001We'll call to order the regular meeting of the school board for Tuesday, May 27th. First item on our agenda is the Pledge of Allegiance. We'd ask for you to stand as you are able. Schoolboard member Amber Flynn is joining us by telephone. Uh 1A, the reading of our schoolboard meeting norms. Dr. Hodc. Yes. 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. Advocate on behalf of students and keep the community in mind. Thank you. Item two, the approval of tonight's agenda. I would seek a motion for approval. It's been moved by Mr. Larson. Is there a second? Second by Dr. Lun. We'll take a roll call vote.
002Manley? Yes. Anderson? Yes. Hodak. Yes. Cleven. Yes. Larson. Yes. Yes. Flynn. Yes. Lun. Yes. Burger. Yes. Nine. Yes. Zero. No. Zero absent. Motion carries. Uh three. These are celebrating success items for tonight. 3A are classified and certified employees of the fourth quarter. Uh, first up, uh, Britney Hansen, behavior analyst at Grand Forks Public Schools, will be introduced as the classified employee of the fourth quarter by Dr. Dietrich. So, I'd invite you to to the microphone, please. I saw her. Thought I saw her. She stepped up. Thank you, Mrs. Parkinson. Good evening, members of the board. I am thrilled to recognize Britney Hansen as part of the employee of the quarter. We had the privilege of celebrating Britney at Discovery. And what I shared during that time is uh first of all, I know Britney hates
003all of the attention. And so um but at Discovery, what I shared is she has spent a great deal of time at Discovery helping us with our tier 2 and tier three students and helping us devise plans so that all students can have success in our school. What she has done at Discovery is just one piece of what she has done in multiple schools in our district. uh being an itinerant staff, I think it's very hard to be deeply rooted in a school because she is literally in many many places every day. Um but we have um really got to know her and because she spent time at Discovery this year um and has really been an integral part of our discovery staff. And so the student success, the results that we will actually talk
004about later uh with our student data and celebrating success for discovery is partially related to Britney and all that she does for all kids. The one thing that I will say about Britney is when we are working with the most tangled um most challenging students, she has compassion and empathy in all situations. all of even the hardest situations where it is hard to have patience quite honestly when when students need you the most and that is Britney. She is the person that is our uh our constant and our calm when kids need it the most. And she's not just that for staff but or for students but she is that for our staff as well. And so when I saw that Britney was uh being recognized uh it was just a thrill. Um, I know
005a Discovery staff member nominated her, but I know what was written on behalf of Hillary Quyava could be replicated in all of the schools that Britney is is uh at. So, congratulations, Britney. We are ex we are really blessed to have you in our school and in our district. [Applause] Next up, we have uh Lisa Spicer, literacy specialist at Viking Elementary as the certified employee of the fourth quarter. Good evening. I'm Joelen Bergstrom, principal at Viking Elementary. I'm honored to be introducing my colleague and I would say my friend here. Lisa Spicer is our literacy specialist at Viking. And I say she has one speed. It's fast. You better make sure you have your running shoes on if you want to keep up with her. Uh but we honored her at an assembly in Viking
006and looking out into the crowd. We have over 300 students. I said, "Raise your hand if you've ever worked with Mrs. Spicer." and all the hands go up and it's just a testify that she sees so many students through the day at Viking Elementary working on reading strategies and interventions to give every student that opportunity to learn to read and to read successfully. She's our data person. She is making sure that we are digging into our data, finding out what skills each individual student needs reinforcement. She has a team of interventionists underneath her and she's moving them right on with her to different classes and different kids to make sure they get their interventions in. And I just say we are so blessed because she has done an amazing job um moving the needle on
007kids here at Viking so that they are successful in their reading and in their lives. Congratulations [Applause] Thank you. Our next celebration is our classified employee of the year. So to invite Lette Miller and Terry Bohan to the podium for this celebration. Good evening, members of the board. Uh, happy to introduce Lette Miller as the Grand Forks Public Schools classified staff member of the year. Lzette serves as our secretary at community high school. Uh in reviewing the criteria for this award, uh she was selected by a committee based on demonstrated excellence, positively impacting the school comm community through collaboration, support, and service, upholding professional and dependable presence, and contributing uh uh to the culture of respect, safety, and success to those who attend our school. Uh there are a lot of outstanding classified folks in
008our district. Um and Lette is just one of many. Uh what makes Lette unique is she is the jack of all trades and the master of all uh and and she does so many things well. Now a few items that she was recognized for uh in her nomination. She's the face of our school at community. Uh she has bilingual skills to communicate effectively with some non non-English-speaking students. She is a mother and a professional. She has a firm grasp on the stages of development of young people. uh and she shows uh those entering our main office respect and and humble manners as she comes into as people come into our school. Uh she utilizes weekly staffing meetings. She is very effective as an extension of me as a building leader. Uh let's see. She eases
009the worries of people in her presence. Uh she exudes comfort and warmth but at the same time organization, strategy and implementation. She is a familiar face to individual. She is respectful. She's welcoming, trustworthy to the environment of our school. Uh she is also close with staff members for scheduling meetings, managing student records, and sharing student success. And oh by the way, in the world of safety and security, she is a very effective agent of safety at our school. It is a very important role of all of our secretaries. She is an has an outgoing personality, brings laughter and smiles and positivity, and clearly is a face of our school, and certainly is is deserved of the honor of as a classified staff member of the year. Uh, and so with that, uh, I'm not going
010to let Lette get away without talking because joining her today are her her husband Tom, three of her children, and her parents uh, to recognize her accomplishment. Uh she has been at Twining Elementary, Middle School uh and at Community High School and is a excellent selection uh as a classified employee of the year. Uh so here's Lette Miller. [Applause] Perfect. Thank you. Well, I'll have to bring the mic down because I'm not as tall as you. Well, I just want to um this is truly an honor. Um just last Thursday we were celebrating our 40th over at community and this I mean took me by complete surprise. So it truly is an honor to be receiving this um because I know there was probably uh you know so many other qualified secretaries. Um but I
011am just thrilled. Um it really is an honor. I love working at community and for the Grand Forks public schools. Um our school for those that may or may not know. I mean it's it's not just a high school. We have the adult learning center. We do the driver's ed program there. we have the GED program, you know, so when it comes to the bilingual part of it, you know, we have so many um people that come to our school with, you know, very minimal English. Um so they're coming from UND a lot of them and they're, you know, trying to um get to the English classes. So it's it's just it's there's a lot that goes on in our school. Um but it it's a great school. Um and I'm proud to be working
012with Terry. He's an excellent leader as well and everyone that works at that school and what that school represents. So, I thank you for the honor. Thank you so [Applause] much. Next up, we'll hear from Alli Parkinson and team from Discovery Elementary School. Their celebrating success be legendary presentation. Good evening, members of the board. I have with me uh Jodie Dodson, associate principal at Discovery, Carrie Meland, instructional coach, and Emily Peterson, literacy specialist at Discovery. And together we are going to share some highlights of Discovery. uh Discovery kind of got lucky with the timing of a May scheduled celebrating success be legendary presentation because uh we have really been able to look at end of the year data to see how we did and so tonight's presentation um is is we're able to look at
013how we how we started the year and then did we reach our goal and and those are some things that we plan to share with you. Um we also shared this uh presentation with discovery staff last week. It was a great way to culminate um all of the work that our teachers have done this year. And so um we're excited to to share some some celebrations with you. So this year we have uh had a a celebration year at Discovery. Discovery was built 10 years ago. So we have been doing some celebratory uh anniversary type things. But really 10 years ago when we built Discovery, we had this amazing opportunity to create a mission and a vision of what we wanted a school to be. And so when you look at our vision and you
014look at our mission, um over 10 years, we've worked to to really instill that. If you went to Discovery on any given day, a student could tell you that everyone's a teacher, everyone's a learner. Uh and they we sing it, we speak it, we live it in how we model for kids. And then when you look at our vision, I know that there's a lot of words within that, but the one word that I want to highlight is the word collaboration. Uh I always tell people that 10 years ago when we were building creating our school, the number one factor that everyone that got hired at Discovery was their deep commitment to collaboration. We know in education, in our work, we cannot do it alone. And so for 10 years, that has been our work
015to work deeply together. And so as we talk tonight, you'll hear about what that looks like within all of our teams and and all of our uh moving parts at our school. But really what I want you to think about is the faces of of our entire staff as we talk tonight. I'm here talking on behalf of them. But honestly, it's the expertise and the talent uh and commitment of these people in this picture that make our work um what it is and and quite honestly make the success in in what our data shows tonight. So when you look at Discovery demographics um one thing that I'd like to highlight, you know that we're a growing school and so we're currently 584 students. Um we're a five section school with the exception of fourth and
016fifth grade. Next year we will have five sections in in fourth grade. And so the following year with that bubble that is moving through we will have five sections in all grades at Discovery. And if you think about 10 years ago we started as a two section school. And so uh the whole build it and they will come. That has proven true in our district for the last 10 years. But one thing I want to note is when you look at the 104 new students, uh we we have not only been growing every year over the last 10 years, but also within a school year. And so we have onboarded and welcomed 104 new students to Discovery this year. And that could be students that we knew were coming from another school last summer. It
017could be students that moved in this school year. It could be students that have moved in from other cities and states. Um but that number is large. And so that is um that is work that that we have tried to really refine. It's not just growing in the summer to then add a new section, but it is a kind of a continuous intentionalness to um meet our student needs and welcome 104 new students this year. Um you'll you can see what our breakdown of our subgroups. We'll talk a little bit about what the data says about our IEP, our 504 uh ML students and then you can see the ethnicity piece. So, as our leadership team that's going to share with you tonight, they were we were talking about what what do we want to
018highlight the most in our in our B legendary presentation. What have we done this year that we're most proud of and what we believe is the difference maker at Discovery. And so those six things are are going to be interwoven into our into our data and into our conversation tonight. But in short, it is the expertise of staff discovery staff and and again their commitment to collaboration is topnotch. Um you'll hear about our aligned instructional framework. We have been very intentional when you think about guaranteed and viable curriculum. What is taught in the day and what is not taught in the day has been a very intentional conversation in our school. uh differentiation for all learners. We will talk about our subgroups and uh our our focus on intervention plans. What do those look like?
