##VIDEO ID:tEqBW5k8USM## okay okay good evening this work session of the ISD 279th School Board is being held in the Forum room of the Educational Service Center at 11200 93rd Avenue North in Maple Grove on Tuesday August 20th 2024 the work session is being audio recorded the recording will be made available on the district website within two business days after the work session has ended with regard to the audio reporting our Communications staff has asked that we share a friendly reminder that side conversations during the work session are picked up by the recorder and can affect sound quality also conversations during transitions between agenda items are on the recording as well the intent of the Schoolboard work session is to allow for Schoolboard discussion of topics work sessions do not include an opportunity for audience members to address the board to acknowledge attendance this evening I'll ask that all present at the table State their name starting my left Jackie Metta Jones School Board director Thomas Brooks School Board member Heather Douglas School Board director Anthony pis executive director of Technology Kelly parpart assistant superintendent of secondary schools Brian serson Hall executive director of community engagement Ryan assistant principal 279 onl Brian B assistant superintendent for equity and achievement C executive director community relations ion Schwarz L executive director of HR John Morad Executive Director of Finance and operations General counil Tam grey she herever School Board member Kim H super attended and I Tanya Prince Schoolboard member am present the purpose of the Schoolboard work session is to build trust and teamwork to exchange information and when applicable to provide Direction in order to facilitate efficient and effective decision making at regular board meetings Dr H would you please share your check-in thank you thank you Vice chair Prince we're excited this evening to have a presentation on online learning from 279 online and we're even more excited because they're students uh so we're gonna have uh Dr Bass and uh Anthony pness go ahead and introduce thank you thank you uh superintendent uh chair mcada Jones Vice chair CL members of the board and Community um excited uh as Dr how said um share that excitement to share all of the great work of um of our staff our students and our families from 279 online as well as our other online supplemental offerings that we have in the district so um joining us this evening uh well they already introduce themselves but they'll introduce our other guests that are with them from the site um here shortly our outcomes for the presentation is uh to to number one uh sharing implementation update on 279 online the the K12 school and then learn about the additional Pathways that we've been articulating the last two years for online supplemental offerings so our approach this evening is to provide the board with a bit of the historic current um and future uh implementation progress and all of this is aligned through our digital learning for all dl4 a digital learning for all lens and so the three uh anchors if you will to that our Innovation our vision um and development of online options creativity building individualized Pathways while fostering a sense of belonging and inclusion and then our third anchor opportunity reducing bearers and inequalities so our Scholars can Thrive and change of world can be hard to see this so I am going to read a little bit I typically don't read from slides but um I think given given the the size of the F there ahead this slide I'll hand it over to anthy P yes good evening and as we get started here we'll kind of kind of talk about the concept around Innovation and um how we got to where we are and provide some historical context um we'd like to revisit an important milestone in our District's Journey towards a more Dynamic and inclusive educational experience for our students the concept of online learning is not new to us in fact it has been a significant part of our District's Vision since 2017 back in 2017 our district District began laying the groundwork for what would become a transformative shift in how we approach education we recognized early on uh the potential of online learning to expand access to Quality education and tailor learning experiences to meet the diverse needs of our students our journey truly began with the community-driven development of the digital learning for all plan this plan was born out of a collaboration between Educators parents students and Community stakeholders who shared a common goal to ensure that every student in our district has the opportunity to succeed in a rapidly changing world at the heart of the digital learning for all plan is a commitment to personalized learning we recognize that every student is unique and their experience their learning experiences should reflect that individually our plan emphasizes that students will experience learning that is personalized in path place and Pace this means that we are focused on strengthening teaching and learning practices to better support Student Success personalized learning allows students to learn at their own pace follow a path that suits their interests and needs and access learning in a place that works best for them whether that's in a traditional classroom or at home or anywhere in between the development and establishment of online learning options in aary schools has been many years in the making with an interest convergence of multiple factors coming together for the launch of 279 online for the 2122 school year in 2017 our school board recognized ized the growing importance of online learning there was an emerging interest in developing online options that would allow students to access high quality education outside of the traditional classroom setting later that year our district launched the digital learning for all plan this plan was a significant Milestone as it outlined strategic goals focused on expanding online learning opportunities for our students the dl4 a plan was not just about incorporating technology into education it was about creating more personalized learning experience es ensuring that every student could learn in the way that best suited their individual needs which included online Pathways during the 21 the or the 2020 21 school year The District parent advisory Council or DPAC presented specific recommendations to the school board the development of online learning opportunities for our Scholars this recommendation was a direct response to the growing recognition that our students need more flexible accessible learning Pathways and then of course lastly the covid-19 pandemic which had an unprecedented impact on education worldwide as our district quickly adapted to remote learning the exposure to online learning grew exponentially families and students exper experienced firsthand the benefits and challenges of online education which in turn increase the demand for more permanent online options the pandemic highlighted the need for different learning Pathways reinforcing our commitment to developing robust online educational platforms I think the key that we want to share is the conversation around online was occurring well before the pandemic or distance learning academy um as to what we wanted to offer for flexibility and opportunity for our Scholars this timeline shows the progress of the implementation of our online option as we move into the 2425 school year the 2122 school year was the first year we launched 279 online school which was designated as a full-time online option this is also known as comprehensive online learning the state differentiates full-time online versus part-time online so comprehensive when we when you hear that talks about a student who is taking all of their courses in an online fashion with that launch we began our learning work around part-time or supplemental online learning which officially launched last school year this allowed our Scholars attending iners to take part-time online coursework creating more flexible learning options for our our um District so Ryan uh and Kristen have been closely um reading and studying the work of this uh National work that's happening the the the digital learning collaborative um there was a a a research paper that they established based on Research from across the the country that was shared with them from State um and local agencies and and uh this was this was a fantastic read so thank you for sharing that with us we will share it with you all as well it was very informative to talk about this landscape that's happening nationally with online learning both full-time online enrollment as well as these other iterations of hybrid or just accessing supplemental online courses because kids are really becoming more and more interested in having multiple Pathways to engage in their learning um and that one size um doesn't necessarily fit all so um this is a quote one of the the key quotes from from that text gone to the days of predictable enrollment patterns in K12 education which I think it sounds familiar to us uh online learning once a a niche uh option has become integrated into the dynamic landscape of reshaped educational choices so these are a couple of the graphs that were provided in this uh research paper um what's interesting is that it substantiates um if you look at the pre-pandemic 2018 2019 and 2019 2020 we did see a slight increase happening with online school demand um in our country and then obviously you see with covid um when when many um systems across the country went 100% to during that stretch of time we saw a lot of interest um get um initiated and ignited during that time and you see that number slowly coming back but it still far exceeds prepandemic numbers which is really the point um that they really drove home in that research uh paper um is that this is the the interest and the demand is is not subsiding below where we were pre pandemic we're in a new era um and it is it is interesting because the the population is um we'll get to the next slide here we so this is a a look at what's happening with fulltime enrollment across the country and you'll see all the states there in blue who offer full-time online learning school uh options and so um those numbers are a bit hard to read on the screen um but you'll see that there's uh that there is over a half a million students Nationwide that are enrolled in fulltime um I wish they had a chart that showcase how many students are accessing at least one online course because I think that number would be huge just to to see the the pattern of the trend line around how many how many students are accessing at least one online course um so what's what's the driving force behind this um um there's some notes here so some of the the driving forces um in addition to getting exposure to online learning um through Co is that Al Choice um that students have many evolving needs uh there's policy and funding for it um and there's there's a lot of competition that's contributing to the shift and so with a growing number of online and charter schools and um States offering uh education state agencies to offer online um we're seeing a lot of um students selecting a variety of different U Pathways for for Learning and so it becomes crucial then that uh our marketing and Outreach strategies showcase the unique strengths of our programming and um offers us an opportunity to track students in a crowded market place so digital learning models offer many benefits for students that can be highlighted such as flexibility and where and when they learn and providing personalized learning Pathways tailored to individual interests so some of the the the the highlights from what they had talked about in that in that Nationwide research so one of the commitments that we've um continued to look at is ensuring that as we um design online opportunities and Pathways that uh we we do so in a mindset of um Financial viability and sustainability and so as we think about when we first launched 279 online the board approved a strategic invest investment in online learning and creating the pathways around comprehensive and then uh supplemental online learning as we move this this work forward uh so you know some of the things that we want to share is you know um online learning up until this last year has had more has exceeded enrollment in the revenue that it brings in versus what it actually cost to run the online programming um last year was the first year we kind of started hitting that space of the way we're currently have the program structured in offering of where we're kind of at a break even or maybe a slight loss in how we're operating that so that is something that we are continuing to evaluate and review and we'll talk about as we' look at some of the Strategic directions moving forward out of um the amazing leadership team that's looking at uh how we continue to think about uh creating a sustainable model that really meets the demands and the needs of our Scholars with within our our system um just want to share some enrollment demographics so what I'm sharing with you with you here is where our enrollment uh was at the end of last school year so as you all know we're in the midst of uh the enrollment process and so enrollment numbers are um and new enrollments are are being gathered and coming into the program but just to kind of share kind of the background of where we were sitting with the scholars participating in 279 online the comprehensive portion here uh first to start with um so we did see a a slight decrease uh from the previous year to this year previous year we ended at about 503 students we ended last year at about 423 um and the majority of