##VIDEO ID:qsW6tFIwRZY## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good evening ladies and gentlemen it is 5 o'clock on Monday November the 4th welcome to the regular school board meeting ofri 82 Jo us our first action item this evening is to make our tenative agenda our permanent agenda for the evening I will entertain a motion or any discussion to changes to the agenda moved by m Curtis seconded by Casey root all those in favor of making our tentative agenda our permanent agenda for the evening please say I I any oppos please say no and the motion passes 60 um this evening we do have one Citizen's comment we have one of our monell high school students Whitney Salah who's going to join us um and she has some uh prepared remarks we are going to break from our usual procedure just lately she's asked for 5 minutes and 30 seconds instead of the typical 3 minutes and so we have accommodated her with that request so welcome Whitney and you have the floor good evening Madam chairman of direct in my name is Whitney Sal and I'm a student here at I am here tonight to share an experiment experience that I recently had with my school and District administration last February at my reevaluation my de part of hearing teacher presented to the team that I along with some of my peers take a sign language class through Northern Star in line she stated that she was currently doing this class with student a student and several of their peers from a different District district it and it was very successful everyone at the meeting felt it was a great idea and would be realistic to achieve my dhh teacher immediately started working with the school counselors to make this class happen for us six months after the meting when the schedules came out on August 26 we found out that the high school is not willing to make this class work for myself and three other students we were told by the high school administration that scheduling was complicated and I had been scheduled for the course but my peers had not been there was immense breakdown of follow through and Communications between the counselors the high school administration and the district special education Administration I decided to move forward with this course but I now taking a sign language by myself my parents were Fierce advocates for me but unfortunately the administration was not willing to make it work I've given each of you a timeline of events that took place between my parents SL the school dis school and District staff I had been excited for this opportunity for several reasons my hearing has been declining and there's a high chance that someday I may completely lose my hearing so through so learning sign language would be beneficial to me yes I'm still giving the opportunity to learn sign language but having other students in the class with me or but without having other students in the class with me I do not have the opportunity to practice what I'm learning I also it also doesn't do me much good if none of my friends are able to sign this class not only teaches sign language but also teaches about the deaf Community I unfortunately had some f have had some friends say some unkind things to me and I feel it is because they don't realize the daily struggle I go through I'm a lip reader so I need to be looking at your face and I had a peer tell me that they do not like that I stare so intently at them when they are talking to me I had another peer tell me that it bothers people that I talk loudly due to my hearing loss I have a hard time hearing my own voice these are just two examples of encounters that I come across but there's been many more I felt this class would be a perfect opportunity for some of my friends to be more educated on what is like to be student with a hearing loss My Hope was that these friends could help be Advocates and educate more students peers about the daily struggles that a student with a hearing loss experiences if you go to the monol high school website under the principal's page you will find this quote as a dedicated educ educational institution we place immense values on every each and every student who enter our doors our overarching goal is to cultivate a safe and nourishing learning environment one where students not only succeed academic Ally but also Forge meaningful connections explore opportunities to allow them Excel both in and out of the classroom and ultimately prepare them for their future endeavors but denying me the opportunity to take this class with some of my peers the administration was not standing by their core beliefs I recognize that scheduling is hard but so is dealing with a hearing loss and I do not get to take the easy Road by making this class not or by not making this class work for four students the school took the easy Road they did not play Place immense values on each and every student creating a safe and nourishing learning environment Forge meaningful connections or explore opportunities to help me Excel the only staff member that did stand by my side was my dhh teacher Mrs evil I want to leave you with one last quote that was made by one of the administrators in an email that was sent to my parents it is my sincere apology that I'm not able to meet your requests and priorities this was not our request it was an idea that was presented to us and it is sad that your their priorities don't align with wanting to provide inclusion and a safe learning environment for all students for a district that Prides themselves on their unified program I am saddened that they could not make this class work for myself and three of my peers I know that nothing will change for as far as this class goes for me but I'm here tonight to advocate for the future deart of hearing students that are a part of our district my hope is that all students would have access to this class or a similar class class so that they can become more educated on the de of Heart of hearing community and culture and just learn a different foreign language our district needs to do better and I will continue to Advocate and fight for us if you have any further questions about my experience my parents and I will be more than happy to visit with you further thank you for your time thank you very much Whitney that was really well written and well delivered I appreciate your comments for those who may be watching who don't understand the citizens comment uh format it's not a question and answer session back and forth with the uh citizen addresses the board with their comments But please understand that whenever we have student or um Community member concerns we meet with and communicate with the families ahead of time and after the fact as well so we will continue to work on the issues that you've presented us Whitney and thank you very much um I think you said you had another activity to go to so you're you're welcome to to be excused if you'd like to thank you for coming moving on to item number five fiscal stability and our consent agenda the consent agenda consists of minutes from October 21st and Personnel matters um and we received this information about a week in advance and uh members have the opportunity to ask questions which we have done this week is there any discussion or questions about the consent agenda items and seeing none I'll entertain a motion to approve so moved second moved by Melissa Curtis seconded by Casey root all those in favor of approving the consent agenda items please say I I all those opposed please say no and the motion passes 60 moving on to our collaborative connections and resolution for acceptance of gift um every meeting we talk about how extraordinarily generous the community is to our school district and this week is no different and I'm going to have uh superintendent Olsen talk about the donations we have received this cycle right the first uh donation um is from Modern Companies Incorporated for $3,100 for the reimbursement for storage containers used to store trap shooting material at the range um the next to um I will um describe briefly here um these both relate to um the program that is a community initiative that I spoke about last uh meeting um called rally to read um it has two offshoots uh the first one is for zero to four year olds and the second one um came from uh that meeting where there is now an offshoot of um a secondary or monello High School library initiative um falling under their umbrella of Rel to read in hopes to um seek donors for um additional funding for books at at our secondary uh mol High School library level um and so the Weeden Foundation um donated $8,000 to the zero to four year-old programming doing and that I explained last week Frank and Joan op um donated $500 for the rally to read monell High School library initiative and then the monel Lions Club donated $5,000 for our Magic Closet at our high school um so those are the um uh big huge donations coming forward here today to you for those who can do quick mental math at $16,600 that's pretty amazing so we do have a resolution for the acceptance of gifts therefore be resolved by the monell school board number 882 to gratefully accept the following donations modern Companies Incorporated $3,100 re reimbursement for storage containers used to store trap shooting materials the Weeden Foundation $8,000 for the rally to read program Frank and Joan op $500 for the rally to read program and the mono Alliance Club $5,000 for the Magic Closet second resolution read by member Jeff hegley seconded by member Melissa Curtis all those in favor of accepting the donations as presented please say I I any oppos please say no and the resolution passes 60 now we get to kind of a fun part of the meeting and we're going to we have all three of our student Representatives here today um Willa Sher is with us and she had a sports conflict earlier this year she was not able to attend a couple of the meetings but we have Willa Sher at Thompson and Cohen schlangen that are going to give their student representative report welcome to the podium good evening members of the school board my name is Willis Sher and I'm a senior at monello High School this year I had the honor of serving as one of the captains of our women's soccer team and additionally I play on our monello varsity lacrosse team Beyond Sports I am proud to have served at as our student council president where I advocate for our peers and work to improve our school's Community I'm also involved with unified program on their exec board promoting promoting inclusivity and support for all students in my academic Pursuits I challenge myself with a variety of college level courses including Orchestra