January 27th 2026 - Alpine School District Board Meeting

001We want to welcome everybody out for our study session this evening. Um we are super excited about the presentation happening. Um Superintendent Smith, >> you know what? I am super excited. Thank you, President King and Cassie Lewis from student services and our community outreach folks are here tonight and we're so excited to hear. Thanks for sending the presentation to prior >> so we could kind of skim through it and be prepared. >> Um and uh with that connecting with our community is just an essential thing and I'm just so grateful for all the work that you're doing to connect communities with our schools and I just wanted to thank you for that. Okay. All right. We're excited to be here. Thank you for the invite. Um, any chance to be a cheerleader for the work

002that we do with community outreach is exciting [snorts] and I want to thank each of you because as I look at your faces, you have been at our community events and you've been there helping us build this program. It's very new to the district and community schools are very new in Utah. And so we're excited to have a chance to share a little bit of the work that we're doing and the why behind it and what community schools can look like in Alpine and then hopefully have conversations about what it can look in our three strong districts going forward. So just to introduce our team, I'm Cassie Lewis or Saxton. It's kind of interchangeable at times. Um and I oversee family and community engagement and then Kim Jones is our student services director. And so

003we want to give a nod for the support that she gives our team. And then with me today, I have Jessica Staer. That's our lead. She's her home is out at Cedar Valley High School, but she reaches across the district supporting all of our team. And then Allison Madson supports our ORM um community school grant and our team there in Oram. And so we're grateful to have a few of our members of our team here to talk to you about what's happening in our schools and the work that we do. Um I always love to start with this visual because we have students that come with a lot of barriers and we don't know what those barriers look like. And so as we have students enter our school, we want to get to know those

004kids and we want to get to know what's heavy for them. What does it look like for them to access learning and what's standing in the way? And then we as a community outreach team work with the service providers. We work with the admin teams. We work with the students and their families. And we bridge with the community and we bridge with our community partners. And we try to meet all of those physical, emotional, mental needs so that the students can thrive in school. We want to remove those barriers so that they can access learning. And so just a great visual, always want to tie the work that we do back to our coherence map. If it's all about making sure that all students learn, what are the ways that we do that? And on

005a school level, these three goals at the bottom are everything. Schoolwide achievement, student group achievement, which each of the schools get to identify, and then our student connection. And we feel like we reach into all of those, but that student connection piece is huge for the work that we do with outreach. It's not just student connection, it's family connection. We want the families to feel like the school is a safe place. It's a hub and it's where they want to be. So we look at the frameworks. We have a framework for community schools. We have a framework and model for our so conditions. And then we have our ASD vision for learning. And at the center of all three of those is student success. But there are different ways to get there. But we feel

006like our framework for community schools ties in the pieces of all of that because we want to create the conditions for students to thrive. We want to make sure they can access that knowledge, skills, and disposition piece. But we need certain pieces in place in the school for that learning to happen. And so if you look at our framework for the community schools at the very center is that why we want students to flourish. We want them to thrive in their school across elementary into secondary. And then we need the who and that's our support staff, our coordinators and our liaison in the schools. That's our admin teams. That's our community partners. And we really want that family piece. We want the youth and families to feel like they're an active part of that learning.

007It's not just happening to them, but they're engaged in the learning. We have conditions that we need to enable in the school. We need to have um inclusive and informed decisions. We need to have actionable data to drive the work that we do and we'll look at some of that today. We need those trusting relationships which is a huge piece of our community schools. We have Vic here from Westmore and if he could be a nod to that. That trust is huge. The kids and the families need to feel safe and they need to feel like they're part of the decisions and then that shared vision and then we have key practices and our infrastructure and all of that holds that model together. um what can it look like in our schools here in Alpine

008School District. So these are the four pillars of community schools and we have pulled this into the work that we do specifically in ORM, but we're starting to branch out and offer some of these programs more in our outreach schools. >> So you'll hear community outreach and you'll hear community schools and it's it's an attempt to get to where we have community schools in each school, but it's quite a process to get there and it takes a lot of teamwork and um shared decision- making. But I want to go through these four pillars. So we have integrated student supports. Um we are planning and meeting the needs of the students and sometimes that involves beyond the school day. So it might be out of school activities, it might be engagement nights, it might be resource

009nights, um other access to learning beyond the school day. So it might be after school homework club, it might be boys and girls club. Um things like that. We that ties into our expanded learning time where we're offering academic and enriched learning beyond the school day and then into the summer. And then we have our family and community engagement. So we're bringing in partnerships. We're building trust within the school and we're looking for those solutions and our community um partners that can help be a part of those solutions and hopefully for free. Um and then collaborative leadership and practice. So, we're meeting with students, families, admin teams, community partners, and our other service providers to make sure that we're all working towards the same thing. Okay. So, our integrated systems of support, I want to

010zoom in on that one pillar for just a moment so that you can see what it looks like to add outreach at the schools that we have. We're not districtwide yet, but we're reaching. We're trying to get to where we have community outreach support across the district and then specifically in our three strong districts. So, we work together. A big part of it is our outreach um providers meeting with SST or so whether that's secondary or elementary level and really identifying goals that the admin team want to work on. We don't want to step on any of the other service providers um work that they do. We know that that's vital and important, but we want to be a support because there's a part and a role for everyone. starting with admin through our counselors,

011teachers, advocates. And then we have our social workers or our schoolbased therapists that really help to meet those social and emotional and even sometimes physical needs, but they also need to be freed up to do the restricted services of therapy. And so we when we add that layer of community outreach, they can work on the basic needs, those physical needs, and really free up our schoolbased therapists to have that time. >> SST, what's that? >> Um, it is school success team. >> Okay. So yes, student or school success team. So that's typically in your high schools that they have an SST meeting and then social emotional well-being is typically that so team in elementary and so we want to add that layer of support so that we can take some of the work off of

012our um social workers. Um here's our feeder patterns districtwide and you'll see some stars where we have outreach. You'll see some gaps. there's areas that we're not serving as much and we plan our team and our coverage and this is about our fourth year implementing um it changes year-to-year but we plan it based on data so we look at the needs we look at our Mckento numbers we look at um services that are provided we track every touch point and we offer outreach at schools but we also need admin support because we want there to be clearly defined goals and so you'll see that we have some areas with more coverage and some with less and we'll be working on trying to balance that as we build three strong districts. Um we provide through braided

013funding and grant support we provide some liaison in the schools and so you'll see that you'll see some that are school provided. So if they have yellow behind the star that means that the school has set aside either TSSA or um their school lands their trust lands they have pledged the money to offer an outreach person at their school. And so we're starting to see more of that. We had five more come on this year and these lovely ladies have been helping bring them into our team and train them. So we love that we're seeing admin value this and fund it because it's helping build our team and the work that we do. So we're going to spend some time right now zooming in on one of our schools. Jessica is going to share some

014success stories and kind of the process at Cedar Valley of how they're becoming a community outreach school. So let's just switch to the All right. Well, sorry. I I had to write mine down because I was like, I don't want to miss anything. And so, I just want to keep my ideas all kind of together. But I'm excited to share with you guys today um what it looks like for the community outreach program at Cedar Valley High School. So, I started the community outreach as a community outreach coordinator at CVHS in January 2023. One of my first steps, many first steps was to get to know the students and the families. Um, luckily with um being having families referred to me for trans uh translation services and also kind of getting my foot in the

015door to help the counselors and let them know like I was there to help with the physical needs for students to kind of help our social worker be his sidekick that they started to um refer students to me. And so as I took that time to go and visit with students and families and starting to understand like the the needs of the family and what things were going on, I was able to kind of starting to put together a voice from our students and our families and kind of build like the needs and starting to see the things that we needed to have um help with, support with as a school or partnerships for. And um so I started to build uh a framework and with my guide as my guide I built a assetbased

016team with the help of all the key players in the community outside um outside of the school but also inside the our school. What what people in the school could help and what can we do to help these families. So this strategy transforms the school into a place where educators, local community members, families, and students work together to strengthen conditions for student learning, student learning, healthy development, and healthy development. As partners, they organize in and out of school resources, supports, and opportunities for young people to thrive. So, I just wanted to first off introduce you guys to kind of some of our team members. Not all of them, but I wanted to point out a few of them. These are the people that's kind of helped me to put the key framework practices into action.

