001Okay, we're good. We're ready. Are we good? Okay, so we will go ahead and start our communications meeting. It's Thursday, April 24th. Superintendent. Oh, where's he at? He was here when I got here. Okay, we'll give him just a minute. might Okay, so we we will go ahead and start our introductions Thursday, April 24th. Um let's start to Carl Jacobs, board member, John Prince, senior director of teaching and learning. MJ communications, America, executive assistant, board member, Dora Wilson, board member, Cindy Shepu, CCL director, Ellen Roberts, CTE director, and I will note that Dr. Bryant is going to attend. He his stuff is all here and he will be right back. Just stepped out. So, for the efficiency of time, we're going to go ahead and get started and then we'll catch up Dr. Bright when
002he's able to to join us again. Um let's start uh if we don't mind with our community outreach if I can pivot to MJ to start. Yes, thank you member Wilson. Uh I am I apologize uh member or President Hullman is online. Oh yes. Uh I am representing uh Tony uh today and uh just wanted to review the list of events that they have um in front of them. So tonight, uh, one of our partner organizations, the Alaska Children's Trust, is having their annual, uh, TR champion for kids from starting at 5:30 to 7 at the Megan Room. Uh, this weekend, uh, we've got our multi mult multicultural festival over at Government Hill Elementary School from noon to 4. We also have Covenant Houses's uh, spring uh, sleepout that will happen next weekend, uh, the
003second and the third. Then the following uh weekend uh on May 10th, we will be uh supporting the Taste of Korea Cultural Festival. And then we have two save the dates. Uh the African-American Scholarship Awards, which will be on Saturday, June 7th from 11 to 1 over at Cuddy Hall. And then we've got uh our um as part of our back to school planning, we've got our uh uh school supplies, backpack jam, hugs uh event uh planned for Friday, August 1st. Yes, August, but we want to make sure that you have it on the radar. Uh from 11 to 7, it's going to be over at Bage Middle School. And so more to come with that, but we're going to have a save the date get out to families uh before the end of the
004school year. Um, so that's your uh diversity, equity, inclusion, and community engagement. Thank you. Any questions? Any questions? I see none. So let's move on to the next thing I I wanted to bring up um on our community outreach community engagement is that there was a request from uh a particular department asking for a proclamation uh in support of the work that they're doing which I always love to recognize all the work that our staff families our kids and our community is doing. Um I have never had a the request for a proclamation before. So I mostly I wanted to talk to the board members and get some input um because I don't want to start anything that we cannot continue to provide to all of our schools and community and departments. Um so thoughts.
005Member Jacobs, let's start. Yeah, I have a couple. Um the the first I'll say is while I I deeply appreciate our assembly colleagues, I do not one of the processes I do not want to mimic is their resolution process. Um and I don't think that's treading um contentious ground, but they're actually looking to overhaul their process because they um have so many resolutions that they've expanded that they're um working on that their staff and their staffing support is much more significant than ours. Um 800% probably. And so we don't have the resources, the time as part-time um local electeds. It's just not there for us to facilitate and honor officially through our board work everyone who deserves it. And that's my concern. And so um I think that we should be less formal and more
006um reaching out to groups um directly to attend events and be where they're already at and split up that way would be the better way to do it. If the board did really want to start formal resolutions on a regular basis, I think the legislative process is a bit better because um they approve them all at once then go out in the community and celebrate them and it's it's quicker from a meeting process. But again, someone needs to do that work of drafting them and I don't have that bandwidth. um and I don't imagine the seven of us do and I know the solid business and so um we're limited there and so we're looking at having to allocate dollars from elsewhere for staff specifically for this reason that time resources are tight and so
007I'm nervous about opening opening that process up second I think one of the things our district has done exceptionally well is the communications the shine bright the acknowledgements um and formerly we recognize the sort of exceptional staff the Awards which are coming up which I think are marvelous and it does seem like it'll work because there are so many people who help make the district work. Um I think that would be a challenge to recognize all of them on issuing truly issues budget. No, appreciate that. Um President Hullman, did you I can't see if your hands up. I just want to make sure it's not but I'm sure that did you have any input? I I'll just weigh in. This was a request for a group to be recognized and so um because things can't
008come directly to a meeting. They have to go through a committee and communication seemed like right one. I I don't know that we get so many of them. Um and this one is basically internal. I'm supportive of it. Um, but I can understand the concerns that member Jacobs raised as well. Thank you. Um, I know that the the legislators do a great job of writing resolutions and like member Jacobs said, they go into the community and um into the space where the person is being recognized. We've had actually that that is another way that our our staff, our departments and and our students are recognized is by our legislators because I've attended multiple of those. Um actually just two weeks ago there was a staff member Russian Jack that was being recognized by a legislator.
