April 8, 2025 at 4:30 PM - Monthly Committee of the Whole Board Meeting

001Good afternoon and welcome to the April 8th, 2025 um committee of the whole meeting for the school district of Duth and I will hand it over to Mr. Bonds to get started. Oh, first we need roll call. Thank you. Member Banks here. Member Derek Eer here. Member Laughler Kemp here. Member Loeld here. I'm here. Member Sidowski here. Member Williams here. Superintendent Magus here. Assistant Superintendent Bonds. Deputy Clerk Zunich here. Uh Shannon Brown, student representatives from ALC. Thank you. Student representative from Dunfeld is excused and our student representative from East. Thank you. Thank you, clerk, for catching me. Um now we will turn it over to assistant superintendent bonds. Thank you chair eer Derek Eer it is. Um so good evening everyone and um we are here for our cow meeting. It's a full agenda. Um

002so just uh really really want to thank all of our presenters uh up front for all their hard work for getting things ready. So the free first presentation will be provided by me as well as our coordinator for American Indian um Sheila White. She's here also to support and I also have individuals in the audience who are part of the teacher learning equity team. They're here too to also respond to potential questions that board may have. So the American Indian parent advisory committee voted um and issued a vote of non-concurrence on February 25th of 2025. State statute requires that the district provides a response within 60 days. And so we are two weeks shy of being in compliance. And so, um, that's why we're here. Um, you have been provided an initial, uh, draft of

003a response, um, that the board will provide. And so, I've, um, had my team do some due diligence and provide a lot of information, taken very seriously the recommendations that our American Indian families have provided us. Um, and so you have received that information um, last week. And so, this is your opportunity to um, ask any questions. I did receive some questions from board members earlier and they received some responses. So I will open up uh discussion to the board related to the draft of the recommendations for um from the board as a response. [Music] So um assistant superintendent Bonds, is there timelines um attached to each of our recommendations? I I I think there is like within is it in a year span that we'll kind of work through. Okay, that is correct. Thank

004you. Member Saddowski. Um I just wanted to say um thanks for the thoughtfulness in this response and for um answering the questions that we um we asked when so we we all got this um within the last couple days and had a very thorough chance to review it. I know I read through all of it and I just appreciate that. Um I also really appreciate the work of Apac um with bringing these forth um these suggestions. member box. Um I would like some guidance on um how we should go through these is when should we look at these like point by point? I apologize. I have not had a did not have a chance to do an early deep dive just um because of travel plans and family obligations. So I looked through this this

005afternoon. So um would it be beneficial if we went through these point by point and discussed or just start popping out questions? What whatever the board likes. could go um re by recommendation by recommendation. So, let's start there. Um, Superintendent Maggus. Sure. Um, there was a suggested change that we had based on member Williams um feedback and I don't see that reflected in in the response to number 11. Has that been changed yet or it will it's part of the uh it will be part of the um final version. So, let's start off with number one then. So the first recommendation um as you read um we've made sure again that working with the team um we provided thorough response to it. Um the APAC was requesting uh tours of sites where our American Indian

006leaison um provide support for our students and they also asked that board members as well as the advisory team uh come along as well as other interesting parties from the indigenous community. So, uh, coordinator White has already done some due diligence as I have shared here on setting up those tours, reaching out to the tribal community, and so things are underway. So, any questions related to the first one, member banks? Yes, pardon me. So if they the AP pack is wanting us as board members to participate uh will we get uh some kind of information related to uh suggested dates or several suggested dates and times because I know that we're quite busy all of us. So how do we um get that accomplished? Thank you. I am hoping to um send the dates out

007by Friday. I do have two solid dates that um were given to me by the liaison um because I base it on when they would be available and when they don't have any events happening in the schools chair der can I just get some clarification where are the sites that we have American Indian um liaison for students sites Your mic's not on. There it is. Is it going to stay on? Yeah. Okay. Um, so we have East Denfeld. Um, oh, I just got um Lincoln Park and the elementary schools. Um, Wilkins. Myers Myers Wilkins and um Stole that the seven I think that's seven, but they some of them are shared. Um yeah, there's uh two less have uh two schools each. Thank you for that. Sorry to put you on the spot like that.

008Don't And just as a quick reminder, how long have you been with us? Uh January 13th. January 13th. So, this is very new. So, I appreciate you coming. Thank you. You know, just for reference to other board members, it's really listed. So, we put you on the spot, Sheila. I'm sorry, but you you've got them listed under the tentative plans. There's two tour groups, the morning group, and the only one you left out was ALC. So, you know, Yeah. And that one doesn't always roll up our Right. And that's a new And that's a new Yeah. Mhm. And again, you know, I think all of us welcome those opportunities. Um I like how you've bunched up that, you know, there's a a morning group with the West and the um afternoon group and some of

009us will be able to make one or the other or half of one. And so um but we appreciate the effort to to do this. We've also embarked not specifically on American Indian but also visiting our campuses as well over the the year. So we appreciate getting into the buildings. Member Michael. Uh just uh briefly, I recognize that last year there was a similar recommendation and I was just curious if um our APA pack committee members were able to go on tours at all last year or if this will be starting for this year. Um to my knowledge there was one visit from one um Apac member. Great. Well, I appreciate that we are working a little bit um more to get some of those uh formalized this year. Thank you so much. Thank you.

010Uh recommendation number two um uh requested an action plan uh by the fourth quarter to identify students who are native uh and to consider any transportation needs they may have and for the district to consider additional supports to getting American Indian students to school. So, as I um as you can see in the response, what we've indicated is in late April, we will we will um by late April, we have a survey sent to all American Indian students and families asking them about their um if they are experiencing challenges with transportation. so the district can then use that information for um um to help us support families you know if we can in any kind of way. So we will be again reaching out to families um through surveys to get from them uh their

011ideas or challenges. Member Zowski. Um yep. And then um in my email I had asked you know that surveys as we've heard sometimes have limited responses. Um and so um are we going to how can we cast a wider net? Um can we um also survey like teachers, paras, folks that work with um students who you know or can we do phone calls to families um things like that? Well, we do have some information related to some of the um if students have challenges with attendance, right? If they are um absent or off entirety. So our school already has data on students and we are you know as part of our attendance campaign really doing a deep dive of of uh of trying to address attendance issues and and provide incentives for students to come

012to school. So the answer is yes we can do some of those but regarding the survey because the request is coming directly from our American Indian families we want to make sure that we are very intentional on uh a strategic outreach just to those families and we do have a means to do that. uh we have parents square and other resources that allows us to really send a survey or communication to all families who have identified themselves as um American Indian. So we're going to have a t a targeted um outreach and communication for that survey to be completed so we can get that information. Member Banks, member Williams. Um, so I guess kind of going off of that, I turned off my light because I thought we were asking the same question, but this

013is a little bit different. Um, the means that you have mentioned um like I understand we're we're reaching our targeted um group of students, but sometimes um families don't always access information in those ways. So, I was wondering if we can put um the survey out where families are maybe getting um resources like at APAC or other service providers in the community. Is that a possibility or does that feel like that's too broad and other people would take the survey? Is that the thought? Yeah, the thought is um again there's a lot of survey fatigue and we want to make sure that uh we really have data that really shows us what our American Indian families and students are asking for or have challenges with. So um so that's why we're trying to really be

014strategic. We're going to leverage uh the resources we have. We have our homeschool leaison. We have our integration specialists. We have ways in the schools to make sure that we provide those opportunities to families you know using um other events to make sure that they're aware so they can have get access to the survey in case they don't use parent square or in case they don't um you know use technology readily. So we have different ways of making sure they are aware of the survey and get that data if that's what you're asking. Yes. Member banks. Yes. So, is this survey just for elementary and middle school or will it be for high school? And the reason I asked that question, we already provide an additional expansion of transportation options at the high school level

015uh for all students. So, is this where's the survey going to go? Is it all? It's It is all and clearly our elementary students probably more than likely won't fill it out, but it's going to go home to students and families, you know, to get their feedback. So, it's it's all all American Indian students and families. Mike, I think you've mentioned it, but I just want to clarify. So, our response says that we'll be asking families, but we don't specifically say American Indian families. So, is that survey, just for the record, only going to our American Indian families, or is it going to all families in our district? American Indian families. Okay. Excellent. And then um when I think about students who might be having attendance issues that could be uh transportation could be a

016contributing factor, it seems as though our school staff, our liaison or interventionists may have already identified some of those kids. So, I assume that'll be a way for us to contact and work with our staff to help get those surveys into those famil family's hands. Is that something that has already been thought of? That that's part of the plan is to make sure we leverage those resources because we now have many ways of gathering our data and um and pulling that data with our new systems and things like that. So, hopefully we'll be able to identify those kids who are having attendance issues. Um but then also the students who are able to get to school every day who might not necessarily we don't realize that they're really struggling to make it to make it

017there allowing them to um answer those survey questions will be great. Thank you. Thank you. Uh Chair Derek Eater. Um Miss White, I just wanted to ask you, we've we've heard a lot of things about attendance and how we reach our um indigenous families. Do you have any additional thoughts about around a survey or any ways that you feel that we could be working harder to reach those um indigenous families to to check on their transportation needs? Is there anything you'd like to add? I know um it's a struggle to get our families to complete the surveys. Um so if we can get a lot of um you know people to help make phone calls um our leaison are really um super busy. Um so um can we utilize maybe um teacher trainers um teachers

018in training you know like we'll we'll need to talk more about that piece. Thank you Amber Lol. And that's exactly where I was going is um I like the word viability in our response because really spending my time my career in in the education and in the classroom and I know that our home leazison American Indian educators are totally committed to what's going on in the building and their needs of all the other students and I just don't know viabilitywise. I mean, we can survey, we can see the needs, they know the needs, they know the students, they're probably already doing some of this transportation as I see the vans going in and out when I'm there. So you know we can we can kind of document that we we are reaching um significant students

019or or some students because I don't know the viability if our if our if our American Indian student wants transportation that particular day but our home leaison are already in class already servicing students u maybe it's a testing day maybe it's another activity day that the um instructionist is not there so I like the word viability and we will work and share there and and and um come back. But um the vans, you know, the vans could be used for other things during, you know, we all have a van now at our disposal, but they are used for many activities and and events in our schools. But just wanted to throw that out there. I I want the word viability in there and I understand that um you know, we already are doing many of

020that and maybe we can document that for our APAC families as well. Yep. I appreciate that because and that's why we have it in our response as you know viability because um while we respect the request but not all things are possible so we want to make sure that you know we get that information if there's things that we can do as a district to support our native students and families with attendance you know we're going to consider them and you're right you're spot on um what we try to also make sure we're communicating is that we are already um have efforts underway to really again improve attendance and the school staff. I see uh principal Tuscin is here and others are here. You know, he would testify to that too that we are really

021working hard to work with um all students, but especially those who uh have challenges with attendance. So, we do have our vans, some of our homeschool lison, our integration specialists, some other support staff, they have taken the test to be able to drive. So what happens with the use of the vans already is if periodically if a student is that they're supporting is um has missed a bus or you know needs to uh receive some kind of transportation help they can um pick up that student if they elect to do so. We have to be careful and I was sharing this with another board member. We have to be careful with um the van usage because the vans are underneath the uh responsibility and work of our transportation department. And so there are contractual things

022to navigate with regards to using the vans in any kind of um regular way. Um but there is support for us to use them to periodically pick up students uh but not have it as a regular uh transportation daily option for those families. Mayor Laimp, thank you. Thank you for being here. Sheila, um I I don't want to get too hung up on the vans, but uh you you triggered a question. Um are are all of our uh leazison uh uh able to drive the vans? they've uh to for pickup. Any staff who decides or elects to receive this the training to drive the van can drive the van. Okay. Superintendent Magnus. Thanks. Um and I just want to reiterate as as Mr. We've all alluded to some of the things that we're doing related

023to transportation, but when we think about improving systems, we we are really trying to improve the uh access that people have. I won't use equity but access uh that we that we have for our students because uh when we think about we we've decreased the radius for trans transportation walking. We've added the um the high school DTA bus pass program. We've added the vans and as Mr. Bonds pointed out we we we can't contractually we can't have them set up for routes for picking up kids but they can be used for uh intervention. Uh we also have the bus hub system for the Msabakam Masabakan uh programming. Um but we are always willing to and and interested in looking at at additional possibilities, but as Mr. Bond said, they're not always viable. One thing that

024some other districts have done, which uh we are not pursuing at this time, is having other students go pick up other students um just because of some of the liability. I I mean I think if that happens informally that's one thing but if we're formally setting up a program where we're sending out students to pick up and drive other students that could be u problematic from a liability perspective but we're we're more than interested in in uh continuing to have a an open ear to what those solutions are and I think to what member Saddowski and member Williams and others have pointed out sometimes a survey doesn't answer everything and maybe having some more focused group conversations or getting all of our interventionists together and kind do a root cause analysis and and look at

025things that that might be other ways that we can do it as well. Chair Derk Eater. Um just before we move in as we're going through this whole process, um Miss White or Sheila, I don't I just want to make sure I'm showing you the proper respect. Please at any time your voice is important here. So if there's anything that you want to say, please turn your mic on. And Assistant Superintendent Bonds, we you're really here um to to to reflect everything that's going on. and I encourage you to to use your mic and speak with us. So, I just wanted to I should have said that in the beginning, but so thank you again for being here. All right. Number three, um as you see it calls for um their recommended utilization of the

026coordinator which we have our coordinator Sheila White and various community u members um in the district community such as Ako and local tribe um to really uh vet some of our professional development. And so Sheila White has been working with our coordinator for professional development, Annie Schilling, um to discuss our professional development that we're providing, they will continue to collaborate on professional development opportunities, making it very clear to our uh families and our APAC families that all professional development that we are offering, it is paid for out of the general dollars that we have as a district. So I made sure that that's very clear. Um and we will continue to do that. and the dollars that are available for or through the American Indian grant can provide additional professional development if if done so

027or elected uh uh if the coordinator elects to do so. Would you like to add anything? Um sorry. Yeah, we've been planning for about a month now um planning on thinking about the theme for next year. um thinking about the last PD um day and um you know bringing in some of the cultural components to our final um professional development day for the whole district. So it's going to be awesome. Member Williams. Um I guess I am asking this just for clarification for everybody um like public and otherwise. Um, professional development opportunities are required. That's a question. Sorry, I have follow-up questions. So, I asked funny. Sorry. Are they like Yeah. Are these professional development things required that we're discussing right now? Yes, it's an expectation um as part of the school district and we

028have our we use our prof professional development aids to um advance a lot of our key priorities including um the learning of indigenous people and culture and history. So if um so they are required of all staff like certified or not full-time or part-time, right? And then if a staff member were to miss a professional development day, particularly when we're focused on um indigenous issues, is it required that that be made up? No, it's not. Okay. And that's like um many of our training uh and professional development days there there are not requirements that there is a makeup for that training that they may miss. even if it's related to math or reading, if they missed the training or absent for a variety of reasons, there's not a requirement to make that up. We try

029to encourage folks to go back and review the resources if available. And I just want to make sure we're we're clear on this and I know you're not using it that way. Um, our professional development is an expectation because we are we have embedded professional development that the district is providing and requiring of staff and it's not um but it's not a contractual requirement or um expectations contractually. So, I'm just trying to make the distinction. There's nothing in the contract that says they they must do X Y or Z in some contracts. Superintendent Maggus. No, I I just um think about how the use of our special development uh or or I'm sorry, our professional development funds through title 2 are facing additional scrutiny now. And uh just wanted to point out for the board

030and the public that uh Commissioner Jet from the Minnesota Department of Education made a pretty strong stance on that today. uh basically saying that that they wanted to reiterate that this this programming is important to us and remains important uh you know when we think about things like diversity, equity, and inclusion uh trainings that that that um as a state Minnesota is standing behind that. And so I just wanted to refer him as as superintendent and I'm sure the board feels the same that we this is vital to us and I think this is a clear example of why this type of training is important because it's important for us to have um an ability to challenge our own perspectives and gain new understanding of of how how we can better serve students and some

031some in certain aspects. That's that's the way that we need to have that type of training. So, we need to be thoughtful around that and making sure we navigate that uh un uncertain water with care. But I was uh I found it affirming that our our commissioner stood behind us in that. Thank you. Number four um addresses the retention and recruitment of staff especially American Indian staff. Um, as we provided below, uh, Sheila White has been working with and will continue to work with our human resources department on a plan. Um, you have been provided or there's a link for an initial plan that has been drafted by executive director Severance. Actually, executive director Severance is meeting with our You want You want to discuss when you're meeting with them? It's because it's this week.

