001good afternoon and welcome to the duth public schools Committee of the whole meeting for the month of March and now I'll turn it over to our assistant superintendent bonds thank you but first I'd like to do roll call member banks here chair eer here uh member leer Kemp is excus member loal here I am here member Sadowski here member Williams here superintendent Magus here assist assistant of superintendent bonds present Deputy clerk Simone zunich here executive director of HR and operation Severance present executive assistant Shannon Brown here and roll call has been done now we'll turn it over to assistant superintendent bonds thank you chair and good evening again everyone um for our first presentation today under our strategic plan alignment under supporting every students we have Cindy Miller who is the library media Tech content
002specialist and District computer science lead and we have others who will introduce themselves as well so I'll turn it over to Cindy who's going to uh provide some information related to our duth Public Schools computer science and uh programming thank you for the opportunity to talk today uh I want to tell you about the people who are involved in computer science in our district uh and are here with us today uh I am Cindy Miller and I'm the computer science lead um that's a point2 position in the school district and uh is paid for through a grant through the Northern Lights collaborative for computing education uh next to me today is Paul shonfeld from the Northern Lights collaborative for computing educ ation he's a district support specialist some coordinator and uh also Denette sibo is
003uh with us today too who you know very well I'm sure and Peter Graves I saw him sneak in the back um he's with us today too and um would be happy to answer any questions that you might have as well thank you uh so Peter and dette and I are uh the core team involved this grant that uh came from the Northern Lights collaborative uh they are funded through a um through the University of Minnesota through a grant that is from the um National Science Foundation uh so those are our people and um uh we have presented to the cow group another time a couple years ago uh with Gen Rado and possibly you remember the Cod and go mice that that we coated with yeah so um I want to talk about uh
004how we started in the 2022 23 school year um we uh there was an organization at St Scholastica that was the kind of predecessor to the Northern Lights group and they um had a PD um evening PD outside of the contract time for teachers um art teachers media science teachers Math teachers and um it was led by Paul and J Rado and the team that was at that time at St Scholastica um and uh we you can see the things listed here we um just kind of were introduced to computer science and um uh one point at the bottom of this slide is that Minnesota last year during the last school year was dead last Minnesota was dead last in the high school computer science offerings in the country um there were five schools in
005the state of Minnesota that uh had a pathway to computer science um and several of those go through their CTE program and uh I'm working on getting us at added to that list uh so we did projects through that um CS forall work that we did with the group at St gasa uh using the Cod and go mice and uh doing some scratch learning and we have um and these rvr robots that are here um came to us last school year um no this school year um that they're using in Middle School um so this is how it started I'm going to skip ahead because I want to talk about where we are um moving forward so our CTE pathway uh we've been working on building this pathway K12 our K12 media Specialists have been
006trained in code saavy um with code Savvy and the Northern Lights collaborative um to use hour of code and CS fundamentals and unplugged computer science and we did a computer science science pilot in the elementary um in the last school year um High School and Middle School courses have were added over the summer uh we're working on revamping the sixth grade class that we offer that is uh was called computers class and now is called uh computer science or no computer literacy we added a sixth and seventh grade robotics en coding class uh that is a uh an elective a computer science 8 elective and a computer science 10 class that is a required course um so this year our goals we um with the Northern Lights group we are working with school districts allover
007Northern Minnesota uh with the uh influence with the Focus I guess on uh Indian or Native American culture um integrating with computer science um making sure that we're inclusive and um our special uh include specialed um services in our computer science offerings um we have um these goals uh first to rewrite that sixth grade class to develop a scope and sequence um identify funding to sustain our computer science growth in our school district and to use our district pdds for computer science and technology learning and I I want to take a um Step here and talk about what is what's the difference between computer science and educational technology so computer science is um basically what a computer um um how a computer works and and how it does the things that it does um so
008for example coding um and um coding to make a computer work and uh the hardware and the things the parts that go into um making a computer work and educational technology is the things that you make using a computer so educational technology might be making a slide show or students making a video to show what they know that kind of thing is educational technology computer science is more about how computers do what they do and um and also ties in computational thinking which is thinking like a computer so using a sequence of steps or an algorithm or uh using uh Loops to make uh a computer do what you want it to do um and so that's that's those are two different things and this CS lead position that I'm in um is only focusing
009on computer science and I will continue with my slideshow uh here's uh two groups of teachers this is groups of middle school this is a group of Middle School teachers with um people from um helpers that are teaching us from Northern Lights collaborative and this is a group um we have is it six different school districts that we're working with in northern Minnesota and that's in this room uh we get together um uh quarterly and learn from each other about building Pathways for computer science uh so this school year we have a kindergarten through fifth grade integrated media and Technology um so our Elementary media Specialists are teaching 8 to 10 unplugged and cod .org CES fundamentals lessons uh during our technology uh units um we have our sixth grade computer literacy class that is
010Tech applications and um code.org CS discoveries units and the 10th grade class these these are all required um 10th grade uh required computer science course and then uh we have electives sixth and seventh grade coding and Robotics at both linkoln and at ordine and I have a video to show this isn't in your slideshow this link um that um but I wanted to show this this is Paige who is a student at ordine I'm hoping the sound will work the Powerpuff Girls that's her team name she's missing a few of her teammates today okay robots in they've got a little bit different design they're studying Marine robots um and they have a connection with Lake Superior of course wow um here's it fast page they built these from scratch and learned how to use them
011got another crew over here saving a noodle that came off pig is diving to the bottom the program that they've got going that robot Robotics and coding is really cool um we also have can I just add one thing absolutely if you would like to see them in person uh or Dean Middle School is doing uh demos and tests of their robots the next two days so Wednesday and Thursday during their area time 10:40 to 11:14 you are welcome to come head down to the pool and see them in action and talk to students so I think Cindy will be there tomorrow and Paul and I will probably go on Thursday this is the first Peter's hearing about it but you're welcome to come check out the robots we have an eighth grade computer science
012uh that is uh doing data science and using scratch uh technology and um the 9 through 12 AP Computer Science principles class um we have one class this year um between the three High School environments and um it's offered at East and it sounds like we have low enrollment for next year so we're not sure yet what's going to happen with that or we're not going to talk about it right now uh so next year uh we're going to look at computer science integrated with music and science standards what I'd like to do is work with the uh for example um the seventh grade science teachers to integrate I I don't know what their units are but we'll find a unit and we will incorporate computer science into it and when those um teachers are
013learning how to do that science unit that is new to them because it's newly adopted science um they will learn how to teach that with integrated computer science that's the kind of thing that um is a goal for me for next year uh we're adding a class called computer repair Academy it's through the vivacity program um and those uh students hopefully we can make this work that they will intern with our tech department and uh work with repairing our Chromebooks um within our middle schools and high schools then uh we're adding a computer designing and app computer gaming and app design in 11th and 12th grade and um outside of school programming I'm exploring what we're doing outside of school that is computer science um and then the next year um more Compu computer science
014integrated with music and science um multimedia and video which is technically not computer science but it's a course that we're adding um in for 11th and 12th graders and something called cyber security which is just a dream of mine to be able to um offer that course um we have some computer science PD that's coming up we have seven or eight teachers going to this Midwest indigenous computer science PD event next week um and we have some fourth we invited fourth grade teachers to uh attend this session that's being offered through um Northern Lights collaborative as well um that will be a mixed um synchronous asynchronous but it's completely online and outside of the contract day um several of us are going to the Minnesota plus CS conference in April and I am going to
015attend the computer science Teachers Association National Conference in Cleveland in the summer and I'm going to learn about AI in our K12 education cyber security program development safety laws and ethics um those are my goals those are my plans uh and I'm here to answer questions if you'd like to um Paul and dette and Peter are able to answer questions as well and uh one of my goals that I'll just put out there is uh to sustain this this grant is four four years and this is the second year of the grant so two more years assuming that we have Federal funding to be able to continue uh after that we're going to need District commitment to continue our computer science development in our CTE and K12 pathway so if you have questions we'd love
016to hear them thank you superintendent magas sure first of all I just want to say thank you to the team for the great presentation and thank you Cindy for always being such a strong leader in so many areas it's it's widely recognized and and great appreciated uh second I'd like to say that these courses are exactly the type of thing that we want to develop and offer our students it's something that they're deeply interested in and I think it uh takes us uh as a district to the next level and thirdly um just thinking about career Pathways and how we work together um just a a notice for the school board and every everybody else who might be listening we have speaking of career Pathways we have a duth promise uh press conference this Thurs
017Thursday at 2:00 uh at actually right here it was going to be at the chamber but it's hosted by the chamber and uh we're very excited about that but when we think about it um technology and information technology was one of the pathways that we're working on significantly that will be part of that and we have a bill that is sponsored both in the House and Senate with bipartisan support for some funding to to really think about how could we further support that type of uh pathway development including this one so uh I I think it's important for us as a district to continue to take on those responsibilities to look for additional resources when resources are scarce it's not the easiest times but uh really really appreciative of the work you're doing yes glad
018to thank you have member Williams and then member Lo thank you uh we'll go with member lwood and then member banks okay um so thank thank you too yeah this is incredible uh although this is not my language at all so I think I'm going to try to show up for the robotics demonstration at ordine and um maybe be invited into some of the classes that are in the high school because I just really this was not my teaching years for the most part but it's exciting so I missed you know Cindy you said something about there's low enrollment in one of it was not too long ago but low enrollment so you don't know if it will be offered and I don't I didn't catch the name of that class so right now um
019two years ago someone at Denfeld wrote a grant to build an AP AP testing um they offer a computer science course and so they wrote a grant we built it we offer it uh without a pathway ahead of it that's a pretty advanced level course to run and it hasn't had high enrollment we don't have a lot of kids who found they were really ready for it so what is it called AP Computer Science computer science principles yep principles PES not okay Pals um and so we are hopeful that that enrollment in that advanced level class will grow as we start to build I gotta programs underneath it and then you're looking at adding a computer repair that's awesome and then also computer gaming and are those also then classes that we'd have to wait
020to see if they fill before we offer yes as is the case with all of our High School courses and that's in our catalog now they are okay yes awesome and then well and then I missed the part about this is all Grant right now until the very end when you said we've got a grant for this and it lasts for two more years so we will be advocating we will write some bills um again I can't imagine that there isn't even some legislation right now because of the added computer science that we did in 2023 three um so um and then there was just you know all of the things you're planning to do the the um PD opportunities and you said that there's it's online it's outside the contract so is there stien
021money that comes um and that comes from that Grant as well okay awesome so this is really great like I said it it seems like how can we in the kind of navigation we are right now with budget reductions and realignments be um so excited about um what what's down the road and what we can open up doors of opportunity for our students so um again Applause to all of us for continuing to show some light and some hope in our school district with with classes that are meaningful and classes that will lead them to a career so yeah we'll keep going and you can answer that I think at this time there's a lot of money out there that is being offered if a district made a commitment toward computer science and the development
022of this program that's what it would take we can apply for Grants I'll leave it there member banks and then member Williams thank you so I'm just wondering what the Staffing looks like I see the four of you can you talk a little bit more about the teachers and how many that would be in the district for the the the the only actual teacher sitting here is Cindy Paul helps lead the collaborative and has guided our group uh and the three of us have been part of this group now for a couple of years um and they help push out the PD and we connect it with the teachers so right now the teachers that we've been working with and encouraging to attend the PD are the teachers who are currently teaching the computers classes
