001e this study session of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday March 26 2024 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowled 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 this meeting is being live streamed and interested members of the public are welcome and encouraged to view this meeting remotely at youtube.com isd535 tonight's meeting is also being recorded and will be posted on our YouTube channel following completion of the meeting the agenda and Doc ments for this meeting are available online at Rochester schools.org assembly that's Simi present at this meeting are school board members superintendent Kent pel a non-voting ex official
002member and assistant school board clerk Miss Lori s Miss Sam will you please call the role here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance please stand as you are able I pledge allegiance to United States ofice agenda item 2.1 approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I any opposed I the agenda has been approved a note to the board and the community if we are still meeting at 7 o' we may take a 10 minute recess around that time this study session includes two focused topics the first is agenda item 3.1 discussion of APAC observations and recommendations this is an information item the board
003is scheduled to take action on the response to the APAC letter at the April 23rd meeting during this Focus topic board members have the opportunity to reflect on the APAC letter of non-concurrent request additional information and consider themes or ideas to be included in the draft letter superintendent p uh thank you madam chair um I want to recognize a few members of our American indion parent uh advisory committee that are here and we have our um amelan Tucker our liaison are are here this uh idea for this discussion came out of some conversations that um I had with our chair and vice chair about the fact that in the two years since I've been here each year we received the letter from APAC and then staff has drafted a response for administration Administration has drafted
004a response for the board and then the board has reviewed it uh approved it or made changes and obviously we're still headed down the road of giving you a draft of a response to the very thoughtful letter that you received at last your last meeting but there seemed to be a missing piece which was an opportunity to hear from you what uh either struck you what issues you're thinking about what uh thoughts you have I do want to stress though as we open the floor we are not asking you tonight off the top of your heads to to write the letter like we actually uh Amilia and Tucker and will already have a draft uh uh started and that will be presented to you but we do want the board's voices individually and collectively to
005be reflected in that response because it is your response and so the logic here is to provide that opportunity uh as Vice chair Workman just said to hear some themes um that may be there and I'll um open that floor up in a moment and and let um Julie facilitate that discussion one point that I want to share though is I know at the board meeting where the APAC letter was presented there was on the part of board members um a discussion of a desire to learn and I didn't share this then because I didn't want to get the title wrong but um Dr Baines shared with me shortly I G got to Rochester one of the best books that I've read and I we send this out in casee you can't write all of
006this but I didn't want to get the title wrong it's a book called indigenous children's survivance as the turn in public schools uh and it's B leani um sa Sab Zen uh who's a professor at the University of Oregon and it really talks about essentially the shift from colonialism at the classroom and the school levels oh there you go that's right that I have copy if you would like to pass borrow it yeah and so thank you very fantastic yeah so that was the one and I knew that it was uh some play on the word survival but I didn't want to get it wrong Sur thrival or survivance uh which is a term that comes out of a scholar from the white Earth Nation actually so it's a really um it's a gripping book
007and I would encourage some of you to take a look at it and I'm thankful to Dr Baines for having put it on my radar screen shortly after got uh got here to Rochester and so with that I think um the goal here some of us will be taking copious notes I certainly want to suggest that um uh amelan Tucker and other members of the cabinet staff uh are certainly invited to join in the conversation I will say I don't think our task tonight is to respond to everything that board members may want to share we can also take it down and integrate into the draft response that we'll be presenting you with at the meeting next week so I since we're responding to the letter I thought it would be easiest um if we
008took the items that were listed in the letter of non-c concurrence to discuss so the first one was the Recruitment and Retention of American Indian staff and if you look had looked at the previous letter of um non-c concurrence and recruitment um the district had made some um I won't say promises maybe to recruit more indigenous teachers even before they enroll in in college by inviting current Indian students in RPS to take introduction to K12 teaching as a profession one and two um so does anybody want to just jump in at this point and share any thoughts that you have with the Recruitment and Retention of American Staff American Indian staff director Marvin yeah it's it's mostly a question um I think this is a great idea our you know encouraging high school students to
009consider teaching as a profession um the question we had I have and it came up at the last APAC meeting was uh who is getting in who will be getting in touch with with the native kids in the schools and I don't know if that's you know Amelia and Tucker if if you do that if you work through equi Specialists I mean I I think encouraging every kid to take the course would be a great idea but um specifically who would be doing the inviting something something I can also add is that this is not unique to our Native American students in implementing our postsecondary Pathways strategy and our new zel technology platform that many of you have seen we will be able to have students identify their career interests and as we have students
010and we're piloting that as you know this year and rolling it out dis next year when we have a student who either from the interest inventories that they'll start taking in middle school or from their uh you know personal post-secondary plan identifies an interest in something in the area of Education and they're also identified as a Native American student we'll also be able to give Tucker and other staff the counselors list to go after and I think one of the things I loved about this recommendation in the ape letter is it's so specific to an infrastructure we have in RPS we have these two classes we have received State funding to increase the degree to which they are Pathways into the profession and what APAC is saying is tap Native American Kids on the shoulder
011and say you should think about this and so it's a really practical recommendation it doesn't require us in the same way that the indigenous indigenous language and culture effort that we're also launching um to create new coursework these classes are there but we could be more intentional about encouraging Native American kids to consider the teaching profession and uh once every kid is developing portfolio in zel it'll be much more possible to identify those students who either have aptitudes in areas that might make them great teachers who know or who know they uh think they might be interested in education do we have any idea how many Native students know right is there any how long have we had the course has it been more than one year oh yeah I mean I'm just wondering if
012there's been any tracking from one year to the next so we can see if there are more students taking the course or fewer students taking the course and how those students were initially identified you know because they expressed an interest in it or you know whatever um efforts were made on the part of you guys to interest them I'm I don't mean to sound accusatory at all I'm not I'm just curious about the information and how we could you know perhaps help you in that endeavor to have more students in role in that class in that one or the other um ethics ethnic studies yeah we can take a look at that it's a it's a this is a good it's a new recommendation to emphasize that class the class has been around it's affiliated
013with CC we're growing it and so it's a great point to say we ought to be more intentional about seeing if we have American kids would be interested in it and so we can we can look at that but I think it's a it's a very forward-looking recommendation that I think is is something that's very doable for us Mr Barlo U well I approach this a bit differently um and that was by looking at the uh statute um to begin with see um and to better understand the issue of concurrence non concurrence uh one thing that kind of stood out in my mind was that for the American Indian parent advisory committee to find that the needs of American Indian students were being met then we would be found in concurrence and if they weren't
014then we would be found in non concurrence so that to then speak to like go recuit I'm sorry yes recruit and American Indian staff u i Place Great Value and and insight in the uh four um recommendations that have been presented um I don't so much think that it is our responsibility as aard either second guess or to at this point um mind down to the nuts and V ask how will this occur I think that actually probably Falls ultimately to superintend so I'll just stop there and and acknowledging the appreciation both in terms of being able to acknowledge that American Indian student needs are not being met which I thought was very important and I've been on the board for several years now and as Dr Garcia shared at our last board meeting how
015I don't recall your exact words but similar to my thoughts how each year we find ourselves in a Simer position maybe not for the same reasons but uh nonetheless uh the statement that our American Indian students need are not and while recruitment retention of American Indian staff this is a part of three major items identified majority of my comments will come later with student learning culture identity and instruction director m um when I Was preparing for this meeting it occurred to me that very much in support of the concept of inviting our American Indian students to attend and participate in these classes it occurred to me though the question is one of timing of that invitation and I appreciate the reference to Z I'm a huge fan of zel I wish we had it 10
016years ago um but is that going to also then change the schedule for registering for classes and I think you like what's the key time to invite these students there you know can they visit the class now for enrollment in the fall you know other things that we could look at that way um Dr moffen that is one of the goals of this year's postsecondary Pathways Pathways work that we are learning is going to be meaning redesigning our registration process a heavier lift than we initially anticipated but the answer is emphatically yes we have got to change the way certainly in high school but really starting in middle school we engage kids in the registration process and it needs to involve early investigation that then does have opportunities for visits and exploration if you want
017kids to stretch into something and so what's happening is um understandably our registrars in our high schools in particular have a gigantic task and have a lot of kids to register for a lot of classes in a short amount of time and so we are going to need to almost certainly change the high school schedule to change the registration process which of course is not uh a small task but we absolutely need to do it and as we report to you on our progress this year on each of the dis strategies for this year the registration process and and will and I and and Heather Hogan and others have talked about that that's that's an effort that's going to take more time than um maybe our initial plan had anticipated but that's just because uh
018it's structurally going to need to change how much time kids have to talk with people and who do they talk to about registration but that's the vision for sure and I guess my question kind of comes from the Practical aspect that as a parent of a former high schooler that process is probably started and potentially done for next year yeah and can we can we do something to alleviate that that they can if they want to start these classes in the fall they could can we can we make that happen for them well let's the part of tonight is for us to take a look at what we can uh potentially do I would just say um Dr Marvin was here we had a student School Board in this room last last week and um
019a similar problem question arose with our ptech program and several of the students who were in it said oh I heard about it from a cousin the day the application was due and otherwise I never would have gotten in that it was totally relational and serendipitous and when we said well what if we had introduced this to you two years before you could enroll would that have been helpful and the kids were saying yes it would then I could plan so I think the same thing with these teaching classes would be true um um as well but we can we can uh take a look at adding some information on our registration work to the apack letter because I think it's a it's a point for can I have kind of a related question bigger
020picture is that so ape does their letter to us in February is we do our response in april-ish is the plan for the proposed items in the letter for the next academic year and how where does that feedback come from because if they have to do their letter again in February has the district had a whole year to implement these ideas or is it something short every year how do we put our heads around that it is an annual exercise and this is about the time we've always done it because we want to get it done my my first year here when I came in July I'll be honest one of the first emails I got was from the Minnesota Department of Education and it had not been done and I kind of panicked Dr
021Marvin who was chair actually wrote a lot of the the letter so seems like a long time ago so we've tried to make sure we're getting it done earlier but you're right it has not been a full year since the last letter I think to director Bar's Point um we're always striving and Dr Garcia's last meeting we're striving for concurrence and obviously haven't gotten there and seeing this as an annual exercise I thought apex's suggestion for quarterly updates in the midst of the year uh was very interesting um that would be more time intensive but would not make this a once a year process it would make it somewhat more um ongoing so it's something we're going to talk about a lot in the response what would be practical and advisable I thought that was
