001and empower all learners in partnership with their surrounding community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's society. And I'll pause just a second here. Heather, can you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? >> 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 for all. Thank you. And then can you please call roll? >> The following board members are present at the district administration office. Gina Asavdo >> here. >> Scott Andreas >> here. >> Natalie Copeland >> here. >> Zack Dorhalt >> here. >> Diana Fenton >> here. >> Shannon Hos >> here. >> Heather Williams. >> The following cabinet members and staff are present at the district administration office. Superintendent Dr. Lori Putnham.
002Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dr. Jason Harris, Assistant Superintendent of E5 Learning, Nikki Hansen, Executive Director of Community Education and Community Partnership, Shannon Avenson, Executive Director of Finance and Business Services, Amy Scallarude, Executive Director of Human Resources and General Counsel, Tracy Flyno, Executive Director of Innovation and Technology Services, Katie Herbolt, Executive Director of Operations, Matthew Buchet, Executive Director of Special Education, Danny Mayer, Media Technicians, Paulo Novak, and Gordy Scott and a the custodian on site is Emerson Beamer. >> Thank you. Then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's board of education meeting agenda. >> So move. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote? >> Zack Dohalt, >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Scott Anderson, >> yes. >> Shannon Haw, >>
003yes. >> Gina Oavo, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. >> Okay. Okay. Then we have the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of non-controversial items. The board adopts routinely without debate. Any single member may remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption. On tonight's consent agenda, item A, approval of minutes for December 3rd, 2025 and December 20 or December 17th, 2025 board meetings. Item B, approval of bills and other financial transactions in the grand total amount of 4,495,3767. Item C, approval of personnel staff changes. Item D, acceptance of grant awards and donations. And item E, approval of quarterly expenditures for board members. Um, Miss Copeland has asked to remove item D. Does any other board member wish to remove an item from the
004consent agenda? Okay. Then I'm looking for a motion to approve items A, B, C, and E as read. >> So moved. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Heather. A second by Scott. Uh Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Heather Williams? Yes. Scott Andre? >> Yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Zack Dor Halt, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Diana Penton, >> yes. Gina Asivito. >> Okay. And then we have item D. Um Natalie is just recusing herself. So Heather, can you call vote with or I need a motion to approve item D on the consent agenda? >> So move. >> And do I have a second? >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion by Scott, a second by Heather. Heather, can you call vote except for Natalie?
005>> Diana Fenton. >> Yes. >> Zack door. >> Yes. >> Gina, yes. >> Scott Anderson, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. Heather Williams. Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Um then we're moving over to our discussion and action items. First up, we have an action item. It is the proposed resolution for censure of board member. And does everybody have a copy of it in front of you? This is a um so there's a copy of the proposed resolution in front of you. This is a governance item concerning board conduct under board policy 209. The purpose of this item is for the board to consider the resolution as written and this is not a public hearing this part of it and I will read the resolution of censure out loud in the matter of conduct of
006a member of the school board. Whereas members of the school board serve as trustees of public education are entrusted by the community to conduct themselves in a manner that protects the integrity, stability, and effective operation of the school district. And whereas board policy 209 sets forth the ethical and professional standards expected of school board members. And whereas board policy 209B provides that in performing the proper functions of a school board member, each member shall consider myself a trustee of public education to do my best to protect, conserve, and advance its progress. And whereas board policy 2094 provides that in meeting responsibilities to the community, each board member shall strive to uphold my responsibilities and accountability to the taxpayers in my school district. And whereas board policy 209F6 provides that in fulfilling legal obligations, each board
007member shall take no private action that will compromise the school board or administration. And whereas on or about January 9th, 2026, school bar member Natalie Copeland made a public social media post regarding recent ICE enforcement actions in Minnesota containing profane and derogatory language directed toward public officials and members of the community. And whereas the use of profane, inflammatory, and derogatory language in a public forum by a member of the school board related to sensitive and political charged events that are directly impacting the school community constitutes conduct on becoming of a school board member and is inconsistent with the standards of professionalism, judgment, and restraint expected of an elected official entrusted with the government governance of a public school district. And whereas a school uh whereas the board members public social media post on January 9,
0082026 has caused significant concern and disruption within the school community diverted administrative time and attention from the district's educational mission and undermined public confidence in the school board's ability to govern in a respectful, inclusive, and professional manner. And whereas on or about January 12th, 2026, schoolboard member Copeland published a public apology regarding the post expressing her regret and committing to listening, learning, and serving our community with empathy and understanding. And whereas such contact conduct constitutes private action that has compromised the school board and the administration in violation of policy board policy 209 F6. And whereas such conduct fails to reflect the responsibilities of a trustee of public education as required by board policy 209B. And whereas such conduct is inconsistent with the obligation to uphold accountability to the community and taxpayers as required by board
009policy 209D4. And whereas the school board recognizes that an individual board member board members retain their personal first amendment rights but also affirms that those rights do not absolve board members from the ethical and governance obligations they accept when serving in public office. Now therefore be it resolved uh number one that the school board hereby formally censors board member Copelan for conduct cons inconsistent with board policy 209 and the standards of conduct expected of a member of this board. Number two that this censor serves as an official expression of the board's disapproval and a public reprimand for actions that have harmed the governance operations and public trust of the school district. Number three, that the school board reaffirms its commitment to civil discourse, respectful leadership, and governance focused on the education, safety, and well-being of
010all students and staff. And item four, that the resolution shall be entered into the official minutes of the school board and made part of the district's public record. So, um before we proceed, I want to clarify, make a a a statement that um the discussions I'll ask for a motion in a second, but the discussions are limited to to the contents of the resolution and the standards of board policy 209 that um inflammatory statements or commentary to the broader public issues, specifically the ones uh that were mentioned. mentioned in the social media post that's being referenced that those topics are out of order. That is not what this agenda item is um about and that we are discussing tonight. So, I'm looking for before I open it up to um discussion. I'm looking for a
011motion and a second. >> So, moved. >> Have a motion by Heather and a second by Diana. And then I'm going to give um first um the microphone to recognize Natalie Copeland first. Uh thank you, Chair Hos. Um to my neighbors and to fellow schoolboard members, um Dr. Putnham and the cabinet and anyone listening tonight. My goal, as always, is to raise awareness and lessen suffering in our community. With my now deleted social media post, I missed the mark and brought negative attention to those closest to me professionally and personally. Yes, I was speaking personally at the time, but I do recognize that board policy 209F6 instructs that I shall take no private action that will compromise the school board or administration. My state my statement compromised the board and administration and was harmful to
012the school community. For that, I am genuinely sorry and I am committed to be more considerate in the future. Uh, anyone else have any other discussion? And as a reminder, we're not talking about the political issues, rather the resolution and board policy 209. Anybody Scott? Anything else? Okay, seeing uh no further discussion, Heather, could you call vote? Uh please know that Natalie has chosen to abstain from the vote. Zack door. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. Gina Aso, >> no. >> Scott Andreas, >> yes. >> Okay, so the motion passes. It's too late for me to math tonight. 521. Yes. Okay. >> 511. >> What's that? >> 511. Thank you. Um, so this concludes the board's action on this matter. The resolution will be entered into the
013official minutes and be included in board book board book. We are now returning our focus to the work of the district and our students. We're moving on to our next action item which is approval of the school calendars for 2026 to 2027 and 2027 to uh school years. And um presented tonight by Matthew and I'm going to forget your how to pronounce your last name cuz I am really tired. Bushir >> close. >> Did you ever see the movie Water Boy? >> And you're good if you just recall that. >> It's Bush. >> Bush. Executive director of operations. >> Not have said that. >> True story. My son went through all of high school never being called his first name. He was called either Bobby or the water boy. So, um, let me just grab
014the screens real quick. Uh, Superintendent Putnham, Chair Hos, and members of the board, I appreciate your time this evening for us to review the calendars uh, for the next two years. Uh, as you know and you're familiar, this is an annual process we go through to create the calendars early enough that school, parents, students can all make plans for the upcoming years. Um, it's critical for us from an organizational perspective, but it's also really important for our families to have the information in a timely manner so they can also make plans. Uh, what is a little unique this year is we're going to talk about a two-year calendar um or a bienium calendar where we're going to look at the next two years and there's factors that are influencing that. Um but as you know
015from previous years the calendar there is a calendar committee and it's comprised of generally about 18 staff members from uh school staff to building administration to district uh district staff. Um and many of which I shouldn't say many several of which are also parents in the district and represent that perspective as well. Um so that's the group that comes together over a series of meetings to come up with calendar prototypes and then bring to you today for your approval. Um some unique factors that have influenced this bienium calendar that we're bringing to you is are on the screen. Um first amongst them is Labor Day is falling in a rather late over the next two years. Um and that alone would drive the calendar into the second week of June which has obvious ramifications. Um
016and so the Department of Education has allowed school districts to petition to start before Labor Day over the next two years. Um so that was one factor. But another factor that that is local to us is that our community has approved a referendum to um do a project at Apollo over the next two years. And and so the construction of the Apollo projects, both of them, both of those approved referendums will really take place over the next two years. And what we capture in the summer as far as work time is going to be really critical. So that was another factor that drove um where how we approach the calendar and um an an internal interest to start before Labor Day. um in support of that con those construction calendars. And it was even more
017important in the second year uh for a couple very specific reasons relative to quite frankly having a kitchen open for students to feed them to starting the following year. Um annually there are certain things that that influence this process that that that are somewhat fixed inputs in the process. They're there on the screen. um our our number of constructional days, our number of workshop days, our uh school improvement staff development days, our conference days, and our contractually recognized holidays. Um so the the those fixed inputs, they're they're listed there, but there are always things that then we have to work with as we develop the calendar. Um and then our desired results as we asked this committee to wrestle with with meeting these challenges was that the calendar reflect balanced trimesters as much as possible.
