February 25, 2025 at 6:30 PM - Regular School Board Meeting

001[Music] already yeah okay all right I believe we're ready good evening and welcome to this February 25th duth public school board meeting and I'd like to start um this meeting by reminding us that it is at the end of Black History Month and um there is a newsletter that the teaching learning and Equity team put out in the beginning of February to talk about how the district specifically has been celebrating um black history month and then we also had some written we also had some help from Carl Crawford as well to talk about the importance of black history while we understand that black history is American history and I just wanted to take a point of privilege here for a minute and ask Mr Banks to speak about two um people of African Heritage that

002are very important to the history of duth all right thank you very much I appreciate it so in honor of and recognition of black history month I would like to take this moment to celebrate um two African-American icons from right here in duth they are none other than than Alexander miles and Ethel Ray Alexander miles was born on May 18th 1838 and lived until May 7 1918 where he passed away in Seattle Washington he was a professional barber a real estate investor and he invented the automatic elevator system so if you use the elevator today think about Alexander miles he was a multi-millionaire it was the first African-American to be allowed membership to and in the delut Chamber of Commerce if he were with us today he would likely be a billionaire Ethel Ray born

003April 13 1899 died on July 11 1992 in Seattle Washington or excuse me in San Francisco California she was the first African-American female police officer in the state of Minnesota working for the Minneapolis Police Department she was secretary to Dr web DUIs who founded the national NAACP she was instrumental in the establishment of the United Nations she worked for the San Francisco Board of Education she was also a member of the Harlem Renaissance and so much more eth R also graduated from duth Central High School in 1917 duth icons celebrating African American black history and we have such wonderful folks coming right from our school district here thank you thank you member banks we appreciate that now we'll move on and ask our clerk to do roll call please member banks here uh chair eer

004here member leer Kemp here member lold here I am here member Sadowski here member Williams here superintendent Magus present assistant superintendent bonds present Deputy clerk Simone zunich is excused uh student representative uh Taylor and student representative Dean here and student representative Garner is excused thank you we will now all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance you can find the flags in the corner over here please United States of America and to the repic for it stands one nation under God indivisible andice thank you we will now move on to the approval of the agenda do we have any adjustments or amendments to the agenda any changes do we have any changes no changes so we will accept the agenda as nope we're going to make a motion n we're going to make a motion thank

005you so moved so all right thank you we have a move member Lal do we have a second second member what I all those in favor of accepting the agenda please say I I opposed the agenda has been accepted we will now move on with assistant superintendent Banks to talk about our school and Community recognition for this month nope did I say Bank Banks bonds it's the second time I've done it it is [Laughter] not my apologies that's the second time I've done it I'll be back so moving on with assistant superintendent bonds for our school and Community recognition after we had member banks do our recognition of African of February so thank you and that was our recognition as the student who we were going to honor is not available okay so we will

006honor that student at a later date great so excellent okay thank you um now we are moving on to our resolution of concurrence and non-c concurrence and and we invite our um APAC committee to come forward to present to the board we appreciate you being here today and just want to take a minute to acknowledge that sometimes these spaces and the school board the school district have not always been welcoming places for people of indigenous Heritage so we want to thank you for being here and we want to thank you for the work that you've done for all of our students also I would like to uh bring up our coordinator our new coordinator for our American Indian education department name Miss Sheila White and so she's going to be joining us as well great

007please come forward thank you thank you I I give um I would like to allow um provide Sheila the opportunity to introduce herself um and as she is new to our district and we are so appreciative of her joining our district as of about now probably a month or maybe a month and a half uh at this point in time and so we are just really pre uh really pleased that she has joined us so she want to just uh introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and you pull it real close too okay PU my name is uh Sheila White in English um my Indian name is shining lightning woman uh I'm part of the lynx clan in the trey3 territory um of night kigan First Nation um and it's in

008Northern Ontario Canada so I've been here since um January 1 so a little over a month and a half and I've seen so many wonderful um things that are promoting revitalizing revitalizing our our nishnabe language um and I'm a nishnabe first speaker and I am really excited uh to be here in your um territory and I'm just enjoying seeing the little kids speaking the language fluently um especially in MSI Kong um and uh excuse me and other um language programs that are offered in the district and it's just a really warm welcome welcoming to be a part of that and it's it's you know it it comes from here um the language um the language is is a part of us and it brings our culture out as well so it's really connected um and

009um I I really enjoy seeing that the smudging in the schools um I've never seen that um in my territory because it's not allowed um so I really appreciate that as well and I'm I'm really um I'm I'm really excited to work uh for the students in in our district um you know to walk together and and just move forward on on our plan plan that um we have um with the district as part of the American Indian education P thank you for listening thank you and welcome again um the annual compliance is something that occurs annually of course um it is a requirement by Statute um schools in Minnesota who have more than 10 students are required to have a parent advisory committee known as APAC and specifically the statute cites that school boards

010and americ Canadian schools must provide the maximum involvement of parents and children I mean parents and children enrolled in the education programs for their students so our Advisory Board is a very significant um foundational piece of our structure that allows our community our indigenous Community to really provide guidance to the school district regard regards to how we should educate eight students who are native and so the statute um also requires a um what's called a compliance that occurs by March 4th excuse me by March 1st um it is to be submitted and this information is going to be provided as a vote of concurrence or non-c concurrence um our APAC determines if the district is meeting the needs of our American Indian students and then they provide recommendations to us if they find that district

011is not meeting the needs of our American Indian students and so again this is something that happens annually and I will turn it over now to our uh co-chairs who will introduce themselves as well as two uh parent members and then they will present their vote of concurrence or non-c concurrence and recommendations my name is Amber green Sky I am uh the co-chair for APAC I have been on this committee for a little over a year uh Bou I'm amber light feather and I am the other co-chair of APAC I been on and off this committee for several years um this is uh the first time I'm serving as a in a chair position [Music] however my name is t goody I am a voting parent of the APAC committee Buu my name is Lydia

012shinkle I've been a member of the committee for around 10 years now okay so I think I'm going to start us off here um on Thursday February 20th 2025 your American Indian parent advisory committee convened to review and discuss the data received from the district to determine whether or not the district has met the needs of American Indian students eight voting members were present effectively established ing a quorum the APAC voted 8 to zero non-concurrent as required when issuing a vote of non-c concurrence the APAC discussed and developed the following written recommendations for improvement first recommendation we recommend providing the opportunity for APAC committee members to tour all sites where we currently have American Indian Liaisons we recommend inviting Schoolboard members to attend the tour alongside the Advisory Board we recommend inviting other interested parties

013um example given the duth indigenous commission to attend the tour um recommendation two we recommend implementing an action plan by fourth quarter of school year 2024 2025 that identifies American Indian students who need additional Transportation support and utilize District Vans and drivers to intentionally Target American Indian students that need additional Transportation supports to get to to school third recommendation we recommend utilizing the American Indian education coordinator the various American Indian parent committee members and the local indigenous Community such as AO local tribal Urban offices and the duth indigenous commission to assist in vetting professional development opportunities and curriculum districtwide professional development must not solely come out of American Indian education aid funds and must be used proportionately while achievement gaps exist um fourth recommendation statute 122 a70 requires retention strategies for American Indian Educators within

014the school district an HR plan has not been shared or discussed with the American Indian parent committees we recommend providing the statistics within the district about how many American Indian staff we currently employ how many American Indian applications were received that met minimum qualifications and were not offered interviews and how many American Indian staff we have lost within the past two years okay recommendation five AAC is unaware of the funding amount that has been earmarked for the Pilot School within a school program known as the Denfeld indigenous cohort there has been little to no collaboration or status updates with the American Indian parent parent committees we would like to ensure that the indigenous cohort is supported by a licensed American Indian language and culture teacher we recommend providing the criteria for admitting American Indian students

015into the indigenous cohort the policy for removal from the cohort and include any additional supports for Success given to American Indian students after removal and or prior to removal recommendation six we recommend prioritized prioritized hiring of open American Indian liaison and American Indian education department positions and increasing the number of positions hired to ensure manageable case loads per student count in each building in accordance with current evidence-based literature recommendations most evidence-based recommendations are 1 to 30 students per case load or less recommendation seven we recommend counselors implemen an action plan to identify American Indian students within their case load identify the tribal Nation these students belong to and provide targeted opportunities for scholarships and Career Training to both enrollees and descendants recommendation 8 we are unaware of the locations of dedicated spaces that have been

016set aside to be utilized by American Indian Liaisons and American Indian staff due to the repurposing of the delos Tribune storage the American Indian education department is fiscally responsible for paying for an external storage unit for our materials records supplies and cultural items that should be more easily accessible to All American in education staff and students we recommend the school district assist with an accurate inventory of All American Indian education department program materials and supplies including cultural materials books sewing machines Etc and anything bought from American Indian education department funds all items in American Indian education department storage need to be inventoried to ensure maximum availability and utilization of previously spent funds on these materials recommendation nine we recommend providing regular District reports to the APAC regarding Direct Services for American Indian students attendance and

017academics recommendation 10 American Indian education Aid is for American Indian students specifically until accountability factors are the same or better than non American Indian peers we recommend integration Specialists intentionally Target American Indian students within their case loads and provide the data about the number of American Indian students that are being served to the Apec recommendation 11 ape has not received updates from The District in accordance with the mde timeline we have not not received full meaningful collaboration from the district with meeting minutes tabling opportunities events tribal consultation meetings nor with reserving spaces within the district for meetings work sessions and posting our meetings on the district website calendar social media or parents Square we recommend meetings with District representatives and APAC members be completed in compliance with the easy title 6 meaningful collaboration chart per

018m APAC was not provided with Essa data When developing the American Indian education plan and budget we recommend uh recommendation 12 we recommend ethical stewardship of funding for American Indian students to ensure program Fidelity and accountability the previous American Indian education coord coordinator was not pres present at the October 8th 2024 quarterly American Indian educ ation budget meeting it is absolutely necessary for the American Indian education coordinator to be present at such meetings APAC needs to know the total salary infringed for each American Indian education department employee by FTE building and program code and any reimbursements received from special education as for all other expenses each building needs to be designated per expense code not just districtwide 005 005 should only be used if it is truly a districtwide expense all pecard purchases and purchase

019orders need to be brought forward monthly to APAC with receipts to ensure fiscal responsibility and Fidelity with the American Indian education funds recommendation 13 we recommend that the school board has an appointed APAC delegate reserved for and invited to all School word meetings with an opportunity to have meeting ful collaboration with our school board admin and administrators we are requesting an official seat at the table number 14 APAC recommends that the district create additional Pathways for Student Success in collaboration with agencies such as APAC AO 1854 treaty Authority and our local tribal Urban Indian offices these recommendations include giving seat time to our students that participate in cultural activities offered by these agencies and offices giving us specific credit to our APAC student reps that come and sit in on our meetings and give us

020valuable feedback on what we're doing um that a mirror of AEO ALC be offered at AO for our students at all levels in the district as an alternative to non-indigenous spaces of learning also to ensure full ability to participate in these programs by providing Transportation via the Vance purchased and mentioned in recommendation number two in this document for this purpose recommendation 15 APAC recommends restorative efforts be made to repair the trust relationship between a district and its American Indian parent advisory committee volunteer APAC members have provided more than 30 hours of supplemental meeting time at The District's request since losing our dedicated coordinator in November of 2024 APAC was not presented with American Indian education application documents in the appropriate format or and or with the appropriate allocation amounts prior to February 11th 2025 of

021concern is the budget amendments that must be completed by March 1st Tribal consultations report dates reported on federal documentation are false publicly available District audit information indicates J funds have passed through the fondel laac through fondel laac for the jom program expenses the parent committee pardon me parent committee members are told that we have not requested a jom reimbursement from our Fiscal Agent Fondulac for the last five years publicly available District audit information in indicates a restricted American Indian education balance of $4,975 is this a carryover is this special education reimbursement for American Indian Leons no explanation for these discrepancies have been provided a we recommend ensuring that numbers reported on the American Indian education state aid grant application match the information and data provided to the APAC b as part of the restorative process

022we recommend providing annual APAC training to newly elected and returning committee members and District staff number 16 APAC recommends utilizing the indigenous people's task force endorsement of strengthening our communities and students by utilizing methods that are based in indigenous values and ways of knowing a vital way of doing this is returning to the first medicines and connecting our students and people to indigenous healing Traditions that have been passed down through the generations since time in Memorial a recent survey of middle school students in duth indicated that they were very interested in learning the medicines there's a local medicine gatherer that is willing to teach this I've talked to her myself her name is Natalie Smith the end thank you we do have these written documentations and we signed the um annual compliance uh vote of

023concurrence that needs to be submitted I will pass these to you Mr Magus thank you for your time thank you and board chair you do have a copy um that um must be signed thank you as well as and thank you uh for joining us um this evening as well and we as a district have 60 days to respond uh for new board members that they we are required to respond to the vote of non-c concurrence and the recommendations within 60 days so um my team and the District as a whole will be working uh Dil diligently to um address the recommendations and we will follow back up um at the next cow meeting as well thank you so we have time for some questions member Sadowski I just wanted to say thank you for

024your time um working on this committee we really value that and just really appreciate all the time and effort that you put in and appreciate these thoughtful recommendations um I look forward to getting a copy to look at I'm kind of a visual person so I was kind of looking online and trying to see it and it wasn't the same the document that you see online um is a status update regarding the 2324 okay um great recommendations and so that information was shared with the board as well as APAC uh regarding last year's recomend ations so the new recommendations as they shared was developed this weekend and so you will have you will have that information and it will be provided um to the board and be added to board book as well great for

025the community but thank you for your hard work on this really appreciate it and look forward to um reading through those again thank you member Williams oh I'm sorry I I cut you off the response my apologies is there anything you'd like to respond to member Sadowski uh just that um I know Sheila has um access to those documents as well and um Can disperse them if they're not available through through the board book member Williams thank you um I I guess also want to repeat um gratitude for you being here I really appreciate it and to um welcome our new coordinator um publicly for the meeting so I'm I'm really happy to have you on board um on board and um as far as some of your recommendations um I appreciate and I I

026heard you saying you know restoring that relationship and rebuilding trust and I really hope as your new board rep on APAC I really hope that I can help in that way I'm I'm looking forward to this year and getting back into APAC a lot more more like I used to be so thank you Mt do we have any other comments or questions and again I just want to thank you and just acknowledge again that these spaces haven't always been welcoming and we appreciate that um the continued willingness to work with us and to move forward so truly heartfelt thank you very much for doing this very hard work where you require a lot of patience and a lot of um long-term thinking so thank you and I also would like to um thank and welcome

