School Board Meeting: Oct. 8, 2020

001[Music] better good evening and welcome to school at 6 30 pm and we are in the district service center in cottage grove minnesota 1.0 is ruled melinda dolez here louise hines here samia pac-man here patrice goes absent sharon van leer here katie schwartz here and tracy burnett here 2.0 please stand and join me for pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all 3.0 is the which is the approval of changes to our i'll entertain a motion with that adjustment so moved second moved by louise second by katie all those in favor say aye aye and he opposed motion carries 4.0 our district highlights that will be on our october 22nd agenda as

002well as public comment which is 5.0 6.0 are consent items and all consent items are considered non-controversial and routine by the board and will be approved by a single motion there will be no separate discussion of these items but prior to the board meeting board members did have the opportunity to review each of them and could have requested that one be moved to an action item seeing as that did not happen this evening i will entertain a motion to approve our consent agenda second moved by katie second by melinda all in favor say aye any opposed motion carries 7.0 our workshop item 7.1 is the start of school middle and high school and we have assistant superintendents cali jansen and christine shaffer good evening board sherbernette members of the board superintendent nielsen thank you for

003the opportunity to be here this evening to share a few points regarding the opening of the school year at our middle schools and high schools assistant superintendent kelly jansen is here with me and together we will ask our secondary principals some questions and hear from them how the school year is progressing in their schools as you're aware this is a very unique school year working through parameters around covid19 our principals and all the staff in their schools have worked diligently to open up our schools with safety in mind to best meet the needs of our students we have immense appreciation for their hard work and their time in doing this at this time our secondary schools are currently in the hybrid model where distance where students attend school in person two days a week with

004distance learning and flex time the other three days of the week with this in mind before we get into our questions i would like to introduce our secondary principals so principals assistant principals if you could state your name and the school that you're at please and make sure you turn your microphone on we'll start over here with carrie hi i'm carrie lopez and i'm the principal at woodbury middle school joanie hagebach i'm the principal at altman middle school molly roski i'm the principal at lake middle school alicia busnick assistant principal at woodbury high school nick faldi principal of south washington alternative high school todd herbert principal park high school jim smokovic principal at east ridge high school justin olivold assistant principal at cottage grove middle school all right welcome thank you so much for being

005here with us tonight so our first question will be for justin carey jim and nick first question what has excited you the most about the start of the school year carrie if you want to start sure i think obviously the um most exciting part of the start of the school year is to have life back in my building to see the students come in hear the laughter hear staff talking to other staff members just seeing the building that i've been in since march with no students and staff for so long um just rejuvenating it again so again i think that's the number one thing and this the second thing is i'm completely impressed with the work that our staffs have done to the amazing work and the creativity that they have done to meet the

006needs of our students and i'll pass it to justin justin all right no i would say just i think just as our students returned i think that eerie silence that kerry had referenced early on uh is just from march to beginning of september we missed our students and i think just that first day routine of the buses dropping off and the smell of like fresh cut grass and just the routine of going into school again was just an amazing sight and sound to hear i would say also just our staff and our school community as a whole just the time and effort that we put in to instill safety as our number one priority and to see that through its fruition up and even through today has just been absolutely fantastic and just the overall

007teacher commitment to enhancing and meeting our students where their needs are at just that student-centered approach that we continue to preach at college growth middle school i think has just been absolutely fantastic i'll pass it to jim thank you yeah i would echo definitely what the two of them have said sitting in the building from march until now and preparing and preparing and preparing it it doesn't feel like a school and it feels like a school again and there's energy in the building and there's excitement even though we're under you know strict guidelines of how we pers you know process through the buildings and how we clean how we do everything but seeing the kids seeing that energy and also seeing activities started up again so that these young men and women have um the

008educational passion and the activities passion and they're able to fulfill that so it's been it's been a good start thank you i would echo everything that those three have said with students being in the building students and staff just their connections together opening doors for students when they're coming in greeting them in the morning i'm talking with them throughout the day something that we sorely missed since march i'd say the biggest thing is all the planning as well and finally getting to see those protocols and routines running smoothly with uh students following directions and moving through their day so it's it's been great um you don't really realize how much you miss it until it's gone and then it comes back again so it's been good thank you all right for question two i'm gonna

009direct this to molly and todd what has been the greatest challenge that you have had to overcome this school year well i'm not going to lie there have been lots of challenges and as impressed as i have been with staff i have empathized with them as well our educators are so committed to our students and their relationships with them that a lot of the screen time and a lot of the guidelines and procedures have interrupted how we relate to each other um the will is still there and we continue to problem-solve through it i think the challenge for me for the staff has been the amount of time it takes to do what they used to do and try and replicate what what they feel they need to do they're really really hard on themselves

010and i appreciate their hard work that way i think in talking also about maybe relationships having a mask on you don't realize all of the non-verbals um and actually just being socially distanced and how that impacts some of the classroom interaction and activities is difficult but we're all in the same boat and i just appreciate that with the challenges has come growth on behalf of our staff they continue to work and problem solve through things that there's just a lot of things that come like to echo some of what molly has said as well there have been many challenges and there continue to be those challenges each and every day um it seems that uh whenever we make decisions um in in anticipation of what's gonna be best for students we're reinventing the wheel every

011day and so sometimes when we make our decisions we have to go back and revisit the consequences of those decisions you see well that probably isn't exactly what we intended so we have to revise and modify as we go and we're i'm so grateful for the the amazing flexibility of all of our staff and their willingness to have lots of grace for their principal and the team that that i work with and helping to overcome those challenges and i'm also very grateful to the students at park high school who have um really they've met the challenge of of doing school differently and granted to varying degrees of success but they're taking so seriously all the the procedures we put in place for safety we haven't had hardly any complaints at all whatsoever about students not

012being compliant the few accidental ones where the mask slips below the nose but you say hey can you mask up and they just pull it right up and go on their merry way um they've been very gracious very mature and very respectful we're so very grateful and probably one of the bigger challenges that i face is is the amount of communication we all have a framework for what education looks like right and when we change things we have to be we have to think about how we describe the changes so our families and students understand and so i'm finding uh trying to create many more touch points of communication to our families so they understand what is happening now at park high school because it's completely different than what they know thank you thank you

013next question i'll directed joanie alicia and nick what does a day look like for students in your building when they are on site joni well we're currently at 40 about 40 capacity and so when the students come in they're coming in off the buses or being dropped off and a good portion of those students will head down to breakfast just like they have any other time or any other points in the regular school year and then they have three classes not all six classes but they take three of their classes in the morning between 7 50 and 12 50. they're moving about they have two different transitions into the the different classrooms and so a teacher will be there with them and and maybe teaching to students even at home at the same time but

014it really looks very similar to what a regular class period would look just with less students there they head to lunch and they head home after that but they really are are doing a great job with the longer schedule for each class we have an extended period of time and i think that's i've got to give them a lot of credit because it's to end the day at 12 50 or 12 55 when they're walking out the door they they look like they've had a full day so they're working hard at woodbury high school we have about 800 students on each of the a or b day just slightly below that and in high school we have all kinds of means of getting to school some ride the bus some are driving themselves some parents

