001Mhm. >> to order. Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, this evening we have a good news report. Dan, do you want to come on up and Did you want me to do Well, I would love to. Did you want to feed add in though? Okay, well this evening we have a special guest. We have Representative Whitman joining us and we are just delighted to have her here because as most of you know, um well and Gail is also here. As most of you know, we have worked on um she works specifically on a lunch bill and has the past 3 years and finally all of her uh work and effort came into fruition and that our bill was passed. And so we wanted just to really honor number one the work, number two
002that you're here, we have a special gift for you. And um number three, I know there's some others that want to add in because it definitely was a group effort and I think it's a excellent example of working on both sides of the aisle, of also working locally and our local folks working with state folks across the state um both as board members um and as just strong proponents that kids uh if we can feed our students uh we know that they can learn in the classroom and that helps all of us to achieve so many goals that we have for our state and um come on up. >> [laughter] >> Uh um before we present to you a special gift that we have, I want to see if anybody else just wants to um
003acknowledge the work that's been put into the lunch bill for the lunch ladies. Well, first of all, Representative Whitman, I want to thank you for your tenacity, for always standing up for kids, for always thinking of those who have less, and the work that you've done in the last 4 years to finally get this bill over the finish line was incredible. The way that you worked with so many people in the communities, the way you worked with so many people out in Pierre, all of your colleagues across both of the aisles, just by the number of people who sponsored and co-sponsored this bill this year was incredible. And it's all due to your hard work and your tenacity and I want to thank you for thinking of the kids and the families that really needed
004a bit of a hand up and not a handout. So thank you for your work. I'd like to thank you. You know what's nice about it? It's for kids. So when you do things for kids, that's good stuff. And I appreciate your efforts cuz I know you battled quite a while, but thank you. Hey, my turn. Okay. I I'm so incredibly proud of you. I I know and have seen how much you've poured into this and I know that there's been pushback in ways that are unimaginable to the regular person and you persevered through some really tough stuff. And you did it for the sake of our kids, for the sake of our families and we're so appreciative of you and your big heart that you have. The stories that you shared about your personal
005journey going through this as a kid who needed the lunch, like that really resonated with people and again, I couldn't be more proud of you and we're so happy to have you out there fighting for so many different things that help uplift our whole community and the whole state. So thank you. Thank you so much. I'll use just a opportunity first before before thanking you. Uh that this still the work of the Hungry Hearts and we we did recognize them earlier this uh this week and this last week. Uh they're still their work is ongoing. Uh it continues to work for that next group of students, that next set of students and truly the the House Bill 1082 uh took care of those individual families that that were receiving the reduced price lunches and paid
006for that next part. Hungry Hearts takes that next step and obviously there's been bills in the past that you have worked on that. Uh we are incredibly thankful for the passing of this bill to be able to help those families that that are on the reduced price and to be able to make that so that it is now free for them and with the work of Hungry Hearts, it truly takes it up to a whole new level again with another group. So thank you for your continued support of public education and our students, uh but especially I agree when when it's for kids, uh those things are right and when we look at that and put it above all other things, uh what we do for kids is truly going to impact the future. So
007thank you for your work. And with Absolutely. Um I just want to say thank you to all of you. Um and especially thank you to Gail. This was the fourth year we've attempted to bring this bill forward and everyone asked me, you know, what was different this year? And it's a little bit satisfying to say that in terms of language of the bill, there was nothing different. This was the third year in a row of the same language, but what changed this year was the massive amounts of public support we had from school boards across our state so including all of you signing letters of support, some of our smaller rural school districts and and truly I cannot thank Gail enough for the outreach she did to those school districts and bringing those letters of
008support in. So thank you to all of your support. I want to be clear with you that I am not done talking about school lunch and I see lots of opportunities for us to expand it and support more students in the future, but I'm just incredibly grateful to hear all of this today and thank you so much. Well, we have a special gift for you. We have an artist in residence, Dan. That helps to I told you we're going to give you this. So we're just going to come around. All of you are going to Oh, yay. present to you the art. Oh my gosh. >> [laughter] >> Oh my gosh, I love it so much. Can I get a picture with audio? Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much. >> [applause] [cheering] [applause] >> Yeah,
009here's your work of art. Especially in the kitchen. Yes, the kitchen. Okay. That was fun, of course, but um we have additional uh good news this evening as well and we're grateful to showcase another group of community partners who've been stepping up year after year under the umbrella of something we've been calling Operation Hope and Caring. The annual fundraising opportunity uh raises money to support our Title 1 elementary schools where we don't have parent teacher organizations and those organizations, as you know, play a vital role in the success of a school and the overall enhancement of education through providing things like field trip experiences and adding um beyond playground equipment and that type of thing. Um since we began the Operation Hope and Caring little more than 10 years ago, um the mechanisms to raise
