001[Music] And then Another Good evening. I'd like to call this regular meeting of the Jamestown Public School Board to order. It is Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025, 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community Room. We'd like to welcome all those in the audience this evening. Please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. To the flag of the United States of America and to the stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Owen, would you read the school board norms this evening? >> Sure. Uh the board developed norms are to share and respect opinions and speak with a united voice once a decision has been reached, execute all duties of the school board in compliance with the North Dakota Century Code, properly prepare for meetings, and commit to assessing board effectiveness and ensure
002high quality governance for all stakeholders. >> Thank you. Moving on our agenda, we don't have anything under public communications. Does the board wish to declare any conflicts of interest? Any conflicts of interest? Any conflicts of interest? If not, moving on to our consent agenda. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. >> Second by Aaron. We have a motion, a second for our cons to approve our consent agenda. Any discussion, any clarifications, anything you'd like removed? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Under a regular meeting, we have nothing under recognition, correspondence, or reports tonight. Under board education, we have priority standards and we have some Jamestown public school teachers we'd like to invite forward and please introduce yourself and um tell us what grade
003level you are and just a little bit about yourself so we can get refreshed on that. So, thank you. >> Hi everyone. My name is Jennifer Gaul and I'm the middle school librarian. Caitlyn McKinnus in seventh grade English. And I'm Candace Sudler, elementary instructional coach. >> I'm Molly Fritz and I teach second grade at Lincoln. >> And I'm Tony McIntyre. I'm an English instructor at JHS. >> Right. Well, thank you for having us here today. We'll um get the presentation up on the board. Is it coming? We'll be right with you. >> We'll do a backup device. I guess >> amongst yourself. >> Yeah. Can I just say something? And maybe as we're waiting for that, I just want to recognize our Jamestown public schools teachers for their willingness to come and uh provide board
004education. That was one thing that we talked about in uh and I think it was Dr. Larson's uh point in our strategic plan and board education discussion uh that we wanted to ensure that we had more of our experts uh providing support board education for our board members and for our community. So, thank you for being here and providing that for our board. have the presentation. >> Okay. >> Sure. >> Well, then we will just go ahead and >> Yep. All right. Well, again, thank you for having us here today. Um we are excited and um working through you know we're excited to be working through the process of transitioning to standardsbased learning and reporting across the district. Um one thing that as we begin here this this isn't necessarily new. We've been working with
005standards for decades and so it it's nice to be coming together as a unified group and um working with the standards in a a similar way. And I think our school district has done a pretty good job of getting us there. Um, but those those things are challenging. So, the big question is why? Why are we doing it? Well, we want to have and provide a guaranteed and viable curriculum for all the students in our district and across the state of North Dakota. And so, that's one of the things that we value about the value about the process. As your presentation states, guaranteed means that every student has access to the same essential learning, no matter the teacher or school. And I think that's one of the the key elements is that um throughout the
006state of North Dakota, we're all working with the same standards. And we as individual school districts and grade levels can decide which which priority standards that we want to work with. So, that's one of the things that adds a little bit of um variation, but nevertheless, they're all coming from that bank of information. Thank you. We're we're just on the first slide. Viable. There we go. And then viable. The curriculum is realistic within the available instructional time. And that's where our professional opinion and our professional expertise comes into play. We know our students. We know the their test scores. We know what they need. And so then we create that viable curriculum with, you know, with our resources that we have available. And so we want to do that using our priority standards and proficiency
007scales. And that's what we're going to get into today. And you'll hear and see a lot of examples about what those look like. Um, and they're really they really make the learning transparent. So again, why why are we doing it? Well, we want to provide the best education for our students and we also want to meet the strategic plan that has been set forth for us. And so we have some deadlines and metrics that we're looking at. Primary metric 100% of courses and grade levels reporting proficiency on priority academic standards by 2027. So that's right around the corner. We're working hard to meet that and um I think on track in many ways. um primary the primary metric of publication of 100% of grade level or course priority standards by beginning of the 2026 2027
008school year. So we want to be able to have information in front of us and available to give really clear information about how our students are doing. As we've been working on getting ready for this, um there have been lots of trains of thought and different ways to go about it, but we really want to keep in mind um the real criteria. So readiness for next level learning. We want we want to pick standards that reflect a readiness for getting to the next level. So we want to push those students to be moving forward. The E endurance skills last beyond one test or grade and going into the thinking of, you know, a deeper learning, you know, digging into the material, really understanding things at a deeper level rather than just surface memorization of facts
009and things like that. And we want to prepare our students to be real thinkers. A for assessed on state or national measures. We want um the standards and the the pri priorities that we pick to be things that that match up with what our students are going to be assessed on statewide. Leverage applies across multiple subjects and disciplines. And I think that's that's one of the a really neat component that we have available to us with our PLC. um having the the time set forth for us to be able to communicate and plan those things across multiple subjects and disciplines. So, we're thinking about those things as we're um choosing our priority standards. Um and that goes on to um the teacher collaboration and PLC's. That's I think one of the most valuable parts of
010this process is that communication and being able to sit down and and talk through how things are going. We're going to look at our um information. We're going to look at numbers. We're going to look at statistics. We're going to look at scores and all of those things to get the best information for our students and the the best teaching for them. Um I'm going to go on. So why priority standards are important? I think they add a lot of clarity to what we are doing in our classrooms. clarity for us as teachers, clarity for our students, and then clarity ultimately for um other stakeholders, parents and board members and everyone across our district. Um focus instructional time on the most critical learning goals. It it allows us as teachers to know exactly what we
011are teaching and using that time to the best of our ability. I think one of the the great things about focusing on standards and those priorities is that it kind of pushes us as educators to step away from maybe what we've always done. Um maybe some of us have always had that favorite unit that we want to teach and you know maybe it doesn't necessarily meet the standards and this gives us that impetus to move on and and look at something different and meet the standards that our state has for us. And I've already mentioned the clarity of for teachers, students, and families mile wide avoiding that mile wide, inch deep curriculum and really digging in and then build a strong foundation for college, career, and life readiness. Again, I think that um standardsbased um
012grading and instruction really provides that depth that we want to that we want our students to have. um it it kind it encourages them to dig into something and and reach beyond just the basics and that's what we need people to do. I mean there are there are a lot of things that can do that basic thinking for us, right? We want our students to be able to think beyond that. And so now we're going to get some examples from different levels. Here comes the elementary G. Oh, we have one more. I skipped a slide. Let me go back. So here's an example um a basic example of what a proficiency scale would look like. We are aiming for that level three. So as we as teachers are are developing our proficiency skills, that's where
013we put the standard. That's the standard that we're looking for and that comes directly from the state. And then we work down to that and look at that level two. And that's the the basic things that you need, the vocabulary, the basic information that you're going to need to be able to get to the three. So three is proficient, right? Two is what where you're almost there. You're getting there. You have the basic information, but you need to work a little bit harder to get to that three. By the end of the year, that's where we want our students or be by the end of our um time that we're working on that standard. Um, some of our students might get up to that above grade level or, you know, not necessarily above grade level
014always, but just above that proficiency. Maybe they're just um pushing themselves to think more independently about that or more creatively. Um, we talk a lot about depth of knowledge as we're doing these things. So, we want our students to be um working at that higher depth of knowledge. So, that's, you know, a very basic way of thinking about the proficiency scales. And now we're going to get into um what it actually looks like at each grade level or um building level I guess. So um on the screen you see some examples of from the elementary grades. On the left hand side you see the educator scale. So in the middle would be the 3.0. Like Jen said that's the language exactly from the state that matches our priority standard. The 2.0 includes some of the
015foundational skills along with the vocabulary for that standard. And then the 4.0 shows how students can go above and beyond once they master that level three. On the right hand side, you see the same standard in a studentfriendly scale. So this year you'll if you walk through any of our classrooms, you'll see these posted in most hopefully all of our classrooms. Um so that students can see where they're at at any given day. Um talking about some of the impacts that we have on teachers and students and families. Um, like Jen said, the guaranteed curriculum, it ensures consistent expectations for all the teachers. So whether your student attends Lincoln or Roosevelt or Gustner, it doesn't matter what teacher they have, we are all working from the same consistent standards. We're using the same assessments to
016gauge understanding and we're reporting in the same way. So it just provides that equity um for all buildings. It also helps um teams when they're planning and differentiating instruction. If we are looking at a group of students and analyzing their data and we're seeing that these this group of students already has mastered the 3.0 scale, how can we push them above and beyond? We go to our go to our proficiency scale to see what that 4.0 is. If we have a group of students who has not yet reach reached proficiency, we go to our scale. We look at our 2.0 and we need to see what foundational skills they may not have have mastered yet so that we can really hone those skills and then build them up to a 3.0. Um, pacing as well.
