001is 6:00 p.m. Uh, we will call to order the meeting of the Grand Forks Public School Board, school board meeting for Monday, April 13th. Uh, first item on our agenda is the voluntary recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Item 1A is the reading of our school board meeting norms, Mr. Manley. Thank you. Be prepared, be on time, value and respect each other, exercise thoughtful deliberation and conversation, be professional at the board table and when visiting with the general public, speak up when the norms are not being followed, and advocate on behalf of students and keep the community in mind. Thank you. Item number two is the approval of the agenda. I would seek a motion for approval. Motion approved. There's a motion by Joel. Is there a second? Bill, second. Roll call vote.
002Manley. Yes. Burger is ab- Burger is absent. Hodak. Yes. Klaben. Yes. Larson. Yes. Pomasl. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Lund is absent. Anderson. Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion carries. Item number three on our agenda tonight is celebrating success. We have some members of the South Middle School team uh with us tonight to celebrate some success and I'll call to the microphone uh Mr. Neil and team and ask that you uh turn on the microphone and uh excited to hear from you. Evening, everybody. We brought like half the staff, so come on in. Uh one of the thing just make sure as I go through this uh take a look strategically placed in there um every learner every day and that means something to us at South. Um I would like to introduce everybody. Um
003I'm Travis Neil. Um I'm the principal of South. Uh this is my fourth year there. Uh we have Brian Lowe, who is the associate principal. We have Carla Hoven, the instructional coach. We have Christine Rocky. And she's an aspiring principal. She's going to be phenomenal. We have Sally Akerlin, who's the behavior interventionist. Um we have Stephanie Larson, who's a counselor. And then we have is Jalisa Keller, who's our social worker. And then we have Kelly Patton, who is our counselor, our other counselor. Uh the other piece in there, too, once a Spartan always a Spartan. Again, that means something to us. Um when you come to South, once you're part of that, um you're truly always part of it. We do have some mission vis- uh mission, vision, and beliefs. And again, I would I
004just turn your attention to the picture uh cuz again, that means something to us. We're going to speak a little bit to diversity and how proud we are. And take a look at that take a look at that picture. Those are our quarter two students of honor and it's like that every quarter. It's pretty cool to go there and see that. Just the mixture of kids that we have and and what we're celebrating at South. We do have our our mission uh which is every learner every day and we have our vision and our belief. Just a little bit about South, little background. So, the original South Junior High was established in 1932. Um currently the the building opened in January of 1999. Brian and I talk about 1998, 1999 when the fifth graders come
005to visit. Um when I pulled this data, we had 551. I think we have a couple few less students than that now. but since day one, uh uh we've had roughly 20 and that's we need to update probably 27 now new students since day one. We have about 36 withdrawal. And we have about 55 ML students. We have 65 plus teachers and support staff like Carla. Um a lot of these people up here uh would be support staff itself, which really our kids are who we're celebrating, but these guys are the ones that are doing the work behind the scenes and they're doing a phenomenal job as well as our teachers. But these guys up here drive a lot of it. Uh we have ab- about 26 paraprofessionals. Um we are a PBIS school and
006we're proud to be that. Project Lead the Way distinguished school still. Uh we are certified level one and level two for high reliability schools. And we are Title One school this year. A little bit more deep into our demographics. Again, right now we just pulled this last week, so right now we're sitting at 547. Tomorrow will be 548 uh students. Male to female, pretty close. We have about 10% of our students on a 504 plan. And about 17% of our students are um in special education. Can you can see up there our diversity and it's something that we celebrate at South. We have about 37% low income, which is right right at that district average. We're right there every year with are we going to be Title One, are we not going to be Title
007One. So, I could put Mr. Bock on the spot right now and ask him right now, but we won't do that. Um but we're about 37% low income. 1% foster and 1% homeless. Like I said a little bit earlier, we are Title One school. And we're going to talk a little bit about that with Ms. Akerlin. Um ultimately it's providing funds and those funds um they've decreased. Uh and we were lucky enough to still um be able to hire Sally as our behavior interventionist, which is a huge part of what we do at South. Focusing on everybody to kind of close that gap with the academics, which goes right with behavior. We always look at criteria. And then part of Title One is we need to do some parent engagement things. So, one of the
008things Ms. Hoven is going to talk about is our family maker night. So, [snorts] here's Ms. Ms. Hoven. Yes, you just keep that. All right. So, as Mr. Neil mentioned, we a part of our requirement is to have a family engagement night. So, on January 15th, it was postponed cuz December we had a storm, but we had an out of the box maker night. And um we had a great time. We had supper with everyone and we had five different STEM maker stations. We had Kiva planks, Strawbees, Clickos, um Makedo. And then we created a Ziploc bag with math games with dice and cards to go home. Um I I want to highlight since I see Amelia here that four out of our five stations were um items that we purchased over the years from
009the Grand Forks Foundation for education. So, we are just so fortunate um to be able to we've had teachers write grants and to add extra things. And so, I wanted to highlight Amelia since she was here that we're we're just so happy to have the foundation and that opportunity to write grants from from that. Um it was fun to see everyone's creation and we even had a set of grandparents. It's one of the picture up there with the girl in the green and they had a blast with their granddaughter and they told us we were they were thanked us for having that event. So, that was um in January and um you can see some of the pictures of our stations that we did with our parents. All right, go ahead, Mr. Neil. All right.
010In addition to that, uh we've used Title money for the past few years. I'm going to talk about the Powerful Teaching book. We actually bought that four years ago with Title funds. And um this has been instrumental. It's actually the science of learning and we've learned um about how these power tools in um are are beneficial for our students. Retrieval practice, spacing, interleaving, uh feedback, metacognition. And what this book has done is it's bridged that gap between brain science and the classroom, helping our educators shift from teaching a lesson to securing long-term learning >> [clears throat] >> using these power tools. Over half of our staff has taken this book study over the past four years. And we've had teachers present during um our PD at our back to school. They've talked about brain dumps,
011um two things, power tickets, all retrieval practice uh for our students. Um and this past fall, our um some of these same teachers, excuse me, this spring, these same teachers presented um to colleagues at our other middle schools during our Febru- February PD. So, that's just a continu- uh ongoing learning opportunity for our teachers to in a book study. Um and then on the right side, um this year we used some funds. We um to bring John [clears throat] Crippo and Jacob Carr. They're the Edge of Protocol guys from North uh to North Dakota from California in February. Um they actually missed the week that right before was really cold. Uh Jacob actually made that graphic and you can see they're like shivering on their northern tour to Grand Forks. Um they were at South
012for two days for high energy learning. Um we planned with them and what they did is when they came in is they did classroom takeovers. And so, they were able our teachers were able to come alongside and learn with the students as they took over the class the class classrooms. And then in the afternoon of one of our release days when they were here is they worked with our entire staff. All right. So, if you're thinking, well, what are Edge of Protocols? Uh they're lesson frames. And um ties in with our Marzano high yield strategies with summarizing, nonlinguistic representation, and providing feedback. And so, if you were to walk in the halls at South, you might see a teacher doing a fast and curious, which is just a repetition uh building fluency, vocabulary, math facts,
013which we want that immediate feedback for our students, another Marzano uh key strategy. And so, it allows uh teachers to clear up misconception in minutes. Uh we also you'll see sketch and tell. Rocky does that a lot in her classroom, where she combines that visual creation with written explanation um with that nonlinguistic representation again to help students process and retain those complex concepts more deeply. So, by integrating So, there there's a plan in there that integrating that book study along with EduProtocol's in our school, it's effectively bridging that brain science and classroom practice to secure that long-term learning for our students. So, that's some of the what we've been using with our title money. I'll exit here. And they also made fun >> They also made fun of me with my script. >> No, and
014they make They did get chippers. So. And we did buy them chippers, yes. Uh next we have Sally, our behavior interventionist. Hi, I'm Sally Eckerlin, the behavior interventionist. Uh this is my fourth year in this position. Um 4 years ago was a brand new position to South and um when we were here 2 3 years ago, this is a slide we made with the staff of what, you know, they thought the benefit was. So, I'll give you a second just to, you know, skim that. Um because on the next slide Um you know, 4 years down the road, we have some data to support that. Um in 23 24, that's how many log entries. Um and log entries are when teachers um document in PowerSchool to let admin know, you know, a behavior issue in
015the classroom, we need support, we need a plan. Um so, you know, 3 years ago, we were sitting over 1,000 log entries. Last year at this time, we were at 659 and now this year we're at 497. Um so, I think, you know, 2 years ago, we had that anecdotal storytelling of, you know, what it we think it's helping. Uh 4 years down the road, we have some strong data to say that having someone in the building that is able to connect with staff, students, family to support not just It's my title's behavior, but supporting that behavior supports the academics. Um in the classroom, if everyone's behaving, learning becomes a whole lot easier for everybody around. Um so, my question to the board, um I'm not sure if Travis didn't know to ask questions, but
016how can GPS guarantee these change makers? Cuz what was a change maker? Staffing, funding, and the systems that we're able to set up with someone overseeing that. How can we guarantee this for all schools on a consistent basis? We know that we're on the bubble and we can, you know, support it through our title one's money and a lot of title one schools do, but also a bigger picture. How can we guarantee that at every school in any building that there's a system and a person and a um program in place to support everyone? So, thank you. And it's one of the things I just want to add to what Sally is just saying. Um would love to sit down and chat with any one of you guys about this position and about the work
017that Sally does um cuz it is one of the things that keeps me up at night. For example, if we're not title, because again, we're right there on the border every year. Um and then depending [clears throat] on the funding with that position, um what she does on a day-in day-out basis with students, internal staff, and families, um the impact is very high. So, thank you for everything you do, Sally. All right. So, as Mr. Neil said, I'm Brian Lowe, um the associate principal at South. Um I'm in my seventh year at South. Um I'm also the activities coordinator. Uh 19th year of education, so prior to being a principal here, I was uh social studies teacher. Um and I've been [clears throat] at South, like I said, for 7 years, the longest I've ever
