##VIDEO ID:nGr-_WUyL0o## first slide hi thank you for having us my name is Abby I'm Sasha and my name is Grace and we're members of Project Earth the Adina High School environmental club we are here to thank you for applying for the grant to obtain electric school buses for the district this is a step in promoting a healthier community and Works hand in hand with the din climate action plan many of us rode in school buses in elementary school and kids of all ages ride the buses every day as they are vital for transportation to and from school but Rising but riding de sorry but riding diesel vesses can particularly particularly cause health detriments for children at elementary school age while they are growing one out of 20 kids have asthma which is regularly triggered by the tox fumes generated by diesel school buses according to the National Health in of Institute of Health a kid riding a school bus may be exposed to up to four times the level of diesel exhaust as someone in a car ahead of it and it is even worse in the back of the bus during the winter where the windows are closed Additionally the level of school bus exhausts is up to four times as much as cars bus drivers who have to drive to school the school buses every day are specifically affected by the fumes which can H have damaging effects instead using our two new electric school buses will significantly benefit the health of both students and bus drivers as well as the environment Minnesota needs to have electric buses because of the harsh impacts in the winter time when there are so many buses and when Transportation routes go all across the city it makes me feel guilty that not just me and my classmates but my family members my neighbors and my community are all affected by the exhaust and pollution from the stops and start that these dozens of buses make multiple times a day throughout our city it feels very counterproductive to have this means of transportation that can take so many people at once and can be so useful in bringing energy back to the grid and has so much potential to be sustainable not live up to its potential Edina is defined by excellence and this is yet another step that we are thrilled the city is taking to guarantee a better future for the children this opportunity is making us yet again a model City one that challenges citizens both in and outside of it to be environmentally conscious thank you we will now be handing it off to Kathy Iverson and Mike menel hello I'm Mike menel um I'm a retired physician and been a resident of Ed for okay for the past 40 years and my name is Kathy Iverson I've been a resident of Edina for 40 years as well and I am a retired Public Health consultant so I'm a founding member of the health professionals for our healthy climate and this organization works with the public um uh to educate the public about the impacts of climate change on health uh among our many efforts uh that we've focused on has been improving the health of uh school kids by advocating for um uh schools and bus companies to adopt electric school buses we are so proud that Edina Public Schools are setting an example and leading the way with a sustainable and renewable energy initiative like electric school buses um so as a student said the electric school buses are uh important for protecting the health of the school children and the bus drivers uh the benefits to them and our community include no harmful uh diesel exhaust and Studies have shown uh that there's better school student performance and less absenteeism uh for kids that are riding electric school buses and also as they mentioned a reduction in respiratory diseases like asthma next slide so we were made aware of the club at Edina High School called Project Earth with high school adviser Eric burine and community members Paul Thompson and Mindy Aller we contacted Paul and Mindy about the possibility of meeting with the students to share information about electric school buses and how they could present sent that information to the dino School Board the students were extremely interested to learn about why electric school buses improve student health and how these buses can uh help address climate change the students created a presentation that was given to the E school board on November 13th 2023 it was an inspiring and passionate presentation so we share our students appreciation um for the decision um by the school board to apply for the uh EPA School Bus Grant uh program and received the award for two electric school buses uh for the district and um so this was made possible through the EPA uh clean bus clean School Bus program which uh is providing $5 billion over uh well uh through 2026 to replace existing school buses with zero uh or low emission Vehicles how can we achieve even more benefits well the latest EPA electric School Bus Grant has just come out for 2024 so we encourage Edina Public Schools to consider applying for the next round of funding as well and additionally the Minnesota Department of Commerce will be releasing their funding soon so school districts are allowed to stack those grants essentially for a free bus it is a strategic way to improve our school bus fleet with significant funding support and let us know how we can help you your transition to clean electric school buses as Abby said provides hope for our school children today and for the school children tomorrow thank you so much [Applause] thank you so much for everyone that came tonight and uh thank you so much for the health professionals for healthy climate for uh bringing all of this information forward and for Project Earth for coming and speaking to us last year about this and then I really want to give um a thanks to um anarie Leland and Mt and Dr Stanley for um applying for the grants and moving forward with that um I you guys thank the board but the hard work is really our administrate our Administration that applied for the grants so we can't take credit for it so thank you very much and thank you to you guys as well so okay we are going to move on um tonight we have um a special report and presentation from Kathy renman who's the executive director of the Dina education fund and she was invited here to um give information to the community and the school district and all of our stakeholders about the impact the D education fund has on us so I'd like to welcome um executive director Kathy rlan thank you thank you chair allenburg superintendent Stanley board of directors cabinet and community members for having me this evening um I am excited to be here as the Adent has just finished off our 29th year in service to the public schools and we are proud to be entering our 30th year of service so pretty exciting jump right into our presentation tonight um we'll start out with our vision and how we are here to service our school district our vision as the Edina education fund is to ensure educational excellence in the Edina Public Schools for all of our students and staff um one of the ways we do this the picture that you're looking at is actually our student leaders of our um mental health group it's called our lead team it's the leaders evolving and developing last year they created a mental health week over at South viw and at Valley View and you're looking at one of the flex session breakouts they did that was hoola dancing um I believe that's over at Valley View so super fun time our mission as an independent Mission aligned partner of the Adina Public Schools the Adina education fund secur incremental funding for districtwide programs and services that strengthen academic learning and support the whole person on their educational Journey we are proud to do this like I said we are entering our 30th year and the picture you see is also from our Mental Health Week um I believe that was actually at South viiew and they are making slime and who we serve all Edina Public School students and staff whether we're doing that through professional development and one of our key areas of literacy mental health or steam or whether we are doing that um through Mental Health Services or any of the other um opportunities that we give our students or our staff so why is it that the Ed fund exists I get this question all the time being a public school you would think that we have all the money in the world um you of course as our board or perhaps as a Cabinet member or people that might be listening in um regularly to board meetings would know that there is definitely a deficit when it comes to public education um we try as much as we can with to work with the revenue that the state gives us but as we all know um usually those expenses outweigh the revenue that we have coming in and it leaves us with a gap um we take our state funding which usually covers about 60% of what we need to run our schools then we cover our local property taxes and other um money that we get from local areas that covers approximately 36% we get a little bit from the federal government and we always seem to have a gap what do we do with that Gap um in the 23 24 school year it ended up being about $4 million were there some certain ways that we approach that first thing we do is we always try to go to the state or the federal government and we tell them that they need to fix it um that's our legislative action committee that's the way that we can talk to our Congress people and tell them that they need to be funding public education since it is public education we always tell our community members that that is the best way to get something done write to your Congress people and tell them that you want public education to be fully funded across the United States the next thing you do is your job is to create a balanced budget that's something that we're very proud of of Eddie Dina that we always do that we do have a AAA Bond rating here we make sure that we work under a balance balanced budget every year sometimes it's painful to do so going through a Berg process last year was not easy and we commend you for doing that but that is something that has to be done um as the education fund we are constantly asked why doesn't the Ed fund step in and save the day for a very good reason we're not part of that process the Ed fund is someone that can step in afterwards step three on the slide is a fundraising effort maybe if there's something that we can Implement early something we can add to something that we can bring back that might have been cut later on but never as part of the budgeting process because it's not sustainable and it's always important that we have a budget that is sustainable and dependable and not that relies on somebody giving we've been around since 1995 and in that time period we've given well over8 and a half million but that's amount the amount that our database can currently track so that's the amount that you see here today pretty proud of that number this year is part of your consent agenda you're going to be receiving tonight um we have donated in last year's actually 23 24 school year $439,500 be our third year that's putting quite a bit of money into the science of reading um as you're going to see later actually I think it's my next slide um we are finishing off a huge fundraising effort to get that professional development for our teachers putting in also quite a bit of money other places in the district as you can see we've got obviously quite a bit of work in the rotary Global Scholars area and then spread out across pretty much everything else we have always done um quite a bit with our senior scholarship program various fiscal sponsorships and other programs throughout the district um we're dabbing into the Edina Alumni Association which came out of our last um Edina Public School strategic plan the Ed fund started up that Adina Alumni Association and we're growing that trying to make sure that we have something that we can capitalize our alumni and bring them back into our schools that we can utilize them for speakers that they feel comfortable in our community and our Broad in and kept as part of our community going forward so what is it that we do well the ad fund has three main programs literacy steam which is stem plus the Arts and mental health and wellness our 2425 goal for literacy is high it's $350,000 to finish off the science of reading that's incredibly High when you consider for the last two years that has been pretty close to what those two years of gold number have been but those two years included a Federal grant to cover a portion of that money this year that Federal grant has been depleted and this entire amount of money will be coming from the community support to make that number happen we are looking for a community to step forward and help us make that $350,000 number um that is not going to come easy so you will see a large campaign this year at asking every family who can give to give at their level that they are comfortable with this year Alone um since July 1st we have already released $44,000 to the district for the signs of reading in the steam area we are looking to raise $81,000 which includes approximately $30,000 for the Arts um the ad fund has not targeted the arts for the last few years and it's something important to our board that we are able to put aside some money this year and raise money specifically for the Arts we've actually set a goal for each of our buildings so we're looking to raise $500 for the Early Learning Center $2500 for each of our elementary schools $3,500 for our middle school and $7,500 for our high school to improve the Arts each of our principles have already been a made aware of this goal and are looking for ways that they can utilize these funds in their buildings to improve their Arts and then our goal for $120,000 for mental health and wellness um the vast majority of these funds go to cover our students that are underinsured or uninsured to make sure that they can access the mental health therapy that we have available in our buildings with our Fraser therapists it costs the Ed fund $1,848 to get our students access to a full rounded mental health therapy that includes 12 sessions which is approximately 3 months of mental health cover coverage during that time our social workers in our building work with the family to see if they can get them coverage after that time periods to ensure a continuity of care and to make sure that that family is taken care of when those three months are up we also have some money set inside there for a discretionary fund um we also have some staff mental health support in there about $30,000 adds up to $120,000 this year of that 120 we are carrying just under $40,000 over the fiscal year end from last year so this year's number we were only looking to raise around $80,000 if that makes sense in addition to our programs we also offer a large number of services within our organization Under the Umbrella of fiscal sponsorships and PTO Partnerships is one of the areas we recently just signed for all of our student Le clubs and activities at unit High School to be covered under the Ed fund this year there are 29 um Student Activities at high school and I believe it's 58 student Le clubs those contracts were signed today by Troy Stein and myself and those student groups will be meeting with me at the end of October to get directions on how they can fund raise under the Ed fund umbrella um for the good of their club or activity we also have numerous other fiscal sponsorships of which one is idani unified that's one of our larger agreements where people can donate to Edan unified and we offer grants for that um organization under our umbrella and this year alone we've offered um $5,500 in Grants under Edan unified and as I said before we have the senior scholar senior scholarships that we offer through our group and also the Adina Alumni Association um coming this spring we anticipate another 58 senior scholarships through the UN education fund and um also we'll work with any Alumni Association groups that come our way that decide that they want to have a reunion this summer usually what we end up doing for them is we will host them on our website for any booking or any groups that they need to do whether it be for their actual event or if they want to have a tour of in high school at some point this summer or this fall or next fall um for their group to come through the high school and actually visit their Alma mat um and we'll take care of that for them this past summer we had the groups of 1974 and 1984 come through and the 1974 group actually set up what they call the Edina Excellence fund and raised $166,000 that was restricted to Edina High School for them to spend this year um as Yu education fund we have set up this year and one of our main goals is to increase our sustaining donor campaign so we encourage all community members to natur just donate to the ad fund but to become a sustaining donor that is something that means the world to us um instead of making a $100 pledge to donate once a year we would encourage people to donate $10 a month um that's something that we can Bank on that's something that we can plan for and that's something that's very meaningful to us to be able to do you can do that right online um on our website and actually helps us budget for years to come we always say that learning happens every day and when donation happen to every day it helps us fund that I would like to say too and you'll see more information coming out about this in the next couple months um especially when we get to give to the max day that the vast majority of our current sustaining donors are actually EPS staff members which is pretty interesting and that's all I have for you um thank you for having me here tonight if there's any questions I'd be happy to answer them for you board members any questions sure thank you so much for your continued dedication to this to uh Public Schools if someone wanted to donate their time to help the fundraising efforts could they do so how they do that absolutely so um we're always looking for more people to help out with any of our activities to help out with our student board help out with events um walk in the parade which just happen so you luckily get out of that one um but any number of things that we have going on they can reach out to me um my information is on our website um or just contact any of our board members that are listed on our website as well we'd be happy to get you involved great question thanks charl so thank you very much for being here um so in your report you indicated that it was $339,450 that you're looking to increase for 2425 yeah so 2425 our grant out process for our programs do quick math in my head it was 350 for literacy 81 for Steam and 120 for mental health so add that up so call like 600 sounds about right so that would probably be at least a good 20 something per increase from where you were before um and you made a wonderful comment um that I wanted to Echo that when the community was dealing with the Berg process thinking that how are we going to we were going we were trying to save an additional $800,000 million dollar was what we were kind of coming up short um outside of the overall 4 million that we're trying to find new Revenue sources or new other ways we could deal with this situation and I remember a lot of people did talk about the Ed fund and I always asked well how many people actually then donated to the Ed fund during that entire process and if I remember correctly it wasn't a huge increase um that we then saw so I just really want to just reflect to the community whoever is listening that the Ed fund does an absolutely critical job for our community and for our school district for both our students and our staff and for our community who says they're fully engaged in what we're doing in our community this is one of the easiest ways for them to become a sustaining member to be able to provide that type of resource to where we can continue to um fill the Gap as you commented on from that standpoint so I hope that the presentation tonight for people who are not paying attention normally recognize that this is a critical element to our success in Edina and I hope that the community will continue to find its way to increase its capacity to support the Ed fund if we're talking about a 20 plus increase from last year um that's about $150 $160,000 just to meet your goals every one of those goals matters absolutely so thank you for that and those numbers that we're putting out there tonight are numbers that we've worked with teaching and learning in other groups um on the cabinet to make sure that we can do for the district those are not lofty goals that the Ed fund is putting out those are numbers that we're working together with to make sure that we can to make sure that all of this work can be done for our teachers and for our students thank you Kathy um thank you for pointing that out that you work directly with our administrators to find gaps in funding um and where you can fill those gaps so I appreciate you pointing that out um and I wanted to just thank you for your work and thank you for the donation that we're going to be approving in the consent agenda tonight it's very impactful to our district and and um I greatly appreciate it and then I wanted to point out very quickly there seems to be a formatting issue on our slide and I want to make sure people can actually see the website if they're interested and I believe it's www EDF fund.org correct okay so I want to make sure that people are able to access the website if um they're interested in donating or learning more about it so thank you very much for coming tonight thank you thank you uh we're now going to move on to our consent agenda and um is there anything anyone would like to remove from the consent agenda uh hearing nothing um do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so moved is there a second second we will now vote to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say I I anyone opposed the consent agenda has been approved um now on to our discussion items and we have quite a few discussion items tonight um our first one is an Early Learning Center update and we have Dr anarie Leland director of Community Education and strategic Partnerships doie reming director of student Ser support services and Kim Eisley assistant director of early learning good evening uh chair I just touched a switch I don't know what I just did chair allenburg Dr Stacy Stanley and all of the directors of the ad Public Schools Bo school board and community members our colleagues over there thank you audience we are here in an exciting presentation of the Early Learning Center I can't tell you how excited I am um 2024 2025 fostering excellence in early learning Jody and I have the pleasure tonight to showcase our new Early Learning assistant director um Kim Eisley and she is doing a fantastic job starting out as of July 1st in a position where we are now having one person oversee the entire Early Learning Center in an integrated and inclusive way to lead our students and families so to I just want to kick this off and Kim are you ready to go through the slid okay that was very nice thank you all right well let's get started I just want to thank you all for having me here today it's been very exciting I have um enjoyed my first several months here at Edina it's been definitely a a career dream come true so it's been very fun so tonight we're going to just talk a little bit okay A little bit about um me humbly about me being here and then a little bit about our inclusive philosophy here at the Early Learning Center and then um our Innovation and growth where we're going just a little bit about me professionally um I've worked in um education for the last 27 years all of those years have been in special education um I have been an ECC teacher for 24 of those years working both in the early intervention and the 3 to five classroom um which is been a joy um I have been a member of the dec board which is the division of Early Childhood for the state of Minnesota and I've also been a trainer for family guided routine-based Intervention which is a new initiative that the state of Minnesota took on a few about probably 15 years ago now which is an Innovative way to just um help families in the home to help their children um which was a fun role for me to have too um I've been in leadership for over 7 years as a districtwide leader um helping teams from um really early childhood all the way up through age of 20 through two through transition um and for the past nine years I've worked for the University um uh I always say this wrong University of Minnesota State Minnesota State University Mano sorry I every time I mess that up for the last nine years um supervising student teachers in early childhood special education and that's something I just really really enjoy doing so I just keep doing it cuz it just helps me have a partnership with um postsecondary Partners um helps me um stay current