001george are we all set do you need me to count down all right i'll just count down ten nine eight seven six five four three two one good evening it is 7 p.m on monday october 18 2021 and i call to order this regular meeting of the richfield school board attending this evening's board meeting live and in the boardroom our board members christine malik crystal brocky allegris meshech peter tensing still unpacking and i am board chair tim paulus board member paula cole will not be present today we are joined by our student representatives we have tyler jake elsie cruz pyrrha and helen dombrow we may be joined later by karina jones superintendent yanovsky is here at the table with us we have members of the district's leadership team present with us for participation throughout the
002meeting as requested also joining us at the table is board secretary and assistant to the superintendent cassandra kwame the ridgefield public schools mission statement is that we strive to inspire and empower each individual to learn grow and excel and we will strive to keep that focus at the center of our of our discussions this evening thank you to those joining us here live in the boardroom and thanks to the legion of fans who are watching us now via via the live stream or on on youtube we appreciate when people bear witness to our meeting where we conduct the necessary and important official business of the district in public while each item tonight might not bring forth the same level of interest for each and every one of you it is critical that we give each
003one of them our due attention so with that our first item of business this evening is to approve the agenda before us i move that we approve the agenda as presented well second we have a motion by miss me and a second by miss malik any discussion all right any um we will now pull the board off all in favor please say aye aye aye say nay the chair says i and the agenda is approved all right here we go we're gonna move now into the information and proposals non-action items section of the agenda and this evening we have an opportunity for public comment obviously these opportunities occur at the second meeting of each month and there are instructions on how to sign up on the district website under the school board menu tonight we
004have two community members requesting to present to the board while we will likely not engage in dialogue with the speakers related to the statements being made our we the board or the admin team may follow up after the speakers have concluded or outside of the meeting thank you to those who are signed up to share your comments with us and while we're expressing gratitude thank you for following board policy 216 and the guidelines 216.1 in brief i'll highlight the following from those documents the time allotted will be three minutes per speaker an additional three minutes allocated if interpretation is utilized cassandra will monitor the time there will be a 30 second warning given when 30 seconds remain and a times up warning if three minutes have expired at the conclusion of the three minutes i
005politely ask that you end your comments and wrap them up otherwise i will have to tap the gavel and request that you cease immediately so that we can move on to the other speakers and the other items that we have so that everyone has time as as desired for all the things we have to cover we'll recognize one speaker at a time and ask that those present allow that person to speak without interruption speakers should not include the names of richfield public school employees their titles or location names and your remarks for your own protections um this is generally for if you have complaints or criticism or something that could make you legally liable that is for your own protections as well as for the boards if you bring items up along those lines of
006course i will have to tap my gavel and request that you stop if the comments are in praise of a staff member well of course please feel free issues related to male performance of a school district employee should not be raised here but should be brought to the hr department in writing we trust that you understand personal attacks will not be allowed and with that after that long preamble we'll move to the first speaker we have again as i said we have two speakers send up and our first speaker is anne flake probably thank you sorry i want to thank the board and the superintendent yanowsky for allowing me to speak tonight my name is ann flake and i currently have five students in the school district plus two graduates from the richfield public schools
007i know that the board was approached recently by the child protection league with concerns about our comprehensive sex ed curriculum it is important to note that the child protection league does not exist for the protection of all children but solely for the protection of cisgendered heterosexual students children whose identities have always been acknowledged and protected i'm certain that neither this board nor district leadership is going to give into the unreasonable demands of a group who have attacked or comprehensive sex ed using distortion misinformation and outright dishonesty in its attempt to discredit the program but i also think it's important that the board be aware of the community's support for this education within hours of seeing the news of the presentation of the child protection leak i was able to form a group of parents and
008community members who came together in record speed and whose only concern was the well-being of all richfield students in doing my research for tonight which was a surprising amount of homework i had not planned on doing i found that many people contradict the findings of the child protection leak including the american college of obstetricians and gynecologists who say quote studies have demonstrated that comprehensive sexuality education programs reduce the rates of sexual activity sexual risk behaviors sexually transmitted infections and adolescent pregnancy unquote obviously this is vital to keeping our kids healthy and capable of focusing focusing on their main job which is getting their education in 2019 only 8.2 percent of students in the u.s reported getting inclusive sex education sex education that recognizes the existence and needs of the lgbtq plus students students who very
009much exist in fact an estimated 1.3 million kids report being lgbtq plus they also need to know how to navigate consent how to keep themselves safe and healthy especially since the statistics tell us that lgbtq students are assaulted three times as often as straight students that said all our kids benefit from this curriculum and of course so many of our students have intersexual intersectional identities and benefit in different ways it is my fear that the child protection league is not yet finished with our district and certainly not with its attempts to make all schools a less welcoming place for students who already face adversity i believe it's vital for richfield to continue programs that provide a safe and inclusive environment for all of our students to learn and your continued commitment to this effort is
010very much appreciated thank you thank you ms flake our next speaker is mara globka okay good evening board and thank you for having for this opportunity to speak my name is mara golubka i'm the current chair of the human rights commission in richfield i'm also the director of transforming families minnesota an advocacy group for the support of transgender youth and their families i serve on the community advisory boards of the hennepin county sheriff's office and the dakona county child and family clinic but i'm also on the working group of era minnesota and the legislative action team of the women's march i've also served extensively with the minnesota dfl serving a term on the executive committee and i've been a national delegate twice i'm here in response to what i watched said watched and heard said
011at the last meeting where you allowed public comment you had three speakers that were in opposition to the current sex ed curriculum and they were saying things that i found rather hurtful things like that the curriculum denies religious tenets such as god created us perfectly by implying that you might not know if you're a boy or a girl you're not here to serve a religious community i don't think but and currently the the law says that you have to accommodate with respect and show dignity to lgbtq students i've been around a lot of school board meetings and i was up in anoka hennepin back when the alliance defending freedom the minnesota family council and the child protection league uh testified you know trying to prevent them from having an inclusive policy in their in their
