001That's right. >> So, are the administrative professionals or the bus drivers? >> Which one? >> I know. I know where to find them. I have other ways to do it. >> administrative professionals. >> It's kind of a no-brainer, I think. Yeah, well, you said [laughter] that. >> You said the best driver. Like, who's the best driver? >> The bus driver is the best driver. >> Um, sure. >> It's in info and outreach. >> Okay. So, that means I have to remember to do that. >> And it was uh administrative professionals. >> Okay. All right. >> Yes. >> Okay. What are you doing? >> I'm doing administrative professionals. >> Um, sorry. >> Mhm. >> I'm there. Yes. >> This regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m.
002on Tuesday, April 21st, 2026 in room 137 of the Edison building. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent Kent Pekel, a non-voting ex-officio member, and Assistant School Board Clerk, Ms. Ann Kramer. Ms. Kramer, will you please call the roll? >> Here. >> The board acknowledges >> [clears throat] >> this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people. And we honor the Dakota nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples. At this time, we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance. >> I pledge allegiance to the 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. >> Our next item of the Rochester Public Schools mission, vision, and
003values. During this agenda item at every regular meeting, a board member will read our mission, our vision, or one of our six values to emphasize their importance in our work as a district and our decisions as a board. Tonight, we focus on our first value, providing exceptional opportunities to succeed. We offer an extraordinary level of opportunities, classes, and experiences. Our standard of excellence ensures more than one path to success. Our next item is approval of the agenda. Are there any changes to the agenda? >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All those in favor say I. >> I. >> Any opposed? The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rocesterschools.org/sibley. Our next item on the agenda are comments
004to the board. It is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our students, staff, families, and schools. We welcome communication via email, phone call, and here at comments to the board. The purpose of comments to the board is to give community members an opportunity to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall within our authority. The board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speakers comments during the meeting, but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate. Persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 p.m. on the Monday before the school board meeting, and it's available on our RPS website and the Sibley main page. Speakers, when your name is called, please come
005to this table. If you have written materials for the board, provide them to the assistant school board clerk, and she will provide them to board members. Choose a microphone to speak into and be seated. Please direct your remarks to the school board. You will have 3 minutes to speak, and the timer will be displayed here on that timer. Please begin your remarks by stating your name. Our first speaker tonight is Manal Abadi. >> Mhm. >> Day is tomorrow, April 22nd. Our receptionists, secretaries, administrative coordinators, and office managers, executive assistants, and our assistant school board clerk do an exceptional job and work hard to keep our schools and central offices organized and running efficiently. They are the front line of welcoming families and students to our buildings and offices, and often the first stop for addressing
006an issue. We are grateful for their friendly and professional presence. Please join us in thanking them the next time you call, email, or visit a school or district building or program. >> Director McLaughlin. >> [clears throat] >> I am here to speak about National School Bus Driver Appreciation Day. April 28th is National School Bus Driver Appreciation Day. Here in Rochester, our bus and van drivers ensure the safety and well-being of our students while transporting them to and from school and between schools and programs. Every day our drivers transport over 10,000 students on yellow buses and almost 900 students on vans across the 12,250 miles of daily routes. The 260 bus and van drivers that transport RPS students are the first people to greet many of our students each morning and the last to say goodbye
007each afternoon, significantly impacting all of those students every day. We thank these essential members of the Rochester Public Schools community for supporting the safety and sense of belonging of our students. Just a reminder, we are still facing a shortage of bus drivers and van drivers and First Student is hiring. View the opportunities at workatfirst.com. >> Thank you. Our next information outreach item is the Southeast Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals Middle School Principal of the Year. Tonight, we're recognizing Brent Gates, principal at John Adams Middle School, who has been selected by his peers to represent the Southeast Minnesota Association of Secondary School Principals as their Middle School Principal of the Year. Superintendent Pickard. >> Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to ask Eric Johnson, our director of leadership development, to come up and he
008we are going to force Principal Gates to come on up, too, because he reluctantly agreed to come and let us honor him for the amazing work that he's doing guiding one of our middle schools. So, congratulations, Brent, and welcome, Eric. >> You have to take a seat. >> Good evening. It's my distinct privilege tonight to introduce John Adams principal Brad Gates as the Southeast Minnesota Association of [clears throat] Secondary School Principals Principal of the Year. This recognition reflects not just what he's accomplished, but how he leads John Adams each and every day. Principal Gates has built a school culture people feel immediately when they walk into John Adams. Students, staff, and families know they're not only welcomed, but seen, heard, and valued. He's incredibly approachable and the kind of leader who is constantly present in
009the hallways, in classrooms, and in conversations that matter. The trust he's built with students, staff, and families is the foundation of everything at John Adams. At the same time, he doesn't let comfort become complacency. He's an innovator who consistently encourages the staff to stretch, to take risks, and to push the limits of instructional practice in service of better outcomes for students. I was at John Adams this afternoon meeting with Brad and his skip leadership team, and they were deep in the data even though it was 83° and sunny and the school day had ended, but they were planning ahead to next year's improvement plans and thinking about how they can increase academic outcomes for all their students. Brad invests in people in a lasting way. He empowers his staff, he mentors his assistant principals, helps
010to develop their leadership, and pairs them to head with the same or to lead with the same balance of care and high expectations that he has. Brad is one of those rare individuals who takes an incredibly challenging job, the job of being a middle school principal, and he makes it look easy. The truth though is that he's working incredibly hard on behalf of the John Adams community each and every day. Brad Gates embodies what we hope for every school leader, strong relationships, clear focus on learning, and the courage to keep getting better. Please join me in congratulating Brad Gates on this super honor. >> [applause] >> I'm going to give you the opportunity to say a few words. >> I I just want to thank the staff for giving me this opportunity to do this
011every day, and I would apply if it's not exhausting. And um honestly, I learned it all from my parents growing up. I said I'd never go into education, but um just learned the the relationship piece and through the school age child care working working there and, you know, just the day-to-day stuff and the staff and connecting and again, providing the the support for staff to do what they do best and learn from them. Honestly, get out of the their way when they're doing it. So, um and supporting them through it, and this is honestly overwhelming, and it should go with to all of them. So, I really appreciate it. Thank you. >> And one more thing. I can't let you leave here without a certificate. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so
012much. Thank you. >> And another round of applause. >> [applause] >> I knew you wanted to do it. Our next item, our board member updates. Does any board member have updates from their committees since the last meeting or any other information to share? Director McLaughlin. >> Um Dr. Marvin and I visited the skip visited Washington Elementary uh week before last. I had to check to make sure when it was on my calendar. Um had a great um tour led by their principal, Tom Wilson. Um really I'd never been to that school before, and I knew of the program but didn't really understand what it was like within the building, and I we just had a great experience visiting classrooms, seeing the students in action, seeing the culture of that building and how positive it was
013and you know, attributing that to the leadership. One of the things that I took away is that they're using the MTSS for reading support this year and they're actively planning to transition that to add the math support as well. That they've identified that as their key priority for next year. So that was exciting to hear about and I'm excited to see how that rolls out next year. Any other updates board members? >> Hearing none, we'll move on to our consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.8. Would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration? >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say I. I. Any opposed? The consent agenda has been approved. We'll move on to
014our focus topic. Finding focus and mental health literacy. This is an information item. Superintendent Pecal. >> Uh thank you madam chair and board members. I'd like to invite Dr. Ruck, our director of research and evidence to come on down. Board members as you know, this focus topic, while certainly important and of real interest, was not the original subject for tonight. We initially planned to bring you a recommendation for our new social studies curricula and resources and in talking with our chief academic officer Mona Perkins, she and her team felt we needed more time because we are actually negotiating with the curriculum developers for the most financially affordable licenses for those multi-year purchases and so we expect to reschedule that social studies curriculum adoption item in the near future. And in the meantime, there's a very
015interesting study that actually two RPS grads did with Rochester public school students on a subject that is of huge importance to our students' educational success, which is their ability in this age of screens and stimulus to focus on learning. It also is in board policy that when a study is conducted in RPS that actually is published, we should come back and tell you about the findings. This uh study has not yet been published, but it is making its way toward publication. And so, I'm grateful to Dr. Rock for being able to uh pinch hit here tonight um in place of the social studies standards curriculum, but I think this is a very um interesting and timely study that we can dive into as um deeply as board members are interested in doing tonight. So, turn
016it over to you. >> Thank you very much. Uh I am very excited to be here. One of my favorite things is to talk about research, and I don't get to do it all that often in this kind of format, so it's very exciting. Uh this evening I'll be covering a study that was conducted last academic year called finding focus. There was also a side benefit, which is why it says bonus, that I'll get into later. Uh as a result of the project, there are actually now two papers that are out uh under peer review with major journals. And we are hoping for a positive publication. Anyone who's published in journals knows that can take a long time to hear back. Uh the first paper, and this was the main purpose of the project initially,
017uh and training attention improves real word real world reading and achievement. Uh the study team is listed uh well as well as their affiliations underneath. The second paper we'll go through this evening uh was the control condition in the uh research project uh for mental health literacy. And we are excited that even our control condition actually had an interesting finding. Uh the study team was a little bit larger and also included uh Sarah Clark from our own team here at RPS, our coordinator of mental health, uh in addition to the others that you see on the screen. So, reading achievement is obviously not something that uh is new and is a salient issue everywhere, including in our school district. 30 years of declining national reading scores, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on interventions, even
018just at the federal level. And even then, typical interventions often only result in, if they're effective at all, relatively modest gains for the number of hours that are required to complete them. They tend to be narrow and they tend to focus on specific reading skills. This project took a different approach. Instead of focusing on the reading skills, instead it focused on training students' attention so that they could then apply that focused attention to their learning. The idea is to train sustained attention and then improve your focus, which improves better engagement with the text and ultimately leads to higher reading scores. That's the hypothesis underlying So, it asks, how does it work at scale in real schools? Since in the past, they had found that the program was effective, but in laboratory settings, not necessarily in
019a regular school context. The study design for finding focus involved a little over a thousand students at our three comprehensive high schools, 40 classrooms and 13 teachers. The experimental condition, the treatment group, was an 80-minute online active interactive lesson facilitated by the teacher and a companion focus co- focus coach digital app that worked through their district-issued Chromebooks. There were periodic self-focus check-in ratings as a part of the process using that app. It was delivered during regular class time. Since we were taking 80 minutes out of English 9 classes, however, we obviously needed to have some sort of control setting. So, we matched it with an 80-minute online facilitated course on mental health literacy. It was independent work and it did not involve the focus coach in any way. But, it was still active, and it
020was still meaningful for the students. So, it was not a wasted time, so So, what students actually did is a three-step, if you boil it all down. Anchoring their attention, intentionally deciding where to direct their focus, then sustaining that attention with an anchor, and letting go of the distractions while they're doing so. The 8-minute short lessons in 10-minute chunks over eight spaced out days provide a lot of background and and training on how to do so, and the focus coach app then keeps them on track while they're doing it. They use it during classwork. They rate themselves on a five-point scale for focus. Yes, I understand it's a little weird that you would choose to be interrupted by an app to improve your focus. But, because of how students were thinking about it through the
021framework, and also through the lessons in the app itself, over time, they needed to have fewer and fewer check-ins because their attention was stronger. Teachers also had a dashboard to monitor in real time how engaged their students were based on the Finding Focus app that the students were using. They couldn't see an individual students ratings, but they could see where their class was over time. Our adaptive reading screener, FastBridge Reading, was used as the test. We did this on purpose because it's already a state-approved measure. It was not created by the researchers. And, it's already a a assessment that our ninth graders at the time were all taking in the spring. It is also a very rigorously researched and validated assessment instrument, and a good choice to use for taking a screening for skills in
022winter and again in the spring. So, we had a baseline, some intervention, and then again in the spring, a post-test. What we found, and actually this is from Getty Images. It was surprisingly hard to find a non-cringeworthy picture of students on the internet which I was doing on purpose so it wasn't RPS students. Yes. Anyway, uh the effect size was 0.74 um with 0.71 standard deviations of progress. You don't need to necessarily uh follow every detail of statistics. The important takeaway is if a typical intervention results in roughly 3 weeks of added uh reading instruction time equates out, Finding Focus was able to uh expand that to almost 15 weeks of additional reading growth. With far fewer hours involved in the direct instruction of the students on those skills than would otherwise have been the
023case with a reading intervention that was targeted on The Focus Coach use and uh their ratings of their focus improved over time. This is uh weekly sessions and as you can see it went right up as the course the semester completed. We also had really high percent like students really stuck with the the Focus Coach if they started using it. About 90% finished all of the all of the tasks. And it was very uh uh statistically significant. So the study that the authors compared it our our current work to was a study from 2011 on a particular uh reading intervention uh which required 92 hours of after school time, a variety of uh different design issues and there was no control whereas this study um relies on far less uh devotion of time and resources
024within the classroom to achieve strong results. Those are students, our assessment, the results were real and significant. It's a relatively low burden initiative uh that has high scalability, especially because of the technology component. Uh and it logically would follow that we would see gains in other learning areas as well, not just reading, even though reading was the only thing that was Moving on to the control group that I mentioned earlier. Now, this is exciting cuz usually in a control group, it's boring. You don't really have much to say. Um or if you do, it's about placebos and This control group actually had a statistically significant finding of its own. The mental health literacy curriculum that these students got, even though it was only 80 minutes over the course of the semester, had meaningful impact. As
025we know, adolescent mental health is a major challenge and has only increased in importance and criticality in the last 15 years. Most schools in the US do lack scalable efforts that can address those needs. What was measured? Just a quick couple of subscales from uh our friends in the psychology area, as well as um measures of whether they're motivated to seek help, uh whether they know um terminology and resources, uh and also attitudes about stigma. What was found was that uh indicators of depression on those items at the beginning were mediated because students tended to increase their help-seeking motivation as a part of going through the process. With anxiety, it was not actually increased help-seeking that improved anxiety, but it did result in reduction in the indicators of anxiety reported by students. So, it improved