018uh that it reflects a consideration of student needs and that reflect a consideration of staff wellness, a consideration of the faith traditions within our community. Uh that it avoid extending trimester 2 beyond mid- winter break and that's really about not having an extra day or two, a weird leftover uh in a trimester that that is often just very unproductive for learners and for staff. Um and then finally to avoid going into the second week of June and in the in the second year of this calendar um to even ideally not go into June and to have that entire month and the following two for construction time. So with that uh you have received and and on the screen as well as in front of you are the next two-year calendars. Uh we feel that we
019met those desired outcomes. The committee met those desired outcomes fairly well in this calendar. Um as far as balanced days in the first year of the bienium uh the calendar the trimester number out as 57 days 57 days and 55 days. Uh and then in the second year they number out at 57 55 and 57 days per trimester in in that order. Um, so when when we're balancing out where things are landing and how to also achieve balance calendars trimesters, we felt we were able to land there, um, while also meeting the the other desired outcomes that that we started that we're striving for. Um, so with that, um, I'll I'll pause there and open up for questions you might have. >> Does anybody have any questions? Heather, go ahead. >> Um, mostly around the
020second year of the calendar and around mid- winter break, which is really early that year. And I'm just trying to think of um families and sports seasons and everything and and travel. Um, I'm assuming that the reason that it's early is the balance of second trimester so that you end and then you get a break and then you come back. Um it would just seem to me and I don't know whether that's part of the conversation of this group that for families who are trying to match up closer with other kids who are in colleges or other schools or anything along those lines or just for uh I mean I would say personally as a parent um that break period that early to me just is not as effective as I'd like it to be
021more from a family personal perspective than than probably a school. So I understand the trimester. Is there any conversation about when that mid midwinter break happens uh in your meetings? >> There there was there was a lot of conversation. Um there were a lot of conversations about everything that fell wherever it fell in this calendar. Um because the reality is uh and and all perspectives are valid. Like I want to be clear like the all the tensions that exist in this calendar are real and and and have value. Um, what really drove this one, the the question you're asking specifically, was as we looked at the the time calendar and needing to maximize as much of that summer, that summer specifically, the second one, to be sure that the Apollo kitchen was completed, um, so
022that it was operational when kids showed up. We really felt we had to capture all of June that we could. Um, so our first iteration had us going into that first week of June. And then as we looked at that that construction calendar, we felt we really had to back up and get out of that first week of June, which ended up influencing where the the the mid um mid- winter week. I do appreciate the question. It's it very >> it's been hard for me with different sports and and um oh well this college breaks here, local colleges break here. Um this is um when different state competitions are and it there was in my small world there was never a clear path. So it was always miserable because you can't hit you can't have
023it all. We're all not on sync. It just feels that one particularly more so than most years. Um because the year before it is the 8th through the 12th. I mean that's a full almost two weeks earlier. And again I trust I I'm not sitting in the room. I I'm not considering everything. I just making sure that it was discussed because even two weeks later, not even just a week would I think be um for some people a a better opportunity for for family types of activities. Anybody else thoughts on the calendar? This is an action item. Um administration is recommending that we approve the school calendars for the 2627 school year and 2728 school year. >> So move >> second. >> I have a motion by Scott and a second by Diana. Um any
024further discussion? Okay, Heather, can you call vote? Gina, >> yes. >> Gina, >> yes. >> Uh, Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Zack Dhold, >> Shana Hos, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, >> yes. Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. Next up, next we have um the change maker hub report out presenting Dr. Jason Harris, assistant superintendent of secondary education. and welcome Donna Roer, director of research assessment and AI integration. >> Thank you. And just see if I can get my good evening, Chair Hos, Superintendent Dr. Putinham uh board members, colleagues, and listening community. Um I'm going to try to get this presenter view going. Beautiful. Um super excited to be here again tonight to kind of share with you um the changemaker hub experience. We're calling
025this the changemaker hub report out. But what I want to emphasize for tonight is that um this was part of our professional learning day and it was the very first time that we held uh something like this. Um and what we hope you will see tonight in this presentation is the process that kind of represents a shift in how we want to go about listening to our stakeholders. We're hoping that as we build out our um 742 graduate future ready by design portrait um for our district that we can use this strategy um to really gather what what I would call that sort of street level data if you will um in addition to having all the quantitative data that we have and all the qualitative survey data that we collect. This is just a
026really really um strategic and um powerful way to gather really rich data. So I will preface your um viewing of this tonight to kind of think about this as process. We did have a very small turnout for this initial hub and we'll talk more about that. I'm going to share um information on that and then Jason is going to share with you some of the insights that we got from this experience and then we'll sort of tag team on the recommendations. How does that sound? Okay. Okay. Um so again, we did this in partnership with World Savvy and World Savvy is very good at running these hubs. Um, and what the what the six-hour workshop um primarily sets us up to do is first of all, it it creates a really um rich and psychologically
027safe environment, if you will, for different stakeholders to come together um so that we can hear one another's authentic voice. Um and so we invited not only World Savvy, they sent us um six facilitators to help us out with this this part of the day. We had um several um teachers. We had 20 19 to 20 teachers. We had several staff members. You can see the numbers. Um 24 of those. We had 23 community members who all uh joined us on that day to sort of do some learning together on um really our pillars of our strategic plan and some skills around future readiness. Um again this is the methodology um and I I just spoke to that but one of the core finding um findings that we had for the day were related to
028teacher student relationships and what we we learned is that it really is a anchor at of the safety and success in our district. Um and everyone who went into this process were encouraged to sort of go into it with sort of a changemaker mindset, offering um their openness and uh as a way to really feel safe in sharing their ideas and solutions as well as um identifying problems and challenges. Um, so again, um, I think the teacher student relationship thing was one really big finding that we want to continue to build on. Um, and then I'm going to turn over to you Jason for just some of the insights in addition to that. >> Yeah, perfect. Uh, good evening chair, uh, Superintendent Putnham, board members. Um amidst all the crazy things that are going on
029in the world and the climate, this is a perfect way to really look at we got a chance to bring all stakeholders together. We got to bring students, teachers, community folks, uh, mentors specifically in this process of being authentic and getting to what Donna said, information from our students, like really what's taking place for me as a student when I show up to school every day, when I'm in the classroom, when I'm in that learning community, really what what's taking place for me. And a lot of times we don't hear enough from the students. But now you had the students giving their perspective teachers and the community members all together to have dialogue around learning. And one of the insights that we found was what we know and what we talk about in our strategic
030plan. When students find their interests early and they build off of it, those things engage me into learning. Right? So when you look at the constraint of I'm just doing a workshop or a worksheet specifically in an assignment to if I could create a build a website, create a statue, do a rap beat, kids get more engaged in what what the learning is. And so the students told us that again and we need to continue to find ways how to make learning relevant and meaningful to the curriculum built off interest. We hear it enough and the students talked about it. I could just be in school as a co-pilot just sitting there and I'm not engaged and what engages students we know if I find my joy and interest when we look at numbers we
