001Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this April 28, 2025 meeting of the Great Falls Public Schools Board of Trustees. And I remind us all that these meetings are being recorded and they'll be uploaded on our website at some point in the future. So with that, Mr. Patrick, would you please administer the roll call? Yes, Mr. Chair. Gordon Johnson, here. Kim Scornagoski here. Bill Bronson here. Mark Finham here. Marley Sunchild here. Amy Thompson is excused. And Paige Tereski here. You have a quorum present, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Mr. Patrick. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, please rise and join me in the pledge of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the stands one indivisibley and justice for all. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Trustee Scorowski, I move we adopt the agenda as
002presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded to adopt the agenda as presented. Any comments or questions from our board of trustees? Any questions or comments from our gallery here with us this evening? Hearing and seeing none, I'll call for the question. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion carries unanimously. Mr. Chair, Trustee Scagowski. I move we approve the consent agenda as presented. Second. It's been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda as presented. Any questions or commentary from our board of trustees? Any questions or commentary from our gallery? Hearing and seeing none, I'll call for the question. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please signify by saying I. I opposed. Same sign. Thank you very much. communication a character strong chief
003justice elementary strong school Mrs. Maywary. Welcome. Good evening, Chairman Johnson, members of the board, Superintendent Hoyer, members of the community. It's my pleasure tonight to uh introduce Chief Joseph Elementary with the Character Strong presentation for the month. We'll have Andy The principal come up and introduce her folks. Hi, good evening. Well, welcome. Welcome. Yeah, thanks. We we have um some exciting leadership students to um share their work with you tonight. Um but we'll just go ahead and start by um going through the slideshow because they each have their parts. Um Mrs. Mahorny, would you come join us? And would our sixth grade leaders please come join us up here? Awesome. Maybe I should have you introduce yourselves really quickly first. Okay. I'm Mrs. Mahoney, school counselor. I'm Raven. I'm Chloe. I'm Azy. I'm Amamira. I'm
004Katie. I'm Addison. Well, welcome to each of you. Happy to have you here. All right. So, if you want to just advance the slide. Um, we started by talking a little bit about what Character Strong looks like at Chief Joe. Um, and you're seeing some standouts for our first assembly here on the right and some of our other assemblies. We have monthly assemblies where standout students are nominated by staff and recognized. This year, parents have gotten to come to those assemblies um, and see the hard work that our students are doing. We also um attach their names to a Character Strong bulletin board that sits in the parent center all year long so they get year-long recognition. And then I just took a snip of some of the words um on the back of the
005awards that um teachers write personal messages to our students um for their hard work. And of course this month um we're finishing up courage. Our assembly is this Wednesday, but we are here to talk to you more about creativity. Um, before we do that though, the next two slides, Miss M wants to talk a little bit about what character strong instruction looks like. We can Right. So, now we'll go ahead and talk a little bit about how we've woven creativity into our task this month. Um, so I think we have our speakers ready to go. Okay, come on over to the mic. Yep. You can adjust it just like that. Okay. All approximately 250 students made a paper egg sharing their experience or story of when they used creativity to create something new or solve
006a problem. Each grade level was was assigned a specific topic to focus on when completing the task. Here are the topics below. Kinder on the playground. First with friends, second with playing a sport or game. Third in the classroom. From fourth and fifth at home with family, sixth with friends. All students were given the opportunity, sorry, to bring in sticks for the leadership team to use when building our eagle's nest to hold all 250 paper eggs. Sixth grade leadership students use creativity to use sticks, twine, and hot glue to con instruct the eagle's nest to display as our reminder of how to apply creativity in their lives. As Chief Joe Eagles The nest will be presented in the school by our leadership team and will be displayed in the lobby for students and families to
007enjoy for years to come. Okay. So, see this first um this is the final product. We've created the nest. Some of our sixth grade leaders were um wow pretty uh handson with creating this. We're going to leave it, like I said, in the parent center, like they said, in the parent center. Um but they also have um Do you guys want to unveil it? You better do the honors. Wow. Okay. So, um, our student leaders, they're going to be bringing each of our, um, board trustees, a few or one, I'm not sure, a plastic egg or two. And inside are some of our best examples of how students use creativity in their lives. Please read and enjoy these. Um, and then your student leader is there to answer any questions that you might have while
008you read them. So, um, we'll give you a few minutes to do that. And then if you would return those eggs when you were finished, that would be awesome. We want to make sure they go in the final display. Perfect. Thanks. Now, do we open them up now? Okay. Uhhuh. So, you're Is this you your friend? Did someone else? They didn't know how to do a back bit. That's really cute. I'm gonna open the other one now. This is fun. Okay, from Zoe. Didn't understand how to do a question worksheet. So, I asked for help. That makes sense, doesn't it? Oh, good. Look at that picture. Isn't that good? Yeah. There. And she lovely. Wow. All right. Student leaders, can you give them a big thank you for hearing all of the hard work that
009you've been doing? Just give them a big thank you. Go ahead. Three, two, one. Thank you. Yeah, there you go. I'm not doing very well. Yeah, this year they're sporting our first um edition of leadership t-shirts, too. So, yeah, we're pretty excited they got to do that project as well. So, awesome. Well, thank you for your time. Um Oh, yeah. Thank you for coming. [Music] Trusty Bronson is still making discoveries. [Laughter] And you know what a great topic, courage. It takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of group and make a presentation, doesn't it? Well, you guys did very well and we appreciate you being here and your message. So, thank you so very much. Communication item B. Malstrom report from Lisa Sap. Sort of hard to follow, isn't it, Lisa? Man,
