001All right, we'll go ahead and call the meeting to order. And I accidentally signed into the Zoom on my computer. That's There we go. Um, so first off, we have um members present, approval of the agenda. I move we approve the agenda. Second. Moved by Shields Cook, seconded by D Ward. All in favor say I. I oppose nay. Okay. 6 like my number was off. And then we'll move to our celebrations and recognitions and I will hand that over to director Dashman. Good evening. Uh first we would like to recognize our school board. So, the Ames Community School District appreciates the service and support of the community- elected 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
002the direction of our public education system, and they positively impact our state by ensuring our future citizens have a quality education. Um, we will acknowledge each one of our board members. Alan Beerbomb, Angie Deard, Kelly Winfrey, Sabrina Shields, Cook, Aaron Rodriguez, Amy Erica Smith, and Brett Becker. And we also want to recognize the dedication of this year's student representatives, Fatima Nuragi and Vienna Ross Manith, who somehow wo their responsibilities as student reps into their already busy class and extracurricular activities and schedules. Thank you all for the dedication to our district. I also want to add to this sorry applause. Wait. Um I have been uh fortunate to work with a number of school boards at two different districts. I understand the commitment, the time, the energy and then also the trust and belief that you
003put into your administrators, your school and the staff and community. At times that can be challenging as we have found in past years, whether this board or any board um it doesn't go unnoticed. But I do want to say that I can truly say that a year ago I was sitting in the back table wondering a lot about my next move as a superintendent of Ames Community School District um gauging on what this board wants or needed as well as what the district needs. And this board was very clear on expectations, the direction they want the district to go and the belief that we have a great staff and that we want to move things forward and you have done that through supporting myself in this first year as well as the other administrators, the
004staff and even the students. Um it's I'm very fortunate to have had this first year with you guys and the support that I have felt uh has been tremendous and I can say that through my 17 years experience as superintendent. A lot of boards have a lot of different areas they want to focus on. But when you can get a board focused on what's best for students and staff in the direction of this district, it makes it a lot easier for myself as a superintendent, but it's not really my job, but everybody else that works for the district to believe that we're moving in the right direction. And so I want to thank you for that. Um we uh Rusk and myself, CEO Rusk and myself uh we uh in past have always provided a
005pie for the board uh during this recognition time. So you have been able to select a pie that uh you will be able to pick up after the meeting. Um, but you know, for all that uh money you guys get for being on the board, all we could do is provide a pie. And uh, previous superintendent prior to me didn't actually give the board the option to pick the pie, but I felt you guys should be able to pick your own pies for what you do. You haven't had the past, but you will get a pie. Okay. They're in the fridge because they'll all be melted, but we want a short meeting so they don't melt. So, I'm going to hand out the awards now. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you
006so much. So sweet. Thank you very much. We're practicing for graduation, right? Hand with the lift. Thank you very much. So sweet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I know you came on a little late, but hopefully better for the long haul. How much? Too much. Thank you very much. I'll shake your hand. Graduation. So for the next part, I think I will come up to pass out the awards. represent the rest of the board and Mr. Grimes want to line up to do to shake hands of our retirees. The district and board will recognize the amazing service and commitment by staff retiring at the conclusion of this 2024 2025 school year. When I say your name, if you'll please come forward if you're present. Um Julia Berguson, eight years of service to the district.
007Julie Sorenson Scar, 10 years of service to the district. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you. Thank you. Kathy Steinhagen with 14 years of service. Kathy [Applause] Burns. Kathy Burns, 15 years of service. Thank you. Katherine Monroe, 16 years of service. Rebecca Bowman, 22 years of service. Wendy Pixler with 22 years of service. Rose Stammer, 23 years of service. [Laughter] Julie Bryant, 25 years of [Applause] service. Julie Foley with 25 years of service. Tracy Riyle, 29 years of service. Charlene Sullivan, 29 years of service, and Andrea Delman with 30 years of service. Thank you all and congratulations. Yes. Thank you all so much for your years of service. We appreciate um all you've given the district. Uh and we, you know, you're welcome at any board meeting. You want to just come hang out
008with us, you're always welcome, and you're welcome to stay for the whole meeting, but don't feel obligated to do so. Um so, next we'll move to our public forum. All right, I'll read our statement. 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 three minutes, once per item. The views and opinions of citizens addressing the board did 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
009state their name in school. Others will state their name and address. And don't have everybody signed up in person. Make sure we don't have anybody on the Zoom. All right, we're all good. So, we'll close public forum and move to our consent agenda. I move the board approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. Moved by Deward, seconded by Beerbomb. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. Passes 6. We'll move on to our reports. Our first one is um our associate superintendent, Dr. Hawkins. Yeah, come on. I'm going to introduce you really quickly and then I'm going to turn it over to you. Okay. [Music] As you might have just heard, I'm going to introduce our teachers really quickly, then I'll turn it over to them. Um, our first update from the board tonight
010is an update around the art curriculum review. Our first update to the board tonight is the work that we've done in our art curriculum review process uh this year. Very excited about the work that they've done. I take the opportunity to uh uh thank them and uh thank our curriculum team for their work and helping them. And tonight we have Allison Estradi, Rebecca Harding, and Brian Randolph here to present uh the work that they've been doing this year. Okay. All right. My name is Allison Mrod. I am at Sawyer and Mitchell. And this is I'm Rebecca Hardin and I'm at Fellows. I'm Brian Randolph. I'm at Edwards. Yeah. And we'll want to make sure for those on the ends that you're close to the mic because you can also take it out if you want
011to just hold on to it. Okay. All right. Um, so sad doesn't carry very well to the back. So I want to make sure everybody trying to get my lock. Huh? It's just not on that screen, but it's on the others. It's not advancing for Oh. Oh, we're sliding. Okay, there we go. Got you. I just didn't know. There we go. All right. So, a little bit of an overview of what um the elementary art teachers cover. There's four of us that teach across all five elementaryaries. Uh we currently serve just under 2,000 students. They come to art every 40 minute for 40 minutes every four days and that rotates also with PE music and library and in our 180day school year uh students receive roughly about 4.25 full days of art instruction and our
