May 6 2024 School Board Meeting

001Good evening. I'd like to call the May 6th meeting to order and ask everybody to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you, everyone. We have a full room, and I love it. And I know it's just because of recognitions, but that's okay. Okay, first item on our agenda is approval of the agenda. Can I get a motion to approve? Motion to approve. Byron? Second. Second by Marcus. All those in favor, signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? Thank you, that passes. For the consent agenda tonight, we do have an addition of one item, and everyone has it in front of them. It's a

002field trip for... Oh, gosh. It's the... Super mileage car field trip. Super mileage car field trip to Brainerd International Raceway. So that'll be added to the consent agenda. So can I get a motion to approve it as amended? So moved. Thank you, Morgan. Second? Second. Ooh, Byron got it. All right, all those in favor signify by saying aye. Aye. Those opposed? All right, that passes. Thank you. All right, tonight the listening session report is by me, and I'm here to report that no one was at the listening session. Welcome, Tim. He can still join. Just a reminder that we do have listening sessions before the meetings the first of the month for an hour before the meeting you get to meet with two board members for future interest. Next item on our agenda. My favorite

003item is recognitions and I'll turn it over to the superintendent Thank you chair Larson tonight we are celebrating three different student groups and we are gonna start with the Garlo fourth graders who participated in this year's Minnesota zoos zooms stem design challenge and they finished second place out of 1516 teams across the state students develop solutions to real challenges at the zoo from exhibit design to animal enrichment. So Abby, Josephine, and Noel came up with a plan to redesign the bison and prairie dog, which is my son's favorite exhibit, so I can't wait to hear, the bison and prairie dog habitats and impressed judges with their research, scientific observation, creative problem solving, engineering, and the overall presentation. So we will now hand it over to Garlow teacher and Zooms coach. Chris Goldad to introduce the

004students and to share more about this accomplishment. So come on up. Hello and thank you for inviting us to join you tonight. We are very excited to be here. I am Chris Goldad and I teach at Garlo third and fourth grade GT and basic skills. Each year the students I work with in third and fourth grade participate in the Minnesota Zooms Challenge and it's a very rigorous and challenging program. And I'm so proud of what all the students accomplished. And beside me are three individuals that had a little extra success. And they are very eager to condense all that they presented at the zoo to a very short synopsis and let you know how things went and a little bit more about the program. So I'm going to start with Noel. Hi, my name is

005Noelle Stuckel. I am part of this amazing team. We competed in the Minnesota Zoo Zooms Competition Redesign Challenge. Every year, the Minnesota Zoo picks one zoo exhibit to redesign and update. This year, they chose to redesign the Prairie Dog and Bison exhibit. There were 1,516 projects submitted in the Zooms competition this year from schools all around the state. Out of all those teams, about 30 teams were chosen to go to the Minnesota Zoo to present their projects. Three teams from Garlow were chosen. We went to the Minnesota Zoo, set up our projects, and presented for three judges at different times. One Flint Hills engineer and employee judge, the sponsor of Zooms, and two judges from the Minnesota Zoo who were zookeepers. We presented in the morning and got to explore the zoo for a few

006hours before the awards ceremony. We won second place out of 1,516 teams. That was a lot of work involved in participating in Zooms. In this project, we had to research, redesign, and build an updated exhibit for the bison and prairie dogs at the Minnesota Zoo. That met the needs of the zookeepers, animals, and visitors. We used the design process to create everything, going forwards and backwards in the process of all the steps. We had to research all there is to know about the bison and prairie dogs, including conservation, diet, habitat, etc. We spent all of December researching both animals. Then in January, we started to design and redesign the exhibits. Also in January, we started to build our project. Building our project carried into February, and in February, we also put together our trifold board

007describing our work and project. That is three long months of preparation. Here are some reasons why we won. Hello, my name is Josephine Foss. We created three different enrichments, or a fancy way of saying toys for animals. The enrichments are creative ways to simulate and increase activities for the animals. They earn treats and other motivating things. We worked well together as a team to do everything. We stayed in from recess so we had extra time, and we would be able to finish by the Minnesota Zoo's deadline in... February we worked hard participating and presenting We presented to our families as well as other community Member judges that came to garlow to give us feedback We had success because we didn't stick to one person's idea We combined all of our ideas together and thought of

008things and ideas together that added up to our final product design We had many problems to solve. One of the problems was that the prairie dogs were digging their way out of their exhibit, which caused problems for the zookeepers to find them. The current exhibit had some barriers. Underground to keep the prairie dogs in their exhibit But the prairie dogs would dig farther down and go under the barrier Our solution was to create an upside down dome barrier underground Which would keep the prairie dogs from being able to dig under any barriers and keep them in their exhibit? Hi, my name is Abigail Montoya-Marino. In this challenge, we mentioned that we had to think about how we would meet the needs of the animals, visitors, and zookeepers. Here are more of the ideas that we

009came up with. We made all parts of the exhibit functional and fun for the visitors by adding an extra viewing building further into the exhibit. The building has 3D glasses for visitors to use and have a better, more fun way to learn about conservation, saving the endangered bison. Also in the prairie dog exhibit, we added a plexiglass bubble that connects to the path and then slants down so that visitors can walk down it and be at eye level with the prairie dogs. For the zookeepers, we solved the overgrazing problem. The problem was that the bison were eating or grazing too fast. We solved that problem by adding an overgrazing fence. The fence is right down the middle of the exhibit. The overgrazing fence keeps the bison on one side of the exhibit at a time.

010Let's say they're on the left side of the exhibit. The viewing building is on the right side of the exhibit. You would think that the visitors wouldn't be able to see the bison, right? Well, we designed a fence which is made out of natural locks and acts like a window screen. There is one row across it in the middle, so you can still see the bison if they are on the other side of the exhibit. The reason the bison are kept on one side is because while the bison are on one side of the exhibit, then the other side will be able to have time to regrow the grass that the bison ate. And then when the other side is done growing, the bison switch sides. There is a spot in the fence that moves

011like a gate, so the zookeepers can easily open and close it to move the animals. We also added shade, food, enrichments, and another water feature, so both sides of the exhibit gave the bison water. And those are some big reasons why we got second place. Thank you for having us and thank you for listening to our presentation. Next, we'd like to bring up these students representing the new Two Rivers Asian and Pacific Islander Club and Principal Al Johnson, who will be introducing them. But before I hand it over to Al, I'll just share that this year alone, students have started 16 new clubs, and the Asian Pacific Islander Club is one of them. We're happy to have them here tonight, especially as May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. And so, Principal Johnson, please

012come on up and introduce these students. Good evening. This is an exciting time again. The hope at Two Rivers is that for every student to find a space that they can feel that belonging. And what's great is that students can get into affinity. They can talk about things that's really important to them and share experiences. I recall having three young ladies come to my office, Autumn, Winter and summer? Windy? There it is. And I kind of did that same thing there. And they said, Mr. Johnson, can we start an Asian club? I'm like, absolutely. Let's do that. And they have come up with some fantastic ideas. And I've been into a couple of their meetings, and it's absolutely a ball. They're having a good time. They're building connections. So I would like to invite three

013of the members up. Jay Wynn, Autumn Herr, and Anthony Rocha, and have you all ask them some questions, and if you could share a little bit more about what you all do. Hi, everyone. I'm Jay Wynn, and I don't really know what to introduce myself as because we don't really have set roles besides Autumn, but I just mainly do the social media account, so I'm like our social media manager, and I also make flyers for just advertising, and then sometimes I talk to the activities office. Hi, I'm I guess the president of the club including my friends here and some others like Winter? Just kidding. Windy, Zong, and Summer Vang. We like to celebrate national Asian holidays. I think just like Saturday, I think we just celebrated Cinco with the Almaz group, which is pretty

014fun. Hi, I'm Anthony, and I don't really have a specific role. I just kind of help out with whatever they need, snacks, food, beverages, whatever they could get for them. I'm there. I want to know what year each of you are. What year are you at Two Rivers? We're both juniors, and he's a senior. I'm a senior, yeah. All right, do we have any questions for this three? Just a quick comment. You did a good job at the mic at the event Saturday and please tell the students who performed that was really amazing. And it was just part to see. A multicultural event, including the Thai and Hmong dances. They were wonderful. Yes, thank you. I was pretty nervous the first time I went up there. It was kind of embarrassing because I'm Hmong, and

015I don't really understand my language that well. And so it took me a while to learn how to pronunciate my language because we have eight tones. So it's really hard for us, well, me specifically. But there's gang. and , which are just the three dances for the Hmong. And then for the Thai dance, we did and I think just . Yeah. But those are just the few dances that I had to talk about before Wendy Zong and Ariel. I don't know her last name sadly, but those two wonderful dancers who were on the same Hmong dance team before Wendy moved into a different dance studio and does her own stuff now. But it was really fun. Oh, sorry. It was very fun seeing them dance. They usually perform every Hmong New Year. I always go

016to their Madison one and the lacrosse one. Sometimes Milwaukee, so I like to see them dance everywhere. Oh, especially here too. But they like to do competitions here. I think last year, Athena's, which is their group that they used to dance in, they got second place. Yeah. Go ahead, Laurie. That's awesome. I have a question for all three of you. So at the end of each meeting, what is something you hope that your group members get out of the meeting? Like, what do you hope to accomplish with your group? Yeah, that's a great question. So I really want us to just bond more as a community because there really isn't that much. Asian descent people here, just a good group of us. Right now we have around 20 people, which I hope we can have

017many more with or without some kind of Asian DNA in us. Because I want us to be united as one and just be happy. You know what I mean? And yeah, it's not just like Asian people in our club as well, because I believe our Asian population at school is around 3%, so it's very low. Anyone's welcome into our club, and just having like that community where everyone just bonds together no matter what ethnicity you are is like a really nice thing to have. That's awesome. That's really cool. I love it. Any other questions for these three? One more, and admittedly... Since we have one senior present, right? One senior. Just curious if you have thoughts on what you'll be doing next year. Next year? So next year I'm going to be taking a gap

018year where I could get more experience into what my dad does, which is mechanic and landscaping. So I just want to put in all the effort as much as I can because my dad is also slowly incapable of doing all the jobs and stuff. So I just want to pitch it as much as I can before I do my own thing. Thank you so much. Good luck. I think a gap year is a fantastic idea. Not just because I attended maybe four or five colleges and took some time to figure out what I wanted to do. I'm sure your dad appreciates it. Well, thank you guys. We appreciate it. No, thank you for it. I really appreciate you guys inviting us. Thank you so much. Thank you, Dr. Johnson. Well, next we'd like to recognize