009Um I also recognize that the legislators have full-time staff working on those for them and they do take a significant amount of time. Uh, so that that is I just wanted to have that conversation to see because I don't I personally don't like to recreate the wheel as I go. I want to make sure that um I'm moving forward in a way that's going to be fair and um efficient enough for for us to make sure that we can move forward and do it consistently. So um I'm gonna ask MJ, can you maybe talk about ways that staff and families and students are recognized in the district now? because I want to make sure that we continue um to advertise what's being done, how it's being done, and and maybe use those those processes that
010are already in place. Yeah, thanks. Uh we got a couple. Um social media is really the main area where we uh communicate those types of um accomplishments. Um we also share uh in our external newsletter uh and we also do share internally uh on our platform um on SharePoint. So, our most recent one was our military child of the month um uh that we pushed out um a couple weeks ago. Um but that's really where we focus these types of um acknowledgements. And then sometimes um there's some unique things that come out that we find that are good for a story through team ASD or through our media partners such as Alaska Public Media who's in house um you know right now right now. So, I mean, those are the areas that we um use.
011So, is it fair um to to I'm not going to assume this is why I'm asking. Is it fair to ask that if there's a particular group we want to to highlight in some way, maybe reach out to to you to find out how we can do that? Yeah, for sure. just sit us up um and run it by us and then we'll help um with some suggestions and in areas that we can you know showcase that um acknowledgement. Okay. So, President Hollowman, um initially I I received some information from you. Are you okay with um us working with MJ to see how this particular group can be recognized rather than moving forward with proclamations? Um certainly if I mean it is the will of the committee. So I'm good either way. Yeah. One other
012just com I just want to be clear that while I was pretty definitive in my preference for how we proceed, I 100% agree that this group deserves recognition as does numerous other groups and so it's not for me a matter of how we or if we recognize them. No, appreciate that. And I want to make sure that that we find a way to recognize them. And I will say I think one of the hang-ups is it is about um a month that recognizes this group of employees and that is May. So um if if we do something else it it needs to be rather timely. Okay. So MJ, I'll I'll reach out to you and we'll see. Yep. We'll we can move forward. Yeah, that's perfect. Awesome. Thank you so much. I appreciate the conversation.
013Um, let's go ahead and unless anybody has any questions, comments, let's go ahead and move on to the communications update. And MJ, I'm going to pivot right back to you. Well, thank you very much. Uh, I'm actually going to start out with a good thing. Uh, so we, uh, we held it up with the superintendent for Chiefs this morning, and I'm just going to share verbatim. Uh, it's really a great shine bright moment. It's all over our social feeds if you haven't seen. But the Chiak High School choir from our district delivered a powerful and heart art heartfelt performance out of the national anthem at the historic Fenway Park today. A crowd of more than 33,000 fans who were there to see the Red Sox and the Seattle Mariners. Go to Baltimore orals are much
014better. Um, the performance marked a once in a-lifetime opportunity for the students, their vocalists who represented both their high school and the state of Alaska on one of baseball's most iconic stages. And so, we have shared this with our media partners. It's all over our social feeds. Um, I just want to highlight that this is a great example of us telling our story and I know that we have some uh partners that listen to this uh recording and um just encourage folks to stay uh connected to our social feeds, YouTube, Facebook, Insta and X um where we really push out all our stories for the district, the highlights, the stuff that's coming out of the classroom. We have those franchises teaching today. Um alumni spotlight. Um this one just happened to be on our fine
015arts department, but we do uh focus in on academics, um sports and uh other highlights. But uh today is just a real good um moment of where our taxpayers go and these students represented the district on a national level today and it's a pretty powerful um video. So, I encourage you guys to check out our feeds and I encourage our partners to share. Yes, of course. I didn't know that. That was really awesome. And credit I mean I've heard them sing especially in Mid Point Jak and Eagle River High School choirs choir um is getting hit pretty hard with next year's budget right as principals are choosing to focus on core coursework you know that we're responsible for delivering. Does anybody know whether the treat choir offerings are on the chopping block? I can't. We
016don't know. Okay. I know that other, you know, I heard testimony like at East High School, but it is there's no there won't be a choir option. Um, so it would be a shame if budgetary constraints prevented students from continuing to develop and share their gifts. Be a darn shame. Yeah. So, um, check out the feeds. It's real good. Uh, the performance is powerful. but we also did behind the scenes as they were prepping. Uh, and so we've got a couple highlight reels. So, good stuff to share and talk about and showcase of what's coming out of our classrooms. Thank you. Appreciate that. Now, speaking of investments, uh we put out um the bond the uh elections were certified by the assembly on Tuesday and superintendent message went out yesterday afternoon thanking um voters for