027our new coordinator we really look forward to working with you and um entrusting you with this very important work that we have moving forward so thank you thank you have a great rest of your day next on our agenda we have our Career and Technical education presentation and I want to thank um Miss sibo for doing this work I'm I'm sorry I arrived a little bit late but um member Lal did did give me my awesome little plaque there so thank you please pass on my thanks to the students and staff thank you I have that for you and some keychains and if you're lucky they left some tart upstairs too check no it's gone okay uh I'm going to apologize in advance I haven't been home yet since my trip to the Bahamas I'm

028a little tired and um I know it's nothing to complain about but it took longer to get back than anticipated and I have whatever this is so we'll see if my voice holds um first I'd like to thank you if you were able to come to our CTE showcase it's really hard to get students here after school and it was really it's so fun for them to have a visit from you to be able to share you see how excited they are about what they're doing hopefully you heard from our culinary students about their PR artart competition coming up and you got to see some of the sugar art she was doing today um they love to share what they do with everyone they're very excited about it um and uh we really appreciate you

029coming to visit today so thank you February is Career and Technical Education Month and so every year in February we do a showcase for you uh this one was a little hard coming back off of break we had some teachers that couldn't come as well I'm not the only one who got sick after break so um uh that means we had a good time right so we have some updates to give you if you were able to join me uh at msba we started to paint a picture uh of how all of the dots and what we're working toward will be coming together and so you will start to see this logo of duth ready college career in life popping up all over it's going to be that theme that ties in all of the

030work we're doing prek through adult basic Ed and into Community Ed uh around um successful Pathways and broadening capacity and understanding for all of the career areas in and around duth my voice is irritating to me right now so I'm really sorry so uh you'll see some big buckets for lack of a better word uh of our areas of focus and how things will connect um I'll talk to you in a minute about uh data driven we really want to look at whether or not what we're doing is meeting our student needs and what our students are telling us they want more of uh and what they're really interested in during and after high school we are really working hard to broaden exploration opportunities for students I work closely with our Career Centers with uh

031our counselors with instructors with our American Indian homeschool Liaisons our integration Specialists um and on off check and connect mentors are part of that as well to bring options into our students and to bring our students out to those experiences so our big Focus areas in nor Eastern Minnesota are Healthcare manufacturing and construction those are our highest demand highest wage areas right now and so uh not just in duth public schools but in our Workforce boards in our community groups and our consortiums you'll see those those three themes come up uh Manufacturing construction and Healthcare we have a lot of high demand High wage opportunities but those are the three big ones that uh Workforce is really struggling to fill in in the duth in northeastern Minnesota and so our we host we don't host

032we attend and help run three major events in the region every year we participate in construct tomorrow which is coming up in March I'll share dates with you um so that you can come visit it's a phenomenal experience we bring almost all of our 10th graders our 10th graders at Denfeld choose from a couple of different options but all of the 10th graders at East go um and they go to the deck where trades representatives are spread out all over the deck with Hands-On opportunities for students to try masonry to try walking a beam in a harness to try some of the massive mining equipment simulators not the real equipment um but they get to meet people who are doing those jobs currently uh hear about how they landed in that pathway what it's really

033like what day-to-day jobs are like and then they get to actually try some of those things discover Healthcare is a similar one that location alternates in duth and on the Range this year it was in duth at Saints galaska uh next year it'll be hosted on the Range but similarly students go and try Hands-On uh activities in various uh Health Care experiences and then annually we participate in the tour of manufacturing which is when we send students out it is an organizational magical feat I have nothing to do with how this gets set up um but there are organiz in organizers in the region that send fairly small groups of students to three to six different tours of manufacturers in the region this year we expanded it so our students our teachers could choose to

034take students in the duth area which we normally do or they could go visit the range uh and similarly range schools could come and visit duth manufacturers so that can to grow I will add uh with that in particular that we are also trying to broaden those experiences to the adults in our school who work most closely with students who are trying to figure out what they're interested in and so in October we did a healthc care visit we took a counselors we had invited integration Specialists our career center staff American Indian home school Liaisons to the new essential health facility and they toured I believe five different departments and they meet four to eight people in that department who have various career Pathways most of them less than a four-year degree but they hear

035about they hear the stories how did they get here what did you try what how did you land here where do you want to go uh so that our adults are also experiencing what are the roles in a surgical Suite what is sterile processing and what is that like uh and so that's been a phenomenal experience they're obviously invited to construct tomorrow but we are also taking them on a tour of their own tour of manufacturing in April um so LSC has helped us organize that and we don't ever want to do just hide in our own bubble so we invite Regional counselors to join us for those events too uh so that's a new thing this year and then we are perpetually bringing in career talks recruiter visits uh if you've never met Dave

036Cook from 218 trades he is a phenomenally busy human being who is a endless resource for the trades his role will be broadening in that 200 eight trades will become 2 and8 Workforce um and then we are also uh endlessly hosting uh career fairs at both high schools uh law enforcement is one of them we started a child care and education career fair last year that was phenomenal um so we are really trying to bring in employers as much as we're trying to get students out um we're also trying to create opportunities to get students out to to various College experiences so um we are taking groups of students from Denfeld and East this spring we tried last spring and then we had that freak spring snowstorm but we will go out and tour ercm

037see what that facility is like then we'll go up and tour the entire main campus so students who don't really have an understanding of what a two year um college or certificate program looks like we'll get to go see it uh we're creating something similar with UMD where we'll take a big group tour in the fall um for students who really don't understand what that fouryear cost experience could be like uh what it feels like to be in a dorm what it feels like to be in a dining hall with endless opportunities um and what those program areas look like including uh athletic facilities so we're trying to get our students out uh Northwoods Tech in Superior hosts an event every year that's fantastic students get to come and try their programs so we're really

038trying to make sure students have experiences in all areas um rather than just those that they're exposed to at home or have heard about through friends and family uh so I covered the experience opportunities there as well our Equity focus is really trying to make sure we are including uh all of the adults and all the things we're trying to do we had a legislative allocation that funded cter Navigator and cter Galaxy which is a online it replaced mcis um and it came out of duth days last year so nice job everyone uh we have a six-year subscription which was a phenomenal opportunity for us to embed this and it also came with career advisement professional development we have 50 seats for adults and so we have all of our counselors going through that integration

039Specialists uh American Indian homeschool liaison career center staff the counselors and then checkin connect mentors uh they're moving through it at different Paces based on the PD time they have but they all have seats in that training so that we're all on the same page about how we're guidance guiding students through exploring those opportunities uh We've also been working over the last few years and I can't take credit for this but there's a lot happening that's trying to give our students um uh American Indian students and our black students college tours career talks setting them up with mentors we have a lot of pockets of really phenomenal things that are happening we're trying to collaborate and support those as a school so that it's not individual people going out for Grants and trying to set

040that up themselves so um just creating experiences for those students to tour facilities to meet people that they wouldn't necessarily have a chance to in our in our high schools uh I see a typo Regional Workforce collaborations not work forcer that sounds a little Star Wars uh but we we just have a tremendous amount of uh community support from Workforce organizations and local employers and we are so thankful for all of those connections we are working with them to help them try to understand the students they're getting as well um if a student student doesn't see themselves in that workplace or that Workforce they're not going to feel comfortable taking a job there or an internship there and so how are we connecting with some of those people um to help them understand hiring practices

041interview practices how it might feel to be uh a a non-traditional employee in their uh field and so again that's a regional effort um but it is one that regionally and as a district we're focused on and then Community collaboration we we've talked a lot about that you are hopefully aware of the duth promise work um uh we have a lot of those kinds of collaborations that will be a massive undertaking um but we we work really closely with our Perkins Consortium we have also been working closely with the other consortiums in northeastern Minnesota um the dedication of funds for this position is also huge in all of this um and so the goal is to get much of this up and self sustaining so that eventually maybe you don't need me to be the

042full-time person anymore so I'm trying to work myself out of a job uh so this is how things will all start to connect all of these have had a ton of work done with and for them but we now want to start framing it so that our students understand what all these opportunities are and our families and our employers so hopefully you'll see more about that as we go this is the slot I'm going to talk about the most but you're going to hear about a lot of these things later so next slide please thank you uh the counselors and I did a lot of work in revamping our planning tools for students so if you haven't seen it yet the new course cataloges are out for middle and high school they look very similar

043now um you will see color coding and icons that are very specific to that color and that career field we didn't make those up those are Statewide so you will see those same color coding and those same icons at Lake Superior your college we're now broadening that out into Workforce and employment through our Workforce board partners and our working groups um we need our employers to understand what our students are getting in schools uh we have a lot of students that can walk into phenomenal jobs straight out of high school and we need our employers to understand that too so you'll see those color coding things um you'll see CTE highlighted well in there we really want to highlight which courses come with various college credit and clearly explain what that means what is articulated

044credit what is transcripted credit um what does an AP exam get you what might a bilingual seal exam get you so um if you haven't had a chance take a look at that course catalog it's great um if you would go to the next slide I'm not sure if I showed um what you the page you see on the left there um that's the page background that looks like our course catalog but that's in there the course catalog is a PDF that's we didn't print copies because it's clickable links so most of those links have a partially completed to fully completed pathway map what you see here as an example is the Law Public Safety Corrections and security pathway those line up with the fields Pathways and clusters in that wheel and then we highlight

045what courses do we have here in duth public schools that are foundational courses in that career area if you if you're interested in this career and you want to continue what are the enhancement courses and then what supporting courses might you see and our goal at the end of this is that every course we offer in the high school shows up somewhere in these Maps everything should have a purpose and everything should connect so we'll continue to fill this in we also wanted to talk about the credits and credentials that are available in that pathway you'll also see it's in really tiny writing there but um our regional colleges if they have certificate or degree programs in that field you'll see that there with a link to that college and then there is deed um

046Department of Economic and something development data specific to nor Eastern Minnesota about career demand and wages in that field um we're learning to use that deed that deed Tool uh more and more to help students explore opportunities so you'll see all of those things in there as well redefining ready is something that um we're still in the very early stages of it's uh looking at the data that really matters and so we need to decide in each of these buckets what are the career Readiness indicators we want to track and hold ourselves accountable to these are examples it doesn't mean that we will track all of them um the team that will be formed will help decide what do we want to track what goals do we want to set what are the life Readiness

047indicators that we want our students to walk through what are college readiness indicators and then how are we going to track that how will students know how they're doing in there and how can we report it back out by school to our community so at the end of every year once this is fully functioning you'll see a report card that's just a really nice clear data set around how each school is doing in these areas by graduating class so watch for that to come um our Focus for today is that little that piece of the pie that is Career and Technical education it is a blossoming is the wrong word exploding um program in duth public schools and I'll I'll show you the numbers when we get to the end but annually I just like

048to remind you that Career and Technical education uh is a it's a it's a big undertaking for a district and a teacher and a school and all of the pieces have to go together to have a state approved program licensing is a challenge there are there are not teacher preparation programs in a lot of these it requires um special preparation certifications uh we have a licensed contractor for example who's our construction teacher and so uh HR has a phenomenal challenge to undertake with me every year to get those teachers licensed annually whether it's through a tier one license tier 2 or an out of field placement for uh a teacher that has another teaching license so um we connect with business and industry each program has an Advisory Board that's made up of local business

049and industry Partners College partners and then School staff they advise us on what those programs need to teach what do what does this industry need so we're not necessarily grabbing a textbook and teaching out of it these things are evolving all the time they are as you well know phenomenally expensive programs to run they are equipment heavy and we are required to maintain industry standard equipment which those advisory boards also guide us through um I think I'm ready for the next SL thank you uh just every year I like to remind you that students who take CTE programs and grab on and latch on and concentrate in it meaning they've taken more than one course in that pathway uh statistically are uh much more successful than students who don't uh 12 to 40% more than

050their peers in the first five to eight years after graduation uh are employed full-time they are typically making more on those first few years after graduation uh the high school graduation rate for students who are taking CTE Contra concentration courses is is 92% um and 2third of Minnesota high school CTE concentrators go on to postsecondary schools So Gone are the days from the I'll even say 90s when I went through high school um the the vocational vocational is not a word anymore it's not a separate track it's not a separate program it is really embedded in what our high school students are doing and most of our high school students are trying at least one CTE course as they go through which is to that uh who takes CTE courses all students we have students

051who already know they're excited about this who know they want to be a chef who know they want to be a nurse who know they want to go into graphic arts who know they want to be a a mechanic who love fixing things and then there are students that have no idea and take one of those introductory courses and enjoy it and latch on there are students who already know they want to go to a two or four year college or university or who decide that as they're moving through the pathway we have a lot of students who plan to enlist in the military the skills they're picking up in CTE will help them Advance there we have many students who go straight to work out of our CTE programs and do very well we

052have a lot of business and industry that come in and want to recruit our students during class um I will add that this year uh each year our high schools have uh job fairs different than a career fair you're coming because you want to hire our students we're adding another level of employees that actually want to hire students in full-time after you graduate work not necessarily just a summer job um so students who cus wants to pick up immediately and work full-time uh they will be there to to hire potentially so um and then we have a lot of students who come out of our CTE courses who go into apprenticeship and training programs but regardless of whether you know what you want to do or not everyone benefits from these courses I'm not going

053to read all that but those are the criteria for high quality CTE program programs we are required to not just do all of this but document it and report it back to the state uh so there is a lot that goes with those briefly I'll go over the programs of study you'll see some of our students right there you probably met some upstairs today um we wanted to share numbers with you so you can go ahead thank you um we had such an explosion and the the moving to a seven period day really helped that it allowed students time in the day to take other new ele Ives and so what you'll see on the bottom there in white is the numbers from 23 24 and at the top in teal are the numbers from

05425 so if uh Miss Taylor took a healthc care class last year that's a one semester course enrollment if she took healthc care and Manufacturing that's two semester course enrollments so there's not obviously 279 students taking CTE that that might be one student taking multiple but that number grew from 279 to more than double to 4393 this year we had 49 sections of CTE at Denfeld last year 59 this year you'll note that the uh section numbers don't necessarily jump but we have protected course sizes uh we have to in current tech ed we have limitations based on safety requirements and certification Pathways um but our classes are full um we have teachers on overloads we have students on weight lists so even though there's only 10 additional sections of CTE at denfi there are

