January 6th 2025 School Board Meeting

001there we go all right i'd like to call the january 6 2025 school board meeting to order welcome to our first meeting of 2025 and we'll start by standing for the 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 All right, since it is our first meeting of the year, we start with election of officers. So you can all just talk amongst yourselves for a minute while we elect our officers. Actually, don't. Be quiet. But we'll go through our nominations. Okay, so nominations are now in order for the office of chair. Yes, John. So, Chair Larson. Nope, I'm just Sarah right now. Almost. Well, past Chair Larson, how's that? You've been a fantastic

002leader, and I can't say enough about how you lead us in our work, and so I'd like to nominate you to be chair again. Thank you. Okay, so I have been nominated. Are there any other nominations for the Office of Chair? Are there further nominations for the Office of Chair? If there's no further nominations for the Office of Chair, nominations for the Office of Chair are closed. All those in favor of electing Sarah Larson for the Office of Chair signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, thank you. I'm honored. I have to ask three times in case you're wondering. It's part of the rules. Okay, so nominations are now in order for the Office of Vice Chair Clerk. Yes, Morgan. I would like to nominate John to continue in this role Wonderful. John Valpel has

003been nominated. Are there any other nominations for the office of vice chair clerk? Are there any further nominations for the office of vice chair clerk? If there are no further nominations for the office of vice chair clerk Nominations for the office of vice chairs clerk are closed all those in favor of electing John Valpel for the office of vice chair clerk signify by saying aye Aye. Those opposed? John is now our Vice Chair Clerk. Thank you. Thanks. So nominations are now in order for the Office of Treasurer. I would like to nominate Byron Schwab to continue in his role as Treasurer. Thank you. Byron Schwab has been nominated. Are there any other nominations for the Office of Treasurer? Are there any further nominations for the Office of Treasurer? If there are no further nominations for

004the Office of Treasurer, nominations for the Office of Treasurer are now closed. All those in favor of electing Byron Schwab for the Office of Treasurer signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Thank you, Byron, for continuing to be our treasurer. All right, we have new officers. We can move on with our agenda. So the next item is the approval of the agenda. If there's no edits or changes, I would accept a motion for approval. Motion for approval. Thank you, Byron. Second. Second by Marcus. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed, that item passes. Next is the consent agenda. In your packet, if there's no edits or changes, I would accept a motion to approve the consent agenda. Thank you, Morgan. Second by Tim. All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

005Aye. Those opposed, that item passes as well. Next is our listening session report with Director Valpel. Unfortunately, we didn't have any visitors, so that concludes the summary of our conversation. But a good reminder that we have listening sessions. That's right. The public is always encouraged and welcome to attend and join us. They oftentimes just choose not to. Yes. All right. Next item is maybe our favorite, is the recognition. So I'll turn it over to Superintendent. Thank you, Chair Larson. Tonight we have three student groups that we will be recognizing. The Digital Well-Being Club, the National Merit Commended Students, and our debate state semifinalists. So first we'll call up this year's National Merit Commended Students, which is Garrett Alkema and Isabella Carlson. So come on up to the podium, along with Principal Al Johnson. Dr. Kabeck,

006I'll hand it over to you. Good evening, everyone. I am very excited to be able to recognize Garrett and Isabella, who have been named Commended Students in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program. About 34,000 Commended Students nationwide are being recognized for their exceptional academic promise by their scores on the 2023 Preliminary SAT National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test. Please help me congratulate these two amazing students. And you can tell by their faces how excited they are to be here. We're going to ask you a few questions. So would anyone like to ask these two a question? Oh, come on. Tim's ready. Go ahead, Tim. How full is your mailbox from prospective colleges? Please come. We will roll out the red carpet. But in all seriousness, are you at a point where certain fields and universities or

007colleges or technical schools or whatever are... Appealing. I would love to major in biochemistry and possibly clarinet performance. Actually, the same thing, except without clarinet performance. Yeah, too hard. Wonderful. Any tips on where you might go to do the studying of biochemistry? I'm hoping to finish my application to University of Chicago tonight. Don't keep them long. Yeah, so you'd like to go home? Other questions for these two? I would like you to just quickly tell me. Oh, go ahead. I know you guys are both seniors, so what are you guys most excited about for the rest of the school year? I actually have to start a list of stuff I wanted to, like a high school bucket list, but I think just all the remaining things I want to do with my friends. Yeah, I

008don't know. More like swing dancing, ice skating, skiing. Yeah. All the activities. Isabella? I'm weird. I'm probably looking forward to the AP tests. Will you just each kind of give us a rundown of activities you've been involved in in high school and any hot tips you'd have for kids that are maybe freshmen? And talk into the microphone so everyone in the world hears you. You might move it up, Garrett. There's also an awkward chair. Yeah, I did. Debate in the fall freshman, sophomore year. That was great for skill building. Debate partner over there. Yeah. I'm doing Nordic in the winter. It's a great sport. A lot of really good people, really good community there. And I do tennis in the spring, and it's just a really fun sport. Yeah. Also band. It's really good as

009well. I participate in just about everything band related and I was also in debate for two years. Wonderful. Anyone else have questions for them? Otherwise we'll let them go. Go do your application. Thank you. Congratulations. Well, and since debate was mentioned, I think we should, we'll continue on to that because we have members of our Two Rivers debate team who made the varsity state semifinals and were recognized as Minnesota Debate Teachers and were recognized as Minnesota Debate Teachers Association All-State. So, Tommy Larson and McKinley Scherrier, come on up. Right here, along with Ben Gardner. Madam chair, I'd just like to introduce you to two students you might not be familiar with from two rivers I don't know if you know Tommy Larson or McKinley cheerier very well, but nice young men I hear in all

010seriousness These two and the whole cast of seniors that are in debate and speech both have really been an exceptional group to work with They fostered a really great community and helped build the program. Not only did they do well at the state debate tournament finishing in the semifinals, but the novices who they peer coached won the tournament. So they're really looking to shape the future and grow the program. So it's been very exciting to work with them both. They both have a little work to do in speech right now, but we'll get there. Other than that, a really great season, as you mentioned. The Minnesota Debate Teachers Association recognized them along with six other students as all-state debaters. That's just based on their record at the regular season tournaments and then qualifying to the

011semifinals at state that we hosted at Two Rivers. So a really nice way to wrap up the Minnesota State High School League, Minnesota Classic Debate Tournament for them. McKinley's also bored and does other debate. Last June, he made it to the Octa Finals in another format of debate called Big Questions. And then over break, we were bored, so we went to a national tournament that Blake hosts downtown. And McKinley, Andre Carreras, and Amelia took third in World Schools Debate just for, I don't know, fun, I guess. So a lot of really great debating out of these two, and it's exciting to see what will happen next. It is a lot of debate. I can attest. Yep. All right. Someone else has to ask these two questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I know teenagers, and I

012know you being teenagers, and then also debate. you know, successful champions. I'm just wondering, like, do you never have to do chores? Your room gets to always be a mess. You get to sleep in. Like, all the things, because you just, like, win all the time? Or is it just, like, debate only and then never? We make time for everything. You kind of have to. There's a lot of time commitments involved. I'm just saying, like, you can debate your way out of so many things. Have you not realized? You would think. Wouldn't that be nice? Well, then, you must have gotten your debate skills from the grown-ups in your lives who... Who actually beat you at debating. At debating, yes. Thank you for following the train of thought. Congratulations. Go ahead, Morgan. Have you two

013decided what you want to do next year? Still exploring? Could you tell us a little bit about what you're thinking? So I'm going to do a major in political science. And I don't know where yet because I'm still waiting on different acceptances and waiting to see where that all ends up. But then I want to go into a research field and then do more research in the political science lens. I'm also going to apply to college and go to college. There you go. Just for the reason your mother, anyways, the microphones are for the people at home, not for the people in here. Yeah. Because they can't hear you if you don't actually talk. So I'm also going to go to college, probably major in law or political science, something like that, for university, and

014then maybe become a lawyer or something interesting like that. We'll see, though. We will see. Long ways away. Long ways away. Other questions for these two? Delightful. Go ahead, Patrick. So as a teen, I'm not going to ask you any questions about the future because I know us seniors don't like, hate that, to be honest. But I'm going to ask you a question about the past. What were your guys' favorite topics that we've debated? I really liked the first topic. Was it first topic of sophomore year? Nope. Junior year. No, it was sophomore year. Wasn't it drugs? See? Debate. Debate about it. Oh, wait. I'm wrong. Oh, yeah. Sophomore year was the worst topic we've ever debated. Standardized test. Oh, I hated that. First topic of junior year, we debated whether all drugs should be

015criminalized for adults, right? Or was it kids, too? I think it was adults, I hope. It was. But I really like that McKinley made a really fun and interesting case that was very fun to debate. It was very mean. Oh, it was mean. I can attest. McKinley's kind of mean when he debates. What's your favorite topic, McKinley? You know, I think when it comes to this, I think that's also my favorite topic. I think it was super fun to do and a really interesting sort of idea. But I've debated a lot of topics with all of the extra stuff so it's hard to sort of pick one but I think drugs was like super interesting because it's like something we all like like it's like policing and also health and also like so many different

016things and they were like a Bunch of real-world connections that you could make I mean like the weird we were talking about like searches and car stops and like that was a super interesting like nobody thought about that and so we we Were the only team that ever talked about something similar which was super interesting What was the topic of this meet that you're being recognized for today? It was on balance, which just means like you're weighing whether the positives outweigh the harms of whether NATO's commitment to Ukrainian membership is beneficial. So should Ukraine join NATO? Basically, yeah. After the war? Which was, um, it was a topic. Kind of like that. Not necessarily after the war. There were a few. It was interesting. I mean, it was fun. It was very connected to current

017events. Just a little bit. Yeah. And so it was fun to do something that was actively developing because we a lot of times aren't doing stuff that's happening right now. Or it's related to something, but there's been a lot of talk about it in the past, whereas this is really new. This one, you have to check the news every day because you never know what might happen. So that was interesting. Can you tell these two have known each other since they were three? I think you can tell. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Our final group being recognized tonight is the Two Rivers Digital Well-Being Club. And along with their club's advisor, Tom. I can see Tom is making his way up as is the group. I'll share just a little bit about

018the club as they're making their way up. The Digital Well-Being Club at Two Rivers. empower students to build healthy relationships with technology through discussions and peer-led activities. Members explore ways to balance screen time and practice digital mindfulness. Last June, the club received the Digital Well-Being Excellence Award by Live More, Screen Less, and a few members have been featured guests on NPR News while discussing digital well-being. Tom, go ahead with your introduction. Thank you. You just stole my speech. I just want to have Evangeline or others say a few things, but I just want to recognize this group of young women here. There's part of our group that are mindful, intentional, and keenly aware of. the digital world and the impact of social media, both positive and negative, have on their lives and the lives of

