9-17-2025 Board of Education Meeting

001called to order. It is September 17th, 2025 and the time is 6:32 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 To the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty 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 >> here. >> Zack Dorhalt >> here. >> Diana Fenton >> here. >>

002Shannon Haw >> here. >> Heather Williams here. The following cabinet members and staff are present at the district administration office. Superintendent Dr. Lori Putnham. Assistant Superintendent of Secondary Education Dr. Jason Harris. Assistant Superintendent of Ephi Learning Nikki Hansen. Executive Director of Community Education and Community Partnerships S. Shannon Avenson. Executive Director of Finance and Business Services, Amy Scallarude. Executive Director of Human Resources and General Counsel Tracy Flynbo, Executive Director of Innovation and Technology Services, Katie Herbalt, Executive Director of Operations, Matthew Buchet, Executive Director of Special Education, Danny Mayor, Media Technicians, Paul Novak and Gordy Scott. >> Thank you. Then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's board of education meeting agenda. So >> move second. >> I have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote? >> Zehalt, >> yes.

003>> Aldrren, >> yes. >> Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. Shannon Hos, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Thank you. Then we have the consent agenda. The consent agenda consists of non-controversial items that the board adopts routinely without debate. Any single member may remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption. On tonight's consent agenda, item A, approval of minutes from August 6, 2025 and August 20th, 2025 board meetings. Item B, approval of bills and other financial transactions in the grand total amount of $4,237,53053 cents. Item C, approval of personnel staff changes. And item D, acceptance of grant awards and donations at this time. Does any board member wish to remove an item from the

004consent agenda? Okay. Looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda as read. >> So move. >> Have a motion by Scott, a second by Natalie. Heather, can you call vote again? >> Shannon Huz, >> yes. >> Scott Andre, >> yes. >> Al Dalgrren, >> yes. >> Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Heather Williams, yes. Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Zor Holton, >> yes. >> Okay, thank you. Uh, moving on to discussion and action items. First was a placeholder action items for approval of tentative agreements. Um, we do not have any yet. um hopefully next time we meet. Then item B is an action item. We have the approval of the preliminary levy certification and that is being presented tonight by Amy Scallarude, executive director of finance and business services. Okay. Good evening, Chair H, Superintendent

005Putnham, members of the school board. Okay, we are looking at the 2025 uh pay 2026 preliminary levy this evening. Uh just a little bit about levy and timing. Um there's always a uh a disconnect between when we levy when we get funds and when we actually re uh recognize the that revenue into um the a fiscal year. So the levy that we're looking at right now, we will certify um have the board approve preliminary levy tonight. Final levy comes back in December and then um those funds actually get uh collected from taxpayers during calendar year 2026 and they get recognized by the district um in as revenue in fiscal year 2027. Um so we're we're about a year out in terms of when um this will actually u hit the um the revenue for the

006district. There are four components of the levy. Uh we'll start with the general fund. The general fund um is really a subset of a number of different levy components which you see on the screen. And the one thing I do want to point out um you'll see the top two lines there are zero. Uh those are either current voterapproved referendum levies or previous voterapproved uh referendums that the board has converted um to a renewal sort of authority. uh we have none of those. So we have zeros on both of those lines because we do not currently have um any sort of voter approved uh referendum. So I do always like to point to point that out. You'll see we're not going to go through every line. Um the majority of um kind of lines 3

007through 8 um are primarily driven by enrollment, which is why you see some increases there. Uh particularly on line three, that's the local optional levy that is directly tied to enrollment. um as are a number of those other uh subcomponents of the levy. Uh you'll see we're we're a little bit in uh in advance of the enrollment report, but when we get to the enrollment report, you'll see that we do have increased enrollment. Um and so that is what is driving some of those uh levy increases. The one uh a couple other things on here that are large changes from last year that I do want to point out, uh line six is the reemployment levy um which is unemployment. This is not the summer unemployment. The summer unemployment uh currently is still funded through

008the state. Um but this is our regular unemployment. Uh you'll see that amount on last year's levy was quite small. That was because there were some reimbursements from the state um through the COVID uh years and throughout the pandemic where the state actually came back and and refunded um some of the district's unemployment costs that had already previously been levied. So there were some negative adjustments there. Um, so that's the reason for the large uh increase in that line. It's not that we haven't had unemployment. Um, there was just some adjustments that were were offsetting that levy. The other one that I will point out is lines 10 and 11. Um, the long-term facilities maintenance program is considered part of the general fund levy. It's a large portion, as you can see, of uh the

009district's overall general fund levy. We do have a decrease in that this year. Um that was intentional because we knew that we had on the next line down on the building lease levy um some large adjustments from previous years that had lowered last year's levy that were that were going away. Um and so to make that tax neutral for taxpayers um we had lowered that LTFM levy for uh this levy cycle um so that we could offset that uh and keep that balanced. The second component of the levy is the community education levy. Uh this is a little bit different than the general fund levy. Um whereas the majority of that is driven by enrollment. Uh community education. Uh the vast majority of these levy uh line items are based on community population. Um so

010we levy the same amount um regardless of uh whether our enrollment increases or decreases. It's driven by population. You'll see that there's some decreases here. Um overall that is not because our population base has increased. Um but the the way the community education funding works is there's a a levy component and there's an aid component. And so there's a shift um between how much is being calculated for our district for next year um coming from the state in the form of state aid um compared to the levy. So we're not really uh decreasing the re revenue we're bringing in in total for community education. uh it's just a change in in how that's allocated between the two sources. And then the third component of the levy is debt service. Um and so this is where

011uh uh the majority of the change in our levy for this year is is really coming from and that is um because of the referendum. So you see on line one the required debt service an increase of uh about $1.7 million. That is from um last spring's referendum that was approved. Um the good news that um I'm sure no one will be sad about is that there were um offsetting that increase some um some excess debt service adjustments and so we're actually uh finding that um the levy increase is less than what we had projected and communicated um leading up to the referendum. So um always good to have some of those adjustments and be able to provide that relief to our taxpayers. And so then this just summarizes all three of those levy components.

012Um again the largest increase being um coming from the debt service side. Um and then the general fund increases driven by primarily enrollment. So in total um the dollar amount increase is 1,658,000. That converts to 4.7% on the dollar amount of the increase. Um I want to be clear that we don't set a tax rate. we tax differently than cities and counties. Um and so 4.7% doesn't convert to a 4.7% increase in our tax rate. um we don't exactly know what our tax rate is um because we don't we don't have final numbers on um what our tax capacity is. But if we assume some sort of similar increase to last year um on a tax rate basis, that's less than a 1% increase um which again is less than what we had planned u

013based on what was communicated out in advance of the referendum. So that is the preliminary levy. Are there questions? >> Yes, this is an action item and the action item um just for clarification is to certify the maximum levy um based on MDE's calculations. Right now, the maximum levy converts to the dollar amounts we just looked at. Um but sometimes there are corrections and adjustments. Um and so the dollar amount can change, you know, slightly from now to the final. Um but the way that that that's handled is to certify the maximum um based on what's calculated in allowable um in state law. >> Um Amy, can can you put it into dollar terms what before the referendum we we told people that if they approved the referendum there would be a x per household

014or an average on $180,000 wasn't a 180 or somewhere in there. uh they're 250 I think we used $250,000 household and what this represents versus what we had promised. >> So I don't have it on a tax impact basis. However, on a dollar amount um basis if we didn't have some of those offsetting debt service adjustments and other things, we would have expected the dollar amount to go up by about 2.2 million. Um, so we're about a half a million, you know, less than we had projected, which is about 20% or so. So, we would expect that, you know, we're looking at roughly um a 20% lower um tax impact than what was um communicated. I don't have the actual numbers in terms of what that equates to, you know, on a average household um

015but just using rough math, that's about where we would be. >> Okay. And then on on enrollment increases to these funds, is that controllable or is that not controllable? Is there any way on our side that we can control the the cost of the increase or is it just >> so what it is? >> Um generally speaking, I'll I'll say yes and no. So um th those increases are going to come through um automatically. you can control to some extent the timing, right? We could have chosen to not put in our enrollment increase now and then three years from now when they true up the fiscal 26 and 27 actual, those increases would come. Then um there are portions of the levy that you can do um what you call underleving. Um the the challenge

016with that is in almost every area where you can underlevy um there's almost I would say a penalty because it results in decreases in corresponding aid in all of those categories. And so um generally speaking you don't see districts under levy um for that reason because you're you're kind of you know double um double hitting in terms of the revenue loss then. So, the bottom line in this one is that when we did the referendum, we told people it was going to cost them what was the what was the number there? It was >> Oh, it was like $25 a year, wasn't it? Or >> Yeah. >> Lori, do you remember? My brain is really tired today. >> We told people the levy was that if they approved the referendum, we said their taxes were

017going to increase by what? >> 301 on a $300,000 house. >> No, 200,000. 200 250. >> So around $37 a year. >> Yeah. >> And we're coming in this levy is lower than that. >> Yes. >> So okay. Thank you. >> If we want to know, >> let's go to our website. for a $250,000 house. The on the 65 million borrowing um it was 39.96. >> Yeah. So, it will be less than that. Um and you know, like I said, our dollar amount ended up being about, you know, 20% less. Um and that could even be um lowered further depending on what happens with the tax capacity and the tax base. Um but yes it will it will be less um than what was what what people if they had gone through that tax calculator

018on their own home um they should expect to see um a number valuations holding constant right we don't control if somebody's valuation changed and it's different now than what it was then um but if your valuation on your home is similar um then we would be expecting people to see a lower impact than what they were expecting. >> Okay. So, administration recommends approval of the maximum levy limitation certified by the Minnesota Department of Education. Looking for a motion. Al, >> I would motion that we approve certifying the preliminary levy at the maximum amount. >> Second. >> Have a motion by Al, a second by Scott. Any further discussion at all? Heather, can you call vote? >> Al Dugrin, >> yes. >> Shannon Hos, >> yes. Natalie Copeland, >> yes. >> Zack door, >> yes. >>

