001[Music] this strategic plan update session of may 23 20 2020 of the dubuque community school district board of education is called to order our mission is to develop world-class learners and citizens of character in a safe and inclusive learning community roll call please bradley here jones here parks here for hoska here ryan here sancy approve the agenda as submitted second been moved and seconded that the board of education approved the agenda is submitted is there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed that motion carries so next on the agenda is a public hearing on a proposed budget amendment for fiscal 2021-2022 so kevin are you gonna this is on the agenda because you approved the amendment a couple of weeks ago and when you were proving that i did
002not catch that there was a column that did not have a number in it so that's why we have to amend it again for that one column that i missed for the first time around has to do with non-instructional programs and the reason we're increasing it by one million five hundred thousand is because of it deals directly with the food service program as you know this whole year children have been able to eat free breakfast and lunches so that has significantly increased our participation which means we bought a lot more food than we have previously also combining that with the rise in prices due to the supply chain issues those two together increase significantly increased the cost of that program now that programs revenue offset those increases but we have to amend it because of
003the increase in the expense area so that's the purpose for tonight's amendment okay thank you i move the board of education receive and file proof of publication of notice of public hearing on budget amendment and authorized payment of legal notice publication cost to the telegraph herald second it's been moved and seconded that the board of education receive and file proof of publication of notice of public hearing on the budget amendment and authorized payment of the legal notice publication cost to the telegraph herald is there any discussion i have a question kevin does that what about uh is this next year's meals no this is this year's we're amending the budget for this year's expenditures do you know what's going to happen next year that we do not know at this time it's still the federal
004government has not made a decision on what they're doing with meal prices thank you all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed that motion carries there's an opportunity now for any public comments on this amendment of the budget i move that the board of education adopt the budget amendment for fiscal 2021-22 was published second it's been moved and seconded that the board of education adopt the budget amendment for fiscal year 2021 2022 is published there any discussion all those in favor signify by saying aye aye any opposed that motion carries so that brings us to the district strategic plan review all right um as is our tradition i will report out on where we are with the 21 22 school year priority initiatives i have the pleasure of doing the reporting out
005but the folks who are in charge of much of the work are sitting here so if there is a specific question that i'm unable to answer which is likely we will ask the whoever is in charge that are you to step to the microphone thereby carry just so that it can be recorded and easily easily hurt a slight difference tonight it's kind of an out with the old and in with the new usually in may we do an update on this year's priority initiatives and we propose a draft of the 2022-23 school year priority initiatives and so amy has been working with a variety of groups to put those together so we'll transition at that point and she'll talk about next year so as you know with our priority initiatives we started this oh nine
006years ago or so after our first rendition of the sort of update with our strategic plan they got pretty uh in-depth and quite honestly wasn't digestible for our community and a lot of what the purpose of having priority initiatives is to tell parents students school board business owners just community at large what are we doing differently better next year than we did this year and then [Music] reporting out in a way that's publicly accountable to say you know where are we at with these things and so you'll see a mix of things everything that are complete or operationalized uh to some progress didn't have any cancelled this year but we did have to cancel um after our first or second year because you know if we really are going to push some of those initiatives
007occasionally you're going to head down the wrong path and you'd be able to say mid-year you know what this is not the path we intended to go down or it isn't you know bearing the fruit we were hoping for so that's what you'll see in your or on your priority initiative so i'll jump right in student achievement and development number one priority there or first priority should say number one first was to increase student connections through the addition of new varied extracurricular activities with emphasis uh on the addition of culturally relevant clubs activities and organizations and so we are at some progress there or steady progress i should say and that's going to continue on into next year so you'll see that one move forward into the 22-23 school year that's going to be probably
008at some point operational but never is going to end as our student demographics change is our student interests change so probably the most important thing of note is there's a movement under way some meetings have been held to create a black student union at hempstead and dubuque senior possibly partnering with local colleges which have similar organizations with the goal of offering a club next year early next year maybe even beginning the year when really engaging students in just a variety of activities academics mentoring to to help push towards increasing our graduation as we know that's an area of concern for us with some of our student groups number two stand a question if i might on that so does that mean if that were to go move forward to implementation we would have two student
009unions then one for black students so a black student union historically has been found at the collegiate level to help engage students of color in the academic process loris clark and ud have a very successful program and so one of the things that dear brings with him from his work at the college level is great success with that where they focus really on first gen students and so thinking about our graduation rates some of the areas that we really need to focus on is you know how do we create uh it's a lot like the pacific islander club that was created a few years ago how do we get folks into an atmosphere um and talk about academics or a variety of issues so it's just really meant to i'm i'm thinking college student union
010commons oh sure sure okay no no this is under the yeah that is kind of a the name throw it through me a little bit at first but when you talk through that and really trying to connect we were so blessed to have loris clark ud uh emmaus in our community to help connect kids yeah hey like home kids students to you know next steps and mentors who are at that next step so great yeah the union word off gets me there too sometimes and so that's an example the most concrete example and why we're at uh where we're at but it's not just meant to start and stop there but to continue down the path of connecting with kids outside of school day number two focus current and future student programming to meet the
011unfinished learning needs of students as we recover from cobia 19. so you'll see that that is operational so we have that going on but it's not going to end it wasn't going to we knew from the beginning this wasn't a one year and done type of thing so how do we create systems that are flexible based on the experiences our kids had during covet and then remediating what we can but then you know kind of continuing down that process as we know students for multiple years will be have been impacted based on how old they were during copenhagen strategies and professional development used throughout the year have been systematized as the district works to address unfinished learning into the future and april teams at four secondary schools attended solution tree conference to more fully develop
012effectiveness of course like collaborative learning communities so how do our teachers work together to offer similar experiences in a class algebra 2 for example that's more alike than different regardless of what teacher you might have new elementary language arts curriculum which all very familiar with presented multiple times to us plans are underway for the elementary educational support team to participate in new teacher center training to address coaching and optimal learning environment needs so that's something again that we've had a long history with but sort of refocusing our work on our teacher leaders and how they can mentor our younger student or younger teachers or newer teachers all schools completed a self-assessment of mtss implementation to guide school improvement planning to address student needs so again the the things the core plus teachers those types of