history chemistry psychology Spanish economics and University of writing each of these classes has not only deepened my knowledge but also have prepared me for my future challenges thank you for allowing me to introduce myself today thank you will all right first up on the uh agenda tonight is uh the fall sports update I'm going to start with football football finished the regular season with a 6-2 record clinching the number one seed in the section from there we hosted Park Center beating them last Saturday uh this past Friday monos solo hosted their first ever section final game in which we won uh 19 to zero against Spring Lake Park punching our first ticket to State since 1988 uh my parents were eight years old last time we went to State a long time um we play our first game in the state tournament this Saturday in Forest Lake against Elk River at 4m. uh next up is boys cross country the boys cross country team took fourth in sections with senior Samir Gupta qualifying for State Gupta ran well this Saturday according to team captains a team highlight was running on their home course for the Mississippi 8 Conference Finals doing well both on varsity and JV levels uh boys soccer the boys soccer team finished the regular season 10 four and four tying for first in the conference with Princeton in section play they matched up well in a hard fought game against Delano though losing 1 to zero as far as the season highlight goes there were 15 seniors on the varsity Rous showing the growth of a team throughout the years many thought it was cool to start and end their careers with the same group of guys now continuing that with girls soccer the girls soccer season concluded with a record of 88 and two securing fourth place in the conference and earning the fifth seed in our section a highlight was the impressive victory over Becker in the first round however we faced a tough challenge next round losing to Zimmerman 0 to one additionally girls cross country has had a solid season though records can be tricky to quantify they have achieved three third place finishes three second place finishes and two top 15 placements in major events like Alexandria with 30 teams competing they finished fourth at conference and third at sections Isabelle Mahoney was their standout Runner placing 12th out of7 at State a key highlight was their second place finish at the home Invitational girls tennis season wrapped up with an impressive Conference record of six- one earning them the title of conference champs for the first time since 2013 while the team won't have any Representatives at the state level they demonstrated a strong competitiveness securing six seed in their section play girls volleyball team has had an impressive season finishing with a record of 18 and 13 as the seventh seed they are also set to face the second seed Marshall on Wednesday in the state tournament this matchup is a significant opportunity for them to Showcase their resilience and teamwork throughout the years and now in swimming girls swimming season has been exceptional finishing with an impressive record of 14 and zero as they head in the sections week the team is uncertain of how many will qualify for the state competition but they are currently ranked at top three in their class A notable highlight of the season was secur was securing third place at the True Team state competition and the team has shattered 40 records in including pool meets home meets and school records the last of our fall Sports is the coyotes uh the coyotes finished the regular season 8-1 while also clenching their first state birth and school history they play either Friday or Saturday at White Bear Lake High School with the time and opponent yet to be decided when asked about their season highlight coach Grahams talked about how they beat St Cloud for the first time in school history and how the team is hungry for a rematch of Park Center the team responsible for their lone loss of the Season all right next up on our agenda is the National Honor Society meeting uh the National Honor Society ceremony will take place on Monday November 11th at 700 pm. in the High School auditorium this ceremony will recognize many Juniors and seniors at MHS who display qualities in academic Excellence leadership service and character there's not a final number of members who will be recognized as those results are still being processed next on the agenda is our High School Musical the musical this year will be Legally Blonde the dates for the performance will be December 6th and 7th at 7:30 p.m. and then 8 at 2 p.m. the number of students involved including cast crew Tech and Orchestra is over 40 students tickets will be sold at $11 for adults and $6 for students good evening board members this year the mon the mon solo high school Veterans Day program will take place this upcoming Friday November 8th at 9:30 a.m. as I was this year's boy state representative I'll have the opportunity to facilitate the event alongside girl state representative Willa and on behalf of mon solo high school we would like to extend an invitation to you all formally um moving on to the trimester system um from my perspective the trimester system has been a great transition with the new scheduling system everything is much more stable and I have more time to commit myself to schoolwork and extracurricular activities however as the days pres present us with enough time to get things done the months the months creep up November 26 is this trimester is ending and while everyone and while everything has has been following through well it seems rapid about a week ago I had the opportunity to briefly speak with the teacher Mr sword and discuss how the trimester system has been going he mentioned how it supports him in a way that his students are often more awake and involved in addition to everything being more steadily paced based on what I've seen and encountered the student body also seems to be enjoying it well several students have mentioned how it allows them to get stuff done with their CL within their class periods along with the fact they have more time to commit to themselves in all the transition from semester to trimester has been taken well with minor concerns thank thank you does that conclude your remarks is there any um comments or questions from the board members for our student Representatives oh you're getting off easy tonight so you can take your seats again um we'll let the rest of the folks know um the Minnesota school boards Association has their annual um state level convention in December I'm sorry January January 15th and 16th and our three student reps will be joining us this year to participate in some of the Student Activities and the student professional development so we're really excited to have you guys coming with us in January so um congratulations on that nice job you guys continue to just deliver um just very authentic messages but also uh very detailed orientated so that you represent a wide swath of our students and um with great communication skills awesome to hear so moving on to teaching and learning we have um four presentations this evening from our um youngest Learners from our elementaries and first we're going to have principal Christen Green from East viiew education center is going to present a her goals presentation to the board and the [Music] community I'm a little shorter than our high school students it seems good evening Cher Zar Schoolboard members superintendent Olen colleagues and Community thank you for giving me the opportunity to share with you the goals that we've Set uh at East viiew education center for our youngest Learners in our community starting right off the bat what is our instructional goal this year our youngest Learners uh preschoolers and kindergarteners in the building our goal is ultimately that our students learn how to be ready for school and so as you saw on the very first slide we had a picture of our high school graduation ceremony we start at the opposite end of the spectrum and so we take students from 3 years old 4 years old 5 years old they enter our building in our school community and we teach them how to do school so our goal for the year once again aligned with the a Andi language um is that children are ready for school what this means for our preschoolers is that they will be engaging this year and they've actually already done their first assessment in a standardized assessment our four-year-olds who will be transitioning to kindergarten next year engaged in that fast bridge for Early Childhood Learners assessment our goal for those students they performed very well what tells us that our community is really engaged in the learning they're doing at home with our students before they set foot into our school our goal for these students is that we show at least one year's worth of growth based on that spring assessment that we will do for them again in probably um may we will assess these students again so their goal is a minimum of one year's worth of growth and that Benchmark is designed by fastbridge in kindergarten I set a lofty goal with you last year and we continue that work again this year and so the goal for kindergarten is over the next three years last year we were able to achieve that goal to get 54% of students at Benchmark this year even loftier yet and getting to 62% of kindergarteners meeting that Benchmark on the spring fast Bridge assessment how are we going to do that well these are the measurable things that you will see uh teachers and staff working on with students our preschool teachers are engaged in letters or letters for Early Childhood we are doing very intentional professional development and having um data conversations even about our preschoolers what are we learning we're having conversations about what is it that we want them to know at age three at age 4 at age 5 how do we know they know it and what are we doing if they don't know it so real intentional conversations even as our preschool staff with our youngest Learners our preschool teachers are engaged in very explicit instruction around those foundational literacy skills so really exposing to letters and symbols and sounds and books and immersing themselves in literature in kindergarten we're also engaging um two of our kindergarten teachers have already completed letters eight of them are in their second year finishing up probably in about January most of them and one is in the first year so building pretty high capacity on our kindergarten team engaging in that science of reading we continue to use a flexible group model to make sure that students are in groups based on