001All right, we're going to get things rolling. We are live right now and so I'm going to call to order this April 22nd, 2025 meeting of the Lakeville Area School Board. If everyone will rise with me to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Um, I'm going to do the let's start with the roll call. Uh, we have one of our directors remote right now and I don't know if she can see us from a camera, a certain camera or Amber, let's start. Yeah, let's start with you, Amber. Okay. Hi, everyone. Thanks for um letting me join virtually. Amber Cameron, Brett Nicholson, Paul Carbone. I'm
002Matt Swanson, Michael Bowman, Karly Anderson, Brian Thompson. All right. Um any additions or modifications to the agenda requested? If there are none, I would entertain a motion to approve the agenda as drafted. So moved. All right. There's a motion to approve the agenda as drafted by director. Second Anderson, seconded by Director Nicholson. All in favor say I. I. All right. It is approved. We'll jump into the good news. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good evening all. Welcome to the school board meeting for April 22nd. As many of you are aware, we have students of the month here in Lakeville area schools. And we're excited to announce that April's students are Con Johnson, fifth grade Oak Hills Elementary, and Naomi Wandwasan from Lake View Elementary, and Edith Long from Century Middle School. So, congratulations to those
003students for being student of the month for Lakeville Area Schools. I got to tell you, it's a lot of fun to go to the classrooms and uh do those awards. As well, we have staff of the month, and we're excited to announce that April's staff are Evan Pearson, a science teacher at Lakeville North High School, and Lisa Thurk, a kindergarten teacher at East View Elementary. So, congratulations to both of them. Opening doors, college and career readiness in Lakeville area schools. What does life after high school look like for Lakeville students? In our new mini documentary, we follow Ava, a Lakeville North High School senior pursuing a career in the trades, and Josh, a Lakeville South High School junior preparing for college. Ava and Josh along with their teachers and counselors provide insight into how Lakeville
004area schools help them discover their passions and prepare for their individual college and career journeys. You can learn more and watch the mini documentary at isd194.org/news. Student nutrition appreciation week. Next week, April 28th through May 2nd, we're celebrating Student Nutrition Appreciation Week in Lakeville Area Schools. We want to take a moment and say thank you to the incredible Student Nutrition team members. We work tirelessly or who work tirelessly each day to ensure that our students have access to healthy, balanced meals and are prepared to learn. Their dedication and care make a meaningful difference in the lives of our students and the success of all our schools. And I think all board members made a commitment to go serve lunch somewhere with just maybe not. You can join me. I'll be out there. Two Lakeville area
005students qualify for team USA. Two Century Middle School students, Adelaide Bladzik and Sydney Bladzik, recently qualified for their second year as World Martial Arts Committee Team USA members. The two traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio on March 29th to compete in their respective age and belt level divisions at the National Qualifier Tournament. Sydney and Adelaide will travel to Hull, England in September to compete at the World Martial Arts Games Elite World Championships. So, congratulations to those two. [Applause] Hi. Lakeville students earned national honors in 2025 Scholastic Art Awards. Two high school juniors have earned national recognition at the 2025 Scholastic Art Awards. Anakah Swinson, a junior at Lakeville North High School, received a gold medal for her film photograph Moment in Time. Alice Yei, a junior at Lakeville South High School, earned a silver medal for her
006acrylic painting, Breath of Night. Congratulations to these talented artists. Our Lakeville Winter Guard shines at finals. The Lakeville Winter Guard teams wrapped up their 2025 season on a high note, capturing championship titles at the Northstar Circuit Finals. The combined Lakeville Middle School team earned first place in the Scholastic Regional A Division with their spirited performance of Snow Day. The combined Lakeville High School team received first place in the Scholastic A division with their inspiring show titled Every Golden Step. Individual accolades are also awarded. Kenwood Trail Middle School student Elaine Nielsen secured third place in the solo competition while Lakeville South High School students Olivia Maki and Na Wolf took first place in the duet category. And you can read more about the amazing things happening in our district at isd194.orgnews. And let's give a round
007of applause to our winter guard. Mr. Chair, there's more. Okay. I want to introduce Lakeville South High School chemistry teacher, Mr. Jason just and it's my pleasure to welcome a few special guests who are joining us today for this good news. Please join me in welcoming Mr. Jason Just, chemistry teacher, Lakeville South, along with four of his outstanding students, Alice Ye, Lillian Lounbach, Daniel Gonzalez, and Carter Wendorf. Come on up. They're here this evening to share some of the remarkable opportunities available through the chemistry program at Lakeville South, including a highlight of the course, the annual science show. So, I'm excited for you to hear from them and I hope everybody will pay attention. Thank you. Please. Hey guys, so glad to be able to speak here to speak here today to you guys. My
008name is Carter Wendorf and I'm here today with current juniors and seniors at Lakeville South High School that are enrolled in College Now AP Chemistry. On February 28th, 20125, we held our annual science show. You can see some highlights on the video screen around you. This year, our theme was bat mole and we demonstrated the amazing world of science for all students from Lakeville South to see. Later in the day, we held shows that Cherry View Elementary third graders were able to view and then the evening performed for our community. College. College. Now, AP Chemistry is a concurrent enrollment class with the Minnesota State University system. What that means is that we take a college level chemistry class taught in our high school by a high school teacher, Mr. Just, granting us college credit on
009a transcript that we can transfer to our chosen post-secary institution. Hi, my name is Lily Lansbach and I love concurrent enrollment chemistry because it challenges me in an engaging and fun way. Like many students, I turn towards challenging classes because I know I will be uh surrounded by others who have the same passion for learning that I do. And a little bit of college credit never hurts. College now AP chemistry has an added bonus for me because like most of my AP classes, I don't have to take an exam to determine my college credit at the end of the year, but it is instead already guaranteed thanks to our partnership with Minnesota State College and University System. The science show was a super engaging and fun learning experience because not only was I able to
010teach others about my demonstration, but I also learned from my peers about 36 different science disciplinary core values and ideas and it helped create such a big depth of knowledge that I was able to create my own way of learning, teaching, and sharing chemistry with others. Kaye will now flip through slides of some of our favorite photo memories as we show you one of our own demonstrations. Good evening to all the honorable members of our Lakeville school board. I am Danny Gonzalez and here with Palisine. We were MC's for this year's science show and this was all done through our class course of college now AP chemistry. Today we're going to be demonstrating a simple experiment to do with density or mass divided by volume. Now one thing that's emphasized in our chemistry course is
011how chemistry can be applied to everyday life. For example, if you put a styrofoam cup in water, it will float because the styrofoam is less dense than water. But if you put a porcelain cup in water, well, it will definitely sink. Similarly, oil floats in water because the oil is less dense than water, as well as helium and air because of their relative densities. Now, we're going to do a simple demonstration. Guess which of these pop cans you think is going to float and which ones will sink. Feel free to put your thumbs up if you think they'll float and your thumbs down if you think they'll sink. Let's start with Coke. What do you think? They're all full. No, they're all full. They're all full. Thirsty. Go ahead. Yeah. It looks like the Coke
012sunk. Next, let's see what Diet Coke is going to do. Does Pepsi float? We'll find out. It floats. And what about Sprite? Go down. Go down. Go down. It sinks. And last but not least, we have Diet Pepsi. It also floated. So why did only the Diet Coke and the Diet Pepsi float, but the others did not? The answer is again density. The answer is because the Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi have a sweetener called aspartame, but only 2 g whilst the regular pops have 39 g of sugar. Because as you can see on the screen above, mass is directly proportional to density. That makes the diet pops lighter and less dense than the 1 g per millill of water. Whilst the regular pops are more dense, leading them to sink. Thank you for watching
013our demonstration. You could just leave them there for a bit. Super good. I kind of thought there might be some fire and smoke. We kept that on the pictures today. Thank you. My name is Jason Just. I'm a 25-y year Lakeville resident and have am a parent of two graduates from Lakeville schools and I get to teach these amazing teens. So, I have a wonderful life and I'm glad to be here tonight. This concurrent course is a strategic investment that gives us some significant return. Students earn nine semester university credits in chemistry just by being in this class, not taking a test, but because it's concurrent enrollment. This directly impacts our students college credentials and future employability. Students transfer these credits to the post-secary institution of their choosing. We have a number of examples that
014Kaylee think Let's give a round of applause to Kaylee. She's done our clicker today. Kayle's put up on the screen for you. These are just a few examples of places that this has transferred in the last 10 years that we've had this course. This provides our students with a significant advantage in their post-secary landscape. We brought a gift for you today. One of our community sponsors for the science show is the American Chemical Society and they want to provide you with a pocketssized periodic table. You can fold it. It'll fit right in your wallet. And yes, we'd like you to be a card carrying member of our chemistry club. And we really appreciate you guys sponsoring our chemistry piece that we've done here tonight. We provide our students with the tools and the credentials to
015become the doctors that are going to cure pancreatic cancer. These guys are going to be the pharmacists that research and provide us with the drugs that are going to reverse Alzheimer's disease. These are going to be the kids that are going to be the engineers that make our iPhone batteries last 10 days, not 10 hours. We want this success for them because that's success for us and their well-being is the well-being of Lakeville. Thank you very much. Questions? Yeah. So, um from my understanding in high school there are three years worth of some sort of science courses that you have to classes you have to take. If you I think it's basic science, you've got um biology and then chemistry and then I think I believe in fourth in in your senior year you could
016take like physics or or something of that nature. So am I understanding then that that as a junior high school students can take this concurrent chemistry class in lie of the chemistry the the standard chemistry class. Does that make sense? Yeah, we're we're actually undergoing a little bit of a curriculum change right now because the state implemented some new science standards and so freshman year from now on will always be earth science course all year. Sophomore year will be biology and then junior year um students have the choice between either chemistry or physics to fill out their six semesters that are required. Many students end up taking chemistry their junior year and this concurrent course is one of the things that they could take and then they have an additional semester they could take to
017earn more college credits if they'd like to. So, so, so then a high school student can choose between regular chemistry, AP chemistry, or this concurrent course option. I mean, this is the AP chemistry curriculum. It just happens to be partnered with the Minnesota State College and University system for this course. And then you don't have to take an exam at the end of the year. Like, if you get a B, you get a C, you get full credit for the class that you take. Yeah. It goes on your transcript. Just like you get a transcript from Bethl University, you get a transcript from Minscu and then you can take that and transfer it to. Great. Fantastic. And obviously if you go to a state university, you don't transfer it because it's already on your transcript
018and then it meets it will then meet the science requirement for any collegiic institution you end up going. So awesome. Are these all juniors? Danny's our senior. Okay, let's give him a round of applause. He's going to graduate soon. And you mentioned nine credits. Is that just for one year or is that over the course if they take every one of the courses? So the the courses three semesters total. Okay. And uh the the um courses that it mirrors in the Minnesota state system are Chem 231 and 231L, which is three credits for the lecture, one for the lab, and then Chem 232 and Chem 232L, which is three credits for the lecture, two for the lab. And so if you complete those semesters, you end up with nine nine credits. That's great. Thank you,
019Director Anderson. I just want to say I love to see the enthusiasm for learning. Um this is a beautiful thing to see in our district and I just obviously that starts with you um as a teacher and um just love to see what the students are doing. So thank you for coming and presenting and offering this course to our students. Schedule the main thing. We love it. Oh, did you have a question? I'm sorry. Yeah, I was going to jump in and just say um thanks for the presentation. I'm sorry I couldn't be there in person tonight to see it, but I my family and I did attend the show and my kids loved the elephant toothpaste experiment. So, um that inspired us to go to the pharmacy the next day and buy a bunch
020of materials to try to replicate some of them in our own home. So, thanks for inspiring the next um you know, group of high schoolers who who will come up eventually and hopefully take this course. And we left your um we left your card your periodic table card with Kim over here. So she'll she'll have it for you when you get back. Thank you. Can I can I ask what the elephant toothpaste experiment is? I'm curious. Did you you guys want to explain? I can explain. Yeah. Go ahead. Okay. So elephant toothpaste, it's almost like if you've ever seen like Diet Coke and Mentos, it's like a giant explosion. It like explodes everywhere. It's really fun. Yeah. Okay. Are you going to find some pictures? Yeah, I'm trying to find She'll find some pictures here
021in a second. Here it is. Right here. Oh, wow. So, it's a it's a chemical reaction of uh the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide. And there's obviously a lot of soap involved. And when hydrogen peroxide decomposes, it forms a lot of oxygen gas, which fills the soap bubbles. And that's the suds that you see. That's enough to be toothpaste for an elephant. I would just add one other thing. And the conference that I'm at is on um broader impacts um for research and society. And so something else I appreciate that you're doing is students are learning both the science of course, but you're also learning how to translate that um so that you know lay or public can understand. And I think that's such a valuable skill. And so um I think you're putting a lot
022together here. um helping our students um leave Lakeville school with some some strong skills. So, thank you for that. Director Anderson, is this a um course offered at North as well or do North students come to South or North students can't do this? Uh North students can travel to South to take the course. Yeah. Director Thompson. Uh two two questions. Uh who teaches this course? Do we bring in teachers or is it you who actually teaches? Like so you're you're the collegiic require or a licensed instructor. Yeah. So I mean we used the credentials a number of times in here and that's what it takes and so you have to have some credits beyond a master's degree to do that in the um in the in in the content area and that happens to be
023in chemistry of course for this course. Got it. Got it. And and the second question is like how does it show up on a transcript? Does it show like because when you say we have a partnership through various state universities, does it show like is it Normandale? Is it the University of Minnesota or like what does that look like on a transcript? Our our particular Minsku institution is Southwest Minnesota State and so they have a username and password into a a Minnesota Star ID if you know what that is. And then they can pull their transcript from Southwest Minnesota State and it will show the courses, chemistry 232, chemistry 232L, and it will list their grade and their credits for each course. Good question, Director Thompson. I'm fascinated by this because I think that there's
024it's a great opportunity to give our high school students a leg up and if they choose to go down this path, but if they go uh go to a university, do we offer more classes like this like in English and or in math or is is science is chemistry the only thing that we offer that's concurrent? Yeah. So, we offer one other class right now that has concurrent enrollment in pre-calculus uh at at Lakeville South and uh I'd love to go out for a cup of coffee with any of you and discuss how we could make that happen uh for more students because this really helps the main thing and yeah, a lot of them want this leg up like you said uh moving forward. Is this similar to like college in the schools that
025programming? Yes. Yes. It just doesn't have that name. It's but it's it is college in the schools. Well, thank you for coming. Really appreciate it. It's amazing. [Applause] What's the What's the TV show that has or the late night show that has the will it float segment? All right. Uh, good luck following that one. It's uh public comment time. So, uh a time where we open up the floor for public comment, the public to address the board with any comments or concerns. Uh in order to participate in public comment, you have to sign up on the district website um by Monday at noon on the day prior to uh the board meeting. Uh there is no board response during public comment session and public comments framed as complaints and concerns about students and or staff
