001call the roll Kimball items agenda I asked as well okay okay okay I'd like you who is the chair of our American Indians and the if you think that to board meeting on October 10th Andrew spoke at public forum about to acknowledge indigenous peoples day on that second Monday in October we have a resolution in front of us from the committee for discussion and Andrew also did send some background materials that has been shared with the board so welcome Andrew and there are some other members and they have committee here also if they'd like to come up they certainly can other atoms are welcome up [Applause] like introducing your family yeah I can do that so this is my 14 year old daughter Jennifer Adams who's an eighth grader at sunrise Park Middle School and
002Danielle DeLong I am a member of the Ho Chunk nation and proud mother of these three and proud wife Avenger [Music] how what are you where do you go to school okay yo and I mean I think I've done this a number of times but I'm Andrew Adams I'm the chairperson of the White Bear Lake Indian education parent committee I'm a citizen of the Muscogee nation and I'm a father and attorney and husband by trade and so I mean so we're here this evening to talk about the the desire of the Indian ed parent committee to have the school board recognized and it always escapes me whether it's the second of the third Monday of the second Monday of every October as indigenous peoples day instead of formally referring to it as Columbus State and
003I think you could see from the materials that that I provided that for for a lot of folks it's not it's not about revisionist history or and it's not about propaganda or getting people to forget about Columbus I think what it is it's to bring awareness to not only the historical contributions but also struggles and challenges that Native American folks have had over the course of the existence of the United States and I think you could even take it back further than that - when the first fur traders and other European mercantile traders arrived in the Great Lakes to the southeastern the United States and to other areas of North America to introduce you know capitalism and other forms of looking at the world it's an acknowledgement of that steadfast resolved that a lot not
004just Native American folks here in the United States have had but it what really struck me is that yesterday I was flying back to Minneapolis from Phoenix in a good friend of mine and I were sitting in the airport and it was extremely crowded and this elderly lady from Canada sat down to share a table with us and we you know just kind of struck up a conversation and she is from Vancouver British Columbia and she was talking about how as a Canadian she was just kind of struck at how in her interactions with American citizens there her perceived lack of their knowledge and understanding of native issues and in Canada First Nations issues are at the for me not at the forefront but they're there a lot there talked about more often and and
005in the curriculum in Canadian schools First Nations history and culture and languages are given a are given a lot of interests in a lot of time and to bring it back home to to White Bear Lake I think about my children and especially my 14 year old daughter who is becoming very socially aware she was one of the driving forces for us to travel to the Standing Rock reservation over MEA days of October to see firsthand the no dapple er no Dakota access pipeline protests that were happening on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and it was a very and I don't want to speak on her behalf but I know it was a very powerful moment for her but I will speak on behalf of myself that it was a very powerful moment for me
006and again to kind of correlate that to awareness I think the New York Times only ran two stories from June or July to November on what was happening in North Dakota I think USA Today maybe had one article about what was going on and people were constantly going to third second and third party news sources not the mainstream like the Washington Post or the Star Tribune or other places to get that story and I I see as as being analogous this issue of indigenous peoples day versus Columbus Day I see indigenous peoples day is a way for the district to celebrate the contributions of of indigenous people of Native American of First Nations folks in the school to acknowledge the schools in the district to acknowledge the contributions that have been provided by them and
007again not to dispel or take anything away from Columbus Day or its recognition as a federal holiday but to give that voice - and that acknowledgement to young people because I think in a lot of respects and again I'll speak for myself I attended public k-12 education and suburb while in the city of Detroit and then in the suburbs of Detroit and Native American folks did not have much of a place in the curriculums and those in those schools and actually not much of a place in my first and even second year of college at the University of Michigan and and what really strikes me about that is that when it when Native American folks were brought up in the curriculum it was always as the past tense as a long time ago or you
008know in the past and I think by recognizing indigenous peoples day you can bring Native American folks into you an acknowledgement that they're still here they're still making contributions to United States history in American culture and American society and then for students such as these and of course I'm biased because they're my children but for them as White Bear Lake students they see that they see that as a significant acknowledgement of them as individuals but also their rich history and current culture and current issues if I can just add not nearly as much as Andrea but just a little bit as a as a as a parent and I'm also an educator I do realize that the state of Minnesota is very progressive as far as addressing American Indians in the curriculum on more than
009one subject matter you know it's not just an art it's not just in history or social studies they're expanding these standards into every every letter every subject which is commendable but because there's not every not every state does that for their American Indian populations and here in White Bear it is very it's a good feeling to know that we do have an Indian education pairing committee and Indian education program for our youth but it will speak volumes to me as a parent if this district and our board can say you know what we're acknowledging even though this is a small population that as an educator every teacher knows that every child in your classroom matters it doesn't matter if they're only one percent of this population every child matters my children are only one percent
010of white bear district but they matter so I would appreciate that the board would be supportive of just acknowledging the importance of not only our ancestors but their dreams their goals what they can do for white mare by saying I'm a graduate I'm alumni and I'm a leader within my community and within my ethnicity so that's just one thing I would I would say that it would feel great to me as a parent and an aunt an educator that white there can be progressive enough to say we're taking a stand and we're opposing dark sides of history with beautiful light you know by bringing your digits people say forward thank you questions comments and discussion regarding the proposed resolution we're not going to vote on it tonight but we do want to give everybody an
011opportunity to discuss this yes miss Wilson well first and foremost I'd like to reassure mr. Adams and that all of the tenants the curricular reform that is being advanced in the documents that you provide wholeheartedly as Alcinous I've got and this is from my scientific background a teensy problem with the name of the holiday and if we're going to you know vote on it ultimately as a board issue I would ask for consideration to change it from indigenous peoples to First Peoples or if we want to maintain consistency with Canada First Nations day because from my scientific background I know that no race of Homo sapiens are indigenous to the new world that's the basis but it's a tiny tiny really just a point you know and I'm not in any way going to oppose
012you know offering here discussion and I'm not discussing but I'm saying many people choose what they wish to be called panic or indigenous of Native America and or whatever so I figure whatever you're proposing is the one that's most acceptable to the group so and I think it's great that it's a acknowledged and it should have been a long time ago so way to go and I have to say too when miss Fahey first brought this draft resolution she was a middle school teacher before she joined the board and I said to you take a look at our current middle school social studies texts I'm going to see how they address this period of artistry and also way that Columbus's first appearance in our continent and what his impacts on the native people in the
