##VIDEO ID:4voucf1zgzY## 7:01 on Monday October 28th 2024 call the school board meeting to order all board members are present this evening uh we did not receive uh a request for open comments or public comments second this evening uh so move on to the agenda there is one addition that I'm aware of right now and that's going to be under the consent agenda so that memorandum of understanding that got passed down there we will add that to be approved so the memorandum of understanding is to allow Union 70 employees um pass us to the activities uh which matches up with the certified Union staff so add Union 70 memor of understanding are there any other addition subtractions to the agenda okay hearing n I'll take a motion to approve with that M added motion Scott second second by Shannon any further discussion on the agenda hear none all those in favor I opposed motion carries moving on to 5.0 is the student council R up ladies beginning of the year we elected at the beginning of the year we elected our 2024 2025 officers which included which included president vice president treasurer secretary Junior sophomore and freshman Representatives we assigned each a Sur project or inspired each to come up with their own we came up with the homecoming theme of this school year disco the coronation was held Monday September 23rd we contacted the past homecoming king and queen to give a speech as a school we voted on the candidates along with the homecoming court the address of days we decided were Monday PJs Tuesday 70s day Wednesday crazy socks and hair day Thursday homecoming t-shirt disco day and Friday school spirit for the activity portion of homecoming week we compiled ideas of advisory challenges scavenger hunt and door decking the seniors represent the middle school grades and staff with the remaining grades having their own representation Representatives The Advisory competitions we decided upon were pool race musical chairs relay and scy with planning such events we just we as the student council divide it up into into committees so we can best divide a our committees are the corination committee which assembled all of the decorations compiled a playlist to play at corination I'll contacted peers to be in charge of the spotlight for each of the candidates and of the homecoming Court um handed Out programs to the audience members and this year we had our foreign exchange student and they contacted her to give a speech we have the post homecoming game activity which they gathered materials for the activity plan events cleaned up at the end contacted CHF Ron and led some rounds of bigo finally we have our advisory game committee which plan the activities each week help set up such activities find MC's to explain the game of each day and determine how many people were eliminated each day along with candidates for each at our most recent meeting we signed up for secret teachers so we may give gifts to them over the course of the year we began thinking of winter service projects that the junior class would be in charge of a sign up was created for American Education week to have members bring bars for the staff ideas for the Veterans Day display begin as well questions for student Cil all right thank you job thank you all right moving on to 6.0 is the honors and recognitions for the month and U we can start with do we have uh Kayla Jan and and Hannah White present come on up so uh these are recognition for participation at the state tennis tournament and from what I understand a um upset Victory against the number one rank team is that right well done way to represent uh M Valley Schools thank you very much and then uh one more recognition and this one was provided by um Appleton myland Elementary is for Susan persi come on Susan has served as a Minnesota reading Corps member for four years the fourth year yes and and we only can have her in that role for four years which I'm sad about but um Minnesota reading Corps every year um every District I've ever been a part of and here as well they have some of the best um numbers for helping students grow in Reading um it's quite honestly often times our best intervention so thank you very much thank you all right move on to 7.0 with the live update from Robin actually I had Susan come along because I want to give her a little spiel about what reading core is I don't know if any of you are familiar with that so that was kind of the idea for her coming along and obviously thank you for the recognition for her because this is her fourth and final year of doing it so I thought I'd have her explain a little bit about what she's doing in the building well first of all thank you ran for giving me this opportunity to do this um I started in January of 2022 um so technically I don't get a full four years but they have to cut me off at some point so um I wanted to share just a brief stats about my tutoring over the four years um overall I've Ted 50 students um some of those are repeat students so I can only count them once but out of those 50 students 32 of them have exceeded the target row which is a 71.1% overall grow um also those four years I'm pretty proud of this um I've maintained a 100% Fidelity report through all of my interventions and assessments which means I follow my script I follow the directions 100% when I'm watched by my superiors when they come in um I have many success stories throughout my four years but one that comes into mind is a student that I've had since kindergarten and um during our sessions um he always tries his best always um but they always he only just seemed to go up a little bit um but last year was definitely a turning point for him but we adjusted his intervention just slightly and all of a sudden I could see his confidence start to go up just little by little by the end of the school year last year he more than doubled his reading rate and you could just see on his face how proud he was when I would tell him where he was at see in their faces when you tell them what they get after their one minute timing is absolutely Priceless um another thing I would just like to share is that um with the react in place into our schools now um we are using the same system fast bridge that I using with reading Corp so when I started this year the assessment was already done for me so I was able to start seeing students within the first week of school intervent doing my interventions and getting students in and helping them right away um doing this job I have found my passion what I want to do and I'm hoping I can continue doing this job in some form of capacity when my four years is done I will truly honestly miss this job I'm done miss having you in it thank you so I just wanted to give you a little update and it's been amazing we can also have a math core person but we haven't had anyone showing any interest over an appon m so come next school year we're going to be looking for someone to try and replace that because it doesn't so to speak hit on our really maybe our bottom readers it kind of takes that middle of the road middle tier middle tier kids and she gives them that little extra boost in that one-on-one time so it is a really valuable thing that we have going on so thank you guys I just wanted to share that with all of you about what she is doing in our building uh just a couple little things I'll talk about a couple school goals that Mr lmka set up for us as something new that we're doing this year and the one goal I have for myself that I want to touch on is my chance to meet with the staff you know we have staff meetings and it's mornings and this and that but I'm setting up a time um every month where I get to go in and take some notes and have a few questions that I have for them and then they can have for me uh so we're doing that by grade level and also like the specialist teachers uh you know e special ed all those so I have times to go in and meet some of the things that I've learned um after meeting with them is that it's been very beneficial you know a f minute conversation turns into 20 really fast about some of the things that hey this is going on this is what I'm doing could you check on this one thing I wanted to bring up is we have youly going on in first grade in kindergarten youly is basically it's hardcore phonics and they're doing a great job I