026are not appropriate in a public forum due to the data privacy laws. and these comments should be addressed to the administration outside of a public meeting. Likewise, complaints about schoolboard members should be privately directed to the board chair and or the superintendent. Uh we do not take any formal action on topic on a topic presented during public comment. Um but as necessary, the administration will follow up with appropriate personnel on any concerns that need to be individually addressed. Uh individual remarks are limited to three minutes. Um our current timekeeper is not here today, so uh we can Do we have a We only have two people for public comment, so I'm not too worried. If it goes really long, I'll cut you off, but uh yeah, I'll ask you to monitor that. Um yeah, and
027then please try to keep audience noise down to a minimum so everyone uh can hear and speak uninterrupted. I'm going to start with Sher Mitchell. Good evening board and public, parents and family and all supporters that are here for the arts. My name is Sheri Mitchell and I am a elementary art teacher at Lake View Elementary and I have the priv privilege of serving 645 students in my building and I'm here tonight to speak about bringing awareness to the operating levy that will be um either passed or sent out to the community to vote in November. And the operating levy will impact my department. It will impact um elementary band and technology. And if the operating levy does not pass, the elementary um department will be gone. Similarly to in 2008 when it was disbanded
028and um there's a lot of like lack of awareness from our public and many of our educators about what this means. And um one of the things that it does mean is that the standards for art don't disappear. They just get placed onto the plates of our classroom teachers similarly to back in 2008. Um and our my team serves um there's eight of us. We serve nine elementary schools. Two of us travel to the high school and serve um in the mornings there. And our department we serve thousands of kids. We um create spaces for kids to feel like they belong, to be expressive. Um and when I say all, we serve all programs and kids and we help them find their success in whatever that looks like or feels like. And so I just
029ask that you guys support our program. Um we do like what we start in elementary is a foundation for middle and high school. we are sending out kids into public spaces and jobs where our um skills that we teach them do impact their life in a positive way. So, thank you for your time. Thank you. Uh Jamie Mohler, hello. Uh, thank you for allowing me to speak today. My name is Jamie Mohler. I'm the art teacher at Cherry View Elementary. And I'm here today because the levy that supports the arts is about to run out. And I wanted to just give you a glimpse into the elementary art room. Uh, when I became an art teacher, the most common thing that I heard and still hear is, "Oh, you're an art teacher? You must love
030getting to paint all day." And well, let me tell you, if you haven't been in an elementary art classroom, we do a lot more than just paint. In our classroom, we respect each other. We experiment with materials. We find our voice. We learn from our mistakes. We reflect on our work and persevere. We have opinions and appreciate beauty. We learn real world life skills. We envision solutions and value aesthetics. We see another point of view. The art room is more than a place for painting and drawing. It's a space where young students can begin shaping the core of their character. I pulled the fifth grade students in preparation for this meeting and 70% of them said that art is calming. In a world where data runs their lives, they get to turn that data off
031for 50 minutes once a week and let their minds loose. It's like recess for their brain. The students in our art classes aren't just painting. In that same survey, students mentioned how art helps them when they're stressed. It builds their confidence. One student even mentioned how it helped their handwriting to get better. When asked, "What does art mean to you?" A student responded, "I can be creative without doing it someone else's way." Another student responded, "Art means I can express my feelings. I'm able to do my best and no one will make fun of me for it. When asked, "How does art help you in other classes or in life?" One responded, "I can see the world in a more fun and colorful way." Another said that since she starts her day with art right
032away in the morning, she's more relaxed and happy for the rest of that day. The students in our art classes aren't just painting. The art room is a safe space. We have to be brave in the art room. We have to have courage. Just like having the courage to speak in front of an audience or to play in a stadium with thousands of people, our young artists have to be brave to start on a blank canvas. They have to learn to trust themselves in a way no other subject does. The students in our classes aren't just painting. for 50 minutes once a week. These students learn that being perfect is not what's important. Being genuine is come and see what bravery these sto these artists have. Our Cherry View Fine Arts Night is Thursday, May
0338th, starting at 5:00 p.m. And we would love for you to come and see what art means to our students. Thank you for your time. Thank you. All right, that concludes public comment. Uh we're going to move on to the consent agenda. Anything anyone wants to pull from the consent agenda for further discussion? Director Thompson. Yes. Uh I'm looking at the policy 208 in the consent agenda. I believe there might be two. Hang on. And I got to get to it. There might be two examples. Maybe I'm mistaken. Hands up. Yes. Okay. So, there are two policy 208 attachments and and just want to make sure that we're on the same page of which one we are doing. And so, I think there is one on page 181 and then there is another one on
034page 182. I'm sorry, 182. Do you guys see that? So, the 182 one has uh I think the most current is the most current because it has uh board of education crossed out and it's got school board uh listed. But then I believe that the copy or the copy that uh that we want to pass in adopting and review of the policy section 4 letter A that is incorrect because I think that is coming from the one that was above and so let me just make sure I have this correct. Um the policy of 208 when we are approving policies on page that starts on one sub page 179 in the agenda is has the right um uh content because we're going to have it displayed during um uh subsequent meeting after public input was
035twice offered. Does that make sense? Let's just pull this then we'll approve the consent agenda and then discuss this. Let me Yeah, I'm fine with that. Thank you. Yeah, we'll come right back to it. Well, yeah. Yeah, let's pull it. We'll want to make some changes. We're pulling F and then sub Roman numeral 3 under consent agenda. Anything else? Nope. Thank you. All right. Um, with that removed, uh, I would move to approve the consent agenda as drafted with the exception of the removal of 4F subnumeral three. Is there a second? I'll second it. All right. All those in favor of pro approving the consent agenda with that exception say I. I. I. All those opposed. All right. It is approved. All right. Let's go back to 208. Yeah. Thank you for that. All right.
036So then on page 180 in the agenda, uh there is a section for adoption of policy letter B. uh and so it has the right content where the final action taken to adopt the proposed policy uh shall be approved by the vote at a subsequent meeting uh after initial input was twice offered and that's the language that we wanted to adopt uh the correct I thought it was removing the subsequent oh we're going to remove that so then on page 182 two uh school board meetings. So on page 182, I'm sorry, page 183, it says, "The final action taken to adopt the proposed policy shall be approved by a simple majority vote uh of the school board at a meeting after public input was twice offered." That's the correct one. Correct. Okay. And so then
037we are adopting the version that starts on page 182. Yeah. The red line version. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Thank for those who are looking at this 300page document and uh the there's a the policy 208 also started on 179. So just want to make sure there's clarity for folks. That's all. I think we do have to clean up and put our header back on it. The red light version. Yep. And we're and I think and they can do that. I don't think we need to. Yeah. But I think the meat of it is fine. Correct. Yep. And can I just add to Brian to add to your clarification if people are looking on this at board book, it is the second linked um item. They're both labeled FII or F3, but it's the second one. Correct.
038Thank you. Yep. Okay. So, I would make a motion to adopt this policy. All right. The red line version. Yes. The red line version. All right. I second it. It's seconded. Motion's made by Director Thompson, seconded by Director Cameron. All those in favor of approval of the revision or revised um policy 208 say I. I. I. All those opposed. All right. It is adopted. All right, we'll move on to uh reports and discussions with more policy discussion. Uh Director Thompson, do you want to Yeah, I'll kick it off on 714 and then I will defer to uh Mr. Homegrren on the the next two which is 725 and 704. Uh 714 is the school fund balance. And so uh this uh was brought up. Uh what you will see in board book again starting on
039page 190 you'll see a lot of red line. Uh so what we did was we compared uh the current Lakeville uh fund balance policy to the Minnesota Schoolboard Association model policy and so a lot of the content was adjusted. Uh nothing new uh nothing majorly new was added. Uh and so we wanted to bring this forward to the group. uh 714 is not the general fund specific. This is a a model update that captures all of the various fund balances. So anyone who looks at this particular policy will see the difference between what an assigned fund is, a committed fund, enabling legislation, and fund balance. And so that was part of the updates that the Minnesota School Board Association recommended. And so where uh so I would recommend uh adopting uh that section uh specifically
040uh where we added additional content was in is on page 13 uh 193 which is the minimum fund balance. And so this is where uh we can have a discussion around uh what the percentages ought to be. Uh the minimum fund balance has three core sections subsections within it. Uh the first section states uh the school district will strive to have an unassigned general fund balance of x%. The second section says that when the year end unassigned general fund balance is projected to decrease below a certain number then the district school board will be informed about a some some sort of financial plan to course correct. And then the third section says the unassigned general fund balance will always maintain a balance of x%. So those were kind of the three buckets of uh of
041numbers that we have some flexibility with. Uh we liked this approach because it has uh a number one uh number that says here's what we want to strive to have. uh we've got so it provides a little bit of a trigger where if the fund balance gets below oh no we're at a certain another level a trigger gets activated and then the third uh sentence or section uh wants us to maintain that number no matter what uh and so I am very biased to this because I think a couple years ago we ran into a scenario where our unassigned fund balance was very unfavorable and at roughly $211,000 so The proposal in this section of this policy, minimum fund balance, within those three sections, is that the school district will strive to have an unassigned
042general fund balance of 10%. And that 10% uh is roughly $20 million. It's about 10% of our annual expenditures. Uh that 10% number is also equating to about 3 months worth of our of our expenditures. So we are not trying to save six months worth or a year's worth. Uh 10% on average uh allows us to maintain operations for about 3 months. Uh section two if it goes below 7 12% that's kind of the trigger. So we there is some there so so there's some flexibility. Uh that 7 and 12% gets you down to about $15 million. A trigger would be activated uh for sure. Uh and then section three says we will always have a balance no matter what uh of at least 5% which puts us at about $10 million. So those are
043the three big hot items in this particular policy. I'll pause here for thoughts and feedback from the group. Director Nicholson, I like the idea of a trigger. I like having a goal to go after. So holding that 10% makes a lot of sense. three months operating expense, especially given the current situation with the state budget deficit. We don't know what they're going to do, if they're going to cut funding to schools or anything else. It is good to have a balance. So, fundamentally, I'm in alignment with kind of where you're at. I think that makes a lot of sense, Director Anderson. I go ahead, Amber or Director. Sorry, I don't know if you can see me. I was just going to add to Brian's comments quickly. When when the policy committee met, we did look
044at a variety of school districts in the metro and what their fund balance is at. And um 10% um goal is definitely like in the range of of the schools. Some are lower, some are higher. Um and so I think that's important to note here that that we looked at um our peers for um comparison and to to be in alignment. I was just going to say I appreciate the flexibility in terms of um having more of that goal and what we're striving for something that would trigger and then um something that seems like the B I mean we obviously got much below 5% and that felt very uncomfortable. Um is there anything to say what will happen if it drops below 5%. Yeah. Uh so I there there isn't anything uh in letter C
045it says the unassigned general fund balance will maintain a balance of 5%. Um in letter B where it says that if we are projected to decrease below 7.5 the superintendent shall develop a financial improvement plan that the school board will approve measures may include reduction reduction expenditure seek opportunities opportunities to increase revenue if permitted by state law request from voters additional revenue XYZ. So is there like a hand slap or is there I mean not a hand slap is there like a a consequence if we go below 5%. There isn't. So whoever is going to be on the school board in future years uh this this is kind of the the guiding principle I guess the the guidelines that we want to strive to be be in letter C. I'd be open to saying that
046the unassigned general fund balance will always maintain versus will maintain. Uh but you never know. you might run into scenarios I mean that the difference between 10% and 5% is 10 million so you would think we'd have plenty of flexibility but if we get into a scenario where the year end unassigned balance uh is at 7.5% that only gives you a 2 and a half% delta between that and the 5% number. So and that 2 and a half delta is only only $5 million. I mean, when you've run when we run a $300 million operation, you know, a $5 million swing isn't I mean, could be could happen due to whatever the state passes due to uh different scenarios. I don't know. My my only concern with the 7 and a half% is we're technically
047below that right now, you know, so we're in that trigger territory. Um, yeah. And I know that we're projecting or the goal is to build that fund balance up, you know, so 7 7.5% will below us, but it's not right now. Yep. I believe we're projected to be at about 13 million by the end of this school year. Uh, and so 7.5% would be roughly 15% is where we want to be. Uh, and so when we pass this, uh, Huh? 15 million. 15 million. Yep. What did I say? 15%. 15%. Yep. Uh so when we pass this uh I don't anticipate that we have to you know cut a bunch of expenditures to get to that number but at least we know where we're at and then we would look to the administration to provide
048guidance on what is the pathway towards that 7.5%. Uh and then I believe the preliminary numbers that we were showed for the 26 27 school year. Uh we are projected of roughly bill 15.9ish million next next year potentially. So then yep if so for 26 20 25 26 we could get there by the end of that school year. Mhm. So, Director Anderson, so would that and I do want to hear from actually Bill and our superintendent, but I guess like would that projection meet this policy requirement then or is it like we're not at 7.5%, we must make cuts immediately kind of situation, but I do want to hear from y Bill and the way I'm reading section B is when the year end unassigned general fund balance is projected to decrease below 7.5 and
049so assum Assuming we pass this when the budget is proposed to us for the next school cycle 25 and 26 we should be roughly at about 8 7.5 8%ish and so we are we would be in we would be in territory in in that territory. So we'll be in compliance then we would be technically in compliance. Okay. So with the caveat I don't mean to cut any board member off with the caveat that the planning assumptions that we applied to that correct that you are the whole public has already seen that um and I think we had two of our art teachers talk about the the re levy renewal scenario is accounted for in there so the the the pathway to what we're discussing here uh goes through the realization of the planning assumptions that
050were provided in our estimate for fiscal year 26. The other thing is this will the the projected unassigned fund balance which is kind of what we're talking about here but really the budget will never creep up on this board or you fire me. Okay? It will never creep up on you or you fire me because we are iteratively going to report to you so that you see it. You've already seen FY26. You can have this conversation of course, but this has to be tracked and reported iteratively and I I'm committed to do that. I just want to make sure everybody understands that while this is a policy and there is a trigger as long as I'm in this role in this administration that policy will be abided by and then some. Okay. Let let me
051add one more thing. Hang on a second. Uh we did add uh a section nine called review. The school board will conduct a quarterly business review of the sufficiency of the minimum unassigned general fund balance level. So there is a little bit of governance in in there as well and and uh Superintendent Bowman said that we can he'll monitor that very well. Yeah. Director Carbon. Yeah. Um Director Thompson, should the should the bands be a little tighter for the trigger? And and here's here's my concern. I know we're talking like 2 and a half% or 5%. But the real money actually shrinks by about a third or 25%. So, in a in a in a heartbeat, we could be down 25 to 30%. And and I think and I appreciate Superintendent Bowman's uh attentive attentiveness
052to this, but as a policy, maybe we should make the bands a little tighter so if things are going south, we can find out right away. So instead of the 7.5% trigger for um and now now keep in mind the 7.5 is not um uh uh the comments the content in here doesn't say that we have to change it overnight. It says that a financial imp improvement plan will be presented to the board uh if the unassigned general fund balance at the end of the year is projected to be below 7.5 and so there may be and so so I think I think what I'm hearing from you is that do you want to increase that to maybe 8 and a half% or 9% so that the trigger is higher uh and and while we