017So, all those that we talked about in that circle, these guys are kind of my help to make those things work. And so together, we've been able to address the basic physical, mental, and emotional health needs of students and their families. We've been able to promote a school climate that is safe, supportive, and connect students to a broader learning community. So, I just kind of wanted to talk about a few of these and kind of point out a few of the things that they've done to help. So, first off, I I have to be in contact with my admin team, counseling team, and then like our school-based therapists, advocates, teachers, and support staff. Um, they they have the most contact with a lot of the students. They know what's going on. they're able to help

018me to know like where I need to put my focus, what students do I need to help with, but also they kind of have a vision of what they want the school to look like and our goals and what's happening there and what supports they'd like to see. So, I have to work with them in order to kind of start setting up um the supports, the added supports that we need there at the school. Um, and then I was excited because I joined the chamber um of commerce out in Eagle Mountain when it was just Eagle Mountain. Now it's changed to Valley Crossroads. But that was an added support as well because I was able to meet with Melissa Clark who's the president over the um chamber and get to know a lot of the

019companies and the places out there because I needed to know if parents were looking for jobs, who could they contact, if parents were needing like child care or other stuff. She kind of helped me find those connections, but also I joined the nonprofit group and that put me into a lot of connections with that with um other people that were it wasn't necessarily something that families had to pay for. These were things that maybe they could get some support and help free. Um so that has been a huge um asset as well. And then um inside our school, a lot of our clubs have helped with a lot of my different activities that we've done and bringing those students in to be able to get student voice and collaboration there. It's been great. So, National

020Honor Society, Latinos and Action, Student Council, Key Club, um all have helped with many of my events. And then, um and more, I was going to say math club. So, those are just to name a few. And then um we decided that we needed classes out there for parents. They were struggling to be able to communicate with counselors, with teachers um and couldn't keep an eye really on what was happening with their students because they weren't able to communicate so well. So we reached out to adult or Alpine Adult Education and we were able to create the English classes out there for the parents. It's been a huge success. We knew there was a need. We started out I think with 80 our first year and we've been up to around I can't remember it

021was over a hundred I think maybe it was 180 wasn't it last year. >> This year's 189. >> Yeah. So it's just grown and so grateful that we've been able to offer that to parents so that they can communicate with the school with the teachers to find out kind of more about how the systems work. Um Tabitha's way I care for kids. We just had them out there today actually to do a vision clinic. We saw 30 students and were able to get them glasses and an eye exam. Some had never had an eye exam or um had glasses before but ended up with them today. So um and then I have a list of a lot of our non um nonprofit community partners there in the front like Community Action Services, Birthday Box, Les

022Olson Company. they aren't, but uh Pioneer Community Church and um I have a guy that I met through um Eagle Mountain Surfs for local donations for bikes for students. So, these are some of the partners and I this is huge. So, I can't say that it's just only just me and our school. It's all these people coming together to help make sure that these students are getting the needs fulfilled and to be able to have the success that they that they want in the school. So, um go to our next slide. So, with this team effort, with all these team partnerships, we've been able to create systems of support to implement implement targeted frameworks. So, that first framework that we were talking about and um we I was going to say there's more things that

023we're doing at our school, but these are just a few. So, for expanded enriched learning time opportunities, when I first went out to Cedar Valley, I learned that a lot of students were struggling um with the language, but also like having individualized time to work [clears throat] with their teachers and needing more of that time. And so what we did is we set up a afterchool pizza parent study group and um we invited parents if they wanted to come which was a great opportunity. They could talk to teachers at that time or find out what their students are learning about. Um and also we invited like quite a few of our clubs to come the students and they've been tutoring. They've been helping to serve pizza. They've been there to help translate. So, that's been

024a great opportunity for our students. Um, as you see, that first um year that we started this, we had 846 students that participated. Well, I put those together in our in our afterchool tutoring program and then we had circles youth development classes in Spanish and English. And so we were able to get students even more um enriched learning time during that because they were learning about how to set goals, how to prepare for the future, healthy um relationships, healthy habits, kind of a fun class for them that was outside of their learning time to just kind of prepare for the future. Um how to set up savings accounts and things like that. And then our next one that we kind of um targeted out there was integrated systems of of support. So, our food pantry

025and we've done code drives, our schools helped, our student council, our key club, quite a few um national honor society, they've all helped to do food drives to kind of help us keep that um the pantry full, but we also work with community action services and they will help um support us with food there as well. But we were able to help 88 families. Well, 88 orders filled for students and families. I do have quite a few that come back, so I don't always mark if they come back for second times for stuff or help. And then um our holiday help, we were excited that we could offer that as well with our partnership with Tabitha's Way. and we were able to get 60 families help last year during the holidays, but also with our

026Christmas in the Valley program that we do, I was allowed to refer some of our um family names that I was aware of that we were working with. I was able to refer them to the Christmas in the Valley program and they raised funds and are able to give families checks so that they can go and buy something for their students for Christmas. And so if they aren't doing stuff for Santa or if they aren't able to get that, that's another system that we have in place to help families with Christmas. Um my next one is a culture of safe uh belonging, safety, and care. Um we started a new student breakfast and I've been working with the counselors with that and we just have students that come that registered the month before come the

027next month and we have a breakfast and we kind of do a get to know you. Um, we want to know like what questions they have, like what clubs they're interested in, things like that. um and discuss a lot of the the school, where can you find your counselor, what how would you um apply for scholarships or do drivers ed things like this to kind of help our students so they understand get an understanding more of the school but also maybe feeling a little bit more comfortable there and maybe create some new relationships while they're there at the group. And then our fifth one is um I just put together all the resources and you can see it on the table there that um or the pie chart what we did to help families within

028that year. So a lot of that was um the supports that we we did the community action services did to help families. So 111 st students and families were able to get individual care which I think pretty pretty amazing. >> Jess, I got a question on that. Um >> almost 30% it looks like of the resources are going to translation and food >> and so huge for those two things, right? >> Um and so is that tracking similar here in the 26 fiscal year or have you seen that shift just a little bit? >> Food still stayed pretty high. Translation's maybe gone down a little bit more. Um, I still am translating for a lot of families that I had kind of helped before, like last year and stuff, but that has definitely slowed down

029as like the change in the in the United States. So, yeah, I was like, and some families are starting to learn how to communicate themselves as well because of our classes and and be in here for a little bit longer and stuff. So, yeah, but I do still translate quite a bit. Yeah. >> Are you the only translator? Do you have other >> We actually have I was like there's maybe a handful of translators but it's just hard because we all have different assignments at the school and sometimes if someone's pulled for to help with an IEP or someone's pulled to help with like a registration or something else then if someone else comes in and needs that help then we Yeah. I was like we're on duty and sometimes we have to use Proio

030as well. So, because I was going to say not everyone's are Spanish speaker. I've helped families from Afghanistan which spoke Dari and a family from uh I don't know where they were from, but New York was where they'd lived before, but they spoke Arabic. >> So, yeah. All right. Sorry, I'm probably going over my time. I will hustle. Okay. >> Um, so I just wanted to share with you our last slide. Um this is kind of some data from the the past two well I'm going on to year three that I've been there at Cedar Valley. Um our first year our goal was set for like a 92% graduation and we didn't quite hit it. we were close, but our second year we were sat at 92% and we hit our goal, which I was

031super excited about because there was quite a few families and students that I was pushing for. We can do this. And um then in our connection survey, I was really excited to see the growth in that as well, that we had positive relationships with adults and that we had student connection and it grew. And I I attribute that also to a lot of things that we've been doing with community action um the community outreach in our school. I just want to share a quick story with you and I'll hustle really quick. Sorry. This is one of the students that I met um in March of 2024. She was brand new to the country. [snorts] She didn't speak any English. She came to me as a referral um from the counseling office to help her family

032with the registration process. And during that process, I learned that her family needed help with food, clothing, English classes, u medical insurance, validating their work credentials in the US, and more. The list of things, the living circumstances of her family qualified her from a Kin Vento, so they were in temporary housing. I helped to connect them to the outside resources for support to help support them in their home. I helped Kay and her family learn the systems of the school. Her name's not Kate, but I've shortened it. I um helped them learn the systems of the school as they came to us with questions and then I connected them to support at the school. Kay has had a desire to get the most that she can from her high school experience and she has come

033with some very difficult barriers to overcome, but with the help of the school staff and our teachers and our counselor and our community partnerships, we've been able to break down those barriers. Last year she passed the WEDA test which I was so surprised. I never heard her speak English [laughter] and someone was like she passed the WEDA test and I was like what? I'm like how I said to her how come you never spoke English to me? She wanted to participate on school sports teams and she came for searching for help but she didn't have any insurance. um she wanted to do cheer, she tried play different things. And we finally this year we got her connected with a community partner for medical insurance and she was able to secure a place on the Cedar

