001can't um Good afternoon everyone. I would like to call the school board meeting for Tuesday, May 6, 2025 for the De Moines public schools to order. And we're having some similar technical experiences as last time, but this will be the last schoolboard meeting where we're dealing with this. So next time when you all come join us in a few weeks, it'll be a new experience just like our old days. Miss Rios, could you please take the role? Yes. Miss Alonso here. Miss Campos here. Mr. Dixs. Here. Miss Knox here. Miss Maranto here. Dr. Mayberry Mace here. Miss Norris, we have quum. Thank you. The first item of business is approval of the agenda. May I have a motion and a second to approve the agenda? Marano. So moved. Campo second. We have a motion by
002Marterano and a second by Campos. Is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions? Hearing none. Board members, please cast your vote. All right, I'll call the vote. Miss Alonso, yes. Miss Campos, yes. Mr. Mr. Dixs, yes. Miss Knox, yes. Miss Marano, yes. Dr. Mayberry Mace, yes. Thank you. Next on the agenda is public forum. Uh, Miss Knox. Okay. Um, yes. So, thank you, Dr. Mayberry Maze. We provide the 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 5 minutes for an agenda item. If anyone wishes to speak during any portion of the business meeting, please email rosa.riosdschools.org. The same speaking protocols apply to all individuals who wish to address the board. Speakers will be called
003individually and we ask that they state their name and zip code prior to providing comments. Students and miners do not have to provide their addresses. Guests of the board are encouraged to speak to matters relating to the program, 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 this public forum exists. The use of inappropriate language will not be tolerated and individuals choosing to do so will be gabbled 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
004with public forum speakers as it is our obligation to discuss only matters posted in the public agenda for the sake of transparency. an opportunity afforded to all community stakeholders. Matters requiring attention will receive appropriate staff and/or board followup at a time following the meeting. Thank you for your participation. We appreciate your feedback and input. Is there a there's not a motion? Sorry. No motion on the table. Do we have any speakers for public forum? We do. First up, I'd like to call Garmita Martinez. My apologies. Miss Martinez. We'll move on to the next speaker, Maryanne Cook. I I I'll try to use my teacher voice if that helps. Okay. I'll record your Oh, to record. Okay. Okay. Um I come with a thank you to all of you. Um, I have a niece whose son
005um maybe is my great nephew or something like that. I'm not sure. But anyway, he's always been a really quiet kid and didn't really like going to school. Never enjoyed it at all. It was too much going on. So when CO hit, it was great for him. He thought it was great. He could do all of his work at home on his computer. Well, what happened then was, you know, as he went through the grave, um, and I and I think it was a year ago that he was a senior, um, he hadn't met the requirements that were needed for graduation and somewhere along the line he was introduced to your options program and he is doing very well in that. um he he uh has already oh he's on the high set um curriculum
006or classes. Um he has already passed the English part of the test. Um so he's going on now to the science part of it and he thinks it's really cool because they get to call the teachers by their first names and also some teacher brought in donuts one day. So, this kid is really sold on it and I just want to thank you for that program. I also want to add a little bit to that. Um, my dad when he was in a senior in high school dropped out so he could join the Navy so that he would not be recruited into the army because he didn't want to have to wear a tie. So when he got out of there, he got his GED and that then put him on, you know, the track
007for the rest of his life um to take care of his family, myself being one of them. When I was a teacher at Boone, my last 15 um years, I worked in the academic achievement center and we helped students get their GED. And that was really um a high point of what I did. We held a graduation program for them. We had a speaker. We had a reception. Their families came. And for many of those families, they were the first ones that ever finished high school. And you know, they were all proud of that. And now my nephew being in the same type of program, I just think it's wonderful. And this is why public schools deserve to be fully and properly um financed. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Those are all the
008speakers. Thank you. Those are all of our speakers. We will now move to district recognitions. Doc uh Superintendent Roberts, are there any recognitions for today? Absolutely. Uh Sorry. It's me. You good to go now? Yeah. Look at that. Take two. as we continue to bring forth district recognitions at schoolboard meetings where we celebrate the successes and accomplishments of uh our students and the adults who serve them um both in and out of the classrooms. I am always pleased to share these recognitions just about the great work that is happening across each of our 64 schools here in the mo public schools. The first recognition this evening is for um two groups of outstanding teammates um who incidentally whose national recognition um this week coincides. Um national teacher appreciation week is from uh May 5th through
009the 9th and national nurses appreciation week is uh from the 6th through the 12th. Um, you know, to the amazing cadri of teachers and nurses, we know that one week is simply not enough to show gratitude and to say thank you. Um, but we certainly want to take this moment to show our appreciation. We are grateful that you continue to show up every single day ensuring that our students receive not only a world-class education, but those who need your care as nurse from our nurses, they receive that and some. And for that, we are incredibly grateful. And so thank you for that. Um the next recognition is one that I'm really excited about. Um little jealousy but um you know it's all right. Dr. Broad and I have talked about that already and the students
010and so we we we'll have another conversation. But as many of you know despite the fact that here in De Mo Iowa we are thousands of miles from the nearest oceans. Um, the Mullan Public Schools is home to one of the nation's top high school marine biology programs. One of the nation's top marine biology programs and that is thanks to the excellent leadership here at Central Campus under Tasha Brown. Um we are grateful for your leadership, the outstanding faculty and of course our dedicated students who commute sometimes several times a day show up to make sure that they are contributing to this high quality program. This evening we have two recognitions of this top-notch program. Okay. Okay. Where did it change? I'll just put this up. Sorry. Then you have mute and then you go
011up and then you go up. Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, let the record show that is the chair. Um this evening we certainly want to bring into the space two um recognitions of this top-notch and nationally recognized program. First our congratulations to Dr. Gregory Bar and being named as a finalist for the 2000 the 2025 presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching. The presidential award ladies and gentlemen uh pause and this is your prompt. This award is the nation's top honor for elementary and secondary educators in the field of math and science and certainly is a tribute to Dr. Broad's excellent work and leadership of our marine biology program. If selected as the awards recipient, he would be the 14th DMPS employee so honored over the years and which is really an indication of
012excellent leadership at the school and district level and an indication of our outstanding faculty throughout the district. One reason that he is such an outstanding educator is because of his um just unique hands-on experience that he provides to students. um very robust program, but students are always excited to be around him, to be part of the work that he's doing, including the program's annual field studies expedition. The most recent one was just about a month or so ago when he and a group of students traveled to New York. No, to Fiji. Wanted to just plug that a little bit. Fiji. I wanted wish it was New York because I didn't get to go. But anyway, there he and students study the nautilus of which Dr. Broad is an internationally recognized expert um as well as
013other sea life that they were able to look at and examine along with a culture of course in history of this very very unique place in our world. For additional information, you can read all about the educational adventure on our websites and a blog post um that Dr. Bar wrote. But for right now, ladies and gentlemen, we are so fortunate that he and some of the student scientists who took part in the expedition are with us to share a little bit more about this trip as well as we will hear from him a little bit more about his presidential award for excellence in mathematics and science teaching recognition. Our young scientist and Dr. Rod, welcome to the podium. So, first thank you all again for recognizing the the hard work that the students do every
014single day. Um, and also for the recognition of the what that leads to for myself of just having opportunities to kind of have these achievements at, you know, state national levels. Um, sorry. I mean, weirdly enough, I I hated science growing up. That was one of the things that kind of got me into teaching and wanted to kind of bring science to to De Moine when I came here in 2014 in a different way. And um one of my goals was to bring high school students to the field, not just to kind of look at what was going on, but to actually do what was going on and to actually experience what science is like, um rather than just read about it in a book. So the the Fiji expedition we went on was kind
015of like a an 11-year kind of planning and commitment to just make sure I was ready to bring uh 37 students across the country or across the world um to a different place and really challenge them. And I just want to provide like one little anecdote of our experience there and just let a couple of them kind of share their experiences. But um as y'all are dressed business casual right now, maybe more business um I expected my students to dress business casual from De Moines to Dallas to LAX to Fiji. And there was some grumbling, but you know, they did it because I wanted us to show up in Fiji and hey, we're central campus. We're De Mo and we are Iowa. Here we are. And they did it. We got there. The first thing