032Thank you. Uh yes, we are meeting with the AP pack tomorrow and to go over the plan. They were sent to the plan on April 1st with um some revisions that uh we made after speaking with um Sheila White related to the some of the strategies and look forward to their hearing their input tomorrow and there will probably be some additional changes to the draft document before we put something out final. We did receive other comments not only from when we presented it to you, but I've also gone to the EAC. So, there are some other things that will probably change along the way just based on their recommendations. Just a thank you to that um to that timely um taking a look at this when it was presented to us on February 25th and

033then already now scheduled in April 1st. Got got out a plan before that. Um so, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you, member Ranks. Sure. Just a quick question. So, I know the workload is uh pretty um deep and wondering are there other people working with you, Miss White, on this? And uh if not, what would you recommend? Um well, all of us are are part of the team here. Um yeah so we the lison I count on them a lot um and we've been working together we meet once a month I you know have conversations with them constantly um we also have other teams the cohort team um and we meet periodically I meet with finance um once a week I meet with HR um bi-weekly Um, I meet with the PD department. So,

034I mean, it's we're all a big huge team under this, you know. Yeah. Member Mike, you may have just alluded to this. Um, but when I look at this recommendation from our APAC partners, um, I see that them very much wanting to have information and, um, and asking for very specific, um, information. And so curious if going forward, um, we'll be able to provide that to them on a more routine basis. So, it's not just a once a year, can you please, you know, share this with us? But it sounds as though with our infrastructure now in place and people in these positions, that might be something that we're then able to provide them on a more regular basis. So they're not feeling um as much in the dark. Would that be correct? Yes. Wonderful.

035Yep, that is correct. And and just uh just a reminder for the community and just for the board as well. There's been a a leadership change in the department. There's been three coordinators uh over the uh course of the year and I'm we are really happy Sheila has joined us um this year. She comes with a wealth of experience and expertise and um so we're just really happy she's here. here. We wanted her to stay here as well and and so just wanted to make sure everyone is aware there has been a transition and the coordinator's role is to make sure there's great communication between our um our family committees because we have multiple family committees and the district. So she serves as our primary role to make sure that communication is happening information and

036she is working with teams and that's why we identified not just her I have identified or we've identified others that will support her in this work. So she's not alone. Yeah, my name is written um a lot on this document. Mayor, it's not just me. Miss White, I I'm really glad to hear too that you feel you have a lot of support within these different teams. I I imagine and maybe I I I didn't hear that the principles from each of the seven schools you probably work very closely with as well. Is that correct? Yes. I haven't met all of them yet, but I will eventually. Okay. Thank you, Superintendent Magus. And then member uh Lot. Sure. I would say um to that point, we we are always looking for ways to to improve and

037make sure that we have greater transparency and access to information. I would say that that um even even pro and I'm super grateful for for Miss White and the work you're doing. I think it's it's amazing. Um and I would also say that the the team as a whole has uh worked to try to provide frequent information too. I was just uh chatting with Simone there for for a minute. There's been a lot of questions about financial information and um Simone has met with with u members of from Apac no less than like eight times this past semester. And so we we want our books are open and we've also um we've also um said with the state if they're if if they would like to come in and work with us too to have

038a have a u an audit of everything. We have we have nothing that we're we're trying to hide. I think it's important for us to make sure that we have everything out there and just transparency is good and and making sure that people feel welcomed. Uh we I I remember initially there was questions about do we need to ask for this with a uh data request and and no we we're working in partnership and there sometimes there are things that are data requestable but if we're working in partnership we should we should just be providing that information. We'll continue to do so, but uh it's been even better with uh Miss White and I just want to say get your mwitch for all the work that you're doing. Would it be fair though to say

039and I know this was this will sound defensive and I don't mean for us to to be defensive. We've got great leadership and and we're on the right path. But would it be fair to say that our there are significantly new parents in our AP pack as well? And so these questions are honest questions that they haven't always been um you know given this information. We have had question you know we have answered these questions you know in past years. I've been on the board eight years and and have gone through concurrence and non-concurrence every time and it is um you know and there's some questions that keep coming up but the bottom line is you know there's a parent turnover as well. So, it's just um a great opportunity though for for going then

040I just want a a point of clarification for board members. I love going point by point. I think every one of these are interesting, but we've already spent 40 minutes and we have 16 of them. So, I don't know if we want to again maybe see if there's ones we want to highlight. I'd like or put a time limit and how many we get to. We get to and and that would be okay too. like I wouldn't mind going 456 and at 5:30 we say you know maybe there's 5:25 there's one more I really want to see otherwise I think we'll be here and we've got other prof um uh we've got other presentations tonight we can also come back to another meeting I don't know what do you just some clarification on where we

041want to go whatever the pleasure of the Just a reminder that we do I want to make sure that we meet our 60-day statutory requirement. So, this meeting is meant to receive all feedback um any updates or modifications or concerns. This gives us a platform to talk about them, but obviously we can continue to have that dialogue via email and other ways. Um and then the board will be provided the final draft um for consideration. So, again, I serve with the pleasure and so um Chair Der, how would you like us to proceed? I had sort of had us on a time of about just at about 5:30. I was going to just sort of So, if we are all comfortable with another 20 minutes, does that sound reasonable to everybody? Okay, I think we're

042good. Thank you, Member Lald. So, I think we can move on with that. All right, sounds good. Um, recommendation number five is regarding uh funding that has been earmarked for various programs especially our Denfold uh cohort and so you see a response there uh we have been working with the coordinators um uh Darin and Sheila White she lives on everything because she's one of the coordinators who's who's working with others as well but we do have a coordinator um who is also there to support the Denfeld cohort that is um that has been implemented this year and so there they have worked really hard to come come up with the responses that are provided below. So, any questions related to the response to number five. Great. This is Superintendent Bonds and I do have one

043quick question. Mayor Maxwell. Um, so just wanting to clarify, they uh Apac said that they hadn't been made aware of um the funding that had been earmarked. And so it sounds as though we've been transparent and have we provided that information to them in a different route than these um responses. I don't see that number listed here. Okay. Yep. They have received all information related to the funding as well as the staffing associated um with the cohort and all of the staffing associated with all of our American Indian um funds that we receive. So which funds are which positions are supported by the district? It's funds are supported by the grant. Would you like to share anything related to that? Yeah, put your mic on. Put your mic on. Sorry. Um, we provided them with

044a chart that lists all if they're state aid, if they're federal, um, and then district. Great. And I see one of our other responses um to they had a number of recommendations within that recommendation five um asking for program guidelines um or we state that we'll be providing program guidelines to students and caregivers um for that cohort program. And so I just wanted to make sure those are in existence and we've been able to provide those. Yes. And those have been shared with APAC you said. Yes. It's probably bullet number I'm sorry. Oh I'm sorry. Um they're actually presenting that tomorrow to wonder during the AP pack meeting. Great. Thank you so much. Um I think I asked this before in another update, but how many students right now do we have in the Denfeld

045uh cohort and can students be added at different times throughout the year? We're all looking at Tom. Um right now there are 11 students and I think at this point um they discussed well we discussed um about uh new students entering they can review the students that were in the program that left and want to come return but at this point you know we're at the end of the year um I don't think it would um you know be a good idea to do that. Um, I don't know. Maybe, um, Tom can speak on that. Um, I can't remember what we when we talked about this. Um, probably should speak from the back of the room. Yeah. So, um, we added some students at semester time. So, at semester time, there was kind of a

046reboot of the indigenous cohort. Um and that was a due essentially learning from the first semester kind of how things went. Um there's going to be a report given at APAC this week about the indigenous cohort as well. One of the things you're going to learn is um for example 9th grade students have not been a good fit. 10th graders have been the best fit. Um we've seen some progress of 11th graders as well. So long answer short. Um there are times we can answer or add kids. We added some at semester and they've kind of been added sporadically based on circumstance. Um, but part of the learning that's gone on doing this for the first year is what kind of students are you looking for? What does the commitment have to look like from

047the student and the family? Um, and then when are the natural points you're going to transition? Uh, and typically those are going to be quarters and semesters. So you can make those changes with student schedules on their way in or on their way out. um is requesting that there's a prioritization uh for the hiring of American Indian Indian leaison and staff uh for the uh for the department or coordinator that is and so as I indicated here that I've been working with in communication uh with our human resources department to discuss the uh filling of a permanent position. Uh Sheila joined us in the middle of the year. It was posted as a temporary position uh temporary full-time position, but there is plans to have a full-time position posted uh real soon and we've been

048actually in conversations on um what that will look like. Also, there are other positions that uh was one was open. She want to speak to the positions that um have been open and filled. So there was another um homeschool leaison position added or posted sorry um on March 17th um and the deadline is was March 31st that was extended um because of the lack of applicants um to today actually um so we'll see what happens and also as you see um as part one of the bullets um you know our goal is to make sure that we are really communicating with our AP pack um with the data. That's why um director severance has been you know working on the plan. We have data as it relates to our uh postings and positions and we're

049going to make sure that um things are handled u you know with due diligence and those postings happen right away. She will also be looking at um the case loads that our American Indian lison have to cover and so she will be reviewing those things as indicated here um by discussing with lison and getting their input on their capacity and and what they believe is doable for them. So it's under under review. So that is that's part of Courtney's role is to you know determine how many students will be supported by the American Indian leaison that that's Sheila's role and so she'll be reviewing that and making some determination member Williams had to think about it for a second didn't you? Um so are liaison andor um I shouldn't say andor or parents or apac

050members are they a part of interview teams have they been or can they be yes okay and may I yep and piggybacking off of U member Williams. So of APAC parents, are they eligible to apply for these positions as well? Yes, if they have the if they meet the qualifications and it's a position that they are interested in. Yes, member Michael. Thank you. Um I appreciate all the recruitment and retention like strategies that we've um incorporated in this response. Um when I look at a similar recommendation that we received last year in our response at that time was that the MCE state aid had increased and allowing us to hire additional American Indian leaisonian positions and so I was curious was that able to happen? Have we been able to maintain those positions then as

051well going forward? That position is the additional position that's now at um ALCAO. Okay. It was not moved on. And again, there was a lot of transitions at the very beginning of the year, so that position was not filled at that point in time, but it is filled now. Great. Thank you, Member Sidowski. And then I'm Shannon is doing a great job helping me out keep up with who's who's next. Member Sodowski. So, you know, related to hiring um retention, can you um um Miss White or Assistant Superintendent Bonds or maybe our HR department like speak to you know um any retention strategies that we're using to retain our American Indian staff? Um um in for question two I had kind of asked I think it was two or four um I had talked about

052exit interviews and I know that we don't collect like demographic data I guess on the exit interviews. So I was just curious to see um how we are working to retain our American Indian staff. I'll talk about some of those strategies, but Teresa, do you want to share just some of the um the collection of the exit interview data? And I know we've recently received some, but I'll just turn over to you and you can discuss the data and what's collected. Yeah, you in the response questions that um assistant superintendent sent, they should all have access to it now. Um there is the response and again we can't we don't collect race data when we're doing this. So this is just based on all the respondents and a and a summary of that. Um so

053typically when we get um response and sometimes we're doing them in person so we're speaking to the leadership in that area to if we have concerns a lot of times it's just I was moving out of town or but sometimes there's something more concerning so we try to get more information or at least bring it to their attention and I would say that's in general for for everybody in the organization so we're not necessarily using it as a hey do better with this but what can we do to address this. Just making them aware, more of an awareness of that. And then from retention strategies, you know, we are um in our retention and recruitment policy that we're putting out now, um there are some things that we're going to be doing, but that we

054haven't been doing a great job of um getting out to the sites, making sure that people are aware um what HR can do. Also working on better onboarding processes. And I think that's a big part of the retention that we've seen over and over again in every area that people are just feeling like they're not getting the tools they need to be successful. So really focusing on that um right now and actually moving forward so that we have a full onboarding for every building, every site, every position and kind of really honing in on what does that individual in that position at that location need to know in order to do their job well. And if they have multiple um you know for example the liaison work at a site so they have a principal

055and they have leaders there and then they also have Sheila and what does that look like and how do we work together to make sure they're supported from both the day-to-day at the site and then from their supervisor who doesn't always um see them every day and so trying to really make sure that we're having thoughtful conversations about how can we support the employee in kind of that big picture as well as providing some mentorship. We're looking into how we do that. just had a meeting yesterday actually with our paraprofessional union and going to do some roundts to kind of get an idea of what they've experienced on for their onboarding and what can we do better to help support that and the leaison fall into that par group. Um but so do many other

056um positions that we want to make sure have what they need depending on what they're doing for each of the each of the sites and each of their roles because there are very different in the paras especially you have a vast difference of of what they do every day. So, we want to make sure that we're really hearing from all the people to make sure that we're we're doing what we can. Great. Thank you. Yeah. And I I'll add some of the other things that just, you know, just really quick, I know one of the things that we are doing, and it may not be within the department of American ed, but it's in the department for uh achieving integration part of its plan is to um look at uh various groups. You know, we're

057looking at infitting groups. Um there's outings that are happening. You know, we're reaching out. It may not be necessarily just for American Indian staff, but it's for uh affinity groups for our students or excuse me, staff of color. Uh and it just have to be staff of color only as well. Um so we're there's there strategies to really just make sure people are feeling part of, connected, feeling, you know, included, have a a community within the district that they can talk to and and have conversations. So we are implementing other strategies to make sure um staff feel included and and connected in different ways not just our American Indian staff. Member Law Kemp and then member Lo just a a question on the exit interview summary. Um, one of the questions was, "What would you

058say the district does well and what was listed was positive and supportive staff work environment, benefits, and training?" And then there was a follow-up question on what can the district improve on uh with uh three different areas, communication and transport or transparency, support and compensation for staff, especially paras, and addressing student behavior issues in classroom management. Were those categories identified by us or were they identified by people? They were identified by us by looking at all the all the responses are narrative. So kind of doing some scrutiny on what are the common themes and then these were the top three in each of the areas that had similar. Okay, great. Thank you. We are coming up at um what time is it? 5:25. So if we could just take probably the last 5 to 10

059minutes. I don't want to rush this. This is a very important conversation, but we do um to member Loalt's point have quite a bit on the agenda. So, so um recommend recommendation number seven uh request that counselors implement a plan to identify resources for American Indian students, especially as it relates to scholarship opportunities and so forth. So that's what is being requested uh just to make sure that they know obviously about their career choices and that they're connecting with uh staff. So, uh, Jen Larva, who's the director of secondary and I always bring in Sheila because, you know, make sure that they are working in concert to, um, ensure this is happening because in our high schools, we have counselors, right? We also have, uh, career centers and so forth that are available just making

060sure that those places are really uh, intentionally reaching out in different ways to our American Indian students and families to make sure that they're aware of those opportunities. So just trying to make sure we enhance that um with them. Neighbor Williams. Um yeah, in the response specifically to number seven um the very first bullet point about the identification um of the students in regards to their tribal nation. Um, I do know that that is you can't put your tribal nation on Infinite Campus, but those questions are asked on the JOM in title six forms. And so, is there anybody um looking at those forms and flagging like what nation these students belong to and coordinating that information with counselors? I know that's a lot of extra work since that information again is not readily available

061on Infinite Campus, but that information is available to our staff. So, um I um actually had that same question. Um you know, talking with other districts, um it is a possibility that we can um do that on Infinite Campus. Um it's just going to be a process. No, I just wanted to say um we we did receive other feedback from board members too as far as crafting the response. Um there was a a question about um one of our responses that uh we thought it would be a good idea to get member Williams feedback on. And so that isn't necessarily reflected yet in this document, but but those are things that we're we're going to be changing and we'll also make changes. And this this is intended as a draft. Um but these are that's

062part of the reason for this conversation is to make sure that if there isn't something uh stated the way it should be or if there's other feedback uh that that we take that uh after this it does become a little challenging to seek you know um what is the common ground on something because we can't have a walk-in quorum where we're sharing a document back and forth or things like that. But we are very open to listening and listening to the center and making sure that this document is grounded in what uh you feel as a board is is an appropriate response. Uh we have currently we have uh 636 American Indian students in the district. So, it's a it's a sizable population. And I would also say that uh I want to reiterate that

063we remain very dedicated to serving every student uh each and every student every day and in particular students who have been historically underserved. And I would I recognize on uh behalf of the district that that the district and the country have done a very poor job of of uh educating American Indian students over time. And we are uh seeking and we there are many people who have been working hard on this for years, but we continue to work as hard as we can to close these gaps and address the needs. Neighbor Michael, um one question then make one point. Um, so speaking to this recommendation, talking about making sure our our American Indian students uh are made aware of the scholarships and career training um that um are available to them, especially as descendants. Um

064I recognize that we have made an investment uh some professional developments and um different programs so that um our staff can be more aware of what's available to the students. But um not very many of our um homeschool liaison have had an opportunity to take part in that training. And so um hopefully we as a district are providing encouragement and opportunities for that to happen going forward. Is that a safe thing to say that will be going happening going forward then? Yes, that that's an expectation. That's one of the responses that I provided which is to uh say that working with our um again director larva and um coordinator uh white we're going to ensure that our liaison are made fully aware that it's available and that we find time for them to receive that

065training. Okay, because right now it says training will continue to be shared. It doesn't talk about making sure they have a time to do it. So I just wanted to make that clear and yes I recognize that we're coming up to our self-imposed deadline. Um I also agree um with the superintendent this is a very important conversation we've like state statutoily have to be having these discussions have to provide this response. Last year we talked about or it was mentioned in this meeting um that potentially having a separate special meeting just to concentrate on this so that we can be doing our due diligence and I um encourage and would be um welcoming further conversation about that for future years um or for next year's um because I do feel if we're all putting our

066name at the bottom of this report that these are important conversations to have publicly. Can I just yeah piggyback on that and just say we can come back to this too. we can listen to our other presenters and give them the opportunity to be, you know, to to present to us in a timely fashion. And if we feel like we want to come back and address the rest of these or um kind of um maybe look at a few of them, we could do that as well. Just a clarification question, you mentioned 60 days. U where where are we at with regard to that? I know it's about the end of this month and that's why I want to make sure that at the next board meeting I think it's um the May 20th somewhere

067around there that we have to um make sure it's completed by. So we're just trying to make sure we hit that deadline. So I know that um the next opportunity for the board to see this the final draft is at the board meeting. So by the end of um this month chair what what what is the pleasure of the chair? So we are on recommend recommendation eight correct um so I think um I can't make this final decision. I but I would say maybe that we take some time. Do we want to continue this discussion when we have it at the full board meeting? Um when we see the final or are there things um I guess I'm looking to to the board to see what what they're interested in. Member Saddowski. Uh I think

068it would be great if we could at least pause the discussion right now. Um like member Loalt said, hear our other presenters who are waiting to present and then we can kind of maybe circle back um after that. Um, coordinator white, does that is that something that works in your schedule? I don't want to Does that work for you? I don't want to also inconvenience you as well. I'm sorry. I just checked out for a minute. Um, we need Are you here uh available um to be here for the next couple of hours? Yes. Okay. Are you sure? Okay. I'm not trying to put you, but I just want to be very respectful. I can state. Okay. All right. So I think um on the suggestion how do other board members feel about that comfortable?

