2023_11_13 SFAS School Board Meeting

001we are live just so every we are live everyone ready good evening everyone thanks for coming in tonight help or please stand for the pledge of the United States of America and to the stand na indice all all right thanks for coming in everyone we got a busy night tonight here for so the adoption of the agenda we have a motion thank you we have a motion there a second Thank you Pam any discussion on the adoption if not all in favor say I I oppose motion passes thank you very much tonight we have consideration of visitors I have one two 3 four I have six uh cards up here those of you who filled the card out I hope you read the RS about what you can and cannot say during your two and

002a half minutes of speaking if you go outside the rules of consideration of visitors that will gabble you and ask you to please sit down uh we have two and a half minutes at the 30 second Mark Vanessa will hold up a card saying 30 seconds to go at the two and a half minute Mark and the card goes down if you're still speaking I will gabble and say thank you we'll look at what you're talking about so I will gabble you if you Bey on two and a half minutes you have any questions in the back table there is a piece of paper that talks about the rules of consideration of visitors if you have any questions please read that piece of paper thank you very much first one up tonight is Mr Richard

003welcome back Richard we haven't seen you for a while oh man only because his shirt says old man on it you can say that to him and we were talking earlier tonight already thank you Richard a nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved it is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins I have a book here the marks of of Education by James Lindsay education is in bad shape in America and Beyond today it is obvious everyone perceives it something is going badly wrong in our schools our children aren't learning as they should their Mastery of Court academic curriculum like Reading Writing history mathematics science Civics has declined from crisis levels and shows no signs of improvement meanwhile they're

004all learning to be activists turning their backs on their Nations societies and even their parents and religions instead of correcting Court School curricula keep Beering into social emotional learning critical race Theory cultural competence culturally relevant education queer Theory radical gender Theory comprehensive sexuality education decolonizing the ccum and even rad Queens what's going on the answer is simple their education has been stolen from them activists have been spent have spent the last 40 to 50 years taking over education and transforming it into something different not more ination but brainwashing the transformation of Education from education to neom Marxist thought reform follows significantly from the work of braziliian martist by the name of apulo fre who is little known outside of South America in this book Marx Marx ification of Education James Lindsay founder of the new

005discourses breaks down the contents and impact the fre disasters work so that you can understand it and hopefully put a stop to it thank you Richard if I could uh just say one thing um I have a different perspective I'm proud to live and work in St Francis Area Public Schools and I'm a very proud public educator I will stand up for the students and staff that that I serve okay thank you next up oh yes sir okay now you have to go back to your chair oh the book okay you can read that and my name and address is in there you can give it back to me when you're got thank Rich all right next up will be Keith lensky uh Middle School of Wrestling Keith my name is Keith Linsky I stand

006before you tonight as an educator of 35 years I will uh just address that last comments this morning we are learned about the Vietnam War and the sacrifices of our young men in that war none of the topics that were addressed currently are taught in my American history class or any of the other social science teachers at the high school I want to talk tonight about sixth grade wrestling middle school wrestling good evening my name is Keith Linsky and I stand before you as a coach of 35 years of experience in teaching while coaching wrestling and football I realized many years ago that Athletics serves as the Catalyst for the formation of many young people's personalities I found nothing has a greater impact than Sports to assist in the development of these young people I

007come to ask the question with these things in M mind why don't we allow sixth graders to compete in Middle School wrestling I've asked this question for the past three years and no one in administration on the school board has given me a good reason why we don't allow this to happen when we go to Middle School meets sixth graders sit and watch other wrestlers compete from other schools but ours do not I've had wrestlers and tear when they watch sixth graders compete from other schools and I have to tell them they cannot P many times they ask me why and I tell them I really don't know why not only do they miss out on the experience they would have gained but they may also miss out on the team experience as many choose

008not to attend when they know they can't compete because of that lack of experience they are behind other wrestlers from other schools who get that chance choosing to maintain the status quo when it's a detri to future success hurts these young people the decisions you make as a board impacts children's lives every day uh please in the future when this topic comes up at the next meeting make a good decision because you have a choice to either enhance a young person's life or Indi it their growth I urge you to choose Wily thank you thank you Keith next up is Mike geyser Mike hello good evening uh my name is Mike gerer I represent the St Francis Gladiators wrestling club youth wrestling club um so thank you coach Linsky for your uh your comments I

009I represent a club of uh youth wrestlers prek through sixth grade um we do offer uh the ability for students to compete um in wrestling um prek through 6th grade just wanted to read you a little bit about St Francis Gladiator wrestling club the GR Gladiators youth program Mission the objective of the Gladiator wrestling club is to be an ambassador for the sport of wrestling to provide an opportunity for our local student athletes to compete in wrestling while upholding lifelong lessons which can be learned including honesty Integrity the value of hard work and sportsmanship I just wanted to mention that we uh do offer that opportunity for for those uh students to compete um I do feel like it's important for our young our youth to participate at any level it's our Club Charter to

010make sure that we provide them the opportunity to compete at any level whether that's with the middle school or whether that's with our program um I do understand that there are some concerns within our organization the the organization that I represent and the organization that that I stand for today uh there are concerns right and one of those concerns would be for us is if they are represented at the at the middle school level and they're allowed to compete at the middle school level what does that mean for our attendance what does that mean for for our club I'll represent the I'll only represent the club for two years once uh once my term is up I'll I'll get voted out but it is my opportunity to leave a lasting impression on my club on

011the club that that we serve today um also my wrestler will be in sixth grade next year so it does affect uh you know our decision- making process but in this in this case um we do offer the opportunity for them to compete with us as well as compete with the middle school I believe that it's important for our programs to work together and work tightly together so that we can at least offer the opportunity for these youth to be able to compete at any level thank you Mike if I could just um uh mention one thing uh with the sixth grade uh wrestling uh issue I know the request came up at a board meeting and so the activities Advisory Group has been researching it and they've checked with you know administrators as well

012well I believe the request was to discuss it at the next board meeting um if I recall so it' be November 27th all right is it Matthew Palmer Matthew so I have a question so has the Activities Committee are they discussing it now or have they come to a resolution um what their recommendation would be I um believe that the uh recommendation is not to add sixth graders uh to the rest of the program I don't know how firm it is that's one thing I need to to find out from Mr Martin and Mr Austin uh so that we can compile everything for the next board meeting I think there was a referral just be careful not to get into discussion too much here we have next board meeting tonight is consideration of visitors right

013now yeah my apologies and we'll get inut okay stand by go ahead sir my name is Matt Palmer I am a parent and former wrestler wrestled when I was young I wrestled for a different city but I wrestled up through sixth grade at least and uh I just wanted to come up here as a parent and say that I fully support what Mr Pinsky said and I appreciate have the chance to get and wrestle to compete as a six he was a competitive team last year and he had was it sorry thank you well before you sat down you said you wrestled somewhere what school oh okay just check wasn't Cambridge one of our competitors all right we can listen to you then all right next up Josh Josh hery her her thank you sir

014I'm also here to support uh sixth grade wrestling and all Athletics I feel that uh all athletes at any age should be able to compete at the highest level in order for our team and our community to get better they need to compete and they need to compete with the best and holding the sixth graders back and saying that they can't compete when the other schools can let their sixth graders compete that's a big reason why we plateau and other teams keep Rising we need to just keep these kids going they need to keep learning and keep being good uh kids in school and stuff like that I also want to say I've been a part of this community since I've been in kindergarten all the way up through high school at wrestled wrestled with

015the Gladiators I've been the Gladiators coach for six years and it's an important thing uh Keith Linsky was my one of my coaches as I was coming through so just say thank you hey thank for coming up our last one tonight is Ryan furck about bacony Ryan Ryan fck uh excited to come to you today as a parent uh from quite a few of the different PS that they we uh and after having a chance to go around talk to my daughters and sons teachers I fear we are in a terrible cycle whether it's vacancies or opportunities that are limited to our children we need to be careful here in the next year there will be more test scores released and more performances uh put out into the world and we'll judge all of the

016entire uh School District on the results of these but the problem is like we are doing more with less every single day right now so I'll weirdly switch into another hat as a teacher and what is really frustrating is how those stories aren't being shared about how we're doing doing more with less and all that we hear about is that there's too much and you're wasting uh educators are being used as some sort of weapon against children we're not elevating the right stories we are doing a great job out here the things that we look forward to when we get a chance to work with our students are trying to create Futures that aren't available one of my favorite quotes from the past week was if I could do anything for my students I'd teach

017them how to do their homework and we do our best to try to get it through the door and even that we're not 100% successful we are in a cycle out here I need people to understand that we need to fund these schools with the money that you have in place now after last we we need to pay the individuals to get them through the door so that they St stay and they don't leave I look at the the uh routine board information today and I see a bunch of educational assistance headed out the door again we can't keep cycling these people we need to invest in them so they can invest in our children doesn't matter which hat you wear in this school district in order to improve kids' lives we need them to

