001[Music] thank you [Music] hello good evening and Welcome to our Monday September 11th regular school board meeting for district 196. at this time please rise and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance after the pledge please remain standing for a brief moment of silence I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice at this time I'd like us to share a moment of silence for Linda Deering a secretary at district office East and Apple Valley High School student Nick banyas who passed away recently we also want to acknowledge Patriots Day and the thousands of people who lost their lives in the attacks on the United States on September 11 2001. thank you okay school board
002at this time there are no additions or deletions to the agenda that was published today are is there a motion to approve the agenda as outlined question to approve exactly motion by Bianca and a second by Art all those in favor of approval of the agenda please say aye aye aye motion carries on a 6-0 vote we have no recognition by the school board tonight so I will turn it over to the superintendent um for student and staff recognition awesome thank you I want to start by recognizing our outstanding district 196 employees for getting us off to a great start to the 23-24 school year our students are excited to be back at school building relationships with friends and teachers that provide the foundation for a successful year we will hear details about the back
003to school in just a few minutes in a report from some of our cabinet directors and congratulations to Rosemont High School senior Mia Nelson I'm being selected as semi-finalist at the National High School Musical Theater Awards in New York City this summer The Jimmy Awards as they are known are presented by the Broadway League Foundation to celebrate standing student achievement in Theater Arts Mia was one of 96 students Nationwide selected to participate in the program in one of only 20 to receive an award or scholarship Mia was nominated for the award last spring when she in another district 196 student senior Gabriella acasacano of Eastview High School were selected winners of Hennepin theater trust Spotlight education Awards congratulations to the Eagan High School concert choir and director James Cox on being selected to perform at
004the American choral Directors Association of Minnesota fall conference in November congratulations and thank you to all district 196 employees on helping create a work environment and culture that resulted in district 196 once again being named to Forbes list of America's best in-state employers district 196 is ranked 53rd of the 60 businesses that made the list for Minnesota in 2023 and is only one of only two public school districts on the list we have been on this list all five times since it debuted in 2019 consistently receiving this recognition that district 196 is an employer of choice for people looking to make a difference in public education in addition to be a district of choice for families who move here for the quality of Education provided and for the last item in my report I would
005like to invite director of Elementary education Jeremy Sorensen director of special education Janet femin and director of teaching and learning Steve trone to the podium to introduce our new Deerwood Elementary School principal our new coordinator of special education and our new coordinator of research assessment and Analysis good right all right good evening superintendent Krieger chair Johnson and board members my name is Jeremy Sorensen I'm the director of Elementary education I'm excited to have the opportunity to introduce Tira rash as principal of Deerwood Elementary prior to accepting the Deerwood principal position Tira was the assistant administrator at Highland Elementary School in Apple Valley for the last four years before joining our district Tira worked for South Washington County Schools as an elementary special education teacher an administrative intern and a special education coordinator Kira comes to
006us with great experiences please welcome Tira rash principal of Deerwood Elementary thank you for that introduction um good evening to Lieutenant Krieger and school board I feel so honored and privileged to be named the next principal at Deerwood it's been an amazing start I've had such a warm welcome and I'm really excited for this great school year I truly believe that great learning happens with significant relationships and just the work that it already is being done at Deerwood with conscious discipline and the ways they make connections in school family is inspiring and encouraging and I'm just excited to continue that forward with them so thank you good evening chairperson Johnson superintendent Krieger and members of the board I'm Janet femin here tonight to introduce Amanda Schultz who is new to the position of a special
007education coordinator she will be supporting several elementary schools as well as other itinerant service providers and of course other duties as assigned in every position we have we are thrilled to have Amanda join our leadership team Amanda has over 25 years of experience in education 19 of those years have been in our district Amanda has been in a variety of roles from a classroom teacher to most recently supporting teachers in literacy Amanda said it best I am passionate about supporting students and staff to reach their greatest potential within special education I look forward to building collaborative Partnerships with staff parents and students to advocate for high quality practices and Inspire lifelong Learners we are lucky to have Amanda as a fierce advocate of our district Community welcome Amanda thank you for that introduction Janet I
008just want to thank the members of the board superintendent Krieger and Janet feminine my colleagues who have supported me in my educational journey I believe in this work I'm passionate about special education both as an educator in the district and a parent in the district and I'm very excited to lead forward as a special education coordinator thank you it's great to be here to see me introduce great people for great opportunities positions in our district so good evening members of the board and chairperson Johnson superintendent Krieger I'm pleased to be here this evening to introduce nandy Rick as the district's first coordinator of research assessment and analytics we recently restructured expanded and renamed the former assessment office to better align with the needs of the district to use data to inform our practices and programming