069I support that. I I think again as we've all stated it's an important discussion and we're obviously have a lot of questions and that that that's important that we're hearing from everybody involved. So um super assistant superintendent Bonds does that work for you? It works. Okay. All right. Thank you coordinator White. we will um move through the rest of the agenda and then come back. I appreciate your willingness to work with us. Thank you. So, up next, we do have a presentation uh from our principal of Denfield High School, Tom Tuskin, and he has someone with him, Jennifer Litz. They are here to uh share some information related to our bar program and I'll turn it over to them uh right away so they can begin. Welcome. Nice to see you. Thank you. So jump

070into this. Turn that mic on. Oh yeah. On the green for your mic. Thank you. Part of this is going to be onboarding um because not everyone is up to speed on bar so we have to kind of do that first briefly. So if you have any questions jump in as we go so we can clarify anything for you. So we'll do a little brief history of what bar is and then we will get into some data and some outcomes from that data um that we've had over the last year or so. Um but at the same time just jump in whenever you need to. So um Denfeld has been doing bar for a long time. Um in fact this is the second time we've done bar. We did bar before it was called bar.

071Uh we were actually trained initially at St. Louis Park where this was u founded back in '98. Interestingly enough, um you see bar in a lot of schools in 9th grade. We have it nth grade. We have it in 10th grade as well. Um but that's where it started in St. Louis Park. They were looking at nth grade failure. It was a guidance counselor um who went to a principal and said, "We got a problem." And he said, "Figure out how to fix it." And she did. Uh Angie Jerobic. And it's now a nationwide, we'll get into that a little bit. As you can see, 360,000 kids in 24 states, including DC, and 350 schools. Um, and Denfeld is definitely an OG. Like, we are uh an old bar school. We're really well known in

072bar. Um, we do a great job with bar. That is due to um, Jenny Wellnuts as our coordinator. Um, but essentially it is very similar. Like oftentimes people say, "What is BAR?" And I say it's very similar to what you'd look at in a middle school model, which is creating cohorts or teams of kids, matching them with teachers, and then those teachers meet weekly, look at real-time data about those kids, often centered around course failure, and then look at how to intervene for those kids to reduce our failure rate. That's it in a nutshell. So, it's real- time data. It's also based on relationships. There's an SEAL curriculum with bar called eye time. We've been doing forever in this district through bar. Um, and so you're building those soft skills and those human connections and

073relationships in bar through that eye time because of course teachers are encouraged to participants in an eye time. So they are fully participating. Not only are they leading those lessons, but they also have opportunities to pair up with students and be vulnerable themselves. Um, and so if you ever make it out to Denfeld, and many of you do, um, it would be worth your while to coordinate with us so you have a chance to sit in, uh, and see those eye time lessons because we do take intentional time um, to do those lessons. Um, it's once every 3 weeks in 9th grade and once every um, four weeks in 10th grade, but we also apply um, our eye it time curriculum to 11th and 12th grade as well. So um, that's bar in a nutshell.

074teams of kids with teams of teachers looking at real-time data building relationships and the whole thing was also based on the 40 developmental assets from the search institute as well. So it is when you say building assets reducing risks that's where that comes from because you're looking at protective factors as well as risk factors. All right. Um so besides real- time data and relationship building you can see the eight interlocking strategies up on the board. Um it focuses on the whole student. If you talk to our bar coach uh Angie Johnson, she'll tell you that we are probably one of the best bar schools she sees that know our kids. Like when they come to evaluate us and sit in, they are always she is always really surprised at how well we know our kids.

075So it is focusing at the whole student. Um it is providing professional development u based on our contract with bar which we'll get to down the road. We get to get new teachers that are new to bar trained every year as part of that contract which is great. Uh because we're a national bar school of excellence. We also get to send a couple staff members in addition to us to the national bar conference which is great because they get exposed to all kinds of ideas from other bar schools. But it is also a nice way to put some charge back in their batteries as well to continue to do the work. Talked about the itime curriculum already. We talked about the team or cohorts of students. They have regular meetings which we'll talk about a

076little bit more in more detail. Um it's not called risk review anymore. Now it's called community connect. Um but essentially that would be like your student support teams or your SSTs. So essentially bar is like three tiers. It's like multi-tiered systems of support. Um you have teachers doing the work um at tier one level. When they have their block meetings with Jenny um and our assistant principles and our nth grade counselors that essentially is a tier two level and by the time it gets to community connect or risk review, you're talking about supporting kids at a tier three level which is very individualized. Um engaging families in student learning. Um we could go into that in depth but we do a lot of work around that especially this year trying to get our families to

077support their students which they are very eager to do. Uh so we do a lot of communicating around that to reduce those barriers and then engaging administrators which is me but is also our assistant principles who work on this and really when we get down to this farther you that's why we're here because part of this is u making sure that the school district's aware of what we're doing um so they can support that mission as well. and I'll let Jenny take over at this point. She's going to talk you through some data. Okay. So, I'm just going to share um bar what what we focus on is our nth and tth grade. So, what our data is looking at right now is our ninth and tth grade failure rate for the year. And when

078I'm referencing failure rate, what I mean is that then um students with one or more classes that they did not pass. So, a student could have one class that they didn't pass in a quarter or semester, or they could have four or more. Um, and they're all in the same um data. So, in our first quarter and our um you can see our nth and tth grade was at 34%. Um in the second quarter, our nth grade jumped up to 44. Um 10th grade was at 34%. And so, that 44% right there was a big um jump that was not normal for us. that what then led to our ninth grade semester failure rate being at 38%. Um and I'll talk on the next slide about um what we traditionally are at um and the

07910th grade stayed at 33%. We are now in our third quarter. The um grades are due tomorrow. So we'll have some data for you soon. Um but that 44% like I said c was um a blip or it it uh caused a red flag that um led to some interventions which I'm going to talk about later. So if we can go to the next slide. Um so some historic um data to know that prior to bar coming to Denfeld our nth grade failure rate was around 49%. Um which is why it was brought um to Denfeld to address that with um with bar um prior to the pandemic and I think it was 2016ish that we brought bar back to Denfeld. Um those numbers then went down to about 30 to 35% with our nth

080grade. Of course, during the pandemic, um those rates shot back up to between 50 and 60%. Um and then since the pandemic and being back full-time, we have been able to bring those numbers back down to 30 35%. One of the um one of the biggest interventions that we have done for years um is what is called our pause days and some of you are familiar with those. It's a really simple comp um concept in which um towards the end of a quarter or a semester about the three weeks leading up to it um the our core bar teachers have the opportunity to um sign up on on a schedule where they will then um identify the students that are well on their way to having a passing percentage for that quarter or semester. um

081myself or others will then come come gather up those children and we um in partnership with our media center specialists we um bring them down to the media center and they have the opportunity to either have some free time or most of them actually end up working on other school work. Um the students who are not quite passing at that time then have the opportunity to work and have some more intentional um just attention from from the teacher at that time to get themselves to passing. So with that intervention that we have done for probably seven or more years um are we are able to in the weeks leading up to the quarter semester ending bring our failure rate down to the by by 15% um historically. So we continue to do the pause days

082but we also decided to kind of take those um a step further this year. So we can go to the next slide. Um so here's um one of the great things about um bar and constantly looking at the data and constantly having those meetings in which the the teachers and the support staff and and all involved are are using um those real-time relationships and what's what's happening within the building is that we can we've gotten really good at um taking the data and moving really quickly at it on it and um coming up with interventions. So just this year what that has led to is our academic skills for success um which was um offered in 11th and 12th grade we found a need for our sophomores to also take part in that intervention. So

083um through through Tom's work and with our 10th through 12 counselors they were able to create a section for our 10th graders. So, our sophomores who um have some credits that they um maybe need to to recover um and also need some extra support in staying um caught up with their current coursework are are enrolled in those. Um we also brought the first semester 9th grade second chance recovery credit recovery um program this year. So on uh February 12th during the opportunity day um students in the ninth grade because remember how I said that that that 44% was was not our traditional number something was going on we had to address it. So this is was our answer to bringing that failure rate down for our first semester 9th graders. So students that had not

084passed a semester class and they were in that 50 to 59% were identified. Um teachers were asked to then identify what it was that the student needed to complete in order to get to a passing class, which our teachers did. And then on um a day in the media center, we had those students come down. And um there was a lot lot of work put into that. Um Tanya Jackson, our assistant principal, made a lot of um individual phone calls home to all the f the kids that were identified. Um we had um tutors and support staff and teachers um throughout the day work working on this and um the students were then given their work and they they they they went to it um until they completed what needed to happen and we were

085able to recover 45 semester credits in that one day from our freshman class. Um so then moving into the third quarter we um after taking some feedback from from teachers they we um moved it um to happen before the third quarter ended. So once again um same concept identified students who were not passing a class and they were still in that 50 to 59% currently. Same idea. Um 75% of those kids that were identified did participate. And we're going to find out how that how that all shook out um in the next couple days. Um because the first semester credit second chance recovery was so successful um some of our other teams then picked it up and brought the second chance credit recovery for students in grades 10 through 12. Same idea only this was

086held over spring break. So this just happened and that's with partnership um from IEO and the um neighborhood youth services. So the um so that was held off site and those students um from early reports and this isn't solidified yet but 61 classes um semester classes were recovered during that time for our 10th and 12th graders. So some really big massive interventions have been happening because of our bar data. Um again everything that we're doing right now is a it's it's a only happens because of the collaborations that we have with our community schools um and our other partnerships um in in our community. It's uh anything that we are doing at Denfield with this is an all hands on deck and um it it it takes a lot of massive effort but there's a

087lot of uh will behind it as well. So all right, so just to highlight something about those credit recovery uh things that's happening inside the school year. Um you're talking about every semester credit that's recovered represents a kid that would normally go to summer school for three weeks to do the same thing. and we're doing them in the span of about one school day uh with the ninth graders or when we did it off-site over spring break um at Ako and NYS also during one day at each one of those sites. But think about that. That's one kid in a classroom for three weeks to get a half credit. We're doing that because they're finishing the work that they they didn't get completed or needed to get completed in a school day or in one

088day at ACO or NYS. It's dramatic. Um, and it was bar that kicked this off with the ninth graders. And then as soon as it happened with the nth graders, we sat there and said, "Well, now what about the 10th through 12th graders?" And that spawned that. Think about 30 kids showing up during spring break over the course of two days, two different locations and recovering up to 61 classes. Um, I and and the bottom line is this. Our teachers give us a lot of they trust us because we ask them to do some crazy things like, "Hey, we know you're just about ready to be done with your quarter and your grades. Can you find some work for kids between 50 and 59?" And sometimes the response is, "Do you know what I've already

089done to get the kid to 50 to 59 and try to get them across the finish line?" And yet they roll up their sleeves and they do it because we're asking. So, we use a lot of relationship capital and trust in these programs to get our teachers to play ball because they've been playing with these kids and really hustling and working and yet we're asking them to go one step further and they do even though it can be really hard. So, I want to highlight that. Member Banks. Yes, member Banks. Just need clarification for a moment here. So, I I know the disparity issues or concerns are glaring in ISD 709 east and west. um that that concerns me, but I appreciate everything that you all are doing. Is any of this going on at

090East High School in any way or is it just at Denfeld? Um academic skills for success classes happen on both sides of town. Okay. Um opportunity days happen on both sides of town. Um but they don't have bar and so they don't have the same access to the data and the staff that we do like No. Okay. Some of it is, the majority of it is not because it is coming directly out of our bar program. Okay. And follow-up question. So, because Denfield has a significant number of children of color, um, can you talk about the impacts with regard to children of color that are in this program? Do you want to speak to that as far as what the student population looks like? This is essentially harvesting kids between 50 and 59 across the

091entire spectrum in 9th grade regardless of demographic. Same thing in 10th through 12. I will tell you it was intentional. Um we've done two different breaks now. The first break in February. There was also a day at Ako and at NYS um primarily to work with kids on getting work done. Um, but then we thought we would change that to more of a credit recovery option this spring break just because like if we're going to have kids meeting us to get work done, then let's make it more impactful for them. Um, and those are often many of our students of color, although not exclusively. And that is part of the intentional effort by staff in our building to build relationships with our communities and get out of the building to go where our kids are.

092Um, and Ako and NYS have been more than gracious to host and help. Um, so no, it's not exclusively students of color at either one of those locations. Many of them are. All right. So data analysis um leads to other innovations. So last year, can you go back one slide for me? Thanks. So last year um part of why we ended up landing on an indigenous cohort is when you have enough staff that continue to come to you and go, we are literally watching our American Indian students not graduate before our eyes. This goes back all the way to nth grade. like when you see students who have absentee issues or they're in the hallways. Um we finally reached a critical point last year where some of our staff came together and said, "We're not

093going to watch this happen anymore, so let's come up with an idea to do something different." So that was part of our bar data working there as well. We did summer transition academy last year for three weeks. We had 12 students earn a full credit before high school even started last year. Um and that was wonderful. We're going to continue that this year as well. And then we created a functional academics program. There's supposed to be an asterk by it, but I deleted it. Um, we don't call it functional academics. The kids aren't told that they're in a functional academic program, but imagine being a student uh with an IQ that wouldn't qualifi qualify them for a DCD program. So, they're in a regular special ed setting with really low skills and they're drowning in

094academics. So, that came out of our bar data as well. So, now we have a program and a case manager dedicated to reach students that are falling between the cracks. Those are my words, no one else's, but there's no better way to describe it than kids that really need some extra support even within special education um based on where their skill levels are. So, those are programs that helped come to fruition last year based on our bar data and observations and unwillingness to sit still um and not serve our kids better. Um this is our coaches report. This is our most recent uh recent report. Uh Angie Johnson was here a couple weeks ago. and shared this report back with us. So, you can see the further to the right that you go, it says

095it's in place and you can see what Denfeld scores on that. Um, that is due to Jenny Welnuts sitting next to me being one of the best coordinators in the country. That is not Flowery. That is not because she's sitting here. We have one of the best bar coordinators in the country. That is true. And we also have one of the best coaches in the country and Angie Johnson. Part of the reason we pay for a contract every year with bar is we get coaching visits. And I've said this before in front of different groups, external coaching models when you're trying to implement something are critical. Even though we've been doing this a long time, we are better because we have an external coach that comes and does two on-site visits and gives us feedback.