012current standards we felt kind of pigeonholed us into very small categories. So our intent with this new move was to move us to encompass a wider range of the national standards within that short period of time. Um when we first started, we met with Sarah Davidson and she led us through this. It was a really enlightening um process to come up with our vision statement and I was actually fairly impressed how quickly we came up with this because even though we teach very differently sometimes we all had this common thread that we totally agreed on um and created this vision statement and our vision statement is we envision an art classroom that empowers creative learners through the use of quality instruction so that all students will feel safe, valued, and get what they need to
013be successful. The elementary art education program in the Ames Community School District emphasizes meaningful, relevant learning opportunities that build transferable skills, foster creativity, critical thinking, self-motivation, and encourages students to solve problems and engage in their imaginations. By supporting student emotional well-being and focusing on the development of the whole child, students are empowered to actively participate in their learning and express themselves in safe and positive ways. And we currently assess in two different areas. We have the our behavior assessments which classroom teachers also do but we um have developed in the last two years a new way for the related arts standards to or the related arts teachers to um assess that and then this year we've been starting on the academic portion where we've redone our standards with the national standards. So, our behavior standards,
014which go for um art, music, and PE, we piloted it last year. Um our goal is to create a more beneficial, concise, user-friendly matrix for parents and teachers that aligned with the district PBIS expectations. Uh there's currently eight standard classroom behavior grades and what we decided to do was combine those and make them more tailored to each content area. And then that lowered it down to three categories um which include all eight of those standard ones. And that took us from putting in about 4,000 grades every trimester down to just over 1500. So it made it much more attainable for us but also um aligned more with PBIS with individual and social responsibility, thoughtful behavior and safe behavior and then is tailored specifically to art, music and PE. And so we've done we did that
015last year and then this year in art. Oh, you bet. So these are the languages that the students hear as well. So when I'm telling them to be a responsible you are doing this to be a thoughtful artist you are doing this. So by changing it to these three words it's the vocabulary they're hearing throughout the whole building. So I think that's really since we've changed behavior is it's given us a common language for the behaviorals and then this year it's been a pretty big work in progress. Um we've the national core art standards uh started in two this series started in 2014 and it is kind of like a tree trickling down of the four artistic processes and then under those four main categories there's the 11 anchor standards and then under those 11
016anchor standards there's about 15 performance standards per grade level which equals about 90 um in through K5 and what we currently had was a combination of only four specific performance standards per grade level. And what we're going to be we felt that that limited our ability to provide the most well-rounded um experience for our students. So, we're going to move up from those four specific performance standards to encompass all 11 anchor standards throughout their K5 experience. And this is a little bit of how they're lined up. Under creating, there is three. Under presenting, there are three. Responding three, and connecting two. And what we decided to do was take where we thought students would most get the most benefit in each standard in which standards built off the prior standards and put them into um
017a tier like this. So for next year we'll be starting this incorporating in term one we'll do responding and we chose that because it's the beginning of the year. you're talking more about artist procedures and things like that. And then we selected the anchor standard that we felt would be best fit for those grade levels. And then throughout the year, as you can see, we just move on through. Um, and by the end of fifth grade, they would receive education in every single anchor standard while still fulfilling all of those little mini standards underneath it. So, you have any And I think and we banded like K1. So say we find that maybe this kindergarten class like just not getting this that gives us that next year to retach it and to refocus it. Where
018sometimes I feel like those four targeted performance standards that we were living if they didn't get it the next year we targeted something different so that retaching wasn't there. So by banning them we're hopeful that that reteing can occur. And here is an example. We we're starting to create a a very large spreadsheet, per se. That's if anyone were to come in and teach art in Ames and an and then Ames Elementary School, they would be able to have immediate access to something that they know that everybody is going to have the same content and they're going able to cover it no matter what building they're at or which grade level, they'll have that access. So for example that first kindergarten standard in the first trimester of the year would be responding and then we
019have the performance standard that would be covered by that and then we keep moving on through what type of learning it is understanding reasoning and then we're we're working and developing on this is kind of where we're at right now. uh working on studentfriendly verbiage that explains what the standard is actually saying so that students could understand and then we are coming up with ways we can measure what how if they've achieved that standard or if they're approaching it or if they need more support in that area. Um, and then we decided to continue and go a little bit deeper into each of those standards by adding um, what vocabulary would be in there, the main idea of the standard. And then eventually as we build through, we're going to add lesson links and ideas
020because I know when we all came into the district, we were given the four standards. That was it. So, we wanted to be a bit more thorough and thoughtful as we move forward. So we thought we were doing really great. We got these anchor standards, the 11, we got them down and then uh we kind of met with a representation for the department of ed and she's like well did you think of performance scan standards or scales and we went oh there's more work. So now we are taking that more specific standard and as a team we are creating common language and consistency among us four and we are building the skills. So now we are going through and doing this performance scales. We have an example here. We started with the meet standard. If
021what skills does that artist need to meet this standard and we kind of go through so it's not so much like a right answer but it's the skills that they need to do it. And then we did the needs improvement and kind of went how do we know they didn't get it? And then we kind of filled in that middle. Um we did a lot of conversations over like three points and four point scales and really digging down into what we want it to look like. How do we stay consistency as our team? The per performance scales is our work continue for next year. Some of it is we want to live the anchor standards. We feel like we can sit here in a meeting and say this is the skill but actually if we
