001we're going to solve the meaning to order please rise and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance 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 right good evening everybody um all right moving on to the approved approval of minutes of meeting held on September 12th can I get a motion in a second please so moved second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign that motion passes um we have three people wishing to address the board on non-agenda topics we'll start with Chad bishop and um just a reminder that we will I've got a long thing I'm not going to read tonight um in the interest of time
002but um just no personal comments about any staff members and um get your limit to five minutes so Chad will let you come up and please give us your name and your address please good afternoon my name is Chad Bishop I live at 7405 South Valencia Drive here in Sioux Falls um I guess I'm titling this diffusing political tension and education will be a long conversation so first let me Begin by saying that my assumption is that all teachers administrators and staff share my Goodwill and best intentions for the children and our community when I last addressed this body I asked you to consider the following I invite you to create a forum for discussion on sensitive topics like critical race Theory social emotional learning diversity equity and inclusion help the community understand what the
003Sioux Falls School District means when it uses these terms help diffuse the tension that arises from your constituents when they assume the worst when they see the results of policies incorporating these terms and related policies in other communities today I ask is it possible to do bad things with good words words I grew up with and thought I understood seemed to have different meanings now I remember Orwell wrote a book or two incorporating this idea in my statement from last October I specifically asked what diversity means with respect to your hiring practices I mentioned one definition of diversity an identity-based approach to society includes only those who agree with social justice this might be interpreted as a violation of individual liberty or identity enforced intellectual conformity might be supportive of political quotas and attack on
004Merit and a form of soft bigotry political quotas attack on Merit soft bigotry when I was last here I mentioned the story from Minneapolis ABC reports when Minneapolis teachers settled a 14-day strike in March they celebrated a groundbreaking provision in their new contract that was meant to Shield teachers of color from seniority-based layoffs and help ensure students from racial minority racial minorities have teachers who look like them teachers who look like them that language sounds familiar I've heard it here from the contract starting with the spring 2023 budget tie out cycle if accessing a teacher who is a member of the population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site the district shall access to the next lease senior teacher who is not a member of an underrepresented population I asked at that time if this
005is overt racism I asked if this is overt racial discrimination also from the ABC story Callahan called it just one Teensy tiny step towards equity I remember encouraging you to follow not to follow their lead to not be racist and to not discriminate based on race now I do realize that it was the teachers union that agreed to overt racial discrimination and not the district now when I finished speaking we had the Good Fortune to hear Mr Hildebrand in his update on the reading program he used the word Equity several times you all behaved as if you understood exactly what he meant when that word was used I see that word Equity used in different places across the district I remember the ABC story from Minneapolis saying the overt racial discrimination by teachers the teachers
006union was just one Teensy tiny step towards equity so I ask what does the Sioux Falls school district mean when it uses that word equity what does it mean to your constituents and do we all agree is it possible to do bad things with good words so I offer my understanding of what this word means in the current narrative at this moment equality of outcomes plus reparations from my perspective this could be problematic could be a violation of equality before the law a dismantling of the foundations of a free Society State Management of society by redistributing resources opportunity and access who here has achieved equality of outcome in their own home amongst their own children are there any attempts at equity in history that didn't work out the way we had hoped in an excerpt
007from his book how to be an anti-racist Dr candy says the only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination the only remedy to pass discrimination is present discrimination the only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination is candies overt call for racial discrimination an example of equity my understanding is yes if you do not Define these terms and communicate what is meant by the district when they are used others will do it for you I'd ask for more discussion and more debate not less set up a forum invite the public lastly I ask again is it possible to do bad things with good words thank you for your time thank you next we have Erica Simonson please come up and say your name and your address please a reminder you have five minutes hi my
008name is Erica Simonson and I live at 3113 West Ralph Rogers Road here in Sioux Falls I don't have um really long thing I just wanted to ask when new curriculum is implemented or added where can parents go to find the full curriculum I'm specifically asking for second step out of Seattle Washington which is it states it is social emotional learning and restorative practice curriculum it's going to be starting in Pro 25 minutes every week for the whole school year it will go through different units and increase it's going to be for elementary middle school and high schools I can go online and find sample lessons but it only gives you one page from each unit so I'm looking just to find out where can parents find approved curriculum so we can actually go in
