001I'd like to call to order the Independent School District 197 School Board Meeting. Today is Monday, November 4th, 2024. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. I'm Byron Schwab, the treasurer, and I will be chairing the meeting tonight. Our chair, Sarah Larson, is not able to attend, and our vice chair, John Vopel, is unable to attend. So I would like a motion to approve the agenda, please. So moved. Moved by Ms. Steele. Second. Tim O'Neill. And is all in favor? opposed motion passes unanimously and now i would be looking for an approval of our consent agenda is there a motion to approve the consent
002agenda moved by mr hill second by miss waltz and all those in favor aye opposed motion is approved unanimously Thank you. We did have a listening session this evening at 5 o'clock. I was the recorder and the reporter, and I will report that unfortunately we had no one show up at our listening session. So please take advantage of that. It's the first board meeting of the month at 5 o'clock here at the Mendota City Hall. Secondly, or next on our agenda, our recognitions. This is always a fun time of our board meeting. Our recognitions and Dr. Olson-Skog will take over. Thank you. We have two student groups with us tonight that we're going to recognize. The Native American student group and the new Two Rivers High School cheer team. So first we'll call up members
003from the Native American student group. So come on up along with School District 197 American Indian Education Coordinator Nell Bari. Please help me welcome them. And so we have Nell along with two seniors here this evening, Gianna and we also have Carlo. There's only one senior. I'm sorry? Only one senior. Okay, so Carlo and Nico. Carlo and Nico. No? All right. Why don't I just let you introduce your team. Okay, bonjour everyone. My name is Nell Bari. I am the American Indian Education Coordinator for the school district and I'm going to let my students introduce themselves. My name is Carlo Reynolds and I'm in 10th grade. My name is Nico Reynolds and I'm in 9th grade. Hello, my name is Gianna Reynolds and I'm a senior. And I'm here to talk about our American Indian
004Education Program. This program meets every other Wednesday and creates an important space for Native American students at our school. With only about 62 Native students here, it's meaningful to have a place where we can come together, feel seen, and celebrate our culture. In each session, we discuss why Native Americans matter, both in history and today. And we explore different parts of Native culture. We play indigenous games, which is a fun way to engage in our traditions. And we practice saying greetings in Ojibwe, Lakota, Dakota, and Northern Arapaho. We're always learning something new about our heritage and each other, and we're working to encourage more Native students to join and help our community grow. This month for Native American Heritage Month, we're especially proud because we officially made it into the Nordic Mountains. Every day we
005share a fact about Native culture so everyone in the school can learn a bit more. We've also been given the library display case outside of the library to decorate for Native American Heritage Month, which will be showing different Native books and different types of Indigenous artifacts. Thank you for your support and interest in helping us build this program. and spread awareness about Native culture. Do you guys have any question you'd like to ask this Native American student group? Any questions from board members? Tim? Welcome and thank you. You mentioned in your remarks about... We're hearing aids and I didn't catch exactly but I was one to hear more about how you the process by which you share your culture I think that's wonderful to have fellow students learn from fellow students So that's probably it's
006a I think a very positive learning condo. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yeah, we just started this group this year, and I just think it's a really good place for us. We just start off with a meeting with a nice treat, and then we just start talking about different types of events we want to plan. We have a Native American Heritage Month event November 20th in the cafeteria at Two Rivers High School from 5.30 to 7 p.m., and so far we've been just trying to expand a little bit more. Wonderful. Thank you. Well, I'd kind of like to hear from the two young men that came along. What might you add to what we've heard already, please? Well, my sister did a lot of the research, but I just like
007stand at my home. I didn't do much. I like what she said and proved like what should we do at the school. What might be something in particular that you feel a value that you're gaining from the opportunity to have this group? Just to get, like, learn from my culture and want to get to learn it more, especially in the group. Marcus? So I'm curious to know what sort of events you guys have planned for Native American Heritage Month on the 20th. Oh, yeah. So first off, we're going to be serving Indian tacos, which is fry bread with ground beef and, you know, just a taco kind of. And we're going to have a drum group, and we're planning to display different types of Native American art, like beadwork, different types of books. We might
008think about doing some type of Native American art. So like doing bead work with other people around. And I mentioned something about having a Native American elder come and speak to us, tell us a couple of stories. And we might smudge and do some stuff on the lines like that. Fantastic, thank you. Thank you. Any other questions? And how about our student reps? Do you have any questions for this student group? What do you think your favorite moments have been so far in the year with your group? I gotta really think. I like learning different types of languages. We've been learning, you know, Ojibwe and stuff like that. We just actually made tobacco ties recently at our last meeting, which I think is really meaningful, which we are actually going to hand to the different,
009the drum circle during our Native American Heritage Month event. And I just... I just think it's a really fun group. I'm happy it happened. I've been waiting for this since freshman year. Thank you. I just want to ask, how can other non-Native students be more involved with the group and be able to share what you guys share? I just think, obviously, I think we should show up to the Native American Heritage Month event, but just do some... I think it's really good to learn a lot more about Native Americans, such as the thing I'd research first is American Indian boarding schools, which I think is a very good topic to research. The genocide of Native Americans, and then our morning announcements too, just listen to the facts every day. Native American is just really special
010to me. So, yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Any other questions? Well, I was just going to say, Pretty darn close to what you said Patrick. So thank you for for sharing your culture especially where our school is located especially in Minnesota and for you all to bring that to us and for us to celebrate you It's a really important thing that you're doing for you and for our entire community. So thank you. Thank you Thank you for coming tonight. Appreciate it Thank you. And next we will introduce the Two Rivers Cheer Team and its coach, Ty Michaels. The Two Rivers Cheer Team is a new activity at Two Rivers this year, and they have been making their mark at sporting events and in the community. Their coaches are Ty Michaels, Cecilia Zerner, and Nina Quintanilla.
011Let's give them a warm-up. We'll give them a second as they come on up here. All right, first and foremost, thank you so much for having us. Ty Michaels, the HR Director with ISD 197, but I've had the pleasure of being the advisor, coach, mentor, just all the things above for all of these young ladies, and some are missing. We're going to start with some introductions, and we'll allow everyone to go around and introduce themselves, and then they'll follow up with a few speeches. Hi, I'm Head Captain Brycey Booker. Hi, I'm Wendy Jeon. I'm also the head captain, and I'm a senior. Also senior. Hello, I'm Kiara Colton-Superman, senior. Hi, I'm Annika Lekowicz. I am a junior. Hi, I'm Kenneke Gadisa, and I'm a JV captain. Hi, I'm Jay Nguyen, and I'm a senior. Hi,
012I'm Jostia Ndobayan, and I'm a 10th grader. Hello, my name is Autumn A. Herr, and I'm a senior. My name is Taniya Smith. I'm also a senior. My name is Braylene Booker. I'm a seventh grader. My name is Atalia Roth, and I'm a junior, and I was one of the varsity captains for football season. I'm Heaven Gordon. I was also a varsity captain for football season, and I'm a junior as well. Thank you. All right, and so first to speak is Annika. I just wanted to take the chance to highlight my experience with CHEER and how it has helped my confidence over these years. I have gotten so many opportunities to do things I have not even, I didn't even think were possible for me to do when I was a freshman. It has given
013me the chance to express myself and use my voice and it has like, I went through a lot of things I used to not even think I could perform in front of so many people. And just speaking to you all, I feel I've come such a long way, and I really do think it's all due to my cheer experience. I went from... crying at just being told I had to talk in front of everyone to being here right now to dancing during halftime to joining more clubs to making more friends and I truly am so thankful for this experience. Thank you. Next we'll hear from Brycey Booker. Hi, I kind of just want to talk about how our cheer squad grew in numbers. We started last year with basketball season. We only had 12 girls.