010hard act to follow. Oh, yeah. But I have to say, we really uh love our friends over at Chief Joe Elementary. We spent some time over there this month for month of the military child. Um so purple up for Great Falls Public Schools on the 10th. Um thank you Trusty Pinum for speaking at that event. We appreciate you. Um there were several different events held throughout the district in Great Falls Public Schools to celebrate our military connected children. Um at Lloyd they did a PTA breakfast, they had a purple day, um they did a camo day and an obstacle course. Um, and then for those of you who caught the KRTV article and news segment, we were over at Pink Joe. Um, and we did a static display on Monday. We had something every single
011day of the week over there. We did a boot camp PE on Tuesday. Uh, they had a secret mission brief on Wednesday, um, and a career day on Thursday, and then a farewell reception on Friday. And so we we had an amazing team of airmen over at Malstrom Air Force Base support them for the entire week. And uh gosh, that was a lot of fun. And we've gotten a lot of inquiries from other schools since then about how we can expand that next year. So we the bar has been raised and we will have to figure out a way to meet it. Um so like I said, we had the purple star celebration on the 10th. We recognized three district champions. Miss Tara Marillo from Chief Joe. She's the librarian over there and is a
012huge advocate for supporting our military students through um at her school. Um and then Mr. Montana Johnson who was the counselor over at Ly for several years and headed up our anchored for life program which supports our military kids. Um and then Mr. Mark Jagger uh one of my most very favorite humans. Um he is the career pathways adviser for Great Falls Public Schools. So, um, we got to celebrate those three individuals with, um, the folks over at Riverview who earned the designation and then the state superintendent was, uh, able to join us as well that day. So, we, uh, that was a pretty good one. Um, next slide, please. So, this last Thursday, uh, we had, um, Build Montana and High School high schoolhouse students come out to Malmstrom Air Force Base, um, to
013view our new WGF, uh, facility that they're building out there. It's our weapons grade facility. It's pretty massive um, level of construction. So, we were able to with the help of the US Army Corps of Engineers and Walsh Construction and Mr. Mark Jagger from Great Falls Public Schools coordinate to bring those students out for a morning and afternoon tour. Um it was super informative. It was nice to see the sun. I'm in a windowless building for most of the day. So I enjoyed last Thursday quite a bit. Um so what they were able to do is his view our newest construction site out at the base. Um and then this the um US Army Corps of Engineers and Walsh Construction were able to talk about uh the various trade pathways um available through the Department
014of Defense. So that was super informative um and we hope to do more visits like that in the future um as the Sentinel project kicks off here at Malmstrom. So uh next month on May 20th, there's going to be a law enforcement job fair. I think Mark's going to get me some kids out for that. Uh, we'll have folks from all sorts of federal law enforcement agencies out there to recruit some of our security forces get kiddos who are going to do their four years in Skadaddle. Uh, but we'll have everybody from um FBI, CIA, uh, ATF, all those folks will be on base. And so for our kids who are interested in pursuing that as a potential pathway, it's a good opportunity to ask questions and maybe pick classes and, you know, think about
015college pathways for the future. And then a few um are uh I think next slide, please. Oh, yeah. So, Malmstrom Ps are coming up for professional development. Uh we'll have the Malmstrom mission experience uh two-day tour coming up. Um, and you know, we'll be taking some teachers out to the missile alert facilities to visit with some airmen and go down and see some classified things. Um, and then in August, we'll do our teacher deployment day. Uh, so that is still trying to figure out what that's going to look like. We'll we'll try and make it as fun and as interactive as we can. So, um, pending your questions. That's my report to the board. Any questions for Lisa S? If not, thank you very much for your report. Always a pleasure to see you and
016pass on our best regards to our friends at Melbour. We'll do. Thank you. Thank you. Communication C, Superintendent Report. Mrs. Hoyer. Well, we are going to see how creative I'm glad the the ladies right here in the front row laid that that um groundwork for me. how creative uh I am with running all of this tonight. So, um good evening, Chairman Johnson, members of the board, and members of our community. Um it is my pleasure to bring the superintendence report for this evening forward. And the very first thing we're going to do is recognize someone who is very special to Great Falls Public Schools. So, Miss Michelle Peterson, would you stand up? Please feel free to come on up if you would like to. So Michelle is the co-winner for the 2025 Shape America Western
017District Honor Award. Um the camera here caught Michelle when she was actually volunteering at the Shape America conference in 2022. So I did some stalking on social media Michelle and I found that on the Shape America website. Um Michelle has been with our district since 2006. And so for 19 years she has served our schools, our students um and our parents just with an outstanding um she's an outstanding guide for health for um health and PE and physical education with our some of our youngest learners. I wanted to share with you some of the things that she's been recognized for. So she is a two-time Shape Montana president. She is the Shape Montana executive director. She is the Western District Shape America board member and a Western District Shape America co-executive director. And she was
018honored with her award when she was um at the National Conference in Baltimore, Maryland, which ran April 1st through 5th. And so Michelle for all you do. Now, this is a very little part of what Michelle does. Um Michelle also runs um literally an incredible cross-country program for her kids. Um she gets them involved in track. Whatever school Michelle touches, her kids are heavily heavily involved in and she has done more to forward physical education for our elementary students than anybody else I can remember. So Michelle, you are so appreciated and we think the world of you. So, if you would like to speak, you can. If not, you can shake the hands of the board members and just know how much we really, really appreciate you and all you do. All right. Falls Higher
019also. leaders, right? We are very important people from the That's our job. Yes, I guess I just want to make a comment. Um because I've had the opportunity to see uh Miss Peterson work with our kids and her gym classes are always creative and fun and it makes exercising just like the thing that kids want to do. But beyond all that, she is also the person at the school who is the first one there. She's greeting kids off the bus. She's the last one there to make sure kids are getting safely on onto the bus. She's she's the one giving kids high fives on their way to lunch. Um she knows kids. Um and she loves them and it shows in every day of your work and the kids at Sunnyside and Riverview when you