034Valley High School Ballroom dance team this year. So I'm so excited for her. She's on track to possibly graduate early next year and she's working on receiving her Zilla by literacy. So having these resources available to help her family um and a support team to in place to help her realize her dreams has been crucial to her success. So thank you guys. >> Jessica, don't disappear yet. >> Okay. [laughter] >> I know you're stressed about time, >> but flip back to your the Cedar Valley goals. I just want to like highlight when I'm looking at the numbers for 24 25 there were over 3,000 students at Cedar Valley. So not only did you have growth in the positive relationship with adults and student connection you had growth in the largest high school in our district

035and I constantly hear the idea of kids get lost in big schools. So, I want to highlight that not only did you increase both of those, but you increased it at a time where student growth was significant. So, take a bow, my friend. [laughter] That's impressive. [applause] >> Thanks for pointing that out. We love that culture climate connection survey and we're not spending a lot of time on it tonight because I know our superintendent just went over some highlights a couple board meetings ago, but we watch that a lot because we want to see that pivot happen. And you're right, when there's growth and new students coming, sometimes that beginning of the year and end of the year is totally different kids. And so the fact that there's growth with all that growth at Cedar

036Valley is huge. So thanks for acknowledging that. Okay, we're going to shift for a minute to the south part of our school. We have five community schools that run on a specific grant for the ORM area. It's called our ORM community school partnership. It runs under what is called the PFSS grant. Um Michelle's been very involved with this um with our schools and Vic is one of our admin here tonight from those five schools. Um it's the partnership for student success grant and it comes from the state level. We applied for it three years ago. We are now in our fourth year of a five-year grant and it has very specific academic goals. So, I love that this takes us through the full framework of community schools. It's not just removing barriers. It's removing barriers

037to access learning. And so, there's a lot that we do in this grant. We're going to spend a little bit of time um focusing in on those five schools so that we can show you some of the things that they are doing to really become community schools. It started with parent and family engagement, finding out where are the needs, doing some needs assessments and finding those gaps, and then meeting the families where they were, but getting from those transactions to the transformation. So making sure that those parents and those students are part of the choice in their school and they become leaders in the school themselves. And we have some great success stories. Um we have UEPC that is our um technical partner on that grant and Lisa is here tonight. Lisa Wisham helps us

038with that and you have a copy of the report in the center of the table. So there's copies of that if you'd like to look it over and it's also linked in the slideshow if you are more of a digital person. We do a lot of data collection for this. Um, but really we started with Maslo's hierarchy. We looked at what are the barriers to learning. What are some of those basic needs that we can meet? And then how do we get all the way up to where students are thriving? And so we spent a lot of time identifying those goals. And this is a big it's kind of a lot visually, but this is inside your report as well. We set um a logic model. So we decided what are the objectives and the

039outcomes that we want to achieve and who are our partners and our resources to make that happen. And so every year we take a look at this logic model and we decide do we need to improve, do we need to increase, what are we working on and we set very clear goals and our administrators and our um service providers and our teams and our community partners come and meet four times a year and we really clearly define our action steps to meet these goals. And so you'll see some very measurable academic goals that we track and we'll look at some of the results for that and share some celebrations later. But what I want to do right now is zoom in on one of our schools and talk a little bit about Westmore and celebrate

040some of the things that they're doing to become a community hub in their or area. So we're going to have Allison share that. >> [clears throat] >> So, I made all of these beautiful note cards and being inspired by some of the words that have been said, going to deviate from my own plan, which is never a great idea, but um here we go. Best of luck. Uh hold on. So, Westmore is one of those schools that is different uh different in the way that we are turning into a community school. We are a community school now. My connection [clears throat] with Westmore started as a parent. Um my kids attended Westmore. They've been there for I don't know for seven years now. And so starting out as a parent in PTA, seeing that there

041was a problem, there was a need. So going out and deciding that I was going to go out for PTA president and seeing that that still wasn't enough and then deciding to go for a crazy opportunity and applying for a job in the district to make more change. This is the story with a lot of our parents at Westmore and we're seeing the effects in a very positive way. Um at Westmore we follow the community school model. We believe in the four pillars that without the emotional, physical, social, and family well-being of our students that they can't thrive in the classroom that those stop growth. How often can you sit in a meeting and say you have a cavity and you ate something sweet and it's stuck in there and it hurts? You're sitting in

042this very meeting and you're thinking about your tooth. You're not thinking about what I'm saying. You're not thinking about whatever documents are in front of you. you're thinking about your tooth. We're trying to prevent that from happening to our students with this program. And it takes a whole group of us. So, we're trying to make a hub, a community hub at Westmore. So, here's just some of the highlights from last year. I won't go over all of them, but feel free to ask any questions if I skip one that you're really interested in. Um, Westmore is striving to follow a community hub model. uh the central place where families and neighbors and students can come for support, resources, and a strong community where everyone can thrive. Here's some of our highlights from last year. Like

043I said, um we coordinate a lot of events at our school with all of our community partners. Some of the things that we work on is um food and securities. So, we do a couple major food drives seasonally. Um, the biggest one we do is our Christmas food boxes. Some of you guys have seen those highlighted. I like to write about that one a lot. It ends up in some of the some of the newsletters. Um, but last year we fed 200 families and that is about a two week supply in these big boxes that we're creating. And so thanks to a generous donor and our community, we were able to feed 2 thou 2,000. Wouldn't that be something? 200 [laughter] 200 of our families at Wmore. And just for a little perspective, Westmore [clears

044throat] student body is about 500. So when you're looking at these numbers, they may seem so small, but the percentage on most of them is close to half, which is crazy. Um, last year 172 students were involved in our backpack club, which we pair with our 512 organization that Cassie will talk about more later. Um, this year we're at 190. So those numbers are increasing. And then of course we have our wildcat pantry that is on site and last year we had 74 families come through. Um this year we're already at 65. So just based off of the half year mark we're projected to double what we did last year. Um this has been really great because our community partner is actually community action food bank. Um they have several of our schools that we're

045now partnered with and they stock our shelves. We put in orders with them and they come and bring us the food. So, we never have to worry about our pantries going empty, which has been fantastic. Um, clothing. We have a nonprofit organization that Westmore works with that's called Giving Angels. Last year, they clothed 700 individuals in our community and we are hoping to do the same again this year. So, we're hosting our second event in just a couple weeks. Then we also have had partnerships with the Lynden Orum Rotary Club who gave us 80 winter coats last year for our students and then the same amount this year for donations. Um we also host many community events. Uh our most popular one is our multicultural and art event. This one I love because it's showcasing

046our families. Um, they get to come out, they get to show us their food, they get to show us their culture, they get to show us who they are in a safe and warm environment and it just I don't know, the food is great. So, if you guys want to come, that's coming up too on the 19th. You're welcome. Um, it will be great again and they just love the the kids this year have been saying that they want to sign up to participate. So, they'll come in and sign up their parents with me. Be like, "My mom's going to make her empanadas this year. Let her come. So, it's so great to see them getting involved. Um, we also really love our partnership with ORM PD. Um, they came into the school 22 times

047for positive interactions. So, we have reading with police and we have our cookies with cops, but then we just invite them to everything. We let the kids have as many touch points with the police as they can because lots of them have had bad scary interactions. So, we want to break down that barrier that they know that they're another support system for them. And then the last one we have is health. So we've brought in UVU Dental as a partner for last year. They helped over six well actually our sperm number with that one is 60 students in the spring semester. So they came in twice a week and they helped about six students a week. So that was fantastic. Um and then our after school program we partnered with Boys and Girls Club. This

048is a great partnership for us um because not only do they help have a safe environment for the kids to be after school when their parents can't attend to them yet. Um they also help us find housing and other supports for these families and they also help with the food. All right. Um part of having a strong hub is having a strong way to identify our needs. So we've gone over our systems already. Jessica did a great job of who they get referrals from. But that's the biggest part for me as the community outreach coordinator is knowing who to talk to, knowing how to communicate and finding those needs. So, it can be anything from changes in behavior and attendance and academic pro progress to just someone's a little bit sluggish. That might be something

049that happens too. Um, all of these are indicators that there might be something wrong. There might be a need that's not being met with that student. [clears throat] So, one of these um identifying these needs as a team came up with our success story that I will share with you. So, I'd like to introduce you to Sam. So, his name has been changed, but Sam is our little success of the year. So STEM, so with uh Westmore and Alpine School District, we partner with Friends for Sight. Um, and this became a life-changing event for Sam. Sam had passed all of his eye exams when we bring in all the PTA members and they point at the little chart and he passed them all, no problem. His teacher came to me and said, "Something is wrong.