012district because there was a student that was being treated very badly well that that ended up in a three hundred thousand dollar win for that student and his uh mother and i'm pretty sure that if you roll back anything here you would probably face the same kind of thing because right now the law says that you have to be nice to us and you know we're people we're human beings and i think that's probably a good thing um one of the people also said that the curriculum coaches children into exploring and role-playing behaviors other than what they know to be true well i'm here to tell you that i know other things to be different and true um they say that it it inhibits and disparages their religion well again that that's not what you're
013here for is is to accommodate religion because otherwise you'd probably have to be doing things to include other religions as well and then you had somebody that was quoting the american college of physicians time is up you know that they're a hate group right that's really i really wanted to let you know that the american college pediatricians is a hate group it's not the real american academy of pediatrics who has been in existence since 1930 with over 70 000 members as opposed to acp which is just a couple thousand mostly retired doctors hate group that's all thanks thank you mara all right thanks to both our speakers um our next opportunity for public comment is in the november meeting which is november 22nd i believe it's in the back of our agenda somewhere is anyone
014looking at that yes november 22nd wonderful all right well thank you um we'll now move to the superintendent update like anything absolutely yes so there are two items on the superintendent presentation or update this evening a land acknowledgement process and an update on superintendent goals as our district is firmly committed to all students and all families um with a multi-year implementation of a gender inclusion policy and a long-time implementation of equity work and an equity policy we continue that work as a district firmly committed to continuing to move ourselves forward one voice for all of our students and one voice loud and proud to speak out for all of our students and in this way we move forward with the land acknowledgement process which is really a public statement which is acknowledging the indigenous inhabitants
015of our land and following along with with what we commit ourselves to in terms of support of all of our students it's a way to recognize that historically uh the impact of colonialism and our american government have violated multiple land treaties made with the indigenous peoples of this land that's also a way for us as proud supporters of our apac or american indian parent advisory committee to celebrate and empower our students and our families and all of our students and all of our families it's just one of those steps that we can take to again acknowledge those that our government has not necessarily acknowledged legally effectively or appropriately in the past something that again i think we speak to as a district with one very clear voice thus far in our process we have researched
016the history of our land the land of richfield and the land that our schools around and then also we've researched the treaties um that were enacted in connection to the indigenous people and and our government um and we drafted a land acknowledgement that acknowledges some of the things that happened on this land we've also been working together with our american indian parent advisory to make sure that we're effectively supporting indigenous communities not just with an acknowledgement of the land that we're on but also in the programming that we have in american indian education and continuing to make sure that our curriculum reflects all of the students and the history of our students our families and our land and so the next step in this process and it's a conversation i'm bringing you to tonight um
017it's not something we are voting on but i'm looking for an affirmation from the board that we are on the correct path and that we want to continue on in this path uh we have met and gotten some recommendations from the american indian parent advisory um is is once we have tacitly moved forward or agreed to our land acknowledgement uh to determine an appropriate time or methodology by which we would move that forward and then also read that publicly um and then also um we were working with aipac to find and collaborate with indigenous artists to create you know softly use the term plaques because that is my methodology which obviously is not the methodology that will be used by the artist it will be whatever the artist believes is most appropriately to celebrate and
018acknowledge the land uh something that would be acknowledged publicly at each of our buildings and then also planning a ceremonial event at each of our buildings to unveil the land acknowledgement on the land acknowledgement art that would then be shown at each of our buildings as part of our land acknowledgement so our draft um and i'm going to read that as part of the board to read that into the record but richfield public schools acknowledges that we are located on the ancestral land of the dakota people who have lived and cared for this land since time immemorial indigenous nations have a long history of stewardship and preservation of the local area we are grateful for the guardianship of these lands which hold historical spiritual and personal significance to the dakota people the cessation 289 treaty
019of 1851 names the wapaton and sicitan bands of the dakota people the united states government used this treaty to steal land from its indigenous groups the richfield public school district continues to benefit from this unjust treaty we honor the history and sacrifices and continued contributions of the dakota people and all members of the richfield community who belong to indigenous groups richfield public schools acknowledges the reality and history of these lands and affirms our appreciation and support for indigenous peoples so i present you our draft statement we have gotten feedback and input on this and support and so i want to bring this to you tonight again not for formal passage but just a review and input and feedback all right thank you superintendent um with that we'll we'll move to comments or questions from the
020board i'll move to my right first and see if ms mishak has questions or comments thank you chair paulus i want to thank the administration and all of apec particularly rachel and sarah for being here tonight and providing feedback and partnership with administration on this land acknowledgement i don't have any specific suggestions at this time but i just wanted to express my gratitude especially considering the history between native americans and public schools indian boarding schools were created for the purpose of cultural genocide and committed horrible crimes and that's why american indian education and the work you do sarah is so important today to begin to restore that cultural wisdom that was stolen by government-funded schools when i was a social studies teacher we used to have a unit on the stages of genocide and the
021final stage is denial in silence is a form of denial and when we think about the history of this country and the history of colonialism our country and our state and our schools have been silent and have been in denial for a long time so that's why a land acknowledgment even though it may seem like a small step is a really really important one because in order to heal and to have reconciliation we need to recognize that truth and acknowledge that truth so as a board member i look forward to living this land acknowledgement and doing that by centering indigenous people in our board policies and continuing our partnership with aipac and hopefully by doing so all children in ridgefield can truly learn thrive and grow so i hope that we don't fall short but
022if we do i hope that you will hold us accountable for that [Music] all right thank you miss misha mister chatzing questions or comments i don't know if i have anything i could state any better than what others have already stated and you know certainly um you know supporting the success of all of our students is that's i think the reason that we're here we center ourselves on that every day when we start our meetings and so i'm grateful to the work for moving forward with that thanks miss malloy questions comments i would just echo what allegra said i think she said that very well and covered all aspects of what we should be talking about and looking at um i appreciate the efforts of the administration and of our apac group um working together
023and getting this far it's very impressive work so thank you all right miss brockie sure um i just want to say how strongly and fully i support this and also want to say how i appreciate that the acknowledgement is a statement that can be spoken and it is also something that is going to be embedded into our buildings um and i find that to be a really meaningful step and that art is going to be included and i'm so incredibly excited to see what is developed and to be a part of honoring that when we get to the ceremonial part of this later on in the year or next spring i also just appreciate an allegra touched on this the orientation to this has to be action it cannot just be a statement and actually