014And then for football season, we grew to 18 girls. And now for this upcoming basketball season, we have 39 girls. And I think that's just so amazing that there's so that cheer has. kind of like helped people come together. There's girls who are on the team who like you wouldn't think talk to each other or like be part of something like this. Kind of like with Anika, what she had said with like the confidence, I think cheers really helped with people's confidence. Me personally, I have cheered since I was little. So I mean like... I've kind of always been a cheerleader, but I like how doing something that I loved helped other girls and had introduced cheerleading to the school and the district. Next, we have Wendy and Kiara. All right. I just want to
015say that this is my first year actually cheering, and it's been an amazing experience. I honestly never thought I would see myself doing this, like, cheering at school. I am a dancer myself, but I never saw myself doing cheering and stuff, and I think it's a good thing for me that I did join because what the other girls said, I'm going to echo from them, that it did build my confidence. I was a very quiet girl. Being able to join CHEAR really helped my confidence go out and like I got to build sisterhood with these new girls too and then I just got to build new relationship and it was just so much fun. Yeah. So this is going to be my upcoming second year of being on the cheer team. I originally started, well,
016a little back story. So my friend, she was like, oh, let's join, let's join. And I was like, okay, this would seem fun. And, you know, just to meet new people. And I fell in love with cheer. Like, I really enjoyed cheering and cheering my team on, cheering my school on. and even ourselves like at practice when we have team bonding that I really enjoy doing that as well kind of just going off on that as well the teamwork it's really good to build a community in clubs and even like with friendships at school in general and I feel like we've done that to build a community, build a sisterhood in order to support each other. And yeah, thank you. Thank you. And last but not least, Linaya Smith. So I'm here to talk about
017the importance of sisterhood that I have gained from being on the cheer squad. Coming into cheer, I had no idea how much time and effort that would be put into the many practices and games that we have had. But along the journey, I had the support system of my girls. The laughs, the talks, the overall bonding that comes along with the journey of being a cheerleader, that's what that means to me. I've created so many bonds with the many girls on the team that I never knew I would have created and connected with, and I did. And since it's my last year, I'm so grateful that I get to leave off with more sisters than I already have. I never have to worry about feeling out of place when I'm cheering with my girls because
018they are always there for me when I need it. It's a bond like no other. Cheerleading isn't just about cheer, it's about creating family and bonds that last. And if I had the opportunity to do it all over again, I would. Not only am I appreciative of the sisters that I have gained, but I'm also appreciative of the many inspiring women that I get to call my coaches. Coach Angel, Coach Lucille, Coach Nina, and Coach Ty. You have all put so much time and effort to make sure that cheerleading is more than just cheerleading. You guys make sure that we have fun, we are happy doing what we are doing, and you guys also make sure that our voices are heard and seen. Cheerleading is something that I have always liked to do and I
019just want to thank you guys for the time and sacrifices that you guys have put into making sure that our voices are heard and that we are seen. Your advice, your mentorship, and the compassion that I have noticed that I've been cheering for have been a source of motivation since the beginning and that's something that I will carry for when I graduate. That's all. This is the Two Rivers Chair Squad, and we will open it up to questions that I will not be answering. Any questions or comments? Noelle. Any questions, comments, or questions? Noelle. Thank you guys all for sharing your experiences. I know basketball season of chair is fast approaching, so what do you guys all hope to see for next season? Sorry, I heard you, but... What do you guys hope to see
020in your next season of chair? What are we going to see for basketball season? We're going to be at a lot of the basketball games, boys and girls. We will be at a few hockey games as well. We're going to do some community stuff. And I think just cheering on our school and just representing Two Rivers. Patrick. Well, first of all, I just want to say y'all are awesome. I recognize so many faces and it's so great to hear all of your stories. I did have a question about, since this is such a new group, what was the process to advocating and being able to see this come to life? Especially since this is, I think, the first cheer squad we've had in 30 years, which is insane and awesome. So you asked a question
021that I have to answer. And if Dr. Johnson was here, he'd be hiding. My kiddos have been with ISD 197 for a very long time. I don't know how many years. And I remember sitting in the stands, and I'm like, we're missing something. We're missing something. And I had continued asking previous to Dr. Johnson. And then when he came, I just like rode his heels, like, please, please, please. He told me, he said, if you figure it out and you get it started, I'll support you. We figured it out. We got it started. and we have his support. So that's how it kind of started. I will also add Brycey and Linaya cheered with me. I've been a cheer coach outside of ISD 197 for well over 10 years and kind of decided to retire
022during COVID. And they were on my cheer squad previously. And so they were kind of also pushing me to get the job done. Awesome. I am so inspired by You're talking about your confidence in the community that you've built. What would you tell somebody who was wanting to join you but felt afraid or intimidated to join you? So I actually didn't touch on this part, but I was going to talk about it a little bit before. I think of like, I can and I will. Like, I can do this. Like, just those affirmations in the back of your head. And I feel like we're super open in general. Like, hey, could you help me on this cheer? Hey, could you? Just help like and we're open always open to doing that and just that I
023can and I will is very important to have in like the back of your head in that mindset and to add to that Whenever, since I experienced being scared and intimidated when I first tried out, when new tryouts come out and I hear, oh, I'm so scared, I don't know if I can do it, it's just like this is your chance to finally use your voice, to be loud in some circumstances where you might not feel like it's the appropriate time to. And it's just use this chance to express yourself. That's what I tell them. Tim? Thank you, Ty. I was at that first basketball game last year, and we were all sitting there, and these people come up, and there's the... And I'm like, wow, this is a different level. But the two main
024comments, just adding to the mosaic of what our students are doing, it reflects so positively on the school and all the students and the administration, the teachers, and so on and so forth. And I'm so glad you shared your story because when we get policy presented to us from a lot of the people back there and they... present data and the data is very clear that students who can participate in extracurriculars that broadens their mind that broadens their spirit it gives them that courage it gives them that confidence and that percolates all the way down not only being in front of being at midcourt in a basketball game but hopefully it percolates down to having to give a speech AP history class. So, Batai and your fellow coaches, thank you very much for supporting these
025people and keep it up. Can't wait to see 39 on the floor in a couple weeks. Peter? I just really appreciate how much you show up. I've seen you at games, of course, but then you're at the parade, you're at the foundation run, you're all over the place. And you bring an incredible energy to everything that you do everywhere you go. It is a new level when you go to an event and you're there. And so I just want to say thank you because we're a better school for you being a part of it. So thank you. And I will close by saying also thank you, Ty, and your team, and to all of you members. Your enthusiasm, your courage, your encouragement, it makes such a difference in our entire school district spirit. So thank
026you. And my youngest daughter, my youngest daughter graduated from Van Sibley in... 1996 and was very active as a member of the cheer team along with her friends and she was extremely disappointed to find out or to come back a number of years later and find out there was nothing and her enthusiasm has been renewed when she came to the homecoming football game so thank you so much it it means so much we're going to take a short break and we'd like to have a picture of the cheer team and also of our our Two Rivers Native American Student Group. Do you want us standing up or out of the picture? Yeah, of course. All right, you guys scoot in a little bit. All right. I'm going to start taking some pictures here. Excuse me,
027sorry. All right, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Turn it up the corner. Thank you. Thank you. We'll take a few more seconds here to kind of change over the audience and move on with our meeting this evening. Next on our agenda is our student representatives report. I'd like to introduce Patrick Bumbach. Noel Hassan and I think we'll just it'll quiet down right now thank you go ahead perfect okay hello I'm Noel Hassan and I'm Patrick Baumbach we are so excited to share with you some of the highlights of our district-wide events from the past month So before we begin our usual recap of the district events, I would just like to mention a wonderful event Noelle and I were fortunate enough to attend with Chair Larson, who is not here today. So last Tuesday,
028we had the opportunity to meet with other student school board members and their respective adult members at the Minnesota School Board's Association's annual Student School Board Development Event at Shakopee High School. It's a long title, but it was a really fun day. We had so much fun getting to connect with and discuss different opportunities that we are lauded with so many other members our age and the food was also really good which is definitely a bonus i also also i also think it was a wonderful opportunity we got to connect with our peers learn about how you can use our voices better on our school board and our food was native american food so we got to honor the land that we're on from the people we kind of took it from yeah And then
029now we're going to move on to our district recap, starting with the elementary, middle school, and preschool levels. So this month was jam-packed with events for our younger kids in the district and continues to do so in November. So let's begin with starting off with the Early Learning Center. This week there's an early learning parent meeting from 6 to 7 at the Family Resource Center or a virtual option. On October 10th, Mendota and Moreland held a book fair for the kids in which they got to learn about books and got to choose books to take home. And the next day, the 11th, marked the Hoot Hike for Garlow Elementary, which was an event hosted by Garlow and featured participation from a multitude of groups, including Alma's and the cheer team. And on October 25th, Mendota's