know Madison mm has been doing it over there so our first grade staff at Appleton had a chance to go over and observe Becky Olson over in Madison do it brought back some great ideas so they're pushing in those things at the kindergarten first grade uh level for that that's one thing I know um our small group instruction we do a lot of push in services so by that we're having our El staff our special ed staff they're all kind of taking a team pushing in their services and working together in small groups so instead of having our second grade has 24 kids during reading time we can break them in seven eight kids and those groups are always rotating so I'm really happy with that as a positive I'm hearing in our building um also we're having our pushin services with eel and special Edge so they're all working together on those things and I think it's making a big difference in our building uh one thing I know that they brought up and that was pretty common uh struggle right now is time to meet with our parents um because we're using those in the classroom just alongside of our teachers so when do they get time to meet because in the pair schedule you know they might be going out for recess or breakfast or lunch sty they don't have that prep time to meet so that's something I'm going to try to work on maybe it's 15 minutes during the morning time where they can sit down and meet and I can go fill in in the in the lunchroom or out in the playground so they have time to meet with their teachers to to better communicate what's going on and the other thing I'm going to do for a goal this year is I know the high school does it middle school and high school they was reported on the A and B honoral so this year for our third and fourth graders we're going to uh put the A and B honor all students in for in the paper and just give them some recognition on things they're doing so that's something new that we're also working on over at appon M the rest of my agenda is on there um that's kind of a little bit of a snapshot to what's going on I think our numbers are pretty good Brenda I think we're still sitting at about 185 kids over at Apple to mland so it's really good um it's pretty consistent uh we actually just had a new student start today in third grade uh so it's been it's been a pleasure teachers and staff and everybody are working really hard any questions you guys and ladies have for me anything for Robin thank you Robin thank you thank you thank you all right 8.0 is the approval of the minutes from the previous uh meeting September changes still those minutes at all okay now I'll take a motion to approve as presented make motion motion by shanon second by m any further discussion heing none all those in favor I Mo car 9.0 is the uh gifts donations and grants uh for the month again thank those people that are on uh page four there motion approve by Scott second second by Shannon any for the discussion on the gifts and grants any none all those in favor 10.0 is the consent agenda again with that addition of the Union 70 uh memorandum of understanding a motion to approve make motion motion by Shannon second second by Matt any discussion on the consent he all those in favor I post car financial report um quick comments on enrollment um 18 of your agenda packet uh last you looked at that back um last month was as a uh September 18th and we're at 836 now we're at about 8:32 um so we're down slightly potentially a loss at the high school of about seven so we'll see what the other buildings report but um um potentially seven um for the month of October um fund balances those are starting on page 23 um the Auditors have given us given me the okay to to release these um they are currently working on finalizing the audit report uh they have one more review by the partner in charge and he will look through things one more time before they'll actually um finalize everything with the report so I don't foresee any reason why we don't have that Hand by before the November board meeting so that we can hand it out and then include it in the agenda for December for board final approval okay um last month we talked about everything except for the general fund um all of those numbers are are now final there were no changes so I don't have any comments on those we'll go through the general fund tonight um I will try to be brief there's a lot of stuff in here one thing to keep in mind again General um general fund is general transportation Capital Student Activity um and you do need to to um keep in mind each line has a little bit different meaning a little bit different um requirements um and whatnot so a lot of information we have some very big numbers um simply due to the fact that um we cleaned out our Esser um this past year 23 24 um final uh um expiration of the last piece of eser which is eser 3 was September 30th it was just this past month and that was both the regular eser dollars and the learning recovery dollars we um finished up on um also we have our carryover that was planned with the um large additional funding that we got in the um compensatory area so we'll talk about that in just a minute here 28 you have um the general fund there at the top first item there um is nonspendable that's simply our health insurance that's prepaid health it's it's um in a form that is it's a nonspendable form so that's why we're required to set that aside next area is restricted and reserved that is restricted and reserved based off a state statute um first two line items there are brand new they're from um this past um session legislative session first line item there is literacy incentive that is the first of three pieces of the read act um so those funds are side and will be used now in 2425 for the um new um intervention um position part-time position that would be Diana Smith um so those are the funds that um will be used for that position the other two pieces of the Reda will come in in 2425 okay um again with special requirements that that follow those those funds the next line item student support Personnel Aid that is funds that we were not um supposed to receive because we did not qualify and that was via the 23 legislative session fast forward 24 session they figured none of the schools qualified so what they did is said you guys can have the money you just have to set it aside we do qualify for it in 2425 we'll be using it for our um Elementary councel position a portion of of that salary which would be samanth the work in our elementaries um safe schools that again is a restricted line item funds that go into where our um revenues come in for the safe schools revenues go or expenditures go out for um things such as our security system our cameras or camera software um our intercom system um you'll see that increase slightly um we're expecting um to use some of those dollars for uh the building project for some um brand new cameras that are needed throughout um and so that would either be um the end of this or the 2526 fiscal year and that will be the funding source for it next line item there basic skills extended that is a piece that the legislature repealed um so they required us to move it down into the next line item which is compensatory which is basic skills regular compensatory um that line item um you'll see it was zero in the past um reason being is that is the piece of funding that went up dramatically it's from our grein reduc lunches um lunch counts um and um the reason why it went up dramatically just to remind you that is due to that pilot program that the um Governor put into place to try to capture more students that qualify for free and reduce lunches also the area that we're not sure what the formula is in the future or our population so that is again the reason why we wanted to carry funds over um because that's uh those funds are used for some of the new position that were added in the El area the Greater Minnesota contract that we have for counseling services and um a new position in the Middle School teaching position in the middle school so that's kind of a safeguard so that if if our funding does go down either population or the formula we will have plenty of planning time and because we'll be adding to this at the end of this fiscal year we won't find out our formula until um the legislative session I believe they're tweaking