023and the robotics classes in middle school and then our computer classes in high school uh they've also been supported we've pulled them out of the you saw a meeting here um where they've had time to check in and work with Specialists to really develop and check in on how things are going uh We've also now pushed out to fourth grade teachers some of that PD uh and because of the connection the goal of this grant um in bringing computer science to indigenous education uh We've also reached out to L teachers um encouraging them to sign up it's hard to be out of your classroom we understand that so we we continue to encourage there are stiens offered including for the one that happens during the school day for the work you're putting in to now
024try some of these things that an additional stip in so uh that's been a huge celebration for us too and so at the at the elementary the k6 level K5 level it's really been the media Specialists that have been teaching a lot of this at the middle school it's more of the then it switches more to those computer uh science teachers at the high school level it will be in the communications CTE pathway which is a story for another day but that's where this fits K12 media Specialists are licensed to teach fundamental or foundational sorry foundational computer science uh not the extended level that our middle and high school teachers are teaching so all of our K12 media Specialists are licensed for and trained um through PD offered through this deal um for foundational computer
025science thank you member Williams thank you I have a couple of different questions you answered um one so I have less than original so that's good um can you tell me the acronym the nlcc if you said it I missed it and I didn't see it written I'm sorry yeah our group is through the University of Minnesota uh we're called the Northern Lights collaborative for computing education thank you yeah um and then and looking at next year's offerings I am wondering with the computer repair um Academy and the gaming and app design um is there like a tangible takeaway like can they just after they finish this program or class be like I am certified toit uh so the the computer science and gaming isn't built yet the goal of all CTE is to build
026in industry credentialing along the way the vivacity that was listed for the computer repair class uh vivacity is the company that we purchase our Chromebooks through and they offer a course an online course in computer repair so our students will it's a certification kind of um we'll be we'll we'll finish that before they then work with the the D's perfect to help build that which will then hopefully free up those dis to work more with teachers and support our educational technology okay and then my last question um so in 2023 or uh when Minnesota ranked dead last um how did 709 do we know how 709 compared because you said Minnesota at that time we didn't have any computer science offerings that was not clear to me thank you that's all but now we're ready
027to be on that paper that has those five school districts listed I've requested that we be added that's awesome thank you member Sadowski and then member Mikel thank you for this presentation and for all of your work with this really important curriculum um I think it's just really critical for for making sure that our students that are that our teachings are staying relevant that are um students are seeing um just relevant curriculum in our school um I I had a quick a couple quick questions um I remember learning and I'm 99% sure this is what when we were down at the msba conference a couple years ago we learned about code.org how long have you been using code.org just curious uh we've had pet projects in the classrooms using code.org um a lot having to
028do with the hour of code that we do in December during that computer science education week um so and by pet projects I mean one teacher might teach this or that but it's not continuous through the um as an offering that would provide Equitable education um I have used code.org for several years in my classroom um as media specialists in the elementary schools um we piloted last year with cs fundamentals that's offered through code.org and um this year 8 to 10 lessons um in K through five classes and um CS discoveries is also through code.org and that's being used in that sixth grade uh Tech or computer literacy course does that answer your question yeah it does I was just um I remember being really impressed by that presentation so it's cool to see it
029being integrated um and hopefully it's a good useful tool um and I don't know if this is a question or more of a comment but I'm just Cindy I'm really glad to hear you're going to a conference on AI I hear I mean I have two high schoolers myself and I hear other students talking about it and I think um I think they're wanting you know they know it's there some of them use it I think some of them are um a little apprehensive to use it because they want to use it correctly um also I would just share that a couple students recently shared with me something that I learned I didn't know that there's pretty significant um environmental impact P from AI um water to cool the um buildings that are holding all
030of the information and actually they shared with me a a search engine that doesn't use AI so I've started to try to test that out and use it but those are our students that shared that with me actually at a a meeting a couple days ago which I thought was cool so our students they probably know a lot more about it than we do and um thank you for taking time in the summer to go to that and uh hopefully we can figure out ways to um kind of come alongside our students and teach them how to use those tools responsibly and yeah thank you thank you so much for rising to the occasion of getting Minnesota off of that last spot on that list um I appreciate your dedication Cindy um to this um
031three questions so I was curious what other districts are in the Northern Lights Consortium answer yeah there's six school districts actually as of yesterday seven uh schools and districts participating in this National Science Foundation Grant um so in addition to duth we have the fondaco jibway school Hermantown schools uh we have elely Mountain Iron bule St Louis County Public Schools and the new school that just uh signed on yesterday was net Lake School great and you meet routinely and that's just more information sharing like curriculum development sharing like what happens at those collaborations yeah we have a couple of different monthly meetings that representatives from each district attend uh we call one of them a core team meeting smaller meeting to um discuss what's happening related to Grant goals and outcomes each month and connect
032uh with the that core team of Representatives we have larger professional Learning Network meetings those happen quarterly two of them online and two of them in person Cindy showed some pictures from the one that we had here um and then we'll have another in-person meeting coming up here at the end of the school year and then each district can schedule their own regular meetings to meet with the district we call them computer science champions to kind of work on those District level plans as well as some subgroups that do some planning um reflecting on Research goals and another subgroup for the professional development awesome thank you um Cindy I know your point to position of your 100% self is paid for by grants the remainder of like our our leaders in this is are you
033grant funded at all for the work that you contribute to this other than comp there's there's some there's a stipend for participating uh but other than that know the Cindy's time uh it doesn't pay for any of our teachers it does support the PD but it doesn't pay for any FTE and just for the PD is professional development teaching teachers what they the tools they need to affect our students well okay um and then I was curious about the curriculum like how it's created and develops you know like as we're rolling out these new classes every year um how are we creating those lessons and the goals and how we're grading like teach me a wise one so last summer was a a Crazy Summer of new course building so that's not the norm um
034and so we've kind of backtracked a little and the support that comes from being part of this grant has been critical so uh when building these courses there's not like a textbook that you can buy and use it is really deciding what skills and and and Frameworks you want to teach and use and then finding a resource for them uh equipment needs arise as you do that techn when we have to have the technology to teach them um but we have had a ton of support from Paul and the team and the collaborative uh really helping us decide what should be taught um at the CTE at the high school level there are some Frameworks that the state wants us to align to so we've worked on integrating those but it is really unique process
035of finding things like code.org there's a lot of resources out there and a lot of it is free to access and use uh and so it's vetting those resources training on them and then embeding them so it's kind of an ongoing process because those resources change thank you yeah and I was going to add as well that one of the outcomes of the grant is to develop new curriculum that incorporates Ojo language and culture with computer science learning and so duth School have been really helpful in having some teachers where I'll go uh pilot a new a new lesson and get feedback um so right now I'm doing that at at uh Lincoln Park Middle School with Carrie Wright in the science class and and we've got a couple of parents that are attending those
036classes and giving feedback and so that's and like last year was Chrissy valento and some other teachers helping give feedback and refine the curriculum that then we share freely with anybody that wants wants to use it that's incredible yeah thank you thank you I want to say uh thank you uh to the team also for um you know this work and this effort Cindy has always been a good partner and Advocate especially not only computer science but also Library science and helping to make sure our collections are diverse and you know over the years she's really helped with um making sure that happens so I want to say thank you for that I said Thank you last year new year before that but I'm also saying it now again so I thank you Al just
037reminder board that um there will be lots of opportunities to ask more questions uh we have uh three other presentations that probably will be um meaningful and probably have uh lots of questions as well just want to keep that in mind Cher I mean honest one one last one member is so we we are currently offering the mandated computer science to our 10th graders right do any of these classes that um are in our catalog now and could possibly roll out fill that mandated requirement is that a class that would cover that that's one question and then two it h how are we redesigning computer science I know it was one of those hard rollouts this summer with com curriculum and I've seen some of our staff already here with you know working on the
038next year's computer science but I just wonder about our current computer science class in 10th Grade mandated required yes thank you so the the computer science 10 will has been reworked over the course of the Year and that we will dedicate some summer writing hours for that team to meet again with support um to decide again now solidify we've tried a lot of things this year what needs to stick what needs to change uh and then um that course kind of serves as the gate into the other courses so it should give the fundamental knowledge you need to be ready to take computer gaming design and to be ready to go into that computer repair and then Cindy me mentioned some other courses that we have as goals um I know the journalism discussion has
039come up and and that's where a lot of these uh courses will live and fit is in that same uh Communications pathway at the state level so that's why they kind of go together because so much of what is um media now is Technology based that they really fit together well so did I answer all of your questions okay and of course uh it has to evolve because this year's sixth graders when they get to 10th grade will already have learned all the things that we're telling them they have to learn in 10th Grade right now they will already have that by the when they get there because they're learning similar uh skills now in younger grades so it'll evolve as as time goes on thank you thank you again next up we have our
040family engagement specialist um missan Moro she will be providing an update related to our attendance campaign and efforts as she uh approaches the table as you know one of the things that um we've communicated uh for some time especially this year is the fact that we have far to many of our students not attending school regularly um and if you all know like I know if students are not present many of them cannot learn um unless they are in front of staff and highly qualified teachers who can support them and uh support their academic development and attend to their social emotional needs so um we have been really striving as a district to enhance our attendance efforts and to get our students um to school in Vari ways and so I'll turn over to um
041shalan and Adele wellins who is our public information officer for our presentation now turn to shalan and Adell yeah just trying to get my bearings together so please apologies um so I just want to start off by saying what I passed around is just information about an event that I went to um down in St Paul so I'll talk a little bit more about that but that's just kind of if you all wanted to look at it but so we'll get started I will be looking at my computer on and off and then my notes so if I'm not looking directly at you so we'll start off this presentation about attendance versus chronic um absenteeism we all know that attendance can look different um but it also can also have the same variety as chronic
042aism attendance is if a student attends more than 90% um of school during their school year if you miss two days or at 10% then you fall in the category of chronic absenteeism so we look at also when attendance num start to fall we automatically take that first step for some it's letters for some it's having a conversation with the student there are multiple reasons or multiple varials excuse me of when we of what that first step looks like for different students on different School levels chronic aism um is an issue when it's a recurring problem that a student misses school kids can miss schools for a number of reasons but when they start to miss school for more than three days that's when we all tend to get worried again missing 10% or more
043um which is two days of a year can translate into students having difficulties learning to read by third grade advancing in middle school and even graduating from high school and if I talk fast please tell me to slow down and it's two days per month she's my correction yeah sorry I tend to kind of skip around so it's two days per month you're welcome um so now we want to flip the next slide to attendance policy updates so we take a deep look at our attendance policy that we looked over and reviewed for a while now um we looked at it from the beginning of the school year to now middle of the school year and kind of looking at how do we change it within different languages rewarding um what standard attendance looks like
044throughout our school district we know that the new attendance policies went into the second read and was approved by the school board um on Tuesday February the 25th and then we also know that we look at three different languages we look at absent and we look at exempt sometimes those two can kind of get entangled so we will be having training um with our clericals about what we look at as absent we look at as unexcused and what we look at as exempt now let's take a nice look at the numbers students are considered constantly attending if they attend more than 90% of time that a school is en a student is enrolled during the year as you can see from the charts it's where our attendant is or has been as a whole we
