Board of Education Meeting - June 9, 2025

001the best ever. Good evening. I now call the board of education regular meetings to order at 5:30 p.m. Is there a motion to approve the agenda for Monday, June 9th, 2025? So move. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. All those opposed, same sign. With no public hearing, we'll start the evening with those who have requested to address the board. Board Secretary Styen, do we have any requests this evening? We do. We have three. Thank you. With three speakers this evening, you'll be given up to five minutes for your remarks. Please respect the time limit allotted to each speaker. Board Secretary Stiken will serve as your timer and indicate when your time has expired. If you have submitted a request to address the board and choose not to speak

002in the interest of equality and fairness, your time may not be yielded to another speaker. To abide by the open meetings law, there will be no dialogue between board directors and the public during this time except to clarify the nature of questions or comments from the individual speaking. We ask that the audience and the speakers refrain from using inappropriate language and outbursts as a matter of respect for everyone in attendance. The board has zero tolerance for profanity, vulgarity, demeaning language, or threats of any kind. Lastly, I'd like to remind our speakers that the board cannot address personnel and student matters. The board policy outlines a process for addressing and resolving those concerns. We ask that speakers refrain from using personal names and personal information during public comment. Before we begin, I'd like to remind all

003of our speakers to please state their names and address when called to the podium. Board Secretary Styen, can you please call our first speaker, Terry Ali, regarding Hoover site plan. Thank you. My name is Terry Haleiff. I reside at 2604 Camelot Avenue, Northwest, Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Um, I'm here tonight because over the weekend I received um an updated uh site plan for the new Hoover School um that is to be built here uh I guess beginning this year. Um I had looked online previously and had not um been able to find a copy of that site plan. Um, and it was provided to me by um my daughter's best friend. Um, my daughter Ryan Nicole um attended Hoover School um in the early 90s. Um, her life um was tragically cut short as a result

004of an accident and she died on July 3rd, 1995, just six days short of her 10th birthday. um her mother and I and the rest of our family um decided that we would take memorial fund dollars and donated to the school um to be used as the school saw fit during that time period. Um we worked with the staff and we partnered with PTA um during the later part of that year and came up with the idea of building a walking trail um that had not previously existed at Hoover. Um we dedicated the walking trail um as a crushed limestone trail. um I believe the following year. It memory escapes me. Um and then we partnered again with the PTA and the staff of the school and um they had gone out and gotten grant

005money and we paved the trail was paved. um her grandparents um donated some funds and um again working with the staff at the school. We had built a small memorial garden on the northwest corner of the trail and the garden is marked with the memorial stone um in in remembrance of my daughter Ryan. Um, now that I've seen the plan for the school, I'm I'm wondering if there is any opportunity in the new site plan to preserve um a portion of or reestablish Hoover TR Hoover Trail um to carry on the memory of my daughter. Um I I've looked at the plan. Uh um it was a small picture. I can't really tell um what it all entails. Um I've been tending that garden since it was established. It's a very peaceful place. Excuse me.

006Um so if somebody could put me in touch with either the site planners um and if there's any opportunity, I'd certainly appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, Terry. Could we have our next speaker, please? Our next speaker is Aris Colbert uh on CRC CSD bond. Good evening. Arise Colbert, 7122 First Avenue Northwest. The Cedar Rapids Education Association is pleased announced our support of the upcoming school bond referendum. The district received meaningful input and regularly engaged staff in the community to determine what should be included in the bond. We recognize the critical importance of this communitydriven initiative for the future of students, educators, and the entire Cedar Rapids community. After careful consideration and engagement with our members, the Cedar Rapids Education Association is proud to endorse the bond initiative. This bond is an investment in our

007students future, providing them with modern, safe, and equitable learning spaces they deserve. It will directly impact the daily lives of our students and the educators who serve them, allowing us to prepare them for success. We believe that the bond will not only improve the physical learning environments, but also contribute to a more positive and productive educational experience for all students. The bond represents a fiscally responsible plan to address longstanding needs within the district without placing undue burden on taxpayers. Our education, sorry, excuse me, our educators understand firsthand the challenges posed by outdated facilities and the need to improve resources. Supporting this fund is a testament to our unwavering commitment to providing the best possible educational opportunities for every child in Cedar Rapids. We urge all community members to learn more about the bond and join

008us in voting yes on November 4th. Thank you, Aris. Our next speaker, please. Our next speaker is Quincy Williams on how there is so much kind out there. I'm sorry, but I'd like to resign to speak. Thank you, Quincy. I will now give the meeting over to Dr. Grover for her superintendence report. Wonderful. Thank you, President Gerlock. It's always a privilege to start our board meeting with student spotlights. Thank you to the board of education for allowing us this opportunity. So, uh, tonight, uh, we would like to again recognize our students from across the Cedar Rapids Community School District. Uh, these students exemplify our portrait of a graduate. And so, let's learn a little bit more about our student spotlights tonight. Um, starting with London Bill. Uh, London is a very thoughtful and kind fourth

009grader. She's at Wright Elementary who is now a rising fifth grader. I feel like I need to say that. Her infectious smile generates happiness to all those around her throughout the building. Her teachers, they say that she encourages her classmates with their studies and is always first and very willing to help others. London's positive attitude and dedication makes her a role model for all of the students at Wright Elementary. I don't know if London is in the audience tonight. If you're in the audience, students, when I call your name, feel free to stand up. Okay. All right. Well, congratulations to London. All right. Next up, we have Quincy, uh, who's a sixth grader at Taft Middle School. Quincy Williams exemplifies and embodies many wonderful qualities that make him an outstanding student. Oh, now. All right,

010let's give Quint a big round of applause. I thought that was thought that was you. All right, very good. Um, do you have family in the audience tonight? All right, family members, thank you so much for being here. We're very proud of Quincy. Uh, he has such a charismatic energy and knows how to lift people up. He's already done that for us tonight. For example, he is usually one of the first students at school in the morning. And he takes it upon himself to open the door for every person who walks through, greeting them with the most enthusiastic, good morning. I hope you have a great rest of your day. How about that? Quincy has also proven to have quite a knack in the academic realm of school, too. One of his teachers states that

011in 25 years of teaching, I have never experienced a student who has made such an impact on all students and adults in such a positive way. He has a wonderful future ahead of him. And all of us at Taft, we thank him for putting a smile on our faces every single day. It is so great to meet you, Quincy. Thank you. Next up, we have Bridget Charles. Bridget is a 10th grader at City View High School. Bridget is described as exemplifying what it means to be future ready. She has leveraged opportunities through our Kirkwood partnerships. She's in line to complete a summer CNA class and enrolling in Kirkwood Academy this fall to finish her CNA certification, demonstrating her dedication to career preparation. Her initiative is organizing a speaker series has brought invaluable learning experiences to

012the entire City View School community featuring diverse voices. Through these efforts that she has led, Bridget has shown remarkable leadership skills while creating meaningful connections between students and community leaders. Her forward-thinking approach to education and genuine care for enriching others experiences make her an outstanding example of a future ready student who goes above and beyond in all of her endeavors. Congratulations, Bridget. We do also have family in the audience tonight. Wonderful standup family. We're so proud to have her in our school district. Thank you all. Quincy, you can go over there and get a picture, too. I think Marcy, do you have a Okay. Yeah. Certificate. Kindness forever. Absolutely. Congratulations. Camera [Laughter] right there. That's great. Can we get another big round of applause for all of our students? Now, we'd like to move into

013our strategic plan area, starting with priority area number one, uh, which is around safe and secure learning. just want to acknowledge um the effort that has gone into making sure that all of our students understand the role that they play um in making sure that we have safe and secure learning environments. All fifth grade students across the Cedar Rapids Community School District, they received a prem school safe and secure learning lesson um provided by Janessa Carr, our safe and secure learning um coordinator. This is an opportunity for us to help our students transition from elementary school to middle school and keeping safety and security um and at the forefront. Uh thank you uh to our parents who also participated in those sessions. Moving on to priority area number two, prepare for life. Uh one of

014our greatest accomplishments, it speaks to when we are graduating our high school seniors. Um prepared for life. We would like to celebrate the class of 2025 here um on tonight. Of course, we had graduations at Jefferson Kennedy Metro and Washington high schools. And again, it was such an honor uh to be to join the board of education, all of our administrators, staff, families, and the community at large who fill uh the arena uh in celebration of all of our students. In total in the Cedar Rapids Community School District for the class of 2025, we graduated 1,070 students out into the community, out into the world where they are sure to make a significant difference. would you help me celebrate the class of 2025 tonight? Speaking of celebrations, this past Friday we had an opportunity to

015show a great appreciation uh to our staff members across the Cedar Rapids Community School District. uh due to the number of partners that we have across our community. Um uh specifically speaking of the economic alliance, all of our mayors from our surrounding cities, um county officials, our board of education u administrators here, uh we've talked a lot about just taking the opportunity to honor um and celebrate our students. I was certainly glad to help lead that effort on behalf of our staff and what fun it was. there was a lot of spirit um a lot of great opportunities to interact and engage. This would not be possible uh without the help and support of our community. And so again, very proud of all of our educators, no matter which role they serve here in the

016Cedar Rapids Community School District. Moving on to priority area number four, physically responsible. Um as it relates to um our bond meetings, and I really do appreciate that endorsement from CRA uh here tonight. um that does not go unnoticed knowing that our teachers are backing us in this effort. Um we set out to ensure that we wanted to work inside of our organization to gain support over the last uh few weeks. Um our team especially I want to mention uh Heather Butterfield as well as Chad Schumacher for tag teaming to ensure that we were able to go out and meet with all of our staff members at all 32 campuses to make sure that they had the opportunity. And right now we have certainly changed uh the game I would say and move the needle