017Um, Jen talked a little bit about pacing. We have a lot of those discussions that are grade level teams about maybe one year one of the standards is challenging to that group of students and you need to take more time before they master it. It's okay if you know it's a pri um priority standard because it allows you to take a little bit more time to master that skill. Um, and allows you to to adjust pacing according to that group of students and the scale that you are or the standard that you're working on. So the impact it has on students um the proficiency scale offers transa transparency so the students can see exactly what they need to do to reach that target scale and in response to the Morzano focus modeled um teachers in
018some grade levels have started to help the students track their own growth through the scales. So, here's just a quick example of like what we're starting in some of our um grade levels is students can look at the student friendly model on one side and then there's like a graph on another and then they're able to see where they're at and they can track their own growth. And then if there's choice activities, having these scales allows the students to choose an activity that's at their own current understanding and level. And then the impact at home um when the skills are sent home or when parents look online, we're hoping that they'll be able to see what skills the student have mastered and they're able to also see what student what skills the students still need
019to work on. So when parents are looking and they're wanting to figure out a maybe a different way or a better way to help them um provide some additional support, they'll know exactly which areas need some more focus on or some more help working with them. All right. And I'll kind of echo quite a bit of what has already been said, but as far as how our priority standards were kind of came about. So each subject varies in how many North Dakota state standards that they have. So like our history classes have six. Well, all six are going to be their priority standards, whereas seventh grade English has um over 25. Well, realistically, it's hard to have that um depth that we need for all 25. So, we've identified 13 of them to say these
020are the 13 we're going to go really deep with. We touch on all the other ones, and they're it's not that they're not important, but we really want to go deeper with those 13. So, it's really been able to help with that clarity for us as teachers and even the students as well as by the end of your seventh grade year, your eighth grade year, these are the big things that you need to know to be successful in the next grade moving forward. So, very similar to what you just saw with elementary, this is one of the state standards. Um, for seventh grade, we were able to have um, a group of educators at the state level come up with our scale for us, which was really nice because then we could dig in deeper
021um, what it looked like in our classrooms in our school and for our district. So, we also have the ones that look similar to what elementary had with the blue J symbol on it and different things like that. But we also have the resource of the state math also has this and I believe they're working on other ones. Okay. Um, so we would take that and then um take our proficiency scales and then develop specific I can statements for our students which is like the example up there so they can clearly see where they're at, what we're working on and it's in that studentfriendly language. So, our teacher impact, a lot of this echoes what elementary said. Um, really helping the teachers stay focused and intentional with what the what we're teaching them, but also
022being able to go look back and say, how do we know that they have learned that? Where are they? Do we need to implement some reteing days or catch some kids up in different areas? Um, we've already seen a shift in a lot of our students. I've heard already this year kids asking like, "Okay, if I'm at a three is what's what does the four look like or um what practice do I need to do to get that?" And I think that's a testament to a lot of the other grades that have been working on it throughout the year that the kids are having that mind mind shift um mindset shift to think not necessarily, oh, I'm doing good or bad, but what can I work on to get even better and really round out
023my education? And then at home impact, very similar, hoping that they have that detailed um feedback. And we've talked in the middle school a couple times, kind of like your kid going to a wellchild visit. Doesn't mean that they're doing poorly, but hey, we got to work on XYZ just a little bit more. So that's at the middle school. >> All right. Um I've got some handouts that I'll sorry I went old school and printed some stuff, but uh Do you want me to pass them out while you're talking? >> Um, so, uh, again, I'm at Jamestown High School. Um, and at the high school level, our students are pretty ingrained in the grading system they're familiar with. Um, there's a little there's a lot of apprehension about standardsbased grading. Um, also the staff is
024wrapping their heads around it, trying to make sure that they understand it. So, they're giving a really good product to our students and nobody's getting left in the lurch. Um, to kind of give you a sense of uh where we're at with the different priority standards. Um, we started the priority standards several years ago focusing on what do we really want students to know and be able to do and how can we assess that. Um, but for in English in particular, we're on like our third iteration of these standards. Um, we had a standards revision in 2023. Same for math and science. Both of those had 2023 revisions. Um, indigenous and world languages had 2021. Uh, social studies is 2019. And so, we're working on several different kind of timelines all throughout the building going,
025how long have I had my standards to rep prioritize, refocus, and make sure that they're kind of in fighting shape when we hit go. uh on standards reference or standardsbased grading. Um so with that uh this past fall uh JPS start uh with the help of P school and whichever of our student information systems we're working with uh began the process of actually tagging standards to an assessment. Our goal last year was okay let's let's tag some to some assessments right just a few. And so our students, our teachers began the process of utilizing that portal. Um hopefully at every teacher got in there at least once to get some assessments in there that were connected to a North Dakota state standard. Um this fall our goal or uh was to create a standardsbased unit
026that we are going to deliver. I've given you an example of mine so forgive its shoddiness. Um but we took a look at what standards are there, what skills are we hitting, um any kind of assessment rubrics that are involved with that and what kind of are the ways that we're approaching that both formatively and summatively in order to get the data that we're looking for, where are we gathering this data so that there's clarity for students and as a discussion with parents in that communication piece. Um that standardbased unit is based off of the priority standards you see there for uh that one in particular is English 4. Uh as the middle school noted English we've got 17 priority standards 17 things that we said listen this is kind of non-negotiable for us in
027our building and we did have some help with the NDRAS. Um so our different departments are at different levels with how comfortable they are with this. Um, some people are full go. Let's put standards on every possible thing. Uh, and others are looking at, okay, I'm being asked to do one unit and get comfortable with one unit. And so that's kind of where they're at in that process. The PLC process is really important for us. So that we've got that horizontal alignment where doesn't matter which teacher your student has for North Dakota studies, they are all going to get these guaranteed and viable curriculum and they'll be assessed to this level and it shouldn't matter which teacher they have because there are conversations going on. Um the process has also really helped us kind of
028focus that PLC on what are the practices that are being effective and what is working for us. Um with that how does it impact collaborative planning? Well, it is a great conversation piece. It's no longer about I want to do this unit because it comes up with really cool things. Okay, what are those really cool things? All right. And let's get back to what the highquality education we expect for JHS students. Um really making sure that the units that we're using have a purpose. They're driven and they're enduring for our students so they walk out of JHS very well prepared for their future success. Um beyond that, um what is your perspective on how does this impact or you anticipate will impact students ability to take ownership of their learning and track their growth at