019How do we document what an intervention is? How do we know if it's working? Uh our social emotional support. Uh we have a growing special education population in our school. Britney's a great example who joined our staff this year. Uh she's been a great support for for students. Um, but we added we have an emotionally disturbed setting C room and then we also added an ALP room this year. And so just how do we support all of those students in what they need? Um, that's been some intentional work of this past year. Um, parental support, you'll see at the end when we talk about attendance, our our parents get our kids their kids to school. It is a priority and we know that that has uh a really important impact in our success. And then
020the last thing is just the refined MTSS A and B process. We have um really looked at uh what services look like for tier 1 and then tier 2 and tier three and how those all are extens of each other. So we'll talk about that throughout our our data today. So I'm going to call uh Emily Peterson. She's our literacy specialist and she's going to highlight some of our literacy data. Good evening. My name is Emily Peterson and I'm the literacy specialist at Discovery. I'm honored to be here with you tonight to share an overview of our literacy initiatives, progress, and outcomes from this school year. So, thank you for the opportunity to be here. While this year's NDA Plus data is still pending, last year's results provide a valuable insight for us. Districtwide, 45%
021of students met proficiency compared to 50% in Grand Forks overall. At Discovery, we outperformed both with 62% of students meeting proficiency and only 38% not meeting. This highlights the strong literacy instruction and supports that are in place here at Discovery. And we're aiming to build on that success as we await this year's results. This year, we've implemented several key strategies to strengthen literacy across our elementary grades. In kindergarten, students received additional support with foundational skills, specifically letter names and letter sounds. For students performing below proficiency, we used consistent progress monitoring to guide our instruction. All classrooms adopted targeted skill instruction based on student specific needs, ensuring differentiation across the board. We also piloted the wit and wisdom curriculum in kindergarten through fifth grade, one teacher in each grade level, and two in fourth grade. Finally,
022we held regular data meetings to identify students in need of tier 2 and three interventions, which was delivered by myself using diagnostic assessments. These steps aimed to create a more responsive, data-driven literacy program that supports all learners. This year, we've focused on building a strong, intentional instructional model to support literacy growth across all grade levels. Our schedules and instruction are now better aligned thanks to close collaboration with our leadership team. Teachers are learning from one another through regular learning walks, creating a culture of shared best practices. We've also provided comprehensive professional development in witten wisdom curriculum to deepen instructional quality and to prepare for next year. Additionally, a PLC menu was made available for all grades with ongoing support delivered during early release days, team planning meetings, and individual prep times. These efforts are ensuring
023consistent, high quality instruction in every classroom. At Discovery, we're committed to improving our ELA proficiency scores across all grade levels for the next four years. For our youngest learners in grades kindergarten and first, we aim to grow from 73 to 81% at or above benchmark by spring of 2028, as measured by the STAR Early Literacy Assessment. In grades 2 through 5, our goal is to increase proficiency from 59 to 67% on the STAR reading assessment. Additionally, for students in grades three through five, we are targeting an 8% increase on proficiency on the NDA Plus assessment, rising from 57 to 65% to stay in step with district level progress. These measurable goals reflect our focused long-term commitment to literacy growth and academic excellence. Discovery has set ambitious proficiency goals in ELA to align with and s
024ex exceed district expectations. In kindergarten and first grade, our goal was 75% and we met or surpassed that with 76 and 75% of students reaching proficiency. In second and fifth grades, we met our goal exactly at 61%. While third grade fell slightly short of the goal at 53%, we're addressing that with targeted support. Notably, fourth grade exceeded both the district and school goals, achieving 66% proficiency against a 61% target. Overall, Discovery is showing strong progress in meeting its literacy goals with continued focus on closing remaining gaps in the upper elementary grades. Our grade level CBM data shows strong steady growth in student proficiency over the course of the school year. In the fall, 53% of students were at or above proficiency. By winter, we saw encouraging progress. 60% of students reached proficiency. Most impressively, by
025spring, 72% of students were performing at or above proficiency with just 28% below. This upward trend reflects the effectiveness of our instructional strategies, targeted supports, and data-driven interventions. We are proud of this progress and committed to continuing the momentum into next year. From fall to spring, our ELA data at Discovery shows that 32% of students in kindergarten through fifth grade made measurable gains in proficiency. The majority, 62% maintained their performance level and only 5% of students moved down. This demonstrates that most students are holding steady or progressing and will continue to focus on targeted instruction to support even more upward movement going into next year. Hello, my name is Carrie Melon and I serve as the instructional coach at Discovery. It's my pleasure to share the efforts of our staff and highlight our math inputs,
026progress, and outcomes for this school year. As with our NDA plus literacy results, this year's math results are also pending, but last year's results still provide valuable insights. In the state of North Dakota, about 40% of our students meet proficiency. In Grand Forks Public Schools, we met about 41% of our students meet that proficiency. At Discovery, our students outperformed both the state and our district with about 64% of our students meeting proficiency and 36% of our students not meeting proficiency. This highlights a commitment by our teachers to use tier 1 curriculum and our attempts to meet students needs with small small groupoup math instruction as well. We are hopeful that our success rate will continue to rise with intentional instruction, continued extra practice, and targeted skill instruction. We have several math inputs in place to
027promote math understanding, skills, and growth. There are several listed here. And although um tier one instruction is listed fourth, it is probably one of the most foundational and important of our math inputs. Teachers along with giving um regular and committed instruction review priority standards and provide extra practice and small groupoup instruction after holding grade level PLC meetings. This includes our special ed team and our ML teachers. They review progress and concerns. It's also discussed at our larger group data meetings. We identify students will benefit from additional foundational math skill instruction. And we have tried to have this instruction by a classroom specialist teacher serving as a math interventionist when available. At Discovery, we're committed to improving our math proficiency across all grade levels over the next four years. For students in grades 1 through five,
028we aim to grow from 59% proficiency from the fall of 2024 to a 69% proficiency in the spring of 2028. This is measured on the Star Renaissance math assessment. Note, kindergarten is excluded because there is no Star Renaissance CAT or computer adaptive test for kindergarten. So, they are not included in this measure. The NDA plus goal is to increase math p proficiency by 8%, increasing from 55% proficiency to 63% proficiency. These measurable goals are a commitment to our long-term growth. Discovery has set ambitious proficiency goals in math like we did in literacy to align with and exceed our district expectations. In first grade, our goal was 61% proficiency and Discovery surpassed that with a 73% proficiency. Second grade also had the 61% math proficiency and they surpassed that with 70%. In third grade, Discovery's goal
029was 61% and we fell just short of that goal with 58% proficiency. Fourth grade had 73% of our students proficient exceeding the 61% goal. And in fifth grade, 71% of our students were proficient, exceeding the 61% proficiency goal. Overall, Discovery has shown strong progress in meeting our math proficiency goals and have a continued focus as we discuss this in grade level meetings and with about students who need additional instruction and practice to become proficient. Our grade level CBM data shows strong steady growth in student proficiency over the course of the year. In the fall, 62% of students were at or above proficiency with 38% below. By winter, we saw encouraging progress with 76% of students reaching proficiency and those who weren't dropped below to 20 23%. By spring, 76% of our students remained at at
030or above proficiency with 25% below. We are encouraged by the high percent of students reaching proficiency. We also wonder if the intermittent math intervention support that um we have might be the reason that we were not able to um continue our proficiency level to be even higher in the spring. I do have to say when we share this data with our staff during data meetings um and we talk with other coaches and interventionists, they say, "Oh, it must be really exciting." And I said, "Yes, but our staff always says, "Yay, about 60% or 76." And then they say, "But what about the red and the blue? What about the red and the blue? If my kids the red and the blue, that's who I'm worried about." And I think that's the real commitment of our
031staff is that we're thrilled for the the success, but we don't forget about those ones that are still struggling. Lastly, Discovery's Maths Star Renaissance CBM data shows 22.55% of our students have moved up in math proficiency. Almost 78% of our students stayed the same, which is really okay since so many of our students were already proficient and it does take a lot of growth to stay proficient as the bar keeps growing. Lastly, about 7% of our students move down in math proficiency. Most of our students are holding steady or progressing. We'll continue to focus on targeted instruction to support more upward growth. Consistent math intervention support continues to be a goal as well. All right, our subgroups thinking about our special ed population, our ML population, and our SEAL needs. Um, so as I mentioned
