001Mhm. >> All right, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. Have everyone present. The first item is approval of the agenda. >> So moved. >> Second. >> Let me. >> Sorry. >> All right, uh moved by the ward, seconded by Shields Cook. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed, nay. Passes 7-0. The next we have our public hearing on the 2025-2026 proposed budget amendments. I do not have that statement pulled up. Let me do that real There's no statement? Okay. Usually Go ahead and open the public forum if anybody would like to speak on this issue. You can use the microphone over there. All right. We'll close the public hearing and move to our celebrations and recognitions and I'll turn it over to Director Delashmit. >> Thank you. If I can
002have um either Kelly or Sabrina, either one, if you can come up and help me pass out plaques. That would be wonderful. We should all come up. We should all come up to the usually come up and Everybody line up. >> Full board. >> Anyone who would like to come. >> Full board. >> Okay, first um the district and board would like to recognize the amazing service and commitment by staff retiring at the conclusion of the 2025-2026 school year. Uh and those people are Dan Raider with 4 years of service. Diane Prescott, 6 years of service. Mina Vera Gijon with 7 years of service. If you're here, go ahead and come up and receive your plaque. Carrie Paul 8 years of service. Karen Egger 9 years of service Bill Bagnall 14 years of service Adrian
003Budwig Iverson with 16 Um Kathy Braun, if she's here, 18 years of service. Lisa Anderson with 19 years of service Karen Forrester with 19 years of service Stacy Colhane, 20 years Julie Braemer, 22 years Kathy Dobbins with 24 years of service Jan Dreesman, 27 years of service Charles Graham, 27 years Jenny Parsons, 27 years Joelle Vertanen, 31 years Ann Marie Glenn, 33 years Congratulations to all of our retirees. Okay, and then we're going to get a photo, too. We're going We're going to do it. Okay. Lots of people taking pictures. One Are we ready? One, two, three. Okay. Congratulations. I was sitting on my toes. And next, we would like to acknowledge uh the school board. May is school board appreciation month. The Ames Community School District appreciates the service and support of the community
004elected officials who serve on the district's Board of Directors. These dedicated leaders serve our community and students without compensation, donate their personal time and energy to overseeing the direction of our public education system, and they positively impact our state by ensuring our future citizens have a quality education. We also want to recognize the dedication of this year's student representatives, uh Vienna Rosmanith and Donya Tahir, who somehow wove their responsibilities as student reps into their already busy class and extracurricular activity schedules. Thank you. >> I do have a thank you certificate for your being on the board. Your pies are in the fridge. Do not forget to pick those up after the meeting. And that's only if it's a short meeting. If it's a long >> As board president, I will claim any unclaimed pies. They'll
005be reappropriated. >> Um as a superintendent for 19 plus years, gone through many board members, many school boards, many districts, all have different qualities and characteristics that meet the demands of the school district of which they are um voted to be part of. It's a thankless position, but on the other end of that, you set the tone for the district, and what I can see from the direction Ames is has been and where they're heading, that tone is definitely set positively, and the support from the board allows us to stay focused on what's best for our students and our community, and right now to our businesses and surrounding um districts as well. So, thank you. I will hand these out. I have them in order. >> We should have swapped. Now I have to take
006another picture. >> Do we have to take another picture? >> I should have dressed way better today. >> Can you trade? >> At least put my A image shirt on cuz I was like, "I'm not I'm not dressing up." >> No, I didn't know we marked it. It was very much >> I didn't like in pajamas having a grading and having a test. >> As you can see, you can do your own your own thing. >> Like both things. >> Thank you, sweetheart. >> Oh, yes. You're so welcome. >> Sure. >> Thank you. PK and beyond. >> Sometimes though, they don't know you're laughing at them. They think it's with them. >> Yes. Oh, yes. >> And I say it on mic. >> Oh, we have to get up again. Okay. >> Oh, how terrible.