018been in one building. Uh 4 years here, 5 years there, 4 years here kind of deal. And and I have no interest in leaving South. And and I'm going to talk a little bit about why. Um so, relationships are key for us at at South, and that's with kids, that's with staff members, it's with parents, it's with paras, um custodial, kitchen staff, all all aspects of our building. Um and we talk about it a lot. Um you know, staff meetings or just team meetings amongst with each other, relationships are key. Um we we pride ourselves on We talk about uh our students having a trusted adult. And, you know, sometimes Mr. Neil, when we're working through situations with kids, we'll ask, you know, who who's your trusted adult? And and every time they they quickly
019have one or two teachers that they refer to and um usually usually teachers, sometimes it's a counselor or Miss Eckerlin or, you know, think something like that, but um that's a really big deal um to make sure that our kids feel, you know, welcome, feel home, feel safe at at South. Um We pride ourselves on that. Um like Mr. Neil said, we've got a a diverse population of of students at South and and we love that. We embrace it. We celebrate it. Um and really try to promote that welcoming and and belonging culture on a daily basis. We do have a lot of really cool traditions, a lot of pride. Uh like on the beginning the first slide, once a Spartan, always a Spartan. We say that a lot, and there's a lot of people
020who aren't at South anymore who come back and visit or even want to come back and work because they realize how good they had it at South when they go somewhere else. Um not [clears throat] within the district, of course, but like somewhere else in the state or the country, but um it does happen quite a bit. We have a lot of people, and Carla's one of them, who returned to South after um being somewhere else some other places for a while. Um and there's a reason for that, you know, it just feels like family. It feels good. Me and myself and Mr. Neil get to work with this office staff every day. Um it's it it's just a well-oiled machine. Um and so, we also provide a lot of outside opportunities um for kids.
021Sometimes during the day. Uh yeah, I can I'll go There's more on that on the next slide, too, but um we want to keep our kids active and engaged, keep keep them involved in activities, whether it's um athletic or some kind of kind of a academic club or um something. We have lots of opportunities for kids to do those things. A little bit about our multilingual program. So, we have 55 students currently, 13 in sixth grade, 14 in seventh, and 28 in eighth. And I just love that map. It's one of them in one of our ML classrooms. And you can't see, but the flags each have uh a name of a student on it and where they are from and and how that represents our diversity. It's really incredible to see that, you know,
022we have that many kids from all over the world. And those are the languages that we speak. And so, including English, that'd be 21 languages in our building. It's pretty impressive. Um lots of clubs and activities, robotics, Girls Who Code, fiber arts, strategic board board game, go so on down the list, and just tons of tons of things. And and our kids are really involved. A lot of those clubs have um good numbers. Um and then into activities uh or athletics, I think is the next one. So, you know, offering all the same same uh sports that the other middle schools offer, and and we just get a ton of participants. So, once a quarter, we have a rally, um Spartan rally, and um Miss Eckerlin does a great job planning and organizing those with
023a bunch of games and activities and fun things that's that kids love and and get uh really excited about. And then we honor and recognize all of our athletes. And, you know, I'll stand at the mic and say, "Anybody who played basketball, you know, stand up." And we got 70 kids stand up. Volleyball's are probably our biggest um number sport with 70 80 girls that play every year, but um kids kids are very involved and and we have a great um sort of a inclusive and experiential We want We want kids to just come out and play and enjoy it. And we have a lot of coaches that are at South and in the building, which I know is hard sometimes other areas find find it hard to find coaches at all, and we we
024have quite a few staff members that coach our all of our sports throughout the year. And and again, that tells you something. They want to be around the kids. They want to work with them. They want to help them and um give them a different experience. So, I believe is that my last one? Yep. Thank you. The next piece of our of our slideshow um is going to talk about our goals. Um and I'm not going to go through these, but remember we have kind of the overarching 5-year plan in ELA, in math, and with the Native American graduation rate. We have in particular this year, and this is for GPS right now, with ELA, math, and the Native Amer- Native American graduation rate. >> [snorts] >> And I think this one is almost the
025most important thing that I appreciate um that Dr. Brenner sent out, um kind of three guardrails. Very important to what we're doing, the work that we're doing with those three guardrails. Uh particularly here at South, um one thing I did want to note is these are highly aligned uh from last year. Um and I think that's important because sometimes I think uh we go from year to year and we change or we change goals, we change something. Um I think it's important to say, "No, let's keep doing these and get better." Let's keep working on the things that we've been working on. Things are improving. So, very very similar to last year, we're talking about our attendance with uh all of these are going to talk about our ELA and math. Really high-quality tier one
026and tier two instruction. The continuation of MTSS, RTI, our PD that Carla had mentioned a little bit, especially with our teachers leading that. Very impactful. And then our PLC work. We continue to work on our HRS foundation, um being level one and level two. Our SEL work, which um these three are going to talk about. And then again, one of the charges for me and for us, I should say, um is creating just an atmosphere where everybody feels welcome to come to South. Um we do have the Be Legendary's goal data. You guys are well aware of that. We'll go through some of the numbers here in a second um with um our team. But first, let's talk a little bit about our goals and attendance with Miss Keller. So, as you can see that
027this year, our daily attendance rate is at about 93, which is about the state and district rate. We are a little bit above 93 and we strive every day to be even higher than that. About last year was at 91% and so we've already approved to the 93, so we're going to kind of try to work to get improve every year with more more positive attendance. Um some of the things that we do to help with this is not only do we have monitoring school wide attendance, but we also have teachers, myself the social worker, attendance specialist, who's absolutely instrumental. We have our SRO and admins um all doing different interventions for families to make sure that they're attending. We have different community referrals done by myself. We do weekly meetings on students and just
028kind of what they need. We have different Panorama interventions as well as PowerSchool checks. We have collaboration with MTSS teams. And then our secretary's also track attendance daily. And if there's any concerns or patterns that they notice, they bring those to me and or teachers. And we take the next step to see if what we need to do to help remove a barrier help the family along. And then we also are trying to get in place a middle school attendance policy. And one thing I would say too for for Miss Keller here, going from 91 to 93% is pretty hard. That's hard to do when you're up there in the 90s. Um so right now getting to over 93% um again that shows the impact that you're you're having Julissa with attendance and everything that
029you're doing here with everybody on the team. Thank you for taking the lead on that. Uh next we have some SEL mental health things we'd like to highlight. Uh that's part of our goals. Hi, as we look at our mental health at South, we felt like Steph I mean um Miss Larson I kind of had a big shoes to fill. We think about Mr. Chase and Mrs. Thorfinson both >> You're doing a wonderful job by the both retiring and so it felt like there were big shoes to fill. And at the beginning of the year as we were trying to figure out our goals and what we would like for this year to be for us at South with mental health. We kind of had set this goal of looking at Panorama data and you
030can see up there is the midwinter February survey data results. But when we looked at some of that data, we saw that there's the red portions, that's the the low or students that report they don't have any skills within the specifically the areas of self-efficacy and emotion regulation were really high. We um identified that as a goal that we wanted to decrease the number of students reporting in that red percentage that they didn't have any skills in self-efficacy or emotion regulation. We wanted to decrease it by 5%. And it was exciting for us to see we had reached that goal in February um with our data to see how it had gone from a much higher proportion in red um all the way down to we're seeing at four at each level and we're anticipating
031what we could see with that when it comes to the end of the year survey in May. Um And we really our goal overall, if we were to think about it, we want all students to maximize success. And success is going to look different for each student at each level and depending on what their version of success is. So taking the time to hear students out when we meet with them or go to classrooms and figure out what that looks like for that student and how can we help them to maximize that potential that they have. And seeing each student as having potential is is critical in that. Some of the ways we try to deliver these resources and specifically as we looked at those goals of self-efficacy and emotion regulation, we tried to structure
032classroom lessons around that. We had classroom lessons in quarter two all about grit and resiliency um and uh self-care and coping. So those were how we looked at our classroom lessons. We've done small interventions in RTI with students that are specifically struggling in those areas. We have short-term services and counseling one-on-one, so we really try to reach the all three tiers and looking how can we get the whole class and whole student body to see this small groups and individually. And then we've done other resources through Sources of Strength, Second Step, and then the Mac billing new protocol with um Julissa our social worker. So those are just some of the ways we're trying to help those students maximize their potential. Thanks. So as uh she was talking about big shoes to fill, which is
033true. Um however, as a first year counselor, she is absolutely crushing it. Um we are so lucky to have her. And part of that is because of the mentoring from Steph Larson who came over to us from Eastside. So here's Steph. Yeah, I thought I was always going to bleed green, but I have found that a little Spartan pride in maroon. Yep, I can always bleed I can do still do that, you're right. But I can attest to the fact that South has created a a welcoming and belonging environment and I'm very grateful. I've survived the first year. I've I have felt like a newbie many times and uh it's been a good experience and that attests to this whole district. Uh one of our greatest blessings and things I'm full of gratitude for are
034the regional partners that work with us on our mental health collaboration. And up there is a list of all of the ones that our district currently uh refers to. Uh and I want to point out especially the Village, which is new to us. And what is such a blessing about this is that they actually will come into the school. So it takes away that transportation barrier for those students that parents can't come and get them. A student would go and miss 3 hours of school instead of missing maybe an hour of school. And so the Village has been helpful in in that. And then the Together Counseling too with the Spanish-speaking counselors has been a good referral source for us too. All of them I can speak highly about all, but I think bringing some
035of that to the school, sometimes I feel like we're busting the seams and finding places for some of those counselors to meet with students, but it has been a godsend. So that's what I have. Thank you. Hello, I'm Christine Rocky. I teach sixth grade science, but I've also stepped into the role of data steward this year and that's why I'm here. Um Travis had mentioned our Be Legendary goals. Um which was at South, each school has their own, but at South we wanted to go from 40% in math in the fall of 2024 to 47% in the spring of 2028. And then in reading language arts to go from 49% last fall to 56% um in the spring of 2028. And these numbers are just kind of driving what we hope to accomplish at South.
