001Heat. Heat. Good evening. It is wonderful to see everybody tonight. Uh we're so happy that you're here. I am going to call the board meeting for Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025 for the De Moines school uh De Mo public schools to order. Um we are really lucky we have a guest with us this evening. Um, some of you are familiar with Erin Jenkins. Um, she actually had the role prior to Miss Rios. So, Miss Rios is out for the week. So, a special thank you to you. We're really glad that you're here, Erin. Thank you so much. And with that, I'll turn to you to take the role. Miss Alonzo here, Miss Compost. Mr. Dixs here, Miss Knox, Miss Martrino here, Dr. Mayberry Maize here. Miss Norris here. The first item of business is approval of
002the agenda. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda? Martano. So moved. Dick. Second. We have a motion by Miss Marterano and a second by Mr. Dixs. Are there any questions? Board members, please cast your votes. The vote is approved. 520. Next on the agenda is the public forum. We provide speakers at the forum an opportunity to address the board for up to three minutes regarding items that are not on the board agenda and up to five minutes for an agenda item. If anyone wishes to speak during the any portion of the business meeting, please email aaron.jenkins dmsschools.org or come up and fill out a slip of paper. The same speaking protocols apply to all individuals who wish to address the board. Speakers will be called individually and we ask they
003state their name and city provide prior to providing comments. Guests of the board are encouraged to speak to matters relating to the programs, services, and operations of DMPS. Please remember that Iowa law prohibits us from discussing specific employees or their job performance. We ask all speakers to avoid references to personalities or character attacks as those types of comments do not contribute to the purpose for which the public forum exists. The use of inappropriate language will not be tolerated and individuals choosing to do so will be gled out of order and asked to excuse themselves from the premises or escorted out by district security. As a reminder to the board and public, the board will not engage in a discussion with public forum speakers as it is our obligation to discuss only matters posted in the
004public agenda for the sake of transparency and opportunity afforded to all community stakeholders. Matters requiring attention will receive appropriate staff andor board followup at the time after at a time after the meeting. Thanks for your participation. We appreciate your feedback and input. Miss Jenkins, do we have any speakers for the public forum? Yes, we do. First up is Jessica Trinidad Gomez. Jessica. All right. Next, Dartanian Brown. Wow. Good evening. Good evening. Good afternoon to you, Superintendent Roberts, and to you the members of the board. The last time I was in this spot was April 2nd, 2024. As members of Iowa CCI, we were here acting as concerned citizens, both welcoming you and at the same time warning you of the effects of the efforts of privatization interests seeking to undermine our public schools here in
005Iowa. Well, here we are 14 months later. All of us, both you as a school board and we as citizens have lived through the challenges of sailing the through the headwinds of government supported opposition to our shared cause of quality public education. You didn't know us. We didn't know you. But here we are 14 months later viewing each other with respect. only achieved by standing together through the challenges which we all recognize threaten us all as defenders of fine public education. Our perspectives are much different. You are directly on the firing line. While most of us retired educators and supporters can only offer what we can from the sidelines. We have met with you. We have witnessed your efforts both here in the schoolboard meetings and in the community especially you Dr. Roberts as you
006have worked to become a more integral part of our de mo community. I can personally say that my own early trepidation has been has morphed into respect for your daunting task that you face and for the panache with which you conduct yourself and interact with your colleagues on the board and more importantly with the students of DMPS whether inspiring young athletes scholars or artists it's now obvious that you care and that you are leaving no one out. Iowa CCI, as you may have heard, we are not shrinking violence. We tend to dive in, especially where are those that seek to undermine our progress toward a more just and sustainable community. With the advent of public schools strong, we have endeavored to attend these meetings, taking lots of notes, and following up with each of you
007individually. After 14 months, I'm here to not to congratulate because there's still a lot to do, but to accentuate our respect for your honest efforts in providing the kind of learning environment that will prepare today's students for a world that very much needs their well-prepared hearts and minds. I hope that you know that CCI, known for being feisty, is not here to disrupt, but to support using our shared wisdom of our members both here in De Moine and around the state of Iowa. Our public school strong chapters now with more than 38 fledgling chapters around the state of Iowa, we have your back. We know that you're under tremendous pressure to knuckle under to the forces which seek to abandon the principles of equal education for all. We also know that you're not shrinking from
008your responsibilities. We know that you have the back of each and every De Moines public school student and their families. So today, at the end of another academic year, I'm here to register my respect for your efforts and to let you know that we have your back. When you need the support of dedicated uh of those dedicated to maintaining superlative public education, we'll be here. Thank you. Thank you, Sheree Mortise. I always have to adjust this when I follow Dartanion. My name is Sheree Ortiz. I live on the east side of De Moine and I'm a me member of public school strong. As the school year winds down, I'd like to salute the efforts of the entire district to find solutions and create new opportunities for our De Moines public school students. I'd like to
009thank the superintendent and board for your service throughout the school year that includes the start of an epic journey of change. The new cell phone policy and reimagine plan are giant steps for our district. And De Mo Public Strong sends gratitude to the administrative leadership staff and planning committees that worked hard intensely over the weeks to put the blueprint together. To our building administrators, teachers, and all support staff, De Mo Public School Strong would like to extend a big thank you for your daily commitment to our students. Every day isn't easy. I know that. But every day you are impacting the lives of students in big and small ways. Our public schools in De Moine are the lifeblood for many of our students. And this district has an incredible number of programs and opportunities to
010meet the vast array of student needs. Going forward, as a reimagine unfolds, those opportunities can be expanded. I want to put a finer point on a couple of things, however. First of all, our public school district and all public schools are worth defending and promoting. I think it is important to be reminded that vouchers are a threat to our sustainability and success as a district. Our challenge as a public school district is greater because we welcome all students that can and that can require additional resources. There are clearly opponents of public schools operating in Iowa that want to defund, dismantle, and privatize education in Iowa. The voucher program in Iowa is being expanded with millions of tax dollars continuing to be funneled away from public education. Dollars spent on educating students is best spent where
011there is oversight and accountability, not where private profiters can take tax revenue and spend without any form of accounting that is public. That is why de mo public strong has launched in was launched in de mo as well as chapters across Iowa. We will continue to organize people to attend school schoolboard meetings and support fully funded, honest and equitable public education open to everyone. Our De Moines Public School strong chapter is excited about the strategic planning we are engaged in presently to expand our outreach capacity this summer to meet more people and have more conversations so that we are engaging more De Moines residents. We have collaborated with Jennifer Birkshshire, author of the education wars in the past and we'll be continuing with that partnership this summer to better understand the challenges before us. Neighborhood
012public schools create a healthy sense of community and shared commitment. They are a bedrock of democracy and De Moine Public School Strong is tr proud to be defenders of those ideals. Thank you. We have no further speakers. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is our monitoring report and we will be monitoring guardrail 2. Thank you. How could I forget the most important part of the meeting? Recognitions. Dr. Roberts. Thank you, Madam. Thank you, Madam Chair. Good evening, everyone. As we continue to bring forth district recognitions at every board meeting where we recognize, honor, and celebrate the amazing accomplishments of our teachers and the adults who ser of teachers, staff, students, and all the other adults in the district who serve our students every single day. This evening at the last board meeting of
013our school year, we do not have any inerson recognitions, but Madam Chair uh certainly uh would behoove me to celebrate the fact that we are in graduation season. We have just completed um eight graduations of students who have walked across stages including our virtual campus um our options academy or Ruby Van Meter special education campus certainly our five comprehensive high schools. I had the good fortune of serving uh as a member of the onstage guest where I uh shared in my brief remarks, arguably brief remarks um that this class is designated as the Invictus class. And Invictus as we know it is the the Latin word that means unconquerable and undefeated. And we aptly define this class as the invictus class because this is the group of students who started their high school journey in
014the midst of the pandemic. But in spite of we have seen hundreds of students in the mo public schools walk across the stage. Many of whom will be entering into the world of work to be gainfully employed as a part of our employment commitment. Many of them have enlisted. They all stood proudly when called upon in the branches of the military. And we also have a healthy number who have enrolled in colleges and universities of their choice included historically black colleges, universities, and Ivy League schools. We are so proud of them. But in addition to our high school graduates, many of you have had the good fortune in the past week of attending our kindergarten graduation or promotion ceremonies. some of the most fun and exciting and also more than 30 what our elementary teachers
015and staff will call clapouts. And this is where we send off our fifth graders with a lot of jubilation as they enter into middle schools. So excited about that and want to celebrate them. And the final recognition this evening is again to double on the board's most recent at the last board meeting gratitude and acknowledgement of our teachers, staff and the leaders who served them just to say thank you. Thank you for your continued individual inspiration to ensure that every single student who knocks on our doors receive a quality education and for your collective commitment to still stand in the gap not only for our students but for your colleagues. So, as you get ready to head off to places near and far in the summer, beaches that I'll be envious of and enjoyable vacations,
016we have tremendous gratitude for you and your service. And we look forward to seeing you as you return next year, but also join our talented personnel team by sharing the good news to recruit even recruit even more teachers and staff to come to the most amazing public school system in the state of Iowa. Madam Chair, that concludes this evening's recognitions. Wonderful. Thank you, Dr. Roberts. Next item on our agenda is our monitoring report, guardrail 2. And I'm going to turn it over to Miss Marterano to facilitate the board discussion of the monitoring report. Before I do that, I do want to say thank you very much. Uh, Miss Marterano um willingly always accepts the challenge or is volunttoled or whatever it is, but she is always so willing to do this. So, thank you very
017much and it's all yours. Certainly, I'm happy to facilitate and um looking forward to our conversation today for the the public um both watching online and here. Typically, the board does not um monitor our guard rails. They're added to our uh consent agenda items. So, it's not a topic that we discuss as a board, but we have decided that moving forward, we are going to um take um more intentional steps towards highlighting the good that is happening in the district. And it just so happens that our guardrails um do need to be celebrated today. Guardrail uh 2 and guardrail 4. So, I am going to um ask that Dr. Roberts present the guard rail and update us on the information today and then we'll ask board members to follow up with any questions that they
018may have regarding the status of our achievement towards honoring this value that has been vocalized by our our community. Thank you board member Marano. At this point, uh, in keeping with our practice of ensuring that as we continue to provide a snippet of our interim guards and interim goals to the community on board, um, we want to ask that we bring forth some of those individuals who are closest to the work, who work and serve in our schools to provide much more in-depth sort of celebrations, if you may, about where we are. And I'll call in one of our senior leaders, Greg Rose, to introduce them. [Music] Good evening. Good evening. Um, good evening, Dr. Roberts, Chair Norris, and and fellow board members. Um, as we turn our focus to guard rau, and we've got
019a few folks coming up to join me. Um, I want to begin by just first recognizing uh the many DMPS educators that have fully embraced our district's first ever adoption of a universal curriculum. uh their commitment along with the engagement of over 31,000 students has helped build a foundation for durable skills like collaboration um self-awareness, adaptability, and purpose in our classrooms. Um tonight you'll hear from two school teams that are bringing this work to life. First, you're going to hear from Lincoln High School associate principal Joy Linquest. She is joined by some fellow uh students that are also going to be sharing um and they are going to be sharing um their advisory model and how it's building student self-efficacy aligned specifically to interim um goal interim guardrail um 2A helping students feel more confident
020and connected in their learning and then following that you'll hear from Phillips Elementary um second grade teachers Carrie Coheiser Faith Boss and academic interventionist Miss Breezy Presley will share um the sustained professional learning around SEAL that they've been engaged in that has shaped their instruction um strengthen collaboration and supported student outcomes directly advancing interim goal 2B. This year I want to note that Phillips also uh achieved an 89% favorable response on the staff panorama survey um placing them in the 99th percentile nationally. um a powerful reflection of adult investment that's making an impact where ultimately matters most in the classroom. Um so together these examples will reflect how SEAL is becoming more embedded um and not just an initiative but more of a part of the way that we just do school here in DMPS.
021So I'm going to start with Joy and the the Lincoln team. I think so. Oh great. Awesome. Good evening. Thank you for having us. I would like to share um just a couple minutes about our journey. So I joined the Lincoln team three years ago and we had just created an SEAL team and um so three years ago we decided to lay the foundation for the adult learning in SEAL. We really felt as a team it'd be important to ensure that the adults understood social emotional learning that they were able to um support one another and support students. We led professional development. We also um started some community building circles with our adults and um trauma-informed care um professional development. The next year we introduced and we were here last year um sharing our successes
022with you as well because our panorama data increased last year and that was due to us um incorporating a tier one um instructional framework with um regard to our we create our own curriculum using the our lessons using the SEAL competencies. Um and this year the huge shift with wayfinder has made a significant difference. We again have seen increases in our data which I am going to allow our team to share more with you. But I wanted you to understand that um it is has been a journey 3 years uh worth and um I'm very proud of our team. I would like to acknowledge um them and allow them to share the actual celebrations. Hi, I'm Katie Murphy and I'm one of the seal champions. Julia Minahan will speak right after me, but I just
023wanted to speak in regards to some of our data. So, the data that is in front of you is our spring panorama results. And our shift to focusing on student seal this year has helped our students be above district average in every category, which we are very proud of. But one of the things we are most proud of is the growth that students have shown in self-efficacy. We believe that that directly correlates to the data you see on the right of teacher efficacy. As our staff continue to believe in their ability to teach and for their students to learn, students gain efficacy as well. On the next slide, you will see how this has affected our academics, specifically our ISAs scores for the ninth and tth graders. We believe that SEAL and academics should never
024be in competition with each other. When a student's social emotional well-being is increasing, their academics do as well. Good evening. My name is Julia Minahan. I'm a school counselor at Lincoln and one of the champions as well. Um so I um am very excited. I've been at Lincoln for 10 years and um we used to have rails time for those of you who've been around for a while which was similar to an advisory model. Um that went away for several years and this year um our school is the only high school that implemented an advisory model. Um but because it was not built into our bel schedule, we had it as a rotating period. But that is the time that we used for students to have a home base to have consistency with um not
025only peers in those advisories but also one teacher that um was their home room teacher for them to build a strong relationship with one caring adult. So um it's something I'm very proud of that we did. um and we used our wayfinder curriculum in that advisory model and I truly believe that is why we saw the growth that we saw um in our panorama data. The thing I would really love to ask for um for future years is for advisory to become embedded in the high school bell schedule because I truly think that our students and teachers need that consistency but also for our teachers to get their instructional time protected. The barrier that we saw was because we had rotating periods. Although SEAL is important, it did take away from some instructional time. Um,
026and that was a barrier for a lot of our students and teachers. Um, so having that protected time is would be huge for all high schools. Thank you. Um, hello. I'm Blake Butters. I'm the class of 2025 uh president at Lincoln High School. Um I've been a part of many things here at Lincoln High School, but um being a part of the leadership team really helped me see the self-e efficacy of the students in the high school and it really made me believe that throughout the years in our seal, we have gained more and more especially with this advisory and us learning more and lessons through it. I believe my self-efficacy has risen more than ever. So, I I really am a I I will strive for this as much as I can and even
027when I come back to hopefully teach here at the school, I will strive for that. Hello, my name is Valeria Diaz Ruiz. I am the vice president of Lincoln High School. Um I also believe a lot in this uh advisory because it gives a set um time for teachers and students. We used to have we used to do um wayfinder with teachers presenting it and it would be different teachers last year different teachers at different times. So we wouldn't always get to see the wayfinder curriculum and what we were supposed to be looking at. But this year we have advisory. So it was a set time for us to look at that stuff with the same teacher and the same students in your class which has also helped us collaborate with students that I didn't
028know was in my grade. So that's very beneficial as well. And we have done ex like uh activities and games that have helped us improve our self-efficacy. And I believe that advisory is very helpful and will continue to help increase our self-efficacy and other data. Hello, my name is Jr. Gocha and I'm an 11th grader at Lincoln High School. Um my experience with the social and emotional learning for advisory classes this year have been good for me and other students. There was one activity that I feel me and my fellow classmates really enjoyed and it helped us and it was a lesson on how mental health and why mental health is important and what we could do to manage it and maintain it while also staying on top of our schoolwork and not getting behind.