with what we're um teaching and coaching our new graduates and then it keeps me partnering with um new graduates because we're always looking for good teachers so all right so yeah wonderful photo yeah this just is um you know this has our vision up here and this just keeps us has lots of great pictures of all of our students here at the Early Learning Center and this is something that we're constantly talking to our staff about to keep in our Forefront when we're teaching our young children so um this year at leadership Advance Dr Stanley brought this to all of us leaders and this was my first leadership Advanced with the ad public schools and I was just so inspired by Dr Stanley because when I was thinking about how I was going to be bringing together um staff from both the early childhood and the Early Child special education side I was thinking about all the things that I was going to be saying to them when I was meeting them this fall and I just really felt like this resonated with me in the belonging the belonging of all the students that we were going to be serving within the Early Learning Center and all the staff coming together for the first time under one leader and so this was just something that we talked about a lot during Workshop week this is something we're going to continue to talk about through the school year it's just the this sense of belonging and so this is something we're just resonating through within our ELC when I piggybacked off of the sense of belonging these are things that I these three principles here are things that I really brought to the team thinking about coming under one leader and understanding what it means to be one team um before me there were two leaders that ran the ELC and under no fault of their own because there were two leaders um leading the ELC there was a little bit more of a silo effect um just because of the way that the structure was um created at that time and so when I came on board I wanted to make sure that all the staff understood in the families and the community that we are serving started to understand that we're going to come together as one team and so that was our first guiding principle that we talked about during Workshop week and something we continue to work on and that we're going to talk about through the school year um and then the second shared agreement that we came to during Workshop week is that all decisions are going to be made from the lens that we're going to be doing what's best for kids and families um who attend the Early Learning Center and so that's something that we're going to have as a guiding principal of ours going forward and the team um of teachers worksh we in fact when I rolled this out um several of them clapped I mean they were just so excited to see this because this is really truly what our teachers value and this is really exciting so this is a shared agreement we all have and then thirdly I just wanted our teachers to remember and to keep this at the Forefront that we're going to do this through collaboration communication and coordination because we're just all coming together Under One Roof one team and um as you go as we go forward through the slides you're going to see where we're going and that these three principles are going to be key to where we're headed here at the ELC so this is super exciting here this fall we've had such magic in ECF again and our ECFE team is just so excited um we have some really fun classes so first off I want to just highlight that our ECFE numbers are trending up to um pre-co numbers so that's just a celebration that I wanted to highlight tonight that's just so exciting secondly we have lots of great steam classes being offered on Saturdays and weekday evenings um we have had to add a baby playtime class this fall due to high demand so we have a baby um playtime class that we have drop in on Tuesdays that is so full that we had a waiting list that we had to add a class for Wednesdays so that's super exciting um all of our tw's classes are completely full um with a waiting list um and then we also have a family literacy class that continues to grow currently we have um over 24 families enrolled we're serving 41 individuals and then with that um we serve the children then within a preschool setting and our sic care setting and this continues to grow every single week we have over nine different languages that we serving in that class and we have to bring in I think four to five different interpreters and every week this this class just keeps growing and growing so there's just so many exciting things happening down in EC ECF right now so um this is something that I really had a lot of interest in and so I just was really interested in what we are doing ECFE when I came in I was kind of taking a look at the um class brochure looking at our class offerings and I started to talk some to some of our ECFE teachers in Libby Plowman um has this really great wealth of knowledge of how to do a lot of research and development and she stepped forward and was willing to partner with me in looking at what do our families want in ECFE and so she and I are working together along with the ECFE colleagu on um a research and development um on looking at what we need in ECF so we are asking these three questions um are what local successful ECF programs are offering what kind of programmingsoftware these uh a great uh Libby actually is going to create uh findings through a presentation and a presentation and she's going to um present that to all of us here and her colleagues and then we are going to use this for the next three years to generate what classes we're going to offer we're super excited about this Lindsay or Libby has great skills in this area so some exciting stuff coming um inclusivity will C will continue to be a core value of the E ELC I would just like to say um when I stepped into this role I was very impressed by how our um team at the ELC values every student this is very apparent when I stepped into the ELC so everything that we do going forward is just going to be something that we're going to continue to do to enhance the experience of in inclusivity here at the ELC so we continue to have that be a core value of ours I would just like to highlight that 93% of our students currently right now with identified special needs are currently offered an inclusive um preschool experience um many of our students have or continue will have pyramid training at least tier one by the end of October because we've had a lot of new hires this year um one thing that we instituted this week we call it teaming Thursdays um we have all of our teams meeting either with their age level teams or Andor with um each other to help um enhance teaming with our special education and our general education teams but we would like to go further with it so we are going to keep expanding inclusivity so where we're going is next year we are going to be implementing because we're starting to develop our our um catalog for next year we've had several meetings already because we are going to be bringing that to um print by November 7th so we are going to um bring Hot Talk classrooms to the alc next year we're going to start small and what that means is we're going to have one general education and one special education in the classroom together for the entirety of the classroom we're going to start maybe with maybe two classrooms um in our half day classrooms and then we are going to start in our full day classrooms as well because we feel that's important as well um we're going to increase the diversity of our class offerings um by that creative Staffing in um classrooms up there with that bullet point that means that we're going to just figure out how we're going to do this for our all day classes and then we're building an mtss system of support here at the ELC and an mtss system is just means a multi-stem tiered system of supports to ensure that all of our kids are functioning within our pyramid model and making sure that we're implementing um interventions before we get to a special education evaluation um also new happenings this current year at the ELC is we had to add an all day 3es class because we said we had such a high demand we had to add half a half day Forest class because we had such a high demand the half day Forest class is completely full um we have a new front office look if you have not seen that yet um we move some office spaces around um in the back um I particularly wanted my office to move up to the front I wanted to be the front office space near the front office so I could be in the no um we have a new family Commons coming Furniture and Design coming the end of October here um and we have busing for our scholarship kids um it's been really great the transportation department has been amazing to work with they've partnered with us they were great with um Ann Marie and I had this last minute idea in July and they partnered with us and they were successful so it's been great and then we have voluntary voluntary prek-k funding for for the first time and we just had a meeting with the state representative and we're going to be able to keep it for years to come and we have new teachers lots of new teachers we had a lot of hiring to do when I came on that was the first thing I needed to do on July was hire and so we did and that's what we hired so we have lots of great new teachers and more have just recently been hired so been exciting and that's all we had thank you for listening do you have any questions thank you so much uh board members questions comments director gaer thank you and welcome Kim to D Public Schools um I'm sure that you um have been told what a special place that is and you shared that in your report um there are I appreciate this report and how you're you're kind of your vision and you're 3 months in so it'll be really exciting next year when we get this report to kind of when we get to see some of the ideas you have come to fruition um when you talked a little bit about your one School vision and I'll be really interested to see that because I think that follows through so well with our strategic plan that talks about inclusivity and so it'll be really it'll be interesting to see in a year kind of what some of the things that have come out of that kind of vision for that one one school um I noticed that our special ed numbers are up dramatically in our Early Learning Center Jody do you want to talk to that is there anything that we're kind of that's not a that's not a bad thing but it's just something that I observed that I thought hm I wonder what the reason is behind that yeah so one of the things um the Minnesota Department of Education when they hold meetings and they're talking about our early childhood numers Statewide they keep saying this is um this is the most ever and our numbers really started going up during covid and so there was a lot of things that we were wondering what's going on maybe our students not leaving you know the the home is much or masks impacting their um development all of these different things and so we really have never been able to find out why our numbers are increasing in early childhood but we know that they are taking place throughout the state and that numbers are just very high everywhere um so there's just there's a lot of students which is good we're finding them for child find but the these numbers have not started to go down post pandemic okay okay great and I think you know as we as we think about you know early identification is obviously really important um and as we can support you in servicing those students um you know that's that's I think where we can sometimes get to come in so um let them know what you need um I had I think that was oh I think you know next year when we see you again um seen maybe some Trend data over like how because one of the things we've talked about at the board level is increasing resident enrollment but also just kind of rebounding from covid with some of those numbers so it'll be interesting to see you know how do those num what are the specific numbers that we're seeing um and I know yeah so that would be for next year so thank you Dr bman thank you very much welcome um my one question when I see the report and I think about where Trends have gone and we're seeing increases and so what is our capacity to serve we have the same challenge when it comes the kids club we have the same challenge when it comes to some of the other Community Education elements I I would think ELC is no different than that um are you able to speak at all or at least prepare us for this next year as to as you work through this problem or the it's opportunity and a problem I think capacity could you speak a little bit to that if by by any chance yeah so when I came on board this year um we were in far as far as rooms like physical space um if I needed one more room it was going to be the staff Lounge So Physical spacewise we're about at capacity um you know part of that comes in play with you know we have Extended Learning which we call our child care so we take two rooms for that if we needed a third room that's where I was going to have to go to the staff Lounge we were going to have to lose our staff Lounge for the child care portion of it um and then we added some classes that you saw we added a four a Four's morning and then we added an all day threes this year so we do have six all day classes so when you think about capacity that way that this is what I think the community wants they're looking for all day classes they're looking for the the Extended Learning which is our child care cuz they need a place I think they're looking for high quality um preschool for their child and then maybe some extended like some Child Care around that because they want a place for their child to be all day so I think the all day classes are important but they take a classroom for an all day versus like maybe you don't those are 20 kids versus like our halfday classes you can serve 20 in the morning and 20 in the afternoon so if you think of capacity that way we could serve more kids if you had half day classes than a full day class but I think the community is saying the all day is what they're looking for too in terms of what they need for their kids so it's a balancing thank you and then the second question and not necessarily meant for you but when we've talked about our demographics and the actual forecasting out of what demographics of how many children are actually going to be available to come to school that's not an upward Trend that's actually going to be a downward Trend over some period of time Edina itself is not necessarily experiencing that but as our overall population demographics look we've seen through um Hazel's study and through other demographic studies that there's some Horizon that says we're not necess going to keep going up we're going to start to level if not start to go down so when I talk about capacity it's also how do we strategically decide what are we able to serve our community to what level and so on so forth even if there's still more demand that exceeds that but this is our kind of upper bound that we have to where we can then maintain so that we're not making a big investment in something for the future to where then we might struggle with how are we going to fulfill it so when I'm just saying capacity I mean it on both ends of that Spectrum sure thank you I had two questions um and welcome to Idina thank you and thank you for the presentation um they're both around the same topic which is gathering data from stakeholders and I appreciated that your um slide in here about gathering information about what our families want from ECFE offerings I was wondering if when you're doing that study are you going to be able to access individuals that are not currently participating okay you want to sure yeah thank you for that question we're we're we have three subsets that looking at right now in terms of our current enrolled Families Our um families that aren't enrolled but could be enrolled and then a group of families outside of that so um we're trying to cast a wide net in that third bucket and we're still working through are we going to be using thought exchange as a platform are we going to be using um certain other methods qualitative and quantitative method methodology to gather this information so we're still in process but we're we're close to uh fine-tuning that and we are working with Daphne Edwards as well on U making sure we're doing this correctly and we're reaching the audiences that are appropriate so so thank you for that yeah okay that was going to be my next question was how does this tie in with the marketing yeah efforts and Daphne's efforts around understanding um how and who and why people are interested or not interested in our programming so I'm glad to hear yes that you're doing that which parlays into my third is question second question was is this all surrounding ECF years at also surrounding preschool care because I noticed in our data metrics plan that there's a I don't know if it's Trend data but there's a pretty large difference in um resident enrollment and non-resident enrollment for that program specifically um and we know how important it is to capture our residents when they're young yes um so I just wanted to see if you guys are going to be surveying around that topic as well or if that's more in Daphne's court so I wanted to check on that piece We are continuing to work side by side with Daphne on every step of the way but are starting with the ECFE piece first okay and um for that demographic in terms of I know what you're talking about in terms of the data metrics piece and overall we really Trend as the 422 students and again this year we're about that in terms of the entire EC or ELC complement in terms of students um so it's 80% overall about 79% um but for our EC for our prek programs especially our four-year-olds we have a mechanism through um the legislature called pathway one funding and pathway one is a scholarship for families that they get from um a vendor Families First out of Rochester uh that that contracts with the Department of Education to get this funding and then families actually get to choose where they go so we may get um families from out of District right out our non-resident enrollment but they come to us and we have to we have to serve them so that that might be um part of that makeup of 70 % yeah which I have no I that's great and I'm glad we're a choice for individuals it says a lot about the quality of our care I just also want to make sure that we're the first choice for residents so I don't know if that data indicates anything at all I just want to make sure we're looking into it thank you yep thank you so much I think that's all thank you and again welcome to thank you for presenting to us I appreciate it okay good job okay next we have our Middle School Orientation day and con get connected day and connect and assess update with um assistant superintendent Nate Swinson Dr Cara rickenberg Highlands Elementary School principal Trisha Pettis Southview Middle School principal and Jen Carter Edina High School assistant principal welcome good evening Madam chair members of the board Dr Stanley and community members thank you for the opportunity to reflect on the successful implementation of our Middle School Orientation get connected and connect and assess days that took place at the start of the school year tonight I'm joined by my colleagues Dr car rickenberg principal of Highlands Elementary Trisha Pettis principal of Southview middle school and Jen Carter assistant principal of Edina High School as you know these programs were designed to align closely with Edina Public School strategic initiatives particularly our commitment to ensuring an equitable and inclusive School culture fostering a positive learning environment and engaging parents schools and the community tonight we're excited to share our observations and the feedback we've received we'll be covering three main areas in our presentation first a brief reminder of our District's vision mission and how these programs support our strategic initiatives second an overview of how the middle school orientation day and get connected programs unfolded for our middle and high school students and finally the outcomes and feedback from the connect and assess days at Highlands Elementary specifically these days were implemented to create a smooth transition for our students as they began the new school year Foster a sense of belonging and provide valuable opportunities for students families and Educators to connect we're pleased to report on their success and the positive impact they've had on our school Community we look forward to sharing our insights the feedback we've received from families and staff and discussing how these programs have set a positive tone for the Academic Year we're also eager to hear your thoughts and answer any questions you may have so let's begin with a brief reminder of our district vision and how these programs align with our strategic initiatives let's see if this works can we see if the presentation can be put up not a big deal I'm just gonna keep plugging away so we'll start with our district uh vision and Mission as you know for uh each and every student to discover their possibili ities and Thrive is our district vision and Edina Public Schools is a dynamic Learning Community deliverying educational excellence and preparing all students to realize their full full potential and our mission is through academics activities and opportunities we encourage creativity Foster curiosity and develop critical thinking skills we support every student's educational journey by creating a caring and inclusive School culture that supports the whole student so having said that there are multiple strategic initiatives that align with our efforts to help with the onboarding of students and families to our different schools uh strategy B is about ensuring an equitable and inclusive School culture strategy C is about fostering a positive learning environment and whole student support and then strategy e is about engaging parents school and Community um which we did through these days so with that um as I said Trisha Pettis is here to talk about the middle school orientation and uh she's going to be sharing some anecdotes from school thank you Trisha good evening thanks for having us everyone um we came to all of you last year and asked for approval for um this orientation day and really our goal was to give all of our sixth graders um an equal opportunity to participate in this or orientation experience previously it had been done through a web day in the summer before school started so the last school year we had 15% of our students miss that day so 52 of our kids missed this you know onboarding experience so this year having it on the first day we met our first goal and that all kids had access to participate in these shared experiences around creating new connections and understanding routines and just having a smoother transition to you know it's this threshold moment that you only get once being only one first day um but we had so many other positive outcomes that we didn't even anticipate and I'm going to share some with some of those with you today so we invited all of H the sixth graders and anyone who is going to be new to selfie to join us and all of our leadership um student leadership groups and really this day was made possible because of our student leaders and it's you know one of our models is um seeing our students as resources and using and leveraging them and so the power of these web leaders and our web um facilitators in planning this day um that's what made it so powerful is our sixth graders were welcomed and onboarded and trained by eighth graders and they much prefer learning from their peers um and they they trust in them and look up to them um so also because of our structure we have um it in at the middle level we have advisories and that's kind of their first their home based where they start every morning and we have multi-age advisory so every single teacher has sixth graders in their advisory so on that first day of school it's not like just our sixth grade teachers we're also feeling you know the the weight of onboarding these kids all of our staff had invested interest in welcoming our students so everybody started the day with their sixth graders in their advisory and then the web leaders came and took them off to lead some activities and Dr Stanley was able to visit with us and meet in small groups um and then the web leaders again just really um leading them through fun activities and this was one of the things that was so that we didn't think about but when it came to lunch all of our eighth grade leaders were helping the sixth graders learn how to do lunch in the lunchroom and that alone are all of our supervisors were it said it's never been so smooth