School Board Meeting, March 19, 2024

001e we're not I'd like to inform you that we'll have two meetings tonight first a special session and a regular meeting and after I adjourn the special session we will immediately start the regular meeting the special session of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday March 19th 2024 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples the 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

002the meeting if you are speaking or presenting at tonight's meeting please speak directly into or close to the microphone provided so that the recording can capture clear audio and the audience present can hear what is being said said the agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at rochesterschools.com assmbly present at this meeting are Schoolboard members superintendent Kent pel a non- voting ex officio member and assistant Schoolboard clerk Miss Lorie Sam Miss ham would you please call the role director here director here here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item 2.1 is

003approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I I any opposed the agenda has been approved item 3.1 operating Levy renewal information the purpose of the special session agenda item is to provide the community with information on the recommendation to the school board to renew the 2015 operating Levy detailed information on this agenda item and the Schoolboard meeting dates I will will reference below are available on simbly our online site for Schoolboard meetings and agendas first to ground us a timeline of key dates on July 14th 2015 the school board authorized an operating referendum question to be put before the voters at a special election on November 3rd 2015 the question included the amount

004of $836 and 82 cents per pupil unit that would expire after taxes payable in 2025 3rd 2015 the referendum passed during the 2023 Minnesota legislative session a law was passed that allows school boards to vote to renew an existing operating referendum the existing operating referendum can be renewed by the school board one time for the same per pupil amount including inflation adjustments and for the same length of time the law can be found in Minnesota statute 126 c117 subdivision 9B at the January 16th 2024 school board meeting agenda item 4.1 review the 5-year general fund forecast the board was presented information that assumed the revenue from the 2015 operating Levy would only be available through school year 2025 26 in the absence of that 20 2015 referendum Revenue the forecast showed a large deficit of

005approximately $34 million for school years beginning in 2026 that would have to be overcome with significant budget reductions or increased Revenue the superintendent shared with the board at that meeting that he would be bringing the board a recommendation to renew the 2015 operating Levy by board action at the January 23rd 2024 school board meeting agenda item 7.1 annual Board calendar draft identified that the 2015 operating Levy renewal would be a prep for action item on February 20th 2024 and an action item on March 19th 24 at the February 20th 2024 school board meeting prep for action item 7.1 was presented to the school board and at tonight's regular meeting action item 9.1 2014 operating Levy renewal will be taken up by the school board for a vote now some background financial information the 2015 operating

006Levy included an inflationary increase component and now generates $942 per pupil unit as of taxes payable 2024 the general fund Revenue the referendum will generate for school year 22425 is approximately $17.2 million of general fund Revenue to relate the operating Levy to Staffing which is how about 80% of the general fund budget is actually spent year toe it equates to full funding for roughly 160 of the 1,445 full-time teaching position positions in the district without the 2015 operating Levy there would need to be significant budget reductions across the district after school year 2025 26 to align spending to the revenues received from other sources item agenda item 3.2 is the operating Levy renewal public testimony the process described in Minnesota statute 126 c17 subdivision B which gives authority to school board Wards to renew an

007existing operating Levy includes holding a meeting and allowing public testimony on the proposed renewal this agenda item complies with this requirement the following procedures apply to the public testimony on the operating Levy renewal individuals who wish to provide public testimony at the special session will need to complete a yellow card and Miss Peterson is roaming through the audience with those yellow cards if you need one to fill out please do so and hand it to her and she will give it to the assistant school board clerk individuals will be recognized by the school board chair to provide their testimony in the order that cards are received by the school board clerk the provisions of procedure 206a particularly section 7 prohibited conduct applied to public testimony including privacy protections for students and staff and prohibition on

008comments that are threatening profane lewd vulgar obscene harassing abusive or constitute a personal attack on others only those speakers recognized by the chair will be allowed to speak comments by others are out of order individuals who interfere with or interrupt speakers the school board or the proceedings may be directed to leave once you are recognized by name by the board chair please come to this table choose a microphone to speak into and be seated you will have three minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed right in front of me please limit your questions and comments to topics related to renewal of the 2015 operating Levy and begin your remarks by stating your name and your relationship to Rochester Public Schools our first Speaker tonight is Nancy [Music] zorski hello thank you um I'll

009make this brief as a local property tax um taxpayer as well as a parent of two graduates of the Rog Public School System um first of all I want to thank you for all your work I just want to say that I think the UN renewal at this level makes sense it's approved at the state Le legislature to allow you to do that I've worked for local units of government uh for majority of my career and I appreciate as a taxpayer uh essentially a steady state of levies instead of having this one not pass drop off jacking it up having to go through all this effort I also think you're saving money at the school level by not going through um a levy process for this one that can be easily renewed save the money

010and the efforts for new levies because we know that costs constantly increase and along with technology and new ways of educating so I think it's better to just keep it at a steady state and um I just wanted to say that and thank you so thank you for listening our second speaker is Amy Nelson members superintendent pel thank you for the opportunity to speak about the operating Levy I am Amy Nelson proud parent of two RPS students public education was brought in to be the great equalizer providing a solid foundation for all of our children it is the ultimate way to show our support for future Generations our grandparents and great-grandparents paid for my generation to go to public school and it is now our responsibility to continue paying for the next Generations to get

011their education I'm here here today to show support for renewing the 2015 operating Levy it would be detrimental to Future generations to not renew it we need to fund public education to ensure that we have a vibrant educated and employable Workforce in the future thank you our third speaker this evening is Jesse O'Driscoll esteemed superintendent and members of the school board my name is Jesse I am a resident of District 535 and I come here to um request some caution in proceeding with this motion um because while the matter itself is a separate question from why right to speak here um my concern is about the long-term sustainability of certain motions done by the board without obtaining the consent of the government while I do not believe that explicit referenda are necessary for every agenda

012item they become more important in times of um not a non-unified um District or governed um constituency and in the past 10 years years or so the reputation of the public school system here has been facing some questions from the public and so for the sake of the long-term stability and Excellence of our esteemed public school system I would ask that other motions be entertained for how to obtain These funds such as a special election uh in the midsummer or something like that I think if these issues are presented to the public they can be approved uh in a way that would allow the operating Levy from 2015 to continue for 10 more years just as you wish while maintaining a sense of um balance of the people feeling like they're they're being heard on

013this issue thank you speaker number four is wesle thank you for this opportunity to address you again this evening although it's quite spontaneous and unexpected I think it was probably two years ago when I last addressed the Board of Education of isd535 uh regarding the truth and Taxation meeting and I think that night I was the only speaker and probably the only non-governmental employee in the room as I'm used to being at County Commissioners meetings when taxation is being discussed or even City Council meetings when taxation is being discussed I'm excited to see a broad widespread Community turning out this evening to talk about uh financial matters during this time of covid which has been invoked repeatedly as a reason to increase taxes because County employees are struggling with car payments or house payments we

014um also are struggling by the way I am a taxpayer I'm a property taxpayer I'm an income taxpayer I'm a sales taxpayer and I'm I'm a taxpayer of every special Levy that's designed to increase whatever taxes already exist so I've asked as I did before at the previous truth and Taxation meeting what are my taxes being spent on I've listened to people make presentations this uh Financial gentleman who studies the school board of uh ISD 300 in Chicago uh for information about how to run our school district I would say sorry did the volume go down on this microphone no okay so I would say that um we need to have a thorough accounting of these buckets of money and that's not my term that's a term that was used by the gentlemen in certain

015meetings to discuss buckets of money and how the money was going to flow from place to place place but also in terms of expenditures there's been a lot of uh items thrown away a lot of buildings sold off um furthermore I would like to see a thorough audit not only of the expenditures and what's being done with the money um I mentioned the covid money that flowed into our community some $38 million which I believe According to some documents was spent largely on teachers salaries wages and benefits but finally and I'll use my last 30 seconds to describe uh what I think is really important is we need to audit the actual number of students which we are servicing because the number of teaching positions relates directly to the number of students we have and

016the number of assistant principal positions and then principle positions relates to the number of tiered individuals as it runs up through the system so we need to audit how many students we actually have in the Rochester Public Schools and whether we have any double Dippers at our own state in another state or in our own City and another city and I'm meaning you know for instance Minneapolis Mano Madison or even Chicago itself stuff let's audit how many students are actually attending our fifth speaker is Ray Hicks hello I'm Ray h resident in Northwest Rochester I had no intention of speaking tonight I walked in heard what the topic was I'm taking the chance here I am um I'm going to speak in opposition to renewing this thing this this Levy from rationale is that it's

017bypassing the voters now the legislature did indeed give you the ability and the right to do that renew it one time for the link that it was originally for for the same amount you are completely within the law to do that but you are Breaking Faith with residents of Rochester by doing so and I am very much opposed to that as a resident I care about my schools I care about every student here every teacher every staff member I know the money is important but so is the dialogue with the community the community has concerns about the priorities of the school where the money gets spent how it gets spent the community one of the very few ways that we have any leverage with you is through the the revenues and the taxes when when

018we believe that it's being spent well we are more inclined to support things when we have disagreements we are less inclined you are bypassing the voters if you unilaterally without taking this to the voters pass it that that doesn't engender Faith going forward with me and with a lot of people that think like I do so I'm going to leave it there and I hope you'll seriously consider whether you pass this thing or not whether you renew it without voter say so thank you so seeing no additional yellow forms is there anyone else who like like to be recognized to provide public testimony is there anyone else who would like to be recognized to provide public testimony and finally last chance is there anyone else who would like to be recognized to provide public testimony

019hearing none the special session is adjourned at 5:49 [Applause] p.m. this regular meeting of Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:49 p.m. on Tuesday March 19th 2024 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples this meeting is being live streamed and interested members of the public are welcome 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 if you are speaking or presenting at tonight's meeting please speak directly into or close to the microphone provided so that the recording can capture

020clear audio and the audience present can hear what is being said the agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at Rochester schools.org assmbly present at this meeting are Schoolboard members superintendent Kent pel a non- voting ex official member and assistant Schoolboard clerk Miss Lorie Sam Miss Sam would you please call the role here here here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States America for it stands one nation indivisible withy andice item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I all those opposed the agenda has been approved um if we're

021still meeting at 7:00 just a note to the board and Community we make we will consider taking a 10-minute recess at that time item three comments to the board it is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our student staff families and schools we welcome communication via email phone call at our community engagement listening sessions and here during comments to the board persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online request to provide comments to the the board form by 5:00 p.m. on the Monday before the school board meeting to sign up for a time slot the form is available on the RPS website under Schoolboard Communications and on the symbl main page the purpose of comments to the board is to give

022community members an opportunity to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall within our Authority the board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speaker's comments during the meeting but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate a reminder that policy 206 and procedure 206a set the time place and manner procedures and restrictions on comments to the board these ensure privacy protections for students and staff and prohibit comments that are threatening profane lewd vulgar obscene harassing abusive or constitute a personal attack on others speakers when your name is called please come to the table choose a microphone to speak into and be seated you will have three minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed right in front of me please begin your remarks by stating your name

023if you have written materials for the board please provide them to the assistant school board clerk prior to your remarks and she will distribute them to board members our first Speaker this evening is Christina buron e our next item is information and Outreach recognitions the Minnesota inter Scholastic activities administrators Association MN iaaa has announced that Mark queasy activities director at Sentry High School has been awarded the mni AAA State Award of Merit this award recognizes outstanding leadership and meritorious service and achievement in the vocation of inter Scholastic achievement Mr quizley is now also eligible to be considered by the national inter Scholastic athletic administrator administrators Association for the niaa award of Merit Mr quizley will be recognized at the annual awards banquet at at the state conference on Wednesday March 27th in St Cloud Minnesota

024is Mr queasy here tonight well those of you who have attended Schoolboard meetings frequently will recognize Mr quizley as a familiar face in this boardroom where he has shared the successes of many athletes teams and activities he has supported and where he has brought many important items before the board for consideration we recognize him for his accomplishments and leadership in Rochester Public Schools and thank him for his work congratulations to Mr [Applause] quizley item 4.2 is stat statues for equality the board will receive a presentation tonight about the statues for a quality project to create and erect a statue of Amelia P Hatfield withersteen and Rochester I would like to welcome our presenters Virginia Wright Peters and Judy hickey thank you chairwoman Nathan superintendent Mel and school board members for inviting us to present on

025the statues for equality project uh Dr Virginia Wright Peterson and I have been working on this project for the last nine months um so the statues for equality project was introduced to the community by mayor Kim Norton she was introduced to the idea in Spring of 2023 at an international women's day conference she brought the project back to Rochester and introduced it to a group of local residents which includes women and men from the community the community is interested in public art Rochester and olid County history and the women's suffrages movement in the state of Minnesota the committee has been meeting to plan this project mayor Norton selected this project at her um state of the city address for one of her um initiatives for 2024 so the artists Gillian Mark Shatner are international artists

026and their artwork can be found in countries throughout the world they began creating art together in 1990 and they developed the concept for the statues for equality movement and it developed veloped out of their realization that over out of over 100 commissions that they had received only 1% were for women and additionally they discover they realized that the representations of women in statuary were generally of unnamed women representing symbols such as Liberty Freedom um profession of nursing or motherhood and so they created this initiative and they started it in 200 19 to launch the statues for equality project to increase the representation of named women and statuary with the purpose of educating inspiring the public on the history and Leadership of women um so this project in Rochester we undertook this project and the challenging

027part of it was who were we going to select to be part of this Global in initiative so we had three criteria that we had determined based on the um Olstead County History Center is celebrating their 100th anniversary in 2025 the Rotary Club is in the process of celebrating their 100th history and then there's an interest in the suffragist Movement by you the women in the community and to research that history so we looked back in history and read about different women that were active in the community and leaders you know in a period that was over 100 years ago and through that process We Came Upon Amelia P Hatfield werstein and now we get to the re re re relevance as to why she is important to the Rochester school board so V Dr