019Heather Williams, yes. Diana Fenton, >> yes. >> Scott Anderson, >> yes. >> Thank you. And then Amy is rolling right into the final levy certification announcement. >> Yes. And this is um a very brief item. Um we just by statute have to announce when the final levy certification will be. Um we always do that at our regularly scheduled board meeting um the second meeting in December. So, for this year, that is December 17th, 2025 at 6:30 p.m. And we do provide a time um for public comment at that meeting um after the levy presentation in accordance with the truth and taxation requirements. >> Any discussion on that at all? Okay, thank you. And then again, not going anywhere. Um, next up we have um the enrollment report again presented presented by Amy Scallard, executive director

020of finance and business services. And also joining us is Shannon Ason, executive director of community education and community partnerships. >> Oh, we can share because we're not going at the same time as long as you're not sick. >> I am not sick. Okay, we will move right along. Um, I am going to start. Um, I have some summary numbers on here that I'll go over, but I did pass out to board members um, the detailed list that shows a multi-year um, comparison of enrollment. And so, um, you may want to have that up in front of you as a reference. Um, and again, we're not going to go over every change for every building. Um, that would take forever. Um, but we're going to hit the highlights, the summary. Um, but if there are specific

021questions, um, you know, certainly we will, uh, be able to answer those. So, uh, in summary, um, for K12 enrollment, and so we're pulling preK out of this, um, for our for our base numbers, um, we have, uh, based on our second Friday counts. And so that would have been last Friday after the first two weeks of school, um, we always go in and anybody who hasn't come, um, we remove them from the system if we haven't had a communication from a parent, uh, as to why they're not attending. Um, so after running all of those numbers, we are looking at an increase from last year of 266 students. It's about 2.9%. Um, now some of that was projected based on kind of class size out. Um, you know, where we were last spring. Uh,

022we had been up a little bit in the spring compared to where we were last fall. Um, and so it's about 193 students higher than what we projected. Um, as far as how that breaks down, um, elementary is really driving, uh, almost all of that increase. We are 223 higher, um, than elementary compared to last fall. Um, with that being 134 higher than projected, um, and that equates to about 5.4%. When we look at that by building, um, every elementary actually had an increase from last fall. Um, some larger than others. The biggest increases uh were at Westwood, Talahi, and Madison. Um and Westwood that was a projected increase because we knew um that as we add that immersion programming up a grade each year um we expect to see their enrollment um go up.

023Uh also to highlight um kindergarten enrollment, we have um a significant increase in kindergarten enrollment compared to last year. Uh last fall we had 690 um kindergarten uh students. We projected um right around that. we were projected 680 and as of uh Friday we had 761. Uh so we have a lot of kindergarteners out there this year. Um which is great and so that is driving a lot of that that increase in that overage from where we projected. Uh then going to secondary secondary um enrollment is uh a little bit more stable but we do have an increase. Um overall it's an increase of 26. Um but really that's a a larger increase in middle level. middle level up is up 47 um mostly at South um on that increase and then the high school

024is actually down uh by 21. When we look at those secondary numbers, we exclude McKinley from the fall counts because McKinley's numbers vary from day to day and you'll see that if you look at the multi-year on the um detail spreadsheet um just because of the nature of the programming um that can really skew numbers when we compare from year to year. Uh and so you'll see McKinley is included down below in the alternative sites um versus being included when we talk about our traditional uh secondary enrollment. Uh and then there is an increase in the alternative sites. Um and that is primarily there's some some uh increases in some sites, decreases in others, but ultimately kind of when you look at it all together, um the majority of of why we're up is because

025of an increase in students at care and treatment uh program sites. All right. And I am here to share with you uh where some of our new to district uh trends, what we're seeing in those new to district students. Um the welcome center enrolled over a thousand new to district students this summer. Um and as you know, this was my first summer working with that team and I just have to say that I'm incredibly proud of the work that they do. They really strive to give in exceptional customer service and there were days in July, August, and even through last week that we had families in there from start to finish. Um, and they work incredibly hard. So, I just wanted to put that in the room that they they did just an amazing job

026this summer. Um, I want to talk a little bit about enrollment trends for those groups. Um, again, this is just the new to district students, so not to confuse with Amy's report there. um 817 of those new to district students were in the 1st through 12th grade. And even when I started to look at this data, I had to kind of clean that up and look at 235 of those were kindergarteners. And what that means is obviously as Amy said, we had 761 kindergarteners overall. The rest of those kindergarteners were with us previously. So just some interesting data to note. They were with us in uh Yep. pre preschool and pre previously enrolled with us. Yep. Can I ask a question? I'm confused. You said the the welcome center enrolled over 8,000 >> 1,000. >>

027Okay. I heard eight. >> Sorry. >> They had 1,000 new to district. So, >> yes, correct. >> With attrition. Okay. >> Yep. And so, um, like I said, 817. So, that's where maybe my eight came in. Apologize for that. We're in the first through 12th grade. Go ahead. Thank you. And so just in looking when we enroll into the welcome center there are five different codes and those codes tell us where the students come from. And so just in looking at this you can see that um 04 code means that they came from another district or charter school in Minnesota. So the bulk of our students you can see there uh came from another school um or charter school or district in Minnesota. And then not enrolled before um those would be those kinders. So

028you see the number there matches up with those kinders that uh around that 230. Um and then next on that list about uh over 100 150 of those came from Minnesota non-publiclix enrolling in our school system. And then you can see um interestingly uh outofcountry and then outofstate enrollments. And then what we have is impacted schools. So, um, again, this it it is different from Amy's reporting. Um, if you look at Tech was the highest impacted school with 9th grade. Um, I'm going to show you the numbers where those students what grade levels they were in on the next slide. Um, but Tech saw the the highest number and then Talahi, which which also makes sense because Talahi sees, you know, has our most kindergarten classes. So, new enrollment, Talahi would make sense for that

029to be one of the larger ones. Um and then south, as we mentioned, our southside schools saw a lot of those new enrollments this year. Um Oakill and Apollo. And then new to new to district students by grade level again, as you would expect, kindergarten being the highest. Um but then you'll look over uh 9th grade, those entry point years. Um, and I guess that is a trend is that in 9th and sixth grade is when we start to see some of those students moving over here, um, from, you know, like I said before, some of the non-publiclix or from different charter schools or moving into the district, maybe from home school. And so, um, that is what we typically would expect, but our our numbers are are are verifying that that we see those

030trends happening in 9th and then sixth grade. Um but other than that, we do see uh that spread throughout our um out throughout our grade levels um in in all of our numbers there. All right. So, what does this mean? Obviously, as as Amy mentioned, that's we have some uh some next steps means we have to continue to monitor and look at our enrollment, look at ads and drops over the next couple of weeks. Um we also need to review our our class sizes and schedules. So, um, it's been a while since I've been in a school system, but as you know, what we're doing and what Nikki and Jason do with our teams is we're really looking at what making sure that our class sizes are are have a good average in them. Uh,

031do we have some class sizes? Do we need to adjust and shift any of our schedules with these numbers? Um, and then we look at if there are any potential staffing needs that uh that we need to look at. Also, we did have two kindergarten teachers that were hired in August. So then have to look and see if there are any additional hires that need to happen. Um and then the other piece is obviously when we have um an increase in enrollment, we need to look at our space needs as you are aware and look at resource allocation across the district and that that includes not only our general education classrooms but it also includes um resources for our uh e learners, our special education learners as well. So looking at all of those pieces

032in the next couple of weeks. Um, and then of course the biggest piece is that we celebrate. We're really excited to welcome all these new families and all of our students and families into our schools. So, yeah. Any questions? >> Uh, we got a lot more kids. Does that impact our boundaries? And if so, how's that working? Well, I I can speak to it a little bit as I'm on on one of the boundary uh uh redesign teams. Um and it certainly is something that we're having a conversation about right now. And it it's part of the reason I think that I was asked to bring this information to you here tonight is that these enrollment trends and and where we see students going in our district does impact um where we need to shift.

033I think um the last time we had a boundary update was in the '9s and and so certainly need to take a look at and that those space needs at some of our schools. We as I mentioned before, Oakill is on there. Um South we saw had some had some um definite extra students in the sixth grade as well. So that's all part of that process and looking at it is looking at these enrollment trends and and uh obviously bringing that forward. This is this is a really big uh increase in the number of students. I've been on the board 12 years, 13 years. I haven't ever seen anything approaching anywhere near these numbers. You know, 230 students, that's a lot of students. That's that's 10 12 classrooms if you put them in just their

034their own classrooms. Is what are the trends in the state? Is are we seeing a a trend upward in the state or are we seeing a trend downward? What what are we bucking the system? Are we is this a baby boom from co I might defer the this question to somebody else who has more than eight weeks of experience in this role. But um what I can tell you is in the brief uh research and conversations that I've had um that this is not a trend in this state that um that most school districts are not seeing an increase in enrollment. I I would allow anybody else to to share any additional information, but that is that is my understanding that this is not this is not uh typical at this time. [Music] >> Anybody

035else have any questions? >> Thank you. Okay, moving on to our next discussion item. Um, we have review of the 2023 through 2025 strategic plan outcomes and welcoming Donna Rober, executive director of research assessment and AI integration. Good evening, Chair Haz, Superintendent, Dr. Putnham, board members, and colleagues, and the listening community. Um, I'm gonna wait one second here for my colleague to get this up for me. Thank you so much, Director Bush, for executive director for running the show up here. Thank you, operations. Um, I I'm uh I'm reading my notes here um to make sure that I um don't go uh blank because this is all in a URL. So, he's going to run the show. So, good evening. Um, first of all, it's my pleasure to be here uh on behalf of uh

036many of the people in this room and so many people who are not in the room tonight uh to present you a review of our 23 25 strategic plan outcomes and to just share how we're turning data into action to support meaningful growth for every learner in our system. and you each um have a paper copy. And so I just want to say a quick thanks to director Andre and Copeland and Fenton for some guidance this morning on how we can make the best use of our time this evening in presenting um this report. Um I'm going to ask that if you could along on your paper copy follow along for this first part of the presentation and then if you have questions in the focus areas if you don't mind just jotting those down