it um in that session and we'll find out what our our our funds will be in that area so we're very lucky to have a carry over um again to protect those positions and those areas that we had needs operating Capital the next four line items are operating Capital we have them pulled out just so that you can cleanly see some of the um details that we have going on there um if you look at that in the audit report or anything at the mde level they'll be combined into all four of those line items so the first line item is our regular operating Capital that increased slightly we had planned on spending most of it went up a little bit due to enrollment and also due to some miscellaneous funding that came in during the school year um next line item is our rebate money that's the money that came in with rebates related to the building project so um that currently is sitting at the same level as it was when it came in um next item is Insurance claim that is um we have insurance back in the 22 23 school year um that is what's left of those of that claim the biggest piece left to address right now is the um Greenhouse in the back so I know Adam's working on that whether it's um they the intent is and the goal is to put some sort of um Cold Storage out there for custodial equipment is what we thought and the hope is um so he'll be working with Mr Lea on that um in the next couple months to try to get a together um for for addressing um that need and then there should be some funds left over once that has been taken care of uh next line item is building projects so that is what is left of the $325,000 donation that we got from site logic um that was used to finish off the building project and then on top of that we had money left for signage and um and now we're sitting at 123,000 of 2324 that will be used to pay for the new bleachers in the north gym um the electrical hookup for the um uh new basketball hoops and then the electrical hookup for the sound system um out of the football field and um potentially a little bit more signage but we do expect to have a little bit left at the end of this fiscal year even after addressing all of those items long-term facility maintenance that's the line item we about 330,000 in that each year also the line item that we use to pay for the um ltfm bonds that were um put out there during the building project so that is about 220,000 so it Le us about 100 to work with during the year you see that increase um at the end of this fiscal year um simply because our parking lot expenses that were planned to go through there were very minimal um because of the mild winter they didn't have a lot of repair work that they needed and also um we had the roof drainage issue in the Madison Building site that um ended up not needing to have any repairs that was out there for about 55,000 I think was what the what we budgeted for that um so that's um was a good thing so that's why you would see it increase there the next area is committed that is committed based off of of contractual obligations first line item there is Severance so that consists of two groups of people people that have her staff I should say that have retired who can easily calculate that um Severance benefit and then staff that are still actively working but have a vested um benefit out there so if they were to leave today we would we would um have sance benefits that we own to those those staff people um you can see it went down um we had um nobody that was added from the teaching group but we had two that went off of the schedule and that changes um every year as as a person um gets one more year of service and and one year of of age adding into the formula Q comp is the next line item we keep that fairly low everything that comes in as far as Q comp Revenue goes out in Q comp expenditures um to the teaching group uh again we keep it anywhere from a th000 to 5,000 this will be the last time you see this in this L item um past legislative session we've always committed this in this area past leg play of session has now put it as a restricted line item so they are forcing us and asking us to put it up above which is fine um most schools don't track it we've tracked it since day one so it'll be real easy for us to move it up into the top area assigned those are um assigned for certain purposes first item there is is um insurance that dates back to June of 22 when um the board decided to go with a little bit higher deductible so that we can get our insurance rates down um um and that deductible was 25,000 for Winden hail um now fast forward to June of 24 and um lots of big changes we um now found out that our our new policy um dramatically increased for our deductible for for wind and so basically our what we have on the table for deductible for that if we would have some sort of winter hail event would be 1% of our valuation of our facility um that is being is been damaged so um all buildings together was 1.2 million and of course we don't have that sitting there but um uh our high school facility is would be 660 is what we would be committed to paying out um if we had some sort of event and um is 172 and Madison is 278 so basically 450 would cover the two elees so our goal would be to um would be to get that up to 675 so at least we would be covering the high school and um um we have to you have some discussion on on on what we would like to see in that L and moving forward after that but um our our flood went flooding umu will also went up so not as high as um but again something we want to reevaluate each year uh next line item is something we started last school year certain onetime future needs special ed and a little bit of eser that's in there um that will be used in the future to cover any unexpected changes in our special ed Revenue the um Auditors require us to book whatever the state has out there for Revenue um at the end of field work time whether uh and we know that that is just an estimate and it's based off of whatever um has gone through the system so far um so we know it's it's it's typically um too high or too low um and those numbers will find out not till spring so that is to protect us so that we don't have to use any of our current operating expended Revenue to cover any shortfall that we would have from a prior year can did not have to use any of that this past year next two line items are brand new that's our our um certain future commitments Esser that's our Sr $3 we talked a lot about that at numerous board meetings that um we were would be um finalizing that um due to the expiration of those funds in September so that is carrying that forward um we do however do have some commitments there's some tals that um were started with that Esser um programs that still have expenditures with the um things such as the letters program the grow your own program um our single atic cost some of those sort of things so there will be costs that we have to cover um and we do have a funding source obviously for that it isn't 836 th000 but we do have some funds or some expenditures that will need to come out of there moving forward into the future um next line item future infrastructure projects that is um um based off of board discussion um at various times throughout the past year instigated by some comments that um Danny P had brought to to light that he um um was talking about set aside in dollars so that we wouldn't have to out that we' have a source for um forments or roof projects um parking lot projects things that we would have that are going to be well over that $100,000 that we have available in them area so um hopefully we can build on that a little bit each year um but 200 is a a really good start um as a source for that transportation that is virtually our transportation fund you see that increase slightly um we um we did purchase one school bus this past year 61,000 fuel was um pretty much in line with what we had in the past year so um again um just increased slightly by about $6,000 um last line item there you see on the top un unassigned that's our unreserved unassigned fund balance that is our what our fund balance policy is based on it increased slightly which we would expect that to do um because it's calculated based off of our operating expenditures and we are sitting at um our our policy our policy is two months of