030third grade class hosted their very own third grade play. And next week, we will be celebrating our kindergartners with showcases across all elementary schools. This is a great opportunity to see what progress the kiddos have made this year. I'm also excited to announce that the elementary schools district-wide will be participating in the Scholastic Book Fair during the week of the 18th. This event will promote a love of reading with a chance to explore and purchase new books. And also, Somerset Elementary celebrated the Day of the Dead this Friday in their art classes. And that's it for the elementary schools. There was a lot in October, and there's going to be a lot more in November. And moving on to the middle school, which was a little less eventful than the elementary schools this month. On
031October 9th to the 11th, middle schoolers at Heritage enjoyed a field trip to Camp St. Croix, in which they had a lot of fun and participated in multiple events. And then this week on the 8th, from 9.45 to 11.45, Heritage students will celebrate their accumulation of habit cards. with a car show from 9.45 to 11.45. And now at the high school level, we had a multitude of events in the past month. So during our Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, we had over 40 English learner students come together to share posters representing their diverse backgrounds from countries like Colombia, Honduras, Venezuela, Guatemala, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. And this event really allowed insight into the varied cultural backgrounds that our school celebrates and our district celebrates. And district-wide we celebrated Unity Day on the 16th which brought together
032many different groups of students to unite against bullying and learn how to prevent it. Two Rivers Cheer, who we just honored, celebrated a free community skate party on the 26th and students were encouraged to wear costumes and skate around the gym. On the second, Two Rivers Almas Club hosted their annual Dia de los Muertos event, which showcased traditional dances and celebrations of the holiday. And then onto some sports events. Boys Cross Country nabbed a spot at the state championship, which they competed at on Sunday and placed seventh in the biggest league of MSHSL cross country. And Girls Cross was extremely close to securing a spot, but lost to a tiebreaker, sadly. For football, unfortunately, we lost its undefeated record at the section semifinal, but it was still great to have our home team go undefeated
033for so many games. And then looking forward, we are hosting Robin Hood on November 14th, 15th, and 16th at Two Rivers High School. Overall, October has been a very busy month for our district, and we are excited to see what next month brings. Once again, thank you, school board members, and also our audience for listening to our report. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick and Noel. Any questions from board members? If not, we'll move on, and we'll have a report from our superintendent, Dr. Peter Olsen-Skolk. Good evening, everybody. I want to start by acknowledging, as has been referenced, that November is Native American Heritage Month. And so in School District 197, we proudly serve nearly 200 American Indian students and their families. And this Native American Heritage Month and this Native American Heritage Month
034and every month, we honor and recognize the indigenous cultures that are part of our community and the Dakota land on which we live. and where our schools are located. The pictures here that you can see are from Mendota Elementary's recent Indigenous Peoples Day field trip, which I was able to attend. It was a beautiful day. Great, crisp fall air as we walked about a mile and a half. And students explored the confluence of the Mississippi and the Minnesota River, known as the Bedote. with guidance from our American Indian Education Coordinator, Nell Bari, who we've already heard from earlier this evening. Students engaged in hands-on learning about the history and the culture of the Dakota people and enjoyed fry bread and a jingle dance performance along with all, it was a lovely event with families, grandparents,
035teachers, and community members all coming together to create a great experience for students. Our principals also shared about a number of, this is an example from one of our schools, but there was a dance event at Somerset. There was just a lot of things happening throughout the district that were really wonderful. Moving on, we were thrilled to kick off our first year of our Thrive With Us Scholarship Program in partnership with the Metropolitan State University. So this initiative, similar to a Grow Your Own type of program, aims to recruit and prepare local community members for teaching roles within the district and help increase teacher diversity that reflects the students we serve. So the recipients receive full scholarships for their education at Metropolitan State University. Also included is mentorship from experienced teachers, regular classroom observations, and
036after graduation, recipients return to School District 197 to teach for at least three years. So congratulations to our first scholarship recipients pictured here. So we have Caleb Tate, Kayla Freeman, Dominique Harness, and Kayla Betanzos. You already know them. You may already know them as they work as they already work in our schools across the district as paraprofessionals. And we look forward to seeing their positive impact on our schools for years to come. As was referenced in our student report, it's also time for families in our community to start thinking about kindergarten. So for those with a child who will be five years old by September 1st, 2025, let's see if I did the math there, 18, I think those are 43 graduates, 2043 graduates? No, minus five. Anyways, the 38 graduates, there we go, 38
037graduates. You're invited to our upcoming kindergarten showcase events. So School District 197 has five amazing elementary schools, and each school will host two showcase events in November where you can tour the school, learn about the school community, meet the teachers, and more. And showcase dates are listed on our website, so make sure to check those out. They are a lot of fun, and you're... kindergartner and you will get even more excited for their first year here in the school district as kindergartners because you might have already been here I guess as pre-k in our fantastic pre-k program. Finally, a reminder that tomorrow is election day in America and we just want to recognize that this election season has sparked some strong emotions across the political spectrum. And while it can be an exciting time, especially
038with students voting for the first time, it can also bring uncertainty. So with this in mind, we just want to continue to encourage all of our community members, and I am fully confident that this will happen because we are an inclusive place that care deeply about each other and as we've said, in a video that we've put out a few times the things that bring us together must and will be stronger than anything that would divide us so we're just reminding all of our community members to continue to remain respectful in all of our interaction interactions before during and after the election and with that i can keep my report it says madam chair but okay that's okay thank you thank you any questions for the superintendent Comments? If not, we'll move on. And our
039next agenda item is a site report from Somerset Elementary School. I'd like to introduce Principal Libby Huddle. Good evening, everybody. I brought two co-presenters with me today. This is Hannah Shuler and Charlie Wallen. They are fourth grade Somerset stars, and they will be helping me with tonight's presentation. So to start out, who are we at Somerset? Somerset has changed a lot in the last three years. And so I just wanted to go over some numbers with you all. We are in our highest enrollment ever in the history of Somerset Elementary. We went from 392 students up to 418 students this year. Our Shine program has grown in three years from 14 students to 31 students. We have gone from zero students who are new to our country to six new to country students this year
040and went from 19% to 25% of students that qualify for educational benefits. Now that all being said, you see how Somerset is growing and changing. We also have seen 8% growth in our reading scores over the last three years and 19% growth in our math scores over the last three years. So that is something to celebrate, a more diverse building and scores that are continuing to rise student achievement at the forefront. Go ahead, Charlie. This fall, Ms. Huddle came and read us a piece of literature. inspired us to choose one word to focus on throughout the year to make this the best year ever on the screen you will see this poster the words picked most often are larger in size this poster will be hung in our front hallway so we can be reminded
041throughout the year to have the best year ever so some things that we're really proud of at Somerset from the last year we'll have Hannah start us off Last year we started a student wellness committee led by nurse Emily We talked about keeping our bodies healthy by washing our hands drinking water and getting enough sleep The committee met once a month and spread the word about wellness through wellness Wednesday on the morning announcements One of my favorite parts of being on the more on the wellness committee was when we created posters Ting near the restrooms. I like being able to spread the word in a creative way Next I want to highlight the climate and culture at Somerset. So in our most recent staff survey 94% of our staff members had favorable a favorable rating
042in our staff survey and when you look through the comments it really came down to collective efficacy and our staff truly believing that every student in our building the responsibility of every staff member in our building without going into a whole stats thing John Hattie in his work and research invisible learning says that an effect size of 0.4 is a typical year's growth for kids but when you have collective efficacy among staff that effect size is 1.52 and actually he redid this in 2023 and it's more like 1.37 but it still has that really big effect size and one is the highest effect size you can have on student learning so when you look at 100% of Somerset staff believe that Somerset can improve in the future and 100% of our staff report those respectful
043relationships between themselves and the students. There's really just, there's no limit to what we can do when you have that sort of belief in your school and in your students. This summer, this summer we constructed an accessible playground for all students. At Somerset, to be able to access the playground, the playground has many different features such as a giant slide, sensory panels, musical instruments, and several ramps. The playground is an extension of Somerset. It allows us to connect with each other outside as well as inside our building. We are very thankful that the community helped raise money and build this playground. Both Hannah and my brothers helped. Construct this amazing playground. We believe this project would happen even when others had their doubts It was an astronomical impact on recess at Somerset All right. So
044now when we look at this coming year, what are we implementing? That's new that we believe will have a great impact on our students So Charlie you're up again This year at Somerset. We started word of the week Our Friends in the Shine program receive daily lessons from an occupational therapist and speech teacher. Starting to use the Word of the Week building-wide helps us connect with our Friends in the Shine program and allows us to be role models for using the Word of the Week building-wide throughout the day. There are... Also weekly emotions to help us understand feelings across all students at Somerset to have an incredible social and emotional learning experience. So Day of the Dead is celebrated on the 1st of November and 2nd of November. Day of the Dead is not like
