001Tonight's uh study session. Um just got one question before the approval. Darcy, what's the occasion for the cookies and coffee? >> It is school board appreciation. >> Oh gee, how did we know that? Thank you. >> We just wanted to hear. >> Just wanted to hear. Yeah, we got little certificates, too. So, make sure you take at least three cookies. >> So, we're we're good to go. So, all right. Okay. Well, I will look for approval for tonight's agenda. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> And there's a second. Uh any discussion? All those in favor signify by saying I. >> I oppose the same sign. Okay, let's move into our study session. Uh we've got uh Dr. H up for your transition report. >> Yeah. Well, thank you ladies and gentlemen of the
002board again for a recognition of the school board. Thank you for all the work that you do. I don't know that the community knows exactly how much work school board members do, but it's greatly appreciated. I enjoy working with all of you. So, and I'm looking forward to what we'll accomplish here in the future. So, uh last school board meeting, I kind of hinted at some of those themes. Um um so kind of where we stand today. So this is some of the learning that I've done and then I'm going to change gears partway through this and talk about okay now what um so where do we stand today? So our foundation tight-knit welcoming community strong identity um growing diversity dedicated staff delivering effective programs. you'll see kind of what the current challenge is is
003our staffing. Uh we have communication gaps, uh trust issues, um and resource con constraints. Um and where should we be looking? We should be looking at innovation in our curriculum. Um those uh community partnerships are going to become uh more and more important to the district. Um and making sure that as we expand our curriculum, we don't forget students. And so that's what that in inclusion piece means. It it means making sure that our EL students are taken care of, our sped students are taken care of, are gifted and talented um all of our students so we don't start leaving some uh behind. Um we do have work to do and I'm not going to hide from it. Trust and identity um is one of the big challenges that we have. Um you can see
004it right there. stakeholders feel unheard while the community identity shifts between honoring our traditions and embracing change. Um trust is broken in many areas especially in the decision-making processes that's prominent. Um we have a fractured community identity. Um and that involves a little bit our demographic changes. So people don't really know like really who is Albertly really who are our students. So we're talent the community is shifting and then again we need that authentic in inclusion that transparency uh by the staff in the community for the stakeholders. Everybody needs to know what we're doing. Um, so here were those six hidden themes that I kind of under uh discovered that trust and voice and really it's that two-way communication people are looking for identity and image um that balance of the tradition with necessary change.
005Community uh integration um we need to be seen as a center of the community. Equity and access ensuring opportunities for all students a whole child focus. So, we need to look beyond test scores. And we're going to talk a little bit about test scores and a little bit of that tonight um in the next presentation. But our focus really needs to be is what are we doing from our early childhood all the way through our adult learners um and our talent retention. Every everybody's talked about that. Um we're constantly looking for staff. We have some positions that aren't filled right now. Um, and so we're struggling in a couple areas, but with the recruitment end, we forget about the growth end. So, how are we growing our own or how where are some of our
006graduates that maybe are five or six years out? Maybe they're looking to start a family and hey, wouldn't you love to come back? Albert Lee is a great place to live in and grow up in. We have a great school system. Let's make it better. Why don't you come back? So, it's kind of some of that um um recruitment end of it. So, moving forward, here's the important stuff. And and all of you have a printed copy of this because when Barb Dorne comes, you'll see there's going to be some areas that you might say, "Steve, I want you to focus here. Steve, I think this would be a good area to build on." And then we can start talking about uh my first year evaluation or some of the goals that maybe you want
007me to accomplish. Maybe coming from some of this list because this list is all derived from what a lot of the stakeholders have been to been telling me over the last two months. uh rebuild trust and communication. So I've got two areas there. Strategic realignment. So review past priorities with advisory groups or groups uh to create forward moving strategic priorities and goals. And that was something in my interview we had talked a lot about how how do you create those priorities and goals and then how do you go about living it or achieving them and then a facilities task force. So, um, we need to organize a district task force to study the comprehensive facilities data and make recommendations. And, uh, we're using W architect to go in the background right now and kind of
008figure some of the stuff out. We're going to have to have a community task force to really go through that data and say, what are the next steps? Then the important thing is going to be is how do we tie that back into those strategic priorities or how does that become part of really the strategic priorities and direction. The second area is define our identity. Um I said cocreate the narrative because we can't just create the narrative as a board and a superintendent. It's got to be something the entire community, the entire district feels. So we need to develop our district story. uh we need to emphasize that we do have safe supportive schools and affecting effective teaching and then we need to tie those back to those strategic goals and priorities. We have to
