0012026 and the time is 6:30 p.m. Our mission is to provide a safe and caring climate and culture in which we engage, inspire, educate, prepare, and empower all learners in partnership with their surrounding community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's society. Heather, can you please lead us in the pledge of allegiance? I pledge allegiance >> to the flag of the stands nationisible and justice for all. >> Thank you. And then when you're ready, can you please call roll? The following board members are present at the district administration office. Scott Andre >> here. >> Natalie Copeland >> here. >> Aldgrren. >> Oh, sorry. That's >> I'm just [laughter] I'm so sorry. >> Autopilot. >> I do. I just read. [laughter] >> Sorry, Gina. [laughter] [gasps] >> One of those days. Gina Aso. [gasps and laughter]
002>> Sorry, say that again. Gina Aso. >> Yeah, here. [laughter] >> Diana Fenton >> here. >> Shannon Hos here. >> Heather Williams here. [snorts] >> Um, the following board members, Zach will be here. >> Yes. >> Later. Yeah, we hope. [snorts] >> The following cabinet members and staff are present at the district administration office. Um, assistant superintendent of secondary education, Dr. Dr. Jason Harris, assistant superintendent of E5 Learning. Nikki Hansen, executive director of community education and community partnerships. Shannon Ason, executive director of finance and business services. Amy Scallarude, executive director of human resources and general counsel. Tracy Flimbo, executive director of innovation and technology services. Katie Herbolt, executive director of operations, Matthew Buché, executive director of special education. and Danny Mayor, media technicians, um Paul Novc and Gordy Scott, custodian on site Emerson Beamer. >>
003Thank you. Then I need a motion uh to approve the board of education meeting and work session agenda. >> So move >> second. >> I have a motion by Scott, the second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Yes. >> Gina Veto, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, yes. Heather Williams. Yes. >> And 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 personnel staff changes. Item B, approval of monthly financial report for number November 2025. Item C,
004approval of monthly treasurers report for November 2025. Item D, bid award to Lahi roof replacement. Item E, approval of proposed revised board policy 101, legal status of the school district statute formats only. Item F, approval of board policy 101.1, name of the school district, reviewed, no changes. And item G, approval of board policy 530, immunization requirements, reviewed, no changes. At this time, does any board member wish to remove an item from the consent agenda? Okay, seeing no removal. Looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as read. >> So move second. >> Motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote on that? >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Gina, >> yes. >>
005All right. Thank you. We have one information item tonight. We have the cyber security update presented by Katie Herbald, executive director of innovation and technology services. Welcome Katie. >> Good evening, Chair Haw, Assistant Superintendent Harris, and members of the board. I'm just going to get my presentation up here. Uh Dr. Putnham asked me to do a little bit of a review of our cyber security protocols. um just to keep you informed on kind of what we're doing to keep our district safe cyberwise. So when we talk about cyber security, we're talking about protecting our networks, our devices, and our data from unauthorized access. Recently, school district have school districts have faced a lot of cyber security challenges um with ransomware attacks being up about 68% in recent years. When there is a breach, cost of
006dealing with it um can exceed over $3 million. And that's not counting any operational disruption we have to our um students and our staff. And then of course any damage that that can come to our reputation. So when we think about our cyber security infrastructure, we think about our network systems as being the home for our student data and our staff records. Um I put a file cabinet on there because not that long ago, that's where it was kept. Um, so all of our student data, all of our staff data would be in one of those cabinets, um, with a little bitty lock on it, um, and which was probably locked most of the time. Um, so now with everything being in the cloud and being within our network and being digital, we move to
007a more from a simple file cabinet to a more comprehensive security system. Um, so one of the things I'm going to do is, um, I'm probably not going to give you, well, I'm definitely not going to give you our entire cyber security plan because putting that in the public is not a very good practice. Um, and I'm also going to not uh talk about specific programs or software that we use. One, because again, that's not great practice to share exactly what we're using, but two, those things tend to change over time. We change to different platforms. We change to different software. So, I'll give you an idea about what those things are. Um, cyber security is new to me, too, in the last couple years, and it's not something we all talk about a lot.
008So, I'm going to compare a lot of our cyber security measures to how you might secure your home. Um, to give you an idea about the things that we do and how we protect our data. So, if you think about all of our data being like the most important things in your house, I'll tell you how we secure that data. So one of the first things that we did actually this year is we did and many of you were impacted by this. Um we did a password update and if you think about our passwords are being like our first line of defense um which stops most of the threat when you have good passwords. So um this summer we increased our password complexity. We used to have a nine character password um that was could
009have been known to more than just the user because it followed a similar pattern. everybody's passwords were of a similar pattern. Well, now passwords are self- selected by our staff. Um, and so those passwords are not kept in plain text anywhere and are not known. When a when a staff member needs help uh recovering their account or getting back into their account, they're going to create a new password. We're not giving them what their old password is. So, we went from nine characters to 12. If you look at that chart on there, um a nine character password um can be hacked by a bad actor fairly quickly. Whereas when you go to 12, you add complexity like uppercase, lowercase numbers and symbols, um we're looking at about 3 billion years um to be hacked. So
010normal methods of just trying to test passwords and some of the programs that are done to do that, it's going to take a very long time. Um, we also talked to staff about not using known things. Um, the word password is a bad password to use. Um, not using ch children's names, pets names, those types of things. And we're thinking more about pass phrases, um, that are longer and more complex when talking about passwords. Um, another thing is, uh, you don't want to make it too easy because, um, that's like locking your door and then putting the key under the welcome mat. um it's really easy to figure out and it's easy then to get in. So we want to have more complex passwords. Um another thing that we do uh to secure our data
011is we use multifactor authentication which is like that keypad. If you have a security system in your house and you need to disarm it, not only do you have to unlock your door, you have to go in then and hit the code on your keypad um to prove that it's you and to get into your house without an alarm going off. So basically multifactor authentication helps you prove your identity when you're logging in. Ways our staff do this, they use their fingerprint. They could get a code sent to their cell phone or they can answer security questions that only they know. Um, so even if someone is able to steal your password, they can't get past that secondary code because they don't have your fingerprint, they don't have your phone, and they don't know what
012street you grew up on or whatever or your favorite color, whatever security question that you've used. Um, the next thing that we do is we do simulated fishing, but that's fishing with a ph. Um, and training, which uh I'm kind of making it like our neighborhood watch. So fishing is a form of social engineering where someone might masquerade as a legitimate and trustworthy entity and send you an email um that would ask you to reveal sensitive information um or could download malicious software to your computer. So we send staff these simulated fishing emails. They look, you know, like they could be a fishing email. They have kind of all the hallmarks of them. Um and it tests their awareness and response. Now, we're not trying to be gotcha, but we are trying to provide training
013in the moment. So, if a malicious or a fishing uh simulated fishing email is clicked, they're going to instantly get training that pops up and tells them this is what the what the problem was and this is how to deal with it moving forward and reasons why you should not have clicked on this. Um staff are also able to report any emails they think of that are fishing to our um in our email system. There's a little squirrel icon um that they can hit and report emails. If they report a simulated fishing email, they earn acorns and there's a leaderboard. It's very exciting. Yeah, Amy's number 68 on the leaderboard. She's doing pretty well. Um, so yeah, it's a it's it's the leaderboard is a big deal. And people are like, "What if I am
014reporting multiple emails? I'm getting more acorns." It does self regulate over the week. So even Amy, even if you report the same email three times, you're not going to get all the acorns. Don't do that. That would be cheating. >> Yeah. Okay. Um and then uh when they're reporting uh malicious emails, that goes then into or what they believe to be malicious emails, that goes in into our system. Our IT team takes a look at those. If we deem it to be malicious, we can put it in kind of a quarantine for a while and just kind of uh take a look and see if more people report it or we can immediately take it out of all inboxes that it might have been sent to and then block that email address from sending other
015things in. Um, it makes our staff uh active defenders and and creates more of a security awareness throughout our district. Um, I do get a lot of comments about acorns when I'm walking through buildings. Like people are real invested in um finding those simulated fishing emails to the point where like there may be reporting things that are definitely not fishing. Um, occasionally my emails which is fun. [laughter] Um, the next thing that we have is uh called EDR, which is endpoint detection and response. This is an application that's installed on all of our district devices. It's kind of like having motion sensors on your security system at home. It detects any alerts or suspicious behavior in real time like malware, unauthorized access, and malicious links. Um, it quarantines them on your device and then sends
016us an alert that suspicious activity has been detected. um and it will also um alert the user of the device as well. So that's endpoint detection. Now associated with that we have manage detection and response. So if your security system has 247 monitoring like if your security system goes off and someone's going to call you um and say hey are you okay or your security system's going off? Um that's what this is. So, it's roundthe-clock monitoring of our entire network um by security experts and they identify and respond to threats in real time. They also do a manage risk assessment where they scan possible vulnerabilities. They do this monthly where they take a look at our software, hardware, um any uh external information that we have on our website and see if anything can be
017exploited and then tell us what we need to do to go and patch or fix those. Um there will also be incident response. So if there ever is a cyber attack, they would help us rapidly contain, investigate, uh, and remediate cyber attacks. They also provide digital forensics, uh, threat actor negotiation, and system recovery. Um, they will call at 4:00 a.m. if they have a high priority alert, which turned out to be nothing, by the way, but I can tell you they will call at 4 a.m., which is uh which is fun, but we know if something's happening. Uh the next thing that we have um that protects our student data are DPAs or data protection agreements. These are like your trusted neighbors that you you know maybe when you go on vacation you give them
