001- I now call this meeting of the school board of Independent District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Beloyed? - Here. - Daniels, here. - Skaar? - Here. - Streiff Oji? - Here. - Thompson? - Here. - Arcand? - Here. The first item of our discussion, item B1, Bear Care Update. - Chair? Chair? - Yes? - Since this is more of an, (clears throat) excuse my voice, informal session, can we add a discussion item, which is update on corrective actions around the enrollment procedures at the high school? Can we add that to the discussion item? - So you'd like to make a motion to add corrective actions to the- - What do I need to at a work session? - I think we have to get board consent for that.
002- How are these agendas assembled? - Well, we assemble them, but anything to change, I have to get board, I want board approval. - Okay. - So we have the motion to add update on, say it again, please? - Update on corrective actions around the enrollment procedures at the high school. - Okay. - Excuse my voice. - Would that be under discussion items? - Yes. - Okay. So it would be B1, I mean, excuse me, B5. Now, we have in front of us a motion to add a discussion item, corrective actions at the high school. Do we have a second? We don't, so we won't add that to the agenda. So we'll go right now with discussion item B1, Bear Care Updates, Lisa Ouren, and is it Jessica Miehe? - [Jessica] Yes. - Welcome. -
003Thank you. (attendee speaks faintly) - [Lisa O.] Good evening, members of the school board. Tonight, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Jessica Miehe. She is the executive clinical director of Bear Care. Welcome, Jess. - Thank you. - Yes. - Thank you. All right, thank you for inviting us today. We're excited to be here. My name is Jess Miehe. I'm also a parent of the district and a graduate of White Bear High School, too. I guess I'll introduce you. - I'm Nellie Swanson. I'm one of the pediatric nurse practitioners in the Bear Care Clinic. - And I'm Lisa Borneman, and I provide mental health services and then have an intern at Bear Care. - Okay. Okay, just a little bit about us. So we are a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We formed specifically to open a
004school-based health center in the White Bear Lake Area School district. Just kind of a little bit of background information. So we're a nonprofit that operates Bear Care in partnership with the district. So we're a separate entity, but we have a contract with the district to provide services for all students in the district, or kids who are little and upcoming into the district. Our mission is to provide accessible and affordable health care to children of all ages to improve health and educational outcomes. So we're located now in the new high school. We're located right in between the main office and the school health office, which is a really great spot for us. We have a beautiful clinic space that allows us to see even more kids than we have in the past. So it's functioning really
005great for us. We're open before school hours, after school hours, to try to be as accessible as we can to families so that parents have fewer hours that they need to miss for work, or kids can, if they're sick during the school day, they can even come to us. School nurses offer referrals to us a lot. Some of the services we offer, I've listed here, sports physicals, wellness exams, acute illnesses. We see a lot of immunizations, mental health, nutrition counseling, outreach and education. And occupational therapy is a new service we're offering, and my colleagues will give some more information about that. Last year we had a student, Ben McMillen, I think he actually graduated last year, produce this Bear Care video. So I think it will work. Should I go ahead and press that? Okay.
006- [Voiceover] The Bear Care Clinic offers a range of health services right at White Bear Lake Area High School. We are located near the main entrance next to the front office of the high school. The clinic can provide students with sports physicals and wellness exams, illness treatment, up-to-date immunizations, and mental health and nutrition counseling. They can see, diagnose, and provide treatment if needed, all in the same day. Students are commonly seen for strep throat, ear infections, influenza testing, and much more. The clinic is open to any child and student in the White Bear Lake area School district, and they see about 1,200 kids every year. When students feel their best, they learn their best. The Bear Care Clinic seeks to take down any barriers that may stand in a student's way to receiving quality health
007care. Schedule an appointment on our website, call us at 651-444-6750, or just stop by the clinic today. (bright gentle music) - All right. He has a great voice for that voiceover. All right. Here's our clinic staff. So we have a wide variety of very experienced expert staff. We're a nurse-led organization, which is a fairly unique model, different from a traditional medical model. So we're staffed by many nurses. We have pediatric nurse practitioners, family nurse practitioners in our clinic. And then we also have, instead of using medical assistants, we actually have registered nurses to provide care so that we can bring in clinical students. We have a partnership with St. Kate's, and we bring in clinical students from nursing programs, social work programs, nutrition programs, and then we mentor them in the clinic, too, to provide
008that care. We also have, Lisa is our mental health provider, and then we have a dietician who, I'll get into a little bit more about what she does, but she does one-on-one counseling and then also does outreach and nutrition education within the schools as well. Am I forgetting anybody? I think that's about it, okay. We just invited, or approved, I guess, some new board of directors members for this year. So this is a list, many community members. So we're super excited for this year to have a really, a great board, and full of great ideas and people that contribute to Rise Up. We had a very busy year. We had a few achievements that I wanted to recognize for, that our staff have helped achieve this year. We were named the Pediatric Organization of the
009Year by the Minnesota chapter of the National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners. So that was a big deal for us. We continue to achieve our gold standards measurements through the Association of Free and Charitable Clinics. And I think, actually, it was 24, we were voted the best pediatric clinic in "White Bear Lake Magazine." We continued to be a safety net provider, or essential community provider that serves high risk, special needs, or underserved individuals. And then in the spring, we were highlighted in the "Twin Cities Business Magazine" as an example of school-based health centers in Minnesota. Last spring, Mr. Gritzmacher's art class designed and created artwork for our Bear Care Clinic. So we have this beautiful space full of white walls, so we wanted to make it more inviting and welcoming to kids. What we have
010heard from families is that, when they come in with their little kiddos, it's not as intimidating. It doesn't feel like a doctor's office. So we wanted to provide some more warmth and artwork, and these kids did an amazing job. So if you're ever in the high school, swing by and see this very cool artwork that they did. We're hoping to do another round of this this year, too, with the high school students. Our nutrition outreach has expanded quite a bit. So this fall, Dr. Baumler, she partnered with community services to offer cooking classes in Central Middle School. They had, I think, I don't know, 17 or 19, Tim, something like that, students who came in and did some cooking, learned how to cook, and created these amazing dishes. This fall, we partnered with Lincoln Elementary
011to bring in, there's a garden club at Lincoln and a new community garden, so kids came and they picked vegetables and produce from the garden. And then we created healthy recipes and taught them about the vitamins and the minerals of what they were eating. So that's been really fun. And then new this fall, we just added occupational therapy to Bear Care Clinic. So we partnered with Oneka Elementary to offer afterschool OT sessions for any elementary student in the district. So we actually, I think, had 29 maybe, or 30 students sign up for this. So they come once a week, on Tuesdays or Thursdays, and there's a curriculum each week to sort of develop their executive functioning, emotional-social learning skills, life skills. And then we do some sort of one-on-one activities with students to help meet
012their individual goals set by their parents. All right, Lisa? - [Lisa B.] Okay, so mental health services, we provide individual counseling to young people in the district. And we see young people of all ages, which has really been wonderful, that folks have wanted to, been able to use our services. In individual therapy, we use play as a part of the therapy. We also, I have been trained in sand tray therapy, so I've been providing that as an option. And then we, also, you know, do interpersonal therapy, talking as young people get older. We've been able to provide some grief groups each year, which has been nice. And so it's not necessarily a grief therapy group. It's more of a support group for young people to just know that they're not alone in the school, and
013that other people have experienced loss, too. And so it's just a time when we gather. So we did, we've had a couple in elementary schools, and then this last year, we did a couple of them in the middle schools. And now this year, the middle schools have asked us to come back and do groups on some other things, so on relationships, healthy relationships, and, like, friendships, and I think we're also, we might be doing one around anxiety and just sort of, like, you know, coping skills and that kind of thing to help young people. And then, also this year, because the intern that I've taken on this year is actually there during the school day, we've been able to provide more mobile counseling. I've done a little bit of it where I've gone over... I
014came over to, now Mariner, but when it was South High, I was over providing counseling to a student there. But we have a couple of elementary-aged students who are receiving counseling. So it's been great, and we have an opportunity to collaborate and help one another. And we just really appreciate the support that we've received. - And I also wanted to mention, as we add these services, mental health services, occupational therapists, we work really closely with the districts and the support staff who are already providing that care out in the schools. So we're really sort of providing the gap that is needed. So for example, occupational therapy students who might not qualify for in-school services but maybe need some outside services, so we're there providing that gap. Because I think we're really lucky in this district
015that we have such incredible student support services. So we work really closely with the district to make sure that we are not stepping on toes or taking away from the work that's already been done. We wanna support that. - [Nellie] Okay, and I'm gonna talk a little bit about the health services that we provide. So we're able to do kind of, any of the sort of basic pediatric care that you might see in a clinic, but with some limitations, of course. We did recently expand some of our services. So we have the naloxone designation. We have started doing wart treatments for some of those skin issues that students will have. We have a special light now to help us kind of diagnose different problems that students might have. And we also can do kind of
016a basic eye exam, not for a major eye injury, but for example, like a corneal abrasion or some sort of a minor eye injury. We do lots of strep testing, and we even have got some new equipment in the last year. So we have an even more accurate testing where we don't have to send out labs on those. And then we also have a partnership with a local pharmacy, where we can fill prescriptions for students and families who might not have access to insurance or other sources of coverage for their needed prescriptions. And so just to kind of reiterate as well what's so important about these services that we hear from families so often is that students would have to miss a lot of school in order for parents to be able to take them
017to appointments. Oftentimes, when students are leaving school sick, parents may not have access to places to take them and may need to get, like, a strep test or something done quickly. And so we're able to really work in a lot of students at the last minute. And many times, those referrals do come directly from staff within the school, such as the nurse's office. And so we hear a lot that parents are very thankful that this is available to them so that they're able to get the care that they need without missing a lot of work or other time in class. So just overall, appointments are growing. You can see, in the last year, we've grown to over 1,500 appointments. So this has been growing steadily, which is wonderful. And then if you look at some