009and to guide decision making this coincides with our adoption of unified insights a district-wide software platform that will enable staff to access relevant data all in one place and create customized dashboards and reports nandy will be instrumental in providing leadership for the Department our District's use of data and the implementation of the unified insights platform nandy began her educational career as a school psychologist and has held key leadership roles in district 196 over the past 20 years she has served as a special education coordinator and most recently as the federal and state programs coordinator in the teacher learning Department in which she coordinated multiple Federal programs managed the district's covid relief funds provided leadership to the district's Career Development programming and spearheaded a number of data-driven projects very pleased to introduce nandy and her new
010role as coordinator of research assessment and Analytics thank you Steve and thank you school board and Mary Krieger superintendent Krieger I am just so thankful to be have given this opportunity to work in this new role after 20 years in the district in in valuing the work that I've really done and enjoyed so thankful the opportunity to support our special education students for years in our current tech ed programs and Grant Management and now a new opportunity after 20 years in the district to have all the changes that I've been able to to take advantage of and use the skills that I have I'm excited to do that in another new Venture in this District excellent at the end of your comments I think so all right next on the agenda is our consent agenda
011we have 22 items on our consent agenda tonight they include the minutes of the August 7th 2023 special school board meeting the minutes of the August 7 2023 regular school board meeting the minutes of August 22nd 2023 special school board meeting gifts advertising Revenue schedules of Investments for June 2023 schedule Investments for July 2023 summary of claims for July 20 20 23 Permanent Fund transfer for fiscal year 2023 Personnel stipend for coordinator of research assessment and Analytics pay rates for substitute temporary and part-time employees payments for substitute temporary and part-time Community Education employees appointments to the Community Education advisory Council appointments to the curriculum and instruction advisory Council employment agreements employment agreements probationary 2023-24 Strategic Staffing Solutions agreement tuition agreement between intermediate District 917 the intermittent school district 196 for Dakota County area learning schools
012policy 401 employment policy 503 student rights and response responsibilities and resolution relating to the counting of write-in votes are there any items on the consent agenda that a board member would like to remove tonight seeing none is there a motion to approve still moved second motion by Sachin second by Bianca always in favor of approving the consent say aye aye aye motion carries on a 6-0 vote next uh on our agenda is reports and I'd like to welcome our director of secondary education Michael bolsoni to deliver art back to school report all right good evening chairperson Johnson superintendent Krieger members of the board as mentioned I'm Michael balsoni the director of secondary education it's a pleasure to be here tonight last month our Administration presented on our summer programs and tonight we're here to provide
013an update on our recent return to school as the third largest school district in the state of Minnesota we welcomed approximately 29 000 students ranging from pre-k through transition back to school our official enrollment numbers will be determined and shared after October 1st but we do get a quick look just by the students who show up on that first day our theme for this year is educate develop Inspire and it's based on our new mission statement educating developing and inspiring students for lifelong success connected to that our our strategic roadmap that includes our vision our core values and strategic priorities that shape and Define our work let's review our strategic priorities for the 23-24 school year the well-being of our students and staff improving student achievement and outcomes supporting Equity as a core concept and
014ensuring that we have the resources to support a safe and dynamic learning environment we absolutely love our staff and our employees are the key to our success and we hosted several events to welcome back different employee groups this fall approximately 200 new teachers attended an event hosted at Apple Valley High School that included opportunities for teachers to learn about the district and connect with each other we've also added additional support this year for our new teachers to thrive and grow throughout the year there's a lot of excitement around the beginning of a school year I always felt that as a principal and as a teacher this photo here shows the Rosemont High School senior class gathered together at sunrise for the first day of school to celebrate and kick off their last year of high
015school as a district we feel ready we're well staffed and excited to get going again we were recognized by Forbes as one of the best employers of the state which is something that we're very proud of we will hear from several directors on ways that we were prepared for us that we prepared for a successful year with our students in the areas of Safety and Security equity and inclusion special education and Elementary and secondary education tonight so first up is Safety and Security good evening I'm Kia Bruce director of Community Education the safety of our students staff and families is a primary importance and as part of the district's strategic priorities in the resources that provide Staffing facilities technology and equipment needed to support a safe sustainable and dynamic learning environment for all students secure