018the key to your house to take a look um and you might work together uh to protect it during that time. So it's a contract between our district and a thirdparty service that governs the processing, storage, and protection of our student data. Our data [snorts] is really only as secure as our weakest partner. So a DPA um just ensures that they're obligated to maintain the same or better security standards than we have. So our DPA asks our or requires our thirdparty services to have multifactor authentication to have endpoint detection and all of these other factors that we have that keep our data safe them too because they have access to it. So we want to make sure that they're keeping their um act our data as safe as we are. Some other things that we're
019working on kind of cyber security related, we're continually updating our cyber security response plan. Um we're assessing our infrastructure for gaps with our MDR partners. So our managed detection response partner, we're always looking for those gaps and security patches we can make um and constantly making those. And then uh we're also working on a three-phase AI deep fake response plan. Um and if you are unaware, an AI deep fake is when somebody may use AI to copy your voice, your face, or your likeness. Um, and we talk about prevention and preparedness, how we're going to um, work with students and staff to prevent those, how we will respond to an incident, and how we can recover and review when one is done. So, that plan is in the works, and you'll be able to see
020that when we're ready for it. [snorts] Um, generally, we're just taking this multi-layered approach. We want to combine technology, training, and planning to protect our student data. We want to make sure we always are staying operational and we want to make sure we're building and maintaining that trust from our community. So that is your cyber security update. Do you have any questions? >> Anybody have any questions or comments, Scott? >> Yeah, that sounds really cool. >> Super cool. >> Um, [clears throat] man, uh, manage detection and response. Are these folks are they watching our system 247? >> Yeah, they are. These are the people. So, um the one of the interesting things is we restrict loginins um for staff when they leave the country. Um and because this system is always monitoring like where people
021are logging into their school accounts from like IP addresses if they're logging in at places that are considered normal like around the area, but we get a uh we get a notification when anything seems unusual. So, if they're logging in from a place they don't normally log in from, or if they're in a trying to log in in another country, we'll get a detection. [clears throat] And so, somebody was on vacation, logged in from a country that's a high-risisk country, because some countries just have more cyber crime than others. Um, and they happen to try to log in from that country, which is why I got the 4 a.m. call because it's a high risk. It turns out it was our staff member. They were not able to actually get into their account because we
022restrict that. Um, so it was nothing, but yeah, it's 247. Any type of high priority alert comes through, they're calling my cell phone. This is exciting. [laughter] >> I was just thinking I might go on a vacation. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. If your uh security alarm is going off while you're on vacation, your security company is probably calling your cell phone saying, "Hey, is this you or do we need to send police? You know, do we need to respond?" >> Okay. um this data protection agreement that's the contract between uh us and this managed detection folks. >> Yeah. And it's a little different than the contract. We often have a contract and a data protection agreement. The contract is between is written by the vendor and then signed by us. Whereas the DPA is our
023um is written by us is our standards and it's signed by them. Um I didn't hear anything about backing up stuff. Do you tell me about backing up? >> Yeah, we do require certain backups and it depends on what the system is. Like we have backups of cameras, we have backups to um our network and those are for safekeeping. If something happens and we have to shut down or delete, we're able to then recover based on our backup. So most of our systems have those. Our data protection agreement um talks about when if a we no longer do business with the vendor, when and how they have to dispose of their backups uh and of any information that they're keeping. >> Okay. Is there some sort of relationship between what you do and the security
024systems in our buildings? Yes, I I do help manage those with uh Matthew Boucher there, but yes, I do help manage that system. >> I know that if if there's a fire or something like that, uh the word goes out one way or another. >> Yep. >> Yeah. Luckily, I'm not on that call list. Matthew is. >> I sure am. >> I'm on the But I am on the cyber I'm the number one on the cyber security call list. >> Okay. Thank you. Yep. >> Good job. Keep it up. >> Thank you. >> Even if you drive me nuts with your passwords. >> So sorry, Scott. >> Thanks for putting that together in a comparison way that I could wrap my head around it instead of just talking it. That goes right over my head.
025So, thank you. >> No problem. [snorts] >> All right. Thanks. But you're not going anywhere, right? >> I'm still here. >> Okay. [laughter] We are moving on to our uh discussion item. We have the Central Minnesota Virtual Academy, CMBA update. Um Katie Herbalt, executive director of innovations and technology services is staying and joining her is Laura Freeze, Apollo High School assistant principal and CMVA administrator. And then also welcome Tyler Malotki, if I pronounced that right. Um CMVA school counselor. Thanks for joining us tonight. Well, good evening again, uh, Chair Hos, Assistant Superintendent Harris, and members of the board. We are here to provide an update about Central Minnesota Virtual Academy, which you will occasionally hear us use the acronym CMVA, but we will try not to use that acronym a lot because we know it
026can be confused with other entities around the St. Cloud area. So, we'll try to say Central Minnesota Virtual Academy as frequently as we can. Um so as you uh just announced I'm here as the executive director of innovation and technology. I've been working with our online school um since its inception uh four years ago and its uh initial year which is three years ago. Um as a technology coach then as a director and now as an executive director. Um but I've been joined the past two years by uh the amazing person sitting next to me uh Laura Fes who has taken over as the CMVA administrator. And then we've been joined this year by again the amazing Tyler who has become our full-time counselor for our students who are taking online classes which has been
027um just an absolute gamecher for our kids who are participating in this program. Um so we are Central Minnesota Virtual Academy. We are District 742's online entity, online school. We serve students in grades 9 through 12. When we opened in school year 23 24 we served grades 6 through 12. We found that our middle school students were not successful um with a way that we could provide um support at a at a in an online school. So we now only serve high school. For the past two years, we've served only students in grades 9 through 12 with increasing number of students using um Central Minnesota Virtual Academy to get their credits um every single year. >> Dive in a little bit deeper. >> Got to grab that microphone there. Yeah, a little bit deeper into
028who our students are. Um, students come from Tech High School and Apollo High School or are open enrolled. Um, so just a few data points here to look at. Uh, this is just from December for trimester 2. Uh, there's 450 students taking at least one online class. Um, which is a significant amount of students to manage between the tech counselors, the public counselors, and myself. Um, and then all the teachers and staff that support us. Uh one thing to note I think is just the growth this year just um up 52% to 91 in trimester 2 from 60 uh in August when we kind of started tracking the data and noticing the growth. A lot of that is out of district transfers or open enrollment which is positive from uh Raori or Sartell SA Rapids
029Wilmer other places in mostly in the central Minnesota area. Um, then we also support the part-time students. That would be students that have a blended schedule like an in-person class at either tech or Apollo and then one online kind of over the top of them. Um, just tech being a little bit bigger, their numbers are a little bit bigger. They have 238 students. Uh, Apollo students have 103. And then even ALC and McKinley utilize the online uh, classes for their support and credit recovery too. So 18 of those kids So, when you log on to or go to our website, uh the district 742 website, and then if you search up CMVA, families and um staff will see this um beautiful um design that Tyler put together and it's the four pathways that students can
030get to CMVA. Um the right hand side or lefthand side as you can see is how our district students um have our options to either be full-time. So they can be full-time um they work with their counselors to um make sure that they're getting the classes they need to be on the path to graduation and then they work with Tyler and myself to make sure there's room in those classes. Um, another option, as Tyler said, we have a lot of part-time kids, and further in our presentation, we'll talk about why that is or or why they choose to be part-time. Um, and our part-time kids, again, they go through their counselors either at Tekker, Apollo, or McKinley. They work with Tyler and myself to make sure that, um, it fits their schedule, if they're part-time,
031if they are meeting their graduation requirements as well. And then the outofd district residents, this is our third year. So by um state mandate, we have to offer CNBA or central Minnesota virtual academy classes as supplemental. So, we had to kind of think differently about what that would look like. If a student stays enrolled in Royaltton, for example, but wants to take a class like 2D art or US history or something through um our online academy, what would that look like? And so, we created um another option and that's the last one, supplemental. If a student wants to take classes supplemental, the the pathway is to reach out to me, contact me, because then um I work with Tyler and we ask those questions about what classes do you need, what do you need to
032graduate, what are your hopes for being online? Are you wanting to graduate in your home school? Are you eventually wanting to go full-time here in St. Cloud? just to kind of have that connection with family about how we can and then um yeah, then we just go through the process. There's a little bit of paperwork if they do supplemental because of funding. Um and we haven't had anybody. We almost we almost caught one kid to do it this year and I was so excited. Um but then they found a different um option. And then obviously if they're non-residents um or out of district, we open enroll them. So again, we're having that conversation with family first about what they're wanting for their student and then we help the family with that process of once we
033have your transcript, this is what we can offer through CMVA. If this is still a good choice for you and your family, then this is what we need you to do. And then between Tyler and I, we step them through the open enrollment process. just some numbers to highlight, but also just working with students I think is the highlight. Just to know their stories and their families, what their goals for working in the future. Uh what career they want and who they are as a person has been a highlight for me. Uh I think we wouldn't do this job without that. Um but I guess the goal of, you know, the goal of high school is to graduate. And that's a big number to focus on. Uh we have 29 seniors full-time. Uh, and 92%