imagine 300 kids coming to a lunchroom and trying to figure it out on the first day and so to have all of them in small groups and they were eating in their groups with the eighth grade leader telling them how to go through the lines and what are the expectations of the lunchroom the lunchroom has still since run so much smoother than it ever has been because of that onboarding with the eighth graders so that was something we didn't even anticipate um and then Midway through the day then we welcomed all of our students back and before before I speak to that we also had all of our brand new Tu students our seventh and eighth graders that were brand new and our ambassadors had this extra time with them to walk through their schedules and show them parts of the building and really help those students as well have a have a positive experience coming into a brand new school so just having one grade level and I'm sure the high school can speak to this as well one grade level and new students at a time just the whole morning was felt more calm and more focused and again just helps our students feel like okay I can do this not having everybody there at once so then they were then our sixth graders were super excited midday when we were back in advisory to welcome their seventh and eighth graders they were super curious about what that experience was going to be like after having just um sixth graders um so we are all really excited to get to also welcome all of our students on for part of the day and have some advisory time with them and then we did some fun um grade level um different fun kind of rally experiences as well so we tried to make it special and fun for all of our students not just our newer sixth grade students so another Testament to how well the day went was day two of the school year because our new to selfie students and our sixth graders they had get connected day before school started we had a curriculum night where they could come with their families and meet their teachers before school started and then we had this orientation day so by by the time we came to actually start schedules they had been able to walk their schedule multiple times so we didn't have the panicked kids running around having no idea where to go all of us teachers are like why is everything running so smoothly why isn't anybody needing help finding their classes but they had multiple opportunities to get into routines before we actually started classes so um hands down a huge success if you ask any teacher and and students and families it was really is really positive experience so thank you for supporting that could I ask a quick question um thank you for that that experience um I have a Valley View eighth grader and had a similar experience but I'm just really curious what was the message to the seventh and eighth graders who are coming back to school about this to get them engaged and thinking positively about this change that you were embarking on um yeah so you know having that multi advisory experience we always lean into our seventh eighth graders are saying you're our leaders of our school you help us and and for us this is our second year so they got so our seventh graders got to experience that as sixth graders so they kind of look forward to then being the leaders um but then also having some specific grade level time and the seventh and eighth graders eighth grade teams did fun like e like grade level things to rally and get the kids excited for the school year as well so having some time together but then also in grade levels thank you okay I've also invited Jen Carter assistant principal from the high school and I know that she's going to detail some of the things that the high school did differently um this year some of the things that they tried and share some of the feedback that her stakeholders had thank you so much for the chance to talk about get connected day our get connected a um typically happens the week before school starts so this year was on August 22nd um that's the Thursday before school starts the annual event is a collaboration between the Edina High School PTO our student council um and our Hornet mentors where we welcome people into the building to have their photos taken where we had over 1,800 photos taken that day um they can check out a Chromebook they can get their parking pass they can meet their teachers walk the building and then we did have some programs for new families as well as information about our AP program and signing up for AP the AP EX some changes that we offered this year is we had the chance to collaborate with the enina Ed fund and offer band together at the same day um and so they were outside of door three and we did a lot of things um the months leading to to have the successful event to have our campus hosting both of these events at the same time we had a lot of conversations about open house um and this year we offered the ability for um families to actually walk the schedule we ran the bell schedule two times so we wanted to have teachers be able to give information about their classes and Grading procedures and just class content with families um and so I do have a couple slides I just want to go over about some of the changes so here you can see in the first slide is just the participation of get connected day um how satisfied were families and you can see that those areas are very much in the um very satisfied satisfied neutral and some were the satisfied and very dissatisfied but in the second question we were able to ask in the thought exchange if you attended scheduled teacher openhouse presentations how useful did you find them and you can see that many of the families did not attend um that would kind of matched the day of get connected day knowing that this year we ran the bell schedule two times and in the past have just given more um drop in experiences with families and so we did ask that as another question of the respondents um what their preferred interaction type is around get connected day and as you can see many of the families prefer informal meet and greets and brief interactions of stopping by so that is something we can use as data as we plan for next year um one other change that we had this year which was very um motivated by in August of 2023 selfie offered a sensory hour um that was open just to students who noise could be a barrier as they walk through the door the first time so we had a small number of students that were offered um the ability to attend sensory hour and especially with band together outside we thought it was best to have that sensory hour before the music Started outside and we did survey our staff um and you can see that of the respondents of this that many were very pleased with the addition of sensory hour um so this is a practice that we will continue in the future thank you Jen and to close out our presentation uh Dr rickenberg is going to talk about connect and assess at Highlands thank you good evening this is our third year of connect and assess at the elementary level and each year just gets better um last year we added school pictures which was amazing I see some nodding heads um so I had much feedback from parents and from students saying this is just like what we my siblings do in the middle and the high school um so we continued that this year and this is true of Highlands as well as each of the other five elementary schools um other feed other things that we started implementing last year and really became solid in it this year is all the forms right the beginning of the school year has a whole lot of forms and so as students are meeting with their teachers the um parents are working on um filling out the forms and doing all of that we um gathered some information this is representative of our Highlands families but then in sharing this with my elementary colleagues both um principles and staff it mirrors what's happening in each of the elementaries and so family feedback for connect and assess um the relationship piece right that's what we always strive for each and every day is making relationships with their families and the connect and assess really hits home on the number number one reason why parents appreciate the connected assess is the opportunity for the teacher to sit down one to one with their child and have a conversation um not only are we doing some of our fast assessments but they're checking in and having a conversation getting to know the child um and it's also an opportunity for the parents to get to see um the teacher and meet the teacher as well one of the things that we have really recognized over the last two years in particular is our students that come to school with a little bit of nervousness um little hesitation It's a Wonderful way to walk the halls and get your routines down here's where you're going to be dropped off for the bus now let's find your classroom um those are big tasks when you're seven years old um another big note of appreciation that the parents noted was um understanding student needs one of the things that we have been able to do in the elementary schools since implementing connect and assess is being able to start our intervention groups and our other student support groups ranging from intervention or Talent Development or within classroom tier 2 supports um much sooner typically it's been around mea or a little bit later and we've had them in full swing for a couple of weeks already um allowing us to kind of dig right in and know where the students are um the third point that our parents really appreciated is just preparation for the school year um even though it starts before the kids come to school they appreciated the opportunity for the kids to get into their routines we had conversations with um some of our youngest Learners families about things like how to pack for a lunch because when you pack a lunch for kindergarteners where they need adult help and opening everything that's a different challenge um and and doing much more than assessments is that relationship piece um it's a calm introduction for the families and as noted the necessary paperwork was a big a big perk as well family do recognize the importance of the Baseline data connection and I always appreciate it when they when they note that as well um and so this was one of the other top reports recognizing that they appreciate that and that we're getting that information right away um the fifth one that they noticed noticed was the community and familiarization um what's interesting is at Highlands we have 23 classrooms and so every 20 minutes there's 23 new families coming into the building last year it was the first time that our families had been introduced to the Rapture system because all of our families when they came in for connect and assess got the practice of providing their um photo ID this year no big deal they knew what to do and just things ran very smoothly the other thing that was different this year as opposed to the last two years is based on data received last fall as well as this past spring we did adjust um connect and assess days to be Friday and Monday previous years was Monday and Tuesday and um for the families they appreciated that opportunity to do both or either of them and overall the connect and assess days is reviewed as very valuable information um Gathering opportunities helping with um parental engagement creating a strong foundation for the start of the school year and I can tell you with certainty I'll I'll give you a preview of the next Slide the staff loved the Friday and Monday because it allowed us to come together as plc's with all of this awesome data to start the school year off um but just as a summary for the the family feedback one of the concerns that they brought up was that the Friday and Monday we noticed for the signups that the signups filled right away from Mondays and there was openings on Fridays but most of the staff were very easily able to squeeze in um families that weren't able to to get a conference scheduled or a connecting time scheduled on Tuesday or even during some Workshop week times and so there was flexibility and the other thing too that we communicate to our families is that if it doesn't work out yes we want you to be there this provides us opportunity and we will connect with them in the first couple of weeks and they will get their picture taken at a different time so there's lots of communication to help them in understanding that um one of the one of the concerns that was also noted was Child Care needs um and to be honest I wasn't quite sure if this referenced during the connect and assess time or as you can see in the summary it talks about with um Child Care providing child care in that interim week of Workshop week when kids club is closed as they prepare and shift because during connect and assess we do provide child care on site for child AED or for school AED kiddos and here is the feedback from our staff and again this parallels um what the other principles found in their schools too they really appreciated the opportunity to do this on a Friday and Monday to have Tuesday as uh a regrouping okay these are my kiddos let's see what we have look at let's look at our information to have those conversations in the two previous years we finished connecting assess you know 3:30 4:00 on Tuesday and boom Wednesday morning here come our awesome kiddos and so um the time to be able to have those conversations was wonderful um and that was noted several times and again noted by the staff that some of our staff or excuse me some of our families were not available on Fridays but we were able to meet the needs that they had for that so we tried to give you a snapshot of each level of the organization um we've shared some information with you what questions might you have board members director gaer no I'm going to defer to Jen her go first sorry director huie I just want to say thank you um having a child with sensory issues or that need to connect before school starts and having that available um to everyone is awesome we just sort of did our own thing because we knew that he needed it and so I think this is just great and um applaud your efforts director gaer thank you for this report and thank you for that comment because I think that is a really important when we think about each and every um I appreciate how the Middle School idea percolated up from our leaders at the middle school and came to us with like a hey we'd like to try this this is our reason why and then to get this kind of Full Circle report back of how it went I just think that is um such a great example of collaboration and and bringing ideas to the table so thank you for that and I agree with the school photos because we've all been there where we're like why is there ketchup on your face why is your shirt unbuttoned whose shirt are you wearing in that school picture right so um all of those things so thank you I was nodding along with that one um there was a lot of discussion about that change from connect and assessed um I know there was kind of the back and forth and um I thought you did a great job of kind of talking about it was a a big win for the teachers to have that split like that some of the families were maybe not so sure that it worked so well and I appreciate how staff really kind of rallied around making it work for families that couldn't fit in do you have um any numbers on if participation increased decreased or once we were able to kind of fit people in if that stayed the same I do actually it was about the same um and so I have that in different information I can share that with you if you'd like me to it was about the same um when I was talking to my staff to understand you know both the parent feedback and also also the staff feedback I surveyed the classroom teachers to see you know looking at it in percentages and about 95% both of the years um were in attendance for connect and assess okay thank you yeah I don't need specifics I just just in general if that was a difference and I think you know if we do decide to go forward with that Friday Monday I think you know the first year you roll it out it's new yes and now you know for the families that are like oh we missed Friday you know because we had a family vacation planned now you start to anticipate those types of things in the in the future but I do really appreciate um that your staff rallied and said we can fit in extra on Monday or we'll make it work so one of the things that we did last spring also is in I believe it was May perhaps it was early June we sent communication to our families as a save the date when we realized we will be changing it to Friday Monday and a conversation that we had as principles is if we do the Friday Monday again we would do that again and then a reminder in July and then a reminder in early August as well but to your point we've lived it once and so it'll be on people's Radars a little brighter this time yeah yeah that was the sorry director gaer brought up my same question was about the staggered days and I think that it would be great to track participation and participation amongst different student groups to make sure that over time we're not losing specific student groups um and we're keeping our participation as high because I so it's a win-win for everyone um I should also say that one of the practices that we started doing two years ago so our first year is that we schedule all of our families that need interpreters first before we go um before it opens to anybody to sign up and the reason that we can do that is for efficiencies for interpreters so that we have you know our Spanish speaking interpreters there for a chunk of time and then working to provide reminders of when those are scheduled because a month is a long time right absolutely yes but thank you all of you for um bringing all this information I love staggering the day for the kids that are new at the secondary I think it's great for all of our students so thank you thank you for doing all of this so okay thank you thank you thank you we are going to move on to our data metrics Plan update um so we have director of teaching and learning Jody D St Hubert and do we have other guests here that I might see in the a audience okay got it reinfor yeah I was like I see somebody in the audience that yes okay good evening Dr Stanley Chair Ellenburg uh board directors colleagues and community members tonight I am here not only representing teaching and learning and cabinet but all of our agina staff by bringing the data metrics plan to all of you as a discussion item I specifically do want to um highlight and thank Greg gusweiler he is our teaching and learning data programming analyst and coordinator who has spent endless hours um in work at his computer as well as in discussions as well as in rethinking and regrouping so that we have this report in a way that is um manageable for us all to read and understand and respond to so I do want to plot his efforts and thank him he is here tonight and if we have specific questions from um him or other cabinet members I will be turning to them for some input and and support if needed I also really want to before I go much further it really recognize our Educators um there's a lot of celebration in this report and that would not be happening without the day in and day out hard work that are teachers and administrators are doing directly in our buildings um It's really because of them that we're seeing the progress that we are in so many in so many of the areas so our comprehensive assessment plan has been represented as a funnel in fact it was perfect we saw that at our board Workshop tonight that at the top of that funnel is the data metrics plan and then going down from the top of the funnel we have our building um continuous Improvement School Improvement plans as well as our district um level continuous School Improvement plans from there we lean into professional learning Comm communities with staff teams and then individualized student learning goals um this system and the attention to it ensures that we are continually improving to reach our vision and Mission and using our strategic plan to do so so the data metrics plans in front of you tonight there the data metrics plan in its entirety is a 2-year plan and the data in front of you tonight is a midyear or a one-year check-in on where we are with that 2-year plan the report as you all know and see in front of you is broken down um because it's very large so it's separated into Early Learning K5 middle school and high school and then separating them that way again it's another way that we've um approached trying to make sure that the data is actually actionable as well each report um has an executive summary a table of contents key findings and action steps and those action steps are connected also to our strategic plan um there's also a goal progress sheet um that has been added and then there's details of each goal area broken down by different demographic groups and an appendix that highlights a couple of key points that have come up over the years for clarifica clarification um before going into each individual report and and looking to you for questions and feedback I do want to highlight that one of the most powerful components of the data that Greg has organized for all of us is the ability to clearly see the areas of Celebration there are many areas where we have met our goals and there's even many many more that we are making really positive progress and right on track the the thing for us all to recognize with that is where we see areas of Celebration is where we can replicate that work and lean into the things that are happening that are having those positive outcomes and so when I um introduce each section I'm just going to highlight some quick areas of Celebration and then um turn it over to you again for discussion and questions um chair at Lamberg should we do discussions and questions per report per area okay perfect um so early learning um the other great thing about tonight is a lot of the things that you're hearing surrounding the data metrics report have also been shared right so we just had an a a great update from early learning that helps us recognize some of the things that they're putting in place the area of Celebration that I really want to lean into here with the Early Learning Center um and draw your attention to at the same time is that we had some areas with our teaching strategies gold assessment our math our literacy and oural dropped and the reason for that this is the only data point in the the plan that is not comparing Apples to Apples it's comparing apples to oranges because the learning in the Early Learning Center prompted them to do a more indepth assessment knowing that that's what our kids needed in a developmentally appropriate way and so you see the kindergarten data has a huge jump and that data is our kindergarteners who went to our Early Learning Center and then had their Assessments in Adina kindergarten classrooms and that huge jump I think really um emphasizes that that additional learning and that additional in-depth assessment that's happening with TS gold is um correlated and connected um what the assessments that were being used in TS gold before were fabulous right but there were just like some assessments have like eight data points that you can collect data on and there was just just a couple of data points that we were collecting data on now we're collecting on much much more and again that's where the comparing the apples to the oranges happens but then when we look at the kindergarten data that's just a huge celebration and just to um lean into the report that we just heard they are they just had professional development on Friday right on our professional development day about how to continue to understand and use that data effectively for students so that's the area of Celebration I wanted to highlight there with that I'll turn it over to feedback and questions board members are other questions about early learning director gaer I notice that we do not have um and and actually for anybody watching at home we had the we were fortunate to receive an early learning report at our work session earlier that kind of looked at um K12 what we were doing with our early Lear with our English Learners so I appreciate that and that kind of gave some nice background to some of the data that we're seeing do you I notice that we do not have or at least we don't have a capture of English Learners at the Early Learning Center can you speak to that um I am wondering actually Dr beair can you speak to that I knew you could we've been talking about this and so I know she has some clarification because she's helped me with some understanding um I have so much stuff this is so me I'll hand this over I a lot of reports coming up so with Early Learning childhood uh the state has slightly different roles than it does for K 12 eel students so K12 students you fill