our en enrollment shift um really kind of showed up at at the uh ele level um but there are a few things to also highlight that we noticed from a demographic standpoint um first with our demographic representation you see here this this is one of the things that I love about this program it it is a true representation of our districtwide demographics as a school um and when you look at where the students come into this program it is from all over our our community uh within dis U are schools um but when I talk a little bit about Open Enrollment we actually see students from all walks of our state we had them as far north as about International Falls um over to duth all the way down to Austin Minnesota so students are coming participating in our online program for what we offer um from all different walks and areas of of the state grade state of Minnesota um the greatest decline that we actually saw in enrollment from a demographic standpoint was our uh Asian Pacific Islander students um the previous year we had 121 students enrolled um and last year you can see that um we dip down to about 69 68 students so we you know as we continue to look at why students are participating or not participating you know we're kind of looking at some of the trends in different areas of of the groups that make up our our wonderful student population on the flip side we saw uh increase in our El students that participated so previous year we were at about 50 students that participated and we were up to 65 students so we're seeing increases in um El students who are looking at online as a potential option to access their their learning um to meet their needs when we break this down and look last at last year's student enrollment data um specifically at grade level um again I mentioned our greatest changes kind of came at the high school and Elementary Middle School enrollment remained pretty stable from the previous year um at elementary we saw proportional changes at all of our grade levels um so as you noticed we have less students participating in kindergarten and more students that are participating in fourth and fifth grade or the Upper Elementary grades we continue to see that same proportional number of more students in Upper Elementary versus Primary Elementary and then at high school um 9th 10th and 11th grade remained fairly consistent from the previous year to last year um but our greatest decline at the high school is our senior level we had 87 Scholars that were enrolled um the previous year uh as seniors and we were down to to 53 um at the end of last school year um as I kind of mentioned um as an online school it creates unique opportunities uh when we think about open enrollment so students that attend in online schools uh can do a little bit more shopping for the school that they might want to attend because you don't have to physically get up and move or transport your student to that school district or that program Minnesota currently has over a 100 different public K12 online options that families can choose from some within their home attendance boundary districts um but for many they have to search other public school districts to to receive that option as a district we have about 8% of our student population that is open enrollment and when you look at it from a program perspective um almost 30% of the students that attend 279 online are from students from outside of oio area schools and we have about a 70% makeup of students that reside within our our district boundaries um when we look at our open enrollment population we look at that number staying has been very consistent so students who choose to open enroll and join our program tend to stay they don't fluctuate in and out they come in and they stay within the program where we've seen the most change in kind of our enrollment Trends has been within our district boundaries and really really I think families trying to understand what is online does online work for me um what do the programming mean and what is the experience that I want to have for my Scholars so there I think there's a little bit of that what I'm going to call right sizing of in District uh families try and understand online options and how does it best meet meet our needs one of the other things that I want to highlight is you know we had 423 students choose to participate in our online school school we still have 130 students who reside within oio Area School boundaries that choose an online school outside of aier area schools and so a couple things that I want to highlight about this is um one this goes back to Brian's earlier side that prior to the pandemic we've consistently had about 130 students who have chosen a full-time online experience outside of aary school because we didn't have that experience here for us to offer so with that 130 on top of that there's 423 more students that are engaging in online options so we are capturing um well I'll take that back we have a lot more students within oier schools who now want online options than what we had prior to the pandemic as a permanent experience some of them are still choosing different programs um for a variety of reasons and that's part of the research that we'll kind of share and get into as we're looking at different online programs structure and off for instruction in very different ways where we talk about asynchronous versus synchronous our program is very much synchronous where there's a lot of time with the actual teacher um and FaceTime with the teacher through our program so um we'll share more about what we're exploring as we're trying to understand what is it that our communities and our families that want online options um what do they want out of that experience and how do we continue to design and tailor to meet those needs um and then as we shared we launched the supplemental or what we call 279 Excel last school year uh last school year uh we had 174 students attending um seven different secondary programs most of them within our uh full-time in-person session uh uh buildings so Park Center oio Senior Maple gr senior um take over 250 different courses last year for credit um as part of their schedule to create different flexible spaces where uh they were attending most of their classes in person but wanted to have one two or sometimes three courses in an online environment to create a variety of different flexible ways that they engage with with that learning experience and so with that context and history in mind um I'm going to hand it over to the team start to engage in kind of the creativity and where we're thinking of how we're moving forward next so um really a creatively kind of moves U when we started 79 on the 21 22 school years um so when we came together as an admin team you know really thinking about Innovation and planning that kind of happened with D4 we really began our work by clearly defining our purpose and so we put our purpose up here as um transforming educational experience for each and every def finding what the small living achievement means and so in order to do that we really looked um deeply at our district work but also and expectations but also the Y standards um which are a national International Society of technology and education which is kind of internationally recognized for um helping Educators use technology to revolutionize learning so like that was another framework for how and what we decided um we would need to do in order to focus our work and so to forus our work we um we worked with our threeyear operational plan and at that time it was a sip but we really kind of um felt in order to make the work very visible to just build this school we really needed to um make it usable as well for them so we kind of grouped everything from the threeyear operational into these three brace maps that have our objectives so the first one's really building it all in school Community online um our next one is implementing mtss strategies to support Scholars and our third one is developing a culture of learning or academic achievement um through high functioning plts so those are really the three areas that we function and all the work kind of fits underneath those so by using these brace apps brace Maps um that really ensured um the consistency and transparency among our staff as to what we do um but at the same time allowing them creativity within their day so that creativity piece is the how we are creative in getting this work done our online environment and so to share a little bit about their experiences hear better from them me um we have the family of one of our incoming eighth graders je and speak to their experience I let Jeff start uh Archer would tell you that he loves his teachers that they create great psychological safety um he would call out Nathaniel mugan liel because they let him rename him in class this year and and uh and and definitely enjoys his experience but he's a little shy and although he'll talk up in class the idea of this when we pitched it to him uh was very intimidating so he has decided to stay home I'll let my spouse start kind of with our journey so he's remote just not online so a few years before the pandemic happened um I decided to stay home I blessed with the wonderful wife that allowed me to do so and I am now a full-time um painter dungeon master and author um I'm doing all of the things that I love and then the pandemic happened and my family decided to stay home with me um when that happened I said Archer up about 8 ft away from me cuz we really didn't know how this was all going to work right it was new to everybody um other than me because I had already been there for a couple years but as the days the weeks the months now years have gone on um we have really discovered that this is the environment in which he thrives he did go back to school to a physical school for about a year and a half and that was not as optimal as the relationship that he has with his online teachers and the online environment quite honestly um he's not only taken all of his courses but he also learned um saxophone from Don Christensen which I thought was really cool depending upon the day and how early I was it getting up that day um but I'd like to point out that one of the big at from my perspective I'm sure that you have many others but one of the big things in education has been to try to teach the students so that they can have more of a um of an apprenticeship type this an apprenticeship type of jobs these are our current apprenticeship type of jobs I'm not taking away anything from my plumber or my electrician man I need them every single day it seems but but now I'm seeing articles like this one that says us workers are getting scooped up by International companies hiring remote roles right 300,000 by deal customers and full-time employees approximately 85% of those contracts are from remote remote positions in the UK Canada France Singapore and Australia and it's not just abroad today as of about 3 hours ago start new CEO will Super commute 1,000 miles from California to Seattle office instead of relocating the company's headquarters in Seattle when he joins the coffee giant next month your turn that's your time out um so Archer did and it I'll be very honest you're talking about reasons people in the district look around um through Co learning our daughter was a senior at or Junior to senior at oio senior high SCH high school and going through she came out as an EMT which was amazing through the program they have there our son was just finishing up fourth grade and my husband has an underlying health issue and so at that time we said we're going to keep him and what became 279 online and Karen keer in fifth grade I cannot say enough amazing things about Karen keer um was just fantastic and it went so well but but as parents we thought oh gosh but our parents par are saying aren't they missing the in school options what about the social needs goodness are they going to play basketball with their peers and we felt guilty we said oh my gosh are we are we keeping him out of something that he needs to be in and so we enrolled him in oio Middle for sixth grade um which was good loves his teachers loves being around his friends but had a lot of challenges that didn't work well for us or for him and that continued into seventh grade into after break at seventh grade I started reaching out to Ryan and said help can we come back this this isn't going well and we were able to align that so that the last trimester last year Arch was able to start back and he popped right in he remembered everything that he' learned which was amazing I'm going to share with you a little bit quickly about my background I'm I lead a team of coaches of an executive Enterprise level I had done this for Target as a strategic Enterprise coach where I pull together anything that Bri now comes out and says we'll be sustainable by this year that requires multiple mindes of business and Leadership to come together my job is to create psychological safety Workshop design collaboration to Define what you are sharing a vision mission enough guard rails that people can work within them to get progress done but understand the why and where going long term as part of that for Target as an Enterprise I designed and then redesigned a online a certified program for all target employees to be able to go through that was accredited through IC agile for a certification and took place over weeks I had to move it from inperson to Virtual design in a cohort model that went across 6 to8 weeks now I'm at Wells Fargo I lead the team responsible for the developer experience and community in c i the last two days and it's hustling to get here because I just finished facilitating a workshop for leaders that