045start out high and we see those numbers dip a little bit but it's okay because we know that our students are finding ways families are finding ways to figure out how we can continue to work together to get their students into our school building and then into our class going through challenges and implementation so we have several different varas that we use um to help families and kids get to school we know we did the partnership with the DTA last year that definitely was a hit and we have bought it back again this year thanks to our wonderful administrators and so that offers free rides for high school students and staff and I can personally attest that I've seen kids get on the bus I've actually had a young gentleman who helped me and a
046couple other students doing a school event of how to navigate the bus system so please know it does work then we have school sites have on individual Vans now the Vans are for other activities so as you listed as I listed people or students who want to attend a events who want to participate in extracurricular activities it gives them a way to do to do that and for those families to know that their kids will have a ride home now we do help our students by providing rids but they are not consistent rids because we want students and families to understand the importance of attendance so if a student happens to make um a trip to school every single day and then they happens to miss one week and they cannot find an additional ride
047to school we always advise families and students to call the school to let us know that you cannot come and we will do our best to come and pick up the child and then we have parent Square which is a way of communicating which is growing and parents are really starting to have a better understanding of and love it to see when their teachers principle staffs are able to con to connect with them whether that's via phone call via text message so they really has been growing since we implemented it into our school year student survey says so we provided a survey for both of our high schools and middle schools which is about the cause of absenteeism survey and as you can see so far our um survey is still open there have been
04817 submissions completed and some of those reasons stood out to me of Why students miss school and it's not for those reasons you would think of I was late didn't feel good missed a bus no it's illnesses minor illnesses or doctor's appointment now we did find out and I say me and adill we work close together we did find out that our students did see an increase in response for feeling anxious or depressed progression as a whole attendance is a measure that can be evaluated from the beginning halfway and end of the school year so each school and sight and grade level has experienced attendance concerns at different levels so we start off by this wonderful picture of our staff at Lake Wood Elementary now every Monday the staff members wear a t-shirt that says
049we're glad that you're here and we want to encourage you to come it's a really cute t-sh t-shirt you haven't seen it now we also have to hit those concerning spots marus wiins attendance yes it has grown in levels but it also has seen a little bit of decrease in those numbers due to unseen circumstances with having issues when it comes to constant school bus routes getting cancelled and they've had more than three cancellation in the past month progression as a whole so as you can see have it narrow down to all three levels elementary school middle school and high school level and what at each level they find out to be helpful when it comes to getting parents and students to understand the importance of attendance Elementary level communication with parents Square via calls
050via text messages phone calls sending letters home and those letters are being attached to kids schools I mean book bags or letters so that their parents can actually see it and not have to dig inside the book bags and then having daily check-ins with our students doesn't matter how young a student is they know how to communicate they know how to tell you when something's wrong so trying to figure out how to communicate to them in their level to really get an understand of what's going on Middle School we do the same thing parents sare phone calls and text sending out letters but that's more of really diving into the relationship that we have with the students that one-on-one meeting with counselors staff members um and then that's when we have to sometimes add in
051those attendance contracts that we have to bring families in if we feel like we need a more uh concrete measure to really understand how do we help to provide that increase within attendance and on the high school level same thing but this is when that actual one-on-one communication comes into effect building strong student and staff relationship and heartfelt conversation and I can stand here before you to tell you that honestly is true I have conversation with high school kids all the time trying to figure out where your goal for graduation why can you not attend why are we attending but not going to class it a difference when you attend school but you're in the hallways you're not so I have those conversations and I can say that those actually do work moving and shaking
052on the district level so like I said before you there are sheets that I kind of passed out um about an event that I attended on February the 10th so I found out doing my own research for another event that February the 10th is pronounced National African-American parent involvement day it is not a national holiday but it is recognized in certain States and Minnesota is one of them so I went down to St Paul and really got to understand like what does that mean what does that look like the three schools I visited was Eastern Heights Elementary Highland Park middle and then Central High School and I got to really experience what each school did so at the elementary level their principal was new this year so they had coffee with the principal and three
053parents showed up including one that actually works there and it was like I asked questions like what are your modes of communication what do you want one parent said I want to have communication of an event two or three weeks in advance not the week of not that Friday and trying to figure out how to come on that Monday or it was Will being being involved with our child's education showing up to more events maybe doing more daytime events to where we feel like we can actually come in and really see our kids doing their work at the middle school they had a nice little lunch in where the parents got to sit talk to the principles and then parents got to give a tour that was given by their students also the same thing
054what works for them on the high school level some of their kids are going in high school so they get to kind of have that middle ground where it's like let's communicate more still give you your freedom but not understand that education is important and then I went to Central High School and I was very amazed they had a whole event laid out from 8:30 until 2:30 I came in doing lunch period so I was really really happy um but there's was very interesting it was parents came in they had breakfast with their kids and then their black student union gave a tour of all the parents that came and then they got to S into the library and they had different community members to come in one of them actually did a documentary about
055save our sons and they got to watch the event and then the kids actually had to have a discussion with the author about what does that movie mean to them what does it mean to be an African-American and St Paul and even a student right now especially in high school on top of that they got a cad at lunch and then again I got to meet with um their ninth grade Dean their principle really talk about how do we involve our parents more and one of their Deans told told me something that was very very vital if you can't get to the parents get to the ones that you can get to who do we have access to the students so sometimes it's okay to take a break if we can't get to Mom and
056Dad because if we can get to the student then we can really make that message oh sorry then what I do is that I attend different PTA meetings attendance meeting CIT meeting and ongoing parent advisory meeting um some of those PTA meetings are different at at every level from the high school to the elementary to the middle they do different fundraising events that also different family engagement event I went to a carnival at sto I went to a movie night at orine um so it's a little bit of different things but it's always about how do we involve families but how do we involve the students even the students who may not have the money to afford what can we do to make sure that every student has a good time CTI meetings what schools
057are doing to improve from last year from month to month those are really good meeting I like to kind of sit in to kind of really see how the teachers are going about their day but how they're also engaging as well different things that they're doing like over the break they had different the high school level different um days where kids who were probably under credit a little bit really going to give them homework help so they got to come to Neighborhood youth services or AO and really get help um within their homework and then one thing that I did within working with my colleagues was a volunteer application um I go to or I try my best to go to every Thursday and Tuesday Morning the Washington Center and I've heard a lot of
058individuals who want to come and help and volunteer in our schools now this volunteer application is different each school has their own way of how they volunteer but this is a volunteer application that anyone can fill out who wants to Vol volunteer in our school whether it's Elementary Middle High School reading the kids math tutor anything they can think of they fill it out it comes to me I go through it and then I connect with the principal to figure out how they can use this individual and then I will connect back to those that apply this is a part where we ask for questions thank you for the opportunity to come up here in front of you and I appreciate it member Williams I did not think I would be first so I was
059G to write down my question uh so it sounded better um so I will just kind of go off of the chart um I do have a couple of questions but and our packet it's on page 20 it looks like page four of the presentation thank you page four of the presentation so um one there are no numbers in July and August correct okay that is correct that's just showing where a 100 is okay and then um is that from this year this is current yes okay and then do we have um do we know what absenteeism or attendance rates look like um broken down by demographics we have those we can get those yes but this was was just a whole look at just um the school district but yeah we are able to
060see when it comes to uh demographics okay um I I'm just yeah curious about um when we're talking about the um uh the na what is it the national National African-American involvement parent day so um do we as a district have plans to make that a day we acknowledge here in duth next year and then um how are we encouraging ongoing parent involvement specifically with um black parents yeah to stay involved more than just here's the day you can come and have coffee with so I want to um say that in a Nappa napped I forgot how they said it um it is not yes it is within the term of africanamerican but when I was there I realized it for all parents but that day was actually founded by a former educator um and
061principle um Mr John dullin he's a retired educator and he actually found it um that day so yeah um when I came back I started looking at like how do we incorporate that day in here I actually talked to if I may um assistant superintendent about it and I've also recently talked to um Miss Annie Shilling at our PD day to make sure there was nothing set within PD day for that day try to figure out how we can work on that day so that is in planning it has not started but it is in planning that I'm looking to do for next year for next school year and then how do we get our parents involved um honestly communicate um when I look at it on a scho level yes we do the events
062we out thece involve every parent what I can say is me showing up to the Washington Center BP parent association meeting every second and fourth uh Thursday night going out into NYS you know talking to some of their leaderships kind of when they see parents um come up how do we kind of engage so the conversation is ongoing me being in the community is ongoing and it's an ongoing conversation to be U fairly honest with you it's getting them to every event as possible um and then for understanding the importance of not just showing up when you get phone call because your child isn't in class it's showing up to meetings showing up to in to involvement so that is a ongoing conversation but an ongoing conversation with movement attached to it and then I
063do have um so we use a tool called educ climber um so I can pull up the stats um almost instantly so our consistent attendance by ethnic ethnicity right now um as of today um American Indian is at 37% black or africanamerican is at 6.98% two or more races is at 74. 76% Hispanic and Latino is at and white is at 88.3 1% can you say the um American Indian again 70 70 37 7037 and white was at 80 what 88.3 one thank you I think that's all I have thank you member banks yeah thank you I just have two questions do you have any preco information to compare with the current data that you could share with us and um I don't know if this is for assistant superintendent bonds or superintendent maggus does
064isd709 have uh any attendance incentive programs I know know there are a number of schools in Minnesota that do have incentive programs for attendance it doesn't have to be elaborate or anything like that is there something that could uh be put in place or is in place that could certainly motivate our kids to attend school on a regular basis um nothing that is districtwide except our attendance campaign obviously we are encouraging students you know we're looking for reliable transportation uh unities for students you WR increasing opportunities through the DTA and others each school has uh attendance as a focus within their school Improvement plans um if it's not in their school Improvement plans is one of their uh Focus areas uh for improving because again this is something we noticed that is um widespread in
065terms of a problem hence why we are really even attempting to focus on improving attendance across the board as a as a district and so we don't have anything that's districtwide uh but those are things that we were looking for when when Chalan approached me um to attend uh events in the cities I was like okay you know do some homework on it and she came back and um Shar some information I said sounds like a good opportunity to go and learn what others are doing in terms of best practices for improving attendance and so that's where uh she came up with some of the ideas that um are being used in the city so we we're looking and exploring those districtwide initiatives and efforts but right now we are really relying on our school
066sites to uh think of strategies that work with their students you um can I also say I think I might have missed the question but I think I might have caught it on the back end um and then also one thing that I want to allude to that at Central High School um when I walked in they were talking about really getting out outside of the Metro City area and really connecting with other school districts and they happened to mention duth right when I walked in and so we are kind of working together we want to work together that is the goal of figuring out what does attendance work look like for them how does it work for our students um one of the flyers I passed around JK movement they are an organization that
