March 3, 2026 at 4:30 PM - Monthly Committee of the Whole Board Meeting

001I'd like to call this March monthly committee of the whole meeting to order for the Duth Public School Board. I'll now turn it over to the clerk for roll call. >> Member Banks >> here. >> Chair Derek Eder >> present. >> Member Laughler Kemp >> here. Vice Chair Loalt >> here. >> I am Clerk Mel. I am here. Treasurer Saddowski >> here. >> Member Williams is excused. Superintendent Maggus >> present. >> Assistant Superintendent Bonds >> present. >> Deputy Clerk Zunich >> present. >> And assistant Brown >> here. >> Roll call is complete. Thank you, clerk. We will now move on to turning it over to assistant superintendent Bonds. >> Thank you, board. And um as you can tell, uh we have guests with us. We have two presentations for the board and the community tonight.

002Um, and we are just really glad that they are here. So, first up, we're going to have the Denfeld Orchestra led by uh, director Samantha Amos. uh she will introduce the students at some point, but we're going to turn it over to them for a performance. And then we have another performance uh by our ordinise choir uh led by Gunnar Molad and they will pro uh perform um shortly after. So I'll turn it over for the performance. >> So these are some members of the Denfield Symphony Orchestra. We have one selection for each day. This is Wildfire by Katherine Greinger. Heat. Heat. Hallelujah. I got you. Hallelujah. What an outstanding way to kick off music in the school month. Would you like to uh introduce um the group? >> Sure. We've got Li, we've got

003Alex Johnson, we've got Noah Johnson, not related. Um and David Sandy. >> Thank you. Hello. I'm going to Molstead, uh, current choir teacher at King East Middle School. Um, these Oh, you can come right back. >> Sorry. >> Um, we are going to, uh, sing a selection from our midwinter concert that we just had February 12th. Um, so it's been a couple weeks. Um this song is special because the students selected this piece. Um we have 92 students in this uh grade. It's split across two sections. Uh these students are all from our 62 person section. Um and I think it was one of the students in your group that selected this piece. And yeah, so this is a thousand years uh by David Hodgees and Christina Perry. Uh you may know it from the

004motion picture Twilight arranged by Andy Beck. That wasn't right. Let's try it again. It's been a while since I practiced this thing. colors in to be made to watch you stand on my down suddenly every day waiting for you. Little bears are you thousand. Yes, we pray. and keep the same way. Every breath, every day waiting for you, darling, don't be afraid. I am not your last. Oh. Star waiting for you. Don't be afraid. I have loved you for a thousand years. I love you for a thousand. Your heart. I am loved for thousand thousand years a thousand Outstanding. And this is Gabby Scooter and AC Graver and Teus. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank Thank you so much. And we will be uh publishing publicizing this on our our uh DUTH public schools

005Facebook page. And so we just want to say thanks. And the arts are incredibly important and music in particular is just incredibly important. And so we are grateful to celebrate music in the schools. >> Thank you so much. >> Don't mind me. I have to pack all this stuff away and put it. >> We understand. We tr uh truly appreciate it. So board uh thank you uh for uh being flexible and allowing our performance uh today. Uh actually they put a smile on my face because as you know we walk into um uh this work and do a lot of challenging things and um seeing students perform really just grounds us and reminds us of why we do this work. So I want to again thank the team uh thank the students for joining us

006tonight and I appreciate it. Uh while we are getting ourselves set up uh we have a full agenda today. So, I want to bring up under the category of supporting every student, we have an update related to the read professional uh development. Um, if we can have Gretchen King uh come on up. >> Thank you, Gretchen. Good afternoon. Thanks for having me. I'm here to give an update for you. Do I keep my finger down on the button the whole time? Okay. All right. Thanks. Um to give you an update on the ReadAct. So, um, phase two was the newest, um, thing that we've had to start this year, but we already have been doing a lot to meet the requirements of the READ Act. So, the staff began phase one last year in the

007letters training and mandated in that program um of training was special education staff, K12, reading interventionists, our preschool through third grade teachers. And fourth and fifth grade teachers had the option to do the training or to wait until phase two. And then we had five local trainers that were facilitating the inerson sessions. Um we've done a lot of work with this group. Um we also had early childhood teachers that were involved in phase one. So we had 44 staff that completed um the early childhood program. One teacher is currently in the program and finishing this year. So that will make 45. elementary, special ed, and reading interventionists have completed phase one letters. 55 staff, more staff will complete this spring. And then we have 53 staff that will complete next year in addition to any

008new um staff that we hire that could possibly require the training in the fall for phase one. So, a new element we had um to implement this year was structured literacy professional development for pair of professionals. So, the readact included language that said we needed to train all of our support staff that could be involved um with students interacting with literacy. And they had an eight-hour program that was created by the Minnesota Department of Ed in partnership with the regional literacy networks. And that training had four modules. Uh the theory, phmic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and comprehension. So we had five local trainers here in the district that provided that training on professional development days for pair professionals starting in August. We did sessions in November, December, December, January, yesterday in March and then we will

009continue in May. So when I submitted this last week, this was before yesterday's training. So after yesterday's training, we now have 217 fully trained paraprofessionals in our district in structured literacy and we have about 77 left to finish. So, the next pieces I'm going to talk about are phase two in the legislation, which means training our secondary teachers and fourth and fifth grade teachers who weren't already trained in structured literacy. And phase two was um announced in November and there were four different programs that we could review and pick from. And we picked the program called Strive TLC. It stands for teachers learning and coaches and TLC for teachers. It's a very teacher focused training with a lot of um strategies that teachers will be able to use right away from their very first interaction

010with the content. We're also doing this training during our PD days. So, we're going to start the training in May and then we will do it next year on all the remaining PD days. It's about 35 hours of training. There are online modules that the um participants watch and then they interact with through activities. The learning is broken into seven different different modules and there are three 45 minute sessions that will be led by local facilitators. So we are going to have local staff go through the train the trainer sessions and then become facilitators for those live sessions. We are already um working in getting our middle some middle school interventionists signed up for that training and looking into some other people too that could assist with that. Um what's a little bit different I

011should have mentioned we're doing this during our PD days. We're also bringing all the participants together to do the asynchronous modules. So instead of the teachers all being in their own little space with the computer and just doing the learning alone kind of in a silo, we're going to have this be more interactive and all together and have it be collaborative with all of the teachers. So then when they're doing the activities, they can actually be interacting with each other and seeing how it's going to incorporate incorporate into their instruction and their plans. So the this is just a list of all the staff that are required to do the phase 2 training. >> Can I ask you? Okay. >> Yes. Member Lam. >> How many teacher I'm sorry if I missed it. How many

012teachers are going to be going through the secondary? And then I another question I had um the the five local leaders you said that are already trained, are they um teachers within our district? We do um we have five leaders that have facilitated letters and then we have five other leaders who have facilitated the paraprofessional training. Okay. Those are all people in our district. Um those might not be the same people probably won't be the same people that are facilitating the training for secondary because we wanted colleagues from the secondary space that are working in that area have that experience and that lens to be leading the teachers. Was there another question I missed or was that >> how many? >> Oh I I think that's on the next >> Oh >> might be in

013the next slide. It's about 42 staff are required to do the phase two training. Um we actually have more staff than that that fit that list of requirements, but we had several middle school teachers who did phase one and they did the letters training. So since they've already done letters training, then they don't they don't do this round of training. The phase 2 strive training is more geared towards secondary education though. We will include principles at the secondary level, assistant principles and deans in this training alongside their staff, even though they weren't specifically named in the list from the state of Minnesota. >> Member Ler Kim, you still have your light on. Okay, just want to make sure. Thanks. >> And on this um slide, I just listed what our goals were in choosing this

014particular program. Um, we wanted our staff to be informed in the latest science of reading. You know, new research that has come out maybe since they were trained in their college education. We also wanted them trained in data gathering processes and analyzing that data. There's some new testing that's been come out with the read act. So, that will be part of this training. And Strive was really unique in um tailoring the instruction around what our Minnesota standards were, what our MCA4 looks like, and what the CAPD read basics information is from that round of screening. It also had a really nice potential for training more than just the teachers that were listed in the readact. So Shannon, we can go to the next slide. Yep. They also offer a disciplinary literacy course which is a

015shortened version of the full training that the other 42 staff will be part of. It's an 8 and a half hour course that's focused on disciplinary literacy. So they get the same textbook that the 42 staff would get that are ELA teachers. They get the same access to all of the um learning strategies. is like there's a platform where you can go in and try to find some learning strategies to help you with specific areas of literacy and then they will do the very first module together along with the ELA teachers for eight and a half hours. It's all geared toward supporting their students in their content area classes. So, we're going to do this training. You can go to the next slide, Shannon. >> For about 100 core content area teachers in middle school

