May 6, 2024 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

001mik okay I'd like to welcome everyone to the May 6 regular meeting of the Board of Education this meeting is now in session please rise for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty Justice for All for a roll call all all board members are present except for director bernick uh before we get started in the um first item on the agenda which is the open Forum I'm going to ask everyone in the room including board members to for a moment of silence I would like uh to honor the memory of director of operational Services General delu who passed away on April 11th while in his 15th year of serving our district and longtime coach

002and former staff member Brad bolver who passed away on March 22nd thank you um now we're going to proceed to open forum and where are the rules because we have so many speakers tonight and plenty of new speakers I'm going to read the rules in full before we get started the rules are in accordance with policy 203 the board sets aside 15 minutes to receive citizen input through an open Forum input from students staff parents and community members and major decisions can be a valuable form of assistance to the board open form is an opportunity to address the board the open forum is a safe space for plsas community members to share experiences concerns and feedback in accordance with their first amendment rights the form is an opportunity for a community to elevate the conversation

003create healthy spaces for dialogue and demonstrate respect for opposing views so that we can all collectively do better at least 10 minutes prior to each meeting a signup sheet was available at the meeting site for individuals to sign up to address the board up to five speakers are normally provided a maximum of 3 minutes each to address the board unless an exception is granted by the board chair speakers will not be allowed to verbally attack disparage or potentially defame individual board members employees or students nor May speakers use vulgar or profane language also speakers may be precluded from disclosing personally identifiable private data regarding employees or students speakers unwilling to conform to the rules or time constraints may be told his or her privilege of speaking has ended if you have any handouts or materials

004for the board please submit those items in advance to Martha wals members of the public should not approach the dis the board will not review handouts during public comment period board members will listen respectfully to issues brought to them by the community but will not engage individuals during their time the board shall not deliberate or take action during the open form regarding an issue presented each for speaker should indicate whether they would like a followup by Administration on the speaker or mention them in their speech uh the chair will request the superintendent to follow up on the matter as as appropriate after open forum and when the board chair proceeds with the meeting the audience comments are no longer in order however board members retain the right to call on District administrators for information to

005assist the board in its deliberations thank you in advance the speakers and the audience for respectfully sharing listening and being engaged in the Prior Lake Savage area schools Community um because we have a large number of speakers tonight as chair I am going to wave the maximum number speakers I will ask that you try to keep it shorter if you can than the three minutes um and I'm going to I really want everyone to have the chance to be heard and also to express the board's appreciation for Community involvement in the district so the first Speaker we have is Owen Brinson brenes brenes thank you and you will be speaking on the CPM math start to come tonight speak for myself question stange that's reason students coring homework so we don't know have a hard

006time concentrating sense or have anything to do with math we just need you to stop dismissing us and listen to what we are telling you and why have any of you who don't have kids in this pilot even taken the time to read thoroughly through our workbooks or any of the lessons yourself here's some example questions what are three songs you currently enjoy listening to what is something you enjoy doing with your family neighbors or community members and admission to the festival is free and includes live music and some activities participants pay for snacks and some other activities Sam only participated in the free events and spent $0 all day saving $18.92 how can Sam use the money they saved how just having questions like these every day on homework and tests give us a

007strong understanding of uh numbers or a foundational understanding of algebra we are begging you to not continue making us skinny pigs my mom told me that uh Dr Edward said that it takes three years to see positive or negative results of a new curriculum don't you think our learning has been interrupted enough most of us middle schoolers and kids younger than us just started getting caught back up from all the learning and disruptions of Co three years maybe uh no time for you guys but it's a core of our learn years here when you vote on this next week we are playing with you to stop and actually think of me and all the other students who have been telling the adults how this math is not working and how we want to stick with

008the math we already have thank you for your time next on the agenda on C PM math we have Sarah Anderson I just watched a Prior Lake school board meeting from April 2023 with some concern as a member of the teaching and learning committee I looked up specifics in Minnesota statutes and it appears that we are not our committee is not meeting some State statutes in this Bridges approval meeting that I watched it was stated that quote quot any curriculum should be increas increasing measurable student learning and achievement in math and quote we spent a lot of time looking at the most recent research these things cannot be said of CPM it was also stated that there was a presentation of bridges to the learning committee for approval why was this discarded for CPM math

009we were never asked for approval or recommendation in any way at committee meetings it felt like there was a lack of transparency we were shown slides with survey results that weren't accurate and graphs of achievement that don't even apply to the math pilot I have heard lately of even more parents who did not receive the survey that we were told was sent to everyone a lack of continuity in conducting surveys will not give you accurate data I have spoken to parents who actually received a different survey in a different month with completely different questions yet we were not shown that data uh it should be disclosed I have learned of multiple students who were not interviewed personally as was told to us surveying the parents and students matters because I have spoken to parents with

010children ranging from being on the autism spectrum to being high Achievers and there doesn't seem to be representation for them in math so I feel that if we're discarding them that maybe doesn't meet our diversity equity and inclusion goals our district test scores and various rankings continue to fall our high school is now ranked far lower than any neighboring High School on school Digger we have dropped almost 100 spots in just over a decade why the rush to approve this why not wait until our new strategic plan is out why not reach out to get accurate survey results this is about our students learning and Futures thank you next we have uh sha shanana Bates on class size take a breath uh good evening Schoolboard directors and Dr Thomas uh my name is Shaina Bates

011and I teach first grade at Hamilton Ridge and I'm here today to thank you for being responsive to class size numbers last summer in the primary grades my class size was 21 graders this year down from 26 first graders the year before this has had a tremendously positive impact on my students as a grade level the first grade teachers at Hamilton Ridge have noticed incredible growth in Reading in phonics specifically after every phonics unit test we Marvel at how much our students are growing we know that the smaller class size has allowed us to work with students more frequently and have more active engagement and participation during whole group instruction having smaller class sizes has also made for a calmer and quieter environment for the first graders we find ourselves as teachers being able to

012quickly intervene during conflicts and can teach problemsolving skills on the spot being able to learn these skills at an early age will benefit our kids for years to come having smaller class sizes allows us to give extra attention to each and every student once again I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank you for giving this group of kids and teachers this incredible experience smaller class sizes really do make a difference next we have Amber corkran on the CPM math curriculum good evening school board and Dr Thomas my name is Amber corkran and I am a seventh grade math teacher at Twin Oaks Middle School this is my 13th year teaching in the district and I've loved every minute of being a teacher throughout my teaching career at Twin Oaks I have taught a

013variety of math levels including sixth seventh e8th grade extensions and advanced courses one thing that is always concerned me is that students weren't retaining mathematical Concepts from year to year when it was Math's turn for curriculum review coupled with our new math standards I was eager to start diving in one thing my colleagues know about me is I research everything and will spend hours of my own time digging into something I read books on effectively teaching mathematics I listened to several podcasts from the Minnesota Department of Education talked to peers in other districts and I also joined online groups with teachers from around the country on top of that I personally requested versions of three of the five curricula that we were researching and spent a lot of my free time in the spring of

0142023 diving into those online platforms and workbooks after all that we were all given some time to research curriculum on our own the middle school math department decided to Pilot CPM because it was the only one we felt matched our Prior Lake math vision and truly fit the needs of all of our students my eyes have truly been open since teaching with CPM the depth of knowledge I thought students once had has been blown has has been blown away by my students this year students are thinking for themselves they're understanding the why behind mathematical Concepts and they are owning their own learning experience students are engaging with their peers in math talk and having debates over math problems this is what every teacher strives for and it's happening in my classroom our Prior Lake mission

015is to educate all Learners to reach their full potential as contributing and productive members of our Ever Changing Global Community CPN M emphasizes real world applications Collaborative Learning and Hands-On activities to help students see the relevance of math in their daily lives it also provides support for struggling students while challenging those who Excel ensuring that every child has the opportunity opportunity to reach their full potential the rigor of this curriculum is greater than lecture-based sit and get and skill and drill curriculums we've had in the past CPM has over 35 years of evidence-based data to support it so I ask the board tonight to please trust us as teachers the professionals that CPM is what be is what best is what be is what best for all students here in Prior Lake it is time

016for us to embrace an approach that not only teachers teaches the content but also Fosters critical thinking problem solving and a deeper understanding of mathematical Concepts which again matches our District's mission statement thank you for your time and consideration next we have Rachel Carlson on board chair communication tonight I would like to address board communication the futures of our children are writing on the decisions made by this board elected to represent us I emailed the school board Friday with a simple question why why was the board approval request for Middle School school math curriculum moved from May 6th to May 13th I was met with multiple responses from the board chair on behalf of the board that never actually answered my question the agenda has not been released to the public it is released on

017Monday per policy best Mary France I responded that I had pulled both agendas from the district website I shared screenshots and the link where I accessed them her response Miss Carlson the only board packet and agenda that is currently available on the website is the April 22nd study session the version you pictured was never posted on the website per policy the board agenda and packet is not released to the public until Monday I responded confused since I had access both on the district website and even shared the link on a local Facebook page and again added screenshots and links showing where I've routinely accessed this agenda no response so I sent a new email asking the original question again since I hadn't gotten an answer the response the agenda and packet are not officially released

018to the public until Monday of the board meeting per policy any agenda you may see prior to the meeting is object to change and often changes as board agenda is dependent upon multiple fa factors I responded that this again is not the answer that I was looking for and proceeded to reach out to director bullan who also response responded with a non-answer I don't know the exact reason for the vote to be postponed I'm sure there are many factors then I reached out to Dr Thomas he stated that plan had already been adjusted from the original April vote and that they wanted to give board another week to process all the information since the agenda is created by both the board chair and superintendent why didn't the board chair just answer my question it is

019board's responsibility per policy 203 to exercise honesty and all written Communications and followup with community members to ensure the answer was addressed the last response I received suggests that the board chair is now aware that I had reached out to another board director in Dr Thomas and therefore no further communication with me is necessary when asked if she was suggesting that I access the agenda without authorization she wrote I'm sorry that you believe that anyone is accusing you of anything even elementary students know this is not an apology I'm grateful that the board is discussing board chair Communication in an upcoming study session no board chair that I have ever communicated with prior to this has responded in such a disrespectful manner I would encourage the board to consider what whether director France is fulfilling

020her role with Integrity when communicating on behalf of the board and how many other stakeholders are treated the same I would like to thank Dr Thomas for his quick response and transparency and I'd also like to share a that from a local private school that piloted inspiring connections they have indeed decided against adoption due to the student and parent feedback thank you next we have Nikki drain on the CPM math teacher perspective good evening my name is Nikki drain and I'm a longtime resident of Prior Lake I've also taught at several of our elementary schools including Westwood Elementary Hamilton Ridge and Sage Academy for the past two years I've been on assignment as a peer coach in the district uh serving at five Hawks Elementary Twin Oaks and Hidden Oaks and supporting our middle school

021math Educators as part of that assignment as a teacher I hold a high standard for our students and I'm deeply enthusiastic about the process of learning itself I guess you could say I love learning about learning this passion is driven me to pursue additional lures in both middle school math and middle school science a master's degree in teaching and learning and countless hours of graduate level cours work beyond that because of my current role I have a unique perspective I want to share with you tonight I have observed math instruction at both Elementary and Middle School witnessing firsthand the implementation of bridges and CPM math I have sat alongside my peers working through professional processes of learning reflecting scrutinizing and eventually seeing my middle school math colleagues come to a departmental consensus given the limited

022time I can only skim the surface of my observations and insight so here are just three beginning thoughts for you this evening to begin our pilot teachers in both Elementary and Middle School have expressed the desire to bring our Prior Lake math Vision into a reality professional organizations such as nctm have laid forth standards for Effective teaching and student learning practices these practices are integrated into our new Minnesota state math standards that are coming into effect and they're foundational for the CPM math curriculum second the desire and intent of Art and teachers has come from wanting to facilitate a more rigorous and robust math experience for our students we are responding to our board and community's call to take action when outcomes aren't where we want them to be the tools spiral design and Rich

023problem sets of CPM supports our teachers work of increasing students depth of understanding long-term retention of Concepts and conducting an active rather than passive math learning experience for our students one simple example of this is the use of mathematical modeling and manipulatives so at elementary I see our students learning with tools such as number racks 10 frames number lines to consolidate their understanding then at Middle School in the CPM classrooms I see Hands-On manipul manipulatives such as algebra tiles Ang legs and Desmos math finally I'd like to highlight the shift among our Educators from an initial professional skepticism to enthusiasm from our pilot teachers and then a unified commitment from our middle school math department in fact a most excellent educator Rec recently told me Nikki one of the most difficult and yet rewarding and

024beneficial things I have ever done for my students was to be open to teaching in a way that I had never been taught thank you for your continued support in this work so we can move together toward the standard of Excellence that we all so deeply desire for our students in Prior Lake thank you next the next speaker is Stacy Buckingham on the CPM curriculum adoption hello thank you for your time tonight my name is Stacy Buckingham I am a member of the teaching and learning committee I hold my master's degree in curriculum and instruction and I was a classroom teacher before I was a parent um this school board I think will be making an expensive mistake if it votes to implement the CPM as its Middle School curriculum I have spoken to a

025middle school math teacher who is piloting CPM this year and would like to share the feedback I received from that teacher from that teacher's perspective CPM is inefficient kids are placed in groups of three or four and required to learn the lesson together five minutes of class time is wasted just getting people seated in the right teams a teacher may have to explain the same thing five or six times since students are split into groups while many being idle from doing their work until a teacher arrives to answer their questions not one student that I have encountered had said that they prefer this CPM style than the traditional math methods students who are actually interested in learning math are frustrated because students who aren't interested are disruptive in the teams they're placed in each day

026students have said the math homework is incredibly difficult since the problems have little bearing on the lessons they worked on that particular day and there are a few example examples to reference back to um lastly the students say that the tests seem very unfair because if you spent weeks working on a certain topic that is very likely only one or two questions on the test and mostly it spirals back which is an intention of a spiral curriculum to Circle back and touch back on things but tests typically cover what you've most recently learned versus uh end of the year test another aspect of CPM that this teacher disliked is because the homework has booklets um and careful correct ction takes time that they were delayed in giving more homework because of the whole process of

027collecting and giving back notebooks another um because this is a spiral curriculum Mastery is not necessarily the goal and I can't disagree with the teachers who spoke that a solid concrete math understanding is important and necessary I was teaching with Hands-On things in my classroom 25 years ago so it's not a New Concept it might be new to middle schoolers to do it that way but I don't think it needs to be this or that um at on the committee we continually asked for data can you please show us data that this works that this helps students and we have still not received any data I would love to see that if there is some because maybe it is awesome and maybe kids flourish and maybe kids do wonderfully but we are working with a

028deficit right now we have no proof from the committee standpoint that this is a successful curriculum um and that is where our frustration comes in on my point um I understand that the there's a new curriculum for elementary school and that this seems to flow right into it but um I have to question why can't teachers because our teachers are our strength and we were told this on the committee that the teachers do need to fix the bridge the new CPM curriculum already because it's lacking um direct instruction so maybe they could take what they liked the small group in problem solving and put it with what we already have thank you thank you um last um I believe is support of CPM by Tanya Shopper all right members of the board Dr Thomas I'm

029M Tanya Shopper I'm a mom of three Lakers three teens plus me uh and the 19-year resident of credit River I've been teaching mathematics to e8th graders for 26 years and over that time I've taught over 4,000 students I've been in two districts three different schools I've attended both state and natural conferences and that have centered around mathematics education and I've been a teacher leader in both the Noah hennipin and the Prior Lake Savage area schools I maintain professional connections with Educators around the state I'm an expert in my field and I'm here to tell you that I'm estatic for the CPM curriculum mathematics is coming to live to students and they're seeing how they can apply it outside of the classroom two summers ago I had lunched with a former cooworker and we reflected

