001do this okay we'll go ahead and call this meeting to order Hower Kent here me here Mankey here and rice here Williams here yeah here you have a quum thank you I would um submit a motion to approve the agenda for the tax notice for the public hearing second go to Young all those in favor I I I opposed motion passes okay so this is our um any public comment for our hearing okay so hearing none I will entertain a motion we move to adjourn the tax notice hearing need second all those in favor I I oppos okay and now we will begin the meeting or another public hearing for the middle school band practice room Renovations and call to order no no call to order does anybody have any comment on this I support
002it thank you okay hearing none we will call our with call Hower Kent here me here Mankey here Ben rice here Williams here young here you have a for thank you Jason you're on um I would entertain I would um enter a motion to approve the agenda for the meeting how about how about we approve the I'm looking at the agenda and it says approve gets that motion okay I will take that motion Williams will second okay and all those in favor I opposed now I'll ask for this thank you our district mission is to teach all and reach all our district Vision Urbandale will be a school district that brings learning to life for everyone and the UC SD school board Mission we partner with stakeholders to teach all and reach all through the
003through governance of board policy and operating protocol thank you Jason okay and tonight we have Joe Al trainer po County supervisor and uh Brian fast from Prairie Meadows David fast David fast oh did I say did I write no no I just mixed the two names they are here to present where would you like right here right [Music] here do matter okay well thank you for having us here today this is my second check presentation and you almost ended up with an IOU because my um assistant was gone today and I thought that'd be much less exciting than the big chat so I appreciate you having us here hry Meadows and the County Board of Supervisors have established quite a nice partnership sh over the last uh quite a few years actually let me think
004they try to put me on strips so I know this right since 2007 P County and prow have given over $20 million back to the students in the district and what we do here is that we bring a check that is a percentage of the money that is taken in the gross that's taken in over the year and so we are this year providing 1.3 million to P County students do you guys you guys have already gotten your check and you know what they m is that well I tell you what the first one I did they didn't know kind like right but I wanted David to have an opportunity to say a couple words yeah I just wanted to say thank you um I was able to come and do this last year my
005child my seven-year-old is a second grader at Karen Acres so it's we live in Beaverdale but we chose Urbandale school districts because we just love Urbandale school districts so uh happy to help with this and be a part of this and just uh thank you for all you do appreciate it just so people know what we do with this is that we put it back in the pot for salaries so that it can go to helping us give our teachers increases where where we're able okay excellent that's great because it is it's non-directed funds you guys get to spend and I do appreciate that that kind of makes so it's Unique to each individual group and by the way I should have started with this thank you all for serving u local government is very
006close to my heart I started at State Council I truly appreciate all you guys donating your time and sitting here today and with that we have a CH 9,642 and my favorite part please use that last 10 cents very wisely as well as the rest of it and can I ask for a picture my media team would be upset if I here you need help moving this take I don't think all the school board members are here are they Catherine's missing Catherine's missing do you want everybody else to come up thought sorry I thought you were I thought I heard a roll call from me so yeah anyone you guys want to come up in the picture and the kids you're board members too yeah I thought you guys were all board members students we
007are student students come aair pressure now you all joined us I [Music] apprciate all right so close you're good you're good okay all right here we go one two three great awesome thank you very much this is yours thank you get another one for your office I know you're you put that me in your bedroom you know what I didn't have anyone take a picture with my so would you be willing to s yes Jonathan [Music] we'll move on to recognition Okay you guys [Music] are tell me your names Dan and k d k okay good you're the first twoo okay so tonight we want to recognize um these are from our boys wrestling team so tell me if I say any of this incorrectly um Kane how do you say your last name tigas
008tigas and Kane is academic All State and he is a state runner up at 190 pounds at the Iowa high school state wrestling tournament so we're going to recognize you first and we're going to have and Dane Rue is an honorable mentioned academic All State and boys wrestling and a state qualifier at the Iowa high school state wrestling tournament and not here tonight we also want to recognize Damen Tim for our boys bowling he was a class 2A First Team all state a class 2A all district first team in the West District and in eighth place at the class to a Iowa high school state Bowling Championship so we wanted to also recognize him can I do have to apologize there's a clerical error on your certificates but I'm going to let you take them
009home we're going to reprint them for you so that there's no errors on them I couldn't even see it okay if you look hard you might see it okay okay two three here we go congratulations thank you guys congrats [Applause] than next good evening everyone I'm Cheryl and I'm the principal of the middle school and it's good to see everybody um I could spend more than 10 minutes bragging about what's going on at the middle school but I understand I'm at a time limit so I don't have a big check but I've got more fun than that we take Small Checks I'm gonna walk away with that I'm G put it toward those BS um so I'm going to do a little bragging um and I decided that we would title this celebrating learning and
010community at ums because what you're going to see are some Student Activities and some things we've been doing um to enhance the the feeling of community at the middle school and we've um come an awfully long way in four years and I'm very proud of the work that we've done um first thing I want you to know and some of you have been part of these and some of you have attended these and maybe some of you are unaware we have um an assembly per quarter and the first quarter is usually safety and then second quarter is empathy then we have accountability and then we have um responsibility at the end of the year and so every we get together and we have an assembly and in that assembly is we do it by grade