032at the beginning, we've worked really hard to refine our MTSAS and B process. I know there's a lot of colorful documents in front of you, but these have been our really guiding uh our guiding documents as we refine uh what does an intervention look like? How do you document that? Um how do you progress monitor that? And so what we created in these documents for discovery is has really been our roadmap for um our our our work with our our special ed population, our ML population, and our SEAL population. So how does this all what does this all mean? Well, we have a uh a leadership group of our social worker, counselor, special ed team, ML team, literacy specialist, instructional coach, and myself and Jod. We meet frequently as a large leadership team. Not only
033to uh make sure that we are talking about the kids that need the the most support, but also that we are aligning what we're doing, what do those schedules look like, what is the language we're using, what is the resource, if you are getting pullout support from special education, what is ML using, we've been um that table is a wealth of knowledge and um and expertise. And so uh having all at the table frequently to problem solve and and determine what kids need has been uh really a large part of our time. And then how it works is um we have weekly collaboration meetings um very often with parents. And so those are parents that we meet every Tuesday all day um just to put in perspective of students that have uh MTSS needs whether
034it's academic or behavioral. if we've done interventions multiple times and then we feel like we need to bring parents in to have that shared conversation. Um we've had 74 of those with families this year. If you think about they're roughly an hour to two hours long. Um we've really dedicated our time to that team coming together but then also with um sharing that information with parents. Every Wednesday our grade level teams taught kids that are that is centered around data. And then of course we have our early out Wednesdays. We provide a PLC menu for all of our discovery teachers where it is a list of of must do might do for our our teachers so that the work is centered around um all of what we all need to be working on but still
035giving some choice for teachers to um to customize during that early out. But it is very focused, very structured and very data driven. And then why why is this all important that we have all of these parts um working together? Um because there's an urgency when you look at that population of students that are in the red. Um it is it is our important work to make sure that those students are growing. So that's the work that we've really focused on this year. And so when you look at our intervention updates, this is for literacy. Um one thing that we've been intentional this year is we use our Panorama portal. any student that has an intervention, we put it in our panorama portal. We look at what the instruction what's the um resource we'll use
036for 6 to 8 weeks and then we put it in there to assess and then we have data if you will to see if it's working or not working. So when you look at tier 2 and tier three, those are all the number of students that have had literacy intervention as a part of that um that leadership, those meetings that I shared on the last slide. And then in math, um we had 21 students receive support. Math looks a lot different at Discovery because we don't have any we're not title and we don't have a math a math specialist as we have a an Emily for literacy. And so we this year, as Carrie said, we've been using our classroom specialist to be our designated um math interventionist. The problem with that is um she's
037also available for all things as our classroom specialists are. And so she subs when she when when needed. And so that has been that's been a barrier as we try to keep our momentum going with math and and serving those students. But that would be the reason why there's less students receiving math interventions. And then SEAL, our our work of our social worker, our two counselors and our social worker work very closely. They see groups, they meet kids for um SEAL services. And so those are the number of students that we have formally served um with interventions uh to help support them with SEAL supports. And then 209, so this year we put in 209 intervention individual intervention plans for students. Um what that means is that's a that's uh what do those students need?
038It's very specific to each of those students. Um and then we progress monitor. We feel like that's a really huge celebration in the not only the service for students but also the uh very specific documentation that we've tried to add this year in Panorama to make sure we can quantify if our interventions are working or not. And then with our ML program, we have two ML teachers at Discovery and two ML paras. Um quite honestly, our ML students are are just such a beautiful addition to our school. Uh we have worked really hard to align the tier 2 and tier three support of our ML students and what they get when they are working with our ML teachers. Um they of course they use WEDA as an assessment port uh assessment for um our ML
039students focusing on listening, speaking, reading and writing. Um and then um but one of the most beautiful things is the community within our ML students and then what they bring to our classrooms in terms of their culture um and what they share with with um their classmates. um we provide ML support for all of our families. Um just being a link to all things. Um and so that's really a beautiful thing to to see. And so without getting into all of the the specifics of WEDA, um you you likely know that there is a continuum of students entering to mastery. And the goal is is that students are bridging or mastery um level so that they can um discontinue from ML services. And the entering students, those would be students that are are non-English-speaking. And
040I would say in the last couple years, that's been newer to Discovery where we have more and more students coming at an entering level. But what I want to highlight on this is um in first grade we had uh four students discontinue at the end of just now. Um they will they'll no longer uh qualify for ML services. sad to the ML teachers but a celebration because that's the goal is that these students don't need those supports but um so we just highlighted there in in the grades um the the students that are disc the number of students that are discontinuing um I will say that is been rare at discovery and so when you look at uh K5 we have a sprinkling of students discontinuing in all of the grades that feels that feels
041like a really great celebration and then when you look at our our ML data. Um when you look at our proficiency results, you'll see that in K1, our our students are near our discovery um literacy goal of 75%. And our students in grades 2 through 5, not so much. They are at 28% with our goal being 61. And as we've talked about, why is that? You know, and then even in math, the one through five just a little bit below our proficiency. But when you look at literacy, our K1 ML students that come in and are getting foundational skills with all of our kindergarten and first graders, phenemic awareness, letters and sounds, all of those that foundational instruction. Uh they they pick it up just as quickly as as though they speak the language. It's
042really amazing. And so that is why when you look at K1, their results um their their instruction is very much foundational. What's very tricky is when students get um they come to us and they're in grades two through five. Um curriculum isn't found it isn't focused on letters and sounds. It isn't foundational skills. And so we really have to back the bus up to um get them that f those foundational skills. And so the the growth and the closing the gap is is just more challenging with students that um haven't been exposed yet to to those skills. Um this is a a fun slide. Uh those are all of the languages spoken within Discovery with our our ML population. And the one the one thing I want to highlight is um Pette on on the
043side. She's holding a a translator. So this year our PTO purchased these translators for all of our ML students. And we all know there's phones and iPads to do Google Translate. But what these translators do is it allows us to set their language. You're not toggling between languages. And it is a talker where um they say something in to the and then it um or I can say something into it and it quickly translate it but it also puts the text in print form as well for them. So this student for example um she would not only hear it but she could also read the English translation and then practice that. Um what has been a gamecher for this is that they are on lanyards and our students wear them um for their their peer
044conversations at lunch. They can talk to a friend that's sitting beside them. They can have a quick question and it's not an event to get the iPad and to translate. It is just an embedded tool that has allowed for so much fluidness and so much more um peer and social interaction that is just really healthy. The goal is of course still that these students um learn English, but uh the the goal is also to provide them some support. So that's been a fun addition for our our students this year. And then our special ed population, as I noted that this has been probably our biggest subgroup of change. Um, we have three resource teachers, an ED teacher, an ALP teacher, and 2.5 special ed teachers, and a whole lot of pair professionals that are amazing
045in our school. Um, it takes a lot of intentionality to be cohesive with a group of of that size and then all of the students. And so um they are very committed as a special ed department um meeting frequently um meeting to problem solve all kids. One of the the most beautiful things about Discovery specialed teachers is if you have a a student on your case load, everyone in the special ed department is a part of that that solution for that student and um they know all of their students as a as a collective um support. Um so our special ed team's been busy. Just to put in context, they they've held 163 IEP meetings or or some sort profile this year. Um if you think about again, they're each hund an hour or two.