are working to consolidate all of the data at Wells Fargo and start to shut down little individual reporting that is popped up so we have a single source with the right amount of information that teams can go to to figure out how they're doing and how they get better the behavioral impact of data my team is purposefully dispersed even with BS Fargo's location strategy because we want coaches in all of the core locations that we could have people who need us their job is to design and facilitate using training from the back of the room adult learning Concepts creating collaborative spaces and I tell you what when I work from home and I overhear what these teachers are doing I want to scoop them all up the amount that they are bringing to the table for engaging these students for using techniques that are very unique for engagement in an online environment and understanding how engaged the students are when cameras are off and I deal with this a lot in my My Life um is just over the moon I cannot recommend it highly enough and I invite any of you and thank you for listening to us today I know we're a little over our smid and I could talk all the time about this um please feel free to reach out to us I'm happy to share this is an experience that we are so thankful for and as je mentioned this isn't going away this is what I hire for these students that come in and are able to collaborate to make progress on their work to understand how to navigate relationships when they're not in the same room is a life skill that isn't going away my eldest now a senior in college her classes are often hybrid she goes to class two or 3 days a week and then hops online for synchronous learning learning this is where we're going regardless of what you hear about relocation strategies my team and anyone who's working on my team where they're back to the office yeah that's two to three days a week what do you think's happening the other days for collaboration so thank you so much for inviting us um we are so thankful and impressed and trust me I did explore options for other online schools um and and this the best so appreciate it so as we shared um as principal Swanson shared about what we do humanizing the educational experience in this online environment has always been the foundation of our work um we always say we're school we just happen to be online but we're still School we're still there we're still community so we take very seriously the district core values of belonging and inclusion and all of that is through an equity lens so it's really important to hear from not only our incredible sellers that are here today to speak but um using our grades 3 through 12 scholar stakeholder survey results um just a snapshot and important for us to reflect on um not only as a group tonight but within our own staff at our data digs we did this yesterday we need to understand the impact of our work and our efforts um for those for our customers for our Scholars um so a few points of Pride that I would like to highlight today really tell a story of transformative results and is accelerating us closer toward our district Mission specifically connected to confidence and courage so in the contributing to community scale one survey it reads students from my school of different races ethnicities and cultures get along well together the percentage of students uh by race who reported positively or yes 100% American Indian 89% Asian 94% black 96% Hispanic and 90% white if you can skip to the next slide please in The Help scale one survey item reads an adult at school has talked to me about how I doing in my classes again by race the data reads 100% American Indian 82% Asian 87% black 83% Hispanic and 83% white our data is showing that our efforts are making a difference and flipping predictable narratives for our students not only in racial groups but also for Scholars receiving special education and multi services if you were to di more deeply into the data thank you for sharing I'm going to have our scholar Ty yes thank you so much um so Mr Fisher will you come up and join us um Ty is a member of our student leadership group and I have asked him to come and eyes CL see they're considerate yes so T will take this opportunity to share um what you have prar I mean how I started off at 279 online uh I started late my ninth grade year I didn't know what school I was going to attend so and we just had moved uh to Brooklyn Park so I was thinking maybe I should go to Park Center but it was this other option that I would to do 279 online I just took that as option and I just been there uh I would say the first my freshman year was kind of rough I didn't know why or any teachers but I say when I got into my sophomore year I do the uh student leadership team where helped me uh be more vocal with my teachers and get to know my peers and uh figure out who my principal was I didn't know my principal was but uh yeah and uh just engaging in the uh School community [Music] so um as we look at this next school year um we really talk about opportunities our third bucket um where we speak and so um when we continue to learn and evolve now as we're moving into our fourth year as a school we still are intentional and our planning and so it's a nice one um we kind we wanted to share with you some of the um some of the planning that we have for this upcoming year so as different barriers have come up or processes show that they need to be improved in the first few years we've really had a lot of task forces feedback moves um and you know just looking at all safe folder input to really try to come up with processes that what do we need about to move forward and continue to be an Innovation Hub and so um for this year we have kind of three strategic areas of focus to help reduce some those barriers and inequalities that we're partnering with um That Bass who supports us um and so really trying to look at how we can reduce those that 279 online can I'm going to take a few minutes and just talk about uh some of our marketing efforts so with any U marketing right we want to make sure that we're researching um really understanding the brand and um what 279 online is and has to offer um that we're cling um we're implementing and we're evaluating all our work so that we can make necessary improvements along the way so I just wanted to share some of the that we're focusing on um creating awareness around the 2799 online brand promoting the uniqueness and the benefits of the school and programs that offered and then using a variety of advertising channels to boost the school's envirment there's a lot of different ways that we've been doing this um most all of the things that we sh out there are all pointing to the 279 online website um we actually just recently um purchased 279 online.com so it's a little easier to send people our way um we've also had um social media um paid advertisements and organic advertisements we have Google ads online banner ads um billboard billboard trucks um spotlights In Articles um especially in one feature newsletter recently and lots of call outs in Twin City's magazine ads community events ads local grocery store digital ads these are just some of the many ways that we've been trying to get the word out and here are some examples of all the visuals that go along with that um since June we have received um 86 online enrollment applications um just kind of comparing that to last year we were at six so um we definitely know that over all um just look at the data too on our website specifically that like I said that place where we're trying to send all of our folks um hopefully interested families right we're getting more people looking that's what our data is showing um all the visitors on our website are mostly new visitors and it's been in the thousands we're at approaching 9,000 right now um just um in the last 6 months here um so that is really showing that we're getting interested families going there um a lot of our direct referrals we call them with websites right um so those we can kind of see what like URL or website that it's coming from so we know that a lot like with our social media advertisements we see things coming from Facebook we see things coming directly to our website from Google um we see things even with our Partnerships um education. mn.gov um we also see start that's one of the um partners that we've had with our advertisements so we know like by having those direct referrals that the advertisements that we have done um so far are work and so I'll jump in and share some things on 279 Excel as we're looking at um kind of the future and and next steps and you know one of the things that you know I want to share is you know we look at 423 last year as a total comprehensive student enrollment but on top of that we had another 100 74 students who took online courses through supplemental online learning so all in all we had you know over 530 students that were participating in some form of online learning within oio area schools and that was the first kind of dip into supplemental online um as we explore that further we also know in the supplemental space we still have a lot of students that are taking courses through uh Northstar online so we have a partnership with 287 and North are online um and there may be some course supplemental courses that other programs can offer that we may not be able to offer like Mandarin Chinese is a common course that students will enroll and take at um Northstar online and that's just not something we have the skill set or the teaching stamp at the moment that that could offer a course within that so as we continue to look at asynchronous versus synchronous and what does that blend look like within our online experience and how does students want to show up um looking at our asynchronous supplemental learning uh we're expanding this year to allow non-district students to access it so last year as we opened it up only resident area District students could participate in that Excel program um this year we've got the application process set up and have set everything up with the Department of Education with school numbers and the the backend um processes that if other students want to take a supplemental course that you know I'm in inoka or I'm in wi Zetta and I want just one or two courses online they could take it through through the programming that that we offer now um and by Statute every family has to be allowed up to to take up to 50% of their coursework in online so school districts public school districts can't deny students for participating in online so if they don't offer it students go to look at where they can get supplemental course operating outside of their school district um also for the 2425 school year um and I don't know the courses off the top of my head this is where I look at Andy but we did have a conversation with our Comprehensive High Schools as they were doing talles and registration and looking at courses that the numbers didn't show up so they weren't offering and running those courses in person and so having those conversation of what could be shifted into an online format that students could still participate and access those courses that they're interested in um but moving it into that online form because between the three Comprehensive High Schools we'll have enough students to actually run that course in a in a virtual format with that I'll hand it over to the team for uh our staff speaker tonight uh good evening everybody thanks for thanks for having me um for the record the name for Mr mcken Archer and I came up with that came up with it step up and I was like I'm yeah I'll have to text Nate later and tell him that he was brought up in the meeting that's my Mel yeah melan yeah that was uh yeah any he would have referenced you too that's fair I don't it's that's totally fine that's uh that's good um yeah I guess you know a big part of you know why I'm here tonight is kind of speak on behalf of just my own experience as an educator and online and and I will I will tell you that when I when I moved from north New middle school after eight years to take this on it was a very kind of scary feeling um but uh with dl4 a I had Anthony in my room all the time observing different things I was trying out with different kids um and so technology just always speak to me when it kind of related to education and um this was kind of the next step in that Journey but um I think I think what we're starting to see as a school in my opinion from a from an educator standpoint is the Innovation piece um if I had to speak to just where we're where we started and where we're going you know when we became famous school you know even after distance learning academy and whatnot it still was kind of a thing of trying to put something together and make make something work and now that we're in year four uh the collaboration amongst teachers um with our professional development that we're doing outside uh of teaching as well is you're starting to see that take shape um a few weeks ago I presented at a an online educational conference in St Cloud University um I thought I was going to be speaking can do a bunch of teachers but it ended up being a bunch of like educational professionals and and professors and I was scared to wits cuz I was like thinking to myself like I don't know if I'm doing anything that you know monumentally changing if you will um but it ended up being a very very interesting experience both because a lot of people were surprised to see that at least for 279 online that were fully synchronous so there there seems to be something out there right now with a lot of online schools about asynchronous kind of being a lot of what other schools do and I think that's what kind