053want to always strive for 10% but if we go below I'm just making a number up 8 and a half% is that the that gives you more of a window, right? We get warn we get the warning sooner so we can react to it. We have about almost $7.5 million in just in case. Director Nicholson, first one's a point of clarification. Um you mentioned in here uh annual expenditure budget. When you say annual expenditure budget, are you talking about the general fund budget? That's what so for all the other presentations Zoe has a general fund which is that 209 million number not looking at total money which is closer to almost 300 correct yeah because the other funds are like the nutrition fund and our health yeah I understand that but again for future boards
054and the way we've presented all the information up to this point I just want to make sure that we're clear and I don't know if we need to clarify that in here yeah I'm I'm okay with that might And then to your point, um, tightening the bands or do you want to have more of a say 8 and a half% is more of a review like have the superintendent, director of finance come up, hey, we're, you know, we hit the first threshold. Do we need to make adjustments? Do you want to put in like a say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say say like a tiered approach to it instead of saying hey we need a financial plan to remedy said situation
055at 7 and 12% but at 8 1.5% we want you to say hey we're looking at it we've looked ahead we believe we have the information necessary we're in a good spot don't panic we're okay we've got quarterly reviews baked into this as well I understand that I'm just I'm throwing it out as an option to address and I think we get to the same place in both situations So, so I'm I'm good either way. I mean, it's Yeah, I'm good either way. Business review. And you're kind of I mean, you guys are working from the assumption that we're coming down from 10% as opposed to working up to it like we're doing now. But, Superintendent Bowman, do you have a comment? All right, Amber, you good? [Music] Yep. I mean I think we're more
056prescriptive than any other policy that we looked at like peers. So I think you know I think within reason have these triggers and and but I think also maintaining enough flexibility in the moment is important too. Yeah. One thing I think there was a discussion from other policies from other districts was the you know we have under 5C the unassigned general fund balance will maintain a balance of 5% of the annual expenditure budget where there was um it can only decrease or go below 5% with board approval. Just another option to throw it out there. I mean, ideally you don't go below it, but because then you'd be in violation of the policy, but just another option to put in. But I do want to echo what Amber was saying earlier. Um, with the policy
057committee we talked to talked about the 10% being the top. There are other districts that are above it, but um, in discussions with Mr. Homegrren, we thought we didn't we don't need more than 10%, you know, as a healthy kind of safeguard. So, and I think that 10% number will help with our credit rating, which allows us to have better rates with uh bonds and operating uh expenditures. Um I'm open to the letter in letter C where it says board approval if below 5% but I think by then like we would know when we're we're like if you're coming at 7 and a half% we're down to six and a half% we get down to five like something like that. Well, we I mean the levy doesn't pass in the fall. True. That's $4 million
058and 1.7 4.1 million. We could be feeling it. Director Anderson. Yeah. I guess I want to ask our superintendent. Do you think there's a reason to add that to the policy? I I would recommend it. Um, I can tell you that um I I know of one situation where that where the board made that decision and it was predicated on pandemic scenario with COVID. So, um, save that. Um, you know, you want to have positive control of it. Uh, I just also want to correct the record. It's not just a quarterly. You're going to get monthly. um we already have established that um practice in terms of what those data sets are and we're obviously looking to improve or refine those in in um collaboration with you. So it a quarter in a school system
059I think is too long on a for an iterative basis maybe for a a more operational or strategic overview quarterly is just fine. It's what most businesses do in a quarterly business review and we'll do that. I just think when it comes to the finance piece, it's got to be monthly. So, um, that's what you're going to get. So, then I would be good with adding the board approval piece. Any concerns with adding that from anyone? None. We'll make those updates and then bring it back next week. 7:25. Yes. For 7:25, I will defer to Director Homegrren. Good evening. I'm sorry I kind of got a bad voice, so we'll try and get through it. Um, as you know, there's been a lot of changes in our our student um our nutrition um fund and
060the way that we um deliver meals and so forth because now all our students get free breakfast and free lunch. So, a lot of what you're seeing in this changes in this poly policy kind of relates to that. So, if we go um if you're looking at the red red line version under B, there used to be if if you want the free lunch, you had to fill out a form, you qualified, you get free lunch and breakfast and so forth. Well, now um we don't need to do that any longer. They're automatically free. So, that's what um B is about. Um when we get to see um um same thing our we're never going to deny any type of a meal to any of our our u students because we'd get free uh meals
061for them whether they um have any um amount in their account or not. If we move on to um E, um this was something that kind of happened in the past, especially when somebody didn't have enough um amounts in their accounts that they were given different types of meals, but now we're not doing that. No matter what's in your account, you get a you get a full type A meal no matter what. And then um when it comes to I mean students if they want to have more food they can buy more food. Okay, that opportunity is there but we are going to say you need to have money in your account in order to buy that food. So we're not going to give out a second meal or a second um something else if
062you don't have any money in your account. Okay, make sense? Um and then G's just just added that everybody will be um treated with respect in accordance with the statute here. So very they're minor changes but it's really because now everybody gets free and reuse. Everybody gets free lunch, free breakfast. Make sense? Uh we had no issues with this at the policy committee. We are in alignment to move it forward. Well, well, I I have I have um Jack here tonight and he was gonna he'll follow up on the next policy. Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Jack 704 bill. I appreciate it. Evening board. Uh so policy 74 is your fixed asset policy and there is one change within the policy. It's highlighted in yellow. Um, essentially it's an audit request that is making it so
063that any asset that bel falls below the threshold of $5,000 but is purchased in aggregate, we have the discretion of setting a dollar value of when that item is capitalized. So I like to think about laptops. When you buy an individual laptop, one laptop for $1,000, you're not going to capitalize that. You're not going to depreciate that over time. But if you go out and buy a 100 laptops for $100,000, those you do want to recognize as a capital asset and appreciate those assets. So that's all that this change is doing. And it's giving us the discretion, the threshold to set that forth. Um, this is a practice that we have been doing for the past two audit cycles and it's just not in our written policy and we're trying to add it. So any
064questions? Director Thompson. There is no tax savings. There's no nothing. This is just a administrative CL categorization u update and that's it. Correct. We didn't have any issues with this in our policy committee either. All right. Well, thank you very much. Thank you, Jack. Thanks. Well, thank you. All right. Uh, move on. Data analytics update. Superintendent Bowman and Emily McDonald. Do you need to stand on that? I I probably do need to stand on it. Good evening, board members. Mr. Chair, uh ladies and gentlemen, so uh this evening, uh Dr. McDonald and I are coming forward to update you on where we are with um our change management plan to uh get after uh reporting uh data data and data analytics, what I like to call uh developing a common operating picture for the school
065district and also to monitor and and demonstrate uh progress or you know you could also um leverage this to isolate where you might need to we collectively might need to focus resource effort uh in order to achieve the outcomes we're looking for. So we're we are moving forward as rapidly as uh we can through a change management process in an organization this size. We want to talk a little bit about strategic plan. Uh that's the essentially the guiding document that uh that we're operating from. Um you can see here and I think uh last week trying to get my days straight. Last week, I shared with you the link to our strategic plan with all the detail that supports that, and hopefully you've had a chance to go through that uh um over the past
066few few days. Uh but here states our mission, what our core values are, our goals and then uh within those goals uh we do have uh different mechanisms to confirm, deny, look at where we are with uh with achieving those goals and then a vision statement about where we are collectively and as an organization. So uh I'm not going to dive too deeply into it. Uh you can obviously see it, read it, understand it. Um, in the future you will see uh data reporting on our goals and how we're progressing with regard to that. Uh, I know we've had uh in our in our last session opportunity to talk about strategic plan and maybe there's um change of foot for that. That's all fine. Until then, uh I I'm leading by following that document and
067trying to uh address our issues as an organization through this mechanism here. One of the things with uh strategic planning that I do want to make sure we consider um as we look down down the road um my experience with these in two different school districts and probably six iterations of this um there's a very public process to it. Um and there's a very deliberate process. So um this I know uh in in my last stint here uh we initiated that process uh took about a year's worth of work. Maybe a school year would be a better way to define that. So that's that's where this derived from and some of the the goals and the daily desired experiences that we'll uh be sharing in the future uh are tied to this document. So just
068want to give some context with that. Um I'm going to go ahead and hand off to Dr. McDonald here and we'll talk about continuous improvement and uh I will get to the more details about where we are with data analytics and the development process there. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um good evening. Um great to be here today to partner with Superintendent Bowman to talk a little bit about data analytics, about goal setting, um about data access and what really happens in our district around continuous improvement. Um I think my goal here is just to sort of ground us in what is currently happening in our district around data because as you are as we are further developing our data analytics systems to provide you with the necessary data to um make sure monitor
069your goals etc. Um I want to just talk about what that currently looks like. So we really look at data from a fivelevel system. every level has a role in ensuring that we are continuously improving and that our students are ultimately as successful as they can be. So if we'll start with the schoolboard level um you see the light blue line and basically the lines indicate the level of specificity of the data at each level of the organization that currently exists. So at the schoolboard level we're really looking at highlevel district-wide data. um we're looking at organizational health overall in any goal area. So whether that is a goal around academics or a goal around finance or a goal around um HR, teacher retention etc. Um that is the level of data that the board
070generally utilizes around to set their goals and to monitor their goals moving forward. If you look at the systems level, the systems level is where we operate at the district level um on a day-to-day basis. So what we're really doing is we're utilizing data to analyze the system across all schools or grade levels etc. We utilize that data to really inform us in terms of do we have the right resources in place? Do we have the right procedures in place? Do we have the right instructional strategies in place across all grade levels or buildings etc. Um our third level then is site site level data and this is where our principles our leaders of our buildings as well as they all have site leadership teams. They really engage in looking at what's happening specific to
071their building. So we may implement something systemwide from the district level but we know that there is nuance within buildings. So we will see different needs at different buildings depending on um staff expertise, student population um etc. And so at the site level, the principal really works with their leadership team to look at data to say all are all of our students being successful? If not, what do we need to do differently? Do we need different professional development? do we need to work with um the directors to determine maybe there's a resourcing need or something else. Um and they engage with that not only with their school leadership team but also through their school uh um improvement plans. So their school improvement plans are monitored through data with their teacher teams in the buildings. Um
072at the PLC level, you've heard PLC's a lot. Um I know you know what those are. There are teacher teams that have either course alike or grade alike um classes and they come together to really say how are we doing collectively? If we have three teachers teaching third grade, how are students performing on our common assessments? How are they uh what's the data look like for your classroom and my classroom? And that's an opportunity to share expertise, to share instructional strategies um and resources and other things to make sure that the students are really being as successful as they can. And then finally, when we're talking about the uh the classroom level, you know, we we know that the magic happens at the classroom level. Um this is where teachers are really on a day-to-day
073basis looking at individual students data to determine what's the next best step. What do our students need? Do they need re-engagement? Do they need um uh some kind of uh advanced opportunity, etc. But they're really looking at the students on an individual basis. and then they would utilize strategies maybe from their PLC conversations with their colleagues um and be implementing those. So I think the bottom line is that we are all whatever level we're operating in, we want to make sure that we have the right data in the right time frame to make the right decisions moving forward to help our students be successful. And so now that we're Oh, it's not that. It's this. Um, now that we're grounded in that, I do want to just give you a little snapshot um of some
074of the data metrics that would fall in that school board level. Um, we have a what we call the CACER plan, which is a comprehensive achievement and civic readiness plan. Um, this is a state requirement. We set goals in well, it used to be five areas, now it's four areas, then it was four areas, now it's back to five areas. Um this plan has highlevel goals in the area of kindergarten readiness um closing the uh achievement gap or eliminating achievement disparities, career and college readiness, graduation and then they we used to have a reading um goal requirement. They have moved that into the read act um legislation. So that came out. Um and then the last goal that they just added last year legislatively was around um basically future preparation. Do they feel like they
075are lifelong learners? Um we also have our annual desired daily experiences survey. This directly aligns to um our strategic plan work. Um we provide surveys to students um teachers, student staff um and families related to our strategic direction. And this provides us with data around how are how are people currently feeling or interacting with our organization. Um we have although it's numerical data it's definitely more um anecdotal or qualitative in nature um because it's not a specific number metric. We turn them into number metrics. But um we have school improvement plans, continuous improvement plans. We also have a district operational plan. And so those are things that we utilize at the strategic level to determine whether or not we are moving forward in in the appropriate way. Um we used to have the uh literacy
076plan local literacy plan LLP that has shifted now with the read act. The requirements of that are um just hot um off the presses. Um but it's quite a robust plan that requires um reporting of how we are doing in the area of literacy. um basically prek12. It used to be focused on third grade. They're shifting that to more of a systems look. So that will be coming. Um and then we've had a lot of conversations about one of the things I feel like is ve really important is to ask our alumni about their experiences in preparation for whatever they chose to do next. Um so uh Superintendent Bowman and Grace Olsen, our um director of communications and public relations have talked about um how we can start getting into an iterative cycle with our
077alumni to find out that how they feel about their preparation in the system as well. I think that's a really important metric that we've been missing um for quite a while. Um, so with that, um, I'll turn it back to Superintendent Bowman and he will talk about where we are with our data analytics system, how we get data on an ongoing basis to you and where we are and where we're going. Director Thompson, let me let me let's just jump into this because I I'm I'm looking at the core data metrics and and I appreciate uh these uh five bullets that that you would like to uh incorporate at the strategic level, but like the like and maybe I'm misunderstanding this, but like I want to be able to know if our second graders are
078meeting or are reading at grade level. I mean, where where is that on this list? So, I think we're going to get to that. And if not, let's circle back as uh when Superintendent Bowman's done. I think that's one of the last things because I appreciate the um the daily experiences. That makes sense. But like I want to know if our students are meeting reading levels, math levels, and so I understand the the five different levels that you've got from the school board level, the system level, but I I uh I will pause and wait. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Um, and just to clarify, macro to micro, um, it's kind of the way I try to share. Um, and I know I know that what what we want is dynamic data and we