022a very it was an interesting way to get at this question of how what's the time frame within which the board and APAC are exchanging uh perspectives on these issues but yes it's an annual process and and we had a checklist of Apex letter last year and we will describe in the response for you some of the things from a staff perspective where we made progress some of which pointed out in the new apack letter we didn't um but the whole school year is not done yet so there are some things we're still very much working on um but we want to make sure this process is complete before the end of the year I really like the the idea that came from you all about having a quarterly check in um it's kind of
023like the MCAS you get a big picture at the end of the year where it doesn't do students any good not that it's supposed to be used for students particularly but you know those those check-in times along the way so that um if something isn't happening so that we can correct course Midstream we have the opportunity to do it rather than just this once a year um meeting where we hear everything and then it's like gosh if we'd heard about some of these um concerns or issues earlier how might we have addressed it then so um that was one of the things that Mr CL yeah I wanted to ask about our exit interviews emplo yeah excuse me we've starting this fall we I'd say we stepped up our exit interview um efforts to offer
024it used to be did a survey um starting this fall working with the superintendent we have offer we offer people and I'd say it's around September we did that when people leave we offer them an in-person interview a phone interview and then if they don't agree to either one of those we send them the link to do the exit interview um we're in the process of learning how to use AI because there's a lot of open-ended questions to go through and analyze that um it's it's one of those surveys that has not had a great completion rate prior to this fall it was not a lot of people completed it but we have stepped that up starting like I said about September 23 well and we have one of seven working groups that you're going
025to get an update on at your study session on the people strategy and one has been only focused on exit interviews and so we are on the cusp of a pretty dramatic further step in that space it hasn't been tight enough or aggressive enough especially with staff that are from uh groups that are underrepresented in our district but it should be all staff and so I mean as Carl said we took a step forward this year um it was not systematic uh and let's just say forward leaning previously now I think it's going to be it's going to be invaluable and one of these seven working groups that's going to be sharing with the board at upcoming study session has been only focused on exit interviews because it actually is that important and they've generated
026a lot of things you also have to make someone feel it's worth it to take the time on their way out to give that so I think Point APAC made in your letter about sharing what we're learning from the exit interviews with not just APAC but with staff broadly if people see that we publicize good bad and in between what we get from exit interviews there's good reason to think people will invest in the exit interviews more because it sees the light of day like we share what people are seeing and so that's definitely part of the plan to begin to report not just to the board but to our employees what we're learning from exit interviews Dr Garcia I'm sorry yeah Dr Garcia I well I I think if you're already in the process
027of that maybe some of the questions that I have don't have answers yet because you're still going through it but I you're leaning towards the thing that I was thinking which is exit interviews can be so impersonal is somebody calling me that I've never met from HR saying why did you why are you thinking of leaving us isn't as helpful as somebody that you already have a relationship with or might you have a representative from your community participate in that with you as support so that it's very clear why they're leaving and we take responsibility and ownership for what is ours to take responsibility and ownership for um and I another question that I had is would we consider I mentioned this in the last meeting that if there were individuals particularly from the Native
028American community that have left and would be willing to do like a very post exit interview to say these were the some of reasons why I left if you disaggregate the data or whatever and de identify me you know feel free to share it or would I be more comfortable saying to APAC instead of HR this is why I'm leaving can you share that information with the powers that be would we be open to something like that because I think a lot of what the sort of the read between the lines and the letter is that there are relationships that need to be repaired and relationships that need to be maintained ongoing and so if we've done harm they don't owe us anything to come back and to say this is why I'm heading out
029um but I think we want to do the right thing and make it more accessible and amendable or make other people more amendable to wanting to do that because they're they're offering us something when we didn't give them the thing that they needed right which is potentially why they're leaving um so I feel like more of a humanistic interaction rather than like a we're checking the boxes yes or no we didn't get an HR interview exit interview um and I was going to make another comment as well I guess just in general to my colleagues I did pass the other book around but I have other like literature and some like how-tos and what information might you need um because director Nathan asked for that information so if you would like to borrow books please
030feel free to come to my stack I have others that other people are borrowing um I will say too about the consistency of the check-in that is requested I think I appreciate the request to do it more often than the once a year and I think that so the self assessment that APAC uses to evaluate us there are 33 items on the assessment and they could take us to task probably on all of those things and they're giving us three categories so thank you for being kind um and one of the one of the categories in the assessment is databased decision making and so I feel like some of this information like monitoring the student satisfaction rates um special education eligibility student Dropout rates graduation rates discipline data some of that we are already collecting
031and that wouldn't be too much of an ask to to report on on a quarterly basis um the other things though I think that we could come up with something that's palatable to to everyone about how often might we need to be checking and on this based on how often we already are collecting the data and or adjusting how we collect the data to meet the need and I have plenty of other comments but I'll let you stand in chair Workman I'll um interject somewhere in this document I think there was a reference to um members of the Native American Community actually coming in and doing teaching so my question is probably more to Dr beel on this issue that we do have programs for some of our esps to be able to become teachers
032in the classroom and I'm wondering if there's been any effort to have that same kind of thing set up for the people we currently employ or perhaps even people in the community who would be interested in in getting some teacher certification I know we have several different levels of of certification in the state of Minnesota so um and I don't know how time consuming this would be for people but I think if we could make um a real concered effort in that direction that might be helpful as well anything else on this first section one com um I think want to make sure we're come still in the first section um um it's the reference to the last bullet item the part-time position parttime layers on position increased to fulltime to help me through growing
033needs of our American Indian program it occurred to me that in my first few months of my term it's probably the very first budget question I asked is there was a proposal to add the part-time position and my question was why aren't we doing this full-time the answer didn't go as I had hoped but here we are again to try again so um I fully support that and if if we can make that work I think it's very much needed and and very much in tune with uh I think having another part-time FTE or whatnot would help us facilitate a lot of the things in this letter I have a question for for the team over here um have you have have any of you had the opportunity to um pay any visits along with
034HR do you go directly to colleges and universities or is this done online how is it done um we have we excuse me we have not at this point we um I realize we need to increase the two-way communication about connecting with universities what couple of things that we have done we do as some people in here know we do now have a full-time recruiter and back in uh earlier this spring I think it was right around the time we were talking about the mascot there was some information came out about the tribal colleges and at that point I had asked Lindsay our recruiter you know part of our work is connecting with universities so I asked her to please do that and then um she's also working on connecting with some other universities we've
035she's connected with the one thus far but that's that has to be an increased effort I will acknowledge that you know I'm I'm just wondering you know I could go certainly go on a recruitment issue to try and convince um Native Americans to come and teach here but I think it would be much more effective coming from one of you because I don't look like I'm native I'm not native you have experience obviously in the culture and the kinds of things that are happening in RPS so I think you would you all would be much better ombudsmen for the district than perhaps I would or at least to go along with with someone else in that effort dep okay we'll move on to the next one um which is um kind of ties in a
036little bit to what we've been talking about collaboration communication and professional development I can lead off with a a question of um I understand that there is the the the new staff are taking this um professional development class our native students and I'm wondering if if that's going to be expanded to teachers who are already here um and would that be a ever considered to be a requirement I mean I I know there's an awful lot of things that have to get done during uh professional development like you know the read act and all of the other kinds of initiatives that we're are happening now um or at least to encourage um veteran teachers to take advantage of this kind of development I know um I would have been very interested in doing that when
037I was a teacher but we didn't have anything to my knowledge at that time yeah I think it's probably a good point to let Amilia Tucker say where we are with that we wanted to walk before we ran and so we have not mandated it everywhere because we wanted to it also getting the technology right is not as important but it really matters um and getting the content I think it is entirely possible that we might actually make that a uniform uh requirement we did that for the first time this past fall with a series of other diversity equity and inclusion online classes one focused on kids and one focused on staff and those were all staff requirements for the first time this year and so any thoughts on the how how close we are
038with our native students to to being ready to go more more broader in terms of involvement maybe even next fall I'm posing this question in real time because we agreed we weren't quite ready for that previously but what do you think uh we we waited until Cassie was done with her maternity leave um and then once Powell settles down we're going to start working on that with her to make the online platform what we need it to be I I I I think we're very inclined to it we want to make sure we don't have um Tech glitches that undermine you know the experience and that we feel the content is ready but I think it could be a really exciting and I will add that what we have now is not ideal it's just
039just a slideshow that people go through and get the information but there's really no chance for interaction or feedback right so that's what we're hoping to increase but also once the state requirement for relicensure uh came out this year which requires uh at this year just one hour of indigenous language history culture um our interest in that class just jumped like 500% so people are you know interested in fulfilling those requirements but also learning more about their students and how to incorporate that in their classes so I think it's a great opportunity and we're excited about increasing the interaction with that program and one of the new statutes for the real insure talking with my ladies at mde it is going to be close to eight hours that teachers have to do specifically for indigenous
040studies so even just our onh hour class isn't going to cover it but it will at least get an hour but they are going to need more PD for that relicensure as we move forward opportunity and a challenge for sure any other thoughts Dr Marvin well it's been raised a couple of times when you I talk here about regular meetings with school board members and with the school board um I think personally I'm I'm very ready to commit that whenever we're invited to come to apack meetings at least one School Board member should attend we used to and we started back well pandemic um but I think that's a really good idea and then the other thing is having regular meetings with Schoolboard meetings or or simply the the quarterly report we've talked about this
041for years and years that rather than meeting once when the letter of concurrence non-c concurrence comes out why aren't we checking in with each other before that um and I don't know what that meeting would look like better done at a board meeting or in another location better that board members who come to APAC meetings report back to the rest of the board but I think we really do need to have a schedule for when we uh share information ask questions and problem solve together and again I don't know what that would look like but AIA I'm betting you have a plan um not exactly because like I said this is also on Schoolboard as well so quarterly we could do just then and have a couple members come we could have members come and
042share back um our letter ask accordly so it's up to you guys how you want to do that if you do want to do the back and forth if we want to have it at a Schoolboard meeting have a study session you're always welcome to come to APAC meetings except on February when we do our letter that's the only time we would not like you [Laughter] there I have essentially a followup to that so I can recognize that they that you would like to maintain relationships between school board members and APAC group I'm am totally on board with that the thing that I would feel um that I would need is potential cabinet members as my Handler for the information that is going to be provided so I have no problem meeting with you and