045Halloween. It's because there's no Halloween decoration and we don't go chika-ching. At my house, I make it forward, remember the people that died. Focus Friday is a special part of the morning announcements at Somerset. We learn more about holidays, traditions, and customs from different cultures. Our recent Friday focus was Day of the Dead. Then in art class, we were able to make nichos to place on an ofrenda and remember people we have lost. Another example is when all of our Somerset friends circled around the gym celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day. It started with one student dancing and one by one more and more students joined her, creating a circle as the gymnasium would allow. We have created an environment at Somerset where all students and their backgrounds are celebrated and appreciated. And finally, we want to
046make sure that we have happy and proud students because if you're coming to school every day and you're feeling happy and you're feeling proud, that's going to show up in your academic work as well. So as administrators, we're going through the Minnesota Instructional Leadership Academy this year and part of that is really focusing in on the student experience and what are our students experiencing during their school day. And the first thing that came to my mind was how am I going to impact the student experience without talking to the students? And so this year it's my personal goal to meet with I said it at 80%. That's still over 300 kids. But to meet with every student one-on-one and ask them three questions. How are you today? What has been your biggest celebration this school
047year? And what has been your biggest challenge this school year? So I'm about 40 kids in, but well on my way to meeting with every student at Somerset and then trying to make some changes that really are student-led, are full of student voice, and will leave us with happy and proud students at Somerset. Somerset. So to wrap it up, here's our friend Jonathan. The Somerset star. Stay focused, try your best, act safely, and respect yourself and others. It's going to be a great day. Thank you, Libby. Questions for any of us? Yes, any questions or comments from board or our student reps? Morgan? I will just tell you first that Friday Focus as a parent has been one of my favorite things. I love to listen to the announcements on Friday morning when I'm driving
048to work because I like to learn something new. And I like how students and families are being involved in that. And I just have really enjoyed that this year. So thank you so much. Charlie and Hannah, great job speaking today. What is your favorite part? being a Somerset star? My favorite part of being a Somerset star is entering the school and just feeling really proud of myself for all the achievements I have done my from my past years here at Somerset. Like what I'm most proud of being a Somerset star is Like being able to like comprehend the things that we're learning like not just listening to it and like okay Yeah, I get it saying that and then forget it three seconds later, but I don't I forget it like three years later Yeah,
049that's it Tim I they like the word of the week seems like kind of a logical progression from a preschooler dealing with the letter of the day when they're watching sesame street but specifically trying to build those bonds between you know starting to build those bonds between students are going to have a markedly different path but if you create that bond that bond what's going to exist going forward and that's wonderful and very getting a little granular here but having kids under grasp the concept of ASL and hopefully some of them will be inspired by creating that bond to say you know what Spanish can wait a couple years I really want to see if I can become verbal with this and who knows they might end up teaching the shine program thank you Go
050ahead, Patrick. I just want to ask, as much as I loved the presentation from our principal, I do want to ask the students a little question. What are your favorite activities slash opportunities that you get at Somerset? When I enter my classroom and we start off with, like, mindfulness, that's just like a really nice part of my day that helps me like, like do, it helps my mind, like get my mindset ready for all the things I have for this day. And mindfulness is just a really good part for my brain to understand what's coming next for me. I agree, but also, I would think that, like, school is long, and having a, like, sometimes... You're not wrong. You're right. It is seven hours. But having to be able to decompress in an after-school class
051where you're not learning something you'd specifically learn at school, you're learning something like chess or art or Spanish, something that you would not usually learn in our elementary school at Somerset, is something that's kind of new and gets your brain more active than just learning the same thing over and over again. It would be a nice mix-up, so I guess after-school classes. the best. I've been him. Very well said to the both of you. Noel. Noel. I have another question for the two of you. What do you guys think your favorite parts of the playground are? I know, good question. So, like, with my friends, I love to play, like, Sandman. With the ramps, there's this big triangle of ramps, and it's just so fun to, like, run around that. But also we got new
052swings. Like I think we got like three new swings like on this side. And they're like a lot better than the old ones because the old ones, they've been there for like 20 years. And they're like, it's kind of hard to swing with them. But with the new ones, it's super easy to just kind of get that motion with the swing. One of my favorite parts about the playground is that the merry-go-round that we have, it's very fun to go spin and spin and spin. And then also I love our little wooden steps that lead up to the playground. I think it's just kind of really satisfying. But yeah, that's a really fun part about our playground. Thank you. Thank you. Any other? Marcus? Just a quick comment. Charlie and Hannah, you guys did a
053phenomenal job in presenting tonight your wisdom beyond your years. And I am just floored by what you brought to tonight's presentation. So thank you for being here. And of course, you too, Libby. My wife is still trying to find a way to hack into your morning announcement. So any intruders? She should just follow me on YouTube. Most of them end up there. Okay, thank you so much Charlie and Hannah. Thank you and moving along our next agenda item is our strategic framework college and career readiness implementation target update and I'd like to introduce Carrie Jo Drewits Director of Curriculum Instruction and Assessment welcome Carrie Jo. Thank you. Good evening Chair Schwab, Superintendent Wilson-Skog, members of the board, no one wants to follow Somerset's presentation. But here we are. We could just keep talking. Tonight, we're
054starting our first of our updates around implementation targets. So as you will recall, we have three focus areas. Establishing a district-wide system of social emotional learning and support that Sarah Lean provides updates on. Building equitable systems and support throughout the district that assistant superintendent mile will provide updates on and then I'll bring you updates on college and career readiness and we'll do two updates one kind of in the fall one in the Spring and for each of those updates this year We're inviting different guests to join us that can talk about some of the specific work. So tonight I'm joined by miles who you normally see present with me, but we've also Invited two teachers from our middle school who are going to talk about some really fund new electives. So I'll share or wait
055and they can do their introductions when we get to them in the presentation. So college and career readiness has four main categories where we provide implementation targets. Our goal in these updates in any of the areas is going to be to highlight two to three things that we're specifically working on at that particular point in time. So tonight I'm going to start with core school and structural supports. We have a series of six objectives in this area and the one I'm going to talk about first is how we're supporting the new middle school schedule. We have a variety of supports in place to support our middle school teachers. So first is our professional development days, which we had one of those today. On our professional development days, we've taken five of the eight days that
056we have and we're devoting half a day on each of those days for our teachers from both our middle schools to come together in content areas and to really do whatever work it is that they need to do based on whatever change the new middle school schedule brought. So an example was today we had language arts teachers that were talking about writing and looking at vertical alignment between fifth and eighth grade as we've changed our fifth and sixth grade language arts curriculum to include a full period of writing as well as reading every day we have a curriculum lead in each of our areas we've added a stipend position to help us support all of this work we use curriculum funds to do that and they also will hold department meetings once a month where
057we'll either bring teachers together virtually across both of the middle schools or they'll hold meetings at their buildings all of these things miles is the mastermind behind in terms of organizing what is it that they just need i think today i got to five groups at the middle school he probably made it to six or seven groups but really trying to make sure we're listening to our middle school teachers and we're able to provide the just in time sorts of support that they need but at the same token we're also meeting with miles and our meeting with our middle school principals every monday to say how is it going what do you need what are you hearing here's what we're hearing and really trying to make sure that if nothing else, our middle school teachers
058know that we're here to support them. We have a lot of curriculum changes that have taken place. So we're supporting teachers that are impacted by that through days where a substitute is provided for them and they come to the district office and they work specifically through that curriculum. And then maybe the funnest part I think of this year so far is that Miles and I are spending every Friday at the middle school. And we rotate which middle school we go to once a month for fun. We bring donuts and try to have a more casual conversation with staff that stop by the library with us. But then Miles does a great sign up and staff will be able to come and talk to us or we can troubleshoot issues that they might have. It's just
059been a really nice way to connect and build deeper. relationships with our middle school staff. We're excited this month we're going to be kicking off our student curriculum focus groups that we'll meet with during flex. I've been doing a lot of work to help support flex. We're working on making flex more flexible. Friendly Hills got the start first with that and Heritage is going to be putting some more flex in flex in this next month. So really excited to see other things that they're doing. In our second area under direct student supports, again, you can see we have a variety of implementation targets. The one that I want to highlight tonight is we are continually looking for ways to support our transition. So pre-K to K, grade four to five, and grade eight to nine.