034of those kids that are full-time seniors, all their classes are online, they are on track to graduate, which is a big success so far. >> Who chooses um Central Minnesota Virtual Academy? Um, and why? We have a lot of PSO students who are taking both classes um at high school, so through Central Minnesota Virtual Academy as well as St. Cloud State or the Technical College. So, it's that flexibility that they like. Um, for medical reasons, we've had some students need to take um, Central Minnesota Virtual Academy classes because they have to be at home and they can't be in school or around others. Um, mental health needs workforce. So, some of our students are choosing to um, have that flexibility that we offer through our our online platform and be able to work more um,
035athletics. So, we do that's that's kind of new this year is we have um different athletes who are choosing to have a couple classes through Central Minnesota Virtual Academy because it gives them the freedom to be able to do their competitions and not have it interrupt their school day and their classes live um and in person. Family obligations and and flexibility. I mean, that's really the number one the number one um thing that that we offer is that flexibility. Um course highlights. So we we are um we offer all credits that a student can take to graduate are juniors this year. Our 11th graders are our first year students. Um, so it's kind of cool to see them grow through the um the program. We offer um multiple languages. We um offer it, but not
036that we run the classes because there's not always the numbers that we need through the Central Minnesota Virtual Academy registration to run the numbers. Um but we do offer different languages. Um we have some electives such as art, music, and new this year we are offering um food fundamentals. So that that'll be new. That's that's pretty exciting. >> That's you. Um our students participate uh in their learning through our uh Schooly platform. And so you can kind of see what that looks like to the right. um they are working asynchronously, meaning they're not in like a live video call. Um but they can participate in live sessions with their teachers during their teacher office hours. So they're able to log on to a video call through Google Meet with a teacher to get help or
037to work through any uh problems that they might have. Um they work through by week. So they are given a weekly folder in their Schooly course where they see what they need to accomplish for the week and they're able to um take a look at that as they need to. but they are required to log in and look every single day. Um the devices that our students use for learning are the Lenovo 500 e Chromebooks. Um some of our students who are full-time choose to use their own device, but we do offer a device to every student. If the student lives too far away, we will actually mail that device to them um if needed. So all of our students are provided with the materials that they need in order to learn. Um, also, uh,
038Laura has, uh, spearheaded this, but we do offer art classes and we are sending out art supplies to students that take those art classes so that they have what they need to do their, um, online projects. So, while it is online, there are still lots of things that students are interacting with physically um, in order to do uh, what they need to in their learning. >> Yeah. And one one thing I'll just piggyback off of what Katie said um and to bring it back to with our open enrolled students. Um Tyler does a fabulous job meeting with all those families. So what we try to do is if they are open enroll them on campus, we meet the family. We go through the CMVA expectations, make sure they can log into their computer and then
039at that time if there's any supplies that we can give them, we try to frontload it with that. So, um, we try to minimize how much we send out, but a lot of families have been pretty okay coming in and doing that meeting and getting what they need to make sure their students are successful. So, on this slide is just a a snapshot of a couple of our um, Central Minnesota Virtual Academy instructors. Brenda Syers is our closest to full-time um, instructor. She is a 0.8. And here's just a snapshot of her daily schedule that you can see is really nicely laid out so students at the beginning of the week know what needs to be accomplished by Friday and turned in. Um all those little things are clickable. Um and then on the other
040hand on the right hand side you see our government teacher and um his schooly page with the learning objective. Oh, thanks. with the learning objective posted um on the daily slide deck. Um there's a to-do list, a what to turn in, and then a video for for the lesson again. >> Oh, you're fine. Um we track student attendance daily and it's tracked uh via their interaction with Schooly. So we basically download a report of everything that's been touched, clicked, or logged into in Schooly for the entire district. We then use a formula to compare that to our students that are um listed as our Central Minnesota Virtual Academy students. So every day we see if all of those students have been in Schooly and doing work. And so if they have been in Schooly um
041and completing work, they are then marked present for the day. Um if they are marked absent, uh Tyler's been doing a great job. we have like a spreadsheet. We can see when students are starting to miss days consistently and he's able to then follow up. Um they also could be subject to truency and and they'll receive truency letters um if it gets to that point. I put that graph in there that's just December 15th, 16th and 17th. Um and this is like every uh every individual login. So, we don't have 1,400 CMVA or Central Minnesota Virtual Academy students, but they've all logged in multiple times during the day. So, you can see kind of where our groups have or our students um are participating. And it's been pretty consistent this year as far as like
042when they're logging in. Um and you can see our teachers on there, too. So, different ways that we communicate with students and families. Um, for me, I have been able to have a little bit more freedom to be consistent with a monthly family newsletter. So, I'm trying to um do the same type of communication they do in at Apollo and at Tech and at McKinley. So, I'm trying to make sure that our families are informed. I I typically will send to both part-time and full-time CMVA families because in our system they may be part-time, but the other part of their days at PSO. So, we see them as part-time. So, just to make sure everybody feels like they're in the loop with what's going on with Central Minnesota Virtual Academy, um I send it to
043all the families. So, if you know anybody, then you're only part-time, you're getting a letter, too. So, I apologize if you are getting bombarded with letters. Um Tyler is is a doing a fantastic job with um communicating through um office hours and Google meets. So he has time set aside. I'm kind of speaking for you. >> Sure, I can jump in. >> Okay, you jump in. >> Just the student support. Um I mean students reach out either by schooly uh by phone uh or by email and then some I have students meet with Google meets as occasionally as well or in person in our office at Apollo. Um so just whatever kind of works best for their family and their situation. Some may not drive and some may need a bride from a parent or
044guardian um to kind of choose which way works best to communicate. when we've had concerns, we have done home visits of students um who are showing their attendance isn't up to par and you know we're concerned that they're not interacting. So, we have done home visits um and then we've done we're able to do um academic recognition. Tyler uh got a grant from a a local a local organization that gave us some money. So then we're able to buy like things that you see here in these pictures. And so for academic recognition through PBIS, we honored students who passed all their classes by midri try one. We did the chair. Uh the little video rocker. We were like, "Oh, they could do their CMVA in the chair." Um, and then at the end of the
045trimester, students who are earning all their credits through CMVA, um, we drew a name and then they got to choose which item they would like from that little display there. So, >> can both of you >> both of us? >> Yeah. >> Um, oh, online advisory. So again, we're trying to make sure that our online students are getting the same experience as our in-person students. So um Tyler runs the online advisory/eagle time tiger time. So we're sure our students are getting the same Zello lessons that our in-person students are getting and we're having those conversations around life beyond high school. That's what our Zello is the platform for. And um then we also our students also have the opportunity to come in person to participate in any clubs, activities, athletics um through Techar Apollo. >>
046So I just put on the left graphics just activities and athletics that we offer through tech and Apollo and on the right is just uh a snapshot of like what I posted for Eagle Time. Oh, >> it's just following the daily lesson that they do in advisory. Um, so like this week we're talking about Zello and uh registration coming up >> and so they're getting the same lesson as they would be in person. >> So this is um so our outlooks and goals um we've increased in numbers just from last year to this year with my participation in CMVA um and so we anticipate we'll continue to grow. Um future goals for us is to expand our offerings. Um we know that that sometimes when we register and have courses with lower numbers that um
047maybe at the beginning of like the in in the spring it may look like we can't offer this class but then by fall it's like oh dang I wish we would have one more elective to offer. Um I'd really like to see a a language run. I know we we have them register for it but we haven't gotten the numbers. So I think that would really help grow our program and um pull in maybe more students who are open enrolled and then um just you know continue to provide uh opportunities to build future skills and and how to work independently on online >> for questions. Scott. >> Um, why are there more part-time students at Tech than Apollo? >> That's a good question. Well, in enrollment at Tech is is greater than Apollo. So, there
048are more students at Tech to draw from. Um, and it's just for whatever reason students at Tech were more interested in uh doing the online classes or or part-time online classes. Um, and you also have to think about how tech is set up. Tech is perfectly set up for a student who is a little more flexible because there are spaces built in for students to have a gap in their day and be able to participate in online classes. um Apollo will be uh well set up for this um in the next couple of years. So I I think we're going to see more growth at Apollo, but we're already seeing more growth at Apollo. And part of that is because we have uh Miss Freeze and Mr. Malaki there as well that are that physically
049they're helping students that are part-time at Apollo. >> Okay. um open enrollment. Are we in competition with a a homeschool district someplace like a Royalton or uh whatever? I mean, can you be enrolled in two different school districts at the same time? >> Yeah. So, um you're able to like uh Laura was talking about earlier, able to enroll supplementally. So, I wouldn't say there's competition. We're not out there trying to take students from other schools, but um for example, we offer uh the Ojiway language and we offered it this year. If there was a student in another district who wants to take that, it's not offered in their district, they can we we can come to an agreement with their home district where they actually take that course from us while maintaining their enrollment in
050their home district. They fill out a form, we share the um you know the what the money that comes in for the student. We share it based on how many credits they take with us. >> Yeah. I think that'd be really interesting with more than one district how you break out the money because it's by student enrollment. >> Yeah. >> And so would you look at like maybe two classes there and three classes here or something like that? It >> depends on what the student depends on what the student wants and we can do anything. Um, the state of Minnesota has a formula that helps us calculate that >> depending on how many courses they're taking, how many credits they have. >> Okay. Uh, acronyms. >> We love them. >> PSO, what is that? >>