043I understand like proximity to decision-making power like of course you would love to influence how we're going to vote on things potentially and that we can push on the cabinet and superintendent like please make these things happen and I'm not somebody who is like I don't have access to all of the data of all of the things that you might be asking like how are these things being moved forward um perhaps the chair and the vice chair might know those things because they're regularly in in concert with the superintendent um but I would request I think yes let's have those meetings and if it's like an informational meeting might we also invite cabinet members because they're the doers in this so like we say do the thing and then they magically do the things um
044so that would be my request mostos I suppose to the superintendent as if we could as your as you are our constituents you can request to talk to us anytime time but in a more like formal matter of like getting updated information on data I would just want somebody else there in support of me so that I can get you the information that you're looking for I I think it's if I might I think it's a really important point but there's a tension here I mean the title that Amilia and Tucker have and they are playing very ably is liaison they are members of administration and so one of the tensions I want to work through and Amelia is we've recently made it a coordinator position to elevate its importance in our organization so they
045they are liaison and I noticed when Ed the letter which makes total sense our letter because you are deeply a part of the community both organizationally and culturally but you're also a a a leader in this school district and so I also think ameil and Tucker are Al the people who are leading this work so when they're there they also are Administration but I I agree with you there's there's that point but I do want to say they have my uh complete faith and and uh trust in leading this work and are doing incredible work I think there's as we've seen in this year's letter some some communication that we can enhance certainly the board saw about a month ago a really extraordinary update that uh you did on all the work that's going on
046and so some connective tissue and so even as I would be glad and of course this is part of Will's area as executive director of equity and engagement we certainly would be glad to be there at the cabinet or superintendent levels I just also want to say when you have a million Tucker in the room you also have Administration and people who anytime they ask to meet with me or raise an issue with me I take it incredibly seriously immediately um but it's a liaison role so it it it is between the community and the district in a way that I think actually I wish we had with every cultural Community I'm so glad we have it by Statute with this one um uh but you have senior leaders in the room when they're there
047who can who can make commitments for the district and who can have priorities who can articulate priorities um as well and one thing that we did map out with Chen and Dr Barlo when they came to our apack meeting um an idea was having our quarterly ones mapped out and then having like key points that we're going to talk about during that so like we're going to need um HR here so we could talk about that data so that was one of the things that we talked about at our last meeting so that's on our radar as well excellent thank you for that clarification I have one question well maybe more than but just this one so what is the expectation for a school board member who comes to one of your meetings I remember
048quite a number of years ago before covid um it was you know we just would go and sit and listen and not have any participation at all so how do you envision this um relationship between a school board one or more school board members at you need and what's happening in the meeting you to are you Brave you want me to talk say oh well for myself so I'm Valerie uh for myself I I would appreciate a listening year and um some insight as to what we might be discussing I don't expect any decisions or anything like that to be made um for myself oftentimes it's for listening um and so now as a grandparent I have a different role when I have kids you know I I I handle things but um but um
049but but for now you know um when we come together we do discuss some serious matters you know if if children are having just difficulties or issues or parents you know um we do try to offer Solutions suggestions what have you support but for myself when you're there I would like listening ear and again no decisions but some I would like some um opinions Insight whatever you want to call it about what we're discussing so you know might have to stick your knock out a little bit you know to say you know I just don't think that's going to work or have you thought about this you know I mean I would expect some you know exchange but I I really don't want that to be you know etched in stone feel like you know
050oh I've said this now oh it's it's you know I'm going to be held to accountable for this that sort of thing I would like it to be more open less formal you know and um anyway because that's kind of my thing you know I I other parents are different you know I will send you a letter anytime and and and and and let you know what's happening because I I that's that's my that's my role that's my job I feel um having started this um after Tucker uh and and wanting to have parents be more involved so we don't have as many parents involved as I would like but having you there is is is important and hopefully will help Inspire some other parents to be able to say wow School Board member came
051that's pretty good you know maybe maybe they will listen maybe they maybe I can get some help maybe I can you know take a chance so that's kind of that's where I'm at and I would piggy back on that and say certainly you know even in our first one that we had there was there was participation for everybody um and it's a way for I think of it as a way of building community and relationships that you don't necessarily need to have a specific purpose other than everybody's learning from each other and when these things come up you have faces you have people to put with the words on the paper and then just the structure of our meeting we always start with Community questions and grounding um where we will have you be participating
052with us and just creating that community and just that relational piece before we kind of get down to the business piece too um so that relational piece we would love if you came as yourselves um and joined us and then do Valerie said have that listening ear and kind of guide us and if we have questions as well when we get to the business piece thank you that was very helpful and U chair Workman if I may uh Dr Marvin and I we have the opportunity to attend the APAC meeting on the 20th and um we uh were welcome and to be a part of uh from the ground up if you will uh which required us to well required me to um um perhaps recognize that sometimes we operate in our comfort zones and
053those things which we are familiar with uh culturally um religiously politically and being invited and and allowed to be part of whether it was the uh smudge in circle uh so important because again while no one is required or mandated to participate in that it is a way to for me anyway to uh become more a part of that moment and and then beyond that the uh traditional talking C uh that we are also allowed to be part of I say that with great respect because sometimes we uh think that we own the room and that isn't necessarily always the case and and so it is um humbling uh to be in a situation to where you're allowed to be I think your most authentic self and free to um share free to U become
054empathetic uh and compassionate toward others and things that maybe you were unaware of or directly or indirectly not involved with but still possessed the understand to come an advocate for so I would encourage board members to whenever Lori sends those meeting invites out to uh to be among the first to respond I know I will be more often Jane and I when we are on the community engagement committee we kind of made it our business to to do that and things kind of change but I'm I'm thankful for the current leadership that Melia and Tucker and APAC is providing that opens the door to us and I think it is a opportunity that we each should take full advantage of I want to kind of take on to um Dr ble was saying that I'm
055in my mind it might be helpful to board members to have a little bit more structure as to who's going to go when you know whether it be and you know perhaps we could gather that two of us should go so just in case one of us has to cancel there's still representation there and that I know that Lor's done a great job of sending us out the invites but I'm always and maybe it's me and Google I'm never sure what other people are doing um in terms of our rsvping or not so I don't know if Lor needs to train me or train all of us about how to do that but I'm wondering if um uh a plan for two of us to attend might fit that structure um so that we can
056make sure that we're there when we say we're going to be there hi everybody I'm sort of listening on two screens um so I hope I haven't missed anything um one of the questions I have thrilled to hear about the the commitment to attending um the APAC meeting from all board members and um I I love being welcomed so warmly by um our a APAC um you know we're not always welcome Everywhere by everyone but you all are always so welcoming to us um one of the thoughts or questions I had was um the expectations for how board members will take what they heard at meetings and um what our responsibility would be to share it with either Amelia or Tucker or the superintendent um so that uh other other board members can hear perceptions
057um since we're not all attending all at the same time um and just so the communication does lost or or that there's something that's heard and there's an assumption Oh I thought you know was going to handle it or you know was going to share it with Kent or oh we thought the board member was going to share it so and and I don't know if Amelia or or Tucker the superintendent have any thoughts about how to uh take that listening and make it uh useful in the context of the work we're doing with um with the apack letter I think I I I would just say Kathy we weren't uh hearing you quite as well at least I wasn't it sounded a little like princing backward at the end of purple rain but um
058that's a 1980s reference so um seriously I did I think I got the point about how can we capture what you hear at an Apec meeting and share it with both staff and other board members if I got that right let's just take that I mean again part of the role tonight is for us to get themes from board members and we will include it into the um draft response for you so let me uh connect with the Tucker and we'll and we'll think about ways we can actually uh make some suggestions along those lines uh in the in the draft response that we'll give you next week anybody else have yeah one other thought there's a one of the items that's called out in the letter is that AAC would be willing to act
059as a resource to advise the content of professional development and perhaps even some discretion in development the subject matter of professional development content I I think it's a a lovely suggestion and I would hope one that we would Avail our of that expertise I have some hesitancy in the idea that um any professional development that um we think is important for the district and um that we want to see happen don't want the responsibility to be shifted to APAC but to the extent that there's a resource there to share their expertise with us I think it seems like a great idea to me I hope to take director MCL I had one final comment on that section just uh reflecting on the fact that there is information in the letter connecting the professional development to
060deeper learning for all of our students I thought that was a great way to tell us that and U Express a very important concept and a very few words that was very meaningful to me and I'm I'm appreciated about that being in the letter IE and and director cook we will build that in to the response too I think sometimes also a true response is not a yes yes yes yes but I think it might be in this instance kind of a yes and I think I appreciated the letter was really forward leading I mean it sort of said left to the discretion of ape and I might say with respect for our friends in ape well we kind of know something about professional development too and so I think there's a um there there's
061a meeting there but I think that the offer to which has happened in the past um and a and Tucker are playing a central role in the curricular you know process but APAC being willing to actually also be involved in that as well is very welcome offer and and we'll certainly respond to that um and and are eager to take them up on that okay the final area student learning cultural identity and curriculum any thoughts for members yes this is probably the area the letter I was most excited about the um the vision of incorporating culturally responsive curriculum um and as one example Elder res program instrument of providing deeper learning opportunities and not just for Native students for our entire student body um I think it's a um a really well thought out um
062proposal that is very much in line with our um strategic plan um and I don't know the precise blocking and tackling of the mechanism of whether it's ELD resid or some other um way of incorporating [Music] voices as a way to provideing learning director Marvin thank you um two things first as the curriculum continues to get enhanced um I would really appreciate getting up the board would get updates and through that Community would get updates on how it's being enhanced how it's being changed what's being added so that as as uh director cook said not just the native students but all students are getting better information about uh the the history of this um of this place and the presence of and importance of Native Americans um currently so that's one thing I I just
063like a updates on on what's being changed what's being added secondly um this says that American Indian students must be represented in Student Association groups I absolutely agree they should be we can't force kids to join things but I think at the beginning of the meeting somebody say we need to tap kids on the shoulder and I do think for student Schoolboard specifically which is completely self-nomination that we can do a much better job of working with each building and inviting uh American Indian kids to be part of that group I willar I will second what Dr Marvin shared I was thinking about that too like on student school board and student councils you know some of those groups especially by schools have like their own bylaws and Charters and so who and how you