010money have um changed over time and what has remained very constant is our partners at Levo Credit Union for um continuing to coordinate and carry the load for Operation Hope and Caring um to raise money for our Title 1 elementary schools. And Jen McEwen is the vice president of marketing and business development for Levo. Um, she is here this evening along with Jack Rag from KELO-LAND Television who supports the effort as well as Air Madness. And so, uh I will invite Jen to come forward and say a few words about uh a sizable donation that we are extremely grateful to accept on behalf of our Title 1 elementary schools. Thanks, DeAnn. Um, thanks to the generous support of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, KELO TV, Air Madness, and Levo Credit Union. I'm
011so excited to tell you guys that we were able to raise $34,500 this year. That is a record and it's amazing. We believe that no child should have to go without the basics like winter boots, tennis shoes, underwear, socks, field trip lunches. So, we are just very grateful for the opportunity to help. Thank you. My goodness. >> [applause] >> Okay. Okay, good. Well, thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for the presentation of the check uh to our Title 1 schools and you're absolutely right. These issues surrounding the Title 1 schools, if as a community we take those to heart and want to problem solve around them, it starts with the donation of dollars right there and then we will make sure that those are put to as you have deemed appropriate and
012um it's just such great work and such a a testament to the support that our public schools and our Title 1 schools have by the community and um we're we're just beyond ex- happy um and excited for your support of the work that our teachers and our administration do every day. Gail. >> I want to also mention that um I thought Jen would maybe tip their hat on this, but uh Levo does so many things during the school year. This is the main portion of uh their donation. Um, but they have a coffee called Perky Coffee and we are able to sell that coffee for $10 a bag and get 100% of the proceeds that um is made from the sale of that coffee. So, that has gone into uh that check as well as
013they've collected um you know, the hats, boots, snow pants, uh whatever our schools have needed in addition to laundry detergent which they brought in the back of the room there where they um have asked their members to donate laundry detergent to help out at our schools that have washing machines um so that we can maintain the dignity of our our students who may need a clean pair of clothes throughout the day and that type of thing. So, um the money is is certainly appreciated uh but the extra efforts that that they go through in order to be boots on the ground just collecting things that are are truly needed um really does need to be recognized and noticed as well. Yeah, when the kids can show up to school and see all the goodness of
014the world that's poured onto them, it plants seeds um in their minds that there are places such as our schools to go to where they are cared for and nurtured and it makes such a positive influence um on on their life on on all of our lives um because we're all connected and touched by each other. So, what a great way to shine a bright light. Gail. Something in the air tonight, I get got something in my eyes. I just don't know what's going on here. Uh Boy, tonight what expressions of kindness and understanding and reaching out to our kids in need. Really want to thank you. Thank you for our families and our kids. Thank you thank you for all of your efforts. Really makes a difference. You know, it's uh for me, it
015still amazes me how much how generous the people of Sioux Falls are. And that includes you folks. I mean, we are so fortunate with our community. I I can't imagine there's a community in the country or does what our our people do and not only you, but everyone else. Nice work. Definitely want to echo all the sentiments but providing dignity to our kids to show up and be able to get a fresh pair of clothes is uh something that can it's very foundational and it is unfortunate that our schools are the the hub for some of that, but that's just the role we play and we recognize that and then and for this team of um contributors to know that this is a safe place to help kids feel seen, heard, well fed, um clothed
016in that way. Like that's we really appreciate that. Again, it's very foundational, but schools can be that. We can be that with the support of people like you, organizations like you. So, thank you. The one thing I'll add is the staff. The great appreciation by the staff and when they're able to have some of those funds to be able to do and meet the needs of some of the things they see, it helps them immensely to feel appreciated. So, thank you. Good. Thank you. Yeah, great news reports. Okay, can I please get an approval of the minutes of the meeting held on 4/13/26? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. >> I. Opposed? We have approved those minutes. All right, we do have a person here uh wishing to address the school board on non-agenda
017items. Uh Dan, come on forward and just say your your name, your address, and we're glad you're here tonight. Um, you have 5 minutes um or less. So, thank you again. Thank you, Madam President. The school board, it's a pleasure being here. My name is Dan Kipling, 2712 South 5th Avenue here in Sioux Falls. And the first thing I want to do is I want to thank all of you. The one thing that we don't hear enough of is the gratitude that it takes to serve the public. And you all have been doing an excellent job. And then what I want to do is take that another step further and thank the staff that we have here because I've had a chance to witness this first hand here recently because I was uh appointed to
018the facilities task force recently and I've been at two meetings and done a lot of research outside of that and talking to staff about facilities and about the school district and I've learned a lot. And I guess I probably should go back and preface that I do have a vested interest in the school district and that is called grandkids. And I will be the first to say if I knew how much fun they were, I would have skipped the kids and just had grandkids. >> [laughter] >> But, it doesn't work that way. Uh and I also have uh kids that are on staff here at the school district. So, I hear a lot of things and a lot of the challenges that the school district's faced with. And that leads me to the last thing