079want to have it in key performance indicator fashion and in an iterative cycle. And we want to talk about academics, we want to talk about finance, we want to talk about HR, and we want to talk about operations loud and clear. How do we get there? Is a change management process that that I would like to speak to where we're at with that right now so that we can get at what you're saying, sir, about um uh data and understanding what's going on with our kids. I know you said academics, but I think one of the things we've been trying to talk about too is what is student success more broadly. So to me, academics is one part of that versus how do we look at student success in other ways as well. Affirmative. Yeah,
080I was going to echo the exact same thing and uh affirmative to you as well. Um here let's start with architecture and sharing to you where we're at in in developing the capability and capacity to uh organize the plethora of data that we have in a manner that can be uh shared, digestible and uh and visible. Uh again back to that idea and concept of a common operating picture. Organizationally we've done it in the components that you uh that Dr. McDonald shared and uh in in in multi-chelon fashion to bring it to the right operational level and consolidate that in a manner that's reportable um requires a data warehouse capability. It requires uh a data visualization capability and it requires expertise in how to take that data shape it into data visualization that we are
081satisfied with from uh uh administration and school board. So that's what we're driving toward here. What I have on this chart is kind of the architecture of where where we are right now and what we're driving toward. So um our data visualization will come through Tableau. Tableau is embedded in an infinite campus and we have educr uh w educr uh that provides us information down at the um for academics behavior social emotional tracking interventions and monitoring progress. That's down at the building classroom level, really classroom type data and it's used in all our schools and that that has been in the system since 2019 and reporting to a previous school board about how and what that is. In 2022 while I was away uh Tableau came into being and that's used in all schools by
082administration. It does support high level data analysis and again I high level um operational level strategic level of an organization and can do uh if done right can identify trends and system needs. We can look at enrollment trends school grade level academic performance to your point sir uh behavior and attendance data and state and federal type reporting and more and more. Um the key is shaping the the data collection for the key performance indicators that we all agree on that that perform or provide the picture that we're looking for. Um and so having those and if you go back a chart to the architecture back one oh I went way back oh direction there you're out of control give me the remote. Is there a motion to address? one uh two more if you could
083give me the architecture. There you go. Okay. So, um we we know that these are the uh local uh Power School Z Finance that's our financial has some HR in there. Recruiting and hiring through frontline data going into a data warehouse. Right now, we are working literally working on getting that data passed through and set up so that it's feeding into our data warehouse. Um, we have had several meetings about how do we structure financial data? Uh, taking our best assessment based on feedback that we've received through a variety of different communication methods from you as schoolboard members to try to land in a spot where where we can demonstrate with a picture a visualization of that data. Um, same with academics. And to your point uh um director Anderson um we want to talk
084about what is what defines a student and student success but we al there is an academic component and there is the other social emotional uh type things that we need to address. So again it's trying to get to that right data set and I know there's frustration with what are we waiting for? What are we waiting for? I'm going to tell you what we're waiting for. getting that in in order. That's what we're waiting for. And it's and nobody's sitting around the campfire singing kumbaya. What we're doing is feverishly working out the details to do this so that we can do this in a manner that has staying power for the future beyond all of us and leverages that. There's whole AI scenarios where AI is going to overlay this kind of thing. So, I
085I personally apologize that I'm not fast enough, but I also feel very proud that a lot of people are doing a lot of work to get this set. And it's a change management process. You talk to me about change management, sir. Um, this is this is what we're in and going as fast as as I know how to go with the assets that I have. Sir, Director Nicholson, what's the time frame right now then? Well, my goal is to be able to have a a a common operating picture agreed upon and iteratively rolling. So, for the next school year, but we're going to we're going to between now and then and through the summer work with you. Excuse me. And you'll get a thing here in a minute that's going to going to help us
086get more information, more focused information from you about how to start shaping KPIs. And internally, we're going to go through what we have and try to organize that into essentially key performance indicators. Now, I I just want to share with you that that um I've done this in another school district in a when we didn't have data warehouses and you didn't have data visualization. We did it with spreadsheets and two individuals who were collecting information and it was a bear to get it set up. it was on cruise control to keep it flowing. This will be better than that. This will be better by a expon exponential factor of 10. No doubt. And then if you get AI involved here, it's going to go another level. So I I'm with that. Uh I just want
087to make sure that the foundation is solid and and done properly. So to your question, sir, we should be able to go roll into the fall with two things. one is the four areas I'm talking about, but also with a quarterly business review that's going to be more robust than that. Um, because it's going to cover more areas. So, that's that's where I'm striving to. And I do see and I've had multiple conversations with leadership about how this can be powerful for us collectively as a school system and uh to help our our community see better what's what we're working at and trying to do. But it'll also show some some challenges that we have too. And then I think we get into that resource conversation. Yeah. Director Thompson. Just a couple comments. Um, uh,
088thank you for this for the overview. I, uh, having the finances, the the data elements, scores, MCA, that makes sense so that we can establish a a very robust, you know, Lakeville data warehouse. Um, and we'll dub it like LD LDW for now. Um, I see Edge Climber, it's pointing down. Is is there plans for the data within Edgic Climber to feed into the data warehouse or right now it's a there because I'm looking at this and there's two separate tools. Is that is that how am I interpreting this? I I would I would say two things. One is Edge Climber is I think a level that is not schoolboard level. Now data sets in there aggregated can paint a picture that is school board level. Yep. So um the so that that's how I
089would answer that question. Edge Climber is a different system, but we get we get data feeds uh and I I'll ask Tracy. I'm I'm not 100% sure, but I think the data flow from Edgic Climber into Tableau is a thing. No. Okay. That's why it's depicted that way. You want to help uh director Thompson on that and me too. Hi, good evening everyone. Um, Edge Climber information comes directly out of our Infinite Campus student information system. Um, the data warehouse information. So, you'll see up at the top MCA testing um, and Fastbridge Learning. Um, those go into our data warehouse. They go into Infinite Campus and then go into uh, Edge Climber. And so Edge of Climber um we don't have that going back into campus because we already have everything in the data warehouse.
090Are are there things that are being populated in Educ Climber by staff and and so how so how does that go up? So there are but it's classroom level details that we don't see a need to go up into the data warehouse. And just a follow-up question because I I see behavioral as a as an element in edge of climber. I agree. I don't need to see classroom like whatever. But I but I think as a as a school board it would be good to know how many behavioral infractions do we have at the at the site level and at the district level. And so if that's not at infinite campus, how are you going to connect those two together? So our um DURS reporting is state reported behaviors that are major behaviors. Those are
091being reported in the infinite campus data warehouse and we do have Tableau uh picture of that. Um it's the minor behaviors that are being reported into edgeclimr that we don't have that um picture. We rely on our staff to look in edge climber at those behaviors um so they can get a full picture of um that student. Director Carbone. Yeah, I I see this as now and the not too distant future when when I looked at the the slide that you showed with the pyramids and and the depth of the data that's released if you will or accessible based upon the five categories there. the board was at the highest level or the 40,000 foot view. When you look at going down two or three levels, one of the things that we're trying to ascertain,
092I'm talking about now, not the distant future. One of the things we're trying to asscertain is what is academic su success and where's the empirical evidence that it's happening or it's not happening. And that may vary from from variable to variable. Because if we don't have that, if we don't understand baselines, it will be very difficult for us to establish goals for ourself, for the for the superintendent and all the and cascading all the way down. That's why if there's a way going back to the pyramid uh slide to get down a level or two to give us information that would be very helpful. you know, school against school, grade level against grade level, subject category versus subject category. It would start giving us a picture of what we need to embrace for goals to
093get academic success up and and what we should be thinking. Well, do we do we do that now? I mean, do we have that data? I mean, are you doing that at site level? That's what I that's why I'm asking because of the the pyramid slide. It looks like it's that Director Thompson. looks like it's there and maybe we can get it. I mean, I think that's where the question's going. Well, one other element to this that that I guess I I would ask for clarification on is uh we have a lot of static data. Yeah. and we have lagging data and I hear that we uh that that based on everything you said implied is dynamic data and that's what we're that's what we're trying to get to. Um again I I would say
094datari uh but organizationally in terms of that common operating picture not so much because we're not we're we're not doing that. Again three levels that I look at an organization strategic that's where you're at. operational, you're also there. Then there's tactical, which is classroom, teacher, the and and and our our educators. If if you're running a classroom, you don't need me, you don't need teachers. So, we got to figure this out. And I don't mean that pjoratively. I'm just trying to aggregate a data that paints a picture in order for us to be able to calibrate resource I think is the goal. I think that's what I hear you telling saying to me you want to do and use data to do that and you want dynamic data where you can click in and and
095and drill down. Uh, and I want to partner with you and work figure that out. Um, and it it'll be a little messy, but if we can get there by the fall and get into an iterative, I think we'll start cooking with gas, as I like to say. Um, but I do think I understand what you're driving at. I just want to make sure we're we're doing it in a manner that is going to yield the results that you seek. I'll work with you as hard as I can on that. Yeah, I have two things. Um, so I fully agree in terms of I don't think you know even when we say school against school I think every school which I can't speak for every school but every school seems to have unique challenges and
096great things happening and they're just all a little different and some have certain programs that others don't and things like that that make it very difficult I would say to compare directly what's happening at every school and so in my opinion when we think about where we should be we need to put our trust in the two of you to deliver on the broader expectations and how we get there is really that's more the tactical that you're talking about working with your principles who have a much more um much better pulse on what the challenges are and the I mean even as we think about the boundary changes last year and how that shifted demographics at schools that is a new thing that principles are dealing with they're they're just dealing with changes Um, so
097I think I definitely think I do not we do not need to get down to classroom level data. I think it's a dangerous thing to get to even pitting one school against another and how that's going to affect community perceptions about schools when when people don't know all the intricacies. Um, and the one clarifying thing I wanted to ask as well is my understanding based on what you're saying is we already had all these things. These are not new expenditures for the district. this just better use or better utility of what we have available to us. Is that correct? Or are there new expenses associated with this? Well, for uh just want to address a couple things. One is there even though there's differences school to school, there are threads of continuity. Sure. And I
098think the the data can can show those threats of continuity and we can calibrate ourselves um I think more efficiently if we're doing it off of a common operating picture that we've agreed upon. Systems level approach. Systems level. Yes. Yeah. Director Amber has Yeah. If I if I may clarify something. Um, when I mention school versus school, what I'm suggesting is, and I'm not a WWF wrestling man, what what I'm suggesting is when you mine data and you slice and dice data, you will find aies and that's what the purpose of it. Once you see those aberancies in school with school A, school B, school C, then you'll understand where weaknesses or strengths are. Maybe there are strengths that need to be duplicated. Maybe there are weaknesses that need to be addressed. So that's that's
099really what I'm suggesting. Yes. I Yes. I want to just add to or thank you for that comment. I it when we when we look at the systems level um director Carbone this is exactly the work that the um directors and the coordinators at the district level do is that they are like on an iterative basis slicing and dicing the data and looking at first of all what what's happening across the whole system. So where are we seeing success across the system? Where are we seeing some challenge across the system? Because that means we have to do something say for example at every uh element if it's an elementary every elementary right and then they're looking for are there nuance in that data that suggests that a building in particular needs some different type of
100support to meet the needs of the students. So then that what they would do is then go work with that individual principal to kind of unpack what's going on there and and to put some improvement plans in place. So yes, so your thinking is exactly our thinking on that. Uh I believe Director Cameron had a question or comment. Yeah, I was just going to add to this conversation and I I think and Emily I think this is what you just articulated and that is that we're 194 is monitoring the performance of each school and each school has goals and and performance indicators for growth, but we're not going to pit or it's not going to be a school versus a school um model. I I agree with Dr. Anderson that that sets up um complicated
101community relations. I've seen it happen in other districts. Um and and I think because of the student demographics and different programs housed within in each school, it's impossible to compare, but I think the expectation I think from the board is that each school should be improving um on an annual basis. Director Nicholson. Um I agree with that that we should be targeting improvement at every building. Um I think it's a little bit naive to think that we're not already getting compared school to school. We have an MCA. Break it out by school. It's already there. That's happening. What I think the question is and the the thing that Paul has said twice is that we want to make sure you're doing it. Now it's not that I don't think anybody's saying that we don't believe
102it. We just want to see it. So like what does it look like for you? Like how do you go about it without any of this stuff connected at this point in time? You show us system data. Okay. So you show us MCAs. We see negative trends. We see negative national report card trends. We see negative fastbridge scores. Look at the one slide if you want to go down one more. Not that one. The data metric strategic level slide. So if you look at this, I'm just trying to gather this here, but student daily experience looks like K through two, they love it. 50% of them love it by 9 through 12 when you get down to question three. So again, these are negative trends to me. So I I think what he's trying to
103say is from a baseline perspective, you guys have shown a lot of negative trends. I know we do better than that. like that the science team that was in here pretty freaking awesome. Like that that was cool. That was that's the kind of stuff that makes them excited to learn. You know, they're doing things. We know that the schools are doing things that are more than just the metrics that you guys put up there. I I I want to know there's got to be something more that you guys know that we're doing good at all the buildings or in some way, shape, or form shaping the future for this. And I think what he's trying to say and what I've been trying to say multiple times is we're kind of curious to know where we
104really are. And if if we're just going to be seeing this the system data stuff, that's what I said before. If it's just the system data, that's not looking great to me. Like what's your report card? Like if I gave you a report card, show me what you would score us K through 12 given that information. what what grade would you guys give in terms of leading the district and and where we are from a academic perspective. I mean now we you know look at those three. I mean that's that's you know student satisfaction basically it's you know customer satisfaction kind of metrics like they're going the wrong way. So my question is more around we have data you guys are showing us we have some pockets of data or we're we're looking at some