operating EXP we are sitting at that so we have met that goal for this past fiscal year can I ask so the 200 for the future infrastructure projects did that just get pulled out of the on sign yes yep yep um the last two line items there in the middle I pull that out it's a it's a new area several years ago but it's nice to have that fun 21 sitting in a in a little section all in and of itself that is our Student Activity and our fundraising area um small changes there you will see um Student Activity of course is is our student counsel Honor Society our prom our um um FFA all of those different groups and you will see a breakdown of all of those different groups beginning balance their activity and ending balance and I will put that um into the um just a a single piece of paper into your a I handed out to you so you can um easily see which each group has what they've done this past school year um and it will balance to these um funds that you see right here uh so overall um even taking out the Esser um stuff that we knew we would be capturing this last school year we had a very very good year financially um our enrollment did take a little bit of a of a dip in January but it did um recover towards the year and our early childhood counts really really came in strong they're hourly based um but um there's a lot of activity there and it and it was 100% based off of student need um of those those age students there those students that under the kindergarten threshold so they're under age five and some sometimes under age six interest was very strong our special dollars were up um expenditure side our utilities were down we had such aild um a couple things we struggled with was keeping um staff employed um we had some open positions El wasn't fill till January um there was a fulltime position set aside for that the full school year um and um a little bit of turnover so all in all um the numbers were really really good for 23 24 I have a question for you yes so that operating Capital Insurance claim $137 change yep that's that greenhous so my question is this since it is a restricted Reserve can we or are we allowed to take that money set it aside let's just say for example we get 4% interest every six months and we look at the future of five years when A&M in Appleton potentially needs a new roof for a half a million dollars or more instead of fixing up another storage area for maintenance equipment out here at this school could we look at utilizing those Monies to be invested for that particular project and call it the restricted Reserve we we we certainly can I mean it's it's it's um it the um storage what they're looking storage that would be something that um Adam would be talking with Mr lka on and talking to the board on and if the board wants to go to a different direction that's 100% you know your call want to do with that but um the the these Insurance claim dollars came from three different um instances in that fiscal year we had a ro busy 2223 was a very very it was almost as busy as this year but um and it was from um the damage that was done at the Appleton site that where they put that um Nick in the side of the sighting I remember how it happened but something happened and then we had some wind damage out here and then we had um contractor um negligence at the Madison site so all of those funds are are in here and what needed to be repaired has been repaired um and except with the exception of the greenhouse area that's one thing that has been wanting to be addressed but um it's it's really the discretion of the district the only reason I say the greenhouse piece is we built the grow room or The Grow rooms in progress of being build hence that's been met but we're going to need a roof and that's an old we know that so just food for thought as you Scott and the chairperson started discussing this that's just something that came to my mind thank you any other questions I know this is a lot of information in One Fund but that's how the state does it they put general transportation capital and student Comm together and and um I like to have it in here like this so that when you're looking at anything at the state level you're looking at the audit report the numbers are going to be the same and you can dissect them has a little is quite actually quite a bit more detailed than what you'll see in there so at least then you have some reference especially with all of the busyness that has been going on recently in our area with the insurance and the rebates and the building project and and all of those different things you can kind of see what those numbers are made up of and um and where they've come from so other questions okay um one last little quick comment um in the agenda um there you'll see that there's a shortfall in the capital fund already that is the um in the maintenance area that is the lawnmower the a lawnmower that the board approved in July early August so that will be added to the budget come um November so I usually put in asteris on situations like that it looks a little unusual um but um will be updated in the November budget upate that's all I had question any questions thank you 12.0 bills and claims for the month I'll make a motion to accept the October 2024 board bill is at 31849 September 2024 mannual checks at 69,4 74 19 in October 2024 construction bills at 1,423 10911 with a total of 1 1,811 149 okay got a motion by Eric a second that motion any discussion on payment to claim bills none all those in favor post motion car 13.0 is the annual multi multilingual learner updates all right great to get to taxi again in October oh that was intentional I'm used to that in my classroom um uh our purpose tonight is to update you on the progress of our multilingual programming and the language of our English Learners district for I tell you what's new uh also we are seeking board approval for relas which is our language instructional education plan we bring this to you each October kind of tell you what has changed um so I've got myself here tonight and and also brought along my trusted teacher bu I miss I'm working the preschool kindergarten first SCH so we'll kind of March through the presentation the document that we'll be referring to begins on page 29 in our agenda but first some updates when we visited this summer we talked about our goal to create a lighthouse language instructional program for multilingual students for how do you do it out here in real in rural Minnesota and we these anticipated numbers this summer uh and I'm here to update you on kind of what do our numbers look like that's included in the leap and also we talked about even though we have made so much progress in this area there's definitely still room for improvement and room for growth so although we have made gains uh what is it take to look like an ex an exception which development program so that's what we are focused on just want to be okay standing uh one of the things we visited about in the summer was partnering with the University of Minnesota to certify our bilingual par Educators to be a trained interpreters um part of the read Act is that we can is that we need to guarantee that when families meet with uh the school to talk about the educational progress of their students that they have access to a trained interpreter uh industry standard of a interpreter training program looks like 40 hours something you do down in Minneapolis or maybe St Cloud over multiple days and so we needed to find a different way to access this with our staff out in this area so the University of Minnesota approached us last year said we are piloting this uh interpreter training program it would be hybrid we'll do some in person some digitally we have two professors up you who designed this six weeks and so uh thanks to the support of the district and providing some training stens we marched through this program at the beginning of the school year so I'm excited to say we have nine bilingual par professionals who are Community interpreter certified now and Melissa Missy and I were the two certified staff facilitators who helped with that training program um so I was extremely proud of our multilingual staff as we went through this completing quizzes and doing uh projects and virtual learning assignments um it was a it was a great partnership so I