other students who are learning right about their same level that allows us tojust our adjust our Pace in what students are being exposed to and if they need more practice on something or if perhaps they can move a bit quicker we have as an elementary team shifted our amplify units amplify is our comprehension um resource that we're using we noticed um that in the past we had sort of shifted some units around and what we uncovered was there were some gaps in background knowledge as students went up through the grades and so as an elementary team we shifted those so that we can ensure there's adequate background knowledge as students are moving up through the grades um we're using both amplify and functional phonics again and along with our functional phonics we have Rose Johnson who was honored just last week at the leadership and educational excellence awards up in St Cloud she is our reading coach at East viiew she is a wealth of knowledge she is well respected on our staff and she is engaging with teachers on a weekly basis where there are observations and then coaching sessions around functional phonics We are continuing to engage in plc's as a kindergarten team and we're really digging hard this year into the mtss process and focusing a lot on our tier one strategies and looking at data for that who is Achieve which 80% um strategies are working for 80% of students those are the measurable things these are the goals that I shared with my um team at East viiew to kick off our year and our goals that align directly with as you can see um our our monacello uh vision of a learner and all of that we are our first and foremost goal is that we're creating a nurturing environment for students and the way that we're doing that is we are really studying um the young brain this year and so we're working together to understand those neural Pathways that are built from birth to age five and what sort of neural Pathways do we maybe need to shift and adjust now that they've entered formal schooling creating that nurturing environment and building relationships aligns with that safe and healthy culture piece literacy uh we're showing Innovation and Leadership through our intensive study of the science of reading letters work and engaging in in deliberate plc's I'll speak a bit more later on about our vision of a learner goal being effective communicators both students and staff we are working collaboratively and building connections through our PLC Partnerships and the cohorts for letters that we're engaged in and finally I'll share with you our Mantra if you will for the year and that's really to keep it all in perspective and what I challenged our staff with this year was every time you're talking about kids any statement you make any question you have it ends with these words and you'll notice there's an asterisk after the five because we have threeyear olds four year olds and 5-year olds but every time you're talking about a kid I want you to say and they're five because it really helps you bring back that perspective of the students that are in our building that we're working with so as Educators we can get really up here in Edge you speak and what do we want what strategies are we using what's working what's the data showing and our students every day show up and remind us to always end it with and they're five or maybe we end it with and they're three 36 months they've been on this planet and let's remember what we're asking them to do what you'll see students doing is engaging in those explicit learning activities for example in preschool identifying letters numbers they're beginning to form symbols connecting those symbols to letters of the alphabet and really being curious about books and print telling stories to each other recalling details from stories we're increasing their stamina that's a big thing at East viw at this time of year sitting for 10 minutes is a pretty lofty task when you're three or four or five and so we're working hard to build that stamina for educational tasks we're also working how to have appropriate interactions and that's self-regulation at kindergarten you will see us continue to flex across the color team to engage with students performing at their academic level we continue with amplify and functional phonics literacy Rich lessons across all of our curricular areas teaching students to make connections to what they're hearing in stories and print um and then also to still building stamina and learning those self-re regulation and appropriate interactions through some of our um amplify stories as well as character strong for our students the the things that maybe aren't as data measurable are that we want them to be curious we want them to be playful and we just want them to be five so show up each day who they are and when we give them a nurturing space where they can show up in that way the sky the limit um they come bouncing in the door either out of the car or off the bus each day and our job is to meet meet them where they're at and create experiences where they're going to still feel curious playful and five as I mentioned our vision of a learner goal this year is that all students and staff at East viiew are effective communicators back in August I share with my staff my challenge to them are a couple of things around communication first and foremost it is to think very carefully about how we're speaking of students what exactly we're saying about students to whom we're speaking to students that whole confidentiality piece in really honoring the Integrity of every child when we're communicating about students I've given my staff another Mantra last year they can probably hear it in their heads that I challenge them that every time you're talking about a student think to yourself everyone is someone's Michaela Michaela is the name of my oldest daughter and so I want them to think about everyone someone's Michaela and you're going to get a different Kristen green if you're talking out of turn about my Michaela and every mom or dad or grandparent or Guardian feels that close and safe about wants their child to feel that safe in a space so really as we're talking about students to keep that in mind and then we're teaching our students how to communicate we're teaching our students how to interact appropriately with their peers how do you say I didn't like that without bopping someone across the head or throwing the toy across the room or maybe feeling really quiet and not being able to express your thoughts and so we're giving them the language to use their words for the feelings they're having and also how to become part of this classroom community and so in conclusion I want you to remember that through our instructional goals and strategies that we're using through the amazing staff that are at East viw that show up every day working extremely hard with smiles um with a fresh start for themselves and for students every day our students there's not much happier place than at East viiew the kids come bouncing in excited to be with us each day and our vision of a learner all of it aligns with our mantra for this year which is and their five thank you for your time this evening to let me boast a bit about the amazing place that is East viw thank you Kristen is there any uh questions for Kristen from the board I have a quick question for you you had described your flexible grouping model is that something that you just started this year or was that started last year when you guys started revamping the curriculum we started our flexible grouping model last year obviously saw some good success we did um we didn't get it rolling till about December January for some teams last year because we were learning exactly what the logistics were going to be um and we hadn't done it at East viw before we jumped in it was very successful uh you'd be amazed that five and sixy olds when it's time to switch classrooms just like up at the high school they know where to go they've got their materials off they go they're getting a chance to work with another teacher in another group of peers and so yep we're ready to launch um getting set to begin that before conferences this year anyone else students do you have any questions CH I have one quick question that might be of interest to the community as well can you tell us what the total enrollment is in the preschool program roughly team is sitting in the audience uh 230 240 and so do we um I'm thinking we probably have some data now because we've had the program for several years roughly what percentage of those students from the preschool program continue on with us inard I think we're at about 60% um are in our preschool program that launch up into our I think that's a really important piece of information for the community is that there's a lot of continuity we're not losing a lot of students they we're building on the skills and um academic skills that they're learning in preschool so and that's something we're working real hard on Jen Jeremiah and myself is to really build that we don't have just because we're in separate hallways that we really have one cohesive Early Childhood Program so that when students move from one hallway to the next they know what's expected of them and it's a familiar learning space is there anybody on the waiting list for that program at this point in time so everybody that wanted a spot was able to get one so I think that's another important piece for the community if you have a student that's coming up on preschool aged and you're interested in our preschool programs uh early is better than later we've got lots of opportunities we've got half day full day couple days a week five days a week so whatever fits family these needs um but it's a great space to get started and a great way to become part of our school Community anyone else for Christen thank you Kristen thank you for your time now we have Nicole CAU from Little Mountain Elementary principal she's going to um give us her program of um goals and outcomes this year thank you welcome Nicole thank you good evening superintendent Olen for chair ZB birth and school board members and student Representatives thank you for having me here tonight I'm excited to share some work with you we've um experienced some challenges and successes at Little Mountain already this fall um and so here is an update some will sound familiar to what you've heard in the past and then some things will be definitely a change um I'm going to start with our vision of a learner goal we did decide to stick with um persons of Integrity as our Focus this year we've really built our seal block and model around this