016we did was we went to the University of South Pacific and met with some of my colleagues there and toured around. So, we were ready to go. And then it started to rain. We're all in business casual. What did we do? We stood in the rain and practiced writing with our right in the rain books to get ready to go on the boat. So, that was day one of just landing in Fiji, no sleep, but here is Central Campus. Um, and I was so encouraged by that. And, and again, I encourage you all to look at the blog. It's a unique kind of experience of what they saw each day in day out. And then right now I just want to bring up three of the folks to kind of give their different perspective on
017it. So if Max, Ally, and Vienn if y'all want to come up and just share a little bit about the experience. Thank you. All right. Thank you guys. Um I had very high expectations for this trip because it was a great program. Uh it'd be an understatement to say those expectations were exceeded. There were a lot of challenges and opportunities every day we had to face, but it was those very challenges that motivated us every day to keep going. Um, there's nothing I would do to change them. It was honestly very great. And those challenges were very thorough and just in depth. The opportunities were even better. And it's just that that made the trip great for me. So, thank you. My name is Van. I'm a junior currently a lab assistant. Um, I am
018beyond grateful. I can't even put it into words um for this trip. I I went on the field studies trip last year and it definitely definitely prepared me for it. I did not have one single bad day in Fiji and it it helped me realize something about my future. I I'm I currently run our um Instagram account. I love I love videoing all that stuff. I'm getting into photography or just I really I have a little tiny camera that I brought with me to Fiji and I was a little jealous of some people who had a GoPro. So, it's it's made me realize that that might be something I want to get into later in life, especially, you know, if I get to go down deep. I get to take some footage of something and
019then I can look at it back home and realize, hey, maybe I've never seen this before. I can learn something new about that species. So, it's a big part of my life that I think is going to come. My name is Allison and I'm a junior at North. And going on this trip, I was a really shy person and going allowed me to be like a lot more social and that wasn't something that I was expecting because I'm usually very closed off and I don't talk to a lot of people. But yeah, and it like the trip made me realize how much I want to study marine biology and yeah. Thank you, Dr. Bar and each of our 37 students. We are so incredibly proud of you all um to have a program that is
020nationally recognized and certainly um Tasha Brown, we value the leadership here at Central Campus as well and we're going to continue to plug this. I know that a number of our supporters are listening and so the there's a plug for a GoPro and hopefully we get some takers to get you a GoPro um so that you can keep your other beloved camera at home. Um Madam Chair, that concludes this evening's recognitions. Well, that's a great segue to our next topic, which is to talk about goal three. Uh, and goal three is all about, uh, the future that we are envisioning for our youth. And so, uh, that was perfect segue. So, thank you very much for for that. And Dr. Roberts, I'm going to turn it over to you to introduce, uh, our conversation today
021for goal three. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Madam Chair. This evening, of course, I want to start uh by sharing um as a reminder that the goal three in terms of the languages, the percent of grade 12 students earning a diploma plus in four years will increase from 38.2% in the spring of 2024. to 63.5% in spring of 2030. Um the team here in the M public schools that we affectionately refer to as the goal three team has demonstrated a lot of intentionality around how to truly include um the infusion of diploma plus and its content into the newly adopted school year 2526 high school firstear students program. Um, in this regard, we've had uh the goal three team and many of our district leaders really collaborate with our school leaders at
022a high school where they've identified direct study blocks um that are ideally dedicated for opportunities to truly reinforce what does diploma plus really mean? What does it look like? We want to make sure that um every single uh teacher in our secondary school programs um and all of our students become really conversant with what it means to have a diploma plus. Um these schools have really demonstrated a commitment to ensuring that there is time in the first week of school probably the first couple of days uh so that they can ensure the students are not only introduced to um goal three and diploma plus but they know and understand exactly what is important for them to achieve that. You know, as we think about goal three and we're thinking about what happens in a student's
023post-secary pursuit, we often think about what happens in grades 9 through 12, but the team has the foresight to recognize that it's important for us to start much sooner. And as a result, I know that a lot of work is going to be done um with galvanizing our middle school students, especially those in eighth grade where we're looking at how do we prepare them to implement the expanded um IAP, which is of course individual career and academic plan model so that our eighth grade students are also getting the preparation that they need for goal three and the diploma plus. And so, um, the PL plus of course is part of of our reimagining education where we're thinking about what will it take for us to have every single student, 100% of our students when they
024walk across the stage from any of the mo public schools high schools, they will have not only a um valued high school diploma, but a distinction of a plus that includes a myriad of industry recognized certifications. And so with that said, I'll now call on um Josie Sargas who will engage in a brief presentation of our interim goals which will serve as our pulse check or progress monitoring towards the achievement of goal three. Okay. All right. Dr. Roberts just took you through this language, but I did just want to share with you again the trend line that we have expected um for the next uh 5 years um of this goal starting with a kind of flatline year here in 2025 when we have the opportunity to measure it at the end of the school
025year. Um I did want to orient you to the purpose of interim goals. Um typically they would be set as one to three years with the flexibility then to shift them within the goal process. Um when we started this because we were using this year as kind of a base year and we'll be presenting to them to you now and then starting them next year um with full fidelity. We went with the longer model um and actually set as a full 5year. Um, but we wanted to also give you kind of that full trend line of where this would match with the entire system. Um, other things to know about um, interim goals, they should be measurable multiple times throughout the year. They should have a strong evidence of a relationship to the goal and
026they should provide information on whether or not the system is moving towards the goal. So often ours in SOFG, our goals are things that are only measured once a year. Um and so this is our opportunity throughout the year to demonstrate to the board that we are moving in the right direction. Um additionally, uh interim goals should be influencable by the superintendent and his team. Um and should also be student outcomes or outputs. So with that language which we just talked about and our annual targets just so so you have an opportunity to see them again um I wanted to take you back to the diploma plus theory of action. Um this was a theory of action that Dr. Lending uh presented to you I think back in uh late March. Um, and I'll just
027give voice to that, which is that if we guide middle and high school students through a rigorous academic advising model and build systems for students to access these opportunities, then students will achieve one or more of our diploma plus distinctions, which will lead to increased post-secary readiness. Um, and so when we were thinking about what does it make sense to bring forth to you as interim goals, as the superintendent's interims, what we wanted to do was identify how we could moni monitor each part of that theory of action and how that's getting us to that post-secondary readiness as represented by diploma plus. So, as I take you through the rest of the presentation, you'll see that we actually highlight each of those pieces of the theory of action and how we're connecting those to the
028overall goal or to the interim goals. So, interim goal 3A is directly connected to that first piece to the rigorous academic advising model. Um, and with that, you have heard from Dr. White um about our 9th grade on track model and the shifts that are happening in high school around ensuring that students are on track or meeting um meeting the the requirement of having earned five credits and failing no more than one core class by the end of their freshman year. Um the interim goal we have proposed here is that the metric will increase of from 48.3% of our freshman students from last spring to 60% in the spring of 2030. Um there is a lot of research on the nth grade on track measure. I don't want to belabor the point. Um Dr. White
029went over it pretty heavily a few weeks ago. Um but when we think about nth grade on track and mapping that on to diploma plus as our goal level, we actually see two levels of connection here. One in the middle number you see 58.3% of students who met the NGOT um earned a diploma plus. So only about half of the students who who met that or who did not um went on to earn that. But more importantly, um, when a student does not meet that NGOT metric, they are very much less likely to meet that diploma plus metric. So, what we're seeing is that correlation of a student not meeting one metric um, increases the likelihood of them not meeting the other metric. Uh, nth grade on track. Yes. Um, this is also supported by
030research out of the University of Chicago's Consortium on uh Chicago School Research um that found that when students are on track by the end of their their their first year of high school, they're more likely to graduate, which we know all of these things work together. The second interim goal that we are proposing is interim goal 3B, which measures building systems for students to access these opportunities. And we've identified the way of doing that as monitoring the percent of 9th through 11th grade students who are not chronically absent, increasing from 35.8% in the spring of 2024 to 50% in the spring of 2030. Um that 50% mark is where we were precoid. Um so in the spring of 2019 um that was where we were as a percent of students who are not chronically absent.