out a language questionnaire and any student who answers yes to one of four questions must be assessed for e and provided El services the state though for early learning only has a requirement for two groups of students so they just added that it's students who are in VPK so voluntary prek need to be assessed for e and then Early Childhood special education students need to be assessed for E this was a fairly new law that has come in at um my e coordinator meetings that I have monthly with mde I tell everyone it is a topic of conversation every single month because it's a different test than the test that you give k12 and then the services that you provide El students in ELC is actually not services to the El student you are going into the classroom and coaching the teacher you're not working with the student so as everybody across the state this is within the last two years this law as everybody across the state is trying to unpack what it looks like we have a plan for this year where uh Katherine gimy our Co our El coach for elementary will be going in and helping to assess the VP VPK kids and then we need to come up with a plan for assessing the all of the Early Childhood special ed kids who we heard there's kind of a lot so we have to come up with a plan for how to get all of those students assessed okay thank you for that so it would it would be safe to say that next year when we have a better idea what the state wants we might see some numbers in that cell as far as like we actually have yeah so we know they're there we're trying to figure we're we're getting it under control how to assess them once we get that group of kids we will be able to add that information into the data metrics perfect thank you thank you okay okay fabulous thank you okay so our elementary section has a lot of celebrations um the majority of our goals are reflected as on track and I just want to highlight um really our alignment to our comprehensive literacy plan and the success we're seeing in literacy and um the success and growth that we're seeing in our math in our progress towards Meeting those goals so that's exciting as we start a math review coming up around the corner um and we definitely are looking um in our our planning at some of those areas one specific area and we're going to have our Ela report after this um but that we're leaning into is our third grade drop in our springt spring data um yet and with that we know we've teamed on some action steps around that specifically around fluency and comprehension sometimes times when you see your K2 readers reading um more quickly and getting a grasp on language then we need to adjust and jump into some instruction around fluency and comprehension faster so um our team's already digging into that as an area of growth to look into um with that are there any questions about our elementary sorry I have another question actually it's not don't iiz this is great no this is this is there's so much information jod that your team has pulled together and Greg I know you're a huge part of this I mean if you geek out on data this is your meeting to be watching and reading the board packet for because it's hundreds of pages of this stuff um I wanted to call out something that I saw in our elementary seal data in our middle school and in our high school data that I think is worth celebrating and that is that when you look at the data for literacy and for math yes you will see gaps among students groups but when you look at the questions of do you have a teacher that cares about you there is no Gap all of our students are scoring at like the 90th percentile right do you in the last week has there been a time that you enjoyed learning no gaps 90% across the board and I think that speaks to the work that our teachers and our principles are doing every day MH you know if you struggle to read it can be really hard you don't it's hard to come to school and so to feel to have students report I like I know I have an adult that cares about me and I I've been excited about learning I think that is worth celebrating just it it just as I looked and it was consistent elementary middle and high school we see that so hats off to the people who are making our students seen and feel like they belong absolutely thank you for highlighting that and yeah I appreciate you pointing that out that was that did jump out and that was something I was super proud of especially like you said given the some of the persistent academic gaps that there is from a social emotional perspective uh really proud to have par not complete parody but pretty close to parody on most of those metrics absolutely thank you for pointing that out I'm sorry director Barry thanks um I just want to comment that um something that jumped out at me from this section of the report was um while we've made really good gains in a lot of the goals was one of the goals um that says not on track but that we would expect uh aggressive growth in literacy and based on National data you would expect 25% of the students would achieve aggressive growth and we actually had 42% achieve aggressive growth and our goal still says that's not good enough um that just to me spoke to the dedication of the staff and um how enthusiastic they are about our Learners and um their thoughts about where they can take these kids so I was kind of excited about that one that's great leans into each and every and the commitment that's really there to get down that end of the funnel with the student learning goal and knowing our individual students so thank you yeah I think if you have a kid that's on not on track it can be hard to feel good about data that is trending in the right direction um but I think that as an institution as a district I mean I'm so proud of these numbers that we're seeing it's so much work that has been put into um I mean it's not just literacy it's the numeracy and um the social emotion and and I mean it's really living our strategic plan through from every level and um it's really striking So yeah thank you and thank you for presenting it with a overview with colors that I can read no I know I think I'd add one more thing to what you just said it's also the fact that the goal is high mhm right yes cuz as we know with statistic you can have them spin any way you want in terms of depending on what your context is and so the fact that our goal is not a low goal it's not like a bare minimum goal it's this is where we want to be with our Learners and our effect of doing that and we're on the right Trend and so and soth which is great but it's also because we're striving to be at the right level M and we're not kind of um we're not shering that responsibility even though it says not meet on a few situations we're still in the right direction so I hope that there's some context not only of all the great work that's been done and so on so forth and even if we're not hitting every goal just like we talked earlier in the work session continuing Improvement yes this is where continue Improvement is right yes that we continue to make inroads in this area to be able to make that and we're not setting ourselves lower goal so that we can get green we want to set the right goal to make sure we're having the impact on the learner absolutely it's our vision right for each and every okay which is a perfect transition to um Middle School um because we did see some areas more in Middle School really that reflected the typical and aggressive growth as you know Orange in terms of the color and that is an area where leaning in into the fact that the national Norms um would expect 25% of our students to have AG aggressive growth and 35% typical and I know that's noted under those charts I just think it's important for us and you all brought it up as well that really when we put those numbers together a national Norm would be that we have 60% growth across those areas we are not going to um sh our responsibilities for each and every and make sure we're not we we are getting to that funnel of student goals at the very bottom and um our our teachers and our students and our our administrators are doing incredible work with their building continuous and school Improvement plan continuous School Improvement plans and um putting into action those plans to get to each and every student so um that trans transition to middle school is something I just did want to note and then um I think a really um a fun area of Celebration is our science dat um we want to continue to see that increase but our science teams have really specifically um had an interesting review process they started it before covid then they had delays during covid they stuck through some persistence in getting new curriculum and new resources to to support the instructional pedagogy that they're providing and they are a pretty Dynamic Team all of our teams are Dynamic but um just calling out sometimes we um with our focus on literacy and math and seal sometimes that's an area where I can Overlook to celebrate so I wanted to celebrate that within the Middle School data very specifically um any questions or feedback on Middle School I actually have a question um when we started implementing the science of reading and training our teachers on the science of reading we started with Early Elementary School yes and um do we know as those students progressed are probably would have been second grade have been the fir I guess the first round of students that we were able to touch do we know what grade those students would be in now and are we able to see any correlation between how are students are doing now or how are students because they were in involved in the science of reading um there's any correlation between that and the reason I'm bringing this up is um a reminder to our community that um of the length of the process to train all of our teachers on the science of reading and that we're still working on that and um we're actively training secondary and working on that right now and I was wondering if any of our elementary schools have hit middle school yet any Elementary School students have hit middle school yet and I don't believe they have but I just wanted to verify with you that was a very long roundabout way to ask you that question I think that's important question though right and when you ask it I'm counting back and no um um we in our first cohort of teachers it was a mixture too right so there were maybe a couple of first kindergarten second grade teachers but even if it was the second grade student getting that from a teacher who was engaged um they would only be in fifth grade right now okay um and so that would be a small number of fifth graders very small number of fifth graders um and now um we would have more fourth graders um who had their teachers in their early years further along in their training in that first volume so so it will still take multiple years to see a progression starting in our youngest grades MH yes impact and I just want to make sure that when we're communicating our investment we've made in literacy the time we're making in literacy um that it still is a multi-year process not only for teachers to be trained but it for it to be fully ingrained and implemented in an institution absolutely and we'll hear more about that in our Ela report but it is a really important Point director G I have two questions here uh you spoke about science and it was nice to see that number trending upwards and also thinking how can we support our science teachers because you know this is a relatively new curriculum can you remind me how long amplify has been in we um it will be this is the third year of amplify at the middle school and I think another important point with that goes back to Elementary as well in a similar thread of um chair elenberg is that Elementary is only in its second year of implementation of a new science curriculum and as we know there's that that vertical alignment right and um before this implementation our past resource um was used with Fidelity for quite a while but over time that slips without the attention to all the systems that are needed around it so we're really excited to see how the impact director gaer of that Elementary implementation will also have on our middle school students great thank you and then I had a question around um middle school activities I was actually really surprised to see how low that number was um and I was curious um how are we defining activities because I I could totally see a middle schooler being like I'm not in anything and their parents are like are you kidding me you're in 15 activities like right I they are Edina activities right and so they have to be involved in sports here Ina and I'm going to look to Greg is that only captured for eighth graders so it's uh High School athletics plus Middle School sports and then anything offered through Community head so they could be part of like let's say the din swim club which is a community club and they would not be counted in this number right right huh CU we're not able well that's what I was wondering when I saw that number because in Minnesota Middle School sports are mostly run through Community organizations and not the scho right so that's so that number isn't maybe is really accurate as okay okay that's an interesting that's okay yeah I think it it's really tricky it's accurate as it can be for us and what we have control over and what we're able to Monitor and really capture that data and what um Greg is able to pull out of our systems right and yet we know when students are involved whether it's you know we have more control over the programming we provide of course but when they're involved it strengthens the community it you know it's technically can help with school so okay all right and I think another piece with that is um with all of these data points they're you know they're we call them Universal data points so they're like the highest level of data point that we can get and with all of them if we want to respond we need to do more digging right um so there's some Gap data there too that we could engage in maybe some more surveys or you know um focus groups with families to dig into that a little bit more um so that we're not making assumptions that because we do know that we have so many families involved in in areas that we can't capture that data um but with all of these data points we always want to say oh we see something let's dig in more so that we can respond with the root cause analysis that's accurate and impactful yeah and I think for me why that's still an important question even if if we can dig into it is because we know there are kids who might not have opportunities to engage and would benefit from it so if we can better understand that number it might help us identify those kids and connect them to those activities yes well the other part too is like you know ancillary things like transportation and those types of things that we may not you know that may not show up on this but are huge indicators because if somebody has to be home on a bus that's the only way to get there and that type of thing dig into what might be barriers if there are any for sure um the other thing I just wanted to note out outside this isn't related to the activities but when we were talking about the different um content areas is that letters doesn't work in isolation from for instance School Improvement planning the continuous School Improvement planning process and that uh The Continuous School Improvement planning process doesn't work in isolation from uh connect and assess days and all of those pieces and so uh we talked a little bit earlier on um assistant super tenant Swinson shared that you know he and I are out and he is out with principales uh once a month to really work on those areas uh and then the other thing that I just wanted to say say I really truly do want to give a shout out to our teachers on the accelerate accelerated growth and yes you are absolutely right director bman we have set the bar high and it's important to note that three years ago we weren't using fast bridge data to the level that teachers have learned to use this data really truly learned to go in and analyze with the support of our coaches and our principles and so it is phenomenal even though we haven't reached that goal and we will continue to still strive toward and I really do believe we can get pretty close to the goals that we've set we just cannot minimize I don't want to minimize the impact um that we're seeing for teachers when you get 42% accelerated growth and the growth piece is what works to eliminate the achievement disparities and that's why we wanted to have that in the data metrics plan I was just going to Echo one other thing I'm glad you said that Dr Stanley the thing that I look at too in a reminder where I get my mind in the cont ual part of what this report is doing M it's telling us not only where we were spring of 23 it's telling us where we want to get to the spring of 24 this is just a midpoint to that process and so you already talked about earlier um that we're already taking the steps necessary to start to do the things that Dr s was just talking about which is then we're still going for the gold for spring of 24 yep and we're the fast bridge data and the way the set of Matrix plan is working and the way in which you're processing this it's making it tangible in the moment now trying to work this through not waiting to see where are we in spring of 24 oh wow we missed the goal now what are we going to do right that's the biggest from what I recall from my three plus years being here that was what the benefit of fast Bridge was giving us because it also then gives the teacher the identifications of here's where you can intervene yes with this individual student mhm yeah yeah fast Bridge is a really critical part of of the the work and the attention to those individual students and I think your your wonderful point about it's not on an island unto itself it's a part of all the things that are going they're all interconnected but this is our way of measuring our Effectiveness with all those different elements that we then have so for anyone who' ever listened to this or so and so forth whenever they see a not on track it's really important to understand that cont text if we're coming in Spring of 24 and we're not on track and we didn't see improvement from where we were now or so on so forth then that would be more concerning this gives us paths along the road absolutely and because of the the leadership of Dr Stanley and the whole entire comprehensive assessment plan um the two-year plan leans into that and we'll be we'll be discussing and going through what steps we need to take for our next plan right and what adjustments need to happen how we can continue to level up and lean into our vision and Mission but it is it is all um the plan as well as all the action steps connected are are coming together nicely I think so many reports tonight whether it's Workshop or tonight at the board meeting enhance that and just reiterate all the focus um and the collaboration of so many things coming together to have these outcomes for students and I think it is important I can't remember if it was Karen or or Erica I said it earlier it's not that we're then satisfied when then an individual I think maybe it was Cheryl when one student is not hitting their goal right like oh well our overall goal might be met but one individual student's not so we're okay with that no one has said that no one is banking on that there isn't a single person in this organization that's doing that we still have to be responsible for each and every yeah so I think that's data can be used again to tell what story someone wants to tell that's not what we're doing we're trying to this is the story not what we want it to be or what we hope it to be this is what it is and we still have that obligation with our Mission Vision to able to make that happen so I think that's just really important to again contextualize that in this presentation yeah very well said ask a quick question about um you know in Workshop we talked a lot about English Learners and the newcomer count yes um how does that play into like you know there's obviously see some gaps in some of the things like that like how does this help you address some of those newcomers and like is that is that data normalized enough to know like interventions you can make and what kind whatnot and identify long way or is that a challenge yeah no um the data is pinpointed enough um there are unique language needs in terms of um learning the language right that come in play when you are creating intervention plans or response plans for students but because our teachers and administrators are looking at each individual student and we're continuing to learn and grow and understand um we're able to create unique plans for all of our students um excited really excited about all that Dr P is leading in that area um even just as she shared tonight having a a coach right very specific for elementary that coach is learning and growing and teaming with Dr beair and our administrators to say okay this this new newcomer um might is ready for an intervention let's put him right into that pheic awareness intervention that fits for them and then maybe this newcomer is not quite ready yet right they're just soaking and everything that's coming at them as a new learner um and it really is in my experience as a teacher I had some newcomers that were I you know they're they're all different right and some were ready for certain things and others weren't so it goes to the bottom of that funnel and those those plans and it's exciting again it was exciting to hear all the things that are happening um within that English language Department um earlier today and the continued Focus there thanks for that Jody and I would add it is the complexity that we talked about and that you're speaking to about our even our newcomers as Dr B care shared because several of our newcomers are coming at at level three level four for the general Community level six would be a a person who's proficient in a life language and level three level four meaning that they can you know they can access the content they're most likely um um have strong literacy skills they're literate in their first language and so that's the complexity is really um being able to dig into each and every one of those students and the thing is we're at the point with Dr B Care's work coupled with all of the work that's happening with teaching and learning where we're learning to do that you know we're really understanding the complexity of our of our English Learners and learning to do that okay our high school um specific report there's um a lot of depth right in each individual report and when we get to the high school there is more depth as we look at different data points that are really trying to emphasize how important it is that we have our students um with a college and future or career Readiness so I I there were just our world language program in continues to Astound me there was a huge growth in our bilingual seals and the number that we started with is very very high in comparison to other districts so that's an area of Celebration and um another one that I think is unique beyond the data points of test scores is our ACT results um something that I know we have highlighted in some recent marketing with dhne but um the increase in the number of students that are getting a 3 plus on their AP exam was high and that was an area too where the gaps um in our demographics was not as distinct as others and so celebrating that and our MC data is really really strong in all areas um and there's a lot of targeted efforts to continue to increase that and um allow students the opportunity to really show what they know in relation to the standards so lot of high school data um and I welcome your feedback and questions director gaer uh I have three things two of them you kind of said but I want to really draw attention to um on page six of the high school report uh we already have I believe Dr Stanley you probably know this number because you're a competitive lady um we have a very large number of our students who take AP exams correct and when you look at the percentage of our students who earned a three or higher it went from 86 to 91% that is astonishing and that's I just wanted to call that out because I think our AP teachers hats off to them for getting our students ready for that and our AP students for achieving that level of success and you talk about a confidence booster going into college or even having the confidence as we look of trying to get more students who maybe haven't been served by those classes into those classes what a confidence boost right to have that and know you have college credits behind you so I just wanted to call that out and then I also wanted to call out our MCA um information on page towards the end um the part