028Peters rright Peterson's going to go into many details about her life and talk about the biographical information but you can see the three points that we um we focused on that she was the first woman elected to the school board she was the first woman president of the school board and she was the first woman to serve on an olad County jury and we find that a remarkable you know concept that we selected her for our um statute representation so now I'm gonna pass over to Dr rright Peterson thank you for having me um I'm grateful to the History Center of Olstead County for having records that allow us to recreate This Woman's life as well as some of the school district's records that um some of the uh school board meeting uh minutes Etc

029that have helped us uh put together a bit of a profile of Amelia Hatfield withersteen um she was born in the Quincy Township and she was a teacher before she um ultimately became a school board member she taught in the do area and then she married a teacher um Horus H weatherstein who was a teacher in the Rochester area they went to Chicago while um Horus werstein went to Rush Medical School and then returned to Rochester where Dr within was quite involved in public service as mayor member of the school board and a state senator for many years as you can see in 19 11 members of the community approached Amelia werstein to run for office um in 1875 the Minnesota Legislature passed a law that allowed women to uh vote in school matters and

030to repres to be represented on school boards a group came um forward and encouraged her to run and the school uh the Rochester paper had a little bit of an article and it said Mrs werstein in their endorsement as well is a woman of much Common Sense her mind is analytical and her judgment is good though progress though Progressive she is not a fattiest she is well educated a splendid Homemaker and a brilliant clubw woman um so uh this this was their endorsement the newspaper but Dr ww Mayo also um remarked when he heard that uh she was running um well I'm glad of it there should be a woman on the board and so she became a uh she she ran she was elected and um then became president in 1914 um I in

031looking at the minutes of the U meetings she was very involved in not just in things that would be traditionally considered women's uh Arena she um was very involved in the finances very involved in the uh in the facilities I also think it's interesting um that she was uh I think she must have been somewhat Brave although she came to this with some sense of privilege being married to a physician and someone who was already in public office but I wonder there's still questions like the legislature passed this right in 1875 yet no woman in Rochester was elected until 1911 and why was that um so there must have been some resistance um for women to be involved and she ultimately broke through that um however um over time as she kept getting reelected running

032for reelection in 1921 there was quite a bit of controversy and there was a group uh and including the PTA that were running um a bit against her and you'll be interested in maybe uh two of the main topics that were in uh controversy class size was one some things don't change right um but she tried to point out to people that if they cut the class sizing in half half as the other people wanted to do the levy would go up so um she was really um involved in trying to make these ends meet the other area of controversy was some people in town wanted it to be more of an the high school in particular more of an eliest College Prep School offering four years of Latin and things like that and Amelia

033withersteen wanted to make sure that people were well well prepared for the trades in general General Life she was reelected in 21 and then served until so um so points of consideration so the we are working with u different Community groups at the Rochester Parks Department the idea at this point is that this statue will be placed in Central Park it fits very nicely because the Heritage House is there there's a historical Fountain and so it kind of groups these you know historical pieces from around the Victorian era together so that's where we're looking at placing this we are undertaking fundraising efforts to do this and we are in the design process and I think what makes this project interesting with the time period of the person that we're dealing with also creates the challenges

034because of the lack of Photography um it's very limited and generally the uh photography is Head and Shoulders portrait and we're looking at creating a full body statue so there's very interesting um problems that we need to solve as we undertake this project so I thank you for the opportunity to present this project to you and thank you to Lori for helping us you know with the technical aspects of getting this set up and we thank you for your service to the school district board members before we let them go do you have any questions is d m um I'm there's a picture towards the end of your presentation that you didn't talk about tell this is just fun so this picture came this just I had to throw this in for fun this picture

035came from the Mayo Clinic uh archives and the what would be the upper I'm the upper uh left-hand Corner that is Edith mayo and then the person to her left is Amelia werstein and so we just had to throw that in to just kind of women leaders in the community during that time period And so it's fun to see together and we believe that this is from the May house this is Tak thank you is there a local website or some other source where we would be able to follow your work there will be okay very very shortly it's in development all right great thank you very much oh wait superintendent I I just can't resist I'm going to from the the news story about inspect uh inspector Flynn's visit I'm GNA have pasted above

036my desk the Rochester schools have been ably administered sympathetically and constructively supervised and effectively taught uh that's a good goal for actually I especially like sympathetically uh and constructively supervised I need to be more sympathetic and constructive so thank you for this it's really great there is your challenge I like it thank you so much for coming so thank you thank you for inviting us [Applause] now item 4.3 are board member committee updates does any board member have updates to share Dr Mark we have a Representatives here from the students school board and I invite them to come up to this table and to sit in front of an a microphone and introduce yourselves uh this week we have uh John Marshall students here go Rockets thank you for coming and thank you for briefly

037sharing some of the important work you're doing oh and would you tell everybody your names first please yeah so hi I'm Olivia rusek I'm Hudson o and my dad wanted me to say my mom texted me before this and said are you wearing something nice and I freaked out because I was at golf practice so I called my dad and he told me to say I was at golf practice so uh we're from excused so we're from John Marshall High School go rockets and we were asked to share a couple updates about JM and some awesome stuff that we've been doing because although I'm wearing sweatpants our school isn't as in shambles as me so um some really awesome stuff that we've been up to lately is we are kind of still in the midst

038of our culture week which is really cool we have a bunch of different cultural Foods around this time it's kind of turned into culture month but that's even better so we have all of our different foods all of our different um cultural clothing we have listened to some really great music at school and then we were going to have our performance this Friday but it got postponed so it'll happen sometime but that's basically just where you can kind of showcase your culture and dancing and singing and it's really awesome and that kind of ties along with during Black History Month we had our Taste of Africa which was also really awesome which Taste of Africa was a lot of food and it was really great and we had some awesome Black History Month trivia in

039the cafeteria and stuff like that another update from us is we have a mural that's coming really soon hopefully and it's really cool it showcases kind of like the one at Riverside we have the same artist uh doing it and helping with for us and it's going to Showcase a bunch of different students doing a bunch of different awesome things like speech and debate uh music Sports and just kind of academic things in general and it's going to kind of spice up our school a little bit make it a little more colorful because we are inside and we're really awesome so it'll just be really inviting and those are some updates I have nothing to add she's a hard act to follow I'm sure there's a bunch of other awesome things because so much stuff

040goes on in our school but those were just kind of some highlights that we asked I asked a few people if I could share and that's what we have for you so we're always learning always growing so yeah thank you you um I appreciate both of you and you both look just great so tell your parents we all said that okay I will thank you board members any questions thank you for coming we appreciate the updates thank [Applause] you are there any other updates from board members Dr Marvin I have one non School Board uh board related um on March um 5th three of us from the school board attended the association of metropolitan school districts day at the C Capital uh we went up to St Paul and we met with five senators and

041representatives to talk about uh priorities for education in particular for Rochester and what we were looking at how funding could really help this school district uh do the kinds of important work that we need to do interestingly um this was an association of bigger school districts most of them in the Twin Cities area um and because Rochester is a bigger School District we had a lot in common with many of those gathered it was a wonderful opportunity to share notes to share challenges and to um really bend the ear of our our elected representatives and Senators who are very interested in what we had to say about education it was a great opportunity and I think that miss mcclaflin and miss Workman have more information on priorities director Workman um just to remind board members

042um if you really want to keep up every minute of every day you can check the dashboard on the msba website for legislative changes um so far this week um they're just working on the Omnibus Bill so um there wasn't anything major there but on of on on Monday the SRO bill passed and the governor signed it SRO is school resource officers um first it had to go to conference committee which met the next day they got an agreement and it passed with bipartisan votes in both the house and the Senate and Governor wall has signed it um there is as of today there or yesterday there is a $3.7 billion Surplus this fiscal year for the 2024 2025 biennium of the 1,624 bills introduced in the house 137 of those were education and there

043were 67 bills that were related to education and some of those bills mostly from the labor department do influence what happens in our school district um there were some highlights of some bills um SF 3745 requiring State academic standards in health education um is being considered there may be additional graduation requirements in order to meet the new standards but those standards do take a long time to develop I believe we do already require a semester of heal for graduation um so I'm not sure how that might impact US 10 years from now or whenever they get around to it um the read Act is still they're still soliciting some information for changes one of which is the number of volunteers that need to be trained and that the trainer model would be acceptable at the

044local level there's a bill to redefine the hours of instruction of what we used to call seat time which would include include hours when a student is actively engaged in the district's educational process and it would allow districts to award credit based on Mastery which we can already do um there was a discussion to include the first amendment protection to student journalists um statutory rights to free speech and freedom of the press um it lists different types of speech that would not that would not be protected and prohibits retaliation against a student and or their media adviser the bill would still provide local school officials with the authority to limit or prevent the dissemination of material that is not protected by the first amendment that could have adverse effects on the school environment School Board

045vacancy bill um when a school board member resigns this is the proposal when a Schoolboard member resigns and the vacancy is for less than two years the board can appoint until the term ends there's no special education or special election required um if a school board member resigns 90 days or fewer before their term expires the board does not have to appoint um some of the reasons for this was the cost of a special election low low voter turnouts the costs will in continue to increase to run election and the school district is not in the business of running elections so there is a higher chance of technical errors this these were some of the reasons brought up um so this isn't in response to the current environment of many districts across the state but

046simply would revert back to the vacancy bill that we had over 10 years ago um there is a cell phone bill uh as originally introduced would require Minnesota Schoolboard Association to develop a model policy on possession and use of cell phones by December 15 2024 and that school board must adopt a policy by March 15 2025 um they're looking at best practice to minimize the impact of cell phones on student behavior and mental health and academic attainment so um these are all bills that are in process the only one that has been signed of as of date is the SRO bill so these are all bills that are still considered and there are certainly opportunities that will come up for um school board members to make presentations or testimonies I would like to say that

047um one of uh that the Minnesota state teacher PTA and the Rochester school board were the ones who um lobbied the legislature to change the scoring of the MCAS right now if a student does not take the MCA that is counted as a zero and those zeros are factored in to the total score this is a bill that does not cost anything thank you that's all I have for now I'd like to share oh and board members anybody else have any events or anything before I share um I'd like to share some events that I attended in the past week uh the Muslim Student Association from our three high schools was kind enough to invite us to the ifar dinner on Saturday night at Mayo and it was lovely it was lovely to share in

048the celebration of their culture and their religion and their food um and it was really great to see this event organized by our students uh put run by our students spoken by our students we have some amazing students at our three high schools I also uh was invited to read at the Washington readathon that was sponsored by their PTA and I got to read to a Kindergarten class and that is that is the best part but the best part of it is how excited they were to be ready for first grade and how much they're looking forward to it and and their confidence and and when I asked that question they were all very confident that they that their teacher Was preparing them well and that they were ready for first grade so that was

049exciting um some listening session updates so first of all I'd like to thank director Workman um because she's been spearheading the arrangements for the listening sessions that we've had and we are going to have this year and we've also been getting some great help from our family engagement coordinator Jennifer Spindler craigy and Lita Casper of our office of Community Education and Community Partnerships who has been connecting us with some of our community organizations who have agreed to be our co-sponsors so we had a listening session with aqua on February 23rd at Riverside and um we had uh all of us um were there um with the exception of Dr Garcia who missed us terribly um and uh we had some great parents and students and staff who came and did our what we call speed

050data School Board member so we all had our own little tables and they could come speak to one or all of us and um there they also hosted a resource Fair which was a really great way to combine coming in to speak to us and then getting resources from RPS and the community that were particularly of interest to their members uh we have a listening session coming up on March 22nd at live 1:25 from 12: to 2 p.m. and then another listening session on April 19th which is co-hosted by Poma women at Franklin Elementary from 5: to 7 p.m. and you can track information on both of those on our Rochester social media and on the news feed on our website items 5.1 through 5.18 are items on our consent agenda would any board member

051like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say I I any opposed the consent agenda has been approved item 6.1 is a focused topic restorative practices update this is an information item related to one of our strategic plan initiatives superintendent pel thank you chair Nathan I want to ask the folks that are going to be doing this update to make your way up uh to the board table as quickly as you can um keep us moving um as board memb and people who are following our strategic plan are well aware one of the building blocks of that plan is enhancing belonging and behavior and that is a very large strategy that is multifaceted that

052is about ensuring that all of our students are both physically and psychologically safe in our schools and we know that uh authentic safety for students and staff uh takes that kind of a multi-prong strategy part of that strategy has been of course establishing clear expectations for strong and positive avior in our schools and when those expectations are not met holding students accountable in a way that is not punitive and that uh we hope leads to changes in that behavior we also know that if you are entirely in reaction mode if you are entirely responding to student Behavior without creating an environment in which those positive expectations are ones that students not only understand but agree to you're always going to be uh pushing the rock uphill are fighting the losing battle and so the goal

053is to create cultures in which um students feel that they belong and in which their behaviors are focused on learning and academic success and so one of the critical tools in the toolkit that we've been using in RPS it goes by the sometimes somewhat confusing term restorative practices or restorative programs and it's a term that gets used often in education around the country today and so we wanted as part of that broader belonging and behavior uh strategy and our strategic plan to shine a light on the work that we've been doing in a subset of our schools around restorative practice when I need to describe what is meant by restorative practice in the simplest terms that I can I've usually described it as working very hard to create communities in which kids staff and when

054relevant families do feel that they fully belong and can be their best selves and when that community is ruptured in any way especially by an incident that involves disagreement or uh behavior that needs to be acted upon that Community is restored and we don't just keep going on as B business as usual because we know that when that happens under the surface a lot of the issues are still there so it's a two-prong strategy we have a a whirlwind overview of the work that um this team and folks in some of our schools have been doing and then look forward to um making this a sustained subject of the board's conversations um around uh belonging and behavior so thank you and let's dive in ch Nathan Dr pel School Board cabinet thank you for having