067works outside like down the street from central so working on how to figure out how do we get our kids connected um so work working on different projects of doing that working with the St Paul director of family engagement trying to like in Partnership and balance off so those conversations are happening um as well trying to figure out what works there and how can we bring it to our area maybe what works for us that they can take as well if that's a part of the question you asked on that note um just because it's answering your question um part partially answering I I also uh recognize that there are a lot of U positive behavior intervention support uh responses that are uh maybe not incentive from the perspective of necessarily somebody getting a prize
068or something like that but sometimes there are things like you know paw bucks and things like that through other sites that are that are partly in recognition for attendant so I think that that fitting it within the positive behavior intervention and support programming is part of what we do uh but ensuring that it's systemic and not not necessarily strong in one school and not as strong in others but also allowing for some autonomy so that if one school is learning and doing something that works for them and working well then then maybe it can apply and work in other schools and I think about just the other day when I was at pedmont uh there's a big sign up front and it's like uh Panthers attend or I can't remember exactly what it was but
069it was something it was a lot catchier than P Panthers attend but it was uh something something really good um and I just want to applaud uh the work that you're doing on this I think that attendance is a very very serious uh issue and it's something that that is important uh on a personal note I remember when I was in elementary school and I was missing it no it was Middle School missed uh quite a bit of school and and reached the point of being chronically uh AB absent and had a social worker actually come out to our house and check on things and so that turned uh things around and I think it was important for outreach and so I think um I just wanted to say that because I think that attendance
070issues and anxiety and things like that I think sometimes we attribute them to maybe certain kids or certain parents or certain parts of the you know uh things like that and I think it's important to recognize that uh any student or any family might have attendance issues and we want to think about things holistically as far as how we reach out and and provide scaffolding to make sure students are attending every day and that's why we have the slogan every student every day I just want to say um to answer your question um member banks so when we look at the number if you want to go back my dear to slide four I do believe real quick um the chart those are the these are the numbers now and like you said well the
071the numbers pre-co so the numbers in pre-co um were similar to the same so September was 88 and then from October 87 November 87.7 December went a little bit higher it was at 90% but it's that steady little rate of um 80 of between 87 and 80 80% of students that um attended right in that little that little area you're welcome which again um magnifies why we are focused on attendance right because I heard stronger attendance numbers back then than we have now I'll go with um member Mikel and then member Derek eer yeah thank you for the presentation I'm just was uh I think I've gotten a little bit more clarity in terms of the timeline and um numbers of attendance rates and percentages pre-co and where we are now um just to be
072clear our attendance rates are going down this school year is that correct okay and but we're speaking about different interventions um we did a survey when did that survey go out in terms of this timeline s um it went out the first week of so I think February the 11th so it like recently like went out um within the past couple of couple weeks okay and did that survey go out because we were seeing this decline or was that already planned on going that was already planned okay um and so we've collected that data that we've received from students and we got over a thousand responses out of how many students 40 um 4900 4,800 I do believe if I'm wrong yeah yeah 4,800 okay and but that's between again the middle and the high
073school both the middle and high school yes ma'am and so we got a little bit so we have 1 20 perish about about 25% now the survey is still open so we probably still have more but yeah when all this was done we had about 25 percentage great and then we talked about interventions that staff and you are are now doing which sound um you know like they people are very much trying which is amazing um you mentioned something about uh letting students know that if they miss the bus or they're not able to get to school they should know that they can call the school and that we have Vans and all that kind of stuff how are students getting that information so um I we worked on that information the beginning of the
074year we got it out to principls and then principales alerted their staff to alert the students as well and with that it's either the pr it's either the student or the parents will call the parents call my student Miss we don't have another way or for kid calls as well so students have kind of been getting that information throughout if they see principles or throughout the staff who have alerted um the students great and are we doing any tracking of that so we can see how that's being used we are so it's all going coming through transportation and so there's a person at each site who is the van coordinator so anytime that the van is being used um there been used for they do have to fill out a form or fill out a
075sheet and then that sheet goes to the coordinator and then every month that sheet goes is sent to Transportation great and so are we seeing an increase in in usage yet we will have to look that up um and I I can talk to Transportation um about that information and get that right and and I want I do need to add a point of clarification on that um what Shalon is describing is um when or during an emergency students can be picked up and transported uh by someone that they might be working with for example an integration specialist who may have relationship with a student the student is uh misses the bus for for you know uh for variety of reasons or something if there is a contact and the integration specialist is approved to
076uh um drive the bus or not bus but drive the van uh that person may go and pick up a student a principal may go and pick up a student so it's not something that's set up as a a regular um practice in terms of uh schedule let mean practice not word a regular schedule because we do have um a uh our provider is own uh Fleet of buses as well as with voyager and so students are scheduled but if there's an emergency they can be picked up and that does happen frequently and so what I hear you saying it's not for general public use it's for students who already have a connection with some special services or some special connection with a service that's um can offer that as yes they can okay um
077and then just a few more so just I'm hearing superintendent mag's story of when he was a student and had some issues with absentee um or chronic absenteeism how a social worker came out um to his house and they were able to do some other interventions and provide some resources that were turned in in a positive way I'm looking at some of the other um interventions that um we're providing as a district so at the elementary school level we're doing daily check-ins Middle School we're doing weekly check-ins High School we're having heartfelt conversations who are the people who are having those check-ins and who are the people who are um monitoring those things so it is um from principles to um assistant principles Deans um teachers integration specialist it's pretty much whoever um those students
078may feel have that relationship or those staff who may not have seen thaty kid Thursday Friday Wednesday and so Monday and Tuesday um so it kind of just depends on who may have that connection if a teacher notice that their kid is not is not in class for four days then they will probably reach out to the dean or to the principal or send that letter most likely will send that letter first um and then we'll reach out to whoever they feel if like let's say if Johnny had a connection to the integration specialist the teacher will reach out to integration specialist saying have you heard from Johnny or seen him because he hasn't been in my class um and then also within the attendance meeting meetings as well that I attend um they do
079their their like checking as well and then if it gets to a certain point um so if it's like over 12 absents or get a certain point then they will also have the reach out to the county kind of like ass superintendent said you know he had a county social could come out it does get to that point but once we get to our number in our school then we reach out to the county which the schools have a connection with okay thank you and the last point I was just going to make is that um within your presentation you talked about some of the policy language with our updated policy and we're using the the phrases exempt and absent and that language is not in the policy it's excused and unexcused absences so you
080just might well want to make sure that you're providing accurate information to our staff at the school site so it actually is in the policy it's in the the regulation but it actually is in the policy if um unless it's not updated recently I perhaps that's it yeah okay all right thank you you're welcome thank you for the Fe back and we were look to it uh chair Derek eer thank you I want to um really lift up the work that you did down in St Paul and talk about um figuring out ways so that we can make our school buildings inviting to a population of parents who maybe when they were in school those weren't great places for them to be so back in North Dakota where I grew up we always talk about
081every time you walk in the bathroom if somebody hit you in the face with the scoop shovel you stop walking in the bathroom right so I really like the idea of let's pull the scoop shovel away from the bathroom let's invite people in so that they remember that these are their spaces too so this work that you're doing with parents and kids right now think about how that translates generationally so hopefully this work that you're doing with these kids to get them into school is going to translate to their children so that when they have their kids they see schools as places where they feel safe seen and heard so I just I want to thank you for that because I think sometimes forget about my experience in school was this great experience but that's
082not for everybody and then when you have those kids and you want to go to school maybe those aren't places that you trust and that you feel safe sending your kids so I really want to take a minute and acknowledge that work that you're doing to go out into the community and invite people back into places that they may have found to be a marginalizing and discriminatory towards them so thank you for doing this work I really appreciate it thank you Lo yeah too I just want to like this topic and and the work we're doing and the commitment that we've had from the leadership team to um allow Shalon to do the work she's doing so that we can continue to move forward um when she when Shalon explains that you know each building
083is really intently looking at attendance um they are I mean in every building I've been in you see the signs I know that you know just recently I think we had a conversation about about um Denfeld hired a paa that is creating wonderful opportunities to enhance attendance that is her Focus she's reached out to teachers I'm doing a a small group too because maybe on my speech team there are kids struggling for attendance so they've created kind of this opportunity for um students to connect with a teacher that that they identify with that is willing to connect with them on attendance issues so and I'm I'm sure Denfeld is not unique I'm sure all of our buildings have worked with or CIT to to Really create what they need to continue that attendance Journey but
084it's a it's a hard Jour I mean I I don't think you know we maybe just secured you know jobs for a lot of other District be and because attendance it if we if we let go of it if we think we've got it somewhat under control because it moves the needle a little bit it's going to slip again another year or two when something else comes up and as you look at the the temperature in our country we've got to keep our positivity and our commitment to attendance to being a safe place to go try to also get them into the classroom to when they come but um because it's it's really a challenge I think for attendance and I I think sometimes too we we have taken such a big jump with collecting
085data as a high school teacher for years I would see the same decline especially in the um at the end of like November some of our students start slipping away and then they're pretty pretty not there through all of December then January comes you see this little slight increase because it's the new semester in middle school and high school so they reenroll or they make a commitment thinking they're going to hold on and then you know sometimes they they can stay solid especially if they're a senior and they see some hope for graduation but it's just that timeline so sometimes when you think you know how can you restructure a day I'm not looking for that or anything but you know trying to think outside the box of how attendance same thing with bringing parents
086in you know um we we've done all kinds of things in our district to bring um to we've had after what was that called the D and superintendent after our you know Community meetings during our referendum and dur we were in every PTA and we were lucky if we got over 10 usually was under 10 of our community to come in so but then when you see our full community service schools and of course that that's that's a model you know we see that and you've connected very well with some of the our schools that offer that but that after school I see more students there I see somewhat their celebrations bring in more of those parents so I know we're moving hoping we could get more uh full community service schools um targeted in
087our district but that's also a model to continue to pursue thank you thank you thank you thank you member Len and if you can in a moment you want to speak to what the state is doing because I know you are aware of uh a big effort related to attendance if you want to speak to that in a moment and but your spot on and and thank you for recognizing the takeaway is that we recognize that our student attendance is not where it should be and and because it has been challenged that's why we came up with the attendance campaign that's why we put a lot of efforts again all School sites are working on things that make school welcome inviting you know and and something that students want to come to right through our
088PBS process so that's that's our district ride kind of effort but then each school has its own initiative and different support staff that are working on uh attendance initiatives or efforts you know to get students to school so there's there's a lot of things happening and that are individualized site by site as well and I think that um because I've had to look at this because I've gotten inquiries from media um and also I've had to communicate our well child so much this year so when students in their absenteeism survey said that it's because they're just sick the numbers show that um when I pulled the numbers um back in January for uh one of our media members I found that in 2023 we had at that point um for the first sem or for
089the first two weeks of January just the first two weeks of January there were only 1,761 days missed by students but the first two weeks of January this year due to illness we had 4,448 so we did have one we have had one of our um biggest illnesses like the flu um I had to send multiple uh letters to multiple schools about um GI infections so we are I would take these numbers compared to um 2019 2020 with a grain of salt because we have seen such a large increase in illnesses this year um just due to the flu um GI issues and um just the everyday things that we lost our immunity to during the lockdown member Sadowski and then superintendent Magus actually what you just said right now might um data is so