105things. What are we doing different? What are we going to do different next year from what we did the last three years from COVID? Nothing's made a reverse. We haven't gone the other direction yet. Like nothing on a metrics perspective has. So, I'd like to know what are we going to do different to change that trajectory. There's got to be something. I know you guys are working on stuff. I know their team like I've I've met with a lot of people and it's very interesting when I meet with them individually. I know there's a lot of stuff happening. It just it it hasn't reflected back the same way in the data pieces that we get shown. So I I just want to make that point clear because I everything you said, yeah, we're going the
106right direction. Clean data, good inputs. We understand where it's going to go, what it's going to do, where we're going to get. Awesome. But we have some information and we should be on some sort of a course correct. That would be my assumption that we are going to put some effort into doing something or making some sort of system level change on those trajectories. That's where I'm struggling. Director Cameron Um, so Director Nicholson, I appreciate what you're saying, but I feel like I'm hearing you actually say something different than what we're asking. And that is we want to see the metrics, but what you're saying is we know the metrics and we want to see change. So I think we need to figure out as a board where do we want to put energy right
107now? And I I agree that there are opportunities for improvement and change. I I think we have enough data to figure and I think the district is already doing that to figure out where to leverage. We've already heard it in reports. Um but the board then needs to have have those conversations about how do we resource the needs that are being addressed and that's what we have not done yet. Director Thompson. Um I I I I would like the data and and for me I would like to know because I believe it is my role as a school board member is to monitor and provide and that's how I define governance. Um I would not be in a position to say this is what you need to fix but I just need to monitor. I
108just need to see are we progressing? And so the general framework that that you guys have in place and the direction you want to go with data analytics, I'm 100% on board and willing to uh let us know what you need to ensure that we hit that September date. Uh whether it be financial, whether it be resources, like you need this information that allows us to drive where we're going to go over the next couple of years. In parallel, while that's being done, and we won't get that until September, is there an opportunity to get a core set of basics that say what percentage of our students are meeting reading expectations at the grade level, at math, at science, and by sight level. And if that is a data element that we can get right,
109then uh we have at least that initial snapshot between now and September. But then on the back end, we've got a team that's probably already have tactical plans already in in flight to course correct that. So maybe that's what we also want to know. So while we have this data analytics in track in flight in September have a snapshot of percentage of students that are meeting reading math science expectations and then understand what is the what what has the district have in place that they're going to course correct this or or have in flight and maybe we don't have anything in flight if we don't we don't you know and that's fine but let's air that out so we understand where we are at and back to what you said director Nicholson what's the plan
110if there is because I'm Sure, we have something. So, let's uh let's let them finish up here and then we can discuss it amongst the board members. Yeah. So uh with with Tableau uh right now our priority visualizations uh at the general district level, enrollment counts, class sizes, these are things you all have, uh seen and or heard or been uh dealing with through a variety of different um reports that the district has given. Uh then academic information, graduation rates, which we have on a one-year lag, uh in progress, norm reference, reading and math proficiency and reading and math growth through um uh fastbridge and then in progress MCA's which are our criterion reference uh focusing on reading, math, science um and using benchmark data. So um if we go next chart So, we're going
111to uh move ahead with um so uh you'll get a an email here shortly that will give you login information. The second bullet there on Google form for question submission. We're trying to do some data collection um asking you to kindly do some homework uh as you look at that and um share with us uh based on what you're seeing. Some of the comments obviously that you're uh offering now uh is helpful for us to try to shape that uh and prepare uh how we're going to report out uh on information for you. And there's also a video reference for navigation just to try to simplify it. Um if if you need that. Um yeah, just want to make sure you know that that's coming. That is be dynamic data access that you'll have and
112then we'll just develop things from there. So uh so that we can get to the right place uh for the fall. So first first big step forward here. Make one comment. Yeah. Just really quickly back to the slide. When you log into Tableau tonight or tomorrow or whenever you do, um you will see those first four or five things. You'll have immediate access. They're already in there. We've gotten them in there for you. That's just really more general information about the district, not specific to um academics necessarily other than the graduation rate to some degree. Um we are on a short timeline around those in progress items. They are currently being worked on. Um and so we will certainly give you a heads up. This is not a September. This is a shorter term as
113we are trying to get data into the system um to provide you what you're looking for. This is the start of that. So you as as Superintendent Bowman said will have access to both our criterion reference um our MCA which of course is a lagging indicator. We know that. Um we do use our fastbridge norm reference assessment as a as a leading indicator three times a year. so we can track over time. And so you'll be able to look at that data as well. And Superintendent Bowman will let you know the minute that we um are finished um getting that data into the system. Um but as he sort of said at the very end here, we are committed to getting the data, not only the academic data, but the a data in the area
114of finance and HR, etc. in so that you would have a one-stop shop as board members to go in there and be able to look at not only our lagging data but our leading data. Um, and it it will be part of our uh quarterly review as well. So, we're trying to get in a more um iterative uh uh progress with you as a board to keep you more updated um as we go through the year. And I know you you will be talking about goals tonight. And so I think this really aligns perfectly um with that conversation as you're deciding where you want your energy and the energy of the district um over the next year and the energy of the superintendent and myself over the next year or so. So um so I
115will be sending as soon as I sit down, I will be sending you the email with your information. Um, and you can go right in and start just poking around at those those uh higher level items and then we'll circle back as soon as we have that academic data ready for you. Any other questions on our presenters before Amber, do you have a question? Um, yeah. Uh, two things. One, um, and I see that it was aster in the presentation. Um I know at the high school level for our MCAs our our um participation rate is around 50% give or take. Um are and I realize that this is like a statewide challenge. Is Lakeville thinking about any creative ways to increase our student participation rate with the MCAs at the high school level? Um
116yes, thank you so much for that question. Um we yes our math math in particular is the one where we tend to see more students choosing not to for a variety of reasons. Um that's the one that's usually around 50%. Um we see higher participation in reading. Um we see pretty high levels of participation at our elementary. So the data is definitely more reliable at our elementary level and and our middle to an extent. So, our hot spot is definitely high school math, but high school in general in terms of the optouts, and we know that that's we're not alone in that. Um, that said, um, we have had we we have had some surface level conversations. The principles had some thoughts about, um, ways in which we could incentivize that and what that might
117look like. Um, but we haven't really sat down and had the deep dive conversation about what would that actually mean or what would that look like. So they have they have actually have a lot of great ideas about how we could encourage participation there. Um so I think we have to circle back to that um if we want to increase the participation rate for that. Great. Thanks. And my second question is and I've been asked this a couple times um since the board went live. How what level of detail will the board have when we log in? Like can we see student level data, classroom level data? what will we have access to? And there's great concern in the community about um student level data. There will not be any student level data. Um grade
118level data would probably be the um the most narrow band. Um right now that they're working on that's what they're working on right now. Great. Thanks, Director Anderson. Okay. So, just two two questions here questions here. Um, one is I just want to come back to just cost of some of what we're talking about. So just to clarify because I asked that earlier and I don't think you I apologize. I meant to answer that and um okay went on questions. Yeah. So uh we we are we we need a um a data programmer and coordinator uh for Tableau. So I I would say that's the cost. Uh so far I mean the biggest challenge for us is taking what we have and aligning it so that we're are pulling the right data that we need
119from the right sources in as clean a manner as possible. Um but as we develop the the indicators and the data visualization we we have to have that resident in our organization. So, that's a cost. Um, uh, I I would have to get you the number, uh, in terms of, uh, salary for that position. Um, that's the only one. Um, I don't know, Tracy, is there any other We're not No, I think that was it. Um, we did, we were looking at doing something more robust. um and talked to a a vendor, actually talked to two um but figured out internally we were in a better position than than uh than I thought we were. Okay. So, it seems like because I just want to be as we kind of talk about the board goals
120tonight as well, there's a lot of things in these goals that would require a I mean, and obviously this is a draft to discuss, but there's a lot of things that would would require more resources. And so sometimes I think like I am a fan of data and understanding it and I think we need to say stay at a high level with the data but I also think about what are we how are we prioritizing this potentially over other really significant needs in the district. And so um just want to make like it sounds like you dug in and you we have resources that we can better utilize and hiring one person is a much better outcome than what we originally thought which is good. Um, so just wanted to clarify. Well, I I look
121at this as a yes and I mean there's there is there are a lot of things that we are working on and I think this points to Mr. Nicholson's point about the the two pieces. What's the common operating picture? What's the action reaction cycle with regard to that? and uh how do we take what we're doing now and level it up to align with what our data and our common operating picture tells us? I think all that is good. Uh getting there is is the challenge and that's that's okay. I had a question for Emily. Um looking at uh the priority vis visualizations in Tableau uh we talked about K through9 is for um fast bridge and you said that's a good leading indicator. Um and then high school we're struggling to get MCA participation.
122So what do we have as far as indicators at 10 11 and 12th grade? Well we don't have anything. We we have been in this is a resource problem. Um, if we had the opportunity, what we would do is we would move to a FastBridge K12. That would be the ultimate goal because we do not have we have the ACT, but again, that's a that's a lagging indicator. Um, but our um our scores in in that area have always been very strong. They don't necessarily align with what we see in the MCA. So, um so really we're looking at uh for high school, we're looking at the MCA and we're looking at the ACT. we're looking at graduation rate. Um, but otherwise past 9th grade, we are lacking in that area in terms of a
123resource to be able to support support u more leading indicators at that level. And would you agree? I think Sandy Georgie mentioned this earlier that the MCA is probably a better indicator of the system health versus student performance. 100%. The MCAs are really because it's criterion referenced, it's really intended to tell you where your gaps are um in your organization overall. So, um I don't want to get uh too into like a deep dive tonight. Um but we do Sandy and her team um they they really they look at everything down to the benchmark and they analyze it and code it. So it's like are across the system are we performing well on this individual benchmark and are we not performing well on this benchmark and then where are our pockets like I mentioned earlier
124and then what do we need to plug in um is it a professional development issue is it a resource issue oftentimes when we talk about the MCAs and the system we find that the resources that we're using um aren't addressing all of the required standards and benchmarks. So then we have to figure out how do we supplement that because students aren't having experiences necessarily or robust experiences with those particular standards or benchmarks and what we can come back and um talk a lot more in depth about what that looks like. So um you know when we talk about what are we doing, how are we trying to shift the system, that'd be a great conversation to have. So, um, going back to that then, if we're talking about, you know, a lot of what the
125public sees is MCA and and kind of grades our schools and compares our schools. I mean, what would be a better KPI that we could use, you know, to show the public, hey, this is how our students are actually doing and how their their outcomes are actually improving? Well, you know, off the top of my head, um because I do think that and a couple of board members mentioned it tonight is that aspect of sort of looking at the whole child experience, right? So, um I do think our ACT is um we have high high levels of participation. Um I think our um grad rate is a really good metric to look at and and besides our desired daily experience which again um is more personalized personal experience related. I think having an alumni survey
126would serve us really well. If if if one of our goals as a system and our mission is to ensure that our students are prepared for their future, then we need to be engaging our kids that are in their futures to find out how their experience was in the system because it is more than just and we all know it's more than just one test on one day at one time. It's how are we providing a full scope of experience to help our students be successful over time in whatever it is that they choose to do next. And some of those things aren't assessed on a MCA or an ACT. Director Anderson. Oh, uh, Director Cameron. Oh. um kind of a followup to this with the secondary level and I realize this is not like
127a um it's it's not similar to like an ACT or or MCA in terms of a of a um they're not legging indicators but to what extent is Leil at this at the high school level has implemented a implemented a system where when a student shows signs of like early indicators of stress, whether it be missing so many classes, you know, tardies or or absenteeism or failing in a class. Um, you know, things like that. Are the dean, APS, deans, whatever um title we use and or the counselors, is there a system in place to try to catch these kids early to create systems of support around them? Yes, absolutely. And I would definitely say that they are more robust now that we have counselors in our system because as you all know our APs
128previously deans were stretched so thin because they were trying to meet the needs of large number of students in every single area. Excuse me. So we have some processes in place just like we monitor um academic progress like through the credit check process like are kids on track for graduation? are they attending school? We have similar processes in place around the social emotional side um to for earlier intervention. I don't think we'd be where we are if we didn't have those. In fact, I know we wouldn't be where we are if we didn't have dedicated staff to be able to support our students in that area. Director Thompson, do you have a question? No, you know, I don't have a question, but I think this is more of just a um uh just a tactical
129way because I think you you shared we do have a gap at the secondary level and and I I recall, you know, with with my son in ninth and tth grade on campus, it we know or I know when a homework assignment is turned in or when it's late and I know when he when he has exams. And so, uh, while I don't mean to get too tactical, there is an opportunity where if when we start looking at that data, we can see how many students in 9th grade reading are doing their homework assignments and what what are they getting age or are they getting 100%. But then when they get an exam and they're like they get like 60%, there's there's like there's a gap there. Like why did that happen? And now now
130if they're if their homework assignments are at 50% and their homework and their exams are at 90%, like what is going on? And so that's just more of a uh current state dashboard where you know semester quarter after quarter all of our students are getting A's and A's and A's and then the LER indicators the MCAs they bomb that. So obviously like so this is where we're trying to get to to be able to see all right are our students uh getting um uh meeting the requirements at at the state level but yet at the without the state level information if we just look at the campus infinite number or data it might show that we are meeting expectations but then if you dive deeper all of our students are getting A's and homework but
131bombing exams and like that doesn't make sense. I mean, and if that if that's happening, then how do you get 100% in your homework assignment and not pass your exam? That makes zero sense. And so, those are the tactical things that we can that that again, I don't want to figure out why that is the case, but at at a macro view, I'd love to know quarterly. You know, 90% of our students are doing great, but they're not doing great at exams. We want to give you a heads up. Here's our plan that we're going to go look into in the second half. I'm like, oh, thank thanks for that info. And then you move on. So that that's just one use case that that that you could use at the secondary level. All right.