029the high school level? I'll be honest, that big piece I gave you with these scales is a lot. Um, and we could break it down even further. I could put 500 things in the level two that are errors for why they can't write an argumentative essay. They can't write complete sentences yet. Okay? Or whatever that may be. Um, with that I try on my individual assessments, and you can see that in the unit plan, I've got kind of these focused assessment specific rubrics that are still attached to those same standards, but they're very specific on this assessment. These are the things I'm looking for. Uh, and I found that works better for my students than looking at the whole scale and everything that's there. um with this detailed level of feedback. I've always gotten very
030appreciative parents um with the feedback. Um but I've always tried to provide a lot of feedback regardless and I think that's true of a lot of our teachers. We've tried to give that really strong feedback and we just hope that we at the high school level are not creating more apprehension for our families with this shift than clarity. Um, we really want to make sure that our stakeholders are bought in on this and understand, hey, this is what 4321 mean. And it is pretty simple to us who have been talking the language, but it can be challenging for those who intimidating for those who are used to what ABCDF meant. Um, so yeah, thank you. >> Awesome. All right. So in summary, we use our priority standards to plan lessons and scaffold our learning or
031the student learning, meaning that we kind of know where where they're at and what they need. We use it to provide feedback that's clear and actionable and to track progress for individuals and groups and to communicate with families about student growth. And I think like we said before, it really can potentially um give clarity when you look at what does that A mean? Well, instead of the A, now we can look at that three and say my student is able knows and is able to do this specifically. So that's our hope for for our students and our families. All right. Did you have any questions for us? We'll let you read those takeaways, but we've kind of stated them already. Any questions at all? >> Does the board have any questions? Jason, go ahead. >>
032Thanks all of you for your work, not only in this, but presenting this evening. Um, some of my questions were centered around Mr. McIntyre's comments on family, uh, engaging stakeholders. Um, I guess one of my concerns is and it's, you know, if if we've thought about this, but if a child is at a two, um, is the perception of an of a parent going to be that they're below average? Um, I'm just I'm just curious about how that communication is being sent. And one of my very first questions is, you know, parent teachers conferences, what are those going to look like this year? Are they going to look different maybe at some levels than before? Um, one of the kind of key mind shifts of the whole standardsbased grading movement is it's no longer norm
033based, norm based communication saying there's we need to be done with the bell curve like and so like that question about below average hopefully becomes secondary to this is the standard that we believe they need to be successful. We call it standards reference set of norms referenced. Um, but I would say that there are plenty of parents out there who probably don't quite understand that that too just means this is a skill we want to see improve. It's a targeted area of growth for this individual student. Um, and yeah, I wouldn't I'm not perhaps the person because I'm on the inside of these conversations to be able to answer, have we done enough to explain why a three is what we want and how that relates to what we used to think about grades? I
034just want to add one little thing to that and I think we're starting to talk a little bit about this at the middle school as two being the beginning level, you know, and all of our students are coming in right around that two or maybe even a one. And so, yeah, it's it's about kind of educating our our parents and our students to understand that's okay. You we've got all year to get to a three. So, that that'll be a a fun conversation. um parent teacher conferences. I think that'll look different, but um we'll get there. I don't know how that's going to last. >> Did you have a followup followup, Jason? Go ahead. Do with your followup. And then >> um are we still doing letter grades at all for this year? Is there
035a transition there? >> At the high school level, we do have uh letter grades still you still have a conventional grade. So we have what we call standards reference grading where along with that report you're getting this standardized report where you're getting your scores in relation to the standard but along with that you're having the 100 point scale that we're used to. Um there may be some teachers who are further along in that process towards that transition than others. I know that most of the people I've talked to are also using that conventional grade to move. I'm not sure what it's like at the other levels. >> Middle school, we're just we have switched to 4321. So they will not get that traditional ABCD. >> Elementary also last year we um switched to empower for
036our our grading system or reporting system. So that we used 4321 as of last year. >> Jacob, did you have something or is it Aaron? Oh, I saw a handleberry. Go ahead, Aaron. So, under the the traditional grading system, it was turn in your homework, uh, pass this test, you'll get a letter grade, and and that's how we determine um your proficiency. Um, with this, you're demonstrating a skill at a at a certain proficient level. How will that be demonstrated or how will that be assessed or is it you still going to be taking a test that or how how does that work? Uh at the high school level, we've worked to be more mindful about the assess types of assessments we're giving. Looking at is a multiple choice question the right way to deliver
037their mastery of this content or is there a better way to get to that? So a lot of it came back to yes, how do we redesign assessment to really get to what the standard is? Um and so yes, there are still conventional tests being given. There are still uh tests that you would recognize, but there are also perhaps more open-ended writing questions. There might be more performance type assessments that hopefully are getting closer to what the actual language of the standard is asking. Um and then we can have a discussion and a feedback and perhaps a feedback loop about how we are doing in relation to the standard. One of the things with standardsbased is they have to have an opportunity to kind of work back and it that kind of feels like it
038flies in the face of like test retakes and what we've thought about test retakes but going okay can you get feedback and then can you come in another time and have another opportunity to reach that proficiency level on my assessment if I've deemed you need remediation there. um we also still need time to create that sort of strategic um systematic way of doing intervention for students who are not yet at the proficient when we're getting near to the end of the year or that kind of thing. um at JMS a lot of the same but we in within our units have made sure that we have kind of those checkpoint assessments if you will of okay we've talked now for a little bit we've done some explicit teaching let's test where you're at and then
039from there we maybe would have a reteing day where maybe the kids that were at that three level get this particular um activity to work on or maybe something that's reaching towards that four and then maybe meeting with the teacher is the twos or the ones and so we can kind of get them there. Then they get their other assessment and then we would still have that summitative or that very end but we would hope that we have caught those kids. If they still didn't do well on that final assessment, we do another retach or when we cycle back through within that year because by the end of the year, we want them at that three if not sooner, but we would know, okay, we really got to check in with that kid first or
040whatever we need to do there. So, we have had we still have assessments like that, but like he was saying, they're maybe a little bit more different where it's what's your answer? Okay, now defend it. why do you think that or things like that. Um it could be written, it could be verbal, kind of depends on the subject. >> Just going to add one more thing because grades are it's a it's a big deal and it's um assessing is challenging, but one of the really nice things about um standardsbased grading and assessing is that we take some of those things like you had mentioned turning in homework. Um sometimes um that becomes a negative for kids if they don't turn it in on time. And that that's we want all of our students to be
041doing the practice and turning things in on time. But those um late assignments and things like that are the hope is they're not being reflected in the actual grade. That's more of a a conduct or a behavior piece. And so we are are also grading that end of it. And so then the grade the the three or the two is really an indication on that academic work or on that standard of their ability versus, you know, their ability to meet a deadline, you know, >> to do the work, demonstrate to do the work or doing the work. >> Yes. So I think that's one of the really great things about the the grade on a standardsbased scale because you really know that's what the student knows how what to do. So do you see this