026their ability and motivation to seek help on their own by learning terms, resources, places, the language to speak about it. It improved um some of those uh beliefs about just how prevalent and not isolated people who are are facing mental uh, well-being challenges are, crisis resource knowledge uh, as well as those indicators. Uh, this was a lot of hands on this besides the folks you saw at the beginning of the two slides. These are our RPS uh, teachers and other leaders who were engaged in the work except for Steph Whitney who I left off of the slides and it's ironic because she's the one who I got the list of names from to make sure I didn't forget anyone. So, thank you Steph Whitney. I apologize. Uh, but lots of hands and and a pretty
027active and involved team. People were excited to work on it. It was a It was a fun and With that, I'd be happy to answer any questions. >> Board members, any questions? >> I have one. >> Director Barnett. >> Uh, so Dr. Rock, um, finding focus. Um, and it's great to see how that was able to be tracked, but uh, the goal is not necessarily to see if there was any learning that was achieved. It was just to Or was that? >> Yeah, so their their reading results, their reading scores are what improved over time. So, their attention improved, but their uh, reading scores i- improved the equivalent of 15 weeks of reading instruction versus the control group which did not have a Um, and that's calculated through using the norms and benchmarks and so
028forth within the FastBridge assessment >> So, will we as a district be able to What are we How are we going to leverage this research? >> So, part It's a great question. So, part of the um, next steps that we were able to discuss with the researchers when we were considering whether to participate in the project was can we have access or how can we, you know, invest it over time. The two main researchers, the Marasics, are siblings who graduated from Mayo High School about 20 years ago. They, as a part of this research project, were really excited with how, you know, we were able to really work with them on it. So, we were able to use the Finding Focus Coach and App and Program in perpetuity at no cost to us should we
029wish to do so, as long as they maintain the intellectual property rights. Um so, it is available to us and we've we've been having some discussions uh preliminarily about what it might look like uh in a different setting than ninth grade English. The main hindrance there is uh the app, like most technology tools, has terms of service that say you can't be under 13. So, we would be cognizant of that as as well. >> Dr. Workman. >> So, is this something that they will sustain over time having been through this or do they have to be, I don't know, retested is the wrong word, but like check in to see if they have able to maintain the gains that they've had? >> Yeah, so that's a great question. Part of the follow-up this year I
030am uh at the end of the school year going to track those same kids and see if I can find anything out about year two, so to speak. The challenge we have there is some of our assessments uh in high school have changed with the Read Act over the last 12 months, and so there's not fantastic continuity with who I'll be able to compare over time. It's just a a limitation of our data >> Would you anticipate that a student might benefit from going through this more than once? >> Absolutely. Uh I would imagine that practicing uh these kinds of skills are something you got to work on like any other. >> Dr. Whitehorn. >> All right, I got a couple questions. So, first you said it increased by 15 weeks, but it was a
03112-week experiment. Was it 3 months that it went through? >> Uh that was all of spring semester so that would have been mid-January through the end of school year. >> Okay, so about how many weeks that were they on the program in comparison? >> 10. >> Okay, so in 10 weeks they got 15 weeks of >> It's the equivalent Yeah, it's the equivalent gain of 15 extra weeks of of reading instruction. >> Okay. >> [clears throat] >> And I do see in the documents that you provided uh that you did give a breakdown of the diversity of the student structure. Um and you said that 90% of the students did complete the uh finding focus. Uh was that across the board? Did you find any disparities in that? >> No, there actually were none. It
032was uh deliberately part of the research design. So part of what we worked with in the data was a variety of demographic indicators, not just race and ethnicity but also gender. Um some of service statuses, like if kids are getting services in that particular program. Um none of them ended up being uh significant in terms of positive or negative. Every Roughly everybody saw pretty much the same gain across the board. It didn't matter what characteristics >> And that was also with the control group? >> That's correct, yep. Great question. >> And um I'm going to give credit for this question to Director McLaughlin. Um but just to be clear, the app was not done on phones because we don't allow phones in the classroom. So here >> I want to describe where they used it.
033>> Yes, so the app There is a cell phone app. It's a companion, but it's not necessary to use the tool. The app went through our school district's uh technology review process as any other education app would. It was approved through technology and was then loaded onto student Chromebooks uh in the classes that uh were there. So they used it right inside their Chromebooks while doing whatever their teacher uh was doing with them in class, I think. >> And will they be making a version of this for adults? >> Um I tried it myself uh and I will say that at least for me personally, it was extremely effective after I stuck with it for >> Check my phone. >> And I downloaded it as part of my prep for tonight's meeting and used it
034over the weekend and did the first two studies um that were about 10 minutes each and very accessible. They actually ask you questions to make sure you're paying attention. Um but then when I got into my work week, I have not been as successful, so I will try to try it again. >> There you go. >> The voice in the app is uh Mike Maratschek, the Mayo brand, who's the lead. So if you're listening to the sort of soothing uh male-sounding voice in that app, that's him. >> You actually have a choice of two and that is the one I picked. I didn't know that. Yeah, yeah. >> caught that? >> Well, we will look forward to hearing whether this um is able to gain additional use and traction for and benefit some of our
035other students. Thank you for facilitating this opportunity. >> Absolutely. Thank you so much. >> Our next item is a monitoring item, the school resource officer contract. Uh board members, we are in the second year of a two-year contract for our school resource officer services, so this is why it is a monitoring item and not an action item tonight. Superintendent Pecor. >> Thank you, Chair Nathan. I would like to ask uh Chris Lingan, our director of school safety, and Sergeant Valer to come on up and Jackie Peterson, our chief of schools. Board members, as you know, um since I got to Rochester in 2021, uh this board and our administration has been on a journey to um both uh support, enhance, and ensure the appropriate role of school resource officers in our schools. We looked at
036uh alternative models of school safety. We looked at the research on um the impact of having uh uniformed officers in schools. And with the leadership of this board, we significantly revised the contract with the Rochester Police Department to ensure a very clear dividing line between school discipline and the role of our police officers and their connection to the criminal justice system. And also to codify and enhance the role that our SROs play in building relationships and providing students with an understanding of things like appropriate uh presence on social media and vaping and other factors. Um last year, the board felt confident enough in this uh place that we've arrived in our partnership with Rochester Police Department to approve a 2-year contract. And so, as Chair Nathan just noted, there is no action before you at
037this time, but we want to be sure that we are regularly reporting to you and the community on the uh work that our school resource officers are doing in our schools. And in particular, what the data that you're going to see now shows once again, which is that with very, very rare exceptions, students in our schools who interact with school resource officers are not uh being charged or becoming involved in the criminal justice system. Uh we're engaging them in uh ways that promote school safety in our schools with a very, very few um exceptions. So, with that, let me turn it over to the team. Um uh and thank you so much for being willing [clears throat] to join us. >> Thank you, Dr. Powell. Chair Nathan, Dr. Powell, and members of the board, thank
038you for the opportunity to share an update on uh our school resource officers and what we've been uh doing this year. We are following the same format that we did last year because I recall uh how much you loved our presentation last year. So, um the same format here. This is a an updated uh roster of our uh SROs in our buildings. We have uh as you can see, six along with Sergeant Volair, who is uh a very valuable member of the team and a great uh support to our office um and out in in the buildings as well. It kind of looks like Monopoly cards, like property deeds there, but I wanted to cover the cell phone numbers. I didn't think you'd want that published, so. Again, this year just a reminder, this is
039Minnesota statute regarding the responsibilities or duties of SROs, so I won't take the time to read that, but it's there for your reference. And these next three slides are based on the the updated agreement as Dr. Picault mentioned that many of you or some of you worked on to outline what we would like to see happening in our schools with regard to to SROs. So, the the topics here, the first one high focus on violence reduction and supporting social issues. The SROs do keep track of their their activities in their buildings, things like creating and presenting presentations to to students and classes and other interactions that they have throughout their days. And so, we collect that information and synthesize it here for you. And so, on this slide you can see the SROs are very
040integral to the development of our safety plans in our schools. They are very helpful in updating anything that needs updating and helping to run our safety drills in schools. They do take part in administrative meetings to make sure they're up to date and available to our administrators up to date on what's happening in the school community. I've listed some of the I just some of the events that our SROs have recorded participating in this year, including things like um the back to school block party, cultural celebrations. I think there was even a basketball game at the ALC that Our and student basketball game they participated in. Uh the next uh >> [clears throat] >> the next heading is student support. And these can be interactions with individual students um where students are coming for help
041on safety issues on uh issues issues that they're having with friends. Um this could also be parents and students coming for um support and advice. Um and um I want to I want to point out uh the last bullet the the SROs had conducted have conducted so far this year through March um over 100 uh basically conflict resolutions with students um who are struggling with uh issues with peers in their building or across the district. And then again there's some other uh trust and rapport building activities that they engaged in uh seatbelt challenge, polar plunge, and and those fun events uh that they're showing up for. And then finally educational engagement. So these are as Dr. Pakal had mentioned um topics like vaping and and um alcohol drug use, um social media, um really helping
042kids understand the implications of um engaging in uh these kinds of activities. They're also they've also um been invited to uh present and share information in individual classrooms by teachers. Um and so they've recorded those um activities as well. I also included some special events that were um uh connected to our students but um some even outside of the district like with boys and girls club but still a good connection with students in our schools. And now I'm going to turn it over to Chris Ling and to talk about the data. >> I just want to add one thing with with if you've been around SROs whether you're in the school or you go to football game, they are popular people. Um kids seek them out. Um, they they are celebrities, I would say. Um,
043within those football games, they have they they got people around them all the time, kids talking to them from the middle schools to high schools, former students they've had. People like them. And so, Sergeant Blair and the rest of our SROs have done a great job Um, the guy that you're looking at right now is something that we brought out last year with Sergeant Blanak and now Sergeant Blair working through it with RPD and getting us our information with our SROs. Um, it tells us a better story than what we've given to you in the past. Um, last year we gave to you and here we are again with the just reminder. Um, the green part is our sites. Um, and that part should add up as you go across. Okay? The blue part is
044RPD and their outcomes. Those items are not going to add up. The reasons why, you see if you can see at the very bottom, um, there's pieces within that. One reason is there might be multiple students within that counting it. And then also, a student may have multiple things, citations, [snorts] and they may have been citation and that's not the right word either, but the version with with within that part. So, they may have multiple things within there. So, that's why those numbers may not add up on the blue side, but the green side would. Um, as you notice on the blue side, um, the the outcomes that happened the most, um, we've got an assist, we've got suspicious circumstance and I'll let Sergeant Blair talk about those if you got questions on what that
045looks like. Uh, disorderly conduct and community services are our kind of top five that that are our major ones that happen. The rest of them are all the single digits or lower. Um, you also don't see on here, we talked about this last time. When we do the discipline part, we talk about well, how many of these were our own pieces that we sent sent in. So, if you remember level twos that we track within our Skyward and that part of it, um, those numbers um, that we have that then go to, um, um, referral to an SRO or or the police, we have 64 of those level twos. Okay, that's not on here. That's just data as of today. Um, there we've had 64 through K-12 that have been referred to the police. Of
046those 64, we also track arrests. As of today, of 4/21, we had zero. And we typically have zero. We might have one. I mean, as of today, we have zero that referred to within that part of the Okay. >> As Dr. Patel outlined, um, we are midway through a two-year agreement. And so, there's no action needed, um, if there there were to be a desire to do to make changes or terminate the agreement, we would need to provide written notice to RPD, [clears throat] uh, with a 180-day lead lead time. And that is the That's our presentation. We're here to take questions if you have any. >> Are there any members any questions? Dr. Marvin. >> Um, I see the pictures of the officers who are in our schools. What kind of training or what
047kind of process, uh, do you go through with people who will be in our schools every day interacting on a regular basis with, uh, little kids and teenagers? >> Yes, um, there could be a number, um, of different trainings, within the last two years, since 2025, um, state of Minnesota has mandated that SROs go through a basic, uh, school resource officer course. That's a 40-hour course. And and also that's on top of all our recommended, uh, training with to be a police officer. So, that goes from anything from, uh, de-escalation training to, uh, mental health training, to, uh, crisis intervention uh, to interview and interrogation style of training so they have a good understanding how to talk to individuals so that all those things go in the hand. One of our particular criteria for school
048resource officers is problem solving and that's one thing that I harp to my team on to be good be good at crisis intervention not only that but also have problem solving techniques on hand so when things do come up you can find alternative you know alternative methods per se to find ways to accomplish that problem find resources and trying to find ways to make that connection. The other thing that I harp on the team on is developing relationships those go a long way as a former SRO myself and having worked different units now to be in the sergeant in charge I kind of bring forth that mentality of work on those relationships now because once you are out and about within the school or outside of school those go a long way. You're not going
049to be able to you're going to be able to leave a lasting impression on those kids. And I I think you guys are doing a pretty good job of that. Now it comes with some heartache and things like that but we're mitigating to those. >> Middlesex school safety center also has a piece with SROs. I was just with them last week with numerous SROs there. They know all the SROs they work closely with them. They ask me about how they're doing so they're in constant contact with their SROs also. >> Dr. McCal. >> Sergeant Bernier I do want to speak to this because it's probably something we talked more about with your predecessors than you is that one of and I was involved with what what Dr. Becquel talked about about modifying the contract and
050updating it and modernizing it. That one of my goals for that was to use this program as a model for how officers can interact with young people in the community as they grow up. Young people they become adults and they have interactions with law enforcement. And I think what you were talking about there is exactly what we're hoping would happen with this program. >> Again, I think again, I I don't For now, our our unit is not representative of what our city is look looks like and I I would like to help with that, but I think the people that we have in place do a really good job of developing those relationships. They have a really good understanding of what we're looking for, at least what I'm looking for in an SRO and trying
051to be that mentor for them, being that I've been in the position, but also uh working through those challenges of trying to make connections with with students of color, trying to make the challenges making connections with kids who are in crisis. All those goals play play a hand on how you develop those relationships and again, once we're out of the school, uh those relations that you built within the building will go a long way with having positive interactions out in the community and that's what we're looking for. So hoping we can continue to work on that and build those those those bridges that >> That's great to hear. Can you talk a little bit more about, you know, is this a sought sought-after role in the police department? Do you recruit people for this role?