016and high school. These are our science, social studies, and math teachers. >> Superintendent Magaz. >> Yes. Just to explain for the board and public, some of you know and some of you don't. Uh so there's what is disciplinary literacy and uh basically we used to we used to do work uh called content area literacy which was basically how do you read about your content but disciplinary literacy takes it kind of a step further where it focuses on how do you how do you read about and how do you understand the content because it's not necessarily always just reading text. It could be understanding graphs in science. It could be uh understanding maps in geography. So really what is the literacy that is needed for each particular uh content area and and it can be very

017effective with uh pe with our with our teachers in general because it's it's basically how do you make your your content more uh approachable and engaging and accessible. >> Thank you. >> Was that >> Yes, that's right. I was say it's going to help those teachers in those unique areas learn strategies to support their their students. So it's going to have an effect beyond literacy. It's going to affect students learning and all these other content areas. So and this is the these are the modules and the time commitment that will be asked from our teachers. The highlighted areas will be um the places where we have all of the content teachers along with the English language arts teachers working together. Thank you. I'm really excited for this for the district, for all the um for

018all the opportunities for the teachers to collaborate and have this information. >> Member La Camp, >> thank you. It's it's really great having this presentation and um you know as we've all lobbied uh for the read act and more funding for it and all of that and just seeing how we're playing it out in our district. So really appreciate that. Um so the the approximately 35 hours of training >> did I hear you right saying that most of that will be happening uh in the professional development days that we >> we have it all scheduled out. We'll start this May and finish May of 2027. >> Okay. Excellent. Excellent use of the professional development days. Thank you. >> Member Michael. >> Thank you so much for being here and updating us on this important topic.

019Um question about our pair of professionals that we've fully trained which is so wonderful. You said 217 are currently trained and 77 left to finish. >> What areas are those paras working in? Are those all of our paras like >> almost all of our paras. We really believed that literacy is happening all day long >> in all spaces um in conversations, you know, um there's so many different opportunities that you can just support a student either with vocabulary or or sounds or conversational terms. So, we wanted our parents to have all of that knowledge. Plus, we know that that staff is somewhat fluid. They might be working in a space in the fall that they're not working in in the spring or even this year compared to next year because it's a one-time training. They

020don't redo this training every year. So, they might be working in the high school this year but might be in elementary school next year. So, we wanted them to have that whole uh repertoire in their >> I have um one more question. So, it's been a while since I looked at our um redact policy and the state statute that comes along with it. Are we meeting all of our deadlines by the appropriate times? >> We are. We're a little ahead with the PAR with PAR support. >> And um in terms of our funding, um that's all still coming from the state for this these levels of training. And is it future employees that we then as a district have to pay for ourselves or are we still getting funding from the state for that? the

021what in the phase two that I just described for this um teachers that are listed as mandated that 42 the state will pay for their training we will be paying for the training for the extra core content teachers because we feel it's really important for them to have okay and then um for any future teachers that are hired that are in the required area um is the state going to foot the bill for that or is that something the district >> they're saying it's going to be on the district. >> Okay? And so it's a requirement from the state that we train our teachers to do this for all good reasons, right? We want to increase our literacy, but it's something that um the district then has to foot the bill for that the state

022is telling us we have to do. Okay. >> It is tied to teacher lensure and relicure starting in 2027. Um at my most recent reading with MDE, they reminded all of us that the legislature is in session right now. M >> and there could be changes this spring. So they did say stay posted on all things. So >> and the district does Simone if you can be ready to share um related to our professional development resources that we receive as well as the literacy uh aid that we do receive as a district. Um so of course it's never enough. Um but we do receive some uh funds to support professional development and we do receive uh some funds for um literacy uh instruction as well. And so Simone, can you uh just share uh what

023those pots of monies are? >> Sure. Um professional development money is 2% of our general aid and that is pulled aside by MDE. We I don't have to do any of that math. it's on a separate line item even on our levy. And as far as our literacy, we um have spent our money, but we do have a small pocket that we've put aside in our um fund balance that we are going to be paying for some of this um work. So, I have shared that with the team as well. So, we hope to have that taken care of um by some monies that we are sitting on, but now we have to find out what's going to happen with the legislative session. And if there's this grows bigger and bigger and it's unfunded, well,

024then it's going to be have to be paid for by us. >> I'm not sure who was first. I'll go with >> I think member L. >> You know what? I I've asked a question. Go ahead and I'll come back. Member Saddowski, then >> I'm just curious if um and maybe no one at this in this meeting knows the answer to this question, but if it's starting to be wrapped up into required for lenture, do we know what colleges are doing to make sure that our teachers are prepared coming into our district and will we have to um keep training them or are they going to come in with this knowledge? And then I have one more question after I'll let you answer that one. MDE has a training program for college professors. So they

025can take that training for free to improve their instruction and then MDE is going and evaluating the colleges and they said that they have found four that they are going to say are you know good enough they qualify so their graduates coming out of those four will not just four will not need to do this training but it that's an ongoing process so it's not going to stop they're going to keep working and hopefully that will build and that's not unique to Minnesota it's happening at states Good to hear. Thank you for that. And then my um next question was around the I think I'm on page 15 here, but for the synchronous session, I see synchronous session. Then I see a couple optional optional model active participation and then uh for dyslexia, can you

026talk more about >> why those are optional or maybe their um kind of choice? you take one one year and the next year or can you talk a little more about that? >> Sure. We kind of didn't determine them as optional. They were optional by MDE. They said that those were optional courses that Strive offers and Strive offered to give them to us for free. So, we're kind of trying to determine how we want to best use those. Um, Strive even suggested we could even use them like in staff meetings or PLC's or district PLC's and have it be all staffed together with the principal and just interacting with some of the content. So, it's actually like a little bonus with some flexibility. So, the teachers don't have to complete that to meet the requirement,

027but they do get to complete it. So, we will use them. We just haven't determined how yet. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yeah. Member Lo. >> So, member Zidowski actually asked the question too about what is um what are our teachers that are coming out of an education degree at colleges getting in this area. And in actuality, I've listened to some of the um wrapup session so far at our um capital and there is a bill currently um in the House file for higher ed. So, so I'm not necessarily listening to it, but it is in the higher ed committees, and I'll kind of dig that up a little bit. That is actually a bill trying to push um colleges to to to mandate that they teach this. So, maybe we'll have more than four,

028but you know, let's not get out there before that. But um but it would be nice because that that's just a never- ending funding stream if we're always needing to um educate our teachers coming into our district. And then I would just love to check in with Simone um maybe with with you too um before um I'm going down to the Capitol with MSBA next week, this coming Mon, a week from yesterday. And I would love a kind of a clear understanding of how to advocate for this funding that we now are are doing. just some kind of kernel of stuff or a statistic or a data and um and and maybe even a story that we know that makes our struggle even harder here in Duth because of that because we we well the

029fact that you know I think the story is is that we are going above and beyond um the the money we're getting from the state to um service the rest of our staff because we believe literacy is is a key to graduation rates and a key to success. So um that could be the story and then but we but we also are reducing our budget in a lot of other areas. So you know any help they can give us in that would be great. So thank you >> superintendent Maggus and then member Sowski >> and I apologize for stepping out a second. My my son is traveling and I just needed to make sure everything was going all right. Um but the um what I wanted to say is some some good news. the the

030state budget is looking a little better than we thought. Uh rather than having a a deficit, it looks like we have about $3.7 billion more than we thought and there won't be a deficit in the coming years. So, I think when we think about things like our MSBA, MASA day at the capital on on Monday and think about all the lobbying work we're going to be doing duth during Duth St. Louis County days. I really think we have to hone our message on this. Uh, and I also just was looking at an AMSD. Uh, there was a survey being done. It doesn't include all the data because there are still a couple schools that were finishing putting their data in. But if you think about the budget shortfalls across the the state with just in

031AMSD, they have uh over $217 million of of funding uh shortfalls. So almost every district it's it's 10 million, it's 5 million, it's 4 million, it's it's 12 million. you hear about uh Minneapolis public schools, it's 50. So, there's there's a lot of work that we need to do to advocate to make sure that we have funding for the important things like uh foundations and reading. And I'm glad that the board put that together as part of their their legislative platform. I it shows that you're you're uh seeking resources to support the the key strategies for our students. And I want to say thank you to you. Literacy is the most important thing that we we can do. Everything is important, but without a foundation of of literacy, uh we we will have nothing. So,

032thank you. >> Going to come to you, member Lafer Kim because member said she will pass. >> Okay, great. Thank you. And yeah, thank you, Gretch. And um I had some similar questions that were asked, but I I guess a couple other thoughts. One is there's actually five of us that will be going down to the lobby day on Monday. So, any information um you know, some talking points would be wonderful. Uh and certainly I know I'm going to use some of the um the information from from here. So, thank you for it being so complete. Um, we uh a and the schoolboard association as part of our legislative platform uh uh has has uh an aspect of more funding for the read act for statewide. So, for schools. So, I appreciate that. I was

033curious um and I I'm really appreciative of how comprehensive you know from the paras from early childhood um uh that are getting trained but that we're including 10 principles assistant principles and deans even though that's not required and so how did that come about and and I I want to thank the the leadership uh for um of the schools for for being a part of the training. I think that's really important. So, I'm just curious how that came about and is that kind of what's happening in other districts. >> I think they're just very strong leaders. They were excited. They wanted to do it. They wanted to do it right away themselves. >> Um they in their dream world, they wanted every adult in their school to be trained. Yeah. That's what they wanted. Okay.

