##VIDEO ID:RJNYzBjecYU## I that concludes uh that portion of our conversation tonight yes it does okay um next on our uh agenda is the upcoming American Education week um so just to be clear I believe what we heard is the staff uh just to get you know the gift that we give the staff still want um the pumpkin bars and so it's tradition for the board to um contribute their own funds uh to pay for the pumpkin bars and before I think it wases before during American Education week and then also during that time um Martha will send out a uh calendar for different board members to sign up when the bars are delivered and then we go and we meet and we uh go to each individual school um based upon our schedules to make sure we've got coverage do I have dates for that week um it's the first week of November oh it's the second 18 18 to 23 let you and she'll set she'll set up U the different schools and uh for people to sign up um but the first thing I want to do is make sure that every board member is okay with the uh with personally donating and and uh also providing the pin bars I believe we're still the favorite right okay my only question with that is do we cover everybody I mean there are different dietary restrictions I don't want to give a treat to people that can't eat it but maybe that's not a concern but I just there's gluten-free I mean they're amazing yeah but are amazing but I just want to make sure that everybody can have one each School prepares the pumpkin and they kind of know their staff There's issues so I can make sure that they accommodate accordingly and my only question is I know we we didn't talk about this so I appreciate you actually bringing this forward this year and being transparent that it's about $100 per board director to cover the pumpkin bar cost and since as a board we came under we came under our budget by like $40,000 I guess I would rather have it come out of our board budget since we have the budget there for it and actually it says in Minnesota state law that we are supposed to be um providing um I don't know what the language of the statute says but it says something about how we are supposed to be able we are supposed to be providing things to our staff to improve you know their morale and all these things it's actually written in State Statute um I'd have to pull up the statute but I would rather have it come out of our board budget I mean I'm not I just I just think that's what the bud is for so the problem with that is that our policy states that the only way we can provide food um for staff is if it's a 4-Hour meeting over a course of a meal and that um you are doing work over the meal hour that's we don't allow anybody to have any meetings at all in our district um and provide food unless those criteria to use our budget you're saying to use District fund that's tradition I mean but we do we have cookies for different events and I mean that's where I've seen the charges come through on the check register for different things and so I don't understand what I mean if we're under budget as a board why can't it come out of our board expense our board budget I mean rather than paying out of our own pocket again we don't allow food for employees unless it's a 4-Hour meeting over a meal that you work during the meal time so um there are exceptions like Sam Oak has PT or the parent advisory committees that he provides meals for those are Community Based those aren't staff based so we just don't allow food for staff can I uh just to exped this bringing food you're bringing food for the finance commit to my own pocket oh okay I do not ask for reimbursement for that okay I just I've seen it so but maybe we need to change the policy because Minnesota State Statute and I have to look up the email that I sent to CH last year of employees not necessarily I think it's worth looking at the statute because if our statute is not align to our policy then maybe we need to relook at our policy and what policy is it by the way it's not a policy it's a procedure so maybe it's procedures not aligning with Minnesota State Statute there also is statutes around how much you're allowed to do gift there's a gift law that can't be over $5 per person and you have to include everybody under $5 GI can I can I just um if we so first of all um cuz Ka what I'm hearing is we have one person that does not want to contribute that is not true that's not true so can we oh my go cuz we need to we need to um just it's a pretty simple discussion um um can we just do a thumbs up maybe to see if everyone's willing to split the cost and like we have done and actually um provide this out of our pockets to the teachers and celebration and recognition of American Education week absolutely the way that I've we've always done it going as far back as I can remember okay is everyone good with that and is everyone good with the pumpkin bars because that's what they want yeah yeah I mean that's fine I think we're going to change that come next year so that's fine we'll do that this year so thank you I'm so can I just good why are we changing it next year because I don't think it follows Minnesota state law why that's why I mean I I can I'll do more research on it but um I don't know any board and I know a lot of board members in the state I don't know any board member paying out of their own pocket for it so let's just if that's the will of the board then let's move forward I I think as in years past have certain board members aren't willing or or want or what AR aren't paying period if certain board members aren't paying I think the rest of the board is willing to OB some of that cost so um as that has happened in the past so I think I think that we know the will of the board for this year I just okay is are we good then and is are we do we have everyone contributing or do we need to reallocate the cost good good good good we voting for Julie okay yeah Julie's been fine with it before um director Atkinson are you good or would you like to abstain no I'm good I I just don't understand it because I think it violates Minnesota law which I will do some research on so okay so we're all good pumpkin bars um and it'll be about $100 per person right well the that's what it was last year so okay um so we're good with that and then we'll wait the schedule for American Education week uh and sign not for that appropriately and the next we have uh three proclamations and so um usually um director white what we normally do is just spread the love and let everyone uh read off once so in honor of you being a new board member could you please read the first Proclamation for business and finance staff appreciation week thank you get Prior Lake Savage area schools recognizes October 28th through November 1st 2024 is business and finance staff appreciation week this week we celebrate our thanks and gratitude for these essential staff whereas Prior Lake Savage area schools has nine business and finance staff whereas business and finance staff are responsible for the old overall District budget processing payables and receivables student nutrition and meals Transportation payments completing the annual audit tracking and Reporting enrollment monitoring contracts maintaining account codes preparing monthly Financial reports and ensuring fiscal compliance whereas business and finance staff provide accurate and transparent Financial reports for our Prior Lake Savage Area Community and taxpayers such as preliminary and final budgets property tax levies audit summaries enrollment updates and more and whereas business and finance staff are overseeing the $121 million general fund budget for the fiscal year 2025 therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends its appreciation to all Prior Lake Savage area school business and finance staff for their fiscal responsibility to our district which ultimately impacts the success of our students and declares October 28th through November 1st 2024 the business and finance staff Appreciation Week in Prior Lake Savage area schools and I would like to say thank you very much um I've had the privilege of working with this staff for the last three years there's some of the most dedicated hardworking um truly phenomenal staff that um make things happen and I appreciate them being recognized because they really do work really hard thank you thank you thank you as well um the next Proclamation is national school psychologist appreciation week and director Cosby did you read that one sure National School of psychologist appreciation week November 11th through the 15th Prior Lake Savage Area School recognized is November 11th through 15th 2024 as National School of psychologist appreciation week this week we celebrate our thanks and gratitude for these essential staff whereas during the week of November 11th through 15 2024 schools throughout the United States will celebrate National School psychology week to highlight the important work school psychologists and other Educators do to help all students Thrive whereas School psychologists apply expertise and mental health learning and and behavior to help children and youth succeed academically socially behaviorally and emotionally they provide assessment and support to students and partner with teachers and other professionals to create safe healthy and supportive learning environments therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends its appreciation to all fire Lake Savage area school psychologists for helping all students and declares November 11th through 15 2024 to be national school psychologist Appreciation Week from PR L savager schools thank you I want to thank the board for continuing to recognize these groups I know a lot of them fall into student Support Services um all we have eight School psychologists across the district and um they not only support special education but they are integral in our child find um so and when students begin to struggle they help our you know all staff find interventions and and track those interventions to see if we can help students where they're at um so I think they do a big load of work for just eight of them um so I'm really proud of the work that they do and and again thank you for recognizing them tonight you okay and then next we have Community Education appreciation week and director bullan will make this one Sure Fire Lake Sav area schools recognizes November 10th through 16th 2024 as community education Appreciation Week our District's more than 200 Community Education staff advisory council members and volunteers provide learning opportunities and resources for our community to develop lifelong skills this week we express our gratitude for these Community Educators whereas National Community Education day will be celebrated on November 7th 2024 whereas the governor of Minnesota Tim Tim Walls has proclaimed November 7th 2024 as Community Education day in the state of Minnesota whereas Community Education staff and volunteers deliver and support a wide range of educational opportunities for Learners of all ages and stages of life from Early Childhood to youth programs to adult education programs and more whereas the members of the Community Education advisory Council serve the crucial role of sharing Community perspectives to advise the department and the director in the full fulfillment of the department Mission whereas the Board of Education encourages all community members to engage in Community Education through participating in a wide variety of activities programs and services helping provide New Opportunities or serving on an advisory Council therefore let it be resolved the Board of Education hereby extends its appreciation to Community Education staff advisory council members and volunteers for serving our entire Community with learning opportunities and resource to develop lifelong skills and declares November 10th through 16 2024 to be Community Education Appreciation Week in Prior Lake Savage areas thank you that's probably one of the longest proclamations that you have I appreciate that I thank you to the board we do appreciate that you recognize uh the efforts and the work that our Community Education team puts into providing these opportunities for students in our community I also have to thank the District staff Administration um for their partnership and support um clearly we can do what we do without Partnership of our schools the staff allowing us to come in and utilize their spaces um and a lot of them actually teaching and providing classes for us so we do appreciate that um I have an amazing team um I was blessed three years ago I have the opportunity to come work in the P Lake Savage area schools uh working with this great team and feel really fortunate to be doing so so thank you for recognizing those efforts thank you for your leadership y thank you okay on the policy uh the first policy we have is 6065 um and I will hand this over to director Furman thank you chair brands members of the board to go over policy 6065 um as you recall this is a policy that we asked the board to um remove our previous agenda um as we were receiving updated guidance from legal um with the most recent St um statutory changes there's just a lot of um information that was coming to us so we wanted to to bring this back to the policy advisory committee um and um the original Library selection group um to get um their their inputs on it as well so I'm just going to highlight some of the key differences from the model policy from our legal team um the uh key difference that we added as we discussed last last time we were reviewing the policy was having the library Bill of Rights um um statement underneath the purpose to fulfill the statuto requirement of having an intellectual and academic um Freedom statement while the statute doesn't require it to be in policy it does require the school to have one um in their uh School library collection development plan therefore the policy advisory committee felt it'd be important just to keep this in the policy so that's it's easy for all community members to to reference this um this was a point of conversation last time we reviewed this um any concerns around the potential of the library Bill of Rights um and speaking to the different um parental rights on that and we have addressed that that the um American Library Association um clearly states that that the the parental rights um still exist and we can talk about that a little bit later in the policy as well um the other I'm going to skip over anything that's just formatting changes and just speak to any major content differences um under Section 3 um B we did change the layout of those items um from what legal was recommending just to make it a little bit more clear that when looking at selection material we uh the policy advisory committee felt very strongly that all materials um shall reflect ages and maturity levels of students in the buildings whereas previously when it was located in a list that had an ore attached to it it made it sound like that was an option whereas we wanted that to be um the case for all selection materials and make that very clear that all materials should reflect age maturity levels of the students and then from there the library selection as a whole should include those the the rest of the the bullets under there and I'm noticing now with that change there's a number change that will have to happen so I'll get that cleaned up the other differential that we went with from legal counsel under Section 3D was legal counil um recommendation was to not accept donated materials um just so there's not that additional risk and administrative burden of processing donated materials however we felt very strongly as a policy advisory committee to allow for that so we're still able to have community members donate materials um Scholastic Book Fairs being able to donate um uh donate materials through all that and ensuring that those Dona materials still would follow the policy and the selection guidelines um but still allow for that so that part of our strategic direction making sure that we're optimizing those resources the next change um as I reference when talking about the intellectual and academic freedom statement um is under policy 5 so um legal recommended that we do would not be responsible for honoring parents um ban for their students to have access to specific Library material we feel we have a very um proven process in place that allows for a stu a parent or a legal guardian to make the request to limit that access for their individual student or students um that we felt that was very uh important to still move forward with an include um we did keep legal statement at the top of that that parents and Guardians are responsible for speaking with their parents about Library materials they choose to access for independent reading but then added back in our language from our previous policy drafts to make sure we can maintain our our current practice um with partnering with with families and partnering with parents and the your Guardians to have those conversations the next one is underneath five e um we did bring forward that we had a really robust conversation at all the different advisory committees and also at at the board table when we're previously reviewing the document to have a conversation about who um who could be included in the Review Committee so we pulled that language forward um and I believe that's the only other major changes that we had from legal council's um draft of this policy um but Dr Thomas or Dr Edwards if there's anything that I missed I think you covered IT director bullan everything covered from policy advisory um you did a great job um any question yeah my first question is that this policy also Pudo went through the teaching and learning committee I mean I have emails from several of the people who were on that committee back in January when we first reviewed it will this be going back to teaching and learning committee yeah I think that would be our intent would be to bring this back so before we vote on it bring it back to teaching teaching learning committee next Monday yeah we'll be Rie it then update okay right and then um I have several several comments but I don't know how we want to go through it um I think that you know the the more I look through this policy again and thinking about what you said about legal I did read that in the law but I don't see it in any other school district's policy now I didn't look through every School District to be fairly you know to be clear with you I just kind of spot checked like five or six of them regarding the library Bill of Rights and um I still am like adamantly opposed to having it in there because I think it it opens up a lot of strange things like a library doesn't charge late fees and we actually charge late fees as a school district because my student has gotten them he hasn't returned his books I think it opens up a Cana worms for privacy issues um so I'd like to better understand it's also not in the msba policy so I really truly want to understand why this Library Bill of Rights is on here because I think it opens opens up a lot of um can of worms and where if it's not on here where does it need to be as it pertains to the Minnesota state statute because I did see that little bit of information in the statute about it Dr ainson to be clear legal guidance did not have this in their draft um this was something that the um Library selection material um original committee and the policy advis committee um recommended to have in there for the purpose of having a One-Stop shop for people to know what our academic and intellectual um Freedom statement is um so if it's not in policy then it would need to be in our library uh curriculum development plan materials in every single one of our libraries um so that was the recommendation from the policy advisory committee in the library section um I don't even know what title that group was I apologize but the original group that started looking at this was so it's in a One-Stop shop so that every um our parents our staff know where to find that versus having it somewhere else buried in a plan that might not be as easily accessible to community members parents something like that so that was the rationale to have our academic freedom statement um referenc within the purpose PA of the policy I I get it I don't necessarily agree with it like I said I think it opens up lot can of RS the different things that we're not a library ultimately we can't have every book that a library would typically have nor should we have every book that a library has um the other thing and like I said I have a lot of comments I don't even know to start on this but um the under definitions under um definitions Library a it says this policy does not govern access to electronic materials that are accessed through the internet but then if you go down to B it says that Library materials um means databases which would be access through the internet so it like contradicts each other and it says also available to students in a library or through access to electronic materials so like a contradicts B you see what I'm saying like if we're saying okay this policy doesn't cover electronic materials or or things access through the internet then how can we say that lab materials are things that are electronic and on the internet like it like do you understand what I'm saying yeah so director Atkinson low conflict of yeah I think it's the the understanding of that last sentence in section A because we have a separate policy that actually governs the yeah so so we we wanted that to make sure that that withstands you know the governance of the electronic because we have a separate policy for we could reference that policy there and let me just I thought it was in the already so says um It also says Library materials do not include materials made available to students as part of the curriculum but yet the students are going through are you a again oh I'm still back in B I'm back in B but it also says Library materials do not include materials made available to to students as part of the curriculum but yet they do go to the library to check out books as a supplement to their curriculum so I understand sort of what we're trying to say but it's still they're still part of their curriculum don't we have a curriculum policy yeah we have yeah so that's again the same concept same concept and that was P that was the 606 yeah I also know districts who combine the two but um um the other thing is um under D um so I'm going Forward Unto D um we use the word of scene but actually in the Supreme Court case they use the word pervasively vulgar and per pervasively vulgar means means that something is repeated vulgarity is repeated multiple times throughout the material and um I don't know I just kind of like because we do talk about the Supreme Court case here and that's actually where even though the Supreme Court's case of Pico or whatever it is called is where a lot of this is coming from um I don't know I kind of like to I like to use word wording that was consistent with that but um So based off of legal's opinion um they're they're rationale for including that is actually based off the Supreme Court case versus California which is referenced um so