011level so there's a sixth grade one a seventh grade one an eighth grade one and that has a lot to do with how many kids we can put in one environment and we recognize students who have been um nominated by their teachers we also do um highlight of who which students are in different activities in clubs we highlight um staff uh for certain different uh accolades that students have nominated them for as well and then we have kind of an activity and this was sort of a bag toss and they did a team and if you can tell um there's a teacher team I think if you can look in the back you see Mr Babcock and then this is the eighth grade assembly so we've got some eighth graders um and the whole the
012whole group participates and it's pretty exciting um we started that about two years ago knowing that we were getting our PBS uh up and going and that we wanted to demonstrate away um schoolwide and after Co it was difficult to get everybody in the same environment and we had to kind of pause on that for a while so um October 24th the be the end of the assembly ended with this we also spent time on the 24th um acknowledging one of of our teachers Mr Steven baldis and he um spent time in the military and there is something called a quilt of Valor and I wasn't familiar I'm a military Kid myself but I was not familiar with the quilt of Valor and that is um an honor that is bestowed upon a a human
013who has spent time um in combat and so Stephen um spent time in the military and then is now teaching in our building his associate Leslie beran who some of you might know Leslie was featured in the um the urban Del Living magazine this year um she's a lovely woman and she and her sister um dug through what it takes to become someone that's a quilt of Valor recipient not only did they make the quilt but they figured out that he could be somebody that could be recognized and so we took the time kind of write him right before um Veterans Day and brought stepen out in front of the kids and he's um a special education teacher but um also a fan favorite everybody loves Steve so he came out and it was a
014big deal he had no idea what was going to happen his family and and friends came from outside and that was very exciting I believe you were there to be part of that day so that was pretty exciting for us another thing that we were able to do is partner with the high school and we had some German exchange students and some Japanese exchange students that um came over to the high school and they were there visiting for a number of days I want to say the German students were maybe there a little bit longer than the Japanese like I might have that backwards um and they uh Bachman Sensei reached out and so did um Dr um Ste steer I have that right is it Seager Seager yes maybe that's it anyway um the
015nice gentleman in the picture with me in the middle um the anyway uh they came over and we took the Japanese and German students and placed them small groups of them in different classes and they were able to they had little presentations prepared and they tried to do their very best in the very best English that they could to communicate with our kids and then our kids had just tons of questions like you know how much does it cost of this when do you get a driver's license and do you date and all the important things um and so the kids had a great time our kids had a great time their kids had a great time and in these pictures you can see where um the students had these uh they were kind of
016like they were toys but they were kind of in a small group and so they taught the kids how to use the toys from their culture and their country and so it was interesting to watch the sixth graders were much more involved in like the toy stuff and the eighth graders just wanted to ask just help questions at them and most of the German and Japanese students were older like 16 17ish and so they were able to have a little bit for our understanding of of the language and and we're able to enjoy the questions that our kids were asking them um you might be familiar with something called BizTown and that's Junior Achievement puts on um a thing for fifth graders and it's business in nature um we experienced something this year for the
017first time called Finance Park and it's through our partnership with ja and it's basically um a way to get kids to begin to think about personal finance and so um I have a quick little video um that I'm going to show you that kind of explains what what Finance Park is about that's for sure not itar J Finance Park is a financial literacy course for grades seven through 12 and it's all about personal finance students get to practice creating a personal budget Concepts like debit and credit really in a lowrisk environment they get an avatar and a fake life scenario they get to work through what it's like to be an adult and kind of work through all those decisions that adults make on a day-to-day basis it will teach kids how to manage their
018own money something that they don't get a very big opportunity to do right now they'll be in a small group with their peers and work with an adult volunteer who can kind of be their Mentor for the day and guide them through some decisions around creating and following a budget pay for child care or utilities volunteering is a lot of fun you really help kids learn something that they need to know it gives an opportunity for our students to realize what they need to do today to accomplish what they want to do in the future so that kind of gives you a little bit of a an overview of what Finance Park is about so we were able to take the curriculum offerings that are in our FCS our family consumer science class and there's
019a financial component to that and so uh Miss Bowman our FCS teacher took seventh graders who were on her roster first semester over to finance Park in December and she'll do the same thing again with students that she has second semester uh miday and so the kids were able to get in the small groups and Julie help me oh there we go um they were able to get in small groups and each one of the group leaders is a community person from a business um and so you saw the superintendent of West deoy and there's different people who have different business Partnerships around the metro area who volunteer their time so there were tech people there was industry people there were reers there were all kinds of folks and they kind of capped in a
020little small group and they talk through the life scenario that they give a kid so the child might be um you know married two kids your income is this your debt is this you have to figure out these things go and so it's kind of math related but it's also very practical um and so we took a few pictures of the students doing that and that was pretty exciting uh many of you participated in judging the door decorating contest again this year thank you very much for coming that was super fun um this is we just finished our third year and there is a lot of bragging rights those uh prizes are still up above the doorways and it has become quite a thing so um if you weren't able to join us uh this
