July 9, 2020 - School Board Special Work Session Meeting

001The Closed Captioning file was transcribed to the best of our ability as we continue to improve our technology process with modified board meetings moving forward due to COVID-19 accommodations. - I call to order this Special Work Session July 9, 2020 right here. First, I just would like to take a quick moment, just thank you all for everyone who's bearing with the technology over the last couple months, especially kind of moving into the future of the way that things work and it is so good to see everyone, we haven't been in the same room in a long time and I appreciate each and every one of you and being able to see you, even much, even though we're seeing you through the video, I just really appreciate everybody and their commitment to the school session. So

002with that, we'll start our Work-Study and we'll turn it over to Dr. Kazmierczak to get us into the Work-Study. Thank you. - Trying to think if we normally, you do the roll call so actually Ill back up. Please call the roll. - Arcand? - Here. Beloyed? - Here. - Chapman? Here. Ellison? Here. Mullin? - Here. - Newmaster? - Here. - Thompson? - Here. - With that thank you for the reminder. - All right, thank you Chairman. Is this too much feedback if I had my mic on? Alright, so I will just try to speak loudly enough. Alright, so so this is the first time we've met in person since March 2. So and I just want to make mention to anyone who is watching remotely that we are practicing social distancing. Our chairs are about

00312 feet apart we are wearing our masks. Six of the seven board members are attending in person. Marge Newmaster is attending remotely, then we have various viewers listening, as well. So I will be doing my best to monitor here from my workstation. So, first of all, Dr. Gillespie and Dr. Davis are getting ready to start and ready to go. So the work that we have done the last three years has positioned us well as a system. Our strategic plan drives our work, and as we consider the last few months, I want turn it back to Dr. Cook, who facilitated the development of our Strategic Plan for some additional context. But he stated school districts will emerge from this crisis worse or better or strategic something other and it depends on what they do now. Those

004that have an authentic strategic plan, an authorized strategic process must infuse it with a new creative energy to discover and seize upon the possibilities on the main crisis. So while he was referring to the pandemic, when he wrote this back in April, his words have meaning as we consider not only the pandemic but the unrest around the killing of George Floyd. As we begin tonight, I want to note that the equity audit that we conducted this past school year, was born out of our Strategic Plan. Given our conversations in our nation have evolved over the last five weeks finding or exceeding the results of this Work Session has positioned us well to develop actionable strategies for the coming year and years to come. So with that, I'll turn things over to Dr. Marcellus Davis and

005Dr. Alison Gilespie. Dr. Gillespie we all know well. Dr. Marcellus Davis is new to our organization as our Director of Equity and Engagement. So over to you. - Thank you Chairman, members of the board, Dr. Kazmierczak, fellow cabinet colleagues. We're here today, feeling great importance, importance to have this conversation. And I'm proud of the work that we've done and proud that we're situated that we have so much robust data from our students and community to know where we need to get better. But really our target today is to share results from the equity audit and then detail to you where we're already jumping in to some really significant action. And then Dr. Davis in his new role will talk about future plans. So, so I wanted to start with reminding us about our Equity Commitment

006and our 4-Way Equity Decision Making Protocol. We already are starting our second school year where this has been part of our system. And so I've seen all of us get better at using the equity decision making protocol as we navigate decisions. But in order for us to be true to our Equity Commitment, which states to nurture the whole student, we disrupt systemic inequities by recognizing, honoring and embracing all cultures with humility and respect. We identified and those who created our Strategic Plan identified that we really needed an authentic way to find out how we were doing in terms of meeting the needs of all of our students, especially our students that we knew prior to the creation of the Strategic Plan that we had disparity gaps in achievement. And so tonight we're going to talk

007about the overview and major findings of the equity audit. Talk about how the equity audit is organized, review the data and recommendations and then we'd like to spend a bulk of our time talking about our commitment to action and our response to the equity audit. And then we see this as a back and forth conversation with you on the school board. So whenever there's comments or questions, feel free to ask and then at the end, we hope we'll continue to discuss next steps. So we start with this, quote, violence in black children is black children going to school for 12 years receiving six years worth of education and centering that quote as we think about we have disparities in our system. So the equity audit addressed really three questions what, what does our current data

008say about our achievement and the inequities that exist in our district? What factors do staff, students, administration, parents identify as contributing to those inequities? And then what, what do we do in terms of enhancing all of our in each of our students experience so that we help them all of our students reach their goals, but that our school feels inclusive of every single member of our community in a way that it doesn't right now. The major findings are that we have achievement disparities, our children of color, and children in low socioeconomic areas are that their families qualify for free and reduced lunch achieve statistically below their white peers. We have discipline disparities and the fact that we have more referrals at a disproportionate rate than white peers for our students of color and students in

009both socioeconomic status. And then we have relationship and communication disparities. Our families and students of color and low income students and families do not feel connected, heard, or expected to achieve in our district. I pause because that that's not what we want to be at all. I know that to the core play of who I am and why I continue to stay in White Bear Lake, and hope I'm here for a very long time. And so I think it's important to identify for our community that we hear that that that doesn't sit well with us and that we're committed to changing that. So the equity audit, if you ask me what month it started, I can't tell you anymore because I feel like we had two school years last year. Um, but it was almost

010done by the time we had to go to distance learning. And we did have one more survey that went out to our families to try to make sure we could get as many people as possible in that first window, and I believe March. And so we had two different portions that went on. We had quantitative data which was survey data that was sent to all of our districts families, pre K-12 plus, students in fifth through 12th grade. And the reason fifth graders were decided we wanted to, our elementary principals the leaders really wanted to include our elementary voice, but we worked with the survey creators and what could, what age would really the survey be appropriate for that we could get accurate data and some fifth graders were included and then our staff with staff

011across our whole district and administrators across that whole districts. The other portion were qualitative focus groups. And so each one of our secondary groups had four different focus groups that were ran at their school. One was 100% white students. One group was mixed race students, meaning students from all different racial groups, and it could be students who identify themselves as mixed race or inner inner racial students. And then each administrator got to choose an affinity group in their building. So that meant one group might have been all black students, one group might have been all Latino students. It really varied across our buildings and what our administrators chose. Sunrise Park being one of the most diverse secondary schools that we had had five groups, so that they could make sure that they incorporated each one

012of the racial groups that we have in terms of the majority of our students that that fall into those categories and introduce and identify themselves in those racial categories. The ALC also had four groups, but if you notice, they weren't able to run a couple of them because we went to distance learning, but the researchers felt they had enough data so that they, the trends were statistically significant and they could analyze the data. We also had a group of students and I hope to have them come visit with you at the board at some time and share their their research. They participated in action research, while we were in school and so it was youth participatory action research, which is a really rigorous research project where students run the whole thing. We had two grad

013students from the University of Minnesota, facilitate that, we had a staff member Robert Anderson learn about that method, methodology and how to utilize that with students and in my whole career, which, you know, I think this is year 20 this is the most authentic way I've ever seen student voice engaged, and it was really a pilot last year. And so the students created a research question around relationships. They were specifically focused at South Campus because the researchers felt like that was the best place to start. And then they did their own focus groups led with students and staff, and so their data was also incorporated into this audit. And Dr. Davis and I will talk about how we're going to continue to have YPAR as part of our district. So now, my colleague, our newest

014colleague, Dr. Davis will continue to talk about equity. - Good evening, everyone. Thank you (laughs). First, let me start off by saying I am honored to be staff here in White Bear Lake Area Schools. I'm honored to serve our community, our students, my peers and community members. And I want us to think about what we are about to ascend into as far as this data as not condemnation, rather it's realization on how we must enhance our learning opportunities and experiences for all our students so that they can be fulfilled with the promise that our mission and vision of the organization states, okay. Somehow my colleague, who I have had many of discussions and texts with over the course of two weeks putting this presentation together, gave me the slide with the biggest quotes. (laugh) So