096Uh, one of the questions she asked us when we met her during lunch when she stopped at Denfeld was, well, have you talked to the school board lately? And here we are. Um, so that we are directly here because that was one of her expectations. She put it in our coaches report as something that we can improve and that's why we're here sharing this with you. All right. Um, so what does bar take to be successful? Um, it takes district support. So over the years, I will tell you that it's been very comforting. Um, when I have had to get bar contracts and find the resources for that, I've contacted Simone and she says, "This is important. This is good for kids and we're going to find a way." No questions, no debate. We're going

097to figure out how to do it. Um, and that has come from different funding sources over time. So, thank you for the support over the years financially with that. Um, it's a building commitment, which we'll talk about on the next slide. Um, but we also have a 1.0 coordinator. At one point, Denfeld had a part-time coordinator, which was me. Also being a classroom teacher, also being a bar teacher. Having a full-time coordinator is critical to the success of bar because it is a full-time job to run all those teams and support our kids that way. Um, the last two points on this, the teachers and support staff that we have that persevere along with us, trust us, and jump in the pool. even when we don't tell them where the pool necessarily is, they jump

098anyway. Um, and then we move the water around so they hit it. Um, and our students and families, we are constantly doing stuff that's different, um, and evolutionary and our families and students are more than willing to joke go along with us on that journey. So, I want to highlight that as well. So, this is our contract. Um, it's part of the Thrive program through bar. It's a $35,000 yearly commitment. Um, it is there's coaching calls available for Jenny to talk to her coach. Um, there's two on-site coaching visits. We get recognition as a bar school of excellence, not because we pay the bill, but because we have a process in place for them to vet us as a national school of excellence. Um, we get new team teacher, we get new team member training

099um, for five staff every year. We utilize that every year because we often have staff turnover or staff coming in and out of bar. Um, we get the bar network membership for PLC's. I get to go to a PLC when I can find the time. There's a national bar PLC for principles. Same thing for coordinators that we have access to. Um, and then um, we get some reduced conference fees. We also get to send a couple staff, which is critical for us as well. And then we get access to our bar it time curriculum online. So, while that is a hefty price tag for a building like ours, we pay for it out of comped. Um, it is well worth the investment of not only a 1.0 an FT for a coordinator, but a $35,000

100contract because when you look at the impact it's making on our kids, just the 45 credits our nth graders recovered alone um is substantial. Now, if you look at the the ripple effect of that, recovering potentially 61 more um for our upper classmen, um it makes the investment look uh small. All right, so next steps. Um, so when the last contract changed and we added two PLC's for a total of six per month, um, it gave us some breathing room to continue to do the work of bar, which we consider and the district considers a PLC because here's what it did. Not only does it allow um for bar to function, but it also allows our bar teachers, which were typically cut off from a PLC because they're doing bar work all the time as

101a PLC, to connect with their content teachers, which is a huge step forward. So, changing that contract and getting those two additional days that can be district or building led was critical for us to to move bar forward, to get those bar teachers not only doing what they need to within bar, but then get them connected with their contents colleagues as well. And the two asks that that we have, one, wouldn't it be great if we could move to total minutes instead of total meetings per month? So we have some additional flexibility on how we do PLC's in buildings like Denfeld, which are kind of a little bit more unique. Um because even though we have six meetings, it still is a challenge trying to do all the work we need to in bar with

102small block meetings which are teacherled and big block meeting which are are led by support staff like Jenny to get all this done. because we are limited by the number of meetings and if it was by minutes we would have some flexibility to do some things differently which we currently can't because right now we're we're voluntarily relying on some teams to say we will split a 40-minute meeting in two so we can do a small block meeting but they're volunteering to do that because it's not part of their contract. So if we were to minutes, we would get in a better, more flexible spot. And the second thing u that I'm going to ask because I have to since I have the audience is we have to ensure we have intervention time built into the

103schedule next year in high schools so we can continue to do some of this work. Opportunity days are happening this year. We've used those to great effect. um we need to make sure we have something if not an opportunity something equivalent to continue this work because if we're running a straight seven this becomes exponentially harder to pull off logistically. Is that fair to say that Jenny? Correct. So those are our two asks um just so we can continue the good work at Denfeld High School of trying to support our kids. Questions? Thank you Superintendent Maggus. I just wanted to say uh thank you for this great work and being an exemplar not just in our district but across the country for this to both of you and having done a lot of intervention work like

104this uh to see the structure and quality is is really um impressive and I'm proud of that work that you're doing. It's it's a great reflection of the work that we can do here. I also think it's a good good reflection of um sometimes when we have different funding available for different uh parts of town or different populations depending on need uh that we want to make sure that we're using that money thoughtfully and using it towards researchbased best practices. And I think this is demonstrating to the board and the district and the community that this is this is what we do. We don't just um take the money and spend it willy-nilly. We put it towards things that matter and things that make a difference. And then we ask people in addition to these

105resources, please roll up your sleeves and help us out and do even more than than would be expected. And I I I really have always appreciated uh that spirit. Member Saddowski, just a couple comments. Um first, thanks for being here tonight. um just really appreciated learning about how data driven this program is and then how we're using that data to be really be focused on our students here um at Denfeld and just um using that data to make creative and intentional interventions. So just really appreciated learning more about this today. I really hope I can come see some of those eye time lessons sometime soon. Um I also just a couple comments really appreciate the community partnerships and the impact of those. That's huge. Um appreciate your feedback on the contract and um also just

106really appreciate your suggestions tonight. Member Larmp and then member Williams. Yeah, thank you. Uh uh member Sowski said a few things that I wanted to say, but I I've just really appreciated from just being on the board um over the years uh and when you've done updates on this just the the growth of the program, the strength of the program. Uh and um just I I'm just smiling at you, Tom. Yeah, I appreciate that. Pat you on the back there. Uh and also just um I wanted to reiterate to the community partnerships. Um wonderful, wonderful. Keep it up. And um and then lastly, just that you have kind of concrete asks for us or concrete suggestions. So that's that's always helpful. So thank you. And thank you, Jenny. Thank you. Thank you. Um a couple

107of questions. Um I'm not sure if I'm fully understanding um the IT time classes that's for all students within the grades you've talked about or is it for specifically identified students? Nope. The there that's a great question. The IT time lessons are delivered once every three weeks to every nth grader. Okay. Once every four weeks to every 10th grader. And the reason it's different between 9th and 10th grade is that civics is only a semester long in nth grade where and when they're sophomores they have four year-long classes in their core content areas. Um and then 11th and 12th grade is also on a four-week rotation um due to those content areas. But those are delivered to every class by the classroom teachers. That is a um like like everything else our teachers do. Um

108it's it takes some trust because what they are doing is they're saying hey we're going to do an IT time lesson on Friday. they are saying we're going to go faster because we're going to have better relationships with our kids and we're going to work on their soft skills. Um so we're more functional as a classroom and as a team and as a group because that's once every 3 weeks or once every four weeks where you are going to pause your curriculum to work on a different curriculum which is about how we show up as human beings together in in society and community. So, and I also want to say that with those it times, it's not just about delivering um to the students and teaching them those soft skills or those social emotional skills,

109but it is also a a point for the the staff to learn about the student and to shift um um the viewpoint in which they may see that student and then what they learn is brought back to our meetings and share. And then and sometimes that thing that a kid said or how they reacted or or what they showed is the thing that will unlock that root cause or that thing that we didn't know. So there's many reasons and many value um the lessons that come from doing those it times. Thank you. Mayor Michael. Um I just appreciate learning about this um this program um and the time that you're spending making sure that we're aware of all the um the background of it and how you're moving forward and looking at the data. I

110was really struck by like the interconnectedness of all of our different programs that we have supporting our students, how they complement each other. Many times we're here and we have like kind of silos of information from different programs, different funding streams, all those kind of things. But just kind of seeing all these different layers that um support our students is just so great to hear. And I just wanted to ask you to please go back to your staff and just thank them for all the extra effort. Um because obviously from the data you present, you know, it's making quite a difference and we know that that's um they may not always hear thank you in all the ways they want to hear it all the time. So just please make sure that they know how

111much we appreciate the extra time and effort they put into this. Thank you. Member Loot, how many bar teachers do we have? Let's just take ninth grade. So, we've got do we we have three three how many how many teachers do we have within nth grade that are are the bar teachers and they have the cohort. Yeah, I think um I think there's 18 total. There's five teams um two full 9th grade, two um full 10th grade, and then we have a a hybrid team where they have both nth and tth grade classes. Okay. So, that's a that's a new thing that we're trying this year. And the hybrid team comes because you don't have enough teachers to do it all. Yeah. Um, so you as you're trying to build these teams, you don't want

112teams that are too large or too small. Um, so we end up having to hybridize one team where teachers teach some nth and tth grade classes. And I think that many on the board have heard this comment from me before, but um, I was in the first cohort at Denfeld in 1998 with Tom as my partner along with Christy Fiser. And you know, so I I I can follow their their growth and that's wonderful. and and even for what what was done in 1998 till a break in is that we would stay after school and if um Tom had tests to be made up or um um homework to be done then we'd rotate as teachers after school to do virtually what you're doing now too in those recovery credits. But, you know, it was

113just an opportunity to um work more intentionally with students after school. If they stayed, you know, then they were staying a little bit more. Now, um there's other barriers that keep that from happening. But again, the growth, the consistency, the strength, the the success and then data. We didn't have it. We didn't have as much data when we first started either. So congratulations and it's great to have you here to share this um uplifting program and and ways that we're serving the kids and um I hope our community watches this either on our YouTube site or the I'm glad we have some in the audience. Um assistant superintendent Bonds and I have always said that our committee the whole meeting is an a meeting that I I hope our community doesn't miss very often. We

114have from what we just heard prior to this this presentation with our concurrence and non-concurrence this presentation and yet the others we'll see tonight and every month are the ones that really um keep us moving and uplifted as well and also hardworking to dig in even more to provide for the kids. So thanks for being here. Thank you. member laugh just thank you about uh you mentioned 18 teachers they're all trained with bar how many are you hoping to train um this summer or wherever however the training happens usually we train five every year and that's sometimes because you have teachers that are coming into bar that have been at Denfel they just haven't trained or they haven't taught in bar um but we typically find spots for all five of those every year like

115we had a new guidance counselor this year that's for nth grade uh Dave Bergen he got trained because he came to Denfeld. So that contract allows us that flexibility to get people that come like Dave um coming over from East High School comes to Denfeld, hey, you're going to be the nth grade counselor. Great. We got them bar training because we had access to it. So that's often how it is. Even if they're not new to the district or new to Denfeld, they are people that just haven't taught in bar before. Okay. Excellent. And then a followup. um how are parents explained about this program or or kind of brought in um educated how Yeah. Yeah. And and and it's always tricky difficult. Yeah. Always difficult. But we do we we talk which we touch

116base on it at like the eighth grade open house and the or any orientations in our newsletters those kind of broad communications that we have. Chair Derek Ger. Hi welcome. It's great to see you both here today. Um, so my question is when I'm looking at the data on the data analysis leads to interventions this year, 75% of identified students participated. Um, I guess what I'm trying to get to is when you look at this bar data, can you see students that are identified, students that participated versus students who are identified who did not participate? Can you see differences in graduation rates? Have you looked at that or is that just because what I'm trying to get to is how this supports um raising our our getting our kids graduated and walking across the stage

117with with the with the intervention that we did just did because it's it's the first time we did it. Um I I wouldn't be able to answer. No, I'm just wondering if you but no that but that is always something that we are constantly looking at and because because we're always looking at data we're always finding those through lines. are always finding those layers and so we will have a million different interventions going on because for every layer it's to hit a specific specific target. It's not a one-sizefits-all and we've really learned that through the years. Um I will say that we have through the years learned um a lot that we can have another conversation about it another time um through our transition meetings that we have with our eighth grade partners with with

118Lincoln Park. So, one of the things that we do through bar is every year, um, Lincoln is gracious and gives us a whole day where our support staff go over there, meet with their support staff, and we talk about every single eighth grader at Lincoln, and we take notes on them, and um, think what strengths are, uh, ways to to help um, boost their boost themselves when they're here at um, at in high school. And there are some things through the years that we have learned through that collection. Yeah. that I I think lead to some root causes. And I think that um that that could be a different conversation. But but yes, we there's things that we are always we don't just look at, oh, like this works. We looked at we always are

119looking at who didn't it work for and why and how are we going to adjust to that now? What did it what did those students need and where do we need to get them? And there's two things that I want to um compliment that I really appreciate about this. The first thing is going back in the eighth grade and working with those because we know high school graduation that working towards that goal starts young, right? And I love how they're layering eighth. And then also just appreciating when you're looking at the grades for students between 50 to 59%. That that's a realistic goal to get them passed. Sometimes I worry if they're lower then you're just trying to pass them through and that doesn't necessarily mean they're gaining those competencies to be able to be

120successful later on. So there's just so much I appreciate about this program. So thank you both so much. Thank you. And I would be remiss to say uh or not say thank you as well. Make sure Tom you go back and tell the team I say thank you. And I want to make sure the board you you've already hit on it. This is just one of the many programs and opportunities we are providing our students to ensure that they are being connected to school, that they're being successful in school, and this is just one of the many programs Denfeld has. So, I'm I'm emphasize that because I know there's always a lot of questions and concerns on how we're meeting the needs of our kids. But there are a lot of programs offered whether it's

121Denfield, East, and and all of our schools where we are really trying to meet the needs that exist out there. and we're going to keep striving to do better and but there are people who are really working hard. I know Denfeld and Tom and his staff are working really hard. So, thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have uh Sher Williams who is our director of Head Start. She will be be presenting the DUTH Head Start annual approvals. Hi there. All righty. Ready, Shannon? Okay. Every year I come here in April with a variety of things that need approval from the school board and um here I am again. But look at me. I'm not last. I'm third. I just want to point that out. Thanks, Anthony. So um I'd like to start with uh

122our self assessment. So we Head Start requires an annual self assessment that analyzes progress made towards our established goals in the full year prior. So you'll notice our self- assessment document is self- assessment 23 24 because I need to have the entire years of worth of data and I come at an awkward time. We almost have another full set, but uh that's just the way the the system is set up. Um we bring it to you to and we share it with our staff and our parents, the governing body and our policy council. Um just to let you know what we have been working on and and and uh analyzing in Head Start. It is a 14page report. Uh in the past I brought that full 14page report and gone over it with you but

123I want you to know that this year I brought just highlights from the slides. If you want to see more uh feel free to to enter the document and read uh in detail what uh we were talking about. So when we actually do the self assessment we invite parents and staff um and community members to join us to look at our grant goals and look at just join the discussion and what we feel was successful. um and what are some things we might want to work on? Um that can include altering our goals if if necessary. So you can go ahead and advance and I'll just go through the goals. So um high quality inclusive classrooms uh navigating trauma was a goal that we've had established for the last five years. We do see many

124incidents of physical aggression. Uh that's something that we monitor with behavior incident reports. Um and in response, we've created some really excellent professional development around this topic. Um as well as a programwide approach to support teaching teams called the preschool support team. In this slide, you'll notice our anxiety curve uh professional development that uh we've got a staff person who is working on her master's degree right now and a mental health coordinator who together came up with how do we respond to children when when they're at varying points on the anxiety curve. It was very well received by our staff. Um and we plan to uh answer the call for presenters to the National Head Start Association which will be held in Minneapolis next year to to um train nationally on this this PD really

125powerful PD responding to the unique needs of our community at one point was called walking the talk of equity. This is a federal federally funded program. So I've had to change some of my language within the grant. Um so responding to the unique needs of our community had us create Oshki and Waywin which is a preschool class that incorporates Oji boy language and culture into programming and that program continues to grow. More than twice as many families have been accepted into the program this year than last year at this time. Um, so Oshkin Waywan is uh getting a lot of support in the community. So we're very pleased to see that happen. Fostering resilience with a focus on health and wellness. Uh, one of our big parts of that is our partnership with the YMCA

126where we have four full day classes. Attend safety around water which is a six-week class focusing on skills to prevent drowning. Every Head Start family receives a day pass and tonight right now at the YMCA is our very first ever swim class for parents. This came up at our self assessment last year. Um parents involved with safety around water and they're saying, you know, I don't feel comfortable getting in the water. I wonder if there could be swim lessons for us. And so the YMCA is graciously hosting tonight. I I'm going there right after the meeting. Um seven parents signed up for our program. Free child care is there. So they're swimming, having dinner, um chatting with each other while their children are in child care. So we're excited to have that happen. I'll I'll

127share pictures later. Um, and we've also had some citywide father and father figure events at the YMCA where 19 Head Start families attended. So, we're really pleased to see dads getting out there and the YMCA has been a fabulous community partner for us. So, we're really happy about that. School readiness is always a Head Start goal. So, included in every Head Start grant are some school readiness goals. we tend to make our goals be for those children that year. So, we want to see some growth happen from the fall to the spring um in each of the five core areas that Head Start requires. And you can see that we we far surpass those goals. In fact, it probably makes sense for us to increase them. So again, what you're seeing is the percentage of