of separates us apart I'm not putting down other programs by any means um but it was also interesting to see just some of the things that I thought you know what I had worked on all of last year was groundbreaking to a lot of people and I'm not talking myself up I'm simply saying like it was just kind of an interesting thing and and and you know there's some other colleagues that presented at that as well and had the same experience um I'll also speak the relationship part of of the students um it it is an incredible thing to be able to step away from working in person and that was one of the big apprehensions I had is like how's this going to work if I'm not in person can I still build relationships and um that has been probably one of the most rewarding parts of this job is that you're able to do that and you're able to form amazing relation so it's not just with students but with with families as well as you can see by the way I haven't read your book yet I I thought I know come on I know I thought about that today when I was when I heard you guys were going to be speaking I was like oh no I gotta read that anyways sorry tangent um but no so I you know this is a this is an amazing opportunity for this District I've always believed in our mission um I live in Waconia um I I've had several opportunities to leave I'm not going to why you um and I I don't want to I never have I love working for this District I love working supp our school I love working under Kristen and Ryan and and you know I just I hope that the things that you've heard tonight will just continue to kind of keep keep things moving so I think we're doing something pretty special so um I hope all that made sense because I speak PR thank you thanks for yeah thank you appreciate it and so as we kind of get to a a close here right before questions looking at kind of next steps for considerations as as we're working with this aming team and staff and the families um you know we're looking at the development of expanded course offerings um development of non-district student student enrollment processes um and really kind of this exploration around asynchronous versus synchronous when it comes to flexible learning Pathways we definitely have a a good number of students who want a structured synchronous opportunity and as you saw in our supplemental offering we do have some full-time online students said take some of our supplemental asynchronous coursework CU they that design and structure and pathway is is you know what they're looking for and some flexibility and what that might mean um so we're engaging in a lot of deep strategic work around what does that look like and how does that blending come together so that families and Scholars have the options that they need of do they need some more synchronous options versus you know families that need want some more asynchronous flexibility and um definitely as we continue looking at um sustainability um and our marketing efforts and our communication efforts really making data informed decisions so looking at program structures of you know what is the data telling us about what to offer what not to offer what structures are working what strategies are working and what are not as well as when we think about our marketing as as we go forward um we did you know do a lot of investment upfront over this last year to really build brand and awareness because one of the things that that we learned and we knew is 279 online has a unique program structure that isn't offered in a lot of places in an online format and all over the place the awareness wasn't there that 279 online actually existed so trying to get that foundational space of we are a school we are here here's what we have to offer because a lot of you know what we know when it comes to enrollment and thinking about programs is word of mouth so if you've never heard of 279 online you never know to include that in the conversation so as we think about what that means moving forward we're building the awareness so the awareness is there so then as we look at how do we target market moving forward we can look at the strategies that we've had from a marketing standpoint and really narrowing in and hone in on on what works to build that that continued branding and awareness as our program evolves into um what I like to call an amazing Innovation Hub um because as you know Robbie shared there strategies that teachers are creating that you know we can start talking about what does this look like in an in-person classroom or in an asynchronous format um this is an opportunity that we get to kind of explore and try some different things in a creative ways that we don't necessarily always um have the affordability when we're in a more structured setting with kind of bells and class periods and we have to move in a certain way and we've talked about this and other updates around the uniqueness of the schedule Within 279 online um Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday have a more structured traditional standpoint and Wednesday is a little bit more flux Flex special interest um high school students pairing with elementary and middle school students to do some creative interest based things which um allows for some different flexibility because of the unique structures of the of that online environment and and space and so with that I'll close out and turn it over for any questions okay thank you thank you to all of our speakers and guests uh what questions board members or comments do you have I have a question Anthony on where so that um online schools have increased to 21 is does that mean within the metro area or where are these 21 online schools so um you're going back to the slide where we've got 130 students and we're going outside of oio um so it's this is kind of talking to the ex the called an expansion and contraction of online opportunities that were out there so we were already in the process of building our online school before the pandemic came and once the pandemic hit and came out there were a lot of school districts that all of a sudden had online programs that they were offering and what we've noticed in the last two to three years is a lot of those online schools and districts have closed um Edina had a full K12 they're down to just a high school supplemental offering now um Anoka had a full K12 they're down to just a high school supplemental online program now so as a lot of districts expanded or introduced new programming on a very rapid fashion coming out of the pandemic um the the the planning and how they wanted to maintain that longterm wasn't necessarily completely in the strategy so they ended up collapsing um what we've noticed is prior to the pandemic there weren't as many online schools so we had 130 students students that were still open and rolling out to online programs but there was less program offerings so we were seeing you know three to five online programs that they enroll between but now because of the variety of options we now see 130 students between 21 different online schools that are offered within the the state of Minnesota so okay so they're located throughout the state okay um as a Minnesota student you still have to attend a Minnesota public online program um otherwise you're you know you have to go through a different you're attending through a different state so you know for us in Minnesota because we've had this question at the enrollment center uh hey our family is moving to Florida um can we still attend 279 online we say yes however you have to pay tuition because you're not a resident student anymore and we give them a tuition rate we haven't had any students take us up on that offer um but you know again if it's it's within Minnesota within that 21 um schools okay and let me just have a question I think it was Krist and you mentioned um having a task force for the various um voices and perspectives in making decisions um if you can just explain who's on that test course or what are the different perspectives involved in yeah kind of they're all a little different they all kind of come up um PR organically in terms of like we're finding we're getting feedback from like um for our enrollment process like we were struggling with some um deployment technology things like like or how to get kids on boarded or so we kind of brought in and see what different voices that way then we put together different um so sometimes it's like just building people sometimes it's coming from um bringing in some District level supports so kind of they all they all vary a little bit so to part of the starting and then we do different surveys with families and um so I guess I don't have a real like straight answer to any of them it kind ofies depend on what the issue that we're coming up with is and how it comes up so there's not like an actual task force it's different what we call them task force yeah the The Advisory task force the attendance and enrollment task force I'm just Gathering multiple data points and multiple stakeholder voices to identify the barriers so that we can propose creative ideas about how to move our problem forward like those couple grun differently from each other because of unque needs other questions I have like a handful of questions so if anybody else wants to go first I'll be quick um well so one thank you everyone um I always enjoy hearing about 279 online um and I think because of your excitement always feel like I'm being over sold on something I'm already sold on um and I also have this weird sense of like pride and excitement whenever I see the 279 online billboard right on 694 and always have to point it out so um thank you everyone for everything that you're doing um I only had a couple questions just for clarification I'm trying to better understand um 279 online versus 29 Excel um so our 279 Excel students are accessing courses during the school day with our 279 online Scholars or is this currently separate so 279 on the 279 online Scholars are in a synchronous format the 279 Excel courses are taught in an asynchronous format so we don't they're not in the same course at the same time because of the instructional model that's designed of okay and then in the chart that you showed with the different schools uh PC uh price Center um seems to be like significant um enrollment in 279 Excel and I was wondering what the sort of common themes are I think that's a good question I don't necessarily have a deep response to that yet because last year was our first year and as we're looking at the numbers I think those questions are coming up as to digging in into why um and uh understanding more uh within that space you know what I would say in general we saw the same thing with 279 online comprehensive um we saw a a a strong Park Center former Park Center uh student population when we initially launched that had enroll from Park Center into 279 online so um there's definitely um an interest within within the community that that that school serves of having online flexibility and and options um for I would suspect a variety of reasons but I don't know if we necessarily have one pinpointed Andy I don't know if you have any other context with it Andy helps to lead and facilitate the supplemental online programming side yeah I I would say the two schools we had the most enrollments for Excel was um mle Grove senior and then Park Center and I think it could be um I think word of MTH as our program gos over time I think um we have surveyed students and when they do fill out the survey one of the top reasons they choose to take Excel is they they just want that flexibility or they they want to have experience with an online course so um it's something we can definitely I think over time I think we'll be able to dig deeper and figure out you know why uh students are taking those classes or um you know overall we'd like to see it from across all of our system um so where there where are there you know buildings that are having more enrollment why is that where there buildings that are May having lower enrollment what courses that students want they were sign up for that we don't offer over time people those out yeah it's the the supplemental is a strong partnership with our building level counselors um so while in the course catalog right now the way supplemental works is in the course catalog there is a page in there that talks about online as as an offer um and to learn more engage in that conversation with your counselors so you know that's some of the things as we um connect with and and dig deeper connecting with Jackie trena who is our districtwide counselor and kind of peeling back the data and and what is getting we can get to some of that data with you know what are the the counselor conversations that are being had between the three comprehensive schools because they have to go through a counselor to get into supplemental online um not not that I'm rushing anyone but just wondering when U we'll be able to get some updates or additional information on like the pathways and the expanded um course off offerings and um just want to continue to learn more it's definitely something Brian and I can process through on when the timing works on that um there's a lot of strategic work we're going through this year with the that 279 online and Excel team to look at now that we've been in place again for four years as they've shared how are we continuing to uh move that program forward and innovate that program moving forward and and can look at an appropriate timing for how how how things are progressing thank you my turn Okay uh first I just want to say that um I am a huge huge advocate for personaliz Pathways and in individual learning plans um and most of you know I School my children