018stay we need them to get the Learned experience of working with children so that they can make their Futures better I think thank you for your time today and I hope you'll invest in our kids by investing in our staff thank you Ryan next up is the uh or before we go any further for those who may be new to the room tonight we do not have long discussions with individuals after the consent of uh consideration because we may not have all the facts and figures to have long-term discussion but we do take everything under advisement to study and look at and bring the board back to look at some of your issues out there but just so you know we don't do that that oneon-one back and forth because we may not have all

019the information yet in case you're new here tonight what we're doing all right next up will be consent agenda do I have a motion or I just say excuse me you need to be pulled from consent agenda anything to be pulled M I'd like a line item just one line item from the dispersements on dispersement yeah uh 4.3 did you want a question on it or something yeah I have yeah I questions on it so what I've done in the past here when someone wanted to pull something I found out you can have discussion keep your way it is we have discussion on it and then afterwards we can improve it unless you want to change something okay so you want to pull it you have you have a question yeah I have a question

020okay go ahead um I I don't know what item what line number it is it's on the second page but it's 11,653 for online library renewal so my question is how does the online library work do we have a librarian how do we how are we who picks the books or how does that work I guess I just I didn't get a chance to get those questions answered yeah and I unless we happen to know of I I I have a guess as far as what the online library renewal is it's either our Destiny library system that you know keeps track of our books uh or it's uh somehow tied in with the inoka County library system and I I just don't know offand but I can certainly look into it and then is it

021possible that line just so we can look at that first but app the rest of the dispersement that was my question yeah I won't have more information than what I just shared so um you know I could certainly get more information over the next two weeks and share it out but I I just don't happen to know that off hand then if you do a a line draw and you pull out dispersement that stops all payments for everything then correct because we can't can't just pull a piece you have to do the whole thing and the whole dispersement will be we can't pay anybody any bills oh okay yeah and I think there might be some different perspectives on that so you know it depends on okay yeah I don't want to pull the whole

022I don't want to stop all the payments if that's option yeah now in previous places where I've been we could pull out individual checks yeah uh but in other places I know it's sort of an all or none you know kind of deal so I'm not sure what the past practice has been here that's new do you have a check number by chance or dispersement number I [Music] do2 what what 3 328 722 328 722 Amy what did you remember in the past we pulled one line dis yes I never heard of it nothing to say we can't I mean we can make you we're the board we can make you can do what you want to do right just about can we know there's penties my question is it w do correct well wait

023you hand yeah my concern is when is it due and it it's an annual subscription obviously we need to pay it probably now to keep our annual subscription so oh it's it's January 24th of December 24th right so it could go on next week or the next board meeting yeah that would be my suggest gestion is just to pull that one check approve everything else and then that gives us a little time in the future though it' be really helpful if we could get these questions before the meeting because you know I don't memorize oh yeah I don't I don't believe I received that message so next meeting just for clarification that fullet is the destiny system okay so what is the destiny system so Destiny is is um essentially a digital catalog system and

024so we can look up books um determine if they're in the library we check books out you know in that way and then do you use it for some other things resources are checked out to teachers through it so if they were to leave or move buildings they have to check back in and or check out some things they need for the so if they're leaving they would check back in so we keep track of our resources okay so is this is this something that the students go in and check books out of that's my one of my main questions was is with a with a media specialist in the library they they would be doing it with the student okay okay yeah and oh go ahead so this is not something that we would

025look at not reviewing correct it's essential services for the district so yeah yeah we don't want to go back to writing down on a piece of somebody checked out a book so you're comfortable with it know was and wanted to understand it okay there you go it's our system that we use for multiple different things okay we're adding more and more to that's where to lose it yeah yeah no I I was just wondering what it was I thought it was something that we were almost replacing our library all right so do I have a motion to accept Cent agenda move by J is there a second by Pam is a second discussion now no discussion all in favor say I oppos motion passes thank you for your question thank you very much uh next

026up information St Francis High School student report who's this young man is here again tonight with us Mr Jack yes yes come on up Jack before you get started though I I hope you can explain what you and Rowan did uh this past was it Saturday or week before as far as your performance the weekend before this at Farmington uh we had a debate tournament and we took second in the varsity division placing only behind a team that defeated Us in round four who are considered to be one of the top three teams in the state and it was a really close match well congratulation and that was against the right so they were both uh State quarterfinalists last year yeah so our our team is going against the best of the best in the

027state State and they're doing extremely well with I don't know dozens of of kids who are involved so congratulations on that thank you we'll get him next time thank you so with no further Ado thank you to the school board School Board chair superintendent sfas staff and students and all the high school student council for allowing for me to be here and also thank you everyone here listening and online watching in uh some student council items we've had three major things that I'll be discussing Cravings leadership conference gratitude wall and our upcoming Community night so with our craigin leadership conference it was an overnight trip where we went to the krain uh Hotel on Gull Lake and it was a conference put on by the mahs and the M NHS or something so it was

028a huge area of student council and National Honor Society members and I believe that there were close to 800 students there with like 20 schools or somewhere around there and St Francis represented with I think about 40 50 kids we brought second year 10th graders and then 11th graders and 12th graders and at the meet we talked about big ideas for schools we conversed with other schools about ways to make our school better we had seminars where we could hear from people about like fundraising ideas for our schools and we could also listen and hear about other ways that like people have influenced their lives through student council and like how they progressed throughout their years uh overall we all thought that it went very well as at our last uh student council meeting last

029Friday we all talked about it and we all had very positive things to say I know was Caleb there I think he enjoyed it I think he said uh so I would like to thank you guys for allowing for us to go to the meet uh it's been something that we've gone to for the past couple of years and I think we've enjoyed it fairly much the Gratitude wall is also something that the student council is putting up we have leaves that are orange and yellow the orange leaves are for students and the yellow leaves are for staff and people will get to write on them and then turn them in at the Student Union and they can be hang up on a wall and it's just showing so for now it just says the

030names on the outside of a wall by the lunchroom but then at the end of November we'll have it where teachers and students can come and collect their leaves and it just has nice gratitude messages on the back like kind of affirm them and like tell them thank you for all the hard work that they put in to making our school year great at St Francis High School and it's just I think we've done it for the past three years maybe but it's been a really big hit each year and we really enjoyed doing it uh and also something that is coming up for us is community night so we will have activities going on I believe Santa and Mrs Claus will be there we will have a basketball double header going on during the

031activity night so you guys can watch our fting sa our Fighting Saints hopefully defeat whatever team we're going against I forget what day we're we're actually having the community night on and then we will also have activities for students and kids to participate in I know last year we had like cookie Decor oh there's the debate team uh last year we had like cookie decorating and we had a bunch of fun activities that a bunch of students got to participate in and they really all enjoyed it General High School items we just concluded our uh fall play which was Puffs it's like a Harry Potter comical play we had a school show also for on Thursday I believe and everyone really enjoyed that and I think that it had four shows over the weekend Thursday

032Friday Saturday and then Sunday and everyone really enjoyed that and I think that it went on really good I watched the play two times and it was really fun to watch and see everyone up there acting all together we also have the start of winter sports coming up so basketball wrestling and all of those other sports and debate as Mr superintendent Anderson pointed out is going great and also we have the end of Tri one approaching near the end of this month are there any questions any question from the board Rob not NE question Community December thank you I remembered from the last meeting sorry and also Jack you you said you said you had do share ideas to make your schools better how do you share that back with the district has who do

033that go to so I believe that what we did was we compiled notes from the actual leadership conference and then our Miss Abraham and Miss nordon wrote up a list I don't know if they're going to be giving it to you guys or if they're going to be giving it to principal Austin but we will be sharing those ideas that a bunch of students from all over the state have come up with to make our school district a little bit better it' be nice to hear we we can find up in the board the student level what can we do to make it better for you so in case Mr Austin loses a piece of paper somehow I say that in jff because I thw it in jet he lost a piece of paper for

034me me but I took care of them protected them I'm just but no if you can share that with everyone we really like to hear what can we do better for our students if you're the ones that we're here for this Friday I'll talk to Miss Abraham Norton and get a copy for you guys that I'll send out email okay comments questions anyone else all right sure thank you for coming in nice job as always of course do I can I leave you know I hate to say this um but Jack is one of the vast majority of our kids who represent our school and Community extremely well you saw it tonight you see it every time Jack but you've you've seen so many others in the same way and that that's just one reason

035I'm proud to be a public educator all right next up is recognition of Education Minnesota 2023 2024 educational support professional of the year who's trying to talk about this young [Laughter] lady we have both Peggy and Ryan to present no you were on the agenda I put me on the agenda my name is Ryan fck I'm proud uh to say that I uh am president of Education Minnesota St Francis which is lucky enough to represent many of the work groups but today we're talking about our transportation group and Miss Darcy Brown I was lucky enough to actually nominate her myself so it's kind of like super exciting for me because we actually won and I've nomin a lot you're supposed to come I'm Peggy tesol and I'm the transportation supervisor and we are very lucky