009have a transparent message uh in I'm incorporating the listening sessions and the facility study results to demonstrate that we are listening. We do act on what you say. Um and that's how we become responsible stewardship to the community and both as a board as and as a superintendent and then align our branding coordinate media and uh community message to highlight the process towards strategic priority milestones. So actually showing people we are accomplishing things. Uh we need to invest in our own people. Um, we do a really good job of training our our people, but at times from what some of the staff have told me, the training seems um not connected when it should be interconnected um or disjointed, if you want to say that. Um, so align all of our learning systems with effective
010uh teaching standards. And here you're going to see me say three things because I think we need to pair back a little bit of some of all the areas that we've been doing. And some staff have noticed I've already done that. in a couple areas. Um, but we need to focus on the high reliability schools model. We need to be achieving that. I could tell you there's very, very few people in the district that don't believe that if we stay on the line for the high reliability schools that we will move forward in a positive direction. So, we have a lot of momentum there. Um, we need to strengthen our PLC's. So, we there's some areas in the district the PLC's are functioning great. Staff are committed. we have other areas they're in limbo a
011little bit. They don't really know how to function. So, it's going to be about how do we work as an entire district to strengthen that professional learning community structure um and really make it our way the Albert Lee way and then again that strong literacy focus. Um yes, we do have the read act. Um the states mandated that. I could tell you in every district that I've been an administrator in a strong literacy focus always valued every single learner. Every kid was a stronger better student and really a stronger better person when they have stronger literacy skills. So that's why we really need to focus on that literacy and why when I say we need to look early childhood to adult, what are we doing in literacy that ties everything together in a continuum. Uh
012grow your own pipeline. I kind of mentioned that a little bit. Um you know, we need people that want to join our team. If we have people leave the district, we want them to leave the district uh because maybe they want to live closer to family or maybe they want to um experience life somewhere else. We don't want them leaving the district because they feel like there's better opportunities somewhere. We really want them to to want to stay and really say this is Albert Lee and and we're setting the innovation. We're setting the trend in the area. Um strengthen access in equitable ways. So here I kind of outline three areas that I saw uh kept coming around. That would be that multi multilingual communication. We're doing a great job, but we're um I'll give
013you for instance, we were we were looking for a couple of success coaches here, and I wanted to make sure that they weren't just in the building somewhere, that the success coaches had time at the front door. So when people were coming in and that um as people that spoke different languages didn't have to wait 5 or 10 minutes for someone to find somebody in the building to call them down to get them over here that we had certain hours and certain times that we could tell people well have a person in these languages around in this area at the front door so that we can be a little more serviceorientated. Um, so it's kind of that that that communication aspect and are we thinking forward enough so that our families feel like not that
014we're catering to them, but that that um we can respond to them when they're in need and they don't have to sit and wait for somebody. Um, internally audit review our special ed and EL programs to identify gaps in curriculum and services. Um, we know there's a few gaps in some of our curriculum and services there. Um, so we're get we need to shard those up, but again that's that kind of internal audit. Um, how are we doing it? What are we doing? Um, and where do we need to shore it up? So, um, we'll we'll be looking at that. And then community partnerships and that's basically collaborate with everybody in the community. You can see it's one of my goals. I'll start uh meeting with business leaders, more business leaders. I met with a
015a fair number already. Um, but I want to get out into their businesses tour. I want to see what they're what are you really looking for. This isn't Steve Hy coming in looking for a handout. Hey, can we we want you to sponsor this? No, this is Steve Hy coming to you saying, "What can we do as a school district to value your uh business and make you a stronger business for Albert Lee?" because I I know from working on various economic development committees and councils um when our current businesses are strong and they grow businesses from outside will look in to say I want to be part of that community. It's very hard to recruit businesses into your community when you yourself don't have a strong business community. So, and I see a lot
016of growth in town and there are some very very strong businesses. Um, so just from a fresh pair of eyes, it's it's fun to see and fun to be around, but I also need to make sure that all these businesses feel connected to us. Uh, redefine student success. So, right now, a lot of people just want to know where our test scores are, how are students doing, what's the grad rate. Um, in reality, um, people wouldn't know how much I went to school or how much I didn't go to school, right? wouldn't know that about either one of us, what our attendance rate was and things like that. Um, how you do know that I went there and did that was I got pretty good grades, so I had to be be there studying somehow.