024i think it would be harmful if we took the step of doing a statement but did not have action that accompanied it or were not already investing in american indian education and in the great work that sarah and the committee are doing and so i think those things have to go together and they need to continue to go together for us to actually show that we mean the words that are going to be spoken and that are going to be the walls on the walls of our buildings um the one question that i had and it doesn't need to be answered now and i will fully trust people with far more expertise than myself but whether indigenous should be capitalized throughout the statement because i've seen in many places that specific request been made so
025super quick answer i can judge people's heads nodding as yes and so that is something we will embed into that immediately so we will take care of that thank you all right thank you mr rocky um we'll ask our students if they have questions or comments helen do you have questions or comments to share um i guess you could share that i know that a land acknowledgement is something that's been added to many of the university of minnesota programs which i'm a part of and it's great to see it being implemented into the richfield school board system thank you elsie questions or comments no comments thank you mr jay questions or comments uh i think it's cool that you guys are solving an issue i think the first step of solving an issue is acknowledging
026the issue so i think it's really cool that you guys are moving in the right direction all right thank you now i'll just wrap up i think and we started with allegra who who really chucked all the boxes and and i think the superintendent the administration we're looking for affirmation and and i think we can certainly affirm that directionally this is okay um in part because it was is developed with with the support and under um contributions of our of apec and so that's super meaningful i mean we we could wander around like it doesn't matter you know with if we we want it to be meaningful we want it to be productive and so their contributions are critical so thank you excellent is the reward miss jesperson and i have some work to do
027so we will move ourselves forward and begin that work so thank you thank you for the work tonight all right uh next and second and final is superintendent goals and so we had a draft of goals and i got some feedback from the board took a few steps to move data forward so i'll move relatively quickly through this which is the final draft of superintendent goals and just as a reminder this is the overall overarching work that connects to my evaluation which is about a third around student achievement a third around process goals or those strategic plan goals and then also my overall overall performance which comes from your evaluation which involves surveys of the community surveys of staff surveys of my direct reports and then also surveys of the board members and so in
028the achievement area we continue to refine how we take common formative assessments or assess how our students are doing in class and so we are looking at increasing the numbers of students going proficient in reading in fifth grade we use the teachers college benchmark reading assessment of which 47 percent of our fifth graders scored proficient and this is a culminating measure of where students are in reading or one of multiple measures generally cons considered to be valid because it is coming through our teachers and also through the teachers college and then also looking at our demographics and continuing to close the gap because as an equity-based district we are always looking not just at the overall but how are we doing with all of our students and so as we look at trimester three we
029did have a gap of six percent in terms of that proficiency between bipox students and white students and so we are looking to close that gap and so not only are we looking at increasing proficiency but also closing gap between our higher higher achieving students and students who aren't currently achieving at that level um continuing our graduation rate growth um and so as you as you know um overall graduation rate in richfield went up significantly and um also um as we think about the gap um we would typically have gap closure but at present graduation rates are not predictable um by racial biracial identity and so our demographics do not allow you to predict uh the graduation rate of a group of students and so we want to not only raise the by three points
030over all the three within each demographic group or continue to be one of the only districts in the entire state of minnesota with no gap between white students and students of color or in between multiple communities of color i'm continuing on with the nwea map and so we're looking at growth during the course of the year of five percent or more um and then also closing the racial achievement gap by five percent or more from fall to spring and so we are still in process and finalizing um and so we don't have data yet available for fall of 2021 but when i come back with an update i'll i'll put data into the presentation in this particular area the nwa map is an assessment taken by third through eighth graders and some of our high
031school students um and so it allows us to have us as a measure across a wide range of grade levels in terms of how how are our students doing in both reading and in math so that is the area that we are working on in regard to overall achievement measures process goals are those strategic plan goals and we went through six or five of these last time we did add based on board input continue to improve communications and serve the rps community through radical hospitality and so goal one as a process goals can continue on leading us through the pandemic and obviously as we know the delta virus has created some additional challenges we're working very hard to remain fully staffed and to keep our students and families out of quarantine and so we just
032continue to implement our procedures and continue to refine things as we move ourselves forward maintaining focus on our our district goals and our vision cards and so we did publish a draft vision card with baseline data and as data begins to fill itself in we'll begin to bring vision cards back to the board we'll either do that at the end of the year or look at trying to do something around february although we acknowledge that we won't have full data at that time but we'll look at taking a mid-course measure and also a final measure as we continue to use our vision cards uh construction as we all know we continue to move ourselves forward even though construction headaches are happening um and so as we talked about at our last meeting we continue to
033be on time overall and overall on budget even though we continue to have changes come in and cost changes coming in we continue to be very pleased particularly with this past year and obviously with the year moving ourselves forward we are working on equity guidelines so as i mentioned earlier we do have a gender inclusion policy we do have an equity policy we have begun work on drafting equity guidelines there is a safe and supportive schools meeting in november and we anticipate the first draft of guidelines to begin to gather input and take feedback from our students and families beginning in november and so we're going to start working our way through guidelines and continue to work on those and review them as we move ourselves forward with something we expect to be finalized over
034the course of this year we are beginning that project and continue to work towards standards-based grading and standards-based grading is really talking about our students where they are in terms of relation to a standard so not in relation to do they show up to class not in relation to how well do they behave or how well do they do as a traditional student but how are they doing in relation to standard what does their student learning actually look like has the potential to continue to transform teaching and learning and make sure that we are teaching our students really according to each assessment level and where their learning needs completely are and so that's something that will be a multi-year project so you'll be hearing about this this year and next year and probably also the
035year after um and then added after feedback from the board um is really continuing to work on radical hospitality and continuing to improve communication and so we were as you probably know the first district in the entire country and we've received national positive news to sign on to the forward food pledge supported by input from our students in the rps green team so we're the first district in the united states to sign on to commit to one day a week of plant-based proteins in our school lunch menu we were named a top workplace by the star tribune the only public school district to be named as such in the year of 2021 so we're very proud of that and we are also one of a very small percentage of districts hosting on-site coveted testing for
