001i have 5 15 so we will start this evening school board meeting please stand and recite the pledge with me i pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god indivisible with liberty and justice for all thank you certainly welcome many visitors that we have here tonight um i will mention that mr aaron rodgers is on the phone so he is present with the rest of the board members tonight i was in wisconsin over the weekend okay i have an excuse well aaron is a packers fan yeah okay i gotta move on all right um any uh i don't believe we have any public communication are there any uh conflict of interest that anyone noticed in the agenda okay then we'll
002move to our consent agenda this is where we consider several things but there's something specifically like to pull off and talk about we can do that if not that would indicate a motion to approve motion by roger second by dan any discussion hearing none all in favor of motion say aye opposed same sign motion carries moving down to our regular meeting items a recognition b correspondence i don't believe we have either of those item c reports is there anyone here from the student council to report tonight it's not then we move on to the superintendent reports dr nick thank you uh you have my written report i will skim through some of these areas i'm certainly available for questions on any of them however health and safety updates things continue to be uh decreasing from
003our high point uh a few weeks ago and and actually that's decreased even more early this week from the report that i gave you was from 11 10 which was our last date of school last week school calendar planning we are meeting on december 6th with our calendar committee and we're again going to be planning to recommend a two-year calendar to the board hopefully at your december meeting we'll have that completed and ready to go and just a reminder here and this is something i'll continue to bring up because the days to hours legislation was predicated on a few things and we were very happy legislatively that we were given that flexibility but our legislative intent was very clear that we don't decrease student contact days that's not the intent the intent is to provide
004flexibility for that time and just i feel like we want to continue to bring that up so we can reinforce that 175 days is still the standard that we want to meet although it's not statutory any longer but i think it's still important that as our as a board and board members change we want to continue to reinforce that that 175 day is still the legislative intent we certainly don't want to be in a position where legislators decide they want to remove that flexibility because people school districts are no longer meeting that that expectation so in terms of the superintendent evaluation i've just outlined the process for you again just to make sure that that is clear when you act on that later this wasn't a request but uh as part of study council conversations
005i was having with other superintendents in city council schools we provided i've provided for you comparison of summer school compensation just to give you a benchmark idea of where we how we benchmark ourselves to other districts and i think what you'll see is i was very pleased with that report that we compensate very well comparatively and i think that's a position that we want to continue to hold summer school is certainly a position that we want to continue to find individuals and we want to compensate well so i was happy to see that it certainly reinforced that we we compensate those positions well but we want to continue that as a also the 360 surveys yeah one of the things that we did when i came here nine years ago we put out three if
006you're not familiar with 360 surveys what they are is that they provide an opportunity to gather perceptual data for leaders to gather perceptual data from those that they supervise in a school setting of course that would be all the staff that work under a building principle that have direct connection to an administrator in the building and we've used 360s and i think the first four or five years prior to transitioning to the marzano leadership 360s we did a 360 evaluation for every building administrator in the district when we transitioned to marzano we those became options for principles and as i talked throughout the evaluative process with principles they missed that at least a lot of those a lot of them missed that feedback that they were getting from staff in their buildings and so we
007have returned the 360s we're doing them on rotations so every in in every building it's done twice every well once every three years and there's two that i use that are specifically designed for building principles it's the educational leadership profile and 21st century administrator i've linked those so you can have a chance to see what those look like so procedurally how that works is i've digitized all of these they're in survey monkeys so we send out this surveymonkey link to to principals to send out to staff staff complete they have about seven to ten days to complete those i take that information i feed it into a spreadsheet you've seen i've linked one of those examples there so you can see how that all flows out building principles have a chance to look at that
008i send out a self-reflection it's usually it's usually a very simple self-reflection but it guides discussion and so the building principle would take that compiled 360 information that self-reflection and then that would in that would be part of a larger dialogue that we would have as part of the evaluative process so a 360 is not an evaluation but it does inform the conversations that we have that inform the evaluation as well but i wanted to share that a little bit about something different that we're doing with the 360s and you can see how that all works out in the schedule the special session i provided a little bit of information to you when this when we published all the board documents i updated that earlier today once we saw a little bit more of what
009was finalized through the special session just want to touch on the bills related to education at least a little bit you know one thing i did want to reference too a great deal of appreciation for our legislators as i shared this is a very expeditious process that we went through with this special session things moved very fast and i have to say that our legislators were very responsive and i'm appreciative of that as i shared perspective on different bills and because amendments happened very quickly and so as i shared perspective they were very responsive now that doesn't mean that you know i get my way i share my my job is to share perspective it's their job to say well how does this feed into the larger picture and but i can say that in
010every in every instance i was heard and i think that's what's important but again very appreciative for for what our local legislators have done and this was a tough time to be responsive and they were very willing to do that so i appreciate it um just a few primary bills that i feel we need to talk about for you at least to be aware of very quickly 1505 was the augmented the cte match grant now to my understanding if you add up all of the requests that's around 113 million so it's not all but it added 18 million to that 70 million that was provided last session so every dollar that's added is a greater chance uh for our approv for our application to be approved so we're certainly appreciative of 1505. um 1507 a
011lot of conversation around 1507 1507 initially the initial bill had uh an articulated curriculum for cyber security k-12 which in itself is not a certainly not a bad concept it's a concept that i support the problem with 1507 is it skirted around what is typically the the process to add graduation requirements and curriculum requirements and i'm glad they did what they did it's very ambitious and i think it's something that schools and the department of public instruction needs to consider long term a bill in special session probably wasn't the way to do it you want to make sure that there's a good dialogue there's debate that these decisions have huge ramifications schools have to have the capacity to implement and this did not do that and so essentially the bill was amended out to say
012that we need to study it and there needs to be a plan in place so this can be done as any graduation requirement would be done i think what's challenging about a bill like 1507 is the concept itself is good and it's someplace we need to go we need to have additional focus on cyber security and coding that's i don't think you'd find a lot of educators i would say that isn't the case but we want to make sure that it's done that there's capacity for our teachers to be able to do it and that if it's added as a graduation requirement there's an ability to implement that it certainly looks different in jamestown than it would look in granora where staffing may not exist to immediately implement something like this we could have made