036to have Dar seats on staff um parents and the kids love her she's a great employee she's very motivating she's always very uplifting and positive and we're very lucky to have her on staff here at St Francis schools one of the fun things that Darcy gets if I remember correctly is a small little s but also an iPad I believe um we're hoping to do a little event on the district property to kind of let her colleagues know she won it's been over 15 years since the transportation members won so it doesn't happen and I think there's only been one other person so I think that really speaks to the volume of the quality of character of this individual she went up against folks from Minneapolis St Paul the big school districts Greater Minnesota super

037tip Minnesota like it's whoever gets their name and then is willing to have like a super tough interview and uh I've had the pleasure of working with her on some of our organizing activities and what I see as a very kind person who when there's a cry out for help she's the first one at the door not just for for our kids which is a very big deal but it's also for our staff and if she sends me another text message at like 11:00 p.m. at night I will still answer it but know that when she won the award she won it virtually uh with tears coming down her eyes so it's really my goal is as many times as I get to talk about her every single time I want her to cry because

038that's how important she is she doesn't have to say anything if she doesn't want to she is also very humble but she's also one of our biggest cheerleaders in the community and is out there putting her neck on the line to talk about the great things that are happening here and we appreciate that and I'm happy we get to share with you at the rest of the state of Minnesota and they get a chance to hear about what's happening here in St Francis thank you guys thank you I I love working for St Francis this is an awesome School District I think we do great things here so thank you for recognizing me tonight app we have a question you have all paid expense to go to National where is that going to be held

039at I like how she looked at me I don't know I we're talking about that in particular because uh you know what happens when you're Community ambassadors you find yourself in a lot of places at the same time as other events that are going on and there's a few conflicting opportunities that are in place so but we're going to try our best to get her there as soon as we can whether it's this year I'm going to try to push if she can't do it this year to try after or something just get her a chance to go give St Francis shiel across the United States there you go yeah questions comment from the board before you leave Darcy you have you're in the paper you know that don't you you heard you haven't seen

040it that was in last week's paper ABC paper yes so congratulations there you go they didn't give you a color picture they should have yeah no that's okay congratulations thank you okay up next 5.3 VAP detecting wands who's up the two principal High School Middle School all right good evening I don't know if we've ever done this before so we'll see how this go Doug Austin High School principal MP well welcome we are coming to talk to you about having an important issue at the high school level and I would also say at the middle school level is Bab um it is a chronic issue that we are contining to work on every day and try to prevent it from happening I would say both at our high school and the middle school we're doing

041a lot of proactive things trying to keep students about the dangers of it that's probably the most important thing we need to do and ours wants to be more preventative um this summer I attended the massp which is a secondary principal associations meeting and I talked to a lot of principl just to kind of what were they doing with vaping and things like that some have put in detectors and things like that there's pluses and negatives to that but a lot of them talked about um having what they call a wand and a wand is something that helps us when a lot of times in situations when we are finding out the student vaping in the bathroom or something like that they'll hide in a place that's really hard for us to search and we're

042not going to search those places so they use wands to try to detect those um and so we have a couple um we have a little bit of information Garrett super scanner is one I did I'd say about half the I would say probably a third to half of the schools in our conference have some shap form they use it also a lot of other that the conference were saying that was really valuable to help them out there A lot of times they would put a vaping device right here we're not going to search there you know but if we have the vaping thing that comes up please take it out helps us to kind of do our difficult part of doing that process may also say is whenever we do a search it's based

043on solid criteria that the student was doing that we have some reasons of doing the principal or assistant principles have to go through that process so some of the reasons that we um one of the reasons that Doug talked about was um that they put them in places that that that are hidden and this isn't meant because you know we want to have to do this but these are rules and laws that are being broken um there's health concerns there's tons of reasons why we want of course these not to be in our school it's PR to detect all of our students um students oftentimes feel a lot of peer pressure in middle school and high school so we think that having the wands one of the things that we'll do is word will kle

044fast is that um you know you can no longer hide it in your undergarment or other places that um you know when we have a wand it's going to tell us that something's there and they need to you know take it out so we can see what it is and make sure that it's safe for um them and other students and so it sometimes students need help um you know sometimes I'll be talking to kids and I'll say throw me under the bus you know if you need to use me or you need to use your parents or an adult or something um because we want you to make safe decisions if you're not there yet and say no yourself and this would be one more way that kids could say is like I'm not

045doing this because they because it's um they have these wants and they yeah we can hide it but now these wands will be one more way that we can find those things yeah and you know kind of are you agree with it it's mostly damp the pockets and things like that that we're looking for um in some extreme cases maybe you want to talk about the worst thing which could be a weapon sence um I'll let you talk about that so one a Potential Threat has been identified you know whether it's um a potential knife or whatever else it could be is the wands could be one more way for us to identify those items if somebody is not um being forthcoming and emptying all of their pockets their socks whatever wherever they may have

046that um device hidden that would be one more way that we could help with the security of our schools and we would say most of the time we are always getting police involved in those typar F it's a little bit different why we want to address that the other situation [Music] questions you guys have okay question from the board who would uh control the wand who works the wand the principles and assistant principles only okay we're the only ones that really search in the unless different situation um how is it purchased and I mean why is it is this something that can be purchased without for approval or obviously you need board approval and we can it as a yeah yeah we can uh purchase it without board approval they they're only $150 each you

047know we have the funding source for it but whenever there's a significant change like this that might raise questions I think it's important to share the the thinking with the board first so that's why I appreciate you coming forth with us I I support the idea of deal would they be at all of schools middle school and school I think is what starting with in the Learning Center Learning CER I think yeah at this stage is probably just those three schools I'm not sure if there's a need of Elementary level that might change but but that's what we be doing yeah for now we're fine at the secondary schools you know we'll see what happens in five or 10 years but right now we're fine can the walk Nate would this require a change to

048policy if I want to the policy we're adding an additional if students are denying taking it out of their pockets but we use it one how are we then making them take it out again so researched that and I looked at and it doesn't really Define how we search it that I can see it just says a search and so you know what I mean we don't have kids down or whatever it is that you know them empty everything themselves and so I don't think but we could look at that to make sure we double check but that's my assumption as well can want be used as going past a locker would it pick up or it has to be on back maybe a back but normally we so the one is detecting smoke or

049a vapor or ni like AAL detector okay that's what's detecting a piece of metal okay yeah a lot of schools have used it not full approve I there's other things that it helps us in that process right if it's invasive for students if you would have asked me if I would be doing this 19 years ago on my principal ship I would not the way but one more thing that we can do to help keep or help our students be safe and and the toughest thing a lot of it happens in the restroom areas which you know obviously we don't have par obviously for the reason there but it helps us to be able to figure out what's going on a lot of times we'll get General like this person was doing this it probably

050will use be very used very pra searches we do probably 10% or less are verying so I know I I was reading the um 502 about the searching and that you know some kind of think if there's something going on but what about change so if a student has change in their pocket it's going to pick it up right yep y so put it out on the table we'll see that that's what it is right and then you just do it again and see if it comes out with so you're relying on what then to to even check the student or you GNA just are you g to just do a broad check you know just spot checks or how how oh no we only to search as if it's reasonable if we have suspicion

051so if you have suspicion of it so like someone reports that there something you know somebody saw saw something it's random many so they could put it back in their locker can but it would pick up change change but they also could usually they just have change in the pocket they just is there any I think as soon as we think we know what are something new comes but this is where we are right now okay it completely can change from year to year they keep adjusting to make it more difficult us well I think just that we have that ability as a students and that's one the other uh principles we talked to so it's help in a lot of situations okay any further questions comments well thanks for coming in tonight thank you

052thank you all right next up will be uh 5.4 summary of teacher evaluation systems who's our guest speaker I come on up get me for the next two [Music] topics all right so I am first going to just update you on our teacher development and evaluation process um knowing that it is going to be under review probably this year and next year I'd like to a committee put together because it has been about seven years I've heard since this has been under review um and so and there are a couple things in legislation that um need to be added so just to be aware of that there proba some we moved all these out for the election oh maybe that one no just just up at the top just cck up there just we got

053to get out of the menu I think I don't know nope Noe don't do that come on teacher try now try out thank you so okay I'm going to start with with teacher development and I know I have some teachers here who they can uh help me I'm still learning the layers of all the teacher development in the district so just uh give me a little Grace but so our professional development is tied to our district goals I tried to make a visual here to kind of paint what kind of teach development we have um we have our teacher Academy which Joe has been in to talk about so I'm going to go into less detail about that but teachers uh have 30 hours that they commit to teacher Academy kinds of courses those can

054be things like modules it can be um for relicensure classes uh it can be for curriculum review hours things like our letters uh training are part of those 30 hours uh and so there's like a variety a menu of items they can choose from from uh to to commit to their 30 hours of time and that's tied to our cucon um then we have our district training who that is also planned with Joe and Mike and Ryan uh and others that need to be involved um and from there we have things like uh the staff development committee that is a group of teachers that comes together and um they help me make the plan for what will our districtwide PD be on our two days that we have and they bring feedback in from their

055site from other teachers and then either teachers or buildings can request funds that come out of the qat money from esta to go to professional development out of the district if they would like um and so that is another way they can get some development um and that goes through the approval process in the estat committee and then we have work workshop two Workshop days our August Workshop shop week when teachers go through development day and then day 172 which is coming up next week in November um when we provide lots of opportunities uh we usually have a menu of items in August that they can choose from um that fits their need um and again we re we get feedback from those and through estac we say what do we need to change for