036symptomatic students and i believe that will be starting next wednesday last wednesday that started last wednesday and will continue to grow in our testing and continue to grow in those opportunities as we move ourselves forward continuing to serve the students and the families through our covert testing and obviously as i already mentioned with my overall evaluation which will happen in spring and summer there are those surveys that go out and feedback from direct reports board members and then we also have an evaluative process so i did again speed through that relatively quickly but really wanted to focus on those couple of components of the added data the data specificity and also radical hospitality which were added since the first draft so with that i'll pause and turn it back to you mr paulus thank you
037um questions comments from the board on the updated goals i'll start on the left side i can't miss malik um no questions but i uh appreciate the addition of the bringing back of the radical hospitality and i think those are great examples that's it thank you um i had two questions appreciate the changes that have been made and the overview tonight one of them was actually about radical hospitality because i appreciate that it's been integrated but i also would i think it would be helpful to potentially be a little bit more clear about what radical hospitality looks like in our current context because i think that term is not necessarily intuitive first of all when thinking about you know what what that means in a public school system but i think secondly we first talked
038about that as a district maybe three years ago three four years ago a lot has changed in our world in our community since that time and so i think trying to be a little bit more clear about what radical hospitality means and also potentially what it doesn't mean could be valuable in this and then i would say the other question and you might have an answer to this really easily already but just how you landed on the increases as it relates to student learning and student growth like what what is the sort of rationale or methodology that you think about when you determine what those goals are like how why three percent why five percent for example um three percent in graduation rate is a historical solid number to get to um and if you
039look at our pattern historically we have had fits and starts so to speak and so if we were to continue to average three percent um it would take us four more years to get to 100 and so that's that's where we went with three percent um from an assessment perspective we felt that a five percent number was more effective um that we really wanted to continue to push um and five percent is significantly outside of the norm um but we wanted to to go with a more ambitious number in that category anymore i'm good all right thank you mr tensing you know i'm good also all right thank you miss misha um i think you named my personal aversion to smart goals because it's like no but we want 100 um in these areas but
040thank you for explaining that rationale and i i appreciate the questions and i also appreciate the ambitious goal in in the um achievement growth um and a very wide scope of goals well keep in mind as the superintendent um i oversee i have a very direct hand in some but for example as we think about construction and while i oversee and monitor um mr holgi mr faulkner and the team at ics and our building lead team is on the ground doing most of the work so my job is is overseer in some and hands-on in others all right thank you mr j questions comments i i do have a comment or a question about your grading uh method i think you said that uh you're focusing more on um like the actual learning process and
041not the other aspects but like when we grow on you know become young adults i feel like that like showing up late to your job or to college or turning things in like we will get consequences for that so how would we like how would we be prepared for the world if we're getting like pampered in high school so i think one of the complexities of being a high school student is our job is not to treat you like adults but teach you or to take you along that pathway and so we want we want high achievement from our kids but we also want to support them in that process and make sure we're giving you an extra boost where you may not have that in the future and then what i would also tell
042you is is that even as an adult if you were to show up late or turn things in late at times um you actually are not going to get the heartless you're fired most likely um most likely most likely um there is you know one of the things that we do to kids is we often treat them as adults and tell them it's going to be completely different when you're an adult and i have not necessarily found it to be that way i think that effective jobs and effective colleges will find ways to support everybody in moving themselves forward so we're looking at both of those components yeah i mean really underscoring that um that the purpose is not to i mean i i hear what you're saying tyler but the purpose is not to
043sort of uh pamper kids but to focus on learning as opposed to focusing on a punitive consequence so um historically it would be common place to have a practice like papers late you get a zero right and with the the end result of that is that what the student learns is to give up and so that's that's not what we wanted you know that's obviously we're trying to you know get away from that sort of punitive consequence and into bringing the student forward so that the end so the at the end of the day the student is able to gain the learning and also gain the understanding that there's a value in getting it done on time and all that too so yep it's gotta be a both hand anything else mr j elsie yeah
044no comments thank you okay ellen um no questions at the moment but i i would like to say that i look forward to seeing the integration of the food forward pledge um and working um with the uh with the lunch staff as part of the green team all right thank you everyone um you know miss meshack did bring up that they seem like a wide range of topics within the goals but that you know for we have a lot of things going on right and and one of the things i've learned through an msba training is that you know this board we have ownership of these goals because the superintendent is the one person that we actually boss right like we are collective boss of one person and it's the superintendent so these goals have
045to be our goals and so they they have to be important to us too and so to to tyler's question about you know are we going soft well we want to educate students we want them to learn we want them to be prepared and part of that is keeping them here long enough and not having them give up because a reaction was perhaps out of um scale for what the what actually happened right so there are ways to get to to work on that and so anyway the yes these are wide ranging goals and because we have a lot going on but really at the heart of it we have students and trying to prepare them for for for you know life after us which is college career and participation in this great society we
046have so all right that's all i got are we done with this that is all i have so you are on to business i will say you mentioned food service um you know we we did get some favorable uh publicity on that which i don't you know there was a nice min post article about our um moving what was it uh something on plant-based foods and it was very exciting it was it was a nice article yes i think we were slightly surprised by the level of coverage we weren't 100 sure at the time that we were the first in the country to sign on so that was a pleasant surprise we knew that our green team had presented it to us we were happy willing and excited to join on to that pledge um
047and so it's also exciting to get support um like the support we received from our community today um and support and coverage for things that that we think are important so so while we have no commendations tonight that perhaps there's accommodation due to to michael on the team coming to mr manning and team holgie on the operations side correct all right with that we'll move then to the next item which is the consent agenda that is the bucket of items we consider relatively routine and we consent to pass them without discussion so i'll pause and see if any members of the board would like to remove an item for further discussion and if there are none we could entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda i would move approval of the consent agenda as
048presented a second we have motion by miss malik in a second by miss baracki all in favor please say aye hi hi opponent the chair votes i and the consent agenda is approved we move now to old business and first is policy 708 collection of unpaid obligations and admin guidelines 708.1 a second read yes and so as we remember we took a look at collection about unpaid obligations um got some feedback to check into what about having people volunteer or work as one of those methods that is something we could look into one of the things we would need to be aware of is they would have to go through a screening and hiring process we can't you can't ask someone to work and in exchange for money or in exchange for a debt being