036So you can go to the next slide. Go to the next one again, sorry. So >> [clears throat] >> I just want to highlight that um these are our Renaissance Star numbers from the fall of 2025 to the the winter of 2026. And you can see on the left is our school reading scores and we improved in nearly every category um which is sometimes data can be seen as an enemy. Um the accountability piece can be scary and it can feel like we're calling teachers out, but we have a lot to celebrate at South and the fact that our our reading has improved um for all students six percentage points from the fall to the winter is pretty impressive and something that we can celebrate. And that is a testament to in large part to
037our Wit & Wisdom curriculum uh which Carla is going to talk about here in just a minute, but um I can I can say as a science teacher that I see the benefits of the Wit & Wisdom curriculum and how my students talk to each other and listen to each other, the accountable talk piece and just the dividends that that is paying for all of our students. So that um curriculum that is being taught with fidelity in our building has been a really positive shift for our students. And then you can see on the right side right side with um math not as much improvement as the ELA, but it's still um in about half of our demographic areas we did either hold or improve um which is more to celebrate for for our school
038and our staff. And then the the following three slides, I'll just have you hold it here for 10 seconds. Um this is broken down by grade level, so this is our sixth grade reading on the left, math on the right from fall to winter. Seventh grade, same thing. Reading on the left, math on the right. And then eighth grade. And I think the funnest part of this job is next slide. Being able to celebrate students and put faces to the data. Um this is a student, she's a seventh grade student this year, but um judging by her scores, which I've put an oval around up there, her percentile rankings, she was placed into a co-taught ELA classes just because the data suggested that those were the supports that she needed. And you can see in
039the winter of 2025, she went from 56 percentile point or percentile range to 82% and then the the subsequent scores held indicating that it wasn't just a one-off or a an outlier. It's real learning taking place. And that is really really cool. Um You can skip forward two slides, Travis. >> But and by the way, this is that's Coralou. Brian's daughter. And I do I do need to mention that the the photos in Panorama are when our students were itty-bitty babies and they're just so cute. I wish she saw like that. I can tell you those higher scores aren't because I'm making her read at home all the time. It's because of what's going on at school with her teachers and the curriculum. And then this is another student who he is relatively new to
040the district and to our country and just a testament to his math teachers that are pouring into him and making their classrooms a safe space for him to feel vulnerable and and to learn and to grow. He went from 17 18 percentile ranking in this fall to um in the winter he jumped by 11 percentile points. And then another staff member's child um new to our school but also new to our country in the last 2 years. So you can see way down on the bottom in the spring of 2024 he was in the fifth percentile. And then he jumped up in about 2 months to the 18th percentile and now flash forward to January of this year he's all the way up to the 53rd percentile and it's not only that he has great
041support and that he wants to work hard but again it's that rigorous curriculum of that Wit & Wisdom where he gets to he gets to talk to his classmates and he he gets he gets pushed and um he gets to work really hard and and have those those guardrails of staff who care about him in in a difficult curriculum to to drive that growth. One thing I'll add to that um you know I would just challenge everyone in here too to think about when looking at data and looking at scores one of the things we wanted to do was to put a face behind it. And every one of our students have a story. Um and I think I think it means more then. Um and that's the that's the reason why we did that.
042Um we did get permission from all three just that you know just so you know um we did have permission from all of them to share all that data. All right. So I just wanted to come back and then highlight what Rocky just talked about with our Wit & Wisdom. So thanks for highlighting our student growth Rocky and so 2 years ago we were here for our celebrating success. And I we talked about how uh this new curriculum Wit & Wisdom was making a difference for our sixth and seventh graders and we were we we continue to see this but tonight I wanted to share with you what's happening in eighth grade. So this is the second year with eighth grade. And the module that they're reading right now is All Quiet on the Western
043Front. I've heard teachers say I read that in college. Um so that's what our students are are reading right now. Um they're learning about the psychological and social effects of World War I. They're examining how that Paul the main character's evolving attitude toward his enemy reflects a shared humanity transformed by combat. Uh they're learning about trench warfare. Students learn that in some locations a trench might be only 3 yards away from their enemy. That wasn't always the case but that that sometimes happen and the picture up there Mrs. O'Toole our eighth grade teacher has the masking tape and so she has students physically go on each side of that trench and talk about how close they were to an enemy. They talk about how they probably heard them talking. They probably heard them coughing. They
044probably heard or probably smelled the the smoke from the cigarettes, right? That's how close the enemies was um during World War I. They also explore the often overlooked experience of women and civilians specifically investigating how the conditions of shell shock and trauma were historically classified. This deep immersion in historical context pushes students beyond that basic summary challenge them to build that background knowledge which is what this curriculum is is does uh to write with clarity and purpose on the complexities of human condition. So quite a heavy lift for our eighth graders but the kids really do like enjoy the book. So go ahead Mr. Neil. So we also know while our core curriculum Wit & Wisdom provides students with that deep engagement with reading and writing language so we recognize that some students require additional
045targeted support to master those foundational skills and to bridge this gap we continue to use the U-Fly Foundation. We started this 2 years ago. We talked about this with you 2 years ago. We continue to um use this strategic intervention to provide that explicit uh consistent instruction necessary for literacy success. And so this is that same you um that what the elementary will be moving to. We've been using it for 2 years and we're very happy with this um tier two intervention for our students. Something new to us this year um is our RTI time. Um so last year about this time we we had a um pilot period where we introduced it and and um we knew that Red River had used it and we brought them in um Mr. Hepperly and some others
046to kind of come in and and guide us through getting that started. Um so currently uh twice a week Tuesdays and Thursdays our all of our students have a 25-minute period um that teachers as a team place students into an RTI session with with a particular teacher um in order to give them what they need you know on a little bit deeper level. Um so if it's if a student's really struggling with a particular concept in math uh they can they can place them with a math teacher to go a little bit deeper or to review or to take you know retake the test or or to go over some things that they they need a little more support on. Um and and so we're still kind of working through on how to collect data
047to see if that's working for us. I think there's some things we can tweak at our building with um how students get placed and and where they get placed and and things like that but I I would say overall this year it's been a good experience um for our students and get just to give them that extra 50 minutes a week on on something a little deeper that they need academically. And it's all hands on deck even Mr. Lowe has a group this cycle around. I have started a group here Mr. Officer Bully and I have uh taken a group of a few sixth graders and trying to help guide them a little bit and mentor them and help them make better decisions and it's one of the highlights of my week. I love doing
048it and just have a small group of kids and um in my office and and so yeah it's fun. So the couple last things I want to highlight uh you know you've heard a lot about the different things we're doing. Um anywhere from the PD to the U-Fly to RTI just the list goes on and on. Um it's about the people that we have doing it um and what these guys do to help guide and support teachers um is just unbelievable. So I want to thank all of these guys for what they do. I'm looking at that data that's just a direct reflection of everything that we just shared. Uh so again [snorts] we want to end with um every learner every day. That's kind of an attitude that we have every single day and
049it's important to us. Uh and again Nancy Duto I needed to give a shout-out to her. Keep in contact with her uh and just so everyone knows once you're in the Spartan family um you're always a Spartan. So thank you guys for your time and if you guys have any comments or questions I'll let Mr. Lowe answer. Questions for the group? From board members? Bill. My question is just basically on the mental health. I you're you're you're you're using CVIC and some of those Lake Agassiz Associates. Have they talked to you any about budget cuts that they're receiving from the national? Would that ever trickle down to affect schools? No a lot of the much of it is based on Medicaid and also with with private insurance. So that's what a lot of our students
050pay for. There are some Yeah I I can elaborate on that as well um Mr. Palmisano. So the services that were provided up there that are pay for services in addition to what Steph mentioned um Dr. Amy Gaynor has secured some behavioral health grants that help us augment those services and pay for them through that grant funding. Um the future of that I guess will be determined but so far we haven't heard any reductions in that area that of which I'm aware. Um from the CVIC standpoint I don't see those services changing. I serve on that board. Um I know that there's some budget challenges there as well but the education piece is one of their core pillars and for them to be able to be in and provide some preventative um curricula to our
051kids at the tier one level is part of the road map to help end domestic violence and then the intervention services on the back end is just one of their core commitment. So I would be surprised if there was a um major decrease in that category. Thank you. Other questions from board members? Or comments? Amber. Hello. Um I was curious about if you have uh reading and or math interventionists. Um every day I would say within tier one and tier two um we do have a special topics teacher that does some math specifically math interventions. Um that would be the only one classified as an interventionist. Okay but no one specifically designated as like the South math interventionist or the South reading interventionist like traditionally like some of the other schools have. >> No. Okay.
