January 8, 2024 Regular Meeting of the Board of Education

001welcome uh I'm going to call this uh meeting to order and please stand for the pledge of allegiance of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all okay roll call all members all board members are present next I'm going to call for the open Forum in accordance with policy 203 the board sets aside up to 15 minutes to receive citizen input through an open Forum input from students staff parents and community members and major decisions can be Val can be a valuable form of assistance to the board open form is an opportunity to address the board the open form is a safe place for Prior Lake Savage uh area schools community members to share experiences concerns and feedback and

002in accordance with their first amendment rights the form is an opportunity for us all to elevate the conversation create healthy spaces for dialogue to demonstrate respect for opposing views so that we can all collectively do better the open form rules are as follows at least 10 minutes prior to each meeting a signup sheet will be available at the meeting site for individuals to sign up for the board um up to five speakers shall be provided a maximum of 3 minutes um 15 minutes in total to address the board unless an exception is granted by the board chair up to five um 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

003identifiable 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 as ended if you have any handouts or materials for the bo board please submit those in advance to Martha walls members of the public should not approach the dis the board will not review handouts during public comment period board members shall listen respectfully to issues brought before them by the community but will not engage individuals during their time the board shall not deliberate or take action during the open Forum regarding an issue presented each Forum speaker should indicate whether they would like to follow up uh would like a followup by Administration on the speaker uh form or if a followup by Administration is necessary the chair shall request that

004the superintendent follow up on the matter after open forum and when the board chair proceeds with the meeting audience members are no longer in order however the board members retain the right to call on District administration for information to assist the board in its deliberations thank thank you in advance to the speakers and to the audience for respectfully sharing listening and being engaged in the Prior Lake Savage area schools Community with that I would like to call up the first speaker and that is uh Emily Gillespie good evening Dr Thomas cheer friends members of the board my name is Emily Gillespie I live in Savage and I have two kids at Prior Lake High School tomorrow morning a committee will meet to decide whether the book Melissa which is the target of a book Challenge

005and our elementary schools will remain on the shelves or be removed tonight I want to share a story with just one example from my family about why School libraries need diverse books including those that have content that some adults in the community might consider to be objectionable or inappropriate I want to share this particular story because for a moment a couple of years ago I was one of those adults my daughter then a seventh grader was grabbing her books from her backpack and I saw the cover of a book that put a knot in my stomach that knot Was Fear I recognized the book because it had been turned into a movie that I had seen I knew that the book was controversial in some circles and that it had content that might be really

006hard for my daughter because of some of her own personal experiences I worried that she might react poorly or be triggered by it the fear was real and I consider considered telling my daughter that she couldn't read the book that would have been a perfectly valid reaction and well within my rights as a parent I even considered telling the media specialist that I didn't think the book was appropriate for middle schoolers but instead I decided to talk to my daughter about it I told her that I was worried about how she might react to the book and why I told her that I would be reading the book along with her and that we would check in with each other as we were reading so that we could ask each other questions and talk through

007the challenging Parts what could have been an attempt to to control my daughter was instead a wonderful way to connect with her that is my right and my responsibility as a parent to guide my own children as they grow and engage with the world through books not to tell other families what books their CH their children may or may not access book Challengers do not have the right to impose their views on others or demand that the school's media resources reflect their personal preferences or their particular Family Values to our media Specialists and teachers I am so grateful F to you I trust and support you as trained professionals who do an excellent job creating engaging collections for all Learners books are the safest way for students to engage with the world in which they

008live and they provide a crucial opportunity for parents to engage with their children about what they are reading when the committee meets tomorrow to discuss the book Melissa I hope they consider that protecting our kids freedom to read does not take away our rights as parents it gives us the gift of being able to help them learn how to navigate to the world of literature and to guide them through it thank [Applause] you our next speaker is Nick englas on contract negotiations boardon Dr Thomas my name is Nickles I'm a father of a current Red Tail Ridge fourth grad and a 16-year English teacher at prake high school I love being a Laker and I love the opportunity every day to work with my students in District 719 and if you ask my students I

009start class the same way every single day it's a beautiful day in Prior Lake however over the past few years I've realized the not every teacher shares my sentiment year after year I say goodbye to my colleagues who are fed up with Prior Lake they are tired of being asked to do too much for too little and fortunately for my friends there are many opportunities available to other local schools for these teachers who are prioritizing and respecting their staff my friends are gone we've lost great teachers my son lost the opportunity to work with these amazing teachers but who cares right they've left there's plenty of teachers we still have well that's not true uh in our Union's most recent survey 52% of our teachers are thinking of doing the exact same thing that's right

01052% of our current union membership are considering seeking employment elsewhere if this board cannot improve on their future offer in case you don't realize how disgusting the offer is the offer currently values our teachers at 25% of what most districts in the state are currently offering that's right let me ask ask you are Prior Lake teachers really worth 75% less than our colleagues around the state of Minnesota the thought of losing any of the highly trained professionals here in this District breaks my heart I've worked and collaborated with so many outstanding Educators that I fear the whole that they will leave behind and let me remind you how highly trained these individuals are every one of them has a bachelor's degree and most of them have a master's degree these are hardworking professionals that have

011put in the work to provide for the children in district 7 n your children the best education possible they are providing in this evolving 21st century World in fact 69% of PLS plsa Educators including myself are paying off student loans in excess of $110,000 in pursuit of a higher education and what is the thank you our district extends a negotiation offer that does not even cover inflation of cost of living remember plsa and our members are the ones that lobbied the state legislator for the funding that you now find in your budget that money needs to go somewhere and our district demonstrates its values with how it spends its money so why not to the teachers working with our students daily where consider the shagin I feel every time I receive an email inviting me

012to welcome the new members to our district service center staff or when I see a posting on our district website offering positions starting at65 to $75,000 for a position that requires no degree no wonder 79% of our teachers currently do not feel valued by this District once again my name is Nickles I'm an English teacher I'm the student council adviser at pric high school I'm the head speech coach at pric high school but most importantly I'm a father of a red tail Ridge Elementary student I'm all in for 719 and as someone who has clearly invested in this District why can't the district show the same level investment and me and my fellow teachers show me that you are all in for teachers and so that my son can have the best education possible thank

013you our next speaker is Carrie Lauderdale also speaking on negotiations good more memb is Dr Thomas good evening my name is Carrie Lauderdale and I'm a sixth grade teacher at Hidden Oaks Middle School I've been teaching in the Prior Lake Savage area school district for 34 years and subsequently I am the most senior teacher in the district I stand here tonight not only or speaking only for myself but I want but I want to recognize all the amazing teachers that I am lucky enough to call my co-workers almost 28 years ago to the day I was sitting at a negotiations table with superintendent Dr Les sonabend Dr Jerry spe head of HR and a few school board members heading into the final days of putting together a contract settlement during that time I was able

014to learn a great great deal about how the negotiations process works I was able to sit across from Administration listen learn how to work with one another I felt nothing but respect from the other side of the table even during those tough decisions those tough discussions and was proud to be a part of that team I am here tonight in support of our current negotiators strong support as I can remember all those years ago what negotiations can entail however I don't feel as though the level of respect for teachers is the same now and for that reason I am here speaking tonight so much has changed in the past 34 years of teaching The Last 5 Years alone have brought about changes changes we' never thought we'd see I am proud to be a teacher

015I consider us a resilient group of people who arrive at schools schools many times much earlier than we are contracted to do we strap on our boots we walk into our classroom never knowing what the day will bring we can plan all we want but what walks through our classroom door we cannot plan for we cannot plan for the student quietly in tears because a family member is sick or they themselves are sick we cannot plan for the student who seems disengaged and angry because something is going on at home and they are hurting we are able to in a minute's notice know how to discipline without causing embarrassment and yet maintain a straight face when a student says something inappropriate but hilarious it takes courage to know that if the call goes out to

016take shelter that we are in charge of those in our presence and at the end of the day many times after our 8-hour day has passed we head home knowing that there are papers to correct and plans to adjust for tomorrow because we did not have the time to do it today please do not misunderstand we are not asking for a contract settlement for the sake of settling we are asking for a contract settlement that will not only recogn ize us for all that we do but will show us the respect you say you have for us the current District proposal is far below the current state average in a year with record funding the district's current offer a 1% cost of living adjustment to our teachers salaries the amount proposed by the district is

017three times less than inflation and four and a half times less than the average salary schedule improvements than other Minnesota districts currently the average salary schedule increase in the state is 4.5% for the first year and 3.39% for the second year sorry in a recent survey 79% of our members told us that they do not feel valued as employees of the Prior Lake Savage area schools we are here tonight asking that the school board examine what the budgeted amount for our contract means for individual teachers ask yourself does the contract for a teacher with 34 years or four years of experience show how much the board values the work that they do each and every day Miss Lauderdale you're beyond your 3 minutes I apologize but no worries no worries I am asking that you

018continue to negotiate and work towards a contract that values our teachers thank you okay our next speaker speaker is Sarah strugging is that pronounced right hello my name is Sarah stry I have taught English at our high school for 29 years I am the department chair I have served as a coach a play director and an adviser I have had upwards of 15 ,000 students go through my classroom I've had a lot of your children and nieces and nephews as well um I have written hundreds of recommendation letters for colleges scholarships military assignments job applications and even one blind date Dr Thomas you are my fifth superintendent Dr bic is my fourth principal I have a long history with this district and the landscape of teaching is nearly unrecognizable I I need you to hear

019me the realities that contemporary teachers face every day are not sustainable constant increases in responsibility safety threats mental health crises constant battles over phones and social media disregulated Behavior poor attendance and the politicization of our classrooms and the expectation that we continue this indefinitely it is not reasonable failing to prioritize teachers and provide salaries commensurate with our work ultimately ends in what history is going to judge a very disastrous period in education we must attract new teachers two weeks ago I told a 12th grade student that he would make an incredible teacher before he could even catch himself he literally laughed out loud and then he quickly apologized and he said he was really more interested in making money but he was pretty sure that teacher that being a teacher would be great too and

020it was very awkward and uncomfortable I come from a family of teachers and in fact our youngest teacher number 18 in my family graduated from UMD um in December he applied for and was interviewed by two top tier districts here in Minnesota was offered both positions within 24 hours and of course he accepted the one that paid $4,800 more right across the lake from him a no-brainer and a cautionary tale for districts everywhere your current offer of a 1% cost of living adjustment to our salary scale it's frankly insult ing um and certainly not enough to attract new teachers we need to retain quality teachers that we have now career teachers are professionals who can fill non-education jobs handily for better pay and for more respect look around it's happening as we speak uh demand

021for educated workers is outstripping Supply One former Laker is leaving her teaching job after 17 years she told me that teaching has become like a toxic relationship one stays in only for the sake of the children recent Nea polls report that a staggering 35% of teachers are likely to quit in the next two years if there's one thing the pandemic taught us it's the importance of teachers if kids aren't in school parents aren't at work and if parents aren't at work businesses aren't operating our economy our society depends upon teachers and that's not hyperbole um when the pandemic shut our world down people look toach teachers to somehow make it work and you know what we did we didn't have training for online curriculum we did not know how to engage students over virtual um

022platforms like Google meet but we figured it out you're beyond your three minutes I please let's wrap it up a little bit thank you okay I will finish it up I'm just saying it's your turn now it's your turn to do the hard things I know that you can figure it out my friends and I we all love what we do we love what we do but it has to make sense and what you're proposing it does not make sense and you need to make um the teachers at Prior Lake your number one priority because having us gravel for the bare minimum every two years in the negotiation cycle it's just not okay thank [Applause] you okay moving on our agenda um I'm going to take a motion to approve the agenda so made second

023okay um motion by director Crosby and second by director bernick all in favor I I that passes 70 next we move on to the consent agenda the consent agenda are items considered to be routine in nature enacted by one motion there is no separate discussion for these items unless a board member uh so requests in which event the item will be removed on the consent agema a consent agenda and addressed under new business um I'd like to uh a motion for the consent agenda so made second second okay um the consent agenda includes I'm sorry I should have said this first the consent agenda includes the financials purchase orders above 25,000 the monthly financial report enrollment report approval of the Schoolboard minutes from December 11th and December 18th Personnel items um resignations terminations non-renewals leaves

024of absences um and I believe believe that's it so we have a motion in a second is there any discussion okay um call for so um approve uh call for approvals all in favor all in favor I I against okay that passes 70 uh next we have the resolutions for acceptance of gifts let me find that okay thank you very much uh we have one gift today from Target Corporation for $1,150 for 115 gift certificates for Bridges ALC students um all that's a roll call vote we'll do a motion in a second motion and I I'd like to take a motion for the gifts so apologies I'm still new at this um so made second second second and this is a roll call vote we'll start with director olad I I director okay director berck

025I Dr Velasquez I I and I so that passes 70 okay next we have Laker Pride uh special recognition Laker showcase I'm going to hand that over to uh superintendent Thomas thank you so much chair friends and board of directors tonight we've got um two points of Pride uh Laker Laker Pride um I want to uh share about Laura Hegman men uh she's a Jeffers Pond fourth and fifth grade teacher she was chosen for the 2023 girl venor teacher Fellowship from the National Geographic society and linblad uh Expeditions she is one of 50 Educators selected from around the United States and Canada in recognition of their commitment to Geographic education the fellowship um allowed U Miss Hegman to travel to the galpagos islands where she um had a very enriching experience I just so happened