056next year or what do we keep um and then day 172 will be some more training um for example our American Indian presentation will be from in the morning on that day this year and so some other developments will also happen at the building sites uh then at the bottom there's some other ways that teachers can be developed through a mentor system through qom uh with our coaches who will be a couple of them three of them will be here today to speak on the next topic um and our curriculum leaders through cuom or through our um teacher Academy and then we have our PLC and late starts where teachers are working together with either their team their department or sometimes like a vertical Day that's coming up on Wednesday uh across 612 teachers in

057math will meet together and do some planning around data um and then there's also building PDS so needs that buildings have um there is time for that as well so those are kind of all the ways that teachers can get some development then we have our actual evaluation system so a probationary teacher uh would if they are brand new to teaching would be evaluated three times a year by an administrator for three years until they get that 10e uh that's the same for special education teachers as well except they have a one do process observation in there um if they are new to our district but not new to teaching they have a one-year probationary year and then there's a continuing contract teacher they're uh every three years they are evaluated by the administrator and

058have a walkth through with the two peer reviews otherwise they do the peer reviews um the other years and then 18e plus staff can also have the research observation as one of their uh sessions meaning they go in and observe a teacher that they want to learn more from uh and that's a great way to learn from each other uh these are the areas teachers are evaluated on they're always evaluated on domain Three classroom instruction and then on top of that at least one other domain in an observation time so for example if I just am doing an observation today on person X I would do domain Three Plus either one two or four and the next time I would do domain three one of the other domains and finally my third one would be

059domain three and the last domain so that all domains are evaluated and so that's planning classroom environment classroom instruction and professionalism uh the observation itself involves a pre-observation conference and we use a system called standards for Success um where our rubrics are stored in there and the teachers access that to input answer questions on their pre-observation then the administrator actually does their observation in standards for success and then the teachers fill out postobservation questions um if there happen to be a teacher in an unsatisfactory rating uh they would go through this improvement process I I am glad to State this is rare and far and few between like less than one a year um that happens to so that's good news questions that's how quick that was well thank you board question concerns yes M

060um so how much I I didn't see anything in here around uh results based you know results based evaluation so do not look I didn't gather that no okay I didn't get the message I was supposed to come up sorry I can gather that yeah just wondering I mean I mean students grades are improving you know I I just look at that and say where our grades are now everything we're doing with our coaching and everything all the good things that we're doing I'm just wondering if that should shouldn't be bled so data you're looking for is how successful are teachers yeah how well how successful are the teachers with based on the grades of the students would think that that would be one of the results so our fast don't think that okay Nick

061I think what you're asking standard question it's in domain one standards and student data so you're asking evaluated on standards and student data is that what student data is that my assumption is yes if they are using student data to help them with their planning yes I'm Sorry Miss got it okay I I thought it should be there okay all right good okay CL yeah I'm not sure if it's at the level that you're thinking of though Pam um you know where those scores are automatically part of the evaluation process maybe discussion about the goals or those kinds of things but there's not a metric used to to assess a teachers necessarily yeah it's interesting because during our discussion in the ACT earlier my round table that we were talking about is you know one

062of the concerns that that um a couple of the teachers brought up was well you know our um is it the world's best work force is from Spring to spring so you don't really get evaluated on the class that they just finished with actually that's qom spring spring qom yeah yeah okay okay um and and so got a student I've got them all year round and they've made great progress but then I get graded on the next student coming in the next spring that doesn't make sense to me and I don't know if that's legislation or what that okay so rules okay so I don't know what people can do about cuop rules but if I were part of if I was in employ and educator I would try to do something with that because

063to me it would be how well did I do this year and I think that's what our fast bridge is trying to gauge right so pass brid is going to give our Educators that feedback and that then plays into this or does it not into the evaluation I would say it does not play into this particular evaluation all right okay questions concerns Miss Nate I I would think it does with the you know domain three again with the assessment techniques you know that's all part of of how the teachers are using the assessments that we're doing to improve their classroom so I'm just saying we're not using student result to say you're a good teacher you're not a good teacher that isn't necessary I don't think that's what you're asking that isn't the case well

064we are looking at data to say how do we keep improving and growing how do you use that in your plc to grow your team and your practices but it isn't to that level of um quite I think what you're asking yeah because I mean I think there's a lot of things that play into the effectiveness right so talk about a lot of those things the behavior there's a lot of things that we're putting in place so it is gauging our system but I would think it would still also maybe gauge the different teachers have a huge impact but they are only correct correct dos questions okay next up will be litery you also have that part of it Grace I do 5.5 and I'm bringing up some literacy coaches so you can meet them

065and hear them speak and not just [Music] me hop along there always turn on the light we walk downstairs up your husband day off and look what happens so we know our uh teachers are working really hard they're doing great work they're putting so many new things into place um and we have these coaches that I wanted to bring in just to introduce to you if you haven't met them before um that they really add that support for teachers when we're doing all these new things they're there to help them along the way to feel uh that if I'm not sure what to do I can find my coach and they can come and help me um they're there to do a lot of different things so they're going to be speaking tonight because they

066can tell you better all the things they do but uh all the coaches are just doing some really great work and I'm hoping that they'll be able to always stay on with us so we have Chris carrian Katherine Phelps and Amy bar so they will be speaking a little bit tonight as well again just grounded in our mission why we're here and what we're doing um the teachers are doing this work the coaches are doing this work we're all trying to drive this Mission Again here's our literacy goals those breakthrough goals at the top and then our yearly goal of the 10% growth we've seen those before we've also seen the MCA literacy data but I just wanted to show it again so we can kind of see where we were at at the end

067of last year and then this is the more current fall data um remembering that this is before instruction occurred this is at the very beginning of the year um so that we can get a baseline where are we at the start of the year to see the growth along the way and so this is all elementaries together and how you read this is the red indicates below Benchmark green is at or above Benchmark and if you look on the left side of the graph on the first graph to the left so there are two graphs here um it tells you the number of students on the left side don't worry about the right numbers I took off the line graph so those don't matter um there's too many too many things to look at um

068so that is our kindergarten on the left our first grade in the middle left um showing where they are at the start of the year um and that can be fairly typical our kindergarteners come in with less experience and you'd be surprised how quick they grow and our first graders as well so then we move to the right side and we have our a reading fast assessment from second third fourth fourth and fifth grade and again the Red Bar indicating below Benchmark and the green at or above and just remembering that at second grade it's a brand new test they have not taken this type before they were taking the early reading for two years so that is a typical kind of graph we see in the fall with second grade and then we have

069individual school information so we're going to let the coaches speak about their school okay first you have to know I live in this real mean a lot to me and it is kind of fun to look at you know how kindergarteners come in and if they've had a preschool experience if they've had lots of experiences um or not and and it looks like get we have significant work to do which I'm really excited about I'll come back to that in a minute um and our first grade same thing but now they've had a year kindergarten kindergarten um we also do have a turnover so you kids leaving kids coming and um I don't fact for this one but it always seems like the one's coming or um I couldn't base that on anything but I

070do see that second grade is really exciting to me it it looks shocking at first but if you look at how much they've grown already this year and I have information on that I'll give you in a minute um uh and then we're third fourth and fifth as they've gotten older that makes me ask well why do we have more green than red at the upper grades and I have to say that it's working the system is working because we're decreasing the red and we're increasing the green and those kids who have been here with us for six years they're moving that way from where they started to where they ended if you look at the reverse am I reading that right that that's what my my feeling is so I think that's good I

071live at kindergarten and we're doing progress monitoring of fast for so that's their initial fast for score to composite score so it's made up of either four or five tests um and one of them when you break it out is letter sounds in a minute which is a good indicator with nonsense words um how how well are they predicted to do how well and then you look at once they're reading how well but that's one strand within that big composite that you're seeing and we started progress monitoring this year every and St brought that in with every month monthly and our students are showing the higher risk by by weekly I fix my spreadsheet okay I'll fix that tomorrow um but that is showing that our kindergarteners you break out that strand of letter sounds

072per minute have grown from three letter sounds in a minute gr they have not had the exposure to that through 17 and a minute in a month and a half um we have a pH for reading I'm going jump back to that later um with 14 but so that was exciting we looked at our second graders and board person board member um Anderson and I talked for a long time last spring we Johnson Johnson looking at you glasses you know Johnson Anders no disc okay we had a great discussion about Behavior at that time I said you know we do an excellent job it's an important job teachers are understanding students are growing but the number one concern coming out of our building last year was behavior and you have addressed that and we see

073it working last year 25% % of our behavior in the entire School came out of first grade and it was from regular education stud shared biting kicking hitting they were living in trauma um and you came in with a lot of support from us but the administrative interns who are there and and part of it is the position itself and part of it is the person we have in place but the callways are calm kids are calm if things are not working the kid moved and brought back in night and day so thank you so much for putting that in because with our second graders in their time one minute test for reading words per minute since September have gone from an average 41 words per minute and The Benchmark is up in the '90s