013it work but there's a lot of schools that are smaller that don't have the same capacity and so 15 that's 1507. outside of well 1508 and 1511 are the two topics or the culmination of two topics that had an awful lot of interest in the special session that's relates to 15 1508 relates to critical race theory 1511 relates to vaccination requirements uh in terms of critical race theory um there were quite a few bills but only one came out of the delayed bills committee related to critical race theory and i think what's the most important to note about 1508 is it's extremely specific and it defines uh what critical race theory is how it's and how 1508 is to be defined and considered okay so what it says is the bill states that each school
014district and public schools shall ensure instruction of its curriculum is factual objective and aligned to k-12 state content standards you've already seen through a couple pieces of board education earlier this year that that is what we do and that's what every school does to some degree they may not have the same processes that we have but they do the same thing you heard from the department of public instruction that talked about how those content standards are created and the level of input that various stakeholders have in the process and so i i think that that piece is i think very clear the second piece that's pretty clear is it prohibits the use of critical race theory and what i think is important it codifies the the definition of critical race theory and it's very specific
015it states that uh that the definition that's prohibited is that it's a theory that racism is not merely the product of learned individual bias or prejudice but that racism is systemically embedded in american society in the american legal system to facili to facilitate racial inequality so that's what is prohibited that definition is prohibited what i think is also really important uh is that what does this not mean so the passage of 1508 so it's already been signed it's already enacted it's essentially has an emergency implementation so what it doesn't mean it does not mean that school districts and schools are unable to teach about equity discrimination civil rights it does not mean that we we can continue to do that those are important conversations equity is a important conversation that needs to continue to happen
016uh through jamestown public schools and every other school district in north dakota and across the country so we're going to continue to provide that have those conversations uh it specifically prohibits the use of critical race theory so really if you consider that in the process that we've outlined with through board education with the development of state standards and the the process we use to turn those state standards into lessons and support we really can expect no impact on the curriculum at gps with the passage of this bill but it would certainly stand for questions if there are in 1508 or critical race theory um so since it's since it's a very specific definition will this change or should it maybe change how we're reviewing curriculum when we're you know looking at new textbooks um i
017i guess i can just see some some curriculum that we might be able to use not quite having that specific of a definition so i'm just thinking is it should we maybe reevaluate the tools we're using because of this when we're reviewing that specific curriculum or textbooks i think the law is going to certainly have to inform the process that we use uh but um like i said the district isn't going to stop teaching about equity or discrimination will this new uh definition inform us in the process and make sure i think we want to make sure that we're following state law but there's not a lot of textbooks that are going to come out you know with that particular definition that's a not appropriate um at the at the secondary school level will the
018school board association recommend a policy to any of this or no probably not i don't believe they will the bill does allow for the department of public instruction if necessary to write administrative regulations and so that's what we would follow if they would write administrative regulations there may be a corresponding policy to that but i think at this point you're there isn't a policy that would need adoption at this point you know if the school boards association feels it is necessary they would likely communicate that in the near future 1511 is just relates to vaccination requirements and it's not just for schools but schools are under that umbrella of who would be impacted it really it basically states that we treat the covet 19 vaccine like we do other exemptions that we allow for other
019exemptions and we can't require them without allowance of an exemption for for enrollment in public school those exemptions already include which are very broad actually north dakota is one of the most broad in terms of vaccination exemptions but it's medical religious philosophical and moral objections you simply have to complete a form that that outlines one of those four exemption areas and i don't have an updated i don't have a link there because it's still pretty fresh it's not there yet is it there now oh okay yeah the um the last one that i outlined is is 2346 and that just is the codifying the 88 per pupil for the stars rebuild that we've talked about previously that you already knew was coming the last piece from my report facility project updates as we talked as
020a facility committee we felt we wanted to take a little more time with the board to outline timelines the specific projects that are taking place through some of these esser dollars that have flowed through the district and like i said the timelines there's a lot of different moving parts with the different projects for a few different reasons the high school projects for the most part are relatively straight straightforward um there's a little bit of concern related to the the prefabricated metal building and making sure that it's here in time typically the turnaround for that would be weeks and now you're looking at months and so it could be quite a while before we actually get that building so it can so the installation process can start so that's something we're concerned about but in terms
021of price price we have a hard limit uh on the cost there so that's one of the few areas what we have kind of a finite cost that we're planning around there's a lot of variability in the other projects due to you know we are only so far in the design process so there's a little limitation there uh but the high school projects like i said are relatively straightforward we know that we've committed 850 thousand dollars to the the health and wellness uh added that facility and we have devoted i think it's 550 000 in the capital projects plan to roofing at the high school one thing that's good to know is that our estimates have come in quite a bit lower we just got that today for our roofing and so there would likely
022be about two hundred thousand dollars that were that was devoted to roofs that could be used for some of these other projects so like i said that's that was just today usually you don't get that information but based on what we have in place that's what we got back from tecta gustner it gets a little bit more complicated the middle school it gets even more complicated because of design so in terms of gustner that's a full hvac replacement there's a lot of cost variability there there's a few different factors that play into that for one there's ventilation tunnels in that building that was that building was built in the era in which ventilation tunnels were used uh why that ever was a a fad i'm not sure but there are that's how we move air
023in that building and so we have to transition that from the tunnels to duct works within the within the tunnels cost variability there there's aging boiler boiler systems which we all know about those are from 1960 i believe and the other piece of that is as the building was built in sections some of the building is hot water heat some of it is steam and so that has to be re-engineered as well so all of that design difference has variable cost so we're not sure if that's going to be you know 1.2 million or 2.1 million so there's variability there and we aren't going to know that until we get further in design in the middle school there's even more cost variability i call that i call the hvac replacement that we're doing at the