052What are you looking for when you select them and is there going to be turnover? It's always one of my concerns. >> There there's always turnover. We have a tenure that we we kind of follow through, but we do allow SROs that they make that decision. We don't again we are police officers who have a calling to work within the school buildings. And I think for me, once I identify someone that has the mentality or the um Let's say the the the drive to be a police officer with that works with the with kids in the building. I go after those. Um because I want to have that positive interaction with the students. I have kids that have officers that have that mentality. But, is it a sought-after position? You have to have the right
053mentality. I can Anyone can do the job, but you have to have the right mentality to be able to um to do what we do. So, um I think um trying to recruit those folks is a little difficult because we have a really young agency. Um and we do have the requirement of having at least a couple years of experience, but again, that comes with its own challenge because not only are they learning how to be police officers, now we throw the gamut of having to work with children on top of it, and that makes it very difficult. So, we want to make sure we have the right mentality and the right folks that have the right drive to be in the school buildings and understand the um the complexities of working with young children
054or young young kids and uh high school age kids who are young teenagers who are about to set off, you know, and do things out in the community. So, uh we want to make sure we have the right people for that. So, yes. You can recruit, but you know, let's listen to the meeting that I was at the school safety conference. I'm just listening about other sites have with their SROs, whether they're good things or bad things. I put the group that we have against anybody else. And part of that is what we set up with with the board and prior to that. Um but, our SROs, just listening to other places in the state of like, I'm like, "Wow, we don't have any of those issues. Our our guys and ladies do this and
055can take care of these things." I think I mean, with Sergeant Blair's lead and Sergeant Block and we we we've been blessed on what what we have. And I hope we can keep them all, um but I know they have to do other things and get promoted that way, but yeah. >> Yes, there could be some changeover, but ultimately we would like to keep those folks as is. >> Wonderful. Dr. Barber? >> Uh yes, I have a couple things. >> [clears throat] >> Under SRO activities, uh resolving conflicts, I noticed that uh and um Jackie, you made it a point to call that out, over 100 uh student parent interactions. Can you perhaps provide an example of uh a parent student I imagine a incident, perhaps physical of nature, has occurred and both students and
056maybe families of both families are present. I might be mistaken, but can you perhaps speak to what that looks like? >> I guess I I would rather not provide names and things, but >> Oh, I'm not interested >> For examples, uh for example, I know we've had uh one incident at the middle high school where students were engaged in a conversation to begin with, then it became physical. Uh the SRO made it a point to get those folks in the in the room together, um talk about what the ultimate consequences could be, what it could look like, and what choices we could be making. Uh the parents were involved in that conversation. So, that's the typical things that we would we would do. Um there could be other things that could could happen where we
057could uh you know, submit the the incident to our Three Rivers outside entity to kind of um build those uh restorative practices. Um I've been part of the uh advisory board here in the last few months trying to trying to understand what can be done, how we can uh bring those things into the schools, and I know there are some programming that's coming uh down the down the way here for some of the middle schools um with restorative practices. So, I I wholeheartedly believe that the SROs will do a good job at that, at least. Once we have a good understanding what restorative practices look like, then we can model that a little bit more in our day-to-day interactions. So, I think um again, having the day-to-day interactions with the students in the building, building
058that relationship, goes a long way with having those conversations, especially with difficult ones. Um so, uh if we can get the guys to understand what restorative practice uh means or what it looks like, which I think they have a a baseline of understanding of that, but uh to bring forth some more training on that, I think will go a long way with how we make those positive interactions, how we can resolve those conflicts within the building. >> Okay. Oh, I'm sorry. >> I I should provide you with another example. We had an incident at one of our schools where there's domestic at home between the student and the parents. Um yes, the student came in, told the SRO about what kind of went on. The SRO brought the parents in and did it was not
059didn't happen in school, happened outside, but that's one of our students, one of our community. And he brought that student in and met with the families and did it that way, as far as some of the restorative piece within that of how to help the family at home in that piece of it. So, that's another example >> We also have good examples of SROs who have brought families together. So, two students who have and I the examples I'm aware of are middle schoolers who had issue with each other and um the SRO was able to outside of school bring parents from both, at their request, bring families together to to work through the the conflict and resolve it. >> And uh So, two more questions. One, uh Director Marvin, have the SROs ever attended the
060student school board? I'm curious. That might be a way to actually get a feel for uh I know you see well as a suggestion and and then further um uh there are student clubs. I'm thinking last board meeting we had the Black Student Union from John Marshall. I was curious if perhaps the SRO who services J J M uh they have had any outreach with uh that uh particular student organization just to build inroads. >> Uh I can't give you specifics. I'm sorry on that but uh uh I am pretty sure we've had conversations leadership group because uh we do classroom presentations. We do assembly at uh presentations. So, I know they've been involved in those things and uh the homecoming groups were uh meeting at at a point where we were talking about that
061with the SRO at at JM. So, I can give you a specific if if he is directly involved but I know there's been other conversations. Maybe not specifically to the topic you're talking about. >> No, I was just curious and my final question deals with uh incident uh calls uh suspicious circumstances. Uh I think there were 40 listed or so. So, uh incident referral. So, any call uh to a RPS property that a RPS responds to is going to be listed here and really I don't think the district will as a board member I'm not really looking to see you know uh incidents unrelated to uh our students identified. I think the original intent was for the referrals related to our students occurring versus off hours, weekend, a unrelated to either a staff member or
062teacher. So, is there a way, I think Chris, you kind of manage the documentation? >> I'm not 100% positive on how we do that cuz some of them are events at the football games um that are off hours. Um some events Yeah, I don't know. That's something I think we'll have to kind of talk through on how we could sort that part out. >> Yeah, I guess the uh the way to document those uh there are a lot of times where you do have a suspicious circumstance where you don't identify anyone, but it happened within the school building. So, that would be tough. If you could just specifically identify someone to say, "Yeah, this person was specifically involved and is a student." then we'd be able to give you a specific number. But, anything that
063uh No, it all could start with one thing and change to something different uh uh headline. So, it could be done, but anything that happens outside of school, I make it a point to um differentiate between school-related incidents and uh patrol-related incidents or community-related incidents because we don't want to tie those two things together. Um so, uh to give us a good understanding of how we deal with things in within the school building. Uh so, things that happen outside of school, I try not to have a resource officer be involved in handling that issue it becomes a school problem where it wasn't to begin with. Um but, those things correlate. There's a lot of times incidents will start at school and trickle over to the community and vice versa. So, we have to have a
064a good handle on that. Every morning, we do receive a an email with a specific um information as far as over the weekend so we could probably track that information that way. Would that involve students or outside incidents but it also trickles into the school data as well so >> I think in the past this this report or report similar to this we we may have had like a a speeding violation or something that we would have to explain that uh the the driver was stopped um at our property and so it appears in RPD data as a school incident um but to the best of my knowledge these are just related to our students and not um you know like an an arrest for um speeding or drugs or something on school property but
065not related to us. >> And Superintendent, I next time you speak to Chief Franklin uh please let him know that he's continuing to do an excellent job in appointing uh great sergeants to oversee this program and I haven't had the opportunity to meet you but uh you seem to be well versed and on top of things so keep up the good work. >> And I'll just say regarding Sergeant Blair, we if you recall last fall there were um there was an incident at one of our non-public schools that created a need for support by actually RPS and RPD provided support a lot of support and in the days that followed there were phone calls that created concern around the community and um Sergeant Blair answers pretty much on the first ring when we call to
066say we're hearing there's something in the neighborhood is there something we need to be concerned about. In fact, usually he's calling us to say I just want you to alert you to this. There's no danger to you but you may hear whatever it is so we we feel very very supported by Sergeant Blair and and the whole team. >> No matter how dumb our question you ask. He's a great guy. He's actually a school resource officer before he was a sergeant. >> Director Waiters All right, I got a I got a few things. So, be patient with me. So, first as a matter of context, you said you resolved over 100 conflicts, but what is that period of time? Cuz this is kind of a check-in, correct? This is not your >> This Yeah, this
067data is from the start of the school year to March 1st. >> Okay, so over 100 since the start of the school year. Um and I'm just going to speak to the chart because while I like charts sometimes, um this chart is it's it's a it's an it seems to be a nice piece of information, but it it lacks information, okay? And I'll say this because even though you have stated that there one incident could have multiple students, I think from this perspective, I would like to know how many students have been impacted, right? So, you may have one assault, but that may be 13 kids. I don't know. Just don't know enough about that, right? It would be nice to know the number of students that have been in contact with or, you know,
068been impacted by the SRO. And I think we may have discussed this at one point when we were discussing the complexity of this chart, but I just want to bring that back to the front again. Um because it it although there are a lot of numbers on there, they're not really followable, right? Because you get to a space like if you just pick assaults, right? And you go go across to that like you said the outcomes don't don't match because the numbers don't match, right? Cuz we don't know how many students were involved in an incident versus how many students may have been charged, right? So, just because there were several students involved in an incident, maybe only one went on to receive, um you know, further disciplinary action. I just I just think it's
069hard to measure the students that have been have been impacted. While I do appreciate the data. Um I also uh from a from a preventative standpoint, I I do think the demographics would also be important as well, right? Um, and I think that just helps us to see, um, where there's an impact. Um, also, uh, I did like at one point there was explanations to what the incidents were. Uh, where that wasn't included this time, and I do see that there are, um, less, uh, according to what I could remember incidents listed on on the side of this one. Um, so I'm assuming some things may have gotten messed together for for ease, cuz there were, I think a few more items um, on there. Please don't quote me, there may not have been. But
070it it's nice to see what, um, what constitutes a suspicious circumstance, you know, what why what would be under that, uh, just to help us to make sense of it, if that makes sense. I I do appreciate the data, but it's hard to to gauge the real impact of the student body without that information, if that makes sense. >> I can I still have that document. I'd be glad to resend it to the board that that outlines what each of these, >> And my last piece is this is just one month, so it'd be nice to maybe see a >> This is a >> Oh, is this the is this the whole the whole school year? >> Up until now. >> Okay. I [snorts] think on the bottom, in mine, ooh coo coo cachoo, it
071does. It says, yeah, it >> I thought I was losing it. >> Should be 26. >> says 32825 to 3125, and I was like, >> should be 26. >> Okay. All right, I thought I was losing it. Um, but yeah, so tho- those those would be things that I think would make it just easier to read and easier, um, for everyone just to be able to understand. I just I guess the my biggest takeaway is I would like to know how many students were impacted, because as you said, a student could be in multiple incidents, so even though it's a bigger number, we could have a lower uh, impact of students that are actually impacted by the SRO. So, I would just like to know just how many students are. >> The green columns are