um and we do feel at the elementary that teaching them to do the right thing even when no one is watching is very important and also just to be uh mindful of how their words and actions affect themselves and others around them so we continue to work on that here are some of the observ observables you will see at Little Mountain um again we have thatal block built into our schedule so we're very mindful of starting our day intentionally to support students we let them come in and do some of these activities through our new character strong curriculum um which just is a good way to start the tone for the day they have a space to share um and build relationships and just start the day in a safe environment um as I mentioned character strong is that newal curriculum and each month we have a new theme so so far we have focused on respect and responsibility and then um our November theme is gratitude which is very fitting with Thanksgiving this month um and so we're just looking at ways we can be f for all that we have um we will be doing a student council food drive in November as well just to kind of go along with that theme and a way we can give back to our community our instructional goal is working towards that District goal of 70% of students meeting Benchmark by the winter of 2026 um we did not meet our goal last year so we did keep that same 3% increase we want it to be obtainable for our staff and students um we are are seeing really great growth with some changes this fall so I'm looking forward to sharing that with you this evening um students will continue to take those fast Bridge assessments and we will participate um or they will participate in age appropriate academic goal setting this is a change that was added to our um teacher evaluation system this year so we're having staff work on age appropriate ways where they can have students reflect on their learning and kind of self assess and take pride in that process so that will be a change for students this year um you'll hear me talking tonight about our win time model which has changed and it has stretched our staff a bit this year um but students are receiving additional instructional support throughout the day that we have not been able to provide in the past and I'll explain a little more about that later um our students are participating in evidence-based instruction of course we have many of our teachers going through science of reading training and so our instructional practices are improving through that um and our students will take time to celebrate success our staff um are providing or being provided that react training we have quite a few who have finished it many who are in year two and then some that are just starting so we're a little bit all over the board but we're excited that all staff at the elementary level will have that opportunity um our staff is working very close with our Reading Coach Stephanie Hamilton um to make those data driven decisions during our PLC time Stephanie has been a great leader and I do need to give a shout out she was at the our Leah Award winner um so we got to celebrate with her last week um and she is just doing such great work with our teams and helping guide really difficult conversations this year um and pushing them out of their comfort zones a little bit um but she has just been imperative so thank you again for providing us those Reading Coach positions um it is making a huge difference our staff like I talked is changing our wi time models so it stands for what I need and in the past a lot of our students would go get speech services maybe social work um Special Education Services El services and those things are all still happening during that time but the students that are left in the classroom are getting much more intentional instructional support in math and reading and so I'll show you some data at the end that is showing that our work is really making a difference it is been it has been a challenge for staff as they're teaching much harder than they taught in the past and so we've had some learning pains through that but I think they're starting to see that their hard work is paying off our staff um is in year two of amplify curriculum adoption and this year as Kristen said we've kind of revamped the order of some of the units we're doing and we're also adding in some new units while it is year two we are still experiencing some um new learning opportunities within that curriculum we are focusing a lot on our mtss model at little Mountain we talk a lot about mtss and how all of the work that we do is under the mtss umbrella but what I was realizing is Staff doesn't always see how that ties together so Stephanie Nord Stog our new mtss coordinator has been out to the building to really help staff understand and see how really again everything we do is under that model um and so we'll continue that work with Stephanie in our building as it's important for staff to see how all everything we're doing is connected to Student Success um and then we're just being more intentional again about sharing Pro progress with students and families and then trying to find those celebrations along the way um in a recent coffee chat we had with Eric Olson um a few challenges came up from staff and so what we've noticed with our school start time change our instructional day is a little shorter and even though it's only 10 minutes that does make things feel really crammed and so we're just trying to work through how um we can best use the minutes of the day and also help teachers feel like they have time to breathe a little bit with their students as well um substitute teacher and also ESS shortages did come up as a concern so we have worked with our staff on some backup plans if and when we do not have those positions filled um and then we did see a little bit of change in school climate this fall which was hard because Little Mountain has been known as a wonderful place to be and it still is um but again some of these challenges were just weighing really heavily on staff this fall uh Kathy Hamill will tell you that every even a bad day at Little Mountain is a good day and she is right um but we'll keep working with our staff just to continue to improve that climate again um and get back to where we were before I have a few celebrations to share um Family engagement obviously being a district goal is something we're taking very seriously at Little Mountain um and this fall we're excited our PTO has a full PTO board which has been awesome we have better family engagement in our PTO than we've had in the past um and so we'll continue to work through that we've added schoolwide Title One status which you've heard about um which is just giving us more opportunities to better support all of our Learners one of my favorite celebrations has been the addition of our setting 3 DCd program to our building it has added a layer that we didn't realize we were missing um so it just makes it feel better that we're representing all students at Little Mountain which is great we did Catalyst training in August and um that is kind of a mix of classroom management and student engagement strategies which are staff has really enjoyed we actually have the next two-hour training tomorrow morning and through that we're providing some coaching opportunities as well for staff um through our staff development funds so that is an exciting opportunity and then you heard me talk about wi time so I do just want to show you this um visual that Stephanie Hamilton put together so um long story short we're seeing really great growth um you can see that we've had we did a six- week check which is a new kind of progress monitoring we've added and so we had 64% of our students uh meet their grade level growth goal and 85% overall um see positive growth in their scores um and you can see some other numbers there on kids jumping from one level to the next which is great but what I want to point out at the bottom last year we didn't do a data check until about 13 weeks in and 16 weeks in first grade um and this year we have seen just as much if not more improvement in our six weeks of instruction um and most are all of our grade levels which is just amazing so this is um measuring words per minute that the students can read and part of our wintime shift has been some very specific fluency practice which we realized was missing and so to see these numbers within six weeks when it took us at least 13 if not more weeks to get there last year has been really exciting so once again our staff are working harder than ever I'm so proud of them proud of our Reading Coach and all the work we're doing um and we are seeing some really good growth already so it's very exciting to see and thank you for supporting us I'll open it up for questions the beginning you talked about the social emotional block that you've implemented throughout the whole building how many minutes um long is that roughly it's a 30 minute block but by the time they get attendance done and um we do a daily Morning News that's probably more like 20 y so the whole school then is working I bring up just because it's a highly High interest area for parents they want to know what are we doing with that they're worried that you know we might be doing something that we shouldn't be doing but I I think in our district we've always kept it to Concepts that are um really beneficial for students to have over their lifetime such as resilience and integrity um so do you you you take one of those Concepts like integrity and the whole school is working on it at once is that what you're doing yeah and it's been a really great way to just bring everybody together and I forgot to mention to our um the curriculum even has games that can be taught so our fied teachers are teaching games based on respect or responsibility gratitude that the students we hope then take out to recess and can play um out there as well so um basic Ally each week you have five lessons that align with the theme so respect responsibility gratitude kindness um honesty trustworthiness there's all these themes throughout the year um and we've committed as a building leadership team that we would make sure all students experience every all of the Five Lessons in one week's time um to equal that month of instruction so it is really just teaching them good character values how to be kind to we always did a lot of that but we just didn't have a name for it maybe yeah for sure and especially at the elementary level it's a lot of we're constantly teaching them in the moment those skills but it's nice to have that dedicated time to talk and like I said just kind