031ask the kids what's going on they can tell us and so they told us specifically and insight number one is finding that joy and and interest in what I do right I think uh if you go to the next one when we look at it not if you go back one one before I even go forward uh back to the next slide Donna, specifically on what the kids said, they have eagle and tiger time, right? We learned of creating a win time for kids. I got a busy schedule. If I go to school 7 hours a day, I have millions of interactions with kids. If I'm in a building of a thousand students to the bus from first when I'm waking up to the bus to the school, I have multiple interactions. When co said
032we all discussed we need to build time in the schedule for kids, teachers to have that breath, right? Give me 30 minutes in the day to to do what I need. If I'm an athlete and I got five activities, I got to get a study hall. If I'm a student that I need to do some extra support, I can go there. And we've learned that ego and tiger time are some of the ways that kids have found like of interest. I could go talk to X, Y, and Z if I need this. to the point when we look at our hands-on learning, our pathways, we've learned through art and welding and photography, if you go in the building and you see the photography class out in the hallways, right, in in the ways, they they're
033taking pictures. They're and we ask questions. What What do you I like this, right? How do you help them build off of it? And so, I think the joy in in in the way of learning, how it occurs, we're we're hearing it again from students. I I think the insight too just uh adults in mandate specifically the students had a wish list right teach me independent living skills right how do I learn how to do my taxes and insurance and how to be financially lit early right the kid sooner kid they get money how do I make that in a sense if I could save it I could build it I can invest it the sooner we have conversations because kids are on on social media and all the platforms they're learning some of those
034things there students said hey how can we make it in the wish list for us and then we do it in the sense of our career readiness we talk to students about find your interest build on hands-on community if I want to do x y and z around learning here's here's the opportunity in that >> yeah and to add just one thing um that's really interesting that popped in the data was um for students they define rigor one way and for teachers they define it another way that was an interesting u perspective that popped in the data set. You could see there was a real difference in definition of rigor for kids versus teachers. So we thought that was interesting. >> Yeah, I think you hit it down. That that was one that that stood
035out. And then just uh students talked about and I sat at a table with the students when they talk about collaboration in the classroom. If it's 30 students and we do an activity, how's that collaborative uh exercise or activity look in the class? Do I just say, "Hey, let's put four students together." Or is it structured in roles? Right? Because we know students are go, if Donna's going to do the heavy lift for the whole project, we're going to let Donna do the heavy lift, right? But if you identify who's going to do what, it also teach them how to collaboratively work in the group, right? And so, how do we set it up around learning? And so, we talked about the cultural shift and uh some of the activities that need to be really
036personally connected to students to learn and then roles around it, >> right? They talked about also like they're not anti- collaborative. They don't they're not against working in groups. They just know that when they do work in groups, you know, they want it to be meaningful and they want to have a role and have clarity on that. And those are great insights that that help us, you know, do do things like take action. So, um, it was really interesting to read all the data that came back around the authentic interdependence, if you will, that students are sort of craving in their group work. >> There you go, Jason. >> Yeah. And I I think uh to what we know and how we holistically work with students and really helping them deal with emotion and regulation
037and uh middle school always, you know, for me the most when I'm in a middle school, I can see kids jumping up and down the kids crying to all of it because the emotional regulation between the ages of 12 to 13 and the school and middle sometimes are all over the place. But how do we really teach them those interpersonal skills to develop for the world, right? And so it has to start early if you got kids and thinking about how how that shows up to you if you got a school age kid and emotionally how are they really connecting. Those are skills that we really have to teach our kids with of how to really regulate your emotions, really deal with conflict and all of the things, right? And so, how do you look
038at the neurodeiversity of the students? And when you look at it, you look at really the social inclusion and the the pieces around uh that learning uh specifically in that and the digital nuances. I think one of the biggest things now, you know, with our our technology is where's the human connection, right? I went to a party this weekend for a 16-year-old and you had kids. We're in this square and most they were on their phones, right? I my wife got mad at me because I went to interrupt the everybody on their phone to start asking questions, right? Like, what's going on at 10th grade and and high school? Tell me. and and they kind of looked and I was like, I work with kids all the time. I want to know like what's going
039on, right? And so I had a kid tell me like, shoot, she was on the fastest track. She was graduating with associate. I was like, that's the fast track right there. To the young lady that I had a conversation with, she was like, I I don't I can't take AP classes. And I said, why not? Right? And so those things when we really get to the digital nuances around that and I know I kind of got off but that personal connection uh is real is real key to our students and and specifically what they're faced with in the world right right now. And so D I'll let you add anything to that piece of it. >> No, that's perfect. I I think the surprising thing for me in looking at the data was just how
040articulate they were about neurodeiversity. like the fact that they understand people have different brain needs, right? So, um kudos to our teachers who are teaching kids about how their brain works. These young people were able to reflect in the data set something about that which was really impressive. Um and they're asking for us to make sure others know about that, students and staff and teachers. So, I thought that was really impressive. And these are human skills, right? These are really the human skills um that they're saying they need. So >> the next you want to the next >> and then one of our core pillars, how do I feel safe in the environment? How do I feel connected where I'm going to be vulnerable? Uh I'm going to speak up if we don't have the
041same perspective and views. How do I how do I acknowledge where our and this is teaching our students early right these our students and helping our teachers teach our students to have these conversations of how what makes me feel safe when I'm in the school in the classroom right what makes me want to participate what what makes me want to give my all in the classroom and we know if a students don't feel safe in the classroom they're not going to engage right and so we heard that again around that emotion safety. And one of the unique and the the one of the great things about our our district, we have such a diverse population in the classroom that we can learn from one another. And so in that some kids may not feel safe
042and we heard some of the things. But relationships can help kids feel safe, trusted adults, all the things. Studentto student relationships, right? That teacherto student relationship. If I know I have a trusted adult in the classroom and and I know like truly this teacher cares about me, that student's gonna engage because they know you're connected to them, right? And so how do we teach other students to have the same relationship studentto student, right? And and then we go a step further from the school to the home relationship, right? And so when we see what's going on now when people are afraid, how do we create safety? And I think we heard some of it tonight. We need to be able to come together and and outwardly say how how I want to help you feel
043safe in the classroom. I think we don't have those conversations of what the students said enough uh really get into that deep down learning uh in the in the environment. Yeah. And so some of the bigger thought questions, if you will, sort of coming from students were these four questions that we highlighted. There were others, but these ones appeared the most um in the data set, although a small data set, but I thought these were really insightful and worth sharing with you all tonight. Um these really are not surface level questions. These are pretty deep, right? Our young people are wrestling with some of the fundamental challenges of our time and it's not a surprise, right? Schools are microcosms of the larger society and this is just a really good picture of that very thing.