015I will make sure that I read that, all right. I think that one is that the right quote? Okay. All right. Yes, I got two of them. Thank you colleague. "Students quickly received the message that they can only be smart when they are not who they are. This in many ways is classroom colonialism; and it can only be addressed through a very different approach to teaching and learning." All right, so one of the first areas okay, so tonight we're gonna go over eight focus areas. And these eight focus areas are the epicenter of the data. They go over five, eight different areas, and they were qualitative analysis to focus groups. And there was a quantitative quantitative analysis through surveys, and they all have different areas that they address, so the first is accepting marginalizing students'

016identity and voice. The second is culturally relevant school leadership, teaching and curriculum. The third is discriminatory behavior in practices. The fourth is school culture and climate. The fifth is school community relations. And the sixth is thoughts on achievement gaps. And the seventh is thoughts on discipline. And the eighth is teacher rating and expectations. We will go through all eight over the course of my section, and we're going to see it in two ways, we want to see and hear about the qualitative analysis, as well as we're going to see and hear about the quantitative analysis. Alright, this next slide talks about our highest ranking needs of area. So the first three, which we would argue are the most important three are the thoughts and discipline gap. The second is the thoughts on the achievement gap.

017The third is accepting or marginalizing student identity and voice. The fourth is school culture and climate. The fifth is expectations and teacher ratings. The sixth is culturally responsive leadership, school leadership, teaching and curriculum, And the seventh is school community relationship. And the eighth is discriminatory behaviors and practices. So and the rank or order of what was scored the highest on the two, this is what it looks like. Alright, data review and recommendations. So it was very important for Dr. G and myself, sorry, Dr. Gillespie and myself to make sure that we didn't want to bring our students in this environment with the COVID-19. So we brought them through pictures so right. Alight, here it is. Dr. G. Another quote, "a hallmark for me of a coaching relevant teacher is someone who understands that we're operating

018in a fundamentally inequitable system. They take that as a given. And that teacher's role is not merely to help kids fit into a unfair system, but rather to give them the skills, the knowledge and the dispositions to change the inequity. The idea is not to get more people at the top of an unfair pyramid. The idea is to say the pyramid is wrong, or the pyramid is the wrong structure. How can we really create a circle, if you will, that includes everybody?" As we go forward on the coming days, starting today, starting tomorrow, as a district, this is our work going forward. And I would expand the thought of a culture relevant teacher to culture relevant leaders. That includes the school board that includes all of us in leadership, that includes the leadership in the

019buildings, that includes all of us, how can we be culturally responsive and relevant to our constituents which are, which are our students? How can we be responsive to their needs? Alright, the first area the qualitative section. Accepting or marginalizing student identity and voice. I'm just going to go over one of the bullets. And one of the most important bullets that we extracted from the research was minoritized students do not always feel the racial and ethnic identity of cultural heritage and language are represented within the schools. So I want you to think about that in a very comprehensive way. So the spatial environment. Does the spatial environment have the or the mosaic of a racially and culturally ethnic diversity in our students, in our community population? Does our curriculum speak to a racially culturally ethnically diverse,

020United States? Does our hiring teachers, staff and administrators look representative of our our student demographics? Does that make sense? Yes. - I just want to know are there some examples that students gave to us? I'm assuming that there could be I don't want to say that there are for sure they're not in the much bigger report that has questions and has qualitative answers, but I'm not 100% sure. - This type of survey are these for these given as they're answering questions like "how do you feel about this?" So the survey has questions around, I can speak only as I took this as an administrator but similar to questions do you, do you feel the curriculum represents all of your students? Do you feel that teachers understand you? I like those types of questions that students

021nearly strongly agree all the way down to strongly disagree, and then questions and themes come out of the qualitative focus groups. And so kids were given a lot of open ended questions. And when the researchers, they recorded the focus groups, and then they coded it all up really high on research that could be published. That's the purpose of it, but so they have an extract themes based on stories withheld from them. So I can look, I'm not sure there's holes in the focus group to talk about that. In my experience, what kids would say is that they don't want to know [INAUDIBLE], that very much from one lines that we don't necessarily mean like, we always have had to try and try to get a dance class going, kids wanting to have a step class

022that's part of black culture. So like, I know from the high school and I'm always trying to feel like I have a student have to bring this to school, and it's something that school already offers. But I look for a direct focus. It'll be way more powerful, if that helps? - Now I'm approaching day eight in my tenure. But I have been able to come across a piece of footage where a graduate, African American young man man talks about his experience in a White Bear Lake Area Schools, and then that qualitative analysis, he talks about black history and through the curriculum. So does anybody know what I'm talking about this particular footage? - Yeah he was at our black excellence event two years ago, a recent graduate. - Yes and he spoke about it. So

023I don't know for sure about this data. But I know that there has been other datas echoing that sentiment from that particular piece that I was able to see, does that make sense? Thank you, Dr G. Alright. Alright, so the next section is culturally responsive school leadership teaching and curriculum. And I'm just going to focus on two bullets, one on the left, which is the qualitative side and one on the right, that's the quantitative side. So students express doubt in their teachers' abilities to handle issues of race and culture with seriousness, seriousness and rigor. Having just recently taught in the higher education, realm and sector, I know as I taught, potential teachers are seeking to be teachers, that their, their training was very limited around race, power and privilege, as it relates to being educated

024on that. Does that make sense? So you may be lucky. And I'm stretching it here. If you get one multicultural education course. In your teaching, in your teaching training. And if you go on to masters, you'll be up to two and if you get your doctorate, maybe three, that's not a very wide range of this education. Does that make sense? So to be able to see this in writing would be consistent with that training. Alright. And I will also say this, in my experience as a Minnesotan all my life. I was in my home, we talked about race on a daily basis. But I was also instructed that you don't have these conversations outside here. Does that make sense? So I did not have the skill set to be able to talk about that in

025public settings. Does that make sense?. And I'm just using this as a point of reference for myself, because this data makes sense to me in a sense that if one doesn't have the skill set to talk about race, power and privilege it is going to be hard to teach but, does that makes sense? Alright, and if any questions? Do I hear something? - I just want to answer, Deb, your original question, which was for the first one, like specific examples or questions that students were asked. So in that area in terms of accepting or marginalizing student identity students asked, or asked a question. Some of the student's identities are more accepted than others in classroom obviously like the rest of staff, but essentially, these are the types of questions they ask students. Are you treated

026better or worse than students than other students in class? Are you given equal or unequal chances to participate in class? Do you get to contribute to school policy? Do you feel your identity is accepted in school? - And we go to the right side which is the quantitative side. The very top of that this is the lowest rated equity area needing serious attention. So when we talk about our recommendations, this is one of the areas that we need to make sure we're paying a lot of attention to. Alright. I'm going to go on to the next, discriminatory behaviors and practices. And I'm just going to focus on the very top bullet, discriminatory behaviors were identified as exhibited by the students and teachers and administrators. So actually, I'll go to the last one too. More than

027once respondents stated white students attempting to initiate conflict with students of color, in addition to microaggressions, shaming, and encroachment into physical space. Microaggressions microaggressions are a daily experience for many people of color, and they can come as regular as, can I touch your hair? Why do you wear your hair like that? Why do you wear that regalia or costume to school? Does that make sense? So they're happening on a regular basis in our school district based on the evidence or the data that we received from from this research to some of our students, and they've expressed that there is a feeling of discriminatory behavior to minoritized students, in our classes in our schools. Alright, I'm going to to move on. Unless there's any questions, I'll better answer if there's any questions here. School culture and