017as it relates to support from our staff. So thank you uh to everyone involved in making sure that we've taken time to listen to our community and we have set forth a bond initiative that has now been uh approved by the board out for petition gathering right now that will surely make a difference um in the learning environments for our students. And let's just wrap it up with celebrations tonight. And finally, our celebrations are in order. Once again, I want to say congratulations to Harrison Elementary. Uh the students held their leader um day and a lot of it was focused on history. Um but the students were leading um the conversations talking about the impact of Harrison Elementary and looking forward to their future. Second opportunity is for us to celebrate the construction that is

018underway at McKinley Steam Academy. Yes, we put a lot of focus on our students being uh prepared for life and that they graduate with more than a diploma, but it starts long before they get to high school. So, congratulations to McKinley um as they expand their space and their offerings. We look forward to an official ribbon cutting this fall. And finally, groundbreaking at Washington High School as their ninth grade freshman academy and college and career pathway buildings additions are ready to move forward. I think my greatest um enjoyment at that celebration was again hearing from our teachers and seeing our students part of that celebration. That's what it's all about here at Cerita uh Cedar Rapids uh Community School District. Uh thank you for keeping a focus on students. I would now turn it back

019over to President Garlock. Thank you, Dr. Grover. Uh so many celebrations for us there. It's uh it's been a wonderful couple weeks. I especially want to call out the celebration that we had Friday afternoon for our staff. I appreciate all the efforts that went into planning that. It was no small feat. Um thanks to Dr. Grover for initiating that process. Thanks to the economic alliance for um helping us organize and provide food and prizes to our staff. I think the best prize at the end of the um event was that everyone got to leave early. That got a lot of applause. Um, do we have any other board reports? Director Taminsky. Uh, I've got a report on the policy and compliance uh core committee and we met on May 12th. We actually also met today.

020Uh, we'll have those uh those minutes at our next meeting. But first, on the May 12th meeting, uh the committee reviewed additional processes to be implemented when reviewing uh board manual provisions. Uh the board also heard about new state legislation uh concerning student use of electronic devices and changes in bullying and harassment laws. Committee members also discussed updates to board manual provisions involving districts notice of non-discrimination, conflicts of interest in board appointed committees, board meeting agenda planning, and public performance by students. But with the exception of the non-discrimination notices, all changes were forwarded to Dr. Grover to make a recommendation to the full board of directors. And that's that report. Thank you. Other board reports, Director Myers, I've got a couple, so buckle up. All right. Um the first is the finance and facilities committee.

021Uh we met last Thursday before breaking for the summer and during the meeting, Chris Gates briefly provided an update on buildings where upgrades were taking place. Uh he then did an overview of the ple budget numbers for the end of the year. Lastly, he presented Hoover and Van Beerren school presentation, which I think we'll hear a little bit about tonight. Um, I just want to also say thank you to Ryan's father for um coming to speak today. I know someone Well, thanks to Chad Schumacher for um addressing the matter speedily. So, uh you know, we're thankful that you reached out to us to inform us about this memorial and how important that is. Um Chris uh let's see, Carla ended the meeting by informing the committee of the Say Yes Committee kickoff petition signing at

022the downtown farmers market last Saturday. Um which was really great. Thank you to all that came. There was uh staff, there were students, there were um parents and volunteers and mascots. Uh and it was a beautiful morning. Good energy all around. And I think that we got 1500 signatures to get rolling on the petition. So, thank you so much. Um all right. And then I have the recruitment and uh retention committee might try to um high level it here but looks like um 100% of student teachers uh who requested placement in our district were successfully placed which is 36 in total which is wonderful. CRCSD was awarded the career impact award from the University of Iowa which designated us as a highly engaged employer. We moved on to discuss staffing and were able to celebrate

023that no teachers were rifted at all. No paras were rifted at all. There are more secretary positions that were added during this restructuring than there were people affected by RIFF. Therefore, um all affected secretaries have had an opportunity to remain in the district in some capacity, mostly with an increase of FTV FTE. Um we are still evaluating possible restructuring among our custodial team. As that picture becomes clearer, we'll provide updates, but our intentions are not to reduce overall FTV FTE while still finding cost cutting measures. Um we also discussed that the students, teachers, administrators retention and succession or stars initiative and its potential impact. That was a lengthy conversation which was really um informative. This program aims to address the persistent challenge of growing and retaining our own workforce and future workforce within our community.

024As we plan ahead, one question we're beginning to explore is whether there's an opportunity to re-engage licensed educators who have stepped away from teaching as well as professionals with subject matter expertise who could be strong candidates for sec secondary teaching roles. Capturing interest in these areas may help us strengthen our future workforce. Uh last but not least, we are still operating from the mindset of retention is the new recruitment. We want to keep our people through restructures as well as their various stages of life from being a student to entering the workforce to returning from it. We will be exploring how to do all the above better next school year. So, thank you to those who pulled together this report. Wonderful. Thank you. I have a report from the academic core core committee. Uh we

025received an update on the high school science curriculum. There'll be a new biology curriculum um in the fall and then that will be followed in subsequent years with new chemistry and physics uh curriculum. There's been a great deal of effort put into collecting input and feedback from staff and from parents around the changes in the science curriculum. There will be a few changes as well in the middle school uh to better prepare for the the new high school program. Uh beyond that, we also uh received a brief update on the work on the draft cell phone policy. As you may know, the state legislature is mandating a cell phone policy. Uh so there's work being done on that. Uh there's uh a look at chronic absenteeism and getting a clearer picture on how we implement

026uh that legislation as well. There was a brief review of some special ed initi initiatives as well. During that core committee, um I do want to thank our board members who participate in core committees. uh I think it helps all of us understand uh the processes and procedures that are happening uh throughout the district. So I appreciate your time given to those committees. Next up, Director Taminsky will provide our staff highlight. All right. Tonight for our CRCSD staff highlight, the board of education would like to highlight our longest tenur teacher, Mr. Barry Wilson uh from Kennedy High School. Barry started his career at Cedar Rapids Community School District in August of 1972. He just finished his 52nd year of teaching. Oh my goodness. Here is a fun fact. Today he still sits in the same

027desk that he did on the first day of his entire career. Barry teaches industrial arts or what is now called career teched courses like welding, auto mechanics, woodworking, and manufacturing. Also for over 25 years, Barry has facilitated the Kennedy electric car program. With over five decades of teaching experience, what still excites Barry, you might ask? He says, when students come back and they have found what they like to do and they are successful at what they are doing and they are able to live comfortably a comfortable life doing it, that is what make uh that is what makes what I do exciting. Congratulations, Barry, on your long dedication to our students and we honor you as the CRCSD staff spotlight. And yes, Barry does plan on coming back to the classroom to teach this fall

028in 2526 school year. So yeah, let's give Barry a hand. That is dedication. I thought 33 years was long, right? Yeah. 52. Oh wow. Okay. We're now going to move on to administration. We have six items under the administration agenda tonight. The first item is a resolution with the 28E agreement for the storm protection fund, including our wind and hail deductible. Before we vote on that, does anyone have any questions for Carla around our storm protection fund? [Music] Is there a motion to approve the resolution and agreement for storm protection fund when wind hail deductible? So moved. Is there a second? Second. This is a roll call vote. Director Borcharding. I, Director Buyers. I, Director Humble. I, Director Newman. I, Director Taminsky. Hi, Vice President Roundry. I, President Garland. Hi. Next, we'll hear an update

029on the Champions Wraparound Care Program. I'd like to have Chris Gibson introduce our guests or whoever is speaking. Thank you, Chris. Good evening, everyone. We just wanted to give you an update. We've been working really hard on our partnership and we have Paul Presler and Brie Hogue that will be sharing that with you. I'm obviously Paul. Nice to see you. Um, so do I advance my own slides or do you do that for me? Don't do that for me. Okay. All right. So, uh, Champions, for those of you that do not know, is the provider of your before and after school programs. In addition, we offer care during all district breaks, including winter, spring, and summer care. Today we're here to present a high end ofear recap highlighting some of the successes of our programs

030and our partnerships with Cedar Rapids School District. Next slide. Uh this past year we provided care in 20 elementary schools. We saw an 18% increase in enrollment from 820 students in 2324 to 1,023 students in 2425. We were able to provide financial assistance via access to subsidy in excess of $873,000. The 288 families enrolled in subsidy programs this year was an increase of 18% over last year. We're also proud to say that none of our programs were weight listed. We were able to staff and and fill every need. We uh are also excited to partner with the district next year on a wraparound care for the prek fouryear-old programs in six of the elementary schools. Next slide. This kind of gives you a breakdown of the total enrollment by school as the end as the

031uh end of May uh recent uh occurrence and the current summer enrollment for our champ camp which started today. Perfect. Well, I'm Bri. Um so we're going to go to this. Yep, that's perfect. So we want to go over like our feedback results that we've gotten um so far from our liaison. we were able to get communication that we have um high positive feedback because we are timely on everything that we deliver on. Um and then also from our families um they have stated that we are um very staffed and we are uh active supervision in every one of our sites. Um and then also there's areas of improvement. So those areas of improvement are um communication, making sure that all site directors are communicating with the district staff, but also communicating with families if

032there's any maybe we need to relocate or maybe we need to have parents uh come to a different site uh open space just because we partner with every school um and there might be something we need to do. Um so just enhancing our overall communication. Next slide please. Um this is also part where we really um partner uh and align with the school district because we do a lot of PBIS trainings. We do a lot of state trainings with the district this year. Um and then also just ensuring that all of our staff are in trained. Um and then we have fewer incidents. All sites are licensed. There's no open cases. Um and then we also self-report if there's any incidents. We always will report to our DHS leaison. Um communication. We send out monthly

033newsletters to all of our leaison here in the district with via admin. Uh we hold regular meetings with our leison and principles in the board. Focus groups had low turnout service completed. Um and staffing we had no vacancies. Weight listes were clear. All sites were on time and we have a fully staffed for summer 2025. Thank you. Questions from the board, comments? Yes. Uh so thank you for being here. Thanks for the presentation. Uh my uh child goes to champions a couple days a week so I am familiar with the program. Um so with this new prek four-year-old wraparound care, will it function similarly and that all the students are like lumped together in the same space or will given the age of the students will they be in a separate area? What how does

034that work? That's a great question. So, right now what we're going to do is we're going to have them um there's a before and an after option and then they will be able to attend in the morning. So, like we will care for them in the morning and then we will take them to their class in the afternoon. Um and then vice versa. Uh we'll pick them up in their class and then bring them to Champions and then we have the uh we're going to continue them before and after park so that way we are open for them 6:30 6:30 to 6. Okay. Wonderful. And we're also working with our licensers to secure additional space so we can keep those the younger students contained and separate from the other. I think that was part Yep.

