001Kyle, are you able to hear us? >> That's so formal. >> I know. Are they playing that commercial? No, not for special. >> Okay, I guess I better travel. >> I would like to call the special school board meeting for Tuesday, February 10th, 2026 for the De Mo public schools to order. Miss Rios, can you please take the role? >> Yes. Miss Alonso >> here. >> Miss Compost >> here. >> Mr. Dixs >> here. >> Miss Hopkins >> here. >> Mr. Powell >> here. >> Miss Marano >> here. >> Dr. Mayberry Mace >> here. >> We have quorum. >> Thank you. The next item is approval of the agenda. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda? >> I'll second. >> We have a motion by Alonzo and a second by
002Hal. Board members, please cast your vote. >> Marano, yes. >> Dix, yes. >> Thank you. The motion passes 70. We'll begin with a presentation from our chief information officer, Neil Schroer. >> Well, thank you all. Uh I'm actually reflecting on you second opportunity to address the board. I was able to be here in in July, but I didn't get to start until 9:30 p.m. So that was uh I was bringing up the rear to say the least. So having a a session completely dedicated is it feels like a luxury. So thank you for indulging me. I am going to run through um a discussion about the the technology organization here at at De Moines Public Schools and it's going to be a little different presentation in that I'm going to spend a little time on
003more the strategic framework on why we do what we do and how the investments and activities are lining up therein. But without any further ado, let let's talk about the the context. And I I want to start with our vision statement that this was developed last fall with every single member of the technology organization at the time having their voice heard through a variety of workshops and activities and really call out a few of the words that I think resonate a little different than what we might think of a traditional technology organization when we see visible, trusted and strategic partner. This this group we view ourselves, you know, not as a a back office function just keeping the lights on, but somebody who is helping shape the future of DMPS, making sure, as we put
004in here, that we're creating that future ready student. And we're going to hear that theme throughout this presentation, but that our tools are integrated really into our our DNA. And I think integration is another theme that I'm going to um really uh emphasize tonight. Here's my uh org chart, which I apologize mine aren't as polished as others. I I did this myself in Vizio. Um I have limitations, but the goal here is to really show the kind of the breadth and depth of what this organization does. In a lot of ways, it does a lot of typical IT functions. And I realize it's very hard to see. I'll kind of just walk through it more as as a general guide. But we also have some uniqueness I would point out. We have a a a
005technology support and service operation which is our help desk, call-in support, break fix. So when you have a computer projector issue, they come out and help you. We have a network operations team that does switches, Wi-Fi, telephones, those kinds of activities. A server and cloud services team, which is kind of self-explanatory, servers, our data center, some of our security components. Um and then we also have the central uh our print shop and our central stores operation. So volume printing of materials for our curriculum as well as delivery of curricular materials and other assets districtwide. Think Amazon on a smaller scale. Our new digital learning and innovation team which is foundational to a lot of the work I'm going to talk about tonight. And we have a new ad to that team. We've brought our library
006services coordinator into that group to better align across the curricular portfolio uh as we move forward. And then our uh assessment data and evaluation team and that's really a dynamic group that does a lot of what we would traditionally think student information system. So Infinite Campus, our ERP, Business Plus, Tableau, our reporting system. Um but also there's some unique callouts there. our welcome center team that's instrumental in in getting new people into the district, our program evaluators, our federal programs, assessment, as well as some demographic and and enrollment uh functions as well. So, this is a group that isn't just in the back office. It's really uniquely positioned to touch every student in the classroom and really every employee in a lot of different ways. And the other thing I want to call out the
007some of the green boxes. Again, I won't go through all of them, but I want to highlight we have several managed service partners. We have a managed security operations center through H Heartland Business Systems. We use uh contract help desk support, some break fix support, managed print, um and then some matrix responsibilities to our library and digital learning associates, our digital learning teachers, and even our assistive tech team. It's a not just a direct family, but we have a lot of indirect partners that help us support the district doing what we do. The obligatory kind of by the number slide. I I like this. I could have pulled out a lot of different trivia, but this sort of shows the scope and scale of what we do. Just like all the other functional teams here,
008this is a big enterprise. There's not many businesses in the state of Iowa that would have 3,800 wireless access points and support over 37,000 users while printing over 8 million pages a month, running a delivery operation day in and day out, delivering 120,000 or more student assessments, 2,000 support tickets a month. You can see the the feed there. This is a big undertaking and all of those are key components of everyday life here in in the district. So, I I wanted to make sure we just kind of were able to see it because that's that's the world we live in. That's the day-to-day, you know, lots going on. So, no lack of work. This is where I'm going to start shifting our our mindset a little bit is we also have to kind of pick
009our head up and look around. It's not just the servers and switches and rooms that we work in. It's it's the real world in our global context. We're uniquely positioned to be able to support the district. But I I like to just there's a million ways we could call this out, but one thing we've used is uh this survey the World Economic Forum did with employers worldwide, looking at what are the skills they see in demand by 2030. And you see that chart over on the left. Some of these make sense. AI and big data, it's in the news every day. networks and cyber security that's been around a while general techn technology literacy but what I find fascinating is all the rest of those skills have nothing to do with technology it's more about
010how we think how we're able to work in the world resilience curiosity lifelong learning so we're not I think the charge is more teaching skills mindsets and frameworks than just tools and and that isn't even emphasized by those callouts on the right, these same employers are saying, "Hey, at least 39% of those skills are likely going to change by 2030." So, we're already on borrowed time. These these are shifting sands. Um, and when I think about that, I get a little philosophical. I was at a great presentation. Dr. Yosi Sheffy, who's an MIT professor, wrote this book, The New Abnormal. And it hearkens all the way back. I I like Heracitis, but the idea that really change and maybe the idea of chaos isn't something we're working through. It's a permanent feature of the system.
