001with the speaker if requested and appropriate. Persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 pm on the Monday before the school board meeting. The form is available on the RPS website and on our assembly main page. By participating in the public comment period, each speaker agrees to abide by the public comment policy 206 and procedure 206A. Speakers, when your name is called, please come to this table. If you have written materials for the board, provide them to our assistant school board clerk and she will distribute them to board members. Choose a microphone to speak into and be seated. Please direct your remarks to the school board. You will have three minutes to speak and the timer is displayed in front of me. Please begin your remarks
002by stating your name. Our speaker tonight is Kiana Perman. >> Hi, I'm Kiana. Today I'm here to Next item is information and outreach board member updates. Does any board member have updates from their committee since the last meeting or any other information to share? Who's going to talk about our skip visit? >> Whoa. >> Director Barlo. >> Uh, this past week I was um among three board members who were able to participate in the skip uh visit at CEK. And um I left with a couple of takeaways. Um, one of them, um, struck me as the importance of what I'm terming, uh, community investment opportunities. Um, I'm making direct reference to the hospitality pathway that we had opportunity to uh to visit uh, specifically the culinary management uh, program there. And there was a um
003guest educator who was also a business owner uh who was taking the time to provide instruction for uh our students who have interest in that area. uh and I was just impressed with uh his command not only of subject matter but uh willingness to share that uh with uh our students and it led me to further explore the CEK uh website and I just wanted to draw attention to the following opportunity uh items that are found on the CEKC website uh and that is everyone has the opportunity to potentially serve as a guest educator uh as I reflect on community investments or to host a tour at your place of business uh or to become a mentor or ultimately to make a donation. Uh I felt so strongly in what I saw, the evidence of
004the connections which were being made uh between our community and our students and and again it just reminded me of the uh value that RPS uh has and the unique opportunities it uh provides that other districts are not able to. and and and so I just encourage um uh community response and community investment. >> Dr. Marvin, >> and to to add what um Mr. Barlo was talking about so much of what they're doing at CEKC really provides an amazing uh opportunity for kids to to look at to explore what they might be interested in doing for a career after school. Sometimes they find out I thought I would really love that and I don't so much. But even those kids who get into a course and decide this is not what I want to do.
005And a as we were looking uh through the professional uh kitchen they have there, the person in charge of that program was talking about, they learn about budgeting, about finance, about uh uh waste, um about uh sanitation, about cooperation with each other other about uh interacting with the public, you know, all parts of owning or working in a restaurant. and what great life skills these kids are getting. Even if down the road they change their mind and want to do something else. I I I continue to be so impressed with the number of opportunities that this school district provides for our kids to get a taste of what life after school might be like and to be able to have that kind of experience while they're still in school. Um I think that we are
006continuing to do um a really good job of preparing them for what whatever comes next and set them up to be successful. >> And one of these the reasons for our skip visits is to see how you know each program or each school is implementing their continuous improvement plan. And what was impressive to me is even though this is an off-site program, it is very integrated with the students experience from their high school. It's not a um distinct. It is linked to they're linking our uh literacy goals um in the u coursework that they do in CEK, whatever their career pathway is. um they're really focused on the post-secondary pathway goals and how they can contribute to that not just for the pathway that they've chosen but to help them to explore how this might
007open the doors for other ideas or you whether it is what they want to do or not what they want to do. Um and I I agree that the opportunities to connect with the community and our experts in the community who are working in these fields um is being taken advantage of and is really what's unique I think for this program. So thank you to our uh cabinet for for set for setting up these visits to uh Bren McCraic who was a wonderful tour guide and we're looking forward to our visits this year. Anything else board members from any other committees or activities? All right, hearing none, we'll move on to our consent agenda. Items 5.1 through 5.8. Are there any items that a board member would like to remove for separate consideration? >> Move
008approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? The consent agenda has been approved. Our next item is our focus topic MCA data review and initiative update. This is an information item. Superintendent Pel. >> Um, thank you, Madam Chair. Um, I am going to ask a group of colleagues to come up and uh join us and make sure we have enough chairs if we need to do an intervention. Thank you, our director of elementary education and secondary education. um coming on up. I want to give those folks a moment to get set and then I'd like to kind of frame some of our uh discussion a bit. there are. So, I'm going to um turn it back to you and actually rather than
009um uh just before we begin ask each of you to introduce uh yourselves, but I want to frame the discussion a bit here tonight. As board members are aware, every time we get new data um from any source of the 11 indicators that you have endorsed as our performance measures for Rochester public schools, we endeavor to not only summarize what that data said, but talk about what we are doing to improve our outcomes on that measure. And so we have a really formidable group here that's going to share some of that information. Um this is not intended in this uh to be directed at this august group of folks because I am the number one uh person who needs to remember this. Uh in working with our chair, we are going to try and tighten
010up the degree to which we all ask the chair to recognize any one of us to respond as opposed to getting excited and jumping in which again I'm the worst uh madam chair practitioner of. So once we do get to discussion uh as board members ask questions the chair will uh recognize us myself included to respond just so that we can continue to have that and once again that's not specific to this group. Uh we've been the chair and vice chair and I reflecting on some of our meeting protocols. I wanted to say it before anybody started talking so it didn't sound like I was reproaching anybody um to do that. Um before we talk about our MCA results in uh reading and mathematics, uh one thing I want to say is the right way
011to describe this year's results is flat. Um they were up slightly in math, down slightly in reading, but when we look at the statistical significance of those results, flat is the right word. Flat is not good enough. I'm not satisfied with flat. Um but flat is not a decline either. It's important to have that. But the point that I wanted to make before I turn it over to those folks is that the building blocks of schoolwide and systemwide gains lie beneath the data that we're about to hear about right now. They lie at the classroom and the grade level. And when you want to look at schools and systems that truly improve student outcomes, whether it's graduation rates or test scores or going on to post-secary education or attendance or reducing suspensions, what we want
012is a long-term uh trend, which is three years or more. And so this is the journey that we're on in Rochester public schools. And as it happens in close session, the school board will be conducting the second half of my evaluation as superintendent tonight um which looks at one measure of uh student outcomes in the work that we do. And this year we chose to focus on literacy. And I'm sharing this and the board uh and I will be talking about it uh in closed session because I think it's relevant to keep in mind as we're uh hearing about the work that is um happening across our system. But the goal for me was at least one-third of schools in RPS make statistically significant gains in the number of students who score proficient in reading
013in at least one grade level on the 2025 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments when compared to scores achieved on the 2024 Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments. So unlike the slight increase in our math uh district-wide score and the slight decrease in our reading score, um the bar was statistical significance, meaning it improved enough that we know it was very unlikely to be due to chance and that something actually substantively changed in the reading or math skills of those kids. So this was a pretty high bar. Um the goal uh for me was to achieve that in onethird of our schools. uh we had to exempt out the schools that didn't have enough students take the MCAs to actually have data and there were four of those and so we had 24 um schools and that were in the total
014and um I'm going to announce right here that I or we just missed it. Um we had statistically significant gains in grade levels in seven schools whereas the goal was eight. Um but to give a shout out uh including to fifth grade at Elton Hills Elementary, statistically significant significant improvement um uh in fifth grade and these are all in literacy reading. Uh fifth grade at Gibbs Elementary, fourth grade at Hoover Elementary, fifth grade at Riverside Elementary, third grade at Washington Elementary, eighth grade at Kellogg Middle School, and eighth grade at Willow Creek uh Middle School. The reason board members I highlight that is that as we look at these schoolwide averages uh we need to keep in mind that even though a school or our system as a whole may not be getting the outcomes
015we want uh we need to be attentive uh to more granular levels um that are looking and so in that instance I wanted to share something that'll be part of um my evaluation where we got we got to seven but fell one just one short of uh that goal. So with that, if I could just ask all of you to briefly introduce yourselves and then we will turn into uh looking at our results on the Minnesota comprehensive assessments this year. >> Thank you Dr. I'm Perkins. I'm the chief academic officer. Heather Clever, director of elementary education. Alison Crinky, elementary district literacy. >> Heather Wilman, director of secondary education. >> Peter Ruck, I do research and evidence. >> Steven Wman, principal health. >> And I am actually going to hand it off to my colleague Peter
016down there to kick us off. >> All right, good evening. Uh, it's great introduction. I also should point out the post article today on MCAs that I thought was uh shares a lot of the same information that I'll I'll summarize this evening. Um, so the overall uh results in the slide deck are provided not because I'm going to read through every single number, but so that it's referenceable and you can look at it. uh and so forth. So some of the slides I will not spend very much time on uh as I go through on the Northstar uh achievement system. This is our trend since 2022. Uh this was the same uh information that you have seen in other formats in the past. Uh the Northstar system is different from just adding up how many
017people took the test and how many passed uh in that it disqualifies and counts as does not meet students who opt out of the test, refuse the test, uh students that are absent and don't do makeups. Um and so those all count against those percentages in the North Star system. The uh slide on the screen right now talks about the Northstar reading particiency rates by various subgroup populations within the district. The demographic category or status is listed uh as well as the 22 24 and 25 proficiency rates on reading. you have a one-year uh change just to give you the 24 to 25 and then you also have the three uh testing year uh change over the course of time. Keep in mind that we did not do the MCAs in spring of 2023 due
018to our uh cyber attack that we suffered that spring. Also notice that two statuses, two demographic categories say small number tested not reported in general and every agency has a different standard. uh MDE will not report cells that have fewer than 20 kids in them. And we had students in both categories take the test, but the total number of students was fewer than 20. So it does not. Same thing with math. The exact same setup, three columns of data across the one-year change and the threeear trend. [Music] This is by school across the district. These are elementary schools uh listed by reading over time. Again, you'll have the three columns for the rates over the three years, the one column for a one-year change, and the one column for a threeyear trend. Math, same setup
019at our elementary schools. middle school outcomes for reading and math. Dr. Pel mentioned the successes of some of our eighth graders this year. Note that the middle school ALC has too few students to report. Uh they tested fewer than 20 students at the high school. Uh again with ALC, we did not test enough students to report it, but the other high schools are there. I would also point out that Minskync online those data are not reflective of the abilities of those students and I can confidently say that Minsk has an astronomical number of optouts and students that do not test because of how far away some of those students live and there is no ability to remote test on the MCA from home. You have to come to a school facility to do it. So
