##VIDEO ID:Mc_iYzdwows## [Music] good evening and Welcome to our uh October 7th regularly scheduled Schoolboard meeting at this time please rise if you're able and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance after the Pledge of Allegiance please remain standing for a brief moment of silence I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all at this time I would like us to share a moment of silence for Stephanie Compton a valued member of the Rosemont Middle School skit away recently thank you okay board members so thank you again for everyone who is here joining us for our Schoolboard meeting um just our quick order of business is that we are having a little technical difficulties with our microphone so you might see us pass our mic um between ourselves today um that is just uh the nature of business cuz we roll with what we got so um Anna said it was because of solar flares I don't know if that's but I'll I'll go with it so at this time is there a motion to approve the agenda as outlined second motion by Jackie and a second by Anna all those in favor of approving the agenda please say I I those opposed motion carries on a 0 vote next on the agenda is our recognition portion of the agenda which is usually our favorite portion of the agenda I would like to welcome Egan High School principal paully rowski to the podium Dr rosi will start Dr Rakowski will start us out by giving an overview of the National Merit Scholarship program and college board National recognition programs she will then introduces to The Egan high school students each of the other High School principles will follow to introduce their students and after all students have been presented staff would like them to gather at the far end of the hallway for a group photo Dr rowski all good thank you very much good evening board members chairperson Johnson and superintendent balson I am as introduced Dr ply rikowski Egan high school I want to thank you for inviting us all here tonight and allowing us to have this time to represent and honor the students and families of these students at tonight's board meeting so it's my privilege to give you this overall information about National Merits so that each of us don't have to to constantly ly repeated we'll get it done once and the National Merit Scholarship program for the class of 2025 operates at all of our high schools scholarships are provided by the National Merit organization itself 280 business organizations higher education institutions and individual donors Nationwide all to honor Scholastic Champions and academic Excellence Juniors entered the National Merit Scholarship program a nation wide competition for scholarships and awards by taking the preliminary Scholastic aptitude test called the peace at and it's also the National Merit Scholarship qualifying test they take it in October of every year in fact it's coming up soon for this year's juniors in April of 2024 the 50,000 highest scores Nationwide were identified and high schools were notified of their high scores some some 16,000 of those High performers were identified as semi-finalists in midt those students are chosen on a state represent representational basis semi-finalists have the opportunity to continue in the merit scholarship competition in advance to finalist status by meeting additional requirements 34,000 the remaining group of high performers have been named commended Scholars based on a selection index score Nationwide those seniors are to be congratulated as well on this high honor in Minnesota 288 seniors are semifinalists representing 86 high schools additionally 386 seniors are commended Scholars and they represent 119 high schools tonight we are recognizing the seniors from our high schools for the national scholarship honors we want to be sure to recognize all of the elementary and middle school Educators as well as our high school Educators and of course the families of these seniors our seniors arrive here tonight due to the support and education they have received in all of our schools and homes I am honored to present the Egan High School seniors recognized as National Merit Scholars I would invite them to come UPF front now please and I'm going to ask if possible that you face another test put yourselves in alphabetical order by your last names you got it I would invite the family and friends who are here with these young people tonight to also stand and be recogn ized thank you thank you very much thanks for coming out tonight for this so we are going to just have them step forward when their name is announced so that they can be seen by the audience and recognized if you'd hold your applause for the end that would be great and then the next school will come after us Eva Abbe ad adika basab Raman did I get close pretty close oh I even practiced Louise Brandt Harley gray do we have Harley Harley's not here sorry Alex Wong uh Mason Deering Elizabeth Kerr let's see we're missing Carson parm Tucker and Mia Warden we have some students who could not be with us tonight but I certainly wish they could have Sean Christensen Harley gray and Neo manvan and Carson Raiden they are also part of this group congratulations now what you're going to do another test you're going to follow me across and shake hands with our esteemed board and superintendent come with me good evening board members chairperson Johnson superintendent Balon I Am Bruce Miller principal of Eastview High School and on behalf of Eastview I would like to just take this moment to congratulate congratulate all the other National Merit Scholars from all of our district high schools tonight um this is an incredible accomplishment uh born out of hard work and passion uh for sustained academic effort and learning from our students that support our fac and the support of our faculty and we are proud of each other and uh for this very elite National recognition it is my pleasure to