013native peoples impact on his totally different from what I read a million years ago back when I was in Middle School and I thought way to go we have a much more updated much more modern much more fair and balanced to issues involving the native people do you know your perspective I also need the contemporary kind of critical race Theory perspective when it comes to the power of words and how communities identify themselves I would recommend and recognizing because from my perspective the world whether the Canada or is if New Zealand or Australia when I think of indigenous people I think of the the particular inhabitant inhabitants of an area from a deal before before that introduced today like colonialism so I would prefer if it isn't digits in terms of recognizing that history and
014culture of those particular areas yeah and then thinking and then just for a perspective in my little bit of research I'm finding Rochester Minnesota st. Paul Minneapolis maybe Red Wing yeah I think schools have children I don't know though then I don't know that there are others yeah yeah when I looked at it too there was st. Paul public schools has it on their official calendar as indigenous peoples day Rochester Red Wing the last I read was progressing towards it Seattle has it looking out there were districts in New York just strictly in Minnesota I think if you know if White Bear Lake pride of himself as a leader in equity it would be very important for us to do this I mean st. Paul and Minneapolis of cities have proclaimed it as indigenous peoples
015day cover Dayton last year in proclaimed it as indigenous peoples day and what a lot of in my research trying to look at a lot of districts calendars around us a lot of people just do they Columbus Day off but they didn't replace it with anything so my in talking to other board members they're kind of you know I don't I want to say this in a certain way that doesn't denigrate anyone but kind of glossing over it okay we won't put Columbus Day but stick our head south and say we will ignore Egyptians people today so I think it's important that White Bear Lake school district does that as a a leader in equity and the other final as I mean regardless of the name I'm going to be mm-hmm thank you not anything
016that I'm gonna start jealous and windmills over and continuing on the it our district doesn't this is not a holiday district and it also is not our activities calendar not on the calendar that's in our board agenda for reviewing tonight which I do is the academic days calendar Chad it is listed on our calendar that goes out to everyone it is listed on our activities calendar and everything is Mother's Day you know and the other thing is I seen that some fun cities or jurisdictions choose to use continued vote they have Columbus Day and it ditches people's day both acknowledged on that day and if comments or discussion yeah mr. challenge I just briefly want to jump in say I wholeheartedly support this as well I think it's long overdue and will be I have
017to apologize to you Danielle I have a husband with a last name different than mine and I called you mrs. Adam summit along my apology thank you to you mr. Ellison your entire family for joining us tonight my guess is you an update on full board superintendent goals and strategic plan priorities no presentation here but if you have any questions Dreyer members appropriate members of the camera can I have a Madame chair I have two questions if I might if I may and I'm just gonna say that just because I'm looking at it sideways so I want to make sure I'm in the right spot on my page 11 it just talks about the demographic study is under play with the report plan for March of 2017 I just want to ask and make sure
018we're still on track for that get that report in March as of now have you been keeping up and everything I've been in touch with the with hazel and hazel writer and dick Carl strim are the two working on it we've been in contact so as of now we're still planning for late March okay so you're planning on bringing up at the work study correct yep okay that's 11 I just would like to acknowledge it's worth dr. Katherine checked I are aware we've had a couple of new developments that have surfaced very recently and we furnish that information to the demographer hey I'm hoping everyone hold things up but I've lead time especially in the northern part of our district so we just received notice this past week a major apartment complex proposed for badness
019we're going to say riffle running rampant or something but well that may be a seadoo connection this man and I'm looking for it right now I taken some notes so you got to please excuse me I was gonna print it and but I was I was playing on the paper thing trying to basically I believe that my next question was regarding the Student Activities thank you yeah it makes it a lot easier so there was some Student Activities we were doing with transition from from elementary to middle school and then in high school and I wanted to ask if we were keeping if we were doing a follow-up to see how those things were going kind of working that through to make sure students that are have gone through it example as as they've gone
020in the ninth grade that we're checking up maybe half year to later to see how that transition and there's anything we actually can share some good leading indicator data that we having appeared from our ninth grade [Music] good positive interest that's been targeted that we're doing or working I think part of our work broader brush of that transition critical transition which is why we testified at the legislature to look at partnering with our st. Paul to be more intentional about all students because we have you know multiple transition to making sure that we're being intentional about that and broadening what we're learning from our ninth grade academy and taking that on a broader scale so they're happy to share that data that's what your yeah I'm just and I I'm not searching for an injustice
021that have recently trends to start that transition process and you know I noticed them and their friends and have those conversations and I'm just curious to see if we're continuing to follow up as I said a Miss do master I am looking at goal one strategy for its labeled page 11 gives the description of that and below it is some of the actions and I know I spoke to dr. Lovett briefly this afternoon when he caught me and just mentioned that I felt it says every classroom will have equitable access to a core set of effective innovative and well supported technology and I would say technology is the tool and that's fine but let's say technology and however you want to put it text supplemental materials media access to support all learning styles because technology
022is a tool it's a broad brush but I would just say add something to imply that what do they need textbooks or supplemental materials for test tubes or for their video data projector they should be included but especially something other than a tool and I guess that's just my curriculum background speaking and on the same level just to the far right I just wondered what data if we have any knowledge of what data is being collected you know mark gave a brief presentation to us maybe November but you know it would be interesting to see maybe another month what kind of data is collected and we talked about what data was selected last year because you can't really compare our apples and oranges but it would be interesting to know and it's never too late
023to start collecting it so that was just my thought emerges questions yes I appreciated the comments that you've made about the way that's written and we'll try to incorporate some of that four-part march update and then in regard to the surveying this year I know that then serving that the right down right with him over the last couple of weeks and I know that there was an interest in getting some additional information more narrative information in addition to that perhaps have spoken to my schedule one for March me or April meeting after mr. Harrison and other members of the team to have an opportunity to analyze you could I also acknowledge to mr. Mullins question three is actually a member of the link crew who worked at ninth created specific questions about that could they