034So, I think that that's amazing. >> Thank you. Would it be possible either from the trainers or uh to just do I mean we each could do a reach out to teachers we know uh uh to get some quotes but to maybe throw out and get a few quotes or something that we could use about how valuable the training was and it would be great from like preschool to the pair us to kind of different >> different people who are getting the training. >> Are you looking for that before Monday? >> Uhhuh. That's fine. I just want to make sure I knew the timeline and you know just you know if you that would be wonderful. Thank you. If I could uh comment on your question too about you know why are our principles part

035of this and I think that one of the core values we have as a district and one of the things that foundationally we work on through our directors of secondary and uh elementary as well as our assistant superintendent is a structure and a premise that we need to make sure that we're supporting all of our leaders well and that we're helping them develop as instructional leaders. A lot of districts uh sometimes have more of a managerial leader or principles taking care of the daily business of what's going on and instruction is kind of an aside. But here in Duth Public Schools, we've worked really hard to put systems and structures in place uh partly through training with the Wallace Foundation and with uh Center for Educational Leadership of how do we support our principles? And

036so it's it's about cultivating that desire to not just run a building, but think about how how am I going to be the lead learner in my building and how am I going to know literacy and how am I going to carry that forward. So I'm grateful for everybody involved. >> Thank you. Seeing no Oh, I see. I was trying to Google really drive TLC and what does Strive stand for? I I'm sorry if you said that. And then is that a like a company based in Minnesota that supports our MTSS work? Is is that how I'm understanding it? >> I don't think strive itself is an acronym. I think it means, you know, you're striving for literacy and working with a term that's used now for a lot of students who we would say

037are struggling with reading, we say that they're striving readers. The TLC part after the word strive stands for teachers, leaders, coaches, tender, loving care for teachers. Um, and what was the other question you had? >> Is that a company that's based here in Minnesota that's really working to support, you know, overall the MTSS work, but also overall the ReadAct. They are not a Minnesota company. The only Minnesota company that was approved as one of the four was Carry All and it was considerably more time and more expensive. it wasn't fully complete yet and um when the regional literacy networks were able to try out the different programs found that it was a little glitchy but the regional literacy network tried out the strive program and found that it was highly aligned to Minnesota MTSS and

038all the information that they have shared with us from strive say that they are specifically aligning our program the program to Minnesota MTSS MCA4 capt have to read bas basics and the Minnesota the 2020 Minnesota ELA standards. They are out of Oregon. Oregon I think is how they pronounce it in Oregon. And um they've done a lot of work out west in some states that have been a little ahead of us in their literacy initiatives. >> Thank you. >> I appreciate it. >> Thank you for listening. >> All right. Next up, we have our coordinator for professional development, uh, Annie Schilling. She will provide an update related to the professional development that we are providing this school year as well as give you a peak into next year's professional development that's being organized. >> Hello.

039Uh, again, I'm Annie Schilling. I am the professional development coordinator for the district. It's a pleasure to be here and it's exciting to be able to give you a little bit of a a wrapup of what we've done so far. Um we have one um all staff professional de development day left this year. Um but I just wanted to give you a comprehensive look at what we've accomplished um so far this year. So, um, when I took a look at the calendar, uh, for the professional development days this year, initially, May the 4th stuck out. Um, and it it immediately made me think, well, we definitely need to have an outer space theme. So, here we are with Blastoff. Um, Blast, B L, you can go there. um all stand for um our north stars.

040So be belonging. Um fostering uh through the professional development days um we've been working on trainings that help um staff foster a sense of belonging that um staff being able to foster a sense of belonging for students. Um it is a uh it goes down to everything from academic success to attendance um to family engagement. It's incredibly important. L uh literacy. So uh we just had the pleasure of listening to Gretchen um talk about the literacy and the importance of literacy and its reflection in our state statutes with the read act. So there's been a lot of literacy work. A attendance um this is a this is always an important init initiative. Uh it's a complex one. Um there are many factors that go into um an individual student wanting to attend school. Um all

041of these uh focuses are intertwined um and they've been a focus throughout our professional development days. S for safety. Of course, safety is of the utmost importance and we've had uh a number of safe safety trainings throughout our professional development days this year from administration to um staff to clericals to bus drivers to our teaching staff. Everyone has gotten safety trainings throughout this year. Um and then t teamwork. Uh again, how do we work uh collaborative collabor collaboratively as teams? Um how do we uh understand the importance of each one of the teams, not just the teaching staff, um everyone, our pair of professionals, everyone has been given priorities throughout these professional development days. And that's um a reflection of our teamwork. So our first two prof uh professional development days start in August. So

042we had August 25th. Uh we have two uh standalone paraprofessional days uh training days a year. The paraprofessionals are also included in the other five uh training days that happen throughout the year. August 25th was a paraprofessional uh standalone day and in August we took time to make sure that they uh could complete their online vector trainings um safety trainings getting uh paraprofessional staff um caught up with CPI trainings all of these required trainings uh that they need to get the year um set up and ready to go. Uh the next day followed up with the all staff kickoff. Um everybody was together. Uh we had certified groups, elementary groups um working at grade level uh breakouts. We had uh secondary staff working in department level splits um because that is what benefits those two

043separate groups um throughout the year. as much of that sort of tailoring um for the job the job specifics um you'll see reflected. So you can go to the next one. Here's uh for each one of the professional development days I create uh a comprehensive catalog. Um I think the average when I looked at the average uh size is 64 pages. Each one of those pages represents a different team. Um so I do it's important one of the tenants of adult learning is um having it be relevant to your role in the district and by splitting that to that level of detail it helps with the relevance. Um this is the page you can see that I've tied in um the belonging the attendance the safety so the training you can see the reunification training

044that's teamwork that's also safety AI training we're focusing on safe usage of AI um so I I make sure that one of the big questions is why do we have to do this training why do we have to do this so in these cataloges they can at a glance see this is tied to attendance, this is tied to belonging and that exists on all 64 of those pages. You can go to the next one. Here's our parah pages. Um paras began in August their journey with the literacy trainings. Um the literacy trainings were delivered in four 2hour modules across uh these training days throughout the year. uh they received their f their first their first module um right away in August um and then they were able to join virtually for our keynote. You can

045go our keynote uh was a woman um named Allison Fay. She is the executive director of the Jacob Wetling Foundation. Um I happen to know her personally and I know that she is um a very downto- earthth, approachable woman doing extraordinary work. Uh the feedback was very positive and she was very very inspiring um across across all teams. Okay, so that was August. we had a a few months to get the school year um off and running and then we launched into a series of professional development days beginning in November. So November 3rd um November 3rd we launched an initiative with the elementary uh certified staff. They split out into three different groups K1 2 3 4 5. they were at elementary sites so that they could use utilize their um the elementary resources there.

046The um the breakouts were designed by our curriculum team and facilitated by principles, elementary principles. So, it was a an innovative way for those certified teachers um to get some it's it's a it's extraordinarily beneficial for all second grade teachers to be in the same room learning from each other working with principles that they may not work with on a daily basis. So, that was that was launched in November. You can um also in November we began our journey with uh Ricky White. Ricky White uh is an indigenous uh educator. He is has not only worked as an educator, he's been a principal, he's been a superintendent, and he came to Duth um he's been here throughout the year um leading our teams in um a presentation he calls navigating duth cultural landscape. Um and

047it uh this presentation um was so comprehensive that it um covered many many uh objectives that we need to cover as a district. Our compliance non-compliance with our American Indian um education agreements with our our tribal government, our equity plan. Um it also uh satisfied one of the certified teaching rellure components the big one the cultural competency component and not only that um the feedback has been amazing he's he's inspiring he's informative um and it's it's been a real I'm going to use the word blessing to have him as as part of our professional development days. Um the the trainings are uh seven hours in total. The secondary staff in November got the first half of that training. Um and the second half of their day was um we're breaking out into department groups. So

048they all science teachers got to work together, fed teachers, music teachers. Um so that is a format that I carried over from last year that has been very beneficial. those breakouts are led by our um content specialists. So the content specialists in math um because all of those departments have different needs and those are the specialists that um lead and facilitate those. So you can see all of that reflected on these pages. You go to the next one. No, you're okay. >> And I would second that uh Ricky White is just phenomenal and uh he's one of the best presenters that I've worked with. He's very very engaging and also happens to be the brother of our former American Indian ed coordinator uh Sheila White. But >> yes, >> he is >> that's how I