060And given that it is the month of November, we chose to focus on this because we have some really important events coming up. So thinking about our middle school students going to the high school, there's three dates to keep in mind. First, the Two Rivers Showcase is this Thursday night at Two Rivers. Then all of our eighth graders that are at our at Friendly Hills or at Heritage will get to spend a majority of the day on November 26th, that's a Tuesday, at the high school. On this day, our high school students are learning from home and probably over a hundred of those high school students will be at the high school helping us make this day possible. There's a variety of activities planned for eighth grade students. They include things like eating lunch at
061the high school and learning how to go through the line. Our web leaders are not our link leaders at the high school. We'll take the students on tours of the amazing facilities we have at the high school. They might get to hold one of the robot babies and learn about our family consumer science class, but they'll get to see all of the spaces. They'll get to meet with their counselor and hear about all of their course opportunities as a ninth grader. And then we follow that up on December 10th with a registration information night for families back at Two Rivers. Also happening in the next month, all of our fourth graders are going to be coming to Two Rivers to learn about their music opportunities when they go to middle school. So on Tuesday, December
06217th, all the fourth graders will take a bus and they'll come over to the high school and hear from our music directors at the high school and all of the students. We brought this event back last year. It was really popular. The students loved it. They asked great questions. So we're going to do it again. The third area that we want to highlight tonight is talking about our new middle school electives. So this is where I'm going to turn it over to Miles, and Miles will introduce our two guest speakers, and they'll tell you a little bit about their fun new electives in the middle school. All right, so thanks for letting us share with you some of the exciting things we have going on at the middle school. As you can see, there's a
063bunch at the high school level that our students are going to have an opportunity to see real shortly here. But I get the honor, actually, with these two gentlemen that are behind me. They are both language arts teachers at each of our middle schools. Mr. Overby Ling, Josh Overby Ling, is one of our language arts teachers. He's going to talk a little bit about a new class that we have called Introduction to Theater. which i the honor i have is that he's been talking with to me about this for a couple years now another teacher at friendly hills miss lether she's also somebody who's been talking about this option so i'm excited that we have somebody who can give you the the inside details about what's going on with introduction to theater and then mr
064sean robinson is here to talk to you about a class called teenager 101. um which is a brand new concept in general and i just have to say with the two of them and sean here in particular too this idea about taking a brand new idea and molding it into something that our students are excited to sign up about or sign up for and excited to come to class every single day so without any further ado it's my honor to bring mr robinson and mr over relaying up we can talk about our electives here that We have this first slide is introduction to theater. So I'll let Josh go ahead and just give us some updates and some highlights about what's going on in that class. All right. So hello, everybody. My name is Josh
065Overby-Lang, and I have been a teacher at Heritage for a while. And then before that, in a former life, I was a theater teacher. So it's kind of nice to kind of go back into that world of production, rehearsal, performance, all of that. This year... I only have the opportunity to run this class the first semester, but I get to work with about 90 students, and it's been a great experience so far. There's been a few bumps at the starting, but that's kind of smoothed out now, and we've kind of really hit our stride, and things are going super well. At this point, we have... kind of done our icebreaker introductions where everyone's just starting to feel comfortable with each other. We've worked through improvisation. We've done some scene analysis. And then we finally just
066wrapped up our first actual performance in class of monologues. So this last week, wrapping up the quarter, every single student, so 90-some students, stood in front of the class and performed their own individual monologues. And it was, honestly, I was completely blown away. This was an amazing thing to see. Just every single student rising to the occasion. Some really excited about it, some at initially just letting me flat out know I did not sign up for this class, I don't want to be in this class. And yet, they still got up in front of their peers and performed for 90 seconds, two minutes, completely alone. And it was just really exciting to watch. Seeing some of these kids that you work with in other capacities, completely silent, barely able to engage in class, and yet
067they're able to get up in front and perform. It's been great just watching them grow even in these nine weeks. To the point where I've had multiple kids coming up to me saying, hey, just so you know, I'm working on tech or I'm doing stage crew or running lights for Robin Hood. So that pipeline from middle school to Rivers is already happening. And that's really great to see. But overall, this has been a wonderful experience for these kids, just watching them push themselves, watching them grow, watching them challenge themselves. That's the whole point of theater. In language arts, we talk about that idea of books serve as mirrors and windows to look into yourself or to look into other perspectives. And theater just takes that one step further. It's about really embodying those other people,
068seeing things from different perspectives, seeing things from someone else's point of view, and not only seeing it, but understanding the inner workings. There's a bit of psychology, there's a bit of teamwork, there's a bit of all of those things in theater. So seeing middle school students really get into that mindset of, this is not who I am, this is not something that I agree with, this is not something I think about, and yet I can still start now understanding why they work that way is a really valuable skill. Especially in the time period that we're in right now, understanding people from different perspectives is sometimes a challenge. So being able to give them that opportunity right now has been phenomenal. I'm just really excited to see where it goes. Hi, everybody. I'm Sean Robinson, seventh
069grade language arts teacher at Friendly Hills. I want to talk about your video. Yeah. Oh, well, here you go. Okay, so Teen 101. What's Teen 101? It's basically life skills for teens, tweens. They don't like to be called tweens anymore, but seventh and eighth graders. The classes, as you know, I don't know if you remember middle school, but it can be a bit of a bubble, right? You learn math, you go home, you don't think about math. You learn your language arts, maybe you're reading a book at home, whatever. These life skills, the idea is to echo what Josh said, to get kids excited, right? To get them outside of the box, outside of normal things that they would do. The elementary school boy that spoke earlier talked about how his favorite day, what's his
070name, Charlie? Charlie talked about how his favorite thing was doing stuff he doesn't normally do in school. That's what this class is, budgeting, food preparation. We had one session where we simply had... a bunch of 12 and 13 year olds going around with bingo cards greeting each other, right? Because I don't know if you know this or not, but most 12 and 13 year olds aren't used to walking up to somebody, looking in their eye, shaking hands, and asking a follow-up question. Like you assume at some point we all learn this. We can all probably do it in the room. Well, Team 101 is where the kids in this district are learning how to do that, OK? Some of them know it already. Some of them don't. So what we're looking at here. is we
071have these things called home challenges. So getting outside of the school bubble of, okay, we're going to talk about how do you do laundry, how do you clean your room? We're going to make cleaning your room even more fun with smart goals. And kids are like, smart goals? I'm like, no, you have to have a system, a system to clean your room. You can develop your own system. So what we do is... kids make a short little video, this student made a time lapse video. What you're not seeing with this is a whole planned out sheet of how she was going to organize it, how she was going to do her task, orient everything. And then the favorite part I always make, get your parent involved. They at least have to give you a thumbs
072up or sign off on your sheet, right? And so it's creating these connections with kids and parents who... I don't know, if I didn't get yelled at from my room, I was great, right? So the idea to have mom and dad or whoever you live with actively involved with your life skills is just a great opportunity of, it's not just the school bubble, right? It might start in school, but kids come to us with all different skill levels and everything like that. So this is just the tip of the iceberg type stuff. The one on the bottom left was a kid. He's obviously got a rabbit at home and he had to clean the rabbit cage, right? If you want, I've got a whole diagrammed SMART goal about how you clean a rabbit cage and
