001e e this regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5 : 31 p.m. on Tuesday March 4th 2025 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples present at this meeting are school board members superintendent Kent pel a non voting ex officio member and assistant school board clerk Miss Anne Kramer Miss Kramer will you please call the role director parlo here here here here here here here chair work here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for
002which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda move approval second director Barlo moved and director Workman seconded it has been moved and seconded to improve the amended the agenda all those in favor say I I any opposed the am the agenda has been approved the agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at Rochester schools.org assembly comments to the board it is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our students staff families and schools we welcome communication via email phone call at our community engagement listening sessions and here during comments to the board the purpose of comments to the board is to give community members an opportunity
003to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall with in our Authority the board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speaker's comments during the meeting but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 P pm on the Monday before the school board meeting the form is available on the RPS website and the assmbly main page policy 206 and procedure 2068a set the time place and manner procedures and restrictions on comments to the board by participating in the public comment period each speaker agrees to abide by this public comment procedure speakers when your name is called please come to this table if you have written materials for the board please provide them
004to the assistant school board clerk prior to your your remarks and she will distribute them to the board choose a microphone to speak into and be seated please direct your remarks to the school board you will have 3 minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed in front of me me please begin your remarks by stating your name our first Speaker tonight is Marie fum fum filum thank you e e e our next item is information and Outreach recognition National School social worker week Dr Barlo uh yes it's my uh pleasure to read the following in terms of acknowledging our RPS social workers National social School worker week is being celebrated March 2nd through the 8th to celebrate the work of school social workers all of our RPS schools have social workers and staff
005and they affect the lives of our students in impactful ways every day promoting student academic success by reducing social emotional economic and environmental barriers to learning RPS social workers work with students oneon-one in small groups or in the classroom to develop problem solving conflict resolution and decisionmaking skills they help students deal with difficult or crisis situations and improve interpersonal relationships with their peers they help address barriers to School attendance and learning and are key to identification and early intervention for students who need mental health care finally RPS social workers provide a link between School home and and the community connecting students and families to school and community-based resources for health mental health housing food and nutrition we would like to express our thanks on behalf of the district to our RPS School social workers and
006if there are any present would you raise your hand so we can acknowledge you well we'll do so anyway [Applause] thank you director Barlo our next item 4.2 board member updates does any board member have updates from committees or any other um items to share director Marvin um quickly I I was able to attend at two events uh during the last couple weeks one at Century High School was a soul food Gathering and there were probably 60 or 80 students who gathered in the cafeteria and in addition to sharing incredible food they had some profound intelligent inspirational conversations about Community about race about working together and I have never been more hopeful about the kind of amazing students who are attending our schools and working together to help our community and our schools do better
007um and then also there was the sound of gospel music uh performance at U Mayo Civic Center that was brought here by NAACP Jack trer in particular Mayo Clinic the city of Rochester and a number of other community organizations it was an amazing musical performance that told the history of gospel music through music and at the end Rochester students were on stage um to a standing ovation um they they were able to be involved in this as well and it was just it was inspirational and I'm so proud that our community came together to bring this group here director Workman um yeah the legislative Comm committee met with Senator Carla Nelson on February 25th 2025 our time was somewhat limited that was also uh impacted by some technical difficulties which fortunately we were able to
008resolve so some of the topics that we covered with her were um pek expansion of pek and Rochester funding for pek um increasing the local optional revenue from 724 to 974 per pupil uh provide to covering uh to provide funding to cover State mandator cost of the Minnesota unemployment insurance and paid leave programs um replace the high school MCA exams with the act and she was very interested in that in that most all students take the ACT and um I'm hoping to have further dialogue with her on that issue um one of the big issues was to amend the Minnesota Government data Practices Act to um authorize school districts and other units of local government to require the full legal name and address of individuals submitting a requests um for any number of reasons including
009the fact that um it takes a lot of time and effort to track down exactly where this information is coming from after we've spent a lot of time trying to research the information that they need to tell them how much it's going to cost um eliminate all state requirements related to notice for remote school board meeting participation um she was very unaware of this which doesn't surprise me because she's not a Schoolboard member but school board members are required to give three days notice before they are going to miss a school board meeting if they are going to participate in it which means that if you feel well enough to participate but don't want to share your germs with with everybody you have to notify them the board 3 days ahead of time and um
010then the other piece of that was that currently we are required to provide the address of where we will be and currently it's supposed to be in a public place that's accessible to any member of the public to attend so if somebody's in on vacation in California that information has to be out there because we know those Californians are really really interested in Rochester Public school district meetings um and then finally allow school boards to establish the school calendar so I think we had a very good and productive conversation with her and uh we hope to continue these efforts in the future absolutely well some of you may know that there will be a snow day tomorrow and and I I got a lot of emails as I always do from our students I I
011just want to choose one this time it's um a a a young person at John Marshall High School Hamza Al Zari and this was entitled roses are red hello Dr pel I am Hamza a junior at JM and I decided to write you some poems roses are red the temps are low cancel the schools because there is snow it will be cold out comes the Ice Wizard the NWS says there's going to be a blizzard I hope you enjoyed it I'm not very good at poems I am more of a speaker than a writer maybe I can work on my poems on a day off from school tomorrow so well done Hamza you got a you got a snow day for [Laughter] 17,300 well let's uh get this meeting done so that we can go
012I'll get home before the blizzard hit our next item is our consent consent agenda items 5.1 through 5.6 would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration move approval second director Marvin moved and director Barlo seconded all those in favor of the consent agenda say I I any opposed the consent agenda has been approved our uh topic 6.1 is a focus topic our extracurricular activities update superintendent pel thank you very much chair Mar Marvin chair Marvin I'm in a Time Warp come on over thank you chair Nathan um so we see Amy AR Ike who's our executive director of Community Education Partnerships coming up and three of our Intrepid activity direct activities directors Dan christofer Brian KY and David Perkins um many of the items on our Schoolboard agendas
013are tied to our strategic plan or they're tied to requirements that uh the state asks us to meet or Schoolboard policy and then some come from board members and this example is this is one an example of the latter this is something that multiple board members have asked for which is really laying down uh the Baseline for where we are today with our extracurricular activity strategies and so we really are going to uh try and succinctly uh make sure that the board and then other folks who are watching gets a core briefing on the full Suite of activities that we offer and some future directions the one point I would just make um before I turn it over to the group is that we talk a lot about whole child education uh and we talk
014about preparing kids for all of the skills they're going to need in the workforce tomorrow not just their cognitive abilities that are intellectual but their resilience their relationship skills their perseverance and we know from a lot of research and from the lived experience of many of us that many of those things are built through our extra curricular activities something I think that's underappreciated American Education often deservedly uh uh gets a lot of criticism when compared to other leading systems in the world this is an area where I would submit this is We are the world leader in developing kids capacities broadly through extracurriculars outside of school now we don't have all of our kids participating and I'm sure you'll hear about the priority that we want to place in Rochester on increasing the number and
015diversity of kids but this is a critical piece of our educational Mission and so thank you to the four of you for uh putting together this uh initial discussion that I'm quite sure will be a continued focus of our work in the years ahead so turn it over to you uh thank you for having us out here tonight it's always great to share the things that we do with all of you so Dr Mel chair Nath and members of the board thank you so much for having us out here tonight um some of the things we're going to talk about tonight ring from activities uh participation um and and the members of our school community that do participate economics uh supports that we have in place to support our our children uh trends that are
016that are coming to us and and emerging uh rapidly um challenges we face and and what the future will hold for for our programs at in in RPS especially when we talk about the high school we have have 16 female and uh 14 male activities and three adapted activities that are that are coet um we have additional registered programs that compete through the Minnesota State State High School league which range from a large and small group Ensemble with music uh Fine Arts as relates to to our art classes and visual arts that that our kids compete in at the high school league level um as well as speech and debate we have many different uh registered clubs and one of the things that we try to do at each school is if a kid has