028climate, and again, the left is qualitative and the right is quantitative. I want to go to the bullet that says many of the students indicated they had good experiences attending White Bear Lake Area Schools, but are concerned with the following racism, racialized and English language learning, bullying, disappointment with lack of racial diversity in staffing. I've been an educator for 20 to 30 years. I have not seen a lot of staff of color and sentiments. More importantly or as important, when there are staff of color, it is also important for us to understand what their role is. Far too often I have seen black men in particular, be used for behavior. So not only is there a need for an increased racial diversity, but there's also a need for a race of increased racial diversity in

029people and roles. Does that make sense? So we're not as much seen in the classrooms people of color, but we may be seen in staff positions in particular relating to behavior. Alright. If you go to the right side, the bullet I want to address is minoritized students and parents feel race plays a significant role in how they're treated. Data interprets they feel the school district climate as being hostile. So we have seen race in a number of the slides, which, it becomes a theme and this theme of two different experiences, one for students of color and one for our white students. As we go throughout this data, this will be a reoccurring theme. School community relationship. I want to focus on the second bullet. Minoritized students cited an adversarial relationship between the school teachers, staff,

030administrators, and parents. Again, this theme of a racialized experience coming from students as well as parents, towards the school district and some of the staff. We go to the right side. Parents do not feel invited, or parents did not feel invited in their students' buildings or did not feel that the staff administrators were approachable. Again, there's a different racialized experience here, and we're feeling that the climate is hostile. I'm going to go to the next section if there aren't any questions here. Thoughts on the achievement gap. We'll go to that second bullet. White students, teachers and other staff seem to blame minoritized students for the achievement gap. Other concerns about the achievement gap centered around socioeconomic status. So there is this feeling that students of color are their own worst enemy as it relates to

031education. And the third bullet really accentuates that. Alright. Any questions here? Alright, the next one is thoughts on the discipline gap. - I'm sorry, I have a question. - Yes. [INAUDIBLE] - So I should have been repeating the question, I apologize (laughs). The question is, is how does this new data how's it going to force us to dive deeper into work that the World's Best Workforce has been talking about for significant time? Being brand new to me, this data is going to we're going to dissect it as the World's Best Workforce and look deeper into our goals. [INAUDIBLE]. Yeah. Um, and we're hiring a research evaluation and assessment coordinator to help us as we look at data and really have robust conversations around what data and what progress measures are we going to measure and

032our look at in terms of defining achievement for our students who graduate from White Bear Lake and then look into that and align it. I purposely last year when I wrote our achievement integration plan, tried to streamline it more based on research on on strategies that we can do. So it'll be work that we do for sure in this very first part of the school year. [INAUDIBLE] - We've held off on building it until the turnover occurred so that made sure we were developing the job description. - We also have a district-wide equity team that we started last year and those leaders will be key partners for us as we look at that and how can we pull from that committee and have representatives work with us on the work force as well. [INAUDIBLE] -

033The next slide goes over the discipline gap. And I want to focus on the left side the second bullet. Students of color are often on surveillance and reported feeling subjected to racialized bullying. Um, and I'm assuming that the surveillance is not only coming from the deans, but it's also perhaps coming from teachers and other people within the building, that our staff non-licensed or licensed. Alright. If you look over to the right side of the quantitative side, District employees feel this is something they are responsible for, and that they can address. So, there is a concern by the employees that they are helping uphold this reality, but are aware of it and want to do something about it right? Any question? - I think it's a real helpful part of the study. There's a couple of

034really helpful pieces we can grab on to. There's a lot of work to do at this point. [INAUDIBLE] - Absolutely I appreciate that, Dr. Kazmierczak, I want to come back to the point that I started off. This is not about a condemnation. We don't have time. The sense of urgency is upon us, and our students cannot be compromised. This is about realization so that our practice can get informed and can get enhanced so that our students can get the promise what we said we were going to give, and that's the best quality education that White Bear Lake School provides. Alright. Expectations and teacher ratings is the next section. And I'll start I only got one bullet on the left. So participants perceived different expectations for students based on race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and academic status.

035Alright, to the right. The second bullet in particular, or actually the first to go together. Minoritized students and parents believe that teachers do not have high expectations for minoritized students. And then the last, the second bullet says the data indicates that this is true. Alright? - Which data part, which data? - So that would be the survey data. So they asked specifically for staff. Sorry. The question is, which data indicated that? So the survey data, they asked staff and administrators specific questions on how high expectations do you hold for certain groups of students? And so the data from that concrete qualified quantitative data stated that they hold higher or lower expectations with students of color. - That specific question [INAUDIBLE]. - No, not that I don't know if it was worded exactly like that, but

036it for sure asked us as administrators and staff all different things about your interactions with students and expectations and they weren't able to statistically research base pull out and say that that is true. Now do, do my experience do I believe there's a conscious knowledge of that I don't what comes out, its actually there's tons of research. And I want to do some more professional development with our staff and our leaders on it. It's called the racism of low expectations. People out of the goodness of their heart are overcompensating for what they believe. Whether because they don't understand they think life is so different. They're trying to overwhelm and do all this stuff, they don't hold kids to the same expectations. But it's not like it's not, it's those microaggressions, and it's a bias they

037have that they haven't yet unpacked or even know that they have. - And what comes with that is that this student has to go on to the next grade level, and is ill prepared and then he continues to vertically get worse and worse. Does that make sense? Thank you for that. - I would just add on, age 27 in the White Bear South Campus part of the Latin students, there was a student that said there was a teacher that told them not to take a class and when they said "why" [INAUDIBLE] - Thank you for that board member Thompson. I'm going to take this back off. (laughs). Feels good, I'm about to tell you that. (people laugh loudly) Alright, so recommendations that come from the study. And I want to be very clear here that

038thoughts on the achievement gap and thoughts on the discipline gap are, are hard are, they are our highest rated top two. But you will not find them in the recommendations, and here's the rationale why it is believed that addressing these five are ultimately have intersectionality and have a relationship with those two curtailing those realities. Does that make sense? So that our focus on this will address those two. Okay, so our top five here for recommendations-- - Leaders we're talking about these two, what Dr. Davis has talked about in terms of thoughts on this achievement gap and thought on discipline gap. I just wanna underline what Dr. Kazmierczak said earlier that, that our staff have the willingness to learn how and understand that they are part of the solution. And it's highlighted in here. This is

039this is a significant finding, because research suggests that the capacity and willingness to change are some of the most necessary aspects for equity reforms. So they want to be to be part of the solution, understand the empowering that solution. It's our job to help build capacity and then have these, these conversations but I think that's super important because when I met with Dr. Khalifa, he he led with that. This is going to be really hard for all of you to realize that sometimes people get really stuck and, and just can't even fathom that this is actual reality with the data, but he's like hold on to that people do have a belief that they can do this. And as you move forward, we can do this, we have to live into it, it's going to

040be hard. But we have people who are willing to do that, which that doesn't always come out in districts that they work in. (laugh softly). - So the five that we're going to focus on as a district going forward are accepting or marginalizing student identity and voice. Hosting responsive school leadership and curriculum. School community relationship. School culture and climate. Expectations and teacher ratings. And for the remainder of this presentation, we're going to go over some quantitative data. But we're also going to really talk about some of the things that we're currently doing the practices that we're currently in, as it relates to these top five. Does that make sense? Cool, yeah, because (laughs) yes, we were negotiating the quantitative data is very similar to the qualitative data. If you all are okay, we can get

041to what we're doing based on the data if you are okay with that. - So because this next part so the equity audit gave us a ton of suggestions on what we can do to move forward. And what we really want to talk about is where we've been as a district, how we laid the foundation and then stuff that is happening right now. And then Dr. Davis's plan moving forward, and then questions like Deb Beloyd asked was awesome, like help us think how are we going to use this data this robust hundred and 43 page report to continue to unpack it and in influence other things like World's Best Workforce or our teacher evaluation system? Or how do we Matt Mons HR Director has done tons of work on trying to recruit more diverse candidates.