030on our school years I had been coming off of one of the hardest years I've ever had and she was like estatic it was filled with joy and excitement when she told me about her year and what was different was they had just implemented CPM Core Connections and she was amazed by the engagement and the level that the students were understanding much like Miss corkran talked about tonight students were exploring learning and connecting mathematics I was intrigued I started researching and I learned mid 22 23 school year our middle school department decided as Miss corkran said to Pilot CPM the teachers and we really are the experts in our field who were using the curriculum previously um in other districts were very excited about the spiraling the engagement the critical thinking teachers who are originally

031skeptical of it after trying it so they would never go back to a traditional classroom they believed the growth that the students were making and appreciated the challenges students were asked to think they were becoming problem solvers much like one of the board members saw in my classroom last week when she came to observe some of the strategies I'm trying to implement the comments were that the engagement was spot on and they were very well behaved we know that some people in our community are not satisfied with CPM we know that some students aren't and we're trying to do our best to approach those concerns and try to um let people know what we're thinking about we see the messages on social media we hear the comments at the curriculum committee meetings and we're doing

032our best to tell our story this is what we're seeing in the classroom it's not hearsay we're the primary source our six teachers piloting see the value that the students are doing CPM is a new style of learning math it's a shift in how we do things it's allowing us to change and prepare our students for an Ever Changing Global Community it's pushing them and it's testing different skills this doesn't make it awful this is makes it what we we need I'm sure you remember hearing in high school that you need to do the algorithms you're never going to have a calculator with you all the time we have a calculator with us all the time and we have apps like Photo maath that do all the thinking for us right it is time for

033us to let our students do the thinking we want to provide an experience where students are doing the work we have 14 Math teachers at the middle school we have a combined 250 years of teaching EXP experience for middle school kids we have 26 of our own children almost a full first grade classroom right we are members of this community we need to stand behind the curriculum that we recommend thank you we wouldn't be supporting this if we didn't feel like we could tell our neighbors our friends and our community members this is what our kids need CPM is what our middle schools need thank you very much [Applause] okay next on the agenda is the approval of the agenda so I need a motion in a second to approve the agenda for tonight oh

034sorry Pro oh a preure proem uh Jess director olad will you please be the treasure Pro protem in absence of director bernick sure thank you okay so now we're going to move on with the approval of the agenda I need a motion in a second so M by director Crosby second by director velas all in favor I I that passes six out of six okay uh first item on our agenda is the consent agenda the consent agenda items are considered to be routine in nature and enacted by one motion there will be no separate discussion of these items unless a board member or a citizen so request in which the event in which the item will be removed as a consent agen item and addressed in The Unfinished Business uh for in new business I'm

035sorry so the consent agenda contains the financials uh which includes um purchase orders a monthly financial report enrollment I'm sorry and the purchase orders monthly financial report enrollment report approval of Schoolboard minutes Personnel items which also includes uh resignations and terminations and leaves of absences among other things and and that's it so can I have a motion for the consent agenda okay by director Crosby in a second by second director Olstead any everything o anything taken off no okay uh all in favor I I that passes six out of six okay next on our agenda is the resolution for acceptance of gifts first I'm going to take a motion in a second some by director Atkinson second and second by director uh Vasquez okay on our uh resolution acceptance of gifts we have the Prior

036Lake Lions Club for $1,500 for graduation honor courts we have the Lions Club again for $2,500 for youth scholarships we have the prior League Savage Optimus club $44,000 for the five Hawks gym projector project and the smsc for the construction of the shed on our plsa SAS property which I believe was that five Hawks no I School uh this is a roll call vote director Atkinson yeah I just had a question actually about the sheds so thank you for the generous donation I know we have some members of the community here this evening I was just wondering um if we could if I could learn a little bit more about it where it's located and what it will be used for sure uh I will have director Oak come forward and talk a little bit

037about the uh partnership and the donation that they would like to make to the district thank you good evening yes uh the shed will be located at PR Lake High School um this is a request for for donation um and the smsc needs a letter uh for the approval that we will move forward with um doing the the shed and then they the donation will be requested the shed is for and what is it the shed is for um uh our native programming okay regalia regalia TP um polls and everything like that that needs to be stored there um things that are related to the internet programming right now there is a lack of storage space um we find some places to put certain things um you know at the high school or other schools

038where um uh Freddy and Mercedes are working at but there's no centered place um to store all the all the materials there great thank you and thank you for the generous donation okay any other questions this is a roll call vote starting with director ainson I director I I I an I that passes six out of six next we have Laker pride and I'm going to pass this over to Dr Thomas thank you chair of France board of directors uh tonight um we have our Laker Educational Foundation president Richie uh kusinski and our LEF executive director Jamie Anderson they are both here to present the school district with uh $1,568 45 to fund um our spring Grant requests and we also have a few of our 2023 Grant recipients um in the audience tonight and

039they will demonstrate how the funds were used for the project so with that I will turn it over to uh principal Kinski excellent thank you um could some help hover oh you know try to find the presentation is it still rebooting it's did you press news ch's coming in the meantime um my name is Richie kinsky I am in my free time I have the privilege of serving as uh the president of the Laker Education Foundation um hold oh it is rebooting thank you Christie um in the about the five years that I've served on the board uh when I first began we had a board of I don't know maybe four or five people and we were still struggling with our purpose and what our mission was um over the past few years we've

040been got a lot more engagement and a lot more um visibility U we rebranded um our website as well as kind of our Public Image and we're so excited to be there tonight to share some of the uh recipients of some of the grants that we've received um here's a little bit about our background um PRI the Laker Education Foundation has been around for several years supporting um students um supporting teachers and supporting scholarships um and one of the big things that we implemented and I'll let our executive director Jamie Anderson speak to this a few years ago was the Laker impact Grant and what that has done to help uh bring uh funds and material and resources directly to students uh good evening all um so yeah so the Laker impact Grant um we

041had a presentation I believe uh earlier this year um the recipient of last year's Laker impact Grant was the pr Lake High School's industrial technology department um we raised funds for them to buy some different equipment for their Metals lab so that was very exciting um and then uh LEF also has uh the ca scholarships that we offer every year um scholarship is awarded to the top graduating math and science uh students at the high school so um it's in honor of the late uh Carrie klea um who is very instrumental in starting the Laker Educational Foundation and bringing it to um where it is today uh so another thing uh that we one of our main objectives at LEF is to raise funds um that we can then um administer to different projects um

042throughout the district so we have staff and teachers are eligible to submit a grant request and we review the requests and then um award funding uh Every Spring so last year's Grant recipients one of our winners was the spintronics um award uh and they are here tonight to do a little demonstration so I'm going to turn it over to Lori buoy and her team I think that's acceptable get in order right here and I'll just talk in here um my name is Lori Buie I teach fourth grade at Sage Academy at Westwood and last spring I was awarded um a Grant to purchase spintronics uh spintronics is a mechanical representation of electrical current in fourth grade we do the typical battery wire light bulb um but kids can't really see what the energy is doing

043as it flows through those uh this gives us the opportunity to understand what a circuit is but enough from me we're going to hear from some of my students um I have Lexi and Ria and Kevin and AI do you usually face this way or that way doesn't matter all right okay circuits are powered by a battery pulls chains through elence are shorts we need resistance value of a resistor here we bu a simple circuit using a a a switch and a 10000 Ohm resistor massive resistor that you can to on and off because of the Grant from the Laker Educational Foundation we also got the opportunity to add things to our circuits like the SP the animer indicates the amount of current running through it by the volume and pitch of the sound makes

044so we'd like to thank the foundation for this Grant and for the learning that it's to our classroom and hopefully to other fourth grade classrooms in The District in the [Applause] future thank you very much uh spintronics Team I think that you want them to hang just for a moment Christie or yes yes for a picture oh and a certificate yes so we have one little award more to give you just wrapping it up really quickly um from uh LF so we just finished our our last 2024 spring Grant cycle and so on the screen in your board packet uh you have a list of the different um awardees for uh this current uh Grant cycle so we designated over $10,000 this year I'm just really really excited about um applications that we received and

045the really amazing things that our teachers and staff are doing for our students uh and then of course I have to plug our big event coming up um we are having a food truck Fest um downtown Prior Lake so we're closing after Main Street on Saturday sept or September Saturday May 18th um from 3:00 to 7:00 so come on down there's going to be um a bunch of food trucks we have some live music um it's just going to be a really great family friendly friendly um fun event so we're really hoping that um you'll be able to attend and that is all thank you so much you good job guys congratulations good job thank you [Applause] so chair France and board directors um seeing that our student board rep is not here this evening

046I'm going to hold on our other Laker Pride so when he's um present we can honor and recognize him as well so y thank pass on that turn it back to you chair France all right so next order on the agenda is the Personnel items and I'm going to eventually hand this over to a executive director administrative services to talk about the interim director of operational Services um however I need a motion in a second so made by director bullan second by director Vasquez okay um director Herman thank you chair FR members of the board um we are bringing forward a recommendation um for the um interim position for the director of operational services to be appointed to Marine Mullen for the remainder of the school year to um cover for the passing of uh

047director or director um Delo any questions okay all in favor I I I that passes 66 or 60 sorry um and then also to director um Herman for additional Staffing and I need a motion in a second for this one also so made by director bullan second by director olad okay thank you chair friend members of the board we're bringing forward the request for the next year's School uh budget to add a point to FTE for Dakota language and cultures teacher to meet the Indian education requirements the funding will um either come from a potential uh native language um Grant or it will be an increase in the general fund okay any questions uh only question would be can you if um it says funding for this will come from a grant or general fund

048when will we know for sure is that something like does does the is there a time when the grant that's okay thank you uh Vice chair bullan I don't have the dates of the grant um for me but I can um get that information to the board thank you sorry I actually had one question to sort of related um if we do not receive the grant could it come out of um achievement integration funds versus general fund uh director ainon the plan is that we have dollars in the uh American Indian education assistant dollars it'll come out of that which is part of the general fund okay thank you for clarifying and just to clarify direct Frederickson that is a restricted fund for that purpose right okay that's okay um any other questions okay uh

049all in favor I this is 60 all right um we don't have any unfinished business and then we're going to move on to new business do we have Casey ready I believe so um wanted to see if she's queued up um as we uh get prepared for this evening uh our partnership with student education has been to um do our annual survey and uh we are going to be presenting with you um the results of the annual survey uh like we did last year for the board and the public will have a redacted version of that in our offices I I don't it might it may be complete or it's being completed right now um still so that will available um to to view as well um but tonight we'll give you the overview of

050of of everything and and again the purpose for this allows us to understand um on key areas and metrics you know where our stakeholders are sharing you know where we have opportunities to improve and where we can um celebrate and this has been a real heavy challenging year and I will tell you uh in full disclosure that this survey picked up that challenge I think many of our stakeholders felt that as well and and so these are some of the conversations that we are having as as a leadership team and then subsequently this information will be disaggregated by schools for our school leader teams to have conversations with their building instructional leadership teams and um and packs Etc so very useful information that really informs our day day-to-day practice and really excited for the partnership

051that we have you know with student education so with that I will um I will uh turn it to Dr Casey and I believe Dr zush may be part of this conversation as well at some point hello Dr Casey can you hear us I sure can Dr Thomas good evening good evening great good evening um I just set the stage for the conversation and the presentation um so I wasn't too sure if you were dialed into that but I'll turn the floor over to you wonderful thank you thank you Prior Lake Savage Area School Board of Directors for the opportunity this evening to share your second year of experience results with us at hon studor education um I believe as I heard Dr Thomas say I'm going to provide the highlevel updates and then I'll

052be turning it over to uh Dr zbrush to go through the um District portion of the presentation tonight and share some of the work that the district leaders have been doing um to advance The Experience results of your surveys from 2024 so tonight what you're going to see is a review of the student parent caregiver and employee experience survey results I'll go a little slower through the student results so that I can explain some of the survey metrics and then tonight you have the great advantage of seeing the differences between the 2023 and the 2024 scores and we'll highlight some takeaways for you in that as we go through the slides this evening so what you will see on the slide in front of you tonight uh will start with the students and you can

053see the spring 23 and 24 participation rates the overall mean and the top box percentage and so I think participation rate is pretty straightforward as is overall mean you'll notice in green the pi positive changes in each of those between the two years of survey Administration but I'll take a moment and pause to explain what top box percentage is on each of the standard survey items and for students there are respondents have the opportunity to respond from a score of one which is strongly disagree to a five which is strongly agree the topbox percentage is your percentage of responses that are a five the top box on the survey and we see that as a metric of high satisfaction in an organization or around in experience and like to call that out for our partners

054um as an element of their understanding you can see your student results particularly on your overall mean when we compare those results to our national Benchmark percentiles you have a real celebration in terms of the experience on this your student experience as they're sharing through this survey your overall mean um is coming in at a a a ranking of that 70th percentile so just a really solid place um and great news overall in terms of the experiences that your students are sharing on this survey what I'll also take a a slower moment on the student survey to share with you is a little bit about that table two on this slide which is called a net promoter score this this question on the survey asks students How likely are you to recommend your school as

055a good place to learn unlike those other survey items where responses are a one to a five on the net promoter question respondents can select a zero all the way up to a 10 as their response and so what you'll see listed underneath where it says net promoter organization are a couple of different breakdowns of of responses that I'll just take a moment on this slide to talk you through your promoters are the percent of responses that are a nine or a 10 we see those as real champions of their experience in your school and in your District passives on that range again of 0 to 10 are folks that are responding a seven or an eight and detractors have a much larger range in in a net promoter score responses they will be responding

056from a zero to a six and so you can see really what the net promoter score is doing is really helping you understand deep levels of satisfaction our recommendation is any positive net promoter score is a really strong position to be in when we start to see net promoter scores of somewhere in the range of 30 or above we would call those extremely strong but you'll notice you're sitting here in a positive range and an increase over last year in terms of your overall student experience as they reported on this survey so lots to celebrate there in the great work that's happen in your District we'll shift to some of the individual questions I know that the slide is likely very small for folks who might be uh viewing in um in the space tonight

057but I believe the board has access to this information we'll call out just a couple of of shifts and changes that again I think are are great opportunities to see the targeted work that's been happening in your District a few ones just to notice in terms of important levels of growth two particulars that relate to student experience of safety in the school and on the bus so you can see those called out in 4 and8 and in fact if if I go into even a deeper level of our benchmarking data that question number four of your students reporting they feel safe at school that falls between the 75th and 80th percentile so really strong responses in terms of student safety is if we compare their responses to other students nationally as well as in that

058question number eight safety on the bus that response for the 2024 survey window comes in between the 70th and the 70 fifth percentile so again just um really strong experiences from your students um as we're seeing play out on the survey this spring we'll shift now and I'll move a little bit quicker through some of these introductory pieces to the parent and caregiver survey so you'll notice here between 2023 and 2024 a decline in the participation from uh 1 survey Administration to the other but a relatively stable overall mean between the two surveys and just a slight uptick in the percentage of that top box responses again those five out of five responses for your organization we'll notice here that our percentile does fall into that first quartile so some opportunity uh to get curious

059and continue to get curious and learn about our parenting caregiver um experience um through the the district and what you'll see on this slide unlike our students who only responded on that net promoter question to their experience in their school adults who take the experience survey provide a net promoter response on both the district or the organization as a whole and child school and so you can see a relatively stable result a small shift um in both of those but again both in that positive score for net promoter which is where we'd like to see that I'll offer one uh Distinction on this slide of note typical to what we see in Partners across the country the organizational score is quite typically a little bit lower than folks report their experience with their individual school

060we can certainly understand having more interactions with their child school with the great professionals that work there and perhaps left personal interactions with the organization as a whole and so that's very typical for us to see a slightly more favorable rating the closer we are to experienc ing those interactions on a daily or more frequent basis parents and caregivers uh have 15 questions that they respond to and just like the students will call out a couple of those areas you can see there was a a definite um connection on a few of these that we wanted to call out for you you'll notice question three and 13 both speak to the level of feedback that a parent or caregiver is receiving from their child's school you'll note the increase that we called out in both