that jumped out here to me is you know mca's if you talk to any educator they're like it's kind of a LoveHate relationship because it's one data point and it's although it's not perfect it is currently what we have and I really I wanted to say like the fact that our high schoolers to see a 30% jump in math at the high school um and how they've incentivized students to take it because we get penalized if we don't have students taking it I just I want to call that out too because that doesn't just happen that's a lot of intentional work from people that are are doing that so um because I'm a galvanizer and an enabler sometimes I come across of let's look at all these great things I do want to point point out one thing there are lots of things in this report where where we're working we're continuing to strive towards that one of the things that I um I not tonight but it was Drew my attention was that drop in struggling reader scores for our nth graders in that class just better digging into that you know not tonight obviously but better understanding that um how we can support those teachers that are rolling that new it's a relatively new class out so just better understanding that so thank you to you Greg thank you to you and to all the people that had a hand I'm sure Bethany you were involved in this somehow um so thanks for giving us lots of reading over the last weekend you know another thing I wanted to point out I think for my perspective one of the most important ways that we track success is if students are successful in whatever they want to do after they leave Idina public schools and um have we prepared them for their next step in life and I just wanted to point out um the sleds data State longitudinal educational data system data that um it's the most recent data that they have access to but um for the class of 2021 91% of college found students persisted into their second year um and 85% made it to their third year um and I think that given everything that we hear around us regarding Co and the mental health of students which is very alarming I'm not it's very alarming and a very real issue um I'm very proud of those numbers and the Persistence of our students and how prepared they are academically socially and emotionally for their next phase in life and it doesn't mean they have to go to college but the fact that we do have so many kids that do go to college that's a big deal for for me so thank you to everybody that is involved in that I another question director um just about the activities part of it I noticed the point about you were talking about um just the disparity between some of the um the Gap in extracurricular uh between white and Asian and um black and africanamerican you know there's and then the talk was about um adding an equity Leadership Council for that piece of it is there a reason why that'd be separated from like the sack committee and like not part of that group at all or is is there an opportunity to combine those two groups to to um you know go through the approval processes or or whatever committees are there for that that's a really good question okay I could follow up with that okay I don't know for sure yeah but a great question do board members have any other questions or comments um regarding the data metrics plan plan as a whole now that we've seen the Early Childhood through um High School pieces I think I just wanted to say one thing Dr Stanley um the evolution of the state of metri plan Kudos is phenomenal from where it started to where it is today um not only with your leadership but with everyone who's been involved um Echoes to everyone I just remember the original conversations around it and to go from where we were to where we are today and imagine where we might be going as the years continue on I just think it allows a level of consistency that I think we sometimes lose um when we don't have something like this you all the seven people along here will change over time um not the eighth person by the way just the seven of us um and so being able to have that regardless of who's in the chair is also another kind of foundational element I think that comes to play and I think there's a lot of data people in this room and at this table um and sometimes data is a way for us to make sense of things that are hard for us to get our mind wrapped around and when we talk about performance you know in an excellent environment metrics are not the only way to demonstrate that but it sure does a great job of foundationally letting you know from place to place how you're doing and so I just wanted to at least Echo that considering where it was and I'm sure Erica could even speak longer to this because she was around a lot longer than we were but it's kind of like amazing to think about where it's gone and it seems to getting more and more through all of your efforts we are getting to where we want to get to on this and it's not so much for the board's use this is the key thing that I always like to say data is data if you don't know what you're using it for who cares what I see in these reports that we've been going on every six months we're showing how we're using it and that's just an excellent part of the kind of culture and fabric that we were building and expanding here in Indina so I just wanted to at least call that out thank you because it's it's it's an amazing effort in that regard thanks director bman I just want to say I mean this is completely completely a team effort right um you know when we started looking and building at this state of metrics plan I've shared many times that I have a district instructional leadership team um that include many of the people that are here and principles and they really worked with me to to develop that and we're continuing uh to make it user friendly as possible um thank you to Greg because we are consistently pushing on him um for the presentation of it and and more than anything he go goes to Tableau trainings to learn from his peers and to build his craft around this so that we can get better at this uh I am so I could not be more proud of our principles because they really do understand their continuous School Improvement plans are connected to our data metrics plan and they are building that out and um it takes a lot quite honestly I'm going to brag on them because it takes a lot to build coherence in a system in this way and they are all in um and so I appreciate all cabinet principls um our APS our Deans and um everybody in teaching and learning um and the other departments that are making this happen thank you thank you so much thank you for coming Greg I should have asked a a really uh a really granular question so you got to come up but uh we're going to move on to our lit comprehensive literacy plan and science of reading professional development update um we have director of teaching and learning jod D St Hubert backup along with assistant director teaching and learning Bethy van ozell and Sandra Harley who's our elementary literacy coach and internal letters trainer so welcome thank you very happy to be here oh will you turn the mic on really fast thank you yes uh good evening chair allenberg Dr Stanley and members of the board and Community um it's getting to be a long night and we're just so happy to be here we want to be succinct but we also have a lot of things to celebrate and and passionate people that want to speak and share our story and the way that these board reports are weaving together tonight is really kind of cool to sit and and listen to so thank you for um inviting us to present our compreh comprehensive literacy plan we know you read the board report um so this presentation is going to focus specifically on the highlights around our letters implementation um as you know I'm Bethany van oel assistant director of teaching and learning and this is Sandra Harley she's one of our literacy coaches who you've heard from before um so you're going to get to hear a lot of um amazing things um about her work around letters in the classrooms with teachers um so we're going to talk really quick about the re act I know you've heard of it um so the read Act was important legislation that was passed um uh this last summer a year ago 2023 and a critical component of the read Act is uh a commitment to um have all of our teachers trained in the science of reading um and so Minnesota school districts have to have all of their teachers trained around the science of reading in two different phases and so this slide is just kind of laying out for you phase one um there's an earlier due date which you'll see in just a minute but these teachers are prek teachers um who are um already further along in letters um and then 612 intervention and special education teachers and then phase two we will bring on our secondary teachers um they're still working to approve the platform the PD platform for secondary so the react uh legislation um requires that all teachers in Phase One be trained in um 2026 and so what I want to share with this slideshow or this slide specifically is just the timeline that Edina actually started back in 2020 one so we started a couple years if not three years before many of the other districts started their letters initiatives our teachers were eager to get on board and so as we go through the timeline you can see how each year we just added a layer of um more staff and uh depth really around the training that they were getting so we um have right now in 2024 we've got 183 teachers who are finished with volume one sy's going to speak more about volume one um and we've got our 12 special education teachers that are starting now also we are poised and ready to bring on our secondary staff we started with them in Aspire you heard about that last year when we presented um so they started in Aspire having some science of reading training um but we're ready to formally do that as soon as the state approves that platform but by 2026 we'll have all of our teachers trained in the science of reading which is um just a just ahead of what the state has expected us to do so we're we're on track if not a little ahead of the game um just noted to the the note at the bottom is um we're waiting on the state to approve the secondary plan and so we're we're ready to implement that and our teachers are ready also as soon as they approve that so um with that our teachers are reporting great things around letters I find that one of the exciting things about this is that they truly appreciate the training that is so extensive you know how extensive it is 144 hours in total and they appreciate it because they're seeing results on on their students and that's the best way to motivate Any teacher right so 92.6% of teachers says say that letters um will impact their positively impact their classroom instruction and 100% of teachers that were involved in Aspire said that that was something that they can apply in their classrooms right away and you can see in the data that that's that's really starting to have an effect um so this is just a snip from the board report but I just wanted to reiterate you were asking some really good questions around I can't remember who I think it was um Cher Ellenberg asked questions around uh the cohort that started with letters and Sandy and I immediately out our data and started looking and tracking through but 3 years ago if you look fall toall you can see the fall toall data so this is showing different kids but it's showing the rise in the system right so an 8% increase in fast brly reading um I won't go through all of them but you can see even some double digigit increases in there for students receiving special ed services which again just speaks to us closing the Gap and doing some really great things um again Dr sley says it's a village it takes all of us right and so really um working together to see these increases and so it's just really exciting exting so what I I found this quote to be really meaningful because the the actual training isn't what's what's changing the world right education is changing our people and our people are changing the world and one of the people that's doing the most work around here is sitting to my left and so Sandra I'm excited to to pass the clicker over to you but before I do that I just want to say that um she's been uh she's a trained facilitator now for letters so she's been doing cohorts of teachers and we've been capturing some data and I just wanted to read a couple of quotes around her facilitation um one teacher said Sandra's an excellent facilitator who keeps a PD very engaging with group talk and Hands-On activities she was awesome very engaging and gave us a lot of time to share ideas and this is really impressive but 100% of teachers in her um PD session said 100% said that this PD will have a positive impact on me and my instruction in my literacy block so with that I'm going to let her tell the fun stories about all the teachers good evening okay so um I think I ski the slide here here we go and so letters is really made up of two volumes we have volume one the microphone I'm sorry that's important thank you that is important okay and so letters is made up of two volumes volume one which is it consists of four units and then also volume two which is another four units and so as Bethany mentioned we have 183 teachers that are fully trained in volume one and with all of those same teachers being fully trained in volume two by the the end of our Academic School year and so volume one is really around phic awareness phonics influency and then volume two is vocabulary comprehension and so it is critical that our Ein teachers are fully immersed in the science of reading research and so volume one unit one is real really where all that research lives we talk about the five theoretical models and it is the why around everything that we're doing and so teachers are collaborating around the research they're engaged in the research they're building the models as they are learning about the research um and then finally they are making connections between those theoretical models so that they walk away with a really in-depth understanding of how the brain learns to read and write and so there were several mindsets shifts that we kind of went through as we were um engaged in our professional development and those mindset shifts forced us into some really solid instructional shifts and so teachers are putting interventions in place for each and every student at risk of not meeting end ofe Benchmark and so what you're looking at here is a header to a document and this document lives at every one of our elementary sites and it lives at every grade level and so in teacher groups and our plc's we're able to capture the names of the students that are at risk we talk about the supports at tier one we're aligning and making connections to those supports at tier two and three we are looking at Diagnostics together we're uh talking about those opportunity gaps and then following up every step of the way of course with progress monitoring and so this is really our dist strict promise around each and every student we want to make sure that our students are getting the access and the opportunity that they deserve to be skilled readers and I also just wanted to add that teachers are developing a growing sense of confidence um and commitment as um this knowledge of theirs is growing and so that's been a really positive thing another instructional shift was that teachers are teaching all five pillars of reading phonemic awareness phonics fluency vocabulary and comprehension at every grade level kindergarten through grade five whereas we may have thought depending on when we graduated that um we taught phonic awareness and phonics at kindergarden first and second grade and then we taught vocabulary comprehension at the intermediate grade levels um that is no longer a thing we have to teach all the pillars at every grade level it is no longer the learning to read at the K2 level and then reading to learn at the 35 level um and so this is a visual from Fast Bridge just indicating all those pillars that need to be taught at every single grade level and so with that I'm going to walk you through one of the pillars which is fluency and what that looks like at kindergarten first second third fourth and how that grows into fifth grade and so this is a kindergarten teacher and he is teaching very explicitly how to handwrite the letter U he is um students are using their arms and doing the big circles in the air and making the letter U they're taking their two fingers and they're tracing it on their leg they're tracing the letter U on their shoe on the carpet um just providing a students an opportunity to practice the skill that they were just taught then students are going back to their seats and there is more practice around how to handw write the letter U and I say this because there is a lot of developing research around handwriting and the impact on kids later on in their school year especially with when we think about students with markers of Dyslexia students that are trying to engage in composition things like that handwriting fluency is very significant these are kindergarten first grade students this is a fluency work that they're doing around phones the sounds right and this is consistent it's every day kids have so many minutes that they partner read and so you can imagine the impact of what this has on students that again are practicing the skills that they're being taught fluency practice using decodable text we also have fluency practice at the text level we have one student utilizing a timer and one student is using a tracking protocol as another student is reading hugely impactful I want to back up for just a second and just I just want to point out that fluency is really the heart and soul of all of our work it is so significant on so many levels okay and uh the last shift our instructional practice I'm going to speak to are that teachers are making sounds tangible for students by explicitly teaching articulatory gestures using mirrors and our sound wall tool this is a kindergarten teacher she is building a great level of anticipation in her classroom around unlocking the new sound she is providing um explicit language around the manner and place of articulation do we have a stop sound do we have a continuous sound is our voice on is our voice off kids are looking in the mirrors and they are engaging and making in they're understanding that sounds can be tangible and teachers are acknowledging the research that when sounds are heard through the ears they um are ephemeral and they disappear as soon as they're heard so we want to really be really intentional about making sounds tangible for kids okay and so last the question is how would you describe the impact that the science of reading knowledge um has had on your students um it changed my scores and these are comments directly from a survey it changed my scores and I'm not I'm not going to read them all I'll just go ahead and flip through them last one the why behind it right it's the why behind everything that we are doing and so just want to end just uh sharing that this is a very exciting time for educators and I am super super proud of our teachers they are working so hard they are working collaboratively and they are meeting the needs of more and more of our students so thank you and we're now happy to take your questions thank you amazing work um board members questions director Barry hey um so your description of place manner Voice using the mirrors articulators looks a lot like my graduate level speech language pathology courses and I'm wondering if we've seen any carryover into reduced referrals for speech services I wonder if Jody riming would know that have we seen a decrease in speech referrals since starting letters do you know so we don't know our speech referrals on our asid so our speech identification numbers are are high in our district and so one of the things that we've been doing is working with our district speech pathologist and looking at why our numbers are high and one of the things that they said that they really think is um to our advantage is that we have the letters training and that our teachers are really working on this and they feel that when letters is fully implemented and teachers have received all of that training that that will really help reduce the number of speech referrals and so while we aren't really seeing those results just yet our speech pathologists um wholeheartedly believe in the training and remain very optimistic that they will see those benefits later on director huie H how are students in nandale and the Spanish dual language programs impacted by this I know my my kids were in Normandale expect delays until third grade etc etc so are they going to be even more impacted because they haven't had this or are do they have it like just some questions around that are you comfortable yeah very good question and so our teachers at Normandale have had the letters training and they have created sound walls in French and um even though the language is different and the phones are different The Sounds in the language all the practices are the same right and so they've created sound walls they're still teaching uh students the articulatory gestures um around the sounds a lot of those sounds are the same um and so I think they would say that has been extremely valuable and then as far as our Spanish dual language they haven't yet gone through the science of reading training uh they are starting they have their courses ready to go they haven't had any of their online training yet but they're are they are taking part in O and La training and so um again they haven't started yet but the practices are the same right when we think about the reading brain the circuitry and and how a student learns to read and spell is the same it doesn't doesn't matter right um if they're an e student or a student in a Normandale school or Spanish dual language so they the teachers are able to make those connections to the theories okay and then do you think this would help identify uh students with reading other issues in those programs my son wasn't identified with a learning disciple until third grade and um so I'm just like because this practice is in place will that give us more insight into maybe some of those those kids who are are um struggling readers struggling readers in even in French or Spanish or whatever I think 100% absolutely it's giving us a lot of insight um as a coach I'm engaged in a lot of these conversations with teachers and really it's analyzing all of the Diagnostics that were provided to us through our letters work so through letters there's several different Diagnostics around each of the pillars and they that's part of their bridge to practice the application piece that they have to then submit as they've as they experience these Diagnostics and once they um go ahead and initiate the diagnostic and we're analyzing them with with the teachers and so they've gotten really good at having those conversations that said we still have some work to do so this does that does that answer your question director man yeah just from looking at our um data metric plan we see that achievement gaps are still persistent you know still persisting are we able to look at the cohort of students taking letters training and seeing all these increases um are are achievement gaps still persisting in those groups of kiddos that have gone through letters trainings or do we have um statistical signific numbers yet of that can we break that down where it makes sense yet do we see is it normalized or is that something where we still have identifiable gaps we still have work to do we still have work to do and we're seeing uh greater increases in some of our student populations that we need to close gaps for and we still have work to do we're we're um uh Dr beair shared how we have a el coach now who's coming on board and she's starting to meet um with our literacy coaches we meet every Friday and so the analogy that I use is it's like we understand where our light needs to shine brightest and we need to work together to do that and so we definitely still have work to do and we're seeing um really promising results we just need to keep doing the work and could I add something please um Nate and I were out at a school um last week for a quarterly School Improvement plan check and that principal brought back the data for kindergarten first and second grade 100% of the black students in first and second grade I don't know if you still have that little sheet of paper but 100% of them had met Benchmark I the Gap was eliminated in that school and so that's what Bethany is talking about we are making progress um I think they were at 78% of their um students who identify as uh Latino um meeting their benchmarks so we are making progress there we have the Gap has been around for a while and I said when I started here I said