024middle school kind of frankensteining the whole facility because these are all different sec different systems within uh that have been designed to work together and so when you when we're talking about you know remodeling changing those systems there really isn't an idea of what that cost is going to be it's going to end up being how much can we get done with the amount of money that we have available we have our wish lists of things to do but that may not mean that we can do everything for our projected price point so that means that we have to start looking at other projects within this whole group that might mean maybe that 200 000 from roofing is enough to kind of even things out maybe there's part of the windows that we're looking at
025looking at replacements that's the other part of the middle school project is replacing windows maybe we can only afford to do half of those because we want to prioritize the hvac and maybe we're really lucky and it's not as much as we thought and then there's some ability to devote some of those dollars to other projects the reality is that's probably not going to be the case we're probably going to be looking to see what can we do for the amount of dollars that we have as opposed to the other way around but those are really the big projects that will come from the high school from guster elementary and from the middle school so big picture health and wellness edition roofing some i think it's three sections at the high school of roof full
026hvac replacement at guster elementary hvac replacement at the middle school windows window replacement at the middle school so those are the big rocks uh there are timelines and i've attached those timelines uh they've been previously shared we've asked we've talked to consolidated and they're actually going to add some highlights in there as well because there's some big board action related items that are going to be coming up and we wanted to highlight those in these schedules so board members could look and say okay that's right we're going to have a guaranteed price conversation in february for this project these are going to be probably bid out in three different installments we do that for a few different reasons price control i already mentioned that the prefabricated metal building we want to make sure that that
027comes on time so we might have to bid that earlier than other projects we want to make sure that subcontractors can that we have adequate coverage for what we need but that they're not overextended but we also want to encourage our subs to have a project that they could bid to as well so there's a lot of different factors so there'll probably be at least three multi multiple alternatives so lots of things happening with the projects but that's why i think these timelines are important so we make sure that as a board you're understanding when things are going to happen and when you have requirements from a board perspective jason did i miss anything diane i miss anything i do want to compliment mike on how on top of this project he is and how
028well yeah how well he um you know described us what is happening it was very clear to follow and very um very much on top of the situation which i really appreciated thursday mike was here with the engineers and the architects and they spent the day in jamestown looking at all the sites the high school the guster and the middle school so yeah mike and mike loved them so he did a great job that's the first step in the design process to get a get a sense on what our cost is actually going to be so the last thing that i had unless there's any questions is just that i would like the board to consider a board retreat on january 3rd my thought was that we would do a board education activity so that
029would help inform me on what information you would like for us to plan for the next year around the areas of board education and so i have an activity that i've created that i would guide you through and then of course any other areas that the board felt they would like to discuss at a retreat as well so with that i'd stand for questions hey hi nathan great just a couple of things that you're describing the gustner multi system of different types of hvac is is the goal to get it like just upgrading what's there just getting it kind of all in one system is my first question and then secondly i think everyone is doing a great job the committee central office and and consolidate construction on you know we have this money and
030really getting every getting our bang for our buck i guess you could say for trying to stretch that money out as much as we can and getting the upgrades that we've our district has needed for for many many years that have we've not been able to afford so are we doing any are you taking donations like adopt a window or i mean what are other things as long as we have everything opened up for things it feels like we really want to get as much done as we can in there yeah so good questions um i think there's two important pieces to think about when we're looking at these dollars one is we want to be congruent with what the esser expenditures were designed around that's not a requirement we know what we're doing we're
031claiming um through the application and then we're flowing through general funds we don't have to we could do something different however i think we should i think there's an obligation ethically to be congruent with what the those dollars are designed for if you look at the projects that are actually utilizing esser dollars not all of these are you know the health and wellness center that's not an area that's specifically uh designed for esser dollars but it's a large project that we're doing involved here but they're all congruent with you know improving air quality um so i think that's an important piece uh the other important piece i think of this is that you know i've said this before it's those these these are generational funds at least we hope they are and that we want
032to make sure that we're making decisions that address short-term needs but are but have long-term implications and i think all of these projects do that they help us to clip the peak on our capital projects plan and now i've already forgotten your first question the gustner the multi system are we just upgrading each system or are they just trying to get it onto one kind of uniform system the plan is to design a uniform system so it would be you know moving all of that into hot water would be that it would be the i'm sure that's that that's the intent maybe in the design process they'll they'll have options for us and say well you could spend 2.5 million and do it this way or 1.3 and do it this way and then we
033get it then there's the decision to make but i think what makes the most sense is to have it uniform if that's cost effective to do that any other questions thank you okay um just a couple with that a cyber security bill since we have a class already that deals with personal finance will it give hopefully that flexibility to incorporate into a course we already have and meet that requirement so we aren't messing with a lot of four-year plans that and then the other question was i i assume that we'll still allow some flexibility with storm days with that requirement should we have a 2009 winter or something of that nature god forbid it's not something i want i'd like to have a winter like that the last one right yeah i think i think
034we all would the um so in terms of the cyber security that bill was amended into essentially a study that has a long implementation window so in the next legislative session all of those points would be hammered out and my uh you know it went through a lot of different iterations and it's hard for me to remember which was which and what happened at what time because it there was a lot of different things happening but initially it was a course then it could have been a unit then it then um now it's where it stands which in my opinion it should be it should have a dialogue from teachers and building principals and superintendents parents anybody the same legislative process that happens for any other requirement related to your question on on storm days
035uh yes we have flexibility to continue to do that and that's what it's intended for legislators wanted that flexibility and that's what we testified on as we wanted that flexibility to make sure that we're maximizing as a school district we already go longer we have more hours than than what's required and it's significantly so and that's how we are able to do our early or late starts that's how we're able to do a early release on the last day of school you know those kinds of things that flexibility is allowed in there and if we had a storm day or a late start we would be able to maximize that that time now we still have storm days and the process for that is we had in the past had a grace day we still