061of those as well as that relatively stable mean um and just an uptick just uh slightly on that overall mean from your parents and caregivers and next we'll move to that third survey which was your employee survey you'll notice we did see a decrease increase in participation a slight decrease in the mean as well as about a 3% decrease in that top box percentage in this survey Administration that does place you again in that um first core tile um an opportunity um as your team is doing that heavy lifting of understanding experiences um so that there can be continued conversation and some action planning uh done there and we'll also highlight for you here the shifts in the employee net promoter score so I'll call your eyes first to that bottom score the immediate work

062area for employees the questions are would they recommend their school as a great place to work and then their organization again you see that distinction between a more positive experience with their immediate work environment and um some differences as we look at the organization you can see in Orange the shift between the spring uh 2023 and 2024 survey results for you on that slide and then finally we'll just uh turn briefly here to the 20 items on the employee experience survey and call out a couple of Trends as we worked through the results so on number five believing that leaders in uh folks and your employees immediate work environment are genuinely concerned for their welfare saw a slight uptick in that but a relatively stable positive result we did box together items 11 12 and

06313 those all speak to organizational level experiences and you can see a bit of a shift in responses from 2324 as well as on that uh last item on the survey number 20 staff reporting that they feel they have a sense of Pride where they work seeing a little bit of shift in that number as well in addition to the overall mean so that was a lot of information I want to invite Dr Jenny up who I believe is going to provide some additional context for how the team is working around the results thank you Dr Casey uh chair Frans uh superintendent Thomas members of the board I'm just going to speak uh a little bit about our survey rollout process uh for those of you who are aware of what we did last year

064it's very similar um I've taken all the survey results and filtered them by school and in sometimes programs uh so for example Bridges and sage and menc caps have their own reports um the rest of the reports come at a building level those have all been distributed to the building or program leaders uh and then that um those individual leaders are taking their data back to their individual uh building instructional leadership teams work working through that information uh and then figuring out um what may have worked or may not have worked in terms of their school improvement process from last year and then looking at it again um in preparation for next year uh one of the things that we noticed during that initial roll out meeting was that uh I think the saying is

065measure what matters um a lot of our school Improvement uh processes that we implemented last year were areas that we saw changes in the survey um for example there was an identification of bus safety as an issue that we wanted to address this year um and then we had some additional hires in the safety area to really um beef up that part of our uh work and we saw that reflected in the survey um there's also a number of schools that implemented positive messages home and um increased Communications with their families as a school Improvement strategy um and that was another area that we saw um improve so um overall we saw changes in areas that we really spent our time and effort looking into and trying to make changes in those areas um and

066then each school has a little bit uh of a different process or maybe a slightly different Nuance to their data that they're unpacking at that school level and then planning for their improvement process for next year uh thank you team and so with that chair friends I'll turn it to the board for um any questions okay so uh why don't we start with questions and please direct who you would like to answer the question um I can start I have a question last year there was about 6,000 comments um knowing that the participation rate dropped off on several of these categories can you give us a clear understanding of how many comments did the comments go up or down or are you still at the same number of comments compared to last year I have

067not uh I'm sorry director ainson I have not gone through the count the the comments um to do a comparison over numerical values um year-over Year sorry I Haven I haven't counted that okay yeah I was just curious it stated last year so yeah um and then I actually have a question about the um parent caregiver um slide that is number table number two the net promoter score and I think this might be a question for um Dr casc um what I'm curious about is on the first page um basically the overall score went down but then when we go to the next graph our overall mean went up can you help me understand understand why that would be the case yep so let me double chat so are you just asking in I just

068want to clarify the question so that I address it correctly are you asking me to explain the overall mean versus the change in the net promoter score correct thank you okay absolutely so there's two and I'm just going to reshare my screen so that we're all looking at the same information so it's just spinning a bit on my end okay so on uh the parent caregiver score here we see the overall mean which is essentially the average of those 15 questions um that uh parents and caregivers have the opportunity to respond to the net promoter score these are two additional questions beyond the 15 on that block that you saw on that next slide there is one question that asks parents and caregivers to recommend their organization or District as a great place to learn

069and the second one asks about their child's school as a great place to learn did that help Yeah so basically they're different questions different set of questions so when asked specifically the score went down but when asked um the questions very specifically one through 15 the overall mean went up slightly is that correct okay that makes sense thank you yeah you that's a very good distinction so you may see some change here um right and there are questions on here that are very similar to that net promoter score what I would highlight as the difference on net promoter is that zero to 10 range right so folks really have an opportunity on a larger scale to plot where they believe their experience is experience is best represented and I appreciate you explaining that I went

070back and watched last year's board meeting just to better understand this but you did a fantastic job so thank you yeah my pleasure you bet thank you there any other questions um in the meantime I'd like to ask a question and that's based upon the parents and the uh lower participation rates could you give me an idea um on the timing of the survey because I'm trying to understand why we had such a drop off in participation rates not by students but by parenting caregivers and um and uh our staff um were there a lot of surveys going on at that time um was it um is there you guys can figure out any reason why the participation drop off was so big um we did have a very slight adjustment in the window as

071compared to last year based on the feedback from teachers and the pacing in terms of their work in the schools um but it was only about I believe a two- week difference um so I I don't think the window would explain a thousand person drop in the parent caregiver responses so I I and I don't have a good explanation of why that dropped we purposely do this survey at a time while we're not doing other surveys and we also purposely did it before the strategic planning process to try and differentiate that because if you do have multiple surveys going out at once uh you can get some confusion on which ones you've completed and which ones you haven't um so there wasn't any major changes other than that slight uh window change um and I

072I don't have a good explanation of why it dropped off so much do we have any people saying hey I never saw it or was the method of uh delivery different at all or the communication plan was the same okay yeah was it given roughly February okay I I was going to say I had it in my email as March 6th through March 15th is what I had that I I looked up on my email so I'm just I looked it up just to be for certain about that I may be wrong um okay I can double check on that um I'm I'm pretty sure it started the end of February but that could have been just the the teacher side of things and the student ones um it did get pushed a little bit

073back but we were also conscious not to have it go over spring break because um we know that that really impacts survey responses um and again that shift was based on um teacher feedback um but I wasn't it was maybe a TW week shift in in the window yeah and we did actually receive it twice or several times we received it via email so I think it was well well communicated the survey so um do I have another question do you ever break it out by school not by I know you said you break it out by school for evaluating the results but for the bigger picture do you ever break it out by um Elementary and secondary you know Middle High School um levels and types of Staff um no just overall like the

074general survey I know it's done by school but do you ever break it out where you're looking at just our elementary just our middle just our high school or not I mean I know we're looking at Apples to Apples comparison which I from last year which I really appreciate um but I'm just curious I think it'd be interesting to see that yeah thank you director ainson um we we have thought about that and I think ideally we would break it out by level um but because of our size are um reporting at the high school level um identifies the school and also identifies a specific leader and so um and and now technically our middle schools are merged into one as well and so I think there's been um a hesitation in the past because

075it does identify an individual school by doing that if we had multiple of each of the secondary levels I I think it would be important to see that break out because um there are differences um but that's been the reason why we haven't done it is because of the single site in the middle and high if if if I may add just one comment around the processing of that data um our certainly specifically our Elementary uh principles uh have come together and our full administrative team have did come together last spring and we'll do so again this year at our end of the year Retreat um sharing among our entire team some commonalities as well as differences and for example specifically to earlier point that Dr zush made about the FOC on bus safety um

076that was a common across elementaries and so that was a and and frankly at the middle school as well so that was a conscious uh concentrated effort working with our deans of students and our administrative structure uh to put some systems in place in collaboration with our bus drivers um so there definitely is that uh collaboration among uh buildings within levels Che that I have a follow-up question on that because I had a question about the parents or care givers because we have parents um or Guardians Etc who have students that spread across all three ele middle and high school how would that get broken out from their perspective Dr Casey correct me if I'm wrong but I believe they um are invited to take this survey one time per level thinking about each individual

077child as they fill out the survey um because an individual parent might have a very different experience at the different levels and so they fill out the survey indicating the school and then thinking about that child that's at that school and then do it per child if they choose to would that occur with let's say minc caps in the high school sage and the regular Elementary is that the way okay that's cuz I wrote that down that you said you kind of broke out the bridges sage and inaps progr yeah and it's it's really up to that individual parent if they don't necessarily have feedback on one or the other they can select which one they would like to use but um yeah it's kind of up to the individual parent how they'd like to

078provide the feedback um but they're asked to take it um per child if they want um I I appreciate everything you've done um I'm looking forward to seeing the comments so thank you for the transparency on that um as a board director I would like to you know take a deeper dive into the employee concerns to really understand that that con that score last year was concerning to me and now we're not we've we've definitely not done better this year so um I uh appreciate you bringing this forward so that we can take a deeper dive to better understand how we can support our staff in the district thank you and and you will be summarizing those comments or no um I believe that the redaction process has started it does take quite a bit

079of time because of the amount of comments I do think it is less I don't have the number in front of me either but um should be slightly less but it's still quite a bit of work to go through and redact that document um and I believe it's already in process thank thank you any other questions no I'll just comment that I mean yeah I'm concerned about the employee score and and you know we know we have work to do there and I know that's all on the radar especially when it comes to the Strategic plan so I mean I just want to acknowledge that you know our employees are our best asset and um I'd hate to not acknowledge that thank you very much very very much Dr Casey I know this is a

080lot of work and directors zush uh this is a an incredible report uh lots of detail we look forward to more and further discussions based upon the results um next on the agenda is the American Indian uh parent advisory committee there is no board action requested on this um and so I'm going to hand this off to um director Oak I don't think there's any uh I'm G I couldn't find thank you chair France uh superintendent uh Dr Michael Thomas uh directors of the board um as part of our annual compliance uh every year our APAC would meet to uh take a vote on whether or not they concur with the district's offering um program offering to our native students here um if the vote is non-concurrent uh then a written recommendation will be also

081provided uh to the board uh the vote was taken on February 21st and the vote was not concurrent uh we were originally scheduled to present the written recommendations on April 8th however our APAC committee did ask for a little bit more time which is why we moved it to the to today um the school board does have a responsibility to respond within 60 days uh to the written recommendation to both uh the APAC and the office of Indian education so at this moment I would like to invite uh our the chair of our APAC uh Miss ktina Lorac Russo and our vice chair Bridget py to the podium to present the written recommendation good evening everyone move this a little bit since there's two of us all right dear members of the school board as

082the chairperson of the American Indian parent advisory committee I am reaching out on behalf of our committee to submit our vote of non-c concurrence for the 2023 to 2024 school year per the requirements of the Minnesota statutes 2023 section 124d 78 the decision to issue a non-c concurrence vote has not been taken lightly it comes after persistent earnest attempts to engage with the district in addressing the challenges faced by our students it is with regret that I note the substantial gap between the district's commitments and the tangible outcomes thus far the vote of non-c concurrence from last year in the district's response to the issues APAC presented does not seem to have been brought to fruition but on the district level this I'm just going to stop for one second this is your response from

083last year and all of the orange that is highlighted in this response are things that have not been done so quite a [Applause] few um excuse me Additionally the absence of actionable smart goals developed collaborative collaboratively with APAC is a clear indicator of the district's reluctance to commit to the educational advancement of our American Indian students in our previous Communications we highlighted several critical areas where the district's actions must match the proactive approach that our students educational needs demand the lack of consistent participation in our meetings particularly by crucial District representatives and the absence of an actionable plan to address the academic achievement Gap are areas of significant concern the executive committee is also troubled by the need for more transparency in financial and curriculum development matters this the district needs to understand that our

084objective is not to assign blame but to foster a stronger more effective partnership that prioritizes our students well-being and educational success in that Spirit we wish to outline the following recommendations enhanced data management ad advocate for the adoption of and Indian education staff access to a comprehensive student tracking system tailored to identify the unique needs of American Indian students this Advanced system should integrate a variety of indicators such as attendance records class participation levels and social emotional factors aiming to facilitate early identification and support for at risk students we propose a target of improving identification rates by 20% within the next academic semester targeted program development call on the district to initiate and Implement bespoke mentoring programs crafted with the cultural nuances and specific needs of American Indian students in mind we aim to see

085these programs support at least 30% of our at risk student population providing them with the mentorship and guidance necessary for their academic and personal growth professional development insist on a districtwide professional development initiative emphasizing cultural competency as a foundational element this program should be obligatory for all educational staff with a strategic goal of achieving full participation within the school year thereby ensuing a universally informed and culturally Adept faculty strategic planning and accountability demand the immediate establishment of a strategic planning process that outlines concrete objectives quantifiable performance indicators and an explicit timeline committed to closing the academic achievement Gap this strategy should be transparent with regular updates to APAC and the community to ensure accountability and shared progress Focus data management training recommend the immediate implementation of specialized training for the Indian education staff in data

086management curriculum development inclusivity and student empowerment this initiative should be designed to empower Indian education staff with the tools to effective track and advocate for atrisk American Indian students thereby creating a direct line for teachers to communicate concerns and collaborate on interventions cultural competence and sensitivity training Implement a continuous training program to deepen District's staff's understanding of American Indian cultures bolstering a schoolwide ethos of empathy and respect for diversity leadership and advocacy skill development Foster a series of De developmental workshops to enhance Indian education ation staff's leadership and advocacy skills ensuring they can effectively navigate and influence educational policies and initiatives that impact American Indian students inclusive representation in schools Foster an inclusive and empowering environment for Native American students with Minnesota tribal Nation Flags in all schools artwork and posters by Native American artists

087can provide a sense of Pride to our students bullying and harassment the continuation of bullying and rap acts committed towards Native students by their non-native peers remains a critical concern the steps outlined to improve the reporting system and create a more inclusive environment have either not been implemented or have failed to reduce these harmful incidents effectively there has been discussion about the enrollment process into the district and how you list your child's race may possibly affect their involvement into the Indian education program clarification to the parents during the enrollment process should be crucial crucial to determining if the parents would like children to join the Indian education program in conclusion while we stand firm on these recommendations we remain open to dialogue and are prepared to assist the district in translating these objectives into reality

088we expect a comprehensive and thoughtful response to each recommendation within the 60-day response period stipulated by law the APAC is committed to a collaborative approach and looks forward to the district's renewed dedication which will bring about the changes our students deserve thank you for your time thank you um thank you very much for that Sam do you does anyone have any questions for Sam um I do actually Sam um one of the things that well first of all thank you for coming forward and sharing um your concerns and your um a willing willingness to continue to um collaborate with the district to make improvements it's It's always important that we work to be to be better and um one of the things when I was reading this letter and I read about Minnesota statute 124d

08978 is I read the statute and it states in here that the American Indian parent advisory committee must develop its recommendations in consultation with the curriculum advisory committee and I serve on the curriculum advisory committee and we have not um collaborated with the American Indian parental advisory committee and I'm wondering if that's one way that we could um enhance our relationship and start to address some of these concerns that is definitely an opportunity for us to um to take part in for sure um in the past the um American Indi program was overseen by um the teaching and learning department and the equity Department um my first year here um so there was more collaboration at that time um this year there definitely could be more of an opportunity for that to happen well I

090think based on the fact that it's written in the statute it has to happen I mean it's similar to when I started on the curriculum advisory committee we weren't meeting the statute with the right parent to community members and we made that adjustment by that is not a the correct statement actually and I don't want to go down that path but it is correct and that's why we made the adjustments we did so I think that um it's definitely something that we can look at um the other thing I wanted to get clarification on is um they mentioned under targeted program development call on the district to initiate and Implement bspoke mentoring program could you elaborate a little bit more about what that is and how it's being done in other districts I'm not aware

091hav you picked to it okay sorry if they're available for questions I'm just curious I know yeah I was wondering if it's implemented at Chaka or it's called the beec mentoring programs I know we do some mentoring programs a be spoke I'm sorry yeah so we had talked before about having a mentoring program um and it was just kind of something that was talked about in the sense of having like the old students Mentor the younger students um our thought process is kind of more along the lines of having you know adults that are mentoring the children so there is some kind of you know um life experience there um that we feel it would be really important to have that for the students to have that sense of um Pride when it comes to