007We must stand again. >> Just what Why? What am I supposed to do? >> Uh-oh. >> Are we taking our certificates? >> Are we supposed to take our certificates? >> I don't know. >> Alan has decided no. We have to >> It's okay. One of you has to have it. Kelly can get yours out. >> Can I also show my activity cam? Okay, you're ready? Cover my name. Ready? 1 2 >> You ready? >> Oh, the COVID the COVID thing never left me anytime I shake it. >> I think you're You're ready. >> Okay, um we just wanted to Yeah, we just wanted to thank you guys um for allowing us to be here and to, you know, represent the student body and to see what you guys do um and all the hard work
008that you do. So, we have like little cards for all of you. So Thank you. >> It has been a pleasure to have you guys work with us. >> Yes, thank you. You have to add one more thing to your schedule. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. >> All right, next is our public forum and I'll say thank you to the board, thank you to our student board members and all of our retirees. Um this is the time of year where we all get reminded about how why we do this stuff and it's all the people that we get to work with and support and graduation next weekend is um this weekend, whatever. >> In a few days. >> is another fantastic opportunity. Uh so next we have our public forum. Uh our statement
009on public forum residents of the district, students attending the district, parents or guardians of students attending the district, and district staff members may address the board about any topic relevant to the district whether on the current agenda or not. Those who wish to speak must sign up at the beginning of the meeting. Speaker participation is limited to 3 minutes once per item. The views and opinions of citizens addressing the board do not necessarily reflect those of the board, district administration, or staff. Speakers are to remember that Iowa law prohibits the board from discussing specific employees, students, or their performance. Student speakers will state their name and school, others will state their name and address. And I have um Are you Are you all wanting to speak as a group or individually? So the benefit of
010individually is that you each get 3 minutes. Okay. Um do you Looks like uh is it Cheetos? Is the first up here? Yep. You can go right up there to the microphone. Yep. >> You're on. Hello. So today we're here just to talk about First Robotics in Ames. Um so First is a K-through-12 program that is uh nationwide and globally as well. Um so First develops like essential life skills including problem-solving, communication, empathy, and resilience. And these skills are very important to reach our full potential both inside and outside the classroom. So First is built on the core values of teamwork, inclusion, innovation, and gracious professionalism. And that last one essentially means like competing with other teams, but also like learning from them and being like friendly competition. The First pathway starts in elementary school
011with First LEGO League Explore. It is for grades second and third graders where they can explore with LEGOs and build like engineering skills and basic teamwork skills. Then for grades four through eight, there's what's called FLL Challenge um where there's two aspects to this program. The first is a robot game where each year they get a new robot challenge and they need to code a LEGO robot um to complete that challenge. Additionally, there's an innovation project where they I Students identify a real-world problem each year and innovate their own solution to this problem. And finally in high school, um there's First Robotics Competition and our team, um which I'm part of is Team Neutrino, where we build larger dishwasher-sized robots and also work to help improve our community through outreach events. Um so yeah, so
012through this First program, I've personally learned a lot and many students have learned as well including many like technical skills that inspired like me personally to pursue engineering. Additionally, uh lots of valuable teamwork skills working with not just members of our teams but members of other um other teams and people outside as well. Um and we also really give back to the program. So, I did LEGO League for 7 years throughout elementary and middle school and I've been a part of Neutrino for all four years of high school. And throughout all four of those years, I've mentored a LEGO League team myself. Um so yeah, overall like First Robotics really builds passionate students and empowers them with the skills and technical val- um skills, values, and relationships that are um needed to tackle challenges and
013uh take advantage of future opportunities. >> Thank you. Uh Rain? >> Yeah, my name is Rain and I'm also a member of Uh as Chetan said, First LEGO League uh provides students with integral life skills um such as uh developing problem-solving, resilience, and teamwork. As also a FLL mentor myself, I've had the opportunity to see firsthand how impactful the program is. Um, however, as mentors, we've also experienced challenges, um, that make it difficult for the program to grow, especially at the elementary level. Um, the biggest problem that we face is awareness. Um, most teachers, staff, and parents across the district just simply don't know, um, what First LEGO League is or how students can get involved with the program. And as a result, we struggle to recruit, um, parent coaches uh, to start and sustain
014teams, and many students never learn about the opportunity to join. Another challenge is that elementary schools are not structured to support extracurriculars the same way that middle and high schools are. Um, and funding isn't necessarily the issue because our teams are really, um, happy to fundraise and more than willing to. However, the elementary schools don't have an account structured to, um, manage those funds for the extracurricular. Um, we believe that there are a couple small ways in which the school district can help support and expand opportunities for the students to get involved with the program. Um, improving district-wide communication about FLL programs and opportunities will make a major difference. And identifying a contact person at every elementary school to help share information will also, um, connect more students with the program. Um, and continuing to
015support, um, meeting and storage spaces for teams, uh, is very valuable and appreciated. Even small efforts towards increasing awareness and communication will help the program grow, um to impact more students, and improve the experience for those students who have a passion for STEM and robotics. Thank you. >> Um and then Laura? >> Just to end off, um Team Neutrinos representation today, we wanted to give a really big thank you to the school board for providing us opportunity to use the Aim Center. Um this made a huge difference for our team this season. It opened up a lot of opportunities to get younger members involved when it comes to being able to learn engineering and coding, um and the skills that we try and build on Team Neutrino. And we're also very happy to announce that