019their friends and have committed themselves to do something about it for their own well-being as well as for the well-being of others. So I think Evangeline's going to maybe say a few things of what we do and what we've done or anyone else. I'll start. So I joined the club when I was a freshman and I started with joining the youth summit. It was hosted at Union Depot, and I had my first introduction to the club, and then school went out for summer, and then we came back, and all of the seniors had graduated. So I kind of saw it as an opportunity for us to grow the club, and I was a sophomore, so I knew I had a couple years left to kind of grow it. And so we started trying to find

020some projects that we could do to do more community outreach since the topic was growing, and we hadn't yet had a cell phone policy at our school that was super... enforced so we were kind of figuring out the lines with that um so my favorite project that we've done so far was visiting the middle schools so we visited heritage last spring which we're coming up on a year of that so we're hoping to implement that again but we i think it was a sixth grade class and we went in two groups and we made a presentation and we had a really open discussion about screen use social media use, time management, and topics that you would think would be kind of advanced for sixth graders, but they took it very well. And obviously there was

021a range of interactions that they had, but we were able to help them learn things that we wish we would have learned at that age. And I really appreciated that, especially as someone with younger sisters who sees impacts firsthand. I just really found it as a good experience, and I'm hoping we can do it again. And we're wanting to go to elementary schools this year as part of expanding that. Do you all want to introduce yourselves, too, and tell us what year you are? I'm a junior, and my name is Evangeline. I'm Olivia. I'm a junior as well. I'm Willa. I'm a senior. I'm Brianna, and I'm a sophomore. I'm Charlotte, and I'm a senior. I'm Amelie, and I'm a junior. All right. Do we have questions? Oh, everyone's got a question. Morgan first. Go

022ahead. You said that you shared things with sixth graders that you wish you had known when you were in sixth grade. What would you tell parents that you wish your parents had known about screen use? I can go for this one. This is a hard question. We talk about this a lot. There's no right answer to tell parents about implementing rules about your phones and having a good relationship with them. But the biggest thing is just to have open communication with your kids and make it a safe space. Let them be open about their relationship with the screen. A lot of times, they'll want to talk about it. They'll want to ask you about it. They'll want to talk to you about how much they're spending on their phones or things like that. So really,

023just open communication and creating a safe space for that communication. John, did you have a question? Sure. So I'm curious, what made you decide to get involved in this club? Like, how did you find yourself getting involved? Well, I think it's different for all of us, I think. A good chunk of us went to the youth summit. I know my sister did, Willa. And so that's how I kind of got introduced to it. But personally, I've been interested in it since I went to a camp that didn't have phones. So it's just interesting to see that effect. Like someone gagged when they got their phone back, which I thought was funny. But yeah. I think it's wonderful that you're doing this outreach to middle school and elementary students. I assume you probably got some encouragement,

024so I should offer congratulations to your advisor. But I'm sure students, I mean. For them, you guys are grown-up, but you're cool grown-ups, whereas we're uncool grown-ups. So, especially in that space, and having somebody that they're going to kind of, I want to be like, you know, having them. present the world and say this is what's really going on and why you have to be careful and things like rules and realizing that you are thriving by embracing that scheme kind of mechanical the way I phrased it but that's wonderful and hopefully that's also a skill set that you can use and move forward who knows maybe somebody will become teachers someday thank you well said Tim anything go ahead Byron So I would hope that you could share with us a few of the key

025points that you brought to the sixth graders. And you're not only sharing it with us or people that are here, but we have a big broadcast audience. So you're taking it district wide. So it will give you lots of good coverage. Just a few of the key points. We talked a lot about what activities you aren't doing while you're on your phone or playing video games or something. So big thing is you could be outside playing with neighborhood kids or playing sports or something like that, but instead you're on your phone. And when we talked to them, a lot of them wish that they were like doing these other activities away from their screens, but they were on their screens because it's addictive and they just didn't know what else to do. So. I'll add

026super quick to that that we also talked about. We had a game where we asked, I think it was. But we asked them how they felt and how being on a phone made them feel good or if it made them feel bad and recognize that it can make them feel both. And then like what Willis said, we explained how other activities can help you. And I know they probably don't understand the concept of dopamine, but the same concept that they can find fun outside or they can find fun with their friends in a non-screen way. And I think it was really interesting to see the kids say, oh, yeah, like. I have my screen time and when it goes off I go outside and we were like well think about if you went outside first

027you wouldn't even use your screen time so I think it was really interesting because a lot of them were very I think they were very aware about what they were missing out on but just didn't know how to change that so I think especially when parents are able to kind of not necessarily control but just support their child and giving them those opportunities I think it really helps them recognize that they don't need a device at all times. Well, thank you. I mean, I know a lot of you are involved in a lot of activities at the high school, but so there's a lot of ways that you can be role models, but this is a really important one that I think a lot of parents are very grateful to you for doing. So bring

028your friends, continue the good work. There's a sophomore in there. I see you. So you got two more years. But thank you, and thank you, Mr. Myers. So each group that was recognized, we're going to take pictures. So we're going to take a little break, take pictures, and then we'll come back for our next item. You guys are ready. Oh, there you go. I think we should stand. Got it. Thank you. Garrett and Isabella. Thank you. All right. We got it. Thank you. You guys want to be with all of us? Why not? Yeah? Come on in. Very participatory. It is very participatory. Got it. Come on in, Mom. Thank you. Okay. Geiger? Geiger? Shift to the right. All right. Hey. Thank you, guys. just like a little bit like a single file i didn't

029change your order can i still all of us or do you want okay these two and then you guys that's fine we'll do this first right yeah okay it's like the purpose is Okay, we're going to funnel away to get 60 people to come. I encourage the high school students to stay for their peers report. Just for a few more minutes. All right, next item on the agenda is our student representatives report. I'll turn it over to you, Patrick and Ron. Hopefully not everyone, everyone always leaves before we give a report. That's what I was trying to encourage people to stay. So good evening, everyone, and Happy New Year. I'm Patrick Robach. And happy new year as well. I'm Noelle Hassan. And it's great to be here and share some updates about what's going on

030in our district. It's a new year, so we have a lot to get to as we transition from 2024 to 2025. So just starting off at the early learning level, we don't usually talk about early learning, but I wanted to put a little bit in today. Lately, my document is not working, but off the top of my head, I do remember that our early learning center had animals from Dodge Nature come in, and they got to learn about different reptiles and amphibians and got to touch all these different snakes, and I thought that was a really cool thing about kind of being able to get hands-on experience with nature. I guess we'll move on to... Elementary schools, okay. Starting off with Pilot Knob Elementary, they have successfully started off their Girls Who Code Club, and

031there was around 32 members, so it was pretty much a success, and it's a great way for girls to get into STEM, because we love women in STEM. Next, there was also a winter dance at Pilot Knob. It was held on December 13th. It was a resounding success, and it brought excitement and joy among families and students at Pilot Knob. Next, at Mendota Elementary, the read with an older, younger student day held in honor of Miss Seabright proved to be a delightful experience for everyone involved and was a great way to get the community involved again. Next, the Shine program at Somerset took a fun field trip to Ninjas United and they had a bunch of fun there and there was a bunch of pictures taken so it was a great experience for them. And

032then they also participated in Jump Rope for Heart which is an initiative for people who struggle with heart issues and they jumped roped for their gym classes. And then finally, fourth graders also enjoyed a visit to the Two Rivers Music Concert, while Moreland organized an art fundraiser and celebrated its success with a festive glow party. so moving on to oh you do have something for me yes there's only one thing for middle schools unfortunately both heritage and filling Hills girls basketball team has ended off their season and we just wanted to celebrate the achievements of the students who work together and worked hard throughout the season Onto high school. We're still going. We have our music programs like orchestra, band, choir. They all had their winter concerts at the end of December. And I heard

033band had a lot of fun with some students wearing horse masks. So I think that was pretty fun. Our Two Rivers Asian Pacific Islander Club hosted a gingerbread competition just before the break. And there was a group called the Triple W's who end up winning the entire competition and got. Target gift cards. Our semester one is coming to a close with final exams on the 16th and 17th, and that will be followed by a five-day weekend, which I am excited for, even though we just got back. And then on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which also happens to be Inauguration Day, Two Rivers Key Club will be hosting a day of service in dedication to the work of Dr. King. Last year, we had board member Marcus Hill. give a speech that was very moving.

034And this year, our guest speaker is going to be former Justice Alan Page. And then looking forward into the future, on January 16th, 17th, and 18th, Two Rivers Theatre is putting on the student-directed one-acts. Thank you for listening to our report. Once again, I'm Noelle Hassan, and... I'm Patrick Bumlach. Thank you. Excellent, thank you both. Next is our superintendent's report. Go ahead, Peter. Thank you, Chair Larson. So good evening, everyone, and welcome to our first school board meeting of 2025, where we like to repeat questions three times. As we look ahead to the new year, I'd like to take a moment to reflect on some of the incredible accomplishments we've celebrated so far this school year. We've talked about Pilot Knob, we're gonna talk about him again. So Pilot Knob STEM Magnet School received the

035prestigious STEM Innovation Award from the Minnesota Elementary School Principals Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota. This honor celebrates the school's work integrating Native American perspectives into STEM education. Through initiatives like family mapping events, exploration walks, and staff professional development, Pilot Knob has blended cultural and environmental education with STEM learning. So congratulations to Pilot Knob, and special thanks to Pilot Knob's STEM teacher, Michelle, and the District American Indian Education Coordinator, Nell, for their work on the mapping event and this professional development award. So let's give them a round of applause. There's one other award that's not in my script. I'm just gonna give a little sneak peek of it. Principal Tom Benson won the Division Leadership Award by MSPA this year. So let's give him a round of applause. More official press release coming out

036on that later. But before winter break, we had 25 Two Rivers AP government students participate in the Metro States Model Legislature. So stepping into the roles of legislators and gaining first-hand experience into the legislative process. You see them pictured here, and it took place over two days, and they collaborated with the Metro State Advisors to review bills, participate in committee hearings, debate on the House and Senate floors, and then a special shout-out to Two River Senior Raoul Vos, pictured here, who served as the Speaker of the House for the event. Additionally, we had 135 scholars from Two Rivers High School earn the Advanced Placement Scholar Award for their performance on AP exams last spring. This is an incredible achievement and it showcases the dedication and the hard work of our students as they excel in

037challenging college-level coursework as well as their teachers in supporting them reach that level of achievement. So thank you to everyone involved in that awesome accomplishment. Our first Thrive With Us Scholarship cohort is off to a strong start. So this is a, if you're not familiar with it, it's a partnership with Metropolitan State University and it prepares some local community members for teaching roles within our district. So congratulations to this year's recipients, Caleb Tate, Kayla Freeman, Dominique Harness, and Kayla Betanzos. They've already started contributing to our schools and they are already committed to shaping the future education in our school district and so we are very excited for this initiative. Another proud moment for staff recognition goes to Rob Hansen, a True Rivers High School Spanish teacher of 32 years and almost advisor of 23 years