049removed without having them be in some methodology on payroll um and connected to taxation um and so that is something that we can examine as we look at through our business department i'm not sure that would be on the top of our ways to support students to make sure that they could participate without consequence if they are struggling to financially participate but we have a whole list of creative ideas to look at to make sure that we can work our way through the unpaid obligations without it having negative consequences to students we have done a very small amount outside of that with this policy and so this is just back to remind us that this is here we are going to be bringing this to safe and supportive schools again meeting in november to gather
050significant feedback and input from students so this is just here to continue having this on our minds and on our agendas we look forward to a revised third read which would only come after after going in front of a number of students and families in our in our safe and supportive schools committee coming up in november all right well thank you um does anyone on the board have questions or comments that they like to share yes i just want to say how excited i am that alternative plan options are being explored um and want to specifically shout out our students because you all brought this up the first time we talked about it and i just think it's such an immediate clear example of your perspective and your impact having a really meaningful difference really
051really quickly and it just makes me excited thinking about what this could mean for students in the future so i wanted to thank you all for that um and i think the the second part i i just missed in the first read um i don't really understand what maintaining a record of unpaid obligations that part i understand but the bad credit part of it i don't really understand what that looks like for us as a district so some sort of clarification about what operationally that entails and and means we are doing i think would be helpful for me to know before we come back to this the third time you will examine that through our accounting finance team and and take a look thank you all right miss malloy questions comments no questions or comments
052miss michele no questions i'm good thank you all right mr jake elsie helen good to go all right um i have minor wording things that i'll just email uh perfect and you can reject them out of hand when i do that and that's okay um i i do appreciate you clarifying the the work option there different organizations have different constraints and as a public entity we might have different constraints than uh than other schools or other organizations might be able to pull off by waving hands correct perhaps not but right so if we were to do that it would be a work-based component that would be an employee-based component something that we could certainly examine through hr but we'll also be very much investigating alternative options and figuring out what things we can integrate that
053support how that supports students not having any consequence if they're in a financially challenged situation okay all right and that concludes old business so we'll start new business policy 706 the acceptance of gifts first read all right and so this is just a policy that is very clear around how and what do we do in regard to gifts um again this is a first read so we are just taking any brief feedback knowing that we will read it three times one very small change has been added just to change some wording to align it to current statutory or current msba model policy and so you'll see that um just the resolution must fully describe any conditions placed on the gift um replaces at the board's discretion so we are we're working our way through that
054and so you'll see this again at the next meeting so um with with that as a first read you know usually we you if you haven't already emailed all your questions or comments relative to wording or other things please feel free to do so i do want to ask real or personal property for example someone gives us a trumpet that is personal property do we have to have a resolution to accept that as opposed to a regular i'm staring at mr holt um about the financial and material obligations that are legal do we have to have a board resolution to accept a donated trumpet so um there's a reason that we take donations before the board that's action of accepting those donations is formally a board resolution okay it's not a resolution requiring a roll
055call vote um and so any of those items that are taken because obviously there may be some maintenance requirements for those receiving those and that's what this is asking to be prepared for all right i'll just do the the large group call does anyone have questions comments before we move on did anyone else look up the word devise like i did a legal term for something left to someone in a to an entity and a will well that's what it is it's not device spelled incorrectly right it's devised with an s on purpose so there we go okay again just to just to restate as a first read if you have questions comments or any kind of wording changes you'd like incorporated please share those with the superintendent all right moving forward we'll move to
056policy 601 academic standards and instructional curriculum also a first read all right this one is likely to be more interesting for our students because this has gotten significant input from safe and supportive schools and from our students academic standards and instructional curriculum involves the thing that sings that we teach how we choose to weight them how we choose to grade them and so we are looking at some changes that we've been talking about and talked about with safe and supportive schools and so you see some of those here as a reminder we have read this a couple of times we are not going to to the three read methodology um this is here for its third read essentially even though it's coming back as a new read um so it's a first third read because
057it was with us last year before the pandemic and so you'll see some of those changes in here clearly on page two being very clear in terms of some of our wording basically equity-based wording to make sure that that's clear to our entire community making sure that we are integrated from world's best workforce things like practice's instruction towards reading by third grade and balanced approach to our to our instructional methods i'm moving on to section five being clear that health education and a comprehensive sexuality curriculum is defined in policy 106 is part of our overall curriculum and the work that we do uh making sure that our curriculum and content that is in here actually matches what is being taught at each of our schools the easiest example um line f138 of page three that
058says visual and performing arts performing arts aren't offered in all of our elementary schools but music is and so making sure that we are being very clear in the things that are in there and then also education on infectious diseases which also aligns again to new state statute as we move on to page four talking about the actual courses as we redefine as a state as the state has redefined what is required and what we have as what is required and then grading as we begin to move ourselves towards standards-based grading and so beginning to refine some of that methodology and move towards a non-weighted grade based system over the course of a set of four years and so students who are currently in 10th 11th and 12th grade have participated in our current methodology
059would remain in that but as students are entering in a new grade based system they would have this other methodology implemented and so these are things that we have i've been talking about in addition to class rank and gpa and so you'll see those before you to review and again this will come back but it's going to safe and supportive schools again before we begin i'm having a conversation about implementation for our students the big changes that i would suggest you would want to be reviewing are definitely on pages four and page five but as juniors and seniors would not necessarily fully impact you these are things that would impact students in the future as we move forward and we looked at a four-year rollout rather than a one-year rollout because that was some of
060the impact and input we had from our students saying it would be odd to be an 11th grader who had assumed something and had that changed midway through your school okay well thank you for that i will start on the right i'll see if mr tensing questions or comments on our first third read i'm good actually okay super yeah miss meshack i have several excellent please share um first i think it's really important we have an opportunity here to specifically recognize indigenous peoples or history and or like wisdom and ways of knowing um in section four student performance goals uh letter b there are several uh performance goals listed i think um my preference would be to create a separate um goal that's specific to indigenous peoples but i also think we could incorporate it