011It's what we have to train our students to live in. That it's going to be dynamic. That there is no stability. There's no end state. So, teaching you how to think is more important than necessarily the specifics of what to think. And the good news is the DMPS vision really sets us up for that that we say we want to prepare every student to achieve in this kind of dynamic world. So we've got this great technology team, a lot of professionals doing a lot of great work. Are we enabling our students to participate in this global context? That's where I want to we're going to take a little bit of a a philosophical u birdalk into what I'm talking about is rebooting the DMPS digital operating system and and we'll go through that. We've done
012a lot of work over the years, tools, systems, structures, processes, but I think the challenge has been those efforts, while well-intended and done earnestly and in hard work, through hard work and and through a lot of great effort, have not always been aligned. Sometimes they're not as effective as they can be. They're not they could be running counter to each other. What we really want to focus on is building what I'm calling this cohesive digital operating system in the frame of reference of technology. I'd argue it's really we want to be a cohesive well functioning system in every area. But I represent technology and I like operating system just because you know everybody knows about rebooting their OS except Mac. You never have to hardly reboot it. But you know for everybody else we do.
013So so what I want to do is really set the stage with a conceptual framework because it it's one thing to talk about it but I this is how my brain works. I have to put it on paper so that we can build around it to make sure we have that north star that we're working towards. And when you look at this slide I understand it's a little dense but I want to start on kind of the bottom right with the end in mind. What are we trying to do? produce future ready graduates. We've got a lot of activities in this district, portrait of a graduate, diploma, plus highquality teaching and learning, all striving to do that. And really the the bullet right above that, we're trying to allow our students to achieve at their
014maximum potential and beyond to push them to be productive members of our society, to be the citizens we we would strive to have them be. That's a lofty goal, but it's I think what energizes us. That's why I'm here. I think that's why you all are here. Unfortunately, that doesn't just happen. So, we can't just say it. We have to do some things that drive us towards that. The outcomes above that are some researchbased practices. I'm not going to do a deep dive in all the educational research, but things that again will line up a little bit in the technology sphere. Personalized learning, more timely feedback, improved inclusion, engagement, techn technological agency are things that if we do it right, lead to better achievement in the classroom that lead our students to be more prepared
015to be future ready graduates. And before I go off of that, all those outcomes we'll talk about a little bit, nothing I I want to be super clear. This is a techn this is a technology presentation. And I'm going to talk a little bit about tools. I'm not going to get in too deep. Nothing is going to replace highquality teachers and educators in the classroom. We are building a system, a cohesive operating system to support them, to enhance what's going on, to make them better, not replace them. That's impossible. It's, you know, I think there's been a lot of press about AI and and, you know, things like that. And I think we're at a crossroads of really being able to empower our teachers. So I I just really have to call that out. I
016didn't put it on the slide, but it's implied, but I don't want that to sometimes it isn't implied. So I I really want to make sure that's understood. So we want to achieve these outcomes to make future ready graduates. This lefth hand box, a lot going on. There's really three tiers. The bottom one, if I had more time to update my slides, I would have actually called that digital foundations. But really, that's all that back office, you know, the the system, scheduling, transportation, paying the bills and paychecks that really provide the context for education to flourish there. It's sort of non-negotiables in a modern workforce. It makes us efficient and effective, but our systems really enable that. And I think we all know that where I'm going to introduce maybe a couple new concepts to
017help us think about some of the investments we're going to make is around digital literacy and digital learning. They're similar but slightly different. Digital literacy are the skills we want our incompetencies that we want our students to have to ultimately have technological agency and to be future ready to be able to participate in the workforce. the under that standards and competencies. These are from the um international society of technology and education or ISTY publishes a very rigorous set of sort of standards scopes and sequences around this. But notice this doesn't say use Microsoft PowerPoint or use whatever tool. Now we need tools ultimately to accomplish some of these to build the competencies. I always think about video. I've been around long enough when man, if you remember the the flip cams, that was like all