020were at Riverview as well. um you know they just your impact in our schools just is goes so much beyond um you know just what you do in a classroom. So I I really really appreciate all that you've done for our district and for our kids. No, they love you. They love you. [Music] And if you ever need your first aid, CPR, AED, killer teacher right there, let me tell you, not literally, not killer, not literally. Saving help saving people teacher right there. And so, um, she serves more than just kids. She also serves adults. So, Michelle, thank you for all you do. Come around so we can Thank you for coming. I think the eagle is flying as code word for something somewhere has left the building. We'll let them get out before I
021go ahead and continue. That was amazing. So, about a week or so ago, the executive directors and I received the three pictures that you see before you in a text message. And the first thing I thought of was, what on earth is Corey Reeves doing now? Um, and so Corey sent us a lesson that restart loved and this was the slime life analogy. So, I had him send me his story, his lesson behind the slime life. Um, and I'm going to read it to you because it's definitely worth hearing. Corey said, "Today we're making slime. Not just any slime. This slime is going to represent you, your body, your future, and your life." As we mix these ingredients together, the glue, activator, colors, and beads, it might look like a mess at first, but that's
022okay because growth is messy. As you knead it with your hands, the slime starts to come together. It gets smoother, stretchier, more fun to play with. And just like you, it changes with what you add to it. The same goes for your life. what you add to it, what you feed your body, how you take care of your mind, and what habits you build, all shape the kind of person you're becoming. If you're adding good stuff like sleep, healthy food, movement, and kindness, you're going to grow strong and balanced. And just like slime, if you add the right things and take time to work it, it turns out amazing. And hey, maybe your slime has glitter or smells like watermelon or has cool beads. That's your personality. That's the stuff that makes you you unique,
023creative, and totally one of a kind. And then Corey had them do reflections that he talked about last time, but his students don't often get to share the lesson that they loved, and this was one of them. So, I wanted to be sure that I shared that with you. This month, since we last met, we celebrate our administrative assistance on April 23rd. you will see some pictures of some of the amazing administrative assistants across the district. So in the upper leftand corner, we hosted a breakfast here early the morning of the 22nd actually which was still spring break. So we knew the phones wouldn't be ringing quite as much because school wasn't in in session. And um Mr. Williams and Mr. Patrick flipped pancakes. Um Mr. Boyd, you did uh I don't know how many
024dozen eggs. six dozen scrambled eggs and a whole pig almost full of link sausages. Um, I did some bacon. We had some uh potato breakfast casserole. We had lots of um little goodies. We had fruit. We had uh little cheesecake finger bites. We had a lot of fun and um we all came together and we just spent some time together because the most important thing we can do as a team sometime is share a meal. So, we had an early morning meal. was a great suggestion by Mr. Patrick when we were talking about what should we do and we celebrated those who help us do really hard work every day with very little thanks and so just a shout out to everyone from across the district who is an administrative assistant. You are amazing and
025you are really really appreciated and Sherry and I stuck a selfie in once we figured out how to take it. It's pretty cool. Um updates from Helena. It's really been busy lately um with Helena. So, we do know that House Bill 252, that's the STARS Act, that that passed. Um, just some quick updates for you. Um, with the STARS Act, um, when we received the notification, it'll actually come through the Mayfair system. And so, we were given some reminders on base pay and average pay and that we need to certify by the 15th of May with anou if um, we are still negotiating at that time. House Bill 168, that's our preschool special education bill. Um that passed. It is on the governor's desk, I do believe, for signature. Um House Bill 515, that's an
026increase with major maintenance. And thank you to to um Mr. Patrick for helping us um explain that one, but that one is also um awaiting signatures. House Bill 551, that's the reduced lunch co-pay, making everybody if you qualify for free or reduced lunch, it is free in the state of Montana. Um, that is also waiting signature by the governor. Um, fingerprinting of non-supervising volunteers that also passed. That's consistent with our practice, by the way. Um, so we are very comfortable with that one moving forward. I don't see it as being a huge amount of work because it's just something that we do. um the flag and banner bill that also passed. We'll be seeing that come forward with um in our policy committee as we'll be addressing flags and banners and the list of the
027ones that are permissible and non-permissible in our schools um and get that information out to our principles. Um the denial study with uh amendments and changes and amendments and changes that actually passed for the interimm committee as well. And then the um inflationary bill which was um allows us to or allows them the legislature to offer over 3% inflation. Um we know that that probably isn't super likely but there is that possibility then that has been sent to enrolling. The sixth grade funding which we've been tracking that one was tabled in in the Senate by the Senate um education and culture committee I believe um that one is was not able to be blasted out of committee. So, that one is essentially dead on the table and the PI day one failed as well. House
028Bill two, the governor's budget bill passed third reading in the Senate is headed back to the House. I believe it hit hit the House Saturday. They're still working on it today. Um, no additional House amendments are expected, but there are some changes to that one. So, as soon as it comes through, um, we'll be paying close attention to that to see if there's anything that could be impacting us. And then another one now starts the process of them getting all of the uh joint resolutions. I do believe HJ stands for um and they're starting to load those up for their interim work. And so the first one that caught my eye was um an interim study on school safety. It did have the second reading in the Senate today and I have not tracked where
029that's at, but there's a whole bunch of them. There's one on special education. There's one on youth literacy. um to this morning when I first looked I think there was one and now it's populating that there are quite a few of them. So a lot still going on in Helena but they are pushing to try to get through the session because as of May one if they're still in session they do need to sign another month's lease I do believe and so there's a couple of reasons they're ready to get back to their families and their communities that they serve um and that it's also financially reasonable for them to to get through um for themselves as well. So, um, some good stuff coming out of Helena. And then finally, my data for the day.