017supporting it and really highlighting um the investment that the community made into um this organization. Uh the message really highlighted the 10-year plan that we started. We also messaged good stewardship of the district. Um, and we also included some messaging about bond versus budget just to help people kind of understand that there is a difference. Uh, so you'll see that on social. Uh, you'll see that uh letter from the superintendent in your uh email, but you'll also receive a mailer here over the weekend uh or first part of next week. Uh, just summarizing um all of that. But really the point um that we are wanting to make is a thank you for the investment um and that uh we've got this 10-year project um in play thanks to the support of the community. Um
018and then just uh end of year stuff. Uh so as we transition into um graduation, we've got a wonderful um communication planned uh starting the week of May 12th. Uh we've got senior profiles uh building off of what we created a couple years ago. Uh we've got the ceremonial live streams already set up. Uh and then we've got our behind the scenes um live streams that we do with the uh with the larger schools um all set up. So that'll be kicking off um the week of May 12th. Um and then uh um we also are going to be highlighting uh themies of Anchorage and excited to share their story from the last year. And with that um that's a great um pivot and transition over to the report. Good. Next thing on the agenda,
019thank you. So happy to be here again and give an update for themies of Anchorage. Um we have had quite a beginning of the year and we just have some highlights that we want to share with you all. Uh we have a spirit of awards uh spirit of tomorrow awards that happened. The last time we were here we talked about that this was an upcoming event. We just wanted to share how this kind of all rolled out. You can take a look. It's quite a list of business partners, schools, and people from around the state that were honored in connection with. Uh we have Chua ProStart. They received a student award. Our Alaska resource education was superintendent award. Thank you, Dr. Uh we have the UAA civil engineering advisory council and pizza man business partner.
020received that award for um business partner of tomorrow. Alaskan Airlines was actually highlighted as the student choice award in themies of Anchorage Career Expo. This is where we got to see those um pilots and people involved in the Alaskan Airlines industry kind of relating straight with a lot of our students and we got to see that that very special moment where we had young students looking at other people and saying like this could be me. Uh what do I have to do to get there? Uh the municipality of Anchorage again a AOA outstanding partner. Um the municipality has supported themies of Anchorage and the school district so well. And then as well as Providence, Alaska receiving the Jim Utard of Excellence. Some more celebrations as seen here. This is just a nice image of all
021of our academy coaches as represented from each one of our schools. uh in the comprehensive high school ranks. They received the highest award from the Anchorage School District in the Denali award winners. So, we're honoring all of their hard work and supporting themies of Anchorage and what that does for our students. They are responsible for orchestrating so much of the work that we did this year. And if we want to just look at the near 1 million touch points in counting, uh these are just some samples of all of the different ways that our schools have had interaction with the federal courthouse. We look at the King Tech hiring event which is storied across the the district. UAA visits. We have a royal uh affairs council speed networking, the expo, a Jbear visit, another law
022panel, our gifted mentorship program which uh member lessons you participated in memory serves correctly. um our our mentoring that we have with AR as well as their support of a lot of the curriculum that we're doing at two of our high schools with natural resource education apprentichip expo um our development of CTSO competitions that was hosted at King Tech. So if you look, it's just a a lot of different ways that our community is engaging in this work and how many offerings our students actually get opportunities to be involved with because of themies of Anchorage and the focus that the school district has really placed on that. We do want to talk about um addressing some concerns just as a way to communicate. We have been hearing and I know that many of us are
023aware that there are uh a lot of headwinds that we've been facing budgetary u problems that have faced us. We've looked at different initiatives back and forth and when we talk about schedule change there's no immediate focus on the changing of the high school bell schedule not for three to five years. We recognized that we would need funding. We would need uh teacher availability and really just looking at what we are currently in right now. We just wanted to be transparent and honest to say three to five years out. Uh we also want to just talk about the some of the discussion some of the emails that we've received uh through our various out uh inputs and outputs uh that CT expansion when we are facing these dramatic budget cuts and just wanted to clearly