021past year know that you'll get an invitation for this upcoming year um and this year's uh the the designs of the doors just keep getting better better and better and better so come enjoy that if you would like our empathy assembly was on the 26th and again those were capitalizing on our jhawk W values and these are just pictures of the kids and if you look on the picture on your right you see Mrs Roberson uh participating and she is a force to be reckoned with in so many ways not just St decorating but on the balloon stomp as well she came ready with the right shoes and uh well we were all a little scared that's not um on March 4th uh we were able to take two students to the Optimus lunch in
022and I don't know if you all know that every year the Optimus clubs within the De Moine Area ask schools to sponsor two students um and usually we choose eighth graders and Mr Regan met with the eighth grade team and got named so we recognized McKenzie Gilmore and Lucy way brener Jones and those gals got to go with Miss Raina the eighth grade counselor and Mr Regan to a luncheon um recognizing students who are um giving of the themselves giving of their time um willing to help out others and just good people and so that's what they got to do and they got a certificate the gal on the right in the yellow I believe is the president of Iowa the University of Iowa and then they got to be in a picture with some
023um fellow students from all around the metro and that was pretty fun thing they got to do I'm going to ask Mrs Birdwell ktie of our sixth grade social studies team to kind of give us an idea about what culture all is some of you might have heard of it there's a lot more history in Urbandale than I was aware of um until Katie schooled me so want to I yeah you tell me okay all right so you guys can read that mission cultural is just a really wonderful organization that works really hard to connect students to ambassadors from all different cultures to teach them about different cultures to help them be more understanding and accepting of cultures um and we've been really lucky like charl said we've had real history with um cultureal um
024culture all started this is their actually their 20th anniversary um it started in 20 um 2005 and I was lucky enough to meet the founder and now executive director Sher gupa at an Iowa Social Studies conference that year um very lucky because we became friends and I then started piloting ambassadors in my classroom um so I would have I can't I wouldn't know the exact number 20 years ago but 10 to 15 amass ambassador party I would come in and present with my classes with my students and then my only job was to get feedback and we did this probably two or three years and it was fantastic so many different cultures so many different presentations but then as it kind of got off the ground it required more funding and so it kind of
025dropped off for a few years um but then we have been lucky in the last couple years to get a grant um so that all students can um experience it last year and we put it in sixth grade social studies um a because it fits in our curriculum and B social study is the class that every student takes so no one was left out of the presentations so last year we had presentations in January it was during our North americ unit we had some Native American presenters this year we had um two presenters um we were in our Latin America unit we had and I have handouts if anybody wants to see them but Juan lado with kiar which is a Brazilian martial arts that was the one I got to experience with my classes
026and then um RJ Hernandez did um Mexican music and instruments um both excellent presenters like I said I only get to see one in person I guess he pictures and videos of the other one but involved the students got them um moving and talking and it was just a really good experience I think we have a video of and some pictures from their presentation this is a video that cultureal did as part of their 20th anniversary featuring our school [Music] sh guitar that the Maria used is called repeat from his brother it was great working with the kids they had a lot of energy uh it's it's great to see them uh be curious about the things that we're sharing with them and uh and just open to new information and new experiences it it's
027great to work for the kids is that not want to go away anybody is the whole page link say it again is the whole page of link that um can you move it with that yeah I'm trying to get rid of that I think just a couple pictures right but they're gonna need to get back to the power oh sure maybe click Chrome on the bottom I know I someone under 40 come Julie not under 40 tur it no I mean maybe click on Chrome but yep we were kind of wrapping up anyway that was one of the the last things we um had a grant and that was something that um it was a and Brandon said you have money I said great he said um it's money that typically goes to k6 and
028for the past two years they extended it to K8 and so we have I think it's 12 $1,800 $1,500 $1,800 some small grand um and when we go and I say Katie um we'd like to to do this there's kind of a if you go to cultural website it's almost like a menu and if you want to know about cooking from this country or dance from this country or uh fashion from that country you just kind of pick and choose and then they pull it all together and then we can just make it work with whatever so it's been really great so um those are some highlights I think that was our last highlight of what we were work working with so far we are going back to finance Park in may like I mentioned
029um and we do have an assembly tomorrow if anyone's free between 1:15 and 3 come watch um our third quarter assembly and then we've got another one that will be on the last couple of days of school we did have our variety show the day before spring break so um that is kind of hot off the press which is why pictures are not in here um Chris I think did you go to the variety show yep I think uh every year I go it just gets better and better and this year was no exception it was fantastic so we had a really good time but you're welcome to come to the Middle School anytime any day just show up or make an appointment either one love to have you thank you thank you oh one
030more thing sorry I'm going to pass this out I know that we're supposed to do all the fun things that kids do but I have this thing about academics um that is important for for I want you guys to just peek at this what this is is just I had our teachers comment on their proudest um experience with their plc's this year and each teacher has contributed in some way and I just wanted you guys in your spare time to do a little light reading um you can just see what what our teachers have said in terms of how their plcs are working the hard work that they've done what they're proud of and the emphasis on plcs that we're focusing on for this year next is is significant and it's the right work at