017an idea for a club we find a way to try to have it so so we're we uh we really like working with our kids and our our staff members really step up to help advise with that and I would just add that Community Education gets into the game at the high school as well through our uh 21st century Community Learning Center Grant and many of of those ideas that kids have will uh come up through our enrichment programs so if it doesn't end up as a high school club it might end up as a 21st century program at the high school all right uh so we pulled the data from the 23 24 year um we have 5,29 uh participants um the total fee waved uh was 1,151 which is about 23% um race
018in ethn ethnicity um black of 10% uh Hispanic 8% um Asian sorry uh 0.2% um two or more 8% um white at about 66% um some of the activities uh that we do obviously offer and you can see the list um there uh but a couple to highlight with that our one act play or our three act play um Science Olympiad um so myself out at M High School um we just play second in state uh with our science olympiads um we have a number of different clubs that we offer um ranges from about 45 to 50 clubs uh those clubs are approved at the at the at the uh the administration of the of the schools uh some of the clubs that I can highlight tonight as well um we have a Muslim Club
019medical club uh model un photography uh Ski Club um Spartan 300 at at ma uh Spanish French um art advocate for artists black student union um BPA uh book club FCA um hiking and that's just to name obviously a few of those um one that um I really um have a passion for as well um and we have it at both of them but ours is called supporting our Spartans um that one is a a place that um they um get uh clothes and gloves and whatever may be um to um those that are underprivileged and need those uh essential items can go and um and get those also I just wanted to jump in real quick there's some clubs that are that operate independently that aren't listed there here um just come from the
020a desire in the community to have these things um and so we um partnered with them to provide them um there are things like we have a a Nordic ski um we have a mountain biking club uh there's a figure skating and equestrian um so also some some unique one-off activities that I think are very much unique to Rochester Public Schools and on the right side of the slide you see the types of offerings that the students have asked for under the 21st century program and so we try to really find a home for anyone who's interested um really looking for student voice in determining the content of the clubs and then we will work to find adult support uh to run the club so really the ideas come from the kids our drone clubs
021are probably our newest ones and those definitely came out of the kids um ask asking for that and then you know our job is to find some supportive adults that um have knowledge background but also are aware of that whole child piece to support the kid I'm going to talk a little bit about Middle School we do most of the Middle School programming years and years ago before I was here um a major budget cut eliminated Middle School sports some of you I see Julie nding you remember that and so we have tried to bring back some Recreational Sports Under 21st century uh the grant funded programs offer a wide range of enrichment that's um designed to give kids lots of experiences so it could be anything from recreational basketball to guitar to photography you
022name it um what we haven't been able to do is really create a full service competitive sports program replacing what was cut years ago and so we have begun to talk a little bit about that I'll um talk about the key initiative around that area later on uh but you can see that we uh do have some of our kids playing up in the high school sports I think that came up in a board question so we added that under the fourth bullet 1,040 middle schoolers play up in into the high school sports and then uh we do have seventh and eighth grade football that started a couple of years ago and we supported that role and actually now I believe the high schools with the booster clubs have kind of assumed that and then
023track as well so we're edging back toward that uh maybe too slowly if given uh all the funds we might need to do something like that but um we are moving in that direction our Middle School participants then we had about 1500 about a thousand of those were specifically under the 21st century Grant and then uh the balance of those would have been through other programs that run through Community Ed you can see the all the different titles going up the side of the screen and the school breakdowns and on also the demographics of those students most of the 21st C well in fact all the 21st century offerings are at no cost that's one of the rules of the grant that if you charge fees your Grant gets reduced by the amount of Revenue
024that you bring in in fees so it doesn't make any sense for us to uh reduce that grant that way so we have a balance of 21st century and some Fe based options and we jump jump in and talk about the economic economics and financial pieces um for our activities programming um looking at comparing what we have for our 2425 school year as it compares to to last year um being keeping in mind that you know this year is not incomplete obviously um our total investment um for this school Year's budget to this point was um 5.6 million um last year was uh 5.2 uh the total revenue um from this year year is 1.7 right now um was 2.3 million last year um the prior unspent uh that's kind of referred to as in
025layous terms would be like rollover money money that um was not spent the prior school year that were're able to um take into the the budget for the F following year was $931,000 Million um from this school year thus far and 2.8 million from last year but that rollover funding um uh just be mindful all of this is split between all three schools obviously um this is the the big bucket um for the districtwide budget uh and some of that a significant proportion of that rollover money comes from um activities and fundraising that activities do for themselves so um they'll either have their own booster club um or they will just as uh uh for instance our Student Government um when our student government does uh their Creek um they do a huge fundraiser for
026that um the um athletic teams um oftentimes have to to fund raise to play for um uniforms and things of that nature uh and so that rollover funding gets grouped into that those monies so all of that doesn't come directly from District funds and you did have another document in Sy that goes into detail behind the high school budgets and then the grant side of the world these are federal dollars that come through the state of Minnesota in a competitive Grant there's a different cohort they call them every three years or so we are actually recipients of two of those simultaneously right now cohort 8 will finish up this August so we are actually right now in the process of writing for a cohort 10 Grant uh cohort nine will continue uh we cover different
027schools with each of those cohorts you can't cover the same uh After School site in multiple cohorts so you see down below which schools and which partners are uh paid for within each so you can see the total Grant award uh we did put some extra money into uh the Esports program this year and some other areas uh that went beyond our grant so you see an additional Community ad investment in cohort 8 this year uh so you have the available funds and then we subgrant out a portion of that to other organizations and so you see the bottom line available for us and that goes to the adults who work in the program as pay for those it goes to supplies for the program computers for the esorts Drone parts for repairing things like
028that right supports um RPS provides these supports to to help participants uh experience success uh access um uh activities at school buses for middle school athletes to the high schools uh after school activity buses for the middle schools um activity fees waved um no cost activities with 21st century Grant funds uh Health um there's referrals to low cost or free uh physicals um we also have a partnership with male clinic for the athletic trainer Services which uh for myself is is is um I was the athletic trainer at Mayo high school for the last 13 years so I can obviously speak a little bit more upon that um it's a it's a wonderful service um it provides um athletes and even some of our our our teachers and and staff in the buildings um a
029resource uh for um some of those injuries that they may occur and really what it does is they're able to evaluate those injuries they're able to give advice on you know does it need to be seen by a physician does this need to be uh an emergency visit tonight or not um what type of rehab is it um are is this something that we're going to send to physical therapy or is this something that you could you know obviously work with the athletic trainer at the site um so it really saves a lot of parents money uh for not having to incur some of the cost of even going to see a physician as well as U Physical Therapy costs and so forth um our athletic trainers have really become uh part of the school
030families and an in integral part I think of the sport scene so happy to obviously answer any more questions you may have with that uh partnership so we wanted to share a few of the trends that are coming up and that first bullet is really in our 21st century area we're seeing a lot of growing uh interest in Esports drones some cultural um in Heritage language programs so offering a program that would have been in English in the past but now offering it in the language uh the students might be speaking at home or uh might speak as a a second language a lot of interest in beekeeping and pollinators as um learning lots of science we have a stem mentoring program which has really taken off at the middle school um to intentionally involve
031graduate students at the mail clinic and other professionals working in various stem fields to work directly with their students um they work toward a project for the stem fair uh but they're meeting with them regularly over several months to build their relationship and also learn scientific method uh and boxing is one of our newer more popular ones um also jumping in with boys volleyball which you guys had the pleasure of of meeting with you last meeting um can say that we are having uh quite a few registrants with that and so um we're planning and and going forward with that so hopefully a great success uh leading into boys volleyball uh one bullet point we didn't have on there that adding in is uh is girls wrestling girls wrestling has really exploded um over the
032last couple years um we saw uh you know quite a few Brian was up at the state tournament um and we see a lot of uh success with obviously girls wrestling moving forward uh girls flag football um has been added as a club sport um the Vikings actually uh pay I believe it's 12 $122,000 to for a startup cost um and that's for for uniforms and to pay officials and um they're really promoting and pushing um girls flag football to become more prevalent across the country some areas of of concern as it's listed is is related directly to number of participants and some activities we have um gymnastics all three of our high schools um train together we have one we train at one facility we're at fredel we share coaches and we we share