031Um again we know that chronic absenteeism is a major indicator of a student's success both in high school and after. Um research has been done for over 20 years on the impact um of absences on a student's ability to graduate. uh meet metrics um their proficiency rates um and their overall success. Uh I know one of the questions that might come up is whether or not we believe attendance is influencable by the superintendent. I would say that the work that we that our attendance team at the district level and the building level um has done to decrease chronic absenteeism in the the last year has shown that it that we do have influence over this in the la from year to date March of last year to this year uh we had five schools decrease
032their chronic absenteeism by over 10%. We had another 23 23 schools who decreased their chronic absenteeism between 5 and 10% and on the other side of that only seven seven of our schools had any increase in chronic absenteeism in that year. Um so we do believe that this is an influencable measure 50 uh for for the 9 through 12. Yeah. Yeah. Um so on the next slide there you'll see um what the the identified trend line is to get us to that 50% in 2030. Um the next slide um talks about our relationship between chronic absenteeism and diploma plus and why we believe that chronic absenteeism helps us demonstrate whether or not our system is on track to meet our diploma plus goals. Um so you can see there we've broken it down by each
033individual grade level. um back mapping to 9th, 10th, and 11th graders and then identifying at the end of their their high school career whether or not the not chronically absent students would have received a diploma plus. And then on the the inverse of that, percent of our chronically absent students who would not have received a diploma plus and we're seeing very similar relationships there to um what we see with the nth grade on track measure. certainly want to double down Jos's point around why we're considering the use of chronic acetism because we believe it's not only influencible by um the entire district theme but you know although the office of civil rights So although the office of civil rights um only started collecting the data across the almost 14 14,000 school districts on chronic absenteeism
034um they started and then they stopped probably around 20 2018 a number of really credible universities and and researchers have continued to look at the correlation between chronic absenteeism, high school graduation, high school dropout rates and what they have shared American University and um a 2021 study talked about the fact that chronic absentism unlike a student's academic performance um or so many other factors is one of the most sort of important and strongest predictors of whether or not a student will graduate from high school. And so what we've done as a district is um we have actually had a all hands-on deck approach to addressing chronic absenteeism. And so the data that uh Josie shared which is really strong and certainly speaks to the fact that it's a success and we're getting traction. We're not
035where we want to be where we can actually celebrate but we are going to celebrate growth around how um our principles and their teams and teachers are able to sort of connect with parents connect with our communities to get students back in school. At the risk of an oversimplification, we have so many world-class academic programs here in the district, but if students are not present and sitting in seats, they're not going to be able to benefit. And that's one of the reasons why um two years ago when we came to the board and we'll continue to come to the board um with a humble request that we seriously consider not only keeping our finger on the pulse of student attendance but ensure that we are factoring that into how it can impact the achievement of
036our academic goals as we look at student outcome focused goals. Uh quick question. Uh so when it comes to how we're going to gather that data, um high school age, I mean they have different classes each day. Are we going to take that um that information for like a full day or each individual class? How are we going to track that? Sorry, Rosie. Um, we, so just for the folks who might be online, um, we track attendance by class period or by, we call it by minute. Um, so we track whether or not a student is present in any given period. We have Tableau reports that are available to, um, building teams, teachers that actually show what's the most common period for students to be absent. um whether or not students are if if there's
037a trend for a specific teacher um we cross reference it all those different ways. Um and uh schools are also then able to filter it. Um I know one of the questions that might be asked is whether or not this is actually a student outcome or an output. Um I think for high school it is. Um, I think if we were talking about preK5 or even preK8, there is a real confounding adult input about whether or not families are bringing students to school. What we know in our high schools is that students are making the decision whether or not to go to class. Um, a couple of weeks ago is I was at one of our high schools and every single class I sat in all day long between 15 and 20% of the class
038came in 10 to 15 minutes late. That's a decision our students are making every day. Um, we know that the most one of the most common stu periods for students to miss is the period right before lunch. These are things that we know about our system. And so from the perspective of is this a student output? Is it something that they know and are able to do? Are they able to have the persistence to be at school all day? Do they know that there is value in being in class? This is a way for us to measure that. Um, we also know, um, kind of to to the to the question that you raised, we know that roughly 20% of students who are chronically absent at their home high schools are not chronically absent at
039Central Campus or Academy. So again, we have lots of indicators that tell us that for our high school students, these are decisions that they're making about what they know about school and themselves. Can I ask a question about that? Obviously, it's been many years since I was at Central Campus or Academy, but I recall is there a different uh expectation of standards otherwise you can be kicked out of those programs that we have that lead to greater attendance or is that no more? I not to my knowledge. No more. So, you can be you can be let go from an academy or campus program and Okay. Interesting. I have a question. Um Maya is more so for understanding on slide 12 the relation the chart that you have showing the relationship between chronic absenteeism and
040the diploma plus if we could get that back on the screen. I just for the sake of simplicity for some of our viewers if you could just explain what this is trying to say. Some of the language is muddy in different spots. Yeah, it's a lot of knots and not knots and we put some double negative. Uhhuh. It got real fun fast. Um so essentially what we're seeing is that students who attend more than 90% of their time which is what would would be designated as not chronically absent um are more likely to have received a diploma plus it's over over half it's about so if we're looking at for example as a nth grader um 61% of students who attended more than 90% of their days um would have gone on to receive a
041diploma plus one of the Things that's really important about this though is actually that inverse correlation where what we're seeing is that the students who were chronically absent, the students who missed more than 10% of their days did not go on to receive that diploma plus extinct distinction. Um so we're seeing it actually in both directions. Right. If I may, um I I certainly agree that reducing absenteeism is necessary to ensure that our students can be prepared and I'm not discounting any of the data that you've you've provided. Um, but what I am unsure of is how attendance or how a student showing up to class is ensuring that the student is learning or is is leaving with the knowledge and skills and the intended outcomes for that particular class or for that particular um
042period or for their their high school experience. I don't believe that just sitting in class is getting us to what a student knows and is able to do and is truly a student outcome. I think that there are other much stronger student outcomes that we could utilize. And I I will be very transparent and honest. I from from day one when goal three was presented to us and absenteeism was one of the measures that was presented to us over a year ago um I I had similar sentiments and so I'm really surprised to see this coming back and um honestly disappointed because again I do feel that it in order for a student to receive that knowledge and skills and walk away with that knowledge and skills being present is in fact a part of
043that. But I don't think that that simply being in class is um showing us that a student knows something or is able to do something as intended by that class for that course work. Thank you m and certainly your point is taken. Um I'm pleased to call on my um oversimplification but as I think about the lottery right this whole idea that one must be present to win. is how I'm viewing students being present in class. And so we're talking about two very very um different expectations, right? One is we expect students first of all to be in school, to be in class in order for them to benefit from the education delivery model. Secondly, yes, we know it's the fact that a student sitting in a classroom doesn't guarantee that they're going to walk
044away with mastery of whatever content has taught them that day. Um but rest assured I believe that if students are not there then there's no chance at all for them to get the knowledge um to acquire the the mastery of whatever is being delivered. And so um I know I think about the student outcomes focus model we think about how are we defining what students should know and are able to do. This is where I I the team and I come to the board humbly for us to consider how impactful and important considering student attendance is. You know, when we've looked at where we were last year in terms of the number of students who were chronically absent and that is for those of us who are listening online um to be chronically absent means
045that a student has missed at least 10% of the school year. It's very rare that a student who consistently year after year misses 10% of the school year will actually get caught up graduate in time much less to have this earned distinction of a much more robust and rigorous pursuit of a diploma plus and um the point certainly around is this something that students should not be able to do is well taken um but I I uh even if the board decides that it's not a a part should not be a part of our interim goals um just given uh the results in fact we've gotten this far. We're going to continue to pursue and prioritize the importance of chronic abism um and addressing that because we want our students to be in school because
046if they're not here they're not going to benefit from a marine biology program and all the other programs we have in each of our high school. So thank you for that certain we'll continue to think about it. I think just a followup is why can't we have it both ways? meaning is there a way to demonstrate mastery? Right? So meaning we're outlining absenteeism as an issue and there's some targeted approaches, but mastery of content virtue of a grade or score is demonstrable way to potentially address what you're talking about. I just throwing that out for somebody to put holes in. Um I just asked that question. I think philosophically for for me um when we see students not attending class, when we see them making the decision, it's telling some us something about what they
047know. Um and what they know is that class isn't important. And I and that may not that that's absolutely not always the case. Um, we know that there are exceptions to that as a as a standard, but when what we're seeing in our high schools is that students just aren't attending. Um, that tells me something about what students know about what does graduation mean for me? What does being in class mean for me? Um, and so that that was one of the reasons I think as Dr. Roberts and I were talking about this, we maintained this um was that for our high school students, it is a measure of their resilience and their persistence um and their ability to come to school every day when it's hard or when you're when you've got people you
048disagree with or when you need to work together with others. Um yeah, you know, as we think about and the team and I and we've had sort of um exhaustive discussions on this, when we think about what does it mean to look at goal three because goal three is essentially about postsecary success. And so this is so much more than just academic preparation. Um this is about how do we prepare our students and equip them with the skills that they need in order for them to really pursue success when they graduate. the habits around school and class attendance. Um if we should take our um foot off the pedal so to speak and not prioritize this, we are um essentially failing so many of our students who will build and develop these habits around attendance
049in high school and then in their postsecary pursuits take those same um poor habits into the world of work. And so clearly we are attempting to make a case of what we believe to be a very very important undertaking. Um and I think for the board and our goal three team and I it's just a matter of where do we land on a compromise to ensure that we are prioritizing and seeing the value in this interim um goal I apologize if I wasn't completely did I hear like what what was the answer to demonstration of mastery of content I understand absenteeism is a a strategy right addressing chronic absenteeism But there's there's got to be a way to demonstrate mastery. And so are there suggestions? Have other schools tackled this? What have they used? Uh
050I know in the past we looked at things like grades um in the previous uh in the in the previous iteration of board goals when we were looking at ninth grade. Can I talk to mute? Sorry. Otherwise look weird. Yeah. Um, in the in the past we had things like grades. Um, so we could we could look at whether or not GPA has a relationship with diploma plus. Um, that is not something we've looked at yet. Go ahead. Okay. I know we have not got to go or interim 3C yet. I think inter room 3C might be addressing some of what Jackie is saying as far as demonstrating competency. Uh it's not it's not academic. Okay. Have a graduate that's not academic. Okay. And so that that was one question. And my my other question
051is um I'm not opposed to seeing the chronic absenteeism piece in this. I guess my question is how is this different? How is chronic absenteeism more of a correlation to this goal than any of the goals that we have? chronic absenteeism also is connected with reading and math literacy and everything. I mean, it's connected to everything. So, I think me understanding how it's more correlated with this than goal one or goal two would be helpful. Yeah. And so, this goes to the conversation about adult outputs as opposed to Thank you. Uh this goes to the conversation of adult outputs as opposed to student outputs. So, we know that a major factor in a student attending class when they are in especially that prek8 is whether or not their families are able to get them to