072our data, and those would be individual students. [clears throat] And what Chris was saying is if you look across middle high school elementary ESC, then those numbers should total be accurate in the total incident. When we go to the blue column, there may be students in multiple columns. Uh one incident could be in multiple columns. So, we can we can provide clarification on that. And the other thing >> And one incident could be multiple students though, right? >> I just want to make sure I understand it. Thank you, Director Whitehorn, cuz I want to be sure every year we get better at this. And so, I appreciate you raising this. When Director Whitehorn asks a question cuz when she said it it I wondered about it, too. When I look at the green, and it
073says incidents, is that number of incidents or number of students? Incidents. So, there could be multiple students in an incident. So, thank you. We need to see if we can get number of students in the future. However, when we look at outcome, those are individual students. So, we kind of have a little bit of apples and oranges on this chart. We have incidents and individuals. So, I appreciate that point that I think in future years we can work to the point also that Director Whitehorn made. Does RPD track when you have an incident demographic factors like race or gender or something like that? Because as as you know, we get the data from you if the student has a consequence. >> Yes, we do track that in in our reports. >> Okay. >> The way
074this data is generated, we may not be able to get that for you. Uh we would have to go through each report to gather that information and maybe the folks that do all the IT work would be able to generate that data analysis part of it. Uh but yeah, but to your to your point with the numbers of students um yes, we could give you that information, but again um there could be an incident where four students are involved, only two are talked to because the other two may have been involved. They're talked to by administrator administration, but not law enforcement. So, there could be the numbers could be skewed there as well because uh I would hate to list a student that was involved in the situation as having law enforcement contact and they
075were they were not. Uh they were engaging with law enforcement at all. So, I would hate to put them in that in those numbers to say that we had four students involved in the situation. Two of them weren't weren't talked to by law enforcement, only two were. So, that I I I think that's where I'm >> So, I'm sorry, just point of clarity because I guess I was under the impression that this chart was designed for the students that did have contact with an SRO. >> Yes, they are. >> So, I mean, I guess I would be at peace with I mean, I guess my concern is not if there was 13 kids involved, my concern is how many of those 13 kids have police involved contact. So, I I mean, because I think we
076get a different report that will state how many students have had an RPS disciplinary action. I guess my concern for the SROs is I want to know exactly how many students um are having police contact. And the reason why that concerns, as I said, is the number could be very skewed. Because if there's one student that has had six incidents, you know, that's one student that's had You know, I I'd like to see the impact of how many students have had police contact with RPS through a SRO. And that and track that be able to track that through through. I don't I don't see a way at with the data we have to be able to track through a student that has had police contact. Um also uh and just to ex- for a little
077explanation of my point of this is as a district, I want to see the gaps where we can be you know, be effective, right? So, if we have a student that's had elementary as you know, police contact and now middle school contact, obviously we know that they have higher chances of police involvement as we continue on. But this data does not give us anything trackable or anything that we can implement or prevent. Um I I would hope that everyone here would want to have the least amount of police contact with students, especially our black and brown boys. So, I just I I while I love the data, I would like to see something that is a little more tangible so that there can be an action um placed behind this. Uh I I'm I'm glad
078to see that y'all are working, you know, cuz that's pretty much what this says that y'all working. But I I would like to see you know, how we can implement the data on this side to create policies or changes or programs um that help the student. And I I just don't get that from this. >> When when we when we present the discipline data in the summer, this green data will be the green columns will be included in the school year data. And I believe we report how many referrals at that time as well to our to SRO. >> Yeah, to wrap it up, we we have 64 as of today that we referred to the SRO, not necessarily on that piece of it. >> We'll be at Spring Forward Park in July. Did you
079get your question answered? >> Well, no, I was just trying to make sure I understood Dr. Whitehorn's point, which I believe is we want to know how many kids are involved in incidents. We want to know how many of the same student was involved in multiple outcomes. And we want to know what we can find out about the demographics of the students. So, I appreciate those and we will work to do that in future years. >> Uh Director McLaughlin. Um I have a follow-up Mr. Lindgren just to clarify that and maybe we just need to make a decision about how to report the data. But when you say 64, is that this school year? So, then that's not March 28th of '25 to March 1st of '26. >> The data that I The data that
080I gave that I just said that 64 is nowhere on here. That's just our level two data that's discipline data that uh administrator two kids have a fight. >> I understand what you're saying, but what I'm saying is the time frame for what you're saying is different than what this chart is. So, I think we need to align those a little bit better. Cuz you're talking about at this academic year, this report is going back to March of '25. So, we want to we want to have the same time period when we're talking about these things. >> I'm not sure I did the data that I gave you is useful in this. I'm just telling you that number. >> I appreciate that. Align the time periods, but not the data. We don't want to mush
081that data back together cuz we want that separate. Director Cook. >> Uh well, I didn't have anything um actually to add to this, but I just wanted to and I know Superintendent you've already taken down the note, but I wanted to underscore uh Director White-Horne's requests. I I am totally aligned that it would be a benefit to the board to have the type of information that she requested. So, um uh you know, I know that we'll do our best to to see what's possible and what's uh feasible in coordination with RPD and thanks for the presentation. Thanks for your work. >> Yeah. >> Chair Point, I do want to thank not just uh you know, Sergeant Blair, but we know that pulling this data is a lot of work uh within RPD, but as you
082can tell, it's of great importance to the board. So, I know I'll convey that to Chief Franklin next time I talk to him about that. Um um but uh hopefully you can tell your colleagues it's not for naught because this board is is really uh eager to see the data increasing levels of detail. >> Director White-Horne. >> Um I just had one follow-ups from some of the earlier discussions. Um Sergeant Blair, are there RPD people that are involved in your selection process? Do you like an interview process? Do you involve people from RPD or how does that work? >> for the selection process for the SROs, >> Mhm. >> uh clearly yes, a supervisor would be involved, which would >> Yeah, I'm asking if Oh, sorry, RPS. Is RPS involved? Sorry. Sorry. >> It depends
083on which uh SRO would be involved. Yes, RPS would have a couple of representatives on that uh selection panel. >> Okay. I would continue to advocate to potentially invite board members, one board member to be a part of that process as well. >> I I know um Director White-Horne mentioned um up to improving the data so that we got a sense of uh students, you know, if they were involved in this in elementary school and then involved in inter- in in an incident middle school, etc. So, across time. Um so, we're not waiting until the next time we get a report for this and and I don't know if you are able to speak to her, Superintendent, but what do we know about the students who are involved in um these kinds of incidents and
084what other kind of work um are we doing with them? I mean, they're not just a uh a number on a on a sheet. Are there other interventions that we're doing with students that might be um uh it it interacting with us SROs because there's some incidents involved? >> Jackie, can you go back to the other slide that Jackie had and kind of show some of those pieces of that? That the SRO works with them as far as their sort of pieces, the conversations they have. Not everything results in a charge. Most of them >> Like I guess the point I'm I'm trying to get clarified is these students are known to um our staff within the district that is you know, working with students to overcome their barriers to learning, to keep them in
085school, to keep them out of having future incidents. They're not We don't just refer them and then, you know, have the SROs handle it through the legal system. We also have other ways of addressing these students' needs within our >> Within the school day, within the school with trusted adults or mentors or Yeah. I I I I wouldn't want to sit here and make up >> Um I I guess I'm not prepared to outline all of those ways, but we definitely have uh teams of uh staff in schools who are are are supporting kids every day whether they've been in a an incident that resulted in a suspension, uh you know, bringing them back to school in a conference that offers support and connections with people that they can go to if they're feeling a
086need for immediate support. Yes, I think it follows that same plan. >> Any other questions or comments, board members? Thank you for coming. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next agenda item is a prep for action item, the policy committee recommendations for March 27th. This is the second of two prep for action briefings before the policies and procedures will come to the consent agenda on May 5th. Board members, are there any new questions or discussion on the policies and procedures? Hearing none, we'll place them on the consent agenda for May 5th. Our next item is an action item. Authorization of issuance and sale of $33,800,000 general obligation facilities maintenance bonds, series 2026A and general obligation refunding bonds. Uh this was a prep for action item at the April 7th meeting and there have been
087no changes to the resolution since that meeting, so I will read the resolution. Be it resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby approve the updated 10-year long-term facilities maintenance revenue plan and be it further resolved that the school board of Independent School District number 535 does hereby approve the combined resolution as prepared by the district's bond counsel Dorsey & Whitney LLP relating to the issuance of $33,800,000 general obligation facilities maintenance bonds series 2026A and general obligation refunding bonds in the approximate aggregate principal amount of $18,390,000. Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor say I. >> I. >> Opposed? The resolution has been approved. Our next agenda item is also an action item, senior leadership reductions, reorganization, and
088appointments. Uh Superintendent Pecor? >> Thank you, Chair Nathan and board members. Um I want to start out by saying that this is an extraordinarily uh difficult circumstance um and one that uh none of us, starting with me, uh sought to find ourselves in. Um it is driven first and foremost by very difficult financial realities. As board members know better than anybody, um with a brief reprieve for the year that Mayo Clinic gave us $10 million after the referendum failed and the year the referendum passed, we have been in cutting mode since I joined Rochester Public Schools. And that has involved uh reductions at every level of the organization. And as the old saying goes, we've cut through muscle and we're at bone. Um and um we now face an $8.2 million deficit for next year,
089which the board will be grappling with in June when you get um the budget. Um dozens of teachers and education support professionals have lost their jobs. Now, we hope that many of them will find new jobs because there are other jobs that are open. But if you're a third-grade teacher at one school and you lose your job and you are successful in transferring to another job, you you still lost um your job. Guided by the premise that we need to contribute to closing that budget deficit at every level, I reluctantly did make a recommendation to eliminate four positions uh in the school district senior leadership. Um the executive director of community education and partnerships, the executive director of family engagement youth empowerment, the director of positive behavioral supports, and the director of school leadership and
090improvement. Three of those individuals are in this room tonight, and one was here earlier but had to leave. And I regret the impact that it has had on all of those dedicated um individuals. Um I am bringing a revised recommendation to you from last time, and I'll talk about the two changes that uh we have added to the resolution that's before you tonight, but I think it's um briefly important to go back to um what was the premise of the recommendation that I made last time, which was that when you cut four positions like that, you simply cannot maintain the work without some diminishment of the effectiveness of the job those people were doing. They're all skilled and hard-working people who would no longer be with us if this recommendation was approved in those positions.