042Is there more that we can even do? So it's this is like the launching point. You're the first ones we're talking to rightfully so. And then how do we use it to influence our system? [INAUDIBLE] - So I just, I just want to make a quick, a quick point into how we're going to utilize this. One of the things that we're going to do is we're going to, one we're going to put this up online, is that correct? I don't know The summary report will be shared to the people to the community. We're also going Dr. Gillespie and I and we may develop a team to go down to the school building level and do this presentation for them as well. So that we can have that dialogue, so they can ask questions about the

043data, just so that everyone is informed, not only informed and but informed what some, what some questions from those that were paramount to make sure the equity audit came to solution. Does that makes sense? [INAUDIBLE] - So as we think about where we've been, and Dr. Kazmierczak referenced this, our district Strategic Plan, and people did work before the Strategic Plan, that most recent Strategic Plan for years and we have a robust history of tons of equity champions trying to impact the achievement gaps that we've known we had concerns about student staff relationships, but what really has been different for me in my professional career and just being a part of our team is we ground it in this Strategic Plan that's unique. So many community members helped us create it. It continues, it has for

044instance in all of our different buildings and so how we move forward really is we were given a charge by the community and it's reassuring to know that there's such a commitment towards equity. - And I have, I have to [INAUDIBLE] the district's Strategic Plan, all the action teams, [INAUDIBLE] - So Dr. Kazmierczak reiterated that we've had over 1,200 people participate in that process through multiple different committees and really our buildings and getting to influence the direction of our district and equity came out as strategy five and throughout our district Strategic Plan, but I know because it was my job last year, it's in every single building plan as well. And it's a true focus of our community and you know, we've underlined that earlier with some of the research that cannot. Our Equity Commitment

045and equity decision making protocol, the board support on that and that we have that at the forefront that also was a collaborative process where a group of 30, just like the district strategic planning team came together and created those and adopted those and presented those they continue to get, we get better and better using them, we still have a long way to go. But a team of leaders are going to train our instructional coaches and cabinet on how to use that equity decision making protocol and continue to build train the trainers so that people get really good at knowing. I understand that we have this but what does that mean when I'm making really big decisions? - So the equity decision making protocol [INAUDIBLE] can we get access to some of that training as well?

046- Yeah. - I would really like to make sure that I have that at the top of my mind. - Yeah, we would love to be there. That is one of the things we wanted to talk to you about, with the outside prominent list quarterly updates you, but if there's now we really were quite skilled in giving synchronicity synchronous opportunities. And so you could watch it. And then it's actually a couple of our cultural liaisons, Tiffany Dittrich our Teacher's Union President They're training the trainer, and then we have a whole protocol to think about. So yeah. So then the hiring of Dr. Davis is a huge exciting step for us. Having Dr. Kazmierczak last year, one of my projects was to make sure that we hired a director of equity, but it was repositioned in

047our system so that this position and the person who held this position had genuine influence over our system, and that is also unique to other districts. Sometimes this position is is someone as part of a teaching and learning team but doesn't hold the cabinet level position. And that that speaks to our commitment, and we're super excited to have him as part of our team. - I'm excited to be here by the way. We, um, I started with, I think some of the leaders on that district equity achievement team have been champions since, I bet 15 years at least they have a history and they've been committed and they're they're definitely staying away there for the rest of their career. And so we have, I think it's 35 people who are on that team that represents

048every single building administrators, teachers that are really committed to supporting the work in our district. We have an active and strong American Indian Parent Advisory Committee. - Can, can I? - Yep. - So with our American Indian Parent Advisory Committee, it is important that our numbers suggest that our Native students are less than 1%. But I was at a conference and Native American Indian Education Conference once and the chairwoman I'm not quite sure where she was from and I believe her last name was Chairwoman [INAUDIBLE], but she said this to the group. She said "I am sick and tired of hearing that Native students population or population in the school is significantly insignificant." Meaning we cannot gather their information because the statistic, the statistics what are, who they are, and the feeling of being invisible

049was what she was really expressing. So I say this to say that every time you see me, I'm going to make sure that I mentioned our Native students, because with being less than 1%, sometimes the conversation does not include this. Does that make sense? - Oh, 1% would be roughly 100 students. - Yep. - So we certainly are going to to liaise with other students. - Thank you, thank you Dr. -- Yep, no problem. - Dr. Kazmierczak reiterated that 1% would be 100 students and that we're not going to leave behind, 100. Sorry. Sorry that regeneration, we're making it work. (laughing and talking in unison) - Dr. Gillespie, you are doing a great job because I tapped out. (laugh softly). - Be like, signal, okay, got it, yeah. And then work that we haven't yet

050been able to share but was done before we had to go on distance learning as an equitable family engagement framework and tool. Briana Santoscoy, our district Latino and Latina Cultural Liaison was huge to [INAUDIBLE] a stakeholder committee that created a tool that is going to be transformational. All of our principals will use it. We have a working group right now figuring out how can we use that to guide us as we embark on another school year with however, whatever model we have, how do we make sure we have authentic family and student engagement? And so all of this was started while we were doing this audit. And so I think it's important to know we were, again, we are in a situation where we have a lot of data to strategically and really truly make

051differences for our community will be forward and then perhaps the most difficult times in our history. That's for sure in my lifetime of what we're going through it, so-- - I just wanted to add that these things are consistent with the five recommendations as well. So we were already in practice for what the five recommendations were. Question? - Speaking of cultural liaisons, who are they going to report to Dr. Davis or to you? We are going to fight over them. No. - Let me reiterate the question before Steve gives us the the baseball signal. The question was, as it relates to the cultural liaisons, who will they report to? - They will report to Dr. Davis. I will remain very close because I value them. And that was among the favorite things of my job

052last year is getting to work with them, but they report directly to Dr. Davis. - And I want to say that the liaisons and myself they are very, very thankful for the opportunity to be led by Dr. Gillespie, and so the relationship with the people. - I don't give people very easily but I share it well. (people laughing softly). So then under each area, we want to highlight some things that are happening right now. Knowing that, like I said, we have a plan moving forward or Marcellus has a really exciting plan. So as we think about how to amplify and continue thinking about how students truly see themselves in school, and that their identities are accepted, and, and celebrated. We, I want to talk more about that YPAR so part of we are going to

053strengthen the opportunities for students in our system to participate in youth participatory action research. Robert Anderson, who did training last year with the graduate students did it as an extra add on that I was really thankful that he took but it would be part of his assignment now. So he has part of his FTP and dedicated to leading YPAR projects throughout the district. And so that will be really exciting because students will, they lead that process and then our commitment and they talked to Dr. Kazmierczak they talk with me, they talk with the building principal. Is that when they give you data that you will change things that it's just not about an exercise and experiencing some really rigorous research. And so we're excited about that or looking at opportunities for concurrent enrollment or college

054credit alignment to really honor the experience, which I'm hoping to bring to you as we look at course proposals for the upcoming school year, but some really exciting ways to authentically have student voice in our system in a way that like I said before, I've never experienced and they presented now probably four different times to different groups about their research and that's, it's profound in terms of what they identify for us to enhance. So that is one big thing that we're excited about. - So at the top, it says racial, cultural, ethnic student groups. And research suggests that students were very strong sound racial, cultural, ethnic identity, perform better in school. As you think about our Equity Commitment, it talks about nurturing the whole child. The student development there is racial identity. Development theories are