009and review the whole thing do parents have the option to opt out of anything when it comes to the social emotional learning restorative practices CRT anything that aligns with that I know you can't answer me now maybe if someone can get back to me with any questions on this thank you very much for your time thank you and next up is Amber rickensrad again name and address please sure thank you um good evening ladies and gentlemen of the board my name is Amber rickens Rune I reside at 2236 South Purdue Avenue here in Sioux Falls South Dakota and I have three children in the district that have attended or are currently attending Robert Frost and Discovery Elementary Schools Edison Memorial Middle Schools and Jefferson and Lincoln high schools so I want to start out tonight
010by saying thank you for your service to our students teachers and administration I currently sit on two different boards for non-profit organizations and I know the job can be thankless at times I'm coming to you today to ask for your consideration in a change to the district policy which classifies pepper spray as a weapon I think we can all agree that the National Crime rate is increasing and our Sioux Falls Community is no exception one safe way to protect our youth especially females is to allow them to carry pepper spray as a form of self-defense last year my freshman daughter attended Jefferson High School she participated in volleyball and was a driving student which means that she was responsible for transporting herself to and from school activities and practices before and after school often led
011her into a dark parking lot getting from her car to the school and vice versa unbeknownst to me we had her carry pepper spray on her keychain at all times not knowing that it was considered a weapon my freshman daughter had consistently upheld an A to B average in all of her classes from elementary school through her freshman year of high school she had never been in trouble and did not have any other offenses an incident took place at the school in late March which led to her backpack being searched to which she had pepper spray on her keychain that led to a weapons offense and she was suspended for 10 days initially until the superintendent reviewed and increased the suspension to 20 days as you know because this is a weapons violation she was
012forced to serve her suspension at home away from any classroom instruction or guidance we were given the option for a reduced suspension by participating in an assessment at Southeastern Behavioral Health when I called Southeastern there was a three-week wait time for an open appointment we got lucky in that an opening occurred before our initial appointment she was able to complete the assessment and return to the classroom after eight days of suspension upon her return with the reduced suspension contract we had to agree to have her backpack searched every morning before going to class because the administration was often busy she was tardy to class more days than not additionally we attempted to work with her teachers to help her in any way that we could in order to get our daughter caught up in classes
013with the days that she had missed serving suspension at home after no response from two of her teachers within a four-week period I paid a visit to the school and met with her counselor which finally resulted in a response from the teachers but it was too late the school year was closing out and she ended the semester with an F in one class and a D in another this experience left myself and my daughter with the feeling of being devalued and treated as if we truly posed a threat to the students and administrators at Jefferson High School as a result we have open enrolled her to Lincoln High School but understand that threats can occur at any school we just needed to give our daughter a safe place where she felt seen and heard and
014was willing and able to help her succeed as she has done in all her years past my ask this evening is that you please consider changing the policy to allow pepper spray to be carried by students as a form of self-defense if the pepper spray gets used carelessly or in any form other than self-defense then consider suspending for a period of time deemed appropriate as a parent it's my job to keep my children safe and I do not feel that pepper spray poses a threat against other students that would result in serious harm I would also ask that you consider allowing exceptions in your policies for cases such as this where a student had no prior issues or suspensions and maintained a good GPA to not be forced into out-of-school suspension for as long as
015what we would have had to serve 20 days had we not been able to get the assessment completed daughter back but the ripple effect to our family has also been difficult not every family has the ability to advocate for their child like we did and we will continue to do thank you for your time and attention I will be available for questions after the meeting this evening or you can contact me by phone or email thank you thank you very much sure just for the public and and thank you for everybody for coming your comments tonight too um all of our emails and um are on the website as well if you want to email us because then we can have more dialogue I know like for example with Erica and so forth so that
016um and we're pretty good about responding so please do that too so then we can actually talk more about things and so forth since we can't do that at public commenting thank you all right we have nobody um wishing to address the school board on agenda items so we'll move on to the approval of the agenda can I get a motion in a second please motion second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign all right up next is the good news report Dan foreign okay well first I have the wonderful honor tonight to tell you about some exciting news the Sioux Falls Lincoln High School Patriot marching band made history on Saturday by being named the first South Dakota band to ever win the bands of America Regional competition they