091But, the goal uh was to integrate the core functions of those jobs into the rest of our work as best we could, as we've done with the other cuts that we've made since I've been in Rochester Public Schools. Now, for reasons I understand and that have influenced the recommendation that I'm bringing for you tonight, the position of those four that generated the most attention was the position director executive director of family engagement and youth empowerment, which was previously the executive director of equity and engagement and then uh before that the executive director of diversity, equity, and inclusion. My assumption, like for the other three positions that I recommended eliminating, was that that work would continue and be integrated into other uh positions. And I don't think that that was um an entirely new approach. I
092really take issue with the assumption that the work we've done since I've been here in 2021 has not been about equity. Uh this board room was full for 3 years of people protesting equity with such anger that we had to have police present. And the threats that were made against board members, against me personally, were very, very real and they weren't doing it cuz they had nothing else to do on a Tuesday night. Um the work we have done in literacy has been all about equity even if it has not had the word equity before it at every moment. We have changed curriculum. We have moved school leaders. We've changed our start times. We revised school schedules. We've changed our staffing model. We've changed our budgets. All to prepare students to learn to read so
093they can read to learn. But, there were very thoughtful objections to losing a position that was explicitly focused on equity for reasons that I absolutely understood. And that have been spoken about here tonight. And so, the first change in the proposal that I'm bringing before you is to add a position, which would be a new position and quite different from ones that we've had. And it's important to remember that many positions in Rochester Public Schools have changed in the 5 years that I've been here. That position would be entitled Director of Equity and Organizational Development. Really putting this position at the heart of shifting our organization. The job description is posted in the uh board agenda item, but I want to just read the first critical responsibilities that I would propose that director-level position undertake.
094Equity review system. Designs and implements a structured process for reviewing major district systems and decisions to ensure they effectively serve students with the greatest needs. Reviews budgeting, staffing, curriculum, and school improvement processes. Identifies areas where outcomes are uneven or insufficient and provides clear actionable recommendations. Assures that identified issues are addressed through changes in RPS school board policy, system design, and practice. Periodically reports to the RPS school board on implementation of the Rochester Public Schools equity policy. The other four major um five major responsibilities of this position, which I won't go into in detail detail now, but they are also urgently needed, are organizational development and system alignment. We don't have anybody who wakes up every day thinking about are our communication flows effective? Are our teams effective? Are collaborative processes working? Continuous improvement, academic and
095student support, legal and policy alignment, and support for employees. Now, to the issue of disposition not being on the the cabinet, that is a big change that I've made since I've been here superintendent with board support at every decision. When I got here the cabinet was nine people. They met for eight hours in a day and every decision was reviewed in the collective. If this proposal is approved, the cabinet would be five people and that is because we are adopting a different approach to the leadership in the central office. This board sets policy and governance. My job is strategy. I see the cabinet as integration and coordination. I see the directors as providing the critical leadership for our work and we've created a new leadership structure called the central office leadership team, cult for short,
096that I see increasingly as the central coordinating space where we are doing that work. There are positions that are on the cult that are not on the cabinet that are wildly important to this agenda. The directors of elementary and secondary education are not on the cabinet. The director of special education is not on the cabinet and the same is true of multilingual learning, research and evidence, finance, technology, communications, student safety, student well-being, and more. Those are all critical functions and so the suggestion that this position would be at the director level is not to diminish the importance of the role. It's actually to house it in the structure that we are using at our central office level right now. Um in order to fund the addition of this new position, I have proposed that we
097not include in the budget you will receive in June a very important position that board members have interacted with that up till now has been funded by a grant, the coordinator of project management. That was in the budget that we're working on to bring you in June. To cover the cost of this new position, I've proposed um, it. The other reason, though, for these cuts was because I also think we need to add a new position that I believe is really urgently needed in our school district and probably many others, and that is executive director of learning environments. Um, in Education Week, which is kind of the periodical of record, um, last month there was there was the the results of a national survey of teachers across the country ran, and the headline was "Teachers
098say student behavior has made the job almost impossible." Almost in parentheses. And here's what the survey found. In a nationally representative survey of more than 5,800 teachers by Education Week Research, which is part of Education Week's The State of Teaching project, 35% of teachers said their students' behavior was a lot worse than the previous school year. Not than 5 years ago, not the previous school year. Reports of improvement were scant. Misbehavior was cited as one of the top contributors to low teacher morale, which dipped slightly on the teacher morale index from last year. Students have become apathetic towards school rules and feel embolden embolden to disrespect or clearly ignore their teachers, they said in open-ended responses to the survey. This is not the only data source that's found it, and Rochester Public Schools is by
099no means the only district that is experiencing that. And so, the position that I propose creating would bring together in a unified fashion all of the supports we provide for students to learn in inclusive positive learning environments. Right now, our work on student, uh, positive behavior, mental health support, social work, it falls under the chief of schools, which means that it has to fit with supervising 65 principals, managing school safety, and managing our school improvement process. I concluded over the last 6 months that that is not providing it with the care and, uh, leadership that it needs given the importance that we're seeing at the classroom level. More importantly, there are other functions that also affect the learning environment that are scattered elsewhere in the central office. And so this new position would bring together
100in a coherent department our work on positive behavior systems, mental health, homeless education, attendance and truancy coordination, American Indian education, community partnerships, community education, health services, family engagement support, youth empowerment and more. It would be the context for learning with leadership and that position is posted. The first round of interviews were last week. Everyone uh staff internally and external to RPS were certainly invited to apply and the second round of interviews is taking place this week. Obviously, as is the case with every position, you ultimately vote to appoint all individuals on the school board agenda, but as is also the case, we go forward with the interview process and present you a candidate. So, board members, the last thing I am going to say um is that this board has unanimously approved a set of
101very ambitious academic improvement targets between now and 2030. You have charged our district uh and of course I take the responsibility with uh taking us from 51.1% proficient in grades 3 and 5 in math to 57.5% in grades 3 and 5 reading, you've called for similar improvement to 51.9%. Grades 6-8 math, you've called for improvement from 32.4% to 38.4%. Similar uh in reading in the middle school, go from 60 50.9% proficient on ACT test for high school kids in reading to 60%. You've charged me with reducing chronic absenteeism, reducing suspensions, raising graduation rates and raising the enrollment of our students in post-secondary education. Concurrent with that, you have unanimously approved cutting $8.3 million from the budget for fiscal year '27, next year. You've approved cutting 13 million in fiscal year '28, 11.7 million in fiscal
102year '29, 14 million in fiscal year '30, and 15.8 million in fiscal year '31. You have unanimously approved both those improvement objectives and the budget targets. And I ask this board to be cognizant of the challenge that I have in reconciling those two competing pressures of achieving the outcomes which are most urgently focused on our students who face the greatest barriers to learning because they need to make most progress, while reconciling this really extraordinary financial challenge. Now, if the progress we made last fall unexpectedly on enrollment of people choosing Rochester public schools at much higher rates than our expert study predicted last spring, those budget targets will be less worse, as will the budget that I bring you in June is less worse than we predicted. Um but it still remains a significant challenge. And
103so, um that is the context in which I brought this proposal to the board. It's the context in which I present a revised proposal that would create uh the director of equity and organizational development, um a position that if you approve it, we would post and uh as we always do, encourage uh a committed and talented and diverse group of individuals to consider applying for it. That I'm glad to answer any questions or obviously um support the board in your deliberations. >> Board members, questions, comments? >> Well, Madam Chair, we haven't um actually presented the motion for discussion, so >> I could >> Would you prefer us to >> read I could read the resolution and we could discuss it in that context. So, be it resolved that the Rochester School Board hereby approves the
104superintendent's recommendation to implement the proposed senior leadership reductions and reorganization including one, elimination of the following positions effective July 1st, 2026, executive director of community engagement and partnerships, executive director of family engagement and youth empowerment, director of positive behavioral supports and director of school leadership and improvement. Two, creation of the following positions, executive director of learning environments, director of equity and organizational development. Three, appointment of Jackie Peterson as chief operating officer COO, and four, authorization for the superintendent or designate to implement these changes including posting, hiring, reassignment and and any necessary administrative actions to carry out this resolution. Looking for a motion to approve. >> I'll approve it. >> Second. We have a motion to approve and a second. Now, discussion. Thank you, Director Barlow. Director Whitehorn. >> So, uh like I'm sure many of
105the board members here and uh we've had we had a very detailed lengthy discussion um at our last board meeting um around uh the topic of these positions. Um I will be honest in saying not fully settled. Uh just in many conversations that I've had this past week. Uh what comes to mind is not everything that um not everything that counts can be counted, right? And not everything that peop- that can be counted counts, right? So, I while I on a very um on a high level understand exactly why some of the changes are implemented, while uh it's it from an intellectual standpoint and in reading it through makes a lot of sense. Uh I am struggling with the pieces that cannot be measured, right? And and I and I and I won't speak in
106in in parables. What the the issue for me is representation. We have an issue in RPS with representation. We we've talked about it at at the teacher level. We've talked about it and at every level of um of staff in RPS. Um and it is a real issue. Uh we've had the students from BSU come in and speak about the power of seeing representation. We've had parents. We've had letters. Um and it is a tough call. I do understand. Um but I I just I would be remiss if I did not say as I think and feel at this moment that although um these these cuts have been made, we there is a space where we have to consider what is what is actually being seen. And and I know that might not make a
107whole lot of sense, but as a as a as all of us are elected here, you know, we're charged with from our constituents to speak up for the people who don't get to sit here. And there is a concern of what it does look like, right? There is a concern of representation. There's a concern of what's left behind. There are concerns of what is not being said. Um and I I just can't be in good conscience without saying those things. Uh though I understand the point of of of the reduction and I understand the point of the budget cut. Um also understand that the community can read and understand and we are reducing positions and then creating three new positions. Wish I looked at the numbers and I understand those things. And again, this is
108this is just Stephanie's run of life, but I just want to say that that it is a concerning um matter for me [clears throat] and that is the space where I am struggling as a board member on this decision. Uh not to make things complex or to draw them out, uh but it is something that I'm going to struggle with a a positive vote on uh because I I see other avenues that it could have taken and I know that it is not uh a easy decision to make, but I also do see what it looks like to our community that we also are trying to empower um our community and our students and even though it may seem minuscule, my concern is the effect that it may have on all the good work that
109we do, right? Because this has happened time and again. It's not always the action, but sometimes it is how the action is is implied to the community. So, now we are creating an action that the community is implying as a negative. Even though we've said all these great things and we've put out all this paperwork, that is not the reaction we're getting back from the people who are being impacted. And that is a serious concern for me, you know, and the you know, if anyone here owns a business, they have always said one person with a bad customer report is going to tell hundreds of people. One person with a good report is going to sell tell two. So, that is the difference in the in in that ripple and I don't feel that we
110are in a space that we can afford to have any more bad press, even if it is even if it is well explained. And again, I know that there is it's a a bigger issue and there are other pieces, but unfortunately, I'm in a space where I am concerned about what it looks like to the community that we serve and what they are actually seeing from our board. And although we're saying it, it's it's it's not conveying to our community that that's what we're doing. Um and even though we are trying very hard, it does make a difference if your actions mimic what we're saying outwardly. And is there a better approach we can be taking as a board um so that we don't lose the very fragile trust that we have created with our
111communities. Um and it may seem small and it may seem like these it's five upset people or 10 upset people, but to me that's a problem. Um and that is concerning. So I struggle in that space and I say this with respect um to you as superintendent. This is not to say that you did not give thoughts and this is not to say that this was not a hard decision. Um but this is an honest an honest space and we're at a crucial space where we can make a decision that um could potentially strengthen the bonds with our community and let them know that we heard them and you know, set it aside or we can say, "We heard what you said, but we know better than you." And I struggle with that a little
112bit um because I don't like how that that feels. >> Superintendent >> Uh Dr. White-Warren, thank you. >> Sorry. We're going to try to keep this discussion with decorum. Thank you. >> Um I I I do want to note and I absolutely hear, understand, and agree with the thrust of your point. I'm also I talked about the importance of the director level role. The the the number and percentage of directors who identify as people of color or indigenous has significantly increased since I've been here. And so that is a a role that I think may not be as visible as certain others, but it is a critical role and we are making progress at that level. And I would submit that we would should this board approve these new positions, we would always seek to