092things and to also have more of a greater understanding when it comes to you know life and things along those lines different things for the American Indian students that the district can do so that they are ensured that there is that they are thought of when it comes to the district um I was an American Indian education student when I was in school and I definitely did not feel that way my my children go to school here they're in elementary school and they don't feel that way um at school because of the things that happen and which we understand kids are kids um but to have more of like an inclusivity for them you know by having more people than just having one person come see them you know once a month um that we

093feel it'd be important for the kids to to have other mentors in the community or at the district level that can help them when it comes to things that they feel like they're either falling behind in or they don't know who to talk to when it comes to things um and I would like to say we we have asked this year to meet with the curriculum writers um a few times and then uh we never heard anything back so we kind of just assumed that it wasn't going to happen so but we we have asked we have an actual parental or we have a curriculum committee that you may have heard some members um speak on this evening that are members of the committee so we have an actual um parent advisory committee yeah that

094um and it that's what it relates to in Statue is having um the American Indian parent advisory committee work together on that yes yes and we we've asked we've asked for names and things along those lines and we have not been given them um so we we we did reach we tried thank you for that thank you I just wanted to add ex climate um over the um this past year uh Freddy and Mercedes have U worked very closely with our secondary curriculum Specialists there to design program and and provide professional development to teachers so there has been C collaboration with the curriculum department but not specifically with the curriculum advisory committee thank you thank you I believe we did have um representation on the curriculum committee prior to that but it has changed so

095um okay next on the list is the middle school math curriculum report thank you chair France and board directors um tonight we will be providing um a final report to the board around our middle school math curriculum um and this has been something that we have been engaged in um all year long um it is is it is one that has um uh gone down a variety of paths for um experiences with students with our staff you've heard some com conversations tonight um and I want the board and the community to understand that we do listen to feedback that we are receiving and um we also know that uh we'll be sharing some of the data information with you all tonight too that uh we we balance between what we hear through public comments we

096balance what we hear from our direct student surveys and what we uh hear from our teaching and learning advisory committee um and we also uh weigh heavily on the experts um that are our teachers in the classrooms you know I'm not a math teacher um I do rely upon content experts um to bring that perspective as well and so tonight we'll be sharing with you all of our findings to date um and then allow you all to ask any questions that you might have and you know one of the biggest pieces of feedback um that I've heard um about the math curriculum is uh you know know it it's not just teaching numbers and and yes it does change how we teach and that that I think people can understand that and appreciate that but

097I think there's been a lot of push around um you know what's with the social emotional aspects of this curriculum and is this being you know politicized and pushed by a certain group and things of that nature I mean I hear these comments and we see emails that come in that kind of speak to some of that so I just want folks in our community and the board to understand that when we're looking at a math curriculum we're looking at first and foremost um one how does it align to math content and that is aligned to our state standards that's a non-negotiable and I will say that there's not a single curriculum um that is published um that doesn't Encompass strategies to build community within your classroom um as you get ready for that lesson

098plan whether it's in the direct curriculum or if it's just as all of our staff understand it's just good practice to have deep relationships with your students that relational connection the more I know about my students the more I can tie that lived experience into my actual teaching and use you know Michael's example of maybe that family vacation they took and then hey let's talk a little bit about calculating mileage that you went from here to Arkansas or whatever it might be those little personal connections uh make a huge difference so um this is centered on core math instruction and and we'll hear from some of that tonight and just I I'll close with this sharing with um some of the comments you heard tonight about math processes understand that basic math concepts are still

099going to be taught in in this curriculum but shifting to a thinking math uh and understanding process behind math is a critical component to this curriculum and I was talking with a superintendent who recently adopted this um over the past couple of years years and um you know the superintendent shared with me some of the challenges that they were having in terms of the process and the change of a curriculum and the superintendent shared something that was really I guess I I don't want to say it's profound but the way that they described it really kind of cemented some thinking for me that really helped me understand how we can really begin to speak about some process and they noted that U if I get a Tire um I know the answer the answer is

100I need to change my tire and paralleling that to the math there are many kids who know the answers to math the question is with that flat tire or just knowing the answer do you know the process of getting to that answer do you know where the tire jack is do you know where you mount that Jack so you don't break a tie rod um do you know how much pressure and distance you have in that spare to be able to drive to the next nearest gas station to get it changed all that process behind the answer is just as important as the answer and I just thought that was a good way of illustrating as math curriculum is being published aligning more towards thinking math matician versus just folks who can memorize facts that's

101going to be a critical conversation that we have to have um with our ourselves and with our students um as Minnesota standards have ratcheted up just as much as we see the war on literacy in this state I think we are seeing with our new math standards very much ratcheted up so they are not dumbing down standards they're saying kids need to be able to compete and curriculum that's coming out now needs to be aligned to the new standards that are emerging and you know I think we had a work session with you all you know several months ago talking about some of the lag between standards and curriculum Publishers um and and then add in the assessment equation which has sometimes even further legs so it it's not just a simple adoption and it's

102not something that we take lightly as administrative team and it is something that we wanted the board to have you know ample discussion with um and then also give you some time to kind of process and you know between now and when we are going to be asking you to take um uh some action so with that I'm going to turn over to Dr Edwards and and team um for the presentation this evening thank you Dr Thomas uh chair FRS members of the board um definitely want to uh take you through our presentation tonight and provide additional context to the work that's been done over the course of the last year plus and um and then be uh able to respond as Dr Thomas pointed out to uh further inquiry that you might have so

103um want to begin with the timeline and uh one of the things that I want to point out is uh the standards as Dr Thomas spoke about have uh been going through review and change and we are anticipating uh the conclusion of the standards some of that is out of our control uh as a school district and all school districts across the state of Minnesota um but the standards have been proposed and the 22 uh standards are there and with that in mind we also began uh in the school year 2122 understanding that we were not satisfied with our results with the current standards and our performance and with that we took a look at how do we bring about improved results and we began a very comprehensive look uh as is pointed out here

104where at each of our sites there was work being done around a math vision and that was a K5 all staff all classroom teaching staff and special education staff were included in that process at the secondary level we have obviously Specialists who specialize in math instruction as well as our special education uh uh as well as our special education teachers who are uh engaged in math instruction as well so we began that work in 21 uh 22 to and we identified at the conclusion of that work that we were ready to uh engage in math pilot uh at the elementary level and uh you may recall that uh just over a year ago we brought the conclusion of that uh to you here as a board in April and we adopted the bridges math curriculum

105uh I want to speak just a briefly about that well I know tonight's presentation is about our middle school math I think from a contextual understanding uh to speak about the strength of that implementation that our amazing K5 teachers have engaged in this year uh to bring about a significant change in their practices aligned with the National Council of mathematics uh aligned with our state standards and they have really begun to shift the uh work with their students to develop them as Dr Thomas pointed out a mathematic that has been a focus of our work and uh just amazing uh job of implementation we're nearing the end of year one of implementation in our bridges uh math curriculum and I want to take this opportunity as we're speaking about that to uh provide a note

106of congratulations to our K5 teachers for the amazing work and our team that has supported them in the uh learning achievement Innovation office uh specifically Gwen molden and our peer coaches um all who have been a part of making uh it be a successful year one implementation and are excited for our continued journey and um I happen to see uh or receive an email questioning whether we were continuing um with our bridges implementation let me clarify that right here and now uh that is continuing there is no question about that that we are confident in uh the work that has been done and we recognize there's more work to be done and we're excited about continuing on that Journey um then uh about the same time that we or around the time that we brought

107forward a recommendation for Bridges implementation we also had uh it was time to look at what we wanted to do at the middle school level again we had been engaged our Middle School staff had been engaged in the math Vision uh process and at that time uh we came together and uh with the the team of math teach at the middle school level and identified some curriculum uh resources that we wanted to explore and we explored that in the March April time frame if memory serves me correctly we looked at openup curriculum stem Scopes reveal CM which is out of the University of Michigan and CPM now if that's not confusing I I recognize that it is um but we did uh look at those curriculums and consider those and as a group of uh

108Middle School Math teachers at that time it was determined that the curricul um that was uh that was frankly excited us the most um also aligned with the recently adopted Bridges uh curriculum at the K5 level and aligned with the incoming standards uh felt that CPM was the uh curriculum that we wanted to Pilot uh felt that the others uh had gaps uh that were not worthy of a pilot frankly um and that's how we landed on uh CPM as our pilot we had uh five classrooms uh that were engaged in that pilot this year and uh we are projecting forward uh pending board approval that we would be able to move forward with the Middle School implementation um we've referenced this many times in our conversations around this topic but just wanted to call

109it to your attention again this math Vision uh that was really a what I would describe as a Grassroots effort among our teaching staff that came from uh how we arrived at this came from taking feedback from our students uh when we formed the math Vision we interviewed uh did focus groups with students across the system and you might recall giving uh some uh detail or seeing some detail uh having some presented to you around those conversations when uh we presented the elementary math curriculum for adoption a year ago um but uh you might recall when colleague Gwen molden was up here and she spoke about some of the fun that they as a team had with the comments that uh kindergarteners and first graders said about their experience with math and some of those

110comments uh also were equally entertaining uh from our team as they moved on to the middle and high school um and uh hearing our students reflect upon their experience in math and that's what this Vision was formed from was hearing from our students first and foremost and our staff then came together and uh created this math Vision that we feel uh very strongly about and its alignment with the standards and um want to talk a little bit about that at this time uh the state standards the 22 uh 2022 state standards that we're awaiting final uh movement uh and implementation and and we feel good that we're slightly ahead of the game possibly but in comparison maybe we are not uh we definitely again back to the data recognized a few years ago that we

111needed to make some changes so as you see on this slide uh we see that there's great alignment with the language that's the Readiness standards from the new state standards um for Future Ready students uh that we will be producing as a result of their experience in Prior Lake Savage area schools specific to math and we feel uh that these are again on the right hand column those are reflected in our vision uh that we created um then furthermore as I mentioned earlier uh as we are looking at aligning uh with our curriculum standards and what we were hoping to realize in our vision uh we found alignment once again with the CPM uh vision and Mission as is presented here that aligned once again to our state standards um the three pillars are really

112the base of our CPM pilot and the work that our teachers have uh shared with us throughout the process some of whom shared some information with you as a board um back in February some of whom shared information with our teaching and learning uh advisory in uh March as well as all members uh had an opportunity to share in our April teaching and learning advisory uh and they spoke about specifically what does this look like in the classroom Collaborative Learning uh that notion of students being uh mathematicians at a deep level and being able to engage with their understanding of the math concepts as they speak with their classmates and uh benefit from that interaction with their fellow classmates the problem-based learning the real world uh problems that uh really uh students need to be

113able to tackle as they apply their mathematical understanding and then um when they get engaged in this notion of um understanding math if you don't get it this time you're going to come back and you're going to have another opportunity to either deepen that understanding take it to that next level or maybe with the help of the teacher and your classmates come to a firsttime understanding um but it's not going to be one and done as possibly traditionally sometimes that has been the case in the past we move on we're we're done with that particular concept if you didn't understand that concept you might continue to struggle because of the building blocks of those Concepts so we want to make sure that that is uh understanding that stays with our students as they uh go

114throughout their school experience with us and certainly Beyond into the future um one of the uh distinctions we want to uh clarify here from previous questions that we've been uh that have been posed to us as we've been uh making presentations in various uh context as was mentioned earlier uh multiple teaching and learning advisory committee meetings um and under understanding that the CPM curriculum has a version called Core Connections uh when we were looking to Pilot um there was the new version coming out and that is the one that we uh chose to Pilot because it aligned with the state standards and as our teachers were looking at that particular and went our pilot teachers went to the training they had uh an opportunity to understand uh what all these elements meant and how these

115uh opportunities with the new uh curriculum inspiring connections were a benefit to uh considering for our adoption and and as you had a fortunate opportunity this evening to hear from a couple of our teachers uh who have been deeply engaged in the work um they definitely have seen the value of uh the resources provided by uh the inspiring connections curriculum um with that I'm going to turn over to Dr zush thank you Dr Edwards uh members of the board director France superintendent Thomas um I want to go over a little bit of um implementation science research um this is something that um we uh lean on quite a bit for our implementation processes here in plsas um and here uh is just some Snippets of uh some of the research of implementation science um and

116here just reflected on some of what Dr Edwards was saying that um the buyin that teachers have towards a particular resource or program is really essential for um for that Fidelity of implementation um so so there's been some questions over time about other um districts or schools that may have the same resource um but I wanted to clarify that we cannot compare sole outcomes of other districts without understand understanding um the details of implementation and what that looks like from a Fidelity standpoint we do know that Fidelity increases the higher our teachers are bought into a particular resource um this is just a basic grid of implementation science that shows how um you can end up getting um outcomes that may or may not be aligned with what we would anticipate for a particular resource

117or program um so if we have uh a scenario where we um have low Fidelity to um implementation of whatever our our resource is and we have high outcomes we can't necessarily attribute that to the program um because we don't have the implementation Fidelity to to hang that on the only way we can attribute High outcomes to a program is if we also have that High Fidelity um so again just wanted to bring forward the point of um the importance of implementation Fidelity when at outcomes um and the role that the teacher plays in that implementation um this is an overview of the student data that was collected during class um this was a participatory process where students were asked questions um and and wrote their answers on Post-it notes and came up to posters

118and had small discussions if they wanted to at the poster charts uh during their class so any student who was attending class that day um was asked to participate obviously not forced to participate um but that was um done in February I believe um these are the number of students that um are in each of the pilot levels um we have some fifth and sixth grade students that are um that are in the pilot classes as well as the majority of our pilot students were in seventh grade um this is really important because we only have one teacher teaching at the fifth and sixth grade level and one teacher at the eighth grade level um so the pilot data is really focused in on that seventh grade level so that we can um ensure the

119confidentiality of that data both at the teacher and the student level these were the basic questions that we asked the students and asked them to respond to um and then um I coded all of the data into the major themes and categories by question um these are obviously in small font um but they're all in the packet um everything good bad and ugly and uh is on here um these were the major themes that we saw about what students do during their math class um as we've heard from a lot of different individuals there's a lot of um partner or group or Hands-On activities uh the students are also working on homewor or independent work and solving problems and they're they're listening and paying attention to the teacher um each of these uh sub bullets

120are direct quotations from students in those classes um we're also asking about what the teacher is doing during math um this this was modeled after the bridges implementation as well these were the same interview questions that we did for um Bridges so we're asking a little bit about what the teacher does um obviously they're teaching and providing instruction um but also um walking around the classroom and providing support for student work um I just wanted to point out um a little bit about the um some of the quotations that really talk about um the connections to real life um and how things are relatable for them what are your favorite things about math um you'll see some of the same themes in their the students favorite things and least favorite things um so just acknowledging

121that there's uh a wide range of opinions and uh we want to hear all of them and listen to to all of the student student act student responses um in terms of the activities and lessons they uh really enjoy the Hands-On activities there was a particular activity that had just occurred in the class where there was Bubbles and they were measuring um diameter and circumference and the students were very excited about that activity so I think we just we came and post bubble day so that was a popular uh topic of conversation um a lot of students did talk about enjoying working in different groups you will also see that they that was one of their major complaints so just um holding both of those in the space it was not a unanimous at all

122um lots of different student opinions um and middle schoolers certainly don't have any hesitation sharing their opinions um with us so uh there are some positive responses about working with groups um some people really enjoyed switching it and working with different people um some students really like the notebook and the materials because the lessons and their notes and their drawings and their uh Reflections are all in one place and some students really liked that what do they not enjoy about it um homework uh the students uh talked quite a bit about homework and it ran the gamut um students felt like they had too much homework none enough homework um there wasn't enough time in class to complete it um there was some Reflections on misalignment between the content that was taught and the homework