042as a uh a cultural shift on approach in you like you mentioned turning in homework late used to you know you don't get to grade for that homework and so therefore your overall grade is going to be reduced um as a as a negative um but if they're able to demonstrate the skill at that proficiency three or four level you know how does that how does that shift in in I guess from your perspect perspective, the teachers perspective on on approach. >> Yeah, that's a that's a big question and it's partly a motivation question. How do you encourage those students to do the practice because practice is important. So, we want to figure out how to do that. Um, but it also if a student already knows how to do that and is able to
043get that three um what can we do as a teacher or as a a community to challenge them to reach beyond that? >> So, yeah. Uh, one of these things that we hope to do is move beyond compliance, right? I can do all the work. I can get it done and that keeps me in good graces. Um, we really want to be providing feedback that is, hey, you did poorly on this test and I can tell you based on the questions that you had problems with, this is where you're struggling with this. again as we're moving forward and one of the kind of last steps of any scale um being built is not the two it's actually the four uh those enrichment opportunities. What do I have for that student who doesn't need the practice
044who can move pretty quickly through that? Um, and again, that's one of those things that as we're coming to it, I think we need opportunity and time to develop some of those things going, how can I challenge that student who may not be doing the daily work, but can always grade out at proficiency or above when it comes to the thing I'm asking them to do. Uh, and then we can perhaps have a separate conversation about behavior, but it's not reflected in how I'm evaluating the quality of their work. Owen, go ahead. >> Yeah, this is really great stuff and uh I commend you all for at the different uh building levels. I know you're all jumping in with different perspectives and we realize there's different timelines on all this stuff, but um my question
045is um just kind of reading through and Tony gave really well detailed uh um uh um rubric here with words like delineate and analyze and things like that. and just wondering about the nomenclature and how uh sorry if this is thinking too far ahead but I know you're trying to get this at the at the building levels but um how we're going to kind of create continuity on getting students used to what does it mean to delineate you know what is how how do we standardize I guess the way we're measuring these standards would be Yeah, I think on that, right, you're looking at a high school level one versus a second grade one. And so, as part of our job is to make sure that if it's written this way for a teacher to
046understand, can our students understand it at their level where they're at? And if they get a word like that where it's like, all right, not everybody maybe knows that, well, it's on us to say, hey, this is what this word means and where to go from there. Um, so while they might see those different adjectives and things like that, that depth of knowledge at the different levels, if we come across kids that aren't understanding, we just explain our um, icans or our skills to our kids, put them in their language. >> That makes sense. I want to say when we as an educator as we were going through those standards we spent a lot of time talking about Bloom's Bloom's taxonomy and about like at the elementary level it might start with just identify well
047then when we go to our three and our four well how what's the next step after identify how can you analyze how can you um take things from one skill to the next or one topic to the next one content area to the next. So I mean I feel like that's all part of it is teaching kids what it means to analyze to critique all those um those verbs that go along with it. I mean, as an educator, it was very eye opening for me, too, to see, okay, I knew my standards, but I didn't really pick apart exactly the different levels that I'm being asked to do. And then seeing that vertical alignment with the other grade levels, too. >> And just one last word on the vertical alignment. Um, we cannot expect our
048parents to be experts in all these standards. We can't. Um, this is one of my classes. I have three different sets of standards, three different uh my AP classes are on totally different sets of standards than these because that's what the College Board is looking for. Um so with those uh the North Dakota state standards in particular are vertically aligned really well and so there is a progression within the standard itself of the complexity of language and I as a senior teacher oftentimes my I can statements my lesson my learning targets are just straight up the standard because I'm going you're a 12th grader we should be able to expect this because I know that our other JP professionals have done a great job of scaffolding up to that point. >> Any other questions? Oh,
049Jacob, go ahead. >> This is actually a good segue to that topic. So, Tony, you might have to step back up. Um, >> yeah, my question is, what are we doing when students aren't reaching a standard? So, this like this was very helpful for me to see it for the first time. So, as a 12th grade English teacher, you know, you have >> implement proper verbal and non-verbal communication for the task and situation. That's the standard three. >> So, if you have a senior that, let's say, just never learned the whatever the standard three was for grammar as a freshman. Yep. >> And they've gotten to your class because they've moved up. How are you as a teacher handling that? >> Okay. >> Um, I'll let you answer that first and I'll kind of build
050on that. Um I think it is a triage of skills. I'm recognizing okay what do I think is important need number one how many months do I have left and what can I work with them individually when I when we have writing days I might identify that student as I'm going to sit down and I'm going to kneel down next to that kid and we're going to talk a little bit more and I might give them an outline that I don't hand to everybody. It's a little bit of that differentiation and individualization that hopefully my numbers, the four, the three, the two, and one can kind of help me understand this is a student who's got it. I don't need to I want to give them the time they're owed, but I might need to
051spend more time to get every student to proficiency. And there might be an another way that I can challenge this student to go further without necessarily spending as much time right beside them working through the nitty-gritty. >> All right. No, thank you. Um, so I'm going to kind of follow up and segue. Um, this is more maybe Adam for you as well. um how are we as a district using these standards to think about how we are going to develop our future curriculum and even class schedule uh especially at the upper level. So I'm thinking if we're moving from middle school to high school, we've got a group of kids that are at a range of standards. If they all start pooling to a certain standard, maybe we've got a bunch of kids in math
052that are at a standard two. You know, again, you you know where I come from with this. When you get to algebra 2, you need to know how to foil that you hopefully learned in algebra 1. You can't do any of the skills unless you can foil. Um, if we have a whole group of kids, what are we doing with that kind of top, you know, that kind of situation? Um, are we asking our teachers in algebra 1 and algebra 2 to change their curriculum drastically, to change their standards? is that the potential to like craft a whole new class that's just like we have a huge group of kids that are substandard, you know, they're standard one or standard two where they should have been a three when they passed the last grade. How
053are we as a district? I mean, I think this program gives us the ability to do that and to hone in, but are we prepared as a district to do that, especially at the upper level? >> There were seven parts to your question. Yes, I agree. >> So, I'm going to I'm going to start off just with the first thing that how we're going to do it. We're going to do it together. That's the most important part of this is that we're going to do it together. Uh we're going to do it together as a board. We're going to do it together as a community. We're going to do it together as each individual PLC because we've got clear data with how to respond. Do I know exactly what that system looks like? Uh I
054have a I have a vision of what that system could look like. it looks like what you're talking about. How do we respond and intervene on the standard level? When you get to high school, that spread, and Tony, you know, could articulate this even better than I can, that spread sometimes becomes so significant that you're really challenged in an algebra 1 class or an English 4 class with all the different levels of students. But as we're building up and we've got this set of guaranteed priority standards, we should know what we're standing on from the the prior level. Um, so does that have to do with does a student rep repeat at grade level or do we have a schedule that uh supports them in getting the level of support that they need to master