046A lot of time um focused on um collaborating and and problem solving with others. And then we at Discovery, we provide uh setting A, B, and C programming for students. And so figuring out uh what those students need and how we staff it and support it is a daily um problem solving session um with the very talented special ed team. And then one of our goals is that when students are being pulled out or pushed or pulled out of their classroom that it has to be worth it. It has to be so important and so targeted to what those students need that it is worthy of them leaving tier one instruction. And so this special ed department has been exceptional to just make sure what they are doing um is is very targeted and differentiated
047to that student. So, how are we doing in in uh special education? Similar data to our ML data. Um our K1 students um they are 57% proficient with literacy with a goal our our schoolwide goal uh as 75% and then our grades 2 through five um have some work to do with uh 25% proficiency. Similar rationale to our ML students. It's it's harder to close the gap as they get older. And then in math, 46% proficiency um with uh a district goal of 71% or 61%. All right, we're going to talk the last section. Hello everyone. I'm Jod Dodson, associate principal at Discovery. Um, I'm going to review with you this evening our SEAL goals, some PBIS information, uh, parental support, some challenging behaviors, and then ending with attendance. Um, looking up there, you will
048see that we have two groups, the K through 2, 3 through 5. K through two is a perception um, survey that is filled out by the teachers. And then on the other side, that is our 3 through five perception, which is actually filled out by the students. Um in a in smaller easier terms um our goals for both of them is to by May 29th 2025 we want our school to help students K through five manage their emotions better. The goal is a 15% improvement K through five. If you look below, you're going to see that there are numbers of students listed for each of those areas being served. But keep in mind in that 58 um some of those students have been through that cycle possibly three times. So that it that is just
049not a single meet. It they might have gone through the intervention system three times and that pertains to every single group. Looking at our social emotional there um those are the supports that we have in place to support our goals. In that first picture we have classroom teachers who are doing classroom meetings. Um it is just a joy. I love sitting in and listening to the conversations and they even like me to join the circle and uh show me what they're working through. Another support are counselor interventions. They have sources of strength lessons small group one-on-one based on um they use the panorama data to form those groups. And then lastly, we are so lucky to have outside sources in that collaboration through our community village therapy comes to discovery resource officer. We're blessed with
050uh visits weekly therapy dogs and CVIC. So looking there, I talked about theCCL goals. Um our actual final data is not available for the K through 12 or K through two survey. So that is not available yet. If you look at the 3 through 5, our spring is not available either. But three through five teachers um have the students take that survey three times. So if you do look there out of the 12 markers there, we have increased little sprinkles of increase um seven out of the 12 um sections there. This is a really fun slide. PBIS. Um, if you look at the top, the 1900, that is a trailblazer ticket and those tickets can be given by any staff member uh to students throughout the school. It can be recognizing that they held the
051door open. They could have used their manners. They could have read all of their books for Elba. every single uh staff member in our school can give those out and it just feels really good to celebrate in every corner. Um so we have given out 1,900 of those cards. When a student receives five of those cards, um they get a final card to bring to the office and they then become a school ambassador, a trailblazer ambassador. And you'll see that 380. We have given out 380 stickers to 380 ambassadors. You'll also see next to that the larger picture. They get to go out in the hall. We make it a big deal. They come to the office. We give them their badge. We I play the silent trumpet. It's kind of a big deal. And
052they get to pick a little treat out of the treasure box. I take their picture. their picture then is um put on the wall and we recognize them at every assembly. It's a really big deal. On top of that, another added little option for students is once they become an ambassador, they can also give out trailblazer tickets to peers and recognizing. So, it's just a trickle effect paying it forward. At the bottom there, you will see the palm jar. That is a fun way to celebrate too schoolwide. Uh when students are caught in the classroom maybe walking down the hallway quietly or they got right on task, teachers and classrooms are able to earn those palms and they go into a smaller collective jar within their classroom. Once their jar is filled, they can come
053and dump their palm jar into the collective schoolwide palm jar. And once it reaches the top, we have schoolwide celebrations. So so far this year we had three. We had a chalk walk, a schoolwide comfy day, and then a schoolwide bingo. And that was mad fun chaos over the intercom. Super fun. Um, these are pictures of students leading our assemblies because, as Miss Parkinson mentioned before, everyone's a teacher. Every student has an opportunity with their class to showcase a character word. They sing a song, they do a skit. Um, it is all led by students. This is also where students are recognized as the uh trailblazer ambassadors that I spoke of before. They're also recognized for being Elba uh readers and Miss Shannon comes up and has a a really big event. And then uh
054Daniel Knight, our fifth grade teacher who wrote the Trailblazer song, um plays his guitar and we all sing along. It's a wonderful monthly event we all look forward to. Um, so we have challenges. Uh, we have behavior challenges. Um, if you look there, we have filled out 404 reports on challenging behaviors. I always find a glimmer in all things. And if I were to look at the glimmer there, you see that 25 students um have received 325 of those reports. So statistically, it makes sense. Um, the one thing that I find comforting in this is we know who those students are. We make sure that we make connections with those students. We might have them into our office for lunch. We check in on them in the morning. Um, kind of swing by, just give
055them a little extra attention, catch them when you can. And so, while this might seem big, um, we find ways to make it better. Parental support. We are beyond lucky to have the parents that we do. Um it science research shows that when you have family engagement, it equals student success. So I would definitely say that discovery is a wonderful model of all of that. Um, not only do our students show up, that's an amazing attendance rate, but if you look at the Seesaw uh visual in the middle, we have communication going back and forth all day. Um, just keeping parents involved, making them feel like they're there uh by sharing pictures, uh, writeups, and um, just kind of celebrations throughout the day. And then we also have a remarkable PTO that is heavily involved
056in all things. We have so many different events throughout the school year. That right there, I believe, is a picture of book bingo. Widely attended. We had a glow dance. We had a color run and all families show up for um the fun. This is just another graph of our uh discovery daily uh discovery attendance output. As you can see, um, even with sickness, with travel, with sports, with anything, uh, that's happening, we still have a an amazing attendance rate. This is an interesting slide. When you're looking at that attendance um line there, we have again 99 95.9 95.5% year-to- date average daily attendance, which is absolutely remarkable. So, when you look at that line and you see those yellow dips, um we kind of did a wonder. We did a wonder walk. I wonder
057what those are all about. Those would be our Friday attendance days which we had to think a little bit differently when we are working with students and helping them catch up. So teachers strategically place um interventions and small group work on Mondays to catch up those kids. But just something to note on top of that because it was such a wonder um we were wondering what are the reasons and so we created a Google form. We're doing some to be continued. We'll keep you up tod date on where those students actually are like overall why are those Fridays happening? What time are those Fridays happening? And so we will share that when we have it. Um just like the behavior um let's see where am I at? um discovery students, the chronically absent, just like
058the behavior when you're talking about students who are the ones who are chronically having behavior issues, um this would represent our chronically absent students. It is not a lot of students, it's students creating a lot of absences, if that makes sense. So, how do we support those attendance inputs? Um for frequently absent students, teachers plan, I mentioned this earlier, to group their small group instruction when students um are absent on those Fridays. They make sure or any day for that matter. They do that um just to make sure that they retach the missed skills. They hold attendance intervention meetings with families. We have an amazing parent teacher conference attendance rate. Our weekly MTSSA and B meetings with parents are also a great way to talk about attendance. Um, you know, students can only succeed and
059improve if they're there. And so those are things that we work through. What are the barriers? How can we help? Family engagement, you saw the previous visual, is um through the roof with our Seesaw. It is widely used. And then every week we uh write a parent newsletter from the principal, Ally, and all people that have extra things to share that highlight the events for the week to build connection um to school and also alerts parents and families to know what's to come. All right, we're in the home stretch. So, as proud as we are of Discovery's data and all of the growth and all of the success, um I think it's important that we also share with the board, you know, these are the things that we are working through at our school. And
060so, wanted to highlight just some of the the the things that we problem solve within a within a day or month or even this school year. So, growing population, we started talking about enrollment. Um space is is a is a big concern at Discovery. uh as we look at um going to five sections in each uh grade uh storage and it's not just for the grades that were short in space, it's for all of the staff that goes with it. So, as we have an expanding special ed department, as we have an expanding ML department, all of the different um parts of supports um they all need rooms and and places to be. And then just over time as we continue to grow, you know, we've had to be really, really intentional to keep our
061vision and mission alive, what we set out to do 10 years ago, making that still fresh and new with all of the new students and staff. Um, aligning schedules for tier 2 and tier three. Um, when we look at when is a good time to pull students out of the classroom or ML ML or special ed students, um, it is a big giant jenga puzzle. um very challenging to know what they can miss and what they can't miss. Challenging for the support uh team that is working with students, but also for the classroom teacher to know what to teach when if if some kids are out of the room. And so um we just in the last two weeks have worked on um met as grade level teams and special ed team for next year's