018the rage. We were giving students flip cams because it was teaching them about creativity and collaboration. You couldn't buy a flip cam on eBay for nothing today. I mean, it's hard to find because the tools changed, but what we were trying to do hasn't changed. and our approach will adjust, but those foundational competencies are built in a way that we believe won't. Um, now those aren't as directly tied to the outcomes it things like personalized learning. What we look at there is digital learning. So how we we've ran our students through we've taught them the competencies and by kind of extension the tools but how do we use tools in the classroom across all curricular areas to enable those outcomes that's the challenge of digital learning bringing digital tools to bear we'll go through a
019little bit one of the ways I like to frame that there's a number of frameworks we can use we're focusing now on what's called value add of technology ology on teaching to help us steer the dialogue and it builds three categories. Do more, do better, do new. They're somewhat self-explanatory, but helping teachers improve their efficiency in a classroom. Maybe grade faster, modify a rubric, develop a lesson plan in a in a quicker way that allows them to spend more time in value added work. Increasing access for our students, etc. Doing better is maybe I can differentiate at scale. I I've already I'm I'm good with my lesson, but I want to target multiple learning modalities. I want to target people who are leveled different right now in more meaningful ways. Maybe I want to bring
020more engagement. I have a good lesson, but what else could I do to to make this a little bit more appealing? So, we believe technology can help there. And of course, do new. How can we bring new creative novel learning experiences to bear? We could get really crazy with things like VR and looking at organs in an anatomy class to much more basic things, but we know technology can empower all of those and through that we can drive into personalized learning better feedback, more inclusion, more engagement, all and more. I mean, this is just a sampling that helps us achieve our ultimate outcome. Now, this is a conceptual framework. Again, this is a lot of talk, but I think it's fair to set the table. But we know there's a lot of pieces that go
021into this. So, I look at this puzzle thinking we have to build this digital operating system to accomplish this. It's like a puzzle. You can't get to the ultimate picture and vision missing any single piece or trying to stuff it in the wrong spot or, you know, push down really hard. You still need to get everything together, but it needs to be done and it's all practical. So, let me just let's flip the slide here. So, we flip over to the back. And what what is this? What is what do we have to do to enable that conceptual vision? I've segmented it up into this basically the seven sort of practical areas in these puzzle pieces here. And really, it's not about getting one right. It's about figuring out how to create the balance and
022interconnectivity of all of them in a sustainable way. If we take any one of these out, we're not going to get the ultimate outcomes we want and we're not going to achieve at the highest level. Some will be a little further than others, but we have to really invest in all of them over time. This I didn't just make this up though. I did make this up kind of to frame it. This is from and because of the strategic plan, our discussion around digital literacy, modernization, community, talent and well-being, etc. These puzzle pieces tie in very deliberately to almost every component of the strategic plan. So, as we invest in this in building our digital operating system, we are investing in the strategic plan. Let me run through each one of these just just a
023little bit. I'm going to talk about what it is and then some of the investments we're making related to this um the technology infrastructure. This is those kind of core things we think about the internet, Wi-Fi, servers, phones, soft that that kind of back office software. We mentioned business plus time clock plus and the list goes on and on. cyber security systems that really power the business. We are investing across this. We're continuing to modernize. We'd heard about our new ticketing platform, Incident IQ, in partnership with our facilities team to really modernize how we support people, track assets, and beyond. We are bringing a proposal forward to the board to migrate to a new telefan platform. This is going to be a cloud-based platform that for slightly less than we're even paying today brings what
024I think is an exciting set of features. As exciting as telephones can be as an IT guy. Exciting. It's still a phone, but it's untethered from sort of time and place. Gives us lots of flexibility and again will help uh support our buildings in new ways. And then we're continuing cyber security enhancement. We've talked about some of these in the past. Our student password system. We're sort of retooling. We're moving our domain name service to the cloud in a hardened capacity. And on each of these slides, I put some success criteria. These aren't detailed KPIs, but a broad discussion of what do we hope to get out of this in in these. We want to save time, lower downtime, bring new capabilities to bear for all of our users, and be more secure. That's infrastructure.