036honor it that grace day but it's still the intention and we have storm days for a reason so you know we want to make sure that kids are in are in school and that they're learning so we still do utilize those storm days but but we do take advantage of that grace time as well for at least for one day and like late starts if we have to do that or an early release time we would still use that flexibility as long as we don't dip under those requirements but we're nowhere near that because you know we're a half an hour over every day it's the equivalent of about 13 school days any other questions thank you for that report item d is our board education and we have contextual competency the sel at secondary
037level and adam gaylor is here and also ryan hardy to share some good information for us so as they come up the this uh has been improved throughout the day as well and so i got some resources uh from mr hardy earlier today and i linked those and then we have a presentation that's also linked uh here and they'll that they'll give but it's you can't access it and i know you probably haven't had a chance to look at it before now but it is in your file all right thank you guys for first of all for inviting us along to talk to about what we feel is very important part of education you know math and reading and science is very important but the social emotional learning that takes place in our building is
038probably just as important if not in my opinion more important at times um so we have a little uh presentation we're talking about what we do in our buildings at the secondary level um but before we get started one of the first things we've got little videos around and to the screen and direct your attention [Music] social emotional skills are the essential skills for success in school work and life social emotional learning centers their mind and body it reduces their emotional tension so they can be open to new content and material we find that academic outcomes increase exponentially when students are nurtured loved and cared for that we get much more out of them when we first address social emotional needs so for us it's actually an academic intervention and not just an emotional one
039if we expect students to be college and career ready it's important for us to focus on these skills and competencies self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills and responsible decision-making [Music] is the ability to identify your emotions to be able to tie thoughts and feelings to behaviors we find that self-awareness is one of the hardest things for young people being aware of their own body space and the impact of their words and emotions on other people so a lot of work we do is reflective through conflict mediation through circles through journaling having them see their own impact on the world and then how to shift that or make a different choice next time self-management is the ability to self-motivate to have self-control to regulate one's emotions in the classroom that may be a breathing exercise or
040that might be counting five or taking a break so with students who don't really know how to deal with their anger or don't really know how to resolve conflict we're giving them a tool that helps them deal with it in a less stressful way social awareness is about embracing diversity showing empathy for others activities might include service learning projects addressing social justice issues role-playing is a great opportunity for students to address how a person might have felt in a conflict on the on the playground we're going to see if other people have had some of the very same experiences around bullying that we've had you're in my boat if you have a bully now wow i see a lot of people relationship skills are important in project based learning it's the ability to work cooperatively
041with someone to resolve conflict it's the one skill you need your whole life you may not need calculus tomorrow but you have to know how to work in relationship whether it's for a co-worker or a life partner you have to know how to handle conflict and how to handle challenges sometimes at mises money would come over and like just start talking about us and saying mean things is it your job to make denae's job at school hard no i know it's a form of bullying and sometimes i'll say sorry to her so you choose to be someone's ally and make a better choice responsible decision making is considering the well-being for self and others it's evaluating the consequences for various behaviors or actions we do this through shared agreements one-to-one problem solving or having students
042debate an issue if you were like hey what can i uh how much does an a cost in this class and you like took out your wallet and you know and i was like i think 50 bucks would work which one of us would be corrupt in that case you're the one that's asking for the money we're truly teaching these students to be productive citizens we're teaching them life skills we're teaching them how to problem solve effectively we're teaching them how to be resilient i think of all the billions of dollars we've spent on title one and all these intervention programs and and when all is said and done what do we have to show for it i think we're you know we're trying to teach technical things instead of devoting some of the resources
043to teach who you are as a person once you know who you are then learning becomes exciting because you've already established a discipline [Music] it's important for teachers and principals to understand that it can be a binder off the shelf it can't be something that happens from 2 15 to 4 30 on tuesdays and thursdays it has to be part of the school culture giving teachers flexibility giving them a range of skills giving them different ways that it can look and allow them to take their own personality and match that to what they want in their classroom has been the best way to get authentic true practice if we continue to do what we've always done we're always going to get what we always got is that good enough i don't think it's good enough
044for the 21st century we need to be the outliers to try things that have never been tried and see if they work [Music] what are we waiting for [Music] so that video we started with that video because it's going to touch a little bit touch a little bit what we're going to talk about that's happening in our buildings from the competencies to what we're trying to do the culture we're trying to build and how we're supposed we're trying to positively effect our affect our students each and every day as you can see on the slide the goal of stl and schools support the whole child create that positive environment where kids and adults thrive and work together in harmony towards a common goal um the any whether it's seven mindsets which i'll talk about or
045second step which we also have here at the middle school or newsela at the high school um they're all research based curriculum that we're utilizing in our schools and they're they're based on the castle competencies you can see up there and that they talked about that in the video self-management self-awareness um decision making relationship skills and social awareness so all those competencies are what is based on our curriculum are using within our schools at this time so at the middle school our tier one um uh social emotional learning that we're using uh we have seven mindsets second step classroom guidance when our counselors are going into every uh every grade level and and doing different units and then also our health class we have seventh and eighth grade health they have it quarterly two quarters
046a year uh the other two quarters are in phi ed one year though when they're in the middle school it's more the physical side of things but then the second year is all strictly socially emotional so they're getting quite a bit of that in health class as well tier two our counselors do small groups whether it be why try groups or families living in separate settings groups homework help groups things like that and then also into just weekly individual counseling sessions with those students that we know need that support that additional support they may not have it at home and we're here for them and then the tier three is something we started this year and that's the village therapy service we're contracted through the village and i'll discuss that a little bit more as
047we go on but those are the three different tiers and the support we're providing our students right now for social emotional learning so seven mindsets a little about that we've started that oh four or five years ago i think as was um uh there's ten targets of social emotional learning competencies for students five of those um where the the castle ones um that we discussed earlier but they also added resilience growth mindset uh empathy culture competence and hope okay those those are all part of the seven mindsets during their research for the seven mindsets they identified 28 common characteristics of happiness and achievement and those are the building blocks for the seven mindsets curriculum those are all used so each each mindset will have about four of those characteristics built within it so what are