050This kid cannot see. He is not progressing. Can we screen him again?" So, I took him out of class and brought him to the nurse and said, "We need to screen him again." And she was just like, "I do not know how this kid is passing his eye exams. He cannot see." And I was like, "Well, okay." So, we got him signed up for our sightfest. Um, and then he met with our doctor, the doctor, Jared Davis. Davis, who's been a volunteer with Friends for Sight for 14 years, and he found this. And this happens to be a metal shard in his cornea. >> It had been there long enough that it had rusted and there had been a network of beans that had built up around it and he was legally blind in that

051eye. So this poor kid had been walking around for he that when we talked with the doctor he said it's been at least a year if not more. And this cute kid, he just joked that it was his bad eye. If you asked him to do anything, oh, that's just my bad eye. But with the help of Dr. Davies, he was able to get this removed proono. With the help of Alpine Foundation, we were able to get gas cards for his family to take him up to the office. And now our cute little friend Sam is totally recovered and rocking his first pair of glasses and actually loves them. So, we're excited to see where Sam where Sam Sam progresses throughout the rest of the year with his academics. His behavior's already improved. We don't

052talk about him as much in our intervention meetings, which is great. And, you know, overall, he seems to be a happier, healthier kid. This is all just a testament to the community school model. We are trying to take our school and we are succeeding from taking it from what it was to what it can be. We are evolving. For years, we have successfully operated as a transactional school providing services and parents giving support. But we are aiming for a higher goal. We are aiming towards becoming a transformative school. In a transformative school, it becomes more than just an exchange of resources. We're looking to build power together. We aren't just looking to improve test scores. We are looking to change the trajectory of our students lives. This shift means moving from doing for our families

053or dreaming with them. I just am so grateful for Sam's story. And at Westmore, the families aren't just a client of our school. They are the architects of its future. So, thank you so much. [applause] I love that story. Um, I happened to be there that day and there were tears in that doctor's eyes as he identified an an incredible barrier for that student and I know the intervention team had been worried about the student, his behavior, his academics and then add second language on top of that and I'm really excited to see how this student progresses because they were able to remove something that was impeding his learning. And so just one success story but tells the story of a lot of things that are happening in our schools. Um, I wanted to quickly

054share as part of our um, UEPC report, the Utah Education Policy Center, they go out every year and do one-on-one interviews with our admin and our community partners in the ORM area to see what do we need to do next? And so, we're grateful for the time that they spend that I can't spend going out and asking those questions and it's a chance for those people to say, "Okay, we need to improve. The district needs to improve." They can talk about us if they want. Um, but one quote that I loved, and this happened to be from Westmore, so I'm going to assume it's somebody in the room, but who knows? But um part of that I thought of this as you were talking about moving from transactional to transformational. It says in this interview

055part of the whole process of the community school effort is that we're helping provide services that people need. And in that relationship it's now a service for them. They've gotten the things that they need and now they're saying what can I do to help? We're starting to move from transactional into that transformational and they're now a part of the solution. and they feel like they're part of the community and they want to serve in the school. And so, um, they went on to talk about an increase in volunteerism, specifically more male and Spanish speaking members of their PTA. Um, they talked about how it's improving their attendance. Um, they've built trust with families and it's starting to transfer to academic achievement. So, just some success stories. You have the report in front of you. We

056also have a partner in UVU that provides our data dashboard. Our community partners and our admin teams love this dashboard. Anything they ask for, our rep from UVU makes it happen. Brady's amazing. They've asked for mobility. They've asked for they really want these pages to tell their story. And so, if you have some time to go into that dashboard, you will see the community school and the school profile pages. And they are up toate and current and they keep track of their academic data and other progress um happening in the school. And so we're super grateful that that's part of that PFSS grant. We're going to do some quick celebrations because academic achievement is what it's all about. We want to make sure that students are thriving, flourishing, and feeling successful. As a whole ORM

057Community School project, here are some of the wins that we had this last year in Aadian reading. We set goals for kindergarten and third grade. And um our goal this year for kindergarten is an increase of 4%. We've done that each year of the grant and our target was 74% and we hit 77 which was 7% from the year before. So not only um the 4% that we wanted but an increase on top of that. So that's a big celebration. Um third grade uh the goal is to increase proficiency by 2%. Um it was a target of 45 and they hit 57. And so we love seeing those big gains. So removing all these barriers, getting schools to feel safe and connected. We're seeing the evidence and this is a lot of people working. This

058isn't just our team. This is the entire team working for those bulls um in the school. I'm zooming in again on Westmore because we have to celebrate this. Look at those kindergarten numbers. I mean that was averaged into our other schools, but 42.9% growth in a cadence reading. Holy cow. I hope you did a lot of celebrating at the end of the year. Wesmore um or junior. So we have a goal for nth grade completion so that we can feed everything into our feeder pattern all the way to graduation from high school. And ORM Junior when we began the grant was at 61.4% for nth grade completion. Each year we trade increased by 2%. So our goal was 74.6 this past year and they hit 87.9. So a lot of celebrating happening at ORM Jr.

059as well. And it's fun when we meet in the fall and we finally start to have all the data coming in. Some of it slow and especially high school graduation. But we do a lot of celebrating as an Oregon Community School partnership. Um, Mountain View concurrent enrollment is part of our goal. We want them to be college and career ready. And so we set goals there of 3% um in taking one course at least. We want to improve that each year. And our goal this year was 28. And we saw an increase of 42. And when you see the number of students since the grant began, it's almost double. So kids are accessing concurrent enrollment and really becoming college ready. and look at the number of credits per student, 7.5. So, they're really taking advantage

060of a great program to learn on that college level and really advance. Um, high school graduation rate goal of 85.9 and our target for the end of five years was 87.9 and this last year, Mountain View was at 88.4. So, just some really great celebrations for some of the data that we track in the Orange Schools. Lastly, we want to kind of go through some of our community partners because I don't want any of these partnerships to be lost as we divide into three strong districts. We have a lot of cross- sector partners and it's taken a lot of time and energy to vet these partners and to make sure they offer either free or reduced services for our families. And so, it's a little bit of a scrapbook of some of our events. Um,

061I know some of you have been involved in some of these. So, one of our big ones is Tabitha's Way. We are so grateful not only do they serve us in the central area in Pleasant Grove, but they also have a facility in Saratoga now. So, we're able to get access for our families on the west side and that just recently they did a thousand meals. Some of our team helped put those together and then our service provider and admin teams delivered all of those meals this year. So, we're so grateful for that partner. Community Action Services, as was mentioned, our pantries are filled by them. Um, but they also do weekend meals for students. They do snack bags for our schools so that we have access for some kids that maybe come to school

062hungry. Um, and then 512 does our weekend meals. So, we send students that have food insecurity home with food for the weekend. They come down, sometimes it's private, sometimes it's just part of the school culture and they fill their backpack with food so that they don't have to wonder where the next meal is coming from when they don't have free and reduced meals at school. Um, we also have for clothing needs, we have a new partner this year which is kind fund. They will do up to $150 per student to get coat, shoes, clothing, things of need. And we're grateful for that because we do not have our DI vouchers from the LDS church this year. That grant was ended and repurposed and we'll be reapplying for a new grant that they have for this

063located. >> It is not really located anywhere. So, the founder is Chelsea Ba. If you're familiar with the BA family, um they um donate the money and then they provide volunteers that go and do the shopping. You turn in a wish list, they do the shopping and they deliver the items to the school to give to the students. So they're kind of out of ORM, but they're not a location. We are one of their first partners and we're giving it a go this year and it's been great to add them to our team. Another, we could not do what we do without our Alpine School um district foundation. So our 5013C Tyler and Karen really help meet the needs that we have gaps. So if we cannot find a partner, we try to find all