052school. Um, and so there is an adult factor in whether or not a student attends, especially in those younger grades. Um, I think the reason that we have proposed it here specifically for high school is because we are expecting more in those decision-making frameworks for high school um, and for those those 14 to 18 year olds who are experiencing a diff different level of freedom and a different level of of structure than um, the younger grades do. Um, regarding interim goal 3.1, I'm curious what does it mean? What is 9th grade on track? What is that metric? And I'm wondering if that speaks to more of a mastery of content um is my first question. Then the second question is in response to looking at at grades. Um, you know, if we look at grades
053data and GPA data, that is incredibly reliant on our grading practices being sound and our interrator reliability being sound. Um, and I don't know where we're at with that. So, a question would be where do we feel um before diving too much into that, where do we feel as a district and our systems are at with regards to um our grading practices? and and what and that was actually one of the reasons we didn't dive off in that direction is because we know our teaching and learning team is working diligently on that. Um there's in fact a large conversation happening right now within standards reference grading on topics um versus targets um which is I don't need to get into the weeds on that for you. Um but there but there are lots of conversations
054happening about how those how that's calculated um both technically and systemically. Um so yes to your point that was one of the reasons that was not an a kind of immediate race to the top as a as a potential for this interim goals series. Um your first question was around uh 3A or three yeah 3A around um 9th grade on track. So the ninth grade on track is um what was identified um Dr. White uh who was here presenting to you a few weeks ago um really dove into both the the long-term research that is available to us from places like the University of Chicago um and larger school districts out in the the the wider world nationally um from us and then also what we're seeing internally about um correlative uh impacts between um
055credit earned um lack of failure of uh no more than one class um or no more than one core class and then eventual graduation. Um, which is why that was specifically tied into this. And that also pairs well with the work that high schools are doing next year um with 9th grade on track u which is also in the strategic plan as a as a strategic action within um high quality teaching and learning. So if a if a ninth grader is failing one core class, they are considered not on track. And if they are failing two or more core classes as a ninth grader, they are not on track. Correct. And they have to have earned at least five credits. So the kind of if you go to slide eight, um I can put it
056back here. Um that's the actual language um of the of the metric which is um nth grade students earning five or more credits failing no more than one core class and then we can monitor that. Um I know a question had come up about being able to monitor that to that multiple times a year. We'll be able to monitor that at the end of semester 1 kind of the ontrack to ontrackness um as well as at the end of semester 2. I just an ask I would I would prefer to see this as the language the percent of nth grade students earning five credits and failing no more than one core class um in the goal itself as the interimm goal rather than using another um um acronym thank you acronym um I think that
057um this clarity is much more transparent for our community and families and ninth graders to understand Absolutely. Can I ask something? Um, I'm looking at the and I don't know what page this is. The diplom. Can you hear me? Okay. Can you hear me now? Oh, yes. I'm looking at the diplom diploma plus theory of action and similarly uh to what some of my board colleagues state I'm having trouble believing that chronic absenteeism um should be what we focus on right um because I think that there are so many things that can impact a child from learning. Um, so I'm wondering besides chronic absenteeism, what was it that your team, Dr. Roberts, or what other factors did you consider are significant uh concerns or challenges for students aside from chronic absenteeism? And here's why I
058say this. So when I read the theory of action, if we guide middle and high school students through a rigorous academic advising model and build systems for students to access these opportunities, it almost seems to me like we want it it almost seems like a setup. Um because I think that we have to first build systems for students to access opportunities and then we can guide them through middle and high school through that rigorous academic um advising model. So, I'm just wondering what else was it that you discussed that gets in the way of children learning? Yeah, I certainly can jump in. Um, thank you for the question and I certainly appreciate that. You know, so we have a a sort of service delivery model around assessing what gets in the way of student learning
059that is multi-layered, right? And so if you get to the more granular level of classroom instruction, um a students will have teachers who will go through a lesson plan um that utilizes um what we call formative assessments, right? And that's assessments that are ongoing um that happens with a level of frequency in order for a teacher to determine where a student is, how is she or she doing in terms of mastering the content um that is being delivered to them. Um you asked again about what else gets in the way of students learning. Um I would say there are two things. One or three one um the quality of teaching and the teaching and learning team and our school leaders um all of whom are committed to being instructional leaders are committed to ensuring that
060we are improving the quality of teaching and learning every single day. Um secondly um there has to be some responsibility placed on our students especially students in the secondary level right they have to take some ownership for their learning um when they're there and then the third is what gets in the way of students learning being present if students are not present they're not going to be able to learn to grasp the material I want to get to without veering too far off um but I want to certainly respond to the question about barriers right chronic absentism in De Mo public schools. We are not treating chronic absenteeism as something that's needs to be that needs to be penalized or punished. Chronic absenteeism is actually a symptom of some larger societal and community issues. And
061that's where we are trying to sort of get to the root causes of why students are not attending school. And we have an amazing group of leaders, teachers and staff who um have set out to knock on doors, reach out to um parents and students to try to ascertain what is getting in the way of students coming to school. And when we find out what it is, then we're addressing that. Um you know it's really encouraging to see for example um last year the state of Iowa Department of Education um came up with a chronic absenteeism um set of rules, guidance and policies where as a part of that there was some treatment of chronic absenteeism um almost as if it was um a student's fault, a family's fault. It was criminal. And so one
062way that we felt that we were penalizing not only students and families but penalizing districts is when uh they were require we were required to send a certified letter home to the homes of parents. When a parent receives a certified letter um because their child is not attending school and this parent is dealing with so much of life's vicissitudes. It seems as if we are tonedeaf around meeting the needs of parents. And so what I'm encouraged by is the fact that the legislators just passed a law to discontinue sending the certified letters home. For us here in the M public schools, um students not being present when we have a chronic absentism rate. For example, I'll use our students who are 11 graders. Two years ago, our 11th graders had a chronic abstentism rate that
063exceeded 45%. 45% of chronic absentism over 11 grade students we're not setting them up for success and so we have to find ways to get them butts and seats so that they can benefit from a quality education service delivery model um but a point that the board is making as well taking how will we know that students are learning how are they demonstrating mastery I think we have a a really robust set of teaching and learning practices um that we're continuing to see of course we utilize um a scope and sequence of instruction rounds of gleam inventory. Um many of our principles are continuously aspiring to spend no less than 70% of their time on the instructional core. Um many of our teachers are delivering lessons and lesson plans that are nothing short of exemplary.
064Um we are not going to blame students. Uh we have teachers who are inheriting students into their classrooms um that are coming at varying levels of academic performance and mastery and those teachers are pushing through and differentiating using solid pedagogical practices and we are monitoring those right while it seems as if we we are overindexing on the chronic absentism um we don't necessarily have a myopic focus on just this one thing we are spending an inordinate amount of time on our teaching and learning practices and reminding ourselves daily that priority one of our 5year strategic plan is around excellence and equity in teaching and learning. That's our bread and butter. So, we're going to continue to push that. Is that helpful? Dr. I'm sorry, Dr. Roberts, you had mentioned in response to Maria's question of
065what gets in the way of students learning and I think the first thing you said was quality of teaching. Um, and then you just described what I believe to be true is our robust teaching and and learning that's happening and how solid we are in our instruction. So, where are those two things? Um, where's the disconnect in Yeah, thank you. Thank you. There's a disconnect. Let me thank you for that. offers me an opportunity to provide clarity of what I'm sharing. Each year over the last two or three years, we have hired about 300 brand new teachers to the district district. Many of those are first year teachers. I believe we had in excess of 150 first year teachers. While they are brilliant and their resumes are impeccable, I often ask principles to remember when
066they were first year teachers. There is so much learning that they have to do. the learning curve will not necessarily allow all of them. Some of them are we have rockstar first year teachers but we also have first year teachers who are re relying on our school leaders to bring them along. So yes um in many of our classrooms that I walk into I'm seeing an exemplary delivery of teaching learning. The reason we have this robust set of instruction rounds and gleam inventories, it's because we recognize that there is certainly a need for us to continue to build capacity in teachers. Um, so your point is well taken, right? That makes total sense. I appreciate the clarification. Thank you. So that that's very helpful. Um ultimately we believe that that we are going to um
067sort of bring all of our teachers along because we have uh a dynamic um group of of um teaching and learning directors, a dynamic group of elementary, middle and high school directors who spend an inordinate amount of time just relentlessly focus on improving teaching and learning. So thank you for allowing me the opportunity to answer that. Dr. Roberts, I had asked um you and Josie for a disagregation of the ninth grade on track by um a variety of demographics and I shared that with the board so everybody has it. I think the thing that we most out is the IEP and ELLL students um ELLL students at 25% uh compared to um the the other numbers. And I I'm I hope that I'm saying that in the right way, but what strategies are we deploying
068that are different or unique or customized for those students to be on track to accomplish diploma plus because it would seem that there's um additional supports needed whether it's language supports or or others. I don't I don't Um, I know that a major a major initiative going into next year for the freshman on track um is what they're calling houses. Um, and so teachers will have an opportunity to work both ac within their content area in PLC's and also across houses uh or within their house as a PLC. So they'll be able to work with student or work with their peers who are working with the same students to more effectively pro provide supports across content areas um and work together to provide what students need. Um that would be one that I know off
069the top of my head. Um um and I I was just can I just say one other thing though because ultimately this also comes down to resource allocation and I I just I I am struggling with what we're asking our counselors to do and that very unique and customized approach for ELLL students, IEP students. It's it's just a lot. I think it's asking a lot and so um just want to ask for clarification on resource allocation uh to improve those numbers jump in before our shares um in a school district that has about 15% of our students are students with IEDs and four plans 25% of our students are multil- language learners and recognizing that um the students who we're serving are coming to us with special needs we have been intentional about reallocating resources
070to meet the needs of those groups of students. Um just across the district we are hearing a lot of our principles are talking about with excitement how some of our students are being exited from special education services because we often say special education is a service not a place. We don't expect them to have a prolonged or have an IP in perpetuity. Um secondly, we have been very responsive to school and school leaders who have said to us, our multil- language learner or English language learner population is increasing. Can we get additional um FTE to support this work? Susie Tolman and team I know for a fact have been very responsive to providing and reallocating those resources. Um additionally, I know that there are a number of other instructional practices that um the team from
071grades K through um five are utilizing. Um and so we'll certainly have Rob share a little bit about that. The last thing that I'll share is um our elementary schools director um Ali Saleo. I know uh this this summer's um summer school program will really have a focus on our English language and multilanguage learners. I'm seeing head nauseet confirms that. And so not only are we cognizant of our student population, but we will stop at nothing to ensure that we are appropriately and prudently reallocating resources to support them. I'm just going to say one thing and then I would love to hear and this is more for others. Um it it might be helpful to to be able to look at the disagregated data on a regular basis to see where the gap is and