016building entrances were constructed and cameras were installed as a result of the 2015 Bond referendum with voter approval of the bond referendum earlier this year we are able to replace aging security systems and provide additional security and safety resources such as two-way radios and outdoor cameras and Lighting we also continue to work with our local law enforcement to ensure the safety of students and staff tonight I am sharing with you new procedural changes that is one component of our greater Safety and Security efforts being implemented this year this summer district and School staff implemented standard response protocol actions to ensure everyone is using the same language and responses to the different situations that may occur at schools during the school day this standard response protocol was developed and is provided free of charge by the
017I love you guys foundation and is used in school districts Across the Nation representatives from local police departments attended training with District staff last school year and continue to assist with the implementation of the SRP actions and language this year the five SRP actions are hold secure lockdown shelter and evacuate hold is used when hallways need to be kept clear possibly for a medical emergency or other situation the announcement over the school speaker is to hold hold in your rumor area clear the Halls secure is used to keep people safe inside the building from a possible threat outside the directive is secure get inside lock outside doors in both the hold and secure actions teachers and students continue classes as usual inside the building but are not allowed to go outside until the action is
018ended by an announcement from an Administration lockdown is used to secure individual rooms and keep people in place quiet and hidden from a possible threat inside the building the announcement States lockdown locks Lights Out of Sight teachers and students move out of the line of sight inside rooms and wait silently to listen for additional directions or cues on how they should respond evacuate is used to move occupants into a different part of the building or out of the building if there was a fire for example the evacuate directive may be followed by a location as part of the announcement shelter last one is used as an external Hazard or threat like a tornado or flooding the announcement is to shelter and then State the hazard using a safety strategy students and staff would move to
019a predetermined area of the building signs showing the five SRP actions are posted in schools throughout the district students will practice their responses to the actions by participating in drills during the school year in years past district schools had similar responses to situations but the language used for the announcements was different across schools and there were different names for lockdowns that all meant essentially the same thing in terms of the response implementing the standard response protocol gives us consistent simple and clear communication with a shared understanding in an emergency situation across the district the safety of students and staff is our top priority every day another component of safety is that every member of our community feels welcome safe and that they belong my name is Virgil Jones director of equity and inclusion as our
020district leaders are committed in partnership with faculty and staff to continue work connected to diversity Equity inclusion and belonging we believe that one focus of our work is to increase the knowledge awareness and skills of our employee employees to ensure that we are providing an environment that is welcoming safe for all members of our community this aligns with strategic Direction priority number three which is focused on Equity as a core competency our critical approach to teaching and learning that is connected to diversity equity and inclusion and belonging Works to create authentic relationships with each other including our families and our students Louise German Sparks wrote our work involves actively challenging Prejudice and injustices Educators engage in critical thinking and problem solving supporting children and developing a fuller understanding of themselves and their place in the
021world we continue to provide professional development to our staff to support them as the our district grows both culturally and linguistically last year two thousand employees across the district engaged in diversity Equity inclusion and belonging professional development this year we are on Pace to increase that number of Staff engage some professional development to 3 000 employees including all of our new teachers who started in the first week that teachers were back on site it is inspiring to see some of our former students like a student of mine whose name is Anthony who are giving back to our district Anthony was one of my first students here in District 196. and currently Works in our district I'm proud to report that he is on he's three courses away from completing his special education license and intends
022to seek a position in our district I believe he's interested in district 196 because of the support the sense of belonging that he and others have felt in our district the photos that you see before you include and capture not only the Recruitment and Retention efforts in our district but it also highlights the awareness that is happening to ensure a culture of belonging across our district I am Janet fumin director of special education with a few update updates as you've heard there has been contagious energy um sorry slides are distracting me energy over the first few weeks as we welcome both students and staff back to the 22 324 school year starting off the school year special education serves roughly 20 percent of our student population in the district special education services are defined as
023specifically designed instruction at no cost to the parent designed to meet the unique needs of a child who has met eligibility for special education services these Services range from students who need minimal support in the general education classroom to those who need a more specialized environment the special education department welcomed back roughly 550 licensed staff at our second annual Welcome Back event I wanted to bottle up the energy and enthusiasm from this event to use later in the year over those long dark winter months staff were able to connect with one another while exploring resources that will provide staff the tools so they are best equipped to meet the complex needs of our students we also had the opportunity to hear from an inspirational speaker who continued to build on the energy and reinforce the