019the two of our students who recently passed the state recognized bilingual and multilingual SEALs test. So this winter, more than 40 students in grades 11 and 12 demonstrated language proficiency in one or more of the following languages. Amharic, French, German, Russian, Slovak, Somali, and Spanish. The bilingual and multilingual SEALs were created as an official recognition by the state of Minnesota. for proficiency in a language in addition to English. At School District 197, it's a way for us to acknowledge the value of speaking more than one language while recognizing that students bring a variety of linguistic assets to our classroom community. So tonight we have Andrea Sions and Miles Lawson to help us introduce the students. So come on up. All right, hello everyone. Today we're talking a little bit about honoring these wonderful students and

020talking about the Multilingual and Bilingual SEALs program. Integrating the SEALS program in our district aligns with many aspects of our strategic framework. These include but are not limited to reducing gaps in student outcomes such as earning college credits, making visible ways in which our diversity makes us stronger, and increasing E12 opportunities for college and career exploration and preparation. So each year Andre and I sit and we talk about the next year's administration for the bilingual sales and we try to think of some goals that can help direct some of the work and so last year we were trying to find ways to expand the number of students tested, number of languages tested. We did that again this year. Those were two of our goals. We also thought it'd be good to see if we can't

021find a way to incorporate the bilingual seals and some of the curriculum review work that we do too. So that could be inside the school day and some of the advanced courses we have. So we had, those were our goals. And just to walk back in time real quick is back in 2020, there was three students who would have stood up, stood with us up here. And in 2021, there was five, 2022, there was 17, 2023, there was 19. And now 2024, we have 44 students who completed. who participated in the bilingual SEALS test this year. Back in 21, we had two languages we were assessing two years ago. We got up to six. We were at six again last year. And then this year, we increased the number of languages tested to seven this

022year. And so it's pretty exciting because we keep seeing this program grow. I think there's actually the timeliness of behind it is the Department of Education here in Minnesota has released some information around a report that the effect something like this can have on students' outcomes as they persist into and through college. And some of them are just, some students reported in this research that they may not have been planning to go to college, but when they got the award, they got the first taste of, oh, I might be able to do this. I might as well go ahead and go for my entire college degree. Or everyone says college is hard so I felt like if I could pass this maybe I could go to college too. Those things make a big difference and

023so this is just another way many of our students can access what it feels like to be participating in college experiences. So the real highlights are standing right here. Just a couple more sound bites. Back in 2023 we had 56 total credits earned. This last year we had 112 college credits earned in 2024. So exactly 200%. And we are still almost at nearly 100% passing rate each time students take these tests. So. That's all the sound bites. Without any further ado, I think the most exciting part is we'd like to ask, I don't know if they knew this ahead of time, but we're going to ask each of them to come up and just introduce you. I told them we were going to embarrass you. Yeah. Have each of them introduce who they are, their

024names, the language that they were assessed in. Some students did assess in multiple languages, so if that comes up, that's why. But without any further ado. Andrew, you want to get us started? All right, let's start. Hi, I'm Andrew Naya Ledesma. I'm a senior at Two Rivers. I don't know if the mic went on. I assessed in Spanish. I'm Isabella Carlson. I'm a junior, and I took the Slovak test. My name is Giselle, and I'm an 11th grade student, and I took the Spanish assessment. I'm Aida Richards. I'm a junior, and I took French. I'm Griffin Lawrence. I'm a senior, and I took Russian. My name is Jared Garza. I'm a junior in Two Rivers, and I took the Spanish test. My name is Mariana. I'm a junior, and I took the Spanish test. My

025name is Samuel Derreje. I'm a senior, and I took the MHARC test. I'm Brian Flores. I'm a junior in Two Rivers, and I took the Spanish test. We get everybody? I think we got everybody. I think that's everybody. Additionally, I would just like to add that this year half of the students were either have English learner status or have former English learner status. So we're trying to increase that population of students taking the test as well. So we're super proud of all these students. They took a lot of time out of their schedule to take the test. It is a long, lengthy test. And their stamina was fantastic. They did a great job. Awesome. Oh, thank you. Do we have any questions for these guys? Maybe not all of them because it couldn't take us

026hours, but go ahead, Mark. Yeah, the one question that I kept running through my mind and not all of you have to answer it, but what was the most challenging part of taking the test other than it was long? Okay, go for it. Okay, I personally feel like speaking was my most difficult part of the test. I do pretty good at reading. I do pretty good at writing. Speaking at home is good, but I felt like the pressure of doing well. So I kind of think that speaking was the hardest part in the test. So there were all three aspects involved in testing, both reading, writing, and speaking? I think there's four. There's reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Listening was the easiest, honestly. Thank you. Go ahead, Morgan. My question was going to be between

027the four modalities, listening, reading, speaking, and writing, which did you feel like was your strength? Listening. Yeah, definitely. I hear my mom and my dad talk to me every day in Spanish. So, yeah, we just use Spanish at home, so it just comes naturally to me. It's every parent's dream to have their kids say that listening is their strength. I don't know if they would agree. You admitted it, though. Who else wants to answer that one? I think one of my strengths is speaking, just because not only do I speak it at home, but I speak it at work. I mostly do translating at work as well. And I work in a restaurant, which is like, there's many cultures there. So it's something that I can do naturally. Anybody else? You're all very eager to

028speak. I can feel it. I have a question. My strength is both equally listening and speaking. English is my second language, so I already know the language pretty well. Awesome. I just have a question anyone can answer. I do a lot of work by myself, so I listen to the voices in my head. And I only speak English, so I wonder if you happen to have voices in your head, please say you do. What language do they speak? That's a good question. Like, what do you think? Yeah, what are you thinking? I'm self-taught Russian, so I've been learning for the past three years. So a good way to practice, I found, was to just say it in my head and stuff and just keep practicing that way. Self-taught. not Russian. I'm kind of curious to

029know what attracted you to Russian as a language? I don't really know why necessarily. It was just something since like seventh grade or something I've been interested in. And then my freshman year when it was COVID, I just was like, may as well just start doing it. No time, but now I guess. It's a good use of your COVID time. Are there any seniors that would like to share with us what you're doing next year? I got a guess on one. I know. I plan to go to college next year. I'm deciding right now between Winona or community, you know, to get my generals done and everything. After that, I think I'm majoring in business administration, and we'll see where that takes me. Awesome. Anybody else? I'll be majoring in mechanical engineering for the next

030four years at University of Michigan. His shirt tricked us. You got in there too? Any other questions for this group? I kind of wanted you all to come up and say hello in your language. That was going to be my question. Oh, but Laurie's going to go first. Go ahead, Laurie. First of all, congratulations. That is huge, and I think this will create so many opportunities for you in the future. Is learning the language that you have all dedicated so much time to learning, is this something you plan on keeping and you're going to use, or is it kind of once you're done with, I don't know, high school, or you finish the test, are you kind of like... You're done with it. Does that make sense? Like are you is this yeah, so basically

031yes, okay Well, many of the students you see here learned the language that they were tested in first, and English might be their second or third or even fourth language. So anyone who tested in a language that you don't know first? Okay, so I did French, and it's my second language. And for sure I'm going to keep it later in life, and I'm going to go to places where they speak French, and I definitely plan on using it in college. So I will definitely keep using it. Yay! All right, I changed my question. Everybody come up and say goodbye. I'm not going to get anyone to do it. I am serious, yes. You don't know if they're right. First I realized we didn't give us the opportunity to ask our more our Zoo scientists any

032questions. So does anyone have any questions? Do you want questions or do you not want questions? Okay questions for our scientists go ahead Tim Not a question I comment you mentioned that you each had ideas, but you decided it was best to work together that was very Impressive to see that focus on a collaboration that instinct will serve you. Well great work. Thank you Go ahead, Marcus. A comment and a question. So if you guys came in second with all of those great ideas, I can't even imagine who came in first and what sort of ideas they had because those were fantastic ideas. My question is, how did you come up with the idea around the upside-down barrier? How did that come to be? Okay, so the barriers that were there before, they just kind

033of were like walls underneath the ground, but then the prairie dogs could just dig deeper and escape. So I think the way that we came up with it was we listened to all the other teams present at our school, and we realized how they were doing it. They all decided deeper in the graph. And we were like, how could we make that better and just add more to it? Because they could still dig under the barrier. So we decided to just close it off. Ingenious. So did you interview any prairie dogs to find out what worked or didn't work? Did first place get the bison and you get to take home a prairie dog? Because then you really won first place. I was going to ask, what's your favorite animal, whether it's a garlo or

034any animal at all, and why? My favorite animal at Garlow is probably, we were all in the same class in third grade and it was a guinea pig named Kirby. And that's probably my favorite animal at Garlow. And you got a vote in the back too. And my favorite animal is a sea turtle. My favorite animal at Garlow is also the guinea pig. And my favorite animal in general are just turtles. My favorite animal at Garlow is probably the dogs, and my favorite animal is dogs. Awesome. Thank you. Well, okay, now every group that got recognized gets to come take a picture. So how about we start with Garlow? Okay. Talk amongst yourselves. Thanks, Chris. Thank you. I used to sign with my hand just at the sides of my hand. Just to practice, yeah.