031the right time so I just wanted to throw that at you thank you so much thank you okay this mon this week's the more you know um couple of items I just wanted to remind uh students and families that the third quarter ends Wednesday the 26th um we have one more quarter we've gotten three quarters out of the way this year's gone really fast um we don't have any weather days to make up so we still plan to have the last day of school as posted on May 29th and as long as everything is done and you're ready for graduation senior's last day is still May 21st I'm sure that's being counted down already somewhere uh we want to remind families of incoming kindergarteners that registration continues open enrollment is still an option for kindergarteners
032up until September 1st incoming kindergarteners um as far as returning families registration that's ongoing as of today we have 689 completely registered returning students we have 117 students that started registration but haven't completed it and we have 27 new students with completed registration so we want to remind families to get out there and get that registration done um you do not have to come out to the district office you can go to your child's School you could also come here if you wanted to but the schools are probably uh more convenient and there are dedicated computers in the offices so that parents can use those computers to do their registration um the isasp window this is the Iowa Test of academic progress that's not what the acronym I'm getting some words mixed up but this
033is the state test that our kids take every year if they're in grades 3 through 11 and the window is April 14 to 25 this is for students in grades 3 through 11 and grades 5 8 and 10 are also assessed in the science portion so that's coming up on on the week of April 7th if you have a current fourth through 11th grader parents will receive a notification that week with last year's isas scores in it so that you can take a look at um having conversations with your children about how important the test is I know kids don't like to take the tests because it's kind of a long test but it's important that they do their best because we do use that assessment as part of our decision making as far as
034what uh courses or extra assistance that kids need so we want to make sure it's as accurate as possible um but again that window is going to be April 14th to 25th and since next Tuesday is April 2nd that's going to be coming up pretty quick so just wanted to remind everybody of those dates thank you reports all righty well as it is the first day back printing break not a ton going on school um I know everyone's just getting back in the school schedule just coming off of a break but I know myself and many others are feeling refreshed from having a break and ready to get back at it um we don't have a ton today but one thing I wanted to point out is that um our student Senate executive members will
035be doing a visit to Southeast pulk as well as some of the ding uh student council members will also be there um just doing a little school exchange I know these have been mentioned before by Sean um that we have done this before but this will be our last one at Southeast bulk um I know many of us are excited it's a great opport to just see how other schools are doing things and as well as getting new new and fresh ideas about just building Community within our school and within the district so that is on Friday and we're looking forward to that only other thing is AP tests are coming up so we're getting some review sessions for those um classes are coming to close so we're getting our work done um that's pretty
036much it yeah great thanks guys the arrows okay you need to go well hello I'm Stephanie Davis director of student services and Katie the secondary El and we are here tonight to share with you um excuse me how our progress has gone this year with our secondary elel lead um the secondary elel lead position fits within our culture of dignity and belonging here in Urbandale especially in the schoolwide systems and structures teaching and learning and particularly in caregiver and Community Partnerships um a year ago my predecessor came before you to request this position and the purpose of this position was um there was really a need for additional professional learning coaching collaboration with classroom teachers and so identifying that need and um seeking to meet that need through an additional um teaching position um professional
037learning for building and District leaders about best practices for multilingual Learners and additionally to offer programmatic support um so some of the responsibilities that I've gotten into this year uh I often get asked what the day-to-day looks like and the truth is there's no set dayto day it's like it's a very seasonal position in terms of what's happening in that time and aligning with the needs of the each of the buildings um so speaking to professional learning and collaboration doing a lot of PC's with our El teachers working with them making sure they have the things that they need building agendas making sure we have an organized place to keep all of our items getting some jobs embedded um professional learnings whether that's in other plc's or working with individual teachers whole group PL or
038whole group professional development um it created the Hub where both we have a a front facing for our El teachers and then a facing one for all of our genda teachers at each the buildings that they can access and full resources from know where they can get interpreter information some other differentiation ideas live on there as well um and then collaborating with like Administration uh other teachers as well as coaches we've done a lot of work together to make sure that we're planning we're problem solving and just meting our students there um in terms of our student support and scheduling I there again it's a seasonal thing but at the beginning of the year going through our student schedules making sure that they have the support services that they need um going through and making
039sure that uh there's input provided to what we're going to be providing for students um talking through ideas with teachers bouncing off okay what do you think is working here what's not working here what else can we provide are there other teachers who need additional support that one of us or both of us can some how provide for them um tracking student info and how to use it so you know I've got this new student what can I do to help them how can I be more assets based what can I think about that they know to use to learn and leverage um and then helping El teachers especially our new ones understand student needs and what they can do in the classroom just helping them along the way of what what is urban deal