it would be my recommendation to stick with legal opinion not including that that definition okay um and then let's see um under initial selection of Library materials there's there's a a b okay so we go into the criteria so this is the criteria I do like how it says shall reflect the ages and maturity levels of students in the building um um I read in the I think the msba policy has enrich and support curriculum versus enrich support or supplement curriculum it's just a little that's like semantical type of stuff but they use enrich and support curriculum um and then the other word I kept hearing whether it's in policies or going back to that um Supreme Court case is they use the book should be academically suitable and so one thing that we don't talk about here is that we don't talk about how um and I wrote this instead of number six promote Equity of an understanding of the views triumphs and struggles of others I'm I feel like we need to make sure that when our Librarian Is selecting materials that it shall support and be consistent with the general educational goals of the district and aligned with the Str strategic plan because nowhere in this whole list does it say that the materials that they're selecting should be consistent with the educational goals of our district which ultimately should align to the Strategic plan so under four I'm sorry it's a 3 B4 which will eventually be the new B3 M um educational significance is the component of where it needs to be aligned and so I wrote I actually crossed that off because I didn't like that word and I wrote academically suitable because I I felt like academically suitable was a stronger word versus educational significance we're focusing on academic Excellence um so that's where like my general takeover of that whole list was it lacked the aligning to the Strategic plan and that the purchase the things that they purchased should in general be aligned to the educational goals of the district and the Strategic plan why I added that point um that was one comment there so the current number six you're saying you don't think aligns to the Strategic plan the well I just don't think it's necessary I mean when you're looking at the criteria I'm just trying to understand yeah no I think yeah I cross that out and I wrote shall support and be consistent with the general educational goals of the district and Alli as a strategic plan so promoting Equity or an understanding of the views triumphs or struggles of others does not align with our strategic plan no I just didn't think it I didn't say that I did not say that what I said is I don't think number six is necessary okay to have it in this criteria selection I think it's more important to pick out books that are that are help our students with their academics than promoting equity and their worldviews and all those things so I just want there yeah thanks seems to me uh that as you go down the list you're probably hear me say this or not that some things just go without saying it seems to me that if we are provide materials that that do enrich and support that do promote reading for pleasure that do reflect these values of of of art and literature and educational significance if they do promote critical thinking then six happens I don't think it needs to be there I think it's word salad that is unnecessary if we're doing one through five six will happen that's just my my thought I just don't I just don't think it's necessary if it's the will of the board to to look at removing that I'll have to double check with legal to to make sure that's not in there in order to meet the new statuto requirements either um but it would be helpful for me as all this feedback is coming through if this is the will of the board um so that I know what to to bring forward to the next meeting or not um so in terms of the feedback on 3B one through what should be five um is can I just get a better understanding what the will of the board is on on that so I know what to actually make edits for for the next meeting I disagree I think it's needed and with all due respect I don't think Equity is word salid I think it's crucial so I I would like to keep it in we have an equity resolution with our district that I think this speaks to I agree with director all said I think understanding the views triumphs and struggles of others is very much like inherent in reading stories about other people that we can't have lived experience of in our own bubble in our own worlds and I think that's exactly what library materials are about I'm I I like six to just got done reading a book also that that would fit that category um perfectly and so I and again if it's um if it helps with the understanding of the selection criteria even if it is duplicative I don't see a problem with leaving it in I also um I I don't remember this being discussed in depth during the policy advisory committee um listening to uh some of the feedback back um I can I can hear their I can hear the points of view but I also um don't have a problem with it being left in there um I think I think stating that um it would automatically have I don't know I guess I just don't have a I would say that my my preference given the it going through policy committee and it not I guess my preference would be to leave it as is and I would just say is if we're going to leave first of all I think it needs to go through teaching and learning committee I think that's great that it's going through teaching and learning and get their feedback um the other thing I would just say is can we please add something in that our books in the library should help to support the education of our students I mean I'm just I'm like it's kind of I'm not kind of not seeing it here you know what I mean so can I get feedback then on B it's listed right now as four but would B3 on educational significance or changing it to I'm sorry Dr a I had academically suitable they have to be suitable for the academic like they have to be academic suitable that's that's actually the language that's used in the court case which is um which one is it sorry I listened to it today um it's the Pico Bo ofation versus Pico they use two words in there they use propulsively vager basically they they basically said like books should not be included in the library if they're propulsively vager and they should be included in the library if they're academically suable it's actually a pretty easy case to read um so that's why I like the language in that case or in that as academically suitable so will the board between educationally um C versus academically suitable I'll start um I like educational significance I think academically suitable is a little too hard to Define and um having read the Pico case too um I'm not quite sure that was the point of the Pico case so um I I would re rely on our legal counsel if they put this language in there um I am certainly fine with it but I do I would have concern over academically suitable just because that is a very hardto Define um term and I think significance for education is kind of embedded in the whole selection criteria [Music] anyways just my thought I mean I didn't I already sent in my comments and notes on this and I did not have a problem with the educ significance I'm fine with educational significance I have a question I've heard you say that to France you does everybody get to provide feedback on policies when working on thems I haven't done that so it's my understanding that um we submit our our materials Monday before the board meeting and then board members try to submit all their feedback and questions by Friday um to help facilitate the conversation at the board meeting oh okay I I okay um I'm sorry to go back I just want to make sure it doesn't get missed so I I know what I'm bringing back forth so can I just make sure I hear from the whole board on on this one I'm comfortable with the language that's in there given it went through legal so that was the recommendation I could go either way I don't think it I matters okay um and then another concern I had and I actually would like to get director W's um feedback on this because in other policies I've read again several boards are working on this policy other boards talk about allowing residents to be a part of the review you know if there's a a book to be challenged um residents can have the right to do that as well we do not L list residents and I know we've talked about this in the past but um director right being new I'd love to get your perspective as a as a Dr ainson just to confirm where we're at in policy are you under 5e so I jumped um AP my sincere apologies I jumped all the way to um five request to remove specific Library materials so in that list we talk about and I know in our other 6060 whatever the 606 policy is for just regular curriculum residents are included but then in this one we did not include residents um so I just wanted to are you on 5c oh I'm sorry no I'm 5A right 5A sorry okay thank you yep 5A so we list out who can challenge so an 18 old student who attends school if they're not it's a parent or Guardian who is less than 18-year-old who attends the school um and then it says also that um the principle of the building in which Library mat is located the distant superintendent or a qu quum of the school board is evidenced by a vote at the school board open meeting um those are all ways that these items can be challenged but we do not talk about residents and um we we did have this conversation policy advisory committee and I know I'm repeating myself but to your point direct Jackson um for director White's feedback um the policy advisory committee um from my perspective and Dr bullan um and Dr Edwards Dr Thomas please chime in if if you recall differently they felt very strongly that Library selection material should be able to be reviewed and challenged by those that are impacted in the buildings um and having um community members that aren't in the buildings um accessible to to um there was concern about their ability to limit access for all students um within those buildings which felt very different to the policy advisor committee than curriculum um type conversation so um based off of the the original committee that reviewed this and the policy advisory committee that reviewed this they both felt very strongly to not um have citizens um as part of our taxpayers as part of that list um because those that are directly impacted the library should be the ones that that have that that voice but that was my recollection of those meetings um from from that feedback that's why we left um it with the legal language and didn't make any changes to that so in the p i mean what's the history here who who in the past has has challenged a a material is it exclusively a parent or it has been parents yes it's only been it's only been parents y I think in our district we've only had Parents um I think I've read policies that say residents because the residents would say well we're taxpayers so we we're buying you know we're paying to fund some of these M we're paying so that's the only reason I brought it up I wanted perspective so um the other thing is number B The Limited number of requests because of the time required to process a request for removal the district will process no more than nine request one for each full month that school is in session for removal per school year um I just I wonder if this is necessary and then the other thing is we don't even in here list like we in our old policy we used to say like the process will be done within a month so like we used to have much more like guidelines on how long the process would actually take and I don't know I just don't understand I if we have a whole slew of books that are questionable which we don't like people ask me all the time and I'm like our district is actually really clean we we we've done a good job of um our our media Specialists have done a really good job for the most part of monitoring what's in our libraries but um I mean would we limit it I mean I just if if I I just don't I think that's for me sorry okay sorry just for to do um a thorough job um this is a there's a lot involved in this process and and just the couple that we've had um PS a lot of time from folks to be able to go through this process review the materials Etc um I think it's reasonable to your very point that you know our media centers are pretty pretty standard media centers so um putting a cap actually kind of doesn't really it's kind of a move Point um if if one is true that our media centers are in decent shape uh opening it up infinitely doesn't really make sense I would also just liken this to data requests um you know if we had the ability to cap um just because of the time it takes for everything else that our media Specialists are doing we don't want to burden them with that and you know if it's not a common practice capping is not impeding anybody at this point um so if we find that we get a surge we can maybe the board wants to R address that we can reing It Forward yeah so yeah From legal's perspective um the rationale why they have it in their draft policy um is to limit that that overall risk to District should they all of a sudden get 60 that come in and you have it in your policy it only is going to take you 30 days but you get 60 that come in out out of nowhere you're setting yourself up for a policy that you're going to be in violation of because you just optim you can't you can't complete that so in terms of like strategically looking at our our strategic plan and optimizing our resources and setting clear expectations um with our within our policies um this helps create that expectation um that this is what we op this is what our resources can support this is how the cap of what we could get um reasonably done within the year calar year was the rationale behind legals including it yeah okay and then moving on um under e the appointment of the Review Committee um I'm still challenged with this um with the who who picks the committee because ultimately the board is elected we are elected as representatives of the committee and ultimately the books and the curriculum and all everything located in the school districts should really ultimately represent the views and the values of the of the community and so my question is and I've seen this written in other policies where the school board actually picks the committee so every board director will pick one person or whatever yes they can be made up of this list and I'm fine with the list but um I'm wondering because it says in Minnesota State Statute that the board is has is actually responsible for it says textbooks in the statute But ultimately that's curriculum well textbooks can be textbooks or textbooks I textbooks are part of oury I I think I I understand what you're saying but you're getting real close to the line of of of managing there we certainly can say Dr Thomas put a committee together MH that's well within our right I'm not sure it's within our right to do that work for him that that that's getting it may or may not be to to me and the way I understand a role that's getting m either close to the line or it's pretty fuzzy yeah I mean man management and so my point is so we have to be able to say to Dr Thomas we trust you to put this community together in a way that reflects the views of the community that's completely reasonable uh but to do what you're saying again I think might buddy the pool and get close to well I think let me explain a little differently we review the charters for our finance committee we review the charters for our um teaching and learning committee so I was just thinking of it in that respect of like you see what I'm saying like those are board committees yeah that's see that's why I at this this is not a board this is not a board committee okay and I I saw it as a board committee so um okay hson I think a good distinguisher in my mind if it's helpful um just a perspective um the board committees is under the 200 policies that are lined out and described they have different procedures and policies than these other committees that we do whether that's the sped committee or the insurance curriculum or the insurance committee that we just had today um those are those are are both using the term committee but they're different in terms of how they're structured thank you and then um going all the way down to um let's see it is under I for review and report so I was part of one of the review processes last year and the policy or when we did the the book review it was um part of open meeting law we I it was whatever our policy said it was subject to open meeting law and so the review was open to the public and I personally thought it was really helpful to be open to the public because I thought it was really great for the public to hear the different perspectives and maybe understand why a book is in our library or versus maybe why a book was being challenged for different reasons under here we're saying a meeting is not required so that to me tells me that we're not going to be following that process is that correct Dr ainson I believe the the rationale for legal councel to have that in here is the opportunity for um the media specialist along with the superintendent and desne to make a determination in a timely manner should uh the meeting not be needed to make said decision um and potentially withdraw a material um quickly um as the rush and all that I believe that came from um and we've had experiences with that in the past where there was a material that came to attention that we needed to remove um in a timely manner and we exercise that right um this is documenting that that that would that would be one of those situations that we would be able to move quickly on on the request but gen General practices they will be there will be a public meeting you know to to thoroughly review if there was something there was a book as was referenced that was clearly um in not something that we would want in our libraries and we didn't pull a task force together I directed it to be removed um so so that's that's what happened in that in that regard to that to that particular book so maybe that needs to be worded a little differently maybe I'm or am I reading it incorrectly say the meeting is not required um the other thing that I I found between the two book reviews that we had and I'm just again going based on experience um and looking at other policies at the review process I believe in one of them we actually did a vote and in the other one there was no Vote or vice versa and I can't remember it was a long time ago but in one of the policies I read they write that decisions are rendered by a majority vote and a tie remains a status quo and voting is closed ballot so they actually give a a very distinctive description of how it will be determined in the in the review and the reporting process that decisions are rendered by a majority vote Attie remain status quo and voting is closed ballot um the other thing that I really liked and I know this would like extend us working on this policy but the school district one of a a very large school district in our state actually is working on a code of conduct for people who attend the Review Committee and they're working on a code of conduct for people who are part of the review Comm and so there basically are different like rules like if if you're going to attend the meeting you have to follow this code of conduct and if you're going to be part of the Review Committee you have to follow this code of conduct because even during our review process last year we had people bringing in Signs and Banners and it was it was just there was no standards basically and so I can share those with the rest of the board if you'd like I brought them it's actually oio School District so um a very large school district is working on this policy and they've been working on it for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks so it's kind of um interesting but um so I lik it added like a little bit more robust language in there about voting process I I might just comment on that that that could lead into the procedural piece a little bit more because we we well I mean it from a standpoint of under the direction of the superintendent since it's not a board committee so kind of out of our purview however we're saying it our policy after voting we're acknowledging that there would be voting but we're not going to give direction on exactly what that would look like so you're saying it should be under the procedure part yeah I yeah that's kind of where my head went went with that yeah as long as there's a standard because like I said I think it was different in each of the different processes so standard procedure yeah standard procedure and then I can share with you the other like I said the code of conducts I thought those were really helpful um so I'm sorry before we move on I'm just going to be a little stickler here to make sure that what to change not so we're good with keeping that language as is and um and bring forward through a procedure documentation that would be more the the process of voting I I think that would be helpful Dr Thomas that is under Dr Thom right I just for this policy's purposes I think we're fine okay and then I have one more thing so um under the appeal process so I'm good with most of it except for the very ending where it says the decision of the superintendent is final unless the Quorum of the school board voted at an open meeting to initiate the process to determine whether specific Library material should be removed if according with the school board initiated the r review process the superintendent's decision may be appealed to the school board on review the school board is bound by the review criteria outlined in this policy and so I guess we have haven't had any books that the board has actually brought forth and said we need to vote that we want to review these so it's basically saying if a parent brings forth a if I'm understanding this correctly correct with my wrong if a parent brings forth a book and challenges it it goes through the committee and it still gets approved to be in the school district which two of them did last year that parent can then appeal it to the superintendent and the superintendent can say nope I we're good with this and in the past it could go to the board for a final decision and this is saying that doesn't happen because the board didn't initiate the process is that correct I think this is saying um sorry Dr ainson I think this is saying unless the board chooses to bring it forward to a board meeting so similar to like your future agenda items Aquarium of the board would need to say we would like to bring this forward and review this process at the board table and I would just say that in mba's policy it under number six it literally says the requestor shall have the right to appeal the decision of the superintendent to the school board and and that that's what this is saying through our legal attorney's lens but that is the conversation that was shared with us by legal that um the board is the appet court if you will the board has ultimate authority over the we would come to the it would come um board has the ability to hear an appeal above and