022see the students doing it we can those skills start to come out. So some of the performance scale I think is going to be a continuous as we continue and live these anchor standards but it really helps as a team unifying because I was noticing like oh we were comparing museums and galleries in fourth grade but we all did it very differently and this will give us a little bit more consistency and meeting that criteria criteria and objectives. So, we've started in kindergarten. We've done a little bit. Well, the standard at the top, uh, we have for all grades, but the performance scale, I think we're just really tackling kindergarten right now and going through. That's all we have for today. So, if there any questions or I just wanted to commend you guys that
023it I first of all, I love tying together PBIS with the per with the um behavior skills. That's great. Have you seen um good feedback from the kids by making it consistent with the classroom? Yeah, I I think this is really it's a measurable thing that and it's not so many that they need to keep and if it's a consistent phrasing throughout everything. The more and more consistency you have, the the better off. And I would imagine there's better supports for you guys too since there are so many resources. That's that's awesome. And I I love a spreadsheet. So great. Yeah. Thank you guys for doing this work. It's really important and I'm grateful that you guys are putting in the time to do it. Thank you. Like she said, we're hopeful that anybody new
024to the district would be like, "Oh, this is cool." instead of us that we're like, "What are we doing?" And I think, I guess, no, that's one of the things I think is most um that I am both impressed that you've all worked together to come up with a common language, common criteria, and obviously there's standards to work from, but yeah. how you implement those is going to vary. But also if there's movement in the district or someone new comes in that it will be easier easier not easy but easier for them to slide into what those criteria are. And that I know like when I you know my second graders having a similar experience to another second grader in another building. Um and if we were to move around the district it would be
025the same. And that's I think that sort of consistencyy's probably been lacking and is awesome that we're moving in that direction. So, thank you for all the I know this takes a lot of time and I'm sure Yeah. when you're performance scale. Oh, hard work. Yeah. But once those rubrics are built, it it should hopefully make things easier for you all too. So, we appreciate it. And I I thank you for having the 11 um items as well because I know like for my kids, a couple of them were really good at creating art, one wasn't, but I think he would maybe engage in the understanding what he likes and explaining it and I think making that approachable is really awesome. So, thank you for that. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. in
026just a little bit. Well, we hear s fire. Oh, yeah. Jing panic attack. While Dan is uh pulling up that presentation, I I don't want to miss the opportunity. Um Michelle Matias wasn't able to be here tonight with the teachers to present, but she too was uh an important part of the work uh that this team did. Um also want to thank Sarah Davidson for her leadership of this team. She's done a wonderful job leading them through the process. And as you could hear from their presentation, we're we're ending in such a uh well, we will end in such a great spot. Though, as I was listening to them and as I've watched their work this year, I'm thinking of words like organized, cohesive, aligned, instructionally supportive, right? Like to to end a curriculum review
027process where not just these teachers, but any future teachers uh have that kind of a groundwork laid for them. It's really good work. So, appreciate all that they're doing. Okay. Uh, my next update to the board is around our um, Jeff, could I have you maybe to I know they're I think they're messing with sound, but maybe go a little closer to the mic. I think with the rain it's hard to hear. Okay. Yeah, sure. Sorry. Is this better? Yes. It's a delusion out there. Yeah. Yeah. The the rain is providing a lot of white noise. Okay. Well, basically I just said they're doing a really good job and I appreciate their work. Okay. All right. Um our our next turn it up a little bit with the green. It's kind of hard to just
028went in there. All right. Our our next update um is around math implementation uh this school year. Uh particularly one portion of our math implementation. As you may know, we purchased new math curriculum at our preschool level uh as well as prek, right? Or I'm sorry, prek to 12, right? Um this particular update is around the curriculum that's being used kindergarten through 8th grade around I ready. Uh we've had a pretty soft roll out in our preschool this year pretty intentionally and we're still collecting a little bit of data uh from our high school about their implementation. So I want to focus tonight just on that K8 implementation of math. So um what you see here is the vision statement that the mathematics core team developed uh collaboratively together um in their curriculum review process.
029Exactly what is it that they were attempting to create with this um uh implementation of math curriculum? You can see here that they envision a mathematics classroom that empowers learners through the use of quality instruction so that all students will feel safe, valued, and get what they need to be successful. Resulting in uh an advocate for student- centered teaching that builds on student strengths. utilizing resources grounding in tasks that are meaningful, relevant, and yield a transferable school skill set uh and are most importantly accessible to collaborate within and across the system to increase consistency and to engage in continued professional learning to aid teachers in implementing effective practices and materials. That team also uh dug into kind of a self-study to figure out what is it exactly that we want to improve? What's the lay
030of our land currently? I won't read all of this to you, but uh just to know that uh uh during the curriculum review process, they dug in as a team. They looked at data. They they looked at best practices in in pedigogy in the area. And um what they saw was that um while we were doing well, there weren't any grade levels at the time that were meeting projected growth rates of the assessments we were taking at the time. uh there was some disproportionate achievement. Um and what they hoped um to accomplish in uh getting this particular curriculum was to provide a consistent and coherent math uh experience for all students grounded in the eight effective math teaching practices that aligned to their vision. There were really three focal points uh that the team agreed
031to for this year that they wanted to stress. that was um having the vast majority of resources that were used by teachers and students from the curriculum that we purchased. We certainly recognize that teachers are going to need to supplement every now and again, but the idea was let's really especially in that first year um work within the materials that this curriculum provides uh to use the try discuss connect framework. That's the the instructional style that's uh grounded in this approach to math that really stresses a lot of uh engagement, conversation, discussion about math. Really getting to uh the vision of that team and that teachers who provide interventions in math are also utilizing the data that we get from our Ready assessments um in order to make those instructional decisions. You can see and