090interesting right there's just so many um variables and ways that it can be impacted because I was going to ask about um you know the DTA um and I'm just curious to you don't need to answer it today but I just be curious ious like over the next few months maybe in June July um getting some I don't know if there would be some data on just how how that may have influenced or impacted our attendance but then I hear that and knew that there were so many illnesses in January and February well that might negate that you know but and we could pull the um attendance data from the last time that we did have the DTA so that would have been um last year during the second semester so we can look at
091that compared um to other years yeah thank you and I think I do think it'll be really helpful though I've known a lot of Youth over the years who um maybe lived out of ways and if they miss their school bus um having the DTA you know and a bus pass would have been really helpful for them at that point so I'm excited to kind of see what kind of outcomes we have from that um I guess and I just had another thought too I feel like um this attendance um piece is very connected to a lot of the other conversations that we've had in previous cows when it comes to making sure um that our curriculum is representative of of many populations and I know that's some work that some people in this room
092have done and I I appreciate that um and we can continue to work on that and also even the computer science presentation today making sure that our courses are engaging and and um kind of relevant to our youth so I think it's it's it's all connected and then lastly um shalan I just wanted to say thank you for all of your community outreach um just to different organizations too like those Partnerships matter um and I appreciate you being that person and getting in touch with all of them superintendent magas I just wanted to say uh as well that uh when we think about the the Nexus between mental health issues and attendance I think that's an important thing to recognize and that's part of the reason why through our budget reductions and through the referendum
093we were trying to make sure we found resource and and supported in those areas um I think that even oftentimes absences that are reported as an illness are quite often based in some way in anxiety and other factors and so thinking about how we're do uh handling that how we're supporting that is very very uh important and then I thought it was important for us to recognize for for chair Durk eer and the public that our bathrooms are are scoop shovel free um I know we got to get ready to go I just want to say three things one um I hope I'm about to pronounce this correctly remember Mike so got you okay um if you look in uh 503 RS student attendance regulation is still that it has um exempt on it so
094just wanted to kind of just let you know that's where that is and letter f um if you were still looking for that one um secondly thank you all so much for your kind words um on the work that's being done um and for me I appreciate that um dearly so please know that I really do thank you and I appreciate it and thirdly um all the copies that I kind of sent out I actually need those back but I can give you copies I just need them back as I continue the partnership so thank you all so much I appreciate it thank you next up we have another presentation under improving systems we have our executive director for H operations Seance is coming up she also has with her HR manager Charlie cook they
095will be sharing information related to our Recruitment and Retention plan okay um good evening and thank you uh for allowing us to be here to speak to you tonight about our Direct draft employee Recruitment and Retention plan um many of you are aware that we have been working on this for quite some time so it's very exciting to be able to bring It Forward here um in almost a final form but we are looking for feedback um one of the things that you know we believe this plan it's essential for making sure that we have the best team that supports and serves our students and sometimes that's not always something that's connected like HR does HR stuff but um there really is a student connection and I'll talk about that in a a fure slide
096but we really look at this um as a strategy to really designed to attract develop and retain the people that are going to serve our students and that are dedicated to our mission vision and core values I know you've seen this slide many times before so I'm not going to go over it but just kind of a reminder that this is what all of our work is is based in um so why this plan matters and what's really exciting about it I know we talked about this as an improving systems uh report but we really touch all three of our core um strategic plan goals supporting every student and again we are providing the employees or helping to provide the employees into our school system that really work day-to-day with the students so it's really
097important work um advancing Equity we have a commitment to attracting and retaining top quality diverse staff and we've talked before about how do we match our staff to our student population and you have a a a data point that we'll talk about a little bit later related to that and then making sure that we're getting employees that are really looking for lifelong learning and the values that we want to see um and then that diversity component as well and then in improving systems this is something that again we've been working on for a while finally putting it forward but it will always be something that we move forward and adjust as as we need to based on outcomes and data uh sets and so we'll be using data driven strategies as you'll see in the
098report um kind of to look at how can we continuously improve in this plan so it'll it'll be moving document yeah so when we look at it for recruitment attention we are very committed to diversity and inclusion um actively recruiting diverse teams utilizing um our Workforce to reflect the diverse student body that we have at duth Public Schools so when you look at um the hand out for the data that was from March 1st of this year we have our staff um percentage for our staff diversity and then we have our student percentage and then the last one be the differences between and we're we really want every student um to have someone that they can relate to if it's if it's that way um being a former teacher myself I know it's really important
099for students to have someone that they can see themselves and they can go to um and that's extremely important when we go through and recruit this so with that we are targeting um we use targeted advertising for recruitment so again we advertise open positions on many forums um including edpost which is um through that St CL State University indeed and then also social media um that way we can try and reach as many um audiences and candidates as possible then we also look at Partnerships and Outreach to educational institutions um going to colleges universities seeing what is their new teaching programs what other staff um do they have and it could be anything from um a parel wanting to maybe move through and become a teacher and and doing things like that as well um
100we try to engage in the community as much as we can and then go from there for attracting and retaining that Talent so with that um we've really tried to expand our advertising and Partnerships throughout the couple years that I've been here for sure and that is working with organizations and partnering with organizations like um careers in government as well as um one more there we go yep so careers in government as well as um diversifying just a wider to get wider and diverse pool of candidates for that um we are attending so far we're registered for eight job fairs um and Career Fairs to make sure that we're all over the state that we people can come to duth and um that want to come to duth and work here as well as looking
101at UMD and the um universities just even within just kind of a stone throw away from us there's a lot of great potential candidates um to work at duth not just teaching candidates but this is um our maintenance staff our facilities our technology um the whole scope of all of our employees in order to just try and be as um inclusive as we can for them now with that we look at comprehensive onboarding and mentorship opportunities so our onboarding plan when we bring staff in um we really want them to come to HR right we have orientation and then we we get them set up and we really want to make sure that they understand that the moment they start they're they're valued it's it's a big deal to get a job at duth Public
102Schools um and we want them to feel that we want them to feel important um we we get them the internet access right away we we try and get them as much of their pre-employment trainings as we can on that first day and then we're working on setting up kind of a first week Focus for them where their first week they have someone they can go to right we try and make those introductions of someone who's extreme that that they can go everyone needs a go-to person and um new staff for sure you set up technology and make sure there's clear expectations of what their job is and what their role is and then we're looking at 30 to 60 to 90day check-ins checking in in 30 days how's it going what's going on that
103way if there's something that seems off we can address it and try and get that fixed just to help the retention piece for staff we want to get them through those first 30 60 90 days um and provide those resources that they need with that we've we found that staff have professional development opportunities um with a our professional development coordinator Annie Schilling has done a great job um since she started at looking at what does professional development look for all of our employees what can that look like for our bus helpers and our bus drivers in transportation as well as um our special education teachers to our Paras to our district office staff what do they need that will help them in their job what can they leave with and put in the classroom or
104put in front of students right away to help become a better student experience and then we do have a couple employee wellbeing incentives we have a calm incentive um as well that using the um company calm it's just able for employees to reach out um as well as our EAP just if if there's some mental health stuff going on or um they have an issue it could be anything from like a mortgage how do I buy a house um there's there's ways that we can support our employees through these well-being initiatives to help them become successful back to me um so when we look at how we bring people into the organization and what they're seeing we've talked before about how do we brand our organization and how do people know about us and Charlie
105talked about we're getting out in the community more we're doing the job fairs um but we and we're advertising on um you know the diverse platforms but we're also trying to look at our application system and how disruptive it is sometimes to apply for a job if you aren't an educator because there's a lot of steps that maybe aren't relevant trying to look for some streamline uh process there and then once people do get in that um in that step where they're being considered as an applicant or if they're not just making sure that there's really timely communication so that the feedback is you're not moving on or that you're being brought for an interview um and then the interview piece we want to try to ensure kind of going back to that Equity that
106we have diverse interview panels and that our questions are really culturally responsive so we're going to be working um going forward as part of um this plan to really take a better look at how are we having people sit on interviews making sure they have some training related to biases and um those type of things before they can even sit on an interview team and then just also making sure that we are looking at questions and make we're we're finding out about the whole employee because I think it's really important regardless of what position that you're applying for that we understand who you are as a person and along with that we have um we will be starting to work with principles specifically to the culture in their schools because sometimes it's just not the
107right person or they have a very unique set that they are looking for someone that can support different initiatives and that can vary amongst our schools and we really want to make sure that we have the right people in the right positions at the right places um along with that interview committee um training we do have currently a small group of District employees that are willing um to sit on on interviews right now now um the problem we're finding is it's a very small group and we have a lot of interviews and it's difficult to always have them present on those those panels so we're really going to try to encourage more um involvement in that and just at least with the bias training get everybody kind of on the same page and also that
108interview training will come along with all the things you shouldn't shouldn't do at an interview too so I think there's kind of a bigger piece to that but um specific Tobias for sure um making sure we have those interview questions and then I think that followup once they've interviewed and gone through the process says how are we timely communicating to them you know the person that's being offered the job it's almost within the same hour that a phone call is being made but how do the rest of them get that information because I I've heard when I first came here that oh I never heard back from the district if I was going to get a job or not um no news is bad news I guess um but we want to make sure that
109we're just being responsive um in any way shape or form so that candidates feel like they came in the system maybe they weren't the right person but they can apply again and then at least they feel like we've been responsive for them the next one yeah and then you'll see um also in the plan and I apologize I failed to put numbers on here so um when I say page number 12 uh good luck but it's the second one from the back um we have a very specific section in here related to supporting our American Indian staff and that um because we recognize that there's unique needs of that staff and it also helps to support the specific goals that have been requested by APAC and that community so we really want to commit to
110making sure that we are making some formal Partnerships with the tribal bands we have done some targeted um Outreach um to some places um ieko and other um events that we've been part of but we're going to make more of a concerted effort to make sure we get in those places and what do they need from us and how can we help support them and that also goes back to making sure we have some cultur responsive interview questions and kind of getting a feel um from those communities how do we help support you in the way that you want to be supported not how we think you want to be supported so we really want to make sure that um we have those good relationships with them also looking um and you'll see in the
111plan about the mentorship piece and Charlie touched on that a little bit um but wanting to make sure that not only our teaching staff who already have a a pretty robust mentoring program in place that we have those things available and in place for all all employees and as well and specifically to those um that are American Indian and making sure that we really have efforts that are targeted specifically um towards them and then we also have in that part um a very clear how do they file a complaint if they feel that there's a complaint warranted great um so the next part is how do we measure our success um so you'll see in the plan page 10 uh eight where we have talked about some of the metrics that we plan to measure