061in number four communicate and relate effectively with people of all racial and cultural backgrounds and or five practice stewardship of the land natural resources in the environment i think that would be consistent with the new minnesota science standards and the social studies standards that are under construction at the moment so i don't know if there's an opportunity there to potentially get feedback from sarah and aipac or native students that's one area my other questions are a little more technical in section 2 line 17 it mentions instructional curriculum for kindergarten through grade 12. and i just wanted to double check that that was accurate or is it really more of a policy for e12 plus like right like including early childhood including adult education um or is it truly a category we will double check and
062see if it's e12 or k12 ms kwam is taking notes of the things for us to follow up on and examine thank you um in section four e4 um there's a reference to social units that i think is probably a sociology term but it just sounded awfully clinical so i wanted to suggest we modify it to community okay and he's aligned to the email you sent me correct correct perfect so we do have this also documented in notes wonderful um and then uh section 5c i don't know i wanted to see that it's mentioned that in curriculum design we identify a mission and i was curious if that mission is inclusive of sort of the purpose of the learning the real world application learning transfer agency um the kind of so what of why you're
063learning what you're learning or if that might be an additional piece to add there um and then finally i just um i personally philosophically disagree with the concept of weighted grades but i understand the challenges with that shift and i really appreciate that we got feedback from our students on that so i'm pleased with the phase-out plan i think that's a thoughtful approach thank you thank you lots of things to integrate and work on for next draft for draft two four draft correct right two three two three yeah we don't that's hard to keep track [Music] miss baracky um the z is silent an inside joke uh so just want to make sure i'm understanding correctly that the a plus adjustment kicks in now but the waiting and class rank is what's going to wait
064until the class of 2025 correct um i will have to double check as we run it through safe and supportive schools as as we communicate and double check review okay that's how i read this so i wanted or maybe not maybe that is part of the waiting process i think that should be clear when that part goes into effect or basically we'll create clarity and when the grading change also occurs yep um and then i also just echo excitement about the shift i too had an initial reaction of wow four years is a long time um for this to work its way through our system and i also understand the rationale appreciate the different individual students in particular who have given input about why that might be the responsible course of action i think my
065last request is as we do get ready to bring this um to final it would be helpful i think to also articulate the changes that are being made and why through the lens of our equity policy if there are ways in which that in particular is connected to some of these changes i think it would help to potentially make that explicit sounds good we will do that miss mallet no questions but i also really appreciate the upcoming shift in grade point averaging and getting rid of class rank and things like that i think that will go a long for ways students and when you look at how colleges look at students when they're accepting now they're they they don't really look at gpa anymore you know they look at things like what types of classes
066you're taking and if you're if you're taking advanced classes and getting b's or you're taking no advanced classes and getting a's they know they recognize that and they know that there's that that difference is there and i think they will always reward the students that push themselves and take the harder classes even if they don't get as high of a grade they recognize the difference and see that as you know someone that's trying to work harder and learn more and get further so i think that those are all really good changes and four years seems like a it is a long time but it seems like the fair way to go so and as a reminder this is implemented now for ninth graders and so for students entering the school um as ninth grade it
067began it would begin with the passage of this policy and what it wouldn't do is change the methodology for tyler lc or helen for example and so if they had chosen to take one additional advanced class to get an extra 0.2 this wouldn't be penalizing them historically for that decision yeah all right helen questions comments um i'd like to share that as a student who has transferred from a school with a different um weight grading and gpa and all that system and i felt the frustrations of transferring to bridgefield where there is um you know kind of a large drastic at my previous school there was not an available class rank and um there was a different there was no a plus and a class were just weighted differently um it was kind of a
068drastic jump coming to richfield and having all these new changes and almost feeling frustration with um you know i always feel like i've always taken as difficult or as challenging as classes i could for myself but then having this new system where my let's say my class rank didn't exactly represent that in my mind um so i look forward to uh having this available for incoming students thank you for sharing that that's uh i mean one of the highlights i noticed within this is actually we used to have that problem from rms to the high school so even within our own system we had a problem and and let alone for how it impacted those who join us from somewhere else so thank you for sharing that elsie questions or comments is it oh yes
069okay so like i really think this is a good thing to implement because i kind of due to like i always look at my class rank i'm like is it good enough and then i start thinking about about oh should i take harder classes so i can improve that i just and i think oh like okay it's not good enough for right now so i think i need to improve it and then the more i like think about it i'm more harsh for myself and i get more stressed about it and i'm like okay so i have to start doing things more and then i then i just end up really stressed about it and thinking about it so i think this is really good to implement on the class of 2025 the end the
070one the students are going to enter i think it's really good for basically thinking not thinking about basically how they think how if it's actually like representing them as a student and and yeah thank you though thanks elsie mr j questions or comments i just like to sum up what they both said i think it releases a barrier and you can just learn freely instead of comparing yourself to other students thank you yeah no i i thank you for your comments um i you know there's a lot of things within this that that that i recognize as clean up or things that have been uh grievances of mine for for a number of years and then covet hit and we sort of had to pay attention to other things so i just really appreciate um
071how we're moving forward with with some of these items um i you know just one thing i think we do need to clarify is we mentioned the um the intervention for students both significantly below grade level uh on reading and third grade and so you know how sharp we are on that is really important right what what is what is the gap we tolerate and what is the gap we don't and i think we need to be very mindful of making sure that that's um that that number that we arrive at at the action level is important and and some you could argue anyone who's below is that is uh significant right uh the other thing is is just format wise i don't like seeing us restate the graduation requirements um as they appear in
072some other place they they appear in their own yes their own policy for example for example we we you know we we reference policy 106 but sexual health curriculum but we don't restate it within here and so anytime you have things appearing multiple times you have version control problems and so anyway that's that's a small thing and that's all i have so thank you a final call questions comments on on a pretty important topic all right well i think now we're going to move to the the mr holgi portion of the the agenda welcome thank you we have a series of change orders we have a resolution we have a reserve teacher pay scale just very good chock full we'll move through as we can so um very good first of all we have uh