048the mindsets that we cover everything is possible passion first we are connected accountable attitude of gratitude live to give and the time is now and then before i move on to the second step seven mindsets we've had here for a while we what we teach we teach it in either prime time a home room for those that aren't familiar or j time which is the last 20 minutes where they come back together um a couple days a week there's lessons that come with this they have video up-to-date videos and it really spurs discussion the students and the teachers are watching a video and there's guiding discussion questions to go along with it and just carry that conversation and then the nice thing is just when you see a different language that you can use throughout
049the district or out the school i know it even carries up to high school sometimes some of the common language so that's the way we incorporate seven mindsets into our building and just getting that information out in front of our children having those discussions for example we every day we do announcements i get an email every day with a morning mindset and we read that before announcements and just really get kids talking and thinking and living it second step is something we just introduced in our on our uh school this year the second step has been down in the elementary i don't know for a couple years now a few years um and our counselors were looking for another way to reach our kids and provide support to our kids as we're seeing more social
050emotional needs coming into the building so our counselors took this on upon themselves to integrate second step into sixth grade classrooms so one time per week they go into sixth grade classrooms and i you know and do a wonderful job it's similar to seven mindsets just some more speaking different speaking points you can see there's four units up on the board that they cover mindsets and goals recognizing bullying and harassment thoughts emotions and decisions and the other unit last unit is managing relationships and social conflict what they like about this is it once again the lessons are put together for them they're interactive they're up and moving they're collaborative the kids are engaged it's not a sit and get and they've had some very good discussions in the sixth grade classroom and they truly enjoy
051this and i should back up a lot of this information that i'm giving i'm not going to take full credit for i relied on my counseling staff to provide a lot of this stuff too um because they're they're in the thick of it um and they're doing a fantastic job so i want to thank them for this as well um now on to the gms village therapy service which we just started this year we get a counselor that comes from out of town on thursday so one day per week however if we don't have school on thursday they this counselor has been awesome they adjust and they come to a different day to our building so we make sure we get them one day per week our counselors currently see in 10 students either weekly
052or bi-weekly they see roughly seven kids per day when they're here now if they have an intake meeting that may adjust the schedule a little bit it takes eats up a chunk of their time but on a day where they don't have an intake mean they're seeing about seven kids a day we we currently have eight students on a wait list so right now our counselor doesn't have time to meet with these students we'll see these students these eight students will get a chance if and when the current students are dismissed however unfortunately there's not any immediate plans to dismiss any students they're already seeing so we're concerned that the waitlist will just continue to grow just due to lack of time um overall the process has been smooth and very successful um we we
053didn't know what to expect and we you know it's it's something that it's gone great families have been open and receptive you know that's one thing you worry about are they going to come in they can do the paperwork or they can do the intake that hasn't been a deterrence at all families are coming in they're they're happy that we're able to help provide support within the school building because you may or may not know trying to get help outside the schools if even more difficult but overall it's been great to have opportunities and my hope is we can continue to grow as we see the need and the success that it's showing right now now i can sit back and relax all year sure okay thanks ryan so ryan set things up pretty well
054i'm just going to go through my chunk fairly quickly we were doing seven mindsets for quite a while this year we made a switch to a resource called newsela or new zla that's a combination of literacy strategy and our social emotional piece i'll talk a little bit more about that that's in our advisory which traditionally was five days a week and now is one day a week last year we did not have advisory at all and we were instead kind of embedding more of those relationship touch points into our block classes that we had so we've done a few different things with that we're evaluating the success of those and our site-based leadership team gets gives us feedback on that advisory content so it's a work in progress i guess i could say for this
055year but i'll talk more about that the other thing that we're currently doing with our cte classes is we're working on career ready practices so when you look at those five castle elements nobody can look at those and say you know i wouldn't want those people you know working with me at bank forward if they possess those skills or uj or collins these are just universal skills that kids develop and mature and need to practice and so we try to do that in all of our courses but specifically right now in our cte courses those teachers are wrestling with a requirement from the state that's a good thing it's just something new to us to give students feedback on those career-ready practices and the state picked five of those for them to start with and
056so if students are in a cte class by the end of the semester we'll have given them some feedback according to those career-ready practices at least one time this semester and we hope to increase that then in second semester it's actually an add-on in powerschool so we're kind of excited about that as an opportunity to help inform students practice and give them instruction in some of those social emotional skills but in with more of a career focus to it we also have our consistent behavior expectations and we piggybacked off the middle school in setting those expectations a few years ago we use those to help coach and guide students in those relationship skills and self-management our health class also has a social emotional focus and that's a requirement for graduation and then we have individual
057counseling services and as well as classroom guidance like the middle school does at tier two we have a mixture of small group and i'll talk a little bit about that and some and then a lot of individualized counseling services as i'm sure you know gail can empathize with uh and then we this year we changed our discipline matrix to our discipline and problem solving matrix and what that what we've done with that is it's always been a conversation an educational piece there are consequences and the consequences are largely all the same it's just in addition to that we want to do additional problem solving so that that and i think that's true across all levels that that we're educating them on how we want to see things done for them and for their success we
058also use the village for uh tier three intervention we have lots of students as well as the middle schools that have ieps with specific social emotional skills we've started this year a check and connect program which is a research based program and then we collaborate on the other end of the continuum too with juvenile court and some outside support services for some of our students at that tier three level uh so we've been using news ela which is a literacy-based program that has a social emotional component so here's just a quick example and again like ryan said a lot of what these resources we're pulling from are because we have great people that are you know behind this work caroline thompson is the one that picks some of the articles each week and makes sure