032probably would assume this aligns really well with objective two and three in our strategic plan um around instructional frameworks and programs and meeting the diverse needs of students. And so we've taken a number of steps um since last June in order to uh help support this going well in our classrooms. Uh there was some initial uh training of staff in June before we left for the summer just getting them acquainted with the materials um and and the approach to teaching with these materials. Uh yeah, you guys can go um or you can stay because this is a great math conversation. Um there was work over the summer by core teams uh that came together in order to determine how best to align and cluster standards both for assessment and reporting purposes um and then start
033to develop some instructional sequencing. Uh the beginning of the year we had uh trainers back in the district to provide professional development to all of our teachers to kind of know how do we start the year? Uh, how do you use different components of the materials that were given to you in order to enhance your lessons? Um, what might it be like to teach using manipulatives if you haven't done that before? Just different components of this instructional style. We've had several rounds of classroom walkthroughs. You heard me talk a week or two ago about instructional rounds. Uh, we had midyear professional development from the trainers in October and February. And then we've done several check-ins this year with the core math team. So, lots and lots of communication and professional development throughout the year. And
034um I I'll give a little plug for us uh when we were reviewing our data uh recently with uh the company um who helps to produce some of these reports. They had said the the growth and the achievement that Ames students are seeing is not what they typically would see in year one of a curriculum implementation. So on this chart you can see here that uh this is a this is a mid-year report. Um uh in our district we had 2,866 students who were part of our data here compared to about uh 60,000 students in the state of Iowa uh during the winter of 2024-25 and about um not quite 11 million nationally. And you can see that um the number of students at um mid or above grade level far exceeds both the national
035and state average. The number of students one grade level below significantly less. Two grade levels and three grade levels below significantly less. So just in every way we would measure this, we're doing really well in year one of our curriculum implementation. One of my one of the one of the things I think is most interesting about this data is that when I look at the national norm from um 2223 to the national norm of 2425 we actually saw a little bit of regression in achievement right like the the national didn't do quite as well in 2425 but yet we are exceeding and growing right so things in other words are going really well um in this chart. I guess what I would Jeff sorry can I ask you really quickly this figure here on slide
036eight shows growth or it shows score uh when I'm sorry I don't have them numbered here is this you're talking this slide that one yes this one okay all right um uh this uh shows uh achievement achievement yeah because you were talking about growth the next one I'm going to talk to you is about growth Okay, which is a great transition, right? Um, so how does our performance um, uh, compare to the Oh, I'm sorry. No, this one's about achievement. The last one about growth. Yeah. So, this one is about both of them. Both this and the previous one are about achievement. The next one that you're you're going to get it to growth still. Yeah. Growth is the third slide. Okay. Yep. And maybe the the quickest and easiest way to talk about this
037um set of data right here is that when the achievement of a particular grade against a particular domain, right? So that this breaks it down into four main mathematical domains. When that achievement is uh significantly above the national norm, five points, it's shaded in dark blue. when it's above that national norm, um maybe not significantly, but it's still above it's shaded in a light blue. And as you can see just on your screen, there is certainly a predominance of blue and dark blue categories. And so, um, in nearly every grade, in nearly every domain, we're seeing our students exceed uh national norms and and in most of those exceed it by beyond five percentage points. And this next slide is where we'll get to growth. So similarly uh what this uh slide shows is were
038the students um who started the year at a particular assessment point growing as compared to the the national norm. Right? So in other words, um I'll uh at for those kindergarten students who started at mid or above grade level, there were 29 of them. Did they grow even though they started the year mid or above grade level? Yes, they did. Right? In fact, uh they grew above the national norm. Right? And when it came to all of the students that top row mid or above grade level kindergarten through 8, there were 367 of those students on average 69% of those 367 students grew significantly beyond the national normal. So again, an easy way to look at this as a key is dark blue is really good. Uh blue is good, right? and gray or uh
039that um slash would be gray would be kind of where we would expect to see students and that slash is where we would not want to see our students. So again, really really good data for the first year of implementation of a curriculum. My own assessment would be that uh this means our teachers took the training really seriously. They're being dedicated to trying to implement this with fidelity. the training and the PD that they've been provided has been relatively effective. I don't want to speak as if there's not any holes in it. There's certainly room for growth. The student achievement data would tell us that we're we're we're we've done a good job of focusing on those uh three focal points in my opinion. So, not only do we have student data, but we like
040I said, we've walked through classrooms. We've given staff a chance to give us feedback. Uh we've asked them specifically how are you feeling about uh I Ready classroom mathematics. How would you describe your current level of use and what resources support or structure was would be most helpful for continued implementation? I don't know that I'll go through every single point here on this slide. Uh but for the most part you can see that teachers are reporting, yep, I'm using it. I'm working to collaborate around it. I'm starting to learn how to adapt it. Um, of course, what I could use for support is more time. Um, I'm tipping my hand a little bit for the slide that comes next, but based upon teachers feedback as well as the walkthrough data, we've tailored what our professional
041development is going to look like for teachers next year. Again, using this information and using the information we get when we walk into classrooms. So, what are the next steps? Um we've just talked with uh principles about pulling summer teams uh uh together again this summer uh to once again take a look at those standards how they were arranged and really focus maybe a little bit about tweaking scope and sequence but then also about um um revising some of our common formative assessments that are used. Um uh so just we can put ourselves in a better place for making instructional decisions. Um and then um next year's professional development again being based upon uh the information that we've gathered this year specifically uh when we've outlined our and uh professional development plan for next year.