038who received the Solidarity Award for Latino Lider Con earlier this school year. This award. honors individuals who consistently advocate for and support Latino communities. So thank you, Rob, for your continued dedication to our students and to all the students and the staff and the families. Thank you for making these achievements possible. So now looking ahead to 2025, we're gearing up for our main enrollment period and planning for the 2025-2026 school year. kindergarten enrollment night is coming up on january 23rd at all of our district elementary schools and families can drop off their completed enrollment packets meet kindergarten teachers and take a tour of the school We're also preparing fourth graders for their upcoming middle school experience. Starting in fifth grade, every student will take a class in either band, choir, or orchestra, so we'll be

039hosting music exploration days for fourth graders this week. Information will be sent home to families on how to register for their perfumed music class, so please be on the lookout for that. And finally... As was mentioned, I'd like to invite everyone, this is a community-wide invite, to the Two Rivers Key Club's annual Martin Luther King Day Service event. It's on Monday, January 2nd. It's a meaningful day of service. It honors the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and provides opportunities to give back to the community. As mentioned, we're thrilled to welcome retired Minnesota Supreme Court Justice Alan Page to this year's event, where he will engage the students and answer their questions. And Chair Larson, that concludes my report. Yep, you said January 2nd. It's January 20th. Oh, did I say January 2nd? Yeah,

040which is past. That happened before. Yes. No, it's January 20th. Thank you. Okay, so we're gonna keep 9-1-7 next, right? Okay, so next item on the agenda, I'd welcome Dr. Michael Faber to the... stay to the stand that makes it sound like you're in trouble to the microphone sorry dr favor for isd 917. thank you and uh i'm sorry if i could just introduce our honorable guest intermediate school district 917 provides special education career and technical education and alternative education for students in the southeast metro area of minnesota 917 serves nine member school districts with programs located in multiple sites. Those member districts are South St. Paul, Burnsville, Egan Savage, Farmington, Lakeville, Randolph, Invergrove Heights, Hastings, Bloomington, and West St. Paul Mendota Heights Egan. The 917 Board of Education is comprised of a school board

041member from each of those nine member districts. School board members are appointed by each member district board to a three-year term. The 917 board generally meets the first Tuesday of every month at Dakota County Technical College in Rosemount where the 917 main offices and some programs are located. I have had the pleasure of representing District 197 for eight years on the 917 Board of Education. Here to share more about Intermediate 917 is our superintendent, Dr. Michael Favor. Welcome, Dr. Favor. Thank you. Board Chair Larson, board members, guests, students, thanks for having me today. I will be brief, but hopefully the content will give you what you need because I'm sure you're busy. I'm the proud superintendent of ISD 917. What we say... First of all, when new staff come to 917 is welcome home. Because

042we consider 917 home. And a part of that is we belong to each other. That's what we say across the board. We belong to each other. So just to give you a sample of some of that belonging today, I got it right. Board member Schwab talked a little bit about our member districts. I won't spend a lot of time there. We currently are located at Dakota County Technical College as well as about 25 other sites, some in your buildings and other buildings across our 917 member districts. Our demographics are as follows. We have roughly 539 staff, excuse me, students, but we're starting to grow our student count. People are continuing as we address our waiting list needs and our staffing needs. We're going to talk a little bit about that today. At our last board

043meeting, I would be wearing the same sweater I'm wearing there. At our last board meeting. We had a couple of staff that we recognized. And part of that recognition is allowing, you know, asking them to say a few words. And this stuck with me, these two words from these staff, a couple of quotes. In this job, I become a better human every day. And then I feel I've never felt so much like I belong. Part of what we do... To support our students, it's to make sure we support our staff. Culture is a part of that. Culture is very important. So we are intentional about making sure people are not invisible. No one is invisible on our watch. Students, staff, parents. Vision and mission for 9-17 is as follows. Partnering, provide high quality, equitable, and

044specialized programming. Our strategic directions. It came from our strategic plan, which was led by our 917 staff, families, and students. What I'm really proud of is our core values. We use our core values to lead our board meetings. We use our core values in our meetings internally. And living the mission and vision of our core values is essential to us. and helps guide us. It's our North Star, so to speak. At 917, we don't have a staff handbook, we have a culture guide. Again, the importance of intentionality. A culture guide that helps guide us, all of us, similar to the way a handbook would, but this is really focused around our core values and the desired culture we want to create, we will create at 917. Intermediate school districts, it talks about just some of

045the legislative. There's only four intermediates in the state of Minnesota. They're kind of all in the metro area. And the chapter 136D, that was part of the laws that was established. So we have a member district school board. This is an important slide because I've got to be honest, I'm still learning this. If you work anywhere near special education, there's a lot of acronyms thrown around. And this is into my fourth year, still learning some of the acronyms. But we have two sites, one in kind of West St. Paul that we partnered with you all on. It's called our North site, right up off of Robert Street for alternative education. Then a location at DCTC for alternative schools. The other piece of this is all the different programming, special ed, and kind of what the

046focus and the acronyms mean, as well as career technical education that we offer in partnership with DCTC in that location. We are a part in collaboration with you all around our Perkins grant. We host the Perkins person, and we work together collaboratively around the money and the funding for Perkins. Those are the nine member districts that are involved as well as Dakota County Technical College These dollars are to be used for a career in technical education Look at that school board, huh? What a beautiful group One of the things I take a lot of pride in with our school board is many are educators there's a lot of educators that are on this board and So the conversations there's a lot of continued depth and reflection while trying to grow and get better at what

047we do. Some of the things that we needed to prioritize, which I want to share with you today, I also shared a video that you can look at at your own time, is our I-TRAC teacher apprentice program. What we're doing is we're taking paraprofessionals who are interested in becoming teachers. that have an associate's degree or credits close to an associate arts degree. And every day they come to work. It's embedded teacher training and development. And when they're done, they will have an EBD license, I think an ASD license. So we are growing capacity in the profession to sustain special education. We I ask that if you see any kind of legislative legislation floating around about this our apprentice program Please support it. The goal will be to grow the program and When when the people

048are done that are in the program they can They can be hired by any one of our member districts or someone else based on the need we're excited about this program Our paraprofessionals, in my opinion, are some of the most well-trained future educators and future teachers that we will ever hire. So I'm excited about the program and the work that we're doing. The Resistance, Resilience, and Reimagination is a partnership with Metro State and the Minnesota Humanities Center. That piece is just offering programming that supports teachers of color. and trying to grow teachers of color and really all teachers in the field in partnership with the Humanities Center. Hiring high quality international teachers. You will see when we get to the wait list, we have roughly nine international teachers, all from the Philippines right now. and

049all trained in special education, have a history of working in special education in the Philippines. We've brought them on and we've hired them to get them trained and that's gonna continue to reduce our wait lists and we may grow in that area for international teachers as well. Staff surveys and listening, staff engagements and listening circles. One of the things we do at 917 are listening circles, so we're listening to the staff. And what we found from that and then doing the listening circles, when it came to negotiations, we included some of the things that we were asked about and staff wanted from the paras to teachers in our listening circles, and it really helped negotiations. Helping negotiations move quickly because these people are seeing that they're heard, they're valued, and we're trying to address the

050needs. We do interest-based bargaining, which I highly recommend. Sharing our story, something we have to do a better job at. So we're really going to have a focus on that in 2025, and also supporting our parents. and getting more information, more direction from our parents as we grow at 917. Just something that's out there, the standards of effective practice. If you haven't seen this, it came out in April of 2023. We're using this as a guide in our apprentice program because the information that's happening and the standards of effective practice, I think will have an impact on education. Not just special education, but all students in the state of Minnesota who are being educated. Some of our partners, everything from Rev Academy to Mentor Minnesota, which we're really excited about, and so the Humanities Center,

051just some of our partners. Data Hub. We have a Data Hub that each member district... has an opportunity to use to see where people are as it relates to placements and wait lists. And the data is for you. We don't share it with anyone. It's just for your member district. And it shows some of the trends that are out there that are coming from your district and the needs. For example, you'll see more about the Sun program. I think that's a need in this district. Speaking of which, our CTE participation, we don't have a number of students from here with career technical education participation. That's been historic. You all have some really good programs. I think students, you choose to keep it in-house more. But right now we have this year 10. And then enrollment,

052we have 97 students from this district. And those are the programs that they're in. That's where those acronyms were from before. And the wait list is about 19 as of now. If you see the biggest wait list need is S.U.N.D., we'll continue to address that. And as we add more teachers, more peer professionals to help address the wait lists that are in place. Students are participating in our ALC program. Most of them are at the North site, right off Robert Street. We don't have really any down at Main. So thank you for your participation there. I've met a lot of your students. Sharp, really sharp young people. Here's a video. Get a chance, read it or take a look at it. Really excited about it. I'll offer up any questions. Are there any questions this

053time? Thank you, Dr. Vaver. Are there questions from the board or our students? Oh, go ahead. The only question I would have, going back to looking at the wait list, and I think that we probably have questions about that. How does that compare to our other... eight member districts in 917. So it's like we don't have like the most or... Yeah, I think the biggest program for the wait list is Sun. And I think that's across all nine member districts. And that's where we're addressing our staffing needs for this time. Now I have to ask, did anyone here go to college at UND or anything like that? Went or... All right. I just wanted to know because... We will not ask why. I was going to bash you indeed. You better not. North Dakota State's

054playing for the national championship today. Got to get out of here. Go Bison. Well, thank you, Dr. Faber. We'll let you go. Thanks, everyone. You're all welcome to come if you need a tour or would like a tour. Love to have you. Proud of what we're doing. Thank you. Thank you. So in the interest of letting the younger children go first, well, the next item will be the pilot not report. Thank you, Dr. Principal Benson. Well, Madam Chair, School Board, Dr. Olson-Skog, members of the audience, my colleagues and teachers, it's so great to be here tonight. This is actually one of the nights I really look forward to is coming to have a chance to speak to the board. But, you know, I can always sing the praises of the Pilot Knob teachers and staff

055and the parents and, of course, the students and the school community. But you've been hearing that for a long time. So today I brought some of our best and brightest to share some of the great things that are taking place at Pilot Knob STEM Magnet School. So I have Sharang here, and he's going to talk a little bit about our book clubs and some other things that are great. I have Luqman Ahmed. He's going to talk about our cultural fair and some of the other things. other great things that we have. And Brooke is gonna, Rodriguez is gonna talk about some more things. So I'm gonna let these guys do the talking. But first, hold on. Well, those are just some of our students reflecting the 22 different languages and many cultures that we have

056at Pilot Knob STEM Magnet School. They were all saying hello and greetings in their native languages. So who we are. Try again. Go ahead. Pilot Knob STEM Magnet School is a school with high expectations, excellent teachers and staff, and super students where we do great work and read, read, read. And they hear that quite often, don't they? Principal Benson, we have such wonderful students presenting. I'm going to just remind all of them, even if it doesn't sound like you're making a lot of noise when you talk into this, there's people watching on TV, and they can't hear you unless you get your mouth pretty close to this thing, OK? And there's another microphone. There's another one over there if you need it. Okay, and Shireen, how about our mission? Our mission, our mission. Pilot Knobster

