001I 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 all for being here and braving this crazy weather that we're having today. Right. I mean, it was gonna I don't know what it was going to do, but it was going to flood. It was going to thunderstorm everything. And here we are. All right. Let's start with a good one of the good news reports. Thanks, Deian. Good evening. It's wonderful to be in a full boardroom this evening with so many things going on. Um, but we want to start tonight's good news report uh by featuring some of the best and brightest in the Sou Falls School District who will graduate next month.
002Uh, these to the right of me are our national merit finalists. We're proud to showcase 19 students this evening earning their national merit finalist honor. That is the highest number that we've had um in the last two decades for sure. So 19 is a fantastic group. Some of those folks were not able to join us tonight because guess what? These are busy students. They are um at the top of their game. The mission of National Merit Scholarship Corporation um names National Merit finalists to promote a wider and deeper respect for learning in general and for exceptionally talent talented students in particular. They also uh shine a light on the brilliant students in encouraging the pursuit of academic excellence at all levels to become a semifinalist. That is the first rung of this. Um there is
003a certain score that needs to be achieved on a PSAT. Um the cut score varies from year to year but it uh it is the top 1% of test takers nationally who earn the national merit finalist honor. There is an essay, there are transcripts, there are letters of reference from uh building principles and people who know them. there's a lot of leadership time and uh volunteering that goes into making a candidate um be selected as a national merit finalist. So um we are are grateful to be among these students. We know that these names that we see here and here this evening uh will hopefully be ones that we hear as future success stories um who come back and bring their skills back to Sou Falls or make a bigger splash, a bigger impression on
004on the world. Additionally, last week, um, we heard that a Jefferson High School student had been named as one of 621 semi finalists for the US Presidential Scholar Program. So, naturally, we were having a party and we said, "Come along." Right? So, Landon Gross, you want to give a little wave? Landon's on the edge there. Uh, he is our semi- finalist for US Presidential Scholar. Uh the other students featured this evening are national merit finalists. The US Presidential Scholars Program was established in 1964 by executive order of the president also to recognize our nation's most distinguished students for their accomplishments in academics, leadership, and service to the community as well. So, at this time, we're going to have each of the students here this evening tell us their name, their um school that they currently
005attend and what their future plans are. And I'm so thrilled with this because I don't have to try to pronounce everyone's names and get it right. So, that's why we're we're putting in the mic the mic in the hands of the students this evening. So, if you'll start for me, please. My name is Elizabeth Spencer. I go to Lincoln High School and I will be going to California for costume. Hi, my name is Katia Serendin. I currently attend Lincoln High School and I will be going to the University of Pittsburgh next year. Hi, my name is Claire Meyer. I attend Lincoln High School and I'll be attending Iowa State University on the premed track. My name is Emma Trevine. I attend Lincoln High School and I'll be going to Harding University in Cersei, Arkansas and
006majoring in biomedical engineering. I'm Hannah Basil from Lincoln High School. I will be attending Brown University to study economics and English on the pre-law track. Hi, I'm Llaya Sumik from Roosevelt High School. I'll be attending MIT to study physics. I'm Maya Sutton. I go to Jefferson and I'll be going to the University of Nebraska Lincoln for biome for biochemistry. I'm Landon Gross. I go to Jefferson and I'm attending South Dakota State next year as a premed student. My name is Griffin. I'll be I'm at Lincoln High School. I'll be studying chemistry and astronomy at the University of Alabama. My name is Cara Olsen. I go to Roosevelt High School and I will be attending the University of Alabama next year for nursing and Spanish. Hi, I'm Lily Camnikar. I'm from Roosevelt High School and I'm
007going to USC next year to study speech language pathology. Hi, I'm Carly. Um, I go to Roosevelt and next year I'm going to go to SDSU for engineering. I'm Harold Mayer. I go to Washington High School and next year I plan on going to the University of Nebraska Lincoln and sitting actuarial science. I'm Jacob Pagoni. I go to Lincoln High School and I'll be going to University of Michigan majoring in music. I'm Weston Shaw. I go to Lincoln and I'm going to be studying data science at SDSU. Let's say congratulations to all these students. [Applause] Thanks again for sharing with us and it's really uh great to hear the variety of um future professionals we have in the crowd today and uh some of you are staying nearby. Some of you are going uh long
008distances, but we hope that your heart always brings you back and reminds you of the SPL School District and everything that um was offered to you here and everything that you took advantage of because that's that's I know Dr. Sam said um lots of offerings here, but it does take a lot of initiative on your part to um take take on those tasks, get it done, and uh and we're really proud of you. So the board like to say anything about this before I move on to the next report. I'll just say congratulations again. It's just this is a really great time. It's exciting because everyone's graduating and we're all looking forward to that next step and knowing that you know they've worked so hard and they're just that excitement will carry them into their
009first year wherever it is that they go. and said, "Please come back and share your gifts with us here." Um because we have a great community and and it's because of the education that we can provide our kids. So, thank you. President Ryder, can we have their parents stand if they're here tonight? Let's recognize their parents real quick. Stand up and take some credit. Yes, thank you all for your support of your student as well. Up next, we have some exciting news that will be shared by Patrick Perie. He is the principal at Marcella Labau Elementary. Patrick, and if anybody would like to No, ignore me. After this, we'll excuse the whole group. I wanted an art. I wanted an audience, Carly. Sorry. Uh well, I don't know how I follow that up. Congratulations. Um
010but I'm going to be presenting a little bit of exciting news with uh the Marcel Labau Elementary and uh the good news report about all we've been doing over the last few months here. Um, so we've been preparing many documents, events, uh, getting staff hired and, uh, getting ready to, uh, open the doors to Marcel Bone Elementary in the fall. An important piece of opening a new school is selecting a mascot. So that's what I get to present to you guys here tonight. So, the mascot in the colors of Marcel Leau, but prior to selecting uh our mascot, we met with uh Anna Broken Leg with the department or in the office of Indian education to ensure that our mascot uh in colors would uh paint the picture that best uh portrays um Marcel Labau.