019and that is that uh because of what this faced with the school district as well as here in in Harrisburg, I've uh decided to uh run as for the District 13 Senate seat. And I have an uphill battle because I'm facing an incumbent, but uh I'm up for the challenge. And we're lucky enough because of my thoughts and how important public education is, I've been endorsed by the South Dakota Education Association. And that means a lot to me because uh that group of people knows what it's like as far as when the road hits the as far as the when things are faced and what the students are really faced with day in and day out. And uh I want to let you know that I'm working very hard. I'm got a goal of making
020a lot of phone calls and knocking a lot of doors. But, what's been making me very happy is I've been running into a lot of senior citizens. I'm talking senior citizens. One day uh a lady was 92 and she professed how important it is to educate our kids. So, it's across the board that we have the support that we need and that everyone wants to educate our kids and that's what I'm going to be doing and that's what I'm going to be fighting for. So, thank you and keep up the good work. Thank you. Okay, do we have anybody else? Okay, can I please get an approval for this evening's agenda? So moved. Second. All in favor? I. Opposed? We have approved tonight's agenda. Seeing no conflicts of interest, we will move on to the
021approval of the consent agenda items. Items A through Items A through G. So moved. Second. All in favor? I. I. Opposed? We have approved the consent agenda items. I will now turn it over to reports to the superintendent. Thank you, Madam President. We do have two reports of the superintendent this evening. The first one will be the 2027-2028 calendar year proposal, and we do bring that about this time each and every year to be ratified for a year in advance. And so we do bring these proposals forward so that our families and community members can plan accordingly in at least 1 year in advance. So Mr. Conrad will be presenting the 2027-2028 school year calendar proposal. All right. Thank you, guys. Good evening. Tonight we're going to share out the 2027-2028 school calendar, and this
022would also be the time when we share out or recommend any changes to our current calendar. Good news. We had our first remote learning day, and we don't have any adjustments to be recommended for our current year calendar. So again, the goal at the end is to make a recommendation to the school board to approve the 2027-2028 calendar. There we go. So we do have a 30-member task force or committee that was represented in making the decisions, so it's not done in a silo or anything like that. In front of you you see the constituents of that group, broad-based from faculty, faculty that represented all three levels, elementary, middle, and high school, parents that represented all three levels, elementary, middle, and high school. To take that perspective as well as two school board members. And
023so the information we combed through came from a community-wide survey back in 2020-2021. So that survey is about 6 years, but that information is still relevant to us today. A big piece that came out of the survey was that we wanted a soft start to the school year. So the goal is to start just before Labor Day and end before Memorial Day. And [clears throat] so the soft start is a Thursday-Friday start. We have a 4-day week, then we have the 4-day weekend with Labor Day, and then we come back for a 4-day week with school. And again, that was based off the community survey that we gave in 2020-2021 based on the start of the school year. And that survey came back very favorably for this start. If you look at some school days
024of importance between holidays and no school days outside of the traditional holidays that we observe, the start date for the 2027-2028 calendar would be August 26th, that is a Thursday. And then we would observe Native American Day on October 11th with the teacher in-service day on the 12th, professional learning day. The other piece that came out of that survey of the community is having some smaller breaks spread throughout the school year. So you would see a little break each month in there outside of our traditional holidays. And that information was gathered and brought together through the committee with the proposal of this calendar. So it does look like a lot of squares, triangles, and trapezoids, but each one has a meaning. The squares or rectangles are days off or days of no school. So a
025couple points of interest, you can see the August 26th for school day, you can see the 3rd of September, that'd be the Friday before Labor Day off, and then the observed holiday would be the circle, which is the 6th of September. And so that creates that 4-day weekend there. If you look at October, we have the block, which is a no school day as we observe Native American Day, and then a triangle for the professional learning day. And then in November we're observing Veterans Day along with the traditional Thanksgiving break that we have in there. A point of interest, if you look at the January date, January 13th is the last day of first semester for students. The teacher work day would be January 14th with Martin Luther King Jr. observance on the Monday, the
02617th. Having those days around that semester break helps the high schools turn over their schedules, create new schedules with information based on first semester, so that is helpful to the counselors and teachers who are redoing their schedules and getting ready for the next semester throughout the school year. So as you go through, we have a professional learning day on the 6th of March, and then the 17th we have the teacher compensation day for conferences, so that's when the teachers are their 8 hours beyond the school day we compensate them, and that would come in on the 17th. So that creates a couple of breaks there. And then our spring break in April, and then we have our closing school day with graduation on the 22nd of May. Correction, 21st of May is graduation for 2027-2028.