064get elected may be specific but if you do it if we want to make changes and do it a little bit more United Nations style those sorts of things would be much more representative um and much more accessible I think to all all students of all different groups um I think that that would be excellent and I also to the second bullet point about language courses history and ethnic studies courses I there's just some like sparkly feelings in me about that um because I think that we there's some just something there there's like an energy there that's I feel like will be born out of our district but bigger than just our schools and I don't really know how to articulate what I'm saying like I just feel like it's going to be so much
065more um intense within the community like it's going to be felt by the whole Community not just RPS but like Rochester Olstead County Etc um and perhaps that is the intention I just feel like those little I can feel those little seeds being planted and I can just imagine what it's going to look like when it's self- sustaining and flourishing and doing all of the wonderful things um and I'm incredibly um interested in and absolutely willing to support all the bullet points I do really like the Elder Residency program I just think that that's excellent um so I look forward to whatever comes out of that how we need to support that I'm here for it yes um I'll speak briefly to one for um there really has to be an intentionality effort uh that
066requires more than just an announcement encouraging all students to apply for or to know that they're welcome to um participate in I see the value of perhaps capturing uh student voice uh allowing representative students to to uh other students as a means of encouraging uh their involvement uh even Beyond if you will our American Indian students I think uh we serve many uh different language groups and um uh but uniquely and unfortunately uh legislative mandates require there to be uh an American Indian curent advisory uh uh committee uh not necessarily a requirement for other uh communities uh to do that that being said I think we have a great opportunity to um lead uh by example and uh while not every student uh may be among those who would like to serve on a student
067board or committee or to unnecessarily have their voice captured and broadcast through YouTube or our district uh Facebook page uh there probably are a few who would be willing to step up and say I'll be more than happy to do that and then for bullet point number four how important uh Elder and residency uh for many cultures uh oral tradition oral history oral culture uh is passed on uh through elders and um in the absence of and uh one thing that uh remains with me is um the truth that many individuals were uh prevented from either wearing their native clothing or speaking their native language and the few who perhaps retained that ability uh should be valued um honored in position to uh not re not rewrite history but to share a history that press
068is unknown even to those of their own tribe and or Community but to the larger Community as well so I hope that we can really support The elen Residency program I had a comment to take on to what Dr Garcia was saying about the language course that I know that we've talked about it before I know that they're uh we're having some struggles with World language in other languages and budget constraints in that area but I was just looking at this very um open-ended and in a brainstorming way if there are grants that we could look at could we do a pilot program could we identify an educator that could assist us with this can the students do something online some sort of partnership I know the um I think one of the letter responses
069talked about um St Paul and Redwing might be resources or even some sort of introduction course in a summer program you know how can we expand our thinking about this to make this happen in some form as a starting point um and I also did want to share that I just happened to come come across the fact that um University of Minnesota duth offers the ajib language in their college curriculum so I don't know if there's a connection up there or if there's other Northern Minnesota um community colleges that could do PSO classes with us other resources like that just want to open up broadly how we can make this happen for our students can I just briefly say chair uh Dr mofin we are on the cusp of submitting a significant proposal to the
070state uh to get an indigenous language and culture uh curriculum development class Amelia is going to be working with Natalia Benjamin who is taking the lead for us on the language side and so we are unquestionably going to be doing exactly what you suggest and of course as part of our rethinking funding initiative we need to fund things like that beyond the term of the grant that might help us get it started and so that is also um on the board agenda in the year ahead and we'll need to Resource efforts like that we're going to grow them over time but we are very close to submitting um significant proposal I'm optimistic but I always am about our possibility of securing those funds to start that work in a really robust way let's see if
071this sound is better slower is better for us to hear yes okay so I will talk slower to the um question about American Indian students being um given some leadership opportunities in student associations and student School Board um I'm wondering if APAC would be willing to perhaps bring some um students to their meetings when we are attending um perhaps the students aren't comfortable representing um themselves or their community and those large bodies but maybe we can hear the same kind of feedback uh that we might from them through student school board but at APAC yeah I think I'll just say that's really a question for APAC whether you'd be interested in having uh you know some students potentially join I I will say the board on April 9th is going to get your first update
072from a will Ruff and the second Sarah Luis Henry on the development of Our Youth Empowerment strategy and one of the first things I think some of the points Dr Garcia was making that we have sought to seek is to what extent are the leadership opportunities in our District representative of our students so they have done a pretty deep dive on uh analyzing the current state it won't surprise you that we have some room for growth in those areas but also there are some exciting new leadership opportunities that we'll be talking about on the 9th so that's another way I think to uh continue this discussion about youth leadership and voice and of course I think if I understood you Kathy the idea of having uh students potentially also join in APAC I know that's
073happened episodically in the past and it sounds like something there's there's some nodding over from that part of the room Kathy on that score I don't know if you want to add anything about that yeah we have our students usually one or two always join us um as is opening that up for more um but we are bringing our secondary students together again April 22nd and that's kind of what that morning is going to be they're going to create their own student School Board in a way an indigenous model um to have that going for the next year for our students um and then talking with Sarah Louise about how we can incorporate those leaders onto the other student School Board as well Works in progress I just want to add something thoughts yeah I
074just want to add something into the space um mainly so I could sleep better tonight um I think we are really good at reacting as a district and I think we can be better at being proactive so instead of looking at um inviting our students we should also ask the question of why aren't they there in the first place what are some of the barriers that are keeping people from joining some of our spaces are are our schools themselves inclusive spaces already because often times we have a small population of native students walking around our schools already do they feel safe and comfortable in our schools and if the answer is no what makes us think that they're going to join a student group so we have to be more inclusive in our schools all
075across the district and then I think we'll slowly start to see people stick their neck out to try to be a a part of the solution in joining these student groups we also have some work to do internally as a district for a very long long time we have done things as far as professional development or had ideas and then presented them to Tucker and a milia and say what do you think about this we have not included them as being thought Partners in the beginning of those phases and building something together so now we're getting to the place where Tucker and ailia are being invited to be on some of these different teams and now we see some of these language courses and things like that come out now we're seeing the our native
076students professional development ideas come out but they have to be a part of the conversations in order for these ideas to to come to fruition and that was a standing practice that we had to overcome for a long time that was one of the barriers just not being at the table so the fact that we have these two here and we have some members of APAC that's been slowly chipping away out the barriers like this is a long time coming right so we're really good at being reactive but we also have to think before we start doing anything who's here and if we see people missing we have to invite them into that space in the beginning not after we figure something out and said hey what do you think about this what are we
077missing what we're missing is the voices in the beginning that was not a mic drop moment it was a mic drop and I'm G pick it back up and give it back to you um I I'll also say you're you very poignantly made the comment that I was like sort of circling in my head around Recruitment and Retention as well so if our staff like the best recruitment tool are the staff that we already have and so if they are all not feeling safe or they are not coming to the table then those are things that we also need to address um and so I basically will say that whatever you just said if you pick up student and put teacher or potential educator or staff member I think that that also applies in that
078space so thank you Amel and Tucker for putting up with all of the bumps in the road to get you to that place and I'm glad that I'm glad to hear that you are now starting to be at the Forefront of those conversations rather than and invited after that and I'm sorry for that being the reality thank you Mr ruffa for sharing that anyone else I think it's been a really good discussion do you feel like you have enough themes and ideas to work with so the next Focus topic is 3.2 2024 referendum options this is also Al an information item the board is scheduled to take action on this recommendation at the May 7th regular school board meeting superintendent P thank you for joining us pack thank you yeah thank you very much um
079I'm wondering if we can flip the Although seeing chair Nathan there uh is really great um if we can flip the screen so there can be a PowerPoint that I can share with uh the board that would be fantastic fantastic great so uh board members so it begins this is the beginning of a really important discussion about a proposal that I plan to make to you this spring about putting a referendum on the ballot in Rochester this fall the purpose tonight is to encapsulate some of the things that we have learned from some Outreach that we've conducted about the referendum that you placed on the ballot in November 2023 that narrowly lost and to begin to frame the thinking that I am doing leading up to a recommendation to you in the near future so
080just to briefly reset because after quite a bit of thought and discussion with our chair and vice chair tonight I'm going to focus on what lies ahead rather than what is behind us but I'm certainly going to share some of what we have learned about the referendum that narrowly failed and how it influences the thinking that I'm doing about the proposal that I will make to you quite soon as you'll recall we had 82772 727 people who came out uh and voted and uh registered voter voters and then 22,000 slightly more actually turned out 27% turned out quite low historically and it was a narrow defeat of about 318 votes it's really important to remember when people talk about the last referendum and I certainly hear about it and think about it all the time
081um it was a very narrow defeat that was uh not Successful by almost the same margin that the referendum that the Rochester school board put on the ballot in 2015 was successful and so we have two recent examples of one narrowly getting over the bar and one narrowly missing it when we took a look back at the uh voter turnout by Precinct there you can see uh broadly stated it was similar across the school district with a few exceptions um with somewhat higher turnout the more interesting analysis I think uh is by age and when you take a look at our 18 to 30y olds the people who are um earliest in their careers and and potentially the parents of very young children only 8% of them voted that is much lower than you would
082see in most referendum elections and you can see there was Progressive increases by age 20% of people in the 31 to 45 year old groups 29% 46 to 60 and 40% of uh registered voters uh 61 and over so we skewed more senior and of course while we incredibly value the the votes of every citizen we know that people who are most connected to our schools are most informed by what is happening in those schools and uh to the needs of that students are facing we wanted to actually uh dig into not just the results in terms of voting and what happened but to do some listening to understand some of the themes that came out of the last election and so we conducted a series of listening sessions um that were structured conversations fluid
083conversations but structured nonetheless in which people had an opportunity to share their experiences provide some suggestions um also gave people who couldn't make it to one of those sessions an opportunity to provide some input and then we conducted a survey that was quite widely uh responded to nearly 4,000 people um and that survey was open until fairly recently closing on March 8th and featured a solid sample of the citizens of our community and there with the research Chihuahua that I have taken to uh associating with Dr Ruck small But Mighty team um they conducted uh analysis and Peter is here should board members be interested but as you'll see I am suggesting a more productive Focus than looking um backward to November of 2023 is looking forward to what I will recommend you put on
084the ballot in November of 2024 you can see that most of the folks who responded to that survey were parents or caregivers but that we also had significant numbers of people in other categories of our school district that shared their thoughts so as I looked at the uh data and from the feedback sessions and from the survey um I tried to frame it as a series of lessons for the next referendum and I want to add here that I uh was uh conscious of not trying to um shape the story in a direction that seemed like one that I wanted it to head and so these points are all reflective and Dr Ruck has uh agreed with this of the big themes that came out of that feedback and so this is not a selective