052No again we have one special topics teacher that takes on a couple classes to help out with that but he does some other special topics classes as well. Okay. And then the first example of the student data, um there was uh I think it was she was in a co-taught classroom. What does that mean? Or co-taught ELA? Yeah, so that means Could you Could you step step to the microphone, please, just so we capture this for That means that it's supported by another adult, typically a a special education teacher. Sure. So, there's just another set of adult hands. Okay, cool. Um and then, I always ask this question uh Sally alluded to it a little bit, but um if we had all the money in the world, if South's list was here's our top priority,
053what would you hope to initiate or program that you would want additional staffing? Tell us what you're >> [snorts] >> Yeah, uh to me, and I kind of talked about it a little earlier, it's about people. Um so, the programs are nice, but just for an example, um if somebody said here's a boatload of money, um I would like to really dig into the mental health, the SEL, the behavior, um those aspects of it. Um because I think that blends right in with the academic piece. Um so, for again, for an example, um what what Sally's position, and in particular, what Sally has done the past 3 4 years in this role, um is highly impactful for students, staff, families all across the board. Um so, anytime you can get more money for kids for
054that, um that would be my on the top of my list. SEL, mental health, cuz I think that goes right with the academics, you know, that they need that first. Dr. Glattch, did you have something? Yeah, I just want to make a couple additional um compliments, I think, to this team to kind of give testimony to their work. So, just a couple years ago, um South was on what's called targeted school improvement, and these aligned, streamlined, systemic efforts have allowed them to move out of that status. It's really a huge point of celebration that Mr. Neil forgot to illustrate, but he it is, and he he was tenacious about that, and so was it the the team at their building level. The other thing is that I really truly believe I've talked to um Mr.
055Neil about this, and and to their other levels as well, is that I believe South has built what's um what I believe is really a model MTSS intervention system. So, you've heard that multi-tiered support systems before. They use the individuals here, they identify kids with academic or behavioral skill gaps, and they put together strategic plans that the teams implement. So, kids go on 6-8 week trial periods, where teachers support them in explicit strategies, and I am um curious to look at some points about and I know that you have collected some of that data. The number of students that have then stopped the MTSS process, which means they're then not referred to special education to be looked at for skill deficits, is phenomenal. It's a model that interrupts those cycles, cuz it's really targeted, and
056they have built that model program. I'm really proud of them for that work. Thank you. Can I just add to that? I think a really important piece to why that's so successful is Miss Akeland and her behavior uh intervention team. Um because before, you know, my first 3 years, we didn't have that, and and it was tough. It was really hard. So, she organizes that with teams and goes and meets with them and comes up with plans and things like that. So, her slides were pretty powerful, and and I think showed, you know, why her position in that program is important, and and that's a just a adding on to that point. Thank you. Other questions or comments from board members? All right. Thank you all for your time tonight. Appreciate it very much, and
057thank you for coming to celebrate your success with us and all your efforts. Moving on, item four on our agenda is our public comment period. At this time, I do not have any public comment cards. So, are there Is there anyone in the audience here for public comment? Seeing none, we'll move on to item number five, Superintendent's recommendations for discussion. Uh 5A is an update from the Grand Forks Foundation for Education. I will turn this over to Dr. Brenner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh Amelia Hodgson, who is the executive director for the Grand Forks Foundation for Education, is here tonight, and along with her, uh sitting in the back of the room, would be Marilyn Riplinger and Sandy Colvar, who I think are probably going to do a little tag teaming with Amelia. Um you
058can see the rest of my memo there, and we're just grateful that the foundation uh not only is located right here at MSCC, but uh strategically, they are very supportive of all the initiatives that we have going in our strategic plan, and uh South Middle School alluded to that earlier, I I believe uh Carla Hoven talked about some of the stations that they had uh were a direct uh result and impact for the Grand Forks Foundation for Education. So, Amelia, thank you for being here this evening. Thank you for having me, and thank you for the invitation. Uh good evening. I have uh so grateful for the opportunity to be here tonight to and I appreciate your time and the work you do to lead and support the Grand Forks Public Schools. It's a privilege
059to share an update on the work of the foundation, and we see ourselves as a proud partner of the Grand Forks Public Schools, working alongside you to expand opportunities, support students, staff, and families in meaningful ways. I hope this becomes an annual opportunity for us to connect, for the foundation to share our impact, and continuing strengthening the partnership between the foundation and the school district. Tonight, I'm excited to give you a snapshot of the impact we're making together, and to highlight a few ways we're supporting students in our schools across the district. These primarily fall into four categories: grants, scholarships, programs, and alumni relations. I'm going to start with grants. Carla left before I could return the shout-out to her, but I will call Carla uh a super grant writer. Um not only does Carla
060go above and beyond for the students at South Middle School, she goes above and beyond for her colleagues. She mentors them at the building level. Hey, have you heard about the foundation? There's a mini grant opportunity, I think, that would be helpful for this project you're working on, and she assists them through the whole process. So, shout-out to Carla. I think she snuck out, but uh and I we appreciate her highlighting a few of the projects that they used on their family maker night. In 2025, we awarded over $80,000 across the district at the classroom and the building level through our mini and impact grants, and we are on track to do the same by the end of this school year. I'm sorry, I'm turning 50. I got the readers now. This is a whole
061thing, so new to presenting with the readers. We also support educators with professional development opportunities through our Echo and Ben Birtenus staff development grant. A couple of highlights from this year include literacy interventions at Discovery, ukuleles at Twining, jazz band stands for South Middle School, iPads for math classrooms at Schroeder, scientific calculators for Central, and microscopes for Red River. Also includes a $10,000 investment towards a new wrestling mat at Central High School that will be used by both the boys and the girls Night Rider wrestling teams, as well as community youth wrestlers. We funded 27 mini impact grants, or excuse me, 27 mini grants, two impact grants, and three staff development grants this school year. Second way we impact the district is through our scholarship program. We classify our scholarships into two categories. Our secondary
062scholarships, scholarships most of you are probably familiar with, are awarded to graduating seniors at Red River, Central, and Community High School. In 2025, those awards totaled over $60,000, and we're on track to award a similar amount this spring. Side note, if you have not attended one of the awards night at either of these schools, all three, I guess, communities at graduation, I encourage you to do so. It's a wonderful evening supporting student success. Then we have our many scholarships for our students in need. Thanks to amazing donors who have stepped up time and time again to support these at-risk students and their families in a variety of ways. From school meals and transportation to athletic gear, winter clothing, household essential items, and counseling sessions. These scholarships totaled nearly 30,000 last year, and we are already
063over that amount 3/4 of the way into this fiscal year with 235 requests to date. We also stock in uh two giving tree pantry locations, we call. One is here at the Mark Sanford Education Center, and the other one is on the north end at a storage space that's donated to us, so social workers have quick and easy access for items like household essentials, toilet paper, paper towels. We go through a lot of laundry detergent, rolls of quarters. Uh we also store snacks, school supplies, and other essential items that are quick and easy for our social workers to procure for their families and students who need it the most. Third, programs. We help support a number of programs through the district. The biggest of which, lately, has had a lot of attention is the Career