026to get a preview of this when I was visiting Jeffers pond last week and popped into her classroom and I can tell you um it's like watching a geograph National Geographic special um I was instantly drawn in kids were glued to the conversation to the videos to the pictures and what an honor it is for you to represent our district and also bring that level of international experience and learning to our students so thank you for that and I will turn it to you to share a few words and uh a few slides probably thank you very much so as you said I'm Laura Hegman yeah thank you for dealing with my my cheering crew um so yes I am a fifth grade teacher at Jeffers Pond Elementary and I'm also a grer teacher fellow

027with national National Geographic and lindblad Expeditions um I was one of 50 Educators that were chosen throughout all of the United States and Canada last year here and so um the 50 of us took off around the world to go and explore and bring back amazing opportunities for our classroom so I was lucky enough to be able to go to the galpagos and hit a bunch of different Islands while I was there and I got to learn from these naturalists who have lived in the galpagos their whole lives and so they were my teachers and I got to be like a a student and learn from them and so I got to learn about the animals and um the like Landscapes and just kind of take it all in and and just view it like

028a kid would be able to um National Geographic has a huge um plan to get students out and exploring and they want teachers to be explorers too so they had us make sure that our kids know how to communicate communicate problem solve and collaborate and it's something that I bring into my students all the time we talk about how to be curious and think about the world in unique ways and be empathetic and be empowered to do something for our planet um and just kind of set those knowledges of who um we are as people and how we are interconnected with the natural systems in the world so my big question was how do I keep my students engaged while I'm in the Galapagos and they're still back at school and so luckily I had

029Mrs Nelson who kind of teamed up with me and was able to help me out and I would send off information to her so that she could present it to the class as well beforehand I had them doing some research about animals and so they got to pick a galpagos animal and take a lot of research in about it and then um they gave me a challenges can you get a photo of this can you get a video of that could you get Could you actually swim with a shark and so I took all those challenges and I did my best and I was actually able to do almost all of their challenges which was great I posted it on social media so that families could also be involved and they um just loved it

030so it worked they were engaged they were captivated they became their own explorers um they were the ones asking questions that I would go out and find more facts for them and they were just so excited to learn um that also brought forth like Hey we're going to wolfridge and you guys can be your own Explorers so I showed them my journals with all my drawings and how I took notes while I was out in the field when I want to explore I said you're going to be doing this too at wolfridge you're going to be taking notes you're going to be putting it into your journal and it just kind of connected everything and they felt like they were the Explorers out in wolfridge too um so now what I am building on our

031human and natural systems within our classrooms and how can they interconnect a huge thing in the gagos is invasive species and how even though they work so hard to keep them out something as simple as a fly can decimate a bird population and so I want us to look at not the gagos but here at Prior Lake what are some invasive species what can we do about it what are some next steps if we're having that Explorer mindset let's get out and do something positive for our community so thank you again for your time I look forward to sharing more with you guys down the [Applause] road and thank you Patrick for allowing her to be loaned out thank you thank you so awesome wow that was very impressive we have our own Darwin Explorer

032than and thank you to her husband and her kiddos for allowing yeah us to have so much time with her MH as well my favorite part if I could say you were you you had to um you didn't give up on your pursuit to do this can you can you just share how many times you were told no five times so over the course of so many years with Co and everything but about five times of persistently going at it and and applying and I finally received the yes so congratulations on your that's incredible congratulations on your persistence thank you uh chair of friends and direct board directors I've got one more um tonight we want to um honor Mr Dave Brown as he gets ready to be deployed as an active reservice um for

033an assignment and I have to just share that Mr Brown is one who has clearly dedicated his life's calling to the young people in our community and does so without hesitation and gives so much of his time to the kids as if they were all his own he also knows the power of collaboration and unifying in this community by bringing together business Community social and Civic organizations to support the overall growth and development of our kids and we can't thank you enough for what you do on behalf of our students every single day and so to add to that he has also been giving of his time um well maybe not so much giving but uh he has dedicated time uh through his military career in service to also um protect the freedoms and the

034luxuries that we enjoy here in our country and so you're balancing doing what's great for your local community but you're also uh continually balancing what is great for the uh greater good of our of our country and we want to say thank you we're honored that you are a part of our school community and know that you will be in our thoughts and prayers as you go overseas to uh take care of whatever you need to in in your assignment and and uh coming back here to also continue to serve in our community and bring what you've learned throughout the world uh back home here as well so wanted to just turn it over to the board if any of you would like to share anything as we wish him well and also uh Mr

035Brown give you an opportunity to share anything as well and you might I don't know if you have yeah I'll just leave it like that well I'll I'll start maybe sorry um I'll jump in I have only gotten to know you over this past year and watching you is a p the just watching you it's a privilege I had no idea that you were um that you were military and I am not surprised one bit your servant heart and your servant leadership and how the students love you it is palpable when I go to strive um so thank you so much wow thank you thank you thank you I think that was pretty evident at graduation um this past May um seeing you interact with those kiddos that was pretty amazing and I think they

036are going to be very much missing you as I know that you will be missing them um you have done such good things at Bridges and it's like that building was made for you instead of people being made for that building um and uh I am I'm so uh thankful for your service your family service um and what you do here and we hope that you make a safe return thank you so um I'll just say a few words uh first first of all uh thank you and thank you Dr Thomas for this opportunity and and board members uh it's super humbling uh to hear the Gratitude and the love you have for what has been I think just a a shining example of of what uh partnership with many people can do uh and

037you see it at Bridges every day um and I want to say especially thank you from the military standpoint for being a service member I cannot tell you how important it is for those of us in the uniform services that when we put on a uniform uh for National Guard men and women and reservists that we are focused on the mission at hand and the task at hand and to do that that means we leave these spaces in good hands and with good support and I can tell you the support that that you all have provided um allows me and and many others like me to go into theater to go into our job and be able to focus on what our country is calling us to do and that is so important because at

038times you see when when that's not the case and how that affects people how that affects families and how that affects the mission so thank you Dr Thomas and Dr Edwards and director Herman uh for your support in this to allow me to leave and just leave in a good headp space knowing that um that I uh am supported in this role and that Bridges is in good hands and I'd also like to recognize uh Dr beic uh Chad Thorp and uh Kate eager who do a great great job in supporting me when I'm out of the building and especially my team at Bridges uh with uh the teachers there um and our support staff um our our student support they they they the team is really what makes it work thank you for that

039individual recognition but I'm I'm one of us several that just creates opportunity uh in wonderful transformational work in students lives in family's lives and our community lives and in our education educational environment so uh thank you for the support um I'll I'll be off and and thinking of you fondly and uh eagerly anticipating getting back here and doing the important work uh that is yet to be done so thank you so much thank you thank you so much what number deployment is this for you uh this is my second deployment overseas uh for this long period oh thank you thank you and for someone who's been um understood what the alc was and know the vision that you brought to even building that building and bridges um and have experienced that team and the students

040um you have made the lives of so many people so much better so thank you very much thanks thanks I just want to recognize too that um you know I couldn't do it without a wonderful family support system so uh my wife Maria my daughters uh four four girls um that's probably why I don't have any here but uh uh they they they're just absolutely wonderful and and and your support here supports my family as well so I'm truly grateful for everything that you do so thank you thank Youk you Mr thank you [Applause] and that is all the Laker Pride chair France okay next on our agenda is Personnel items and I'm going to hand it over to director Herman thank you chair friends members of the board tonight we're bringing forward two additional

041Staffing requests from the um sorry from the Child Nutrition um fund O2 F O2 fund based on the increase in breakfast counts um since the universal meals passed um the department is requesting one additional part-time helper to address the additional needs and one um assistant manager uh no I'm sorry a 75 part-time Helper and a 75 assistant manager um both of these additional costs will come out of the Child Nutrition fund um and the financial implications have been reviewed by director Frederickson um open to any questions okay can I get a motion to approve the personal items so second second okay um uh director berck uh and uh and director bullan and can we open this up for any discussion or question questions yes uh director Herman to be clear so this is specifically for

042mornings for breakfast only or will these positions also have opportunities to what does that look like for for these specific positions director of Vasquez um I am not 100% positive on that response I do know that the the rationale behind it was the data for the the breakfast count so that would make sense that that would be a morning shift only however I can't state that with 100% confidence so I will look into that and get back to the board okay okay with no other questions director Herman I had one additional clarification that I believe I have an answer for but um are these existing people that we're extending time for are these new people that we're bringing in uh thank you chair FR these would be new indiv ual that we would be hiring

043on okay any other comments or questions okay all in favor for the additional Staffing I I any against okay that passes 70 I don't have any unfinished business that we we are aware of okay so we're going to move on to new business and the first item on the new business is the 2024 legislative approval uh before we go into that I'm going to ask for a motion no made by uh director olad second by second second by director bullion okay um want me to hand this over to you Dr Thomas sure thank you chair France um couple weeks ago at our our uh work session we walk through uh the 2024 legislative platform and um essentially you'll see a very similar theme that we've carried forward we've dropped various items that went through this

044last legislative cycle um I would say some points of emphasis is to have stabilized funding to not rob Peter to pay Paul that's kind of happened um in the past several sessions particularly when it comes to uh school safety so wanting to make sure that we um uh keep our basic formula kind of exempt from any other uh uh expenditures and also continue to have that tied to uh inflation um I would say that uh the addressing staff challenges and diversifying our work Workforce we know that uh we have to be very Innovative to ensuring that we are attracting and retaining high quality staff um that are relevant and reflective of the communities that they serve and also coming in with the content expert expertise to really push you know High outcomes for our kids

045um school safety unfortunately we continually hear about challenges throughout our country throughout our world uh around things that are impacting our school campuses higher ed campuses Etc and so this is something that's very top of mind for us it's something that we'll be talking about in a proclamation later on this evening so that's been an emphasis for us to ensure that um we are U maintaining uh that support one area of difference here is that we've really pushed to broaden um school safety to include cyber security we are seeing more and more evidence of not only the physical safety um uh issues that are of top concern but also the Cyber breaches that are occurring and the ransom um that continues to happen that bleeds out financially um districts across the country so that's something

046that we are really pushing for um and I know Marcus and his team are really on top of that and advocating at a state uh level for um resources and supports here in our district the continued support and increase um for um student support generally speaking um we're going to support the academic uh uh aspects of our kids but we also want to make sure that we're addressing the social emotional needs of our kids and we specifically called out um uh related Services uh counselor social workers psychologists Deans interventionists etc those are the key areas that we really want to make sure that we have funding for those and that would be on top of what we're getting through our base so we are asking our state to recognize um the additional needs that our

047students are bringing to our classrooms and then lastly just keeping the um locus of control right here and reducing the unfunded mandates this is something that we are really challenged in this last legislative cycle we have about 70 or so uh maybe even more items that we are tracking from the last legislative cycle that have unknown price tags and they are going to come with expectations to be funded and it's not as though we have um all the resources to accommodate for that so we're going to have to be pulling from our general fund to address some of the mandates that also came from this last leg legislative cycle what we are seeing um in the next bium is that uh any type of surplus uh that was anticipated um is clearly showing that um

048is not going to be there I think we're going to be seeing somewhere in the neighborhood of about $80 million at the state level in the next bium and that's going to be split across how many hands out right um for trying to get resources so I don't think we're going to see a heavy funding cycle in this next um session but it's still something we want to make sure that whatever conversations come forward in that um session that we are not getting more mandates at the local level that the state expects us to pay from the resources that they have given us so we effectively sometimes don't realize the impact of the resources because we have to pay for a lot of things that um they are expecting us to cover so that's generally

049um a overview of where our platform lies and it's very much in sync with a lot of our other professional organizations as well okay um open it up to discussion questions comments um yes I have some comments I apologize I was not able to attend the study session due to a work conflict but I did watch the meeting and I'm grateful for the changes that you made um removing the data practices um I do have a question as it is in regard to school safety so in there we had um talked about how um hold on a second I lost my I lost my I lost my um Whatchamacallit this my board book crashed so it's I'm bringing it back up okay apologize for that M under school safety it says remove language that categorizes

050SRO as agents of the school district so I have reviewed viewed the msba there's hundreds of different um legislative platform ideas within that platform and the one thing that I thought um so even if we remove the language that categorizes categorizes SRO as agents of the district how does that protect our teachers um when it comes to discipline particularly when the language um says that basically the language of the law basically says that you cannot touch a student and so what I've read in different um legislative platforms is actually changing the language where it has to do with the wording of may use reasonable Force when it is necessary thank you director Acton so that does exist in the current um legislation uh when um imminent harm or death is perceived so that can so

051use of force can be used in those scenarios um I just want to bring our community into the conversation that we've had several times that in my years of experience I have been in situations where um in a matter of seconds a student goes from zero to 100 and my ability as an educator to react um I need to do what I need to do at that moment because in a matter of seconds it went from things were just elevated to to imminent harm MH if I put myself in our colleagu shoes as an SRO um as it currently stands if we have an SRO inside of our school right now they would not be able to take the appropriate trained action that they know so well to do to address the safety and well-being