029And I feel that this was helpful and important to us cuz I feel as a high schooler, we have a lot of stuff outside of school that we bring into school that affects our personal learning. So I feel like it's also it's always helpful to have things help us navigate around those problems. And I'll also be voicing the opinion of one of my fellow classmates, Noel Ramos Alvarado, who wasn't able to make it tonight. Students often listen to Wayfinder lessons that were being introduced in my advisory room. Usually, everyone in the classroom had an awesome connection, and I think we should stick to the same advisory teacher for all years of high school. We felt pretty good about self-sufficiency with the lessons we learned in advisory class and often talked about things related to mental
030health that can help us figure out what to do and how to manage our mental health in a better direction. Thank you for your time and I hope this helps you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Andrea Avalos and I am a sophomore at Lincoln High School. Thank you for letting me speak to you all today. Um, my experience with the social and emotional learning during advisory classes helped me um, tremendously. Um, the SEAL classes had made me realize and recognize that all of us are struggling and growing with common things. Um, it has helped me feel like I have self-efficacy and I can do things on my own and I have control over my future. Um, there was one activity that we did the beginning of second semester. We were on a website that
031could possibly determine our future careers by taking a small personality quiz to see where we would fall under. I remember taking something very similar my eighth grade year. So, I thought that this was helpful because it had showed us some doors that we could open in our future and it could give us an insight more about the career that would lay with our personalities. Um, I hope this helps you. Thank you. Hello, my name is Leticia Felix. I'm a 10th grader at Lincoln High School. Thank you for letting me speak to you all today. My experience with the social and emotional learning or advisory classes this year have been good for me and other students. It has helped me feel like I have efficacy and I can make a difference and that I have control
032over who I am and I will be. The classes have made me feel happy and proud of my accomplishments. I also think this has helped some students build relationships in a smaller group. The class has made me more aware of others and how we are going through similar things in our lives. And because of this, I believe we are making sure to treat others with kindness and respect. There was one activity that we did in class that I really liked. It was a cartoon video about bullying. A boy was being bullied and had no friends. Then a girl wanted to be friends with him and ended up getting made fun of as well. But together they overcame everything. The video was helpful to us because students should understand how everyone goes through things that are
033not always good and how kindness is something everyone should be showing out there and it makes a big difference for all of us. Thank you for your time and I hope this helps you. Yeah. In closing, um just know that our not only our SEAL data but also our academic data has had significant growth this year and we are so proud of our students. So, I just would like to give them a hand if we could. Thank you. And next, I'll call up our Phillips team and they're going to share out uh specifically around uh interim goal our guardrail uh 2B. I'll ask one and then if anybody else wants to ask a question. So, this is not a trick question, but in your own words, if somebody said to you, "What's self-efficacy?" What would
034you say? Like, how would you define it or explain it? Um, I would explain that it's believing that you can do something and that you can accomplish things. Just having that personal um like acknowledgement that you know you can do things. Awesome. Thank you. Perfect answer. Good job. Thank you so much. Anybody other questions? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. move out a little bit. Okay. Sorry. All right. Um, so, hi, my name is Carrie Cohiser. I teach second grade at Phillips Elementary. I'm Breezy Preston. I work as an academic interventionist with second grade at Phillips. And my name is Faith Boss. I am a second grade teacher at Phillips Elementary. And today we're going to be talking about social and emotional learning. Um, so just to start, I kind of wanted to divi define social
035emotional learning, kind of what it means to us at Phillips. Um, and so it's just this idea, right, that every child can receive an education that is fully supports their learning and development so they can achieve their goals and contribute to their communities. Um, it's also just having this ability to learn um like healthy development and positive relationship skills. We at Philips take the white the wayfinder lessons and then also just looking really hard at the castle um transformative constructs. And so we really look at identity, belonging, agency, collaborative problem solving, and curiosity. And that's kind of where we let ourCCL work lie. Um, within there really are two parts. There is the student, but there is the adult that we kind of forget about a lot. Um, our building divided that work into two
036different teams, taking a closer look at how we prepare our adults for usingCCL using Wayfinder and those castle competencies. Uh so at our building I'm on our team which focuses heavily on our student seal. we look at the panorama data and that's kind of how we determine what areas of growth our students need um and what lessons we're going to prepare what wayfinder we're going to look at um and that's just how we drive our instruction and then I like I said I work on that that student piece and I am a part of our building leadership team and we collect and look at data and focus specifically on how we can enhance that adult piece still you um one way that we have worked on improving adult SEAL is by having the experts at
037Phillips, the classroom teachers, um present on those castle competencies. During our professional developments, we've had presentations on self-awareness, emotional regulation, self-efficacy, social awareness, responsible decision-making, and relationship skills. All of these presentations were rooted in both SEAL for students and in for adults because the truth in the truth is in order because the truth is in order to do our most effective to be our most effective selves we need to take care of our own as well. Um so to me is about recognizing and honoring students as a whole person. So before we can talk about like succeeding academically, we need to meet their physical then their emotional needs too. And so really it's just this idea that when our students come in, they're people first and students second. And so how are we meeting those
038needs? They need to feel safe, valued, and understood in our classrooms. When students know their voices matter, and they have the tools to connect with each other, that's where the real growth happens. By building that trust and creating a caring um community, we've kind of opened the door for personal and academic success. We really found that by collaborating as a team and having those opportunities for adult in our building and working together that it really strengthened our ability to teach our students. When we really understood our own that made a huge impact in our students. We were able to provide them with quality instruction because we understood ourselves and that's a really important kind of first step and that's kind of what we delivered here at Phillips. and we have many conversations understanding that SEAL
039is not a isolated time. It is a conversation that we are having all the time all day every day. They come up in everything that we're doing and they can be weaved into things that we're talking about academically. Um or they're just a conversation that we can have with the child by itself. Um, wanting to note that it is important that we take care of adult and student. Um, we kind of have a special situation at Phillips. We have our interventionist with the pushin model. So, being given that opportunity to have three teachers supporting one grade has vastly opened doors for students that may not have been available for only having those two classroom teachers. Um, we are able to have more SEAL conversations frequently and it allows students more chances to connect with adults
040that they feel comfortable with. So, you're not always just locked into that one classroom teacher and maybe the other classroom teacher at recess. You have two adults in the room that you might be more comfortable with one than the other depending on the student. Um, it can also give the room different perspectives and the ability to meet different emotional needs. Just how students have different emotional strengths, so do the adults. Um, it allows us to be more fluid with conversations and conflicts and it gives students the opportunity to practice appropriate strategies and to emotionally regulate themselves. It also gives us the adults the ability to be more collaborative with one another and allow us to be more in the know with all students in second grade, not just one classroom. Um, to state again, we
041found success with this approach as shown by Philip's data. We had a 9-point gain in professional learning about SEAL, putting our building at the 99th percentile. We when we started really looking at what what staff needed to be confident in leading SEO that is when the growth started. Thank you for having us. Thank you. Thank you team Greg. Thank you so much. Um uh Lincoln Rails, thank you. Thank you all for being here. We're so proud of the work you all are doing and certainly our Phillips team. Thank you as well. Congratulations. Let's keep pushing forward. Uh Madame Chair and board, um certainly it it is very clear to us that as we continue to look at guard rail 2, which states that the superintendent shall not allow the social emotional learning needs of any
042students or staff to go unressed, um th this guard rail um is of critical importance to us. And and while we know that as an educational institution we prioritize and should prioritize academic gains and academic success, what I heard loud and clear particularly from our Philips Elementary staff um is that they are just navigating this interesting dichotomy between Bloom's taxonomy and Maslo's hierarchy of needs. And so while we know that we want everyone to focus on blooms, unless we focus on and prioritize Maslo's where we're meeting the basic needs um and social emotion needs of our not only students but staff um we will not get to the desired outcome of achieving our board goals. And so with that said um indulge me if you may as I share a high level overview building on
043what they've just shared around where we are with guardrail 2. And then the next slide um I want to talk a little bit about the fact that uh when we look at interim guardrail 2A which speaks mostly to student self-efficacy uh we are meeting the target right so as you look at the quantitative numbers um we are seeing growth but it's not quite where we want to be and while we have some um isolated cases for example where some schools are outperforming others um we will acknowledge that we are at varying places of implementation ation uh with our wayfinder curriculum and you'll see that reflected in some of our data. Um when I think about guardrail 2B um and this is more about teacher learning and you know we've heard from some of our teammates
044sharing the importance of um really ensuring that they too are also embracing those five key tenets of social emotional learning. Right? that includes social and self-awareness, um solid relationship building, um emotional regulation and and and responsible decision- making. Those are the five key tenets um that the the castle model offers us and and even they're embedded into our way of finding curriculum. And so we are excited where we are. I want to highlight and acknowledge though that some big takeaways for us is the fact that the self-efficacy in students really reflects the belief in their ability to succeed. We heard from one of our our Lincoln students, right, the um um vice president of the the class of 2025 that they understand that having been exposed to way finding his self-efficacy efficacy has certainly um
045improved and will continue to improve. Um on the next slide, um I I want to just highlight um some of what we've seen and that is where our schools are not only meeting this target that we've set of 38%. um but many of them are exceeding in significant ways and and and that work has to be attributed to um three groups of individuals right one the teachers who were willing to implement um this new curriculum in addition to uh just the academic uh curriculum that they're expected to focus on including our math and and ELA curriculum and science curriculum. So they recognize the importance of this. The second group um is our school leaders and their um leadership teams, right? They they also recognize that while there's so much on their plates, um there is
046an important consideration being given uh to ensure that they're supporting our teachers with balancing and navigating the different curricular options. And then the third is our champions, right? That who work out out of our district offices. And these are individuals who have raised their hands to say yes, we are going to stand in the gap um of the work that we our primary work but also support this big initiative because we recognize the importance of it. And as you um can see therefore um sort of uh you're sharing your observation that the the the progress we're making is tremendous. And while we can highlight all of our schools who are far exceeding the 52% target, um to have schools that are in the 99 percentile or the 90th percentile in general um compared to their
047peers in the nation certainly impressive, but we also recognize that we have much more work to do. On on the next slide, it really just highlights some commitments we made to the board in the fall. The board has charged the um district's team to ensure that we are coming back to you to provide you with some updates about where we are and the status is reflected there in terms of where we are. The first is um the way find the lessons and whether or not they are aligned to our panorama data and the P panorama survey of course is administered to both adults and students and the one update and status that we have is we've since created lessons um and we've shared and implemented these lessons to a great extent with fidelity in some
048of our schools while in many of our other schools we're still growing um and one call out I think from some of our presenters today is that um we do not yet have consistent advisory models built into our schedule across all of our high schools. Um it's a work in progress. Um it certainly will present a challenge to us uh because again we want to maintain pri prioritization of spending the limited time that we have on our academic pursuits. So that's something that we're going to figure out. Um the one other uh sort of board commitment I want to call out is um commitment number three and that's anal focused professional development. um we do not necessarily want to um as a practice be married to any consultant or consulting group. Um we and they
049understand that that's our philosophy as well. We certainly want to value and embrace those partnerships. Um but we also want to make sure that we're building internal capacity to embrace a train the trainer model and um with with uh Greg Grills and and um Allison Finley and Thoron Hobs and other members of that team we are working on a train to trainer model that will certainly ensure that we are um building sustainability around the practice. On the next slide, um certainly want to highlight sort of how are we prioritizing? We looking at this through um this trifecta if you me the lens of where do we need to expand, where do we need to build and where do we need to strengthen. Now I want to share just one for you and I'll share sort
050of our top bullets and that is the places where we need to expand to have a higher impact is on um launching high school high school framework um with more monthly activities and get into a place of consistency. We still don't have that yet. It's an area of growth where we want to build is to continue with our champions training and to continue to build their capacity around utilization of coaching tools and where we need to strengthen is um our counseling and tiered supports. You've heard from our council councils at previous board meetings where um while we have a number of schools that are nationally ranked ASCA champions, we still have areas of growth in that regard. So, I wanted to be able to share with you and then open up certainly for any questions
051that the board may have related to uh guardrail 2. Thank you, Dr. Roberts. Um board members, I open it up to you for questions regarding this report. Um, this report was uh very um I will say thorough and um dove very deeply into where we currently are and where we're headed in the future. So um any lingering questions from board members? I have two. Uh Dr. Roberts, do you mind going back to the slide that showed what you said you were going to do? Yeah. Um so number two the curriculum coordinators trained on integration. Um one of the things in the report it talks about is still feeling like an add-on like another thing and so can you just explain a little bit more how those two things are working together. It looks by virtue
052of this that you've addressed it or it's being addressed. Can you explain that a little bit more? Thank you Madam Chair. Um and and let me preface my comments by sharing that the district district's leadership team certainly empathize with our curriculum coordinators um because it is true. It certainly can feel as an add-on because when you think about their primary role is that of providing really targeted and differentiated support around curriculum and instruction to our teacher and school teams. Um but because uh we value and I say we I'm speaking collectively um uh all of the adults in the school district realize the value of SEAL. Um they have raised their hands to say yes let's see how we can support. So we um as a team need to continue to think about where can
053we sort of reduce the burden of this additional body of work although it's critical. So we are a work in progress a lot of crosswalk with um the other aspects of their daily operations. Can you explain the crosswalk? The crosswalk is where I believe that we're looking at um the their primary functions around providing supports to teachers and our school leaders around instruction but also looking at where can we blend time in this time constraint environment. Um where are we seeing um an important merge between curriculum and instruction academic outcomes for students as well as their growth on our social emotional pursuits? Thank you. Uh, so I have a comment. I don't know if I should hold that, Kim, but I also have a question. Should I do the question first? I would say we
054can be agile during this type of um question and answer. This is not a typical monitoring. So by all means go. Okay. So first I want to make a comment. um as a mother. So, we heard from the teachers, we heard from you, some of the students, but um my son is a second grader at Phillips and actually Miss Kay is his teacher and I want to be transparent um and kind of just give you the story of him. um he had struggled a lot last year in first grade uh with emotional issues and then academics and this year uh I totally saw a change in him and just the conversations he had. Um I could see the work of Wfinder really working um especially in our household and his academics has gone up uh
055and his emotional um issues have you know he's done really really well. So that's my comment um of I'm seeing what's happening with my family with way with wayfinder and seal um especially with a kiddo that did struggle. Um but my other question now my question is um so one of the students was talking about uh the uh advoc not advocacy um no what was it um advisory advisory thank you uh advisory classes and then that's kind of on your whatn not's going well that is on there the limited time is that something that we to look into or is the calendar set and it's kind of difficult to add that in for next year? Yeah, I know my team will have much more in in depth response. What I can say with certainty is
056um school leaders and their teams have a tremendous amount of agency. And while we see value in some consistency of practices across the district, this is one where principles and their teams are navigating um a time constrained environment where they wish they had an additional 10 hours in their day to do all of the things that they want to do. And so advisory um Lincoln High School is the only high school this year I believe that went full-fledged into having an advisory program. And because of the spirit of collaboration that is present amongst our high school leaders, I can certainly see a place where they will actually have conversations with their peers to see how can they best implement an advisory model in their schools. And so um I believe that we are likely to
057see in school year 2526 much more of an appetite to embrace an advisory model at our middle school level. We're seeing um school leaders are also finding c using utilizing creative ways to build in that time as well across all of our middle schools. Um and elementary schools of course have have a very different schedules and schedule and they're able to build it in. So it's something that we're going to work on. Thank you. Thank you. Board members, any additional questions? Um I just have a comment. I was really excited actually to see the number four page sorry I don't know the page number Dr. uh page eight that just talks about scaling secondary implementation supports. And so um specifically, this is in the in the report, but specifically when we get to the portrait
058of a graduate and the connection between Wayfinder and Portrait of a Graduate, that's going to be when we talk about uh goal three and get our next update. Would love to hear more about that because um I I just love seeing the connection between the two. Thank you, Madam Chair. We're excited. The team is excited to share more about and expand on that work when we revisit goal three, the goal three conversation. Great. Y Dr. Roberts, I'd just I'd build on uh Jackie's comments there as a product of a four-year advisory model in my high school and having the same adult in uh that advisory. I I just I don't think that there's a better way to have consistency for kids academically so that they have the same adult asking questions, meeting needs uh for
059a four-year uh term. But I'd add in um the advisory model and and I would just offer this up to the experts um and that is um having boys and girls advisories and the difference that that made and the social difference that that made for for us to have um I think it was a a huge um advantage going through four years of high school. And I'd be interested to hear if that model is being used anywhere else and what the benefits might be of not only a four-year advisory but four-year separated out advisory. So homogeneous by gender. Yeah. I I I know that they are ple plethora of research that speaks to the value of um sort of those gender specific classrooms, gender specific schools. Um, and as you can imagine, you know, we
060have both good and and bad data around it. Um, so, but I I appreciate you sharing that. I don't know. I know our principles are listening and someone may want to um add another thing to their plate and take that on. It's not a directive. Someone may be listening to you right now. Question. Dr. Roberts, a very high level question, but I'm curious. Does the district offer any direction to buildings? I know you said they have their own agency. I feel like we sometimes will hear at public forums or in monitoring conversations the need for so many things to be placed in the schedule. I think of uh a recent public forum where there was a a a research proposal for more recess time even. Um so there's constantly this this demand for more things
061to take place during the day. So I was curious is there any direction from the district? And then I have a a comment that's completely separate. Thank you Dr. May. Absolutely. Um you know I say unapologetically um as often as I can uh we have some of the most brilliant and professionally capable school leaders um anywhere in the country. And so with with that recognition and acknowledgement um they are still some non-negotiables um that comes from the direct the district that requires them to implement right some of our not directives but big initiatives um with fidelity. However, we try to balance that with acknowledging that principles know exactly what they're doing, what they need to do. And so, we allow a lot of agency and autonomy. Um, and that's why we are seeing some progress
062and gains in some of our um interim goals and guard rails. But yes, so it's it's both. Um, there are just some initiatives that requires us to uh provide sort of that top-down guidance to school leaders around some non-negotiables, right? One of those certainly will be um let's use the the science of reading. While that's not in all of our schools, um the aspiration is for that to be in every school. Um but there are other places where principles will certainly utilize their um I'll qualified by saying their bound autonomy around how they run their schools every day. Yep. Thank you. And then a really quick comment. I didn't want to share this first and preface the question, but certainly appreciate this being part of the curriculum and part of what's important in the schools.