064Impact Academy. We were proud to act as fiscal agent for the building of the Career Impact Academy from early from the very early stages. We helped them collect donations, support donor relations to the New Market Tax Credit, which secured some extra funding to get that project closer to the finish line. It was so exciting to see that Our Little Red Reading Bus is about to embark on its 10th summer of getting books into the hands of kids across Grand Forks. It's been a terribly rewarding project and program to be a part of. We have school teachers who work for us in the summer as our librarians and we're just excited to have another summer supported by a grant from the Myra Foundation. We also continue to support summer performing arts, All-City Orchestra and band events,
065Fext Robotics, the Central Red River Coaches Golf Scramble, and the Sources of Strength program, among others. We help them accept private donations and sponsorships from the community. We manage those funds, tend to donor relations, and then work with the business office here at the school district to pay those expenses. Last year, these efforts, not including the Career Impact Academy, reached $100,000 in impact across the district. I mentioned just now the Sources of Strength program. It's a program that has been around for the fund has been at the foundation for many years now, primarily supported through the TEARS program. I've been inviting them here tonight to join me to share a little little bit about their impact and the Sources of Strength program here in the district. So, Sandy Kovar and Marilyn Rippling >> [laughter] >>
066Marilyn Ripplinger, who is not a stranger to this group. So, thank you, ladies. Some thank you. As she said, I'm Marilyn Ripplinger, a former Grand Forks Public School counselor, now retired and co-founder of TEARS, a suicide prevention nonprofit organization in Grand Forks for the past 22 years. Within or with me is Sandy Kovar, the other co-founder of TEARS, as well as some of our board members, Lexie Walker and Randy Shinborn. I'm grateful to say that the work that I've been part of in both of the above-mentioned roles has worked beautifully together. Suicide prevention not only being important in my work as a school counselor, but also became my passion after experiencing the loss of a few former students to suicide. The TEARS mission is to create hope and build strength. Our vision is to end
067suicide in our community. Our focus is using an upstream approach to make this happen. Tonight, we're here to highlight three ways in which TEARS is currently partnering with the Grand Forks Public Schools. First, the past several years, TEARS provides $1,000 annually to Community High School to provide gas and maintenance on the Charger mobile, which removes a barrier for some students in getting to and from school, making success a bit more accessible and possible. Second, TEARS recently offered the Grand Forks Public School and they accepted to bring Dr. Chan Hellman, author of an amazing book that should be on your reading list if you haven't read it yet, called Hope Rising. In Grand Forks, we are having him come in January of 2027 and all Grand Forks Public School staff will hear from him, learn from
068him, and TEARS will pay the bill. So, we're super excited about this opportunity and we're also offering it to other organizations in our community because we believe that much that hope is measurable and hope is something we can build in each other that will make our community better. And hopefully, we will have less people in the end get to that point of perhaps contemplating, thinking about, or even completing suicide. So, true suicide prevention. Lastly, we would like to present a check to the foundation to be used to continue supporting Sources of Strength program in in the Grand Forks Public Schools. We believe this upstream prevention program involving identifying and growing our strengths prior to a crisis can greatly increase the ability of people to successfully navigate tough situations. It is our intent that through supporting
069upstream prevention efforts of creating hope and building strength, that we will have less people, as I mentioned previously, get to that point of crisis. So, at this time, we would like to present a check to the Grand Forks Public Schools to the foundation in the amount of $10,000, which will definitely be used for the Sources of Strength activities. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Thank you so much for allowing us to present to you this evening. We look forward to a continued partnership in the future. Thank you, Marilyn. That was wonderful and thank you to TEARS for their continued support for our Sources of Strength program. Impacts many buildings across the district and countless students. Oh, my phone Well, see, you want to answer my all my text message. Okay. Finally, alumni services, the last branch
070of our tree. We maintain a database of every graduate from Grand Forks Public Schools. We collaborate with the Grand Forks Visitors and Convention Bureau to publish a reunion planning guide for local lodging, diner, dining, and recreation options for reunion attendees. We facilitate the Teachers Hall of Fame program every other year. This next induction will take place in October of 2026. Nominations are continuously ongoing. We encourage you, if you know of an educator who's been retired at least 1 year that would qualify to be acknowledged as an outstanding educator and to make that nomination to the foundation. We're looking forward to this October's event. And we publish a quarterly newsletter, the Red Sent Community, that's full of stories on GFPS alumni, articles from guest writers, along with alumni updates, yearbook memories, and final farewells. In closing,
071I want to thank you again for the time this evening and for your continued leadership and commitment to our students and schools. We are grateful for the opportunity to partner with Grand Forks Public Schools and we remain committed to supporting the district in meaningful, responsive, and impactful ways. I would also like to extend a heartfelt thank you to our donors. Their generosity makes this work possible and without their support, none of what I shared tonight would be possible. We look forward to continuing this work together and building the strong foundation we've established. I want to thank you again for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you. Questions from board members. I see none. All right. Okay. >> [laughter] >> Amelia wouldn't say this, but she's also part of
072the fun committee here at MCC. And the fun facilitator. She helps organize our holiday luncheon and our end-of-the-year cookout. So, she does all of the planning along with her committee and just makes it for a lot of fun for all the people in the building here. So, thank you. Thank you. >> [snorts] >> Moving on, item six is superintendent's recommendations for action. 6A is our consent agenda. I would seek a motion. Motion for approval. For Bill. Bill with the motion for approval. Is there a second? Jay? We'll take a roll call vote. Len is absent. Pomaceano? Yes. Flynn? Yes. Burger is absent. Clevin? Yes. Manley? Yes. Larson? Yes. Hodak? Yes. Anderson? Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion carries. Item 6B is the appointment of associate principal at J. Nelson Kelly Elementary School, Mr.
073Bakke. Yes, Chairman Anderson, members of the board. It's I'm pleased to recommend Mr. Brian Deschler Dieschler, actually, I think is how you pronounce it, as the new associate principal at Kelly Elementary School. As you'll see in the memo, the interview team was led by Mrs. Kelly Tannahill, principal at Kelly Elementary School. It included nine staff members, which was a wide range of general education, special education, music educators. It also included counselor, literacy specialist, administrative assistant, and instructional coach. I also served on that team, as well as an elementary building associate principal, and a parent representative from Kelly Elementary. After going through the interview process, there was 16 total applicants, six of which were interviewed. Mr. Deichler rose to the top for a number of reasons. The first I will say is his 10 years of
074educational experience in a wide range of experiences. Currently serving as a behavior interventionist, but also previously served in special education and the elementary teaching experience of 5 years. Leadership serving as an athletic director for 5 years and also served as a classified staff member as a paraprofessional for 3 years. So these wide range of experiences highlighted to us as the interview team the ability to connect with staff, students, and families in multiple ways. The interview team spoke highly of his strong background in many areas, his student-centered approach, his strong communication skills in which he demonstrated during the interview process, his connectability. I don't know if that's even a word, but I made it up, so it is now. And collaborative mindset. Overall, the message was from the interview team that he was the right fit
075for Kelly School. And so with that, the administrative recommendation is to appoint Mr. Brian Deichler as the new associate principal of Kelly Elementary School for the 2026-2027 school year with the salary and a the school factor listed there. I would stand for any questions you may have. Questions for Mr. Bakke. All right. Seeing none. As we heard, the administrative recommendation is to appoint Mr. Brian D as the associate principal of Kelly Elementary School for the 2026-2027 school year at a salary of 94,752 with a school factor of 1,250. I'll take a motion. Jeff, motion. Is there a second? I'll second. Jay. With the second, we'll take a roll call vote. Hodak. Yes. Klevin. Yes. Manley. Yes. Larson. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Lund is absent. Burger is absent. Pommerening. Yes. Anderson. >> Yes. Seven yes, zero no.