020they tend to have much higher opt out or refusal rates and it does affect in terms of trends for optouts and whether there are demographic groups or ages there that is higher. Um it does increase the older that students get but other than that there is no particular pattern uh that's discernible in terms of optouts. Certain schools have higher optout rates than others. There's can be a lot of reasons for that. Uh but in general uh it's fairly consistent at this point across the district and you get more of them the older that you get. And with that I will turn it over to all together. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So now we're we're moving from the data to the improvement through our practices um to help our students become proficient readers on that
021MCA. And so, as we've shared in previous communications and presentations, evidence is our guide to teaching and learning. And tonight, we're using a summary of recommendations that were in your supplemental materials from the Education Endowment Foundation. And that will be our lens to analyze the curriculum and practices in our RPS classrooms in both elementary and secondary schools. As you can see through the numbers on the slide, they are related to the framework in color above. We tried to call out where we find these practices within our elementary and secondary curriculum statement and our elementary curricular resources are very well aligned to these evidence-based practices that are showing up as the key recommendations. Um, in our K1 primary grades, you can see off to the left for tier one, we work really hard to grow those
022critical literacy skills through oral language, decoding, and encoding that are essential in literacy development and absolutely essential to prepare kids to take that MCA starting in third grade and to develop proficiency there. Our curriculum resources are very well aligned as well in um the Witten Wisdom curriculum and that's noted off to the right. Um that includes explicit instruction and language development, decoding and encoding. I'm sorry you guys, it's an emphasis on speaking and listening and language development. Um the comprehension skills definitely come into witten wisdom um with the vocabulary and knowledge development and then embedded strategies for comprehension and writing. You'll also see on that slide that it says witten wisdom and geodess because uh our K1 classrooms also have geodess which are readables that are also knowledge build as well. And then um it's
023noted down below MTSS tier two and three. Uh we've done extensive work through the leadership of Jill Dunn and Justine True Blood in developing interventions and diagnostic tools to target instruction to meet the needs of students as well. So those are all components of the curriculum and the practices we have here at RPS that are very much aligned to the recommendations you're seeing there. Um and then I'll move us into the next grade levels are intermediate grades. two through five. Um this is the area where students are bridged from learning to read and write to becoming fluent readers and writers. Um in the tier one category there you can see in grade two we're still working on foundational skills and really great reading. Um we continue to teach phonics systematically and it's reinforced through that
024curriculum. And then we get into grades three through five has functional phonics and morphology and that has extended modeled and practice skills which include dictation, spelling and sentence construction as well. So we tried to list that on there to call it out in relationship to this framework. Um also witten wisdom you know that that is K through five. And so Witten wisdom of course um continues to build on language and knowledge development. um students are building their reading and writing fluency and comprehension and this also includes transcription and sentence construction which is called out in this framework as well. Um and once again you can see the tier 2 and tier three called out as something that we need to make sure that we have um within our our processes and practices and we definitely
025do have that in our RPS classrooms. So all of these components that are highlighted are well aligned to the research and our MDE standards which means they align to our MCA. And now we're going to move to hear from Allison Crinky who I'm so happy is here. She's our district elementary literacy coach. She is instrumental in making sure that the implementation um within the classroom is what we want it to be as well. So she's very supportive of this work. I'm just going to speak real briefly about the opportunities that we have to um provide some more ongoing professional development um as we deepen our practices within our curriculum and in our knowledge and deepening of our standards work. So just as an aside as you're aware our uh 2020 standards are standards that actually
026will be tested on on our MCAs this year. So part of our work is deepening our understanding with our year two of wit and wisdom how we uh understand and correlates to our standards work and deepening that. We also are spending time refreshing our foundational curriculums, our really great reading with our K12 team and our functional phonics and morphology with their three, four, and five grade teachers. Uh like uh Heather mentioned, Jill Dunn and Justine True Blood have done some work around resource maps and they're providing some guidance for our uh district teams, grade level uh PLC teams at the building level to work about as evidence-based practices and we're also doing some additional work with our functional phonics and morphology provide some tier 2 resources. So, our third, fourth, and fifth grade teachers are
027all getting trained in that in the coming weeks to have that access as well to support our readers. Uh, we also are doing uh we spent a lot of work last year and then over the summertime aligning our standards work to our uh formative assessments that we find in our curricular resources. So, teachers are going to have some common assessments in which to have conversation and PLC's and highly monitor our students to make sure they're meeting our standards. um which led into those power standards work that I just spoke of. And then at our building level, we're doing a lot of work with PLC's. Um it's really exciting to work with instructional coaches and hear how they're bringing our standards to life during our PLC's. And all of that work also is embedded in this
028training that we're going to be doing throughout the year. >> All right. I get to tell you about the secondary work. Um and we really benefit from all of this foundational work. Um are seeing that as we think about um literacy in secondary schools. So you'll see the seven practices that they recommend for improving literacy in secondary schools. Um and then I'm just going to talk um briefly about how our work has aligned with some of those practices. So um you probably will see this and think yes I've heard about this. Um so we're working really hard on disciplinary literacy across the curriculum. So, as I've talked about before, if we want literacy to really be strong, it can't just be in English language arts. It has to be in social studies and science and
029mathematics and um all of our courses. So, our instructional coaches have done some reading. Um some of our buildings have done some work around disciplinary literacy. ALC actually in particular um read the book, This is Disciplinary Literacy. And then we're also aligning our new teacher training to those disciplinary literacy practices. So we're trying to really think about how do we build that coherence so that when you walk into a classroom you see reading, writing, speaking, thinking in every single classroom. Um the complex text. So getting our students to have the ability to read complex texts. We know that um part of the pandemic I think was sometimes we were giving information to students and they did not have as much um opportunity to really dig into the complex text. So we've been working hard on
030rubrics to really define what does that look like at each grade level and we've also selected some common text so we know that the rigor is there and that we're really building on the text complexity. Um we're also thinking about what's the balance between narrative and text and making sure that we have both both of those pieces. Um, breaking down writing tasks. I've talked to you I think about this a little bit, but we have a um a writing diagnostic that we give at each grade level and then we look at that right writing diagnostic to figure out where are the strength areas and areas of improvement for our students. Um, we have rubrics that are aligned to that and this year we're really going to be working on looking at student work. So, what
031are our students showing us and how do we respond to that? And then that idea of exchanging ideas and discussion. We know that um oral language is kind of the base of really strong literacy. So, how does that look in um English classroom? What does it look like in social studies? And you can see I gave you an example of how in social studies it might be more about civil discourse. um looking at contemporary issues and identifying pros and cons. And then we also see that in science um and that might be more in the form of arguing from evidence um evaluating and communicating information. So these are all really central to our um academic standards, but we want to see them in all of our classes so our students all have opportunity um to
032really show us that they can do this. And then finally, our literacy interventions. Um we're really working start at the secondary level to build strong literacy interventions. We have a literacy lab right now at the high school that's new this year and then we have um literacy interventions at all of our middle schools and again um Justine True Blood and Jill Dunn have really um helped lead that work to make sure that our interventions are high quality um that we have uh strong resources and then those resource maps that Allison talked about are also aligned as secondary So, a few areas that we know we need to continue to lean into, um, just continuing to support those disciplinary literacy practices in all classrooms. Uh, we know that our teachers need support sometimes to figure out
033what does that look like? How do we help all of our students um, access the writing and the reading? Um, we need more supports for targeted vocabulary instruction. And it doesn't necessarily mean the teacher vocabulary words, but it's the students really working with the words, sorting the words, talking to one another about the words. So, we know we need to do more work around that. Um, we need to think more about writing across disciplines and how do reading and writing um flow together so that students are having that opportunity in all of their classes. Um, and I think the end of my piece >> and then um we'll be working with principles um Heather is doing a lot of uh working directly with them on some of the implementation of some of the curriculum. And
034then also tomorrow we're going to be looking at analyzing the MCA results at the district level, the building level, the grade level, and then going even deeper into the benchmark level. So like each um each grade they assess different benchmarks and then what does that look like? And we're going even as deep as to look at this is how they were assessed. This last test was the last year it was going to be assessed on the um 2010 standards. So, we're looking at an alignment of what does that look like with the upcoming standards because it's not it's not a throwaway. We're going to build on it. And so, the principles will have an opportunity to dig deep into that so that they're understanding the test as well as the standards and then can take
035it back to their buildings and work work with the with their teachers on this. But the most exciting part of all of this is hearing from a true practitioner who's in the building and is seeing results and it's not an overnight process. This has been a multi-year process for you and you're seeing multi-year growth. So, we would love to we're going to hear from Steve Lman. >> Absolutely. Thank you for the honor and privilege of representing Elton Hills, the community, the the families, the students, and the hard work of the staff and all of us that have come together. We are in a confluence of expectations around learning at Elton Hills. Kids sent are brought to their school by parents who expect and demand learning. They're taught by teachers who work hard and strive hard
036to work every single day to challenge every single student at their level and push them beyond. We together as a community are pushing and growing to a level that we want to continue over the years. And we have are becoming we have not arrived. We do not have all the answers. We have work that we've done over five years that is promising and that I wouldn't trade for the world. It is aligned to best practice. It is aligned to the science of reading. It is we worked together to build it. As Carnegie said, we support that which we create. As the staff came together, over 50% of the staff were on the site team. Now, we're a small school. We can do that. But it was so invaluable that when we started looking at data
037which drives our practice, we said what is it that we can do to increase learning for kids? We didn't say just literacy, we said learning. So when we looked at the science of reading, we had people that before it was required, I'm so proud of this, staff members went to letters training. They just went because they were excited about it. They wanted to learn. They want to do better than where we were at because they knew that the kids needed it. They went, they came back. We went to What Works Clearing House. We said, "What works in reading?" I spoke with Mona before she even became part of the job. She heard a lone voice crying in the wilderness. What do I do? I'm at an elementary school and I want to improve reading. And
038so what we found was all the things that Skip does, we are doing. And we kind of did a little bit before and we have and are seeing the results of that work. The staff, we talk a lot about, you know, teaching can only be viewed from the lens of the student. It only occurs if the student says learning has occurred. So, activity is not what I'm looking for. Point of attack. When do we, what do we, and how do we get that student to the next level? We have research that we do on formative assessments that are daily. We have Lexi. We have happy numbers. I could go through a whole list of things that we do on a daily basis. But my gold standard at Alton Hills and there's Allison would know this.