055a lot more students in those sections um and then the numbers Grew From 57 to 96 at East uh despite me not changing the word Denfeld on that bottom corner my apologies the only other things I wanted to point out to you that's the end of our slides for today are some of our next steps um I don't know if I shared or not the list of the programs we have right now the courses we have right now you''ve seen that that's not new um it's the wheel with each program around it I can reshare that new courses for next year we are going to try and run an EMT program uh when you're creating new CTE courses quite often you're building the cart while you're also trying to find the horse so it's challenging

056um so we need to find an instructor who can help us build that program we need to work out how that will look and who will teach the certification skills where they'll take them we have great Partners in LSC Mayo ambulance Essential Health everyone needs EMTs and are willing to step in and help so you'll see that um we have a potential growth area with Cirus in creating an uh Aviation mechanics program um we are also tweaking our Colin programs to align with the prart curriculum which is a state approved framework um our students are actually competing in prart next week two weeks March 13th thank you whoever said that thank you they were just talking about it upstairs you think I can hang on to that um and so we'll we'll continue to provide

057updates we have students that compete at HOSA the healthcare occupations that is happening in spring break if anyone wants to drive a van of students down let me know um but the other Focus area that we're talking about is is uh school-based simulated business experiences sbes and the state of Minnesota is trying to help schools uh interpret new guidance around what that looks like so these are what we would call student run businesses and so you should see Greyhound manufacturing and Hunter manufacturing emerge through next year um our culinary programs have had those uh to some extent for a long time but you will see drastically different models watch for Greyhound frozen pizzas on the shelves in the area I'm sure you heard about that upstairs too um grab and go options we're we're trying

058to evolve to meet the the new the new trends and needs there as well um our graphic arts has taken on tasks that will be a little more polished uh so that you can hire students to do a project essentially so that uh manufacturers or local businesses can hire Greyhound manufacturing or Hunter manufacturing to design build um and sell our constru construction programs have done that on some scale as well um and so we'll start to take some projects there so you should start to see some um a little more polished student run businesses and so it's not just manufacturing kids in there it's business students in there it's Finance students in there it's marketing students so that uh you'll see little pockets of students that are actually building it as a business so the

059teacher just becomes the CEO level um oversight there and so we'll present those to you as students get them ready they've started working on their logos I didn't pay attention to what the The Culinary kids were wearing they might have been wearing their new jackets already but um that's an exciting thing for us as well we've we've gone and visited with other schools uh Spartan manufacturing over in Superior was a great support for us and a great example of how that can happen so we need to figure out how that fits in Minnesota law and finance and hopefully we'll have more for you there thank you thank you um I would be remiss not to um say thank you to the focused effort that uh principal on special assignment uh sibo um has been engaged

060in um now picture this you know this is my fifth year and one of the things as the assistant superintendent I toured the schools and I went to all of the fabulous Labs that we have at both denfield and East and I was wondering like who's our coordinator who's our director for CTE and I find out that it's uh a portion of her role as a principal was to oversee CTE and while she did an amazing job at that I also knew that we needed full-time dedicated support to really Elevate our CTE programming in Del lth public schools and Denette has been on a path through that working with her team working with uh staff to really do that so I want to say thank you for your focus efforts on moving our programming for

061it we we keep talking about students and preparing them for the future and and this is what we need to do in the district is to make sure students are engaged in Opportunities of interest for them because it will increase graduation rates for those students it will increase students students will have a reason to come to school if they are taking classes that are of interest to them and that are relevant for them and so having a robust CTE program in place um does that so she jokes about you know you know working myself out of a job but just continue to build and you know create these foundations that will benefit our students for um for some time so thank you member Sadowski first of all just thank you for the very informative presentation

062and for um being here even when you're not feeling well it's always really good to get these CTE updates um something that came to mind just hearing about about you when you were talking about just and and we know it's integrated in our school schools but I think that's really important to just um highlight the importance of I feel like um as humans in general but you know students we only know what we know and we only um experience I guess what we experience and so to be able to give our students these opportunities to explore whether it's one CTE class or multiple um even exploring one and then figuring out nope maybe that's not what I want to do but that's helpful to know right and to have that chance or wow I really

063like this and I want to take the next level and the next level um I'm just really glad that our students have that opportunity um and it was really interesting for me to learn more about the business finance marketing I didn't know about that so I'm excited to keep hearing more about that um and then I just had a question about slide it was the CTE by the Numbers it was the last slide on 11 when we look at um semester course enrollments and how they went up from around 2,79 up to 4,000 I know you said something about class sizes but have our class sizes then increased um if there's that many more students and um some new sections but only 10 can you speak to that piece a little bit so as an

064example um I'll use the manufacturing classes at Denfeld for example um we might have run that with 12 to 14 students capacity is closer to 25 it's challenging you have to have a tech tutor in there to be in the lab while some are in the so as the programs grow we need to also hire teachers uh this was the first year we convinced Mr Gund Gunderson to to go from full-time to he's been part-time by choice he's also the robotics coach he's very busy U and so we went from part time to overload this year so if you ever see him Pat him on the back and and say thank you but uh so it might be that there's 10 more kids an hour in there now that they have room in their schedule

065for it so just bringing that to capacity classes like the advanced culinary have to be smaller uh there's less cooking stations in the kitchen there's more fire and oil and knives and so you have to be cautious about that um in our programs where equipment is a a a safety issue and a need quite off and there will be a second adult which is that Tech tutor position you met Denfeld Tech tutor upstairs today got um who works really closely with a teacher to teach those skills and guide those students as well they're kind of that backup in the room um and so getting those programs to capacity was part of it uh but it's also uh maximizing the space both manufacturing uh areas at East and Denfeld are as full as they can be

066they're both teachers are on an overload so that's where that that weight list comes in is that when there's only enough room the business programs both at denfield hitney East have also grown so while we might have had 12 students in sports and entertainment marketing there's now that in those can be 35 um so those class sizes really blossomed and it was less of a battle to try and negotiate how to keep all of those sections because so many more students are in them so we ran a lot more than we usually did and then we were able to put a lot more students in because they have room on their schedule thank you yeah um superintendent Magus I see your light is on yeah I just want to say thank you as well uh

067for the great work you're doing and also uh thinking about some of the work we're doing this is not work we're doing alone as you mentioned there's a great deal of collaboration and you've heard us uh talk about the duth promise initiative and that initiative has uh a number of very important Partners in the community uh we think about that that collaboration between duth Public Schools the University of Minnesota duth Lake Superior College uh the City of duth College of St scolastica the duth area Chamber of Commerce as well as Apex our our Economic Development Group uh there is a bill that is being uh put forward by both the Senate and the house uh for funding for a pilot program for the duth promise which is basically how can we take what we're doing

068and make sure that there's even more coordination and structure uh to this because this this is something you you've mentioned we're we're doing really good things here and there are some examples of greatness that we see around the country how can we harness those examples and take us uh further and faster and really uh You've Been instrumental in that work uh Jen larva has as well and Anthony bonds um but working with those partners and thinking about this this is not just a challenge of our school district it's not just about getting students in Career and Technical education classes it's about how do we make sure that we have a sustainable Workforce and sustainable jobs for every member of our community that we're supporting every student and that we're thinking about the industries and the

069educator educational Partners from the get-go rather than add-ons and we're also thinking about equity and access for everybody from the get-go we're not after we've designed something thinking about how can we make sure that we have X number of students represented from different groups we're we're baking it in from the get-go so um I really appreciate the support you've given that group and I uh excited to promote the work of those two bills and hopefully they'll move forward within the budget that would provide us with um $500,000 $250,000 each year for two years uh to begin to uh better coordinate those those efforts but even without that that money we will be moving forward with the duth promise as an organization and as a community I would I would just build on to that that

070I I don't think going from trying to keep our heads above water doing this while I was also the East principal which is really just managing budgets and Licensing at that point I did not understand the volume of community meetings that everyone else in this District was trying to then pick up and do that really were the coordinator before we caught that position and now that that's back to be able to to be at all of those tables and then when we have opportunities like the duth promise um I know all those people and so so we've made all those connections and so I I I am endlessly thrilled by the volume of community support that we have for for our students and our in our Workforce um and so I I I can never

071say enough about that that that's a huge chunk of my job right now is in in community meetings um and Workforce meetings and employer meetings and I I really value how much support they give to our students in school and sorry to piggy back off that for one second thinking about the work you did recently and worked with others uh with Cirus on the uh the FAA grant for um for Aviation mechanics programming so we will be training potentially training uh students as as airplane mechanics uh for so not just we we're looking at uh there's a program for bicycle mechanics that we're looking at through zist and we already have auto mechanics so we'll be repairing and working on everything from airplanes to bicycles uh soon here in duth public schools but the work

072that was put into that Grant was immense and the turnaround time was very quick but it just uh stands as an a firm example of the the high quality work that we're trying to do here in duth public schools thank you member lold and then member laugher Kemp and then member micel so just lots to talk about so I'll just quickly make my comments so I was at the eighth grade orientation last week and um what Denette shares about Mr Gunderson is is true that he is um he went from part-time he was a student of mine at Denfeld in the day and um but he was so excited he was there with his crew um with all of the displays you saw upstairs for the eighth graders to look at and um so if

073you think that he feels like going from part-time to sixth overload or an overload that that's that's uh limiting him it it's not I can assure you that he seems really fired up and we couldn't be more proud of of Mr gunderson's leadership in that and I'll piggyback because then we had Marshall and Alex upstairs I know Marshall and and then Alex chimed in and both of them were saying the exact same thing that we saw on the screen their attendance is up their love of school is up they had no idea about the manufacturing program or opportunities they just kind of I don't know stumbled in they're both Juniors and and again this has made such an impression on them what they can do that I it just all of this just looks really

074great um speaking of advocacy we've heard about the DU promise but dette was also instrumental in writing a bill and I don't know if it's gone in the hopper yet or if it's got a file on it um but um Rosie ller Kemp and I went to promote that bill to the msba and they support that and so there's a bill going into the Senate and House to increase the funding for uh for for CTE from 35% to 50% don't know anything about how much money that looks like but it's an increase in funding so um we'll be down um advocating for that both March 10th and March 24th and I'll go down even at other times when that bill might be um hearing more I'm sure you will as well so um we thank

075you for all of that and just a reminder to me too I've talked a lot about this in the last couple weeks with people in our community especially with our budget cuts that are happening in our building with staff is that um legislators want to hear our voices they want to hear Schoolboard voices we've been told that by msba that advocacy is really important I know that a lot of us have other jobs that that prevent us from going down on Senate meetings that are happening tomorrow at 8:30 and um so um some of us can make that happen for us so I'm happy about that the the main question and it goes to the the sections and the numbers and and the wait list so are we not taking in students from other districts

076into our SCT classes so the the courses that we typically did that in um it's hard for them to do it when it's not a block class so we have found that our own students particularly when it was a six period day weren't taking block classes because they couldn't fit it in so we have really tried as a district to introduce more one one hour classes that can be offered at both sites we can't duplicate auto or constr ruction because those are shop specific and we don't have space or equipment um so those will always stay in the block uh the nursing classes stay in the block but they're at each site because of the time needed to teach and test on those skills uh and so we were we have even in the last

077few years taken in Hermantown and Proctor students particularly in nursing we've had some come down for auto but because they're so full we're not often taking students anymore from other other districts and I appreciate that and I want our students to have those opportunities but we also know that if we can if we can fill that class that that um formula allocation for that student comes to this District yes which then helps too so thank you thanks member ller Kemp thank you thank you again Denette uh I always appreciate this um this huge in-depth uh update that you g you've been giving us the last couple years so thank you on that uh and I just um also want to mention you know the relationships that you have built uh I uh was at uh

078St Louis County days I was at the m nsba going around the booth and people knew who denet seil from Deluth was and I was just really proud of you uh For All You've Done in this area and building those relationships so thank you uh I had a couple questions uh one is um uh and it sounds like for the eth grade uh uh night um you were at Denfeld or there was um coverage at denel and there was that at East I imagine as well for the or have they not had their eighth grade day yet I think they were both on the same day okay yeah okay we have pros and cons to that some some families apparently like to school shop um but there's not a lot of room for for moving

079from one to the other and so um it also was a challenge there there aren't many teachers left who travel uh anymore because we've grown so much there are now teachers at both sites but those who travel had a hard time being at both but yes there was representation so that was kind of my my general question is just how are we sharing this incredible growth of our programs with our families and particularly our our families as are our Middle School families as are thinking about 8th grade or or ninth grade and the classes and that so uh as part of of the Middle School model shift and really looking at all of the courses in middle school we took the time to really uh reboot those courses that feed into CTE courses in the

080middle school and so the the teachers at the middle school and the high schools have been communicating and talking sometimes sharing equipment advising on equipment uh we have grant opportunities that Middle School teachers can apply for now that didn't exist before so that's allowed us to purchase some uh smaller scale equipment but um we are really trying to introduce our students to as many Pathways as possible that we have in high school so if you take industrial technology in seventh and eighth grade you're learning about manufacturing and hearing about the courses you could try in high school you're learning about construction you're learning less about uh mechanics but Small Engines things like that you're learning about computerated design you're learning a little about architecture you're now learning a little bit about those computer science Pathways

081marketing business um in our family and consumer science classes they're hearing about culinary they're hearing about graphic arts um so there's a lot of overlap there that we're really intentionally trying to give students a taste in middle school that they haven't had before um at a coming board meeting uh we're going to highlight some of the work being done around computer science you'll see that in action um if you haven't had a chance to learn about underwater robots wow is that cool I think you'll hear more at a coming board meeting um but we're really trying to build in those opportunities um I decided this year that since I wasn't a high school principal working all summer on high school principal things I would take on a summer school role I thought it's my turn

082I better I better be a summer school principal so I was a summer school principal at Lincoln Park Middle School um and one of the the activities that the students latched on to was Lego robotics so in their science class they they dove into Lego robotics and they were so excited about it that they didn't want to go to math and English and social studies anymore they wanted to just do or I'm sorry IED they wanted to do Robotics and so we found ways to build those in and I called Mr Gunderson and said do you have any robotic students that could come and hang out these were uh middle school students who are fairly disengaged with school who were excited about coming to summer school if that doesn't say something I don't know what

083does but the collaboration of just the four teachers that are there and finding things they got excited about to pull them in we had Denfeld robotics team kids come and do Lego robotics with these kids and so we had students who were not doing well in school at all in eth grade who are on the robotics team at Denfeld now and so the more connections we can build with our high school teachers and those kids but our high school students who are in these programs and our middle school students um those are other things we're really trying to do to build experiences and connections there and it's great leadership opportunities for our high school students so okay and then uh my last well I had a couple more but I'll just do one more is