015are dropping them off so we have staggered arrival in the morning and you see them trickling in we have classrooms open by about 8 15 so students that aren't eating breakfast or eat breakfast quickly are then heading to their classrooms so you see students congregating in their classes in their safe numbers but you don't see the groups in the hallway like we used to see and and know as a part of right now we have decorations up for our virtual homecoming week and so you see all kinds of streamers and um students dressed for a quarantine day this week um which looks very similar to pajama day um so some of those types of things that student council are doing would look like normal in terms of what the hallway looks like what their presence

016on social media looks like to encourage students to engage in what spirit week we can do in terms of the day classrooms look small with students spaced there's not the discussions and in all of the group work in the same manner that it looked before it looks different sometimes it's virtual labs are taking place but they're in smaller dynamics or there's a demonstration of the lab type of material passing time is longer so they've liked that we haven't had any issues with teachers being able to clean between class periods 10 minutes is a great time same with lunch they miss the tables they have desks in the cafeteria now so that we can maintain the space but they're still able to choose their seat and they do a great job of putting their mask back

017on when they're done eating and staying in the cafeteria and we have plenty of time to sanitize between lunches at the end of the day dismissal we again have that staggered a little bit between lunch and some of the classes in their molds of transportation and then the the classes clear out and we focus on our virtual learners after the after dismissal so i'd say south washington alternative high school similar to woodbury high school and the fact it's staggering in anywhere between 8 15 to 8 45 when we start and sometimes after 8 45 but the greeting is always the same to the students as they're coming in so they're being greeted by an adult some some of the students are coming in no mask asking for a mask as soon as they get in

018the door um so we're really students have bought into all the routines uh like others have said um they come in they grab their breakfast they go to their class which is about half the amount of students that we would normally have so we have a little bit smaller classes at the alternative high school in general so some of the challenges that our our students and teachers are facing are just those discussion topics that you would have with anywhere between five to 15 students now you're having with about five students um so they're they're able to get through some content but there is a challenge there in talking to some of our teachers with um that engagement piece how do you engage deeply with only a few students in your class um so we we

019have again three periods plus an advisory period we really wanted to to deeply connect with our students to make sure they're still pushing and staying on track for for graduation as we transition towards the end of our day students either transition into lunch or they they leave for the day the tail end of the day some students hop on a bus and and head back to east ridge park or woodbury to catch their bus all the way home but in the afternoons teachers take a little prep break and start prepping for the day for the next day or their vla students in the afternoon and a lot of phone calls and a lot of video conferences happen in the afternoon with our students in vla and who are at a distance you all right all

020of you alluded to the amount of work and the staff and flexibility and i think a lot of that's because of the model we landed on for secondary where our teachers have vla students and our hybrid students and so it was a big ask and we i think we called it an imperfect perfect model for us at the time so we were building that plane as we go so can you talk about what does a day look like for your vla students and i'm going to direct this one to carrie and jim so i'll have carrie go first okay so in the middle school the students content for each class is posted at eight o'clock and students can start at eight o'clock or they can wait till ten o'clock or they can wait till three

021o'clock to complete their work they have the more flexibility because they're not timed into a class during that time they have the opportunity in the afternoon to reach out to their teachers for office hours so if they want some clarification or they just want to make some connections with the teachers the teachers rooms are open and students can come in at any time during their office hours and they have it posted on their schoology on fridays this is a time where they can have a connection with their other peers in the classroom so they have their periods one two and three and it's open for all the students to come into class and that's time for connection with the peers maybe having discussion of how the week's been going doing some extension activities um on

022the content and then we have advisory where they're all coming in during advisory time and what's for what we do it with our advisory time that's when we do our wildcat news so we have newscasters and some of them are vla students and some of them are hybrid students which leads me to the point that what i think we're all we're all trying to do is getting our vla students involved in activities in the building at a distance at home so one of my i just was watching my newscast and she was doing her part from her house and then i had my other student doing it at school so we want to make sure that we can offer opportunities to all of our vla students as much as possible we also um at my

023building we do a positive reward system called the wildcat way and today as we were sending schedules home we were stuffing the wildcat way tickets that our vla students had earned during the first six weeks and we do drawings and we were sending home those prizes for those students so we want to make sure that we are connecting with the vla students i think it's going really well some of our teachers when they're off on a prep during the day like let's say they have a second hour period where they don't have something going on kids will even pop into their room at that time and it will vary from teacher to teacher and school to school so um that's kind of the overview of what it looks like in the middle school and uh

024just add that it's uh very similar at the high school level three period day for half trimester we're focusing on hours one two and three um and uh content is posted at eight o'clock and uh and one of the things that i'll add to what kerry said is that the asynchronous uh model for virtual students was done with intention um and we know that um it can also be difficult but we are trying to accommodate the needs of families throughout the district and and so we wanted to have a more flexible day the one important thing that i think uh also i'd like to add is just to continue as a staff as a district to communicate to vla kids how is the best way to get in contact with your teachers in those office

025hours fridays during the synchronous time where they're actually meeting with their teachers at a certain time etc but we're very similar to the middle school model and um we're trying very hard to meet the needs of our vla students as well right so as several of you mentioned this has been a big ask on our teachers to plan teach very differently than what they're used to so joni and todd if you can talk a little bit about how teaching and preparing to teach has changed for teachers uh i'd have to say that the number one response to this question if i were to ask teachers would they feel like they're first-year teachers again just like it's right out of college there's a lot there's a huge learning curve i i have to commend our teachers

026for just jumping in and digging in and getting after um they're planning and and they're preparing but it's it's tiring they're they're planning for students who are in person they're planning for students who are at home but we're there the day before and they're planning for students that they haven't met or don't get to see in person so they're really trying to meet the needs of the different groups that are there between being a first year teacher maybe being a budding youtube star they're all doing their videos and and trying to entertain and keep the students engaged in in their learning i think that's been a switch a lot of what happens in a classroom it's very dynamic and you you read the room and you know when you have to maybe touch a little

027bit more on on a topic because the looks on the faces or the body language will tell you that and i i see the teachers trying to prepare for all of the possible what-ifs and what if they don't get it how will i know that and so that time lapse between the delivery of the lesson and any re-teaching that has to happen it's kind of kind of give takes your pacing a little different direction but i again kudos to our teachers for what they're doing in their classrooms and i agree with um uh everything was said there the in addition to that uh what i would continue to emphasize is that yes it is a big ask of our teachers and um some of the conversations i've had is that here's what are challenging for

028some of our teachers one they miss what it used to be how they could teach bringing kids together i'll be honest during my capital outlay i i was able to purchase some collaborative furniture which isn't being used collaboratively this year which is disappointing um so not be able to have those group repair activities no movement activities in the classroom so some very different scenarios for our students in the classrooms and for our teachers and uh then creating lesson videos lots of videos videos videos videos and then uh probably the biggest frustration that a teacher can experience is is the call from the kiddo that says i don't understand how to do the assignment well did you watch the video well no watch the video but it's too long it's five minutes watch the video it