035All ages are in there. So I just want to make sure that and uh they'll have um their own on-site supervisor for their classrooms as well. Okay. And then um another question I had here was um oh looked like you had a rating scale. Do you have a breakdown of those ratings? So how many I saw some feedback but like how many people gave fives percentages that were you know ones twos maybe not you don't have it on you but we could get that some and our liaison we we have shared that information with liazison so she has direct access to all our scores amazing I had a couple other things written down but you anybody else do we have other other questions anyone else okay director buyers only because I have experience with it

036right so I just I want to make sure just as we're thinking about next year so um the check-in checkout process. I'm not sure if it's the same at every school, but is there a technology we can use for that to make sure on the parents end we can Okay. So, we are actually moving to that. Um the cannot give an actual definite timeline for it, but it is coming um very soon. Okay. Y it'll all be digitized as well. So, when you're in your check-in process, you'll be doing on an actual computer screen as well or phone. Yep. One thing I I do want to mention too, I think that goes unnoticed is we also do revenue share with the district as well. And we have been able in the past two years to

037date, the end of May, uh return about $167,000 to the school district. So that plus our subsidy, I think I'm pretty proud of both of those numbers as well. Um last thought, uh I know that you talked about fully staff for summer. I was curious about the breakdown of um I know that a lot of people pull away for the summer. So, if you have sites that there's not as many kids or there's sites with tons of kids, like do you ever just to share staff and maximize um the opportunity for the kids? Do you combine them or how does that work if you're low or short in one area? Yeah, we partner together on that um a lot on what we need, but right now for our need is that I've got a hundred

038in Maple Grove and 100 students at Kenwood. So the odds are sharing staff are very limited. Right. I saw some that were like 10. So Oh, was that maybe I misunderstood. That's our preschool. So we are trying to grow trim in our preschool center right now. Um it is a higher price because it has higher ratios. Um so that is one site we are trying to grow. That makes more sense. Thank you. Other comments or questions? Question. Can you guys hear me? Yeah. Yes. Hello, I'm the disembodied voice. Awesome. Um, thank you so much for your presentation and for sharing this valuable information. Uh, when I was looking at the data, it seems like that we have higher of our areas and lower in other areas. I'm just wondering if you know why that is.

039I just want to make sure that we are getting um information and opportunity out uh equally to all of our our potential uh users. I mean, I think that's I think that's always the challenge for the marketing um and our ability to market to everyone within the district. I would say that my ask if I could ask something of the board is just embracing us as a community partner. I think that we've done, you know, a good job of putting our foot down here and we want to continue to build in all areas. Um and you could see by some of the the need obviously within the areas and the growth of the program and the access to subsidy um in the marketplace. It's a need, right? We feel like and we're continuing to refine

040and reune what we do uh every single day, but your embracing of what we do is so important, right? We want you to be our champions as well. Um and we hope that we can continue this partnership for a long time. Yeah, I had that down to Jennifer's point. Um I think that's great and I noticed that we get it in like our newsletter. So maybe just encouraging I don't know on what which party would do that, but that every school puts it in the newsletter. It's like a something we see every week. So, I think we have a pretty high amount of kiddos, but yeah, I was curious how we market it to each school just to make sure you guys had full um spaces and that everybody knew about it. Thank you. Thank

041you. I I hope you understand that this board puts a very high priority on early childhood education. Um, so we appreciate your working with us and your partnering with us and we hope to continue to improve the opportunities for all of our kids, but particularly those early learners. We know how critical those early years are to our students and their future success. So, thank you for being here tonight. We now have the annual audit committee report for fiscal year 2025. Carla, it is all yours. Okay. And I'll have my representatives come up. Tom Hoffman and Janet Henry, who are members of our audit committee, will be presenting tonight. All right. Um, I'm Janet Henry and this is Tom. And so we'll kind of give you a brief update of what we've spent the last year

042doing. All righty. So the annual committee, the activities we performed this year, similar to last year, we kind of went through the the financial controls, independent auditor, and access to making sure there were adequate controls in place. Um we also did a semianual review with the attorney um just make sure again those controls any any concerns um within the district and we also um shared those are also shared with our independent auditors as well. Um review of property and casualty as we do every year we look at the coverages make sure that they're adequate for the district. Um, and I don't know, Tom, you you've kind of been experienced in the insurance industry. So, if you want to kind of give any feedback on that, just every every year you evaluate that and sometimes you

043find the best way to find uh com combination of other schools too, other districts particularly on the uh could be on the employee benefit side of things too. Um so we also reviewed at a higher level the risk and mitigation with our technology. So we met with the technology team. Um again mainly looking at controls that we have put in place. What are we testing for? How frequently are the tests happening? Those sorts of things. Um we reviewed specific policies within the district. Um and again it's all from our perspective it's all around risk. how do we mitigate the risk that the district has whether it's with employees, students outside um of the district as well. Um we also completed our self-evaluations at the end as we always do just kind of what do we

044need to do um next year um 2025 highlights. We had legisl uh legislative implications. Carla always brings us up to date on what's going on, what's impacting our district. um what's impacting the state as well. Um if you all know, we've had a lot of changes within within government at the higher level um with the Department of Education and kind of how we we've discussed a little bit how that's impacting our our our area as well. Um enrollment updates and projections, we've gone through those uh district financial um overview. So we went through the budget um our last meeting try to look at again we've talked about budget cuts we've talked about you know where staffing is going so kind of getting comfortable with the numbers for for the next year um and few years

045on out from there um strategic budget um we're also looking at you know as we've mentioned earlier staffing and and reductions but also open enrollment survey data so one of the questions we asked at our last meeting is um as students are exiting, who's capturing the data as far as where, you know, why are they leaving the district? So, we we that was part of our conversation. Um you know, obviously if people continue to lose, what is what are we going to mitigate? How are we mitigating that and and keeping them within the district um and I know there's a lot of conversation around different things, but um it'd be interesting to see that survey data um as they are exiting um audit committee monthly. So, our cadence uh went from monthly meetings um down

046to four times a year. So, we're only meeting quarterly um because the the audit committee's focus has been reduced a little bit with um with other committees that have been created. So, um any questions on the highlights so far? Are you guys liking the question? Director Bartin, go ahead. Thanks so much for the information on that. You guys are kind of looking at some survey data and wondering uh especially for like open enrollment out what the trending there is. I'm wondering if you've had any conversations about uh staffing and attrition the kind of data that would be around that. So, yeah, we did look at um when we were talking about the plan uh the budget for the next year and kind of the five-year plan we looked at um that was one of the

047the part of the conversation was what are we going to do as if we do consider we continue to see the decline. Um you know what what does that look like from from a staffing perspective? Um, we did take we did talk about all of the open wrecks and being able to bring those down. Um, you know, but obviously that's not a a a dollar savings because we're just not hiring those. That's not money going out. And so if we continue, you know, how are we going to see some of that cost savings as far as reduction? So that has come up a couple times within our budget conversations. Um, you know, again, it's going to be based on registration and if it could if we continue to see that decline, you know, where where

048is that um those reductions going to have to come in into play? Maybe we can Thank you for that. I guess I just would like some clarification. Is are you looking at that because it's considered a risk? Um, just need some clarification on the audit committee's role there. So, we did it more from a when we were reviewing the budget. So, When we were looking at the budget, we were looking at the dollars going out in in correspondence with the for, you know, for staffing in conjunction with the decline in enrollment. So, from a risk perspective, you know, how are we going to hedge that risk as that, you know, if that continues to trend with with the decline in in enrollment? So, that's kind of where we brought it up as far as going

049forward. What does that look like from a budget perspective? Excellent. Thank you. Other questions? Oh, I was going to ask about the quarterly cadence. Is that new? Is that efficient or sufficient? I guess um is that preferred? It sounds like you had monthly before. So, kind of a big switch. Um so, we did go to four times when the facility with the the facility um task force came came about. Um I don't know. Well, I don't see minutes from those meetings. And so, one of the things that we'll we'll come up with here and one of our suggestions is that we need to be part of the financial statement review in these meetings. So, if it's four times a year, that's fine. But one of the things we we need to be able to see

050from an audit committee um is the true financials. And so, we talked about that. We've come up with a resolution. So again, next year that's going to kind of we're going to be feeling that out. Is is four times a year enough to um be able to look at what did we plan for? So what's our budget look like and what are the actuals? So are are we meeting our budget and then kind of from an audit committee understanding why we're not meeting our budget? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, other questions, comments. Thank you, Janet. Thank you, Tom. I appreciate your commitment to helping the district with its financial oversight. Um, it's an important component and we appreciate your time that you give to us. Thank you. Next up, we're going to have