055us we're pretty excited to talk with you about restorative practices tonight so can you just pull the mic a little bit closer Steph thanks yes aw all right we'll go ahead and get started perfect Well Steph kind of jump the gun but you kind of know most of us I'm Amilia I'm the coordinator of American Indian Ed I'm Stephanie whan and I my role as instructional facilitator for humanities grades 6 through 12 but I also have had the um amazing opportunity of helping support the nine schools who are engaged in restorative practice um as their skip goal I'm Sarah Louise Henry coordinator of Youth Empowerment I'm Martin hagland principal at bber Valley Elementary Chris Ling director of school support for R spok schools well thank you um so my first slide is the foundational understanding

056this is from The International Institute of restorative practices says restorative practices are about strengthening individual and Community relationships to create a sense of belonging and provide a system of communal accountability belonging in community accountability then set the stage for repairing harm that may arise from student or educator Behavior so as you just heard from Dr pel because he likes to kind of give our presentation a little bit before we start um is really about the community piece and I know a lot of the times we think about the discipline pce and where this ties in there but to really get restored to practices you have to understand the history of it it comes from indigenous people you have to understand community in order for it to really work so I think it will definitely benefit

057our um adults in the district as well as our students as all right we do seem to be emphasizing the idea that we really want to get our heads around but we mean when we say restorative practices and so if that's not clear yet it will be by the end of this slide um so my background is English teaching and I got to do a little bit of an emology study um in terms of what restorative practices means when we talk about it and I think the reason that this felt important tonight is because every conversation I'm in with people it seems as though we have varying degrees of understanding or experience around restorative practices and some of those have already been named um in this in this short time um but I really wanted

058to dig a little deeper because I think that for me it restorative practices isn't a vast enough term I feel like it doesn't capture really what is happening when we're trying to build these communities and these cultures of inclusion and so um I did I did a little dive um I wanted to share that with you in terms of the idea of what restorative and what practice really mean um and then I want to talk a minute about what isn't said but I think might be the most important part and so when we think about restoring something we're trying to make it whole again figure out what maybe was broken or damaged or harmed and figure out how we can fix that so that we feel whole again in this case as a community could

059be a classroom could be a school district it could be um our country right when we think about the idea of restoring um and then when we think about practice um I really appreciated how there was such an emphasis in the idea of going from Theory to actual intentional habitual practices um that aim to restore or make whole again um and so as I was thinking about this I was also struck by the idea that perhaps the part that is not said is the most significant because there's an assumption when we're going to restore something that we already have this Foundation of community that exists that we already have this space where everyone feels they belong and there's this culture of inclusivity and so everything about restorative practices hinges on the existence of that idea

060of community and and within our classrooms again within our schools so even though it's not explicitly stated I think we have to name and acknowledge that we need to have those foundations of culture and Community within our classrooms our students need to feel as though they belong and our adults need to feel as though they belong in those spaces as well so a lot of what you're going to hear about tonight gets to that idea of belonging and um relationship in community um and that's because it's the most critical part without that there's not a lot to restore as you see here again have Community culture as a key piece within what we talked about Steph just talked about before Amelia the commun culture piece is very important but there's another part within it that's

061nonex exclusionary discipline or net you refer to it um within within mde that's G given to us about how to discipline students and ideas that we have to follow so net or non-exclusionary discipline um is alternatives to dismissals that we have and there's things that we have to do before we remove a student examples would be our PBS inter itions and supports social and emotional Services academic screening there's an academic piece within that and then alternate to educational services so that's kind of the non-exclusionary part of discipline that that we're following with mde that coincides with restorative practices and Community culture okay so to continue with that uh we came up with uh this pyramid to talk about uh what are restorative practices so if restorative practic is about changing people's mindset to form relationships

062and to repair harm we have to figure out like how the tears you know to that practice goes so if you look at at the bottom of there the building relationships portion that is actually 80% to even more to 90% of the work that we would do in the building so that work should be uh something that is Incorporated in the routine of the school um for example in the morning meetings at bber Valley you do have teachers conducting that building relationship Circle uh with students Community circles in classes and advisories should be something that is uh embedded in the work and uh something that is probably light not heavy uh so it would be for example you know what is your favorite color just to kind of find some commonality in uh in uh

063the classroom two conflict resolution uh training for all and that is something that we start with Staff first because we believe that the adults who are conducting and leading that work in the in the buildings whether they are teachers or administrators or support staff should have a really good understanding of what it is to restore relationship what it is to repair harm what does conflict look like with different students whether the student is internalizing that conflict or externalizing it in Behavior do we have calming areas in our schools where our students can go and take a break and uh do we have uh staff who would be willing to sit down with that student to take that break and help them process what are our counselors doing in the school to support restorative practices whether

064they are meeting with students individually in group or pushing into the classroom so this is basically where the work lives in the school uh building that relationship forming that community and and holding circles it's very critical as kind of like the Bedrock for what will happen next responding to challenges which is the next year would be something that if there is a conflict in the school whether the conflict is is between students or students and adults what will we do to uh respond while the building relationship piece is very proactive the LA the next two are reactive in nature it has to be reactive because we cannot control what will happen with human beings since we are um unpredictable so when those uh challenges happen in the building then we have a system that will

065help us do conflict mediation repair conversations healing or problem solving circles support for making amends how do we do this we do need to have it sta that is trained or a staff that is actually that has kind of like a Playbook to know what to do to respond to these challenges before any disciplinary actions are made that enabling re-entry is after a disciplinary action happens so let's say that we have to take not just a break but we have to sit down with student and talk about consequences to behaviors so when when we do the re-entry process all of the people who are harm and uh all of the people who were subject to harm you know come together and we do a restorative counseling session or sometimes we call intervention in reentry circles

066during that time there are a questions specific questions that are asked to both parties to help the students in the adults process so that we can move forward in changing that behavior and improving the environment and doing better are these things happening on a regular basis no I would say probably two to 5% of the time we're doing enabling re-entry um so the work is ongoing restive practices is something that we cannot just pinpoint as something that is perfect uh even the most uh skilled restorative practitioners do know that that this pyramid as we go through it you do have to do a check-in with yourself to make sure that you're ready for that process from building relationship where it is light to the heavier lifting work when you're doing enabling re-entry one thing that

067we want to highlight is the way that that um this work is interwoven into many of our district goals that already exist so basically if these goals are the cupcakes restorative practices are the sprinkles that add like the value and the pizzazz to what we're doing um for example deeper learning is already grounded in a culture of belonging but with the restorative practices we're looking at um that emphasis on inclusivity and also um enabling that creative curriculum interaction that Foster um participation in these circles and then leading into Innovation as well um when we look at the mtss work we're able to understand the students individual needs and the success for learning um through that and also looking at mental health as we're prioritizing relationships both between staff and students and student to students as

068well um and also promoting that sense of community and culture within our schools um the family engagement piece is intertwined because these do expand beyond the classroom um engaging families which also helps uh with the sustainability of the values that students are learning while they're doing these restorative practices um we also looking at promoting Universal academic success um these are qualities and skills in communication as well that help students as they go on into post-secondary education and later on into their careers and in their communities in general looking at that Community safety that feeling of safety um both emotional safety primarily in our schools and as we look at our upcoming youth voice and student leadership work it shows up there because we're also creating an opportunity for students to authentically um Express themselves in

069that um in that environment and then we are also doing student Le circles so that's exciting in because they're now taking the skills that they're learning and then practicing them with their peers and it's a great opportunity I was supposed to be um Vanna in the back talking about how each and every one of these goes with each block back there as well because you can re have restored practice in each one of our so this slide really captures the nine sites who chose restorative practices as one of their skip goals um and I want to acknowledge that every site because this is about relationship building and culture building in the site every site is a different place within their their own Journey with restorative practices um obviously Martine is here in vber Valley has

070been working on restorative practices um longer than a number of the other sites because of her expertise and knowledge and I think we want to acknowledge that there are people around our district who have all kinds of training and experience with restorative practices um but these nine sites are the ones who chose it as a skip goal um so if you're here if you're in the audience and you're thinking about well I think there are some things happening within my student school um that very well could be because we have um experience and training that has happened in other places as well um so these are the nine sites and they have varying degrees of experience through um this sort of foundational book study they were gathering a committee of people together to get their

071heads around what restorative practices are and then engaging in in a book study throughout this year um and then some of them are starting to work with their staffs um if those are on Community Building circles or if they are um even starting to dabble with Community Building circles with our students as well and that we'll talk a little bit more here about um what that might look like and so we really want to acknowledge the fact that in order to get our heads around restorative practices we start with the adults um and I think it's easy and also our natural inclination to go right to students and to think oh we're going to do these really amazing practices with our students um but first I think as adults we have to recognize that how

072we show up in human with one another how we um build community and culture that our way of doing that is also going to transfer to how we do that with our students in our classrooms um and so starting with the adults to get our heads around restorative practices um and how we repair harm when we hurt someone so I I challenge you to think about that a little bit when we when we try to consider restorative practices as a whole what are our restorative inclinations as adults how do we face somebody who perhaps we have harmed and repair that relationship because that's essentially what we're asking our students to do uh and so with that we wanted to make sure that we spend time as adults really getting our heads around that restorative P

073practice piece we are doing that at Edison as we um work together as offices of academics equity and engagement and school support um we're also helping guide the nine schools through the book study we're also engaging in um Circle practice when it comes to work that's happening at the schools um but also within our own work at Edison um we have the Department of Education who's helping guide some of our learning around this um and we are also partnering with the finding human Institute I also recognized that I said and but then I left that open and so I just wanted to acknowledge the open-endedness of our Partnerships um and also that was a typo and I apologize for that and then also thinking about how do we take the work that we're doing as

074adults and then help our students start to build community in similar ways thinking about the idea of circle so when we talk about Circle really there are some beautiful benefits of sitting and we're in a little bit of one right now where the hierarchy is flattened um everyone's voice matters and is equal and we have an opportunity to share ideas um and and express our our personality and who we are um in this space and that's really what we're talking about with our students um especially in that Community Building space and this is happening in our classrooms already um we know that there are a lot of teachers who do morning meetings where they Circle up their students and they just check in with how people are doing we also know in high schools we

075do things called Socratic seminars perhaps in the middle school as well where we have students sit in circles and share their ideas um and site sources and explain their research and ideas and these are these are methods of circle that are already prevalent in our community um but really thinking about the purpose and intentionality of making sure all of our students feel a sense of belonging when they're in our spaces um and so really when we talk about Circle those are some of the the details that we're talking about all right we do have some of our Equity Specialists um who are really supporting that work within their sites as well all right and so this final quote um comes from that 97 page research document um and I think it emphasizes the idea that

076this takes time this is a process that is about building Community it's about making sure that our cultures are inclusive where everyone feels a sense of belonging um and because of that this is something that is never ending um but it also is something that's going to take time before we get into the space where those restorative conversations are happening um really fluidly in our in our schools thank you for your presentation board members any questions or comments director Marvin um first Miss Whitney nice save there with the typo that was that was well well played um secondly board members periodically will get a message from um a Comm member saying that uh kids are learning that they can do anything they want to do and there are no consequences and my understanding of what's

077happening is that there are consequences and that occasionally if a if a child is really out of control that child will be taken from the classroom even removed from the school short term but what what you're doing and what we your district is doing is helping that child learn to do better help the adults learn to do better helping everybody to know that you can make a mistake but there's a way of fixing it and coming back and I think that's a thing and that's hard work and anybody who's ever been a parent knows it's a lot easier to tell a kid go to your room and then forget they're in there um but but they don't learn anything by just sitting there and so what this is about is helping all of us learn

078how to do better how to understand how what we have done was hurtful and how not to do that again and I I'm not sure that that message is getting across because it's it's I think it's one of the most important things that children and adults can learn if they're going to be successful in life if I can address that I think that um even within my own learning and understanding about restorative practices that was um an interesting piece of the puzzle for me I had an opportunity to be at a school that had spent 10 years building their restorative practices and we talked to seniors um in that school who had grown up there and we asked them outright is it easier to be suspended or to go through a restorative conversation with somebody

079who harmed and 100% said they would prefer to be suspended because it's easier it is not comfortable sitting across from someone you've hurt and having to figure out how to repair that in a way way that ensures that the person who was harmed still feels as though they belong and are safe in that space and also the person who did the harm still belongs and is safe in that space and I think one of the risks of exclusion is that when students then come back you have a whole classroom of students who have observed if I mess up in some way if I do harm in some way will I be able to still be a member of this classroom will I still belong here and so it's a way of of punishment it doesn't

080necessarily address the community themselves and how they function together and if I may add to that the one little preposition in that hinges on the work is with so we do things with each other as opposed to doing things to each other or for each other so it makes it that the whole Community is involved you know in this repair the harm and that is what makes the world a little difficult yeah Dr bar um actually a couple excuse me of observations uh the first one is thank you for providing a good working definition for restorative practices um we all probably as the superintendent acknowledge have heard different uh iterations of what it is what it does and what it's for uh so thank you for sharing the RPS view if you will and also

081um uh allowing us to as a board realize that um and I'm not sure would we consider restorative practices a program how would you define not a definition but for the sake of my statement I'll refer to it as a program I'm glad to see how it's inor incorporated into our uh District goals which is important because sometimes you can develop a a program and not have it necessarily relate to anything uh that is uh uh relative to our strategic plan and or U District goal so thank you for calling that out and providing us a a lens into that thank you director cook yeah so uh thank you so much for the work for the presentation for the information I I guess uh my my reaction to all this generally is just that um

082I'm excited by it but here's why um the length of time that you described in implementing restorative practices well is significant and the time and attention of our staff and our our experts um is extremely valuable and it's limited and so we have to be really thoughtful and strategic about how we choose to deploy our priorities um the it's one thing to say that past practices were bad and therefore we should do something different but what I'm really excited about and and um thanks uh to the superintendent for sharing the underlying research or at least a a tidbit of it um is that yes thank you this this strategy has been proven to be extremely effective at um driving academic outcomes um from the the summary that was shared um a one unit increase in