029will answer all your questions um so working and so that's the other side of that is teaching kids how to be distance learners as well as teaching content with a couple things that we've that we've also seen in our industrial tech courses they're doing some of their courses outside while it's nice so our small engines some of our wood shop activities are occurring outside even our music groups like band and choir taking advantage of nice weather and social distancing outside so they can practice there's a couple of nice little kind of cubbies around the building that create some good acoustics and then staff are also still working through curriculum on figuring out how can they continue to sustain rigorous standards and where they can reduce requirements so that students can more successfully find that academic

030and life balance so those are some of the challenges that our staff endure every day but they've done it with such eloquence and grace and they just dig in knowing they've got to get it done for the kids so thank you to our staff all right next question is on everyone's mind as we think about covet and the pandemic and staying safe and of course the safety of our staff and students is our first priority so i'm going to turn this to our aps because we often give you guys the detail-oriented jobs right so justin and alicia can you talk about how the safety precautions are going at your sites go for it overall i think uh with high high standard and high regard i think this was uh the other being academic rigor the

031safety of our school community of our students and our staff was at the forefront and was a high priority as we transitioned out of summer and into the start of the school year i would say specifically for cgms it was a bit different for us we had endured a number of construction projects over the summer new roof a new parking lot new flooring new paint so our teachers at the end of last year expeditiously packed everything up everything even including off the walls so as we as the district made the decision going to the hybrid model we were in the final stages of the completion of our construction projects with about two weeks to go prior to students entering the building look you know a little gray hair you know preceded that but ultimately a

032huge shout out to our custodial staff and working with facilities in kwame the the teamwork and collaborative effort amongst all parties has been absolutely fantastic and just to see our the the students transition into the school off of the buses and the standard standardized routines of them entering in the building you know at each of our locations we have designated areas we have greeters our staff members at the doors greeting our students ensuring that they are hand sanitizing you know we have our directional arrows as they transition either into the cafetorium for a quick breakfast or to their first period and a huge shout out to our staff as well in setting those expectations for our students and our staff early on i just want to give a shout out to our staff for teaching

033those expectations to our students and even uh even to this day our students adhering to those safety expectations i would say the the the number another challenge was lunch and going from grade level lunches of approximately 300 students to changing it to approximately with our cafetorium a maximum of 84 students definitely provided us a bit of a curveball we with the construction uh one of the construction partners that was at her building we actually had them construct a six foot by six foot like uh measuring device for for our custodial staff to be able to move desks out and store things of that sort but lunch at lunch has definitely changed but for the better uh with safety being at the forefront of our of our priorities but overall at college middle school things are

034going fantastic woodbury high school we also add in um you know lunch definitely looks different but we have time between lunch and and all staff are all hands on deck between custodians our lunchroom paraprofessionals that are helping cleaning table as well as administration and and teachers that are helping with supervision during that time to make sure we get everything clean and dry our school is very sparkly that would be what you would notice when you come in the door there are hand sanitizers and arrows and things of that to remind individuals as well as signs about masks and we're having a lot of success with students using the hand sanitizer all over on their own with wearing masks we have extra masks for students that do forget right away that that has not been an

035issue either i think some of the changes are are the people that were unable to welcome in in a high school we often welcome in college reps to talk with students and have career and counseling so those types of things have changed and are moving to virtual we often have speakers come into classrooms and so it's been a shift for the community as well to not be able to come into our school right now and and everyone's very understanding and thinking outside of the box but that at the high school has felt a lot different we also add in sports and add in the sanitizing of our stadiums and our coaches and all of the support staff that do that are doing a fantastic job as well so you can see everyone taking it very

036seriously from the cafeteria to the athletic fields and gymnasiums to all of our classrooms and it's going very well in terms of i think it's we're all surprised in terms of how it felt like it was going to be very cumbersome and it's become very smooth and a part of routines thank you and so as we mentioned earlier this has been a big ask for our teachers but we also know this has been a big ass for our parents and their guardians and family members and so we want to thank them as well for their flexibility and hard working and helping us get through this but if kerry and jim if you could answer this question what is it that you want parents to know about the return to school this year it's amazing that's

037what i want to say you know first and foremost we keep talking about it i know the elementary principles talked about it too but number one is our health our safety it is amazing it's amazing and everyone is touched based on that but i think number one our buildings were ready um our custodians again a shout out with him kwame in them because they did an amazing job because that has to be our first priority even pre pre covet that's always our first priority is the safety of our students come in the building so with that but i also want to tell parents that at the beginning of the year i was getting phone calls oh my child said you can't talk in school there's no social well imagine you're coming into school for the

038first time with a mask you're tentative you could see it with the kids coming in they wanted to be there but they weren't quite sure how this was all gonna work talking so when i was doing walkthroughs the first two weeks of school the teachers were telling me i'm trying to get them to talk in class but they're not comfortable they're not talking we're trying to do a turn and talk and some of my classes will start some won't then we went to the lunchroom and as like justin said my lunch rocks out we have music going 350 some kids in there and now i have 80. now it's really quiet in the lunchroom they don't know that they could turn and say hey how's it going over there they were real tentative today kelly

039had come into my building and you could see the energy you could hear the kids talking in the classroom they're getting more comfortable with the comfortability of the mask in this whole pandemic and i think we have to remember that when we think about our schools that children have an adjustment coming in you go into my lunchroom we have to talk louder to our adults in the lunchroom now because our kids are talking they feel more comfortable they know they can talk they're not they're not scared to talk so i think what you're going to find out parents it's going to get better and better as the days go children get more comfortable we're starting to bring activities into the buildings so hang with us it's that plan do study act we're making adjustments things

040are moving forward nicely and i just want to thank you for all that you do and i would just add that um truly we're so happy to have some sort of normalcy for your children um and um and to be back together and to see their faces is just amazing also i want parents to know that we're listening and hearing you and please continue to provide us feedback as we continue to adapt to meet the needs of your children this is new to all of us and we're so thankful for your feedback and we know how hard it is on uh on you as a family um and then we keep saying this but um the kids and we're hearing it from everybody and you know sometimes you ask what's what's the best thing about

041teaching and they say kids but it is truly amazing what these kids are doing right now and coming into school and trying to have some social fun beating between classes and in the lunchroom and the way that they are following the rules and trying to keep everybody safe is truly uh we're truly thankful for your children thank you any other questions that's those are the questions we had any board members one of the things i have heard from parents talking about a lot is the block scheduling and how it's um it seems like a lot in a day for a kid to go to class for you know especially at the middle school 60 75 minutes at the middle school and then on the days that they're not in school to have that kind of