073as uh chair paul said three change orders um for your approval the first is at sheridan hills project change order number 27. this adds um three hundred sixty six dollars to that project for under um primarily um related mechanical and electrical work as well as some paved eagers pass coming out of the cafeteria to the sidewalk that project is now at ten million forty nine thousand one hundred and twelve dollars at the central education center we have change order number nine for a net increase of twelve thousand eight hundred and thirteen dollars and twenty six cents um primarily this has to do with revisions to one of the toilet rooms at that building associated with some plumbing as well as some extensive additional plaster patching across the building as a result of demolition that project
074is now at 4 million 439 492 and 42 cents and our final change order is at richfield middle school for change order number 25 for a net increase of 15 034 dollars and 65 cents um this also is related to some patching repair and painting of plaster walls that were removed and also the removal of an existing walk-off mat for replacement in that area to create a seamless transition that project is now at seventeen million six hundred twenty two thousand eight dollars and fifty three cents uh again we um with project oversight and in partnership with ics continue to monitor the budget and um are working to make sure that we have funds for all of our remaining work that needs to be done across the district all right well thank you mr holci i'll
075um before we just for to discuss the voting as we usually do we can talk about them all in bulk but we will vote on them one at a time does anyone have any questions or comments about any of these change orders they'd like to share just looking around ms malik this is all all within what you're you've seen on the project oversight committee yes yes we met on thursday this is all all in line excellent well with that we'll entertain a motion the first item is the sheraton hills change order number 27. i'll move approval of sheridan hill's change order number 27 as presented second we have a motion by miss malik in a second by mr ten singh any final discussion all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed chair of otay
076and sheridan hill's change order number 27 is approved next item is central change order number nine i will move the central change order number nine as presented i will second we have motion by ms meshech and a second by ms bracky any final discussion all right all in favor please say aye aye opposed nay the chair votes out and central change order number nine is approved rms change order number 25. i will move rms change order number 25 as presented well second we have a motion by miss baracki in a second by miss mal like any final discussion all right all in favor please say aye aye opposed say nay chair votes i and change order number 25 is approved all right we're through the change orders and now we are up to a resolution
077ratifying the sale of general obligation alternative facilities refunding bonds very good thank you very much and there are a lot of pages in this part of the agenda so that probably is covers the rest of the packet um but we have matthew hammer here from ellers and associates um he partnered with shelby mcquay who you met at a previous board meeting on the planning development and re um issue associated with this refunding um good news is we saved more money than what we had originally planned um so matthew will kind of go through that in the issue and some of the details and then answer any questions about the resolution that you're asked to be being asked to approve tonight yeah thank you craig um my name is matthew hammer and as craig said i'm
078part of the financial or the advisory team for ridgefield public schools and shelby mcquaid and myself worked closely with the district and we did take bids on the district's outstanding 2013 a bonds which had two or three outstanding maturities for fiscal 23 through 25 and we were up against that call date so it was the time to issue a current refunding like we had talked last month and we have outstanding results we took bids [Music] last thursday morning and ended up with five bidders with uh bok financial securities being your low bidder with a 0.39 percent interest rate so um 0.39 we ended we were anticipating um last month of 0.66 so we came in quite quite a bit better than that which is going to allow us to save some additional money and we're
079looking at about 87 000 of future value savings for the remaining maturities so we have really good news to share there there is like craig said there is a uh a full report um that you can uh take home and read or if you've already read through it um but that's kind of the overview um and i can answer any questions folks have in regards to to the refunding there is a rating report that's part of that the district did receive another rating as part of that overall plan and you will notice in there that your your rating was moved the district's rating was moved from stable to a positive outlook um and what that means is um s p did not feel at this point in time that had enough information to go on
080to to move officially move it or upgrade that rating but they will be coming back likely in the next couple years and revisiting the district's rating as you guys move forward so i think that's good news on the work that the district administration has been doing um to kind of move you guys in the right direction um and as we look into the future your next callable bond issue is out all the way out in though the district as as you move forward that'll be important to the process so with that i can answer any questions folks have all right so just in just to clarify layman's terms we we're refinancing a debt and we got a lower rate than expected and but we're keeping the same it will pay it off on the same
081schedule just with lower interest rate right yep it'll be paid off uh the last payment will be fiscal year 25 right so there's our savings the lower interest rate thank you does anyone else have questions or comments good news thank you all right thank you i just want to thank you for your work and um i would be grateful even if you didn't have such good news for us but i also appreciate the great yeah one and thank you for the opportunity it's not insignificant amount of work that craig and his team have to do to get this thing to market um so we we appreciate the opportunity and appreciate all the work that that the district staff has done to to get us to this point so outstanding news anyone else questions or comments
082all right well this is a resolution so um we'll entertain a motion in a second on it and then we'll pull the board if we get both of those that would move approval of the resolution as presented we have motion by miss malik and the second by miss bracky any final questions or comments all right i will pull the board miss brocky hi miss malek aye ms smith aye mr tensing aye and the chair votes aye and the resolution is priv thank you thank you all right with that we will move to the policy 455 the reserve teacher pay scale so this is one that we thought would be a first read a while ago and only read a while ago oh it's back now for a second read so um we continue to struggle
083with uh substitute fill rates and things like that it's something that we're seeing across the district we've continued to monitor substitute rates among the marketplace and are feeling the need to make some adjustments on this um we did also as part of this change in the pay scale take some feedback from the board as far as looking at individuals who are assigned those premier reserve teacher positions where they are working on a schedule and what do we do if they're not working that full year so in this policy we are seeking to increase our regular reserve teacher pay rates from 145 and 155 to 150 and 160. uh our friday incentive pay were increasing another five dollars as well um a day from 165 to 170 and 175 to 180 and then the largest change
084in here includes a renaming of those scheduled building substitutes to a reserve premier reserve teachers with an annual schedule um and also we've eliminated the need to have 140 days minimum primarily because we're getting to a point where we may not have 140 days left in the school year and then we're not able to fill those positions but would still building be building them on to a calendar for the remaining year so scheduling that as needed whether it's on priority days and such um we're also increasing that rate from 175 to 205 dollars a day and then adding a 20 per assigned day end of your incentive payment for successful completion of the full scheduled annual calendar so in essence that rate for those premier teachers ends up being 225 a day they similarly continue