018of the patient ages that we serve and the different appointment types that we're seeing, certainly, the high school, being located in the high school, we do see the majority are coming from there. But we do get kids from middle school, some who are able to walk over, some who need to be driven, and the elementary as well, and a small number of early childhood, toddler age, I would say, is probably the youngest that we see. And then you can see kind of the breakdown of the types of appointments. So vaccines make up a huge proportion of the work that we're providing. And oftentimes, you know, students who've maybe gotten behind on vaccines, maybe don't have access for places to go to get that care or need to kind of get them done urgently because of
019deadlines, we're able to get that done. And we do a lot of work in reviewing records that students have and trying to figure out the best plan to get them up to date, you know, without duplicating if we can, and providing lots of education and health promotion around vaccine-preventable disease. So that's a huge part of what we do. Sport physicals, of course, we're always doing those, almost every day. But as the different sports come around and their different deadlines for registration, we'll see big influxes, you know, depending upon whichever sport is coming up. And we also do open the clinic throughout the summer on different days so that we can help to get more of those sport physicals done for those earlier ones. And then, of course, the mental health counseling and then the illness
020and sick-type clinic visits as well. All right, so this is just some examples of evaluation surveys that we've received and some direct quotes from families. And as you can see that many, many families in the district do face challenges in paying for health care and having access to those services. So we are definitely filling a community need for the students here. And, also, there are many people who tell us, and the survey shows, that if it were not for our service, they may have had to go to an emergency room, an urgent care, and in some cases, they may not have had access to care at all. So that's certainly very important to think about as we continue our work. And when we think about, you know, why they chose to use, convenience is number
021one, of course. It's convenient for, you know, parent schedules, student schedules, and then also where they live, and then cost certainly, and that they feel that we are providing high-quality and thoughtful care for them. So it's very reassuring to us to hear this. And we do hear a lot of these comments just in person when people come in, that they're just very grateful that they had the opportunity to be served. - [Jessica] That's me? Okay. So as we continue to grow, you can see from those numbers, we've grown significantly over the past handful of years. We updated our billing practices to ensure that we can remain sustainable and available to the community. So for a long time, we sort of called our services, when we opened, free. And now we're moving to a more sort
022of traditional nonprofit, kind of federally qualified lookalike clinic. So we do have an internal billing system that we built ourselves. We sort of joke that we may have not ever done that had we known what it was like, but it's good that we have it in place. So what we are doing now is, we are sending a bill to families after we bill their insurance, if they have it. And if they are able to pay that full bill or part of it, it's considered paid in full. If they can't pay it, no problem. We still welcome them into the clinic. We want them to come. So that's been just a shift over the last month or two that's been different, and some patients weren't expecting that. But we are working through it and trying to
023really stay up to date with our communication on that and making sure patients and families know that we will never turn them away for their ability or inability to pay. But this practice will just ensure our sustainability. With current grant funding the way it is, we don't know what it will look like for us in the future. We're very financially stable at this point, and we wanna remain so. So that's just a little bit of an update on that. So I guess the last thing we wanted to say is just thank you to all of you, the community, the district, the school board, teachers, staff. We're really overwhelmed by the amount of support that we have received. And as Nellie mentioned, the feedback that we get from families is really inspiring, and we're thankful, and
024we know we're in the right spot. So here's our contact information. If you have questions or wanna reach out, we're happy to talk with you or meet with you. - [Chair Arcand] Thank you, that was awesome, everything that you're doing. - Thank you. - I'll put it up to the board, do we have any questions that they'd like to ask? Mr. Skaar? Okay. Ms. Beloyed? - [Ms. Beloyed] The mobile counseling, can you get a little bit more into that, explanation of what that is? - Yeah, so what we've done this year, we just have two young people, but we've worked with the family, and then also, once we got a release, with the school about, the family has actually asked for it so that they can, their child can see someone during the school day,
025and then we try to find the best time so that they're not missing coursework. And so we work with the school once we have a release to figure out best timing for that. And then it's my intern right now who's been going over and meeting with a couple of different students. - [Ms. Beloyed] Okay. - We also use mobile health services. So we go out to every school in the district to provide specifically flu vaccines or school immunizations. So I think we had maybe, on a site, we have 14, I think we just added one, 15 different mobile clinics this fall, where we go out to the elementary schools, the middle schools, the alternative learning center, because we know that not everybody can get to us. So we try to meet students and families where
026where they need us to be. So that's a huge part of our work, and it's really been working pretty well. Yeah - Okay. Is there a schedule of costs for those services? So for those that are paying out of pocket, do you have a set list of- - We do, yeah. That's all listed on our website. And then if they make an appointment with advanced notice, we can actually send that information to them ahead of time so they have an estimate of what that would look like, yeah. - Is there any identification required to get an appointment? - Yeah, so on our consent form, what we have is, if patients have insurance requirements, or they have insurance, we have them submit all that information ahead of time. For minors, we don't typically check their, you
027know, they don't have a license or things like that. But we rely on the families in the school to make referrals and help us with that. - So can, say, a 15-year-old at the high school, can they go in and make an appointment for themselves? - No, all of our primary care would require consent, based on Minnesota state law. - Okay. - Yeah. - [Ms. Beloyed] Okay, that's it. Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Thank you. Other questions? Okay, go ahead, Ms. Streiff Oji. - [Ms. Streiff Oji] I just had a question on the grant funding. It looks like that's a big portion of your funding. Is it state or federal, or is it a combination? - We don't have any federal funding, we have state funding, and then a lot of private foundations as well.
028- Great. - Yeah. - Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] All right. Other questions, Mr. Skaar? - (coughs) So (clears throat) with respect, I'm sorry, with respect to your financials, I've looked up your 990, and you had about a 30% deficit in 2023. And you only had net assets of 7,000. So can you talk about the financial stability of this organization? - Yeah, so with grant funding, it's a little tricky because they come in at different times of the year. - I understand. - Yeah, so that's maybe not an accurate reflection of what we're doing this year. But we feel very confident about where we are as far as sustainability goes. - So given that, and given that you now are getting insurance reimbursements, right, so have we monetized the rent that... You know, you occupy
029space. Do you pay rent to the district? - [Jessica] We don't. - So why? - [Jessica] I will maybe defer that to the district. - [Participant] We can get back to you on that response. - [Participant] Yeah, that's an our agreement with Bear Care, we provide the space, and they provide the service. - Okay, is that legal that we're allowed to do that? - [Participant] Yeah, we can legally do that. - How do I know that? - [Participant] I can provide that information for you. - Yeah, that would be good. - Not at this moment. - Right. Thank you. - [Jessica] I just wanna say, also, that is the typical model of school-based health centers. - It is? - Yeah. - That's helpful. Thank you. - Yep. - The other thing I looked, and I
030used AI, so I admit this, there are 23 health care clinics in our immediate White Bear Lake area, 23. 10 of them are income based. So I'm wondering, you know, is part of the strategy here that this will eventually creep into the school district's budget, this clinic? - [Jessica] No, we're a separate nonprofit entity. - I understand that. - And that's best practice to remain separate from a school for school-based health centers, within the state and nationwide. So really best practice, because schools follow FERPA, clinics follow HIPAA, and to continue to make sure that that delineation remains in place, we purposely do not wanna take any money from the district. - [Mr. Skaar] I understand. How long is your contract with the district? - We renew it annually. - [Mr. Skaar] Do you indemnify the
031district? - Yes. - So- - Yep. - If somebody comes into your clinic, sues us, you indemnify it, so you take the risk and you- - Yep, so anything- - Right? Correct. - Any of the services, the care that we provide is our responsibility, yeah. - [Mr. Skaar] So you do indemnify the district? - Yeah, and I think Tim can- - For the risk. - They do? Okay. - answer that. So one of the things... Do you typically reach out to the primary caregiver for the students? If they're under 16, or if they're over 16, does that make a difference? - [Jessica] 16, 16 is not, besides for mental health care, that's not part of the state statute. - Okay. - Yeah. And it would depend on the situation. So we would need a release
032of information in order to talk to anybody about somebody's care. So if they wanted us to collaborate or talk to their primary care provider, we would need a release of information from the family to be able to do that. - I see, so, and this might seem like an obvious question, but I ask obvious questions. You're all accredited, including the mental health. - Yep, correct. Yeah. - Correct, right? So what kind of ethical commitment do you have to parents in the district? Do you have a code of ethics related to your commitment to parents? - Tell me more. I'm not sure what you mean by that. - Well, you're taking care of the students, right? And the parents should know about this. They should be notified, do you have- - We can't provide any type
033of primary care to students under the age of 18 with parental consent. There's certain services per state law that would require us to do so, but any of the care that we typically provide, primary care services, we need parental consent for that. - So given that we're captive, the district's captive to your, you know, you have a monopoly, so to speak, we're captive, why wouldn't we include parents on the board of your organization? - [Jessica] Well, we have parents on our board. - Parents of high school students? - [Jessica] Yep, mm-hmm. - Can you tell me who they are? - Sure. Well, besides myself, there are- - [Mr. Skaar] But you also work for the clinic. Do you have any non-affiliated board members that are strictly parents? - Yes, we do, so Josiah Lamb and
034Chris Voeller. - [Mr. Skaar] So you have two. - Mm-hmm. - All right. - There's other parents on the board, but they also have some affiliation with the district as well. - Okay. Let me see. Oh, metrics on success, whether we're doing well or not, I mean, our district's attendance, if you look at our surrounding districts, Mahtomedi, Centennial, Forest Lake, Stillwater, Mounds View, we're second to the last. So how is this clinic helping attendance, given those results, and that that's a trend? So that's two years in a row we're second to the worst. - So we can't take full credit for any attendance, positives or negatives. However, what Nellie presented is the feedback that we are getting and the evaluation that we are getting from students and families is that we are saving them time,
035seat time. So they're getting more seat time by using our clinic as compared to a clinic outside of the school. - [Mr. Skaar] That's entirely subjective. - It is, however, we have participated in a national school-based health study about two years ago, and on average, students were saving about eight hours of seat time by using our school-based health center. - [Mr. Skaar] But that doesn't show up in any of our results. - Yeah, we don't have, I don't have control over absences and that kind of thing. We feel that our work is contributing to keeping kids in school, keeping them healthy. I think that's maybe a school board consideration. - Well, that's why I'm bringing it up. Thank you. - [Jessica] Mm-hmm. (attendee speaks faintly) - [Chair Arcand] Okay, thank you. Yes, Ms. Daniels? -