042chunk of of one class to study how is that going and how are the kids responding to that anyone can answer it doesn't have to be a middle school either it can be i'll take that um it's different for each family and it's it's kind of the same before all this happened is that 50 of the families think it's too much and 50 think it's not enough and so it's our job to work individually and personalize what is needed for your family and so just as jim had said reach out talk to the teachers call administrators we want to hear that feedback our teachers want to hear that feedback as well at first we knew that six classes at the same time would be very difficult for kids and so going to three periods although

043not ideal because you do skip for what we're calling hexmusters right now because every six weeks it's not perfect but it's probably the best choice we could have made and although block seems like a lot of time i feel like right now it's kind of a gift to our teachers for both vla and hybrid because they spend more time with the kids the the class sizes are smaller and in all actuality it's finally the class sizes that we would have never thought we'd have and so we are always trying to figure out what is the what is a positive about this and that is the positive is that we do have that time with your kids that individualize time i love the math teachers say i can get to every single student whether they're here

044with hybrid or i can talk to them in office hours so there's some give and take in regard to that there's challenges but there's also pros and pros about why we're doing what we're doing one thing about that was the safety we went three periods because of hybrid because of the amount of transitions and so again not perfect but there's some really great things that are happening because of it as well i just want to add just i think in speaking for the formulas because probably any any of us i think one thing is it's really hard sometimes as a principal when we get a call about something that's gone on in the year in may and we can't make adjustments for the child because it's not about the parents it's about your child so

045if some if a child's struggling if your child's struggling with what's going on i just can't express enough parents got to reach out to us because we don't know so there could be some tweaks we could be making because we differentiate we we look at kids at where they're at and what they need but when it comes april and may it's too late so i can't i talk to a parent today and she goes i should have just called you and i go yeah just pick up the phone that's that's what you need to do call the counselors if you can't reach the teacher we will help but we got we i just can't stress enough to reach out because there might be something you're hearing that's not correct and then you're you're in that

046world if that's what you think it is so i just i would say that concurring with jim and molly that's that's one of the things that i would ask that people's reaching out to the correct people in the building to help so the child isn't frustrated the last thing we want is a child to not like school right we don't want to lose them and if they get frustrated they'll want to shut down so we're going to we want to intervene before that happens and then like so how do teachers feel like i know you you mentioned the class sizes and stuff um getting to the class size that teachers actually prefer right how do they feel about teaching in the blockers has that posed different challenges compared to or different challenges in what they

047were anticipating i'll respond so uh some of the things that our staff continue to work on and refine is our pacing because you are correct it's not only a 75 minute day but we are attempting to get uh 60 hours of instruction uh within six weeks so the pacing is quicker um it is analogous to when we used to have a four period block so it is far from perfect and some of the things that we continue to work on are maintain our standards but can they be met with different assignments um can they be graded differently assessed differently perhaps reduction in in not content but tasks some of the things that we will continue to wrestle with will be courses where students are in our advanced placement or international baccalaureate where it's already a

048rigorous course and now we've just increased the pacing significantly so our teachers are continuing to work on refining how they deliver that curriculum so that it is manageable for the students to be able to absorb it without being completely overwhelmed especially if they're in right now three classes that is advanced placement or international baccalaureate it is providing a challenge for some of our students um one of the things that i've also heard from a lot of parents is there a lot of concerns around their kids mental health and just how um i mean let's be real everything about this fall has been really challenging right and so whether it's three classes or it's trying to figure out how to work from home whether they're vla or whether they're a hybrid student and um are there

049how how are we able to bring that kind of supporter is that just not something that we can fit in right now with all the content requirements or how can we help kids you know or is there something that we should be looking at as a school board to help kids um who are struggling with this because i i think i've probably heard from i don't know in the last month maybe three dozen parents who are really just uncertain of what they can do to help their kids and what we're supposed to do to help their kids well i think first and foremost if that's if they're if we're at that point we should be connecting with their counselors like they're our best piece i know that in our building we're running stuff through advisory

050for our students and we're given the resources for the teachers if they're seeing things but i think the first place would be to reach out to their counselor because usually there we can put put something in place for the students i know for us we've had some students staying beyond the school day with our counselors to get the help because they were struggling in the classes so i mean i it depends on the situation and what it is but i think first and foremost to be reaching out to your your child counselor would be my thing or social worker whoever i would concur with that uh with what uh ms lopez said reach out to us we do have resources available in our schools already that instead of waiting until it's all really bad reach

051out and talk to us right away because we might be able to get them connected with some at least at park high school someone in our wellness center or through our inclusion center or with a school counselor we are even working on having distance learning coaches for those students that just need some extra help navigating distance learning or vla or hybrid so we do have resources and our teachers and our support staff are very cognizant of some of the challenges facing our children right now and we're ready and able to help okay this is my last question i promise um for i know a lot of um teachers are teaching remotely and the students are still going to school or physically in the building while the teacher is teaching remotely how is that going and

052um what kind of you know what are what are you seeing there and what um i know some parents have been concerned that their kids aren't face to face with the teacher who's directly teaching them so what can we tell those parents about how their kids are learning i can take that one or start anyways for our remote teachers we they are projected on to the smart board in the classroom so they are being seen by the students that are there and then we have another licensed staff member from school in the classroom as well whether that's someone that teaches in that discipline or not but they're there to help support those students and get the technology up and going and assist the teacher and things that they can't do being remote but they absolutely

053do see their teacher and interact through web x's with the teacher during class they're not able to see them in person but there definitely is a connection with the with the staff during that time that's there there on the screen just as if they would be in the classroom so they don't come and give a mini lesson and then leave they're there for the entire 75 minutes as well and to add to that i've had a chance to observe where once the lesson is at a point where they're transitioning to some independent work the supervisor teacher is staying is walking the um for us a chromebook out to the hallway onto a table and then the teacher's having individualized student conferences with the kiddo in the hallway and then they kind of flip back and

054forth with different kids so there's a lot of interactive activity and at least park high school we've started to bring together our teachers who are teaching remotely together so they can share strategies that are working for them and kind of share challenges so they have that also that built-in support network as well and that's being facilitated by one of our administrators thank you anybody else all right all right well thank you principals for being here tonight um i would say if and that's a big if there's a silver lining in this pandemic it's that the world and our community in particular understands how important education is and the role that you and our staff play in our school so thank you for that christine and i are truly honored to support your leadership so thank

055you for all you do before we let you go as principals we often learn best from our colleagues and usually we get roped into being part of this organization or that organization and it's always to build our network well as part of this club of leaders we are often given an opportunity to recognize great leaders among us and a principal among us tonight has been honored and recognized by her peers throughout the state as one of the very best so i'm going to turn over to superintendent nielsen come on up here miss lopez [Applause] he has a really long three food brand [Music] we realized back in march that you were supposed to be recognized and then something hit us pretty hard and uh somehow your name never came back up on the board agenda

056um kerry has been and carrie has been an administrator for 22 years and 11 years at woodbury middle school last february which we're almost rounding up to another february last february the minnesota minnesota association of secondary school principals named carrie lopez principal of woodbury middle school as the minnesota middle level principal of the year and i believe she was up with three other middle level principles and she was selected and is now listed on as one of the within the 50 states for our national representation and so kerry received that honor and caring um someone may have stolen this from her office today i said get the award um so this is your award here i just left though well great assistant principals will do anything for the superintendent right josh carrie your passion for