132Thank you. Thank you very much. You guys need a break. Okay. Break. Yeah. We're we're just going to take a break till 8 o'clock and then we'll come back and jump back in. Go in recess. Um we're going to jump into we're going to jump into the board discussion on data analytics um further discussing the KPIs that we we might want to see uh which will need further input from the district as well. So, it's not something that I expect to get an agreement on tonight, but if we can get a little bit further down the road, that'd be great. Um, I'm going to uh again kind of suspend formalities. Um, so people can just jump in as we continue this discussion. Amber, you can shout out or if you want to raise your hand,
133we'll try to catch you. Um, yeah, Brett had uh just for the public's sake, so Brett Nicholson had had provided some draft documents that he had kind of been working on some different concepts and so I shared them with the rest of the board and the public um just as a reference point, some ideas for us to discuss um work from and then I do expect there to be other comments as well. People have other ideas, other metrics we should be looking at. Um, and going back to what Director Anderson was saying earlier, what does success mean? Because there are probably some different metrics that we should be considering. So Brett, I'm going to turn it over to you to start it off. Thank you. Um, so I just want to talk through this real
134quick. So th this is a concept. So don't don't look at the data as something I'm proposing. I'm not saying we should use it. I'm not even saying it's good or accurate or even a best practice or something that would make sense for this district. I literally put it together as an idea of a framework and I wanted to articulate the point. If we set board goals and we have things we want to see happen for this district, we want to see you know academic achievement growth measures or whatever it may be. And I'm using these just because this was something easy for me to create. Six board goals, six superintendent goals that line up with that. Lagging indicators that would be managed by our DO. And then leading indicators, that would be the stuff
135that would roll up from the classroom, from the schools, the principles. They would be managing the leading indicators. Now again, they may be doing this already. There may be piece of this pieces of this in place. What I would like us to think about as we kept we we circled board goals and we had all sorts of topics of conversation around board goals. So my intent with putting this out there is if we are going to put board goals out there and set goals for our superintendent, they should cascade down to our district office staff so that they have things that they should be looking at and monitoring to make sure that the schools are achieving those. and the schools down at their level should have a set of metrics that they're looking at to
136say we were successful today or we were successful this week. Now again after all this conversation and talking with some principles I do know we do some of this. I think it's somewhat informal and it's not consistent across the board. Now I'm not saying we are the ones who have to implement or push down leading and lagging indicators. So, just to be clear, I'm not saying we need to set those. I'm not saying we need to monitor them. Um but what I am saying is that when we set the board goals they should have some sort of linkage to things at a lower level so that we know if our work practices in the classroom are achieving what we want what we think they're going to achieve or we think they're going to do for
137us those should roll up to district level metrics to our superintendent goals and eventually that should help us achieve our goals as a board. That's the concept. So every one of these six if you go down you can link it to the numerical order in the next category. So it's it's an idea it's a concept it's a it's a way to think through metrics that I just want to make sure that if we're going to talk about board goals we have a framework to sort of frame the conversation a little bit. So it's not just we want to improve academic performance like that's super out there. It's very hard to, you know, pinpoint, measure. What does that mean to you? It's going to be different to me. It's going to be different to him. It's
138going to be different to you, different to Amber. Like, we're all going to look at things differently. So, it's a concept. So, think of it that way. Don't don't don't drill into any of the specific verbiage, percentages, metric, number type stuff. It's an idea of how would it all link up and how would we know that from the ground up we're making progress. So yeah, thanks Brett. I think first of all I appreciate the effort here and it and it does give us something to springboard off of which is much appreciated. I do think that one of the things that that we need to to focus on is is prioritizing. And my sense is is that finance and academic outcome achievement goals should be top priority and then work our way down. Now you could
139argue that every one of these things have some connection to um academic achievement andor uh financial uh financial viability. But I I I think we when we go through this and as we discuss we need to prioritize from academics to finance and then work our way down into into some of the other goals. And one last comment about the number of goals. Um and one of the things I found in business is you can have three pages of goals and none of them get hit. You really need to have the right number of goals that are so people can focus on them and work accordingly. [Music] Amber, are you unmuting to say something? No, you go ahead. Okay. Do you want to mute when you're not saying something? Just so because there's some background noise.
140Um the I I Brett, thank you for all the work that you did here. I do appreciate it and I like the idea of kind of chaining like I did not know what COS stands for but now I know so thank you. Um the only thing I would ask us to think about too is um uh so this seems like district level goals that then all the pieces of the system would contribute to in terms of being successful. Um I also want us to think about board specific goals. So to me, for instance, a great board goal is for us to pass our levy this fall. That is pretty critical to our system. So how do we um support our DO? How do we get engaged in the community? How do we do the things
141to pass our levies or levy or levies, whichever one it is? Can I just say I I agree with you there and I apologize. I didn't get that one on there and I didn't have any financial metrics on this because it was like trying to I was trying to just get six things that you could sort of see how it would flow. Sure. So I I just But yes. No, the the only other thing I wanted to say is um the I know I don't know when we're going to get the survey data from that Leatherman Morris Leatherman survey. Do is it coming? I think 13th of May uh is uh the proposed agenda. Okay. Um for for a report out on that. Yeah. Great. Because to me um what we don't really have at
142this point is a board assessment. So kind of evaluating. Granted, we've only been um this board for a short number of months, but I think it would help us to evaluate ourselves as a board, evaluate our superintendent, have him do his own self self-evaluation as well, have the district office evaluate, like go through the survey process, um which part of that is our community input as well to help us figure out what we think are the important things, but also what our community thinks are the important things and how we should build our goals based off of the information that we have. So for all of us thinking about data, I feel like we are kind of lacking data right now on driving our development of goals. Um so for instance, if if public perception
143of the board is not great, let's say it has been a downward trend um for a period of time. So maybe it's better, that's great, but let's say it's not. How are we going to address that? because that's a pretty critical element um for this district is to make sure that the public perception of the board is posit generally positive. Um what if what is coming out of that survey data to tell us what the community cares about in terms of um how their students are doing, what they think is needed, like those kinds of things. So um like mental health is I obviously advocate for mental health that comes up. How do we better support our students on a mental health front, which should turn into better academic achievement? So, I um I really
144like the the buildup in terms of all levels, but I also think like we don't have the information to really kind of help like I feel like it would be helpful to do our own self assessments, community assessment, get all of that information to help drive what our goals are. Can you build out that a little bit? What do you What do you mean exactly? like what information and what kind of questions would you ask? So, we can we have previous um ones that we've done our self-evaluation for the board. Our evaluation well the evaluation of the superintendent has to happen and I know we have an opportunity to um watch a MSBA presentation on it for those who weren't able to attend it live but um we have examples of what those things look
145like. Um well I mean for if you're sending out a survey to the public to help guide you know how the board should be operating. I guess that's the Leatherman survey data. I'm just saying let's say um let's say the satisfaction rating is not as high as we want it to be. What do we think that's about? How do we function better as a board? Those kinds of things. So like board goals to me like I guess what I'm saying is I don't necessarily think all these things should directly align necessarily like there might be some of our own goals that really have to do with our own internal kind of processes and function. Um it makes sense that some of them would relate to each other and my guess is that the superintendent would
146create goals for his leadership based on kind of our direction. um but that we might have some more personal goals as a board. So that when I think about board goals, like I think some of this is district goals that we're saying are important at that level. Um but then I also think what are our board goals? Do you have a recommendation for any Do you have a recommendation? Um I think like we've been talking about just um how do we how are we going to function as a board? how are we going to do how are we going to run our processes? Those are things that I think just will help our communication and help us function better. So I think some of it is just like even as we talked about the board
147handbook and those kinds of things that just better outline um what the expectations are, you know, um what our board determines are the processes that we think we should follow, those kinds of things that are more procedural and not necessarily policy based. So that's an example like we could put a goal is to get our board management kind of handbook done by the end of this year or the next school year. That that's something we go through several meetings with Kim and we get that done. That's a board goal. That's that's a clear kind of smart goal where we have an achievable outcome. Sorry, I'm not really calling on people. You can just go style. Um I I would agree with Director Anderson. I I I think there is uh in my opinion value in
148having some sort of board goals. And so as I shared before, I I we've got to break this up in kind of three different levels. And Director Nicholson, I agree with you. I like your document. I like how the chain of the command or the was it chain of secession or whatever it is where you've got your top level goals and your next level of folks they need to be able to support those goals and the next level down supports that. So conceptually 100% aligned with with that framework. Uh I view this as the top level is what are our school district goals. The next level is what will the school board and what will the superintendent do to enable those school district goals. And then the next level down would be at the school
149level where what's going on in the classrooms which will which will be driven by the school board and the superintendent which will be driven by the school board or the school district as a whole. And so I came up with a crazy acronym uh we'll call it the basic plan with two S's. And so we need to have a school district plan. Let me rephrase that. A an annual school district goal around these six categories. Do we have any do we have a do we have goals around what we want the budget to look like? Do we have goals around what the academics looks like? Do we have goals around what the staff and the students look like? Uh do we have goals around innovation, whether it be AI or whatever may be? And then
150do we have goals around community relations? So that's considered like the basic plan. You've got six different categories and then what kind of uh goals you want to establish around those six key buckets. And then once we figure that out, we go to the next level down. And then as a board, what do we need to do to support that? Because again, at the end of the day, we're running a school district. And so if we're going to create goals, we need to create a goal for the school district. And and so while I understand and do appreciate having board goals, but our primary focus ought to be is the school district performing delivering on whatever our core basic is, which is school district stuff, right? So maybe to help categorize um uh uh goals,
151but also help us prioritize what we want to go after is start documenting what kind of goals do you want? If it's related to the budget, what kind of goals do you want? If it's related to academics, what kind of goals do you want for staff satisfaction, student status satisfaction, what kind of goals do we want for innovation within our school district? And then lastly, what kind of goals do we want for uh our community relations category so that our community feels that our school district is is in a fantastic shape or is performing well. And so once we start uh you know spitballing things in in those categories we will at least have this kind of matrix or or document that says all right you got six things in budget you've got nine things
152in community you've got 10 things in innovation obviously we have to start horse trading which one's a top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top type top item prioritizing and then we make it to the next level down and say all right superintendent Bowman what are you going to do to go after these goals that we've identified at the basic level what are we going to do at the schoolboard level and then that cascades down to all right tactically Mr. Mr. Bowman, what are you going to do to make sure that these are at the classroom level? So, that's my recommendation as a framework, but I'll pause here because that's an idea. Yeah, I I mean, I think
153a lot of that aligns with the current goals of the district, you know, that are on the strate strategic plan. You know, number one, improve our teaching and learning practices and processes to increase student achievement. Number two, improve our systems of support to better meet the academic, behavioral, and social emotional needs of our district. Uh, and this is all on page 2011 of the the board packet. I mean, I think a lot of those but that's too high level. I think we got to get into but we need the and and yours are high level too. The question is what are we using for the KPIs to track if we're actually working toward I mean I'd like to think that our kids are doing better than that and I'd like to be able to I
154mean I'd like to think that our kids are doing better than that and I'd like to be able to show them with data. Um yeah, so it's what KPIs we're using and I and I do agree. I mean there are other components to it as well that I think the data will assist with um because we can I mean funding is obviously an issue right resource allocation and we had a levy fail last year but imagine if you were able to attach some data you know to the asks that we had last year and say hey where we've put money over in this area and applied it to students we've seen this percent of increase you know whether that's in attendance behavioral issues or student student outcomes I mean you attach that data to some
155of the flyers we're sending out to parents or the emails. I mean, that's a lot easier of an ask, you know, to get people to vote for um for funding increases and additional levies and referendums. So, yeah, I mean, we might not need to get down to the granular level, but it'd be good that we it'd be good for us to know that they are looking at the granular level and saying, "Hey, this is what we're doing, you know." So, yeah, I mean, again, improve our teaching and learning practices. So we as the board, you know, checking in, are we achieving this goal? Well, what are you doing to improve your teaching and learning practices? You know, how is that working? And how can you tell if it's working if you're not tracking the data
156at the classroom level? So yeah, again, do I need to go look at how my son's first grade class is doing? No. But I hope somebody is. So yeah, and that brings everything full circle back to the the data discussion we were having about 20 minutes ago or so. and and looking at developing baselines with metrics otherwise I don't know how we do KPIs and and measure success and know that we're moving forward and and you know and it's the same thing with I know we've talked about the amount of money that's been spent on curriculum which I think Bill is quoted in the millions of dollars and you know what does what kind of return on investment are we getting from that spending equaling academic achievement you know, old curriculum versus new curriculum, new
157curriculum versus what we think we want to do strategically going forward with curriculum. And you know, again, I it everything circles back to building metrics. Otherwise, I don't know how we measure. [Music] You're up. Did you just say my name? Sorry. Go ahead, Amber. Um, yeah, I think for me, um, and and Brett, yeah, I I echo what people, um, have said. I appreciate like seeing your thoughts on on a framework. I think for me, and maybe this goes along with um, Carly and Brian's comments about needing to develop some board goals on how we want to tackle um, projects like this. I am in full support of a metrics plan. Um I feel like I early in when we when we first um were joining the board I I sent a framework idea as
158well um not particular to 194 but a pretty pretty specific metrics framework that would sent bench benchmark goals um uh with numbers. Um and so for me, um I would recommend it seems like we need a we need a facilitator to come assist us in as a district in developing a metrics framework that aligns with our strategic plan. So what are what are um the the board goals? What are the goals that the board has for the superintendent? And then how does a superintendent then work with his staff and and system to to achieve those goals? I I appreciate like the lagging and leading indicators and and Brett, I agree with you. I I I think a lot of these things are happening. Um, I feel like it's our job as a board to set
159um in collaboration with the superintendent what what we want the district to achieve and then it's up to um superintendent Bowman for you to deploy um the necessary, you know, staffing and resources and and ask when you need more, of course, um to to accomplish those goals. I I don't feel like our our board has the expertise um to start developing what school classroom or even DO level um indicators are like I don't we're not we're not experts in what the research says about how how do you improve an MCA score right that's not I just want to be clear Amber that's not what I was saying though like at that that's why there's like responsibilities and accountabilities there that moves to them. They have to bring it back up cuz I I don't think
160again this was and I apologize for going too much depth, but it literally was like the concept to linkage. I don't know that I I want anything to do with anything past sort of like our board goals and like what we expect out of the superintendent. So, I'm I'm just saying I agree with you 100%. And I think our focus needs to stay up there. I just want to make sure that what we set they can cascade it back up then. That's all I'm saying. But they have to figure those out. Yep. And I I mean I obviously agree with you. I think for me the struggle of of our process which has happened um was that we have put out for public consumption um a a framework right from one board member's perspective rather
161than rather than assigning all board members a series of questions and say bring your ideas to the table or to a work session and we'll see where there's alignment and see how we can fit these together. So for me that that signals that we need a facilitator to help kind of build this. But I I think it would be helpful to have it be with the superintendent and the district office staff and maybe even principal level to build like the district metrics framework. Um and then all we all have our lean right and what we're trying to trying to support and tackle. Um that's what I would suggest. Um, Amber, can I ask can I ask you just a quick question off that? Yep. So, how is that different than what we're doing right now?