027So as we look at those dates with the recommendation coming forward, know that the committee comprised of community members from all three levels, including parents, staff, and then also some student feedback through the survey we gave in 2020-2021, came up with this group. One piece that came out of the calendar committee, since it's been about 6 years since we had surveyed the community, the calendar committee would like to issue another survey this fall just to get the feedback from the constituents, families, staff, students, put that package together for our consideration for next year when we build the following year's calendar. So that'll be our recommendation coming out of this is to reissue that survey. And then at this time we would take a or the recommendation is to approve the 2027-2028 school year calendar based
028on the calendar committee's work. Um One second. We're going to Can I get a motion to approve the calendar? So moved. Second. Discussion? Um well, I was on calendar committee, and I was grateful that they were asking for another survey just because it's been a few years. I thought that was a good request. The only thing that really caught my attention in conversation was the hope of spreading out the in-between periods for people to get to class, which at which we said, "Hey, if we add on minutes, that turns into days, so what are you willing to sacrifice?" And they ultimately decided that we weren't going to stretch out those in-between periods, but it was just a footnote that I think that we still need to keep having a conversation about on certain buildings needing
029a little extra time. I know Lincoln has a really long sprint from one end to the other, so making sure that they continue to stretch out appropriately to get kids where they need to be so they're not tardy unnecessarily. But overall, yeah, it was great. I would recommend it to the rest of the board. Excellent. Well, thank you for your work on that. Anything else? That That would be the piece passing time, so we do have the minimum requirement of school days, 174, and those passing time minutes don't count towards it. So that's where the days come in at the end. Very good. Okay. All in favor? I. I. Opposed? We have approved the 2027-2028 calendar year. Thank you. >> Thank you. Mr. Conrad. The second report of the superintendent's office we have is our
030district staff survey results, and we do go through and administer a district staff survey each year. That used to be uh done through the Gallup Poll. We did change to something we self-administered. It was a significant savings, and it took us a couple years to get some baseline data, but we do have that information now, and and Mr. Morrison will present that information for the board. All right. Good evening, board members. Tonight I'll be presenting the results of the 2025-2026 staff survey. Um the survey really provides valuable insights into the employee experience across the district, and we did receive strong participation from all staff groups, buildings, and work groups. And so get into it. So again, the purpose report purpose is to provide the school board with the results of the survey, and it virtually
031touches all areas of our priority areas. Academic success, well-being, community engagement, and effective use of resources our staff transcend all those areas, and understanding the staff experience is essential to maintain a positive work environment and ensuring our employees can effectively serve students. So when we look, if you were to kind of put a one-page highlight together, we'll kind of dive into some of the details, but here's kind of some of the highlights. First of all, we received 1,720 responses and nearly 7,000 written comments, which is demonstrating that the the staff really value the opportunity to provide feedback. The results show both considerable strengths and some areas that we're always mindful of and trying to improve. One area that we'll we'll talk about in details in that promoter score. That's been on a great trajectory over
032the last 3 years. And then we've got some key areas of strength that you know, high expectations that we have for our students. Colleague support, supervisor supports. We have a very supportive environment out there. Professional culture and safety all ranked very high, which you'll see when we get into the details. Areas that we feel we still need to address are reasonable workload. The district professional development, necessary resources, the evaluation process, and the building develop professional development. And we'll talk about those here in some detail. So the first one thing I wanted to point out is again the response rates. So you can see we had a very high response rate again over 1,700 employees responded to the survey. And then you can see across all the different work groups, we've had significant um contribution from
033them as well. And that's important because we when we look at the survey, we don't look at just one number, right? We look at it in in its components. And so this gives you kind of a perspective of the survey counts by each work group in this case. First thing we would cover would be the net promoter score. And that's something that we introduced about 3 years ago. And this is really the way that large organizations is one way to measure a survey. And it basically is measuring your people that are willing to recommend your district versus your detractors, right? And so it's in this case we have gone when we started this measure in 2024, we were at 18%. And we've moved that in the last couple years up to 38%. And then any
034other questions, staff professional courteous, we've moved that from 46 to 51%. And then you can see down in the bottom part there. Our whole goal is to move people to the right, right? So we want people to be essentially promoters of the district. And so you can see that trend that's happening. And so the yellow's getting less, the blue's getting more, and we're still trying to keep moving the gray kind of the neutral people into that positive category. So that's been a very upward trajectory and something we're very proud of and we will continue to try to move that up. You can see down there there's kind of a interpretation that would tell you that if you're in a zero to 30, it would be room for improvement. 30 to 70 good, so we just