024go to you yeah yeah I'm one of our wind crews student coordinators too so I work closely with the teachers who are in charge of the program so and madam chair I appreciate that Bri I like I know for for Sydney I talked to her about it all the time right my name is greater but I just want to make sure that we're continuing to have those questions about past practice what's worked what hasn't worked right so as we continue to make that better I'm just your comments questions discussion about this item miss new master well I'm kind of going back to the one I unfortunately interrupted and practical Lovett was speaking but I know you were talking about the bright bites not bright bar but bright and I've taken a version of that survey
025myself and that does collect some data but that couldn't be all the data I mean that's kind of opinions and what do you think so I'm hoping I know that Google can provide an overview of even something as simple as how many places have been accessed and how much time was spent on them that's something that they can just provide so would be interesting and I definitely need us together just ask and it's there it's another thing to think about to go three medications on it I just don't remember if that's gonna be still considering kick my ass car is ready Teresa planning describe I also I do not we sent a copy to proposal to the board last Friday and the plan is to assuming that Venice agreeable care to move forward was doing
026that this spring and then we would get the report back this this summer and that would help really to help us inform what we're different history are focusing on would be a general communications audit but then we would also be interested in branching out a little bit more even and health support our principle there buildings in our programs and looking at an audit of that as well and how the communications happen there and then additionally how we are communicating with our diverse audiences we're staying on and are we actually discussing a survey here a few different ways that she would gather information and so is looking in everything that we do so when there's an electronic version of it she'll be looking at that and then looking at paper versions as well having different discussion
027as a group or discussion groups with different people so it would be with parents staff members with I know she talked about having some looks and then having communications with capped at level as well so doing that if necessary we've talked about doing a survey as well and additionally we've talked about working in some specific questions regarding the communication related to the survey that we're doing Springs event as well to bring a digital information there so it'll it'll be gathering information and not strolling with the survey but with a few different ways that so is it a foregone conclusion that will be contracting with you quick yes we've we have already made the arrangements with Springs that based on the discussion that we had last year so the springs spring set is working with us
028on the communications and referendum barb Nichol this would be the one who would be doing it when it comes to a survey who then would decide as to which type the method I'm driving at the methodology here would it be a random sampling a stratified random sampling and it's okay if you don't know that just now but I'd like somebody to asks probably miss Nichols which type she's run sure and I could the conversation that we had with her last week she has best that we would be sort of in charge of helping her gather a diverse pool of people to talk to so it would be really helping to make sure that we're will be the people who are in charge of helping to find for the discussion group and then a survey would
029cast up a little bit more she was the first to say that I mean this will give us a really good idea of it but it's not something that she's coming back with a scientific it is different than the survey that will be done with brinstead that makes it so it is getting an idea of but an audit is simply an audit it's not coming back with a research project and that's very very so shoes will not in all likelihood then generate any margins of area brings to Marissa if he could refresh my memory was Barbara all involved in the initial development or the initial overhaul at the website several years ago I mean was she a consultant at that point in time [Applause] come back and work with this event for a recognition program
030getting something started with NAFTA again that was baby steps but we started with that so you worked with her in different ways with no marketing is the firm that we worked with for the website and she was not involved with having a good website couldn't recall if she was involved in the website at all because then I'm going do we need to look else or so okay I'm from being a cheerleader yeah and I know Marissa you listed all many of the stakeholders and I guess just because I've been involved in community ed in the senior forum for the last year and they're like 60% of our voting demographics we really want to tie them in and make sure we're communicating and and they did have that excellent survey and they still like paper so
031if we want to communicate with them and make sure that they are with us put them on your list all right we'll turn to our next item should we review all the proposed [Applause] the next three years I needed to grab my notes because I was I just want to start by saying thank you for the conversation that started this board meeting when you hear a parent say I am proud to be in a district for every child matters and you have board members that talk about wanting to be equity leaders an example for other districts and a very very ambitious resolution here that you all are saying that you support I'm I just want to thank you for that that's exciting for me because it's it's it's big work and it just means a
032lot that we could have parents come here and share something and that you could have such a thoughtful dialogue it's just a can't ask for anything to be more excited about starting this presentation with so I just want to thank you for that we were going to talk with you about a three year plan for our achievement integration work and I just want to put it in the context that you know we're following some really good questions around our strategic plan work which we've been very thoughtful about putting our world's best work force work in the context of our strategic plan that we've had in place so that there one piece of work that we're working from and this plan that we're looking at for the next three years James has done a very thoughtful
033process to really look at data incorporated leadership going to every single building and doing a walkthrough in the district and classroom data observations and he's going to walk you through all of the pieces that came together to provide you this information tonight but what I really want you to be to be thinking about is the student experience and what this information has led us to in terms of targeted interventions to impact the student experience in the terms of family engagement in terms of how we support and provide classrooms that are welcoming for instruction and engagement of all of our students and then for student voice to be a big part of the work that we're doing and so James has really done a lot of great work he's incorporated a lot of perspective and has
034been very thoughtful about the proposed to plan that we're gonna be sharing with you tonight James great thank you so much and good evening members of the board and members of the cabinet so and I'm this is an exciting opportunity for me I've spent the last several months following a process to create our this proposal for you all today and and what's exciting about it is that like Sara said earlier just hearing the conversation that preceded me in the response that you all had to provide that support to and and that vote of confidence to that parent that that family that is ensuring that their students identity is is is well represented in its district is it's phenomenal so I also want to say thank you so I'll go I'll go ahead and dive in
035for those of you who are not familiar with the state's achievement integration program the state of Minnesota proposed or created this program with the goal of helping school districts that participate pursue racial and economic integration increased student achievement create equitable educational opportunities and reduce the academic disparities that are based on the students racial and economic backgrounds so so that's being the goal again it aligns with what a lot of the conversation that just took place but also just being equity minded as we go forward in in thinking it but in thinking equity as we go forward into the next three years so with this the state provided a process for us to do this because this is it's an audacious test to to come up with a plan that's going to guide your work for