024importance of connection with each other and most importantly with our students our goal always is to provide opportunities for students to experience a sense of belonging you will see examples of this pictured notably we have Ada and Anthony pictured on the right who because they had support of Educators paraprofessionals and families were able to experience this sense of belonging over the summer Ada traveled to Japan to to Japan this summer with the East View High School Japanese club with her peers and had a wonderful experience Anthony traveled to Indiana to participate in a best buddies conference both Ada and Anthony volunteered at our Welcome Back event and joined joined the speaker on stage for a small portion of the presentation the best tool to motivate staff is hearing directly from our why our students now
025I'll hand it over to Elementary thank you good evening again my name is Jeremy Sorensen I am the director of Elementary education in elementary we are aligning our actions with our district strategic priorities and specifically to the idea of continuous Improvement the main areas of focus involve increasing capacities and experiences in social emotional well-being and strengthening and aligning curriculum and instructional practices to improve student outcomes focus on social emotional well-being we are using Second Step as a social emotional skills learning curriculum and every Elementary classroom across the district it'll be a common experience for every Elementary student in our district to receive instruction directly related to building social emotional skills and supporting student well-being there also be a significant focus on literacy this year partly because of new legislation called the read act I'd like
026to spend more time discussing that reading to ensure academic development or the read Act is new legislation impacting districts across the state this year some of the main components of the read act includes implementing state-approved professional development for all literacy teachers and implementing State approved literacy curriculum and supports we will be engaging with and learning more about this legislative legislation throughout the year and plan to have an ambitious approach to following their professional development guidelines and curriculum recommendations not just because of the legislation but also because our student data is telling us we need to make a shift in how we teach literacy Benchmark phonics and word study as a curriculum we currently have the literacy curriculum focusing on teaching phonics decoding and building fluency much like second step that we talked about earlier we
027are focusing on prioritizing and implementing this curriculum across our elementary schools every Elementary student will receive Benchmark phonics word study as part of their daily daily core instruction lastly highlighted in the fall 2023 Spotlight there's an article calling this year a year of transition for literacy in our district we are transitioning from a balanced literacy approach to a structured literacy approach in the way that we provide literacy instruction this transition is a combination of a need to improve our student outcomes and state legislation the read Act the first step of this transition has already been put in place this fall we are implementing a new state approved screener called Fast bridge for the first time the screener will give us good information about both how our students are performing and how our instruction is impacting
028outcomes related to literacy in order to make this happen over 1100 teachers participated in professional learning this summer it's important to point out that fast Bridge facilitates professional development across the country and they made it a priority to priority to express to us how engaged and positive our teachers were during these learning experiences providing a great example of how amazing our teaching staff in ISD 196 is I'm going to hand it over to secondary thank you Jeremy our secondary schools are off to a strong start after a week of professional learning and preparation for staff we welcomed over fifteen thousand secondary students back to school with the goal of providing a safe welcoming and student-centered environment for all at the middle level we are implementing second step into our advisory programs to provide emotional and
029social learning opportunities for each student we we also have implemented an off and Away cell phone policy at all six of our middle schools to support relationship building and to minimize distractions our high schools had strong attendance at their back to school events and are already hosting many different athletic competitions including football games drawing thousands of spectators our schools continue to be focused on providing a variety of opportunities and academics arts and Athletics we've highlighted a few things tonight that we have in place for a great year and we're excited to celebrate the start of another school year of educating developing and inspiring our students for lifelong success at this time we can take any questions you might have thank you so much at this time are there any questions or comments from the audience
030for any of our presenters seeing none questions or comments from board members let's just have a quick comment well thank you again for sharing it's really incredible to see things are back in full swing and so is the rest of the staff and everybody else so it's great to see things going in sync but I think what stands out to me always in this is just the individual passion that each one of you brings to your work and I think that sorts makes a difference it's not just a job it is purpose and that's clear and I'm just so grateful to have each of you in your role and just want to thank you from the bottom of my heart from the work you do thank you Jackie nicely said such and they do bring