beyond where things landed with the superintendent's designes process if you will or the superintendent's process if a book challenge um is not something that um a Community member liked then they could say um I would like to bring this forward to to the board's consideration is a is a possibility or the board as a quorum if you all um say you know what that last book Challenge and there's a quorum to say we would like to review that ourselves that could be something that you could initiate as a as a board so as a majority yeah so to be clear a citizen or a somebody who appeals the superintendent the superintendent over rules it they could email the board and at an open meeting the board could say whether or not they're going just to keep up with the case language the the board at open meeting would determine whether or not they're going to review it so almost kind of like the Supreme Court says like I'm not listening to that or I am going to listen to that I'm going to take up this case or I'm not going to take up this case it gives the board an ability to whether say whether or not as as the will of the board do they want to take this up and do they want to listen to this or not not are they going to stand by the superintendent's decision without uh without further appeal process okay so it doesn't limit the ability for the board to it just has the board an additional decision on the on the will of the board for them to determine whether or not they are going to take up the appeal got it okay that makes more sense read that way and then the the only other thing is um I actually like the idea of shortening the number of days that they have to do their written appeal within five calendar days is what I've read and some other policies versus 14 so then it kind of shortens that whole process so you know I don't know that's Petty but um I that was not one of comment I had and believe it or not that are all just from a personal standpoint Dr ainson um I I'm a a introverted processor so 5 days would feel very pressuring to me yeah um so I mean I I again I'll go with whatever the wheel of the board is but I would just say from a a professional standpoint 5 days feels a lot of pressure to determine whether or not you want to write an appeal put the work into it you know vacations kids all that comes into play so I don't know care said I just read it in another so that's all I have as a board anybody else have anything I just just a couple of things um under 2D the the would have seen you said that that the uh definition came straight from the from the Supreme Court case would it would it help would it be helpful to add at the end of the sentence that says um when taken as a whole does not have serious literary artistic political uh or scientific value to add educational in there because one person's I've seen is another person's whatever and if if we keep going back to educational value I think that that helps that that paragraph automatically its own removes a lot of controversy around what may are may not being in a libr that's just I think that one word would help director white I I would if that is the will of the board to look at that I would like to seek legal counsel on that because that changes the definition of obscene that's been upheld by the by a Supreme Court case and case law um so I would I would just caution the board on changing a definition that's that's very clearly been stated in case law um I do feel from my perspective that the 3B would be where we would rely on that whereas the 2D is just the definition of obscene um but I I'm open to the will of the board that's just my perspective and which case Claw is that coming out of because I don't see that I don't see that in mba's policy either not that their policies are perfect but I'm just curious which um if you look at the case law um from Miller versus California oh that one okay and then we also have the reference to misso State Statute 617 241 MH the reference of obscene materials yeah so we're just checking with the board is um director white where you all are at with thumbs um pending a legal review if that would substantially change um the the definition or if we maintain it and if so we would maintain it in B but just want to get the will of the board if that's something we will pursue if this is um the definition of obscene by itself um for legal definition statting yeah I would say I would want to hear what legal had to say I I think this is taken from legal advice so I'm fine with it as as it is um but if adding educational doesn't change um the interpretation then we can find that out so that's two of you that to pursue the potential of adding education um my um my concern is is this where we want to spend our money if legal's already given us this definition and matches Statute in the Supreme Court I'm not quite sure that's what I would want to spend a couple hundred dollars per hour on but that's just me okay I agree okay um I think think we're going to have some serious challenges with this policy coming out of teaching and learning so I think it's worth looking at it so if I could seek some clarification on that topic um I I my intent would be simply to informational only I am not going to teaching and learning advisory seeking additional comment unless that were the will of the board at this point because of the amount of vetting that this policy has had through a series of reviews that would be my recommendation and I would be concerned if you did send it through teaching and learning since this isn't curriculum but it is I mean that's why we went through it the first time we spent a whole whole session going through this so I would expect it to go through P Lear which is I've said in the past and it has yes all the way back in January before the statutory changes as well as the um as well as I don't know if you're coming to our meeting on Monday but um it'd be great to have your expertise there to to talk about why some of this stuff is in there and why I mean versus just a presentation and then it upsets everybody or half whatever people on the curriculum committee who are representes of parents and community members I think what we would do is we would get the we would get the perspectives from that you know it may or may not change the policy but definitely they're going to be able to share their perspectives on that I just clear about that sorry if that was interpreted as information only you can't speak they will be able to speak and and and share or get clarification they just want to be cognizant of the they're not voting or approving that the policy Committee in consultation with legal are legal um representation in creation of said policy as a result of recent legislative changes I would support seeing it because I think any way we can add in educational value because at the end of the day every book we buy should be educating our students somehow whether it's pleasure of learning or reading or whatever but they go to the library to learn something I mean so I think yeah I mean I think we're all in agreement on that and I think I mean in my view not to I don't want to minimize section 3B like there's a lot of information there pertaining to what we all are here talking about in terms of educational value so I mean can we add some language to that maybe does It capture already what we view as like I think it does I think we were you know director white you said you thought one through five captured it therefore six happens and the will of the board was to keep six in there but still the same outcome you know so um I don't want to minim I should say sorry the numbers are wrong so you know what I mean you know what I mean but I think we're I think that's there I don't want to say it's not there so just I mean as we're talking about this I want to like highlight that I would just like to see it more robust and I think by doing that it might add that robustness to it um because academics Excellence is on our strategic plan it's one of the things that we talked about the most and so ultimately we don't have just a lot of books in the library so people can go read for fun I mean we have to have materials that support our curriculum and support our students ability to learn would you so adding academic Excellence somewhere in that section 3B like you talked about would be could I offer maybe a recommendation for consideration um in order for to because I I as I've expressed I have concerns with changing legal definition based off of case law but I'm I happy to ask legal about it as well um would it would it be helpful to make it more robust in the purpose statement a statement around the Strategic direction or strategic plan and I can draft something to bring forward for consideration um that just makes it clear from the get-go the purpose of you because that very first one is a vital component of student education and we can maybe make that a little bit more robust a little bit more explicit align with the then as you're reading the policy you already have that it's overarching it's an umbrella everything underneath it is under that purpose so maybe that could help and then not impede with a case a definition would that suffice director right yeah that's that's fine that's yeah and I actually had that written into the purpose statement I had at the very end of the very first first section after the word School period And I have and are academically suitable so I actually added that in there I just want to because we've been on this for quite some time um and um in all fairness most of us are fine with it I believe um I think we have a couple of questions that director Herman has as a takeaway but um I I could speak for myself I'd like to hear from everybody else that the majority of changes and the questions I've already had and submitted and reviewed um with um director Herman uh pursuant to the policy committee um um I was I was fine with and and did receive an answer on so um I am hearing that we have one board director um that has some concerns but I'm not hearing it from the whole board so I'd like to try to narrow this down to exactly what direction we're giving to Administration as a board um so we can kind of with all the respect move on I think this was the last point and I think director ol said um was the last remaining person on that point um but then everything else I think was covered so and the question director said sorry I know we kind of went in and out the director white talked about the uh language of uh three sorry 2D to add um language around educational value and um went back and forth a bit on that and then director Herman just recommending to not go into the legal vetting of that at an hourly rate and perhaps could that be uh addressed in the purpose statement so if we are going to do that um you were the last person to kind of weigh in on um do we keep things as is or would you also um support uh adding educational value aligned to kind of the Strat plan stronger in the purpose statement so 2D I just wanted because that was kind of a long condition 2D um a change there was a a request to change 2D the recommendation was because legal had because this was the legal definition do we want to go to legal and see if they want to change it or Dr uh director Herman sorry I'm keep elevating yours uh uh made a suggestion of adding the educational significance I believe value to the purpose statement and making that change or none at all um I can help help pleas pleas sum that up please based on what um director Herman said I me I can withdraw my request if we can just you know put that that purpose language just a little bit I think that more than does what I was looking for I'm seeing a lot of head no is anyone not okay with adjusting the purpose statement to add the educational value A Little Bit Stronger I will work on drafting something for that thank you thank you any other questions or comments on 66. five moving on to 701 um 701 um I do not believe we had any substantial changes to this we just structurally um making adjustments and changes based off of our um continuing attempt as a policy advisory committee to streamline some things within policy also adding the um District website now that we no longer have a newspaper available questions or feedback on this one we move forward to 71.2 so 71.2 um major changes here um I'll have director frederson speak to as well um under the minimum fund balance um removing the an assigned and the range um so the fund balance is at least 8% yeah we reviewed actually um 50 different um school districts the um Ms or the mazow group has a um listing of all of not all have many school districts and what their fund balance policy is and there are none of them that have un um the assigned it is just the unassigned um and many of them have a 5% minimum um there are a few that have 8 to 12 there's couple of them that have a 15% um but as we met with the finance advisory committee and the policy committee um we agreed it would be much less confusing if we took out the signed fund balance and just include the unsign which is what every other District does and then we had a quite robust conversation about um rather we wanted to have a range um and I think the director bullan we had um the conversation that if we have a range of 8 to 12 it kind of limits us we felt like it was know loocking us in whereas if we say a minimum of um 8% and then review it every year that there is more of an opportunity to um kind of adjust it to what the reality is to add a little bit from the policy advisory committee discussion um you know the the pros to having a range that were discussed at policy advisory committee was ensuring that the dollars that we have available right now are spent on our kids right now and that concern of having a fund balance be too high and patting a a a quote unquote savings account too much and having it in the 20s or 30s or something along those lines um wouldn't that be nice but but um the the flip side to that conversation is just how much confusion this is caused around it's under the minimum fund balance category and it's saying the range minimally um is 8 to 12 so some people read that as the minimum has to be between 8 to 12 it's not a cap whereas other people read as a cap and then the potential of um pressures if it's over the 12% to utilize a fund balance for ongoing reoccurring cost versus um spending it on onetime cost um so that removing of the range ultimately the policy advisory committee came to the consensus that removing of the range allowed for the flexibility um based off of foreseen um uh changes in in in the financial environment that would allow the board to have more flexibility as um making sure there's always that that floor but having a more flexibility for the board to have a different um ceiling and if I remember correctly um in that conversation which we did have a it was a lengthy conversation regarding um some of the confusion with the current language also um we talked about not wanting to have a snapshot so if if we had a fund balance that was over the 12% which sometimes we do um being mindful that um this isn't just taken by a month-to-month snapshot because it does fluctuate um and so there was much conversation uh regarding that and um we came to a consensus that um to alleviate confusion that often lies with the current language would be to how it is recommended in this policy thank you for your explanation because I did have a question on that because that's a it's a very small but it's a big change in our policy so thank you for explaining because that was my question so what you say makes a lot of sense um the rest of the changes um were just structural changes um nothing uh that was substantial and oh go ahead go ahead I um so when I see 4 to six weeks that makes me a little nervous just me personally doesn't seem like it's enough but if you're you comfortable with that 8% you know I'm assuming that will always equal in that range of weeks what the budget is um are you confident that you'll be comfortable with that 99% of the time yes I I actually am because there's also the um restricted fund balance which if we know we have something that we're going to need to spend in the next couple years we can always put money in the restricted fund balance that will set aside those dollars specifically for a purpose um again I think the challenge is especially um kind of what districts are going through right now with most of them having to look at reductions um I I I think we need to look at this year's money previous year's kids and decide you know what where our priorities are and and if we start getting um much higher fund balance and we keep saying there are still needs why aren't we um addressing those needs with this fund balance so I in my experience of doing fund balance policies um over my 30-year career I I fairly me 95% confident that that this will be fine and again we look at it we provide financial statements every month to the board so we're constantly looking at it if we know things are going to maybe not end up the way that we think we are we still have time to adjust and and I would just say I I'm personally only having four to six weeks of savings in our savings account in my own personal savings account would make me very nervous I would love to see the number closer to 12% especially since we're taking out the unassigned and the assigned so to me this feels like we're even reducing it even farther because if I'm understanding this correctly because now we're taking away the assigned even though I know the assigned doesn't go away um I I don't know I I get the I get that we want to spend on the kids which we have done in the past the very first year on the board here we invested a million and a half or whatever it was um and so we have done that in the past um but going down to only having four to six weeks in our savings account is very concerning to me it doesn't make me comfortable or feel like it's a fiscally responsible thing to do um so that's just my I would like to see it closer to I'd like to see it just stay at 12% I was part of that finance committee meeting we talked about it um collectively and I mean I'm comfortable at 8% change going to unassign it's a smaller amount of money right so that logically aligns with that like if you have assigned and unassigned that 12% makes more sense the I didn't mind actually keeping a range in there because I do feel like spending the money on the K you know today's money on today's is as important but I think it is hard to manage in our in our somewhat volatile Financial world I mean look at the experience we had during Co with we had excess funds that we I mean half the time we it was moving so quickly and things were changing so quickly from a staffing percentage it was hard to pin down exactly where we were so so I don't I'm I'm I supported this language the finance committee did as well I can understand the value of range as well so and just even looking when we were discussing this I think even if you look through our past few months there was I mean the fund the fund balance had like large large fluctuations and so um yeah we you know we did discuss this really thoroughly asking director Frederickson if she about her comfortability um yeah I I know um and I think one of the conversations we had at the policy committee was this isn't just going to be a one andone we reviewed this every month there's in the financial statements um if it looks like there's going to be an issue the board can certainly um you know recommend that we change the increase the whatever the minimum is um and it's not going to be done just in isolation we are constantly looking everyone and reviewing what we expect to happen in the next few months I think that was the policy felt comfortable that as long as we were reviewing it leing is as it is okay any other questions or comments for 71.2 okay two 702 um there were no um substantial changes just formatting changes and adding legal references no comments okaye 72.1 um no changes just clean up and 703 703 um Tammy do you want to speak to the edits um proposed around the RFP process for auditing yes um so the the finance committee and the policy committee both had um un ly conversations about whether we wanted to spe um specify in policy that um we would do an RFP every 5 years um we certainly can um I I just hesitate to put it in policy um one of the challenges that I think you can talk to any business manager in any district will tell you that one of the challenges you have when you get a new auditing firm is they have new software they have new process on what they're requiring from you they their Reports look different the information they're asking you um for looks a little different than so it takes almost two years to kind of get into the rhythm of of they can come in you know exactly how they want the data you know what they're going to ask for you know um what their software is you upload the files and everything works very smoothly and if you're changing that every five years it just becomes kind of a burden if you will that that we have to kind of spend more time than what normally would um and again this doesn't Prelude us from doing an RFP um I just again hesitate to just have it in policy that we're going to do it every five years this is the one question I had on this one um because I do feel an RFP process is is is smart um is there a way to and I also see your point too like it takes if you've got a new company it takes a while to get up to speed and all of that so I I understand that um although I do think it's just responsible to do an RFP for different services do we have to put instead of taking the entire line out can we take out you know say We'll conduct a request for proposal for auditing Services as needed or as the finance department I don't know what the language would be maybe we don't put a finite number on it but I hesitated taking out them the line entirely yeah one of the just one of the other challenges we have is um audit firms are kind of eating each other up so um there there used to be 10 that you could choose from and now there's like three or four CU they're all combining so Clifton Larson Allen used to be um two different firms um that clipon lson Allen mmkr kdv um those are going to be the three that you're going to find in most school districts so and you do an RFP you're going to get the same three that are going to bid on it and I don't there's not going to be um a lot of a lot of other audit firms that are going to specialize in school districts um the other thing that um we talked about the finance committee is right now um because we've had mmkr now for a couple years we they have us as one of the first districts that they audit in their schedule and because we've been with them that they've kept that schedule if we go to a different audit firm we're going to have to fit into their schedule and it may not be July that they start the audit and we're done in October it may be they can't start till October and we're done in you know November or December even so it's going to affect the kind of the scheduling of um when the audit is completed not that it's not workable it's just we really like being first um because it gets it done