013things that was kind of an easy like let's do this but now what is the work and how does that work different next year than this year so that'll be ongoing for a number of years three enhanced teaching strategies to support student voice and choice and coursework while delivering curriculum content that contends or connects with student experiences and interests that work will continue that's a touchy topic but one that i think we need to continue to to work through so that will be continued a couple examples elementary principals participated in instructional rounds at fulton and lincoln schools as well as specialist teams in five elementary schools so principals going in viewing the work of teachers then discussing that work and doing that in multiple points around the district to see you know what can be
014learned or what can be you know how they can work together to enhance that building teacher leaders instructional coaches and elementary principals are scheduled for train the trainer sessions for differentiation through the bureau of educational research so i don't know when is that lisa do you know sorry it is june 20th through june 23rd at the aea thank you number four develop a continuum of social emotional behavioral health support through the multi-tiered systems of support or mtss to meet student needs we know that when we experience covid we know that when we surveyed parents last summer the single largest concern parents brought to us was social emotional health of their of their students and so we've taken that pretty seriously youth mental health first aid training trainer sessions are scheduled for june 7th through the
0159th 16 staff members will be trained and offered mental health first aid sessions to staff next school year sue by suicide prevention coalition has met three times the school year and will continue to meet next fall recommendations of this group will lead to comment forms and procedures that counselors administrators will be trained on and follow next year all 12 elementary schools will utilize second step skills for social and academic success we went through that our ed programs meeting for that collaborative plan with keystone is underway to develop a training tailored to our needs in the area of social emotional behavioral health tier two intervention so if you think about that as mtss tier one tier two where we're going to focus that work all 12 elementary schools are prepared to utilize a social academic social
016academic emotional risk screener or savers during the 22-23 school year so we've been talking for a while about a screener to help us understand where students are at with that teams from roosevelt in washington have research selected and recommended joining jefferson and utilizing seven mindsets as their explicit social emotional learning materials to address the iowa social emotional learning competencies and so jefferson kind of led the way there and has piloted that for a couple of years and after looking at that and other programs it's good to have all three of the same in the same place funding from gear 2 grant continues to support our universal tier through the addition of three experienced part-time educators and in addition to focusing on curriculums teams providing uh social emotional behavioral health building level support in the areas
017of professional development for paraprofessionals trauma informed care suicide prevention and restorative practices so those are three um really fabulous retirees who've come back with us on a project and helped us move the dial on that how long does that grant continue through next year yeah it's the same as the all the other different esther fundings they'll have different names but they're all um september end of september next year of 23. yeah uh through the teacher leadership grant three content leaders have been added to the focus on social emotional learning so you are familiar with the faculty of content leaders and so we've identified social emotional learning as a content and so adding content leaders is a way that we can move forward with you know focusing on that in a consistent way and then also
018with that also in that bullet is the lumen recharge training so that's the social emotional piece for our adult employees i do got a question stand for the wrist screener how is that used on a day-to-day or how would it be used i'm curious and how are we using those rooms also with this with this tool and is and one more question i'm sorry is it a piece of paper or like when you say screen or what is that sure yeah so the screeners at the elementary level elementary level can you hear me thank you for the question um actually jefferson is as well using the screener the screener is called sabers it's very similar to the fast screener and that it's very it's very much a snapshot so it's 19 questions it's broken into
019three different categories so social behavior academic behavior and emotional behavior so you would get a it's a teacher assessment of each student so the teacher is assessing so for example in social behavior it might be things like collaboration so the teacher would be rating the student on highly collaborative or not very collaborative it might be in the academic behavior it might rating someone on their ability to focus and pay attention so it's just a screening it's very snapshot just like the fast screener is in reading it gives a very quick score but it's just part of our larger data picture it really what teachers have said is it only takes one to three minutes for them to screen each kid but what it's giving them is time to reflect on each kid and then it's
020giving them kind of a dashboard of that data so they can look and say wow i've got several kids in here who are not as well or is not doing as well as focusing as i would like so what can we do tier two wise to help support those kids and from an uh i guess my next question is how are you guys working with equity department so that a student who may be displaying some type of behavior because of things going on at home they're not being misdiagnosed for whatever reason like a bias right that's a really good question first of all we've really strengthened up our universal tier so adding that social emotional curriculum at our universal tier is really helping in that way sabres we would not want savers to be used
021in that sort of way in a bias it is a very small snapshot it would be used along with other behavior data such as office referrals teacher observations attendance data so it was just be one small part of this entire data picture on a student so the word diagnosis is probably too strong it's not intended to diagnose it's intended to be like standing screening absolutely not dying i need to talk to parents i need to get me it's not diagnosed but like oh i should pay more attention to stand he's got some things going on and then what are who what are the the resources i can put in play or who do i need to talk to about that so it's just sort of a not a diagnosis but a critical initial like oh
022an ongoing thing in a kid's year yes in the the screener is given three times a year just like the fast reading assessment or screener and so one thing we're hearing jefferson is using the screener so when they got the results this year they looked at somebody screening from three times and said this isn't really matching up with what we're seeing let's dig into that a little bit deeper not diagnosing or making plans but they got real curious on asking a few questions about a kid because they saw something different than they were seeing so then they wondered was it some different relationships at the elementary level that were causing those scores to be much different in fact substantially better in elementary years so it was helpful for them on that reflection piece did you
023have another question about the brain health rooms i did but i was just looking back i want to make sure is my mic on my apologies if you guys were giving me the look i came in late yeah i was curious was there a connection to seeing that data and saying hey they may need to utilize this space but that's at the high school so yeah there's currently not a connection there and our goal there is to maintain that as a self-selected choice for kids i have a question about the brain since the year has since they've been enacted and i know the governor was here and she was very impressed with it how has the attendance in there been is it increased is it leveled off is it about the same or what like
024what's happening thank you for the question i'm going to let shirley answer that she's got the data here thank you we've collected data from february through the end of april they opened second semester so the first the last two weeks of january we used to get them operational before collecting data we've had over 2200 students student visits and that represents 800 students and so yes the rooms are beginning to work very well we have a lot of students report that it's just a place where they can go draw deep breath self-regulation is the idea and then go back to class we're also hearing a lot of students call it their therapy bathrooms or their cry room because they said before they had no place to go so they would cry in the restroom stall and