035Just when I was talking or communicating or thinking. Have any of you studied a foreign language? Sign language. That was my language I studied in college. I'll dream in Norwegian. If somebody told me that's your brain saying, I'm going to forget this. I'd practice it. I did French in high school. And Latin, which is a forgotten language now. I don't know that schools teach Latin. Thank you. It's my... Sign for me, too. Do you have any pre-K assessment things you need to deal with? This is the next hardest part. We'll let Chris try to get that out. She's going to come in the doors. She's talented. She can do everything. He should be helping. That's a good plan. That's a good plan. All right. The game got a little smaller. Not that the next item

036isn't just as important. I will turn it back over to the superintendent. Yep, and I will turn it over to the students for their report for the month. Good evening everyone. It is finally May and we are very excited to wrap up this student report and the end of the school year There's many different events going on. So we'll get right into it On the 8th, there's a cultural fair happening at pilot knob also on the 8th Garlo is having a plant sale from 9 to 5 and some of the plants there are homegrown at Garlo, which is so cool. On the 14th, Garlo is having a Culver's night from 4 to 7 at the West St. Paul Culver's. And also for Garlo on the 14th, there's an environmental explorer happening. So you can go

037there and there'll be someone describing all the different things that Garlo has to offer and everything that they do. On the 22nd, Garlow's having a book fair, and on the 24th, there's a field day happening at Somerset, and Garlow's having their fourth grade musical and the book fair also on the 24th. And I reached out to the principals asking if they have a few things they'd like to add about... their school or any fun events coming on that they would like the public to know. So here's some things that they said. At Moreland, Mr. Sully said that the first week of June, our artists will be working with the community to install the art pieces that help make our building shine, and they know it's going to be great. At Somerset, Ms. Huddle said that

038Somerset just held their annual project fair, and there were over 50 projects submitted, as well as several engineering stations brought in by the Minnesota Science Museum. And, she said, a special shout out to all of the Two Rivers NHS students for volunteering to run the engineering stations for the evening. They are also working on... to raise money for a fully accessible and inclusive playground at Somerset. They recently received an anonymous donation of $200,000 and will be able to move ahead with their playground installation this summer with just over $50,000 left to raise. At Mendota, Mr. Goldad said that they are dedicating the Mary Jo Skemp Pergola on Wednesday, May 8th from 3 to 4 p.m. with a short dedication program at 3.30. And the community is invited, so please come. At Garlow, the third and

039fourth graders are getting ready for their May 23rd performance of Frog and Toad musical, and the students are practicing after school for two hours a day, and they are very committed and excited. The school will be followed by an all-school field trip to the Children's Theater to see a year with Frog and Toad on May 29th. Also for Garlow, the fourth graders are busy preparing for the Shops of Garlow. Over the course of a couple months, students learn what it takes to run a business. Their event is opening up and they're selling all of their products that they have there. And the Garlow Shops will take place on May 30th. From Pilot Knob, Mr. Benson said, at Pilot Knob Magnet School, they are doing an all-school family literacy book club, and they are reading Ribsy

040by Beverly Cleary. And also he wanted to note, at Pilot Knob, we do great work and read, read, read. So those were a few comments from our elementary principals. As for the middle school, things are kind of quieting down over there, but wrapping things up, students are doing great work. On May 16th, the Friendly Hills Middle School 5th and 6th grade choir concert is happening. And on the 16th, Heritage All Grades Choir concert is happening. And on the 17th, Heritage 8th grade formal is happening. So shout out to all of those students getting ready for those events. May is a big month for seniors in our district. There's a lot of transitioning as students finally come to decisions regarding college and careers. Graduation is on June 2nd, which is less than a month away. The

041class of 2024 is saving their last bit of time together. On September 6th, we started the year strong by gathering on the football field and watching a very early sunrise as a class. On May 30th, we'll come together and watch the sunset as we say our final goodbye to Two Rivers. On May 1st, Two Rivers celebrated its seniors by participating in National College and Career Decision Day. There were cupcakes and photos at lunch as seniors wore college apparel to show where they plan to continue their education. However, we would like to acknowledge that due to FAFSA delays, not every senior has come to a conclusion, so good luck to those still making decisions. Tomorrow, May 7th at 7.30 in the auditorium, Two Rivers is acknowledging all of the class of 2024 athletes who plan to

042compete in the NCAA. This year we have a range of athletes competing in Division I sports to Division III sports. Two Rivers Dollars for Scholars is also hosting its annual awards ceremony on May 22nd from 7 to 9 p.m. This is a time for seniors to be awarded... scholarships from the community and be recognized for their academic and athletic achievements as well as student leadership community service and student government activities In the high school, just last weekend, Two Rivers upperclassmen enjoyed their prom at the Mall of America, and the night was filled with lots of dancing, including colluded with rides throughout Naglodion Universe. The Two Rivers Almost group is keeping it busy this May as well. They hosted a multicultural dance this past Saturday. Multiple different groups performed, including the Almost group, the Two Rivers

043Asian Pacific Islander community, and the Two Rivers Cheer Squad. The Heritage Middle School Mariachi Band also performed, and there were special guests from the Tartan High School Latino Club as well. On May 13th at 7 p.m., there's a district orchestra festival in the Two-Overs Auditorium and a choir concert on May 20th. The Two-Overs Band will have its final concert of the year on May 16th. Many sports have been in full swing, with baseball having an 8-3 record, with all of their losses being very, very close games. The track... The track team hosted their very first ever Warrior Relay Meet a few weeks ago when it was still pretty cold. This meet consisted of a few different teams where each of the athletes got to run some races that aren't usually a part of high school

044competition. The track team looks forward to hosting the Metro East Conference Meet when it is much warmer on May 21st and 23rd. Boys tennis recently shut out Hastings with a 7-0 match, while softball had a huge win recently as well. Boys and girls lacrosse Both recently traveled to Duluth and their weekends were filled with fun and games. This week marks the beginning of Teacher Appreciation Week, so we would like to thank our teachers for all of the hard work and investments that they make in our students. Our district really wouldn't be the same without them. May 16th through the 17th is AP testing weeks, so good luck to all our AP students. As we conclude, Lorraine and I would like to thank the members of the school board and Superintendent Olsen-Skoog for this opportunity to

045be student reps this year. It has been a truly wonderful experience to represent all the students of ISD 197. Thank you. It is hard to believe the last month of... school year so schools are as you heard excellently from our student representatives hosting a myriad of end of year activities and students are receiving rewards schools are receiving rewards and we are well underway with preparations for next school year already on the topic of awards i would am proud to announce that the two rivers high school has again secured a spot in this year's U.S. News and World Report Best High Schools list. Of the 896 schools in Minnesota, Two Rivers has ranked in the top 5% based on test scores, access to and participation in college-level learning, and more. Even more exciting, this year's ranking

046is an improvement from last year's top 10% spot. And as Principal Johnson shared last week, this achievement directly reflects the dedication of our staff, the hard work of our students, and the support of our families and community. We also believe that this recognition extends beyond Two Rivers. It's a testament to the strong educational foundation that's built up from our early learning center through the elementary schools to the middle schools, and then, yes, at Two Rivers High School. They are nurtured throughout their student journey here in School District 197. So congratulations to the entire school community for this recognition. Speaking of something that makes Two Rivers special, you can see in the slide there that last week's, some pictures from last week's Senior Career Fair. So we had nearly 60 employers joined the Seniors Career Fair

047this year, offering a diverse range of industries for students to explore. Students had the opportunity to interact with the employers and learn about full-time employment options, on-the-job training programs, and the benefit of each opportunity. So special thanks to all of the staff who helped organize this great event and opportunity for our students as they're thinking about what next year may hold for them. Our elementary schools are hosting their showcase events where each school hosts an event that celebrates their students' work. So earlier this month, Mendota and Somerset, we heard about some of these from our student report, showed off their ideas, interests, and talents at their project fairs. They're non-competitive events, and they're a great way for students to show off their knowledge of things they love the most, like Taylor Swift. Fermentation and the

048Professional Women's Hockey League. So very diverse things in which our students are interested and you could see all about them in their presentations. Moreland hosted Moreland Made where students, it's an annual showcase where students create various pieces of art and show them to the community. But this year was made extra special because we were able to host a community mural painting party. for the mural to be set and that's going to be installed later this month. All of these events are the best therapy that you can get. They make you feel good, you love life even more after you walk out of them and that was definitely true of the ones that you see up on the screen there. And let's be honest, at the center of all of these activities Working tirelessly are our

049teachers. And this week is Teacher Appreciation Week. And tomorrow is Teacher Appreciation Day. So any day is the right day to thank a teacher. But it's especially important on these days so that they know how appreciated they are to us. So thank you, teachers. especially in school district 197 for going above and beyond every single day to keep our students learning and engaged in all that they do you truly are the heart and soul of our district and it's through your hard work and your dedication that we're able to provide our students with a quality education in fact the best possible education so we appreciate you and finally not to Surprise you with the order here, but it is our last on-camera meeting for our two student representatives, Lori Dodson and Samantha Villa. These two

050students have done an outstanding job on behalf of the students at all grade levels in our district. Not only have they reported the events at Two Rivers, but they've connected with our elementary and their middle school as they so excellently demonstrated tonight. They're continually going above and beyond. I think that our board members would agree with me in saying that their report, not the one that comes right after it, is the highlight of our meetings. Beyond the board meetings, I've had the chance to witness both Luray and Sam doing incredible things for our community, for their student body, making it a better place than it was when they arrived. They do all that they do with dedication, passion, and inclusivity. It was a great year. And I want to thank them both and tell them

051what exceptional individuals that I think that they are. And I look forward to hearing about everything that comes next for you all. Having said that, we, the school board, would like to present. Each of you, Larray and Sam, with a $500 scholarship for their past year of service on the school board. These scholarships can be applied to your college tuition next year or career preparation next year. And so please help me in thanking Larray and Sam and wishing them well. And now we're all going to pile on because that's what we do. Apparently they want to take a picture. Can we pile on first? Can we pile on first? Okay. I'm going to take board prerogative and go first. Every year that I've been paying attention, the kids that, I'm sorry, the young people that

052are on the board with us raise the bar for what's expected and what's possible and for the positivity and the activity that you take on. throughout the year and you two have done that again and I I Don't know if I'll be able to say that every year But it's just been a delight to watch that was very that picture is very early on when you guys were just kind of Figuring out what this role was gonna be and we learned a lot that day That was at Shakopee with a bunch of other high schools that also have kids on their boards And I got to know you two that day and it's been a delight watching what you've done this year And I can't wait to see what you do in the future and

053you have to stay in touch Okay, does anyone else want to pile in? Well Byron does. I will, yes. Because I have been on the board a little bit longer and I was on the board when we made the decision to bring students perhaps on our board. And I do have to say you two young women have raised the bar again higher, which is wonderful. Thank you so much for all that you've contributed to our board meetings. You've gone above and beyond. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Beyond all of the accolades and the accomplishments and the fabulous grades and all of the wonderful recognition that you have amassed and will continue to accrue in your whatever future you choose, above and beyond all of that, you two are two of the nicest people. And