025This one I'm going to spend a little bit of time on. digital learning tools. These are the devices we're using in the classroom to educate our students to enable student learning to do a number of things. You see this definition I have here allow students to move from passive consumers to active learners. This is laptops, tablets, projectors, apps, different uh you know creative instruments that we have out there. We have really, you know what, I'm I'm actually going to go off my own script just for a quick second because I I want to address something that that's of concern to me and I and I think we should just have the discussion right up front is in an era where our tools, things like cell phones have been designed to create constant engagement, scrolling through
026Tik Tok and Reddit and uh you know watching Netflix passive consumption of media we tend to associate that with technology devices and that's a use but what has that led to we have emerging bodies of research that that's detrimental to mental health it's distracting to learning which is why we've undertaken the program we've taken here that's be really become a national trend of pulling personal cell phones out of the classroom during instruction that's the right answer. The tools we talk about, things like computers and tablets are instructional tools that we are trying to be very deliberate about. And and I actually I want to step back a little bit before we when we look at tools digital learning in our digital e ecosystem success criteria are not more screen time is better. In fact, the
027emerging research is large amounts of unguided screen time not only don't produce results, they actually create negative effects to learning. We are not going to do that. Our intent isn't to bring devices to classrooms to create, you know, digital babysitters or sort of unguided work. It is to be very deliberate and intentional in how we align that with pedagogy or how we teach to bring value added uses that go back to those use cases we talked about. Engagement, adaptive learning, personalization of instruction, differentiation. We can empower our teachers to do that in a way that's deliberate but also time bound. So we we don't want unlimited use of tools. We want very targeted, very smart, supported collaborative use. So that's the road we're heading down. Where does where have we been going with our office
028of academics teaching and learning over the last few months is really trying to figure out what that means for our students. Our devices, our student devices that we have are aging. We started back in 2020. We're talking about five and sixy old laptops that are well worn. They've been used. are break fix is going up and they're not necessarily ultimately aligned. We had four criteria we looked at. We wanted to make sure we got devices that were pedagogically and age appropriate that were easy to use, easy to support and cost effective over time. That's for sure. No. Um through that process and really a a a pretty long effort, we have decided that we are going to bring a proposal forward to this board to move our PK5 system from Windows laptops to iPads. So
029we are going to do that this summer um to it will replace all elementary laptops while bringing in some software tools that will help us realize the value on those iPads. Um, this is no small undertaking and I but the reason I didn't put more on here about iPads because it's not about iPads, it's about the digital operating system. This is one tool at a certain grade level that we've got to get right. It makes more sense if we're going to start teaching skills say in kindergarten very limited time bound as I said when they don't know the alphabet having a keyboard's kind of hard. So, these are the things we're trying to think through to make sure we're making the right investment. We went to Omaha public schools, some of our neighboring districts, we've
030seen feedback from St. Paul. There's many other districts that have done this and had great success. So, we're excited to to move forward with that. And again, what does that enable for us? The device isn't the end. It's just the enabling instrument to allow us to do better formative assessment to engage students with interesting and compelling learning activities to create adaptive learning. We know the research says tools like a mirror Lexia others that are out there that adapt to students as they're working on it in short chunks of time 10 15 20 minutes have outsized impact on performance. So we have to bring all that to bear. The iPad is the start as the device. Another puzzle piece data. We have to empower all of our teachers to really get in front of education and
031I think data is one of the ways we can do that. We've done a really really good job building dashboards that reflect our you know highstakes testing, attendance, discipline, behavioral data, etc. But oftent times we miss some opportunity to pull data in near real time out of a classroom doing a formative assessment to understand where my kids are at today instead of waiting till tomorrow when it's too late. Maybe I can adjust instruction. So we want to think that through and it's not just in the classroom. We want this across the board on on financial data, operational data, etc. to be as close to the decision makers as quickly as possible so we can be proactive, intervene before challenges arise. Our investments here are are wide. I'm just going to we continuous improvement. Joe and
032I have talked is a huge uh point of emphasis. We've got some emergent ones on bringing new transcript automation to our high schools, creating new pass check-in checkout capabilities for secondary, how how do we handle health data and share? But what I'm really most excited about is this second bullet around reviewing how we assess and capture data as a system. Again, back to this integrated holistic approach. We need to figure out how to get more frequent data in the hands of our teachers and correlate it in meaningful ways to maybe predict or at least look ahead at where we see we do some of that, but I think we can do even more. And we're working with teaching and learning to try to figure out how to do that. Well, devices, data, most of this
033doesn't mean much without curriculum. to me curriculum it it's twofaceted back to the distinction between digital literacy and digital learning on one hand we are developing a PK5 scope and sequence of digital literacy skills I'm going to talk about people in a second but spoiler alert we will have a digital learning teacher as an extended core teaching those skills over time there's numerous opportunities for that we're going to tailor it make sure it's uh DMPS specific But that's we have to have something like that to start standardizing and building capacity for all of our students. To date, that's been a little haphazard and now we'll be able to ensure that every DMPS student builds into this and this year is just the start because we will carry that on certainly into secondary and following years.