037and holding them so that I can get through the full presentation and we'll circle back uh to hear what the questions are and um again I am surrounded with lots of talent in the room. I'm sure we'll all some one of us will be able to answer the questions that you may have. So, I'm going to go ahead and get started. And our mission is read at the start of every board meeting. So, I won't repeat it. Um the core values that we have guide every decision that we make and frame the work that you'll see in tonight's plan. Equity and access to highquality learning for all. Communities working together toward shared goals. lifelong learning as the key to thriving in a global world. Shared responsibility among students, families, schools, and the community. These values

038are um the lens through which we shape our progress and shape our next steps. Again, the four pillars as our priorities. Last year, we identified these four key pillars and they have really struck uh chord with many of our leaders and our staff. It is guiding our strategic work. They remain at the heart of everything that we are doing right now. Whether at the district level, in a school or a program, we're focused and centered on tying so much of our work back to safety, belonging, collaboration, and excellence, academic excellence as well. And so tonight, we're going to focus on three questions or I want you to keep these in the back of your mind if you will. What which is what we did when we looked at um reviewing our outcomes, which is where

039are our strategies working? what data trends are kind of shaping our decisions and then how are we accelerating progress in the year ahead. Um we've seen measurable gains this year. You're going to see hear a little bit about that in literacy in math performance and progress for our English language learners. Um I am using the soar framework which you may remember from last year. This is um that framework that um we do an analysis around the strengths, the opportunities, the aspirations that we hold and then we look take a look at the results. So as I go through the presentation tonight using this framework, I'm going to try and lift up at least one item from each of these. I know there's a lot in there, so I'm not going to take the time to

040read all of them, but I'm going to try and just point out a few and I'm going to try to focus on the results. And so if you do have questions uh at the end, feel free to make sure you're noting those and I'm happy to to go back to things again. The aim of the soar analysis that we do on our strategic outcomes is really just because our aim is to keep building capacity through strong systemic uh improvement practices. Um all right, so focus area one and I'm really just very excited to share uh positive climate and culture. This is where we are creating those conditions for learning success. And this is the area that we had an intense amount of work done in the past year, really the past two years. And so

041if you think about our strengths in this um in this focus area, safety, belonging, behavior responses um or responses to behaviors within our system, all strengths that we've we've now, I think, crystallized around um opportunities, areas where we can grow and improve. For example, we want to continue to leverage our restorative practices to strengthen relationships and reduce conflict. And then as far as like our aspirations go, we want every student feeling a deep sense of belonging and being highly motivated to learn within our system. And so the results that we are highlighting and there's so much data, but we can't share all of it. It's just too much. So we do pick and choose a few things that we can talk about. And tonight we're going to spend time on um our suspension trends and

042also on understanding some of the perceptions around safety, belonging, collaboration and excellence. Um and again strong a strong school climate is really the foundation for our academic success. So it would make sense that we would be prioritizing that work and trying to get that right. And I'm really happy to say that we we have through a very proactive and tiered support system and restorative practices along with you know cohesive systemwide responses happening in our system been able to realize some really amazing results and I don't know if we can blow up the um chart in the lower lefthand corner of this um slide. Um I just want to speak a little bit to the drop. So you're seeing with our inschool suspensions, we've literally dropped from 11% in 2022 to down to 5.6%. And this

043is the the suspensions per per population per student population. Um, and it's the population that that can be suspended, which is our first through 12th graders, because we don't suspend kindergarteners that I'm aware of anymore. So these are um really solid outcome data. You've heard a lot from director Bukowski about our um incident data and and those are our outputs. Those are the process pieces and the output pieces. And then we get to these high level outcomes and this is where we want to see the impact. And this year we are and last year we're realizing this really significant decrease. And I think in talking to staff in the buildings and going around and asking folks what's going on because um the decreases are they're observable at every nearly every school almost 100% of our

044schools in every student group we are seeing a decrease in the numbers. Um and this is attributable to multiffactorial pieces. It's it's process, its systems, but more importantly, it is our people. It is our people responding in ways that um there's enough people responding in the in a consistent manner to see these significant drops. So, very exciting news um on this front if you must. I must I'm sorry I must because what I want to what I want to say here um is that we have not relaxed our standards. So I don't want anybody to get confused when they see well a drop in suspensions for anybody to say well then they're just not suspending students. We suspend students for safety related behaviors and that is all we suspend students for. So if you are

045seeing this that means that there was a behavior that impacted safety right and that is all defined in the code of conduct. So it's very clear. Um, so I just want to make that point strongly and clearly and also we're we're not done. You can see we're we still have work to do, right? We're at Yeah. All right. Moving on. The the other data set that I just want to share with you speaks to some of the perception data. So um in you know in our system last year we we moved our surveys to uh not just once a year but three times a year as a way to get more actionable data um to to act on and do things a little bit differently to improve the perceptions that folks are having around safety,

046belonging and collaboration. And what we are seeing is our ongoing efforts to foster an inclusive culture are kind of reflected in these and safety remains a very clear strength. We have over 90% of staff and 83% of families feeling schools are safe of the folks who responded. So I will just couch that with that one caveat because we know we are continuing to work on the response rate from our families. and most students are reporting the same that they feel safe at school. Under belonging in our that that category, we are showing strong progress as well with more than 75% of our students saying they feel connected to their school. Um supported by even higher ratings from staff and families. When it comes to collaboration this year, the metrics that we chose to pull out

047from the survey data was tied to the to a couple of factors that you need in order to have effective collaboration. So, we looked at the mutual respect piece, like if I feel like I'm in a respectful setting. We looked at um you know, if how do how do kids feel about that? How do teachers feel with their colleagues? Do they feel they're in a respectful work environment? We know that the modeling we do as adults in the systems filters down. And then we asked parents if they thought that their students felt respected at school. So we see a very different number in perceptions of how people perceive respect which is just really interesting. And with you know a lot of the culture work that we're doing it's really important for us to recognize that

048there are differences in the ways in which we understand that. So we do have continued work to do kind of in those areas. The pattern tells us a couple of things that the need for empathy and respect begins early. Uh because we do see in our elementary data higher levels, middle goes down, high school goes down, right? And then it also tells us that um we just need a continued focus on these skills because they kind of fade over time and impacting peer relationships, behavior, and it it all affects the overall climate. So, it's going to be important for us to not not um not loosen up on our desire to have those be working really well for kids. Um again, restorative practices are one way that we work to improve this and and we

049continue to do those things. So in terms of learning and academic excellence, the feedback from peers um was overwhelmingly positive or from it it appears it's overwhelming positive, right? Elementary and middle school students are reporting that they're ready for their next level of learning. Um students are showing less confidence in their next level of learning at the high school um age yet a very high commitment to graduating. So we have this sort of dissonant data coming in around I feel super ready to graduate and committed to graduating. I'm not so sure I'm ready for the next level. And I think that's something that we want to dig into. It has to do with uncertainty and just where those kids are at. 75% of families surveyed believe that their child is doing important learning at school

050and students consistently say what they're learning matters for their future. So those are all good good things to continue to improve improve upon as well. Moving to focus area two. So we know climate and relationships set the stage for learning. Now we know we now we also have to start thinking about the instruction because that is also a key to um producing positive outcomes. Um, I want to highlight our structured literacy framework as this is something that is going to give our teachers consistent evidence-based um tools to teaching reading and we know that that is ongoing and happening and we're we're seeing some early results from that. We have opportunities um to sort of grasp on to in the area of I would say authentic assessment as we try to better understand what our students

051know and can do. And then of course an aspiration we have is to make sure that we have high impact learning in every classroom where every student is mastering those foundational literacy and math and social emotional learning skills that they're going to need to succeed at their next level. And finally, we're going to um take a look at some results. We're going to look at some uh reading and foundational literacy skills, math, and our English language learner information. But to before we start that I want to just briefly mention um that this all starts with our early learning which is the next slide. And we are really proud of the high quality early learning um here in St. Cloud. This lays the foundation for everything that follows. And I know I don't have to preach

052this because ages 2, three, and four, those kids are building essential skills, early literacy skills, problem solving skills, social emotional skills, and that these prepare them for kindergarten. And our incoming kindergarten class this year, we had um uh nearly 40% of our kindergarten students mastering letter names. We had a growing um number of kindergarteners and first graders mastering those letter sounds. Um 41.5% roughly. And then another 40% of our one and two first and second graders mastering another really um strategic research-based measure called nonsense words. And while I'm I'm saying these numbers and you may think oh only 40%. Like that seems I think within our system these are um probably higher than what we've had before but more importantly we have systemic ways to measure and they're being systematized and so we can improve

053from here with with evidence-based you know work that we're doing forward. So, I'm really excited at the work of um the early learning area, our elementary folks. They're just they're knocking it out of the park when it comes to putting in place really key systems for us to be able to know how our kids are actually doing. Um and knowledge is power for all of us, parents, community, community partners, and our elementary teachers on how we're going to move these kids. Um I'm going to talk about these next few slides and these are charts that come from the various tools we use to measure um academic achievement and growth. Okay. So this chart shows what you're looking at here is a FastBridge chart. FastBridge is one of our early literacy and reading assessment measure tools

054if you will. Um, we are including our kindergarten through 2 grade students in this year-long look of data. We are systematically measuring three times a year. What you're looking at is uh the dark pink is the high-risisk the students who need the most support. The pink are the kids who are some risk. They're students who maybe need some tier 2 or targeted interventions. And then the low risk are the kids who are low or no risk and they're just on track, right? And so what you're seeing here is that from fall to spring, you're going to notice a slight shift, right? Um the high-risisk group increases slightly. The low risk group remains steady. And what I what is really important for you to know about this chart is that these assessments from each season get