054that is what... will carry you through whatever it is you do, the way that you include and uplift people. And I've known you both before this. So I'm proud to know you and thank you for serving on our board and representing our community so well and for being really nice people. Anyone else? what she said. Randy wins. I'd say that seeing the two of you at school and what you've done to uplift the school as a whole and all of the great things that you guys have done in the community, it's just outstanding. Outstanding. Well beyond what you're doing here in this room. So I feel very confident that we are in good hands with our future. with two young folks like you. Honestly, there are days you think about it, you're like, oh my

055goodness, you're gonna get caught up in a lot of the news cycle and then you come in and we see students like you and the students who are here in this room today and it gives me a lot of confidence that there are gonna be a lot of great people in this world. So thank you for being here. Thank you for all that you've done for our community and for our board. same thank you for serving thank you for being leaders in the community and right we have a lot of students that roll in that uh clearly look up to you and uh students that don't come in that i'm sure absolutely look up to you um and i you jump in whenever and however you're needed and that included with our legislators that we

056met with earlier this year and i'll tell you what they don't really want to hear from us as much as they want to hear from students directly and your willingness to sort of to volunteer and to be present and to be strong powerful voices for the entire district and all of your students it's incredible and it was very powerful so thank you for everything that you've done and excited to hear about what comes next Okay, Morgan, your turn. I was trying to decide if I could do it and keep my composure over here. I'm so impressed by the two of you for all the things that everybody said, and I'm so excited for what comes next. I would just remind you that you are powerful and strong and brilliant and kind, and I hope that

057you remember that in your next journey, too. Excellent work. Okay, now we have to take more pictures. I feel like all the boards should be in this picture. Can we do that? Sure, should we have lorries and... We can do that. If we can fit, where they can stand on either side and we can squish. Come back here. I was going to say, they might feel weird having all of us stand over them. Right. We'll just gather. Come on in, ladies. We want to do this. Come on in. squish make it easy for sarah okay sounds good i think we're officially done taking all photos for the night thank you ladies thank you okay madam chair yes if i might go ahead tim and i would like to take us back a little bit in

058the agenda to something that the superintendent said and i think we would like some recognition around it, which is greater recognition for our teachers and really kind of giving them a round of applause because he went through it. And I think we kind of went through that very quickly. So they are deserving of a round of applause from us. And it's a very timely board meeting in that it is teacher appreciation week and tomorrow is the day, but I would add that it is never a bad day to thank a teacher, right? It's never, it's every day, even in the summers. Don't forget them. So get them a donut. Yeah. Donuts? Cash? Anything? All right. Are you introducing equity advisory? Next item on the agenda is equity advisory. I wasn't sure if we have a

059board member introducing it or not. I am, yes. All right. Go ahead, Marcus. So I have the pleasure and honor of being the school board liaison to the equity advisory committee and get to sit in on meetings once a month and I will read from my script here and we'll hand it over to Super assistant superintendent now and our equity coordinator Kevin So the Equity Advisory Committee began during 2019 and 2020 school year. The group meets monthly and has student, guardian, and staff representatives. Its membership reflects the demographics of our student population to a large extent. Since the first year, membership has expanded and the group has developed norms for their work together and has also written its shared purpose. There are two main things the Equity Advisory does. First, it shares about the good

060work happening at sites and at the district's level. Second, it provides input and feedback on a wide variety of equity-related initiatives. We're still working on developing effective ways to measure our progress and hold ourselves and the school district accountable for the work. To tell you more, here's Assistant Superintendent Peter Mao and Educational Equity Coordinator Kevin Sheridan. Take it away, gentlemen. Chair Larson, members of the board, Superintendent Olsen-Skog, it is our pleasure to share an update with you about the work of our equity advisory. As Director Hill talked about, the role of equity advisory is mainly to provide input and feedback. One of the additional areas I'll just mention where we do get that input and feedback is around the... equity implementation targets and objectives. That's not the subject of this update. The update right after

061this one is about that, but I just did want to note the role that they play there as well. Our work really is focused around the seven equity commitments that are outlined in the equity policy that the school board adopted this last summer. And again, in our next presentation, you'll hear more about those implementation targets. But first, we wanted to share some of the highlights for equity advisory for this current school year. One of the biggest highlights I think has been increasing numbers and representation on equity advisory. Every year we spend time at one of our meetings getting feedback and input from equity advisory about what they would like to see in the following year. And both of the last two years they've mentioned, well, let's increase the number of students. That was a big...

062Priority for the group and we've done that both of the last two years, but it isn't just more students that we've added We've also added more parents and guardians more staff from sites and that has also allowed us to expand representation on the committee whether that's the different types of staff roles like additional cultural liaisons, LGBTQIA representation, East African representation, Muslim and Jewish representation, and Latinx representation. If you remember this slide from last year's presentation, the font was quite a bit bigger, but we had to shrink that down because we added so many people this year. And as you browse through that list, you'll notice that our membership includes students, family members, and staff. And our aim continues to be that equity advisory reflects the varied demographics and lived experiences of our student body. One

063of the benefits that we noticed this year of our increased membership is previously in some months, because everybody has other commitments, our attendance would be on the low side. And so with an added group of members in any given month, we still have that representative group to do the work that needs to be done. I'm going to turn it over to Kevin to share a few other highlights with you. So a continued highlight this year was the ongoing community building we did within our group. We know the importance of relationships, building trust, and coming to know one another in order to do this important equity work. Our intentional focus on welcoming and connecting activities to start each of our meetings also really aligns well to our district-wide SEL work. This community building was further bolstered

064by routinely revisiting our shared purpose for serving on the committee. These purpose statements that we developed together last year as a group have become our shared commitments that we return to each month to help ground our work as we begin each meeting. We also sought to build community by moving outside of our typical meeting space at the district office together at some different sites this year. We held meetings at Heritage in Somerset and had an opportunity to visit as a group to Rivers High School. During our meetings we celebrate or we create time and space to acknowledge different heritage months being celebrated by members of our committee and our school district community at large and we also engaged in some learning as a committee about the significance of things like Padote and Ramadan. For example

065one month we watched a short video about Padote, had table conversations to share our new insights about the importance of this place where two waters come together. and that Dakota people call the center of the earth. Learning opportunities like these continue to expand our understanding of each other, which in turn help foster our sense of community. In addition to providing input and feedback on our equity initiatives, we intentionally plan opportunities for equity advisory members to hear about targets we're not directly working on within the group. And this was a request made by the group this past year. Some of the updates we were able to incorporate this year included our ongoing implementation of the amaze works curriculum as well as our parent Academy sessions both of which are district-wide initiatives We also incorporated opportunity here

066about some more site specific equity initiatives including day of silence at our secondary sites a student-friendly land acknowledgement that was developed with some class lessons implemented at Mendota this year, and native cultural celebrations at both Moreland and Heritage. We continue to be told by our equity advisory members how much they appreciate being able to hear about the many equity-related initiatives happening throughout the school district. Over the course of a few of our equity advisory meetings last fall, we developed some considerations for staff when it comes to the winter holiday season. We began by reading some articles and having discussions as a group to generate some ideas. Our hope with the consideration was to continue our work with creating inclusive learning experiences while celebrating the rich diversity that exists within our school district community. In the

067end, the considerations we developed fell into three main themes. One of them being taking a windows and mirror approach. Here we're encouraging staff to treat these opportunities for students to see their own traditions recognized at school while also learning about the various traditions of their classmates. A second theme was finding balance. Here encouraging staff to consider how all holidays are referenced not only during the winter season but across the full school year. And third, not having to be the expert. In here we're encouraging staff to allow students to relate and make connections to themselves and remind the staff that students often learn best when learning from each other. Once created, we distributed these considerations to all district staff in early December, with messaging that connected to several of our district belief statements. Our diversity makes

068us stronger. Seeking to understand each other strengthens the individual and the community, and we are all accountable for removing barriers and creating equitable systems. Equity Advisory also spent some significant time this year on the development of a diversity, equity, and inclusion tool to support site leaders in leading reflection on the welcoming and inclusive nature of their physical spaces of their buildings. We'll share more in just a few minutes, but wanted to mention it here as well since it was an important part of our Equity Advisory work this year. Another item that we spent considerable time on was the development of the staff equity survey and that really began last year with feedback from the equity advisory after we piloted the original survey When they said, you know, we think we can do better. We think

069that we can create an equity survey that is more reflective of those seven commitments in the equity policy, as well as the ongoing equity initiatives that are taking place in the school district. So we piloted this new survey with staff this year. One of the advantages, of course, is what I just mentioned. We could tailor it to our own needs and specific initiatives. Given that it is pilot, we've asked administration to identify some highlights from the survey and make sure to share those out with both staff and families here in May. So, what's next? Well, again, we're pleased with the expansion of our group and the representation that we've had this year. And in our last meeting on May 16th, as we do every year, we're going to gather more input and feedback from Equity

070Advisory of things that we can continue to do to improve our work together in the name of our equity focus area. Thank you. Thank you. I get to go first with questions and comments. I had the same comment about the slide with all the participants. The font got significantly smaller from last year, which is a sign of incredible success. I also wanted to say I love how much more family and middle school representation is on there. If you're getting some engagement from middle schoolers now, they have the potential of being on equity advisory for a long, long time. What a great resource. Yeah, actually just to note some of our now high school representatives were previously middle school representatives. Longevity, I love it. Questions or comments for these two? I'd say a comment. Not only

071did the font get smaller, I'd say within that group, there's just like a really solid core group of people. who are there for every single meeting. And that's a much larger group of people who are there and contributing each week. And so when you're doing equity work, that really matters because that gives you the continuity that you need for those people and they push that forward to the others who may have missed other meetings. So the... The environment of the room has really changed a lot this year. I think just the level of engagement is up. People are excited about the work, which is really, really cool to see. And the Bedote exercise was really almost spiritual. Right after the video and the conversations and people understanding what it meant and the importance of it

072to the Native American community, we had some great table discussions. So a lot of great work has happened this year. Thank you, and I'll just mention I think the credit goes to the equity advisory members themselves. Well, we had an initial vision. We didn't feel like we owned the direction of the committee and we just keep going back to them and the improvements are really all about what they've told us they want to see. And so, but yes, I agree. The engagement has risen every year. Go ahead, Maureen. I just want to express some gratitude for the considerations that your team came up with, that that group came up with around winter holidays and the wording that you're using on the windows and mirrors approach, and then also that you don't have to be an