128growth from fall to spring in our half days and our full days. So we do monitor we do monitor our half days versus our full days so that we can make sure that we're still seeing adequate progress even though the dosage is a little bit lower. So sharing that with you. Then you can see in the small bar graph on the side just what our scores actually are comparing our three funding streams. So we not only have Head Start in Duth public schools, we have voluntary prek and school readiness. Um so looking at those when this data was taken voluntary prek met only three days a week and so we we can see the dosage does matter. Um, at the end of the self- assessment, uh, recommendations get made. And so the recommendations are plan

129for a smooth transition to a new Head Start director. I think you might have approved my my one-year leave that will be followed by my retirement. This was always a part of the plan. So, I I'm not I'm not running out when things are getting hard. I was planning on leaving at this point. I was uh I've been working for the Duth Public Schools since um fall of 1989. So, this is the natural closing of my career. Um, we also at this time need to uh visualize an ideal Head Start program because we did get notice that we'll be competing for our next grant. And so, you should know that that's a that's the way Head Start funding works. So, we've had two deficiencies in the last five-year period. And so, uh, we will have

130a continuation grant for this upcoming year. So, we'll continue with our same grant goals moving into um school year 2526, but in the second half, sometime after July, our grant will be up for competition, which can sound scary. Um, other entities can apply for the grant at the same time. So, what you are essentially doing is stating a case for this is what we can do. This is what we can do with this amount of money. I don't know if you remember, but when I first came into my position, the very first thing I did as a director was write a competitive grant. So, um, so I'm not at that time it was really scary to think of, but I feel much more confident that we've held this grant for 60 years. We are a

131high quality program um, embedded in our elementary schools. So I'm very confident that we will maintain the grant but that that notice did come and that is a result of uh the deficiencies that we've experienced in the last 5 years. Um uh we do some internal monitoring and we realized we need to add an interview to our internal monitoring and I really wanted to make sure that we get that done. So I've included that and working hard to encourage and capture family engagement at the site level. So while we're seeing some family engagement happening out in the community when we have our large events out in the community, we really want to make that connection be between the families and the school. And so really turning our lens on how can we get people more

132actively involved in the school because that's sometimes a place where people are uncomfortable and that's where we want to make the connections. So we're really going to change our focus to making those connections happen at school. Um, there's a link here to the full self- assessment report and uh all of the things that I'm bringing to you tonight are on the consent agenda because they all need to be um approved. Okay. The Head Start transportation waiver is the next thing. So, the funding stream voluntary prek uh from MDE requires that transportation be provided to four-year-olds. And in DUTH, we extend that to include our four-year-old Head Start students. Head Start has two requirements that we ask to wave so that our kids can ride the bus. And that is the use of a child restraint

133system and having bus monitors on board. So, if we had Head Start busing, those would be required. But we're ask we're asking to ride the gened buses and we're asking to wave those requirements. Our policy council supports this. Many of our families do need transportation. Um 114 year old 114 four-year-old children take the bus to school on Jed buses on any given day. So quite a few families do um take advantage of that. Um, safe delivery of preschool students was implemented following a deficiency in this area. And I want you to know that safe delivery of preschool students works. So, we have not had any um release of children without the appropriate adult present. We really feel that uh that um that we've got a really safe way to to transport preschool children on the

134bus. So, the system works. And then to look closely at our federal grant for fiscal year 26. Um, and this explains how we'll continue our current grant goals. We were working towards it would have been a base grant year for us. So we had started like moving towards a base grant, but once you get the competitive grant notice, you know that you will continue with your grant goals so that you're not writing two huge uh grant things so close together. So the federal head start grant for next year is um 2,800,000. There's a portion of it set aside for training and technical assistance around 30,000 and our federal funded enrollment for Head Start is 190 children. So, um that is the grant that we will be um writing uh with the similar grant goals that

135we have in place. Member Williams called on me way faster than I anticipated. Um, okay. I probably asked this last year. Uh, help me. Ashki and Oski and Waywin. O. Say one more time. Oki in wayin. In wayin. I need to practice saying that. Oski in wayin. That is completely independent of misab. Yes. Okay. Yes, it is. I will probably just keep asking that every year for clarification for everybody. Um, and then I really want to praise the swim program for parents. Um, that's incredible. Uh, I'm going to give a little anecdote that's unnecessary, but that's what I do. Um, so when my family moved here, I'm the youngest of four. None of my, um, older siblings had were required to take swimming as part of FIED because of access to public pools and swimming

136and all of that. So, I was the first one to have to take it. And it was so intimidating to me because I didn't see any adults um swim. Like I don't think my mom ever learned how to swim. And so this this is incredible and it really focuses on equity. So I love that whether that's on purpose or not. Um yeah, just access. That's awesome. So I just wanted to praise that. Thank you. And then um I appreciate hearing about the safe delivery of preschoolers protocol because the waiverss kind of made me go. So yes, so thank you for explaining that a little bit. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, our families are so excited to swim. I'm so excited to go there actually and have a little dinner with them after the meeting. So and

137also I want to make sure uh the board is aware that Oshkin Waywin is something that we started relatively new as of two years ago. I think we started Oshkin Wayin. Uh no, it was it's already been four years. It's already been four years. So again, it was one of those addition no programming that we wanted to make sure that we provided for our students who are indigenous and it ends up being more than just uh originally uh indigenous students but to provide that culture. So I'm connecting this back to the concurrence non-concurrence. This was one of those um things that we put in place years ago to in order to continue to meet the need starting early, right? And so I just wanted to make sure we pointed that out. I'm going to go

138on order because I have no idea who's next. So, I'm going to go with the member Saddowski. I just wanted to say thank you for all of your work. Um, just working with the Headsert Policy Council, educating, you know, just facilitating, I think is probably the word I'm looking for. just really meaningful conversations um and giving I've just really enjoyed um sitting there and listening in those meetings and just hearing how how their feedback what their feedback is and then knowing just over the last couple years how we have implemented their feedback um from the little vests that um that the kids wear. Um and I'm really really proud of our school district that we are busting our Head Start kids. that would seem really awful not to do that when other four-year-olds might be

139g getting that ride. Um, but also just when I'm looking at the self assessment recommendations, I'm remember I was really tired at our last Head Start policy council meeting, but I remember parents starting to talk about number four and like how important that is to um so it's that encourage and capture family engagement at the site level and it was really cool kind of hearing parents reflect about, you know, what does family engagement look like at their site and um what can we do for that? And um just yeah just wanted to say thank you for your work on all of this and I know other people have comments so I will stop talking so you can get down to the pool down to the wine. Ger um thank you um your years of service

140to this kids of this community are it's special. I hope you know that and the mark that you've left on this community is very important. So, thank you for that work. Okay. So, I just in your self assessment, I can't tell you how much I love the idea of encouraging and capturing family at the site level. Um, I think especially for our schools on the west side when you think about even things like PTAs and just those sorts of um family places for that family engagement. How do we integrate and how do we show our Head Start families that they're welcomed in the schools? Especially we know that some of these families did not have welcoming schools, did not have great experiences. School was a place of trauma for them to go and for them

141to um sort of unlearn or update some of those notions about schools and and understanding that these are safe places for their kids to go. The PTA is a place for them. It's a place of community. I think that is a wonderful addition and I think that will really strengthen and lift those communities, especially the elementary schools. I I can't tell you how much I just love that idea. And um again, one of my favorite things at Piedmont in the morning is seeing the littles with their bright vests on that almost go down to the pavement because they're so big on them. It's just it makes my morning. So, thank you for your service. Thank you, Member Lo. So my qu can we go back the slide with the federal grant um on it. I

142just have a question about so is there other funding that we get? It says program operations 2,800 and then it says federal funded enrollment 190. Are does that mean that our are there other funds that we're using or is this what we exist on for our Head Start in Duth? Yeah, this is Head Start. We do have VPK and school readiness but that is not included in this slide. Yeah. And so and then the 190 is our number for our Head Start students that are funded by the money that we see. Okay. Yes. Just just a clarification. Thank you. So that would be also money that right now with just some um conversations coming out of our our government is potentially something looking to be reallocated to another department or just some other questions about

143that. Okay. Mhm. We're hoping that Yeah, we're Yeah, I'm confident. I'm confident going forward. Y we're going to we're going to have that enrollment. We're going to have that money. I I just wanted to add to the Thank you, Sher, for your years of work with our district and um the the work with Head Start in the last few years and taking that on. library remember meeting you when you were in your first week uh under um Head Start and uh just what you've done and I really want to celebrate the work that you have done with families. Um I remember the conversations parents had about their swim lessons and the reality now you've brought forward um parent engagement. Um, again, we have a couple Stow PTA leaders that came from your leadership team. And

144so, uh, the and that's been duplicated in other ways across the district. So, just, um, thank you. Thank you for the work, uh, that you've done and, um, we will keep celebrating you until your last day. Member Banks. Thank you. So, can we go back to the fostering resilience with a focus on health and wellness slide? That uh bullet number four, yes, is very exciting and I'm very happy about that. Is that brand new or is that uh been around for a little while? uh Head Start encourage us encourages every program to really work on father engagement and so we definitely try to have three or four events during the course of the year that focuses on father and father figure um engagement. So that's awesome. Thank you. Mhm. I I would just add to

145Henry when when I served as a uh schoolboard rep on it, there were often uh parents or fathers on the uh advisory board as well as leading the advisory board. Yeah, we continue to have uh at least one there's always at least one dad who's on policy council. So, it's great. Superintendent Maggus. Well, I know um there's a lot that's been said about your leadership and uh thinking about the time that I've worked with you two over the past five years and thinking about my 30 years and 30 plus years in education and I would be very very hardressed to think of anybody who's led uh with more heart than you. You put your heart out there for the kids. You care about them. You love them. You support your program in thoughtful ways. And

146um just to to reiterate what everybody else has said, I I I uh honor the work that you've done here for us and uh I've been proud to work with you and I will be proud to continue working with you as we work on finding a suitable successor. Great. Thank you. Thank you. All righty. She already knows I'm proud of her and the work she does. Up next, we have a presentation that will be provided by our very own Superintendent John Maggus related to the Duth Promise and I'll keep it relatively brief too, but um did you want to pull up? Thanks. Good. I was just not sure if you wanted me to pull it up or not. Great. So, um, what DUTH Promise, we've been hearing a lot about it. Uh, you've been you,

147uh, you saw some some updates that I shared in my superintendent report, uh, last month. Um, but really, we continue our work on our DUTH promise. And really, what is it? It's a coalition of educational institutions and workforce partners committed to building a strong workforce. And we're focused on making sure that we have strong career pathways to employment in high high demand fields. And we're starting with three different career areas right now. Uh we would love to focus on every career area, but it's important to pick a few and and go more deeply. Um and uh Danette Sibo has also been very involved as has uh Jen Larva and uh Anthony Bonds in this work as well. But really we're focusing on health care, manufacturing and business services. So within manufacturing we we talk about

148the trades and industry uh and within business services we're also more deeply focused on some of the IT work and uh accounting. So those are some things that we're focused on. So why why are we doing this? Why why is this become such a hot topic? Really there are three areas that that the city uh and uh different employers as well as our work group have identified really thinking about. We have a shrinking workforce. Uh our labor force is decreasing and there are a lot of uh different uh companies that are looking for employees when they're thinking about settling here or or starting a a company here. They want to make sure that they have the workforce needed. And then also they we're seeing sometimes that there's a disconnect between the skills taught in the

149educational institutions and those that are required by employers. So thinking about more hands-on opportunity, more um opportunity for for uh work in the field is really important to us. And then we're also seeing and I think we all we all know people who have either graduated from high school or graduated from college and they talk about how much they enjoyed DUTH but they move elsewhere. And so how are we thinking about keeping the best and the brightest and and making sure that there are lots of possibilities for everyone here? Uh that is really important to us as well. So, how how are we going to address this? Well, really, we're we're trying to look at this in a different way and in collective way uh by making sure that we're all aligned in this work.

150I think that it's not that that there's anything incredibly new about this. It's that we're having everybody work on the problem in in a cohesive way and everybody seek solutions in cohesive ways. So really thinking about uh what are we doing to have have the strategic partnerships between the higher ed institutions. Uh we think about who's involved. We think about um the University of Minnesota DUTH. We think about College of St. Scholastica. We think about Lake Superior College all being very much involved. And then uh in addition to those higher ed institutions, we have the Chamber of Commerce very involved and Apex, which is our our local um area um u economic development group. So we have them involved as well as the city with their with their workforce development. So everybody is trying to

151to address the problem individually, but to to put us all together working on the same cause is really what's intended by this. And again, every time that we talk about this, the people are uh energized when we get in the room. There's there's everybody is saying, "Let's do this. Let's do more of this." And even today um we were at the uh actually U member Laughler Kemp was there as well at the uh let's do lunch event put on by the chamber and u chamber president Matt Balgardner talked about the duth promise and how in a room of 200 uh leaders talked about how this is important and recognized our school district uh for for the work we're doing as well as the work of the group and then um chancellor uh Charles NY uh

152also uh had had a full slide on it and talked in great detail about the the partnership of the DUTH Promise and why this is important uh and and really how do those higher ed institutions play? We want to make sure that we have uh stackable credentials. And what I mean by that is is u ability for people to to take classes uh from different institutions and have them count. So if you take a couple classes from LSC, you can use those credits towards uh what you're doing at College of St. Scholastica or UMD so that there's reciprocity and and acceptance of each other's credits um so that we can better support lifelong learning and accessibility to those courses. We also recognize that people um have different on-ramps and off-ramps in life. You know, I

153I didn't know I was going to become an education an a teacher, let alone an uh educational administrator. and different times in our lives, we we want to access different training and different opportunities and and get on and off different career ladders. And we want to make sure that this programming is is the same. So, we might have somebody graduating from high school, for instance, with a certified nursing assistance uh assistant license, but they might decide that they later want to become um an RN or they might want to go through a medical school. So we want to make sure that people have different opportunities for on and offramp and then making sure that the community is engaged as well. So making sure that that this is not just seen as a school or educational

154effort but it's something supported by the full community. So before I go on to the next steps but because I should have had this too. Um my fault. Um, so I you've you've probably heard about career pathway programs many times before and you might be thinking okay this is just another career pathway program but how is this different and really I can think of three different ways. Uh first of all it's that high level collaboration that we had when we think about the the partnership of higher ed we think about um the city to the chamber and apex everybody's stepping up and working on this together and every time we've talked to different uh entities like uh St. Luke's uh Cirrus the all the big names and and a lot of other other names we

155think about um um just the various employers that we have in the in the area when we when they're hearing about this they want to get behind it. They want to be involved. I would also say our trades our trade groups are desperately seeking additional people that that want to get involved in the trades that they want to have apprenticeships. We want to make sure that we're training our future welders, our engineers, uh our our uh electricians, and we want to make sure we have that partnership too. So that high level collaboration is the first piece. Second is to um uh really make sure that that we have um sorry the second was the the uh weaving of the industry and and trades is what I meant to say. But the third is really think

156about the diversity of our workforce. Uh, we want to make sure that we're we're thinking about diversity and we're thinking about how we're we're making this inclusive from the get-go because I've been part of programs where we might have and I think I've mentioned this before, we might have a a home building program, but you can't even get into the home building program until you've passed geometry with with a B. And so that automatically makes it so it's a gatekeeping piece that doesn't allow people access. And uh I've seen this done in other areas where we we we can create different opportunities where we're getting people to the table and and thinking about that from the get-go. So really it's about baking all this in from the beginning as a project rather than thinking about

157it afterwards. Thinking about how is equity, how is inclusion part of what we do from the beginning rather than in the end realize that we're missing the boat with certain people and trying to include them. Uh I would also say with uh various career pathway programs, a lot of times schools and districts uh we we come out we come with our hands hands out. We're looking for apprenticeships or sometimes we're just looking for money or donations so that we can do what we want to do. Um and and we want to make sure that we're really truly partnering in taking the advice and and guidance from uh the various employers in the area so that we can also make sure that that we are preparing kids for what people are what what our employers are

158actually needing. And so that's that's an important piece. So in addition to the event we had uh today where we heard about it uh there was the opening of the uh T building at Lake Superior College. Um it was the last th Thursday or Friday, I'm sorry. It was last last week. Uh but at the opening event, it was a big grand opening and there were hundreds of people there and again the chamber, the president of of um Lake Superior College, uh Patricia Rogers, uh and the mayor all talked about the duth promise and and how important this is. So I'm proud of the work we're doing and just want to say that this is important. And then if you go to the next step slide, um really when we think about our next steps

159right now we have two bills moving forward. One with the House and one with the Senate. Um sadly I am a little concerned with the budget u landscape that we're we're seeing right now and actually I just was on the phone with uh our lobbyist Jeff Anderson that uh the the funding there isn't a whole lot of funding there for schools. And so I'm I'm hopeful that we can get funding for this because it's a smaller amount and it really serves as a great catalyst for what we can do. But I'm also very confident that with the energy behind this and with the dedication that the different entities are putting toward towards this and the inkind contributions, this is going to happen no matter what. And so I think that those those are the pieces

160that we're focused on uh are trying to get those bills across the line, but if if we can't, then finding other ways of making this happen. And as a school district, we've continued to invest in um uh despite our budget reductions and reallocations, we've we've made sure that we maintained the the principal and special assignment position so that we can continue to support this work as as we have ongoing. And we're also finishing a um an op-ed that that we'd like to share with the Duth News Tribune that would be signed by the entire team uh focused on the DUTH promise and that should be coming out u probably sometime in the next week or two. So those are some of the things with the DUTH promise but we we continue that work and uh

161we'll be sharing more as time goes on. Neighbor Law of Kemp. Yeah, I I just um wanted to say I I was really proud uh to um to be be at that lunchon today and uh and hear how it was so weaved into um the presentation by Chancellor Ny and also u by Matt and they uh gave um great applause uh to the work of Superintendent Maggus for his leadership in not just bringing people together. Um but um uh but bringing the idea of this together and so um thank you so much really was am proud of the work that we all are doing but that your leadership has done to make this happen and it was so obvious today. Thank you. Thank you. Seeing no additional questions, we're going to go to our next

162presenter. Um, our executive director for business services, Simone Zunich, is coming up to share some information uh related to our FY26 budget timeline and impact overview. Okay. Good evening everyone. Um it's that time of the year again. We'll start uh I'll start talking about next year's budget. Um we have a lot going on as the superintendent has talked about too. Um so this is a timeline and impact overview. Um in May I will bring the first reading to you and I will have everything broken down by fund and I'll have numbers for you. I hope in the next three to four weeks we get some more clarification um from the the state and MDE and then uh we'll work with what we know. So if you'd go to Yes. Thank you. the purpose and objectives.