wanted to report that is done Che well we hope moving forward that any Bilal staff that can come into the district that work as interpreters that we will have them go through this program kind of annually make sure all of our interpreters are trained what's was important about this is that it looked at uh principles like confidentiality transparency um communicative autonomy uh this is really important when you're trying to build trust with multi- families so we are we're just so proud of how that improved conferences and I'll get to that data in a little bit other things that aren't part of this leap that you should know about that our staff has been working on as the school year began is uh our Q count Focus this year especially at the 512 level level excuse me is continuing to become experts and working with English qualified students and multi parents uh so already this year uh we have completed a training on black Valley e data and combined learning targets so how do we write uh learning Targets in our classroom that are not only focused on content but also on improving our speaking and writing so that is how you learn a language I don't know if anyone sat through a language class as a high schooler anywhere and you you go like I sat through three years of Spanish and I still know none um we know that students learn languages best when they use them speaking and writing not just getting language input language input so our staff uh participated and a dive into Data that day as well looking at our language proficiency levels of all of our students then just a week or so ago uh we had some work time and professional development around the topic of creating e accommodated assessments so this is a day where uh Christine from our science department Josh Benson from our social studies department and uh one of our new teachers Bren nson from our English that Al stood up and showed other staff this is what I'm doing in my classroom for English Learners this is how I create a test for a student who's at a one on the English proficiency scale versus a student who's near accident so it was a really exciting day as a staff um to collaborate in that way and coming up this week we have a mation cultural presentation happening with some of our community leaders and some time to dive into culturally responsive teaching strategies um so to say that our IQ as a staff on this level has increased would be an understatement it is such a treat to walk into our uh our 512 teachers classrooms and say so you're um this student who has a proficiency level of a two for listening but a speaking what are we going to do and we're all talking the same language um I'm just I continue to be impressed by how we're taking the horns on this out here uh some things that we are interested in sharing with you today are some measures of Effectiveness so the L parl Valley school board annual review of the leag takes place every October and we look at these measures we look at Exit rate so the percentage of students that are no longer to have El services in our district we look at the growth on the access test which is the test that all English learner qualified students take every February March uh this is throughout the state of Minnesota throughout the United States many states use the access test to to measure English language proficiency and then interviews with stakeholders uh we just had our first meeting for the year of our multilingual learner planning committee Shannon and Matt are the school representatives of that that is one space where we bring all the stakeholders to the table to hear how are we doing um here's some other things I'm excited to report with a partnership with Appleton Area Health uh we created a sports physical event this Summer that had uh business sponsors for free sports physicals and this has led to 11 new multile uh 7th through 12th grade students participating in Fall Sports at Lao translated back to school night so at the Appleton M building we offered a translated opportunity for parents to come in and here in their first language what they needed to know as we head back to school uh increased Staffing at the 712 level or the 52 level means that now all e students receive access to their e teacher I can't highlight that one enough because in the Appleton myland building where we are hitting appropriate ratios for English learner teacher to English Learners we are seeing you'll see in the data how that's leading to students growing and exiting I I can't wait to bring that to you in the next year or two as we this and 5 512 fall conferences up here just a couple weeks ago we had a record of 109 translated parent teacher interactions uh completed by our Bal Paras I think their brains are on fire that night they even when offered breaks not pause they were so committed to giving parents access to uh their teachers so if you see any of our Bal sta please tell that thank you here's the data to prove it um for an English an e qualified student when they take a standardized assessment like the MCA the MCA is something that's written at grade level I'm my fifth grader keeping a fifth grade MCA fifth grade L if not higher sometimes I think some teachers would argue for students who are e qualified while the NC is one data measure I think the more important data measure to look at for those students is the access test the access tests they take annually it measures English language Proficiency in our four core content areas in social studies in math and reading and Science and so I'm so excited to share with you today that building down in Appleton M where we've had all these Innovative things that Robin talked about push in Services small group instruction we are seeing our English qualified students grow at almost double the state average so I put on the slid show that in 2023 in the Aon M building average progress towards ELP English language proficiency Target as measured by that access test last year our district on that side of Appleton M was meeting Statewide averages for progress towards English language PR excuse me in 2023 in 2024 so as measured by Spring of 2024 you can see that in the Appleton M building where the state average was 46.4% of el students making appropriate progress Theon M building 78.1% of our English Learners made appropriate English language proficiency progress um I just like I'm just so proud of this like that doesn't happen by accident it goes the other way when we don't pay attention to these needs um so this is so exciting and um and this is Marine you've always been an advocate of every teacher as a language teacher and see that happening in that building and it's showing great results so hats off to the appon m staff um they have worked so hard and it shows and earlier a kid is proficient in English their trajectory just goes upwards right they can access content that grade level content earlier so I'm so excited about this this is just another proof in the pudding perc of El's who are meeting their target so last year in the state average or excuse me in 2023 in Appleton Highland State average was 28.9% of El's meeting their proficiency targets and we were on par with the state two years ago you look at last year as measured by the access where the state was at 28.3% of students our Appleton mile building went up to 53.6% of students so again our highly trained and engaged our bilingual support we know that students learn a second language faster when they have first language support um it's paying off in track CLS so what I hope I wanted to show you some comparison data here's our secondary building our 7 through 12 in 2023 at the secondary level where we go we had one teacher to 88 students this year um we see that that is far below the state average the state average is 47.3 and our secondary building came at 16.2% we go one year ahead and we see we're slowly gaining we brought in a second e teacher about January of last year and as we started this school year we brought on another one we are almost at appropriate ratio student to teacher ratios in this 512 building more where it's meeing targets so two years ago 0% of students in this building meeting their proficiency Target last year we started to move the dial so I can't wait to show you how this is going to grow as we do all the things uh and