052of that student or that en environment however upon a 911 call their colleague from the exact same Precinct could come out and do whatever they needed to do to address that situation so effectively because of the current legislative language that deems SRO as agents of the district they're Bound by that notion that you just mentioned that you're inquiring about in terms of how we as staff so that's been the biggest concern from our local municipalities of of uh police and so to to really kind of bring that voice forward for what we need locally here that was the change that needed to occur so that SRO would be one and the same as calling 911 and they could exercise the full reign of their training to ensure the safety of an individual or or an

053environment so that's why we have that sure I'm sorry but what is an SRO school resource officer or you'll also hear us say School relationship officer um and and yeah the police officer in the school great question thank you yeah so I appreciate you adding context to that and that is actually how a lot of school districts that are surrounding us have gotten away around the language of the law is by having the SRO um like you said they're in the building they are still employed by the district but then they do call the 911 and call for backup so that's actually a a way that other districts have got around that my concern and I maybe I wasn't clear is that if the language of the law is not changed to say because it

054used to say may use reasonable Force when it is necessary if that and then they changed it to basically say um I can just read it to be specific but also added was the following language an employee or agent of a school district and including a school resource officer security per Personnel or police officer contracted with the district shall not inflict any harm any form of physical holding that restricts or impairs a people's ability to breathe restricts or people's and it lists them all out right so my question I'm going to go back to how does that if we don't if we're not advocating for a change in the language that has to do with the restrictions how does that protect our teachers or employees in our district if they have to address an issue

055with a student like you said at the drop of a a yeah a moment's notice how does if we don't advocate for a change in the actual language of the law that impacts the action so the action is actually tied to the agency of the district which is why that's that's the hangup um because if if I'm no longer an agent of the district I can I can utilize my full training for staff to support staff to support kids so maybe I'm not hearing your question properly but that's where the glitch of right but the language of the law still talks about the unemployeed of the district so I guess my biggest concern is or AG continue read that part about agency in that yeah it does and so I think we're we're talking about

056two different things here okay um I'm talking about where if we if we ask the our legislature to change the language that says may use reason the language was was changed where it says may use reasonable Force when it is necessary so they change that to say these are all these restrictions so my concern from the beginning of this conversation has been how does this how does this language protect our teachers in our district because at the end of the day and our staff they are the ones that are having to discipline these children and if they cannot touch them and put themselves at legal harm so so that's we've seen it in our classroom Class A Time isn't it language this language here it that's in the in the platform doesn't apply to teachers

057we're only talking about the SRO change understand the other the other changes with with regard to staff members um putting hands on kids and holds um now we don't ask so if two students are fighting we don't ask staff necessarily to jump into that many do um just because they're not going to allow that to to continually occur um and again we have an imminent harm happening right there so staff will try to restrain kids and separate them that happens all the time so are you asking are you maybe advocating that language is in the platform to address the staff the language and the law so when the statute was written the law changed the reasonable Force standard in schools it previously said a School employee school bus driver or other agent of the district

058may use reasonable Force when it's necessary and that's the part of the law that changed uh can I just so one of the things that we talked about and one of the things that I've been advocating is that police officers need to be police officers okay and when they're confined to that entire statute and the legislature can come in and say is as long as you're acting as agents of a school district then you're confined to that law and what we're trying to say is we want them to be police officers first and foremost and not be confined by that legislation in general and be able to act appropriately according to their training as long as they're classified as resource officers of a school as agents of a school as they are defined in that

059legislation they what happened before is they're actually kind of cut off at the knees some Times by changes in legislature and what we're saying is if we have police officers in our school district and even if we contract them we want them not to be bound by that at all we want them to act in the full capacity of being a police officer I fully yeah I fully understand that and I think what I'm trying to communicate is that this has nothing to do with the Agents of the district it actually is a different part of the law is that I think that it would be wise for us to say to change the language back to say that um because an employee may use reasonable Force when it's necessary that's the part of the

060language that I'm advocating for I'm not advocating for the SRO link I mean yes that's I mean that needs to change as well but so is that something you could elaborate on director Herman in terms of the the law change and legislative change like did that change the role of our teachers this didn't have any this didn't have any impact on oura did not have an impact on staff no that that that change has been around for 10 plus years okay yeah this th this language was written specifically around sro's that's that was the tension Point okay so well I think I think I mean I'm reading it right here and it said the law changed the reasonable Force standard in schools it previously said a School employee school bus driver or other agent of

061a distri may use reasonable Force when it's necessary to arrain a student or prevent bodly harm or death to another the first or was removed to say they could use REM Force when necessary to strain a student to prevent B harm or death from the student to to another so at the end of the day I mean I think the we're not going to sit here and change the legisl well the word is it's it's how the force is used in and it also impacts our employees so I just want to so what we're addressing here is the key word in there was agents of the school district and we're asking for police office to remove to be removed from being considered agents of the school district so that whole thing here what we're asking

062is the school safety funding pays for um school resource officers and we're saying we can call them whatever you want but what we don't want them to do is be bound by that legislation because the only change that occurred in the last legislative session was the stuff that actually actually brought them in as agents and then hampered them from being police officers so that's what we're trying to that's the goal of this right here I think you're talking about something a little bit that has been in place for a long time and you're advocating for that to be changed I'm asking I'm advocating for the language of the law to go back to where where it was so that our employees could be protected under the law so I guess I'm just asking for a

063little bit more robust um language under that school safety so it protects our our employees as as well so when did when how far back are you going back to no just last year the legislation I don't think the part about School Employees has changed in quite some time where they where we had the issue with the sro's is is the change that that actually um made it so they couldn't do something and we need them and their professional training to be able to come in and feel free to act uh appropriately I it still does risk sorry to interrup chair friends if I can provide some clarity um director ainson um are you referring to the restrictive procedures changes that were implemented um have always been in place for special education students and this

064recent legislation applied it to all gened students is that maybe perhaps the area that you're referring to so that area um our staff have been highly trained in the special education area for restrictive procedures when dealing with students students on special with in special education and those procedures and those restrictions have now carried to all of gened students including the annual reporting procedures so while staff have not been able to or not been allowed to utilize some restrictive procedures including prone restraints for quite some time um the the most recent changes have included extending the procedures the training requirements and the reporting requirements for all students not just special education students so I do I I do wonder if maybe that's what you're referring to direct correct oh if I understand for that by the

065way I yeah I can read legal law all day but that was yeah thank you so so the only thing that really changed is the documenting to extend to General Ed but the the staff is still there's no need to advocate for uh anything regarding staff here director Crosby um there has been changes in our um training requirements for all staff there have been uh in addition to the reporting and the training requirements um provide the same um restriction procedures that our special education staff have been using for students um but again uh the the inability to use a prone restraint has been in place for uh I I I don't know the amount of years but it has been in place for quite some time thank you are there any other comments discussion questions

066about any other areas of the legislative agenda I have one other comment actually and I apologize I wasn't at that study session to add my feedback but um under the mandates I guess I I've read some language again again in the MSB platform so we say oppose new underfunded or unfunded legislative mandates and I like this language that I found in msba that says urges the legislature to resist new Statewide mandates and if absolutely necessary provide full funding for the Implement implementation of the mandates and annually annually review existing unfunded mandates and mod ify or appeal where possible so basically it's saying like any unfunded mandate we want to basically go away or be addressed and receive funding for for our district so it's a little again a little bit more robust and this was

067on the msba platform so I I'm sorry so I would say that um the one aspect that because I think we say that what's missing is the um to basically fund it to declare give give us the resources if you do have mandates even the current ones that currently dealing with yeah this year was a disaster with the unfunded mandates and so how are we addressing the ones that we're dealing with currently that are impacting our our budget so are we does this language address what happened this past legislative session and are we advocating for funding to address those unfunded mandates from this past legislative session I I wouldn't say we'd be able to answer all of that because we're tracking them and as they come um are but I would say that's the one

068aspect that's missing in that bullet right there to advocate for funding from the past cycle I I don't want to speak for the um executive team that was in there but I know that I for one said we're not going to do something loose like just resist I wanted as strong a language as possible and we also tried to fit it quite frankly in this little PowerPoint to make it very easy so instead of resist and and and try to fight against it we just basically said oppose we're opposed against any unfunded legislative mandates and new underfunded mandates to try and high to try and um to try and get our point acrosses we're not going to say we we're against or we resist or whatever we basically are going to start being very very

069direct and try to use a more direct verb um I appreciate that explanation um I did attend that executive committee meeting where I believe it was the three um director Crosby director berck and you director France who are in there who put together this platform with Dr Thomas I think the word new is the issue I have is in here oppose so if you take out the word new you're B basically opposing all underfunded or unfunded legislative mandates and that could that would basically state that so I'll open it up to the the will of the board to um I I think this is a clarification that could be easily adapted I think the other piece about around um seeking funding for previously unfunded I don't know how it was worded but I I'd certainly

070you know yield to the board um so that we can make these quick Corrections if that's the the direction you all want to go yeah my only observation just that that I'm looking at is like we're asking for funding and almost all these buckets to fund to fund the mandates that they're talking about certainly not every single issue I mean you could say oppose new and existing um you could remove the word but um we probably do oppose new and existing you know new and existing actually captures um yeah anything that's coming up in the next s in the next session as well as anything that came across this past legislative session MH so I'd be fine with that I think that would capture thatt yeah and I think you know we can it's a

071little repetitive I think that's fine I think that's fine to be a little repetitive here I have no problem making as strong as possible that's so if it's if if you all um vote on this tonight with the caveat that it would re we would revise it to say new and existing um just we can make that change what if we just said oppose all underfunded and unfunded legislative mandates or just take out the word new because the more words we add into it we are trying to make this into a talking point and the longer you make the sentences the harder it is to even describe which is kind of the situation we ended up in when we tried to adopt the msba language is they're fairly verbose in their language um and it

072it um and also used a quite frankly a little bit too much maybe passive aggressive terminology sometimes when they went through it so getting a little bit more on the on the command side of we're done with unfunded and underfunded existing and new just make a statement oppose all underfunded or unfunded legislative mandates I'm comfortable with that I agree with that I'm comfortable with that M okay all right I have that noted thank you board we'll change that um to reflect um if that's the will of the board then you all can vote on that with that caveat okay are there any other comments or questions with regards to the legislative platform okay I'm going to take a vote so all in favor I I I that passes 70 okay now we're going to move

073on to our next agenda item was is the Strategic plan roster approval and I'm just going to read this out loud the first step in the Strategic plan process was to ask stakeholders to apply to be part of our strategic plan uh Court team that will meet five times between January and may the purpose of the application process was to ensure we have a representative sample of Staff parents students and community members serving on the core team we are asking for Port approval of the roster um and um I'm going to hand this over to Dr Thomas to ex to re explain the process that we've already discussed with our consultant as well as in our study sessions thank you chair France board directors so tonight what you see here is our recommendation to the

074board of about 52 individuals um throughout our community um I think throughout our discussions of planning we had targeted around 40 to 45 um when we saw the um amount of applicants coming through there was just a a lot we it was hard to say no there were just a lot of good folks that applied to be a part of this team um but also trying to keep it you know manageable where we're not um not able to build consensus Etc so I did talk with um uh Casey from stter just to see how comfortable from her experience uh with strap planning and working with teams I asked at 52 um or in that 50 range would be uh something that she thought would be manageable she absolutely thought she could do that but no

075more and so we thought we would get additional um representation in this committee um we we as a senior cabinet um looked at the entire applicant pool uh and also the information contained in the application uh process and we reviewed that with the board here a month or so ago the the questions that they would answer and uh very good opportunity for us to learn a little bit about our candidates through their experiences uh whether it was their work experiences their involvement with throughout the community um through you know identifying whether they're a parent or they have kidss in the district or a grandparent or a business owner Etc we try to uh diversify the perspectives based upon what we saw here on the roster um you know we kind of like when you're applying

076you may know something about a candidate but if they say something that's not part of the application process that we wanted to try to be as objective as possible so um you know one of the things that we took into account was were they on any you know board committee so we tried to not um pull folks from who are currently on a board committee to come on to this committee so that we could you know add more perspectives and more voices um throughout that process um we also tried to bring historical perspectives folks who have been in our district for a long time I think there are two individuals who are former board directors from many years ago to carry on some historical um uh information bringing that forward um moving into a new

077strap plan and then we have folks who you know are brand new to our district as well we are probably looking at about a 2:1 ratio of uh community members to staff and so we wanted to keep this heavier on community than it would be on staff um and then all of senior cabinet is um our ex official so they're not in they're not active participating members but would be available in there on resource so um that's the that's the um roster that you have so similar to what you all have gone through with the teaching and learning committee and the policy committee um this is the roster that we present to you for your consideration okay so before we open the discussion I just want to remind people that these are individuals who have

078volunteered uh to serve time uh with the uh with our district to help us become better and because they are individuals uh I want you to keep in mind to not mention them by name to respect their privacy uh and also respect the fact that they did throw their name into the bucket um to to dedicate their time uh to this process so um I'm going to open up the board to any discussion um uh with the obligation of being respectful to the individuals on the list um go Jess um I was curious in reviewing all of this this um I think it's a darn good list um is something it's more a procedural question since this is considered an ad hoc committee does the Strategic plan review Court team have some kind of a