025now they have a place to go and we really like that because we do have a counselor in each room so they are being taught strategies they are being able to process that information a little bit and if it's deeper then we can get out in 20 minutes they are referred to the school counselors and then the counselors take it from there so yes the rooms are working and we're very happy to have them so surely we're additional counselors added to staff those rooms so there's always a counselor in there a redeployment of we've hired two new people kristen nolan is that senior and she came to us from hillcrest she was actually one of the mental health youth counselors that hillcrest had employed and then at hempstead we have kerry cool who is a
026school counselor by trade great thank you all right um number five i believe we were on educate and coach students regarding various career pathways while increasing opportunities for hands-on career-focused experiences um that work will continue it's hard for us to say it's completely the system of ties but it's getting close every time vertex and other initiatives are presented we have 10 more employers who say how do we get involved with that so it really has touched a nice spot supply and demand kind of in the right areas so that businesses are very motivated to participate and that's great for our kids so not a lot specifically to report others say it's got a lot of momentum a lot of positive momentum around it uh community-wide number six implement evaluate virtual education programs so that is
027systematized you know the district will offer an online school for students in grades 6 through 12 for the 22-23 school year the program has been approved by the state and we brought that to programs and then a future time we will share with you enrollment numbers but uh volume is still not everybody's thinking about next fall quite yet number seven develop new and enhanced current computer science learning opportunities and coursework in high school middle school and elementary school a lot of work that also would be classified as systematized or ongoing work and enhancing computer science opportunities is operational and work in this area will align with similar priority initiatives for next year so this is um i feel good about our goal for this year but when amy reports out i'm sure she will share
028a continuation of where we're headed with technology in particular computer science number eight community engagement reconnect and re-image families or re-engaged families to their school communities following the kova 19 pandemic recognizing this engagement possibly impacts school attendance and achievement a little aside that was in full display yesterday at fulton we talk about a community that has long-term engagement i mean there were folks there who hadn't stepped foot in that building in 65 years who wanted to come back and so that is to me a sign of what we're trying to attain with our schools is that connection with students with families so hard to see in that circumstance um but that's the that's the reality of probably all of our schools and so how do we capitalize on that or further enhance it so work
029continues in the district will include the next year's priority initiative this spring each elementary school hosted a family event to reconnect and engage families kindergarten welcome event at each elementary school took place on april 26 with great participation transition plans for the fulton community are in progress information night building tours transition meetings celebration of the school and now next step it will be a fly up day during which students get to visit the school they'll attend next year and when is that lisa sorry their fly-up day will be this coming friday may 27th and they will arrive at their receiving school about 10 15 10 30 and they will have activities there they'll get to know the school meet their future classmates and and they also get a shirt for their new school so some
030different things are planned to to get them connected thank you lisa number eight refocus the vision and programming for students mentoring following the cover 19 pandemic programming has restarted mentors have returned to meet with students in person the student mentoring program officially received state certification recruitment efforts for the future are now beginning so that's a check number 10 is a check it was already a check prior to the speeding so we'll report on that number 11. so i'm going to move to effective resource management number 11 continue the planning input process for creating operational efficiencies across district facilities a lot of hard work has gone into that this year plans are moving forward for the closure of fulton elementary school we're all well aware of that and the events that have happened there uh following
031the school year numerous transition activities are underway current fold students have get to know the new school so at least you talked about that middle school consolidation committee is in the process of being formed and work is underway to select an architect to lead the planning process so step one is to select a firm that focuses on pulling together that committee so those interviews have taken place that will come to to the board shortly at that point then in each firm had a different sort of process and so some involved a smaller more nimble group some involved a larger community group and so depending upon that selection and the reason i say that out loud is because i'm getting people as is amy saying hey i want to be on that committee well we're just
032we'll get to that point we have to first figure out how large the committee is but there will be a lot of voices representative of students families teachers administrators community members as part of that committee but that's coming hey stan with the architect that's selected to lead the planning process would that be the architect that would be selected for them no two very different processes two very different and and it may very well be that it is may very well be that it isn't you know so the the it's just two different skill sets and certainly looking for a group that has expertise or background or experience doing that is step one but yeah it could very well be two different ones thank you where was i at sorry number 12 plan for and maximize
033funds available through the american rescue plan so that's a check mark there's a good plan for that those funds also expire on september of 2020 end of september enhanced collaboration across the districts through the implementation of microsoft teams so that one already was systematized 14 employee excellence provide professional learning growth opportunities for administrators aligned with the launch of the new iowa leadership standards so that was check mark that happened last fall 15 enhanced verified providing common quality secondary course experiences for students by aligning essential standards and common assessments that one is also ongoing this initiative is operational work to continue to refine blueprint courses across all container areas and pull all continuous into common segment of assessment practices so again the idea being that the learning that takes place in a science classroom is the
034outcomes are essentially the same it's not telling the teachers how to teach the class but it's like we talked about all those years ago about setting a goal like getting to indianapolis and then letting the teacher get there but we need to know that all of our kids got to the same place because either they'll take a future course with us that needs that prior learning or at the next level or in the world of work so we just need to make sure that the outcomes are are the same in regards to who you get for a teacher what school you attend 18 was already ongoing 17 implement the new achieve system to enhance the educational experience for students eligible for special education service that work will continue a lot of that work has been
035done brendon if you want to speak about it but the training that comes from the aea and the implementation is in august so that's why it's not finalized sure well the state delayed the launch of achieve but we have been able to my core group of my team upstairs we've been fully trained which was really nice that we were able to get that training ahead of time so we're all planned and prepped and ready to go august 1st we'll be launching so it'll be exciting thank you brenda all right 18. we had already covered at their last meeting and 19 enhanced efforts to diversify staff that mirrors the community through review of future job descriptions interview questions and recruitment efforts work in this area continues and revised version of this priority initiative is being carried
036forward to next year's priority district continues so this is not this is a hot issue nationally and so it's likely to be one that we take steps towards every year and so this year how do we have a system that that filters and it allows you know the right questions to be asked how do we how do we get to the right candidates but also amy's done a lot of work with the grow your own how do we support our paraprofessionals as well as our students who might be interested in being teachers so that they can get college bearing credit while they're at our high schools so feeling good about that but knowing that's a long term solution because when somebody decides they want to be a teacher they're several years away from from that