074um to right 44 words a minute to 61 words a minut average for the class for the for the grade and that is huge growth I'm not going to say we're going to make that every month because that doesn't happen this is since September tested so you month and a half but part of that is the debt of product monit Stacy had us to because teachers are aware where the kids are asking do we know how instructions affecting it yes do we know how to change it yes is that what did I am um but we can see it and then putting the biweekly and those kids in are struggling teachers are like what can I change what can I do we're not growing as best and our administrator amazing at bringing that back to

075the staff and asking about it having plc's to work on this so although that those zers don't look at first glance that impressive I think we're going in the right direction and when I look at growth um like we're seeing in our PR mon I'm excited now the bar raises so just because we're meeting it today does not mean unless we make significant growth we're going to make it all the way through but I want to thank you for what you did with the admin interns I want to thank you with what you've done with PR monitoring and bringing in programming um because and the letters piece we can use so thank you thank you oh can sorry I also talked with board member Burnley being the to our our school about B say got

076to talk to every one of our our students and we had similar conversation if you got to hear the flip side you got to hear the what are we going to do and he got to hear hear the oh my gosh it's working and thank you for um our data looks very similar in that kindergarten also came in with more lo below that Benchmark um so we have kids who are coming in with not a lot of inen um our first grade we have the that we're at or above um and then as we look at second third fourth and fifth once again second grade like Stacey said it's a different test in K1 it's a one-onone test that they take with an adults in different scores put together in second grade there said here's

077the test on the iPad we need to re to answer the question so we expect to see that second grade it's a lot more below Benchmark at the beginning of the year our teachers have put in place great reading interventions they're doing small group instruction in progress monitoring what Chris talked about um so we're really excited to see we know they've already made go to us months we're really excited to see when we take the assass testday in January how much growth that they have made because teachers and our students thank you all right who's next is my way of dealing with stress this is not my thing to do so um you know very similar to the other buildings uh you know our kindergarteners come in we actually this year had a surprising amount

078of students who had some students coming into kindergarten so that was nice to see um first grade we had made gains especially where we consider where those students were last year I know we aren't comparing last year's kindergarteners to this year's first graders um which is fun to see if you look at data from last year to this year um how much students have grown um same thing the second grade data it's on an iPad ad lot of kids just click the button so um it is fun to see for second graders especially the girls from Fall to spring because usually we see huge gains in second grade um and then overall I think at s our green is trending in the right direction and the red is trending overall for the most part downward

079um so once again we see teachers you know implementing a lot of interventions and progress monitoring their students and I would say more than ever they know where each student is at and what they can do to support that student um individually or as a small group um yeah so overall I think [Music] we're thanks okay 68 fall fast bridge data so on the left is the a reading test that all sixth through eth graders take um and you can see lots of green showing uh as the fall indicator um and uh on the right side is the auto reading for the students who have exclamation double exclamation meaning they're showing a risk they take that Auto Reading um to see uh where they might have a need that involve phonics or decoding kind of

080work um and so those are the results from that and then the ninth and 10th grade at the high school is now taking a fast Bridge three times a year and so this is their literacy data um again some good green showing uh similar the a reading test is given and those that indicate need then take the auto reading um and you'll notice uh the numbers on the right side it was about 35 students in n9th grade and 24 students uh that that it's indicated in those bars so that can be kind of deceiving it's not a large number why aren't they larger um we do have a few more that need to take it the second round in Winter we realize not everyone uh ended up taking that needed to and I think it

081had to do with scheduling there was some issues in scheduling so that is a problem thing thing that we're solving problem solving oh could you just explain Auto Reading to me I mean WR that yeah it has things like morphology which is Greek and Latin words to see if kids understand meaning of that um to vocabulary vocabulary comprehension the um yeah a it'll say a word and they have to pick the correct one on the bottom in a certain amount of time and the words disappear and go on to the next one so it's also how quickly can you apply skills um on the so for example um and I just met with the intervention teacher in nth and 10th grade high school one thing we just figured out together by looking at data is

082there are a group of kids in his room that need uh Latin and Greek root work and how do you break down multisyllabic words meaning large words that have a lot of syllables to them that's your content words so we are now adding that to his instruction where he's giving some vocabulary and some morphology lessons um on top of comprehension because there are kids needing that in his space um so that's an example how the data is being used to drive what we do that sure just words um that morphology thats something we learned in letters is that as you get out into higher and higher content especially your social study science all the technical things not just reading that morphology becomes in 70 to 80% of content words in high school and middle school

083on up in in content area social science math they need that to be successful because the words that are pled to them 70 80% of them have those pieces in them you don't have that language for our students helping our students okay then we uh completed our first round of walkthroughs in literacy and there are some great celebrations of our new curriculum we've been using for three years now is being used consistently like I would say 90 to 95% is what we saw which is excellent um we also after having our letters training unit one and two um we are seeing a large increase in pheic Awareness being taught uh we are using K2 in HG and 35 in Kilpatrick um and so that phic awareness instruction has really gone up um and we are

084hopeful that's going to produce uh results as well um I should add is that a have we been Focus that now for two years we purchased hegerty last year but this year we had the training and letters on it and then we purchased Kil Patrick for the upper that was this year yeah and then they got a did you guys any training on that too yeah um and what I should have for another celebration is the amount of small groups have increased dramatically from last year to this year it is also you'll see in my next steps because we want to even grow that more so that all classrooms are meeting those individual needs we are getting there it's really exciting uh yep yes I just have to say you guys are like really reserved

085on your celebration you really are I mean you're giving us this presentation and you're saying but if you could see all this other stuff right share that I mean put don't be afraid I mean if You' got weekly progress that you're showing she asked me to I said I I don't want to wait till January I want know me so I mean celebrate because because not of that we said conferences I mean our parents can see it I mean there's celebrate earlier and often early and often don't don't just do it three times a year with these scores right right but share it with us because we want to celebrate too but because the work that you're doing is is so critical and it's going to show quickly and that it's showing so quickly I

086think is is encouraging to everybody you know it should be encouraging to the community it should be encouraging the parent people should see it and and you know they should be able to tell that there's some changed that all the work that everybody is doing that that it's making a huge difference you know and and and again for people who don't understand change change is typically slow you don't turn a ship real fast fast it takes a while and you guys are making this progress and you're actually seeing and you're excited about it um you know is is kudos to I mean that say a lot I mean there's a lot of work when you shift things and you've got a lot of employees here you have a lot of teachers that have to shift

087what they're thinking what they're doing you've taught them new skills new tools to use I mean celebrate I do want to say that the teachers have very have been really on board there has been little to no resistance and that makes a huge difference on creating change Minds hols in place this I mean there's a lot of stuff that you guys are taking on and it's and it's showing and it's making a difference so I'm excited to see you know by the end of the year you know how how how much of a corner that would return so next time we're going to put um Tony's happy dance video Yeah came to show me that I mean don't be afraid to show often okay uh so we're couple goals uh continue to add small groups

088and working with teachers to learn how to do that because there's a skill to it it takes practice um and then how do we add more student discourse getting the students really involved in the conversation on talking about literacy and then shorten teacher talk so that we have more of that time for discourse in small groups so if someone says I don't have time to do small groups we're looking at how long is the teacher talk it should be you know roughly 10 minutes or less yeah um oh and then this you've seen before but this plan that happened in math was also happening for literacy right so our multi-tiered systems of support trainings also impact literacy as well as math so those trainings were the same for both and our PLC professional learning communities

089that training affects all of the content and then using our fast bridge data training that was also part of our plan so you've seen that before and then our pacing calendar we showed in math but we also have it built or literacy so if you go into the actual pacing calendar you would see all of our content in K5 um we have a literacy framework we follow uh that sets up the phonics word study block the reading block and the writing block and that basically is two hours 120 minutes and so teachers have this built in their schedule so that they have the time to do those things uh then in K5 we had professional development of learn of letters training unit one and two and we have small group training next week um and

090I think after that we also have something tier one instruction leader Maybe Maybe I'm Wrong we have another training day so maybe it was on a staff meeting um other supports uh the coaches of course is that's why they're here um they're giving some pic awareness support other team requested trainings or supports you tell them what kind of support more okay we agreed my was last an example of to support um our first grade teachers at s have been working hard on implementing p and doing some interventions and they've been using a lot of the training that we taught at letters um and I had two teachers come to me asking for support because they have been doing word segmenting so I say C the student act and they're like my whole class gets it

091except for these couple of kids I have like three students who just aren't getting it like where do I go from here um so I met with those two teachers and we talked about okay well if we look at what letter says and how theic awareness develops we need to back up to just student onset so first we need to say can the student say cat starts the that that's the first time you hear in that word and so they took that back um the other teacher we talked about using using um a visual for the students so using three different colored um at a small group doesn't matter what they are and tapping the sounds as you say and touch the manipulative um so they both were very eager to go back and try