083restorative practice exposure was associated with a seven unit increase in English language art scores for white students and a 17 Unit increase for black students recognizing um the inherent discrepancy in um past um disciplinary practices um so I think this is this is time well spent it's an investment wellmade in the future of Rochester the success of our students I'm excited to see it and I'm I'm glad that the board is able to support this and look forward to opportunities to continue to do so thank you director Workman I have to say um well I don't have to but I'm going to say that as a musician and a re retired educator um I really appreciated the definition of practice that you put forth and I think that athletes can certainly relate to that as

084well the application of ideas through repeated actions to master a skill or habit and I find and I'm sure you have as well in some instances students can practice things that do not lead to Mastery and it's so much easier um if they can start without that um habit around their their their necks and I think that you know you're starting with younger students who are learning this you know it's much harder as an adult to make changes but you know in school I think there's still a lot of opportunity um and then the same thing and and director cook just tou touched on this as well it takes time and continuous effort to fully Implement restorative practices so I know you all realize it but I'm going to say this for the benefit of

085others who may be watching is oh well you have this in place I don't see anything happening so let's throw that out and get on the next bandwagon that's coming into town you know it takes time um many of you were here perhaps when we heard some music students from Dakota Middle School in in the hallway sixth graders you know let's wait and see what they can do when they're seniors in high school because right now they are just learning those skills but by the time they have gone through all of this repeated practice and support it turns into something really wonderful it's really wonderful at this level too to watch them and listen to them as they are engaged in this learning so um I really appreciate your presentation thank you very much Dr

086Garcia I really enjoyed the focus on community accountability and the part about also not letting the adults off the hook because I think it's very easy for us to just say like we're an adult we can kind of do what we want or do as I say not as I do type of thing and the kids see that you know and so I think it's not only are we offering them the skills that hopefully will lead to Mastery but they also have models that are going to do that work too um because a lot of the things that we've heard from kids um in the school district is it's between them and an adult in the building that they're struggling and like how you know they don't have as much power as the adult and

087so if the adult isn't going to sort of call them out and then call them back in how are they ever going to learn to do that um in practice and the community accountability I so appreciate that because I think it's so easy to other someone like you did bad and we don't want that to be part of our community so we're going to put you over here and I will say that even for the people who come in here and give public comment is those are our people too even if we don't agree with the thing that we're they're saying and so how do we also like how do we maybe we should be going through restorative practice um how do we attempt to repair those hurts from other you know with other people

088um and how do we take accountability that if one of our own is struggling what is our responsibility to show up and support them um because Zero Tolerance policies I think as kind of um Dr Marvin was suggesting is if we kick a kid or an educator or somebody out of our district because they did something that we don't like they're just going to go do that somewhere else we didn't teach them anything um and so if we're going to go send them away they're now a product of a they're a former RPS person whether they're a student or not um and so now they carry with us that reputation or with them our reputation right and so I think that this is very important and I was working in a a middle school about

08910 years ago that was just starting restorative practice and it did take quite a while so I was there an entire school year and they were just sort of kicking things off and I can see now because I'm watching their social media still that it's done wonders for them so it wasn't that they got on a bandwagon and then abandoned it when it didn't work right out of the gate so I'm hoping that we are still able to you know be talking about this 10 years from now and all of the benefits that we're reaping from that so thank you for the work you're doing Dr mclin I also appreciate the reference to the research and thank you for sending that to us and also that it's so current that you know this is happening

090now and and I think I'm excited to dig into that um my question for this group though kind of two things is um can you talk about whether this concept in the practices is designed to have preventive aspects in student Behavior and adult behavior and then I have a what if we go to that then I have a second question for principal hegland so um one of the beautiful parts of restorative practices is that when we start incorporating like Circle work the goal is not to have that be the first strategy when harm has been caused the goal is to build up that community and that culture um of belonging and working together before harm is caused so that when harm does happen you're coming at it with a restorative mindset so the the biggest

091part of this work is learning how to build up the community within the classroom within the school and then extending within our out into our community as well I guess where I was thinking about it from like an elementary student you know maybe a third grader are they going to be at the point in their understanding of this process that they could have a thought like oh I'm going to do something wrong but then say I'm not going to do that because I don't want to cause the harm to my community is that what it's designed to do uh speaking from experience when I taught fifth grade U we started every day with a circle since first day of school um every morning we'd have a question just the generic like my teen said talk

092about a circle talk about that and then one things would come up whether it was big like the start of Co like my students were really scared about family members passing away we would Circle up and be able to talk about those things if things happened in the classroom they knew we were going to circle up and talk about it either as a whole group or with each other and eventually they would have their own circles in the classroom or on the playground so I think it does when you do it repeatedly every day students do start to understand like if I do is this like I'm going to have to own up to my actions and take time out of everybody's learning have the heat on me have to say sorry even at an

093elementary level that's kind of hard for them and just to answer some of the other comments that went on too like this is the research might be new but this is a practice that has been going on for centuries so I'm just kind of putting that out there again that while this is kind of the band wagen on education that has been going on in communities for a very long time which been very beneficial and I remember in my work talking about it 20 25 years ago so yes that it's it's it's evolved but that's what I like seeing about it that it's I think it's being used more intentionally and more productively in in the current practice um principal heelen the question I have for you is with you having the experience of doing

094this how do you get this information out to the community and the families that you're working with um thank you for asking that question this is something that uh we have uh pondered you know at Bamber when we started so the very first thing that we did is that we trained our entire staff even before we brought it to the classroom to the you know with the students and starting the practice we trained the staff last year and uh after we trained the staff we started uh you know Circle process you know with our students but we did it very slowly uh we started doing like you know effective what they call I think effective conversations or questions like how are you have a wonderful day you know all of those things that students are

095not thinking of restorative are actually planting the seed for restoration and then and when we get to the circle practice that is very formal you know we actually sit together we don't ask them to Circle up first you know we sit and we talk and then the last thing that we do is circle up and after we tell them what that is uh the one way that we communicated with families in this was through PTA and uh last year at the end of the year we uh did a restorative practice uh uh session you know Forum with PTA where the teachers who are leading the work with me in the building uh presented to the parents and uh showed them what uh this restrictive practice work is for them what it does in the building

096and what they can uh uh expect you know if they have questions so we did make our parents and families uh uh in formed uh but have we continued that work with families right now no uh but this is something that we are hoping that we can do in the building once we really once we have our you know legs from under us it's it's beginning it's flourishing but it's not awesome thank you well I um I'm very excited to see the progress that's being made and I think it's important to remind people who may not have seen the the pro the process of this is that this Rose to the top from our community when we were developing the Strategic plan the the phrase of restorative practices kept coming up um because I think

097people recognized that uh our students behavior needed a different approach and we did have pockets of where it was already working so people brought it and said let's let's raise this across the district and I know that for this year we have um these uh schools have chosen this as their goal so for sustainability and growth where do we see other schools joining the work and Are there specific pieces for example in our budget that we need to pay attention to to make sure that we're sustaining this work going forward looking at fact that you're looking um that's a deep question about the next phases of our strategic uh change work I think the best answer chair Nathan is that we are um implementing and constantly assessing and so not just with restorative practice but

098with mtss with structured literacy with deeper learning we need to continually ask is it the right fit is it working um and so this year and next year uh in all but two areas of our work we're trying things in a subset of schools by the end of next year we would expect to see to some of the questions that board members have asked um if not the impact on what we'd call distal or longer term educational outcomes positive early indicators of success and that will be very important across all of our work next year I see the next strategic plan in Rochester Public Schools as being about school design and a design in which as we'll talk about in a moment with our funding work there's a core and more there's a core structure

099in place across Ross all Rochester schools and then there's unique programming that meets the needs of individual schools and we want to make sure anything that's in that core is effective and is working and so I think we have a year uh this year and next year to continue to really assess the uh way we are implementing restorative practice and the impact of restorative practice and then as I think is uh the early indicators suggest will be the case we would then have the choice to include it in a cour designed for all Rochester schools but I we want to get there and be really really intentional about uh that and that implies to the two areas that we're also implementing in all schools this year multi-tiered systems of support and literacy and deeper learning

100they they need to be subjected to the same level of scrutiny um but we're trying those in all schools whereas we're trying other aspects of the Strategic plan in in a subset of schools but as you see it's not an accidentally random grouping of schools we have a diverse group of schools in many respects here that we can look at and say is restorative practice a fit for places as different as the schools that you saw on those list and the same is true across all of our planning efforts um and that's why we need a small But Mighty research and Improvement or innovation Department that can help us actually assess with early indicators the efficacy of things like restorative practice ultimately I think to like director mclin's uh point we would expect to see

101this result in lower incidents of disciplinary infractions and reduce disparities among groups in disciplinary infractions and to director Cook's Point overtime improvements in academic outcomes because kids who can devote their full mental energy to learning because it's not being buffered against a feeling of physical or psychological threat are going to do better in literacy in other areas um that we won't have data on by the end of next year but 3 to five years I think it's not at all um implausible that we'd see that kind of benefit can I say follow up to that just kind of popped in my head and and maybe the panel can help with us too that is it the kind of concept that it's going to take a generation of K through 12 students to get there or

102is it something that we can change their thinking about things as they progress through their education you know the these folks are far more uh expert in restorative practice and I I think to uh Amelia's point it has existed for centuries in in certain cultures um my experience is there are certain practices and orientations you can learn but it's always about the organization and the culture so it will wither quickly if you don't have it um supported and led in the culture so it's not like uh and I know I'm oversimplifying this but it's not like an inoculation of of relationships and self-control and once the kids got it we don't have to keep nurturing it but there is a vocabulary there are processes and I I I don't want to dwell on it but

103in Rochester we've had some bad experiences with restorative circles that were not properly set up properly conducted and properly followed through and we've learned from them it is not a no-risk proposition when you bring kids and adults together in a circumstance to look at Behavior or issues that have been very difficult is not something to do badly it's one of those things in life that I think it's better to not do at all than to do badly but that's it's it's very good to do well so that's one of the reasons why both Within These schools and then across the districts we're taking a go slow to go fast kind of a strategy um around it because it's always got to be given care and feeding in the um in the organization and in the

104system and I think what I'm hearing from the panel as well is before it shows up in the data and any you know measurable statistically significant change we're seeing it in the students we're seeing the impact of what's Happening already and it may not be a number measure but we I'm sure we'll hear a lot of stories and anecdotes um from the schools and you're all nodding so I'll let you say something about that you saw me dive at the mic um I think there's a couple of things that I'd be curious to know if we start to see some um some measurable statistically measurable um changes one might be belonging as we're really emphasizing so thinking about our Panorama data and how our students feel as though they belong in spaces I I'm curious

105to know if those if those numbers will shift a little bit but I also think about the fact that our goal is to keep our students in our classrooms and so and but also in classrooms where they feel like they belong and they can be successful and so with those things in mind um I I to I'm curious to know that speed in which we'll start to see some of the data shift um but I do anticipate some of the belonging piece as we think about belonging maybe a little bit differently I feel like as teachers we hear from the beginning of our career relationships relationships relationships but what I what I believe in terms of my own restorative work is that it is about relationships but there's a shift in the lens of what

106we're really talking about um and for example the word respect we use often we we think about okay if we respect each other things will go well but when we get to the definition of respect we're talking about the ability to reee one another um at the at the root uh word what that means and so when we think about being able to reee someone we have to see them as something more than a single story um and so if there's some of our students who may struggle to be in class if they're only defined by a a a title you know if we if we use certain terms to describe our students if they're only seeing as as struggling to stay in class or they're they're disengaged and that's our only story of them

107without knowing anything more then we're not doing our work to build that relationship of understanding of who our students are so that we can reee them or see them as whole people and not just incidences that help them be removed from class kind of a thing and so as we adjust our thinking around what it means to build relationship and to think about respect and trust and how we build that with our students I would anticipate some shifts in our students and how they feel they belong in spaces as well so that's a data point that I'm I'm watching closely and then kind of bouncing off of Step um that was a lot about the students but students get things a lot faster than the adults do just from experience um just like my students

108got it and like Dr pel said if a teacher is doing this well I never had to set a student out for anything because we were able to make that community and talk the teachers that didn't they had harder times so a lot of the time that's why we talk about the adults and the community because it's not just the children's mental shift they can shift easily it's the adults that are going to take time if they don't take the time to learn learn this not just this practice but any teaching practice our indigenous ones our restorative ones all of them if you're not if you don't have the training to do that well then it's not going to work so part with the cost and everything else is going to be the training the

109professional development to make this work that's where we are and I know there is the issue like with the new read act and what is our priority with things it's a hard question to answer is it Community is it reading is it V don't forget there's more than just the student aspect of grow there's adult aspect of growth we talked students a lot here our presentation talked a lot about adults don't forget there's going to be some adult growth too that we need to have go on in our own circles that we've had here at Edison there's a lot of adult growth with that too so keep in mind there's going to be an adult growth also board members any additional questions or comments other than our gratitude thank you for your work and thanks

110for such a great presentation thank you [Applause] board members unless I hear a call for our recess let's move through a few more agenda items and then perhaps so item 7.1 is a monitoring item the APAC letter to the school board this is an information item and the board will continue discussion of this item at the March 26 study session and a prep for action item at the April 9th regular meeting and an action item at the April 23rd regular meeting superintendent pel thank you so much and I see Amilia Cordell who's our Native American uh liaison uh and John Baines who's a member of our American Union parent advisory committee I'll let uh the folks who are coming up have a chance to introduce themselves this is a statutorily required but deeply valued process

111in Rochester Public Schools whereby our parent committee registers their opinion on the progress or sometimes lack thereof that we've made over the course of a year this year here we are uh as usual beginning with the board's opportunity to uh hear the letter and from the committee we're adding something uh to our process this year that I'm personally looking forward to uh at the next study session the board will have an opportunity to engage in your own reflection on what you've heard and we will be uh listening carefully to your thoughts your questions which will be I know prompted by what uh you're about to hear and what you've read and then as we prepare a draft response uh to to the committee we'll be able this year to incorporate some of the themes that