036Just a couple questions. I am really grateful that you're here and that you provide those services. It sounds like the families are also. We have a culture of gratitude in our community for what you provide, and I was wondering... I'm really excited to hear that you have OT services now. Is that a parent referral or is that a... How does that work? - Yeah, mostly. So what we did is we advertised it to all the elementary schools, and then the schools, the teachers, the support staff sent it to families. I think they made a decision whether they wanted to send it to specific families or the whole school. I think we had a combination of both. And then families signed up their own kids for it. - Okay. - Yeah. - [Ms. Daniels] Great, and
037thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Ms. Thompson? - [Ms. Daniels] Just a comment, again, you present to us every year, and I'm so grateful for everything you all do for our school and for our students and our families. And I'm just gonna say thank you. - Thank you very much. - Okay, well, thank you very much. And I just want to end by saying, doing this for our students, it's the right thing to do to help out our families. And I think that's the mission here, just helping our kids, so thank you. - Thanks. - Thank you. - [Jessica] Thank you. - Okay, we're gonna go to B2, Matoska International Update, Dr. Gillespie and Mr. Leininger. - [Alison] Chair Arcand, members of the board, I'd like to introduce John Leininger, principal at Matoska International Elementary, who
038will share an update on Matoska. Welcome, John. - [John] Thank you all. - [Participant] Sorry, I'm just trying to get it full screen for you. - [John] Thank you. - [Participant] There we go. Should be good. - All right, thank you, board members, district administrators. This is really exciting. I know this is one of the exciting times of year for all of us principals to be able to come and present about our schools, where we're at, what we're doing. Lots of great things happening here in all of our schools and also at Matoska International. For those of you, just a quick review, Matoska International, we are on the south side, not far from Century College and Festival Foods. We're largely a choice school here in White Bear Lake, where our families choose to come to
039Matoska. And it's really exciting to be able to offer these things to our district, our district families. And we're the largest elementary school. So we're so proud to serve our community. Our teachers and staff are hardworking, dedicated, as you all know. So the mission here at Matoska International, we're an an IB International World School. And really, we want to develop individual learners. We wanna achieve their maximum potential. I won't necessarily read through the whole mission statement, but it's always available. And what I appreciate about our mission statement and what we do is that this was developed by us as a community. So this was our parents, included students, staff, staff, not just teachers, but paras, but the entire community, who feel strongly and passionately about what we do for kids every day. So, and many
040of you remember, I was here not too long ago talking about the immersion programs that we're starting. You know, we have an immersion program at Matoska as well as Otter Lake. And when I was preparing for this, I was thinking I could probably spend a lot of time just talking about immersion. But this was really a time to talk about Matoska. But a couple quick highlights in our Matoska Immersion program, we have 42 kindergartners. It's a really strong, it's off to a really great start. We've had conferences, our first set of conferences last week, our next set of conferences coming up next week. And our parents are just really excited, very delighted. I'm hearing a lot of really positive feedback from parents and families. We are that 80/20 model. We've launched some really great curriculum,
041a lot hard work from our teachers and our staff, our district partners over the summer to really pull this together. When I first started this, it was kind of fun. I'm a principal, been doing this a long time, some interesting things, they said, hey, you know, we're thinking Matoska, an immersion program. Awesome, it'll be great, and then all of a sudden, it was like, okay, it got to summer, it was like, we've got a few things to figure out. And you know what, we've figured out nearly all of those things. And I think, you know, one of the things that I'm hearing as I talk to colleagues around the metro area and other immersion programs is how I hear from those schools how we're doing it right in White Bear Lake. A lot of people
042are like, wow, you're doing that at White Bear Lake already, your first year? It's like, yeah, like, we're figuring out benchmarking. We're figuring out the READ Act. We're figuring out how all of that applies to our students in our immersion program. So we will come, I know that, I think we're gonna be trying to find a time to come to the board again to talk more specifically about immersion. But there was just some of the highlights there. Student achievement, I know we talk a lot about student achievement. And I'm really excited to talk about student achievement. Our fifth grade class did really well. Our fifth grade students in literacy received a 75.6% met or exceed. And it's important to get a little bit of context to some of some of these numbers. So in the
043state of Minnesota, just about 50% of the students scored at a meet or exceeds, but that 75.6, that puts us in the top tier in the state of Minnesota. And I really don't like to, like, dive into comparisons, us, them, we, them. But sometimes it's good to put us into the context. And a lot of times, you know, in the world of education, we refer to our colleagues in the West Metro who typically have some really good test scores, and, you know, they claim to be in the top. And when we look at our Matoska students, like, we are right in the mix of what the state of Minnesota would call a top tier program, the top. You know, some school districts would say, oh, the top five. And I say, well, actually, we're in
044the top five. And anyway, like I said, we really don't want to... We really wanna just acknowledge everything that people do in education, including our partners in the West. I think an important point that we noticed here was that this particular group of fifth graders was, they entered first grade during the pandemic. That was their first year. When they launched, 32% of them were low risk, which means only 32% were in that green zone. Only 32% were ready for where they're going. They moved from that 32% grown to that 75.6%. So as I talk to our teachers and staff, as we celebrate our fifth grade, our fifth grade teachers, and the hard work, we have to remember, every grade, all along, all the way back to the very beginning, every teacher, if we look at
045the data, moved that notch, moved that notch, moved that notch, every single year. So, again, as we are proud of our fifth grade teachers, we're proud of all of our teachers who, every step of the way, brought us along. I like to also think about the Northeast Metro. Again, you know, going back to, you know, it's not about us or them. Everyone around in our neighborhood, as I sometimes refer to, does, works hard with the students that they work with. And our Matoska third through fifth grade with the MCAs are right there, you know, with our neighbors around us. They do very, very well. They perform well. We are very excited about what they do. There's so many good things to think about in third through fifth grade and all of our grades, you know,
046for academic achievement. Again, proud of our students, parents, families, for making that happen. Another piece of the student achievement I'd like to talk about, 'cause you know, sometimes we think about, we wanna think about, you know, some of those students who are having challenges in school, our students in special education. And when we look, when we dig into the data, it's kind of fun to dig into the data, we can see that our special education students show some really good growth. I'll explain just a little bit. There's what we call a CBM. It's curriculum-based measurement. It's kind of the classic, students read for a minute, and you know, for example, in second grade, their benchmark, their goal is 101. The average start in our second grade was 34. By the end of the year, last
047year, they grew to a 72. So we didn't quite make that benchmark, but a growth of 111%. And, you know, for students who have challenges, students who have special needs, that's really tremendous growth. We're not giving up on them. We're still gonna go. But it really speaks volumes to the work that our special education teachers and staff do in helping them achieve that kind of growth. So as we look forward, well, I like to say we are poised for success. Our graph on the left shows us where we are with the early reading. And we sometimes separate that K-1 and 2-5 'cause they're different assessments. So just sort of keep that in mind. But we know that our incoming kindergarten class actually is doing, you know, really well. They're poised for success. Our incoming first
048grade class, they've got a little bit of work to do, but we've got the staff to pull it off and make it happen. And it's actually really a good place to be in. But then we also look at our second, third, fourth, and fifth grade, that the green part is, those are what we would consider low risk. And they are right at that point where we want them to be. Again, if we were gonna hit the top tier, we would be in sort of that mid 70s. And we are sitting there right around that 70s. So when we look at our average growth every year with our students, we're in a really good spot to do well. And, again, our students are doing well. Our teachers are working hard, and lots to be proud of
049there, not only as a school, but you know, as a district. It takes an entire, it takes all of us. The support we receive from, you know, my colleagues and our district partners is huge. So what does it mean towards the future? Our students are doing great, but it doesn't mean that there aren't things that we need to work on. 'Cause I can assure you, you know, working in a lot of organizations, if I were to come up here and say everything's perfect, everyone would know that's not true. Like, we have a lot to work on. We've got, you know, the largest elementary school in White Bear Lake. We've got a lot of things to figure out. We've got our challenges along the way. But we also have good plans and a really good thought
050for the future. We are now, just started our third year of our new English language arts curriculum, which is really exciting. You know, as you may be remembering a lot of the presentations about, you know, language arts and curriculum adoption. You know, the first year is about just, what are we doing? The second year is like, now I understand how this works. We are now really excited because we can take all of that language arts curriculum and pair that with our data, and beginning to dive down and to say, okay, this particular student, that particular student, what do they need, how do we find it in the curriculum, and then how can we unroll that and put that into practice to make sure that every student is getting what they need? And what I really
051like about that is you kind of, it's a nod towards what we try to do here in White Bear Lake and making sure every child gets what they need, no matter where they're at, you know, from kindergarten all the way through high school. So another area of focus that we are is that early intervention in reading. We know that if students launch, early in their elementary careers, behind, it's really hard to get them caught up. So what we're really trying to do is say, what do we need to do in our younger grades to make sure, as they grow, they're ready for core curriculum? As you maybe hear educators say a lot, you know, we can't intervention our way out of, you know, a challenge in reading. We have to catch them early, get them
052where they need to be. So we're putting some good energy into that. And then the other focus area that we're working on with our literacy in particular is increasing our student reflection and ownership. We know that the best way to learn is when our students own what they're doing, own what they're learning, thinking and reflecting about everything that they're doing in the classroom. So that's another one of our goals across across the board. Math is a very exciting part as well. We know that we are in the middle of a pilot program. We are really excited. Our teachers have been asking for math. It's like, can we get to math? They're super excited to work on that next step. So as a district, we're working on that curriculum adoption process. 38% of our teachers have
053already done additional training just on their own because they're interested in math education, how children develop their mathematical understanding, how to put those instructional ideas and practices into their every day. So I'm excited that our teachers are interested and excited. And five of our teachers, a significant number, actually volunteered and are participating in the pilot program. So lots of really great things happening there. So the other thing I'd like to talk about is towards the future. And this is one of the graphics that we talk about in our IB part of our program, which is the learner profile. And, you know, if you've ever taken a tour with me, one of the things that I really like to talk about... I actually pull out, you know, my device here. What's super fascinating about this device