123some confusion um they wanted answer key to be able to check their work at home um a lot of students also mentioned that they don't like working in groups um they don't like it when the people in their um group didn't engage or they're forced to work um with random people and then um overall there was uh feedback on the curriculum um saying it was confusing challenging not challenging enough and they missed the old way of teaching um and they don't like explaining their answers and um I think this one is maybe up in our office here the new curriculum is weird I think that pretty much um SS it sums up pretty well what the students were feeling um we also asked what questions did they have because I think students ask amazing questions

124and ones that we don't necessarily think of um so they want more information about why are we doing things this way what's wrong with the old way um why are we teaching like this and so that's just an opportunity to potentially hear some of their questions and engage them in conversation they also wanted to know from their teachers uh do you do you like it how do you like it compared to the old curriculum um so I think just uh there was a lot of noticings that things were very different from before and then obviously they have great questions like why are they called a vnps I don't know either they're white you know they're whiteboards but the teachers I'm sure know exactly why they're called vnps um okay so moving along from student feedback

125um this was a not an original dat slide but it was added based on some questions that we received um there were some questions about how students are doing grade wise in their class again I'm focusing just on seventh grade data because that was the majority of the students and that doesn't identify any students or teachers here you can see that the non-pilot students in seventh grade are receiving a higher percentage of A's in the um non-pilot classes as of semester 1 um this I just want to point out is not comparing apples to oranges because we have a very different curriculum they all they both have different assessment measures built into the curriculum um there's also a major difference in terms of the retake policy between the two um so just wanted to be

126um responsive and transparent yes there are more students getting A's in the non-pilot class um we do have some good explanations on why that is the case and also um a potential question of um the value of um whether that's a a a re a way of assessing a curriculum or not I think um you know I think using this the same metrics that we have through another uh source of measurement would be a more accurate rep representation to measure learning um here you can see the um a comparison of fast bridge midar data um we do not have spring data yet um that's not available we have um we're about a 100 short of sixth grade data coming in we only have about 100 7th grade and 100 eth graders that have taken the

127fast Bridge so far so we do not have spring data to share with you today um but here you can see that uh the pilot students started the year um which with a much higher percentage of students that were on track according to our fastbridge assessment screener um in the blue is the percentage of students that were on track in the fall in both the pilot and non-pilot so the pilot classrooms were decided by teacher opin um so we we do have a difference here in that starting um um percentage of proficiency uh it stay it went down a little bit for the pilot classrooms and went down a little bit more for the non-pilot classrooms uh we will certainly be looking at Spring data when we have it available um this was also added

128per request um some additional longitudinal fast bridge data um a couple things to keep in mind here uh fastbridge does not uh recommend that you look at year-over-year comparisons of the data um it's more within-year comparison um this was more of a question about what do we see in the trends over time um this is a sixth grade longitudinal data for um two years ago last year and this year again obviously missing um the spring data here you can see the trend generally um is we have seen a little bit of a decrease um from fall to winter and then a little bit of an increase up in the spring um for our seventh grade data we don't really have as consistent of a of a trend um again this is two years ago last

129year and this year are three different screening Windows fall winter and spring to kind of look at the trajectory of what we've had over time this includes all students these are not just pilot or non-pilot these are all students and then similarly the eighth grade longitudinal data um to see the trends over time uh we are also asked to bring forward um MCA data so this is the longitudinal trend of our sixth grade math data it's the percentage of students uh proficient as measured by the MCAS um and here you can see our trajectory over time as it compares to the state similarly this is the trajectory for seventh grade and then finally our trajectory for 8ighth grade um we also ran um teacher focus groups for the pi pilot teachers um this was U

130an early formalization of the feedback from teachers uh We've obviously heard a lot since we've conducted these focus groups from them as well um but here are just the major themes that we identified during that formal focus group opportunity um a lot of the teachers expressed an emotional roller coaster of um just what it's like to be a pilot teacher it's it's very challenging to try and figure out a new curriculum as you go through uh the year and um learn all of the new components um and so they recognize the the challenge of that um they also identified some of the challenges and benefits of um the curricular material and then they gave some implementation insights and suggestions um so there's a lot of really great things that we've learned over the pilot year

131uh I I know I've said this before but when we look at Pilot data um we are looking in one sense to decide what curriculum to adopt but more importantly we are understanding all of the other contextual factors that need to take into account to make sure that we have strong Fidelity to implementation and so recording all the responses um from all the different stakeholder groups is really important for us to understand the things that we need to take into account to make sure that we Implement whatever curriculum we Implement with that high level of fidelity um this is the parent survey um in the um interest of transparency we did hear the feedback that there was um a number of parents who uh did not receive the survey um I want to go over

132a little bit what our process was and what we've uncovered um as we saw in the stakeholder survey earlier with Dr Casey um parents and um families respond more to their immediate vicinity than they do to an organization at whole and so for this survey we um relied on the um connections that our teachers have with their parents and communicate the way that their parents um prefer to be communicated with um we did hear that there was a number of people that didn't receive the survey we did do a systems audit of our um communication platform and um we did uncover that one of the pilot teachers did not include the survey link um in their communication that was not something that was done intentional that was um an error on that individual teacher part

133obviously not going to say who that is um but that was something that we followed up and um would like to apologize for um and thank for everyone that brought forward the um information that they didn't receive that survey um I'd like to talk a little bit about the survey feedback we did receive we got 49 responses um that's out of the 535 pilot students taking into a consideration um the um 150 pilot students that didn't receive that survey um that is something to take into consideration um but within the respondents here we have um 24 positive results I I coded each of the responses 14 of them were neutral 10 were negative um within the negative responses again for transparency I looked for um duplicates across the survey there was one individual that responded

134um three times and all three comments were negative so those 10 negative includes three duplicates um we also had our curriculum out in our front office for two weeks for individuals to come and use the materials look at the materials um and we had a QR code for a survey for that um it received one response um here again with that limited sample size um we would definitely be very open to continuing to gather parent feedback um throughout whatever process the board decides to to move forward with um there's a lot of mixed reactions um among that parent feedback and some uh challenges and understanding um and adapting to the changes which we definitely um want to hear and and understand is um is something to for us to take into consideration as we implement

135we asked uh the parents what do you think most engages your child in learning math um and the three major themes are a desire for Challenge and critical thinking um there is mixed feelings about group work so again that is a common theme amongst parents and students that there's a lot of different opinions about that um and then the need for clarity and concrete learning opportunities um and again we've we've heard that and um recognize the need for for that balance with that explicit instruction piece um any other feedback that they have concerns um there was definitely some concerns and criticisms regarding the new curriculum um need for clarity in those concrete learning opportunities and then um the individual parents that that did respond to the survey had a lot of mixed feelings about whether

136the curriculum or their um students math experience was positive or negative for them this year um I'll turn it back to Dr Edwards to talk about based on the data set that we've received some of the implementation considerations that we're taking into account as we Implement whatever curriculum we do in the future um regardless of the decision these are some of the things that we want to take into consideration and before I uh dive into this I want to just uh speak again of a note of appreciation for our pilot teachers and the task that they have taken on on behalf of their colleagues and furthermore uh the uh Team of Middle School teachers that have uh come together to realize that they want to do uh they want to teach math differently and uh

137I think that that is an important uh thing to point out here as we reflect upon this experience and what was the takeaway recognizing that there will be there were and there will continue to be challenges around that anytime A change is brought forward uh there are growing pains with that and we certainly had and will continue to have at the elementary level those Growing Pains uh and likewise if we were to make any change at the uh secondary level specifically at the middle school level um here in this particular case we will experience that as well as I spoke about um wanted to make a clear the air if you will around the K5 uh implementation of bridges likewise I'd like to speak just a little bit before I dive into this around uh

138what does this mean at the high school level uh at this point in time we are not prepared uh to we want to engage again with our high school teachers as they too are looking at the result results of uh feedback that they've received from their students as well as our performance results and analyze uh what would be our best course of action there so no decisions have been made we're looking at different curriculums uh considering uh the potential for some pilot curriculums uh next year and uh but at this point in time um that that is a something that I wanted to make sure is clear here tonight um so uh next steps uh based upon on that F pilot feedback a significant amount of conversation has been had around the notion of group

139work and uh you've heard about it uh as a board uh at recent uh sessions and open Forum comment heard about it again tonight um and we certainly uh heard about it from the teaching and learning advisory at the uh subsequent meetings that we had in March and April and um at each of those meetings uh we definitely had uh conversation from our teachers talking about how they too uh pilot teachers specifically they too have uh grown in their um understanding of when and they will continue to as always uh as a teacher does grow on their understanding of this lesson is going well or this lesson is not going particularly well and we need to Pivot we need to make adjustments that is the art of teaching and uh that is something that I

140have a high degree of confidence in our professionals uh to do and uh always have done and will continue to do and specific to the group work I I have firm belief that they will make adjustments as appropriate to their given class and that might look different from first period to third period because of the needs of the individual students in that class and we've heard time and time again uh from our pilot teachers that they have done that and this shift of teaching approach uh that has come about has allowed them to get to know their individual students at a deeper level in what their students might need um we also are committed and would be committed to continuing to uh do our reviews and establish a quarterly uh implementation review uh with teachers

141and parents and students uh to make sure that we are um have our real time uh impact known of how our students are doing how our parents are adjusting um because there is an adjustment one of the things that has come out uh in a variety of conversations is understanding as parents how to support their student at home um and uh we've been with our curriculum our existing curriculum since the beginning of the two since the 20112 school year um and in the first few years of implementation of that curriculum uh our current curriculum certainly uh how to support students with a new curriculum how parents could support students was a learning curve process process and our teachers have developed over time a number of uh strategies to assist with that I'm confident that once

142again um that process will be uh something that they will be engaged in uh should we move forward and uh receive approval um and we also have uh not only uh our initial training that desire is would be certainly desired as any time when you implement something new to start a school year that you do training in the summer leading up to that so that you can hit the ground running to the extent possible but that there be ongoing training throughout the upcoming school year and multiple school years and and uh uh that is one of the components of uh the relationship that uh we have established and would establish with uh CPM and then um also as we continue to look at uh how best to meet the individual needs of our students analyzing

143uh what that means and and I reference this uh earlier in my comments about the support that uh our K5 teachers have received specifically um from um each other in grade level meetings as well as from the peer coaches um we at the elementary level created a a common goal that was accepted from a q q comp perspective so all of our K5 learning teams were working specifically on their Improvement uh teaching uh Improvement plans and uh person and team goals related to the implementation of curriculum we've begun to look at how we could do the same uh at the middle school level as well so um we definitely the support from those various professionals to come and support the teachers in helping them understand best how to continue to meet the needs of their

144individual students uh is something that we're going to pay particularly close attention to as we would move forward so at this time we'll open for questions thank you very much to the do you want to add anything Dr Thomas uh no I think I'm good okay I'm going to open it up to the board for questions dorad yeah sorry checking to make sure this is on um thank you um I've uh couple maybe a few questions more comments um I've you know talked through a study session one study session two teaching and learning committee meetings um and more on this particular subject but um the one thing that I have a very unique privilege is that I have a daughter in one of the pilots um she's in seventh grade in full transparency she knew

145I was talking about her tonight um and she was okay um and I will say that um we learned from the very first day of school before the first day of school that she was going to be in a pilot um and I can say she has really embraced the productive struggle that is talked about in this curriculum um math is not something that is a favorite um of hers and if she was sitting right in here next to me she would say that um it's not a favorite um I have seen this Prett productive struggle my husband and I both have and we really appreciate what we really like about this too is the the group work actually we're we're uh fans of the group work because I think it's a life skill and

146I think it happens in other classes too other subjects that I think why not math um and I think it makes a lot of sense um she's really grown in her comprehension of math this is kind of a year where she's not struggling at home and I can appreciate that um as a mom um but that wasn't good enough I went back to the math Vision um that we have um I have seen her persist through challenges where it's just like oh this is I I don't get this and I've seen her persist through it I've seen the the the coaching and help that her teacher has given her um in building that confidence to again feel safe taking those risks which is part of our math Vision as well um her confidence is just

147soared um again in an area that's not necessarily her strong suit um she ask a lot of questions um and I think that is important um the spiral concept that we've talked about the the questions from three lessons ago coming back on a test I think that's important to deepen that comprehension um but again even having a student in a pilot that still wasn't good enough so I went to observe and I did not purposely sit in on her class I've popped my head in a few times but I did not um observe her class because I felt it was a conflict and it would probably be really awkward for both of us um and so I went to observe and what I really liked about it was that it was teacher-led and group work

148various different times throughout the same hour um and so this particular hour um it was a lot of that and what I also really liked is the teacher anytime a student would say something or have an answer she'd say prove it and they'd have to go back and prove it and one particular thing that I noticed when they were up at the whiteboards the vmps or whatever the heck they're called the whiteboards um one group did it very differently than the group next to them they were very visual they would kind of draw out their answer whereas the group right next to them was very algebraic very formulaic in their answer they both got the same answer both got the right answer but I thought that was really neat to see the fact that they

149did it very different ways and I think that's something that this curriculum helps helps Foster in these kids um I know that the one of the biggest complaints and again as a parent of a pilot student myself one of the bigger issues is how can I help my kid at home if I don't even understand it and I get that and I think that's completely valid um my husband and I were no different in that way um and I think that is a whole or an area of opportunity that we can work on um that I think the teachers would likely I don't want to put words in their mouth I think would likely know that that's a piece of feedback that they're getting um I think no curriculum is perfect no curriculum is perfect

150um I think the tweaks that you know there are areas of opportunity in here and they're in this document here that I think speaks to the willingness to Pivot the students willingness to P pivot um and the fact that you know these teachers don't they're not told to Pilot something they volunteer to do it so I think that's important to point out too is the amount of work that they're putting into this doesn't go unnoticed and then finally I I just want to speak to the student feedback I think it's completely valid valid I've had conversations with students having a daughter in the pilot means her friends are also in some of the pilots and so I've been able to talk to them as well um and a lot of it matches kind of what

151we're hearing tonight both positive and negative um no Real Surprises with the conversations I've been having um but I just I think I sit here at this table as a board member not a curriculum expert and so I I Look to I look to my kids teachers to be those experts and I think it goes to True partnership with your child's teachers and what that looks like and having a question and emailing it in and having a conversation may be a really tough conversation and I think that's valid and I think that's okay and it should be happening um but I want the students to know that you know I hear you I've had conversations with them um but I have the unique privilege of having CPM in my home every night and really seeing

152my my student shine um and I just kind of wanted to put that out there because I am in a unique position to have that in my home and so I thought I would share that my one question Dan did you say when was this last when did we last see a change in middle school math 2011 we began in 20112 it was a multi-year uh phase in began with sixth grade and moved forward okay so I guess there do we want to wait another 10 years see I can't do math either 13 13 years do we want to wait another 13 years to do something and we heard let's do something let's do something let's do something let's do something um I'll just I don't have a lot of questions I've had most of

153my questions answered I um appreciate a lot of your experience in anecdotal and all the things we've heard tonight for sure uh one thing that's kind of always been resonating in these conversations because I have as well been to some curriculum committee meetings on this is there's no data there's no data there's no data and I'm like how can there be no data and so tonight I really appreciate um the link you guys provided in here about the research based introduction so the whole curriculum is based on data and research and that's how curriculum is built so I appreciate that and it is very informative and gives us a lot of data about best practice and ways that kids learn and the spiral effect the other thing I want to address is we had a

154speaker talk about inefficiencies that there's a that this curriculum might be inefficient and I think I think that's a fair criticism um but I actually don't view it as a criticism I think um what is really inefficient is to not build foundational skills so that when we're 10th 11th 12th graders taking the act or putting math practice that we've forgotten a method that we should know thoroughly that we learned in seventh or eighth grade but it wasn't drilled down to the extent it needed to be so I think they the switch to making things a little inefficient I don't I don't really like that word I don't think that's the right word but I think that's a fair criticism I just don't view it as a criticism so I don't have any questions thank you