112come from your discussion which of course the board will ultimately take formal action on uh as required so um this will be a bit more sustained process this year I think to good effect so thank you so much for your work and turn it over to you John all right thanks uh my name is uh John Baines I'm one of the parent committee members my name is Michelle bains I'm an American Indian parent Committee Member and a retired teacher Valerie dor Gomez um been around for a while um a a grandparent now of someone District so you know me I so I'll I'll begin dear members of the Rochester Public School Board we the American Indian parent advisory committee APAC of Rochester Public Schools serve in an advisory role to The District in accordance with

113the snota Department of education's Indian education statutes sections 124 d. 78 as well as the US Department of educations title 6 Indian education formula grant program as a partner with the Rochester Public Schools we work to ensure all American Indian students are receiving an equitable and culturally relevant education based on the unique cultural uh language and academic needs of our native students as part of our responsibilities we evaluate the progress of our students in the district's work and fulfilling the provisions of the Indian education program this is our annual resolution of our decision of concurrence non-c concurrence we would like to acknowledge the support of RPS is provided and they're grateful for the efforts of our American Indian district coordinator and parttime leison District staff and the support of many uh school board members uh

114we also recognize the challenges the district has faced this year regarding referendum work and extensive planning involved in changes needed for new starting times we support the district's ongoing Comm commitment to the Strategic plan and in particular efforts to transform education through deeper learning we have reviewed and discussed the district's progress regarding the three areas we identified previously we the members of the American indan parent advisory board submit a letter of non-c concurrence to the Rochester Public School District dated the date February 16th 2024 the APAC has identified three areas of greatest concern using the mde office of Indian education's district and school self assessment rubric for implementing Indian education instrument these areas include uh number one Recruitment and Retention of American de staff two collaboration communication and professional development and three student learning cultural

115identity and curriculum and instruction now the other two and a half pages are details of those three points um and so I'm happy to continue reading for the next 15 minutes but um if you would like to have a little more time for discussion um we're happy to finish there board members are you ready to ask questions or would you like to continue hearing the letter I'm not hearing anybody asking for the letter so you may have gotten off the hook the full letter is in our um assembly agenda item um so board members any questions or comments superintendent I I'd be eager to defer to board members initially and we have the study session coming up but certainly I can and going to jump in okay goe when we talk about staff recruitment that

116we know the critical uh nature of having staff who are representative of our students in particular and uh We've made some good progress candidly in RPS since I've been here at the administrative ranks but um not as much in the teaching core although we've started to see some and not as much with Native Americans so I want to own that progress I I would be I'd welcome your thoughts about the steps that we need to take they're outlined some in the letter but the most important steps that we need to take both in terms of uh Recruitment and support for Native American Staff um just to really highlight that key uh key aspect where we do need to think in new and creative ways i' would say communication between HR and ourselves I think that's

117been one of the things that hasn't been there in the previous years and I think that would be a great place to start one thing i' like to I'm not going to get personal but um I would uh like to see um you know exit interviews for those that do leave and why they leave and then the other thing is the support for the staff while they're here you know of some staff who feel that they don't have any place to turn to and so I think that's important um as far as recruitment I think it needs to to be intentional it doesn't need to be checking a box to say yes we did try I I I guess I say that that's from personal experience but um I would just like to see a

118more of an effort because I know there are Native Americans in Rochester and I think that we need to be more intentional and what um people are looking for relative to staff particularly Paris teachers you know whatever you're looking for more reflective of the population in Rochester and I think we calculated that you recall what we calculated that to be was 30 upper 30s 34 38 somewhere in there that's what we calculated to be reflective of the of the population in Rochester and we're not anywhere near that number thank you Dr Garcia just a quick question and I think we'll talk about this more Dr Marvin oh she's she's a cute one um we'll talk more about this study session but you you'd mentioned that you'd like more board members involved in the APAC meetings

119and you're right and it would be great to know what the expectation is what we could do when we show up to bring some value um you know if we knew a ahead of time what the issue is going to be or whatever but you have amazing people and great meetings and um if you could teach us how to be better at participating in the meetings that would be really helpful I think personally I I appreciate that director Garcia unless Dr ban had a response can do absolutely thank you um I just wanted to sort of follow up or support the discussion about Recruitment and Retention I I know that there are a few people who used to be affiliated with RPS some of them now at least one of them no longer lives in

120the state but um I think a number of them would have would be open to even like long overdue exit interviews to just say like this was my experience and I think hearing some of it myself the things that I would reflect on too is it's not always just the district but it's also Rochester like there are a lot of people of color who just up and leave here because it is not safe um and so I think that that too like how can we like we do a lot of community engagement or like listening sessions but how can we also influence the larger Rochester area because I know that we like to think of ourselves as um inclusive but we're not we might be diverse but it's not necessarily an inclusive space um and

121I think some of the people that were talking about these 30% um people who identify as Native American and Indigenous here I mean they're represented in like there was somebody in Rochester women's magazine the woman who is here talking about um the statues for um equality um mentioned actually Valerie in her book so about Rochester and there I mean there are so many people here who would want to be part of the the fold and I think they know old stuff about how Rochester operates and maybe even some current stuff about how we operate and it just doesn't feel like maybe that's a line that they want to cross just yet and so some of it is us yes we need to do the work some of it is us maybe shifting our community into

122a different um level of even just tolerance I think sometimes um and then also being intentional about what we want and showing up in spaces where you ask us to be um and be there and have value instead of just taking up space or being another voice in the room that's sort of masking everything else that's going on so thank you for the letter of course I'm always disappointed because we get non-c concurrence but I feel like it's it's real and I would love one day to have us be in concurrence director Barlo I'm curious um under student learning culture identity and curriculum uh American Indian students must be represented in Student Association groups I won read this the entire two sentences but I thought well you know we have opportunity in fact earlier uh

123during our meeting um we had students from John Marshall present and uh uh is it possible or do you think that would be aside from that the formal student government uh perhaps an opportunity to have uh students perhaps share as the JM students did you know what is relevant what is going on what they'd like for us to know uh do you think that is a possibility yes definitely I think so moving forward we definitely trying to get our native students on student School Board we have been talking about creating our own as well and having a representative that way but we do have some great leaders that do come with problems and topics that we probably love to share uh I I I I agree and director Paro thank you for that question that

124uh as you heard during the restor to practice update s Sarah Luiz Henry Henry is leading our work on Youth Empowerment um and so the first phase as board members will be hearing about at an upcoming meeting has been learning about our current state and assessing what are the vehicles for youth leadership and youth voice and how representative are they we have a lot of room to grow in the representativeness of them and so um this is one of those parts of the Strategic plan that is in that learning phase but we'll be developing our youth leadership strategy and I think that having and our Native American students I appreciated that that was in the letter calling out the student associations as well um the same point that Valerie made about recruitment of staff that

125won't change unless we are very very intentional about uh ENC and opening the doors to those youth leadership opportunities for those students and I think building on what Dr Garcia said said um about uh how how people might feel about being involved I know every year when we get this letter um the the staff looks at the logistical pieces of how we can address the letter and it might also be a place for the conversation when board members come to the APAC meeting but it it's not reflected in the letter nor should it be but I I think I need to hear more about what Dr Garcia was saying and even to this case of the student the students being involved in these leadership positions what are those intangible um barriers feelings experiences historical um

126uh situations that might get in so even if we have the best plan right and we have the best way to do it we're still working with having to convince somebody um having to assure them that they are welcome that that that that there is a space for them so maybe that's partal conversation we can have when we come to Apec meetings maybe there's something intentional with you know what you hear from students when when you're hearing that or from community members but that that's always a a an intangible piece that's missing from this process for me that I think I'd like to see more of this year I mean I could go on and on about what some of the barriers are but a lot of them is going to be professional development for

127our teachers and to talk to our native students and understand where not only they're coming from but the generations before them because as we know um Seven Generations is in our blood and TNA um my father even though he was white he went to a native boarding school my mom didn't but my grandparents did that's why I cannot speak my language and most of our students are on those same boats then other families don't view education as a safe space so like even me like I had I had a 4.0 GPA but I didn't say anything in school so it's really getting to know your students the community um creating those relationships getting to know the parents working with them um but a lot of the barriers are not having those skills are relying on

128what they learned here in Minnesota in history class which was not true and just learning the truth and being able to talk about and with indigenous people will definitely help um but a lot of biases get in the way of that I'm not knowing correct history and fear because they don't know how to do it without the fear of insulting um but then that's causing more harm by not saying that we are here Dr MCL when I was reading through this and preparing for the meeting I definitely appreciated the entire letter but also the um um having the Schoolboard meetings school board members regularly attend the meetings and maintain those and establish and maintain those relationships I think that's great but I and I want to encourage and engage in that where I'm I got

129stuck there was the next uh bullet point on the top of Page Three about reporting the quarterly progress is I I guess my question is is is there a feedback loop for that information to be shared back or do we need to create that or is that something we can talk about at the study session that I feel a little bit anxious about going to the meetings and being asked for reports like that without knowing where the information is coming from and obviously I don't possess it so I would need some help there um but I think that's great information to have in a feedback loop and have that ongoing Di but it's unclear to me as a board member where that feedback loop is coming from let's take thatly noted thank you absolutely great

130Point any other comments or questions of our resources here which we looking forward have a question sure goad um for your study session did you want a pack andol or is it kind of more you're looking what how did you feel about what I I appreciate the question I uh in proposing it I think it's a chance for those of us who will be working drafting a response to listen to board members thinking now that doesn't mean any of us need to like sit silently but I'm really envisioning it as a chance for us to really listen to board members say I'd like to know more about this I'd like to and that we'll use that to have uh somewhat in the couple years I've been here I've always personally worked on that response but

131I haven't always started with a board discussion to hear what they are because it's to them you know not us as staff so I'm I know especially with our current chair there's everybody can talk and so should APAC members want to come to that study session certainly would be welcome but I'm certainly thinking for staff we'll be in listening mode and have a chance to hear you know board members thoughts the degree to which board members wanted to make that kind of a discussion but I think um we owe APAC a response that really reflects the themes that are coming from board members and so adding that study session and there's other subjects on that agenda is I hope an opportunity for us to be very attentive to some of the themes for board members

132as opposed to reacting to a staff draft and saying well you know because there always is as Dr mclin just pointed out a tension between the board members roles as leaders of the district at the policy system level and then the specifics of Recruitment and student associations um so I think that we we I would recommend we certainly welcome that participation but also you've spoken loudly with this letter and I know that board members have already read it in great detail and so to give a a high quality response I'm asking the board to add that step this year director Garcia yes I have a question I suppose of preference because I would love to invite you to her study sessions I think it makes sense to have you in spaces where we're talking about

133you and your what you think of us um and I've also heard from some people that because even though it's not maybe as attended as a regular meeting they are still recorded and so maybe that doesn't feel like safe space so I guess if you would like an invitation I would like to propose that we extend one if not for this exact study session an additional one to have those conversations and if not coming to a study session feels safer how can we be intentional and follow up almost immediately with like can we do small groups of like listening sessions with P about this in preparation for either our meeting or if we were going to invite them to another meeting I don't know if you have preference because I've heard both like some people

134would love to show up and some are like that's a little too public great question it's a great question because to be love to be resources for you as you have the discussion you know it's a safe space is the restorative practice we heard before where we can have open conversation about about things we can answer questions for you um and at the same time I understand having it uh in a safe space or we can be um as authentic as possible would probably be more useful one comment sure as you study and you prepare understand you read the letter excuse me but my profession is a I'm a doctor of nursing practice at Mayo Clinic and I practice cultural saf saet so I'm creating an environment and trying to create an environment and where

135my Native American patients feel safe and so that is what we want for our students and so in in learning some of this I have to talk to some of the Health Care Professionals to help them understand the history for me I it's the history behind the health history try to help them understand and so I would encourage as you study the letter that's one one thing but then also try to understand the history particularly in this area it's been a very difficult area and um anyway I'll leave it at that but I would encourage study of the history as well be able to understand what U Amelia was talking about and some of the students not knowing their own history and we are trying to bring that to the district and it benefits all

136the students not just our students but I would just encourage you to engage in some study as well understanding the situation that was here in Minnesota in particular in this area and helping to understand um even more as you have your as we have study session well given that there's been so much professional development and plans for some of um the development of our own staff are there resources that you all could recommend and share with the board to you know without undertaking a whole scholarly work um if there's pieces that you could share with the board that might add to that understanding I think we'd all be grateful education wise the new understanding of Minnesota came out with the essential understandings work um along with resources that are even um standard aligned that talk

137about the ELA standards about the inish and Dakota literary Works um so that's kind of the teacher perspective life perspective Birch Park books is amazing you can spend hours in they're choosing something um footsteps of our ancestors is about the Dakota Exile about why there aren't as many voices here anymore because it's still illegal technically illegal for me to be here as a woman so just learning about things like that and understanding like there aren't as many people and you can't find the history of it because we were exiled and we didn't have the opportunity to tell the story just having that understanding but um Humanity Center is always a great spot to go to as well I can I'll also add to that after the last letter of non-c concurrence I showed up to

138the Apec meeting and Valerie actually gave not just her own like report but you added I'm not sure if it was written down but you added your own history into that stuff which those things aren't necessarily in books right that's your personal history or experience of being here and so I don't know if that is actually written down anywhere but whatever your like ad lib version of the letter um was incredibly helpful for like this context because I think a lot of those a lot of the books right they give kind of like an overarching picture but I think you gave a very specific like this is what it means to be who I am in this space and this space being Rochester or what is now Rochester um so I don't know if you