033Transportation every time we compete we compete together but separate so each team you know we score individually but one of the uh reasons we're able to still make it work is because we are sharing the cost with having um all three schools share coaches and transportation and officials and everything related to that um our numbers are low however and um you know we would like to see those numbers increase but as as kids come to us without much prior experience with gymnastics then it it's it's challenging to fill our teams but we're working on that boys and girls hockey as we know um it's it's on the Forefront with with low numbers in our community and across the state so we're we're co-oped with jam and Sentry are co-opt and and boys and girls hockey
034and um and and Ma numbers you know we're continuing to work on building them Alpine Ski is similar to the same situation we had with with gymnastics where where we share a coach we share staff and but all three teams operate independently and um they um compete together but we share coaches and and cost with that too mam chair we have two slides left would you like us to cover these quickly cover them quickly please okay we will do that um we did want to bring up a few of the challenges that we do face uh as we mentioned earlier the previous budget reductions are still affecting uh the Middle School sports so I won't say much more on that um 21st century Grant does require reapplication every few years and it is highly competitive
035Minnesota only has $3 and A5 million do for the whole state going into this next cohort per year and so we are likely to ask between 750 and a million for continuing our programs and so you can tell that would not go very far across the whole state um one of the challenges we have is that time of day recruiting you know high quality adults to come and work with our kids during the after school hours that's not a new challenge but it's one that we always um it does limit the pool from our total population down to people who can make time during that and then managing the increasing wages without revenues Rising you know if your Grant stays the same every year and wages go up and the last thing I wanted to
036mention was we do have a key initiative in this area in middle school extracurriculars so one of our early steps was to work with the search Institute to do some uh both literature review and to do some focus groups with students parents and staff and to uh get a window into their experience so we did both participants and participants to try and get both sides of that um while there were some challenges in getting enough people to uh participate in the focus groups I think we did get a a window into some experiences and some good recommendations of course from the kids we heard that having a friend in a program is can make all the difference that's not new to us but uh they did recommend some Ambassador type programs where kids could help
037uh promote the activities they gave us some good hints on communication and then um just some ongoing youth voice and parent voice opportunities so that will all be worked into the initiative and that concludes our prepared information be happy to entertain your questions okay thanks board members any questions Dr mvin thank you so much I I as you said it's so important um to have students all students hopefully involved in some sort of extracurricular activity um could you tell me for the 21st century Grant programs do they all have a paid advisor most of the time so sometimes you would get a volunteer who might come and run a program but typically they're paid either a District staff person or a Community member who would come in okay and then when when there's someone who
038who is a volunteer what um responsibility does the district have in terms of um legal responsibility sure well we provide quite a bit of training to mitigate legal risk with that uh in the stem mentorship program for example they get quite a bit of training on working with middle school students so we know that's not always familiar to people um when their career might be in a stem area and not in education we were talking as a group too that bringing more and more people in from outside of education does require you know training in on Youth Development and all of that um we're certainly doing background checks as we normally would when we bring in a paid staff member we would do that with volunteers so we're trying to get them as ready as
039we can thank you Dr parlo uh two observation points and one question I have the opportunity maybe just over a month ago to part to attend a um uh middle school girls volleyball tournament at doota and uh I think that occurred as a result of the 21st century Grant uh excellent lot of well attended and just wanted to acknowledge that secondly um when you presented the information regarding High School athletic activities total fee waivers one thing out to me that runs contrary to I think what people tend to automatically assume as it relates specifically to well who those students are getting the scholarships or the fee waivers and I just found it interesting that 66% of the high school students who Reed the waivers were white just something I kind of noted that you had
040noted which I thought was significant uh because it runs contrary counter to the narrative that often times is put into play and I just wanted to for whatever reason bring that to light and then uh finally um as relates to the 21st century Grant uh in that it does come from federal sources uh uh in terms of planning uh and no I'm not asking you to look into a crystal ball please do we need one of those but uh there is a reality that that funding may not be available uh so what are you anticipating uh how long will we be able to ride the current funding cycle it seems like it goes through next year August August okay and uh just wanted to hear what is being considered I think it is a crystal
041ball moment we are all waiting you know for that same information to find out what's going to happen it is um ferally uh managed but given to the states then to do the local pieces so the states do have the dollars for this fiscal year so we're safe through August um it will be a major topic of conversation in the district and with Community ads specifically on whether how much of that we can replace we do have some fund balance in community ads so we could go for a period of time but nowhere near the three to six years that a grant normally covers so it would be a major loss to our district because this does create quite a bit of access for uh kids to get to activities without a fee thank you
042Dr mclin I just want to clarify um taking off of director Bar's comments I'm looking at the slide that has the participation I want to make sure that we're looking at and talking about the same things that there's a listing there under the High School athletics activities participants 2020 sorry 5,29 fee waivers is 1,151 23% the next data though is that participation data it is it's not fee waiver data correct I want to make sure that I understood we do have that however so if the board's interested in that we could give you the breakdown of those Fe and it might be helpful for future slides to make that a little bit more clear is that's participation um and then my own separate questions first of all thank you for educated me about 21st century
043activities I can't believe that I've been on the board this long not super long but anyway um I did not know what that was and now I know so thank you that this was helpful and not to be confusing but there is a class called 21st century in the middle schools okay didn't know that either is different okay I had heard the topic but I didn't realize what was involved and I love the fact that you've listed all of the activities on the slide because it is something that actually came up in um some discussions of my uh reelection in the fall that a lot of people were wondering about particularly Middle School sports activities is a completely different thing that also the students don't pay for that would be really important I think for
044us to be able to share with the community broadly that I think that that was a question that I had a lot about um you know what's going on with middle school and how to get them engaged there's a whole list so I have resources now um I am also interest girls flag football I hadn't heard about that is that High School level correct y okay all three high schools uh we've just started at meale High School this year it was kind of late getting into things um but uh um we're learning more about it and kind of what we we can and can't do with it but uh uh May is going to try to run it this year and see kind of how it goes is it a Spring sport correct awesome and
045then one of the other things again that came up when I was talking to voters this fall in and I apologize I didn't realized this was on the agenda so I'm all really interested in seeing this for the first time the financial information that's attached as well is there breakdown between how much is spent by the district between boys and girls Sports I know that there's parody related to um participation and offerings but the question came up about are we spending a lot more on boys sports or girl sports or is that broken down and and collected anywhere not that I want to put you on the spot for now but in a future presentation if that could be included we can get that data because everything's budgeted accordingly but and it is it is
046broken down between do an October sorry we do an October report to the Department of Ed where we have to break down our spending per per sport so we do have that data that we can we can get get to you if we do this again next year that would be helpful to add okay thank you I think we can provide it to you in advance of that just in writing so thanks for helping me do that that'd be great Dr Cook um so yeah few thoughts uh very important topic thank you for the presentation um I I guess I I I wanted to start just briefly uh Dr pel the way you introduced this topic really resonated with me because um reflecting back and I'm sure this is true for many of us here
047um the number one two three four and five things I remember from high school were all extracurricular and when we when we talked about deeper learning um two years ago and and how to bring about that that Synergy between creativity Mastery and identity it was always the extracurricular activities and and and the sports as well you know the the potential for relationship building and leadership development and all of it um and just learning how to push yourself you know there's so much of identity that comes from discovering that you were capable of more than you thought and sports can be a really potent way to learn that lesson um so love this topic I love that we're reaching as many students as we are um partly oh and and one other just observation I wanted
048to underscore how wonderful I think it is that in this last uh cohort of the 21st century Grant we nearly doubled the amount of Community Partnerships or support for Community Partnerships um the students that were reaching through the sports mentorship academy and paja women and and so many others are um just a great use of our resources as a community and really a boon to our uh our broader community so I think that's very well done um but in the in the face of uh uncertainty um related to that funding and um unfortunately predictably um funding in general um it's sort of like the the game that we uh that we constantly play here um one thought that I've had a few times is whether there is a tradeoff between the quantity of programs that
049are available and I I love that we embrace the the spirit of trying to meet students interests as they come to us and make available opportunities you know depending on students initiatives but is is there a a trade-off between the the number of different programs that we're able to offer and the quality of the ones that that we make available um and I I'm not decided on this but it's something that I've been kicking around in my own mind and I wanted the opportunity to hear from others um whether um in a scarce resource scenario um um that is a tradeoff that that we are sensitive to or not or any observations you might have it's a good it's a good question let let me follow up so are you asking if we continue to