017Um, but there's a lot of pieces to school that are more than just a test score on reading and writing um, and math. Um, but that's like here, I've got one. We're going to launch that CEO program. We got commitment from some business owners just the other uh, last week. uh we know for sure we're going to have the program. Now we're going to do we got to do a little bit more fundraising to pay for it. The interesting part about CEO is it works alongside the school district, not in the school district. So um it self-funds itself. Um we provide the paycheck because it's got to come from somebody, but really it self-funds itself and it runs through a certain program uh with the business leaders, not in one of our classrooms, but in
018the business. Um, and it's really really produced in my lifetime that I've seen some really successful young entrepreneurs. Um, and uh, I I jokingly say it, but I really mean it. It's one of my goals with CEOs to fill up both malls full of businesses and let those entrepreneurs really We have spots, so why wouldn't we try to find them? And I know they're here. Um, I'm really going to use that uh student superintendent cabinet um to really try to get student voice into our strate strategic planning and district priorities. And so from their end, um, what does school look like? A lot of our upper class or not just upper class, a lot of our high school kids can kind of articulate what it's like to go through the school system. I mean, they're
019living it and they've been through most of the levels. Some of them have younger siblings. So, they can really articulate some of the what it's like to be a student here, but more importantly, what are some of these goals and priorities mean to you and how can we get you involved with helping create them and help us accomplish them as a group? So, really making it a a group effort. And then lastly, deepen that community integration. So those business partnerships that I talked about, it's really about aligning education with workforce need. Uh facilities task force, I mentioned that. And so that's really getting once we start to get the data back from W, do we need to go get additional data? What information do we need? And then we need to put a bigger stakeholder,
020which will involve district employees, but also community members task force together with what does this mean and how does this map out our future? And then what I call a community hub. So how do we promote and expand district athletics, activities and facilities for community events? Uh maximizing in investment and connection. So how do we once again make that this school district the center of the community and how do we make the community the center of the school district? So hopefully kind of as as we think about some of this and um as Barb Dorne comes in now and I didn't do this just because Barb Dorne was coming in. This is I'm probably being a little more aggressive here in Albert Lee than I was in my last superintendency with rolling this out. Um
021but there's a hunger to move and I've been told by a lot of people there's a hunger to move sooner than later. So I'm hearing the whispers. In other words, let's get moving. So, um, that's why we got old coming so we've got some data, um, so we can start moving forward. >> Any questions? >> Yeah, Steve, I'm just wondering how do you envision using the work of our prior strategic planning effort because I mean there that was a lot of good work and a lot of input and I think those strategic goals, you've mentioned that that more than once tonight. What are our strategic priorities? I I hate to see that lost. >> Yeah. I don't envision it lost. There's a there's a lot of great information. Uh there was a lot of community
022meetings, a lot of staff meetings, some surveys that went out. I've got the summaries of all that. Um and so I think um I'll kind of do a blood pressure test. So there's probably going to be a survey or two come out from me about it, but really it's going to be does this does this mission statement really represent us or do we need to adjust it? Does this vision statement represent us or do we need to adjust it? Are these core values us? Right? There's some other pieces of it that a lot of people have told me don't make sense and it's the like the amplify statement. Um I can't think of it right off the top of my head. Um but it's it's like amplify student education and learning, right? that doesn't really
023lead to a priority or a goal more than maybe literacy or a facilities and finances um pillar of so so I think there's some pieces that we can take and we just need to mold differently but again that's where I said we'll we'll use the student group and we'll use some other stakeholder groups to help us mold that data and then if we need to go get other data we'll we'll get that and I'm pretty certain uh we'll old um and some of the other um data that we're getting will come in handy with that too. But yeah, no, I wouldn't forget all that. There was too much work done there and there was a lot of community members that spent time for us to get that done. >> U Steve, I like the CEO
024plan that we were approached at we the education foundation. Um you got a problem with the title though CEO. You mentioned that and people think we're training people to be the head of Ford Motors, you know, a CEO. You need to understand that it's creating entrepreneur entrepreneurial opportunities. And it's and it's not for the head of a big company. It's for trades, people getting into the trade, starting their own small business, you know, not some conglomerate. >> Uh but uh it's it's not it's not something that's designed to create big high-powered leaders. It's designed to create common everyday neighborhood >> Yep. >> businesses. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's what I like so much about it. Um and why why I kind of jokingly say I'd like to fill up the mall because there's a
025lot of little spots that these these little entrepreneurs could be in. Um and really start to maybe create some business. And will they all succeed? No. But sometimes a couple of good failures helps you really succeed in the end. So, it's it's a matter of providing the support and the spots. So, um to get them moving forward, but you're 100% right. It's not about creating the next Fortune 500 CEO. >> When you hear CEO, you know, so >> well, you do. Have Have you uh had an opportunity to um be introduced to the Hatch yet downtown? >> I have not yet. So, >> you will soon. >> Okay. Sounds good. Make sure you basically for those that don't know it's a um doing exactly what you're talking about. It's more wrapped around manufacturing, but they've
026gotten some different machines that have been donated or they purchased where people not just students but also community members can come in and uh basically it's a small membership fee for a month. But now to kick it off, the guy that's working on is going to kick it off a no membership fee. And I had even stepped up with the um kids because I'd love to see some high school kids get in and said I'll even do a scholarship when they do start charging because just to see one or two or three put together a program and then they can move on and get into their bigger spot. But uh that's down in the old nice lithop printing building if you haven't had an opportunity to see it yet. So but anyway um I was