036the next three years and to help school districts really be intentional about reflecting on the data that they collect and and the information that they gather how should we be thinking about this context so the state came up with with research but research-based concepts what they refer to as equity criteria and those equity criteria by focusing on the equity criteria it ensures that we maintain an equity lens and we keep students at the center and what's exciting about that is when we look at what those equity criteria are it talks about increasing access for students increasing representation for students participation for students and in monitoring the outcomes that that are that come as a result of our work with kids so and it's a really assure invalidating process for us with that you know that
037the state created essentially this process in four stages the first stage they they set out for us to do was to ultimately form an achievement and integration leadership team and and I'll talk a little bit more about that in a second the second stage was just conducted that a district wide needs assessment that that many of you in this room actually participated in and provided incredibly helpful context and perspective and I think through the conversations and through the that needs assessment process I think learned a lot about the needs of our schools as well and informed how you all have continued to do your work independent of this plan that the third step in the process our stage in the process was talking identify priorities as a result of the needs assessment data analysis that
038we we took part in and then the fourth step is an ongoing step which is ultimately input monitoring implementation monitoring the improvement and essentially evaluating your effectiveness so starting here we wouldn't in in the conversations with the state they recognize that of important part of forming that leadership team was assuring that members of that team was one representative of the demographics of your district so that the students the families the the the staff the folks that were all playing a role in helping doing this work and serving kids all had a representative voice in this in this plans creation also what was important to us was that in to the state is that we found members that have that are aware of the organizational history and that can provide context around multiple priorities the district
039has had whether it be recent or of years past and that was something that was really helpful for us if we sought out to the forum that leadership team we ultimately aligned our leadership team for the achievement integration plan with the world's best work force committee because we felt at one we were encouraged to do it by the state but we felt that that world's best work force committee met a lot of those criteria for us in looking at the states - and this is where I spent the bulk of my work over the last several months and again this is where a lot of you all have been able to weigh in on the process you know it started with us taking an opportunity to assess a lot of our systems data so we
040we took a few days to spend time in classrooms throughout the districts at all grade levels in all school sites and and ask critical questions around how our students being Indians being represented in the schools how do our what do our classrooms feel like what do they sound like qualitatively and that in that information was very helpful we also spend time walking the halls looking at student transitions Common Spaces again how we're of a student voice present where was it deemed welcoming or not welcoming for families what what did our school leaders and all of the members who took part in engaging that school community how did they feel about that environment we also had a series of surveys that went out I spent a lot of time talking to parents on the phones and
041also in person and having very thoughtful and informing conversations around their student experience a lot of great feedback that again went into informing what our next steps are or what our proposal are the interventions that go onto our proposal and what was also really valuable was talking with students and at various points over the last few months I've been able to talk with elementary kids I've been able to part spend time in elementary classrooms a place that was a little foreign for me but but I was I was welcomed and I found it found a place in my heart area Elementary it's not a special place in my heart I've also spent time working at the high school level where I was able to get really critical feedback from students who have spent you know
042they're the bulk of their life as students in our district and and really insightful context around you know would have been the factors that are contributing to their success as they move on into the on to college or to post-secondary their post-secondary opportunities and what if they could what would they go back and change again very very insightful context that came from those conversations and we looked at some of our district-wide state reported outcomes data around our student enrollment trends our state proficiency data we looked at our four-year graduation rate I spent time exploring information about our teacher demographics in our experience their credentials of our staff and then also at least some of our STEM course offerings and again our student participation in enrollment in those in those areas so that there the process
043for collecting data took place and another part of that process was a data analysis and what was really exciting there was that the state also provided a rubric for us to ensure that we had an equity oriented analysis process so and by that we looked at these seven areas here so climate environment and resources leadership and governance of the schools our continuous improvement in inquiry systems in the school we announced our instruction our assessment we analyzed our instruction and our assessments and we looked at our student engagement and outcomes and then also our family and community partners and and analyze again to what degree are do we feel really confident about these areas and we're seeing the result of our work be really impactful for students in ways that we intend and in what areas
044do we see an opportunity to over the next three years make a critical push to improve our work with kids and kids and families and so in support our develop systems that support our teachers as well [Applause] so through that process it took us to a conversation where we started to think about our interventions and just for just for the sake of understanding the interventions are all the state approved there's a there's a list of state approved objectives and activities that you can ultimately set in place that you will you deem to be the drivers for helping you close your achievement gap or your opportunity gaps and for us where we went with this this process or with our interventions we chose to focus in one really critical area which was engagement that was something
045that came back to our door to all of throughout our needs assessment process at various levels starting the first engagement conversation was really focused on the family engagement some some feedback that we gathered from our schools very early on was looking at do we do our parents do our students do everyone who again benefit from our schools feel welcome feel that their voices represented and it's also it's diverse not only diverse but also inclusive so are we do we feel good about that process we felt that there was areas for us to improve there and part of our strategy to improve in those areas we see a key component of that as increasing our the role of our cultural liaisons they play a vital role throughout the district in being that that bridge between our
046teachers our students our families in their homes and also out in the communities as well and we we see that with an attentional focus in in expanding the number of culture liaisons we have and helping redefine some of their roles we will be able to reach create more welcoming environments for our schools one by focusing on family support so family that we have intentional social interaction with school or in our schools so that families are intentionally welcomed into our school settings but also that we are building an awareness on the parents side what's happening in our schools what do we want to communicate to them so among radio is an area that we have seen as an opportunity to expand our work there and reach more parents as well as our PK work with PK
047and explaining our training and ensuring that we have more opportunities to engage families through our PKA initiatives the other side of that engagement process was helping support or provide professional development opportunities for our teachers and staff that's focusing on increasing student engagement you know some of the data that we got that we looked at was focusing on how much time are students spending engaged in the classroom actively engaged in the classroom and that was really powerful for us and we stopped to think about you know we have classrooms where kids are incredibly compliant but but are they excited and joyful about their learning and how do we determine that our you know our kids asking questions as a classroom largely this teacher driving the conversation or do we feel good about the ratio for a