kind of hold up our end for these students that we need any questions about the data and then here's that exit measure so in Fall 2022 we had no students exit e Services districtwide reminder that a student should be exiting services in five to seven years we see a student gain English proficiency that's why we kind of Target this middle school or Junior High if you started kindergarten with us there's no other learning um differences or disabilities at Play We want you to exit e by the time you hit sixth grade for sure seventh grade in Fall 2023 uh we had three students districtwide now fall 2024 we had 10 students qualified to so we hope to just keep seeing that take up I talked about the multilingual learner planning committee we met like I said this past week this is the stakeholders uh in 2023 we addressed extracurriculars in 2024 we address um Multicultural representation throughout the school district we're looking at content area instruction so again my husband told me before I came today he like you should just be proud hope everybody's doing so good and I said but we can't just do so Good by these kids they like we have to show them that they can be excellent that they can be the leaders that they have every all the same academic potential as any other kid so that's where we're diving in next also we have a multicultural parent Association they met before the school year and we'll continue to meet throughout the year um to address El but we go we talk about health needs we talk about the school skills how do you get on to JMC parents uh the link addresses these things El identification e placement description of our program assessment and identification e programming exit family communication procedures we added a language access plan as part of the react requirements this year and the appendices covers all the just legal forms and things I just included the updates because this is now you've seen this lots of times so we're just going to talk about the updates here I do want to draw your attention on page 29 of the E snapshot this breaks down English Learners as of October 23rd uh in each building percentage of students and then percentage it goes all the way down to the languages Ed in our district uh we added a new language of Africans in our district this year and uh when we look at total percent of students in each building we continue to see uh an uptick and percent of students who are English under qualified in the Appleton mil Elementary building and that of course as we come out to the big building leads to little up upticks in our fifth and sixth grade and seventh eth grade our high school continues to like get the largest amount of multilevel students we've ever had so it's fun to watch the staff Embrace that find the challenges and collaborate to overcome them new this year is service to our appon M Preschool location uh through VPK requirements volunteer prek uh we service English Learners on the applon M side of the school district so Melissa might talk a little bit about like uh when we get to kind of the teachers and what they're doing uh we're excited to get to partner with families earlier in their school experience with our district and help onboard them and see how we can meet the needs as we dive into the leap further on page 35 changes that you'll see on pages 35 and 36 all the way into 37 are that because we now have more multilingual teachers we can offer a lot more service models so in those pages I point out uh the different pullout or content based or newcomer programming that we offer just dependent on the building at the high school level high schoolers can now receive English language development for high school English credit because of some lure that we s I'm very excited for our high school students we never want to restrict an English learner from having to take any electives just to need a service need if at all possible so we're finding creative ways to do that I did want to let you know I've been watching legislation as it relates to S students um because I'm always hopeful that there will be new funding side to S students because we service a lot of students who come to us with interrupted education um there was just a update in definition s stands for a student with limited or interrupted formal education and uh the state updated the definition during the 23 24 school year to an English learner who has at least two fewer years of schooling than their peers when entering school in the United States that's just something I keep an eye on you can imagine a student who has had less education than their peers maybe they didn't it's fourth grade and now they come here in eth or nth grade but there's just different educational needs uh so we do s really good programming Mr Lowry and Mr swaty are really thoughtful about placing their schedules when they arrive here is the example of the language access plan this shows up um page 43 the function of the language access plan is just to make sure that as a school distri we are meeting language needs for our limited English proficiency parents um this is I think hard to do rurally it looks like sometimes um running into bu half and interpret because the one we arranged as something came up and how are we going to troubleshoot it do we need to look at maybe using language lines um we keep evaluating how is our inter interpreter Services currently working and is there a way we could get better it talks about document translation and just uh responsibility of staff to use an interpreter whenever possible and at this time uh teachers who couldn't be here some of them provided some information about what's happening at their grade level I'm going to send it to I wish I had my computer because I updated it today but I think you're not updated yet um I can give you a rough estimate so I'm working right now with the prek the kindergarten and the first grade levels in our first grade program we had kind of a unique experience for me um we exited five kindergarteners moving into first grade and I came from a district where I was a 90 to1 ratio and maybe exited one student um in that that time frame so it was really exciting to be able to exit five and one of my favorite Parts about working with that first grade model after I've been with kindergarten I've seen how how the letters training has matched up with some of their English skills because many of our um ches population comes in with some social language skills right so a lot of times you'll hear from any teacher well they already have some English they already have English but that academic language um they don't come to us with that and so the the the beauty of it is that we get to take um the letters training and create the reading model and then also also add the vocabulary piece where they're where they're having gaps um I had to go sit in Robin's office this year and just show off a little bit nothing that I did it's what our district is doing with letters training um I didn't have the opportunity to do letters training prior to coming to Lael and now I'm in year number two and I just love what I'm seeing I love the way our teachers are utilizing um our bilingual staff and there's a vocabulary word most of them have it translated on the back of their um cards in either um two keys and Spanish um or for sure they've taken time to do the CH Keys pieces and I I think that that's one of the goals Kirsten and I are hoping to see um continue to grow is the utilization of our bilingual staff in the upper grade levels as well um we're a little bit spoiled on the front end because our kindergarteners are kind of needy and that's my next little topic of conversation I'm only servicing 11 students in first grade right now we have a little bit little bit smaller number in first grade we do in our second grade classroom um kindergarten is looking like right around 20 um and I would say some some pretty intense needs not only language but Behavior we had um an unfortunate situation in kindergarten last year actually in preschool last year where we had some students come and didn't have room for them or or a head start um in our program was not able to take students so I have about 10 kiddos right now that I'm really um intensely focused on in small group with with my bilingual Paris working to create