027going to mention that. But I I like your perception. And uh one thing about Albertly and you've maybe picked it up already is when things are new, they're hot. And uh if we can get, you know, it it can be restaurants, it can be new businesses, whatever it happens to be. But uh if we can keep it ticking, like you said, and just keep picking away at one thing at a time and different uh uh groups listening, I think that's going to keep it warm and then hot around our activities and our athletics and all that. So, I really like where you picked that up because if we can we can get people involved right away, there's more that are willing. They just need to be asked or have a purpose to be asked. So,
028very good. >> Thank you for doing this, Steve. It was um good to envision all this. One thing I I'm not sure where it would fall in this, but I think the parent voice has felt lost. And so obviously they're part of the community, but making sure that parent a parent group is specifically out there, whether it's a listening sessions or and not necessarily survey. Sometimes it's those listening sessions so the conversations happen. >> Yeah. It's getting them together and and doing that. Yeah. So, I call them task force groups and stuff or or stakeholder groups, but yeah, it's it's about inviting parents in or getting getting groups in, not just community members, but making sure parents can come in and talk too. So, absolutely. >> You mentioned at the start um wanting to focus
029on curriculum innovation and of course you mentioned the CEO program, which I'm really excited about, but I was just curious, are there other areas of innovation? you have other ideas that you're hoping for or >> um well Tanya and I talked a little bit today and I told her I said she's like oh you should probably not say um so um we we have um I I called it kind of the superintendent challenge. So there there's a a curriculum that fits really well with letters called youly. It's not overly expensive. It's the University of Florida's uh curriculum that is about phonics and and phonetical reading. Um schools that are using it are finding um really good results. Um we have a few teachers that dabble in it here. Um, and it's it would be enough
030to maybe see if we could get a test group of staff to just try it with our group of students to see if we can see if there's a difference between that group of students um and other students um to see if if it matches our students. Not every curriculum is a good match for every district. Um but I think it's good to try stuff out for a year or two and just see. So um that would be one area um kind of in that literacy. Um, the other aspect is is to really uh start to work with Sean to engage the high school on what does literacy at the 812 level and really the 1012 level, what does that look like and mean? Um, it's got to look a little different than a normal
031curriculum because our kids are going multiple different ways. They're going in with what I call the three E. They're either going for further education to enlist or they're going to employment. And so you got to kind of you can't teach them in three different ways, but you got to kind of look at how did your curriculum work for someone in listing. So a lot of technical reading, a lot of manual stuff there. Uh depending on what type of education they go into. If they go to tech school, it's going to be a lot of technical manual stuff. If they go into college, it might be higher higher level. uh a lot of European type reading um or if they're going straight into employment, what are employers looking for? You always get sent somewhere to be
032trained as right. So even an employer, even Walmart trains their people. So what kind of reading? What what skills do they need their literacy? And it's more about reading. It's reading, writing, listening, and speaking. So that answer it. >> Anything else? >> Yeah, the one item was uh improving uh our uh response from the community and and uh uh and in athletics. Um, I spend an awful lot of time going to a lot of towns in Iowa because I have a grandson that involved in wrestling and baseball and I would assume that though they have baseball fields with eight eight fields for youth baseball and the and the town is packed and the same with with tournaments and I'm assuming it's that way in every sport. I would think that I'm assuming that there has
033to be some connection between the city and the school district to provide those facilities and to organize those events. But it's really it's really impressive when you can go into a community where you've got kids from all over the the the state the re in interstate region attending those events. And it uh it really speaks well in my mind for the school district and the uh civic uh government that promoted it and that enabled those those facilities to be so effective. >> Yeah. And and the the the third component there would be your booster club or your youth uh sports and it's how how well how well do all three play together, right? And so um I'm a big I'm an athletic family. I grew up in a lot of athletics. Um I have very
034musical daughter too. But um I I think it's a matter of how well can you work together, right? So so that one doesn't benefit over the other, but how well do you all work together so that I mean ultimately we are one Albert Lee, right? Doesn't matter for the city, doesn't matter for the school district, a youth organization, or the boosters. In the end, we're all 56 007. Okay. So, um that's that's who we are and that's who we represent. So, we have to learn to work together and I don't it's kind of a negative way to say it. We should all really want to work together for the benefit of each other. So, it's just a matter of modeling that and then working through if there's issues or problems that need to be solved.
035Well, thank you very much. We'll look forward to more reports, I'm sure, on that. So, all right. Uh, so moving along, we have a Northstar accountability uh Dr. Hy and Executive Director Franks. Welcome, Tanya. >> All right. Good evening, Chair Clott, board members, Superintendent Hyle. I am here this evening to um present on understanding Minnesota's Northstar accountability system, uh specifically our spotlight on Elbert Lee Area Schools. Um, my purpose this evening is to talk through what is Northstar Accountability, what is our designation? I previewed that in the board update this past Friday. Why were we designated? And then uh the next steps based on that designation and the deep dive of data that will come in the state of the schools report in um I'm sorry on October 6th um with principal Shan Gaston and
036principal Johanna Thomas. So they'll get into the deep dive of the data. Uh what is the Northstar accountability system? If you recall uh back to last April, I believe we talked through the Northstar accountability system as it related to attendance. Um so that is Minnesota's comprehensive framework that is designed to identify your schools needing support. Um it recognizes outstanding achievements. Um it's the transparent measure for public reporting. They really look at those three areas. Um that federal compliance for the Every Student Succeeds Act, your state standards that align with the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness, and then really that equity focus as they break down the sub student subgroups. It evaluates all your public schools, not just your title one schools. Northstar accountability system breaks it down in five areas. So it looks at academic