037step we know that teacher education programs are down 35 percent nationally and so that's a pretty big cliff coming our way and so whatever we can do to bring employees our direction or grow our own any questions about the ongoing priorities before i turn it over to amy a couple of questions uh if i can go all the way back to number four okay sorry i that's right i didn't want to interrupt you the um the very last um sub point under there the addition of three content leaders for seo how does how are they being used or is that new for fall that's pretty new mark or be me yep thank you that is new for fall when there was a reorganization at elementary on the teacher leadership grant that there were a few
038extra positions and we were really needing help in the area of social emotional learning so one of those positions was allocated for elementary that person will really help with the new curriculum and how that curriculum is hitting the classroom and meeting parents i'll really rely on that person to help us with our at home links and how the curriculum is how how they're engaging families with the curriculum the middle school person has been selected and she will also help with the middle school curriculum creating a calendar and making sure that we've curated the schedule and the way that it should be done and then the high school person is is helping with moving those committees forward on selecting curriculum but i also anticipate that the high school middle school person will help in some degree
039with adult sel with our lumen creation and moving that work forward so they're in place now they have been hired and we're planning on what they're going to do they're not quite currently working they'll be working in the fall correct thank you yeah thank you question also about number 10 i understand the school business partnerships that that refers to is not the local school by school partnerships that have been in place for a long time is that correct number 10 under community engagement which is looking at sustaining school business partnerships yeah so that's specific to career opportunities right so not the you know partners who have supplied you know maybe mentors or have done job shadowing just yeah the more traditional thing is still i think something that's going to be talked about next in
040our next years prior to initiatives but we probably should choose a different term school business partners might be but in this case it's specific to vertex specific to allowing you know internships or getting apprenticeship programs in place so the other school business partnerships the original ones are we tending to those is that left to does each school tend to it or not or how is that so they really sort of uh what's the right word put up were put on hold during colby right and when they're not attended to for that amount of time they start to sort of drift away that's why i wondered so i think amy's going to present as one of next year's priority initiatives some great the answer to your question is perfect and if we don't ask or not
041all right i'll do that and my last question has to do with number 14 okay the iowa leadership standards um as we now move into a first year superintendent with amy coming on board the board will be in a different place in terms of tending to that new system than we were with an ongoing experienced superintendent are there plans for the board to have some learning opportunity to get more deeply into the system as it applies to a first-year superintendent there should be yeah i don't know maybe i could just request that yeah i think that's a request and we can work with the president to organize and maybe um have denise years who presented for our team and presented to the to the to the that would be awesome yeah it's a you don't
042need the full training the full training is two days but to get a couple hours of that it it would be important yeah thank you that'd be great i think we need to understand that system more than we've had to yeah thank you we have some plans for denise to do some work with the board so it'll be perfect tie in with that super yup okay they're all yours they're all mine so now we're going to talk about the 22 23 um priority initiatives and so just so you know um we've been working the last probably month or so trying to get feedback from lots of different groups so not only have we met with our executive cabinet team and they've met with people that they meet with on a regular basis but we've done
043some exercises with our district leadership group and then we did with our student equity committee as well and then again with dsilt so we met with diesel um in the last couple weeks two different times and they gave some great input as well to that so thanks for everybody that's um to the to the initiatives as we move forward so starting with student achievement and development that first priority of increased student connections the addition of new very extracurricular activities with emphasis on the addition of culturally relevant activities clubs and organizations that is you will recognize we had on last year's and so we're moving that forward which you might see with a few of our priorities because we felt like there was some unfinished business in that priority and we really want to focus on
044what are some things that we can do to make sure that students are getting connected at school we know that when kids are connected and they're connected either with an adult or an activity that their student achievement usually goes up and so one of the most interesting things in the dsl committee and kate was there but some of the students really were talking about esports and how do we get connected with esports so we thought hey this is a great way to do some tie-in with that priority so i learned what esports were you did yeah these sports were yes so does this include we're still continuing with the leap programs in the middle schools we are yep and i believe that leap grant sunsets joe is not here but i think we have one
045more full year of that and then we can reply um reapply for that as well so we can incorporate even more topics hopefully absolutely yep and hopefully we can offer more options in leap than we have just you know because of covert the last couple years did we happen this happened this year but yes it did not prior okay um number two explore district community partnerships that provide strong early childhood programming while also addressing community child care need as part of the belief grant so lisa and her team have written a grant and so we've received that and so really that's to work with community partners the community foundation nicc head start and to look at what do we do for wrap-around care what do we do for our preschool programming so they're going to
046be in that work i believe this summer and then work towards that as we go through the school year so that's going to be important work as we know that you know child care needs and those things as we move forward amy what is the belief acronym stands for i'm going to answer that one we'll see if i can remember all of it it's blended early learning and that's about all i have no blended early learning you got half implementation and that's all i can remember honestly but it's all about the blended learning programs and making sure that we have that strong preschool programming along with access to wraparound care services so that families can have access in an equitable way and that we're also addressing the areas within our city that do not have
047as many accessible programs for our students so it's all about working with that foundation in within the system within the city and that's why the partnerships are so important because we'll bring all those individuals together that's great here it is blended early learning and educational foundations i was close very good thank you dear and shirley number three this really this priority came out in many of our conversations that we have with our different groups and it really focuses on how do we engage students in the classroom so provide professional development for staff that increases the sense of belonging in the classroom providing students with an optimal learning environment so what can we do to make sure students are engaged that they feel safe that they want to be in the classroom at all times right
048with our staff and so there's been some so we'd like to focus that on some of our pd sessions and really we need to start that as a group with how do we even engage our adults and so some things that we've started this year with the help of mimi and the castle three systems of practice is we've done some different things at meetings to make sure that we keep our adults and adults engaged and then our adults have gone back and done that in their building so really modeling that behavior and hopefully we can continue that all the way into the classroom with our students as well number four expand the vertex initiative with additional career and college readiness experiences for students so as you know we have a great start with our vertex