non-traditionally so I appreciate this opportunity um for our students and actually for the historical context I would argue that it goes back further than this um I can only go back to 2017 CU that's start yeah yeah it really it really does being on deac before that there was there was a lot of conversations particularly when there were students that participated in DPAC as something that they wanted so um I I do really really appreciate that we have this and and all of the information and I know that it's really wonderful for students that are participating um but I do have some questions about um where we're going and what it looks like for us from a financial perspective um so for um the um financial support you know you had said that our um program has been generating more Revenue than expenses until now right until this end of school year um and so I think maybe offline maybe some more information about like what that looks like um would be helpful and um then when we're looking at our enrollment uh concern that I brought up the last time that we had this conversation was the declining enrollment um and so looking at enrollment one of the main questions that I have is how many teachers do we have teaching online full-time and how many do we have I guess doing hybrid if you will where maybe they're teaching in class or online or maybe they're a part-time staff person um so like how many staff persons do we have that are or FTE I guess do we have fully committed to the program um and how does that break out for grade levels um and I think that that question also leads me to Thomas's question is you know when we're looking at adding more supplemental courses like what does that look like are these programs like is it all in the same budget or are they in different buckets or how what does that look like for us so I can't what in the interest of time you would said it was okay I'm taking notes on all the questions that are being asked so yep yeah I don't have to have an answer right now I just would like to see that see that information um for future perspective um and then um you know we had talked you I love the almost 30% of outside of our district I think that's great um but that's almost equivalent to the number of students that are open enrolled to other full-time schools so it's kind of like to me it's like a wash right we didn't we're gaining the same numbers we're losing almost exactly um so I guess it still feels like we only have 125 or sorry 425 students right like regardless of whether they're ours or some body else's we're pulling them from somewhere else which is a really small percentage of our student body as a whole um and so you know I think we really need to be mindful of like I I appreciate the marketing plans but as we move forward is this the best investment and I love that we're unique we have a different model which I think does set us apart but we also I think need to look at like a time frame of when when do we say you know we have to have reached this goal or we need to adjust course um whatever that might look like but um that's where my concern is is like if we continue to see this decline or we're not generating um if if it's costing more to operate the program then it it's not a break even or it's not um generating some sort of Revenue that's where my concern can provide that information and I would say that's part of our continued strategic work as you know it cost what it costs for how we're currently structured and operating it doesn't mean that we have to continue to stay structured this way right which is why we need collaborative partnership and what we're working on with with the the team at 279 online to think about what what programming looks like as as we Mo forward in the future yeah yeah I agree and I my some of my other questions are very similar to Thomas's basically you know like kids want to have these opportunities especially like the hybrid thing I think is a really strong desire for a lot of students it's very similar to what they do when they go to college um and so you know making sure that we have those different types of course offerings um and that they're prominent in the thank you course catalog couldn't think of the word so anyways those are just some of my thoughts questions um and I look forward to seeing the data the deeper data on that the financial data I'd want to be sure is in context and comparative to how we would evaluate a brick and mortar school like I don't know that we talk about our brick and mortar schools as like break even or generating Revenue so I think it would be important that we have the context on that so it's a fair comparison yeah too okay I know we're pretty well over just say because couple first of all I have seen the ads on Facebook I think they look great I'm so glad that you were advertising the program in a timely fashion and wide view so that people can have that and we're bringing more students in what I see is a laboratory for individualized Education that is really going to build on the strengths of the program that started before the pandemic and build us forward into the future um I am excited to see how students can you know go back and forth between either program so they can access things like Mandarin um and have more that on there and then also I really appreciated um your comments too about the Innovation because I have seen that um my kid takes uh classes that more penipen and the class was all of a sudden just asynchronous and it was like not even live with a person and that I mean it doesn't can work with some people but it doesn't work with everyone and so really having like this penopoly of options for kids to choose from and parents to choose from and you know to your point too about really preparing kids for what it's going to be like um I think that you know I think it's careful not to overplay our hand what we learned in the pandemic is that it really is better in a lot of ways to be in person to develop relationships but we all have to learn how to work online too and that it's also a successful model for individual productivity and it's really great to see our kids have those skills and learn those skills that will prepare them better for the workforce thank you so I have just a um a couple of things my first question is are we still offering M Heritage classes um through 279 online M Heritage are we still on M Heritage classes okay I'm just when I heard the aapi declined I was just wondering if that was correlated yeah okay um and then um somehow when you have time and you run into me I just curious about the E support um online cuz I I have a lot of imaginations in my head that are super awesome and creative I was teaching online college before it was ever a thing back in 200 10 and um um so I'm excited about that um just a question oalc how many students do we have there pardon 200 200 okay um I'm just I the reason I ask is because um when we look at schools and um enrollment I think we have to take the bigger picture of who the students are and what their um needs are and what um opportunities we have and so um I just wanted to put that out there the last thing I want to say is I truly appreciate all of you that came and and spoke and um Keith anytime you want to talk um teaching teacher love it um need to know the name of your book and um yeah and uh any any DND d games you're um dung dungeon mining okay our Ultra okay got to hook you up with my husband sorry just wanted to catch you before you left um but I do I truly appreciate the Innovation the care um The Compassion that 279 online has um LED and it's super exciting for me as someone who um had better relationships with my um Master's students online when I was teaching college than I did in person um that you get it you know and um back in 2010 people didn't get it but um it's amazing and I I love what you do and I appreciate you so much did you want to add some one of the issues that we had with getting back into the program the transfer process is awful I'm certain that you're losing students to your competitors in other districts and other online courses because of that like that's a big deal is if if you know anything about sales it's all about the pipeline right and so you're losing your sales of your students I'll add super quick and I appreciate it thank you again um the comment around relationships the comment around non-traditional School options there's a piece of this we didn't talk about Equity whether or not you have X number of students until you can provide the same equal experiences that those that need them are getting through 279 online in a bricken mortar it shouldn't go away my child has OCD my child was bullied at Osteo metal I'm not going to go into but it wasn't severe enough to get us to be able to move and so there are things that drive parents Beyond just the fabulous education to need something like this solution and relationships online my team at Wells Fargo has one of the best ratings for high performing teams you can build and sustain amazing relationships and all of the research out there around the Neuroscience of learning and high performing teams is really relationship based and most of that research is coming from virtual teens okay thank you everybody switch up thank you for coming we're waiting for to switch over our board members just folders you may have seen something it said top thoughts interactive web so this is actually for our we purpose site when we wanted information from our community on thoughts and ideas for that so I just want to give you a copy of that just we to look at another time okay all you all right all right so uh thank you so uh we're excited tonight to share the alignment between our strategic plan and our operational plan for this year and helping today with that will be uh myself as well as uh her fabulous cabinet so go ahead and start DR M all right so our outcomes for this presentation is to share with you our our strategic priorities for the 2024 2024 school year and then um a significant emphasis this year is system alignment um and you're going to see that throughout the presentation and that alignment specifically between the Strategic priorities that we've identified for the year and the items from our operational plan a tight alignment and then making sure that those Cascade all the way down and through uh to our to our departments our sites um our classrooms into Scholars so that's something that we'll see throughout all right so we're quite excited to share this we did this with system leaders already and um and we already had our beautiful chair and vice chair sitting on it so it's h tight this for a little bit longer so we're looking at starting of our year and our goal is to continuous to get better continues to improve never stops so when we're looking at this V I'm a visual person so when we're looking at this visual we have in 2223 we had the uh building of better future one passed the levies passed and then we had a strategic plan created so we heard a goals we got our direction from the school board of what we need to do so we took that information and applied it throughout the system and then 2324 the bond passed and we working even more on that so we come into this year on the focus of what should we should be doing for this year and it's kind of like a simple aha that you go but we're never going to stop building a better future right that just just doesn't stop at one point because funding or whatever it may be so our thoughts in coming into this year is more that there's no stopping in building a better future but how do we become more refined how do we become more focused and how do we hit those highest priorities in order to reach where we need to be at in this District so looking it through four ways so looking at the alignment uh in in our district of becoming tightly focused from um I don't like to top to the across the school the school district I don't believe top down across the school district so looking at our how do we become more tightly focused how do we become aligned in our system so we're all working towards that same goal having action to address that alignment to reach that focus and at the end to truly uh measure if we are doing what we want to do and getting that goal which several times we've had the board say well what are we doing these numbers are moving or what's happening with that so our goal for this year and for the future on is how tightly do we come focus and align so looking at oh that was next okay I'm a visual um so looking at this are we going to do the sound no no okay so looking at this our need for us to become more focused in what we do okay can you play sound yeah and then press play okay it's I don't know if we're going to hear China and the US right here as you see it don't stop to the gas Drive they rocking and rolling give me that no I need that no here no there give me that I need that get hold way up in the sky now down back up over there now over here get out the way move I CH need that's a good point okay so the whole goal of it was is that um how do we go about as a team if we're not focused are we actually ever hitting our Target and we all mean the same thing no go here no go there but I told you I need this year I told you we need that there and our goal this year will be to hit that Focus Target so one of the things that we have shared with the system leaders is looking at our alignment across the system for us to understand and for this will be found foundational this will go through the entire system we just started with system leaders but looking at that our Direction comes from the board our governance comes from the board we're giving a direction what to do and from there it's up to