024say that the state funding formula is separate from the federal grant fund formula. I know it's difficult to say if you're cutting teacher programs or we're trying to find homes for all of our librarians or our nurses and we're really caught in the middle of this. How could we be looking to expand something? And I just want to take a moment and say that we are trying to hold what we have. Um, Ping Tech is actually celebrating 50 years and they have been kind of the guiding light for our district in career technical education and themies of Anchorage just looks to have that opportunity expanded for all of our students, not just the 800 students that King Tech can actually serve, uh, but all across our district. And so we have reorganized the uh grant
025that we received from the federal government and created six teaching positions, the equivalent of six teaching FTEEs that when we talk to principles that has allowed them to save some of those programs that we're talking about, those opportunities, those classes that they may have had to cut just because our budget is such that we're like cutting meat off the bone or just saying what finger can we lift without, you know, and with that adjustment, it gave principles flexibility to say with that extra 2 FTE or full FTE, what can they do? And they're they're saving teacher positions. So, we're all trying to be a all hands- on deck effort here. Um, and I don't want people to confuse both of those others. um pathway access the phased approach. We want to make sure it's still
026a gradual scaling model while we have a fair and balanced approach and and know that there's logistical challenges. I I don't think I've talked to really any principal or or teacher that says like if we had the funding formies of Anchorage, if we had the teachers available, they wouldn't be in support. But I think they are very pragmatic as we all are and we know that we can do what we can with what we have. Um and we want to stay focused on our our mission of educating all students for a success in life. Um I think that's why this matters. You know, the focus ofmies of Anchorage work was actually informed by the community convening and all of us meeting and deciding what it looks to be a fully actualized graduate of of the
027Anchorage School District. And that's really why we're continuing to have this as a core value of what we're doing. uh we want our students to be ready to go to college. We want them to be prepared to be enlisting in the military or entering the workforce or if they want to go to a post-secary activity. And I think the intent of themies of Anchorage is really providing that kind of Swiss Army knife of skills so that whatever you decide to do, you have those durable lasting skills that will keep you prepared to pivot on a moment's notice. because I can speak from my own personal experience. I decided not to to follow the college path. So, I didn't take a foreign language. I didn't prepare things for college because I was joining the Marine Corps.
028And when I exited the Marine Corps, I knew I had some things to do like taking the SAT after not being in high school for seven years was a challenge. Um, and I really wish that we had some foundational things that were laid out for me so that when I made that pivot, it would have been a little easier. And uh I think that's what at the heart of what we're doing is we're trying to make sure that our students are prepared for whatever adventure they're willing to take. When we talk about our academyy's implementation planning, we're still growing towards a wall-to-wall academy model. And we just recognize that as we hear input from our students, our faculty, our administration, and our community that we can change this model as we go. Um, we've learned
029a lot this year. We've learned a lot of things that have worked well. We've learned a lot of things that we would like to do differently and we're still willing to be adaptable. And I think that again speaks to the core of what is abouties is just preparing people to be able to be successful in life and pivot and turn and grow. Like if we don't win, we learn. That has to be a mantra. uh career and uh college and career exploration courses is being revised and that work took intentional practice by our educators to sit down and say we we went through this year with it. What needs to be changed? How can we meet the needs of our of our students so they are prepared for life and we still have a commitment
030to build a robust business and community partnership. It is very exciting to see so many people that want to be involved in this work still and I know that it's important that we prepare our students for the future that is their future not the future that we remember uh from when we were in high school this age myself I don't know looking around the table I think we're all about 30 years on the long on the tooth since that adventure happened and uh the reality of the workforce that kids are entering or colleges that they want to go to is very different than we were we were trying to prepare for. Um we're also doing a a re-engaging of our tactic team work. This is ongoing and important. We are going to have our steering
031committee meeting uh tomorrow, April 25th, and we're going to have a presentation by two of our tactic teams. We're going to have our credit and credential tactic team and our family engagement tactic team just giving us an update. You know, that 10,000 foot view of how we're doing and what we need to do differently in the future. We're also going to expand the work of our of our steering committee and ask them how we can possibly engage them in hearing our community's concerns and what they're excited about. Because I I know that with with everything there's two sides. there's people that have their concerns and we want to be able to adjust those concerns, hear them and make make that change. And then we also want to know like if you're really excited about this,