048teacher to student interaction those are all things that came back when we are looking for all of those qualitative and plaintiff eyeing those qualitative observations that led us in a direction of identifying that our teachers and will benefit from opportunities focused on increasing student engagement in the classroom some work that we see doing that we some efforts we will make to improve in that area is focusing on something that we're calling cultural humility that in it as part of our cultural competency work but it's ultimately building understanding amongst our classroom leaders in our instructional and building staff around valuing the differences that make up that make up that space one of the areas we've also want to continue our work as our data-driven dialogue that's something that we get excited about because it helps us
049be more intentional about what we determined to be the needs of the students in the classroom and we're actively aware of what kids know and do not know what skills they have and what skills we need to develop in them and then also evident area that we've invested in as a district and we want to expand that that investment there because we see an opportunity to go school wide with avid in in by going school wide improving our student engagement and helping our teachers develop more student engagement strategies in the classroom the the third targeted intervention area that we see to close our opportunity gaps white-bread lake is to continue our work with our college readiness and and student preparation for rigorous coursework one in all of our academic settings a year ago I think
050yeah a year ago I believe that ladies a little bit over a year ago we partnered with equal opportunity schools and focused in and that helped provide us helped us provide a targeted focus and looking at our student representation in our advanced and college credit courses and that work was incredibly informing and it provided a lot of momentum for us and and but we we realized that we could do more in that area but not by just focusing at the high school level but what would happen if we started more intentionally at sixth grade or even at fifth grade when kids started to transition into middle school and even being again more bold and thinking about all the way down to how do kids enter into our school district and are they prepared there and
051again all of this has been conversations that have been or priorities that were identified in our world's best workforce plan which is exciting because we've that lets us know that although this is our next three-year plan we've already started this work some years ago and we'll be continuing to build on that and then one of the areas again continue to expand our partnership with avid but one of the areas that we see being really valuable as part of our priorities is supporting our student transition so now something I heard come up earlier you know it's important that our kids are better prepared both academically but also socially for the next level so we think about sending our kids to high school I think it's you know my conversations I found it to be the case
052that a lot of our so were very prepared for the social element of the next level so they were excited about more freedoms or more you know I don't know there's all these things that came socially but academically there wasn't as strong of an awareness of what to be expected the next level and it's not just helping the student but also the teacher you know what is an eighth grader coming to your classroom expecting and how do we ensure that you are you know in the earlier parts of your year you have a more welcoming environment that's assuring them into high school assuring them into sixth grade assuring them it's a third grade into school so that they are they feel better supported to that transition so those are all areas that we see providing
053a lot of support and focus to ensure that through those efforts we will have more kids ready for ready for college or ready for college credit courses or just ready to engage in more rigorous coursework so and also someone I believe everyone here knows that we have the state has designated one of our schools willow will Elaine as a racially isolated school a race rate identified as a racially identifiable school and what's important there is that that the state has provided a set of resources and materials for our resources to support that schools specific needs and what we see exciting is an opportunity to continue some of the work that we've started through our old achievement integration plan because we found it to be effective one of the areas are one of the initiatives that
054we will continue to do with our stem programming which is supporting our integrated learning environment initiative and a part of that is our partnership that we have with Tamarack Nature Center currently where there's a focus on environmental education and that was a partnership between Willa Lane and outer lake that's been incredibly effective and is evolved to not only focusing at the student level but now it's something where the teachers are engaged in conversation with one another for how they're supporting the unique needs of students and then there's the inside-out program that we have a partnership with the Mayo Clinic that will also continue there and one something that we as an expanded effort at Willo is developed designating one of our cultural liaison to work almost exclusively with that site and in providing all of
055the support that words are provided at district level recognizing that Willow lanes unique needs will require someone to be more of a specialist in that setting in supporting teachers supporting the students and supporting the families that are transitioning into our district so and then lastly and this is just the stage four is a part of the ongoing work which focuses on again implementation continuous implementation because this program will be phased in over over the course of three years in some sense but also just monitoring the progress of the program and asking ourselves you know is it are we reaching our goals so based on our metrics that we set do we feel good about the progress that we're making and not only we feel good about the progress but how we've achieved that goal and
056ensuring that this continual continuous monitoring and evaluating will make sure that we just continue to increase our effectiveness in in these areas so so I believe that's all I have for you all all right thank you everybody else you go back up to age 3 of your presentation which i think is page 39 in the board packet I have question about the composition of the achievement and integration leadership team since the group of students that we're really trying to benefit you know the african-american Latino Native American would you consider maybe [Music] actually helped us make sure that what we say is actually what we mean I think we because when somebody here as the complete opposite of what we're saying so do you think to your point I think that a committee focused on the
057direction of this work we want to include and have that be trying to serve I just also wanna make sure we continue to include that broader perspective so that I'm can continue to have an opportunity to see that this is this is a benefit everybody when I'm getting this right whatever question I have never heard of cultural humility training could you just give me an idea of what that might look like in practice and some of the work that they've been very intentional about what they did is it has been a huge mix gives the impression that you have to fully understand and become competent in some of these experience empathy relay she based a based approach to say my job is to see to understand somebody's perspective so that I can add the value
058that I'm seeking to add in their experience here within our schools and so as we've kind of tried that on it's actually helped us have a lot of sentence making within the work that we're doing and so we've just been kind of leaning toward us at freedom work in the work that we're doing other questions on this Wilson I'd like to begin by saying in general I think it's an excellent plan very comprehensive considered and commend you for the effort that you put forth in now I've got a series of questions and I'll start with the situation and we wanted them to have that that integrated learning experience and when three years ago when we came in and he had this great bar and then we had willow and emerging that they wanted to put