034Um the other piece is alignment of these digital learning tools across our curricular areas to ensure we have deliberate pedagogically justified timebound use. And again that does when we go to the first day of school the expectation isn't iPads all day every day in every subject. In fact exactly the opposite. This first year, I think people will be some people will either be excited or disappointed by how little we might try to do because what we're going to try to do is do it right. We may focus on one subject across grades rather than every subject in every grade to get it right and build on it. This is a journey. This is a multi-year strategy. We can't just be fully deployed with fidelity. It's not reasonable for our teachers. We can't support it. It's
035just not how it's going to happen. So, I just want to point that out. But we are going to work with our curriculum coordinators, whether it's science, language, arts, math. I mean, we have multiple opportunities to collaborate and we're working through those right now where it will make sense and then bring that to our teachers through PD, which I'll I'll mention in a second. We've talked about our digital learning champions program. We are that's being launched as we speak. some of our innovators who are going to help us both refine what digital literacy concepts and tools would be the most beneficial but also where we could see meaningful integration in the curriculum to ultimately achieve those outcomes we talked about in people we've got the device again this is a system an operating system approach
036we need every piece and we need people the reason I think this is going to succeed where we maybe haven't before is we're we're tackling this head-on. We are standardizing a library and digital learning associate across every elementary building. This person is going to be instrumental in helping do some of the logistical management, some of the support of students, some of the roles our building technology specialists did. We have these people, they do great work, but not necessarily in every building. So, as we worked with uh our HR team, we've standardized that across the board and bringing the library program into our digital learning program is going to ensure a tight coupling going forward. We've also expanded our extended core by ensuring we have a digital learning teacher available to deliver extended core content in
037digital learning in every elementary. This has been optional. It's not optional anymore. We are going to be intentional as we develop and deliver that curriculum. Every student gets the same opportunity across all of our elementary buildings. We're also working on it's not just in the classroom. We need to do even better on tech support. We need to be more responsive. The more we build technology in and raise the stakes to achieve those outcomes, the more responsive we have to be. We're not necessarily adding new capability but trying to shift things around and reimagine to abuse the term how we might do that in internally. And the other thing we have a very comprehensive professional development plan in the works. We're starting as early as this April extending in the summer with paid and unpaid opportunities
038into the back to school window into the fall and beyond. Recognizing again Our teachers won't be experts on day one. This is a journey. We're going to be partners handinand with them. But we are going to be very intentional on how we do professional development and support our teachers along the way. These are two other components that will have less immediate investment but we cannot ignore as part of the system in the long term and that's our facilities and programs. As we look at reimagine in we're redesigning our spaces. I had a we had a great middle school maker space discussion today as we produce more digitally literate students and integrate our digital learning platforms better. I think it elevates what we can accomplish in these spaces. What we can expect of a signature school.
039We don't have to teach students the basics. They're going to come hungry for that. So I think there's a number of great partnerships coming. And I also think about our our programming things like afterchool summer programming. Why can't we lean into this dynamic world and have digital activities? I think about first Lego League. Why can't we have STEM coaches and build an inner city league just like we do in sports? Why can't we have opportunities for summer camps and other things? I think we can. I don't have answers for that today. we started discussion but those are the kinds of things we want to look at to extend our digital learning platform beyond the walls of the school and that's really when we bring the community in as well we talk about community partners businesses
040internships we want to find opportunities to grow beyond DMPS that's very in some of the early stages we have a lot of people working towards that I'm excited for what will develop but one of the things I did put on here is I think we have to really partner with our families and ensure they understand what this digital operating system means. What does it mean for my student? Unlimited screen time. Teachers don't do anything and they play games on an iPad. That's the farthest thing from the truth that you're going to see really compelling examples of work and engagement at a level you've never seen before. And I am excited to tell the story and we'll develop that over time. And again to kind of bring some of this together, this the big idea is
041here. We're building this this operating system. We're going to make some investments. This is the start of the journey. This is a multi-year plan. I I actually had this really dense chart over the years to talk about secondary in a data center refresh and other activities we want to do with internships, etc. that are going to get laid in in the coming years. But it's there. The the other thing I I really think merits mentioning, this sounds like a lot, but what's great is this falls in to previously budgeted and planned expenditures predominantly out of our ple and save budget. So I know it's tight budget times. We talk about standards in personnel and positions. This is again one of those buckets that we have to spend on tools and infrastructure. I find that this
042is a pretty good use for it. We can sustain this strategy. Every time I talk to Matt and Shashank, every idea I bring is with four to five years of sustainability in mind. We are not making a decision that we can't support next year, whether it's a person, a piece of software, hardware, or beyond. These are long-term and sustainable because we have to be disciplined and stick with it to really ultimately get the most out of it. We're going to continue to work with our teaching and learning community, I think, again, in in new and innovative ways. It's it's a really great and growing partnership for us. Um, and again, we we're going to continue to try to innovate, but students and teachers will come first and we're going to listen. We're we're trying to