049programming but really how do we get more students engaged you know we've kind of got the system down and how do we get students so that they they want to be a part of that and we've hired some staff members that really focus on that with all of our students so how do we get all students engaged mark did you want to add anything or you think we're good you've given me the thumbs up five support furthering each school's multi-tiered system of support or mtss work as outlined in its school plan across all tiers and including academics attendance and social emotional behavior health so really this goal is for mark and lisa to work with our building principals so that they can look at the data see where the need is in their building and
050then we can really focus on that when they're writing their school improvement plans for the fall and then really going in and looking at those plans and making sure that we're reaching those things as we move forward number six review and possibly modify graduation requirements to allow for additional student choice connected to career pathways or college and so we want to take a look at what we require for graduation you know we've done a little bit of that work and comparing that to other school districts to see you know what's the number what's the course work and then how do we make it so that students have some flexibility how do they have flexibility to you know get into a college or career pathway and without not being able to meet the needs of our
051require our graduation requirements so we think that would help with all of our students and we want to make sure that we're not using graduation requirements as a barrier for our students moving forward number seven finalize a pre-k 12 computer science guiding philosophy and add new computer science opportunities at all levels so i know moving forward julie's working on third grade coding district-wide she's submitted the dubuque school's vision plan to the state which is a good thing and then how do we continue you know that all three middle schools have a robotics team how do we enhance the high school robotics team and we've done some really good work in that area but how how can we be better we can always be better about that so julie i don't know if you have anything
052you want to add to that or did i cover it okay awesome and number eight for student achievement and development enhance promote and streamline reporting staff training and student education supports related to issues of bullying and harassment and this priority really came from our student groups you know they talked a lot about you know not really understanding the process where do we go who do we talk to so we had really worked on they're going to work on some videos so that students can use those lessons in their i always want to call it raptor time but what their success time or their mustang time whatever that school has for that extra support time and then how do we be more purposeful about getting that signage out there you know we've had some old signage
053and it's time to update those things you know we talked about having you know qr codes so that they can scan those when they're in bathrooms or whatever just so students know what that process is who they can go to and where they can you know report things if need be so any questions around student achievement yeah i have a question about you reference school improvement plan how does each is each building kind of have their own plan or is there a framework this is the framework for all their plans or how does that specifically work they do do you want to talk about that mark thanks jim um yeah each school has their own school improvement plan they uh this year they worked through the sammy process that the state has outlined and then
054that led them to make some decisions about where they were going to go and so then they've got a couple of goals that they will share um with their staff and then work towards throughout the course of the year so like let's say student expectations whatever they may be it's pretty much the same though from school to school is that correct i think behavior expectations things of that nature yeah we would use uh district policy 5200 for that okay vote is pretty uniform right correct okay okay this is not a question no this is not a question but more of a comics i know a majority of your team will shy away from being pat on the back but miss julie and i were in a meeting probably two weeks ago with john deere to
055talk about robotics and man and this is part of all this stuff but big advocate and really trying to find ways to bring john deere back into our system to mentor provide resources and so publicly i just i do want to i know privately i thank you but publicly i want to thank you too for the work that you're doing behind the scenes and i know all of you are doing that so here's a pattern back to all of you but i also want to say thank you so much for that right there yeah john deere's been a big partner when we talk about robotics and some of those things so we appreciate that question before we leave student achievement and development about the development of a curriculum review and update cycle a schedule for
056that we've talked about that earlier i don't know where we are with the development of one so there's a predictable review cycle so we have we do have a review cycle now that many of our materials are online and come with an online subscription we have to abide by that it's not that we can push something off to another year another year when we have a seven year purchase that means that we're going to be reviewing in five or six years and making a decision during that seventh year so is that that cycle as you're saying is predictable for those things that have the online digital components with them i don't think all of our things that would be logically a part of a curriculum cycle have that digital component and therefore are compelled to
057a cycle do we have them nailed down so that we we keep reviewing and there really my point really leads to the budgeting for it you know it's what i mean right right yeah and we do almost everything in secondary everything that i can think of is now digital and at the elementary i believe everything comes with a digital science everything but science a digital subscription so would science then be on its own regular review and revise lisa do you know what science is again yeah when is that video i believe it's in two years so likely it will go to a subscription-based show as you know you've lived through those those hard days where there's not enough money so the seven year cycle turns into 14. right and i think that's what you're asking
058to guard again exactly right yeah and in a sort of unintended consequence or side effect by using the digital resources that's going to mandate itself so i would suspect in two years when science is reviewed of all subject areas we'll definitely have be part of that sure bring that to another medium that would be great maybe that cycle is yeah that'd be great thank you great thank you so as we move on to community engagement number nine develop and implement a parent organizational organization network to enhance parent and family organizations and schools and that priority initiative really came from diesel um a lot of the parents that were at that meeting are involved in the ptos and so when they were having conversations they were like oh that's what you do for pto and um
059so it got us to think about how can we do you know kind of navigate that district wide to get some more equity in our schools to say hey this is what we do at these schools not that they all have to be the same but what are some other ideas we can do and a lot of times some people especially in the elementary school it's their first time ever being in charge of a parent organization so they don't have a lot of experience so what are some ideas that are out there that we can bring into our own building so they were very excited about that a priority initiative so so yeah that was good number 10 reinvigorate school business partnerships and mentoring programs in the post-covid landscape and so that's really talking about
060what you were talking about nancy is how do we first of all figure out who those business partners are and do they want to be parts of our school which most people do how do they support us and then really you know mike has talked about finding a way that we can kind of systematize that so that we know who the business partners are in the buildings so we're not reaching out to multiple businesses by multiple buildings you know kind of spread that out so we can utilize our entire community instead of keep asking one or two business partners for multiple ads are you going to put together like guidelines of expectations of what that business partnership was going to look like oh you look all excited yeah you know he wants a dog i