055those priority standards so we know that at the next grade level they're more ready for that. Uh the other thing that I think we need to think about more holistically is just the amount of of time planning and preparing designing assessments but then also giving the level of feedback. Um you know Tony's kids get an amazing level of feedback no matter what system he is in because he really is dedicated to making sure that they have that feedback to improve. But this the idea is that we can get uh clearer we can have that progression of learning for them. So kids can take a little bit more ownership in that too uh with his feedback. But I do think we need to rethink um if you've got 150 kids, it looks different than if you
056have 22, looks different than if you have 80 in that level of feedback. So from a systems and schedule standpoint, um we're going to have to figure that out together to better align and get uh the outcomes that we want for our kids. That's the shortest way I can answer your seven-part question. >> Yeah. No, I appreciate it. That was a very long uh description and I guess you kind of hit on what my next followup and concern is is if students aren't hitting a specific standard, what are we doing if they move on? You know, if they're at a a standard two in a certain subject, um, and they never, you know, show signs of getting to a standard three, but then the next year level, so, you know, Tony's at the you usually
057was, you're all seniors, right, Tony? uh juniors and >> juniors and seniors that like are we handicapping ourselves, our students almost that they're never going to be able to get to a standard three at the final grade level because they never mess they never mastered, you know, the standard two at a lower level. >> Yeah, part of that is is system design. Uh I would say that um within a building, we're currently doing a better job of communicating that. you know, from 9th to 10th grade, those teachers work together all the time. They kind of they have an opportunity to collaborate on um a little bit more vertically. Um we probably need to do a better job from fifth to sixth grade, although there are some meetings that take place and then that transition from
0588th to 9th grade as well. But currently or in a in the prior system, uh a kid not having mastery in something that could be masked in an overall average of all of those skills when this is one very important skill that's necessary for, you know, moving from algebra 1 into algebra 2. They may have gotten a D and that was an average of all of those skills. Or they got a C and that was an average. They were really good at some and not as good at others. At least with this system, we can know what they know and can do based on the reporting that we'll have because it'll be separated out and not aggregated into one omnibus um symbol. >> I'll finish with one last comment so you won't have to answer
059any more questions, but you guys talked about your vertical integration. Um, talking to some teachers at both the middle school and high school level, I would say what is our building to building, you know, integration look like? Um, and I would encourage that we have more of that. Just based on my conversations with those teachers, we're not having that, especially the middle school to high school. Uh, that I think we need to focus on on doing that at the district level. >> I think that's fair that we know that that's an area. You know, one of the things we're concentrating on is building the foundation for this system and having um some of those conversations now are pretty important. For example, you know, we've got algebra 1 that we teach in eighth grade. We've got
060foreign language that kids are getting high school credit. And so, uh I know that that question came up. They're they're still going to have a letter grade conversion for those students, um just because of where they're at in the transcript process, too. Yep. >> Yeah. >> You know, this is recorded, right? That's >> Yeah. But no, but to your to your point, I think that we could all agree that that's that's something that we aspire to and uh need to put some more priority on as well. >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> Yep. >> Thank you, >> Jason. Go ahead. >> Last question. On that same uh line of thinking, when we get to upper elementary or upper middle, you know, middle school or or high school, we talk about electives. Um, is there plan is
061there a plan to to work with the elective I think of CTE and all the math and science that's going on there, those types of things. Um, is that going to be in the plan also to to um reinforce what the core core teachers are doing? um is there I'm just wondering if if that's going to be a in the thought process. >> Well, so specific to CTE um a great another great board education opportunity would be Mrs. Akert talking about how um each year we get a report um on how CTE students do um in their math and ELA assessments. So last year they had a priority of how is math integrated into CTE. So, they looked at their standards and they made a a priority out of that. Um, making sure that they
062were reinforcing math instruction in all of our CTE courses. There's great opportunity when you're on a standardsbased system for uh interdisciplinary collaboration. I'm not sure if you're aware of the empower ed program at Bismar Career Academy. um and students are able to get some credit for in CTE classes for standards that they're mastering that might be in other subjects. They kind of pull that together in a in an alternative program there. Um that's one model and way of looking at it. But I think down the road the opportunity is there for kids to have demonstrate mastery of standards, you know, beyond the scope of just one uh discipline. Steve, >> I like uh what well I guess what it seems to me we're seeing for uh a clear path forward for ones and twos maybe
063more than than just the the grade levels um we're providing. But I'm I'm just kind of curious about fours. What what sort of opportunities do we have? And maybe it's different at every at elementary than it, you know, or middle school and high school, but um what are we doing with them to to provide opportunity or or push them further? >> I'll take a first crack at it, but I really want to hear from them. It's not so if uh where we're at, the elementary implemented last year. I would say that this is a year where they're working on more of those score four activities or generating ideas for how students can demonstrate that score four. So, we start with making sure that that we've got um our three-level activities and assessments aligned and then
064score four is kind of a secondary priority for us. Um, so right now, uh, what we're doing a great job of is identifying, you know, who those kids are that are mastering earlier. And I think we're, um, adding some activities in for them, but we're probably not at score four for all priority standards yet, even at elementary. Unless you guys >> Yeah, I would echo that. At the middle school, I think where we're at currently, we're really focused on our threes and then those twos. And within this year, everyone's kind of reaching and hoping to kind of, if you will, figure out their fours. We've thought of them. They're on our brain. I know there's quite a few that have played with it as far as uh maybe it's a reteing day. and the kids
065that have shown they're ready for four, they're going to build a game to go with whatever this the unit they're doing with or something like that where they're building constructing that um higher level depth of knowledge that we're looking at. But I think a lot of us too are playing with that and trying to think outside the box on what does that look like? So it's not just more work because you're doing better, but it's something that drives them forward. it's interesting to them and then also elevates their learning that much more. >> And I guess at the high school level, one of the things that I I appreciate about my subject area is I don't necessarily feel that I need to build a different assessment to evaluate a score for because there's a level
066of writing that is clear and does the job and there's a level that is subjective and gets to that artful level and that kind of thing. Um, so but I do see how sometimes there are subjects that do have a more like this is concrete. You got the answer right or wrong. So that level four needs to be something else like designing uh putting your physics uh project to use with a uh a model uh that a theoretical model that kind of tests that and demonstrates you're moving beyond the standard. um when staffing allows. We've had electives in the past that are there for those level four students. We are offering more dual credits and AP courses than we have ever done, which I do think is an opportunity for them, but it's not always