084have we had a um a time in the last year or two where the numbers have been too low uh so we didn't offer any of the CTE classes um there's that's always the case um in most of our programs we offer multiple courses that might not run every year uh more often increasingly often we're trying to add opportunities for the really Advanced students so if you look at manufacturing classes for example uh in our course catalog there's an insane amount of them but a good chunk of those are a little more independent study feeling so you might walk into Andy your Don's classrooms at Dena East and you have students who are taking intro to manufacturing there might be 24 of them but then there's three students that are taking weldments because that's the

085certification and skill they're working on um and so when those students are in there taking those advanced level classes it's a little more independent work that they're doing with that computer dat design and solid works but they're also in there helping other students who are at those introductory levels and so we're trying to build more of those so you might see something like that not run but that's because there wasn't a student ready for it yet this year um as always programs will grow and Shrink based on student interest uh so it'll be interesting to see how registration shakes out this year now that so many more students had a chance to try something new and to see which I gesture too much with my hands which programs grow and shift and so um if

086we don't run something it's purely numbers based um but we haven't we haven't eliminated full programs quite often it's just those advanced classes that might not have enough students to run okay great well thank you so much and I'm hoping the the media people that are here are going to highlight um the great work of our CTE classes so always happy to take anyone on a tour we took the entire Workforce board on a tour this fall of Denfeld and East and they loved it member micel thank you so much for your encyclopedic knowledge of all things CTE and the passion that you bring and how you're able to get all those intersections um together whether it's younger kids older kids Community Partners um to our schools etc etc I can see your voice is

087starting to go so um my question is um more about funding and this might be um like too big of a question for us to to capture here in the next few minutes and so if if things need to be sent um at a later date that's also fine um but I hear you talking about we have FAA grants with Cirus we have bills you know that we're going down and asking for our state legislatur to consider um uh grants with pych I uh grant opportunities for Middle School teachers that they can use for equipment um as we're going through budget cuts and reductions and reallocations those kind of things we're seeing us growing can um someone talk a little bit more about how we're able to get um some of this like incredible funding

088for some of these programs so that's a multi-layer thing you talked about grants um we also have a lot of support from business and industry Partners who might donate materials who might donate a piece of equipment uh which comes with its own hassle sometimes but um we are so appreciative of that but uh right now um talking about the change from 35 to 50% that's a reimbursement to districts so if the stars align and we've dotted all our eyes and crossed our te's teacher lure approved courses advisory boards student leadership we have to submit all this to the state and if all of those things are correct and they're coded correctly in our system we are able to be reimbursed for 35% of supplies salary uh and so we get more bang for our buck

089with CTE classes so the more things we can pull into those the better it is for our district and so uh talking about the increase from 35 to 50% that would be a significant amount of money coming back in to Su to support some very expensive courses um I already I also mentioned that uh quite often there's class- siiz caps that are significantly smaller than some of our other courses and so that is also in place to support that so um there's there's State funding that automatically comes back if we do all of the groundw correctly um the state has has kicked out additional CTE grant money to the service co-ops not just our Perkins consortiums that's where those Middle School dollars can be a little more accessible if they're aligned to a high school

090program they can request money for field trips or supplies um but it is it is a challenge uh having more students taking them has been a help and a hindrance I had to go to um assistant superintendent bonds and our our CFO and say we are going to need more Supply money I can't run an additional course of nursing an additional five courses of inro to foods without the money to buy the food we cannot charge students for any supplies um and and we can't rely on donors to to fund those things and so um we've been able to navigate that to this point um I I don't anticipate we'll see the same explosion that we did this year because of that seventh period um so at the moment I I think that we're we're

091we're doing a good job of pulling in all of the revenue we can we've worked closely with Finance with Infinite Campus uh Daniel Dorne here uh the state has been a great help to us to really try and make sure that we're pulling in as much as we can to support those courses and then like I said there's um maximizing those grant opportunities if we get that FAA Grant it's a million dollars um that would be a significant uh support for Staffing and and building that program obviously then we would need to sustain it on our own once it's there but we definitely have a lot of Industry support so thank you thank you seeing no other questions thank you we appreciate you thank you all and if you missed out on a notebook or

092a keychain or the Lake Superior email me and I will get you one thank you um we will move on to our report of the superintendent and I just want to um make mention that um member loal will be giving um student representative Garner's report for Denfeld this this month so turning it over to you superintendent sure thank you and uh really appreciate it the um and as I I work to cast here just one tenth of a second here we go so we always love to start our uh report and we've covered our mission vision and values and and um those areas under our before our listening session but we really really love our opportunity to hear from our Representatives so uh tonight I know that representative uh Garner is not here but I

093believe you have the report uh member Lal would you like to share that first and then then we can go on to uh either member Taylor or member Dean sounds good so this is um uh representative Garner's report for Denfeld high school so on Monday February 3rd Transit Equity event DTA bus was there with art in it and people could walk through the bus and look at the art multiple students including myself gave speeches there was food and fun games and activities and that was on Monday February 3rd our PBIS team is looking for parents and Guardians and community members to join the full service Community School leadership team this team meets every other Tuesday from 4:00 to 5:30 at Denfeld this team is seeking feedback from the community to influence decisions made for multiple

094initiatives at denfield and so if there's some interest there um we're to contact the assistant principal Tanya Jackson um it was black it is Black History Month it's and there was an assembly at Denfeld on February 13th hosted by black Student Association the assembly went amazing it was an AM assembly at um and then there was an a assembly at Laurel MacArthur um at LEL at pedmont and at East and at ALC the P PM assembly was just for Denfeld students and staff but um member um Schoolboard member Henry Banks was an attendance alongside many families our black Student Association also hosted hallway decorating which turned out very well they also sold candy grams and raised $100 our Spirit Week dress up was the week of the 10th of February 10th Monday was melon melanin

095day melon yeah okay Tuesday was dressed like an album cover Wednesday was dress your type and Thursday was throwback Thursday and it was Soul Train Friday so class colors um were the American flag were the African flag um hunter license survey results families students and staff supported continuation of the hunter license passing all classes no more than three minor referrals and no more than one major referral no no OSS and no incompletes that's what's required of the hunter license at Denfeld new stickers went out on Friday February 3rd Denfeld has been pushing out the building safe safety reporting Forum on canvas and throughout school with Flyers student survey on causes of absenteeism on why students miss school was also out so there's been three surveys hunter license um safety in our in the building and

096absenteeism and then there's always raising money at Denfeld Denfeld boys hockey team joins Minnesota hockey fight against cancer accepting donations for Mrs Michels family and husband for his battle against cancer so those donations are accepted till um the first week in March um other raising money efforts the Denfeld historic organ restoration and preservation Alliance has applied for a large Grant from the has Foundation to help fund that Total Restoration of the auditorium kilgen and Son pipe organ if you've ever been in denfield it's there by the stage it's not being used right now the estimated cost for its chamber restoration is nearly $81,000 donations of any size are welcome and can be made um on the Oregon restoration and preservation Alliance website with a secure link um and then we go on to the field

097trips and performances that are happening at Denfeld so soaring Hunters field trip was to montac and that was on February 14th from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 soaring Hunters are those that have been no um recognized as an outstanding Hunter of the month um throughout the first four months I would imagine of the school year and then there was also a performance of The Winter Play performance hosted by the denfield theater and it was called tracks and it went very well and then there's some random things that member Gardener also throws in even though the majority supported the hunter license many students or students some students still are are concerned about the hunter license as they are the only school who has it for students and so so they don't think it's fair Denfeld also is

098bringing back the lip dub remember what the lip dub was those were kind of cool things and that will be happening in May there is a student versus staff basketball game that's hosted by student government and that will happen March 21st if you're open to going to that it's kind of a a very entertaining game and all grades are eligible to go but the class with the most Hunter licenses will get free popcorn okay and then um we we also hear that there was an eighth grade orientation hosted by link crew and the Denfeld Administration and teachers and extracurriculars welcoming the class of 2029 and that is representative Garner's report thank you very much and now uh would representative Dean or representative Taylor like to start I can go and I just want to say

099that this is going to be incorporating reports from student forum from January and February so bear with me if she gets a little bit lengthier but I'll try to go quick so yeah the majority of what I'll be sharing and this report comes from things people shared in our student Forum meetings in January and right before break we had around 60 people attend our last meeting um and I am constantly thinking of ways to get more people there I can provide more details on any of these topics but I'll try I'll do my best to keep it at an overview so to begin with I'll give an overview of our students and activities so before winter break that was the biggest thing that people were looking forward to and now we're back um where there's

100a lot of anticipation for upcoming spirit week which is called red and gray week which will be in March March Madness is another upcoming event that we're looking forward to on the Friday before break uh on Valentine's Day singing Valentine visited classes with some very creative performances let me know if you want the videos um boys and girls basketball are both in the midst of their seasons and both have upcoming games our Robotics and boy swim teams are also staying busy auditions for the spring play are coming up next week and I'm excited to watch this show which will be following Wendy from Peter Pan so now moving to student feedback there's going to be a lot in here um one of the issues I hear most commonly is the lack of communication from the

101district to students and families and the lack of opportunities for students to communicate with the district District yesterday I encountered a prime example of this I had an email that I wanted to send to you the members of the board so I used the school board's email address provided on the district website um the second after I sent the email I got an error message saying that students are not allowed to directly email staff organizations so students aren't able to use the email address for the school board that you provide on the website um I hope that this barrier in communication could be remedied soon next students are really feeling negative effects of the new schedule and class requirements some feel that the shortened class time makes it harder to get work done and the

102lack of win adds to that issue the overwhelming sentiment is that the new requirements for 9th through 11th graders aren't necessary or effective many students feel frustrated because we were told the purpose of moving to a seven period day was to make room for more electives um especially for students that are involved in both a music and a language but adding these new requirements had reverse impacts and students ended up having to drop electives in order to make room for everything so I dropped to my music class so I could still take Student Government this year um students in student forum who have taken ninth grade Futures computer science and college career life Readiness shared they don't feel that they gained much from these courses the lessons are pretty inconsistent from teacher to teacher um

103and students feel that they lost time that could have been spent in a more productive class they feel that these new requirements create busy work and are a prime example of the district neglecting to ask for student input ahead of time on decisions that so directly impact us in our day-to-day lives um we feel that the curriculums weren't very developed ahead of time because they were added so last minute and to quote one student they feel a little bit pointless but on a more positive note there were quite a few electives added this year that students have really benefited from including ASL and forensic science there are some really interesting options available to us next year including ethnic study fire science baking and more we only wish we had time to take them so moving

104on in our last Committee of the whole meeting I raised the concern that the district surveys sent to students may not be the most accurate way to gather information in student Forum people shared that surveys um were easily missed in their inboxes students didn't see impacts coming from the surveys and the questions on them can sometimes be unclear there was a lot of excitement among students in student Forum about the idea of having some sort of discussion based feedback session that could supplement the information gained from the surveys students also feel that having time built into classes to respond to surveys and making survey links more accessible would also help with this issue lastly students feel that surveys should always be anonymous when Avail when possible um next after hearing the discussion on the violence

105prevention initiatives being discussed by this board I asked kids in student Forum if they feel that we are adequately prepared for an emergency situation and the overwhelming consensus was no um I don't know that we've had no no I did talk to Mr fhog today actually we've only had one lockdown drill this year many people were like I don't think we've had any um students want to hear more about what a lockdown would entail and want to have more discussion about Escape R say if there was even something like a gas leak and we needed to leave the building quickly we don't hear about what we would do in those situations um and we think that we should revisit a lot of these things at the start of the new semester we always have like

106five fire drills at the start of the year just while the weather cooperates and then we have more we're going to have more lockdown drills in the spring but the new semester which starts in January we obviously you know weather doesn't allow for us to go outside but students start a new schedule which means new classes oftentimes new classrooms so we should be having those discussions at least about what we would do in an emergency situation um no one in the discussion in student Forum was aware that we don't use Alice anymore and that's a testament to the lack of information shared with students I have some more details related to this subject that I'd be happy to share with you another concern raised during our last note form meeting was a lack of access

107to upto-date information when it comes to textbooks our Civics textbook for nth graders is of special concern um someone shared that it is so out of date that they hardly use it yeah math books were also brought up in that discussion okay we're almost there I promise um with that as you heard and saw during the listening session students are extremely concerned about the reduction in access to our library I could go on and on and on about all that it's used for club meetings NHS tutoring Sports meetings access to class materials space to study or to just take a breath um it provides access to a printer and more I'm in there every single day I would love to hear some more about um whether the district is utilizing the state funding that's allocated

108by Min Minnesota statute 134 356 um I'm not sure if you wear but that gives all I'm sure you are that gives all Minnesota school district's additional funding specifically for libraries the $16 111 per pupil in the school can be used to cover all the costs within the library and it's all laid out in the statute so I'd be curious to hear more about why we aren't using that to keep our libraries more accessible um Miss Kettle shared something with me and to quote what she said in the newly adopted strategic road map the duth public schools has also committed to focusing on literacy across all content areas decisions regarding student access to reading and research materials and study spaces do not align with these goals tomorrow I'm going to be at ordine East Middle

109School speaking to seventh graders hoping to encourage Improvement in study and behavioral habits I've already been a part of a similar presentation to sixth graders middle schoolers are already struggling to develop the the skills that they'll need in high school and reducing their access to their Library which provides a lot of information about media literacy and just it provides access to so many resources middle schoolers are going to be losing that access as well we didn't hear as many of their voices tonight but they're going to be so affected by this as well it's going to hinder their success in the future in this District we are all going to be affected by this students need and want access to media literacy learning tools and the space provided by the library so I urge you

110to remember the that fact and that this is an opportunity opportunity for you to make a decision with students and their daily experiences in mind almost there I promise one of my biggest goals is to improve communication students were excited about the idea of me writing some sort of newsletter with summaries of what was discussed at Schoolboard meetings and in student Forum I discussed this with Mr flog and I will work with him to make even more information accessible to students I also plan to share Resources with them about how they can use their voices to get involved at the start of the last student Forum meeting I gave a summary of the notes I took at the three School Schoolboard meetings that I attended prior to this one and people really appreciated that I

111think that is a testament to the fact that students really do want to feel like they're being kept up today it's as simple as taking two minutes to give a summary and creating a little one pager with a few bullet points I hope that's something that maybe some of you would be willing to collaborate with me on the in the future students especially want information on budget cuts and that's another discussion I had with Mr flog and would like to have with some of you to conclude I'd like to share this the best way to make it seem like you care about student voices is to put that sentiment sentiment into action my meeting with Mr fhog we discussed getting information back to students he shared that often Administration waits to give more information because