061didn't have a microphone so i can't switch chairs yes this is an area where we're looking to really so we made a lot of great progress in the in the not terribly disappointed seven or eight years ago regarding business partnerships and then with covid things change so part of it will be looking at guidelines for involvement part of it is just revisiting our definitions for school business partnerships so somebody who is perhaps donating a material on a one-off basis is very different than a partner that's bringing mentors into a building three times a week and so how do we look at the difference between sponsorship and partnership and mentoring and really look at categorizing those things to better define what that involvement is all of them are important for the success of our schools but
062but they look differently in how they how they exist in each of our buildings so helping put some framework around that and then as amy said looking at how can we streamline the contact with businesses so that you know when we're working with a vertex partner and then we're going from you know to make an ask from a school level and just looking at what those entry points are kind of taking the fundraising philosophy when you look at the fundraising world to say you kind of go with one ask in a more comprehensive way so how are we collaborating to make sure that we're not going to businesses 12 times for 12 different things to make it easier for that business to have a more single point of entry and to really kind of have
063that definition of what does their whole involvement in the district look like and how can we then connect them with the right folks to do that so really looking at that whole system are you working with the foundation on that we are working a bit with the the foundation for dubuque public schools to look because they're the same ass right right absolutely and to look at where and to look at where those connections exist because we want to help but you know as a business owner who gets asked and helps right you can only it's like well am i doing it for the school am i doing it for this and you know so right absolutely and of course it will never be it will never be perfect but the more we can systematize that
064the more we can put the structure behind it and then open up those pathways the easier it is for an organization to get involved with us and the more standardized framework we have to operate within that is just clear for everyone because we'd love to do it you know and businesses love to do it but there's also need to i hope you let the benefits that the business will get from it well and that's the other thing that we talked about as we were developing this initiative was to say that partnership is two ways um and so it's not always about what what do we ask for but what can we give and and our schools can really enrich a business in a lot of different ways everything from having interns to simple things like
065you know some schools send cards to businesses for certain days and just that interaction display artwork in their organization to show that community partnership and then how do they highlight them within their social channels one thing too that came up at d was just like how how organizations or businesses can get involved if they aren't already so this sounds like a good way to help you know maybe new partnerships be onboarded it's not so intimidating like how do i actually partner with the district and you're probably familiar with mike with nate association for partners in education they have a lot of great already established organizational things that might be useful re-upping and defining effective i had a question that came up i went to one of the dsl meetings and uh some of the parents
066were talking about uh i believe that this was the president of pto when there was coven our schools i know the year is almost over are schools open now to all volunteers okay we've removed all covered restrictions okay so well this mom apparently thought it was a school by school situation i didn't think so but so number 11 reconnect and re-engage families to their school communities recognizing this engagement positively impacts school attendance and achievement so it's kind of like what you just talked about jim how do we let people know that we're ready for everybody to be back in our schools how do we engage those families how do we utilize some of our staff as far as our liaisons our connectors our life coaches to kind of get back on track to this is
067what they were hired to do and how do we get families back in our schools and back involved in in the education process so i know some of our schools this spring have really started that with some food trucks and movie nights and things like that and they're excited to be back in the school so how do we just continue that and enhance that for next year and number 12 launch the achieve parent portal to engage families in the individualized education program or the iep process in new ways and so brenda had talked about that a little bit how the staff's going to be trained and achieved but then we're going to roll out the parent portal and so parents will be actively engaged and be able to it'll be similar to infinite campus where
068they'll be able to go in read the iep they'll be able to see the progress monitoring so staff really does need it i mean as we get that um training in place because parents will be able to access that you know on a daily basis so we'll just help that communication between the schools and the families in the iep process as well and then effective resource management so number 13 engage a study study committee in the planning process to develop a two middle school model so stan had really talked about this a little bit you know we had met with some architects and to look at their processes and you know to answer your question jim really um when we um went through and talked with the architect they were really sharing what their process
069looked like to engage with the community you know it wasn't them telling given us what they think the schools will look like or things like that so it's really about how they engage the community how they'll engage our own school community and then outside community people as well so we will hopefully be bringing that to the board in june so it's exciting 14 explore feasibility of learning management system and augmented one-to-one computing environment at the elementary level so really you know looking at right now we have canvas at the secondary level as the learning management system so looking at what are options for elementary what does that look like how do we you know implement that at the elementary level is that something that we need and then if we do go to the one-to-one
070device at the elementary level looking at is that something that just stays at school that it's assigned to them so they have those computers to do the work that they need to do during the school day and then we could have a checkout process um if need be for catch-up work or things like that so are are we close at all to one one to one in the oven i would say at this point in time jim we that's a very good question at this point in time we're more close to a two to one ratio at the elementary level um we have classroom sets of devices we've increased those classroom sets of devices but one of the common themes that you've heard tonight is the more onboarding of digital resources and i would also
071say with those digital resources that are aligned with the uh curriculum we're also seeing more need for assessments that are done electronically as well too so one of the reasons that we decided that we need to look at an augmented one-to-one competing environment is to meet those needs so your initial question is we're about two to one but we'd like to see if we could explore that feasibility and possibility for a one-to-one environment there's a lot of things for us to unpack with that we have to talk about you know budgetary constraints we have to look at staffing resources there's there's a lot of things that go into power power is a huge issue especially if we're going to be keeping those devices in school so we just really have to talk about a lot
072what those issues would look like and how we would go about handling that but i do think that you know as we've heard about you know the science curriculum coming up in two years that's gonna probably have an online component to it as well and we see a lot of uh prize time is a is a precious resource in those elementary classrooms and for them to get all of their students on computers to get them through the various assessments the instructional um you know resources that they need to do online is a little bit challenging at this point in time so that's one of the reasons why we want to explore this so what platform do we use in the elementary is it the pc android where we are and for our young young students
073when i'm going when i refer to our really younger students that would be our pre-k k and one we are using apple ipads because that is you know that touch centric environment it's easy for them to manipulate and engage with that device in grades two through five they do use a windows device and then from basically from second grade on they are going to be exposed to using a windows device throughout their uh entire time in the dubuque school system kobe does a definition of augmented one-to-one computing is that different for one-to-one computing the augmented really is is that we're talking about staging and keeping those devices in the building so basically there would be a device assigned to every child but it would not be going home on a regular basis so that's really