of set the tone for the day any other questions for Miss crto from Little Mountain what do you attribute the success in the last slide that you were showing in your six week evaluation versus the 13-week evaluations from last year that you're seeing now that you didn't see last year I think there's uh for sure two pieces to that so we've noticed in our amplify reading curriculum that the teachers are teaching more in front of the students and there had they're it's more I don't want to say lecture but more teacher talk and so we've been more intentional about getting students reading books in their hands we had to try to find a balance um so I think that's part of it we just spend intentional and building in more reading time for students and then during that wintime model part of what they receive during their reading time is fluency practice so spefic specific interventions trying to increase their words per minute just to clarify your answer to Jamie there was were you saying there's more teacher time in front of the students now in the reading curriculum it is teacher heavy yep and so we're working I think year one it was hard because they were trying to figure out how to deliver a curriculum and now we're finding ways where we can find more student voice and again get more reading in their hands more student time to talk but as you're learning a new curriculum that doesn't always just come naturally you're just comparing years one and two under the new curriculum Not Looking Back to the prior curriculum correct yes which I only had one year of the original curriculum to compar um can you tell us where you were at where you landed on that goal you wanted to be at 70% so you didn't meet it I didn't catch where you landed um off the top of my head I believe our building average was 52% so lots of we have room to grow and so now we're saying we're still working toward 70% so is the goal 70% this year the no the district school is to hit the 70% by winter of 2026 so we have some time to do that so we're easing our way towards it y thank any other board members or student members go ahead did she I pass her a microphone down please um I was just wondering how you're finding teachers are adapting to this new um area of teaching where they're doing a lot more teaching with the students and work with the students and how they're able to balance that so that there're isn't burnout through your staff it's a great question um I think as a staff we're really intentional about checking in with each other taking care of each other we love to do treats and different things just to kind of bring us together and spend quality time together uh as far as the teaching strategies go that Catalyst training that I talked about really does help um with any student behaviors or engagement concerns that they might have in the classroom so trying to provide PD that's really helpful that they can Implement right away to help um kind of make their teaching job easier um and then I think again having that Reading Coach is really helpful and just any support we can provide them academically um and our reading coaches making copies for them sometimes just to take something off of their plate we have volunteers coming in our high school helpers are awesome as well um that come in so just uh kind of all hands on deck thanks for asking that's a great question any other questions for principal CTO well thank you Nicole appreciate your time this evening and next we're going to hear from Principal Shelley Gilmore and assistant principal clay Norman from The Pinewood Elementary uh regarding their goals presentation welcome sh and Clay look sharp clay thanks for noticing apprciate that good evening chair zbar board members superintendent Olen and student representatives and our community I want to thank you for this opportunity to talk about Pinewood Elementary we want to first start with some celebrations that we're seeing um as you've heard from um East viiew and Little Mountain we have had a lot of change and we are embracing this change with a lot of dedication and hard work and as Willow was saying and recognizing it's not easy and there are growing pains with that and we're working through those Growing Pains to help ensure that we've got a good balance um between um delivering the content that we need to deliver and also having time to meet individual student needs we are finding that we are having high levels of implementation with our new catalyst system so we are also having a training tomorrow on part two of that and it's just fun to walk throughout the building and see that the training that they've received so far is making such a difference in their instruction and levels of Engagement and behavior management another celebration is we're entering year two of our curriculum implementation um it is a heavy lift to go from a balanced literacy approach to a structured literacy approach and um the learning that we've done from last year to this year has been incredible and the implementation of this new learning has also been incredible we continue to refine our practices and when we know better we do better um it's it's exciting to see the new things that we're finding um we are honoring students every month who exemplify our c key character traits in character strong so we have two students from each class that are honored for um respect was September responsibility was October and then we'll find our students that are displaying um the components of gratitude in November U we had a lunchroom remodel um over the summer and we'll have the last piece of it over the uh December break and that remodel has really gone well we're able to get students through the cafeteria much faster than we have in the past so that's been great so our instructional goal um is the same goal of 70% of students being proficient in Winter of 2026 we also did not meet our goal um last spring and so we are still focusing on that 3% growth um from Spring of 24 to Spring of 25 we have reflected on our practices and there a few things that we're doing differently to help ensure that we achieve our goal one is that we are ensuring that all students have access to grade level instruction in the past we were providing instructions to students at their um achievement level and what we found is that there are some students who um were in first grade and it could be at the end of first grade they were still working on kindergarten um skills so our focus is providing grade level instruction and providing the extra Scoops that they need to fill the holes during that wind time that might be happening during um pullout instruction from our intervention teachers it also may be happening from classroom teachers within that wind time we have also found that our curriculum both um amplify and charact or amplify and functional phonics are overbuilt and so we're being very intentional on making sure that our instruction is aligning to the standards and anything that isn't aligning to the standards we are thoughtfully removing so we're trying to cut out the fluff to make sure that kids are getting what they need so it really is a balance between making sure that students are getting the content that they need and also being able to be proficient in the content and skills that they're um being exposed to so what we found is we need to slow down a little bit instead of trying to be at a pace that is really rigorous again it's a balance um what is best for our students what is going to give our teachers a chance to realize okay 80% of our students aren't mastering these Concepts right now we need to slow down so we can retach and then move forward again so a lot of good lessons have been learned and um one other piece is is time um like Nicole mentioned that 10 minutes may not seem like a lot but it has really made an impact and so we're trying to be again very thoughtful about what are things that what are things we can cut out without um making a difference on the Integrity of the curriculum for our staff observables we are having data driven plc's and we are working through grade level teams with Collective efficacy we have such amazingly talented staff at Pinewood and the an answer to most questions are right in the room so allowing those teachers to bounce the ideas off each other and determining what is going to work um we have data driven plc's not only at our tier one level which is at the classroom level but also in our intervention level um where they're looking at students that are pulled out for intervention and what is it um are we moving kids are they making progress if they're not making progress what do we need to do differently to help sure that they are and we're also beginning to work on datadriven plc's with our special education um teachers and students um we are providing tiered interventions so um as I said before when proficiency is below 80% teachers are slowing down and able to reteach either during that instructional period or during win time um throughout everything that we do we are making sure that we're ined the seal the social emotional learning through character strong and also um the catalyst so we're finding that we're really having some great levels of Engagement and finding that um the tier one for behavior management is working well our um we have a reading curriculum Focus as you know we're using our evidence-based practices that we're learning either through letters or through Ola and we're going to be working working as we move on being intentional of building a bridge from what we're learning in theory and what that looks like in practice and then we've got a fantastic group of teacher leaders that are leading with a focus on best practice and datadriven instruction we also have a number of student observables so you will see students showing growth from their current level um I we just finished our six- week check so I don't have our data available for you I'm excited to look at it I'm hoping it looks as great as it does at Little Mountain it's excited to exciting to see the growth on the changes that we're doing that we have found that need to be done based on year one um students are participating in evidence-based instruction based on their needs either within the classroom within pullout in um intervention or in special education um small groups we're also students are demonstrating higher levels of Engagement regulation and problem solving with their peers and you would be able to see them applying the strategies that they're learning based on the science of reading Clay is going to be talking about our vision of a learner goal okay good evening um so this