039If I want to know if I point to a kid in your class, what does that student need tomorrow? And they can answer it and they can answer it. How do we know that? Because data is a constant flow of information. It's like a GPS. MCA is one point. If I rested one point one year, I'd be in a whole lot of wandering. But we have daily work that we look at and we examine. Our teachers are experts now at looking at data, analyzing it, and getting to the next step with their students. They do small groups. They work independently. they have resources and feel supported about what they do at a small group level. I am so proud of the work that our students do. I have 19 seconds left and I didn't. So,
040so what I want to do is I want to praise the community at Elton Hills. I want to say that this is an accomplishment of all the people and we are becoming we have not arrived. We will continue to do the work regardless of what score cut score we get. We will work for every single child. We ready? >> Well, Madam Chair, I just have to say uh as Mr. Woman was talking, I had to restrain myself from saying preach. You know, um the that we didn't put it up there, but I think uh what you all saw was the growth that the Elton Hills had in uh literacy was 6% and the growth in mathematics um 12.6% over last year. Um a good longer term three-year trend. And um I remember going out to
041Elton and I'll just be honest talking to Steve about some other leadership opportunities that I saw uh a principle of his talent uh being a good fit for uh a number of years ago and he said it's uh I want I am where I should be. Um and they weren't seeing the gains that they're seeing now at that point and it was frustrating. Um but uh you and then by extension the whole staff uh stayed in there. Um another moment from Elton Hills when I was out meeting with the whole staff, one of the fascinating questions they asked was how do we keep teachers or other staff who don't want to abide by this kind of practice from getting into our school. Uh there's literally a question teachers posed and I said, "Well, first of
042all, of course, we have a a very good contract with Rochester Education Association and we abide by it scrupulously, but I think people want to be where they know they fit." Um, and uh I thought that was a fascinating question for staff to be asking because they really did have this deep understanding of the power of the research that uh often gets called uh teacher efficacy, the ability that teachers can work together to make this happen. And it's a off-the-charts influential factor in schools. And they were really saying before even this is about three years ago, before you started to get these gains, they felt it. They said, "And we don't want people that are frankly not that those wouldn't have been good educators, but we want to be doing this in a coherent way
043across the school." And of course, it is as as Steve said, a smaller school, which presents some advantages and some big challenges. Um, and as I was saying earlier, uh, Elton Hills was one of those schools where we saw statistically significant gains, uh, in a grade level, in this case in fifth grade, but clearly good things are happening across the school as a whole. And so, Madam Chair, thanks for letting me uh start the discussion. We need exemplars. We need people who see this can be done in Rochester. And as Steve said, it's a marathon, not a sprint. You know, next year the scores may not look this way. That's not a time to throw up our hands. to dig into the data and say, "Okay, what's happening?" >> Dr. um my question is actually
044for Dr. Pel first. I kind of have some bookend things. Um that what you started off with with the um successes at like the fifth grade level. Help us understand is that comparing fifth grade to people who were students who were fourth graders last year or is it fifth grade like in that classroom different groups of kids move through them? Superintendent. >> Thank you, uh, Director McGofflin. In the case of my goals, uh, as superintendent for this year, it's comparing the students this year to the students the growth from the students last year. So, it's two cohorts of students, uh, comparing the percent that were proficient the previous year to the percent that were proficient the following year. As such, it's more of an improvement measure, not a growth measure. Um, but um, I think
045it still is indicative of schoolwide improvement, but those aren't the same kids. So that's a very important point to keep in mind as we think about different ways to measure school progress. >> And do you mean they aren't the same kids? Because there might be kids coming in and out of the cohort or >> it was a different cohort of kids. So in 2024, the fifth graders took the test and now they're in sixth grade, but we compared the fifth graders in 2025 to the scores of the fifth graders in 2024 in this particular way we did my goals for this year. Okay. >> And there are lots of other ways to to >> Is that the same then for the slides? Yeah. Okay. >> Um and then u question for um principal Wilman. Can
046you help us understand the small schoolness aspect of it? Um uh do you think that that's part of the success or not? What does that look like? I think when you Oh, >> I think there's a there's an inherent ability to change course quickly and rapidly in a smaller school that may not present itself in a larger school when when you can have 50% of the people that are in your building as teachers on the site team and some ESPs as well, but we can really make change happen quickly And then there's a lot of ownership in that change. >> And then just to follow up on that, is there a sweet spot for a number of students where that would perhaps look different? >> Principal >> think I would not be the person to
047ask that. I know my own situation. I don't know all the other situations that could occur. >> I kind believe it takes leadership to be able to stay focused on a plan. It takes an understanding of how teachers need supports to be able to get jobs done and how we work together to make that all happen. So, I think it's real key and there's a lot of relational pieces. >> Is there anybody else who wants to answer that question? Superintendent. >> Uh I I can say director Mclofflin, there is some research on optimal school size that I don't want to misquote off the top of my head here, but we could look at that and share that with the board. >> Director Marvin, >> just a quick question. The plan is really thoughtful and and
048very specific and uh probably for some of not probably for some of us and I'm guessing for some people listening the resources and the strategies are are new. Uh can you briefly explain what structured talk is? >> Miss woman I think you were talking about that >> woman. >> Um so it would be giving some sentence frames and then actually modeling maybe what that talk looks like. Um I think when you have the sentence frames or the sentence structures that help the students really start the conversation because some of our students to talk about an academic content they may not know how to start. Um might be some might even be like a word that Um I just know that when we have our students who want to use academic language practicing in our oral
049language is very important as all the other standards and that's why we have our one of our standards are listening speaking as one of the core power standards for all of our elementary students because we want to practice that vocabulary. When we provide that structured talk, if we do a turn and talk, sometimes students would just say like, "Tell me about this. I can say one word." Never getting an opportunity to actually practice the sentence. So I might say, "The main idea of the sentence is right." And so they're utilizing that language and that's also helping them embrace that language and then when they have to speak it, read it, write it, apply it, it becomes much more alive because they are having that opportunity with that structure talk. >> Thank you. Dr. Barlo, >>
050I probably have three questions. Um, first to Dr. Ruck. Um, while one year your words um does not constitute a trend, three years certainly do. Uh, and in those schools where we have um noted a u change, what can we do to ensure that a trend uh loss uh does not continue. What interventions I heard some strategies uh some uh practices that are being employed uh how can we ensure that uh this one-year uh change does not turn into a trend. Perhaps you can think about that for a moment. Uh as I move quickly to uh principal Wellman, um I am a pastor and I was tempted to say preach uh but I appreciate the uh passion. I have been able to attend uh a couple functions at Helton Hills. And for those who may
051not know Mr. Wellman, uh this is the real deal. I mean, he's not putting on a show uh for us. Um, but I am curious, are you able to um with your peer principles? Uh, I know there's a principal academy. Are you able to share with them or work with them to uh perhaps um share some of what is working uh with you or for you? and and are they open to uh what what you have to offer, >> principal? >> Yes, I've actually had several phone calls already and lengthy conversations. Peter Ruck was a part of one conversation and if it's worth it, you can del. But I I think really it's about, you know, how do we really support people and balancing expectations with support for staff? So, how do we maintain this?
052Because high expectations with low support is burnout. Low expectations with high support is frustration. So, how do we balance this to get people exactly where they're at? And then what are you looking at to get high expectations to what data are you looking at? What expectations do you have? And the whole Simon Synynic thing is absolutely true. The why, the how, the what in those order. Moral imperative is a word I use quite often. It is moral imperative for our kids to be able to read. How we do that at Elton Hills is through small groups, data, research, following the research, and having a plan for each and every individual child. But what we do can change. What we do is going to be different for each individual student. So, I apologize for digressing. Yes,
053I would be happy to discuss this with other >> Dr. And it may be a quote from the two-hour conversation that I had with Mr. Wellman, but it's not the program, it's the practice. And so there isn't something you can just buy and have this answer. Um, it's not happy members that did it, although it is the practice of using formative assessment. And I think that a lot of what my colleagues have already spoken about would would support that. They may actually be better equipped to answer the question. next steps on on the instructional side. It's about those fundamental practices because the curriculum will change the the program will change the people will change but the practice is true. >> Thank you. >> Director White, ladies first. >> Oh, okay. Um, I just got a
054couple questions so and I wrote them down so I can stay on tape. So one I have a question about the demographics. So we have some demographic data um which we can all see here before us. So I have some questions about the trends. So in the schools that are excelling as Elton Hills and Riverside are there any commonalities or demographics or things that we have noticed that um kind of expanding upon that are um duplicatable. Right. So I know there some of it is staffing and and willingness and unfortunately we're not able to clone people right now so we can't do that but are there other um commonalities that we see in the schools that are seeing bigger gains that is duplicatable. Um and then within this data um because we have so much
055data um are we noticing um besides the you know that you know black and brown students are not doing well those things are we noticing any places that we can place targeted interventions. So if we notice that there is particular demographics in spaces that are not doing well, have we looked at targeted interventions for those demographics? Right. So we try new things but we don't see changes in certain numbers. Um, is there any thought in the the standard Mac sauce is not working? So, we need a special sauce for certain demographics because even with these new things, we're not seeing the gains or the changes that we >> Dr. conversation you and I had earlier today uh that I would reference, but um by way of example, uh we We have had in 2019 male
056and female students performed almost identically in our school district that has since changed. There's now a gap between the two boys are performing on the MCA lower than girls. That's also a nationwide trend. It's not just but I was chatting with Heather earlier today and there is research about how to approach um like reading interest differently between boys and girls at older ages. they tend to find different things uh particularly you know to latch on to instruction I don't know that's an example of how that the other thing I would mention is that our building leaders are uh tomorrow going to be going through data the information that they'll have available to them will include by grade by demographic it's extremely Um, Chief Perkins, >> um, I think also it's really important that we solidify
057our core practices across the board. Our core practices need to be um, solid enough for all kids that we serve. So, we need to make sure when we're selecting our curriculum, when we're training our teachers, we're considering the for our ML students, making sure our strategies are culturally responsive, like all of that has to be part of the core. Um, the intervention side is an added bonus. We can't we can't intervention can't be our our main way to improve um results. We talk about this all the time about I was like, okay, if you look at this from like a basketball standpoint, right? If you have a kid that's starting to play basketball for the first time in seventh grade, would you just have them just teach them the foundations? You're not going to ever
058learn the game of basketball until you learn how to dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble shoot. You don't you do both at the same time, right? That's the core. So, we have to continue to expose kids to the core and make sure they're getting really, really solid core instruction. And then we where are the missing gaps and we fill it we back fill it. Um and I think you know we're only in year two of wit and wisdom. So we're going to continue to try to build on that and and I think I focus so much on the elementary because that's where if we don't get those kids solid we're going to see struggles all the way up. So we have to make sure that that we nail that. So when you're looking at and then
059the MCA doesn't assess until third grade, right? They already have to be readers by that time. That's why last time when we presented the fast bridge scores, we have to look at what are the foundational skills. Are they getting them at the at the core? Are we making sure that those practices are happening? And that's some of the work you'll be doing with principles this year. That's what you do. That's part of your magic. And this is where leadership really matters. you're in classrooms making sure it's happening and um giving feedback and so yes there are interventions you can do um and we should be doing them but we got to make sure we're nailing it >> just at the base first step that's critical we can't we can't avoid that >> go better >>
060that's kind of what I was going to say but I just want to reiterate when the question was about what are the commonalities I would lean into that instructional leadership um when we have principles that are very knowledgeable about what they should be seeing because as I just listed for you all the different curricular materials we have in elementary that are evidence-based but that is not in action right the classroom and what happens every day um is where the power is right and we need to have the leadership like we see exemplified here um with Steve to be in there and to really know what should the instruction look because it doesn't matter the curriculum if our teachers aren't providing the instruction within it. Um it's really important that we're in the classrooms to make
061sure that they are uh delivering it as it's intended because sometimes we can strip that out of our tier one curriculum and we're missing pieces that are essential. So I would just lean into that instructional leadership which is why we work with our principles on really getting to know the standards like tomorrow they're going to be talking about that and also we're with guided observations focused on the specific curriculums teachers are teaching and we have fidelity tools that our elementary principles are getting to be able to say oh when I come into this one because there's a lot that they have to be you know attuned to. So that's one of the things I would say is common instructional leadership really strong leadership >> superintendent >> thank you Dr. Whitehorn, I'll be I'll be brief
062because I've heard a lot. I think to your first question, is there a group that we have seen some progress and can learn from. Um I think notably the data would say it's our students with disabilities in Rochester. Um which is exciting who are also um somewhat disproportionately likely to be students of color in some of our schools, but those are two very separate factors. But, you know, we have seen the three-year trend for our uh kids with disabilities in um reading um improved by 4.2 percentage points over the last three years and uh in mathematics by 5.9 percentage points. I in my almost 40-year career have seen the opposite trend with kids with disabilities again and again. Why? To your question, I think uh some in our uh special education educators were a couple
063years ahead of our general education educators in using data and improvement cycles and in selecting curricular materials that were aligned with the science of reading. Um so they they really deserve some credit. And I'll also say Dr. Dr. Whitehorn, to your question about being willing to try new things and be responsive to demographic groups that are not doing as well. Absolutely. And I think the challenge of doing something like that at the district-wide level is that all of our schools are so different. And so one of my hopes for our new school improvement process is that our schools will be empowered to innovate with the targeted groups that they have in their schools in unique ways. And so the first place I'm hearing that is not as much on the academic achievement side uh in
064terms of um reading and math, but it's in terms of graduation rates and progress to school. And as we're starting the ninth grade on track work that uh we had described a few board meetings ago, I'm definitely hear hearing a focus on how do we have culturally uh sensitive uh essentially relationship building with nth graders in our high schools to keep them on track. And so what that might look like over time remains to be seen, but I'm definitely starting to hear about that. Um and I think that's potentially exciting. Um, and I appreciate the question. >> I just want to clear up because I may be uh, so when I was speaking targeted interventions, I agree that we have to have a good solid foundation in order to build or intervene at any level.