112it can take a long time for decisions to go through the necessary processes to be finalized and this is something that I totally understand and I would also like to share that what we care most about is being kept in the loop while decisions are being made I understand that having more people aware of a situation can put more pressure on it and not every decision making process can be made public but there are still many issues that students want to hear about even before they're settled on you will still have the power to make the final decision whether or not students are aware of the process and I think that being transparent about the process will create a lot more faith in the board I really appre appreciate this opportunity to speak with all

113of you and I am excited to keep collaborating thank you representative Dean you don't ever have to apologize sitting at this table okay I just want to be very clear you this is a place where your voice matters and where we want to hear it all so don't apologize to us anymore okay we I would reiterate the same and was about to say the same that that uh as we talked about during our orientation that that hearing the voice of our students is incredibly important to us and we're here to serve you not the other way around so thank you for for sharing the voice not only of yourself and I think uh you modeled what we talked about as far as making sure that we're getting voices of others to the table representative Taylor

114can I ask a question quick I'm sorry um yes thank you Williams and I'm sorry I will make it fast um just in regards to uh reaching out to us as a board I did see um assistant superintendent Bond scribble notes really quick so I'm sure he's going to follow up with that and that might be a question for technology I'm not sure but I was wondering if you tried to reach out to us as individuals so because I think we are listed as it I know that's more work for you but um yeah just I hope that that is not a roadblock that you can yeah reach us as individuals yes and I definitely knew that that was an option and what I did yesterday was I just sent the email to padan actually

115and she forward it forwarded it to all of you I did get it see it but yeah I was wondering I definitely I just wanted to bring that to your attention because it says on the website to get in contact with the school board send an email to this address so then for a student to get an a response saying no you can't email absolutely staff organization I think that's weird I'm really glad that you brought that up because we obviously had no idea so thank you thank you I'll jump in then U member Williams is correct I did email our technology department uh to confirm uh what you uh shared so we'll get to the bottom of it because if it's on the website and it says we can access it my question is

116everyone should be able to access it and so we'll we'll take a look at that um one of the things that um you brought up is uh communication and I'm thinking about um you know everyone at this table you know we we might be a little older some than others right and maybe we we may not know all the tools that students use is are there tools out there that students are really using to enhanced communication that we probably should be considering if it's not parent Square what could it be um that you might be aware of that we should be considering as a tool to increase and enhance communication with with students yeah oh gosh I feel like that's a big question I definitely think I mean this might be a little bit of

117a cliche but utilizing social media is always good but honestly the biggest thing is just putting a little bit more information out like today I think I had two different people ask me about how budget cuts were going to be impacting East and I couldn't really give them a good answer because I feel like I've gone through the district website I've looked at the budget I've talked to people about it and it's really difficult for us to figure out and I understand that a lot of that is because the decisions aren't finalized because they're still in the process um so I know it's kind of tricky to figure out what information you can put out without creating some sort of rumor but I think there is a way to do that um I think PE

118people can pay attention to the fact that there's Nuance you can say this is a tentative plan but you may see these three bullet points as the most impacted areas and that's that's what we care about the most is just having that extra piece of communication and feeling like we're being kept in the loop as decisions are being made so I have a question for you on that yes so um um last year when we were planning for the referendum um we did a lot of campaigns where we would go out and talk to community invite them in you know forums and and have conversations if we did something similar and I'm totally talking off the cuff I'm sorry Bor but if we did something similar with um just informational things like specifically for students

119do you think that is something that students would respond to or want to go to or is there a better way that we can reach students with information or give you an opportunity to ask questions yeah I think a lot of what I'm going to be trying to do is making myself available for students to ask me questions and I'll definitely be pastoring you guys um in the coming months so definitely I'll be trying to get a lot of information back to students and I think that as note Forum when I asked kids how they felt about having some of you just listen in on the things they were talking about kids were really excited about that and my thought with having some people at student Forum was just to be a chance for you

120guys to float around and hear what the groups were talking about if there was a time that it could be more of a discussion with you guys questions for you I think that people would be interested in that I know there there there's definitely a consistent demographic of the people who show up at student forum and those are often times going to be the kids who are already involved with a lot of other activities so sometimes the kids who are the most interested in this are the kids who are going to have the least time outside of school to engage with something like that but we have class meetings every so often Where We Gather in the auditorium and yeah that's definitely something I feel like there's a lot of different moving pieces to think

121about with that but along with that uh we've talked about putting together a in City student council or in city uh student Advisory Group uh and I think this just exemplifies the the need we've we've talked about it uh for a few weeks now maybe maybe two months or so but I think it's uh important for us to put that into action um it's part of it is finding the time to be able to do it well uh but I think sometimes it's it's better to to start it and improve it as we go than to not have it and just kick the can down the road so I think it's important so I'd ask uh assistant superintendent Bond and uh executive director larva to work with me on on putting that together I know

122she stepped out for a moment but uh I think that that it's important not just for East but but when we think about ALC and Denfeld and it's important for us to get uh student voices to the decision-making table and also for us to think about how can we improve the communications as well with our student bodies member lold so um superintendent bonds or superintendent meas just shared uh you know what I was thinking about too because I he has been talking about this for a long time so we've got to stop kicking that can down the road and and get that inner city because my concern would be that student forum is robust at East but probably non-existent at Denfeld so we have to make sure that there's voices and I'm sure there's a

123lot of alignment from our youth our high school students on the needs and the issues the other thing that I'll I'll put P back a little bit on is that um when you click on school board and it doesn't come to us and you get a sign that says you're not able to there's a reason for that and it's safety for us it's um sometimes Bad actors in our schools that you know might find it funny to do some of that but there are some fixes that I'm sure we can come up with like maybe when it goes to Schoolboard and it's from a student it could say please click here if you are a student please click here and it will go to our um executive secretary first and she can send it out

124with very little knowledge that that's what's happening like the student will certainly feel they got you know their message across that would be one of one of my my observations not that everybody has to agree with that or that um certainly our student represents get get access to to us um with their email and that can easily be done by technology but that's just something I would just have other you know people think about and I definitely understand the one thing I would say that with that is like if you want emails from students to go through someone else I think that's totally fine but if that's the process that's happening just be clear students students wouldn't be upset that the email is going through someone else if they knew that that's what was happening

125but if they felt like they were having direct communication to the board but then they weren't I think that would be frustrating but I yeah good job thank you some some thinking brows and if you have any feedback feel free to share so that we can we can look at it and uh but I think it's important uh representative Taylor You've been waiting and we'd love to hear what you have to share this month um I first want to start off by saying that both Representatives they um the reports were very very great and I feel like mine is not really anything on a major topic it's just something that has been um sets me a bunch by the student body at at ALC um that being the lack of hot school lunches which I'm

126sure you guys all know of um but first I would like to say that um my peers have expressed like their gratitude for um for ALC um not only because of the encouragement that we receive from the staff to succeed in better in better performance in school or just the short days in general that help students with jobs um but just having the support there to of the staff to know that we have someone to go to and someone to understand and actually respect and listen to what we have to say um to me ALC isn't just a program but it's also a Vibrant Community for um of Learners that are willing to be pushed to achieve greatness and if you would like to um any of you would like to be to have a

127tour I could personally give that to you so you could understand and see what um ALC looks like inside what inside of ALC looks like during the day and and during our class time um we are incredibly grateful to for the help and care that we we have received from staff among ALC um but the one significant issue that we have that has been raised to me from the students there has been the the lack of hot school lunches um four topics have been brought to my attention and the those being the minimum one-on-one time with class teachers with sorry with teachers touring class time um the building location and the minimum minimum elective choices and activities or clubs and again the hot the lack of hot school lunches was the one that was raised

128the highest concerns of um we do appreciate the lunches that we receive and we just there there has been there has been feedback given to me that um it's not really appealing to the the students um at DLC that it's they just don't really like it as much as having the choice to have a hot school lunch um for an example on Monday we um for lunch we receed like a bag of chips and cheese dip and an appetizer as such as a yogurt to go with it um and there was even a student that has that really their message that they got a spoiled milk with their food and it just wasn't that's something I wanted to bring to the attention of you guys because that's not something I would want anyone to have

129to receive for a lunch um um aside from having the one bag of chips and the the cheese dip and the yogurt to go with it um the lunches that we receive um are not great enough for any person to keep them moving in a day and the energy and focus that is required for our class time is highly impacted by the lack of um Nutri nutritious warmal um whether it be that the students are just too tired to do their work or they're not having the energy to do it um it's just in general not as sufficient um we urge the school board to consider the request and work with us to find a solution to what is going on with the hot schol lunges thank you thank you very much and I think

130that that's really important for us to to uh um think about and we want to make sure that executive director zunich uh is working with us and working with food service to consider what we can do to improve that I didn't mean to jump in um before there were other questions I apologize again I just want to reiterate representative Taylor you don't have to apologize or anything either at this table your your voice is valued and we want to hear everything that you have to say so thank you all right so now I'm going to call on um member Williams and then member Sadowski um to Echo what chair eater said I also want to say like you go to a very different School than member Dean and or representative Dean and that very different

131than representative Garner so your presentations are always going to be different so you don't have it your it was perfect and so thank you for telling us because we're not in the school so thank you for doing that um I do have a question about um I guess the process of getting that lunch that's provided for you like how so um I know at another school that receives um hot lunches from duth public schools that's not a public school there's an email that goes out every day and then students have to select uh what they want and there's a time limit since there's not a kitchen in that school like this is how you get your lunch so is there something that goes out to students every day like so the school knows how many

132lunches to bring um can they select uh what they want and then are there options for dietary restrictions do you know the answer to that um for the lunches all I know for with that I have never personally received the email from the in my personal school email that we have a choice and what we get um usually every day the people who give us the lunches that we receive from dunfield um they just bring them in and then we'll just have our choice there's never really an option for anyone with like other dietary requirements and things um there was I made a survey for the students to fill out um one of those people one of those students um relay that they did ask for like um a meals for them that for because

133of their dietary um issues and they never they it was like they helped them with it once but it was never it was just a one time thing I would say um other than that all I know is that we really only get um the food and lunches that is from Denfeld to us and there's not really a choice that I am aware of that the students can make um for the lunch that we receive one more followup I assume um I guess I don't know I assume for students that do bring their own lunch from home there's a place to keep it cold like there's fridges and microwaves and all of that stuff correct yes um in the in the lobby lobby in the in the main space of ALC there is a a

134very big and nice refrigerator in there and on the side of that there is a nice microwave and a place to yeah if if you want to store your food there you can you're more than welcome to that's what we are told by staff all around um and yeah the microwave is open to everyone if you were to want to grab a snack on the way to class there the refrigerator is there for you or um there are a lot of teachers and stuff um that carry snacks in their rooms because there's not really much in the fridge it's just food that is just sitting there from the past lunches so um yeah PE I wouldn't say people really bring their own lunches from home I wouldn't know but since it's so small it's not

135you can you get Fe you get told like you can you can see around the school if you if that is something that happens um other people would it's since we're like in the Skywalk sorry if we're in the Skywalk so um people sometimes walk to get food from Subway since that's more closer or down to Starbucks but other than that um yeah the the teachers carry snacks in their rooms and food in their room other than the lunches that we receive um for the students to get and I do understand that that's not an option for everybody to go buy a lunch or to bring something from home I was just kind of wondering about options for those that do so I I really appreciate you bringing this up this is good to know

136thank you um I was wondering if you could expand on one of the things that um concerns that were brought was brought to is the oneon-one minimum oneon-one was it teacher time can you expand on that a little bit and share a little bit more about how that um looks and feels for students um since our class periods have been cut in in half and now there instead of there instead of there being six days in the in the class period um there are now three and there are not a and b days and because of that there is minimum class time for teach um for kid for students and teachers to have one-on-one it's more of a process of everything one does their work in class and it if you don't get that done

137you just do it at home or come back the next day to get help or you could do it during DL time which is very nice and supportive I would say I don't personally say they late but it's um nice for kids who do need help and that extra one onone time um but some people don't stay there most people don't stay there because of the fact that they have jobs after school which is why um I'm pretty I'm pretty sure that's one of the main reasons why our class periods reverted back to three three class sessions instead of six um the minimum oneon-one class time that I brought that up in the four major topics because it was said to me by a couple of kids who that did feel like they didn't have

138enough time one-onone with with teachers there to understand the classwork that is that is going on um but other than that um the activities and in clubs I don't really feel like that's something that is a major major issue it's not we don't really we're not in a place where we could even have clubs or activities I would say because of the the spot that we're in um and then the hall launches which I BR up is the main topic so yeah um thank you very much for sharing more about that assistant superintendent Bond thank you and can you just just clarify just a little bit uh regarding the the hot lunch or the lack thereof I know there was a in time where um there was a cold lunch was being provided then we

139were able to start providing the um hot lunches again so are they are you receiving a cold meal all the time or are they a hot meal but they're just coming warm by the time you get them or you know room temperature by the time students get them I'm just curious um from what I was told we don't receive hot lunches in general um that is what I was told I was we get cold lunches um it's not some days uh some I don't personally eat lunch but some of the time other than the the basics Lunchables I would say um there are some days where we would receive salads or [Music] the I'm not actually too sure I would I would definitely get back to you on that if that's possible um but yeah

140most of the time I'm pretty sure we don't receive hot lunges in general we just receive cold lunges um thank you yeah and but again I wouldn't I I'm not too sure around that topic aside cuz I don't eat school lunch myself and we get school lunch at the end of the day so people would leave by then and that one of those people being being me because I have work to get to or I have to go home so to attend to things at home but um yes um from my perspective and what I'm being told we do not receive H lunches in general we just receive cold thank you and I appreciate that and you don't have to get back to me we'll we'll look into this with um our executive director and

141our nutrition staff so I appreciate it we will look into uh your concerns on the warm on the the lack of warm lunches or hot lunches thanks so i' and sorry uh superintendent magas yeah thanks um so I've already reached out to to uh executive director zunich and asking her about the the hot lunches and we've been chatting a little bit too just trying to to see what we can find out we will'll make sure that we get back to you right away and that we we let the board know as well what's up with the the out lunches but I am I am wanting to learn more about the uh the one on like the the teacher time being reduced and cut in half from three periods to six I think that's something that