072I know there's pros and cons to that but it would be helpful to see all group showing progress not just the cumulative. So if you could consider that absolutely ready to monitor. I'm ready. Okay. Uh I would echo um Miss Sturgis' comments around particularly in the nth grade on track model how much those house structures have been designed to be able to identify the unique needs of our students with IEPs or or limited English proficiency and be able to identify commonalities and trends in terms of their academic performance. in terms of the aspects of diploma plus that uh are uh available to our students that are coming in with either IEPs or ELLL. Um as we've talked about previously, there are a number of the strands that have specifically been tailored to make sure that
073language proficiency andor uh special education designation does not get in the way of one's participation and one's access to it. Um but it is an expectation of ours uh that um students will be able in the course of the model that's being monitored here uh to be able to um gain full access to the academic supports they deserve. All right. The last interim goal. Uh the last interim goal that we've identified here um is a uh another measure of increased post-secondary readiness. Um if you've read our strategic plan um you've probably seen the words portrait of a graduate. It appears in um cultivating um excellence through high quality teaching and learning. it uh is in the cultivating well-being and the cultivating operational effectiveness. Um this is one that has um that that appears multiple times
074because the goal three team or the diploma plus team um that has been working on this work all year has identified this as a major stepping stone um in this work um and directly connected to our diploma plus work. Um now what you'll see is there are a bunch of X's and Y's. I'm sorry to bring them back to you. Um we are not currently measuring um portrait of a graduate using any form of assessment. Um we are actually working with wayfinder. The goal three team is working with wayfinder right now to build out what that assessment could look like. Um and we are planning on implementing that next fall with our high school students. Um so that was where the language that is in this came from. um was we wanted to have an
075opportunity to share with you an interim goal that even though we don't yet have a trend line on and we don't yet have information on um that would give us an opportunity to bring to you within the context of monitoring what is happening with the portrait of a graduate work um and how that is how that's changing and being and and being uh actioned on at the systems level by the district. Um hey Josie just clarifications. So these um what what would you say skills and abilities assets assets um look like they're aligned with the vision and the mission is that yes correct so the so these were identified by the goal three team um and I missed the day um but the goal three team um did a good bit of reading and um
076spent time um identifying what is it that we expect a graduate to look like? What do we expect a graduate to be able to do when they walk across our stage? Um, and they identified each of these individual skills and then grouped them into the kind of asset language. Um, which we are now in the process of crosswalking with Wayfinder, um, which is where we'll get to being able to have lessons that are aligned with that curriculum with the port with the portrait of a graduate assets. Um and then also assessing it using that that platform. Okay. So so one is just a this is not another new thing. This is wayinder. Yes. I think I just um I was thinking I was talking I think to one of the board members. There's lots of
077assets. Every school has an asset. Uh ID has assets. Montasuri has assets. Now we have assets. and Roosevelt High School has their own tagline and I it feels um not cohesive and so I guess I'm just trying to figure out if if we are going to have a little bit more uniformity. Obviously, every school may have their own personality, but other schools have other assets that they hold up high. And so, it'd be helpful to understand if this is a uniform because K through 12, they're all doing wayfinder. So, is this a uniform thing, meaning said nicely like this is this is the whole district and all of the kids. So to me, I just think that that's really important because otherwise it's just another new set of words. Yeah. And so um if you
078look in the strategic plan, you'll see there's usually that's part of the strategic prediction of the roll out of portrait of a graduate over the next several years is that this is unifying across the entire district. Um individual schools will have their own flare. I'm I'm a I'm personally a north. I don't think the south side is going to link might have different opinions. um they might want their own flare on it, but with it but it'll be within the structure of what the um of of the the six categories that have been identified with with as that portrait of a graduate. Thank you, Josie. And just to build on a madam chair, I think it's important for us to recognize that um all the leaders in the district certainly we're building our muscles around
079um valuing our strategic plan and that is the the document that will ensure cohesion or cohesiveness across all of our practices. While we have a strategic plan and and that will guide every single objective and strategic action, we don't want to embark upon this journey to take away the autonomy from school leaders as they're utilizing their own assets and identifies and building their own cultures. But again, the strategic plan is that document that is a northstar that would allow us to have stronger cohesion and reduce and discuss silos. So, not to push but I just I want to make sure I understand because I understand autonomy but I also understand consistency. So is every school held accountable for these six assets to be foundational K through 12? The answer is yes. Okay. Again, we're starting
080with grades 8 through 12 and certainly um there will be opportunities for us to trickle down. So yes. I'm sorry. Both of them are measuring that question of post-secondary readiness which going back to our original our original charge here even before goal three and diploma plus and and the creation of that system was how do we know that when our kids walk across the stage they're ready for the next stage of their life. Um and so we believe that diploma plus and portrait of a graduate are two sides of that coin. um and that they that a a student who is able to receive a diploma plus will necessarily be um self-sufficient and empowered and resilient and civically engaged and socially conscious and intellectually curious. And that the inverse of those things is true as
081well is that a student who is demonstrating those competencies or those assets will also be able to identify and achieve a diploma plus in our system. I'm thank you for describing. I was um one of the questions that I had was really around what metrics are being used to measure this and it sounds like what we're describing here in this portrait of a graduate is an ideal graduate or um assets that an individual will hold um when they graduate. But um I will say this was this is year zero of this goal um to give the district the time. We knew that we didn't have items to measure this. We knew that um this didn't exist yet. We gave you the year to develop and create the measurement tools, the rubric to go along with
082it, the um the hope to remove any bias from that assessment process, all of that. And to to be getting X's and Y's and not have a clear definition of the metrics that are being used, um I'm concerned It mention says it pertains to interm goal three. So um yes, interm goal 3C. We're saying that we're going to measure um a student's achievement towards the portrait of a graduate, but we haven't created that metric yet. We haven't created the tool yet. we're still looking at um we don't have baseline data um and I would I was hoping that we would be further along um having had a year to develop all of this. I I really appreciate your comments. I think um we're all hungry to accomplish things faster. And I guess the question on
083that topic is because you mentioned crosswalking and things like that, when is it actually going to be working uh and and actually executable? Yeah. So, what we've identified as a timeline What we've identified as a timeline is in order to create a target line um in SOFG it's three marking periods. Um so our intent is to utilize this assessment twice a year. Um so we would be looking in the fall essentially of 25 of 26 27 to actually set the trend line and the the the goal outline. that would also give us then the opportunity um to do the actual correlative work between diploma plus outcomes and the portrait of a graduate work. Um which is one of the reasons this is set up as a kind of one to threeyear interim point. So, in
084the fall, can students actually in whatever way be on Wayfinder be assessed for these six? That's what we're working towards. Yes. For the fall 25 26. Yes. That's that is our intent. Yes. And I I will also say and I'm was getting there and didn't say it earlier. This also feels a little bit similar to the attendance where it's not and not seeing the the metrics. It's hard for me to say, but these assets don't feel like we're truly identifying what a student's able to do, what their skills are, what their knowledge is, or what their mastery is necessarily. The the vagueness for me, I think I'm struggling with um if we're truly identifying a student outcome um in these areas. I have a question. Uh Miss Alonzo started to ask a little bit about
085this earlier and it got me to thinking, but if there were a 3D, what would that look like? An interim 3D? Well, I don't need exact answer, but what types of things might be measured in something like that? And I apologize. I did not send that question ahead of time. Um, sorry. Um, let me unmute. Let me offer and certainly in addition to Josie, Dr. Lind, and the rest other team members, we can certainly come up with that. Um I I I want to offer for the board's consideration and I certainly receive the fact that we are still in year zero and creating a plan ultimately when we think about postsecondary success. One of those measures will be whether or not students can persist um as I think about one of the first E which
086is enroll persist through college. There's a pledge of research none of which will say or attribute a student or students dropping out of college to any quantifiable academic measures. no research. Some of us are in high education. Students are not dropping out at large rates because of their inability to succeed academically. They are what we consider to be those soft skills, the resilience, self-sufficiency. Um, and so as I I think it's important for us to keep these six assets in our measure. Um, but also receive the board's feedback around what are those quantifiable measures, those metrics that we can go back and bring to the board. Yeah. And that's those soft skills are what we heard a lot um when having conversations with our employers and our business community and um the the trades um
087leaders of our our trades unions and things like that. We did hear a lot about those soft skills. Um, I just want to be sure that we're really ensuring that we're not just going to check a box for these students to say that we've met this goal to to truly know that we have prepared them for that next step. Um, and and making sure that we as a board have an idea of where at a systems level we are succeeding in that and where we still have work to do. Absolutely. Thank you so much. Absolutely. We will certainly make sure that we making our commitment to doing so. Yeah. To that point, I think some of you have seen the the greater de mo partnership survey that was um uh CEOs were kind of listing
088the top 10 things that they're looking for in employees and I think the top seven were human skills. Sure. And um and I'm and one of them amongst that was um analytical thinking, right? And and I think and again I'm not an expert, but when you hear about AI and you hear about lots of different things, what they're saying is the most important thing a student can graduate with is that um analytical thinking set of skills. And so I'm wondering where that's [Music] demonstrated I guess period end of sentence like is that is that expected to take place in a classroom and yeah that's my question. Excellent question. You know critical and analytical thinking is developed um in more than one um specific area both in and out of the classroom. Uh when we think
089about for example um some of the work that we're doing around project- based learning um they are opportunities for students to be outside of the classroom environment where the activities with which they're engaged under the toutelage of their teacher or instructor will develop those critical and analytical thinking skills. Um when we've looked at our English language arts curriculum um there are opportunities for students to be able to look at um um whether they're using their close reading practice or some other um delivery model to develop critical and an analytical thinking. So I think it's both in and out of the classrooms. Thinking about Dr. Barad's um guidance in the marine biology program, right? Um some of the activities with which they are engaged in um definitely pushes students to be able to develop and hone
090those skills. So I I really appreciate that question, but it's both in and out of the classroom. Dr. Robert, this is kind of um this question is kind of off wayfinder. Can you explain a little bit to like the people watching um the families what is that consist of like what I know it's a program that you guys started using what was it this year this year is the first year of implementation and then what is that going to what does that help us find so wayfinder is our um or social emotional learning curriculum that we adopted uh the board may recall that we had um put out an RFP and wayfinder nationally rose to the top um the curriculum is intended to look at five major tenets um that really um builds capacity in
091both students and when we implement with fidelity um the SEAL or for adults um those five components include how do we teach and develop skills in students that allows them to be able to have um social awareness self-awareness um self-regulation um sound decision- making and the fifth is how do we get them to be um to develop um strong and responsible relation relationships. So there are five key tenets that are part of or social emotional learning um that our students are exposed to with implementation of a wavecl curriculum. In this case, we're utilizing wavefinder um and thus far getting some really positive traction. So that's going to go over um with the wayfinder kind of what Jackie was saying about what our employers are looking for so that that helps our students with Absolutely 100%.