057students and doing the right thing is amazing your leadership stands out as a model throughout our district you have a balance of building strong relationships and holding students and staff accountable you're organized positive and a great model role model for others together we would all like to say congratulations to you while this is no trip to washington dc which she was supposed to be going to um we wanted to take the time to honor and recognize you and congratulate you and i do believe that some of your staff would like to speak as well so you can think about what you want to say awesome [Laughter] hello i'm rebecca krislip one of the school counselors at woodbury middle school and behalf on behalf of the counseling and office staff we are so excited to be

058recognizing carrie and celebrating all her greatness i might get emotional carrie we are beyond grateful to have you as our principal and our leader of the wildcats and you are such a champion advocate for all of our students our families and our staff and all of your hard work and dedication is so appreciated by all of the members of our woodward middle school family thank you my name is david donnelly and i am here on behalf of the teachers um honestly carrie has created a climate in our school for learning it's not just the learning of the students but also the learning for the teachers earlier tonight she talked about the creativity that is going on in our school and a lot of that is because of the openness she gives us to try new

059things and especially right now the year that we are in right now there everything is new to all of us and now in our school she has made time for us to actually meet and see what other people are doing and allowing us to learn from them as well and so it's not just students it's our teachers that are learning so that way we can make things better for our students in the school so thank you sorry i'm not dressed for the occasion because i made you leave work yeah yeah i got to get back anyway on behalf of your custodial staff we want to congratulate you and you know how much we appreciate you she treats us well she feeds us well but we have to beg for but [Music] other than that it's

060cool but uh no seriously congratulations and um we're happy for you and we you should have been in washington so on behalf of us thank you so much and we appreciate you thank you and i'm josh item and i'm just here on behalf of kelly isaacson another assistant other assistant principal in our building and jamie mills our admin intern who desperately wanted to be here tonight and couldn't and we just wanted to tell you um thank you for just being such a great mentor thank you for holding us to high expectations thank you for always putting students first with everything that you do we just feel really fortunate that as young leaders we have a really authentic leader to watch every day we feel really lucky all the time and thank you james because i

061really didn't tell james he's going to need to speak tonight so nice job so thank you carrie for everything you do it was and thank you julie it was important to us that we showcase all the parts of our staff because you know we think what a what a great leader does is they engage every single part of their staff and kerry does that top to bottom so thank you congratulations [Applause] well i really was not expecting this tonight i didn't even see it coming i don't i i'm speechless but i will i will say um something last march was really hard being in the building then mate came and my staff knew i was not keeping it together while i was there it was hard nobody was around and i walked out and hear

062a core of my staff had celebrated my birthday and surprised me just to bring to lift my spirits because i missed the students and i missed having the staff in the building but i will say you know what it takes a family and i've always said at woodbury middle school and let me say it at liberty ridge and at hillside we always were a family because we all worked together and um i did receive this because of all the people that surround me so i am very blessed because i have an amazing community i have amazing students and i have an amazing staff so thank you so much for this um i appreciate it and um thank you all of you for coming so wow you caught me off guard and so carrie we did

063just what we had wanted to do and that was to like totally surprise you it was a little bit of a bait and switch we got you in here to answer questions and then we got to there we go uh and so kerry just before you walk away i didn't notice something that mr item shared he said you're such a great role model for the younger younger administrators and so just be mindful that you do have how many years 22 years as an administrator yes so congratulations on behalf of everyone sitting in this room and throughout the district you represent our leaders very well [Applause] don't don't walk away yet because you know i'm going to say something about you i don't know if i knew well i can't begin to tell you how much

064um my family appreciates you um your support and love for children your compassion your patience because you know i had a rough bunch that came through [Laughter] and so but what i what i always remember is that you took the time to attend to their needs and and to see after them and never never set a rude or uh anything that would deter them from doing the very best that they could and that you are a mentor and a role model for them so from my family i want to thank you for your service and for your support because you are truly amazing thank you well thank you very much that was a lot of fun to have that surprise and congratulations again all right um 8.0 information items 8.1 is our open enrollment and

065intra-district transfers and we have all of our assistant superintendents right tyrone and cali and christine all right good evening again easier to do this tonight we would like to review with you the enrollment guidelines being recommended as part of the implementation of board policy 509.1 and 509 pepe we have the powerpoint kelly jansen tyrone brookins and i will review the details of these enrollment guidelines and policies board policy 509.1 is regarding intra-district transfers this policy provides the opportunity for district 833 resident families to request to have a child attend a school outside of their assigned attendance boundary so this policy is for families already residing in district 833 boundaries board policy 509 is regarding open enrollment this provides non-resident families the opportunity to attend a district 833 school so this policy is for families living

066outside of the district 833 boundaries i will now turn it over to dr tyrone brookins our assistant superintendent overseeing elementary schools to talk about introducing transfer parameters for the elementary all right as you can see the key points are listed on the powerpoint and i will just highlight with a little bit more specificity on some of these points uh intradistrict transfers requests for the upcoming school year 2021 at the 2022 school year may be granted for all elementary schools on a space available basis subject to approval by the assistant superintendents younger siblings will have priority if their older brothers or sisters are currently on an approved intra-district transfer the approval is still subject to space being available in the school and at the grade level that is requested if the number of intra-district transfer requests

067exceeds the available space in a grade level the order of approval shall be determined by selection through a lottery process applications submitted after march 1st 2021 will be added to the existing wait list created for each school parents or guardians are still responsible for providing transportation to and from school and adhered to the school start and end times in every instance where an intra-district transfer has been approved and last families must reapply if requesting enrollment at a school outside the assigned attendance boundary when transitions occur that's going from elementary to middle or from middle to high school the next slide will talk about timelines we always have a practice of no buildings or clothes for intra-district transfers and the timeline begins december 1st when applications will begin to be received through march 1st of 2021

068the cutoff time is 4 pm and the applications received after that will receive the next number on the actual waitlist and then we will send decision letters out by april 1st 2021 and none of this language that that we are presenting to you or and talking about is different from previous years similar to the elementary key points that dr brookins just talked about some of the things that guide decisions at the secondary level are again that space and staffing availability if a sibling attend that school and then also if the number of requests do exceed the available space we do have a lottery process um if transfers are approved parents and guardians are responsible for transportation to it to that school and with the secondary school something that comes into play is minnesota state high

069school league eligibility and all of those decisions run under the state high school league guidance regarding those the timeline for secondary is a little different and much sooner so if this is something as a family that you're interested in right now no buildings are closed for idt's and assistant superintendents will take a look at all of those applications they are accepted october 15th through december 15th i mean you notice the asterisks there that um applications are submitted pending board approval of these parameters parameters that are listed within your board packet and as dr brooken said they are not different than last year decision letters will be mailed out by january 15th for our secondary families all right open enrollment for non-resident students if we have students that are open enrolled in our district and they