017competed in Waukee Iowa that's a suburb of Des Moines against 15 other bands representing bands from Iowa Minnesota South Dakota Kansas Nebraska and Illinois the closest South Dakota band has ever come to winning the bands of America Regional Championship was in 1985 that is when Lincoln High School band came in second place so this is a very big deal for our band community and we all know how hard our students work on the field and on their music they were the first to perform in the preliminary competition at 11 45 on Saturday they were the class 3A champions in the prelim and they won all the caption awards and so we're talking about outstanding music outstanding visual appeal outstanding General effect then the band performed almost 12 hours later at 10 15 PM in the
018finals competition and that's where they came out on top of all bands they also earned the overall outstanding General effect award so just to give you a couple numbers here 24-hour road trip for the band they have five buses of Performing members along with a caravan of chaperones parent supporters Roadies and instructors they left at 4am on Saturday morning and returned to Lincoln High School around 5 a.m on Sunday so talk about packing a lot of hard work and energy into a short period of time you can catch the Lincoln High School Patriot marching band as well as the other marching bands from Sioux Falls in the Festival of bands this weekend it's the 35th annual the parade starts at 8 A.M and there are a number of bands competing 29 in the parade and
019then 31 in the field competition field competition starts at 9 45 in the morning and Promises to be another long day as the finals are at 6 pm on Saturday evening and word has it that uh the person leading the parade this year for the Festival of bands is in this room yes super proud parade Marshall and I have no doubt that she will take this job very seriously just like she takes all others so Dr stable will serve as the parade marshal for the 35th Annual Festival of parade Festival of bands parade so great news and congratulations to Lincoln High School for that next this evening I wanted to give you sort of an overview of communication in the Sioux Falls School District a 30 and 60 day outlook of the communication we've done
020in the past month and two months knowing that we are now one month into the school here and that many of our Communications wrap up in the month prior to the first day so I wanted to give you a little snapshot here specifically in the areas of let's talk our website and app and then also our other media requests along the line let's talk gives us a an option to download a Wordle with the most used words in any Community communication that comes to us through let's talk and in the last 30 days you can see those numbers or those words highlighted there as well as the last 60 days in the last 90 we've had 39 dialogues received in the last 60 days 104 dialogues received so plus 65 and that month leading up
021to the start of the school year what I thought was interesting and unique here is that both of the largest words there which indicate they were used most often are saying in the last 30 days our folks who respond to Communications have responded in an average of five hours that's the average time it takes us to submit a response when something comes into us in the last 60 days that was four hours and that would stand to reason of course because when you get so many more people and traffic in the schools we have we're juggling many different things but those folks who are responsible for responding to Communications from our community are doing a great job and getting back to folks on an average of five hours here you can see the type of
022customer that we communicate with through let's talk you can see our parents and Guardians and our community members are our largest populations that we're communicating with but certainly we'd like to hear from students and employees as well the type of dialogue that's coming into us the person ascending in their dialogue can choose is this a question a comment suggestion concern or compliment and you can see of course that questions and concerns are the largest percentage and certainly we know that when there is a question or concern you're looking for an outlet and an immediate response or some sort of timely response and so those happen to be our most frequent dialogue types the entry point by which they're finding us to communicate with let's talk is on the landing page that's by going to contact
023us and then you get a full display of all of the different topics that you could send us information about or there's a tab on the right hand side of the screen which also allows you to select the type of user you are what dialogue you'd like to to present and such and then direct form is like a QR code that our newsletters would be our schools would be placing in their newsletters and then a parent could just click on that and be sent directly there moving on to our website as you all know we launched our new website last February and so in just looking at the most recent 30 days and the analytics behind our website we've had 63 608 views of our home page in the last 30 days so we know
024folks are heading there they're looking to find um what they're after whether that be school specific information District information curriculum Act activities and we're really working hard to bolster that even further as you know Ben Schumacher is a master behind the camera lens and he has a lot of great views on the latest videos that we have out there so that's really exciting to see our staff directory our events District calendar and then you can see down the line and so those are just some of the top hits on our website of course along with our website Kmart app and that was a new app that folks had to download new information so we continue to encourage parents community members students any stakeholders to download our app you're able to get lots of detailed information
025there so we'd love to see our our numbers increase but we were pretty happy with what we've seen in our app so far the top chart you can kind of see there we've had 7 700 downloads since February which is a really nice number of course we'd love to see that grow even even higher and since July 1 641 app downloads so I'm grateful for that and these I should also preface and say these are the iPhone downloads the Android downloads are a lot harder to get that information so this is only a sliver but a nice sliver to show you LS underneath that there are three different images that you'll see and those images are from our schools because we have web content creators that are employed at each school and at the elementary