092the strategies and make difference with their students did it work yeah one of my go is in October I did a professional learning time with my coaches during or with my teacher during staff meeting um where we talked about orographic mapping um which is you tell the student a word like match and first they do the piece and tap out and say the sound M but then they go the next upep and connect it to that visual form the letters that represent those sounds so then they have boxes on a whiteboard or boxes on a paper where they go okay that's the first sound what letter represents that sound the N right sound a the a sh the F the go together because ref so kind of bringing it to that next step um and

093from that training the next day I teachers implementing that in the classroom either whole class or in their small groups um and it is a skill that helps students internalize those Stelling patterns um which helps both their reading and their writing um and then teachers coming and saying you know can you help me figure out how I can incorporate this into this part of my day or um checking in like oh I want to teach my how to spell our control words is this how you would map it and checking in follow up or asking me to come in model something so they're really excited they're really here to try new things and we're seeing great results because of it do you have the um the worksheets or the tools that you need what are

094you using is an iPad do you have what you need for to do each of those things is that iPad or what is that just a sheet of paper with mbes from to do the sounds for example they can just use their math tips for that's the nice part about a lot of imp a lot of prep or a lot of work to get ready doesn't require a ton of materials just another example of how we're taking the new things that we're giving them and they're excited and they're eager to try new things that they have laugh at me um uh when you're talking you know about the phic awareness the pieces we learned in letters um you want to think about as something do your eyes close because eventually we want kids to read

095and spell and when they're spelling that's a different part of the brain and everything you learn about the sounds and the importance of how to pronounce the sounds correctly we have more and more kids coming in that need a lot of speech help um and so part of letters is helping them how do you form your mouth what are the sounds what are you he and we start off with that in the beginning the screaming kindergarten with um four pictures of what you know what does a what does cat start with what sound as balloons start with and you get to this and you have little kindergart will say what's this C and they'll look at you and say meow that's not I did not make that up what did what did what does tap

096start with and we're expecting and they say oink um but it's taking that to the level of being able to say say bright change to your Freight can I hear that difference to spell um all the way up into that phology and all that so it really the them of builds that foundation and grows it and then the phonics comes in and then all the other layers on top so you don't see like huge like oh we're doing phic awareness everything is you know there's so many layers to work with but what we're seeing there is amazing and for third fourth and fifth grade teachers to come back and say I didn't know this I didn't know anything about how to teach these steps and the letters training has really opened their eyes to wow

097I I thought I taught content I thought I taught higher comprehension and here's where my kids are missing some basic basic things and it's just been really neat to watch them back up and go oh I do teach raise hands yeah and you teach kids how to error correct that's the nice thing um so for an example I like to say in second grade kids confuse e and if because they're very close and sound for pen and pin so to help them hear the difference sometimes we put in a visual and we help them with uh to see it um or you doing a lot of that movement you know so you're helping self correct or it's how you form your mouth where do you place your tongue those are corrections to help kids learn

098how to spell in the end that's what it turns I learned so I'm I'm having to deal a lot a while and I learned so much that I didn't even know I didn't even know I through that training and I I at first went through the part where the forming the mouth sounds I thought okay I I'm a teacher M speach therapist I found out really fast that how you know using a mirror using visuals with kids and they're not making the sounds correctly they're confusing and and and if you say those in your mouth you're going feel your mouth does not go very far apart but that can completely change your spell word and that's not just for kids who are speech kids but so our our teachers have started taking the things they

099learned like the formation of the shape of the mouth during you're performing each type of letter and they've got those on their walls instead of just an A B C D with the words blow up for the kids to spell they've got those letters those formations with mouth that shows the mouth form and the kids particular those who are struggling look at that work a little bit they get it um but you don't we wouldn't know how to find those errors and fix them if we didn't have that training brought in and I can go on that so I'm G stop M Pam quickly so um are we giving any of these tools to our parents so they and maybe you yes you any questions um so the staff that's currently in place have been

100blessed with letters yeah what do we do for our new staff next fall because I can see how excited you all are about this how do we get them on board so that they're they have the same knowledge that you guys all have they will also go through training so Joe is building kind of that system with us so how do we get the new people on board how are they getting the training um as so we are building that system and that is super important because in coaching teachers we saw some of the younger teachers they just want to know and they just want they want that support they want that help um and they're open to it and and these are three of our trainers so we have them to help us train

101so if somebody misses and then it's possible we can add a somewhere fig yeah we're going to figure it out for many years we had a teacher that what was the class that everyone had to take first found yes could this be something in that area where you just take letters or I think that is six of the hours for new teachers it was 12 was 12 everybody they got six because that's a national level class they National trainers foundations has its own deal um as far as us being allowed to to run little B picture yeah they had six hours this year to do the letters and then they were stien six hours 12 they can go both units one and two and we've got a plan FL all right lastly um we also

102have fabulous interventionists who are trained in some really great strategies through Orton Gillingham um they also have a revive training coming as just another tool for them to use um we are working on digging into summer school curriculum because one thing we know is we have some of our highest risk kids attending summer school but I've heard there hasn't really been any training around those materials and how to use them so we really want to strengthen that um and I I've met with Deb and one of her team members Josh about um looking at our curriculum that was purchased for special education my coaches are digging into some of those materials to help provide some training for staff that never got trained in that curriculum as well um so we're trying to work with them

103all and then we've got Middle High School literacy plan again they are fast Bridge testing three times a year they have that intervention block Saints time um as well as intervention is in reading and Ma in reading and math um they are using PLC data they have those vertical meetings um they are we have our Ela English language arts teachers in curriculum review year one um looking at what development do they want and they are very interested in the secondary version of letters and they'll be really happy to hear that they are going to be required to do something like that anyway I've learned from the state so I'm glad they're excited because it's going to be a have to um and so again we're back to teachers being on board wanting to know and

104do better and um that's exciting and then we have yep the Adis interventions would be our reading teachers they're also part of that read live training and literacy content training will be occurring on November 22nd all teachers at the high school uh so that's pretty exciting as well some future ideals is uh again that language arts train for 612 Ela maybe some others as well um uh getting that 612 language arts curriculum purchases which would be next year educ climate training for all staff um so that we can start putting that progress monitoring data in that system system instead of on a separate system so can of house all of our data PLC training for remaining staff continuing letters units 3 through eight it'll take us a couple years but get that done and then

105facilitator training for coaches they don't know I'm gonna ask them to do that again this year the next letters part then good y are you saying 5 to8 yes yes and oh my goodness so they just heard about that's question okay any questions comments go ahead M so are we currently using Ed clim yes not to that teachers not yet except interventionists for my pilot group this year administrators are using it next year I'd like to get teachers using it okay because that's where we'll get more information in the common system and it talks about fast Bridge so gets the data can we get this PowerPoint added to our object card packets it looks like it's a little different than what's currently oh sure it looks like I mean there's additional did you I think

106my meeting oh I didn't know did it on here well this is on drive so this live updates what's in the packet was what I published last week sorry I just wanted to say you know the job you all do is very important when I was in uh fourth and fifth grade a few years ago it was reading specialist to help me out come out of fifth grade at with that point they test you at 7.9 which meant almost eighth grade level because of the work that you all do with kids and be a better reader out there I'm still a terrible speller at least I can read quite well now and then I know an individual from up North and I know that when he's sitting on the chair when he talks with the

107kids he's always asking them are you a good reader are you reading all the time because Santa said you got to be a good reader in school and he asked those kids that question all the time I know that guy quite well he pushes readings y just so you know lastly I'm just GNA put in a plug for these three and my other two coaches that they are the Hub that helps me get things done planned they go beyond the PD days and help teachers with the support they need and so just recognize that um they're really a critical piece of the whole syst you are Thank you Pam yeah I I think it it it it really speaks volumes to you three because when you got teachers that are excited it's because of you

108guys that are there to help them when they're strugging with something that helps them go faster and learn it quicker and then they can see the results of the kiddos that are in their classes so yeah you guys are definitely a testimony just from what you said that the teachers are all in board enjoying it when I first came on the school board there were you know I didn't hear those things so it's so I I think that everything we're doing and Stacy thanks again for all that you're doing I know it's a lot of work but wow I think it's paying on very quickly one thing all great information right but are you getting the resources as you need from us to continue to push this plan and continue to make this goal and

109grow those future supports letters or um that kind of training is going to be the big ask probably I'm still learning all the things that we need to do but it's gotten bigger than what I originally thought so that'll be probably the big need because there is a timeline behind itre yeah that was new information that just came about recently as far as the scope of this but I will say that uh last spring when we approved the the Personnel hires and you know we looked at the goals and you know we built into our budget support for literacy math and Behavior Uh regardless of the outcome of the referendum so we're on the right path you know even now so but I appreciate that question because that's we should ask that question with every

110initiative that we're talking about I didn't put on there a secondary instructional coach but that would be fabulous too just to help get the work done and help teachers get support at that level as well all right well thank you very much good information tonight all right next up admin report Mr superintendent all right um I am going to spend just a little bit of time on each one of these items because they're fairly substantial uh but first I am gonna recognize the um the theater and arts department for their Puffs program I Know Jack mentioned that earlier I'm not a Harry Potter fan I've never watched a movie or read a book about Harry Potter but um I'll tell you what that play was unbelievable you know the way they were just going in