079charter or something that similar to our teaching and learning and our policy and finance there is no Charter their Charter is to create a strategic plan um for the district um but no there wasn't a request to have a a formal Charter written okay like I said procedural question um for full transparency Dr Thomas could you share which board directors were part of the selection process for the for the Strategic core team so I I consulted with the board chair in Vice chair the previous board chair and vice chair after we had about 95% of the uh individuals selected brought the list forward um there were some individuals on on the list that we nobody really knew anything about and inquired about that with the current or the previous board chair and vice chair and

080that's it but that was uh I would say 95 plus% was done with the senior cabinet in terms of identifying and do you have um it's my understanding we have senior cabinet involved in this but in on EX official the senior cabinet will not occupy seats they will serve in an ex official uh capacity meaning they are there based upon being senior leaders in the organization and will uh serve as a resource thank you thank you and then um another question is you had mentioned and I know we talked about this in our study session that um it is wonderful to see some new names on this list to give a firstes perspective um and you'd mentioned that if people have are either currently serving on a committee or have served in a cap on

081a committee in the past whatever amount of years that they would shall we say that they're try to balance try to balance right well I do there are two people on this list that currently serve on the equity committee so um and then there's four people on the list who were part of the 2017 facilities task force that um Amy Crosby I know that you served on that committee as well so can you help me understand why those members would be selected over other members who um I know there's a particular member in our community who has applied to every single committee that we have had open and she has not been selected and she was on the facilities task force um back in the day and so I guess without having visibility to all

082the applicants which I did request um because I don't feel that I can I don't feel like I can truly look at this list and say yes these are the best applicants for our strategic PL planning committee yes I do believe they um represent diverse perspectives in our district without having visibility to the actual applicants who applied I feel like I don't have enough information here to be able to um make a good decision on this to be honest with you so I would say that there are individuals that have had some overlap um I know one individual that was on a committee um reached out and wanted to withdraw because the passion around this was greater and so I know that that in that individual kind of asked to no longer be a part

083of a committee to be considered for this um folks who have sered on a 2017 honestly if that wasn't captured on the resume or the application because we didn't ask um um if you know did you serve on whatever that committee was chair Crosby would have known because she was on the committee right but we we actually brought a lot of this forward um already formulated for the board we didn't actually seek approval from the board chair Vice chair there were just some outliers that we didn't really have eyes on or really know and want to get perspective but um there is some overlap uh with 70 or so people we're not going to have 100% clean applicants in terms of having never participated there's some um you know importance to having some continuity across

084work that they've done with the district as well as having New Perspectives I think we've got a good balance of new voices many new voices and we have a balance of folks who have been around in our district and we have a balance of a variety of roles too so that's that's what I would that's how I would characterize the the list and I'll just add that um to my recollection okay my recollection um the 2017 task force was really large and I don't remember everyone on it at all it was 28 members I I looked at it today I compared the list so so maybe the the work I recall doing involved a lot of people so they must have that must have been in Partnership which you would both remember because you were

085serving at the time with Administration and staff because we definitely had more than 28 people involved well there was a cour there was a on the members at that time we trusted the process and I wasn't a member plus the meetings were closed so I wouldn't have known um so that's I can't really say anything but I do know the process um and um and it seemed to work really well I can just speak for me and say that one of the objectives of bringing the final list to us was our questions or my question was basically do we have balance between elementary middle high school do we have balance uh and the staff too to make sure we had um uh teachers that were are willing to serve from the various areas within our

086uh within our community also um who are part of the district uh to make sure we have that b balance that was the primary concern and and it was answered because I didn't didn't know people about what about um respecting diverse perspectives because that that was the primary concern but I Al but we also trusted the process of the administration yeah I think um from from a diverse perspectives um from diversity of thought diversity from community that they might represent Etc I think we did capture that um when when we look at that roster there are folks from every facet of our community I would say from folks who might have a very open liberal view to folks who I would say have a very open conservative view I would say there are white individuals

087there are people of color there are people who speak multiple languages um every teacher that applied is on every student that applied is on we you know unfortunately we didn't have a lot so that was a priority as well um so I yeah I would say from our conversation as a senior staff and being newer to the community and listening to our senior staff as well because they have knowledge of interacting and working with these folks um in in different capacities or know of them or you know whether it's you know former parent parents or community members that they know um yeah I'm very confident that we have very Divergent perspectives on this committee very similar to what I would say our teaching and learning committee has um and you know one of the things

088that I think is going to be really important um is the not only the work of developing a strategic plan really critically important but it's also a opportunity for us as a community to model with a A large group of individuals that come from all walks of Life who have very differ views of what does it look like when we collaborate on behalf of our our students to drive home a plan that will set forth strategic goals for the next five years or so so very very excited about that and I think we do have a very diverse team with diverse perspectives yeah and I would just say that the two people that are on the equity committee currently I'm I'm most challenged with those two because I think that they're I mean I've had

089several people reach out to me disappointed that they weren't selected and like I said one individual who has applied for every single committee and she did serve on the 2017 task force so why are we having I mean why why are two people who currently serve on the equity committee on this roster when I think we were pretty clear that that we wanted we wanted New Perspectives and I gu and we do have New Perspectives on this committee and I can speak to one of them I'm assum assuming uh that you're speaking about is is has expressed an interest on this Committee of of Greater importance so technically there's one and I don't want to sound like we're playing a shell game here but that was something that we took into account um but again

090I don't I don't believe the will of the board was to say if you've ever com participated on a committee that you can't serve on this committee I think we wanted to make sure we had diverse voices new voices which I think we have both on this committee I think it's a pretty simple is there one or is there two I guess I would like to know I can pull up My Equity roster there's two there's two okay and that wasn't decided ahead of time did did one of them you said though is I know I know of one individual who reached out with the application with the intent to express their interest to participate in this and not the equity committee okay so basically we have one on the equity commit there's two that

091are currently on the equity committee Jessica director olad you are on the head of that committee there are two people on this roster that are on the equity committee currently but one of them did step down that is not correct one of those two did step down well we're we're speculating because we're not talking names okay yeah I'm just wondering is are we dealing with a net of one if they said they were going to step down I don't know I'm not I didn't see the roster so for the equities but I'm just sure who I I know of one I don't know who the other one oh okay and I don't know of anybody who has resigned their spot on the equity committee right now I know of one so I I'm I'm not

092arguing I just I I don't know of anybody who stepped down from Equity to be on this without having visibility to the full list it's really hard for me as a board director to have you know a say on is this a diverse uh perspect are there a diverse perspectives representative represented on this committee um I know personally like I said I'm disappointed that there's a couple people that did not make the committee um I'm also disappointed that per policy 203 that it clearly says board directors shall estab um that board directors should receive the same information and data which are necessary for decision-making and I don't feel that I have a proper amount of information to put together and vote on a strategic plan planning team which is critical to our district to make

093sure that we have diverse pect perspectives represented um I'm clearly not going to be on the committee because I'm not part of the executive team so how is a large majority of our community going to be represented in this committee I personally would like to recommend that every board director at this table gets to look at that roster and pick two more people to be on this committee and I think that would bring diverse perspective just like Jess when you and I sat and did the CRI the teaching and learning committee there's a reason why that committee has diverse perspectives because Jess and I very equitably picked and determined with Dr Dan Edwards who would be on that committee and it's a robust diverse committee and that's what our senior cabinet did and brought our

094consultation to the board chair and vice chair I guess that would be the equivalent of the two from the team as you two reps and I I guess I'm curious I don't recall the board requesting the entire roster of the tnl or the policy committee to make a vote for those committees which are board committees but maybe you did but did the board was that a requirement no we did not so so again I guess I'm trusting our senior cabinet to have done the exact same process Dan was part of this and and you can attest if this was a parallel process to tnl of looking at applicants um to ensure that we have balanced and varied perspectives that we didn't bring on a group of folks to be an echo chamber to the district

095I think we have folks on this committee who are going to push and pull one another to do what's best for kids yeah I I would I would definitely agree with that statement and I would also add in alignment with having sat on both processes uh being a part of choosing of membership for the teaching and learning advisory in consultation with two board Representatives who serve that committee as well likewise in this case uh very similar process and I think too this is an ad hoc committee this isn't a board committee this isn't I mean I'm I'm not privy nor do I need to be privy to the the meeting that was mentioned um you know in our open Forum that's happening tomorrow that's an ad hoc committee I had no knowledge of who's on

096that committee unless they volunteered that information to me and that's an ad hoc committee so I I didn't see who was put on that committee so I'm actually going to ask is it the will of the board that um that that we receive a full list prior to voting on this cuz I don't I I wasn't privy to it but but I I didn't hear of anyone asking for it but then again I was vice chair so I don't know if anyone asked um I believe you on the email that's there is one there is one but I don't get every on the email yeah so there was actually I would actually like to state that I would feel uncomfortable getting the entire list because I think it would force me to make some assumptions

097about individuals that I don't have the ability to make assumptions about um I will volunteer out here there is one person actually two there's a city leader and one other person that's actually in my own personal contacts because of my professional job um but otherwise I don't know any of these names and the only way that I would be able to surmise whether they're diverse or not is to judge something either in a social media site or through somebody else's information they pass along to me so I would feel very uncomfortable with that process because I can't I don't think it makes sense to put oursel into a Arena that we are forced to make assumptions and I trust our executive leadership in our district to do that job for me so that would be

098my professional opinion yeah and I appreciate that and I would just say like I mean just like looking at a resume I mean you guys received information about people's qualifications I know that someone applied who works for one of our largest employees in our district is a senior level HR director who does strategic planning day in and day out and was not selected so I I guess my point is is how do I make a decision of that this these are the most qualified people I mean yes I am going to trust the process I've been I've been hearing that all for weeks trust the process you have to trust the process I'm sorry I'm more of a trust and verify kind of person so the information that I requested is public data and I

099requested it for a reason because I felt like I needed it in order to make a decision I don't want to be judged for requesting information it's going to continue chair France so I'm going to ask uh director Vasquez do you um I've heard from um three board members now um what are your thoughts you do you require the full applicant list in order to make a vote and a decision on this tonight I do not nor have I for any of the other committees that we have voted on okay so I'm hearing that it's not the will of the board to sub to see or receive the full applicant list um uh and going forward I'm uh is there any other discussion points are there any other uh questions concerns or comments I just

100had one question the students listed the four students listed are they all high school students they are okay any other questions or comments yes I would like to see if it's the will of the board that every board board directors so that we can ensure diverse perspectives are represented that every board member can go back and look at the list of applicants and choose two additional people to add to this list okay so I'm going to ask director olad do you want to see the full applicant list to add two additional people no director Crosby no director bernick no director buan no director enri uh director vqu no I do not want to deviate from the process we've already established okay so it is then the will of the board that we are not going

101to do that and if everybody's okay I'm going to go ahead and call for a vote all in favor of the Strategic plan roster I against no okay that passes 61 all right on to the next um trying to figure out where we are here excuse me um so after the Strategic plan roster um the we're going to go on to a report I do not believe board action is required here so uh um I'm not sure who's going to take this early day oh there we go sorry uh the early release day report by um director Edwards and uh director zush all right thank you uh chair FRS members of the board Dr Thomas uh we wanted to provide with you provide to you an update as promised uh after having a series of

102our early release days uh allowed uh an opportunity to share with you some of the highlights of what that work has looked like we have now had uh three early release days to date and as a reminder we uh knew this year are having monthly early release dates that were was approved by the uh board in December of 2022 for the school calendar this year um again uh we that gift of time has been invaluable um and much needed and we've uh taken uh opportunity to do a lot of great work thus far um that additional staff development time has given us as we talked about when proposing uh having opportunity to look at our student needs on a monthly basis uh whether it be assessment data for example that will be coming up in

103February and I'm forecasting in my in our presentation here but uh but going back to uh fast bridge data we take the fast Bridge assessment uh three times a year we have that data we have quarterly data at the end of at the secondary level for example uh quarterly grades are significant uh source of data we obviously have other sources of data that we reference and this opportunity has given us a chance to do that we also have uh and I can't uh minimize the importance and significance of this uh we have new curricula that come online and that Trend will continue um so this year at the elementary level specifically the implementation of our bridges math curriculum this has given us an opportunity for carved out uh time to focus our energies to support

104uh the that implementation uh it moving forward uh once again forecasting into the upcoming school year uh well I don't want to go too far ahead but we'll also be having the implementation of new science curriculum at the elementary level we have the implementation at certain grade levels in the Middle School of implementation of new science curriculum we also have some pilot curriculum going on in math um and as you know we have the read act on the horizon that we are pulling together the committee uh this spring to forecast and and plan forward so that we will be prepared to uh utilize our early release time next year to do some of that work as well additionally staff who are not in the traditional classroom uh uh subject areas that I've just previously mentioned

105uh also opportunities for other staff to engage specifically our PA professionals to be a part of and every other month uh training to get some of the important uh training that they need to continue to successfully do their work as well as other uh specialized groups of folks who now have time uh carved out that we can pull together and do some outstanding work so really want to emphasize uh the importance of our U appreciation for this additional time that's been given and the great work that's been done to date good evening chair Frans director of the board uh Dr Thomas uh this uh chart here just gives a little bit of an update by early release that we've had so far as well as by level um the major topic areas that we have