026they are required to post a minimum of three posts a week at the middle school it's four posts a week and at the high school five posts a week and so that information which is coming on the app and that people can access really showcases individually what's happening inside the schools and really can highlight some of those shout outs to staff members to students wonderful homecoming snapshots and things that have happened in the buildings and Everyone likes to see themselves in pictures or see their children in pictures as well so we've literally had hundreds of Facebook and Twitter posts through our app and we're very excited about continuing that as well since August 23rd Ben and Carly youthy the last 30 days have developed 38 original programs to air on k-learn TV that is our
027district cable access Channel and we know that a lot of folks it's not a destination channel that people are going to say oh my gosh I have to watch this tonight at 7 pm but if they're watching a show and they happen to be running through the remote or what have you something may catch their attention and we're able to communicate widely with all stakeholders there so a really great opportunity for us and 38 original programs the month leading up to that then we had nine additional programs that were created but again this is just a snapshot because this doesn't count Dr Statham's video message to all staff members it doesn't count Brett Arn's policy review video It Doesn't Count a number of other things we had we took 700 photos at the President's Bowl
028and so all of that takes time and energy as well and is a great way to communicate with our our community we've responded to 62 media requests since in the last 60 days and we are just preparing to launch our podcast series the new season coming up in October we'll be talking about Native American Education in the Sioux Falls School District a fun and exciting Series in November that will start called by day and by night so we think we know what teachers and custodians and maybe even administrators are all about during the day but what are their side gigs are they you know in a band do they stock groceries at night what are they doing uh when they're not being an educator and believe it or not they do have lives outside of
029the classroom and then we'll be talking about school safety sort of a mid-year look at that and also in January then the power of Partnerships and you all know we had our first power of partnership breakfast last year and we're looking for looking forward to doing that again in January and celebrating those folks those Business Leaders and individuals who partner with the district to provide opportunities to our students in a variety of ways so with that just wanted to share a little bit of what we've been up to the last month since school started and and the month prior to that and does anyone have any questions that I can answer I'll just say I've noticed I follow several different schools on Facebook and I've noticed a lot of them kind of have a template
030that has the Monday through Friday and what activities are going on for whether it's sports or a band or whatever and I love that as a parent I would have loved that if I had a student because sometimes your kid doesn't participate but they want to attend and so to try to go and look up a schedule for something that you're not as familiar with is hard but when you can just look at that one page and go oh there's boys basketball or girls volleyball or whatever it is on Tuesday at your school yes you can stay after and watch so I love those little things that just make it easier for parents and easier for hopefully students to participate so that's great feedback because what we're trying to do is be the central Hub
031and communicate that back out to our web content creators and say hey this is the best practice we heard that somebody really enjoyed seeing this and give that idea then and share that idea with the other schools as well so we've had a wonderful time collaborating with those folks and really seeing some great highlights from in their building that we otherwise would not have known about so yeah no I've noticed the difference and I as a parent I appreciate that too okay any other question thank you all right thank you Dan all right moving on uh we didn't have any new conflicts of interest to review Thanks so we'll move on to the approval of consent agenda can I get a motion in a second please it's almost second all those in favor signify by
032saying aye aye pose same sign that motion passes and moving on to the supplemental consent agenda items a claims to Avera McKinnon can I get a motion and a second please second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye that motion passes with one abstention from myself and then we'll need a motion and a second for claims to Stanford Health items 10 B through e don't move second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye aye opposed same sign and that passes with one abstention from board member writer all right moving on to the reports of the superintendent this evening Christian grenauer will bring us our AP report which I always think is interesting when we think about rigor we know that AP courses are very rigorous and we are fortunate in
033our district to offer a very wide variety of them so with that we'll turn it over to you good evening I'm excited to be here to deliver another fantastic AP report to you tonight as you know the advanced placement or AP program is an opportunity available to all of our students it gives students an opportunity to take courses that are rigorous and rich in content that help prepare them to be College and Career ready at the conclusion of courses students take the AP exam and those exams are scored on a scale from one to five exams that are scored at a three or higher are considered passing during the 2021-22 school year students could choose from 30 AP course options and we had 1447 students Take 2 563 exams we work hard to encourage all