040working with e students look like and how can we better achieve um goals there moving into the assessment and data management um that's been a heavy lift in the season of ela testing which has occurred up all of February and all of March and closes this Friday um so when students come into our district I give them all the alpha screeners and I'll get a little bit more that on the next slide but making sure that they're accurately provided and that we have those results and getting them into the correct classes based on that organizing of um the ala 21 assessment both at the middle school the high school Metro West and then also taking care of all of our ala students which would be all of our Dynamic level free special education Learners um
041and so with Al Alpha especially that's a whole different assessment that they take you take it two on- one so me their special education teacher the student um for four different tests for each of those students so that can be quite a heavy lift for our teachers when they have done that in the past um um and then also with data management of that I take care of our power school work with our e students so when they come in and make sure that they have the coding or the things right in there that say what kind of services they're getting their interpreter needs making sure they have the right attachments that say what kinds of supports they will get in the classroom um as well as the tide roster which tells us in the
042system for their Alpha 21 testing who they are what roster they're on um and just houses their information there uh in terms of curriculum and resource organization we have been using that Geo which has been a great resource for us curriculum wise but we've been doing a lot of learning with that so I took a lot of time at the beginning of the year to get to know it a lot myself so I could build in supports for our teachers so they have a one place to go in our shared Google Drive that they can get into get exactly what they need all the PDFs are created by a lesson by lesson basis so that they can pull from that and make it really easy for them they've had a really great fon success this
043year using that and it's at grade level too so it's not like our high school middle school learners are looking at um Elementary things when they're newcomers it's for them at their age level but it is still what they are needing um and then the administrative and on the or on the spot support the part of the beauty of this position is that you have more flexibility so I have more time to say oh I have see this need here I can go and address that or I can be in that meeting and be a voice for our El teachers when they are teaching students we looked a lot more at our students have limited and interrupted formal education what can we do for them look more about our disability suspect how can we improve
044that process to make it make sense to make sure that we're not over serving or underserving our e students as well as making sure our interventions are accurate and helpful in planning or looking at the progress of el students because they are it is a nuanced um group of students so we want to make sure that we're not just looking at this and making sure that we have all of the factors included that we need to have um also working with interpreters I at the beginning of the year look at all the clusters of students in um their classes and if they're not getting support our interpreter is checking in where can they go to best support students in the classroom and then also creating schedules for them based on that but then during conferences
045making sure that inter have a place to be they know where their schedule is Teachers know where they can put on a sheet where interpreters can go and then just making sure that all goes nice and smoothly EXC a lot um okay forgetting back to the screen when a student comes into our district um what has happened in the past is that teachers would get a notification says okay the student might be an e student so we need to screen them so the teachers first goal is to locate the students records do they have previous e um services from another school do they have IO records do they have a home language survey already and then if they don't and we need to screen them they coordinate with the families and the student to have
046them come in and take a screener in the past we haven't had a lot of time to step out of classes step out of planning to go and meet with those students of course they do the screener but it might be they come in we screen them real quick send them out say we'll call you and then they go on their way and we you know um figure out what classes are best for them so they would do the screener um and that takes about 30 to 60 Minutes depending on the student and then they analyze the results communicate those with the counselor to say okay these are the classes that I would suggest based on what their language needs are complete all the paperwork mail it home put it where it needs to go
047electronically and that process is pretty intense it takes a long time to do a lot of those things what we've been able to do this year is I've been able to pick up that piece for the middle school and the high school and we've added some things that I think have been really valuable so when families come in I get an interpreter so that I can sit down with parents or guardian we can learn about what their educational history looks like we talk about what school look like for them with middle school or high school they get a little brochure in their home language that tells them who the teachers are they'll work with it tells them all the basics of atten depend all the things that they need to go home with to be
048ready for school um and with that we go for on a tour of the school where they get to see all the classrooms see what it'll look like get an idea what it's going to be like to be there and I think that's added a really nice element of okay you're welcome here you know what's going to be coming a little bit more um you can see the numbers up there it shows you how many sceners we did last year and how many we did this year so secondary total 45 last year and that was all on the roster teachers so Middle School does that based on grade level so sixth grade teacher would do all of sixth grade um seventh eth grade the same and then High School does it based on chunks of
049the alphabet so it wasn't always even but it it it did take a lot of time to remove them from a classroom unfortunately often so excuse me as we're beginning to look at some of the student data um this is an initial look at some of our a reading data for this year this is not definitive this is a hm isn't this interesting um at this point this is something that we' want to continue to look at and look at our Trends over time it is not uncommon for there to be a dip in overall proficiency across the district in the winter in the winter screening of a reading um we also remember that when we're looking at our students who are identified as e in this particular example these are not students who have