043again create that partnership. We want to be that strategic partner. Going back to the vision, this is a pretty simple slide, but what do we want? a good infrastructure, a positive culture around digital literacy and learning and ultimately students prepared for their jobs. What do we need from the board? Patience and trusting the process. There's nobody around here. I've been in this game for so long and I've told people we have to prove that these investments are positively impacting outcomes because we've been doing this a long time and I don't feel like they have in some ways but they can't. The research when it's done right as part of a system it shows it happens but too many times in too many places we haven't had all the puzzle pieces together at the right time
044and that's led to less than pos positive outcomes. So, we have to trust the process, but we also are going to have to be ready to pivot. There's a lot of emerging things around generative AI. I didn't want to get into that tonight. What What about this? What about that? We're going to monitor carefully, but we're going to be smart and pivot if we need to. And again, like I said, this is not a >> a one one and done. Hey, we bought it. It's over. We're making a multi-year commitment to sustain this vision. And really, we want help carrying the message as you talk to people. I think this is exciting. I think it's powerful. It's not part of the reimagined bond. It's part of our budget. We were already basically going to do
045this, but I think we're going to do it better than we've ever done. And with that, I I I want to do one quick wrap up. And I I got to make sure I I make my notes here. Um again, this wasn't about tools. I don't want to talk about widgets, although there are widgets involved. things like iPads, software systems. It's about this digital operating system to enable student success. We can put our thumb on the scale for De Moine as a community in the state if we do it right. I firmly believe it. That's why I'm here. So, I I'm excited to do it. But I want to end saying I know none of it will happen without the hard work, professionalism, and support of our teachers and staff. Which is why we want
046this to be a partnership. We're going to listen. We are going to do everything we can to make this work. I And I don't want to BS anybody because I don't think it's going to be seamless. It's not going to be flawless. It's not going to be easy. But we're going to learn together and adjust as we go. And I think if we partner, we listen, we are going to have an incredible impact on our students for a generation to come. And I I'll leave it with a quote there from John Dwey, famous educational philosopher. We teach today's students as we taught yesterday's, we rob them of tomorrow. Just a little bit of visionary um get off the stage. And with that, I conclude my presentation. >> Questions? >> Thank you so much, Neil. And
047just just as a reminder, um we began offering these series of cabinet presentations for a couple of purposes. For our board to certainly be updated on what's happening and have a better idea, but also for our community. We recognize there are a lot of things that are happening in the school district and we want our community to be a part of that and to also have that understanding. But now I'll actually open it up to board colleagues to see if there are any questions or comments for Neil. Thanks for the presentation, Neil. A couple questions. I really appreciate your emphasis on and bringing up highlighting what many parents may have as a reaction about overusage of screen time and we're just going to babysit kids with devices and and we already have that. I want
048to tie in a couple things you said there and make sure I understand. So, you're talking about data and we'll be able to see and understand data. You also talked about timebound use in the classroom. Will we be able to see student use? Will there be data to show that we are not overutilizing tablets or technology in the classroom and that we're not relying on it too much? >> Yes, we are actually I didn't get into the nuts and bolts. We actually are bringing a new management platform. It's called Mosul to bear as part of this that will give us a lot of sort of sort of technical and tactical reporting capabilities to really get a sense of you know app usage, screen time and and I want to let me just take a quick
049second to say unlike your phone these things are like locked down even the staff devices for the staff you don't get to watch Netflix on it is an educational tool that has a very focused set of applications and use cases that are already built in and that's it. You can't go to the app store and download a game. You can't go off task. So to your point, yes, we should be able to do that. And we're hopeful that by setting the stage up front with some limitations and monitoring, we'll be able to get there. We're also bringing a tool to bear called Apple Classroom Manager. And I complained for years with most edtech manufacturers that it's not Apple good. And what I mean by that is, you know, you pick up an iPhone in like
05010 minutes with no training. You kind of get the gist of it. Um, a lot of edte tools are hard to use. They're unreliable. Um, you know, teachers complain and I get it. Like these just kind of stink. And one of them has been classroom management. We've been in onetoone programs for a long time and we want to empower our teachers to maybe monitor their students, but also lift up student work. If we if we all are maybe drawing a picture, what if I could show one of my students on the screen to give them some recognition and voice an Apple classroom manager? I was amazed and I don't get amazed by too much but then it feels like I do get amazed a lot. So I don't know but it was very very compelling.
051So we were going to empower our teachers I think in a very powerful and easy way to also help monitor their students uh when the devices are out as well. So that's kind of a long way around of yes, we should be able to get good data on what the usage is, but also with fidelity from a macro level all the way down to the teacher in the classroom. >> Quick question. I know that this is um more specific, but out of curiosity, switching to iPads, are you going to have to switch the way everybody communicates with Teams? >> No. the the good news and and I didn't mention it here, but it's a tactical detail. All of our teachers will receive an iPad. It will not be their primary device. It'll be set up
052exactly like the students to see what the students see, but also to facilitate that Apple classroom management. All of our core suite of tools are effectively device agnostic anymore. I think that's part of the reason we can get into this. Years ago, it was a different discussion. You would say Teams doesn't work on a Mac, so we're only Teams. So it would shut the discussion down upfront. What we know right now are core platforms. Let's talk about Microsoft M365, MacBook, PC, Chromebook. We're not doing Chromebooks everybody, but iPads, their function effectively the same. As well as all, you know, Canvas, Infinite Campus, um, a number of web-based applications are all virtually no different anymore. >> Yeah. Thank you for for the presentation. Um, under community, you mentioned under the upcoming investments the development of communication