055often talked about in higher education, not so much in public education. What we are trying to do is mix the both. So that one's white identity development, one can understand where they're at in the process of developing as a white person or a black person or a native person. So really incorporating curriculum that addresses this development. Does that makes sense? - An underlying theme is I will pull together a task force to examine discipline. We've talked for a couple years examining that policy, what that looks like, but really looking at how do we enhance and look at ways that students are able to report issues of especially the racialized bullying that's referenced in this as we all know that's horrific to hear. And we need to examine that. So that will happen. And you'll that

056applies to many different areas as we look at closing the disparity gaps that exist there and seeing what we can do to enhance practices around that. - I have a quick question. - Yeah of course. [INAUBDILE] I mean there were some pretty horrible things that the students said in there. - Yeah, the question is, is will staff be included as we look at this one? Absolutely. And so it is a continuum of how to how to teachers have strategies, positively engaging students in class? How do our administrators respond if and when an issue comes? And then how does our policy guide that and, you know, to me, it's complex, and it all impacts it. So yeah, definitely. We do have schools that are working on under, we mentioned it throughout there's a program called Innocent

057Classroom which really talks about helping students; come to school and be their true their true selves, and being accepted at school. We have now four schools that have started implementing that, and that's Richfield St. Paul have implemented district wide and the impact it has on student relationships and feeling a part of school. Absolutely, yeah. Thank you. - So the next section is culturally responsive school leadership and curriculum. And if you can remember back earlier in the qualitative section and really talked about students of color not seeing themselves in the literature, and in the curriculum. What you're seeing is currently there are some that are working right now on a ethnic studies Professional Development Series, actually starts next week. It's going to be going on for the next month. There are also some efforts to design

058some US history ethnic studies courses that will be proposed this year with implementation potentially next year. - So as part of the course proposal process, we all have our US history teachers are engaging in professional development with Clever Ortiz, he's a professor from MCTP I believe Annapolis Community Technical College. Um, and really it's a they started and it will go all year in terms of teaching teachers about how to enhance the curriculum, but also the strategies to come along with that. And instead of having a separate course my charge right now, which I'll work with a committee is that I want to have an updated course proposal for you for US history course, that's our US history course. I don't know. I can't quite figure out as we enhance a curriculum, I would have separate

059classes when we're talking about giving our students a robust experience of understanding our you know, United States history and its impact on multiple groups. So it's very much of emphasis. I too have only been on this job eight days. So we'll see how but I know course proposals come up really fast. (Clears throat). - I'm sorry, go ahead. - I actually want to make a comment about that first of all I'm really excited to see more of the anti racist thoughts. I'm so glad when using that term, [INAUDIBLE]. The question and comment is, why are we looking at K-12 science, but only US history which comes in secondary because I will argue that students learn at a very young age kind of Native Americans as a historical. - Yep. - And they learn at a

060very young age that the symbols of the country and civic ideals are embedded in these white male presidents. And so as students are learning that by the time they get with history in seventh grade, they've already built up this understanding of what is history for example. So if we're looking at K-12 science, I'm so excited for US history, but I really think that K-12 social studies, students, you know, they need to learn in kindergarten these ideas before they get to middle school. - Yep, I agree. So part of it is-- - Oh, thank you. - So I think if I'm going to to try to make it concise just make, just make sure I've captured your essence. The question is, why are we looking at science, changing the science curriculum as relates to anti racism?

061- Just why the K-12 Science, under examining enhancing the curriculum, over looking at US history as a specific course then if we can get social studies, and they get these racist ideas from a very early age. - Why we will, this is a starting point. K-12 science is on there because K-12 science is in curriculum implementation and part of the curriculum review cycle. So we're for that we're making sure what we do right now, social studies, we're reviewing that whole process as well. We try to coincide it with standards review. And so but that also is, as we know, it can sometimes seem like many years and we don't have many years. So these are the two areas that were starting with, US History was supposed to already be started. We have a petition from

062students who want who wanted to change the curriculum, we would have already been participating in this PD but then we had to go to distance learning. So these are starting points by no means are they the ending points and I agree 100% we have to look at K-12, every single K-12 area. - And just a point of clarification. The ethnic studies PD actually started last week. The anti racist professional development starts next week with with with our teachers from our district. - In terms of oversight of practices that we, that we worked on looks that Nancy [INAUDIBLE]. - So the question was around restorative justice, as we've worked with Nancy a local expert, and as we've partnered with her. I'm not quite sure at the district level, we have restorative justice and Nancy, Nancy provides

063lots of training. I have worked with her personally and went to our training many years. So she is someone that we work closely with Equity Alliance Minnesota around it but Nancy, she has influenced, really all of the restorative justice initiatives. [INAUDIBLE] For sure, she's a great resource and actually an audit to just in working with our indigenous community to as we look at restorative justice and making sure we're implementing it with fidelity and honoring cultural norms so that we have a lot of schools have implemented it. I know what norm was increasing, Sunrise Park has a significant, so we've got a good foundation, but absolutely. - I just like to ask one question. This is Marge Newmaster - Yes, yes. - Speaking from, from the world out here. - Hello, hello, board chair member Marge,

064I was a little taken back. (people laugh softly). - My voice came from on high maybe. I just want to very briefly say, because I don't want to take much time with all your good presentation here. The data is fascinating from my perspective of having been in the district, close to 50 years. And being a mom of a kid of color, who's now an activist adult, working in anti racism and doing a mix of things. I am encouraged that we're finally going beyond the one day. I always cringe when we hear celebrate, because we get this the day okay, this is this day. And we look like we're going to actually take action and really do things that make a difference. So I'm really encouraged by this movement, by your new position, by all the

065people working in this, and I think the importance of our student voices, and the parents, but the kids that are in it that are living, the microaggressions, and all the things that happen all day long. If everyone is aware of our life, in our school, it can be better. And the kids can see themselves proudly. So I'm really encouraged. We are really going to do something this time. Thank you. - Thank you, Marge. - Marge, yeah. - Yes. Okay, Okay, thank you. I appreciate, I just want to make sure I got it right. Thank you. I want us to be encouraged like you said, "I agree 100%, there will never be another opportunity in my lifetime, that we have the opportunity to radically shift Education like we have here." And I know that it's very

066tough, tough, tough on all of us. But this is an opportunity to transform the way we deliver education for our students. And I take that with great, I'm honored by that. And I'm humbled by that. And I take that with great commitment and passion, and a sense of urgency, right? - I wanted to highlight the anti racist professional development, is new. And at the end, when the murder of George Floyd, Floyd happened, Marcellus and I pulled together our district equity achievement team, and they really felt compelled that we need to continue learning throughout the summer and so Marcellus, amazing teacher leaders, administrators put together a professional development that are willing to engage our whole district staff. And before this meeting, I just checked we have 61 people signed up already for it. That's in July.