049was able to make that valuable connection. >> I I we're really really like if you ever listen to him he's you you're riveted the whole time. >> Riveted. Yeah. I feel so lucky that I have daily interaction with him because he is truly um exceptional and inspiring. Go the next one. Okay. So then followed right at the heels of November 7th, we had December 8th. So a very similar format. The elementary schools were um broken out into their grade levels at the elementary sites. Um secondary groups uh worked in departments as well as got uh received their second half of the Ricky White training. We also um throughout this uh brought in information about artificial intelligence. Um there's also been throughout the secondary um trainings uh based on the work by by our grading alignment

050committee um as well as and led by principles on on in our secondary groups. They've been doing work throughout the year on grading alignment, making sure that um there's a uniformity um across our our grading practices. You can go again. Okay. And then beginning on December 19th, we had our asynchronous PD day. So these PD days um we've decid we made the decision to have them be asynchronous. Work at your own pace. Um the requirement was that this is for certified staff, they needed to complete 7.5 hours of training. Um so working with the curriculum departments, um we found a number of uh virtual trainings that uh fell into our belonging, literacy, attendance, safety, and teamwork um categories that they could choose. The element of choice is always a welcome um element in professional development

051and this is the day they can choose. Uh you can see on this sheet there's also stars. Those stars mean that those um satisfy teacher relenture components. Um that's always an added bonus and icing on the cake. Uh what was different this year about our asynchronous professional development day was that I built the whole thing into our vector system. Um and that did a couple of things. It was a platform that everybody was familiar with. So I wasn't throwing some new crazy platform that they would have to learn to use. It was familiar. Number two, Vector um affords uh reporting. I can tell you exactly how many minutes everybody spent on these asynchronous days. One of the concerns, of course, is how do we know if they did 7.5 hours? I can tell you exactly

052how much everybody did. Um, and it it worked beautifully. I I learned a lot about um the Vector platform and it's a highly effective and very um transferable platform. So, um, this was a big success in terms of the Vector platform. So, there's our Vector. Okay, next one. Okay. Um, March 2nd was our next one for the entire staff. Whoops. Go back. There you go. Um, March 2 was yesterday. So, we we had our um most recent professional development day yesterday. Um uh we flip-flop yesterday. Uh yesterday the elementary certified staff had the opportunity to work with Ricky White and they they did it all day yesterday. It was not split up into two days. It was a full day training and our secondary staff um spent this the same amount of time working in

053their departments. Um, at this point in the year, the departments are starting to get um, a good handle on what next year's going to bring. Um, for example, we have a new social studies curriculum on the horizon. The social studies department was able to dive in deep with that, led by their content specialist. Meanwhile, pair of professionals um were working on um completing their READACT trainings uh as well as um for those that had not or had already done the readact training, we had a number of trainings that aligned with our BAST categories, belonging, um literacy, attendance, safety, all of those. Um and I uh often with a pair of professionals I create a rotation that's based on um those trainings and then they can rotate through um based on facility size and um the

054amount of people. Um you can go to the next one. In between all of that on January 16th we had our second standalone paraprofessional day. So for January 16th as well as yesterday um in order to get us to a level playing field on all of the literacy trainings, I created um individual schedules for the 300 plus paras. So everybody when they checked in um they had a sheet with their name on it with an individualized schedule. Um, we found that when we got to January 16th, some some of them had done modules one, three, and four of literacy, but not two. And some, you know, it was it was honestly sort of all over the place. So, I um I took this on so that we could get everybody um leveled out. So, we're

055getting there. Um, literacy is the focus. this redact compliance with our pair of professionals is um the priority on these days and it's so important. Um and we're getting there. As Gretchen said, we had 217 now complete after yesterday. We have 77 left and we've got one more uh professional development day to go. So, um we will be we will we will get there. Yes, we're getting closer and closer each time. So, go ahead. Um, another uh in between uh endeavor was our facilities PD day. So I when I came into this position, it's been a priority of mine to not just focus on the teaching staff. Teaching staff is very important. So are our clerical. So are professionals. So are our facility staff. Um, and the facility staff I've been working with for two

056years now to try to figure out how to get some important training for them. The the barrier is that so in November we had nine buildings in use um on our professional development day and we rely on this staff to make sure that our buildings are um up and running and lights are on and it's warm. Um, so I worked very closely with Corey Karen over in facilities and we figured out if we during this February break, um, if we did four two-hour trainings and he created this complicated rotation where his staff would have to be here and there and he figured it out. Um, we could get this done. Two of the days would be um, two different a group A and a group B learning reviewing school day cleaning. two of the days,

057group A and group B would be doing summer cleaning. We got through February 17th and then Mother Nature gave us a giant snowstorm. So, we were unable to um uh do the last three days. Corey and I are looking at plan B during the April break. There's three days that we are targeting. So, fingers crossed Mother Nature's going to let us get these trainings done. One of the other things that Corey and I are working on, I'm going to record the trainings and build it in Vector so that when he gets new staff or the staff needs a refresher um uh because it's been so difficult with just simple logistics getting these in-person trainings, we'll have it housed there. So, um I think we're going to be able to do it in April. And I'm

058really excited that we're able to accomplish this. Um, okay. May 4th, that's our next one. So, as Brett had mentioned a few minutes ago, the Read Act um phase two begins. Um, so we will be um and it's it is as um Rosie, you said it's it's a really good use of our professional development days. I'm thrilled to be able to offer this phase two on these professional development days. Gretchen and I are sort of working through um how it will work, how we can make sure that it happens, but then still have time, chunks of time on those days to accomplish the other curriculum and other safety and attendance, all of those initiatives as well. Um for uh so we will be doing phase two of the readact. I mentioned a few minutes ago

059social studies has new curriculum. uh that curriculum cycle begins which means elementary groups are going to have to be working on social studies. We've got our secondary groups. Um and again as I mentioned par the par redact compliance is it we we will complete it go 77 next year. So um this is about the time of year and I I know it has something to do with the midwinter blues. I start dreaming about like where are we going to go next year. Um this is my working um idea. So you're getting a preview. So the theme safari safety attendance family engagement acceptance the readact and informed by data. Um this is this is the direction and I even have my fancy picture. You can go to the next one. fancy picture. The fancy pictures are

060my favorite thing. Like this this will drive me. So maybe all the cataloges there'll be a zebra one and a rhinoceros one, but um uh you have to have some fun and I think art is important too. So >> So one of the things >> that would be amaz Yes. Yes. We're working on the budget for the entire staff to go on. Yes. Um, there it is. There it is in a nutshell. Uh, what we've accomplished, what we're looking forward to. Um, and I would love any questions. >> Thank you. I I'll start off by first saying, um, thank you for everything you have done to improve our professional development aboard. You have to remember if you were here five years ago, this is my sixth year, what our professional development looked like at that

061point in time. Again, good work happening. We just had very limited number of days but we worked really really hard and thank you to the board again for um allowing us to pursue adding additional professional development days. That's how we ended up with five additional days during the actual school year. So we can really spend a lot of effort training up our staff. We move not only training up our teachers but now we have even expanded it through negotiations our parents and other staff to make sure that they receive the training that they need. So, um, just imagine what you're looking at now. Just, you know, the hard work, all of the organization, coordination that's needed. Um, you know, we found the right person to really help us move that forward. So, I'm just really

062thankful for all the work that she has done and her um and the team uh who works with her >> to have I have a lot of teaming support. >> She she does >> a lot. >> And so, I want to make sure but uh through your coordination, I really appreciate it. So, I'll start off with uh Superintendent Magus, I think, was first and then um Chair Derek Huer. >> I I think you uh summarized most of what I was going to say as well that that really uh if we expect people to change their practice and continue to improve, we want to make sure that we have high quality professional learning and just want to say thank you for what you've done. And also, if you think about how this came to to be,

063it was through a lot of work. was through support of the board with uh particularly with the contract negotiations where we worked in professional learning time because we heard for years that our teachers uh if we were going to um want different outcomes that they needed and wanted to be support in new and better ways. And so I think that the uh this is amazing and and who doesn't like a good Tron theme or or or a uh or a Safari theme? I think I think you bring you bring joy into professional learning and I think that that um sometimes there's reluctance around professional learning. I think we all like to learn but I think sometimes it can be hard to to spend the time to do so but you've offered really high quality engaging

064learning opportunities for for every uh staff member and thank you. >> Thank you. I just want to thank you because this looks great. And now um when we as a board are or community members have questions about what does professional development, why are the kids getting another day off? Like now we have a great place to send them to and this so that they can see exactly and and have this tangible outcome to to look. And second, I have to work with Vector in my job and I'm absolutely awful at it. So maybe I'll just show up at your office one of these days and you can we can get it done because um it it's a challenge for me. So I love seeing your enthusiasm about it and now I may just show up