062calendar. We've created next year's schedule, I should say, to then already have those conversations of what is that going to look like for tier two and three because it takes a lot a lot of planning and preparation. Um limited resources, you know, we're not a title one school, so everything we do relies heavily on tier one support. Our classroom teachers have to be amazing. They they differentiate like no one else to meet all of the needs. And um because we can't count on we have an Emily but we don't have a title one team and we don't have extra math support. Um which brings me to the next point of as I mentioned before our math um we feel really good about our literacy resources and our system of support. We are still creating our
063own ma math intervention system of support. And so um that is something that um is trial and error and and figuring out what is the guaranteed intervention resource and all of those things is is the work that we've been doing this year. Um there is a growing population of students with with high mental health needs and our staff is amazing. They have um again empathy and and a commitment to helping these students. But in our community um sometimes the teacher resource isn't enough and our community is limited and so um that is a real challenge um as we as we meet our students with what they need and then the last thing is is time uh as I said we have created next year's schedule and on teacher schedule um we look at what are
064the minutes required for all of the content areas um and fitting that in and then differentiating for all is very challenging. So I I just think it's a great opportunity to say, you know, teaching looks different today. Um I I taught first grade 26 years ago. And it is a completely different way of how we serve kids than how I was trained to teach many many years ago. And I just think honoring that for teachers, the the learning that they have done to meet kids where they're at, it takes time, fitting in content, pacing guides, um it is um just an ongoing learning shift. So, so in closing, why do we do what we do? It's this. It's all of these faces, all of the kids, all of the um the staff that are in
065these last two sides. Um just makes me happy to see all of the highlights of our school. So, with that, I will conclude and uh I'm not sure if there's questions or if or not, but just wanted to thank you so much for the opportunity. This was fun to celebrate discovery. Thank you so much. We'll open it up to board members for any questions or clarifying comments. Yes. Um, so I was wondering for the chronically absent kids, do you ever have like a counselor go to the homes of them and try to understand what at home factors may be influencing the absences? Great question. Uh, social worker, yes, very much a part of the family life. Um, very much a part of um our our social worker team offering to be a resource to transport
066kids to school. Um any Jod and I any of our any ways that we can get kids to school if that's a barrier we do that with our chronically absent students. Yes. Uh we'll go to Miss Flynn on the telephone. Thank you. Um I am sorry I couldn't be there today. I Our family had to be in three places at once. So it was my turn to handle things at home. Um, we have the privilege of being a Discovery family and I truly believe that every school in the district is unique and has their own sense of community. But, um, I have seen this school's work in action in a variety of ways from engaged library staff to special ed services, staff in the lunchroom, front office, encore program. Um, each part of those has
067touched our family's life. And so I just wanted to say thank you to the Discovery staff. Um, I probably have thanked this individual multiple times, but um, Emily Peterson was our daughter's teacher during uh, distance learning during CO and we had a combined second grade class with Kelly and um, in a time of uncertainty when the district was literally writing the blueprint of teaching and learning um, our daughter had 3 to four hours a day with Miss Peterson. We also had a preschooler at home and a new baby who frequently ended up on show and tell during class. And I just wanted to publicly thank Emily. Um she's such a light in the district. Um she was always engaged in the students learning, was supportive, was overly prepared. She made the lessons fun and engaging
068during very unique circumstances. And I believe that our family personally benefited from um having a positive outcome after CO um and so I just wanted to to state that and our youngest daughter now um also has the privilege of being there at Discovery and we can't wait to welcome our son in 2026, too. So, thank you so much um for presenting tonight. Again, I'm sorry I can't be there. Um, my question is, I usually ask this question to everyone that presents. Um, Miss Parkinson did a good job of um, highlighting challenges, but I'm curious about any one of those challenges. If you could pick a priority, would you have one that you could state comfortably that would be a resource that you maybe need more of or that you're looking forward to hopefully trying to
069implement or that the board could help support you? I don't know that when I think about that last slide, Amber, if any of them is a prior priority over the other. Um, but I think maybe more an easier way to to say is like what does it look like? So, when we when we say space, I'll give an example of something that we're working on right now. Um, we have one room left at Discovery that will be fifth grade next year and it's currently housing our storage of things. um some extra desks and and things like that. And so I've been working with Matt on we need that room this year because we don't have space, but then where do you put the stuff? And so working on um our PTO, if you've ever driven
070back by the playground, they purchased two of the high school sheds for storage for our school. I think that's amazing that our PTO is supported. Um but that's not enough. We need more storage. And so I joke that we're going to have a village back there, but working with Matt and BNG, like is it that we have those those uh long-term storage containers that you can lock and and house things? Um that's the reality of And so when I think about we say capacity, but then what does that look like? It literally means we don't have places to put stuff. And then where do you put that? And it costs money. So, we're we're playing around with I'm working with B&G right now and I think a a storage container, a permanent one is like
071$4,700. And so, who pays for that? How do we do that? Those are just some of the realities of of the logistics that go with us problem solving capacity. So, I think I'll answer it with that. Does that give you a little direction, Amber? Yes, I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah. Other questions or comments from board members? Dr. L. Uh, thank you for this presentation. These presentations are are wonderful. They they've increased our knowledge so much and and it's just reinforcing in my mind we have the right leaders all the way from the individual classroom all the way up. My question is probably actually for Mr. Rocky and I don't mean to put him on the spot and if you want to think about this uh think but because I want to think districtwide when
072we look at equity and we have some schools that are title one some schools aren't title one we have some PTAs that let's face it have more financial resource than others how do we keep it equitable in our school district and again you could talk for hours on this and if and maybe we could have this down the road again a little more detailed discussion Yeah. Uh Dr. Lun, uh members of the board, thank you. Uh that is a a big question and and I probably could go on and on about this conversation and discuss about how um all of those intertwine to support our students and and the needs of our students, which at every single one of our schools and all of our buildings are very differently um or are very different. Um,
073as you'll see through these presentations, the groundwork of where our students proficiency rates are are vastly different from one building to another. Um, and one of the goals of Title One is to provide that equity across the board and give everyone the opportunity and to learn at a high level. Um, that's always the goal of public education is education for all students. Um, and sometimes that means additional supports that maybe other buildings do not get. Um, and that's where Title One and other programs or other um other opportunities exist because of that and and to level the playing field, I will say. And so, as we go through those programs or as we go through those opportunities, we try to do it the best we can. Um and and as we move forward, it's going
074to provide opportunities that we're going to have in some buildings that aren't at other buildings as a result of that. But it again, it's to allow that opportunity for all students across our board. Other questions or comments from board members? Yes, please. Um I just wanted to mention that I really like the PBIS inputs and I think that'd be I wish I had that when I was in like elementary school. So, I think that was really amazing. And I just had like a clarification for um on the learning walks, do the educators also like get to help out students who have questions during class kind of like to take little like pressure off the teachers or they need students who need like individual help? So, our learning walks are really teacher opportunities to teachers teaching
075teachers. So we have set up uh learning walks for um teachers to watch other teachers. For example, those that are piloting wit and wisdom. Others that will be piloting will come observe them. Um we might have specialists observing a classroom teacher just on routines and procedures to sort of steal from their bag of tricks so that they can use them in other settings. So at this point, our learning walks are really um more for teachers to observe and then work with the other teachers on best practices. Other questions or comments from board members? Yes, please. Dr. Brener. Thank you, Mr. President. 10 years ago, you hired your staff and today that staff wouldn't be the same group of people, would they? And and and that's that's my way of just saying how remarkable leadership is.
076uh at Discovery because you have mentored leaders who have gone on to be lead principles in at least two buildings. Right now you've you've uh the career lading opportunities that many of your colleagues have had from instructional coaching to move into different more macro leadership positions is remarkable. And what's even more remarkable is the sustainability of what you're doing with teaching and learning with new people on boarding each and every year. So, I just wanted to compliment you on keeping that work whole, keeping that culture in place when you're dealing with new personalities each and every year. Thank you for that. And oh, by the way, Tate's going to be a freshman next year and he still has Trailblazer tickets up in our kitchen. Thank you for that. That's great. We uh had Red River
077seniors this morning uh spend two hours at Discovery as they return back to their elementary school. Um and and that's that's honestly, you know, I think about tape, but then I also think about these other students coming back just to have that continuous connection. Um when our Red River students came back this morning, um we have a poster of all of the grade levels of um they were wearing colors in our cafeteria and they saw it and they ran to find themselves and it was the most beautiful kid thing ever where I'm like, you're big kids but you're not. Um but those little those connections um for us to see those kids um at Red River and and then come back um that's important. So I think about all of our um our kids that
078are leaving and just having that growth continue through the district is really important. Thank you very much. Thank you. Item four on our agenda is public comment period. We're about to enter into the public comment period for our meeting. Although state law does not require us to hold a public comment period, we've chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues. Having said that, please note that the board is here to listen. The public comment period is not designed to be a discussion. Accordingly, please do not expect board members to respond to your concerns or questions now. This is because we take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be.