language um because they don't have the Readiness skills for kindergarten that most of our our kiddos were were blessed to have there just wasn't room for them in a preschool program so they're working hard and they're sweet and loving but it's hard to catch up five years of language experience so we'll we'll see how we do here with um that game as it plays out uh I just actually kind of inserted my foot officially into the preap program last week which is exciting um they don't require us to spend hours and hours in the preschool program which is great because they we don't have hours to spend but I'm working on the the screening process right now for about 17 kiddos in that 3K program um I'll know more after I do the screen how many of them qualify my first take on just being in the classroom getting to know the kids working with the teachers is that we're going to have a pretty high number qualify um just because this is a new tool we're using and and I think um lots of new things for the kiddos it's still the front end of the school year my goal would be to have most of those prease screenings done before Thanksgiving that might be lofty because it's a slow process and there's not a lot of time in my day to do screening um think I covered most of those things questions for me thoughts ideas concerns thank we as a eel program as a ml program are really excited to start to partner with the preschool staff and see like how that collaboration can look and get just get in touch with our families sooner the sooner that our families can learn scho skill that student skin the more successful they're going to be so I would like to share just a little bit our bpk program is one of the reasons that we are able to access some younger that that we are asked to do that um in my previous District I used to have to like sneak time in to go down to Head Start to go down to the preschool programs to just like see what was there I I don't have to I just tell Robin hey Robin I'm going to be in preschool this time of day in the morning in preschool this time of day in the afternoon I try not to let it interrupt the um K1 uh academic you know core classes try to sneak it in in the beginning and sneak it in at the end and hopefully model some things for teachers this year that's one of our goals thank you this is K Lindstrom she works with our second third and fourth grade Rob talked about small group instruction uh when you get to work in a smaller setting with a student is where you can really see their skills and then deliver interventions mtss multi assistance to support something the district is working on this year and intervention small group instruction is one way to kind of tier two work with kids who need a little more help and kson is an expert in this deliv this in if you can imagine once this kid h a student hits third grade they're no longer learning to read they are reading to learn content that makes sense it's no more about like do you know what that word said it's did you comprehend what that paragraph was about and so this is where differentiated instruction becomes really critical if you have a student who joins us in third grade and has no Eng already behind quite significant so PE has a newcomer that she already facilitates at this grade level which really important this is Miss Fisher new to the Middle School staff this year she delivers English language development and language arts so we have by proficiency level you can imagine a new fifth or sixth grade student who the country uh very limited or no English they need a different language arts experience than a student who's ready to exit kind of these gold grades so she has uh three different language art stud delivers during the morning and then helps with math interventions and a um social stud is a hard content area for our language Learners so she delivers for our lowest language Learners in fifth grade A pullout content setting for social studies we love her energy she's doing a great job Miss Wy works with our seventh and eighth grade students English language development services at these grades is an elective we work on academic skills this is where we've started our Junior High School career so are we managing homework on top of if you are still an English learner at this age and you started kindergarten in our school district why are we not exiting so it actually delivers interventions to lowest language areas it just just writing so she does a lot of a assessment and deliver intervention reassess how can I adjust how can I adjust we're excited to have her on St detail oriented and techy great the data here's me here's what I wanted to tell you about 912 this year so last year I only got to directly service new to Country students or students who are new cers first two years in country and all the rest of the students on that case load were like a hey is this ship burning let me know I'll check in with you I'll check in with your teacher I wasn't able to move their language along if you imagine sitting in the content class and our teachers I don't I I don't go into classrooms anymore that I just lecture the whole period our teachers are using turn talk are using right on your whiteboard um but still in the class of 29 it's hard for me to give a lot of time to show my teacher what I'm learning and so this year at the high school level Now by proficiency level we're were're able to give English for credit for our High School uh 9 to 12 so I have beginner group an intermediate group and then several Advanced groups we're hoping that those Advanced students they are experts on their access scores like dude you are a 3.6 your goal is 4.5 you're not using commas correctly and let's work on pronouns and they are they are the authors of their learning path so it's so fun to partner for the older students and and help them set their own goals and get them there that is the 912 level this year I have been kept so beautifully busy by content jened staff asking for help how do I create this assessment how do we reach out to these parents um I really like I foresee us on the news to day we're just doing something really special out here with our Multicultural parents and the way that our staff posit is positively responding anecdotally I have lot students this year with honor role potential I think that says something about the quality of educate because you can't get honorable just forgetting my good grade in one year classes that speaks about overall so um can't wait to report that to you that's it any questions about that leak document or the ml programming if I can just add it's been really fun to see to the f on um you know the ell team has been coming in and working um with the high school on most recently on as she mentioned altering assessments and things but what I've been you know present as that's going on people are highly engaged having great conversations um your team's done a fantastic job and and uh the buildings really been putting it to to work as well as ex new that's right any other questions oh yeah if there are any questions or concerns about the second by any further discussion very none all those in favor I post here is 14.0 is a St removal quot page 57 got Elite seamless and for the island T where is this a seamless they Highway 75 just SOL the micine so they are local kind of he has a crew that does this but he wants he wants to keep his crew busy for the winter months he's promoting that make motion to approve tle snow removal for and El Seam for my man site and bues okay motion by Scott second by Danny any further discussion none all those in favor oppos motion carries uh 15.0 is the resolution for funds from the Minnesota State High School foundation so yes yeah we can go ahead and look at the exhibit it's also on the page here but um essentially we need the board to approve for us to be able to um request funds from the foundation offset the cost by Danny second second by Shannon any further discussion very none all those in favor I post 16.0 is the technology update with Dave all right good evening Bo just going to bring you up to speed from the summer to now so over the summer the biggest change that we had is our internet provider that we Coop through LC dissolved over summer so did an RFP went out through another company now where internet