and we can spend the summer getting the um all the information ready and just be done with it rather than kind of drag it out one of the reasons why businesses uh by Boards and stuff like that do mandate a change or at least going out and looking for changes so the organization doesn't become too comfortable with the Auditors so when you get uh a relationship um then they can miss stuff so they do it to get a um a more unbiased Viewpoint when you do change yep and that we certainly had that conversation too that that that is one of the disadvantages of of keeping the same fir would you write in language um because I I hear all your points and I fully understand it um as far as consistency um could we write in something that says the district will conduct a request for RP at with the will at the will of the board so like as we see things arise and different things happen um the board can request RFP me and we're certainly not opposed to doing an RFP I just you know just hesitate to put it in policy and if you don't do one every 5 years and they're very time consuming to try to do an RP it's it's a huge process I think that's a good recommendation because I think it's um there's no finite time it there's a loyalty Factor right which the board has turned over so then that's going to be a natural like well should we consider something else and um and it's in Partnership it's the will of the board it's not one board it's in Partnership with maybe a recommendation too from administration at times I'd like to add something because during our organizational meetings we approve um the audit firm for the year so there has to be a timing involved also with the board requesting it um because once we approve it in the organizational meeting um and just like Clifton LaRon Allen before mmkr we were the first ones for them but we had had them for I think over 10 years um so the board did speak and say we need a change um that happened um and I don't remember um I think I was part of it when they added in the five years so uh but we had to make the change I think um by September one for the following year or something to vote on it and send the RFP out so that needs to be considered yeah it's it's a long process but I think that would be right cuz the board would either approve it or not which they're then they could consider it for the next year yeah but if we get to the organizational meeting and someone says something when we're approving it for that year you've already lost that year so there's if there could be language in here this is if the board does choose as a reminder otherwise we're going to miss the window consistently especially with turnover the board okay okay so I am hearing that the will of the board is to resurrect J but addit it so it doesn't say every five years it says at the will of a board by a a defined deadline that I will get from um director Frederickson before I forward any other feedback on 703 704 um there was some additions to this based off of audit recommendations is that correct tion yes and then the structural changes yep so we changed in um general statement of policy which I guess would be two um a right now Capital assets um anything over $5,000 you capitalize and if you buy um 100 something that all costs $5,000 you have to capitalize all 100 items um so what we're proposing is that if individual assets are grouped together it's the same thing that you're buying you're just buying a mass quantity that we can group those assets and capitalize them together if the cost is over $50,000 just going to save a tremendous amount of time I mean we still have all the um asset numbers we still have each item listed separately but we don't have to um capitalize all 100 items you capitalize them as a group as a group yeah and that's as much educational accounting that I can talk I think the thing that always confused me about the capital assets is running of depreciation and managing mass depreciations at certain typ certain times of the year um and how that's impacted obviously by ping it all together it makes it um a lot easier for you but does that make another change in the accounting system and the way it runs or no because you're you're assuming that each of these assets are the same so um for instance if you were to buy 100 laptops I mean they don't cost $5,000 anymore but if you bought a 100 tops for $5,000 a piece right now we have to put an asset number on 100 different items and then you have to figure the depreciation all each 100 items where if we just say we're buying a hundred of them it costs $50,000 we're grouping them together as an asset here's a list of all of the um asset numbers or serial numbers or however we're going to track it then you just have one depreciation because they're all the same you bought them on the same day they're the the same item um just group together and this does not change the accounting system to create that okay makes it a lot easier items somebody's going to be very excited about this yes any other questions or concerns on that policy 705 there is um no substantial changes the structural changes and adding um statute numbers no questions or concerns on that [Applause] 706 added a section at the at the bottom in regards to the board accepting um gifts grants or devices in alignment with this with M statute and then the legal references any questions or concerns feedback on [Music] 706 710 there was um no changes to this except for moving the definitions to the end no questions or feedback um moving to 720 vending machines um there was no substantial changes to this either just adding the statute numbers and the legal references I a overall question on this one um did uh have we ever um you know kind of similar to which again is under a different policy entirely but similar to like surveying the students and what they want and things like that have we ever surveyed the students about like what kind of things they wanted in the vending machine so we actually don't really have vending machines anymore um there used to be Coca-Cola vending machines at our schools and and here um and then we would get a portion of the proceeds Coca-Cola came in and saids you guys don't make enough money for us so we're yanking them out um anything that the students are going to have if it's an vending machine has got to follow the nutrition policies that we have they P those too don't we have a Gatorade machine at the high school though I don't think so no yeah when they went maybe my kid is scamming me then so no those were so they so this policy is basically kind of moot right now I had to laugh add it back in vending right right next to the gball machine they have money for the vending machine really any other questions or feedback on 720 721 um this is the policy that had uh quite a bit of changes added to it um that I am not um qualified to explain so I'm going to have executive director frericks so basically this policy we had to um this this was actually an audit comment that we needed to update this policy um because it doesn't necessarily follow the Edgar or CFR requirements for federal dollars we needed to be much more detailed and um basically what we're what they what we've had to do with this policy is when we say um we are going to um do something they want you to say who is going to do it and what are they going to do and we were much more vague in some of our language so we've had to expand on um some of the wording that um for instance in J um if we had to add Department requesting to procure material products or Services we'll work with the ex executive director of business or a design um so it's it's much more defined on who is going to be doing what um we also had to add some language around um kind of what used to be the bi American policy um you have to attempt um to buy um where is it um you have to make an attempt to buy American products or services um and that wasn't as well defined as it needed to be um so we did have to change that um so all of the changes on here are just to be much more detailed and specific to match some of them CFR requirements that the federal government has it looks like they added separation of Duties into it yep which makes sense and we probably wouldn't have had that 10 15 years ago because we were too small what executive director Fred was referring to earlier is under um two acceptable methods procurement each where we we aligned it to the C the the CFR coding any feedback or questions on this policy no I just we used to have definitions at the front and it's just standard and businesses the front so it's a little difficult for me to find them at the end now so the policy advisory committee when going through all of our list of the things that we're going to standardize um we we agreed as a group to move definitions and and structures aligning with msba as model policy so when comparing and using that as a a reference um it was a little bit easier to follow along so that just to explain to the whole group where that came from um that was just one one of our attempts to standardize some of our policies is that only in the finance policies because in the book review policy I have it right here in the definitions in the beginning um I'll need to that's a Miss on my end then it should be all policies so no I'm saying this is I have mba's policy right in here for um the book policy and definitions right at the top one is purpose to general statement and three definitions am I that wrong right no I mean I always thought that the depending on when they last touched them I mean this is the brand new book policy still over I don't care as long as we're consistent but I do agree I like them in the beginning too but if we've changed them all already but or is this the first series of changing them um we started changing uh D bullan I believe we started changing them all last year oh sequence the sequencing the end of I feel like it was the end our last I feel like it was our last meeting that we discuss for going forward I don't know how many you've changed so far it's in there I don't as long as it's consistent I really don't care that is um part of the conversation we had as a policy advisory committee is so we're going to try to go through all of them and bring them forward all as a one review under the policy for just structural changes to do it all everyone that we don't get done this year like all the other numbers that we're not reviewing because otherwise you know one person starts doing it this way by the time you get to the third year switches it back so we'll try to get it all standardized thank you yeah so consistency very important we're done with these and these will all be coming to the next board meeting and November 19th they'll be com for the second reading and for um board action right so please everybody when it goes into the packet up to a week early please um get your feedback into director Herman uh ahead of time um since the next since board meeting will be our final discussion on it so um moving over to superintendent relations uh thank you chair France board of directors just two quick things one um we we are again and have been for quite some time getting inundated with a lot of data requests and I just wanted to let you all know um that our team is working as judiciously as they can to manage through some of these requests are coming into the hundreds and hundreds of pages um and and documents and yes we do have tools that have created some efficiency but we've got some monster requests that have come through just asking our community to be patient she's working in AQ even if it's something that seemingly is small to someone it's where Things fall and accuse so that she is going in sequential order is the best way that weekend it's kind of like where you fall in line um and I'll just remind our community one of our core beliefs is is uh respect and it's been reported to me that there have been some some sharp comments um uh with our one staff member who's uh responsible for this and uh I just want to reiterate that with our community um we're going to comply and and get the data that we can get to our our community I just want to make sure that's done so in a very respectful way and some of the comments that are being reported I don't think are appropriate um and embody who we are as a community um so I just wanted to share that secondly I'll just share that it was brought to our attention around um some ballot language um that's uh on the current ballot and there are two different statutes that govern some of that language one statute governs um the notification language one a separate statute governs the ballot language um we've just issued some clarity um per consultation with our general counsel today that's out um um for your situational awareness that we just concluded just shortly before the meeting tonight so that's out there and just trying to let our community know um the two different languages U that exist um um get to the same outcome and that is there's an increas your taxes um I I'm not I'm not a A legislature so I don't know why they have two different language requirements for two different um processes that get to the same outcome but there was and so that ballot um clarification um uh was brought forth today so that's all on our website as well all right next is informational items uh do we have any other it go ahead yeah I would just like to share um this document um there were um at the last board meeting the audit was presented um and there was some concern that we were $7 million over budget so I wanted to provide this information to you there it's it's actually I'm pulling this data from our financial statements on if you start on page 79 um from the last board meeting on the financial statement at the top part I'm showing the the revenue um and our budget was 115.5 Million we ended up at 119.5 and I broke it out to the different categories um so you can see property taxes we were with within 1.1% variance of actuals vers budget versus actuals um the um investment earnings we um underestimated that however if you look at the last 5 years they were very inconsistent we were 30,000 one year 112,000 the next year a million the next year so if you're taking a 5year average um for us to budget 488,000 was actually more than what our average is over the past 5 years and we just underestimated it um we actually came in at 1.2 million for investment earnings [Music] um again um it's an average over the past five years and it's just a very difficult number to try to um nail on right exactly um the other um Revenue sources I put in this little yellow box uh we were 1.5 million uh more of than our budget and you can see where they were we had 280,000 more than um we budgeted for activities and admissions 190,000 more for donations um just small miscellaneous we had 570,000 more um we had Insurance Recovery we got a new scoreboard um this past year so we got insurance money for that that was 312,000 our third party billing was 157,000 more than what we had projected so um that came in 1.5 million more um the rest of it State sources we were within 2.2 million and our federal sources um we did not spend all of our special ed idea allocation so our like our actual spend was less on that so um and I guess the point in this is the 4 million that we were over budget are things that um the investment earnings something that we can't necessarily just get exact every year um because again if you look at our budgets um I've given you a 10-year history of broken down for all of these categories you can see that the um actual amounts go up and down every year um for the expenses I did the same thing for each of the categories where we were overspent um look at the elementary and secondary education we have $261,000 more of stiens than what we budgeted uh we had about million five more salary increases across the board um we had PSO um increase of 320,000 we had many more students from um took PSO classes our teacher on call invoice was 200,000 more than what we budgeted um our supplies in curriculum came out about 500,000 more than we budgeted and again we had to place a scoreboard which cost us $312,000 so that's like the 3 million um for that category you can also see we over spent our speal special education budget by about $2 million um we have significant number of more students with IEP needs so we did hire more staff and had more expenses so that's 5 million of um the variance um and then I just gave you percentages you know the administration was actually 2.1% under budget the district Support Services was 2.9% over budget buad 3.5% and most of these are related to salary increases um the instructional support um while we got additional Revenue um from that yellow box for activities and admissions that also came with um cost to it so those are reflected in that instructional support our transportation budget was um overspent by about [Music] $750,000 we're not exactly sure why we've done some analysis to try to figure it out Dan Pow and I are working um figure out what exactly we over spent on um and it hasn't been any one thing that stands out is just every month it's been more than what we thought we built in a 6% increase which is what we thought we were going to have when we met with the the bus company um it actually came in at 16% more than what we had the year before so we're doing some um a deeper dive to figure out where that um kind of lands and then our debt service um came in over budget because we refunded a bond so if you take um the revenue of 4 million that we were over the expenses that we were over 6.8 um you look at the difference um the this board authorizes us to use 1.4 million of assigned fund balance so if you do the calculation the revenue of 118 million the other financing so the19 million um of total revenue the expenses of 123 you subtract those minus the board authorized use of assigned fund balance there was actually a change in the unassigned fund balance of 2.8 million and that's what we overspent and again I've explained where um each of those categories were if you want other specific detail there again it's in our financial statement actually starting on page 79 I just wanted to kind of bring that out um just to make sure everybody understands all the different categories that we have for revenues and expenses um and it's not just one big bucket they're all many different buckets that we have um to look at thank you I appreciate this I think for me personally I love details details help Drive decisions the question I have is about the over overage in the um Elementary education in the salaries um I I I thought all along that all those increases were in our budget so what was the disconnect there they were um we did add some staff um however one of the things that you have to keep in mind um when we had the teacher negotiations while we all agreed with what the parameters were it depended on where they chose to have the increases there was some increases in in um longevity which again doesn't affect the bottom line but it means that every person got paid more for their longevity because we have many um I think 60% of our staff have been here um on the top step so all of them got a big bump in longevity which we paid out and it didn't affect the actual total spend for the whole entire contract but it was paying out additional money one time one time yeah so the one time longevity was perhaps what's driving it'll carry forward as we move forward but we hadn't budgeted we budgeted an increase in salaries not necessarily in on the longevity so going forward that still will be in the contract but we'll have a better idea well until negotiate this next contract and where are the $4 million of cuts like where would you see those because those we also talked a little bit about that so they're kind of mixed in to the different categories and we just built those in as we did the budget projections well one example would be Administration yep yeah the but I'm just saying how do you see it represented because that number would be higher than right oh no no I yeah that's one small example okay yeah okay that's okay okay thank you that was it thank you um next on the item is future agenda topics and um director white when you were on the board we didn't do this but now we're doing study sessions at the end of each one we allow the board members to go around and um ask for um things that they would like added to Future agendas and then the board approves it or dis approved it with just a thumbs up great so does anybody have any future agenda topics okay hearing none then um I'm going to call for an adjournment so thank you very much thank you you --------- ##VIDEO ID:v4J_zJI3Wz4## okay welcome everybody to the uh Monday October 28th board study session all board members with the exception of director bernick are here and our first order is to do the oath of office for direct for our new director Dan White so how do you want to the middle here or sure that's okay here oh that right here is fine okay um all right so uh it is an honor that you are appointed to guide the education of our community's children as you recite the oath of office you assume a tremendous responsibility as a director of our school district with the duties empowered by the Minnesota Legislature this power puts you and the other members of our school board in the position of being morally and legally responsible for Equitable quality education of every student in our district in carrying out this responsibility you will be asked to fulfill the roles of vision structure accountability and advocacy and providing Vision the board with extensive participation of the community envisions the community's educational future and then formulates the goals defines the outcomes and sets the course for the public schools to achieve the vision the board establishes a structure and creates an environment designed to ensure all students the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework because as a board we must be accountable to the community we must ensure a continuous assessment of student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children as board members we serve as education's key Advocate on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision for our schools furthermore we must strive to work together with the superintendent and staff to lead the district towards fulfilling that Vision that we have created fostering Excellence for every student in the areas of academic skills and knowledge citizenship and personal development and having signed the acceptance of oath of of office and oath of office I hereby ask you to raise your right hand and publicly affirm your commitment to the oath of office by repeating after me I swear affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States I swear that I will affirm the Constitution of the United States and of this state and of this state and that I will discharge Faithfully the duties of the office of school board discharge Faithfully the duties of office of School Board of Independent School Board District or School District 719 of Independent School District 719 to the best of my judgment and ability to the best of my judgment and ability thank you very much con okay next