034students to take an AP course during their High School career and you'll see in our first chart here there we go sorry uh that shows the number of exams taken by our 9th 10th 11th and 12th grade students as you look at this chart a you can see that our numbers remain strong with 187 freshmen 280 sophomores 478 Juniors and 501 seniors took an AP exam last year just a side note this is exciting because our dual credit numbers have risen at the same time so both programs are doing really well students are encouraged to take at least one course during AP during their High School career but many students take more than one exam and chart B shows you the number of students who took two or more exams in the past four years
035and as you can see those numbers continue to remain strong with 667 excuse me 673 students who took two or more exams this past year we always strive in the district to involve all students in our AP courses and chart C breaks down the number of students by race or ethnicity we have some work to do here but we continue to partner with people like Ben and Carly who've helped us create videos that show all students who've taken AP courses and we're working hard with our middle schools to encourage students as they plan out their High School Pathway to look at AP opportunities table one it's a great example that shows how well our students are doing on AP exams it breaks down by course how many students scored a one two three four or
036five and as you look through the chart you'll see that the majority of our students are in the columns with three fours and fives chart D shows the number of exams taken in the past four years and the number of exams that scored a three or higher so as you can see in this past school year of the 2563 exams that were taken 1899 received a passing score of three or higher you can see how impressive this is in chart e which shows that we had a 74 percent pass rate of our AP exams this chart also shows you how well the Sioux Falls School District does compared to the state average at 66 and the global average at 58. through college board students are recognized for a variety of AP scholar Awards in the
0372021-22 school year we had 486 District AP Award winners 213 students received the AP scholar award which means they scored three or higher on three or more exams 90 students received the AP scholar with honors which means they had an average score of 3.25 or higher on all AP exams and a score of three or higher on four or more exams 174 students received the AP scholar with distinction these students received an average score of 3.5 on all AP exams taken and scores of three or higher on five or more of these exams we had five students receive the AP Capstone diploma as you may remember a few years ago we added the AP research and AP seminar courses and now we're seeing the benefits of that with five students earning three or higher on
038the AP and seminar research and for additional AP exams and then we also have the AP International diploma we had four students earn that by scoring three or higher in AP seminar and AP research the AP budget is an incentive budget there's 65 dollars for each exam that receives a score of three or higher our budget for the school year was 113 944 dollars buildings use this money to send teachers to conferences and institutes to stay up on the best and most recent practices the budget also provides for classroom materials to enhance courses facility rental for testing and the payment of test practice AP exam costs Rose this last year from 95 to 96 dollars AP seminar and research courses also increased a dollar to 144. students with a financial need can qualify to receive
039assistance through guidelines that college board establishes the district will also subsidize fees for students who do not meet those financial guidelines but do need assistance this year 216 tests for 104 students qualified for free reduction through college board there isn't a district AP committee which meets every year and includes administrators teachers parents and community members the goal of this committee is to continue to provide a rigorous program and encourage all students to take at least one AP course during their college career I stand by for questions at this point any questions thank you for the report it's just I just really commend now having three uh sons who went through AP programs at Lincoln it really is a leg up in college you see the cost is 95 for student however they the credit you
040know how much is three credits at a college or university much more expense so if you can get a three or higher at a State University or four or hire at some of the private institutions you you get that class at a much reduced cost so I commend our staff and students who are working hard and showing our pass rate at a very high rate and keep going on thank you thank you I know with the AP classes the expectation is to take the test do you have any idea how many students take the class but do not take the test I do um I made a note in case anyone asked that question and we have um 98 of our students take the AP exam awesome typically so very high number of students perfect
041thank you and I think it is partially before that reason that opportunity to earn that college credit questions when I know when they meet they sometimes look at new courses being offered and maybe one of those was BC or is that one they were looking at or what are they looking at so AP has just come out with the fact that they there's a new AP pre-calc course that may be available so our committee will meet later this fall I believe we meet November I meet with ap coordinators later this week and so each year we look at new courses that are possible and see if they will work for us to offer in the district we have a large course offering we offer almost everything that AP has available sorry I cheered for the
042Vikings yesterday it was a very exciting game it required a lot so I did a lot of yelling and it was very loud there yesterday it worked thank you very much all right see no other questions can I get a motion to approve the 2022 AP board report some moved second all those in favor signify by saying I I opposed same sign that motion passes all right we need to move into executive session um per South Dakota codified law 1-22-2 parentheses three and get a motion in a second please second all those in favor signify by saying aye aye opposed same sign all right we will move into executive session