us to start in management and ensuring that it's done so going to the superintendent whether it's my individual goals and what it may be going to the cabinet they have their own goals and their direct reports have that going down to departments their goals reach what the board is requesting all the way down to sites all down to teachers and once we have that strict alignment and following those three C's and holding space that's how we go about getting scholar success but one way in looking at this we have to be I'm a visual uh we have to be I was explain my visuals um we have to be able to take action we have to look at the weight on the system if there's too many initiatives too many things going on we're not going to get the results that we want and unfortunately the unintended impact in that of that is sometimes we can have a burnout with our staff because we're applying or we're trying to do too many things and then we end up missing some of our goals so one of our goals this year is all of our staff will be looking at what weight can we take off the system truly looking at from our data digs what is something that we truly think they can be focused on and stop with the bright lights what I mean by Bright Lights is oh I hear in this District they're trying this okay let's try this or I hear they're trying this let's try this we need to focus on precise Precision of what we're going to be working on apply it with Fidelity to look at those results and see what we have and stop adding things on to the system and diluting down our work so good evening everybody I'm going to talk to you a little bit about the Strategic priorities at a glance so we refer to this document as our uh strategic priorities at a glance document and that's because the entire strategic plan is contained in this one very efficient one-page document which makes it really really easy for our sites and our departments to replicate this document and distribute it to their respective staff and then make sure that it's displayed in all workspaces so that um it it really is very very handy but most importantly what we want to focus on is what this strategic priorities document ment reflects is it showcases and it highlights our commitment that we've made to continuous Improvement throughout the year and that's especially evidenced by the blue boxes that are in the middle of the documents and those are actually the actual strategic priorities for the 2425 school year and we'll get to those in a second as well but I first wanted to take you back to how did we arrive at the 2024 25 Strate IC priorities so we took a little bit of a journey to solicit to be intentional about soliciting feedback so what we did is last year in May we took those strategic priorities from 23 24 and we put those in front of our learning leaders group and our learner leaders just as an FYI is a group comprised of all of our lead principles our assistant principles our dtl directors and assistant directors and just to refresh everybody's memory dtl stands for division of leadership teaching and learning so those directors and assistant directors and some of the dtl coordinators and then also some coordinators from Anthony's Technology Group so all told there's approximately 60 leaders in that group and we brought all of last year's strategic priorities to them and we said we need your feedback back we need feedback so that you can help inform what the 2425 strategic priorities should be for the following school year so we took all of those leaders through a docky ex exercise I'm not sure if you're all familiar with docky that's an acronym for drop add keep or improve and that's exactly what we did we asked the leaders to say which of the 23 24 priorities would you want to drop what priorities do you think that we should add for the next school year which of the 23 24 priorities would you like to keep and then which of the 23 24 priorities would you like to improve and then how would you like to improve those priorities that feedback then was synthesized and brought to our dtl director's group where they spent a lot of time further refining that feedback and ultimately it ended up with us as a Cabinet group and so we reviewed it as well and the end result is what you see in front of you on the screen which are the blue five priorities in the middle that are labeled highest and then the priorities that are also labeled Focus it's also important I think to note that uh Dr Hy when she had her Advance on August 8th she shared this document with all leaders of the system and then we shared it myself Brian and Steve also shared it as well at our learner leader Advance on August 8th so every leader in the system has seen this document at least once and many have seen it multiple times so let's Orient ourselves with the document really quickly you can see in the upper left hand corner the vision and the mission statement and then if you make your way all the way down to the lower left hand corner you can see the core values and working straight across to the lower right hand corner you'll see the three c's for the concept of holding space and then if you work your way straight up you can see a key or a legend for our priority work and you'll see that any of the work that is designated as learning work initiatives would show up in green and learning work is just that it's work around which we're doing additional learning so we're researching we're piloting and then any priorities that are in the blue color are what we call implementation work initiatives and that's exactly what it sounds like that's the work that we're currently implementing and then finally anything that you would see in purple would be our standard work initiatives and the standard work initiatives just means that any initiative that we are undertaking is being imp implemented with at least 80% Fidelity so if something hits standard work one year it should be taken off the operational plan because once it hits 80% it should be inculturated into what we do um as an organization so if you move down then you'll see in the Yellow Boxes you'll see the five strategic directions a through e those probably look very very familiar because we've had those for the last few years and then directly underneath that you will notice that we have A1 through E1 working across horizontally and those are our highest priorities and I'm going to give you a minute to just read through those it certainly won't read all of those to you but if you want to just take a moment and familiarize yourself and while you're doing that I would like to say that the highest priorities again are just that they are our highest priorities so those are the non-negotiables across the system that is the work that all sites and all departments must Undertake and that is also the work where we need to allocate the resources whether that's time energy people they are the highest priorities directly underneath the highest priorities are what we are referring to as the focus priorities and that's A2 through E2 and that's exactly what that sounds like that will remain the focus of our work both here at the ESC and at the uh departments and at the sites but again non-negotiables are the highest priorities the focus priorities need to remain a focus of the work and you can also see for example a lot of this work is already currently being done in the schools so if we look at A2 and I'm going to break that up into two parts insur secure learning environments that is work that we are doing every single day um districtwide and that's evidenced right now we just switched to a new alert system the Raptor alert system we're also going to standard response protocols in our classrooms and that is all part of the I love you guys Foundation if you're familiar with that foundation called I love you guys um the standard response Protocols are a part of that work so every day without exception we're ensuring secure learning environments and we're also ensuring that we're promoting access and opportunity for Equitable and Innovative learning experiences and there's many examples of that in our site so we have some buildings that have been doing Avid I'll take Adam Brook Elementary and even oio Senior High have been doing AVID for a number of years and we have many sites that are now becoming emerging avid schools we have our um bar programs we have our multi-tiered systems of support we're leaning into the um improve your tomorrow initiatives as well and the bar initiatives and we certainly do um a number of enrichments as well so any one of those Focus priorities we are doing that work in our buildings and it will continue to be a focus now one last thing I do want to say is you might notice on this document that there are no learning work initiatives listed nor are there any standard work initiatives listed that certainly doesn't mean that we're not doing learning work and it certainly doesn't mean that we don't have work that is moved into the standard work column and you'll see that next on the operational plan but for the purposes of this document and for our sites we wanted our sites to absolutely focus on the implementation work so if you think back to uh Dr H's previous slide about the weight on the system with the weightlifter this is an intentional response to that we want the sites to focus on the implementation work and and take the other things off of their plate for this current year but as you'll see in the next slide that work is absolutely continuing at the system level all right thank you Kelly uh so as Dr spoke in the beginning uh Focus alignment action and measurement so if the if the first two poke uh pieces around focus and Alignment were reflected in the Strategic priorities document this is where our action is reflected so how are we making um the work of those priorities action but what does this actually look like and so we show you this just at the high level and then we're going to we're going to drill down and we're going to have each of us speak to each of the Strategic directions and that priority work that's happening um across uh the road so if we advance to the next slide so um in strategic Direction a as Kelly um mentioned we've got highest and focus so then we go to the operational plan and we look at strategic Direction a and we say what items do we have in this row um for learning implementation standard work are aligned to our highest um priority and our Focus priority so if we advance the next slide we'll see what that what that looks like so in learning work um our Minnesota U multi-tier System of support for um PBIS and PBIS stands for positive behavior interventions and supports that is highest priority work that aligns to our highest priority um focusing on uh the continued implementation of our uh tier one social emotional learning support um looking at our trauma informed practices as well as restorative practices as a learning work this is a reset um this is something that we've had um but we we're not we're not observing the impact that those uh practices should have on reducing discipline disproportionality so we're bringing it back to learning work um we look at implementation work um build a better future um is absolutely aligned to our Focus priority making sure that no matter where you're located in the district you're getting access to a high quality facility that's equipped to um uh promote the most optimal learning environment um we had the opportunity to tour uh two of our sites uh a few weeks ago Brooklyn middle and North middle and it's incredible um the the the work that's taking place there and the learning on display concept is is just amazing and we're also understanding what the the technology infrastructure will be in those classrooms so it's exciting to see those things come together and we're we're fingers crossed at those s first day of school they'll be ready ready to go for first day of school there a lot of work that needs to happen uh and so that's a focus priority um digital learning for all our update that we just had that's aign to our highest priority and then we we developed the identity based arm protocol um and so we we we partially implemented that we rolled it out to to site leaders um and then there's the second part of that work is how do we make sure that that Cascades down to teachers and Cascades down to the awareness level of our Scholars so that they know that that protocol exists that they know that their harm reporting app is connected to that um and activates that protocol should they experience any kind of of harm or observe any kind of harm that they want to report that's the highest priority um the next one is our identity based board resolution so we um retained in implementation work our lgbtqi plus history and culture because we've had several years to implement the work from George Floyd resolution and our aapi Asian-American Pacific Islander resolution and so we will continue our work of um the identity based uh board resolution for our lgbtqi Plus culture that's highest priority and then in standard work we see those other two pieces so this is the action work right from the focus and Alignment that we saw that we see in the Strategic priorities here are the actions that we're going to engage in this year um and then we'll talk at the end of the presentation about what measurement um what we're going to be doing to develop uh measurement across the year for these and I'll hand it over to yeah so um now we're going to look at Direction B which is build and nurture a culture of achievement by providing content Rich rigorous Equitable and individualized Pathways really this is just like it says it's building a cultural achievement for each and every student right so it's uh that's