085choosing of the lessons that I think we should have learned but the ones that really reflected the feedback we got from the focus groups and the survey so what's the first one number one explain what the funds will be used for in terms that non-educators will understand if became very clear that the referendum uh in November 2023 which was what we call a capital projects Levy essentially funding for equipment and material which as board members all know well we focused on technology and then said would free up funding to keep class sizes at current levels because it would allow us to stop spending 7 million from the general fund on technology was a very complex message for people to understand and for some people it was a question of complexity and then for others and
086this came up in both the survey and the focus groups it sounded fishy why would you actually need to spend money on technology get money on technology to free up funding for class size now those of us who understand K2 funding and know that these dollars are in pots and that we cannot move them across the pots except for certain purposes would understand it but it was a very complex message for uh the public to understand number two explain what will be cut if the referendum doesn't pass in very clear terms in both the focus groups and the survey there was a lot of feedback that said people didn't know how serious it was and how significant that reductions would be if it didn't pass um as board members will recall in almost every presentation
087in every tweet web posting literature uh piece of literature we produced we said if the referendum didn't pass 10 million in Cuts would need to be made for the following year we got pretty clear feedback that 10 million was an abstract number that didn't translate in dramatic form to people understanding kids in schools and classrooms and supports for kids and um so people were very surprised and I know board members remember this uh probably better than anyone in our entire community at the reaction when we announced the closure of schools the curtailing of programs and the very large reductions that we would have had to make had M Clinic not stepped in with a one-time uh quite extraordinary contribution of 10 million and so we heard in unquestionable terms and I'll actually show you the
088percentage in a moment tell us what's going to be cut if the referendum doesn't pass and tell us in no uncertain terms so that was lesson number two lesson number three it events with District leaders including me and school board members and principles and others are certainly a good thing to do but make School staff the main Messengers people like principles teachers education support professionals who um community members and families trust are in retrospect both more familiar and more trustworthy than uh the superintendent talking with you for a minute before you go into a football game or a basketball game um now those people as was the case for me and for all of you cannot campaign but they can provide that information and so when they are providing that information proactively to parents caregivers
089neighbors um uh others in the community we heard that is going to be uh taken much more seriously it's going to be focused on um the language there though is not in either or it's not to say that events from the district level to inform people about the referendum uh don't matter they do but they're necessary but not sufficient and really critically we need to make sure that the people who are closest to our community are ones who are providing that information to the community number four lesson from the last referendum explain how referendum funding will affect the lives of people who are not currently connected to Rochester Public Schools as you all saw in the data I shared just a moment ago um we had much higher percentages of people voting who are generally
090speaking not uh parenting uh or caregiving for students who are currently in school they may be grandparenting but they're less directly connected and so finding ways to describe what the funding will do to people who are not directly in our schools was another theme we heard again and again how the emphasis on technology was challenging for even some folks who are connected to our students in our schools but very challenging for people for whom it evoked images of students staring at screens or scrolling through Tik Tok and not cyber security or learning using artificial intelligence how to uh read or write poetry and so um finding ways to convey whatever should you vote to put a referendum on the ballot in the fall the referendum would do in ways that don't require understanding what is
091happening day-to-day in our schools uh was also a major priority we heard about um through the Outreach that we've conducted over the last couple months five develop targeted information that provides each stakeholder group with the information that is relevant to them we heard about from parents and caregivers that um the the some of the needs we talked about regarding technology like infrastructure and device replacement and cyber security seemed much less compelling than they might to somebody who had been directly a part of the Cyber attack and the ranser attack that we were a part of in the district a year ago and so in retrospect um the information we provided to parents and Caregivers for instance might have been uh more targeted on their interests and concerns differentiating from information to staff differentiating from information
092to community members who don't have a direct connection again this is not in the space of a campaign which we cannot and will not conduct but in the information that we provide to families and so in retrospect we kind of had one message and one message went out the same to all groups but we heard in the focus groups and survey not all groups have the same interests and concerns around uh our schools number six engage influencers who are not RPS leaders to spread the message we also heard there's a certain inherent and this is not specific to Rochester Public Schools there's a certain inherent skepticism that those of us who are part of the organization are necessarily uh giving the independent hard Truth uh to the general public and so finding uh respected voices
093that actually can uh describe what the referendum again should you vote to put one on the ballot is for and why it matters uh is another thing we heard from um stakeholders would be uh beneficial and a lesson we should take from the last referendum and finally um people wanted to know how they would know if the money was worth it how do we actually measure success if the voters were to pass the referendum how do they know it's achieving its objectives there was a sense that 10.1 million for technology would have been very hard to assess uh in terms of its Effectiveness uh we didn't for example promise there wouldn't have been another Cyber attack now I wouldn't have done that because I'm not sure we could have said that but that would have
094been a very tangible way to judge the success of $10 million for technology funding we did not give people some uh kind of clear and understandable ways to think about how you might judge the success of the referendum oh there is one more and then finally um these referendum proposals are inherently complex they involve um different priorities they have different Financial requirements but find some way to boil it all down some uh key way to encapsulate what the investment would be for what it would matter to for kids and why uh the community should support it so try and really distill it um as you may remember last time in November 2023 we talked about technology for transformation in retrospect that was uh neither clear nor nor for some of our stakeholders compelling um and
095in terms of getting to that core what what they' call in the business World a value proposition for why people might um invest those resources so that's a distillation of some of the feedback that we got and I want to um complete talking you through some of the thinking I'm doing about our path going forward but if you want to return to any of those points we can do it and I would invite um in particular Dr Ruck but also Mamu kuden and Amy Ike conducted the in-person feedback sessions and so they were there for those and can jump in again as well if that is of Interest so one thing that we heard at both from the survey respondents and from the focus group participants that did resonate was this point and this is
096an updated version of a graph that we showed around the community frequently but that most people never encountered but the people who encountered it said whoa that registered the graph at the time was comparing Rochester Public Schools to a subset of school districts that were somewhat similar to ours in either size or demographics and the local support they received from their uh communities in terms of voter approved levies in particular an operating referendum and a capital projects referendum because we also got some feedback that um it was not clear exactly why we were being compared to that short list of school districts we've come up with a clearer methodology and that's what you're seeing in front of you this is all the districts in Minnesota above 10,000 kids so there's no sort of uh concern
097that we are kind of you might call cherry-picking somehow the uh examples that tell the quote unquote right Story versus the the wrong story this is all the districts that serve students at significant scale in Minnesota and you can see there Rochester Public Schools is at the bottom and that is a reality that we heard people need to understand and ask is that the caliber of Education that we want to be providing to our students relative to some of those other school school districts that you can see listed there that are also um at that size of 10,000 or above um we asked a few forward-looking questions of the survey respondents that I thought and our team agreed would be relevant to the discussion going forward one of which was there are two opportunities remaining
098this year when I could recommend to you and you could choose to put a referendum on the ballot one is in August when there will be a presidential primary election going on and and other primary elections and the other is November you can see November for this subset was the Clear Choice um we didn't ask why and it may be an interesting discussion for us to have in a moment as I stop going through this overview but it's pretty conclusively that people said November rather than um rather than August and then we had a group that also said they weren't really sure we also asked um should the recommendation be and ultimately your decision be a capital projects Levy or an operating Levy as board members are well aware a capital projects Levy is a
099funding source that has actually a fairly long list of acceptable uses but at its core it is about funding for materials and equipment and not for the ongoing operating expenses teaching and learning expenses of a school district whereas the operating Levy is the most flexible funding source and it can support that core work of teaching learning and educational programming and so we gave a brief description of those two types of Levy and we asked the stakeholders which of them should you consider putting on the ballot November and you can see here the operating Levy was the Clear Choice again we didn't ask a question to say why did they think that and we may want to come back to that discussion probably lots of us might have some some hypotheses and our personal perspectives on
100on that question and then finally we asked a question um how proactive and how explicit should we we be about what cuts would be made if the referendum uh is placed on the ballot and does not pass and you can see here we got overwhelmingly uh our stakeholders saying tell us like it is and we put this question there because there is a um significant history in school district referendums of people being uh concerned about sorry to use the the the graphic image putting a gun to voters heads and saying if you don't vote for this um something really bad is going to happen and that that can seem to be um threatening or manipulative um coming out of the narrow defeat of the referendum in Rochester last November and then the uh difficult reductions
101that I initially proposed and we were temporarily able to step back from thanks to the Mayo Clinic contribution we heard overwhelmingly be blunt tell us what would need to be cut if the referendum doesn't pass don't sugarcoat it don't make it too vague let people know what the consequences will be um we also added a survey response question that was open-ended and said if Rochester Public Schools places an operating referendum on the ballot what types of programs or initiatives would make you want to vote for the referendum now this was an open question and what uh Dr Ruck did as he's done um in a couple of these recent studies is uh in a in a quite sophisticated way use artificial intelligence to uh produce a very um accessible grouping of answers that were individual
102text that people wrote from their perspective now the reason we wanted to do it that way is when you give somebody a um a survey that has six options or five options you predetermine for them what might be possible in this instance we wanted to know what's on people's minds without uh predetermining what the options would be and so here's what we found and you can see that there 20% of the responses mentioned smaller class sizes or kind of more teachers as the the sort of two sides of the same coin 15% mentioned support for students who struggle strle academically or with mental health so help mental health uh so struggling student support 133% were explicit in mentioning mental health and or social emotional support for kids 12% mentioned programming and science technology engineering and
103Mathematics 10% of these respondents who were responding again to an open prompt mentioned extracurricular activities Arts Athletics physical education 11% mentioned um the uh importance of compensation staff development supporting teachers and other staff 9% talked about life skills vocational training career and tech ed 8% elective classes and programs that really build on students passions and interests 5% improvements in facilities to increase safety and improve learning environments 4% equity and diversity initiatives to ensure all students feel valued and supported uh 3% mentioned funding for special education services and 2% mentioned Early Childhood programs and after school programs again I share that um wanting to remind you that this was just what came up without the district saying this is what kids need this is what our priority is this is what's in our strategic planning was