introduce our East VI Scholars earning National Merit recognition this evening Scholars as I introduce you again step forward to be recognize as you can predict uh our Scholars are busy in lots of things and so some of them are not available to be here tonight um but we'll start with who we do have Ashton Abram Emily Brewster Max huberty Leighton ol Claire Rutherford Su sanini May hang Maggie X Alana zick and Nicholas Zila unable to be here tonight before we give them all a round of applause is hero kabii Khloe Larson Vinci nandam muru aan win terakes ramma kushar SED bagari cark Sarah vanap pondi narv singi are those that aren't available to be here tonight please give these a round of [Applause] applause and finally let's not uh forget the important work our role our parents Guardians family and friends play and the daily supportive partnership and momentum for this incredible achievement Eastview parents Guardians family and friends will you please stand to be recognized thank you for all of your support in everything that we do Aston will you lead us across there good evening board members and chairperson Johnson superintendent B Sony my name is Drew storley and I'm an assistant principal at Rosemont High School standing in for principal roback tonight I have the honor of introducing our Rosemont High School National Merit Scholars I'm going to read all of the names when your name is announced please do step forward first of all we have Daniel begno Ashen Ahmed Kiera fav Sophie Gyan Isabella hus Matthew leholm Adam Ali Emanuel garon Ebenezer germo Bethlehem cabeda Sarah laborer Naomi team Mariam Sophie Gan Sebastian maresi Lily Nolan and Brianna Meer again if we can give These Fine Scholars a round of applause please please and if our Wonder F wonderful families here in support of our students tonight from Ros Mount if you could also please stand and be [Applause] recognized thank you go ahead go tell the guys e good evening thank you so much for having us here tonight my name is Lauren Hasting and I have the honor and privilege of being the principal at the school of Environmental Studies and I always say we are small but we are Mighty so I have with me and I'm very proud to recognize our student Naomi Hudson Naomi is not only EXC excellent academically but she's all around an awesome uh member of sces community and we're very proud to have her um also proud of her are her grandma and her stepdad who are here to celebrate with her tonight so a round of applause for them as well good evening board members and chairperson Johnson uh superintendent bony my name is Drew mons and I'm the principal at Apple Valley High School um excited tonight to present to you Piper Trudeau uh Piper is joining me here this evening and uh thank you for the opportunity to recognize her and her accomplishments as well as that of all the other students here representing Apple Valley High School in district 196 um as Lauren said uh equally proud of Piper are her family members back here uh Ben and Sarah Ben and Sarah if you please wave and Rise we'd like to thank you congratulate you folks here and Piper thank you on the mics there we go our next item under recognition I'd like to welcome Rob Nelson principal at Diamond path Elementary and rumans principal at Apple Valley High School to the podium to introduce the Minnesota Society of health and physical education Educators teacher of the year award recipients said you said my name is Rob Nelson the principal of diamond paath Elementary thank you for inviting me here tonight uh chair Johnson director superintendent balson I have the uh honor of recognizing and in introducing uh to you and to the crowd Mike Chamberlin he is the Society of health and physical Educators elementary teacher of the year it's a long acronym the short acronym is men shape which is very appropriate um Mike is a leader in every way not only in our school but in our community itself um he is the co-creator of our everyday Heroes theme at our building which really was born out of the fact that he invites everyday Heroes to come into our building and celebrate and uh celebrate physical fitness every single year and each week that he does that we get two three 400 um Heroes to children in our schools whether they be parents neighborhood friends grandparents things like that um so we really does his best to incorporate as much of the community as possible um he is a partner with our PTO um taking over our fun Ron and this year the theme was Amazing Race which is helping kids to understand that along this journey that we call life they find all these moments in which they can celebrate their awesomeness and how kind they are and how creative they are um and that really describes Mike himself he's very creative he's all of those things as well he has secured Partnerships around the state um through Minnesota Wild and getting getting free golf gear for our students to be able to to learn and enjoy a game um um such as golf he's a leader within our school district he um does different PD and professional development for all of the U fied teachers um in the elementary division as well as organizing our fifth grade track and field day every year um he creates obstacle courses throughout the year and his most important um his instructive his instruction is innovative he uses Clickers to um to see where students are at in their formative assessment what they understand about a topic how they're feeling about themselves um but his instruction always includes the what and the why which is absolutely essential for our students to be able to see that in themselves he always gives them uh various self- selected challenge levels and the opportunity to self assess and reflect along the way because for him it's not just about being good at sports it's about being a lifelong a person who pursues a healthy approach to life and in physical fitness so U Mike Chamberlain