070move during the school year they may apply to stay at that same school for the rest of that school year however the next year they may be assigned to a different school open enrolled students will continue at their assigned school throughout the year their years at each level families can indicate the preferred school when school transitions transitions occur like elementary to middle middle to high however the district retains the right to assign a non-resident student to sites other than the direct feeder school based on capacity our timeline for open enrollment applications will start being accepted december 1st go through january 15th applications received after that will be on a waitlist and and letters mailed out after february 15th and we currently have the following schools closed for open enrollment due to capacity so at elementary

071grade cloud liberty ridge and red rock middle schools lake altman and woodbury and high schools east ridge and woodbury this is the same as last year the same schools that were closed last year due to the number of students at those schools already questions i have a question so we take kids outside the district into schools before we make the decisions for because the deadline for elementary is much later for open enroll or for inner district kids than it is for open enrolled kids and decisions then the ending good question because of um that is done because of the staffing at secondary the thing with elementary is with that deadline what families know um about open enrollment on february 15th for open enrollment let me just go back to make sure i have the right

072date for open enrollment of elementary open enrollment for all students february 15th what they find out on february 15th is did they get accepted into the district they don't get a school placement until um april okay so we always i think one of the things whether we're talking about the inter-districts or the open enrollment our students always have first priority and that goes as well so they might get accepted into the high school under open enrollment but where they get placed is still open until we figure out our own students first because there's that percentage that we accept thank you that's a good question for program so if a kid is a gateway and then moves out of the district they can finish the school year at gateway can they continue on until the end

073of fifth grade or for nuevas fronteras do they continue on until the end of the program or is this when a transition or at the end of the year it's done they could continue through the end of the year but then the next year they would have to apply for open enrollment if they're if they've moved out into another district so if they're in you know for example if they're a third grader in gateway their parents move to wherever in fourth grade would the would they be applying for a slot at gateway or would they be applying for a slot at the elementary school the gateway is at they would be applying for a slot in the district district first in the district okay and then we would determine where their space they could they

074can say they prefer that school or that program but we have to see where the space is okay after we look at inner district transfers okay and it works the same for nuevas fronteras yes including at the transitions for middle school and high school yep okay any other questions thank you thank you 9.0 9.1 introduction to the intercultural development inventory kelly will stay with us i should have won better shoes tonight oh see it up there there we go all right uh thank you for the opportunity to be here to talk about the intercultural development inventory and that's a mouthful so i will refer to that from here on out as idi so i am very fortunate to be part of the idi project champion team and that team is responsible for planning for the

075implementation of idi and how we use that in our district since we began our partnership with idi about almost two years ago we have grown to over 30 qualified administrators and you often hear me refer to those people as qas so we have over 30 qualified administrators in our district and in order to become a qa you attend two and a half days of intense training related to understanding the science behind the idi along with how we have to have conversations or debriefs with groups and individuals who engage in taking the idi i can't lick my finger turn my finger so tonight i'm going to give you a brief overview of the idi introduce you to some key concepts around the eye and give you a glimpse into why as a district we chose this

076tool to use a couple of things around the overview of the idi it is grounded in comprehensive cross-culturally validated model of intercultural competence that's a lot of educational jargon what the idi has been researched to show is that other assessment tools that they use around intercultural competence often measure concepts like i'm flexible or i can do this and there isn't a lot of research that connects specific concepts to intercultural competence but what the idi does it's a theory based comprehensive model that has been validated and researched to to show where individuals are along a continuum of understanding intercultural competence i don't know if that helped explain that but it is a very well respected tool to use for this for understanding intercultural competence there is an organizational version and an educational version and we are

077all in our district using the education version it is available in multiple languages i think today i read 17 different languages in which people can take the idi it will generate a group report for selected groups that take it and an individual profile report and newer to the idi process is the individualized intercultural development plan or the idp is an individual who takes the idi you will get your own plan to move along the continuum of intercultural competence and the last one i'm sorry the next bullet is related to that throughout that process it provides you goals related to moving along the continuum of understanding intercultural competence um and the last one is is kind of the way that researchers will say you can't game the test there isn't right answers when you take the

078test it's just you need to answer it honestly in order to um there's no way to get a right answer on a test and so it's it's a very valid and reliable assessment at the core of idi is culture and when we talk about culture we're talking about two different pieces of culture the objective culture the artifacts institutions things that you see and then we're talking about the subjective cultures those patterns of behaviors or values beliefs perceptions and the idi measures the degree of subjective cultural competence so how you understand those values and beliefs of other cultures when we talk about objective and subjective culture around the district this is often a a visual that we use the iceberg that you see you see part of the iceberg and then you don't see the other

079part of the iceberg and often the bigger part is below the water and so that subjective culture is a big part of who our staff and who our kids are some additional key terms to understand before you begin your conversations around the idi when we say diversity we're talking about who is it the demographics of who is in the room when we say inclusion we're talking about how do the individuals feel about being part of that mix of people in the room and when we talk about intercultural competence it's how can individuals make that mix work how do i as an individual relate to other individuals within that mix and that's that intercultural competence my ability to see perspective their cultural perspective and adapt my behaviors so that's what is that that's what you're going

080to continually hear as you go down this journey of of idi one of the key points that we learned in our um qa training was about how do we how do we develop intercultural confidence and one of the best stories that we related this to was like you're like a container and your life experience fills your container and the range of ways that you interpret understand and respond to difference is based on what you've been able to put in that container and oftentimes it's things out of our control education our experiences are our ability to put ourselves in another person's shoes um to get a sense of what their lived experience was like and then exposure did were you did you live in a urban neighborhood did you live in a rural neighborhood and a

081lot of these things are built throughout our life and so we often didn't have a lot of control over our experiences that built our intercultural competence there are four ways to use the idi the individual development track so when you as an individual take the idi you will get your your growth plan and you as a person will take your own journey and that idi and that growth and moving along the continuum there is also the group report when you are part of a group then that group report can guide the development of that group and moving along their their continuum of understanding intercultural competence there is it's often used as for organizations to develop baselines to see so we're gonna embark on this journey of equity where are we now in understanding intercultural competence

082and after a year or two years where are we and did our did our organization move and then also similar to that is that program evaluation did the program did the redesign of our program produce the results we wanted to produce there is a fifth way but it can only be administered by idi and that is in the hiring process that is not something internally that we could choose to do but that is a fifth way that some organizations use the idi when we started on this journey the project champion team thought it was very important that we were really clear around the purpose purpose of doing this and why are we doing this they sound similar um but the purpose for us was kind of our goal what was the end goal for us

083and it was really to initiate and facilitate conversations across diverse individuals and groups in order to increase people's capacity to better understand culture and develop culturally responsive appropriate strategies for engaging cultural differences our goal is that people are willing to talk about culture and race in a way that we learn and grow from each other keeping race at the forefront of our conversations we've had a lot of internal conversations around culture versus race and we continue to have those and we feel like they're really healthy for us to continue to have those so why is this important one of the biggest things we often hear about equity work is it may not be for their kid or it's not for my kid it's not for my family understanding culture diversity and inclusion benefits everyone it