057Magnet School is a diverse and inclusive community dedicated to creating lifelong learners with the 21st century skills they will need to succeed in a global society. Technological literacy, scientific and mathematical ability, problem solving skills, and experience working collaboratively. And here are some of our points of pride. Point of pride, district-wide family book clubs, the Wild Robot Trilogy, new and improved, expanded to include the whole district, virtual readings on Google Meet, live readings at Westcott Public Library and Barnes & Noble, PTA-sponsored movie nights at Imagine Theaters. And if you can see right here in the picture, that was Lukeman in his art class with Mrs. Bo drawing some pictures about the Wild Robot Trilogy books that we've been reading. And like Lukeman said, we've expanded this to the whole district. We thought, why keep such a

058good thing just to ourselves? So we want to share it with everybody. And we'll talk a little bit more about our book clubs. Shireen, you want to talk a little bit about why you like the book clubs? PK Reads is. These are all the reasons I love PK Reads. Number one, PK Reads works by reading a book as a school. Number two, it feels like we are together at school even though we are home. Number three, as we read we learn new vocabulary words that we don't know like perch. It means someone or something is resting on something. Number four, PK Reads helps kids who are learning to read by reading to them and it helps kids who can read even better. Number five, in the future we could let kids read small paragraphs from

059the book. Number six, kahoots are the best part of all. At the end of the reading kids take Kahoot quizzes. The more questions you get right, the more you are learning. These are the six reasons I love PK Reads. Thank you, Shireen. And I don't know if you know what PK Reads is, but PK Reads is something that we've been doing for quite a while. It's where we read a book as a school community. And then with the advent of technology and Google Meets, there was a good thing that came out of COVID. We were then able to send our technology home with our families, and even our youngest students, kindergarten students, can take an iPad home, connect on to Google Meets, read with us. and participate in the in the cahoots and then sometimes

060we even do it outside of the school level to get kids in to different places here we have mr in the bottom right hand corner that's mr oppenheim and we're reading at our favorite place which is the what kaya the westcott public library public library my second favorite place Barnes and Noble. So we spread it out and we go to different places. So it's really a lot of fun. We've read a bunch of great books. Actually, Brooke's mother, Mrs. Rodriguez, then set up where we went to the Imagine Theater and we watched the movie and we compared it with the book. But the book was better. It is always that way, isn't it? So that was a lot of fun. We're really proud of that. We look to continue our next book. We're going to

061venture into a graphic novel called Dog Man and then watch the movie. So get that one set up. All right. Some of our points of pride. We have our STEM programming. We've been doing Summer STEM Olympics, our STEM Sparks program that Lukeman's going to talk a little about, monthly school-wide STEM events. We had a partnership with Momentum Dance Company this year. Lukeman's also going to talk a little bit about our STEM Fair and how we work with the Minnesota Zoo Zooms Design Challenge. And Kaya's going to talk a little bit about the Girls Who Code Recess Club. Girls Who Code is an organization on a mission to close the gender gap in technology and change the image of what a programmer looks like. We meet once a week to learn coding skills like programming, robotics,

062and web design. What makes Girls Who Code fun is that it provides a supportive and inclusive environment where we can learn and explore technology together. It's not just about writing code, it's about making friends, finding role models, and discovering how we can use technology to recreate to use to create and innovate. We also like the free shirts and snacks. And Lupin, would you like to talk about STEM Sparks? STEM Sparks is a program where students pick what they want to learn. I've taken the coding class with Ms. Cash and ropes and magic with Mr. Benson. This year, I took snap circuits with Ms. Boone. And look, would you like to talk a little bit about our cultural fair? Yes. The cultural fair is where students and their families come to Pilot Knob and share about

063their cultures. We have food, songs, and dance from our cultures. I like the cultural fair since my family is from Somalia and my dad brought coconut cookies. And in second grade, you? I learned to code and made a website. Our cultural fair is one of our events that we encourage every, one of our great events that we encourage everybody to come to where we share and we learn about each other and more cultures. A couple quick points of pride this year. Thanks to Mr. Acey, our school psychologist. He's helped us develop some new solutions, some new... practices that make sure that we're getting our kids where they need to be and we're looking at if there are any needs what we can do it's been very helpful it's making our school sis our school and

064our system much more effective and better so what are some other things that are new well as dr olsen skog said we got a maspa stem innovation award congratulations to mrs lv she's our our STEM magnet coordinator in Nelbari for their work and their leadership in this. They'll be acknowledged on February 5th at the MESPA Institute. The ISD Foundation, 197 Foundation, would like to thank them. We have grants to increase our STEM bins and multilingual library. We have books. As you see, we have kids from all over the country. Pakistan, Turkey, I should make a song of all the different languages and cultures. It would go on and on. But now we have books, so everybody can read a book in their home language, and we know that as best. Practice so when you're transitioning

065to your next language, we've had a big state health improvement grant whole kids garden grant understand native Minnesota grant lower Minnesota River watershed grant mini grant grant from our friends at Flint Hills Works for a family and they're helping us with our family engineering night and grant another grant from the high-tech kids and 3m to sponsor the Lego League and These were all grants that were by mrs. LV and our wonderful teachers and staff at Pilot Knopp. One of the things that we're looking forward to is we're applying for Title I status, our school-wide program, working closely with our teachers and our staff and our school community to get more supports for our students and our school. Looking ahead, so this is one thing I'm really very proud of. In the past, we didn't have

066that many offerings after school through community ed or other avenues, and now we have a class that meets nearly everybody's needs. We have the Girls Who Code that Kai is involved with and Mrs. LV, and they have their nice shirts there that Kai has. Wearing tonight we have community ed soccer with mr. Herz on we have ULA with mrs. Garibay ULA Fitness we have coding clubs engineering clubs Wizards of chess. I know some of these students have been mr. Oppenheim is beginning a class beginning ukulele doesn't that sound fun and we have the rise of the red hip-hop dance class with miss Becky Spanish Lego club, weaving, basketball, and colorful creation. So we have a lot of events, and this is all new that we're really proud of. Looking ahead, one of the things that

067we do is we pride ourselves on getting to know our students and our families and our community. Mr. Acei, this is Mrs. Leading, our exceptional school counselor. Mrs. Olmos, our cultural liaison. Ms. Jimenez, Ms. Fekia, our admin assistant. We all take time to have lunch and get to know our kids. We have a great time here. We have William and Logan. Ariane and a bunch of us having lunch. Mrs. Leaning is having lunch too. Some of the other things we're looking forward to, last year was a bummer of a year to get out to do PK skates, but the weather is just about perfect. Get a couple degrees a bit warmer and we'll be in. Perfect shape for PK skates. We'll begin doing that. Our school dance. We have a maker fair game day coming

068up. Our cultural fair. I invite everybody to attend that. STEM fair. And our next all district book club, Dog Man Book Club and Movie Night. I haven't ever really had a chance to recognize or to let the community know. Two great people that have helped us. And I don't know if you know the Hebrew word. I learned it about 10 years ago from Jim Bader, who's over here. So my friend Steve Goldad called me up, I think it was about 10 years ago, and said, Tom, could you use a volunteer? And boy, at Pilot Knob, we can use anybody. So I said, you bet we could. And he said, well, I'm going to send over my friend Jim Bader. And Jim came over, and Jim and Julie, they're sitting right here joining us tonight. They're

069two children. Kayla and Sam have gone through Two Rivers High School and are now, Kayla's a professional speech pathologist in another district. And Jim said, you know, I have some time, and there's a Hebrew saying called tikkun alam, and it means to repair the world. And it's just stuck with me for the, what a beautiful phrase. So Jim came and volunteers. And then when Julie got to a point where she retired, now Julie volunteers. I don't know, they're probably at school 40 hours a week reading with kids. I think you guys said they've read with you sometime or Julie does math. And it's just been. the greatest to have two wonderful people helping our kids, coming every day. And they are, I just wanted to thank Julie and Jim because you are repairing the world.

070And thank you, and thank you board members. You're repairing the world as well. And thank you PK students. So thank you. And as we like to say at Pilot Knob, help me with this, do great work and... Read, read, read. All right, well, thank you. Thank you, everybody. I was a little worried. You might have questions for the kids, Tom. Oh, yeah, yeah, guys, I'm sorry. They may have some questions for you. My easy question for all of you is I want to know what grade you're in and maybe who your teacher is. Okay. How about Shregg? You want to tell them who your teacher is? My teacher is Ms. Habdakhalig, and I am in second grade. My teacher is Miss Howard and I'm in third grade. My teacher is Miss Athanasia Coppolis and I'm

071in fourth grade. I think they're very proud of you. I'm very impressed, so thank you for coming up here. Other questions from the board or the students for Tom or for the kids? Oh, go ahead, Noelle. What's your guys' favorite part about Pilot Knob? My favorite part about Pilot Knob is that we read, read, read. She got the 20 in your pocket. Yeah, I feel like I know who's going to take the future jobs at the camp. They're right here. Luke, what's your favorite part? My favorite part about Pilot Knob is gym. My favorite part of Pilot Knob is the positive community. All right, someone else had a question? Go ahead, Morgan. It's similar. I was lucky enough to be your board liaison last year, and I came to your cultural fair, and I thought

072it was so cool, and I learned so much at it. I was wondering what your favorite event or club is. Or, since you love to read, read, read, what book are you reading right now? Oh. Oh. We're reading The Wild Robot Protects. Oh. Sure, go ahead. The Wild, same, The Wild Robot Protects. I'm doing a book club with my teacher and I'm reading the book Extra Credit. Oh, yes. That's a good one. All right, other questions? You can ask Tom questions, too. Or we don't have to. That was, oh, go ahead, Byron. Well, thank you for coming tonight. You've done Pilot Knob proud. What is something that you have learned at your cultural fair about another culture? Or that you ate. Or that you ate? Well, I can say it's one of the highlights of

073my school year, and I learned so much about different foods and dances and regions and geography and books, and it's just a great event. It's just a great event. But I go home learning so much more than I knew earlier in that day. He raised his hand. Did you raise your hand? Mm-hmm. Go ahead. When I was in kindergarten, in the cultural fair, maybe in first grade or kindergarten, I learned some things about the Ojibwe tribe. Same. Go ahead, Tim. quick comment the third graders sometimes there's a lot you learn in school and it's all very important and read read read that's a great mantra but I love the fact that you said like you like Jim every third grade student should just love Jim if there's gonna be time you're gonna be my age

074and don't get days gonna be going south never be ashamed never be ashamed to say i like jim well thank you thank you thank you all right our next is a report from garlo from there she is principal paul's here all right ready all right Good evening, Chair Larson, Superintendent Olsen-Skog, members of the board. Thank you for inviting us here tonight to share a little bit about Garlow. And you can see I am joined with some students that you met in December when I was not here, some students from our student council, and we have Augie and Nellie and Ramona and Rex, and they're going to help with our report tonight. Jim, let's see. At GEMS, we use nature to observe things in a new way every day. At GARLO, we inspire learners to understand,