Min uh Minnesota Health I say it again men shape elementary teacher of the [Applause] year get out with that easy congratulations awesome job thanks for being here oh good evening again board members chairperson Johnson superintendent Bon um again Drew mons principal at Apple Valley high school and it is my pleasure to introduce to you Carla Christensen who has been named the Minnesota Society of health and physical Educators or menshape secondary physical education teacher of the year Carla has dedicated an incredible 32 years to teaching health and physical education district 196 with the last 25 of those years spent at Apple Valley high school she's not only a SK educator but also a passionate leader who excels in building relationships with students and colleagues alike Carla's commitment to our school Community is evident in her role as the uh sorry as the physical education and Health Department leader her 15 years of service on our building instructional leadership team and her ongoing work to Foster staff connections through leading our Sunshine committee Carla's influence extends well beyond the classroom she has been a coach for over 20 years years leading teams in softball basketball volleyball and golf while also running camps and clinics that build skills in community her service to our students continues through organizing events like girls and women in sports leadership conference and bringing together female athletes for a day of learning and growth she's also a Pioneer in curriculum development and has designed Innovative courses such as Mind Body Connection and cardio Dance Mix as well as an initiated unified as well as initiating a unified PE class to promote inclusivity Carla's work reflects her creativity her dedication and her vision for what physical education can achieve it's a true honor to recognize her here today she has a fan club in the first couple of rows of our teachers and then also her husband John in the back here um want want thank Carla for all of her hard work and all of her extraordinary contributions to our school to the community and to the field of Education congratulations Carla job congratulations great excellent next on the agenda I will turn it over to superintendent Bon for superintendent's recognition of students and staff yeah we're going to try to share the mic here um thank you very much chair Johnson I want to First recognize our outstanding principles and assistant principles as this week is principles and assistant principles Appreciation Week in district 196 and we have at least a few if not more uh principles present thank you for the important work you do for your school communities and at this time I would invite any principls or assistant principles who are with us this evening to stand or at least wave a lot of them are standing uh wave and be recognized woohoo thank you later in our meeting tonight the school board will be asked to approve a resolution designating next week as nutrition services employees Appreciation Week in district 196 there are approximately 175 full and part-time employees in nutrition services each year they serve approximately 2.5 million I'm going to read that again 2.5 million healthy and nutritious meals at 31 locations in our district I want to thank each of them for the important work they do each day to keep our students wellfed and ready to learn are there any nutrition services employees here tonight if so they can stand and be recognized if not we will make sure that they hear about this later and another recognition as well uh later this evening the board will also be asked to app approve a resolution designating October 14th to the 19th as Transportation employees Appreciation Week in district 196 we currently have 305 Transportation employees who operate the largest District owned Fleet in the state consisting of 227 vehicles in a typical year our drivers and cheron travel approximately 2.9 Million Miles I'll read that again 2.9 Million Miles driving to transport more than 23,000 students twice each school day to and from more than 5,500 bus stops throughout the district and if there are any transportation employees here today you can stand and be recognized at this time if not we'll get this to them again later as well next I want to point out that next Monday October 14th is indigenous people's day a h a holiday celebrated on the second Monday of October each year to honor native American peoples their sovereignty culture and gifts to North America the day is recognized by students and staff in our district and in schools across the state of Minnesota in district 196 our elementary students participate in a schoolwide read aloud and discussion of the book indigenous people's day our middle and high school students study native cultures and communities in their social studies and English language arts classes we have a thriving Native American community in district 196 with over 500 IND students across the district representing 55 different Sovereign Nations the majority of our students are oju and Dakota Lakota and our American Indian education program is hosting an event at Falcon Ridge from 5:30 to 8:00 pm on Monday October 14th you can learn about our American Indian education program by attending or by going to the academic section of our district website at district196.org lastly I want to uh also recognize and welcome are many speakers tonight who have submitted requests for special Communications to the school board we will hear from two uh different parties those interested in a Spanish language immersion program and a group who supports and values our uh some of our employees specifically our cultural family advocates I want to thank all of you for the time and the passion you are sharing with the board we also received a group of letters from elementary students about their interest in Spanish language learning we appreciate the excitement and