050exited EO um these are students who are currently ident ified within the English learner program because they have not yet reached a level of proficiency in English so the the scores that we're seeing um align with our knowledge of language acquisition and we know that students are making progress towards that what was interesting this year um is that while it is common to have a dip in proficiency overall at the winter for all of our students our English Learners actually improved their percentage proficient this winter so this will be something that we'll want to keep an eye on see how this turns out at the end of the year and continue as we go through the years but I found this to be just an interesting piece of information as we're looking at the change
051in support this year um one other factors we're thinking about the English Learners who are um testing in this example um from last year to this year we have had a 10% change overall in our number of English Learners at the secondary level and our students who are at the emerging level we've had a 39% increase at the secondary level so the English um English proficiency determination is um what a student is given at the end of the Alpa testing and whether the screener or the um Alpa 21 test so a student could be at the emerging level progressing level or proficient and we have seen a a marked increase in our number of students at the emerging level and still are seeing that level of success some of what we have seen um has
052been so positive I reached out to our teachers some instructional coaches administrators to get feedback on how the secondary El lead is going and I got a wonderful piece of advice that I should put some of the quotations up on the screen for you all to read without realizing that every single piece of feedback I received was at least two paragraphs long people were just Absolut absolutely glowing um about how things have changed this year the impact that the secondary elel lead position has had on their day-to-day um whether it is our El teachers instructional coaches or administrators um the secondary El lead has taken um over some of the time consuming Administration tasks whether screening Alpa testing schedules data management allowing El teachers to focus more on instruction um we've seen enhanced teacher support
053and collab operation the elel lead has provided um professional um professional learning problem solving support both for new and experienced teachers um and improving their confidence as well as their effectiveness we have seen improve student placement and success by managing the screening and ensuring accurate class placement the elel lead has contributed to better student outcomes and smoother transitions for our El students we've seen stronger schoolwide EL support um through PLC leadership schoolwide professional learning sessions and advocacy um our El lead has helped ensure that the El students uh receive appropriate support and differentiation within their classrooms and finally we've seen a positive impact on our families um she works very closely with the families interpreters School staff um our El does fostered a more organized and goal oriented El Department improving Data Tracking phonics instruction
054and overall student language acquisition efforts um so looking ahead yeah looking ahead um you know within a year of working position you you learn things as you go like okay what can we do better as we keep learning more um part of that would be working on the PLC so intentionally choosing plcs where you know there's a lot of eels that are placed in those groups and making sure that I'm I can be there maybe like quarterly like be with this group and we can work through things together I can learn from you you can learn from me what can we do to better ser RS um using the feedback from this year to improve on the processes especially with Forma of assessment um the unfortunate thing about up 21 it's at the end of
055the year so you kind of get your we're going to get our scores in May and then it's like okay we've got that so we have formative assessments that we'd like to start using more um frequently to make sure we're checking how students speaking Reading Writing and listening which is what they're tested on is more frequently um looked into and then we can use that to guide our instruction and then just keeping on with the job embed professional learning for teachers about El student identities so you know more opportunities for all staff whether it's more like book studies or talking through differentiation looking at scores teaching them how to use all the information that we have to make good uh guidelines instructional practices based on what students already have provided to them and then adding
056in some kind of language objectives to lessons so that they're thinking about what kind of language does student need to be able to be um showing Proficiency in the content as well as the academic language with that what questions might you have a quick one um last year we had quite a bit of discussion of the difference between the needs at the high school in the elementary has the positive success of what you've seem to figure out at the high school level has that conversation been had at the elementary level to see um you know whether that would be the right move or change to maybe make it an elementary level or is that so actually later this evening I will be coming um to request a an Elementary El position so this is a
057conversation that we have been having we've seen um as you said we have seen such immense um overwhelming Positive Growth at the secondary level we know that additional support is needed at the elementary and this position will look different at the elementary dealing with four different buildings as opposed to two um and so some of the differences are in there but uh we know that our English Learners are gen ed students first and so we need to make sure that we're providing our classroom teachers with the skills and structures to be able to help with that language acquisition um and an elementary eel lead would be able to help with those conversations ations what by being in with the plcs by having conversations with the administrators providing that additional learning um along the way it
058will look different there's some structures that are particular to the high school and middle school especially when we're thinking about um credits that students are earning for graduation but the the need for additional support and additional professional learning and guidance and that programmatic support exist both at the elementary and the secondary okay I think the piece that I'm most happy about is when Katie described all the things that need to happen when you have a new student without her the teachers are being pulled away so the services are not being provided for whatever that time frame is having her be able to do what she's doing means that the teacher can provide those Services which I think should lead to Higher Achievement so I I feel like that's a big piece that we need to