065And I'm maybe aging myself a little bit here, but um, at some points when we looked at demographics, even whether they were by race or disability, there are times where we look deeper into the demographic, right? um hence preschool lunch programs, right? Because we saw that there was a trend of, you know, children of color or different things that were in poverty. Um they weren't getting breakfast, this type of thing. So therefore, this impacted um their ability to learn. So I guess I wasn't just speaking of just the uh the the top level demographics. And I don't know what data we're collecting anymore at this time when I'm talking about those common trends. So not is necessarily um instructional, but are we seeing any new trends that are forming that may be preventing our students
066ability to retain knowledge or you know things that we are able um to assist with and which I know is a much bigger loaded question. So, but that's more what I was thinking when I was thinking of targeted interventions. And then my last question and I'm be quiet here for a moment. Um is in the demographics of the the children who opt out. Do we see commonalities in that as well? Um are you know or do we have because we I don't I haven't seen them. Um I know that he mentioned um students that live further away you know with men but I I just be curious to know if there are other trends. Uh because as a parent I know you can opt out. Uh, do we see a trend of certain families or
067demographics that are opting out or is it very much random? >> Is that correct? >> If I didn't mention it during the presentation, I meant to. The only notable demographic trend is the older students get the more. Other than that, there's no real association. Chief Perkins, >> the only other thing I'd add is I I think and correct me if I'm wrong, Peter, but their 11th grade year is when they take the math test and the ACT. And so I think we see do we see more math optouts than reading? >> We see more math optouts than reading. That's also likely to increase this year because we'll be 10th graders have to take two MCAs, reading and science. That's new. >> So the 11th grade is where you'll and then it >> and they're close
068together on the calendar. So it's like students like well I'm just take the ACT. >> So >> and AP might also be so >> for the older students >> for older students. >> Do we get to see the ACT numbers then if we have >> sorry >> can I just build on the the question that Dr. Horn asked um for the black or African-American students um I know that the schools look at their data by grade um by their uh PLC's. Are we looking at that data by grade across the district, not just for that group, but for any group that might be facing a decline to see if it might be a gap in the curriculum or a gap in our instructional plans? Are we are we looking for those kinds of trends? I
069mean, we talked about the grade levels that we're doing well, but what about >> Perkins? So, tomorrow When we dig into the dat also broken down by demographic and then grade level also broken down by demographic like it's the >> the spreadsheet is big ugly and I love it. >> It's massive. There's a lot of information that they'll be able to dig into. So yes, and then the key is going to be thinking about the why. Right. Who are the kids and why and what's our next step? >> Dr. Cook. >> Um, well, thank you so much. I I uh I I love this topic. I love talking to this group. And um and before I get to my questions, I it just strikes me that several of you come here pretty regularly to tell
070the board about our progress in literacy and what it is that we're doing and how we're doing it. Um and uh I know that you have day jobs that are extremely important because you are leading um the work that facilitates our our students becoming you know confident leader uh readers. Um, so thank you for taking the the investment um of time and energy uh to come and and present this work. And I know it's not um an easy thing to do and requires some some professionalism, some reserves of uh goodwill to spend the time doing this. So, thank you. Um, Principal Wilman, your remarks really resonated with me about the importance of the why and the ability to create coherency in the team that you have at Elton Hills and the investment of everyone involved
071in feeling like they had an ownership stake in um the moral imperative to and to add to that, I would also say that reading proficiency is a strategic imperative for the district. Um, it absolutely is a moral imperative that every single student be able to read proficiently and with confidence um for their ability to um for their own um sense of self and for their ability to participate in our economy and for for everything else that comes after that. Um but it's also extremely important for our district. Um the MCA scores are a reflection of that. But this is this is our signal to the world about the quality of education that students receive in RPS. Like it or not, I mean it no one that is considering moving to Rochester and deciding on where
072to buy a home is going to look at Fastbridge data. The MCAs are it. They're our currency. And so, um, reflecting on the why, um, I just could not be more convinced that this is the most important work that is going on in our district. And I totally agree with you and your framework of why, how, what, and in that order. And it just it just occurred to me that with all of the time that you all spend on providing these updates and keeping the board informed, I would really prefer that you all get something out of this as well. Um and you know to the extent that the work ahead of us is mostly about maximizing the efficacy of our teaching practices and that that is just something that requires a lot of cycles
073to master then you know I'm I'm on board and I hope the board is on board with making sure that the right resources are available professional development time in the form of curriculum adjustment days and so forth to ensure that that happens. But if there is more that is needed that could be done at the board level, it would probably be a blunt instrument for the board to do it. Something like mandating the number of minutes per day that is spent on literacy or something um kind of crude like that. But if if there is more in the form of resources at the board level and that that would be supportive, I just I don't want us to be naive and think that you know, be wrongly assume that we're on the right path. I
074I want us to be cleareyed about what is really needed in order to achieve the moral and strategic imperative ahead of us. So, I'll I'll let the chair recognize whoever is best able to respond to that. But I I just I'm hoping to get a sense in the clearest way of what the nature of the work that is ahead of us and and whether course corrections at the board level are something that we should be seriously considering. But thank you again, >> Chief Perkins. >> If the question is are we on the right track, I definitely believe we are on the right track. There is um you know There's a theory of action and there's a theory in action and we're working to put the theory in action and it doesn't happen overnight and you're
075a perfect example of that. You're moving an entire system. Um so we do have instructional minutes that we um really really strongly recommend and expect actually um and we work with principles on that. I think right now we're were in the I think Kent has Dr. Pel has mentioned numerous times about like we spent few years laying down the foundation that is so true laying down the tracks when I think about the MTSS work that was that was done last year we took off but it's you don't nail it in a year and so you're just we're continuing to build I do think we're on the right track I don't think this is it's time to change course at actually We've got the theory of action is good. We just got to continue to work
076on putting it in action and making sure that it's aligned across the system. Um I would say one of the things I think a lot about is professional development and what does our calendar look like to be able to work well with teachers? We know that summer doesn't always work. Um, after schools don't always work. And so that's something that I think we thought a lot about. What's the right um calendar to be able to to have those teachers um to be able to have that professional development. So that's one thing I would say. >> Miss Clever, I actually wrote down the exact same thing, Heather. um time and time being professional development and also the PLC time when we talk about digging into the data and deciding what the best practice will be then
077or the best intervention um we ask our teachers to do a lot and there are high high needs and so anytime that I can lift that up about what we ask um of our teachers I know that they always are saying the the resource they need most is time. So when we calendar. We talk about building in professional days that are in that calendar instead of us developing them and pulling teachers out of the classroom. That's what we've been very much deep in is scheduling time for the teachers. Currently, we have several PDs that are being planned that the elementary teachers are coming out of the classroom three times this year. And the amount of time it's taken to figure out where are they going to be and how are they going to get themselves,
078all of that. um it's quite a quite a challenge and then they're leaving the classrooms. So thinking about that calendar to build in professional development time that lives there um would be very much removing a barrier to support our teachers. >> Okay. So this is a totally different subject and I'll leave it to the chair to figure out who can answer. Um two questions is um Spanish immersion do they take the MCAs in English or in Spanish that's number one and number two is um is the data are the data for the are the MCA data for um monastery and Spanish immersion disag disagregated for the rest of their communities >> Dr. >> they are included the schools have one entity code so they are combined into a single score so Sorry, Franklin and Franklin
079are one score and Spanish immersion Riverside are one score. Uh, second question, Spanish immersion students, as with every immersion program in the state, they take the MCA in English, right? >> Good. Um, I want to don't want the section of your presentation where you talked about the best practices and how they've tied to the curriculum and the instruction work that, as Director Cook mentioned, you've been before us a lot of times talking about um happening. Um because as we as we look at the data and we talk about where we go from here, you've really laid out the road map and um I wonder we have, as I've understood it over this time, we have the materials. We're we're we're not needing to make a monetary investment. We we've purchased what we need. Um and
080you've said that it's really the time to to to learn how to implement it and to have the conversations over data. Um, so it's not really a money issue. It's a and and I guess this question goes to the superintendent too. um you know, what are the ways we can add more time for teachers to have um that we haven't talked about in the past? I mean, I'm not going to open a can of worms about calendars, but you know, we we choose the number of days we have for the school year based on our conversations with our um teachers union and um we we set our start times, which I don't want to touch because we've done a lot of work on that, >> but is that something that we would even think about
081to add days to our year so that teachers could have more time without students present? to work on these things during the year. >> Uh well, thank you, Madam Chair. Uh the problem is time is money. Um and so it is entirely a financial investment. Um I think where we've made the investments in curriculum and instructional materials have been in the early grades um in literacy, elementary grades. I think when we talk about materials in secondary, especially as we begin to see the promise of AIdriven uh software that's focused on literacy and mathematics, there will be investments at the secondary level in literacy that we need to make. Um the research is actually pretty clear that professional development in and of itself has very little contribution to improvements in student achievement. training in isolation is
082largely ineffective, but when it is harnessed to a strategy like what Steve identified, it becomes an accelerator. And so, while I absolutely would expect our directors of elementary and secondary education to be emphasizing that, it's the quintessential yes. Um, and that's why the new school improvement process that we are putting in place this year is essential because the purpose is in a nutshell to help all of our schools create the kind of coherent strategy that Steve described exists at Elton Hills. That will look different in different schools, but you need to have the pieces fit together and the arrows pointing in the same direction. Um and that's why this transition that the board has of course been deeply involved in has voted on is that macro point when you have that strategy uh that's clear.