073the steps that are involved. So skills that will translate to other classes as well. So Teen 101 is kind of this catch-all. It can be a lot of different things. And like Josh said, I'm having a blast with it, and I think the kids really are too. They like coming to class with, I mean, they're not asking me for homework, but this kind of thing immediately is relevant to them and impacts them. And parents aren't complaining about it either. I think they're really happy with what's going on. um yeah that's all i have to say about teen 101 so thank you so of all of our electives teenager 101 was the most requested elective and i think we're having similar experiences at heritage as well with that class in fact the question is are you
074going to create teenager 102 so that the students that are seventh graders can take it again next year's the question that i have heard Just as a reminder, with theater, one of the great advantages with the new state standards in the arts areas is we were able to add theater as an option for students to meet their art requirements. So they can take band, choir, or orchestra. They can take theater. They could take visual or media arts. we are not going to highlight any implementation targets in the fourth area we are doing lots of things but we're going to save that one for our update in february so with that we'll open it up for questions to anyone that's here tonight any questions tim uh josh thank you uh for your your words um still
075relatively new school board member when you look at this world here and you look at that world out there and I've read a lot of kind of classic you know older college professors lamenting the fact we don't teach civics not in the sense here's a gun works but here's how you Here's how you engage. Here's how you think. Here's how you understand. And starting with that mirror and window analogy, and I was listening to you speak, and yes, it's wonderful. I feel one of the themes tonight is, boy, we get kids out of their shells, whether it's cheer team or doing a 90-minute. But you, I want to say thank you, because some of those kids are learning empathy, and empathy is a cornerstone to being a good citizen. saying, I don't agree with you.
076I have hurdles to cross that maybe are too high, but I will take that 90 minutes and try to see whether I'm having to get into that person's character. But by doing that, you're understanding the process of how I can have a conversation with this person now. I don't need to yell at them. I can ask them questions, and anyhow, I'm probably getting a little too... I'm not standing in a soapbox, but it feels like it, so I'm going to be quiet and just say, but thank you very much. That's just wonderful. I love when I can tell stories like this, when people, how is school board going? And I can say, this is what is happening in our schools. Don't get me wrong, I'm a math guy. I love somebody teaching somebody to do
077a triple integral. But this is, that's wonderful stuff. Thank you. Thank you. Any other? Morgan? I have just loved the idea of Teenager 101, and I have been asking some of my neighbors, like, are any of you in this class? And they are kind of around that. Like, I've got an eighth-grade neighbor and then a sixth-grade neighbor, so not in the course. So I was really happy to hear what you have going on in those classes and would love to hear more about it, because I listen to the idea of how do you create a process to clean your room, right? And then I also think about... Kids with ADHD trying to think about how to tackle a task and how that can help them in that way and then transfer those skills into other
078things as they prepare for High school and college and career and just what kind of skills were building with a course like that We do have kids as you describe and you know they're all unique so they come up with their own plan right so that's that's the thing it's not Here's how you It's not a, here's how you have to do this, right? It's guidelines. And this is a class where kids get to put a lot of input into what they want it to be. These submissions that you saw in there, some kids did videos, some did pictures, some just filled out a form and had their parent fill it. So it's a lot of learning styles are incorporated, and they're all kind of acceptable because it's life skills, right? So everybody does their
079laundry a different way. And just to learn, right? Like, I learn differently than how Randy learns, and that's okay. I just think that's such a cool lesson to learn young. So thank you. Noel? First of all, this sounds so cool. I wish I had like Teenager 101 or Intro to Theater as middle schooler. But this is like more of a clarifying question for myself. So is Intro to Theater only available to Heritage and then Teenager 101? Are they both available by both middle schools? Both schools. OK. And then also shout out to Mr. Robinson because I had you seventh grade year. He was the best teacher ever. Just keep saying it. You don't want to mess it up. Well, and speaking about being best teachers, I think what's really, really key is as both of
080these guys have alluded to tonight, they had an idea, they proposed a course, or I don't think you maybe proposed Teenager 101, but you have embraced that course. And they're what make that idea come to life. And it's happening with many other courses that we're not representing here tonight. picked these two with intentionality because we knew some of the passion that was behind them. But our middle school teachers have really embraced this new schedule in so many different ways with some amazing things happening in classrooms. I just want to say these two have been very available, so I don't think they've talked up enough of, you know, doing new things outside of the box. It's not everybody's favorite thing all the time, but certainly you being available has been appreciated. The donuts. Well, personally, I'm
081very excited to hear the opportunities that our new middle school schedule has provided our students. I've gotten a little feedback from some of my grandson's friends about both of them, both the Teenage 101 and the Intro to Theater. I do want to comment on the Intro to Theater, which I'm really, really pleased with that. Most of our elementaries have some kind of a musical or a production and I know from the students that have been in that in fourth grade that they're just kind of like nothing happens though until I can be in ninth grade. So I'm glad to see that we're providing some kind of support and incentive initiative and training to help them then maintain that enthusiasm they had. coming into it that they'll carry that on thank you so market question i
082just thought of i had for carrie joe and for miles as you guys have been talking to the middle school teachers are there some key takeaways and things that you've learned that you can share right now or is that for maybe a future update I mean, I spent my day today talking to all of the different elective areas, so art, phy ed, music, because believe it or not, we're getting ready for registration for next year. And so talking to them about what worked, what's been challenging, what should we think about as we're going out for registration. And so I've been having lots of conversations with them about that. We know one of the things that we need to do is move up the registration timeline into January so we can do better communication. with students
083and families. We offered 19 to 23 courses, but we didn't have enough enrollment in those courses. And this is a new thing for our middle school families. It's common at the high school. And we scheduled students into alternates or students got scheduled into theater that maybe didn't realize they were really going to get their second alternate. And so we want to provide more communication and more transparency to students and families through the registration process. and so you'll start seeing registration materials come out in January so that we can do that. We're also looking to say what new ideas have been sparked. I think I've got four course proposals from today alone of some additional opportunities. We want to have some conversations around are there courses that maybe need to meet all year so they can
084do a production. So there are pieces like that. I've really been focused on courses scheduling as I've been really supporting that work this year Miles any takeaways you would add from yourself? I would say it's a byproduct of the process that we have and the changes that we have underway this year I just I feel like I cannot say it enough that the middle school staff they're just working really hard at every single aspect of this change. I mean, almost every single class in one shape or another has been impacted, whether it was a different instructional time or who's teaching what or what resources we're using. I mean, each and every one of the teachers at the middle school level has been just has been knuckling down and working real hard all the way back
085to last year. So I think that's just a reminder for me is how dedicated each of them are to everything that we're doing. And it's not easy work. And they sure as they know that as well. But, you know, know in the midst of all of that you get some exciting things and some people's new passion showing up and then next thing you know you got four new courses showing up and who knows how many are gonna be there at the end of this process for this year coming up so and I get the final thing is that it's just amazing to see both middle schools come together so well and work so hard together and that's the language arts meeting I'm thinking about that I saw to I mean both grade level all the