055progressively harder and more difficult. So, the fact that we have um in the lowrisk category, we're holding at 35 really means that we've probably done a pretty good job of keeping kids on track in that group, right? We the results reflect both the developmental challenges of learning to read and the impact of our targeted supports. So, we want to focus on continuing to expand opportunities for students and build those essential skills, especially for those who start kindergarten without any early literacy experiences. Um, but I just want to make sure that, you know, in this time where we are having a intense amount of work done instructionally, typically you would see lower, you know, rates because of a dip, right? But I I really feel like the work of, you know, former director Stebner and assistant

056superintendent Hansen and all of our glE leads is really paying off because we're we're managing right now in this 24 25 year to hold our own. My expectation is that this is going to this is going to pop and it and it's going to be really exciting especially as teachers get more steeped in the um teaching of decoding and all those foundational skills. And so the next, this is also a fast bridge report and this is on our A-reading uh broad measure of reading proficiency. And what this is showing you is that more of our students are meeting the benchmarks this year than they did in in the first year, which is excellent. We've gone from 38 to 42%, a four-point increase. Um, and I expect us to see even more growth um as we

057continue to administer the A reading. And again, this one is also done three times a year. This is this is uh what you're seeing here is just an annual picture of growth because I want to make sure that you understand we have we're looking at achievement, but we're also looking to see in our system are kids growing enough to meet the expected benchmark in order for us to feel confident that they are on track to read well in third grade. Okay. Hope you're taking your questions down. because I'm going to move to math and uh because we have a different tool that we use at the elementary to measure math. It's called I Ready. You're going to get a different looking chart. Um and this so I'll just try to explain this chart. Um first

058of all it is a this is a diagnostic and it the way they're displaying the data in this chart is against a benchmark against a grade level benchmark. So it's a criterion referenced assessment. So it's looking for kids to meet a particular benchmark. If you look at the bottom bar where it says fall beginning of the year. So at the start of the year 41% of the students were two or more grade levels below shown in the red section which represented about 498 students. By the end of the year that number dropped dramatically to 300 or 23%. Which is significant success. we know if we can start to see these kinds of things and learn from those um interventions and what's going on that we can we can continue to get better. So at the

059same time that students um are at or above grade level that grew from 11% in the fall to 39% by spring. A major step forward in just one year. Um math is a challenge everywhere. I'm just going to put that out there. You hear it in the news probably frequently. And so by giving our teachers tools that they can use to intervene, we're doing a really good thing. And I think this is a tool that teachers are really latching on to and it is making a difference. Excuse me. All right. I'm going to move us to middle school math and reading. In the middle schools, we have yet another measure called STAR, which you're familiar with. This slide is a little hard to read, but hopefully you'll have time to kind of look at it

060more closely if you'd like um to see to see the actual numbers. But let me just explain what it is. Um the student growth percentile data for our sixth through 8th graders um is this is a nationally norm referenced test about 15 they say 15 to 18 million which is such a broad range. Is it 15 million or is it 18 million kids take this test in grades K12 across the country? Um, and so what you're what a score of 50% would represent typical growth, meaning that students are progressing at the expected rate. So what you see here is that for several testing seasons and what's displayed here is two ways of looking at the data. One is fall to fall. So, we're looking again at annual growth year-over-year. And the other way to look

061at growth is by year from fall to spring. And so, I put both of those on there so so you can see. And what's important to note is that they're all over 50%. Which just tells us really that our students are meeting typical growth expectations in both reading and math. Um however, if you were to look at the trend, you would say it looks like we've dipped in um our SGP percentage of kids meeting growth. And we did have a little dip in 25. Um but it isn't anything that would, you know, again, um it's really not this isn't going to be instructionally sensitive data. This is just highle data to tell us, yep, here's how we did compared to the kids who took the test. So um the next uh student group I want

062to talk about briefly is just the required access English language learner exam that is given every year. And just for context, our district serves about 21.7% of our student population in English language services, which is double the state average of 10.4%. which means our district carries a significantly higher responsibility for supporting multilingual students. I'm not sure we're significantly more funded, but but um and so on the left hand side, you're just seeing what the achievement rates are for our English language learners on the MCA, math and reading. And you can see that St. cloud lags behind the statewide averages, highlighting persistent achievement gaps for our English language learner students. On the right, however, the growth graph, this tells a little bit of a different story here. St. Cloud students are growing at virtually the same

063rate as their peers across the state. I call this out because we we are doing immense amounts of work with our English language learners, with our staff, our general ed staff and our EL staff. And I think it's important for for us to understand that we're we're um while these results are not um not where we want them to be all, you know, we want them to be better. Um, we we know that working to accelerate growth with our English language learners is and helping them deal with unfinished learning, if you will, will take sustained focus and effort and sometimes more time, right, over multiple years to close some of these existing gaps. This is nothing new. We've heard this um many, many years in a row, I think. Um, moving on, I want to

064just share one of the other measures. Obviously, the Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment, which measures how students are mastering our state academic standards. These charts that I have here just show you a snapshot, right? So, you're just looking at the percentage of students who met uh the reading standards uh or met proficiency on this assessment. Well, and and you can see at the state level was 49.6 and St. Cloud 33.7. Um on the right, we're just breaking it down by those um achievement levels. And you can see that roughly 20% of our students are partially meeting um and then another 47 not meeting with again 20 27 25 and 8 above. So these results show us that, you know, while we're performing below the state average, they also give us valuable information to guide our work around

065some of our content standards and what we might be um making more clear in the learning and teaching space for our learners. So um we get benchmark reports back on both math and reading. We look at the data to try and understand where it is we need to shift resources, consider strategies, those kinds of things. So the purpose and and use of our MCA data really was designed for us to use it at that level. Um again math uh I'll just share with you our math results. On the left you can see overall proficiency for the state was 45% in St. Cloud it's 24.8%. And again, you can see what the breakdown is of each of the different achievement levels. Um, and again, we're using our benchmark information. I will tell you one surprising um

066note on the eighth grade benchmarks, we saw the uh performance of our students within each strand did tick up, which is hopeful. Um, I'm I'm seeing in some of our early benchmark analyses that students are showing some significant growth in number sense, which is a really important foundational skill that should have an impact as they age up. So, um, we're hoping that we will start to see a little bit of um, progress on some of these higher level measures as well. Again, these are the outcomes way up here. We don't want to overfocus here at the risk of like not getting down here to the important process and output work that needs to happen to make those change. So that's our that's our continued work. Um focus area three and this is uh this is

067such a great focus area for a strategic plan. And I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to put this into the strategic plan, but um there's a lot of things that can go into here and there's a lot of great things really happening. So as we move into this focus area, we shift from instructional outcomes to more on how can we innovate and continuously improve. Our key strengths is our evidence-based continuous improvement culture. And I want to give a big shout out to our assistant superintendents who are leading really important continuous improvement process work with all of our sites and our departments. An important opportunity ahead is creating um some momentum with our new shared secondary instructional vision and aligning some of the more innovative strategies um to support our middle and high school

068learners to sort of help bring some more relevancy into the learning to to in you know to bring that voice the student voice the teacher voice and just really look at ways that we can um focus focus in on competencies for example and just better understand what it means to be a a ready for life for the next step through either portrait work etc. So really looking forward to some of that aspirational work in the coming year. Um, and then if we look at the current results that we have, I just want to make a shout out to our modern classroom work and all of the AI literacy work that our curriculum and teaching and learning um, folks have done to get our sixth graders um, going on that. Those are huge um huge results

069that we should be very proud of because um I was reached out to just this last week by a sixth grade teacher from the AIO school district who said, "You're doing what? Your kids are getting what? AI literacy? Really?" Yep. They're they're getting that. So, um Finland is teaching all their elementary kids AI literacy, how to identify deep fakes, all of that. So very very good things happening um in in St. Cloud with in the innovative space if you will. Um modern classroom by the way lots of interest. We had 40 more educators involved in in it this summer. We have 92% of our staff saying that innovation and continuous improvement is being promoted and 89% feeling empowered to make decisions about how they're teaching and how kids, you know, are showing their learning. Um,

070and again, the numbers just show a growing culture of trust, innovation, and collaboration. And these are essential foundations for driving meaningful change. So, congratulations. This is really good work happening in your district and the school board and the superintendent and all of the leaders are a part of allowing this to happen. And I say allowing because there are a lot of districts that are not here yet striving. Um focus area four is the post career and post-secary options. And again um the goal is to ensure every student graduates ready for college and life beyond career. This focus area has a very lot happening within it. It would take me all night to cover all of the really great things that are happening in this. So obviously we have key strengths and the number of diverse

071pathway options that we are continuing to explore and develop and provide as opportunities for kids. Um, one important, um, thing moving forward is is how are we expanding employer engagement potentially in internships, giving students more hands-on experiences that connect their learning to real careers. Um, we are aspiring to make sure every kid leaves with some experience andor college post-secondary course work. That that's been repeated in many presentations here. Um and then we're we are encouraged by what we're seeing. So the results are showing us that that the community partners, the the career focus is um prioritized. For example, future 100 event, I think that's happening again this year. We have um the highest FAFSA completion rate that we've had in our history at 59 and a half%. Um, and again, Tech High School actually has

072the highest rate of the region. Apollo, I think, is the third highest. So, kudos to everyone who has helped us with those those events of getting kids to get that really cumbersome paperwork filled out cuz it's not easy. It's really challenging. Uh, if we had in in our schools, we we track the number of students that um participate in realworld work experiences. So we had 409 of those that were recorded last year through our scheduling process. And interestingly on the high school survey when we asked kids about working outside of the home, 64% of our students actually say they work outside the home. So that number is much lower obviously if than if it were 64% of our kids. So that's just an interesting fact to kind of be digging into. We had another 305

073of our students in PSO, 170 dual enrolled. Um, and again, our uh CTE concentrator graduation rate is a big celebration. We know when kids are completing consecutive multiple courses within a career pathway that they tend to graduate at higher rates. So, we're doing the um the good work of staying committed to that effort. Um, combined with strong staff support, 83% of staff think students have meaningful opportunities to explore pathways. They reflect the community effort. Families, employers, and partners are working alongside our schools to ensure every student leaves prepared. This is not something we do completely on our own. We need a lot of help. Um and then the next slide is just these are just some of again some bullet point or just highlights of the year things that we will start to put in