064of our vetted resources. They come through and say, "Okay, what does the family need?" and they help us with that, including transportation to a doctor's office if needed. Um, United Way, we are so lucky to have an added community center here in American Fork. They've always been a great partner with their um center in Provo, but now that we have a center locally, they are providing some of our extended learning. So, they do classes for families, students, parents in the evening. They run a summer course that our students are invited to and they also do our sub for Santa holiday meal health and help a lot of our families in this community. So, we're grateful to them and they're hoping to expand. They are bursting out of their community center here in Lincoln Fork. Um,

065as we mentioned, a lot of sightfests, this is such a great way to remove an immediate barrier. 194 kids so far this year, we had more today out at Cedar Valley, um, have got free glasses and immediately, it's so fun on delivery day to see kids notice things. All of a sudden, they can read something they couldn't read before. They can connect with somebody and they notice details. And so just a great way to give that gift of sight so that they can learn. Other free resources for some of those um physical, mental, emotional needs. We have all of these partners that come into our buildings and do resource nights, offer flyers, offer free programs and we are so grateful for each of them and we'll continue to ask for their support. Boys and Girls

066Club help extend that learning time. And so they come into several of our schools and offer an afterchool program free of charge and even a summer school free of charge with scholarships that they offer. They were able to fund every student this past summer even though they lost some of their grants. Um with our Oregon Community School project because of our literacy goal, they make sure that students are in a book reading when they are after school. And so you can see that they had 44,000 minutes um engaged in reading in the after school program. So we're super grateful for that partner. And as mentioned, they also help with housing needs. Um, family supports. So, we also want to extend the learning to families and help create a better transformation for them and a better

067situation for them. And so, we have UVU Stronger Families. We have United Way Everyday Strong. They'll come in and teach courses or offer classes for our families. We have um partners that provide um tax help, vocational training, and language and translation support. And then we try to do weed and nights on school levels so that families understand what that test is and what the purpose is and how to help their kids um succeed in that. Um another extended learning is that we have our alpine adult education. We talked about the frontier program. We've also just last week added an English class course at Silver Lake based on need. So we're excited to have another way to support and we're trying to get one at Vista and Westlake right now. And we're grateful for our alpine

068adult ed that helps to fund that um the instructors for that. And um we're also grateful for community action that provides circles some afterchool learning. And as Jessica mentioned, we also have pizza parent and study group and Frontier if if you want something amazing. I know Polaris is an amazing graduation. There's a lot. Dan Peterson is amazing. But I'm um sorry uh a tech but frontier adult English class 141 graduates last May and it was so fun to go and see them celebrate with their families. Um this is just a quick list that we're kind of building of all of our barriers and all of our partners so that as we continue on we can make sure that we have um really well vetted partners that we can um connect families to to address these

069barriers so that students can learn data. I know these slides are shared with you, but we kind of want to break down our members of our team, our coverage, and our touch points already this year. As mentioned, we don't duplicate. So, if a family reaches out for food, we track that once. We don't continue to track each time they come to the pantry. But you can see that needs are different. I love that Rob's over there adding up numbers. Needs are different depending on the area. And we watch that and we track that. And each school offers different services. you see that there was a lot of translation support at Cedar Valley and I don't think it was even on your pie chart because the office is typically handling that. Yeah. So depending on the

070support in the school it may not come to outreach. Um, but you'll see our south area, our west, our lake mountain area, a lot of touch points and some of that is because they offer a lot of afterchool. They reach our comm our team members cover multiple schools out there instead of one like our ORM schools and our resources are harder to get to um our west side especially with transportation needs and so we bring a lot of services to them at the school. And then our Aspen Peaks area. We know that we are a little bit more weak in our Aspen Peaks area for coverage. This year we split our full-time person Lehi into two based on some McKenna Vento data that you'll see. We needed somebody in AF and we didn't have increased

071funding. So we tried to cover two areas with one person and we'd love to increase and offer more supports based on some data and asking peaks. It hasn't been as much of a need until now. We see some changes happening. So, quickly, I also oversee Mckin Vento. Annabel Tran is amazing at this. Um, but I just want to show the trends. We went over last year's numbers with you guys previously, but I want to show that we're down a little bit on McKenna Vento this year. Some of that's just due to changes in enrollment and maybe less newcomer families um in the area, but we have seen an increase in unaccompanied homeless youth. So, that's students that do not have a guardian assigned to them, whether that's because of deportation, whether that's because of incarceration.

072There's a lot of reasons, but we have some students that are do not have a legal guardian right now. So, we track those under McKenna Vento. So, we've broken down our data so far this year by our three strong districts so that you can kind of see and look and um notice where the growth is. Um you can see our high point in our south area is Mountain View and um neighboring schools Orm Junior Lakeidge and Westmore kind of some of our high players and that's why we have one-on-one outreach at those schools and you can see our unaccompanied homeless youth is 29 and then we have some schools that don't have McKinnon right now but that kind of gives you a snapshot. Um in our Aspen um Peaks school district we have 145 so

073about the same numbers but you can see American Pork High School in Greenwood and AF Junior. Based on that we knew we needed some more supports in AF and so we're starting to see an uptick in our Mckin Vento in that area and so we want to offer more support in our central area for those families. And then in our Lake Mountain 138 and you can see that Cedar Valley West Lake which are big schools so of course their numbers are going to be high but they're high for your area and Frontier and so we have um and we have someone at Sage this year too. So we've got coverage in those areas that have and and an increased number of uh in Lake Mountain as well. So real quickly to summarize and I know

074we've gone over on time and I hope we have a minute for questions. Um just wanted to highlight some bright spots. We love our community partners. Um we love that we're starting to move along to get to transformation in our um cycle of improvement. We love that we're supporting our schoolbased therapists and we know that they're freed up a bit in some of these schools to really work with those students with some emotional needs. Um we love that schools are saying, "Hey, how can I get outreach to the point where they're starting to fund their own if we can't offer it on a district level?" Um, we love that when we set clear academic goals and we have admin support to help us run the whole system, we are seeing improvement and we're tracking that

075data, especially in the ORM area. Um, we are excited that just today in budget appropriations up at the state there is a new bill. It's the first time we've had a specific grant for the work of cross- sector community partnerships. And so I've been involved with promise partnership up in Salt Lake and United Way to get this bill it from an act into a bill and um it's to the tune of five million that's already in the governor's budget and there'll be about 20 eleas that can apply for this and we hope to be one of those. It's targeted at some rural areas but there's also some feeder patterns that we feel like we could align with and so there's information on that if you want to click on that and learn more about SB165

076from Senator Filmore. um outreach coverage. We want to we're excited that we have coverage in all three and um we are excited that we were part of um the office of legislative auditor generals came out last year and they met with principles, they met with um outreach people in schools. They were collecting best practices for their handbook and we made it onto the top 10 list for school administrators. And so you have a copy of just one. Our page was two pages. Um uh if you turn that over, this is kind of what the handbook is for. If you turn over onto the back, you'll see their recommendation for community school model to free up administrators to focus on instruction. And so what they gained from meeting with our principles and some of our outreach

077um across the state is that they said that it gave time back to the administrators to not have to worry about all those resources for families. and they were able to be in the classroom more and that was one of their other top 10 was to make sure that our instructional leaders are in the classroom observing the teachers and helping them. And so we made it on the top 10 list in that handbook this year as a community school model. And so we're celebrating that. Um, our next steps, we would like to add our full-time coordinator back into that central area just based on needs so that we can have somebody to really orchestrate all the resources in the central part of our district to make sure we're strong and ready for all three. So,

078any questions? I know that was a lot of information. I appreciate your patience. You guys have links to most of it, but reach out if you have anything else that you would like to look at or learn from. And any questions for us, our team, >> your community partners, do you have ways that you recognize them or, you know, >> we certainly appreciate them and I just want to publicly say thank you to all of them that >> that's great. They'll reach out from time to time for a letter of support. I know right now United Way has reached out for that with a grant that they're trying to add a community center, a bigger community center here in the area. And so letters of support if they need it, but really we show up

079for them just like they come to all of our evening events when they have events, we try to go and support them. So our team will go out and we try to help them with we volunteer at the community center events for United Way each time. Um we go out to community action to help um and we go to Tabitha's way to help. We just try to give back by serving them in return. And so we do a lot of that. And our counselors and our service providers, they go and help whenever they can too. and you really have made the case for academic um you you moved the dial academically as well as in just social and emotional well-being. So, wow. Thank you to Vic and all you principles that have led learning uh