016we won a regional for the first time in 4 years, um and we also competed in the World Championships in Houston, um in April. So, our goal as a team, like Rain and Shaydis mentioned, is to kids and youth within the Aim school district access to STEM, to engineering, um and to have this mentorship throughout the way. Um and so we really prioritize this First LEGO League mentoring program that we have in the middle school and in many elementary schools, because um it offers that opportunity to allow kids to get into robotics, to get into coding, um and in many ways, we try and align it with our district motto of Pre-K and Beyond. And so, uh we love to build this partnership with the school district. Uh we love to be able to have
017the opportunity to go visit schools and classrooms, to be able to partner with students at um the schools, to be able to have parents come mentor First LEGO League teams, um and like Rain mentioned, sometimes we do have difficulties um when it comes to accessing these opportunities. So, we're really excited to continue collaborating with the school district in the '26 to '27 year to uh overcome these barriers when it comes to accessing Ames Community School District resources and to better provide the youth in Ames with the opportunity to get introduced with robotics through First Lego League and First Robotics. Thank you again. >> Thank you. Thank you all for coming. Um we'll go ahead and close the public forum and move to our consent agenda. >> I move the board approve the consent agenda as
018presented. >> Second. >> All right, moved by the board, seconded by Beerbohm. All in favor say I. >> I. Passes 7-0. Um next we have our reports starting with Associate Superintendent Dr. Hawkins, the Seal of Biliteracy. >> Good evening. Uh to earn the Seal of Biliteracy, students must demonstrate proficiency in at least one other language by reading, writing, listening, and speaking the language in which they test. This year, 23 Ames High graduates demonstrated proficiency in six foreign languages and earned the seal, which is reflected on their diplomas and transcripts. Uh the seal is also the Seal of Biliteracy is also an industry-recognized credential. So, that's exciting for us as well. The district is proud to report the following students who have earned the Seal of Biliteracy. In Spanish, Juan Alvarez Valdivia, Jocelyn Botwell, Sienna Carillo,
019Mia Jimenez, Mia Zachary Locke, and Shady Siguas. If I mispronounce any of those, I apologize. In German, Lydia Hair, Elijah Mogdato, Mogdato, Quillan O'Brien, Matthias Rettinger, and Emily Sammet. In Chinese, Lauren Laura Chen, Yu Zhao Sai, Claire C. Wang. In Portuguese, Ana Hommes do Amaral. And in French, Angelica Ettinger, Duncan Beardsley, Radka Cherry, Marin Knight, Annika Chhatreja, and Gabriel Teskey. We are deeply impressed that Hwang Sung Park earned the seal in two languages, French and Korean. Congratulations to those students. >> Right. And then, our update on curriculum review process. >> You want me to do Right. Thank you. Well, okay. Sorry. A lot going on here. All right. The uh the intent of this update is to just give you a sense of what uh happened this year from uh curriculum review perspective, and kind
020of where things are slated to go next year with uh various different um reviews that are going on in the district. I thought I might start by uh just connecting to how is this work connected to our strategic plan and to our district goals. Uh we have district goals in the area of academic improvement, which uh having high uh quality uh curriculum materials certainly helps to accomplish. We also have uh district goals in the area of um education climate, in which our RULER curriculum uh would play a role. And so, the curriculum that we have in our schools plays a big role in our ability to accomplish our goals, as well as connected to um meeting students' needs, and uh improving our uh programs throughout the district. I took um uh, um, portions of our,
021um, policy statement as well as our draft curriculum framework, uh, to to basically indicate what are we intending to improve? Again, we're intending to improve the high-quality curriculum materials that our students have access to. Uh, we believe in our system that, uh, a process of curriculum should be collaboratively led, evidence-informed, focus on improving student learning, encompassing systems-level perspective, and, uh, be ongoing in its effort to continuously improve the program. So, what does it take to do that well? Our our curriculum review process uh, is really, uh, split up into five phases. So, each each team that goes through a curriculum review does some version of these phases. How long they take, how many meetings we have, the extent of each phase, is really dependent upon that curriculum review itself. Uh, so, for example, the work
022with, um, of the literacy that we recently just talked about as a board, uh, that visioning and learning phase took several meetings. Uh, the meeting that we had, uh, let let's say this year with our health, uh, representatives really just took one meeting, right? So, each each phase is not a prescribed amount of time. Uh, but during the visioning and learning phase, uh, we focus on defining the overarching goals and setting a vision of what what would we expect, uh, someone who's graduating from Ames High to look like. Again, so, like as we, uh, did this with our secondary science teachers, we were talking about, "What does a science-literate student who graduates from our school look like? What are their What are their knowledge and skills? What are they able to do?" Um, during the
023piloting and purchasing phase, uh, this is when we take time to, um, based upon the vision that we've collaboratively set together, we take time to explore what types of materials might help us accomplish that vision. We we practice using different resources and eventually get to the place where we make a recommendation for a material to be purchased or as you'll hear tonight, a material to be created in some cases. During initial implementation, that is when we're really focused on professional development around those high-quality instructional materials. Um and so lots of times that's us partnering with a company for that professional development. Sometimes that means we leverage members of our teaching department or Department of Education or AEA in order to provide professional development and training to folks on the materials themselves as well as the