084is a global skill people in this day and age are getting fired for not being intercultural competent interculturally competent so understanding culture diversity inclusion benefits everybody we do have and we have we have acknowledged it predictable disparity disparities and achievement based on race and ethnicity we also know that culture has a profound effect on how we see the world and process information that goes for our staff and for our students and just understanding how they're seeing the world and processing information that goes along with making that curriculum relevant what matters to them we know that race and ethnicity play a role in identity and contribute to behavior and beliefs and as as as people in our schools again we often jump to judgment versus understanding and so we know that race and ethnicity play a

085role in that so getting to that point of seeking that understanding we also know that an emphasis on uniformity creates disadvantages for people whose culture has taught them behaviors and beliefs that are different from the norms of the majority culture so creating that uniform uniform bar puts people at a disadvantage and that is certainly not something we want to create for our school for our district um two points that we thought um would directly impact you in your journey on this is to develop a deeper understanding of self and where you are in your journey of equity work we have done this with groups and we've done this with some schools and we've um but we've also had individuals reach out and ask can i take it can i do my own journey on the

086rdi um so your self-journey is just as important as your group journey and then and then potentially provide a roadmap of where are we now and how do we move along this continuum of understanding intercultural competence so i know superintendent nielsen has talked with you about next steps we have contracted with terence harewood parents was actually our trainer for our qa training he um also trained our district last june the additional qas that we had he has sent you the idi that he is asking that you take by the 14th and then i know you will have a group debrief with terence virtual group debrief of terrence on the 21st we are also hoping and terence is expecting that you set up your debrief with him and you have a virtual conversation with him and

087he will give you your idp report at that time so your plan so that you can engage in that self-learning a few closing thoughts and and these are super important and it's also why we were really purposeful on how we rolled out the idi um it doesn't provide you a label it tells you how you're currently approaching a cultural difference and commonalities and it gives you a direction to develop more intercultural competence for me personally personal local media it was one of the best ways for me to quantify how do i understand inner culture like how how do i know that i'm getting better or how do i know that i'm understanding it more so it was it was just really helpful to put some words to what i felt wasn't tangible at that time

088for me none of the orientations are good or bad we have a range of orientations in our world and they just give you a picture of how you deal with cultural differences and again the profile results are valid and useful only in the context of dealing with intercultural matters it's not a picture of your whole personality so we want to make sure people don't it's often intimidating to talk about where you are in understanding intercultural competence but we're hopeful that it feels less intimidating because we wanted to make sure people understood this wasn't a judgment this is where we are and we just we need to continue to talk about it and that's what we're hoping the idea does so thank you for being brave and heading out on this journey we have i believe

089given i know all of our system leaders so including our principals and all of our directors our cabinet we also in teaching and learning did many of our curriculum review cycle teams last year so we have many teachers who have participated in this so thank you for being part of our journey and i will do my best to answer questions terence warned me to not give you too much information though so i will just comment i think the um bucket is a really accurate it really has stuck with me about who you are and that those four e's can really help you to make adjustments and those four e's education experience exposure and empathy those are part of your growth plan and so when you look at things that you can do to grow and

090to move from monocultural to intercultural those are the four areas that you'll be looking at and kind of pointing like what area could i have another experience what about a book club what about going to visit somewhere going to have a different experience and so those four e's are kind of a big deal when we think about moving along on that continuum so you said a lot of the system leaders or and teachers have gone through this how do we um or what is the plan for because this is a snapshot in time correct when you take this when you take this assessment this is a snapshot in time and then it gives you kind of a road map for becoming more intercultural correct correct um how do we or what is the plan for

091knowing there's like the cultural shift we make as an organization as far as that group you mentioned the system leaders group um you know christine and kevin did a lot of work with um candace and melissa from mankato state and we did a lot of equity work before taking the idi but we to your point didn't have really a measure of where where are we as a group so when we took it in may we did ask everyone to do there we thought that was a good time so we we are asked dr jacobus asked all system leaders to do their individual debrief we offered a range of books for those that were wherever they were along that continuum what fit them where they were to meet them where they are um we are meeting

092on tomorrow's friday already we are meeting tomorrow um you know i think we've used the the we're just getting this year underway getting this year underway um but we are meeting tomorrow with um wayne felton uh and i and james mcgee to talk about what are we what is our plan for our system leader pd and we met monthly and for two hours and it was it was really powerful and last year they've changed the format a little and that we had small groups facilitated by someone who had gone through courageous leadership and so we got to know each other on a personal intercultural level by sharing our family stories our family histories that and we did we shadowed a student and so it was just it was it was a amazing growth here so

093we were excited to take this to see like did we where are we and now what so we will long story longer we do plan to take it again to do it for that program analysis type of thing like are we moving along the continuum so thank you very excited to have our debrief on the 21st and i'm positive you'll like terrance i'm hopeful so well thank you very much 10.0 our action items we had added 10.1 which is the approval of changes to the 2020-21 calendar superintendent nielsen thank you i think todd herbert said it best tonight it's a year of revision and modifying um i'm going to use a different word though it's a year of being responsive our last edits of this calendar were made on august 13th and as shared previously

094this is a year of listening evaluating and making those adjustments as part of conversations with our staff and listening to input we have received we are recommending adjustments allowing staff to have time for planning and preparation as we shift to new classes at the secondary level the goal is to provide time for staff midway through the trimester or as they're calling it the hexmuster to evaluate the first half of the trimester plan for the second half and for secondary staff to provide time for grading and feedback in addition to that to align our elementary and secondary schools so that families have adequate daycare coverage when our k-5 students are at home the below recommendations are being proposed that in trimester one what was originally a k-5 prep day on monday october 19th would turn into

095a k-12 prep day where all students would be off school and so that monday the 19th would turn into a k-12 prep day then as we look into second trimester allowing for that hex master break in between we would look at january 22nd and adding that as a k-12 prep day and with that addition because it's right in the middle of the trimester we would then move our k5 what was our k5 prep day from february 16th we would shift that date so they were all together on january 22nd um and that means that on february 16th it would not be a k5 prep day it would actually be a student contact day and then as we look at trimester three uh we did not have um any scheduled and so trimester three we would

096look at april 23rd to add a k-12 preparation day and so really the ad is for trimester one two and three that all k-12 staff would have a preparation day as they transition to new classes or just gathering information and planning and preparing and so with that this evening just because we're coming up against the 19th we are asking for approval on the adjustments to the 2021 calendar and with that if you have any questions i'm happy to answer all right so can we entertain a motion to approve second right any questions which is does this um ultimately how does this affect student contact days um part of the executive orders for the from the governor were that we could have three plan or excuse me five days um and so this would be part