050offer more are we taking away from what we have I don't think we are um kind of getting back to what we fund per gender P we're going to give everything we have to make the program successful and and we really don't look at at somebody going without to give to others so uh but we are mindful of that I mean that's a concern we have as we add things um we're always going to come and ask for more funding but we're going to uh it's it's a trend right it but we're always going to try to work within our budget to make make it a great experience that we can have so I don't know if I answer your question or not no you you underscore that I didn't pose it very well at
051all I I guess um maybe I didn't understand what what I um I I think what I'm trying to ask is as between um a hundred different activities where we're able to cover a as broad a possible set of interests of all the students in the school or 10 activities that were able to do really well um and hopefully make them bigger and more opportunities for more students to join those 10 and find their spot within the um I'm I'm purposely trying to not identify particular activities or sports but um do you think it's uh it's ever better to try to narrow the focus and make a lesser set of programs better in quality and perhaps in number of students that enroll my concern with that would be simply that LE let's say we're going
052to do 10 things we're going to do them really well that may not spark somebody's interest and some kids May drift away because they think they won't be able to be part of that program for example if we say we're going to get rid of boys cross country so that um but we're going to really have boys soccer be successful we can only carry so many soccer players um so that worries me that if we would limit it and try to do 10 things really well that we would lose a lot of our kids I think we would lose participants I don't think we'd have as many participants as we have we we also do take into consideration the long-term viability of sustainability when things are suggested to us in terms of taking on new
053activities um is there a broad enough interest not only within my particular building but districtwide and then also we're part of a conference right so we have to take into consideration what does that interest look like because if you want to do an activity I'm speaking specifically in terms of Athletics or any activity like you want to compare yourself against your peers well if other communities don't offer that programming then we're just kind of doing it in house and that only is going to satisfy students to a certain extent right so we do take long-term viability into consideration um is there a feeder system that's going to continue to feed into this program that students in high school want to have so that it can be a long-term opportunity for students that come that are
054coming going to be coming into the system so we do take those things into consideration and sometimes the answer unfortunately is sustain the sustainability is not it's not viable enough for us to to really invest in short term because we want things to be part of the system long term and I I think one thing that we offer in the school district is is AI unique atmosphere where we offer things that try to um attract anyone right um you know I I grew up in a small school district where you had this many activities and if you didn't really you know that didn't speak to you you you didn't have anything else to do right um so I think we're very competitive in all all of our sports activities but also you know our our
055arts and our bands and so forth are are thriving and we have a lot of members with that and I think uh you know just for Mayo alone you know we have over 200 band members and we had over over 115 participate in the fall Musical and a lot of those individuals may not be in any anything else superintendent um thank you well thank you and director cook thank you for raising this question just to the point that was just made when I recommended that uh you endorse a co-op in boy volleyball uh there were two ways in which your point uh came into that decision first my first question for these folks is gym time if we start it out can we actually are we taking gym time from other sports and the answer
056in that case because we have the volleyball center was no but that would have been a a hard issue if we were going to actually make the challenge of JY the other is uh to David's Point that's why we called it a three-year pilot we have not committed to voice volleyball yet in perpetuity and I think there's a broader Point here that is going to be very relevant to us in a school district with ambitious aspirations for kids and a tight Financial environment and declining enrollment which is that we do need to think about the viability of everything we offer and that when school districts out of Good Intentions subsidize classes programs and even schools that do not generate sufficient Revenue to cover those costs you cannibalize the quality of everything for everybody but you
057also have to nurture things and grow them and give them a chance to take off and so we do have to be prudent here in investing uh when I bring to you a recommendation for a new world language next year this is going to be a critical issue we're going to have to invest in it before it has enough kids to cover our costs to grow it but that we have to have a mind for sufficient student participation to fund whatever that language might be and I wanted an in school curricular example I think the same thing is true and these folks do a great job of of balancing that but it's a really important point that if we do water down the support we give to a program out of a well-intentioned desire to
058subsidize something that simply doesn't have sufficient interest that can be a recipe for a long-term diminishment of the quality I I'm I'm confident that at this time we're balancing that well but uh you know one of the questions we've tried to make a Hallmark of these board presentations is we don't just do the good news which is why I'm very glad they listed those three sports that were concerned about here and believe me I know board members get emails about it and calls all three of those Sports have passionate supporters in students parents and coaches so when we put those up there if any of them are watching tonight I'm sure they're not thrilled to see it but we need to be honest that when it comes to you know hockey and gymnastics um and
059some other areas that we didn't all get into tonight we have to be mindful of that student issue um so I really appreciate the point um because it's a it's something we think about constantly across our work Dr Workman uh so I have a question on the the economic piece um you said that the state of Minnesota has $3 million for the next cohort three and a three and a half million well per year per year so that's for the entire State um what was that amount for this year do you know I don't know I'm just trying to figure out how much I can compliment you on your grant writing and how much you actually got in terms of incredible I know it's incredible I I don't know why more people don't object but
060I'm glad they don't Amy and the team have been incredibly successful and I mean I've I've made that observation for many years having worked with some things on you and it's just it's just amazing the work that you and your team do in service for our students so thank you I think it's um just to give you an idea the last goor round they I believe they were able to fund 14 proposals around the state so if we ask for a third of the dollars that tells you there's probably not room for 14 proposals and we're not assuming we're going to get it either it's highly competitive but um but you've a small amount of money for the whole state Dr white horn um so thank everybody for all their wonderful questions just s me
061a lot of talking um but what I am interested in is we just kind of glanced over it was like the volunteer training for community members um and to uh directors Cook's point of you know wanting to have quality programs I do think that we have a good body of professionals here um who could probably do some amazing things for children but as you said just because you're an amazing cook doesn't mean you know how to translate that into working with children and so forth and I don't know if you I know you said that they do do some training but how is that communicated out to the community because I do know that we do have community members here that probably maybe do have the time um to do this but I know some
062adults are hesitant that are not in the education field you know of teaching right because they are not really sure what that all encompasses um and they have very valuable talents that would work great in that type of programming um so I don't know if we've considered other ways to um bring that to the community and let them know that that we do offer you know some training and some support you know and I think that may be some people's hesitancy in um doing Community Education you know programming because they hear teaching and they start thinking well curriculums and you know I have to know all this stuff about education where some sometimes it's just you know guided help you know in a controlled setting so is there a way that we can work with
063that as well because as um as we were talking about the budget you know we do have community members that may have the ability to volunteer or you know work for a very low stien because they want to help but there's that barrier between I have this great knowledge but I'm not a educator so have we thought of this I think we probably have room for improvement there on getting the word out um typically we find our volunteers through our connections in the community so when we were looking for stem mentors for example going out through the businesses that hire a lot of stem professionals using our connections there to get the word out um through the colleges in the area knowing there may be students interested in stem but I do think that's a
064fair point that we could be more intentional about how we communicate the training piece and if I can be more specific I'm thinking of you know our retirement um Community right because you know there are you do have young retirees that you know IBM retirees people who have a lot of great knowledge out there but again they they're probably not in that immediate bucket of you know oh they're currently working but there are we have you know a nice portion of our community with time on their hands that you know often approach us you know they want to help with kids uh but they may be a little hesitant about being you know over a program with children so I think if we can find a way to communicate that out especially to some of
065our retirees and things like that you know that Community aspect that really helped to build uh that program and maybe take some of that that strain oh so I'm wondering if um you talked about students sometimes who come to us in high school and they hadn't had experience but we know we've got a robust uh recreational and youth leagues in a few Sports um how much do we work with each other because I can only think that increased participation at that youth and recreational level can only help the development of our high school sports participation so how does how does that conversation happen and I know those are volunteer run and and you know volunteer L but can you talk a little bit about those relationships yeah well I can start um I know that