044Um, ne the the the thing that we want to be able to do with data that we gather through a changemaker hub is things like make strategic pivots. So that's why I added this slide in here mostly as a you know when we go out and do changemaker hub work where we're actually collecting so much data and feedback street level data we want to be able to turn it around into actions. And so with this small data set, some of the actions we might take would be like look at some of the academic tasks we're asking kids to do and redesign for that by providing more opportunity to tackle real world problem solving, for example, that help kids, you know, gain more of those adulting skills that they're seeking to to gain. Um we might
045look at you know where there's assumed collaboration and we think it's happening maybe we need to do more structured um group work inter an interdependent sort of group work with defined roles and clarity um where we have um safety that is teacherled. how can we release that to our kids so it's more peer-to-peer and they're leading in conversations around perhaps safety or belonging and um you know and I think some of the k the data suggested some kids really like to listen to their music but other kids might not. So then how are we building understanding among students about the different ways in which we all um uh feel like we belong or we feel safety. So, um, these are just some examples of like what we would do with changemaker hub data as we
046go forward and work towards clarifying some of the needs on the portrait of a grad that we're working that we're planning to work on going into this the rest of this year and next year. Um, so again, you know, you can see from a small hub experience how we use data to potentially shift. um as just one example. Again, we would do things like make recommendations and we are looking at some because we these are easy sort of lowhanging fruit things that we can do. One of them might be um you know, integrating life skills, learning experiences into already existing opportunities. Um, and then you know, I know Jason, you can speak to the implementation strategy because many of these we already do, but >> we have life skills classes starting in sixth grade, life
047skills one and one and two, and we have board members that have kids in the sense. So, some of the things that we learned were just reaffirm what we need to continue to do. I I lead right now a college and career design team, right? And we talk about how life skills are uh relevant in the curriculum, right? So we know we just had the uh requirement for personal finance to be a graduation requirement. Our state understands that too. And so finding ways to make it meaningful and relevant in the sense of that task list that we saw from kids is reaffirming when I'm in these courses. How is it meaningful and relevant? And how's it preparing me for for the world? So, I just get the the great job of overseeing secondary where you
048could really help start interests in sixth grade like life skills class all the way to I could find a pathway in uh 11th and 12th grade of my interest if it's health, science, uh manufacturing, automotive uh to to those things. And then a second recommendation that we would pose from this little data set that we gathered would be, you know, to support professional learning focused on what we're calling complex collaboration, which is really helping everyone who's leading student groups understand designing highquality group work, what that looks like. And that's something I think our I have heard teachers ask for, hey, I could use ideas on how to do this. Um, and so it's something we can include in our choices day for PD. And there's maybe some other things, Jason, that you would share that
049we might be able to do. >> Yeah, I just think in the sense of uh specifically how do you create collaboration and designing group work when you're designing lessons, how's it in the activity around how specific group work looks and what students should do in it, right? And so I I think those are strategies on what we talk about right now on effective first instruction when you're setting up a lesson. What's the learning target? How's that look? How's the activity look? And these are just things for us to continue to drill in on the other side with our teachers around their collaborative work with their PLTs and all the things. And so when you start to understand when we have uh specific collaborations, if it's teachers or students, >> you're going to get better outcomes
050around the collective impact, right? We we've learned this in our data. >> And if you've ever had to design group work or or run it or facilitate it, you know, it's not easy. It's it takes a lot um a lot of thought and intention to do it really really well and to achieve the goals that you're hoping, you know, to have happen. Um, and so it's it's, you know, it's something we can all get better at, I think, if we're really looking at it honestly. Right. >> Um, here's another one. I don't know, Jason, you want to talk about this one? >> Yeah, we we we lead in the sense of building our communities within our school around expectations and what it looks like for a staff, student, and a community member. The strategy is
051just helps us to even more how do you build community with schools right in your community you do it through relationships if it's teacher student to student we know these are the structured ways what does that look like so if I'm talking to Donna in the surface level of her we start out maybe with her dress or shoes or whatever but how do I really get to the conversation that I was sharing about the example of the kids that I was at the party with to ask those questions what do you want to do with your life? Right? And start to think about it now. Don't wait. And so, but kids need that safety. And they looked at me like I was crazy cuz they didn't know me, right? And the piece is our trusted
052adults of our teachers. Get to know your students because we know that really helps the engagement around learning. Right. >> Right. And then I would add just the goal of just expanding this idea of um safety not just being about trusted adults because we know in our survey data many students report having trusted adults at school but it's about including peers and how can we have peers that we trust that we feel safe enough to like not fear judgment if we're you know showing what we know for example. So, and then I would say we have strategic questions. Jason, you want to go through the east? >> Yeah. I just think these are things that we look at our continuous improvement plans. We want to take this data set and ask these questions. How can
053we get better at Eagle and Tiger time? How do we look at the elective and cores to some of the things that we're doing right now? We share in our last I think last year around new content curriculum that's being implemented our new standards that really look at more practical skills in the set of of learning. How do we continue to find those ways to to really embed that in our continuous improvement and then how do we our social emotional development within the human skills. I think we have uh our mental health supports tonight and we have done work with our character strong curriculum because we need to teach our students how to be empathetic, how to care for their neighbor, all the things and we know that's a human connection and h how we
054develop those skills when we looked at the list of and I think superintendent Putnham and uh director Roer just went on the uh world e economic uh skills that students need right it wasn't creativity was up there, right? And how how can I become creative? And so that that's a humanistic piece, right? And so how do we continue to get at those ways of getting kids into the sense of being connected human humanly? And then the third one is specifically always looking at the data. How are we pulling data to inform our decisions to how learning occurs? And this changemaker hub gave us a good model to get our teachers, students, and our uh stakeholders together to really prepare our kids on what learning looks like currently now and how we prepare them for the
055future because we need to start to our future ready graduate framework. And this was just a good data set. So, we'll ask these questions to our to our groups, our cabinet, our uh our building leaders because they're doing some of the work now and we're just going to grow off it from from this data. And that concludes our update on the changemaker report and we'll take any questions. >> Thanks. Anybody have any questions or comments at all? Scott, >> I like the idea of teaching life skills. I mean, we should be teaching life skills. I mean, financials, I get an accounting class or bookkeeping class or something like that, so they can at least do their checkbook. I think they still use the checkbooks. And also on the more personal level, when I was a
056boy scout leader, I taught kids how to change a tire on the car. I mean, I don't think we teach that at all. It's something maybe we should look at. And then uh finally this how do you solve the problem of the freeloader in a group? Um I don't know how you solve that. If you got any ideas I'd like to hear it >> because I I've seen my own daughter and one other carrying the whole load for a group of five or six. >> That's enough group work. I'll add if you want to uh watch it tired of being changed uh I'll talk to principal scholar and you can come over and look at the automotive class because they go from teaching in the class to working in the industry and so >> our
057girls got to know too. >> So I'll I'll just share a quick example on the house bill when we went to Habitat for Humanity and we talked to all the stakeholders we had one female student that was amongst all the trade and industry males right and it came from Tech High School. So to what you know, we want to expose all kids to I saw the uh one of our Somali female students at middle level last spring in a hammer on the on the build for the house, right? And so giving kids exposure, finding your interest early to you just what you know, however you show up, we want to give you the opportunity. Yeah. >> And then Y'all, this is exciting stuff. This is this is what we should be doing. And I'm really
058proud of both of you and and us because this is who we are. Um uh it just reminds me, you know, there are folks in our community who say, "Well, students are our future leaders." That's a lie. Students lead us today. And you see this in this in this data. Um we ve and we value their leadership here. Um and the outside the box thinking that they do and that that was at my table when I was at changemaker was just pretty amazing. Um, I really appreciated the way you said that students are not anti- collaboration, they are anti-efficiency. And I did hear that at my table as well that um, and I think some of that goes into the fact of I think students really want to know each other, but I don't know
059that they know, not that they don't know how, but it it goes so strategic question number two. I think it's going in the right direction, but I wonder if we're off a little bit. Um, and feel free to push back on it. Um, leveraging strong teacher student relationships to build stronger peer-to-peer relationships. I almost feel like if that was the way we could do it, it would have already been done. And the only reason I say that is because, you know, when when they're t when I heard kids there talking about students talking about um safety and the reason they feel unsafe is because they don't maybe know from day to day who their peers are or who they're in a group with and I don't know who you are, so I don't trust you.
060Um, but when I think about what what we've fought for at on this board with the MSHSL student leaders and those days that are all student leaders and all studentled, I can see that we are priming the pump for that to be us. Um, because we're already doing that in MSHSL, but also we're doing that in music and sports and activities. And you see that all over our social media, right? Um I uh high schooler high school bands go to middle school bands and said, "Hey, you should do this." And the kids answer the questions. I know cuz my kids are the ones that lead the bands. And so they're like, "Well, I got to get on the microphone today and talk about why I chose drums." Um but then not only that, but middle
061schoolers are going to elementary school and and they're seeing themselves in each other. And I think that's that's the path forward and we're already doing it in some ways. Same thing with sports and activities. um you know the when my middle son was in uh football starting in third grade, he played right alongside the high schoolers um at Apollo and that gave him his glimpse into the future. Um so I the the teacher student relationship beauty that I heard in that room was so affirming of what we already knew. Um but I'm wondering how do we build those strong peer-to-peer relationships? I know you're runoing the same thing since it's all over these slides, right? Um and there's some hints that we get from our students um in this slide. The talk about neurodeiversity education
062that and and then the big question, how can we become more connected? It's almost like um code for like can you help us know each other? can you help me know how to navigate my peers because they're different from me and I want to know them but how do I know them? Um I think they want to care for each other too, you know, and this critical gap of studentto student relationships actually really bothers them like immensely. I know it does for my kids and for the students that I heard there on that day. And um I don't have the answers. I'm just putting more questions on the table. Aren't you good with that? Um, but thank you for asking the important questions. And then lastly, um, I heard so much that day about calm
063environments, so thanks for putting that on there. Um, I'm just really proud of, uh, to have my kids in a district that has been a leader in our anti-selfphone policies and and still having them at high school because we're teaching them that real word like you won't just be able to put your cell phone to the side while you work an 8 hour day. Um, so we ride the line constantly of future ready but also calm environments um until maybe your brain can be a little bit more future ready. So, um, thanks thanks for this and thank you that this is just the first of of the future of many of these. So, thanks for your work. >> Donna, you referenced um that the I'll call it the adults or the teachers um and the
064students defined rigor differently. Can you talk a little bit more about what you heard and saw in that conversation? >> So, unfortunately, I didn't get to participate in the hub. I was busy doing other things that day, which was really disappointing. However, I did get to review all the audio files, all the transcriptions, and all the data. >> So, you got to >> I I you know, I sort of sort of kind of got to be there through this plethora of information that I got to study. Um and I would say it came up many times where you know so I I think for teachers the rigor is so much more academic and intellectual and um and for the kids it's more tactile and more being able to do it do something that they can
065that that's what was popping in the data set was where teachers see rigor I think more in a performative way on an academic and and that's rigor. That's true. But the kids didn't necessarily corroborate that. Like their view of it is I want to be able to successfully lead a life that I can do things with. Right. Which is interesting. I'm not saying no right or wrong, no judging, right? It's different kinds of um ways of thinking about rigor. It's interesting >> to the academic rigor right to postsecary. I see it in in the classrooms where it's more academia language than more relevancy and real like skill sets that you saw that task list of what they talked about. These were like real world things like how do I start to think about my future?