the advocacy and I know that Mr soron also met our director of Elementary Mr senson met with a group last week regarding the Spanish language learning requests and I'm sure there will be more meetings and discussions to come for those speaking on behalf of our cultural family advocates we value the important work they do I know they've been in extensive conversations with our HR uh Human Resources team regarding collective bargaining and am confident that those conversations will continue through to resolution please know that our district values their work and the positive impact they have on students and Families cfas you are appreciated we are fortunate to live in a thank you yes we are fortunate to live in a community that is actively involved in support of our of our schools as we work through the many opportunities and challenges before us thank you and this concludes my report thank you superintendent Bon as we do the little mic switch here here we go next on our agenda is special communication requests we have nine special communication requests this evening people who would like to speak during special communication requests must submit a form at least five working days in advance of the meeting 10 speakers receive up to four minutes to share comments we do use a timer for public comment um and we'll remind speaker when they have 30 seconds remaining for our speakers there is a little light at the podium that will turn green when your time is started it will turn Amber when you have about 30 seconds remaining and it will turn red and start making a beepy sound when it's time to wrap up your comments and I'll try to cut off the beeping before it gets too annoying um uh as a reminder board members generally do not respond to special communication requests at the board meeting because this is time for board members to listen and absorb what's being said um not necessarily for a dialogue in this venue um that said members of the district admin um Administration or the board may follow up with individual speakers after the board meeting with that I would like to welcome our first speaker for tonight um to the podium um Miss Claire opsol and if you could please um start just by introducing yourself and your connection to the district and I'll start your time after that introduce go ahead hello my name is CLA upsall and I am a resident of isd196 good evening chairperson Johnson Super school board members and superintendent Bon my name name is Claire upsa I attended ISD 196 schools for the entirety of my K12 education starting at Woodland transitioning to Kota Hills and then graduating from Egan high school when I finished earning my social studies teaching degree I knew I wanted to come back to my old school district to teach I wanted to be a part of a district that had done so much for me I have been lucky enough to teach at Apple Valley High School school for the last 12 years and to have been a resident of this district for the last 2 years lastly and most importantly I am a mom of two little boys ages three and one both of my boys attend a Spanish Immersion daycare within the district boundaries my oldest has been in daycare for almost a year now and watching the progression of his language acquisition has been beyond incredible he has grown more and more comfortable speaking Spanish words and it has become a common occurrence in our household for him to ask how do you say blank in Spanish he is so curious and eager to learn you can see him radiate all over his little body I do not want this to stop when he leaves daycare you see there is nowhere in our district for my sons to go to continue their Spanish immersion education while Diamond path does offer Spanish it is only for an average of 16 minutes a day that program simply does not compare to what a Spanish Immersion program can offer students when parents ask the daycare directors where they can go to continue Spanish Immersion for their children they are informed that they will need to leave the district since there is no Spanish Immersion program in isd196 several parents have already done this which you can see in the comment section of the petition that has been shared I am not the only parent who feels this way there are 400 children ages 6 months to 5 years who are currently enrolled across the four Spanish Immersion daycare centers within the ISD 196 boundaries not to mention the hundreds of students who have already graduated from these daycare centers these parents have chosen Spanish Immersion daycares as a place to care nurture and educate their children because they acknowledge and value what bilingualism can offer their children and their future opportunities for academics careers and creating connections within their communities the parents of these children are not the only people who value Spanish Immersion a petition was started 1 month ago go asking residents of isd196 to show their support for the creation of a Spanish Immersion program by our school board of ISD 196 in one month alone the petition has garnered 305 signatures it is clear that our Community Values Spanish Immersion and believes that it has a place in our school district ISD 196 mission statement is to educate develop and Inspire students for lifelong success increasing the number of bilingual students in this District would absolutely achieve this Mission thank [Applause] you I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Drew enilson and so similar you could just start by introducing yourself connection to the district of course so my name is Drew englon I'm an ISD 196 resident uh good evening chair superintendent balson and school board members um in addition to being I'm a parent of two young boys and fun fact my previous speaker is my wife Claire uh tonight I want to talk a little bit about bringing Spanish to ISD 186 I plan on covering a couple different topics these are include why our