035crossed into good on both those categories and 70 to 100 excellent. So our goal is to keep moving that forward, but really good news on that. Then we start to get into our survey responses. So these are questions that and we'll kind of go through them. And I would say to look at them not only from the total score at the top, which is the the latest year, but also the improvement that we've made over the years. And so you'll see first question building level professional development. That's something that is kind of stayed flat. That's something that we're mindful of. And as well as district level professional development. So those are two areas that we're always striving to figure out how to do well because you not only have across work groups, but within work
036groups you have many different topics. You have limited days, and so we're constantly every year trying to reinvent that so it's as meaningful as possible to the employees. Effective collaboration, that continues to go up and that's in the mid-80s, which is a very good mark. One thing that we work very hard on in the in in the district is that you that people feel appreciated for the work that they do. And so you can see we in 2024 we were at 73.5% and we've moved that almost 10 percentage points in the last 2 years. And that's very um conscious things that we've done, recognition programs across the district, trying to lift people up. And so that's something that's been very intentional and we're starting to see movement on that. Um And then I feel comfortable
037sharing ideas that just again almost 90%, which means people feel very comfortable about bringing ideas forward, which is a good place to be. Looking at some of those more questions that the there's an atmosphere of mutual respect. Principal and supervisor effectively communicates. That they give the principal gives feedback. And so you can see those are very good marks moving upward. One that if you had to look at it on this page and say something we need to work a little bit harder on is the staff evaluation process. So again, and you'll kind of see as we look across work groups, we can kind of see maybe some work groups that need to work on that. But that's one that we continue to try to work on is the evaluation process. Now we get into some
038yes no questions. And so here you can see questions. Most of these ranked very high in the 90s. You know, 90 or above or high 80s. And so we feel pretty good about that. One thing we're always conscious is that feel people staff feel safe in the environment that they're in. And so that has continued to go up in the last 2 years. That they feel supported by their supervisor. And you can see some of the indicators what down there. The one that ranks probably the lowest in all of our surveys is that the workload expected in my position is reasonable. So obviously that's something that we like to continue to work on that we're mindful of. And so I'll kind of come back to that in a minute with some kind of some insight
039to that. So not only do we we don't kind of get lulled into just looking at overall indicators because there's always a story behind that, right? And so here we take all the questions and then we break them down by work group. We also break them down by building and many other different ways so we can stratify the survey. But this is just one way to look at it. And so you could see things that might stick out. And so here again, when you look at that second line and you see district level professional development professional beneficial to my growth. If you just looked at it overall, you might not think that there's something worth addressing there. But if you look at it by work group you can see that the teachers ranked that very
040low, right? And so we know that we can take that, drill into it. We can ask teachers, what do you mean by that? How can we make that better? And so we're mindful of that. Um And then you could see I talked about the evaluation process before. In this case, you could look across there and say, okay, maybe custodial ranked a little bit lower, contract other. So we can kind of start to narrow in on work groups. And then we can kind of begin to solicit more feedback for those areas so that we can try to make positive improvements or whatever we can do and put that back into the process. Here again, you can see that and then the bottom one you can see again workload expected in my position is reasonable. You can
041see it's quite different if you're a teacher versus versus an administrator, right? And so we have to be mindful of that. And so again, trying to have having this level of detail and really getting into that allows us to see where those areas are that are things that we should be addressing on a priority basis. Not only do we just ask them to check a box and you know, say yes or no or rank something highly effective or effective is that we ask for feedback and comments. And so that's where I where I said earlier on we had over 7,200 comments. So we take the questions and we say, you know, if you not only rate this, but give us your feedback on that. And so here you start to see the themes or in
042general. Like if it was saying I I feel safe for my work environment, you can read some things there that come up or bubble up for the survey. We can kind of take all those comments and we can generate kind of top themes that we see out of there, right? And then so we can start to address them. We also know that for all these comments, we distribute to the buildings. We distribute them to the work group heads. And so we're drilling down in the lowest level of detail so that they can so that that's where the feedback's going to be most effective. So again, and you can read some through some of those questions and you can see some of those comments. But this really helps us to find out what's behind some of