051Uh, postsecary education opportunities or options. >> Options. >> So, going they're able to go to it go to uh St.Cloud Technical College or St. called state and earn credits as a high school student at those two universities. They like our online school because um previously they would have to like take just morning classes at St. Cloud State or SCTCC and then come on campus in the afternoon to finish their high school requirements. Now like where when they take classes is very variable. They can take them throughout the day at SCTCC and still get those high school requirements to graduate. So then they're not they don't have to come back onto campus to finish those credits. They can stay at the university or at the technical college if they choose to. Many still choose to come
052back onto campus to finish their classes. >> Okay. So they have some options. >> Yep. They have options. >> Yeah. I think I knew a person that graduated from community college and high school the same week >> and work full-time. It was amazing. A lot of our students do work full-time and and participate in online classes. >> Uh PBIS, >> I'll let you do that one. Uh PBIS, positive behavior intervention systems. So PBIS is our um our platform for recognizing um following schoolwide expectations. It also in engulfs um our MTSS, another acronym, our multi-tered system of support. So when we have a student who's who's not u maybe academically achieving at the tier one level through curriculum instructions, um just you know kind of how we go about our day. Then they go to the
053tier 2 level. And so that just tells us that's where MTSS um comes into play. and says, "Okay, maybe there's some other interventions that we need to do for this student to wrap supports around him." So, PBIS is the overall umbrella that just helps that system, behavior, academics, and make sure kids are successful in both levels. >> I can sort of understand that in a physical layout where you have a building and structure and all that, it's a little con concerning is how to do it with a video layout. Yeah. So, we start we're starting really small um with just Tyler and I recognizing academic achievement. So, if you're earning all your credits, so you're achieving at that tier two or tier one level. So, we're going to recognize you for that. Um how we
054venture that out into the digital level. Like for example, Brenda Cyers, how does she use PBIS from a a a schooly platform? Th those are conversations I'm excited to have with the instructors to see how they feel that they could um embrace PBIS from a lens of online learning. >> Yep. >> You could use it as a reward system through your video, but in in person they also use it as sort of a disciplinary system. >> It's it's recognition for following schoolwide expectations. Yep. But I suppose you don't have disciplinary problems on the on video. >> No. >> Oh, you mean like through I'm thinking Apollo through Central Minnesota Virtual Academy. You know, it's it's not it. Not really. No, we've got, you know, once in a while there'll be a schooly message that that
055maybe needs some attention because the students not maybe saying it so nicely. But um I've had great conversations with families and it's really hasn't been a concern. I think where we would maybe move next is attendance like >> recognizing kids who are logging in every day and engaging in their lessons. >> Okay. I think we included the CNVA or Central Minnesota Virtual Academy students in the PBIS pizza giveaways this fall to get free pizzas for similar to the inperson school for attendance. >> For attendance y I can see how you would do it as a reward but a disciplinary hopefully you don't have the problem. >> Thank you. >> I have a number of questions. um do you track any demograph dem demographic information as to who is enrolled um and are you seeing any
056trends and the reason I'm asking um as we become more digital as the world changes particularly with young boys we are seeing a higher and higher level of um antisocial behavior almost are you seeing any sort of difference between male female um demographics um racial demographics, those cultural demographics about who is enrolling and who is not. >> I can answer that. Yeah, I don't I don't think there's a strong indication of female versus male or non-binary student that's enrolling. I think >> it's probably a very specific need or niche or student driven decision rather than more demographically driven, I'd say. And I would just encourage that you watch that because I think that the research that we're seeing >> um in terms of just behaviors in the world that we live in >> would mean
057that we should be paying attention to that. >> Um I got a little more information for you. I haven't looked this year but last year we were very close 50/50 um female male and our demographics very closely match a school like McKinley ALC. We look at our cultural demographics and our age range and all that stuff. Very similar to that school. >> Okay. >> But I haven't looked this year. So I can get you that information though if you'd like to see it. >> Access wise um at least during co I know that there were certain families who really struggled because of network access or um fiber or whatever. Is there an opportunity or do you have a pathway for students who maybe don't have the same level of access to um get involved with
058the program? >> Yeah, for sure. We have a certain number of uh hotspots that our district has that we will check out to students. Um and the best part about those is they automatically connect to our Chromebooks. So there's very little like troubleshooting needing to be done. Basically, if the hotspot's on and the Chromebook is on, it will connect. Um, so that takes away a lot of the barriers that some of those students have. And again, if a student is far away and needs it, we'll ship it to them. Um, have you had any students who you've directed based upon success? So, from a counseling or an administrator perspective, maybe you're not seeing success in on this platform and you've actually said maybe we should have conversation about getting back into the classroom. And how
059do those conversations go? um you >> start. >> Yes is the answer. >> Yes. Yes, we have those conversations. I a nice compromise is for families and students because sometimes the students are are the ones that are making those decisions is to ask them to come part-time. We we work as a team to really um lay out like where you're at creditwise, what it looks like over the next couple years. You know, what what's your favorite class? Well, well, why don't we offer why don't you do that online? Because if it's your favorite class, you're going to engage. What class do you feel like you need the most support in? Let's let's put you in a class in the morning or afternoon. We try to be really flexible to try to get them um the
060support they need and yeah, offering it part-time I think is is a is a nice compromise. Um, we did have one student who was going to drop out and um, she was full-time CMBA and we called her and her family and because she wasn't being successful and she was just going to be done and we're like, well, let's let's work with you. Tyler worked his magic and she did end up staying on. Um we cut back a class because um you know yeah we cut back a class and we worked with her and and she's she's scraping along but she's she's still in school, she's still enrolled. Um we're hoping that maybe she'll have a little spark of okay, this isn't so bad and then we can scoop her up and and get her the
061support she needs to graduate on time or close to it. Do you want to add to that? Yeah, I think and then to add to the part-time coming on more classes or less classes too would also be the transferring back to like ALC McKinley. Um, so we've seen students that are full-time not be successful and have those conversations with parents and kids um either by phone call or in the office and move them to to ALC. Um, I mean the tech counselors and Apollo counselors do a great job of doing that as well. So just I'm another system part of that. um if they are full-time then I can help them move back to that happened today actually we're talking with the student and family about moving back to in person. So is that the
062best decision for the student? Um where are they going to be most successful? Where does the history show from data or grades? Um what would be best and how is it going? And then usually the family and student can kind of help come to the same conclusion that we're suggesting. And we have used conference time like fall conferences. We use that to call families because our families through CMVA haven't they don't come in and even though um they're full-time and and maybe are in the tech attendance. We I've communicated with them. This is when we'll do our conferences. This is when we'll give you a call. We have conferences coming up next week. So, we're already planning like what families should we call and just say, "Hey, how's it going? You know, want to come
063in and visit?" So, it's on our radar for sure. Which leads a little bit to my next question. Um, we know that schools provide a lot of wraparound services. We know that schools are a place where particularly mental health and I think at all ages, but certainly in high school as well. um the observations that teachers or counselors provide in person about mental health or about abuse or about any number of things. It's one thing to observe and see that in person. What are you seeing? And how do you connect with students when they um they're they're not visible that way and it it's um because they're not even online in a visual sort of place, it's easy to be lost or not to notice those sorts of things. Do you have any thoughts or
064any comments about how your teachers are trained or how they think about it? Um, I'll start on this one and that is where I want to give a huge compliment to Tyler on this. He teachers are making physical observations. Tyler is using every point of data that he has from attendance to grades to messages he's seeing in schooly to talking with teachers to see if students are coming to office hours if they are communicating. So, it's different data points. it maybe isn't like a physical viewing of that student, but he's using all that information um to see who's at risk and and starting to have those conversations with those students. But I'm going to let uh Laura and Tyler speak to that more because they're doing it every single day. >> I think I mean
065teachers could refer a student based on a comment or something they write in a paper, a note that they receive an email in Schooly message um or something that they turn in. Um so then it gives us a a direction to head or a contact point or a proactive approach to reach out. Um yeah, encouraging them to be involved and be heard and be seen. Having a phone call or email or somebody checking in with them often just helps them be a part of the school system in general. And I think when we're onboarding too, we try to highlight those things to include them um and so they're not because that is a big risk that they feel isolated. Um, but we don't we come in whenever you want, call whenever you want kind of
066thing. open door policy >> and partnering with the family just to to be there to support them if they are seeing things or need support connecting them to community resources if we can or connecting them in different ways because even though they're CMVA um they can have access to the um mental health advocate at Apollo um obviously Tyler and and other resources that we have at Apollo too. Yeah. >> Last question, and this one's probably an easy one. Graduation wise, for those who are full-time, will they participate in this ceremony with their >> homeschool? >> Yes. >> Um, as of right now, that that is the plan. That would be the plan. Um, moving forward, if if we have conversations with with with the students, I I'm I'm curious what this group of >> juniors