030Um, I wanted to visit with you in our next three board meetings about the, um, strategic plan and how we're doing moving forward. So, I had meetings with the executive directors and gathered information from our schools. Um, stewardship and accountability is the first one. And if you remember, I had the one page uh that you could refer to and all of the stewardship and accountability has been changed to green. So, we have accomplished those and we'll be archiving them as we move forward. Looking more in detail, you do have um some um more information, detailed information. I'll go over it in just a moment, but at your at your seat um key metrics for the district. So, innovative tax credit, just some data, allocations went down by 8.4% this year, but the number of individuals
031giving increased by 31%. So, we're seeing more and more of our community step up and provide support through innovative tax credits. In social media, the interaction rates, they're fluctuating really depending on the postings, as social media does. March was down from April by 16%, but the third quarter of this year was up 110.1% over earlier this year. Photos continue to be the main item they're interacting with or people are interacting with. The majority of our followers are women over the age of 35 years. Um, and that's 81.1% of our interactions are with women. Um, we are still really worried about low Malmstrom clicks. 1.1% of the clicks that happen on our social media come from Malmstrom. Um, and the highest post of interest are always with new employees and student activities. Um, budget town hall
032meetings were completed and with what we see as average attendance over the last couple of years. In our calendar survey, we did see a decrease in participation down 19.7% to just over 800 participants. parents, community members with children increased. However, from last year, they made up uh 7.6% of the survey. This year, they were 25.3%. So, those are some important district metrics as we look to who we're reaching out to and who's responding to our efforts. The schools then took that one pager and they gave me feedback in the fall and they just did it again for um the spring and they listed some things that um fell under stewardship and accountability. So, our elementarymentaries have been very busy. They have parent tailgates. They have daddy daughter dances, bingo, funr run, Missoula children's theater, you
033name it. They're working really, really hard to get our community, our families, but our greater community um into the schools and so they can see the great things that our schools are doing. Um they had their staff trained on consensus building living wax museums and um one of our schools even does student family bell ringers to start each day before the students get to school so the students and the families have interaction using common language that we use with lessons. middle schools, they're prepping um for celebrations, parents and grandparents to lunch, leap up days, principal blasts, team reach, music concerts, parents passport sites, and they're spending a lot of time looking at their social media too with their students, figuring out if they are reaching the populations they need to. And then high school, in
034addition to the concerts and sports activities that they do, they also have done math days. They're doing um students, staff, administration are joining together on consensus building and they are analyzing their social media platforms as well. So, a lot of stuff happening with stewardship and accountability as we really work on that big communication goal. If you wanted to know what it looks like when the executive directors and I get together and look at this, this is so the green was November and then the purple that you see there was December. This is as we're looking um at quarters and moving throughout the year. And then the blue is this spring quarter that we do. Um and there's a lot more data up there. Um Trusty Scornagoski, I was thinking of you in the guidance that
035you talked about. Videos need to be short. They need to be sweet. Um our 3-se secondond videos have the most views. If it goes over a minute, it drops from 34,686 to 439. Wow. So, the attention span on those videos is really important. It's something that's important for us to know and Becky to know as we move forward with this. Um, and then we can see what's most popular. So, you know, with photos, those are the most popular. It's shown a 59% increase over other formats on social media. Um, 1300 onto the videos. Um, fewer and fewer people are reading the text. So, we do bullet points. We reduce the amount of text because people aren't reading it. that's not how they're consuming their information. So, this it's been really interesting for us. And then
036it continued on um with this and once again posts involving staff students um they are the most popular. I do believe u Barbara Dowy being introduced as the new um coordinator and director up at the Elf Center was the one that that had the most hits. But, uh, wittier sixth grade planting pin wheels was also up there as well. So, lots going on, but feeling really good about where we're at with stewardship and accountability. And that is my superintendence report. If you have any questions about this portion of our strategic plan, I am open to questions. Any questions for Mrs. Sawyer? Thank you very much for your report. I've received no requests for um presentation before this board this afternoon. So that enables us to go on to Roman 7 action items. Action item A,
037financial report check register for March 2025. Mr. Patrick. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members of the board, members of the audience. Uh what the board has before him is the financial report for March. It's a monthly report uh that includes all the budgeted funds as well as food service. Um in the report is the budgeted amount, the month-to-ate amount, year-to- date amount, and then balance and percent remaining. Uh we are where we need to be for March. And I'd like to highlight on page 33 that's just slipping by on the thing there is that um anytime we make a change to investments I note that for the board and uh you can see by this there was $130,000 that was moved from investments into cash for the Medicaid fund. Cash balance was down and we need
038to make sure that that stays positive. So that transfer was made. You can see earlier this year 225,000 was came from rate stabilization. And that's a purposeful reduction has to do with our insurance, health insurance for the district. Um, our investments now stand at 13,68,000. When I came to the district 14 years ago, we were about 21 million. So, it's slowly and steadily declined in investments. So, um, with that, my recommendation is to approve, uh, the March 2025 financial report as presented. Mr. Chair Trusty Terraski, I move that we approve the monthly financial report and approve the register of payments for March 2025 as presented. Second and moved and seconded to approve the monthly financial report and approve the register of payments for March 2025. Are there any questions from this board of trustees? Any
039questions from our gallery? If not, I'll call for the question. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion carries. Action item B, second reading of revised board policies 21105, grade organization 2130, program evaluation and diagnostic tests. 2132, Research Studies. 2163 Traffic Education. and 2166 gifted program. Mrs. Hoyer, thank you, Chairman Johnson, members of the board. As of this afternoon, just prior to walking in here, I had received no input um for this second reading to share with the board. Um just as a reminder, this was just um updated language um modernization. it tightened up some of them with um some some verbiage um and the committee did outstanding work. So with that, I I request that you uh follow the recommendation to approve those revised board
040policies. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Trusty Brownson. I move that this board approve revised policies 21105 on grade organization, 2130 on program evaluation and diagnostic tests, 2132 research studies, 2163 on traffic education, and 2166 for our gifted program. Second. Been moved and seconded to approve the revised board policies as enumerated by trustee Bronson. Any questions from our board of trustees? Any questions from our gallery? Hearing and seeing none, I'll call for the question. All those in favor of the motion, please signify by saying I. I oppose. Same sign. Motion carries with tremendous thanks to our board policy committee. Roman 8 action other. Nothing was pulled from the consent agenda. So we will move on to reports discussion and policies. A first reading and new mathematics kuds and technology computer science kuds no understanding and do. Mrs.