065at your office unexpectedly with >> and you can help me with that. So thank you. Seriously though I didn't know the depth and the breath of what you were doing with our staff. Um and it's great to see and it seems engaging and as superintendent Magusa said joyful. So, it's great for our teachers to sit together in community with some joy about learning some new things. Thank you, >> member Larler Kimp and then member Saddowski. Yeah, I thank you uh Kelly for what you said because I I think um we all would share that same um appreciation for knowing more specifically so we can share with community and with parents but also uh that the feedback you know I've heard from my uh friends I I have in the district has been really positive as

066well. Uh so um thank you uh for that. Yeah, that's all. >> Yeah, I would echo all of what everyone has shared and it's just um yeah, I I recall all the work that we did to try to get these professional development days um available to teachers and staff. And I really um it just seems like it's it's very much taking advantage of those days like they're they're very wellrun it looks like. and there's lots of choices and they're just really well thought out. So, thank you. I do have one specific little question. I'm just curious because it kind of relates to some other another thing that we've been talking about at the board table recently, which is AI in the schools. um when I am looking at um gosh these aren't numbered so but

067it's the one where it says asynchronous PDA worksheet >> and um they have all the different options and I see that >> um some of them are required for all staff and some of them aren't. I see. I really appreciated first of all seeing that some of them were marked with stars so that teachers could get relicure. That was really like a thoughtful touch and I know that's really important for our teachers. But I'm just curious cuz you know we've been hearing a lot from our community constituents our um student schoolboard reps um children uh things like that just worried about um just wanting to know what that training looks like. I was wondering if you could talk about that a little more. One of the concerns that I've heard here at the board table

068is just training to help teachers learn to identify work that is done through AI besides an AI detector. So I'm just wondering about that. And then as a followup like how many, you know, about what percentage of teachers took this because I was under the assumption or understanding maybe that all staff took that training. So I I was just curious what percentage took that training. So AI I'm going to back up just a little bit to address what AI uh trainings has have been offered throughout the year. So every single one of these professional development days built into either whether you're a secondary um teacher doing department work or an elementary um teacher working with uh grade level um colleagues uh within their day of work. Um, and this has all been driven by um,

069Julie Staver's here. Julie has um, she is our secondary MTSS and curriculum um, coordinator. No, >> Curriculum instruction coordinator. I almost got it. um she has been leading uh the charge working with a team to develop um embedded AI trainings into every single one of these professional development days. So the training that you are seeing here on this asynchronous day um is is sort of a deeper dive. So you can see within the safety C category, AI mistakes in education, AI in the future of education. These are deeper dives um from what um they've been getting on every single one of these professional development days. Um we do also have uh lots of plans in place as we roll into next year and looking at May as well. I can't tell you off the top

070of my head the percentage that took these. I I can definitely pull it and get it to you. Um my guess looking at this because the their um direction was to choose at le they had to accomplish one from every one of these categories. And since there's two relicenture stars in that same category, that's where you're going to see the most draw because that that has added value um in terms of relicure. Um I does that answer your question in terms of like what we um what we have been doing with AI throughout the year? >> Yeah, it helps make it a little bit more clear. So what I'm hearing is uh we've had some AI training that's been embedded into every day, >> but maybe not Um these weren't required. >> Yes. Yes, that's

071exactly right. Yes. And there there is a district um AI training um that was required throughout the year and I was able to track that because it was an asynchronous day. And for those staff that had not completed it before this day, that was a required training for them. So they received a separate email saying that you needed to you need to re to complete the required district level training. >> Okay, great. I might have more questions on that, but I can circle back with you individually, too. >> Great. >> Yeah. >> And then I also remember in the fall, just to to add to when we were at Denfeld, I remember um Cindy Miller doing a training for everybody >> Live so that was that was part of it, too. So, I think um

072we always want to make sure that we're expanding and doing more. >> Yes. >> But very much appreciated. >> Yeah. These trainings have been designed to grow as the the year has gone on. Um Cindy Miller has um she's an in she's a teacher within our district and she's um informed a lot of these trainings and she did she kicked us off in August with a live training for all certified staff. >> That's where we began. >> Thank you. And we can provide some additional information related to that. Um, as you recall, uh, Cindy Miller and others, the AI implementation team, they presented, I want to say a month and a half ago, um, regarding this and but what you're asking is specific data on the who and we can get the which teachers were

073required to take it and the information. So, we'll make sure we follow through on getting that information. And also we will be um seeking additional uh just as we since we opened the door around AI. Um we just presented the uh during the district advisory committee last night uh there was a presentation given by the AI implementation team um regarding implementation of you know AI in the district and our plans. So the goal is to one we want to make sure the advisory committee had a chance to give some feedback. Um we do plan on uh some engagement um with the community regarding it, our students and staff in the form of um thought exchange as well, but we try to time out some of our thought exchanges uh with the community and with our

074students because we we're starting to implement uh the thought exchange a lot and we don't want a quick uh burnout uh with thought exchange. Um so there will be additional information coming from our students families uh related to our AI implementation and then we'll make sure we have the data that you're seeking in terms of the staff participation. >> Thank you >> member Melo and then member Loot. >> So good to see you here. Um the first two years I was on the board I was assigned to the development advisory committee. Now it's member Williams is your school board representative and um I just really could tell in the meetings that I attended how many staff that you have so invested in that committee and doing that committee work and helping you and I was

075wasn't sure if you wanted to to speak to to that group >> um and how they are assisting you in in your organization of the days. >> Sure. So it is part of state statute that um we have as a district a staff development advisory committee. So, um there are requirements. You need to have a secondary teacher, an elementary teacher. We also have preschool representation. You need to have district parents, um administrators, non-certified staff, and all of those um are covered multiple times within um within the committee. and we meet uh we meet we try to meet monthly um of course during the holidays we don't and we review what's been done we look ahead um they help me with you know what are what are our north stars um on those decisions I ask

076their advice on things because I am not I I am a very good event planner um but I am not content specialist. Um I am not a certified teacher. I am not a clerical. We have clerical representation on the committee. So they're imperative in terms of um help helping guide um because I in my position a lot comes at me. We need AI. We need this this this state statutes and then you have to take all those pieces and organize them. Um, but they they are the experts that I rely on um to make those decisions. Um, and we've gotten to be a quite a close-knit group. Like there are a lot it's I've enjoyed that time with that committee very very much. >> Yeah, I could tell that there people are very dedicated and

077um at least one of the meetings um even the president of the DFT was there. is there every time >> and he said that this is you know the a massive improvement in our professional development days being offered by the district and so I just you know took that to heart and thank you and um that team and everyone else who also assists you. Um, one question I had as I looked over the priorities for next year in the safari, um, which is adorable. Um, how did you work with other, um, members of our administration and directors to make sure that we're also aligning with like, um, our comprehensive achievement and civic readiness goals, you know, like so we have those goals as a school district. And it seems as though most of those can

078kind of like fall into some of these categories, but yes, >> what is that? What was the intentionality of those things? >> Um I have frequent standing meetings with department across all departments. I meet with transportation. I meet with the um sped team um our equ our new equity director. So there's ongoing conversations and then we also have um alignment meetings where we're all together in the same room. Um and those are you know those are I have planning documents and those sorts of tools that we utilize. So, as I have a meeting with transportation, that gets plugged in or, you know, I I have to make I work with our equity director to make sure I understand the equity plan and the action cards and the things that need to be accomplished there or

079like for our American Indian um concurrence non-concurrence, what has been what has been committed to in terms of professional development. And so, like I that's how I keep track. It's it's meeting meeting meeting and then bringing everybody together to synthesize and then when these these cataloges come out in the training days that is the the product >> and under the House of Teacher Equity there's that alignment committee uh where the directors are part of and so that's where we make sure that our action plans and all of our different um you know goals and efforts are brought into the conversation and considered when we are talking about profession development. >> Yeah. >> Excellent. Thank you for giving us that look under the hood and I was able to attend the kickoff um keynote at the

080beginning of the um school year and as I was walking out I was hearing from staff saying like this was the best keynote ever and this has been a great day. So just hearing again more positivity about around this work and so thank you for that. >> You're welcome. >> Member Lo, your light is on still. >> Yeah. And actually, you know, you kind of wait and it's like, oh, she didn't ask that question. He didn't. But then Sarah um is was our our board rep on the school ad on the professional development advisory. And I actually with our pre previous um with our previous professional development coordinator, I I sat on that and I think it was really the very first time a schoolboard member um was invited to that committee and we kind

081of navigated that. So, I'm really glad we have a presence um with you and I because I I really just think I learned a lot about just the process of professional development opportunities. So, I just think it's a good place for us to listen, a good place for us to um see um who's who who is coming to the table because we hear so much about, you know, who's who's coming up with these ideas and and really it's your colleagues. And um sometimes um when I first came on I think there was some hesitancy like they they didn't always want to have to take the heat for what was or wasn't. But I think we've come a long way with our past coordinator and just the commitment we made um six years ago to have