054is, our high school seniors who graduated last year, this was like the first year it came out. Like, they were born at a time when these kinds of things didn't even exist. So when we think about the learner profile, I think about, how do we prepare our students for the future where it doesn't exist? Not just their technology, their jobs, their approaches, how the world works doesn't exist yet for our young kids. So as we develop great learners for reading, writing, math, science, those are really important, but we also develop the kind of learner that will adapt to whatever it is we don't even know yet and can't even imagine yet. So we're developing students for a future. And as we sometimes say, we don't want them, we don't want them just to survive, we
055want them to thrive, we want them to engage, so they're inquirers, they're knowledgeable, they're thinkers, they're communicators, they're principled, they're open-minded, they're caring, they're risk-takers, balanced and reflective, so that they can engage in the future. That's gonna be super awesome for everyone. So that is a really quick, a really quick view of where we are at Matoska. But I really appreciate our school board and the commitments that you make, and our district partners who help us every single day. And I'm open for questions or comments. - [Chair Arcand] Any questions? Mr. Skaar? - I would just say that I'm excited just to listen to you. Did you start that podcast career yet? - (laughs) I almost brought my puppet shows back but thought, well, 172 every year, so, so many. - Well, I have... You
056know, as far as, we do compete. So our district competes with the surrounding districts. We compete with private schools. We compete. And we need to be the district of choice, the school of choice. And I think, don't run away from looking at competitive statistics. It'll just make us better. - I appreciate that. - So thank you. - [John] Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Ms. Beloyed? - I feel like a broken record, but whenever we see these statistics, I always want to see the cohort over time, especially the, when we hear how much success that the fifth graders are having right now, seeing them, what their actual cohort was starting first grade, second grade, third grade, fourth grade. Just to see that over time, I think, is super helpful in trying to kind of figure out
057and identify where things worked, where we might've missed something. And I just think, we need to build on the success that your fifth graders have, and I think, and I know that you guys are looking back at those things. But for me, when we're sitting down, and we're analyzing the numbers, I like to see the cohort. Because I think that gives you a lot more information because it's over a period of time as opposed to just one year. 'Cause you could have different students. You have different teachers. So that would be super helpful, if we could get another one sort of like that. - Certainly, and I appreciate that. Again, that's why I wanted to bring up our fifth graders and where they started from, from the beginning. And you're absolutely right. Every class and
058every group that comes in looks different. I mean, you could see it in the graph, it's like, hmm, just different. And so that's where we get excited as educators. I mean, this is why we're here. It's like, how do we help each group of kids, each child sort of find their path and be their best? - It would be interesting to see, to watch this fifth grade group as they move on to middle school and see how they do, sixth, seventh, eighth. 'Cause that's gonna be, I mean, eighth grade's gonna be that really determining factor of how the rest of high school's gonna go for them. So I'll look forward to- - [John] They're gonna impress you. (group chuckles) - I'm sure they will. Thank you so much. - [Chair Arcand] All right, Ms. Streiff
059Oji? - So thank you for sharing with us about Matoska, and also that fifth grade cohort and where they started. And I hope that we can really look at what is being done and how that progress was made to get them to where they are. It's very exciting, and I know there's lots being done across the district in the area of literacy. But I'm also super impressed, and wanna thank you and your teachers, that 38% of your teachers also did additional training in math when the requirements around the READ Act are so intense right now and over the last few years. So thank you, and thanks for your leadership, John. - [John] Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Ms. Daniels? - Thanks, John, enthusiastic as always in your reports. And I appreciate that. I also appreciate
060the fact that you highlighted some special ed cohorts, some special ed classes. That's really great to hear that they're making substantial gains, and we have a lot of, we wanted to say, wonderful teachers, regular teachers and special ed teachers, and support staff that make it all happen, and great leadership, and that is you. So thank you very much. - Thank you very much, appreciate that. - [Chair Arcand] Ms. Thompson? - Yes. Again, thank you for your presentation. Broken record up here, I think we're all very grateful for all our principals do for the district. I also agree that it is important to compare ourselves to what other school districts are doing and just see kind of what's happening in other districts. I just would like to proceed with a little caution that we are different
061than other school districts. We are not the same, so when we look at them, we need to take that into consideration. I get a... Mahtomedi I was my school district. It does not compare to White Bear Lake. It doesn't have any Title I schools, it doesn't have... It's not even anywhere near a comparison to what our school district is made up of. So those comparisons to me are not valid ones, because we're comparing not even apples to oranges, 'cause it's not even a fruit. We're comparing an apple to a head of lettuce. It's not the same thing. But I do find the importance in making sure that we are comparing to what is happening in districts that are comparable to our district. And I know that you all, as professionals, do that work, and you
062get together as educators, and you kind of look and say, hey, what is this district doing? How can we implement that here? And I'm sure other districts are looking at what we're doing and saying, hey, let's look at what White Bear Lake is doing. So I just wanted to recognize that, and thank you for coming today. - Thank you. - I just want- - [Chair Arcand] Mr. Skaar, you wanna- - Yeah, I just wanna- - Quick comment, please. - address that, I think that's an excuse that I've heard many times. It's just an excuse. I mean, we should be able to adapt to be on top. The key to being excellent is to adapt based on who you're serving, and we certainly can do that. And our students here are just as good or better
063than the surrounding districts, and we should do a better job. - [Ms. Thompson] They are just as good. They have different needs than other districts' students. - Thank you both. I wanna end this by saying- - I have another question. - Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Ms. Beloyed. - I just, back to the... I have a special place in my heart for the special education portion of this. Have you found over the years that the reading benchmarks for the third and fourth graders tend to be an accelerated growth as opposed to, like, second and fifth? I mean, is that kind of... Have you found that to be the sweet spot, so to speak? - Can you explain a little bit more of, like, the sweet spot for? - Do you see more growth from the special
064education students, at least for reading, in that third and fourth grade time period? - Well, you know, I would say, I mean, yes, it's a pretty important time. What's interesting is when we look at our youngest, our kindergarten and first grade, what's really, what we really try to tease out in those younger grades is which students actually have, like, specific learning disabilities, which students are just needing some more time to get caught up. So when we reach that second and third grade, that's when we begin to sort of tease out and say, okay, some of our students just need a little more support. Now catching up and taking off versus some of our students who actually have, you know, state-qualified specific learning disabilities. You know, obviously, you know, maybe not obviously, but you know, we
065all work closely with kids, our youngest kids are our biggest sponges, you know, as we sometimes say. I'll give a nudge back to, like, the immersion program. It's one of the interesting things. It's like, you know, we talk about all of the new words and new vocabulary for our five-year-olds in immersion programs. It's like, well, a lot of their English words and vocabulary are brand new, too, when they come to school, Everything is new, and so our our youngest are really sponges. That kind of, sort of gets teased out in that first and second grade or K-1, and then second and third grade, you really do begin to see some of those leaps that we talked about. - Feel like maybe you kind of hit on it, because third grade is typically, at least when
066you look back through our scores, is when a lot of those kids seem to catch up from first and second grade. So 100%, growth is not surprising for the third graders. - Oh yeah, right. - But that's kind of why I'm wondering if that fifth and fourth grade type is- - Sure, and frequently, we'll say in schools when, you know, when we meet with our SPED team and child study, you know, when we're looking at our, particularly like our third graders, if they're not quite missing the mark, we're like, we should be digging into this a little bit more 'cause we would typically see some pretty strong growth. - Okay. Thank you. - Thank you for the question. - Thank you, I just wanna say that I enjoyed your presentation, and one of the things
067that caught my ear, I believe you were talking about having our students reflect. And to me, that means a lot because we know that knowledge and our working memory lasts about five to 20 minutes, and we know that thinking is learning. And so if we're gonna, from that working memory, the short term memory, that reflection piece can help them transfer it and then eventually get it into the long-term memory. So that is such a key these days for our students to learn. That was good to hear. So thank you very much. - [John] Thank you very much. - All right. We are gonna move on to discussion item B3, Course Proposals, Ms. Babiash? - [Jennifer] Thanks, Chair Arcand, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak. We are here tonight to discuss our course proposals, changes to
068courses, and then any removals. And we'll have a discussion, answer any questions you may have, and then we'll come back to the board on November 10th for approval. So really, I just wanted to give kind of a overview of the, kind of looking at the district view and metrics as we're thinking about college and career readiness. And as we make decisions on courses for the high school, we really like to have some metrics. And so in the 2028-2029 school year, we worked with the greater Twin Cities United Way to help us define what does college and career readiness actually mean, and how can we have metrics to really show our kids are gonna be prepared for their next steps? And that's really where our career pathways took way. And then, also, we really wanted metrics
069for college readiness. And so with the help of the Greater Twin Cities United Way, we were able to come up with the metrics of, by 2026 that at least 40% of our 12th grade students had at least 12 college credits. And so you'll be able to see that trajectory. And we're well on our way to 2026 to meet that goal. But you can see on the right-hand side what courses or opportunities we offer to our high school students in order to obtain that college credit. And there's many different ways. We have our College in the Schools courses that our high school teachers teach, that we have affiliations with local colleges and universities. We have our Project Lead the Way courses. We have our Advanced Placement courses. We have our students that choose to do post-secondary
070enrollment options at the local colleges or universities. And then we also have articulated classes, which means at least 80% of our syllabus is aligned to that college or university syllabus. And then the colleges will look at that credit and accept that credit on their transcript. And so I just wanted to start with that as a metric. And we have a great team of high school administrators and educators here today. And I wanna introduce Russ Reetz, our high school principal, and our associate principal, Carrie Barth. - Thanks, Jen. Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having us today. Excited to share some new innovative courses with you. I wanted to ground us first in just how we work to try to deliver on our district's promise. We believe that at the high school, we exist to influence student
071belonging first, student agency or ownership of their learning, and this thing we call efficacy for and of learning. And we do that by asking all students to say yes to these three questions. Each day, we try to lean into helping our students feel a stronger sense of belonging. Much of the work we've done with the new five-by-three schedule as well as the new courses coming forward this evening is to help our students answer yes to, is this meaningful? And then finally, can I do this? Those four core values, the word roar has become sort of synonymous with our student body and staff in terms of how we're gonna support students and the way in which we're gonna try to show up for them and for each other each day. We spend a lot of time