076Motion carries. Sorry. Motion carries. Item 6C is our summer school program. I'm going to pass this to Dr. Glattch. Thank you, Chair Anderson. So as you can see in the memo, we have a slew of exciting speakers tonight to present to you their proposals for the summer school programming. We're going to start with intro to K and elementary, which I believe is being covered by Mr. Bakke to my right, followed by our high school programming, Mr. Hepperly, middle school, including Valley Summer Rice program. You've heard about that in the past, which is a different approach to their literacy goals by Ms. Oscarden, followed by Drivers Ed, Mr. Bohan, and finally wrapping it up once again, we have Allison Peterson here representing Spa. So I will invite Mr. Bakke to kick us off. All right. Thank
077you, Dr. Glattch. Chairman Anderson, members of the board, again another opportunity here for me to speak on our summer programming. Dr. Larson could not be here today. She apologizes for not being able to make it. She's actually sitting in a school board meeting across the river, and so she's not able to be here today. But I get to cover those areas, and so the first area I'll cover is the 2026 intro to K program. As many of you know, intro to K program runs in late July to early August. It'll operate Monday through Friday 8:00 a.m. 12:00 p.m. Really the goals of intro to K are to focus on reading, math, and writing, but also it emphasizes the ability for our incoming K students to really become acquainted with the building, understand the social and
078school development, including sharing, taking turns, learning their lunch code, which is a big deal at the elementary level, similar to lockers at the middle school level. So we all have our areas that we got to work on as we move into the the certain levels. And so you know, following directions, lunchroom procedures, bathroom expectations, and then just engaging with classmates. And so intro to K program is is vital to the setting up our new students for success as they start their elementary days. Elementary all elementary schools will host um intro to K. And I say that with a caveat as long as building projects are on pace, and I'm looking over at Daily in the audience when I say that. So hoping that everything is on schedule, the plan is for all elementary schools to
079host intro to K. I also want to just remind the board of the funding source of which this comes from. This runs through our state the same state summer programming as all of our elementary, high school, middle school programs do. It runs through the foundation aid formula. And as many of you know, last year was the first year that we were able to have that funding with a lot of work with the state and and other districts asking for this type of funding, we are allowed to to run that through our state aid formula. And so really a great opportunity that we have not always been present. And so we look forward to hopefully increasing our numbers as we move forward with this program with this program, and we've seen great success with it thus
080far, and we hope to continue that. I would stand for any questions on intro to K. Questions for Mr. Bakke on intro to kindergarten summer program. Jay. Thank you. So this is an important program, but I'll ask the budget question anyways. So expenditures equal the incoming foundation aid funding. So in other words, this is net neutral as far as expense and revenue that we that we use to fund it? Thank you. Great question, Mr. Klevin. Actually, it's the it's a revenue for our district. Typically, with the amount of students that we have coming in, we receive above what our expenditures are. Thank you. Other questions? All right. Seeing none, we can move on to item or item two, Mr. Bakke. Thank you, Chairman Anderson, members of the board. Also my opportunity or a distinct honor
081to give you information on the elementary summer school program. It is scheduled from June 1st to June 19th, running 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Reminder, there's a 60-hour requirement at for any summer programming at the elementary level, and so that meets that requirement. Dr. Holly Larson would is also serving as the director of the elementary summer school as well as the intro to K. This summer structure is going to look a little bit different than what it has in the past, and it's going to intentionally streamline and student-centered around putting students within groups and grade level bands. And so you may see different in years previously where students were primarily in their grades only, you're going to see more leveling based on ability so that we can continue to meet students where they're at with
082their interventions and continue to try to see progress through the summer programming. And so as a result of that, you'll see balanced instruction will be supported by targeted district-aligned curricular resources and support personnel and specific needs of those individual students. So our CIT department is heavily involved in that as well as Dr. Larson leading that charge. Hosting buildings will be this year due to some of our summer projects as you know, not all schools will be able to host summer school. And so right now what we have for host schools are Phoenix Elementary School, which will host Phoenix, Viking, and Winship. Kelly Elementary School will host Kelly and Discovery. Lewis and Clark will host Lewis and Clark, Wilder, and Ben Franklin. Then Lake Agassiz will host Lake Agassiz and Century. And then Twining will host
083Twining Elementary and middle school as part of this program. As far as the question I know I get every year as far as transportation, if there is required transportation on their enrollment form, depending on the parental responses and the amount of transportation, transportation will be considered and will be provided as needed. I would happily stand for any questions you may have. Questions for Mr. Bakke on summer school elementary summer school. All right. Okay, with that I will hand it over to Mr. Hepperly then. Okay. Sub that, yeah, get me instead. So I'm going to review the high school component. You can see a comprehensive memo provided by Mr. Hepperly in your board packet. However, a few things to touch on are the dates that summer school will run at Red River High School. In past
084years, we've hosted that at Grand Forks Central. The last 2 years, it's been at Red River because of construction projects. In the future, we'll probably alternate campuses just as an FYI. But Monday, June 2nd through Wednesday, July 9th is the entirety of the programming, 7:45 to 1:00 p.m. In that time frame, there are two semesters that students can enroll in. So students can either take a 0.5 credit course or 1.0 credit course, depending on how they are driven. There's a 15-minute break in between them as well. As of 2nd of April, there were 256 students enrolled. That enrollment runs through May 22nd, so I imagine those numbers will increase as students finish out the school year here. There are courses being offered in English, ML courses, history, government, econ, PE, and health. Um there are
085also students who will earn a credit by taking a trip overseas through our German and Spanish programs. It's something that we have offered um typically every other year. That is an experience that students can embark upon, and they also can enroll in NDCE or North Dakota Center for Distance Education courses for credit um underneath our guidance. There is also offered a credit recovery option. So within this, you can see all kinds of offerings that um result in our multiple pathways to help students earn credits. Students who earn between a 55% and a 63.5% in a course during any semester can enroll in what we call the CRO program, the credit recovery options program. What this means in a nutshell is the teachers work with the administrators to look at the next couple of unit standards,
086essential standards that students have not yet proven efficiency around. They set them up in the online Edgenuity platform, and students uh complete those units to prove enough competency to receive a credit in that that class, a passing credit in that class. Um we've been able to recover an awful lot of credits that way in past years, um which is good for keeping kids on track for graduation. Um and finally, something to note is that uh Mr. Hepperly took over this um programming this year. He's working with his secretary Hannah Rose Rodriguez to really look at refining some systems. Um we've had a number of individuals in the past involved in enrollments and creating programming and things of that nature. With the rollover to Infinite Campus, um and looking forward to how we can um use
087technology to our advantage in the future to to enroll kids more efficiently in summer school. Um they're creating some structures around that. So I'm really excited to see the final products around um that component of the high school summer school programming. Um I will do my best to entertain questions at this time. Questions for Dr. Glattch on high school summer school. Yes, Mr. Kloven, it is also revenue generating. I'll invite Ms. Oscardon to the microphone right now to cover Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Oh, is there a question, Amber? Is there a breakfast offered at high school high school level? >> We have not offered breakfast at high school level. Is there a reason for that? Uh breakfast is typically it Matt wants to answer this, I guess. I was going to say typically uh in
088order to offer the the breakfast and the the lunch, the schools have to qualify. And so dependent upon whether those high schools qualify or not is um relatively uh it doesn't always happen. I'll put it that way. Um and so whether they're able to offer that free breakfast and free lunch like the summer programming usually does, uh a specific school needs to qualify. And typically, our schools don't always qualify for that. When you say cuz I'm just comparing it to like the um that like the middle school, when you say qualify, qualify for what? Uh for the free free lunch and and breakfast program um that's offered through the summer programming lunch offering that they're able to provide. >> So is it specific to the population of students in that given year? Correct. Yes. Okay.
089And it uh so we're not offering it because it could be a cost or an expense. No, you you cannot provide it as as an open site um if you don't qualify for that. >> Okay. Yeah. I I don't know that those things, so yeah. Okay. Other questions? Okay. Seeing none. Ms. Oscardon. There you go. Uh good evening, ladies and gentlemen, to the school board. My name is Teresa Oscardon. I'm the middle school summer school coordinator for this year. I'll be presenting information regards to South, Schroeder, Valley middle school. Twining middle school was absorbed by elementary, which Mr. Bakke had already said, um because of historical low numbers, just because of ease of, you know, the location of Twining and their first space, and just the low numbers, it's easier to just incorporate them with
090elementary middle school or elementary summer school program. All South and Schroeder students will be located at Schroeder this summer due to construction in the office way and entry way at South middle school. Their summer school this year will run from June 1st to June 26th with Wit & Wisdom ELA and their math. It runs from 8:00 until noon daily. This is a 4-week duration that we did last year. Um 2 years ago when I started this, we did a 3-year rotation or 3-week rotation. Last year we added a fourth week. Um the teachers and students really liked the extended time. We also saw growth within our data as well. This also is tightly compared to what Valley does with their summer RISE program. So they actually do the same 4 weeks with three additional days.
091So we're doing a comparison of the two. Uh Valley middle school will continue doing the RISE program that they've been participating in for the last 3 years. The session is from June 1st to June 1st to July 1st, and will focus on ELA and math curriculum using the Lavinia curriculum that is provided through the summer RISE program. Uh the multilingual program will be located at Valley middle school this year, just because we didn't think we should have it at Schroeder cuz they don't currently have an ML program, and moving the kids from South to Schroeder and and vice versa, we're just going to put them all into Valley middle school for the summer. Uh this decision was kind of came about working with our ML coordinator, Ivona Tivorich, because how can we help support the
092students? Also think about bussing possibly. We're kind of working on that situation as well. Um just because we want to make sure the kids are able to get there and participate within the program. Valley middle school does qualify for breakfast and lunch, which is what you asked before. Um so they do start breakfast at 7:30 every morning. Uh classes start around 8:05, and then they have from the class from 8:05 till noon, and then they do offer lunch as well. Um there is no current after school program for middle school sites. So if you're thinking about child care after school, we do not offer that at the middle schools. Um this year we did open up registration beginning February. Messages were sent out to the home schools with to include with their newsletters, Seesaw, those
093sort of things. Um and put on the website. Melissa Bakke did district messaging for us. Um I created little QR [snorts] slips for kids to get during parent-teacher conferences in February to kind of gain some traction. Um as of April 6th when I had to submit the memo, we have about 73 South and Schroeder students registered, and about 65 Valley students registered. This is down a little bit from last year, and so I hope with as the months continue on that we can kind of gain some more traction with that. Um many times we hear about parents not knowing what their summer plans are, and so they have to figure out their vacations and figure out what they're doing over summer time, and that's how we kind of get the numbers back up in May.