059the stem program into place and so having that shared learning happen and as James said with the adults and with the students has created has created really strong results to the point that our school programs now being shifted based on the conditions to her students so we went to our theory of action if we provide a quality program and we lean on the expertise or the strength and entire district to make sure that we can build the capacity by partnering to schools in the district yeah and so yeah the transportation option it was something that like I said it was you know some people offered not highly considered mainly because of the opportunity we had to increase the partnership from in a bad way because the school is unique in so many ways but in
060Virginia partnerships we found that that this was actually the unique opportunity for our teachers to to really work across some lines of difference and it supported the development of this and as well as who are at an American partnership the it was an opportunity for us to learn around how can we support diverse school as our diversity continue so we will see anymore adversity in our classrooms in our schools and how what our opportunities can provide there it's been favorable as well because when we think about at this point it's been the partnership for how long is it going three years so there's kids now who are little school together pools serving at different sites and and because they have this intentional space that wasn't just busting the kid in your classroom and not really
061changing anything about it also these kids came up so that it is more of a balance of gravity but having a cetacean space and really learn to share perspectives around something like environmental education we just we've seen a better generation at the sixth grade seventh grade level from students who have been a part of this for a few years now second question on transportation has the state indicated how much latitude that went to Connecticut sounds and looks like we're off to a very good start with this but if it flattens or worse decline if you have a sense of how much time you have them they'll give us before they start pursuing court-ordered blessings yeah I don't know hey your point is well-taken because they did take a risk on us to let us do
062this didn't remember self quality programming we wrote standard way that people went about and senator reminisce so I think it's a good question and I I think that there is a lot of conversation and dr. Casper Chuck has been really the key person attending those conversations I think we're really gonna have the having a lot of statewide conversations just about what we should be looking at when I think about the universe just so we can share and learning of how these conversations are going I think what we're doing I will all right now has been great for our students and it's created the conditions for the great learning environment but I think we need to be listening to the broader conversation happening and to bring that back and talk about it done with racial isolation
063positive correlation between family engagement in the whole of education and the value that they placed on education which of course that drives student engagement in the classroom gives the teacher something to work with you know you know positively how wide net are we prepared to cast or can't we cast with fractured families because you know the single-parent situation where they're working two to three jobs but the older kids are raising the younger kids you know but there is not a lot of space of time for family and then first part second part is with the fractured families and the parent that is not in the household that has legal custody rights are we prepared to try to include I think that family engagement has to go far beyond this presentation this specific continued integration plan
064is really our targeted strategies to close our achievement opportunity gaps so just her and we have family Asian if it is bar you know just these targeted interventions number one because I think we've got we've got a families that aware your single parent or whether you've been through some type of crisis situation every parent item that I'd love us at deeply cares about so yes I think I'll even you know we've got a dispose strategy and I think that we need to have even a broader conversation about family engagement I think in terms of family engagement and James alluded to two key points you talked about really bringing them in as a partner and in learning in front of them about about their child and then about building awareness and how and for us the
065most important thing for us to think about is what what are we implementing what is our structure so that we ever listen to be responding because part of an engaging and Families means that you're gonna listen and then you're actually gonna do something what they tell you and it be willing to actually change the way they're doing things and so for us and that's the biggest thing James has put together here is there's a support role and in a way that we can think about the role that ultimately the conditions within the school it has to be embraced that that whenever we bring people together that were actually have the people that are going to be able to be responding to defeat and that's the heard what this work is all about yeah there's there's
066essentially if you look at it as support empowerment and then in responding you know the the support piece I think we think about it all cuz that's polluted sort of some access interface and I'm going to put in it that's what we see and we go well you know it's kidding it's about help but there is opportunity to respond if done right we can create the summation of the parents upon enrollment you know what what do you see is that what is your desired goal for your son or daughter so that we know that you know our plans align with yours and you find a better support on the parent side and when they know that the planets aligned with one another the other part of this in empowerment piece is that you know to
067my conversation is probably also it probably nearer well I probably spent a lot of time collecting personally what says you know do we actually the parents knew more are knew better about what we were trying to do or there's new more and we were better about reaching you know what we see a different kind of engagement from our parents you know I was blown away by how long times I've heard of parents say oh I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know and I go wow you know that's on our website that's you know he sends his home but again through our efforts and we got okay to be better at it so that family engagement pieces yeah so I think in focusing anniversary areas support engagement and then respond you know responding to
068their their needs I think we can't cover a lot of that and it was been interesting about I guess responding to the unique family structures so fractured families and so forth you know what's been interesting is that we also recognize that by empowering the student we we have an opportunity to reach and address that need as well because a lot of our kids are incredibly resourceful incredibly engaged in our own learning you know as it never ceases to amaze me how how many times I've seen a parent at their own student at their own parent-teacher conference informing their parent about what what their the conversation looks like for their own mobility right now in the air the incredibly hip attended a skill and a lot of them will benefit from us empower them as well
069so there's a number of strategies we will take to address that um ladies first I just want to say that willow is actually a destination because of their diversity my nieces husband has to two of his kids go there and they're Cambodian first-generation here and they like the fact that it's a makeup where there's more people that look like them and my daughter grew up in White Bear when she was one of two Asian students at Parkview and she always wished we'd gone to another district and went to the University of Minnesota whether it's lots of diversity and other places but so I think sometimes it would easy breaking up something beautiful if you're doing a quality program and you've got some real engagement with a partner school that's the same district or it could
070be a neighboring district but to have 20% of the kids be who you see when you look in a mirror it's really powerful yeah you know in our second saying when I think about the the confidence of those students women aid when they look at their you know in essence still oh my never leave the district and then their school even when they think about how they are gonna do you think validated it puts a little bit more pressure on us to be intentional about how we're responding to those students validating their identity because there there's just a higher concentration so I do tonight I love that it is a destination that that for some parents that they know that if I enroll my kids in White Bear Lake there's a place that will be