073expert on a teacher perspective. That is, like, a huge permission to... to let students take the lead and then giving them that agency and allowing them to see themselves and share a part of themselves that's important without you know putting everything on the adult in the room and I just think that that is so huge and has such a big impact so thank you for that work I also have to say Well, first of all, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The work is just unbelievable Especially when I look back to the early 200s When we first started 2000 When we initially started equity work in our in district 197 and We had a full-time principal who was also the district Equity coordinator and it's nice to see how we've supported expanded included and grown

074and been able to accomplish so much and believe it or not back in the 2000 we also had windows and mirrors so I'm I'm really pleased to see that that Attribute has continued because it is powerful. It's so powerful. So thank you again All right, anyone else? Otherwise, we'll move on All right. Thank you. Thank you. Next item on the agenda. Am I reading it right? Yep. Is the strategic framework equity implementation target update with assistant superintendent Peter Mao. Welcome back. Thank you. Chair Larson, Directors of the Board, Superintendent Olsen-Skog. It's again a pleasure to be able to give you this update. As you know, each of the three focus areas this year, we have the opportunity to provide you two updates. Our first update was back in January, and so this is our second

075and final update specifically on the equity focus area of building equitable systems of support. throughout the district. Again, I just want to shout out to Equity Advisory because they do play such an important role in giving us that input and feedback on the equity implementation targets and objectives. And while they do play a significant role, as you all put into our equity policy, equity is everyone's responsibility. Kevin and I have the pleasure of being able to take a leadership role in this work, but we couldn't possibly do it all. And it does take school board members, the superintendent, families, students, staff. It takes all of us to do the important work of equity. So again, our presentation really follows the seven commitment areas outlined in the policy. And we're not going to go through each

076and every objective. And we just want to highlight an objective from most of the seven areas. So I'm going to start tonight with diverse classrooms and schools, which is really about this idea that. The diversity within our classrooms and programs and after-school activities should reflect the student demographics in our overall student population. And so in addition to these objectives, I wanted to highlight specifically the objective to identify barriers to participation in extracurricular activities among underrepresented groups and develop a plan to reduce those disparities in 24 Now back in January this also was part of the update and at that point in time I shared with you that Dr. Johnson, principal at Two Rivers, engaged the Warrior leadership team in taking on this work and so they decided to develop a survey that they sent out

077to students as well as essentially set up shop in the lunchroom and just talk to students who were willing to share about their experiences or reasons that they they weren't participating. And three main themes came up for them in terms of the barriers to participation. And it was family responsibilities, work responsibilities, and transportation. And so as that team reflected on what was possible for them to do to really create a plan around. A lot of those things were out of their control. And so their plan really focuses on what's within their control. And so starting with the freshman only day in the fall and quarterly thereafter, they plan on running recruiting events. And as you heard this year, they've already added, I think, 16 different clubs. And they're continuing to get the word out about

078how to add clubs that are of interest to folks. So they're going to have four of these quarterly events along with. putting up a new activity board in the front hallway and doing some marketing on the visual displays in the hallways as well. I think something just to celebrate is we have nearly 60% of the overall population at Two Rivers High School participating in at least one activity or athletics group and many of those students are participating in multiple groups. So the next area we want to highlight is teacher and leader quality and diversity. One of our belief statements in the strategic plan is that our diversity makes us stronger. One of the reasons that this is so important. And in addition to having a diverse staff, we're also committed to providing professional development that

079enables our staff to better serve our diverse population. And so the objective here that we're highlighting is a three-part series that we had Dr. Amy Young from the Minnesota Department of Education come in and work with our site and district leaders. And when talking to principals about, you know, what was the impact of these three sessions, they talked about things like better equipped to provide feedback about how we're supporting multilingual learners, new ways to analyze data related to our ESL students, more staff professional development time that they were focusing on supporting multilingual learners at their sites. I think the quote from Rob Solly, principal at Moreland Elementary there on your screen, sums that up well. Amy Young is well respected and part of that just comes from her vast array of experiences. Not only is

080she a statewide leader, but she's been a principal, she's been an ESL director, she's walked in their shoes before. Still more work to be done, but very excited about what we accomplished this year. Fewer in this category, and due to some staffing changes, we actually had to remove a couple of bullet points here, but I'm sure there'll be more on that for you next year. So I'm going to turn it over to Kevin now. So next up is equitable curriculum instruction and assessment. This commitment focuses on our efforts to ensure culturally relevant curriculum and instruction as well as equitable grading practices. You see listed here a number of our objectives within this commitment area. Tonight, the one that we'd like to focus on is our ongoing implementation of the AmazeWorks curriculum. As you may recall,

081we've had two cohorts of teachers who have completed the initial training and begun using the AmazeWorks curriculum in their classrooms. We continue to get very positive feedback from teachers about the impact the books and the conversations that they generate are having on the classroom communities. Just a couple of quotes from some teachers. One is, I feel like it has made my students more aware of respecting each other and respecting differences. Another quote being, I am having the most amazing conversations with my students because of these books. Those kinds of quotes are just becoming more and more commonplace that we're hearing from our teachers who have implemented the AmazeWorks curriculum. So what's up next? Our third cohort of teachers began their initial AmazeWorks training just a couple weeks ago on our recent District PD Day on

082April 26th. And a fourth and final cohort who have chosen the training academy model for engaging in this learning will attend training this June. With these two cohorts trained, we will be fully implementing the anti-bias curriculum this coming fall, meaning all of our pre-K-4 classrooms will be using the Maeserich's curriculum during the 24-25 school year. We continue to be grateful for the partnership between the Office of Equity and the Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment team, specifically Carrie Jo and Katie Shetka, to make this a reality in our pre-K for classrooms. Next up is equitable school and classroom environments. This commitment area is all about our creating culturally affirming and inclusive spaces and incorporating rituals and routines that nurture strong and supportive student relationships. This also includes the behavior supports and discipline practices we employ. Well, we

083have a few different objectives. The one we'd like to shine a light on tonight is a tool that was developed by Equity Advisory. We mentioned just a few moments ago, so we want to get into a little bit more of detail about that. So over the course of our year in Equity Advisory, a significant amount of time was spent developing a tool to support our sites in reflecting on the diversity, equity, and inclusion of their physical spaces, both the common spaces as well as the learning environments in our schools. The tool that has been created includes several look fors based on different spaces common to all of our sites, from the front office and front entry areas to the cafeteria, media centers, hallways, and classrooms. The tool and the look fors embedded in it provide

084some guidance for how leaders at our sites can assess how welcoming and inclusive their various spaces are to our diverse population of students and families. We've just recently shared this new tool with the administrative team and requested they start using it next year in a way that works best for their site. Through the use of this tool, our hope is that each of our schools will continue to find new ways to ensure our students and families feel a sense of welcome and belonging when they're in our school spaces. Equitable school leadership and voice is the next commitment area, both within the equity policy and within our ongoing equity work. This commitment focuses on our dedication to gathering and understanding student perspectives in order to have those gained insights help inform our decisions as a district.

085A key part of this commitment is finding more and more ways to provide leadership opportunities for our students. You see listed here several of our different objectives. The one we're going to share a little bit more about is a newly created student advisory group. Superintendent Olsen-Skoog this year created a student advisory group. It is comprised of 10 students representing a range of backgrounds and lived experiences who meet with him monthly. Within the regular sessions of this new advisory group, students emphasize the critical role of relationships in both student agency and student engagement. Students felt strongly that through relationships, teachers will develop an understanding of students as individuals and that this knowledge will provide teachers with what they need to engage students and provide agency. Overall, this has been a great additional avenue for student voice

086and leadership in our school system. Equitable family and community partnerships is all about building bridges between our school district and the diverse communities we serve, while also working to ensure that our various district advisory committees reflect our student demographics. Like our other commitment areas, you see several objectives listed here. The one we'd like to highlight tonight is our effort to increase parent and guardian voice within our equity advisory committee. We are pleased to share that we have added four additional parent and guardian members to equity advisory this year. And we have a brief video for you to hear a little bit more from both new and long-term or long-time parent guardian representatives about their experiences on equity advisory. Go back here. A little technical support on how to play the video. Anybody? That's okay. No

087problem. We'll punt. Kevin, are you punting or am I punting? It's time for questions. I'd love to share the video in the future so you can hear these wonderful voices. Would you like to take some questions while you wait? I'd just like to say that I agree with you that, I mean, this is why our school is in the top 10% because we have people like you and in our community caring about these things. And I just think it is so incredible and so amazing how much you care and you want our students to embrace their culture and not adapt to American culture. And I just think that is what makes our school, our district just... So amazing, I'm so proud to be a part of it. So thank you for paying such attention to

088detail and I just, it's awesome, it's so cool. So I just wanted to say that. Excellent, thank you, Loray. Anybody else? Go ahead, Jeff. Thank you for the presentation and for the presentation that came before thank you to like the list for the students and Teachers and administrators and families that participated in that work. Thank you. I can imagine Right. That's a lot of people and I feel like group projects with a lot of people are more complicated But I appreciate that you didn't sacrifice that and that you've been growing that group with and adding middle school students i think is absolutely phenomenal thank you for recognizing and honoring their role in our education system and the voices that they have so i just can't say enough thank you so much for making sure that

089middle school voices were there Couple one one question for you all and then one question for our student reps if that's okay Although LeRae you already sort of went there, but you might go deeper For the tool that you're using for school and classroom environments. Is there an element of that tool that includes Developmentally appropriate practice for young children specifically the use of play as an instructional practice So the focus of the tool really is on inclusive physical spaces. And so it aligns to that particular equity commitment area. The focus of the tool is not on instructional practices. There are other tools we have in the district for... those types of focus areas. For example, the teacher evaluation rubric that we use does call out developmentally appropriate instructional practices, but wasn't the purpose of this

090particular tool. Important. issue but not part of this tool. That's great. So potentially play could be incorporated to environment too as far as opportunities for... Absolutely. The way that we envisioned using this tool is that students wouldn't have to be present when you use it. And so again, absolutely accurate and just the way that this tool was developed that was not in mind. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. And for student reps, you sort of, like I said, you already went there a little bit, but I just love your reflection on either individually or sort of what you've heard from students as far as the district's work. in and around equity. Because I think, right, you're in the schools in a way that, I can't speak for anybody else, that I'm not, and I'd be