051an overview of the instructional empowerment instruction model, and Dr. Mora Hobson will be leading that. Good evening. Um, pardon my voice. I have a little bit of a scratchy throat. Um, I am honored to be up here with Jessica Wester Camp, who is the principal of Kenwood um, Leadership Elementary School. And we're going to be able to talk to you about our first year's work around the model of instruction. So I just want to do a very quick overview of just where we started this year. The beginning of the year we tiered our schools to focus, guided and foundational. Focus being having the most touches um with instructional empowerment. Um foundational um really being touched by the our own staff as well as a lot of cohort coaching with IE. Um in September all of

052our schools were trained on the model of instruction MOI 101. And in January, the focus and the guided schools got uh the designing inter interdependent task and foundational went even deeper into the model of instruction um due to not having as much coaching and we felt they needed a little bit more time to dive deeper into that work. So as we talk about what did they do this year, we really had some main focuses for all of our schools. We really focus on learning targets, having all classrooms have learning targets that are aligned to the Iowa academic standards because we we know when students know what the outcome of their learning is, their achievement rises. Um, we looked at tasks to make sure that the task that the students were doing in the classroom were

053aligned to the target um and that we looked at the rigor and the taxonomy level of those. Big piece is we looked at the teaming where we are looking at how do they collaborate for deeper learning and really How do we get those rich and rigorous content discussions? We want to hear kids challenging each other. We want them to hear them saying, "I respectfully disagree with that answer or let me help you figure out how to do this." Um, we also had a lot of professional learning ongoing at building level. Um, we did a lot in our PLC's and again we did cohort coaching where principles and um, instructional coaches were able to group together and go into each other's schools and learn alongside of one another as well. In the leadership realm, um we

054looked at every school had an ind um action board where we had instructional um goals, 45day goals with action steps. You can see a picture of one. Um that would be at Cleveland. Each one did uh each administrator was tasked to do rigor walks. They had to do at least 10 classroom visits every two weeks. and they were looking at those um tasks, learning targets, teameing, any type of formative assessments. Instructional coaches did look and learns that were very focused on around the model instruction. And again, we had the professional learning happening continuously um for our leadership as well. Just a quick overview, this year we classroom visits were at 4,962. We touched a lot of classrooms, did a lot of rigor walks, some good feedback and look and learns where instructional coaches were giving

055very specific um feedback to our teachers around the model of instruction. We had 2,397 look look and learns provided. Here's just a quick snapshot of some of the data we looked at this year. The top one is really looking at the first question. Is the standard aligned lesson target? Um is it is the target aligned to a standard? And number four is the evidence of the standard of the student work aligned to the standard. And you can see that is a great trend line where every time we went in, we saw more and more um uh targets aligned to the standards as well as the task that the students were doing actually were showing outcome for that target of learning. Um rigor appraisal. This was done three times a year through instructional empowerment. And you

056can see the second um graph and then the third graph is where we were focusing a lot. And you can see first a lot of growth. We went from three to 6.2 and 1.8 to 4.3 um which were our big learning. But as you can see when you touch something all the rest goes up as well. So we are very happy with the growth that we're seeing um around the work that's being done in the schools. I'm gonna turn it over to Jessica and she's gonna talk about Kenwood and the great things happening there. Hi, thanks for having me. Um I want to thank Dr. Hubson for giving me me the opportunity to share with you um the impact of instructional empowerment at Chemwood. So uh Chemwood Leadership Academy is a pre-K through fifth grade

057leader in me magnet school. Um we focus on leadership and the seven habits and our mission is to see inspire and empower the lifelong learner and leader in all of us. So um instructional empowerment aligns directly with our leader and me work. Empowering instruction is a focus point within the integrated academics portion of leader and me. So you can imagine the excitement of our instructional leadership team when we got our first professional learning around instructional empowerment. Um, prior to IE, we did not have a systematic way to incorporate student led learning in our building and this year, IE has filled that gap and given us the tools we need, an opportunity to move forward on our leader leader in me rubric in the area of studentled learning. Um, so just a couple things to highlight.

058Chemwood is a foundational school, meaning our coaching and support comes from the district level. Um, our success this year would not have been possible without the support of Dr. Hubson and the dedication of the instructional coach Gretchen Lawler and magnet coordinator Tara Brockmeer at Chemwood. They dedicated themselves to learning alongside of me and coaching teachers. Um our leadership team prioritized daily standups where we worked on our 45day and sprint goals. We communicated those to our staff. Um we tracked our data and began to get into classrooms and give actional feedback to teachers. We developed professional learning based on the trends we saw in our building and then also getting indicated needs and wants from our staff. We participated in the initial 101 training. Um and then we had a coalition of the willing small group

059of teachers committed to being early implementers of the model of instruction. First semester, we really started digging in and just getting our students interacting with each others and partners or teams where our data showed 100% implementation. Then we started to use the tools and implement roles. Second semester, we really hit hard on the learning targets and making sure that those tasks were aligned to our targets. Um the impact of instructional empowerment has surfaced through many ways in our building from our smallest to oldest learners. IE has provided structures that build lifelong skills well beyond the classroom. It has created inclusion, confidence, student voice, and interdependence. It has allowed teachers to create meaningful standard aligned tasks where everyone has a role and the learning is ultimately facilitated and monitored by our students. So, there's some great

060pictures of our kids doing wonderful things there. Um, one of our really big highlights is that IE wasn't only happening in our general education classrooms. Our ELELLL, Title One, and special education teachers were also using these structures in pullout settings to help build those skills with those learners. Um, with this in place, our subgroups outperformed our overall building growth on ISASP in all three areas of literacy, math, and science. So, um, you can see some really, really awesome growth, which we up on those targeted subgroups between last year's ISASP and this year. So that is a huge celebration and um the adults in our building would say that IE is a common theme among why they think that I'm going to stop you right there because that demands applause. [Applause] All right. So another big

061success came from two of our third grade classrooms where two teachers were early implementers. Um this team really dug in and did a lot of work. They were open to feedback and coaching. One of these teachers students had the highest math growth in our building and the other had almost 80% of her students proficient in literacy on ICASP. Um once again a testament to their dedication in this work and the impact it can have on students. So um there's some pictures of the resources they're using and students working. Um Holland Edgar is the teacher that you're going to get to see her classroom here very shortly. She's a third grade teacher and when she talks about IE, this is what she says. IE has shifted the way I deliver instruction in my classroom. Initially giving

062up control was hard to do and scary quite honestly. I was used to the traditional method of teacherdirected instruction. I decided to just start experimenting with IE and seeing what worked and didn't work. And now it has become second nature for myself and my students. I can see the way they hold one another accountable. The way they challenge each other and how it truly puts the learning onto them. The best part of IE is you are still able to utilize your craft as an educator and provide students with voice and choice in their opportunities to collaborate. And I think yeah it one more time to split them evenly between six people. How many stles will each person get? I think it's 24. Yeah, you split them evenly between six people. So, it's 24 divided by

063six. Yay, I'm late. It's the teams that are led by our students. The facilitator is literally it's just making sure everybody gets heard and everyone has a chance to speak. For me, with the facilitator job, it helps me with, you know, talking to people. It helps to problem solve. Evelyn, do you need any help? So, do I put uh 24 dots and then like circle them? You should you could you can do what I did. I put six dots and then put one dot in each circle until there was 24 in total. It makes me feel like I um everyone understands me and um like Yeah. Like that like and like no one talks over me. Max, can you go first? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I did 150 minus 10 because he took the right

064the amount that he needed and then he gave back the change that he had left. Can I tell you something? I brought 12 bottles of juice for a baby shower. Each bottle cost of of juice cost $10. So you got to do 10 * 1250 because he bought 12 bottles of juice and each bottle is 10. So you got to time those and then minus $150. 120. So It's 150 easy. It makes sure everyone um like always gets like a right answer or it's fine if you get a wrong answer. It's just you you keep on improving your skills. 24 24 / 6 will reduce. For example, what I did, one of my classmates were struggling with what to do. So, I was able to explain what the problem is and how to solve it.

065One, two, three, four, five, six. So, count it. So the so 24 / 6 is yeah good job. We figured it out as a student as team as a team all together. Sometimes we do it individually by ourselves. Sometimes we do it with partners and sometimes we do it in groups. It helps me learn other ways to do the job cuz we all do we all do it in our own way cuz I do a specific way. It's loops and groups that helps me with multiplication. And if another person is struggling, I can teach them that. And I can also learn their way of learning how to do it. No, I started doing you loops and loops. [Applause] There's one other school I'd like to highlight tonight um which is Cleveland Elementary. Um I have

066a short twominute video um and I wanted to share this one because from the teachers point of view a little bit more than the students things that I've been able to put in my toolbox that we've had in a long time. I love that we are giving the kids a chance to take ownership of their growth and learning. Um, I came up with 6 9th 8 12th 3/3 and 128 2/3 and 1/3 and four/3. Wait, 4/3? Yeah. Oh, mean 34. Yes. Sometimes I say like we could try out another method and see if it's right. Um, what did you do? 10 15 15 96. Oh, I mean it's supposed to be six minutes. Oh, six. If it's like something wrong, you just like kindly correct them. But if it's something correct, then you say like

067good job. Um, instructional empowerment has helped me give more control over to the students for their learning. It helps when I have other people. I have seen their confidence grow. Being able to answer questions that are posed towards them, they are able to think through questions that are a little harder and answer them without without my help as much. teamwork like helps like there's some kids like with like work that they don't quite understand but like others might understand. I think that they really are growing as a student and then being able to when they get out into the real world work settings that they will already have that group mentality and we can work together. Uh, I agree with everyone because we were all thinking the same way. We all came up with equivalent