080with these community partners. I this just that's amazing growth. We're grateful to our admin teams because we can't do it without those clearly defined goals. And so it takes the whole school team being a part of this and being in the right spaces, being in those meetings where they're talking about students and needs so that we can take some weight off of the rest of the team. So thank you for pointing that out. Thank you all for your time. Yes. >> Got another question back on 38. >> Yes. >> Where your connections are listed. >> Do we have any gaps or are there areas that we could more fully connect connect with or partner with or seek partners in areas that will help meet needs for these community coordinators and support of students. It seems

081to me there's a couple areas that might be a little deficient. We might want to see additional partners. Just love your thoughts on that. >> For us, I always feel like it's a struggle for health healthcare. >> Um yes, recently we've been able to get more access to eye eye attention. Um, we really only have had one successful partnership with UVU as far as dental, but dental is really hard to get students into. We partner with Mountainlands and they're always booked out at least six months. So, it's really difficult for the health sector as far as partners go. And some changes on the state level are making that more difficult. >> Yep. A lot of changes to um Medicaid and Medicare, a lot of cuts. And so I serve also on a community outreach with

082Inter Mountain and they're prepping for that and what can they do for families that now are losing services. And so a lot of changes coming with that. Um Bingham Family Clinic is set to open here soon. It's out of UVU. >> Some of us went and did a tour and we're excited for that because that's going to be free healthc care for families um once it opens. So we're excited for that. >> I was going to say transportation has been kind of difficult. Um, I love that Anna Beltran, who works with our Mckini Vento students, she will try to arrange stuff with our transportation to get busing if by chance say a student moves outside of the school boundaries, but they want to still continue going to a lot of our kids, like say they're

083a senior and they want to continue finishing out that year, but they aren't in the boundaries anymore, but parents can't afford the transportation to bring them back and forth. And so I think that's kind of been difficult because sometimes we haven't been able to get that arranged through our ASD transport to get students to the school and sometimes we've had to either change like the student has to change the boundaries or we've got to go to other resources or try to find other things to help them get there. I was like and um >> and then on a big housing I know we always talk about transportation housing. It's just the cost of living. We have a lot of families combined living together trying to make it work. Um, but luckily we have a couple

084partners that will offer grants but with that they need to take courses to improve and so we love that. I mean we just connect the families with who need to be taking these courses and then you get some grants and some opportunities for housing with that and so part of the process. But thank you. >> Hey, >> can I just ask I'm just uh this is a a loaded question. >> Okay. But um have uh has your programming been impacted by uh increased enforcement of documentation uh for um the students parents. Has that impacted you very much? Now I'm just >> Yeah, it's a great question. I should let our um school teams weigh in on it. We started [clears throat] with this last January. We saw an attendance dip. We saw some families not

085feeling safe for a minute. Um, we tracked it across the district and our schools that have been running on this community school model, the families came right back really quickly because they felt safe. And I would really put a nod to our ORMPD because we have a lot of minority families and newcomer families and our RMPD is in the schools enough that that wasn't a threat. Have we seen a change overall over the last year? Yes. Have we seen some families right now, especially in the last month, um Anna Beltran and I have spent some time calling families because we feel some families going a little bit underground, not sending um students to school and not feeling safe, and we're a little bit worried about that, but we just hope that with all our efforts,

086school will continue to be a safe place. Um we want to assure families that we're not reporting. We don't ask for that documentation. We don't even want that documentation. Um, some of our grants and some of our partners have disappeared over this last year because of that. We had some that were very dependent on documentation and so we have some of our partners that were not able to send their families there because they now have to have um documentation and citizenship and so yes, it's been impacted but we've tried to find a workaround for some of those grants that we've lost and we try to continue to tell families that were a safe place. So that's hard on a national level but >> it is. >> Yes. But we did track attendance starting with last

087January when there was an announcement that um schools were involved in some of that. Um but we noticed that our families felt safe pretty immediately. So we really credit the school teams and their efforts for that. So >> do you mind if I ask principal Larson to speak to that? >> Do you want to to that question? Yeah, I would agree. Um, community schools have made a positive impact on attendance. Um, especially within the population that um, might have some concerns about documentation and feeling safe to come to school. Just like what Cassie mentioned, um, some of those families kind of went, you might say underground for a moment, but they pop right back up in the community schools because they feel very safe. Um we have a plethora of resources and I would say

088the community schools we have developed such deep partnerships with so many outside organizations they actually felt very safe and to come back. So in fact at my school our attendance has gone up compared to last year especially within more of our Hispanic or minority populations as well. And I would credit that really directly to the fact that we know they know we care. Um, we show up for them because we love them and because we are serving them, they are coming right back. And the proof is in the pudding. Our academic scores are increasing. Our attendance rates are increasing. So, we're we are not seeing some of the same as a community school as I would say as some of our similar counterparts. >> Okay. Any other questions for us before we wrap up? >>

089We thank you for this time. We thank you for the chance to advocate for a program. We love it. We love what we do. And I have to end with this slide because it's about the whole team. We link arms to make sure that students and families feel connected and safe. We measure that. We look for that. And some of that evidence can't be measured, but we see it in the way that the school feels and that the families continue to feel safe enough to send their students. So, thank you for your time and feel free to reach out if you have any questions after today. So, THANKS. [applause] OKAY, we want to thank everybody, especially our community outreach coordinators. It's just really impressive the work that you do. We're incredibly grateful. Um, we uh

090are adjourned until our meeting at 6 o'clock. Thank you. We are going to call our meeting to order. Um, my brain just stopped functioning. Um, I want to start off by excusing Joy Lynn Lincoln. She is out of town tonight and um, not joining us. Um, we're going to start off with the Pledge of Allegiance by Becky Carter. You're there. Thank you. Next we will have our inspirational thought by Michaela Mchznney from the Bonavville PTA. Okay. We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. Franklin D. Roosevelt. Elementary schools are where futures quietly begin instruction. They are places where values are formed, confidence is built, and children learn that they matter. Through my time in the PTA, I gained a deeper understanding of the work the

091administrators shoulder, responsibility for every child and family. Teachers give tirelessly, often without recognition. And students grow not only academically, but in kindness, resilience, and empathy. Elementary schools do more than educate. They shape the future of our communities. What we do here today may feel small, but it echoes for a lifetime. Because when we invest in our children early, we don't just change their future, we change the world they will lead. >> Thank you. As the board of education, it's important for us to recognize various accomplishments made by students, employees, and patrons from throughout the Alpine School District. As we honor the individuals and groups this evening, we acknowledge the families and others who have helped them to achieve their goals. Thank you for the support you have offered to those and we are going to

092recognize them at this time. We appreciate your attendance here tonight. And also feel free once we're done with the recognitions and photos and everything, you can feel free to exit. It's not rude or anything. Um you don't need to stay the whole time. So we are going to have um start with Mark Clement. >> Thank you. Um I'm excited to invite uh Jill Anderson, Kirk Nixon, and Principal John Emma to come forward. I have to tell you that uh I am pretty excited to be able to have this award presented. I remember when we talked about this, John, that's something that the school found was really unifying and we really appreciate this opportunity to honor you tonight. Uh Jill Anderson was a a dedicated school nurse serving at Mount Mahogany Elementary and other schools. She

093deserves our highest praise tonight for her heroic life-saving actions in late November when one of our crossing guards suddenly collapsed while on duty. Jill rushed to the scene without hesitation and performed immediate CPR using an AED to stabilize him until emergency responders arrived. It's because of Jill's quick thinking, calm composure, and decisive action that a life was saved. We're profoundly honored to have such a courageous and compassionate professional serving our students and staff. On behalf of the board, we thank Jill for her bravery and for representing the very best in our Alpine family. Thank you so much. [applause] >> [applause] [applause] >> All right. Next, we are excited to honor several individuals from Bonavville Elementary School and welcome Principal Matt Das uh to present the Spirit of Excellence Awards for his school. >> All right,

094I probably could go off script and take a lot of time, but I'm going to read what we wrote so that we stay on track. So, uh, you've already met our incredible PTA president, Kayla Mcchznney. So, she's our first honore. Uh, Kayla has served as our PTA president for the last two years and has been an incredible support to Bonavville Elementary. >> Um, her leadership and dedication, especially in creating and supporting reading programs, have made a lasting impact on our students and our school community, and we're lucky to have her. [applause] >> [applause] >> All right, our next volunteer is Leslie Allen. She's been instrumental in making our take-home reading program a success. Without her countless hours of work over the summer and throughout the school year, this program would not be where it is

095today, and our students are better readers because of her efforts. [applause] I I may have moved the whole take-home reading library over the summer and accidentally disorganized it. Um, support pair of professionals. Murf, where you at? Come on up. Although new to Bonavville, Sher Samberg, or who we affectionately call Murf, brings a wealth of skill and knowledge and experience to our school from her previous experiences. She is a culture setter. Everybody at the school knows her and loves her. She's always willing to step in and help us wherever needed. >> Don't let that fall. I already do it once. [applause] Noel Thomas works in our wellness and focus room where she provides essential academic and behavioral support to students in need. Her calm presence and dedication help students feel supported, regulated, and ready to learn.