one thing that we always like to call out is that we're looking at each and every student not just all and in general thing and then you can see our highest um work and our focused work around uh each scholar having access to high quality core instruction and we we heard a little bit about that just now on 279 online presentation right so that's a good example of one uh School site that's uh doing that work and then Focus area of improving Pathways for College and Career Readiness which obviously relates to that top Direction because each and every one of us has our own idea of where we want to go post High School right and how we want to continue on our career in college readiness so just like um Brian laid out for us before um you can see on here our learning work our implementation work and our standard work and again we've got the H for high and the F for Focus one thing that um I want to point out on here that's a little different than the last slide is we still just because this is our operational plan doesn't mean that in that we have come up with ideas just like Kelly said and talk to people about what should be on there we still also have state mandates that need to be taken care of right so that's where you see on here um our work around our curriculum that we deliver you can see on the first area on learning work we're currently on the social studies and health K through 12 and Kelly helped me out this because this is more a year area these um State mandate program improvement process for curriculum is a seven-year cycle right so okay so thank we help each other out on um so that's important you'll see that too like that so things can slide down into implementation work the next cycle for each of these things so that's kind of how I'm understanding it and thinking about it so you see the indigenous content standards program improvement process that I just mentioned and multi-tiered systems of support for tier two and three are in our learning work um also on this slide you'll see um some of our items actually meet both h and f right where I think on the other slide most of them were one or the other but in this case you see it on a couple for our implementation work we're on year two for our special ed opportunity review plan so we'll continue that work uh also on our multi-tier systems of support uh launching site multi-tiered system of support teams and then also developing systems to monitor tier one Effectiveness you you can see here our uh Focus area for American Indian education implementation is around graduation rates um reimplementation of our systemwide Equity tools and training and again uh the state mandator on program improvement process this one is uh Elementary and oh wait what's the we tell me again that's multil multilingual M multilingual testing thank you and then lastly stand standard work standard work practices is again our program improvement process for science math and secondary Ela and you can see the grade levels that we focus on so that is for direction d uh Direction C is very focused on communication it's to promote inclusive participation are communities and provide timely relevant and easily accessible communication the highest priority within Direction C is to standardize the use of a tools for timely accessible and accurate information and the focus priority is to Foster inclusion for diverse Community Voices engagement and collaboration um for the operational plan side of this every um single area that is mention in here uh has both highest and focus priorities within it um this year we're having both learning and implementation work in strategic Direction C the first part of learning work is centered around brand you might have heard a little bit or gotten a glimpse of this in Dr H superintendent update this last week um so essentially we're taking a look at our district and site logos because of some discoveries with Recent research and the opportunity to enhance our look with facility improvements comings additionally we'll be looking at site names for both press view with the repurposing and the new elementary school as well and we will be providing a guide book for all of our staff members to refer to alongside suppo Community relation and Publications team as well another learning work piece is a Community Education communication and marketing plan this really goes hand in hand with the site communication plans that I'll mention here in a minute but we worked on those this last year so basically we're essentially um doing this for our community education programs um moving forward um that are all underneath that Community Education umbrella so in regard to the site communication plans that we've been doing at schools we're about 85% through with those this has been very helpful in getting everyone on the same page with all of our communication tools and practices and helping sites with day-to-day communication goals next under implementation is district and school websites we're just a short time away from the launch of our newly refreshed website the new navigation structure is part of this stay tuned for more on that soon and last but certainly not least for direction C implementation work this year is crest view um we have a few pieces surrounding that um specific spefically supporting our impacted families um with the repurpose part of it celebrating successes of the existing site that's there and determining and developing programs for the purpose including marketing and community outreach as part of this I'm going to turn it to Anthony run now for strategic direction thank you I'll provide an overview of strategic priorities under D and and they will uh review the the operational plan um so um strategic party D is uh centered on operational Innovation Excellence accountability and sustainability our highest priority in this area is refining our operational plans at the district department and um site levels um and this um our focus with the refinement or refinement will be focused on ensuring that our continuous Improvement efforts are going to have the U impact on student we want that to have our Focus priority work is ensuring that we Implement evidence-based um staff staff retention recruitment staff I want I'm used to saying Recruitment and Retention together they've got to separate it um but uh priority um retention strategies we want to re-evaluate what's working and what's not working um obviously we want our um initiatives and our strategies to have the impact that we want um and in doing so we uh look to we're looking to create a stable highquality Workforce that supports our ongoing efforts to uh retain our bipod staff and then I'll turn it over to Anthony to talk about the operational plan as part of our strategic work uh uh strategic Direction D we're focusing on several key initiatives this year in our learning work we're prioritizing attendance boundary adjustments as part of our work with building a better future the district is in the early stages of developing a comprehensive health and well Wellness strategy for staff and additionally we're re-evaluating our retention strategies as Ivon mentioned to help ensure that we're investing in programs that help retain our bipox staff on the implementation side we're rolling out an enrollment marketing plan to maintain strong student numbers and implementing a robust cyber security plan to protect our digital infrastructure lastly some of our previous work has now transitioned into standard practice we're in the third year of our online enrollment process which has become a key part of our operations and our three-year operational plan is now fully aligned in guiding our efforts across the district these initiatives reflect our commitment to the operational excellence and sustainability ensuring that we're not only meeting current needs but also building a foundation for the future with that I'll hand it over for strategic Direction e with John thank you uh the last strategic Direction um focuses on continuous Improvement through the reduction of systemic disparities barriers and inequities in the system with a high priority being um what Dr H had mentioned that that focus of exiting in ineffective procedures um programs so we can be more direct in service to the scholars that's really a top priority um focus is really based on utilizing data in multiple sources to to help drive and inform Us in making those decisions to to continue on that Improvement path so as we're looking at the operational directions um first piece in learning work is the Evergreen classification and compensation study which is being led to take a holistic look at um the compensation and um how we classify all our jobs together to make sure that uh we well um number one that that we're we're fing within the market standards where we should and also um we're classifying our positions together according and that things match up nicely from a bargaining standpoint and the implementation work pieces are this is the first year of the carry Task Force action plan so that's a very high priority Focus um pre Kelly previously mentioned the Raptor system where we've added some new features to that including standard response protocols um we're working on updated reunification plan within that system and then a continuation with vision cards for the district and then e c we turn I think it's over to me okay so of course so we're at the point now measurment so the goal is we are going to be tightly focused we're going to be tightly aligned and we have shown what action we're going to take but how will we monitor it how will we measure it for anything to work in a system you have to have a three seat you have to in order to have coherence you have to have consistency and connection throughout the district so one of the things we want to take a few slides and show you how this alignment has and will be occurring in our district so with progress monitoring on our next slide you actually see a district level of our vision B so this is our vision B card the measurement that we use for um um cultural of a achievement so we'll be able to be we're going to be further identifying at each one that you see what is the true measurement because that was one of the things we heard from last year was like okay we got this but we're measuring exactly what we need to do in order to move the system forward so just wanted to share you at the level that we have the district level visit card B of what we would do and we don't stop there we got to make sure in order to reach our babies to reach our Scholars that we have tight alignment so from vision card B if we went to the next level then this is actually what you see here on this slide you'll see uh learning and achievement of their three-year operational plan so we all already have it at the system level operational plan is now we have every Department this is just example of one Department of how they're addressing what our area is for uh vision card B so we don't stop there so we go from uh the system level down to the department level then our next level is our actual um site levels so our building levels so that's how tightly aligned we are so get direction from the board and it goes down to the system it goes down to department now our schools have have three-year operational plans as well and they'll be able to tightly align to what that vision card B is to make sure that we're all working towards that last goal and the best of it all there's one more level and this is the level of PLT so this is where we hit the teacher level so the teacher level is also addressing what we're doing at the system level department level site level and the teacher level and once we get to all of those where we're so tight aligned focused taking action and measuring okay I'm another visual we go to the next one our goal is reached so we hit bullseye on where we need to be so we just wanted to take time today just to share with you what our focus is for this year and um our goal of being tightly aligned and taking some of that weid off the system and we'll take questions now yeah all right board members thoughts questions well I don't have any questions I mean oh sure question thoughts I think you guys explain pretty well what's going on but I just wanted to say I love hearing that we're going to really start aligning and focusing down and taking weight off of the system I feel like that's something that we've had a lot of conversation about we hear a lot about from particularly at site level um and so I really appreciate that that's a high the highest priority this coming school year well this isn't new cuz I yeah I know right already so but I do want to say the thing the um I took one of them home the posters of the one slide of the the one you know overall beautiful clear um amazing perfect size to hang up places we do have other laminated copies if you want and we gave it to every system leader what that about7 yeah that I would love to have that as a teacher to put up and even to put in my planning book just as a here's a reminder so I just think that's beautiful and so even one of the next step that cabinet is working on that you just want to share what we talked about so recently um go ahead you can you can see go ahead we've been working on there's a whole another level that cabinet is working on as well so for so as we um talked about uh for the year it's important for us to understand what our action items will be but then what's the conversation we need to have now is what what specific measures do we want to select that we think best um shows the the progress on the efforts that we've outlined at the on the operational plan at the district level at the site level at the teacher we want we want to