104what was on people's minds with no prompting so where are we looking forward in my view and I will say of course I don't freelance in this area in uh the view of John Carl and his team the uh parameters that we are needing to Grapple with are between zero meaning no referendum is either placed on the ballot or no referendum passes and 20 million and the reason that I am setting that as the parameter for our discussions over the next couple of months uh is this if voters approve a levy that generates $20 million per year then we will have achieved after two years and more than $20 million of cuts and uh renewal of the 2015 uh operating referendum which you uh did at your last meeting we will have achieved um significant
105financial stability and so that would be a point at which budget reductions are never off the table but they would happen if enrollment goes down or if the state makes big reductions in funding for the general fund or for compensatory it would mean that we've structured Rochester at a point where we are at relative stability understanding that things could always change at the state and enrollment could always shift in contrast at The Other Extreme if no referendum passes and we are where we are now um uh going forward that $20 million if you want to begin to articulate the impact and you simply said given the average cost cost of salary and benefits for all employees in Rochester Public School so not just teachers not just administrators all employees that be more than 200 positions
106um which would be a devastating reduction in staff now there's very few scenarios in which I would recommend we close a budget Gap like that only from staff Cuts but we wanted to include that to begin responding to the feedback we got from the community of tell us what the impact would be it would be more than 200 people in our schools right now working with kids in our district that would need to be cut to put us um to keep us uh out of statutory operating debt over the next several years so what is what is my emerging recommendation to you and this is very much emerging um uh in terms of the discussion we're now going to have and the analysis that we will be further conducting over the next month and bringing
107you back a recommendation later in the fall my current thinking is to heed the advice that we got from our stakeholders and recommend to you that you put a b a referendum on the ballot uh November 5th that will of course be a time where turnout will be Sky High and that's always the case with any presidential election most projections suggest it will be the case in this presidential election whereas in August it's likely to be comparatively low especially for presidential year because it's looking like the presidential contests will be long since decided uh by that point um it is important to note that you could put either a capital projects or an operating referendum on the ballot in November you um could not put an operating referendum on the ballot in August that would
108only be possible to put a capital projects Levy the operating referendum can only be in the general election which leads to my next emerging recommendation which would be to uh seek an operating referendum in uh the next election the logic of that is that uh teaching and learning our academic Mission from literacy to deeper learning to um uh science technology and Mathematics at the heart of what we do and operating referendum allows us to put the ambitious agenda for academic Improvement as well as investments in student mental health family engagement uh before the citizens of Rochester in a much clearer way than we were able to do last fall when we had to talk about an investment in technology that would indirect directly benefit the academic agenda because it freed up money we're currently spending
109on technology so again an emerging uh recommendation for an operating referendum rather than capital projects couple of key points unlike a capital projects Levy as I just mentioned we could spend funds on uh things other than equipment and materials and it could support directly the work of teaching and learning number three um funding would be focused on initiatives up a strategic plan and existing supports for students with limited opportunity for new Investments and this is something that we have spent quite a bit of time on in looking at um the um long-term Financial projections that John shared with you um at a recent meeting the financial reality for Rochester Public Schools is that if we do not secure significant operating support from our local community major reductions far eclipsing actually what we almost had to
110make last fall after the narrow failure of the previous referendum will be required and so while I think there can be some uh limited exciting new Investments included in a referendum most of it is going to need to go for the ambitious agenda the student supports that we currently have in place and that's also importantly because of the chart that I showed you a moment ago that puts Rochester at the bottom of those school districts uh of 10,000 or more in local support we simply aren't at a point where we can invest in new things we need to uh preserve the really promising but pretty barebones work that we have underway right now as board members are aware we strategically used key elements of our covid funding from the federal government to launch aspects of
111our support for Strate the Strategic plan and we need to now maintain those Investments without the benefit of uh Federal covid funding four the amount of funding to request will be the focus of additional analysis and Outreach we are certainly beginning to see your um questions and guidance starting night we will be contracting with a uh survey firm to do a statistical representative phone survey of Rochester uh citizens that will be uh demographically representative as well and we will be doing that as part of our decision-making process so that we know we are not restricting the community input to the wonderful and thousands and thousands of people who uh answered our written survey and others who came to our feedback uh groups but one that is representative of the demographics of our community um we'll
112also be conducting additional analysis of our financial projections um over the next uh month as we uh sharpen this referendum um it is quite clear in my mind that my recommendation for for a referendum in the fall will be higher than that 10.1 million that we sought in the capital projects Levy and some will say why if if 10.1 million was what you needed last year why would you ask for more this year the answer to that is 10.1 million was restricted to technology it was restricted to a capital projects Levy that's not all that we needed to provide Rochester students with the kind of financial stability that um we they deserve and our agenda really uh I think calls for um it was what we could uh appropriately request in a capital projects Levy
113for technology funding what we really need goes beyond that amount for reasons that uh uh we've talked about in the past and that I'm sure we'll be talking about going forward I will say that were the full 20 million that I've shared a couple times tonight to be placed on the ballot and approved Rochester's place in that ranking of school districts 10,000 students or more would go from the bottom to the middle it would not put us close to the top echelons and school districts in Minnesota so that even $20 million would not be the moonshot that catapults Rochester up where Bloomington Public Schools is it would be a significant uh uh Improvement relative to other school districts but not um something that would go um uh go as far as uh might be desired
114in a a world with no limitations but we are cognizant of the need to keep the burden on taxpayers in this community um a manageable one and one that um uh fits within the other requirements that they have in their family lives um this is a really important tactical question that remains ahead of us uh School boards can put one or two or even three ballot questions on the ballot because it's going to be a presidential year if you ultimately accept my recommendation to put it on the ballot November this is going to be a long ballot people will need to turn the ballot over which some people are surprised to learn often does not happen and so my again emerging recommendation would be to put one question on the ballot there are other ways
115to think about that you can have questions that are conditional upon each other um and so that is also something we'll be doing thinking about and that we invite feedback on um operating referendums like capital projects referendums can include an inflation factor that allows the resources to uh increase as a identifyed rate of inflation increases my current thinking is that I would also include that in my recommendation to you we have learned the hard way what happens when funding doesn't include inflation you essentially set yourself up for uh Perpetual cuts and so um uh my current thinking is that it would also include that as well and then um very importantly again keeping in mind the feedback we got over the last couple of months about the November 2023 referendum we'll articulate ways for the
116public to monitor both the use of funds to be very uh transparent about where the dollars are flowing and what they are supporting and also ways to actually uh assess the impact of uh the levy uh either on educational outcomes or on other measures of importance uh to our community so that people would have a sense of what the these dollars are actually doing for our kids and for our community so looking forward we have uh a couple of really important dates ahead of us tonight we're starting this discussion with this study session on April 23rd I will bring a recommendation to you in the prep for Action category which of course we'll um formally put it on the board agenda and into your process and then we're hoping you will take a vote on
117that recommendation on May 7th uh enabling our community um our staff our parents and caregivers to know before the end of the current school year what the plan is for the fall in uh of 2024 so Madam chair that is the overview of uh some of the lessons that we have learned from the last referendum and some early thinking um about a month out from an initial recommendation to you uh for a referendum uh in the fall that lies ahead of us I have a question for you um would you anticipate a more robust discussion at the meeting next I me this is informational so do you want to have any feedback from board members at this point or would you rather we welcome feedback from board members for sure um any questions thoughts that
118you have including tonight um and then ongoing we will continue as I mentioned I mentioned the phone survey that we're going to do we will be having other opportunities for um input from stakeholders over the next uh month before we bring you that recommendation so um uh questions thoughts uh major uh themes right now are very helpful and then of course board members always can provide that in an ongoing basis I certainly know you'll have a robust discussion uh when that's on your formal agenda as well director cook so the the $20 million amount um would not be uh would not quite be the um the statutory maximum per pupil funding um but it would take Rochester for operating revenue from 900 um 920 or so per pupil up to 1900 approximately or I want
119to say it's right in that 2,000 about about 2000 yeah okay so um that doesn't leave with the the current um maximum authorized operating Levy that doesn't leave a lot of room for additions um but I I guess I'm I'm wondering about the the ability um of um of us to implement an ambitious agenda um and not cutting is great but this is a and I I was reminded of this at the Schoolboard listening session just last Friday I'm regularly reminded this is an ambitious education focused community that has um uh a great desire for a world class uh education system and what if anything is the thinking about resourcing additional options Beyond this or or is the thinking that we already have a really great strategic plan and if we get this $20 million
120implementing that is going to keep us real busy for the next few years and that's really the sum total of what we're aiming for right now anyway it thank you director cook it's a critical question the logic of placing 20 million as the top of the possibilities list is that that is a point at which as I mentioned we could suggest that if everything remains constant in state funding and if as we project enrollment remained largely constant we would not be cutting every year which we've done every year that I've been here and which we still need to do this year but with a great reprieve partly from M clinic and partly because we're using reserves due to our health care change so that was the logic now should the board want to consider something
121more ambitious than that that's when we're talking about new investment Beyond uh what I've been calling Financial stability I think I'm also influenced in highlighting that because we did do as you know significant Outreach to determine the level of the capital projects Levy and where we came to 10 million was because the higher we went beyond that the more people understandably said oo um I'm not sure I would vote for that now we will um replicate what they call the tax tolerance questions on the survey we're about to do again though I have to say since we did that last uh survey I've learned those tax tolerance questions are valuable but they're also problematic because you're asking someone absent an understanding of what the dollars would do and so when they've done studies where they
122actually say well what do you really care about and if people so for instance if you want to bring shop back to our high schools you want to have career a dead I just had a conversation with a Community member who said I would vote for that in a minute we know people's willingness to invest goes significantly up if you're connecting with what they are really caring about so the logic there of the 20 million is is relative Financial stability um should the board want some options that would even go beyond that level we certainly could talk about it I think for obvious reasons given that we narrowly lost a referendum that was $10.1 Million something at that level would be significantly more ambitious than we were again very important totally different category different possible
123use of funds from what I recommend last year to what we' be doing this time and and and should you decide to act on this recommend recommendation that's a message we're going to have to really explain to people that the the funding sources are completely different and so this is kind of apples and oranges if we do operating versus capital projects thereby making it possible to seek funding at a different level I would um really be interested in having a list of I guess what we used to call enhancements to the budget where on one hand it was this is really the basic stuff we needed money for um back in the day when uh districts were first allowed to Levy for this kind of thing it was always for the extras and since then