072talking about the student experience and how that's changed over the years and ways in which that we're trying to put students at the center of our decisions, that we're looking at ways in which we can improve how students feel about their time spent at Whiter Bear Lake Area High School and what it's gonna mean for them after they graduate. We really do care a lot about students saying they are happy and proud of their experience while at White Bear Lake Area High School. Before I move on, I just wanna do one last shout-out to our staff. We have successfully transitioned to a new bell schedule, a five-by-three schedule. And we did so in the midst of moving and unifying our two campuses. It was a tremendous amount of work for our staff. They came forward
073with some really great and innovative courses last year. We created our first five-by-three trimester schedule. And our staff is still adjusting to a 68-minute period and 12- and 24-week courses. And they've done so really, really well. Our students seem to be adjusting. Our staff has found lots of different positive ways to think about the new schedule and what the opportunities mean. The courses brought forward tonight are really our first attempt at what we might adjust or what we've learned coming out of that first bell schedule. So I'm gonna start with language arts. We're introducing maybe the most significant changes in regards to this department. Did I lose my mic? I didn't do anything. Check one. So I thought I would start here, and I'm gonna invite Katelin Held, Dr. Held, and Allie McCann to join
074the table, in case you have any questions at the end of just language arts, and then we'll get through all of the other courses. But this is really a significant change to how students are gonna experience language arts 9 through 12. First, in ninth grade, all students in the general courses are receiving three full trimesters of English Language Arts, A, B, and C. If students choose the accelerated route, right now that's called the honors route, so we're changing to accelerated, they will get all of those standards done in 24 weeks. And so we're calling it accelerated and replacing the word honors there. In 10th grade, students will begin choice in their experience throughout this department. All students will be required to have a literature and a composition component to their learning, but they're gonna choose
075sort of their own experience or their own adventure starting in 10th grade. You can see the two different options they have in literature and the two they have in composition. Any questions specifically about those courses or those experiences, these two amazing teachers will be able to help with that. We're also proposing that we add AP Seminar. This would be one of the few AP courses available for students in the 10th grade year. We currently have AP Bio and AP Pre-Calc. But this would be one more course where students could earn their language arts credits in both composition and literature through the completion of that AP Seminar course. And hopefully, we fulfill that promise of 40% of our students graduating with 12 or more college credits. We continue those choices in 11th and 12th grade. There's
076more options for students on how they may fulfill their literature and composition buckets in both junior and senior year. And you can see there at the bottom, we also have options for students that are interested in AP Lit, AP Comp, as well as maybe taking AP Seminar as a junior or senior. They can also choose to take CIS Lit and CIS Writing in their 12th grade year. Our last sort of slide with language arts, and then we can pause and answer any questions you may have, is in regards to some elective options for students. We went through a pretty comprehensive process in asking our students to participate in helping us better understand what it is they wanna experience in language arts and what sort of electives they were most interested in taking. We learned, by
077listening to our students, that we didn't have enough opportunity for students in, like, the performance or speech area. And so that's where a lot of the theater courses come from, as well as some of our public speaking courses. We also added lots of lit and writing courses that students said they were interested in taking. So that's sort of where we landed on... The new courses that you see there with a star, I think there's nine of them that we're gonna ask for approval on November 10th. So I'll stop there, and if there's any board members that have questions for me or for our language arts teachers, then we'll get back to some of the other departments. - [Chair Arcand] Questions? Yes, Ms. Streiff Oji? - [Ms. Streiff Oji] I have a question on Narratives of
078Resilience; what is that? - So we had a lot of teachers come forward and students come forward with different lit topics that were voices from some underrepresented populations. And it was really difficult to say yes to one but not yes to all. We really struggle if there's too many choices that none of the classes will run, because it'll split interest. So that course came forward to represent a bunch of different groups that are maybe at the margin and are underrepresented in other literature courses, where we'd still be able to deliver on some of the state standards that are required of us, but we would do so through a different lens of resiliency. - Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Yes, Mr. Skaar? - Well, I was just gonna, I brought up AI before, because I know
079people that have written books based on using AI, ChatGPT, the good version or the upgraded version, right. So this isn't really a question for you, but I think I had asked to have that as an agenda item at one of the board meetings. I would strongly suggest that we add that. - [Chair Arcand] Okay, so do you have a question about the English offerings that we have before us? - No, I wanted- - Okay. - I wanted to tie it in to a request that I made before. - Okay. So I think we wanna focus right now on the English ELA requirements. So any other further questions on the ELA? Yes, Ms. Thompson? - No questions, just really exciting to see the list of all the additions, and several that I would love to take,
080(chuckles) if I could. I don't wanna go back to high school, so I won't. But I'm sure the students will enjoy some of these offerings. And I did have a question on the Narratives of Resilience, so that was already covered, but thank you. - Okay, I have a couple of questions I don't wanna forget. My first one is ELA accelerated 9, so when that's AB, is that gonna be offered just AB, or will you maybe schedule it BC or AC, depending on how it works out? 'Cause I know you have the three trimesters. Are you gonna do it all the way through, or is it just for sure AB? - They might not necessarily be consecutive. - Okay, that's what- - So the students- - I was wondering. - could have it one in three,
081or yep. - Okay, my other question was, when I'm looking at these electives, many of them, I assume, will be able to actually meet their liberal arts requirement for the state? So they'll earn those there, at least a half credit of it at least? Do you know which ones you're gonna designate for that art requirement? - [Jennifer] Yeah, I think, if they're in the board packet, there is the descriptions of each of the courses that we're proposing. And it says on there if it meets a requirement for graduation or if it's an elective. - [Chair Arcand] Okay, 'cause even electives can meet the art requirement, that's why I was asking. - Okay. - [Chair Arcand] 'Cause I see a lot of them here that perfectly fit, so that was my only question. I think it's
082great, I think this is a great opportunity, 'cause we also know giving student choice increases their engagement in school. So any other questions on this? Yes, Ms. Beloyed? - [Ms. Beloyed] Why the change from honors to accelerated? What was the reasoning behind that? - Well, we wanted to accurately describe what the experience was going to look like. The standards that are covered in general and in now accelerated are the same, but you're covering them in 24 weeks instead of 36. So that's the general idea behind it. We just thought it more accurately described what the students would experience. - Okay, thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Okay, we can continue. Thank you. (attendees speak faintly) - So we have other teachers from these departments here, too, that can step up and answer any questions as we
083move through. But we thought we would give you a quick snapshot of these other new courses in each department and maybe an explanation why it came forward. And then we'll answer any questions you have at the end. So Art is proposing a Sports Photography & Multimedia 2 course. We just started Sports Photography & Multimedia 1 this year, and we had 10 sections of students interested in taking that course. And so this course would allow those students to continue their work and hopefully start providing content for all of our extracurricular programs, including things like the video board, entrance videos, all those types of fun and innovative experiences that may lead to a profession down the road. Art is also bringing forward a Printmaking course. This course would also provide a service back to our students in
084students being able to produce posters or other print materials, and then easily duplicate those throughout the school year. We're also proposing a Jewelry course. Really what this course is, is Jewelry was combined with? - Sculpture 1, and so Sculpture is gonna become its own course, and Jewelry will become its own 12-week course. And the Education course, this is the Grow Your Own Pathway. We partner with Minneapolis College for concurrent enrollment, and we currently have an Intro to Ethnic Studies course that we are proposing we replace with Multicultural Approaches to Education. This is the course that is more often selected around the metro area for those schools that are partnering with Minneapolis College in a Grow Your Own Pathway. Physical Education is proposing we add Power Basketball 2 and Power Volleyball 2. This, these two courses
085would focus more on the technical, tactical coaching approaches to the sports as well as many of the officiating approaches to both those two activities. Science is proposing we bring forward CIS Intro to Physics. This would actually replace Honors Physics and give our students an opportunity that maybe aren't as advanced in math. The math really matters in terms of whether or not a student is ready for AP Physics. But in this particular course, they could earn college credit and be at the level of Algebra 2. And so we think it's a really neat opportunity to bring forward to our students and would replace Honors Physics. Students in grades 11 or 12 could take this. They'd still have the option of taking Honors Chemistry, or, sorry, Honors Chemistry in 11, and then CIS Physics in 12, if
086they wanted to. Social Studies is bringing forward an Ethnic Studies YPAR, that's an acronym for Youth Participatory Action Research. This would be a project-based course where students would have some guided research, a guided research project with support from a teacher. They're also bringing forward History Through Pop Culture and Debate 2 as options for electives. Tech Ed is proposing Architectural Design 2. This would be a 9 through 12 trimester elective that would build on what our students are currently doing in Architectural Design 1. World Language has asked for an ASL Literature and Film Making course. This would be a course that students could take after completing ASL 1. Heritage Spanish would like to make a minor change. We are offering that class for the first time this year as a one-trimester elective. This proposal would provide
087a second trimester to students that were interested in taking two trimesters of Heritage Spanish. And then our Work Based Learning, we currently offer Career Seminar and Work Experience to our students in the Grow Your Own Pathway only. So that is how students have the option of working with our extended day programs and earning credit while doing so. We would like to extend that to other pathway programs at the high school. So this would give students an opportunity to earn credit and earn some money out in the field. I'm gonna turn it over to Carrie. Carrie is our associate principal in charge of staffing and scheduling. And she's gonna take you through course changes and course removals. - Good evening, most of the course changes, a lot of them are just minor name changes. So we
088add a second level of Power Volleyball, we gotta kind of make the first one the first level. So Sports in Photography and Multimedia, we just needed to add a 1 to that, since we're proposing a second class there. Mr. Reetz already spoke about Sculpture and Jewelry. But Ceramics, again, we're just gonna add wheel throwing to a course description, some very minor changes. Sculpture 1 is now a prereq for Ceramics 2. These are changes within the Language Arts department. These are all name changes. They were on the previous document in parentheses. It maybe said, like, ELA 10 A or 10 B. These are just name changes. The courses really aren't changing. The name changes really facilitates the flexibility and scheduling for students. When you have an A and a B, they need to be taken in