066and they use taxes and I was surprised right in in the sense things that in my day-to-day interactions if it's money if it's collaboration with one another they're not thinking about it from the academia world of the language of what we saw they want how's this apply to me right now and that's this generation you got high school kids you you know how they specifically are in the day-to-day practicality and they look at it around those things. They have to see that task to make relevance of of the learning. Then you're just telling me to this is going to prepare me for for college in the sense >> and I'm curious to dig deeper into that one to be honest. I I I because I do think there's a level of there's there's a coming
067together of that if you will. It isn't that we can't provide academic rigor in a learning task like potentially create making something right there is rigor that can academic rigor that can happen in that. So I think it's I think I'm curious to dig into that more too and I wonder I don't know Katie you were in one of the hubs that talked about learning and innovation. I don't know if you heard anything specific that you'd want to share. um not necessarily about rigor, but one of the things we talked about is uh my group talked about was how their joy in learning changes over time and and their creativity changes over time. So they felt like they were able to be really creative and had a lot of joy in elementary school and that
068sort of changed kind of as they progressed in school. So a lot of the conversation we had was uh surrounding how can we bring more of that joy and creativity back to those um older grade levels. So they had some really great ideas. >> So just a couple of comments and I agree um none of this is easy and trying to find the right balance. It's interesting that we talk about the joy of being young and creative. Um we in my world of sports, you know, we have talked about how we've taken out all unstructured play. Um and by definition, even what I heard in this presentation is the kids actually like when you tell them what they need to do. They want it to be efficient. they want an outcome. There is a place
069where we um need to help them understand abstractness and the ability to navigate it um because that's actually probably more of what they're going to see in life. I mean, I think they want it to be taxes and checkbooks and and no, they don't actually use checkbooks any longer. Checkbooks and debit cards. Um or their parents' credit cards, whatever. I I I think that I mean that's the challenge when I look at this. I I'm really to be honest torn. I I'm torn by just because you can, you don't always, you shouldn't always. Um, and trying to understand, I mean, even with some of the um the life skill sorts of things and and I I think about it from the the standpoint and and I'd be maybe a little bit interested in understanding what
070community members said to this as well. I feel like we keep putting more and more on schools as to what they're supposed to teach. Um, and so, um, you're supposed to teach them how to change a tire, but you used to do that in Boy Scouts. >> I grew up in 4 and learned how to do that stuff. And now we're looking at schools and we're saying in your seven hours um we want you to I mean we heard from our our speakers earlier our community members there are some who say it's reading writing or or and I know that that's old school don't get me wrong but there are subjects and obviously civics comes into that and there's all of these things and then on top of that but you also need to teach
071technology you need to teach a AI you need to teach um how to change a tire how to change oil, how to use your finances, and I'm wondering what the community members where does that happen that's not just in the schools and then particularly in the gaps. I mean, again, I'll talk about it as a as generally a person of privilege. Um, my kids get a lot of that at home. That isn't how everybody grows up. There's not the same level of stability, but we have to close some of those gaps as well. Um, I I don't know. I I mean sometimes to be honest I'm just overwhelmed by it all which I'm sure you all are as well >> but I think um you know in a hub you can hear all of these
072things and you've got a I mean I'll I'll use it the same way you know I go to conferences um less now than I used to but you go to conferences and you have you know a day or three days where all you think about is new ideas and then you come back to the real world and you don't implement any of those things because the reality reality is the real world kicks you in the butt. So, I'm just I I also want to be thoughtful. I mean, it's a it's a huge task, but what can you, you know, take on? And and while they want meaningful all the time, I think in some ways we've set an expectation that everything has to be meaningful all the time. And and the reality is some days,
073I'll say it for myself, I get up and what I do is I put one foot on the ground and the next and then I just keep going. And that also has to be an expectation. I I love it. Right. You you you hit it right. It's always not great. It's all you hard work. Some days you don't want you got to tell students that, right? You can't just show up to the test. You got to do the formative assessments all the time. Sometimes you do have students and they're very rare that could just show up and ace a test, right? In the sense you have to work hard. We have great community partners have that have stepped in the gaps. if it's not United Way or uh our uh uh Boys and Girls Club,
074Career One, all the folks that have have stepped in the gaps to offer the things that because you're right, you can't take everything in one day and we grapple with the sixth period day and all the things, but our our community partners have have really stepped up to try to help in the gaps if it's summer, if it's giving experiences to all the things that they can get in the classroom. So, uh, kudos to to our our community partners that that help with that. >> I'll just finally say, you know, part of this is to develop a portrait of, you know, what this community values and community partners, our industry partners, higher ed partners, teachers, staff, students are going to be part of that. that if we if we use this strategy, we will all
075learn and grow, including our students, right? They'll they'll learn it can't all just be this, right? Like, and and we'll learn from industry what really matters to them. We'll learn from others what adulting needs really matter and we'll build a portrait that the community, you know, believes in and and we'll go from there. That's so the idea ultimately of this is really to get us going in a direction where we're dialoguing on getting to those competencies in our portrait work. That is and I'll just share one last thing that I I mean I've I've held on to since I was visiting colleges on my own which was many many years ago um Marquette University in uh Milwaukee. U my mom talks about this. It was actually in a parent group and I think it speaks
076to phases and what we learn and how we learn and how we think and why in some ways all of this is important but it's so hard to manage. um they used to do a study I don't know if they still do again this was many moons ago um they used to do a study of their graduates and they would ask them 10 years out what do you wish that you would have taken more of when you were in in college um which could also apply to high school and 10 years out a lot of them said I wish I'd taken more business classes you know I want to be able to do accounting I want to be able to manage a budget um I need to understand marketing and then 20 years out and
077I'm making up these numbers but you know 20 years out they said what do you wish you would have um taken more of and a lot of them said um I wish that I would have taken more psychology um and sociology classes because I'm now in a position of management and now I'm trying to understand people and I'm trying to understand how to motivate them and how to create work environments and those sorts of things. And then they asked him 30 years out what is it that um you wish you would have taken more of? and and mostly at that point what they said is I wish I would have taken more about arts and history because now I'm trying to put an understanding of the world together um and figure out where I fit
078in that and how do I enjoy and and um benefit from beauty and from abstract things and just you know live into the rest of my life sort of things because I'm kind of past the I'm moving up moving up moving up sort of of stage. Um, and I think to me that has always been really powerful. And to be honest, I think we've done a terrible job of actually helping people understand that I I mean I think about it in when I worked on college campuses um how much we didn't talk about why the core classes mattered. You know, like they were just things you had to check off a list because somebody told you you had to check them off a list. I thought that example by Marquette did the best job of
079that because what it understands is that we are changing human beings and that as we navigate life, there's so much more that we have to see. And I think sometimes students get caught in I I want to know this right now. Well, what does it look like in community when we talk about, you know, life ready? It can't just be about life ready when they're when they're 18 and graduating or 22 um or 25 and young. It is how do they look at um the larger scope of it and and that's you know when I hear about the hubs it is trying to integrate all of that. Um and it's really difficult but it is it has to be a community endeavor. >> Thank you. Anybody else? All right. Thank you guys very much for
080presenting that. Uh, next up we have another discussion item is the mental health supports update. We have Shannon Ason, executive director of community education and community partnerships as well as Jen Lesey, coordinator for student services and community partnerships. Welcome. >> Thank you. >> Okay, perfect. All right. Good evening, Chair H, Dr. Putnham, and members of the board. I am Shannon Avenson, executive director of community education and partnerships. I'll let Jen introduce herself. >> Good evening. I'm Jen Lesi, coordinator of student services and community partnerships. Jen and I have the privilege of sharing with you some mental health updates and supports that we have in place for students in District 742. Um we're incredibly lucky and proud to work with this amazing team. Quite honestly, it's like my favorite team to work with. Um St. Cloud
081Area School District has um over 90 mental health team uh participants. Um and we're going to dig into a few of those roles tonight, but we can't go into all of them obviously in detail because uh that would take all evening. Um but this team has a wide variety of lentures, training, expertise and compassion. And I I mean it when I say our students are truly in great hands. >> Yeah. Um this is a document that we have created. It's kind of an at a glance document uh that describes the ways that our mental health team supports students districtwide. Uh so it it talks about starting at the beginning the triage team and then our school psychologists who support students all the way from preschool uh through age 21. It moves into our school counselors
082and our other social workers that work across the district with elementary students through secondary students. And then the additional supports that are available for secondary students, our mental health advocates, and also our chemical health counselors that work at our secondary sites. On the bottom is a list of some community resources. If parents or guardians need some additional supports in the community for their student, uh there's some quick access uh some quick ways to access additional support there. And the QR code is a link to our mental health web page for the district. Uh there's a live link there uh if you want to look into that. That's the resource guide that talks further about each of the roles uh that these team members play in our district and the ways they support students and families.