063Um I I have the pleasure of working with social emotional learning in my professional life and in the higher education space. We often see that if they don't have this grounded u I I really appreciate the comment earlier about this isn't in competition of academic success. They both are needed and they're both required. So certainly appreciate the district pushing this. Thank you sir. Uh Dr. Roberts just one one question excuse me. on page four um in reference to professional learning um uh related to teachers you under what's not going well said that 100% attendance um at not ESL seel uh champion meetings what's the attendance rate under what's not going well yeah under what's not going well you said 100 uh% attendance at champion meetings. So the champions I believe they convene um they have
064some convenings where they are providing uh professional development uh to teachers. Um again it's competing priorities. Um 100% attendance is ambitious. It's an ambitious aspiration. Um but when teachers have to navigate so much on their plates um we're not there yet. And so, um, it's an area by highlighting it in that column, we're we're acknowledging that, um, we need to find creative ways to free up teachers time to get them there. I have just a couple of comments. One, um, being around I'm I'm guessing that there is quite the the um, dichotomy and grapple. you must grapple with how much autonomy to give and how much direction to give your leaders. And I I appreciate in many of the responses that you have in the report that it is based on data and research proven
065and researchbacked. Um, so I hope that in the future when building leaders are deciding how to prioritize and what to prioritize that um, it is based in the data and the research all coupled in with what it is that we're hoping to achieve and our goals and our guard rails. And I I know that it's a lot to juggle um, and I'm am grateful for that continued focus on the data and research that this goes with that. truly does need to be handinand in order for for both of those items to improve both student outcomes as well as that um the student social emotional learning. So, thank you for that. Um and then the other comment that I had was just regarding uh process. The board received a note catcher regarding our guard rails. Um
066this week board members asked a plethora of questions. Thank you to you and your team for answering all of those in detail. Will those questions and answered be made available on board docs for our community members to see or is that um down the road that we'll be working towards that? Um yes and thank you thank you board for um one uh board member Marano for highlighting that uh and we appreciate your willingness to embrace the new process um been led by our uh director of um data assessment and evaluation in collaboration with of course yours truly. Um, yes, we certainly want to make those available. Um, as we continue to operate with a spirit of transparency. Can Can you say more actually because I I think I actually missed the I mean I I
067love the idea, don't get me wrong, but the Can you explain the transition to note catcher and how that actually moves it into a public arena or am I two separate things? So, the note catcher essentially um captured all of the questions that board members had regarding guardrail 2 and guardrail 4. And all of those questions, all the answers were provided by Dr. Roberts and team in that note catcher document. Um so, it's essentially all of the monitoring questions and answers in writing in one document. So, I I would find it beneficial to have that um for the public to to see. Um I think I put maybe 30 questions in there. It was a lot. And I other board members put questions in as well. So, I know that there's a a huge amount
068of information in there regarding um the the monitoring of this particular guard rail um and and future guard rails if we're going to continue with the process. And I think my question is just a process question because I know I just email like we usually do. I emailed my questions to you, right? And and then forward the answers back. So just for clarification for process, are we supposed to change the way we are submitting our questions? By the request of Dr. Robertson team, he had sent that to that request to the board. Didn't read it. No, no, that's fine, Madam Chair. Thank you for asking that clarifying question. our our intent is to refine the process and um on behalf of the team we just tremendously grateful for the board's flexibility as we refine the
069process to get to a place of an exemplar right and so that's where we are right now today's the first at bat with not only utilizing a note catcher but at at least the sort of the cadence and run of show of having our celebrations providing a little bit of a high level update utilizing a powerpoint deck and then the third is to and engage in the board uh superintendent conversation So the note catches intended for us to refine and streamline those questions even when they're 30 from one board member and um and in the spirit of continuous improvement I would say board members please provide feedback to that process um so that we can continue to refine it and get better as a governing team and improving um just the overall um understanding of
070where we're in our pursuit to honor this value. Um, that being said, I would say we can turn it over unless there's any final comments or questions. We can navigate into guard rail 4, the next item on our agenda. Thank you, Mike Lord, one of our senior leaders. Good evening, board, Dr. Roberts. Um I am here representing uh being one member of our cross departmental safety team uh representing part portions of uh guardrail 4. Um and I am honored to introduce uh Amy Lao and uh Jolin May. Amy is the principal at Brody Middle School. Joel Lynn is the associate associate principal and they have led intentional and impactful efforts to enhance safety and security for all students and staff at Brody Middle School through their focused work around comprehensive school threat assessment guidelines. Seag
071you'll hear often and we love our acronyms so I want to be sure that we define those. um implement implementation of standard response protocol. You'll hear that as SRP um and the integration of advanced safety technology through the governor's safety bureau grant. Um they have established a proactive and responsive safety culture within the school. Their strong collaboration with De Moines public schools public safety officers has further strengthened these efforts. Um they are creating a comprehensive and coordinated approach to school safety and their leadership continues to ensure that Brody remains a safe and secure supportive environment for learning and we've invited them to speak to some of their intentional actions and work that they've done so far this year. So without further I'll turn it over to Amy. Thank you board. I do just want to
072point out guardrail 2 is in service of this guardrail. uh if we did not teach social emotional skills in our elementary, middle, and high schools, safety would be an issue. Uh we heard from elementary and high school today. Middle school is also working hard on implementing Wayfinder in our classrooms. We do currently have advisory. We have advisory in all the middle schools next year. Uh Brody specifically is having advisory first period. So when students come to school, they get to settle in, talk with their friends, enjoy an activity. Uh but then in all middle schools, we are bringing all of our advisory kids back to that same space at the end of the day because one thing we've learned in middle school is kids need to be taught how to organize all their stuff. And
073what better way to do that to go back to that same teacher, that same space with the same kids and talk about their day and reflect on that and then also think about what do I need for tomorrow to be successful when I get to school. So now that the middle schools are also working hard to implement social emotional learning and all the things when it comes to advisory and closing circle at the end of the day, uh we do have some positive impacts. Come on up here, Jolyn. Uh I promise I wouldn't ask her to say anything, but uh we do have some positive impacts at Brody. Uh quick shout out to Will Cannon. He is our restorative safety coordinator. uh he should be here but he is at his son's baseball game but
074we told him it was cancelled so he should just drive on over here. Uh and also Deborah Carr she has been a huge support to us at Brody when we are navigating these difficult conversations and of course to Dr. Johnson also who is our support and director at the middle schools. So at Brody we are proud to lead the district in implementing the comprehensive school threat assessment guidelines which is called the SEAG protocol. This approach has enhanced our ability to manage student behavior and potential threats in a consistent evidence-based manner. Since adopting SEAg, we've addressed a range of concerning behaviors, including studentto student threats, uh, random outbursts, and studentto staff incidents. The majority of these cases have been assessed as transient, meaning they don't pose any threat to anybody, but there is a small percentage
075that have required further intervention. This structured approach has significantly improved our ability to deescalate situations early and reducing disruptions and improving overall school climate. We had a situation recently where if we didn't ask these questions to this student and their family, we wouldn't have known that this student needed the extra support uh when we think about his mental health. And so we were really glad that we asked all those questions and were able to give this family the support that they needed. The governor's school safety grant has provided critical support in enhancing our physical security infrastructure. With this funding, we at Brody purchased 24 new Motorola R7 radios. We upgraded both interior and exterior camera systems and we added a badge reader at key points of entry and exit particularly for recess which we have
076implemented this year uh for our staff and students to get back in the building easily and for extra afterchool curricular activities. These upgrades have streamlined our communication, improved our ability to monitor the campus in real time, and enhanced controlled access to the building, resulting in a safer environment for our students and staff. In addition, our collaboration with public safety and having an assigned zone officer has strengthened our school security. These officers have played a vital role in assisting De Moines Public Police Department when needed, when they need to do safety sweeps or managing any situations that might involve something dangerous or a prohibited item on the campus. Uh their consistent presence and their quick response capabilities have been instrumental in maintaining a secure and supportive school environment. And we did talk about that this week
077and it is nice to have a consistent face when a security person shows up at the building and it's good for our kids to see that they're there to keep us safe. So we're still working on implementing all things safety at Brody and implementing wayfinder and social emotional learning, but we do believe it's important and it's important to treat all threats the same and that Sea Stag has been really supportive with that. Thank you. Thank you, Amy. just a sort of a point of um offering a definition. I know we've been talking a lot about um our use of acronyms and I'm glad that Amy unpacked it and by its very definition really seag is a model or a framework that allows multi-disiplinary teams in schools and school districts uh to actually proactively respond to
078and prevent um incidents of violence crisis or create safe environments. And so they're utilizing a model with fidelity. Yeah. Uh Dr. Dr. Roberts, I have a question just about the the mention about the RSC and some of the resources the zone uh assignment for I assume public uh it's both public safety but then also maybe for DMPD but I guess broadly um are all are they unique or are the resources being applied the RSC and all of the other supports consistently to all the all the schools or is there discretion by the building leader. I'm just trying to understand how much of that is uh discretionary versus everybody has it. So it's twofold, right? To ensure daily operational excellence in each of the buildings. Building leaders have that autonomy and they're doing that work. However,
079we have a district safety team that meets once a week or as needed. Um and they um are have a represent wide representation of um different individuals across the district. So, um, our commitment to safety and security really allows us to make sure that we're looking at that hybrid of guidance from our district's safety team that convenes once a week. And then school leaders have a ton of support um, particularly, and I'll talk a little bit about this from our um, public safety team um, where you're going to see in the data that we are also increasing the number of public safety officers that we've hired. So, yeah. Oh, do you want to go through Dr. Roberts? Will you be going through the presentation this evening or um is that just there for our reference?
080It's there for your reference, but I'm happy to if there's an appetite or desire for us to do so. That's okay. But I'm excited about where we are. Sorry, I'm board mad. Just to really share um just two things, right? While we are excited, this this guard rail really looks at both students and teachers and it's about their perception of where we are and how we're feeling. we've seen an increase in terms of the sense of belonging from students. Um we've sort of we're exceeding the target for students. Um we're not we're teachers but what I'll say is across the board when we unpack that data some of the questions that teachers are expected to answer includes um their response to my supervisor cares a great deal about my personal safety. My supervisor creates opportunities
081for me to really express my opinion and disagree with them. uh my supervisor cares about my well-being and what we've seen across the board is teachers are responding favorably to that. And so it's kudos not only to our teachers but to those individuals who are serving in positions of leadership um that are creating environments not only around personal safety but psychological safety. In terms of personal safety, I think it's important to acknowledge um first of all and express gratitude to the board for your continued push and willingness to have our um safety team um certainly under the the opies of um associate superintendent Smith, Dave Burgerer, and our new safety director u Mr. Michelle where we've invested in um utilization of AI technology right where we're looking at sophisticated and up-to-date weapons detection systems um
082we're constantly looking at where are there places and opportunities for us to increase um our personnel and this year I think we've increased personnel going into the next school year by either eight or 10 offices some right and and then finally um what is not necessarily reflected here is um our commitment to the psychological safety of not only our students but our teachers and other adults who serve students. So, we're going to continue to grow in this area. Um what I want to highlight and Amy referenced this is there's a positive correlation um between the results or output some guard rail two and four. When we create um opportunities for and get more traction around ourcl tenants, we're likely to see um improvements around the psychological safety data. Um, Miss M. Murdero, just so I'm
083clear, guardrail 4A is a celebration because we're exceeding the target. I do think it would be worthwhile if 4B is to be monitored as well. Just Dr. Roberts, I'd love to understand uh because there's some successes, but we have insufficient movement toward the target so for staff. And so I'm wondering um and I I'm read this and it's really dense with information. I'm not necessarily seeing it's not punching through what we're doing to improve staff uh teacher and staff safety and that's coming out the wrong way. I know we are, but the strategies or tactics are not punching through for me. So, what are we going to do to um receive movement towards I appreciate you saying that, Miss Norris, cuz I was reflecting on us really going around and around about this guard rail.