096[applause] All right, Ashley. All right, this is this my favorite part. I love the teachers. They're the backbone of the school and they're incredible. And Ashley is an incredible teacher. She has this ability to connect with young learners while setting high expectations. Her students have shown significant growth in both academic assessments and in their confidence, reflecting her strong instruction and care for each kid. [applause] Oakley Jorgensson has worked with all of our sixth graders in English language. I need to learn English language arts. She has worked with all of our sixth grade students in English language arts this year and has helped them achieve major growth on diagnostic assessments. She's equipping students with the skills and confidence they need to be successful as they transition to junior high. [applause] Nice [laughter] job. Thank you. All

097of you. >> [applause] >> All right, the fun part. How many students do we have here? I see some of them here. All right, we're good. We got some. All right. So, uh, when we were asked to recognize our school, what I did is I ended up emailing all of our teachers and I said, "Please pick a student from each grade level because I believe every one of our students is deserving, but these are the students that were selected out of uh, Bonavville Elementary by the team leads and by the teachers on each grade level." And they gave me some reasoning why. And I love that most of the reasons are how much effort they put into their growth and their learning themselves. So that's what we're celebrating is what great learners they are. So

098the first student that we're going to recognize is in sixth grade. It's Daxton Carlson. He's being recognized for his strong dedication to school, his loyalty as a friend, and the respect he shows to those around him. [applause] All right, in fifth grade, we're recognizing Olivia Wright. She's kind to everyone and takes great pride in the classroom. She stays after school every day to help clean up and ensure it remains a positive, welcoming place for our class. She also takes great pride in her learning and consistently demonstrates a strong growth mindset which has led to meaningful progress and a great deal of success for her this year. [applause] All right, from fourth grade we have Alan Rodriguez Martinez. He went from 366 to 446 on his math diagnostic and has made 333% growth this year so

099far, which we're only halfway there. He continues to work hard and improve his learning. So celebrate uh our [applause] From third grade, we have Ian Bull. He has made the most growth in math for the entire third grade and the third most growth for reading in the entire third grade. We're proud of how hard he is working and improving. [applause] >> All right, second grade we have Fernando Compass Perez. He has shown so much growth this year, not only academically, but also socially and personally. He's been a great help to a student in our class that is new to the country and speaks a different language than the two that Fernando already speaks. We love having Fernando in our school. [applause] All right. From first grade, we have Eleanor Wilkins. Elanor Yeah. always tries her

100best on all assignments, even if they challenge her. She's a great friend to all students and her kindness is contagious. [applause] I actually 100% agree with that because Elanor always gives great smiles in the lunchroom. All right. And for kindergartener, we have for kindergarten, we have Keegan King. Where's Keegan? There he is. He made well above typical growth in both his reading and math. He loves to participate in class, works hard to do his best, and is kind to others. Come on over, dude. [applause] Oh yeah. There you go. All right, that is always a great part of our meeting. Um, I want to take a moment to Oh, never mind. I'm going to stop talking now. >> I really thought I was done. I remembered I was supposed to give a school report. >>

101You got this. >> All right. Um, I consider myself really lucky. I was an administrator out uh at Riverview Elementary for nine years and three years ago I got a phone call to come down to Bonavville and when I came into Bonavville I didn't know what to expect and I will tell you it surpassed all of my expectations. The community is super supportive. The parents are incredible. They're trying so hard to give their kids the best life they possibly can. We have incredible students who work hard every single day. We have teachers that bring everything that they have into the school every single day. And I just love being a part of the community. And so whether it's through our writer values that we're teaching the students, whether it's through academic success, whatever we might

102be doing there, Bonavville is a great place to be an employee, it's a great place to be a kid, and I'm just really blessed to be there, and I appreciate the opportunity. >> [applause] >> Okay, now it's my turn to talk. Sorry. Sorry, Principal Das. Okay, thank you so much and thank you to all of the parents that brought your kids out tonight. We really appreciate it. We appreciate everybody's hard work. Um it really is wonderful to have communities come together and for the su for the success of our kids it's really great. Okay we are going to move on. So if you want to sneak out go for it. staff. That does not apply to you. [laughter] >> Okay. We now have up to 30 minutes set aside for public comment. This opportunity is

103for patrons living within the Alpine School boundary school district boundary. A signup sheet is available prior to the meeting allowing for up to 10 patrons the opportunity to speak. Those living outside of Alpine School District and those who were unable to sign up before all slots were full can submit written comments at alpineschools.org/schoolboard. Scanning the QR code in the lobby will also direct you to the form. As you are called up, please introduce yourself by stating your name. You will be given up to three minutes to speak. While the board does not engage in discussion during the public comment period, they may arrange for a staff member to communicate with you later. Personnel issues are not appropriate discussion items for an open meeting environment. If you have a personnel concern, please contact a member of

104administration or put your concerns in writing and address it to the board of education. Uh tonight we have one public comment from Kim Toppam and Michelle Sorenson. >> My name is Kim Topham. I serve as the PTA chair for region 8. >> I'm Michelle Sorenson. I serve as region 8 vice chair >> during this month of national school board appreciation. On behalf of your PTA partners, we just want to acknowledge that we recognize how fortunate we are to have each one of you serving on our board in this district. We really appreciate you. >> We thank you for all the work that you do behind the scenes and um for being strong advocates for our children, which is a vision that we share with um you and PTA together. Uh we know that you work

105so hard and we have a special gift that we're going to drop off to you later this week in your boxes and um but we just wanted to say thank you and know that we care and on on behalf of all PTA members throughout the whole district. >> Thank you. [applause] >> All right. Next up we have um the approval of our minutes. I will entertain a motion. >> I move that we approve the minutes. I'll second. >> All right. With a motion by board president King and a second by uh board vice president Baitman. Uh any discussion? All right. All those in favor of approving the minutes? >> I. >> Any opposed? All right. Uh President Oh my goodness. [laughter] Superintendent Smith, I'm gonna happily give you the mic. >> Thank you, [laughter] board

106member Peterson. We have just one routine business item tonight. We have some LEA specific licenses for your approval. They were in your packet. Would recommend you approve the routine business. >> Okay. I will entertain a motion. >> Move that we approve the routine business. >> Second. >> All right. With a motion by board member Clement and a second by board member Wilson. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor say I. I. >> I. >> Any opposed? >> All right. That appears to have passed unanimously. Uh, Superintendent Smith. >> Thank you. We have a couple of policy items for you to consider, discuss, uh, defer or uh, take action upon. Tonight, uh, we've invited Craig Brinkerhoff to come, our executive director of legal services, and he will be prepared to review those policies with you,

107answer any questions. Craig, >> thank you, Superintendent Smith. Um, we have three policies on the agenda today. Uh, policy 1112, policy 5404, and policy 4740. uh with policy 1112 and 5404, our uh goal is to combine those two policies into one. They both relate to news media. Um we did have some feedback from a board member and we appreciate that. Uh based on that feedback feedback, my recommendation tonight for that combination is that we hold but discuss and I can I can talk about some of the changes that we want to make to that policy. So one of the things that we wanted to do was uh clarify what is news media. Um the intention right now is that we'll take the uh definition from the go the grammar code state of Utah grammar code

108which defines media. Um and then also in order to where where these policies extend to new districts we want to make sure they're friendly to new districts. And so one of the things that we wanted to do is change uh it talks about uh the communications department. there's no guarantee that those new districts uh will each have their own communications department at least in that structure. They could have some form. Um and so what uh we're going to propose is that maybe we change it to something like communications team and a communications team can be anybody that the superintendent uh designates uh for that purpose. So, those are a couple of the changes um that we're doing there. And then we're making a couple tweaks with FURPA uh within that policy. And uh anyway, my