074our metric dashboard to start following on and and making sure that we're making progress on these. Um, I just wanted to put a few of these out there because they, again, this is a very large focus area with lots and lots of data to it and lots of components. And, um, I think the consensus on this one is that we are definitely making progress and it's in a good place to continue to grow, especially with the referendum passing and all the new things that might be happening at Apollo. So, this is a this is a I think in a good place and continuing to to even get better. um focus area five around family and community engagement. Um we have lots and lots of family um partnerships. Uh in fact, I was taking uh director

075Davidson's partnership uh spreadsheet and I was trying to figure out how do I put this up? We have so many partners. It's just amazing. So understanding how impactful that is is work that we're going to consider an opportunity as we go forward to continue to look at doing those things. Um but family safety, families feeling like they're welcomed, making sure we have multiple ways to communicate with families. Um ensuring that you know that we are building upon this really already strong foundation of trust um is kind of key for us to continue to do. Um, as far as the results for our family and community engagement section, we I wanted to highlight one of the more um quantitative outcomes, which is consistent attendance, which is in order for us to see such a significant increase

076in that it it has to be in part that our families are getting the kids here. And we also know that we've partnered with county and other community partners to get the second chance bus. And we're doing other really intentional positive messaging, for example, around getting kids into our safe places of learning. And that has really paid off. And we we think we will continue to see that um that get better. So we saw I think we had like a 7oint increase in our consistent attendance in just one year, which is pretty incredible. Um again, 81% of the staff felt informed. um losing my note here. Um or involved in outreach efforts, right? So, our teachers that are um responding to these staff surveys are saying they feel very informed when these outreach efforts are

077happening, which is great. Parents feel that schools are partnering effectively at a rate of about 73 74%. And again, um, most many families, at least families who've responded to the survey are feeling that, um, opport that they have opportunities to be involved in their child's education, which is great. We want to make sure we're removing any barriers to participation. And then finally, I just want to just say we're as we go through and look at the work ahead, we want to leverage our strengths. We want to continue to pursue those high impact opportunities and accelerate on our aspirations as much as we can. um these these process system people pieces that we're putting in place um are the ticket and when we are all sort of rowing in the same direction and really strategic and

078thoughtful and using data and evidence to move our strategies we we will see I've only in two systems ever seen the kind of change in outcomes high outcomes um like this twice before that's it I think I was telling the the team this morning. It happens when there is enough people in the system doing it this in a consistent way. No, feeling comfortable with it and um and it's really exciting. So, um just I'm sharing some experience that I've had and then also what we want to continue to do. And then I I'll just leave you with our commitment. District is committed to continuous improvement. Obviously, we will continue. This isn't this isn't the end. We don't just come and give this update once. We we take this and then we're moving on this. We've

079got assistant superintendents who are doing those monthly data checks. We have SIP dashboards and impact cards. And we're also in the process of developing a metric plan um for each of our key performance indicators that we're going to focus on um going forward. And so you see a little bit of a timeline of when some of our key reviews are there. October, January, April, and then again in June, we'll do a big reflection and hopefully celebration. Um, and um, and I would say that's really that's really it is continuing to move the system to be uh, really focused on evidence and information to move and make its next key decisions. So, that's it. Thank you for letting me share all of that great information. Um, and I think we can circle back now to the

080focus areas and take questions. >> I like this approach. Uh, anybody have any questions, comments, Scott? No. Anybody else? Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so shocked at Natalie. This is our second time hearing this, correct? >> Yeah. Thank you so much, Donna, for all of the work that just went into this one one thing that we're looking at here, but it's really a a um an exciting snapshot of things that everyone has been working so hard on. Um, I love at the end when you said we're moving the system because this is not a this is a heavy lift and you're totally right that we can celebrate our um our growth in our school district and then point to key measures as to why that's happening and it's sustainable growth because moving a whole

081system is the only sustainable way to do anything. So, thank you for having that mindset. Um, I wanted to go back to when you uh talked about preschool and specifically with the fastbridge numbers that we're seeing in K through2 and just make sure making sure that I'm understanding it correctly. So this is in your in number one I think or number two focus two. Yeah, on that FastBridge K2 early literacy and reading data, it seems to me that what did you say is the percentage um of our kids who haven't had any formal school that come into us in kindergarten. Did you say that percentage? I I don't I don't think I said that percentage, but but what I know is that Well, actually, I should turn this to Nikki because you probably have the

082numbers memorized. It's a It's a large percentage. >> Last year, if memory serves me right, we ended up at about 356 students being served in our preschool fours program and our cohort was around 772 at the end of the year for kindergarten. So, just slightly above half. um specifically because we have a legislator in the audience and just because I say this all the time even when she's not here is um free preschool for all please I know that's a heavy lift but um the lift yeah specifically for kids I mean this is this is what it looks like for my kids who went through two years of preschool that's their privilege because not everybody has that privilege so I know I'm speaking to the choir here everybody knows this, but like just to say

083on record like we're right now until as a state we can get to free preschool for all the catchup work is done by our kindergarteners, kindergarten, first and second grade teachers. And the catchup continues because you've shown us clearly tonight that we are growing. Most students are growing. But if you start behind and it's solely based on either your privilege or your non-privilege, like that's just that's not okay with me and it's not okay with us either. But um it seems like the mo the simplest way to affect change in that area is free preschool for all. But um I know that's not the wave of a magic wand and where's the money going to come from that and all that sort of stuff. But um just a shout out to um to the work

084for preschool for success that um Rotary has been doing with us and like we're affecting change one student at a time in that. Um, the next thing I wanted to ask about was the I Ready math for K through five. And I've had the pleasure of hearing this twice today, so now I get to like do deeper dives with you. Um, I'm I I loved that you pointed out that we went from 489 to 298 in our most in the red area. But also just to say for that mid or above grade level, we went from 126 students to 726. So can you talk about that a little bit because that it's not only our, you know, our performers who are struggling the most, but it's also our performers. Everybody's growing it looks like to

085me. Can you speak a little bit about that? >> You want me to take that, Donna? >> I would just say one thing and then I'll pass it to you. And I think this is something that is um most directly tied to the fact that math learning is mo most suited to instruction, right? Whereas reading learning is is people people think they can teach their kids to read at home, but not always math, right? So I do think that you know in part all of our kids need our very talented math instruction happening. Nikki. >> Yeah. So one of the things to remember as we're looking between the literacy fastbridge and the I Ready math is this is the criterion referenced assessment. So you're going to see that fall score um that bottom line there.

086They are being tested on grade level standards that they have not been exposed to yet. So, as we take this assessment three times throughout the year, they are getting that geometry unit. They're getting exposed to that second grade standard if they're in second grade. Um, so we expect to see that growth in progress. We also expect to see the reduction of those colored bands. You can see I already does break it apart in that two levels or more behind grade level, that level behind grade level, and then on grade level or above grade level. And our expectation for our elementary sites is always at least one year's worth of growth. And as much as possible, we want to accelerate beyond a year's worth of growth, but at least a year's worth of growth for all.

087But that does mean, Natalie, that if I'm two years behind, I may not get to that green ongrade level yet. >> Right. >> But we do expect to get there. >> The last thing I'll say, um, or we could be here forever because this is so much data. Um, when we were talking specifically about modern classroom this morning in the committee, can you just explain what you said about how how that encourages agency in students? Because I I guess I didn't really realize that. I I knew modern classroom was moving into, you know, instruction that is in person and then also, you know, can be referenced later with video, but I didn't really understand that um it's it's a it's teaching children and students how to have their own agency in their learning. >> Well,

088okay. So, I'll I'll try to answer that and if I need some help, I might ask Katie to to pitch in. What I was what I was saying earlier this morning was that um one of the skills we know are absolutely critical for the world our kids are going into is going to be this idea of agency in knowing how I learn and making strategic choices about tasks or work that I'm doing to get myself the learning I need, right? Like eventually. But this this idea of building kids ability to say, "I need I need the teacher to do direct instruction for me on this because I've thought about how I tackle this learning task is something that we can start to see growing in our, you know, middle, upper level, grade levels with kids.

089And it's a skill. It's a life skill they're going to need when they get to college. They're going to need that when they get to a career or they or wherever they're going." And then I think Katie would be able to say more about the mastery and the the um the other component of it. But to me the the the real benefit in modern classroom is that it is going to help us get after agency and turn us a little bit more towards competencies. Yeah, that's great. The um the thing that is nice about modern classroom, especially at the secondary level, is when students walk in, they know where they're at and where they need to get to. And so that's part of agency as well, where students come in and they can see where

090they are in the lesson in the unit plan and what they need to do and who they need to interact with, whether it's their teacher, a small group, um another classmate in order to reach those areas to demonstrate their mastery. and they're not always demonstrating mastery in a way that is traditional where uh when we demonstrated mastery in school, we were taking a unit test that covered multiple subjects over multiple periods of time. Um a student demonstrating mastery in modern classroom might be taking a little quiz, but often they're talking to a teacher about a subject and demonstrating what they know through conversation. They might be doing a project and presenting it to demonstrate what they know. It's generally a more hands-on way that they're showing mastery rather than um just taking a test or

091a quiz. It can be that, but it often isn't. So, not only are we uh having students do agency by knowing where they need to go and what they need to do and how they need to get what they need to learn, it can look a little different than what we're used to, but we're also showing students how they can demonstrate what they know in a multitude of ways. Yeah, that's all I have. I mean, I could continue, but I'll let some other people talk. And thank you for this work for all of you. Um, this is exciting stuff. I kind of have brain overload, too. There's there's a lot going on in this stuff and and you guys have all done a really really phenomenal job, I think. And and I always I'm always