053tools for families to understand digital learning efforts. And I think that, you know, one of the things that historically in our district we've not been great at is communication. And I am really looking forward to seeing how we bring families along. I think that the best one of the best partnerships that we can have is uh with our families, right, in the education of our kids. And so having those communication tools for families and having them on board will be essential. So I'm looking forward to that. I know that you say this will be in August. >> By August. So I think we're looking at >> It says in August. That was our >> in parenthesis August. >> Yep. >> So by August August or you'll begin in August. >> We'd like to have that
054at least some initial opportunities whether it's websites and sort of generic comm I don't want to say generic but targeted communications no later than that. It this is going to be an ongoing campaign though to to bring people along. >> Um I'll share a quick anecdote. In my past when we started doing onetoone, I did parent road shows for months. The worst thing I ever did though, boy, I learned my lesson. Actually, I was so confident I gave everybody my cell phone. My wife got so mad it I couldn't answer my phone for months because it just kept ringing. A lot of good questions. But we're not going to do that specifically, but we will have again we're trying to brainstorm a variety of approaches getting out to community events, back to school nights. some
055of it it's harder to get those groups together. So, we may be at back to schools in in August. That's why we kind of looked out towards that, but I'm not ruling out other communications as we go and start announcing this. >> Thank you. >> But to confirm, you will have iPads replacing the current laptop situations this coming school year. >> Yes, they they will be um >> for all schools, >> for all elementary. And again this because we're we're sort of no matter how much we would want to do the entire district there are just limitations and we wanted to focus on the foundation and then we'll build on that secondary. So yes every uh PK5 IP every PK5 classroom will have a card of iPads in PK I I should PK is very
056unique I want to set people in mind this is like one iPad and it's more teacher centric so we're not again introducing concepts too early. Um, but we don't want to exclude them either. But yes, that will happen this summer. There will be a massive deployment effort. Part of our Apple package is having a partner sort of unbox, put them in a case. We'll have age appropriate cases. So, our PK through one will have sort of the uber indestructible rubber bumper case. Um, our two through five will have a Logitech, it's a very sturdy case, but it has a keyboard and trackpad so that we can get into things like online testing. um you know and start building some capacity around typing as well. >> Neil, I really appreciated the comment earlier around u kind
057of the fear of technology particularly AI and how people think it's designed to replace and while it certainly builds efficiency like I I appreciated the comment around it's really intended to complement those um in our schools versus replace them. Uh the one question I have that's separate from that is uh when going out and um kind of exploring with some of our neighboring partners in other states, I think you mentioned Omaha and St. Paul, were there other things that were learned from those school districts regarding technology that is lowhanging fruit for us? >> Yes. Um, but I think part of the reason we're having this discussion is, you know, Omaha built over 10 years. St. Paul's, I think, 12 or 14. A lot of the districts around here have been at it for a number
058of years. I think what we saw was you have to bring it all together. That we tried this and we didn't have PD. We didn't have a support person. We didn't build curriculum. So, this is sort of an effort to synthesize. It's not lowhanging fruit. I mean this is like the fruit way at the top of the tree but um it's it's the right fruit. We did see a lot of compelling use cases. We did have a lot of good technical discussions on how to better support and you know employ the devices. So I think we've learned quite a bit. We have some good partnerships and we we know people. We also have a strong uh set of support from Apple and their professional learning team who will be very visible and present in this
059district in the next couple years to help us ensure this succeeds. Honestly, I I think Apple I want it to succeed more than them, but just by a little bit because obviously they're uh invested in education. So, um, yeah, I I don't want to promise like there was some real quick silver bullet cuz I I honestly I think getting devices out logistically when you're doing what will be, you know, north of 12 to 13,000. I mean, it's 15,000 total, um, getting everybody in a classroom ready on day one with some basic professional development is going to be a win and we have to build on that from there. Now, I have no doubt we're going to have we saw some teachers in other areas. Some of them are going to run with it. If we
060give them the a little bit and the parameters and the software they can use, I think they're going to do amazing things and others are going to come along more intentionally as we bring them along. >> Miss Compuls, did you have a question? >> I did. Um, so something that I saw, it was mentioned a little bit, but not a whole lot. Um, can you speak on what you guys are doing right now with some of our students? I've been in buildings where we've had um students that are interning in with your department. Um, and for people that are listening right now, I think that's a great opportunity to kind of talk about >> how that is. We partnered with our our friends here at Central Campus and build I think it was Matt who
061originally started it a a technology apprenticeship program. We set aside some funds to really again create a sustainable model where we can bring in students who partner with a mentor in our buildings and do a variety of different tech support activities. So they're out in our high schools, our middle schools in other areas doing really a lot of the same work our technicians would do. And that actually translate not just in the school year and that's a paid opportunity there. There's great experience learned. I've you know I meet with them and we we have some great discussions. We actually get some good feedback. You know, hey, you know, it would be better if we could do this or had permission to do that. Um but it also provides opportunity because we are employing a a