091curious to hear more. Yeah, gladly. I think jumping in to, well, Friendly Hills, like... being exposed to such a diverse group of students was amazing. And I think the artwork, the books that we read, like the things we learn about in the classrooms. I mean, the school I was previously at, they said, draw yourself and handed me all beige crayons. And I'm like, well, do you have like any other color? But here it's like, I believe like diversity is such an important, like it's what makes Two Rivers and it's what makes Heritage and Front Lake, all of our schools like so. important and I think the fact that we have people in high not only that but it's like we have people in high positions at our school who also you know represent different groups

092and different cultures and I think that's important because you can look up to them and be like oh you made it like you're at the top you know so I think that is great so I like 10 out of 10 100 like I'm just very proud and I think we're doing great and doing great things so Yeah, what Loray said about leadership positions too, especially at the high school level, like having a female administrator this year was a big change. And I definitely, it was really appreciated by a lot of the student body. And I think that our student body also at Two Rivers has a lot of opportunities and clubs that we've opened in the past year, which has been very like... It's been very accessible with like ALMAS and the Asian Pacific group

093and like there are so many opportunities that I feel like if we could do one thing better it could be to just let the students know that they are there because they are and I feel like we could resource them just like a little bit more and be like hey like join these groups like they're here like we've put them in place to make it more equitable so yeah. Thank you. I'll just make a note of some of the things that were said. Again, one of the slides in the presentation is equity is all our work. And I think, LeRae, you mentioned some of the books that you read and those kinds of things. That wasn't the work of me or Kevin. That was the work of our curriculum instruction and assessment team and the

094things that they've put in place to ensure that the resources. And teachers obviously play a huge role in that as well. But making sure that the resources that we're putting in front of students are equitable and do come with that windows and mirrors mentality that was talked about earlier. So shout out to that group. All right. It looks like we can hear from our parent representatives before we wrap things up. Are we pressing play? No, I'm playing the volume up. Okay. It's going to be too loud for us. I think what I've enjoyed the most about being on the equity advisory is that it's been an overall really great experience as far as committee work goes. It's been amazing to build community through conversation that feels really authentic. And I also have to say that

095I think that the increase in student voices over the past couple of years has really felt like it's... just made all the difference. To hear the students with their honesty and their vulnerability, it feels really like courageous moments for them and important to include their voices. What it means to me to serve on the Equity Advisory Committee, it's not just about giving feedback and input on various policies and things going on in the district. It's also just about contributing a different perspective and having that perspective feel valued. It's a chance for administrators and educators. to hear various perspectives and get information they might not know otherwise. It's also an opportunity to bridge differences and foster connections between schools and the community. I think it's important for parents to be on the advisory committee and it's

096why I chose to be on the advisory committee because we need to know the perspectives of people that have to see with the kids every day and live with the kids and it's important that we have different perspectives in the room, people with different backgrounds because it just leads to better choices on things. I'm glad that worked. Thank you. As you've heard several times tonight, equity is all of our work. And hopefully you've seen the prioritization that we've tried to make in finding ways to foster collective understanding by hearing from a diverse range of voices within our overall system and living up to that belief statement of... Seeking to understand each other strengthens the individual in the community and of course We will continue to expand opportunities for student and family voices to further inform

097our work I've already had a few questions. We're open or comments Further questions and comments. Yeah. Thank you. I I want to highlight one thing you said that I had to write it down because it's just touching The quote from a teacher saying that she's having or he or she's having amazing conversations because of the books Like success check you did it. I mean that can apply to any level of Education and it's just exactly what I want to hear as a school board member Thank you for mentioning that other comments or questions for these two Just a comment on the professional development on leading multilingual students that helping support our multilingual students helps all of our students all of the time and we can never go wrong with that. So I'm pleased to see

098that and thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Carrie Jo, coming in clutch. And Sarah Blair. Thank you. And Sarah Blair. Whoever else. The guy in the back. Good job, everybody. Next item is our Wellness Committee update with Mr. Mark Fortman. And a bunch of guests. Thank you, Chair Larson, Superintendent Olsen-Skog, board members. It's my pleasure to introduce our wellness leaders in the district tonight. We have Megan Bernard, our sustainability manager, Jeff Wolfer, our child nutrition manager, and Stacey O'Leary, our nurses supervisor. So I'll turn it over to them to do our annual wellness committee update. Hello, my name is Stacey O'Leary. I'm the health service coordinator for the school district. I've been in this school district many years, and I've been on the wellness committee, all of them, I

099think, with Jeff. And this is a list of all the different wellness champions we have at every school. About 20 years ago, we decided to make it a wellness champion position so it could be site-based, so wellness could be addressed at each individual school to decide on how they wanted to achieve the goals in their school. This week it's Wellness Week and we have different things we've encouraged all the champions to do in their building. An example, at Mendota on Wednesday they're doing a walk to school. It's happening at most of the schools as well. And I just wanted to give you an overview. I feel sometimes like wellness is such a huge concept that people get lost in the inertia of it. It was started by the Department of Agriculture and is federally required

100that every school district that gets funding from the Department of Agriculture has to have a wellness committee. and they have to present to the school board on an annual basis. And we need to do a policy review. And the Department of Education in Minnesota requires a triennial assessment. So every three years, what is the wellness committee doing? What impact are we making? Who's on it? The whole concept of that. And the other thing on the side is I want people to understand wellness, even though the... Focus is on physical education and nutrition for staff and students. It's everything. There's spiritual wellness, intellectual wellness, physical wellness, environmental health, occupational health, emotional health, social, spirit. There's so many concepts of wellness that it's not just one area. What I try to tell the champions at each school

101is talk to your staff, talk to your students, find out what interests them. And so from here, great job. Thank you, Stace. I'm just going to say a little bit about the new free meals program this year. So starting this past beginning of the school year, the state of Minnesota voted to fund a program for students that don't qualify for free or reduced price meals through the federal program so that all students receive one breakfast and one lunch free of charge every day. It's a permanently funded program. It's not just something that's I guess you'd say it's appropriated for you know for ongoing So it's not something that's going to go away It's not for online or homeschooled students. I need to eat these in school and when breakfast one lunch And they need to

102be and it's just during the school days. So there's I guess if we have a pandemic again, heaven forbid, we wouldn't be able to do that. It has presented quite an increase. Our breakfasts are up like 38%. Lunches are up 20%. Which I think it equates to somewhere around 800 more lunches every day through our sites that we're doing in about 600 or so more breakfast, so we've added a few hours for our staff to try to accommodate some of that obviously logistics we're Doing that the same amount of time that we were doing before so thank you Okay, I'm going to share with you some of the school wellness initiatives that we've been working on this past year Dakota County is a really valuable supporter and partner for us So ship is statewide health

103initiative partnership. They provide grants typically in a focus area such as like childhood obesity But they really cover the majority of anything around children and school needs. So for example at early learning we were able to fund a water bottle filler for students to be able to have access to clean fluorinated water. We had a lactation room put in through a grant as well as exercise and outdoor equipment for gardening at Pilot Knob. Snowshoes at Garlo and cross country ski machine track maker. So that's been pretty exciting. And then district wide we're looking at this is also with Live Green, but looking at eliminating single-use plastics because of the health effects that we know are now very much part of ingesting single-use plastics and what that means for our students, all of us. So we

104are working on doing some of the single-use plastic elimination in the cafeteria. Wellness week, as Stacey mentioned, our walk and bike to school days are really well attended. Several of our schools actually like drop the kids off with their bus and walk to school together and there's been really good feedback from the staff that this was just a really nice time for people to come together and enjoy a beautiful walk to school and Then Stacy and I have really encouraged our school wellness leaders to take on projects by looking at their own schools and how they can engage their staff and students and Some of these are here I just want to share just a couple of quick ones. At PK, they have a staff aerobics class, which is the lower right-hand corner. Garlow has

105a 100-mile club, a get more sleep challenge. Branch Out has Wellness Wednesday with the healthy fruit and just positive words of affirmation. And Somerset may be one of my favorite. They have... created a student wellness committee this year. And the kids made a video about hand washing and shared it with the whole school. And I would love to see more of our schools have student wellness committees. It's a great way to really have students have a leadership opportunity and to talk about health. So yeah, that is just some of the highlights that we had wanted to share with you. And that's just a link to the last year's triennial assessment that we completed. So now if you have any questions, we're happy to answer them. Thank you. That's a lot of good work to hear

106about. I love the hand washing. I would love to see that video. If you can share that with everybody, that would be delightful. Don't underestimate that your friends know how to wash their hands. And then a shout out to Jenny at PK if you need to take a really fun workout class. It's good times. Questions or comments for these guys? I just want to briefly mention with regard to the free school meals program, I know that the logistics of that and implementing that, they're a huge learning curve and all the new things that you have to do, but on behalf of students and families, it's a basic idea that's making a big difference. So thank you. in no doubt moments of frustration and getting everything right with that. Just know that it matters and thank

107you. Thank you. We just do more of what we were doing. This past Friday, I was going to mention we got to celebrate the school lunch here. Yeah. Thank you. Good, good. All right. Go ahead, John. Tim wants to first. Okay. Tim's first. Thank you for the single-use plastic Students when they learn stuff like that that that propagates and having those mindsets established Whether it's recycling and just getting used to stuff. It's no different than Getting used to wearing your seatbelt in 1970. You just you don't think about it anymore. And so thank you for doing that I'm curious if in your work, do you talk about consistent attendance in our schools? And because I'll just stop there. Do you talk about consistent attendance in our schools? And for the listening audience, the consistent attendance

108is students attend for 90% of days of the school year. So anyway, is that something that percolates up in any of your conversations? So my other job is health service coordinator. It percolates in there if we talk about it. Wellness is mostly focused on doing healthy activities and things in the school environment, and I don't think we've addressed attendance in wellness. I think it provides the tools that... That's right. We want the kids to be healthy so they come to school. And attendance, I guess something I deal with is an attendance factor and how we do our, you know, with claims and numbers. And I've been doing this for about 30 years. And I want to say the attendance factor was somewhere probably 94, 95%, you know, MDE set set. That threshold I think it's

10991 and some change. No, so I don't know if that's you know, what's what's all related to that? We've done all these wellness things and We'd like to think that would improve. Yeah, and well, thank you. Because when I go listening to your presentation and hearing about all the things, you know, physical activity, dental health, outdoor equipment, and engaging activities for our students, like everything you walk through to me, like goes back to the wellness. model that you referenced like to me that across the board speaks to ways to engage and support our students which is this way of getting at attendance in a Anyway, I think because i know that's something that is a national issue it's a state issue it's a a district issue that i think you all have been talking about