067the opportunity they're looking for. Um, but I do think as we grow the electives and specifically those disciplinary electives that are really about challenging specific things and allowing the kids to get to that deeper uh area in English or social studies or science beyond the the general science class that perhaps they've been uh allowed. Uh it's a great thing when we have the ability and the manpower to do it. Jamie, I I really love the standard based learning and I love that we can pinpoint each little thing. You know, kid might be doing great in multiplication, division, but fractions not so much. My question is though, when you have all these students with at different levels and different tiny pinpoints of each unit or or that you're teaching, do you feel you have enough time
068and support to get to each student to hit them where they need the most help in? Does that make sense what I'm saying? >> How can we better support that? >> Um, I'll just speak to the elementary examples. Like for example, we haven't even started PLC's for yet this year. Like we're going to start next week, but this week I already had a third grade team that wanted to meet because they know their first check-in is going to be on rounding and they have some kids that don't have rounding and then the next one they're already looking ahead. So we're utilizing our title one staff that's pushing in instead of pulling out and doing a separate program all day every day or the, you know, the whole ELA block. They're um targeting this the scales
069and what the students do and do not know. So there might be a group that's taking the 4.0's 0 that are ready to go above and beyond and they're doing a small group at the 4.0. The classroom teacher might have a majority of the kids that are still working at the three and then another paraprofessional or title one teacher might be taking the students that are working at the foundational skills to get them to the three. So I feel like our PLC time in in our buildings and then also the grade level team times allow us that time that we have never had in the past to be able to do that. And then um our support staff, our pair of professionals and our our title one teachers have really been a benefit to be
070a being able to hit all the different standards at all the different levels at any given time. Could we use more help? Of course, anytime. But yeah, we have a good support system now. >> I think kind of to echo that, I think if you ask any teacher, we always want more time for all the things. But um at the middle school, I know we're trying to kind of shift some of how we used to do. And so you'll see a lot more small groups or some of that where we are um being able to get kids at least if it's not one-on-one in a smaller setting to pinpoint a lot of that or cycling through them so we hit that standard multiple times a year. Um I think everyone's still playing with it and
071what's going to fit best for each classroom and each excuse me each teacher on how best to get all of your students. Um, but I see that shift happening within it. And I know like Candace said, um, with PLC's and common planning time and even team time, we're really able to share and collaborate and kind of have a feel on where all of our kids are at and who needs what supports. Along that same line, I I just want to pat Caitlyn on the back a little bit because she and her teaching partner do a lot of sharing within among or between their classrooms, too. You know, they're teaching the same thing. And so sometimes they'll see a group of students who should move over to Caitlyn's classroom and work with Caitlyn and another group
072is over with Mrs. Wel working with her. And so I think that creativity is also really commendable. Uh more time would be great, but you know 24 hours in a day is 24 hours a day in a day. Um so I yes we will always take more time. There's always things that we would love to get off our plate and like be able to focus in on these things so that every single kid is getting the support they need uh over the course of a day. 55 minutes or 42 minutes is an a finite amount of time to get all that done. Um, and but sometimes it also does come back on us and some support within our PLC to kind of embrace that instructional redesign that allows us to go I'm going to let
073this go so that I can do the stations or I can do the things that allow me that face to face and allows me the small group time that I need. So yes, we need to be more thoughtful about the way we go about things. I think people are working really hard to embrace that. But it is a mind shift for us that people are working towards and any way we could find more time would be awesome. >> Any other questions or comments from the board? Well, we'd definitely like to thank you for taking your evening and coming and sharing with us. I haven't seen this much board engagement in a really long time. So, good job. You have all of us engaged here. So, fantastic. It's really great information. and it's great information for
074our families also to hear and I know you've been doing a good job in communicating with our families, but I think there's always questions about and there there'll be more questions and so we look forward to you coming back and and continuing to share where we're where we're at. that we can certainly see a tremendous amount of work and time and effort has has gone into this and even just kind of a mind shift about how we how we view how we're grading and education and and that's that's a lot to take on on top of everything else that you're doing for us in in a day. So, thank you so much. [Applause] Moving on to our superintendent report. Dr. Thank you. You have my written report. Um I'll go through these items. The elementary
075enrollment report. Um so this is the K through five level. Uh we did talk about this somewhat you know in thinking about the transition that we would have uh moving from five sections or five buildings, seven eight sections to four buildings and seven sections. Uh, of course there's challenges along the way uh with making this transition, but I do want to recognize uh Amy Nel, Ana Curts who do our registrations. They've done just a fantastic job. the fact that we have had only a handful of questions uh and maybe Amy would say it's maybe a little bit more than a handful, but we have had the fact that we've only had the questions that we've had have really been a testament to the work that has been done to communicate where our families are being
076placed uh and how how the changes have impacted families. I think we had those questions closer to the summer and so when registration has come uh that has been as smooth as it is smoother than it really could have been anticipated. Uh and that's only because of the hard work of those two individuals. Uh and so you see our our numbers there uh at each of the levels K through five. Um I will recognize that you know with kindergarten those are even in our new reality those kindergarten numbers are a little bit lower than what we would have anticipated. Uh so this represents maybe a smaller class in that uh in that new reality of where we're at with in terms of stu student numbers. Uh and then you can see the breakdown and how
077how that works at each level. And just a reminder uh that Louis Lammore is our only single section building. So when you're looking at those numbers uh you can uh either cut those in half uh for all of the other buildings. uh for a school for the schoolboard retreat. Uh I identified three different days and and hopefully these will work and if unless there is a uh a desire to have it earlier or a little bit later, I'll send out a doodle to see if if these dates uh work for you. Uh and if you do have a topic for the school board retreat, please let Dr. Larson or myself know so we can start planning around what that board retreat agenda would look like. Uh I just wanted to pass along the next item.
078uh we did some pretty robust training. So we have some requirements for our staff to receive training on policy AAC that's non-discrimination anti-harassment. Uh and so there's regulations around uh requirements for all of our staff to be trained. Uh uh we do that for onboarding for our new staff and we've done an all staff training in the past. We felt it was so important that we wanted to bring back uh our legal counsel to provide a um training again for all of our staff. So all of our staff uh heard that same uh or a similar training again. The feedback I've received was really very positive. U staff really understanding what their responsibilities are to this policy at every level. Uh, I think Meredith did a fantastic job of providing some uh, very real examples
079and um, specifics that our staff can look to to understand what their responsibilities are under policy AAC. Additionally, we brought in uh Meredith at a different training to come and do to our school administrators to do investigations training uh specific to AAC accea, KACA and KACB. Uh we know that the investigation is a big part of that uh those policies and we wanted to make sure that we had consistency amongst our administrators on the procedures and what best practice looks like in that as well. Um later on in the agenda, you'll have strategic planning and Mr. Roberts is going to go through uh and and uh talk about what the uh committee uh is recommending for the strategic plan. Uh just a few takeaways that you can anticipate if as you've read through that already.