024pedagogy that goes along with those materials in order to implement that curriculum as it's intended. During full implementation, we see some ongoing professional development but that professional development shifts a little bit to more data analysis and working with teachers to potentially offer adaptations to the curriculum itself and or if we've noticed any gaps in that process. Oh, it works really well except for this piece. We might need to find a way to to to plug that hole and that's what would happen essentially in that full implementation stage. And during sustained implementation, it's really when For the most part, typically teams are kind of awaiting their next curriculum review. Our curriculum reviews are a seven-year cyclical process and so often times we'll get done with these phases and there'll be multiple years in which teams are
025using these curriculum materials. They're not up for review again yet and they're really refining their processes mostly through their professional learning community. But those those are kind of the phases that we go through in a curriculum review. Slightly different is a process that we've needed to essentially um come up with within the last couple of years that we call standards review. The reason we've needed to come up with a process for standards review is it's um we've noticed that within the last several years often times the state is approving new and updated standards as they have done with science and social studies recently before our um curriculum cycle calls for them to be up for a curriculum review. Right? So, uh the state has announced that they are going to be on a five-year uh
026process of reviewing curriculum uh standards. We don't have uh we we're not able to review curriculums and get new materials on a five-year basis. So, we need to come up with some sort of a process by which we can examine those standards and figure out how to start addressing some of those new standards that the state has approved without necessarily going through a materials adoption process. That's the primary difference between those two processes. And again, here you can see the different stages of a standards review process. So, we explore what are the new standards. We come up with a plan for how to install those new standards either into our existing structure of courses. Uh you'll hear later in the examples that I give there is one example where the standards were updated and we
027actually needed to suggest a different pathway for those courses. Uh that sometimes happens. Then we get into initial implementation of um the new standards and maybe that new pathway. And then uh some professional development associated with that both with the teaching strategies that we would use as well as um sometimes any any new ancillary materials that we might need. Um and then we get into full implementation where they're functioning more like uh within their PLCs. So, I thought I would again set the background a little bit with what are the different processes that we go through so that as I update you about oh well this team is in curriculum review or this team is in standards review, you have some context as to what that might mean. Uh so uh we've been working with
028elementary art through a curriculum review process. The stage that they were in this year was piloting and purchasing. Uh they've been working with us for the past 2 years. They've done quite a bit of work on visioning. Uh they did a lot of work. We partnered with the Department of Ed for them to do some collaborative work on identifying an articulated pathway of the priority standards. If you remember, they presented at the end of the year last year. They piloted a curriculum material this year and we're going to meet on June 1st with representatives from that um Art for Education was the name of the curriculum tool that they piloted. And in for the most part, I think the the feedback that I've heard from them has been relatively positive. I I guess I would
029imagine that we would be looking at finding ways to budget for Art for Education for the upcoming years. It's nowhere near the cost or expense of a literacy curriculum. Um but but that will be the decision that we're making on June 1st is is this a product that we want to move forward with as well as what professional development might we be able to put in place. The the one of the nice things from my perspective is the Art for Education curriculum uh product comes with some built-in art specific professional development, which I know many of our teachers really appreciated. Often times it gets to be a challenge to find very specific professional development for um like a fine arts teacher uh and this product has that for those teachers. So, that's what they've been
030doing. Um you've you've heard about a little bit from me about an hour and 6 minutes worth of uh time for me about elementary literacy. Um we were in a curriculum review process. Uh we're we are now at the stage of initial implementation. Uh we just uh got done. I appreciate the the passing the um uh the proposal to purchase that curriculum. Uh as you heard from us what we did this year, lots of screening, lots of piloting, uh as you know again recently adopting it. Um what what we may not have talked about much is the behind-the-scenes work that several literacy teams are doing. So, for example, uh another member of the teaching and learning department and I will meet tomorrow for the second time with a group of teachers to try to determine
031uh some intervention pathways and suggested resources for students with various intervention needs. Uh we have grade-level literacy teams right now that have been working with each other on developing some professional development around um some specific strategies and routines that will be important to this curriculum. So, uh some additional work is continuing to go on even past the piloting and recommendation stage. We will meet next um as a full team actually, I'm sorry, with all teachers on June 1st. June 1st will be our first full elementary staff professional development. That session is called Introducing Magnetic Literacy. The full staff will come again then in August for a professional development uh entitled Starting with Magnetic Literacy. Um and then we have a couple of different additional professional developments that we will will focus on and we'll continue