043that and and helps us more effectively move those those metrics. And here's more of that. So here's that question on workload expected in my position is reasonable and you can start to see some of those comments, right? Time constraints and feeling overwhelmed, staffing shortages, too many meetings, initiatives insufficient planning time, right? And these might be all different compared to depending on what work group you're in and so again we we just take these and break them out as much as we what much as we can, but this kind of gives you a sense of how we approach the survey. And here's a couple more. So then at the end of the survey we asked to basically wrap up questions. What would make you consider leaving in the district or exploring other other professions and as
044we've seen in prior years you would see pay as one of the top reasons, workload and time pressure, high stress environment, right? Lack of support and resources. So that's one where we would dive into more and see what's going on in my in a particular building, particular work group, particular and so and then and then we also say what would keep you here at the district, right? So just the mission for why people work at the district, right? The love of students and the work, the benefits and retirement package which we talked about here which Becky's talked about and that's very important to people, right? And uh strong colleague relationships and commitment to the mission of making a difference. So those are some of the things that have risen to the top. And then not
045only that, this is kind of an illustration. Not going to go through all these, but this is where again where we take these comments and we would divide them out by work group in this case, but you would also see work groups by by comments by building. So if you're a certain principal, you might want to be interested in what your work work groups are saying and so you can address those in your team meetings or whatever you have at the school level and that's the whole idea is to get feedback on those. And so we go through the same process through all the questions. And then I would say to to kind of wrap things up um from our perspective and what how we how we are kind of wrapping it up here is
046that I think in summary the district the survey confirms that our staff are deeply committed to the students and maintain high expectations. We have a strong peer support network and generally supportive supervisor relationships. At the same time the results point to specific areas where we can focus on workload sustainability, particularly for teachers, professional development, quality and relevance and ensuring more consistent experiences across buildings. The net increasing net promoter score really demonstrates that we're on a positive trajectory. The nearly 7,000 comments from staff provided show that we're engaged and willing to help us improve that staff I think value feel valued that they can make comments and if they know we're working on it, right? Because that's our expectation. And and finally that the survey is embedded in our culture. And by including by having Dr.
047Nold make sure that every building includes those in our school improvement plan that they will be addressed and so in in their staff meetings and their PLCs and everything else they will be talking about what metric in their staff and plan they want to try to move forward or ahead, right? And so I think that's a great thing this year is to actually embed those in the school improvement plans. And that we expect accountability to our staff. And so with that I would ask for acknowledgement of the 25-26 district staff survey results. I would also add that we're just finishing up the student and the parent surveys. So those are the three that we do every year and so once we get those results I'm sure we'll be reporting those back to you, but we
048also had record participation in those this year which is great. So I'll stand by for questions. Can I please get a motion to acknowledge the administrative Oh well, just the district staff survey results. So moved. Second. Discussion? Why would just an observation data is just data, you know, but it I'm glad you spoke to how we are being earnest and diligent in terms of implementation of the results that make sense in a building to by building case and that we through the school improvement and that we have a matrix and we're measuring the um outcomes so that we are being accountable to the survey results. Otherwise it makes no sense for people to take time, but that there's some real um effort put into what the survey results tell us and how they inform the
049decisions that we make. So >> I would also add that we have um we have great dashboards, right? That that can be accessed, right? That we've learned to create and so they can be sliced and diced and so any any administrator or building principal can go to their dashboard, look at their results over the last 3 years, look at it by however they want to slice and dice it. So that's been a great thing for the district too is actually bring that information to their fingertips and so that's something that we probably couldn't get from Gallup before, right? And so we've kind of evolved that over time. Yeah, well and that we took it in house and the cost savings driving that. So it's great. Yeah. Mr. Morrison, do you did you get enough written
050comments about the workload numbers that you think you can drill down on what the situation is here or what the reasoning is? Yeah, I I I can you can drill down into any level and it's it's interesting because when I was sitting here after I'd done this report, right? I I actually did that and I I drilled down into a couple different things. I I drilled down into level, elementary, middle, high school, early childhood and then I also drilled down into it by years of service. It was very interesting. So it tell me that you know, when you're talking about workload reasonableness, I would say that your elementary schools elementary school teachers rate the lowest, right? And then it goes middle school and high school, right? Which might stand to reason because there's no planning