155um I do have a question on the midyear grades slide um there um Dr zush uh referenced a difference in the retake policy I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more about that from one from what is current to how sure um and also I wanted to invite up if any um pilot teachers also want to come and tell me I'm saying something incorrect please do so um the I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a retake policy difference but it was an implementation consideration because when you provide a retake option for a student you basically have to prepare a parallel assessment that assesses the same exact content but using different numbers um and that is something that is a teacher created um parallel assessment that takes time for teachers to be able to

156create over time so given our previous curriculum um that is something that they had on hand for non-pilot students was that um parallel assessment that they could take for a retake given that this was our pilot year and there was already um so much that the teachers had to do they did not have the um time to then also create a parallel assessment in um in the pilot program and so that it's not that there was a theoretical difference it was that there wasn't the actual tool available and that is one of those tools that gets developed over time as we um Implement any curriculum so that's kind of a a very good example of why it takes time for something to be fully implemented um because there um sometimes has to be those teacher

157created resources thank you I appreciate that okay didn't mess that up that that explained it very well thank you so much um director ol said I appreciate you sharing your um experiences um and director Crosby even the things that you shared too um I too appreciate all all of the things that have been brought forward from the students who have been see having challenges um to the teachers who have shared um some of the experts in in all of this I appreciate all of the information given I I appreciate um this additional evening and and giving being given more time given the the um feedback that we have received and and really wanting to um have time to process through those and um but I just want to thank everyone for um what was brought

158forward tonight I think uh tonight was a lot of Rich content um and I appreciate it thank you okay director of BOS yeah thank you very much for the presentation it answered a lot of the different questions questions I have um I know that over the past several years we have seen a decline in our standardized testing scores and performance of that we've heard from Community loud and clear over and over that we need we as a body of of board members as well as the administration need to do something to try and uh halt that that Decline and get back into those fundamentals right but even doing the fundamentals of you know Reading Writing math those areas change we have to be adaptable we have to continue to create Learners and learning opportunities so

159that they can develop and harness critical thinking components um that's and I I believe that going through this process of selecting a new curriculum of listening to our teaching and learning committee listening to our pilot uh teachers uh we have to trust that they know what they're talking about and uh this will help us do that very thing that something different so that we can realize a change for the betterment of all of our Learners those that do extremely well in standardized tests as well as those that for a variety of different reasons don't perform so well on standardized tests but at the end beyond the test it's making sure we have students and Learners who are college ready who are career ready ready when they get to that next phase of life uh so

160I see a lot of that reflected here in what came forward uh from well just just throughout the pilot um question I have relates to uh parent and guardian feedback for those individuals that didn't receive the survey was there an opportunity to correct that after after the fact or no uh we we discovered that very recently so no I'm not in time for tonight's uh conversation okay will they have an opportunity to provide feedback so one of the things that we've been discussing since that is what that might look like and back to the previous slide here with regard to um what this is all about is considerations as Dr zush pointed out as we uh consider moving forward what information do we need to do have in order to make have a successful implementation

161and that would be the um the lens under which I would ask us that we would consider um conducting a final end of the year uh for all uh all pilot student uh parents of pilot students an opportunity to give us additional uh end of the year feedback on their full experience okay to help inform moving forward great thank you yeah thank you um I have several questions about the presentation and then I have some feedback because I had the opportunity to um visit the classrooms last week as well so I have some feedback on that I'd like to share as well um the first question I have under the M midyear grades it's the pilot versus non-pilot um seventh grade pre-algebra my question is is we had talked in our study session that you

162were going to try to pull last year data will you be providing that to the board before we make a final decision or seventh grade specifically um I pulled the the grade data for the maybe I misunderstood your request and I apologize I pulled data from the seventh graders as they performed in their grades last year um and the students on average in the pilot um had higher grades um than the students in the non-pilot um which resonates because we know that they had starting higher starting fast scores as well so I apologize if I misunderstood the question I pulled sixth grade scores from last year for sixth grade grades from last year of the current seventh grade pilot students that we presented here yeah I mean we had a long discussion about this in

163the study session and I think the biggest um first of all I think this is a really hard apples to app apples comparison and I think that was talked about in the teaching learning committee because right now um we you know the more I learned about the pilot and which which classes are piloting it um it's just it doesn't seem like an Apples to Apples comparison so like the thing that I was trying to in my mind that I felt would give the best apples to app apples is as you looked at I don't even know what slide this is I apologize it says midy grades pilot and non-pilot looking at data from your seventh graders last year looking at your non-pilot looking at that data I felt like would give us the the best

164comparison if we were able to pull what is your seventh grade pre-algebra non-pilot so that that's what I was looking for and if you haven't pulled it that that's fine um I just wanted to clarify that the cohort that is in current seventh grade is the cohort that we're looking at Pilot versus non-pilot so I wouldn't have we're not we're not sharing the eth grade or the fifth and sixth because that's identifiable the teacher level so if I was pulling um uh the students who are pilot and non-pilot from last year for seventh grade that would be a cohort that we're not displaying so that's why I pulled the sixth grade because that is the only comparison we have of pilot and non-pilot is the current seventh grade cohort but there's no data on here

165from last year for sixth grade am I missing something um I I'm verbally telling yeah I pulled it today oh okay so you'll be sharing with that with the board the sixth grade yeah so the pilot versus non-pilot I do have their sixth grade data from last year those who are currently in the Pilot in seventh grade had a higher average grade in sixth grade than the non-pilot students yeah if you could just share it with us that would be great I think that's best way to understand it um and then under the sixth grade longital longitudal data um your fres bridge data is this when you're referring to sixth grade are you referring to because we didn't have a sixth grade pilot we had a fifth grade do the pilot so the sage fifth

166grade class did the pilot there was no sixth grade pilot class so can you help understand why this data is represented in here um there was a request to show longitudinal data Trends in 6th seventh and eth grade um these are all students in um sixth grade seventh grade and eighth grade over the last few years um the conversation to my recollection was to understand whether the pattern that we're seeing so far this year in our fast bridge scores is similar to patterns that we've seen in the past so this does not include pilot versus non-pilot this is aggregate District data in sixth seventh and eth grade over the last three years yes thank you and I think it's important to note there was no sixth grade pilot class though included in this data because

167this the pilot was in fifth grade just seventh grade but again these are these are aggregate scores for all students okay thank you and then um I want to I want to ask a few questions I know you've gave some explanations about the surveys and I think you know director vquez thank you for the question about will we be redoing the survey um you know as far as parent feedback um it wasn't even like which ones weren't received but I think what I've heard from the community is that there was actual a survey done and the reason this sticks out to me and to the parent that brought it to my attention is the questions that were asked are not the same as what's represented on this parent feedback and one of the questions was

168has your student talked about a lesson we did in class hot dogs giant pencils cookie fairness Penny Tower and Bubbles was one of the questions and those survey results were not included in this parent feedback and so that was a survey that was conducted the parent did fill it out and provide feedback and those where are those survey results um there is occasionally um individual teachers who solicit feedback for their own um purposes so if um there was that particular survey question was um an individual teacher reaching out to her parents soliciting that feedback um that was not part of the official survey um the reason we don't display it is because every teacher ask slightly different questions and it's for their own personal improvement process and not for the official pilot program um and

169that is something as well that we don't aggregate across because each teacher is asking slightly different questions um so that's really for their own purposes for their instructional Improvement um so I appreciate that I think some of the questions that they did ask like does your student seem excited about math class class this year I think some of those questions specific to this was a CPM pilot teacher um would be valuable in the board understanding the aggregate of those survey responses playing into the total survey responses because I know each individual teacher did send out surveys multiple surveys and so by saying there's only 29 of the 49 respondents I believe that from what I've heard feedback there are more surveys out there with feedback from from parents and I think it would be interesting

170to for the board to be able to have access to that information um or have a presentation on that information so that we have a full understanding of the parent feedback I'll defer to Dr Thomas on this but but I I personally would um not include data that is collected from an individual teacher for their own instructional Improvement purposes um for for this purpose I would Echo that and the questions uh one of the questions that you just referenced does align to um you know one of our overarching kind of statistical question that we're asking um about what they um what their favorite things are about math but again as teachers ask um questions of their students and I'll say those are formative assessments that's for their practice knowledge that's for their implementation knowledge um

171and again to have consistency of the exact same question being asked um even one word could slightly Nuance um how a question may be interpreted Etc so aggregating AC cross um when you don't have consistent questions asked won't be reliable so again I think what we shared with you today is the ones that we have asked that are consistent across all um teachers minus the one that we acknowledge that um got omitted from a classroom submission um and we'll be capturing uh an endof year cycle as well to make sure that we can include that cohort so I I would concur from a from a reliability standpoint thank you and I would say if there's any particular questions that seem particularly um insightful I think we can take those into consideration as we do our

172endof year um feedback survey um and we can always you know make our questions better and if there's um the in I've been working closely with individual teachers if there's a particular item that they found to be particularly fruitful in terms of the feedback um we'd love to collaborate on that so um that's something that we can definitely take into consider for the final feedback surve I mean I think the criticism is that the parents are not feeling like their voices were heard and so knowing that they did fill out surveys and their um their information is not represented feeling like they're heard knowing that they're heard and that their information is included in this important decision that we make in the board is really important so um if there was time before we make

173a board decision in order to do another survey I think it would be beneficial um to our board to be be able to make a decision um I want to go back to something that um director Crosby stated um as far as data when we were adopting Bridges I went back and I watched that meeting and there was so much excitement with the kids up here demonstrating how they were doing Bridges um there was excitement on the curriculum committee as a member of that the full curriculum committee was on board we were asked do we support the curriculum we were all very excited we had full teacher Buy on we had full community Buy on we had full parent Buy on um and one of the things that you stated in that meeting director Crosby

174was where's the data we can't make a decision as a board without the science and the data to support because data is important the data that we were given is a link to the cpm's website and as the provider of it's like selling a new car I'm going to give you information about the new car that is not the science behind this curriculum there is a lack of data that supports we did receive I went back and looked at my notes we did receive a link to mass center.org when we were reviewing um Bridges and it had tons and tons of science backing that curriculum and for this one of the criticisms um for this curriculum is that there really is no data to support this style of learning um I'd like to just add

175some of my comments about my visit last week and I would say last week I had the pleasure of spending time in principal kosc with principal kbec at both of our middle school campuses I attended both regular math classes and CPM classes outside of my observations on the C curriculum I have to say I was incredibly impressed with the talent of our teaching staff and how respectful and engaged our students were in the classroom thank you for opening your arms and allowing me to visit your classrooms one thing that was clear to me is that outside of the content the method of building thinking classrooms which is CPM is a small group of instruction is already being used in our district in multiple classrooms and as stated in our math Vision created in 2122 so

176I think the question director olad when you asked have we had the same curriculum in place since 2011 that's a fair that's a fair um that's that is accurate but I do believe I've heard that the curriculum was tweaked in 2122 correct me if I'm wrong by many teachers our to in our district to implement this building thinking classrooms concept and I saw it in play um in different classrooms where there were small group breakouts there was teacher direct teacher instructions but then the the kids broke out into small groups and were up at those vertical white it's called vertical whiteboards but there is a term for it yeah so is that correct or not so what you were describing is instructional practices and yes instructional practices there was a focus on shifting instructional practices

177and those instructional practices aligned we did not not have the curriculum uh to support those instructional practices and this would be a curriculum that would support those instructional practices correct oh thank you and then one of the criticisms also is that the state standards State ST math standards do not dictate how we teach math it dictates the content so one of the things that I'd like to see before we make this board decision is a graph that shows what is the math standards the content the standards um that have changed from the last standards to the new standards um the biggest difference that I noticed um between a CPM class CL room versus a regular craft room classroom is the time that the instructor spent on Direct instruction our traditional classrooms versus CPM the instructor

178launches the classroom with a brief discussion of a topic that is relevant to something half in our community the question that was asked in the classroom that I attended was how was your early release day honestly the kids' response was pretty um pretty funny but um in this case it's a question that was directed about how students um spent their early release day then then the CPM instructor then gives a brief Des description on how to solve a problem and kids are then assigned to small groups to solve questions that are written on those whiteboards the students are then asked to use their thinking skills to solve the problem the teachers brounce from student group to student group answering questions to each individual group question and um some of the observ observations and the challenges

179that I see that we face with a district with larger class sizes is that I noticed that some groups were highly engaged in the process I noticed that some students some students not in group were not in groups at all and were working on their own there were individual students working at tables that were not in groups I no I noticed some kids say hey thanks for the answer I didn't understand that so the one student was solving it and the other kids said hey thanks for the answer um I learned that there are no parent resources to assist students at home I also learned that students assignments are graded on completion versus on accuracy so it's leading to if a student got a problem wrong on their homework then there's no one calling them

180out on the correction and there's no way for that student to know to make the correction on the test what I noticed in our regular classroom was much the same this helped me to understand and take a deeper dive into several of the concerns that we have heard from both students and parents and community members some of the biggest concerns that I have learned and I have heard are the following and there's quite a few but I'll try to keep this brief there is no science or data to support building thinking classrooms that it's an effective method of teaching building thinking classrooms which is CPM is criticized as hashtag syncing classrooms and the math movement taking over our schools it is criticized as being a fad practice similar to what happened in Reading with the

181failure of Lucy ckins new style of reading curriculum building thinkings classrooms has been criticized as being a progressive teaching method and a quick fix to dropping proficiency scores building thinking class classrooms is a popular and largely discredited teaching strategy especially for minimally guided classroom instruction and I think when it's properly implemented the way it the way it's supposed to be implemented the teacher is it's really is minimally guided classroom instruction I thought this was really interesting this was a qu quote from a news article that I read is building thinking or Sinking is building thinking sinking classrooms the quote was one razor sharp New York City parent vinda delwart claimed that many students were struggling to master math in the program and it was dividing her family and her community to many honor students were

182bombing assessments and weak students with learning challenges were completely lost the alternative to CPM or building thinking classrooms is direct instruction and direct instruction has science to back it and it's closely rated to related to the science of reading which was just addressed in legislation through the read act direct instruction is backed by evidence direct instruction is used in colleges and other advanced math programs direct instruction teaches content um some direct challenges I foresee with implementing CPM in our district are as follows how do we support meeting the needs of all Learners as it pertains to the highest level of achievers and those who find math challenging with the rise of sped students in our district how do we meet the needs of our students on the Spectrum who Thrive with structure and direct instruction

183how do we support students coming out of stage ola and our English Learners how do we engage with parents and provide resources so that they can partner with parents to support their parents at home how do we train Subs on a curriculum that's so difficult for our staff to understand and requires a lot of supplementing excuse me Dre almost done and I do have 10 minutes no I have 10 minutes thank you this is really important this is important feedback and I'm almost finished thank you very much read from a book it is not a book it's everything that I've heard from our community how do we support teachers with professional development demands when also implementing training in the read act how do we support teachers with supplemental material when it was stated that this

184curriculum will require supplemental material to be effective how does this new curriculum align with the new Mass standards as standards are specific to content and then we have still not heard the answer to what are the total costs and the recurring costs of CPM I think it's fair to recognize that covid learning loss is real and still has an impact on our students and teachers you heard them tonight they're eager for a solution to navigate this challenge since so many factors has have changed since 2122 wouldn't it make sense for our district to relook at the math vision for our district once we've completed our strategic plan to ensure that the vision aligns with our new strategic plan and what's important to our community we report to our community in the community feedback sessions our

185community came together and it was clear that elevating academic achievement with a focus on rigor and proficiency was something that came up as a priority in every session and was something that our community could agree on as a priority I don't believe that this curriculum CPM also referred to as building thinking classrooms fits what our community what what our Comm what we're hearing from our community I am almost finished thank you very much I have concern finished before I have concerns with the timing of the approval of this curriculum and spending resources to support this curriculum before we finalize the the Strategic plan as consequently it may not align with the priorities of our community I would like to make a motion this evening to move the vote on CPM planned for May 13th to