080Uh but just some takeaways from discussions that we had at the committee level. We really wanted to consolidate goals. You know, we thought we we like the goals that we had in the past. I think they're important, but kind of like the priority standards discussion, you can get a little um goal fatigue. And so we wanted to consolidate those uh goals to be, you know, keep our priorities and on high impact strategies. So that's one takeaway. Uh progress monitoring. Uh how we're going to do progress monitoring is only on the second u meeting of of the month. That's when we'll focus on progress monitoring. uh we wanted to simplify it and and use utilize a dashboard simplify the process so any individual whether they're a board member or a committee member could look and and
081see well how are we doing uh and that's where the dashboard that Mr. Roberts uh created last year has kind of been modified a little bit to look uh a little bit different and to help us track and be that one one place easy stop shop to see how are we doing. Uh and so that dashboard is going to help us do that. That's where we're going to start. Uh every progress monitoring is right there and we can see well where how are we doing? Did we uh is that goal yet in progress? And all of them right now are in progress. um did when we get to the progress monitoring uh dates, you know, was that goal met? Uh did we uh was it not met or did we exceed what we anticipated in
082that goal? And so people will be able to look at that. Uh along those lines, what are we using to determine progress monitoring? And those are the the metrics we we wanted to do a better job of embedding and clarifying and articulating what those metrics are. So anybody can look uh at that goal and say well these this is what is going into progress you know did we make it or did we not make it these are the metrics that we're using uh but I will say along those lines we had good conversation in our last meeting about the need to expand on those were very survey based and we want to make sure that we aren't just survey based and perceptualbased we want to uh build on those and and looking to other leading
083indicators So over the course of the next year, we're going to look at all of these goals and try to find additional metrics and leading indicators for success. You know, things like um proficiency level uh in a literacy profession literacy proficiency through grade three. Uh percentage of students in two extracurriculars or co-curriculars. Uh the percentage of families attending uh parent teacher conferences. uh the percentage of students uh in const that have reached concentrator status in in career readiness, things like that that we believe are also important metrics. Then we'll just continue to build out those uh primary and secondary metrics over the course of time. Um moving on into the the board education strategic plan progress monitoring annual plan. One other thing that was discussed at, you know, through strategic planning and you saw good
084representation of that now earlier uh in this meeting was tying board education to our progress goals uh and our progress monitoring and our and our um our strategic plan goals. And so you'll see we had in this uh you know we looking at guaranteed and viable curriculum was our board education for this meeting. So that ties directly into our progress monitoring for next uh for next meeting when we do our progress monitor monitoring. So you've had had a chance to have some capacity built in a little bit of understanding uh and then uh build to that uh you know you know how how did we achieve or or what progress have we made towards that goal. Uh and so you can see that annual plan is much more uh purposeful. Uh we I still think
085there's uh room in our in our board education to do the other things that uh that may not be directly related to our strategic plan that are still important for governance but uh the focus should be uh building our capacity as a board and as a district and as a community around what our strategic plan goals are. I wanted to point out and invite uh the sta uh the well the staff all all the community but the board as well the allied picnic the stzman county coalition is hosting their third annual allied picnic uh that'll be held in Mroy Park on September 6th at 2:00 uh and that is uh an opportunity and an event to celebrate and build networks of individuals striving for inclusivity uh in Jamestown. So, you as board members are invited,
086the community as a whole, our staff, all invited to the Allied picnic. Uh, I wanted to draw attention in my report to the angel fund. A few years ago, uh, we started our angel fund. Uh, and that supports our students and our families that exhibit the greatest need. Uh, that's primarily in the past been focused on school lunches and making sure that um, uh, unpaid balances can be supported. So, our families that need that support financially the most. Uh, but it also does other things. It supports uh two food pantries at Jamestown Public Schools. Um we have other extenduating circumstances that we support um with our families in need. And so I I get these questions a lot. You know, how can I help? Uh and so anybody that uh would like to support the
087angel fund uh could contact Christy Grounds at central office 2521950. Uh and like I said, the the angel fund goes to support those families that need additional support with school lunch. uh it supports our two food pantries and then it also supports students in various with various uh extenuating needs you know things like um you know those that are in the Blue J Academy but don't which is a online based utilizing NDC which is online based but can't don't have internet functional internet at home that might be a way for us to support those students as well so different things that the angel fund can support. Uh the last thing that I had is our spotlight for for this meeting and I want to welcome our our two new J1 stu J1 teachers uh joining
088us from the Philippines, Mrs. Pango and Mrs. Miss Watco. Uh they are both in elementary special education. Uh and we want to welcome their them to our community, but also welcome our community or thank our community for welcoming those individuals. And I want to recognize Adam Gayler uh who has done an awful lot of work in all of the things that come with bringing uh international teachers uh into our community. That's you know quite a bit of work to to get them to this point and then to um just get them ready to to teach. Uh whether it's finding a place for them to live, getting all their paperwork completed, all of that stuff that we might take for granted that takes an awful lot of time. uh Adam has taken the lead on. I
089also want to recognize uh Paula Greenike and Satie Le who are our mentors uh for those individuals. So as they get used to what special education is like in a in the United States um they they have those mentors, those people that they get to rely on every day. So I want to recognize those individuals as well. So with that I would stand for questions. >> Any questions for Dr. Lak about a superintendent report? Okay. I just had one question with the um angel fund. If someone wants to specify I want to give to the food pantry or I would like to give to other needs. Can they do that or is it all one fund? It >> it's really the angel fund is one fund that goes to support multiple things. Uh you know
090uh we have a lot of different needs and that that fund has over time depleted. We did a had a great uh a great deal of support for the angel fund uh and it was Mr. Roar who really started uh what became the angel fund uh and we had a a great deal of interest and community support around that and over time that has dwindled somewhat. Uh, and so if anybody's looking to support, 2521950 can and and talk to Christie uh if they're interested in supporting. We get those calls once a month of people that want to support >> and and thank you to our community who does support it and very much appreciated. >> Uh, great to show the numbers on the K5 enrollment. um interested in and at the middle school and high
091school level kind of where we're at relative to last year trends and things. >> Great segue to our meeting next our second meeting in September. We'll have an enrollment report for K through five for our what we call our third Friday fourth Friday report. So we're we'll have that coming up next superintendent report or it'll be it'll be in our consent agenda. Jason, >> back to the food pantries and and angel fund. Have we put together a list of like high use items like say out of the food pantry hygiene things in case you know cuz I'm assuming we don't need just monetary donations for that. If if somebody would like to donate a high you you know things that are gone right away that would be an option. Um, possibly depends on what it
092is, but just talk to the counselors at the individual buildings might be the place. And we do have the Be Unique as an example. We have the Be Unique boutique at the high school, which has clothing for students. Uh, and we that isn't included in the angel fund uh necessarily, but but that's another way that we support those families. So, really talking to a counselor would be the best place to go with that. Uh the Great Plain Great Plains Food Alliance does a they're an amazing group that is able to support at no cost most of the items in the food pantry. Every once in a while because of the high interest items, you know, things like peanut butter or or ground beef or something like that that might have a cost that they don't
093have in in the uh with the Great Plains Food Alliance when the food truck comes. Um we might have to purchase those, but it's, you know, a couple hundred dollars a year. Any other questions? Okay. If not, moving on in our agenda, we have nothing under old business, under new business, nothing under activities, buildings, grounds, curriculum, assessment, instruction or finance. Number five, operations. A approval of the 2025 to 2026 strategic plan and subsequent number one strategic plan dashboard and number two strategic plan progress monitoring and board education annual plan. Is there a motion? Motion by Steve. Is there a second? >> Second by Owen. Aaron, would you like to do some discuss start with a discussion? >> Yeah. And a lot of it I'll, you know, um reiterate what Dr. Lick has uh already stated