071welcoming even if it's just surface love all along my kitty won't stand out for me the only you know fill in the blank again a formal judgment you know mom's you're talking about the law and busing and I don't think the way your people feel is any less important than that you know I look at a child and how welcome they feel and how that parent feels going into the school or somebody speaks their language or it looks like them and that's important too I mean nothing if you can somehow get the mix right right right and so hopefully no one will step in with a law that's just well this is a lot because I think you're making a great effort to benefit all the kids seven I have several questions too first which
072with regard to the cultural lessons company do we currently have how many have we had in on average in the last four years or so in and at what point do you think that we would be beefing up that number so to speak because I I think that is an important role very important to play especially as we get more and more diverse and and want to make our families feel much more comfortable and at home in this district so I'm just curious where you know if you could speak to those questions for a long time we've had to culturally as as in the district you know liaison and Latino lately is I earlier this year we we we had one of the people move on to natee and we we were in the process
073of putting together this plan to build this needs assessment and figure out really what direction we want to go the advantages of following the process were that we've got a now that more clarity on what the rule needs to be in terms of like what apparently is the ruler needs to go and that we haven't expanded and need for that work the challenges that I've been with about somebody and so that that's challenging for us we actually have somebody here Rubin Baskins who's sitting over he's actually going to be doing some consulting with us to provide some additional Spanish but we need to make sure that we get the right fit for us and he actually just presented at Wayne and did a presentation in their summit was really highly you know well-received by the
074staff and students for you know just sharing his story providing a connection there so right now in terms of where we've been we're looking anywhere from two to four and if three would really be looking for that broader district where and and so we would be doing we would be hiring two people for district-wide where there's a gentleman by the name of Brandon Johnson who has been working at Lil Wayne for the last couple of years part of his role has been a lease on a technical and then a behavior specialist and finding is that he he really as the work that he's been doing in the liaison role needs to be expanded to full time because of you know the students that are struggling reading it's about you know that that relationship piece or
075understanding a connection with a family and he's very gifted in that room so he will be expanding to a full-time there so it'll be four total one specifically working with with will only in the 3 district-wide yes we gosh I was thinking for some reason I was thinking we had three or four cultural ladies until one time we've only had the two and I just you know this is a plan putting together this plan is has been an incredibly informing for us and we think about like Sarah said identifying the actual role in looking at it at the system's level because even with with with with a 3 that is 4 it's still an incredibly challenging role to the play across you know nine thousand kids so when we think about the support that we're
076going to provide we wanted to be spot-on in ensuring that you know we found the right person who was ready for to the meet what the district priorities are and we're excited we think we're we think we're there the other thing about the culturally is not a role now that we've looked at is you know this person could actually be a specialist in a sense of helping and it's more because Brandon is that Brandon's working it well office has gotten me to think about this you know he's been incredibly helpful with helping teachers engaged in creating engaging and welcoming classroom with students that are different and we have haven't really been intentional that's far about how do we help our teachers creating welcoming space and not so much thinking about how do we help that
077student finish in the classroom so so Brandon one really to be our first or a specialist in that way we had a full time and from there we'll be able to contain the work that the culturally ladies on tap and engaging in and which has been great work and they they develop remarkable relationships with families and do by losing one of them we've been able to identify the types of supports that family said have been used to receive me so we can begin at a systems level create a structure that can support all of our families with that particular set of needs and not sort of lose sight of them through a long-standing role this that someone was basically just got a really good at doing every NIDA need to serve families so I did
078well read along the fat track with respect to the cultural liaison so if we are embarking on a consulting arrangement am I correct in assuming that over the course the three years we're looking at doing something sooner rather than later with respect to cultural lays on next year really trained of it makes you having some expertise in fill the gaps right now while we're waiting for once we go through the process of care and that person needs to leave their current job we just don't want the only other questions I had to is you know I get into these committee numbers how with respect to the committee makeup I see that there's 12 parents listed here but then down below if I'm you know and maybe I'm totally misinterpreting this we've got 30 people or
07930 demographic of counts they're 21 white to black so forth am i what am I missing I mean there there must be somebody individuals are being counted into different categories or two or more is that what we wanted to do was honor what the statute said for the committee makeup and making sure that we had north and south side representation and when we had our curriculum committee you know council see CAC we were really heavily I want to say the district not the others we wanted to make sure that we were looking across all levels of school across both site at the district meaning the Democratic but but in terms of the parent count there's 12 showing that we're showing I think you're right that some of them are I mean it's someone we operate
080in both areas you know among Asian okay so you're not looking just at the 12 that are listed as parents here okay gotcha that's what I needed to get clarification plan implemented so this is just a slice of our this is these are the interventions that are gonna be funded through this budget so our funding for this is a you know around a million dollars so that's the target Americans producer this get through the state virtually integration [Laughter] thank you very brief because we don't have a lengthy presentation for the way really like the calendar we recommend it for next Monday okay my ticket should we tell about some of the changes we've we've gotten some feedback from teachers and parents so we want to move forward with a couple of changes first of all
081our welcome back conferences by the way there are two districts already that are transforming their calendars to go with what we are doing so I think that's very honoring to the fact that that what we've done and how we've been able to articulate it and the feedback of parents and the talk that happens is actually impacting other people looking at their calendar designs so I think that's a firming to us to keep moving this direction our welcome back conferences we have one that's gonna take place during the workshop week and then one on Labor Day we originally had it that that would happen on the Thursday August 31st we're gonna need to move that to August 30th so just for your context to know that feedback from staff and from parents was that they don't
082want to have that welcome at conference when it's so close to being able to go out of town on a long weekend and so we're gonna make that change the the second change is we we're our collaboration days and our professional development are really trying to build capacity for some of the strategies that we've been talking about in terms of data-driven dialogue and adjusting your instruction to meet student needs we work with a consultant on that work who we her availability is on September 30th which is a huge opportunity for us to not train just a small group of people but actually bring that training school-wide so we're going to be moving the October second collaboration day that's on Monday October 2nd we're going to move that to Friday September 30th so it's not a