is going through e East Central Minnesota something collaborative so uh it it shows for good potential a large Savings of what we were previously maybe some services that weren't getting through AC but we just needed the internet connection and I think a positive change happen seamlessly over the summer and I don't think anyone other than me really knew it happened so uh everything's going great uh the other big thing was the cloud Wi-Fi controller my Wi-Fi controllers are under so they need to be updated eate that pay for 80% reimbursement so that got replaced over the summer and ready to go by first day of school uh kind of things that we work on throughout the school year when time allows is uh biggest thing is kind of go through our infrastructure and U get an update of where we're at obviously with the elementaries and the referendums they're sitting in Prime condition and shouldn't really need to touch anything in those buildings for some time uh out in this building uh we have a interc comp system that is original to the building uh in 2012 I did a retr project upgraded the headend controller if you will of the intercom system because it was failing uh was a dking system and it was we were out of business in the mid 90s so the system was kind of old when I was putting a building new so yeah so as over time the last 12 years here the speakers have started degrading quality it's hard to hear gyms some classrooms are louder quieter so that's something that's defin going to have to be at the Forefront of looking to replace that system somehow so I'll be working on on getting some quotes and bids on that and the other big thing I in this building is the structural c network drops they're all original I'm assuming from them they were installed in the late 90s uh some of them are longer than the 300 ft recommended e at length so so everything is Central back to this closet so when we get to a long run causing issues biggest issues like wireless access points um they can do more throughput than a gab eithernet they can two and a half four 6 8 10 gabit throughput so only one cable going to them so we' be looking at somehow doing the structural cing projects in the future uh again that is something that's also being able to be paid for by E funding that'll pay up for 80% of the cost um I'm estimating like 4 to 500 drops building and that would be something I would probably get a bid for doing it all at once and probably another bid staging over two or three years to to kind of keep those costs and all so it's not such a huge huge expense right away uh the other project that I will be working on throughout the year is our company that hosts our website the contract with them is do up at the end of the year um currently looking at our communication platform they acquired a company in 2023 gabber Communications that specialized in websites they have it up and running and it directly integrates with parent Square looks like to be a good fit and cost savings there also so that's kind of where I'm going at this year with big projects if you will otherwise everything's maintaining and going good anyone have any questions questions for so we could utilize the safe School Monies to update the intercome portions of the correct and not the drops correct thanks uh 17.0 is the board learning Trail update hi so I was last well I've been here twice but I first started um kind of throwing around the idea of a born learning Trail in March and I'm happy to record it's done except for one sign that I just have to put up but um we're just going to watch a little video kind of recapping the collaboration of it and then we can kind of go through it or if you have any questions never night it's not it's sound picture every night the brightest car fill my head a million dreams are keeping me away I think what the world could beion the one I see a million dream is all it's good take Million Dreams for the world going to make there's a house we can build every room sight is fil with things from far away special things I compile each one there make you smile on a rainy day they can say they can say it all just crazy they can say they can say we've lost our mind see I don't care I don't care if they call us crazy run away to a world that we Des every night the brightest colors F my head I'm your dreams are keeping me away I the world the what I see Million Dreams is all it's going TOS going make so that was just kind of a summary of how the project went um had over 20 kids involved with it um seven adults I don't know if you noticed um our mayor Greg F he brought his edger and helped with that um the kids came up with the designs for um each sign kind of has a little thing that you're supposed to do it talks about like a tree or something and so the kids came up with the ideas we didn't have them do the designs we wanted to look like kids drawing so adults um did like the stenciling and stuff but then they um build in the colors and um it ended up being a $2,700 project and so juanas paid $500 or donated $500 and then the um Madison Community Foundation um I wrote a grant for that and that was a th000 so that, 1500 um um took care of the signs that we had to purchase and then the Blandon Foundation which was through um Chris Shad at the Merc she got a grant um and that paid for the paint which was over $1,000 as well um the paint was is special for cement I guess mural artists utilize it I had to go to sou Falls to get it and it was over $90 a gallon so um we have paint left over for each year we plan to just touch it up thankfully this is an area where um not a lot of high traffic so I don't think salt will go on the sidewalk so it should have longevity um and then you guys paid um $200 and I went over budget by $2 but that was the help um we Gott brushes rollers we all we bought that all local through Harbor Hank and Madison and then there was a little bit of a wasp problem but we bought some spray and took care of that so yeah um the preschool's been utilizing it the daycare kids time and the community so it's really been great to see it come along anybody have any questions no very thank you thank you all right. the building updates Marine anything to highlight kind ofit it all and good things happening Scott just a couple things to notes um the paving of the tennis court is underway and should be done by the end of the week and then that'll shut down then for the winter I also wanted the board just to be aware something that um I've been looking into and been in conversation with uh our insurance provider over at client Insurance um is just keeping an eye on the potential need for Builders Risk insurance um which we don't currently have um and essentially Builder risk for those of you who may not be familiar with it just basically covers us while a project is not completed but all the stuff is out there to build it or or whatever if there was to be theft or damage or things like that um and uh there they're helping us to keep an eye on that right now we feel like we're we're covered under our current Insurance adequately but we're just going to keep reevaluating that as different stages of the project come along so I just wanted the board to be in the loop on that um we had our first Mee in confer today and that was very successful uh flexible learning year calendars were reviewed we also had our first flexible learning year public hearing today so we've got one of the three checked off and um the last thing I just wanted to make the board aware of is that um we met with the um laa parl County Mental Health collaborative which is not just our district and includes Dawson and um the law enforcement community and we looked at um the possibility of trying to hold a family health fair in in February and it would be in Dawson and it would coincide with when lack lack of power plays Dawson and basketball um and it would basically just be kind of a an opportunity for people as they're coming into the game to see what free resources or Community Resources are out there just to help keep family strong so that is what that group is doing so we hear about that that is what it is um and I think that that is all I have questions for SC thank SC anything else for this evening now I'll take a motion to adj by shanon second by Matt all those in favor I motion carries