to everyone if anybody can eliminate achievement disparities e din in public schools is the one that can do that and so we are working on that but we are seeing some incredible gains it's pocket right now we need to make it consistent across the board which again I'll just reiterate that's why it isn't just letters it is you know just a data metrics plan it's got to be everything working together I have a question um it's around the assessment data and um I was wondering um right now and I know why it's students that are performing below 50th percentile are marked um to be looked at individually and I was wondering if as an organization if you guys have um taken a look at students that are at risk or at are trending towards potentially being below 50% um for example a student has um met Benchmark for kindergarten first grade and they're suddenly a certain percentile below because we've seen over I mean we've seen and data tells us that a lot of kids get diagnosed with learning disabilities third fourth and fifth grade and so I'm just wondering if um there's also or if there's a consideration to look at um if students have dropped a certain percentage but they might not be at 50% they're at 60% should we have our eye on a student that is trended so far and is trending down not necessarily at 50% do they also need to be looked at because they're not performing how they used to and we just know statistically that um there might be something going on yeah absolutely uh that's one of the beautiful things about fast bridge is we test three times a year and so when we're testing three times a year in the in between times any student who falls below the 50th percentile is getting an intervention and progress monitored um so we're able to track those Trends and the coaches are doing an amazing job meeting in plc's and looking at that data you saw that chart that that Sandra showed where they're tracking exactly the interventions that they're getting one thing that is I think it's important is um when fastbridge will they'll they'll cut a a they they'll give us a cut score at the 40th percentile when they say that we want to service kids in intervention below the 40th well in Dino we cut that at the 50th percentile so those kids between the 40th and 50th were still servicing them because of what you're talking about right because those are kids that just kind of ride that line sometimes the other thing we look at is growth and that growth component especially when we get to Winter that's a huge time where we can pause and say okay you know this Sandra is at the you know she was toggling around the 50th percentile but she had made Flat growth so that's the other component that fastbridge gives us that allows us to kind of um I don't know again shine our light right on those students but I can't say enough how these coaches are meeting with teachers and they know each and every child they can they can show you and look at that so they're tracking this so carefully principles are sitting in on those data meetings so um there are so many measures put in place to help avoid that you know just having the the screening process in place like that and the growth measures I should say also yeah it's a good question director gaer um I just wanted to point out in case board members missed it or the public missed um in your actual narrative report on page 17 we were talking about colors and how we like colors here um I like this is this colored coded graph that shows the cohorts over years and that helps me because sometimes I wonder do we have students like Cher andberg T that are weaving in and out so we see a snapshot when we see the you know data metrics plan but this kind of shows longitudinally how these kids are doing as their cohort moves from kindergarten to fourth grade so that's worth a look because actually when you look at that we have quite a number of grades that are um an increase across the years so that's that's a good graph there before I wrap up I just wanted to say thank you and as a parent of a kid that got lost in the system and is now in college I this actually makes me super emotional because I look at the work you're doing and I think about wow my kid could have benefited from this so I just want to thank you it's changing kids' lives and their ability to perform well in school sorry it does make me emotional so emal it's a big deal so thank you okay on that thank you yeah um we will move to um where are we on our agenda Gru oh oh great graduation requirements we have director of teaching and learning jod D St Hubert and it looks like we have High School Principal Paul pel and assistant principal Jenny Johnson you guys pulled third shift yeah yes and we do have a presentation if that can be put up when possible that would be great thank you ah so good evening Dr Stanley Chair Ellenberg board directors um colleagues and community members I'm um excited to be here again tonight with assistant principal Jenny Johnson and Principal Paul pel um to talk about graduation requirements um oh good thank you for getting the presentation up appreciate it um on August 20th as well as September 24th we had discussions on graduation requirements at the board workshops our goal tonight is to have another discussion with the intent of determining next steps for Action at the November 4th board meeting the board report which you have um reviewed and that's in front of you has links to each report and presentation and the detailed information in the reports um specifically the report from September 24th is directly from thought exchange and the AI synthesis of the information in the surveys that were provided the presentation that we're going to go through tonight highlights um additional information that we've been asked to gather over time and share throughout the process so we're going to go through the slides and I'm going to go really quickly through slide 1 through n um these are an overview of why we are having this discussion um there's the the additional um the changes to social studies that occurred within legislation and then the addition of personal finance with with which also occurred from legislation change um those changes and additions impact what we need to do for our graduation requirements and really we have two options that we're looking at one is to increase our total required semester credits for graduation from 43 to 44 the other option would be to reduce our PE required semester credits to maintain the same number of total required semester credits at 43 um so there's a couple in these ENT beginning slides of um visuals that are also within our registration materials and I'm going to turn it over to um principal Jenny assistant principal Jenny Johnson to talk about our current reality and then go over scheduling I can change this if you want okay yes FR okay so uh looking at just um our current situation our current status in terms of where fied sits at at the high school as of today um there's been a a lot of changes I think over the course of fied in the high school as a response to the changing students habits it could be video games it could be just a more sedentary lifestyle or the need to um provide more Wellness experiences for students I think meeting the needs of the whole child so it's beyond just traditional fiet as maybe we grew up with but our department has added um emotional social and emotional educ ation as part of their uh department and and their curriculum um right now there are uh 10 courses that meet the needs of each and every student there are 34 standards that the state of Minnesota requires uh a student to have to graduate from high school of those 34 personal Wellness is the name of the course that's the prerequisite for any of the additional fied courses personal Wellness contains 21 of those 34 standards and the other electives contain each of them contain the remaining 13 so when a student takes two semesters Worth or two requirements for fied they're meeting the 34 credits that are required by the state another response I think to students um and Community voice has been the desire for a more flexible offerings for students for fied so the department has added a summer Blended health and summer Blended fied options for students to take over the summer um through the Edina virtual pathway students are also able to take a number of different fied courses primarily students take personal Wellness um and they also have that as we talked about the additional elective where they can achieve those other 13 standards are two of two of the courses are offered through EVP uh strength and conditioning and Blended guided Wellness so when you look at a student's schedule and this would be current as of today um students have seven opportunities a semester to take a course so they could earn 14 total credits in a given year for a total of 56 so we looked at some data that was presented back in the August 20th board report and compiled the number of the percentage of students who took only a world language course for four years or only a music course for four years the percentage of seniors that took both World Language and music for four years and then the percentage of students that took neither World Language nor music in any of their time during their four years at edine high school and I think just to highlight a couple of those percentages the number of students who did not take or the percentage of students who did not the percentage of seniors I'm sorry who did not take World Language nor music at all during their four-year history there was 23% 23.53% on the average and in the class of 2024 24. 23% of our students didn't take uh World Language or music as their electives of choice also highlighting students who took both World Language and music for four years occupying those electives or earning those electives class of 2024 was at 32.14% on the average over the previous six years 32.495759 and just kind of a written synopsis or some other information that we had gathered um and it's interesting no students who took four years of World Language also no there are no students who took four years of World Language that also took four years of business electives so in other words if a if a student took four years of World Language they did not fill the rest of their electives with four years of business classes most students only typically take over the last six years one business elective another interesting fact one to two students a year take four years of World Language and also take four years of computer science or engineering and technology and then lastly no students who took four years of World Language took four years of Fine Arts and that fine arts would be the arts classes not music okay so kind of another summary World Language is an elective and colleges require two to four years of World Language depending on the institution so I think the point would be that um just understanding that we have our requirements and we have 43 graduation requirements there's 56 opportunities for in all for students to take classes and one thing I've noticed as the master scheduler is just the variety and options and um how no two schedules seem to be exactly the same and and and I think that says a lot about what our school district stands for in terms of allowing students to be able to uh pursue what they want and how they want to do it so just as some examples of what a student schedule looks like um this is a student with Summer personal Wellness this a ninth grader who took the summer personal Wellness in the summer and um you can see what they have to do uh in their first semester of of their freshman year is they have to take a quiet student prep um because that summer personal Wellness is logged into their ninth grade year students cannot exceed 14 credits in a school year so they have to take that quiet student prep during their first semester this student also took uh a World Language and they also have a music class and I think another thing to note is that they have a student prep also in second semester the next example is a student who did not a freshman student who did not take summer personal wellness and they simply um opted to take that personal Wellness as a face-to-face class during uh the school day that meets every day they also have a quiet student prep as an elective and shows American sign language as a world language in second semester they continued on with another opportunity for a student prep and added the Fine Arts digital photo one to their schedule and filled one of those Fine Arts requ credits on the next slide we have a senior um who took online personal Wellness One Summer and summer health the next summer and so they would have had to take those student preps like I showed you in the first slide uh as in their semester one course but this students a senior took two summer classes and um allowed them some flexibility in terms of having a student prep during their freshman year whatever year they took that but this student um has chosen to take a student prep and be a teacher assistant so they are only taking five credit bearing courses for their first semester and then in their second semester chose to take six credit bearing courses but still have that student prep the next slide is a senior who didn't take any summer online or summer personal Wellness courses and this student filled most of their schedule with PSO courses and again demonstrating just the flexibility the options the opportunities that students have by being students in our district um this student has quite a few AP classes and then elected to take their second fied class all the way in the very last semester of their senior year to earn that credit and still had time to do it and then the last schedule um is a student who took both a World Language and a music course for all four years of their time at Idina high school and I think it's interesting all of the courses in yellow are electives there's only two requirements graduation requirements left in this student schedule by the time they're a senior and that's the intro to literature CIS and the AP English Lit comp the remaining courses are all uh electives at this point in this the students schedule and then uh we also took a random sampling of 24 seniors just to kind of gauge what their schedules look like and it seemed like of the 24 two common groups emerged one where students were looking for a a quote lighter schedule maybe on the easier side um and so there were uh 16 of the 24 opted for this lighter version where maybe they had a peer tutor a ta a TA position along with a student prep so they were taking four to five classes um I'm sorry five classes that were credit bearing some had PSO two schedules had PSO um and then there's a second group that took a heavier schedule but only one of those students took seven classes in their senior year uh only one schedule had six classes again these were more difficult classes AP courses World Language music and six of the U more heavier schedule uh had six classes um along with their music and language so I think in a nutshell again there are a w wide variety of schedules that our students can take and again in my work as a schedule almost there's no two that are identical and I think that's such a a bonus for uh students that come to Ed Public Schools um over half of our students are graduating with 50 credits a random sampling of the 24 students we talked about about um 16 students were taking kind of a lighter schedule eight were taking a heavier schedule and then 33 to 34% of our students are in a position to take four years of World Language and music at the same time for all four years and it still leaves four open slots for them to fill with electives that they want to explore in in depth thank you um a next section that we have was just to highlight some of the feedback and student feedback that we gathered through that exchange and I'm going to um highlight a couple of these slides specifically and then go through some others more quickly and um leave some options for discussion on them further um the family feedback and the thought exchange was um respondents we had 389 respondents so um a lot but we know it's also only a portion of our school Community um we started the survey our the thought exchange survey with a purpose statement of um the purpose statement that you saw in the earlier slides about what are the goals of our PE program and just asked how is our PBE program doing and Meeting those goals um then we asked very specifically if we did drop an elective requirement would we still meet the goals and we have um 57% of the respondents say Yes um and then we noted that it could these are it's really hard to predict and I always want to continue to put that in space that that it could um possibly decrease the flexibility of classes and would we still meet our goals and we still had that didn't drop much right we went from 57% thinking we meet our goals if we dropped one and 53% thinking we still would if we lost some of the flexibility that's a possibility um there's some statements here just in overviews these come directly from thought exchange and this was also directly in the report so I'm going to go through these two slides um three slides more quickly and just highlight that the feedback um was about as diverse as our student schedules um noting that that is the strength in our system that we provide so many choices and so much flexibility for our students and our families um that came through in both the student and the parent survey so what that exchange did was just synthesize we definitely had people um within the survey that were very um clear that reducing PE requirements was what their choice would be and then some that wanted to maintain but the Common Ground was the flexible options and then when we look quickly at our PE um our sorry our student feedback we had 377 respondents 9 through 12 again a high number but not completely representative of our entire 9 through2 population um this was very targeted to do you take some of these flexible options and why so these data points just tell you from those 377 respondents how many are taking the flexible options and that data in our first board report in 820 was specific to what um Greg gwire pulled based on what's in our system for all students um so then we just asked the students why and there were themes about why um convenience we talked about um that for some students they noted it was an easier option for them some noted that they don't like um going to PE during the school day because you sweat and then you have to go back to class and all those conveniences that um they they communicated um many said very specifically to free up my schedule to take more electives and harder classes or student prep which um we know there's you know there's um kind of some guidelines to follow with that but there are many that did that for that reason um many felt that it was a much more efficient way to get mandatory credits done and some just preferred that that um that well actually this activity preference was a really strong theme that many felt like this met their needs when they're also in athletics or um maybe even just yoga right that they're that they're active themselves and so then they can um be efficient with what they like to do in their life and what they're doing with a lot of their hours and um use that for some of their PE time so again there was differences and um a wide variety um a lot of students did note I want to emphasizes that it was to free up their schedule and and a lot noted that it was to avoid in school gym um but the common with all of them um was the flexibility and convenience and those those slides are coming right from thought exchange so with that I'm going to turn it over to principal Patel Just to speak a little bit about our ending slides thank you um so considering all the information that we gathered we wanted to um really address uh three main themes that we were hearing one was uh the first one being where the flexibility um occurs currently in our schedules um so looking at the random schedules that we um pulled uh we found that most schedules have at least two spots for either a non-credit bearing course or a totally Choice elective meaning that it does not contribute to a graduation requirement um but it's simply an elective um the Dynam virtual pathway option uh does provide some flexibility in terms of how you disperse the credits just a reminder that that we have a maximum of 14 credits per year so it doesn't allow you to necessarily take more courses but it does distribute the courses throughout the course of the year and does free up some space for things like personal prep uh the uh you want to get that thank you uh the also we have opportunities outside of Edina High School to earn credit for learning uh such as you know post-secondary options uh Alternative Learning sites and out of school experiences work-based learning and other education uh opportunities and then finally elective credit bearing activities uh for example uh student council uh and yearbook and our um um our school newspaper as well you can earn credits uh for those as well secondly we wanted to look at uh if we did look at the PE reduction uh and what would be the impact of that uh and the theme emerged of less flexibility uh the uh the survey suggested that 56% of the students if they did not have to take a second uh fied as a graduation requirement they would choose not to take that second PE course um so with the 56% reduction in personal Wellness that would leave um about half the options for our um our uh elective uh fied course um it would have impact on a number of those courses in a particular note uh we predict that uh we would have a strong impact on our unified physical education offerings and then finally we wanted to look at uh what are some opportunities that emerged through our uh surveys and the um looking at the data that we had um there was a uh a a suggestion that maybe enhancing the communication on what flexible options do exist during a registration process would be helpful for um for students as they registered uh and to explore options of what other districts are doing in order to provide alternatives for gaining um credits for graduation and also embedding uh the the standards from physical education into um their courses uh to look at expanding the summer options again uh that would not free uh spaces up for additional credits but would free up the spaces in the schedule um to have uh a different experience uh also uh looking at increased wellness and mental health education throughout a students day to be placing that in other parts of their schedule uh and to look at opportunities such as advisory uh there was a theme that emerged uh that talked about exploring additional uh options for uh recognizing Athletics as part of the requirement for uh a physical education uh uh credit uh we currently do have that on an online version where you can fill out the logs on that um you have the experience from Athletics that would contribute to that and then um looking at the flexibility as we look at offerings uh in other content areas and how we can maybe merge some of the the standards into other uh courses and then uh ensuring that that there's increased flexibility in new course proposals to make sure some of the standards are embedded in new course proposals so those were options that we looked at I'll pass this back Joy thank you I think just to highlight the slides that I went through very quickly in the beginning um this is you know incredibly challenging conversation and it's coming because we had some changes in legislation that we're outside of our control and so as we engage in the conversation we um are definitely here to hear feedback and input and recognize that um with the changes in legislation that it it does make it difficult um and that through the Gathering of information and providing more input for you um we we have learned some very very valuable things um that can lean us into the continuous Improvement that we've been talking about through the whole evening um and we're we're open to hear what what we should continue to lean into for next steps thank you very much Director D Hubert um before we move on with this agenda item um board policy 203 does state that we cannot have a board meeting that extends Beyond 10:00 without the approval of the rest of the board um so I would like to make a motion that we extend our board meeting to 11:00 is there a second from a board member reluctantly yes um all those in favor of extending our board meeting to 11:00 say I hi hi anyone opposed uh the motion carries and our board meeting can go up to 11:00 it might not though um now we can move on with this agenda item um first I'd open it up to board members that might have any additional questions about this topic to make sure that there's no more clarifications board members