113have the most uh talented people who can meet the needs of our kids in those jobs going forward. And so who might end up in those positions remains a question. But I appreciate your candor and um your honesty in the difficult situation. >> Dr. Barlow. >> Well, [clears throat] the question of how uh we got to where we are today, I have given much thought to this. I um and I'll reach for my notes. Um we have 2010 Department of Education OCR findings followed by the 2018 Minnesota Department of Human Rights Collaborative Agreement uh which uh then um to the credit of the school board we recognized the need uh and advocated for uh cabinet level um appointment. Uh that was a desire we had prior to your um appointment as superintendent. Uh the previous
114superintendent uh uh did not see that through. That being said though, I think it's important that uh uh the board should feel good about the fact that uh we I'm not sure had the board not uh identified this as a need as a desire perhaps automatically you may have come to this conclusion of appointing a cabinet level um uh uh person as you did. Uh That being said, pre-2021, which is when the appointment occurred, equity work existed not at the cabinet level, but was typically carried out by an equity specialist. Okay. Equity work was operational, but not strategic or executive. Okay. In 2021, the executive director of equity and engagement that position appointment occurred. In 2023, that function not only in name changed, but additional duty assignments were also provided. And um you know, the
115the district-wide equity strategy uh of community engagement and staff training and systems alignment uh which included data monitoring uh to address achievement gaps and discipline disparities were a part of that mission effort, if you will. Um before 2021, equity was programmatic. Uh it was a support function. After 2021, equity became a system level again, as evidenced by the establishment of a cabinet level position. Uh it it became a leadership priority that's reflected in the cabinet level appointment and budgetary policy and strategic direction established as well. Um now, I'll just get to the chase, if you will. Cut to the chase, rather. Um This newly created position, I would say my opinion not knowing don't have a crystal ball but without a monitoring dashboard that minimally provides metrics on discipline equity or access equity advanced placement
116as an example achievement proficiency graduation rates or dropout rates uh I don't see how we can truly assess the uh strength and or value uh potential value add of a newly created position when we know it at multiple levels the the current value that we've experienced. Um I like Director Whitehorn had she not mentioned her struggle or difficulty I would have uh said I too have uh struggled or difficulty. Uh not just for if you will representation but uh for and and to uh I think it's important as a community. Uh The strength of Will was not that he happened to be a black man but the strength of him was the fact that he was able to deliver that he provided the uh the the qualities the SKA skills knowledge and ability. So I
117much celebrate I I I celebrate that more than because I think again I don't want to just relegate him to a um He's much more than just a color. Okay? And I'm not looking for a a position that is filled a box that is checked. Uh but I do believe it is important to allow uh as you said a moment ago, to fill positions with the best qualified uh, people that are available. I believe when you underwent the search for and made the appointment of uh, Mr. Ruffing represented that. And to my knowledge, he continues to do so. And, uh, while there is a newly created position that he may, um, uh, that I think you have indicated he has accepted if I'm not speaking out of hand. >> Accepted position, yes. >> Okay. Um,
118I I do hope that we're able to ensure uh, that, uh, we're not losing, um, sometimes it's possible to to think that, well, because there's a change in in, uh, title, there's a uh, diminishment of priority. And I think at the last board meeting I had hoped that you could assure us that, uh, no, the priorities are the same, uh, though the duties perhaps have been dispersed. Uh, the priorities still are there. The system, um, uh, metrics will still be monitored. And I do know that within your presentation of the position, uh, you said that, uh, that director would be making, uh, pres- uh, uh, speaking to the board on regular basis to provide information. I don't know if that will be any different than how he That, uh, the executive director has presented in
119the past. Perhaps you can speak to that, uh, if you choose to or not. >> Superintendent? >> Uh, thank you, Chair Nathan. Um, Director Carballo, I I I would certainly envision the director, as do increasingly all of our directors, would be presenting, uh, to the board. We had, uh, Director Director Rock uh, here tonight. And so, I would envision continuing it. I, uh, in underscoring, understandably, your comments on one of the individuals and their skill and caliber and commitment who are impacted by these proposed reductions, I again want to note that there are three other people that are also equally committed and skilled who are being impacted by this recommendation. Though I certainly respect the board's prerogative to focus on a particular position. Um it's very important that board members and the individuals who are
120impacted and people who are watching recognize that this is not and never has been a reduction in a single position. It is a constellation of important positions. Um driven as I said at the outset by those financial realities and the need to create a new position at a time of very tight budgets. >> And just as a quick follow-up while it is true as you said there are three other positions >> [clears throat] >> this however is the only position the board actually um I won't say mandated but uh requested >> We mandated it. >> you as superintendent to um uh create fund. So I am you know sympathetic aware but uh I think it's important again just as a member of the board to to say that uh uh we I remember advocating for
121the creating creation of the position and not necessarily the others. >> Which of course does predate me. >> So that I was not I was not around for any of those decisions and I'm unaware of that the specifics of that history entirely. >> Just just to be very clear we asked the previous superintendent to establish the position and the position was established under the previous superintendent not superintendent Pickard. >> A cabinet level position? >> level position. >> Perfect. >> Director Cook. >> Um Well, uh yes, thank you, Chair Nathan. Um Superintendent, it is uh it is not often that I can and find something to correct you on in your in your remarks, but uh I as you were providing the context for these uh for these difficult decisions, you noted that the board had
122unanimously um approved an ambitious set of academic and outcome improvements um while simultaneously unanimously endorsing um a 5-year plan of sequential budget cuts that in aggregate are approaching $60 million with with the current forecast. It's actually incorrect uh the the second one and not that it makes the res the board's resolution any less uh um accurate. But I I have uh did not endorse that resolution and the reason was because of my ongoing concern um of the effect of using $3 million per year from the board's uh unassigned general fund balance in order to make those $13 million um reductions rather than per year for the following 4 years rather than $16 million reductions. Um I continue to be concerned about what that means for our school district in 2030. Um and I I while
123I um of course respect the board's resolution and recognize that that is the direction that uh you have been charged with. Um that only underscores um the reality that these decisions um involve trade-offs that are difficult um as you well know as I I know the board appreciates and in any organization there is a tendency for decision makers to shy away from making the most difficult decisions that impact the people closest to them and instead pushing the impacts further away. And in in our institution were we to do that and continue to lean into that instinct that means less ESPs and less teachers less people in the school buildings. I don't think any any of us are excited about either one of these choices but the 8.3 million dollars reduction for the coming budget year
124needs to be achieved. We have charged the superintendent to balance the interests as best he can. Without taking the focus away from equity. Notably the superintendent's proposal to the board did not involve a recommendation to modify the district's equity policy or to modify any other priorities that the board has endorsed. Instead the superintendent will as far as I see it continuously be charged with bringing life to the equity policy. Throughout the work of the district and I think the the director level position that you have proposed sounds to me like a promising way to do to continue that work. But I certainly recognize as you have said that these are very difficult decisions and not ones that any of us are taking lightly clearly but I I do plan to support the proposal and thank
125you for being willing to undertake these very personally challenging and difficult decisions in the interest of the the long-term sustainability of our school district and the ability to meet the academic needs of our students. >> Director McLaughlin. Um, I guess I want to start off that I had asked some questions in our Q&A document. Some gaps in my own understanding of the technical moves of things. Can we start there? Because >> Absolutely. I I figured uh If I If I may, Madam Chair. >> Please. >> I figured you would ask them if you were >> [laughter] >> you were still interested. >> know if we I don't know if we need to articulate them. I just didn't understand all the flows of changes of different roles. >> Um, my if I may, you were wondering
126about the um the director of school safety position and where that would be. >> That's the one that I talked about by Chris Lingen. That would remain with the chief of schools because it really is part of our crisis response that that the chief of schools position oversees. And so there would be no change in that uh option. I want to make sure I can remember your other questions were there. >> The other one was the new director of equity and organizational development. Who would that person report to? >> Um, we two of the positions are in the interview process right now and so I would prefer to wait and to see which persons are selected for that position such that it would be housed with the right person who is going to absolutely um
127uh nurture and support that function as I would be looking to all cabinet members to support the directors that are part of their departments. Um if that was an issue of importance to the board, we certainly could bring some clarity to that. We are um doing the final round of interviews for both of those positions [clears throat] this week. So, I would hope that we'd be able to actually, uh, make a decision and then we could decide where that director of equity and organizational development position would be best housed. >> And just so that I'm keeping track, the two that you're interviewing are chief of schools and the executive director of learning environments. >> That is true and I I maybe I briefly, Director McLaughlin, this is in my memo, but there were some questions
128that, uh, I got why was there, um, my recommendation to appoint Jackie Peterson to that role. We did just complete a national search that was unsuccessful. We had a candidate who was a senior leader from a urban school district, um, uh, outside Minnesota and she ultimately turned the position down because she decided she could not move her family to Minnesota after having gone through the whole process. Um, as board members are aware, I have been doing for more than 6 months the chief operating officer job and the superintendent job and that is pulling from, uh, quite a few other priorities. And so, my recommendation is to, uh, appoint Jackie to that role so that we can, uh, fill that gap. As you know, we have some big decisions to make on facilities and other issues.
129Uh, and so, I I generally speaking I'm pretty passionate about posting positions, giving people to apply, conducting searches. In certain instances where someone is either already doing the job and it's just a change in the funding source or something or where, uh, in this case, we just completed a full search that was not successful. That's the rationale behind my recommendation to appoint, um, Jackie Peterson. >> And a follow-up to my question that I'm looking at my poor notes and realized the other question. The other gap that I'm not quite understanding is that I know that Ms. Ike has accepted the director of community education role. That the coordinator positions that she currently supervises, will those report to her or will those report to the executive >> They'll report to, um, the well, Amy I'm very
130thrilled has accepted the director of community education position fully funded by community education education funding and those positions will continue to report to her. Um we have one of the most highly regarded community community education departments in the state, and Amy's able leadership will continue to guide that work. >> Okay. Um help me understand a little bit more about the which leader you choose for those two executive-level positions. How will that determine where this director of equity is going to follow fall? >> You can make a choice like that functionally, where does it house best in terms of a chief operating officer, uh executive director of um learning environments, or a chief academic officer. Those are the three options. Um or you can make it based on the individuals in that role, and who is
131going to feel a passionate desire to support and enhance. I know we're not going to hire anybody who is not fully supportive of equity, but um given that we are less than a week away, I believe, from being able to offer those positions to uh individuals, that was the logic of deferring the exact placement of that position. Um as I say, if that were important to the board, I'd prefer not to do it off the top of my head on the fly, but we certainly could clarify that um in the near future. >> Would it be proper to think about that as which executive which cabinet member would be the best fit? >> Absolutely. >> Okay. >> And remember, the role of the cabinet is different than I think it has been in the past
132here, at least as I envision it, or in many districts. The work is led at the director level. The cabinet is an integrative function. It is creating uh coherence and connections across. And so, finding the right place for that director of equity and organizational development to be to be housed uh would be something that also has to do with the individuals that end up in that role. Um and so, that would be the logic of deferring that. >> Okay. Um I have a few more comments, and I I I guess I guess one more follow-up. You had talked about the director positions in the district. I My notes wrote down that they're more diverse than before. That was kind of my summary of what you were talking about. Can you provide us with some more
133data at some point related to that? >> Absolutely. >> Okay, that would be helpful. Um, cuz I think that is one piece that I wasn't you know, wasn't even on my radar and that that will be helpful, I think both for the board and the community. Um, I guess so, this is very difficult and I appreciate the effort that you put in, Superintendent. Um, I I struggle as well with what to do here and I thought I knew where I was headed um, and why, but then um, some of the things that were said here, well, I shouldn't say that. Some of the things that were said at the last meeting in the public comments and some of the public comments tonight have and an email that we got have illustrated for me that I
134still have concerns. Um, and I want to give a little bit of historical context that some of the discussion in the public comments tonight was pre-equity policy, pre- my role in the school board, pre- um, director of equity, then executive director of equity, and then the um, current um, youth empowerment and family engagement. Um, I think we've done great work in terms of equity in our schools and I think it's demonstrated. Um, I think about my skip visits particularly at the middle school level that I know that there were all kinds of concerns within my school board um role that when I started the concerns about the middle schools and I know it's not just equity, but it's all kinds of things. It's the the um the student um How would I even describe it?