075connect, and care for academics, nature, and each other and our world. GARLO continues to be a highly requested school for families who value a nature-based education. This year, we are excited to welcome a new special program section to GARLO. Our school is so full we even had to add an interior classroom over the summer and we continue to enjoy sharing our space with numerous two, four, and no-legged learning partners, also known as animals. We have many points of pride and we are excited to share a few of them with you this evening. This past year we are excited to share some tremendous growth statistics from our MCA results in grades three and four. As you can see on the slide, grade three has had outstanding reading results indicating a 14.21% increase in grade four bosses

076and 11.44% increase overall results. results increased 9.54% and our overall math results increased 8.02%. Our Fast Bridge results are just as impressive. These results indicate first, third, and fourth grades were all on track for grade level reading achievement. The Zoom STEM Design Challenge offers students a chance to develop a solution to a real problem faced by zookeepers and staff at the Minnesota Zoo. Last year, the Zoom's problem was redesigning the bison and prairie dog exhibit and 5,223 students representing 1,516 projects. Selected students are invited to showcase their design at the Zooms Design Exhibition in March at the Minnesota Zoo. Nine Garlow students on three different teams were invited to showcase and explain their design to zookeepers on March 7th. This Garlow team placed second in the state out of 1,516 total projects. We're always proud

077of our many loyal volunteers from DART, Costco, AmeriCorps, and caring community members. Mr. Andy volunteers because he knows he is making a difference and this feeling of a good deed can never be bought. Grandma Gail has been with us for over 15 years and is part of the fabric of Garlow. Gail is a 40 hour per week volunteer. Every day, day in and day out, Gail is here. You can find Gail in the library, in multiple classrooms, iNature. and supporting students with reading fluency. Michelle and Nana devote three full days a week every week working one-on-one with our youngest learners focusing on lettering and sounds and number sense. Our students and teachers are so thankful for their gifts of time and love. Now we'll focus on a couple things that are new or newer. Garlow

078uses school-wide nature-based themes to connect learning throughout the year and have fun. Last year, we learned about frogs and toads, read all the frog and toad books, had eight awesome visits to Garlow. We culminated our learning with an all-school field trip. an all-school field trip to the Children's Theater. In September, we flew into the 24-25 school year with a bird scene and an all-school field trip to the Minnesota Zoo in October. We continue to learn about Minnesota birds, bird idioms, and more. Our all school field trips take a tremendous amount of planning and it's all worth it. These trips have been a highlight for students, staff, and our volunteers. All right, so have you walked through the Garlow Tunnel lately and passed our playground? And if so, you have walked right past our newest trail.

079Kim Benton, along with many community partners, bushwhacked our new trail, actually, Byron helped too, recently, and it is now named the Gnomes Grove Trail. Former Garlow parent Dave Lynch and the West St. Paul Assistant Park and Recs Director Dave Schlede were instrumental in making this Garlow dream come true. Garlow students officially named the trail in December. The Gnomes Grove Trail provides students the opportunity to balance, jump, hang, and hop on a variety of different surfaces. This trail will provide students the opportunity to encounter obstacles in nature and determine how to best overcome them. to overcome them. In the middle of the picture you can see the Nonescove Trail highlighted in yellow. Our new trail is three tenths of a mile long. So this trail goes right off of the trail that goes right by our

080playground and the bike trail. So hopefully you'll visit it. During the 23-24 school years, our PTO spent months planning a new school supply initiative to provide all students at Garlow with school supplies for a nominal fee. In June, the PTO collected and sorted all unused school supplies that parents did not want. These items were sorted into usable, unusable, and recyclable supplies. Everything was counted and inventoried. During the summer sales, volunteers descended on many retailers and bought an entire school's worth of items. These items were then counted and distributed to teachers well before the first day of school. Every other month, teachers get resupplied, and if they have an immediate need, we have a process for that as well. This is an amazing initiative that has benefited our whole school and ultimately our world since far

081fewer items are going into the landfill thanks to the Garlow PTO. Thank you for your attention tonight. To conclude, we will leave you with our school song and we hope you enjoy it as much as we do. Excellent. First question, I want each of your first names and your teacher and your grade. Please. My name is Rex Harwood. My teacher is Miss Neela as well. I'm in fourth grade. We're in fourth grade. All of us. My name is Ramona Sines Wilhelm, and I am also in Ms. Neela's class, fourth grade. My name is Nellie. I'm in Ms. Hannah's class, and I am in fourth grade. My name is Augie. I am also in Ms. Hannah's fourth grade class. Wonderful. All right, questions from board members or the students? Go ahead, John. What has been your

082favorite creature while at Garlow? And I say creature because I believe there are some very interesting things that you all have in your classrooms. I would say one of our class pets, which is two leopard geckos named Oreo and Cheerio. My favorite is the chinchillas named Twist and Sonic. My favorites are the axolotl and the guinea pig Kirby. I agree with Rex on Kirby, and I also love the chinchillas Sonic and Twist. All right, other questions? Go ahead, Byron. Thank you, Garlow kids. You have done an outstanding job. I know that Garlow has lots of activities going on for kids and for parents and families. Thinking back, because you're all in fourth grade, what's maybe your most favorite activity? I'm thinking of things like I've gone to Hoot Hike, and there was a dance night,

083I think, and there was roller skating, and there was sledding. So think about what's been your favorite. Oh, and even like musical, maybe? I really like our third grade. Concert and rollerblading. I really like when we go to dodge and we get to do kick sliding on the pond. I also love rollerblading and the hoot hikes are amazing, mainly because you get marshmallows and s'mores. I really liked our third grade play as well. And one of my favorite things is probably got to be the hoot hike. Because of the s'mores as well. All right. Other questions? You did a... Oh, go ahead. So I am curious to know, how do you guys decide on your school theme each year? Is that student-led? Is that working with teachers and staff? How is that decided? That's a

084good question. Yeah, that's really good. I think it's just an organic process that happens. Last year, the play, we picked Frog and Toad as the play, and then when we found out Children's Theater was also doing Frog and Toad, we just thought, oh, we're going to have a whole year of Frog and Toad. And then this year, we met many, many authors last year during this process, and one of the authors that I connected with is a Minnesota author that writes about birds, and she has these darling little books, and then she has little stuffed birds that go with her books, and it was her first time publishing books, so we made a connection, and we have lots and lots of bird lovers at Garlow and bird watchers. So we decided to do that. And

085then we went and studied birds at the zoo in the fall. Thank you. All right, well, thank you so much. You guys did a delightful job. I'm grateful. All right, next item is our site report from Two Rivers. I hope he brought cute kids, too. One. Welcome back to Johnson. Part of me hoped that I could have come up before them. because that was absolutely amazing. That was amazing. Well, you were able to facilitate with your flexibility and schedule some earlier bedtimes, so thank you for your... Which I'm sure appreciated. Well, good evening, Board Chair Larson, Dr. Olsen-Skolg, board members, cabinet, and guests. I am Dr. Albert Johnson, the proud principal of True Rivers High School. And as I sit through tonight's board meeting, it's interesting. I feel like I've, I don't feel like I'm

086cheating a little bit, I'll be honest, because it felt like I have like about six or seven points of pride and a few of them have already gone ahead of me, which is awesome. But I want to share some more. And there's more of a message also that I want to give you. Some things I want to put in the space. about what's happened so far this year that's been phenomenal. Phenomenal. We get glimpses of how good things can be every now and again. And sometimes I get the opportunity to sit back and take stock as to how fantastic the space is at Two Rivers. Who are we? We are... Hashtag Warrior Strong, which means a lot of things. It's how we carry ourselves every day, how we welcome people into our space, who we

087proclaim to be and how we walk it out at Two Rivers. And if you can see the picture there, from a staff standpoint, we are a competitive group as well. We want to be the best that we can be on all fronts. We are a fantastic school. We're striving to be a notch above that, right, in everything that we do. We believe that as part of our mission that we do provide an outstanding base of curriculum and learning environment for our students. That we are a right-sized school where students cannot get lost. And when they're lost, we go search them out because we want no student to be lost. Where students can find the appropriate amount of rigor. That that's fitting to them and then also find the support in the in the school. That

088is a right-sized school And as you know, we are busting at the seams Right, and how do we fix that? Well, we asked Mark Fortman and some folks. Can you build some new classrooms over the summer, please? And they get it done ahead of schedule Those are a couple of quick things that that makes us I think a phenomenal space, but I want to talk about some points of pride and I want to acknowledge the staff, the whole staff, the 200 some odd employees and I like to include our bus drivers that affect the Two Rivers space. You are amazing. When I talk to my counterparts, I've been on a mission. on my LinkedIn to have a certain number of connections by the end of last year. And I met that number. I'm not gonna

089tell you what that number is, but I will tell you, I'm also getting information from about 200 or so superintendents around the country. And ask this question, how's staffing in your space? And it is a lot of woe is me. I am blessed. to have staff that are committed to coming back and doing the work with our kids every year after year. And so I want to make sure I acknowledge the staff and make no mistake. And in every family, there can be tension, right? And I have seven children, you know, and so also in families, there can be tension. But this is what I know. In times of crisis, families come together and they show up for one another at two rivers. I believe we are family. And I want to use P.J. Fleck's

090definition when he came into the University of Minnesota about seven years ago. He said for him, family is forget about me, I love you. That speaks volumes. How does it show up? And how does it show up in our space? Okay? And I'll just talk about this one little quick little thing. Right before break, we had something happen in our space. And it was scary. It was scary because it involved one of our staff members, a loved staff member, that was not feeling well for a moment. What happened, though, was people came out of the woodwork. District office, other schools came out and I walked into our cafeteria and it was filled with people just in support of the space. And so I sat back, I was proud at that moment. The very next day

091though we had... professional development. And thank you, Carrie Jo, because she had cookies and treats for the staff. And the staff member the day before, he made sure he was there to let people know that he was okay. And all I could do was sit back and just be proud of the love that they showed each other at that moment. That filters down. That level of caring filters down into how we treat one another and how we treat our students. And so yes, Two River staff, I am extremely proud of you. And we are growing. Like I said, make no mistake. If you look at the numbers, just our past homecoming, we had 1,900 people or so at the game. had another 900 students at the dance, and it was phenomenal. Again, we've added on

092classrooms, we've added on teachers, and the word is out. And people are going to ask maybe why, you know, are you finding this kind of increase? But it is some very intentional work that is being done in the space around culture, who we are, our identity. I know I started three and a half years ago and May three and a half years ago the enrollment was 1,381 students. We started this school year our October numbers was 1,711 students. That is fantastically growing and hoping that we're recapturing our neighborhood and we're welcoming in those new students. That is something I'm extremely proud about. I'm proud of the vast offerings that we offer at Tours. More clubs and activities than ever. And students know, if we don't already have it, let me know, let us know. We'll

093create it for you. We want you to be able to find your people. And that is, again, something that I'm extremely proud about. If I could shout out just one other group. Our nutrition staff has been doing a phenomenal job. They really have. They have sat down with students and listened to what they're asking for and has responded. Not just listened, but they've taken action. They've done taste testing. And when we had our, the first time we had wings, oh my gosh, the cafeteria was almost quiet because everyone was eating. It's kind of what you want, right? But the relationships, and I've asked students, they're building. positive relationships in the lunch line. And so food staff, if you get this message, know that we see you and that we absolutely appreciate all the work that