086grade levels from both schools working collaboratively and the same goals and and it's the same way with the other 12 departments that are meeting so it's a lot of work and I know they're working hard and they can't be acknowledged enough for that but it's exciting to see where we're gonna go you're gonna have one of the best middle school experiences that I know of in the Twin Cities by far when we're all said and done because of our staff members who are pulling it off Thank you. Thank you both for all the hard work on the middle school schedule and also following up with our teachers to figure out how that's working and learning and improving the plan. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Wonderful update on our
087college and career readiness implementation targets. And moving on our next agenda item, we would like to hear from the principal Chris Headey with a report from Friendly Hills Middle School. Good evening, board. Good evening, cabinet. Thank you to our audience that has stayed with us this evening so far. It's nice to see you all. We are the team from Friendly Hills that's giving you our site report tonight. My name is Brittany Osmunson, and with me is Chris Headey, our principal. We are excited to share with you our report this evening about the things that's been going on at our school so far this year and what we're looking forward to in the future. I did want to take a second to give you an update about a special event that we had in October. We
088have a very special and unique partnership with the Minnesota Vikings. They sponsored a dental clinic earlier in the month of October, and we were fortunate to have 20 EL students attend this and receive... Many dental procedures ranging from cleanings and examinations all the way up to x-rays and extractions at no cost. This was a great initiative coming together by Team Smile and the Minnesota Vikings. And Team Smile is an organization that partners with professional athletic associations across the United States. And some of our students were really great beneficiaries of this experience. We have to click our own? You know how to do that. I do. So who are we? We ask that question every day, to be honest with you. Who are we and who we are? We are a very active building with a
089lot of things going on, as you've heard most recently with our teachers. We have an excellent staff that cares deeply about kids. We try to prepare kids for... high school as much as we can and get them ready for not only the rigor in the classroom but all the other activities that go along with it. I think that picture represents our student population very well. Our student population has changed dramatically over the last five to seven years. Right now we're pushing 800 kids for the first time in a long time. We're up about 40 to 45 kids from last year and we're seeing more and more students keep coming in as the year progresses. So people like what we're doing. Our staff does an awesome job communicating that and working with students and we're excited
090to see the many opportunities that we have moving forward as we go throughout the school year. So who are we? We are warriors. At Friendly Hills, it's very important to us that we have a strong identity in the community. Many of our family members have students across the district in all of our sites and have been proud graduates themselves of District 197 schools. So we consider ourselves very lucky to have strong ties in the community and strong partnerships with our community members and family members. You'll see... throughout the community not only in Two Rivers Athletic Association but also down into the elementary levels we identify as warriors as our mascot carrying across all three levels of our schools You've heard a lot about the new middle school schedule this year. One thing that we have
091implemented as a positive change this year, instead of going through an A-B rotation, we have now changed to red and gold days. And for us, that further strengthens our identity as warriors and making sure that we have pride and going through with school spirit every day. One of the beauties about working in the middle schools, there's never not an opportunity to take pictures and there's never not students that want to volunteer to be in pictures and we have plenty of those to go around and you know some of the activities that we chose or some of the pictures that we chose kind of represent what we're trying to do each day where we have kids trying to think innovatively. We have groups and teams that are You know meeting throughout the school week We've got
092a lot of different Aspects to our classroom and then you know my favorite is kind of the picture up in the upper right hand corner with web leaders doing Some kind of activity with kids where they had to join their fingers to straws and connect things To you know teach kids team-building So you know it's always going on there's always opportunities for kids to do something that's different and gives them a chance to think outside the box. Another point of pride for us is our active and dedicated staff both in and out of the classrooms. In a few photos here you'll see our staff members, you know, strengthening their bonds with our students. being leaders in the classroom and just making sure that our students are engaged, safe and equipped for their future. And we
093understand that it's our job as staff to be the role models and to be the positive influence that these students see every day. Many of our staff also serve as advisors, coaches and then monitors both in the lunchroom and in the hallways and things like that, just being sure that our children are always accounted for. So our first point of pride tonight is adaptability. You have heard a lot about our middle school schedule as the years have gone on planning for it and now we are implementing it and what we've really gained so far in this not only from all of the new classes and options available to students but our flex period choices. So staff have been doing a great job not only quickly turning around and coming up with ideas to implement for
094the flex schedule, but offering a wide variety of things that are really interesting to students. Earlier today for our PD session, we came up with a lot of new ideas for our reading days. So some of them might be... Poetry analysis some of them might be karaoke because what are you doing when you're singing karaoke? You're reading the lyrics on the screen Some of our flex choices so far have been classes like 80s 90s 2000s music appreciation We've had theater games, which is very popular and we've had vocabulary games and then you have classic movement options like net games which is coming up in a new rotation, so that'll be volleyball and badminton and dodgeball and outdoor sports for earlier in the season. As I said earlier, you know, our student population has changed dramatically
095over the last five to seven years. So, you know, one of the areas that we're celebrating is our diversity. We have opportunities for our students to meet in different groups, to gain skills that, you know, help them feel good about themselves it's been kind of a nice lead-in all the way through tonight in hearing the cheerleaders and in the different kids that at different levels that have experienced that and that's what we're trying to do with our kids as well we've got a good connection with the power of people institute they send us out some advisors or mentors for our kids to work with so they can see beyond today. They can see where they might be two years from now or start to figure out what they like or what they don't like in
096school. It gives them hope to try new things, interact with different people, and learn about what they're good at and what they want to continue to do. And then you know our cultural heritage recognitions that Peter talked about earlier where monthly were Recognizing our kids and that brings our building together It gives our kids an opportunity to be heard to be seen And to feel proud about who they are in the building as they're walking through the building or interacting with people in the building every day Another point of pride we have a student acclamation our web leaders are student role models in our building eighth graders that were nominated by teacher and staff and also self nominated because they wanted to step into that leadership role Our web leaders are a really vital part
097of the middle school transition experience District 197 is unique that we have middle school cover grades 5 through 8 And going from elementary to middle school is a big transition. So our web leaders step up. They are trained on community building and working with the fifth grade students as they're coming in. And they serve as a positive role model and a touch point throughout the first year of transition for our fifth graders to become more comfortable with their school and become a part of the Friendly Hills School community. We also have newcomer groups for our students that are both new to country and just new to Friendly Hills and District 197 as a whole. Our cultural liaisons have been facilitating these groups and a new to our site group this year is called Friendly Ambassadors.