083Could you benefit from additional time for professional development and planning? Yes. That's why actually already we are not going to have kids in our schools tomorrow which is a huge and thank you to all the parents who are going to be adjusting because of that. That is a huge investment. It is also why last spring, despite the understandable concerns that this board heard from many of our special area teachers, uh, who do amazing work in music and media and, uh, gym and art, we made the difficult decision to prioritize literacy. Um, and that has been a shift for those folks uh, this year, but it was entirely a reallocation of time in that instance, partly for teacher planning, which is a bit different than professional development, but it's also critical, but especially for interventions, working
084kids. So those are all ways in which we are putting in place that the challenge that we face not just in in literacy but in math and graduation rate in every one of our 11 indicators in our new system is we have ambitious goals and tight resources. And so it's all about hard choices. If you don't want to make hard choices, you're in the wrong place. Like that's there's the lowhanging fruit has long since been picked. I believe we are doing it and can do it, but it's all about those prioritizations. So, I I certainly appreciate Director Cook's um like push for what else do we need? You know, what else do we need? Uh we'll be working to prioritize these things across the larger uh agenda. Um I have got very detailed project plans
085from all of these folks uh sitting on this hard drive uh for review and approval by October 1st that will um critically try to balance the demands we're making on not just our school staff but on our kids. Um So that's the the balancing act that we're trying to get um going forward. >> And I think the last thing that I would say is is in the years that I've been on the board and pri prior to that as a parent watching from the audience, we have had MCA score reports every year, but it's only been in the past few years, and I think this is is really the the best example of it. um you all knew what you were going to tell us about what we were going to do about these scores
086even before you probably got them. And I think that's the big difference that I hope our school community and our wider community sees is that we aren't looking at these scores saying, "Oh, what do we do now?" The latter half of this presentation is very clear saying what we're going to do now. and we look forward to the frequent presentations that we have from you to let us know how it's going. Principal Wilman, congratulations on your success. I do hope you have long conversations with other principles who are looking to be inspired by the work that Elton holds is doing. And anything else, board members, superintendent. >> Good. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. Our next agenda item is a monitoring item, the elementary science curriculum implementation update. Another information item, Superintendent Pel. >>
087Thank you, Chair Nathan. I see some colleagues um coming on up. Please take your places at the table and some of at least uh a couple of folks are returning uh to come back. Um, >> one >> board members, this is a monitoring item as the chair just mentioned, meaning it is a briefer update rather than a focus topic as we just had. Um, this is a topic deserving of a focus topic, we will schedule an update on science uh at greater length. But because we are implementing this new science curriculum this fall and because you are very engaged board members who hear from our student, staff and uh teachers about what's going on in our district, I didn't want to go too much further into the year without giving you a brief update on
088that work um with the caveat that we will come back for the kind of discussion of science that we just had about um reading and math at a later time. So that madam chair um maybe we can uh reintroduce uh members who are there. I like that that practice and then uh turn it over for the conversation. >> I'll stop. I'm just here I'm just along for the ride. These are the my amazing colleagues that have done the work. So I'm Mona Perkins the chief academic officer. >> Sierra Lynforest instructional facilitator for elementary math and science. >> Jeremy Kramer fifth grade teacher at Overland Elementary >> and Heather director of elementary ed. So, we're excited to get started and share an update uh about our science standards and curriculum implementation tonight. And I'm so happy
089to have Sierra and Jeremy here with me to to talk about it. Um we wanted to just start with a visual. This is a visual that represents our science standards um for Minnesota and they are really grounded in the next generation science standards. Um and they include exploring phenomena using the three dimensions. You can kind of see them written off there to the left. Core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices. And briefly, we wanted to share where we're at in the articulation cycle that you've heard about. So, at RPS, um, in 2022, we entered phase two, which is the research phase of our curriculum artic articulation. Um that's when the standards that were coming into play were studied and we lifted off some pilots to get to know what was out there for
090curriculum and then we moved to early implementation of amplify science and that had occurred for a couple of years before we've now moved into phase three which is our implementation. Um this year it is the roll out of two units um of amplify science in all K through five classrooms and those units don't cover every single um standard. And so supplementary units were built during curriculum writing to make sure that we have all of the standards taught in our classrooms. And just to prepare for this year of implementation, lots and lots of work was done. And I would say Sierra Linforce led the charge in much of this and was doing it long before I was in this position. So I already had mentioned piloting curriculum um feedback through that process is so valuable because
091it helped with curriculum writing and development and it actually helped with pacing of the amplify science modules that teachers are now teaching. And then we've had ongoing district-wide professional development opportunities for teachers and I have them listed there, but you can see that it started in the spring of 2022 really starting to dig into those standards before we're looking at the curriculum that was selected and then we've launched the curriculum and what was really exciting this fall during opening week um we reviewed the first modules with our teacher leaders and so Jeremy is one of those who went through and talked about tips and tricks for the first module for fifth Excellent. So, just as a recap, and I know I was able to present last year, the year before, just kind of what those
092shifts are, but Amplify Science really takes um those those standards and it bundles them into coherent storylines for students to explore. So, there's like one overarching question very similar in structure to like our written wisdom. So, we have an umbrella overarching question, then it breaks it down into those chapter questions to um further investigate. So it's a phenomenabed um realw world context for students to investigate. The goal is to motivate students to figure out the why and the how things happen and then to transfer that learning to new situations. It's really a shift from memorizing distinct facts and skills and really focusing on that sense making. And then I think of many of us I was raised in the scientific method and the scientific method is very linear. In fact, I engaged our teachers in
093this when we talked about professional development. But we also talk about there's no scientist at Mayo Clinic that does step one, step two, step three, step four in terms of and there might be like procedures and things to follow, but I have a question, I get my answer, I do this and do that and then I go back back up and I go to the next step when in fact science and learning is messy. And I might start on one path and I'm going to learn something and oh that did not get me what I want and I need to jump to this practice. I'm going to ask a different developed a different model. Now I need to go read. And so the science and engineering practices are interconnected. And so our teachers really were
094able to explore what that looks like. Ultimately that phenomena anchors the learning to be explored through those practices. In your supplemental materials, you were given um an explanation of what the next generation science standards are. And then you're also able to see what are those units that students are exploring. What are those two key units and those questions? and they really take the role of the scientist which Jeremy is going to be telling you about next. One thing I do want to point out is that phenomena based approach right there at the center. It's really tiny so put on your glasses. Um but it introduces you the students to that phenomena and then they're engaging kinesthetically, visually they're reading about it, they're writing about it and they're going to continue to cycle on that so
095that they can take that learning and apply it. Jeremy's gonna share his experience with that model and structure in his classroom. >> So, thank you guys for for listening today. But, um, I've been teaching in RPS for 15 years or 17 years and 15 years in fifth grade. And in my time, I felt like our science was kind of lacking in a lot of ways. the students weren't were given information a lot of times or would do an experience and the outcome was already kind of known to them and a lot of times it was just given and they didn't struggle with what was actually happening and having to come up with learning themselves and get a real deep understanding of what was happening and I feel like that kind of changes with this amplify
096and it was a reason I wanted to be part of this science pilot and this opportunity to do this so I've had three years now to be part of this pilot and try out the amplify curriculum and like Sierra was saying the setup of the amplify thing is starts with introducing a real world problem to students and making them feel like they're in a real situation. So in my fifth grade classroom how that works is in the first module they are food scientists. They're placed as someone working with a food company that's trying to figure out what's going on with a food dye that they're have and there's worry that it has a red dye in it and they want to know does it have this red die 44 in this food coloring mixture that
097they use. Well, the students then have to take this mixture, see it go through a chromatography strip and watch as these molecules separate into the different dyes and colors. And as that happens, then the phenomenon they have to figure out is students are really trying to get the deep understanding of why do these colors separate into different colors? Why did it go from a black strip of food coloring to red, blue, green, yellow? Why am I seeing all these different colors show up? And what the really the science then gets to is why do molecules do different things? What are the properties of molecules and the understanding? And they get this through this phenomenon. And one of the nice parts about the amplify science is you don't just do one experiment and then stop there.
098So, and the teachers then let the students make observations. They they see what they're doing. It's really based on what the students are seeing and then they let them see the these observations in different ways. So, it goes on to this pasta model you see a picture of in here where you take noodles that are different sizes and different shapes and you shake them up and they were all mixed together and then all of a sudden they sort themselves out and you start seeing, okay, why are these noodles sorting themselves out just like the dye sorted themselves out? And then we look at this fan model. you can see on the felt here is you put all these random things together. It's like foam balls and velcro and rocks and different things and you put
099a fan behind it and you they all start in the same spot but they end up going different places and the students then start seeing observations of well why did those things go different places and we start talking about molecules then and molecules are things they can't see with their own eyes but through these other observations they can see the properties that they have different sizes different shapes different weights and one of the things on the felt one too is Velcro and its attraction And so then we can start talking about how different molecules are have attractions. So they get all these different phenomenon and then throughout this also the kids are asked each time to draw out their own models and one of the things that we didn't get to do is then they
100model something and the teachers don't give them answers in amplify which I really like. The kids have to come up with it through these observations of these different aspects these different ways of seeing a phenomenon in different ways. And as they go through this, they might draw a model and then they are asked to revise their model and to change it. And one of the things Amplify also brings in, you can see is a connection with literacy. They're asked to read books about what's going on, scientific books or books about things that are happening that connect with what we're doing. And then they take the information that they learn from that and what they've seen and they revise their models again. So the students do get frustrated sometimes because it's a struggle, right? When you
101go into deep learning, you have to struggle and you have to revise. So, you change your understanding. And that's one of the things I think Amplified does a great job of doing is asking students to present their findings and their learnings in a lot of different ways through drawing models, through virtual simulations and digital models that they're asked to do too and then to revise their thinking along the way and then connect it to new learning. So, we as in the first part of our fifth grade class, we learn about these models. We also then in the understanding of molecules and how they work together they start to determine okay how can I prove that these models or molecules separated and why they did and they have to explain it and then they take their
102understanding of molecules and apply it to a new project later on which is creating an actual salad dressing because they're part of this um good food production ink and they have to become scientists later to create a salad dressing that doesn't have sediments that you can visually see because the company doesn't like that and it doesn't separate. So the oils and the the vinegar and the oils, they don't separate. So they want it to be a solid mixture, a soluble mixture. And the students then have to learn more about these molecules and how they work together and draw more models and revise their thinking. And then they eventually shared their thinking through writing, through picture models, and do this. So, I don't think we ever before in any of our other curriculums that I've taught
103created that much writing, that much revision, that much struggle through the process of our science where this really gives them their opportunity to struggle and grow. And that's what the new MCA science tests are going to look at. We talked about how that's a measure. Well, the new MCA tests are asking the students to be more interactive on the MCAs to have to do more writing and reflecting and and experiment with things and then find it their observations of what's going on. And I think this science curriculum puts us in the right direction. >> Absolutely. >> Taking all of that set me on nice. It is a great literacy rich K5 science. So, thinking about we do all this in elementary. How are we setting our students up for that broader K12 scope? So, it
104is literacy rich. It's like it's a knowledge building opportunity for all of our students and that is definitely how teachers were were introduced to it as well. It is and it actively incorporates the speaking, the listening, the writing, um reading rich complex text that were all mentioned when we were discussing that that ELA piece and so it ties nicely and we continue to have conversations about what that looks like. Um sixth grade. Sixth grade is using amplified science. So when we think about that critical year of transitioning from elementary to middle school, this curriculum does bridge across that that gap there. Seventh and eighth grade uses open sed. All of the curricula that we are using and as they continue to explore the shifts in secondary and the high school courses, they are all going
105to be phenomenabed and they're incorporating the science and engineering practices. those practices much like the new math standards and things like that are built into the standards like you have to work not to incorporate that right and then the assessment practices as we mentioned um are going to be moving towards that three-dimensional type of assessment. So it used to be like regardless of however we explore with it the classroom it was very knowledge based fact based things like that now we are assessing how we are teaching and students will read and then they will approach it in different way there is constructed response, they're bringing that back. And so that importance of writing about um some of these authentic experiences that they're getting in the classroom and that they will be tested on in fifth
106grade um as well are alive and well with the curriculum that we have selected >> Dr. Marlo. >> Uh yes uh thanks for uh for providing the background information. I did visit the next generation science standards website and um spent a few moments there. Um separate from that though at this present time, how much time uh a day or a week are we able to spend in terms of science? >> Miss Lor, >> um the recommendation is 30 to 45 minutes. Amplify science lessons were written for 45 to 60 minutes. And so knowing that and what our teachers had and knowing that the science, social studies, and health is often taught in that same instructional block in our elementary classrooms. We were conscious in creating pacing guides that allowed for rich instruction that covered that.