085to have access to the district medical benefits at their expense and then those three days for paid time off for medical or other reasons why they may not need to be able to attend every day in those scheduled calendars so with that we're seeking your approval and are hoping to do some additional recruitment and draw in some additional substitute teachers and if anybody wants to do the work or know somebody have them call them and if they happen to drive a bus even better that's another one did i just hear a board resolution about miss bracky willing to come and be a substitute in our future this cole's not here we can't do it ah well that gives us we have a little bit of time for him before i twist her arm over the
086next couple of weeks questions or comments from the board on this is at the policy 455 this is one that's been we're writing in pencil and updating as the market dictates so we're looking to pass this today i do have a question and it may be a very naive one and so i apologize because it's coming from a place of ignorance um do we think that five dollars a day of an increase is going to make a meaningful difference in our ability to find people so honestly our biggest focus is on those premier reserve teachers um just because especially at this year during the time of covet it's much better to have individuals who are already working within the buildings and have some continuity there versus going from one place to another so we're anticipating
087most of our effort will be on recruiting those individuals we did increase those other rates ten dollars previously but um that scheduled calendar is what we're really working towards in this sort of situation with eliminating 140 days we can focus on our higher priority days where we may end up with people working you know mondays and fridays and one other day three days a week so we still can get some variability but have some continuity of the experiences that kids are having within those classrooms when substitutes are there versus their regularly assigned teacher also related to that it strikes me as clear that we're focusing on the premier reserve teachers which is which is great but um what and we've with striking 140 days what constitutes enough for someone to be is it three days
088a week if someone can commit to being in the building three days a week well we'll be working as a just as hr this gives us the flexibility to work on that obviously you know the more we can get them the more we can work through them um we know our fridays and mondays our fridays especially tend to be higher absence days and so those are going to be primary focus if we know that staff are going to be there if we know that they're coming in that'll be some continuity that way as well so um we haven't set that um we'll be able this will give us more flexibility as we work with individuals who may be interested in working three days a week versus five days a week if we have needs for
089those days that they're available for the benefit of those for our legion of viewers right now on the live stream what are the requirements to become a substitute teacher so um the primary is a teacher license but at this point we have um short call subs all day requires a bachelor's degree and then we can work with them to get the short call sub license where they can sub up to 15 days in any classroom so it's not for a longer term assignment but they would also qualify for that reserve premier t premier reserve teacher position because they could be assigned and as long as they're not in the same classroom for more than 15 days they would be eligible for that thank you so a bachelor's degree good experience working with kids and all
090those other qualities all those other qualities right okay excellent um final call for questions and comments for mr holgie all right well then with that we could entertain a motion on policy 455. i will move approval of policy 455 reserve teacher pay scale i'll second we have a motion by miss malik in a second by ms meshach any final discussion all in favor please say aye aye aye opposed chair votes i and we have approved policy 455 reserve teacher pay scale the next item is donations all right and so we do have a couple of donations tonight and so recommended that the board accept the following of gratitude richfield high school science department received a donation of a tree valued at 135 and 20 cents from bachmann's on lindale so thank you to bachmann's on
091lindale and the rps general fund receive donations of 25 from michelle burnside of richfield and 10 from lisa ferrara of freehold new jersey so thank you to longtime donors michelle burnside and lisa ferrara thanks all thank you um i guess if anyone's willing to move the item to accept the donations with gratitude i will move that we accept the donations with sincere gratitude i final discussion all in favor please say aye aye aye aye opposed saying chair votes out and we've accepted the donations with sincere gratitude okay advanced planning is next up on the agenda first up is the legislative update i'll pause there look at mr tensing he's got nothing to report all right at this stage those those who who have their finger on the pulse of the of the legislature we're kind
092of in a quiet period right apparently okay super with that we'll move then to anyone on the board info and questions and we'll start with mr tensing we'll keep you keep you rolling um again i don't think i have anything that i haven't already mentioned previous meetings excellent i do not have anything nothing for me either uh two short things one um just wanted to let everybody know that the intermediate district 287 superintendent profile is being released this week and so we'll make sure that you get to see that probably in the friday email that goes out to board members and i just wanted to especially take a moment to appreciate uh rps staff and also members of the board who participated in the survey that helped create the profile i really appreciate the participation
093that we had as a district in that process and then the the last thing is i just wanted to say happy mea i feel like it's been a long kind of hard fall already and our staff and our students deserve and are really ready for a little bit of a break this week that goes to everybody at this table in the crowd and everybody who's never going to hear me say that but really deserves a couple days off so i hope that you all really enjoy it and get some good rest and rejuvenation and yeah i hope people have the opportunity to really unplug so it's nice to have opportunities like that mr jay if you have questions or comments you'd like to share that things that haven't come up so again a quick like
094a quick question do high schools offer scholarship like this one specific do we offer our own type of scholarships does the school itself offer scholarships i don't believe we do as a school not directly no but the spartan foundation has a wide range of scholarships for students and then our our counseling department um connects students to scholarships and then i believe there's also a school board representative scholarship that our our school board representatives are will be invited to apply once i get the information mr hulsey yeah i was i was going to say there's a series of scholarships that are coordinated by the counseling department at the high school some of those the district is the fiscal host for but the selection process and it's based on donations that are set up for these endowments
095or these specific scholarship funds and the counseling department should be able to to answer that and give you at least the the list i have in my mind if not more elsie questions comments you'd like to share okay helen all right well i have nothing so we're on to future meeting dates on monday november 8th that is the second monday just for clarification the second monday of november and we've we've bumped it because we want to be able to canvas or take the results of the election which was november 2nd correct that is correct so what he is saying is is that by the time we meet again there will be two newly elected or three newly elected board members because there will be an election before we come together again and those uh newly
096elected folk uh will be placed onto the board in january excellent and that that's great so also on on november 8th at 6 p.m we have a board study session right here in the boardroom to talk about board goals and so tying into one you know there's two types of board goals i think that makes sense there's the kinds we have for how we work as a group together and then there are the kinds we have that are sort of vision and direction for the district and so um it's not mine to pick which category we'll spend the most time on but we i hope we're talking you know if you have ideas please share them with me so that'll be six o'clock here and then seven o'clock we'll have our regular board meeting on
097the eighth then november 22nd regular board meeting that is of course now the fourth monday of november and we will have an opportunity for public comment um anyone who's have suggested their future agenda items that they've not previously brought up i'll just survey the room please feel free to speak if you have them all right well with that we we've come to the end and so at this time it is 8 21 pm and we will adjourn this meeting thank you have a good night oh you