106covered during the early release days um I'll speak a little bit on the Improvement cycle that we have implemented for our early release days this is based on Improvement science um it's the plan due study act cycle um and here we have a very tight schedule on how to implement this because the early releases are coming very fast basically by the time we're done with one we're planning very detailed um on the next one so in our planning phase we develop the content in collaboration with um we have a team doing this it uh consists of building principles teacher leaders and then members of the Lai Department um we then execute whatever that plan is for our early release day and then on our study side we take teacher and staff feedback we um every

107every single time we have an early release there's a feedback survey um to ask what went well and what teachers plan or staff plan on implementing and what they would like to see in the future and we have a debrief meeting where we're looking at every line item of that data with the people who planned and executed that uh early release professional development and then the ACT is where we take that um revision as long as well as our year-long plan and really draft Andor revise our professional development for the next month um again this is um it it took a little as any Improvement cycle it took a little time to get up and running and to get this Cadence um in place um but now we feel confident that we have that cycle

108um kind of down and planned out for the rest of the year I've been doing what's called a sentiment analysis um I've been giving um all staff an open-ended survey about their experience with our professional development um and uh again we we've go through every line of feedback all of the facilitators and the and the planning team um but here uh there's a lot of different analyses that we um are doing but here I just wanted to show um that really after we implemented this pdsa cycle and had a really good chance to uh dig into information as a full team um we were able to change our process a little bit in the format of our early release um particularly at the elementary level level for our third opportunity and here you can see

109that the sentiment um really went up and so our most recent I would say formula for how to structure that time uh was very very positively received and we're going to use that momentum uh to build the rest of the ones for the remaining of remainder of the year um here's a similar chart um as what you saw and what we have done so far this is looking forward to the next three again these are tentative because we do Implement that pdsa cycle um and if there's any feedback that would put us into a slightly different direction we would um make that shift uh but here's basically the overarching plan for the next ones um as Dr Edwards mentioned um February is going to be a big time of looking at that midyear fast bridge

110data um in terms of growth and levels for for midyear and then also connecting that to our bridges curriculum uh one one thing I'd like to add about process and addition to the team that was pointed out uh earlier here uh in the plan cycle um that teachers uh are included the built process uh as we've talked about before our building instructional leadership teams guide uh this work in consultation with principles and consultation with other team members uh the other piece that uh I wanted to talk about as we look forward uh we just you just uh had conversation and adopted the uh core planning team for the Strategic upcoming strategic planning team we also are engaged we've talked uh about the learner profile in previous board meetings uh utilizing World Savvy as a resource

111to help us uh develop that that will be coming out to our staff in the February and uh March and April uh spread out to each uh we have a schedule that we'll be sharing with uh principles with a focus at the secondary level in February a portion of that time in addition to the data that is uh noted up here will be uh committed to that and at the elementary level in March and April we also have as I also previously alluded to here uh the uh possibility of giving some updates to staff as we wrap up the year around redact implementation that might come out of the redact committee during the course of February in March and April possibly utilizing some of that time at the May early release to give some updates

112as well as planning forward at the elementary level with science curriculum just a couple of big bucket areas that uh we envision as we wrap up the year with this year's early release uh uh focuses for our staff with that we certainly engage in uh if there any questions that we can provide additional clarification on I have a question on the um graph for the average sentiment score can you tell me what the numbers on the left side signify yeah here um the sentiment basically ranges from a positive two to a negative -2 there's a little bit of a key on the right hand side of that scale so um the a two across the board would be everyone is incredibly is very positive verses very negative so we started the year um you know

113a little bit above that neutral line um and then kind of as we got our Cadence down we saw a big upward shift in our um sentiment and when you look at evaluating professional development um there's a lot of different phases to it but the first thing you need to ensure is that teachers are engaged and that they're positively receiving the professional development after that point then you might start looking at change in instruction or change in student outcomes down the road but this is the you know the real uh proceeding like that this has to be in place and teachers have to positively receive the professional development in order for it to make any sort of other changes um so knowing that we have this um Improvement here I think we can then start

114to think about some of the other impacts down the road of of the professional development but this is phase one for looking at can and can you share how many teachers how many staff members gave feedback like maybe a percentage or if if you don't have that exactly maybe a guess of the percentage of how many teachers actually gave feedback on it yeah it's I believe our total data set is 500 respon respondents from the three um so uh it's it's an optional thing it's something that we're asking teachers to do but it's we can't require them to do that um so we probably do get a little bit of the response where you know people that are particularly happy or particularly unhappy or tend to be responding um but this that's why this is

115one piece of information we have that full committee with principles and the those who are administering the professional development because we take all of that information into account when we're looking at it um not just the the teacher feedback so um a lot of it is based on the reception that is is given as well so it's it's kind of like with all of our data this is one um piece of data um it would be great if every teacher responded to every um survey but that's not realistic so um just encouraging and I think over time if we with any survey if you show that you're using the information for improvement purposes that will increase um buy in and response to the survey so our hope would be over time that there would be

116an increase in feedback as well I just want to emphasize the importance of this trend uh that we we are seeing here that is certainly a trend that we expect to continue on um and to maintain that positive uh experience because once again uh we know as Dr zush pointed out that when uh folks respond in a positive way to the nature of what's being done the impact will become positive and we are uh we have a high level of confidence in that and I think that it is one Tool uh that helps that but we definitely have anecdotal feedback that our principes contribute to that conversation that our builts contribute to that conversation that our uh Lai Representatives who are delivering he from folks not only on the day of but on the days

117following um I think all of that feedback uh informs our practice as we make adjustments moving forward I appreciate that um and I'm just going to read my notes from when going through the packet um I just I I appreciate the the added context and all of that and um understanding that you know like you said it's one piece of information but I know that there are conflicting views among community members regarding early Rel re early release days um being positive or negative um and and so I appreciate the report I know that the teachers appreciate the gift of time um as the you know release states are called but being able to weigh the various opinions um to student progress would also you know be really valuable and I understand that we need time

118to tell that but I think you know um when we're thinking about Student Success and and all of what that looks like I know that Student Success looks different for every student and every family actually so um just you know making in that comment it was that you know there is the community has varying feedback regarding early release days as well yeah thank you for bringing that up I think uh definitely important to that we continue to take it into account and that we bring forward which is why we're doing this report tonight the value that we are seeing that our staff are seeing and that the need for that because of the upcoming demands that uh we have not only have been placed on us I.E react implementation for example but we place on

119ourselves I go to the math we have committed and spoken numerous occasions at this at this table uh about the importance of raising our scores we in order to do so we needed we identified we need new curricular resources we needed new teaching strategies and we needed to train our teachers to implement both and and uh I really feel that we are experiencing um some uh great progress in that and I feel that we are going to be utilizing the lessons learned through this process this year with the math as we move forward into other content areas and right now I'm speaking to the elementary specifically but also uh we are increasing uh our use of data at the secondary level for example at the high school level for the first time implementing our use

120of fastbridge data and utilizing that data for all students in addition to the quarter 2 or end of quarter grade data that we have so bringing additional sets of data to the table as well as one of the things that we didn't go into great specificity on but back on this slide when we referenced um the elementary Deans and Elementary specialist uh teachers talking about discipline data for example so um and classroom climate data around that so all of that has been a part of that work thus far and we'll continue thank you any other questions go ahead so I know with the uh the graph again you talk about the sentiment uh specifically for elementary how is the uh sentiment varied from release one two and three for middle school and high school yeah

121it's a little bit um you can see that line overall is a little bit lower than the elementary so the um the middle school and high school didn't see as much of an increase in that sentiment um I think part of that is um related to the fact that a lot of our early release planning um due to the math implementation has been focused as a as a system you know we have seven elementaries and we're looking for um consistency across those seven buildings so it takes a lot more planning um to to do that at the elementary level and with the curriculum adoption that's an added layer of planning that's been going into the elementary um so I think um moving forward and you can correct me um if you have a different perspective

122but I think moving for that was the most immediate need out of the gate um with our schools knowing that um now the middle school and the high school um are going to be receiving you know additional supports and planning it's not that I mean their early releases were well planned and all of that but I think just the immediacy of our resources went um in the beginning of the year towards Elementary um and I think over time we'll be um working more towards secondary um I also think you know I've read all 500 uh comments and I think there's there's a balance as well because I think there's some um staff that would like to use this time for something different than what we have been allotted this this time to use it for

123um so there's a balance a little bit in the sense that um there are individuals who would like to use this time for something other than what we are being held accountable for for that time um so that's a challenge um as well I think through all of this is that we have to both provide a professional development model that is um relevant and applicable to teachers but it also has to um maintain the the requirements that we have for this time and I would just add be responsive as well um to the point uh with regard to the secondary uh Focus um that they I know specifically I can speak to uh some adaptations and adjustments that they are making at each of our secondary buildings based upon um that feedback in this upcoming

124early release day for staff which will be this Wednesday I have a question can you comment I took a visit to um one of the middle schools and asked these questions specifically to one of the administrators and one one piece of information that I gleaned and you might be able to comment on it and I don't know how much of it relates to it but he talked about um that teachers used to meet on these days with like their departments and now they're actually meeting with um like English math science and they're following the student and that they're able to see the patterns like if I have a student in my class that's sleepy or they they're able to do that and that I feel like came out of these discussions have been allowed because

125of this time dedicated is that correct or incorrect yeah no that's great uh we refer to that as team time and different definitions of teams exist and we have been uh missing that at the middle school level specifically for a number of years this has given us an opport opportunity they actually began some of that work using learning teams uh to also be not only department and grade level specific but also across departments within a grade level opportunity and this has provided that opportunity to engage for staff to engage with um cross-disciplinary uh teaching members from a great level um and so that definitely and and actually that is something that ALS Al is done you've heard us talk previously about the bar program at the high school with ninth grade teachers a similar model

126um implementing at the middle school level aligned with that I'm assuming there's some tracking of this too but you know it's there somewhere most definitely yes and that's one of the things we're working on with the increase uh of the usage of was specifically at the high school um the fastbridge um many conversations and we could have invited gust up here to talk about this but we we'll just in the sake of time we'll just move forward with uh that their awareness of their reading abilities this is an anecdotal share but I've heard it across many conversations at the high school now that they have this data in front of them we're going to be working with them maybe you want to expand on this at all um but we're going to be working with

127them what to do with that data and and working on strategy I instructional strategies to support students now that we know that information I have a couple questions um first of all I'm happy to hear that you did the survey and that you're you read the comments and you're listening um honestly when I first reviewed this I was not surprised because I personally have not met one person who's happy with the half days and so teachers staff Community MERS parents students um at the High school and the impact it's had on their um Laker day on their half day um these results to me are not impressive to go to at a point5 of just below just just above positive and um so my question is is that you know I have like three questions

128at what point do we look at this and go this is not working and maybe we look at um a different model um how long do we give this before we really evaluate it and say you know meeting uh just above POS or just below positive is is something that's working for our district well um the next item on our agenda is approval of the of the some adjustments to the calendar and I'll speak to a little bit about that in that particular item uh specific to Laker time uh but I would say that uh it has been our practice to adopt the calendar for the upcoming year in the November December uh time frame um if that was the will that we wanted to look differently and make adjustments further um certainly we could

129consider that but as we talked about at uh the November meeting um we have limited uh adjustments from an instructional hours perspective I'll talk more about that in the next agenda item but I think uh that sustaining this for the duration of this school year into next year we'll be able again this is only after three opportunities we will have a more complete evaluation at the conclusion of this school year we will have had a full cycle of these and then next year prior to the establishment of the school calendar for the subsequent school year we will have had a full year plus some months of implementation um that that Trend I would expect that Trend to continue in a positive way thank you and then um my second question is at what point are

130we going to survey our par parents um and our community members I think that's one thing that's really important to note is that any school any school that uses our bus service is impacted by this because um schools like St Mike's and also Aspen Academy they also adopt our same calendar and so I've heard grumblings from that Community as well is that these half days are impacting their students as well and the parents and um as you know yeah that certainly something we can take into consideration as we move forward and gather additional feedback around that you any other comments or questions and first of all I just also want to thank you for this report and thank you for the diligence I know that there's a lot of work on your plate in preparing

131for these and I heard clearly that after the early release you made some adjustments and after the second early release you make some adjustments and I I assume that as you continue to polish the process and take feedback for what's working and what isn't working from elementary middle and high school uh that it will continue to grow um I'm glad it was not below zero on the sentiment analysis I think that's a positive sign right off the bat so um I know that we are all learning as this process matures so thank you very much um any other comments or questions okay moving on to the next I'm sorry go ahead yeah thank you so much for the for the presentation and the details just kind of looking at the longitudinal sentiment analysis and then

132also looking at the work that has happened or even going back a little bit further to why did it even come about there is just that tacit recognition that there was a disconnect between our our staff and their students and not having enough time to be able to do that hard work on on hours on staff time um so I think some of the results also reflect that there's a lot of hard work that needed to happen uh it doesn't necessarily feel good but I would look at what are the outcomes that came from it um so that would be something great to add at some point in the future or even when we do the final review of not only did people feel it was positive but what were the outcomes how did we