139have that written anywhere but I think I would nudge if you did for my colleagues to to read that as well um and there are some mentions of it too and Dr um um Wright Peterson's book as well she sort of like leans towards it and then there are some um I think additional resources I think a couple of books that Michelle and I have shared back and forth via Twitter or X that I would be happy to pass along to all of you as well right I gave one to Dr pel yes you did I was about to say that you're one you did and I really appreciated it and uh it was a it was very instructive and I was just thinking is that too long to give to the whole board because

140it was very comprehensive um but yes that was much appreciated and there are several resources like that that I was thinking we can we can build upon Dr Marin um it becomes apparent to me that um the board itself uh we can we um can't afford to be educated as well informed made more knowledgeable especially in that um the letter of non-conformance goes to the board oftentimes historically in the past we have allowed the superintendent to provide a technical response if you will and I'm excited about the opportunity to uh have more of a more personal grounding and um appreciation uh so that as we not just hear statements of need or perhaps more accurately communicated HT pain truth reality uh we're able to then with that uh be more on point in terms of

141our responses to you and so thank you for um you know sharing U Amelia and particularly your story uh which unless we hear unless we know uh it remains unheard unknown and the only history that is known is that which is presented so so thank you for that and APAC and uh so finally then if anyone of Us's board members as we look at this and make preparation for our study session which this will be a part of that if we wanted to um maybe inquire in advance uh John should it be you or Melia that we should reach out to or who what you suggest or what what you prefer questions or yeah I'm happy to feel them okay and yeah thank you are we sending questions or is your question about like if

142every single one of us did actually want to sit down and meet with you at some point that seems like a lot all at once are you asking about coordination of schedules well I think the answer what I was asking but to be more clear um if any one of us had a as we read the later a question that we wanted uh perhaps further explanation on uh that's what I was referencing okay so then my followup would be that's good to know um it doesn't it sounds like maybe there is more of a preference to have like a more candid like not in front of everyone conversation but I don't what would be easiest I suppose in like how to coordinate that because obviously we can't have more than a certain number of us

143in the room at the same time but for all of you to sit through three different versions of like us asking you questions I think might be a lot and like how to coordinate that schedule so I'm asking what would I that wouldn't be necessarily out of the out of the realm possibilities okay that would be okay because each going to come with different sets of questions so that's okay a few of them overlap that's all right okay and there is an APAC meeting coming up as I understand it on March 20th tomorrow on tomorrow um and do we have any board members planning to attend it starts at 6 yeah okay and then I'm scheduled for April 11th I think it is I just like show up sorry if I might just this this

144is it's actually a perfect discussion and I think it underscores Amelia's point about the cultural origins of restorative practice about this having an ongoing dialogue I just to be very clear though there is a and I know board members are well aware there's a legally required response to a formal letter of non-c concurrence very thoughtful letter and for two years I've worked with Amelia and Tucker and will on a a letter where I was helping to write what I thought the board wanted to respond and so we're adding a point here where I really want to listen to you so I'm going to push back a little this is not your time to learn it's your time to respond you should learn as well but I'm looking for your reactions like I'm particularly worried about

145this I'm particularly excited about this so that when we draft this letter I think your point about the technical response is yes we need to respond and we actually this year made a checklist based on last year's apack letter and so we've been like looking at the checklist and so in addition to all of the learning which I am thrilled about I'm eager for board members uh at the steud session to react um so that we can incorporate some of your themes into that response and and and have it be I think you put it very well it's coming from the board it's our job to draft it for you you don't have to write it but I want to this year have it be even more in your voices which I'm hearing enthusiasm for

146in addition to the the learning I just know that if we had the study session and it was it was all about listening to members of APAC again that would be great but it wouldn't have us hearing you say here's what we as a board want to respond to so and some of the feedback we may give at that study session in our discussion is that we need some clarification or questions answered absolutely or a little more in-depth understanding from APAC so um I think any learnings that the board can do prior to the study session whether in small groups oneon-one through Reading is great but I'm anticipating that we're part of what's going to come out of that study session is going to be some additional um interaction with APAC to get other clarification

147or just to make sure that we're understanding it correctly so that the Impressions that we're giving back in our response letter are correct director Workman yeah I just have one question um how many board members would you expect at a time I mean do you want just one person to show up I mean at their meetings at your meetings correct I mean it would probably be difficult not more than three because then it's you know then it's a quum and we can't do that um but what are you comfortable with you can't have more than three so two or three is always fine like I said um in the past we had one actually scheduled and then maybe a couple others show up you can always come to family events two or three at a

148time and we can always have a sneaky conversation thank you anything else board members well it's great to see you we appreciate this work that you've been doing ongoing as I as I say every year when we do this APAC work if every parent and family and student group that we serve had dedicated parents and community members like have been serving on APAC to really understand the district to help us understand your perspectives your history where you're coming from to work together to make progress for those students we would be far farther than we that we are for every group of students so you you are a an example of the kind of work we can do with our with our uh families and our students and our staff to improve outcomes for our students

149so thank you thank you thank you thank you PR board members at 7:45 do we go on or do we need to take a break depends on how long everybody wants to talk well the next item is the development of the 20242 budget and enrollment projections maybe a brief break here begin okay so we're in recess until 7:55 [Music] p.m. e we could start but that would be weird no no can you guys do a duet something could you wouldn't like it school board is back in session at 7:56 p.m. our next agenda item is 7.1 update on development of 2024 25 budget and enrollment projections this is the third in the series of agenda items related to the 20242 RPS budget and we will continue to discuss the budget at the May 21st June

1504th and June 11th meetings with an action item at the June 18th meeting superintendent pel thank you chair Nathan I will turn it over to our chief administrative officer John Carlson and our Director of Finance um Andy crockstead thank you for your work um briefly giving a preview though of a subsequent item on the agenda we are concurrently embarking on a rethinking of how we fund and staff our schools that we will be talking about in a moment and so this may be the last year in which we used the methodology that John and Andy are going to briefly touch base on now well they're going to give you an update on the numbers using a methodology in which we essentially staff our schools based on the number of positions tied to student enrollment um

151that may be how we retain uh a process we continue to use in the years ahead or the inquiry that we are starting now may result in some different approaches starting in the 25 26 school year but for the 24 25 school year we'll be continued to use continuing to use the process that John and Andy will update you on now so thanks great thank you uh superintendent Mel and chair Nathan and thanks to the rest of the board uh we just wanted to give a brief update on where we're at in the budgeting process it's still very early um and I was going to kind of go through the high points of the uh resolution that you had passed back on February 6th but I think I'm just going to highlight the number one

152and the main reason why we're here tonight uh the main priority was to constrain new hires and large purchases to AO to avoid further increasing the imbalance between expenditures and revenues and so that's what the work that was done primarily last week in the Staffing process and Andy is going to give us a a a brief update on how that went thank you very much much and I'm happy to be here uh this is my second time through the budget process so I feel like I'm a little bit um better at it perhaps this year uh but I did want to just mention that although the week was grueling last week it's very important that we had the opportunity to meet with each principal and other department leaders to discuss um their needs and understand

153what it is that they need uh in terms of Staff within their facilities um or their their areas of responsibility um as a result of that we we going into that process we have to make some assumptions we know some of the uh first grade end up numbers just based on uh where we are this year but what we don't know really our kindergarten numbers so what we do in our projections is we we've in the last two years used 95% of what our current enrollment is on February 1st for kindergarten so that establishes what we hope and expect at least as a minimum kindergarten enroll moment for the following school year as we do our staffing so as we work through this um which this report which I think I I I'm not going

154to again go through each and every line I did want to point out a couple of things first of all uh as we pulled the numbers just this past week we did see that our kindergarten registrations year-over-year uh are trending just about even now we're about a point and a half a percentage and a half behind as we mentioned in the memo there's there be a lot there's a lot of reasons for that some of it is the attendance options redesigns the new process we use for uh enrollment and some of the choices that parents make and how they make their choices so that could have just compacted we think the timeline that the that parents are going to use for enrolling their their students we also see enrollment uh continue to um especially in

155kindergarten to continue to go up from this point forward all the way through the beginning of the school year um although it will begin to drop off we'll see the numbers rise up uh here in the next couple of months as well so we are not expecting uh necessarily uh a significant drop off um however what we we are going to see I think is a little bit of FTE savings because there there may likely be be just um just enough enrollment decline which is not necessarily a good thing but what I'm telling you is because of that enrollment down there are going to be some Associated cost savings that we are really looking hard at at finding um but we're we're using the same uh budget targets that we used last year for all

156of our uh grade levels uh K through uh five uh and then all of the same um factors in terms of um our our FTE allocations to the secondary schools so very little change we made a couple of tweaks in a couple of other areas this year but because of the funding redesign the funding rethinking that we we're we're we're moving into this was really kind of a status quo year quo year but also knowing we had to make some adjustments to uh reduce our our deficit by about 2 half million and I think we're going to be able to make that number so again I did just want to point out that we're trending about even in terms of kindergarten enrollment and what we're using uh for those numbers but we are still able

157to right now project if we're if we're at the 95% enrollment of U next year of of this year's kindergarten we do expect to save a few FTE in the kindergarten uh area um moving on down then um grades one through five you'll see that we a slight um projected and again I have to emphasize this is really really early I mean we we just started the Staffing or went through the Staffing last week and enrollment continues to change so I simply can't emphasize enough that this is all very very preliminary and so uh we obviously have a couple of more months before we will be fine-tuning this uh or we will be fine-tuning this over the next couple of months before we bring the final budget to you but you will see there's a

158a little bit of projected uh savings that we are uh we are currently looking at in the one through five and also a little bit at the secondary um levels as well so um that is really where we are because frankly all we've done is focused on staff so far we haven't looked at any of our uh supplies and material budgets we haven't looked at contracted Services we haven't looked at ltfm we haven't we really haven't put any of the other components um to paper yet other than Staffing so um I think trending U positively in terms of um constraining growth perhaps looking to uh make be able to make some slight reductions um but at the same time um maintaining essentially status quo as we look to rethink the entire process for next year

159director Workman yeah I have a quick question um what do you mean by restraining growth you're not talking about restraining not enrollment okay thank you FTE growth okay yes not enrollement absolutely not because I was going to say that no no no yeah no okay thank you for that clarification board members any other questions how might I mean I assume as our enrollment changes as we work through this process um these numbers you know might change but probably just slightly I mean from historical patterns by this time of the year are we seeing are we at 90% of you know what we what we think our numbers are well again we used 95% of our kindergarten enrollment and that proved pretty accurate as we went into this year when we used that model last year

160so presuming that we're going to see similar numbers we added I think one kindergarten class after the original budget was approved and so our our projections going into the budget after after Staffing was completed were pretty accurate so uh I I would anticipate some change but I I don't think we're going to see uh you know going from a projection of perhaps six uh to an over of of four or five for example right I don't think we're going to see that dramatic but we will see some changes certainly as some of the other um Pieces come into play but in terms of um generally the the school I believe we're pretty close to um what what you'll see in the final budget superintendent uh just just that point chair Nathan ruester in recent years

161has seen relatively little large movements of school age families coming into the district in the summer but um as Mayo clinics investment uh moves beyond the construction phase there's every reason to believe that our enrollment prediction process will get harder because we will have more more into the community movement uh of people with young children right now we're looking fairly flat and even the slight declines you're seeing here it's important to keep in mind the data we shared with you several meetings ago Rochester Public Schools market share the percentage of families that we are who whose children we are privileged to educate is about identical now to pre pandemic the aggregate number of children in Rochester has been shrinking and so it's not a question um of people leaving Rochester Public Schools at least to

162date uh and mass for other options it's the aggregate number of kids and the huge $644,000 question for all of us is um when will the incredible Investments that are going to begin here translate into more families with young children moving into the community and that's obviously going to be a very high stakes uh issue for us in in RPS and as we've seen in previous years or it's a question I've asked in previous years so as I look at the net um decreases in FTE it looks like overall we have a net decrease if you add them all up together in previous years there's been an opportunity for people who might have been in this position to find other positions elsewhere in the district is that true if we have an overall net decrease

163in FTE are we going to have people who are currently employed with the district where there's just not a position for them to go to so we may lose them from the district I'm not sure that we have those those questions I don't know that we can answer those questions yet but due to you know because of resignations and retirements um as we sat through Staffing I continually heard oh that that teacher is moving you know moving out of the district there's another one whose husband um is leaving so we're seeing a lot of just kind of normal attrition so the expectation would be then that those open positions then filled with those that you know are displaced from one site but have an opportunity to fill in an open slot somewhere else much like

164what happened last year so the same the same thing we're expecting to occur this this next year okay well except that last year the cuts were much greater and it still happened so that's almost certain that this Happ this would be the appropriate point to thank mail clinic for $10 million because we would be in the midst of what we went through the previous two years when we eliminated well over 100 position 150 positions and so at these numbers if a referendum does not pass we will be returning to those levels of reductions and there will be a point at which we cannot take care of people through attrition if we have to continue to cut at the levels that we've had to cut over the last couple of years um but that will be

165a subject for the board's next uh study session and I think it's important also to to recognize as we've had a lot of conversation and heard feedback from the public uh tonight that these budget numbers as is the case for every year about 80% of our budget is Staff um but these budget numbers that we budget for is based on the number of students we have we are not we do not have a pool of excess employees who are who are somewhere not interacting and working with students and whose whose presence in Rochester Public Schools isn't driven by the number of students that we have and that has been the case for every budget I think I've ever seen with with Rochester Public Schools um so I think it's an important factor for anybody who

166might be listening or watching to to remember is that we're we're Staffing based on student enrollment not on um any other factors any else board members all right we'll look forward to your next presentation as time goes on as it will um our next item is a prep for action item um related to another of our strategic plan initiatives rethinking funding guiding principles superintendent thank you and I wonder if Miss Sam can help me get the PowerPoint up um just so that would be useful and there's not many slides um thank you um uh chair Nathan as you mentioned um one of those wave three building blocks in our strategic plan meaning an initiative that now is in its design phase is rethinking how we fund and staff our schools and as I just alluded