094you're doing. I'm also proud about some of the initiatives that we have created over the last couple years, what we've done and where we're going to be going. I'm going to ask Dr. K back to come up and talk a little bit about a couple of the programs that she is in charge of. Good evening, everyone. Yeah, so I get to talk about two different points of pride for Two Rivers. One of them was mentioned earlier, our AP honor roll scholar for last school year, and thought it would be great to just give you some details of what that means, like how did we earn that honor roll? So looking at last school year, 48% of our graduating class took an AP exam at some point in their high school career. 34% of students in

095the graduating class scored three or higher on at least one exam. And 15% of the students in the graduating class took five or more AP exams in high school, where at least one of those was taken in their ninth or 10th grade year. So really incredible things. Our students are working really hard. Our teachers are working really hard. It's cool to see that acknowledged by the College Board through our honor roll. And we just are excited as we get, as a student, as Izzy mentioned earlier, AP testing. We're working on getting all of that figured out for this upcoming spring. And it will be here before we know it. But yeah, it's a great point of pride for us. Our students are working incredibly hard and challenging themselves and pushing themselves with their rigor. And

096the other piece I get to talk about is bar implementation. i was fortunate enough to be here in december and got to brag about bar a little bit talking about how it was supporting students with social emotional learning and the different strategies we have in place the different supports we have in place and tonight i'd like to share a little bit coming from some teachers so i was able to sit down with our bar team teachers and chat with them and kind of talk through what does this look like now in our implementation year two and what does this look like to continue to refine to continue to grow our implementation but also what value is it bringing if any as a teacher And so some of the things I heard from teachers is they

097appreciate the time to collaborate. It's structured time during their day, multiple times during the week. They get to connect with teachers in other content areas, which is also in a high school that's very large, right, and a unique opportunity for them to be able to do that. It promotes their collective efficacy. They feel better about all of the hard work they're doing and being able to share that with their colleagues. and being able to have proactive, intentional time set aside to make intentional decisions to support students and then work on those together so that we're stronger as a team. Overall, they feel it strengthens their communication and really we do believe that this is helping us with our transition from eighth to ninth grade and we're excited to see as we... chatted with the teachers.

098There are things we're gonna continue to do to improve, and there are things we're gonna continue to refine, but we're just very pride, have a lot of pride in where we're at, and excited for the future with that. And I do have a smile on my face because I'm thinking of, I think of my ninth graders when I first started. And I've got two individuals that were ninth graders when I started, and then I have a junior. Senior. Three of my babies. I'm sorry. You're not babies. Three grown adults. But what I'm trying to say is I remember them when they were freshmen. And I remember the quietness of the hiding. And I kind of not really wanted to be seen. And not trying to, I mean, how do I come out of who I

099am? Right? And when you allow students to have a voice, give them opportunities to do something post-social, they end up here knowing that once they leave here, they're gonna change the world even more, because they've already changed our space. So I'm gonna ask three students to come up and speak. The three things they're involved in, digital wellness, the Together We Make a Difference conference, and the Two Rivers Tribune. Okay, hello everyone. My name is Noelle Hassan. It's nice to meet you guys all. Today I'm here to talk about the opportunity we had on November 21st provided by Dr. Johnson because we were on the Warrior Leadership Team. We went to the MSHSL, the Medota. Minnesota State High School League Together We Make a Difference conference and it was a great opportunity to interact with schools

100and students of all across all Minnesota and learn how we can be better leaders in our space and I feel like it was a great experience because I've attended the conference the past three years and it's really nice to see how other districts operate, what type of leaders they raise and working with them to create a difference in our own communities. And I believe personally I've gained a lot of lessons and learned a lot to bring back to my community in my respective spaces and be a leader in the environments that I am a part of. And I believe it's done the same for the other students at our district that attended the conference as well. Hi, I'm Nora Anderson. I'm here on behalf of the Two-Verse Tribune, which I started with a group of

101students this past, so my junior year. But I began the idea my sophomore year because I was really involved in Key Club, and they have some core values like leadership and integrity and involvement within the community, and I saw that very frequently within Key Club, but it's kind of hard to connect Key Club with schools because it's a club and then also just a school itself. And I have always loved writing and I've always loved reading. I wanted to be just like my sister and she loved those things. So that's what I wanted to do. And so what I wanted to do was I wanted to have a space where we can have a more permanent place where we can highlight everything that's going on in the school and all the positives and maybe some

102things that may be controversial in the school, though we haven't done any yet because we have only done amazing things. I picked a group of students that I was actually kind of friends with, but I also knew they were phenomenal writers like Patrick over here. He's great at writing and he proves it time and time again. But we kind of developed this idea and we knew nothing, like actually nothing about journalism and writing newspapers and anything like that. So it was, we were going on a hope and a dream, I would say. But we started this thing, you can see it right there, that's the most recent one, so it's a little bit changed. We presented it to Dr. Johnson in like two seconds and he was like, I love it, I love it, I

103love it. And he was more than willing to help us with anything that we needed. And it was so encouraging. It was so welcoming. It was genuinely, this entire experience that we've had has definitely been a roller coaster, but everything is so amazing. And it's definitely made me want to. continue doing these types of things in the future and I could not be more happy with the people that I do it with and all the support especially from the staff. The staff love it and it's so rewarding like I'll have teachers come up to me and be like I loved it it's so like nice to see this and that's really rewarding but some of the things that we do do with it We talk about different things like sports and we talk about different

104clubs. So we did digital well-being. We've done almost club. And then we did the Native American student group. And we also touch on different things. So this year or this upcoming one that's going to be posted after MLK Day, we're going to be touching on like driving, safe driving during New Year's Eve and then the holidays. And then we're touching on like different books in our library clubs. And we just kind of wanted a space where. We were able to touch on a ton of different things that maybe not every student was involved in, but they could read about if they wanted to. And also we have like spaces where they can suggest ideas also. Just a place where students have the ability to learn about the school that they go to. So, yeah. Hi,

105so I'm Evangeline and I'm representing Digital Labian Club again. So this is about a different opportunity. And this was a couple months ago where I had the opportunity to speak at a leadership summit. That was hosted by live more screen less and that is the overall organization that KK Myers is a founder of and she's mr Myers his wife who's the founder of our club? Um, so a lot of connections there, but she had this wonderful vision a couple years actually I'm not sure how many years ago But it was a while ago where she created a club and the whole purpose is to live more and screen less So it's about digital being and how you can connect lawmakers with superintendents with students with club facilitators and she hosted this lovely event at Union

106Depot where me and five other students got to go down. We left school a little bit early and we got to sit at tables and have facilitated discussions with representatives from Google, school board people, other teachers from different districts and different board members. where we got to talk about digital well-being, Live More, Screen Less as an organization, as well as future goals and initiatives that the group has. And I really liked it because it was the first time that I was kind of, well, not the first time, but one of the times that I felt very seen as kind of a voice that was on the same level as a representative from Google or as a superintendent of a very large district. And I really liked that because I thought that my word was very

107much valued, and I thought that it was cool that... all of these important people who are making decisions that affect our lives directly really care about how it affects our lives as instead of just forcing it on us. So we talked about how schools can better support their students, like I said, future goals. There's a big vision board that we put post notes on, and I met a lot of wonderful people. And yeah, I'm hoping to attend another one of those soon. And the aftermath of it involved an NPR interview that I had actually during the school day. I stepped out of math for a couple minutes and hopped on NPR, which is great. And I didn't know that many people were listening and talked to the superintendent after, and he was like, good interview.

108And I was like, oh, thanks. So I had a lot of fun with that. It was a great experience. I'm very happy that the club and the organization has offered me those opportunities. Don't go far. Do you have any questions for them? Oh, I'm sure we do. All right. I just wanted to add a comment. I've lost count of how many people have commented that a delightful student from our high school was on NPR. A lot of people heard that, so thank you. Thank you. All right, questions or comments for these three? It's an opportunity to ask Noelle questions. Go ahead. So a comment about digital wellness, and I didn't mention it earlier, but my daughter was one of the sixth graders at Heritage that you guys spoke to last year, and you had a

109far bigger impact on her in whatever few minutes you had with her than I've had in the last few years. She walked away with a lot of learnings and came home and talked to me about it, and I was like, well, you know, it's kind of funny. I think I might have said some of those things at some point in time, but that's okay. Wherever it comes from. It was great. And so the work that you're doing has a great deal of impact on the kids that you're talking to. So thank you. And then, of course, Noel, we know you. You've been not just a student school board member, but you're part of the Equity Advisory Committee. And you always have great input and things that we've learned from you. And the three of you

110are so inspiring. So thank you. Being here and for everything that you're doing in our school for a district and can't wait to see what you do in life I know it's gonna be amazing other questions You enjoy the journalism I Hope you keep the passion the world needs a lot more Journalists with a capital J who are actually able to yeah, I do the hard work. I intend to continue. I hope you catch the bug I know you said that seniors hate to be asked, but do our seniors have any plans that they'd like to share or interests or what you... I plan on attending a four-year college next year, and I plan on majoring in government and English. I plan on attending a four-year college as well and majoring in biology and minoring

111in astronomy. You don't need to know yet, it's okay. I bet we'll see you next year. All right, other questions or comments? Go ahead. I can ask one. Admittedly, this is one I was going to sort of ask Dr. Johnson, but I feel like I might go ahead and just ask you all instead, since you're here. Can you talk a little bit about when you transitioned from middle school to high school? How was that transition and as you reflect back on it, are there things that you, any words of wisdom for us as we work to try to, you do a lot of community building in your work and a lot of service and I think that's why some of us do this, all of us do this work. Any thoughts of wisdom for us

112as we think about how we support middle schoolers transitioning to high school, because that's a big one. So I can start. My transition was a little bit after COVID, so it was a very big transition for me going back to just a normal school schedule. And I currently have a sister who's in eighth grade, so I get to see how that experience is for her firsthand too and help her in that aspect. But I think it really, like as someone who's involved in a lot of clubs and in a lot of positions, just in different aspects of high school, including sports, I think it's really important who you surround yourselves with. a lot of the opportunities that I've been given haven't been through what I found myself. They've been through a friend telling me, you

113should do this or you should try this. So I think maybe this is more advice to students, but to just be really open to what your friends are doing and see if that's something that you can try for yourself. And yeah, I think another thing that I've learned is that I've had to advocate for myself a lot. So I've had to go to my counselor and say, I need this. I don't know how to get this. How do I get this? And especially as being the oldest sibling, I don't have like a... prime example of someone who's gone through high school. So I've had to say, what's PSEO? How do I do this? And I think there's pushing that kids should make appointments with their counselors or appointments with their teachers and things like that

114because we have a very good support system at our school who will easily help you get the goals that you want if you know what they are. I think since my eighth grade year was like the weird COVID hybrid year, I actually found myself having an easier transition because I went to both Brimley Hills and Heritage, so I was already well acquainted with students from both schools. But I think the biggest thing that helped me through my transition was being my own supporter and being my biggest supporter because I felt like a lot of things I did or that I pushed through was like telling myself I can do it and it's like better for me to like open myself to spaces and meet new people and I feel like having that mindset for me