135The the um the student behavior that that is I understand it and a need to resolve. And I look back at the idea that you know, what we heard about and saw and you know, had res- you know, community input about about particularly the behavior at a middle school level. And now seeing how different that is. I know it's not just equity, but I think some of it is it's that student belonging that we I think we've made so much progress on. Um And I think that that might be getting lost in some of the discussion of where we're at in terms of equity, but where um And also thinking about some of the comments and this is kind of directed to something that um Director Barlow said about um someone in this equity role
136really delivering what we're asking them to do, but as I looked and I had a little bit of time to look at the equity policy tonight maybe that equity policy needs to be revised or updated because it doesn't seem to me that there's any system to report or measure that work. And I think it goes back to um and I even forget the the name of the staff person who came to speak last time, but talking about really being seen for the first time. And my concern >> is hearing statements like that. Excuse me, and um the email that we got today about you know, have there been um an equity audit, you know, that kind of thing, like really deeply looking at the work that we're doing and evaluating it and measuring it and
137reporting back outcomes to look at the effectiveness of that work. I worry that that part has been missing here. And that that is a detriment now in what you have to work with in order to make the recommendations that you're making. Um And I I don't really want to, you know, name names here, but you know, really thinking about very well-informed people who have spoken to us in email and in person. Um leads me to believe that there is more work that we need to do. And I'm not [snorts] sure that I I appreciate the extra work and the development this of this other role, but I'm still not sure that it is um evolved enough to address things like the lack of institutional protection. That it's not studying the people that are coming here
138and then leaving. Um that I I worry about that. That, you know, we have a drive to improve equity and I think we're doing really great work, but I just don't think that we're there yet. And I worry that the systems work, both the policy that we have and the implementation implementation of that policy and the reporting back to our community um still has some gaps. And I'm not 100% confident that the plan that's being presented here is sufficient to solve the concerns that I have. So, again, it's going to be hard. >> Director Mervin. This is Obviously, this is really tough. It's It's emotional. It's complicated. Um and I wish we had the money so that we didn't have to make these changes. But the reality is we're cutting staff, we're cutting um on
139every level. Cuts have to be made. We have four leaders of this district who are deeply respected, who are deeply loved, and they have all been displaced. I hope desperately that all four of them will stay in RPS. We need them. The real conflict I have right now is that this board has been asked to eliminate positions, not people, positions. And so that requires, I think, our looking at the positions that exist, not the people we love and respect who are in them right now, and make decisions based on that. When the um cabinet position of I can't remember if we call it DEI, whatever, um under the previous superintendent was created, it was a really good idea. The job description at the time was pretty vague. The the support was minimal. Um Honestly, I
140think that the new job description for a director of equity and organizational development makes more sense because that puts that person responsible for um engaging with uh the superintendent, the executive director of learning environments, academic um chief academic officer uh chief of schools pulling everything together with the focus on more opportunities and more academic success for kids in all of those areas. That it's not okay for you know, for the academics to get left behind or for the uh the um learning environments have to be changed so that they're better for all the kids. Um I I'm excited about that description. That said, I also get how critically important representation is. But that puts the person rather than the position in front of us. And I I think as a board, we have to look
141at the positions, at the budget, and um and at how we can can how we can do the very best for the kids in this district. We're not Obviously, we're not there yet. I hope I won't live long enough, I don't I'm afraid, to see that every child is treated with the respect and given the opportunities that they all deserve. But I think that the description that we have now um really puts every department I notice that you'd better have equity at the basis of everything you're doing. That you better make sure that children who are challenged are are supported better and are given more um opportunities and are embraced by this district. Comes down to I think we have to vote on the positions, not the people. And that's tough. >> Director Workman. >>
142I guess um I I really appreciate what you said, Director Marvin, and I concur. I think it's also important to remember not simply the decisions that we are making about these specific positions, but how the rest of our staff are being impacted by our cuts. We're going to be losing teachers. We're going to be losing um ESPs. We're going to We're going to be losing people who are so important to the well-being of our students that we're going to have to figure out how to keep doing what we're doing even better with fewer fewer of those positions. And I really appreciate um the effort that the superintendent has made um reducing cabinet positions and making cuts. I mean, I remember when I was a teacher and how we were always lamenting about why aren't there
143ever any changes at central administration? Why is it always the teachers who are being cut? And what I really appreciated about that six and a half page memo that you sent to us was that it's there's so much detail explaining the rationale um for why for for how things are going to be within the context of our $8.3 million cut that we're going to have to be making this year. That to lose sight of everything else in the district, I think is problematic. That we can't simply say, "Well, we're talking about these four positions which are in front of us." Um I think that I have never in all my years of being in this school district both as a teacher and a school board director that I have ever seen we have ever had
144a superintendent who has been this strategic, this thoughtful, and has put so much work into figuring out how to do the best with what we have or are not going to have. Um that it's really quite remarkable. And I think that going forward, we have to keep in mind um that the public needs to be educated, and I find my role as a school board member sometimes to be very difficult because we have emails, we have um people speaking to us at the public comment time who aren't sufficiently versed in how the district operates, the purpose of what we do here, our governance role, and I don't know how to improve on that, so that when people come and email us, that they really have a great understanding of all of the pieces that go
145into the decisions that we have to make. So, I would encourage people in the public to review the documents that are attached to all the agenda items in Simbli, because there's a lot there to try to understand and yeah, to try to try to understand how why we are doing some of the things that we're doing, while realizing at the same time that people have lives and they can't be expected to um spend all of their free time digging through school board agenda items at home >> [clears throat] >> and decisions we have to make. That's what we're here for. Um This is always an evolving process of what we're moving forward with equity. Our equity work will never end. >> [snorts] >> It always has to keep getting better. And when I look back
146to where we were back in 2019-2020, to where we are now, we have made incredible progress. But, I think everybody here understands that this is not the ending point. It's simply a continuation. It's an evolution of how do we move forward? We get input from the public, situations change, politics change. There are so many things that impact us in our decision-making that we never say we're done. The work is never done. Ever. Um it just has to keep getting better. So, I want to thank you for your your leadership, your strategic thinking, um the great thoughtfulness and care that you've put into explaining how difficult these decisions are for you and for all of us at this table who have to make a decision on how we're going to move forward. And I hope the
147public really understands that it is it's a struggle. It's a struggle to say we're going to do without this when we really need this. And but in order to do this, there have to be some changes made. And I really appreciate the the integration of the equity work that's been happening since your tenure. That it's not in silos. At least not as much as it was. And we're constantly working to um break down the silent silos. And I think that this is just um this is just a really good start. This is just a really, really good start. So, um you know, I I support what you're doing and I'm going to uh vote in the affirmative on this while recognizing it's it's not an end. And I I know you understand that. >> I
148think everybody else has had one chance, so I'm going to take mine before I go back to you for seconds. Um I've been a part of this conversation before I was on the board. I was on the community focus team, on REET. Did a lot of research with a lot of great community members as to how we could make this work work better in the district. And that was prior to to to 20 18, 2019. And when I sat on this board and brought forwarded the idea to have a cabinet-level equity position and got agreement from the board to do that with the superintendent. That was an important action. And then subsequently, the work that we did as a board to write an equity policy with the input and work and honest, deep conversations from
149many people in this room, in this community who shared with us what was happening with historically underserved communities and what the district needed to do to change them. And that was the intent of the work we did to create the equity position and to write the equity policy. But it wasn't until we had a superintendent who had a strategic, district-wide perspective on how to change things that I felt we were really starting to make progress on our equity work. And so before I thought about what to think about this recommendation and what to say tonight, I I needed to go back and make sure that I had my facts straight. So first of all, even though um we have not had uh the perception of an explicit uh equity leader the equity policy delegates that
150responsibility to the superintendent to be responsible for implementing the equity policy. And in all the initiatives and programs of the strategic plan we've implemented over the past 3 years um a focus on equity has been explicitly present either explicitly in word or indeed. And when I reviewed the goals and the results of the strategic plan initiatives, including the ones that we received in December as a board there There a component of every report that we received that said, "What is the equity impact of this initiative?" So, explicitly, we've identified the work we've been doing over the through last 3 years, what the equity impact of each initiative was. And I think we've demonstrated the commitment to our historically marginalized groups that is the focus of the equity policy. And I think as from what we've
151heard of the strategic plan work going forward, that we're going to remain committed to those priorities. And we did so even at a time when these types of initiatives and the words that we used to describe them has been under attack. From people in our community, from people across the country, but we kept doing the work. And I think in looking at the 15 building blocks and in looking at the equity policy and for myself assigning each of the requirements in the equity policy to um an initiative or a piece of the strategic plan and then connecting it to what department it was responsible for, it really became clear to me that over the past 3 years equity has become everyone's responsibility. There's not a department that isn't listed, there's not an initiative that hasn't
152been connected. And uh Director Barlow, I I take your point about uh data dashboard and I think we do have to make it far clearer to the community where the equity work is and what the outcomes are. But in every presentation we've had about student data, whether it's our proficiency rates, our graduation rates, our consistent attendance, our discipline rates, all of the components in our outcome our improvement outcomes that we approved. In every report we've gotten over the past 3 years, it's been disaggregated into student groups. And in almost every student group, especially for students of color, we have seen improvement over the past over the last 3 years. Improvement in graduation rates, improvement in MCA scores, improvement in consistent attendance. Not improvement in out-of-school suspensions, but they've been flat, stable. So, the work isn't
153done. I agree with everyone here who has said the work is not done. And we're not satisfied with those results. But, that's why this recommendation for the director of equity and organizational development is so important. It brings under one person coordinating across the district the coordination and implementation of the equity policy. And I can't remember who said it, but we're not recommending any changes in the equity policy. We're not backing down from the equity policy. The fact that we still have an equity policy, even at a time where equity has been so criticized, I think is a credit to this board and to the community. I'm 100% committed to what is in this equity policy. And I think if you really did take a side-by-side look at what the equity policy says we have to
154do and what we've done over the past 3 years of the strategic plan, you you will see that we continue to be committed to it. I think we will have a leader in the in the equity and organizational development work who will help to push our outcomes further, who will help to keep us um accountable. Accountability, I think, is an important word. Um I think there's better ways to explain our accountability and the work that we're doing. Um I also think that the the bigger context of the other pieces of this recommendation regarding the executive director of learning environments is also important to me. And I think it's important to our historically marginalized communities. That belonging um we know what our students need. They need supportive and safe places to learn and to belong with
155clear expectations for behavior and engagement. And I look at all the responsibilities that are in that uh department. I believe they've been splintered. I believe they've been siloed. And I think uh as the superintendent says, it brings them all together under a leader who can drive that work for all students. And in combination with the thought process and the coordination um the piece of the um equity and organizational development job uh position the very first piece is to do an analysis of our equity work in the district. It doesn't have that explicit term, but if you read it, that's this the first the first task of that position. So, we'll know where we're at even better than we are before just by establishing that position. And I know that there has been a change in
156perhaps what the community understands in terms of how the central office operates in terms of responsibilities of cabinet members and directors. But, we've heard from those directors here at this meeting in these multiple presentations we've had on our work. And I think we've seen that we that that requires the highest quality leader that we can have. So, being a director is not a diminishment of the expectation or the qualifications or the responsibilities that would be associated with that job. And to the um the other big elephant in the room, which is money. This plan would save $442,000. We have to cut 8.3 million, and the superintendent asked us for direction that we approved that we would be taking 60% of that 400 60% of the 8.3 million from central office and 40% from school sites.