163So, the purpose of tonight's meeting is to provide a high-level overview of the budgeting process and the multiple opportunities for board input and discussion prior to the final adoption of the FY26 budget in June. Our objectives are to examine the current context of our budget decisionmaking, share timeline, an analysis and impact of the proposed 26 budget, provide a high-level overview of the key factors that impact our budget, and review the timeline of future board actions. So how we got here um we have significant recent state education funding that has helped um to the point of we did get a increase to our basic formula in the last four weeks uh to 2.74%. Uh I had initially budgeted 2%. And that's what we received last year. It's not enough to make up for decades of underfunding

164and to cover increased uh duth public schools operating costs. The district also faces several unfunded mandates. These include the unemployment costs um as of June, July, and August of 2026. Uh paid Minnesota FMLA effective January of 26. um we are potentially looking at that could be costs the same as unemployment does. So we will have to pay half of it and it can be negotiated but there's a lot that uh a lot of money that could be tied up there. So that's effective January of 26 and potentially compensatory hold harmless. Um, we were given our our compensatory numbers for next year and now I'm reading, you know, from the governor that he may bring that back to help balance the budget. So, we may get held harmless, which means we'll get the amount we're going

165to this year. I have seen a document out there that we may get an additional $21,000 or something. So, basically, it's the same amount. Uh other areas to be factored in are the Reed Act and other federal mandates that are unknown at this time. And by that I mean I I hope in the next four weeks we'll find out if about some federal programming if you know everything is same stays the same which I hope it does. Um I would think we would know by now but we still have not received any information. So the cost of nearly all expenses have increased. So wages, benefits, utilities, transportation, food and contracted services, the overview of the budgeting process, um our timeline. So to understand the situation, uh we've had a budget imbalance and the core issue

166of the deficit budget needs to be addressed, which is what we're doing. The 26 focus uh the primary objective is to achieve a balanced budget for the 26 fiscal year. It is the superintendent's job to bring to the school board a balanced budget every year. Um we have been doing administrative analysis. Senior leaders are actively reviewing budget reductions and reallocations and how this will impact the 26 budget. We are also having small groupoup schoolboard meetings in April to help understand the five-year impact of our budget. Under analysis, uh we're doing strategic analysis of expenditures which include labor benefits, programming, and contracted services. And our revenue considerations are uh state and federal funding. The district is aware of budget recommendations that will be brought forth by the governor at the end of March of 25. That

167was the initial paperwork I got, but I still haven't received anything yet. And we have received, as I told you, an increase in our basic formula. And our impact, uh, we are working to minimize the budget impact is a key goal for our budget team. We strive to minimize the impact on schools and students for FY26. and we will present a budget that is not only balanced for FY26 but will also be sustainable in the long term. We will consider the potential impact of future economic conditions and enrollment. So our initial forecasting uh which is a very high level overview there's a lot of other um complic um information that will go into our strategic plan as far as being strategic for the next five years. Um we do a lot of analysis. We use

168a five-year uh excuse me a whatif revenue calculator through MDE uh that was just released four weeks ago. They have the new co new compensatory amount on that document still. They have not adjusted it yet. So we will review our enrollment in our upper leftand corner uh for FY26 an increase of enrollment from 8,68 which is our budget this year to 8,99 for FY26. uh they just opened the uh it's called the ADME portal and I have worked with our Mars coordinator Phil and we did estimates now for the next three years. So we we're using 8100 for FY26. We've only added 25 additional for the next three years to be conservative. Um to the right our basic formula increased to 2.74. That gave us roughly $448,000 more. And our compensatory aid remains consistent with

16925. We will know more in April. Special education cross subsidy and aid combined will increase by 6.73. And the reason for that is because they use last year's expenditures and then calculate our new dollars from that. So it changes from year to year. and it's also almost two years behind because of of the enrollment and before we get our final numbers. So, uh, title aid, I have not heard anything yet. Title aid remains under review and child nutrition in FY26, it continues to serve free breakfast and lunch to all students. I hope that can go through another year or two and our future board discussions and actions. Uh we look forward to continuing to discuss the proposed budget with the finance committee and school board um tonight on April 8th and then in April we

170will you know finalize any additional small group meetings that we need to have. May 6th, a committee of the whole, I'll be bringing the first reading of the 26 budget. And in May, um, any updates will be brought to HR business services. And then on June 17th, we will adopt an, uh, I will bring it to you for adoption and vote on uh, the FY26 budget. So that's what's going to be happening in the next eight weeks regarding our budget. Member Lo, do you see a potential on our future board budget discussions, the last um the last slide, that between May 6th and then bringing it to HR business services in their business meeting, which would probably be around the 15th of May, that we would want or need a meeting again before June 17th.

171I I think so. I would like to because I I think we should have some more updated information. I would like to update my five-year analysis and I'd like to show it to you. So, yes. So, is the suggestion a special board meeting around then will be considered? Is that being asked? I we've done it in the past, too. And I just thought I I just I'm looking at this timeline and and um you know, you've done a great job of bringing information to us and and in in other ways besides this, but I just think that with the changing dynamics of what's going on in our state, and our country that there could be changes between May and then then we get it in June and we have to confidently vote on it. And

172I just want to give board members an opport, you know, the chance to say, you know, look at what our schedules look like between May and June and see if there's not a time we could again meet. I think it's a very good idea. Um, so when I bring the first reading to you, um, we essentially could have a second reading and then our final adoption in June. So we can definitely do that. I can work with, um, superintendent to and We figured out you, Anthony, and we could talk about a date. It could be the cow meeting. I I get we do have other meetings, but we do. I just You mean the June cow? Yeah. Oh, we could do it then, too. That's That's graduation weeks and all kinds of stuff. So, yeah,

173I'm open to that. We we will um obviously with work with the superintendent to figure it out in terms of some uh suggested dates and so forth because there's a lot of as you already know going into the end of the year, we have graduation data. these um remaining comm meetings will be just as packed if not even more packed and so just we probably will need another okay separate meeting to do things member laugh I I was actually going to suggest something similar um we we've always put one on the calendar sometimes we've decided not to use it but getting it on the calendar this far out is really helpful and then just lastly again just really appreciate you and the leadership team um providing many opportunities for us to uh hear and give

174input um uh throughout this process. So really appreciate that. Thank you, Superintendent Maggus. Sure. And I just want to say thanks to Simone and the team. Uh and you all Sheila Stevens has also achieved a certain milestone. Do you want to share about that as well? And then I have one more thing to say. Sure. Sheila Stevens, our finance manager, has been in the MASBO certified business official program. It for three years and has finished her last class. It was on food nutrition. So, it's a it's a big deal and she'll get a certificate and and uh it's very exciting and she's thrilled and um very happy. So, if you ever see her, I'll bring her to the next HR business services. So, we're very proud of her. And I just wanted to say thanks

175to you for all the work that you've done uh related to finance and running running your team and also uh that when I know I know uh information for board decision-m is one of my superintendent goals u and I think that making sure that you particularly around budget uh because that's one of the biggest things that you do as a as a school board is is approve the budget we want to make sure that we are providing whatever uh information you need for that decision-m and I know there was some feed back last year just as far as making sure that we were advancing things and having information ahead of time and and uh some of the timeline that we've adjusted for this year is reflective of that uh desire by the board to to

176focus on that. But thank you. Thank you. And so uh Chair Derek Eer, we are going to return back to the concurrence and non-concurrence discussion we left off. Thank you um director. We left off on number eight. I'll have uh Mrs. White will uh come back up with us. And I really appreciate the suggestion to um spend more time on this. And so again, we really want to make sure and as and as reflected in the response, we really want to make sure we were really thoughtful uh as we responded to our parent advisory group who made these recommendations. Um, one of the things that I appreciated this year from our AP pack is that um, to come up with the vote, they actually looked at every recommendation to see if we actually accomplished what

177was recommended. That was part of their decision on whether we were going to be concur in concurrence or not in concurrence. And so I want to make sure that um that we my goal is to work with our APAC to achieve concurrence next year. And I'm hopeful that if we are really which we are trying to do now thoughtful in our response and make sure that we are um putting in in our recommendations or responses things that we can actually execute that hopefully we will um achieve concurrence next year if this is going to be their primary way of determining if we make concurrence or not concurrence. So so thank you for spending more time on this because I I want us to be in concurrence and and work with our um parents to achieve

178that. So number eight uh is regarding um there's a lot of resources available that um are in different spaces and places. Uh we've moved as a district several different locations. Sorry about that. Several different locations and and we've have uh a lot of resources that are uh indigenous in nature um that are available. They've been kept in storage in a variety of ways. Um there's a lot of concerns from our parents that um you know they don't want these materials to receive the respect that they are um should be given and stored properly um to honor them and the the materials and the culture and the heritage. And so their recommendation is that we find a way to really um store these things uh more adequately and properly and to make sure that they are

179really sorted out. So that's what's being asked in number eight and we have a response. Sheila has already started uh working on it. There's a storage unit has been purchased to make sure that we move the resources that are in the DNT building or our first street building because it's under construction. So we have to move those resources again to another separate location. So we have some temporary storage that has been provided. uh we are working with our facilities department to identify another space um that is district office uh space to store the materials that then can be sorted and uh and so forth uh more properly. So that is the uh recommendation is is proper storage of those resources questions member Mikeel. So, were these um materials stored in the DNT building, the first

180street building like always or just in the last year? Um over the different places that we moved, they kept moving with us. And so, are is our staff and students able to access them when they're in these the different various spots or have they not? Not adequately. Right. There's a lot of resources that have been stored and kept in storage for a variety of reasons and so we want to make sure that they are more accessible and available and so in the current new storage area will they be accessible to staff and students in the current future for for right now we just have temporary storage um that's you know um being rented right now but then we're working with our facilities to identify another place that's district um owned that we can have these

181materials stored and then have easy access for checking in and checking out of those resources. So, it's a work in progress. Okay. But at first building there will be adequate storage. Okay. Once all developed. Um you mentioned in our response that facilities has already moved two truckloads of pallets. Um I was curious um how many truckloads of pallets are there in total? Um we're still going through the pallets, the boxes, um putting them in one um one area so that they can uh facilities can take it to our storage unit. Um and once it's at the storage unit, that's when we will sort through it, categorize it. Um, we want everything barcoded so that it's um, easily accessible to students, APAC, and teachers. You really are having to do it all. It's not um, just

182myself. Um, it's a member of the APAC um, committee um, and our staff here. Okay. Well, that was my last um, question on this recommendation. And I see that our APAC um committee requested that um there would be school district assistance with the accurate inventory. And so I just wanted to verify right now I hear that Miss White is involved and our committee members are volunteering your time, but is there any other district resources being put into the inventory of what sounds like quite a bit of material? Yeah, there's a clerical um that we have who um knows how to do the barcoding. So, she's um going to come and help us do that. Great. Is that It sounds like you have enough resources then for Yes. this process. And and the AP pack are

183willing to come and help sort as well. That is Thank you. And we we've had this discussion before. Um, Coordinator White knows that if if there's a recommendation for some additional support, you know, whether it's working with um some of our staff if they want to not only volunteer, but if they want to receive compensation for things after hours and so forth, that those are the things that we could be um working on to make sure happens. U so there's adequate support. I'm not sure who's first. I'm still going to just go in order. Um member banks and then I'll come back. So quick question with regard to the materials and storage. Do these items require climate controlled uh storage? Um we're not sure. We're still going through um all of the materials, but I'm

184um I'm certain that a lot of the um replica artif art artifacts are uh put away in a classroom um or another teacher uh liaison's home. So just picture when we were at the UHG building, we were you know those materials are there. At one point we need to um get ready to move. There were a lot of uh what do you call the wrapping? I'm going to say shear wrapping, but saran wrapping of all of these artifacts, right? And then, you know, they were sent over to um the DNT building for storage. And so there there's a number of pallets of resources that have been collected over the years. So, um, so that's why we want to make sure that we go through them, do the proper inventorying of them, storage of them, and

185making sure more importantly that, um, staff have access to those materials. Thank you, Superintendent Magus. since since it's linked um and actually you were just explaining what I was explaining and I think you meant to say the the historic old central they were at they weren't at UHG but they were at historic old central and then we moved from from there to the Garfield building um but but that was part of the the change the the historic old central we had far more space than we we than we needed for for for many things and I think human resources and our records there we had just vast vast areas of of storage and we didn't really have to think about how do we how do we keep things together in a in a uh thoughtful

186way and so when we moved to Garfield that was meant as a temporary piece um but but it's important for us to to hold these these u artifacts and these these uh cultural pieces in in the respect that they deserve and that's why we want to put the resources towards it neighbor lo so this is quite an undertaking for my years at Denfel I mean when you think about all of the different buildings that our programming for our American Indian students have had over these 50ome years. There is I know that there's artifacts at Denfeld that um are in certain trophy cases and have been brought into us from the community. Um, I just think of it's an it's a huge undertaking for I mean I think the access to curriculum if you've toured the

187first street building um so far you were brought down or maybe you were brought down to the subb where lots of curriculum not just for um our indigenous curriculum but for every curriculum we've had. You're right. When we were in the old central complex, we had oodles of file cabinets and storage. And so I can remember that purging that went on too. Just, you know, we've had things since the 20s that have gathered gathered things here. So I I appreciate that. And then I'm wondering if there isn't some kind of funding like grants that you'd get from historical places or um other program you know other ways of getting some help financially because this you know and this isn't going to be done and I don't know what the timeline is for a little bit

188like there should be a graduated like accomplishment on some of many of these things that we've put out um where you know what's the expectation for this year what's an expectation for two years Because th this whole piece here is important. It's it's really a lot. It goes beyond textbooks and curriculum. You know, there's, you know, Yeah. accountability for what things were purchased by um revenue from our district, money from our district as as opposed to donated and given to um show the cultural representation. So, um just keep us posted. But I'm wondering too if there's not some opportunity for some financial grants to help in this area. Thank you. And also some of the ver grants also purchase some of these um resources. So that's why we we need really need to make sure

189we are uh doing our due diligence to you know sort things through and make sure they're properly coded and make sure we know where these resources are. Chair Derek Eater. I'm sorry. Yeah, it is um it is really overwhelming and um we just need to open up a cultural center to store all these um materials and and you know sacred items that we have. Thank you. Um as I look at this recommendation, I noticed that and I've heard as we've had this conversation talking about cultural items and artifacts. Do we have a do we have a um an inventory of what those cultural items or maybe those um artifacts are? And are we in compliance with the Native um I was just we've the Native American Grave Protection and Rep repatriation act. Do we know

190where we got some of those cultural items? If we if we should have them, if they need to be returned? I'm just that makes me a little nervous. Um, from what I saw, um, a lot of the sacred items were replicas, so they weren't, you know, the authentic, um, actual, um, sacred items. Um, and if they were, um, from what I saw, they were, um, given to a person to look after until they can be blessed by, um, an elder and feasted. And by feasted, it's it's a ceremony that happens that takes place. Thank you. I just want to make sure we're giving the due resp the respect due to those cultural items. So, thank you for that answer. Great. Thank you. Number nine, uh just receiving uh regular reports related to academic outcomes for