082a staff advis you know a leader like Annie you know come in and do that. So, thank you and thank you, member Mikel. And thank, you know, we have a lot of committees that we sit on in our community and and within our district. And I just really appreciate the the commitment we all make to make those those meetings, whether it's special education advisory or it is professional development advisory or it is transfer advisory or it is EAC advis. I mean, you know, we're we're really committed to to being there for our our team. Um I'm really curious about our asynchronous um you know opportunity all these little boxes and I just my question was um well one it's just great. I mean just the variety and and it's asynchronous and I I remember you

083gave them many days that they had to put in their 7.5 so it wasn't like we were taking up some precious um holiday holiday time and so can we reuse these? Is there a lensure that we get to offer these or do we own these now and they can be embedded into future? >> They live in Vector now. So if you were to go into the Vector platform and type in APD-S02 um that AI training would pop up >> um >> and and it could it's it's active and you could >> reook at it. Yes. >> Wow. >> Yes. and I'll let you know when the the facilities >> train. >> Well, you know, I don't know if other board members do it, too, but I think it was one of our members um a

084few years back asked for all of us to be on the email that sends out the vector training. Are you guys getting that? >> I I'm getting it, but I'm I'm not doing anything with it, but I do I do get it. So, it all lives there. >> So, that's a that's really that's awesome. And then um again I think all of us kind of kind of did one of these deep breaths and shook our head and smiled at you when we said when you said you followed up with 300 pair professionals and they got individual schedules so that we knew and and that's that's one that's incredibly incredible service to a group of our employees that sometimes don't feel like anybody knows them. And so the fact that they had that kind of attention,

085I hope, you know, I know that they were appreciative and and that they really felt cared for and appreciate and knew that somebody was helping them um get more learning for their particular job. So, you know, thank you. And as as we continue to to go forward, that's really a a great a great I don't know how we can publicize it other than those stories that Paris will tell, which we've all heard either in hallways or in my home. I I I live with three employees of our district. So, you know, I I do hear about professional development and it's always, you know, especially, you know, Ricky White. Is that is that the name? Yeah, Ricky. You know, just just incredible. And I hope to maybe gain to be able to see him in one

086of the last is Will he be at the last one? >> Um he >> Can we meet him? Can he come to see us? >> Maybe. >> I need to talk to Son about that. >> Um there uh our American Um, incidentally, Ricky White, the funding for that, um, I wrote a grant for Title Two for all of this indigenous content, um, that I've been able to deliver and it it's all been funded through title two. Um, and that's, you know, once you, if you can connect all those dots, like those possibilities exist, right? So Ricky is helping us with attendance and belonging, but then also like I was able to to have this be part of an indigenous um grant grant. Um so it's Yeah, it's it's a great it's a >> Thank you.

087>> It's great. It's been um again a blessing. He's been So I'm hopeful he'll be back. Um here's the good news. his presentation that he did yesterday we recorded and we have permission from him to load it into Vector. So, um I'll be going down to my audio visual guy tomorrow um to get that recording and I'll be working on whatever edits I need to do, but it's going to live in vector. Um so this cultural competency train that's a difficult one for teacher teaching staff to um get their cultural competency uh training. We'll have it in house and it's Ricky White who's so so charismatic. So you if >> short of me not meet being able to meet him in person you'll be able to see it. And I go ahead. I just want

088to say um when it comes to the work we do with our uh American Indian parent advisor group, when we when we meet with our tribal consultation, when you've talked to people, you hear the question, what is it that we're doing to make sure that our educators are ready to meet the needs of our American Indian students? And I think that the uh the work we've done this year is a really solid example of how we're trying to make sure that people are trained up and have uh an expansion of their skills and their their understanding of of uh culture and and it doesn't just apply for American Indian students. I think what we what we learn about about bias and working with people and and uh diversity, equity, and inclusion >> uh that that

089those are all things that are that are uh >> Ricky's line is what's good for Native American children is good for all children >> and it's actually what's good for Native American children is good for all of all of us. Yeah, that's his o overarching message. >> Member Lo. Yeah, just one one more comment as I look at Gretch and too and Julie out there and ju just a really solid um committee of the whole meeting tonight with some incredible work that lifts our our lifts us up too as we face the challenges that come ahead too that your work and your presentations and the knowledge you share with us so that you know we we feel like you know we're we're moving and and and capturing everything we can capture and you know we

090have great staff and colleagues and I know and I know you don't work alone alone. I know that the people that are in your departments and how you collaborate. So, again, um just really appreciate the presentations tonight. Yeah. And they're back there, too. And they're here and they're here every every month, three to four times a month. So, we appreciate it. >> And and our team really appreciates your flexibility, too. I know that that sometimes we're like especially this past month when we've been pivoting from, you know, Operation Metro Surge support to to uh trying to find extensive budget reductions that we're all uh we're all trying to uh make sure that we're doing all of that work well. And I realize that sometimes there there are um bumps in the road when it comes

091to to uh agendas and and uh things of that nature, but we really appreciate the flexibility of the board uh around that and we apologize as well. um when there are those bumps, but our team's working hard and we really appreciate them and I think that there's no better example than what we see from our professional learning. >> Thank you. >> We had another presation by our very own executive director of finance and business services. Thank you Andy Simone Zun. So, I'm just going to turn over to Simone who's going to provide us with a um update related to budget reductions and reallocation. And I'll just turn it over to Simone right away. >> Thank you. I the superintendent and I both will be presenting on this. Um I believe you've attach you've given everybody

092a copy. Um we have the um timeline and then we also have our guiding change. >> Y so uh looking at our guiding change and I know some of these things are things that we've talked about in other meetings and in workshops. Uh but but I think it's important to contextualize. I think that's some of we always try and be open and listen to feedback and I think sometimes we jump into the budget conversation without doing a high level overview of where we're at. Uh I think that's really important and I think this guiding change really grounds us on where we're at. So uh the three areas of the guiding change are what is the reality or or our why? What are the parameters of how we're going to do it or how are we

093going to do it? And then also uh what are the results? What is it that we're hoping for? Um so really because of the increased costs in special education, transportation, and insurance, we have about a $4 million uh budget deficit. And I mentioned that around the state there's there's over $220 million worth of budget deficits. So we're not alone in this work. Um but it is hard work to continue to do to year after year reduce millions of dollars. Uh you go beyond cutting the fat to cutting the meat to cutting the bone. And it's it's very hard. And um we're trying to make the choices that have the least impact on classrooms and other things that are laid out in this document. Uh but why do we do so? We have inflation costs. We

094have unfunded mandates. And so that's something we want to make sure that we're when we're lobbying with our our uh legislature that we're we're f focused on not having new things. You know, we have some new money. Let's not create new things that we fund for a year or two that then is on the backs of the district's uh finances to figure out. Uh we do have stable enrollment. In fact, we have increasing enrollment which is a positive and it speaks to the the quality and uh standing of duth public schools in in the public. And we continue to focus on our priority areas of supporting every student, advancing equity, and improving systems. But then really the how we're going to continue to focus on those things. Even though we we have to reduce, we

095still are going to focus on supporting every student. We still are going to focus on advancing equity and we still have to focus on improving systems. Um we're not going to break any laws to do this. We're, you know, we're not going to rob a bank to fund our our classrooms. Uh but we also may have policies in place that have been hard hard uh you know forged by our our our policy committee and others and by MSBA. We need to follow policy. We need to follow regulation and we need to follow our contracts. I think a lot of times people jump to the conclusion of like oh why don't we, you know, have a pay freeze or why don't we change our our our health benefits or something like that. Those are all things

096that are part of labor negotiations and it would be considered unfair labor practices unless people all wanted to agree. So, so those are things that we have to keep in mind and we want to be very respectful of that that uh labor management process. We're not going to go into statutory operating debt. Uh Simone will definitely not have that while while she's she's here, nor will we afterwards. And so that's important. And we want to we've talked about fund balance. We can't keep dipping into the fund balance. It's like spending on a credit card with a household budget. We can't keep doing that. Uh and we've had we do have a decent uh budget, but we have to make sure that we're we're uh thoughtful about that fund balance as well. Uh we also made

097promises to the community and I think that's really really at the heart of some of some of what we're talking about because we we said that we're going to maintain essential social, emotional and mental health supports that we'll continue to support high school schedule improvements and that we'll maintain essential uh academic supports. It doesn't necessarily mean that we can keep everything, but we're going to we have to keep the spirit of it, and we want to do as much as we can to support each of those areas because those were promises to our community. Uh, and we very well may need to go out for a referendum sometime in the the the future. And we want to make sure that that we followed through on those promises. Uh, we also want to make sure that