092a big supporter of our school district and I I get really frustrated when we get compared directly with school districts where the demographics of the district both both from a student population and an income especially uh is so much different and it's just not a direct comparison. And the things that our teachers are doing with students are phenomenal. And we always see that in the growth numbers. Our our growth numbers are always very very strong. We're bringing students a long way, but we're starting from a place that isn't as far forward as those other districts are starting. Um, so there's a lot of work to do in that and our teachers are doing that work. But it's frustrating because it doesn't appear when the realtors association sends out their best places to buy a home

093because of the school district. It doesn't appear that we're in the in the top school districts and that's just not true. Um but okay, so I was looking one of on the perception data page the question students at my school are kind to each other. We see this when we do our student surveys every year. This is always the one area where it's like oh my god it's like the uh 53% of elementary students say yes. 37% onethird of junior high students feel that students are kind to each other and 46% of high school students feel students are kind to each other. And again, 56% of parents, which isn't a number where you're cheering and clapping, think that students are kind to each other. I I think it would be really there's a couple I

094had two questions about that and one of the first one is I I wish that question was asked in two parts and that would be students are kind to each other at home or away from school and students are kind to each other at school. I'm wondering if we would get different answers on that. And then another piece of that was did this improve have we seen improvement in this with the changes that we made with cell phones? Um cuz I'll let you. >> Yeah. Um so in our dip on this question for the three years across these these were the best rates for last year of on this question and it reflects this I think it's a it's sort of a culture thing right that our kids are not first of all they're not

095interacting as much face to face as as maybe you know we did long ago partly because of the culture Um it's a growth opportunity for us, right? This kind of work though takes takes takes time for kids to be in collaboration. So, you know, how are we designing group work for kids when we're doing learning lessons as a way to help foster and grow some of their skills around this? Sometimes what we think like I don't think Jason's very kind is all in my head. Right? So these are perceptions and often times we we can we can think those things but they may not always be true but they're important for us to address. So, I don't know if anybody else would have >> and I know this this may be um a little out

096of pocket but you know that I'm very blunt right um I think I think another challenge that we face um is that our adults are not very kind right collectively right as a in our discourse right when we look on one of the the um what I you know one of the things I just sent out to families is right like Let's let's be kinder on social media when I'm talking about school safety, right? If we just take a look at the social media that is that is out there and and that's not kind, right? So, where are we modeling for our students and for our children who are always watching us that respect matters, right? And and I mean this board models it consistently. Um but I think that's one of the challenges that

097we face, right? always >> and you you don't agree and you still respect each other. >> Well, that's that's one of the reasons that I think would be interesting to know if how they feel it is at home versus at school because at school we've had them put their cell phones away so they're not interacting that way. So now it becomes personal interaction and we can kind of control the environment for personal interaction. So, do they feel at school that their that their cohorts or their their peers are kind, but then once they leave the school and they get their cell phones back in their hand and they start communicating that way and kind of ganging up on other students and things, is there a difference? And it would just be really interesting to know

098uh how they feel about that. I also, and this was just going to be a general comment, and I there's nowhere for me to fit it in, so this is as good a place as any, but I I don't see in here, there wasn't a lot of um discussion about mental health supports, counselors, and and different programs throughout our our curriculum, and and how does that fit into all of these? I I would imagine that it fits into all of the areas and it isn't like with a specific behavioral health. Um >> so I think thank you for that feedback. I'm going to make a mental note of that and make sure that next time I have some information related to that. Um, I will tell you that our behavior outcomes, the suspension and the

099analysis that I did on the incident activity, like there are hints of where where all of that really great mental health work, the again the strategies for assessing the incidents and responding to them. It's if I didn't call it out in that first focus area, I I should have because that team, Jen Lacy's team, Kate Bicowsk's team, I mean, the they're the they're responding to the behaviors, right? And and supporting and our community partners who are, you know, the tier three, tier 2 people that are helping. It's all of that working together to create those decreases in those big outcomes. So, thanks for that feedback. I'll make a note >> uh in the I was looking at the math math math performance and again this is kind of a generalized question but back in 2007

100the math standards changed drastically and ever since >> 2014 as well. >> Ever since then math has been a real struggle uh across the state. I mean, proficiency dropped and the natural reaction is to blame it on the schools, not on more difficult standards. And it it's like we've never recovered from that when those when those changes were made. And I remember pretty I wasn't on the board yet at the time, but I remember specifically when those dropped and the impact that it had on proficiencies. Um, and it's maybe just a comment more than a question, but on the access learning language, the ELELLL progress, um, again, and you you brought up the fact that when you compare our district to the state, we're below the state average, but when you compare our growth to

101the state, we're significantly above the the state average. And I know in our district, because I asked Nikki the question a couple weeks ago, there's 34 different languages that are spoken. 34 different languages that are spoken at home. >> I think it's 54. I think it's >> Oops. Okay. 54. Sorry about that. >> 54 languages that are spoken within our school district at home. Um and that that creates some issues in and of itself and it puts a lot of pressure on the EL programs. Um, our district has a significantly higher uh population of Somali students where the curriculum for Somali when it began to happen here, there was no curriculum for Somali students or for for teaching Somali students in in in any program and that stuff has really just been developed since then

102and I think that our district has had a lot to do with some of that development. But when you have e when you have e students, if they come if someone comes here from Germany and they speak German, they're an e student, they they're an English language learner, but they've gone to school in Germany and they've learned and they're coming to us at a seventh grader is coming to you at a seventh grade curriculum level. They have the knowledge, they don't have the language. So, they need to learn the language, but they can kind of once they've learned that language, they can fit right into their grade level and they can move forward. Um it it may not you know I don't it isn't as significant of an issue right now as it was probably

10310 years ago but when with in Somali immigrants as they came to our country if they were at a seventh grade level many of them had never attended any formal education. So they were coming to us not at a seventh grade learning level and just needed to learn the language. They were coming to us at a seventh grade age having to learn the language with no formal education. So they had seven years of catching up to do in order to get to a point where they could graduate. Right? So when I look at these charts and I see that we're we're below the state average yet we have a higher level of a higher percentage of students who come from a country that does not have a strong educational foundation but our growth numbers are

104higher than the state average. That tells me that we're doing a really good job with what we have. Uh but it's it's very difficult to take a Slife student a student with and for Bernie if you don't know Slife it's a students with limited and or interrupted formal education if you take a Slife student it's very difficult to bring them up to grade level even if you are very good I mean you have a very good EL program that teaches them the the language the the English language you still have anywhere from one to 12 years of formal education to catch them up on also. And it's it's a much more s it's a it's a more significant challenge that I believe is reflected in these charts right here. Okay. Again, not necessarily a question,

105but a comment. Uh math I I thought kind of the same thing. Um, math is a fairly universal language. Math in Europe is the same or ma math in South America is the same as math here and it's the same in every country as it is here. But it's the language barriers that get in the way. However, if you're coming from a country where you don't it doesn't have a very strong education program, you're not going to have that formal math education as where someone coming from a country that has a very good education program. Even if they don't speak our language, math is fairly universal. They're going to get there a little bit quicker. So, I think that it shows up there also. And I think those were the comments that I had. I'm

106very excited about Apollo. Um the renovations that are being done at Apollo and the things that we're going to be able to do uh to in our career and tech areas, which is where a lot of the dollars are being focused or a lot of the remodeling is being focused. Um but to bring tech has tech the tech high school development really brought forward a much much much stronger career and technical education program for our district which was mirrored at Apollo. But now Apollo's facilities are going to be brought up to the same level for career and tech as tech high school. And I I think it's just an awesome thing. I it it's an area that people should be really excited about. Thank you, >> Zana. I just have a brief comment, not a

107not any questions, but I think what we were able to I had the privilege to see all of this this morning is while all this data has been collected in put together and it's such a informative way, we're already putting it into practice this year and I was already able to hear the stories from Superintendent uh was not there but assistant superintendent Harris and what's happening. this data makes a difference to drive systematic change and those changes we're not waiting things are already starting this school year looking at all the hard pieces and I think that is what is important because this is what's going to continue to make changes like we saw in suspensions and like we're seeing growth and um the work that was put together to put this in front of us

108tonight is immense but all of that data matters because that's how we're making change And um the group has done an amazing job, all of the group, to get this to where we're at because it takes time to make systematic changes. >> I have a few um questions and probably some comments as well. I I do think the kindness conversation that we had is really important um and certainly the modeling. One other piece that I think I've used in some surveys before that sometimes is also instructive is um a question about their perceptions of if they're kind to other people. And then you begin because we always do this. We say that they're not kind, but I am. And then you begin to see a discrepancy between how people perceive their own behaviors and parents

109included. And it might be helpful for them to think about their own behavior um because we know um many people probably wouldn't fall into would have some opportunities for improvement. Let's just say that. Um on the fast K2, can you help me interpret that a little bit? So on the high risk versus the low risk and you see the 43 go down, what does that I understand that it changes fall, winter, and spring, but why are are low-risk students seeing a larger decline like help me put that together. Um, so I think part of it is there's a number of what we call probes or measures that go into scoring the composite, right? And I don't I don't know exactly what the proportions are because it's proprietary and they won't tell me. I've asked them

110100 times. I keep trying to get it and I keep doing my own method to see if I can figure it out. But I think part of it is, you know, in the fall where they're measuring letter names, letter sounds, help me out, concepts of print, what's the other one? On coat, onset sounds, the real easy ones that, you know, kids can have success at right away in the fall. And then we get to the winter benchmark and I think they add some word segmenting and some harder um tasks and that probably weighs in a little more on the overall composite score. Right. And >> and the level of accuracy changes. So I think an example might be helpful. So let's say in the fall I'm expected to learn 31 letter sounds or master that.