089that order. The change that they are proposing allows students to take either language arts course first. It does not matter, as long as they get their two in for the year. So it just gives them more flexibility in what they can take throughout their school year. First Aid and CPR, that is a concurrent enrollment class that we offer with Anoka-Ramsey. They require that you're in grades 10 through 12 to get that college credit. So we're just aligning with them on that one. The Intro to Exercise Science, again, that's a first run this year, and they're gonna just propose that we take that down to one trimester, because they believe that they can get through that curriculum. And, again, that's gonna give those students more flexibility of getting through it in one trimester. That's a college
090credit course as well. And then Weights for Athletes, they're proposing that our athletes can take that multiple times for different sports, and that they can take that multiple years depending on their sport that they're in. Same thing for that Zero Hour, that's just before school starts to give our students some flexibility. Yoga, we're just adjusting to grades 10 through 12. And then the changes for the Power Basketball, names 1 and 1. Algebra is, for math, we're just going to change that Algebra 3 with Trig to just straight Algebra 3. Planet Earth and Its Climate, we are going to incorporate our Green Foundations and Sustainability Class within that to make sure that we have an opportunity to give students exposure to that. Chemistry A and B, again, that's a name change, that's just a flexibility in
091the scheduling, 'cause those can be taken in any order. They're not sequential, and so that helps us there. And then Heritage Spanish becomes Heritage Spanish 1, if we add that second level. World History has requested Social Studies to add this course as a hybrid option. Hybrid options mean that students attend in person with that teacher approximately 50% of the time. The other time, they are working independently and working on assignments outside of classrooms. So think more of a college-type structure of you're in class two to three days a week, and then you work on your own and do what you need to do outside of that. Our teachers are still available to students who need that help. They are in their classrooms. They are there. So if students do want to come, they are available,
092but they are not required to. We just have a name change for our Adaptive Phy Ed class, for our special education students. Just more aligns with some of the other name changes that we made last year. And Architectural Design, since we're looking at adding a second one, just making the that one Architectural Design 1. So now we're gonna look at for our proposed course removals. Primarily, these courses are courses that have not run in over three years or just have not, or have lost interest over time. So within, that we're looking at German. That has not run for multiple years. AP Art History, that's a course that used to be a semester. We broke it into two tris, hoping that it would get some traction this year. That did not happen. And so the art
093department is proposing that we remove those. The Consumer Econ, that's attrition. That has just gradually declined over the years. More students, I think, are just taking Personal Finance, and that's where their interest is. The Computer Hardware and Tech course is really students are currently in our service learning. So they will spend one hour a day working in their tech depot, repairing computers with our tech staff. And so we're just gonna remove that because we are already providing that through our service learning opportunities. Percussion Ensemble, that's just incorporating back into our bands. That was something that they had pulled out for a while and done just percussion. And then the Beginning Instrumental Ensemble, again, there's just, the enrollment has not been there. Health and PE for 11/12, that is a graduation requirement that is no longer
094needed because of our new structure and how the grad reqs are. And Honors Physics, as Dr. Reetz said, would be replaced with CIS Physics. That's pending instructor approval. The Environmental Science and then the Green Foundations course are two that we're looking to remove as well. In addition, Honors US History, because we offer AP History with college credit, we are gonna propose that we remove that. We do have other options available to students. Graphic Arts, again, has not run. Creative writing, that's just being replaced with the Introduction to Creative Writing, and just a minor name change there. Same consideration with Yearbook. And then the Intro to Ethnic Studies course dropping, as Dr. Reetz said, replacing that with the Multicultural Approaches to Education. - [Russ] All right, thanks, Carrie. Any questions? - [Chair Arcand] Any questions? Yes,
095Ms. Streiff Oji? - [Ms. Streiff Oji] I have a question on the Multicultural Approaches to Education. You said it's a part of the Grow Your Own. Can you, is it- - [Russ] Yeah, we have a- - [Ms. Streiff Oji] People that wanna become teachers? - Correct, we have an education pathway where students are enrolled, obviously, at White Bear Lake High School as well as Minneapolis College. All the courses are on campus. Each year, you'll see we're adding an additional course based on the grant that we wrote. It's a five-year grant for around $500,000. Last year, we moved to add Intro to Ethnic Studies Education and have been advised the better course to help prepare our students when they get to the four-year school is to have them take Multicultural Approaches to Education. So that's why
096the change is there. - Great. Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Okay, other questions? Ms. Beloyed? - If we're replacing the Honors US History A and B with the AP, what are the, you talked about the one that was a hybrid, another history class, what are the other history classes there are to choose from? - Students can take Ethnic Studies: US History, Ethnic Studies: World History as well, along with a regular World History, regular US, or sorry, yeah, US History, and then, also then the APs that they can take, so. - So the World History, the AB, that was semester one and semester two previously? Okay. So we must have Spanish, French- - ASL. - And ASL, that's the only three languages now? So we don't have Chinese anymore. We don't have German. Is the French
097attendance going back up? 'Cause we used to have French CIS. Do we still have that? - We still offer it. We weren't able to run it this year. So we were actually able to get some students access to that through another school district, just through a contractual agreement. But we do actually have French at the middle schools this year, at Mariner. So that's a really good sign. - Okay, you probably don't know the answer to this because you're the high school, but in the middle school, do they have German, or Chinese or any of those, any? - No. - That's- - [Jenifer] No. - Okay. All right. Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] Yeah, other questions. Mr. Skaar? - I would just say it's really sad that we're getting rid of German, we're getting rid of
098Art History: Ancient to Medieval, Renaissance to Modern, US History, Honors Physics. I mean, I'm saddened by that a great deal, concerned about if we're going in the wrong direction in terms of less rigor in our curriculum. Do parents know these classes that we're removing? How informed is our community that these classes are being removed? - So I can explain some of those decisions. When we moved to the trimester schedule, we've learned a lot of what can and can't run, because we offered so many different versions of US History. We offered Honors US History, AP US History, Ethnic Studies: US History. - And US History, so four different tracks of students all taking the same standards, the same course, four different experiences. It's split and divided numbers. And so we got to the point where we
099aren't able to run some of the courses that students would like us to run. A prime example of that is AP Chemistry. We've had Honors Chemistry for a long time. And students are choosing that over AP Chemistry. And so we really have to decide at some point, if we never run the course, is it better for us to choose one that we think is gonna better prepare our students? Or are we gonna still have these expectations from parents that an AP course will run, and students just aren't signing up for it? If there's only seven students that register, we can't run the course. So the more options we give them, the more likely it is that we have a course that doesn't run. When we brought in CIS Physics, we really considered, how do we
100have Honors Physics, CIS Physics, and AP Physics? And if we do that, are we gonna be able to run any of them? And when you're looking at these options, and you're trying to decide what might be the best option for the families, in my mind, you have an AP option that doesn't show up on a college transcript unless you score a three or a four, and then we can offer a CIS option that, that grade is gonna follow the student no matter, you know, what it is, if it's a A, B, or C, on that college transcript, but the idea of giving an option where it's not tied to a high-stakes test at the end was, I thought, more meaningful than a physics option. So these are conversations that we're constantly having with students and
101with staff to try to determine what the best course offerings might be. But a lot of work goes into it. And then your question about what do parents know, we presented all of this information at our Systems Accountability meeting, October 7th, and were able to gain feedback and insight. In fact, some of the insight and feedback that we got from our community members and parents at that meeting helped trim some things down and helped us have conversations with staff about maybe other opportunities. For instance, CIS Physics was one that came about after that meeting occurred. So lots of stakeholders have been involved. - Well, you can understand, like, the optics. I mean, parents wanna send their kids to rigorous curriculums. And the optics look like it's gonna be less rigorous. So, and again, I'll mention,
102you know, we compete. So, you know, we have to make sure that the rigor around our curriculum is still there. Right? It's still there. Make sure that people, parents are comfortable with that. Students are comfortable with that. - And I would encourage a parent that's frustrated about an honors class maybe not being offered anymore to consider the AP or the CIS option. We didn't remove any honors courses if we didn't have two rigorous options for our students to choose from, as well as the general. So they're all there. - One last question, in that Multicultural and Ethnic Studies, are the 2021 social studies standards, are they valid for 2025 and 2026 school years in our curriculum, the 2021 social study standards? - Yeah, we might be talking about two different things, but those standards are
103included in our Ethnic Studies: American History course. We also have some ethnic studies standards that are included in our Ethnic Studies: World History course. The Multicultural Approaches to Education is really about pedagogy. It's about how we might bring ethnic studies to students in general courses down the road. So it would be like our future teachers are taking a course that they would take in college if they were getting their teaching degree. We're just providing it here at White Bear High School. - So are the benchmarks the same, for example, in fifth grade, analyze anti-colonial and anti-racist resistant movements of culturally, racially, and ethnically diverse people throughout the world? Is that still the benchmark in fifth grade? - I can, do you want me to take that, Russ? - I don't spend a lot of time
104with- - Okay, yeah, you know, so there's the overarching standards that are K-12 for social studies. And then when we look at the benchmarks, those are more developmentally appropriate based on the grade levels. So they're grade banded, so we could get, I could, you know, share that information with you from the Minnesota Department of Education, what the social study standards and those benchmarks are. - I think it would be very important for the parents to understand what those benchmarks are and that we publish those publicly so people know. - Yep, we do have those on our website. So it goes directly to the Minnesota Department of Education. If parents or families go to the Teaching and Learning Department on the website, they have each content area, and then it's linked- - Can we make that
105easier so that they can see clearly what the benchmark is for 9th grade, 10th grade? - Yep. - Okay. - Yep. - Then if you can point me to that, that would be helpful. - Absolutely. I can do that for you. - [Chair Arcand] Okay, is that it or- - No, I have- - No, I'm asking him, before I move on. - Oh, yeah. - [Chair Arcand] I'd like to move on and let some other people have an opportunity, if that's okay. - Sure. Sorry. - Okay, Ms. Thompson, I mean, Ms. Daniels, I mean, sorry. - College and the schools courses, the teachers that teach those courses have to have a special training, right? So the course is very similar to what a student would take if they went to a, on a campus, right?