074where we're augmenting that from the traditional one-to-one environment where they would be taking that resource home but as amy said there are some opportunities where if you know say for example the child is out on long-term medical leave or something like that we would have that resource done for them to be able to use thank you as a parent of two elementary school students keeping the devices at school sounds splendid [Laughter] thank you number 15 ensure alignment with financial targets to ensure expenditures are maximized to support strategic goals so as always we have to make sure that kevin you know has a goal but really how do we you know make sure that we're balanced and there's a checks and balance system and as we know with low supplemental state aid and that's going to
075just continue to be a challenge and so it's really a way for us to have checkpoints and to tell our story as we're moving forward and we're making some decisions around efficiency and things like that so anything you want to add kevin okay and then number 16 enhance districts cyber security efforts and staff training to best protect district data so that's as we know that's that's kind of a big one these days so colby and his team are working hard to make sure that we're keeping everything safe um employee excellence okay before you go on there okay i have a question under resource management yes is is it all is this going to be when the soccer complex is going to be brought up discussed in the next 22 23 year yes i believe so
076okay does that need to be included yeah yeah i think that's trane's left the station now it's just a matter of deciding on a price and okay we've already had a few offers that we can talk about at some point i think the reason there wasn't a goal is because it's kind of a foregone conclusion yeah yeah well i realized that yeah i realized that i didn't realize that it was there's been offers made in that state so we haven't had a chance to talk about that with the board because of the timing of what that's happened so that'll come to june support services okay thanks employee excellence develop a staff retention plan that explores initiatives systems of care and enhanced staff recognition programs so as we know i mean staffing is is an issue
077and how do we you know honor our staff how do we recognize them how do we make them feel valued so that you know everybody wants to stay in the dubuque community school district and one of the things that we've talked about is when we talk about systems of care is how do we have some incentives maybe around employee wellness you know that we have some partnerships with some community that our people can go and get some memberships or how do we utilize our own buildings to help support our staff one thing joe is looking into is the pool we have the pool how do we let our staff utilize that pool as well and at both high schools we're going to have a nice weight room facility workout area so how do we give
078staff access to some of those things to help with their own self-care so those are some things that we're going to look into you know several of us were at the uh function at hempstead here last friday i think it was yeah that was a great thing i think for uh just to have that day that pd day for i don't know mental health self-awareness whatever you want to call it but to have people come in from outside the community would there be something that i think that could apply to almost all our schools something like that you know that's funny shirley and i talked about that this morning didn't we surely at our leadership meeting and so how do we get that to all staff and we can be creative about something because it
079was it was very it was very good hempstead did a great job of planning that and they've done a good job of doing that throughout the school year to really check in with their staff because that's what it's about making sure we're checking in with people and then seeing what they need and then giving them time to do it you know i think that's what was so great about it it's like not just saying like you need to take care of yourself and find time to do self-care but also here is time that you can use for that which was great and there was a variety of options that they could look into because not everybody likes the same things yeah yeah that was great number 18 enhanced staff recruitment efforts with a focus on
080generating a more diverse applicant pool for open positions this is one that we're carrying over from last year into this year and so you know how do we connect how do we get maybe to go to some conferences to get some ideas to what other people are doing really it's about recruitment and so i look over at brian to say you know what are some recruitment efforts that we can do district-wide not only to recruit recruited diverse staff that mirrors our student population but really a recruitment in staff in general you know our applicant pools are not as deep as they've been in the past and that's for all of our positions you know from our fair professional positions set you know teaching positions our administrative positions we just don't have as deep of a
081candidate pool so i think that recruitment piece is going to be key as we move forward and i know dier wants to be actively involved in that process as well too so that's great you know getting some of our current employees like when i was talking with the para at fulton yesterday retired from ups and comes into work and absolutely loves that job going and recruiting i mean those are the people that can go back to their you know peers of you know co-workers and getting the the people who are retiring to be able to come in and do that you know when you retire and then number 19 develop systems to grow career paths and leadership opportunities within the district with a focus on the grow your own programming so we were working on
082that with our local colleges for you know some of our paraprofessionals to go back and get their teaching degrees but really what does this look like how do we coach our own people even to go maybe get an administrative degree and so you know how do we just keep having people grow within the organization at all levels and that starts with our students too and how do we you know we have a student equity committee and there's a young lady in there and every time i've been in that room stan has said to her you know you're going to be a teacher and she's like no i'm not and then she is when we were meeting um at hempstead a few days ago her comment was well i don't know maybe i'll be a principal
083someday then she goes i don't know maybe i'll be a superintendent so you know just planting that seed is so important to show them that those are those are some great possibilities you know what i did i read an article on this that a principal did that he said to his students um you will always have a job here whether it's a prepared professional in the food service a teacher a principal and they worked on getting it to be you know kind of saying come back here and i will hire you and getting people to know well i can always you know that's my goal to work towards but it was that messaging that goes directly to the student that doesn't say you're just going to be a teacher you're going to be a teacher
084for this district and and but staying that message and how it was very successful and that this program developed where they've got husbands and wives coming in together and and it was i'll send you the article and that was really a neat article on that but it's just it's the messaging that kind of just said i'm going to go back and i'm going to teach at that school yeah you can come back home high school yeah that's great yeah send me that that'd be great so that concludes our priority initiatives for the 22-23 school year good good yes stan ten years ago we did this started this and the very first one we did was the most painful thing that you went through and us as the nancy was probably there the transition that we're
085able to do with amy to talk about for next year and to have to know what your goals are to work on just kind of keeping the train going but thank you for how you have developed this and given the information to us and some of it is repetitive but it's good to hear it to see we continue this and it's a great tool for the community to be able to know what we're doing and for anybody to say they're not told we don't tell them what we're doing yes we do all the time we really started with a goal 10 years ago of making it understandable by parents by staff people had to be able to see their work on their is an accountability factor for us and you know it was easy to