067It's they're not getting compensated for it and the reasons people are there, they all are introducing themselves. It's really about getting better, and being able to impact. So I think it's not solely teachers, there's classified personnel or administrators. And so I have no doubt that their number, number will rise that's really exciting. And that team put, it's really awesome that they put together I look forward to (INAUDIBLE). [INAUDIBLE] Its, you do the learning on your own, and then they have three opportunities to participate in discussions there, you know, virtual discussions and you don't have to leave you can do the learning and the majority of people are participating in the discussions too. I checked in almost every single time has at least close to 50 people participate. So pretty, pretty. exciting. - And I just

068focused on the last bullet Equity Alliance Minnesota provides professional development, we've had a relationship with them probably around eight to 10 years. They are we are part of their Consortium, and they used to be emailed, for those that may not be familiar. And as they are ramping, they are taking feedback from the consortium. Members on what type of professional developments need to be offered to enhance anti racism, professional development. To enhance culturally relevant and responsive pedagogy. So our relationship with them is going to be suggested in numerous slides, but it's going to be relationships that will help provide us with additional professional development opportunities for our entire school district. School community relationships. - So as we work to enhance our school community relationships, I referenced the equitable family engagement framework and tool that that stakeholder

069committee created and really Marcellus and our amazing cultural liaison team will continue to lead that work for us. But I will incorporate a goal for our schools and their yearly action plans around how they're going to increase some engagement. It's something our leaders have focused on and want to do, we know that we have opportunities there. And so this tool is hugely helpful and has already had, I gave it to him ahead of time for those who want to look a lot of positive feedback on the help that it will have. So that is something new in our system, something that we had planned before everything happened but something that we know we'll have, we have even more data to enhance the urgency around making sure that we enhance and get better true relationships with

070our community, our each member of our community, including an especially a community of color that we haven't yet connected with. - So this is the popcorn section of our presentation. (people laugh softly) So areas may go longer than normal. And I'm thinking about, in my interview, Matt Mons told me, we've got 20 questions and you're on question three. And you've got 30 minutes left (laughs loudly). (laughter drowns words being spoken). So so, so bear, so bear with us. - No, if I had time I'm going to speak this up. - I just wanted to say that Jennifer Babiash is right now currently looking over the last five to eight years of all our equity initiatives, and creating a logic model that lists all our practices, so that we've kind of having them streamline and making

071sure that they're in alignment with the Strategic Plan, does that makes sense? So that it doesn't feel like they're isolated attempts or one shot off equity attempts. Now we're aligning them all together and seeing how proficient and seeing how they are working in ours, our School District and then making the decisions going forward is is still what we need to be doing right now. Does that make sense? - School culture and climate. Are you wanting to talk about this? - No, no, no. So we have had a relationship with Many Faces in the past. And through a relationship with our community, our Director of Community Education, Tim Maurer. That relationship is still still in practice. I believe we have a meeting Monday. So we're, we are trying to reconnect on a different level and continue

072working in relationship with some of the things that they're doing in community. And our goal as it relates not only to the equity audit, we had already planned to get even more immersed in community organizations that are really trying to set the stage for racial, cultural, ethnic connections for our community, to elevate our effectiveness as a community and embracing. - So when I think about, when we think about school culture and climate, a lot of maybe a lot, I don't know how many we have, but quite a few significant policies exist that your influence is huge as school board members. And one big one is student discipline. And so this school year, the beginning of the school year, as I mentioned, we're putting together a task force to look at discipline. In general, I see

073that as also examining our policy and working with the policy committee on what that might look like and Dr. Kazmierczak. We also have two policies that our students are doing research on because they learned from other districts and I don't know enough, enough yet to know if we have something that similar or what this would look like, but one is a policy around equity and inclusion and the other one is around hate speech and making sure that it's clear in our system that we won't accept it, tolerate it and then it's it's it would get a consequence. If something were to happen. Forest Lake has a similar policy, I've never heard of that. And so our students went to a conference with them. The students who were leaders of that and our cultural leaders are

074working with those students. But I thought it was a great opportunity for the students to do some work, learn about policy, bring it to the policy committee, however, that might look. And then those policies will help continue to reinforce the work and decisions that our leaders are making in our school and give them even more confidence when they're making courageous decisions on behalf of all of our students. The other thing and you know, we've been engaged in this in a while but examining our practices that contribute to inequities. So grading, we're all attending a grading for equity conference, a leadership team next week looking at, what will grading look like for us next year What will it look like in the in the future dress code? We did significant work on that as a board

075and that's very helpful, but how do we examine the practice of implementing that is that consistent across our district, so that dress code is accepting and students can come to school as themselves, against student discipline, so we have the policy, but what's the practice? And I will say someone who was in buildings for 17 years, I grew a lot, I was free, no nonsense and have a suspension rate that I am not proud of. So I know that the work that we have to do, and that was not at North that is prior time, but I know our leaders are committed to it. And so we will lead into that together and then working with Matt Mons around continuing to look at our staff hiring protocol, so that we can continue to aggressively seek high

076quality candidates of color and influence the diversity of our staff the values for all of us. - As well as retain them. - Yes. How has that been going? - So the question was around how has that been going? I'd say we saw some fairly significant improvement, coming into the 19-20 school year. Coming into 2021, we continue to gain some ground, but not as much ground as we would like. For me, the strategy that I always find, works the absolute best is to go to candidates. And that's been incredibly hard right now. And so I've not found that passively waiting for the candidates you want there that are highly sought after. And there's a really competitive field for, because there's just not that many candidates of color that are out there, frankly. And so I

077found that we really need to go to them, be really aggressive, be really welcoming, talk about the opportunity that we have available in White Bear Lake. And that's been extremely difficult to do, so, at the same time, we've been working really hard at it. So we've been saying where people can have authentic conversations with friends about their experiences as staff of color and White Bear Lake. We hope they're having those conversations so that we do see staff in our pools, you know, we're still being as aggressive as we can in pursuing those opportunities. And, you know, we, we spare no expense to make that, to make that a reality. And we're trying to continue to break down any kind of barriers or challenges that we're seeing in our system there. So we have not achieved

078perfection, we do not mirror our student population at this point. But we're working on it. And I think we've got an administrative team making hiring decisions that's passionate about making that happen for students. Okay. - [INAUDIBLE] - I'd have to see, I would only misspeak if I, if I broke that down right now and I'm used to looking at it by category as opposed to an in an aggregate like that. So I would only misspeak if I attempted that, but that that is absolutely information that I can easily get to you. - It's also a great opportunity and looking forward to our education pathway. How can we take that opportunity and demonstrate to our students of color, this is a place that you belong it's in education? - Absolutely and Roseville has a really interesting

079course on how they attempt to undo what attracts students of color in their in their school. And so we have teachers have already expressed interest in looking at that. I had some conversations with kids that was convincing them but I'm not good enough. (people laughing). - That's the other thing that I would say was getting in addition to making sure that you're being proactive going to candidates. It's simply by offering programming that's going to be attractive to candidates. You know where you have emerging program in cultural responsive programming, where you're listening to your to all of your students about what they're looking for in terms of course offerings, then you also see a different pool of candidates, when you're offering that kind of programming within the system. - So, my comments are going to be

080similar to Matt's, I think there's the overt recruiting. And then there's decisions to make as a system to try and change a system that become attracted to candidates of color. And I think the work that's been going on in the work going forward as we as we focus going forward, we're going to become more and more, but we hope a destination for candidates of color. So it's going to make that recruitment. We'll still be aggressive but the recruitment is going to be, I mean, it's authentic now, but it's gonna be even more so as we move forward as we start to see improvements. So I was just reiterating what Matt just said so. - The other thing that's really important, obviously, is retention, so Matt and I and Tiffany Dittrich, our Teachers Union President are

081partnering, you know, how what types of affinity groups can we offer, offer support, making sure even when something happens where our candidate, our teachers or professionals and a staff don't feel supported or have something that they have a clear path to both of us administration that can fix it. And so, Equity Alliance Minnesota was a great partner and, and Tiffany has really done some really awesome thinking around how to set up some structures for that. So some successes, some areas of growth that we have, but that was a conversation that we had this year, and I know it's continued to do more of this. I tell them we get one more thing we could go on for days. (people laugh softly). So you pick the last thing. [INAUDIBLE] - Okay, so going forward, the equity