109recommendation for tonight is that we hold on both the retirement and the combination of those two policies so that we can kick that back to our U policy committee um and bring it back to you next month. >> Okay. Thank you. Can I >> All right, let's make a motion. >> Yes. >> I move that we hold on policy 1112 and 5404. Do I even need to make a motion on that? >> No, I don't think so. >> I I thought that after I said that. [laughter] >> It's fine because it threw me off, too. I was like, so what do we do now for the policy committee? Do we want to discuss those concerns or do we want to do that via email? >> I I I think we ought to do it either

110email or or talk to each board member on our own this week and see so we'll be prepared for next month unless you >> what concerns there were. >> So just for clarity, I did submit an email to Craig um asking for it. So I didn't want to send it to the entirety of the committee and violate OPMA. So, I sent it directly to Craig and he has all of the suggested changes and so that's why I didn't email the committee because of that. >> I understand there's some really good suggestions. So, we'll look for that email. Thank you. >> Okay. Thank you and thank you for all that work that you're doing on that. All right. We have >> So, I'll just go to the next policy. That's okay. >> Uh policy 4740. This

111is policy this is three of three. So you've already seen this policy appear for classif or for ESPs and you've seen the same policy appear for our certified personnel. This policy is the one that's directed to our administrators. It is the military leave policy. It allows mil uh military members to get 15 days for training um when they when they have to complete their training uh requirements on [snorts] an annual basis. And so this policy follows the state um code with relation to state employees and um where the political subdivision we as an LEA here in the school district were not necessarily state employees but we wanted to offer the same benefit that the state is providing to their employees which um is a great benefit to those u people in our military those that

112serve our country that are also teachers and administrators. so they can have time off to do that training and not have to take personal time off. So this policy is near exact uh the same as the certified and the ESP policy. We had to make a minor change because administrators do not have personal days. And so if they go over the 15 days, then it would be a vacation day rather than a personal day. So that should be the only tweak um or difference between the other two policies. Okay. Thank you. Does anybody want to make a motion? >> I move that we approve policy 4740. >> I'll second it. All right. With um a motion by board member Wilson and a second by board member Bon. Do we have any discussion? >> I think

113it's been clear that Craig has outlined this is we've done this before and this is the third. So, I appreciate the clarity. Craig. Thank you. >> Okay. Any other Smith? All right. Um, all those in favor say I. >> I. Any opposed? All right. That appears to have passed unanimously. Uh, superintendent. So, we've got our last item on our agenda is board member and superintendent reports and information items. Anybody have things they want to share? I just want to uh talk about our our study session highlight the presentation that we heard today outstanding from our our community engagement specialists in the district uh Cassie Lewis and her team Cassie Lewis Saxton and her team. We just uh really that was so enlightening and um I really just appreciated the connection that was made to that

114when our schools become community centers, community hubs that that actual achievement academic achieve achievement goes up and that was demonstrated in uh many of our schools in in the Oram area and I'm just very proud. >> Thank you. Uh, Superintendent Smith and I had the opportunity to um attend uh the reflections uh recipient awards night with our students and it was an absolute joy to be with those students and see some of the wonderful and outstanding work with those students. It's just so joyful to be with kids that are excited to show their work and their creativity. Oh my goodness. And so it it was a it was a great night. I'm so grateful for the PTA that really cares about our kids and gives them an opportunity to shine uh every year through reflections.

115It was a true joy. Um I had the opportunity this last Friday to go to the Alpine Masterworks um where all of the choirs from all of the high school well not all the choirs but all of the high schools participate and they come together and it was an incredible performance. I it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And so I want to shout out all of the choir directors from the high schools. Um thank you so much for all of your hard work and especially Alec Powell who has taken this project on. It's a big lift and they're working with UVU and I just want to give them a huge shout out and a just great job. Thank you so much for all that you do. Um, I want to

116recognize Brian Crosby and our bands over at Willow Creek Middle School. So, they were selected to perform at the conference, the Utah Music Educators Association. Um, and it's a pretty big honor and just a testament to the incredible program that he has built. And for the kids who show up day after day, I will never not be amazed by students who on day one have never touched an instrument. And then by December they're having con concerts and really showing their progress. So congratulations to them and uh they will be doing that in the beginning of February. >> Uh just wanted to remind board members that we have our uh day [clears throat] on the hill this Friday and um it's going to be in the north capitol building, the new one in the combined conference

117room. So, a word um uh to those who are not spending a lot of time up in the Capitol, you can actually park underground right next to this building. So, there is always parking down there. And so, it's not you don't have to drive around to find a spot on the street anymore. So, anyway, it's 9 to two, but really at 9 they'll, you know, meet, get going. We'll have a JLC meeting and then we'll go and meet with legislators and uh so that I think it's going to be a great opportunity. Okay. Any others? Can I I'll take my turn then. Is that okay? Um couple of items and then we've got some data to share with you. Alpine by the numbers. But first, uh Melissa Swinson from Willow Creek, assistant principal of the

118year was recognized at the UASSP conference in St. George. Thanks to Jeff Skunover for representing our team there. Um, we had a few things going on this week and so I I I just uh wanted to thank Jeff uh publicly for being there for us. Uh, also congratulations to the Aspen Peaks Board and Dr. Joel Perkins. That announcement's out there. Excited for that. Uh, congratulations to Dr. Vicky Carter um and the Lake Mountain Board. Um and uh that announcement this week, it's been a great week. And then um Temponogus, they're going to be announcing tomorrow. And so I'm excited for their board and um all the work of these new board members that have gone into that preparing for these three new districts. So those are the first couple of things I wanted to share.

119And then I want to share some data. School report cards and school improvement uh data is out. It's finally unembarged and so we can talk about it and uh we talked a little bit about graduation numbers and some of the great things our teachers, our administrators, our students and parents are doing. So just want to highlight a couple of things. What are the report cards supposed to do? Um they're supposed to inform us. They're supposed to educate us. They're supposed to track and share success and also identify opportunities for us to get better. And um that is uh what a professional learning community does. It seeks continuous improvement. So uh here's kind of what the school report card looks like. You can uh pull these up on the web um and take a look at

120your school. You can look at similar schools. This card is Alpine School District. Um we've got about 98% of our students that are participating. You can see some really good things happening here, especially in our growth scores. Commendable. We do have a couple of areas that are low and um we've got some some things in the works uh to attack that. But overall solid achievement, tremendous growth, uh postsecondary readiness, um just amazing. Um we break this information down um by subgroup. Uh and I'm going to talk about how this ties back into our strategic plan. Um we look at at students uh with disabilities. We look at multil- language learners. We look by ethnicity and so forth so that we can truly serve students in the very best way to meet their needs and help

121them learn and grow. Um so that's what this is. Here's where it ties to our coherence map and strategic plan. We've highlighted this bottom section. Um if you look every one of our schools and I appreciate so much what they do to be mindful, thoughtful, and reflective about these goals. They set a schoolwide goal. They set a student group goal. And then they set a connection goal. And they have been just working so hard to make improvement in each of those three areas. The connection here in the top in red, you can see uh here's how it connects to the school report cards, the accountability and school improvement data, data that's disagregated by student groups. Um and our connections. In the bottom you can see at the schools where those three things tie. Um again

122it gives a clear picture of what we are doing intentionally and how we are performing to be accountable to our parents to each other and ultimately to the students we serve. Next um here's some great things I want to celebrate. These are all the schools that exited um either a targeted school improvement which is a TSI um designation. We have uh a additional targeted support and improvement designation and a comprehensive support and improvement. So that's the lingo the TSI schools, the ATSI schools and the CSI schools. um a ton of work um to exit these schools from these uh Every Student Succeeds Act uh designations. Um we had a few schools now that have come back on uh or new schools that have uh come on to those designations. But if you go back one

123slide, see all those that came off, go forward, we've got a few more things to work on. and um our educators will be actively working as as teams to attack these issues and serve our students. So, couple of things to highlight, couple of good things, really happy with to celebrate our our our good folks, but also some areas that we can continue to get better. Questions for I guess here's the summary slide. Um I kind of summarized as I was going um but four key things. Um we've talked about each one of those. Maybe the last thing um it's about data. Data informs decisions. The priorities then inform our goals and um our key performance indicators are how we monitor and measure and improve and uh again thanks to our educators that are doing these

124things for our students. >> Okay, thank you. That is the end of our agenda. So I will entertain a motion to uh join the meeting. I move that we adjourn. >> Second a motion. >> All right. With a motion by board member Bon and a second by board member Clement. Uh any discussion? >> I don't think I need to do that. All of those in favor say I. >> I. All right. We are adjourned.