037ch achievement, your math and reading proficiency as measured by those statewide assessments. You will see a deep dive on academic achievement on October 6th. It looks at graduation rates. Tonight we will be talking about uh graduation rate and the designate the designations. It looks at English language progress. Uh that's the progress towards English proficiency. It looks at consistent attendance and academic progress. Again, all of those will be highlighted on the October 6 state of the schools deep dive. How do they identify us? Uh the school identifi identification process looks at these four areas of data collection, a subgroup analysis, a designation assignment, and then support implementation. So, it looks at analyzing your achievement, your progress and attendance, and then it breaks it down by those racial and ethnic groups, including our English language learners, our
038special education students, uh, economically disadvantaged. You've heard us use the language free and reduced population in the past. Uh, Dr. Hyle in his uh update today shared um needing to dig into a little bit more of the subgroup with EL and special education in doing an internal audit. So we get data out of the Northstar accountability report that helps us look at a subgroup analysis. Again in the board report I explained those different designation assignments. Uh it looks at four different categories. either a comprehensive support, a targeted support, non-exit, meaning you have been identified in the past but haven't met the goals to exit the status. And then a new designation area called a linked high school. And we will talk about that this evening. And then what does support implementation look like? It's really
039customized assistance uh delivered through Compass uh which formerly you've uh likely heard regional centers of excellence. Um we're now looking at support through Compass uh and partnerships with the Minnesota Department of Education. Again, tonight we're just going to focus on our two schools of designation. Our elementary and middle school accountability data will be shared in October. So keeping at the center of uh this work is our mission as we think forward to the next steps in these designations making sure that we are focused on ensuring individual academic social emotional growth that leads to engaged citizens and lifelong learners. Again I'd reference back to Dr. Dr. Hile's presentation this evening where he um on kind of the middle of his presentation, he had a slide about the whole learner. Um making sure that in the work
040that we do, we're identifying next steps that address the whole learner um so that we can inspire them and cultivate growth and that huge focus on positively impacting our community, our data. So, pulling this directly out of the Northstar accountability report, um what was released uh to the public um out of secure reports is the information of Elbertly area schools. If you look at the far right of the chart, you are looking at the the black is that black? I'm going to call it black. The black bar says 74.19% of our students are graduating in a 4-year window. The blue represents the seven-year rate of 81%. When you take those two pieces apart, that 74.19%, how is that? How are we going from 86% to 74%. putting the area learning center, pulling out our data
041of the ALC, you can see the difference of how we go from the Albertly High School percentage at 86% to the overall at 74. Yet, the celebration in the middle is looking at the 7-year rate, which has a significant increase to 63%. We know that our students that are referred to the area learning center are often referred for various reasons. However, it's often because they are behind in credits and need an alternative alternative educational program. And so while we desire all of our students to graduate in four years, we also recognize that the area learning center gives us an opportunity for students to have an extended graduation trajectory. Um so looking at that 63% um is a celebration uh that that we're getting more students there. Ideally, we want that number to be at least
04267% based on the state's um evaluation threshold. So, our area learning center designation status, our current status is that we're di um designated for comprehensive support. And the reason the ALC has been identified is those challenges meeting graduation requirements. When you um when the state looks at that graduation rate threshold, it's identified as any public high school with a 4-year rate below 67%. So again, if you go back to our four-year data, our black bar, that's what qualifies our ALC as a comprehensive support school. It also looks at individual student groups that are below that 67% threshold. If your school is identified as a comprehensive support, you would receive customized assistance from Compass. So, we have regional uh coaches that work with us. We have a literacy coach, a math coach, um and then a
043an overall regional coach that works with us as well. but then also um your district leadership team focusing on those evidence-based improvement strategies. Albert Lee High School also received a designation status this year. They were designated as a linked school. What's unique about a linked school is the reason they are identified or designated is because they are directly tied to the challenges at the ALC. So linked to challenges meeting graduation rate thresholds at the ALC. So, our high school is clearly above the 67% threshold, but it's because our high school feeds the ALC that has created the linked support designation. Linked support schools don't receive the same comprehensive support from Compass. It's more guidance. It's consultation, conversations, like Dr. Hy and I actually met with one of the coaches the week before last. Um, so
044that's more of a guidance direction than a comprehensive support where they're coming in and working with your leadership teams, but there still is a support channel uh through Compass, but mainly primarily driven at the local level. Um, so with our district leadership teams, our school leadership teams, what is the next steps looking like? Again, you'll see next steps articulated uh when Principal Thomas and Principal Gaston uh present on October 6th, but it's really looking at their um comprehensive support and their continuous school improvement plans. Uh we started this work last April when we completed our comprehensive needs assessments. Um but it'll look at uh solidifying their continuous school improvement plans. It will look at what are their goals as it relates to comprehensive achievement and civic readiness and what are specific action plans that they
045will put in put into place uh to help improve those graduation rates. Um prior to Dr. piles starting July 1. He and I had consulted on the template for action planning that we wanted to follow for this year. So, we'll be uh continuing to work through that template with our building leaders and school leadership teams. Our targeted outcome, I highlighted increasing graduation rates uh because that was the purpose of this evening um is talking about those designation statuses through Northstar accountability. Um, but as we're talking about continuous school improvement plans, we know that next steps that are going to be identified are boosting proficiency in math and reading and then continuing to talk about that uh consistent student attendance. Um, and then just capacity building. Again, Dr. Hy highlighted that in his presentation this evening.