year we are focusing on being an effective communicators uh last year our um focus was resiliency and so we moved to communication this here um and we teachers will utilize a character strong um curriculum to increase student skills in area effective communication uh we want these skills to be transferred from character strong to the academic Arenas uh the goal this year is to get through 80% of the lessons um in the first year of implementation um and you can see the character traits character traits that are covered there um so we are focused on one per month uh with a monthly Focus as shelle mentioned we are um trying to recognize building wide students that are showing that particular um traits and going above and beyond each month there we go so what you'll see Educators doing um implementing the character strong lessons modeling effective communication um through the use of character strong and making connections with effective communication and to effective communication and structural setting so really taking it from that time that is in the morning um to start each day and try and apply it throughout the day which feeds into what our students will be doing so engaging in those lessons um applying the strategies from lessons to situations in their school day be really great if that was during recess and when there's snow on the ground um demonstrate effective communication during uh discussions and actions with peers use effective communication skills in instructional application um and just an update on our attendance sta so just two months in right now and so you can see September and October there um for an exact number the um blue and red lines on the left side which is the total of all students are right around 94 to 95% um we did take out a couple areas um because there was only one student rec um indicated in those areas data privacy and so looking ahead um throughout this year we'll continue to work on tier one instruction uh with intentional planning and delivery of instruction in tier one continue to work on engagement strategies um use our building and District resources to drive Improvement and continue to support our fantastic and very hardworking staff who are very dedicated to our students and we' like to open up to questions questions or comments from the board or student representes I have one question um Shelly on your comment about the curriculum being overbuilt is it mean you think going forward it's overbuilt or right now for what the students are ready to be at levelwise because it's so brand new for each age that it's too much right now that is a fantastic question so um there's a few ways to answer that first the um amplify itself will say that it's overbuilt that there's too much there the second piece with that is that as we have more experience in teaching amplify we'll be able to get more of those pieces in we want to be good at at the at the essential components first um there are intervention components that we haven't dug deep into yet um other pieces with it being overbuilt is um for example in um third through fifth grade they have morphology components we're using functional morphology which is a part of functional phonics through carry and what we're finding right now is that those pieces through um functional morphology really are more aligned to the science of reading than um the pieces that we're finding in amplify right now so we're looking at um it's not easy to extract those pieces and as we again learn that curriculum and we become more fluent in using that curriculum we'll be able to easily more easily say all right this morphology piece is not as of high quality as the morphology piece that we're teaching elsewhere we're going to take that out so it's all a part of instructional decision making and um making sure that our kids are getting what they need um there's so much to amplify that um that isn't NE necessary in order for kids to um to be able to get the content and the skills that they need to be successful so it's it's good and bad if we had it just exactly how we needed it um that would make things a little more simply or simple with it being more robust as we get better then we can take a look at these other pieces and the knowledge that we have through the education and the science of reading what is it that we need to provide our students the best instruction possible water I have a question um it's kind of a a combination question for Nicole as well because I don't that two uh principles work very closely together um it's a little difficult question so we we saw that you didn't meet your goals last year you're in the 50s basically between the two schools which is actually remarkably consistent between both buildings what have you um done in terms of like a a look back to see are there similarities is a certain cohort at a certain grade level um that appears to need a little bit more help um some of the national stuff that I've been reading said that our third graders second and third graders nationally are coming out of covid in a different place than fourth and fifth graders and kindergarten first graders so I'm just wondering if you've if you've round taed that and kind of done a deconstruct like okay which group you know have we drilled down and yes we have we have I'm sorry to I'm sorry to bring up things that are not entirely POS no no I'm I'm glad that you're asking we have found that our third graders are the group um that are the furthest behind and what we're doing for them right now is they are receiving the third grade curriculum but they're also receiving some um second grade level instruction in the area of phonics and it's something that is not easy for third grade teachers to balance we're still tweaking some on how we can make things um work better within the schedule and that's something that can be different from building to building um but um basically what we're finding is for our second grade students we've got them mapped out to be on track to be at the end of the second grade expectations last year um our second graders um coming into third grade they they just weren't there yet part of it is the Chang to structured literacy instead of balanced literacy so now that we know better um we're doing better part of it is also covid related but it is it is um you know it is concerning but it's also very reassuring that it is not just at Pinewood it's at Little Mountain as well and nationally I mean it isn't just our district absolutely when I'm reading that cohort is struggling Nationwide so yes so we're PR trying to give them the tools that need to be successful at fourth grade well thank you for for answering that any any further discussion or questions for Shelly and Clay just a quick um clarification can you uh elaborate on the balanced versus the structured for us yes yes I can so um balance literacy was more about it was more about using context clues in learning to read so you would look at maybe the first letter of what the word said or you would look at um what a picture showed in order to try to figure out what the text was saying um what structured literacy is has a greater focus on is phonics so really understanding what the letter sounds are um what the letter sounds represent how those letter sounds um are put together to form words so it really is a road map on using the sounds and words and sentences and phrases to understand what a person is reading instead of um having the mindset that a number of students are going to learn how to read no matter what you do and the rest um they'll just get it they just need to be exposed to more text with structured literacy we're more intentional in what we're doing in looking at those letter patterns anyone else well thank you for being on the hot seat for us and answering some tough questions we appreciate that thank you for the opportunity yep and to round out our teaching and learning presentations this evening we have director of teaching and learning Cindy fashing and superintendent Eric Olson to talk about District goals presentation as we get kicked off here um I would like to just kind of start by um making a transition from the building presentations to Cindy um just by reminding all of us as we move forward through um any school year that uh this school year um our our teachers our staff um are learning more than they ever have and they're applying more than they ever have and we're really proud of them um and then we're so as we go around the building whether they're for fall meetings or staff coffee chats we're making sure that we get a pulse of what's going on and um there's no doubt that uh because of the newness and because of some of the things that we're doing and building here in the district it does um create a little bit of anxiety um with that said we know that life is about balance and and bringing a balance into what we're doing here um and I'm not talking balance L literacy I'm talking about a balance between the science of teaching and the Art of teaching so even Jeff hegley and I went to college about the same time and even when we were in college back then science and art of of teaching would have been Concepts that we learned and so the art of teaching is is the relationships that you build and that is the where it all starts and our district has been phenomenal at building relationships that is who we are known for and who we have been known for but we haven't all always kept up with some of the scientific best practices and hence that's why we built um the uh science of reading skills and then also um the mtss which are systems of scientific support that you give children and so making a a uh um finding out that balance is what we are seeing that we need to do but please don't ever forget that the that everything starts at the art and then you have to equally prepare best practices in the science in order to truly get maximized uh gains for your students so I just wanted to make a a connection back to a concept that's been around a lot we just have been very good at building the relationships and caring for and loving for kids but we also have to build the systems of of uh scientific supports so that we have the best practice um Arsenal in our tuo all right thank you well good evening everyone um chair Zars uh school board members superintendent Olsen uh student Representatives thank you for coming uh and audience members uh thanks for having me back I was at the last board meeting and I gave a presentation on the summary of our 2324 world's best Workforce schools and District achievement goals and then talked a little bit about um our new goals for 2425 and so uh