191um our native students. So that's the one of the primary roles of Sheila is to continue to make sure there's um opportunities for APAC to receive updated reports. um she know that she can tap our directors at any point in time to present information related to achievement data that we get from the state. Our directors will be available to present to our APAC outcomes that our um native students are having attendance data. She'll be able to have access and has access to that information. So, um the her role is is is is um significant and important to make sure that APAC receives all of the information, but she also can lean on all of our directors and coordinators who have access to data and have them present like they've been presenting here at the board

192meeting. Sheila, would you like to share anything? Yes, I did receive um the first part of the training for Edgie Climber and I just have to work with it. I'm a hands-on learner um visual um so it'll take me some time so I will have to count on the experts of course um from the departments um you know to provide accurate um data to APAC number Um the recommendation was that integration specialists intentionally support American Indian students as part of their case loads. So as you seen in the response that I have provided that um want to make sure my numbers are off here. I'll go to the back. Sorry about that. As I find it in the response that um our integration specialists, they are supported or funded by a different grant that is

193not connected to our American Indian uh grant itself. Um nonetheless, our achievement and integration plan requires that the integration specialists support all students, especially uh marginalized students. And so there are many numerous uh American Indians who are being American Indian students who are being supported by integration specialists. And so it's it's it's pretty challenging to require that they only support uh American Indian students because the grant itself requires them to support you know African-American students um you know other students as well the grant itself. But um as indicated, Sheila will work with um myself right now to uh make sure there is data. Uh we have data on who our integration specialists support and we're going to make sure that data is shared with Sheila who can make sure that it is shared with our

194APAC. So they will know exactly how many students who are native are being supported by integration specialists. Member Sowski. Um, Miss White, I'm wondering if you've um in APEC have been able to have any conversations with um our APEC members just do they understand um this response or have they seen this response and then if so, how have those conversations gone? I mean, do they understand now that there's these other grant requirements? I think yeah once once they um you know see these responses and um I can give them some examples of how the integr integration specialists are working with our leaison um you know on a weekly basis day-to-day basis whatever it might be um they are there to help um at our events um we just recently had one at Ordin uh middle

195school it was a drumming demonstration and um the integration specialist was there to help um in any way that she can. Um I am trying to meet with um a lot more integration specialists. I'm meeting one at East um this Thursday. So I mean it's um a it looks like baby steps, but it is a lot. Um and yeah, I'll do my best to share this with Apac. Yeah, thank you so much. And just uh just make sure there's a point of clarification. Apac um has not received this as it's still in draft form and so Apac is not aware of uh the initial responses unless they um had attended meeting or was aware of the posting on board book. So just making you aware that they have not been made aware of our initial

196responses. Sounds good. Yeah, I I kind of thought that, but I know that we received these recommendations I think what last month or the month before, so I wasn't sure if there had been any. Oh, just thank you. But just to let you know that when we did get those things, Sheila did a great job of work once the once the vote of non-concurrency was received, Sheila worked um in partnership with our APAC to seek clarification because some of the uh recommendations we were wondering, you know, um what was behind it or what was the intent of those uh recommendations. So she was in communication with the APAC leadership to seek clarification that then we took that understanding to develop these uh responses. Member Banks, thank you. Can you explain more what marginalized students are?

197I know what the definition is of that, but I want to know what group of students fit in that category and how many integration specialists are within the district throughout the district and what is an estimated case load. I want to say there are 14 integration specialists. Their average place load officially is 20, but they but many of them support more than 20 students. So officially they have 20 in their case loads that they have to provide data around but they support numerous uh more students than than what's an actual case load. Um and what was the first question marginalized students? So does that include just uh indigenous students and students of color or does it include another group of students? poor stu I mean not poor um low social economic status. It could be

198uh students from um low social economics. So there are um students of all stripes are being supported. Thank you. Number 11. So uh the request there was to just make sure that we are following the the recommended uh MDE timeline and guidelines for um for communication with APAC and for receiving information. So um again as I've shared before there's there's been a number of transitions that have occurred. There's been a lot of efforts to ensure that we were meeting timelines and providing data. There were a lot of meetings um that occurred and happened over the year even through the transition and yet there's still concerns that have been shared by APAC to meet those guidelines and to follow recommendations. So, we're going to ensure working together with Sheila to really again partner with our AP

199pack to determine what those agendas, those monthly agendas look like for the AP pack so they can identify data that they want at a certain time, information that they want to receive um regarding either academic outcomes or um suspensions or whatever data that our APAC is seeking. She's going to work in partnership to ensure that our coordinators, our directors, myself, whoever needs to be there are is there to present that information. Sheila, you want to share something? I'll go to Superintendent Maggus. Yeah. Um I mean I just um started a couple months ago and um you know we I will try my hardest to um provide the information, provide the deadlines um and um you know what they're asking here. It is a lot um to kind of look at when we're dealing with the

200federal provincial and then um the JOM as well. So, um, you know, just need that organization, I guess, between the partnership to make sure that we, um, meet deadlines. Um, you know, so, Superintendent Maggus. Sure. I just wanted to uh reiterate the comment I made earlier that there were that there are a couple of suggestions for some little language change in this in this area that I think that we've taken uh into account and I think we'll be making that change before we finalize this and thanks to member Williams for your representation on the APEC group as our board member. Um I think that that also t I think your experience within that program is very is an special additional asset that you bring to it that lens and those relationships. Um and I think

201that that making some changes I think the um we're going to soften a couple things in that that that area because we we are focused on partnership and we we don't want uh this any statements here to seem divisive. member Michael and then member Loot. Uh when I was reviewing last year's non-concurrence and um our responses in over the course of that conversation um we referred to bringing our response forward to tribal consultation and I wasn't sure if that just happened to fall right around the same time and that's um how we were able to have that opportunity or if that's a requirement for this and I was wondering if someone could shed some light on that. Then it probably was just a a timeline. We were really really um striving to have more meetings

202with our um with FondeLac and so there were more meetings on the schedule and we really wanted to make sure that they did have opportunity to hear the all of the work that we are doing and how we are responding to the concurrence or non-concurrence. So it just happens to be the timeline but we are really working right now. We're trying to identify an additional um opportunity for u consultation. So that's in in the works now. Member Lo, part of my questions have been a a answered along with all the conversation, but just um I appreciate the um APAC parents bringing forward, you know, their the their needs and what their expectations. I think I I in other years I've I've never quite been sure exactly what Apac um parents want as far as repres

203representation, how you get building permits, events, whether they're invited to different things going on. Um you know, there's always an understanding that they're parents and they're volunteering to serve on these committees and you never quite know exactly how extensive they they they want. um things from the district. So, I really like them laying it out so I think you can better, you know, make um make that work for us. Um how often does our AP pack um parents meet? Is it once a month? Okay, once a month. And is it always the Is it always up here? I mean, it it was rotating for a while when we were out of the the central building, but now it's here. Um yeah, the meetings are um typically held at Denfeld. Um they're only required to meet

204four times a a year. Um but we've been meeting uh monthly um since you know since what I've seen in the records. Um that's correct. And there were um several meetings held here and but then there was a decision to uh as a recommendation from APAC to start holding them um more centrally located for access um ability. So we started moving them to Denfield and other locations. Thank you. Oh member kind of a followup question to uh member Lo. Um I'm just wondering um is there and again you might not know this but it's some onboarding um like like for example Head Start does an onboarding every once a year with their uh parent members um where they go over training and and different things. And I'm just wondering would that be helpful to help

205address some of the questions um around um you know commu uh communication from our um communications director and um how to a access or arrange for um uh uh meeting space or things like like that. Is there any kind of onboarding that happens? And maybe that would just be one consistent way that that some of these questions might be helpful and and so some feedback maybe if it's not happening. Um Anthony, maybe you could answer that better than I could. Um I just want to say I I can I can start because um there has been a a true reliance on the coordinator to work with our parent committee and so um I know that in the past there has been training provided uh through the coordinator for APAC. I think there was a question

206I don't think I answered it um or didn't respond to it. Um there has been a leadership change in our parent group. So there's new leadership um after voting there's new leadership. So we have people who um are families who are um who are new to leading uh that uh committee. So there that's why if you go to answer number or response to number 12 um in there you'll see that MDE is actually going to be working with us to provide um training for APAC and we're hopeful that that will again um empower them and uh working in collaboration with us to really have um you know very healthy and constructive dialogue and to build on the um the relationships and the trust that they are seeking to have happen and so uh that training

207will be happening in May May correct and hopefully through that that will again that's where we'll get some good understanding on you know the things that they need and how we can better support them to make sure they that they receive information they want and that that we're doing it in partnership together because we want to make sure that they receive the information and the data that they are seeking and work in partnership with us. They want what's best at the end. They want what's best for their students and their kids. And we do too. A member Williams. Um I guess this is kind of going along with what member Laughler Kemp asked, but maybe not. Um, so I am curious how often I'm sorry I don't remember um how often the bylaws are reviewed

208for APAC and then um I would recommend not as an official recommendation on this document but just in general recommend that maybe APAC utilize their um district staff rep uh Brenda a bit more. I I feel like and I haven't heard her voice as often and I know that she's been the staff rep for as long as I can remember. And so um when a not that Apex shouldn't come to us with questions, obviously they should because we were elected to be here. Um, and so they should come to us with questions, but we do have staff members with you and with Gray and with Brenda who are working with them directly and have been and not necessarily you, but have been around for a little bit um, longer and know the ins and outs

209of the department um, more. And so I'm just wondering how often Apac does reach out to the staff supports that are already in place. So, while you're thinking about that answer, I'll answer bylaws. Bylaws have been they were just recently updated. So, they um had not been updated for a while, and I'm going to um with best intention assume that the coordinator in the past reviewed the bylaws annually, but they were just recently updated this year. Can I jump in? Yes. Um, does the board is is that given to us as board members or is that something we have to seek out or is it not even a thing that we need to consider as a board the bylaws I mean access to bylaws? No, we can always share them. they are available online and

210that's something that as we continue to partner you know that you know we keep saying she look because that's her primary role is to make sure as she's coming and presenting if that's something that the board would like to see is the uh the bylaws or have them shared we can make sure the board receives them but these bylaws are um APAC is a self-governed entity that it it is on the committee itself to develop and approve their own bylaws because they're totally separate. So, but we can make sure that those uh bylaws are shared with the board in the future. I just feel like if we had an understanding of them, we as a board um that might help with communication between our two entities. So, that was just a thought. Thank you. And

211do you want to respond to the second part of the question was um how often does the APAC reach out to other individuals besides you Gray and maybe um not be not besides them. Well maybe besides you as the coordinator but um for sure Gray and Brenda because they are embedded within APAC automatically anyway. Yeah, they um they do reach out to myself and Gray. Um not 100% sure about Brenda um how that communication is going. Um but I can definitely, you know, um tell them um at our possibly the May training that we're having with um MDE, make that suggestion to them. Yeah, I think I've already addressed number 12 a little bit. Um, just make sure there's fiscal um ethical um responsibility and stewardship of the ANI funds. Did I say ANI? It's

212getting late. our American Indian uh fund. So, um, we've been working really, really hard. Um, as already shared, I have sinuses, so I have a sinus cough going on. As we've shared earlier that, um, we believe in total fiscal transparency. Our AP pack, our coordinators have met with Sheila. I'm looking at you, Simone, and calling you Sheila. That's our latest giddy. Have met with Simone numerous times this year. we've we've made sure and provided them with lots of data related to um finances. So, uh we believe in total transparency and we want to make sure that we are really using the dollars and the funding as indicated. So, there's been lots of conversations to ensure that the resources that are being provided that they're being um spent or allocated and supporting uh American Indian students.

213So we have been working diligently on that and as you see here there's our response uh data has been provided to our AP pack related to the French benefits and salaries that are being supported underneath the grant. They also receive um not only from the grant but also the positions that the district also funds. They know exactly how those positions are being funded. You have board you have access not on this paper here you have access to that in electronic format. Um, and we can make sure that you have that. So, there's a link that you can actually see the list of all our American Indian. You want to click on that link for me? Okay, we'll share share it with you really quickly, but you also have access to it because the question at

214that point in time was, you know, making sure that the resources that are being funded from our American Indian grant that is actually being spent on American Indian staff or, you know, that programming to support that staff. But you, as you'll see here, um not only are we making sure that those funds are being spent for those staff, we also have more staff that the district is also providing um resources for or other grants are providing resources for. So this detailed information has already been given and shared with our um parent advisory group. And I'll just point out for example the can you scroll up for me a little bit you'll see there our home school lison at Lincoln Park is actually being funded out of special education not out of the grant right so

215when there's concerns you know are is the district supporting our American Indian students beyond the grant itself the answer is yes we are neighbor Mikeo thank you for this information and I appreciate um how you've spoken to um our the district's attempt to be very transparent with the finances. I just want to honor the fact that if um written in a recommendation um asking for greater transparency um that the members of Apac who voted on this unanimously did not feel that they had that at one time. So, just wanting to honor that that position and hopeful that all of the work that we've done since receiving this um is starting to meet that their expectations. Um I'm would love some more information about the PECard um purchases and purchase orders and the concerns that they

216had around or that the committee had around that and seeing that the Minnesota Department of Education has made the recommendation that it's not necessary for our district to provide them um with that information. and if I can get some greater understanding around that subject. So, it was um actually a couple members of Apac that asked MDE um about sharing um PE cards um NPOS's um and they said it's really outside MDE said it's really outside of the their advisory role that um you know that we don't need to provide that. I mean, we can um but they recommended we don't. Thank you, member. Uh Chair Derek Eater. Um just so we just to talk a little bit about um the layers of accountability that go into district finance, school district finance, school district finance, including

217the yearly audit that we have done by an outside partner and my assumption is that they do look at fund the funds that we have and how those funds are spent at a very very very detailed level. That's the first I mean probably the last layer of accountability is that piece for our audit. Correct. Correct. Um the American Indian Ed uh program gets audited every year. Um but they did a single audit in back in 2022. Yeah. And that means they go it's an indepth audit and it's actually a separate document. We just got the ones that they did for the last the we did I'm sorry I'm tired. Okay. They just did three single audits. I will be providing those to you at the next school board meeting. We just got them from our

218auditors. They were submitted to MDE. So yes, they're audited every year plus every two to three years they do a single audit. So maybe that would be a helpful um resource to provide for American Indian parent advisory group. We've shared that. That's great. And then my al my other assumption is there must be some accountability factors at the federal level when it comes to these funds outside of that audit that we pay. I can't remember who our auditor is. It's Whipley. Whiply. Yeah. Thank you. And so then I'm assuming the federal government also has um checks in place to make sure that we're That is what the single audit is. It's a federal audit. Okay. Done by our done by Okay. Yes. and it's submitted to the federal programmers. Got it. Okay. Just so um

219it might be nice for that layer of transparency and our fiscal responsibility to to specially reach out to to our APEC group to provide that that outside audit to maybe give some um on that note. Oh, sorry. Assurances. Thank you. And then just so that we're all clear, if we were outside of compliance and use those funds in a way that we weren't supposed to, we would have an obligation to pay those funds back and then it would also put future funding at risk. That's correct. Okay. Thank you. I know we um member Laughle Kemp might be on before me, but uh just on that related note, uh we have also requested a an external audit by the um Minnesota Department of Education's American Indian Education Group just because we we we've tried to express

220clarity and transparency and we figured uh let's let's just have an outside look at it because there's absolutely nothing that we feel like we're trying to hide within our books. But you know why not have an outside entity come and and show that as well? I would be um hesitant to share those pecard purchases at that level with any with with just because that can lead to quite a bit of misunderstanding. So, um, that that would just be my suggestion in support of I I do think providing that level of detail probably is outside of the the advisory role of APEC, especially when we can provide some of this more detailed work done by outside accountants and stuff. So, thank you. Yep. Agreed. And I'll add something to that because I appreciate what you just

221shared uh chair because one of the things that was uh being requested is that there was an approval uh through APAC of the purchases and again that's why we sought uh guidance um which we understood would be out of the scope and and it is out of the scope of of their role for advisory but again being fiscally transparent if they would like to see that information we have access to it that we can we can make sure they have access to the information but the um the approval that's where it gets um out of scope. Member Laughler, this is just I guess a followup to what I was talking about earlier about onboarding and this would be again a great example of just that training. Um and I I'll be curious if that's part

222of the training at that m training um on both role but also you know budget uh that kind of thing. So, if someone's making a list that I would add this. Yeah. Thank you. Um I'd like to also add um that I will be sharing um the um budget for um for the goals that we have in our education plan and and how they match. So, I'll be sharing that with them uh tomorrow night. Number 13. Um superintendent um one of the things that uh was brought up is or recommended is that um the board have an appointment of a Apac delegate uh reserve and invited to all schoolboard meetings for opportunities for meaningful collabor collaboration and I know uh superintendent and myself has had a lot of conversations related to that and uh superintendent