082audit report suggests that we have some type of semblance of an equity plan. Currently we do not have an equity plan, we do have an equity commitment. So one of the things that we are discussing right now and have been given the go ahead, the green light by Dr. Kazmierczak is to put together a team to help create a three to five year Equity Plan. And through our relationship and working with Equity Alliance of Minnesota, they're going to facilitate that process. - And so you talk about integration plan. - Yes. That is, how it fits in our system and that is [INAUDIBLE] our plan well that's not our plan so I think you should clarify, because board members might might be wondering what is that? - Good point, so the achievement integration plan is something

083that we have to turn it into Minnesota State statue to make sure that we are trying to create purposeful integration into our schools. That is a plan that focuses on academic strategies, college career readiness, and it's very coupled, coupled nicely with the World's Best Workforce plan. That is something we have to give to the state and they give us some funding for that. But that is not in fact, an equity plan. It doesn't speak to multiple different sectors in the school district that can move the work of equity. So we are looking back and I would I would argue that many districts are probably in the belief that, that can suffice as their equity plans. But under the leadership of Dr. Kazmierczak, he's like, "No, they are two separate isolated plans, and we need one

084that says equity is the overarching plan that has achievement integration nestled in it and all of its connected to strategic plan." So we're going to put together a cross pollination of different groups, individuals, students, parents, school board members, to help create this Equity Plan that takes us the next three to five years with monitoring mechanisms to see our growth as it relates to equity initiatives in the district. I've got 17 more slides. (people laughing softly). And it is 5:30 no, no, that was five o'clock. If there are no more questions, I'm going to unfortunately put this mask back on but it's fortunate for safety purposes and get some water because it's hot up here. Right? Yes. - I just have one comment and I know you're specifically focused on this but it seems to me

085[INAUDIBLE] - Yep, special education you know, I believe probably come out within the document. I know that it's listed in what we presented tonight, ELL but [INAUDIBLE]. Yes because they talk about over representation of students of color and different groups explosiveness suspensions as special education forums. - Yeah look at all those areas, We will find inequities even [INAUDIBLE], you know looking at discipline means we also look at what discipline what's disproportionate discipline for special education. - Oh, you don't have 17 more slides. (people laugh). - Well, you can see about half of the room or a third. [INAUDIBLE]. - Okay, so one of the things I wanted to ask or is, how do we think about a recommendation? So this was just an opportunity to [INAUDIBLE] think about next steps and I think there's a

086lot of our work and we're actually taking action because the this work is difficult. And it's important that the school board is reporting to work. So in this board meeting, we would like to present this in a way that is actionable for school morals, similarly to support that idea. So, so likely get a firm work done, they might say, I think it might be okay to take a moment to give ourselves a pat on the back for our work the last few years. But we know that as we move forward it's about the action as well, I think Marge put it perfectly. You could have summed up the meeting today, mark a few comments, the that find your endpoints, and for those who have been in the organization a long time where the action steps

087we're going to take will truly have an impact on our system and proving very, very helpful for all of us, moving forward that the actions are supported by the board. I have no doubt that that's an important step along the way. You've been supportive of going out for the equity audit, supportive of the commitment statement, supportive of the decision making protocol all those things. And I know you want to be part of the solution. So I think this is how you you're asking for the emails about opportunities already and we just sent you the messages and I so there I can sense, a sense desire to be leaders from the school board members, as well. - On Monday, if we're able to pull that together by Monday, maybe more likely that first August board meeting.

088we can take action on whatever format, this ends up being. - So your thoughts are around taking action over the work that was done and then building a plan a three to five year plan is just a really. - Yep, okay like confirm the work we've done and. I will sit this down with a page or two that backs out as we go forward if the board is supportive of that and take action. Your support will be incredible helpful as we move forward. [INAUDIBLE] - Association and I was floored by a number of people, in other states that I talked to that said they can't even use the word equity. And maybe I shouldn't have been surprised by that. So I feel like we can't afford to not do something and I feel really confident

089and encouraged that the board will be supportive. - People didn't even honestly want to say the word equity because other people on the board would get mad. It wasn't even up for discussion. And I was just completely flabbergasted by that. But that's not how, we are here. - It was the tradition that he would bring it forth as a discussion item and then take action on the work. - Yeah, I think so let's just say - on the 13th or - whenever it is? 13th. 13th. - August 13th so we'd have a discussion item, I mean, we'd probably recap this presentation succinctly, simply and have an action item [INAUDIBLE] I think that's an important part. - Thompson. The next regular meeting is August 10 so I won't be there then, we're on vacation that week.

090[INAUDIBLE] - Do you think we could get something together by July? I mean by July-- [INAUDIBLE] - If you give us the benefit of waiting until Monday. Tomorrow's Friday, we could have Friday and then the weekend to get this ready to put this, put this together and focus. It'd be presentable. - Matt I understand there's a lot going on and making sure that that way you have full support of the board right is however the same move. [INAUDIBLE]. - Thank you. - Yeah, no thank you. - Other comments questions? - Oh, I just wanna say how to [INAUDIBLE]. Changing steps, formal advice some sort of path to address this, suppose just [INAUDIBLE]. Thank you for that work. - Yeah, you know certainly the last word of it and just didn't maybe didn't give it the

091context I should have with Dr. Cook's comments about our becoming a strategic system, so everything that went on with COVID-19 and everything that went on in the last five weeks after George Floyd's killing we are in a position where we don't necessarily have to react. We have to carry out the plan that we developed. We have a very strategic plan, very much a strategic strategic plan that was developed by our community. We need to are charges to carry that out. We're fortunate that the strategic plan is aligned to what's going on in the world right now. And so we don't necessarily have to react as much as we have to implement what we've already committed to, and what's been going on in the world will actually help accelerate the implementation, I think. So we are

092positioned really well and we don't have to come up with just a statement of some sorts. We actually are ready to move into action right now. So we're just at a really neat spot, you know. - I just have like one last question. We're talking about engaging the families of minorities. What's the plan to mobilize the families of our white students involved and to be part of this and supporting this? [INAUDIBLE] - Absolutely. That's a critical part and one that can't be overstated that we have many people reaching out to us wanting to be part of a solution, community events that we partner with. And so I have, you know, in one of our action, suggested action steps which made sense to me as we work with that stakeholder committee is about having community conversations

093and that's across racial, you know, groups and making sure people talk together, because really truly make an impact. It is a community problem and a community issue for us to solve. I know White Bear Lake has a lot of confidence in our schools. And I also believe that we'll have a lot of partners. So it's the same for our white educators, our white students. Right now we have a group of teachers looking at how can we teach our students all of our students in school but our, especially our white students. How do you how are you an ally? And how do you stand up, if you hear some of those racialized bullying things happening? Because I know as a white female growing up in this area, you don't always know what to say. And you

094know, you should say something. So it's on us to intentionally teach those skills. So it is absolutely a critical piece of it. - Mr. Chapman? I've got a few questions. First is back in June, the 916 board, which I sit on, representing this board and this district, we did have a retreat in equity was there as well. [INAUDIBLE] And I was very impressed by how she was able to encapsulate and point out the various areas of bias that I had not really thought of and it broke it down and made it more understandable. Are we using or are we going to use any of her works at all? [INAUDIBLE] - So we have had schools, do book studies around revenue Robin DiAngelo's work. We have shown videos, yeah, it definitely is a part of, because

095what it does is it gives language, especially for me as a white woman and growing up white to understand what that means in terms of whether it makes what's invisible, visible. So it gives you language for stuff that you maybe could feel or maybe didn't understand. But you don't know the words to describe it. So yeah, many teachers, I know one of our elementary schools had a whole their whole school read it and it was because the teachers in that school and staff wanted to engage in the conversation. - So we will help and use some of her work? - Yep, we have and we will continue, yep. She is one of the, we actually went and saw her speak at Urban Leadership Academy. She's phenomenal. She was phenomenal. - [INAUDIBLE] - What and the