098And this is kind of a junior leadership position. It's for our seventh graders. who have stepped up into a leadership position. And these are another way for us to have students act as liaisons when new students come in. So maybe they're not starting on the first day of school, but it's still within the school year. They need somebody. They need a touchpoint. They're missing out on, because they're not a fifth grader, they don't have a web leader in the same capacity that the fifth graders did. But these friendly ambassadors, the seventh graders, are still stepping into. that role and showing them around school giving them guidance and offering friendship What's new you might ask I have some answers for you. This is a picture of dr. Leah Martin who works with eighth grade and seventh
099grade in language arts She had an idea of creating an I am wall And basically students just kind of took a piece of paper You know and like a bumper sticker and wrote down who they are And they're all you know in the background there on the picture that you can see and it really was You know, it's something that they're proud of, but it also was a huge statement. And she did a fabulous job with that in getting kids to recognize, you know, talk a little bit about themselves and what their aspirations are, and then to reinforce that by displaying that out so they could see that and have a chance to look at what others said every day. We're creating a culture of learning. You know, I put use technology, using technology on
100here. We're trying to diminish that in some ways. We don't, as a staff, feel as though kids need to be on their iPads all day long. So we're trying to use more paper and pencil. We're trying to do different hands-on activities and some different classroom management types of things where, you know, they're not using the iPad all day long. You know some different cross curricular type things with with support and use of data I'll give you an example today We had our math teachers talking to all the different disciplines on how they could incorporate math into their lessons Because that's one of the things that we felt needed to be reinforced as a staff So how do our art teachers work math into an art lesson or how do our language arts teachers work math
101into a language arts lesson? so That's really bonding our staff and really bringing our staff together with some new ideas like Brittany mentioned before. And it's really fun to watch that. Our kids are experimenting. Our teachers are constantly telling our kids that it's okay to make mistakes. I'm seeing that more and more in classrooms because they learn from their mistakes. So our kids are doing a lot more experimenting with different things with not always having the focus be the right answer. And then finally just developing those interpersonal skills You know with each other which kind of goes along with what I said about the iPads and you know We're starting to do some different things where kids are communicating more in the classroom You know with each other and they're talking about things and they're
102getting rid of the the text language The computer language and those types of things that are starting we're starting to notice that you know are inhibiting them a little bit As they move into high school We're also starting to apply more stem applications You know we have our greenhouse that we got up last spring. We're starting to add that And our teachers are really using some different methods in their classroom with animals and some different projects that they have to extend that learning experience for kids where they might talk about habitat, but now they can see where a turtle lives. That's a turtle there, by the way, on the floor on the far left. Not only did the kids not want to get too close to that turtle, because I guess it snaps, but I
103didn't want to get too close to it either when I was taking the picture. But you could see in the little bucket there, or the water bucket, that they're building the habitat and they're learning about that and we're extending those learning opportunities for kids every day. We have a Miss milky does an excellent job with our kids with design and modeling And the groups that she runs kids are building cities and in different things in future cities Classes, I mean she carries that over into her classroom every day to work with students in science Just to tag along on that, so one of our new flex sessions for this upcoming rotation that will start next full school week is Critter Care. So this is something that was implemented by our sixth grade science teacher, Amanda
104Malstead. She is offering a flex session where students are able to learn more about caring for the creatures that we have at Friendly Hills, learning what the right environment and habitats are. We are looking ahead to high school for our students. We are getting them ready for their next big transition. The counseling team is... aiming for a spring college and career fair. Right now they are laying the foundation of building relationships with all of our students and getting to know them, getting to know what makes them unique and what pathways would be right for them in the future so they can best serve and meet their needs for when the college and career fair comes to fruition. In the meantime, they are in classrooms often hosting lessons that are relevant to middle school life, topics
105like positive relationships, anti-bullying, time management, and pathways for the future, all things that are going to be relevant not only while they are still in middle school, but when they do go up to Two Rivers, and we all hope that our warriors go up to Two Rivers. We are having lots of positive interactions with our high school students. There's a small group that's coming in from the high school to serve as student tutors. and they'll be coming in once a week. And last week we were fortunate enough to hold two Warrior Rallies. Those are our spirit pep rallies that the high school students, a group of super fans, got to come and show off and engage all of our students in cheers and bring along the mascots, as you see here, along with the drumline
106was featured in our seventh and eighth grade Warrior Rally, and this was a great way for... students to see, you know, this is what we have to look forward to. We get to be a part of this community all as we're growing up and being part of the Warrior family. So I put this picture on rather than just saying thank you and being done and moving because, and this doesn't really do it justice, but on the last day of school as our buses are pulling out with the kids for the last day, our whole staff lines up along the sidewalk and in the back at Friendly Hills, it kind of, it goes up a hill to your, if you're looking at that picture, to your left. And our whole staff is spread out and they
107wave at the kids as they leave in their buses. It always is kind of it's it's something that I enjoy while I stand in the back and watch it because it's tough middle school and you know if if your dream job is is middle school then we need to talk because it's a challenge and it's getting more challenging every day but this shows you know what kind of dedication these teachers have in that they truly are going to miss their kids, and they're waving goodbye to them. And the other aspect is the kids hang out the window waving back at them. And then the bus drivers can't be undone, so they honk their horns. So it's really a cool scene as they leave. But it always is, I'll say, touching because of all the things
108we deal with in a school year with all of our students and trying to get them to learn. teaching them skills and different aspects of being a student this kind of summarizes you know the work that goes into that and it's just kind of cool to watch so thank you well and thank you chris and and brittany as well do we have any questions for our middle school staff comments questions if not Again, thank you very much. It's wonderful to hear about, oh, excuse me, was there one? Oh, okay, all right. I did not raise my hand. But just a quick comment, and I thank you for your presentation, Brittany, and Principal Headey. I really love what you guys are doing around the culture of learning and really kind of lessening, I guess, that reliance
109on technology and having the kids lean into a lot of other areas. And, you know, as I heard you... Say these things to me it really feels like you're helping them build their critical thinking skills by reducing that reliance on iPads and really forcing well not forcing but Encouraging some interpersonal interactions with other students and staff So I think those are great things for students as they go into high school. I think about the cheer squad and them talking about building their community and building their sisterhood and I think these skills really lead to their ability to do that when they get to high school and bridging across different cultures and students from different places. So I think that's just phenomenal work. One thing I took away from that, many things, but that is the
110biggest, thank you. Thank you. Tim. I can't let slip your line about, you know, we've got to talk if you like middle school. I mean, I was really impressed with the themes of your staff and the unity your staff has in the mission. Because, believe me, if you have a group of adults in any setting, you say, oh, everybody who liked eighth grade, raise your hand. I mean, you can start a two-hour conversation. It's just story after story. It's a very challenging time. But I think it takes really challenging people to manage that, to inspire, and to teach. so they do learn and they are prepared so uh that was a great line i remember that i remember that but more importantly uh please uh thank you and thank the staff that you know middle
111school is it's there everybody knows it's there but it maybe doesn't get celebrated as much as it should because it's hard for the kids but that by definition makes it hard for those who are trying to teach them so thank you thank you well and i have to say um You know, our middle school has come a long way since I was in the, since I've been in the district. Especially looking back to Grass, our junior high that was sixth or seventh and eighth grade, that was actually, and I'll quote my daughters, a nightmare. um to our our middle schools that are five eight in the community that that's been able to build um at a very healthy prosperous community for our students and our families as well so thank you for what you've done
112thank you thank you Just tying the last two presentations together, I missed the opportunity in the last one. I just want to say it like the work that the middle school teachers are doing towards the and the work that the administrators are doing in terms of scheduling and working through all of the mechanics of a new system as new as it is, is really darn impressive. and the passion that I see from all levels coming from that. The engagement and the creative process of creating a new course and carrying it through and truly building the plane while you're flying it. i've seen it it's appreciated i want to give a shout out to carrie joe and and miles and the others who are supporting that all along the way to chris and to brittany i
113see it in the front office it's it's really impressive the team that i'm seeing coming together across our districts and what's happening this year this could You always have a little bit of a grace with something new where it's like, oh, it's okay, we're just getting started, but I really feel like you haven't necessarily given yourself that grace. You're getting right into it, you're giving it everything you've got, and it's really turning into a great product for our students right from the get-go, right in the first year. And I'm quite impressed by it, so I just want to say thank you for everything that's gotten into that. Chris and Brittany, your presentation included that, but it also included what I would just say is the whole child and looking at everything from the interpersonal skills
114to the critical thinking to the... a lot around school spirit and just that culture and climate that you're building in the buildings. And I see it. When you walk through either of our middle schools, but tonight we're honoring Friendly Hills and all that you're doing. When you walk through Friendly Hills, you feel a great place for kids. You feel a great place. You want to be there. And when you talk about middle school being a tough time, sure, yeah. And it's a great place to be. And the kids are learning consistently. You walk through every commons room. and you see class after class after class of engaged kids, smiling kids, happy and proud kids, and happy and proud staff working with them and doing great things. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.
115With that, it concludes our meeting this evening. There are some upcoming dates to remember. November 4 and 5, yesterday, or I mean today and tomorrow, there is no school. It's end of quarter and professional development. On November 7, Two Rivers Showcase. November 9 is Maker's Market at Two Rivers High School. November 14, 2L... 2s LGBTQ plus parents and guardian meeting November 14th through 16th is our fall play Robin Hood at Two Rivers High School and Coming up the end of the month November 27th through 29th. No school. It's fall break and Thanksgiving so thank you for joining us this evening with that I would accept a motion to adjourn From Mr. Hill. A second. From Morgan Steele. All those in favor. Aye. Thank you. It passed. Good evening. Gavel. We're adjourned.