084And I think Mr. Dixs, you were very passionate. I'm I'm sort of remembering about our teachers feeling unsupported in the classroom and not having the tools to be able to um address and respond to maybe student behavior in the classroom. I'm not feeling supported by all the adults in the building in some of these situations. Um, and I feel like, you know, I'm I'm really interested because I do feel like we've done a lot over this last year or made a lot of progress towards trying to create a a better environment for learning. And so, so I appreciate you calling that out and I'm just trying to understand how you think about this, Dr. Roberts, maybe with the lens of us really wanting to think about teachers in the classroom psychological and physical safety when
085we talked about this guardrail if I remember it correctly. Correct. Yeah. Thank you board. I'm happy to respond. Um and similar to the expressions that you have just brought into the space, we continue to also prioritize safety, not just physical and personal safety, but psychological safety. Uh when the board brought this to uh the forum last year, uh we did our due diligence. Uh we did not want to necessarily refute um the data you were sharing because perception sometimes is reality. But we went back and unpacked the data that we have around teachers reports around feeling unsafe and um you know the while there are some teachers who've shared um their personal experiences, we nowhere have captured or received reports around this sort of um significant amounts of of personal safety that teachers are struggling
086with. But we um paid very careful attention to that data and what we've done instead is we have of course implemented a we find a curriculum to make sure that our teachers have a place where they can start to think about how they and their students are navigating the social emotional space. Um secondly we we've continued to sort of engage in lots of conversations um with our um safety and security team to ensure that we are truly prioritizing personal safety and physical safety. Uh in terms of psychological safety, we have a wellness program that our talented personnel team um is committed to. Um we also we've incentivized our teachers um uh with uh what is called our healthy you program. Um and then our school leaders there's not a single school leader who isn't open
087and responsive to the needs and ask of our teachers. Um you know we uh during our uh recent collective bargaining discussions with our partnership with our um uh DMEA um they have brought up right um uh uh questions about safety and what we've shared with them is we need to continue to maintain this um really strong relationships and partnership and as a result I believe we have a DME representative on our district safety and security team and so um I I certainly really appreciate and and value the board's continued concern and wanting to push us around how are we what steps are we taking to make sure that teachers are truly feeling safe. Um uh I think some of the complaints that we had received um or concerns were with regards to teachers who are
088teaching um our littles in um kindergarten through third grade and and some of those challenges that we've looked at in terms of student behaviors are the result of um just a number of our students uh coming to um these regular classrooms without some um of the supports that they would have ordinarily receive in their earlier years and um we're continuing to work um towards ensuring that we are supporting our young people but also supporting teachers and so thank you. Keep pushing us um and we also want to hear from our teachers right when they're having years of struggle and challenge. I appreciate that comment because I I do want to push just a little bit more Dr. Roberts on um the the the scores because because they aren't necessarily moving in the right direction quick
089enough. And so I'm wondering when I look at some of these where the lowest growth is. And so this is on page uh nine. So it's my supervisor creates an environment that is trusting and open. Um I feel free to express my thoughts, feelings, and disagreements to my supervisor. um how how are we um equipping our supervisors to ensure that they are trained in best practices around supervision um andor what what targeted I'm going to use your word interventions are are being um are taking place to try and move some of these numbers. Yeah, thank you Madam Chair. But I really appreciate that question and as we look at the survey statements um that you referenced. So my supervisor creates an environment that is trusting and open um and I feel free to express my
090thoughts, feelings and disagreements to my supervisor. Um these aren't technical skills, right? These are adaptive skills. These are skills that require those individuals who are in positions of leadership um to grow and flex their empathy muscles by where they're spending an inordinate amount of time not only observing teachers and providing feedback about practice but creating environments that um is safe offering a listening ear um in instances where that is not happening um that's where the talent and personnel team and I um will certainly receive that feedback and and then have those conversations with supervisors who are not necessarily creating those environments um and utilize a coaching stance or approach so they can grow. So the the feedback I'm just trying to understand the feedback mechanism. So if this is taking place for a staff person
091where they don't feel like their supervisor is creating that type of environment their process is either to try and obviously have a conversation with their supervisor and if not to I'm just I'm just trying to figure out how the feedback actually is given. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yep. Yep. So we have um we have the the the the benefit again of having a sort of multi-layered hierarchy. And so let's take for example a teacher um a teacher who is not necessarily um having uh an experience that we want to value um can do a couple of things, right? The first is uh every single supervisor under the guidance of our talented personnel team is expected to conduct um stay interviews, right? and the state interviews while it occurs once or twice a year allows a person to
092express um and share what their experiences is experiences are. Secondly, if a teacher in the um is not having a good experience and they have an immediate need um and if that experience is is with their immediate supervisor, they have at least two or three different layers of individuals um to whom they can reach out. And then finally um our executive cabinet we have set for ourselves um a mission or reason for existing that says that we want to inspire and nurture um the the the presence and existence of every person and we encourage teachers and staff to reach out to members of the executive cabinet. um you know as a superintendent um I have a an open door policy and I have to tell you throughout the last two years I've heard from a
093number of teachers and staff members and I don't believe that and I'll say this um with utmost confidence that I have not responded to a teacher or staff member who has reached out um if they've asked for anonymity we grant that but we are responsive and if we're not being responsive um we we are creating spaces to receive feedback I appreciate that it's that it's just so important important, right? That supervisors are encouraged to use their empathy muscle and or coached. So, yeah, I really appreciate that. Thank you. Board members, additional questions regarding guard rail 4 and staff safety. Just a clarification. Um Dr. Roberts, on page six, um the CS uh tag, you you mentioned that it's available for online uh for staff that they have access online. Um but then that's under actions
094and strategy for what is going well. You also say that um there is a highlevel overview that will happen uh prechool year 2025 or 25 2025 2026. Is this training something that everyone has to complete before school year 2025? When you talk about the training available online, is that something that staff or teachers have to complete and then there is that overview happening? I look to the team for specifics. Thank you. Hi, thank you for that question. Um, yes, for CESAG, um, it it's multi-layered. So, what you're speaking to is um the 6-h hour um level one is available online for all staff if they choose um to want to go through and um learn the the process and and the background on there. We also have um level two which is is primarily for
095design within the building administration as well. Those are the ones that are that's a that's a level two training that will provide what um principal la was speaking to of how when they do um sea stag investigations and and and following through on the questions and the process there um the 1 hour and the highle overview will happen during pre-ervice time and that's where our buildings will have district directed designated time for our leaders will have um uh priority information and then they will provide that with their staff and they'll will also be a 1-hour video that they can share with their staff as well. So, that's where that high level comes in is we're we're offering opportunities for building knowledge and background with all staff and then having a a close team at every
096building that will be responsible for um providing the um investigations and things like that. So for just a follow-up question. So the highlevel overview is what we could say people will have to participate in because everything else is voluntary. Right. Correct. Correct. The the six-hour online would be a completely voluntary and that'd be just a deeper again that 1 hour high level will give them exactly that a high level. The six hour will be more depth to them but be voluntary. The one hour won't be. Thank you. you. Thank you, Mike. Y I had one uh final question for slide number nine or uh page number nine, excuse me. Uh first is just acknowledging I was really excited to see that I feel safe in my work environment increase and to be at a 3.97.
097When I think about this question, I know there are a lot of pieces to it, but this is probably one of the first things that comes to mind is are teachers feeling safe within their work environment? Um, and as I look at the rest of these, many of them are above the aggregated amount of the 3.9 that we see as the uh on the monitoring report. My question is there must be some survey statement that's below a two or a 2.5 that's bringing that average slightly down. So just trying to better understand maybe what is one of the survey statements that's in that two range or significantly lower. I don't know if it's a two or not. Um that is bringing the average down. Thank you, Dr. M. something that I want to um ask
098the board's permission to go back to the team and take a look at that and then for us to take action. Um that certainly rises to the surface as a a data point we need to unpack. Yep. Um just one more question. Uh page six uh Dr. Roberts crisis intervention planning. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about uh the increased uh services and providers in schools the support the additional support available to families because that has um changed. It's increased according to to what you mentioned. So I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about in what areas those have increased. Yeah. Who were so these are increased partnerships with service providers. Um I would certainly ask the team to share a little bit about um not only the amount of
099increases but maybe where there are one or two instances where um we've increased partners or the the collaborations perhaps. Yes. Thank you. Thanks Jen. I'm Jen Stalder. I supervise a success program for the district and I sat on the multidisciplinary safety team and I would say one of the primary increases in support for families is the partnership with Hazel Health that was introduced last summer I believe it was it's an online teaalth for mental health support for students and and um we have been actively referring to students so where we have buildings that don't have mental health providers in the space in person or where the family prefers to have that mental health support happen in their home. We've been able to make those referrals to Hazel and that is a big um increase in
100support that is available when we don't have physical um space or providers in our community that can meet that need. So that is one of the areas we look at with that increased support. You're welcome. Thank you, Jen. Yep. board members. Additional questions regarding guardrail 4. Okay. Thank you so much, Dr. Roberts. Back to you, Madam Chair. Uh, Miss Marter, correct me if I'm wrong, but we will accept uh I'll have to put forth motions to accept the guardrail reports. Correct. That is correct. Um, these are action items. I let me just yeah I'm comfortable. They are discussion and action items. So um I would like uh I would like to make a motion to accept item D1 D2. Oh D1. Thank you. D1 um guardrail 2. There is a motion by Miss Murder. Second.
101There is a motion by Mr. Dicks, second by Mr. Dixs. Any discussion or questions? Quick question and comment. I just wanted to say I really appreciate this iteration of the monitoring pro process. I know this has been something a point of contention for a while. So, thank you, Kim, and to the team who helped develop this uh different process. I feel like I I could ask genuine questions without being out of compliance. Thank you. Great. Thank you. Uh cast your votes, please. The vote is approved 7 to zero. And I would like to make a motion to accept item D2, guard rail monitoring report 4. We have a second. Second. We have a motion by Miss Marterano and a second by Mr. Dixs. Any discussion or questions? Uh board members, please cast your votes. Um
102the vote is approved 7 to zero. That was wonderful. Thank you so much. We are now going to move to the consent agenda. As a reminder to the board and public, the board will not engage in discussion or deliberation with a speaker regarding comments made to agenda items. Discussion and deliberation will remain among board members at the board table with speakers comments informing the board's discussion, deliberation, and determinations as deemed necessary. Miss Jenkins, do we have any speakers? Miss. Murder, I believe you have the consent motion. I move that the board approve the consent items in accordance with the recommended action for each item on the consent agenda, including bills previously authorized, certified, and approved for payment by the board secretary in the amount of 4,28,93923. We have a motion by Miss Murderano. Is there
103a second? Second. Uh we have a motion by Miss Marterano, a second by Miss Campos. Any discussion or questions? Just a comment, Madam Chair, and I I just this would be for the last three or four weeks. Um the personnel report has has just been something it is something I know many of us go through just to look and see what's going on. This seems like it would just be a matter of um uh you know process that we go through, but I I just want to let the teachers out there, particularly the ones that we're not going to see in our classrooms next year, know that we are noticing um your absence. Um I want to say congratulations and thank you to the ones who are moving to a different position in the district.
104Um and we will miss them in their old classrooms. Um, but it is I just want the teachers to know and the administrators to know that this is not something that we just pass up here at the board table and don't look at. I think a lot of us look at that list and um are sometimes really happy to see what's going on and sometimes really sad to see a teacher moving on to uh sometimes bigger and better things. So just that comment, Madam Chair. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Dixs. Uh board colleagues, I find myself with a conundrum as it relates to the consent agenda. So if you look at item E3, uh E3 is now I lost my is about um uh student fees and uh some of you may recall we had
105a robust and healthy discussion about this topic last year both on student fees but then also and I'm looking for Kaylee on community use fees. And um I I didn't hear anything and I'm not sure any Shashank heard anything, Dr. Roberts heard anything. And I do want to make sure that everybody has and you can be honest um taken the time to look at the student fees section. And if you haven't, we do have until June 17th and we could um pull it to make sure people have had the time to digest it because it's come up regularly. So, does everybody feel comfortable that they've had time or would they prefer a couple weeks to just read through it and ask any questions? Because it has to do with um what we're allowed to uh
106charge students and what the law states and what our practice is. I uh I I would appreciate time. Just a point of clarification. Is this um is there a statute around this or once we pass this can it be amended? I know that the giving people time and runway uh for the year is is the intent here so that everybody can know what the the fees are. But Yep. Yep. I think um Shank we have to do this annually. Yep. And I think it's best for everybody to understand um what the what the rules are around what DMPS can collect and what they can't collect so that we're all on the same page. So I'm going to suggest that we um as long as Shashank has said it's okay, we'll wait and we'll do this
107or do you we'll wait until June 17th 17th and uh what I'll ask is everybody um submit your questions ahead of time. So, ideally, we'll keep it on consent, but you'll have had a chance to take a look at it. Okay. So, with that, we are going to have to make a unwind. Yeah. Uh, well, we'll just have to separate. Uh, so Miss Marterano will have to um amend. You can make a motion to I'm going to make a friendly motion to amend the consent motion and ask to support the consent motion minus E3. May I have a second? Second. Maria Alonso. Alonso second. So, we have a motion by Miss Norris and a second by Miss Alonzo to amend the consent. Yes. Motion sons minus E3. Yes. We need to vote on that. Yes.