094Um there's a number of job responsibilities I'm still working on. So South and Schroeder usually do STAR testing. So I'm working with Jen Spicer to have a call with her tomorrow to kind of look at what the data is cuz we kind of group the kids based upon where they're scoring with their assessments. Um I've also started conversations last week with Brandon VanderVeldt with the special education program um to kind of figure out what we need for our students on our IEPs and make sure that they have the best support as possible for our success. So at this time, if there's any questions, I can kind of help with that. Questions from board members. All right. Seeing none. Thank you. Mr. Bohan. I always mess this. Is it on? Thank you. Terry Bohan, principal Community
095High School Drivers Ed director, non-technical support staff member. Uh we look forward to uh serving about 300 Drivers Ed students in the summer of 2026. Uh we have a 6-week Drivers Ed timing planned in three different sessions over 8 days. Uh we'll start on the 1st of June and about, I think it's the 9th of July. We usually can get wrapped up by then. Uh anticipating 18 instructors uh including one new one this year that uh we're happy to have with the support of the board and the district. Uh we run our same program we've always run. Have plans to uh secure vehicles again from Rydell uh and operate an important program for 14, 15, 16-year-old student learning how to drive on the streets of Grand Forks. And so uh as you get close to
096Drivers Ed and you're driving behind that student driver car that drives roughly 24,000 miles in the cities of Grand Forks, I ask you to cover your brake, smile, be patient, and give the kid a little time. Uh with that, I'll take any questions you might have for Drivers Ed. Questions for Mr. Bohan. All right. Seeing none. Thank you. Dr. Brenner has a comment. I don't have any questions for Mr. Bohan. I I just want to share that my my son was part of Drivers Ed last summer, and um what a way to meet some other instructors across the district that he would have wouldn't have met before. He would come home after after driving, he'd talk about Steve Painter, he'd talk about Dave Onash, and the relationships that uh that those instructors really formulate with
097kids. So thank you, Mr. Bohan, for that, and shout out to all of your teachers. Thank you, Mr. Brohan. Ms. Peterson on summer performing arts. Good evening, members of the board, district administration. Allison Peterson, director of the summer performing arts company. Uh thank you for allowing us to speak tonight about our wonderful summer programs. We're very excited. Um our schedule I'm just going to go through some notes. The The schedule for this year is similar to previous years. Um nothing has changed. June, July. Um there's a going to be a string camp in August again for uh fourth and fifth graders, but more informational um is going to come on that. We're still kind of working on on that and we'll get that uh planned soon. Um the front-facing part of the program, the high
098school program, um we're excited to have a very family-friendly summer this uh year. We're going to be doing Seussical at Grand Forks Central and Frozen at uh Red River High School. So, it's going to be a very fun summer for our students and for the community. Uh the facilities we're using this year are Red River, Central, Sharon Lutheran Church, Kelly, Phoenix, and just today we've confirmed that we are able to have elementary spa sessions at Lake Agassiz. So, we're going to run two classes during the first 2 weeks and we're very excited for that and um I'm happy that um Travis Larson was able to to make that work for us because it's very important to us to have a North End presence. It's been a while uh for the elementary program and so we're
099going to be back at Lake Agassiz this summer and we're very excited. Um in addition to thanking Travis, you know, thank you we always have to thank the principals and the custodians and of all the buildings because we absolutely realize that this is the time that's used for construction and for maintenance and cleaning and all that stuff and and we kind of come in and take over for a little while and but we really appreciate the ability to do that. Uh this year we anticipate again about 1,000 to 1,100 students. Um registration started this morning at 10:00. At like 10:02 we had 75 or something like that. Uh by the end when I left today we were over 440. So, very exciting. Um several pre-K classes are already closed. Some of the elementary sessions are
100nearing capacity. So, I bet when I get to my desk tomorrow there'll be a few more that are closed. We plan on having about 42 on staff. That's what we have right now. Um the we haven't um hired the band or orchestra lesson instructors yet because we don't know who that is. Um we're going to be opening lessons soon once we find who the instructor is going to be, locations, and stuff like that. So, registration for band orchestra lessons and the strings camp will come at a slightly later date. Um Hearts Day again went very well for us. Um once again, we ranked uh first in donor retention out of the 639 participating organizations. And so, I mean that's a testament to our donor base. They are the best donors in the world and I'll
101just say that all the time because um it's it's a very important program in this community and I'm I'm very grateful for the community support that we receive. Um we're going to use that those funds as we have over the past few years that we've gotten this award. Um we're going to put it towards MySpa and the multilingual um arts component that we send over to uh multilingual summer school at the high school level. Um just because those are some of the programs that incur the most costs. Um and so to make up for that, I think it's just a fitting way to use those funds. Um Okay. Um registration and ticket prices this year are slightly higher. Um that's in order to like keep up with um rising costs of everything. Um ticket prices
102are increasing $3 across the board for each ticket level. Um we're still well under what other um organizations in the community and the surrounding areas um offer for their performances. Um and registration costs um per program it kind of depends on the program. We have multiple programs for the grade levels. Um we increased registration fees from $5 to $30 depending on the program. Um but even with that increase, the majority of the programs still run less than 8 hours $8 an hour for a student to attend. Some of them are less than a dollar per hour for a student to attend. So, I think we're still a very affordable program even with the increase. So, those are the notes that I have, the most notable items. Um I am welcomed to entertain any questions. Any
103questions from board members for Ms. Peterson? Dr. Brenner has a comment. Yeah, I just I just want to commend uh Ms. Peterson for uh her work on the budget, her overall work on the budget for SPA. She has been able to um stay within a framework uh even with the increases in salaries, the hourly rate that we pay many of our people. Uh she's able to do it and um last summer after we after we met uh she came in with a a net a net revenue. Uh it was very very nice to see. So, thank you for your work on that, Al. Thank you very much. Thank you. So, with that um I believe that is last item. District administration recommendation is for approval of the summer school programming as presented this evening. I
104would uh seek a motion. I move to accept the recommendation. Jay makes a motion. Is there a second? Second. Amber seconds. We will take a roll call vote. Flynn. Yes. Hodak. Yes. Burger is absent. Manley. Yes. Lunn is absent. Klevin. Yes. Tomasino. Larson. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion carries. 6D is our recommendation for board to contemplate reduction in force, non-renewal of Grace Reames. Dr. Brenner. Thank you, Mr. Chair. You have a memo in front of you from me and I'm going to go through the entire memo uh just so we we don't miss uh have any missteps along the way. At the last meeting uh the board approved based on the needs of the school district to eliminate 0.75 FTE aviation teaching position uh and instruct the superintendent to identify
105the individual for reduction in force based on the reduction in force policy. The reasons for eliminating this position are based on the needs of the school district including enrollment concerns and lack and and lack and uncertainty of funds for next year. Uh today the board should limit its discussion to the question of whether or not the reasons being given, if substantiated, are in compliance with North Dakota Century Code 15.1-15-052 and the RIF policy. Questions as to the substance of the stated reasons should be reserved for the actual hearing. This is not the time for the comments uh by the individual employee. That will be set at the actual hearing which uh is on April 20th at 6:00 p.m. and I'll reiterate that on the next page. Uh North Dakota Century Code 15.1-15-05 provides in relevant
106in relevant part uh two the reasons for the contemplated non-renewal of the individual's contract must not be frivolous or arbitrary. The reasons must be sufficient to justify the contemplated non-renewal and must originate from the needs of the district in justifying the reduction a reduction in the staff. So, the reduction in force policy states, and I'm going to recite this and go through this, the board shall have the sole right to determine the the necessity for and scope of a reduction in force for reasons including but not limited to lack of funds, uncertainty of funds, declining enrollment, or other reasons of necessity that justify a reduction in the staff within the board's discretion. Teaching staff on leave for any purpose remains subject to the district's reduction in force policy. Criteria uh the superintendent or administrative designee
107shall recommend teacher or teachers for reduction in force in accordance with the following criteria: attrition including retirement and resignations. When attrition is not sufficient to alleviate the necessity for reduction in force, the board shall retain teachers with the greatest adaptability uh to meet present and future district staffing and educational needs both curricular and extracurricular. Number three, when teachers within the same area of licensure are deemed to be of equal adaptability, the board shall retain the teacher with superior academic and professional preparation beyond minimum licensure requirements in their teaching field. And number four, when teachers are deemed to be of equal adaptability and have equal academic and professional preparation within their teaching fields, the board shall retain the teacher who has taught in the district for the greater period of time. If reduction in force is
108necessary, only teachers directly impacted, e.g. those employed under a Title I program, will be considered for reduction in force based on the criteria for reduction in force above. The district is required to maintain written documentation of a reduction in force analysis. Notices and hearing. If a decision is made to reduce the teaching staff, any teacher affected thereby shall be given written notice and hearing as may be required by law. Under the non-discriminatory clause, a reduction in force shall only be initiated in a non-discriminatory manner in accordance with the state and federal law. The district may not use reduction in force as a substitute for disciplinary measures. Reemployment right. Any teacher who is non-renewed under the provisions of this policy may request and shall be given consideration for teaching vacancies for which said teacher is the