167to the process that we current that we've used in recent years and that we are using again this year uh is largely based upon centrally allocating positions tied as chair Nathan just said to student enrollment there are other ways to fund and staff schools um over the last 20 years school districts uh especially in larger urban areas have moved to more of a per pupil funding formula where you are allocating the dollars and sites are making decisions about the Staffing structure and still others have moved to a weighted per pupil funding process whereby you allocate those dollars but students based upon student characteristics uh generate different levels of funding in the schools and so we are on the cusp of uh our own effort to think differently about how we fund and staff our schools

168and this effort is rolling out at this point in our strategic planning process very intentionally because it is following not leading thinking about mtss and deeper learning and structured literacy we didn't want to begin thinking thinking about uh the funding and the Staffing until we had at least begun in Earnest the academic work because this is a CA case of the the horse needing to be before the cart um that said we know that if we move all of the ambitious work that we have uh in our strategic plan forward and we don't think hard about resources and funding we aren't going to achieve the goals ultimately that we uh have for our students and for our community we have to think hard about resources and so tonight we're really formally beginning the process and

169I'm asking you to review and at a subsequent meeting ultimately approve a set of guiding principles for the rethinking effort I I think it's important to distinguish this is to guide our analytic work this is not asking you to vote for reallocating how we fund and staff our schools as you'll see in a moment that doesn't come till December of next year but these are principles to guide the uh work that we will be doing um uh in the months ahead and so you can see in the board document there's a definitional statement below each of these descriptors of a principle and partly prompted by The Firm which is uh called afon Associates where it's a nonprofit firm that has got deep experience in providing technical assistance to school districts in resource allocation they will

170be working with us on this and as they looked at these guiding principles they said you know that's uh that's a commendable place to start to guide the effort but they actually suggested a reorganization that I found helpful and so all of the content that is in the board resolution and that was on the previous slide is on the current slide but I think this is a little bit clearer because as you saw a moment ago all of those principles were coequal and really there's three of these things that are not like the others and so I've divided it now for clar sake into two food groups the components of the system we're trying to create the parts that make up the system of how we fund our schools and then the characteristics of the

171system how the system works the first might be called the structures the way the money flows and the the the last might be the processes how the process works so you can see three core uh recommended components that we would be digging in uh to um analyze and then ultimately bring you recommendations around the first are funding for districtwide structures and strategies that will be core core across our system likely not identical at the elementary middle and high school levels but that really will be foundational to the way we fund and staff our schools how we allocate funding for the core where it comes from from the general fund from compensatory education from title funding from uh local Levy resources is a question to be determined but I'm recommending that we say we need to

172define the core the second would be funding for school level autonomy and Innovation as board members know well because you are in our schools often our schools are very different from each other their demographics are different the strengths of their staffs are different the locations in the community are different we staff them largely the same and we structure the programming largely the same we've just completed a series of uh interviews with all of our lead principles and by and large they self-report very little autonomy and flexibility for allocating resources in their schools they told us almost overwhelmingly they see it as at the margins that they have otherwise it all comes from here and the structure is predetermined now there are some virtues to that you can see commonality across the district but if our

173students are very different and our staffs are very different our principles are telling us I don't think I have much flexibility in building a program that unique to my school and so that's what I called the more so it might be a core and more and then there's a third component which is the funding for central office or what I called for the purpose of this discussion critical supports it may be a surprise to many in our community that in in some key areas of our work we do not have um adequate or some cases any dedicated budgets centrally for core for critical functions we are wildly underresourced in funding for curriculum review and adoption and so uh as we Face the cusp of adopting a new literacy curriculum which I have an exciting meeting

174about tomorrow 88 a.m. to hear about our update and recommendation we Face A major resource challenge in just making that purchase similarly we've had a working group looking at a middle school science curriculum aligned with the new science standards um and those are seven figure purchases both of them and we do not have an ongoing budget to have our teachers continually looking at updating curricula and um evaluating are we aligned with best practice that's that's going to take some resources because it's not just purchasing the stuff it's professional development it's reviewing the um and we've got to have a cycle and so that's just one example where we have not resourced a core function that I know you hear from teachers all the time is Central to what they're trying to do so those would

175be the three components what's core what's more and what are those critical Central supports and so that's the three pieces that we would be bringing you uh ideas and recommendations for and then what do we want the system to look like probably if I had asked each of you to just write down on your on your own on paper what a good school funding system should look like you might have come up with something similar to this but this comes out um of a a series of things including even though it may seem like ancient history the very good working group we had on school funding in our strategic planning process so a lot of these go right back to that group even though we've delayed the launch of this for two years this is

176picking up where our strategic plan working group left off and so um with some tweaking of the language they said first of all when the dollars flow it should improve student outcomes it should be effective the second it should be efficient because you could have a very effective but very very um wasteful system in a sense financially so we should have a a a system that continually seeks efficiencies to use Public Funding um and where we get private funding uh to maximize return in terms of kids education it should be coherent um and this was an interesting thing that came out of our strategic planning process when you look at a funding source we should be able to say this is what this money is to be used for and this is how it's being

177used it should clearly make sense so that when we look at our different funding streams we have got um and especially our building leaders have got real Clarity on what these funds are intended to be used for uh in a way that adds up to a hole that's greater than the sum of its parts um it should be predictable and that was a change a little bit from the strategic planning conversations because that said stable um and stable is absolutely what we're aiming for it would be great but our funding uh goes up and down as chair Nathan just said with enrollment it goes up and down as the state of Minnesota makes decisions and so stability of course is what we want but predictability is what we ought to be able to build into

178the system you don't have uh big surprises in terms of decisions that at least are made at the central level in our district we can predict what your funding streams are going to be like in the uh 1990s under this is a random uh tangent as I want to do uh under in under Tony Blair in the United Kingdom the UK made dramatic progress in improving their educational outcomes from they used to be sort of internationally when you looked at like the Pisa test they were at the bottom of the bottom and then they made themselves to the top of the middle and they did they had a national literacy strategy and they did all kinds of ac they also guaranteed School their principles are School heads they guaranteed them three-year budget increments to plan

179and they said you have three years with your resource and the research says it takes 3 to 5 years to improve outcomes in a school so you had a stable budget for three years you could actually plan a three-year roll out of a curriculum and it was one of those things that some of the research says was key to the progress they made at that time they had to pay for that centrally to say you're going to be given Clarity it's not like uh predictable for 10 years but you have three to plan your improvement initiatives and then you'd get threeyear increments so you'd be told um it's transparent this was something we heard loud and clear uh not only in our strategic planning process we heard it in the feedback uh from about the

180November 2023 referendum that we'll be talking about next week at the study session people want to be able to follow the money and see where the resources are going and then we want it to be responsive to community feedback and priorities um we called it stakeholder input and the first draft of the principles um but it's not just that they give input but we're responsive to that input and so A system that can take uh the input that we get from um the the key the key people who pay for the resources that we are privileged to use to educate children so um the resolution that you have and we're not asking for Action tonight uses the language that is on that slide with a descriptor none of that is lost but I think at

181least for me it's a somewhat clearer organization to put it together in this way um and finally where do we go from here we're starting this uh action at the board level tonight by asking you to consider some guiding principles that will guide the analysis and inquiry we'll be doing um we'll ask you to approve a final version of those um on the 9th and then you can see we'll be doing a lot of hard work over the summer we're going to be engaging our new citizens budget advisory committee and inviting a subset of those members to roll up their sleeves and work even more closely with us on that um and then we'll be bringing you some options for change um uh in August um and then we'll be bringing you uh an additional

182installment later that month um then by September we want to be able to bring you impact statements um because whenever you have uh a funding system and you're talking about changing things it could have an impact on services and supports um to kids and then we would uh ask you to move into the decision-making mode so that in early December you're actually looking at recommended funding formulas for the following year uh in December you're digging in deeper uh into that and then you're taking action right before the end of the calendar year that's really the latest we can push it and begin implementation of a new funding strategy in the 25 26 school year now that that implementation might be a phased implementation it might be a three-year implementation that doesn't try and uh bite

183off everything uh the next year or perhaps it's one in which uh the the change is at a manageable level to do that the following year but we'd be bringing you that as part of the recommendation so that Madame chair is an overview of what we're hoping will be some guiding principles certainly to the extent that board members want to um ask questions or have discussion I would definitely invite John and Andy and others who uh will be a part of that to absolutely join me in responding to uh any of those questions or comments and we'll be asking you to take action on these principles at your next regular meeting Dr Cook um superintendent your overview of the characteristics was very helpful for me it I as I was initially reviewing this I thought

184well um gosh I certainly wouldn't want something that's ineffective or inefficient or incoherent um much less unresponsive and so forth um but I I I I do think it's helpful to have kind of a load star of what are the characteristics that you're looking for and that becomes your rubric for deciding um you know whether one thing is good or not I guess I wanted to just call out in this list of of positive um attributes that I see um uh I I see them um taken together as a recitation of an equitable um uh system of funding um I see that in particular in the coherency which isn't just that it makes sense but it's also that the standards are the same regardless of whe where you are in the system that um funding

185that's aligned with this priority at this school is the same um at a different school for that same priority for that same group of of kids or similarly situated kids um a system that's effective in an equitable way to produce outcomes um that are equitably responsive um and responsive in an equitable way to community stakeholders um that are intentionally sought out in their in their input is sought so um but I I I appreciate the the system of the core and more with critical supports and the uh characteristics that are outlined um it seems like a good plan to me so thank you I I I really take the point I would like to revise this for the next meeting to add your point about that cumulatively it's an equitable system because you're right the

186reason Equity is not there is equity when you're talking about finances can bring this deep discussion about what is Equitable and what is equal and so um but I think uh it's it's an it's an Omission that's problematic and so I would like to uh work with John and the team to think of a way to add that explicitly into the version of this that you'll see in April so that it isn't just implicit because it's about every kid to within the constraints that we Face getting the support they need to thrive and that has as its Mission uh resource equity and so I'd like to think about a way to add that um to this not necessarily as a separate system characteristic but I like the way you actually framed it it's the cumulative

187outcome so um if we can take that we'll think about a way to add that to the revised version of this board members um so that we know um I know you mentioned that the community budget advisory committee would be involved what does the internal team who's who's going to be taking these principles and activating it look like who's on it we actually have our me meeting on that with our consultant next week because we're trying to build on best practice and so it's it's not going to be huge because I think it's going to be more a core team that does outreach rather than a large team because this is going to be all devil in the detail devils in the details and a lot of the analytic work has to happen over the

188summer um and so I can update you on that in the Fairly near future and the the the citizens committee is just four meetings a year and some of the members that we asked to serve on that have been very clear like I'm at my limit and so it's going to be inviting a subset who want to go deeper and keeping them in the loop in a macro sense as some board members who are there will recall we had a great General discussion of these principles at their last meeting and there uh John and Denise Moody and Andy are getting ready for their next installment when we're going to invite any of those who want to go deeper with us but they really need to be like committed because the through line of this is

189is is complex because the way we use the general fund dollars needs to complement how to use the compensatory education funding dollars and we need to think about all of those uh in a comprehensive way any other questions or comments at this point well great then we will see you again on this topic on April 9th when we take action our next item is another prep for Action Pinewood conversion to An Early Learning school superintendent thank you and I'm going to turn it over to John Carlson to um update you on this effort as board members I know recall this was something that I ultimately before I asked you to vote on the attendance options redesign uh pulled back a question of what would exactly happen with the building currently occupied by Pinewood and John

190and the team have done some further analysis uh of that I am recommending the expenditure of some resources to implement the conversion of pinewood into an early learning school I'm actually very enthused about it um but there is a cost and so want to give you a chance to hear about that cost yeah thank you for that introduction um I was looking back at our notes and we' said we'd bring this in February it took us uh a little bit longer uh to have a couple negotiations on this and to talk back and forth about what would be included in the recommendation and what would not um so once we knew that um this was a possibility we wanted to dig into it with our trusted Partners at canes and construction and crw Architects uh

191to go over The Pinewood meet with our early childhood leaders who you see behind me uh Erica and Melissa and some of our other uh faciliity staff and to really talk about what would need to be changed without um without breaking the bank um to make it a facility that's suitable for our earliest of Learners um and we came up with the list that I put out there in sbly this week um such things as uh adapting a playground or creating a new structure with uh proper fencing for for our Little Learners uh adding some power and data to some of the uh current classrooms which would be used as actual teacher office areas or work uh areas creating a mother's room lowering our drinking phones adding some single rest rooms kind of um what

192you think about like in a preschool or kindergarten environment uh we do recognize that uh the parking at Pinewood is not as expansive as it would likely need to be to accommodate the uh members of Staff um that would be working there so there is some parking lot expansion uh there's other things like lowering sinks and Cabinetry um doing some uh flooring updates and then uh replacing some of the other fixtures in our restrooms um as well uh all total uh the it kind of came in as a range this is not a quote this is not a a bid or by any means but this is an architect and a construction manager's best estimate uh to guide us in this decision it's about 1.9 million to 2.1 million uh to accommodate the renovations that

193would make uh Pinewood into an appropriate early learning school um one might say well how are you going to fund that we uh thought through uh the different uh buckets of money that we have and uh we came up with uh the most obvious one to me was uh the proceeds from the sale of the maintenance service building that we did about six years ago and we've actually been sitting on most of those funds in reserve um part of the statute is if you sell a school building you either have to pay down debt we did not have any debt on that building or you put it in operating capital reserve to be used only on some other enhancement to another facility or purchasing some other facility so um our planning ahead and sitting on

194those resources for such a time as this um makes the project mostly funded with those dollars if we chose to do that there would be a little bit of contribution from the Community Education fund asking me if she would consider funding the uh appr size playground uh and she willingly said yes and then um we talked about the the last little Gap about 500,000 or less would come from the unassigned general fund uh balance that we feel there is sufficient Reserve there to do this so at this point I guess um that's kind of the detail behind it U maybe just a couple other um uh comments about the facility so mighty Oaks currently has about 10 uh classrooms this uh moving to Pine would actually allow us to grow um up to 16 classrooms