115helped me grow as a person not only just in my school but I feel like all the lessons I've carried or learned through my years at Tura Rivers High School I will carry on through the rest of my life. So my biggest advice is being your own supporter and don't doubt yourself because I'm pretty sure there's people everywhere at our school that want to make you help a difference and make you be the best version of yourself that you can be. Yeah, I completely agree. I think that it was actually kind of hard for me because I had spent all this time like online not really doing much and kind of like putting in like the half amount of effort that I should be during COVID. But, you know, freshman year was definitely like a

116wake up call. But I think I totally agree believing in yourself and also realizing that you're different than the people around you and that you don't have to love the things that people around you love. I've been in so many different clubs, so many different sports and some things click and some things don't. And that's OK. But you tried. Yeah. Wonderful answer. Thank you. Yeah, great words of wisdom. Good question, John. Every now and then it happens. All right, anything else? Or questions for Dr. Johnson? Thank you. And so over the last several months, you have seen some Two River students in front of you. There's been awards, accolades. When Raul, I went to see them at the Capitol, he's up there, I'm like, yeah, without a doubt. Our students are going to make and

117are making a difference in our spaces. What's new and what we're looking forward to. This was a little bit harder to put into words because there's so much. Over the last three years there's so much and as I stated we're we we are striving to do what we do already at a much higher level Which is a lot of really really good stuff example additional ways of continuing system-wide approaches to student learning So we have a bar program in our ninth grade. How do we expand? How do we use a lot of the things we've learned from that implementation even? Taking the two years to implement something and do a lot of learning and then implement something with fidelity. How do we get better at doing those sorts of things? And we're looking at expanding

118our work-based learning. Let's have a seminar one, two, additional opportunities for students to come in and get some training and expand that program. I get to the space where I think also about exploring additional options for post-secondary. What would it look like to have an AA program out of Two Rivers so students can graduate with that? What if we can do these additional things? What if we had a girls flag football team sponsored by the Minnesota Vikings? Which we do. And I'm so looking forward to that. And I just learned about this on Friday, that the Vikings are going to sponsor this year a girls flag football team at Two Rivers. There's about 25 schools in the state that's going to do this this spring. There's about 40 overall. And this is going to be

119something that's going to be expanded and also be in the Olympics, I believe, 2028. another pathway, another opportunity for students. And so what's next? I'm not exactly sure, but I know opportunities continue to come and I feel that we are positioned and we're prepared to take advantage of the opportunities when they come. And so that is my report for tonight and I am open now for questions. I'm gonna have Dr. Kavek come up just in case you got questions for her too. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Thank you, Dr. Kavek. Questions for these two? go ahead morgan i don't have a question just a comment that i wanted to share because my own students know that my kids are going to go to two rivers they know that i do this work and the reputation that

120two rivers has goes beyond our community my students will frequently say oh i heard they have this at two rivers i haven't heard they have this at two rivers and i think that's Speaks volumes to what you're doing what your teachers are doing what your staff are doing and I just I'm so proud to support Thank you I don't have a question, but I have a comment that I'd like to share I've had a close association with Sibley and now two rivers for like for 40 years when my oldest daughter went into ninth grade in 1984. And so I don't know if many other people have had that same experience, but I've been able to see a lot of changes, a lot of people come, a lot of people go. But what I am most

121proud of with our high school and our school district is the attitude that I've seen come in. And these three young ladies are examples of it, where it's an attitude of, yeah, we can do that. Sure, let's try that. And we're really listening to our students and respecting them, honoring them, supporting them, as opposed to, oh, yeah, you know, we tried that once and it didn't work. Oh, it's a good idea, but we don't have any money for it. We can't. That's and I feel like that's contributing factor to the interest and growth in our high school as well So thank you for what you've brought into our school district and into our high school It it's making a difference and you're making a difference. Thank you, man First thank you and thank you for

122acknowledging all of the people who participate in making two rivers great That was great that you pointed out those things that people it's not on the front of the radar, but they're critical So thank you for mentioning those folks Marcus so yeah I do have to share a story with you because I think you know hearing Morgan talk about the reputation and how you know It really precedes us and it transcends beyond our district. So I have a friend at work who has a kid He's outside of our district here are two rivers another child in a private school He shared with me that he thought Two Rivers was far better run, far more rigorous than what's happening at the private school, and he wishes his second child would come over to Two Rivers. The

123only reason that they don't is because of the relationships that they've built over time at their existing school. But I thought it's something you should hear. And I forget which school, I think it might be DeSable or one of the other schools. So pretty good school. And to hear him say that, it does really well you up with pride. And his daughter loves being here. and he says that to me all the time he's like oh my god my daughter loves being at Two Rivers so I thought that was worth sharing and to Tim's point is great to hear you talk about the staff but I also you have to give yourselves credit as leaders of the school and the work that you've done and the relationships that you've built and how you guys connect

124with the kids and the staff and everyone I only ever hear good things from the parents and from the teachers who love working there. So kudos to you. I hear you might have even started learning Spanish to connect with our Spanish kids, our Latino kids. So I mean, it just speaks to the level of commitment and dedication that you have to the school. So please do take some credit for yourselves and the leadership that you provide for our community. So thank you so much. Anything else? Go ahead, Patrick. I have two questions. So first, Dr. Johnson, where did you get your suit? It's really amazing. I've asked him many times for his time. I tell you, but I channel my inner Steve Harvey. And my second question is, what's one lesson that you both have

125learned over the past year from a student or someone that you have helped educate? No, you go first. I think something that I am reminded of over and over and over again is... Just the amazing unique qualities that all of our kids bring to our space and how that just makes us such a stronger community And I think what's really cool I mean we started in the same year being able to see now kids that we started with as ninth graders becoming seniors The amount of growth that happens right but also to just see how the community blends and molds and how we just become so much stronger as Our students continue to grow I think maybe it's not so much a lesson, but just something that I try to hold dear, right? Of just

126the importance of being able to see each student for who they are as an individual and then who they bring to our community and making us stronger is just really, really cool to see. It's been continually echoed to me to never underestimate the intelligence and the grit of a student. I've seen it time and time again under certain circumstances where when other even adults could have faltered students are showing up to school every day. When you hear the story like oh my goodness and so as a leader it is on me to do whatever I can to get whatever obstacle is in that kid's way out of their way so they can have an educational experience and the one that they deserve. I wanted to just reflect a little bit more globally about this evening,

127thinking about both of our site reports from our elementary schools and then now to our high school. And I'm really excited about our future as a state, as a country, as just a local community. Every student that's got up, I've said, wow, they're way better than I was at their age. And the way that they express themselves, the way the things that... And that makes me really happy. And it makes me really grateful for the work that our staff is doing and the work that our families are doing and the work that our community is doing to equip our students to be better than we were because that's our goal. And they're living up to all of our hopes and dreams, and I'm really excited about our future. So thank you. To our pilot knob

128and to our Garlo families who have gone to bed But they were presented themselves well and thank you to two rivers and all of you and all the staff and and I want to echo what Tim said earlier Calling out our bus drivers calling out our child nutrition people calling out all the team members that play a role in making this happen and having and with the end result being a whole generation that's doing way more than I remember myself doing at their age. So thank you. Chair prerogative, I get to go last. Unless you want to say anything. Okay. Okay. But three things. First of all, I am struck this year by the, I think I've heard from four families whose students are now at college or a prep school that. their students have

129reported how well prepared they feel compared to a lot of their peers. And that is very nice to hear with a senior. So it just makes me very proud. And not even all in the same areas. One talked about writing, how they felt so well prepared by our writing department. She called out a few teachers, which I can mention later. And another was in math. And it's just, it's wonderful. Second thing is I love that you mentioned... the people that make up Two Rivers because after four years of having kids there, I keep meeting people in that building that are doing amazing work every day. And yeah, I expect to keep meeting them. Oh, and I'm going to remember my last point. Oh, shoot. Those are two excellent points. Thanks. It's almost there. It's been

130a long night. Man, it was almost there. It was on top of something you said. Well, yeah. Oh, the students. All of the students that have sat up here today. I know who their parents are in the audience, right? And I can see that their parents are so proud that they're talking. There's very young parents videotaping their children. I love it. But then I look back at the teachers and the other adults in the building and the pride on their faces. Even you, Mr. McCarthy, I see you back there. It's not just the families that are so proud of those students. It's, I can see the excitement in you two looking at those elementary kids like, ooh, they're going to be at Two Rivers one day, right? It's, this has been a really fun meeting.

131We should always have elementary and then high school report together. Let's remember that. All right, but thank you, you two. It was wonderful. And good luck, Dr. Mao, but you're next. You have fun pictures of cute kids, too, right? I wish I could say that we saved the best for last, but that is clearly not the case tonight. But I'm still really excited to be here. Board Chair Larson, Superintendent Peter Olson-Skoog, Directors of the Board, it is my pleasure to be able to share with you an update related to one of our three focus areas of the strategic framework. our equity focus area. I think that I also just as a start to the presentation just want to shout out our equity advisory. I'll be updating you more on equity advisory in the May school

132board meeting. But the implementation targets objectives that I'm going to share with you this evening, a lot of that work is done by our equity advisory. We involve other stakeholders as well, but none of this work would be done without them. They provide, like it says, input and feedback at our monthly meetings. And this is a representative group of our school district that includes students, staff. family members, we have site representatives, those from the district, folks from different gender identities, and so many more ways that this is a diverse group representing the district. And I have the honor of being able to have a leadership role in the equity work that we do. But by no means am I the equity leader for School District 197. In fact, the school board policy that you all

133created states that we are all responsible for equity in this school district. One of the reasons that I'm so... proud to work here is this is something that is embodied not just by you all but as we go down the list superintendent and educational equity coordinator our equity advisory members district leaders site leaders teachers staff students and families people really take on that that responsibility The focus area is broken down into seven parts and those represent the seven commitments from the school board policy. And I'm going to share just a few highlights from those here with you now and we'll do a few more highlights again in the spring. Our first commitment area is diverse classrooms and schools. And we have just one objective this year in this area. And it's just been a pleasure

134working with... Dr. Johnson and the team there, they are really committed to having students be involved at Two Rivers High School. And part of it comes from a research base, right? We know that when students are involved in an extracurricular activity, that they're more likely to attend school. They're gonna... have better achievement. They're gonna have aspirations to continue their education afterwards. And so they've already had three activities fairs and these are just opportunities for students to learn about all the different opportunities available, whether it's a club or a service group or a sporting event or anything else. They've also wanted to reduce any barriers for kids to participate in activities and things that have a fee to them. And so they've made a greater effort to communicate about the reduced fee opportunities or even free