need um before we move into any reactions that um you might have director Birman a quick question um can't exceed 14 credits in a year is that a EHS policy or is there a actual regulatory policy that doesn't allow us to do that there is actually a regulatory um policy um I don't know if it's policy but budgetary Mar oh do you want Detail no no no that's that's all I need I I just wanted to confirm that um and then second what's one one piece of data that's not here if you know it off the top of your head great when we look at what are the average amount of credits that students are graduating with in the categories that you had on you know your slide with World Language and music breakout so you had World Language only music only both language and music and then neither do you have any sense as to for the kids that are both World Language and music are they taking the full 56 credits or they're slightly less than that on average versus neither World in language they're at their I don't know maybe they're 48 or 50 or whatever it might be do you have like a any sense about because I'm just trying to take the percentages that you brilliantly put here I'm just trying to get a sense of how many credits is the average graduate having based on these categories I think I think uh at some point I can't remember which slide but I read that the average was over 50 um that students graduate with I don't have the specific data that you're asking for um anecdotally the of the 24 senior schedules that we pulled and the ones that we just showed I think there are quite a few students who would take six per semester um so that would be 48 roughly 48 to 50 that students end up graduating with okay well when we bring this to action if you wouldn't mind I think that would be helpful for me just so I can frame what that is if that's possible great if not it's okay my last question um we talked about the 13 standards that are required outside of the core personal Wellness if I remember correctly from our work session those cannot be combined with any other course at this moment outside of the ones that are already the 10 identified or whatever it might be it's not like we can take those 13 standards and put them in a personal finance class and kill two birds with one stone is that correct go ahead um well for I definitely at the board discussion we talked about that first personal finance um standards can't be embedded right um those 13 standards um could be embedded in the onep class um and potentially looked at to be embedded in other classes um my initial reaction is that might be a stretch um but could definitely be explored just so you know my questions are not specific as I'm advocating for that I'm actually responding to questions I received great um from people especially at the PTO at the high school would you have anything else to say to that no and and um director bman I did like one point to your first question and that's pretty Tiny But like when we look at the percentage of students that are taking four world four years of World Language four years of a music and then all math a science and a social studies all four years they don't they have room for four more classes right so it's not a lot um but we can try to pull that exact percentage that you were asking for too it it's it's more of running to get the the difference between the kids who are full on in the foure of the two Key Programs and so on so forth they only have this four option y they what are they what are they doing with their total CR are they going for the full 56 okay versus the rest of the cohort of students that are somewhere less than that is there a significant difference in the total amount of credits because if you're talking about one extra requirement of 43 to 44 in that regard y clearly that's going to impact that first group the most I'm trying to get a little kind of a weighing difference between that group versus everybody else from that standpoint in my consideration of where to go with this great thank you thank you for clarifying questions from other board members so I would just ask board members to weigh in on any thoughts that they have to make sure that the community is able to hear feedback from board members since this is the first opportunity it's tele televised and recorded um as well as um so our Administration um can hear feedback from board members director arum um my initial thought is is that you know having had three kids who've gone through this piece of it I think the flexibility is great when it comes to that I think that um my biggest concern has to do with kind of where we're going with some of the pathways work and some of those types of things and allowing those types of activities and adding an increased requirement so that's where I kind of say like you know we I get where we're saying we need to maintain flexibility from that standpoint and I and I love this summer online pieces of it because I think that does add flexibility I just am concerned with um having an additional requirement for um that might impact either Pathways or other types of things whether it's PS SEO or Deca or those types of things that students are typically involved into so director Gable um thank you for this report because this is the third time the board's getting to see it and um you continue to put information in there to I think help help us make the best decision we can and as you indicated um this is a discussion we are having because the state made some decisions they also made some decisions about social studies which we made a decision about in the spring and I've asked myself if I would have known where we were going at that point would I have made a better big different decision at that point and um I don't know and so that's where my question goes with where director Aram had talked about is is better understanding how do we you know we've talked about Pathways but we've also talked about making those Pathways embedded in classes that we are already offering and so that's a big big question mark for me is like are we going to eventually have to do something with this accredit anyway um and I don't know because I don't think we have enough of that information at this point um all of your data to me is is helpful because I think it tells a story I think all of us have had kids go through the system and so we know our own children's experience and we know our children's friends experience but I think Jenny how you pulled so many different schedules that's really important for me to hear because I don't rep I represent all 8,500 students that go through our schools and I don't know I don't know them all and so that to me I I'm trying to and knowing that like you started with your um the presentation um you know wellness and and how many times we hear the stress load of our students and that could be taken a different way too we could say this frees them up to maybe lo you know lessen the stress but um that's weighing heavy on me because I know that those are courses you know I've heard people say well well kids don't want to take it well kids don't want to take math sometimes either and we make them take math so um yeah so so I just I wanted to articulate I guess I talked a lot at the last meeting about kind of that Runway and understanding where we're going but um I know my fellow board members to take this really seriously and we were trying to do what's best for students and um and so thank you again for your report and the work that you've done dror man um last board meeting or work work session not tonight but a couple weeks ago we had a really robust discussion that kind of boiled down to the differences we had kind it was kind of two discussions really about kind of the state requirements versus um kind of end up to be the requirements of a student trying to have really a highly competitive U call college enrollment situation um and the two very different conversations ultimately both very valuable conversations but but kind of different the state really kind of made put us in a situation where they added we had a packed bus and they added a course to a packed bus but yet didn't tell us what we should take off that bus and so we're kind of looking to see you know try to fit that in um for me um the teacher recommendation to add the course also I I think I lean that way uh in the sense that cutting the um physical education requirement I think would do real harm to the unified program and and that's something that can I think change kids' worldview as far as we're talking about having a um a wide ranging really full education for our kiddos and that seems like just such a valuable um program for us as well we can always look back a year later and say well maybe we can make an adjust rather than cutting and then going back and saying oh well now we can't really add it back um I don't favor adding you know PE credit for sports participation I understand we can kind of do that right now as online situation so you can kind of do that if you want um but I guess I from the information we've had I I I guess at this point I would support um adding the adding the one course and and keeping our our PE requirements as they are before we move on to somebody else um I would like to have a dialogue specifically about unified programming and um I appreciate you bringing it up because I was going to bring it up I think we need to be very careful when presenting information to our community about unified programming and the risk of a decision the board is making um having a negative impact on unified programming I've gotten a lot of very panicked calls from special education parents about that um and at this point in time we do not have any information that says a decision that we're going to make tonight is going to impact unified programming um and I'm really I guess concerned about the way it's been presented that there is a direct cor a likely direct correlation between reducing this credit and our unified programming I think that as a institu as a district as a high school I hope that we have a commitment to unified programming and um that we find a way to make unified programming work and in fact everything I've heard is that we're working to expand it into other areas Beyond PE and um I would like to assure our special education families that we do have that commitment um regardless but of what happens with this decision because I think when we do make a commitment we need to follow through on that and I think that um I actually interpreted the data differently as far as what would be impacted from um if if we reduce this credit which I'm not saying that we do um the student survey that we did the 78% 78% of the students that responded to the student survey said they're already currently taking physical education through a virtual format it was close to 80% which to your point doesn't represent all students but that was the survey that we did so of that survey we have a large large percentage of our students not utilizing in class physical education and they're taking it through a virtual format of those students that said they would not take a PE class a second one because if the credit was reduced 80% of those students said it was because they're interested in taking other electives and so I've just been going through all of this data in my head and I think the real risk in this decision is to are virtual programming because we have so many students that are trying to take physical education and get their two credits I think we have a real risk of having a dramatic drop in Virtual programming but I guess my point is we don't know and since we don't know I think we can't be Cavalier about sending out to our most vulnerable parents that a program they depend on could be at risk and and that's really concerning to me and I just had to highlight that before we move on so ask for clar clarification so do you think in the presentation we got that when they said unified PE would be difficult to offer do you question that info or do you do you think that's incorrect that we what we got from our people I don't know if it is or not I think the reality is we don't necessarily know the impact I think we can guess that the data is telling us that we're going to have fewer students signing up for PE I think we know that for a fact um the data here says 65% fewer students will probably take a second PE class where that where that falls we don't know so my presumption my guess is I it might be a lot of online students but I don't know that it might it might negatively impact unified I don't know that and I guess my point is if we see that there is an unintended negative consequence to a decision which the board hasn't even made yet but if we see that I think that that is where you do continuous improvement process and you say there was an unintended negative consequence that we have to deal with but I I think I think it's I think we can't scare people into making a decision and I felt that pointing out that we could have a unified program at risk because of this decision I felt was trying to scare our special education parents when we have no data to say there's a direct correlation between this decision and a reduction in our unified classes so Erica I hear you I really do and I I understand where you're coming from I also see the flip side that if they don't give that information to the board and people make a decision and that's the UN then that is the consequence that happens our inboxes are going to be filled with all sorts of so I think it's it's important for them and maybe we can talk about could it be worded a little different and and I hear 100% what you're saying I I really really do I just think that it would be them not doing their due diligence if they didn't say hey from our standpoint these are some of the things that we think will happen so I want to give them a little bit of slack here too to just be like it might not be a black or white issue it might be like we could have maybe worded that a little different but that could be an intended an unintended consequence if we reduce that credit if I could if I could add to that I believe that in the conversations I've had the understanding around that is you need so many students to Run unified and whether it's 65% dropped here or 30 % dropped there it would be a reduction in the number of kids and so um when that data was brought toward me I did believe that it was important to at least share that information because you you have to have so many students to run that valid point um intent intent was never to scare board members or community members into forcing a decision clearly impact though is that the perception is that that was there and um just for clarity that was never my intent to have that it was um as Karen said just really to make certain that the board has as much information as it can in order to make a complex decision and I appreciate that and I don't necessarily think the information shouldn't exist I think we need to be very careful about how we articulate concerns especially to our most vulnerable families and I think that um the way it was taken to some of our special education families was they didn't even understand what the decision was I got phone calls saying I heard the board is getting rid of unified physical education at the high school and I think that's the risk sometimes when things aren't framed very very carefully especially um with some of these issues and so I just wanted to make sure after your point Elliott which is a very valid point and a very valid concern that I want to make sure that um the community also understands that um this is a risk or that we need to be cognizant of um but it's I don't think we have enough information right now to necessarily say and maybe you and maybe you do that we will for sure this decision that we're making will for sure equal this I was just going by the information that was presented um I if you're reducing courses you could eventually reduce numbers and um I think a a negative impact to the unified PE program would be something I guess at this point I don't think we necessarily would need to take that and I'm I'm glad you guys brought that forward because I think those are really the things we need to know is those unintended consequences of this could happen of you know the deck of cards if you move this card this could fall um so yeah what I said was fine with it can I can I make a clarification um the online the 70% of students that are taking online fied is primarily the personal Wellness course so that's the first class of the two and then our data showed that 56% of the students indicated they would not take the second course thank you for that clarification and I do want to say chair alen Brig thank you for um bringing up the concern about intent I appreciate Dr Stanley um phrasing that in terms of providing the information but being conscious and aware of the intent and we we value unified programing programming deeply in our district and I do want our community to know that so thank you Dr bman well I I think what's really important we talked about this at the work session is that we again are put in a position where we have to make a terrible choice there's not a good answer to this question but we only have two choices we can make one or the other other that's what we have so there's going to be consequences no matter which way we go I think that's really important to remind ourselves all that that's what we're looking at and it's really up to the seven people up here who were elected by the representative or the community we have to make this decision you guys have given us the information I think I said the last work session you gave us every piece of information we could possibly have it was a wonderful presentation it's very thorough it's now we got to bite the bullet one way or the other and there's going to be consequences one way or the other um and so that's what the call is going to be and whatever happens from there I have the faith and trust that every administrator every person who's working on this was going to do the best to minimize the negative consequences but for some students one way or another there will be you can't get away from that so my challenge is when I was asking about the 13 standards I'm trying to think ahead of whatever the decision is what future things can we work on to figure out is there a way for us to slice and dice this in a future way that could capture those other 13 things because they're still valuable but kids aren't going to want to choose to take that how do we incorporate them into something they have to take that's where I was going with that and the only other comment I'd make for at least tonight is as I said the work session the only thing I would ask us to again my colleagues on the board we have talked about as part of our strategic plan social and emotional Wellness of our students it's not PE the way it was before as Jenny said earlier in her presentation it's not the same thing it's more Wellness is what we're talking about and it comes in a lot of different frames a lot of different ways that Wellness can be done and in order to give flexibility I want to have that too because I I I appreciate what you said Erica when you said wow this report says that how much more flexibility students want by not having one course loud and clear I didn't get that at the beginning of the work session last week but I get it now I'm balancing the notion of okay that's great I want to provide that but we still have social emotional Wellness that we need to have done and taking one more credit away from working on that unless we're incorporating that elsewhere that's where I'm struggling to go where do we go with this because it doesn't really matter which decision we're going to make 43 44 because that's what we're talking about it's going to impact a portion of the population and people are just going to have to come up with well which is their best feel for that and if you're concerned about the impact to one group versus another group that's great that's what you're supposed to do but in in the end you're not going to be able to solve it for everybody so I just want to say thanks to the state legislature this is where we are director be bar um I agree with lots of things that have been said tonight um I really appreciated the slides that you added to the presentation showing the music and the language um I have not had a kid go through the college application experience yet so right now we're dealing with the perception of what do you need to take in high school to prepare yourself for college which I think a lot of students are um and the numbers on those slides told a little different story than the you need four years of a language you need four years of a music you need to stick with those things to show you know whatever to to the colleges so um that gave me something to reflect on um and also I just was curious it at what point in high school do students start to meet with someone who actually knows what they need to take to get into college L they unnecessarily stress themselves out freshman year thinking this is what we need to take when Maybe reality is a little different you want to respond to our Cel our counselors actually do start meeting with freshmen with respect to their four-year plan and so I think a statute says we have to have a four-year plan and we do so every student has a current look of what they're going to take the year they're in and they also have a picture a snapshot of the rest of the courses that they need to take until they graduate now are we talking necessarily about you got to take this your senior year they're a freshman year no not necessarily but I think we do want kids and families to be educated about what that pathway looks like throughout their four years thank you um and then my other comment would be just um knowing that in the next coming meetings we're going to be talking in more depth about the pathways program that's coming and um the decision we're making for the high school at this point is not necessarily the decision that we might with more information down the road that's the other thing that I'm just kind of grappling with right now director Barry too I did talk to our counselors just to get a better understanding myself of the language as a parent of a recent graduate and a and a senior it's you know always been a question um one of our counselors said that more language is always more but less isn't Le necessary less and it's it's different for every institution not every right but there are differences amongst all of our institutions and so that touch point with the counselors in nth grade is really really important um and the continued touch point with the counselor as our kids change and grow right um and it's it is um there is not a cut and dry number of years but that minimum recommendation of two is absolutely there and more is more depending on the school and and what you're trying to accomplish with your future so yeah director huie so I think it's more than just a college requirement because we do have two language programs in our district so we need to keep that in mind as well my daughter actually took French and Spanish in high school um and then drop French later because it was difficult to work some things around there were other things going on too but so I just want to make that point that we do have two language programs it's not just about college requirements um and I pretty much took the online Wellness course because I had to support my son in that course and you know I don't know online PE [Music] online um Wellness I think was fine but online PE is not really I think what we're looking for um unless you're in a a sport and then I can see the benefit there because it does free up your time so that's where I'm also thinking like and I understand that not all these courses are available able online but um that would also be something I would want to caution against that it may not be all above board based on my personal experience with my own children thank you director huie can I just make one more comment please one thing we didn't think about just thinking outside the box why didn't we have the debate team debate this issue and have for and against one of the options present that to the board and then go from there just a thought thank you thank you director bman um if you haven't noticed I'm really struggling with this topic we all are I know I know um yeah I think um I think one of the things I'm struggling with is that it's become um I feel like it's starting it has become an issue of the value of physical education and the value of wellness and um I don't think that there's anyone on the board or I myself I actually wish there was more physical activity at all secondary levels because I think our students desperately need it um I think that they need more movement during the day I think that's