098we're doing things with stakeholder input. uh we uh and we'll I'll talk about some of the things we're doing related to that but uh I I was very impressed to see that we had over a thousand responses thousand participants in our not responses a thousand participants in the thought exchange that we just uh launched less than 24 hours ago. So we we have a lot of stakeholder input into the this process. Uh but it's not going to be just a by no means is it going to be any sort of group think. We need to make sure that we're we're looking at our priorities. We're having sound conversation. We're making sure that we have input from our principal leaders. They're very much at the core of what we do. But we want to make sure

099that we're using proper data when we're doing that. So that is important to us. What are we trying to do? We're trying to make sure we have a balanced budget for this next year. We want to make sure that we have an transparent and engaging process. We want to make sure that and this is this is if I if there was one slogan that would be on a t-shirt, it would be prioritize and protect classroom needs as much as possible. Unfortunately, we can't completely protect classroom needs. There's there when we cut, you know, $5 million a year over the course of three years, there there are going to be impacts on classrooms. there are likely to be impacts on class size, but I think we're already seeing uh input actually the the input from the

100thought exchange so far. The top priority that we see and we'll share more as we as we learn more. The top priority that we see is be careful about class sizes. That's that's what we're hearing from parents. That's what we're hearing from staff. And I think it's important too uh we'll also be sharing that with students at some point as well for them to give input because student voice is important. So protect class classroom class classroom needs as much as possible and develop forecast budgets. I think that's one of the uh if if there were like feathers in um executive director Simone Zunich's cap before she leaves. One would be that we've adopted a system of budget forecasting. It you know when we when you go on a trip out into the wilderness, you want

101to look at what the weather's going to do. And I think that that really having a better forecast of where we're going for the next few years is really really helpful. Uh we also thinking about I I like this phrase examine all legacy practice practices with a lens of fiscal accountability. And what we mean by that is a lot of times organizations do what they do because they've always done it that way. And we have worked really hard in a very brief period of time to uh the saying that we're using lately is we need to look under every stone with no stone left unturned. So even though some of the things might seem ridiculous that we look at and are things that we're not nec you know not going to necessarily explore in in

102too great a depth we do look at everything we like we we um there are many many suggestions that we're we're uh going through and spending time on because something that might initially seem like a like a foolish idea when you look into it more deeply might actually uh bear fruit and be worth worth uh looking at. but then also that we need to protect the district's uh financial health by seeking efficiencies and finding new resources. So it's not just about cutting, it's about making sure that we are uh leaner and stronger in what we do as much as possible. Um so that is our guiding change. Anything you want to add related to the guiding change? I don't I'm not trying to steal your thunder there. Um, the other document that we have is

103our uh let me just pull this up. Oh, I'm casting into my conference room upstairs, but that is not where I'm meaning to cast. There we go. Um, so how much are we talking about? what kind of money are we talking about? Uh we and and we have that linked to the the guiding change right off the bat because that's really important, but really uh $4 million is our target, which is about 2.8% of our overall general fund budget. So, uh that that is the the amount we're looking at. It's it's uh I would say when I look at the scope of what other districts are reducing by, this is I'd say it's standard. There there are a few that are reducing percentage-wise by a lot more and there's some are that are reducing by

104less. But I would say this is this is kind of what we're hearing and and I brought up this pre previously uh prior Lake Savage uh they they have about 8,500 students and they've been reducing by 5 million each year for the past three years. So it's not it I think sometimes people jump to and I'm not trying to be defensive in saying this but but I can understand where the assumption might come from like what what are we doing wrong that we keep having to cut? what what is it that we're doing wrong? And uh I think seeing the reductions in almost every district across the state over the course of the past few years shows that there's a funding formula issue that needs to be addressed by the state. Uh so with that

105$4 million, we're looking at uh 3 million from our sites and 1 million from district office. And uh I looking at the proportion of that that's about 11 point or I'm sorry 4.11% of the salary benefits and contracted services at the sites which is uh 1.25 million for elementary is what we're looking at and uh 1.75 for secondary at district office. One thing that we're hearing too, uh it's the fourth uh fourth most commented on piece on on thought exchange right now is uh district office thinking about like how can we seek greater efficiency in district office? How can we have reductions at district office? So you see can see that we're looking at about a 13% uh decrease in our district office budget of salaries, benefits, and contracted services because we we realize in

106tight times we want to uh buckle down. We want to prioritize our our classroom uh spending and we are looking at making much more serious reduction at at district office uh to to align with with the priorities that we put forward in the uh guiding change. We also recognize that that if we reduce by that our services can't always be exactly the same. You might have a little longer wait time hearing back something from human resources or you might have um you know something with transportation might take a long little longer. you know, we're we're trying to make sure that we are still keeping to our efforts of of uh improving systems. What is our timeline like? Why h how are we how are we getting here? Why are we here? Um why are we

107here? That's a the quintessential question. Uh but do you want to walk us through through this a little bit? >> Sure. Um, back in December, we uh completed our audit and uh that was presented to the school board on the same night as the truth and taxation. I sat here with um Rob from Whipley and in January we started an overview of our budget reduction needs. We completed our first round of small groupoup schoolboard member meetings. We started drafting an updated guiding change document. And we started with our initial cabinet and department meetings and then we had a board board workshop guiding change overview. On February 11th, uh the we had a director's meeting with principles. February 25th, the senior leaders met with principles. Uh March 2nd, yesterday, senior leaders uh small group board meeting

108wrapup and a district advisory committee. and we launched thought exchange uh staff, students, and families. March 3rd, cabinet budget meeting, committee of the whole board update, which we're doing right now. Tomorrow morning, we're having a principal budget meeting um with all our principles. March 9th, east staff meeting, um potential reschedule. Uh the superintendent and I will be out there. We'll be doing all these together. for March 10th, uh, Denfield staff budget meeting and March 11th, the Denfield public meeting. So, we have a lot of meetings coming up. We hope we can, um, speak with all of our groups as possible. Last year, we went to every site. That was just not feasible this time. So, we're doing them more in bigger group meetings. And, um, I hope we can address everybody's questions. Do you have

109anything else, Tom? Thank you. >> Yeah. So, yeah, there's 10. Thanks. >> It didn't just end. Yeah. On March 11th, uh March 18th, thought exchange stakeholder feedback ends at 12 midnight. So, we launched that um thought exchange survey yesterday and it the feedback we will hopefully get all of that together by uh midnight at on March 18th. That was kind of exciting yesterday to start that process. March 24th, we have a regular school board meeting. Uh we'll be informing the board on budget reductions. End of March, notification of displacement. Uh April 7th, we have a committee of the whole, I'll be presenting the preliminary budget overview. May 5th, I'll do another uh committee of the whole revised budget overview. And June 9th, I'll do another a second revised budget overview. Now, please remember May 18th

110is when the legislative session is supposed to wrap up. So, there might be a change between, you know, May 5th and the June 9th meeting. And then on June 16th, I will bring forward to you at the regular school board uh for budget adoption. And just as uh and I mentioned some of the things we're doing with the uh thought exchange and I won't go into great detail, but just uh to show you some of the the initial um amount of participation that we have. So even even since since we since I looked at it when we were here a couple minutes ago, um the numbers gone up. So we have uh 1,036 people individual people have have interacted with us so far and they've shared 826 thoughts and there were 31,317 uh rankings. So

111basically that means uh that that there were people interact different interactions where people were thinking about what other people were thinking over 30,000 times. So that's pretty powerful and we try and get a ratings ratio which is like how often people are rating different things. We you look for a rating ratio between 15 and 20. Uh the rating ratio is really high at 38 which means people are really interacting with this uh heavily. And then some of the topics that people are considering are um as I mentioned class size is number one professional development teacher salary administrative overhead and I mentioned that we're we're uh trying to take a bigger uh reduction from district uh there too reading and math intervention uh technology use behavior intervention and those different topics but really uh I know

112that that we've just started but this is um this is this is powerful powerful tool so far >> member Sidowski. >> Yeah, I um hopped on there and took, you know, I just was curious since we've been hearing a lot about that exchange and obviously it was sent out to staff and parents. So, I went ahead and I just wanted to take a peek and see what that experience was like. Um I liked the it was very user friendly. I do have a couple questions. You know, a lot of the you could rank things, you know, with um there were five categories. 1 2 3 4 5 center. So, um was there any thought given to like five versus six? Is that something that can be tailored in thought exchange? Because if you have an

113even number, it makes someone kind of forced to go one way or the other. Are there any um considerations of that or what were some of the um thought process that went into that if any? just it's something that I've given a thought to just because for some of them I was like, "Oh, I'm going to click this middle one, you know, >> versus if you have six stars." So, that was one question I have. And then I have another one. >> Okay. Uh I'm not sure if you can change the number of stars. The thought exchanges I've taken part in before, they're all like a fivestar system. So, I'm not sure if he can modify that, but I'll be glad to ask and see if that's that's possible for the future. >> Yeah. And

114I'm not saying, "Oh, do that." But I'm just saying um it's an interesting thing to think about. I've thought about that in my own other parts of my life when I'm doing surveys and things like that just to get someone to >> for me to >> one way or the other but not the middle. So >> anytime somebody asks me to like give a specific number like 1 to four or something like that, I'm always wanting to say like 2.7 like >> people find that frustrating for me. And then my follow-up question, um, I don't remember having to put an email in to take the survey. So, um, can people take the survey then as many times as they want? I'm just curious like, uh, that could skew skew some of the data in there.