we have a public to sign that thing oh yes you do good point there you go all right going on to the Forum we have one Forum speaker and that is Allison Matthews or Matthew's on uh the vote Yes on the levy next week hi everyone my name is Allison Matthews and our family moved to Prior Lake in 2017 at the time we combed the Twin Cities to determine where we wanted to raise our girls a big piece to selecting our hometown was looking at school districts I'm not sure we would have chosen plsas without the option for Spanish Immersion fast forward seven years we now have a seventh Fifth and first grader at Hidden Oaks and at laa deago Spanish Immersion I remember when I moved here a good friend of mine living in Savage a regular Republican voter and self-proclaimed fiscal conservative told me about the upcoming referendum she asked if she could put a vote Yes sign in our yard because it would be a close and important vote this was my first exposure to our District's referendum request to this day she votes Republican and also recently said to me there is no better way I could spend my money than on our kids education I sense a level of broken trust in our district perhaps from years past promises broken bad decisions made and I'm not here to argue the past however I am here to encourage a yes vote for this upcoming Levy because I've reviewed the numbers the need as many of you have I believe in the current proposals I believe in our school board I believe in Dr Thomas I believe in our Educators and I think it's time to give our district a real shot at the success that we all seem to to want but will cost money to create schools are not immune to inflation or Rising labor costs our house for example has a proposed increase of about $800 per year the inflationary factor which I know some people are nervous about is projected to be about 2% a year which would be about $16 annually if that's what the inflation rate ended up being communities Thrive with solid public education systems homes have maintained High values in 719 as any realtor will tell you it matters home values are better and homes sell faster in great districts our great Community includes many schooling choices private education homeschooling where parents can choose to spend a lot on curriculum if they choose to and public education which is the most viable and widely accessible option to ensure every student is given the opportunity to engage in their education with unique programs like Spanish Immersion mcaps Sage with electives with activities and I won't pretend to know the ins and outs of public education Finance I have never walked a mile in the shoes of the people who work it day in and day out I also invited Dr Thomas to our house a couple weeks ago for our friends and neighbors to hear directly from him it's something he offered to all of us in the district and I said sure I'll I'll take him up on it so he came over and he's clearly working to build that trust that I believe we're looking for for the future my husband commented that he's a very independent thinker and is clear clearly working to make things better for all students in 719 lastly I did a bit of my own research to see where our current Levy spend Falls as a percent of taxable home value the current levy on our current house is 179% of the taxable market value I also pulled data from about a dozen neighboring districts Eden Prairie Lakeville Maple Grove man aanka we are currently paying a much lower percentage than all of these districts that I pulled and if past our future Levy spend would fall right in the middle of the bunch very similar to what residents in Maple Grove and minona spend if you bought a house today in Shaka Egan Farmington or Apple Valley your Levy spend would already be higher than what our vote Yes would do so right now I think we have a chance to move forward from our past and collectively improve funding for the things that our student population teachers and Community desperately need to thrive thank you [Music] next uh for the purpose and agenda I'm going to hand it over to Dr Thomas thank you chair France board directors um tonight at our study session as always our opportunity to um get engaged in key topical issues um more from an exploratory and gain understanding which may ultimately come back to you all for formal decisions in the future um so in the categories tonight we are going to be going over some of our operations and enrollment and in final budget update uh with regards to a revised budget we will engage in an academic Retreat um with not only some of the data but also what is happening with the data and the actions that our staff are engaged in taking we have a series of proclamations um that we'll go through and closing out the night we'll have a series of policies namely 700s and one600 policy um to review for the board so with that chair I turn it back to you okay so the first item on our oversight of operations is the enrollment update and final budget uh by director Frederickson thank you chair friend directors um I included in your packet um the enrollment update we have the estimated and SE this before I presented this at at um prior board meetings have the estimated of what we used for our budget um as we built this last spring and we had um an estimate of 8,512 students and as of October 1st we have 8,616 which is 104 or more than what we had originally built into the budget most of those are at kindergarten which is a good sign um we hope that as kindergarteners come into the district that they stay for the next 13 years um throughout the whole system so um moving on from that we're looking at um revising the budget for 2425 um which I also have provided you um there is [Music] um changes in the budget are basically we're increasing the revenue and expenses to reflect those 104 additional students and then as we looked at the community ed budget um they are anticipating um significant amount more of um kids Co so we're increasing the community ed revenue and expense budget other than that there are no other revisions to the 2425 budget um this will appear on our next board meeting in November for approval um but I am going to answer any questions at this point Tammy on the um the revised budget worksheet that you gave um the increase in kids code tuition um it says original 862 24501 is that supposed to be revised is that the revised number yes it's revised okay that's I thought no that's what I thought any other questions um I have a question so if we added about 100 what 104 kids and that brought in revenue of $800,000 can you help me understand why expenses would increase by $800,000 if we already have some you know like standard things that we already pay for um why is the number an equal expense increase um versus trying to I don't know so in this budget and again this is just a budget as we move forward uh we are assuming that because we have 100 more additional students that throughout this year um we will probably be needing some additional support staff and we're also have been seeing a rise in the number of special education students that we have so anticipating some additional special education Staffing Fe so we've just made the expenses equal to the additional Revenue that we're anticipating and again we'll look at this in February March when we um hit the final budget and see if we need to change that but for now that's the Assumption we're making and is there any um with the 104 kids I think the question I've received is like and maybe if this is appropriate now but like are they open enrollment kids are they like is there a difference in funding and like no no open enrolled um whether they're a district resident or open enrolled it's the same funding formula so for this purpose um we don't need to separate out open enrolled these are the kids that are here right now and they will get the full funding okay if I were to pay you back on that question um is it is it common practice to when you're when budgeting to to um keep the increase the same like the expenses yeah the expenses is that is that common typically you would because again additional kids usually come with additional needs right so um know we could make other assumptions but um for now for this purpose we are going to assume that the amount that we're going to get in revenue and again it's not that much right I mean it's the equivalent of maybe eight teachers um that we may need some additional support staff and again as we're looking at um increased enrollment in special education those students always come with some additional staffing needs so it's not we can put it in different buckets but it makes sense to keep the expenses increased at the revenue rate thank you and I'll just share in that stream of question that the two of you are asking um we're also Mindful and watching you know just because we receive additional Revenue we're not running to to find expenses I want to be very clear about that um we do know that the needs of students coming into our school system over the past two years have accelerated so we've baked in some of those assumptions there but if we don't need that we won't spend that and so there will be a surplus that will hold back but again I think PL not planning for a surplus um allows us then to be a little bit more mindful of um how we can adjust the the resources uh accordingly and if the needs aren't there that money goes back into the general it's maintained in the general fund so and it's fair to say that sometimes the needs exceed so sometimes the needs May exceed and this that that does happen and so we've allocated resources and then we uh bring on a student who comes in perhaps maybe with a large service minute load or we have um a high academic load um uh then or demand then we would find ways to address that you know financially so it's there but we're not letting it burn a in our pocket to hurry and spend we we want to maintain those resources and only allocate where where appropriate and when appropriate thank you so I have another question we're talking about this year's budget meaning like we already know who these kids are as of October 1st we already know how many teachers are needed so I help me understand when you're talking about assumptions because we're talking about this year's budget and we've already passed the October 1 date so we would know a lot of you know like doing any time of budgeting you um you're using your best guest right and I would think that that would be part of the equation of you would already know what the special needs funding is that comes with the kid what the expenses are so knowing that we're trying to cut back expenses so that we're not deficit spending just wondering if that could be dialed back based on more data that you have um so so a couple no no I I hear you so we're not we're not deficit spending and um I would say that some kids we do know their needs some kids are kind of in the queue we're watching I'm going to a meeting on Wednesday dealing with a real challenging situation with one of our students that may end up needing additional support um that's to be determined so um it it's it's still we just got out our first quarter and and so our staff are really just understanding um what's beneath the waterline with some of our students and then to your point yes some of our kids we do know um particularly those who might be newer um but uh uh director frederickson's point many of these are also many of the increase are in kindergarten so there's a lot of screening and assessment and understanding to watch how they grow into becoming a student um takes a little bit longer there compared to maybe if it's a middle schooler that was referring to the Staffing levels so if you want to tr that yeah so I guess I have a question as far as when will the numbers be be baked I mean typically we didn't know by the end of November January 1st how does that when does that usually Shake itself off you're really confident that the expenses are going to be X assuming no more students uh the October 1 child count is official the end of December um we have to report all these students in the Mars submission um at the end of I think it's December 28th that we have to do the report so once those are all submitted then um it's just a matter of tracking um enrollment changes every day you have kids coming in and out and right now we kind of at that point where we're looking at um 15-day withdrawals there may be some kids that have been out for 15 days that we have to now take off the rolles there may be additional kids coming in and special ed is um kind of all over the place when they do come in or don't come in um there's other needs that we identify especially for the younger kids and special ed may have support support staff that we need um so well this is a revised budget um we typically can look in January or February um for a final budget and we can make still make adjustments for a final budget at the same time we're also building the 2526 budget with some assumptions that we need to bake in and and director white I'll just add you know I think about mid November we've gone through you know all of our assessments you'll hear a little bit about that um sequence this evening um and I think our enrollment albeit does e and flow each day the majority of who we have for the duration of the year is going to be fairly locked and loaded that at that point you will still potentially have some an anomalies um you know there's there is a charter school in close proximity that's in a bit of a challenge right now that may have impacts on enrollment based upon whatever happens with that particular School and so if that becomes a sudden surge obviously that's something that we'll have to address um but typically you know within the next couple of weeks we're we're kind of plateaued so we kind of know we're planed out so we kind of know know who's in our classrooms the types of needs that we see through our initial quar to one assessments and start the triage that scaffolded support for our kids that's kind of what I was get I know you have reporting dates you have to be but inside the building you'll inside we're I think we're we're planning out here questions see that the revised resolution um is that something we're going to vote on at the next board meeting okay and you're not anticipating any major changes between [Music] now okay um I did have one question because I we've been through the several Cycles now and you have an assumption based upon a percentage based upon um a number of students Etc but um we do usually just get I've never seen anything more than a 1 to 2% standard deviation uh overall by the end of the year and some of that also comes in like you said from changes but in general when we don't get this large of an increase in kindergarten we do see a slight percentage of of um attrition uh throughout the year usually from the later grades but because our later grades last year stayed pretty stable and our growth this year is front loaded in kindergarten are you not anticipating as much of a deviation in that can you speculate at this time um right now I don't I mean the way that it's played out so far in the first what month and a half um I don't think it will have huge deviations I mean pretty should be pretty set I mean there there's always going to be families that are moving in mid year or moving in moving out um making different choices as they get kind of in the Cadence of the school year um but I think this is pretty consistent what it's going to look like okay good um no other questions we'll go on to the data review with director and director Edwards want to sit here you can look at the look do she need help do you need me to Advance she's got a got the got the [Music] clear all right uh cheer friends members of the board thank you uh this has been a somewhat of have a long time coming we've been talking about having an academic Retreat along this uh time frame here um and look forward to tonight's conversation with all of you uh we certainly have data that we that becomes available to us throughout every school year and uh we're going to take a look at some of that data give some overview data uh and after we do so uh we're then going to dive deeper into not the data but the our practices around that and we have a team of folks that you'll be uh hearing from tonight representing a variety of roles and I'll introduce them as they come forward um but uh we're going to have our curriculum specialist uh speaking we're going to have a classroom teacher two classroom teachers at the elementary level an administrator from the high school and a classroom teacher at the high school as well um that can speak to more specifically what this data tells us and uh the adjustments uh that we make throughout in the spirit of our focus on Improvement and uh that is really uh what we're going to be sharing with you tonight so look forward to the conversation and without further Ado I'll initially uh kick it off with uh turn it over to Dr zush uh good evening CH friend members of the board um this uh packet is quite lengthy I tried to put everything in there that you could possibly want um but due to the um just organization of the presentation I have kind of the high level overview of all the data points in the beginning um and then it's followed with data appendices that talk about all of our individual breakdowns of our um data so I'm going to go over those highle pieces um we'll hear from uh some teachers and then if you have any questions on any of the other pieces I'm happy to give those a shot [Music] on not user okay ah there you go okay so uh the high level data overview will be uh MCA data fastbridge fall data um I'll kind of explain why I'm presenting fall data uh act data this is very very hot off the press from the state comparison report uh AP data advanced placement exams at the high school level uh and then Apple which is our Spanish language testing and then uh the mca's uh dive into grade level and subgroup uh um reports on MCAS as well as uh fast Bridge fall data by grade level the okay okay so fast bridge data uh fall fast bridge data fast bridge is our screener um our academic screener uh it is a formative assessment which means we use that to drive instruction it is not a summative assessment like an MCA tells us kind of the conclusion at the end of the year um the purpose of the fastbridge uh assessment is to identify students who um may not be on track with foundational skills um those are the skills they need in order to access grade level content um it's not a measure of Standards uh that is what mca's measure as well as some in-class assessments um is really focusing on those foundational skills that students need in order to access the information that they get in the classroom uh the main use is to plan for differentiated instruction this fall window tells us kind of our Baseline of where we're starting um and then any student that needs additional uh support in math or reading they will be um potentially depending on their other data uh recommended for intervention um as a reminder um we have early reading and a reading um those are the two major subtests that we look at on a regular basis early reading is only for kindergarteners and first graders uh a reading is for grades two and up um the the ninth grade um is not on here because we've not we've not had the same historic um experience with nth grade and we can talk about that if you want to later um but this is kind of showing that um across our grades 2 through eight we have a pretty consistent starting basis over the last three Falls um just to orient you to this the purple on the top means that the student is generally on track or at low risk um if they're at pink or on the bottom that means that they're at risk for um not being able to meet those uh that grade level content um so you can see that we have uh 72 and 71% across the 3 years very consistent in our um a reading screener uh for early reading we have a little bit of um with only two grade levels it's going to be a little bit more of an unstable number um but there you can see that we started um fall uh two years ago at 61% then last year at 66 and this year at 60 um some of that has to do with the the cohort of students that we're receiving as kindergarteners um so for math uh MCA so math is our um uh MCA is our summative assessment this is our lot our high level view of uh change over time in terms of students uh meeting standards or not meeting standards uh across all of our grades here uh we went from 58.9 to 580 so we have um a 9% drop there from 2023 uh to 2024 uh for reading uh we went down .1% so um that would be basically that is staying the same um 59.8 to 59.7 um and you can see that um the the state comparison uh that line is stable as well so the green is our prior Savage are school's line and the blue is the state line um the exclamation point just shows that those numbers are not stable because it was a pandemic related U measure there um for science we're seeing um a bit of a decline from 49.7 to 48.4 so about 1 and a half uh percentage points down from uh the spring of 2023 um for ACT data uh this one's a little bit complicated because as soon as students take the ACT in our district administered act we do get a report on what those scores are however as you probably know there's a lot of students that take it multiple times um so really we' to we wait until the state report comes out because that gives us us the overview of where the data is um compared to State average and it also allows students to um for them to take the number that they have over the course of their test taking that higher number there so here you can see um our students from last year um the seniors the the class of um 2024 their average ACT score uh was a 21.8 uh so here in the blue is is the um PRI Lake Savage area schools and in green is the state so the state went down by 0.1 and uh plsas went up 5.1 um for AP data um this is an area where we've seen a lot of really amazing growth um here across the top you can see the total number of AP students that have um taken AP students that have taken AP classes over the last 5 years years um and then the number of exams that have been taken then we also track um the number of students who have three or above which is typically what you need to get um college level credit for that AP class um and then the percentage of AP students with that three or above um one thing to point out here is that um typically if you're I mean it's it's something to celebrate for sure because not only are we increasing the percentage of students students with three or above but the number that are taking them is increasing as well so I think it's you know if the percentage is going up but you're being more selective on who's taking the test you know that is maybe not as good of an indicator but to have both of them going up at the same time um I think is a real cause for celebration at the high school level so we have more students taking AP courses more students um taking the test and a higher percentage of students passing the tests um a new piece of data that we wanted to put forward is um Apple data it's the assessment of performance for Proficiency in languages we give