111In the winter that would change up in the ' 50s and then it would go up into the 70s, '8s, '9s, right? So it is a progressive rubric. So, not only does the skills get harder as you go from fall to winter and winter to spring, but the expectation of mastery within that level also changes. >> So, it's a progressive improvement. >> Would it not change across the board for high risk, risk, some risk, and low risk? So, why do you see high risk go from 32 to 39 to 37 and you see low risk go from I I don't understand that particular thing. And I'll bring it a little bit full circle which m maybe doesn't have application but I would be interested in not just for K through 12. There is a belief

112by many that we are losing boys young boys >> in education. Um and that could impact some things. What are we doing in our district to pay attention to what is happening? I mean, we're seeing at the college level and and many fewer boys going on to college. What are we evaluating within District 742 to try and change that? Um, and and and what might that say about some of the information? >> I'm going to lean on my friends to the left here for that one. >> Yeah. Uh, great conversation. I we had the privilege this morning to start start this conversation on let's just take it just simple as a student going to school you are a learner right and if we help our teachers understand which they do shout out to our teachers

113our building administrators we have great folks and it's not an easy job and they show up every day and the practicality of what was just spoken about what's going on outside in the world the environment Right. And so our kids are faced with a lot of things to your point of if my mom and dad aren't modeling good behavior or whoever I'm around, right? How do we teach kids at the core of learning how to be kind and respectful and our teachers work on that, right? They we talk about social emotional learning of how do I heart and mind get to know each other. If I do remove my phone that I could be on all all day long, right? How are parents monitoring this? I'll give you a quick strategy. Ask your kids to

114pull up their information on how many hours a day they're on their phone. Right? That's how you can monitor it. Appropriate use in phones, right? in the sense if you go to 80 80 point 88 80 86.8% 8% CTE concentrator graduation rate, right? You help kids find out what they like, what their interests are, starting early from fifth grade where we first go back to literacy and reading and who gets the right to have the resources where school starts early or than others, right? And how they show up in all different ways, they might be behind or not, right? to assistant superintendent Hansen's point of teaching fundamental skills when kids show up however they show up we try to look at it in the small approach of yearly growth right however you come to us

115let's grow you from there and they work on the literacy skills and showing up and and doing that but in the sense of along the way if I don't have good experiences in that if my hope goes or my confidence when we go along in school cuz middle school can when you ask these questions how do I feel it depends on the day when they're having thousands of interactions with schools and how they look 400 500 600 kids a daily interaction and we teach human connection but back to the point of what where we find hope in that is we help them find out what they like and our concentrated data says if a kid takes a course in a multiple path pathways. If it's robotics, manufacturing, math, and you help them find out what

116they like along the way. I've had the conversation with eighth grade boys that don't want to be in choir cuz their tunes start to change, right? How do you support those kids to maybe you still want to continue in the arts, right, in that? So, finding interest and passion in school along the way helps them to be able to find out something that they like. and we explore all the way through our system to 12th grade and our result is when we look at okay well graduation rate says 66.1%. Well, yeah, but it's a whole lot of things, variables into that. But when you see what if I find out what I like, two or more courses in the content area, I like it. Woods, robotics, they build houses, they, you know, your kids right

117now go through the system. We have kids and our families right here on the board that go through and our kids are exposed to a lot of things. And so, it's finding the interest for the boys that may say, "Hey, I might lose hope or I don't talk to somebody." And one of the biggest things is we have folks in the buildings to Al's point to get to know all kids. They start with building a relationship. How are you? I like your shoes today. Right. I get to know you. I get to know like Al's grumpy in the morning because he didn't get enough sleep. Right. Well, okay. Well, let's use all the systems of our mental health, our counselor. Shout out to our counselors and our teachers that identify first. If I don't show

118up for school and I see it on a repetitive basis of taking daily attendance, that's where it starts. So why is he not coming to school? Our teachers understand that. They call and say, "Hey, I didn't see Al today. What's going on?" Right? He might say, "Okay, well, I might have a situation where kid was mean to him." Our restorative practices identify from the common sense. Well, let's talk to Al about he was being mean or whatever. That plays a part into some of the interactions with school where boys may not feel included along the way. But all students in the sense of how do you create an environment that our kids have good relationships? You didn't Donna didn't pull the question up or how many kids feel safe in school. They feel safe. The

119teachers say they feel safe. It's building those relationships, interactions point by point in the sense. So, I know I took off, but I just wanted to say in the sense of our conversation, that organic piece of just who I am and how do I help them grow in the sense? And so boys, specifically to your question, we found like what do I what do I like and how do I grow all the way through and that helps to to this >> and I would just add um I think you asked what are we doing and I think we are establishing good rituals and routines that are responsive daily to personalized learning and needs within our students. So when I hear you guys talk about you know kindness and how are we treating kindness and and

120how that looks and shows up within our classrooms I don't think it's a oneanddone. don't teach kindness, we model kindness throughout our entire day. Um, I think about some specific strategies in elementary last year. We we developed in all K5 classrooms wish you well routine as part of their morning meeting which is another strategy of building community and setting the stage for learning for the day and getting some of that social emotional interaction. We also now have a wish you well board in every classroom. If a student is absent or missing from the classroom, they wish them well as part of a daily routine. Um the other layer to that is our new SEAL curriculum, purposeful people. We launch the year with a kindness kickoff and we will end the year with a kindness close

121and in between we have nine character traits that we are developing that social emotional character in all students. And so I think we are creating those rituals and routines in an environment of belonging to be responsive to the personal needs of our learners within the district. Um I think of an academic example. Um you had asked about the the low risk, the some risk, the high risk, right? And it is a little bit complex and confusing. We have analyzed that data for the last few years and it is complicated. But one piece and a layer of support that is another routine to support our academic learning within our elementary sites is every student who scores in some risk or high risk. Some risk or high risk are getting personal progress monitoring and intervention supports. Every

122kid is tracked on a spreadsheet indicated on what is the highest priority of that strand of literacy development and progress monitored weekly or bi-weekly with that intervention. So as those kids move, you got to remember it's kind of flip-flop. So if I'm low risk, that means I'm on track or on grade level. But any student who is showing some or high risk is getting that individual layer of personalization of what they need as a learner to grow and develop. So that theoretically could that cause a drop because the individualized attention is not then going to your already low-risk person. So if if you're if you're in some ways we're assuming that they're okay. >> I would say yes, but but we are always enriching and extending. So just because they might not be getting progress

123monitoring if they're on track and on grade level they are getting an enrichment and extension at their level cuz again years worth of growth even if I am on track we still expect that we accelerate them then a grade level >> in any of this do you base it I mean when you look at the flat numbers it's all students do does it further get divided by are you looking at demographics so are you looking at race gender you know those sorts of things and then um tweaking approaches based upon that information as well. >> We we we have active dashboards that allow us to disagregate by every student group, every grade level. Um the kids are can be you know divvied up into progress monitoring groups and those groups can be monitored and evaluated.

124Um and I think at their next ANI meeting we're going to take a deep dive into the literacy and math by all of this breakdown overtime cohort student group. So, we'll figure out what we maybe want to lift up to inform as well. But yes, we we we regularly do that. We've been regularly doing that for in my career many many years. Um because those are the student groups that we're evaluated on at a federal and a state level. >> And then the last reminder that I'll give Heather is when we say flatlining, right? I see it as more of sustaining. when we go from fall to winter to spring, those levels of risk stayed the same, but the expectations of assessment rose. So, it wasn't a flatline. They all grew at relatively similar proportions,

125but they didn't flatten. They grew as they went through those risk categories throughout the year because that rubric got progressively more challenging. >> Last comment, and I'm really not I haven't formulated this enough. Um, when we talk about modern classrooms and agency, I like the idea of it. I caution probably about assuming that the reality is the same. We're still working with young people and agency is really, really hard. And I think sometimes in a modern classroom, um, you can assume that they're learning that agency and really it becomes a a little bit lazier. And I would say both for students and in some cases for teachers because the the easy answer is just go go watch it again. You know, go find your place. Um and I just think that yes, there's an an

126agency that's taught, you know, you're teaching it from the very young ages all the way through. I just caution us um to rely upon it too much because there is such a different growth pattern for students and and learning agency and and some of it you can I mean I used to say this to coaches all the time um because you would have kids who would come in in freshman year they got it and they knew how to have conversations and they were mature and everything else and then you would have kids who maybe didn't get it until they were junior or senior year and then there were always some folks who maybe four or five years later they actually looked back and said, "Oh, now I understand." Um, but I think sometimes when we

127assume that we're building those things in um that we also have to to just remind ourselves that that while I think we can certainly um nurture it. I I think that all of us have a different um wiring that that we just want to be cautious. I appreciate that comment and I'll just just say that the the agency that I'm talking about when I share that isn't isn't isn't that we want kids just decide what they do and go off on your own. It is really intentional around the learning and that child thinking and and uncovering their thinking. So we're moving to vis like to really be able to see their thinking requires them to have agency and the teacher's always observing guiding right because it's without that skill right we're we're doing a disservice

128to our kids so when I talk about agency I want to make sure it's really clear I'm not saying we want to grow agency so every it's a free-for-all and the kids are just going to run off and do whatever they want and the teacher's going to say oh that's nice keep doing that no not at It's always tied to a really clear learning task and it is about demonstrating learning. So agency in demonstrating learning and I'll make sure that I say that more clearly because I don't want people to get the wrong idea right. I really really don't cuz I appreciate that. That's really important for us to clarify. We are we are about the learning part of it and how I think and what choices I can make to demonstrate how I know

129is what we're trying to grow. That's the agency. Does that make sense? >> It does make sense and I get that part. I think it's very theoretical and I think that in practice um it's it's just harder and and I mean I'm a big believer that there's a bell curve and and in terms of performance you have again some students who learn it easier. You have some teachers who I think are better at it. But I I think that to me some of that language and again um you know I saw it in my grad school programs and everything else. It's really nice to sit in a classroom and to listen to theory about how things work and and then it's it's ultra important that you go back um and and everybody's understanding and and

130thoughtful about what the actual practice and the interpretation is. I was just going to take a minute to um expand our uh the comment that um was made about Somalia and I sat in years of cultural um and language Somali training um through doesn't matter how but I just learned a lot about the country through folks um who are from there and just for a a little bit more context. I think it's really important to understand about Somalia that it was colonized by France and Britain and and Italy before 1960. And so it's not apples to apples to compare, you know, Germany to Somalia because that just wasn't the the reality. um the reality of agency, speaking of that, wasn't there for our Somali um our Somali friends until they got their independence in 1960.