115I would think >> my my understanding is you can only do it once, but I'm not sure if it's once per device or by by cookies or I'm not sure how it how it tracks them. Yeah, just curious about that. >> Thanks. >> Thank you. >> Just curious how that's >> kept. Yeah. Um I just happen to have had a training with um thought exchange. Um it is set with five stars. Um there's not an option for us to make that change. I don't know if there's something within their system that they could do, which I think we could explore, but there's no option when we're putting them together to change the number of stars. Um, and then you're it'll remember you on your device. So, if you were to go back into the thought

116exchange for a second time, it's going to ask you if you want to give another thought because you can give another thought into it. Um, but then it'll also let you go back and and if you want to go back in later and do more ratings, you can go back in and do more ratings. Um, but it pretty much lets you go back and like pick up right where you were left off. Um, but it it you can do it from different devices again too if you wanted to do it from different devices. >> I like that feature of, you know, because um we we heard from Superintendent Magus that more people have done it just since he looked the last time and there might be other ways to engage other people's thoughts that they

117came up with. >> So, if you already took it and maybe you took it from your phone, if you were to go back to it again and go to the view results up at the top, it kind of says view results. you can add more things to it. If you click on that, it'll let you go back in and do more rankings if you want to. >> Thank Thank you, Director Larva. >> I would also say uh I've been really impressed with their their responsiveness. I know we there have had questions come up as we're doing this and like there was a an email with some questions and I contacted them and they they like went even though it's like a multi-million dollar company, they they got the owner involved and got other people involved

118and so they're they're they're crafting responses for us as we as we speak to some of those questions. So I think that they and they've done a lot of work with uh MASA and uh AASA, the the superintendent associations. And so I think um I've just been really impressed with with the that they're they're no tool is perfect, but I think that they're trying to find new ways of us uh having having conversation. I think one of the one of the things that impresses me as well is it's not it's not who shares the idea. It's it's what is the value of the idea and how are people perceiving the idea because I think sometimes in a group conversation if one person makes a suggestion people might blow it off because because of who suggested

119it and and uh making sure that we have um it it eliminates bias and I think it really allows for quality of of uh conversation. But again, these budget reductions are not easy. I think what uh as member Derek Eer said in her interview the other day, I think that that uh we're we're trying to make some really really difficult choices. Uh and it's hard, but we're trying to really lean into the work and and do what's best. And we're actually doing it, as you saw from our timeline, we're having to um do it more quickly than we have in the past. Uh and and what it comes down to in many respects is we're trying to make what are the least worst decisions that we can make. None no none of these reductions are

120going to be things that we want to do, but unfortunately we have to. So we're moving forward with as much thoughtfulness as possible. >> Anything else you'd add? >> Not at this time. Thank you, >> Member Lleim. Thank you so much uh for this update as well as for the um the uh the timeline. Um I'm just curious, do you think between when the legislative session ends May 18th uh and June 16th, that's less than a month, um uh that that's like enough time? Um, uh, I know sometimes when we've done this, we've added an additional, uh, board meeting, you know, a week or two, uh, at the end of June just in case we needed it, you know, we added it and and held it, um, to make sure we had time to, um,

121uh, uh, see what comes out of the legislative session. So, I'm just being sensitive, I guess, to that and, um, decision- making. >> Absolutely. We I believe we did it last year. So, we will I'm totally open to that. Um that's why, you know, I'm hoping we have if they close successfully and we have some good information, I'll be able to revise the budget and present that to you on June 9th. Um but if the board would like another session on that, I'd be more than happy to do that. So, well, I I'm kind of at a hurry up and wait and see what's happening right now. So, this is what you were referring to and we're we're more than glad to add add more time. I think too uh just the way that we

122did things last time and and I'm open to change if if we wanted to uh was that the um we we inform the board about what the budget reductions are and then the board through governance approves or denies the the the budget at that point uh later in later in the process. um and can but we also want to make sure that we're we're very um receptive to board board board ideas. Um it's also hard sometimes when we have you know a variety of opinions but always feel free to reach out and we're trying to meet with people uh as frequently as possible and and but if you have questions any time feel free to text or or give me a call and I'll be glad to to respond to any board member questions or

123comments. >> Member Banks. Thank you. A quick question. Sorry, you alluded to the $3.7 billion surplus that was just announced a few days ago. Um, has our legislative delegation said anything to ISD79 administrators related to our uh legislative platform or now that this budget surplus has been announced, have they reported back or suggested u that we would get at least some support from the legislature? Um, we haven't heard specifically uh on that front, but I think that that there is evidence that they were very much listening when we met with them. Uh, I've I've seen some bills introduced by by uh various members and uh I remember when we had conversation, there was conversation around maybe greater flexibility in our long-term facilities money so that that might be used for safety. And I I think

124that there's been a bill introduced there. So, so know that that your work and your uh advocacy is really paying off in in uh action in at the the capital. Uh but I think that this it's I I can't remember what day it was that they announced that. It was just just a a couple of days ago. So, I think people are still trying to get their their sea legs under them and kind of kind of see what it means. Um, but I really caution people to to look at this as like a spend thrift like let's spend a bunch of money on new things when we have you can see across the whole state the core of education we're having to to um chip away slowly at it throughout all the districts in the

125state. And so I' I'd rather that it be put towards uh just the general funding formula or special education cross subsidy or there's that commission that is having to look at where are they going to find reductions in um special education expenses and also another group that's looking at uh the compensatory education funding. If we could maybe start off with let's not take money away from there as opposed to let's let's spend new things to find money on that would be really advantage advantageous for advantageous for our schools. Uh I know there's also um some things in the works related to insurance and things like that and I think that that we need to really learn more about what that means and what the costs would be before we uh advocate for against those things.

126I have member Saddowski and then member Mikeel. >> I think member Mikeel was first. That's >> Yeah, just and and thank you for that. And I was more specifically uh thinking about special ed and our needs here locally. And so >> yeah, haven't haven't heard anything specific, but boy, if they could put that money towards a special ed crest subsidy, even if it was for a couple years, uh that would be that would be very very impactful for not just for us, but other districts across the state. member Michael and then >> thanks for the update. Um I know member Loofald and I were able to participate in the MSBA coffee and conversation this morning and as the superintendent pointed out many districts are dealing with budget shortfalls um in the upcoming year and that

127was evidenced also by the conversations that we were having over the course of the hour this morning um from small districts to large districts. every it seemed as though everyone on the screen was feeling um you know angst about decisions that they were having to make at their board tables as well. Um but we are here in Duth and the people who elected us are here in Duth and so they care about um you know the decisions that we have to make. Um, I appreciate that we have thought exchange and I'm so glad that we have, you know, increased participation as opposed to other surveys that we've sent out and hopefully we'll continue to be able to um get more input um via that. And I just hope that everyone realizes that's just one tool

128that we're using in order to get feedback. Obviously, we have all these other meetings. Um, but this is like, you know, for for people who don't necessarily always, you know, have the time or the energy to engage us as a group or the district as a whole, this is a a a quick and easy way that you're able to get some of your opinions put out there and allow other people to see them. So, just wanted to make sure that people understand that um we value their input in that way. Um, the other thing I wanted to also point out, and I mean I do enjoy a good school district website, but I hadn't been to all of our pages recently. Um, but I see that our budget page is being kept up and um,

129kept very current. Um, so that's another place for community and um, our taxpayers to go and look and see what our current numbers are as well as some frequently asked questions are answered there. And some of these have to deal when I hopped on and thought exchange this morning seeing some of the suggestions where I was like that's a great suggestion but legally we can't do that. You know it's like no there's a state statute that says we have to have that program. Um and so some of those questions are already have been answered there. Maybe they've been there for a long time. Maybe you just did it this morning. I don't know. But um thank you to the staff that's uh trying to keep that updated. And again, in case there are people listening

130who are wondering where can I get more information besides contacting us, you can also look here to get some questions answered as well. >> Thank you. I just wanted to take a minute to thank uh Director Zunich for your um all the work that you've put into our small group meetings to just keep us informed and also you know as a school board we review our um finance budget up you know update every month at our HR business services and then kind of bring it to the board. So I know that we've been having those discussions and kind of watching those trends. So just thank you for your work on that. Uh it's really helpful for us especially with the short timeline and I know that that's a lot of extra time along with um

131you know Superintendent Magus and assistant superintendent bonds too of course. So just wanted to say thank you. Um it's really helpful in these challenging times um with decisions none of us want to make um just to at least be as informed as we can be. >> Thank you. Seeing no additional green light, that concludes our cow meeting for the month. Thank you.