032with those literacy teams. Uh likely we'll see revisions to maybe some report card statements um as well as some of the assessment processes that we use in the district around literacy. Another team that we've been working with this year is our 6-12 science teachers. They are also in a curriculum review. They are in a piloting and purchasing stage right now. So, over the course of the last year and a half, we've met with them and again, as I modeled earlier, had a conversation about what do we envision for a scientific literary literary What is a Well, I I can't come up with the words right now, but what what does a great science student look like who graduates from Ames? Easy for me to say. We also then, interestingly in this situation, we um looked
033we we created a high-quality um instructional materials rubric. If you remember when we were talking about literacy, I talked about how the fact that we leaned on a rubric from the reading league. There was a a professional organization that had a rubric that we trusted and wanted to use that as the way we screened materials. In this case, there wasn't that really strong um a third-party source. So, what we did was we took instructional material rubrics from various states, from different Department of Education. We analyzed them. The team came to consensus on what they felt was really important in an instructional materials rubric for 6-12 science that aligned to the vision that they'd created, and we kind of created our own high-quality instructional materials rubric. That was really helpful because it's allowed us then to
034create a walk-through tool grounded in their co-created work. It's also helped us to know exactly what are we looking for with the pilot materials. Earlier this spring, our middle school piloted a product called Lab Aids, and they will pilot another product this next fall. And then, the goal would be Um, next spring to be coming to the board with a recommendation for a middle school science product. That's our hope is that we find one of those two products to be acceptable. The high school on the other hand, this one was it was kind of interesting. Uh, they chose not to pilot any products. Rather, what they're working to do is to create um, their own uh, curriculum essentially grounded in that high quality instructional materials rubric that we co-created as a team. When we looked
035at potential curriculum products, we were able to find folks who, yep, we have a biology textbook or we have biology and chemistry textbook. We could not find any uh, producers that had biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science texts that they provided. And so, rather than piecemealing from several different examples, the team just decided we want to create our own. But having that high quality instructional materials rubric that we co-created gave them a really nice example. They've created a unit uh, planning template again as well as a walk-through tool to start assessing their own um, current practices to pre- for us to provide professional development. So, they'll be working to create that curriculum as well as order supplies over the course of the next couple of years. >> Can I ask you, Dr. Hawkins, so how
036a student like we would be told go read this chapter in Well, will there be documentation text for the students or will it kind of be more just on the fly experiential or >> It's a great question. Um, I know that there will be readings that students will have, but I don't know that they will have a textbook necessarily, right? So, it'll probably be unit by unit. They'll identify the readings that they want. But but yes, uh, largely it will be grounded in an inquiry model where they'll start with a question, what is a natural phenomenon going in our community and in our world and how does that impact us here in Ames? How do we get students to develop questions to explore that phenomenon and then the students will then probably work to identify
037what readings can help us further examine the questions that we just came up with about this phenomenon. So there certainly will be a reading component, but what they read will largely be developed based upon the questions that they ask and how they go about trying to answer questions around that phenomenon. >> That's wonderfully problem solving and adapting >> It all It all aligns really well with the standards. It aligns really well with the best practices that we saw in several states guidance around high quality instructional materials and I would say the materials that we are piloting with the middle school it aligns with how professional companies are producing their units of study as well. Yeah, kudos to our teachers they're doing a very nice job of creating engaging plans for kids. Next I'll talk with
038you we haven't talked about math a whole lot this year. Math is actually in the full implementation stage of curriculum review. So we've done the materials adoption. We've done that initial implementation where we front loaded lots and lots of professional development. We still did do two sessions of professional development with them this year. One in August called promoting strong mathematical conversations. Actually that professional development was selected as the appropriate professional development following the um instructional rounds processes that we talked with you about as a board last spring, right? So data collection process determine what were some of the needs from our staff from a professional development standpoint and then we selected this professional learning to be responsive to the needs that we found in that data collection process. Then in November or as this fall
039we did instructional rounds again. And in, uh, February, uh, we did another session called helping all learners succeed. Uh, teachers were able to bring data from a recent assessment to meet with other teachers and trainers, and we talked them through how not only do you do analyze the data, but what how do you go about finding different resources within iReady in order to address the needs that your data show. So, it was a very hands-on active learning for for our staff. So, their next step, uh, will likely be, uh, to look at continuing to refine some of our assessment processes, as well as our intervention processes. That's really where we're at right now with math. One other one that I alluded to earlier was K-12 health. This has been an interesting one this year. Um,
040this one has been more of a standards review process. So, not a curriculum review. You're not necessarily looking to adopt new materials, but new standards have been released, and a new law has been passed that made us say, "We need to get together and have some conversation about how we're approaching K-12 health." So, we met with, uh, team of folks that represented elementary, middle, and high school, uh, teachers in order to first and foremost review the standards. The the health standards in the state of Iowa are kind of interesting. They're actually considered recommended standards. So, if you get into the Department of Ed website, there's portions of our standards that are called required standards, like language arts, math, social studies, even, uh, the 21st century learning skills that we're doing through PK and beyond. Those