068fractions. Sonia, what do you think? I just wanted to also highlight Cleveland's um score for this year. You can see that there was a huge growth um 13% in ELA, 12% proficiency in math. And when talking um with the principal, they account this to their work with instructional empowerment and allowing students to really have that ownership of their learning and providing the opportunity to have those conversations. So, what we would like to do um next is what's on the horizon is continue the work what we've been doing. Um we are going to continue with the designing interdependent task for our found um foundational schools moving on to 2011 um for our guided and focused schools which is really moving deeper into the teaming and really getting autonomy within our student and um their teams. Can

069you focus on d diving deeper into the rigor um engagement and seeing the rise in achievement um professional learning for both administrators, instructional coaches as well as teachers. Um and I just wanted to Now this one which I think is a huge the last bullet is this year we had a lot of schools um actually ask to have additional support if possible which I think is a testament to say how much um they can see the value and how much they want to be a part of this process. So thank you for your time this evening and I up here any questions or more to add? I I would like to say keep up the great work and it was nice to see the students interacting. No one's criticizing and you know they said well

070maybe there's another way. So that was great to see our students interacting and knowing that there's more than one way to solve a problem and to be respectful of each other. Uh I commend you guys on that. this. I'm glad that I you showed me the videos because it gave me a better understanding. So, please continue to do the great work that you're doing. I have more to add um to uh Director Humble's comments. So, um first of all, the videos I were impressive because these these students are I mean, they could function in the business world. I mean, they were they were doing such a great job taking turns and questioning each other and supporting each other. Um but the the scores in general seeing it reflected in that and and how those things

071work together that interpersonal those interpersonal skills and the learning was just impressive. So that's my that's my more to add. Thank you. Other comments? I think it was around the time when I was commending I was like the the interactions are better than most adult conversations I seem to have and then the child said you know you know you can kindly correct them. I was like, well, isn't that a wonderful lesson for us all? Um, you know, a few things. So, on the in the three tiers, we've got five, five, and 21. So, a year from now, what would you expect those numbers to be in those different groups, the focus, the guided, and the foundational. So, moving into um this year in the contract, we have up the guided amount um from we've up

072the one focus. one of our high schools have asked to become a focus um school and we've included three additional um elementary schools into our guided. So hopefully we can continue to grow. I mean the idea is that um each year we do a little bit less days and less touch points because it becomes a natural part of the model of instruction. It's what it's the way of our work. Um so hopefully we can continue to see that number grow with the touch points. Great. And if I can just one more question. We had work sessions on this. Um it was about a year ago and so I'm really excited for us to be able to see this progress. Um do you feel like we're on track? Do you feel like we're ahead of schedule

073or you know how are you feeling currently? I feel like we're definitely on track. I definitely say some schools are way ahead of on track where others are still coming along. But I don't think um any school is not 100% invested and I think you can see it when you walk the schools and hear the students talking um because you can that's what you see in in the majority of our schools. Yeah. The double digit growth in so many of those categories is exactly why I think we made the decision. So it's good to see it coming to fruition. And these are just two I highlighted. I could have highlighted a whole bunch. Yeah. I love to see all the confidence coming from those kids in those videos. That says it all. Um really cool

074to see the depth of the learning and um just that increased collaboration that we're having at that young age that's going to set the scene for their whole life. Um can you tell me the difference between look and learns and rigor walks? Sure. So would you like to do that? Sure. I'm gonna put her on the spot. Perfect. So um the rigor rocks are done by the administrator and that is gathering more trend data across the building um where it's just like classroom one, classroom two, classroom three. So we just look at trends across the building. The look and learns are done by um instructional coaches and then in my case since I'm a magnet school I also have a magnet coordinator and those are more teacher specific looks and then they can give teachers

075very targeted and specific feedback for what they see and where um what levers they are hitting and maybe some touch points to work on to get to the next next point and they use that for then their coaching cycles with those teachers. Okay. So then these early implement teachers, I'm sure is that like the Holland Agerts of CRCSD. Okay. Yeah. So I was curious about those who are like our model examples. I'm sure that there's people in and out of the classroom more often in those classrooms. So curious, I know that probably takes a lot of prep from the teachers to just be ready for showcasing their work. And um I'm curious if there's if we're if we're incentivizing any way or celebrating in them in some way. I'd love to hear from them at

076the board meeting at some point. um just so we can say thank you for you know all the hard work they're putting in. Yeah. So in our building it's um instructional empowerment is a regular conversation at our PLC meetings. So it doesn't um our goal was to not make it feel like one more thing. It's the thing like it's how we just do business. Um and so then their coaching cycles um they get a little bit more coaching I would say than the non- early implementers with through myself the instructional coach magnet coordinator. Um, but we really, um, have come a focus of it's the way we do things and not just one more thing to add to your plate. That's great. I love that. And I was just thinking about as we're as some

077of the teachers are requesting more coaches and support. So, some of those proficient teachers, some of those who are really coming along and they have that depth of learning and experience in that space. Um, just how we can use them as coaches at some point. I don't know if that's possible like just having them in our district to coach other teachers and maybe compensate them in some way. Um just cons considering all options. Is that something that we've looked at? We have not. What we have done this year is we have um so some of our teachers have opened their doors to other teachers from different buildings. So I know um a couple um teachers have gone to Jess's built Kenwood to look at some classrooms to be able to observe. she has graciously done

078videos that she shared with other schools as well. So, we're in this part where we're opening classrooms, which is a huge deal. Um, and allowing others to come in in peer observation, which is a huge way to just get that word out and keep moving. Okay, amazing. Um, the other thing, I don't know if it was in there, we were flying through them, but um, a lot of good information. I was just thinking about student behaviors and how this is impacting student behaviors in our classrooms, um, in some of these schools. So is there anything you can share um about about that? I I should have done some specific data on around behavior but you will see the schools that are really having a strong leadership and really implementing their behavior data has gone down

079and their attendance um has increased. So you can see when students are engaged in their learning they want to come to school and they want to be part of the team. Um I'm sure just as heard and I have heard in classrooms where students you know are saying we missed you yesterday. you really had missed a great team, you know, a great activity we did as a team. So, they don't want to miss out. So, we're definitely seeing that in some of the classrooms happening. Amazing. That's all for me. I just also just want to say thank you to all the teachers. I know we've had a lot of new things to learn and to uh a lot of growing um this past year. Uh so, those are huge learning curves and I'm just thankful

080for everybody stepping up to the plate. It matters to all of our kids and um I think to the teachers as well. it seems like it's really great um as we're seeing what that looks like in the classroom and their role in kind of facilitating that. So anyway, um thank you so much. It's wonderful. I just want to add before you sit, um obviously student achievement is a huge piece of our strategic plan and I think the board has been well aware that student achievement needed to be improved. I appreciate the work that you have done. I appreciate the work that Dr. Grover and her entire team have done in finding a model and a framework that teachers are excited to use and that after one year we're seeing incredible results like that. So I

081think that's a testament to leadership to your team to the teachers who are willing to put in the time and to the board for approving you know the instructional empowerment. I think we are seeing results already which proves that we are doing the right thing. It was a good decision and like everyone up here has said like those results are are incredible in your subgroups. It's just absolutely incredible. Be proud of the work that you and your staff are doing. We we appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. I need like a light or something that goes off when I have a I love the collaborative effort. Thank you so much. Like one of my favorite things to say is teamwork makes the dream work. So love that that is happening and kids are learning those

082skills at an early age. I'm just wondering like what kind of structure I was excited to see that like high schools and um hoping middles are kind of getting also involved with this. I'm just wondering what continuation of structure exists for this model of instruction between levels between elementary, middle, middle, and high. So that when we are sharing best practice and common language between educators, um we're really able to communicate clearly where we have identified areas where students are successful and through which instructional meth method students are successful and what kind of collaborative effort they need. Um and also I think that we what to expect um you know that this this is how we're learning or this is how we're approaching it or this is an opportunity to approach it this way. Um just

083kind of wondering what kind of structure exists there so that we have a continuity and then also uh what effort has been made for this to be included inmies. So this will be part I'll answer your last question first. This this will be part of themies throughout because this is what we want to see happening in every one of our classrooms and the expectation is that we are seeing the teaming um learning targets and all of those in the classroom. As for your first uh question, one of the things we've been very um conscious of doing this year is every month at our principal meetings um we have time built in around professional learning so that all of our principles can network and learn from each other. So we look at the trends that we're

084seeing across the district and some of the areas that we see we might need a little bit more professional learning, some growth in and we ensure that we touch those points every month. And then as the chief of schools when we go out to do our coaching sessions, those are the kind of things we look at specifically as we are walking classrooms to say is what's happening um in our professional learning for leadership impacting the work that we're seeing in the classroom. So um we are making that attempt. we can definitely continue to push that and move it forward. Um because that is the key to see what's happening in each other's classrooms and learn from one another. Thank you both for the presentation. Moving on, we have an exciting presentation on the new elementary

085buildings at Hoover and Van Beern elementary school sites. Chad Schumacher and his team will be sharing that information with us. Or maybe not Chad. Okay. All right. Thank you for having us this evening. We're here to um talk about the new elementary schools at the Hoover and Van Beern sites. Uh we are both with Shy Hattery. I'm Karen Hardy, project manager for these school projects. And with me today is Jerick Grabner. She's the lead architect uh for both of these school buildings. So I want to first start with a quick update on schedule. Um so we've last time we were here presenting uh we were at the end of the programming phase. Since then we've completed schematic design. So in schematic design is when we really lay out the floor plan and start to figure

086out what the building is going to look like. We've since moved into design development. Um during this phase we look at more of what the building exterior looks like uh what the interior finishes look like and um start to get all the all the details figured out a little bit more. Um, and in August, we're moving into the last phase, which is construction documents. Um, before then, we're issuing a few early bid packages just to help get construction u moving so these schools can get open on time. Uh, the first one we already issued was for geothermal wells. Uh, that was issued back in May. That work will be starting here very soon. Uh, the next early bid package we're issuing will be for the site package uh in July and we'll have a foundation

087package in September. Um, so as I mentioned, construction documents will be starting in August. Uh during that phase, we'll just be ironing out all the exact details. Um getting our documents ready to be issued in January. Then construction will start, as I mentioned, construction is going to start in the fall. And the intent is the school will be open in August of 2027. Uh so we've done a lot between when we were here last time and we're here now. Uh we have a list of some of the different things we've done to gather input from um various parties. I'm not going to list them all, but um we've done a lot of work with various district staff members, um different district organizations, you know, custodial, food service, it we've met with all these different groups.