096book people talk about it's "White Fragility," but she also, she has other books as well. So I can think of the other one is a longer title, but North Campus read that book Connect. She co-authored that with someone. But yeah, she's well in that and what was the other thing I just referenced? (people laugh). I know, there's two areas that I feel like our new learning in terms of equity, professional development and what is the language around, What, You know, - What? - Anti-racism. - Yes, that's it anti-racism, nope. It is for sure, what it means to be white and what that like the language around it. And then Deb said something and I said, we're gonna put together PD for it. It'll come back like we're talking I can't remember. - Well, the other

097question I have is [INAUDIBLE] what processes wanted to use from a personal colors lens to make sure that those alignments are turning and you know, those of us that are awake, or not awake you know, we can relate to persons of color and talk what the issues may be but we don't necessarily know the steps, so I am just curious, is there going to be a process and also look from a personal colors lens as to this alignment and making sure that it is. - Gotcha, board member Chapman, thank you for the question one, two, the way I tried to explain, what this Ms. Babiash is doing is really creating a logic model of all the things that we say our equity initiatives and putting them together, and then creating meaning from that. What does

098this mean? We've been doing this for three years, what has been the result of it? was it was it implemented with fidelity or is it implemented with infidelity? Did it get down to, did it get down to the staff level, did it get it down to the teacher level? So really just seeing some of our initiatives, and seeing how they are in practice today. More importantly, or as important, do we continue doing it? Is it really helping our equity initiatives? So not as much around literature, but perhaps it might be as it relates to the second point that you made of narratives for people of color, as we're doing things as we're going forward, similar to the focus groups, similar to the survey that was administered, we are trying to get multiple narratives. But here's

099another practice that we also try to be very intentional. Is making sure that when we're in design phase that we have a multicultural perspective. And being true to, um, if I'm the only person that represents African American males, I got to state that and that this is from one African American black male perspective and another African American black male perspective may be different than mine, but here's mine. And I'll give you a case in point. We have seen over the years, corporations, sneaker corporations, one sneaker corporation in fact, was going to come out with a shoe called the shackle shoe and they were this close to selling it. Clearly they didn't have multicultural perspective. That makes sense? So we have, yeah, the shackles so you can Google it. I don't know but I am going

100to put a disclaimer, I'm not trying to defame any athletic organization that will negatively impede our progress as White Bear Lake Area Schools. But you can Google it. Um, there wasn't enough representation to say, that's not a good look. More importantly, that's not right. Does that make sense? So we are committed to making sure that we do our check ins, but we also want to be understanding that our district demographics don't give us a huge pool. But we have people that we can talk to. - And then where we need we get consultants to help us, there are people out there, you know, we have a Clever Ortiz like I mentioned from MCTC proctoring the you know, leading the training for our social studies teachers, we learn alongside and we get better than two, but

101that is true equity is when you then allocate your resources in a way that you understand is a priority for you and it's good for all students all of our kids demand and they should that they are pushed further than when they entered and that they every single door is open when they graduate because we all know you enter you walk through many different, where you landed 18 is usually not where you end up as you go and so we have work to do but all of our kids it'll it'll make them all better and they want it - I was just going to say in closing to the to the question that it is very important for us to remember that it is, it is not condemnation, it's realization and with with that energy

102and allows us to go for. Here's what community members are saying. And the data supports, something's going on here. And all our children are not learning the way we want them to, they're not getting the learning experience that we want them to get, which is creating a different experience for some, it's like having two schools in one school. - Okay, so what I'm hearing sounds like there's going to be a broad base and there's going to be a lot of a lot of perspectives, you know, a lot of background, racially and [INAUDIBLE] so that things are not carried forward inadvertently, unintentionally, that have helped proliferate or helped in, in systemic racism to continue on, because that's the last thing you want is things to keep getting kicked forward, kicked forward, kicked forward, when you take

103a look at cultural and racial perspectives in all different perspectives. So that's what's happened for example in society [INAUDIBLE]. - Absolutely, absolutely. [INAUDIBLE] Humility, vulnerability and transparency. We're going to do our best to get it right. But the truth of the matter is there are going to be times we're not going to get it right. We have to own that and do better. Thank you. - Thank you sir, in terms of curriculum for the US history and [INAUDIBLE] geography. [INAUDIBLE] So starting that earlier, she was starting it. - Starting it earlier, so that's when you're in high school isn't isn't a new [INAUDIBLE] - Absolutely. And it is something where everything we do, we do stuff now to make sure we're impacting our our students in high school but you start young and influence the

104system. So then, I mean, not cliche. They're the future and kids, you know, we know in many different movements that a student's voice has pushed adults faster than. (device beeping). - [INAUDIBLE]. - Just one quick thing I would share out with you. In June, I took one of the Department of EDs, workshops for media specialists and making voices effective. And I can share their list in their slideshow. But they talked and they had five people from different ethnicities who were writers, and it was our voices seeing our voices. And it was even kids as young as little ones reading board books like Kendis' "Anti Racist Baby" or something like that. There's lists of things. We don't have to wait for high school. There's lots of wonderful things for little kids, that we can share it

105and it's not just good for the kid that finally sees themself reflected. But as someone else said, it's good for all of our kids. - Absolutely. - So, but if anybody wants that list, if I didn't send it to you already, because I'm proselytizing a lot of times. Let me know, just email me and I'll send you the materials from that workshop. It was excellent. There was an indigenous easy reading book on powwows and all kinds of good materials for younger kids, not just high school. So, I'll be quiet, but there are lots of good things we can do. - Thank you. - Are there questions, comments, concerns? - I really appreciate the opportunity to hear the presentation. Thank you. - Thank you, as a board thank you all for your ability to put us

106in the direction to move forward. - Your support means more than you realize. Being administrators it's a hard job, but knowing that you have the support from the board, I can say that confidently. - Dr. Kazmierczak, is there anything else? No, I don't think so unless you have any questions. So Monday, we'll meet virtually, if that's okay? - We're all virtually on Monday? - We'll meet virtually on Monday. Okay. Unless you don't want to. We could do this again, but I was thinking we could just meet virtually. - I'm fine with that as long as everybody else is. I mean, I enjoy seeing everybody I enjoy being back in the room, so I'm fine with wearing my mask and meeting together but if virtual is the consensus, I'm fine with that too. So we'll plan

107on that and then for August we will just revisit and maybe maybe our regular meetings will look like this on August 10th. We could do this again. That might be a, this is a good trial on how we can move forward, that this is probably what I think it looks like [INAUDIBLE]. - Yeah. - Can I add one more thing to figure out? when we're all on a Zoom or a Google Hangout whatever you hear people's voices, but as somebody out in the public, it's like watching a bad MSNBC where people kind of fade in and out. I really have a hard time following people, you know, all of a sudden (imitation). So, you said good stuff, but I bet I only caught half of it. (people laugh softly). - Don't worry, we can repeat

108(laughs) - Just you will get this in an update I will send, but I just wanted to mention Don and I signed off on a sale. [INAUDIBLE] Our interest rate was below 1%. Point zero, oh zero point nine [INAUDIBLE]. So I believe what we had anticipated about 1.7% rate. [INAUDIBLE] - I am sure the community would like to hear that information at the next superintendent report. [INAUDIBLE] The sale, and now you confirm sale on Monday night, so they are supposed to be here, definitely so that's a bit of good news and then we'll prepare an agenda item for our equity work on Monday night. [INAUDIBLE] I'll send information about that too. - And anything else? With that I will entertain a motion to adjourn. (laughing) We have a motion from Dr. Arcand? Do we have

109a second? - Second. - Second from, I think I heard Ms. Thompson first. All in favor of the adjournment? - Aye. We are adjourned.