032what are you excited? Because we want to hold that excitement and make sure that we're answering the question that everybody wants to to hear an answer to. I think when we talk about our coordinating of a public message, this is definitely a venue where we want to make sure that we are doing a job of not just highlighting the good things that we're doing, but also educating so that we're all on the same page. Can I jump in? Have you talk maybe just a little bit about the credit credential because the work with UAA over the past couple years has been really exciting as far as what students have the opportunity or will continue to have the opportunity to to you know have credentials for or anyways if you can talk a little bit about
033that. Yeah, I'd love to. Member Wilson. In fact, I I had a meeting yesterday with uh Lissa Wright Elson, who's who's our coordinator for the CCL work, and uh Mary Joe Finley, who's the she's the dean of graduate studies. So, we meet uh pretty regularly to talk about the dual credit certification that we're offering a lot of our students in ASD. And that is going to be that gateway so that students can pay for college level classes while they're in high school and earn college credit. And so that partnership is really important and we're we are having that uh existential crisis just like how do we make sure that in a situation like we're currently in where we have budget cuts and we have a lack of state funding and and will of our legislators
034to to pay uh for the education that our students deserve. Um, how do we ensure that when we spend time with UAA getting teachers certified to teach college level classes in high school so we can earn college credit that they're going to still be there next year, right? That was a real robust question. Like it's hard. Uh, I've talked to principles and seen where they're talking about we have two people that are retiring from our English department who teach AP classes to prepare our kids for college. and when they're retiring, we had someone teed up and that bench was lined up. That person is leaving the state because we don't have a defined benefit. So, you had the work of a principal who's trying to make sure students are getting what they want and building
035the bench and that bench just got cleared. And now we're thinking about that dual credit opportunity for kids and how do we keep our teachers interested in being invested and guarantee like hey you did this work you can have a job next year. So that's kind of the doom and gloom part of it. But the the exciting news I think is really just we're continuing to push to offer things like hey I'm a junior and senior in high school. I'm earning college. So when I do go to college, I can almost skip my freshman year. You know, we've seen that with some students who have taken a wealth of AP classes, go to UMass Boston, and they graduate in three years because they actually didn't have to take freshman year of required entry level credits
036because they did so well on the AP exam. I just don't think our community always knows all the wonderful things that are happening currently in in ASD. Like the students can walk out with their CNA certification. We partner with UAA on that. They the work that's being done in the aviation mechanics program at King Tech where they're actually partnering and learning with the students at UAA. There's a lot that's being done now that I I don't believe a lot of our community knows the great work that's being done that falls under under our CTE. It falls under our bridge. Yeah, there's others too if I can add like um our business academy and we we did lose our business academy coordinator um as part of the cuts, but fortunately we've been able to work with
037the Alaska Middle College in order to bring that program under their umbrella in order to keep all that dual credit opportunity going for those juniors and seniors about 40 juniors and seniors each year that are connected to that. We're we're currently renewing that articulation agreement with UAA for a whole host of the king tech courses that students take as you mentioned CNA and aviation maintenance are outstanding but ENT classes welding classes like there's you know there's a good eight um um different courses that that uh allow students to get dual credit and then in the larger CTE umbrella um a lot of our engineering project lead the way engineering courses we have an agree event with UAA for students that um can basically declare and they look at the transcript and they give them credit
038for various courses and there's some of that as well for the computer science program. So we have Yeah. So we we and I agree I think we probably could do a better job of getting that that that word out um as part of the work that we're doing and that's definitely on our on our radar. Sorry. Go ahead. I just want to write this down so we can make sure we do better at So Pardon me for one. [Music] Oh, nevertheless, yes, a question. I sort of something up along these lines the other evening. Um, the passage of the master plan um, you know, almost a year ago, one of the one of the items says that it is a living document. Right. Right. And you're updating it. Um but it's seems to be alive
039um and changing and it's scheduled to be reviewed and updated by the steering committee on an annual basis. Right. I guess what is the plan or the intention for updating that? I guess in my mind I'm envisioning here's 2.0 O like a a rema paper new new version um that would be different than you know the regular updates that are being provided for here and certainly there's updates online which are helpful I guess is there a clear plan to present an updated master plan and if so is that something that can be expected like the end of June start of August what's the what is the plan or retention on our timeline. We are looking at May and June as a time to revise and and really take a look at, you know, considering everything