059that teachers are up on how to get those out to students in advisory and guiding them in that process and our counselors helped put together a lot of this information for you guys tonight as well but this is an example just talking about grit resilience and an article that students would read and be able to interact with this new zealand resource also follows the castle framework so those five competencies are embedded in all throughout their social emotional articles that they have access to they're all engaging in high interest for teens it actually has an algorithm that adapts the reading level for students so based on the comprehension kind of questions that they have over time it's not like it instantly happens but it the students have to log into the platform and it does adjust
060it so that all students are getting the same content it just adapts to their reading level and it's kind of in that zone of proximal development so what we what i'm trying to say is just i'm maybe going to challenge them a little bit but not so much that they're at a frustrational level when they're reading it so we also several years ago did sources of strength training and that's a message that's remained consistent and a value we have as a school when we picking these resources we want things that are going to spread messages of hope strength and resilience not things that are you know sad and shocking and that sort of thing we're trying to stay with that positive inspiring standpoint this is aligned with our alert see goal and it's easy to
061sync with our schoology classes and distribute that info to our students since this school year started we've got about 2500 articles that have been read during advisory so that's gives us at least a little bit of a metric of how we're doing with that and um you know in addition we can see some data around literacy with that same component this is also a resource that's available in some of our content areas as well with ela science and social studies our counselors did a great job this fall through advisory and gathering some student data we had about 481 responses and a lot of different challenges that were identified from that student survey just to kind of synthesize it down uh areas that we want to focus on first 41.2 percent of students indicated some some
062level of anxiety 41.4 indicated self-confidence issues with self-confidence academic areas that the counseling team would like to address is time management and then study skills as well so with that our counselors are working on and developing some programs right now they're starting with our blue jay academy which they've got some lessons ready to roll even this week and one of our special education classrooms to get some of that small group classroom guidance out there and then also based on that needs assessment that they pulled they're looking at a couple other evidence-based programs i've recently passed on a recommendation for yoga ed which is actually a mindfulness and physical education kind of opportunity that we'd be kind of excited to pilot and get some training in and then our sources of strength program is something that
063we're trying to get revived again as well with the counseling support check and connect is a tier three intervention so if when we talk about those tiers hopefully you guys know what we're talking about eighty percent or all students in tier one this is what all kids get and then about 15 percent of students tier two this is what they get and then about five percent of students um at tier three this is what they might receive for services so check and connect is a research based intervention uh we had a training this summer we actually funded that through a special education grant and heidi bedeau was a great support in getting that going for us we trained ten mentors this summer of those ten we have four actively engaged we're waiting on six families
064that we haven't gotten the permission form and that full process done so like ryan mentioned sometimes that intake process can be the obstacle we're trying to figure out how to overcome that they actually uh mindy schonberg one of our counselors is working on a partnership with uj to try to get more mentors trained um the challenge with this program is this is not an overnight success kind of program this is a two or three year relationship of checking in on a weekly basis and helping students set goals and very well researched and very successful program takes a lot of fidelity and commitment and we're hoping to that that partnership with uj will help us be able to expand that as well the other thing that we're working on again related to uh some special education
065funds is called e-whims it's a early warning intervention management system another acronym for us and ewims is basically an early warning system so that we know how to catch kids before they're struggling too much and high school with the with the credit bearing nature things can snowball fairly quickly on a student if they're struggling we want to be able to use the best data that we can to make sure we're intervening with students so for check and connect we started because it's a two to three year program we started just looking at freshmen and sophomores in assigning the students with the highest need in that area the village we also are one day per week and it's also on thursdays we have a different counselor that comes in for that it's going very well we
066it wasn't hard for us to identify students we identified about 40 that would benefit from that at this time we prioritized from that original list of 40 and then prioritized 19 students that have been referred 12 are in and then with three of those referrals just happening in the last week and so that again that intake process but once they've started that they're seeing around the same seven eight students a day and we found that some of our students were all that were recommended were already receiving outside counseling services so that's good news and they've got those providers lined up and they're not going to you know step on each other and double up on on therapy services so i guess to kind of wrap it up before we answer any questions you might have
067these are skills that i think we could all agree that we want for our kids and our future citizens to have in their lives and in their livelihoods and in future employment and they're things that we know we need to talk about with students and practice and we're trying to get better at that every day okay thank you any questions gail um just a little bit how are you how were the mentors chosen are they looking for someone you know i really think check and connect is a wonderful program and the the fact that you can do it with fidelity is also something that's wonderful so how are those mentors chosen so that they'll have that fidelity and then so that ability to maintain that relationship it was a special end ed grant that funded
068that so we trained all of our special ed strategists case managers and then counselors this year our goal and a couple from blue jay academy our goal was not so much that they would be consistent mentors in the future but they are the points of contact that are closest to kids that could help make referrals for the future we also chose people who did not have the responsibility of an advisory and so if they didn't have an advisory responsibility they had a mentoring responsibility and just from an equity standpoint with that so and the other reason you know we were capped at 15 we collaborated with valley city who sent some people over so 10 was the magic number for this year um and we think we can get that those resources lined up again
069so that we could train potentially people from the community uh or you know maybe future educators from university of jamestown awesome awesome yeah just to add um something i'm so passionate about this just really thank you and thank all your counseling staff and your teachers and everyone who's come together for this it just makes my heart yes kind of sore thank you roger i got two questions one for ryan and then one for adam there on for uh adam first the village family counselors you know you say they're there if there's kids that are dealing with a counselor outside the school system is there a collaboration or communication between those two counselors so if a child is getting help outside the system does that counselor that's coming to the school know what's going on outside
070no that that's completely separate be completely separate but our counselors often do have a release of information and are able to coordinate and understand the services that are happening outside of school they can't get you know we're not getting any level of detail that we don't need to know we're just seeing how we can support and maybe reinforce some of the same coping strategies or strategies that they're using in therapy in the school environment okay so a lot of times we get that info through those releases and as part of the process for with the village then that's the same process they're external providers so we have to have a release of information to exchange any info if the families are comfortable with that okay and then ryan with the the eight that are on