041are required standards. Health standards are considered recommended standards. We would recommend you teach these things, but you're not required to teach all of them, or whichever ones you think are most appropriate locally, that's what you should teach. Now, we have a requirement to teach health in every grade, um, I believe first grade through high school. We have to teach something, but what we teach is entirely up to us. That's a little bit broad, so one of the things that this this team tackled was what would be an appropriate sequencing and could we be intentional about creating a pathway from preschool all the way up through high school of what these standards could build to be. That was one of the things that this team tackled. They did a nice job with that. The next stage
042for that part of the process will be to develop some sample lessons so that regardless where you're at as a teacher in the process, if these are the standards that we're teaching to, here's lessons that you can use to teach those standards. That's the next stage of this process for them. And the other thing that the team did was we looked at Senate File 175, which was a law passed this last spring a year ago, that talked about some specific requirements for human development. For human development. And I want to be clear, I'm talking about K-12 health. This is kind of an interesting thing. The law about human development doesn't actually indicate that we need to teach that through a health course. Might be common to think that normally we might talk about human growth
043and development in health courses, but the law doesn't say this has to happen in health class. It just says we we have to teach something about health and we also have to teach these concepts. Well, this was a good team for us to get their feedback on how to best teach those concepts. So, that team started by first of all examining the law. What does it say we have to do? I will tell you they were a little like, "Ooh, okay. We haven't taught all those things at the fifth grade level before, but we'll we'll make a plan for this." And then they then they identified some an articulated pathway. What could this look like in fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade and at the high school? In January of this last year,
044the State Board of Education uh gave an interpretation of Senate file 175 that uh for many school districts changed our thinking about uh what grade levels were required to teach this at. Um and that interpretation is that we do need to teach it in each grade, 5 6 7 and 8, and then again in high school. So, this team set about looking at the parameters of the law and figuring out, okay, what might sample lessons like this look like? We identified how we might scaffold from fifth grade up through high school in uh both meeting the requirements of the law, but progressing uh in an age-appropriate way for the conversation. Um and uh made some suggested, oh, this this connects really well with a unit we're already doing in social studies in seventh grade. Oh,
045this connects really well with a unit we're already doing in our family consumer sciences in eighth grade, so on and so forth. And then suggested like some some objective statements that they might use for those. They did look at sample resources uh that could be used to meet the requirements of the law, but felt like that the teachers who ultimately would develop those lessons should have the final say on what those resources are. So, that's kind of the next stage for that part of the process is getting those teachers to get those lessons created and and and ensuring that those resources meet the requirements of the law. And I think the last one that I have to talk with you about is 6-12 social studies. So, the social studies standards were uh updated by the
046state in January of this year. Um for uh for some uh grade levels, they changed a little bit, and for other grade levels, they changed quite a bit. Um and so, we've been working uh primarily with our high school uh so far this spring, uh but uh we'll use the model that we're using with our high school with our middle school coming up. Um they're they're in the exploration stage, if you will, of that standards review process, meaning they're just looking at, well, what are the standards? What's changed from what we used to teach? And and the high school, I know, started with a conversation of will this impact our pathway? What Do we need to do anything differently with the pathway that students take courses throughout high school? And ultimately, uh there was enough
047changes to and enough additions to the standards around economics and financial literacy that the high school team felt, we're we're going to have to get to the place where we require an economics course. We have an economics course at our high school currently. It's an elective course that um maybe one or two sections worth of kids each semester take, but we're going to have to move that to a required course, um in order to address the standards around economics that the state has added to our curriculum. So, we'll be working over the course of this year in order to uh kind of determine what that course looks like. Are there any additional resources that we need in order to expand this from two sections to many sections? Um and and and getting ready so that
048a a year from this coming August, we're ready to um have more students move through an economics course. Most recently, I worked with the the staff at the high school and the teachers in order to say, okay, uh based upon some best practices in social studies instruction that have been identified through national organizations as well as our state Department of Ed, where would we self-assess our current practices against those best practices? And then, what does that mean for professional development support that we can provide our teachers coming into next fall? So, we're looking at, how might we provide them an opportunity to have some differentiated professional development when we get to next fall based upon their own self-assessment against these best practices. Okay. So, that's some of the work we've been doing over the past
04912 months in curriculum and standards review in order to make sure that we have high-quality instructional practices and high-quality instructional materials in order to move the needle and accomplish all of our goals. What questions could I answer for you? >> Not so much a question, but just a comment. I really appreciate that you guys have a standards review process, recognizing that the standards are constantly changing and and the curriculum review may not coincide with the standards. So, it's it's a process by which we're uh addressing the moving goalposts, right? >> Yeah, well said. >> on a yearly basis. So, I appreciate that you guys have a system in place to address that. Um maybe the question I would have, say that the economics requirements, for example, if that's now a new standard that, you know,