083I'll give a brief overview of the social emotional learning curriculums that are used districtwide. Um, and they're quite in-depth. Uh, but these are our tier one resources. So, used schoolwide. Character Strong is used at our elementary schools. Uh, they teach schoolwide lessons weekly. And, uh, they support students in building character and strengthening relationships, developing skills and responsibility and resilience. Uh, safe and strong is taught by our school counselors. Um and this is really it's taught at the kindergarten uh grade level and then additional grade levels depending upon the school. Uh and that is an age appropriate personal safety curriculum and it really encourages students to um have uh healthy boundaries and then also to build confidence so that they will report anything that they uh might be concerned about uh they can report that to
084trusted adults in the building. Be good people is used at Apollo and Tech. Uh they're doing lessons one to two times a month. um talking about uh helping students understand themselves and manage feelings, treating others with respect. Uh then at McKinley, they'll be using the Kevin Love curriculum, and that's more of a uh a curriculum that uses video stories from athletes and celebrities, encouraging vulnerability and helping students express their emotions. Um Erica's Lighthouse is used by our health teachers in grades 6 through 12. Um, and that really focuses on destigmatizing mental health and then teaching students how to recognize signs of depression in themselves and in their and in their friends and others. Um, and then bar is in our uh junior highs and then also in 9th grade and it's a dedicated time built
085into the school day uh for students to receive additional supports. And then there are teams that meet weekly to really talk about each of the students um and make sure that they're meeting all of those needs. And then there are eye time lessons that are taught weekly for students in grades six through nine. Uh some of our tier two and three interventions that we utilize uh one is a curriculum called base. It's an online curriculum. Uh we have virtual lessons that are available on a wide variety about 90 different topics uh that can be utilized in resource rooms and student support rooms. Uh they're used at our middle schools and high schools. And then uh Lincoln also purchased it for their site for grades four or five. Um and really it it really talks about
086addressing behaviors uh chronic truency and then chemical health issues. And then of course we have restorative practices and restorative circles that are used often in middle schools to really help those relationships um and help students take accountability through dialogue um and really making more safer and equitable environments. Uh this is really exciting for us. So, we received um some financial support from the Jackson Rotor Legacy Fund and I think you may have uh heard about this earlier in October. Uh they purchased the viewing rights for two films for our district this school year in addition to students in Sak Rapids, Sartell, Cathedral, St. John's Prep. Um and we are able to show these films for all students in grades 6 through 12. So, we showed the Upstanders in October and that really addressed bullying and
087then how to be an upstander for friends and peers. Um and then we'll be showing the film like in the month of February. So each of our secondary sites will be showing like and that will be talking about social media and then how to establish healthy boundaries with social media and really breaking down the impacts of social media and how it's impacting students lives. Um and both of the videos can be shared out with uh parents and guardians as well. So we really encourage uh parents to take the time. It's about a 50-minute video, the film like um and to really look at uh how social media is impacting the lives of our of our children. Uh youth empowerment groups. These are really exciting groups of students at both tech and Apollo high schools. Uh
088they are a group of Apollo has been running for a little bit longer. There are about 45 members in the Apollo group. Um and right now there are about 15 to 20 members at tech. They're just getting started. Uh but they do a lot of things to uh promote mental health uh wellness and awareness for their peers. They do things like sponsoring safe talk trainings where students can really talk about suicide awareness um and have conversations and be supports for one another and bring uh helpful adults into their lives. They hand out different swag during National Mental Health Awareness Month and Suicide Prevention Day. They distribute positive messages. Uh one of the fun things is the chalk chalk the walk um at tech. They put lots of messages out on the sidewalks three times a
089year to just uh promote positivity and kindness. And then Apollo does some interactive mental health uh bulletin boards that are really fun as well. And they also the LEAF grant uh that Apollo received last year, they designed a calm room and that's been really exciting for them there. Uh they reported that several students use that every week as just a quiet place to reset uh when they need it. If you recall last year uh Amy Walls came in and presented on You're Not Alone with Jenny Shod. I know I got to present the best slide. You're welcome. Um so you can see um we still have our pairs at Tech. That's Jenny Shod and Murphy. At South Betty and Hunter down in the right corner there at Kennedy it's Sarah and Watson. Oh my gosh,
090how cute is Watson? And then um that is through a a contract that we have with You're Not Alone. that's a free service to our our our schools. And then um she is incredibly passionate as you saw last year and trying really hard to get more therapy dogs and more more teams in in the rest of our schools as well. Um we were also fortunate we were approached by St. Cloud Police Department and last spring we entered into a contract with them as well to provide uh K9 Laker up in the right corner there. He is our service dog at um at Katherine Johnson Education Center and his handler is our uh school resource officer uh Janelle Hos. And so we got if you haven't been there and got to uh hang out with that
091team, it's it's quite it's quite fun. All right. Well, we like I said, we aren't diving into absolutely every single mental health professional that we have. We we just didn't have the time for that tonight. But I did want to highlight our chemical health team. I really truly believe that we have one of the most comprehensive chemical health programs in the state. Um we have four licensed alcohol and drug counselors. Uh Carolyn Blot Nikki uh splits her time between North and South Junior Highs. Jenna Fuks is at McKinley in that uh in the recovery program there. Jake Terati is at Apollo and Megan Ramsay is at Tech. Um these staff are uh just uh phenomenal to work with and always willing to go to our other schools when they need support as well. that team
092just steps right up and and goes out and supports if any other schools need that. Um, there is a chemical health counseling web page. I won't click into those links there, but I just want parents and and families to be aware that our district website has a chemical health page. It talks about the services that we provide. It talks about McKinley recovery. Um and then it also um shares how to get a hold of those uh those chemical health counselors if they need uh you have I I've been working with u mental health and chemical health for quite some time. Um and you've probably heard me talk about my uh or our partnership with Greater Minnesota Family Services. Uh we have colllocated mental health services with them. Uh it's an amazing partnership that we've had
093in place for quite a while and I will tell you that other districts do reach out to us and kind of envy the amount of colloccated therapy we we have in place. Uh currently 13 uh clinicians meet with students in 11 of our schools and programs. Uh they serve students in K through 12 and then also in our uh up to the age of 21 in our CO2 program. Currently 220 students uh are receiving sitebased services and uh they have provided over services to over 2,000 students in district 742 since 2010. Um I'm also uh excited to share that we just entered into a contract with Sagent. They're uh formerly known as Nestrom and that partnership is to explore filling those gaps that um we have in some of our programs and schools. We have
094about uh three or four programs that do not currently have coll-located therapy on site. Uh and Sagent and um both Sagent and Greater Minnesota are still actively recruiting therapists to fill all of those positions. So we're uh incredibly grateful for that. I'm going to click on the let you see the video here where it just kind of explains what greater Minnesota looks like and colloccated therapy, what the benefits of that are. I'm Lean Doring. I am the mental health advocate here at Tech High School. Um, and my job is to support students with mental health needs and kind of a bunch of other stuff, too, but I'm just here to listen and support. So, my name is Katherine Jespersonson. I'm a school counselor at Tech High School. I have the last names D through I
095um from 10th through 12th graders. And so, I have about 300 students on my case load. And I work with academics, college, career, and social emotional learning. >> I am Tabitha Craft. I've been with Greater Minnesota for seven years and I am considered a school linked mental health professional. I come into the school even though I don't work directly for the school. I'm still a part of the school district. Once a month, um, greater Minnesota, myself and our chemical health counselor, we all meet just to discuss the students that we're working with and see if there's any, you know, connections between academics and and those other community supports that maybe we need to look at. So me and Tabitha, we collaborate on um some of my students by talking about their mental health or academics.