046ensuring that our professional de development is tailored to our specific needs, school needs, district needs, our student demographics as well. Um, but that idea of identified needs really um using that comprehensive needs assessment to drive the priorities um of what that professional development should look like. Um, again, knowing literacy will need to be a focus across the board. So to partner uh with uh what Dr. Hy had shared earlier, making sure that we're continuing to be transparent with this work and engaging stakeholders, uh that we are sharing the reporting, clear and accessible reporting, that we um are providing equitable access, targeted support that addresses those achievement gaps. uh ensuring that all of those student populations are represented and that we have action plans in place to meet their needs. And then making um certain that
047we are continuing to follow a collaborative approach with the Department of Education um so that we are able to drive sustainable improvement um with Albertly Area Schools. >> Questions for myself or Dr. Ohio. >> Couple of questions for you. Um, do all of our ALC students come from the Albertly High School or is it common for students to come from other districts as well? >> We do have students coming from other districts, but the majority of our students come from Albertly High School. Okay. Um, is there an extra cost for the extra coaching that comes from Compass or Okay. >> Nope. No cost. Tanya the and Superintendent Hy mentioned this too that this designation will move us beyond to me we focus too much on MCAs I think and our friends in the media too
048look at it but that's that's an item it's an item to focus on >> this seems like it's giving us an opportunity >> to expand what we're focusing on as far as measures and student outcomes. Am I assessing that properly? I think that's a really great point that Dr. Hy and I actually just talked about this afternoon is how are we using the data that we receive, not just the MCAs. How are we using ACTs to unpack um we can look at strand data? How are we using that to um unpack what our student needs are to inform future instruction? How does our student attendance, this was a big conversation this past spring, how does our student attendance impact our student proficiency? When we talk about intervention, if student attendance, if if attendance isn't at
049that 90% threshold, students haven't received the access to the consistent intervention to address the achievement gap. So we need to do a more comprehensive job of analyzing the data that we have available. We also talked about not just MCAs but common formative assessments. Are we really following a quality data analysis protocol when he talks about strengthening the PLC? We need to get back to some foundational basics of taking a data analysis protocol and you you and I are colleagues and we give that same common formative assessment and my students bomb a section on it and I come to you and say, "Mr. Schindler, help me out here. My kids didn't do so well on this portion of the assessment, but I see that yours did really well. How can we partner and have a conversation
050around how do we get all students to where your students are?" And I'd like to see just to expand on it is that we have a high percentage of our high school juniors and seniors that have are invested in college in the schools and PSO. I'd like and and then advanced placement and I'd like to see some performance data there because we really have not I think I can find it online through Minnesota Department of Ed, but I'd like to see how we're because we have that's a pretty big commitment our students are making is to take college level coursework either from a high school faculty member that's credentialed or going to Riverland or some other college. I just we have as a board have not seen the data on how they're performing. >> I'll
051make a note of that, Director Schindler, and I will connect with Principal Gaston as we prepare for the state of the schools report um if there's anything we can add to add to that um outside of the state accountability data. >> Yep. Gary, I can I can testify that our students who are doing well are really doing very well. Um because I sit on a lot of scholarship committees and and I and I handle the recipients of those scholarships and it's pretty impressive looking at their college transcripts, the success they're having in college. I don't think we have a problem with uh really with the our our our high level academic achievers. Um couple other things. The uh a question popped into my mind relative to the fact that we have students in the ALC
052that takes seven years out of a four-year SP 9 to 12 to graduate. So are those students for accounting purposes considered uh full-time pupil units for which we receive full benefit full uh income from state of Minnesota >> specifically which program >> for the ALC are those students >> any any student in enrolled in our in our school system do they where we pay for staff to instruct them. Are they still receiving revenue? >> Yeah. A full >> the same extent as somebody that graduates in four years, right? The pupil unit to pupil unit whether they've been here from nine beginning nth grade five, six, seven years if >> I'm understanding you correctly. Yes. >> Okay. Well, they're here. >> Okay. Um, the other thing I was wondering, you started out, uh, speaking about the
053Northstar organization. That sounds a lot like what used to be North Central accreditation, uh, which was a long way. Well, that that went away. I mean, is Northstar a a replacement for that somewhat? I mean, it's is >> I see Mary Joe nodding her head. she would have. >> So the Northstar came about probably seven or eight years ago and it took those five areas and looked at it. Yes. What was new to me? So a question for me Tanya was the link support for the high school. So any high school is going to have link support based on ALC data. Then >> if their ALC is below the 67% threshold, then their high school will be designated as a linked school. >> Okay. >> Yep. And that's new. That's That is new. The linked
054>> That's based on fouryear performance. >> That is only based on four-year performance. Yes. >> Yeah. Yeah. This the state's trying to get to where it's part of the Minnesota Common Core catalog where they're trying to link students really from K to 12, but uh with who's the teacher that taught them, what grade were they in, and where did they go through? Um, so they're trying to to link all that stuff through they're also trying to link like when you get in the Twin Cities if this ALC say has the same as ours. So they're where are all the students coming from? You know, are there certain high schools that seem to create large amounts of students going five, six, seven years and then do we need to go back to those high schools and