051period per se for elementary schools and and their day is probably a lot different than a middle school or high school teacher. So yeah, that's the beauty of what we have is we can drill down into that and see what might be driving that, right? I was interested to see that actually the newer teachers didn't rank it as low as some of the veterans and I say I you know, why is that? Maybe because they have supports for a while, right? Or a peer or a mentor for a while, right? And so all those factors trying to take that information and that data and then building it back in their school improvement plans to really because that would be one that ranks low for everybody across the district and so how do we with my
052team, you know, so to speak if you're a building principal or any type of supervisor, you know, drill down into that and see how that can be improved other than just being the nature of sort of the environment that that we work in every day. It'll be interesting to see if the teachers that were added at the elementary level if that makes a difference in the survey results. I have a follow-up then. So with the information that you have now, what's our next step then to see if we can help uh either alleviate that uh reality for folks or alleviate the true issue for folks. Yeah. I Yeah, that's why we added the teachers at the elementary level. So it'll be interesting to see if that makes an impact. I think I think it'll be
053I mean what we what we I think in my mind what we want to do is create visibility around it, right? And that's the instead of just assuming that everybody's going to work on it which might have been in the past, having it as part of your school improvement plan which means that you know, I have to say I'm here and I want to move here and here's what I'm going to do to try to get that to move and then after that cycle's done I come back and say well I was either successful or I wasn't, right? in trying to keep doing that. So, I think that's one thing is to bring visi- visibility and accountability to it. So, I think maybe in the past the survey is a survey. You look at it,
054you say, "Oh, yeah, you know, that's always ranked low." and move on. I think Dr. Knoll shifted the paradigm a little bit and going to make everybody accountable for um for their survey results. Well, and the other piece is how it informs our budget. Mhm. So. Go ahead. Um thank you for this presentation. I was a little alarmed with that 38% net promoter score. So, just by looking up you know, other um places that use that, it looks like we're in a decent range because organizations in education and public sectors land between 20 and 40%. Is that what you're finding when you're doing this research? Are we like in a good threshold or is that a really an alarming No, I think we're in a good threshold. I mean, the the net promoter promoter score
055has been very um I'd say critical, but it's been um it's probably the toughest measure, right? Because it's not looking at like some percent or percentage way What it's saying is we have people on high end that are promoters of your district, right? And on the other end you have your detractors. You know, if you have a lot of people in the middle, they're sort of, "Yeah, you know, um I could you know, I could." And so, I think I think we're in a good place because we keep moving that up. Um I think the goal maybe is not so much to move the bottom end. You know, it's to move the ones that are in sort of the middle to be high promoters. And so, um but yeah, I think it's uh it's it's
056probably I would say I don't even know if most districts use it. I would say major corporations use it. It's the way they value a product cuz if you have you know five different uh people offering five different products, right? You want people to promote them. And we want people to promote our district, right? And so, I think it I think we're in good place um right now. Do we have room to grow? Sure. We'll keep doing that, but I think we're in a a pretty good place from where we were uh a couple years ago. Yeah, I just wanted to highlight that we give that a fair balance because in the wrong hands 38% could seem really awful, but just noting, you know, a little footnote stating that's pretty regular for this type of
057work is um something really good to preface. Um the other piece that I wanted to talk about um was making sure like I was on the other side of this. I was a staff and I would look at the survey and be like, "Ah, this isn't even going to go anywhere." You know, you just have that mentality be around you. And I would always take it because my guilty conscience would be like, "This is your one chance." So, I would love for us to really strive for Maybe I'm dreaming too big. I would love to get 100% of returned surveys because to Nan's point, this is our driver of budget. This is our opportunity to focus on the areas that need and deserve growth. So, when we're not hearing from everybody, we're going to focus
058on the people who do respond. And I know everybody up here gets this, but um the people that probably listen at home, the educators listening at home, staff listening at home, you were probably the ones that did the survey. So, thank you. Um but I what I would love to make sure is for those of you listening, um you have to encourage your colleagues to take this seriously because we take this very seriously and this is our guiding um way to make informed decisions and without that feedback, we just go with what we have. So, I would love for us to strive for 100% next year um and swing as far as we can to get that um just because I know we're missing quite a few voices and um I'm going to pause there.