096She may have a better relationship than I do with the student. So talking with her so that she could talk with the student about something that maybe I have concerns about. Well, the kids that I work with um often are troubled and they struggle either with social skills. Some of them it's truency. It's a hard time for them to come to school because of avoiding certain classes or avoiding people in general. So, I feel like I give them a safe place. They're able to come in here and also build relationships because a lot of kids that come in here either they're brand new to the school or let's say they're really quiet or withdrawn. And when they come in here, they all kind of start to see that they all are struggling building relationships. The
097collaboration with Greater Minnesota is a huge benefit to our students. One of the best parts about it, they don't have to leave the building. So, that saves a lot of time missing out of class, right? We don't have to drive to the appointment. We don't have to wait for the appointment, do the appointment, and come back. So, that already saves us a ton of time. And for a lot of folks, transportation is hard. And so, she's right in the building, they can walk down the hall. And the other nice thing, too, is if they're having a hard day, they don't have to wait 3 days for their appointment with their provider in the community. They can just go check in. So, those are some of the biggest um assets I think with having Greater Minnesota
098in our building. They loved Tabitha. Um being able to go to somebody that they really have built that rapport with has been great for them. Um so, not only being able to come to me, but having that extra person in the school that they can go to that they have that really good bond. Staff and families find that it's really convenient to have a provider in the building as well. It's someone that we can easily collaborate with. We can walk down to their space and have a conversation and it's a lot easier to collab. We're all in the know about the collaboration cuz at the end of the day we're all here. So whatever is the best fit for each student and family that's what we're going to do. I'm trying to get this open
099again. Sorry. All right. And the next uh duo that I get to share about is our triage team. And this is something that is also unique to district 742. Um Joy Notch and Shireen Anderson. Joy works in our elementary schools and Shireen Anderson works at our secondary sites. Um they both are licensed marriage family therapists. um which uh and they provide um a few different roles in our in our schools. I think one of the most vital roles that they play is they provide immediate support to our schools when a crisis occurs. They partner with principles uh to provide that response guidance. Uh this includes direct support from them uh to grieving students and impacted staff. And I will tell you over and over again I hear staff uh just the appreciation from both our
100principles and our staff for for their guidance and for the work that they do. Uh additionally they go above and beyond and support students and families in accessing critical services and community resources. This includes connecting to psychiatry and mental health therapy as well as processing paperwork with family and attending appointments with families as requested. All right. Uh I'll talk a little bit about our uh student suicide risk assessments. Uh so we have some assessments that uh live in our educ system. Uh they were developed by our mental health team members. Uh we have an elementary and a secondary version available. Uh so if a student is expressing suicidal thoughts or suicidal ideiation, uh these documents provide guiding questions that mental health providers can work through with students. Um and they are able to then provide
101that information to families if they need some additional support. They're able to then provide resources and also help develop safety plans with students when needed. Uh those are uh maintained in a very confidential uh location within a climber and only able to be accessed by mental health uh staff uh so that in the uh event that it happens again in the future for a student, they can reference uh if it was uh saved in that file in the years past. Some of the resources are listed there below too that are then shared out on the uh document for families after they have met with a student. collaboration with Clara's House. So, we have been uh partnering with Clara's House for many years in district 742. Three of our uh district 742 teachers provide the education
102for students when they are at Clara's house. Uh but just recently, we have begun a closer relationship with Clara's house where we now have a mental health team member on site at every one of our buildings who can help families and staff if a student wants to access support at Clara's House. uh previously they would have to go out and uh meet with their uh general practitioner or with a mental health provider in the community to get that referral to Clara's house and now we are able to make that connection for them directly from the school if the family is interested in that support and then Clara's house uh maintains that connection with the family and helps them get access to that resource. Uh we continue to work with CRY which is our uh child
103response initiative. There is a new CRY uh advocate this year and her name is Madison Shy. She goes by Maddie. Uh and she is a trauma-informed advocate and a mental health practitioner uh with Central Minnesota Mental Health Center. And she is working uh with our triage team this year to make sure that uh they are efficiently coordinating services. So, if uh if a student in our district is um needing some additional support from law enforcement and they've been exposed to trauma um and they need that additional level of support, it's that coordinated community response that is available for families in our area. Um and it's nice that she has that new uh partnership now with our triage team so that all of our resources are being vended the most efficiently. uh our community collaborations. We're
104really proud of the community collaborations and the support that we receive from our partners. Uh we have a great relationship with Claris House, the child advocacy center, and our suicide prevention programs at Centricare. Um in fact, they all provided professional development yesterday for our staff. They uh provide opportunities for staff to go on site and do tours, and they also come on site and provide uh professional development for our staff. uh the Sterns County truency triage team. Um I sit on that team and we u meet twice a month where we talk about students who have chronic truency, but we look at their needs and their issues and triage them and if they need some additional supports from the county or additional supports from our teams at school, we're able to uh talk through those
105needs and issues together. Similar with the United Way Mental Health Committee and the Sterns County Operations Council, I'm able to sit on there and provide information from our schools and then bring information back from those agencies to share with our mental health team members. And Kate Picowski sits on our JCAT team, which is the juvenile community action team. All right. Uh we implemented say something last uh March, I believe, and that is an anonymous reporting system. We use it in our secondary schools. Um the beautiful thing about say something is there are multiple reporting options. Mobile app, text, phone, hotline. Most of our students are likely using their Chromebooks uh to report. Um but it is 24 hours a day that students can can report a concern that they have. It could be a safety
106concern for self or others, bullying. Um we'll take a look at some data here in just a minute. Um, but as I said before, it's just op another opportunity for students who may not feel comfortable going and having that conversation in person with an adult, but lots of students feel pretty comfortable messaging through uh phone or through their Chromebook. This is the total events by school and month. And as I said, we implemented last March. Um, the green there, I know it's a little challenging to see, but the green is North Junior High. for whatever reason we that they are the number one user of this uh this app. Um and behind them is uh South Junior High. So our middle school students really are taking advantage of this opportunity to report tips. Um and
107you can see the peak uh the peak months there. Um when we first implemented it, there was great use by North and by South. Uh then over the summer months, as you would expect, we saw that dip down. Um but then in October we saw a major uh increase in in usage as well. Um in the red there that is Tech Senior High. So we have seen more usage from our our tech students as well within the last uh few months. I'm going to I'm just showing you here just a look at what some of the uh various tips are that we're getting reported. I just did the North South uh junior highs and Kennedy the middle schools because when I added the high school it was just that was really hard to look at.