110so thank you but i i see this so directly related to improving attendance and supporting families and the students so i just so many good things thank you i think this is fantastic okay thank you thank you thank you so much uh we're going to move on to our next item on the agenda oh what something else pointing at someone you want to say you want to add so it may So while attendance might not be part of the wellness committee, it is a district-wide initiative this year that we've been working on in collaboration with Sarah Blair around specific communication going to families. I've created data trackers for each of our sites, and on a weekly basis, they're looking at data. We're adding the attendance variable and looking specifically at consistent attendance. every time we're

111looking at student data and trying to make decisions about students so while it may not be part of what the wellness committee is looking at it's something that we're looking at in all of the things that we're doing with some really intentional focus this year yeah no i think it's that's great to hear because it's not something that percolates up in all districts all the time and the attention that you're provide that you're paying to it i think is just again really appreciated good And I it is an issue it's and I do actually quite appreciate the connection to thinking through Whether it was the equity advisory update that we just gave or the wellness update that we just gave like we we recognize that if we are going to address the attendance issue, that

112is a national issue, is a state issue, is a district issue, is a, right, all of those things, that it will continue to take looking at it through multiple angles, not just maybe what would be considered typical attendance approaches. It will be about wellness. It will be about equity. It will be about student-teacher relationships. It's all of the above, so. I appreciate what may have been otherwise been considered a non-typical connection to that very real issue. So thank you for bringing it up. All right. Thank you. So next item on our agenda is the Live Green Sustainability Program update. Again with Mark. Well, great. Well, thank you again, Chair Larson, Superintendent Olsenskog, board members. Those of you that have been around for a few years know this is one of my favorite things to talk

113about is our Live Green Program. you know, but I also want to say just at the beginning, our Live Green program and our sustainability program have been a success because of the support we get from our school board and have gotten from our school board for over 20 years to take chances to invest in solar programs or letting us, you know, go after the not normal and be on some of the bleeding edges sometimes. So I wanted to thank you in the front side for that. But I have Megan Bernard, our sustainability manager, with me to co-present on our living room program. So we'll get moving. All right. Our mission is to be good stewards of our resources and environment and to model and teach those values to our young people. This is Kim Benton.

114She's our Live Green leader at Garlow. She's also the iNature teacher. Those are kindergartners who are doing waste audits and giving the classes a grade whether their containers are too contaminated or not. Thumbs up, middle, or thumbs down. young kids are learning how to do this at a very young age, which is super powerful. Our focus areas are energy efficiency and resource conservation, student live green clubs, material and waste management, land management practices, and community and government collaboration. Now we'll talk a little bit about our live green history. And we had a slide that had about 25 or more bullets, and we decided to group them a little bit, you know, so we can move through them a little faster. And we'll be speaking about other things later. So energy efficiency has always been the

115core. We then started our live green program with the club shortly after that. So for probably... about 18 years or so we've had live green clubs in our schools. Here's some of the board support that we got. We got a pollinator-friendly resolution passed. And then we went after, through the Made in Minnesota solar program, we got five solar arrays, 40 kW solar arrays. at no cost to the district. That has always been one of my mantras. It can't cost us money to do this stuff. We can't wait for 10 years to benefit. We need to benefit from year one. So then a little bit more recent history, when community solar became available to K-12 school district, we went after it with abandon. We also had the board pass a 100% clean electricity resolution, and I'm

116really happy to say that we've accomplished that. It's taken almost four years to get all of our community solar gardens up and running, but with those that gets us to 100%, but there's room for more. We can go up to 120%, so I'll talk more about that later. I talk loud and much usually. So we really incorporated district-wide energy efficiency measures in our most recent bond projects that also I'll expand on a little bit later. And then we built an aquatic center. And this is one of those things that we reached. You know, we're the only... School district were the only aquatic center in Minnesota that was purposefully built with solar thermal as the primary heat source And I had the opportunity to talk at a national conference this year about that and you would

117I mean people were clapping They're just like the power of solar thermal is there. It just needs to be realized so There, there's some history. And now looking forward a little bit, where we were recognized through the U.S. Department of Energy as best in class award winners for energy efficiency. but most importantly, plus health. And we did that. That was all around our bond projects that Megan and I put an application together that emphasized what the decisions we made in design and then the results at the end. And that's what we were invited to present at the National Green Schools Conference in Santa Fe about our projects. And it was a great experience, and it was really nice to be able to share and then again learn. that we are out there on the front

118side of this and people couldn't believe that we had this program in place for 20 plus years. So it was really great. So because we like challenges. And this is again that goes back to 2019. We decided to sign on to the US Department of Energy's Better Climate Challenge in an effort to reduce our greenhouse gases by 50%. And the reason we wanted to do that, you don't get an award or anything like that, but you get federal support. You get experts and engineers to help analyze what we're doing and to help find other ways that we can do it. And again, we... because they'll push lots of things that might cost a little bit and then have a long payback. So we try to, we're working to make sure we get fast paybacks and

119then also to validate the decisions we make through their analysis. Now the solar for schools. Finally, the power purchase agreements that you did when you do these big solar arrays and you see them on buildings, through the Solar for Schools grant that is administered through the Department of Commerce in Minnesota. You get positive cash flow in year one and so we're looking at we have the capability to put an additional 900 kW of generating solar panels on our secondary buildings and so that's what's next for us. It's moves at glacial time so we have pre-approval, so that's great, and everybody really says, well, you're good then, but they also emphasize pre-approval, but we're moving to the design phase, and then it's next October-ish to get actual full approval, and then once that happens, next summer

120we'll be putting an additional $900,000, which would result in year one of about $50,000 positive. you know, generation cash flow avoidance of utility costs. So that's real money. It adds up at a 30-year lifespan to almost $2 million. Just something I wanted to add on with the better climate challenge that I'm really excited for is they're gonna help us measure our greenhouse gas emissions So right how can you reduce if you don't know so having some experts help us identify? And really measure how much greenhouse gases were emitting in our district is just a benchmark that I'm excited to see Okay, here's our live green clubs. All of our eight elementary, middle, and high school have clubs. 130 students. They're all led by teachers. They do a variety of projects from litter cleanups to seed

121bomb projects to helping with cafeteria waste sorting videos and building solar suitcases. Adopt-a-drain is really popular. Three or four of our schools do that. And the plastic-free lunch has been really fun to see kids get involved with that as well. All right, utility costs. Last year when I was here, I talked about how well we're doing nationally. We're in the top 5% of schools in energy use. We've reduced, we've gotten better across the board. Our utility costs are down by 10%. Energy use is down by 7%. And then our cost per square foot is once again under a dollar a square foot. And when we have people from the outside come in and look at it, because we get lots of people that want to come in and they're going to help us. But there

122has to be, when they analyze our utilities, there has to be opportunity. And after they look at us, they find there's really no opportunity for them to make money on. stuff like that. So it's really a good feeling that we hear we air condition everything in our district except our gyms and and so and operate year-round programs and we are still under a dollar a square foot. So and I would like to say we are continuing to get better. Aquatic Center is going to get better. Okay, so water conservation. This year I am a sustainability fellow for the U.S. Green Building Council, and my research is looking at water conservation practices at school districts. So I've looked at some school districts in the southwest who have heavily irrigated landscapes, basically 85 schools in their districts

123with 90% of them having irrigation. So nothing like what we have here. We have a lot less irrigation, but we're still seeing a huge increase in the use of water. since 2019. So just in that short amount of time so you might be wondering well did we add a lot of things what really happened here? I think we're just using more water. It's getting hotter and we're using more. So we have older irrigation systems. One of the best things you can do is install WaterSense water controllers. They're EPA certified to save water. They are weather based so they use weather stations to help determine if rain is coming and if so not to water or when to water. And then you have the remote control access so that you're not manually setting these up. Currently

124all of our irrigation controllers are manually set so it's pretty hard to control. Someone has to physically go and turn them on and off. So that's gonna hopefully our goal is to save 15% of our water usage this year and we're excited to come back and hopefully have that for you next year. Yeah, if I could just add, unfortunately, this is an area that Megan identified and rightly so. We're that neighbor that... Runs their water during when it's raining outside unfortunately, so this will give us the tools to be able to you know Run things you know more intelligently and and make sure we're only watering when we need to and in if we're able to reach our 15% reduction goal it pays for all of the the new controllers in one year, so It's

125kind of a no-brainer. Why aren't we we need to do this so? We use irrigation at our middle schools and high schools. So none of our elementaries have irrigation For those areas. We're still looking at Land management practices that can use utilize less water So on to single-use plastics, I think everybody knows it's probably a passion. It is a passion of mine. So I really, you know, shared with this with Mark, but we want to eliminate single-use plastics from our cafeteria lunch service. It's challenging when you are taking things out of the cafeteria, but for the kids when we're eating in the cafeteria, let's really try to not have packaging associated with their lunch. This also extends to things like their utensils. Most of all of our schools use... compostable trays. So that's a great

126thing that we're doing those. I would still, I'm still interested to see how we can reduce waste further by moving to reusable trays, which we'll talk more about. But single-use plastics, you know, environmental health risks, there's financial benefits when you're moving to reusables. And then, like I mentioned, we're going to work with Child Nutrition and Jeff Wilfer on changing some practices. Yeah, it's really a great opportunity in our child nutrition department. Unfortunately, during COVID, a lot of packaging came back in, and it's been hard to get it out. Even from suppliers, you know, have been very slow to get bulk back. But we're going to really look at sourcing and pushing it and bringing it back. It's just one of the, again, the simple things that's going to make a lot of difference, I think.