when I ended my presentation I was left with some questions especially the question that said uh is this an anomaly to monacello is this something that's happening Across the Nation across the state across our local districts and we especially were talking about third grade and the struggles in third grade so you asked me to bring back some data so I have that for you tonight this first chart talks about the national assessment of educational uh progress or otherwise known as the nape uh we have a nape reading and math assessment so I'm just going to be talking about the reading assessment right now this is otherwise known as the nation's report card and what they do is they send testing Crews to random districts from across every state across the country monacello participated last year by the way in uh math and reading so they would be part of data in 20 uh 2024 when we get it but this chart is for 2022 and it shows the nation's progress for fourth graders in 2022 I didn't have anything for third grade but this is fourth grade in 2022 you'll see that the nation's progress was 32% of our students were at proficiency on the nape test across the country and the color coding is there were eight states that were above that 32% average there were 37 states that were right above at the 32% average and seven below that average the dark colors are those ones that were higher you'll see Minnesota was right in the middle at the in the 37 states that scored at the average in fact we were right exactly at 32% in Minnesota in 2022 for our fourth graders when we look at the next chart it looks at the progress made between 2019 and 2022 again we're looking at fourth graders and you'll see that there were zero States in all of the United States no one made uh progress uh in achievement progress no one went up 22 States stayed about the same and 30 States went about went down in their average for fourth graders we were amongst the states that went down in our average for fourth grade reading if you look at the chart on the right the little crosses are Minnesota and the little circles are um across the United States but you can see all the way back when nape started in 1992 they started testing you'll see that the nation really has made no progress we started in 1992 at um 221 was our average score and we ended at 216 in uh 2022 the nation was similar they started where they ended so the question is why are we not making any progress and um it has a lot to do with a lot of different things but um Co in particular you'll see in the next chart has really hit States hard so these are State proficiency standards for just Minnesota and you'll take a look at from 2013 all the way to 2024 and where we have gone since then so the blue line is eighth grade math so eth grade math is one of the measurements that Minnesota uses and third grade reading is the other one eighth grade math you'll see a huge decline there's a little bit of an incline happening um not a lot a little bit and then third grade reading you'll see it's been in a steady decline and you'll see that largest decline happening over those covid years again so it's not an anomaly to just monacello it's happening across the country it's happening across the state I wanted to show you also uh you asked me a little bit about the data for cohorts then so if we follow a group of students across in our charts and looking at MCA data I wish I had a little point poter here it' be a little bit easier but um if you take a look we'll kind of start maybe right in the middle at third grade if you go across the light blue in 2017 in 2017 our third graders and what I'm looking at here is kind of the opposite of what we've been talking about this is the percentage of students who did not meet standards at all they were in the do not meet so on the MCAS you can exceed or meet and those who are group together be to be called proficient and then you can partially meet or do not meet in their group together to say they're not proficient but I'm looking specifically only at the students who don't even partially meet they just don't meet at all so in 2017 on the MCA in third grade it was 19.9% and then it went it got a little bit better to 10.1 a little bit better to 6.7 of our students did not meet in grade five and then what typically happens when you see a cross when they jump to Middle School it goes up that it starts to go up again and we have more students who do not meet several reasons probably behind that the tests get more difficult once you get to middle school middle schoolers are different than they are in the elementary do they take things as seriously and then we've got some of our opt out concerns that we've had in the past but when you follow the color across and you follow those cohorts across you see see some typical uh Trends and what I see typically is we get to about fifth grade and then when we hit Middle School we start to struggle a little bit more so we are addressing many of those struggles which you heard uh when the Middle School talked about what they're doing reading across the curriculum uh they're really focused heavily on reading the science of reading this year I was at a meeting this morning with the middle school and their heavy focus is following the science of reading across all content areas is and really working on reading writing speaking and listening and uh very intentional across all all content here so I expect to see huge differences across their too one of the things we can be quite proud of is I gathered evidence locally then I was asked about local how do we stand and so I gathered grade three grade five and grade eight MCAS and where do we stand and I looked at 12 different districts and then I looked at the state of Minnesota which is the bolded black and you'll notice in third grade monello we're in the upper upper part even though we're at 47.4 we are above State average and there are some schools ahead of us but we are doing better than many many of the other schools even though we want to be doing much better right grade five we are at the top our fifth graders and our fifth grade teachers and students alike work very very very hard and we're right at the top so I'm I'm pretty proud of that and then eighth grade we're right near the top as well so it might look like our data is really low we might be really concerned about it but comparatively to districts around us we're really doing quite well and people might ask you know why those districts and we just really picked districts that touched our border so we just went out and then we picked a few like-sized districts from uh different areas of the state in order to um you know compile some trends that uh you could um relate to yeah we were trying to get some apples to apples data and then we were trying to get all the districts that touch our borders yeah this um last chart that I have for you again follows those cohorts across this time looking at our fast bridge data difference between MCA and fastbridge the MCA data is measuring how close we are to meeting State Standards at each grade level how how are we meeting those benchmarks fast bridge data is me measuring risk of not reading at grade level so what you're seeing here is the number of students who are reading at above grade level at or above benchmarks following again those cohorts across fast bridge in the Middle School across the board is more new I think we're in our third year of fast Bridge across all of sixth seventh and eighth grade second or third year this is our third year so you won't see as much data on the leftand corner of that but again you can follow those cohorts across and you can see growth is really pretty typical I was excited last time I was here we talked about if you look in grade kindergarten the kind of lime green and you see the growth of those kindergarteners coming all the way across uh it's going up and up and up and up then we saw I think it was 61% or 64% of our kindergarteners in the fall so things are looking up and then I'm just going to close with remember our goals we had several districtwide goals but our literacy goal was and you've heard everyone mention it that by 2026 we would like all of our students we want 70% of our students I should say at proficiency either on our MCA exams or on our fast Bridge assessments and screenings that we do our goal is 70% and then our goal will be 80% by probably 2028 or n so we'll keep moving from there and you heard many of our principles talk about their theory of action or they talked about their observable impact plans and they talked about if if they do what they're what they say they're going to do then you're going going to see teachers do this and you're going to see students do that and that's what this is right here so I'm not really going to read through it but I wanted you to know what we've done as a district and then the trickle down effect is what you've heard everyone else talk about so what we've done as a district is we've allocated funding for new reading curriculum we have allocated funding to increase support staff across the district we have um provided professional development for all of our K through five general education teachers of reading and special education teachers K through 12 and El teachers as well so we're really working on that professional development and uh with administrators alike and then embedding uh that mtss support across the district and if we've done that then we have allowed our principls and our teachers and our students to be able to do what they can do across the district so I think it's looking very positive and I have to say that I I don't think I've seen a year where I've seen a group of people work as hard as they have as as this year it's an it's a very heavy lift as you heard Shelly say for everyone uh but especially our teachers so I want to congratulate them on all the hard hard work they've done and while we're very proud of all the things that we are building most of them are um along the science of um of Education um please once again I reiterate that um as superintendent I will make sure that our um Administration equally emphasized the art in the of building relationships with students because it's equally if not the more a little bit more important because it has to start with the relationship so that kids are ready to um go as far as they can with um all the structures that we've created so um the principles will hear me say it and remind them over and over again we are proud of all these things we're building because it was our biggest area of growth that our district needed we didn't have some of these things