092You know, I speak with this about this with expected because even when we've looked at modern day, I don't want to go down a rabbit hole around um students who are navigating significant mental health issues and challenges, exposure to a really solid social emotional learning curriculum allows them to do things like self-regulate, strong relationships, good decision-m those soft skills that we're not necessarily able to always quantify. Um so, yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, Miss Compos, were you done? Sorry. Um, Dr. Roberts, you mentioned mental health and you know, looking at the the portrait of a graduate, four of the things that you have listed of the assets specifically in my opinion um speak to mental health and so is that something that portrait of a graduate would kind of do? Yeah. Are we looking at students
093mental health? 100%. Thank you. Ask me before the rest of the team the team jumps in. But you know when we think about resiliency in students, we're thinking about um students who are able to navigate situations that are intellectually challenging and emotionally charged. Right? When we are seeing that not only in students but in adults who are um having bouts of diagnoses that includes depression and anxiety. Um while this is not my area of expertise and certainly not my certification, I know that when we develop skills on our young people to prepare them to be psychologically and emotionally resilient, um it it means that we're sending a very clear message that we value their mental health. When we think about our uh district-wide cell phone policy where we want to reduce the amount of screen
094time that students are engaged in so that they can develop and build and hone those social skills, we consciously think about students mental health. We've embarked upon a partnership with an organization that offers telealth services to our students because we recognize that with mental health challenges there um is a tremendous amount of stigma and that serves as a barrier to students and even adults seeking um these services and so we have a tellaalth partnership where students and their families can sit in their living room and benefit from mental health guidance, counseling and support. So, I really appreciate that question because now more than ever when we've looked at uh uh the American Pediatric Association's continuously sharing data that it says since CO we've seen an increase in the number of emergency room visits for um
095our pediatric population around things like suicide ideation. It tells us that it would behoove every single school, school district, board and superintendent and team to focus on mental health. And are there gaps right now in terms of how we are providing services to our students? Absolutely. until Madam Chair's earlier point about resource reallocation. That's one area where we need to continue to think about how do we do that? How do we get better at meeting their needs, but it's top of mind for us. I think at this point maybe we'll go around and get some general comments about how people are feeling with where we are with the interims. I think the goal is to approve this no later than the 30th of June. Yes. and make sure that there's allocated resources which is a
096conversation I anticipate we're going to have again in June and so uh because we even though we passed the budget did agree to review it again uh to understand better resources and so uh uh can we just do a temperature check where people are if you or do you feel like you've said what you need to Um, I'll go ahead and go. Uh, I just want to thank Josie and team. Um, honestly, we just kind of just gave this to you guys last year and um, I feel that you've done uh, a good amount of work on it and please let us know like when it comes to the resource allocations. I mean, that's very important for us to know how we could make this successful. But I just want to thank you guys for
097your time this year in doing this work. We can go next. U kind of temperature check. I I feel good about it. Um I know I had some some questions earlier on about um what I really appreciate where my biggest question was was around the chronic absenteeism and why it's only a a correlation between this versus goal one and two. I think you answered it perfectly. Um, which helped me get more comfortable with it. Um, I do also appreciate appreciate the transferability within Goal 3C and that it does um, align. One of the things I'm always mindful about with this goal is putting students on a certain path whether that's enroll employer enlist. And I appreciate the f the transferability of the skills that regardless students have the ability midpoint to pivot whichever way they
098want to if they decide they have different career interests. Um, so overall I say I feel good about it. Um, I would I I would highlight um Marty Rano's comments around the X's and Y's still if there's another way to capture that data that doesn't take um several more months, it would be super helpful. I don't know what that looks like and maybe Wayfinder is the only option, but that would be my only um hesitation right now is prolonging this even further to have a starting point. But overall I feel good about it. I don't have anything additional means again. Once again um thank you for the work done. Um I think that my only concern is allocation um also of resources specifically when we talk about mental health and not having those there and
099if that's going to be part of the work uh needed to to see this work for students then we have to be intentional with our resources. So, um I would want to just see the investment uh how we're going to make this happen and do we have the the funds there? Uh I'll make sure Mr. Dixs was on but he uh dropped off so because he was having a hard time hearing so I'm going to make sure that he sends any comments. Uh Miss Knox, we're just doing temperature checks with everybody I think. Uh and you'll be next if you have uh comments. The two things that are on my mind. One is I'm not sure I actually understand why absenteeism is just being measured for this as opposed to maybe a guard rail or
100or something different because it impacts if we're saying it impacts this. Well, then it to me I think it does impact everything else, right? And so that's just something for us to think about and for you to think about Dr. Roberts. I know it's one of your priorities and and maybe it's better in a guardrail where we measure it. So that's just one thought. Um the the second thing is I there's there's a lot of whatifs here. Uh so for instance, what if we have a signature school set up by then? would would would things look different as we're growing uh programming in any way right so I don't I don't know how to better articulate that but diploma plus is a certain set of credentials that you can earn so what what should we
101expect like what does potential look like is it additional credentials is it like what's the growth potential of this if we invest in more career pathway you know learning like I think is that yes madam chair yeah thank you for that I think that the wandering certainly um inspires me to think about um and certainly serve as a reminder for the team that um this this goal has a long runway for us to actualize it by 2030 30. Um, and we certainly appreciate the board's flexibility and willingness to continue to push us as we create the appropriate interim goals and this is year zero, right? I want us to keep that in mind. Um, the second is and I really appreciate and value the question of why did we not include as an interim measure
102chronic absentism in goals one and two. um it would take away from the spirit I believe right of those two goals because again to the earlier point with goals one and two when we look at fourth grade reading scores or in the case of goal two um black and latinx male in 8th grade achievement um there are so many other interim measures that are more academically related and inclined that we should be focused on um but when we think about goal three again as we are looking at our much more mature students who very close to the line of walking across the stage. Chronic absentism being inserted into this goal as an interim is so much more than their academic achievement. It's about how are we truly preparing students for postsecary success. And so I
103I certainly the team and I receive um the wondering about chronic absentism and why is it not inserted in goals one and two or why did we not consider it as a guardrail. We have affectionately listed as a superintendent's goal because every single week the team we look at and unpack how are we progressing on student attendance across the district and then our teammates in schools every single day are taking actions to make sure we improve those outcomes. So that's well received. Yeah. And just the final thought and this Miss Knox, we'll let you have the final word on this. I still don't I'm not completely sold on the the student outcome on the academic piece of this and so I don't know how to get more comfortable with that but I just want to
104say that I and I don't know if it's better understanding how you're moving SRG grading to more consistency or what's going to increase the confidence that um the class everybody has the same is held accountable to the same standards. So I just want to say I'm I'm not completely there yet on the the the academic outcome and um just want to share that. Um Miss Knox, um well I feel like I'm not sure what everyone else said, so I apologize. I had to take a call for my child. Um, I think that people have pointed out some good things that they like, some areas that they're still looking. Yeah. For first I want to say thank you Josie for preparing this and for delivering this and thank you uh to for you know leading this
105conversation tonight. Um, I think that probably what is my biggest aha in this and look this isn't my goal three isn't my baby as it is for some others. Um, but it's really important and I think probably just what tonight's discussion underscored for me is the realization of how much slide we've endured as a district since precoid and that we have a long a long road ahead and that and yes while it may be a long road 2030 feels like a long way away it's not and we uh have some serious transformational work to do and so I guess my Paul back to the superintendent and team would be my hope is that what you're putting forth is going to lead that transformational work to help us not just reach where we were in 2019
106but think about how do we get even better um than where we were pre-COVID when it comes to some of our measurable outcomes like chronic absenteeism whether that's measurable or not but some of the data points that we have um and around our portrait of a graduate or what is what do we have our data on track our nth grade on track numbers Um, that's that's where I'm at. Great. Great. I think I think uh Mr. Dick Mr. Dix is on. So, we'll be sure to get his feedback. Dr. What do you think would be a good next step? Next step come back together in terms of the budget. That's the conversation we're going to have in June. Yes, ma'am. Um what I think there's some outstanding u pieces of information that um we've asked
107for or is is it the goal that we would actually for interim 3C if that moves forward that we'd have numbers by June to approve or is that that's not going to come? So the the measure actually doesn't exist yet. Um that's uh the reason we had to bring it to you in that format is that the the measure itself does not exist yet. kind of um new work to measure it in this way. Um and we're actually working with directly with Wayfinder and we're working on getting that meeting scheduled to get that done. Um which is why we were unable to bring anything more specific. Okay. Well, why don't we maybe Dr. Uh maybe you and I in our next checkin can kind of come up with a plan and a timeline and and