040that we're we're doing and that has changed what really needs to be modified, right? Um realistically, I would I would I would hope to be able to present to the board that master plan August, September. It's a massive document as you know and uh I would love to say that we have like 10,000 people waiting to review that document with nothing else to do right now but it's just not the case. So when I say May and June that's like maybe a quiet time when teachers and students have disappeared and all of their uh needs from us we can do that work. Um, and I just don't want to overcommit. Um, but I could say that August would be a good reliable time frame for you to get a draft version of that 2.0. I
041think part of the I can add something. Part of it is that re-engagement of the tactic team. So the steering committee will be hearing from tactic teams and we we have 14 15 tactic teams and they only meet so often and so that's going to inform a little bit about about that because they have to hear from the tactic teams about given current resources those kinds of things like what is still possible in terms of action plans and those kinds of things. So we do have the next few steering committees, different tactic teams coming to to to um to you know to report to this steering committee and that process will be part of of the reision that it's and if I could just add um another reason why this process might take a while
042is because of that family engagement piece. Really one of my commitments is to hear from as many families as possible especially those who felt that the initial plan was not for them. I want to hear from them because I think that there there might be things that were missing from the original. There might be a way to where the majority of families agree there is a type academy for my child. They just didn't see it in that initial list. And I we have some theories and we're going to be adjusting who's potentially on the steering committee and other tactic committees so we can really do a deep dive to make sure that we're including as many families as possible because we truly believe that this isn't the right direction for what Anchorage wants. I think
043we got a little lost in the sauce and some very um important things that need to be addressed through that family meeting process. Thank you. I guess as follow up, summer busy, people traveled, people fished, people run out to the woods forever. Um, do you have a sense of whether you're envisioning community listening sessions and family engagement, you know, sort of on the front end, on the tail end of I mean, that's what we're talking about tomorrow. Okay. Tomorrow. Like, I don't want to I don't want to commit anything right now because our our job is really to engage the steering committee and and see how we can best set up. So, I I can't even say like I' I'd say that the original um revision, annual revision that was planned just it's it it
044looks so much different with where we're at at this point that it's it's that was obviously the intention and it still is the intention to regularly update and revise the master plan, but but yeah, it definitely seems like we've got things that we need to accomplish before before we're ready. So, I'd rather not rush the revision until we get all the information that's that's necessary and do the work. Yeah, I would hate to put a 2.0 because we had to overlook a step for sake of urgency. Right. Right. I'd rather do it right. Um, if I could have one. Okay. Of course. Not a finance point of discussion. We've already closed that. But about a year ago, we were talking about the long-term, you know, this is how much with a schedule change, especially pivoting
045towards the academyy's costs. And we uh, you know, should the DOE grant continue through the five-year period, there's a there was an understanding that for FY29, um, the price tag goes up for ASD right at the end of So, how how does the schedule change even if you put it off three to five years? I guess what are you thinking about for a potential funding source to support an academyy's forward move the forward moon of themy's um at the end of the uh grant period do we have an idea at this point in time I think the way that I think about it member lessons it's less about um what we need to do tomies to meet some sort of timeline it's about what do we need to do to meet our board goals and
046I'm thinking about the board goal uh graduation rates and CTE completions as the interimm goal. We really want to demonstrate that the model that we end up choosing is going to increase the number of students that are completing CTE programs of study. That's one indicator that we'll be tracking over time. We want to track the graduation rates and I'm looking forward to looking at some data points when current freshmen end up graduating from ASD because on frankly I think that we'll be able to make a quantitative tape that the schoolboard needs to invest in things like CT program to study whether it's calledmies or something else. I think this is direct the direction that we're headed when it comes to post-secary. So, it's less about making a pitch to fundmies. It's about making a pitch
047to the board to show you that this type of programming, no matter what you call it, is going to be central in us meeting our board goals. Member Jacobs. Yeah, I just I guess a followup comment because I've thought about that too and I think where my thought evolution is for now anyway is that um funding uncertainty exists for every ASD core function right now. Um, and that's something that we can't solve in this room. Um, besides to say that we need to continue holding our capital accountable for ensuring that we have the resources we need to fund our three goals that we've set out and that includes CCL work um, and ensuring our students college life ready. Um, I'm excited about what will come next out of themy's program and I think our community