this assessment um a few times throughout uh the trajectory of students that are in immersion programming and over uh this is our um students who are in their e in eth grade uh last year so now they're currently ninth grade um this is that cohort that's kind of Paving the way here uh you can kind of see their scores um in the four different areas so there's listening and speaking presentational writing listening and reading um and you can see um how they've scored in their eighth grade um assessment as compared to that national average um this is the fifth grade data overtime um so this shows um the national average and then Prior Lake Savage area schools and how they scored on the different subcomponents of the Apple test um the again the same uh listening writing or speaking writing listening and reading um it kind of es and flows a little bit I mean there's you know different cohorts and different um contexts that we know that have happened throughout those years but in general um our trend lines uh are showing pretty consistent scores over time um okay so that's the high level um flyover and we'll be we'll be pulling Gwen Wen up uh first uh our the curriculum specialist uh Gwen serves in that role right here I think we're going to adjust and we we'll put the name tag down so people don't get confused that it's not Julie berning uh who's there um but we'll we'll dive into some uh deeper conversations uh around what we do with this data and how it impacts our uh work that we do and various teams uh that come together and again uh Gwen is currently our K12 uh curriculum specialist uh she was formerly the K5 curriculum specialist but through the uh budget reduction uh process last year we uh streamlined that uh position and expanded her role so Gwen has been doing a phenomenal job in the first uh few months of the school year to uh gain a deeper understanding of that 6 through 12 um but has worked in our district for many years uh first as a classroom teacher and then as a curriculum specialist uh supporting our K5 so she's going to focus the original part of the conversation around that and again later in the conversation we'll bring some representatives from the high school to speak to that topic we just discussed with regard to the AP uh testing in our positive changes in that regard so I'm going to turn over to Gwen for a few uh quick comments and and um probably pause we're going to bring forward a first grade teacher a fifth grade teacher and a few folks from the high school will'll pause at each uh Junction of that conversation to focus the conversation in that particular area perfect thank you so as you've all heard before when we get data it presents more questions so as we are studying the data especially last spring a lot more questions surfaced and so typically we then take some steps to gather more information so what we worked on this spring was first of all going into buildings and talking with principes peer coaches and differentiation Specialists who support those buildings really to focus on our math implementation because our bridges math was year one and to just see how things were going from their perspectives and they had had conversations with teachers and also had some classroom observations and really just defined some strengths that we were seeing and then some opportunities um that we could focus on through this year we also talked a little bit about fast bridge data that you saw talked a little bit about preliminary MCAS and really had that what are we noticing and what connections are we really making to the buildings after that we really wanted to hear from teachers so we talked to pay five teachers and a group of them came in over the summer a lot of them were our original math committee that worked with us for the past two years and then we had some additional teachers who were interested in joining so during that time we again looked at data and took a look at we had K1 come in separate um as Dr zush had said that early math to separate that out and then we met with 25 and in both of those sessions really started to look at the fast bridge data and what are we noticing and what do we notice not only about the data but about that connection to our classroom and with our curriculum and our resource and we also took a look at some of the preliminary MCA and again had some really great conversation and some time as a group just to come together and talk about what we were seeing um and some steps that we could take um kindergarten in first grade really got into and Megan will talk a little bit more about that and we had an additional time when we got together and really looked into each subtest and wanted to identify just what the purpose of those subtests were and just to become more familiar with fast Bridge um recommendations came from both of those groups um to kind of drive us forward this year one of them being that we felt that teachers needed additional training on Fast bridge on administering it so that we were really tight on our Fidelity with our Administration um another recommendation was that within our curriculum we have some resources that we wanted to make sure we were paying more attention and highlighting one of them was called a Minnesota alignment guide which pays extra Focus on the standards and making sure that we're looking and making sure we're aligned to the Minnesota standards in math um another one was there's optional assessments within the program um one of them being a screener that really helps to guide our instruction so it helps us to have those formative checks on how students are doing so that we can really plan and drive our instruction uh we also talked about just being more intentional about some of those student book pages we learned through the curriculum that through those student resource books that is the opportunity for them to have that review and that practice with skills so we wanted to just be really intentional about using those pages um and the last recommendation was that we also wanted to strengthen our communication with families that there are a lot of resources out there we wanted to make sure that we're supporting families with knowing how that they can help at home and just being more clear on our communication so those I think four or five recommendations were then presented to all K5 staff that back to school so we had District grade level meetings where we presented the data again and kind of talked to everyone through the work that we had done in the summer and then kind of helped them with what we were going to make for changes moving forward and then our first early release we also focused on that same thing and really looking at those optional assessments within Bridges and how we could drive our instruction with using those and maybe U I'll just piggy back from there and talk about up coming uh we had our PD day in October uh that was a focus I mentioned this at the last board meeting in my closing comments and my uh administrative update that we finally got a chance to launch uh the Ola training and redact uh related training for our phase one teachers so that was at the end October and now throughout the that was our October PD day throughout the remaining early releas and PD time will be balancing between um continuing our implementation with Bridges and supporting and engaging in those conversations at the elementary level as well as uh teachers participating in in the Ola training so that's what uh we'll be coming forward um but again I wanted uh a chance for Glen to share some highlights uh specific from an overview uh related to uh what our curriculum focus and our time we bring teachers together like she mentioned in August um they're really driving what do their colleagues need as as going alled to when we have those professional development opportuni whether it be Workshop week early release or our PD spread throughout the year so um I'm I think we'll go next we'll transition next to our first grade teacher uh Megan Waller from Jeffers Pond who's chair and I'll bring another one up okay sounds great see right here and she's going to uh speak from a teacher uh firsthand exper of what that looks like okay um sorry I had to come in late so I kind of missed a little bit of the beginning so I have a little intro myself I kind of set up which might be a little repetitive or it might be very not repetitive um so I just wanted to ground the conversation because mentioning standardized test scores is a really tricky thing to analyze um just about any training program for Education will preach don't teach to the test um doing so kind of stagnates that real learning and it hinders student development of those applicable skills but standardized test scores are often our go-to data point because that's how our system works with decision- making because it's a Concrete piece of quantitative data that we have across buildings across districts so it is important those who aren't intimately familiar with that education often focus more on these test scores than those who coach and observe those Learners every day uh most teachers will tell you that a test scor is a single data point from a single day not representative of everything a child knows and can do testing is in itself a skill completely separate from what we're actually trying to assess in the test um high scores don't necessarily mean better teaching and learning but it also goes the other way that low scores don't necessarily mean the inverse but with that said when the scores are lower than anticipated as I'm guessing Johnny shared with the K1 fast Bridge test we notice and we care deeply I mean my scores came in and I sunk because what I saw in my classroom for my kids last year was amazing the things they talked about the things they could do was like never before I mean I was teaching things that never happened in first grade before um so when the test scores came in I just went what is missing um so our goal is not to achieve High standardized test scores however our goal is to achieve a high level of learning that can be reflected in those scores if that makes sense hopefully um so when I saw that my student scores were so low I was super grateful truly to get to be part of the meetings to discuss and figure out what can we do differently because that does not sit right with me what we had last spring um and just to understand what was happening so last year what my kids could do they could talk about math they could explain problems they could figure them all out they could explain why their problems worked and they could talk to other kids to explain why they weren't working um and I could see that Effectiveness from the curriculum we were using every day and what we were doing um so getting a chance to examine the data we are able to really find specifically in first grade that place value was a huge concern the kids weren't understanding looking at the curriculum we taught place value you all year long so that's why it was really interesting to see like oh they weren't getting that um so I actually I talked to my husband and educator about it and he's like you're speaking gibberish so he's like why don't you try a different analogy to try to explain what this means um so he kind of thought oh this is like how we all learn how to drive and you go to the driving test and all of a sudden you get to the driving test and all the signs have different pictures they mean the same thing but they're not the pictures you've learned all along that's kind of what happened with our first graders like it kind of just threw them because for fast Bridge it's a one minute Quick Test of these different things for them so while they knew place value really well and could show it to me in the room they weren't used to using the man manipulatives that were on the test so that was one thing that we really looked at so where I was using popsicle sticks before to show tens and ones to them I now I'm using the base 10 blocks which are of the test and what they see on the test but I'm also using straws I'm also using unifix cubes so I'm not just teaching to the test but I'm helping them try to generalize the concept to different skills in different ways so that when they get to the test it makes sense but that's not the only reason they know it and not the only way they know it because when they get to be older and grown-ups I can't say everyone's going to use this version to talk about it they need to be able to carry it through the picture of it um we're also using our notebooks in our classroom every week so that now they're writing it so it's not just a conversation in the verbal even though I can hear them but it gives me a chance to to hold them accountable and really see what they're doing and they're thinking and they're drawing the place value in the notebooks and I'm looking at it and they're talking about the numbers at the same time um aside from that we're also um just trying to observe that growth which relies on checking in with the kids and seeing those understanding so I've been using the home connections which is part of the curriculum in a different way this year they're kind of short activity sheets to use as exit tickets and I'm having the kids do those every once in a while so that then I can check them I can see their scores I can send them home so I can communicate with families I can see which kids need more support from me so that I can try to fit that into my day to find ways to really help them with what they're working on um so those are just a few different tweaks that I'm using this year to try to help to see how that's going to go um I know it's not a one- siiz fits all that doesn't exist in education every kid is different and what they need is going to be a different feeling um I'm hoping that this is going to make a huge difference as we continue with our fast Bridge I'm not assuming they're all going to ace it as much as that is what I want for them um I'm hopeful that it will show better support for their understanding of the math concepts that they'll learn it better and then that is what will show up on the fast brid score so that you'll still see it carry through as it goes on um as we keep going but I'm looking forward to continuing to talk with my colleagues and figure out what's working what's not working and where we can kind of go thank you m if you'd stay here for just a moment I think we're going to take a pause um we've thrown a lot at you uh want to take Applause and and engage in questions that you have for those who have presented thus far um and from the perspective that they are sharing with you here this evening um so first of all um Glen where'd you go uh thank you uh for your expanded role this year that's a lot um to be the expert K through 12 like that's it's a big deal so have every Faith um but that's a big that's a big deal um so thank you and thank you Mrs Waller is that correct um for coming and speaking to us today in reviewing some of these at home I had kind of a similar it's kind of funny you use a car analogy because I had the same thought where it's kind of like we're having our kids take driver Zed to to drive a car and then we're going to have them learn how to do it with Henry Ford's Model T I mean it's Antiquated and I realize that and I know you're talking fast bridge and when I'm looking at MCAS too in particular I'm looking at something that's incredibly Antiquated a system that's Antiquated and that's not even something at this level this is at the state and federal level I'm looking at standards going okay the the math standards you know haven't been and I know they're getting updated and thank goodness but the one currently on the books right now is from 2007 that's insane to me so when you say we're not we're we're not able to teach to the test well there's a reason because it's almost 20 years old the the I'm talking MCA is teaching to standards not necessarily the snapshot in time which I know fast Bridges so I and I realize it's a bigger conversation but it angers me when we have these data points I'm like it's a data is good but when we have this and we're we're supposed to give our kids the Model T when we're teaching to the board Explorer that's tricked out with all this great technology and they don't know there's that disconnect so that's frustrating to me a question um when it comes to because you're here speaking from an elementary level and Gwen looking at this from kind of a k through 12 when you say you know we got everybody together and we're looking at this data and you said what did it and we saw a lot of things so you you touched on it a little bit but I'm curious with what more of what you saw if you could give some examples maybe that are a little bit more real world and then um when we look at this the subtest that you were talking about you reviewed those you know teachers need more training the curriculum assistance that you know we might have on our fingertips that maybe we haven't quite utilized yet so if we're talking about like that was about fast bridge and we're talking about training for redact that we're building into our professional development days thank goodness which is which is a good thing can you do both do you have time to do both question for sure right so the react will take the majority of our time this year and needs to take that time so we are trying to balance when we can with some math so our first early release we definitely wanted for Bridges we also started the school year intentionally with some more Math training and the fast Bridge training before we started the redak training um we are going to try through staff meetings through learning teams to continue to do that work in math that we know that needs to be done um knowing that early release time and our next District days will be spent on the redact so it is a balance that we're trying yeah and and I'll excuse me and I'll just add to that the the conversations around the load that's coming legislatively through various expectations on districts is is significant you all know that you've been a part of the lobby groups as well um to really ask for no new mandates that are under or unfunded and that becomes a challenge because there's a lot of work that needs to occur to truly transform um education uh I think you bring up a good point around the Vintage of our vehicle uh and where we may be kind of sputtering along when you know the futuristic cars are like surpassing many in the real world outside of K12 so that is a big conversation that many superintendents are going going to be engaging in We There is a cohort of us that will be coming together to dig into the very issue that you spoke of director olad around the disconnect between um standardized State assessments and the standards and how that misalignment is causing gaps for many Learners um particularly in our amsd districts where we have a lot of and and advocacy power um that will be something that we are actually bringing in um various Consultants to bring forth a conversation through our next legislative cycle um coming up here in the spring or in the early spring or just just after the first of the year when the uh when they convene um because if we don't address that Gap these conversations these frustrations that you and many all of us feel will go unheard so that is also something happening simultaneously to what's happening the dayto day um with our staff and I guess one more point and then I'm done I promise the the I sat in a Southwest Metro District uh board meeting last week and again that's a different kind of District but the director of teaching and learning made um her annual report with a lot of different tests and throughout the course of her presentation she's talking she's like here's on this slide a couple of things to keep in mind and a couple of caveats and what you need to remember about this is this and I'm thinking to myself if you have so many caveats to make your point something's broken and even another board director who I can't I wish I could remember where she was from but she she said she's worked in assessments and she's like this is broken and we're asking our kids to take this test and we're asking you know and I trust me I'm not making excuses here I promise you testing is important but I felt like throughout the whole thing two or three times every single slide that she had was a caveat and I I felt bad because I was just like if you have to say that and something's wrong then it's not broad enough results or it's not it's just broken and so we had the same conversation with another District last week and I just I thought it was interesting so I'm really happy to hear that superintendents are doing this and sign me up like I want to I want to go advocate for something like that because it's it's broken and we're looking at tests that are almost 20 years old and I don't think that's fair and thank you I don't have any specific questions I appreciate very much the context that you bring to the conversation in your reality in the classroom and um the fact that you feel and have seen your kids demonstrate this but yet you have a snapshot One Moment In Time where they didn't or they didn't to the level that you don't expect them to so and that's exactly what fast bridge is and that's what you're using it for and that like period done end of sentence you know so thank you um my only thing is and I appreciate what you said D director all said my only um maybe different perspective is is that we're talking about kindergarten first grade math so like how different could the curriculum be in the last 10 years I mean we're talking like 1 plus 1 equals 2 and maybe I'm not I'm not a kindergarten or a m teacher it's still that but it's more I mean my students last year were talking fractions like they can do halves and quarters some of them are talking about 38 5/16 now um place value some of the kids are getting into thousands 10 thousands 100 thousands this is not all of them this is not the expectation first grade but there are kids who are ready so we're trying to step up to where they are um these are kids who are figuring out time to all the degrees the minutes um I had students last year who were starting to do multiplication not because I taught them how but because they were starting to see how the numbers work together because we did so much to work on that which again there have been kids 20 years ago who were doing multiplication in first grade but it wasn't the norm and it was less scho will direct it I mean I wasn't 20 years ago doing multiplication with my first graders where I had students now who were like coming up with different things to figure out our days of school they were saying 3 * 3times 10 is going to get me to 90 days of school and I was like yeah let's go on that and I could work with them more with that which is why I said I could see them thinking and explaining and they could tell me why that worked again I want to be careful because that is not my expectation of first graders that is not what I expect that is not what I want any parent to hold their first grader to because that is not what they need to be able to do but I did have students who could and so we could talk about it and the rest the kids could learn from that