066um you know some of our coaches reach out into those those organizations and help with with some of those um it's really different you know compared to the the different programs um I know um with the youth football league for example um you know our our coaches help out in the plays and everything else with that and mentoring those coaches as well um so they're you know running the same offense defense and doing some of those type of things um so I think there's some there um I think there's more that probably needs to be done um and I think there's a two-way street there right I think it's a great question we Dr pel started talking about how great we are as a nation in in our extracurriculars in our schools especially Public Schools
067um one of the barriers that we see and I don't want it to be all about money is Youth Sports are expensive we have across the board at all three of our schools we we have seen such an increase in boys and girlss track and sports where you didn't need to play the youth sport but you could come and you get you a pair of shoes and you can run and you can jump and you can throw something um those sports are through the roof but we have other sports where it's really tied to youth that the youth numbers are actually low in our community as well we go from you know shaver Academy and lur in our three Public Schools um to trying to have uh youth baseball and Youth Softball that are basically
068feeding one or two teams at that level at the highest level to feeding five high schools so it it is a challenge um some of the things we talked about removing those bar barriers with Community Ed um things like basketball and volleyball that that Amy highlighted already but we do we do work with our our people all the time they share our gyms they they they get a very good rate to rent our gyms through when they run through Community Ed so we are trying to form those relationships all the time and keep those strong strong relationships board members any other questions comments compliments compliments abound good luck on the next Grant cycle thank you thank you very much thanks for having us than for having us thanks for your time our next agenda item
069is a monitoring item superintendent goals for 20242 midyear progress check and this was the uh annually scheduled midyear conversation that we re we rescheduled here from our February 18th meeting I need the clicker thanks superintendent for all right um as board members are aware in the framework that we use in Rochester for my goals and evaluations which was developed jointly by our school boards Association and our state administrators Association um they recommend a mid-year conversation which is intentionally not structured um but obviously around which I want to provide some Reflections that hopefully can guide uh uh the conversation we're going to have tonight and I'm sure in the days and weeks following um as that picture suggests I really think I could character IED this year that we are in in Rochester Public Schools as
070Landing one plane and uh getting another one ready to take off the current plane is our current strategic plan which is in its final year and the uh plane that's getting ready to take off is our series of initiatives that we have underway to prepare for the development of our next strategic plan really briefly um that plane that is landing which is not yet completely landed um and the building blocks are not yet completely constructed but I think we all should feel really good about what has been accomplished in the three-year life of this plan to move really quickly um as director cook was just mentioning our our framework for deeper learning of Mastery identity and creativity a moment ago we have had teams for two years in every one of our schools not only
071uh Define that framework with Precision in terms of what it means with curriculum instruction but create exemplars of deeper learning that I look forward to sharing with the board and a community at the end of the year um in that building block and the second layer of multi-tiered systems of supports we have implemented an entirely new literacy curriculum which is not just our Wht and wisdom curriculum but multiple resources we're giving frequent assessments at every level including the high school level and we're beginning to design interventions to support struggling readers and our teachers and administrators have engaged in best-in-class professional development in literacy at every level in mental health we are screening hundreds of students and identifying in particular kids who are suffering from depression and anxiety being the two big ones and then some
072kids who are uh struggling with more serious challenges and we've strengthened our Partnerships with school linked mental health providers that are supplementing the work that our staff does with uh treatment that we do not directly provide in that building block and the third uh tier of belonging and behavior um we have invested in relationships and are beginning to see in particular in our middle middle schools and high schools uh students feeling more connected we've put in place a new cell phone procedure that has uh helped uh young people I think both focus on learning and focus on each other and then we've had certain schools like Willow Creek where we've seen dramatic improvements in the degree to which kids feel safe and affirmed and of course Willow Creek uh is not unique in that regard
073but it's one we've talked about a lot in that middle building block of engaging parents and caregivers we have first researched and then adopted a research-based framework for family engagement that comes out of uh a researcher named Karen map at Harvard we're in the early stages of figuring out how to apply that framework through the work of family engagement liaison and we've launched our Cape program that's an intensive experience for families who really want to learn more about how to help their young people succeed in school then in that building block of establishing strategic Partnerships we've identified 20 key organizations in our community and we have sought to make sure that not only do they understand what's happening in Rochester Public Schools but that we understand what's happening in their organizations and I think probably
074the Marquee result of that commitment to strategic Partnerships was the $10 million gift that Mayo Clinic uh gave this District at a very very difficult time that was the biggest but by no means the only or necessarily even the most important of those Community Partnerships and then when we move down to that fourth tier we get to improving Recruitment and Retention we have a a striking number of what are often called grow your own programs to bring talented and dedicated people into our district whose uh backgrounds reflect our student Community broadly we are uh engaged in what we call our people strategy that is involved in changing how we hire recruit induct and support um our staff um and also learn from uh what we didn't get right when they choose to leave us through
075uh a much enhanced approach to exit interviews we get to that middle block where we look at our youth voice um and are developing our leadership capacity we have had 50 of our School principles go through a research-based Leadership Academy we've created a pathway program for people who are aspiring to be administrators who are getting support and preparation in working toward their uh lure um and Readiness to be school leaders in that bucket of Youth voice and Leadership we have conducted efforts like our perspectives project to understand the perspectives of our students who have struggled academically and with behavior and we this year are refocusing our student School Board on providing this school board the actual school board and the central Administration with critical Insight on pressing issues like attendance uh and our cell phone
076procedure in that building block that's the final one there on the post-secondary pathways and careers we have really empowered our school counselors who have reinvested in the professional framework for the American School Counselors Association um they have uh begun creating a new curriculum from Early Childhood through the end of high school that's focused on helping kids develop the knowledge skills and habits they need for Success After High School and we've purchased a new software platform zel that is being used in every school in the district now and finally on the bottom uh sphere we as board members well know um are in the midst of building out a new budget model and Staffing model that uh is modifying our funding formulas and is intended to maintain consistency across the district while providing more flexibility uh
077at the site level um when you shift over there and we get to that next restructuring School Improvement we are in the midst of the school continuous Improvement plan process or skip 1.0 and are working through the details of 2.0 which is on the horizon starting the year after next and next year as a transition year um the school board has really LED that building block at the middle about reviewing and revising policies for Equity um and our policy committee and particular but also the full board has been attentive to the needs of the kids and families that face the greatest barriers to success as we have revised our board policies and then we get to the building blocks that not very poetically was named redesign Transportation routes and the big outcome there was uh
078putting in place new start times which have shifted our youngest Learners from starting at 9:35 when I got to Rochester to starting at about 8: am which is paying huge dividends dividends for their Readiness to wake up and learn in school and then finally in that bucket of increasing philanthropic support we have brought in more than S $7 million in philanthropic support for our work and our students not counting the $10 million gift from Mayo Clinic so that's kind of a whirlwind tour of that first plane that is uh beginning its descent and here's a quick picture of the next efforts that are about where we're headed as board members uh well know you've approved the conceptual balanced budget model in January we are now deeply engaged in refining that model which you will um
079review and have an opportunity to approve in June we are uh actually in also very much the midst of the design process of the school Improvement planning process what we've been calling 2.0 and uh taking a look at how we actually set that up to really make sure our Improvement processes are grounded in both data and evidence and high quality uh collaboration among various stakeholders in our process we are on the cusp later this month of kicking off the development of a new vision mission vision values and ultimately a brand we've selected an expert uh firm that has a lot of experience in that space that will be leading the board and our cabinet folks and me through an initial uh process exercise to uh kick off an effort that will uh stretch through most
080of the end of 20 remainder of 2025 and then this summer we'll start the analytic work on a new strategic plan and that will go very public um with working groups and focus groups and surveys in the fall with a hope hope for approval by the end of 2025 so that we'd be able to start 2026 with a new strategy fully in place so what are my goals for the current year um the first which we've been calling the leadership component is that you would rate me as effective or highly effective on 75% of the uh goals and standards that are in the Minnesota school boards Association and Masa framework as board members know it is a complex framework that we used every year I've been here and we've used the whole thing there's 140