011And with that, we provided background information regarding Marcel Labau and what she was known for and what she contributed with her lifetime. So we got together and we put together a team. Um Dr. Boyce has been a wonderful mentor and with her insight and ideas we went ahead and put together a team um comprised of community, staff, students and uh myself and we uh met uh about two months ago to uh come up with or about a month ago to come up with our mascot. uh when we had our invitation for all the um registering of new students for this school year. Um but our team comprised of students, parents, staff, and representatives from the Sou Falls uh fire department. Unfortunately, they weren't able to attend that night. Um but we did offer the extension
012to them because we want to get that community input as well um with their decision. And I'm happy to announce after thoughtful discussions uh team proudly selected the Labau Bears as our mascot. So we will have our first ever Bears for the mascot in uh Sou Falls. So we're excited about that. And uh as you can see, the Labau Bears uh name honors Marcel Labau's greatgrandfather whose last name was forbears uh reflecting the deeprooted cultural significance of the name. Also in Native American culture, the bear symbolizes strength, courage, healing, protection, wisdom, intuition, and resourcefulness. Qualities that align with values that we will instill at Marcel Labau. Um we will uh and then in the Native American and then school colors the next the next exciting piece here will be uh in unison with uh our
013Northwest neighbors there up with Jefferson High School and George McGovern Middle School. We'll try and keep them uh that way we can continue to build that Northwest region and uh grow together. But our school colors will represent our earth with the colors being blue and green. These are two prominent colors of the Cheyen Su River flag. The blue symbolizing stability, energy and motivation. It is representative of heaven and sky. Green symbolizes growth, renewal, and prosperity and growth. It is representative of mother earth. Our mascot design was completed by Maggie Sadder, an Augustana intern who is in in here tonight uh in collaboration with Deian Conrad. Um, they provided us with several designs and we will continue to work to fine-tune the design that best fits the Marcel Labau logo. Um, so I really want to
014give them a huge round of applause for all they've done for [Applause] us. And yeah, and we will now uh continue on with a little bit more information. We have a live Facebook page up and running. It has already started to showcase some of our um staff on there. If you uh check it out, it got some pictures that um a couple people have taken and um put on there. Yeah. Next time. Um and then the last thing we have is um one very exciting piece to kind of help uh maybe instill some excitement into the young ones to pursue some amazing paths that you guys are on. Um we'll have a STEM lab provided through the smart lab for all kindergarten through fifth grade students at Marcolobo. This will ens the smart lab ensures
015access to projectoriented technology-rich experiences which engage students in a turnkey to equip uh students with career readiness with many different occupations. Um and that is the good news report from Marcel Labau. And if you have any questions we're happy to answer or Carly can release everybody. Anybody have any questions or comments? This is always such a fun time for a new school, no matter what the um grade level is. And there's already that excitement about a new building and now to have an identity of who your mascot's going to be and now you can start doing spirit wear and all those fun things um that go along with being in an elementary school. So um great work and appreciate the the partnership. It's always fun when you can get a student um really to get
016get a project going and have something to really show off that they completed before they graduated. So, thank you for your assistance with that as well. Um yeah, congratulations on this new big step and we look forward to having it open this fall. Thanks so much. Thank you. And [Applause] now if you've seen enough, you are able to leave. We will not be offended. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Thank you so much. Hi, sweetie. Barry's here. All right. So, we will continue on. Can I get a motion motion and approval of the minutes for the meeting held on March 24th, please? So, move. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Those minutes are approved. We don't have anybody wishing
017to address us today. Can I get a motion and approval of the motion and a second for the approval of the agenda? Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. Agenda is approved. No conflicts today. Uh the consent agenda 9A through H. A motion and a second for approval, please. So move. Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I I oppose. Same sign. That is approved. And then we have the supplemental consent agenda A1 for Sanford Health. I get a motion and a second for approval. So move. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. That passes with one abstension by
018myself. And then we will move on to the reports of the superintendent. Well, unless you're completely unaware, tonight we have a fine arts report and apparently Mr. Webbin wanted to set the bar just a little bit higher for every uh report to come after it. So, I think we have new expectations for displaying some of the work of our students, but we appreciate the work of getting all of this set up today and the staff who helped um they were busy all day long and I don't know, maybe even before today. So, thank you for creating a lovely experience along with the board report. So, with that, I will turn it over to you. Good evening. I need to start with some thank yous for our musicians. If you wouldn't believe it, they are 12