067who will be seniors, what their um what their desire is like. Do they see themselves as an Apollo student or as a tech student or as a McKinley student because that's where they were in 10th grade and now they're full-time CMVA. I'm not I'm not sure. I'm I'm hopeful to kind of have a have a conversation around that and and see um where that where that goes. As of right now, there are very strong feelings that they want to graduate with Apollo or they want to graduate with tech, but we haven't had that that group yet. So, we have had conversations about what that'll look like. >> Natalie, before we jump to you, can I just um announce for the record so we can mark Zack Doorhalt here at 7:20 p.m. And Zach, thanks for
068making it in. First of all, Laura, I just want to say um thanks for saying I'm not sure. >> Yeah, like a lot of the times we don't necessarily hear that from that side of the table and I really appreciate that you're student centered in that. So, thanks for that. >> Um I'm just wondering since we've done it for three years, this is our third year. Okay. Um what are the things maybe from from two perspectives, admin and teachers and then students that you know you thought what you guys thought like going in, oh yeah, this is what it's going to be like. what was what surprised you either pro or con and then for students when they come in they probably have some idea >> right of how it's going to be and then
069um what has surprised the students as well >> um from a student perspective I mean I've had conversations with with students this year specifically um last year I was a little bit of a newbie so I'm a little bit like okay how do I navigate this on top of doing my fulltime in-person job and how you know I just want to make sure everybody gets what they need. Um, students have have responded to me that that they're part-time, try one, they love it, they figured out independence, they they know what they need to do as a student. Can I please be full-time, try two? So, those students are are finding their way. Other students are like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do um Central Minnesota Virtual Academy. I don't want to be
070in person. Okay. So, we give you this schedule and then a weekend said, "I don't want to be at home. I don't get to see my [laughter] friends. I want to come back in person." Okay. So, I mean, it it's kind of all over the place. Um, >> I've gotten a >> for the most part, a lot of our upper classmen absolutely love the flexibility because it pairs well with working. It pairs well with with the um college classes that they're taking and they are very appreciative. Some of our our um upper classmen too come into situations with family that they have to be responsible for and they are very grateful when when they know they have the opportunity to graduate on time, get the same classes, get the same information but do it from
071a platform that has that flexibility. Um I I guess that's what I would say. are we our younger kids don't they they don't they don't say too much. It's the upper classmen that are a little more willing to talk. >> I can talk a little bit about teachers. Uh so when I was an innovation coach, I was onboarding all of our uh online teachers that very first year. >> Um and I think what surprised teachers was I think some went into it thinking I'll just put what I do in person online. >> Yeah. >> And that's how we'll run class. Um, but very quickly our teachers that are teaching online have found really really interesting ways to get students to interact and to get to know students that they never actually see in person. Um,
072there there's some really cool things that that go on there. And then finding ways to assess learning in a way that's, you know, valid. It's not all multiple choice testing. Um, way students can do hands-on projects while not in a physical school environment. Um, I think some of those uh those things surprise me about I knew our teachers were really really good, but I I'm always surprised about uh when I talk to teachers who are doing these online classes. Some of the things like, hey, I figured out a way to do, you know, to look at the cardiovascular system, you know, and do a lab online with a science teacher. I mean, that they're really like innovative in that way and have found lots of different ways to uh connect with their students like that.
073>> Yeah. I think the last thing I'll say is um Milo who's in 11th grade thinking about PSO next year. I think that's one of the things that's lessened the anxiety around that is hey if I need to take something I can just take it through CNBA and also she can still come back for the last hour for band and choir. You know it's really I think really empowering for students. So thanks for your work on this. >> Okay, anybody else? Thanks for joining us tonight. Um, fantastic numbers reporting. So, thank you for all your great work. Okay, one more discussion item tonight. We have the generative AI update by Donna Roer, a director of research assessment and AI integration. Welcome, Donna. Good evening, Cherh Assistant Superintendent Dr. Harris, board members, colleagues, and listening community.
074Thank you for having me once again this evening to present. Um tonight I'm here to just share a short um update on I think let's see I think I'm here to share an update if I can get this going um on um how we have been integrating the wise and strategic use of AI into our classrooms. Um, and let's just see if this is going to work for me. Yay. Okay. So, um, just for a little history, everybody is aware except for maybe our new board member doesn't doesn't know all of this, but this is the third year of our work in trying to move some AI artificial intelligence um, integration work into our classrooms and into our district. and um it's on the heels of two annual AI summits that are focused on learning
075and education in the age of AI. So it's really I want to stress it's not necessarily um about AI the technology as much as it is about learning and you know education in the age of AI and so for tonight my goal is really to share what we've done so far this year um what we're learning what's next um and part of that is so that our staff have clarity so that our students stay protected as learners and so that we keep improving with this uh piece responsibly. Um, and again, um, the guidance and the responsible use, we are we're not trying to hype things and we also are making sure that we're not responding and, um, reacting out of fear. We're trying to build shared expectations and common language. Um, and so the the
076arc of that work for the current year, you can see here what we um started with in August, our leadership learning of course. Um, we always ground our year in the beginning of the year with some of that. And then in December, we just finished up some professional learning that I'm going to talk about in a minute. And then where we're going in June. Um, and just to ground us in um what we focused our leadership learning on in August, it was on um the research that addresses learning and productive struggle in particular. And we intentionally chose um the learning around that because we know that our educators are many are trained in the competencies of um how we learn um or we call it the cognitive sciences. Most of our teacher prep programs include
077a little bit of learning around that. And so in the fall when we met with building leadership teams, we emphasized um and we actually practiced a little bit of understanding what learning looks like as it relates to things like memory and information processing, attention and engagement, motivation and mindset, metacognition and like self-regulation. And we launched that work intentionally with building leadership teams so that as we go into integrating these tools, we're very cognizant of um how we can use it wisely and strategically. Um because again, the use of it is very nuanced and very situational. So it requires all of our educators to be really conscientious of of what learning is actually happening, what tasks are actually being done. Um, and that kind of anchored us in this really one essential question, which is does
078the this AI use support or bypass the essential mental work that fuels learning. And so we gave examples of what supporting it looks like? We gave examples of what bypassing it might look like. we practiced. Um, and the whole idea really is because as professional educators in this work, we are the protectors of learning, right? We care deeply about not shortcutting student learning and ensuring that we are accelerating, if you will, um, opportunities to learn and just understanding in general. Um our focus this year just again I would say kind of is in three bucket areas for right now which one is really around because we don't have solid policy we have guidelines right um so it's really bringing as much clarity as we can through guidelines and responsible use um to our educators in
079the buildings in the classrooms right and so um we built out a responsible AI expect expectation framework that follows our strategic plan um foundational pillars. So if you think of safety, belonging, collaboration, and academic excellence, we used those and we used the four cognitive pillars which you just heard me speak to which centers this responsible use on learning and our foundational sort of pedagogical foundation of the safety, belonging, collaboration, and academic excellence. I know this is a lot um that I'm saying and I've got a lot of links in the presentation that go to some of these frameworks. I'm not going to go through each of them, but I encourage you to to take a look at them and if you have any questions, feel free reach out. But these are documents that are resources
080that are out there that our classroom teachers, our principles have access to. Um, another framework was the human AI human framework, which is an inquiry tool that we um asked people to kind of look at when they're um redesigning assessment. And um it's sort of a decision-making framework and it's not going to come up. I'm clicking on it. It's not popping up. So, we'll just let you guys take a look at that if you want. But the whole idea is to support our teachers with ways to understand how best to use um AI when they're in the midst of learning tasks. Um and again, we have um some additional assessment um using AI for assessment in our classrooms. We're um grounding our tools in the research that comes from Leon Furs who has been doing
081just a ton of research. It's really well thought out. um along with another protocol that asks um four key questions um about using AA wisely. And so I won't go through all of those, but just just so that you you know, we are trying to provide guidance and and then I'm going to share with you what we're hearing in terms of feedback from our teachers around that because the next bucket is really around professional learning. And so, as you know, we provided a um learning day on December 5th with our educators. Um this was an e-learning day. It was professional learning and it was the changemaker hub. And I am just I want to just call out we had 24 and actually I think I miscounted. I think it's 25 district 742 teachers who actually
082led sessions. And um I would love to read all of their names and all the sessions that they did, but there's a lot there, so I linked them. Um but these folks are just brilliant leaders who took time and were courageous enough to step out into this this space of um leading learning that is relatively new and novel. And so I just really want to commend them for taking that risk. And um I think they got a lot of positive feedback. Many many staff who attended felt that um the learning that they received on that day, the best learning actually came from their peers. And so kudos to to those folks who actually stepped up and led that learning. Um we had on that day we had choice breakouts. We had um a changemaker hub
083that was centering the learning for the day. And we're going to talk more about that next next meeting about the changemaker hub. Um but all of it was focused on AI assessment and really just um engaging our students in the learning process. And then finally the other focus I would say that um has been big for us this year is just um we are not alone in this work right. So how we are engaging with others across uh the state through the Minnesota Generative AI Alliance um for education group um in working with national um collaborators with our MSBA partners um we have strategic St. Cloud community and cross- sector leaders that we're working with. um EdSafe and Kosen are providing us many technical and um really great training free training resources available to our