088We met with the city of Cedar Rapids and the parks department. Uh we've had meetings with um the Hoover and Vanir parents just to get input from everyone um who's going to be part of these buildings. Jericho is going to talk a little bit more about some of the exact feedback we've received. Thank you, Karen. And gathering in in uh input component from staff and community and students. That's a really important component for us that is really helping us drive some of the design decisions that we're making. And so I'm going to highlight on just a couple of the activities that we did with staff members. This one right here is an example of a web- based activity that staff could answer at their leisure. So, they had some images of exteriors and interiors of

089different buildings, not associated with this project, just different ones that had been completed. We were really intentional about the questions we asked them. We wanted them to focus on certain things. And then we wanted to hear what they liked, but most as just as important as what they like, what didn't you like? So, that was one thing that we did uh to get some input. Another one was providing these mats to staff and uh workday that they had. They could go tour some of the three existing buildings, the three existing elementary schools, and they could use these to walk around. They could make notes on them, make doodles, you know, tell us what they like about the buildings and what they'd like to see implemented in the new buildings. Then from all that information and

090many, many months of gathering data and having conversations, we started putting together these what we call mood boards. So this one right here is for Hoover exterior and it shows our inspiration pulling those images that people liked and also materiality starting to think about all those elements and how they're going to come together in an exterior uh design. And with that, this is the rendered exterior that we had during schematic design of the exterior of Hoover. This is the front of the building. And then this is just another image also of the Hoover facade showing uh the entry to the early learning center. We did the same thing for the interior. Starting to really think about color palette and playfulness of patterns and also that strong community and um already identity that the school had

091with their logo and starting to tie that all together and think about the interior spaces as well. And you can see how that translates here to the rendering of the media center, pulling those colors and materials into the inside of the building as well. Here's a rendering of the cafeteria of Hoover and starting to pull some of those elements like you saw from their community logo, community schools logo into like playful patterns here. You can see on the walls that's actually acoustical material. So trying to think about how to relate those things and tie them together. And this is exterior inspiration board for Van Beern. Starting to also pull together those inspiration images that staff helped us pick. And then materiality, thinking about the park and how that identity ties into their school. And also,

092of course, the bell is an important tradition for them and how to incorporate that into the new design. So this is the exterior rendering for the Van Beern school at the front entry. The bell is on prominent display there in the plaster that's underneath the canopy. And then you can see that materiality starting to pull together from the inspiration board. And here's just another view of the their early learning center entrance up on the hill. And then looking to the interior inspiration again pulling from the park, the nature theme, the greenery, and developing that color palette. And here's the rendering of the media center for Van Beern School. And you can see kind of a fun playscape there with the tree and then the park kind of through the windows all tying it together. And

093this is another rendering of Van Beerren. This is as you're walking into the building, you've already gone past the office and you're starting to get an idea of what it's going to look like when you're going towards the circulation of the school. So that's where we ended up uh at the end of schematic design as Karen talked about. Now we're in design development and these images and the designs and the rest of the building spaces are really starting to evolve and come together and we'll be really excited to show uh what comes after that. But uh any questions or comments from the board? I'll tell you that I was at Van Beerren for staff recognition maybe two weeks ago and they were very very excited about the plans and they couldn't wait to show them

094to me. So that that that's a good sign. Yeah, these buildings are truly a part of our legacy as a district and you can tell and I'm just so thankful for all the thought and um time you've spent to gather input and um consider all different perspectives. Um it really matters and it's hyperpersonalized and it makes sure that we you know are learning as we go from each of these projects. So well done. Um, I also want to address a couple, let's see, there was a couple input like community thoughts or input you may ever see, but I'm curious about um the balance of, you know, thinking about all the things, right? Vehicle flow, traffic in and out of the school, the green space, and there was talk of preserving certain mature trees. Can you

095talk me through how I think it was with the orientation of the building like how you're considering that so we can make maximize the space for the students and um think about kind of the surrounding neighborhood and the impact the school may have on those neighbors. Yes, absolutely. And there are a lot of components that go into all that as you can imagine. For example, um Hoover had an existing geothermal well that we had to work around and that really kind of dictated where the building could sit and could not sit and we talked to professionals about building on top of that and that was not going to be an option. Van Beern, we have additional challenges there too, but very different. It's very hilly. So, we had to learn to build into the hill

096and maximize that site as well. And we have been looking at how to get the longest queuing lengths as possible. Um and then um trying to be as courteous as possible to neighbors that is much larger building footprints than were before but being definitely trying to be mindful and gathering input and trying to respond to those comments. Of course, I appreciate that. And then the other thing that had come up um I think in conversations was around just sizing of rooms and making sure that um you know I guess from our past projects talking to some of those um teachers and different uh departments and understanding subject areas. Uh you know what spaces are adequate and if we um any sort of like survey we can conduct or just touch points we can have with

097some of those specific to some of our specials. I think there was um talk around the size of the rooms and maximizing that space for specifically music and art. Um so just wanted to toss that out there. I'll be an advocate of the arts any day and I know that um just the landscape of elementary um specials is really tricky right now. There's high turnover across many districts. So I just want to make sure that we're thinking about um those spaces and and pouring some uh love and extra resources into those spaces if we can. So, um I don't know that it's a question, but I just wanted to make sure that we were paying attention to that. And if you want to speak to any any bit about the size of those classrooms, um

098square footage based on number of kids, that sort of thing. Um feel free. Yeah, absolutely. Um we did kind of have to start with what what was done at the other elementary schools. We wanted to make sure we were equitable and and also we did meet with several different uh user groups including the ones you mentioned and getting their feedback and there were times we're like this is not adequate and we would go back to the drawing board and see like what can we give there is there anything we can do and sometimes it was a compromise like we can't increase the square footage we just don't have the budget but maybe we could take out some case work from the room some cabinetry so the room has more space to move around in. So

099there were some compromises and we so appreciate that feedback that we get. It's been really collaborative and we just really appreciate the access that we've been given to staff and students because not every district does that and that's really amazing. So that's really great for us to be able to give you the best design possible. Wonderful. Thank you. Can I ask a question? A question about um universal design. Sorry, things were kind of um coming in and out, so maybe you address this, but when we're talking about like ADA design, there is a difference between ADA design and universal design. Just wondering if if there was effort made to um develop buildings with universal design. Yes, absolutely. I love that question. Um so, that's something we're exploring really heavily right now in the playground. So,

100we are having discussions with the principles and their staff and what they want to see. We've actually had our um civil engineers and landscape architects have gone out to the schools and they've done activities as students to try to get their feedback on what they'd like to see in a playground. And we're trying to incorporate some of those elements where it's not just some items here and there that you can play on, but how can we make the larger structure at least three quarters accessible to everyone too? And really integrating everyone into each piece is a goal. Thank you so much. I think we have that uh some kickoff thing tomorrow night, right? Where the living schoolyard um yeah which will be at Van Beerren that will be our pilot project and yeah that kicks

101off tomorrow at the nature center actually. So, I was just going to highlight that I know the green spaces and just the outdoor, you know, those components and it seems like there's a lot of natural elements in that design, which I'm sure um everybody's loving, but um just considering as we kick off these green initiatives like how that how we incorporate that to these new schools, I'm excited to learn more about. Can I just ask quick um on Hoover? I was fortunate enough to be part of um the group that that helped kind of you know t look at these schools and having the building leadership and the staff involved with that were fantastic. One of the things we heard about Hoover is the community schools model and how much that school serves as a

102hub for that entire community. So curious if you can speak maybe a little bit more to that and then just the community's involvement in in some of these design elements. Yeah, I feel like I'm dominating. Yeah, that's something um we've definitely definitely been listening to concerns of how do you keep this, you know, um still like have that kind of small school vibe and part of that is culture. Like there's only so much we can do with the building. But I I think uh there's still a very strong identity and how we're kind of incorporating some elements from their logo into like the different design elements is one way we can just keep that branding so that they keep their identity and then I think that really encourages the culture within too on that. What

103was your second part of that question? No, it was just the the community hub and the community schools model just my understanding u from that from that building specifically. I think every school serves this purpose, but Hoover it seemed to be elevated with the amount of people that were coming in from the community for different types of services and just uh I think in like Trailside for example, the central design was the library and I think in those early days the central design for Hoover was going to be more about those community services that that the community and the neighborhood actually needed. Yeah. And absolutely actually that reminds me. Yes, there is a a big community center in that school. Actually, both schools will have a community center, but Hoover's is much more prominent. And