081competencies um and we've talked about everyone and I'm going to give you a brief um overview right now in a moment of of the uh one observation from each of the categories and the framework on how things are going for me uh this year and then the outcomes component this year we have defined it in a way that actually is going to have a lot of data but it's really one measure we focused it on literacy and reading in particular and we've focused it on gains at the grade level because in many ways that's where the change is happening first and we've said that the goal is that at least a third of the schools make statistically significant gains in the aggregate achievement in reading of all students in at least one grade level on
082the 2025 MCAS which uh our students are starting to take now and will be taking over the next couple of months uh when compared to the scores on last year's comprehensive ass assessments and so that's our measure uh for this year there's not a lot I can say about that outcomes component with the the achievement gains uh in terms of exactly uh how it's going and the role I'm playing in that uh we're very much in the midst of it and we'll see how it comes out but let me make a brief comment on each of the eight categories that are in the msba leadership um each of these eight categories has got five or six subcomponents and if I tried to touch on each of them we'd be here all night so I'm I'm
083picking and choosing one to just give you a sense and and as chair Nathan just mentioned this is intended to be a conversation and not my formal evaluation so in terms of governance I really think that we are getting the balance between governance and management pretty much right I think when you think about all of those issues that I just showed you on the Arrow moving up starting with the balance budget model and going up to the Strategic plan you really are making the big decisions on all of them but I feel that uh I have a very strong role in advising you on that and that you are taking the preparation and the work our staff is doing to support that very seriously I think we do not feel micromanaged uh we don't feel
084that these efforts are um for lack of better word politicized which does happen in organizations um I also don't feel that we're encroaching on the Strategic direction of the district I really think you are making those big governance decisions and on the whole um we're getting that balance right which is which is not easy um uh but I think that uh and it's something we always have to be vigilant about but I think that it's something that um I feel really quite good about right now and I don't take that for granted because I talk to superintendents who do not have that with their board regularly who are told I don't think this principle is working out or I really don't think that curriculum is particularly effective or I heard there was a problem so
085I went over to that school to look into it myself those are real short like near-term examples uh from districts that are not unlike ours I hear from you about your concerns and issues um but I don't uh feel that I'm continually trying to uh draw a line between board leadership and management um but that's as I've said a couple times that's fragile and we always need to be vigilant about that I think it highlights the importance of the board's role in the design of the next strategic plan as I hope my walk through the building blocks a moment ago Illustrated I take our strategic plan really seriously and so when this board approves the next strategic plan I'm going to see that as my marching orders for the next three years and I'm going
086to lead to that plan so when we get ready in December of 2025 to have you vote on that plan that's the moment in many respects besides hiring the superintendent the other moment when the board really puts its marker down and says that that's what we want to see happen let's go do it so the the the board's role in that strategic plan is so critical I feel in the end we all need to own that plan but the board uh really does terms of finances um I haven't mentioned the referendum yet but the referendum which may seem ancient because so much has happened since then but it was just this year um it was an extraordinary vote of confidence it happened after the very painful defeat of the 2023 referendum um Everybody deserves credit
087for that in many respects but I think that it was something that was huge I know there's been questions in our community well why if the referendum passed do we see some uh schools needing to make adjustments next year and why do we see some challenges in the out years um the short answer is declining enrollment and very tight State funding but boy if we did not have that 19.4 million doll we would be cutting 20 million uh in June and so while we Face Challen all is we should be incredibly grateful to our community for their investment in our kids and we we need to recognize where we would be had that not passed and also had the board not had the authority to renew the 2015 referendum so in that sense I think
088we can feel good but we can't be complacent and as you know I'm going to bring you a long-term Financial strategy multi-year Financial strategy when we also bring you the budget for the 25 26 school year um that uh if approved will guide the work that we do over the next three years in terms of our finances just as the one you approved in 2022 will guide has guided our recent work on the Community Partnerships and Community relationships piece um I would say for me the referendum was actually a great way to re-engage with a broader uh segment of our community it uh it really took me outside our schools in our district in a way that was ultimately I think really productive the flip side of it was I really wasn't in our schools
089in our district for four months and so I am trying to really get back into schools I'm meeting with people in each of our schools to hear what are their concerns and ideas um one of the of course challenges for me is there's only so many hours in the day and so getting that balance right is a constant um Challenge and of course I'm grateful to uh an for the work she does in man managing my calendar which is a constantly shifting uh puzzle um so I would say it's that constant balance of internal and exter external right now I'm way over on the internal in the fall and through the winter I was way over on the external in a perfect world that would be a better balance um between the two in terms
090of School District Operations one of the things that is on our Board calendar but I didn't list on the Arrow going up because I don't think it's it's it's quite in that category are some facilities issues we are going to be bringing you some recommendations for at least an initial round of facilities adjustments to address some concerns the fredel building has come up uh tonight um I think that will be wave one and then I think there'll be a second wave of some recommendations that would come to you one or two years subsequently that will really be informed by the design we adopt in the Strategic plan the types of program we want to offer need to reflect our space the recommendations I'll bring you this spring will really reflect using the space we've got
091in the most efficient uh cost-effective way that we can um we are certainly in that operations bucket uh maintaining the commitment we may not to consider uh closing schools or major reductions in programs for at least the first five years after the following of the referendum and so that's a commitment that we've made and that I'm confident we can keep in terms of Human Resources um we've talked a lot about the people strategy which is really a multi-pronged uh effort that we're doing in Carl fkins doing a great job doing that one of the fun things for me and of course you saw the awarding of the first two at a board meeting is we' created a Rochester Public School's greatest of all time or goat Awards um it is so rewarding to recognize people
092um at thus far all staff but now we're going to also do some community members and students with that little uh goat um and I hope it becomes a thing um in RPS um my goal is not to make everyone who gets it cry but I'm five for six so far and so um and the sixth actually the teacher didn't cry but her cooperating teacher cried so I think that's like a half um I'm being flippant but it's like recognizing our staff is actually something we can't do enough of and I'm looking forward to broadening that to uh students and community members an area that um I and we are not yet addressing adequately is evaluation we have a huge need to rethink evaluation um I would submit and you we've said this as a
093board and a superintendent we need to think differently about my evaluation I I've learned from evaluation every year but I've never felt the methodology we've used has fully aligned with our strategy and I know that we have multiple staff groups in this District uh who have told me from from custodians to teachers to principles that they don't get the kind of formative actionable feedback through evaluation that makes them better it's a huge capacity challenge um the ability it takes a ton of time to do evaluation um and that's a need that um uh we've talked about it and it's not adequately resourced at present and it's one of those things that gnaws in the back of uh my head is something we need to find ways to um address we're meeting legal requirements for evaluation
094but we're talking about the kind of evaluation that really provide sometimes difficult but ultimately uh really important feedback for improvement terms of teaching and learning um I am super excited to bring you a long-term curriculum plan that uh Chief academic officer Rona Perkins and her team have developed and when I saw the first draft I was like almost emotional about it because it is a multi-year plan in all of our major subject areas to be sure that we're equipping our our students and of course the teachers who teach them with the kind of best practice curricular resources that they deserve once again the fact that the referend included $1.2 million in sustained funding for curriculum upgrades doesn't cover all those costs but it gives us a base for that that we've been sorely lacking so
095that is a really exciting um Next Step that I really look forward to and we have put that on the board agenda um uh in the next couple months terms of student support the biggest thing that's been my focus has been the early work on attendance and I have to say and and as as you know we we made a cut and created a position that Angie mcandre former principal at Kellog now occupies um that work has been a go slow to go fast strategy what we've discovered is there were so many um uh processes and procedures simply for recording attendance that needed to be cleaned up that we're just now getting to the how are we going to improve attendance piece of the puzzle um this was not only within RPS this also has
096been with the county which has a huge role to play in treny as well so we definitely have laid some good groundwork but if you look at uh to use the term we've used our key initiative in attendance by mutual agreement we are behind where I'd hoped we be we'd be because there simply was so much to learn and clean up in how kids were being what how schools were differentially defining attendance which we've done a lot to clean up and then how we were recording it and how we were notifying parents about it and how we were responding to County requests for truancy meetings that the next wave is what are we going to do about it how are we going to equip our our parents and caregivers and the students themselves with frankly