042We're focusing um on a couple of conver on a couple of uh concepts. One is uh strong mathematical conversations. That is a professional development series that our trainers run. We've talked about beginning the school year with that in order to um help just increase the amount of dialogue around mathematics that are occurring. Although it's going well, that's one of the consistent feedback pieces we get from teachers that our students are talking more about math, but there's some other strategies that we could give them. And then um one that really gets into using the diagnostic assessments to make instructional decisions. So those are two professional development pieces that we have planned for next year. again based upon the feedback and data that we have this year. Um, and we will uh use I Ready as our
043math screening tool for the CAP as we did this year. Um, as well as it's an approved uh screener for the new math intervention law. Okay. What uh questions maybe do you have? I forgot to ask you this ahead of time, so I'm super sorry. Um, one of the things that I really like about I Ready is its uh it's culturally diverse and it teaches to different groups of students. Has that borne out to good results um with some of our underrepresented populations? I feel like um I'll I'll be able to speak to that question better when I get end of year results. Um but I but I will make sure that I provide an update uh with some disagregated data um once once we get those end of year results. Sorry. No, that's it's
044a great question and it's it's it speaks really well to the vision of the team as well and so we'll we'll make sure that we get um some data in an update about those disagregated results. Thank you. Yeah, you're very welcome. So, I'm sorry to dig into the numbers here though I guess it is appropriate for a math presentation. Um I I'm glad that you presented the slide on growth because it seems like growth is really important. I mean, you know, maybe we're all just naturally geniuses in AS and the curriculum isn't doing something or, you know, maybe the curriculum is doing a lot, right? Um, so I'm confused a little bit about the numbers here. For instance, for students who start who start off at mid or above grade level, what I understand is
045that in seventh grade they had 96% growth and in eighth grade they had 0% growth. First of all, let me make sure I'm getting to the slide you're talking about is the one that's up on. Yeah, I'm just confused about how to interpret that and what it means to have 0% growth in eighth grade and Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you're you are reading that correctly. So, um you're you're on the mid or above grade level, that top green line. Right. Right. So, um I I I don't know that I'm prepared to offer a Y. So, but you're reading this correctly that or is it that the assessment can't assess a student as being above 8th grade because it goes up only it tops out at eighth grade? Maybe. I don't know. Sorry, I was hearing that
046and my phone's buzzing. I'm wondering if there's a weather thing going on, but I I got That's probably the story. County alert going on. Yeah. Yeah. But uh I apologize. I don't know. I am not prepared to give you a Well, why is that number zero? Because it seems really out. I mean, yeah. If we have students in sixth grade making 123% growth, which seems like a lot. Yeah. um 123% sounds like a big number and I'm um and then and eighth grade making 0%. So um rather than hazarding a guess, I'll look into that and again I'll I'll follow up and get you some answers because I would I would agree that seems uh both to be an anomaly here in the data set um and a little bit odd to think that we
047didn't have any of those 60 students um reach a level of growth. Um so so let me follow up. Okay. on why that might be. I think um that slide I think it's a really interesting slide. I like that slide because it shows some things that we've always kind of wanted to see. I would encourage you if it's possible when we do get the end of the year numbers and you kind of show some of those. This slide I think is a really key one. If there is any way to go the one step deeper to show the distribution instead of the median, I think that would show some of the issues we've seen in the past that I would be really interested to see and would allow us not to have to go into
048super deep weeds, but just like if there was a version of this that wasn't just median based that I could talk offline about why or what I'd be looking that will be an incredibly complex figure. But yeah, it's interesting. So general impre this I don't need I don't need you to do any extra work but I shouldn't say that I don't need you to do any extra work or find anything but based on your general perception of where we were last year or in previous years um is this better because these numbers tell us things are going well with I ready but it doesn't give us a comparison from previous years. Do you think these growth rates and placements at or above grade level are better now that we're doing it ready than they have
049been the past few years you've been here? I feel more comfortable giving you my overall impression about what I see happening instructionally and in PLC's than I do around student achievement data as measured by some different assessment. Right? So it it would be great if we could uh say, well, I see really really good planning occurring in teams and I see really really good instruction occurring in classrooms because I do. It's really fun to go in and watch what's happening in classrooms. I see people see people using the resources well. I've sat with teams as they've had PD delivered. It's going really well. And it would be awesome to say, well, all of those will obviously equate to great numbers, but as we sometimes Well, and these numbers are good, I think. No, they Yeah,
050I'm hoping they translate obviously to great ISAS numbers as well and great map numbers. Well, we're not doing map right now because we're doing this, but Right. So, great other numbers. But sometimes social science doesn't always work as a onetoone coralate. So I feel I feel much more comfortable saying yes I'm really impressed with what's going on in classrooms in PLC's and professional development in the district I would agree we see good numbers here and I feel like yes that correlates to really good practices well and even if it's even if what you can that general impression is great teachers feel like they have again I I uh um I I I think uh Missy Carlson who's one of our teaching and learning coordinators I think uh Classroom Associates the company we're working with and
051our teachers. Our teachers are just um again not not not everybody's, you know, dancing in rainbows and things like this, but for the most part, they've bought into this. They're they're working through it. They're trying hard. There there is room to grow. Um but boy, they're doing a good job and and again, it does show in those numbers. I'm hoping it translates to other numbers as well, but we'll know that um by July. I'll be talking with you in July about those. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Any other questions? I just want to comment to thank you and all the math curriculum team um and everyone who put work into selecting a new curriculum and getting everyone on the same page. I feel like this is something that was long overdue. Um I know I