162And we've got the superintendent here, got the teaching and learning director here. You know, as as I noted to you, you know, we sent those comments out, you know, for reference. Uh, because we were going to be discussing them, we shared them with the public so they weren't, you know, blind to what we were reviewing and discussing. But how is that any different? You're you're saying having a facilitator come in. I mean, aren't we doing that right now? I mean, that's my question. Like, at the end of this meeting, who who is going to go work on this? I mean, I hope it's not just one board member that's going to like for me it's like and maybe it's because I'm I work in higher ed and we do this all day long, but like
163we need like post-it notes around the room and we're developing this as a team with district so that at the end of a two-hour session, we're pretty much on the same page. I felt like I've heard in today's meeting, it's been interesting like being, you know, virtual from both sides, both at the table and at the podium, people are saying your goals or your ideas rather than our ideas. And and I know it's a little thing, but at the same times, it's signaling to me that we're not working as a as a district, as a as a group together to move 194 forward. that there is this um us not like us and them mentality but but kind of and so I I don't know of another district that that operates like this in watching
164meetings and so I'm just highlighting that um I think if we had a two or threehour facilitated session we could come out of this with a pretty solid metrics framework for the district but it cannot happen in isolation from from district office or or or us of course. Um I just I think this could happen more efficiently and be more productive I guess is at the heart of it and more inclusive. Yeah. um when when we do based on my professional experience when we do goal planning and and stuff like that you know obviously we've got the business leaders that um come to the table with what they want to do uh what the trends are um gather some info input from some of their key leaders but ultimately it's the you know the the
165senior leadership that decides like here's what we're going to do go after this um so I am in alignment where you should there be a working session we can definitely have that and maybe this is just a kickoff of that initial working session, we start uh sharing ideas and uh uh and then kind of think through what are some of your priorities that you would want to focus on. So, as an example for myself, for Brian Thompson, like I'd love to have an amazing top tiered tier like reading program. Like I know my that my uh I've had some experiences where you know the the Orton Gillingham reading system that my kids have gone through have been super beneficial and helpful and and again I'm not super wellversed but you know I know that the
166reading act is helping us kind of move in that direction but I would love to see that implemented across the board but does that get too tactical or is that really the superintendent's decision to decide? And so if we want to set at at a higher level for the board, uh it could be as simple as these six. So I'm right I wrote this down these six goals for the basic plan. We want the budget to be at an 8% unassigned fund balance. We want academics 5% increase in in each math, reading, science grade level proficiency. We want staff satisfaction survey pre at the end uh at the end of the year at 80%. Student satisfaction survey 80%. Innovation wise, I want everyone all of our students to know how to do chat GPT prompting
167like that. That could be one. And then community Lisa Lewis Leatherman, I think is the guy who does a survey. We can say we want uh we want to increase the community's uh perception of the school district by 5%. I mean, it could be as simple as that. And then we look to Superintendent Balman to say, "All right, what's your tactical plan to get there?" But we we don't need to bring the ocean. Go ahead. Oh, sorry to interrupt, Ryan. That That's all I have. That is exactly exactly the metrics framework that I shared when we first started on the board with with the new board members. Like I think that would be great. Um and so I think we just have very there just a lot going on without a focus without focus. And
168I I think we need some help to I I agree that we just keep talking and talking and talking. I've heard that from other board members. I agree. And I think we need someone to either someone on board or someone to come in to help us develop that. And I think it's possible in a pretty quick turnaround. And I would say part of this if we are doing something like this to have the various um district office people doing it with us so that they could be like 5% is not a reasonable goal or have it be informed by but how would they know? I mean let me well I'm sorry but we we would need right I understand but having them here they could say hey that is abnor like that's an outlier you're
169not going to get 5%. Totally makes sense. Yeah. So it it feels like if we again had some sort of retreat or work session where it is kind of table discussion and like Amber's talking about I can see whiteboard discussion. Um those things that are more collaborative so that it feels like everybody's working together and that our goals are informed by expertise in the district. So then can we just make a motion to take this to a work session and establish uh board goals and throw some whiteboards up and grab some sticky notes and start putting down what we want to go after on the whenever we decide to go do this is that what we would do then next the I would say that one question is do we feel like we like Amber's
170mentioning and I've I think when we've had retreats or work sessions where someone from MSBA has come or something like that where they can help facilitate. It's super useful. But um obviously that's an expense to the district as well. So part of it is making sure like we can get to like is it actually worth it if we're super effective during that time because someone's facilitating it versus we don't get it done and then it drags on and on. Um so I could see the value of pulling someone in who just kind of helps organize us too. Go ahead Amber. Sorry. Carly to add to that. I feel like and and correct me um Superintendent Bowman if I'm not understanding things correctly, but for me it's like the the strategic plan is missing like the
171tactic part or the the metric part like we have these kind of you know broad goals and values which are are great. Um I so I'm going through strategic planning as a I'm going to out myself as a unit at the university and I'm working with the university strategic planner now. I'm like very in strategic plan mode and the things that we're talking about tonight are things that strategic plans that I'm working on are integrating into it. And so I for me we're missing kind of that level and I'm I'm wondering if it was developed and just not on on that slide or is that like the the the missing link here that we need to flesh out? Well, I don't think it's the missing link. Uh in my way of thinking uh the board
172establishes its goals strategic level first going to chain of success. The superintendent who I am your employee has goals that are derived and nested in that and then we develop the key performance indicators that would support that. Again, as Brett has identified in a chain of success/nested manner, that's the sequence. We are not in that sequence yet. The strategic plan I have to use is that's what I walked into the district with without the other pieces. I'm working as hard as I can to get those. Um, and I think this is one of the best discussions we've had around that. Um and I I am diligently trying to extract the implied requirements and give my staff guidance around that. Um the strategic plan is what's informing that for me absent the other pieces? So can
173I just clarify? Um, is it typically the case that when you're doing the strategic plan that was done, you would have metrics associated with so like I'm just thinking about the ANI plan where there's super specific goals of like we're going to increase, you know, staff of color by this percentage. We're going to do this kind of stuff. And so it would make sense as we're all talking about that we would have what I think district informed or kind of um I don't know expertise informed kind of guidance around what metrics would be reasonable to support the goals and then to have that tracked throughout a year period of how we're how we're moving forward or what we're going to do if we're not. Yes. Um all that's true. Uh I I think if the
174board had goals that were based on a strategic plan, that would be the point of departure for the rest of the cascading that that needs to occur. We're just a little out of sequence for for real reasons. I mean, I didn't show up till October 1st. You weren't on the board till January. So there's there's all those things that are I think um interdicting if you will the sequence of that chain of success definition process but it doesn't mean we can't still align ourselves. This conversation is part of that process. So it's super welcome by me. Uh and again in the absence of guidance I'm going to try to filter out what we need to do and and drive toward that. um hard to do in compartmentalized information. Uh better easier to do if it's
175collective, but hey, this is this is what this is the way the cards are falling and I'm doing what I can with that. But that I think it's a sequential process that that um emanates from a strategic plan. Does does the new school year like given some of what we've been talking about tonight with like the data metrics and getting that information by the fall hopefully like does some of this should we be aiming for really establishing goals to start implementation like the planning over the summer to implement changes come fall? Does that make sense? Yes. Well, I I think both I think everybody's articulated the kind of that is what we want to get to. I sequentially strategic plan, board goals, superintendent goals, superintendent to uh senior staff, senior staff to mid-level staff and
176superintendent to principles, evaluation devices, etc. All should embed that in a chain of success uh nested process. So that I am actually working on that is I'm a little scattered about how to get to that point. Uh I could accelerate that effort um with a collective sequential articulation of that. But in the absence of that, I ain't stopping. I'll just keep driving. And Carly, go ahead. No, no, go ahead, Brad. Nope, you're ready. You sure? Yeah. Carly, I agree with you. Um if if we don't have as a board if we don't have this teed up so that Michael's got what he needs September um we we will miss at least a half a year maybe an entire year and shame on us. Sure. which then sorry then he needs like we have to be
177moving in a direction where that planning can happen over the summer so that yeah I think that's kind of the timeline that would make some sense here because we're wrapping up the current school year. I mean I know everybody's kind of you know we're starting to get lots of invites to all kinds of different events and everything else. So I mean it's there's a lot that's going to be happening here. if we could at least start to establish from our side, you know, figure out when we can, you know, get together and work on this and give him some direction. He's going to still have to take it to his staff. His staff's then going to have to pull in again principles and team leads and, you know, um you know, all the all the
178different teaching and learning aspects that that tie into it. And they're going to have to then figure out, okay, if this is what the board expects out of him, this is what he expects out of us. Now, what do we need out of you guys to get this casting, you know, cascading back up? I mean, that that's going to take some time. And I don't I don't want to rush everybody to try to say, "Oh, do it, you know, do it in two weeks cuz, you know, end of the year is going to be a there's going on. Yeah, we don't want to rush it, but let's be super candid like this stuff should have been done last fall. Strategic planning should have been done in Q4, which would have fed into staffing and prioritization
179and resource requests into Q1, which would then would have which would have then fed into the budget approval for Q2 and then any prep material planning and preparation for the school year in September. And so I get the desire of talking through this, but if you actually want something done by September, this is something you have to expedite. like we have to have working sessions. You got to hammer this out. And then if we are going to review the strategic plan, keep in mind you don't have to do this every year like the it could be it could have been just a review in Q4. Uh but you guys were new and and we were new and it's one of those where there wasn't this cadence in place where we always review the strategic plan
180in Q4 which feeds into the budget in Q1 which feeds into the staffing in Q2 and stuff of that nature. So that's how sequentially we should have been doing this or or one would have thought how one you know how it could have been done but we are where we are now. So the question is if we're if if we need the strategic plan to fe to to be the baseline to determine the next fall's school district goals. So we need to allocate time on the strategic plan. And then the question is is it going to be a lengthy review? Is it going to be a one-day re review? is going to be a two-day review. Uh is are we going to do massive changes, minor changes as a school board, you were all elected
181by the community to make these decisions. And so, uh knowing that the strategic plan is something that can be uh edited at any time, we can make a quick review session on it, get it done, and then tee up maybe next year to say, "All right, how do we want to expand on it and and get more feedback?" But if or are we okay with what we what what it is today and and then agree that that's we're good with that and then we move on to the next level down. But that's like that's the reality. So if you want things ready by September, we need to have this soon. And and I would I mean going back to what you said earlier, it doesn't need to be that complex um on the board goal
182side. I mean I think it is just a matter of okay, what is the metric we're going to track and what do we want to see the improvement and over what time period? You know, the problem is I we don't know what that metric is, right? Because MCA is not it, right? That that if we're looking at student improvement or improving student outcomes, the MCA results is not the metric. I mean, we've been told that unless we're not trusting definitely at the high school, but I do think there's there might be value looking at MCA still at the the at the elementary level because a lot of them still don't opt out at the same level as the other ones. Sorry, Amber, you're jump Amber, jump in. But so so what is I mean so
183that's the question right what what is the what is a fair improvement request you know of the district what are we going to base it on um and I like under the superintendent smart goals for Brett's thing you know growth measures looking at um you know student growth percentile how much are you improving year-over-year you know are we hitting that um but again we don't have the data to know okay where are they at right now and so that's the question where we need the the district office to backfill, provide us with here's where we're at right now. Here's reliable data on student scores right now so we can set those goals leading from those. I I don't think a year is probably not enough. You know, we probably have to have like a three-year
184goal um to provide some runway, but whatever it is, right? I think you need year-over-year. I mean, well, you track it year over year. Yeah. and you track progress. And so then the district can come in and they can say, well, this is all the things we're doing to improve or this is the setback because for instance, we have new curriculum going in elementary school. So that could cause an issue, right? So maybe we're going to have an issue with a year or two where that's coming in. Um, who knows? Maybe it's going to jump right away. But yeah, Amber's got your hand up. Um yeah, I was just gonna Brian, well to to both Brian and um Matt, my my thought and this is can obviously be up for conversation, but in my opinion,
185the strategic plan is um broad enough that really anything can fit under it. Um which maybe means it's not a super strong strategic plan, but for our purposes, it can function fine. and that and that Brian I would argue that it's not just that this should have been done you know last quarter but that it's been years probably or even maybe since the time late till school started um in setting these metric goals and so I my priority would be to set the frameworks and and Matt to your point I think it's probably more than one metric it's probably a many um I mean not to get overwhelmed but I I think there can be you a number of metrics in which we're we're benchmarking ourselves against and trying to improve. Um and I I
186think it can happen by the end of the summer. Um I think again I think having like some sort of facilitated workshop um this could get done real quick in terms of in terms of writing it. I realize the work is not quick but yes. Yeah. And I don't know if you would agree with this, Amber. I mean, I think a lot of it will come from um the district office and relying up upon them saying, "Hey, this is what we are tracking. This is what they're looking at in edge of climber at the classroom lever level and the the the site level." And then we can use those, you know, build our our, you know, bigger goals based on that understanding. So yeah, I guess I guess my question to you I mean do
187we need a facilitator or do we just need more direction from the district office as to what where we're currently at with metrics and what they're currently reviewing or what they would propose we re we analyze moving forward. Matt, I mean we we can just like I was just talking at the next meeting, we can just maybe have director homegrren just come to the table and say here are the f top five goals at the school district level that we think I think you should monitor. uh fund balance, uh blank balance, uh the health of XYZ, and we have something to react to. And then for academics, here are the time, let them come in and say, "Here are the five things that we think you should measure that you can test now in September
188and then retest in July and to see if there's improvement." And then same with uh uh whoever, you know, uh whoever leads the staff department. It's like here's how we can measure. Here are the top five things that I would measure. We would do a pre-ervey of all the staff in September asking them whatever survey questions that they have and then reass them again in September or in in July. I mean, we don't have to come up with these. We can have them just come to the table, give us your buffet list of metrics that you would want and then we get to pick and choose like I like this and I don't like that. And if there isn't something there that we like, then ask them to come back and try again or or