059I need to like there's other things that I definitely want us to talk about, but getting 100% would mean a great deal, I think, to all of us. Yeah, I'd say you're right. And their voice does make a difference, right? I go I go back to the one to recognition, right? I mean, that's one that we started with and uh you know, Becky and her team have done a great job of putting more recognition programs in in place, right? And so, that's been a very conscious effort based on, you know, feedback that we heard from the staff that we've actually been able to move the needle on. But you're right, there's more things like that. Um professional development, another example, right? How do we How do we move that forward knowing that we have so
060many topics to cover um and but and limited time, right? And and how do we make that beneficial and we have, you know, so many different uh work groups and stuff. But yeah, it starts with having your voice heard. Does anyone else want to speak up before I say something else? >> [laughter] >> Um I guess I also would like to uh recognize that I I really want to know, and I know you're diving into it, but how much of the workload is in our control and how much of it is state mandated. Um in particular, when we have state mandated testing that I know takes out a lot of our class time. Um I'm wondering if that showed up in any of the the dialogue that you saw that state testing might be eating
061up too much time. Um cuz maybe that's something we need to focus on legislatively next year to bring forward to our advocates and say, "Hey, we're we're really eating into our staff time with these. Um what can we do to be better partners to to give teachers more time if that's one of the big areas?" So, do you have a pulse at all on on what's in our control that's causing Well, I think I mean, some of it might be the the nature I mean, we operate under a you know, a contract with each bargaining unit, right? Which kind of spells out you know, the time requirements, the professional development and all that. So, some of it is within that um you know, that we uh we deal with, right? Um but um but I
062think we're always trying to like you were mentioning testing, right? So, that's something that Dr. Zeigler has worked very hard on this year. So, we've had a whole group uh you know, called the BAS group, BAS, B A S T, balance assessment team, right? Which is looking at assessments done across the district, right? And and so um at all levels. So, where are we doing too much? Where are we doing not enough? Where are we doing um maybe And so, uh that's something that's been going all on all year and it will continue to go on even next year. It's just something that we're trying to put into the fiber of the district to try to point out exactly what you're saying, right? And so uh I know there'll be some recommendations that will uh
063will come out of that, but always trying to optimize it and on all of those teams are teachers, right? And so, uh you know, that's and that's where we hope to get their feedback, right? Because they're representing their colleagues uh and so, you hope to get that uh feedback to look at things like assessments, grading, all those types of things, having meaningful work groups that have evolved from those types of discussions or concerns. That makes sense. Yeah, thank you. And and that's a big part of why it's going back to the schools to put in their improvement plans cuz work and the greatest work be done, it's generally not going to be at the central office or the board level uh as far as changes of of what they're going to have for workload, what
064they're going to have for relationships, it's at the school level. And so, at the school level they'll work on their school improvement plans and and that's where they're going to work with the staff, whether that's their custodial staff, their cook staff, uh uh their ESPs, uh their teachers, but all of which are part of those committees to make sure that they put that in the school improvement plan. And so, to share the overview of the entire district, there's a lot of great information. A lot of those numbers continue to go up, which is great to see. Uh but truly to put it back in the hands of each school needs to look at their data just like they do their test scores and say, "Where were we uh deficient in?" To look at the strengths
065cuz we can always look right away at the deficiencies, but to look at those strengths and celebrate those and then look at other areas that we weren't as high and say, "What can we do specifically?" And I I know Becky is uh Ms. Dormans appreciated the fact that there's multiple evaluation tools we're having to redo now. We're going to go through and redo because uh the feedback that we had that some of those weren't effective. So, through the negotiation process, we said, "Let's relook at these. Let's rewrite these." But all of that's going to take place at that level with a group of individuals so they have that feedback and they have that input so they're part of the process. And when you're part of the process, you have an understanding of what goes into
066it and and can truly give your feedback. So, we encourage them uh in that way to be part of the school process and to be part of that evaluation process, the professional development process, and in those committees that we put together to truly assess the assessments. Uh when we did take several of those out um and modify some of those things, but there's staff that were part of that to be the resolution. Thank you, Dr. Knoll. That's good to know. Yeah, I love that we're not running from our numbers and we're, you know, facing it and having a plan. Um and again, you know, whatever we can do as a board to be helpful. I'm looking forward to seeing those recommendations after this is fully assessed. All in favor? I. I. Opposed? We have acknowledged
067the administrative uh surveys. Thank you. Okay. Can I please get a motion to adjourn? Motion. Second. All in favor? I. Opposed? We are adjourned. Oh, yeah. No problem.