052said that at the start of the year when you all started this, but it's really exciting to see these early results um that are showing things are going well. Teachers are happy. They're finding it helpful. Um, and I think that it's always difficult having that baseline year. Um, because it's hard then to compare to previous years. Um, but I'm I'm excited just to see the consistency and knowing the effort that's going into making sure that every kid is getting taught every standard. Yeah. Yeah. I I see a lot of parallels quite frankly between what we heard from our art teachers uh talking about and and this conversation. When we get to the place where curriculum is cohesive and it builds on each other and it's systemic so that it's not pocketed good here, good here,
053good here, but we're not sure good everywhere. Like that's really a way to start systemically impacting results and I see that happening in our system in a number of areas and that's really really exciting. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. All right. And my third update uh is just to um uh congratulate uh the the students who earned the seal of biiteracy this year. So to earn the seal of biiteracy, students must demonstrate proficiency in English in at least one other and at least one other language by reading, writing, listening and speaking the language uh in which they take a test. This year, 20 Ames High graduates distri dist demonstrated need my own work proficiency uh demonstrated proficiency in six foreign languages and earned the seal which is reflected on their diplomas and transcripts. The
054district is proud to report the following students earned the seal in Spanish. Daniela Barahas, Brennan Bave, Aldo Campos, Dylan Cochran, Samuel Galindo, Archer Platt, Salvador Solis, and Bailey Stewart. Hoping I'm pronouncing all those correctly. In German, Bowen Fleming, Heidi Nissan, Valentine Schmidz, Esser, and Grant Wellington. In Chinese, Mave Hennessy, Wju, and Mingy or Mick Woo. In Portuguese, Bianca Gar Garciano and Marina Santos Silva Raidan. And in French, Llaya Forbes. Uh, we're deeply impressed that the following students earned the seal in two languages. Shantal Yulenstein in Portuguese and German and Nadia Kobayashi in Japanese and French. We're really excited with the results of these students. So, uh, thank you to our, uh, teachers who prepared them well to do so well on that assessment. So, great. I feel like we should give them a round of
055applause on I'm sure that's what they're doing, right? Any questions about that? Thank you. Next, we will go to our superintendent for his reports. Yeah, facilities. We had a facilities meeting. Uh big item for the facilities meeting that I'll be asking the recommendation to take action on. Uh we received nine district uh nine proposals in response to our RFP for the northwest and northwest and 13th project. um through the review and connecting with city and the direction we were heading and was decided we would go with 10-fold architecture. The RFP was um very effective for us to uh kind of learn the skills and sets for all of the architects that turn their information in. I did let them know that um and then did let them know that for future projects I'll be maintaining
056their RFPs at this point to help guide some conversations in the future. Uh so that'll be a recommendation for uh in new business. Um other developments, we have playground equipment on for the projects for uh the fellows um elementary. Um we also are getting, you know, the construction for the other playgrounds uh that we're working on uh for this summer. And then construction for the high school stadium is underway. Uh currently we do not have a track. Uh we have a very nice football field in the middle, but the track is is gone. Um it's uh very progressive and um looking forward to the uh finished um product. Enrollment. Uh you'll see that enrollment uh we started processing our registration numbers. Um, so we have the kindergarten numbers for next year uh or lower than
057uh what we currently have. Um, but those will grow as we uh continue to process our um enrollments. We are seeing that this kindergarten numbers coming in is lower than what we've had in the past few years. And then also our middle or fifth grade number from this year to next year is actually a larger class replacing with a smaller class. Um, right now we're looking at a negative 93 in our elementary schools. Um, that is not a firm number. Uh, but I did want to start that at least give you guys indication of where we are and where we're heading with the numbers as we continue to get registration uh, completed. Secondary, not much change, just movement of uh, classes. I did want to at least note the uh the numbers changed from red
058to to black in the elementary um staffing certified staffing document. We're working on filling in names as they're being hired. Uh transfers, if you can connect the dots, shows the transfers within them. The only major change that I would say between the last uh last conversation and this conversation uh we have uh put out a um opening for an AP specialed assistant principal. Uh position offered uh was already have been hired at a different district. Through that process, we had a pretty good strong indication of what we would like this position to be as we continue to grow and and support AAA changes. Uh, so we will not be filling that special ed AP position this year. Uh, but we are going to increase Matt Smith's um time. He is currently part-time administrator at the
059AIM Center. Uh, so I still wanted to um support uh Mitchell Elementary with assistance AP. And so we twofold as we continue to provide increase the AIM center as well as I want to maintain and provide that support for AP support at Mitchell so that all elementaryaries have support. Uh we have um moved Matt Smith administrator um into more of a yearround administration. He'll also be working with summer school and some other tasks in the summer that is related to special ed as well. So, it did give us a good indication as we um navigate the changing of the AA services uh providing supports in our district um maintaining a direction and goal, but we don't want to just fill to fill. So, I want to be open and honest about those positions. That would
060be the only major kind of conversation I want to have with you with around staffing. So are you then thinking that you would most likely hire for that position next year the at the special ed AP? Yes. In like 26 27. Yeah. So currently we have two positions that are still on hold that we'll be reviewing for next year. One would be a director of curriculum and instruction. Right. And then now this position u we would be having more conversations around. And then as we may find out, there may be other positions here that we're unable to fill due to not having us either the applicants. Um, so there may be other positions we're going to have to work around. But anytime we don't fill one year, I always like to carry those next year
061so that we have a carry on of those same philosophies and not just this year, but it's an ongoing need. Okay. Thanks, Grab another one. Oh, yeah. Gifts to the district. Uh, we have $1,000 cash the Durban Zen family for the Ames High Choir. $1,500 cash from Howard and Linda Liml for the lunch hero program. $1,645 cash from Anonymous for Mitchell Elementary and $9,228 cash from the Ames Education Foundation and that's for the Ames uh CSD band program. So, I want to thank those that um the gifts the district and you'll take action on those under new business. Thank you. We will now move to our chief financial officers report. Okay. So, the first thing I have is a food service update. And um I know that I have um updated the board about our