041Manew good evening again chairman Johnson members of the board superintendent Hoyer members of the community. It's my pleasure to introduce Rachel Cutler tonight, the elementary coordinator for curriculum to go over the first reading of the new mathematics KUDS and the technology and computer science KUDs. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. I have three main topics for you tonight. The first one is our first read of our tech integration and computer science standards. So, we'll go through this really quickly. just an overview of our KD documents and why we create them. They're really created to provide clarity for teachers and to make sure that we're all instructing in a similar way and addressing all of the important elements of the standards. Um, so that's it for that one. So, just talking a little bit about the
042process for our tech integration. In 2016, Great Falls Public Schools used the international tech standards to write ours. And at that time, Montana didn't have any technology standards. We really felt like they were important. We were investing a lot of time and effort in technology and wanted to make sure that we were on the same page. So, we've been utilizing those since 2016. In 2022, Montana wrote their state standards based upon the same standards that we had written ours, you know, those international IST standards. We anticipated based on that there would be a lot of similarity between what we wrote in 2016 and what the state put out in 2022. We were correct. There are um some differences which I'll share with you in just a second but in the summer of 2324 we formed
043a technology computer science committee to revise that version. Um so next slide I'll tell you some of the revisions that were made. The focus when we wrote them in 2016 was really on using that basic technology was on digital citizenship um and just really getting some of those basic ideas about technology across in the new standards. Computer science has been added as its own category. So it goes all the way down to kindergarten. Uh we have computer science standards in kindergarten. One of the first standards is learning steps in a process. So that's their first standard. uh there's a larger focus on programming, data analysis, algorithms, um looking at more advanced thinking skills and now building an understanding of how artificial intelligence works. One of the last categories of standards K12 is called the importance
044of computing. So it's building an understanding of how computers support our lives. That's it. Okay. So that was the computer science ones. These are right here. Uh, a little bit of light reading. These hard copies are in my office. You can feel free to grab them. The uh they're also online if you go to the curriculum department. They're right at the top. Next, I want to talk about our math work. Here's our math work. You look, it's a similar uh stack of coyotes. To back up a little bit and give you the background, we began this work in 2022 with our math task force. We had uh teachers from K12 across the district look at data um look at best practices. We had a lot of good conversation and they determined next steps were to
045push the math task force out into each of our schools. So we spent 23 24 during some doing some learning. We had math coaches and they experimented with some new math practices, things like math talks and open middle problems. Then in the last summer, the summer of 24, Montana released a draft of their standards, their updated standards, and we anticipated them being approved by the board of public ed prior to this year starting. Well, they were just approved last month. Um and so we have some drafts that we've kind of been sitting on um and work using to guide our resource selection process. So we brought together uh in the summer teachers from K12. We spent about a week working through those documents and making sure that we were happy with uh what was created.