135opportunities that are available, financial assistance. And just a couple of highlights here. Since fall of 23, they've started 15 new student interest clubs. So you heard Dr. Johnson says, anybody comes to me with an idea, I try to find a way, and that's true. Just a few that I wanted to highlight here that have been started within the last couple of years. There's been a new Jewish student club, a new Muslim student club, and a new Asian and Pacific Islander club. So just lots of ways for kids. to get involved, to have that space for them to be themselves. And so in 24-25 so far with the fall and winter seasons, the school has had a duplicated count of 451 boys and 362 girls participate in a sport. We have more readily available data on

136that, which is why I'm sharing sport information. An unduplicated count, so in other words, Kids might have in that first count if they were in both a fall and a winter sport they were counted twice but if you just talk about individual kids 366 boys 312 girls that puts us at 672 so far this year Last year for the whole year including spring season we were at 800 and so the school is well on their way to surpassing the number of students participating last year And I would also be remiss if I didn't share that the combined average GPA of all the students in fall sports was a 3.36. So students who are involved are also pulling good grades. Our next commitment area is teacher and leader quality and diversity and this probably has the

137most objectives and I'm gonna highlight just one in particular a number of these will we'll talk about in other ways, but I wanted to highlight the very first one on that page, which was implementing supporting Native American students, professional development for all licensed staff. So Nel Bari, our American Indian Education Coordinator, and Kevin Sheridan, our Educational Equity Coordinator, collaborated to develop a training for licensed staff related to supporting Native students. And the session that they developed supported staff in furthering their awareness and understanding of all the native tribes in Minnesota. It also allowed for an opportunity to learn about the history of boarding schools both nationally and here specifically in Minnesota and the legacy and the impact that that continues to have to this day on our students and families. And it also provided practical

138strategies to better support native students during the school day. And so Nell and Kevin were able to go to all 10 of our sites and provide this training throughout the fall this year. And I think just a shout out to them. You know, one principal reached out unsolicited and just said, thank you for this professional development opportunity and noted that it was just such an impactful training and that a number of staff stopped this principal and just told them how impactful it had been for them and grown their own understanding and really spurred them to action. So thanks to them and all the work that they have been doing and Just one of the other outcomes of this is it's just provided relationship building specifically for NEL and each of our sites. And so while

139she was already connected to places like Pilot Knob and others, this really opened the door for NEL and even more collaborations with our sites. We also have one objective related to equitable resource allocation. This is kind of ongoing work with the superintendent and finance director. I don't have any updates for you on this at our presentation here tonight, however. For equitable curriculum instruction and assessment, I want to focus, highlight here on planning for the development of a native language course offering at the high school. So we're pleased to share that progress is being made for offering a college credit bearing course in Ojibwe language at Two Rivers for the coming school year. A key part of this was getting a native language revitalization grant that we were awarded this past summer. Really excited about that.

140We're in the process of finalizing a contract with Metro State and they've already identified two potential instructors for the course and student recruitment efforts are already underway and with student registration coming up to our students please check out that registration guide and consider registering because we need students to be able to fill that class. In fact, 20 students is the target. We're grateful for the collaboration with the Curriculum Instruction and Assessment Team and specifically the Secondary Curriculum Coordinator, Miles Lawson, for his efforts in making this work for our students. For the commitment related to equitable school and classroom environments, I want to highlight our implementation and the use of the diversity, equity, and inclusion tool that was developed by Equity Advisory last year. So the picture here, I think, you know, a picture is worth

141a thousand words, so to speak. But the purpose of developing this tool was for school leaders and their teams to be able to enhance even more the space to be welcoming to all. And so this is now the first thing folks see when they walk into Two Rivers High School. And it's a welcome in, I believe it is. of the languages at the time that were spoken at the at the high school and of course that changes over time but just what a way to walk in and and feel that welcome where in your home language you're being welcomed into that space One other example of how this tool is being used at Mendota Elementary, staff are going to be engaging with the tool as a way to reflect on their own classroom spaces and

142determine a next step and how they can make it even more welcoming to students in their classrooms. Another school has used it with their leadership team and has planned some changes to their front office and how their front office will operate as a result of using that tool. For equitable student leadership and voice, these are really targets that are all in progress and so we look forward to sharing some more updates later in the spring. For equitable family and community partnerships, I want to highlight two things. The first is the increase in parent academy or similar type opportunities and the second increasing the number of cultural liaisons in the school district. So starting with the increase in cultural liaisons, we have been able to add a cultural liaison at the high school and then another

143position that split half time between Heritage and Pilot Knob. We also increased the early learning center cultural liaison position from a point we've had some staffing changes and that went from a 0.5 cultural liaison to a full-time cultural liaison position. If you include our interpreters and translators, that brings the total cultural liaisons, interpreters and translators, up to 12 in the school district. And they play such a critical role in a bridge between staff and families and also in supporting students in our schools. Another specific way that we are striving to build equitable family and community partnerships is by expanding our parent academy offerings. Just as a reminder, Parent Academy sessions were offered at Pilot Knob for the first time this past fall. So we've had those sessions at other schools where we've had cultural liaisons

144and we were able to add a session at Pilot Knob. We had 14 Spanish-speaking families engage in those classes aimed at building stronger connections to the school, connecting families with each other. and to further empower families to support their children's academic success. So we've recently started gathering more formal feedback around Parent Academy. We've always done that informally. Families love Parent Academy. But I just wanted to share a couple of comments from the most recent feedback that we got. We asked the question, what did you like best about Parent Academy sessions you attended and what were some of your favorite topics? One response was knowing more about how to help our students. focusing them more on missing tasks as motivation, how to have apps for children's information related to school, how to support them for a

145career in the future, how to support them day by day. I like it a lot because my son stays to help with missing tasks and that was thanks to Parent Academy. We also ask how likely are you to recommend Parent Academy to others, scale of one to five, and collectively the average score was five. In other words, every last parent scored a five. And so families really appreciate it. You know, any changes that are offered for families is just have more of it. They're always looking to be able to connect with each other and learn from the cultural liaisons and that concludes my report thank you dr mel questions go ahead Thank you so much. Can I just ask, and it's okay if you don't have an answer for me tonight, but I'd like to

146hear how the partnership with HBCUs is going. I don't have that information for you. Yes, I will. So one of the beautiful things about, remember I said I'm not the leader for equity, and I mentioned our CIA department. I think there's an item or two on here related to our operations department. I don't oversee all the implementation, so I'll have to reach out and get back to you on that one. Anything else for Dr. Mao? Go ahead, John. Thank you. I feel like, unfortunately, I didn't... Before I ask my earlier questions, I don't think I thanked people ahead of time, so thank you. Thank you to all the people. You're welcome. Thank you. So, questions. So, cultural liaisons. So... That is correct me if I'm wrong. We've grown over the past five or six years.

147We have grown a number of cultural liaisons in the district considerably. Yes. I will not correct you on that. Excellent. I think we've gone from like around six to 12 or something like that. I mean, going back a quarter. Yeah, I don't have the exact number off the top of my head, but yeah, I would say in the last four or five years, we've probably close to doubled the number of liaisons. So, you know, based on our student demographics, most of our cultural liaisons are Spanish-speaking cultural liaisons, but we do also have an East African cultural liaison. and we brought that position on, I believe it was in the 19-20 school year. We also, of course, have Nel Bari, who also is a district-wide cultural liaison, but we have seen our numbers grow for both

148students receiving English as a second language services and then just the pure number of students who speak languages in addition to English. Yeah, and that's, I mean, thank you to the administration for making resourcing those roles a priority and I think tying it into like bigger picture issues like Thank you community for right loving funds supporting our district because this is absolutely type of thing not the specific thing But the type of thing that we probably couldn't do unless we had those resources and that funding So anyway tied it into like gratitude for broader community whether it's legislators legislature Providing more funds and community specifically providing more funds like I think this is this this help helps encompass what it means to be inclusive you know serve different communities so anyway thank you i'll just

149i'll just add and it wasn't necessarily uh room for all this in the presentation tonight but our cultural liaisons just they add so much to our our schools and the the community of each of the schools that they serve It really is incredible in terms when we talk about having welcoming spaces When we talk about having strong communities where all people feel like they belong Our cultural liaisons play an absolute critical role in that And they can't be they can't be thanked enough I will say thank you as well. But specifically I wanted to thank, excuse me, Nell, who we've had a lot of exposure to the work she's doing, which is amazing, but to all the people involved to make that implementation of that training district-wide, you said the word impactful three times. Yeah.

150And the reason that worked is from where I sit is because as opposed to being small siloed, there was just... broad-based, everybody, no matter what they were teaching, got that, received that base level of history, which is important. And it gives them, as teachers, even though it's not their subject, the context then to understand, and obviously it's going to help them deal with all their students in terms of that narrative, which is challenging, painful, but it's the truth. So thank you for that. Absolutely. And just to pile on to that, not just those 10 schools, she's going to come present it to the board, too. So thank you, John, for that idea. I think we're going to benefit from that, too. So go ahead. Just another, this is to Carrie Jo and the new teacher

151orientation team, and actually to our teacher union as well. They do a nice little collaborative of doing a pilot NABO Heawahe. field trip field trip busted I mean we got on the buses and we went out there and then once you get out there is a wonderful history lesson that's that's done and I think I think we are getting a much more increased sense of place as a district an increased sense of understanding of where we sit and we sit in a very very important place and and I think there's a growing community understanding of that that's happening through new teacher orientation staff training things that we're working into warrior seminar in terms of the the new classes area geography i mean carry joe you could go on and on say that again human geography

152so um we still have more work to do you know i've i've appreciated the uh the boards and and others commendations of the work that that we're doing but i think Part of what is helping us get to the spot that we're at is that we're always recognizing that there is more for us to work on. As many things as we've said are going well, there's still plenty that we hear every day. The board's aware that I have a commitment this year to having one-on-one interviews with about 200 staff members. It's been great to continue to hear. Yes, this is wonderful. We really appreciate the support and here's something we can think about. And the more that we can put those in place and keep growing, that's how we'll continue to be a wonderful place

153for students and families and our staff. I'll just take a moment to also reflect globally on the presentations tonight. I presented like the district level objectives for our equity implementation targets. But when you listen to those three sites and I know the other seven sites as well, you heard about efforts at those schools that are being done through an equity lens, right, of inclusion, diversity, and equity. And so again, that whole idea of we are all accountable, yes, these are the district level, district-wide things, but that's not the only things that are happening in this school district. To really live out that belief statement of our diversity makes us stronger. Thank you, Dr. Mello. All right. I feel like this is a delightful way to end the meeting. So I will read the future dates

154at some point. Okay, wonderful. So upcoming dates. January 15th is the 2SLGBTQ. Oh my gosh, too long. It's late at night. 2SLGBTQ plus parent and guardian meeting. The 16th through the 18th, like Patrick said, was the Two Rivers One Act Plays. Student written One Act Plays, correct? yes uh 20th to the 22nd there's no school the 20th is that key clubbing key club morning of service event 23rd kindergarten registration night already getting ready for next year and the district band festival on january 30th plenty to look forward to but with that i would accept a motion to adjourn i'll make a motion to adjourn thank you byron we get a second I'll second. Thank you, Marcus. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? And we're adjourned. Thank you.