083change in the number of days or it's just a small change from the Friday to the Monday in order to align with what we're going to do yeah we've already past September in no we haven't [Music] oh yeah so those are the two changes that I'm sorry I'm we were shuffling papers yes but first one what was the first one sir so our welcome at conferences that we have at the beginning of the year okay right now we have and it would hit one of the things in the workshop week and it's on we had originally had for the August 31st it's not gonna be on August 30th which just to accommodate feedback from parents and staff and I had an email this morning from a self campus teacher and I did reach out to
084Linda and to Mike McKenzie about this raising their concern about the calendar which has been addressed but she said that some next year in 2018 Easter Sunday is April 1 and she noted that the calendar had the teachers working on Good Friday which was March 30th that's a student non-contact day but the teachers are working and said about that and I got information back from us Mackenzie that the favorite issue is discussed in details developing the calendar and that the trade-off was the teachers could either have off a March 30th Good Friday or December 22nd the Friday before Christian holidays lesson and whatnot and Mackenzie mr. Mackenzie thought that dr. Mackenzie thought that the teachers would much prefer having that Friday December 22nd off and Mike also told me that the teacher could if she
085felt strongly about from not working then would take that Friday off as an essential day for religious observances in their time that she took because it is a religious holiday and I realize there are laws in place here in Minnesota 2/3 of the nation starts school before Labor Day and they are done tomorrow what's the likelihood of daddy ever coming to pass where's your crystal balls the legislature ever changes that you can have a major construction project in the district then we could start we could adjust our startin in years where there's me collection projects reading the original one with two extra days the rationale was they were teacher collaboration so on those particular days you just talked about the availability of a person is it going to be straight professional development all day is
086there gonna actually it's paired with professional development and collaboration time so that's why it's two days but it's not so just to update you we have a came up earlier draft survey for with spring stay so we're working on a draft it's the draft is based on our 2011 survey that was that was given back during that successful operating levy campaign we have changes to make just to update you know things have changed in the last few years so we want to update the questions that we ask so that's about a reflection of what what's going on in the district right now so we're working on that in addition Marisa mentioned we have we want to develop some questions that will ask about communication sources and preferred methods of communication with the public so that
087will provide us some very good feedback as well so we'll piggy back that those those questions with the work versus anticipating to do with the communications on it additionally this question I don't believe is been asked before but I think it's important that we ask a question related to the length of the the number of years of the operating that we renewal so there have been different conversations about the operating levy and I know at our our training with Spring stead a couple of weeks ago the number of years for which operating Libya is in place or that it's on whether or not a levy has asked for five years or six years seven years up to ten years the number of years has not impacted the result so we should we want to test
088that idea here in White Bear Lake so that we can make a decision about the length of time when this was originally passed in O seven it was for five years 2011 we passed it for six so I think it's reasonable to think about doing something other than six and there are some reasons to think about that one is if we I mean I think the the less we go back to the voters for this renewal is it's probably a better idea I think there there have been some times when districts feel a little bit paralyzed around elections so there's some reluctance to perhaps do certain things or do certain projects or maybe building projects are delayed because there's a fear of this the next election is just so close and I think we just
089have to have that conversation and this data will provide us some very valuable insight we can talk about that lately and into the summer about what the length might be if White Bear Lake is similar to other school districts in the state the length would not impact the result of the election so that'll be a very important question I mean that we craft it the right way so a key timeline you've seen this before so we won't go through it now we'll just speak as it relates to the survey so right now we're working on that survey so in March we'll continue well actually were going to try to get it to spring set in the next day or two a drap they'll do some work on it well we'll talk with them they'll shoot
090us back a draft and we'll do some one back and forth on it so that hopefully by by mid-march we'd wrap that up or maybe the third week of March we'd wrap it up so they'd be ready to go so then through the month of April it would be administered and we would have the results back in May for us to review at our May work-study meeting so that's the timeline related to the survey and we're certainly open to talking about more of the timeline but again you've seen that tonight's focus was just on an update on the surveying instrument it's just more of the comment I like the idea of giving serious consideration to a longer period of time especially with you know unless something really takes a nosedive economically between now and November
091we're in a much better shape compared to what as we've seen in recent years where we could be as far as going before the borders with a long-term proposal so I think that would make a lot of sense and if we decide not to ask for an increase I think the voters would be much more copacetic with a longer period of time if there's no increase in their property taxes other than the inflationary increase which we can hendrik oven built into the levy yep and we're not anticipating it at this point recommending a but we're ready now so in fact the the tax impact that actually there'd be a reduction in your lawn so we didn't really talk about that that's not a huge reduction but it's at a minimum flat just a slight decrease
092because we have to we lock in a certain rate during the electioneering they don't actually increase that last year we actually stay flat for the next year as well so that actually allows us to to drop so that's a very positive message assuming we don't ask for more than what it currently have there's no planning to do that it's probably a foolish question but who pays for the up cost of the election the district yes so it and if I recall they were tracking what a school board election cost or a election was it like 30,000 correct yeah so I mean to have one every five years versus ten and then if you think about the work will ultimately do with facilities planning which may lead to a potential to questioned on the road and
093two or three years perhaps we stack like sheets to close maybe not address strategy and I'm just thinking the cost of all the printing and all the things that you do economic it makes more sense if it doesn't seem to have an impact yeah just a comment on election timing at the in the slides that everyone should have now Springs it typically about results of even year I here approximately to the general elections things like that and this direct information it's very good very pointed and you know I know you were doing it that everyone should we do some of that a few board meetings ago we looked at the results these tiny city of yours presidential versus to the Vittorio versus so this so out of here without the National race is going on
094it's a it's a good time to going to the voters and a discussion question well thank you so much social notes and for those in this room is the opportunity for dr. cancer check to meet with members of the community and the board is encouraged to be there as well so if you can make it here 4:30 that would be terrific so seeing nothing else I would entertain a motion to adjourn