019years old. They are sixth graders at Whittier Middle School. Four boys who decided they wanted to have some fun to make music. And their director, Kim Bogart, said, "Yeah, we can put this together." So, they've had the opportunity to perform in some of our nursing homes and in their school concerts. And they left because they also have a school concert tonight. It's that time of year. So, they were very excited. I think what's really fascinating was they asked what was going on in here. And I said, "Our National Merit Scholars and they asked what a scholar was and I explained a scholar and they said, "Could we be that?" I said, "Absolutely, of course you can. I know that being in an orchestra, you guys are ready to do that and take on that challenge.
020Really exciting. Um, and just how fun to have these middle schoolers. So very talented. And then we're surrounded by the talent of our high school students. I have on the screen the list of our students who participate who placed at the state art wars competition or those who placed for the state gallery that was in Aberdine. So we have all of the pieces that went to the state competition around us today. Uh, Art Wars for those who don't know is an on the spot given a topic, here's some clay, create something, create something digital art, create a drawing. That's what uh the art wars is. And you see we took home several first place there as well as several uh great uh showings for our individual students. And then Jefferson took runner up and Lincoln
021High School took overall championship. So, congratulations to them. they will have their big uh the gallery is officially tomorrow and they will have an artist reception tomorrow evening. So that's when we'll see our our students coming to celebrate there. So and a big thank you to the teachers who make that all possible who help really inspire that creativity and I think really what our teachers do is to create that confidence in our students. That's the vision of our fine arts department is to provide all students with the experiences, the skills, and the confidence to enjoy and pursue all artistic endeavors over a lifetime. These students here will be creating art even if it's just for themselves going forward. Our our four students out there, they will continue to play music. They will have that gift
022the rest of their life and hopefully that confidence instilled by their teacher. Our mission includes four key terms of engage, enrich, empower, and explore. And I think we do that in so many different ways in our classrooms, no matter the content area. But it really takes on some really special meaning when we have kids devoting some passions that they have. And really, if you're a musician, artist, those are internal. That's an internal part of who you are. And then you're able, you feel empowered to explore that and really engage and enrich with art around you. The state implemented approved new uh standards in the spring of 22 and they align with the overall national standards of create, present, perform, produce, respond and connect. We call these the artistic processes. These are the artistic processes that
023guided the state revision for standards and guided our revision and really are at the heart of our curriculum, the heart of what we do every day. Those those terms of create, present, perform, produce, respond, and connect. Last year when we approved, we went over the timeline. So just to review, here's the timeline we used for our writing process of the new curriculum began in the fall of 22 under Dr. Perkins guidance. The new curriculum was approved by you, the school board, in March 24. We completed professional learning using ext the extra professional development days in the late spring, those additional snow days hours. And we continued with additional professional development this fall, really targeting in on our our new curriculum. I'll talk a bit more about how the professional development has evolved over the year
024and where we're going in the future as well. This was a big undertaking. We had began with a steering committee of 35 members. We had curriculum writing teams of 75 teachers and two instructional coaches. That's teachers from special education as well. Teachers in every content area of fine arts. And we wrote a total pacing guides 80 pacing guides total for all of our fine arts courses K12. Quite the undertaking for the group. We couldn't have done this without that team. And so I have to give credit to the work that they did and share my appreciation for the teams that were on the steering committee, the teams that came together to put together the pacing guides, the materials, the resources, the assessments, the teams that came in over the summer to sort out five pallets
025of band and orchestra method books in the hot warehouse. It was work and it was really their dedication that gets us to where we were able to implement in the fall. And I just I can't thank the team, our instructional coaches enough for the work that they did in getting to where we were to start August. We look at our professional development this year. We've really been focusing on the nuts and bolts of the pacing guides, what's in our curriculum. So, what do we need? What do we need training on? Um, and that involves some hands-on training. Uh we talked about what our new instructional resources are. Uh even how do I access this? But now I have these resources. How do I share in my classroom and create lessons? We did that. Then throughout