112um and some some of these will be a little tricky and I just want to walk through them really briefly um retention rates it's an easy measurement and we've been doing some of the data analysis because we haven't really measured anything at this point but I have some of the data that I can share um at a future meeting or even send out um typically that's an indicator of employ stability now we understand we hire a lot of people a lot of people leave especially in our supporting role positions and so that those numbers aren't necessarily the endl be reflec of we're a good organization or we're not a good organization so we have to take some of those things um in context but looking at you know our employee evaluations we're working to get
113a new system put in place for all of our non-certified staff as well as a new program um for our certified staff so that it's easier to do those evaluations so that employees have the feedback that they're looking for from their supervisors and their principles um to making sure that those are completed because that's a big part of keeping and retaining an employee they feel valued they have that ability to communicate with their leadership even if it's only the one time a year so we're hoping that we can build that A Little Bit Stronger looking for the number of candidates that are applying to each of our positions um as we said before how do we become an employee of choice in in this environment and in this city um we're a great and large
114employer in this in this area and a lot of people still don't know that so how do we push that out you might you probably know um last year we did a series of videos on our different positions and tried to really push them out we're still doing some commercials for some of those hard hard to fill positions just to get our name out there as we don't just employ teachers we employ all kinds of uh staff and we want you to come work for us so that is a really good indicator of how that is working um employee attendance rates and that seems like a really strange one but it really speaks to the culture and climate and retention that we would be looking for if we are having a lot of um people
115taking leave without pay or lots of sick leave and on a year when there's a lot of sickness going around it's all relative however you start looking at some of those patterns and you think is there a reason that they're not coming to work that's other than just they're not feeling well and and those are some um some indicators that we can look at as a as a piece and then you know as Charlie talked about the the data that we provided you how do we make sure that our students have someone um that they feel connected to that is like them and so kind of looking at that data on a quarterly basis to kind of see do we have to shift our recruitment efforts are we getting to the the candidates that we
116need to get to in order to to bring them forward so um moving forward together we we have this plan it's in draft form we hope to finalize it um in the near future I do have a presentation um to the EAC later this week and also later this month one for the APAC committee to get their feedback on it as well I have asked uh Sheila White also and the senior leadership to review this and also we'll be sending it out to our cabinet team for any feedback um for that as well and then our HR team also looking at it from kind of a lens of of that employee just to make sure that we haven't missed any of the the pieces that um we believe should be part of this plan before
117we put it forward as a and again it'll be a moving document to some degree because we will have to Pivot at some point if if our measures don't really show data that's helpful we might have to to make some adjustments there um and of course we will we will continue to look for more collaboration with stakeholders to different job events to how do we get oursel out in the community and how does that help us get strong diverse and supportive Workforce to come be employees at District the school district any questions chair Derek eer um so at Scholastica we're trying to do the same thing right recruit a Workforce that looks like the students that were teaching so we have had some of the same um challenges right we have a program called search
118Advocate where we have trained members of our community to start the search process by looking at the job description and then walking all the way through with the committee till the hiring process and I'm sure you've seen the same thing you have the same group of individuals that do that work and it's difficult to expand it so that you can serve all the searches that you need to do to keep an organization running so we've seen some of the same things we have um the search Advocate Program that we've had we've seen that success um and it's helped us quite a bit but it's just scaling it up so that you can make sure the searches run quickly on time and and so we've we've sort of had that same thing and I'd be happy
119with some of the um bias training and some of the things that we have if you'd like to take a peek at it I would I would love to share that with you thank you thank you member banks sure so first question are you amenable to suggestions of course that's why we're here all right so I I I've done a lot of research based on all of the information tonight uh if you could explain further what is National diversity Network I looked at their website a little bit but could you talk a little bit more about that as one of the recruiting places or places where you put job announcements or what have you yes so the national diversity Network actually has several and I don't know them off the top of my head that
120it's it's a One Stop Shop if you will for that it you put your job posting on there and then it'll it pushes out to their partner sites um we don't necessarily pick which site it goes to it just goes into that pool and then they push it out we also have are working with um another um agency that actually pulls off of our website as well and then they push it out to another completely different network so we have it kind of covered in multiple places MH second question is it possible for you to do specific Outreach uh with our HBCU uh with um teacher education programs that are many of them are of the highest quality and I you know in our conversation your presentation you mentioned high quality teachers and staff um
121there are at least 75 different academic teacher uh education programs in some of these HBCU that are some of the top uh in the nation so I'd like to throw that out there as uh something to uh suggest and then are you in communication at all with the um the councils the ethnic councils that are there's like four of them there're the um a governmental entities that were established in 1963 63 through 1985 by the Minnesota Legislature uh Council for motans of African Heritage is one the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council the Minnesota Minnesota Council on Latino Affairs and then the council on Asian Pacific Americans I I think they may all be a resource or could certainly help in many ways in recruiting and sharing job announcements Etc yes excellent thank you thank you member
122lot well those questions percolate so so thank you I mean this was I I really appreciate what we always get before us in in the committee of the whole because I really I mean and I hope our community will listen and value what they hear the three per the three presentations tonight all kind of showcase the what how deep we have to go within our district to make sure that all systems are improving that all are advancing Equity that all are serving the needs of our students it's not just um our teachers in the classroom which I think is is what people think and so as we're working at realignment and reductions um it's really important that we keep our systems healthy I I don't think you know I I I really appreciate the the
123the knowledge about human resource you know we get a report every month but we often don't have this chance to to Really highlight all the different avenues that you and your team have been working on same thing with when we think about um um shal Shalon shons right to work in attendance is also a c so important to our district but it and it it helps in our classrooms but it's not you know looking specifically at our instructional people and so I just really appreciate that and know that um hope that our community sees that it takes all of us to make this we do want duth public schools to be this the District of choice not just for workers within Offices here but also for our families to bring their students because we're there
124and I have heard um from the moment you arrived in our district I mean we had that big celebration where we knew we had all staff for the first time in many years in the fall we were had every staff position filled and that was a big but you know I work too and and just all of the different stiens whether it's the speech judges that I hire every week and they're getting their checks a lot easier and a lot quicker than they were you know eight years ago or so so I I just think systems are really important so I thank you so much for the work and I know that um there's lots that you want to do and there's more to do and I thank Charlie too for coming especially with an
125education background you know you see things um that your department can can move forward on so I appreciate that thanks thank you and I also want to take the time to say uh thank you to the team as well and and as uh executive director s indicated uh that there will be presentations provided at eak this coming Thursday as well as APAC um at a date to be determined so we are making sure that we are connecting with um all of the different segments of our community especially our families to get their perspectives on things they might be aware of that might help us with the recruitment uh of Staff as well as the retention of Staff of color so thank you superintendent Magus I I'm not just jumping into to say thank you as
126well but thank you uh highly respect the work work that's being done and I think that this uh exemplifies that we are still holding true to our commitment to advancing Equity I know that that there are sometimes some changes on the horizon as far as uh What U diverse hiring means and we believe that that having a staff that that uh mirrors to to the degree possible our our students is is a positive thing so we're trying to make sure that we are always uh seeking ways to diversify our staff and and ensure that we have staff that represents our students and um is also incredibly high quality staff that we have and I want to thank you for that work and we'll continue to navigate during those uh interesting times before us thank you
127next up we have our Executive Director of Business Services and other things as well and shenanigans Simone zunich um she will be providing a verbal update related to our budget at this point in time and some staff information that uh she's ready to present her along with our very own superintendent so I turn over to both of them good evening uh we wanted to present some more detailed information related to our budget reductions we we know that we've had a number of different questions on a number of different things and I think making sure that you as board members are are well informed as far as uh that information as well as our decision-making process as well as the um the public as well so some of the information we're sharing tonight uh we shared
128with a few key stakeholders internally uh but we will also be sharing uh with staff tomorrow and then be sharing over the weekend with our our families as well so I'll pull up a document for us if you don't mind which is uh the budget reduction realignment information document that I sent earlier tonight to you as um board members I'm going to try and make it a little bigger so this first document on or the first tab I should say on the I keep on wanting to call them slides uh but they are of course tabs but the first tab on the budget reduction realignment sheet has uh information on number of Staff uh by unit and by that by unit I mean by um usually by bargaining unit over time there are also some
129individual contractor contract contracted positions like my contract senior leader contracts and the communication uh contracts that we have here and I think if you see over to this is something that we've been asked for a number of times through the budget reduction process uh because I think that there's there's assumption that there's maybe been just really significant District to office bloat so to speak uh or or administrative bloat and I just wanted to to share this longitudinal information to uh dispel some of that or at least provide greater Clarity of where the the changes are so you can see uh from the tabs there are the uh if you go down in column one there are all the different units and some of them are are different in nature in the way that they're they're
130they're named like the duth districtwide instructional administrator Association D is what we refer to them as uh those are sort of the coordinator level type positions in general uh but then the um executive employees Association that is uh some of the manager positions but it is was also the uh executive uh assistance that we have and uh along the way in um if you look between 23 and 24 there's a significant uh jump in the uh executive employee Association and a big reduction in the clerical Association that's because those two groups combined um but beyond that what I wanted to show is if you look at some of the preco numbers uh that would be column F uh which would be a well that's a couple weeks into covid uh but uh column F uh
131when couple weeks after you hired me actually is uh where the numbers were with with pair of professionals Food Service all the different categories uh you also as you get down near the bottom you see number of principles number of teachers uh you see number of directors and then the individual contracts which are uh myself the senior leadership team and then our Communications officer contracts um if you look and I'm going to go down that that row a little bit if you look at um if you look at the uh director uh positions there there were some changes in the directorship so there were uh the different different director numbers there um but we did uh we were up a director um for a brief period of time because we increased and we we that's
132when we made the split and we added a director of uh Elementary and director of secondary we took a curriculum director position and split it into two one for elementary and one for secondary uh but then with the uh elimination of or there was a pause this year in the hiring of the director of assessment and we're not uh continuing that next year so so there's a reduction from five directors to four directors to four directors and then uh for the individual contracts my contract senior leadership and Communications you see it's it's uh I can't really say much about the years well before I was here uh but you can see that uh we went we had um five positions uh five five positions in 21 that is when we uh switched over and we
133we created a human resources uh director position from a manager you see in in April of 22 we have six that's because there was overlap uh because we had that was when our our former Communications officer was here and uh when we hired Adele in the new Communications officer position because Katie Kaufman had been here for years and years she had month many months of time that of vacation time to cash out so she was on the uh the payroll for for several months after uh we hired Adell and also to have some overlap as needed uh but you can see that that number has remained Rel relatively consistent um if you look at our principles you'll see too that it was um in the in the you know low 20s has remained in the
134low 20s there was a little bit of a an increase over the covid time period and then you see a decrease down to 23 for for next year that final column is where we assume we will be after all of our budget reductions uh if you look at pair professionals up on top you see uh we were in the um you know High 200s 300ish range we had hard time recruiting and such during during covid uh but then we've we've managed to to climb back up a bit but there is some reduction for next year but proportionately it's not uh it it we're still at a place higher than we were preco uh and then if you look at the uh teachers for instance uh you'll see that they were around um 729 in uh