048will too. It is incumbent on our legislature to fund that and I I refuse to let our lawmakers off the hook. Thank you. Let's continue. Right. This is just to kind of tell you how we're trying to operate and keeping our our public informed especially, you know, are taking over our notes of what you said. You know, member Wilson, just there's some really good opportunities that we have currently going on. And I think it's incumbent upon us to use every one of our available options here to really help and inform our community and say like look um I was just talking with an academy coach that went they did a visit to ABTE you know and they said look for kids that are coming leaving home for the first time um and going to start
049this kind of postsecary opportunity has a ton of supports to make sure that it's successful and that when they were telling me about the dorm arm support and how they have people checking in with the students and if they only want to increase uh opportunities for um this pathway if they know there's going to be jobs available for those students once they graduate. Uh, I was very impressed and knowing that we're we're trying to give those opportunities to our kids and then we want to just make sure that we're also informing our public letting them know, hey, in case you hadn't thought about this, this is right here just down the road and it's a great opportunity and it exists now and will be in the future. So, um, that's our our ongoing work. Uh
050as far as our upcoming events and engagement, uh we have a a date for our freshman career expo next uh this coming school year, which is September 26th. And then we do have some spring industry events. So we have the healthc care classes are going to make a visit to the UAA health sciences programs. We have a construction day on May 8th. We also have Eagle River is doing another speed networking event on the 28th of April. And then King Tech 50year celebration on May 3rd. That is monumental. Uh 50 years is a long time to be doing it well. Uh so there's information right there at the bottom of that highlighted uh slide for King Tech telling you the the hows and wins. And uh that's really it. lessons in the weeds, but we're
051here. So, currently this year's high school program of studies describes the freshman care through exploration course as required to prepare for the sophomore year academy selection. We're talking about pathways rather than to some extent. So, is the face course required for next year to prepare for academy selection? So we talk about I mean or does the wording need to change in the high school handbook to reflect a pivot? It's a good point. Um I mean I think with the so the the the previous course was freshman academy career exploration and the the revi the course that's undergoing revision right now with our social studies coordinator and our CCL coordinator with a whole host of educators that have been working on it over the last few months. It's it's going to be college and career exploration.
052So that's the new title with it's with personal finance um included. Um and so um the I think the the major foundation of the course is really you know a way of systematizing our ability for students as many students as we can to sort of throw open the blinders and understand what all these opportunities are and how to navigate um you know how to navigate their high school experience including extracurricular activities, clubs, being involved in career and technical student organizations, you know, whatever that looks like in order to um build and grow the skills necessary so that they they do embody that portrait of a graduate, right, when they graduate. So, it's it's it's it was a in an academyy's model, it is a function of that course for them to do a selection when
053you have that. But the primary I would say I would argue that the primary focus of the course is really preparing students opening their eyes to all of the opportunities that are available. Certainly they can still investigate and our plan is for them to investigate the CTE programs that are there and available at their school as well as at at King Tech and other affiliated programs so that they know that they have all of the options. We want them to see the full menu if you will so that they can make some choices. And a large part of that is them assessing themselves and like what are my worth values where what am I how am I oriented to to serve in the world and those kinds of things. So I guess just to put
054a button on what I think member lessons is asking the phase course and what we're calling it now. It's not a prerequisite for the path necessarily but it's a really important part of the program. I would agree with that. It's like a it's a very much a foundational like opportunity for us to to to give students that they could they could they could go in all sorts of different ways as a result of that course. I was just going to say when when we had the visit from the secretary of education to service high school, he mentions it really just takes one caring adult to say like, "Hey, you know, Kelly, I see with you an opportunity here. Have you considered college?" Like that's kind of what we're looking at the this this new freshman
055class, the college and career exploration class is that that like, hey, you're you're a freshman year. You know, this is this is the menu of opportunity for you. And then that's that opening door to say, oh, college has piqu your interest. Well, as a freshman, I want you to really start paying attention to the classes that you take, any of the standardized tests that we take. when we talk to our counselors and we talk to our parents like start building yourself that path and when we think about school links and some of the other tools we have it's going to help guide them to that opportunity to start planning their future. So I thank you for all of this and I again splittingly document things are dynamic. What I don't really understand is how that's