186after board approval in June of this new strategic plan are you making a motion I made a motion yes okay do you have a second or okay with no second um first of all does any one of the teachers want to speak to uh the ones that director zush mentioned to any of the concerns that have been stated so far before I ask my questions okay oh you do you I just want to clarify that CPM is not building of the IDE from build thinking class so those two synonymously yeah for my research it says it is so thank you for that I re I received this information from an educator and this curriculum is being it it was being tried in other schools in our district and I've received a lot of information from

187that educator as well director ainson it's been 20 minutes yeah thank you and I think it's time to hear some other board members um first of all um I appreciate the data there's a lot of data here and as um a parent who has had kids go through programs also I I I'm not brave enough to teach Middle School school math or Elementary School math I want to add that um but I have taught at the University level uh math engineering and computer science and um I can tell you that the spiral method is the only way we teach it it's about failing forward um and it's been uh quite a joy uh to be involved in that um first of all I want to thank director bullan for your test retake question because I

188did have that question too um the con of critical thinking is basically learning how to learn and that's what I interpreted I did sit in a couple classrooms at the beginning of this year and I was very impressed I know that the group method has been around in multiple classrooms and I saw it in English I saw it in history I saw it in other math courses not just the pilot courses so I know that it it it has a place it's been very very well received um and my concern also is based basically when you focus on the group that I'm hoping and I saw firsthand that the teacher will adjust because not all classrooms are going to adjust to that not all students are going to adjust to that but um if you

189look at most of your middle school and even high school math programs your math Olympiad your math teams Etc they all work in groups and they work in groups because they compare answers because they learn from each other and quite frankly if anyone's had a kid who had stuck with math and their parents couldn't help them they call up a friend and say Hey what' you get you know so um so that works but I'm most excited about the critical thinking and about learning how to learn and about learning how it all fits together um the other thing that um like I mentioned before is I've always been a fan of the Spiral versus the Mastery method um and as someone also has tutored kids in this district and I tutor mostly Advanced algebra or

190calculus the thing that's always struck me and granted the number of kids I tutor is not a significant population sample by any stretch of the imagination for the number of students who have math here but when they're going on to the upper level maths what what's really concerned me is what the issue why they think they're not good at math or why they think that the math is hard is because a lot of them never really mastered the basic algebra behind the calculus they were they did well and then you know they did well enough to get through that level and they moved on to the next level without that foundational regurgitation almost like a regression test constantly happening and so they get to finally they get to a level where I've said this before

191here they hit a wall and I see that also when they're taking the ACT I see that when they're taking their MCA because the MCA isn't testing just what they learned that grade or that last test they're testing everything up until that point and also so as someone who did not um um basically contribute but I sat in on the new MCA math and science uh because I was on a committee and a board and stuff like that with the Minnesota Academy of Science that that allowed us to do that um that was a concern of the uh instructors that were contributing to the new math standards so I get it and I I but I also get the trepidation from parents who all of a sudden don't know how to teach their kids at

192home anymore they don't know how to help them because this is new for them too and I get the students that have this new way of group and so my question really is to the to the you know to the peer coaches and as we move forward and I and I am in favor of it I think it's I think it's done fairly well and I think the fastbridge data the midare fastbridge data really speaks volumes by the way um is is how and how much are we going I mean you have a curriculum are the peer coaches going to be trained and will they be able to be trained to help these teachers adapt and adjust and pick the parts of the curriculum that they that fit their classrooms at their point in time

193best uh so they know how to adapt and that was my primary question uh thank you for that question uh yes uh we have done so with our bridges and we will do so here uh that we will include our peer coach we we have uh specifically one peer coach who works with the math middle school math teams um and uh she will be included in the training and be working side by side with them throughout not only the initial training but the ongoing training as well thank you and as a side note like I said I'm not a middle school math teacher by any stretch and I'm not a teacher by trade by any stretch either and I just want to add that if um this is hard it's hard to try and conin

194people who aren't in your career profession to all of a sudden jump into what you're doing and make approval of it and quite frankly and and um with respect to the teachers if somebody came into my job and tried to tell me how to do my job um and they'd never done my job they were not certified in my job um I'd be pretty angry and I really like the idea that um we're looking to the professionals the people who are experts and what they're and what they're doing um and they basically have to eat their own dog food at the end of the day and I respect that and I appreciate that and I am really impressed and overwhelmingly impressed that um nearly all the the pilot teachers that are in this are 100%

195in favor of this so I'm I'm good um and I do appreciate the data hey next on our agenda is the preliminary 2425 budget report thank you chair friends Dr Thomas members of the board um I was hoping we'd be able to show this presentation but we're going to have a computer restart in one minute so I think I'll just go through it on the slides that you have in the packet yeah you're probably best to do that yep I think we're g to run out of time so we have had several conversations over the past few months about the budget for 2425 um this is um going to be nothing new that you haven't seen before I'm just kind of putting this in a package because on June 10th at the board meeting we're

196going to ask you to approve the 2425 budget as you know by Statute we have to have an approved budget um done by June 30th so um want to run through this again there shouldn't be anything that you haven't seen before but we'll just kind of um updated if there is anything in the next three weeks that come up we'll let you know but right now this is kind of the way that it's going to stand on June 10th um the first slide has the enrollment assumptions again you've seen these before we're having a slightly declined enrollment based on birth rates in um the county um I've given you the estimates of what we have for the 2425 enrollment numbers again you've seen these before um again I just want to remind you that next

197year our highest um class of seniors will be graduating next year and we aren't going to see that number of um seniors in the high school for quite a while so uh just keep that in mind as we move forward on the next slide um just a reminder that revenue is set in statute it's Minnesota statute 126c 10 uh the formula allowance for next year is $728 per adjusted pupil unit the formula allowance is going to be 3% increase next year the new statute has um an inflationary Factor built in but it is capped at 3% we have a decrease in enrollment due to our decline or decrease in Revenue due to our declining enrollment um we're planning on um additional mandates like the re act some summer employment earn safe and sick time increased

198family medical leave those are all expenses that we're going to have to be planning for moving forward and right now our expenses are going to exceed our Revenue by approximately $1 million so we will be asking you in the budget um proposal to allow us to use fund balance to cover that million dollars at the end of June 30th of 2025 we still anticipate our unassigned fund balance to be within the board policy of 8 to 12% on the next slide I'm showing some of the assumptions that we've made as we built the budget um for Revenue our projected state aid Levy and other entitlements um miscellaneous including Investments earnings rebates and activity fees are all included in the revenue budget formula allowance um increase um of 2% for next year and then going forward

199it will be capped at 3% the student enrollment um we're assuming is going to increase over the summer by approximately 200 students and historically that has happened um but we will keep an eye on that if we don't see that kind of increase then um we will have a budget amendment in September October as we see the kid kids that do show up um our expense budget includes reductions of 3.2 million which we've talked about at several of the study sessions we have increased special education needs to due to increased student numbers um we're planning for inflation for our vendor contracts and supplies and we're also assuming that the collective bargaining agreements will show increases in all of them including healthc care so as we look at kindergarten placements and this is where we are

200seeing um lower numbers than what we were hoping but if you compare it to this time last year um they're not unreasonable and again um that just means that we can assume that we're going to get some additional students coming in especially at kindergarten um over the summer and then I've also included um as of April 29th how many open enrolled students we have U by grade level the next slide just shows the revenue projections the state aid so um I think you've seen this before I break out all of the different categories of state aid that we get they majority of them are formula based a lot of them are uh based on enrollment numbers so these are the estimated dollar amounts that we're going to see in state aid about 90 4.9 million

201and then the levy which has already been approved that was approved last December so our Levy is going to be about 19.8 million we're going to anticipate other funds including grants um some of the federal dollars uh earnings Investments all of those other things of about $5.7 million so we're seeing um projected revenue of 12.6 million and the next slide you've seen this before we've shown this several times we're anticipating our expenses to be about 121.6 million that's after the 3.2 million reductions that we've taken um so we will be asking for that $968,000 and then the last side um as we consider items that we would take um or use fund balance to cover there would be things like any new curriculum some of the professional development for the read act should we not

202get reimbursed or get reimbursed fully for um the professional development we going to be required and use for capital projects um our capital projects um the amount we get is based on enrollment and then there's a formula that's very complicated around building age and um you can use Capital project money for three different things you can use it for curriculum leases and then capital projects um like for facilities and as we've seen increased lease amounts for our um Chromebooks and iPads we're having to make some adjustments um in how we spend the capital projects dollars so in order to keep um our capital projects um in the operations Department with some dollars plus the it leases um it's going to put some strain on the curriculum budget so that's why part of the fund balance

203we're asking to use um some of our um ask from fund balance will probably be covering some of that curriculum and it would be a one-time expense so again it's um not going to change too much I don't really anticipate anything unless we see some drastic changes in enrollment or some new um dollars coming in from the um legislature that's going to be finalizing their work the week after next um so if we're going to see any dollars in there then we'll come back on June 10th with whatever changes that is well I just wanted to give you that update um then if there's questions we can answer whatever I can tonight or on June 10th um we will also be able to answer any of those questions think I'm open up to the board

204for any questions on the budget these are numbers we've seen before um I just had one question more clarifying maybe and this is for maybe Dr Edwards to the new curriculum are we talking about math or something El uh the math we just discussed and then I understand too if you can speak to that's a a quote for like seven years so like this is like a very multi-year if if we're talking about that that is correct um our budget for the Department that I oversee um has been established and that would include uh purchase in math that was a part of a multi-year plan um and shifting that to this one-time expense in it the quote would be for seven years I had a question about the 200 um the expected increase in enrollment

205of 200 kids over the summer uh maybe you said this and I'm sorry if I missed it but where what's that number based off of historicals or just Okay historically I mean we have a trend line what we are anticipating ating um for the future enrollment you kind of do a a grade progression to see know your first graders will be second graders and that number that's always kind of a historically have to figure out how to best estimate the kindergarteners so um we are seeing about 200 fewer kindergarteners than what we've currently have but again we get a lot of um enrollments in the summer just families are waiting until the last minute they're getting their moves situated they're figuring out where they're going to be attending um so we'll typically see additional kindergarteners

206coming in in the um in the summer and we do have um our plans for next year the allocations that we're giving we have room to put some of those kindergarteners in yeah I have a question um I just want to clarify when you say onetime expense with curriculum if we're using this for the math the CPM curriculum there are reoccurring costs every year my understanding is the workbooks need to be purchased every year is that correct there would be ongoing costs that would be part of instructional supplies but the initial upfront adoption of a curriculum which is very standard uh practice and is professional development included in that or is that a reoccurring cost as well that is included in the quote that that would be brought forward for Action ongoing professional development is

207included and how can you share with us what that cost would be or you will you share that with us at a future meeting um it's it's it's a part of the quote it's included in the quote it's not itemized separately What's the total number though that's what I was looking for uh approxim I believe it was right around 370,000 and then you know what the cost is for the for the workbooks as we move forward year by year I don't have that this time okay um I just have a question um while the overall numbers like you said haven't changed it seems like the format has changed how we look at them and when I look at the 24 25 Revenue projection I think that's super helpful to have it broken out is there

208any way you can add how that compares to last year for revenue and then the way you break out re Revenue um super helpful to see that by category but I'd also like to see that for expenses by category this year versus last year um so that we can really see sort of an an Apples to Apples comparison that's actually on um one of the slides the third to the last the fund balance estimates M we've shown that it's the revenue on top and the expenses below that and it's not broken out by category though that's the thing salaries Fringe purchase Services supplies Capital expenses and miscellaneous this year versus last year but then where is the revenue this year versus last year am I missing something on the top so the revenue it has

209the state aid the levy the grants and the other no but this page where's the comparison to last year like this is a great page it shows you everything that's broken out but where's the last year oh I I this is something that I give every year so I can go back and pull the report that I gave last year I think it'd be helpful to see that um weit we we do have the detail in the study session book the really really detailed breakout that I believe you went back two years on and this one goes back 22 to 23 so before additional um work is allocated to a staff member I think we need to have board um direction to the staff member and to the superintendent to add additional work even especially

210since it's already been given if it's given if somebody can just direct me to it I mean I feel like every time we look at budget data and I I'll be honest with you receiving this on the Friday right before I mean only having the weekend to look at this um was a little concerning because budget is important right it takes time to like look through the numbers and compare to last year and do all those things so when we get our next round of budget data if you could please just be respectful of hitting our deadlines of when it is goes into board books so that we have enough time to look at the data I would appreciate that from a board director the other thing are you including all the revenue that is

211to be coming out of the legislature we heard today that there's over $100 million 90 million correct me sorry possibly 90 million coming out of the react are you including the additional Revenue that potentially is coming out of the legislation well as I mentioned when I talked about the revenue assumptions was that if was any additional Revenue coming out of the legislative session that they're ending their session in two weeks I believe March 20th y so if there is anything that's coming out of there we will adjust that for the June 10th uh meeting but right now this is what we know for sure okay thank you it's listed um first of all director Frederickson I appreciate you putting this into a PowerPoint format and I know that we have received tons of data that

212has been consistent in the study sessions and as well as in our packets and I know it takes a long time to put this in a PowerPoint format uh for presentation so thank you for that I did have one question and that was um when we're talking about the fund balance and we're talking about taking that additional nearly a million dollars out um do you have any idea how that's going to affect our incoming fund balance for the next uh fiscal year or percentage wise percentage wise yeah it would be um if we take that million dollars out the total fund balance will be about 13.8% the unassigned will be about 10.8 so it's still going to be the same that's the number that's in here okay thank you for that I wasn't sure if

213it was already reflected or not um and then the other thing is you mentioned um increase in health care costs and I know that I've already seen it rise cuz I saw the March and April uh detail transactional numbers come through and it was quite a bit actually and um I don't know if that's a reflection because we did switch plans is that what that was or is that or is it really just what we're going to expect going forward uh we as we switch to Blue Cross Blue Cross Blue Shield we are going to see a 4% increase in our rates um we anticipate based on our and director Herman correct me if I'm wrong um we based on our historical um spend that we've had on there on our health insurance we're anticipating

214about a 4% increase moving forward which is what Blue Cross Blue Shield has kind of indicated but again we're not going to know until this year's final that's the um indication on there the the of the health care costs and the transactional detail it was just abbreviated on there I just want I know I'm I'm pretty sure that's what it was um chair friends members of the board um to to clarify this next year we approved a 5% increase in our health insurance um and we're projecting 4% moving forward because of our last 12year Trend um we were a little over 3% on average but we are seeing the market adjustments um and Trends even being self-funded and all the um extreme hard work the insurance committee has done in all of our members to

215keep our cost down um the the claims data that we are represen are showing is is showing that that will probably no longer be around the 3% it'll be closer to the to the fours okay thank you um and I know that will significantly impact next year as well so thank you very much for that clarification um I don't have any other questions does anybody else have any other questions okay thank you um moving on the next thing is the proclamation um which I am going to read for youth Appreciation Week approval of oh I'm sorry approval I'm sorry I totally missed one approval of interest of the purchase orders sorry about that um and I need a motion in a second for this one the Me by director olad second and second by director

216bullion okay um director Frederickson yes thank you as we move forward um into getting closer into next year we have a lot of our schools are putting in purchase orders um for 2425 and obviously we don't have an approved budget yet so we're just asking for approval from the board that we can issue the 2425 purchase orders for the buildings before they end up going out for the summer so we don't have that lag time and trying to get everything um done in September when they come back and this is the same thing that we did last year Yep this is we have to do this every year any questions I have one question would this um would anything over $25,000 still come to the board for approval yes okay thank you other questions okay