142we need to to Really uh look further into because I I don't remember that coming like before us in a in a formal way but I think we need to to look at how how that's working and and whether we're meeting number of minutes for students and how that's serving or not serving our students I know there was some pilot programming done but it's important for us to take a look yes we will um provide a status update on programming at alao um at a future c meeting thanks Banks is first oh member banks and then member lold thank you I just wanted to take this time to assure you that uh those of us as board members we do visit uh your campus uh two or three times a year in fact but uh

143I'd be willing to come back and um take another look and walk through with you I know that member loal and uh mik Cel and uh loer kimp we all were on your campus and I know others have probably visited and will do so as well so just know that uh we support you thank you and I shouldn't try to answer this because I think assistant superintendent Bond and superintendent megus will will will really get to the source but when we were visiting and I've shared this with member laugher camp and I think member banks you might remember this that when we were there um president M gley was really very excited and I think we are our visit was in October um end of October he was really excited and he shared with us

144the change in the schedule to a block and allowing students only uh that you know like he was capitalizing on the time that the students that are in need of of of the classes that they were offered so that then afterwards they could go to work so that's one thing that that that there was a a schedule change and um principal geley was was sharing that information you know excitedly about he thought it was really going well and and thought that that was cool so and then the second thing is he did share with us about why there is cold lunch so see if this resonates with you something about the Minnesota Department of Health telling them that they didn't have adequate um adequate like stove or or areas within their little kitchen area within

145ALC to to adequately assure that there was no Health concern so they were told by the Department of Health that they could only be I'm served cold Bunch so I remember that from an HR Business Services meaning sorry to interject and I know that um it's something that we've been aware of I I thought it had been um amended or fixed that issue so I'm sure they'll look into it more like we've talked about also you know when we're looking ahead to our first Street Building um we're taking all those all that feedback um and those issues into consideration to make sure that there's a really nice facility for our ALC that's really important to us Y and and you're correct that that was an issue and I too thought it was resolved I thought

146we found a workaround uh that was uh agreeable but we will again we'll look into it um to verify and you know the concerns that have been shared thanks um superintendent magas uh pretty much what he said um I I did just go on um I did just go on the district website and looked at um you know my School menus and I did notice Monday the 3 at ALC they the lunch entree was tortilla and chips and a cheese cup with the sorted vegetables and then some other things and then um when you compare it to look at what Denfeld which probably is the same at East on that s on that same day um their meal just looked a little bit maybe maybe more robust and I understand that we're in that position

147but Monday the 3D Denfeld and East had chicken tenders potato Smiles a sort of vegetables and I'm just hoping that we can maybe make sure there's some parity when we think about what's what's happening and I'm sure I'm sure I just wanted to maybe take a peek at the difference in the lunch um being served so thank you so much representative Taylor for bringing that forward do do we have any other questions or should we move on to the superintendent's report oh yes sorry I just wanted to add something really quick that we at East we also do have like a we have like the hot lunch time but then we have a we also have like a cold lunch option but our cold lunch option is like a box and it comes with like

148a sandwich and a cheese stick and a bag of apples and like it's like a full meal so we obviously have the resources like even if like providing the like the hot lunch for like food regulation reasons like we can't the hot contenders but it like at East we obviously see like there are full meals provided as like a cold bag lunch so we have those options there so I don't know I just I think this just further exemplifies our um desire and opportunity to first of all that we love having the student reports but also thinking about what can we do to have a u more robust um student voice opportunity through a student Advisory Group because then we can have appropriate people at the ready to answer some of the questions um tonight

149I know uh executive director zunich uh was um is out uh for for other reasons and um so she wasn't able to answer some of the questions but I know she has some of the answers but I think this just further exemplifies let's get this going let's figure it out and and uh your voices are important and uh appreciate it as far as our my superintendent report a few other things I I'm sure we could talk all night about uh the budget reductions and realignments um but I will keep that uh concise and we also have a very brief piece on the Spanish Immersion just kind of some things we have going on as well as some legislative updates and I'll I'll keep my report as brief as possible but if there are further questions

150we want to make sure we're ready for um and I don't have any blank slides to add things to but uh I they're they're all filled in with what I had prepared and and posted but we have our our um our guiding change document we've worked we've worked through I I've not seen a more robust uh collaborative process in budget reduction in in my time as a administrator teacher or other setting I know that that might not no matter what when you have to reduce by the amount that we're reducing we're going to hear we're going to hear some pain and it's it's not pleasant it's hard this is one of the times in leadership that it is difficult because we're hearing people that are very frustrated about loss of things that really matter and

151they matter to all of us I I care a lot about our libraries I care a lot about um our our uh different programs I care a lot about the the areas where we've had to make reduction unfortunately the resources we have part of it is the mathematical equation of the cost of Education goes up by 5% a year and we are lucky to get two or 3% in in funding increase and so every year we are have that that uh that Gap um we're also trying to to make sure that we are focusing things on class having less impact on on classroom uh I know uh for instance you know we're some of the things that we're talking I don't want to get into a debate or a bottle of of listening session I

152don't think that that's that's the time or place for it um but I would I would reiterate that the work that that our team did as well as the work that we did with with uh executive director zunich I've I've met with probably over well over 50 times with various people in the past um in the past six to eight months and we we try we try to inclusive but no matter what when you have to make those reductions it it's difficult um and we can always do better we always trying to think about what like I think here particularly student voice um I'd say that student voice is probably the area that we lacked most it was we did make make some Outreach we have met with a couple of student groups but it

153was it was relative relatively perfunctory it was not an in-depth deep deep ongoing dialogue with our students and and I think think we can do better in that regard um we did talk about the budget reductions and uh the displacements that we had uh the displacements took place after our last regular school board meeting um those were conversations that were had individually with staff members and then there were displacement letters sent after that uh there is uh one thing we've we've talked about too there there's a a second round of displacement that comes partly through the scheduling process and that's something that always uh for the most part when we look at scheduling what happens is is we have course requests come in and then we look at how many students have signed up for

154particular courses and then we we make determination how much uh how much FTE or Staffing is allocated to those those courses so uh it's based partly on how many people sign up for it if you have um 150 people sign up for Spanish that's roughly a full-time person because you'd have five classes of of 30 um but if you end up with 20 people signing up for Spanish you might have a point2 of Spanish or you might have um you know if there's even less you might have to determine that there that you weren't running that particular course and and so there might be reduction in staff there so in March we're as our secondary schools go through the scheduling process there is going to be a little bit of um belt tightening when it

155comes to the uh courses that we have there so that's something that that uh as we look at those registration cards there's still um I don't have the exact figure but it's it's um under $200,000 worth of reduction that we'd be making between the two sites based on um the Staffing uh or the U the course choices so that will be something that is still coming forward in addition to some of the changes that we're making um in some of the district level positions and we'll be meeting with members in the coming days about that so um that is kind of a summary of our our um budget reductions piece um I'm totally willing to answer any additional questions but I'll I'll move on for now and then if we have further questions we can

156come back Spanish Immersion uh we at the expansion there I appreciate um director um sparts uh helped with updating some of the slides last tonight we had a parent meeting at uh Myers Wilkins and I was uh glad to attend it was a great opportunity for collaboration with some of our families uh talking about the changes there'll be a couple of other upcoming events uh this this week yet as uh as you can see there at both Myers Wilkins and at L uh and then uh in March there there will be some some additional changes there so I just wanted to these were some of the things we talked about uh previously but we fleshed them out a little a little bit more there's more detail to them and we want to assure uh the

157board but also our our community and our families that we are going to make sure that we scaffold well around this this expansion of of Spanish Immersion federal government updates again another area that we could probably talk about all night uh but things are such a a changing field it's it's hard to to Really um pinpoint exactly where we are but a c couple of of key points we continue to monitor uh some of the the federal government changes and their impacts on our schools immigration is one thing that we always are are focused on I've met with our our uh adult education English language learner students just to talk about you know where are we as a district and what what can we do um we we also want to think about you know

158look looking at what our legal team allows and doesn't allow and then we're also hearing about uh potential reductions in the Department of Education uh as far as funding some of the budget uh proposals that are are being floated about at the uh Congressional level there may be significant reductions in funding uh we are not counting on those things happening but I think we have to realize that that we aren't it's difficult to know what what to count on or not count on related to Federal funding at this point and so we're we're um keeping a very close watch on that also uh in my meetings with our other um Association of metropolitan school district superintendant we're we're planning to have some additional opportunities for conversation about about those those uh funding impacts and also

159how can we continue to advocate in a way for uh the resources that our students need uh then also uh related to uh gender identity that's something that has come up uh with with some of the um the um there was the dear colleagues letter that came out from the the president about um some of the um enforcement of changes and and related to gender identity but our uh Minnesota attorney general's office last last Thursday uh shared a legal opinion that uh the at this point they're they're viewing the Minnesota human rights act as superseding the uh the dear colleagues piece and so we will continue to follow that guidance and we'll continue to monitor those situations closely as they develop um for a number of reasons we want to make sure all students feel

160welcomed and safe and we also want to try and communicate as clearly as we can despite the rapidly Changing Times I I would just add to thinking about funding sources coming from the Department of Education and the recent budget that the House of Representatives I believe passed tonight is looking at taking big chunks of funding out of Medicare and Medicaid and especially when we think about Medicaid like 50% of um the babies that are born in this country are born um using not using Medicaid but are paid for by Medicaid um and so thinking about the structure of this budget we are going to be having kids that are going to be have less Access to Health Care um their physical health care their mental health care less access to food if they do they're

161proposing for SNAP so we are just going to have not only thinking about the funding crisis from the Department of Education but those social services and those social safety nets that may we may not have in the future and thinking about how we educate kids that are coming to school maybe with not as much food not getting the access to health care that they need so this is just a very shifting landscape when we think about the health and safety of the kids that are going to be coming through our doors very much agreed and it's a time when I think our our thoughts about uh what's ethical and what's moral come into question too and how do we how do we continue to do what we need for our students and Advocate what we

162know is needed and what we know is right uh when it is seeming to face opposition and I know that might be controversial to say but I think it's important for us to stand up for what we believe in as a school district and a superintendent and that's that's where I'm at uh and I know you are as well uh legislative updates uh as we mentioned we prepared for a lot of robust uh lobbying during the duth days uh the duth and St count I should I I need to make sure that we mention duth and St Louis County days at the capital uh I did uh testify to support certain aspects of house file six during that mainly the read act uh there were some other things in house file six that were not

163things that I would necessarily uh support on behalf of the school district but overall the redact funding I thought was was important uh my testimony was cut a little bit short and and uh so there were some things that I might have mentioned that I was not as much in favor with house file 6 but I do think it's important that we have proper funding for the re act it's uh we've heard about the impact we know it's very beneficial and also some of the testimony I would say during the re Act is maybe it's a little late but my my opinion it's pretty dogmatic about scence science-based reading I think that knowing quite a bit about literacy uh two things can be true we can we can need phonemic awareness and we also can

164need to make sure that we're teaching in context and exposing kids to to books in in natural ways and natural settings and so I think both both things can can be beneficial to students and so I think that we need to make sure that we are uh thinking about about that because the reading Wars pendulum has swung uh from side to side uh for the my entire career and I think it's important for us to to remember that that the read act and letters training are incredibly important and it's also important to to make sure that we're fostering uh students love for Learning and and reading in context as well uh we also have multiple bills authored including the bills for the duth promise and our special education funding anomaly situation that we've talked about

165for years where we were uh basically kind of undercompensated for some of our special education uh funding and member lold and I will be uh testifying early tomorrow morning at the Senate uh education finance committee uh so we'll be leaving after after our meeting tonight and heading down uh yeah woohoo um and um thank you to um to chair Durk eer uh we talked about it and and you weren't able to attend but we put it out to our officers but we want to we want to continue to find different ways that we can all get down there and uh continue to lobby for the legislative changes we want I know we have our Masa uh day at the Capal and the amsd days at the capital so we want to make sure that we're

166continuing to uh look for those additional funding opportunities and that concludes my report member laugher Kemp and then member Lal and then member banks sorry thank you great report I I just wanted to add I I appreciated your legislative updates and this is really more for the public uh when we were at St Louis County days um Del Luth and St Louis County days we also many of us attended the Senate education finance committee on February 12th and the Minnesota Department of Education did an excellent presentation on the success of the Minnesota free School meals programs and they really tied it into attendance and many other um things and so I just wanted the public to know that that was uh there was really an excellent presentation and any school staff that might want that

167information I I have the packet here but uh it was uh 212 the Senate education finance committee the success of Minnesota free School meals so just a more of an informational piece and we know how important it was uh for our district so thank you so I'm just going to share um that when we heard about course registration booklets going out and some of our budgets uh connected to how those course courses fill at the high school level it struck me that I should ask our student reps too to help us in this journey because um in my my years in the classroom with my students course registration is blown off they don't do it they don't understand the courses um you know so there's a lot of Disconnect students are not getting the the

168strong information um about how course registration impacts them how it impacts our district and that um a you know a lot of students think that there is just ample time to register and so they delay register through the months of April and into May when we're making crucial decisions about what courses are going to go forward so a big campaign for getting um registrations in for our kids is important as well so just a shout out to how we can work together for better communication but it's it's a challenge um I just had a question about our um our Spanish Immersion meeting last night was that just kind of an open that for All Families coming to Meyers and then the immersion specific one is tomorrow night or this week sometime I know BR Brenda

169left but just I think that's how it was written in the PowerPoint so I'm going to assume that I that that's right there was a uh it was a community schools meeting and it was um one of the the basically one of the main topics was uh the expansion of Spanish Immersion was was intended as kind of the key topic for conversation during that meeting uh but it was it was it was a great event and I just I just want to reiterate um how and you're riding with me so I'm tired so if I'm driv because anybody has no driv I'll get a cup of coffee no as I have my verbal pause there no but how how impressed I am with the Myers Wilkins Community how impressed I am with the principal we

170have there there was to be in the central Hillside in a school where everybody was coming together breaking bread talking positively about education being deeply dedicated being very inclusive uh with inclu intentionality around inclusivity and uh Community it was a it was a really refreshing recharging thing and I think sometimes when we think about uh family and Community engagement some The Superficial way of doing that is kind of doing it to the parents in the community like Hey we're going to have this event you should come to it and really what we should be doing is is really truly engaging and making sure that our our parents and families are part of our decision-making process they're feeling welcomed we have a sense of community and I thought that it was really uh nicely cultivated there