108So um but what you can see here is they can report anything from bullying and that's probably one of our highest um tip reportings is bullying and cutting or self harm. Um they can report depression, anxiety, uh um fear for a friend who might have suicidal ideiation or for self. Um everything they could report uh if they uh were concerned about a potential weapon being in school. Um and again everything from uh eating disorders to maybe they heard that there might be a planned fight. And so this is just a great opportunity for sh uh for our students to to share what they what they're hearing and what they might be concerned about. Uh and we just wanted to close tonight to talk a little bit about the professional development opportunities that we try to
109offer to support our mental health staff. Um like Shannon mentioned, we're really grateful for the great work that they do with our students. um and we really try to honor the types of professional development that are pertinent to them um and that they need for maintaining their license as well. So we try to host as many uh different sessions as we can here on site so that uh as many staff members as possible can attend and then we also provide some financial support for each of the groups to attend professional development as it's needed. Uh so some of the examples are listed there. Um but we really try to bring as many mental health resources on site to our district so that um our mental health staff know of the different agencies and supports that
110are available communitywide as well uh if students are in need of additional support. >> That is it for the presentation. Uh, any questions, >> Scott? And then Gina. >> Um, it's very interesting. Um, it sounds like we've got a combination of, uh, staff and vendors. Um, are we contracting with these vendors? Are they working for free? Do we pay them a lot of money? What's the deal? >> I can speak to that. Um, yes, uh, anybody who is coming into school and working with any students, we have a contract in place with them, background checks, all all of those pieces are in place. Uh, Greater Minnesota provides us um our therapists at the cost of approximately $5,000 per therapist, which is way less expensive than hiring a staff member. Um, and so they've been very
111generous with us in that regard. and we uh we have a grant through the local collaborative that pays for that um for the portion of that. And so we're fortunate in that regard as well. But yes, um any of the partnerships that we have where people are coming on site to provide services to students, we have those contracts and those uh all of those other pieces in place. Um but a lot of our partnerships, as Jen mentioned, are where they're coming in and they're providing professional development to our teams. And in that case, we don't have to necessarily have a contract because most of I would say pretty much all of them are doing that for uh no cost. >> Okay. Um I think on greater Minnesota uh they love to get a hold of
112your insurance information so they can start billing at their rates. >> Yep. Well, colllocated therapists um that's a that's a standard practice in colloccated therapy in in all systems. But um the nice thing about greater men is yes they they do bill insurance first but parents would have to give permission to give that insurance information first. But then uh we do have about 10% of our stu um 10% of the students that they service um do not have insurance and then uh greater Minnesota is picking up that that cost as well. >> Um do we have part- timerrs or is this all full-time or how does that work? Yeah, Jen probably knows what more about which ones are part-time. I think it's a couple. >> Yeah, a couple of our schools have two part-time uh
113individuals who work there. Uh but the other sites, they are currently recruiting for a couple of open sites right now, but the other sites have full-time staff. But like Oakill has two people who work at that site. Um and North uh Discovery also does and then North is um their numbers are filling up as well. So, >> um, now are these primarily licensed school counselors or do you have such things as a marriage and family therapist LNFTs or >> Yeah, they have a variety of licenses. We have a document that lists each of their names um, and their licenses. If you would like to see that, we could certainly share that as well. Some of them are counselors. They all have um they all have therapy or counseling licenses. Um and some are licensed marriage
114and family therapists as well. It depends on what they can offer them. If they offer skills training or if they're able to offer therapy uh depending on their license. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Gina, >> thank you for sharing all the great work that you're doing. Um my first question was actually um Scott actually took that because I was going to ask about billing because we know health insurance is fun. Um so I was just curious about how students that are underinsured or don't have insurance how that works. So thank you for sharing that. Um the other question I wanted to ask was is this information and the way to access these services often shared with students and parents or both? Um are is it shared on a regular basis or for example
115if we are facing certain current events um where the emotions are heightened are these services shared um on a more broad level or kind of how does that work? I would say in the past what we've done is uh during kind of critical times in the year when we know there's you know um we're getting close to holidays or breaks where students become kind of anxious and and families as well um we do often send out in our um newsletters to we ask our principles to send out a list of resources which can include um the information for greater Minnesota and how to access them but also local or community resources as well. Um, so that's that's a uh kind of a standard thing that we've done over the past several years. Um, it's all
116available on our website as well. Um, but I would say that the the 90 mental health professionals or um our our team um does a really nice job of reaching out to families or uh students that they are identifying as would be a good fit. And just like the video kind of mentioned, um, in some cases that counselor, that school counselor, that guidance counselor is that better that best fit for that particular student. In another situation, it might be the mental health advocate at the school. Some of our students are receiving um, uh, service minutes through social work, through special education. And so, it's it's really about finding that fit. And our I I feel like our team does a really good job of communicating the options for for our families. Thank you. >> Yeah.
117>> Anybody else? >> Okay. Thank you very much for joining us tonight. >> Thanks everyone. >> Okay. Katie Herbald, executive director of innovation technology services, will present a second reading on proposed revised board policy 624, online instruction. Good evening, Chair H, Superintendent Putnham, and members of the board. Um, if you remember back when you saw me a whole bunch in our last meeting, just one time today, um, we talked about, uh, and we did a first reading of policy 624, which is, um, our online instruction policy. Uh just a quick reminder, this policy was rewritten due to the repeal by the Minnesota State Legislature of the Online Learning Option Act, which was originally brought up in 2003, and it was replaced in 2023 with the online instruction act, um which led to us needing to
118rewrite our uh policy 624. So, I won't put it up on the screen unless anybody has any uh anything they'd like me to go over and highlight again. Otherwise, um we had no changes recommended um in our last meeting. >> Okay, thank you. Uh anybody have any questions or followup? Okay, thank you. That'll be come back on the consent agenda then for third reading. Um next we have we're moving on to reports for tonight. We have Dr. Lori Putnham, our superintendent, doing the superintendent report. >> Thank you so much, Chair Hos, members of the board. Uh tonight I would like to recognize director of student services Kate Picowski, supervisor of health services Jessica Voss, and their entire team for the monthslong effort that they led to ensure our immunization compliance across the district. Uh their
119diligence, collaboration, and persistence certainly paid off. As of January 5, 418 students districtwide were excluded from returning to school due to non-compliance. Today, that number has been reduced to 24 non-compliant students with an additional 339 students on approved catchup. uh schedules are with confirmed appointments. So, that's super exciting. Um the and we continue to work with the the 24 students. Um but we really think that the significant progress reflects the strength of our systems, the dedication of our staff and the partnership of our families, and we are deeply and grateful to everyone involved in this work. I also want to celebrate student achievement across the district. On Monday at the annual Martin Luther King Jr. celebration at the River's Edge Convention Center. 29 of our students were recognized for their exemplary essays, visual art, and
120spoken word entries. We also have six students advancing from the district spelling bee to regional competitions at St. Cloud State University in February. All of these students exemplify our district's commitment, academic excellence, and elevating student voice. And congratulations to all. Thank you. Then we have board of education standing committee reports. I believe we have three. We have achievement integration equity committee chair Diana Fenton. >> It's being weird. There we go. All right. Thank you, Chair Hos, Superintendent Putham, members of the board. The achievement integration and equity committee met this morning. Um, assistant superintendent uh Jason Harris presented on the fall activities update. Um, numbers are steady. We're study again for fall sports with growing numbers in girls volleyball, music, speech, robotics, and clay target in the high school. And the district continues to look for
121opportunities for um adding growth with and we had quite a few state qualifiers in the fall sports which we will hear about in our review at the end of the year. So, we are in the midst of our winter sports season now and we'll have that update uh later. And then second, we had um Kate Buicowski prepare and present the midyear behavior data. Um the data from overall the behavior trends are similar to last year at this point and stable as reported by classroom and educ. um our out of school and inschool suspensions with students on IEPs continue to trend down and at the same trend down at a rate that is less over the last 3 years. Um and overall our our out of school suspensions are slightly up but December and January did
122trend down. Um, next steps are to look at the achievement and attendance alongside with the behavior data when we um finalize this at the end of the year. And in February, our upcoming agenda items are to talk about our yearly review for the American Indian Education Program and have an update on early childhood education. >> Thank you. Then we have finance and audit uh board committee chair with Heather Williams. Uh we met yesterday, January 20th. Uh we talked about the primary election opt-in. We the district has been opted into the primary election system for schoolboard elections for many years. In a general election year, there is minimal cost to the district to participate to participate in the primary election system. However, the board chose to opt out of the primary election system for the special
123election last November because the district would have had to pay 100% of the cost. If the district decides to opt back into the primary system, the board needs to approve a le a resolution by April. The committee recommends opting back into the primary election system and resolution will be brought to the board for approval in November. >> February time. >> It's like November that seems late. Um and then we looked at MDE profiles. Uh Amy Scallarude reviewed the financial profiles for the two for 2023 24 which is the most recent uh information. The profiles compile information from MDE about our district and other districts we want to compare to including information on enrollment, student demographics, revenues and spending per student. It is quite a lot of information. So thank you to her office for putting
124that together. >> Yeah. Thank you. And then I believe we have one more uh personnel negotiations board committee chair Natalie Copeland. Uh yes, we also met uh yesterday, January 20th. Uh we one thing we talked about was the superintendent evaluation for 2526. The committee and the superintendent reviewed the plan and schedule for the annual evaluation of the superintendent with a focus on community and board relations. A survey will be sent to board members and identified community partners. The result will be results will be compiled and reported to the committee and the full board in preparation for completion of the annual evaluation. This is the agreed upon timeline. In March, uh the survey will come out to board members and identified community partners regarding superintendent the superintendent's performance related to community relations. And then in on
125May 19th, uh the personnel committee will have a work session to review data and prepare a draft evaluation summary for the board. June 3rd, there will be a closed board meeting for the evaluation of the superintendent. And finally, on June 17th, we will make a public report on that annual evaluation of the superintendent. Couple more things. Uh number two was negotiations update. The administration provided an update regarding progress in negotiations with the district's collective bargaining groups. Of the district's 11 bargaining groups, settlements have been reached with three groups and a tenative agreement has been reached with one additional group. Two groups have filed for mediation with the Bureau of Mediation Services. Negotiations with the remaining groups are ongoing and continuing in a positive and productive manner. Finally, number three was personnel matters. The administration reviewed
126several personnel matters with the committee. Information regarding these matters is classified as private data under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act. And that's all I have. Thank you. Uh last up tonight, we have future agenda items. The February 4th board meeting work session topics will include operations update, approval of tenative agreements if any, the 2026 207 middle level course updates, policy readings, and school updates. At this time, does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item? Okay. Um, that's everything on our agenda tonight. I'm looking for a motion to adjurnn. I have a motion by Heather, a second by Natalie. All in favor say I. >> Opposed. Meeting is adjourned. It is 8:41 p.m. Have a good night. Thanks for watching. We'll be back February 4th.