111in and off the stage um and the lights and the sound and just the great acting so again another testimony to um St Francis schools uh we had a great tour organized by Doug Austin of Hutchinson and Big Lake Schools uh Pam Johnson is the high school rep and so she was invited to join us there and both schools have different kinds of models that really support career Pathways so there'll be continued discussions I'm sure for many months uh in that regard that's one of the areas that I think the community really supports they may not have increased their taxes to help pay for it so we're going to have to scale back you know some of those options but we're going to continue looking at no cost or lowcost options to uh further prepare

112our students for Life After High School or for work after high school Veterans Day program Nathan B gave a great speech um you know for the program held at the high school Mike star has for many years uh organized those efforts and so uh thank you to both of you and really to the the whole high school team for uh putting on that um welld deserved recognition program mean you're in that area right now besides the high school but Nate is a great speaker uh Middle School had Shannon do an instructor teacher from middle school she's our speaker today middle school and that turned out very very successful also with middle school kids it was nice and they listen to their principal when she said 5 43 2 one like that it was quiet so

113no it was a great Pro we had a lot of vets on both sides of the house 45 Plus in both locations family and vets that came in for the program so thank you for us thank you uh the sale of the portion of the sandill school site to the city of bethl is still in the works uh the city of bethl did find a possible way to enable uh the sale to go through um you know there's this long complicated problem that we encountered because of a grant that was taken by the school district like 25 years ago and so that held up the sale but um the city of bethl is making a request uh to the state um commissioner uh to try to release us from that Grant and so if that

114works then we'll be able to sell the the small part of the Sand Hill site to the city of betham that's an apartment of football ball field along thech or something right yeah yeah yeah Crossroads East uh is the cleverly named uh school program at the uh old cambia site uh you know we have Crossroads over on this side of the district Crossroads East uh in East bethl uh Deb Parson has been working hard on um ways that we can provide uh Educational Services to the people who will reside in that residential mental health treatment center so I think more information will be coming out probably in December uh when we can present information to the board as far as exactly what we're doing I think they're planning to open November 27th or December 1st

115is that your understand will show up um in our classroom December 4th December 4th and um intake meetings will happen the last week of November so Deb is figured out a way to minimize the number of Staff members that we need in the program uh but she'll go into more in depth uh of that in in December uh but I think it's a clever or it's a strong plan uh because I think it'll be effective and efficient so just a reminder that those residential uh treatment facilities uh are paid for by the districts who have kids in the program so we will pay our fair share if there's a St Francis child who resides there um it's well worth it because those kids really need that help but by far in a large you know

116by far it's paid by other districts and finally uh you see the two topics that we discussed during the meet and confer session uh we really have a good working relationship with with our teachers uh during meet and confer teachers bring up concerns we can bring up concerns too and then we discuss them and they've just been really amicable uh discussions uh so I look forward to the next one that's all I have any questions of the superintendent comments concerns you're off easy tonight sir I love it all right next up will be action items uh first one is uh 6.1 there the Minal High School resolution uh is there any discussion or excuse me is there a motion to uh to accept so there there's a motions there a second thank you Nate discussion

117discussion on 6.1 no discussion all in favor to say I I opposed 6.1 passes thank you very much next one up is the approval of the cacy return of the uh votes for the special election also after you do that please do not leave the other side of the tables please come by and see me you need to sign this piece of paper to show it's official on this resolution here for you all right make sure you stop by and see me is there any question excuse me is there a motion to accept thank you Jill second by Pam discussion you know I'm just going to say uh thank you to those who did Vote or who took time to ask questions and to uh share information about the referendum uh even though we lost

118uh the referendum it's still kind of a joy to to meet people to talk about our school district talk about our needs and goals for the future uh so I appreciated that opportunity okay Qui comment Amy I'd just like to make the comment um that I think it's important that we find out for those who didn't support it a why uh as we move forward I know was wasn't a good year for lovees I think only 40% passed I'm going to guess some of it has to do with the economy it's tough out there for a lot of our family members but I think to find out why as we move forward and as we make decisions at this Bo table that and also just to we need to openly communicate I know some of

119what I've heard is well we just gave them $80 million a number of years ago why do they need more I think we need to take this time to educate our public on the difference between bonds and LS that bonds are for buildings we use those dollars exactly like we said we were going to use them and that was to uh update our facilities which we have beautiful facilities we got rid of all of our Portables and um but lot of the public they don't realize that that 8 what that 80 million plus went for and so I for some of them I don't blame them it's like well we just gave $80 million and now they want more and so I take responsibility for that as a board member and sat here for many

120years to say that what can we do to better educate our public on the difference between bonds and levies bonds are for buildings they can only be used for construction of buildings um fixing up a building L is are for learning that's what we use and that's what we're asking for that can be used for Staffing and for the technology and so I would hope that in the next months to come we look at this and say how can we do better how can we educate our public of what the true needs are um why there's a difference between our district and and other districts but also in this time to also let them know that we're we're not going to roll over and be done we're here at this table to make great decisions

121that are in the best interest of our kids with or without the levy we're still doing that today you saw the the staff in front of us stand in front of us they're excited to be in front of our kids and to provide the best learning opportunities to our kids that's going to continue but I think we you know need to look at what we can do to a better educ our public of the needs that we have and I that's what I would take out of this and also to recognize that it is a tough economy and for many of our families it's very difficult right now they're making decisions of trying to put food on the table so this is the time to really come together to listen to to listen to each

122other not only as a board member but to listen to our community and then come together and make a decision that's um that will benefit the community and our school children so that's what I have de um so I was out there a lot on social media talking to people and the number one complaint I heard was misuse of funds in the past and people will never get over that um another one is we use the wrong dollar amount to estimate on values of houses because houses in our district are not that dollar value um another complaint I heard was our district will never be able to provide the programming that our students need so we should look at other options like joining an Noah or um just not having that program in here a

123lot of criticism of our test scores a lot of criticism of how our district was handled during Co um there the the people that were out there talking positively about our district couldn't overcome the negativity and and that negative factor that's out there they're not going to change some of them are the same people that talk negatively about our Bond referendum um and and they brought up well you wanted you wanted Turf I'm like where are we where is this conversation coming from we're talking about educating our students and now you're GNA start talking about Turf and you know those sort of conversations um so it was kind of dis hurting to see what the conversation was out on social media and even if you Tred to direct some people to our website um or

124tried to change the messaging there was no change in that that thought process so it's was kind of disheartening that you know those conversations weren't there there was also the you didn't have enough meetings for us to come to you didn't have this for us um it just was a lot of excuses you didn't provide us any information um those are that's kind of messaging that I saw out there and some of those things we we're not going to be able to change the people who think that the just who believe that the district can't manage funds properly like I said I've been here for six seven years on the board there hasn't been this Management in seven years we've turned this District around and properly use the bond funds um and you can come

125into the the buildings and see that but the people who are out there saying vote no we're really pushing vote no because this District can't do anything right you know we've had trouble over the last uh years here with our funding and so forth uh we had difficult time retaining hiring staff and unfortunately we have lost some of our great employees this past year because of our pay for our people uh Staffing problems have result in having to increase wages to compete with other people yet we're still short employees the unfortunate part is there are not too many more area who we can cut to make our budget stretch any further for us our costs have gone up all the way around when you look at the cost R in operations our costs have gone

126up for us when you sum all this up taxes are going to have to increase there's no way around it does that sound familiar to our district for our Livy what I just said it sure does but who wrote those words the mayor of V bro in his newsletter those are his words it matches exactly what we've been trying to do for our district is what the mayor R for his city taxes are going to have to go up because they need more money and where we at we're at zero right now now in our metro area there were 10 districts in our metro area five pass their levies five failed their levies Columbia Heights pass 827 Lakeville is 100 Richfield they were 1,114 per student they dropped it and they asked to go up

127to 20202 they passed their Levy St Anthony New Brighton they passed their Levy of 890 West St Paul they passed their Levy 731 here for the no noide Farmington they got shut down brookly Center got shut down in gr Heights new PR and St Francis all got shut down we're sitting here now with it's zero amount for voter approved Levy zero for our district we're up against an NOA voter approved 1,046 Burnsville 1,829 Centennial 835 El River 1,246 this is voter approved per person for their districts Forest Lake 987 Fridley 509 oio 1507 friendley Park 194 so you wonder why we keep losing our staff look at this areas around us right next to our district at NOA inan Elk River they take our good staff because now we're at zero for our voter approved

128Levy we're up against other schools here with a th plus per person exactly what the mayor V gr wrote about now how we're going to compete to keep our staff to hire our staff when we're at zero dollar compared to multi $1,000 for schools around us so yeah we did our job we were out there talking we were pushing it I talked to a lot of people myself I know Jail's been online for it superintendent went out quite a bit he talked quite a bit about it yet how do we get through to our people we'll try it again we'll talk about it we see what we can do out there but please keep in mind these numbers we just come to Minneapolis Star paper two days ago these numbers are exact so think about