133actually drive some of those successes you sorry about that director vasas all right um everybody no more comments or questions okay we're going to move on to the discussion of the self-funded insurance update uh with director of administrative Services Herman um again no board action is requested uh this is informational only members of the board um Dr Thomas thank you for your time today um based off of some updates that we've been getting um from the self-funded um Insurance networks that we belong to we thought it' be a good idea to just give an update to the board on our self-funded insurance plan and what it means to be um self-funded since it's been quite a while since we made that switch and um just give some opportunity to ask any questions that you may

134have of us on that um so what does it mean to be a self-funded medical plan um really at the end of the day it means that we have all the reward and we have the risk so all the premiums that are paid into Health Plan goes into our account um we then pay any sort of um PBM or administrator and we pay the claims cost and anything that we collect more than premium stays with the district's account and then that offsets any future premium increases that we could potentially have on the flip side if our claims are more than what we've GA what we've gathered then we have to to go into our fund balance for the medical insurance plan that we keep a certain percentage of at least 40% of expected costs um

135and then we talk about increasing our premiums for the next year so at the end of the day after all the claims are paid the remaining funds stay in the um in the account or we go into the health insurance fund balance to to pay those those extra claims so the district has been um self-funded since July 2021 one um prior to that our average increase in health insurance was 99.14% increase per year and there are four years that they saw we saw double digit increases in our health insurance it prompted the administration at that time to reach out and talk about um switching over to to self funded with our consultants and made that switch in 2011 since 2011 our average increase in health insurance premiums has been 3.24% which is is significantly lower

136than what it was seen last time and what our insurance Consultants tell us is significantly lower than the industry um average is also Since switching our dental insurance is self-funded we have seen a 0% increase in our insurance premiums for our active employees since 2011 being able to utilize that plan to keep the um the cost down so um why does this why why does this type of plan benefit at our members is we do have the risk associated with it but we also get to keep the funds there so when our employees go out and they make wise choices with their insurance plan for example making a cost um decision on where to get their prescriptions going someplace that's going to save money versus going to someplace that's going to be a lot more

137money we at the end of the day as an entire um district and plan get to see that that reward whereas if we were fully funded an employee making those decisions would never reap the benefits from that because that that reward wouldn't be seen for us it's a it's a lower cost to the plan administration because we have that self-funded um risk that's on US versus paying another organization to keep that in place and we're not paying for the insurance providers profit margin and risk change with that it also allows us greater flexibility and opportunity for our members to drive plan changes so we have the insurance committee that meets throughout the school year to talk about the plan talk about how it's um operating discuss any plan design changes discuss what the increase and

138um percentages would be versus if we were um fully funded those type of decisions would be driven mainly by our vendor so as we discussed there's some risk with that that we just want to make sure that we're being transparent around um so the risk involved the increase in health cost health care cost is a significant concern that we're constantly monitoring um and especially with prescription cost there is significant increases and um risk that is um associated with that also there's been some significant changes in the vendor Market we just saw this happen to us this year we previously were with preferred one they were bought out we're now with UMR and we're navigating some significant trials and tribulations with that that change so we have to navigate that risk what comes to switching an

139insurance vendor and then since we are self-funded if we have a high claimant cost we only have our Network that covers that cost whereas if we were with a fully funded plan with a huge Network that looks a little bit different so if we do have a couple of individuals that end up costing a couple million dollars here and there that risk is on our plan and so it really gets monitored and our stop loss gas Gap our stoploss gap insurance can fluctuate quite significantly the other major item and the reason why we wanted to bring this to your attention to give give you update is there significant concerns with mega um Specialty Pharmacy coming down the pipeline there's very significant Pharmaceuticals cost out there so while we do have stop loss insurance which means

140if a claim it goes above 200,000 in claims our plan stops paying for it and our insurance vendor that we go through starts paying for it next year and the following years after that for a 24mon period of time their premiums they're going to start charging us are going to raise significant iFly and so we've seen it in some districts where they've had one claim one prescription significantly increase their stop blast G Gap because that one prescription was over $3 million so we're looking at ways that we can navigate all of these different risks so one tactic that we use is resources to promote preventative care and healthy lifestyle um options so in the HR Weekly Newsletter you see us talk a lot about the omada health plan our employee assistance program free opportunities for

141our employees to utilize and take advantage of pre of um preventative care and healthy lifestyle op um options that the data shows significantly reduces our claims cost be um when people are actively participating in those programs we also have one digital who is our Insurance Consultant um who helps us significantly when navigating the relationships with our vendors and the bidding process overall as mentioned the change in the vendor this year with preferred one getting bought out we've relied heavily on our in our consultant to help us through the H of process when we're selecting the vendor and now dealing with that implementation um and the the concerns that have been um very prominent throughout that transition and still navigating those to date actually just had a meeting today with them about it um and then

142also one digital helps monitor our claims costs which we go over with our insurance Comm so we really can identify when we're seeing um big spikes where they're coming from um what we can anticipate we monitor a high climate cost to see where we may or may not anticipate a potential increase in stop-loss in the future we also talk about based off of their spring Buck data and analytical data we can see where we may have a population that's falling behind on preventative care um such as um I can't think of one of them but you know a cancer screening or uh Dental appointments or something like that so then we can use that information put it out in the HR newsletter to to just help remind folks that the preventative care significantly helps them

143and that preventative care is covered under our plan so all this data helps us not only monitor it to determine what our potential increases and premiums will be but also to help educate our employees um to uh to hopefully make decisions that can help overall with their their health and then lastly as part of our networks that we belong to we're constantly monitoring these new trends that are coming out especially the mega pharmaceutical or specialty pharmaceutical trends that we're concerned about so really working through our networks to advocate for legislative Solutions around that um strongly feel that there's no one District that's going to be able to have the answer to this and we really need to lean on our legislative solution to address the significant risk that is that's that's out there for school

144districts and then also leaning in on the state and federal programs that are available to offer that safety net should something happen to a district of our size these have sometimes happened to to larger districts that can take that hit a little bit better than we can because they just have such a significant number of individuals on their plan whereas we have a we don't have that big of a plan that we can really take a hit of 3 million just coming from one claim um so working through all that and with that as well um I believe that chair France you had the question about the PBM um uh formulary um so we do um get constant updates from the insurance provider that utilizes a committee of um pharmacists doctors nurses uh industry professionals

145and they're constantly reviewing what any changes to the FDA any new new um generic brands that have come out versus the name brands that have the exact same formulary then um they they then cover that and then they remove the brand name from our list of included again those are all to just make sure that our formulary list is compliant with FDA they're safe and also help to reduce the the claims and the amount that we're spending on Pharmaceuticals so that's that's just my update for today day is there any questions about self-funded plans that I can help answer I guess just overall trying to track everything because I'm not an expertise expert in this area but you and I have had some I've sent a lot I've sent emails over the past year trying

146to understand it better because I believe it to be a risk for our district especially with the specialty what is it Mega specialty um prescriptions um do you and I probably should have asked this ahead of time director Herman but do you do you see solutions to this I mean or is this is there going to be a third party that is it going to like where do you see the path going to help mitigate this risk for school districts because I'm sure corporations are dealing with some of the same um risks but have deeper Pockets to deal with with it of course so I'm kind of asking for your perspective on on how do we best navigate this and maybe I know this is the first step about creating awareness I understand that but

147um so I I think like many complex Solutions it's going to take many complex um answers and I think one of them is networking with legislation to help pass legislation um to help protect um school districts and other smaller tax funded organizations from mitigating this risk um I think there's a lot that can be done legislatively through the FDA process on what this could look like potentially as well um and really digging into the what the the funding that is there with the safety nets and and expanding that availability to have that access also it's not the mega specialty right now but we do have already uh a third party that we have attached to our plan called paid Health that helps with our specialty Pharmaceuticals that have significant cost to them and they go

148out and they help find nonprofits that help fund for those prescriptions they help find couponing for those prescriptions and I don't have the number off the top of my head but they're saving our plan hundreds of thousands of dollars and it's like maybe 17 scripts that we're talking about um so we do we do have and we're leg um we're in those existing resources I think we just need more and we need legislative action to help protect th protect this this risk that's coming about because I I do believe you're accurate that it's not just school districts that have this risk it's it's really everybody and the entire industry that has a risk out there and um something that we're we're monitoring closely so I'm sorry go ahead oh so as we just approved our

149legislative um platform is this something that should be included I guess I wasn't um privy to this information as you were chair Crosby that this you know should this be included in our legislative plat form um director ainson thank you um we did briefly discuss at the the end of the last work session as an agenda item I wanted to bring forward today um and you know I I leave that up to the will of the board I know it's a legislative platform from my networks I belong to from the self-funded networks um because some districts are fully funded some districts are self-funded I don't know where all districts land on this but the networks I belong to it is part of our platform okay that's good to know thank you I've kind of wondered

150that too director Atkinson um the other Avenue I've I've thought about that and maybe it is happening is is um as as um the bulk of our staff which our teachers get more involved in understanding this and not to say they aren't but get more involved as the cost increases and it affects their paycheck more it makes me wonder if um large unions will you know do some of that work as well lobbying with with the government and lobbying for change there there's a lot of lobbying going on on this particularly with the implosion of pbms and health care providers because as they take the um uh the you know uh basically it's an antitrust Lobby right now particularly with what's going on with some of the largest Health Kats eat eating up the smaller

151ones and therefore controlling those markets both at the PBM space and then also the large Health service providers that uh that don't want people who are self-funded because they wanted they themselves balance that risk pool uh and the problem with small businesses uh in a nonprofit healthc care State as well as at the federal level um you've got an issue with the legality of BU Binding Together um smaller uh self-funded into a more palatable risk pool but that whole issue with Pharmaceuticals that was top of Mind in the last legislative session and will continue to be top of mind for uh not only school districts small businesses County governments you name it um it's a it's a huge issue and it's it's it's fed by the it's it's fed by the increasing health care costs

152and again that we have a small district and as the tenured uh employees grow our risk pool increases I would imagine quite a bit in that area too um our risk anyways on the health care cost and the the need to go a little bit be and be above and beyond in our payments um ter ran if I I'm understanding the question um I don't have the data on me right now with where our our major risk lie in terms of our our population um because I know that that they the um no matter where they're at in their life Journey um there's there's Healthcare associations attached to that whether they're um starting or have a family um or single and don't um you know they that all varies and I I don't recall off

153the top of my head um I don't know if you do director Frederickson where our risk pool analysis is showing our population to be um but that's definitely information I can get to the board well I I it's going to be it's a problem for basically for every small to mediumsized business as well as um organizations that are tax funded such as this um so I would encourage everyone to Lobby the legislature at the federal as well as the state level particularly in a um in a legislative year um also to start to normalize the health care costs so that the larger providers who are controlling the markets now are not actually um influencing uh against uh the smaller organizations but I did want to I did have one question coupons are you talking like

154coupons in the PBM sense such as like a good RX or something like that that that we're participating in or what are those how are we getting those coupons thank you chair friend um for that question uh individuals um can get go to gorx and and get a coupon um and and we have tried to promote that um to our employees to encourage them to do this um the pidd heal I was referring to earlier is um a a more complex robust couponing system that they're looking at um that they're attaching to uh something that when an employee themselves wouldn't have access to um so they go through this entire process once a script comes through that is eligible for pay de health support they go through a process with them um and then a

155PD Health um consultant works with them and goes out and researches all of these options whether that's nonprofit support for Grants if it's couponing um through their connections and and their deals that they've made with different vendors or different um Pharmaceuticals they do this whole very robust process with that individual to look for the best funding opportunity for that that that prescription okay great and one last question um do we use uh you mentioned one uh you know the paid Health piece but do we use tpas at all in general um for any part of the plan third party administrators we use um proact as a carve out PBM for our pharmaceutical we use payd Health we use omada healthc care for the healthy lifestyle app um director Frederickson am I missing any off the

156top of your head um we have uh TPA with spring Buck who does the analytical data on our claims data um and this is all through our our overall contract with Umar and and one digital it's all wrapped into that overall hit up process we did with them um those are the only ones that's coming off the top of my head I'll look back and um send the board a complete list that's okay I didn't prepare you for that question so I appreciate you knowing all that off the top of your head anyways it's very impressive um are there any other questions or concerns from the board thank you it's a lot appreciate it all right thank you everyone um moving on to the update to the um calendar as director Edwards had alluded to

157earlier um this will be um we will be requesting board approval for the change in the calendar and so I hand it off to Dr Edwards thank you director France ERS of the board uh as you recall we did bring forward a calendar to you in November um and there was some discussion there were a few edits that needed to be made we call back in November we brought it forward a month earlier than we typically do so that we could establish most importantly the beginning and end of the school year and that our calendars uh in HR business office could be built accordingly uh we have now uh brought our calendar Committee of Staff together and uh reviewed and we're bringing back just a few edits to that calendar uh based upon that feedback

158that we had an opportunity to get there we go thank you sorry about that uh so we are bringing back uh a calendar that uh has been edited just slightly uh we found after looking uh more fully at it that there was an additional student day that was not needed on the calendar so uh specifically the student day that has gone away now uh was not a particularly popular student day among staff and probably among families specifically December 23rd um so that no longer is a student day that was in the original calendar but we did not need uh that we had one extra day on the calendar as it worked um we did also address the concern that was uh discussed at the table that this is what I was alluding to in my