055try to figure out and help them in the four years, right? Well, you can say maybe there's some causation there, but the high school is going to turn and go, well, they came at this level from all those different middle schools. and the middle schools are say they came at this level from so that's why again when I say when we want to take a focus we need to start at that early childhood and focus our kids all the way through and not make it oh you went to early childhood you went to preschool now you're in kindergarten now you're in right if we can do that but that's a little bit of what they're trying to do is they're trying to figure out what that four-year grad rate is and can you backward map
056that I think the most impressive thing that um the ALC here is you're looking at 27%. Yep. And six almost 64%. And in three years with some kids that probably if you're sitting in a high school classroom, you'd say, "Oh, that kid's reluctant to learn here at the high school." We found a place where that child can thrive or young adult now can thrive and they've attained their high school diploma within that seven-year window. I mean that that's a big jump there. And so I I think we got to commend our ALC for that. Um and I think we just need to work backwards. Some of it also is with the high school of maybe the majority of the kids only go during their senior year. When should we start having that conversation? Should we
057be having that conversation in the middle of the ninth grade even though maybe mom or dad or guardian doesn't want to hear it where we can provide those interventions up front and maybe it is that smaller learning environment. Maybe the the stigma of the ALC needs to go away and we need to just alter it, call it something else or do something. But maybe we need to do something there so that those students don't wait till their middle of junior or senior year and we catch them up and then maybe it's a fiveyear graduation rate, which we did try to look up the five and the sixyear grad rate. They don't calculate it out. So, we can we're going to dig because I'm kind of curious. So, we're going to dig to see if we
058can calculate that thing out and at least be close because I think it would be really cool to see the steps in there. Like, what is the five? Is there a huge jump at five? You know, it looks like a huge jump there, but so it'd be kind of interesting to see. Um, but but there's a lot of questions there of what's creating that seven-year grad rate, right? Like in that jump or really what's creating that 27%. Can we focus in on those and then what can we do differently and then work with those families? >> It's exactly what I was wondering about and Joanna's here too that how many of our students are actually getting done in that fifth and sixth year or just into the fifth year not all the way to seven
059but seven catches two at the end out of the 24 over that four year or threeyear period. So, >> so when we looked it up on the Northstar Accountability Report today, um we're able to look at it by these three areas. So, Albertly Area Schools, the Aerial Learning Center, and the Albertly High School at the four-year rate and the seven-year rate. There's five-year data and six-year data. It just doesn't provide an accountability summary. What it provides is an individual student. So, I can try track Dave Clot, fouryear, fiveyear, oh, he graduated in six. I can track you as a student. I can track Angie Hoffman as a student. Um, it does it doesn't provide a summary in year five and year six. So, what we could do is calculate that out and see where that
060falls on the trajectory to get us to the 64%. >> Even if we went back on a three or four year deal, not you go back for 10 or 15. I mean just to to not to be a good baseline for where we start and then in four years from now when someone's given the same report you know here's what we're really seeing and we don't have this stuff 10 years ago but for the last four years now we've seen that most of our kids and then also there may be that pilot program where we do meet with some of these kids a little earlier and maybe there are some um our students and parents that are more willing to even get their kids, but they've never been asked to give them that alternative because
061I've heard that different times. And it's it's not always just that they can go work, you know, and then they have a flexible schedule. It's again, like you said, the traditional of sitting back in that class and feeling like, well, I'm not one of the top 15 kids here, but I'm going to get my work done. But if I can go get that work done here for three classes in the same amount of time as I'm doing for two, then maybe that's exciting to me because I've got something else I can do with my time. And the other thing I'd like to have us do somewhere, and this is way outside the box, is we all know MCA tests. We all know how they're scored. We all know that if you don't take the test,
062you come up as a zero. And we all know that when you come up as a zero brings everybody's scores down in a school district. I had this talk with some people yesterday. They're asking me about our scores. I wish we could educate the public a lot better about that and come up with our own little data somewhere to say, "Okay, MCA is saying this and we got it because we have to live with it for now, which by the way, at the state level, we are working at getting this MCA corrected or out. But we also have this specific data for the last three years at Albertly Area Schools. they all see in that says our kids are doing this and so the paper says we're 20 sorry Sarah you do a good job
063report we're 30% here 22% here whatever happens to be and we are there however we can tell you that our kids because of this particular measure that we're using are now showing us this and like I said just kind of use the data and flip it a little bit to say hey we're outside the box my thought >> in In in some ways um the department has forced our hand in that area particularly in literacy um because now you have to have that benchmark assessment tool that leads you towards the dyslexia screener. So this year for the first time different than we've done in the past we will be doing the fastbridge assessment K12. Um, so we will have a different data set in math and literacy um, all the way through 12th grade that's