benefit as well but wouldn't they then be exceeding the standards if the standards are older than what you're teaching them currently I mean I just that's where I'm challenge they were able to take the concept we are working on it and take it to the next level yes but they weren't able to do it to maybe the standard of the next grade levels extent so they could go farther but not as far as they would need to for the next grade does that make sense just a reminder that the MC's don't start till third grade so we don't have oh we're talking the fast Bridge okay okay which is those it's not standards it's that it's that foundational skill so um and even MCAS up into the upper grades for reading they're not teaching or they're not assessing those foundational reading skills that everyone's being trained on right now in the redact that is all embedded in the in the fast brid data so um um those foundational skills again are fast bridge and that's not measuring standards but doesn't the fast Bridge align closer to our testing than because I I thought we fast Bridge had closer alignment to um what we were teaching it is it is somewhat predictive of MCAS because you need the foundational skills in order to access more foundational right content um it's not a Ono one there's uh tons of studies out there that show the the connection um we're finding across the state actually that um as you saw in the in fast rge there's those four categories and then there's that line there and the pink seem above seems like we're good to go and the purple below we're actually finding that students need to be in that very top category in order for it to be um really predictive of MCAS um so the state in general is talking about like do we need to think about this a little bit differently um because it's not it it is um predictive but it's not a Ono one it's there's an association does that have to do with like the cut scores where like an MCA proficient cut score really is only 50% proficient or somewhere around it's like really strange how they do their their scoring with their cut scores um it it's not really cut scores but it's um it's a it's similar to that similar to that okay um the next question I have is just um how long does it take to do a fast Bridge assessment I've heard different sto I mean I've heard that it's very time consuming and I'm wondering if like is that taking away from like actually teaching the kids um we've been working the principles and the team have been super supportive of trying to figure that out um it depends on the time of year because the tests aren't the same always from each season because we do it three times a year um it depends on if we're talking reading or math um it's a one minute test but there's different subst strands of it plus we were fortunate to do it fall during those assessment Days part of it because the other part is as a first grader if I were to do all those tests at one sitting it's too much like they are exhausted mentally that the SC scores aren't fair I think to give from them so we broke it apart into two parts and with a first grader transitions are not what I wish they were especially I mean they can't boom boom boom I can't be like okay test you I'm going to test you like there's that transition to it so I'd like to give you a hard number and that's okay I mean I think I think the feedback I've received is if I could just teach my kids right like I know my kids I know where they're at but also then I hear what you said earlier about this is where I thought my kids were at so I I get I understand there's testing and data but I'm just you know in my mind trying to understand how much time is actually being taught taken away from doing the data analysis versus just straight up teaching the basic of 1 plus 1al 2 and and director ainson I I think that that's the Crux I think going back to director ol's Point we've got to find a better balance we're not um trying to avoid the accountability of testing and the knowledge that we can gain from testing but to what you just shared how much is too much when it's not a relevant connection to the actual instruction where I'm now foregoing quality core instructional time time versus assessment time that can sometimes be shaky at best so that's the argument that I was referencing that many are saying this is enough we need to do something fundamentally different and bring this forward to our to our electeds our leg MBE Etc so that's that's what that group is really going to be hammering home on well now fastb reading has legislatively mandated her read act so we don't have a choice on that so I guess in my mind it's either we do it and check the box or we do it and we use use it for to drive our instruction um so I think we've all made a conscious decision um because it's been embedded in our system and because we know the features of the react moving forward that um we are required to keep doing it and there's a lot that we can do with it to drive our instruction and to drive system level decision making um so I I think we're all kind of on that same pathway with it one question and this is for Mrs molden um when you mentioned strength and communication with families you've identified that do you give any sort of best practice guidance is this is what our expectations are um so that we know that we know that this is happening and so what at that back to school we met with each grade level team and put like four or five different resources that should be encouraged so it's at really the building level for that follow through to happen then um and gave them just a variety of resources that they should be using to communicate with families so there is best practice guys okay thank you and that's built into the bridges um curriculum p as well yeah thank you thank you so much yeah all right and we're going to uh pull Jessica Riley from Lola deago fifth grade teacher uh and U she certainly has been part of these conversations um that Ma the math committee uh so definitely don't want to hold you from speaking of that but also a representative of L of Lago as we presented the Apple data uh earlier in our uh data presentation tonight we want to make sure heing somebody uh that can speak to that as well so see I've been um in grade at L Lago since we've had a fifth grade at L Lago I was part of creating the fifth grade um there and so our first fth graders are now n 10 oh time flies um but yeah kind of going back to like the fast bridge and the math and the MCA data and everything I also was on the math um committee and got to Pilot Bridges so I'm in year three of bridges instead of year two um and so being able to have a year head of like the district as a whole I've been able to see the ways to be able to better communicate to families such as I'm having kids after we finish a module which is a fourth of a unit um they'll take out any of those workbook pages whether we've completed them or not and they get to take them home and they it's communicated to families that it any uncompleted pages is optional extra practice at home um and any completed pages is another communication tool where families can see how we've been solving these problems because we are solving math in ways that is very different than you or I were ever taught math I mean things like in fifth grade the kind of the Crux of fifth grade math is fractions and unlike denominators of any denominator you can think of it's it's everything and so um but 10 and 11 year olds fractions is still a very abstract concept for concrete thinkers and one thing that is really great about bridges is they bring in all these concrete models to help students understand fractions in a meaningful way for example they use the money model so when you think of 1/ half you know that that's 50 cents CU that's half of a dollar when you think of 12th you know that's a nickel because there's 20 nickels in a dollar we also use the clock model uh as well for denominators such as thirds and six that wouldn't work well with money but it does work for 60 minutes in an hour um and then for the denominators where it doesn't work really well with 100 cents or 60 minutes in an hour they're learning a double number line and so again kind of like my first grade counterpart is saying the math discussions we are having in class is so deep and so um much more profound than I can ever remember thinking about math as my own and I have I'm kind of a weird elementary teacher and that I really really love math it's kind of my passion um seeing them have those discussions and we've kind of seen in this first year of bridges that they have these really deep rich real life discussions but putting it paper to pencil on an older standardized assessment be it fast Bridge or MCA there is kind of a bridge that we need to do so part of that is sending those workbook pages home I'm also um providing more time in class where they are able to talk about their thinking and then formulate how to put that on paper I'm making sure that I am using the um formative assessments which Brides calls checkpoints or work samples and not only am I giving them in class I am giving them back to students and I tell them okay this isn't the unit test that counts towards your quote unquote math grade on your report card it is a checkpoint and it ex is exactly that it's seen how you are doing at this point in the unit and it's your chance to either celebrate what you know or learn from your mistakes and be able to grow from there CU I I am a firm believer that mistakes is a part of the learning process and so being able to see what their thinking is on pencil and paper and then go back and kind of reevaluate what might be some misconceptions where they're able to talk it through but maybe they might forget exactly the right denominator to use or something like that again going back to the fractions can you tell I'm in the fractions here know um but uh and so then also within fifth grade at Lola De Lago we have created a fifth grade website where parents can go to and that's emailed out every Friday with our um newsletter and it's got links for resources and so on that for the math section I've got a link to the bridges math atome um website that has all sorts of activities that parents can do with their fifth grader um that kind of aligns to how we're learning math in fifth grade um I also have all the workplaces which are the kind of math games we do in the classroom I have the digital versions so that families can pay play with their fifth graders at home um and then parents can also request a digital um Home Learning packet that can come in English or Spanish and includes an answer key which again helps our parents who maybe don't quite understand this new version of math but is also I'm having students being able to recall and find patterns and be excited about math I remember my very first year um piloting Bridges and kids being upset that the math hour was over which is not something I was used to as a math teacher and just being like no we can't stop now and and that's what I love about bridges is getting kids excited about talking about math um but again we also um are using seeing kind of the math data the fast bridge and the MCA data making sure that we are teaching to the standards not necessarily teaching to the test but making sure that what they are being assessed on they have been exposed to and so we are using the Bridge's Minnesota alignment guide and that's not necessarily tramming more into the year it's knowing what we can take out of the bridges curriculum that is maybe the common core standards that don't fall under Minnesota standards and replace with more specific to inota standards um an example of that in fifth grade is common core standards say that you are supposed to multiply and divide fractions here in Minnesota that is more of a sixth seventh grade standard so our fifth graders don't need to be learning that as heavily yet they can be exposed to it but they don't need to be mastering that but what's not in a common core standard but is in a Minnesota standard for fifth grade is being able to find the area of triangles and parallelograms and so I could and being able to find mean mediate and mode which that doesn't really show up in common core standards and so it's not like Common Core has more or less than Minnesota it's that it's different and it shows up in different years and so being able to use the Minnesota alignment guide it bridges does a great job of saying do this instead of this section of a unit or this section of number Corner um and then specific to laa Lago that is kind of unique from the rest of the district is our students are learning math in Spanish but being standardized tests in English and so when Bridges came along and I got to Pilot it um a couple years ago I knew that we have the 60-minute bridges math blck and then we also have the 20 minute number corner and so I went to Gwen and I said I would really like to do the keep the 60 minutes in Spanish because we want to be developing the Spanish of um of our Learners at Lo do Lago but I wanted to do the number Corner in English so that there's the bridge between the academic language and this is now my third year of doing it that way and being able to see the light bulbs of kids who may have misunderstood a word in one language and then suddenly hearing it in this other language and Bridging the two um again their math conversation is much deeper and richer because they are actually able to understand the math vocabulary in both languages um and so I when we adopted Bridges um we decided to continue that also in fourth grade so they're getting number Corner in English as well um because we know that we're getting closer to Middle School where they will be having math and English and so we want them being able to do both um that's math related and then Apple um Apple again so this is we've had five years of Apple data um this will be the sixth year that fifth graders take apple that's the language proficiency set test and we've um consistently seen that we're above the national average and that we particularly excel in the area of speaking and reading um and then listening and speaking um is kind of that middle ground and writing tends to have been our lowest strand it's not low but it's the lowest of the four um and so one of the things that the fifth grade teachers at Lola Lago have done um is well first we owned that when Co hit and there distance learning and everything there was less opportunities for kids to speak Spanish to us on an individual or even interacting with each other because when you're in your own isolated places at home you can't interact quite as much and there was less opportunity to write in Spanish and so since we've been back in person and everything we have had more um kind of class activities that requires kids to be speaking more but also kind of daily writing activities and we've even been incorporating um school version of dual lingo it's not like the Dual lingo that you can just get on your phone for fun it is an academic dual lingo which kind of helps to fine-tune um the grammar and the semantics of a language because what we know historically about immersion students is their vocabulary is through the roof they they have lots of words that they can say to you in compared to like a traditional Spanish classroom student students um but the grammar kind of the Polish on it because they were never explicitly taught the grammar I mean I don't know if you ever took a Spanish class in high school you probably learned that you conjugate verbs with yo to L A noos the six different conjugations immersion students aren't explicitly taught that and so we are starting to explicitly teach that in the upper grades once they've developed that really strong conversational skills now we're working on polishing it and then with our secondary immersion tract that is only further polished because they're able to dig more into the grammar and everything in a more for lack of better terms traditional Spanish kind of type model but also honoring the wealth of language that they all already have if that makes sense that was a lot so hopefully you've seen why we invited Jessica to this conversation toight obviously the perspective that she can bring U multiple perspectives um I think informs our conversation which this is intended to be uh with you all as a board so open it up before we transition to the high school uh we'll stay in this space for just a moment and any questions that you have for Jess I just I don't have a question I just appreciate the um enthusiasm and your ability to communicate you know um your experience and the students experiences it's it's it was a joy to listen to actually you yeah I got a question from just generally because when we started off this conversation um there was a comment made about um the Fidelity of giving the fast Bridge tests um could you elaborate on that a little bit more um so 25 fast Bridge looks very different than K1 fast Bridge K1 fast brid is to my understanding I don't do K1 fast bridge is oneon-one um student to teacher whereas um two5 a maath a reading is one a student with the iPad and so that is going to be very standardized because we don't really other than say get out your iPad open up fast bridge to this test it's much like an MCA we don't see the questions we don't you know get to um prompt them or anything um so there I mean my understanding is there would have to be Fidelity because it's not an interview process I'm not able to give H or anything like that we've had glitches though okay because that's what when you said training on giving it was that just for K through one it was focused on K1 okay okay but I will say we did change how we give the math fast bridge in that we used to give FastTrack math where it would start out with a very short time math automaticity test and then go into a not timed um more looking like mca's type test um and we've chosen to break that apart because kids didn't understand which part was timed and which part wasn't and so we saw that our math automaticity scores were looking really really low and concerning because kids maybe they got through three questions and they got them all right but if you don't get through 20 some questions in that time test your score is going to be really low because you're showing you're not automatic and if they don't know that it's a time test they don't know to get through it as fast as possible so now when we give them the math ticity portion there's no paper or pencil and we tell them if you don't know a question guess and move on um just do your best for that portion and then we give the a math they get paper and pencil and it's not timed and so it's it's two different days that we give it and it's very different expectations of what to do on the test because of the needs of the test and on the K1 I think there are just more Ines when you're oneon-one like one of them was if the student points to to count the objects that's incorrect so little details and scoring um was what we want to make sure that teachers were understanding prior to that test moving pieces in K1 for sure but yeah there we we did uncover quite a few at um two and above as well great and by the way I love seeing uh how well we're doing with Lola deago and those kids because that's a that's a phenomenal opportunity so thank you thank you all right we are going to shift gears here at this uh time and and one of the things that I want to put out there is to uh we spent a lot of time talking about fast bridge and uh MCAS a little bit and also Apple um but in our our quest for academic Excellence uh we thought it would be important for this conversation to include some conversation around efforts that we've made at the high school specifically um essentially the Capstone experience within our system uh for students to have uh exposure to uh should they desire exposure to taking an AP level course while they're with us at Prior Lake High School because that course uh any course in the AP Suite of courses is intended to be an exposure to potentially what's next what's to come for students once they leave us uh priorly high school and move on Beyond and so we thought it would be uh really important and we obviously had in our data set uh some really exciting uh results that we've seen over the course of The Last 5 Years uh and and this effort goes back Beyond those 5 years but we just presented 5 years worth of data in this uh data set um that that has been a conscious effort uh at proba like High School to provide those opportunities uh of exposure to that level of rigor uh as students prior to students leaving uh PRI like high school so I have two uh folks here tonight um as you might guess it would have been great if we had a first a kindergarten teacher a first grade teach well somebody from every grade level um and then we get into the secondary somebody from every content area um but we'd be here till midnight if we did that so um we kind of looked at various elements of the presentation and and wanted to bring different perspectives uh from the ground of that so um first start off with Mr Thorp our assistant principal at the high school who oversees the AP program and all of the components of that and all subject areas where we offer AP to uh share some of his uh thoughts and then uh Paula wolf one of our uh teachers in the social studies area of AP will speak of her experience so thank you good evening um I want to share a few numbers uh we saw some slides some numbers up there but I think it's important to talk to be able to tell the full story of what those numbers are sharing um and and to highlight some really cool things going on um we offer 22 AP courses at the high school now uh in areas of Arts science computer science language math and social studies um last year we had our highest participation rate with students about 800 well exactly 884 kids took 1,532 exams um and and and you can see the trend has been going up over the Last 5 Years College Board who runs the advanced placement program usually is pretty good at the five-year data but our numbers have been consistently going up um this year and I just checked it about 5:00 we we might be our first year to to tip over a thousand kids we're at 991 so again we've gone up 100 plus students um somewhere probably in the 1700 exam range so it's it's again a big jump for us um one of the benefits of AP courses for our students is they they may qualify for college credit um each each of the students that bur exam in May um to score that it's a score out of five um historically scores three out of f uh three four or five would equate to college credit for those students so there's a big incentive for the kids um last year 80% of our students got qualifying scores and and that's a testament on 1500 exams that's an impressive number um in conversation with one of our teachers who teaches AP you know to put those numbers into context and he had shared the U ofm costs about $550 a credit right you you you you you applied that credit towards the U ofm I mean the cost savings is I mean ballpark $2 to3 million that that our kids would be saving and our families are saving so I mean the the the benefit to our community is is great with this