106So in talking about the rigor, I mean, I think it's important for people to know that the certification, or I don't know if they call it a certification, is in addition to what they already have as a high school teacher, correct? - Yeah, the instructor approval, and our teachers that teach CIS have to apply to our partnering university. And they have to meet the university's requirements in order to teach that course at the high school. And so when we talk CIS Physics, that's pending our instructor approval. So that's the application process and the demonstrating that you have that level of knowledge to teach that rigorous course. - Yeah, I think that should give us some comfort to know that a lot of those classes are still available to our students, even though we've had to,
107you know, remove others that didn't fill. - Okay, other questions. Ms. Beloyed? - I just, my 2 cents, I really like the idea of moving more to CIS as opposed to AP. 'Cause even in AP, they have to take a final at the end of the year in class, and then they go take another test that they have to pay for. And then I have so many stories of kids that have done really, really well in college, in the same course, and couldn't get the credit for the AP class because either scored a three, and they had to have four or above or, you know, they didn't score, but they did well in the class. So I'm really encouraged to see moving in that direction. I also think the honors shows up on your transcript
108as rigor, so to speak, but if you're gonna go for the rigor of an honors class, you don't get any college credit for it. And you don't get extra GPA credit for the honors classes either. So the only benefit you're getting from the honors classes is it says honors, and it looks like rigor, where if you can do those honors classes, you should be guided towards taking the CIS class. 'Cause then you get the double whammy of the credit, because you're C, whatever, or better, then you get that, and you don't have to take a paid-for test after you've already had a final. So I think that's a good move. I think the rigor is still there because you're gearing them towards college. And if it's just the acceleration, that's what the CIS course is
109going to be as well. So I support that wholeheartedly, so thanks. - Thank you, and I think it's important to remind everybody that on the AP, each post-secondary institution calculates what they're gonna accept, a three, a four, or a five. So we don't have any control over that. Ms. Thompson, now it's your turn. - Yes, thank you for all of this. And, you know, AP Art History: Ancient to Medieval, I would have to imagine it's probably been longer than three years. I mean, maybe we did have enough to have a whole classroom full of students excited to do that and take that test at the end of the year. But I don't see how that would be an exciting course for our high school students today. We're a little past those times. I just am
110grateful for all the work that is done here. And I see, you know, where we're moving, which is into the future, where students live today. Things are changing, they're always evolving, and we have to evolve with them, so I'm grateful for that. And then I just have to call out a teacher who's here. Maybe, you know, I might have went to conferences, and while my child is not in his class this year, she is team manager of our debate team. So we have one of our debate coaches here tonight, and he was so excited to talk about a class that is being presented tonight that I thought, well, he should come and tell us a little bit about this course, so, you know- - Alex helped write the- - I'm just gonna call him out.
111- I wouldn't want him- - the Debate 2 course. - I wouldn't want him to come tonight and not get the opportunity to speak to us all. - Can I just jump back to your AP Art History? We do offer AP 2D Studio Art and AP 3D Studio Art. So they do, students still have AP options within the art department, they're not all... They're not gone. - Yep. - Yeah, we're very lucky. We have a wonderful art community in White Bear Lake to have for our students who love art, so grateful for that. - [Mr. Skaar] So I didn't hear a motion to add that to the agenda. I'm just kidding. - Yeah, they're presenting, so it's part of the presentation. - I know, just joking. - So Alex Doucette is a social studies teacher
112at the high school and helped propose the course for Debate 2, and is also our first debate head coach. All right. Alex? - And as an aside, as a medieval historian, you wound me about the medieval art take. (group laughing) But that being said, so last year, I was offered the chance to be able to teach the debate course, which has been growing in popularity over the last several years, kind of outta nowhere, which is wild. And I was able to take it over, and I revamped the entire thing to be heavily into debate and rhetoric, and taught them all sorts of different basics. And I had a lot of success. We had one section last year about, by the end, I had taught them far too much, and they had put forth a wonderful
113argument that I should be a head coach, and that they wanted to go and compete. After great deliberation, they convinced me. And it has been an incredible opportunity this year. About half of the class that I had taught last year found interest, and I have 17 who are now registered in the debate team for competitive debate through National Speech and Debate Association, competing in formal circuits, acquiring all sorts of speech points and merit points so that they can have just an amazing opportunity to provide this level of skill for them. That being said, I have to be as flexible as possible with these students. They are amazing, amazing young people, who really enjoy talking. And because of that, they find every opportunity to do so, including things like the fall musical, which had prevented, this
114past weekend was our first formal tournament, and a lot of those people were rehearsing for our incredible musical, and I wanna make sure that they can still do things like that. And so this second debate course came up as an opportunity inspired by our athlete weights course, that this would be something that would run only during the season. It would run in our fall trimester during debate season. They would be able to take it year after year, in order to gain credits and continue to work towards these goals of competing at higher and higher levels, and that they would be able to have time during the school day where they would be able to do research, because we don't always have the resources after school available in our libraries, which have, you know, depending, whatever
115access they may have for that, and more than an hour and a half, twice a week, for them to be able to practice and get feedback, specifically, have time in class for them to write arguments, do really good research, practice different debate styles so they can figure out something that they really enjoy. And between my brand new, you know, debate team and the fact that we've doubled the debate enrollment this year to two full courses instead of one, I saw a huge opportunity to be able to provide that to them. And they were all, if you could have seen them after Saturday, it was wild. They got up and got to the school at 7:00 AM on a Saturday. They looked miserable about it, at 7:00 AM, some brought blankets, boarded a bus, drove an
116hour out to Minnetonka, into a place they had no idea what it was gonna look like. They were told that both of their coaches were tagged to judge at the same time, 'cause they were short on people. And yet the resiliency that they had was incredible. They went forward, horribly confused for like, oh no, trying to figure out all the things. And by the end, I wish I was exaggerating, there were leaping lunges happening with this joyous look on their face of of accomplishment. And that level of thing, I mean, that just, you know, fired me up. And my assistant coach and I went home and had only energy to order pizza, but proceeded to just talk all night about how amazing that whole experience was. And after our first one, there was a a
117four-way tie for third place in Lincoln-Douglas debating, and he received an honorable mention, 'cause they had to go so far down the statistics to actually iron out who was there. So it's been an incredible opportunity, and I hope that we can continue this. - [Chair Arcand] Okay, thank you very much. And so I appreciate you sharing about debate, too, and I'm gonna, like to get us back on track with the new courses- - I talk too much. - and changes. - It's okay. - And good luck. - Good job, Alex. - Are there other questions? - I just have a comment. - Okay, Ms. Daniels? - I think, just appreciate the staff flexibility, as you mentioned early in your presentation and the scheduling that this must have... I mean, that's a huge lift to the
118scheduler, to Carrie Barth, and all the work she's done behind the scenes to make it happen on paper. So I know your staff and administration has done a lot. So congratulations on making that transition. - [Carrie] Thank you. - Okay, I just have a couple of quick questions, and I'll let you go, I promise I'll be brief. When I look at the Multicultural Approaches to Education, the ED 2350, I believe, isn't that on the Min State Transfer Curriculum? So the thing we're not saying is, if I take this to get the credit, and I go to Moorhead, a part of the Min State, that credit follows me. So it's not, I don't have to go to the Minneapolis College. This goes anywhere in the Min State system. And that's the one advantage that our students
119have with these classes they're taking. Anywhere they go, that'll go with them, and they'll be able to use it without having to worry about will it be accepted or not. As long as it's transfer curriculum, it'll go. That's great for our students. The subsequent second question I had, and when I heard about your work-based learning seminar and work experience, what are the plans to partner that with a student organization, 'cause they fit well together, whether we're talking DECA, BPA, FCCLA, any of those, SkillsUSA, they fit well with those type of organizations because the leadership and those parts fit well with the seminar. So have we given that thought? - Yeah, I think it'll be an opportunity that we lean into a year from now. We have some work to do. We have to have at
120least one more teacher in our building- - get certified to teach the Career Seminar course, and then we need to talk about what capacity do we have to get out to job sites. But as we move through all of that, we have to start thinking about how we might get more students interested. Some students, we know, are already out in those career, having those career experiences, but they aren't yet earning credit. So through all those clubs and different activities that we offer, I think that's the easiest way to determine what we might next onboard. - [Chair Arcand] Good, thank you. Any other quick questions? Or we'll let you go, you know- - Just a quick- - Yes? - Sorry, just a quick, follow-up on, just 'cause that was wonderful. Thank you for sharing. - Don't
121call anybody else up, please. - I know, I mean, they are here to present to us, so I thought it'd be great to hear how debate has done for us already. And I see a great asset to our students to have this skill-building that is so important in life, like being able to talk in front of people. Debate is a great thing for that. Being able to have a debate between two people who have differenting opinions but to be able to walk away and go, okay, good job, you know, you took it this time, maybe I'll do better next time, I think it's a great opportunity for our students to build in those skills. And they did not get home until, I believe it was like 5:40 PM, so it was a very long day
122for them, so thank you. - Thank you, and thank you for everything you're doing. We appreciate it. - [Russ] Thank you. - We're gonna go on to discussion item B4. Dr. Gillespie's gonna talk about calendar updates. - Chair Arcand, members of the board... Chair Arcand, members of the board, thank you for having me. I hope you're feeling as much enthusiasm around this topic as the other topics. Every year, I bring our calendar way far in advance, and so we're talking this year about next year's '26-'27 calendar and the '27-'28 calendar. And I just wanna remind you of some of the calendar parameters that we use. Our collectively bargained contract parameters guide the calendar. So that's how many days we have in the calendar, along with, obviously, Minnesota State Statute on how many days students need