217so all in favor I opposed that passes 60 okay next I miss anything okay uh proclamation of Youth Appreciation Week um and I'm going to read this and um Proclamation youth Appreciation Week whereas the vast majority of Youth are concerned knowledgeable and contributing Partners within the community and ra the accomplishments and achievements of these young citizens deserves the recognition and praise of the community and whereas Optimus International has since 1954 developed and promoted a program entitled youth appreciation week and whereas the citizens of the Prior Lake Savage area school district have indicated a desire to join the Optimus in expressing appreciation and approval of the contributions of Youth the district's 719 board of education does hereby proclaim the second week of May as youth Appreciation Week in the district by this action let it be

218known that we have faith in the ability of today's youth as youths youths as they assume responsible roles in the future of human kind kind now therefore I Mary France chair person of the Prior Lake Savage Area Schools Board of Education hereby proclaim the second week of May 2024 as youth Appreciation Week in the Prior Lake Savage Area School District thank you and Dr uh Scott Peterson you want to say a few words at all um on behalf or I can yes is this yeah okay um we'll be having a luncheon on Wednesday and I think some of you will be there so uh we'll be honoring probably what about 60 or 80 students from the various schools in the in the uh pric Savage area and um we emphasize the good side of our

219youth so that's that's what we're what that's what we're after and we thank you very much for this Proclamation tonight we have with us tonight a couple of uh junior Optimus members um Nissa FR Nissa Frans and Gabby Thompson fron fron fron sorry about that we've got two Juniors uh part of apparently the largest class coming through the school next year so they are going to be starting their senior year next year and they are definitely um outstanding students I'm very proud to uh recognize the work that they've done for our school and the community thank you very much you very [Applause] much and thank you for your patience yeah stick okay next is the proclamation for school communicators week uh and I'm going to ask director Olstead to read that one Prior Lake Savage

220area schools recognizes May 6 through 10th 2024 as school communicators Appreciation Week our school Communicator professionals serve the critical function of an information liaison between a school district and its Community representing the district various Community organizations this week we celebrate our thanks and gratitude for these vital staff members whereas National School communicators day is being celebrated on May 10th 2024 whereas transparent and effective communication about Prior Lake Savage area schools programs Services plans decisions and priorities to students families staff and Community stakeholders are critically important whereas pardon School communicators work tirelessly to ensure meaningful parental and Community involvement pardon me through communication to build support for schools and the children they serve whereas School communicators commit to practicing communicationpublic relations in an ethical and comprehensive way that meets the needs and desires of all internal

221and external publics I'm sorry whereas School communicators serve as a strategic partner to school boards and to district and school leaders to develop communication plans that support their missions and goals whereas School communicators work to amplify The Branding and key messages of a school district to new and existing audiences therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends its appreciation to all Prior Lake Savage area school communication professionals and strongly encourages all members of our community to join in this observance recognizing the dedication and hard work of School communicators and declares May 6 through 10th 2024 to be school communicators Appreciation Week in Prior Lake Savage area schools thank you for that Proclamation and uh I do also want to just express my appreciation for our Communications Department you know we have chrisy

222Liz Julia and Amy all playing a critical role to being the first face that you might see when you come into the district Services Center to their responsiveness to community inquiry and data information um to promoting our brand and our um uh awesomeness if you will on social media and then also just the whole ideation uh I I I sit with Christie almost daily um as a shoulder partner to Think Through how we communicate um and strategize um our communication effectively to make sure it lands in the appropriate ways so I can't thank that entire team enough for everything that they do on on a daily basis and uh uh a week is not enough to say thank you for all you do so but we really appreciate you thank you thank you okay the

223next Proclamation is the national speech and language pathologist week and I'm going to ask director Basquez to read that one Prior Lake Savage area schools recognizes May 13th through 18th 2024 as National speech and language pathologist Appreciation Week this week we celebrate our thanks and gratitude for these vital staff members whereas each year during the month of May the American speech language hearing Association assha promotes better speech and hearing month to raise awareness about communication disorders and hearing health and May 18th 2024 is National speech language pathologist day whereas during the month of May speech language Pathologists throughout the nation make a special effort to inform educate and raise public awareness of speech language and hearing disorders whereas school-based speech language Pathologists and teachers of the deaf heart of hearing dedicate their lives to helping

224children in need and providing support in schools across our district whereas these professionals are essential to each school's exceptional student Education team and are invaluable support resources for schools and parents therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends the appreciation to all Prior Lake Savage area schools speech and language Pathologists and declares May 13th through 18th 2024 to be speech and language pathologist Appreciation Week in Prior Lake Savage area schools thank you board of education for that Proclamation and I'll just share a few things here we have 656 students in Prior Lake Savage area schools e through 12 that receive special education services from either a language Pathologists or a teacher for the de heart of hearing or perhaps even both uh we collaborate with these staff and parents and speech and

225pathol speech pathologists and teachers of the de heart of hearing create inclusive learning environments where every student can participate and actively make progress for their own uh individualized goals and I just want to express our deep appreciation for this group of Staff um who go go above and beyond every single day to ensure we have inclusive environments for every student irrespective of the needs that they possess so thank you all um for the work that you do yes thank you you okay next topic is policy um we have 13 policies to go over um we don't really need to potentially go over all of them so I'm going to ask in the interest of time to um please uh do not limit what you want to say if to make a point but let's try

226to expedite this a little bit um um these policies have been already through two reviews at our policy committee and one full review at our recent study session um so I am going to hand this over to director Hermon Herman Herman gosh Herman sorry um and um let's uh since we have a few changes that have occurred since I think at least one major change since our study session I think we have to go through the individually um so I'm going to hand that over to her but let's try to expedite this and get our points across in case there's anything we need to discuss thank you chair friends members of the board for policy 520 or sorry 425 there are no changes we do have it noted to ensure that we are meeting the

227statutory requirements but as mentioned um and discussed at the last meeting this is a policy that uh quite a bit of districts do not have and we're recommending um striking it accordingly any questions yeah I just have clar clarification on that um the statutory requirements that you stated it does state that the board is required to have that advisory development committee which I believe we discussed would be um how do you say we would be I don't I can't think of the right word sorry um we would be turning that over to different committees within our district which would be the teach and learning committee special education advisory committee is that correct that is correct yep okay and just being on this the teaching and learning committee I know that this isn't something that we've

228touched on in the past um I also checked with the special education advisory committee it's not something that they've touched with on the past regarding professional development so knowing that the heavy load of professional development is going to that's going to be coming down the pipeline with the read act and potentially new math curriculum can we just ensure that this is something because it does say it must include non-teaching staff parents and administrators can we ensure that this will be touched upon in those committees yes moving forward and tonight would be a prime example on the teaching and learning advisory committee that was preceded this meeting that we did discuss components of staff development and that'll be ongoing and just to clarify um and director Edwards and Herman correct me if I wrong but the

229statutes that refer to this basically start off the entire thing that a Schoolboard must use Revenue authorized in the section four and then listed after that and because we are already having these committees like the majority majority of other school districts the msba does not recommend this policy does not have this policy I don't believe and neither do most other school districts because it's already embedded and everything else the msba does have a model policy but it is not one of the required policies okay that's what it was thank you very much so any other questions okay moving on to policy 504 under policy 504 there were changes based off of the conversation um at the last board meeting um to make changes um to uh the uh items under the general statement of policy

230any comments on the added changes in section c I believe number four thank you for the changes made um I like the changes made and it looks like they're going to be somewhat easy to enforce because they're broad enough yet specific enough for parents thank you for the hard work on this any other questions um I just have a question on how this is going to be communicated I mean I know that falls under procedural but I think communication is key when we're making any key policy changes I think we'll communicate this through our student handbooks and also this is something um that I can also issue you um a more direct statement as well um on my coming back as a just as a high level so people understand this is a high stakes

231policy for us thank you m all right uh any other questions or concerns all right moving on to policy 602 um five 5091 did not have any chang1 went ahead um 9.1 did not have any changes from last time okay and and policy 602 changes I don't believe policy 602 did not have any changes except for removing the reference to policy 425 okay are there any other changes to the rest of the policies in here I don't from our study session um I didn't see any but I wasn't sure if anyone had any emails under um skipping forward then to policy 610 we did add the um legal reference to the Minnesota State High School league as um requested by the school board to add that reference in terms of the disciplinary actions okay thank

232you um I have a question on six 10 um in the policy um I'm trying to find exactly where it states it um but it basically says that a district employee can bring their chaperon I'm sorry can bring their spouse and I can't find the exact wording sorry it'll take me a second to find it um but my question is is that would The spouse's expenses be covered like it says the spouse or family members um would the spouses and family members expense be covered if they were traveling with the district employee is my question um if they serve as an official uh chaperon like other chaperon it would be covered if they are not serving as an official chaperone that would not be the case but in most cases I don't want to say

233all but I would say in most if not all cases they are serving as an official chapero and if if the expenses are covered for other chaperon it would apply to them as well thank you for clarifying that any other questions on 610 director Herman were there any other changes on the rest of those that were covered in the study session um no it is my um I did a quick review I don't believe I missed any those were the major changes based off the discussion at the last meeting are there any further questions or comments from anyone okay are we okay to vote on these as uh all of 13 at once sure yes okay um did I take a motion already nope no okay so I need a motion no made by director

234bullion second a second by director Vasquez um all in favor I I that pass is 60 okay moving on to administrative reports thank you chair friends and board directors um just a few things I'll highlight this evening um it's kind of one of my second topics down below but just a quick strategic Plan update we've uh completed all of our community meetings um and tomorrow we have our core planning team meeting where we will um draft the initial vision mission priorities uh and belief statements that will be uh bringing to you as a preliminary conversation and then getting your feedback and then going back with the team to finalize things to bring it back before you in June um it's been a very really good process um I want to recognize um our asbo award

235our district has once again earned their certificate of excellence in financial reporting award from the association of school business officials International um our district has been an award recipient for the past 15 years and so just a huge shout out to Tammy and the entire business office team for your uh dedication um to uh working through some really tough challenges and being honored for uh the Integrity you uphold throughout that process um also we have been heavily engaged in our standard response protocol and some changes there um as we prepare for the 2425 school year we'll be implementing um a new standard response protocol plan that's developed by the I love you guys Foundation um this is something that we are in deep partnership with a lot of our local law enforcement fire emergency medical

236uh responders Etc all using the same standard response protocol so that cohesive approach to um Safety and Security is absolutely critical um it provides a clear and consistent protocol for responding to a wide variety of emergencies from fires lockdowns evacuations weather or any kind of medical situation that might arise in any of our campuses and then training communication um for this many have been going through it but um there will be additional training forth come forthcoming in the start of next school year um let's see uh just uh around Community engagement we held our second annual realtor meeting um this past April 24th um uh that was in the morning and that evening we did a town hall on school Finance all that information from the town hall is posted on our website and I

237really want to thank our Realtors and Brokers for coming out um it's our opportunity to inform them but we also learned a lot from listening to them in terms of perspectives that's happening out in our community so thank you to them um and then just want to recognize um a uh group of our retirees coming up on May 16th from 3 until 5:00 at Prior Lake High School um we will have our annual retiree celebration and um tonight we um had a couple um on our consent agenda and those two uh were Dale Boltz from hre uh custodian for 10 years with us so congratulations to Dale and then also Lori uh Na noaki um JP she's the lead admin assistant there she was also recognized on the consent agenda tonight so I just want

238to make sure I give those two a shout out and then others that we want to give uh mention to that we've um shared um throughout the year or throughout the past couple of months is Lori Davis um fridges Katherine Edward um tro J Jory if I said that correctly sorry about that uh Sasha Kun nof kutoff sorry kutoff uh principal K as we affectionately call him uh Jan Olen Jeff pitsky Julie pile Gina Schumacher Maria Sullivan Katherine Winkleman Deb buke uh Candace Jenkins uh Mary Lesar uh Lori Neiman Patterson Linda roach and Christy um Talis uh are the ones that we'll be recognizing at Prior Lake High School um May 16th from 3:00 to 5: so feel free to stop through you'll meet and greet with their families and friends and send them off

239uh into Happy retirement uh that is all that I have okay so future events oh I'm sorry next on the list is I just lost my place um is uh administrative reports it is those oh sorry uh Dan Bergen we do not have here by the way um since this is the last board meeting and I seriously doubt he's going to come back after he graduates next week we have another meeting next week for for June 10 yeah he might not yeah that's that's afterwards um maybe we can invite him for the second half of the study session next time uh but anyways would like to say congratulations to Dan um and hopefully we will see him one more time and I'm going to ask for board reports um I just have something very quick

240um our um Equity advisory committee um has been kind of um broken out into some little mini committees if as it were um for different areas of work um and one of them is to um help plan the coffee and conversations um the upcoming one on May 28th which is um telling you for your calendars um the topic is um homelessness which I think is going to be very powerful um and so our little side committee is um helping organize that with Sam um as well as future meeting um on some future topics and future dates so we can calendar out a little bit farther ahead um and so I just wanted to make sure May 28th was on your calendars anything no director Alaska certainly uh yes Southwest Metro we just recently settled the

241the teacher contract and similar to PRI leag Savage are working through the budget process so that we can deliver a balanced budget and what all the implications are after uh finalizing the negotiations with the the Bering unit for teachers uh in parallel to that our superintendent for Southwest Metro Darren kerms is retiring at the end of the school year after 18 years with Southwest Metro intermediate District he started when there were two different organizations there was the Scott uh educational Scott County Educational cooperative and then the Carver educational cooperative and oversaw the merger of both those into the Carver Scott educational cooperative and then it morphed into just the state's fourth Intermediate School District we saw quite a bit of growth underneath his watch under underneath his tutelage a lot of innovation has happened and

242you will be sorely missed so we are currently in the throws of working through the recruitment process to find the next superintendent for this amazing School District awesome I I've worked a little while with uh uh Darren kermes and really really enjoyed him and loved um the superintendence he brought in and everything that he did um I have a board update please um I attended the teaching and learning committee this evening with um director Olstead um we had a discussion the first discussion was centered around a change in how our district um possibly I want to say represents credits it's that doesn't change the calculation but um credits are now being calculated as 75 per quarter the way I understood it and we're looking at a potential change to 0.25 to represent a quarter it's

243a little complicated but they did a great job of explaining it and um they'll be bringing that to the board for further um rev or further explanation and discussion um we also had a conversation um quite quite a lengthy conversation about class Rank and what does that mean to students um both from a positive and a negative standpoint and what is it really used for as far as class ranking goes and looking at um what does that really mean to our district um we talked about the read Act and the training and that the deadline for the read act has been extended to July 26 now giving a two-year training schedule which gives us more timing um the you know the the pr professional development that we're looking at for the program that we're looking

244to implement um is really extensive and so um it will be quite an undertaking so the longer time period is um is is good news for our district um we also talked about um what was mentioned before that there will be additional funding coming with the read act which is encouraging um what it means to our district is still yet to be known um and then we also talked about that am um depending legislation policy 606 um will be coming back to my understanding was back to the curriculum committee um and the policy committee once legislation has been finalized on policy 606 which has to do with curriculum review and the library book policy so that was it it was a great meeting so thank you um anything else from anybody um I attended the

245town hall it was well done thank you for that director o said I saw you there too um I just really appreciated the questions brought forward by the community members um and the added information and context given by Dr Tom Thomas and and um director Frederickson was wonderful um also just wanted to um I know we took a moment of silence but just really wanted to um just State the honor for the lives of Jim um Delo and Brad bolver and their service to PR Lake savager Schools thank you very much okay future events um we have our Schoolboard Retreat this Friday from noon to 400 p.m. um our next study session which will also have um a board meeting afterwards is May 13th and then our district retirement celebration is May 16th and at

246the end of the month of course we have Memorial Day which is the unofficial start for most people of Summer um so looking forward to that and hopefully the end of monsoon season um at this point I need a motion as second to adjourn our business portion of the meeting and transition to a closed meeting so made director and um and director Atkinson okay um all in favor I I okay that passes 60 and we're going to take a 5 minute recess so we can clear the room for the closed session