223you want to share response. Yes. So, um, basically, and I have actually added a comment there on the side, um, because there's actual, um, state statute that talks about, uh, school boards need to have six or seven elected, uh, members that we can't just have people put on as as additional members. It's also part of our governance and policy structure that we have. And so, we need to uh, follow through with that. Uh with that being said, however, we do um place, you know, great great importance on the um the input of our our American Indian Advisory Committee. And that's why we we've um been much more diligent about making sure that we have somebody that is u board member serving regularly on this with with uh member Williams as the main person and with

224uh member Durk Eer as the the follow-up or the u backup rather. And so that's that's how we want to make sure that we continue to have voice. Um, I also think it, you know, you could hypothetically look at having, you know, sort of a um other structure where you would have somebody regularly attend schoolboard meetings or things like that. But then we also have many other groups in addition to the American Indian advisory group. When we think about our special education advisory group and uh other other groups we have, we we uh believe that the structure we have at this point is what we want to continue with and we have to continue with it because of the state statute as well as the guidance from MSBA. Thank you. And before I call on

225um Chair Derk Ether, that that really shows exactly why I'm glad we're spending more time with this because this is an example of a recommendation that came to us and we know it's um it's a recommendation that is desired, but then then there's uh viability, right? And so this is where it gets tricky of this this is not something that we can do but we have another path for meaningful dialogue and meaningful participation with board uh board membership being at the AP pack meetings right but again I I was it's one of those situations where I'm hopeful that we can still figure out a way to when it's time for concurrence non-concurrence that at least we can show that we did our due diligence we researched why we can't do it and explain to our

226AP pack why we can't do this, but here's our plan moving forward for hopefully uh meaningful um collaboration with board membership that will hopefully meet the needs that they were chasing here. Chair Der, um I would also add that um as coordinator White is entrusted with the district to do this work, it is important that we have a coordinated effort through district administration and we don't have um I I don't want to say opportunities. We don't we don't have a scattershot approach to how we do this, but we have a coordinate coordinated approach and that we all working within the structures of the district and the way it's set up. So I think that is an additional um probably impediment to having not state statutes and governance structure as well but also just the coordination

227of work and working within the structures that we currently have is very very very important. member Williams. Um, I think it might be useful or helpful or encouraging to add in our response. Um, that along with state statutes and the things that we are required to do as as a board um, our board meetings are public. So, um, Apac members are welcome to come to any board meeting ever besides our closed sessions. And so, if within APAC they want to recognize who will come and sit at a board meeting and report back to Apac, this is what was talked about. They're welcome to do that. They can write it in their bylaws, like any of that. But we are we legally can't just give them a seat at the table. But that doesn't mean they're

228not invited to be at a meeting. And um you know, we have our monthly um listening sessions. If if Apac wants to come every month and talk to us, they can absolutely do that because our meetings are public. And so I I just want our response um I want to make it clear that the school board is available to Apac and not to shut it down that we're not but we do still have to go the proper the proper ways. So I think there's a way to communicate that. Member Lawford Kemper. Then member Lo, I I I would just add and I don't know if this has to be written in there, but it goes back to that onboarding. Again, I've kind of been thinking a lot about um that our schoolboard um leaison um

229uh whoever that might be or whoever is the alternate, they also are just that. They're a leazison. They're not a decision maker for the full board or spokesperson, but they're there to listen and then bring back and report. And so maybe part of that onboarding is what that role is and what it isn't as well. Yeah. And I'll just piggyback. Yeah. Because this is a a fairly new when I first read this and and in my mind I thought, no, we've had Apac representation before, but in actuality it hasn't been official. I know that many of us have attended APAC parent meetings over the course of the time on the board. Um, so I I I like that they again I'll go back to that other way I responded to another recommendation was um we

230are we are seeing new parent involvement in Apac and there's different asks and different um needs and so they they asked for a schoolboard rep but I also will tell you that this came up at tribal consultation and again one of my my um really um wonderful learning experience when I was board chair was to attend um tribal consultation over the five years and really build a relationship with our leadership which also changed in our last that last meeting we went to the actual Fondelac leadership also changed so we haven't gotten a chance to really build relationships with some of them some of them are returning but I I do remember having this conversation about a a schoolboard representation and and and or the times when I've gone to Apac meetings in the past it

231they they appreciated it don't get me wrong but I never got the feel that they wanted us there every month, that they had an agenda, they had a mission, and I I always kind of got the feeling that yeah, they appreciate our our appearance because then they'd know we cared, but there were things they were going to discuss that maybe they wouldn't really want a school board member there. And that was brought up at tribal consultation in a private meeting after the meeting with one of the elders is like cautioning us like maybe only four times. you don't have to go every month, but maybe only four times a month because they need their meeting time and and and that was coming from an elder that knows the process u much better. we can we

232can go for what we've already established because that's what this group of parents um seem to want, but then we also have to be ready to have them maybe share that again every other month or again uh our Apac meets every month, but not every AP pack that is in our communities or in other school districts meet that often. So, um, just some observations about about the about being at the APEC meetings and I'm I'm I'm ready to serve as an alternate if we have other um commitments, but um appreciate that too. I appreciate that because every month I know there is a committee report out or reporting out and so that it' be good to start you know hearing more and more about you know what you heard and what was shared at the

233APEC meetings. Member Williams. Um, I just want to go back to what their recommendation is is that APAC has a seat at our table. And so me going there, which is we're not going to do because we can't, but so me going there is going above and beyond. So yeah, I do not have to go every single month and I will only go as much as they want me to. Yeah. Does Does that make sense? I wanted to make sure that we're understanding the point of number 13. Okay. Number 14 um is related to providing additional opportunities for American Indian students uh success in collaboration with Apac, the ACO, the 1854 treaty authority and the local tribal urban Indian office. Um they're looking for us to provide additional opportunities for students to receive uh credits

234uh and be given seat time for participating um in events in the community or uh volunteering in the community to look for creative ways to uh give those students uh elective credits. And guess what? We found a way to actually do it. So um you want to share that one? I'm sorry. Um I checked out again. Um just can you just repeat? Um I'll start. It's number 14. Um I'm talking about uh and some of this you've heard earlier. So over the February break, we've we've thought about different ways to provide additional credit recovery opportunities and providing those at Ako or at different places at NYS. So that's one of the things. So we already started the work of trying to figure out how do we get creative at providing more opportunities and you know

235to um again to recover some of those credits but then we also um have done some some research and know there is a way through community education to provide students with an elective credit for service learning efforts. So if students are volunteering and you know have a project there are ways for those students to earn an additional half a credit and so we are already in the process of working through that um um Cameron Joi who is one of the coordinators in community education she has taken this project on to move it forward and so we have already started conversations with uh Sheila and the principles um to really you know get this off the ground so we're already underway with hopefully um meeting this recommendation. Sheila, yeah, we're looking at um different activities that

236the students are involved in if they're involved in, you know, helping planning our our powows, our school events that we're having um in all the schools. um as well as be uh serving on the APEC um we have two students who um represent um the student body um at our meetings and and they they attend every single meeting. So we're looking at all those different you know avenues of of um getting credit for them. Um that all sounds wonderful. I'm noticing the last uh statement or sentence in this response. Um, however, an outreach program providing an AEO AALC teacher could be created for after school credit support at Ako. Um, that's not really a strategy. If it just says could, like are we doing that or is it something that we're looking into and we'll

237have a report back in six months? Like just wanting to get more like either we're going to do that or we're not going to do that. if it's going to be included in our response. We we are we have started looking into that but we came across other um barriers to doing so make sure the person is certified and there's other things that we have to navigate in order to um make that happen. So we are considering it. So I guess maybe maybe we'll change it uh change the verbiage to reflect that um you know where we are because if it's assessing it as an option right we are assessing as an option as well as duplicating our AOCA or programming in a separate space other than where it's housed now. That's something definitely in

238terms of viability we don't see that's going to be possible to replicate because there are again additional staff and um supporting that in a different way. What does that look like? It's something we have thought about and considered since we got the recommendations, but viability just don't see a path forward right now with that option. So, I'm I'm circling back to again I'm going to go I'm be redundant because I'm trying to figure out how do we make sure we communicate this in a way that um our parents understand the rationale or the reason why we are saying we we did look into it. We considered it but it's not just viable. like how do we communicate that so that they feel like we are listening and we are you know have been thoughtful in

239what they're asking because I'm hopeful that we can make concurrence or that they still say okay at least the district really did do diligence to see if this possible or um and then they still would give us a a vote of concurrence for that item member banks. So I have a quick question. Do you know if APEC has a relationship or partnership with the American Indian Learning Resource Center at UMD at all? I think that would be a great uh partnership if they don't have that for leadership and guidance and a whole bunch of other stuff too. Yeah, they do have a list of um partnerships that they would like um us to work with. Um it's just finding the time to do that. Um we're also dealing with um Akos's cuts. Um I'm meeting

240with um one program uh tomorrow that we're was uh willing to help support our um POW at um one of the middle middle schools in in in the city. So they've already told us about the cuts that are happening with the preschool program. um and the smudging program that they were providing our district with. So number 15 oh sorry did I miss one? So what's um being requested here is in summary is that we um are very intentional on repairing uh the relationship between our American Indian parent advisory committee and the district. There were some concerns raised regarding um the status of that right now. So we have as we've indicated we have been working really really hard and I know she has been putting in nights and weekends and I want to give her

241praise. I know her, you could hear it in her voice as well in terms of um not just being late, but I know she's been working really hard to partner and to reach out to um our parent leaders and to really work with them. We've been working really hard to connect with MDE to partner with them to um look for guidance and assistance because we truly want to have a great relationship with our new leaders of our parent committee. And again, I I I know that our parents really just want the best for their kids. We know for a fact as a district, the outcomes for American Indian students are now where they should be. And so their concerns and the recommendations should be really um considered and and that's what we're spending this time

242doing. So I just know that Sheila has been working really hard to do this and that's why one of the things we're doing is MD has agreed to um provide the training and so that training will be provided. Uh Sheila has again been working in partnership with them and we're going to continue to work in partnership with them. Superintendent Maggus, I would I would uh be remiss if I didn't again say Mwitch for everything that you've done, especially even uh nearly four hours into the meeting too with answering every every question. I think it's really important that it shows the board's dedication to making sure that this is addressed seriously. In addition to thanking you, I want to thank you, Assistant Superintendent Bonds, because uh you you too have worked really hard uh during the

243transition of of several different coordinators. And I know that there even though there have been some uh navigation of of different different challenges, you you've uh come come at it again and again with with freshness and uh interest in bringing forward what's best for the students. and and I know that you've put in uh many many many additional hours after school at various events for APEC and your leadership is much appreciated as well. Thank you, Mayor Michael. Um yes, thank you to everyone. This is obviously a monumental task of um making sure that we're meeting all the requirements. when when I read this recommendation um and I read between the lines, I also want to thank our volunteer APAC members. As they pointed out, they putting um many hours into their volunteer positions as well.

244And you know, the the first sentence of this is they recommend restorative efforts be made by the district. And as I look at our response, I'm seeing a lot of um information because they do go on to have show some concerns about um transparency of funds and this and that. um and we do a good job of laying out you know some correct um information and definitions um there but in terms of restorative um practices which is or or efforts you know the only thing we see here is um which now I shouldn't say only because this sounds like it was a very big deal to arrange but having MD come up to do training with our with our committee so um again I just want to be cognizant of the fact that um they're

245making a very direct ask about um repairing relationship, rebuilding trust, and making sure that we're um honoring, you know, that request with more than just um information that talks that corrects a narrative. So, um I'll leave it at that. No, and I appreciate that feedback uh member Mikeo because you you're spot on and we are hopeful that as part of the training because of the uh dynamics that have existed that we're hopeful that that training with MDE will be a reset for us that will provide the space for conversations on the things that are desired. So, we're hopeful that will come out of that. It will be some suggestions on other efforts that will be restorative in nature, but do it in a way that's constructive um and in in a space where MD is

246there to help support and navigate that conversation with us so that we can get from that from our families. What does that restorative conversation look like? because I know we've been attempting to ask, you know, what would we like, you know, but um it's a work in progress and we're hopeful that that will be the opportunity for the reset. And I should probably also add when I make those comments that it seems as though we we're trying to be very thoughtful with all of our responses um to to this vote of non-concurrence and that takes a whole team of people to do. And um you know I appreciate everyone like coming to this like you know from a a place of um wanting to do what's best for our kids, wanting to do what's best

247for American Indian students um and just recognizing that we're that's where we're all coming from that just from different lenses. So thank you to everyone. Thank you member Saddowski. Then I'll go to member Williams. Yeah, I just wanted to add u Miss White, I think your work um your presence and um your relationship building will be restorative in itself. I'm we're just really glad that you're here. Um as I was listening to you tonight um speak to a lot of the different comments. um you know, you're you're still so new and so you're still um building those relationships and meeting different principles, different integration specialists, um APEC members, building those connections between, you know, yourself and buildings, APEC. Um so I just kind of wanted to acknowledge that. I really I can tell that you're

248working really hard at that and I really appreciate it. Um that's very restorative in itself. It really builds great communication pathways and I think that's going to be um really really helpful. And then just acknowledging too this is not a small school district. We have this is a new system with new policies, a huge organization um new people, new names. I just was kind of thinking about um just um your position and all that you're doing and uh the hard work that you're putting in and just wanted to acknowledge all of that. And I'm excited to kind of um be back here in a year and kind of see where we're at and hear about how all of the um thoughtful work that we put into this document that we just went over and then

249your work kind of meshes. So, thank you. Um thank you. I really um appreciate um you know um your mig as well. Um and it's it's about communication. It's about um learning from each other and and you know and I see that with um a lot of our workers here um when we're talking about building or or creating documents you know what what can we include in there how can we have that um real understanding um of each other of Anishnab people uh um you know and and everybody else. How can we put that together in one document to make it more um meaningful to everyone that we're learning about this here? We're we're trying to move forward and we will move forward. We have to, you know, we can't just put the brakes on

250um and do our work here. We still have to move forward, keep those wheels going, keep the learning going and focus um on improving graduation rates, improving attendance. Um you know um making sure that our students have that learning going on constantly and have that self um you know that um belonging to to wherever they are. wherever they're touching that land, you know. Um I guess yeah, I I want to reiterate that I truly appreciate um you and your presence and the in the work you've been doing and I feel like we have held you so much longer here. So I hope that doesn't put a rift in our relationship. Um but uh I Um I I don't mean to move us backwards, but just to talk about that restorative relationship. Um I do want

251to go back to um number 13 when I I said to make sure that Apac knows that they are welcome to come to our meetings anytime. just um that restorative relationship should be reciprocal and they should know that like we're not trying to you know like we are open and you can talk to us once a month and then talk to us throughout the month um on personal levels with our email whatever our information is out there and so um if they need a personal invitation to come to public schoolboard meetings this is me personally inviting Apac to come to schoolboard meetings um because it is really important um that Apex sees that we care about our Inishab students um and we love them and we want to see them succeed as much as as

252they do and if there's a way to bridge like sometimes culture and bureaucracy are just directly at odds they just power. And so we have to find a way to find middle ground. And I I really hope that we can both keep those things in mind that sometimes um but the values are still the same. Like we still care about kids and want to see them succeed. So sometimes the means might seem at odds, but we have the same goal. So I hope that we can keep that communication open. Okay. Number 16, there was a recommendation to utilize the Indigenous People's Task Force for endorsement. Um Sheila, would you like to speak to um to this one as well as um a focus on the medicine gathering? Um this is um the information about smudging

253is where the partnership we had with um Ako which um they can't provide us um with that anymore. Um and um Dorene Aditi Skinway has reached out um to to the um um the task force as well and they're willing to provide uh programming to uh for our students um and any other classes that that want you know that service as well. Um I'm not too sure um how um they have been hit um with the with the cuts um for their program yet. Um so we'll just have to wait to see um when we do meet with them. Um member Bonds has stepped out so I'm going to call on Chair Durk Eer right now. Um I also um I work at the College of St. Scholastica and I know that we do have

254a medicine garden there as well. Um that's curated by um our Native American student club and then also um our AVP of um it I'm checking out right now too, but she um she's also an Anashabi woman and she we do have some of those resources available. So, if that's a collaboration or a partnership, I'd be happy to help make that connection and if that's something that you're interested in. And then lastly, before I um before we sign off, I I just going through these 16 recommendations today, my first initial thought is please stay with us. Coordinator White like this is not um your task and your task alone. Um, this is all of us lifting you up to do the good work and guiding us to lift up our kids and improve those graduation

255rates and make sure that our students are seen and feel seen and are in a system where they can um be free to express their culture and and and live their authenticelves. So, um, sometimes I get uncomfortable because I don't want it to seem like it this is the entirety of this task is on you. It is on all of us. And um I hope you have a very long and fruitful career with Duth Public School System and we will do whatever it takes to make sure that that happens. So please thank you.