127A lot of it is coming from the suppliers. I mean, we live in this disposable world, and so we do have to actively, consciously go after this to change it for our kids. And I really love engaging students in this process. So a couple of our schools did Plastic-Free Lunch Day and worked with the child nutrition staff to make that happen for them. And it's pretty cool that they can start to see those changes happen too. So landscape management, this is last spring at Two Rivers. Dr. Johnson wanted vegetable gardens put in, and so we got a bunch of kids together. We put raised beds in. But back to ash trees, so we're about 75% complete on removal of our ash trees due to emerald ash borer. And we're looking at replanting and what that

128looks like. We've sourced trees from Dakota County. and we're looking we've planted larger trees but i'm really interested in looking at planting smaller trees and finding really cool ways to do so like through gravel beds in the future so maybe at two rivers we'll have gravel beds where we can grow smaller trees that are more affordable and then put them throughout our school district to increase our tree canopy help combat climate change and provide shade for our students Well, and right now there's 30 saplings in these beds in the back of two rivers right now waiting for a home. So Megan has been working with people, well, actually somebody, a local resident that helps out with things and where the best places those could go. And then gardens, nine of our 10 sites will have

129vegetable gardens this spring. And we're just continuing with the climate resilient landscapes that we've been developing the past few years. Smart salting, I'd be remiss if I didn't talk about salting because every year we get emails. Salting is very challenging because partially how your buildings are designed, if they face north, like our high school entrance. you run the risk of having to use a lot of salt. And so our goal in buildings and grounds is to minimize salt usage while maintaining the safety of walking areas, helping our custodians and building engineers use practices such as removal of snow before salting, and then at the end of the season, cleaning up our parking lots of extra salt so that we are trying to prevent as much escape into our waterways as possible. Were you done? Yep.

130All right. Alright, dishwashers. This is another opportunity that Dakota County is being very, very helpful on. They're offering grants that pay up to 75% of the cost for a dishwasher. Our trouble right now is we need to assess our buildings because they're older buildings and they weren't designed in some of the places to have it. So we're trying to right size and so far, like at Garlow, we put a dishwasher in that just handles utensils and then kitchenware. But Pilot Knob, we're able to put a bigger one in. They're doing silverware and trays. And then we're looking at our other buildings. But next probably on the list is going to be Two Rivers. But it's probably a year and a half out. But we could get over $100,000 just for that alone to implement at

131Two Rivers. And then right now we're doing utensils. But both middle schools, Friendly Inheritance. There's opportunity there to look at dishwashers too. So again, this is the best way for us to avoid landfill. Over 50% of all of our trash in the district is generated from our child nutrition department. And so if we can eliminate trays and we eliminate single-use plastics, we can eliminate how many tips we get a week. And right now at our secondaries, it's three times a week. And at the elementaries, it's once a week. But we spend in our trash, recycle, composting over $100,000. It's closer to $120,000 a year. we can reduce things by 30% say, you know, that's again another savings opportunity because the cost of all of this stuff just keeps, it just, it's exponentially increasing. So it

132behooves us really to try to reduce some things as much as possible. And we just want to take advantage of the opportunity these grants provide. So Minnesota Pollution Control Agency actually has the waste reduction grants for these larger projects. Like Two Rivers is a pretty big project. We do have a dishwasher there, but it couldn't handle reusable trays for 1,000 students. And then the Dakota County has smaller grants that are like 10,000 or less. Why not take advantage of these opportunities write these grants see what we how we can really impact it our schools with this Another impact is on and doing this is when you look at the kid holding this tray and we've seen you get here positive comments for kids and from parents when they learn that their kids are using silverware

133instead of a spork and they're using real trays instead of you know compostables the so those are some of the you know other benefits of this Am I sharing? Okay. So our community collaboration, we're continuing to work with River to River Greenway project. This is year two of two. That should actually say Great River Greening. But that is the River to River Greenway project, which runs through Garlow and then through two rivers. They've been a great community partner, working with students, going into the classroom, teaching kids about why we plant these native species and then actually like going out and planting with them. So that's been amazing. We're continuing to do community planting events. Callahan Glen, which is along the River to River Greenway, is a really great example of that where we have community

134involvement and volunteers. And then just this is actually a little bit newer, but working with Dakota County to engage schools in. Mass plantings so on Thursday friendly Hills middle school 86th graders are going to be out at Lebanon Hills with a planting to really Revitalize a part of the park there so that should be exciting for them And then this is just in the planning process But we're looking at putting in a rain garden in the median the grass median between the district and high school parking lot and this would capture runoff and help clean the water before it goes into the waterway. It would actually catch all the runoff from the student parking lot. So all of that grass area, we could convert that to a rain garden. It would be, you know, it's

135a massive amount of water that we could keep from going into our sewer systems. So all that Dakota County will fund. So we always go a little long, I'm sorry. Don't apologize. This is one of my favorite presentations of the year, too. No, this is incredible work. I don't even know where to start. I'm going to let someone else start. Go ahead, Byron. Okay, so I'm hearing a couple of different things. Increase the use of dishwashers, and we can get some of those paid through grants, so we're not having to pay for the equipment, but that also increases water consumption. And one of the goals is to cut water consumption by 15%. But then I'm hearing you doing that is also going to save on our waste, and that could cut that by 30%. So

136it makes sense that we're going to use more water, but we're going to cut the cost of waste. So along those lines, I've asked those same questions, Byron. Kitchen staff are washing and they're using a four compartment sink and the water is running constantly and so modern dishwashers are More efficient in their use of water and they superheat and they use it and so it's more controlled So it's not necessarily You know a bad thing. So is there a way we can recycle that water and it can be used to ear for irrigation? Oh Possibly. And then along the irrigation water, the reason why we're focusing on that, that's metered differently. Irrigation water, you don't pay sewer costs. So we're just focusing on those irrigation systems, and we can separate them from our building-side water.

137Great work. You're always thinking and always out there. It's great. Thank you. It is really hard to measure, though. I mean, you make great points. Yeah, we have those same questions. You can measure. There's a way to do it. You have to ask the right questions. I'd add, too, that you have to think about the water use to make all the trays and all the plastic sporks, right? Saving the production costs and the disposal costs of that, there's water effects to that, too. Go ahead. Thank you. First of all, I learned so much every time I hear you speak. So thank you. Question about the ash tree removal over 75% complete. Are we able, and I don't just don't know this. Are we treating any of those ash trees or are they all just all

138coming down? They're all coming down. Too far gone. Yeah, we made it, we just couldn't financially do that. There were too many. And the site that has the most remaining is Heritage. And that's, unfortunately, they're on the, you know, a really nice, you know, in the front and then in the back, there's a lot of them. So there is going to be a need to do something different at that site specifically, just like Two Rivers, where we're really seeing a landscape change. May I ask a follow-up question? Then are you working with an arborist who is going to help make sure that we're not planting other trees who are going to be hit with the next? Tree disease? Yep. I mean, Megan's way ahead of that. She works with people as well. And we're not

139talking about monocultures anywhere. Everything is multi-species. Excellent. Diverse. Thank you. And then also, it's not always native because some of the natives are more susceptible to disease. And because we are changing our climate, it's getting warmer. There are some species that... will do better like hackberry that aren't necessarily native but with that in mind diversity is the key yeah just a comment um i think it would be easy to take for granted the depth of expertise and the depth of work that has gone into making this district what it has become in terms of a leader in energy efficiency and other healthy, environmentally healthy practices that we've engaged. This is my, as you all know, this is my first superintendency, so it took me a while to figure out this is not normal. There's a

140depth of expertise here that you just don't find other places. The fact that it's due in great part to a lengthy tenure from a great leader who has cared about it since day one, and that's Mark Fortman. Thank you. It's also due in great part to his ability to do incredible hires of incredible people that complement his expertise. 17 awardees but only six one was a charter schools that would be a much smaller scale and so only 16 districts in the entire state in the entire country that were awarded the award that this group that's not small to think about I mean it's and as Mark always says We are saving energy to support the classrooms. I mean, we're supporting the earth, we're supporting the environment, where there's many auxiliary benefits, and as a school

141district, his mind is always on that, okay, we're at 95 cents per square foot, we can get that down to 94, or maybe even 93. So, and how we can save money to hire more teachers, to hire more paraprofessionals, to... improve X program. And I feel incredibly grateful for all the work that's gone on there. And it is best in class. So thank you very much. Thank you. I'm going to pile on. Because when I hear you talk about it, I understand and I love how you're always telling us that it's... going to save us money. You know, and it's pouring more money into teachers. But I love how you sprinkle in that it's also just the right thing to do. And you are being a teacher. You're both being teachers because you're setting a

142great example for all the staff, administration, and all the kids that are watching us make these changes. So the implications of this are not just today saving money. It's years and years to come. So I'm super grateful. I did have one question. The better climate challenge 10-year thing, when does that start? What's the 10 years? They allowed us to, well, they didn't, it worked out really good for us because we could go back to 2019. Okay. So that was the start of our construction projects. So we get to benefit from those projects as part of this. And some initial, you know, very loose, looks like we're about 30% reduction just in what we did, again, with our smart choices in construction. Putting things in implementating the capabilities of what we have and and we're not

143hitting everything yet I mean we are finding still, you know, it allows us to dial into certain areas to improve some other questions I didn't get down here yet one if I can add to real quickly just if we don't hit 50% There's no penalty I just think this is so amazing what you're doing. I didn't even realize we had people in our building, in our district, that care as much as you do. The numbers of it all and the different species of trees, I think that's amazing. Also, I would say continue to keep working with Live Green. My friend Maggie McHelstrom, she's so earth, earth, earth everything. She would be so pleased to hear you saying all these amazing things and to hear your passion behind it. It's like, whoa, we have people who

144care that much. So that's amazing and keep working with Live Green because I know the kids in there are very also a passionate. So that's just great. All right, anything else for these two? All right, thank you so much. Thank you. I bet I get an event slide to read. Wonderful. Okay, so last thing before we adjourn. So today is May 6th. So May 8th is the LGBTQIA Parent and Guardian Night. May 20th, there's a choir concert at Two Rivers. On the 23rd, there's an orchestra concert at Two Rivers. No school on the 27th, Memorial Day. Special ed parents group is meeting at the district office on May 28th. And the last day of school is June 6th. I know you're all sad and celebrating all at the same time. So thank you, everybody. I

145would accept a motion to adjourn. I will make a motion to adjourn. Thank you, Byron. I believe we didn't carry Joe. Have her hand up. Yes. There's one more really important event. Graduation. Instrument exploration for grade or instrument rental night for our fifth graders that are going to be entering the middle school Communication will go out tomorrow around that but if your student shows band or orchestra on May 28th that two rivers Music teachers will be hosting instrument rental night graduation. Oh Graduation is June 2nd See you there Okay, had one motion to adjourn second by Tim all those in favor signify by saying aye aye those opposed We are adjourned. Thank you