064not the MCAs. Um, and then we'll have the CAPD read basics assessment as the dyslexia screener for those that are not at grade level. Um, so we will have another uh data point to look at um, at the at the district level um, which will be beneficial. >> Right. So, what Tanya and I have talked about, we're a little scared about is the kids have to take the fast test. If they just blow the test off and they don't come at grade level, we have to turn around and do the CAPD test and do some interventions with them, which means at the high school level, they could lose an elective class, hypothetically. So, we're a little nervous about this as to what it could accidentally do the first time or two that they take the
065test. Once they get the idea that you got to take this thing serious and show that you're at grade level, I think we'll be fine. But we're a little nervous. We because we do have a fair and I don't have the numbers in front of me. We do have a fair amount of kids that do not take the MCA because they can say, "I just don't want to take it." We all know that. But, and again, then they're all at zeros. and the kids that are saying they don't want to take it, they're probably all going to test very well for us. So that's that's kind of the problem we have. >> But I think as a board we would support that the for the fast test doesn't take days and days and days like
066an MCA. The fast test is a national norm test. It's not a state test. I think there's so many benefits that we sell it to parents that I I don't know how long the 9th through 12th grade test is. I I know we only gave it to students uh with reading disabilities in the past, but I don't believe it's more than 30 to 45 minutes. So, it's a quick test. It assesses comprehension very fast. Um I think the data it gives us as a district is exactly what we need. Um, and I think as a parent, it's exactly what you'd want to know. And so I think as a board, we support it. We sell it as the staff of it's the right thing to do for students. And it's the same thing for elementary,
067the FAST scores. I mean, it again looking at a national norm test. It's not a local test that we made. It's not a state test. We can look across the nation to see how how are Albertly students doing and those who have needs. We need to ensure that we're talking to those parents. Um, you know, there's a lot of factors in there I think last year too to our discussions of what we heard from parents of a lot of disruptions in the classroom with behaviors. All of that plays a factor. And so when we look at literacy needs and math, it's it's a lot of variables. And okay, I I'll stop. >> You are exactly right, Mary Joe. You're exactly right. And I think the beauty of the FastBridge assessment um as Mary Joe stated
068the the variables um within FastBridge, it gives us a wonderful tool called screening to intervention. And the screening to intervention report allows teachers to look at the breakdown of what skills have students mastered, what skills should they be working on currently, and what skills are coming up next. Um, and as Dr. Hy mentioned in his report earlier where he talked about, you know, we've got a pretty solid start at that K7 area, but what does literacy look like at 812 now that those now that our secondary students will be taking this assessment will have a tool to help guide and adjust, monitor and adjust some of our instruction that we haven't had consistently. We get data in MCAs. We can look at the strand data. it's just not the same uh breakdown of the the
069various skills that are present. And we we had an in-depth conversation at admin retreat too this summer about whether or not we wanted to add it in math. And Dr. Hile's question to the administrative team with principles there was what do we use in math now? And the response was that. So, we really made that decision this summer as an administrative team that we were doing it in math and literacy so that we had some nationally normed local data that we can look at to guide instruction. >> It's uh no secret that I've never been a real big fan of MCA tests. Um mainly because as I understand it, they were not established to see to measure how students are doing. they were established to see how schools are doing and the students could care
070less how the school is doing. You know, not that's a bit uh dramat overdramatic perhaps but but the as I as I recall um there was a time when we had different uh standardized tests that were not given to students every year. I think it was every two every three years maybe and it went on their permanent record and if the student uh was was absent and did not take the test well then they they made it up. Everybody took the test and it was on your permanent record and it it meant something and I don't know of any students who just you know walt through it and didn't didn't try to do their best and and and what you're describing is is like that I I think and it also serves as a tool
071to to find out how the students doing find out where they need some additional help whereas the MCA is you know It's pretty crude and useless data. >> I think the connection there too is to what Chair Clott said of those conversations that need to happen at the state and legislative level. That's that's where that change is going to happen that we're looking for. One question I don't know and Gary maybe you know this or Tanya the Minscu schools look at MCA data to do some placement for I think English. So if we're not doing MCAs >> there well there it's multi it's a for placement in math and reading at a community college let's say colleges are encouraged to use multiple measures. So it might be MCA performance, it might be ACT, it might
072be their high school transcript. If a student has stellar grades in English, they may not have to take reading um courses at a community college. So colleges are encouraged to look at multiple measures versus just let's say the ACUPPLACER, which is pretty typical. >> Yeah. And there is a there is statute out there that if you uh pass the MCA reading or math that you cannot be placed below a college level class starting in college. So there is value to it >> and there's MCA cut scores. So a college has a guide that's provided by Minnesota Department of Ed that can guide a college to say if a student's performing at this level in math they can bypass college algebra. Any other comments, questions for Executive Director Franks or Dr. >> Thank you. >> Well,
073looks like that's pretty much uh exhausted the agenda. I just want to announce that on uh our next meeting is going to be Monday, September 29th at 4:00 p.m. And um that will be the next time we see. Otherwise, everyone, thank you for coming. Uh just to let you know, they changed the um schoolboard recognition month from I believe it was February to September to move it up in the year when it seemed a little bit more relevant when everybody was back to school. So, thank you everyone for what you do. We had a little extra doing this year. Dr. High, we appreciate you being here, but took a little time to find you, but you did good finding us, too. So with that I'll adjourn the