026this year, we've taken some time to add those resources where a teacher will say, "Hey, I had this really great idea how to teach for our upcoming assessment. If you want it, here it is. Try it. Now, let's start collecting those." So, we're working as a collective group improving uh how we teach and what we do by using each other's strengths. really really been beneficial really exciting to see those emails like or even the question I don't I don't know how to teach this does anyone have an idea and you know there's going to be three emails with here this is what I did you can use it so throughout the year we I asked teachers to give feedback on what professional development they were needing and we addressed some things throughout the year as
027we look ahead to next year you can see that they've identified some key areas that they would like to work on um we see for visual arts for example more hands-on where we're bringing in some professional artists in the community and providing that professional development for our teachers with hands-on. Really exciting. They want to talk about how are they assessing each other? How are they assessing students work from one building to the next? Does it look similar? Are we using similar expectations? Because we want to have those same high expectations across the district. our music. We have many different things from talking about what how do we structure a formative assessment? How do we create a master class for our students? Uh how do we know what's the best bass technique for our fourth graders
028and fifth graders when they can barely lift that instrument? And our theater teachers are looking ahead to their wonderful uh renovations in their auditoriums to say, "Okay, how do we use this new equipment that's going to be put in? how do we use the updated soundboards and lighting systems? And we're going to make sure that they have that knowledge when those things start coming into their building. It's really been great to see teachers express what they need and to be able to provide that for them and they have appreciated that we we take the opportunity in our district to meet their professional needs. So at this time I would ask for you to acknowledge the first year implementation report of the K12 fine arts curriculum and I will stand by for any questions. Thank you.
029Anybody have any questions or comments? Looks good. I really like Excuse me. I really like how things are looking to become a little more standardized as far as the programming and and so that we can make sure that our kids are getting similar experiences no matter what school they're in. I think that's highly important that we do that for all of our our students and we all know what the fine arts bring as far as that group that was standing over there and so thank you for all your hard work. Thank you. So, I will challenge you after the meeting. I know we have you have maybe a meeting afterwards as well, but as a music person, this is a stretch for me because our art instructional coach is out on maternity leave. I would
030like to invite you to participate in a print making activity after the board meeting. Everyone is welcome. It's quick, it's easy, you will be successful no matter what. I guarantee you will be successful. But print making is a new addition at the state level for standards and we've incorporated that in and so I have a elementary printmaking activity ready and I encourage you to please join me afterwards in the lobby for some print making. Awesome. Thank you. I was Oh, go ahead. I just wanted to remind everyone of the national recognition that our district has received. Would you like to remind people about the national recognition of the best best communities for music education? We are awaiting the this year's announcement. Fingers crossed. I think we're three would be three years in a row. I
031think we're doing all the right things to get us there. Awesome. Um, I was just going to say I love the uh the juxiposition of our elementary school art as our early learners and our people who are going to aspire to have their art hanging or sitting on um any of these tables um for other people to see. And I know um it was a few years ago, but I remember some very specific projects from my elementary school um art classes. and we didn't have the technology, we didn't have all of those things, but man, you you did your project and you were so proud of it and you were so happy to bring it home. And um I mean, my mom probably still has the clay mug that I made that's supposed to look
032like my dad or something, you know. Um but it's just those kinds of things that they really do leave a mark on students at all levels. Um and so for some students, that's what gets them to school. It's that artistic I want to use my hands. I want to be creative. Um, and so such an important role that all of your the staff have in um, engaging them and allowing them to express their themselves in different ways. So, thank you for the work you've put into the implementation and um, the continued professional development as well. Thank you. Our pleasure. Can I get a motion and a second to acknowledge the first year imple implementation of the fine arts committee or fine arts curriculum adoption? Sorry. So move. Second. I have a motion and a second.
033All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. That is approved. Um, one quick reminder is that absentee voting for the upcoming election started today. Um, and that can be done at the Minhaha County Courthouse downtown um up until election day. Uh so um if you want to avoid any um last minute things that come up that prevent you from being able to cast your vote, I would recommend voting absentee and getting that taken care of, finding some friends at work and go for lunch, make a date out of it. So um again, it open it started today uh and we'll go on through May 12th with election day being on May 13th. So thank you. Um we will move into executive session. Can I get a motion in a second
034to move into executive session SDCL1-25-2 parenthesis 2? So move. Second. I have a motion and a second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. I. Oppose. Same sign. We are in executive session.