108see how we try and move this forward. Madam Chair, we want to encourage a lot of the MPS teammates and um and and stakeholders to spend a lot of time with our strategic plan. The strategic plan has five priorities, 18 strategic objectives, 59 strategic actions and 100 key results. And if you look at priority number one, the first two pages, Madam Chair and team, it provides you with a lot of visibility and insights into what are some of those key actions we're taking to improve academic outcomes for students. It's it's very prescriptive um at least at a high level and um I if you have an opportunity to either um join myself and others and many of you have on many of our instructional rounds, you'll get some firsthand experience of what is happening in
109classrooms. And so um this is just one part of the work right creating and um uplifting our interim goals in support of goals 1 2 and three but the work that is happening at a much more tactical level around improving academic outcomes for students um it is really impressive um to board member Marano's points but when we are we going to see the results of what we're doing right now and again I like to hearken back to while we want to operate with a sense of urgency implementation science which reminds us that you need three years and and our sense of urgency is that this is going to happen in years one or two, but again, we're getting ready to embark upon year three of so many of the changes that this board has been
110a critical part of. I'm I'm excited to see what happens at the end of year three. Great. I think that's a great way to end. Thanks again, Josie, for being Thank you, Josie and Rob. The focal point and the Okay, 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 Rios, do we have any speakers? Uh, no. Speaker, Miss I believe you have the consent motion. I do. I move that the board approve the consent items in accordance with the recommended action for each
111item on the consent agenda, including bills previously authorized, certified, and approved for payment by the board secretary in the amount of 6,76,2261. Second. We have we have a motion by Miss is there any discussion or does anyone have any questions? So I'm going to use this time to speak on behalf of the board Dr. Roberts uh when we as a board realized your contracts on the consent agenda we should talk about it. So uh first of all we want to thank you. We want to publicly acknowledge you for all of your hard work. uh you are a hard worker and uh you're everywhere and we just appreciate all that you've dedicated to this district and we were uh very excited to move forward with your contract uh and extend it. Um, I also want to
112say performance reviews are really important to the board and they're really important to you. And I think one of the things that I think we are trying to do is also model uh for the district this need for regular check-ins, regular kind of conversations back and forth, but then also a formal evaluation process um each year. And it it takes time from you and the board, but it's really great that we're um we're demonstrating what we think is really important, which is a commitment to continuous improvement. And so, thank you for that. Uh because uh you don't always have a lot of time, but dedicating your time to having these conversations with the board as a team, we really appreciate. Uh I think we want to highlight a few things uh that we talked about
113that were um things that we shared with Dr. Roberts already, but um successfully completed a new strategic plan for De Mo public schools. Uh visibility, you're out there everywhere. Uh and we even chose to make fun of you running in a suit, which is a talent that not everybody has on a track. um you advanced frameworks like diploma plus and are putting that uh framework uh to call to to kind of connect to our vision that we put forward as as a board in partnership with you um to make sure every student graduates with a diploma accreditation or a public service path. Uh you jumped in and launched a big bold hard conversation about reimagining education in partnership with our associate superintendent. uh and you embrace that and you take a lot of the um
114kind of hard questions uh and you hear the good and the not so good. And so thank you for being willing to be a catalyst for a really tough conversation, an exciting one, but a hard one. Uh you approved a cell phone policy. you got approved a cell phone policy that's going to take effect across the district and uh also saw I think probably at the urging of DNPS and Hoover uh a statewide uh policy signed uh into law by Governor Reynolds um closing guardrails monitoring um all of you have invested the time to make our monitoring conversations better. I think we still have work to do but each one seems to get a little better so we can have a conversation about some of the real issues and challenges. Uh and we also called
115out community partnerships. Uh our community is really important and we need them and I think you've recognized that you've put um really good systems and processes in place. Um you've had philanthropic success. So these are all things that I think are important to call out. Um sure there is always room to grow uh as it relates to academic outcomes, right? We've got a strategic plan to execute on fully and uh and we've got a very complicated world with challenges coming every single day that we probably can't even anticipate. And so I just think it's really important for the community to hear from the board. Um this is a conversation that we had with Dr. Roberts far longer, far more in depth. Um and then the other thing too and I I I want to go
116back to this idea of continuous improvement. Um one of the things that I really appreciate about uh Dr. Roberts, I think we all do, is your willingness to um not be afraid to have tough conversations um whether it's with the staff or the board. So, we all continuously improve and so thank you for uh your service and and we're really excited. Thank you, Dr. Dr. Robert. Uh Miss Rios, can you please call the vote on the consent agenda? Yes, Miss Alonso. Yes, Miss Compos. Yes, Mr. Dixs Miss Knox. Yes, Miss Martana. Yes, Dr. Mayberry Mace. Yes, Miss Norris. Yes. Yes. The next item on our agenda are public hearings. First item is F1, public hearing for C1P 3510 Roosevelt High School weight room renovation. The public hearing will come to order. Is there anyone wishing
117to speak to this item? Hearing no speakers, we will close the public hearing. Dr. Roberts, would you please introduce the matter? Absolutely, Madam Chair. I recommend the board review the proposed plans and specifications prepared by Studio Mele for wait room upgrades at Roosevelt High School. Hold a public hearing and approve the plans. May I have a motion and a second to approve this item? I lost a second. We have a motion by Miss Martano and a second by Miss Alonzo. Are there any discussion points or questions? Yes, Miss Alonso. Yes. Miss Compost. Yes. Miss Yes. Um, this vote is approved 620 to 0. And just a point of order, I did not announce that the vote for the consent agenda pass six to zero. Just so people are there. Next item is F2 public hearing
118for C1P3511 Woodlon Early Childhood Center parking lot upgrades. The public hearing will come to order. Is there anyone wishing to speak to this item? Hearing no speakers, I'll close the public hearing. Dr. Roberts, would you please introduce the matter? Absolutely, Mad Madam Chair. I recommend the board review the proposed plans and specifications prepared by Bishop Engineering for parking lot upgrades at Woodlon Early Childhood Center. Hold a public hearing and approve the plans. May I have a motion? We have a motion by Miss Alonzo and a second by Miss Martano. Miss Rios, can you please call the Miss Alonzo? Yes. Miss Campus? Yes. Miss Knox? Yes, Miss Martrono. Yes, Dr. Mayberry Mace. Yes, Miss Norris. Yes. Next on the agenda is FY26 board planning. So, this is mine and uh if we all engage, it's going
119to take hopefully five minutes or less. So the demands on the school board uh are um pretty intensive as most of us know. Um we've met pretty much all of you know from in addition to regular meetings January through April um every Tuesday. And uh and and while I we probably could avoided a few of those things, there's just a lot coming our way. And so what I want to do is uh make sure that we take June to uh have some planning time so we can better anticipate things like our desire to have a retreat. Um or the timing of uh performance evaluations. Um the budget process and how to incorporate that better in our schedule. Uh any conferences that we may want to go to. And so all I'm asking for are things
120that you want myself and hopefully Dr. Mayberry Mazize will agree to assist. Um the things that we want to factor into the planning calendar, right? So obviously we need from Josie and Dr. Roberts as soon as they're able monitoring calendar uh and what they think is possible for monitoring. Um I know that council of great city schools conference I think Kim you've shared those dates with us. Rosie has the board meeting schedule that we'll approve next board meeting. Um the evaluation we can try to back that out in a way that we didn't this time. Uh and Miss Knox, I'd love your help on that. What are the other things that we should try and anticipate? Obviously, I think let me say one other thing, the budget calendar. I think there was a desire to
121start far earlier uh even if it means having a couple of sessions in the summer to talk about some issues that may need a whole year to be to be unpacked. What other things that that come to people's minds that they want to call out? I think um the Iowa School Board Association uh their activities are coming on. I think those are a few good trainings uh upcoming trainings that I think that will benefit us as a board. I would like to advocate for um at the completion of um elections and the new board is signed uh sworn in that there be a full governing body um retreat um in December or January. Um uh one other thing that just kind of reminded me, we started this last year and we haven't really followed through
122is our joint meeting with the city. Um especially with Reimagine Education and um them improving some things for safer streets and um what was it? um funds for traffic lighting um and something's going on there. So, I think another joint meeting would be great with that. Yeah, I think I appreciate that. Uh and both Yes. and uh Mayor Boosezen, city council members, and a lot of some of the city planning staff are involved at the staff level with some of the reimagining education. Uh, however, we should maybe identify if it's the safety and traffic issue, traffic light issue, if there's one other that is worthy of talking about any potential collaboration. I don't know if it's libraries and literacy or if it's uh um common area use policy, like I don't know what it is,
123but so I I welcome feedback from people. I think that's a great suggestion. I actually I'm glad you brought that up. I just was talking about this. I do think there is value though in a joint meeting on reimagining education in some ways uh because I do feel like that's something that's come up is the impact. We know that schools are this sort of the center and the hub for many of our neighborhoods and um so I do find value in everyone sitting together and sharing our um excitement for that together. Yeah, I think that's great. It was uh yeah I think that's great. Um what other are there other things? So I've in addition to what I said I wrote down ISB conference uh governing board retreat uh or ISB conference and additional trainings
124joint meeting uh topics could include reimagining education uh traffic patterns in schools. Uh if you think of any are there any other listening sessions goals and guard rails? Absolutely. I think that as a board we should be striving to do those annually. I don't know that the that is the will of the board though. Put it on the list. I certainly don't know what level of I guess but I don't know exactly what that looks like. I don't think they're as intense. I I have not been through one, but I know it's something that from our training we've learned we're supposed to be doing every year and I don't know that we have been. So, worth considering the norm. I I think um as we go through this that is a great idea if somebody