195at some point it would start more at 12 classrooms with four of those uh current grade level classrooms being used as the teacher workspace um at this time so we wouldn't renovate all 16 rooms to be um uh Early Learning classrooms but we do 12 can can I just briefly I I noticed that Melissa steny who's our director of special education for um Elementary levels and Erica Schumacher who's our director of early learning are here thank you been a long night so if board members have any any other questions about the programming and the fit at Pinewood I would certainly don't hesitate uh or feel that you're stuck with John and me answering this because they are the experts and they've been intimately involved in that and uh as John mentioned this gives us the

196prospect not only of expanding our early childhood numbers we serve in that part of the city but also moving the programming in closer to the city because we have had an obstacle having some families want to send their uh very young children out uh into the Rolling Hills uh where Mighty Oaks is located and so we're optimistic that over time we can build this up and serve more students in that part of the city so listen Erica thanks for being here if board members have any other questions don't hesitate to jump up Dr Marvin I I'm excited about creating more space for um preschool kids it's a desperate need um question is Pinewood is not a new building and what we're getting is sort of a net other than a much much better location we're

197getting a net of six additional classrooms for $2 million um what would it cost to just build a whole new thing about the size that Pinewood would be yeah so you're going to run about $500 a square foot for construction now uh costs have been escalating very quickly and you're going to multiply that number by oh John I won't 30 40,000 square ft and so you're going to run in the $ 15 to $20 million so that's more there's the English teacher okay there you go and Pinewood should last for a long time um yes we had done the um indoor air quality project so that significant work is already done so it's got the heating the cooling the proper ventilation now okay thank you Dr Bravo and related to that uh in terms of

198uh are there any other items on our ltfm related to Pinewood that we should be aware of I think that because we had just done most of the the heavy lifting on that building in the summer of 2015 or 2016 that were pretty current with most of the things most of this adjustment is just making it age appropriate and to the level of height they would need it to be at um just a quick question what's the time frame for this have you looked at that yet yeah so I get asked that um often right now best guess is that obviously this needs to go in if you approve it needs to go into production for uh the architect firm to actually DW out it needs to get out to bid then it needs to

199come here because it's likely going to be over 175,000 based on this estimate so you'll have to approve the bids construction can start um it's likely not going to be ready for September just to put that out there it's probably like a second semester or you know midwinter mid school year next year So the plan would be Mighty Oaks would have to be operational which it still is um for the first half of next school year and then transition mid year but it's all inside work that could could happen during that other than the parking lot they were asking playground the parking lot and playground if they could get going on that right away so if there was a decision I think that would be a point of priority to see if that work could

200be squeezed in before October in the parking lot or the thank you TR work so I know the answer to this question but I'm going to ask it anyway because I I think all of us at some point get this from the public which is oh so you just sold a building just buy more teachers with it or lower class sizes but that money has to stay legally in one bucket that is used for building that's or debt reduction that's correct so if we were to sell forell because I've gotten this question to I don't know what the price would be somewhere what three four million maybe that's a reasonable B that could go to our op operating thing but no it can't it needs to go to our operating capital budget needs to sit

201in reserve until we have a use like this right but it can't be used to buy staff yeah that's that's one of the frustrating Parts about Minnesota school finances all money is green as superintendent says but it can't all be spent the exact same way yeah director cook um so uh about about a quarter of the proposed budget is for the parking lot uh Renovations C can you just tell me a little bit about what what would be done with that parking lot how many spaces are we adding or some doubling it or what yeah I certain it's more than doubling it I have lost uh in my mind the exact number of spaces we'd be adding but if you if you've been to Pinewood it would kind of wrap around the back a little

202bit more and um so it be cleaning things up going I think it's north south and it'd be going to the east as you wrap around to the south of the building and is that to facilitate the anticipated like bu Trans Bus traffic or is it about parking for staff or both or what it's both it's expanding parking for for staff because there's going to be more adults here than what would work in an elementary school um and then it's about trying to find the way to Route Bus traffic and uh parent drop off pickup traffic Dr Marvin quick question about finances again what what happens to Mighty Oaks then does that get sold or that's a question or or we'll have to come up with an answer for that and bring a recommendation to

203later on but that could be a possibility and I know that this agenda item has to do with the uh physical structure but if we're adding six classrooms I understood correctly we're adding six classrooms over what we have at Mighty Oaks that would mean we need additional teaching staff so that doesn't that comes out of our general fund but how are we going to decide when to hire those staff is it going to be based on enrollment or y we we will H we will have to uh enroll it we've had some very good discussions about demand for Early Childhood in that part of the city there have been our credal career partnership did a um study that showed a stunning lack of Early Child adoptions in that part of the city it's true in

204general but it's a particular true there so we're optimistic that said you know if if we have to build it and then see if they come um and so we're I'm optimistic that over several years it's a question of how immediately we're going to be able to fill it um I think for reasons that the current Pinewood Community has loved that location and another building and I want to own the fact that there's some shift happening there I will say it's a subject for another day but the plans for their move into the Longfellow building are going very well and I'm deeply grateful to both principles in both of those schools that are doing fantastic work in planning not just facility collaboration but really culture building and things but I think it's it's there's something

205about that building and that place and I think it's going to become a very popular Early Learning Center in that part of the community um in some ways that I just kind of reluctantly came to the conclusion we were unlikely to ever get to with Mighty Oaks which is a beautiful building but is just not well located and I think just to put a little more context on what John said in response to Dr Marvin's question we will be bringing you a recommendation on Mighty Oaks concurrent with several other facilities decisions that that I know are on the board's Minds like the fredell building and I anticipate we'll be working on that this summer and bring bringing you some recommendations for some changes in those facilities it's kind of a second wave of some facilities

206work not huge in terms of the number of buildings impacted but highly visible in terms of some of the decisions we need to make um that you need to make that will be bringing you options on all right then we'll be back for action on this on April 9th thank you John thank you our next item is an action item approval of 2015 operating Levy renewal I will read the resolution ask for a motion and second and if received we'll open the floor for any additional information and discussion on the resolution be resolve that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby determine and declare that it is necessary AR and expedient for the school district to extend and renew the general education Revenue provided by an expiring referendum passed by the voters

207of the school district on November 3rd 2015 in the amount of $836 182 per pupil unit for a term of 10 years with an inflationary adjustment provision as provided by Minnesota statute 126 c17 and be it further resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby extend the the term of the renewed referendum for 10 years beginning with taxes payable 2026 and be it further resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby authorize the clerk to send this adopted resolution no later than September 1st 2024 to the commissioner of education and to the county auditor of each County in which the school district is located in whole or in part and be it further resolved the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby authorize the resolution

208to become effective 60 days after adoption move approval second it has been moved and seconded any questions or discussion board members director brother uh just one uh question uh Dr pel is it possible for you to maybe just touch briefly as to the efforts that um RPS has undertaken to inform um the community regarding uh this um Levy and um because even earlier this evening we it was suggested that we haven't done that and so could you if you wouldn't mind perhaps um delve into that a bit sure thank you Dr Barlo um from the earliest discussion uh in this room and all across the city of the referendum that you ultimately placed on the ballot in November 2023 that narrowly was defeated by by 318 votes we referenced the fact that the legislature initially

209was likely to and then did give the board this Authority and we said we were deferring a decision on that until we knew about the referendum of course the referendum did not uh pass um and I immediately said I would now I definitely am going to recommend that you take advantage of this resource to not do so would be crippling to our strategic plan at a critical moment to do $17 million in Cuts next year immediately uh would on top of the other Financial challenges that we still face absolutely would have been crushing and so we have included it in the budget updates we've we as you know talked about it at the long-term Financial uh projections we've shared it in negotiations with all of our unions as a critical decision that this Board needs

210to make um and so I think we have been uh transparent about the fact that this is a unique Authority that the state of Minnesota decided to give school boards um I think uh the additional point I would make is that while I understand the point that uh was made by a commenter tonight about um people who voted for the levy in 2015 having thought at one time it would expire it was also the people who voted for the legislature and the governor who chose to give this Authority and they did that more recently and at a level that supersedes Rochester Olstead County they did that across the entire state of Minnesota and as anybody remembers from civic's class theirs is the controlling Authority in this instance and so I think you are acting well

211within your Authority the state of Minnesota chose to give School boards uh this Authority and I think they did so because we are still playing catch up for decades of not funding K12 education at the rate of inflation and so this was a tool that the state concluded it could give local school boards and I think the final thing I would say to this uh Community is that this board has taken this step after cutting more than $20 million from the budget over the last two years and so this is not a case of taking a board not being willing to make the hard decisions about use of resources um you have and you will continue to going forward I think it's a prudent effort effort to take advantage of uh an authority that the

212state has has given you and other boards in Minnesota thank you any other comments board members well I think I'd like to say something about um some some of what the public commenters made regarding the expenditures and that they felt that this uh was the only leverage our community had um over the work of the district and the priorities that we set I would say I would say that our community has many points of Leverage in particular all of the conversations that we are having in many areas of where we set our budgets every single year we have at least four meetings about budget development that are spread over a number of months and we rarely have public comment or feedback on when we're developing the budgets which is where we set set our priorities

213for spending the money that the taxpayers give us and our priorities as the school board is to ensure that we are providing the resources to our buildings and our staff and our leaders to make sure that our students have the outcomes that our community told us that we want to set through our strategic planning process they a year-long process of going to our community and saying what do you want your schools to look like and as a board with our um Financial staff and our superintendent I think we've been very clear in saying this is the monetary level of resources we need to meet those goals that the community told us that we developed into the Strategic plan that every conversation that you hear us talk about at the board table focuses on personally I

214feel it would be fiscally respon irresponsible to let this referendum um um cease because we would be putting a $17 million hole in our budget we would we know we have a $17 million hole in our budget that would begin in the school year of um 2025 26 and given the fiscal situation that we have seen um in terms of funding from our state given the fiscal situation that we'll be talking about in moving forward considering a referendum for this fall when we know that that's coming up and we know the goals that we have set for our district I I think personally The Prudent thing is to vote to extend this Levy so that we have a number of the factors that the superintendent talked about when we're rethinking funding to support those factors

215of stability and um to continue what I think is a good track record of transparency and um Effectiveness and efficiency and how we have spent our money with these referendum funds since 2025 uh since 2015 so I would encourage uh community members who might still be watching um to continue to use those leverage points with the district when it comes to the priorities that we set through our budgets that reflect our strategic plan and our priorities because we need this to be an ongoing conversation it can't just be when we talk about taxes it has to be when we talk about expenditures and priorities as well any other comments B members D if there is no further discussion all in favor of the resolution say I I I any opposed the resolution has been approved

216item 10.1 ABCD updated the current version of the ABCD is available in the agenda are there any agenda items board members would like to raise for for um future agenda items hearing none we'll move on to other business uh close session labor negotiations the next item on the agenda is a closed session pursuant to Minnesota statute second section 13 do5 subdivision 3A which allows the board to go into closed session to discuss ongoing labor negotiations after completion of the Clos session held in the superintendent's conference room here in the Edison building the regular meeting will reconvene pursuant to the liw of Ed will someone make a motion to go into close session so moved second it has been moved and seconded to go into close session all those in favor say I I any opposed

217the board moves into close session at 8:50 [Music] p.m. e second session at 9:14 p.m. clerk mclin will you please read the list of people present at the closed session we had chair Nathan director Garcia director cook treasur Marvin director Baro clerk mlin Miss Sam the board clerk Mr ban Vice chair Workman and superintendent pel so I will now ask someone to make a motion to amend the agenda to add a new agenda item titled approval of the 20232 Rochester Education Association collective bargaining agreement so move second second it has been moved and seconded to amend the agenda all those in favor say I I opposed the agenda has been amended item 11.2 approval of the 2023 2025 Rochester Education Association collective bargaining agreement while in closed session the board received recommendation to approve the

218collective bargaining agreement with the Rochester Education Association I will read the resolution ask for a motion and second and if received will open the floor for any additional information and discussion on the resolution be it resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby ratify the 2023 2025 collective bargaining agreement between the Rochester Public Schools and the Rochester Education Association employees move approv second it has been moved and seconded any questions or discussion hearing none all in favor of the resolution say I I opposed the resolution has been approved all right next item are board questions and responses questions submitted by board members before the meeting are available in assmbly in this agenda item 11.3 item 11.4 upcoming board meeting dates we have a study session on March March 26th a regular

219meeting on April 9th a study session on April 16th and a regular meeting at on April 23rd all at 5:30 p.m and hearing no other business oh sorry you're right superintendent had something to say I didn't know where to jump in and for the millions watching uh at home on YouTube I just want to say thank you we have two members of the Rochester Education Association here I want to thank uh the members of Rea uh Vince Wagner the president for a a very uh good conclusion to a challenging um circumstance of wanting to support our teachers who are at the heart of everything that happens in Rochester Public Schools at a time where we also didn't pass a referendum and uh there were some hard decisions to make I think we've ended in a

220good place um early in the negotiations process the negotiating team shared with uh our team um a series of statements that our Rea members submitted to the team at the outset of the negotiations and I've still got it right next to my desk and um they were very personal statements of what Raa members wanted to see come out of the negotiations and I'm proud to say as I reread it um in in putting together this agenda item tonight uh we we made progress on a lot of them not all of them but just like in the last round we weren't able to get healthc care uh moved but then we did it in this round we can come back and look at some of the other issues uh in future rounds of negotiation and so

221I want to thank uh all of the um teachers not just for for everything that they do but for their endorsement of this contract and thank you as board members for moving it forward as well thank you and for those of you who stayed till the end of the meeting and for those of you watching at home this meeting is adjourned at 9:17 p.m. e