171and I I couldn't be uh more proud of of the uh leadership that we have there uh through that process but as far as the additional meetings yes there are additional meetings that are more specific for parents who are interested in in further exploring having their kids uh enter into the Spanish Immersion for both kindergarten and first grade uh and again the reasons why just kindergarten in first grade is because um because once they get a little older it's they're it's too too challenging to immerse into a language that you haven't already been like the second grade students will be too far along for those students at that point thank you just a quick question for I believe for the superintendent maybe somebody else can ask answer this question with regard to the legal opinion

172from last week from our attorney general I think that's great do you know if he if he has made um any similar opinions with regard to diversity equ equity and inclusion overall um not that I'm aware of but there was just a um and I think I forwarded it I'll double check to make sure but uh commissioner jet who I also spoke with yesterday uh he sent out some information related to some of the diversity Equity inclusion aspects of the work I think we're all working in a difficult time where we're trying to determine how how do we continue the work that's important without sticking our necks out and getting our heads chopped off so to speak sorry but that's the way it feels I I would just add quick that um National Association of

173diversity officers for the colleges I was just trying to pull this up has um sued in federal court over some of the stuff that's happening in higher education so the National Association of diversity officers and higher education has sued the Trump Administration around some of their language and grants over diversity equity and inclusion and the courts talked about how you can't punish speech so it's really coming to so the courts are working it out I I'm a little bit more familiar with higher education but in terms for um K through2 public education I'm assuming that that would come down there as well yeah and that's why I asked the question as to whether our attorney general went to the next level and said hey we're not going to adhere to that either so thank you

174I think it does bring up a lot of questions though I mean we've talked tonight we we heard from our ape group for instance what are we doing to make sure that we're recruiting and retaining diverse uh representative parents uh or not parents but um employees that that look like our students we think about what are we you know next month we mentioned that at the committee of the whole we have what are you know a report on what are we doing for recruiting and retaining and grow your own programming and such I think um it's Central to the work that we do to try and make sure that our our our the people that we have serving our students represent our students well and can empathize and identify with our students can I just

175jump in and say that in talking with my colleagues at our Board of school administrators um who are all teachers and superintendents you know the the the D and Dei is also very much connected to disabilities and students so special education funding you know there's there's movement currently in States across the country country to um not fund at all so sometimes when we're going down to the state legislature with a big ask to to fund our cross subsidy I mean we we open up you know that conversation as well because there are states in our country who are taking special education out of public schools currently in their legislative um offerings to not offer the idea for special education that's kind of scary and and I would add that it also includes women um as

176a father of two um young adults I mean the Dei also under attack are um things related to women when we talk about increasing the amount of uh women who are in certain professions and Fields there are lots of efforts out there to increase um participation in engineering and stem you know for women who are white black brown doesn't make a difference so um so it's it's bigger than just what I think some folks are um focused on which is mostly race but it's it's the ramifications are wide and so we just all need to be aware of that and and figure out how we're going to continue to advocate for what's right for everyone member ller count sorry I just had to throw in a thought before I fall asleep and I got to

177be up uh at airport tomorrow morning myself so I got a pack yet but um I uh I I think you know this discussion that we're having and thinking of the legislative initiatives and the um uh what's happening federally just really speaks to the important role that we all have as Schoolboard members and City councilors and County Commissioners at the local level we have a lot we can control at the local level and that um weighs on me a lot uh as these National decisions are being made so I just think you know the work we're doing as board members and and our our colleagues um uh around the region uh it's so important right now and it's so important that we are L are focused on doing right for our staff and doing right

178for our students students um so I'll just add that and I know this board is focused on that seeing um oh sorry this is backtracking quite a bit but I just wanted to respond to what um member Lal was saying about course registration that I think that in past years that really has been an issue and I feel like this year at least at East our counselors did a phenomenal job of you know every class had a me um in the auditorium to talk about course registration we went through what our options were what requirements we needed they talked about whether you know how to determine if an AP or cits class is the best for you we heard a lot about new electives so I definitely think if you know we heard we learned

179about how um we did the registration in our classes but then we were told how to get in contact with people if we needed to change it later on and I know like for Student Government the date that we need to have our board for student government chosen next for next year got way moved up so then those class lists are finalized much further in advance so I know that's like such a side topic but I just wanted to respond to that and say that I think this year we did a really good job of it so if there're if you that's an issue you see in other schools I'd say the East counselors did a phenomenal job there so that definitely be a good place to start if that's something you want to see

180Improvement in SP back but I I know that denel counselors do as well but as a former teacher there I just know that it just Falls away from many of our students um probably not some of them that are you know really listening but especially nth graders that's where I I SP spent my time so we have to kind of get them up but I also know that teachers spend a great deal of time in their classrooms as well all right what a robust convers ation so now we're moving on to our report of the standing committee so assistant superintendent Bond would you like to report on our monthly Committee of the whole yes and I'll keep it brief because it was um a meeting that had only two uh presentations and so I want

181to thank uh Todd mcgaan who is our coordinator for um mtss um mental health and social emotional behavioral he has a long title um so I want to uh thank him and uh his guest for providing an update related to our PBIS um structure that we have in the building again PBS is uh positive behavior intervention and supports it's um how we approach creating positive learning environments in our schools and there are teams of individuals who are working at each site to um again to uh develop strategies and Implement those strategies in schools to create positive learning spaces and so he provided some information related to all of the efforts that are underway and our second presentation was given by executive director uh zunich and it's was uh with regards to our budget and so

182she provided a a brief budget update and that ended the cow meeting but it was a it was a long meeting but it was a um tight in terms of the presentations thank you do we have any questions and I just um was alerted by our clerk that I did not point out that we have a schedule of our meeting meetings and events as part of our um whatever this is called board book so it gives us the next couple weeks into March so thank you next we have our human resources and business services whoop whoop committee so chair Sadowski I will try to keep it brief but as usually we uh as usual we cover a lot in this um committee meeting um we met on Tuesday February 11th before heading down to um

183duth in St Louis County days and I'll start with our human resources um monthly Department summary report um the payroll team was working um feverishly in January to print and mail all the W2s um January um was also a busy month because they were working through um displacements and communicating with staff um in January uary the HR leadership team attended the um maspa winter conference and there was also a retirement session for folks who um might be considering retirement in the next couple years some things that we're working on um that was in this meeting um update is a uh District recruitment plan and American Indian recruitment plan um there's a transportation hiring event that's coming up and then some other career um and hiring events that they're planning for March um and if you

184want more details on those it's in our packet and you could watch the HR business report but um as usual there's also information about um certified appointments leaves resignations and retirements and then I will move on to our business services report um taking a look at our enrollment report um as usual there's a lot of data there year-to date um net we're still up 6172 students um so that is really good news um for our district and then I just wanted to point out on page eight let's see there's a nice handy little graft um isd709 active enrollment by the month and if you look at that graph you'll see in in the kind of the miror gold cover color is this year 2425 and over all um the months all except for one we're

185up still um October November December January February compared to years 21 22 and 22 23 and 23 24 so I thought that was interesting to um kind of look at I'd encourage you to look through all of the data there any questions so far if not um move on to the Child Nutrition report total meals and snacks served to date is 1, 370,000 we're working they're working on updating the wellness policy um doing some preliminary summer meal planning um held a um oven training and then um we discussed some current Staffing challenges that are happening um just like any organization still dealing with Staffing as usual moving on to our facilities Department report get up to the next page here um Myers wilin um gym repairs are completed so that was kind of the exciting

186news for facilities our students at Myers Wilkins are able to get into the gym full-time run around not just half the gym that was really good to hear um things that we're working on coming up uh the solar project installation um a buildout for some new classroom spaces at Myers Wilkins um and a few other things there was also um a retirement staff Scott cob um no he was rehired sorry he was rehired to the district as a parttime painter and we kind of had a conversation about that and how significant that is to our buildings and we're really happy to have him back any questions can I just chime in y so so Scott was in Denfeld last week when I was there working with the speech program and um and he was he

187was the painter when when I was in the classroom and he was just so excited that this opportunity kind of opened up he retired the same year I did and and um just really appreciated the idea of being able to come back in So when listening to the HR Finance I just thought oh I just saw him that was so cool perfect and our buildings will just kept fresh and clean and that'll be great nothing like a fresh coat of paint I think um but I'll move on to our safety report um which was kind of a new report um I think before it was maybe um included in other other areas um but uh we had an OSHA report um that we gave we ended up with 22 recordable injuries which are any injuries

188that require treatment Beyond first aid um but we still have a really good oser rating of 2.19 um it's a little over our goal but it still means that just over two people were r so it was still a really good report um some things that we're working on coming up are some fire inspections um and then um if you look at the report you'll see a bunch of different interesting categories Audits and inspections um regulatory Reporting System technology updates training um and then waste disposal so all these things that are really important to make sure we keep our schools safe um but I just wanted to highlight under the training that Lexi was awarded uh Minnesota Department of Public Safety um Homeland Security and Emergency Management certification for school Emergency Management so that's really

189good to hear and when I think about our student report um on safety hopefully that'll kind of trickle down and um can make sure that we're communicating on safety a little bit more moving on to our technology report um the transition from former manager Bart Smith to our current manager Peter Graves see seems to be going very smoothly um we want to thank Bart for all the conversations for just making that transition um go smoothly for Peter and then the um technology team um some things that they're working on right now um on getting the network to stabilize and then of course ongoing fishing campaigns always an issue and then over the summer they're planning to do a big um switch from Windows 10 to Windows 11 so I'm sure that'll be a lot of

190work for them and I'm sure there's a lot lot of planning kind of moving forward and then I will move on to our transportation department report um continue to Route students keeping the buses on the road and safely transporting our students um right now they're working on system improvements like finalizing the back end of some field trip software um and and things like that are just kind of streamlining processes to save time and and improve efficiency um in the Staffing report we're still running on an average of 14% absenteeism with our drivers but as we said and talked about in our meeting that is um kind of in line with what maybe a voyager bus company would be seeing as well um and we were also able to hire a new bus driver trainee and

191a driver which was great any questions so far all right well we'll move on to our resolution the resolutions that we have um this time is the acceptance um of donations to duth public schools and I'll bring that one forth a little bit later but I'd encourage you all to take a look at the generous um donations to D with public schools from our community members then I'll move on to our consent agenda that's where we have a more detailed um information for our HR Staffing report um we also have our financial report I would just point out really quickly um just you know as you look at our financial report each um month you'll see our different funds um those funds are restricted to um paying for certain different certain things for example our

192general fund that's primarily where we fund our teachers out of whereas for example um projects that we're doing for the First Street buildout are solar those are coming from different funds and and we're not not able to spend those funds on other things like salaries so I think it's just really important to um kind of point that out as we see as we all know that we're having to make these really difficult um budget cuts and sometimes members of our community have those questions about well why are you you know maybe why are you building this building or doing this solar when um we're having to cut staff and really um we we don't have the flexibility to dip into certain funds for paying for salaries so I just wanted to point that out um

193any questions on any of that remember LEL I'll do my best but you know Simone's not here so um I just did you already go did we just kind of bypass the um the solar the solar Grant or the solar bid that was nope I coming that I haven't bypassed that that's coming up um right after fundraisers um we could talk about our bids rfps and quotes and things like that but I'm glad you're you brought that up so um yep so we have a couple uh one fundraiser are listed for Lester Park um and then um if you look at our bids rfps and quotes um let me look take a look at my notes here most of them are for the internet um at our buildings so internet service providers um things like

194that you'll see you know obviously technology like that is very expensive but we will get half of it back um from eate funding so you'll see quotes in there um and then the last one that we see um was for solar um on Lincoln Park I believe hopefully I'm right on that um and we had uh put out an RFP and we got one um bid from Wolf Track energy for $36,250 cents so we'll be going with that one um and that is for solar I believe at Lincoln Park perfect at the at your HR Finance no I don't think anybody shared that but I mean that would that would be great but I is so is the 36 is that bid then shared with the city and with Minnesota Power because that was a

195a partnership or is this the one that's going here or where are yeah well we'll just have to get back we'll have to get back information I could I think we should wait for Simone to answer that I'm going off of my memory and I'm a little tired on tired obviously because it's getting late but we just need to celebrate that there's some movement on the solar project so that's absolutely it's it's really good to celebrate that we have movement on both of them so um and we're very thankful for that we got a good bid on that perfect um let's see here we don't have any contract change orders or releases um if you look at our expenditure contracts there's a lot of them hopefully you looked through um some of them are um

196smaller and some of them are bigger um but a lot of different ones there and then um if we look at our no cost contracts move over here we have two that I would point out um because those are always nice no cost contracts but we have the College of sa Scholastica to continue to offer the pathways to teaching course for the 2526 school year which is a CIT agreement and then there's one um for boost my school which is a trial program for Lincoln um Lincoln Park Middle School fundraising efforts and we don't have any Revenue contracts and then for Grant applications I did want to point out a few I would really recommend taking a look look at the list of them if you haven't so these are um not necessarily grants that

197we received but like letting the board know that they are um putting they are writing these grants and they're going to submit them and so we will approve those tonight just to be able to apply but a couple that I wanted to point out um one was to the Minnesota Department of Education $200,000 and the funds if if we receed them would be used to pay for dedicated FTE to work on um mtss implementation and um summer data Retreats for our site cits professional development for nine individuals at the compass summer Institute and midyear data Retreats for cits and then the other one I wanted to point out was to the Federal Aviation Administration and this one is pretty cool um it was for $993,000 mechanic pathway from duth and Rockridge with Cirus support so

198we will hear more um back we will get updates on those if we get them which would be exciting any follow-up questions and I'm sure we can get your question answered about the solar I hope I gave the right information but if not um Simone can kind of clarify I'm just quick dropping Simone a note for clarification for all of us on that does that work thank you you and so I'm sorry I stepped out and was uh getting the security code so we can arm the alarm after we're we're done um but what was the solar question maybe I can answer in our bids rfps and quotes we had one bid for solar was that for Lincoln Park or here or up here it was for up here oh it was for up here

199okay great thank you I'm 93% sure that's what you get for member laugh I just uh grey wolf is a great company I'm familiar with uh the work that they have done on many solar projects and so I think we can feel real confident I know they helped us write the Grant uh um uh as well but um they're a well-known well-respected Solar Company so um that's great great thank you thank you for sharing that I had heard I've heard of them before and I know they have a good reputation thank you now we move on to policy with um chair laugh thank you thank you and so um 107 pages of policies um 10 policies two regulations I'm trying to condense this but I do want especially for our uh student reps to know

200that when our policy committee started about five years ago we uh always want to read the purpose of the policy publicly just so people are clear on that well many of these policies have many other parts to them so just to be consistent even though I know I could save some time I do want the public to understand the purpose of the policies we're working on so uh here goes um so uh and again thank you uh member michell and and member um lold for being a part of this committee uh policies for the first reading we have two uh we have policy 525 violence prevention and I want to um just kind of lead in on well I'll read the purpose the purpose of this policy is to recognize that violence has increased uh