107So we broke it up inhouse and then Amplify also has published some modified pacing documents that teachers are exploring as well to ensure that we can get through this rich content within a 30 minute time block each day. Um again rotated between science, social studies and health. Um and not miss out on some of these core pieces. Other questions? Um, I know we talk about uh you talked a little bit about assessment and you know when we talk about literacy we talk so much about fast bridge and formative assessments and we don't have a fast bridge for science. So um the ass how how how frequent are the assessment practices? Is there anything you know similar to that kind of formative assessment? Because it sounds like assessments are more complicated in science. >> I would
108say what we see in this program is the assessment is really formative along the way because what the students are doing is each time they're asked a lot of times I would say multiple times just in the first module to create a a model of what's going on and then those models get revised. So a lot of times it's looking at that, checking that and then they're asked to revise it, write about it, and to do it again. And then by the end of the unit, it might be their third or fourth time going through that process. Then it'll happen again where they have a final model and written. So I would say throughout a unit, they might be checking and on a formative assessment type writing and model creation probably four to five times
109throughout a unit. And I I just would add to that that there is while that is would be your quantitative your hard data you're also qual like formatively assessing the student discussions and engaging in that way as well. I also want to point out that um we have changed how we're grading science previously in years past to add clarity for families. That was our goal. Um, previously we just issued a grade for science and it was science. And now we really lifted up our science and engineering practices of asking questions, making observations and communicating findings. And we've aligned that to those assessment opportunities to where teachers can better communicate, know what to look for when they're then they're observing discussions, when they're looking at those models, um, to be able to provide that feedback better
110to families as well. And so those opportunities are happening along the way. >> Director, >> um, just real quick, so is the open side ed, was that the previous program and how was the transition from the new program into the open side ed or is that a new program as well? >> Open side ed would be for middle school. Prior to what we had for Amplify Science, we were using FOS kits and that was a multi-year transition that we kind of started phasing out. um and then eventually purged. We have some recognition of fossils here. Um and are now implementing the amplified science and then a few teacher created and then also incorporating our partnerships in the community with Corey Hill with our planetarium and then there's a Minnesota state funded uh exploration Mars that
111that our fifth grade many of our fifth grade classrooms use as well. >> So there is a good transition between the two programs >> between Amplify and Open Yes, cuz they they go in sixth grade it looks like they do amplified. Seventh and eighth they go on to open sad. >> Are they similar teaching practice or is >> it is the same foundational teaching practices? Open sed is based off of next generation science standards as well. >> That's okay. Sometimes >> um I just want to note our Jeremy, thank you. our elementary teachers are doing this this year after you did reading last year and that's not lost on any we you know I sang the praises of our principles uh in the last presentation we have astonishing teachers in this district and so thank
112you for what you're doing what for you is the biggest challenge in making this shift it to this way of teaching science because you gave a great uh vision of it but I know it's not easy to actually operationalize it so like what's the biggest challenge for you and shifting >> some of the challenges that had to go through was one I think Mr. you you hit on it perfectly too is the time right we've put so much time onto our literacy which is so needed and mathematics that we really short change science a lot and with that when you're talking 30 minutes in my classroom it's about every other day because one day I'm teaching science to my class and then they're going to another teacher to teach get social studies the next day
113and then they're coming back the next day so it's about every other day about 30 minutes and to really get deep observations and to model and to do writing and reflecting and discussion and collaboration with their classmates that time is really tight. So that is one I think one it was just a shift in mindset as a teacher that I had to make of I got to step back and I have to let the students do the thinking and and come up with the processing of the thinking and developing their own deep understanding of what's actually happening with the phenomenon and to struggle with that and have collaboration but again those things take time so those are probably the most difficult parts where one just learning the curriculum how I had to get better at
114it through my three years of teaching it, but then also finding the time to really do it justice and to do it well. >> I also um think it would be great if if people are looking for more information. There's a second document that you included in the agenda item, which are the units per grade. But the thing that strikes me as I look at each one is each one says students take on a role and there they they take on a role as some as a scientist from different fields which to me also supports our post-secary and career um exploration that we're trying to do in the district. Um, and I I really do like that approach because they're they're looking at it from a perspective, but then they're also learning about what happens
115in this field and what what these people do in their in their real world jobs. Um, are there thoughts about supplementing some of the curriculum by bringing in um people from the community who do do these jobs? And I mean with the 30 to 45 minutes there's not a lot of time to do these kinds of things but is that is that part of of a plan? >> I think that that's a great opportunity for for further community involvement. I do know we work very closely with Corey Hill and our partnership and that we have there to bring some of those pieces to life and they have intentionally tried to lift up like our life science and I've given them access to amplify and they've tried to lift up and bring in phenomena and kind
116of do some pre-teaching and some some great things there. Um, but I think it's it's an area we could grow on and continue to explore at least identifying individuals that might be willing for our teachers to reach out to would be a great opportunity. >> I love that it's built in. Great, >> Dr. Barlo. >> Oh, no. I was gonna have to do a five minute break. >> Oh, okay. Before we move on, >> thank you very much for all your work. >> Thank you. >> And yes, let's take a recess um at 7-Eleven for 10 minutes. >> I want to go back to fifth grade. This is a great is a prep for action item. The approval of the mission vision and values and the board is scheduled to take action on this item
117on October 7th. Superintendent Pel. >> Thank you, Madam Chair and board members. I am going to very briefly give you an overview of something that we have spent uh many months working on and that is a proposal for you to consider tonight and to vote on in your next meeting for a new mission, vision and values and logo and tagline for Rochester Public Schools. Um as board members are aware, we concluded as part of our last current strategic plan that we needed to make sure that we were representing our school district in ways that fully respect uh reflect the aspirations that we have for our students. And so we partnered with a talented consulting firm based in Louisville, Kentucky to develop a suite of information uh despite some claims uh to the contrary in the
118media we did not do so only to develop a new logo. But there is a new logo which I know many of you are on the edges of your seat to see here in a moment. Um but before that I think it's really critical to start with what uh our friends at Fieldrip the consulting firm we worked with have uh referred to as the key narrative. And that has three components. It's the value statements, the mission statement, and the vision statements. By our value statements, we mean the truths and principles that guide our organization, define what we stand for, and drive our actions and our decisions. And we have come up with five value statements through a process that Mamsu Kudson and Amy Ike will describe to you in a moment. In brief, those are
119providing students with exceptional opportunities to succeed, supporting the whole student, digging deeper for real world application, building belonging and connection, and investing in our community's future. There's an exemplar statement for each of those that I'll read and then just share a brief thought on 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. I think the critical point there is there are many pathways in Rochester public schools. I think it is a unique competitive advantage relative to other public school districts in our area relative to charter schools and relative to private schools, home schools and virtual schools. But critically, all of those pathways have to be the right roads, the high roads. And so we highlight standards of excellence
120in that first value statement. Our second is supporting the whole student. Through nurturing social skills and emotional well-being, we meet each student's needs to help them flourish on their unique path. Board members, this second value statement was one that really emerged through the community feedback we did this summer. um it was not as prominent in the work we were doing last fall and it really grew out of uh diverse stakeholders saying I want my child to be a whole person and I want you to develop not just their academic needs but also their social and emotional needs. Our third value statement is digging deeper for real world application. We go beyond convention by fostering critical thinking skills, emotional intelligence and deeper learning for success here in Rochester and beyond. Of course, board members will recognize
121the reference to deeper learning. Uh both of the discussions tonight of science, literacy, and math have dis uh focused on critical thinking skills and building our students capacity to be emotionally intelligent to understand their own emotions and the emotions of people around them, which we know is a critical career asset. And if you've ever worked with someone who doesn't have emotional intelligence, you know what that is like. Um building belonging and connection is our fourth value statement. By celebrating differences and embracing individual perspectives, we cultivate a vibrant sense of community and culture that benefits students, staff, and families, we are in a an age of extraordinary and expanding diversity of many forms. And that is something that Rochester public schools embraces. When you uh give us the privilege of educating your child as a parent
122or caregiver, you are exposing them to a setting that's like the world in which they're going to live their life. And again, we think that that's an asset. um uh including uh relative to some of our competition and we know people have choices for where they enroll their children. And then finally, investing in our community's future. As the heart of a community focused on lifelong learning, we prepare the next generation of thinkers and doers. This is particular to a public school district of our kind. We take ownership of this community and our place in this community. Whereas an individual school uh might have an emphasis on its students and its families, we really do believe that as goes Rochester public schools to a significant extent, so will go Rochester. So those board members are drafts
123of our five value statements. Um we would find many ways uh through our new strategic plan and through just the everyday life of our district to bring them to life in whatever final form you finally approve them at. Uh hopefully at our next meeting. Next is the mission statement. A mission statement is a description of a district's function, goals, and philosophy. It defines what the district is, why it exists, and its reason for being. And here's what we came up with through this process. Our mission is to equip every student with the knowledge, independence, and resilience to pursue a fulfilling path. If you parse that statement, the fulfilling path is intentionally broadly defined. All of us in life find different things that fulfill us. For some it's career, for some it's family, for some it's
124faith, for some it's a passionate activity that gives you um energy and meaning. And so our goal is to make sure students find that fulfilling path. But there's three critical competencies that we want to help students develop. One is their knowledge, their academic, their understanding of uh all the subject areas we've talked about tonight and many others. Their independence, their ability to do it on their own. But not just their independence, their resilience. When they encounter challenges, when they encounter struggles, they can keep going. And of course, a paradox of independence and resilience is that even though they bring to mind an individual going out into the world and finding their fulfilling path, all of us develop that through relationship. And that's where it comes back to that idea around belonging. And then finally, our
125vision statement. A vision statement is an aspirational description of what a district would like to achieve or accomplish. It serves as a clear guide for choosing current and future courses of action. And so board members, here is our draft vision statement that every student thrives in school and in life. The use of the term thriving is also intentional. I think thriving goes beyond surviving. Um it even goes beyond succeeding. It means that not only are you doing well, but you are happy. You're finding meaning. Um and that not only do we want that for our students in school, we want it in life. Um, very importantly, this is both present tense and future tense. We want our kids to be thriving in fifth grade learning uh, amplify science that we just heard about, but then