108Board members, cast your votes. The vote is approved. 7 to zero. The consent agenda items are approved seven to zero. I think that just approved that just approved the amendment. Now we need to vote on the previous correct for approving the consent agenda next. There's a motion and a second by Dix on the on the table to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say cast your votes. Yes. Okay, the vote is approved seven to zero. Now, Mr. Marterano, I believe you have the actual motion to be read. Did you read it? I've already read it. Yes. And we've received a second. Yep. Yep. All right. This is um riveting. Riveting. Where are we going next, team? Are we good? Can we move on? F1. Okay, great. Uh board policy 740. I'll just call
109out again a thanks to Kaylee, thanks to Patrick, thanks to Anna. This is the naming uh board policy. So, uh any of you who have questions uh public who have questions, please take a look. This policy, I assume once approved will be posted uh and you can find it under the series items of privilege. Now, we have items of privilege. Board members, would you like to share anything? Did I forget something? signature school present reimagine presentation uh work session. Yep. So items of privilege during pride month. I would just like to honor our LGBTQ plus community um our students, our staff and families um and acknowledge the ongoing challenges uh that we face as a district. Um, I recognize the unique challenges that um, the state um, and legislation have put upon us and want
110to honor what many students and staff face, including bullying and mental health issues. I think this um, aligns very well with our guardrail conversation today, both guardrail 2 as well as guardrail 4. um and know that um during Pride Month, I encourage everyone to expand their learning and their reading and the dialogue that occurs um within our community. And um I just want to recommmit my um focus on on equity and justice for our students, staff, and families. So, happy Pride. other board members. Second everything that uh Miss Mardano has shared. Thank you. Thank you for acknowledging that. Madam Chair, I'm just reminded uh as we go into the last few days of school, um it's been the last couple of weeks of school, but there have been um some days in our house where
111we've had students wondering why they're they're going back. And um it just reminds me to um sort of refocus on the idea that every day is important in school uh for us. And as we go into the summer, I think uh back to some of our monitoring reports this year, particularly around reading. Um, and I think that's the one that I would want to focus on. If, um, you are a parent listening to this, um, read with your kids, uh, tonight, tomorrow, every day over the summer, uh, any day that you can. If you know a kid who could use some help reading, uh, please reach out. If you want to volunteer reading, uh, we have great programs in this community to do that and wonderful library systems um, in the city of De Moines,
112uh, that would allow us to do that. I just would encourage our families, our students, um, to not let that slide happen over the year. Um, and really dig in on our reading over over the summer as we head into the summer. Just what they want, more work as they go into the summer summer months. But encouraging everybody to to make sure that we don't backslide a little on our reading. That's great, Patrick. I don't know. Is it on? No. No. Testing. No, you can't talk. [Music] It's just Okay. Yay. Thank you. Thank you. Um, that's Patrick. I was just going to I I love what you're saying. I've tried this. My kids now have to read on the way to school. So, they have 10 minutes and my seventh grader puts a timer on
113to make sure it's exactly 10 minutes on the drive, not a minute more of reading. Um, I want to say thank you to the staff and to the teachers for what I think has been the best year I've had in De Mo public schools as a parent selfishly. Um, but also as a school board member and I have a middle schooler who participated in every sport and activity I could get her into. And I looked around at a lot of those evening events and saw a lot of teachers, a lot of familiar faces that I see sitting here with us at schoolboard meetings. And you all make the magic happen and you do it for not a lot of gratitude, certainly not the money. Um, and so I just want to say from the bottom
114of my heart to all of the staff members who uh not only teach the kids in the classroom, but also make sure that we are able to give our students those really important extracurricular opportunities. They would not happen without dedicated staff. And so thank you um for a wonderful year. Looking forward to bigger and better in 2526. Uh, I want to thank Da Youngman from she's a multilanguage learner from um a teacher uh at Hyatt Middle School. Uh Maria and I were able to go to their Alpa L party um multicultural celebration uh last week and this is the second year that they've done this celebration. um just showing off the success of their students in ELLL um and the parents that shown up and the kids that were so embarrassed but so excited to
115get their award. It was just really heartwarming for me to be there and be present. Uh and so I just wanted to thank uh Hyatt Middle School for putting this on and I can't wait to be there next year. No, thank you for reminding me. I'm sorry. I'm going to go a second time. Thank you for reminding me of that. And as uh Jenna was speaking, I'm like, "Oh, I forgot to share this because I remember um just hearing you speak um the feeling of seeing students come up and yes, very shy, but at the same time very excited and parents that were there supporting and the work that went into that and seeing very happy staff um be there just just being there for students and families. And that was incredibly rewarding to me.
116That was beautiful. And so, thank you to everyone that worked so hard to make that happen um that evening. Great job. Thank you. Offer my last comments by opening and saying happy Pride Month as well. Um but one thing I want to do is complement a comment that uh Mr. Dixs made earlier around the personnel report. Um I I think the one piece that wasn't elaborated on as much is that I'm really excited to see new faces amongst our buildings and our rooms as well. Um for someone to apply to work at DMPS knowing what is in this near future says a lot about the leadership of Dr. Roberts and their vision for students. So I'm really excited to see so many new faces and excited that they're uh going to join us in this
117journey ahead. Well, I get to say ditto uh because I really appreciate this. So, I'm gonna use my time for something very important. Dr. Roberts, are you ready? Um, I was at a career festival fair uh at Kuri Romo's building. Goodil. Thank you. Goodil. And, uh, there are two fifth graders who had a very important question for you that I told them I would ask. Uh, Facili and Kaneo would like to know why they don't get more recess time. Thank thank you madam chair for that question. Uh madam chair if the board will indulge me um this is where I will utilize my executive position to delegate this to uh uh our associate superintendent Matt Smith and so he will provide you all responses. All right with that uh it's your turn. You have any
118comments? Uh absolutely madam chair and board um certainly want to did not bring this into the space of celebration but let me um acknowledge that um de mo public schools truly um is is uh demonstrating that we are leading the way in terms of providing every single child who knocks on our doors with a world-class experience. Um I want to just share a couple of quick um sports highlights and also opportunities. Uh this year we had three soccer teams, our high school soccer teams who made it to the state tournament. Um um unfortunately we had some nailbiters and and um they in the state playoffs um lost those games. But we were excited because of the dynamic coaching staff, the leaders in the buildings and students who are returning next year. also want to share
119with with um just a lot of pride that um CEA Vavong who is a student at North High School um has made Go Polar Bears. I heard that third time for the third consecutive year uh she has made the state golf tournament and she finished seventh in the state this year. So I know who not to invite tea time. Um going into the summer our work continues. We have three different trips to um Asia this year as we continue to expand horizons of our students. I know that associate superintendent Matt Smith and board member Kim Marano are accompanying a group of students as a part of our more than 50 years of partnership with the city of Kofu um Japan and so excited that you are going to be taking students along with some teachers
120and staff there. Additionally uh our director of central academy um Dr. Gortis are taking 39 students to Shishuang, China um as a part of the the Shiuang uh school um of foreign language. Again, um this is at no or minimal cost for students, right? What rich experiences for students to have. And then recently uh um the the voices the dynamic and amazing voices of the Bridges to Harmony or choir uh coming out of Roosevelt High School have also been invited uh to sing in front of some dignitaries in China. And we're looking into again um logistics behind um this experience. But um you may also recall that recently uh Dr. Bar just brought students back from Fiji. And again um there are not too many other places where students are having these very very rich
121experiences and um all of this is due in part not only to the amazing work of our leaders, teachers and staff but the support of our parents. We have some of the best parents um anywhere in the state and in the country. Um they raise their hands to volunteer. Um they support the request and acts of our teachers, our leaders and certainly of the district. and um we don't often spend time just expressing gratitude to them. So we want to thank them as well. excited about what the summer has to offer and um this summer um we will have extensions of learning right um at all grade level bands and certainly we're excited about the work that is going to happen with our elementary school summer school program with um Ali I don't know if
122she's in here and her team um but also want to share that De Mo public schools this year is also hosting for the second time second consecutive year um the national speech in the bear tournament um this is their 100y year anniversary and so In um a couple of weeks, we are going to have uh about 9,000 plus students um from all over the world descending upon um America's best Midwestern city, De Moine, hosted by uh Iowa's best school system, the De Mo public schools. Madam Chair, that concludes this evening's board report. Thank you. Uh thank you everybody for joining us this evening. We appreciate all of you. Uh we are going to adjourn at 7:16. The board is going to take a fiveinut break and we are moving into an open work session on
123reimagining education. Uh board members, you also probably want to get your computers up I think because materials were sent but we don't have them printed right so you'll need them by uh from your email. Sometimes you hear stuff. Okay, we're going to bring this rowdy crowd back to the table. All right, sounds good. Come on over. Do you need me to stay? No. Are we recording it? I think they are. Yeah, I think it's stream, isn't it? I'll go ask. Yeah. No, I'm good. I think we're good. Thank you, Erin. Appreciate it. Okay, team. Let's go. Um, I see Miss Alonzo, Dr. Mayberry Mazize. Uh, Mr. Smith, do you have the team? Associate Superintendent Smith. Um, is there a Okay, the presentation's queued up. All you noisy people back there, let's go. All right. Um,
124we are just going to go ahead and I think uh how do the two of you Dr. Roberts or Yep. No, we have a team ready. Um, Madam Chair, before I jump right in, I want to uh just introduce one of the newest members of our executive cabinet. Um, and I know that we will find another opportunity um to name this, but um our the chief's team, our new chief uh operations officer who is here with us this evening, Dr. Rainey Briggs. I want to give him a round of applause and welcome to the team and welcome to uh America's uh the heart of America's heartline, but the best Midwestern city um in the country. So, thank you for joining the team. Um, Madam Chair, let me just jump right in if I may and
125share that um, we started um, this journey, embarked up on this journey a little bit more than 16 months ago where at the board's uh, push in the community's request um, we accepted the charge to reimagine um, the mo education and re invigorate all of our schools, our 64 schools as a result of um, the work that uh, was done by the reimagine education committee led by associate superintendent Matt Smith, um Amanda Miller and and Dave Burgerer. Um we ended up in a place where we really wanted to rethink not just um our instructional program and academic um sort of frameworks, but we took a hard look at all of our structures, 72 buildings including 64 that are serving students daily. And the result of that was the average age of our buildings somewhere between
12672 and 80 years old. And as we think about reimagining education, it was a uh unanimous conclusion that there's no way that we can do this um uh with buildings that were not as sophisticated as they needed to be in 2025. And so in partnership with uh consultants and experts um a number of visits to schools um around the country that are have done some of the same work, we have made some decisions around what will a 10-year plan look like. And what we've concluded is to reimagine education and reinvigorate our schools um would have a generational impact. And with that said, we landed on a number of really key initiatives um and goals. and they included one our commitment to expand access to preschool. We've seen the data that really um tells us that
127students who are able to attend preschool versus compared to their peers who did not will outperform their peers academically and our social behavioral social emotional learning measurement. We also uh have concluded that there were tremendous opportunities for us to think about how can we look at what we were calling signature programs. those programs that included uh career and technical education pursuits, allowing our students um to really be exposed to um academic programs that will allow them to meet this ambitious goal of walking across the stage from every De Mo public schools by the year 2030, not only with a diploma, but with a diploma plus something else. And that plus something else includes industry recognized certifications. Additionally, we've looked at a lot of signature programs that have been working very well um producing really strong
128results. Um, one of those is our Montasauri programs. And so we've expanded Monttoauri um recognizing that some of our highest achieving students are enrolled in Montasauri schools. And the goal as a part of reimagine education is to have Montasauri program offerings in every geographic region in de mo. But one we were most excited about as even even as I've shared some of those signature schools offering is where we have gone out into the community on um probably 20 plus occasions to offer opportunities for them to provide input around what would they like to see in the M public schools as a part of this 10-year ambitious plan. And while we value the input of every single stakeholder, um, as we think as we thought about our signature schools, we truly valued the input from our
129students and parents. And one of the most recent surveys where we, uh, garnered more than 14,000 responses, and you'll hear more about that, um, students in the appearance overwhelmingly said, there are some signature programs we would like to see. They included our STEM focus, career technical education, um the arts. Some have even shared they would like to see uh uh athleticmies, um Montasauri and to a very smaller extent international balorate or IB schools. Tonight we are going to unpack for you um with our some of our leaders on this team, our associate superintendent Matt Smith, uh district director of of career technical education Tasha Brown. I have to get used to the term and the designation and our chief academic officer Rob Lundine who will share with you all um just where we are with
130this ambitious audacious and bold goal of reimagining education as it relates to signature programs and Dr. Roberts, prior to doing that and and Matt, maybe you can do this. Talking through the timeline of our decision making uh and the scope, do you want to address that or Matt, will you? That's a part of our presentation. Okay, perfect. Sure. Yeah, we'll we'll include it in part of the presentation. So, um thanks again for the opportunity um to to return um because the last time we were here um you did uh charge us with um developing um and identifying signature school pathways. And so that's actually what tonight is about is about bringing you the results of that survey as well as a comprehensive analysis and um the identification of signature school pathways that we believe are
131the right fit for our community. Um the desired uh pathways and sustainable pathways that we can move forward and actually will set De Mo public schools apart from all the school districts in the state of Iowa. Um so just to sort of remind you of that um your charge was for us to bring um data back to identify signature school pathways. Um the goal was to have it back here um in front of you before the end of the school year. And so I just want to make that uh quick celebration that we are here before the end of the school year. Right. Good job. So uh we are looking for wins and that is one that we're going to take right now. So June 3rd and and here we are. Um so the the
132this has a few parts to it in terms of tonight's presentation. Um the first is um just sort of the um the overall results of the actual signature school survey that was sent out um at the end of April and first part of May. Um the second part is sort of the comprehensive analysis um that allowed us to create designations of center school pathways um by region. And so it is important to know and we'll talk a little bit more about that um we use multiple data source uh sets um to make that designation um and to look at that analysis. So um and we'll jump into that here shortly. But then uh we've also um uh thank you again to Director Brown and Dr. Lundine um for um for being present in this particular
133presentation to unpack um specifically as Dr. Roberts mentioned CTE and STEM because you will see them heavily in our designations um because it was very heavy and present in the data. So, uh, with that being said, um, just to sort of hit on a few, uh, data points, it when it relates to the signature school survey, um, you were sent just the overall, um, survey results. Um, you don't have to have that out. It's it's just a reference for you. Um, we're going to cover it in the data set, um, in the in the slides, but, uh, in the Signature School survey, there were more than, um, 14,000 respondents uh, responses. U matter of fact, there was actually 14,648 responses um which is a great sample set um to have. Um we also had um
134seven different languages, actually eight total um in terms of um students and families or respond respondents that chose a language other than English to respond to the survey in. Um some of the most prominent languages were Vietnamese, Spanish, Swahili, uh Burmese and German. Um, this particular survey was student and uh, parent focused and it also as as do um, almost all of our surveys um, have an open-ended response and so we'll talk a bit more about the significance of that here in just a second. When looking at the overall survey data, um, a couple things to note is parent guardian feedback specifically revealed that 65% uh, believe in the value of signature schools. And so anything 60% and above is considered that um strongly favorable um um response rate. And so um that was really
135really great to see. Some of the themes that were identified by parents in the survey that we provided in May um were STEM, performing and visual arts, monosuri, career technical education, IB and world languages. So these were very prominent amongst um parents in this particular survey set. Um we threw a um a few of the um charts down there or the graphs to highlight um some of the student um and parent respondent feedback. Um when you look at uh the percents of response type um you'll see sort of the uh breakdown of um students grades 3 through 5 versus students grades 6 through 12 versus parent responses. Um it's um really really nice to see honestly in a survey particularly with more than 14,000 responses to have 85% of the responses be from students right
136and so lifting up um student voices um it was a great response rate from parents as well at 15%. Um when we look at the responses um of percent of um parent respondents by region uh because we also broke this down by region as well, you'll see that the Northwest had 50% of the sponses of responses um from parents. The Northeast had 14% and the South had 15%. When you look at the responses from students grades 6 through 12, the most selected signature school topics in the survey uh were soccer and athletic performance, business and entrepreneurship, monasuri and STEM. Um related to that when we ask students about their u preferred learning styles um and how do they um prefer to actually engage in school and engage in um instruction um and teaching and learning.