056going to be a social studies class that aligns with social studies standards because systematizing the ability to navigate the high school experience sounds really helpful for a lot of kids. It doesn't sound like social studies to me, right? If you've read the new social studies uh uh standards for the state of Alaska, they are actually college career life ready standards are embedded in there and those are things that they're actually focusing on. work group that's actually peeling it apart are looking about like how do we understand uh the dynamics of economics in the state of Alaska social studies focus change over time the highs and lows boosts and busts and they are aligning it to those social studies standards when they talk about personal finance they looked at the standard strands from prek all the
057way to 12th grade so that as they get dipped into the economics standards based through social studies curriculum they are doing a spiraling education of here's another touch, but we're not going to uh supplant what's going to be taught in the econ class you have to take as a graduation requirement, but it's going to be like another introduction. You're going to see this later. If you take the u financial math course, you may see strands of what we're going to talk about here. So, it's it's it is re reimagining it as a social studies credit because it's going to be talking about social studies things. Yeah. Any other questions, comments? So, I I am excited about um as many kids as I've had in my home over the last 20 plus years of we do
058a lot of as as a parent I do because I know a lot at this point a lot of the programs that are in the district I do a lot of handholding and explaining what programs and but there are so many students that don't have that. I I can't tell you how many parents I've talked to that don't really their their students have not expressed all of programs like King Techch, all of the programs that are available to them there. So, I'm really excited that there is this opportunity where all of our freshman students will have all of those opportunities laid out in front of them in some sort of way. Um, so that they can they can plan, they can it it helps in determining um what their not their just their selection of
059what they like to do and not will want to do as a career, but their deselection. The deselection to me is incredibly important, but knowing which programs are out there is is the first step. So, I'm I'm very excited that our students will have that information consistently throughout the district. Yeah, I was excited when we got the feedback that when we had students that visited an actual surgery that they got to be in the operating room and see that happen because one of my best teachers when I was a principal went through medical school, finished her all of her requisites to become a doctor. And it was at the very end of that experience when she was ready to be blessed and moved into an into an operating room, she was like, "This isn't for
060me." And that was a hard thing for her to say, "I went through all of this to recognize surgery is not my bag." And if we can do that for for kids when they're in high school, we're leaps and bounds. Exposure leads to expansion. That is the favorite phrase that that my son came to me with and and it really resonated with me because if kids aren't exposed then they have no concept of what they can do or not do. So really excited about that. I I do also appreciate the partnership with the school business partnerships um awards the their spirit of tomorrow awards to work so that themies of Anchorage is partnering with our existing program um rather than working alongside working actually together. So that's that's awesome. The partnerships are are amazing and
061being able to recognize our business partners is is a huge is a huge thing because we have so many business partners doing amazing work with our students. So love that. Um had a couple of notes I just wanted to make sure I I got to them off. Um oh I did have one question. So and MJ this is for you. How can the community and business community support the back to school event for the um actually uh they can email Tony's team, but I'll get a contact information because Tony's team's um handling that project, so it'll be her. So, I'll find out a good contact. Okay. In the meantime, just have them email team. Okay. Awesome. And then because it's not until later in the summer, maybe next meeting. Yeah, we'll get that. We can
062talk about that as well. Yeah. Actually, we'll have uh we'll have the save the date um for you so you can see that and then I'll have all that. Yeah, we'll just plan on showcasing the save the date and then get into the rest of that. Awesome. Good. And then I I I wanted to reiterate thank you to our community for supporting our education bonds. That's a wonderful thing um when a community supports education as well and they're literally putting their money where their mouth is. So that's that's awesome. Um, does anybody have any other comments, questions? Just for the question, I just want to thank the team for the presentations today and the work we're doing. We need to say it more often, but the team's knocking out of the park with communications, the
063planning, the work that's going involved to the district initiative. So, thank you. You're welcome. So, on that we I guess we can go ahead and adjourn. Thank you.