071a waiting list is there communication with our counselors with those kids on a regular basis to so that they're not on an island by themselves yeah yeah they they try to meet with them as much as they can to their abilities sometimes they keep they don't have the looks like they're pay graded per se i guess to provide the proper support the kids need we support the best of our ability within the building um and that's why they're on the waiting list to hopefully meet with that clinical counselor whenever when a spot opens up yep um but they like uh adam said between the village culture and our council there's constant communication uh they're holding meetings um whenever possible just to get feedback for so we're on the same page and using the same language
072and same like absolute coping strategies we've got diane and heidi and dan i just wanted to thank you for coming in and giving us some of the best board education that we could have and also it's going out to the public and i think a lot of our public isn't aware of how involved you are with this social emotional education so thank you for coming and i did learn quite a bit one thing i wanted to ask about the tier three i could see what mr hardy's concern is is that waiting with lists will keep growing as these students aren't dismissed by group therapy or by village therapy do you know if they're intending to expand across the state or can we tap into another service that provides this same type of thing because i
073can see that things aren't going to get any better as these kids move on and they need this help instead of being on a waiting list they need this help so um what can we do about those waiting lists well one thing is that in gale noise it's not just villages it's statewide it's community wide that just providers not enough providers not enough time as far as when it comes to village if we can somehow be creative with what we do and and find funding to help support more days the council i know our council would love to be here more often it's just a matter of what what can we do as a school district to provide in a community to provide support for our students yeah and i can add to that too
074you know initially we started with the village family services as part of our esser our learning loss plan and we picked a dollar amount that dollar amount gave us provided us three days if we had been able to find a counselor that was uh local we would have had four days with that with that amount uh we pay some for travel and and and those kinds of things but it really that just comes down to a funding level support so i think fifteen thousand dollars uh per day commitment uh but then that additional travel time now uh because we don't have providers accessible in town which i think is part of the other conversation that we're having but but uh but yeah that's it's really about a funding commitment and this was where we started
075i would just add that right now too i mean the counseling profession is seeing many of the same issues the teaching profession is they're very short a lot of people are leaving the profession because of stress money issues there's not a lot of difference in that that's why it becomes really hard as a school counselor to provide even referrals out like you said it isn't uncommon to have many many weeks out or kids who are released from prairie who need counseling in their several weeks between some of those services starting that's not at all unusual so they're seeing some of those same strains um you know people go and spend they're not getting enough return you know counselors are paid really poorly in the state too and if we're going to have if we're going
076to if we value that service we're going to have to reward it that's just the way it is okay hi even dan thank you for coming today and and i i think um some of the numbers probably aren't surprising to anyone it's not any different across you know in our other areas um obviously i think the numbers you shared and the waiting list caught the board's attention of course um and with the questions surrounding it what is the role of the south central human service center and then the needs of these students how does that can you tell me how that all fits together because we you know we've taken hired our three day week right as a one middle school one high school one the village yep grade school so we we've you know
077brought on those services for the students what is the role of the south central human service center and the services they provide i guess i can't the counseling department do a better job explaining it but my understanding it comes down to time and space for kids to get people to get support but like i said gail might be able to answer that one a little better than i can yeah having still just done this up until this year to the other things the human service center role changed dramatically from what it used to be everyone could get services there then they became more of uh just a crisis they do intake and then from that intake they might be referred out to other places in the community and it's more income based people who can't
078access services in other ways than are seen by the human service center so that rule changed i would think it was about i was still at the high school when that role started to change but they do more intake and then for people who don't have access to other forms of insurance or other kinds of things because they're they're just like us they're they they had much more need than they had time and people to meet those needs and that's just if you're thinking of becoming a counselor please it's most wonderful rewarding profession but we need more of them um yeah i could it became you know trying to find those services is really difficult and i know our school counselors will spend hours on the phone working with parents to get that to happen
079okay dan regarding the the needs assessment is that was that a one-time measurement or is that something that you do periodically i know that um chelsea granzi previously when she was trying to establish some of the small group topics and focus areas did a similar survey but this is the first time we've done one at this level and you know kind of helped them determine some of those priorities for that so nothing scientific about at all student self-reported data i i would piggyback we do that every other year or so and then i would refer back to our student engagement survey too we can gather a lot of that similar data on the student that we do yearly i know that's the state requirement and that's out on the dashboard and um quite frankly really
080impressed with our results um but but you can pick out things here there little pockets of need any other questions jason so yeah i mean the consensus is that everything we're i mean we're short in everything people money the whole spectrum um and of course you know we're all concerned about the waiting list and and those things my one of my one one thing that would break my heart too would be is if the if the if the household would be the roadblock to intake what leverage does the school have if any or what extra steps are taken in that case if if it's a really severe need do we give it a one shot and that's it or i guess i'm really concerned about those kids where we could provide services for them but
081the home is not allowing it if i could maybe talk to a little bit of that too i think one of the values of a program like the village is that it is happening in school sometimes the the roadblock is when uh families are required to to do that outside of you know their own schedules and so essentially we're providing those services while kids are in school which i think for the most part that's the largest derailer that we see is that it happens in the school setting and for us with the village it also happens and we think about the school year and i've talked about this before when we went through this and approved the the agreement but the village actually provides that 12 months so our students are going to be able
082to see services in the summer months as well and so then we might see a decrease because there's different levels of responsibility to get kids to and from services but i think as long as we're providing them in school and and i'll defer now to adam and ryan but i would guess we don't see a lot of people not taking advantage because the process is really pretty easy for families to the intake process is easy and the service providing is easy i guess i'll just piggyback we have yet to have run into that our counselors do a good job they actually bring the parent in and they walk them through the paperwork themselves with them here so they don't say here's the paperwork good luck um but i think it's is you run into households