059remember it be like a a special ed teacher being pulled away and not being able to provide SDI to the kids because there's some paperwork thing that has to happen it's legal stuff it has to happen but this allows the freedom to make sure the services are continually provided without interruption so that's the piece that I find highly beneficial so maybe I should rephrase that the positive feedback that you've gotten from the high school teachers are we sharing that with the elementary teachers so they will receive that in the same way we had the we had the opportunity to chat today because we we shared that this is something that would be coming about two weeks ago okay um and so I gave them the opportunity to ask questions along the way but we had
060an in-person conversation today because they've had about two you know two weeks to process to process and know this is coming some of the questions were um most strongly about the differences between Elementary and secondary and we recognize that there there are different needs at both but some are very much the same and being we have such skilled teachers um k12 and being able to provide the teachers with that immense experience at working with our English Learners additional support that will free up their expertise um to working with students with language acquisition that to me is such a benefit okay thank you else thank you thank you thank you guys stuff we don't have so we have no public tonight and we'll move on to the consent agenda I would move to bring the consent
061agenda forward second questions coms I have wanted I apologize I didn't submit this my weekend was a little crazy um on the continuing contracts do we have any idea um the counseling service do we know usage I know in the past we've kind of gotten that presented to us of how often it's it's used I don't know that we could do it off the top of our head so that apolog yeah and remember we don't want to use it right we would hope that we don't need it but I understand understand the question okay and is there um have we looked at overlap with our regular Insurance of like what's covered like because don't I mean don't most insurance coverages anymore have like counseling sessions as part of our regular insurance I know this offers
062other things as well I'm just wondering if more than likely I should have some I haven't sought that out so do you know off the top of your head okay I think I think there is some I can't speak to whether it's 100% though all yeah I would know what those are we could look into it okay I would just be curious how much our regular insurance is is covering and if um how much overlap there is between what's already being covered through the health insurance and what's covered here I'd be curious to know that Kent yes me yes mi yes yes Williams yes yeah yes motion passes sixer and on our new action items but first is the approval of our tax notice there any questions do we have a motion then to approve
063the tax notice for 2025 me will second this will be a roll call again me yes minky yes rice yes Williams yes young yes yes motion passes 60 and approve the vendor for the um Band Room renovations you could see attached to that as Eric is coming up there was um number of bids and I'm sure that Eric can answer any questions that you have absolutely what do you mean see everybody um yes so two action items before you tonight the first one is for the down Middle School band room Renovations so as explained uh at the last meeting um youve got some some uh existing uh sound rooms there that will be removed and we'll be putting in um uh permanent rooms there for the for the use of the the band students um
064we did have really good uh bidding um uh there we had I think eight um different biders um participating which is good to see in such a what I'll call small uh project normally you see this uh when you have million dollar contracts things of that nature but um that goes to show you kind of what's happening in the market right now now um so uh good news there it was under the estimated uh um budget valuee um and you have worked with Edge commercial previously uh for the Metro West Community um uh Metro West Academy um renovation about two years ago so um so I would I don't see any any issu recommending that just a quick one on contingencies is there if we don't use them it'll be less that correct okay correct
065y minky would move to approve um awarding the Construction contract for the middle school band rooms to Edge commercial of Grimes second mkey yes and rwi yes Williams yes young Yes hint yes me yes motion passes thank you and on to the hbac at high school and Webster um so uh similar story here um so in this case we had uh two uh two components one for uh HBC controls for the um Webster uh property and then one for the high school property um and you'll see there um we only had one the one uh vendor here because that is the district standard for controls so so not that we're um doing anything different per se than what we did at the middle school um this is your your uh your District control vendor um
066and so changing over the entire system at the elementary to uh to this uh uh vendor and then making upgrades um at the high school um so you'll see on that budget summary there that um we were under budget on the um on the elementary side but we were higher on the um on the high school side um again just as we were getting into it uh just some additional things scope there that we found the other component is that we are asking them to do the high school over three years rather than all in one year so they are building in some inflationary kind of U um components to that um the other thing to note is um the three alternates for the for the elementary school so um in working with uh Zach
067um and Company um looking at some of the the uh upgrades that we have not been doing at web that we have been doing at the at the high school over time uh relates to some valves some water valves and so as they're um as they're working on that system um these are additional pricings there uh that um are not they're not required today however as we know anytime we do something in the future it's t it'll tend to cost more um so we did break those out just to show you that those are not included as part of our original estimate um and uh and but they are things that we would recommend doing um for the preventative maintenance of the system in the long run so that would bring your total there to