135preco and then uh We've we reached up into the uh 800s and we're remaining in the 800s for for the fall so we're actually sign have significantly more teachers uh next fall than we we do in other categories so I I just wanted to share this information because it kind of lays a little bit more picture when we're when we're talking about like oh we all these administrators uh that's that's something that that we wanted to to clarify um also sometimes you've heard about different expenditures and I am going to click on this this last tab uh which is the general fund expenditures it lays out all of our general fund expenditures which can be found on the MD website uh but but really uh you you might be hearing oh we have this huge
136increase in the amount we're spending in administration and that's uh if you want to explain that in a little bit um so John what we've Pro if you want would you excuse me superintendent would you please there so um we provided a snapshot of 2020 um the district level we'll just address that one line the district level Administration um the state and local expenditures were 5 mil6 as you'll see there were no federal expenses we didn't have eser at that time so would you please um and so to the far right the expenditure percentage was 5.8 um then we provided a snapshot of 2024 as you can see the expenditures went to 8.03% well if you look under Federal on the first line there's 2,45 947 that is um Esser expenditures that is where the
137eup fars had us Park our technology expenditures so it it looks skewed but it is technology and um superintendent would you click on the Esser expenditure tab to the left I'm just going to address this and then go to the far right to the 20 FY 24 so right there it shows you we spent 9 million4 in Esser but if you look under Finance 160 the 108 tech services of a million 7 plus the 110 Business Services $331 and down below Finance 161 uh program 108 of 255 723 those three numbers equal the 24 45 that are on that MD website 2000 Excuse Me 2 million so so part of the reason why we wanted to to explain this is just uh so that you could see you know where where are some of those
138reductions because uh I think you're you're Fielding a lot of questions about why are why haven't we uh reduced by uh our areas and we have we have and I'm not meaning this as a as a tip forat piece it's just that we we know questions are out there and we want to make sure that we're clear for the public and we also want to make sure that we inform our staff really well on this and that we uh let our our our public know as well so those are some of the areas uh that are that are uh different and outline there uh so there wasn't a vast the the increase in in administrative expenditure during my tenure was mostly Chromebooks you know that's that's where most of that is is and and um
139mental health supports and supports that we had in place during Co um I think it is interesting to note the uh this this other tab the uh Financial year 20 2025 and 2026 the planned reductions uh the planned reductions are focused on um what is it that we've identified this year for reduction and then what will be reduction for next year and Simone if you want to lead us through that sure um the first line um it has come up about uh the director of assessment and climate coordinator those were unfilled budgeted positions this year um we had an unfilled budgeted accounting supervisor in finance uh the superintendent reduced um um half uh excuse me the elementary setting four program this year we have uh this is ongoing this is payroll the reduction of overtime
140and overloads um uh Direct director Severance is really working at reviewing the overloads and overtime uh through a spreadsheet every pay period now uh so we're having some really good oversight there um our benefits right now remember I do the budget last April and May so I'm showing a 4% decrease right now so I'm um I think we're going to have a 1.3 million less in actual spending so um that's why I put the 1.3 million there we are doing a non-renewal of general fund con contracts this year we've had various contracts that we're just um not renewing and they come to the desk they're not related to a restricted fund or a department um these are general fund contracts and then um working with the tle directors uh we reduced Supply budgets this year
141and so that was very helpful thank you and um um we're doing a good oversight of reduction of travel unless it's tied to a department or restricted fund or a grant um we've we've brought our travel down so uh our our Target was 2.6 you know we'll we're this is ongoing a lot will happen with the audit um so that's our Target right now and then going over to FY 26 our Target was 5 million as you see we got to 4.9 um we will continue to do a very close OverWatch of our spending um right now we're at 48.3 to FTE and with the calculation of their benefits uh it came to 3.8 million um next year the assistant superintendent will not be bringing in a director of assessment and climate coordinator so we're
142counting those um again we're also reduction of low enrollment courses based on student selection that's part of the registration process still somewhat ongoing uh reduction of overtime and overloads that is going to be an ongoing yearly um process for us reduction of stiens um I'm anticipating a 5% overall reduction in I can get really technical object codes 185 and 186 um purchase Services reductions I'm going to be planning for a 5% overall reduction there um we're just going to have to really discuss every contract that comes across our desk if it is tied to a grant or particular Department that gets their own res their own um funding from MD that's a different story but these are all general fund contracts uh reduction of Supply budgets we're reducing again another $75,000 that's a 10% overall
143reduction then reduction of travel I've bumped that up a little bit more now to 45,000 which is 10% unless it's paid by a grant and other reductions to be determined we're still looking for those reductions but I think we did a good job of trying to get close to that $5 million any questions actually just a couple more comments quick if I could uh some things that are new as of this meeting that that were not really part of a previous conversation okay Sor I one of our vans slid down the hill or something I wasn't sure uh a couple of changes that we've had that are that are new um to to you to some extent uh and they were part of my my um information that I've shared with you through other other
144Communications is uh with the um media Specialists we had provided a Elementary or I'm sorry we had a reduction of our media specialists at both the middle and high school level and we had added uh per professional time to make sure that the media centers could remain open we recognize that's not the same as a trained media specialist we recognize that that's a step stop Gap uh peace and it's a sacrifice that we're making as a district uh but we were not uh as of as of our last meeting we we weren't going to have a PA professional splitting their time at the high school level uh partly because of the uh circulation being really uh down with our our high school students so they weren't checking out nearly as many books and so that
145was part of it but then uh we we heard from our and it's not to say that you come to a listening session and you you vocalize things and we're going to uh give give in to it but but we do listen and we do think about things and we think about what can we do uh and we decided that we are going to add par professional support at the high school as well so that the media centers can remain open and again I know that that might be um still might be seen as a discrediting of of the the great work that's done by trained uh library media Specialists but we still think it's important to have that space open too at the high school as a space for our students so that is
146new and different so there's a cost there involved of about $50,000 um but then uh the uh we also talked a lot about the uh change in the two there were two tosa positions at the high school at each of the high schools each High School had a tosa teacher on special assignment athletic director and a to teacher on special assignment Dean both of those positions were um at each of the two sites were um uh displaced sorry I knew the dword but I was trying to think of which um the the correct term they were both displaced and the the Assumption was that we're going to be creating a uh assistant an additional assistant principal position there at each of the schools uh we we do feel that we had managerial rights that we
147we could do that but we we also uh felt that that we would uh rather pursue things through the labor management process and work on things during the um uh uh contract negotiations but actually um quite likely looking at maybe pursuing a a memorandum of understanding or something prior so something that we will be still moving ahead with with change in the athletic directors but not for this next school year so that does save us a little bit of money there too it also decreases the number of Administrators that we have um on paper that you saw on our staff numbers for uh the 20 September 25 so those are some of the some of the um bigger changes that we've had since we've last met I don't know if there's anything else that you'd
148like to share or Mr bonds anything you'd like to share not just time I guess we could fill questions unless you want to say something else and then we can add more as we go yeah one one other thing I'd like to say I know that there was a question out there uh did we make any reductions in in uh Sports the Athletics and activities piece and um that was asked by a a board member and I didn't get a chance to answer it uh individually but I figured I'd just bring it up here as a question um we when we met with our students and families that was one of the things that they said please don't reduce our don't reduce our clubs don't reduce our Sports don't reduce our activities so we tried
149to avoid thata that area that's not to say that in future rounds of budget reduction that that will need to be identified because you hear quite often in other districts um you know sometimes if there's budget reduction they they eliminate a couple of sports or they eliminate different clubs and uh we're trying to focus on student engagement right now and so we recognize that one of the mechanisms for student engagement is some of those activities in clubs and sports um but we also don't want it to feel like it's a sacred cow that can't ever be recognized and looked into so that's that's something I would address but we've shared a lot of information here and again to to um let people know these these are questions that have been asked and so we wanted
150to make sure that we put this this information together in a we spent most of the afternoon today uh working on it U and and we plan to share it uh with our staff tomorrow uh and then we share plan to share uh we we would be sharing all four tabs with staff because they might have questions about all four tabs uh but we would be sharing uh more of a narrative summary of the uh Staffing numbers Tab and the uh Financial year 2526 planned reductions tabs so that our our students or our families can get a better understanding of of where we're at thank you and just pointing for clarification um for next year we are not planning on um eliminating any sports or reducing any sports but that doesn't mean in the future
151uh for future budgets that might not be a consideration so I want to make sure that that's clear so I don't want our our families to worry that Sports will be impacted for next year M Banks sure and this is for clarification too on the line item Food Service can you uh help me just help me understand that a little bit more because it seems like over time um that department has uh been significantly uh impacted would there ever be any time for um consideration to um do something more there with the increase in population of students or is that going to be what that's going to look like um I'd like to oh sorry um executive director sance where are we at with the Food Service hiring do we have any open positions thank
152you we'll look right now for you um I will tell you that Sheila Oak our new food nutrition supervisor is is really is really good and she makes it work um we recognize that we um you know she is sometimes short staffed and uh facing the same issues that we are in transportation too we have increased um sickly right now and so she but she makes it work and um we we've improved our software so we're improved our um systems uh we purchased a new software last year and that fully um implemented right now and um of course we have increased students going through the line because we have free meals and that will hopefully continue for at least two more years if not more um so and um I I have to see what
153did it yeah we currently have three openings all at Lincoln Park interesting enough yeah so they do the best they can and they make it work I think we've seen certain patterns in certain areas with uh bus drivers Food Service pair professionals and um maintenance where we sometimes we've we've had a hard time filling particularly the um the um building engineer cleaning positions those have been hard to fill uh but as we heard from uh executive director sance We are continuing to do a lot of things with uh recruiting and including uh advertising and I was I don't watch a lot of TV but I had it on last night and I saw duth public school's advertisement for employment and I woohoo I was I I dragged some people into the room for a minute
154to see it member Sadowski and then chair Derek Gater I just can't help reflect um at this meeting after hearing um you know about our computer science programs and just how media specialists can teach that foundational computer science and more um not a question just I'm really hoping that we're thinking ahead you know as we're building this computer science program and our media Specialists can be you know doing some of that educating um we're building the program I'm hearing that it might grow that we might add classes meanwhile you know we're having to cut um I and then I heard at public comment just from students a handful that they really like you know their media Specialists which is great um but I just hope that we're thinking a few steps ahead on this um
155given the intersection of these two things um I just want to take a minute because I understand and appreciate the Keen Eye that everybody keeps on the district especially when it comes to the number of Administrators that we employ here and sort of where my thinking goes in support of the way that we have the district structured right now is that we have a tremendous amount of strain on the district when it comes to new mandates that we have to um follow and great things like the read act where we're thinking differently about how we teach students and constant changes in curriculum that come down from the state and the national level and then to um member sadowski's Point improving what we offer our students when it comes to computer science and Career and Technical
156education and currently as we know teachers have an increased strain and an increased amount of work that they're required to do every day when it comes to just teaching the students in front of them so I just want to lend my support to the structure where we have where we have a layer of um administrators that are there to help lead the district through culum changes that can help our teachers and support our teachers in the classrooms with the curriculum that they're teaching um being in our schools when we have um emergencies or when we have um issues that need to be addressed is that we have administrators presence that can go out to those places so I do appreciate that at times people want to look at Administration and say well this administrative bloat