050we're we're going to need to look at requiring this, are we looking at is there something that we can take out because we're there's new a new requirement that we have to add that's mandatory, but what what do we take out if we're if we're adding something new? >> That's a great question. In this case, um I don't know if I would use the word fortu- fortunately for students, um many of the So, the the standards that the state expects for economics really coincide well with um the expectations they also have for financial literacy. Right now, we require financial literacy, and I know that the way that the teachers have been talking about constructing this course would mean that students would be able to get both their financial literacy and economics requirements met in that
051course. So, instead of uh needing to require economics in addition to financial literacy, it'll just really overlap with each other. So, it won't it won't add a graduation requirement. It's not like it'll move our requirements to 45 credits from 44, but it will change the the depth of what we need to go into uh specifically around economics there. Yep. >> Re- remind me if I'm incorrect, Dr. Hawkins. We we've always had financial literacy required. We were going to change it to not be required. Am I wrong there cuz of the state? >> Yeah, it it's um uh I'm going to to I'm going to borrow a phrase uh from Director Baumgartner there. Uh moving goalposts. >> Sure. >> So, uh there was a time not too long ago in the state where uh financial literacy
052was required for all students. >> Right. >> So, we moved it into our graduation policy. Uh within a couple of years, the state moved that from a requirement for students to a requirement for the district. And so, it moved from graduation, like a what we expected kids to do, to what uh what I would call a chapter 12, what we expect schools to do. >> Right. >> Well, at that stage, we didn't need to keep it any longer as a graduation requirement for kids, but we we are still required to offer and teach that subject matter. Well, then this January, uh I would say it shifted again. I don't know that um when cuz eventually I'll need to bring a recommendation for a change to the graduation policy. Again, sorry. Um uh when I do
053that, I don't know that it will say financial literacy any longer. It'll likely say economics, but the financial literacy component will be built into that because those standards are required. >> I I was And that Thank you. I just was I was like it effectively it's a net same. >> Yeah, but you're right. It it the the approach to financial literacy has changed from the state a few times. >> times. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Hackett. >> Um next up, the superintendent reports starting with enrollment. >> Uh enrollment, not much change from the last month. We will have the kindergarten enrollment numbers in for the next board meeting. Uh within the staffing document, we still have positions still on hold uh that we have not filled depending on what our enrollment comes in for our
054elementaries. Any questions on the enrollment document itself? Kind of blends into the staffing document. Um it just shows the uh yellow or new to the district. Um other positions that either we have filled or not filled um or not filling. Uh and then as we increase um as resignations come in as well, we're filling those positions. Uh once again, there are some positions being held um in case the enrollment numbers in kindergarten come up lower or we have a dip in any other um of our uh enrollment numbers as well. Um beyond that, on the side note, I did hear from housing at ISU. Uh she has mentioned to me that even the request for out of country pre-housing coming into ISU has decreased from what they have seen in the past. So, um that
055could have an impact as well as on our our enrollment as well. So, as we talk about enrollments and the impacts of our community, um that goes hand in hand with our region university as well as um our community and our businesses as well. I did meet with a business last week that they went through a 20% staffing reduction uh this past year. so all those things as we have the opportunity to meet with individuals beyond our um public school does provide some insight as when um enrollment housing and um families within our community affect our um enrollment. And I won't talk about the uh legislation that could affect it as well. >> Any questions about um enrollment or staffing? Don't worry, I registered my son finally. You're welcome. >> To vote? >> No, he's
056too young. For school, he >> Oh, okay, he's in the >> It went up by one at least. >> Got it. >> Register your children. Gifts to the district. >> Gifts to the district, we have 300 packs of miscellaneous seeds from the W. Atlee Burpee Company for Northwest Preschool with a value of $1,305 estimated. We have $1,303 $303 in cash from the Bethsdale Lutheran Church for the Lunch Hero. Bethseda? >> Bethesda? Thank you. >> He's on a roll, yeah. >> So far Lunch Hero program uh $1,000 cash from the Durbanzing family in honor of the SSP Durbin at Ames High choirs. $500 cash at Dorothy Anderson for the Lunch Hero program, $460 cash from the American Legion Post 37 Lunch Hero program. Picture books valuing around $300 from the Woosman Family Meeker Elementary Media Center.
057$103 cash from the Benevolent >> Benevolent Philanthropic >> Philanthropic. Outreach Sorority Hope Pantry and picture books, a $15 value from Jason and Kristy Minion. Mitchell Elementary Media Center the end of the year. >> I just love the picture books. This is so exciting. Okay, you got me. Thank you. >> Northwood Preschool >> All right. Thank you. We'll move to our Chief Financial Officer, Director Rusick, with our food service updates. >> Good evening. So, um pretty much I'm just going to talk about um our summer food program because we are making quite a few changes this year. Um once the census blocks were released, um Mitchell no longer sits in an eligible census block. And so, while they were we could grandfather them in for a few more years. I always look to be like cuz