068the 1.8 million in change so Eric I guess I'm I'm thinking back to our days of getting valerious built and there were some things that we weren't we held off on just BEC because of the staging with with postco pricing all of that I guess in this environment are you confident that a three-year effort at the high school isn't going to with the environment that we're in right if we get tariffs on parts and components and all of that that we're not are we going to are you going to be back here in 18 months saying hey we need another $100,000 because this is more expensive than we thought it was going to be now good question um and one of the reasons why why we structure it the way we did is that um
069this is a what I'll call a guaranteed sum bid um and so by uh similar similar to the um uh to the Middle School we're asking the Bender to to put in a price that locks in this this amount for the duration of the project so um unless there's something absolutely crazy and that would be um there are terms you know like acts of war and things like that sure um but um they should be purchasing all these all the materials up front and then holding on to that so that it's just a labor component they have to install at the later date okay um so and we'll go over that when we have a preconstruction meeting with them um which we'll hold in the next uh proba six weeks um uh to go over
070you know what that what that looks like so yeah okay thank you so then is the advantage to taking three years to do it just spreading out the cost correct from your so from your uh Capital Improvement uh costing that we work with Steve on um the district allocates so many dollars per year in your fiscal year uh based on either pepo or save you know dollars and so um the benefit of of doing this is you don't take a $1.3 million hit to your current or your next year fiscal budget um and so uh if I'm speaking out of we would have to probably cancel some other projects by doing it this way their company's holding those items and same cost for that three-year project it just makes sense okay on our end okay
071or we can continue with what we already have on the plan okay thank you and really no no different than uh even for like the Val almost an example even though that was a um a $33 million project that was actually spread out um by pay applications over multiple years um of your of your financial plan and so those are things that pip per leing company take into account while they're doing your your financial projections else I would move to approve the vendor for the hbac at at the high school in Webster than you will second and we'll roll call again Ben rice yes Williams yes young yes H yes M yes miy yes motion passes six Z Fant okay and the additional FTE requests for the Elementary El Staffing 2526 well hello it's been
072so long um so this fall I promised um when I brought the bow plan to you um that I would learn more about our needs and about our students um before making any decisions on any sort of Staffing plan um I have been able to review um our data with our students as I mentioned earlier we've had quite an increase in the number of English Learners additionally at the elementary we've had a 58% increase in the number of students at the emerging level um so the data indicate a need for additional Staffing we currently have 1.5 teachers El teachers at Karen Acres 2.5 at Olstead two at valerious and one at webs so the addition of one FTE for the El teacher would add um 05 position at both Olstead and valus so that would
073bring Olstead to three full-time teachers um valus would have 2.5 teachers so where we're seeing the greatest need with our students and the growth um across the district um additionally I'm asking um for 1.0 elel Elementary lead um we just had a a nice time talking about the secondary El lead this would look very similar but we understand of course that the elementary has some different needs um just based on the population of our students and the makeup of our buildings so it would just this this fulltime person would just be at Alstead and valious divided well um we'll have to take a look at where people want to shift um if there is some shifting um I have some ideas that I'm looking at as far as um whether people want because we currently
074have A5 split between Ken acres and Olstead would that be a position that shifts full-time We additionally support St Pas um so we have that position is currently shared halftime with one of our high school positions um our St Pas students are actually enrolled in valious so we have we were still looking at all the different options as to whether where the two where the halftime pieces will come together okay but by student need that the need is there is that what you're saying student need we we have need for three full-time teachers at oldstead and two and a half at valious so that that's where we're at it's it's confusing because it's going half yes when we last um talked about the El positions we had a lot of questions about how the secondaries
075week looked can you talk about with four different buildings how that might look and I know it'll probably depends a lot on who and where and all that oh and I'm at a little bit of a disadvantage because going into this next school year we have a new schedule at all of our elementary schools which is actually really exciting because that provides um additional win time additional intervention time for our El teachers to work with students um but at this time we don't quite have the idea of um which days each building will be working with their plc's however um we know that um what we would like to do is um schedule the elel lead based on when different grade levels are meeting if at all possible so that they can continue to work
076um in some of those disc sessions um I imagine it will be at least one day a week in each building um one of the things that we do with the secondary elel lead is we actually have a Monday Wednesday Thursday schedule and then the uh the next week it's opposite based on the high school schedule and so we'll we'll need to take a look with this new Elementary schedule and and make sure that we're aligning most closely with the days um that we have those plc's already there and or um when different teams are meeting so we'll take a look at that um additionally they'll be able to work very closely with the administrative staff and some of the planning as well as the coaches um and so knowing knowing that we have a
077a lot of different moving pieces I can't answer exactly but um the plan would be to take a look at at the way the schedule is is coming together and place them where they will be in greatest need minky would move to approve the addition of one FTE for the elementary elel teacher and an additional uh 1.0 FTE for the Elementary El lead for the 2025 26 school year young second and our last roll call Williams yes yeah Yes hint yes yes miy yes yes motion passes thank you entertain a motion minky will make that motion to adjourn got a motion do have a second Neil second all those in favor I post motion passes meeting adjourned