria talked about that administered 107 assessments. So that was um they did the individual capy for students. The cost for our district was about $2,800. Um, so we kind of now have an area to know moving forward what that needs to look like and how that should um how we can plan for that within the budget. Um, some other uh considerations that impacted the 25 26 budget revisions. Um, as as Cheryl called out a couple of months ago, we did have to return $21,000 in COVID funds. Um again they were there was very strict criteria for uh the expenditures and um because we
071weren't able to um expend those funds they had to be returned. Uh we also have have had an increased number of students that are placed in care and treatment facilities. Um and that has been an increased cost to our district budget. We do budget for um for placements uh year-over-year. Um unfortunately the district really doesn't have an opportunity to um provide any guidance or in or placement opportunities for students that are in care and treatment. Um and and they're just very costly. So there was some additional um dollars there. Um budgeted for uh family med the paid family medical leave of $20,000. And um one other variable that has come into play is our PSO spring bill um which came in just after this data was presented. So um those are some of the variable
072variabilities that have come in that really affected our um our general fund which is go back up to the top which is where you see that um the net difference on the um general unappropriated fund. Any questions about that? And again, this will be uh presented again for approval at um the March 24th board meeting. Um if there's not any questions on that, would you like me to move into Y the >> the budget? Budget. >> Okay. Um, so Amanda and I have also been um spending some time talking about uh budget considerations and things that that are impacting. So you're going to see this document and I'm going to continue to build on it um as we kind of progress through the budgeting season. Um so we have been working the one of the
073key factors driving factors is our student enrollment. Um we have reviewed our data with the West Central Education District to analyze case loads. Um I do expect to propose a reduction of one FTE um in special education support. Um but that will be through attrition which would just be not not rehiring a um a retire a retired position. Um as we've moved into kindergarten um this remains this continues to be a really volatile place for us to plan. Uh what we do know is even just from our um our where our our predicted numbers are uh students are graduating. Uh we are going to make a recommendation to reduce one kindergarten teacher. That will also be through attrition. And so as a teacher retires, we will just now rehire and have three sections of kindergarten.
074Um I will make a a plea for parents that uh if you have um Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. Heat. everybody. and we get too involved in that. And our idea is that this the younger generation has that all easily accessible. That's not everybody. Um and it would just be interesting to see what it is. >> Sure. >> Because if all of a sudden we get there and at the last minute you're out there scrambling for another person, that's not really what we want to be doing either. >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? I'm not saying we need to hire somebody for the position. >> Yeah. It would just be nice to kind of see what that was. Um to see if >> Yeah. >> Don't want to reduce too much for
075the kids that are most susceptible to getting a good start. >> Yep. And I think um you know when this is not a reduced position um even if we get to April and we would find that we have a huge influx we can post, >> right? It's not we're not reducing an FTE of a person. We don't have to do an a non-requested leave scenario. It's because we have we have retirements that we have we can just >> that was the the hiring process to give you some choice. >> Yep. Yep. Okay. Um you'll also see um so one of the other areas that um we are going to have to um do an unrequested leave scenario is and and again I'm I'm looking to Ron um it has to do with lure. So we
076have a we have a a 1.0 know uh FTE who is uh filled by um a half-time position that she's licensed and then the other halfime of the position is an uh out of field permission. Um and we are not able to um hire offer her that that second half of the position until um that uh position has been posted for 60 for 60 days. Um but um if we don't reduce her position, she's entitled to a 1.0 FTE because she currently isn't a 1.0 FTE and we really only need her.5 FTE for instruction. So um that will be coming in March as well. Um the individual has been communicated with if the um if the other half of that position is not filled, you know, we're happy to extend the a conversation with her
077about um um picking that back up. But it's the process that we have to follow. Um also, um another area that's just under consideration, um has been our huddle and bulldog live stream. Um unfortunately, uh we've been evaluating both of those. Uh sponsorships have not transpired to be what we were hoping they would be. Um Huddle sponsorships to support the district's expanded use has only been $2,000 for an $11,000 cost. And so, um, we've tried a couple of different methods to engage, uh, sponsorships. Um, so what we're proposing, what we're considering is proposing to return to, um, just the base expenditure for Huddle, which is included non-commentary live stream for indoor activities in the fall and winter sports for 2627. Um, and then we've also had really extensive conversation around our bulldog liveream um, that
078is run through community ed. And there's there's really twofold um scenarios there. One is um as you can see there continues to be a budget shortfall. Um that it costs approximately $5,000 per season. Um this fall we produced eight events and we had four sponsors so there was a deficit of $2450. Um the winter season produced seven events with five sponsors so it was a deficit of 665. Um it's not in in that capacity for the bulldog liveream that's not only about um the funding and the finances that is also about programmatic sustainability. We just don't have interest from um students or directors who want to take it, who want to lead it, who want to run it. Um and so it's it's not sustainable. So, what we've just really engaged in in conversation is
079how can we um is do we have anybody else who's interested that wants to come in? You know, I Chris has tried we've tried posting the the job positions in a couple of different places. Um, you know, I I want to just take a minute to say thank you to Jacob Bertram and Jeremy Schmidt and Abe Dickaus and Colin Flyshacker, Jordan Chavez, and Caleb Freeler who have taken and they they've brought us through this whole year along with some other, you know, you had a few other kiddos that would hop in there as um as local talent and oh, I can't forget Lee Schaper and and Charlie Charlie Stang um because they've been the voice and I know that um I've I we've really wrestled with what to do with this um because we just
080don't have we don't have the funding coming in to support it and we don't have the interest to sustain it and maintain it and I think you could probably have Lee and Charlie sit there but if you don't have anybody to run the run the backstory it makes it really really difficult so that's just an area that we are we're considering um and because it has been um it has not been a break even those have not been break even programs So, I think it's good to look at one thing for certain, if they graduate from our school, whether the sport was live streamed or not, probably is not going to be something they carry with them for the rest of their lives. >> Like on the other topics we were talking about. >> Yeah.
081>> And I I feel bad mostly for the public >> if they can't see it, if we can't make it work, but it's not something that's going to be a detriment to students, >> right? I would say maybe it'll be, you know, I mean, as Rick, the the experience for our student athletes when the gym is full, you know, I mean, huddle would still be for our, you know, for our volleyball and our inter inside sports, but it's really nice to have a lot of fans in those stands. So, um, we we are continuing and we we don't have the recommendations yet, but we are continuing to review our activity fees, um, and our our sub rates for pair professionals, for custodial. So, we're we're continuing to take a look at those as we develop
082those uh budget areas. But, um I just wanted to bring you up to speed. Um are do you have any questions for Amanda and I about kind of what we're developing thus far? Okay. All right. Look at that. Not so bad. Super. Not this time. Next time. >> Thank you. Um moving on to request for information roundt. >> All right. Hearing nothing then we are journed.