137Um many of them said um hands-on projects, right? Um um project based learning um uh earning college credit with job certifications was also very very prominent amongst the survey responses for students in secondary. um also was working independently and self-paced and working in small groups. Um one of the ones that stood out also was listening to experts talk about the subject. And so I um highlight that when that's something that's not often talked about when it comes to exploratory opportunities for students, but students really lift it up particularly in their comments that they really really enjoy adults and others doing the work, coming to speak to them about the work. um or any even better going to visit them in the workplace. And so that was super super prominent in this in the results that
138we've got. The elementary student feedback um obviously this is grades three through five, so it's word a little bit differently um for students. Um but when when they were asked about the activities that they would enjoy doing at school, you'll see some of the top responses of drawing or making art, playing sports, or being active. I would categorize that as recess sometimes, right? So, um I would throw out there that we um I hate to disappoint, but we don't yet have a signature school identified for recess. Um but, um there's always possibility to get that done. Um they students uh at grades 3 through 5 really talked about robot uh robotics um and robots and they talked about hands-on learning. Um growing plants and taking care of animals was also a really strong theme for
139our third through fifth graders. Um when asked what do you want to be when you grow up? you can see some of the predominant themes that stood out. Um um I think player was associated with soccer player. Um just being a player um also is a you know that has multiple meanings to it I believe. And so um and uh we'll support all of it actually. Um I love the fact um that you see one of the most p prominent ones there is teacher, right? Um we had several third through fifth grade students say um that's actually what I would like to do, right? I want to teach. Um, so that's just a again another shout out to our staff members of being a model. Uh, and when students talk about they want to hear
140people talk about their work and be involved, the purp um, and the joys of it and the challenges of it. And so that really really resonates with our students. Um, and that showed up in the survey data. Yeah, my I think my favorite one is YouTuber. Uh, there was Yes, YouTuber was there. Um there's all kinds of um really really um great ones. And so when you think about authentic feedback um there's some real authentic feedback um in this survey. So now we're going to transition a little bit to um that was just a sort of high level overview of the survey um that we provided in May. Um now we're going to talk a little bit about the process and methodology for designating signature school pathways and how that survey is a part of
141that. Um there's a lot of words on here. Um but um I thought it was important to lift up that we did use a sort of mixed method uh of research, right, for a comprehensive analysis. And um that sounds um complicated and it somewhat is, but what it means is is that we didn't just rely on quantitative data of students selecting from a list. We looked at qualitative data, too. So that's why we continuously ask open-ended questions. so that we can hear about the lived experiences from students and families and staff that tells a deeper and richer story about what they're experiencing or what they would like to experience. And so um we utilize um the mixed method research for the analysis so that we can be the very best that we can when it
142comes to making designations so that we are providing the best opportunities moving forward for our students in terms of accessing highquality rigorous and innovative programming that they are asking for. Um, it's also important to note, um, I've made a few notes here that, um, the way we collect a lot of this is is not just through the survey, but it's through the one-on-one surveys, right? And so, when we looked at, um, for example, um, thematic um, um, themes in the open-ended responses, that also came through in just um, one-on-one um, um, interviews with students and and with families. So again, this work started back in February um with the community engagements when we had 19 of those. There was lots of um small group, large group, and one-on-one interviews about what they would like to
143see, about what they want and what they're most concerned about. And so all of that data has been compiled and pulled into a comprehensive um analysis to create signature school identifications. Um the last data point there uh that I want to just highlight is the integration of labor market data from Iowa workforce development on projected growth occupations and workforce needs across the state of Iowa. So it wasn't just about what students and um families have been saying and what they're currently saying. It's also about what in terms of um the state of Iowa, what jobs are available um what are the most sought-after positions um so that we can create the best um programs for students to have that true and authentic option of enrolling, enlisting or becoming employed immediately upon graduation. And so that
144was also played a major role um in the comprehensive analysis of our work. Matt, I don't want to put you on the spot, but do you remember a couple of those or do you have examples of those? Uh what are some of those careers in that data? Yeah, skilled trades um stands out heavily um as well as um STEM fields um um and some of these are actually going to be highlighted in the signature programs um particularly at North and at Hoover that you'll see. Okay. Yeah, skill trades was heavy in that data and I know Tasha has a lot more information about that. Um so when pulling together all of the the data sets um and so not just the survey but all of them since February um um again this is quantitative and
145qualitative data um as Dr. Roberts mentioned earlier on the the signature pathways that stand out predominantly across the board are STEM um science technology and engineering and mathematics and we're going to sort of detail that out here um as the presentation moves along. Career and technical education also was a major major response rate from both students and families um across the board in every survey. These things have been consistent responses since February. Um in addition, medical and health sciences is also very very prominent in student and family interest. Um it's also um on that list on the Iowa workforce of of growth occupations. uh performing and visual arts was also very very prominent um in all of our responses and Monasuri also stood out um as a desired um um learning pathway and signature pathway.
146Thank you Matt. If I may, because I I certainly for the benefit of the public and community. Um while we look at where um the these signature schools are ranked and Montasauri is at the bottom, um I want to really sort of interject um our data gathering um experience. And while Matt and the team will continue to really speak to quantitative and qualitative data being utilized, um I want to offer that while there was some qualitative data being utilized, um we are also looking at the utilization of empirical data. And of course, empirical data is really through the data that we gathered through experience and experimentation. And the experimentation that we referencing here is we've looked at um Kohl's Montasauri for example. And we've seen the results from Koh's Montasauri. We've piloted at at Finley
147um elementary and um we are also piloting at um Pleasant Hill. And so again, in addition to quantitative and qualitative data that we're utilizing, the reason Montasauri is at the bottom here, but we're still moving forward with this as a signature program is because we are also embracing um the value in empirical data. Yeah, thank you Dr. Roberts. Um that also sort of um alerts me to a couple other points. Um you'll see there in the um the title of the slide, all data. Again, this is um all data compiled. This is not just the survey that just went out in um in May. To Dr. Robert's point, um it it consumes a lot of data, both qualitative and quantitative as well as the empirical data as well. Um the other thing I want to
148point out is that actually these particular um signature schools of interest are not in any sort of order. Um they are just the most predominant themes of feedback in the responses that we've received to date. When we look at student responses in grades 3 through 12 all data um 60% of students support there's 60% of students for support for signature schools meaning um strong favorability of students supporting signature school pathways and programming. There's um a strong sort of sentiment and desire for students to have those um unique programming experiences. Um, and sometimes even in grades three through five, they're described as I want to be in a lab with a computer. I want to be in a lab with animals. Um, those things sort of emerge in the data set. Um, when we look at
149the the data for students, the highest interest of signature schools um um racially um for our student body are students who identify as black. Um when you look at where students live, um it's the East and Lincoln patter uh feeder patterns that showed the highest favorability um for signature schools. That's not to suggest that the other feeder pads didn't strong show high favorability. These were just the highest um in in our data sets. Um also strong support for STEM health sciences and CTE. Again, these are from students. These continue to emerge as consistent themes of feedback. Um, and there is moderate support for performing arts in world languages specifically from students. Moderate doesn't suggest that it's not um it's not desirable. Um, it's desirable uniquely sometimes in a specific region and at a specific grade
150level. And so that offers up some opportunities for us that I think you'll see in um the recommendation. So, with that being said, um what we'd like to do is talk a little bit about uh the recommendation of signature school pathways by region. Um but before I do that, there's a lot of words on this and so I'm certainly not looking to read that, but I do want to highlight sort of the methodology here um because you're going to see it in the slides. Um when we talk about primary in the in the subsequent slides um in the presentation primary um signature represents um high interest and high alignment. Um there's consistency in every single data set and there's alignment from what students are responding with with what parents are responding with. There's alignment from
151quantitative and qualitative data sets. So it's very very strongly aligned when we see primary uh recommendations. The secondary recommendations um are those that um had strong student interest but they were less aligned with what parents said and or they were less aligned with what the workforce says. And so it doesn't mean that that it wasn't strong. It just meant that was there was not the consistency of alignment from data set to data set to data set. So that's why you'll see a a primary versus a secondary. Um it's also important to note what we are um um recommending is that as a district and as an organization, as a community, when we recommend for a primary signature school, it is that is the model of the school. A secondary pathway is one based on the
152information that we have could be embedded but maybe not a standalone school signature program. So when you see um secondary, it doesn't mean that it can't exist. It just means that we don't have the data to support that it would actually serve as a standalone signature pathway. So that being said, we'll jump into the Northwest. Um from the data set, right, from the all data set, um what was lifted up from um across the board with strong alignment in in primary pathways was performing and visual arts and STEM. Uh we see that consistently. Um, regionally in the Northwest, we also see in the secondary pathways, again, not as strong alignment from students um to parents and our workforce, but there's enough data there to suggest it could be a secondary pathway. You see digital media
153and communications, environmental science and sustainability, and Monasuri stood out in the Northwest. Um, the rationale in each of these slides that you'll see is based on just some of the highlights of the data set and analysis itself. And so there was strong interest in the arts in among uh younger students and the community members parents uh which is why that's being lifted up as a primary pathway. STEM um there was strong really strong alignment um with the responses in the Northwest from all respondents and the labor market. Um the student interest was super super high in um the Northwest. Um and there's also um continues to be community support for the monastery program in the Northwest region. So that information um led us to this designation and this recommendation. So the prek8 uh Kohl's monastery
154um there's no surprise there. They are currently operating as such. Um Molton in the northwest region is designated as a prek8 signature school. Um, based on the information and the data that we have, we recommend that it's a performing and visual arts prek8 signature program. The 712 signature program is Hoover Meredith. We recommend uh STEM and you can also see SL steam there um as a technology um um engineering and mathematics. But you see STEAM because there's also a strong sort of secondary um pathway of the arts. um you see it in Molton's um um performing arts designation, but there's actually a consistent theme within the Northwest that would allow us to create more of a steam environment at um Hoover Meredith. Um it does align with the arts interest there. Um but the specifics
155about the STEM program or the STEAM program at Hoover Meredith is that it's technologybased. Um, and so you're going to see a difference in this particular technology-based STEM program versus an engineeringbased STEM program. So technology of course includes coding, digital design, and media tech. And we're going to unpack that for you um in some slides coming up. In the Northeast, the data set was really really strong about STEM. Again, um again, engineering, robotics, and coding stood out in the uh both the quantitative and the qualitative data. Um medical health sciences also stood out in the northeast. Secondary pathways um centered on business and entrepreneurship, dual language and monasuri. Um again, just looking at some of the rationale, uh dual language immersion um again serves as equity and global readiness goals. um the district has um
156it it stood out in the northeast as a um um as a potential pathway and so um along with some of the others which is why um we have the designations that we do in the northeast uh beginning with um Pleasant Hill a prek8 as a monastery again strong community support uh there's a lot of alignment there um Brewaker Hait um we see it as a dual language immersion program. Um, again supporting bilingual and bi uh bicultural identification development and it aligns with family demand and um and and of course the workforce. Um, North we see as a STEM program as well but again um with a different pathway of engineering focus um really looking at robotics and uh the potential of merging biomedical design. Um again in the survey results specifically in the northeast
157these themes were super super heavy and there was a great deal of alignment in the south region. Um the pathways career and technical education was super strong. It was strong everywhere. It was most strong in the south uh in our south region. Um also uh strong there was medical and health sciences. Again, uh the secondary pathways there that were lifted up were athletic performance and sports medicine, culinary arts and hospitality and monastery. Um again you'll see some of the um similar rationale um for these um data sets um strong labor market demand in CTE um and um high student interest in hands-on and career prep fields um that support that CTE and the STEM fields which is why you see um Jackson PreK8 um as a monastery designation um that actually uh provides us with
158three Monasuri um accessible sites in each region. one in each region but three total. And 712 Kurtz um would be a CTE based signature program um specifically supporting um aviation business academy and agricultural through production and marketing um to connect the business and also environmental science. Um again when you look at the notes and some of the rationale behind that these are all super super um heavy in terms of the response rates and there's a great deal of alignment across all data sets. So those are the identifications of um of the signature pathways by region, by school. Recognizing though um STEM is listed twice, right? It's listed in the Northeast, it's listed in the Northwest, and CTE is prevalent everywhere. Um and so we thought it would be the um really really helpful to unpack
159not only what STEM and CTE have in terms of common, what is a relationship between the two, but also when we begin to delineate between a STEM program, a STEM signature school that is centered on technology and one that is centered on engineering. Um what does that look like, sound like, feel like for students? What would that experience be like? um what would be the interests um of students that would actually attend a signature school with those designations. So, we've got some slides and some information to help sort of unpack that for you tonight. Tasha and Dr. Dr. Lundine, can I give you that? Y thanks. All right. Just Tasha, before you begin, thank you for this. Are you going to go through at some point how you came to cho choose those buildings and
160or is that going to be the next Yeah, those buildings or Yeah, I think the actual choice of the sites. Yes. Um I think that might be the next um Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for that. Good. Okay. All right. Again, just a reminder that when we use words like CTE and STEM, uh CTE is career and technical education. Our current central campus programming is all career um teched and we also are required to make sure that our programming uh for CTE federal and state dollars through um Perkins and even Iowa workforce development funding requires us to be responsive to the labor markets within our region as well. Um, so my role in this presentation tonight is to just really talk about CTE and STEM. Um, we're not putting CTE versus STEM like
161you might find in in some resources because, uh, they are interdependent, but they, uh, do have some differences, if you will. So, uh, career and teched specifically focuses on equipping students with practical skills and knowledge for specific trades and professions. So, here um in De Mo public schools, we have programming in all six of the Iowa recognized um what are called service areas. And so all of the national 16 career clusters in the state of Iowa are broken into like six sections if you think of a pie. And so CTE helps equip and prepare students for skill sets in any and all of those career fields including STEM pathways. Um so where they're alike in common is that this is really about making sure that student learning is active. It's very applicationbased. It is very
162much about real world projects um in conjunction with employers which allows for more workbased learning opportunities. And so when we think about like mathematics for example and how math applies to construction that is something that we learn about in CTE where that then um becomes the rigor ramps up and the relevancy ramps up is when they are working with employers right and doing projects together and applying all of those skill sets you know and their mathematics um you know within um you know HVAC tracker electrical work for example. Uh CTE does develop students STEM competencies. We are very much focused in CTE on data analysis, computational thinking and problem solving. And we know from national and local research that all of these areas are critical for obtainment of both middle and highskilled jobs. And again