104even with the way we're accessing the building, we're making sure that, you know, um we're working with staff to decide how people can enter for each service. And we're kind of still working through how that works exactly and that'll be further developed in the design development. Um but then also talking with their community schools coordinator and what her needs are and specifically, you know, what is in this space. There's a food pantry, there's a clothing pantry, and uh there's other support spaces that we're still developing, but that could potentially have spaces for eye exams that you can kind of partition off and things like that. Excellent. Thank you. Y Thank you, Karen and Jerica. I appreciate it. Thank you. Our final presentation tonight is an update on the City View community difference. And Jillian, I

105think you're up. Yes. You You look surprised. Yes. Thank you. And I'll turn it over right away to Trevor Templeman to get us started. Good evening. My name is Trevor Templeman. Um I'm the social studies teacher and soon to be lead instructor at City View Community High School. Um we are presenting today to share our current state and the transition plans while also reassuring that as we transition we're going to maintain our identity as the vanguard of public and uh district progress towards equipping, empowering and engaging students. We'll go two slides. Okay. So our City View difference um at City View we believe in active, personalized and real world learning that fosters social and academic growth. We achieve this by curating unique learning experiences such as passion projects that students engage in something they're curious

106about. Community engagement projects, Kirkwood classes, and internships. Our personalized support structures and advisory programs are what enable us to create the cohesive learning environment that accommodates the diverse learning needs and experiences. And I put this learning experiences cycle up here. We have some students that are going to present and this is a part of that cycle. We think that all of these opportunities are learning experiences in some capacity. We sometimes don't harness them, see them, or identify them particularly well. This is how we're going to do that. And I would say we are in stage or phase four while we're actually exhibiting kind of and then we're going to go and reflect on how this went. But we've been doing the other parts of this process throughout the day, but also throughout the school year

107as students kind of dig into this work. So, As the district evolves, so is City View. During the planning process, parents spoke out to highlight the students who were thriving at City View. Uh City View depends on feedback from parents, teachers, and students to guide its development and its growth. Therefore, we've hosted three schoolwide parent meetings. Uh many of you were at the first and a couple at the second and third. Uh the first was a little more um emotional and a little more rowdy. And our parents, they came out and our PTSO, which is newly formed and vigorously engaged. We have two representatives here tonight. Uh we're fullthroated about their support for their students experiences at City View. Um, we've totaled about a hundred parent activities, engagements, and meaningful conversations from individual conversations, but

108also larger group conversations about just what City View means to their students individually, but more broadly the community. Uh, parents feel valued, important, and committed to the school community and their student success. Uh, here's what success looks like at City View. These are sort of our four key points. college ready, civic-minded, careerpreared, and human- centered. And I'm going to invite three of our students up to talk about three of these important aspects of our school. Bridget Charles, Val Malone, and Allison Closter are going to come up and have a conversation about what they are getting from their City View experience. And they can all come up at one time. They are all rising uh juniors, they think. We'll see. My name is Alison Cla. As Trevor said, I'm a rising junior. Um, I've always had

109pretty much steady academic success in school, but I've never been great at the more uh commun communication based skills. Uh, I chose City View because of the academic flexibility it offered. But what has been most valuable at my my about my experience there is the opportunities that have pushed me to work on those skills that I'm not as comfortable with. This year, a small team of students and I have spent time planning, building, and executing a student-run coffee cart called City Brew. As part of City Brew, I have worked with businesses to get funding. I've worked with my team to solve problems and create business plans. I've had to talk to professionals in our community in our community, get feedback from them, and revise my approaches. While I don't know what my career will look

110like just yet, I do know that the skills and that these opportunities have helped me develop will undeniably be helpful as I continue to work in teams and community partners in my future. Good evening. My name is Bridget Charles and as Shara said, I'm going to be a junior at City View High School. Before coming to City View, I didn't feel hurt or valued in school. I was doing well academically, but socially I felt invisible. Group work was discouraging and pres and and presentations felt like talking to a wall. That all changed at City View. From my first group project, I felt respected in and included. People listened, shared, and supported one another. I finally felt like I mattered. When I gave my first presentation on anxiety on my psychology class, my classmates were engaged

111and for the first time, I felt proud. City View has helped me grow into a more confident and civic-minded person. I even started our speaker series, inviting guests to share real world experiences with students. This school has became my second home and I'm proud to be a part of it. Hi, I'm Val Malone and my City View experience has been an incredibly humanizing one. I've always struggled with school because of the environment that it usually has. Did not like it. I hated going because I felt like I did. I felt like completely unable to connect with the teachers or my peers. I loved learning but I just couldn't do it in the environment that I was in. Um it greatly impacted like everything that I did. I was like I was having issues with truency

112for a while. It impacted my mental health. It was bad. But City View has been way different for me. It has been nice to have such a small community because you can really get to know each other and it's much easier to build like relationships with people. I feel very close with a lot of my teachers and a lot of my peers. I have probably the best most supportive friend group I've ever had. Um I feel treated like a person. Usually I've noticed that there's a distinction between people talking to you like you're a student and like you're a person. I feel like a person. Um, I have made incredible progress both academically and emotionally during my time at City View. Um, there's so many things, all of the trips and my internship and all

113of the people in the community I've talked to. I just think I don't know, I feel a lot closer to adulthood and like the version of myself that I meant to be. Thank you. I just quickly want to say thank you so much for your honesty and if I can talk to you uh like a person, I would say it's really hard for adults to come up and stand there um who are 20 years older than you and do what you just did. So I would say you are well on your way from where I'm sitting. You guys are great communicators and should be really proud of yourselves for all you've accomplished. Thanks for being here. We have a couple more uh slides to go through, but I think that's the city view difference, right?

114We're going to see some numbers that show a lot of actual success that we've had academically through uh test scores, but that is the thing that we're able to do every day. I think that's been really powerful. Um beyond these impressive stories, here are some specific metrics. Uh academic achievement is on the rise. We have a 100% completion rate and significant improvements across all measures. Uh we have increased 16 percentage points. Nope, just 16% in ELA, 19 in math, 26 in science. Uh and you there's other district stats that are on here. Um but we won't shame them currently. Uh students engage in internships at a rate of 72% compared to 7.5 or 77 students across the district as a whole. uh that is a major focus of what we do, but we have a

115significant number of students who are out in the community learning regularly. Um students engage in dual enrollment at a rate of 14.7 compared to 36 across the district. That is something that you'll see will change because as our model um evolves, we will have every student in a Kirkwood class. Um and just two years with significant turbulence, City View has the highest is the highest performing high school in the district. looking back to look forward. Uh our partnership with Kirkwood will offer more uh access to uh college classes and more options because we will be at the Kirkwood Regional Center. Uh better internship opportunities because we can leverage that relationship because they have an internship program and we have somebody who's working directly with us to help with internships. So we can do both. Uh

116more options for Senior Rapid students to complete freshman academy experiences or more options for them after they complete the freshman academy experience to come to City View to see sort of what that pathway looks like. Um, and then a focus on curious and engaged students who are prepared for their community. Now, I'm going to pass it on to Jillian who's gonna talk about living. Perfect. Thank you. So, I just want to say thanks again to the students who came because I just realized like you're giving up your first Monday night of summer. So, extra kudos to you and thank you for sharing your story. It's hard to follow you. Uh we just heard Trevor share some key updates regarding City View both in terms of programming and in the location and as City View has

117evolved. A question that we get a lot from the community is what's the difference between Iowa big and city view and that's a fair question because there are a lot of similarities and there are some key differentiators that I'm going to point out just to give that moment of clarity and distinction today. So Iowa big is a program and that program is available to all CRCSD students including city view students. Um but at Iowa big that is a program that all students can go to and they are enrolled at their comprehensive attendance area high school or they would be enrolled at city view. So city view or Iowa big is the program that they would attend for one to two blocks a day. Um similar thing in the instructional design is that both Iowa big

118and city view students satisfy standards through creating solutions to specific community problems. At City View, they also stand satisfy those standards through their specific coursework and through their internships. Uh at Iowa Big Internships and dual enrollment, those aren't offered through Iowa Big Students would be taking those at their comprehensive attendance zone high school. Um and in contrast, City View is that full model. So a really important component of the design of City View is internships and is dual enrollment. So next year when we come back and give you a board brief, those numbers will be 100%. 100% of our students will be actively in their internships and 100% of students will be earning college credit while in high school. So, we're happy that that model is also in alignment with what our uh with our

119diploma plus and what we are all working towards for our district with our strategic plan. Um, so as part of the upcoming relocation, Iowa big will move into the economic alliance building and this shift is made possible because City View is moving to Kirkwoodland Regional uh space and that opens up a really coste effective opportunity for Iowa Big to be housed and they'll be housed on the second floor of the economic alliance. Um, and that that collocation really aligns with the original vision for Iowa Big and being with that close proximity to the business community that they partner with where there were constraints before where we couldn't have city view students in the Iowa big program in the same space and then something that we also care about in addition to the programming is what

120is the bottom line so we'll start and end with the bottom line and that is that through renegotiated agreements our district will realize an annual cost savings of over $100,000. Um, and that comes from no longer leasing the Unity Point building for Iowa Big and we were very grateful that Unity Point stepped up and supported Iowa Big in that interim year. Um, but we will no longer need that lease. We also will have significantly reduced rent at the EA for Iowa Big. And then finally, we also have renegotiated lower operating costs. So again, starting and finishing with the bottom line that that is a $100,000 annually that we can reinvest coming back to our district. So I'm going to turn it over um really to uh Trevor to help close us out and then we'll