189or provide a different option. Yeah. So, that is the outstanding ask on teaching and learning, right? because we're not the experts. So the outstanding ask has been what should we what should we use you know for a reliable metric. Um and that's fair next week. Well I mean they should be so and again I think can I just comment on that? So, so, uh, yes, but not if you want dynamic data access and reporting because we're correct. And I don't think that the dynamic piece because we're working through that, but we should have a point in time in September. Here's where we're at in June. Here's where we're at. It doesn't have to be rocket science either, guys. to uh to Amber's point, I mean, looking over at again the strategic plan again, it I
190don't know that I necessarily want to try to revamp that in the next couple months. I mean, I think trying to do anything there, I mean, let's just say it's a five-year plan started in 2022 because 2022 is on there. We can tee that up for Q4 this year. It doesn't have to be. We don't have to do that now. If we were going to That's my point. So again, and again, you can look at a couple of these things, you know, students first, that kind of stuff. You know, like we have goals stated on our website. We have some things that should drive, you know, what we want to work on for goals from our level, you know, down and then they can they can work it from there. I mean, they're all good
191things. I mean my question is we get lost in the in the fluff you know and in things that we can't measure right we can't track you know so that's where the KPIs come into place and needing to get on the same page and that is a conversation between us and the district office um I think they provide them to us and then we refine them right and say okay does that meet what we're looking for yes or no or do we want more and if there's something that they don't they don't they can't build right now they can manually do that in in September and then they've all year to uh operationalize it and then it's available in June. I mean so just because it's not automated today doesn't mean the data is not
192available. So right but um I I would just ask um I mean we'll drive to dynamic data but if we're showing you static data you know take take it with the kind of where we're at scenario um as opposed to There's an acronym, but I won't use it in public. Um, because that that's part of the the dance we're going through. It's a snapshot in time, though. So, you have to remember that this was at taken at this point. You know, any growth from there obviously wouldn't be included. I mean, that that's got to be a given. So, you know, we can put some some norms, some givens, some, you know, general understanding points around this too as we then, you know, hand it off to the to Superintendent Bowman and and the district staff
193to then say build out, hey, we understand that some of this may not be, you know, something that's dynamic today, but they're setting it all up. Like, we should be able to get that in the future. So, like let's let's have a forward look to it, but if we have some data point today, let's use it. Like, I mean, I I I think if we have something, let's let's go off of that and say, okay, this may not be complete, but at least it gives us, you know, maybe a partial picture of what we're looking for in the end. I I mean I like pulling in our district staff to make recommendations just because that feels more collaborative where they they're the starting point and we can help further refine and then us also thinking
194about what are more of our individual board goals. Well, I think somebody said something to me that maybe we should, you know, if we're going to do a work session or something like that, we we sort of put out a note and say, "Okay, district staff, you bring your your top five thoughts for what the board should be looking at." And then um you know we we all think about it in that context as well. Like if you were to think about five things from our vantage point, what would we want to see? And then we bring it all to the table, throw it on the board and we figure out how it all meshes together and where's there overlap and where's there, you know, we probably going to come up with a couple of
195the same things and just say, "Okay, well good. We all agree there. We're done." Like now move on to the next one. Well, and it might help. I mean, it might help to have a couple principles involved or or I'm open to whatever you guys think. Whoever we need to sort of help frame it up from a district staff level, I'm I'm great, you know. So, from whatever input you think we need, let's let's go for it, gently. So, I am just quickly looking again. I'm just looking at Hastings as an example. They've got uh 1, two, three, four, five, six categories. They've got engaged learners, staff engagement, family engagement, operational efficiency, and community engagement. And so those are the core buckets. Sounds very basic to me, but it's that that no academic. Yeah. I
196And so part of it's part of engaged learners. Yeah. So part of that what we are tracking they're tracking student achievement achievement gap PSO enrollment student attendance school perception survey mental health and student part uh participation in activities and athletics and so those are kind of the subcategories and then they've got how we measure those things they've got then individual uh more granular granular level metrics and so it might be helpful for us as we have another meeting to talk through what other districts are doing and how they monitor monitor their their their operational metrics or that might lead into their annual strategic plan or goals. Can can I just say one thing about I mean I know we talk about comparables and who else we do things with and whatnot. Yep. But it's it's
197kind of like one of those things when when they start talking about like you know like the MSBA treasurer stuff and they're like oh well this is what you should really be paying attention to and this is what other districts do. And I'm like yeah but they're going through a $7 million cut. We are not. And I want to be in that situation. Like there's some things that I get comparables and then there's certain things that maybe we just don't want to be like everybody else. So I just I want to like let's I just want to keep that somewhat out there a little bit that and I'm in line with that. But this would be a good something to react to. I'm against here staff engagement. They've got two subcategories. School perception survey staff
198and then highly trained uh certified staff. So, in their school perception survey staff, they've got five four key questions that they ask each employee. I feel safe at school. I feel supported by my supervisor administrator when I make decisions. I feel comfortable sharing my input and concerns with my supervisor. And most days, I look forward to going to work. Now, I'm not saying we need to go with those four, but there the the question is that are we aligned with does a school perception survey for our staff a a method to capture staff satisfaction? you know, and and then once we and if you get a score in in September and then you get a score in June, you'll see they were excited in in in the beginning and they were excited at the end,
199right? But but like so again uh we got to align on our key categories, I think, and then from those key categories ask the administration, hey, what would you recommend? How would we want to track that? uh what would and then we have to just agree do we like that or do we not we don't need to over complicate this and then like to director uh superintendent Bowman to say all right how tactically how are you going to go do this so seems like we need well Brian going I mean um I I think what Brett you suggested like I think you said um do staff bring five KPIs and we bring our five and when you start to map this out that will naturally in my in my experience create the category ories, right?
200So, I don't think you start with categories because I think that can limit creativity, but by grouping, you will create those ultimately. Seems like we're all in line for a retreat or work session or something, a really effective one. All right, let's table this for now for future discussion. I appreciate all the comments. Amber, I appreciate you hopping in from Puerto Rico. You're not done, though. Actually, I think we do have a board report coming out of Amber, if she's willing. Um, yeah. Let me see if I can find Let me see if I can find my agenda to hop back on. uh on my screen. Yes, we are on the board report if if you're willing. I'm happy to give my report. You want me to give my report? That'd be great. Okay. Um
201and Superintendent Bowman and um Emily, if you're still in the room or whoever else, jump in here. Um so, I attended the gifted and talented or sorry, um that's what it's called somewhere else. the um GA gifted advisory um council which is a a group of uh staff, teachers, um parents and students. Um I think it was la last week and in that meeting um they they talked about two different uh changes to the um advanced learning program in Lakeville. Um, one I think some of us on the board have been asked a number of questions of, um, and so this is jump in here if I'm not getting things correct, but one of the changes will be at the middle school level um, with full implementation happening, I believe it's in um, three years
202from now um, with kind of phase implementation happening before that. And the idea is to um for the most part not offer um specific honors courses at the middle school levels any longer, but instead integrate honors opportunities within um within all with within courses um so that all students have the opportunity to pursue advanced learning opportunities um within a classroom. Um right now I think it said that on one of the slides that about 30% of our middle school students are participating in in the honors um classes and then when you go to high school between 50 and 60% are taking some sort of advanced learning. And so the idea is how can we increase middle school um uh advanced learning opportunities for students? And this aligns with kind of best practices um and and
203researchbased evidence on on how to um you know help help students push themselves into to experience these advanced learning opportunities. Um I think there's still going to be dedicated math um advanced learning course. Um and Superintendent Bowman, am I capturing it correctly or are there things to add or correct from what I said? Well, I'm going to ask Dr. McDonald to come up to talk about that. I would I I think because of the there's a lot more to this than um I think a board report's going to cover down on and maybe it's a an opportunity that I guess I can ask for to present to the board uh if if there's that level of interest in this particular matter. But um I'll ask Dr. McDonald to fill in any gaps um with regard
204to that. Yeah, I apologize. Um Director Cameron, what was your specific question? Oh, just like did I capture the overall change or is there things to add or correct? Yes, that is correct. So, we are looking to move to a more embedded uh honors opportunity, which essentially would provide more opportunity for honors level curriculum engagement at the middle school. Um, and to your point, it does not change. We have students who are accelerated in math, that remains. So, if you are essentially a grade level advanced or a course level advanced in math, that's not going away. So, it's really about how can we capitalize on the experiences and be able to offer more opportunities for all of our students at the middle level to hopefully then what we would expect to see is that we
205would see an increase in the number of students engaging in those opportunities at the high school. So, yes, I think you articulated that really well. And so, so there's only Great. Thank you. So there's only one. So there would be only one math program. So if you're in sixth grade, you're doing sixth grade math with everybody else, unless you happen to test out and you can do seventh grade math. So then then you end up in the seventh grade class and doing math with those folks. All right? So if there's just play this out. So if there's four wait there's 500 kids in each grade level roughly and so all of them are going to take the same math class. I'm I'm just trying to think logistically if there's 30 kids in the classroom, how
206does a teacher decide which kid gets the honors curriculum or does it does a teacher teach the honors curriculum to everybody? And then for some students who may not be at at that level yet, do they fall behind? I mean, I'm trying to if you're not breaking them up, which is fine, how are you teaching it in one classroom? Yes. So, it's classroom differentiation. Um and so uh the secondary teaching and learning team um has a very detailed and robust plan about how to work with teachers over the next um year or so to be able to develop that out um so that teachers have the resources um the instructional strategies etc to be able to differentiate within the classroom. So students would let's just say this the simplest way and I I I'm a
207little reluctant but the simplest way that I could describe it would be like if you were say engaging in um a unit in English language arts and maybe it was around let's just say metaphor for example you would be providing different resources to different students depending on where they are in the developmental and learning process. So you might have a a text that is, you know, at a ninth or tth grade level and you might have a text that's at an eighth grade level. And that that's a very sort of simple way to describe it. And to um Superintendent Bowman's point, if um if we want to talk more specific and in detail, I would certainly like um to have uh Robbie Peters and Ela Kane come um and talk more in depth about what
208that looks like and what the plan is for that over time. Can I just add one thing and um Amber actually mentioned this to me earlier. Um this isn't something new like our school isn't breaking ground in doing this. Other schools are already doing this. Correct. Yes. We were a little bit of an outlier in how we were operating um at our middle level. Um I think for the bottom line for us is we want to be able to sometimes we become limited by our system. So like for example um it we have this many slots for honors because of staffing, because of resources, because of whatever. And if you you might not get in even though you really need an opportunity for an advanced learning. We also have students that um maybe had never
209had an honors experience before, so they don't know or advanced learning experience, so they don't know that what they're capable of. So, we're really trying to broaden the scope. Um, it does to do it right, it requires time, planning, resources, um, etc. And that is all embedded in their transition plan over the next um, couple of years to be able to do it, right? Which is why you don't just change it overnight. You want to make sure the teachers are set up and confident in and have what they need to be able to do it effectively. Yeah. Perfect. I I think that that's my biggest concern is the the staffing um um model change. I mean, not the staffing of the number of resources, but a teacher like if they're comfortable teaching this and now
210they've got to now teach another accelerated version for 15 kids and maybe halfway through the year now it's 20 of those kids are in the accelerated or honors program. 10 kids are doing the standard math program. It's it it's yeah, I think I'd like to just learn more and make sure that the staff feel that they have the skill set to be able to and make that transition. But I do agree from a students lens, you're giving kids the opportunity within the same classroom to be able to jump to that next level throughout the course of the year if they're ready for that. Uh but again, making sure that we've got the resources to be able to to deliver that. And I would just say, Director Thompson, I 100% agree with what you just said.
211Teachers cannot be expected to do this on the fly. It has to be a very planful and supported approach to be able to to make this work. So, that's part of the plan. And we're not losing any additional staff because I'm assuming that the honors math teachers will end up teaching math and honors within that program. Yeah, we have the same number of students, same number of staff. It's just what that structure looks like. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Martell. Um and Brian just to add to that there was information shared at the GAK meeting um they surveyed the teachers um about this uh idea this plan and high high 90 percentile was excited about this. So um there's more detail about that I'm sure but they did share that. Then just other
212thing really quickly at the elementary level. Um currently we have um the discover program which is a language language arts humanities um curriculum uh starting I think next year with fifth grade. They're going to um the district's going to start implementing a discover math opportunity as well and then and then slowly bring in fourth and third grade levels as well just like discover um language arts. So that's the other change. That's all I have to report tonight. Thanks, Amber. Anyone else? One last one. Hey, in middle school, do we do they have like in for if you took an honors math, do you get an extra credit in that in middle school? Okay. So, if you get a B, you get a B. Okay. Any of the board reports? Um, was it last was state
213of the city last week hosted by the chamber? I think two weeks ago. Okay. Time flies when you're having fun. Time flies. The city's growing is the news still. I think number one through the first quarter of new building permits in the state. So, yeah. So, area adjustments coming soon to the board. Roger. All right. Uh, superintendent report. Just one thing. Uh, thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh our interviews for High View Elementary part one will get rolling tomorrow. Um uh seven candidates. I think it's seven might be eight. Seven. Um we'll we'll be uh going through part one. And just to share the composition of the uh level one interview team, we have uh support staff from High View. We have teachers from High View. We have parents from High View. And then I have
214a couple of elementary principles who are seasoned principles in our school system. And I will also have our director of elementary um teaching and learning and myself. I will be leading that process. Um phase two will look to get three or four finalists and hopefully we can make an offer and have an announcement um end of the month, beginning of May. Um so super excited. I did talk to the staff. Um we did survey the staff. I've been going through that um to the intent there was obviously to get some uh clear feedback and look for thematic issues to make sure that we're focused on uh while we're going through this interview process. So I just want to share that with the community uh at large. So excited about that. Thank you. That ends my
215report. All right. With that we have no recommended actions for the night and so I would move to adjurnn. Is there a second? Second. Second by director Nicholson. All in favor say I. I. I. We're done.