159previous presentation a couple presentations ago uh the absence of Laker time we have put Laker time now into each of the uh Wednesdays uh including the early uh release days uh we desire to have Laker time uh this is an instructional minutes evaluation that we once again need to do uh if we could start off the year with having it in place we will certainly do so to acknowledge the uh ask from the high school students uh that we maintain uh Laker time as it's become a uh feature of the calendar that has they become Reliant upon teachers report that as well um that is a valuable so we're going to maintain we've identified in each Wednesday uh Laker time we will maintain that to the extent we are able it becomes as I've shared

160a couple different times here as the school year progresses if we have any snow days um if we have a a winter like we did last winter um where we had to use up almost all of our e-learning days um we have to be monitoring that very closely so we will continue to do that from an instructional minutes perspective particularly for juniors and seniors um because traditionally our seniors have gotten out before everybody else as well um once once again that's a decision that gets made as we see how the year plays out and that we have the enough enough instructional minutes to allow for that um and uh so those are the substantive changes as well as conferences got uh moved around just a little bit the previous calendar for example had Middle School

161conferences occurring on October 31st that was not a particularly popular evening to have conferences on so we have found uh accommodation for that um and adjusted so you'll find that the calendar you have before you uh is uh appear to appears from the committee's perspective to be accurate and aligned with what we would like to have forward right so I'm going to take a motion hom made by director Crosby and second by director actinon and I'm going to open it up to discussion if I may I just um on behalf like all the students I talked to all the staff really appreciate keeping the Laker days that's just really awesome that you uh took the feedback and made that work so I really appreciate that thank you as well as I think December 23rd I

162think that's going to be appreciated as well and Halloween no yep it was it was good that we came together we were able to find uh adjustments um and to your point we're we're actually it was great to hear the feedback that you brought forward at the November meeting on behalf of students that this is a day a portion of the regular school calendar that is important to them so appreciate you bringing that and advocating that position thank you um I have a quick question and it's um for our student um it Laker time got started I believe in the 2016 2017 school year sound about right by the student council and they chose Wednesday have there been any other discussions in the student council that that day is still working for them I mean

163have there hasn't really been any discussion in my time like that decision would have been made before anybody currently in high school I've heard no complaint about Laker time being on Wednesday um personally I never really thought about being on another day but as I reflect I kind of like it being in the middle of the week it provides flexibility because if you're missing something at the beginning of the week then two days later you have chance to make it up likewise if you're going to be missing Friday or Thursday two days before you have that day so I I think it's been really working Wednesday and I think uh my peers agree with that great cool and then I had one question for Dr Edwards if that's okay yep um when we did a

164calendar I think it was last year one of the things about the parent conferences and uh the timing of it was that some of the fast bridge data wasn't going to be available in time has that now been rectified with this calendar yes it has yep I'm looking over to Mr Glenn here is the elementary principal rep on that committee along with uh representers from the elementary teaching staff when we met last week to review this uh that was one of the criteria that we uh had in place to adjust and make sure that the calendar or the conference dates align with that thank you any other comments or questions okay hearing none all in favor I that passes 70 okay so the next thing we have is a proclamation on school safety security and

165staff Appreciation Week and I'm going to turn that over to Dr Thomas to read our Proclamation thank you chair France board directors um I'll just read zoomed in right there we go Prior Lake Savage area schools recognizes January 8th to the 12th 2024 as School Safety and Security staff Appreciation Week our School Safety and Security staff ensure the safety of our more than 8,700 Prior Lake Savage area students and more than 1,300 employees this week we celebrate our thanks and gratitude for these essential staff whereas national law enforcement appreciation day was celebrated on January 9th 2024 whereas School Safety and Security staff at Prior Lake Savage area schools includes two school resource officers from Savage and Prior Lake Police departments camp campus and lunchroom supervisors a district emergency preparedness and response coordinator and school building

166crisis response teams whereas School Safety and Security staff help keep Prior Lake Savage area schools buildings students staff and communi safe whereas School Safety and Security staff AIDS students in developing positive behavioral skills mentoring and counseling students and acting as mediators when disagreements arise whereas School Safety and Security staff train staff and teachers to identify and handle emerging safety issues therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends its appreciation to School Safety and Security staff for ensuring a safe and welcoming environment for our students staff and community and declares January 8th through the 12th 2024 to be School Safety and Security staff Appreciation Week in Prior Lake Savage area schools and I'll just say um we can't thank our staff that we've mentioned here enough for the outstanding work that they do

167to be proactive and supportive uh in our school environments um I would also give mention um to U their collaboration with the district crisis uh response team as well so that we know how we can best support our schools at any uh point in time whether it's an emergency need or like as as we stated here in the resolution those preventative drill maintenance routines as well so thank you to all of our folks in our schools who uh keep our campuses safe okay moving on to policy we have quite a few policies we did re uh these did go through the uh policy committee and were reviewed in the last study session by the board um we can go over these uh individually we can go over them all at once I take feedback from

168the board on how you want to do this but first let me get a motion noade by director bullan second second by director Crosby okay the hand actions really helped sorry and um so um again um I'm going to take feedback from the board on how to proceed do we want to go over these individually or uh all at once um my opinion is that the if anyone has anything to say about one of them but I think I'm fine with um taking them as a a group I'm fine with taking them as a slate okay um all right then I'm getting the head nods across the board here um I just want to make one I don't think it really matters because I I'm in the minority on this so but thank you for

169asking chair Crosby appreciate that director Herman I do want want to point out that we did make that one change from the study session to include um parents and legal Guardians um so that that change was made throughout all of these where it applied um chair CR or sorry chair FR members of the board yes we did go I did go through and change everything to include legal guardian and also on 6052 there was a grammal error that was District website will be will posted um that I made that edit to say District website will post those were the two edits that to my understanding from the work session okay any other questions or comments before I do have actually one question um it has to do with 605 okay 6051 652 I think it's

170all 605 series um so in our policy hold on I have to pull it up so for instance in 605 on the very last statement number eight and this statement is repeated across the board um I think I know the answer but I'm also very confused by the way it's written um right now Title 9 does not include gender identity so I'm trying to understand why it's included in this list and consistently throughout all the policies if it's not included in Title 9 director ainson member of the boards um um we made sure that everything that was included in the protected classes listed also were encompassing of all Minnesota statutes that's what I it's Minnesota law versus I'm sorry it's Minnesota law driven versus Title 9 is that correct um it's all-encompassing of federal and

171state law protected classes okay thank you for clarifying that thank you any other comments or questions on policies um I had one question on 65.1 should that be e through 12 students can you can you clarify which where you're reading yes that would be helpful uh sorry purpose number one school board is committed to providing K through 12 students shouldn't that be e through2 good catch I say that I would and the reason I say that too is because I like we just looked at the calendar and we say e through 12 yes on the calendar so I'm just for consist that's all director Herman I don't know if this I'm going to ask your opinion on K or E and what this policy can cover I don't know if e is community ed still

172if that's part I don't I don't know that but question okay early I'm just curious do we have Early Childhood participating in co-curricular act activities that was my question is the community run normally yeah we would consider e through 12 and that makes sense this might be an exception okay the calendar would because that's Community is part of our district but because we we are e through 12 but yeah but it would make sense that we don't offer good call yeah yeah unless they come back and say wait a minute so do you want to weigh in on that director 3K pickle ball chair friends and members of the board I apologize I was not following I couldn't hear um so I I I believe we should leave it at at K12 okay um I

173do believe that is the students that participate in co-curricular okay um our community which would include early um Early Childhood participates in Community Education events but in terms of the definition of co-curricular I I do believe that would be specific tok2 okay uh and I apologize that didn't answer the question no that did I believe is that good okay yes thank you um any other questions on any of the policies okay I know there's a lot of them here hearing none are we good with a vote so all in favor of policies 403 44.1 408 410 420 506.com reports so we do have oops am I plugged in yeah so we do have um uh I do have one superintendent report and then we'll do have a couple of admin reports so just real quickly

174I want to remind everyone uh of MLK Jr uh Day breakfast this year um we are partnering with the Prior Lake Rotary Club uh for that day in that breakfast uh start uh that will be January 15th starting at 7:30 a.m. at Prior Lake High School um and um this will also be where we recognize staff as well as noting that we have our continued partnership with our city townships and Community organizations sponsoring this event and it's all open to the public to attend um that first portion of the breakfast and then we'll have um staff recognition and PD uh later on that day and I will turn to Dr Edwards thank you Dr Thomas uh members of the board wanted to provide a brief update tonight uh regarding uh transitioning of our middle school

175math curriculum has been a topic of discussion of late within the community and wanted to provide you with a couple of updates related to that as you recall at our December board meeting uh we brought forward uh new course proposals at the high school as well as a new math sequence uh that had been brought through the curriculum committee um and that math sequence uh impacted there were two documents in that one was the upcoming school year the 2425 school year the second document was related to the 2526 school year and Beyond and um anytime a change like that is made it's certainly important that it's fully understood and it's can be confusing um and particularly during the all important time of transitioning so I want to make a couple of points very clear uh

176tonight for your sake and for the listening Public's sake as well um and then give you a little update because we held a parent information night at the middle school this evening while this board meeting was going on and I have an update on that from our Middle School principal so um first of all I want to emphasize that students who are currently engaged in advanced math coursework will continue to have those opportunities to do so throughout their remaining years at Prior Lake Savage are schools that was of the utmost importance to us in this process which was the reason for the multi-year approach that we brought forward so for example those uh current sixth graders who are in advanced have been identified in advanced uh coursework and are experiencing that in sixth grade will

177continue to experience that in seventh grade and into 8th grade however for incoming uh sixth graders they will begin to have what we're terming pathway choices as you recall as they enter eighth grade that aligns with our current course offerings um again these changes have come about as a result of our K12 math curriculum review specifically we want to ensure a deep understanding of the foundational algebra skills necessary to assess uh to access rather highlevel courses later on as they progress through their years in school and I want to call attention to uh an error uh when posed a question when I question was posed to me in December of whether we had current sixth graders that are engaged in advanced uh any current sixth graders engaged in what would be called double grade accelerated

178we do have four students in that and those students will continue that path as they move forward so I stand uh corrected apologize I did not have the proper information that night um in resp response to that but those students will continue to uh have this the coursework that they have set out on as will all students um specifically uh as we look at this uh there was apparent information night tonight uh at the middle school level for incoming which is our annual uh event happened a couple weeks earlier than normal because we've moved up our registration process Etc our staffing process so it occurred tonight and I did check in with our Middle School principles and they did report that it went very well at the middle school this evening um one piece that

179was shared with incoming sixth grade parents was that as a result of this change um when when it was shared that this change results in us not making decisions for incoming students when they're fifth graders about a course path that they might be on whereas we're waiting to identify that course path in e8th grade when they have have that deeper understanding and knowledge um and are prepared to make that course pathway decision more closely to when they will engage in that at the high school level that seemed to be a sentiment that resonated well according to our principles there were it was shared with me via text a lot of head nods when that was uh when that clarification was provided um so I feel like uh we'll continue uh to be responsive to questions

180as they come forward in this time of transition um another thing that I I I I believe I've alluded to in previous uh uh addressing this matter but we still have policy 5113 in place it will continue to remain in place as a way to address student uh individual student situations and needs where there's acceleration that students and our parents are looking for and I say students and our parents because as a secondary administrator I dealt with a number of times when actually it was the student that would drive this Advocate to their parents and the parents would come and say we'd like our child to be assessed for whether or not they're appropriate to uh move ahead of their grade level peers whether it be on a specific subject or multiple subjects or a

181full grade doesn't happen very often in a full grade at the secondary level occasionally happens at the elementary level um but that is the policy that we would continue to look to to provide us um those opportunities for students who uh are needing advancement above uh their grade level peers so wanted to share that additional uh report uh tonight additional context and again we will continue to work with families to make sure that um no student is uh lost in this process of transition and that we are uh really sticking to the spirit of uh what this what all came about of which was that K12 curriculum review process that said we have students that we want to we want to make sure all students are fully prepared and have a depth of understanding in

182the foundational skills particularly with regard to algebra if you recall me speaking of that on multiple occasions so that they can really access that those higher level courses for some it's those higher level courses become begin in their sophomore year of high school might be even taking courses that could make them eligible for college credit uh most notably happen in their Junior and Senior year typically so um thank you for that um I have a question um so I think the for me the most um confusing part is that there I'm looking at the graph that we received on the December Schoolboard meeting and um when I went back and relooked at it and after the questions that I'd received from the community on this um who are very passionate about Advanced and gifted and

183talented learning um which I had a son as well my question is what happens when a fifth grade student who is identified through the bridges curriculum is identified as an advanced math student what happens as they come into sixth grade because on this graph there's nothing listed on here um for sixth grade advanced math so how will a student either coming out of sage that's one question and or um a fifth grade student just coming out of our regular schools how were they their meets needs be met as an advanced math student in our district yep so next year specifically this fifth grade group coming out of sage and address that specific uh group of students currently is receiving sixth grade math instruction um via pilot actually one of our pilot uh courses they will