046So uh let's see. So how did those K8 standards change? I'm going to talk a little bit about K8 and then I'll talk about 912. Uh, one of the major changes is we had had these eight mathematical practices in our previous standard and they're things that we want kids to engage in when they are doing mathematics. Things like justifying their thinking, making a claim and proving it, modeling, making different representations. They took those eight and they added a culture element and a collaboration element and then they sort of condensed them. So now we have seven standards that are kind of been smooshed together. Um but they that was a a major revision for K8. Actually that applies K12 updated the language to be clearer. Our old standards had lots of examples in them and so
047they took the examples out and put them in a like a supplementary document. a larger focus on problem solving and real world application. They clarified fluency at each grade level. Um and let's see more deliberately. Oh, the transition between elementary and middle school. They made sure that uh it was a logical vertical transition. So they smoothed that out a little bit. Go ahead. Next slide. Okay. 912 standards. The bulk of the changes happen here in the 912 standards. Essentially what they did was they took this bank of standards and they separated into two buckets. The first is the core standards and these are the foundational standards that every high school student needs before they graduate. There are things like there's algebra um just those those really foundational skills to help every student be successful moving
048forward. the core plus standards, those are um some additional standards that students could pursue to prepare for more advanced coursework um in the future. So, uh every student doesn't need all of them. Every student will get the core standards but not necessarily the core plus. So for example, if I am going to school for political science, I may not need to know polomials, but I do need to understand data and statistics. So it allows us to create some coursework for students that will support them as they move forward. Also reorganized some content areas. So in the past, high school math was divided into algebra standards, geometry standards. Now they're grouped by mathematical domain. So every course in high school will have a little bit of algebra, a little bit of geometry, a little bit of
049each of those areas. It's a little more integrated model. So basically the intent was just to create some of those pathways. Okay. So that's math standards. Now I'm going to talk to you about the K6 resource selection. Anytime we look for a new resource in any of our content areas, we start with research. So we look at what works clearing house, the institute of educational sciences, ed reports. We look for programs that are all green in ed reports. This year we also went and did some classroom visits. There were some programs that we were interested in that are being taught in Bosezeman and Belgrade. So we took a team down and did some classroom visiting. saw the instruction in action, talked to students and teachers. From that, we decided uh we're going to bring the
050a rubric process to our committee. So, with the math committee, we asked them, what are you looking for in a new resource? What's important to you? They gave us a whole laundry list of all of the things that were important. kind of took that list and categorized it a little bit, gave it back to them, did some editing, and then this became the tool that we used to look at all of the resources we looked at. When we had that tool, the other question we asked was, does this resource align with the new standards? So, not only do we have to make sure it meets all these requirements for this what teachers are wanting, but also is there that alignment? We initially started with 11 math programs, K12 that we started to look at. We
051narrowed it down um and so beginning in December, there were five that were open for the community and for teachers to come up and look at. We put the committee uh rubric out and had people fill that out and give feedback. We didn't have as much participation as I would have liked. We did have some but those were out uh for people to take a look at. Uh at the on the elementary side it was very clear that from you know that process there were two that rose to the top. So the two that we took a deeper look at were McGra Hill reveal and amplify Desmos. So based upon that here was the vote. uh we sent out a a voting survey to the members of our committee. Before they voted, they took the
052information back to their buildings and had some conversation with other teachers. They shared some of the platforms, gave them the opportunity to ask questions, but it's pretty overwhelmingly um one program over another. So, there's some quotes up here from teachers. Uh the the one that speaks to me is it builds the beliefs we've developed over the past two years on our math task force. You kind of see that alignment moving through. Lessons are engaging. They require active participation and thinking, but it was uh an overwhelming choice. These are some of the items they could pick from on this survey. So some of the things that they loved were alignment with the beliefs of how children learn math, ease of use of the teacher manual. They also spoke to the intervention resources. It's e easily differentiated,
053very engaging for kids, but uh these were, you know, the breakdown of what they thought about the particular program that they looked at. So, estimates of cost. I've been working with Amplify. Uh, currently for a five-year purchase, we're looking at $950,000. It does include digital access for teachers and students. It's a blended model, so students are on computers sometimes. um there is, you know, written work, but as the students move up in the grades, they're become more digital than than writing. It's kind of a a balance. Teacher manuals, hard copy teacher manuals, daily presentation slides that teachers use on their Prometheian to guide the instruction and the conversation and the learning. Uh center kits, which was something they were very interested in. Um they what they like about them is all of the centered materials
054are cut out. They don't have to print, laminate, or cut anything out. They're very happy. Uh intervention materials are included. As I said, there's online formative and summitive assessment that is autograded so that teachers get quick responses. Uh there's also print versions of both of those. And still determining about student activity books or black lines. uh currently they don't offer uh anything but a blended package. So if we purchase the digital, we have to purchase the student activity books as well. So I'm working with them to see if uh they're open to any movement on that. There will be some additional costs for professional development. We'll train in groups of 30. I think they have to bring in 12 people to train our all of our elementary teachers in groups of 30. And then one
055of the things we're doing is we took the math manipulatives from our previous program and we're repurposing those. So we'll be able to use the majority of those and not have to purchase for the new program. So that reduces our costs a little bit. That's it. What kinds of questions do you have? Any questions for Mrs. Cutler? So, we did get the KUD reports electronically and I did ask to borrow the print out copies which are really handy. Yes. And u I'm guessing they're available to any one of us at the table here. Yes, absolutely. I have it for a couple of days and uh it's not exciting reading, but it's good reading and it it illustrates some uh work well done. So, thank you very much. Thank you. Any questions for Mrs. Cutler before
056she leaves? If not, thank you very much. Appreciate the report. Reports, discussion, and policies B. First reading of new elementary mathematics curricular resource amplify Desmos math ATM. And this is Mrs. Maywaring once again. Chairman Johnson, I do believe that Mrs. Culler just rolled that all into one because it was one presentation. So, we're on to the first reading of the technology strategic plan. We are. Yes, sir. Mr. Williams up to bat. If I can get this off. Hold on. Me and technology. We know a guy. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Chairman Johnson. Good evening. Board of Trustees, Superintendent Hoyer, and community members. For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jeff Williams. I am the technology director for Great Falls Public Schools. What you have before you sams is the tenative technology
057plan for the next three years. For the community that doesn't know what's going on with this, every three years, the technology department, primarily the technology director is tasked with giving a plan for the next three years use of technology in the district to support the mission for the district. As you can understand, in the last 10 years, those plans have been pretty important and they have have been been have well, pardon me, they have had to be fluid in their ability to support the district. So what we have here ladies and gentlemen is a first reading of a plan with that hopefully fluidity to take and deal with the next three years and issues that we will be facing. There is one thing you will see starkly and it's already been illuminated on there. There
058is no dollar amount associated with this plan as of yet. Reason being is that right now between federal and state is such a flux that pigeon holeing us into a dollar amount and dedicating primarily to something. We can't do that right now. With any plan, you dictate what you want to achieve. Use that as your main target. Then you break it down into the acceptable pieces that you use to get to that target. Once you do that, you have to evaluate what you're achievable on those targets. This plan is broken down into main headings and subpoints. Each subpoint has basically by itself a standalone. It's an objective to get to the main topic. But when we evaluate it with the variables we aren't able to adhere to right now, we will decide which ones are
059more feasible and which ones we have to wait for. There's also return on investment. Sometimes what you don't want to spend gets you the most bang for the buck back. So when all that comes down to we'll be making when we make some changes to the plan, we'll be altering it as we come up with what we have, what we're able to do, and then how we're going to do it. So please treat it as a guideline. It is fluid and I tried to set it up as such. And I have to say I have to thank publicly Charlene Amans and Amanda Cahoot because although I do a lot of things well writing with punctuation is not one of them. So they have been instrument they have been in incredibly good about helping me out.