157and if they would just cut out this administrative bloat and if we don't have administrators at the levels like our um secondary and our primary um curriculum directors we don't have the capacity to make the changes that we need to that the state requires we don't have a capacity with our teachers um to be able to do that work outside of their core instruction time so I I do just want to lift up and support the structure that we have thoughtfully built in this District to make sure that we have the teachers that we need in front of the students and then also that backdoor support um here at at in this building and several other buildings across the district that are there to support teachers um to do the very important work that we
158need them to do so I just want to take a minute and um it's always I I was a teacher now I'm an administrator it's always fun to um kick on our administrators a little bit but I just want to take a moment and say that I believe that this school board and has is supportive of the structure that has been built in this District um we've seen some gains in some of our readings some of our math we've starting to see those gains these are going to take time and those gains I think you can not directly because correlation isn't causation but we can say that the structure that we're building here is helping make improvements in our students um experiences in the district so thank you for that member Lo well I'd love
159to say that chair eer just took the words out of my mouth but she said it much better and probably true and that actually is a little bit tied to my first comment when we have had these presentations tonight it shows the depth of what this District needs to be successful and to be the district we want want to be the employer we want to be the attractor that we want to be and so we need these systems we need our leaders and and people that they work with to continue to move this District forward and that's what I've seen too is is that because we have strong administrative leads we can do the next steps of accountability of mentoring of you know shepherding our principles and all of that together too so um with
160that I've probably lost what I was going to say so I a couple of things with um I don't know if this is true member banks with our questions in like food service but I I don't think we're cutting in Food Service the fact that we have 59 and and in Food Service in 2016 we had 76 it just means that we're kind of not necessarily short staff but we're not cutting those those declining numbers aren't because we've been consciously reducing what we hire it's that we're not able to hire what we need would I be right in that assumption okay and that's probably true even in you know in some of those areas that go but the one that kind of caught my eye that is the is the teachers so in March of
161of uh of right now of 823 so that we're in 800 next fall due to retirements um due to some staff reductions but probably not all you know not 23 all all teachers that we're reducing um with our realignment and our reductions it's somewhat maybe half and half half 15 retirees that we're predicting and maybe the little bit more of the reductions in teaching staff would that be I I would say most of those many of those are through displacement and um some you know some of them are are reductions and at the same time I would say that I'm proud to say that we we are placing value on the teachers and you see that we even though most of the other numbers from 2020 to now remain there was a spike in most
162through Co because we had extra money to hire uh you'll see that most of our numbers are pretty level uh for administrators and other positions but the teachers because we invest in our teachers we believe in our teachers we have 70 more teachers 70 more teachers than we did preco and so even in the fall so I think that that's that's part of what we want to remember it's a time of sacrifice it's a hard time I don't mean to diminish how it feels have I I had been displaced and laid off myself it's not it's not something we want for anybody um and we continue to invest in in in our teachers because they are the first uh wave of of support for our students and we believe they make the biggest impact on
163the system so uh that's that's why these numbers are reflected in this way and I and I appreciate you sharing that because not only is it our teachers our parents so not only do we invest in our teachers to provide additional support for for students many of those teacher positions that you see here as increases were students with special need teachers and so as a district we've increased the amount of programming for our students special needs our district have more students every year who are added to uh our account for needing special needs um special education um so that means more um settings for those students so we've increased the number of settings that are needed for our students so across our district we have more setting three classroom or resource rooms those resource rooms
164have qualified teachers in them as well as parents so that's why you'll see the increase in Paris so as special a teacher resource rooms go up pairs are also added to those classrooms and then we also have a number of individuals in the par unit who are supporting the building a variety of ways we have our check and connect um some of those individuals are Paras we have other pair of positions who are um providing um social emotional learning for students and so forth so uh those are those were other Investments we made because we knew students were and still have challenges with trauma and just ongoing um challenges with social emotional needs being unmet and so Investments have been made and this uh demonstrate that we have been really focused on providing those needs
165and um and resources and yes it does require behind the scenes people to really focus on those individuals to support those additional staff so there were increases in some spaces for leadership support that we really needed so I'll stop there so thank you for that support any any other questions member Mel um thank you for all this information and for um some of the transparency here I'm wondering if you can repeat yourself and I apologize but I figure if I miss something then and I have a little bit of a understanding of this that others may have as well when you were talking about the general fund expenditures preo and um now 2024 and you are going back and forth between the spending that we did with Esser funds um along the level of District
166level Administration and talking can you please repeat yourself so I can better understand where those um where those differences are and that I think what you're attempting to convey is that it's not as much of an increase as what it appears on this document and I was hoping you could just do that dumb it down a little bit more for me this part where we're talking about um the two Million Ne funding yeah okay so um superintendent would you go back up to that blue box I would love to thank you so um it has come up um to our attention that um there's been District level increase in F spending and we wanted to show that uh back in 2020 we did not have any federal funds that flowed through the District Administrative um
167fund budget and um the way eup far is is set up our technology runs through program 108 which is falls under it's called District administration but if you look further into the definition it says technology services so it you know it gets highlighted as District admin but it's also called tech services and so uh we provided this looking at the expenditures from MD's data center you can see that in 2020 the district level Administration line item the percentage is 5.18% if you look under the federal colum in 2020 you'll see zero dollars were used this is because there was no Esser funding in 2020 okay now when you look over to the tab um you'll see that the district level Administration so that's 2020 if you go over to the 24 just last year to
168the far right you can see the district level Administration the percentage went up to 8.03 well you'll see under Federal we spent 2,45 and what I did is under the Esser expenditure tab I went back to the last four years broke it down by finance code and program code to show you where all of our Esser expenditures were it's over $34 million so um that is why that percentage went up like that if you take the federal dollars out of there the Fe the general fund expenditures are at 6.6% so it went from 5 to 6.6 so it really didn't go up that far but with our federal Esser dollars everything looks much more increased so we've had a lot of uh question I would question this too if I saw this and I think
169people are saying like oh my gosh maggus inflated the The District Administrative costs by 40% during his tenure what did that mean like where are all these and I was thinking like where are all the people that I are cuz I don't see them uh but really what it is is that that we were we weren't a onetoone district most districts during covid were already had their computers we didn't have our computers and we spent a lot of our covid money buying computers and it went through the district ad um what is the the name of the district admin District level Administration that's how it's coded and we've we've explained that a few time more you've been in meetings uh as board members representative in in some of our Labor Management meetings we've explained it
170many times and it is complicated so we want to make sure that we're explaining it again um and sometimes it seems that we reach a point of of shared understanding and then it's put back out there how come you increased administrative costs by 40% or 35% uh but I think this we wanted we wanted to figure out how can we say this and show this in like a clearer way uh and I I still because it's still confusing it's it's not a perfect explanation but I think that's what we're trying to do is is show through through this and through that Staffing numbers slide that there there hasn't been uh a huge inflation of of District administration and that's not what the the purpose the purpose of of tonight's information is really to answer questions
171and to show where the reductions are and we're probably highlighting some of the things that we see as questions that are being brought to us some sometimes through you but also through other stakeholders and so we wanted to make sure that we had this as points of clarification it's not like we're you know stomping our feet and adding adding new information because we're we're trying to uh prove our point it's just that we we know the questions are out there and we're trying to trying to bring Clarity May Mike so I know you had those questions I can't see your mic did all good now okay just want to make sure um member loo so I just want to support superintendent megas and and looking at that 8% because we had the H Mike holshire
172didn't he come and present this to us when still H Heiser came and presented this to us when we were still in the um United healthc Care Facility I just remember him specifically standing up and and showing us where if you dig down into that you'll see that the charge for our our Chromebooks went into this fund level which then made it look like we were topheavy in District so it's been haunting us since then as far as that but you know it is what it is and and um School Finance is complicated and in that lies all of the the the open you have an open Target to be suspicious because you know and we say it we say that it's it's technical um I've heard legislators say they wish that school Finance was
173a little bit easier to understand and these are the the Senators and legislators sitting on the finance committee for education and they find it confusing it's a little unnerving sometimes you know but then we we have an ally at the department of Minnesota with Kathy Ericson and and she can bring you know a lot of clarity as Simone does so just wanted to support that same caveat about that's that's the explanation and and we hope that our public can see this as not you know um something that we're tring trying to you know say say it differently thank you superintendent do you want to share how we plan on sharing this information at our next upcoming qots as well as information we might be sharing with staff regarding this information that we hope will um
174at least uh you know be informative for staff so how are we sharing this um so we will be um I'm working with our Communications officer uh on Adele wellin on uh putting together narrative that will be shared with families and other stakeholders over the weekend just because sending out a chart like this is going to be kind of seen as is uh some some might be interested and we'll probably we could have a link to it if if people are interested in looking at it a little deeper but uh we did want to share this information directly with our our staff um and have some narrative with it so just kind of a high level overview of hey we you know we've got some questions here here's our our chart with these different tabs
175tab number one talks about you know the historic uh number of Staff over over time uh tab number two looks at our reductions for 26 uh tab number um three is our Sr expenditures and tab number four is basically an explanation of why uh why we had a perception of of why we had a perception in a rap reality of a line item increase under District level Administration but it isn't District level Administration it was Chromebooks thank you anything else um executive director zunich no thank you I appreciate your time as as we come to a close I'm going to put in a a plug for once again we do have a press conference at 2m on Thursday related to the D withth promise and board members are are uh invited to attend it was
176going to be at the chamber but the number of attendees has grown significantly so we'll be holding it right here in our school board room uh and that is an example too of where we're seeking additional resource where we have bills uh with the both the Senate and the house uh seeking additional funds to help uh support that programming we have uh also have we test uh member loal and I uh test ified last week at the Senate finance committee seeking $3 million and in kind of uh repayment for some um funding issues that we had with special education uh so we are very often back and forth in the springtime between especially during this budget year uh very often back and forth between here and the capital um I hate being gone and I
177I feel guilty being gone but if we're see getting extra Millions potentially for our students that's something that we are also trying to to do to remedy the the budget situation as well as uh and I'm looking at uh director larva and director sparts uh who are out there writing grants for for mtss Specialists and we have um principal on special assignment sibo who received hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars from the FAA for um uh Aviation mechanics programming and there are many many things that we're sharing so those are are things that we wanted to highlight that that we don't just rest on our our uh the money that we get from the state we're out there actively uh shaking the proverbial tree trying to get more resources for our students don't forget
178our enrolling campaign oh o yes the enrollment campaign uh that uh Communications officer wellin and others are working on um we have had um several SE we we we're having a continued increase in enrollment and um SE several of the en roles are specifically because of the uh School mint campaign last time I knew that we were up to three and it just started uh but three more than pays for the program and we'll uh have many many more I'm sure in the coming months that's you've seen an increase in the um uh different traffic as far as the the advertisements that we have out there it's it's something we're doing to make sure that every every student we bring in it's you know thousands of dollars that are resourced to our to our community
179thank you chair U that concludes our cow agenda for this evening thank you thank you