097of that and so the executive order allows us to have additional planning date anyone else right so we had katie moshe melinda second all those in favor say aye any opposed motion carries 11.0 reports and comments 11.1 is our superintendencer thank you um as many of you are aware we made the i made the decision to remain in the hybrid through the end of the trimester um i'd like to communicate however that our incident command team which is made up of our stakeholders we'll continue to have regular meetings our next meeting is scheduled for october 30th and then again on november 6th and as we look at that november 6th date we'll be looking forward to after our thanksgiving break to determine what are our numbers looking like and is there an opportunity for us

098to shift models our team continues to review updated data um and many of you have seen that updated data for today i believe it put it put us at almost 21 cases per 10 000 so we definitely look at the county case rates we look at student and staff absences and our ability to staff schools as well as the cases we've had in the district and any quarantines that information is reviewed in the meetings and helps to inform our start will help to inform the start of our second trimester as shared today in the family newsletter on our connect newsletter registration to change learning models will begin next week october 12th and remain open through october 25th and i think while we talked about that initially that we would allow that to occur at the

099end of every trimester or for every trimester we are only families who want to make a change are asked to complete the form that is sent out and we are hopeful that most families are happy with the selection of either the completely virtual or the dial model um i think it will be interesting for us to see you know how many students are opting back and forth um because that will allow us time with that time frame of closing on october 25th that will allow us time to take a look at schedules and make any shifts that we may need to as far as staffing goes on tuesday i met with a group of students who had previously served on superintendents advisory they were just an awesome group of leaders and so eager to help

100support the district for this group as we move forward with that student advisory group we are looking to have those students who have served three and four years actually act as facilitators and then we're going to open up the conversation and invite larger groups of students so we will have students facilitating a conversation with other students who can virtually log on and then we'll have breakout rooms where students ask the questions they get the input and then we come back together a couple of topics the students talked about were relationships what does uh what does the impact of a positive relationship with the teacher have on your academic performance what about one that's maybe not so positive and so the students actually brainstormed a number of ideas another one was what is stressing you out

101and saying it in kid terms like what's stressing you out so to really get at the student voice and then talk about what we can do um to use that student voice next i'd like to do a big shout out to great cloud elementary for the international recognition of being named a blue ribbon school they were recognized for their outstanding academic excellence and progress toward closing the achievement gap and so congratulations to principal laura luschik and the great cloud staff and board members got to see laura luschik i think two weeks ago as she shared the elementary update so congratulations to great cloud and then in closing you got to hear from our administrators this evening but last friday we celebrated national custodian and maintenance day and if there was ever a year when our

102maintenance and custodial staff deserve recognition this is the year i'd like to publicly extend a thank you to our entire crew for taking pride in our facilities and working to make sure that our schools and workplaces are clean sanitized and ready for students and staff so big thank you to our custodial and maintenance staff thank you 11.2 our school board member reports however we start with melinda yeah hi i just wanted to start off by thanking everybody again the teachers the custodials all the school staff the bus drivers the parents the students everyone for just really dealing with i guess chaos of the new school year and being adaptable and flexible and everyone working together i know it's been a challenge as far as things that i've been doing since our last report i did

103take that idi which was very enlightening and i'm looking forward to getting those results for that i've been in contact with all the principals and things seem to be going well i know like we've talked about generally 50 of parents think there's too much work 50 think there's not enough you know so it's kind of where we find that happy medium julie and i went to a meeting last week for the city of woodbury where we talked about some different they're working on some possible remodeling type of things for the space that we use for early childhood education and our adult learning so we're just kind of looking at you know what our future looks at for that looks like for that space as well so thank you thanks sammy sure last time we uh

104got together it was right before we met with the city of cottage grove and um everything in cottage grove like houses are coming up like crazy in cottage grove so it's um was it just exciting to hear about their growth plans and and where they're going i've been in touch with all of my principals and i just wanted to talk about the access program and how well that's been going they've been doing in-person classes at anderson windows which is one of their business partners and they've also been doing virtual classes online with um you know as they typically do um and they got a new uh graduate last week from woodbury high school which is very exciting so i'm hoping to hear more news like that you know because of the pandemic we're not going

105into the building so it's a little bit harder to make the connections with staff and students but hopefully we can continue to keep this going i think it's as a parent in the district i will also i would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who's working in the district and you know my kids are in school two days a week and it's it's really helpful for them and it's really honestly it's great for me so um i'm just really grateful for all the work that everyone in the district has done to make kids experiences so safe and happy thanks louise this is going to sound pretty redundant i also took the idi which was different than i expected but but certainly interesting a thank you to james and wayne also and the opportunity to

106look at the the videotape section of the training the six part training that they're doing was i i just appreciated that very much i missed my schools as well i miss being able to go into the schools and you know contact by an email or phone is just it's not the same it's nice to see a couple of the principals here tonight that i miss um i also want to spend some time saying thank you to so many people and in terms of you know the hybrid has that wonderful wonderful part of kids actually being in school and it's just different than anything we've ever done before you know march had some exposure to distance learning and what that's like in a crisis situation but this is totally new and julia i thought you used

107a wonderful word in terms of being responsive or responsiveness so to our students who are not just going the extra mile but a little bit more and their families and the neighbors and the staff who are so responsive to changes that i just don't even know how to say thank you enough thank you sharon well this will be my second time for the idi our whole institution um as a director of diversity equity and inclusion at mitchell hamlin um we required uh the staff and faculty to take the idi and we use the ym ywca in minneapolis and we're a little further along because we have this is uh we're a year and a half into it and we've gone through five coal hearts so um my my um my uh um what we've done

108is now created subgroups within the group and we're all working on some are working on admissions uh classroom culture and climate and different areas of culture and um i just think that it is a tremendous thing it helps people to really look deep in within themselves and be able to change that for a lack of a good word um i also took the time to look at uh mr felton and mr mcgee's um not a moment it's a movement very done very tastefully and i'm very proud of our district that we are um uh looking at those issues in light of what is going on in our community around social justice issues so um thank you for all your hard work thanks okay um so last night i had my 9 16 meeting and it

109was interesting to hear the difference in how they're preparing to do more hybrid versus what we're doing with obviously all the different programs that they have and all the different levels of students that go through there i think the presentation lasted like an hour and 45 minutes it was so much that has to go into changing but they have heard from parents and they want their kids in school just like we heard from parents that we want them um so that would be nice to see that some of those kids get to get back at least a couple days a week as well and we're also starting a superintendent search um connie hayes has decided to retire at the end of the year so that is starting at 9 16. wow i actually that was

110one of my first things hiring her so that was comes around goes around comes on uh well just like the others i had watched why black lives matter and just um you know just a big shout out to james and fantastic and i'm excited to watch the second session don't all lives matter so that's awesome that they're doing that um and then yeah the idi i'm super excited i'm sure um terence is like settle down girl [Music] i took it and i'm like well when can i find out you gotta wait so i've been wanting this for a long time for the board so i'm excited that we're actually moving down this path so excited to share the journey with y'all all right 12.0 future meeting dates um thursday october 22nd and november 5th are

111our next two regular board meetings and then 13.0 we are adjourned thank you you