126we want them thriving when they're out in the workforce, uh, and building their lives as adult. And so, it's a vision that combines those two. And so, uh, board members, now is the exciting moment that, uh, at least I've been waiting for for many months. I'm going to go a little old school with a physical prompt prop and then I'll put it up. Here is our proposed new logo and tagline for Rochester public schools. Challenging challenged to strive supported to thrive with a color scheme that Mamsu and Amy will describe a little bit more around of course an R formed around some of the building blocks. Um, the notion of challenged to strive, supported to thrive intentionally marries that duality that Steve Wilman talked about earlier tonight of kids being pushed beyond what's comfortable but
127supported every step of the way that we want to be a district where kids have high challenge and high support. And so I am going to um bring this over to uh put it uh on the side and um ask Momsu and Amy to come up and tell you more about where this uh content came from, how it was developed, and what would be next if you approve the final versions of these materials at the next board meeting. So thank you. Good evening. It's our pleasure to tell you a little bit about the process that we went through over several months to get to the point of the value statements, vision, mission, and the uh the visuals. So my task is to tell you a little bit about the first phase of the project discovery
128and learning and the second phase where we develop those narrative pieces. Then Mamsu is going to deep dip into her area of expertise in the uh visual communication and then tell you a little bit about what's next. Uh so as you can see the uh timeline covers back from February all the way to today. uh that first discovery and learning section probably went a little bit into April as well. Uh and then we went into the development of the key narrative. So discovery and learning as you can see uh involved several aspects to help our partner agency really understand uh what they described as the uniquenesses of this district. what do we offer and how do we talk about it? And so you can see an extensive list of uh research that they did when
129they both uh examined us, I would say, digitally in terms of electronic communication and then also when they visited in person and were able to really get the feel of Rochester public schools. Uh at the very bottom of that list, you see some very specific surveys that they did. In that early time frame, more than 1500 constituents responded with uh their input and ideas. So out of all of that, they began with a list of themes, ideas that represent who we are as a district. And you can uh see those themes as what it says on the left there, differentiators or strengths or uniquenesses of the district. I would highlight the third one uh in tying right back to the amplify science presentation that we just heard. Uh that one reminded me exactly of what
130uh Jeremy was just talking about. uh the preparation for life outside of school being that uh ask of parents to not just cover the academic subjects but we hear a lot about teach them how to manage their finances, teach them how to get along with other people. We hear from our business community the skills that are harder to teach are what they call the soft skills, those interpersonal skills. So teach us all of that, not just um book learning as they used to call it. Um comprehensive options and opportunities. You heard the superintendent talk about all that we are able to offer as a large district to our students. And the one that really connects with me is the heart of the community because I really do see that on a daily basis in our
131partnerships, in our impact through our K12, our early childhood, our adult learning, and all of those impacts in our community. Uh along the way, they heard lots of voices. Uh these are just a few of the voices along the way that underscores some of those themes that you just heard about uh and what became then the value statements. So some voices of our own students and parents there. So once the themes were clear then the narrative process could begin. And this led to those three pieces really four with the tagline the values the vision the mission and as our English teachers on the board and right here I can be proud to tell you how many revisions we went through this was a true application of all of those uh years of preparation so the
132key themes that you saw on slide 15 then come over into this draft revise draft, get input, revise, draft, get more input, revised process along the way. And then in July, uh they actually took the um later drafts out then to uh groups of people to get some sort of live feedback to it, some live um uh input on how they were resonating. Did they really carry the themes? and many of those people had been involved on the front end to provide their information and so this was a chance to see how we were doing and the board as well got to see some drafts along the way and give your feedback as well. So next, um, so usually when people think of a brand, the first thing that you think of is usually a
133logo. Um, but what we're about to show you is a logo is just one portion of what we, uh, developed and it came later in the sequence after the key narrative was produced. Just as with the key narrative aspect, uh, the visual identity underwent several iterations. We had three different brand three different draft brand concepts across three rounds of development and revisions and one round of board input. But because visual art is so subjective and we found this even within our communications team discussions, we did not have separate review cycles for the logo with the community. However, as you see, the voices of the community were part of the visual development. So looking at the logo, you'll see that um what we heard was the district was the foundation for lifelong learning and we translated
134this into the building block style that you see in the logo. Uh the variety of geometric shapes represents the variety of opportunities available at RPS for both staff and students. Uh the vibrant colors represent the diversity in our district and people we were told people wanted warm friendly and an inviting tone color tone and we believe that uh the logo meets that. So from that we developed the visual identity which will encompass the following items that you'll see. So as shown here our main logo and then the colors below it are the our proposed new color palette. So currently, if you look behind Chair Nathan, we have a blue, a red, and a yellow. Um, and this new logo will unveil more colors that we can utilize throughout the district. Part of uh what's included
135in the visual identity is the development of branding guidelines. So in branding guidelines, it just gives directions on how we can use the logo. And here are the various for formats that you'll see uh represented throughout the district. So, if you're looking at a lanyard or an ID badge or a business card, this is the different formats that we will utilize. And then something that we put a lot of thought into was how the new logo would be co-branded with our schools. Um, our goal is that if a person new to Rochester or new to the district were to walk into a building, they'd know that Lincoln K8 is a part of the Rochester Public Schools District. So the various lineups here are how logos would be used side by side or John Marshall High
136School would be associated with Rochester public schools. So someone were to drive by, they can see immediately like, oh that's a part of RPS. And then to give you a sneak peek into how the visual identity will be shown in real life, we've created some posters here utilizing our value statements. Um and then the next slide also showcases how this would be applied in real life. So, uh, drafts of, uh, business cards. If we were to make and sell t-shirts, that's what it could look like. If we were to have yard signs, that's what it could look like. Um, we have a bunch of these examples, but just giving you a small taste of what that is. So, once you have hopefully approved the narrative elements, we will begin work on implementing them across the
137district. Uh, the critical piece is helping our staff live into the full mission. So, we're working to identify where we're living out the elements, but also where we need inspiration to continue. We've kicked off the strategic plan planning process and the key narratives will be the foundation of that plan as well as other key decision- making and change efforts that we're implementing. Uh you will begin to see the new logo uh on in our buildings, on our website, and communications that we roll out. And we want to emphasize that this will take time and will be done in phases. Um if we were a private company, we would have a large budget to implement this swiftly and um completely, but our plan is to do this uh responsibly as resources allow. So we will start
138that process um beginning in October. With that, we'll pass back to Superintendent Kel. Well, I just want to thank uh Amy and Mamsu and the your entire team for the work that you did on this and then especially thank the parents uh community members and students who participated especially this summer. I'll just give you one example of uh something that I was super super excited about that didn't make the final cut. Um there's nothing in here about data and research, which doesn't mean we don't care about data and research, but it wasn't resonating as a value statement and I came to agree with that. But there were some painful deaths uh for me through that community feedback, but the result is stronger because of it. Um and so there were a number of uh those
139kinds of trade-offs and there may still be, you know, some as we finalize this process over the next couple meetings, but we're excited uh to have you uh vote on this at your next meeting and are glad to answer any questions you have in the meantime. >> Board members, Director Cook. >> Um well, this is really exciting for me. I I uh in my day job, I spend a lot of time counseling on branding strategy and trademark and and um things like that. Um and when you roll out a new brand, it's like it's it's it's like there's this new car smell. It's like I was just telling director Barlo, it's like you're moving into a new house or something. It's this tremendous opportunity where anything's possible because in a sense you're redefining yourself, but
140it's also a huge challenge because the brand doesn't have any meaning in and of itself other than what it just kind of intuitively recalls. Um the challenge is putting some meat on those bones and defining what RPS's brand um identity is going to be as it's associated with uh with this logo and the rest of the visual identity. So um that is the work ahead of all of us of making sure that we live up to these aspirational vision and mission and so forth. But very exciting time. Um, I think it it looks great and thanks for sharing it and all the details of how it came about. >> Dr. Marvin, >> three things. First, I want a t-shirt. >> Secondly, um I I love the process that you went through, the inclusive process. I
141think that's brilliant. And as um Dr. Pel, I feel your pain that the words data and research aren't in there, but they're implied. >> They are. >> So, I think I think there's that. And finally, I think this is one of the best vision statements I've ever read because it's all about preparing kids for the future and embracing them and giving them that kind of joy and education and belonging while they're here. Every kid should look forward to going to school every day or almost every day. And I so I love it that you have it from the time they enter our schools and for the rest of their lives. They should feel fulfilled and excited and um and we aim to deliver that. Thank you for your work, >> Dr. Barlo. >> And I
142just wanted to briefly allude to the actual um design. Earlier we heard from one of our students the importance of identity and um I think uh this encompasses identity as a whole without necessarily focusing on a particular one at the expense of others. Uh hopefully again everyone will see themselves in our our logo but more importantly experience the reality of what the logo represents uh as they have opportunity to enter walk the hallways uh stand before our students uh participate in community gatherings uh in our uh at our sporting events. So kudos And one of the things that I experienced through this process uh when we were asked to give feedback and and as I saw this develop is I could easily list our building blocks from our strategic plan and draw lines to our
143value statements and our mission and our vision. But it still left enough space for us to imagine how else we would live up to the mission and the vision, the vision and the values. Um it was very real um in what we're doing and what what we could do. Um and I felt a connection and I was really glad to see that the community in the feedback that they were giving us were coming up with the same connections that we talk about here all the time. So that is really hard to capture in very short paragraphs. And I think that the team has done a a great job with that. There's a lot packed into those those words. And um I am such a fan of the building block shapes. You all know how I
144feel about things you build with. I won't use the brand name. Um, but I the creativity of how we're reconfiguring the shapes and the brand identity, the examples that you've shown us, um, I think that keeps it fresh. It's not something it's not just a single logo that we're limited to. It's it's sort of an interrelated um, visuals that we'll be able to use. So, thank you for all that, Dr. Workman. So, this is I I'm looking at these these geometric shapes and I'm thinking any one of these shapes by itself doesn't convey what Rochester Public Schools is about. But when you put them together and they make that R shape, it really, I think, visually conveys to, well, to me anyway, that, you know, together we're better. together we can do it. These these
145geometric shapes are obviously not all the same size or the same dimensions or the same colors, which really does reflect, I think, the goal that we have set for ourselves that the vision of every student thriving in school and in life. And the tagline line on the end I think is just brilliant. Challenged to strive, supported to thrive. I mean, it's so simple and so succinct. And I know that simplicity and success take an awful lot of work to develop and to express exactly what you're saying. So, I really want to commend everybody who had input on this and all your gazillion revisions and drafts and rewriting I think is really paid off. So, thank you for to the whole team. >> Dr. Right. >> I was excited. I was excited a little bit. Um