um and and the kids are saying that but I think one of the conversations that we've had as a school is getting that that college credit is a big deal but I think that the the other thing that we don't talk enough about is college readiness and and and there's nothing more affirming for our teachers when our kids come back and say your course prepared me for college I'm ready I'm successful in college because of your course and and that's something that we as a group are really trying to push cuz we do hang our hat on really good scores but that is that's one part of this equation uh the other one in in talking to college uh admissions offices College recruiters things like that and we ask them what do you want to see and without a doubt without a doubt they always say AP courses are very strong we understand the curriculum we understand the rigor we understand the scores kids are getting and and so we're trying to communicate that to our kids that these are opportunities within our building that if you're College Bound and you want to be College ready and you want to get into college like like a lot of the arrows are pointing to take the opportunity in an AP course um I I can't say enough about like these numbers growing yes we have grown in enrollment but not a huge amount in the last couple years I think we we have to look at the work that our teachers have done to really take away barriers to to remove any obstacle in the way uh to get kids to participate and and Miss wolf is a good example but like we are these teachers are going out of their way not to tell kids why they couldn't or shouldn't participate in these courses but saying you should try it try this you can do it it's going to be hard right there's no question they are rigorous courses they are hard but if if you went back years and years ago it was often prerequisites like you need to have a c in your last class you need to demonstrate whatever you need to take a prerequisite course now the message is if you want to do this if you want to join in come along with us and we're showing that their kids are being successful so now the kids are supporting each other saying I didn't want to do it I was pushed to do it and I did it now I'm more ready for college I got a college credit or maybe not but I'm I I took this rigorous opportunity it was hard but I'm I'm a better student because of it um one one last thing I wanted to point out and and it's just a cool thing but but last year we get a score report and it shows us all of our numbers where our kids fell again 80% of our kids you know had a a qualifying score of of three or above um but what I thought was really cool is out of our 22 courses all of them were above State national average for scores all of them across the board and and what what that tells us what that tells students is it's not necessarily the teacher it's not the course I mean the product that you could get in any AP course at our high school right now is really really strong and we live in this world and I I it's hard because I'm not talking about other schools but what you tend to see is if you look at another school they'll have really strong scores in one subject area and then they kind of drop down and it goes up and down and and we know sometimes it's teacher dependent the teacher is wonderful they get really high scores our kids are lucky because all of our courses were above State and national average so they're like whatever you choose to sign up for you you'll have a good opportunity um I'm going to turn it over to miss wolf because she can speak specifically to the courses um or her course my course yeah okay so I am Mrs wolf um some of you may formerly know me as Mrs Gaffney um this is my 30th year of teaching I taught three years in St Charles as a social studies teacher in a cohort with Terry stall as an English teacher um and then I came here and have taught for 27 years Dan was actually my mentor um so I also live in Prior Lake I've lived here for 27 years two of my sons went through Prior Lake Schools they are 27 and 24 respectfully I've been a citizen of Prior Lake for 27 years um and I'm deeply invested in Prior Lake I will retire from P Lake that will be my experience so um I'm here because Dan and Chad asked me to speak about the AP course AP Psychology um it's a relatively new course um it actually started at mcaps the first year of mcaps in 2016 I was asked to teach there part-time halftime at mcaps halftime at the high school and at the time we placed AP courses um into mcaps um after the first year we kind of looked at that program and said um probably concurrent enrollment is a better fit than and AP um there because of the rigor of AP in in the students that we were getting um and basically that year as I came back to the high school I had high school students begging me um to bring apsy to the high school and luckily with a sportive Administration in my um Department I was able to do that in 2017 um 2017 uh in um mcaps we had 16 students um 2017 we had 25 students um as of 2023 2024 last year we had 130 students um I went from teaching one section to solely teaching AP Psychology um it is the largest elective AP class at Prior Lake High School um noting that it is an AP rigorous course that isn't elective they're electing to take this it doesn't fulfill any credits um they're electing to do this they're electing to challenge themselves which is truly a tribute to our students they're phenomenal um that they're willing to to challenge themselves and I think also an ATT tribute to our elementary and middle school teachers that have done a phenomenal job preparing them for the high school as well um in fact this year we now have expanded our AP psych staff to include Barbie Cass who actually taught AP psychology in Thailand um which brings a totally different component um to the curriculum which is wonderful um the exam scores in AP psych have not only exceeded the Minnesota state standards and the US standards we also um have exceeded the global standards by almost a full point um this is truly extraordinarily extraordinary um and we now as of last year have exceeded our preco numbers um as far as our passing rate and so uh we have recovered thank you elementary and middle school for filling those uh learning gaps um but we're now above what we were prior to co so we're not content with getting back to where we were we're we're content with exceeding at this this point um so what makes this more impressive at Prior Lake to truly understand how awesome it is is as I talk with other teachers who teach AP around Minnesota and globally um typically it's seen as kind of an elitist program for kids going to elitist colleges and there's pre requisites um as far as grades letters and recommendations standardized scores we have eliminated all those barriers so in apsy in particular it's 10 through 12 so sophomores through seniors can take it um 45% of the kids this year have never taken an AP course before um and some of those are seniors where this is going to be their AP course that they take before they go to college to kind of determine um what they're doing um 21% of my kids right now are taking four or more AP courses um so again they're electing to take this in addition to knowing it's not achieving a college or a high school um standardized credit um we have many minority students we have exceeded our free and reduced lunch students that are now participating um and this year um it started about two years ago um I'm starting to see kids on 504s their IEP challenge themselves in AP site so when I when we talk about diversity it's multi-level diversity um and it's important to note that this is not I want to speak to the other AP courses obviously I'm speaking to my experience but this is across the board in AP classes and I think it's truly a a tribute to the teachers having to adjust so much to kind of how it is involved in The Last 5 Years and to be able to maintain that level of Standards even when other schools around Minnesota are kind of because as teachers I think you're so affected by scores and how you're evaluated as a teacher it's very easy to shy away from taking risks with students and I have not got that as an AP teacher from Administration or from you guys um and I think our kids are willing to take that risk and I think it's so important to do that in the high school while they have support from from home um as far as riger goes and they have you know they're going home um we all know what can happen a freshman year of college if that's the first time they challenge themselves academically um that that can be disastrous so the fact that they're challenging themselves too um I also want to say this we have kids taking AP classes that are not College Bound they're going to our Tech schools and they're going into the workforce um and so again it's important to note that although they do get that college credit we have kids challenging themselves that are not have no um maybe eventually evolved to going to college but but are going into our Workforce and are also going to our Tech schools which we encourage okay so again it's not just a single one-dimensional type of student so why do they take it AP Psych in particular 80% of the students have said they take it because they're interested I think there's a natural interest in Psychology especially everything going on in the world um but also apsy is a college credit standardize for every major and so for every major regardless of what you take you have to take either a psych or a so course so it fulfills that credit um it's also important to note um this was one student that you might recognize Dan Bergen from last year who was the representative with you guys who was awesome um oftentimes it's noted by our students that the class is challenging um it's fun and challenging and also this is super important for you guys to understand is that it's a way I can stay here at Prior Lake and get college credit and participate in my sports and activities in a way where I'm still connected as a Prior Lake student and I'm still connected to my Sprints and so again it the AP program is vital in in getting students to stay here and not go to your normales and those kind of things um I was also just so you know um you know concurrent enrollment is is a a question we've asked College in the schools with psychology before and I actually took the opportunity to review some of the uh St Cloud University of Minnesota college and the schools where kids don't have to take the test but I'll tell you what I found is the rigor is not there whereas the AP board really controls the curriculum and it's standardized and it's Global um when you start talking about taking a class at Normandale what our parents have to know is that curriculum is largely not under any type of supervision and is really kind of whatever the teacher wants to teach whatever is their kind of nugget of what they want to teach and the rigor is just not there and so what I found with students because I talked to many students after they graduate is AP courses prepare them for the rigor of college whereas they're getting the college credit within Normandale or and and that's an opportunity for kids as that are trying to work but it it does not prepare them properly for college because the rigor is not there okay um also from the student survey just so you guys know one of the things I ask the kids which I think is important for us to note too is at Prior Lake what is the largest biggest mental health concern that you have as students and this has evolved this has changed and so 32% of our kids their biggest concern is their levels of anxiety I think our kids are feeling it right now okay they're feeling the election they're feeling polarization and our kids are feeling it right now um so I wanted to take this opportunity to challenge our board to come together okay um I know as teachers we are trying and and administrators I think we have to regain trust and faith in each other um to move not only our city but our country forward and I think the kids that the kids are feeling it our high school kids are feeling it and um you know we we we need to do what we can once this whole song and dance is over to really come together um 20% of them are concerned about their social media addiction and social media influence so thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the cell phone policy I cannot tell you I have not had cell phones in my classroom for three years um and um the kids would put them in a little tubby and they' get extra credit and I tell you it helped with my teacher burnout my level of respect that I felt teacher ERS are loving it um we're seeing just a cooling off at the high school of discipline issues we're seeing kids engaged one inone being able to communicate not having that barrier um it it's been phen it's been phenomenal so again I think in my 20 years the single most impactful board decision that we've seen okay so I I thank you for that uh 19% sleep issues they're concerned about their sleep which is tied to anxiety and 15% elicit drug use and self-medicating due to mental health issues and so again I think we see I I just did a unit on um we doing a unit on the brain right now and the kids are concerned about the because we they have so many and especially High Flyers that are so anxious that's when we worry about alcohol and marijuana use as to to bring them off their anxiety and so again they're very open about their concerns about that and again apite is a class that addresses that um also an interesting note this is the first time um since I've taught AP that depression wasn't in the top floor I don't know what that means I'm not sure I think the kids are more aware of it uh I'm not quite sure I I don't know if it's a blip on the radar but it's it's an interesting note now couple of things I just wanted to to um highlight with AP Psychology um this fall we had our eighth annual psych feere at the high school um we started again at mcaps with four experiments the kids um the scientific method is what we're stressing that is the new CED and AP is stressing good science and um basically the kids created projects we had over 40 Projects this year running um they had to replicate a study that has already been done because we know that good science is science based on rep replication um and then when they were done with that we had teachers and coaches we even had grandparents show up to participate it was quite awesome um and then the students when they're done it sounds sounds fun what the students then do is they crunch data just like you guys did um and they present um you know have to crush inferential statistics they refute their hypothesis we stress ethical standards um and they present those and basically do like a doctorial um defense um as 10th through 12th graders um also important to know with ap the C the AP board reviews and creates new CED new standards um not frequently um but they do do that and in 2024 2025 they did that in AP Psychology um so they changed it a little bit certain standards that were present before are no longer present now um and they kind of updated it um we follow the CED and in Prior leag I follow it to the letter and again I think that's why our test scores are so high um and so again it kind of aligns with the new scientific standards um that we have today um so what we do in Prior Lake to prove that we are following the CED is um I turn in an audit that says how we're meeting the standards and in order for kids to get college credit in every AP class that has to be done okay so Chad reminds us we have to turn in an audit we have to prove that we're meeting the exact standards and that's how we're teaching and that's how we get the credit so again it's very transparent what we're teaching and what we're expected to teach and that is transferred to parents okay um whenever any parent has a question I think they see me in the community so they know who I am but um I always sit down with parents and say okay you have concerns over X Y and Z let's look at the Powerpoints I'm choosing let's look at the what I'm doing um and if you still have concerns let me know and and um in all of those situations they were like really I'm like yep and so it's just a conversation that we have that kind of dispels um myths about the CED in in in AP Psychology um so on a ending note um we actually had the opportunity this summer to attend a a summer workshop um every time there's new CED every summer there's an AP workshop and I think what differentiates Prior Lake teachers from other teachers is we attend it um it's of our own time and this summer um the state of Minnesota decided to give us that for free they sponsored it so we had three teachers Mrs Cass and myself and a teacher who doesn't even teach AP but teaches the other psychology course attend a full 40 40h Hour Week um kind of teaching Us best practice um looking at the test looking at what people do well what people do different um and again kind of updating for the new test which will be the this so well thank you U both of you for uh sharing that piece of the data set that we provided but the additional context um and I think I can just say that um know that work started over 10 years ago with trying to remove barriers and to be here and speak more specifically and share um of how that really has come to fruition and impact it in a positive way our students I thought it was a story we wanted to do more than just share the data so questions that you all have I'll be sure then no I just want to say thank you um I think the most encouraging number There Is the participation number I mean I as a parent have had kids go through the program have not had anyone take your class um unfortunately but but also um and and I just know what type of like everything you said about how It prepares them for college and everything is just so true and the accountability and I also think one thing to not is that when they go to psco up at normale there is no accountability there is no working with the parents because you're off at a college campus and that can be um not so good for some students um and then the last piece I want to say is oh my gosh I'm sitting here having my own anxiety because we all have to sign up for that AP um test right October 31st thank you might be on my board several times actually so I'm sitting here the whole time going oh my gosh I have to do my sign thank you thank you for the reminder so yeah really okay I do have one question these uh numbers are astounding and something we should definitely celebrate and I'm glad we are here doing that now um and I love everything you shared and um it's all very impressive my one question is I do believe that under the AP um standards right there are certain levels of distinction kids can achieve through scoring a three a four or five say you have you know I'm sure there are kids at PR Lake High School who have gotten fives on multiple tests and so they have a certain level of Distinction do we recognize that in any way like because I've never seen it I'm not saying we don't I just never have seen it having kids gone through I think we recognized it on social media this year I so we we did and our Communications Department came to the high school we invite there's three levels of Distinction and don't quote me on this right now but it's like the highest level is have passed I don't super three three to five exams with the score of something so we we collected the three groups now I put out a message please come during Laker time when you don't have to be there to take a picture you probably don't want to take so we didn't get everybody to show up but we did have a core group and our Communications people did a great job of taking high quality pictures and then we added it into the the I don't remember the name but the parent newsletter that goes out to highlight because like these are significant accomplishments huge absolutely huge it was a couple little pictures and then we listed their names and parents love to see that kids like do a great job of recognizing State participants and things like that and like some of these kids are phenomenal academics and so you know and have worked really hard in the classroom so it was just one more way to say like like look at what we're doing look at these kids are doing um we'll see how many of them we could get for an upcoming Laker Pride yeah well it's a it's a feather in the cap for you know for the high school and the district so and the kids it's incredible yeah and and I'll just you know Mr Dort will thank you for for sharing this information and I I also want to just kind of tie it back to a conversation earlier when we're talking about overall assessment data look at the disconnect that we're talking about just within our own system so if kids are tracking at the levels that we showed earlier yet are growing in their magnitude of competing at the AP level something's not aligned and this is the I mean just looking within our own are we measuring what matters and are we doing it appropriately that can't be true while this other reality holds true something's not clicking and and so I really appreciate how you all are recreating the culture of Academic Press whether I'm going off to college or not um what we are finding and you all could attest to this when learning is relevant and it matters to our young people they're full on it and one of the things that we were discussing um just this past summer was the uh 11th grade act I'm sorry the 11th grade act just opposed to the MC MCA and how that there's there's no V there's little value to many of our students and correct me if I'm wrong because we were talking at the state of 11th graders when they know what matters most to them is the act they're not they're not not choosing colleges based on an MCA score so the participation rate is plummeting and it's just another example of okay if we're going to have that fine is that an appropriate setup for our kids they're they're opting out because they're going with what's more relevant to their learning and what matters for what their goal is and so I think that's part you know part of our recent change maker Hub with engaging with our kids to understand what does education need to become for us to be more relevant and responsive to you as young people and the and and as Learners and you saw this my Friday's 5 like I was blown away by just listening sometimes like okay I just kind of need to get out of the way sometimes and let these kids soar so I think as an industry this this also just kind of solidifies the points that we were making earlier but also just demonstrates phenomenal practice and it's not by look I know you were just tonging and cheeking it our staff are rocking it okay our staff are so prepared to connect with our kids to to get the results that our kids demand and are Desiring so thank you and all of our colleagues who are you know doing that work um particularly at the AP level that we're focusing on tonight but just in general you know we heard from several of our staff tonight that are putting in thousands of hours collectively um to ensuring they are doing what is best for our kids so so thank you both yeah thank you [Music]