124it's really devolved into us just trying to keep up with the status quo and I'm thinking I'm kind of intrigued by the by what you just said about this gentleman in terms of what those extras or those enhancements might look like and if you have two questions one with this whatever number it is 20 million keep it at that um or less for now um what if there was well if you spent more money if you spent another $5 million or another $10 million we could also do this and this and this and this and this which could really um encourage some people who really have a lot on that wish wish list you know more of a Visionary thing that they would also then have to vote for the basics I remember sitting in
125this room back in 2010 I think it was when we were um there was a committee going through you know what are the basics what kinds of enhancements might be offer where there seemed to be a fair amount of Citizen involvement in that just the idea of well we can just we need more money just to keep chugging along versus wow what if you know what if we have this this additional money what might we be able to do for our students what kinds of opportunities might they have what kinds of opportunities would you like to see them have you know to the community that I think that might be something at least worth part of discussion thank you so drel Dr Rucker um the open response survey question um though AI assisted um just
126do these responses kind of get into the enhancements it's identified as potential or mention new Investments uh would you potentially uh envision Vision um rolling out at some point I know you earlier said well you didn't necessarily want to lead uh the conversation or the survey by suggesting with x amount of additional dollars we could do this do this do that uh I think the um uh new investment responses AI generated are useful uh do you envision at any point though uh actually if asked by members of the community well actually we would like to know what additional things we could do uh Beyond simply maintaining what we are doing uh would you have a opportunity to develop uh potential responses for for those types of questions yeah um thank you director Barlo the way
127this was worded I'm going to invite Peter to also jump in it really just said what would make you want to um you know what types of educational programs would make you want to vote for the referendum that's distinct from saying what do you think Rochester Public Schools should do more of because what you could look at what we asked and someone could say well I didn't know you were doing that we could say well yes we are doing these things and they that's good I'm glad you're doing them which is different than I think you should do more as I think you and director Workman we're saying so finding some ways some way to um get uh stakeholder input on what they might want to actually increase would be somewhat different than what we
128did here I think you're right it is intriguing I don't know Peter if you have other I mean I pulled up the question language it says if Rochester Public Schools places an operating referendum on the ballot what types of educational programs or initiatives would make you want to vote for the referendum so I agree that's a fundamentally different question uh but certainly one we could ask you probably just in terms of because most people don't know what we currently spend you'd probably say you'd probably frame it just off the top of my head what new Investments would you want RPS exactly so you don't expect them to know what we currently do but you say yep I want more whatever you're doing now I want more of this um that would probably get to some
129of that question of of of Beyond uh Financial stability something be a new investment we certainly could take we certainly could take a look at that we also can include some questions along those lines in the phone survey so this is very timely so we can absolutely include that Dr Barlo in the phone survey and I I really we'll definitely commit to do that we think about that and we can think about some ways we might have another another uh open opportunity for stakeholders to respond to something along these lines like Beyond maintaining current supports for students what would you like to have that's new if I understand your question yeah J Nathan had a question or comment well as I have been reviewing the information and thinking about the dollar amount and I do
130have to say that in the few conversations I've had with people who know that we're having this conversation just like tonight um the first Focus has been about what can we do beyond what we're doing how can we offer people something new and exciting and I'm a little concerned about taking that approach because I am not confident that even though we heard very strongly from our community the direction they wanted us to take in the Strategic plan I don't think our community knows that we are taking that direction and we cannot successfully Implement direct that direction without the resources that the superintendent is mentioning in this $20 million so I'm concerned that we are talking about extras or additional or or something beyond the ambitious agenda that we have um without ensuring that our community
131Community understands the the very high bar we're setting for the work that we have before us that meet the basic needs of what we're should be doing for our students academically emotionally in a belonging sense in a community sense so I'm a little concerned about asking for something more without really knowing that our community supports our base function that is already a big a big reach um for us to be able to implement without additional resources the other thing I think of is we could ask for additional money beyond what we need to support the Strategic plan but I worry is money enough to implement something more than what we've laid out for our ourselves in the Strategic plan does it require people time and an investment of effort that is beyond what our uh
132team is capable of doing because they're already investing everything in the Strategic plan so so those are my thoughts in looking at a a amount that supports our current agenda versus putting more things on the menu Dr Marvin I think there are really good arguments both ways and we've heard a couple of them in terms of how we go forward um I I do think that in the Strategic plan uh there is certainly room for um many of the suggestions that people had uh in the open response questions you know what do you think is important in education I'm impressed with the quality of the responses that people had so I think that's an an important discussion how it's about and look as we move forward the other thing that I was one of the
133other things I was impressed about with this presentation very thoughtful clearly well researched is at one point it mentions that we really need to do a better job of helping our community understand that whether or not um they're committed to other people's children's education having Rochester be a worldclass educational Community is going to be good for every single person who lives here economically if not in any other way I mean I think it's the right thing to do but it's also the smart thing to do and I think for those who are not particularly involved or committed to um our school district we have to help them understand this is going to be good for everybody who lives here and I I'm glad that that point was raised um in the presentation tonight Dr Garcia
134yeah to follow up with that on the slide about the lesson from the last referendum like you identified all the things that we maybe learned about ourselves in that process too but I think that we also learned something about the community and that they are willing to mobilize when they don't like something that we're doing so how do we get them to do that without the threat of loss um you know how do we reinforce that use of passion and working with us instead of them us waiting for us to make a decision that they don't like and then to have that used I guess intention or in opposition with us um and some of it still goes back to that trust and I think that your item five is like developing targeted information that
135provides them with uh information that's relevant to them because there were also a number of times back when we were making the decision to come back fulltime and person hybrid whatever we were doing sort of early in my tenure that I was having like the community members understood my interest and so we coming to me with very specific like all of the kids with disabilities and all of the kids of color this is not going to be helpful to them if we're keeping them out of schools and then my response was sort of like I appreciate all of your feedback and my hope is that when you get the thing that you want you will still be this passionate about other issues that are going to come before us at the table and one parent
136said to me we won't we don't actually care about kids that are not our own but we know that you do and so we need to tell you that these things to do the thing that we're asking you to do and I was like um so to Dr Marvin's point I think you know how do we help make those connections like if you're if if an individual person isn't going to care about the whole how do we care about them enough to deliver the information in such a way that they'll still work with us as a team even if they feel like they're an individual within the team and then how do we get the people that are more collectivistic to you know sort of rally um and I think that there are ways that
137we can sort of tap into different knowledge bases of our community but I I think one of the things that I appreciate about you is that you're such an effective Storyteller and so I think it really is just like do we give you the script of this is this particular subset of people in the community this is the story they want to hear this is the story they want to hear this is the story they want to hear and so when you go and you give your tailored speech to all of them you're not lying to anyone you're just tailoring the the information to the thing that they need to know and hear um and I think that that's just good practice like if you're giving your stump speech in politics you cater it to
138the group um I don't think that it's beyond our reach although I do think even though I don't want it to be like threatening or that there's loss like some people will have to hear very clearly not just 200 Educators may get cut it's Pinewood is now going away right or they're getting subsumed with another um area because I think the more personal it feels the more honest it also comes across even if we can see like in our attendance options redesign that it changed a kazillion times before Mayo us some money thank you Mayo um and so again it's not like we were being un um dishonest in our initial option but we got so much feedback that we were like okay well I guess we could make some adjustments if you guys are
139willing to do this with us so I feel like sort of coming at it as not a an entirely new conversation but a followup from the previous so that we still we're building on that community that we you know or the community and that sort of passion that they gave to us a couple months ago anyone else director so yeah just a a a few more thoughts I guess the um I've said many times and I'll just repeat that I think property taxes are a terrible way to fund public education um they're disproportionately experienced by people on fixed incomes who are overly especially sensitive to um increases in property taxes relative to their income I also think it's notable that more than half of the amount that we need to keep the lights on here
140and Implement an ambitious strategic plan that our community has told us is what is right for our community um would be entirely addressed by closing special education and English learner um cross subsidies uh that is the right way to solve this problem and then we can get to a conversation about extras because as I I had sort of concluded it already um we we are not even in a position where we could increase the operating Levy sufficiently enough to talk about significant additional investments in our districts which in our district which really ought to be if there is a role for those types of revenues that ought to be what they're used for not the basics um so I I guess just announcing some frustration with the constraints and the decisions that we um that
141we have before us the other thing is a a theme that I heard regularly I'm sure that others did is that stability is Paramount parents make decisions about where their kids are going to go to school based on their perception of the stability the the you know longevity of those systems and and um and so I think that is a laog goal and one that will serve the long-term interests of our district and our community um I definitely appreciate the desire to provide a very clear decision space for stakeholders on the outcome of an election like this that's tempered by the acknowledgement that even discussing things like boundary adjustments and school closures and um increase of class sizes of 10% or so is already very destabilizing the conversation itself is immensely destabilizing and it has
142unanticipated effects people make decisions about what they're going to do for next fall before this election in November um and so that's what's going to be happening during the summer is everyone in our community is not only going to be evaluating the merits of this proposal but also their sense their felt sense of what the outcome is going to be and what that means for the stability of Rochester Public Schools and what that means for their own kids then there's networking effects and people make decisions together it's a high stakes thing to think about so I I I think it's a very good proposal something that we should think about very carefully um but I just want to as a parent with four kids in the district and very sensitive to um um anything that
143that relates to my perception of their stability and their educational experience and by extension lots and lots of others um this is a really big deal to even be talking about this especially at the level of $20 million in cuts and then the the last thing and sorry this is a little bit stream of Consciousness we have um been I think very fortunate over the past 6 12 months to receive lots and lots of um uh purpose-driven grant funding to implement aspects of our strategic plan the um resources for mental health practitioner development the um the uh implementation of the redact and the project management and there's there's lots and lots of examples there's millions of dollars and one of the things that I've had in mind as we look ahead to a next operating