146because I just like surprises. Um so I was going to say I without reading it I I I'm going just tell you the truth. I skipped to the end. I just skipped to the end because I just wanted to see what the logo looked like. I didn't I didn't even read most of that to begin with. I just I just wanted to see what picture you all came up with. and to uh director workman when I looked at it my first thought was out before reading it was that it's unique that they're not the same size um and that we didn't just take a whole bunch of shapes that were the same size and fit them together. Um I think that that speaks to the differences and how even different opinions work together. Um but
147I will say I was a little disappointed when I did read. I'm going just tell you why I was disappointed because God already knows. Um I didn't see the word advocacy. I was really hoping to see the word advocacy somewhere in there. Um I'm I'mma be all right with independence, but I would have preferred advocacy, but I'm I'mma be okay because you put resilience in there. Um well, I'm just I I do think that that is a you know, I didn't see a mention. I don't know, maybe somebody just throw it in there in in one of the spaces. Um because I do think that is a key aspect to being a successful adult. You know, knowledge is great. These things are great, but if you cannot self- advocate, if you cannot speak up for
148yourself, you can know everything. So, that was just my my little piece, but you know, they're not my favorite colors. She could have threw a little pink in there, but it's okay. That's okay. We're going to be all right, but I would like my shirt pink and black. Pink and black. Thank you. >> Anything else, board members? >> Thank you again. >> Thank you very much. >> Thank you. And when will the t-shirts be available? >> Pink, purple, and blue. >> Our next agenda item 8.2 is a prep for action on our policy committee recommendations. The policy committee met on August 22nd and proposed the following recommendations. This is the second of two prep for action briefings before the policies will be on the consent agenda for approval on October 7th. Are there any questions
149or comments on the policies or procedures? Hearing none, we will move on to our next prep for action item, which is the authorization to close and sell for Dell. Again, we are scheduled to take action on this item at the October 7th meeting. Superintendent Pel. Um, Madam Chair, you had an extensive briefing uh at a study session this summer um where you provided very valuable feedback on this. Um, I've concluded that it is still in the interest of the district to sell the three facilities that are in the next three um agenda items and we've endeavored to put a concise summary of the rationale in the resolutions. So maybe in the interest of time, Madam Chair, knowing that uh I presume we're going to read those resolutions, um I will just um urge you to
150uh approve uh this item and the other two that follow. >> Board members, any questions on the praell agenda item? Hearing none, I will ask the same question about the mighty oaks and hearing none the skyline. All right. Then we will take action on those three items at the October 7th meeting. Our next item is an action item, the certification of the proposed school district property tax levy payable 2026. Um I will read the resolution and ask for a motion and second and then open the floor for discussion. Be it resolved by the school board of independent school district 535, Rochester, Minnesota, located in Olmstead and Wabasha counties, that a proposed school tax levy be made upon all taxable property in the district and an amount equal to the maximum levy limitation established by the
151Minnesota Department of Education. And be it further resolved that the payable 2026 property tax levy and the 2025 2026 school district budget shall be discussed and the public provided an opportunity to comment at a school board meeting scheduled for Tuesday, December 16, 2025 at 6:00 p.m. in room 137 of the Edison Administration Building, 6:15 7th Street Southwest Rochester, Minnesota. And be it further resolved that the final levy shall be adopted at the regular schoolboard meeting on Tuesday, December 16th, 2025 at 6 p.m. And be it further resolved the county auditors be notified of these dates and times and that notices be published in accordance with the requirements of the commissioner of revenue. >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. Um, superintendent or is there any update or additional information? Uh
152nothing that we've prepared. >> Okay. >> All right. Um if there's no further discussion, all those in favor of the resolution say I. >> I. Opposed. Resolution has been approved. >> Thank you. The next item is our resolutions for the MSBA delegate assembly. And this is an action item we first discussed at the September 9th meeting. And I will read the resolution. Be it resolved that the school board of independent school district 535 does hereby approve the submission of the following resolutions to the MSBA delegate assembly for potential inclusion in MSBA's legislative agenda for the 2026 legislative session. urged the Minnesota legislature to enact legislation to transition from the high school Minnesota comprehensive assessments MCA to the universally accepted and nationally recognized ACT, which is aligned more closely with career and post-secary readiness. Using an
153assessment that is already widely administered statewide is more likely to accurately reflect student achievement given the stakes it has for college admission. two, urge the Minnesota legislature to enact legislation establishing a study group to review and recommend updates to state statutes concerning post-secary enrollment options, PSO, to further strengthen the quality of education and to enhance the degree to which participation in PSO prepares students for success in post-secary education in the workforce and evaluate the financial impact that student participation in PSO has on high schools. This study should include an analysis of the number of high school students who take PSO classes that are entirely asynchronous and online and analyze the degree to which those classes engage students in deeper learning and prepare them for a successful post-secary education and career. Three, redesign the components of
154the comprehensive achievement and civic readiness report that must be submitted to MDE each year to better align with best practices and continuous improvement and to increase the value of the process of developing the report for school districts. The redesign should also include the creation of an interactive database that enables school districts to identify other districts that are pursuing similar goals and utilizing similar improvement strategies so that those districts can learn from each other and potentially work together to improve student outcomes. >> Move approval. >> Second. It has been moved and seconded. Any questions or discussion? >> Director Mccclofflin. Um I just kind of want to start off that the the first propos so a little bit of background. This is for um presentation to the MSBA which is a state organization for schoolboard members and
155our peers and these will these if approved will be sent to the delegate assembly in December for consideration of their platform which ultimately then um leads to uh advocacy at our state legislature u beginning in their 2026 session. I think that it's really timely to have the first proposal here about uh looking at different ways to reflect our high school students academic success and looking at different ways to measure that transitioning to using the ACT rather than and then the MCAs because it better reflects their readiness for both career and post-secary readiness. The other thing that I want to point out in the third proposal, um, I really like the idea of creating an interactive database that enables school districts to identify other districts that are pursuing similar goals. I think that that concept in
156this context at the MSBA delegate assembly is something that might not just be limited even to this topic, but just that idea of putting that out there with our schoolboard colleagues, I hope will generate ideas and discussion of perhaps even other ways that we can look at using interactive databases to assist all of our districts and our peers in um improving outcomes for students. And I'd just like to thank the uh legislative committee for um having worked on these resolutions. I know there's also a pretty complicated form that you're going to have to fill out once these are approved to submit to the delegate assembly. Um >> any other comments, questions? Hearing none. All those in favor of the resolution say I. I. Opposed. The resolution has been approved. Thank you. The next item are
157um a new set of policy committee recommendations from our 2025 statutory changes. Um these recommendations um come from policies these recommendations come from changes in Minnesota law that happened in the recent 2025 Minnesota legislative session and came to us through MSBA model policy changes. The board is required to make all of these changes because they reflect changes in statute. Policy 208 section 4, adoption and review of policies, allows the board to approve these changes at a single board meeting. If a policy is modified because of a legal change over which the school board has no control, the modified policy may be approved at one meeting at the discretion of the school board. That's why this is an action item. There's a summary of the changes uh that were available in um the agenda item. Are
158there any questions or discussion before I read the resolution? Hearing none, be it resolved that the school board of independent school district 535 accept the recommendations of the policy committee as listed. Policy 414 mandated reporting of child neglect or physical or sexual abuse. Policy 418 drug-free workplace drug-free schools. Policy 501, school weapons policy. Policy 503, student attendance. Policy 516, student medication. And policy 806, crisis management. >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. >> All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. The resolution has been approved. >> Moving through our action items. Our next item is a uh our board meeting schedule for 2026. Uh be it resolved the school board of ISD 535 approved the dates, times, and locations for schoolboard meetings for 2026. >> Move approval. >> Second.
159>> Has been moved and seconded. Any questions or discussion? >> Superintendent. >> I just want to thank Miss Kramer for all the work she does on this calendar and many others. Indeed. Um and as we mentioned that if we were to add any additional um study sessions or any other uh need for any meetings um we could uh as long as we keep a record of all the meetings um that becomes part of our calendar for the year. So hearing no other discussion all those in favor of the resolution say I. >> I opposed. The resolution has been approved. One last action item. This is the approval of the 2025 2027 Rochester Education Association collective bargaining agreement. Be it resolved the school board of independent school district 535 does hereby ratify the 2025 2027 collective
160bargaining agreement between the Rochester Public Schools and the Rochester Education Association employees. >> Move approval. >> Second. It has been moved and seconded. Any questions or discussions? The details of the changes are available in the um agenda item. Superintendent. >> Thank you, Chair Nathan. I'd just like to thank the members of REA for approving this contract. It is, I think, a good step forward for our system. I want to thank the leadership of REA and the negotiating team who were just incredible thought partners in putting together this recommendation, which I hope you will approve. Any other questions or comments, board members? Hearing none. All those in favor of the resolution say I. >> I. Opposed. The resolution has been approved. All right. Moving on to other business. The current version of the ABCD is available
161in this agenda item for reference. And upcoming agenda items are on the screen. For our October 7th meeting, we have three monitoring items. our enrollment update, our newcomers programming update, and the report on the superintendent evaluation outcomes component report. We have a prep for action item on the language access plan, and that will um also include a uh public hearing on the language access plan that will uh occur right before that. That's part of the requirement in statute. Um the four action items, mission, vision, values, and brand identity. the authorization to close and sell Fredal, the authorization to close and sell Mighty Oaks, and the authorization to close and sell Skyline. And then we have another study session which I feel like we haven't had in a while. Uh we're monitoring item on religious holidays
162in 2027 2028 RPS calendar design and a prep for action on the world languages plan. Any other items that board members would like to add for additional consideration? hearing none. Um, our upcoming meetings all start at 5:30. October 7th is a regular meeting. October 14th is a study session. October 21st is a special session on field trip fees with a regular meeting immediately following. The next item on our agenda is a uh close session pursuant to Minnesota statutes section 13 DO5 subdivision 3B which allows the board to go into close session to evaluate the performance of an individual who is subject to its authority. While in close session, the board will engage in a confidential discussion of the scheduled annual performance evaluation of Superintendent Kent Pel. In addition, pursuant to Minnesota statutes section 13 DO5,
163the board will summarize our conclusions regarding the evaluation at the October 7th meeting. Pursuant to the law, I have cited, will someone make a motion to go into close session? >> So move. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded. All those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? The board moves into close session at 8:04 p.m. 8:59 p.m. Marvin, will you read the list of people present in the close session? >> Yes, I will. Those present were uh board members Kathy Nathan, Don Barlo, Justin Cook, Stephanie Whitehorn, Karen Mclofflin, Julie Wickman, Gene Marvin, and Superintendent Kent Pel. >> And hearing no other business, this meeting is at 8:59 p.m. Thanks.