094and then highlight some other points here. But uh so just you know process-wise this was an update that occurred over several different meetings and several hours worth of work both uh within those meetings and then uh offline from uh the administration to support the updates and thanks to Dr. Le and and Adam for supporting that. Um so this year's uh update to the strategic plan we basically we maintain the same framework and continuing with the alignment uh to the accreditation criteria uh but applying some of that continuous improvement um you know in the course of our conversations um there was really two main themes that we that we really highlighted on and focused on and that is the uh consolidation uh of the goals as Dr. Like I had mentioned, um there was just so
095much overlap and um it wasn't really clear on on uh you know, it's just too much to to digest and so um taking advantage of that overlap and then doing that consolidation I think helps really simplify it and gives us a little better focus on on the the goals that we really want to hit on. Uh the other item was uh the uh ensuring the metrics were relevant and provided information to all the the stakeholders as far as you know what is the health of our plans and our policies and our processes. So, and that's really what we're those metrics are used to to gauge is you are we giving um you know to achieve our goals. Uh do we have the right things in place in order to get there? And if if we
096are meeting those goals, that suggests that yeah, we have a good a healthy uh organization. If we're not meeting those goals, you know, what do we need to do different? So, um getting sure making sure that those metrics are aligned and they make sense and they're relevant. Uh there was quite a bit of conversation on that and some a lot of iteration back and forth. So um and just as an example um last year, you know, we had a lot of uh inventory and subjective type metrics and it was just like what is this really doing for us? What does this mean? Well, we couldn't answer the question. So we said why are we doing it? Uh why are we measuring that? So things like that. So it helped simplify uh the metric side of
097it and make it more relevant. Um as Dr. also had mentioned uh you know this year's metrics are weighted on surveys um you know the Cogna community and staff surveys and all that. So which gives us real good perspective and gives us a pulse on how we're doing uh from the various stakeholders. Um but then we talked you know how can we balance that then with some empirical data that you know we are already collecting we already have data out there. What is it that we already are collecting? How can we use that to help us gauge the environment? Um, you know, looking at both positive and negative, you know, not just how many detentions are there in a given semester, but what other positive aspects uh that can we pull from to to help
098us give some leading indicators and not have to wait for a survey or not have to wait for an assessment and get some more real-time data. So that isn't something that's included in this update, but that's an item for again continuous improvement that we identified and said this would be helpful. How do we get there? And then u and then lastly just with the dashboard uh and board education plan just kind of getting all of these different elements aligned simplifying that communication. uh we really felt that was needed because you know getting to do a progress update on on a specific line item and you know how does that um apply in the overall context of what we're doing and I think that dashboard will give us that quick little snapshot um and then allow
099us then to drill down into the specific detail that is interesting to us at that specific meeting. So um yeah that's that's the update. So that's the culmination of the recommendation that's being put in front of you here. So >> Jamie, anything to add to that? >> Um, no. I Erin summed it up pretty pretty well. I think we have some really clear driving forces, some way to gather some data and with room for improvement in the future obviously, but um I think this also gives us this plan gives us a chance to pivot to really focus and pivot if we need to. And I think it's and appreciate the board allowing um the task force and the committee to to work on this because it and thank you to Aaron and Jamie. A lot
100of hours went into um and in meeting and and um kind of really having some deep dive discussions of you know what are we measuring what are we trying to get at and you you know well that sounds great but how are we going to measure it right and so um it it a lot of time went into it so I appreciate your your time as well and the board even allow you know allowing us to to dig into that and bring this this product back and u Mr. Gayler and um Dr. LE also um had we had them rework stuff and and bring it back, you know, and and bring it back. What else are we measuring, you know, and where what other data points do we have? So, we had them bring those
101forward as well. So, appreciate their time in this as well. Any questions from the board at this time um regarding what's in front of you, any changes you'd like to see, any tweaks, are there any um any concerns? Owen, >> one I I noted from the meeting minutes from the last one, you talked about getting different stakeholders engaged in the process uh especially our staff, our teaching staff uh and thinking about um going back to negotiations, I think that was a big um big uh issue of just new initiatives and things that might be that we might be pushing that are in support of the strategic plan but maybe counter to workloads and um expectations and things like that from the teachers. So just wondering I know I noticed that comment but uh and the
102first thing of cultural learning is increased stakeholder engagement. So I was just wondering how that um envisioning how is there a plan to get the teachers more involved I guess. Yep. And I think you notice that we we went back to some of those metrics also that we're already gathering about engagement and we're using those are built into the the measurements that we're using about that. So that is we're measuring that. So Erin, do you have more to add to that? >> Yeah. So that's what we looked at. Uh was it goal two here? Strategic focus to leadership for learning. um looking at you know ensuring that the staff are involved uh in the in the process and through committee assignments and h having their voice be heard. We talked about, you know, in the
103case where, you know, you're on a committee, you have some ideas um that aren't adopted by the committee or or move forward from the committee and how how is that dealt with and um you know, so it's it's like uh there's a metric in place to ensure that there is that um collaboration with you know, with that 60% of staff. Um and really is that's a minimum. It doesn't it can be more than that. Um but it's that that's where we kind of took that uh point and applied it to the strategic plan. Any other questions? Okay, we have a motion, a second for approval of the 2025 to 2026 strategic plan. number one subsequent um strategic plan dashboard and number two strategic plan progress monitoring and board education annual plan. Any other discussion? If
104not assuming roll call vote all those in favor say I. >> I oppose same sign. Motion approved. Moving on to nothing under personnel. Under policy and procedures we have a approval of recommended policies. There are four listed with a letter A. Do you mind if we do them all at one time? Okay. Number one, first reading of policy ABA, school district organization plan. Number two, first reading of policy ACCB, protection for student victims of sexual offenses. Number three, second read second reading of the policy ACG, child safety liaison workg groupoup and mandatory training. And number four, amended BCBA public participation at board meetings and subsequent amended BCBA- participation form. Is there a motion? Motion by Aaron, second by Steve. We have a motion and a second for approval 1 through four and letter A. Any
105discussion? Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote. All those in favor say I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. Number eight, under tuition A, approval of 2025 to 2026 tuition agreements. Number one, Montilia, number two, Yellowstone, number three, Madina, and number four, Jamestown. Is there a motion? Motion by Jamie. >> Second by Jason. We have a motion, a second for approval of the 2025 to 2026 tuition agreements number one Millar to Yellowstone 3 Madina and for Jamestown. Any discussion? If not, assuming roll call vote, all those in favor say I. >> I oppose. Same sign. Motion approved. number nothing under other items for future agenda or um retreat and we will get a probably like a doodle sent out or we might add just a couple extra dates in there and uh just seeing
106when when everybody is available over the next several months. So, um we probably won't add December 24th. So, that's as you could see it was kind of kind of balancing there. December to January. Yes, De. I know we're just starting off our year here, but um I'm sure we'd all love to hear an update when available from the Blue Jays Nest as well since that's a new program for us. >> Okay. Yep. Good idea. And there was some discussion today on um dual credits and AP um just even if you want to include it in your superintendent report just the number of students that are involved and maybe we'll get that report at the 15th meeting too with some of those numbers on um AP and dual credit the number of students participating and just
107even just include it in your superintendent report just for for our information and if it's up or down. So anything else items for future agenda? Okay. At any time, please let um myself or Dr. Luck know if you have an item for future agenda. We have some meetings to be scheduled and we have a communications meeting on Thursday, September 4th, 2025 at 4M in the district office conference room. Health insurance committee meeting on Monday, September 8th, 2025 at 3:45 p.m. in the district office conference room. Finance committee meeting on Monday, September 8th, 2025 at 5:00 pm in the central office conference room. Schoolboard meeting on Monday, September 15, 2025 at 5:30 p.m. in the Thompson Community Room. Budget hearing on Monday, September 15th, 2025 at 6 p.m. in the Thompson community room. And the health
108insurance committee might be in the multi-purpose. It is in the multi-purpose room. So, that's just a change in location for that one. And we'll note that any other meetings that we missed the committee meetings. Okay. Um if not um click on your monthly superintendent evaluation section three human resources management and section five community relations. There being no f further business before the board this meeting is adjourned. Thank you everyone. Hey,