be able to see that alignment and be able to pull data that lets us know how we're doing throughout the year and so we'll be um working on that the next um the next month to establish what those measures would be um and then working with our uh learning achievement Department data and assessment team to start to pull that data for us so we can start to see what that would look like to monitor that across the year so I that reminds me when I was looking at um the breakdown from the district strategic priorities and the department and the site and the teacher the teacher had specific measuring the district had specific measuring but the other two um didn't put that on the I'm sure you have them but we didn't see um on the on the slides it wasn't as measured by or these are the measurements we're going to use to make sure that um this imple implementation so some of our um our early dialogue around this would be that we would um as we identify these measures as a group from our respective um areas that we all represent being able to identify what some of those measures might be will also break down to some small groups where we would pull in some of our directors to help us reflect what would those measures be for the Departments so we are we are going to identify what those look like at the at the department level so we don't have that Gap yeah little PLT action okay a lot of PLT action okay a lot of PLT action so um I just have a question about that um what what are we looking at when we say like this is the measure and and the result um it takes time you know right so we can't just be like oh well it didn't work year one and then shift gears right so uh do we have like a ETA on when do we say okay we've done this for X period of time maybe we need to shift gears well I wonder like how do you think about in terms of leading indicators like are you including the leading indicators in that conversation about measuring versus the lagging right I love how you that awesome so I I I would say that as we think about this early on we're looking for Fidelity and integrity in our implementation efforts so what are the adult moves what are the teacher moves what are the instructional leadership moves the coaches the sdss what are we doing to support those adult actions the teachers would be engaging in so for example at the elementary level this year we have the read act we have structured literacy we have our new curriculum so we're going into buildings to lead new PD for the first time with new curriculum we're going to have folks going into those classroom rooms to ensure support for teachers that they're learning how to use the curriculum learning how to deliver the instruction that the that the units of that the units that are a part of the curriculum package we're we're unpacking them so it's like an engine we're pulling that thing apart we're looking at all the different parts of the unit and we're teaching that because they essentially have those same bricks in every unit and then we're saying okay so how do we deliver that with cult responsive pedagogy with student centered pedagogi with high quality core instruction and so we'll have folks in classrooms verifying working with teachers to do that so we we'll see qualitative in terms of the leading like the qualitative pieces and then as we move on we'll start to see those quantitative measures um over time but early early on we're going to be really trying to verify that that our adults are using the materials right that they're that they're attempting to use the instruction that we're modeling for them and then we're seeing how that's impacting um learning over time so we'll have fast data we'll have other things that we be end along the way and I think even quanti of uh at the end or even of course building that culture vulnerability and of course um being anonymous and answering it but seeing that growth questioning our staff what's working what's not working as well as do you feel like you implemented it Anonymous 50% 60% 80% so by the second year I just see the second year out we should start to be able to see something if not with the new Ela curriculum is different because when you're learning a new curriculum that's a little bit different but with everything else we should be able to pull out information by that second year but we have to build that uh whole culture of um of uh protection and allowing them to be able to give voice to something so if a teacher I mean we could easily say up here some should be working but we're not in that classroom teaching that with working so we have to make sure our staff is very comfortable in being able to share where I think this work this didn't work and that's why like data dict so much where the teachers can get in there and go what's working or not working but yeah we should even be able to pull a little quantitative data to your point Heather I mean research says it takes about 3 years for implementation of anything to really hit the ground and it's pretty typical to see an initial Spike of something improve and then you dip down and then you move back up into a sense of stability to actually see increased Improvement so it takes time 3 to 5 years before you're going to start seeing the the trends that you want to have and and really make decisions and the indicators will change so if it's an academic um initiative so to speak so one of the first year indicators might be that when you do a walk through into a classroom or a formal observation you're observing that all teachers are using it right then the next year you or the following years you should start to see the impact on instruction but first it has to you know the implementation level has to be there it's like uh what Kanye was saying we can't wait for the autopsy data right so what are the markers and the indicators as we go along just like graduation rates we all know our autopsy data but we should be able to work our way back and figure out so that's why one of the things that we request in all of our midor evals is how many students have even failed first trimester because that's going to give us an indication of their 9th grade year how many are not going to be on track to graduate we don't have to wait till graduation to see that so it's having those indicators along the way and I just had a question but I think it's an excellent presentation and I like the visual especially love the first the the SE yeah that I like the first SE of um consistency especially across I think that is where we're going really see change in progress um but can you give an example like I love the idea of taking weight off the system you know eliminating burnout but like in the next this fall in the next year what would be like a um a tangible something we can see that would be an example of taking weight off the system anybody can jump in I could give off the bat so one of the things that we were really intentional about this year with our building leaders because they're they're the ones that need the weight off the system or the sites and um our building leaders really wanted to be able to focus on the implementation work initiatives so what we did is we said will hold an advance at least for this current year and we'll reexamine as we move into next year but you do not have to indicate learning work initiatives this current year focus on the initiatives that you already have in play Don't Go wider go deeper you need to go deeper to make sure that those initiatives are taking root and that they're going to grow so that's one of the things that we took off of their plate was focus on your implementation this year do not you know focus on the on the learning and even talking uh you know in some of our data dicks and it could be either either way you know cuz sometimes the weit on the system it's not necessarily what's coming from the top sometime it could be just there's a team member that has a great idea and so we're implementing that and there so um so just really looking at um we have ancl curriculum but how much extra SEO curriculum is on there uh we could be having a um certain mathematics whatever but is a does the team no offense are they saying well this works better and they're adding that on to there so really coming down just to focus on one or two items and to be able um to do them well um so been a message across all the DAT that you yeah and they'll literally go they'll go they you like staff visibly show you that so um um yeah so there's just so much that when um Jackie you know just as a teacher you don't need to think about what's been added on without knowing it's been added on um so uh but but um it's it's just okay go ahead there's some others so if you recall last year Dr H we were really intentional about they did not have to do an independent uh Equity plan around um for the Department of doe was requiring certain plans to be submitted PBIS was requiring certain plans to be submitted and they felt like they were just writing up plans submitting writing a plan submitting so uh superintendent H said you know what if they address those pieces and they commit to addressing those pieces in their three-year operational plan they don't have to complete these other plans that was a huge relief for them as well so even just being tore in a number of directions but having that synthesized through the three plan and then they didn't have to do all the subsequent paperwork that took a lot off of their plates as well and I would sure too like even this morning um when I was meeting with Emily from adult basic education um because she's going to start doing some reporting to Carrie cave and we were going over some of the grants that she has right so when we were talking about the grants we said well does that or does that not relate to one of our highest or Focus area priority areas right well okay this partnership with cppy does because it's creating a career pathway um for property management and maintenance so yes let's keep going on that Grant so one of the things you get to do is say what things do you would you take on you only take it on if it fits in one of these got we got to put you in a box if it doesn't fit in that box then we probably don't want to do it cuz that's going to add cuz you're going to have to execute that right but it might be a really cool project it might be something that's I mean no one's bringing forward to me bad things that are harmful right people are bringing forward things that are awesome right but do they get us to any of these things on here right and in that one it's like yeah it's 100% a a career pathway project for people new to the United States who are getting proficient in English and are moving on into career so yes let's do it right so I think it's a combination of like what can you take off but also an easier way to examine what you would go for or bring into the system to help accelerate you uh make that happen for the people that participate so that's just I'm sure we all have different answers to how you ask the question but that's an example for me from just this morning right and how it helped or even for another example districtwide well we all mean well but it could be harmfully helpful where we applied for so many grants right so a grant is going to distract you from the you saying this is for Fidelity we're trying this but then we get this grant or this is a good program and then now the teacher is has to water down Fidelity with this as we apply this and it's not a bad thing but then we also have to figure out with grants when they run out in 3 to four years what do we do with that so how do we become tightly focused instead of adding on for staff to learn more and to do more and so that's and each Grant has a whole bunch of things that you have to abide by and Report so it's a lot of it's a lot of work and I I love um the highest in the focus and I think you mentioned culture so one of the things that I really appreciated as you were talking at the systems uh leader meeting um that is about creating a culture of being able to say like stop or this isn't working or why are we doing this I took that off of don't matter yeah so that I thought that was really powerful and in that everybody in the district does need to be able to feel that they're they're able to speak up and to be able to identify those things that aren't adding value um and you even had kind of mentioned that it might be somebody's favorite thing or favorite person that's been leading this but if it's not advancing these things we have to question and find them the right thing for them to be working on in leading that is in here so I thought that was really um critical all right any any other comments thoughts awesome this is was fantastic for pace of moving through this is probably the fastest we've gone through the Strategic plan in a year so that's fantastic or maybe ever okay uh the board calendar yeah it's said the board calendar is for review in your package you can take a look at that and once again it's tenative um we did have unhold a potential um uh PD date that we were saving it was actually in September but we thought uh we would not be meeting with that because the board uh is going to be shifting in January and they will be making more sense to do that in January so and at this point we probably don't need a work session that day either right so yeah if if um we do have a agenda setting process where if there's something that folks want added um or is missing um you know think through that and make sure to be proactive bringing that forward as long as it fits in the [Laughter] boxes okay anything else before we close out the meeting once going tce okay then uh this work session is adjourned at 8:05 p.m. awesome thank you