079We will however respond to your questions or concerns at a future meeting or have proper staff get back to you at the appropriate time. I also want to point out that under state and federal privacy laws, we are unable to entertain any comments or questions about school district personnel. Please know, however, that we take personnel concerns very seriously on these matters. We would ask that you would go through the appropriate administrative channels. Finally, we recognize that right now in our nation and in our community, we are polarized on a number of issues. That said, we want our schoolboard meetings to serve as an example to our students that members of our schoolboard and members of our community can deal with controversial issues in a civil manner and demonstrate mutual respect for one another. In that
080spirit, we will insist that all speakers and members of the audience maintain civility and respect for NA divergent views that others possess. We ask speakers to please address their comments to the board directly. Finally, I want to remind everyone listening that you may submit written comments to the board in lie of speaking during the public comment period if you so choose. The board will now entertain public comments. Each speaker is allotted up to three minutes. At this time, I have one public comment card. If there are any others, please bring them up now. While we're waiting on that, uh, please, Mr. Kevin Coots. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Um, my comments this evening are in regard to the online courses offered through North Dakota Center for Distance Education or NDCDE. On Tuesday, May 20th, one
081week ago, we received an email message signed by doctors Chris Harrison and Katherine Galatch pertaining to online courses by students through NDCDE. In the message, it is called out that over the past two academic years, the district has been able to cover the cost of NDCE courses, averaging $229 per semester course. The message goes on to say, "Due to recent changes in the North Dakota state legislature, the responsibility of covering these course costs has now shifted back to families for the 2526 school year." Presumably, the impetus for this change is HB 1105. House Bill 11:05 um section 1.5 um D reads, "A policy adopted by a school district under this section must require the district to pay for a virtual instruction course if the school district does not offer the course and obtaining the course
082credit would contribute to the student meeting high school graduation requirements in time to graduate within the usual time frame. Granted, I am not legal counsel, but my interpretation of HB15 is that the bill only defines what NDCE course costs the district must cover. In my interpretation, it does not forbid districts from covering the cost of courses for their students. If my interpretation is correct, it appears the email message from doctors Arison and Galatch is perhaps a bit in disingenuous saying the legislature has transferred the responsibility of course costs to families. Rather, it appears a decision has been made by some administrative level within the district to pass costs along to families. I've done a cursory review of schoolboard meeting minutes since Governor Armstrong signed HB105 in mid-March. Unless I miss something, which is very possible.
083It appears the board has not discussed this issue. My questions are how did this decision get made? Who was involved and what transparency existed? My last points, my LA, excuse me, my last point speaks to boundary lines and socioeconomic status. In previous meetings, board members have raised concerns about certain classes not being offered at Central due in part to socioeconomic status. Clearly, we value making education available to everyone. My question, does this decision by the school district concerning online courses make online courses unavailable to economically challenged students? It feels counterproductive to the equity goals of this of the school boundary project. Given that student schedule changes are due to Red River High School tomorrow, my request is that the board take up this issue and resolve to cover all NDCDE online courses at the same
084level as the previous two academic years. and I'll take any questions if there are any. Thank you. This is not meant to be a discussion. It's public comment period, but um as I read at the beginning, um proper staff will get back to you at the appropriate time. That's fair. Thank you. Thank you. Move on to 5A. This is the Grand Forks Virtual High School update. Dr. Glatch. Thank you, Chair Burgerer. Um just a brief update for you about the progress for the Grand Forks virtual high school. Uh just a little refresher, we are poised to open that those virtual doors, if you will, um coming next school year, and that is for students in grades 9 through 12. Registration at this time is closed for that um school experience. I am pleased to report
085that we have a nice I'm going to call it a pilot or an entrylevel group. We have 26 students who are currently enrolled at this time. that includes 13 from Grand Fork Central High School, 11 from Red River, and two from homeschool status. Um, 10 of those students are on individual educational plans. And so built into the model is some support for student IEP minutes as well. We have hired the online manager at a 02 level. That is Andrea Ulttoper. Many of you know Andrea from her work with the literacy um efforts at the secondary level and we're excited that she's taking on that role. Um her counterpart, the online mentor teacher is Miss Christy Sandbeck, who has a wealth of information or a wealth of experience with technology and learning and her role as
086an instructional coach and formerly as a technology coach. So they are the perfect combination to lead this experience. Um we have three ninth graders, seven tth graders, nine juniors, and six seniors registered at this time. and Andrea is in the process of um setting up meetings with those families to talk about conditions at home to help support their learner, the sort of supports we can provide them through the mentor teacher, etc., etc. Um we are going to require as a reminder students to take their key assessments um live to make sure there's academic integrity and we're also going to build in some projectbased experiences or presentation type experiences to make sure that our online students acrew those choice ready skills. So those are some additional augmentations to a typical full-fledged asynchronous type model. Um it'll
087also allow us to check in with kids, make sure that they're okay, which is really important to us. Um we have a vision to grow the program. Um we hope in ensuing years we have a vision of building online uh communities of practice u you know time for students to collaborate through online mechanisms and things of that nature. and the two individuals that are going to be leading these efforts are really the right sorts of visionaries to bring that across um and make it just a really deep rich learning experience. So that is your brief overview as promised. I am poised to take questions at this time. Questions for Dr. Glatch, Dr. Lun? Just one and it's a selfish one, but I'm going to ask it. A large part of my population that I take
088care of kid-wise have mental health issues. Is this is this something that you have to start the school year or if somebody has problems through during the school year they can flip into this program or is it kind of you're in it and you're in it for the year? Thank you for asking that question. So on both ends there are entry and exit points that kind of align with the traditional ones that we have in place at the other campuses. And so for students who are looking to enroll that we'll open that up again for second semester um because that would allow them to stay in track with kind of the the rate and pace at which we acrew credits. Um on the converse if there are students that we see are really struggling in
089that environment we're going to do an early intervention and put in supports and if we need to move them back to face toface because that's a better more appropriate learning environment we will actually um progress that as as quickly as quarter time. Other questions or comments? Mr. Cleven, what sort of courses are offered through this? All of actually the majority of the courses that we offer through our face-to-face course handbook um are available either through the egeneuity online platform which is our our key primary platform. Um the delivery of it is just different. It's an asynchronous model. So there are tutorials that students will engage in that are sample lessons that are videos of teachers and then the backend support will be provided by our mentor teacher um to help kids through issues and challenges
090and they'll also control the rates at which the assignments are released to kids. Um we will be um enrolling and it's it's interesting because it ties into a little bit to the gentleman's comments. So the North Dakota Century Code um that he cited states that if a um if a course isn't offered then the district is required to pay for it through NDCDE currently which is accurate for our online students with the exception of music courses which cannot be really replicated online. If there is a course that is necessary for them to graduate and that might fall more into some of the choice courses we will likely have to rely on NDCDE. they have a more robust course offering with some of those um elective CTE type courses and things of that nature. So, we
091may be paying for those online students registration fees into those um half credit classes and increments. And thank you for the transition in the context of Mr. Kuna's comments. And then just one more followup on that. So if a course has to be offered through the North Dakota option, we will pay those costs as part of the students regular curriculum achievement only for students who enrolled full-time online because they're not allowed to take classes fluidly between online and onampus. But if students are enrolled on campus, then they have access to the entire um course offerings that we offer in face toface setting, which is what um the century code says. We offer the courses, so we're not um responsible for paying for those any longer. Others make sure we go to Miss Flynn. Do you
092have anything? Yes, I do. I was just curious about the plan for implementing um like K through 12 schoolwide if we're going to just uh kind of take this first year for high school and then assess or is there sort of a written plan to transition the other grade? At this time we open with the high school because from an age um readiness standpoint that was the most logical group to begin with. um we are not closing the door on expanding those efforts but one of the things that I've been I think pretty vocal about is um or at least at times is during COVID we learned the importance of that face toface instruction I think even listening to our friends from discovery report tonight on the um capacity to put just in time interventions
093in place for students at a younger age younger we are able to intervene the quicker we are able to change their trajectory of learning and so we have some cautions I have some cautions about engaging students only asynchronously through online um at a younger age when they're still building their educational skill set. So it doesn't mean the door is shut, but it's also we're going to enter into it with caution. Other questions or comments? Yes, Dr. Hodic. just um give a brief update about what their school year, their calendar, their pacing would look like. Um because I'm mainly interested, you said three freshmen. If those three freshmen finish what they need to do as a freshman, are they able to go within the school year onto sophomore level courses and such? Great question. So the
094model the first of all the school calendar will be the same as our school calendar. Um with the exception that if there are inclement weather days they're not going to get days off because they're already in online learning. Um so sorry if that is a you know a downer for some people. Um but the the pace and the rate is really going to be individualized to the students. So we anticipate that students will mo the majority of students will be enrolled in two potentially a third class at a time. And if you're familiar at all with the way that community high school um delivers its learning model, students are engaged in one class for a condensed period of time and it allows them to really dig in deeply and um concentrate on those modules. And
095what we've learned from studying other um districts and even just from the the structures of online learning that that would be a really appropriate way so to approach this sort of a a session. So um by the end of the semester they students who are on pace should acrew the same number of credits as a typical face-to-face student will at the end of the semester but it'll be delivered in chunks more in-depth chunks if that makes sense. So um but that'll all be individualized according to the um collaborative efforts with the family with the student. The teachers will um adjust the pace of at which we release um the next modules to students again according to their needs. Um, we also know that if we were to open them all up at once, it would
096immediately shut down some kids because how overwhelming is it to see an entire courses semester's worth of learning in front of you at one time. So, there's a bit of a um an art to how we we pace things, but we certainly don't want to preclude a student who has the capacity to accelerate. Um, we also don't want to encourage them to over accelerate. So that's that's why the importance of that mentor teacher and um I I failed to remind the board of this, but there will be um required weekly mentor teacher meetings that we'll invite families to, especially at the onset to make sure that they're working handin- glove with us um on that pacing and making sure that we're making the right adjustments along the way. Other questions or comments from board members?