086throw 20 pages of data that didn't really mean much of anything to anybody and say oh look at all the great things we're doing ten percent of this two percent of that 99 of that and it really you could really overwhelm people and be intentionally the board as well as the administrative team trying to develop a process and the communication team was vital in that that could really be reportable and accountable so that somebody can pick this up who didn't see the meeting and read it online and say i have a question about this or i see myself in that and how can i participate and we had an opportunity a number of years ago to present at uh association school boards and there are a lot of dis not a lot but a number
087of districts who copy this exact format um because it resonates with their yeah we had a lot of attendees that that presented our strategic plan and what we did because we made a commitment 10 years ago to say we're not going to do a strategic plan and put it on the shelf we are going to do a strategic plan and we are going to hold we're going to live we're going to hold everybody accountable to it including the board who put it together and keep it living and changing every single well you know we do these updates every four you know four times a year and to say we've stuck with it is pretty darn good because even organizations who say they're going to do and stick with it kill it off after a while
088but it's working it works it works so thank you thank you yeah i like the way you set it up tonight that you told us basically what we were doing and you transitioned amy into it for next year yeah that's that's wonderful i didn't want to tell her what to do yeah she's it's her it's her role i do have one question you mentioned the equity committee and i know you had a student committee is that the student advisory committee is that are you going to continue that or is that was a different committee there's two committees yeah okay so dear heads up an equity committee and two board members two board members are on that committee and then we started a couple of years ago a student group um that i led and then
089this year dear and i co-led and so and so we will we will have that again student group again good it's always good to find what the students what's on their mind i'll tell you give them some pizza they'll tell you well a lot of them said that they would like to be on it again next year you know when we met with him our last meeting this year just piggybacking on what tammy said to you stan i think the legacy that you you leave untold legacies from your your time and leadership here this is a very significant process legacy that is rock solid and advanced us as a district in so many ways just to build on what tammy said thank you thank you i appreciate that and as it goes without saying that
090that's a team effort you know i get to report up but the folks sitting over there do all the work and mike and tricia and you know everything from the design of it it's been a team effort but when you get the team involved and everybody's invested in it and that's this guy's leadership to it thank you all for all of the work that you put into this anything else about the strategic plan review and preview for next year any other items i have a short report to kind of talk about the elephant in the room potentially um you know we had a as part of our normal cycle and party initiatives and getting student voice you know we had a situation here in the last few weeks about our english classes at the high
091school level and really in looking at that process you know it really came from a good intention of okay is what are we doing with students and kind of got called out on that a little bit by some teachers saying hey you didn't really include our voice in that process so i have backed up and amy has led some conversations with the staff at senior and the staff at hempstead and we'll put together a committee to continue to look at you know what books and how they're taught and that'll come to it so no no it kind of got billed as book banning that was never the intent the intent was how things would be used instructionally or would they be used instructionally we have those conversations on an ongoing basis but you know uh
092admittedly we didn't engage the teaching staff um in the way that we should have so kind of backing that up and i just say that so the community hears that i said it to the th and kcrg and kwl so maybe people are saying okay stop saying that already but we want people to know that we we are pushing that back we put a committee that will be at work this summer and into the fall and when the right time is right to have that conversation it will come to an end programs committee first so no no changes immediately and the committee will look at that and again a lot of it has to do with words and when you have a book with a sensitive subject do you say those words or do you
093choose a different pedagogy that then have conversations around that and and we're hearing from students and getting you know little snippets of what it hadn't been done universally in every classroom and so while we try not to dictate every step there are some some guardrails i think we can put around some of these subjects that help our students feel safe for lack of a better word and included but also protect the outcomes that we're trying to get to we talked about earlier so backing up amy did a great job with the senior staff we'll do the same thing with the hempstead staff or she will and then you know keep you all well informed about next steps from there so when we're asked stan where that issue is now would you say that there will
094be professional learning for teachers who are in that situation i believe that's the case i believe that that so that that want to really sort of prejudge the work of the committee but that would be certainly very likely outcome that we'll look at those things dissect it a little bit figure okay what is what are some guardrails we can put up whether that's learning for the staff or in some cases it might be a standardization that say this is how we're going to deal with this situation so but that's really the work of a larger committee that you know the teachers and and curriculum folks to look at that they just really want to make sure that the community understands that that came because it kind of took on a life of its own it
095came from a good place it came from a place of students who were struggling we were hearing those stories on in the equity committee in from classroom experiences and probably a rush too fast it's going to slow down but we it did come from a spot of saying how do we make sure our kids are in an environment where they're you know and i know people say well kids today need to i don't believe that i think we listen to our kids but but i do think there's a way for us to to work through this without you know in a way that there could be a win-win for everybody involved so right now there's like a committee at each school or you met well she's with one of them and coming up the meeting
096with hempstead but will they eventually be a combined curriculum type committee not separate yeah yeah and so when the community asks where that is now so no changes have been made and the committee is is gathering to have that conversation about again not about banning a book but about how do we teach sensitive subjects like that and then that will continue on until there are some thoughts to share with the board and then the board will discuss it as a program so there are many layers or many steps before a change would be made so i think the biggest concern of some is this is an immediate change and that's not where we're at and there'll be many steps in that process and can't guarantee there won't be some changes or tweaks but that's the
097work of a group and it's going to take some time to work through that so the timeline for that would take us into next school year for quite likely that's that process we appreciate it was a situation that just happened and snowballed and that we're taking a step back and explaining it in detail and involving more people we really appreciate you taking that step back yeah there's never a need to be in a rush i mean process is is important and i think that we try to remind ourselves of that he's got to be more feel more satisfied that we're taking this seriously and look diving into it and involving more people yeah we listen to student voice and we have to listen to staff boys right now what's that people just read it one
098word people who are contacting us that aren't reading the story that's frustrating it's a hot topic yeah they're not reading the story that's out there i mean the information that's been put out there i mean you did an excellent job of explaining it explaining the situation for the community and everybody who read all the articles in the th came away with it saying oh it makes sense now yeah express the headlines well and and admittedly i explained it after the fact as opposed to in front of the situation which probably would have helped but we are where we are we're getting up in the right place as we always do thank you graduation this weekend yeah graduation this weekend it's going to be a wonderful day it always is it is the forecast actually using
099the that word yet because i don't want jinx myself any other other items all right well thank you everyone we're adjourned [Music] you