060I can throw my ideas down on paper but even my wife will tell you that yeah we have to correct the spelling job. So, are there any questions you or anyone else here has about the technology plan you have before you, Mr. Bronson? Not so much a question as a comment. I I really appreciate, as I told you before the meeting, how you laid this out and uh it was really good reading, but just in terms of, you know, predicting the future, I noted there, you addressed the subject of a technology levy. I'm correct. If I'm correct, you're proposing that should we adopt this, we will at some point in the future ask the budget committee to potentially look at doing a different type of technology. Is that correct? I'm going to have to take
061and not say yes or no on that bill. Basically, because my job is to present you and the district with well, let's put it this way. The district presents me with the goals they want me to try to support and achieve. I then come to you with what I know, what I find we can do to take and achieve those goals. Sure. After that, I can guide you what would be better one way or the other, but I'm I'm afraid I'm not in this position long enough to say I could stand on that bill. I will have to let you all dictate that. Everything about anything that has to do with that topic, the board will take and make those decisions and I will support the board in any way, fashionable I can. Understood. Thank
062you. Thank you. Any questions? Further questions, Mr. Williams? Very comprehensive report. Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Item D, first reading of revised board policies 2333, participation in commencement exercises. 2413, credit transfer/assessment for placement from nonacredited and slash for nonprofit schools. 2420 grading and progress reports and animals in school. Mrs. Hoyer, thank you Chairman Johnson, members of the board, and members of our community. What you have in front of you are the four policies that you just outlined. Um the committee worked together and took input from the Montana School Board Association. Um and they modernized and brought consistency to names and titles um within Great Falls Public Schools department. Um they also cleaned up some of the language and made it more current. Um the first one 2333 is very timely as it speaks
063to participation and graduation. And when you look at 2330, um this is the modernization on line 19 that I'm talking about. It's more consistent with um the name of our department. It strikes American Indian, replaces it with indigenous heritage. Um when you're looking at 2413 you will see that there is um on line nine there is an and or from nonacredited and or non-public schools takes into account that both of those have to be evaluated as we look at bringing students into our public schools and start moving them a across the graduation progress um spectrum. Line 25 changes. Uh there's some additional language in there. Um it changes which was to prepared and which is much more modern. Um on page 87 you will notice um that there is a design for your information. The
064design um in this one this is grading and progress reports. This is the work done by our executive directors in conjunction with our building level leaders. And so that language in there is important to have because they are the ones who are responsible for that um requirement. And then on page 88, this is just a point of interest. Um you'll see on line uh 35 it says um skunks, raccoons, badgers, lyns, bobcats, bats, alpha, coyotes, or fox. And I think that they meant elephant. I'm not exactly sure, but I Googled because I can at least do that with technology. Um, and I found out that an Alpha is a professional network dedicated to helping high achieving women in technology succeed in work. So, very fitting that we just did our technology report. Um, and so
065with that, this is the first reading of those and I will be open to input from you as well as our community and look forward to bringing to this to you in May for a final reading and adoption. Thank you. Any questions for Superintendent Hoyer on these proposed policies? Oh my. No questions. I know. I know. Thank you very much again to the work of our policy committee and the good work they do. Moving on to reports, discussion and policies. Figure A, superintendent evaluation process. Um, Trusty Thompson couldn't be with us this evening. She's on a professionally related uh business trip. And so it stands to me and I think Mrs. Clark to sort of update um where we're at with this. Now, we had uh invitations for online evaluation responses. And is that still
066that is closed? That is closed. Yep. On community response is closed. that closed April 23rd. Um there was very minimal public response to that. So Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So you will be presented with the one comment that was made that you actually got today through email and you received your links to do your board evaluations and that is due by May 1st and then Trusty Thompson will go through your responses. all the information, get that out to you so that you can make a um presentation or she can make a presentation at the May 12th board meeting. Very good. Very good. Any other any questions regarding the superintendent evaluation? All right. If you if you do that expeditiously, that would be appreciated. That brings us to F discussion committee reports and comments. Trusty Sunchild.