031nice passion and it gets it gets us all excited there has been Janet since she wanted to take all that energy and bottle it up and it has just been amazing to go to the new teacher new teachers coming into our district and learning and I was amazed on how many of our new teachers were students here in 196 or our teachers that are coming here from someplace else because they want to be here so that was amazing the football games if if you haven't gone to Friday Night Lights somewhere go because the football games have been amazing kids are all excited yes Friday night it was neon out and they were all dressed in neon colors and they call that Apple Valley and Rosemont and it was really fun at first I thought why
032are these why are these middle school kids wearing safety vests well it was a good neon color but how fun congratulations to everybody what a great start thanks in this Friday night we're hosting games at both Eagan and Eastview both home games on Friday night I think when I went it was Hawaiian night and I was wondering why is everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts that I miss well because it's frozen [Laughter] any other questions or comments from board members thank you so much it was an uh amazing back to school report I know I've got two kids who are very happy to be in classes right now I mean not really but their parents are and they're have up to a wonderful start so um thank you so much for being here great job thank you
033uh now we are moving on to Old business on our agenda I'd like to welcome our general counsel Jill Coyle for the second reading of administrative regulation 507.2 AR student fees and fines good evening chairperson Johnson members of the board and superintendent Krieger so regulation 507.2ar describes the school district's student fees and fines it's one of the few regulations that require school board approval tonight the regulation is before you as old business in August I was before you describing three specific changes to the regulation as a reminder those three specific changes include number one increasing the driver's education behind the wheel fee from 302 to 325 dollars two increasing the graduation fee from forty dollars to fifty dollars and three eliminating the fee for electronic device for the electronic device protection plan for students who
034qualify for educational benefits and also changing the fee assessed for repeated incidents of damage to the device uh because this is old business tonight I ask for your approval thank you this is an action item tonight so before we move into discussion is there a motion second motion to approve by Jackie and seconded by Sachin are there any questions or comments from the audience seeing none questions or comments from board members I do Bianca expect an answer all right tonight if you can get get it to me later and I just thought of it here or I would have sent it sooner but the electronic device protection plan how often do you have any data on is that more impactful in the K3 you know multiple because you you add it says for multiple incidents
035writer repeat I think you mentioned where do those happen most and I don't know if you track that or not but if you could get back to me that's such an interesting question I don't know the answer but I I suspect our technology department might so yeah I'll research that and get back to you I can just say as a parent with uh two middle schoolers in an elementary my youngest is the one that has a tendency to have that happen to more frequently and I'm curious you know is it uh are we adding an undue burden on those Early Learning years because kids are taking them home at a younger age that's why so yeah I appreciate the question and and certainly we'll get back to you with some information if we've tracked it
036in that way great thanks interesting any other questions or comments from board members an end of one and a parent who did not opt-in we have learned the expensive lesson too often uh so in my family it has happened at the elementary levels of what it's worth is one data point right here expensive one nonetheless good feedback don't miss the opt-in you have opted to know other questions or comments from board members seeing none we have a motion to approve from Jackie seconded by such and all those in favor of approval please say aye aye motion carries on a 6-0 vote thank you Jill thank you yep we have no new business or other action items tonight which brings us to our school board member updates are there any school board members with items they'd
037like to share seeing Nano turn it over to superintendent Krieger okay okay I just have a couple I would like to encourage all parents and Guardians to update their family information on record with the district by completing the online review through their Infinite Campus Parent Portal account say that quickly this is the one time each year we ask parents to complete the review it is important for schools to have current information in order to notify parents and Guardians in case of emergency changes in the school schedule and other important information all parents and Guardians are encouraged to have their own Parent Portal account to start an account parents should contact their child's school to request an activation key and lastly I want to encourage all voters in district 196 to participate in the upcoming School
038Board election information about the candidates was published in some this week newspapers and the League of Women Voters of Dakota county is hosting candidate forums this week that will be available to watch on district 196 YouTube channel by the end of the week absentee voting for The November 7th School Board election will begin September 22nd absentee ballots can be completed by mail or in person at the Dakota County government centers in Apple Valley Hastings and West St Paul district 196 residents who do not live in Apple Valley or Rosemont may also vote absentee in person at the district office because Apple Valley and Rosemont have questions on the ballot voters in those cities must absentee vote at their city hall or one of the County government centers for voting information go to mnvotes.org thank you
039excellent that brings us to the end of our meeting tonight is there a motion to adjourn motion second motion by Bianca and a second by second all those in favor of a German please say aye aye motion carries on a 6-0 vote we are adjourned [Music]