084staff. So this is work that is really necessary for us to do fierce collaboration around because it's there's so much happening so quickly and it's just really hard to keep keep a breast of everything. So, um that is another focus for our district is just doing that really intentional um outside as well as internal collaboration. Um I do also want to say that we we had um board member Fenton was one of our presenters. Um we had higher ed um folks from the community come in and help us on that day and we had a number of the MGAA um folks come in and help us on that professional learning day as well. And so, um, here's some of the some of the feedback that we got. Um, I think we want to center what
085we do next based on the feedback that we are getting around these opportunities. Um, teachers told us what made it work. Um, they really liked the choice format. They really loved learning from their colleagues and that we had kind of shared themes running. um they they loved the idea of getting student voice into the space whether it was through the changemaker hub or some of them were you know engaging with kids just around AI generally. Um and then what made it challenging was really we um we probably need to not hold large learning sessions in our gymnasium because that was a lot of really um poignant feedback about the actual setting. Um, and then some folks felt like they didn't get into the sessions that were really relevant to them or maybe we didn't um
086have enough for our special education staff perhaps or other other staff who maybe are sort of niche. Um, and then uh there was also kind of a large voice of you know please don't do this on an e-learning day. So those I I want to acknowledge the feedback from our teachers because it's real. It's their experience. And so our goal is going forward is to is to take um take this feedback and build on it. And I I can tell you that I was in a meeting this morning where our team that is getting ready to set up the January 20th choices day has leaned into this feedback nicely. They have reorganized. We have made some major changes to the registration process. We hopefully, you know, take care of some of the things that were
087not that didn't go very well logistically. Um, and we will also be offering uh sessions for staff who said um that they want time to apply all this new learning. So on January 20th, we'll have time for some application from what was learned on December 5th. So that's really exciting. And again, these these are the names and the sessions. I just I again I'll I won't read them all, but you can see um some of the really cool session titles and just um how creative and brave everybody was to offer up uh these opportunities to their staff. So, there's another full page there. Um and so really, really good stuff. And again, just want to call out all of our teachers. Um, I want to make a special note of uh to Kate Kug, a
088special thanks to her for all her hard work on making sure that this day kind of pulled off and she did she did a lot of a lot of work. I really appreciate what she helped put together. Um, so again, and this is just saying that there the teachers feedback is really driving what we're doing um going forward. Um, they again keep doing the choice breakouts. um continue to improve the logistics. Um and I'm not going to go through all of this. I already said most of this. Um the one piece that I feel like we do need to tackle and that's going to take us a little bit more um intention and time is getting after the policy piece. I think we have staff who are feeling ready for some clarity and some of
089that might involve um a little bit tighter policy or practice you know guidance if you will and what we're hearing in some spaces is that guidance may not be enough. So, for example, um [snorts] when it comes to AI use in the classroom, we have a sort of a traffic light model that we're using. Um and the experience for the learner is really diverse from one class to another. And so, what we're hearing is feedback that's that they're saying, you know, we need clarity on these kinds of things. So, um, as we move through the rest of this year and into next year, one of the big focus areas, at least for me, will be on making sure that as a system we can provide as much clarity as possible, whether it's through a policy
090um, uh, or stronger guidelines, something um, to just give people that like I'm certain I know what to do in this situation. >> [snorts] >> Um, and then the evidence of impact from the work is really exciting. And these are just a couple of examples, but there's so many more. And um, uh, one of them that you may know was recently spotlighted um, with our tech um, group, the morning show group, who did a video, we need you here, addressing mental health using AI. It was fantastic. If you haven't seen that, I highly encourage you to look at it. Um, but here's also a couple more examples. And again, like I said, these are just not even touching everything that's happening out there. And so, one of the other pieces we would like to start
091doing is gathering evidence of impact and spotlighting sort of practitioners that are doing some really unique, creative, and um, engaging things. Uh what we have going forward that we're looking forward to is we have um some learning opportunities coming our way. We are going to be hosting a third annual thought leaders summit here in St. Cloud at Apollo High School on June 15th and 16th. Um we are hosting um our hope is to host a second changemaker hub. Um the first one went really well. People really really liked it. We are committed to doing it. is a fantastic way to gather data and learn. Um, and then you know we are we do feel like the role that we are playing in St. Cloud around statewide leadership is something that we should celebrate. It's it
092is something that I think we're being recognized for and um that's a good thing. And so going forward um again just to really work on getting strengthening clarity for our staff around AI use. Um looking at our policies is another area that we want to start um venturing into in January at the end of January. I'm told that MSBA will be sharing an AI policy. Um and so it is just it is on the horizon and it'll be here and we will be working through it. Um and then just the data privacy piece. So there's really three things that popped in the feedback which which data privacy was one of them. Student data privacy, verification literacy which is how do I evaluate the output of AI was another one. And um the third one was
093around just um h the third one was around transparency and just the clarity like what does everybody do? what do what do some people not do things like that. Um so there will be I think for the for the we will shoot for having much more clarity in the fall of next year and again doing this um iterative continuous improvement work allows us to responsibly you know make improvements. Um we're again I think I said all of these things the changemaker hub we're looking at doing one more professional learning and then the fourth area is really around measurement and I put that in here because um two pieces of feedback I got from teachers that I talked with personally um and they were very strongly recommended and and they have a lot of merit to
094them and and it was that you know don't show me or don't tell me that AI is g that using the AI tool will save me time. Show me, right? And the second was um show me how it improves learning. And so the only way that we're going to get there is we're going to have to measure, right? We're going to have to find ways to really understand how this is helping and improving learning. So I'm committed to looking at um ways of doing that. I have some ideas. We have we are lucky because we are connected to um a new classroom assessment a national classroom assessment committee and they are strongly interested in classroom assessment learning and how we look at things like initial knowledge, rate of learning, opportunities to learn and these are
095all levers for improving outcomes. And so um I will just share with you that those are things that we are looking to do going forward. Um that concludes my update for the midyear gener generative AI info report. I'll take any questions. >> Anybody have any questions or comments? Natalie and then Heather. >> Thank you, Donna. Um a couple things. I I don't know if I had a dollar for every time I read AI can perpetuate and amplify existing biases, I'd have at least $10. But [laughter] it's just and that's a lot of money, but but I'm I I believe that, but I I if someone said how is it how does it do that? I don't know. So, can you give us like a high level of that? Well, if you if you think about
096how these large language models are built, right? I mean, they're just language. They are language that we that we humans produce. >> So, as much bias as we have in our language is in every tool. And and you're right in the sense that um so it's really great that you asked that question because one of our featured speakers for the day was specifically trying to address that very thing. >> Um because our resistance to using AI um there's a lot of resistance to it for that very reason. Mhm. >> And you know what I have come to understand in my own learning as I've tinkered and played with the various AI tools um is that um it requires some more sophisticated prompting to get past that. >> Right. Um so yes it can amplify bias
097and it can uncover blind spots. Right. So so >> both and >> yeah it's so it it requires us to just grow in our own learning and be open >> but and then also be willing to say how how what am I missing? How could I be wrong? What's my blind spot? But what about this? Well, think of this from someone else's perspective. And and now we can tell the system or the the tool to bring back output. Now, you might say, well, how can we evaluate that? But I would say that's the beauty of the human brain, right? Is that we as we become good readers and so we still need to read folks, right? We still need to be literate in reading and math and those foundational skills, but um we we our
098capacity to make sense, the sense making part that that's the brilliance of the human brain. [snorts] >> Yeah, we can turn it off just because someone is willing some entity is willing to do the thinking for us. Thank you. Two more things. One I want to say about the tech video about mental health. I being an a musician and a former music teacher, I'm like, "Oh, never use AI for music. it's so, you know, intricate to humans and um but I was it kind of broadened my horizons a little bit and my bias against AI using for music because my understanding is that they wrote the lyrics but then they were able to have it, you know, put to something that really made the video so much better because it was a, you know, it
099was a basically hip-hop rap, you know, that was put to the lyrics that they had. So, I still struggle with it, but I'm like, "Okay, I'll allow that, you know, like it's just it's like and that's the way I see, you know, and you and I have talked about my kids and and how they really struggle with AI and definitely from a um from a let's have a world, you know, when we're 80 perspective, but also just from a human- centered standpoint. So, I'm I'm glad that we're in the struggle, I think, is what I want to say. And my last question is um one thing I read in here was about detecting AI cheating. I know that's definitely a a thing that we're concerned about. Um so like I you know in high school
100it was like you read the cliff notes when I was in high school and then people then teachers could tell you didn't really or you watched the movie instead of read the book. But like what's the what are the hallmarks of AI cheating that you see maybe in like a high school classroom? >> That is such a good question and it's hard for me to answer because I'm not in a high school classroom. I don't know if anyone here would be able to actually answer that better than me. I mean, I can give some idea, but you know, so and what I love about Mr. is it Jennison that that offered the detecting AI cheating. When I saw that class, I thought, "Oh boy, what what is this going to be?" Actually, it's really good.