097a needed message that attendance matters uh and you know Dr Marvin and uh Mr ruffen were with me with our student School Board last week and they really said oh yeah you have to make the case that attendance matters kids do not wake up every day thinking getting to class and what I told them that if you're gone two days a month the state of Minnesota considers you chronically absent they were like what and I heard somebody in the background say I think we're all chronically absent so like the attendance piece is I'm optimistic and we know that one of the parts of our strategy going forward is going to be a really strong focus on Ninth Grade because we know that first year of high school sets patterns for later in high school and
098so there's some there's some good research we can learn from on that that doesn't mean we're not going to worry about elementary and middle and the rest of high school but you know as we often say if everything is important nothing's important and so we do need to focus and I think that ninth grade piece and then the final point on that ethical and inclusive leadership here are some of the points that are in the msba framework on that point and I'm reading them because this is obviously a subject of huge conversation in our country today um engaging diverse communities interacting with staff students Community cultural competence and Equity plan plan implementation those are things that our state school boards Association our state administrators Association many years ago but still today have said are fundamental
099for superintendent performance it is very challenging to lead in that space right now as you all know as well as board members the thing I think I want to say is the reason I'm confident about what we're doing in that area in Rochester Public Schools is cut because what we have been doing for the last several years has always been about a common sense approach to students academic success we have not been ideologically driven uh on either side of the equation and as this board knows I've had people on both sides of that pretty mad at me at different times and because we have been about the academic success of kids but kids can't succeed academically in environments that are hostile to them and that don't send high expectations to them and that don't provide
100those messages and we know that the research is conclusive that if a black student has a black teacher the academic benefits are powerful and sustained that's not uh questionable anymore but we've taken a very pragmatic uh and uh Common Sense approach to these issues and we have never undermined the ability of parents and Guardians and other caregivers to be involved in their kids education and so uh when I issued a a message that got some attention that said we're going to stay the course um that was not an effort to sort of engage in the very difficult I think the only word I can say is battles that are going on over Dei or diversity equity and inclusion statements at the national level it was saying I'm confident that what we've been doing is a
101common sense pragmatic approach that's good for all of our kids and that's why I'm confident that despite the huge issues that are happening all around us we can keep going in Rochester because we've defined this as being about the academic Su success of all of our kids and you don't get to academic success unless you are addressing the environment in which kids are learning but that one's a tough one and I will tell you almost every week when I walk in on a Monday and I think I know what the week is going to be there's a surprise and in the last year that surprise more or more often than not has involved one of these social issues um we have to be attentive to them but we have to keep the main thing the
102main thing which is that agenda that we have for student learning so I would say on balance uh it's been a year where I feel uh pretty good about you know how things are going um and the final concluding point I would make my single biggest challenge and and we've I'll just for those folks watching the board has talked about this with me in my closed evaluations um for the last several years but I'll just say it publicly here my biggest challenge as a leader is connecting the dots across all these efforts and making sure that we're not burning out the capacity of people with the ambitious nature of this agenda and making sure that what's happening for instance with principles and leadership development is connecting to what's happening with teachers and curriculum is happen
103is connecting to what's happening with family engagement that it's not just a series of isolated each individually good but isolated initiatives but that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and more than once people say well can't what you really need is like a chief of staff who like runs conect well I think for a school district of our size that would be very unorthodox but I actually take the point you know in that sense that would not be the fix but that's my single biggest challenge as a leader is that issue and it it plays itself out in Big Picture things like how do we launch wit and wisdom and have it fit with what we're doing doing uh around discipline at the elementary level and then what about that science
104curriculum we also purchased so it's staggering these initiatives um in in some ways um and it's something that's a constant you know Challenge and struggle that I think about and it's probably the biggest area in which I have a sense of anxiety about how things are going so that the whole strategy is uh is connected and coordinated because when it doesn't get that way you start getting emails on it like that's where when we have a decision that gets made and somebody wasn't talked to or uh you know some funds get spent and the implications uh weren't fully thought of those are the bumps I think we've gotten really good at quickly uh pausing and course correcting when those things happen but I think one of my goals going forward is that we have fewer
105of those bumps because we have a strategy that is very well coordinated across these these areas and this complex work that we're doing so Madam chair that is my stream of Consciousness uh uh overview of kind of some things I'm thinking about as we are at this a little bit past the mid point of the Year okay everybody take a deep breath board members any observations questions responses Dr Cook I I had an observation I um well let me just start by saying thank you very much for your leadership I I certainly um I've reflected many times since last November on how fortunate we are as a community to have uh decided together to support our schools um because the decision space that we would have and the types of things that we'd be considering
106um would be quite a lot different and I think a lot of um what enabled our community to reach that point was confidence in your leadership so um uh so that that's a that's a great thing the item I wanted to elaborate on or react to um is uh uh related to what you described as the challenges of leading um on topics related to Dei given the current uh National political climate I I think um uh your your observations that Common Sense pragmatic approaches to meet the needs of all students um are sure to be time it's hard to see how our community doesn't benefit from the success of students I I do think that to the extent there's a um ideological basis to any of this um that the the board's view or at
107least my view uh relates to it's it's sort of a rejection of seeing the world as a zero sum game where the success of Any Given student necessarily means less success of available for some other student um or or that the success of one part of our community however you want to Define it means that other parts of our community are less successful um I certainly view the world as one in which everyone is enriched when people are successful and able to achieve their full potential it leads to a greater environment of Entrepreneurship a more robust economy uh greater availability of goods and services for everyone ultimately um and so I think leaning into a structure that does its very best to facilitate the success of the broadest uh set of students that we can
108muster is absolutely the right thing for our community it's certainly what I think is in the best interest of our schools and in my judgment it seems to be uh the collective Judgment of this board so thank you for continuing to lead in that area in the way that you have director mman what director cook said so I thank I thank you I thank you for that I don't really um have much to add to it um one things I appreciate about your leadership is um your willingness to be completely honest and truthful and to say oops we need to go back we need to do this again I think the community is becoming a little bit more accustomed to that um I hope they are and that when we make correction courses it's not
109because we're flip flopping it's because we have more and better information to help us with our decision making and um I really appre appreciate the information that you bring to the board to make our decision maker making um easier director mikin um I also Echo uh director Cook's comments that I think it's so critical in this climate to stand strong on those issues and I I can't overstate that um um I also think that your work uh in the communication and Community relationships aspect of passing the referendum was critical that I'm not sure that that would have um been successful without your leadership and so much effort that I saw every day so I appreciate that um the other thing I want to comment on is the ethical and inclusive leadership I think back to
110your first um review and I don't think you ever would have said anything like that your first year about having a big your biggest leadership challenge those words would not have come out of your mouth um so I appreciate that growth and that not only that can you say that now but that it sounds like you're really doing some really de deep thinking on that and I think that that's uh for the betterment of your leadership the board and the district Dr Marvin I think someone should say something negative but I can't think of anything negative to say I so um Justin exactly what you said uh Dr pqu when you came into this District you were laser focused on what do kids need and I can't think of anybody who has kept us more
111focused on listening to voices that are are talking about what do I as an adult need but you kept bringing us back to what do our kids need and how can we give um everything we can to them I also appreciate you going over the Strategic plan because they're not just Legos and I think it's important for the district to to hear we don't have just great posters you're getting things done the cabinet this district is really getting things done and I appreciate the specificity that you listed a few of the initiatives in each of those um that have been accomplished and we're continuing to focus on and if I could just add to that briefly also no holes in that legal structure director W everybody spoke so El that was so so nice words
112a lot of big words tonight um uh what I want to say what I took away um as as the I guess the newest member here so I haven't worked with you all quite as long as everyone else have um but have had a a relationship with most everyone here at some point and and I appreciate those and appreciate the transparency of those relationships um what I do want to say what I what stood out to me and all that you were saying was again that you pointed out some of the challenges but just not for yourself but what you did glance on was the evaluations um portion so I do hope that's something that we do um look into because I think that's a powerful statement when someone who is being evaluated is saying