109most qualified and which occur within 12 months after receipt of written notice of the non-renewal decision. It shall be the sole responsibility of said teacher to provide the district with a current address. Any teacher who is offered reemployment hereunder and fails to accept the same within 15 days after it's offered shall be deemed to have rejected said offer and shall forfeit all future reemployment rights if an offer of equal employment is rejected. Probably the most important page. Uh the only discussion then should be limited to whether the contemplated non-renewal originates from the needs of the school district in justifying reduction in force and whether the individual I name is currently in that position. Questions as to substance of the reasons should be reserved for the hearing. I have reviewed the riff policy and exhibit and
110I'm now providing my recommendation based on the policy and exhibit. I have one individual to recommend for reduction in force based on the policy. I'm recommending to the board uh contemplate the reduction in force non-renewal of teacher Grace Reims for the .75 FTE aviation teaching position. That's actually her full-time status in the district, .75. If the board accepts the recommendation, I provided as a suggested motion that would support the recommendation. The motion needs to include the place, date, and time for the hearing and should be made verbatim. These hearings normally occur outside of school hours, again April 20th at 6:00 p.m. and could can go as long as needed, sometimes late into the night. And I will turn it back to uh the chair of the meeting for the suggested motion. So, the suggested motion
111based on uh the recommendation um is is there. Are there prior to that, are there questions for this item for Dr. Brenner? >> [snorts] >> Okay, hearing none, we do have um exact a suggested motion in front of us. If the board accepts the recommendation, I would seek a motion. I would move that a special school board meeting to be held at the Mark Sanford Education Center on Monday, April 20th, beginning at 6:00 p.m., at which time the board will discuss and act upon the contemplated non-renewal of the current contract of Grace Reims for the following reasons: the needs of the Grand Forks Public School District, including enrollment concerns and lack and uncertainty of funds for next year. I also move that the superintendent provide timely notice to the teacher prior to the hearing. The
112notice must contain the date, time, and place of the hearing and the detailed reasons for contemplated non-renewal. Mr. Larson has made the motion. Is there a second? Bill has seconded the motion. We'll take a roll call vote. Palmisano. Yes. Lund is absent. Larson. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Burger is absent. Hodak. Yes. Manley. Yes. Klevin. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion passes. Moving on, we will go to item 6E, our Policy Review Committee Report, Dr. Hodak. I see my partners in crime are both absent tonight. Basically, you have it in your packet from our minutes that we held on March 12th and basically what we are looking at is um the first one we that we talked about was the DKA DKA-E reduction in force rubric, which we've already pretty well discussed amongst
113us, you know, amongst the board as a whole. And there is nothing there's no need for any um motion or anything with that one, if I'm correct. And then I don't know if there's any need for any further comments or discussion. Hearing none then, we also discussed the GDB graduation exercises and basically there was a discussion about just simply making sure that um it's in the same the same statement is in two places, so that when um students or um parents are reading one and they don't happen to go to the other one, that this is the statement that um that we need to make sure they are aware of by both policies. And just to make sure that I state the statement that all students who participate in a high school commencement ceremony are
114expected to dress in an appropriate manner. The cap, gown, tassel, and shoes are all required. No other personnel additions shall be allowed other than school-issued stoles of honor without prior permission from the administration. And we did seek um the high school principals and I believe Terry Bohannon's um comments as well and such and they continue to support exactly what we're looking for. So, basically we're looking for us to place that statement in the to continue to keep it in the FFH, but to also add it to the GDB graduation exercise policy. Any questions for Dr. Hodak? Jay. In the past, wasn't there some discussion about ceremonial I'll call it attire, whatever phrasing we want to use, and was that discussed in this policy? We discussed the clothing aspect, but we all came up with the
115same we agreed that having what the school has already decided with the stoles, that that's where we would leave it at because we are just too concerned about setting precedents. Even though we honor and recognize all of that, the stole is the way to do it. Okay, thank you. Other questions? Comments? If none, this is a first reading and we would seek a motion for approval of the first reading of GDB at this time. I'd make such a motion. Jay accept the first reading as presented. Okay. I second. Made the motion, Sherry has seconded. We will take a roll call vote. Burger is absent. Flynn. Yes. Klevin. Yes. Hodak. Yes. Palmisano. Yes. Larson. Yes. Lund is absent. Manley. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion passes. Item uh 6F is recommendation to
116approve finding of fact, findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for discharge to be served on Anna Marie Fern- Fernandez and board action, Dr. Brenner. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Uh the memo you have in front of you, I will go over. Uh enclosed for your review is the document titled Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law, Order for Discharge Regarding Miss Anna Marie Fernandez. This document reflects the culmination of the formal hearing process conducted in accordance [snorts] with the North Dakota Century Code and applicable district policies. Following the administrative hearing held on March 18th and 19th, 2026, and upon consideration of the evidence presented, testimony provided, and the deliberations of the school board, the administrative law judge, and the board have established findings supporting discharge for cause. These findings include insubordination, conduct unbecoming the position
117of a teacher, and failure to perform contracted duties without justification. The recommendation for board action I will turn back to the chair. Are there questions on this item for Dr. Brenner? Okay. I have Oh, Jay. Who is the author of this and doesn't have to be individually, but is it Grand Forks Public Schools or is this a legal counsel document? Um what's the origin of it, I guess? The memo would be from me Yep. uh with legal input and then the culminating document comes from legal. Thank you. Thank you. Other items for Dr. Brenner? Okay. Seeing none, the recommendation for board action and the administrative recommendation is that the school board approve the findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order for discharge to be served on [snorts] Anna Marie Fernandez as presented. Is there
118a motion? So moved. >> Jay made the motion. Is there a second? Jeff. We'll take a roll call vote. Klevin. Yes. Larson. Yes. Palmisano. Yes. Lund is absent. Manley. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Hodak. Yes. Burger is absent. Anderson. Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion passes. Item 6G is our Finance Committee Report. I will turn this over to Mr. Palmisano. Okay, I'll start with uh Brandon's usual comment. This money is coming from the bond that we received on the vote of the people for safety and security. The first one is for Discovery Elementary. Uh the bids for Discovery came in at 192,185, which was roughly $18,333 under the estimate. So, the recommendation of the committee is to move that price of 192,185 for a total project of 228,700. And the main purpose for this is
119to add doors in to secure the front entrance, but also add some doors up by the lunch room as well as the library, so they can be uh shut down as the rest of the school hours are. So, I would make that motion. I'll second. We have a motion and a second. Is there any other questions or comments on this item? Okay, we'll take a roll call vote. Larson Yes. Manley Yes. Lund is absent. Palmisano Yes. Hodek >> Yes. Burger is absent. Cleven Yes. Flynn Yes. Anderson >> Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion passes. Back to Mr. Palmisano. Yes, the second one was South Middle School and it will be due most of the work towards the front entrance to South to secure that as we've done in other schools. The bid total
120of that one would come in at 190 005 which was roughly 27,810 under estimate. So I would ask for the recommendation of the board to approve the guaranteed maximum price of 190 005 for a total project of 226 106. So moved. Motion by Joel. Is there a second? Second. Jay with second. Any further questions or comments? Hearing none, we'll take a roll call vote. Burger is absent. Flynn Yes. Hodek Yes. Cleven Yes. Larson Yes. Lund is absent. Manley >> Yes. Palmisano Yes. Anderson >> Yes. Seven yes, zero no, two absent. Motion passes. Anything further? >> The only thing left is for us to do is Phoenix Elementary which will be done in the summer of 20 and the main reason we're waiting on that is the city's doing a study and they're getting a a
121grant for the change of that intersection out there. So we want to make sure our main entrance is in the right location and then also during that time would be the Ed Center and Community High. Thank you. Mr. Palmisano, if I may. Uh we have from this $18 million original bond amount do I see that we have a little over a million dollars remaining that could be applied to those three projects? >> Well, the estimate right now is when all those projects are finished would be we would spend 16 million 928,000. But they said the the numbers for Community High and the Ed Center are just they feel very are higher than what will be needed but they wanted to make sure they covered it. So Okay, thank you. Other items for the Finance Committee
122or Mr. Palmisano? Okay, thank you. >> [clears throat] >> Moving on item six or sorry, seven under other. 7A is our announcements. Are there any announcements tonight? Mr. Cleven I got one and it's more of a comment and accolades rather than talk about the summer school and the whole program as we were talking about that. Just wanted to offer a summary observation that that was a remarkably concise and well-organized presentation for a very very important series of programs that Grand Forks Public Schools offers. And so thanks to everybody who was involved in putting that information and those programs together. Thank you. Other announcements this evening? Okay, seeing none. 7B is board request for future consideration. Are there any requests? Okay. Seeing none, we'll move on to 7C, School Board Meeting Norms. Mr. Manley, how did
123we do? We did very well. Thank you. Thank you. With that, num- item eight is adjournment. We are adjourned. Thank you.