067We're gonna start with you this evening. Shout out to Chief Joe. That was the best character. The cutest they're all gone. But um and kudos to Rachel and her team on the math. So the hardest thing about math, one thing I remember from a P and I do remember something is everybody wants to know how to read. So like you have a reason to learn how to read. People often don't believe there's a reason to learn math. And I remember at the PR, I don't remember who taught it, but I remember them saying people are okay with you get your check at the restaurant. You have to figure out your tip. Back then you did. And but people were okay saying, "Oh, I'm not good at math. You do it." And fighting it over. People
068aren't going to say, "Oh, I'm not good at reading. You read the menu for me." So, it's we were okay with, "Oh, I'm not good at math. I'm just going to get by." So, it's challenging to find a math program that's going to make the students want to learn. Math was my favorite thing to teach. I was terrible at math. I think that's why because I want to make it easier. And I think that they're working very hard to make that work. And the change in the high school to make a little bit of every skill at every grade is huge. And I really look forward to seeing what that does because I think that's a big deal. We go one year's algebra, one year's geometry, one year and you're not math builds on itself.
069So I think that will help us success and help them to carry it over. So um For as much as I hated math as a student, I absolutely loved it as a like I still talk about the things of third grade as my kids. It's strange, but anyway. So, I that's fantastic. I I love You always say something that's worth hearing. Well, I've got so many things. Thank you, Trusty Pinico. Thank you very much, Rachel. Kudos. a million bucks. I'm glad they don't change these all that often and I'm glad we budget that stuff, but wow, what a process. Thank you very much for doing all that, Jeff. Wonderful job. Thank you. Pass that along to your team, Michelle. I'm so glad you're still here. I have to tell a story. Mr. Stead, Lewistown, Montana.
070I still remember him. And also those red rubber balls bouncing off my head. They make a noise. It's I remember that. So you will certainly be be remembered probably through many many kids. So thank you very much and all of those instructors. That's it. Trusty Terrasi just echo the comments about the math curriculum. Thank you for all your work. It was uh it was fun to be involved in the process. I I enjoyed getting to look at it and talk to teachers about it. Um, and I would encourage the community to check it out if they have the opportunity. Um, in honor of administrative assistance day, our beloved administrative assistant Stacy Griffin at Valley View is stepping down after this year and we're going to miss her. She's great. She helps me a lot as
071a parent as well. And then uh just a bit of news, Valley View got a new book vending machine for the kiddos. It's right out front and it was donated by the PTA and so there were a lot of excited kids watching that be brought in and set up and so I'm excited to see how that goes. Thank you. Thank you. And we'll sort of uh let's see we'll we'll do Mr. Bronson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of things. First, since we had our last board meeting, the insurance committee met again to essentially uh talk among amongst ourselves about the presentation we'd heard previously from the school trust folks. Uh suffice it to say we are still at that point where we need to see some hard data from this group in order
072to make recommendations to the board about where we go in terms of participation in the trust. Uh I believe it safe to say it was pleasing to hear they are making a number of suggested accommodations for districts like ours that have successfully run self- insurance plans. No question that ours is probably the best well-run of all the doubleA schools. U but just because they're incorporating elements of that into what they will be ultimately proposing does not mean that the numbers will necessarily crunch in our favor. So we'll be awaiting to see those in the next several weeks and then making a recommendation to the board how we proceed further. Uh second just taking off of the superintendent's comments. Uh in looking at the recent actions by the legislature, I think it's safe to say that
073we are probably doing far better than we even anticipated this session in terms of the legislation that has been both proposed and passed. And it evidences a strong bipartisan effort uh in the legislature, including in many cases support from the governor for a number of these proposals that hopefully will make uh our developing budgets much easier in dealing with some of these fiscal problems uh much easier as well. So, I'm looking forward to the final product. Uh just so you know, the legislature may very well adjourn early this week. Uh with the budget bill about ready to pass and with the major tax bills having been completed, I was talking with a lobbyist that I've been involved with in another set of programs and his sense is they will probably journ this week before the
07490th day. So stay tuned. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bronson. Justice Scorowski. Um just a thank you to um Rachel and the math team. Um you know my kind of brief little foray into that experience uh was really illuminating. So I really appreciate being a part of that process and encourage like um Trusty Terroski said um encourage our community to get involved. Um I think one of the questions at the candidates forum is you know should parents get in you know how can parents be involved in um the curriculum in our schools. This is how so um this is a great opportunity for for parents to see um exactly what is expected of our teachers and of our kids um at every level. Um, the one final thing I wanted to mention is I at
075the end of my comments last time I said, "Wish me luck on the field trip to Helena." Um, but I'm happy to report that the um, seventh and eighth graders from East were in the Capitol and got to see the vote on the Stars Act. So, wow. Um, we were back a little bit late and missed some buses because of it. Um but it was really cool for the students to get the opportunity to see um really the the legislation that'll most impact um our schools for the next two years. So fantastic. Thank you. And I'd like to thank uh Great Falls Rising for organizing the forum and Trusty Terraski was there. I was there and I see Mr. Duff back there in the room. He was at the table as well. And so it
076was an opportunity for us to share with the public uh our thoughts on several questions that were u posed to us. And also thanks to GFA for your involvement in this process as well. And also I'd like to uh uh draw to your attention uh Wednesday night we have the Great Falls uh public schools foundation scholarship night. Right Stephanie? You've been busy on that project. Uh I bet you have. Yeah. So attend if you can. It's a very it's an inspiring evening to uh to recognize these students who who have achieved tremendous things over over the course of their studies with the Great Falls Public Schools. And then we launch into Mayhem. And I'm not going to enumerate because they're all right there before you the dates as we go into graduation. It's all very
077exciting and it represents a lot of the hard work that we do throughout the year as a board of trustees. So with that, if there's no further residents to come before this board of trustees, I would propose a mo motion to adjurnn. So moved. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We are adjourned.