083that are road block barriers no matter what you're dealing with in education and and i want to we have a wonderful staff here at jameson public schools that doesn't take no easily and they're going to find resources and then other ideas and the biggest thing is educate families that this is good for your child and and your your top priorities are top priority that's a child so we just educate them on the resources we have and don't take no for an answer now obviously sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't but we're going to look for resources to provide and just continue to educate them why it's beneficial that they take advantage of the resources we can provide and i'm not sure how to ask this question either but thinking outside the box are there options
084legal barriers whatever to identify people in the community who may be licensed yet retired in counseling to um pair them up with i mean my mom's a retired social worker um i'm not volunteering her but i mean i'm is that even an option is that even an option for us to pursue where we find someone and maybe line them up with one student that they come to the school to meet with once a week i mean i'm just throwing that out there i don't know the legal parameters or whatever but i can i can actually address this slightly i know that the the counselors are aware of other public people that do that that would fall under the insurance of the parent and they do offer that information um to the to to the parents
085that says hey you know if you want to go outside and have help through this service here's a contact and it can run through your insurance so it's available so they're not just you know dropped and left and i think jason too what you're talking about also fits into the check and connect as that program expands uh that would probably be a place where that may be what you're talking about maybe the appropriate avenue any other questions what a great program and we think it's awesome you and your staff and what you're doing and it's doing nothing but helping kids and that's awesome and i just want to reiterate we're so thankful for the day that we get so thank you board thank you community james all for putting our kids first because yes we
086have a waiting list but we still get one more day than we had last year so thank you very much and the additional counseling resources between them yes high school and middle school that's been much appreciated and helps us reach more kids sure thank you [Applause] okay our next um item e is old business we don't have any old business item f is in a new business on the new business we have item one activities nothing today item two buildings and grounds nothing today item three curriculum assessment and instruction nothing today uh item four finance a we have the general fund balance which is there for information but item b is the monthly financial reports to which we need to get approval motion by roger second by gail uh the motions approved the monthly financial
087reports any discussion any discussion feel free to join us anytime emotionally all the favorite emotions say aye all opposed same sign motion can't pass item five personnel uh is the approval of the superintendent's evaluation and as what's explained um it's either for these different categories uh it's either satisfactory or unsatisfactory those are the options that we have um i did meet personally with the superintendent we went over the uh the results and and just want you to know and he said in in his notes that all the comments were reviewed discussed and and he takes them to heart he appreciates that actually when you do put some comments in i mean that is that is helpful you don't have to fill it up but but those kind of comments uh uh the super sent the
088superintendent pointed out was very helpful um so uh we'll just go through these one at a time uh and again the uh the vote will be for satisfactory or unsatisfactory the first section one is goal and vision setting mr president i would move for section one a satisfactory rating of goals and vision setting for at the rating of 3.51 okay we have a motion by roger is there a second second second by jason uh to have a rating of satisfactory for the gold and vision setting any discussion heard none all in favor of motion say aye opposed saying post same sign motion carries do we need roll call no no no okay do we normally do roll something okay no i better listen to sally she knows uh i guess we were going are going
089to bring us back to a roll call vote okay section one diane hanson roger hout yes jason rohr yes gail nelson dan tweeton aaron roberts yes greg allen yes and melissa gleason motion passes eight zero okay section 2 board relations i move for satisfactory ranking on section 2 of the evaluation board relations okay we have a motion by jason is there a second saying roger to uh rate the boil boil abort relations as satisfactory any discussion hearing none please call the roll roger hout yes jason roar yes gail nelson dan tweeting aaron roberts greg allen yes melissa gleason and diane motion passes 8-0 item three is the human resource management mr president i would move we have a satisfactory rating on section three human resource and management at a rating of 3.62 we have a
090motion from roger to approve the human resource management rating as satisfactory do we have a second second by dan any discussion ain't none please call the roll jason rohr yes gail nelson dan tweeton aaron roberts greg allen yes melissa gleason diane hanson yes and roger hout yes motion palace is 8-0 section 4 is the curriculum and student support services and i'd entertain a motion i would move that we pass sorry i would move that we give a satisfactory rating to section four curriculum and student support services okay we have a motion and a second uh to have a rating of satisfactory for curriculum and student support services any discussion are you none please call the roll jason rohr yes gail nelson dan tweeton aaron roberts yes greg allen yes melissa gleason diane hanson and roger
091hout yes motion passes 8-0 section 5 is community relations mr president i would move we have a satisfactory rating on community uh in section five community relations we have a motion second by gail to have a rating of satisfactory for community relations any discussion hearing none please call the roll gail nelson dan tweeting aaron roberts greg allen yes melissa gleason diane hanson yeah roger hout yes and jason moore yes motion passes 8-0 final item section six is operations and resource management and entertain emotion mr president i would move we have a satisfactory rating on section six operations and resource management a promotion is there a second second by yale to have a rating of satisfactory for operations and resource management any questions any comments hear your none please call roll dan tweeton aaron roberts yes
092greg allen yes melissa gleason yes diane hansen yes roger hout yes jason rourke yes and gail nelson motion passes 8-0 okay that completes the approval of the superintendent's evaluation congratulations on the full satisfactory rating and all the categories i will add one other point that came up during our discussions is that uh superintendent is and and we discussed that we have a great board we have diversity of thought and feelings but yet we are all attempting to do what is right for this district and the superintendent is very pleased in working with every one of the board members so i just wanted to express that he wouldn't say that probably but that came out out in our discussions and we appreciate all of your input okay item six still under new businesses policy and procedures
093we don't have anything there seven tuition nothing there um nothing under other roman numeral four is meetings to be scheduled a is the health insurance committee meeting on monday december 13 2021 at 3 45 pm in the multi-purpose room in a middle school and then item b will be the regular school board meeting on monday december 20th at 5 15 here in the thompson community room in the middle school certainly if you have any other um items that you would like brought up or or meetings just let us let us know and we'll review that uh the superintendent's evaluation section 2 board relations and section 5 community relations with that yes should we try for a picture next time does is everyone going to be here for december 20th as far as we know is
094anyone not planning okay okay um so we will be um looking for december 20th to uh do pictures and we'll send out a little reminder about that thank you amy and um it's dress as you wish right okay within reason okay with that we stand adjourned thank you for a good meeting wow