that's why you'll see at every building evidence of new classes new schedules um uh science of reading new trainings um building professional development plans um on the horizon for e and special ed which we didn't have and so we are putting all these science pieces into place because we have found out that that was our biggest area of needs um but once again you can never replace the art of building a relationship with a child because that is what they will remember the rest of their life the learning is what they'll be able to apply and the but it's the relationship that'll be um help them open up their hearts and their brains to be able to learn and um uh be able to take that stuff that teaching in so Rel relationships are equally important but we know as a board you have to Zone in and uh zero in um to the community's um interest and how are we doing and how we are doing is very much um assimilated in in a report card fashion and that's why we bring forth data not to use data to scare people but to use data to Drive what we do so that it's not just a hunch it's uh we we we know that we are um using the very facts that should show us the story that we need to go present and and do for every child so yeah once again I have to keep saying that because it's hard as a board I don't want you to walk away and say you know that um you answer only to the data points because children aren't data points they might represent a data point but if we start thinking of them only has that yeah one of the things I want to thank all the principles and administrators two and a half years ago the board sat down and we developed a new strategic plan and goals and objectives for the superintendent and that was a a long tedious process and oftentimes when you're sitting in these kind of seats you say is does it really matter you know this kind of stuff is it just a a verbal exercise that we're going through to come up with some dazzling mission statement that we're going to paste on the wall and while it's tedious data and there's a lot of charts and graphs I think this is a really easy area to understand that the goals that we set as a board for oversight and Direction and um vision for the district were academics academics academics and now we're starting to see that coming to fruition and I know how hard it's been with all of the changes so rapidly so I want to thank the administrators for driving that in your buildings and making that a priority and um I just think it's really cool when you see it all come together like that anybody else from the board thank you Cindy thank you well we're getting down to the end of our agenda and we have Mr Rob Daner Director of Human Resources going to um discuss first reading of some policies for us we have no policies for approval tonight this is first read only all right chair zebarth uh members of the board um we have we had a policy meeting earlier today and we reviewed uh 10 policies we brought six of them forward for a first read this evening and do we have a just going to wait for AV to get that up all right so the first one is uh so um following our annual review cycle uh the first one of the product of that this is polic number 2115 um and in fact it has to do with student Representatives on the school board um in this case uh there has been this is a local locally drafted policy there is no msba counterpart um and um we're cutting edge and uh the purpose of this policy is to Foster an environment whereby students May freely Express their views and listen to and evaluate the opinions of others a student representative to the school board is authorized in order to facilitate a more effective communication and help promote sound education um the policy committee um did review this and proposed some minor uh language changes to the policy generally around um the policy as currently written limits um um the the establishment of student representatives to two obviously we have three so we've already violated our own policy and so we're going to attempt to amend that to address the situation among other things so if the number Al together might have 15 or 20 and so uh um the other thing is this renumbers the policy currently it's number 214 in our policy uh catalog uh we would renumber it to 2115 because 214 is msba uh model policy regarding um uh School Board out ofate travel and so we're just trying to align that there as well any questions at all on 215 okay again initial read so the M the half of the board members haven't uh had a chance to review these so uh the next one is 418 um this is a uh revision that's brought forward because of legislative update this is our drug-free workplace drug- free school policy the purpose of this policy is to maintain a safe and helpful environment for employees and students by prohibiting the use of alcohol toxic substances medical cannabis non- intoxicating cannaboids Ed cannaboid products and Controlled Substances without a physician's prescription specifically the legislative update had to do with exceptions to this policy and um uh article 4 section D is an addition and it basically says that the school district may not refuse to enroll or otherwise penalize a patient or person enrolled in the Minnesota patient registry program and so that was the sum effect of the legislative uh change on this one any questions regarding 418 okay moving forward uh 419 uh again revision brought forward because of legislative action this is our tobacco free environment possession and use of tobacco tobacco related devices and electronic delivery devices vaping awareness and prevention instruction policy uh the title of the policy is actually longer than the purpose statement the purpose statement is the purpose of this policy is to maintain a learning and working environment that is tobacco free um the legislative action on this one is found in uh article 4 section c um and basically the legislative change was that this guarantees that American Indian students are St members may use tobacco Sage sweet grass and Cedar to conduct individual or group smudging in a public school um that was a sum of the legislative change on that as a policy committee we are proposing some minor changes to the policy as well uh specifically um uh forbidding uh any use of tobacco in uh District own Vehicles regardless of the number of occupants any questions on 419 okay continuing moving forward we have policy number 502 uh this is part of our we're back to our review cycle policies um this policy is uh the title is search of student lockers desks personal possessions and students person um and in fact there has been no legislative update nor msba um update to this model policy since we uh as a district last reviewed this um excuse me Revis this in 2016 uh the purpose of this policy is to provide a safe and health health F educational environment by enforcing the school district's policy against Contraband any questions on 502 at all okay hearing none moving forward um next policy again product of our uh review cycle but also has been subject to legislative updates since it was last reviewed uh this is policy 503 on student attendance specifically uh in 2024 the legislature um revised uh statute regarding um excused absences and so uh significant material under the excused absences section of this policy was changed by Statute and so the policy has been recommended for change um in accordance with that um as well uh locally we um are proposing to make some changes to the msba model policy they have some pieces where we can um kind of fill in specific uh numbers for instances for uh accumulated unexcused absences Etc um and we are proposing simply to point the reader to the uh School handbook that is applicable in the situation any questions on policy 503 oh I forgot to mention the purpose um sorry about that the school board believes that regular School attendance is directly related to success and academic work benefits students socially provides opportunities for important Communications between teachers and students and establishes regular habits of dependability important to the future of the student the purpose of this policy is to encourage regular School attendance is intended to be positive and not punitive and of course of our local goals is to have better than 90% attendance as well so any questions on 503 okay and then finally uh 505 for first read this is the distribution of non-school sponsored materials on school premises by students and employees the purpose of this policy is to protect the exercise of students and employees Free Speech rights taking into consideration the educational objectives and responsibilities of the school district so finding the true balance in those two uh objectives um this is for review only uh meaning that there has been no legislative change nor msba model policy change since the district last uh reviewed this in 2019 any questions on 505 at all okay and so yeah so these are first read no action tonight Cher Zar very good so before we adjourn for the evening um tomorrow is a non student day correct and it is a professional development day for staff and that's because it is election day tomorrow and um it's too complicated with a lot of security measures to have students in the building and public in the building and that sort of thing so um if you're eligible to vote please vote um the next Monella school board meeting will be Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. and I know you'll all be here smiling it will be recorded and live streamed the purpose of that 6 a.m. meeting only happens once every couple of years once every four years or two years um is to Canvas the Schoolboard elections and Report the um the results of that election and that has to be done in a certain format according to the law and so that will happen on Friday and then the next meeting after that will be the 21st of November um Monday evening 18th 18th of November I'm sorry I'm not looking at the calendar so um so that's that if you're interested in following the school board election you can log on to the Secretary of State's website after SCH Clos tomorrow or anytime Thursday or you can come in Friday morning at 6:00 a.m. for the Schoolboard meeting to canvas the election is there any further discussion from anyone on the board questions check shout out to devony for um learning all the canvasing um protocol she is our election coordinator and our parliamentarian and we couldn't do it without her so thank you devony finding no further business to conduct um we are adjourned at 6:33 we will reconvene at 6:40 for the work session thank you job where it go e e e e e e e