058once you're eligible one year, you're you're good for five. And so, we always look to see, you know, where where where can we be, you know, for five years. And so, we there was actually um a couple areas that opened up, and they didn't open up because the schools qualified. There's a new qualification called adjacent census block averaging. So, if the facility um sits where there's at least 40% um like a FRAM status, and then they take like the two or three blocks around it. So, not very far around it. If they can get that building up to like 50%, then they're eligible for five years. So, because of that, the public library became eligible this year, which is great because they are usually catering meals for us for for programs. And then Mitchell, or
059I mean Meeker, became eligible again. So this year we're going to offer three open sites. Excuse me. Meeker, the Boys and Girls Club, and then the Ames Public Library. So, um the Ames Public Library plans on feeding 80 kids on Monday, Wednesday, Thursdays, and Fridays. And on Tuesday they have a program of some type. So they're planning on 100 meals um lunch on Tuesdays. Meeker, um we have invited 75 kids to summer school there. So we plan on serving both breakfast and lunch at Meeker. And you know, it's kind of a walkable neighborhood, so we're hoping to draw in a few more um neighborhood kids as well. And we have some media plan to go out for that. Some And then the Boys and Girls Club, um last year we served 80 um you know,
060last year was the first year that they were open in their new facility. Their goal is to serve like 90 I mean they're they're trying to go up a few more every single year instead of 20 kids in there at one time. So this year they're planning on 90. Then at the Ames High School, um we have an EL summer school and then like um a credit recovery summer school. Um I talked with Director Sattermeier. He told me that they have 100 kids invited to that. And so we do offer lunch there now. You know, most of those kids don't stay for lunch, but we will serve any kids that are there for those programs lunch on those days. That's um our primary site where we prepare anyway, and so it's not you know, even
061if there's 10 kids, we're able to serve them at the high school. Um So we did have our food service audit this year, and we still do have some discretionary funds. Um and in that program, you know, we've actually have bought new serving tables for Northwood since we implemented the breakfast program there. We bought dishwashers, we bought this combi ovens, we bought a like a lot of equipment. Um, all new trays for some of the schools. We've implemented, but we still do have um, some discretionary funds. So, I my recommendation is to still offer free breakfast for all students in all the buildings. Um, at least for first semester next year and you know, reevaluate that December to see where our fund balance is, but I do feel like that's a great thing that we
062can do for all the kids in this district. So, any questions on any of the programs this summer or >> Thank you for all your hard work doing this each year. >> I think that it'll be great in the public library, you know, they were really, really happy when I told them the day sat in an adjacent block and that they weren't going to have to they were going to have have a hard time finding the funding in the past the United Way has helped them, but they were not going to have that funding this year. So, they were really concerned about it. >> Glad it worked out. >> Yeah. >> We have a couple places on the side route routes, too. It's just good locations. >> Yeah. So, we're good for 5 years at
063all those places. So, that's good. >> Unless something else changes, right? >> Yeah. >> All right. Well, thank you. Um, anything from our student representatives? >> Uh, no items today. Thank you. >> Well, thank you. Uh, anything from board members? All right. We'll move to our old business with the 25-26 proposed budget amendments. >> I move the board adopt the budget amendment as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All right, it was moved by the board, seconded by Shields Cook. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed, nay. Passes 7-0. Um next, new business, gifts to the district. >> the board to approve the gifts as presented. >> Second. >> Any discussion? We'll We'll accept them as presented in the text and not uh orally. Um Moved by Beerbaum, seconded by Rodriguez. All in
064favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed, nay. Passes 7-0. The transfer of state AEA special education funding. >> I move the board to approve the first amendment to the contract with the Heartland AEA for the transfer of state funds to the AEA for special education services. >> Second. >> All right. Any discussion? Moved by Beerbaum, seconded by the board. All in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed, nay. Passes 7-0. Final pay application for release of retainage and final acceptance of the high school track and bleacher improvements project. >> I move the board to approve the final pay application for release of retainage and final acceptance of the high school track and bleacher improvements project. >> Second. >> Any discussion? All right, moved by Beerbaum, seconded by Barb Gartner. All in favor say I. >>
065I. >> Opposed, nay. Passes 7-0. Um next, we have our policies for discussions, and so I'll turn over to Vice President Shields Cook. Do you have anything to highlight? >> Yeah, we had um 16 policies that we reviewed this cycle. Uh the majority of these were just part of our regular review cycle and no changes are recommended. We had a few with some minor wording changes or reorganization of text and then we had two new policies are competi- competency based education and the unmanned aircraft and drones are both new and then a recommended to resend the selection of architects and engineers and the more detail is in the minutes. >> Any questions or discussion? >> No. >> All right. Well, we didn't vote on that one. That was just discussion. All right. I don't have
066any requests noted for the superintendent. Our time has elapsed. Board planning calendar, we have a joint work session with the city council in the event space at the Ames Center on June 8th at 5:30 which is on everyone's calendar, I think, right? Maybe. Okay. And then our next regular meeting is June 15th, which is the day before my birthday, so you know, plan accordingly. >> We will. >> Ames Accolades. Anything you want to add for that? Thanks for adding those. For real, like thanks for adding those. I've I've enjoyed them this year. >> Yeah, you're welcome. I think there's a lot of accolades that probably don't get mentioned month to month on the board. For this month, we have a lot of great people within the district and ensuring that we are staying focused on
067what's best for kids. >> I move we adjourn. >> Second. >> Move by your mom, second by the board. All in favor, say I. >> I. >> Opposed, nay. Passes 7-0. We are adjourned. And your pies are in the fridge. >> Oh, yeah. Pies are in the fridge. >> I won't be at either of the next two meetings this month. >> Oh. >> You're not going to