better for their brains and their mental health um unfortunately we don't live in the ideal world so um but um I I guess I mean you put it very well you I mean we have two options and I'm struggling with the um notion of choice and flexibility and leaning into really from my perspective um I was rereading our mission and vision and our portrait of a well-rounded graduate today and um because of this topic and if we look at the first part of our well-rounded graduate it's academically prepared students demonstrate strong foundational knowledge ac across a wide range of subjects including reading English language arts social studies science technology engineering the Arts and Mathematics they they not only Master these areas but also apply their learning to standards in line with challenging and Rich curricula and I'm just really struggling with I want to give the kids as much flexibility as possible to discover their possibilities and Thrive and that is what I think is one of the biggest strengths of Idina High School is the rich curricular we have the amazing extracurriculars we have and the fact that our kids can take if they're interested in engineering ing or robotics or Ceramics or I want to try I don't know aerobics or what whatever I love that and I'm struggling with that and even though it's one half a credit it is a limiter and um with the benefit of physical education which I absolutely value and I think that it's important and um trying to view it through those lens and then the lens of how do you make the best decision for all students um because this is about each and every student I quite frankly don't know what the right thing to do is I I just don't I I don't know either decision I think I just I don't know I I wish someone could tell me like this is the this is the best this is why we get paid the big bucks um so um I don't know the right decision I don't know what my decision is um I I just uh I just wanted to let you know sort of the lens that I'm viewing this decision through is what what is what does flexibility mean and what what do what does our how do we view graduation credits through our mission and vision how do we live that and then how does this decision impact that and I don't know the answer but um I guess I don't have much more to articulate right now can I just ask one operational question if we made a decision whichever way it is and a couple of years later we realize wow that was a terrible decision because we now have evidence and whatever's happened we can change it can't we but I think we want to be careful so we're not I mean you I know but what I'm saying the only reason I bring it up is because when we're stuck on we don't know which way to go we sometimes can build ourselves up into thinking this is this is a critical moment and it can't change once we make it what I think about continuing improvement process is that if a board makes a bad decision which we can do not knowing at the time it's a bad decision because our intentions are good we then have the power if necessary to change it even though that's painful it would be more painful to continue down a path of a bad decision with evidence that tells us that's the case so I just want to clarify that whatever decision we make it's not the end all be all because we could change if evidence proved that we were wrong whatever way we decideed to go that's all I wanted to say I think we can I think it's easier to build something back I think it's really it I think it'd be hard to if it was removed a PE credit to build it back in I I just think from a you're dealing with stat Staffing I I think it would be a lot easier it's a lot easier to remove something than make a decision to put it back in but I I hear I absolutely hear what you're saying and agree with IT director man that was part of the um um point I brought up earlier is that if we add the credit we keep the PE credits as is and in a year or two we realize we don't have the flexibility want for our kids it'd be easier then to go back and change that rather than cut it and go oh we did lose the unified program or it got to a point where now it's not sustainable and then trying to rebuild that would be I think a lot more difficult that way whereas we could um do it this way not to Kick the Can down the road but then to look at it review it and go okay there's still some fine tuning we could make rather than having to cut and trying to build back I think was absolutely I think it's just important as we were talking about intent earlier we're not intending to use nth and 10th graders as guinea pigs so we can figure this out um we're trying to do the best we can with imperfect information given that we're this is not a choice we wanted to make we're being forced to make and now we have to pick whatever is going to be there so I I think I would love to hear when we eventually get to action on this in um in the future that that whole point that you two just made okay well if we're thinking about what which is easier to if it's not the right thing which way is that might sway my decision because I'm like you I'm not sure which is the right way to go because I don't think there is a right way there just is a way we just got to figure it out anything else from board members thank you for the discussion thank you for being here so late sorry I appreciate it uh that's all and I think you're done director oh no you have policies now sorry good night we're going to move on to our policy review director Gaper all right thank you all right you guys we're going to work through this as quick as possible and our administrators have been working tirelessly to get these to you and um in perfect shape so we're going to start with uh director sailor uh she's going to come and talk to us about alcohol and drugs um and how we're our our policy our alcohol and drug policy weren't you the one who said about how you frame something phrase it me that was Cher oh so she's going to talk to us about alcohol and drug-free workplace and school environments thank you chair elenburg um director gber Dr Stanley and members of the board so board policy 418 alcohol and drug flea workplace and school environment is before you tonight for discussion um really there are very few proposed changes within this um policy and with the exception of style they largely stem from some recent changes that happened at the legislature in the 2024 this year's session around the um around the patient registry program and specifically that employers and educational organizations cannot um discriminate against students or employes that are enrolled in the medical cannabis program and so that is that was the largest change within um within 418 and you can see that reflected in section four um paragraph D in addition to that we had some very um excellent conversation during our board policy committee meeting are specifically around the procedures and when members of the public are or are not permitted to possess Controlled Substances um and toxicating cannaboids or edible cannaboid products within a school district and whether or not the superintendent can grant them permission to do so and I wanted to um so the board policy committee came to the conclusion that the proposal should um not include the ability to provide uh consent to carry medical cannabis excuse me specifically or intoxicating cannaboids or edible cannaboids because the policy very specifically prevents that for all other um employees students and guest some on School District property or location and it seemed to be a um it seemed to be conflict with other parts of the policy which um I propose it continues to do so I did want to say because I did a little more research into that I told the committee that I would um and actually reached directly out to Dr Terry morrow at the Minnesota school boards Association was still waiting to hear back from him and that that conflict comes from the differences between the federal law and the state law when it comes to marijana products and um but more specifically we still through board policy prohibit those products on School District property at all times and so the proposal remains that we continue in that way um with that information does anyone have any questions [Music] okay thank you director sailor then this will move forward for Action in our November meeting thank you thank you all right on Deck uh is assistant superintendent Nate Swinson um and should we just go down the list of what you let's start with 507 be will yeah corporate punishment yeah I'm I'm wondering with your your permission director Gabriel if we could um talk about 507 and 507.00 msba for all districts that have SRO um and we have SRO in preparation and reviewing these policies I um got feedback from principles and Alex hatom our Emergency Management safety coordinator and for [Music] 507.00 delineates the difference between School Employees and sro's and it adds prone restraint into um Corporal corporal punishment um and then with 507.00 of an SRO um and so those are those are the kind of the big differences um you all are well aware of some of the challenges and that have um Arisen regarding prone restraint and so that's why it's been added to um this policy um and then in 507.00 SRO and I've been um told by epd that um not only do our SRO receive that training um but there are plans once the department takes up the training um for our SRO to receive it along the timelines that are in the policy um so with that what questions you have about 507 and 507.00 do the changes or the new policy affect the ability of our SRO to do their job in any way no thank you question cherberg um I had a question about 507.00 in um someplace Beyond a building specifically we've been very explicit in that definition um but I assume that our school resource officers could potentially have a situation involving students um in I'm speaking really specifically about our our football field our tennis courts and I don't know if that is included in the definition of a School site um if it's not I would like to see a more um expansive definition um so that's clarified yeah if if I could draw your attention to contractual duties under Roman numeral 4 I think number two alludes to their obligation to protect student staff and visitors on school grounds from criminal activities so I I think that that would that that would cover it but I would be go ahead we talked about this in the committee and I remember Alex had an answer do you remember Dr Stanley how he answered it um we did refer to the protecting student staff and visitors on school grounds from criminal activity and the sro's are hired for the school day they're not hired we have to contract with the police department so we're not even guaranteed to always have our sros but we do contract with the police department to have them and that is why that is not embedded into this policy that was that was one of my wonder that was one thing I was wondering and one thing I was still confused about was so let's just say the creek Valley Tennis Courts if something happens during the school day is that considered part of the creek Valley School site yes the grounds the district grounds or is that school grounds be grounds it's grounds and that's why U we do believe that that's covered by um for A2 and so I I'm just wondering if policy can do what they want I'm wondering if it would be help it would be helpful for me but it would be helpful maybe in the definition to Define what school grounds are um because as soon as I read a specific definition of school it begged the question to me of even though we stay Below in our contractual duties that the officers can work on school grounds I was like why are we defining school but then they can work on grounds but it's not defined above so it was just a question I had and you guys can do whatever you want with that feedback so thank you I just had a quick question go ahead about this uh The Substitute officers is that the cont context that you're talking about where there is um you know where we have to contract outside of them uh outside of the regular school day or is this like truly substitute officers in the school day truly substitute officers not supplemental ones for corre okay yeah correct any other questions on these two great then these will move forward for the November board meeting for action and I appreciate your partnership on so many levels on having Al on this and epd and um this has gotten a lot of press and so it's nice to do it right so thank you would you like me to continue with 512 yes let's go with 512 School sponsored student Publications and activities which is also a brand new policy this is this one was a little bit tricky I think it's important just to provide a little bit of context about it so the policy that we had in place um for whatever reason um it just it hadn't been revised since 2014 and um and the this year legislative changes specifically the new voices legislation was passed that um for a lack of better words uh gave a lot more protections to students and the media advisor and um so I um Daphne um Trevor helmers that you all know and Dan amborn um collaborated around this policy and we actually began with our current policy and then the msba redline um version and what ended up happening is there was a lot of confusion between our policy and the redline version because um of some vagueness involved in the policy and Trevor blesses heart uh offered the what I thought was a cleaner version of policy 512 that his firm um created and so he offered that to us and I shared that with Dan amborn and the great part about it is it cleared up a lot of the issues that you would find in the new voices legislation it cleared that those up in the new policy so we actually pivoted to the policy that Trevor provided um to which is which is before you um and I I think the big thing about policy 512 now is that it really protects students and the media advisor and their first amendment rights an example that I would give you you see prior restraint um it's really clear like that is a big no no um and I think you could probably put in there uh prior review you even um those are really frowned upon now um with the new legislation so um that's a little bit about 512 and what how we landed on this particular version of the policy and um assistant superintendent Swinson what was the website that you sent us to in policy was it student press Law Center it it's uh yeah if you want it's spc.org yep that board members if you're kind of wondering a little bit of clarity that really cleared things up as far as what this law says and if you're subscriber to the zephrus which is free the editorial is all about um from the editorial board in this last episode is about um our new voices defend democracy so it's all about them talking about the new law and um yeah it was it was interesting so thanks for your work on this yeah are there questions from board members all right first amendment it is thank you very much and then we have uh director remine coming to talk to us about um Jody do you want to start with 508 extended school year yeah so um policy 508 there were no substantive changes that were brought before the um policy committee it really is a policy that mirrors Minnesota statute regarding extended school year surfaces and um so there were no no suggested changes any questions on 508 all right great that will'll move forward November and then would you like to talk to us about 56.5 overdose medication yes I'd like to also invite shie ker to come up um just in case there's any questions afterwards so this was a a policy that was um a lot of great discussion came came um during policy committee so some of the questions that came up was whether or not students um who were to use um opioid overdose medication um would have any um they would be covered under the Good Samaritan law and and what we learned is that age is not a restriction for Good Samaritan law and should a student use it upon um one of their friends um there wouldn't be a restriction in that place another piece that we looked at um was around discipline in nck zone and what we found in that situation is that um while use of nck Zone by student is not um covered specifically as an exception to our student carry policy which would require that we would have um a medical provider sign off by the school nurse and the parent for it to be used that our administrators would have discretion on on using the discipline policy for that purpose and then the other area that we really talked about um was the model policy plan that this original policy was modeled after one year ago shortly after legislation went into effect and um some talk that we looked at was whether or not these policy committees um around the use of the Noak Zone reporting to the board if those are required statutorily or if that was just something that was encouraged by the msba model policy we um utilized the attorney represents the district in these matters who advised that these were just um recommendations brought forth and that there were no requirements for um those provisions and so with that what you'll see is within our our policy the majority of substances changes take place in um section three C and D regarding um the planning team requirements and the site planning teams great thank you board members do you have any questions about this policy great and thank you shie for I'm so sorry you stayed this late for that all right board members we will move this uh 516 and5 forward to November thank you for sticking with us through this uh thank you director GA policy committee and we're going to move on to our action items do I have a motion to approve the 2024 2025 board priorities so move second uh director gaer do you want to give a quick overview of why we um what does so the community has an idea of what we're voting on sure so every year the board um similar to what you've seen tonight uh with a lot of our department setting goals we also uh set priorities for ourself and so uh we have what you see before you tonight is many months in the making uh we started at our board retreat in in August and you'll see two types of priorities our first one is around our um our number one goal as a board which is really centers around governance and so to learn a little bit more about that you can read that part and then our board priority 2 gets into some of the more specific items that the board was interested in um making sure that is front and center in our work this year so um there's been a lot of collaborative work on this and um so that's what's up for Action tonight board members do have any questions or comments um all those in favor of approving the 2024 2025 School Board priorities say I I anyone opposed the school board priorities have been approved do I have a motion to approve the additional District professional development day for the 2024 2025 school calendar so move is there a second second thank you uh Director D Hubert your star tonight okay thank you so our additional um PD day for this school year um is recommended to be on May 9th um we gathered this recommend recommended day after feedback from stakeholders or both family stakeholders as well as staff stakeholders and it's a priority day and we learned so many things about the good things happening in our district this year and um or this evening I should say and all of that work takes professional development and so I appreciate the support in this and the recommend Ed May 9th day and are there any questions or feedback um correct me if I'm wrong director DC Hubert but the reason we have this additional PD day is directly related to the read Act and the additional time for um training our teachers on those topics yes so our three PD days that are currently on the calendar this year um are covering our react requirements that we're aware of right now phase one um as soon as we know our phase two we will try to be putting those in um and because of that we we need an additional day because of all the other things going on in the district so with our new literacy curriculums with our sccl work um with our steam um it's really critical that we have a spring day to lean into the professional development around those areas where the react is taking the the priority of the react is critical but is taking the all the the other days in the year thank you any questions or comments from board members all those in favor of approving the 2024 2025 additional District professional development day um say I I anyone opposed the development day is approved do I have a motion to approve policies 603 616 618 and 620 so MO is there a second second director G board this these are the same policies uh that you saw at the September that came up for discussion at the September meeting there have been no changes to them so I'm proposing that we vote uh to approve all four of them tonight board members do have questions comments on these policies hearing no comments we'll now vote um all those in favor of approving policies 603 616 618 and 620 say I I anyone opposed policy 603 616 618 and 620 have been approved um do any board members have any leadership or committee updates director Gable sorry uh board members I direct to your eyes to the information section there is a 2024 2025 policy overview from the policy committee um I encourage you to take a look at that and just kind of um look at some of the policies that'll be coming to you over the course of the year and if there are topics that you're like hey this is a question I have and I want the policy committee to know about it now that would be a great thing to do so that is um that is my committee update thank you director gaer director arum uh Lac update uh we postponed the legislator tours that were scheduled for October 7th we'll be rescheduling them in November um due to scheduling conflicts with some of the legislators but looking forward to it um before I turn over to Dr Stanley um we still have four more minutes so I have I'm G to take up two of those no um this was a long meeting but it was a very important information heavy meeting and I want to thank Dr Stanley and your team it is a lot of work to do the work and at the high quality that was given to us [Applause] tonight so thank you to every department and every person that contributed to this I I really really really mean it and thank you for staying late um I know no one really wants to be at work till 11:00 at night so I appreciate it um and now I'll turn it over to you Dr Stanley okay um since you're reading good things we can maybe give you a little leeway I am reading good things so this is from Elizabeth graser she is a teacher at Normandale she says Craig Johnson has been so kind to us over here at grade 1 at Normandale I sent him an email to say thanks but wanted to also see if anyone else can or at least know the high quality of service uh component and efficiency of the transportation department and field trips here in the dinol schools kudos to them we had a field trip mix up for our apple orchard and ended up having to find a last minute one we had to request trips cancel and Craig was so kind and worked with us to quickly get another one in the books I am not sure how we can con congratulate Transportation but if there was any way to do so know that Norman Dell thinks he does a fabulous job yeah and he absolutely does um and then just got an email today from one of our parents um just really speaking so highly about um Katie Hamill and just the commitment to um really support her students um reading and um about Nathan month um and Kathleen Mone um just about hosting a a CP coffee and donuts at the park and um just really appreciative of that and how that just brings all of the kids together and that's just just one little sample of um just all the things that our teachers are doing to make a difference for our students thank you very much Dr Stanley um with unless there's something else do I oh uh oh sorry I forgot to say this I wanted to draw attention that our uh wiggering last week there was a conference of journalis journalist down at the University of Minnesota and the staff of our high school yearbook W weering um won theme package a gold medallion All State award in the first place in best at show he said sweeping all three of these major awards for one book is essentially the same as earning a state championship in athletics so um yes and uh the zephrus newspaper which is also under Dan Daniel Amin's um advising it uh they earned an all state silver medallion for their print newspaper and a bronze medallion for their online coverage and this conference was uh private and public schools Annie Dina swept so you should be very proud that's [Applause] awesome um do I have a motion to adjourn the meeting so moved is there a second second we will now vote to adjourn the meeting um all those in favor say I I anyone opposed the motion has passed and the meeting is adjourned thank you