184be uh they will be able to move into the seventh grade Advanced course next year and then the following year they will be a part of the eighth grade and they will have geometry we will offer geometry for multiple years up to three years we predict still at the middle school level in this time of transition and we will continue uh to look at students who might be elsewhere in our district or new to our district who come in with skills that would mirror or match those of those students who have experienced that we would apply policy 513 look through that evaluate that process and we may have students in addition that might be experiencing that as well so if I'm understanding you correctly you're basically saying that any student who's identified in the our

185elementary schools through the bridges curriculum as being an advanced math student coming into sixth grade they would advance to seventh grade math or yeah they would seventh grade advanced math which was is called algebra 1 um but I think in it's called it's actually pre-algebra advanced math or pre-algebra Advanced pre-algebra in seventh grade so they would be um and just to clarify um they would have be subject to policy 5113 um to which is a a subject specific or grade full grade acceleration and we'd look at whether they meet all necessary criteria to align with their skills to to be eligible for that so um help me understand um what type of criteria they're going to have to meet and is this going to create a huge workload for our teachers and admin of evaluating

186all these students if we don't have this advanced math option just because do we I'm assuming currently we have a sixth grade advanced math is that correct we do currently correct yep that's what's changing yep that is correct yep that is what's changing all all incoming students unless they are in this group would go into the sixth grade math yep so could that potentially create a huge workload for our staff and our Administration to identify all these students who are then grade skipping I'm just trying to understand the rationale behind I'm going to defer to an elementary principal who happens to be in the audience because it would be our incoming fifth grade students um and ask him to share a little bit if you may step up to the mic to share just a

187little bit of perspective perspective in terms of how your fifth grade teachers are feeling that they are meeting the needs of all levels of Learners and how many if any would potentially need more rigor coming out of fifth grade and I know I'm putting you on the spot and I apologize go right ahead Dr Edwards I think the new curriculum is really raising the bar for us at the elementary level I hope and I I mean that that we're going to be able to see some test scores that are going to to be positive first year we'll see where we're at moving forward I feel very confidently about that just in through all the observations that I see in the classrooms when I'm there now when it comes to a lot of extra work uh

188is that going to be a lot of extra work on us if we do that or people it would be for the Middle School sorry I mean to interrupt you I think that from the from the elementary perspective it won't be no like we'll be able to identify if there's anything that we need to know or very quickly be able to to look at data uh and give the data that's needed to help make any suggestions or recommendations but I think the middle level will be able to do the same thing pretty maybe a better question to ask is what percentage of your students would you be considered Advanced that would be going up into the sixth grade that would need to be evaluated to move up to seventh grade if we're not offering advanced

189math in sixth grade does that make sense maybe a small percentage very small I would say um based upon each cohort is so different when it when it comes out of you might have a cohort that has a handful you might have a cohort that has a classroom full it really depends on how you put those together Dr Edwards over the course of the I don't know was it the past three or four or I don't know what the time frame was was it about wasn't there a 50% reduction of stents from our internal assessment um that was eligible for that that are currently enrolled compared to where we were yep and that was specific to double grade skipped So currently and that was the the question that I okay didn't respond to accurately in

190our previous conversation uh we had we currently have four students who are receiving double grade accelerated um we have approximately 17 students who are single grade accelerated um so we definitely have from all of our elementaries so from our seven elementaries about 17 kids so it's about okay y so I I believe we'll be able to continue to accommodate and once again I do believe that the depth of uh the student experience that they will have coming out we will be able to replicate I'm optimistic um part of the driving force additional information and context around this is that our pilot teachers in the seventh grade um who have been piloting one of the curriculums the curriculum that we are looking at in piloting have been the one of the driving forces behind this recommendation

191because they have been approaching with the pilot curriculum in seventh grade saying both their Advanced students as well as their regular students have been able to find rigor in the pilot curriculum that we are utilizing as well as our sixth grade uh curriculum pilot that's going on happens to be our Sage students engaged in that are finding rigor as well so so this curriculum may offer a little more differentiation in the classroom experience more challenge more depth of understanding that and the teaching and instructional practices aligned with that um again will require training um to get our teachers up to speed and confident I think what we've seen with Bridges specifically at the K5 level that confidence has grown correct me if I'm wrong I would agree and having the early release time to be

192able to engage in that learning at a level that we haven't been able to do is really helped our teachers as well yeah um how many students currently are in sixth grade advanced math uh we I don't have that number I would be going off of past recollection but I would say it is somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 students so now you're between the two middle schools that are currently in that and they they will continue that track right but that makes me believe that there will be 100 more coming in that would need to be grade skipped is what you're telling me not necessarily I I I don't uh it is our belief and this is why the recommendation coming from our teachers is that leveling that and offering one level is most

193appropriate in math in sixth grade going back to the foundational skills we still have advanced course offerings in other areas and that too was something that was uh received positively tonight from our parents of incoming students there is still um Advanced offering in social studies science and uh English um but specifically in the math area uh we believe that that deeper understanding is going to serve our students better as they move into eighth grade and Beyond and that is the rationale for the recommendation so it is a shift in thinking we recognize that fully um but we uh believe that are that is going to meet the needs of our students long term at a higher level of performance yes go Dan um thank you um and thank you for addressing that tonight as well

194um is there as much as I would like to thank everyone watches all of our meetings in their entirety and reads the entire board packet um I'm realistic um is there such a thing as maybe a very brief quick correspondence that we can send to our Middle School families to reiterate this yeah I will definitely follow up with our Middle School principls uh again they had a positive uh turnout tonight but we know that having years of doing those nights it doesn't reach everybody so what their plan is to get that message out to all because registration is coming up seventh and eighth graders yep families yeah thank you so much you have a question uh yes um sorry if you've already answered this question but it's clarification so sixth grade math will now just

195be the one level but in seventh grade you'll still have the like a general and advance for the for this next year yes for the following year those sixth graders will continue in that one level for two years sixth and seventh grade and then in eighth grade they will have course Pathways that align with our current Pathways and then regardless of if there gray skip or not those taking seventh grade math will be able to choose if they want to take the advanced or gen in 8th grade yep thank you and and the other piece that and thank you for bringing this up because this also has been a shift that aligns with as you're accustomed to and all high school students are accustomed to we had criteria for getting into those classes at the

196middle school whereas at the high school there's no specific criteria that needs to be met students have the choice um we are moving in that direction here with the math uh move uh where that they get that standard experience in sixth and seventh grade the choice comes into place in eighth grade now obviously our teachers are will be prepared to share recommendations with parents um through the conference process typically it would be in the seventh grade year what would be a a typical parent inquiry could be what would you recommend for my child and our teachers to your question director Atkinson will be prepared uh to respond and give recommendation if asked but also students and families can make those choices on their own which path they want to go toward and it's lays out

197kind of if you go this path here's what you're going to be looking at in ninth and 10th grade if you go this way as you recall from those documents here's what you will set yourself up for as you round out your high school career and then just one more question um forgive me CU this was a couple years ago uh sixth and seventh grade math kind of have a similarity and I know you talk about uh in fifth grade looking for potential students that can potentially move to seventh grade math is there any way to have also continued monitoring through sixth grade to see if there's any potential students that could possibly finishing fifth grade math test out of seventh grade just CU from perspective a high schooler you know having that extra year

198uh to take like AP classes to help alleviate some college and just broaden the knowledges Y and that's where policy 513 comes into play that allows for that opportunity for students to and families to inquire um I think to your qu to director Atkinson's question uh I think we'll learn in the first year and subsequent year the how this land Dems and how much demand or request we have and if the demand for those implementation of policy 5113 becomes overwhelming to the system we'll have to re-evaluate but I I believe our teachers are quite confident that the experience that the students are going to have is not going to have the demand for that that we could be wrong in that assumption but thank you very very much for that enhanced explanation that I know

199is probably somewhat covered in the curriculum um committee uh but the added explanation for parents and for the public is greatly greatly appreciated CH France it wasn't so that's why I think there was so much confusion so I appreciate the I mean really the the reality of it is we are taking away the sixth grade advanced math option and and the seventh grade advanced math option correct that is correct yep yeah and so I guess my concern is anyway anytime we take away something um with all of the challenges with you know with our math scores um I guess I have a hard time I have a hard time at having a special talented and twice exceptional student um and then my other son took advanced math I have a hard time understanding and believing

200that this is going to be work so it it it is concerning to me and I can understand why there has been a rise from our community um when we're taking away the advanced math option can I make a suggestion and I'm just gonna because we're ending up having a discussion like it's an agenda item and this is not on the agenda maybe it would be better if we discuss this as a board as a study session and see if we wanted an extra session on this sure uh otherwise uh we are going to be um kind of adding something here that was not really approved on the agenda I think that's a great suggest suggestion um moving forward are there any other administrative reports uh let's start with I'm sorry no go ahead sorry

201I'm sorry no no no you're fine I was just wondering I didn't see the nod so there's nothing here so moving on with the that's fine I'm new I could have forgotten so it's okay um the student council report please sorry about that it's okay um I know it was last year but last week of school December we had a pancake breakfast and Coco just kind of to help spread some sunshine that was by our Sunshine Committee just you know putting some Smiles on some faces uh looking forward this Wednesday we have our staff wall finalization there was a a hiccup that was hit but we got resolved by our development committee so they're going to be finalizing that Wednesday after school and then like um Dr Thomas talked about the MLK Day student council

202will be going to participate and addition our community service event will be working on one of the service projects making quiet Critters which I hear they help elementary teachers encourage quietness so um additionally our Communications committee is working on their Laker lens which is just a way to encourage uh student representation in um sporting events that maybe don't always have the largest student body so we're working to do that just kind of show more ler uh ler spirit and school support and big thing coming up in February is our sweethearts spirit week uh we actually have a meeting this Friday with the activities director to finalize some details and dates for that uh the big thing we want to be looking at this year is finalizing more Traditions that can be specific to sweethearts instead

203of just repeating homecoming and I can talk more about that uh after we get more stuff finalized so at the next session awesome thank you I have a question have you guys um I'm sure you're starting to plan prom or already probably full force planning prom do you have any updates on Prom so funny thing student council actually does not do prom oh they don't oh interesting it's prom Community that's their own thing um I also interested to hear how prom is going so if you hear anything please oh I wish I knew anything I don't know anything so if you hear anything let me know we'll keep each other informed I know yeah okay so board reports um we'll start with uh director olad if you have any and go around the table um

204we had a productive teaching and learning committee meeting um earlier today right before this meeting um talking reviewing and having a really robust conversation around um policy 606 six gosh do I have that right yes thank you oh my gosh momentary laps um it was a really good discussion and I think with the conversations we've had earlier tonight about you know the makeup of different committees and things like that I think tonight was a really good example of listening to each other's difference of of opinion and different um ways of thinking and different perspectives um so I thought it was very robust and I thought it was good um and um on the other side I'm really looking forward to the msba conference later this week so really looking forward to a lot of the

205sessions there as well director Crosby no update director bernick director buan uh no updates okay director Vasquez and director Atkinson yeah and I was also in the um the teaching and learning committee as well I agree we had a nice robust discussion it's so refreshing to hear different perspectives so um I think that was great I will have to say I had to scoot out I was very concerned about missing this so I'm not real clear what next steps is are on I know we had some good recommendations around language around definitions around um state law so I think Dr Thomas maybe were you there at the end you can give us sorry I I was on your heels as we both but I will say that um we will continue the conversation um uh

206through uh getting feedback to Dr Edwards or myself from folks um that uh will help shape out um some of the like for example the committee was wanting to um uh Define some words um we we found ourselves a bit in the weeds of actually uh Being Human dictionaries and I think we were kind of pushed back up a little bit to say well we don't have to do that but you know the work group can look at how they can get I think we have a group of words that I think the committee would appreciate being in there because it overlaps with other policies 524 and some others if I have that number right but other other policies that have similar language um and I would concur with both directors that um there was

207a good Push Pull conversation um from everyone in our community around what we know as a very um sensitive conversation topic of curricular materials and library media materials Etc so um I just want to thank the community for leaning into their truth and being respectful um and that's that's what it's going to take to really move policy and uh practices in our district thanks for that okay um as far as Community Ed goes um um from the committee that I um sat on uh I just want to remind people a couple of announcements from that uh committee and that's that preschool registration and kids company for current families does open on January 22nd and for all other families that meaning non-current families opens on February 1st Community aded still has several uh classes open this

208uh winter and spring session for enrollment and one includes the dance with me ball on Saturday February 24th uh and I know director Velasquez has has participated in that so it's a really fun event so if you haven't signed up for it please do so and also that Community Ed is now hiring for Summer Staff uh for kids company swimming instructors lifeguards we're very happy that the pool will be open this summer um as well as uh teachers and most of those positions are posted online and again as was stated our msba uh conference the Minnesota School Board Association is this Friday and sat uh this Thursday and Friday almost said Saturday that would have been sacrilegious um and uh January 11th and 12th in which all board members um are invited and already pre-registered

209to attend so I hope to see everyone there and with that I'm going to ask for a motion to adjourn so me and second and we will be going to close session after a brief recess okay thank you