163um not all middle and high skill jobs require a four-year degree. Hence um STEM also is a great way to incorporate the enroll and list and employ which we'll kind of talk about that integration as well. Um I mentioned that it utilizes applied learning um through lots of labs. We have workite experiences. Uh we like to reach out to our industry partners and make sure that they are aware of the opportunities um not just at central campus but really anywhere in our district, right? To to bring that knowledge and that information to our students about what are the possibilities, what are the skills needed, what are the societal challenges that they get to solve within their respective um sectors of businesses and industries. and um students who access CTE coursework. Um we focus on our
164employability skills. Uh we had some of you attend our networking event as well as our mock job interviews that we held here at central campus. That's a practice that a lot of our high schools um are also doing through their counseling departments with things like senior sessions that are going on. I know east and Lincoln counseling staff are really passionate about ensuring that. So again, it's not just about central. It's about making sure that students across the district, regardless of site, have access to these types of skills. Um, one of the things that we're seeing, um, Iowa changed the metrics for college and career readiness standards. It used to be very much focused on, um, ACT. There was a college and career readiness index related to, um, that standardized test. And instead, the state now
165is quantifying school district's efforts to build a healthy workforce through a new college and career ready index that recognizes the amount of dual credit that students engage in while they're in high school. The amount of work-based learning opportunities that they have access to within our district. Um, and then the third one that is starting uh will be starting this school year is how many industry recognized credentials do students get within De Moine public schools. So with this reimagining education, reinvigorating schools, it's really really important that students everywhere have access to these types of things. Um, and so again, regardless of site, you know, there are opportunities with everything that Matt went through of ensuring that all the different re regions do have equitable access to not only these skill sets, but these opportunities. Um, Tasha,
166can I ask a quick question on that comment? So diff you're saying by region but not necessarily by building right like the expectation isn't that every child every student is going to have access to this level of programming if they're not a designated STEM building. I just I want to make sure I understand. So we still are um we're not spreading ourselves so thin. were concentrating CTE or STEM resources based on this designation of signature schools. So that answer is twofold. From a course offering and career pathway standpoint, that is where our signature schools come into play of being able to offer maybe unique opportunities from other places around the district. But because of the shift on college and career readiness, right, work-based learning and industry recognized credentials have always historically lived within career and
167teched. And now in the state of Iowa, regardless if they're in a CTE pathway or on a um advanced placement collegegoing pathway, all students should have an opportunity for work-based learning, right? Industry recognized credentials and dual credit opportunity. Does that kind of help? if I wanted to access those and I was at a traditional high school, how would I do that? So, um that is the work that is currently going on with goal three is ensuring that we are looking at resources um to make sure that we have the infrastructure within middle schools to help students and families make their have some voice and choice and then ensuring that those opportunities exist within our courses regardless if they're CTE or core. Got it. Great. Thank you. And part of why I was asking too is
168actually making sure that we weren't spreading ourselves so thin that we Yeah. Yeah. Ditto that. Yeah. Yep. The reason that we are thin in that is really just truly access to resources in a resource constrained environment. There's a lot of state mandates that have come down um in the last three years around workbased learning, dual credit, and industry recognized credentials, but those are unfunded mandates. So, it's up to us um and all school districts across the state to figure out how we're going to meet those measures um which requires additional staffing, which we know through prior conversations around budget and prioritization and strategic planning um that we have some creative opportunities there. Um the last thing that I just wanted to point out um because this is certainly the passion for me personally and professionally
169around um goal three and opportunities to have more signature programming within De Mo public schools is the opportunities that we have to really hit poverty within our community and ensuring that again regardless of of of space regardless if you're in a comprehensive high school or you're in a signature school that um you have access to a job that will pay you a family sustainable wage, access to healthcare and benefits and upward mobility. And the re research clearly shows that those that choose to go into the workforce in a STEM related area earn 60% more than non- STEM related fields. So I just think that it's a perfect example of synchronicity. I always say that the universe will conspire for our success. That our community data shows that CTE and STEM is a passion regardless of,
170you know, what part of our um boundaries our students and families live in and that there uh is just a wide world of opportunity for our students that they might not currently know about yet, but we're going to get better at that. Thank you. So, that then brings us into the conversation about what STEM learning is going to look like in practice. And uh I would be remiss if I didn't say it's my one-year anniversary with the district. And I as I'm thinking about when I came in last year and joined the reimagining education committee, I wasn't sure whether this was going to be just a conversation about facilities or a conversation about innovative school models. And what I can say without hesitation is whether we're talking about STEM, whether we're talking about dual language,
171whether we're talking about performing arts or monosuri, what we're truly looking at is reimagining school models in a way that changes the way that students learn and that teachers are fostering the learning process. We wanted to show you here what that looks like across those four uh key domains of STEM. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. And you're going to find a couple of of key trends across them. One is that they are interconnected in every way. This is not a model when we put a STEM school together where your schedule is simply going to have a science class, a tech class, a math class, and maybe an engineering class. And those courses work in isolation. Instead, the purpose of STEM education is designed to make it not only practical and integrated, but have a problem-solving
172approach. Integrating the technology aspect and the engineering problem solving aspect, as noted here on the slide, into all aspects of the instructional process. You'll notice that the STEM model when it's done right is integrating high levels of Bloom's taxonomy um of reasoning, of concluding, of drawing explanations uh that will serve the student not only in that specific sub field but across their uh educational endeavors and where it's highly interdisciplinary in nature where we want the math and the science teachers teachers to be actively collaborating and talking with each other around not only what they're teaching and how they're teaching it, but how they're fostering a shared set of skills along the way. So there is research uh from around the world uh that demonstrates what the core principles of effective STEM instruction are. Uh the
173information I brought to you here is actually from Australia from the Australian Department of Education which has done some amazing work uh in uh adopting STEM programs in their schools that have transformed uh students uh university trajectories, work trajectories and life trajectories. The first three principles that we see in effective STEM instruction is first a use of inquirybased learning. That regardless of the course, there is sort of guiding questions and an overarching style of investigation that guides the way that students are acquiring knowledge. Uh that they're interacting with their peers in that learning process that they're exploring and that they're getting comfortable with failure. so that they're building active learning into their teaching practices through problem-solving scenarios that encourage students to think critically. The next and this is where it's so important that we're engaging
174with our partners in both the business and uh external community is that they're solving real world problems. And to uh Tasha's point about CTE as well, that's where we're bringing in our partners who can model exactly what the realworld STEM problems that they see in industry in the community and then make those relevant pieces of learning in the course of a student's 7th through 12th grade experience. It's demonstrating relevance of STEM along the way through the specific learning tasks that are being undertaken and enhancing motivation along the way. And it behooves us therefore to be partnering with local businesses and get getting students to work on project that solves real problems to see what they come up with. Again, very strong parallels to CTE. then that we're as I mentioned teaching integrated STEM learning that
175we're combining the subject matter of two or more STEM subjects into a joint learning experience that may take the form of creative scheduling that may take the form of shared teaching and cross collaboration across the uh what would have been traditionally 44-minute blocks so that those crosscontent links can be uh fully explored and utilized izing an engineering problem-solving designbased process teaching science uh math engineering and technology. Next, it's clear that for STEM to work, you have to equip and empower teachers. And that means more than simply giving them uh the right resources. that includes highquality professional learning opportunities and getting teachers acclimated to what the STEM methodology of instruction looks like in terms of putting the onus of the learning process in the hands of the student. making sure that they have the up-to-date technology
176to be able to show not only the relevance of what they're using and that they're able to um model the most current practices, but we recognize that in doing so, teachers have the greatest influence on their inschool achievement and engagement in STEM education. That's going to take the form of our curriculum team, our teaching and learning team thinking critically about the way that we're training teachers and continually keeping them apprised of the best practices within their fields. Next, we know that when STEM is done right, we're creating partnerships between schools, industry, and community. uh as I mentioned earlier that those partners work collaboratively not only to identify the problems of practice pertinent to the specific geographic areas that we operate in or the industries that are dominant in in our uh community, but that we're
177exposing students to the real world challenges faced in the workplace and inspiring enthusiasm about STEM and enhancing and complementing the curriculum. Next, we're engaging parents and families. We want them to be active in their children's education, and that's the case in no matter which of our schools you look at, but in the STEM field that improves the aspiration and enrollment, achievement, and belief in importance of STEM. Next, that we're using technology as an enabler. This district has done a lot of work over the years in equipping students with onetoone technology. Now, we need to be arming students with the how to leverage that technology to best support highquality teaching and learning so that the technology in their hands as well as in the teachers hands is accelerating student learning and increasing students confidence and ability
178in using technology. Technology instruction should not occur in a vacuum. It should be occurring in the context of meaningful learning in science and math and engineering. so that uh they're getting to apply the use of technology uh in the course of real world instruction. Next, STEM instruction when it's done right is differentiating for different levels, that we're tailoring to the needs and abilities of individual students and that we're supporting all students need regardless of starting point. That means that effective STEM instruction is inclusive in nature, that it is accessible to our students with special needs, that it is accessible to our students who are coming in as multil- language learners, and that we are being thoughtful about the ways in which we are designing those STEM experiences to make sure they are accessible and inclusive
179to all. And finally, that we're linking STEM education to 21st century learning. that STEM education is intentionally linked to the development of 21st century skills such as critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration because we know those are going to be the skills as we've talked about with CTE as well that are highly valuable for students future careers. There's more that we can go into when it comes to effective STEM instruction, but I guess the crux of what I really want to get across here is this is more than simply looking at what curricula we are putting in front of students. That is a necessary but not sufficient question to ask. What's also critical is how we are going about delivering that instruction and how we are going about instilling in students to borrow the term of
180our uh SEAL uh uh students earlier tonight the self-efficacy by which they are the architects of their learning and that they are taking true control over the learning process. um that they're using an engineering design process for learning and problem solving and that they're utilizing student collaboration and teamwork to plan, design, and create solutions to the realworld challenges that are being presented to them in the course of their learning. This is going to be a gamecher for us and will rub off not only within our signature schools but will have positive effects across our comprehensive schools as well because it pushes fundamental questions about what highquality instruction is going to look like across those content areas and how our teachers and students can be working together in those endeavors. We're going to be going through
181similar processes of design and examination inclusive of inputs of students, parents, teachers and community members and external partners in the other models that we've mentioned as well whether they be dual language whether they be monasteri or whether they be the performing arts. Uh Dr. Lind Dean, just a comment or a question, I guess, which is um there's a healthy impatience, for lack of a better term, of wanting to move to getting these uh signature schools off the ground. And so it when we meet next time, it will be helpful to understand the um PD or programmatic shifts necessary. Yes. to get us to that point, ideally in a shorter period of time, not a longer period of time. So, just reflecting on whether there's going to be additional costs to do that uh and and
182just um factoring in that there's there's the building of a building and then there's actually the training absolutely the teachers and the curriculum. Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me also offer and I value that healthy impatience but um I don't want us to overpromise and underd deliver because it's important for us to balance that healthy impatience with the race car axiom that says it's better for you to go slow before you go fast. Um as we're thinking about these significant programmatic changes um we don't want to just provide you with a highle overview of what we believe we believe those professional development opportunities will be. Um, I would want us to go into the fall before we can create a a robust scope and sequence around what is our professional development plan to get
183us to that place around pro programmatic implementation. Yeah, I think I appreciate that, Dr. Roberts. think we're I don't think the board will ever expect the level of scope and sequence, but I think costs general um understanding of cost because if we're if we're if we're making the decision to stand up a STEM academy, for lack of a better term, we also need to know that we've got the general fund dollars to to sustain a program, right? To launch and sustain a program. So, I think it's just an understanding of um the cost to support the STEM Academy, the cost to launch the STEM Academy since presumably those are going to all be general fund dollars, right? Certainly, but we will not have that information um in the next month or two because these are
184long-term plans around what will a STEM academy look like at each of these different places. And so, um, what I'm asking is for the the board to certainly, um, just allow us sort of that additional time. We certainly want to be impatient as well around erecting um, thesemies. But I know what I'm also hearing under the question is um, a forecast, a budgeting forecast to determine whether or not um, we will be able to afford using general funds um, this ambitious vision around erecting thesemies. But um uh the next time we meet is June 17th. Um after that is July 8th and I I know for a fact we will not have all of that information at that granular level by then. There's no way we can have that information. Yeah. I mean, I I
185just I don't want to segue the conversation, but I I was under the impression based on all the conversations that we've been having that for the board to make a decision about moving forward with the bond, we actually have to know that we have the general fund dollars to build and sustain a program. And so we can you and I can talk offline about how to get there and whether there's high level projections and and ways to get there, but it it is going to require cuts to to do this. And so I I just think we just have to keep saying out loud, we can't just build a building. We have to actually afford the um the execution of a program and sustain it. And I know that's a issue that was raised by
186multiple board members. So Madam Chair, if I might maybe not down to the granularity, Dr. Roberts, but simply an idea of this is the chunk of money that we believe it will take to sustain a signature program, whatever it is. And that leaves us with some choices in other chunks. Not like, okay, we're going to cut this and this and this. That would be the granular detail that I would not expect because I think those are choices that the board would want to discuss as well. But I think just the idea that uh and the transparency around this is what we believe it's going to take to sustain this program and that I think will give us the broad idea of then um with limited resources what are the other things that are then choices
187uh that we have. It's not making the choices necessarily or a recommendation from you. It's just looking at it and saying are we prepared to make that choice on behalf of the community with these signature schools. I guess that's the way I would I would put it if that helps. So yeah, Madam Chair, thank you for offering that you know we'll have an offline conversation but is it fair also to sort of assume that we are going to spend um a number of times iterating right on what this looks like as a part of our planning process. Um but but the timeline I just wanted us to manage expectations around the team. The timeline to have this ready by the next time we meet um I don't think it's reasonable which is June 17th. Yeah.