113that our evaluations are not robust enough um and who wants to be evaluated because I I I would have been fine with just whatever the standard thing was if it said I was doing good but but he wants more stuff so I do think think that there is some power in that feedback that you know uh that you're stating that the um evaluation process needs to be a little bit more critical um even though we have wonderful things to say but in order to grow uh a productive uh positive criticism is is a very valuable key if we really looking to produce changes um and for everyone so I do appreciate that point that you picked up your challenges and and brought to so point that we needed to be a little more critical but
114you guys all did use beautiful words very big words very elegant I like it so um the superintendent is very aware that I'm a list keeper um well so are you the rest of you so the rest of you and I remember that when we uh presented this strategic Clan originally we kept hearing the word oh it's ambitious but it wasn't a good word because we had people warning us this is a lot this is too much and it's because they've never seen our district do this before we've had lists before but as uh Dr mclin said there's no holds in what we're accomplishing in this list where there were definitely holds in our uh ambitious plans in the past and I appreciate your ability to keep everything on track all the balls in the
115air while at the same time recognizing that you're not doing it alone and in our conversations when you're telling us about the projects and the programs you're always talking about the people and whether it's your cabinet or the principls or the teachers and the staff you've empowered them to come along on this Wild Hair ride um and build not just their um investment in this plan but um their own uh personal development and their their own feeling of success that they can all share because they're all contributing to you know everything that that you've talked about tonight and I I appreciate that that kind of leadership director brother just a u quick thank you I like the illustration of the uh plane landing and taking off I just returned yesterday from Florida and um uh
116it's nice to take off and land um with that being said I appreciate the um indicators of where we're headed and I think our community uh can benefit from knowing next steps if you will and I would just encourage you and I'm sure it's part of your overall uh plan to to ensure that everyone who desire to be a part of this takeoff uh will be afforded an opportunity to uh at least minimally know there's a seat on the plane for you okay and and everyone's uh everyone has value uh I don't know how we can communicate that uh any better than perhaps communicating that but maybe demonstrating that and I know you have done a a lot of work in in trying to model that uh and yet I think uh it's been shared
117earlier that there's still work to be done and I appreciate that uh I'll be around at least for the next four years to see that that work is done well thank you board members and thank you for the presentation so board members we're moving on to our prep for action and action categories where we okay with just plowing ahead or does anybody need a break let's go for it let's go for it all right so our next item 8.1 is our policy committee recommendations from our February meeting the policy committee met on February 20th and proposes the following recommendations and just a reminder that this is the first of two briefings before the policies will be on the consent agenda on the April 8th meeting there were some questions submitted by board members before the
118meeting and the answers to those are in the agenda item if anyone would like to refer to them but we will do our usual run through of the policy and the changes Dr Workman uh yes so I will start the purpose of policy 503 student attendance is to encourage regular School attendance it is intended to be positive and not punitive the 2024 msba model policy changes included in this draft are due to new laws the RPS attendance options redesign changes are also reflected in the draft these procedures 5030a for student attendance outline the protocol for addressing student absences this draft procedure is updated to reflect current practice the purpose of policy 5031 503 R1 is to define the age eligibility of kindergarten students the recommendation is to resend this policy because this content is covered
119in policy 607 and 513 if the board votes to resend policy 503 R1 the recommendation is to move procedure 503 r1. which includes the draft changes to a new procedure to be numbered 513a which contains the policy language related to this procedure I hope everybody got that the only changes in this procedure are n nomenclature thank you and and before I read the next few I just I want to thank chair uh Nathan and vice chair Workman who have done a lot of work in looking at the policies including renumbering them so um this report has a lot of numbers there won't be a test um that are U being changed around but just to um assure the public all the board members and the public for that matter have access to all these policies
120procedures including the changes and the policies uh State what the district thinks should happen what the outcomes are what we want to do the procedures are how how that's going to happen I'm sure that people care a lot about that um so policy 503 R2 again there's not going to be a test um policy involving attendance areas it ensures equal educational opportun unities for all students during periods of growth in various attendance areas within the district this is a policy specific to Rochester Public Schools we recommend that it be renumbered as policy 503 R1 attendance areas if the board resends the current policy 503 R1 um again it's um age of entrance to school then policy 503.com is about exception to attendance transfer and placement um it establishes guidelines under which a student may attend
121a school outside of their legal and physical resid uh tenants area again this is only an RPS policy um the updates reflect the implementation of the attendance options redesign and a recommendation to change the title to attendance options then procedure 503r 3.a uh we recommend uh resending uh this procedure which is RPS only it duplicates the language already in another policy exception to attendance transfer and placement and thank you director Marvin for trying to explain the number change I didn't do it well you did do it well and and board members I think we're going to see a a few more of these number changes um that we've been waiting to implement as part of moving to s but the r that you're seeing in these policies we're hoping to use to reflect that it's
122an RPS only policy as opposed to an msba model policy so it will be much easier to see which are being generated from uh statute or msba versus the policies that we choose to have ourselves so that's what we're trying to evolve to no ours in these policies however policy 625 animals in the classroom is to allow animals in the classroom while providing for the health and safety of school staff students and animals this is the three-year review for this policy the changes in the policy provide guidance for those with sensitivities to animals procedure 625a is also under a three-year review and the recommendation is to include forms 625b and 625c as attachments in procedure 625a so that we don't have multiple procedures for this policy procedure 625b is also part of the three-year review
123and we're recommending resending it because the form will be included in a single procedure and that is the same case as uh procedure 625c policy 6251 is service animals in the schools and this is another RPS only policy the purpose of this policy is to establish parameters for the use of service Animals by students employees and visitors within school buildings and on school grounds um when we developed this policy there was not an msba model policy but now there is so the recommendation is to change the language the nomenclature to policy 535 and use the msba model policy language and renumber it in order to make future changes in statute and policy easier to track and update the facilities naming policy is a new policy and the purpose of this policy is to provide some
124guidelines for the naming of a new site individual rooms areas media centers gymn gymnasiums auditoriums athletic fields or facilities within or on a district site we've had a lot of requests for naming different parts of buildings after after different people and uh the policy committee felt very strongly that we really needed to have some direction on this um to make the superintendent's job much easier for implementation although we don't have a draft policy that we're bringing to the board yet on that one that will be forthcoming any questions board members now that we've gone through all that remember you have two other opportunities to do it so don't you know do it all at once hearing none we'll bring it back at the next meeting if you have any questions in the interim please feel
125free to POS them our next item is um 9.1 long fellow flexible learning year application and calendar 2025 26 this is an action item and I'll read the resolution and we'll ask for a motion and second and we can move on to discussion be it resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 approves the flexible learning year flly application for Longfellow Elementary for the 2025 2026 2026 2027 and 2027 2028 school years as well as the calendar for the 2025 2026 School school year move approval second it has been moved and seconded are there any questions or discussions hearing none all in favor say I I I all opposed the resolution has been approved our second um action item tonight are um another set of policy committee recommendations on policy 522 Title 9
126sex non-discrimination uh the policy committee met on February 20th and proposed the following recommendation to the board the source of changes to this policy are federal regulations and it came to us as recommended msba model policy changes policy 208 allows the board to approve changes at a single board meeting because the source of changes to the policy are federal or changes in federal law so this appears on this meeting's agenda as an action item so I will read the resolution and ask for motion in second and we can move to discussion be it resolved the school board of Independent School District 535 accept the recommendations of the policy committee for the policies and procedures listed po policy 522 Title 9 SE non-discrimination move approval second we have a motion in a second do we have
127any discussion or questions Dr Marvin just just a point this this specific uh policy is a deals with the fact that you don't discriminate that's that's it and that harassment is not okay regardless right it's pretty straightforward yes and it's the law and it reverts back to the version of the policy that we had uh prior to our approval of the 2024 regulations hearing no other uh questions or comments all those in favor of uh the resolution say I I all opposed the resolution has been approved under other business our ABCD um is updated are there any agenda items board members would like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda I'll give a little preview we're going to get an updated updated ABCD probably by the next meeting because the superintendent has done
128some significant work to implement all of those things that he said we're taking off on into uh some revised scheduling in our ABCD so that's exciting our up cutting board meeting dates March 18th at 5:30 is a regular meeting March 25th at 5:30 is a study session April 8th at 5:30 is a regular meeting April 15th at 5:30 is a study session and April 22nd at 5:30 is a regular meeting and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 7:36 p.m. for