123to be in session. My goal is to provide two years to the best I can, in terms of working with all the different people that we do internally and externally. But the most accurate is, now I'm giving you all the details on '26-'27. '27-'28 is almost complete. We still have a couple days that we'll place next year at this time, and they're really professional development days. As we learn, each year we kind of have different nuances on where those are placed. So then, like I said, I'm presenting our detailed and final calendar for next year. Tonight, I'm gonna ask for action at our November 10th meeting. All of our non-student days must be inclusive of K-12. And that became a parameter a few years ago. We used to have one floating day that was solely
124K-5 but received feedback from families that it's much easier having all their students at home, especially with the younger ones possibly needing support. And then in determining non-placement days, we really look at as many factors as we can to be inclusive of community. I've had people reach out and ask about different religious accommodations. And we do a variety of things of trying to be inclusive, also really following what makes sense to not have too many disrupted weeks for families or not have... Really, what I'm believing is a collective value for everyone I've talked to is to get out as early as possible in June as we can. And so kind of some of those other considerations can delay us into June. So I've mentioned all that. It isn't really great data to look at other
125districts. There are nuances. I obviously talk to other districts, but there isn't a guiding parameter beyond maybe our contracts look similar, or the number of days is absolutely the same. But it can be a lot of different things that factor into other districts' calendars as well. So I have a calendar committee that has representatives from various different leadership departments, and educators, and then some paras. And then we also bring this, and really what I'll talk about today, we started last year some conversations, trying to get as much feedback as we can. And then, again, the final determination for calendar is done by us at district leadership, 'cause almost always we're about at a 50-50, give or take, on what people want. It's really hard to get consensus on topics. And so then I bring it
126to you at a work-study session to get any feedback that you might have. And then we'll bring a recommended calendar for action at the next school board meeting. So the big change for this year is that we will bring forth the '26-'27 calendar and the '27-'28 calendar to propose starts before Labor Day. And this is the conversation that we started last year. And really, what triggered it is, and I brought this, so I have the exact dates, but it's just really a day different from this calendar, what we did for '25-'26. But Labor Day, which is always the first Monday of September, goes a full week later. And so there was conversation at the legislature that we knew about a little bit. So we did some surveys, which we'll talk about in a second, to
127gather some feedback around it. Really, what went into this decision are these benefits. Four instructional days before Labor Day, still keeping that Friday off, which families and staff value to still have that long weekend really helps us with being done earlier in June. But that's not the sole reason on why we would make this decision. That's ending in '27, June 4th, and '28, June 2nd, versus what would be a full week later. And for us, that would be later than we're used to. It really allows for more instructional time before state testing. It improves alignment for trimester transitions. And so four days doesn't feel like a lot, but it is, for example, trimester one ends the day before Thanksgiving, if we're able to do this, before that break, and it's 57 days. If we were
128to push four days, it's like, we would have to have either some trimesters that aren't equally distributed or have families have an interrupted week and then another interrupted week sometime in December because of those four days. The same thing with spring break, naturally falls on those breaks. So it really allows us to, I think, and the feedback I've received, it feels more logical in terms of how those breaks fall. The other thing is it allows better scheduling for our extended school year programs. We have significant programming that occurs in summer, especially around hiring and big programs for students who qualify for extended year. And that time difference will allow us to just stay on track. And so, again, I presented it to our staff. I even got student feedback. It really is a day difference,
129but it'll feel different for us. Because as far as I can remember, it's always started after Labor Day. Community feedback, so last year we added a question to that community survey, and community members were 63% in favor, and 28%, like, strongly opposed. And then parents were really kind of a 50-50. The ones that indicated that they were strongly opposed were 39%. We did a survey of our educators. And anytime we survey our educators on the calendar, it comes up 50-50. Really, I've done a lot of them now. The other piece that I think is interesting, we brought it to Systems Accountability, and their feedback wasn't necessarily on whether we would or wouldn't start before Labor Day. It was more questions around, we don't love the two-day weeks, if you can avoid those. Or what about
130the three day weeks? Why can't we get two weeks at winter break? And all of that, really, we can be as flexible as we need to be. It just really, anytime you add additional days, it causes us to go later in June. And I do believe most people are supportive. Families are ready for their kids to be done. Kids are definitely ready to be done. They clapped for me when I gave them this calendar, and I rarely get a reaction when I present to people. So, that doesn't happen. The other piece that is new is the legislature did change that we could start on or after September 1st for the next two years to alleviate. That really doesn't help us, 'cause that would only allow us those three days, or we'd have to talk about
131coming back on Friday. It just really caused a lot of conversation, and there's always been this statute where you can have a little bit of wiggle room depending on the construction projects that you have. So really, what I'm looking at is having us, and I know these are small, and I'll make sure you get actual copies before the board packet. It would be the first day of school for '26 would be August 31st, and it would be the same staggered start, sixth and ninth graders that day. This year we started school on Tuesday, September 2nd. So it feels weird when you talk about it, but when you look about it, it really is only a day difference. Our teachers came back last year Monday, August 25th, and they would come back Monday, August 24th, for
132us, '27-'28. There isn't any other notable changes between now, what our families and students are experiencing this year compared to next year. The one thing is there's a little bit of room around some professional development that we were able to have a day. We connected it to the day that we have off for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and so that Tuesday, which that has been historic that we have something, especially when we were at semesters, and it was just the way some of the spring break fell and different things that we weren't able to do that this past year. That has us ending with the last day for students Friday, June 4th. Staff then come back that Monday for a work day, and then that would allow time. Do you want me to pause
133for questions on specific calendars or go to this '27-'28? - [Chair Arcand] Keep going. - Okay. - I don't see hands up. - [Alison] Same thing with '27-'28. Essentially, it's one more day difference. We'd start on Monday, August 30th, and then end on Friday, June 2nd. That is the week after we observe Memorial Day, which I think is what got the applause from the students. That's the earliest I can remember finishing in my, as far as my memory will take me in my career. But it does allow us, again, for me, what I felt the most compelling was those alignment of our trimesters are 57 days for each trimester, which matters, for sure, as you see at the high school, but even as we think about getting as many days as we possibly can before
134we give our state-mandated tests. - [Chair Arcand] Can I just ask you a quick question? - [Alison] Absolutely. - How does pushing the date back a week affect our summer programming opportunities? - [Alison] It will allow them more time- - I mean, but I'm saying, if we had to go a week later into June, that would mess with those summer opportunities? - Yeah, it would, and depending on the length, we would have to talk about whether we shorten the length or really think about, because they hover over two budgetary years, we figure that out often, but it's also hard to get staff wanting to teach into July. Most people, that's kind of a pause point. It's really nuanced, but people were very excited about that additional week. - [Chair Arcand] Other questions? Yes, Mr. Skaar?
135- [Mr. Skaar] Who's on the System Accountability Committee? - Each building has a principal staff and parent representative that they bring. And so it represents every single one of our buildings and programs. - [Mr. Skaar] Who selects the parent? - The principal does. - [Mr. Skaar] Okay. - And then we have two board representatives. - I understand. I understand. - [Alison] Okay. - [Chair Arcand] Other questions? We will see you at the next meeting. - I will be here. Thank you. - [Attendee] Thank you. - [Chair Arcand] All right, we have gotten down to agenda item D1, this will be... I mean, excuse me, C1, Action on Tentative Agreement for the White Bear Lake Area Educators. - Good evening, Chair Arcand and school board members. Thank you for having me tonight. My name is Cindy
136Gustafson. I'm the assistant director of human resources. - [Attendee] It's not on. - Oh, sorry, I turned it off. It needs to be green. This is a good visual. Would you like me to repeat that part, or is it okay? - No. - We can hear you. - Good. (laughs) I am here tonight. The district has reached a tentative agreement with our White Bear Lake Area Educators for the 2025-'27 contract period. I do wanna thank everyone that was involved in the negotiations process. We meet over long days during the summer, and a lot of hours of work go into reaching this agreement. The teachers voted in early October, and I am here tonight to seek your approval. And I do so by asking that you pass the resolution that is included in your board packet.
137I'm happy to entertain any questions that you have. But I do thank you for allowing me to be here tonight. - [Chair Arcand] Any questions? Ms. Beloyed? - [Ms. Beloyed] Can we ask what the vote breakout was? - That is not something that is usually shared with us. It's just that it passed. - [Chair Arcand] Well, hearing nothing- - Please, Chair. - Yes? - Wouldn't this typically be on the open board meeting agenda on, when is it, November 10th? Or is it typically on the work session? It's just a point of order. - Well, we can do it in the work session 'cause we discussed it in the closed session, so. - Okay. - And we knew it was coming, so that's why we put it here. And so what I'm gonna say right now
138is, the recommended action is to approve the proposed 2025 to 2027 White Bear Lake Area Educators tentative agreement by passing the following resolution. Do we have a motion for the resolution? - So moved. - Okay, we have Ms. Thompson. Is there a second? - Second. - I think Ms. Beloyed had her hand up. Ms. Beloyed? - Second. - Now we're open for discussion. Any further discussion? Okay, hearing none, this will be a roll call vote. Will the clerk please call the roll? - Beloyed? - Aye. - [Ms. Daniels] Daniels, Aye. Skaar? - Aye. - Streiff Oji? - Aye. - Thompson? - Aye. - Arcand? - Aye. Motion carries. Congratulations, we're happy. - [Cindy] Thank you all, thank you to everyone on the team. - We're happy to have some of our most valuable employees under
139contract. They do a lot for us. All right, we are at D1 now, at the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - So moved. - Okay, by Ms. Daniels. There's a second? - Second. - Second by Ms. Thompson. All in favor by saying aye. - [Board] Aye. - Opposed, same sign. We are now finished. Have a great day.