201and to identify measures that the school district will take in an attempt to maintain a learning and working environment that is free from violent and disruptive behavior the school board is committed to promoting healthy human relationships and learning environments that are physically and psychologically safe for all members of the school Community it further believes that schools are are the first priority and they should be protected from physical or emotional harm doing school activities and on school grounds buses or field trips well under School District supervision um this is a new policy but we it falls under our 500 series which is all related to students um and there's 40 different policies in the 500 series and um and so we we do cover many things that are in this policy already but this is a

202new policy uh that um Jason crane has brought forward and it will probably be a policy that we will have a couple different meetings on because um uh we are bringing together many of our professional staff across the district um to to review it and there's a number of um other 500 policies embedded in this policy so I just want wanted to do a little bit of that explanation that uh uh we we've had other policies like this where we might start the conversation and we might have a couple different readings um often we just do two readings but this particular policy we'll probably have a couple different readings uh and again uh we're looking forward to um our professional staff that work with this uh bringing um further clarification to us at uh next

203month uh and um so um that uh again this is um the a new policy uh and um the next policy that's in its first reading uh is policy 519 interview of students by outside agencies and the purpose of this policy is there are occasions in which persons other than School District officials and employees find it necessary to speak with the student during the school day student safety and disruption of the educational program is of concern to the school district the purpose of this policy is to establish the procedures for access to students by authorized individuals during the school day uh and um we did talk about um uh getting a advice from our district attorney just to clarify this policy uh with current conditions and that we um would like to see a regulation

204uh with this policy as well and again um this is in its first reading um okay uh and it's a new policy uh policies for second reading is policy 806 which we've spent a lot of time on in our policy meeting uh and we mentioned uh member Sadowski mentioned Lexi ne ne nef who's our health and safety environmental coordinator and she uh did a lot of work on this with uh Denette sio who you um heard from uh tonight on some other topics but the crisis management policy the purpose of this Crisis crisis management policy is to act as a guide for school district and site administrators School Employees students Schoolboard members and community members to address a wide range of potential crisis situations in the school district the step-by-step procedures suggested by this policy

205will provide guidance to each School site in drafting crisis management plans to court coordinate protective actions prior to doing and after any type of emergency or potential crisis situation each School District should develop tailored site specific crisis management plans for each School site in the school district and the sections or procedures may be added or deleted in these crisis management plans based on site needs the school district will engage in ongoing emergency planning within the school district and with emergency responders and other revent community organizations the school district will ensure that revent uh emergency responders in the community have access to their site specific crisis management plans and will provide training to School District staff to enable them to act appropriately in the event of a crisis and again we've had crisis management policies this

206is a review of it uh and a lot of changes were made um uh and often a lot of changes come from um uh legislative changes so this is our second reading again uh of that policy and um it'll be replacing uh 4044 safety of student staff and public and 4040 R School District security procedures uh the next policy for student is student attendance policy 503 and the purpose of this policy is the school board believes that regular School attendance is directly related to success in academic work benefits students socially provides opportunities for important important Communications between teachers and students and establishes regular habits of dependability important to the future of the student the purpose of this policy is to encourage regular School attendance it is attended to be positive and not punitive this policy

207also recognizes that class attendance is a joint responsibility to be shared by the student parent or garden guardian teachers and administrators this policy will assist students in attending class and um uh again we've reviewed this there were some statutory changes and the um I'm going to kind of jump to um the regulation um I'll be reviewing uh later on in the agenda but what's new with this is also the the uh there's a new form um that we will uh touch on um under regulations and forms that goes with this policy the next uh policy is are you guys still with me okay okay okay okay I got it too Jill thank you though uh um let you know that y so policy 516 uh and again uh for review for for uh students um

208that this is often legislative changes are why we're reviewing them um uh or we might be uh adding some regulation changes but uh 516 student medication uh and tea health so the title has changed on this one the purpose of this policy is to set forth the provisions that must be followed when administering non-emergency prescription medication to students at schools many areas of this policies was reformatted as well and again if you go to the back you'll see some of the uh legislative uh changes uh statute changes um that were required to to be made we actually did review this policy uh um and adopted it this fall um so again because of statutory changes or not this fall it was in 2023 okay so the next policy is 532 um use of peace officers

209and crisis teams to remove students with IEPs from school grounds um the purpose of this policy is to describe the appropriate use of peace officers and crisis teams to use a restrictive procedure or remove if necessary a student with an individualized education U program IEP from school grounds and again legislative changes um and uh uh that some of the changes just give greater Clarity to what we are doing and um uh again you can see where the state statute changes are on that one we do have a spe a separate policy um for special ed with with holds as well so uh the next policy is policy 535 service animals in schools uh the purpose of this policy is to establish parameters for the use of service Animals by students employees and visitors within school

210buildings and on school grounds and this really guides our district in set in those parameters uh and um uh we um again there were some um some changes uh that were made uh stat uh with State statutes uh the last time we reviewed this policy which was in um 2022 we spent a lot of time on it and again want to thank Jason crane on that uh the next policy for review is 608 uh and that's instructional Services special education the purpose of this policy is to set forth the position of the school board on the need to provide special Educational Services to some students in the school district and again uh legislative changes are why we're reviewing this and um okay are you guys with me okay H 515 um is protection and privacy

211of PR pupil records and this is replacing 1150 requests for information on students uh we did make changes on this um uh uh recently but uh the purpose of of this is the school district recognizes its responsibility in regard to the collection maintenance and dissemination of pupil records and the protection of the Privacy rights of students as provided in federal law and state statute a lot of definition changes or there's some definition changes here uh and um we had revised it uh uh and adopted it uh and looked at this uh uh in June of 2023 so um bringing it back because of those uh changes that were state statute changes uh the next policy then is policy 504 uh and this is student dress and appearance the purpose of this policy is to enhance

212the education of students by establishing expectations of dress and grooming that are related to educational goals and Community standards uh and um this is a policy again that we spent a lot of time and got a lot of student input on back in um uh 2023 um much conversation happened around it uh when it was last adopted um why we're bringing it back really is because we also have a a a regulation so a form that is um uh is um that that that we've made changes on uh and so if you go to 504 are under the regulation and forms that's where kind of the changes are uh we we just made it more um what would be the word we'd want to use appropriate uh we took out some language that just um

213wasn't change yeah it wasn't change it wasn't needed so that is the policies for the second review um and then the only thing I would say is um under regulations again I reviewed the student dress uh there's a new form for first re well to for informational purposes uh 503f the form to appeal for excus absences and you all got a copy of that and I did want to say oh here it is um so again more for informational purposes but if you go to the end of it I I just want to note the Minnesota statute 12822 um that um uh that this this this form really is attached to and the language of it uh and this is in the student family handbook okay so um that we had a a lots of

214great discussion uh in our policy committee uh and uh we're just uh doing great work really tackling lots of policies um and right now a lot of policies around the 500 Series so any questions okay okay so I just want to um lift up the the second reading for 806 and going to member Dean that it's that it's that crisis management um policy we we need more work you're you're spot on with how you are listening to your your student voices but we you know we do spend a lot of time on you know on crisis management and I would I would hope and I I I think I can be fairly assured that the staff at East and at Denfeld and in all of our buildings know this policy and it's hanging on the

215walls in all of our buildings but we still need to make sure our students understand that that um they are that our teachers are are very concerned about safety and about crisis management whether it is a gas leak or if it's something a little bit more you know um looming so I hope you can come back and communicate that as well but that's that's the policy and and it is you know it is important and it is um it it is kind of a lengthy one as as well as the um 515 is 29 pages long as a policy for our privacy of pupil records which is very um important at this time in our in our state and in our world thank you and and I would I would just add um you know

216I one of the uh wonderful things about being a Schoolboard member is we learn a lot about policies because that's such an important part of our job is to um work with policies and um so I you know as a way to educate you know other students um all of our policies are on our website uh you could have a Heyday of just reading through policies run I have a policy read with ice cream or something um and um um but there there's just a lot of work goes into making sure we have policies that meet our state statutes which many policies do and there it's all about protecting our our students and our staff in multiple policies so I I add that and as I wrap up this part of the the my report

217I just also want to thank again Patty p who is the keeper of our policies and moves our policies to our first and second reading and um and in with all the revisions that that we provide and and and make so thank you okay um yep I'll keep it brief um in that uh the crisis management one I know there was a lot of efforts put in place to communicate and educate our families and as well as our students through various videos that were sent out related to um what lockdown means and secure and so forth I know there's a lot of information sent out to students and families and I'm just uh we'll take a look at maybe how it was received or how students actually view those things and maybe we need to

218do a refresher or uh just do a better job of making sure we have during the school day opportunities for students to actually review those materials and um read those materal versus um sending them out and thinking that students might read them or families might read them yeah I just say I think that even just sending those things out again would be really useful because I don't I mean it might I definitely did get it if it went out to everyone but stuff like that gets lost in my inbox and like in that student form meeting people were just saying that they don't feel like they've gotten information which can also be an issue on R end that high schoolers are not good about reading their emails and that's just a fact and I also

219feel like this is really important information I like took notes of those policy numbers so I'll try to like share some of that back out to them excellent and you know encourage students to pull out that handbook because so much of our handbook is about policies so thank you now we're moving on to yep no more questions okay now we're moving on to General board committee updates do we have any general board committee updates oh member Williams I have very lengthy updates on all of my committees um just kidding parks and wreck was cancelled because of St Louis County and duth days yay um I had to leave eak early um but we did have a speaker give me a second I wrote it down oh our F coordinator uh lindsy Bruce and I'm sure

220other things happened but I had to leave early um and that's what I have I I think I missed APAC in February thank you do we have any other member lold and then member member La camp and then member just just because I want the public to hear particularly the public that might be our school staff that um March 1st uh 2025 is the deadline for writing a Delo Superior Community Foundation endowment fund Grant so March 1st uh um is a deadline to get those grants written okay member Lo so did I miss an e what did you say that was there was a speaker there okay it's late that's um okay I don't know yeah okay um but there is a meeting next next week so we'll go there just uh two I don't

221I S I sit on the board of school administrators it's called Bosa and that's an appointment by the governor so it's not one of our official committees but it it is a monthly meeting that I go down every month to the cities but you know as school board members the whole point of this committee is to assure that our lures are are are are done that we have the right people with the right lures principles have to have principles and and all of the variances we we share um whether you know sometimes there's a variance directors of community ed are very hard to find and so there's a lot of variances as they get their lure but there is a disconnect we're I'm you know I don't want to toot my own horn but we're

222lucky that I I'm on the board because lures Schoolboard members don't realize that when we approve any contract you know one of the first questions I asked when we were hiring principles from Wisconsin was will will they have the right Minnesota lure um because if you go ahead and hire them and then they don't or they didn't approve the variance it just gets lost so just a a thank you to our administrators because our lures are always paid up um and it's important that we know that special education directors um Community Ed director ctors deans of students many deans of students depending on what the role that they're serving in their building also need a principal's license if they're doing evaluations or they're doing some other behavioral things and and then the other shout out

223is that we employ people in HR that code those star report um admin the what the title and if they're coded wrong or the title's wrong um that's that's in trouble for the district and so just think there's a lot in in those areas that we all find whether it's going to eak or it's going to intergovernmental or to parks and wreck we sit on these committees that have really important connections to the work they do so that's my board report um member Sadowski I I'll be very brief I'm sorry we um we had an intergovernmental meeting last week that went well there was a um and I'm tired there they had a lot of really good questions just about some of our budget cuts and the Spanish Immersion switch um some of the city

224counselers did so that was good to um communicate with them and then um The Head Start policy Council was a virtual meeting on February 13th um and I just wanted to share that a lot of our um Head Start policy Council parents who volunteer to be on this you know Council on this board are going to get the opportunity to go to the Minnesota Head Start ass association annual conference which is um held in Brainard in April um so just a really good opportunity there's Head Start funds that allow these parents to go and have that opportunity to learn um with other parents and I thought that was um worth sharing I'm sorry member laugher Camp I'm saying I'm sorry now I I I but I I have to say it because I was just

225there before uh coming here tonight so um I've been Serv in uh on a committee um uh with uh art teachers from across the district and community members uh which is a grant that was received with the per from the purage center of the Arts and um the grant is to um uh uh do planning with the community on how we can strengthen our Arts community and share resources and and many other things so um they had a uh a panel discussion earlier today um uh that I was a part of and and uh many of our art teachers from across the district were there and community members that support our public school art programs in many ways and so I just wanted to lift them up and you'll hear more about this uh Community

226um uh uh planning effort uh and thank our many art teachers across our district for doing it on a volunteer basis uh to make this happen with community members and businesses and um uh and uh our art museums and and many other community groups thank you all right I'm cutting everybody's mic off at this point so Moving On We're GNA go on to the consent agenda and I'm looking for a motion to approve the consent agenda excellent um we're going to take member Willi as the move and then member banks is the second um do we have any discussion do we have any discussion do we have any discussion seeing no further um discussion all those in favor please signify by saying I I opposed motion carries we have approved our consent agenda moving on

227to number 12 resolution from committee reports we have acceptance of donations to the duth public school throwing it to you member Sadowski all right I'm going to move um shoot where is it resolution b-225 d489 um Don um acceptance of donations to duth public schools so um whereas Minnesota statute 4653 requires a school district to accept donations by resolution um I am moving this forward um on there you will see a lot of in kind donations which is great everything from a telescope fabric samples winter gear case of Kleenex knitted mittens and then there were also some other um Financial um contributions that um we're going to a couple field trips so I move that resolution do we have a second um member lold seconded um do we have any discussion do we have any

228discussion do we have any discussion seeing no further discussion all those in favor of this motion please say I I opposed motion carries moving on to our next resolution and action items I'll throw it to member loal actually me no I'm sorry member ller Kemp uh I move resolution SP2 25490 School Board member attendance at nsba MAA and amsd days at the capital resolve that Independent School District 709 St Louis County pay cost and Curtis per District policy for Schoolboard members to attend uh ma uh days at capital on March 10th and March 24th do we have a second member William second do we have any discussion do we have any discussion do we have any discussion seeing no discussion all those in favor of this motion please signify by saying I I opposed motion

229carries we have no questions or anything else and now we move on to adjournment do we have a motion for adjournment um member banks moves do we have a second we don't need discussion on this