101And I think teachers um come at it from the frame of like not wanting to harm learning, >> right? So it's an authentic >> uh they want to detect whether or not kids are doing the work and um and so why would we want kids to do the mental work? Why? Why? Why? You know, why do we want to walk a block instead of drive the block, right? Like we need the exercise or we need and it's the same thing with mental fitness teachers want kids to do the work because they're trying to grow the muscle, >> right? the and again that's a little bit why the whole productive struggle and understanding the four cognitive pillars and how things stick you know why it requires repetition or different things like that so >> um you
102know really it comes down to if I'm being honest AI literacy with our young kids and our learners so they understand >> when you do this you deprive your brain of the opportunity to learn something, right? So, I I think the way we're going to get through this is by really teaching our kids about how their brain works >> and why the learning is important, right? But I don't know if anyone else would have a better answer of like or if that even answers your question. >> No, I think I was just like like what are the like top three things that our teachers are seeing? Maybe Jason could answer. I don't know. Um, you know, like this is the struggle of AI in the modern classroom in 2026. >> Yeah. I think Donna hit
103it. I'm going to cheat the process. >> Yeah. >> If I got to write the essay, I'mma put it into chat GBTR >> and let him or her >> them what [clears throat] >> them the tool write the essay. >> Correct. teachers have be understand this now and so they're having the discussions with the student walk me through the process how you wrote that essay tell me how the first paragraph the second paragraph right and so they're getting into >> you can't cheat the system I'm going to get to you fundamentally to see how you know how to write that essay right >> we've learned I talked to teachers okay well let's use math this is the problem how'd you get there walk me through the steps right to Donna's point in the fundamental ways
104of learning right and so >> you >> as we help our learners we're student center you want to show how learning occurs to them and they need to fundamentally know how to do those things and and the teachers are having the honest conversations right you can try to use the tool to get by all these things but now we're looking at different ways put it in a a video or you know just some different ways and I think our CNBA DA teachers have really learned uh to Katie's point earlier in a faster way to be more innovative and creative of what they're doing and how they're collecting the looking at the learning and assessing it. >> Yeah, that's really helpful because it's the conversations you have after the fact that aren't just shaming a kid,
105but helping them understand, oh, why did this happen? In fact, in um uh one of my kids uh college classes at U of M, what the first thing that that that the teacher did was say, I'm going to show you the websites I'm going to use to know whether this is AI written or you wrote it. So, they're like, I'm just going to show my work to you right now and don't do this. So, yeah, >> and it's out there, right? And the same thing is our teachers and they're sitting down and they're having the conversation. I'll use math again. if I don't work through those steps of the process and I just show up in class. You do have some students could just show up and they're intelligent enough to have it. But that's
106very rare. And so teachers are having the conversations that you have to put in the work and how learning occurs around it and the fundamental skills. >> So you're saying it's still about relationships, >> all about relationships, the human connection, right? AI can't teach you the human connection to really get to know you, your skills, and build that relationship. >> Thank you, Jason. And thanks, Donna. I don't know that I have much to add. This last part of the conversation is probably what I I struggle I I struggle with AI and and I say that telling you that in my own profession I have learned to use it in a way that is saves me hours and hours of time. But it's much like you like when I talk to my boys I talk about
107I'm not a digital native. I existed before this thing existed. So I know what the before was and and throughout you know all of time technology has done that whatever it is there's always a generation that existed before whatever it is but the information age is a whole different thing and that's what I try and think about from the fundamental perspective and and I'll say your point about students needing to understand the process of learning and And that's I think straight on, but how hard is that to teach them? So like when I use AI and I can see what it can provide for me and and what I agree to the bias point a little bit is what I input, the better the information I input, the better the output is. But the reason
108I can input some things is in some cases I know the right questions to ask it. and I just keep asking and asking and asking and asking. If you don't have that understanding or if you don't know what an essay should look like or you know how you're going to frame your own thoughts around it, yeah, you can have chat PT will write whatever and it'll write it better than and it'll know more. I mean, in in some ways like contracts, I love using it. I don't know how to write a contract, but wow, it can give me some good templates. But I'm just um that process of learning and I am and because our learners now are digital natives, they don't know a before and an after. And I think that in the world
109that in which we live in which we're seeing critical thinking in my opinion in a lot of places declining um and we don't know how to evaluate what we read and what we see myself included you know like trying to figure out what I read on various channels what's true and what's not and how fast it gets out there and the algorithms that repeat it repeat it repeat it and then make me believe it like there is a discipline that we have to have. And I think that's going to be the challenge. And and so mostly what I'll say is I appreciate that you're leading the conversation because I'm a little bit concerned that the conversation in this country isn't being led at a high enough level given the that the urgency and and how
110quickly things are changing and and that's really scary to me. The last thing I'll just mention, and this has really nothing to do in this conversation, but I'm going to say it anyway. Um, when you have your thought leaders summit in the in this summer, I hope that as thought leaders, there's also conversation about responsible use extending to um AI infrastructure, including the building, the water use, the all of those things. Um because sometimes in our world we forget that just because we can doesn't mean we should. And I think that that's all part of responsible humanity. But thank you for your work cuz it's a I I mean it's an elephant and one bite at a time is the only way. I just I'm concerned that we're not going to be able to eat
111the elephant fast enough. >> Anybody else? Gina and then Zach. Well, thank you so much for that presentation and and filling me in. Um, I want to say that I really appreciate the way you framed this when you first started in that you said this is how we're using AI as a support for learning and not a bypass for learning. And I think that's an important message to kind of hold on to if when you get push back or when anyone gets push back. Um my question is and and it's almost kind of stemming off of um Heather's concerns there is looks like there's some really great feedback from teachers and some really great feedback from students. So that's wonderful. um wondering if you're getting any push back or if you're seeing different types of
112feedback from different generations of teachers or different generations of parents and what that looks like and if that looks any different and if you are seeing that how are you kind of navigating those conversations? >> That's a good question and I didn't I don't necessarily I didn't ask you know if you're a senior teacher on the survey for feedback. we didn't um I just want to say the resistance or the the the the where I feel it's important for us to like lean into and listen um is the mindset and the resistance is coming from a place of needing you know to know more andor deep care and concern sort like um director Williams is saying, it scares me, right? Like and that, you know, I care deeply about us not doing this wrong. Um
113so I don't know if there's a generational like I have young adults and they are very anti- AI. They're in their 20s, both of them. Um and it has to do a lot with the environmental aspect of it. to do with just the societal impact because they grew up with social media and they see the mental health implications that it's had, right? So, I think we would maybe be surprised by the generational response cuz I mean I sort of am also like, you know, it saves me. It has made my work and the capacity of what, you know, Donna Roer can accomplish in a weekend, >> you know, is because I have an AI assistant sort of, right? Or two or three or however many I want, right? I can go climb to the peak
114and do all these other things at the same. So, but I came from a generation of, you know, you work hard, you do, you know, it so I think our I think we would be surprised, I guess, is what I'm saying by >> it might be interesting data to collect when you're doing feedback, you know, and maybe asking some of those questions if someone wanted to share that >> just to kind of look if it's anonymous >> and and again, I the feedback that that I feel we really need to listen to is this the stuff that says, "Show me that it improves learning. show me how it saves me time because it's true the output evaluation process the verification process if you will is very labor intensive especially if you don't have the expertise
115right so that's where it can be a rabbit hole now I've just spent my whole day trying to do something but I wasn't sure so then I had to go you know so >> thank you I just wanted to um well thank you for the excitement that you bring to this um and I see like your LinkedIn posts and then I get lost down that wormhole. So >> yeah, one question is is the singularity upon us. Um but and then um just like if you had a quick give a quick overview because I talked to friends in other districts and they're like, "Oh, we we we don't have anything of this sort." Um and it seems like we're we're ahead of the curve and then some. That seems exciting. Um us as kind of a
116district um where you are pulling there's not really policy out there. We're we're all learning this together. um feel free to brag, but where you feel like we are at as a district kind of compared to um where other folks might be, >> you know, I I think part of it is um because there is no leadership on it, you know, like we we need regulation. I'm going to be honest. We need it for the safety of persons. Um, but we don't have that. And then what what translates is who's responsible, right? So, you know, I my my brother's daughter just had a baby on December 18th. Baby Ray, beta baby. I I I love her. Like, I care where we're headed, right? And I think if you're a person who has persons and you
117care, you're you're looking to this work to say what do we need to do to to to make sure that human centered skills and and that this is not led by the technology but led by humans with care. Um, I don't know if you are familiar with the International Math Olympiad contest, right? It's a six question. They have thousands and thousands of hours that go into developing these unique math questions that very few people across the world can answer, right? Except for this one math professor at Carnegie Melon who says he can answer four of them. But Chap GPT also could answer four of them. and he has decided and he will say you'll find him on YouTube saying I've realized kindness and thoughtfulness are the more the more important skills here you know so
118um empathy will be the number one skill that a scientist needs by 2030 I mean it's like seven or six right now but it's going to be number one that's the projection and I believe that right because we are going to have lots of tools to help us. It doesn't mean as educators we can forget about the foundational work like that's as important still. We still have to teach children how to read and write and think, right? But um we also are going to have to teach them self-regulation, how to, you know, empathy, compassion, kindness, like those are things that we're going to be finding are necessary. So, it's the 4D framework that if you remember back two years ago, Education in the Age of AI, Charles Fidel's book, calls for those competencies. And so,