125wants to embrace and provide context for the concept because um there's been a lot of listening with reimagining education and so how do how do we navigate through all the listening and if somebody wants to volunteer to scope that out a little bit I would appreciate it. I'll volunteer. Thank you. I can help. Great. So okay. So, the next I'm just going to try and map it out to the best of our ability and get feedback from the board. Um, I also think it's really important uh to think about um you know the the full scope of the commitment of time um as we're thinking about school board and upcoming elections and people have questions about the time uh that it takes to be an effective school board member. So, great. Madam Chair, may I
126Yes, please. Even as you're mapping out, thank you. as you're mapping out um I am particularly intrigued and interested in as um the eighth member of this team when we convene for that day or two-day retreat for us to consider um looking at as a board lension six questions around high performing teams I think that will actually mirror um because I know you often are willing to stand in solidarity with the work that is happening amongst our leadership teams that will mirror some of what we're doing and will I believe will add tremendous value great thank you stop that mean you're buying copies of the book. We will have copies for you. Shashank is listening, so we'll have copies. Okay, we are now going to move to items of privilege. Uh, do any of our
127board members have something to say? You always have something to say. So, what would you like to share? Um, happy teacher appreciation week. I want to express my sincere gratitude um for the incredible contributions of our teachers in DMPS. Our district is the largest and most diverse in Iowa, a fact that fills us all with pride. But this diversity, however, also presents unique challenges and opportunities. Our teachers are at the forefront of this, demonstrating unwavering commitment to every student, regardless of their background, learning style, or individual needs. They work tirelessly to create inclusive and engaging classrooms, fostering a love of learning and empowering our students to reach their full potential. Our district's goals and guardrails are ambitious and we as a board um are ruthless. I as a board member am ruthless in obtaining these
128goals and guardrails reflecting our commitment to excellence. It is in the daily dedication, innovation, um innovative spirit and tireless efforts of our teachers that drive us towards these goals. They're not only um they not only deliver high quality instruction, but also serve as mentors, role models, and sources of support for our students and families. They go above and beyond, often outside of regular school hours to ensure that every child has the opportunity to succeed. They adapt to an everchanging educational landscape, embrace new technologies, and implement best practices, all while maintaining a focus on the individual needs of each student. They collaborate with families, support their colleagues, and continue contribute to the overall well-being of our school communities. The impact of a great teacher extends far beyond the classroom. It shapes our shapes lives, strengthens families,
129and enriches our entire community. So, I want to say a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of the teachers in our district. I recognize and deeply value your expertise, your passion, and your unwavering commitment to DMPS. Thank you. So certainly appreciate Martell for mentioning that and I certainly want to echo it. Um the other thing I want to offer is uh this past weekend I attended an event that was focused on pillars of education in our community and there were some names that were mentioned that I want to bring forward in this public space because only 250 people were at the event but I know we have 600,000 that watch our meetings because everyone loves DMPS schoolboard meetings. So the organization the ZKO Education Foundation recognized some pillars within our community who have
130done extremely impactful work in the space of education. And some of those names that were mentioned and recognized were Nolan Gentry who was the first African-American man to serve on school board. Jackie Easley McGee the first African-American woman to serve on De Moines school board. Terry Cwell Johnson who many of us are familiar with who served for many years until her transition. and Kitty Westonhower who was a former building uh leader and retiree of DMPS. So, it's good to see that we have community organizations as well beyond just um those of us who are in the space or doing the work um in the buildings that are also recognizing our pillars of education because it really does take a village to make this move forward. So, wanted to publicly announce those uh those names and
131say thank you to everyone who is continuing to support our teachers and educators. I will go next. So, uh, last about two weeks ago, I was able to meet up with Dan and Kimberly, their parents at Moore Elementary School, uh, along with Kristen. They have started a bike bus um, for their school, which is really cool. So they start at one end of their area and then they gather these kids and they have a little bike bus to school. Um, so we talked about prior priority pri prioritizing uh pedestriing and bike riding around our schools um before and after school and also how like the city and the state can work or the city and the district can work together um to make our um streets safer for our students riding their bikes. Uh, so
132if any other schools are watching that want to start a bike bus, um, you can email me and I'll connect you to the right people. Um, this is something that's really cool. I don't ride bikes now, but I remember in elementary school, um, we were able to ride our bike down the street. So, it's so cute just gathering those kids and they think it's so cool. So, First, I want to invite everyone to um there is a run uh that is a fundraiser for North High School Booster Club on the 17th of May. It's at Riverview Park. Um so very excited. I will be participating. I can't wait. It's a 5K. More information uh from the NHS booster club or on the booster club's uh Facebook page. Please come to the north side. Riverview Park's
133amazing if you haven't been. Um, also wanted to just give a shout out to uh the North Side students and uh teachers for upcoming performance on Wednesday, May 7th. It'll be our project stage uh turnaround arts musical celebration whole day uh at Hoy Sherman Place from 8:30 to 1:10. you'll see uh elementary school and middle school students doing musical theater. Uh so that is open and we're excited and grateful to the Kennedy Center for making that possible for our students. And then the last shout out I want to give to is related to the foundation. So we have a new DMPS Foundation web page and I want to recognize Jasine Fitz who is a board member who worked tirelessly to build this web page. But please go to DMP. I had it up Kayleie. I'm
134looking dmpsfoundation.org. It I said Phil, we are putting the DMPS website to Shane. No, we're not quite, but we're getting there. Uh, it's beautiful. It's sleek. It represents um our foundation and that's where you can sign up for one run already. We are looking for sponsors for one run. So, all that information is now in one place. uh teachers that is also where we are starting to take uh applications for financial support for your classrooms or programs. So all in one house dmpsfoundation.org please check it out. We are very proud and thank you Jasine and team for making it happen. Um I just want to say thank you. Um, last week I started receiving graduation invitations and that made me think of all the educators in our district, um, administrators, uh, our support staff, our
135transportation department, our food and nutrition, everyone that and of course families and students uh, who have made another year of a great year at DMPS. Yes. So, thank you to everyone serving. Um, I'm excited because I know a lot of children that are graduating and I can't wait to celebrate. So, thank you everyone for making that happen. Great. Thanks, Miss Alonzo. Dr. Roberts, any items? Thank you, Madam Chair. Um for your willingness to extend uh my employment contract for three years speaks to your expression of of confidence in the work that I've promised and committed to do and for that I am truly humbled. Um, I'm appreciative and while I receive and acknowledge the points of celebration or kudos, I certainly want to be able to share that with almost 5,000 employees who support this
136work day in and day out. I am blessed and privileged to get to come to work every day with some of the most amazing educators with whom I've ever worked and get to visit schools with some of the most talented, dynamic, and full of potential young people. You know, we have a strategic plan with the five priorities of cultivating teaching highquality um teaching and learning, cultivating well-being, cultivating transformative talent, cultivating organization excellence, and cultivating community and collaboration. And while I am committed to playing an integral part in each of those being actualized, there are people who are not necessarily showing up to board meetings twice a month who are doing um most of that work and a humans task of that. I'm going to acknowledge that there's still so much work for us to do,
137but I believe that the journey that we've embarked upon together as a board and superintendent and certainly with the teammates that I get to work with every day bodess well for what is to come. Now more than ever, I'm realizing that after more than two decades as an educator, I am seeing my role as one that has to be anchored and grounded in divine guidance. We are operating a public school system, the largest, most culturally and linguistically diverse in the state of Iowa during some of the most turbulent times. and the fact that you as a board seen this fit and have the vision to continue to support us, push our thinking and challenge our mental models. You certainly do that for me in our board superintendent partnership and relationship means that I continue to
138wake up every single day and tomorrow I will wake up again at 5:00 a.m. knowing that there's a board who believes in the work that I'm leading and believes in this the school district. And so for that, um, my commitment is to give you nothing short of excellence every single day because there are 30,826 students who are knocking on our doors and they deserve excellence and they deserve the best of me in my role as superintendent. At some point, I'm going to retire from racing kids in suits because at the end of the day, the hamstrings are not the same. Um but to my 5,000 DMPS teammates, thank you. Many of you I do not get a chance often to express this gratitude but u sitting at this table gives me so much pride if
139I may use a football analogy to serve as your offensive line so that I can block along with the board everything that comes your way so that you can make the right calls in the right plays to get us to the ultimate end zone of getting 100% of our students to achieve proficiency by 2030. I'm grateful. Thank you. Thank you. Just a reminder, you have to get up a little earlier tomorrow. Dr. Roberts and I are going to uh to Washington DC and um wanting to elevate the importance of federal funding for our title programs, uh Medicaid funding and other issues that are crushing in on on our young people. And so, uh just get up a little earlier so Okay. All right. Thanks everybody. Meeting is adjourned.