131And then the other piece we've talked about here on a the board before is that the Somali language wasn't even a written language until 1972. And so, um, whereas generationally, even if my, you know, great great-grandfather from Germany didn't, um, read very well, at least there was a language for someone to read, right? So, um, and that was part of the problem, um, with having our Somali um, dual immersion and and and having folks that were able to teach that because it's not it's not hundreds of years of learning. It's from 1972 on. Um and then pre-Ivil War in the 1980s in my understanding there was a well structured educational system and that it was increasing literacy and then of course access um for all students as well. But that's really only from 1960 to

1321980 that they even had an opportunity for that um out of colonial rule. Um, and then of course we know in in 1991 um the civil war totally destroyed the infrastructure and I just learned that it wasn't until till 2012 that the Ministry of Education was reestablished um in Somalia. And not only then um did did they have to figure out how to reestablish everything, but also how do um how do we do adult education for those years of missed education. Um, so just wanted to point that out that there may be some of our friends with grandparents or great-grandparents living here that they don't know how to read the language because the language was the written language is made when they're in their 30s or 40s. So, um, just wanted to add some context

133to that comment. >> Let me just ask one one thing. Can you just go to the bilingual sale? And that's how we >> that's how we appreciate it though, right? We we did state we have 54 languages spoken, right? We had 21 certifications last year around world language certifications, right? So we acknowledge we have a diverse language population and to our bilingual seal certifications, it helps us to appreciate all different races, backgrounds, ethnicities, and languages specifically around what they bring. And so that's a big one that sometimes we don't talk about and we certify our students to that and that's a good thing for us. >> I remember that there was if you're a bilingual student. >> Yes. So, so right we have our kids. Yeah. Right. We look at work experience. Look at we

134want to make sure our kids are prepared prepared for the world and and those are some of the ways but to your language point we acknowledge and those certifications help. >> I think the last thing I'll say is every board meeting I think about there was a an Apollo student who came here as a senior and talked to us years ago. I don't know if y'all remember that. and he talked about how um he was spoke five languages, >> but he'd only been here since ninth grade. And so he's like, "And I also speak English, but it's actually sixth, you know, of the languages I know." So our kids are amazing. Thanks, Jason. >> Okay, thank you, Donna. Thank you, everyone. This was impressive. Okay, just a couple things left for tonight. We have one

135policy reading. We have the second reading for proposed revised board policy 421 gifts for the district personnel gifts gifts to district personnel, excuse me. And we are bringing back Amy Scallard, executive director of finance and business services for this reading. Okay. Hello again. Uh so this is coming back for the second read. Uh and we do have a few changes from the first um read. We did bring this through uh board finance committee as well. Um and so there's not um a lot of changes, but I'll just highlight um where things have changed from the first time it came to the board. Uh so the first change uh is in the purpose statement. So what you see uh in the proposed uh policy in front of you tonight is our original purpose statement as it

136reads in our um current policy. This does differ from MSBA's purpose statement which was in um as the recommendation the last time uh we brought the policy forward. Um as we started to dig into this and um Tracy and I had some conversations as well. MSBA's purpose statement um isn't isn't as pointed probably as we would maybe like. Their purpose statement says that the purpose of the policy is to avoid the appearance of improprietary impropriety or a conflict of interest. after some discussion, we're not really just trying to avoid the appearance. We want to avoid the conflict of interest or the impropriety. So, we have gone back to our purpose statement, which I think is much clearer and really um gets at the intent that it's not about someone thinking there's a conflict. Even if

137nobody's going to think there's a conflict of an interest or some sort of issue, we don't want the behavior to be occurring. Um so, that is the first change is to go back to that. Uh in scrolling down then in the general statement of policy um nothing has changed in section A um nothing has changed um contextually or in terms of the content of B. There's just a little bit of cleanup in where the word however about halfway through there um came in and some grammatical changes. So nothing that changes the intent of the policy but just cleaning up um some of the the wording. Uh in section C there are a few changes and these were changes um that came from the recommendation of finance committee to better align this wording with what the

138actual statute has. Um so in the second sentence uh the policy um proposed now reads employees may accept services of insignificant value. Um, the MSBA policy and what we saw last time said items, but the statute really references services when it when it uses that insignificant value term. Um, the items really come into that next part of the sentence. Items um of a promotional or public relations nature. Um, with a cost of $5 or less. This was another change. MSBA has resale value. um we did change that back to cost to align with statute so that our policy isn't differing from statute. Um and then those were the only changes there. And then the last change um which I think u given some of that context about the historical um reason why we had um

139kind of called out that whole list of who is a school district official. Um, so we uh we're all in agreement that keeping that term school district official and giving a more comprehensive list of who that entails um is a benefit to keep in the policy. And so we've added back um the definition of school district official. Um done a little bit of cleanup in terms of organizing that list. Um removing some terms like resource managers that we as a district maybe used back then but don't use. Um and then just kind of cleaning up some of the the terminology. Um and so up in um section F of uh section two um previously that had said um the last part there um or other school district officer, which isn't something we have. Um, and

140so we've just changed that to say or other school district official, which would then reference back down to that um more comprehensive list in the definition section. Uh, so those are the changes from the first reading. Um, again, the rest of what was is really just the um the more detailed uh word for word from the statute and nothing has changed um going forward from um from the rest of the policy from the first read. questions. >> All right. Thanks, Amy. Moving on to reports then for tonight, we have our superintendent report presented by our superintendent, Dr. Lori Putnham. Thank you so much. I am going to need that screen, Amy. Thank you. Uh, first I want to start by um recognizing that this is schoolboard appreciation month. Yes. Hence the cupcakes. And so we

141do have a card that we hand to uh uh chair A, but it is for all of you. Um and so we just want to say from all of us and uh our our our teachers and our team and our who aren't here, our our um our support staff and our license staff, we just want to say thank you very much. Um this is a service that you do. Um you do not get paid a lot for the amount of time you put in. It's probably a lot like coaching pay rates. So, we know that's very little and you uh you really uh are here for all kids. Um and I I cannot thank you enough for that. So, thank you for being who you are and the board that you are. Um I am

142excited to share tonight um uh something that we have not Oh, I think I messed that up. Yep, it's four numbers. Lori, there we go. Um I'm excited to share something tonight that we've not talked about. um uh I think it was last year or perhaps a year prior um all schools that receive federal funds um were uh are required to do uh education around the constitution on um September 17th which happens to be today. So I thought what how fitting right is to to uh show you what we do. So I'm just going to run through the lesson plans that we offer. I won't go into them in depth um but I wanted to just show you like how we teach our kids at at different levels. So, here is the K2. Um, and

143so you can see it's pretty simple. We start out with um that it's a special holiday. Isn't it adorable? And unfortunately, we're not going to get to watch the videos, so I'd be happy to share them with you. And so, we just talk about, you know, for in a developmentally appropriate way why the Constitution is important. Um, together we can learn, right? Um, and we hear a song about the Constitution. Um, and then we talk about uh from what what kids at that age understand is about rules. Um, and so what are the rules that might make our community kinder and safer? Um, and then they draw and write about it. Uh, just to build in some literacy. Um, here we go to grades three, five. So we start out with the same slide and

144now you see the objectives, right? Really laying out these are our um, learning objectives or learning targets for those of you who aren't familiar with with uh, lesson setup. Um, we've got another video here. Um, and then we talk a little bit like what is the constitution? Just starting to lay it out. Um and then we ask our student our our kids work on a constitution for their classroom, right? Again, building community. Um we're talking about responsibilities on both parts and the rights. And then they sign it on that um little cute replica. Um when we get to the middle school, now that we're the um upper grades, you'll start to see a little bit more in-depth work happening. So again, we've got our objectives, the fun video cuz everybody likes a cartoon. And then

145you we starts to break down and give more information talking about the parts of the constitution. Um talking about the preamble. Um and then what we ask our students to do is to in their own words, right? What is the preamble? How might you reward it in your own modern um phrases? I hope they weren't using Gen Alpha slang or none of us would know what it what they were saying. Um but then they reread it. Uh and then each group gets to share um what their um their modern version is. Um and then they talk about a whole class discussion about why you know why were the phrases important to the constitution. Um how do they continue to shape the US and what are which of these are most important for us to focus

146on. we get to uh the high school level and again you see the objectives um more uh in-depth uh definitions again there's the preamble a new cartoon and a video and so here we they introduce the bill of rights uh talking about the first 10 amendments and then they do a review with the students are they getting the learning targets um and that's a classroom discussion right working on oral literacy and then um we talk about voter registration and students are actually able to register to vote, which is also a requirement that we provide that information. So, um just wanted you guys to know what it is that we do and and uh how we integrate that into our classrooms along with uh literacy standards um around speaking, writing, uh reading and listening. So, thank

147you. >> Thank you. Okay. And then we have a board of education standing committee reports. I believe we have two. Um, and we have achievement integration equity uh board committee chair Diana Fenton. >> Good evening. Good evening, Chair Ha, Superintendent Putnham, members of the board and cabinet members. Today the AIE meeting met um and Donna Roer presented us with the strategic plan outcomes that were presented at tonight's board meeting. Um that was questions were asked in more depth than at tonight's board meeting and modifications were made. Um we've also made changes to the meeting schedule for the remainder um of 2025 adding a meeting in December so we can get through the rest of our um reports for this year. Thank you. And then finance and audit board committee chair Heather Weeps. Do you have

148a maybe agenda? >> No problem. >> Okay. Last up, we have future agenda items. The October 1st board meeting topics will include Apollo building project, the 2025 to 2028 strategic plan draft, policy readings, and school updates. At this time, does any board member wish to suggest a future agenda item? All right. Um, last step then is to adjourn the meeting. Um, all in favor say I. >> Opposed? Meeting is adjourned. The time is 8:40 p.m. Thank you for watching. Have a good night. We'll be back October 1st.