062kind of a small army of students in the summer to really carry that work forward and do even more stuff because they aren't bound by this pesky thing called going to class. They can just work all summer. So, so yeah, we we have this it's been I I think a great success. We've exposed a variety of students with a lot of different backgrounds. These aren't the bar isn't, you know, the uber techy student who's really really into it. There there are those, but we've also brought people in from a variety of different interests who I think have found value in and learned a lot. And some people it's like, yeah, you know what? I figured out it's it's kind of not for me. I appreciate that I did it, but and that's part of what
063internships are as well. learning as much what you don't want to do is what you do. So it's been a great program for us. We look forward to continuing that in the forward in the future. I think one of our limitations is we don't have the a portfolio that's as interesting as maybe principle where they're maybe doing app development at scale or invol you know maybe John Deere where we're you know training drones to fly over. It's some of those things we just don't get into. So, as we can look at partnerships in the community, we we can have that as a core, but it'd be nice to build on that in even more sophisticated and meaningful ways. That's what we'll kind of be trying to work towards in the coming years. >> Yeah, good
064question. And I know we have Mr. Dixon, Miss Martano also online. Do either of you have questions before we wrap up? >> Jim, you want to go first? >> Yeah, I just have a comment and a quick thank you. uh it it sounds like you are being very thoughtful and guided by the research around what is best for our students in a learning environment not only for the learning but also for their um mental health. So, I am appreciative of all that you're doing and look forward to this roll out and um would just recommend that you lean into other districts that have done this already and um particularly with the lessons learned. It is no small feat. Um I've been a part of a team that has done exactly what you're doing um on
065a much smaller scale and um I I wish you the best. >> Thank you. Um Neil, just uh like a couple of clarifying. I may have missed it. I'm sorry. I was driving. I'm traveling. But um one on the iPads in the in the PK5 space. >> Yeah, let's let's call it K5. P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P P is a little different. we are evolving P but it's really around K5 and and actually let me let me Pat if you don't mind I I'll address that a little bit is we really wrestled with this idea of density in the lower grades but what we found in talking to our partners is when you can set it up and dedicate the
066device to the student even though the usage is limited there's some efficiencies there was a lot of goodness any district that tried to be like well let's go like 3:1 with carts in kindergarten um another one was witchah uh that that we found that everybody kind of went back and said it's just for a variety of pedagogical support in other reasons we're just going one to one. So yes, it's it's K5 one. Um and then the second piece was um I I hear not so funny stories from uh my students peers about jailbreaking devices that belong to the district uh showing ingenuity and creativity. But we'd like to focus somewhere else. Uh how are we doing on security with some of these new devices uh so that our students as I think you were talking
067about can only use them for what they're intended for in the classroom. >> Yeah. That's the um absolutely that as we look at our implementation of the student passwords and Clever um and really this this platform called Mosul which is a a a very sophisticated Apple specific management platform. So in tune does a great job in Windows. It does okay in in Apple, but in order to do iPads with the fidelity we want to your point, we're bringing this new platform to bear which allows us I mean really kind of an infinite level of granularity and controlling apps, who can do what to whom, time bound, extra blocking. It's it's very powerful. Well, again, as well as that Apple classroom manager where when the iPads are deployed and in use, maybe in a group setting,
068uh the the teacher can check in on people when they think something nefarious might be going on and the teacher has a lot of power to just lock the thing out, shut it down and intervene as well. So, we want to set the the global framework to prevent it as much as possible, empower teachers to to to dip in if if they need to. All that said, Pat, I I don't know. I'm sure hopefully we could hire them. May maybe in fifth grade we won't have that much of an issue. If we go into other grades, we'll we'll see how it goes. >> Yeah. Um, and then just uh I'll just add my comment and my thanks uh to you for a presentation that did exactly what we asked for uh in this, which was
069educate us on what you're doing, but then tie it to strategic priorities and I think more importantly lay uh a strategic vision from your department as to how it fits into education and our first job which is is teaching our kids. uh loved the ties to reimagine education and uh how we're going to use technology in all of those areas. Uh it really is every education space is a technology space. Um and when it's used correctly, I I really love the vision that you laid out for um measurable uh timebound, responsible use of technology uh in our district as as we move forward. So really well done on the presentation. They say IT guys aren't that uh good at communicators, but you've confounded you you've confounded that today. So, great job, Neil. Thank you. >>
070Thank you. I'm an IT guy in disguise. >> Well, thank you so much, Neil. We certainly appreciate it. Superintendent Smith, any closing comments? >> No. Great job, Neil. >> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. >> Right. So, I' I'd now like to entertain a motion for us to go into close session. Just so the community knows, this will be the end of our public meeting and we're going to go into close session um followed by an exempt session and we will take some >> Yes. Oh. Okay. All right. I move that the board go into a closed session per Iowa code section 21.51C which states a governmental body may hold a close session only by affirmative public vote of either twothirds of the members of the body or all of the members
071present at the meeting to discuss the pres to discuss strategy with council in matters that are presently in litigation or where litigation is imminent where its disclosure would be likely to prejudice or disadvantage the position of the governmental body in that litigation. We have a motion. Uh, may I have a second? >> Second. >> Miss Rios, could you please take the vote? >> Of course. Miss Alonzo, >> yes. >> Miss Compos, >> yes. >> Mr. Dixs, >> yes. >> Miss Hopkins, >> yes. >> Mr. Howell, >> yes. >> Miss Marterrono, >> yes. >> Dr. Mayberry Mace, >> yes. The motion passes 70. At this moment, I will now now ask that the room be cleared and we will take a five minute