097Just a reminder, this is uh under recommendations for discussion, so no action required this evening. Thank you very much. Our other uh discussion area tonight, 5BB, Legendary Native American Graduation Rate Goal Update, Dr. Brener and Amy Barch. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh we'll get right into our handouts. And I want to thank Chief Academic Officer Amy Barch for co-presenting with me tonight. Probably going to hear my voice maybe even a little bit more than Miss Bart uh this evening. I'll talk about the goals and the outputs and our last slide will be the inputs. Uh, in other words, what are we doing about some of the challenges that we're facing and and maybe how are we celebrating some of the successes that we've had? So, if we could go right to the goal, Amy, thank
098you very much. Uh, this goal was written back in 2022. Uh, Grand Forks Public Schools will increase the Native American students four-year graduation rate from 46% graduated in 2223 to 80% graduated by September of 2028 as measured by simply the graduation status. And the outcome goal uh is on the next slide. Thank you. Uh, Grand Forks Public Schools will increase the Native American student four-year graduation rate from 72% um that graduated in 2023 24. So obviously we really exceeded that goal uh to 80% graduated by September of 2028. Next slide please. Uh you can see here on this table we're tracking students and the number of credits that they're taking in 9 10 11 and 12. Uh so that high school principles and counselors can track whether students are on track or not. And so
099in grade nine in semester 1 they should have two and a half credits. uh semester two five in grade 10 they should be at 8.5 by the spring of grade 10 they should have 11 and by the time they're juniors we'd like to see them at 14.5 at the end of the first semester 17 by the end of the year grade 12 20.5 uh credits the first semester and 24 um you know some of our students exceed that and some of our students um still struggle to get there and we'll highlight that on the next slide I believe so in 2024 24 25. I'm looking at the left uh the left table. Uh the distribution of improvements and this would be uh you're going to see a comparison between Native American students and then all
100students will be on the next slide. Uh 2024 25 again 73% met or exceeded uh the credits earned and then you can see as we uh move into the next three school years that will incrementally grow to 80% by 2728. So when we look go to the right-h hand table uh when we're looking at all campuses this would be community red river and central high schools in grade nine first semester of this year uh 42% were on track so the goal was not met uh in grade 10 54% were on track again that goal not met uh in that time grade 11 53% the goal was not met um where they should be as juniors uh but as seniors uh 73% were on track so by the time they were seniors. Uh this data demonstrate
101that we're on track. So I think the wondering the wonderment might be what what's happening in grades 9, 10, and 11. Um and then what why all of a sudden do they catch up u by by their senior year? Next slide, please. Uh and this would be again for all students um instead of just looking at Native American students. Uh so I'll just take you to the right hand table. In grade nine, 77% are on track as freshmen, grade 10, grade 11, grade 12. So you can see there there's a disparity between the subgroup that we're talking about tonight and all students. Next slide, please, Amy. Thank you. Uh here's where uh we can't show you all the data because the subgroups are too small at community high school. Um and at Central, you can
102see there are some differences between Central and Red River. uh at central in the middle graph um our freshmen are not on track uh to meet the goal grade 10 and grade 11 um but by grade 12 79% are on track to meet that goal and will likely cross the stage um on Sunday June 1st uh from central at Red River uh again freshman sophomores and juniors the goal not met and the subgroup is too small in grade 12 uh to identify that. Thank you for the next slide. So, credits earned on time for graduation for all students met or exceeded credits earned at that 73% uh community. You can see that we've blocked out grades 9 and 10. And grade 11, they have not met that goal, nor grade 12. At Central High School,
103uh 9th graders close, but not quite there yet. 70% were on track. um grade 10, 11, and 12 are on track uh to earn those credits. And then when we go all the way over to the right at Red River, um all grade levels have met that goal. Next slide, please. So, here are some of the inputs. And before I turn it over to um to Amy, I just I just want to uh highlight a few things that we've done. Um in particular, in particular, since Chad Ward started in his in his position as our Native American liaison, um we have done some symbolic things each spring. We just did one last Wednesday evening at Central High School, although attendance wasn't um as great as it's been in the past. We've been to the center.
104What I'm talking about is is honoring and highlighting symbolically our kindergarten students, our fifth grade students, 8th and 12th grade students uh of Native American descent uh who have passed those those milestones. And for our seniors, um they are uh they are given, you know, through ceremony the uh the eagle feather that night and um the quilts that night. And so we will continue with that. And I think it's really important for our younger kids to see that where they see that there is a bit of an endgame when we graduate and there are other opportunities uh when we do graduate when when we do graduate our students. Um so I just wanted to give um Chad credit and the Native American uh parent council for helping sponsor that, fund that, and keeping that more
105than alive and well um as as part of our our school district. So with that, I'll come back to some other things, but uh Amy, I want to give you an opportunity to talk about some of the inputs. Thank you. Sure. So our inputs, one of the things that we do for all students is our counselors help track earn credits. So as we're picking classes for the next year or deciding our paths, um they're tracking credits and meeting with students individually. One of the things that is helpful about that is we can illuminate some options. Sometimes going to Grand Fork Central or Red River High School isn't the best option for a student. So, we have an opportunity to share the other pathways to earn um credit for graduation. Um you've heard from both John
106Standel and Chris Arison this year about their attendance protocols and some procedures that they put in place to help um really attack chronic absenteeism. uh product a periodic progress checks and plans for those that are not on track that marries with the counselors. But then this is where our associate principles also become involved and they have meetings with families and students to talk about what is our plan not only to complete this semester's learning for this grade level but to make up some of those missed credits. There's credit recovery options through Egeneuity, which is our online platform or virtual asynchronous platform for learning. And then also, as Dr. Glatch mentioned, the North Dakota Center for Distance Ed. Um, one thing that we do that's unique in the summer is we have two different cohorts of
107summer learning. One is those that are very close to have earning credit and finishing. So we give them an extended opportunity to earn those credits along with those that are coming for summer courses to either remediate and earn the miss credit or to earn credit ahead of schedule. You heard from Dr. Arison about rider time and how they're working to help students with tier 2 interventions. Something that's similar is the intervention courses at Grand Fork Central. AVID with that equity framework at Grand Fork Central. And then also um GFC has a partnership with UND TRIO which supports Native American students with mentors and they do that during the lunch hour just to form those relationships. One of our wonderings was why, right? Why? And when we look, if I go all the way back to
108that very first slide, um we wondered why are we not meeting the goal, especially in grades 9, 10, and 11. And one thing that just jumped off the paper, it's chronic absenteeism. When we look at grade 9, our Native American students are 58% of them are chronically absent. At Red River, it's 50%, GFC, it's 63. So, kind of what um Ally Parkinson talked about today, you have to be in school and we have to be able to help you when you're there. So, our social workers, our attendance um person has worked tirelessly to try to build relationships with families, build student engagement, build the why. Um but that really is the biggest barrier right now is chronic absenteeism. And so, we'll continue to work on that. High school does have an advantage when you look
109at chronic absenteeism. Right now, if you miss 18 courses or periods within a semester, we think of alternate ways to get you that credit, shift you to online learning or other pathways. But there's nothing within century code that supports the work, especially when we get to middle school and elementary school. And what we know about chronic absenteeism is it really doesn't often start at grade nine. it's been a pattern through someone's educational career. So, this is where it's an opportunity. Mr. Baky is leading an attendance um committee and it's an opportunity to partner with our community. How do we how do we booster up attendance? Some communities we talked about have like a strive for five, right? Five days a week, we want to be at school. So, does Simplot have something in their breakroom