188I mean I thought that's what we were doing on June 17th. So, let's just let's just figure out I I do think that we I think we all know that we're heading into a really rough budget year and we're simultaneously asking our community to invest in us, which they should because this is exciting and this is exactly where we want to go. And at the same time, we will be making choices, right? So to fund the type of programming that we want to fund, other things are going to have to get cut. And I I I just unless that's wrong, I feel like we need to have a super clear understanding of of that reality. And so, uh, because just to build a building and not be able to fund the program, uh, over a
189series of years is a is not something you want to do or I want to do. So, somehow we've got to figure out how we get closer to understanding the costs of doing something like this and the implications on the general fund. So again, I don't want to sidetrack the conversation, but it's a really important question. Thank you. One thing that I'm wondering, Madame Chair, is if we believe that this is the right thing to do. If we believe that this reimagining education plan is right for our community to improve the quality of curriculum and instruction our students are receiving, to improve the buildings that they are walking into every day, to improve their experience, um to there's so many things that it's doing. If we believe that this is the right work as a
190board, I would offer and my wondering is is do we have to do we have to determine what that those cuts are going to look like right now not knowing do we have to have um that level of granularity because even some of the things as we review the nine principles of of STEM I four of them stood out to me of areas of growth for us as and we even heard two of them is something that we're working on with regards to guardrail 2 and four including innovative scheduling and um curriculum coordinators being able to train and hold the PD necessary. So yeah, and to be clear, sorry, I I'm not I I I'm not looking for that level of granularity. I think we just all have to kind of come into this conversation
191recognizing that if we're all in for that, and I think we are, and I think we're so excited about it, there are going to be cuts and coming and I think we all have to be aware of that and and be comfortable with that and getting some understanding of the cost to stand up and sustain a program is something that I think is uh the fiscally responsible to do thing to do. So, you know, so I I think ultimately we're going to decide is it program A or program B if we are we are saying that we believe in program A and I'm I'm simplifying this quite a bit but if we are saying we believe in program A and this is the best thing to do reimagining reimagining education is the best thing to
192do for De Mo public schools then in then at why would we consider program Based on what we're hearing. Why would I think it's just helpful to know the implications? So, but regardless, I think it's because it's a choice between you're talking about a choice between a school that offers a robotics and an AI class and a mechanical engineering class and these hands-on experiences cost money and the training and the maintenance of those things cost money. And we still have to have Roosevelt High School and Lincoln High School that offer a four-year math, science, uh, uh, you know, language arts that gets a kid to a very traditional college and law degree, you know, which is not one of our signature schools. We want to offer all of those things. And where I fear is
193that we are already struggling with um those costs in uh in with limited resources and we are going after a bold vision here. I want to do that but I think I would agree with the chair in that a cleareyed view of at least the big dollar amounts that we're looking at here and a ballpark. Not something like you said it was going to be this and it was going to be this. Give us an idea. You're the experts. That's what I'm looking for. I don't know how even how to conceive this. I don't know what it costs. And so for to help understand what our investment should be and to help the public understand that as they invest in this, I think that's a um that's where I feel like it's a good idea
194to go into it with with clear eyes. I'm going to make a suggestion. the way that you framed it of being how can we as a board approve moving forward with a bond request if we don't know that number and I guess having this this vague just number wouldn't help me move forward with understanding that this is the right path forward for the de mo public schools community so thank you for having that conversation no I look I think this is a really important one and Dr. Roberts, I wonder if this is actually a little bit of the frame of June 17th. Maybe not at that granular level, but I thought Shashank was preparing to present on five-year projections on June 17th. Yes. So, Madam Chair, around costing on June 17th, may I offer and
195I think there's an opportunity for us to have some clarification around um the purpose of the bond. The purpose of the bond is not programmatic and instructional changes. The purpose of the bond is physical spaces and capital. But you have to make sure we can sustain the programming. That's the qu I mean I think that's just the question, right? Which is you can build something, but can you actually launch and sustain a program? And so I I think that's an important thing to know also. And so some somehow we either um just need to know going into this that um there will be other things that are going to be sacrificed and that's okay because this is our direction but I think it would be helpful to understand um how something so great is actually
196might have budgetary impacts. So, I'm I'm going to recommend we keep going because this is getting to be a little longer, I think, than planned. I I do want to suggest that Dr. Roberts, maybe you and I and Patrick uh and Skyler can just sit and just understand both what was supposed to take place on the 17th and how we get to a place where we continue to show absolute support for for this but also have to understand how our general fund dollars are going to launch and sustain the actual programmatic elements. Absolutely. Yes. So yeah, do you have the next couple? Do you have these or do you or do you need me to do those? Are you doing those? So as you can see uh the discussion around what uh will be going
197into the STEM model is is highly compatible with those principles. And the North High School proposed campus focus areas would be around engineering systems, robotics and biomedical design. Uh, and it's, as you can see, they're ideal for students who like solving hands-on problems, enjoy building mechanical systems, are curious about how technology supports healthcare, and might be interested in careers such as engineering, architecture, medical technology, or robotics. It's tailor made for the kind of STEM program that we've been talking about. those key learning outcomes. Students engaging as in women as we mentioned designbased problem solving using industry tools and lab-based applications. Curriculum can include project lead the way biomed simulations and engineering technology and platforms. And here are some examples of potential project and capstone experiences. um making sure that the way that we are measuring
198mastery within an effective STEM model is authentic in both the learning process and often the product. So the autonomous robotics challenge, biomedical prosthetic design, bridge and loadbearing structure analysis, all of these demonstrate relevance to the learner of what they're learning in a meaningful gauge of mastery of the core content across all parts of the STEM program. Hoover Meredith. You see that uh we've got the technology centered STEM or steam. And I've learned as an adopted Ian that there is some confusion about what the A stands for in steam. Uh I came from a place where it stood for arts. And I was told very quickly in Iowa it stands for agriculture. Uh so um for the purposes of this conversation I'm I'm going to defer to my instinct which is arts particularly since what we've
199been talking about with Molton in terms of it being an ideal sort of precursor in the performing arts area is so fitting for Hoover Meredith we can add a second a I'm sorry we can put a second yes um focus areas here will be technology integration coding digital design and media tech and again you'll see a similar p students who are passionate about the real world technology and content uh that's surrounding them uh and interested in careers that are uh intriguing to them where there's going to be those career and technology education skill sets uh and those problem solving uh competencies that are going to set them up for success such as software engineering, graphic design, digital marketing or IT systems. And so similarly, key learning outcomes include digital content creation, software development, data structures,
200and interactive media. Projects can include app development, user interface design, or video production. And again, you're seeing here examples of projects and capstone experiences that are anchored in real life problems of practice or challenges that students can see relevance in and create something that solves actual real world uh challenges or simulations um that they can get invested in. All of these are going to be the kind of capstone experiences that a student is excited to see through to fruition. And that is a powerful thing when in the course of a student's academic experience, they're excited about the way that they're going to show mastery in something that may look different than a traditional final exam or a midterm. So just a combo of um next steps. Um so what that was was stage one right
201of signature school development model um and identifying the signature pathways and sort of the data that created that analysis and why we applied the analysis in the manner that we did. Um also want to talk a little bit about um just in terms of next steps thinking it through these the lens of the stages of signature model school development is the notion of as we have identified signature pathways now is as we're kind of talking about the the design and um phase where we are identifying and securing resources which we just kind of had that conversation um setting up signature school environments and designing the actual implementation. The reason why this is important particularly if you begin to look at the the last bullet there install core components of the implementation plan training um student
202family informationational meetings is because when we think about the the number of data points that led us to the identification I mean we we did that with students with families with staff um that relationship actually doesn't end after the identification process it actually grows and continues in the design and the implementation phase phases of the signature programs. And so we need to build on that momentum of continuing to reach out and to listen and to garner um that understanding and that mutual sort of co-generated design of the actual signature programs in terms of phase 2. Um when it comes to design, we thought it'd be helpful just to also throw a couple of um concept designs in there. Um I think we may have used some of these in previous um um reimagine education updates
203but it's also important to note um just thinking back on the data set the the compre uh kens of data set when we look at the investment priorities from all respondents um where all respondents said this is where we'd like for you to prioritize your investments they really spoke about modernized flexible classroom spaces and they also talked about um signature school infrastructure from all respondents. Those were predominant sort of areas of investment that all respondents lifted up for De Mo public schools to invest in. When it comes to students specifically, when we asked them about the priority investments that they see that we should make with them, uh they lifted up maker spaces and collaborative spaces, um modern facilities and activity spaces. Those are some of the dominant themes of priorities that our students and
204all respondents lifted up for us. Stage three um is about um early full implementation. Um and this is actually when we are off and running and we continue to assess and evaluate the effectiveness of the program and what needs to happen next. Um and then of course stage four is sort of the optimization where we evaluate where we're at and we begin to make any sort of modifications or adjustments to what is actually just been stood up with our families and with our students. Um this last slide is just about a reminder. the slide we've shown multiple times now in terms of the bond referendum timeline. So, um it just again is referencing that we are actually on track. We're on pace in terms of our timeline. These are just milestones. The only hard and
205fast dates on this particular timeline are September 19th in terms of the filing of a resolution and the November 4th election date. The rest of these dates are milestones and we're within each of these. Thank you, team. May I ask is this presentation available on the reimagining education website? It will be tonight. Tonight. So Okay. Thank you. So if it's okay with you, I think it'd be good to just give everybody a good opportunity either um reflect, ask a question, um throw out some aha just to make sure that we get a sense of the board table. So uh I'm not going to pick on you. somebody go. Um I'll I'll go ahead. Thank you for the continued work um all of you on this. The the vision is starting to form up and it
206really is exciting. I think um my kids are never going to see this in the De Mo public schools, but if I were 10 years if they were 10 years younger, this is exactly what I would want to see them moving toward. Um and so I think it's really really exciting um from that standpoint. I had a thought as we were talking about SEAL tonight, as we were talking about some of our goals around what is it, what is the kind of student that we want to create and and as I listened, um, one of the things as we talked about projectbased learning and what curriculum we're going to put in front of, one of the things that I hope that this team reflects on and thinks about as we train our staff is that
207we also produce um, graduating classes that when you pull them have absolutely no idea what the politics of their teachers are. I would like them to walk out of their classroom wondering for 10 years. I have no idea because they saw um they were able to articulate all sides of an argument, all viewpoints around questions that um real world questions that we will uh tackle in the classroom. Um, but I would love to see our students graduate and say, "I have no idea what my teachers politics are. I have no idea what that is, but I learned a lot and I can articulate almost any viewpoint." Um, and that's the kind of thinker I am and that's the kind of learner I I am. That's what I'd like to see. Just a thought. Thanks, Mr.
208Thanks. Uh, once again, thank you guys. this team. I mean, we've put so much on you this first year and um I like to see the progress that we're making. Um, one thing I noticed, uh, is that you really captured or even the the review that the or the I can't think the Oh my god, I just analysis the survey that they did. uh I could really see how the community how the different school zones really picked and captured their community uh in each of those zones. So I really enjoy that. Um but just the comment just so thank you for much thank you so much again for um doing this. I did have more of a probably a technical question for the PowerPoint uh maybe before it gets uploaded. I was really excited to
209see the um when you went through the STEMmies or the steammies and how you had example projects and capstone experiences and I got excited when you talked about cyber security escape rooms and things like that. I would love to better understand what might those example projects and capstone experiences look like for a CTE academy as well. That's a Y that's a really great question. Um I would say that that is exactly what is currently happening in CTE. Um for example, our cyber security students are receiving um you know both local and and national awards for engaging in um you know cyber events. We have our own cyber team for example um with those things and that is where because De Mo public schools has such a strong foundation in a lot of the things that
210are being presented tonight as part of helping everybody understand what a signature programming is that we are not starting from scratch. you know, school districts like Kansas City, um, Kansas, which we're lifting up as a model for programming, uh, with our diploma plus, school districts had to start from scratch, you know, and and we're not we're not doing that. Um, I can also, you know, just think about the fact that, um, you know, our students are are being asked to to do things for for, you know, companies and and businesses and industries. Um you know we principal just hosted a bunch of our students in business incubator that actually went through a performance task of having a um analysis of a business plan and return on investment and market value and like all of these
211things and students competed with other school districts on um you know how do they do that and we had some students that did really really well in that. So I would say that those tenants already exist in CTE which prepares us even better to be able to take this to scale which is part of our commitment as a school district to equity because those opportunities currently um are very limited to just central campus and this is about again ensuring that regardless of space and facility that students have access to those types of opportunities. Thank you for highlighting it. Thank you also for for all the work that you are doing and will continue to do. Um Tasha, you mentioned earlier and you know with all the great things that are going on and the great
212things that um are coming about how we're getting this to people, right? How we're getting this to be known because this is what is going to attract, right, more students. uh more families and then also how do we make this information available and in a way that's also very understandable for families within our district. Um so I think just paying attention to how we're getting this out. Um so many good things. I mean, it it's really exciting for me and like Patrick said, you know, my my kids are done right with high school, but it makes me want to adopt children because this is really exciting. I wish that my children would have had this opportunity and, you know, and they didn't. And so, just get this out to people. Yeah. Thank you. Can I
213can I respond to that just really quickly because it does pertain to some of the points that were brought up tonight. Um so one of the things that will come down the pike and that we've also seen in the in the Q&A that is posted on the reimagining website is like how do we ensure um equity, right? How do we ensure that everybody does understand their choices, right? And that that actually is a way and an investment that needs to be made that I think is more of the goal three work of ensuring that no matter what language is spoken, no matter where our families reside, they all have access to the exact same amount of information because they we need to prepare our students and families to be able to make the choice of
214what does the what do these new opportunities mean for me and my children, you know, as a parent. And that is something that um I really respect and appreciate about you specifically is because you always bring us back and center on that and that if we do not do that and we do not invest in the infrastructure of helping all families understand what college and career readiness is and specifically what um De Mo public schools have has to offer in that we're we're only going to get educational equity um to your point of ensuring that our families have that. And so that is part of I think where the goal costing comes into play of being able to support those types of programming things. Um in addition to the bond which is more about the
215facilities and and the structures, Miss Knox, Miss Martano. Thank you. Um Chair Norris, I have a few things. one I I'm just want to share my gratitude for how thoughtful um this process has been from the start. It has always been rooted in data. It's been rooted in what is research and evidence-based and this presentation and the most recent data that you received regarding uh the surveys as well as the student comments. um the way that you triangulated that information and and brought it to us in such um I think an impactful way as I look at that word cloud. I saw pathways for each of those areas. I said to Patrick like, "Oh, that those are our our YouTubers right there. that program right there, you know, the um activities that you highlighted, I
216I could see the pathways for the students at at the elementary level having reaching those goals. So, it's very inspiring. Um, and knowing that it's rooted in that in the data and research and evidence that you've all engaged in gives me confidence in what you're presenting to us. So, I appreciate that. Um, I have a couple of questions. They are um a little bit more just technical and tactical stuff. So, I'll go ahead and submit those in the the um on the website for you. But, thank you very much, Miss Knox. Um, no. I I think gratitude to you all for all of the work that you've done and uh thank you for listening again to the community uh and bringing that back. I do think that um I I think that the more and
217I know there's so many questions that we're still working to finalize, but I think just kind of the more operational nitty-gritty we can get as we go out to our community and inspire them and engage them just the better it's going to be um for us getting this bond passed and getting the infrastructure that we need to execute on this really big vision. So, um I I just I know it's hard sort of questions and and obviously things are always changing, but I think those details just allow us to tell the story sometimes a little better. So, thank you. That's great. Um I think my only comment is excitement. Uh you're actualizing the community's vision and it's not easy. So, I think um even though I know I'm um super healthfully impatient and uh but
218I also, you know, just want to make sure as we're having these conversations, we realize like to do great and to achieve where we want to go, there's going to be some pain and and that we're all just thinking about that and understanding that. um only consideration and I think this has been mentioned this is a lot and heavy and even just the words and the topics and so the context the examples are great like when you gave context to something um that Skyler asked about so the more that we can give examples so people can understand it because even I'm struggling with CTE stem steam stam whatever so um anyways thank you yeah and I think Dr. Dr. Roberts, you're going to wrap us up. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um certainly in in just
219closing us out tonight, I I want to highlight three things. And the first is um acknowledgement. I want to acknowledge um that uh we particularly as we think about costing um and sort of how we are envisioning sort of our futuristic position particularly around our fiscal health um that the board madam chair you all continue to push our thinking and challenge our mental model around how are we going to afford all of this because it's unprecedented. We have not gone here before in 118 years. And so I want to acknowledge that um the spirited way with which we engage in these discussions at the bordas around our financial ability and financial position is healthy. Um what is not seen outside of um sort of this is the conversations we have behind the scenes when madame
220chair um uh the vice chair and I meet often right and it's all with the desired outcome of getting us to a really great place. Um the second thing that I want to share is a celebration. You know I've seen in in my own research and u many of you have done this as well in that you're looking to see what is happening around the country um as individuals are embarking upon a very similar journey. Um and what we have not seen that we are experiencing here is where a seven member board um just has this incredible uh unanimous embrace and support of this bold vision. So if we don't say it enough thank you. Thank you. Um there is no doubt in our minds that and you've said this publicly and you you've cheered
221us on privately by saying you also see um that while this will not impact your children and we've heard this from other parents it will not impact their children but it's going to impact the children of those children. We are talking about a generational impact and I want to celebrate you but I also want to um acknowledge that I'll be remiss if we do not celebrate our um parents and community. Man, we parents, I want to look you directly in the eye virtually and say thank you and our community. You continue to show up day in and day out um via the feedback that you offer in the website when you show up to all of our community convenings. Um uh we've been um in many of your churches and faith-based uh other faith-based organizations
222and you are championing this on and so I want to be able to celebrate that um as we get ready to go after um a significant bond. And then the third thing is what are we asking? What are we asking for to make this reality? And that is um we've shared with you previously this is an ambitious undertaking. It's a 10-year plan and we are going out for a $500 million bond. And certainly at our next convening, our next meeting, Madam Chair and team, we're going to be ready to share um what will this mean for our taxpayers and the members of community. um because it comes at a financial cost. Um but thus far what we've heard from our parents and community members is that individuals are willing to make a sacrifice if you
223may to ensure that the children of their children are walking into sophisticated buildings and experiencing the kind of world-class educational opportunities that we have not experienced before right under your leadership and those leaders who are going to be part of this journey and come after us. And so I want to say thank you and as as a next step then we're going to come back madam chair on uh the the June 17th meeting um in addition to the costing that we have proposed we'll have an offline conversation about what else do we need to talk about in terms of our financial responsibility and projections and we will be ready to be able to deliver on that. Um, after that to building the next steps that Matt shared, uh, looking at our timeline, uh, we want
224to be able to to land on an exact, um, sort of, uh, a dollar amount for our general obligation bond. But um but we leaving here tonight with excitement, um inspiration and enthusiasm because the seven members of this board have raised both hands and said you're doing the right thing and you're elevating the community's voices, their wishes and desires. And so thank you team. Thank you um for your presentation tonight. Um we could not do this without your unwavering commitment, dedication and support. So thank you all. Thank you madam chair. All right. Thank you. With that we are adjourned. Thanks everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Now I'm hungry.