062summer food program, but I wanted to put it out there for our community. And we will have um the a media release going out through um I'll send it to the newspaper like we always do. Amy always posts it on our websites. Um and then we also have been working with the United Way. they send out a flyer so that um the community members are aware of all the open sites um in the I think it's through Story County where they can go get obtain food you know during the summer. Um so that is on there. The other thing that I had on there is that I would like to continue um the free breakfast um at least for through first semester of next year. I did um work with Chartwells on it and you
063know we do have a contingency in our contract with them. Does look like like we will be meeting that for this current year. So that doesn't enable us I guess to go into at least first semester next year. The anticipated cost just to offer that um breakfast is about $45 to $50,000. There have been I mean we're serving a lot more breakfast you know obviously now um since we offer it at no charge and actually our lunch count is up as well. So, I mean, I just think our food service program puts out a nice product and kids want to eat here. So, that's good to know. Um, I was really hopeful that a couple of our buildings would fall under the community eligibility program, but as the school year went on, more and more
064kids, you know, would move out of our district or whatever and drop and drop off our, you know, our free or reduced status. And so, we did not have any buildings that would put us at a level where we could kind of cash flow. all the kids eating free at that building. So, but we will continue to look at that every year. Any questions on any of that? Okay. So, then the next thing I have um was the contracts for administrators and wages for all non-union employees. So, this is pretty much entails, you know, anyone other than a teacher in our district. And one thing that I know that you were all aware because you approved I think at the December board meeting the compensation study um through with Cingham and Butler. So I was
065just going to in Chad's absence um I was just going to kind of go over the study and let you know you know who um was in our comparison market and so on. So I kind of wrote this up because I there's no way I could remember all this. So um so we hired Cunningham and Butler to perform the compensation study um to determine basically a market base analysis to do a competitive compensation analysis for us and the market consisted of um the city of Ames ISU story county and then the school districts of a or ankeny Johnston Bond Durant Ballard Bondorf Gilbert Dallas Center grimes nea A North Pulk, Urbandale, Atumbla, Musketone, Pleasant Valley, College Community, and Marshalltown. And then on top of that, um they went into um in addition to the public
066sector, they went like cross industry to get standards for like non-educational positions. So like HVAC and plumbers, electricians, you know, people like that. So basically we compared all non-union positions. So we did not do this for teachers because teachers have a negotiated contract here. And so if we would have put all the teachers on here like that would have been like 400 more jobs because each of those people make a different dollar amount and it's all by job description kind of and so on. The only positions that were not on there were the superintendent because we also utilize the UEEN. So like Mr. Grimes um his school district his prior school district actually started this comparison and I think I've shared it with um leadership and they've seen this UEEN comparison model um so we
067kind of you know utilize this study and the UEEN model and so the superintendent were were not on there and then our TAP coordinators and our juvenile court leaison because we have contracts with the state of Iowa for those positions so we didn't feel like we should put that out there for comparisons. Most schools wouldn't have a comparison for them anyway. And then any substitutes or on call positions. So like the interpreters, the translators, because those are kind of on call positions. They don't have they're not most of them are not permanent employees of the district. So it's kind of permanent employees of the district, I should say. Um, so after we sent all of the job descriptions and and salaries for all of these current employees because they use the current the employees current
068salary and their job description, they came back with um 81% of the positions matched a benchmark and in that included 93 of the employees that we sent in. So it was, you know, probably pretty good when you we sent in about 300 employees, let's say. Okay. Okay, so the district's average wage compared um to the market survey was at the 95% median. So obviously we had some employees that are paid you know more and some that were you know under the benchmarks and that was when they compared the same or sim similar type positions. So then the next step we did is that we looked at each individual position to to determine if it was you know over like the median on median on or near I should say or lower and then if it
069was like quite a bit lower which we did about 92 and lower then we did a market adjustment for that position. That's how we went about it this year. Now you know eventually we want to get like so we'll just take like EAS we have over 200 of them what we would really love to do is know like all the education for them and how many years experience blah blah blah blah and come up with a chart but you know we can't do that this year so that is what's going to be coming down the pike is you know is to gather all this information on the employees and come up with like maybe a somewhat of a scattergram for pay. I don't know if you guys really knew what all we did with this
070compensation study that we had. So, I just thought I'd go over it a little bit. So, there were some adjustments. Um, I think we adjusted between 12 and 15 positions this year, I think, based on based on the market. I think I put that in your update this last week that I sent out. and I got to see what you guys have up here. Okay, so based on that um you can see what we are recommending for average salary increases for each of these positions. Now our insurance went up. It was over 10%. So that's why the total package seems so much higher and especially if there's like only five employees in like one of these categories. If you adjust one person's salary, it's going to inflate it seems. And then the total package seems
071so much higher because you're putting that insurance increase over five people. So it it's it does skew it somewhat when when you look at a few people in one of these categories. Do you have any questions on any of this? Thank you for all that work. So based on these um in terms of the administrative leadership, are we expecting everyone to return next year? Is that the current? We don't have any resignations. I should have had that in the staffing maybe, but it just made me think might have been in the staffing, but I yeah, at this point I'm understanding that all district level as well as building level administration uh will be returning next year. Wonderful. Yes. I know that was your little maintain consistency and provide support. Yep. Any other questions on the
072study or the adjustments? I I'll say thank you to Shan, Sherry, Scott for doing um this work to make sure that we're paying our employees fairly and competitively. that makes us feel good about about where we're headed to. Okay. And then I think yeah, you have one more item, right? The AEA funding. Okay. So later on there um is an action item to tr um to allow for the transfer of state funds to the A.E.A. for the special education services. So, this next year, um, we will receive like 100% of the special education funds that come into the district, and we have to pay back 90% of those to the A.E.A. right now. Because they kind of tweak our Aiden levy until they send us the final one in June. Um, it looks to me