157Taking 40% of 8.3 million out of school budgets is more than I want to take. And I don't want to have to take another dollar out of the school budgets. So, if it means that we can have a reorganization that saves us money at the central office, and it is rare in all the years that I've either been involved in budget cuts or watched budget cuts, where even though we're required to reduce the positions of people who have dedicated themselves to this district, we also have the opportunity to improve how we serve our students and how we provide the resources to our schools and our staff to have better student outcomes. It's not just a cut without a plan. I believe it's a cut with a better plan. And that's why I'll be I'll be
158supporting it tonight. Director White, where do you head next? >> Okay, so I guess here's just my quick double back. Um I after listening to all the conversation, uh obviously conversations that happened before me, I guess that it did it didn't alleviate my concerns. And uh to Director Marvin, even considering uh just thinking of just the position itself, right? So, there was a a point where the board had fought for this position to be a cabinet-level position. I would assume there was discussion around it being a lower level position and other things, but from the discussion it was concluded that this role was most effective at a cabinet level, which is why I assume that the board fought for that for this position to be at a cabinet level for visibility and for accountability. That
159there was I would assume a discussion that an accountability factor was just not enough that there also needed to be um a level of of visibility, right? Um so, and and I guess on my last part of the double back and and and reconnecting uh to people, [clears throat] um I just again as I'm just going to reiterate what I said and and and I and maybe it resonates and maybe it doesn't, but I just think we have to we do have to look at this as a whole situation. I do understand that we have to make a cut. I'm not saying we don't make any cuts. I'm I understand that we have to make a cut. Um I understand that that these are not going to be easy decisions and I respect every person
160that is mentioned in this. Um I believe that the focus around the position of the family and youth engagement is one because of how the position came to be. Um because it was a position that was fought for um and without there being just cause for its removal, so stating that it has met its its goals, right? Uh to to again back to Director Marvin saying she may not live to see those goals accomplished. Is it a matter of adding, as you said, things evolved when this position was originally written, maybe there there was not as much foresight. Is it a matter of saying that now there are other things that this role needs to encompass. Um and also, you know, and I I I have to say this piece and I know there's supposed
161to be this disconnect, but also keep in mind that um this is a black male educator. And I I don't think that people understand there are less than 50 in the entire state of Minnesota. There is a shortage. Google it. There is a shortage of of black male educators as well. I I feel that this is just a pivotal place for us. I do feel that the representation piece is a big piece and I and I I said at the beginning it is a struggle because I do understand that there's a role and there's a person. Um but unfortunately there is a person attached to the role as well. Um and it does make it a little bit more complex. And again we are in a space where we want to promote equity and we
162want to promote that we are forward thinking and and I have no other way to say this but I understand that we we need to make cabinet smaller. I just the way something looks matters too, right? The way the way it appears also matters. I know we don't like to say that but it this is the truth of the matter, right? Representation is powerful. Our students say this all the time. And I just think we can't sit at a board and just say, "Well, it's important but we got to do this." Um I don't know. I I'll leave it alone at this point but I just I just want it to be a a full thought and I guess I'm more concerned now that the board is more comfortable in eliminating a position that they
163fought to get. Now that makes me even more uncomfortable because if you told me you fought to get it and we had a superintendent that didn't go with it and then we found someone to accept it and then well and I mean and I'm not I know I may be dumbing it down but I'm just saying that it there are there there was a reason for the creation of the role and there was some fight for the role and I don't know what all that encompass but it wasn't just something that we just sat on the table. As you said there was there was some tension around the creation. So I would just Those are my concerns. >> I just want to make it clear again. The position was created under previous superintendent >> Right.
164>> as a cabinet position because that was the structure of how that superintendent operated his administration. That was the role that was a level at which the board chose to recommend because that's how the superintendent structured their work. So, it wasn't the superintendent who approved the position. It was under the previous superintendent. He inherited it. And in the 5 years since he's been here, the superintendent has restructured how the work of the district is done. That's how I see the evolution of the the fighting for this position. we're not fighting for equity just by keeping one position. We're fighting for equity in everything we do in every position that we have. And I think a lot has changed in the past 5 years. And our commitment to equity hasn't. But how we get there may
165need to evolve based on what our students need, our financial situation, and the strategic direction of the district. >> And sure, Nathan. I just I would just push back just a little bit because while we've had some growth in our disparities, I don't think that there's been enough to say that we've made it You know, I think that mindsets are changing, but I think if we take Stephanie's opinion out of it and look at raw data, the raw data has not produced the change that, you know, we're we're implying. I will say that yes, we are being more forward-thinking with equity, and we are more mindful of implementing equity into what we are doing. But the raw data and the numbers that we've even had in this last year, we we're still not seeing the
166the the the shift, right? We're not seeing the the the the the gaps close up like we would like. And I know this is a long process. It's not an instant process, which again gives me more pause. Because you know, a mindset can change, but the the data just hasn't supported it. >> And I would say I agree with you 100% that we are not where we need to be with the numbers. But, if we measure what the board directs the superintendent to do, um on outcomes, because that's what we've chosen as a board to measure the superintendent's performance and the performance of the district, we have to tie improvements that we have seen over the past 3 years with the initiatives we've implemented over the past 3 years. That's why That's why I'm trying
167to keep this conversation to the past 3 years and not before that. And so, for me, when I'm looking at what we've said we were going to do, that we did, and what the outcomes are, to me, we're moving in the right direction under the direction of the recommendations of the superintendent. If the Sure, go ahead. >> I This is just a point that's important to me personally. You can passionately disagree with my anyone, including this position in the cuts. I can understand that. I do want to be very clear. It is inaccurate to suggest that I've singled out this position. And there's a difference in that. When I got to Rochester Public Schools, these were the positions on the cabinet. Executive Director of Elementary and Secondary Education doesn't exist. Executive Director of Curriculum and
168Instruction doesn't exist. Executive Director of Student Services doesn't exist. Executive Director of Community Education exists with modification. Executive Director of Finance dramatically changed to Chief Operating Officer. Executive Director of Human Resources does exist. Executive Director of Communications, Marketing, and Technology does not exist. Executive Executive Director of Operations does not exist. Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, created shortly before I got here, restructured a number of times. It It It is just important to me that there not be a presumption that I have singled out this function. I have included it in a set of cuts that are very difficult. The end result still certainly could lead you as a board member to disagree with it, but it's very important to me that it not be suggested that there was a intentional desire to single
169out that function in particular. >> Dr. McGlothlin, I'm sorry. Dr. Wait, were you done? >> Yes. Yes. >> Go ahead and finish. >> Um I just want to be brief, but a few things I wanted to add to the conversation. I um I think the hard part for me is that we're doing both the restructure and a budget reduction at the same time in the same proposal. That I think that makes it a lot more difficult to analyze and make decisions about. Um Chair Nathan, I appreciate you reminding us of an earlier vote that we took because you're on top of things like that and I'm not as much about the 60% cut at the central and 40% at the school. Although central I guess means cabinet, but it could mean other things in this
170building. Um Superintendent, I it I wrote down the the what you just said about restructuring a number of times, but that was meaningful to me because that is part of my concern. And I think about it from a personal perspective that I have worked in a department in a large organization where things like that happened on the regular. And depending on who you were in the organization, it always felt like sand was shifting under you as to what where you were and what you were doing and what your responsibilities were and how you were being evaluated. Um and I worry that that's that's one of my concerns about this role when it has been restructured a number of times is that um you know, I would expect the expectations either spoken or unspoken um may
171have changed as well without a lot of clarity and without that I recall a whole lot of board discussion other than the title. And I think in you know, in hindsight, I think there was trust that it would go well. And I I have some concerns that that could be one of the reasons that we're not as far along on the path as we had hoped to be. Um I wanted to refer to something that Director Marvin had on her on her her in front of her here. I also looked down to notice and this is one of the things I really wanted to say is that I'm concerned that moving the role from executive director to director of both equity and organizational development. I think this demonstrates that I'm talking about it from a
172role that's being proposed here. I'm worried that those two things at the director level are too big for one person. The the description is pretty broad and pretty big. And I worry um that that person again with that equity title involved in it and attached to it may have some of the same concerns about shifting expectations and I think I speak to this mainly because recognizing this is likely going to pass in some form. I'm hopeful that what I'm saying here will be incorporated into the thinking about the direction of these roles moving forward. >> Director Barbour. >> Uh just one final comment. Uh so and correct me if I'm wrong superintendent. Um the newly created position uh is funded for 1 year uh through a grant, correct? >> No. The the direct the director
173of equity and organizational development. No, that would be funded from the general fund in an ongoing basis. >> Okay, so >> There was a a position that uh there's a grant in two aspects of this. There's a position of coordinated project management that has been funded by grant which I very much wanted and it was until last week in the budget for next year from the general fund. I'm recommending Well, you haven't even voted on that one. I'm pulling that one back to fund it. Um I'm thrilled that uh Will Ruffin has accepted for an initial period of a year a position working as a special advisor to superintendent for student engagement. Um really working across that critical question of kids connection to learning and it's a role that we have just begun to conceptualize.
174It's tied to our state-funded attendance grant. Um and it I again, it's it's as it has been throughout it's awkward to be talking about a valued colleague's professional future, but it's a position that has a job description that I have mapped out with specificity and uh that Will has verbally accepted and of course uh there's always a question of a verbal acceptance and moving forward. I'm excited about working together in that possibility. I could not talk speak more highly of the value that I place on Will's uh leadership commitment to kids um, uh, personal experience uh as we've had described tonight. Um, I will be honest, Director Barlow, I I certainly without, uh, talking to Will, I would not have mentioned that, um, position and I don't want to suggest that that makes this any
175easier. I am thrilled that it would mean we could invent a new role. Uh, it is intentionally connected to me as superintendent because I value it so much. Um, this is going to seem, Director Barlow, like kind of a crazy analogy, but some of you know that I spent a number of years in the world of foreign policy. And in the State Department, there is frequently, when you have a critical issue, the creation of what's called a roving ambassador. Somebody who works across an issue that is of paramount importance and they actually don't have management responsibilities, but they're in many of these things. And so, that is the position that I proposed that, uh, Will has verbally accepted and, um, that I certainly would be enthused about, um, bringing to life and co-creating. I The
176initial funding for a year from a grant, um, is for all the financial reasons. If, as I hope and believe, the position is successful, uh, as we have done in other cases, we would, and if Will would agree with that, we'd be working to sustain it from continuing funding sources. >> And that, again, just for my own clarity, is separate from the Director of Equity and, okay. >> Yes, and I I'm just going to be, again, this is this was an issue last, uh, week. I stumbled because we're talking about people's professional futures again, not just including, uh, Will. Uh, that certainly could be a position that any member of the staff could choose to apply for. It is a different position than the one that exists, and so I believe it is appropriate to
177post it. But anyone could apply for that position. And I certainly, and I'm sure our interview process would very carefully consider any talented person. We have people literally in this room whose positions were cut who have applied for other positions, not just right now, but in the past. Um because I do believe when you create an authentically new position, which I think actually Director McLaughlin just captured quite well, although you were saying you're concerned about it, it is a different job. It really is a different job. Um and so that is why I believe when you create a fundamentally different job, you do open it for applicants, but it certainly would be open to both external and internal people. >> Thank you. >> And Madam Chair, may I before we before the question is called,
178I'd like to request a roll call vote. >> Sure. Any other questions? Um Director Workman. >> I I would just like to to um say one thing. Back in 2012, um Director Barlow, who was not on the school board at that time, and I were both on a strategic planning committee. Um and I remember one of the things that the facilitator said as we went around the room of 29 or 30 people, "Can you support this? Yes or no?" And if your answer was no, you had to provide a yes for how you would change it or make it different. So I think it's always very very easy for us to sit up here and say no and throw it back onto the superintendent to come up with something new, which is I guess his
179job. Um but I think we need to really consider that that it's not just a question of of saying no, but then what? >> And before we move to vote, I just wanted give the superintendent an opportunity to very clearly answer a question I have about what happens to the work of the um positions that were being proposed to be eliminated. So for example under the executive director of community education and partnerships I think director McLaughlin's questions made it clear that they are moving under the executive director of learning environments and a portion of it is going to the office of operations. The communication piece. >> Your communications, yes. >> And the work of the executive director of family engagement and youth empowerment, that staff remains from family engagement, family supports, American Indian education and
180youth empowerment. All of those staff are retained but those staff would under this proposal be supervised by the executive director of learning environments. And then finally the work of positive behavioral supports, attendance and student well-being would move from the chief of schools to the executive director of learning environments. And there but some of those involved a reduction in positions. >> Yes, there are two important director level reductions that we will miss but that I believe the work can still move forward though it's important not to pretend that there won't be a diminishment in those areas. >> Any other questions or comments board members before we ask for a vote? Hearing none, >> [clears throat] >> Ms. Kramer will you please call the roll? >> No. Aye. No. Aye. a vote of 5 to 2 the
181resolution passes. Our next agenda item are other business are updated ABCD. Um, we have meeting on May 5th. Waiting for the slide. Um, focus topic our five essential survey data to prep for action item on the RPS 2030 strategic plan high level priorities and the 2027-2028 school calendar proposal. Action item is the authorization of the issuance and sale of the general obligation facilities maintenance bonds series 2026A pre-sale report. Then on May 19th we will have a monitoring report on the Dakota middle school block scheduling and action on the strategic plan high level priorities and the 2027-2028 school calendar proposal. Are there any other agenda items board members like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda? Hearing none, we have uh, regular meeting dates on May 5th, May 19th, June 2nd, and June 16th.
182All of those will start at 5:30 p.m. And hearing no other business, this meeting is adjourned at 8:33 p.m.