119and honestly, I don't want to say we're ahead of everyone else. I really don't know that we are. We're in partnership with a lot of other districts who are, you know, where we are. They maybe aren't talking about it up here as much, but I feel their their instructional fleets on the ground are dealing with it. You can't you can't not deal with it, right? Like it's here. I think to echo what Donna is saying and maybe to answer your question a little bit, Zach, being a part of MGAA's group, um I think we're in the thick of it and I think that we are leading because 742 is the one that helped start the MGAA, the leaders summit two years ago and being a part of that group for three years. Um the conversations,
120nobody's got it figured out. Everybody's working on it together, but we are all of the concerns that have been brought forward tonight are part of the conversations that continue to happen on a monthly basis with leaders from all over the state of Minnesota. And you have policy makers, you have schoolboard members from all over the state of Minnesota, teachers, higher ed. I would coming from a higher ed background I feel um we are so far ahead of the conversations compared to where we're at at my own institution and so I think that we are we are right where we need to be um because change is hard and there's a lot to learn and there's not a lot of regulating it and so I think Donna's work and the district um has really opened up
121a lot of people's eyes around the state so I want to thank the district for that work. Um, you wrote some resolutions [sighs] for the U. MSBA that Alan and I presented at the delegate assembly and we it's sort of like let's get out there and create guidelines and your resolutions they passed and we'll be promoting that uh in the future in our lobbying efforts at the state. There was one resolution that was kind of bo just barely passed and that was uh the mention of changing standards and that was uh people got a little iffy about changing standards to match what AI can or cannot do. Um you have any thoughts on that? >> Well, it passed, right? Okay. >> By very few votes, yes, it did pass. I think that's that's the more
122challenging, you know, work is the what like what is it we need to know and be able to do at every level and every, you know, and and I would say we need to as quickly as we can um get interdisciplinary and um uh and crossgrade level as quickly as we And that is what we need to be doing at a state level, at a national level in terms of the content standards. And that is a very very very big ask. But if we're going to reduce the content standards to like bundles of competencies and learning and allow for more opportunities to learn the important things they have to be given and more than just math class or more than just reading, right? like they have to be offered in many different ways across discipline
123and so that's that's the ultimate vision right of where I think we will be someday it's just it's going to take time to get there there and I'm not I'm not making this you know this probably isn't my idea I'm sure I read it or heard it somewhere right it's somebody else has also probably had this very similar thought thought about how we need to move the standards But it's it's it's very siloed because it's very content specific right now. >> Um you mentioned that MSBA is going to be coming out with some policies. Have you seen them yet? Do you have any idea? >> Well, I have been um I work in partnership with Gary Lee from MSBA a little bit. So, we are talking quite a bit about various policy language that that
124they're going to land on. So, >> I'm sure we'll be seeing it in our committee before too long. >> Yeah. And you know, again, MSBA recommends policy, but you set the policy. So, you know, >> um, one thing that's always been kind of fascinating is detecting artificial intelligence. Kids use it. Tell me a little more about that. They said that there's well attended presentation. >> So I actually didn't go to his presentation, but he has his slide deck attached to the sessions catalog that I'm sure we could share. So um if that would be okay, I could ask him if we could share that with you. >> Yeah, that would be good. Thank you. listening to all of this makes me wonder what do you need from us? That's such a good question and thank
125you for asking that and I I feel so well supported by by the superintendent and my school board, you all colleagues um uh because you know I'm I'm probably an outlier [laughter] and so um I think the support of just letting us run this do the summits do the work that we're doing um slowly but surely integrating it in with our teachers And I think people need time. So I mean I would say as we are doing change management work because that's what this is. We're evolving and it takes reflective practice and reflective practice takes time. It's really hard to reflect in 25 30 minutes deeply to get a change to occur. Right? So just understanding that when our professionals are asking for time to reflect and learn um and they're asking for cross collaboration
126reflection time like not just within their teams not just at their schools like they're they're those are and those are hard things to do but I I would just say that in order for us to evolve we have to have that important reflection time. Thank you. >> Thank you guys. >> Okay. Then we have have board of education standing community reports. I believe we just have one board development policy governance committee chair Zack Dorhalt. >> Board policy and development committee met on December 17th and reviewed four district policies. Policy 101, 101.1, and 530 required only minor statute updates and or no changes at all and were recommended for the consent agenda. Policy 624, which is online instruction, was recommended for first reading due to a major statute change that requires significant policy change. >> All
127right. Thank you. Then we have future agenda items. um the January 21st um board meeting topics will include changemaker hub report out that Donna had mentioned to us, approval of the 2026 2027 school calendar, approval of tenative agreements if any, mental health supports update and some policy readings. At this time, does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item? Okay, seeing no suggestions, I am looking for a motion to adjourn our regular board meeting so we can open up the work session. >> So move >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. All in favor say I. >> Opposed? Okay. Regular board meeting is adjourned at 8:20 p.m. At that same time, we are opening up the board of education work session with just one topic tonight. Um, we have
128proposed revised board policy 624, first reading. And welcome back Katie Herbald, executive director of innovation and technologies. >> Good evening again. You thought you were going to get rid of me, but I'm back again. Um, good evening, Chair H, >> uh, Assistant Superintendent Harris, and board members. Um, we have proposed board members. Um because we were doing our update on our central Minnesota virtual academy, we thought this was the perfect time to talk about policy 624 about online instruction. Um our old policy 624 was based on uh the Minnesota statute called online learning option act. Um and that statute was originally approved in 2003. Um, we've learned a little bit about online instruction since then and uh Minnesota uh legislature repealed that statute in 2023 and replaced it um with the online instruction act. Now,
129our old policy was based on the old statute and so this proposed new policy is a major rewrite because it is based on the new statute. Um, so [snorts] I want to give you just a little bit a few highlights of this statute and some of the places that were like slightly changed from our old one. Um, a lot of it is really just verbiage. Um, but the general statement of policy is very similar. Um, we uh, school districts shall not prohibit an enrolled student from applying to enroll in online instruction. This is kind of what we talked about in our presentation where if a student wants to take an online class elsewhere, we cannot prohibit the student from doing that. Um, and then the school district shall grant academic credit for completing the requirements
130of an online instruction course or program. One of the things that's changed uh are the definitions. Um, early definitions in the first policy were online learning, online learning student um provider. They were pretty basic. um definitions and these are a lot more specific about what we see in our current online learning environment, blended instruction, digital instruction. Um some of them have to do with that supplemental um situation we talked about before, the enrolling district, online course syllabus, online instruction, the instructional site, teacher, student, supplemental online course, and supplemental online course provider. the um all of the uh statute and all the language about being supplementally online comes from this new statute in 2023. That was not part of the old statute. So this is that part is completely new not only for our policy but
131for that new um Minnesota state statute. Couple of highlights with digital instruction. Um this is one of the things we didn't mention in our presentation but um due to this state statute we cannot have more than 40 students enrolled in any course or in any section of a course. So all of our online classes are 40 students or less. You cannot put more than 40 in that section. So we could have two sections of algebra 2 but that each section has to be 40 or less. Um and that is so that we're not putting a incredible amount of students in a class because it's online and you don't need a physical space. Um our teachers still need to be able to develop relationships with those students. So having those um smaller numbers not over 40
132um are helpful with that. Um, skipping ahead, uh, this is one of the things, uh, we talked about too is, um, as a online course provider, we do have to support families, um, with technology. And so what we do is we provide a Chromebook and hotspot if internet access is necessary. We do help families if they qualify for educational tax credits um, or if they require or uh, qualify for educational benefits. We help them get connected to them with some of the local programs from charter and other internet providers. Um but generally uh when a student needs assistance, it's providing the device and the hotspot for internet access. One of the other things that we are required to do is to keep accurate records of daily attendance and we talked through our process for that
133earlier. Um some things with the supplemental online again this was added by the Minnesota state legislature. um we have to be a current approved have a current and approved application and be listed by the Minnesota Department of Ed as an approved provider um which our district is. We have that application we renew it every year. Um we also must participate in continuous improvement cycles with MDE. So, just like your uh brickandmortar buildings, uh we uh participate in a continuous improvement cycle, but we do this with the Department of Education with other online providers. So, we're able to work with other uh districts or other online schools um and work together. So, that's part of the nice part about that continuous improvement cycle is we get ideas from each other, what's working, what's not. Um, so
134that's the part that's a little bit different about how we do continuous improvement online versus um with our in-person schools. Um, couple of things just to be aware of. Uh, an enrolling district cannot restrict or prevent a student from applying to take a supplemental online course, but if a school wanted to not allow a student to go take one of our courses, um, they could request a course syllabus to review if it meets or exceeds their academic standards. So they can deny a student going um and taking a course from us supplementally. Um but they have to prove that that course either uh doesn't meet uh that that their our course doesn't meet their academic standards and that can be reviewed by uh the Minnesota Department of Ed if we feel like that it does
135uh meet or exceed those standards. [snorts] Um I think that was all I had for major highlights. So, is there any um part of the statute or the policy that you would like further clarification on? I'm mostly ready for it. >> I think we're out of questions and comments. [laughter] That's why we did it at the same time, >> but you answered a lot tonight. So, thank you very much. Um appreciate it. Um that is everything on our work session agenda. So looking for a motion to adjourn our work session. >> So move. >> Uh again motion by Scott, second by Natalie. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed. Um work session is adjourned at 8:27 p.m. Thank you very much for watching. We will be back January 21st. Have a good night.
136Wow.