073like that's $169,695 that we will receive that we will get to keep. We have to return the remaining balance of that to the A.E.A. Now, that 10% that we receive that we get to keep this next year can be used for any special ed support service. So, it can be used for a school nurse that is supplying um special ed supports, school social worker, the program director that is in a in a center. So, like Matt Smith, like we could use, you know, his position, we wouldn't be able to use Dean's type thing, you know. Um, Bri, any consultant services that we want to purchase? I mean, you could OT, PT, there's a lot of services out there that you can use it for, but the agreement is just so that we can transfer their
074funds back to them. Now, they're going to come to us with our state aid. So 10 times a year, September through June, and then we have five days within the time we receive those funds to send them back. They're 10%. Or they're 90%. Um, we usually get those funds anywhere from the 17th to the 22nd, right around payday, which is which is why schools get paid the day they do typically because we need our state aid to make our to pay our Yeah. make our payroll. We're already set up to do a to the AEA for any, you know, anything they bill us for. So, it should be a rather smooth transition for our district. Can I ask you about the payment? Uh, so we're just transferring over the money and from my reading of
075the contract, it we it says we're going to determine later, and I'm not sure exactly how, but we are going to later determine what the services are that we're paying for. We're just promising to give them money and we'll figure out what we're buying. Correct. Uh as a TBD. Correct. So, they have already sent us a survey and we had to fill out the survey, you know, with their list of services available to us and let them know if it was a possible service we may be willing to purchase or not so that they know what to do for staffing. Okay. So do we have a mechanism for resolution of disagreements if we end up thinking that we need a service from them that they don't think we need? The 90% is still the required
076services that we must provide um through the federal and state level. So majority of that 90% is already going to be dictated by the special services that are um required. So we probably will not have as much flexibility with it. I just think it's the language to provide some conversation around it. Uh this would be an example of a true flow through where it actually comes to us first and then we send it flow it to the AA whereas before it's flow through we never saw the money. It it went directly to the AA. So yeah, but it's a a kind of strange flow through and that we also get some discretion over how the money actually gets spent too, right? They need to provide the educational services that we need at a minimum now
077versus providing other services that they were able to do by being in the buildings. And that's part of the I call it the menu effect. They're required on this part of the menu, but if we want a happy meal or allocart, we're going to have to pay extra for the rest of it. Right. The 90% is the main menu. Yeah. The other dollars 10% is our menu. Yeah. The 90% is the prefix. about the easiest way I can put it. Yeah. Any other questions on the Aea transfer? All right. Thank you, Sherry. Welcome. Um, next up, student representatives have vacated uh any items from the board. Well, since we were appreciated, I will thank Superintendent Grimes for his not quite one year anniversary yet, but thank you for getting us through this first school year.
078Our next meeting, the school year will be over, so I'm just going to really assume that everything's good the next two weeks. Whatever is what? No, thank you for your leadership um and for the wonderful district staff that have really made improvements this year. Appreciate it. Thank you. Ditto. That wasn't plan. I just thought, hey, we should we should Thanks, Scott. Uh so, we'll go ahead and move to new business. I move the board approve the gifts as presented. Second. Any discussion? All right. Moved by Deward, seconded by Shields Cook. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. That passes 6. Next we have our policies for discussion. Um so we have several policies on the list this week. Most of these we're just formatting them um to meet our new formatting standards. um
079changing some language where necessary for the law or adding um a couple of words here or there like or designate. We had uh the support staff holidays, vacation and personal leave. A good chunk of that policy was moved into the administrative rules because it was it fits better in the administrative rules um to keep the policy more high level. And then at the very end of the list, we still had one of our funny little AIM special policies. Um, which I had thought we had gotten rid of all of them already, but we still had this one. So, um, it was recommended by legal counsel to resend that one. So, that's kind of the only unusual thing on there, but um, happy to try to answer any questions or have staff help answer questions if
080there are any. All right. Thank you. We can move to the item C, the 2025 elementary playground project bid package. I move the board to approve change order number two to bid package number two for the 2025 elementary playground project. Second. Any discussion? All right. It was moved by the Ward, seconded by Rodriguez. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. Passes 6. Next is D. T-fold architecture. I move the board approve engaging 10fold architecture for design services for the redevelopment of the property at Northwestern Avenue and 13th Street. Second. Any discussion? All right. Moved by Shields Cook, seconded by Smith. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. passes 6. Approval of contracts for administrators and wages for non-un employees. I move the board to approve the administrators and non-union staff contract
081and wage information as presented. Second, any discussion? All right. Thank you guys for doing this study. That's really important. Agreed. All right. Moved by Dor, seconded by Smith. All in favor say I. I I oppose. Nay. Passes 6. Uh substituted and support staff. I move the board approve the substitute rates and support staff starting rates of pay for 2025 2026 as presented. Second. Any discussion? Moved by Smith, seconded by Rodriguez. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Passes 60. Superintendent's contract. I move the board approve the superintendent contract as presented. Second. Any discussion? That's where I should have thanked you. All right. Moved by Beerbomb, seconded by Ward. All in favor say I. I. I. Oppose. Nay. Passes 6. And transfer of state funds to AEA. I move the board approve the contract with
082the H Heartland A.EA for the transfer of state funds to the A.E.A. for special education services. Second. Any discussion? Moved by Shields Cook, seconded by Smith. All in favor say I. I. Opposed? Nay. Passes 6. I don't have any requests for the superintendent. Maybe Oh, I guess there was the update on the eighth grade growth. Growth that could Yeah. be a board update or Yeah. Yeah. Board planning calendar. Our next regular meeting is June 2nd at 5:30. I move we adjourn. Secondly, moved by Ward, seconded by Smith. All in favor say I. I. Oppose. Nay. Passes 6. We are adjourned. Don't forget your pies. I have been thinking about my pie all meeting long. I can't remember which one.