110that promotes it? when you go to Choice Financial, do they have something that promotes getting to school? This is a community issue that we all have to rally behind to support our families to make school accessible to all. So, that is what I have to share and I'm happy to entertain any questions or wonderings that you may have. Questions or clarifying remarks from board members? Miss Flynn on the phone. No, I don't have anything others. [Applause] Thank you for the effort to everybody involved in that. Yes, Dr. Glatch. Yeah, one thing and thank you Miss Bart, you did a great job of um capturing all the efforts, but one of the things I want to also add is that um through Amy's department, you know, one of the things we we keep wondering about is
111the why. what are the barriers to having um students get to school? And some of it comes down to things like ongoing conversations around transportation that this board has engaged in. Um but other things that we've we've continued to question is are we representing our students well enough in the curriculum? Are we creating a an environment where we work really hard on relationships? Um and yet we've recognized that there are some discrepancies between kids reporting that they feel safe and welcome and feeling like they truly belong. And so I want to reassure you that at the campus level, those are some of the um conversations that are being deconstructed to try to figure out better ways to broker connections to get that why, that compelling why to um have students engage more deliberately, all students
112engage. Um so that ties into this data, but it ties into our broader um attendance data as well. And and I just wanted to make you aware of that. Anything else from board members? Again, as with 5A, this was for discussion, so no action is needed tonight. Thank you very much. 6A is our consent agenda. I would seek a motion to approve the agenda, the consent agenda portion of your packet. It's been moved by Mr. Palmino. Is there a second? Second. A second by Mr. Anderson. We'll take a roll call vote. Lomcino, yes. Flynn, yes. Anderson, yes. Flebin, yes. Manley, yes. Larson, yes. Kodak, yes. Burger, yes. Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero. Absent. Motion passes. 6B. General fund financial statement for the period July 1, 2024 through April 30, 2025. Mr. Brandon Bombach. President Ber,
113members of the board, I present to you the 10th report of its kind with showing revenues of 113.5 million and expenditures of 94.3 million, putting those revenues over expenditures about 19.2 million at this point in the year just before um by the end of the week, we'll see a lot of that money go out with the summer pay um anticipated. You have the two reports in front of you. You're quite familiar with those. Um, just to articulate a couple of stories that I'm watching in this. As we watch those local sources come in, they're primarily driven by local property taxes. Um, we probably have a little bit higher number than where we needed or where we're coming in here just on that overall growth. Um, so we're watching that to kind of come in, but
114the other local sources associated in that bucket will fall straight behind. As we look at those state sources, we we got it right with the state aid formula, which is the majority of our revenue coming in. So, right where we'd anticipate to be on those. And then the federal sources um generally or always we expend first and we seek the reimbursement. So, they're always going to seem to be legged or lower and then they'll continue to come in even throughout the summer as we close um the books on that. So, we watch on the expenditure side. Um we we're we're doing right where we'd expect to be here when it comes to salaries and and comp and overall um compensation. So the fringe benefits um health insurance has been a positive year. So we would
115expect that number to stay below our budget. And then the big thing here is other expenditures. This time of year we we do all the final purchasing of things and some of those were well planned out and followed the process. So we have purchase orders in place and we can see the incumbrances and other those others show up right at the end here too. So um we're watching as all that comes into focus this time of year. Um you can see how the comparison report um puts this in context to the prior year at this point. Um I do have a couple of comments written out. But just skipping down to those graphics at the end, you can see that the first of the three graphics, the revenues um slightly higher. And keep in mind
116this is the year after a lot of the CO dollars have exited. So a lot of those federal funds would have pushed those lines up in prior years, but our revenues given the strong state aid increases are holding. um expenditures. We're staying on the um just below side of the two years prior, which is a good place to be at this time of the year. And when you put those together is where you get that general fund balance that we track throughout the year. We're at a high point here. And then you can see, as I mentioned, what happens by the end of the week is um we have a couple different payrolls and it includes the big one, which is our our certified staff getting paid out over the summer. So ultimately it it
117winds up right where we started the report with um the revenues over expenditures of 19.2 million and our administrative recommendation would be to approve the general fund financial statement for the period of July 124 through April 3025. Questions for Mr. Bombach would seek a motion to approve the general fund financial statement for July 1, 2024 through April 30th, 2025. It's been moved by Dr. Mr. Hodc is there a second? Mr. Cleven, any discussion? Miss Flynn, I want to give you an opportunity on the phone. No question. Okay. Any other discussion? We'll take a roll call vote. Kodak, yes. Cleven, yes. Manley, yes. Larson, yes. Flynn, yes. Flynn, yes. Anderson, yes. Palmino, yes. Burger, yes. Nine, yes. Zero, no. Zero absent. Motion passes. On to 7A. Announcements. Are there any announcements for tonight, please? As you
118all know, it's a busy week uh this week. Uh Thursday, we'll have adult ed, uh graduation at the uh the Betty at 4:00, Community High School at 7, same day. And then on Sunday, one o'clock Red River and four o'clock Central High School. Hope to see you all there. Thank you. Any other announcements? 7B board requests for future consideration. Yes, Mr. Palmino. I was wondering if we could two things. We used to get a report that laid out each school, how many sections at they had in the school with number of kids in each section. Can we do that again or is that a lot of work to do that? if it's a ton of work. Okay, if we could the second thing I I wondering if we could hear from the administration of how
119they decide. Every principal that has come before us has asked for more space, you know, in their schools. How do you know and I think of Discovery Discoveryy's got more space than any school in this system. And you know, I I go to Lake Agassy and they're teaching reading in the hallways that are only 8t wide or 9 ft wide and they have the long sections. How do we go about looking at that equity? Who gets what? How do we deal with that? And maybe that looking at the the uh class sizes at different schools would help us see where that's needed. Before we have to make a decision on buying some more relocatables. Thank you. I think we might have skipped over. Mr. Baky, did you have an announcement? I can I can go
120back to 7A if you'd like me to. I was just going to make an announcement that we have a lot of state tournaments coming up this weekend and would encourage all of uh the community to get out and support those tournaments because not all communities get state tournaments and we are continuing continually advocating for more state tournaments for our community and so would love to see all of you out there um as I will be presenting awards coming up as well too. So thank you. Yeah, thank you. Can you tell us which state tournaments are here besides softball I know? Yeah. So, it's softball, baseball, and tennis. Okay. We we're bouncing a little bit back and forth, but we're we're back to 7B. Uh board request for future consideration. Mr. Cleven, uh just if we
121can get an update on the pool recommissioning, Miss Flynn, anything for either announcements or board requests? No, thank you. We got to go to executive. See, Mr. Palmino, your mic is on. Are you you got an We're good. Anything else? Okay. 7 C, our schoolboard meeting norms. Dr. Hodak, how did we do? Very well. All right. As you can see, item eight on the agenda uh will be an executive session, our last item before adjournment. So, I would entertain a motion uh to move into executive session uh to convene, excuse me, I would ask for a motion to convene into executive session to discuss negotiating strategy or provide negotiating instructions regarding contracts that are currently being negotiated or for which negotiation is reasonably likely to occur in the immediate future as allowed by North Dakota
122Century Code 15.1-16-22,44-04-9.19 and 44-4-9 19.2. It's been moved by Mr. Cleven. Is there a second? Second by Mr. Larson. We'll take a roll call vote. Flynn. Flynn. Yes. Thank you. Kodak. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Manley. Yes. Lun. Yes. Cleven. Yes. Pomcino. Yes. Larson. Yes. Burger. Yes. Nine. Yes. Zero. No. zero absent. Motion passes. We will now ask the members of the public attending the meeting to leave the room. We're going to convene our executive session in this room. We anticipate adjouring the executive session and reconvening the open portion of the meeting at approximately 810 p.m. let's say. Uh but again, just a note uh that when we reconvene into open session, uh we will adjourn immediately following.