129our district out here and what we can do so the staff that we have that job they're doing is outstanding for the dollars we get for our staff here we're doing the best we can so let's go any more comments about the the levy if not uh we have to approve it we have a second a motion any further discussion about the the levy at this point yes fam well I think you know we have we have the community that we have and they V reason for the reason I'm sure we don't have all reasons why they voted know but you know I think it's just opportunity for us to then be maybe more diligent or like Amy said communicate better so I don't know what it is but I I don't know we need

130to we need to be careful how we're treating our community doing what we're saying because we don't know what their individual household situations are why they voted to be careful V like they voted we do for next time well the last thing I add on that is lot of these people people on here have no kids in school and they still pass the levies out there and also I heard too for fact we had employees who voted against the levy so thank you employees who voted against our Levy that's my comment about our Levy and I won't hold back on it so say is there a motion we have in a second who uh all in favor say I opposed thank you 6. I think with a resolution we should do a a roll call

131a roll call okay we do that roll call then for the 6.2 who votes in favor to approve the canvasing information that we have here and that means the canvasing the exact numbers that came out of who voted yes who voted no from all of our prents out there what it means okay so all in favor uh raise your hand please so the record show all seven employees excuse me all seven board members approve the uh canvasing results thank you thank you that one's passed I should say we all P the negatives I didn't think so thank you 6.3 approval of 500 serious policies a lot of information there yes ma'am go ahead can I just ask a couple questions um I just got uh policy number 5.7 and I know um principal Austin is

132not here but um the student parking I only have a couple of questions and that would be um do the students use that side door to walk in from the parking lot in the morning in the morning yeah so then because they're drivers I think there's there's people that there's students that leave and come back maybe I don't know they've got other things going on do they then go to the front door they do so my question is should that be in the policy or is that but not really that's just a normal you go to the front door anytime beyond the morning or evening or afternoon I think it's more procedural okay I it's just known that this is where you go this is when when you come in the middle of the day

133come yeah one thing we need to to address it's not bad here but you know sometimes kids will text each other to come and open the door or leave the door a jar and so that's something that we can you know further enhance but it's actually pretty good compared to a lot of districts sign over okay that was question it was it was real bad probably two or three years ago or we did construction [Music] impr we had discussion on it we did have a vot I mean a motion in a second that correct okay that's what I thought okay all my head here all stuff okay policies for the uh Five minut series I don't think we got first and second for that okay who makes thank you motion pass to adopt Pam who

134second Rob further discussion thank you all in favor to say I I oppos thank you 70 all right uh upcoming meetings and pre preliminary topics again something comes up in the future please go to myself with the superintendent and we'll throw it out there and try to balance out throughout the year to discuss the information that you all want yes ma'am I have concerns about um wrestling being on the next agenda because there's not another meeting of activities Athletics schedu and shouldn't we have a recommendation coming forth from that committee ideally yes I know my understand I wasn't at the meeting but my understanding is the last committee I think asked Mr Martin to go out and talk with Middle School administrators is that right or okay go ahead yeah there wasn't a large attendance

135at that meeting and I think when we left the meeting there was actions that were supposed to be taken and as a board member and as a member of that committee I believe the committee's got a need again to make a recommendation to come forward before we can take action and right now there's nothing on the agenda we Amy and my I have a concern that the middle school is I think sign up is starting now for within the next week or two of wrestling and um so how does that impact that group if how do what do they know what to sign up for either the Gladiators or for the middle school and if I'm correct the section our conference does not want seventh graders competing to CRA I'm sorry they don't want the

136sixth graders competing with the seventh and eighth graders um Chris you can address this as well okay because and I also got phone calls from people on the booster club that are concerned of of this action taking place so I this is a hugee the Gladiators are a huge feeder program and probably the reason why we have a great wrestling program is because of the Gladiators they started young they feat them up I've heard concern from Gladiators that there about this happening of the sixth graders going to middle school so I'm not sure why they're not on why wouldn't we want the Gladiators on the same page with supporting it okay we have so just be careful I'll take a question from Nate let be real careful this not on the agenda we having discussion

137on something I my question is why why would it go on the agenda without a recommendation from the association to bring it forth and that we're at the very late timelines of having kids having to decide to sign up they haven't signed up I've heard that they haven't signed up for the Gladiators or middle school because they're waiting for this decision well really we're doing this is this it seems like last okay Nate has a comment but I'm be careful not on the agenda no one had time to look at and put together facts and figures for it so we get a note from Nate I'll talk with the superintendent and we'll come up with something real quick here to help all everybody so Nate go ahead just just to clarify it was brought up

138in August to the Activities Committee to have discussion has gone nowhere so it was brought up to have it bring brought to the school board um for a discussion because it's been spinning its Wheels there been nothing that has been produced it's not a St Francis Middle School ver year it is a program that's already in place and it's asking to increase the um availability to compete for the program that's already in place so yes the discussion that's what I ask to have brought forward is to have a discussion because it hasn't gone anywhere with the activities advis Cil that that's where that's at that's the fact not going to discuss all right so we'll talk about this but let's have on the agenda so we have actual discussion on it so no one gets

139upset with us because we're discussing a big issue it was never on the agenda for comment in public just be careful myself and superintendent will talk about this little soon and we'll get something up to everybody how's that sound yeah I'm going to ask John to set up that meeting I'm writing the email actually we speak to try to set up that activities advisory committee meeting because we just had one not too long ago correct again but yeah we were short Middle School people or something you said yeah well just sorry no go ahead the F committee wasn't invited to the meeting there was only a portion of the committee or on the agenda didn't look like everybody was invited you say everybody means what all the all the members of the committee weren I

140don't think were they all on the last the last one they were okay okay but there question we right okay let get this thing solved we know you're I see the sign go over to sign up for thator correct all right what's next anything else on on future meetings information youall want discussion if not we'll move on to uh School Board member reports go ahead Miss I have nothing thank you Nate uh [Music] nothing it's just amazing every play I just I say that but they never disappoint just fun to go and watch that the next fall sports that was mentioned are sted basketball started so full swing in few weeks here so look at the agenda or the schedule go I had safety the health and safety committee meeting at 10:26 and um we

141had uh at that point we had three open and one closed claims the committee reviewed uh three different um safety prevention forms and action and suggestion forms were discussed and building concerns we had the discussions around a number of different things around the building concerns health and wellness was a good discussion and what we're doing there because we do get assessed on that um so that was that and then again tonight we had the U act meeting which we ended up having I think five more members that have joined which is great community members so that was good we have some really really big discussions um looking at some new proposals as far as um how do we look for new well how do we assess whether or not we need new material and so

142we're we're looking at a form that is being created by Stacy and our team around you know when you get to request something new how do you do that rubrics against so that was a really good discussion we talked about the um world's best uh Workforce goals and um the literacy presentation which we saw tonight and then supplemental curriculum request process so that was to talked about so it was a very good discussion it was really interesting because we've got a lot of new people on there um our new uh High School administrator was there a new teacher for this year so there was just a lot of real good um cross discussion and brainstorming so it was a really really good discussion that with policy tonight and we'll bring forth some first readings at

143the next Bo meeting just we busy there ditto all right for myself pretty much you know about the Vets program after last Friday's fet program I went over to East Beth to read the popul lady book about how red poppies came about to the third grader all third grade classes with me I tell you what those third graders I mentioned twice to them I says where did you learn that word the vocabulary these kids are using was like it surprised me I can't tell you tonight what it was but the vocabulary and I taught them both where did you learn that word I don't know I just knew it and then we're talking about the military services and you know Army Navy marine and one girl speaks up she said and space force how do

144you know about space force I don't know I just know about it I mean it's a brand new Force but she knew a third grader about space force so it's fun to get out and to be with the kids out there to read with the kids and ask questions with the kids and it was fun that day to be with them so again if yall get out there to your schools tell your principles hey I have to come in and read for your kids for you I mean grade school is more fun than probably me to a senior in high school but it was really interesting to have those three classes all at one time to to read a book to and have questions to go back and forth with the kids it was fun

145time so anything else in better of the good I forgot one more thing yes I just wanted to rec comment on um superintendent Anderson's comments about the visits that we made Hinson and Big Lake it was really inspiring you guys it was really exciting um I know we're going to have some great discussions around it um and and the encouraging part since I them didn't pass unfortunately um encouraging part is big lake has got a quite quite a program and they they did it without the extra fund so and they've actually out a sand block with excavators so there I mean they've broken some literally broken some Dr um at both of those schools that I think that we can really pay you back on and do do what we think I mean we're not

146going to be exactly like them but can we can do what we think we can we do is right but is pretty inspired to see what they're around Pathways besides the foures good one of the numbers that stuck out to me was what percent of jobs need employer degree 18% I always thought it was I thought it was 30% 25 to 30 that number even it's like we need we're on the right path people we just need to they they use a lot of data I know we're using data so be exting journey in the state of Minnesota that job imagine what the percent okay no further information I call this me a Jour we're just four minutes off for two hour time frame not bad hey make sure you all stop over and sign

147this paper oh yeah don't don't leave