121be able to take your questions. Yeah, this last slide really is just to say thank you. Um we see CD view as an opportunity to continue to empower learners uh with a plan, a pathway, and their own passion. um you're allowing us to do that and really empower students who are curious about this model, who want to get out in the community and be a citizen in a way that is productive and really beneficial. Any questions you have? We'd love to address them. Questions? I'm just so excited to see this update. I know it takes time to adjust when there's new programs, there's new models, and so we've learned a little bit every year. We're seeing testimonials of how great it's um turning out to be. And um I'd love to see that. I was

122looking at this uh a couple things. So the numbers by the numbers um let's see what I write down. What's the best number of new students coming? I'm trying to think about like what's the sweet spot? So 68 students currently enrolled 11 in the lottery for next school year. You know what if it was like next the next year we have 50. I mean what where is that balance and how are we um achieving that? Our goal for City View is about 150 students total, 50 per class. Um we could do more or less um as we grow out. So we can scale from where we are at now to a way that's appropriate for students. We're learning along the way. we're working with students and families, but that kind of fits the community based

123model that we have and that's kind of the largest size community based off Dunar's number that we can actually get actively engage with students regularly, have the close relationship that is paramount to being able to get them in community effectively, know them as a human and help them grow. So that's kind of the goal, but we would do five or six citys. Yeah. Can you elaborate on those numbers? So when um the part that uh Georgia buyers was pointing out is current enrollment. So 68 current students and that would would that include nth graders or are we looking at next year already? Is that 68 and then is 11 like in the lottery like they're waiting to join or they're they're being vetted u because of our move to Kirkwood um and some of the

124work that we have to do with Kirkwood for students to actively engage in that process. They need a 2.0 you know, GPA and some um some behavioral considerations that we just have to take into account for because we're in a different location. Uh so we'll have conversations with the parents and the families to make sure that it's an appropriate fit um and bring kids in as they are ready to engage in that process. So if a family wanted to look at City View, what would be the process for that? Um it's interesting that you bring that up. Sure. No, please. the our so our lottery is still open for City View so the parents can go and enter their student into the lottery. The 68 are 68 students that we have at City View right

125now that are returning to City View and there are 11 in the lottery. And as Trevor said, they're in an applicant pool right now. uh because what we're doing on the city view side is verifying that they u qualify for the dual enrollment classes meeting those same metrics that any other high school has for a student enrolling in a dual credit class. I just wanted to make sure that I communicated that there's no like advanced um criteria in order to access City View. It's just the it's um the agreement that we have with Kirkwood. Yeah. And I I think I heard a you know the idea of having like City View and Iowa big in downtown was really intentional. So obviously the Kirkland Center is not in downtown. Can you maybe talk about you know

126transportation getting to you know especially when we're focusing on internships, you know, any any questions there? Any any concerns that the board should be looking at? I can say that we I had a meeting with uh Adam Zimmerman and Scott Wing about transportation. And so the way that Scott described it is they have the capacity and infrastructure to be able to do that because for them it's just to doing a different route. So it's like instead of he drew some some arrows on a on a paper for us and said like instead of picking them up on this way, we'll grab them on on on this route instead and take them to Kirkwood Lynn Regional Center. Um a benefit to being there is access to the academy classes and some of the other dual credit

127opportunities. So, um, while they're not in downtown, they are kind of on a college campus, so it gives them that opportunity. Yeah. Can I ask one more? Sure. Um, from a internship perspective, right? I imagine if you hear these students talk, you want to maybe figure out how do I, uh, how do I snag one as an intern? Like what would a partner do to be lined up for that? Asking for myself and maybe a few others. Yeah, absolutely. Uh, we are working with Amanda Zornney, right? she is she works part-time with the EA, parttime with us in a full-time capacity. Um to identify internship possibilities. Uh so Amanda Zornney who's you who you would reach out to or you can email talk to Adam if you see him in the hallway um and get

128a get in contact with somebody because we do hope to continue to expose students to a variety of opportunities. Um the three of these students have participated in very different internships and we're always looking to expand the pool. So that way as we do increase the number of students that are participating in that process, uh we're able to offer offer all kinds of like different u internship opportunities, but also just community experiences. Even if it's a a short job shadow, right? Anything like that from from something that's longer to to a shorter day. Thank you. And and I would just say stay tuned too because I see an opportunity for a campaign with having uh people share with us some of their needs around internships because we want to continue to grow this and it

129it doesn't maybe sound like a lot but having that many students in different internships that really align to their passions like we need a lot of people um that are willing to to have an intern. So so stay tuned. That's great. Thank you. I really appreciate I do have a question. How many students are currently participating at Iowa big? We're not entirely sure and the reason why is there are still students that are applying to that process. I know I think at at City View we had a number of our students participate last year. uh some of those students will continue to work with Iowa big but as their opportunities have expanded to include Kirkwoodmies and other internships. I think it'll be fewer just because they have other opportunities that they've come to see view

130to explore. So, how many then were last year involved in Iowa big? Because with this move, they're leaving Unity Point going to economic alliance. And I'm just trying to see what are the numbers for the Iowa Big B that I would like to be able to give you accurate numbers and get back to you. Right now, I think Ballpark, it's around 60 students that are accessing Iowa Big through the program from our district. And I know they've kind of moved. I appreciate the update in the side by side because I know they get lumped in at this point. I remember the very start of Iowa Big working next to the kids in my office and it was so awesome and um there was a lot of excitement around it and I think I just haven't

131gotten an update. So I might appreciate actually having Iowa Big coming come in to talk about that program so we can kind of really see the differences and um and just because I'd also be curious probably where you're going with it Nancy is just um the location change, right? they've now been in a few different spaces and like what is that cost and is that the right move going forward because I had written down like could we coexist or colllocate but I understand the value in that separation just want to understand both sides of of those programs so we have a full array of who's in it and what's being offered right thank you so I can't see anybody so I feel like I'm interrupting well I am interrupting but I can't see that I'm

132interrupting so it's not intentionally rude. So sorry about that. Um hey I just I want to say you know when I before I started running uh before I ran for the school board I was a substitute substitute teacher in a magnet school. I'm just big big big magnet fan. Um see all of the really positive benefits. Uh was an early adapter of project based learning. I I love that this is happening in our district. I just have a question. Kind of reflecting back on on uh some of the students that I taught, there were some students that really excelled with project-based learning with some hands-on opportunities to do like CTE programming. Uh if it's like building or whatever it would be. I'm just wondering what kind of CTE route is available through City View. There

133is not a formalized version of what CTE could look like. um partially dependent on uh lack of a CTE instructor uh in the space, right? Our funding model doesn't currently have have enough to support uh a CTE instructor. Um I think that would be something that would be interesting and useful. We do have students who participate in all kinds of activities that meet some of that criteria. They have learning experiences around that, but it's a matter of finding the right person and the right fit, sharing resources so that we can actually do that. Just a quick aside, the coffee cart was built by two students, right? That is definitely hands-on learning in a very specific way. Well, they'll get and meet some competencies and credit for that in a different way, but um as we

134grow out and we have the opportunity to bring more staff in, that's another way that we can have that teacher or instructor around CTE actually um certify some of that credit. And the only other thing that I would add to that that I didn't speak to um on this on the slides about City View and Iowa big is that students at City View can take while they are City View students. They can still take courses. They're not dual enrolled at their resident zone school, but they do have access to courses at their resident zone school. And a lot of students take advantage of world language and music courses. And then of course their their after school co-curriculars or um athletics. If I could just I just kind of want to refine my question. I think

135it was maybe a little bit too broad. Um do we have like relationships and conversations with people in the community that are possibly um union members from different skilled trade or are we um making sure that that they know that some of our students can also uh be available might be interested in working with them? Yes. That was an easy answer. Thank you. You're welcome. The president of our PTSO is actually um an electrician who is in the electricians union. It's probably a thing. Yeah. All you can't see is that he's here, Jennifer. And so there's like this eye contact happening between the two of them. So just so you're fully aware. Okay. I I have one more. How do the students feel about moving from Economic Alliance out to Boyison? Have you talked with

136the students? What do you guys think? Transportation sucks, but I think everything else will be better there. So, the microphone. Yeah, I think the only issue would be transportation, but everything else is good. So net positive. Okay, that's good to know. That's been most of the feedback that we've had director about moving on to Kwood. Uh the transportation is of course an issue. I think that they're working on it um to figure out a way to make it feasible for everyone to get to and from school. Um a lot of models around the country that operate in this this capacity uh have kids driving themselves. Uh we will also have some district assistants working with that process. So Okay. Will you have a view of the city from Kirkwood or Yes. Just it'll be a

137different view. All right. A different view. City though. Hayawata view doesn't quite have the same ring to it. Okay. Thank you so much for your presentation. I just want to take a minute to to thank all of the people who presented tonight on all the various topics. I it's really heartening to see the results of the initiatives that we've put in place, to see students here speaking, to see testimonials on video from staff and students. Um it's it's a great way to end up the school year to all these celebrations. Moving on to our consent agenda. Are there any items on which a director has a comment or question or requires the item to be pulled from the consent agenda for a separate vote? Do we have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So

138moved. Is there a second? Second. All those in favor say I. I. I. All opposed. Same sign. President Garlock, we actually need a roll call vote on this one. Oh, okay. I we will have a roll call vote on this motion. Director Buyers I. Director Humbles. I. Director Newman. I. Director Chaminsky. I. Vice President Roundree. I. President Garland. I. Director Borcharding. I. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. We have four closed sessions tonight under board governance. Do we have a motion to move into the first close session to discuss strategy with council in matters that are presently in litigation pursuant to Iowa code section 21.51C? Do we have such a motion? So move. Do we have a second? Second. This is a roll call vote. Director Humbles. I. Director Newman. I. Director Taminsky. I. Vice President

139Rantry. I President Garlock I director Borchard I director buyers I it is 7:25 and we will move to close session. Thank you.