144referendum is how to sustain those types of efforts and I'm just at a high level is that already baked into this analysis that the $20 million is you know things like the additional $7 million in healthcare the $10 million hold that was filled by Mayo Clinic and also backfilling some of the one-time money that we've gotten through grant funding um that was a lot sorry no no it is it it is premised upon the fact that a lot of our change work in the future can and should be funded by philanthropy it's the last building block of our strategic plan that we haven't kicked off in Earnest because partly we're waiting to see what happens with this now we are we are maximizing uh resources as you just said director cook from uh the state
145to a lesser extent but still Federal governments and private foundations I really do believe that we are just beginning that work and I think we can significantly grow it but that never covers operating costs and so the 20 million really does say um this is what it's going to take to run this Railroad and run it well the work to I think for instance take deeper learning from teams in each of our schools to transform how we actually uh teach in every subject area is going to require I think a lot of what you might call in the corporate World Venture Capital but I think we are beautifully positioned to bring that in in Rochester and so it does uh premise uh a lot of the future Innovation agenda being funded by the kinds of
146resources that as you suggest we've been fortunate to bring in um and we did use our covid funding much more than many other school districts for that kind of change work um which I think was the right decision to do given where Rochester was at the time but um we will need to Resource those one of the things just to give an example we I literally I'm excited excited and I I know you'll be particularly excited director cook I asked our chair and vice chair today can we put the approval of a new literacy curriculum on the board agenda at the next two meetings because we're ready to make a proposal we have both uh we are going to maximize funding from the state but we have saved almost a million dollars in federal covid
147funding to fund that good we should do it we all know it's urgent that's not a sustainable strategy we are going to need to Resource ongoing curricular uh review and enhancement in every subject area we have no adequate budget for that right now now that's why we're launching into our rethinking funding strategy so we're going to have to take some of the operational dollars and fund ongoing improvement work and so a lot of the new Innovative things that I think are underneath this conversation I think can and should be funded by dollars we get not just from state federal and private foundations but I think our local community is also uh willing to step up for very targeted investments in kids in things like enhancements in our arts and Athletics programs so I I think
148you're taking us to a very productive conversation if we don't secure stable funding for our core operations though all that Innovation agenda is just not viable because you can't spend time changing you know how we uh do small group tutoring in Innovative clusters of kids if we're raising class size by five you know that you can't have the the cake and eat it too in that regard we've got to stabilize the core strategy and then and then I think we can talk about creatively using other resources for the Innovation agenda director mlin um so I guess kind of thinking about what um CH Nathan was talking about and all the other comments since that it seems like thinking back over the last couple years that we've done a great job in including Community input in
149our strategic planning um staff members community members but it seems like that's in our little education involved bubble of people community members community members who are engaged in education and now we need to take that message about the Strategic plan about implementing it to the broader voter universe and I feel like that's the conversation we need to have is how do we do that is it something that we start now with Community Education about implementing the Strategic plan to a broader audience and then um using that communication strategy to then kick off the referendum strategy yeah director Goffin that was really one of the the points that um that I shared as a lesson learned we've got to break beyond the people who are directly connected to our schools and we've got to put it
150in terms that make sense to them and we've got to find a way to connect with them and I would agree that is a that's a top it has to start now November if you choose to vote to put this on the ballot it will be here before we know it even though it seems far off um and finding ways to connect uh with those uh citizens and and update them on what what we're doing and why it matters will be a critical priority we do have um a Communications firm that will be helping us with our Outreach again not the any political campaign just informing the public um rap strategies did that with the sales tax that the city uh Rochester and and largely our business Community was successful in gaining approval of and
151I will just say I am very enthused about working with them because they have been uh they have been invaluable already in just our first couple of weeks and helping us think about exactly that issue how do you break through to reach people who are not necessarily tuning into Schoolboard meetings on YouTube um who are definitely not doing that um and so I think we're going to have some good expertise to help us move in that direction this time too they came down and they met with all of our principles and one of the things I've talked with the chair and vice chair about is how can we have an opportunity to connect you as a board to those Folks at some point in this process um right now of course the work they're doing
152is preliminary they're helping us uh for instance design the survey if you don't vote to put a referendum in the ballot it will end there if you do there'll be the opportunity to also get to know them and uh include them in some of the boards discussions I have kind of a followup related to the voter turnout by age is that from the district or is that from the r Comm R strategies it actually is from our uh previous uh it's through rap strategies yes that they crunched the numbers it was one one of the folks who helped us with some of the survey work on the last referendum got the voter file and did the analysis but rap helped us make that happen and I would be curious in maybe the next presentation about
153breaking that down further that I sort of looked at like the 18 to 22y old are maybe more traditionally either College age starting their careers are they voting in Rochester if they're going to school other places that kind of thing um likely not having young children yet but then a separate breakdown of the maybe I don't know 24 to 30 who might have children who aren't in the district yet Who U you know just anecdotally people I've talked about those people um in that age category don't have children yet but they're thinking about having children they're thinking about wanting good schools for their children and then also really focusing on that 31 to 45 I would expect those are most of our parents and 20% is not high enough um to where it needs to
154be and then I also kind of thinking about segmenting the 61 plus probably have different interests than that 31 to 45 so really that targeted communication is is where I see that but I really see that 31 45 we we need to improve that percentage Yeah I I I dark laugh and I had the same reaction to the 31 to 45 and I asked Todd rap who's the CEO of the firm who also looked at these data I said is our 18 to 30 low or is that kind of normal I said oh no this is way low 8% is way way low like you usually would see something closer you for sure double digits um so for whatever reason our youngest adults just didn't come out last November and then I have one final
155question that at the msba conference in January I sat in a small group presentation about the presidential year versus Governor year and do we have any flexibility there or is the 2026 too late for this or what's the thinking on and does this organization have any thoughts on that that we just have to go now because we have to go now uh we have to go now for financial reasons um that's what um the the male contribution uh and your approved use of our reserves to make the Strategic change in our Healthcare support is enabling but if we do not pass um a levy in the fall the reductions that we will face will will um need to be made the following year so we don't have a Grace here um and I'm looking at
156John no confirm that I'm correct you're right in that regard so that's the logic yeah that would have been a fascinating session to sit in on the presidential year versus the owners year um we are of necessity needing to make a decision this year does that organization have any thought on that that presidential is like second best compared to Governor being best or has that conversation not even happen because we have to go now this is um summarizing early fluid conversations but here's what I've heard from some of the folks that again they're they're not our we don't have political Consultants they're our Communications Consultants but they've said usually you stay away from a presidential year like the play however this year and in Rochester because of what has happened here because of the agenda
157because of the narrow failure um they are they think it's much less conclusive that this would be a non-star and so uh it is it is though unorthodox in terms of terms of some very traditional approaches to having a school referendum be up there with US senator president like uh major important potentially decisive battles for the US House of Representatives um all on the ballot here in omstead County so it it as as chair Nathan says we're not going to stop being interesting um in the near future thank you Dr Garcia did you have your hand up earlier I did I can't remember oh yes basically I was just going to offer my self I suppose as a as an option of somebody whose brain you might tap in terms of um people who are
158not connected to the district caring about the district because of all seven of us board members there's only one person on the board who doesn't have children or grandchildren currently in the district or has had children or has taught in the district and that's me I have no connection at all to the district prior to now I just have a very civically minded social justices sort of background and was like I am finally graduated from grad school I am independently licensed as a psychologist and I have time on my hands what am I going to do um and public education was of interest to me and I've recognize that there's probably not a ton of people just hanging around who are like Highly Educated you know upward mobile like grew up in kind of a
159small desert Town um that are jonesing to be a part of this but I feel like there's something there like I mean we could certainly tap into that because I that was sort of my part of the campaign I got a lot of push back that was sort of like why if you don't have kids in the district like why are you being a weirdo and trying to get up get up in this and I was just like because we need everybody to care if you're a taxpayer in this District like we need you to care about what's happening because of things like this and so I will offer myself as an example or a person if you want to get together with groups or whatever just let me know um I would be happy
160to do that because I have my own reasons and I think I can be persuasive and I think there is a group of other people that are just sort of like I don't know we need to engage them as well that are in that same sort of category yeah I I appreciate that I will definitely take you up on that again on the information side not the campaign side I I will say when you lose by 318 votes there don't need to be a lot of Jess Garcia out there to make a difference I mean 318 votes in a community of over 130,000 you know people not all registered voters of course that is um if if if this election in November 23 showed anything regardless of school district or anything it's that elections matter
161and turnout matters um because it was razor thin and so we will see what happens going forward I think chair Nathan you had another question did you have your hand up so in the last referendum for the first time um we had h a chamber endorsement and I'm wondering if there's been any conversation about a survey of our business community that is different than the survey of our general Community regarding tax tolerance um in a way to both educate the business Community about the issues um I think they're that stakeholder group that we have the opportunity to make a a informational case to about what the impacts of um the referendum would be to benefit um their businesses Etc and I don't know if you've had that conversation with rap strategies if that's something that
162they do but I'm just wondering because we had the chamber involvement in the last election if we should think about a business strategy differently this time as well I think I'll just say chair Nathan we can we can certainly put that into the planning process really in many respects this conversation as I said at the outset is starting tonight it's starting with you I feel you know I don't you are all my bosses and I don't freelance Beyond um the board I um obviously we've been talking about the financial realities we face I feel this study session really begins a first of all deliberative and um input process that will ultimately result in whatever decision you make later this spring and I think now that we have had this discussion it's not a bad time
163to begin to reach out to get some further targeted input from other stakeholders when we put the survey on the website and we held the focus groups the main pitch for those two I think very valuable sources of input was what happened last November and because we wanted to learn from what happened I think now we're at a point where certainly I would recommend it's time to look forward which is why I tried to position the feedback from last November as lessons for the next referendum so that we are uh trying to support you in the big decision that that you have to make in uh just about a month and a half I will say thank you for a good some very robust feedback and uh this is on the agenda and we will
164certainly um I I'll talk with the chair and vice chair about whether additional meetings are are needed um but obviously that this is prominent already on your agenda and we will be um keep you updated on what we're hearing from uh our partners and uh the public as a whole okay next on our agenda is the annual Board calendar update are there any other items that a board member would like to be bring forward for consideration on a future school board meeting agenda under other business 5.1 board questions submitted by board members before the meeting and related answers will be available on assembly 5 point2 upcoming board meeting dates for April a regular meeting is scheduled for April 9th beginning at 5:30 p.m. a study session will begin at 5:30 p.m. on April 16th and
165on April 23rd a regular meeting will also begin at 5:30 p.m. all meetings will be held in the Edison boardroom with that I adjourn this meeting at 7:53 p.m.