children are currently learning Spanish reasons why ISD 186 should consider creating a program and also available resources uh first off I'll start off a little bit more about me I'm of Latin uh Heritage however I'm not a fluent Spanish speaker uh my grandparents were both were Spanish as a first language uh and However unfortunately their language was not passed down to my mom myself or to my sister uh they grew up in a time where there really was a strong there wasn't a strong value for having those dual languages so as part of that um it just wasn't something that they really saw as important value for my mom to carry on so this is really a large part of uh why we've been looking at this program too and we brought our kids into Spanish Immersion because we wanted them to really learn more about their language learn more about their culture so we've had them and put them into uh a Spanish Immersion daycare so uh really looking at this and having our boys in Spanish it's a really um to learn Spanish it's it's obvious this is really a big personal thing to our family we want them to be on this journey of learning more about their culture learning about about language um and something that actually part of our family has already started doing so our niece and nephew they started their Spanish education by attending a Spanish ersion daycare similar to what our boys are doing and they continue that on from their Spanish Immersion daycare to going to Emerson Elementary School in Minneapolis uh that's another Spanish immersion school that's um again in Minneapolis that they've been going to uh to continue that education we'd love for our boys to have a similar experience in ISD 186 but unfortunately it's currently not there and not available so that's why we're speaking on this tonight our family is really just one story of how Spanish is really important to a lot of people there are several other unique stories that we have learned about through our community outreach and that petition that we started and we urge the school boards to review those comments in that petition if you haven't already because there's really some rich conversations in there and stories about why people find Spanish to be really important so next I want to talk about several reasons why istd 196 should consider creating a Spanish Immersion program Claire and I and other members of our group have spoken about these reasons at four istd 196 Community listing sessions over the past two years so these statistics may be something that you've already heard before um but I'm going to bring them up again so first off I'm going to cover Community need there's a community need for smash immersion there's 2,000 students in istd 196 living in a household that speaks Spanish as their first language um beyond that that if you're looking at that 7.2% of all old students uh that is over twice the amount of the next language which is Somali uh and this percentage is really hard to imagine so think of it as two students in every classroom while they have a different story from our own these students would greatly benefit from a language immersion program another speaker tonight is going to talk more about that and we'll share uh really how that can really enrich their education two is existing programs language immersion programs have become rather common in Minnesota there are 110 language immersion programs in the state with Spanish being the most common program there are Spanish immersion programs as nearby as Prior Lake St Paul and Minneapolis and Richfield istd 196 is an amazing School District it's part of the reason why we moved here however that doesn't mean there aren't areas for improvement resources uh talks a little bit I heard the superintendent talk about this before we sent a lot of information over to uh district office staff to let them know there is things available to learn more workshops conferences and even staff contacts at U Minnesota Department of Education in addition to that uh we're always open for more conversations to share any resources we can with uh the school board and with the district office staff so in summary creating a Spanish emersion program will create an equitable learning opportunities and keep our school district competitive thank you so much for your time and I appreciate any more conversations we can have on the topic thank you I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Gabriel lren and similar surf you could start by introducing yourself and connection to the district um hi I'm Gabriel lren and I'm a student at Apple Valley High School um good evening chairperson Johnson school board members and superintendent Balon my name is Gabriel longren and I and I'm a currently a senior at Apple Valley high school I graduated from a Chinese middle school four years ago and I'm here to explain my immersion experience and help advocate for implementing the Spanish Immersion School in district 196 six I have two main points I'd like to talk about the first being the positive impact having going to an ersan school had on me uh as a little bit of background information I was born in China and adopted by a white family at the age of three thus I would not have much Chinese in me to begin with and thankfully I was sent to a Chinese immersion school in um called inua Academy so I could keep a little bit of my culture with me so it means a lot to me I also believe that it's important for Americans of other cultures to go into an emerging School to be culturally aware of other people and I lost my spot yeah culturally aware of others as well being immers being in immersion also provided me with the with the ability to read right and understand Chinese which has helped me not only understand uh my own language but also cognitively benefit me as well that this skill allows me to have more opportunity in my career field and can give many others who have been in an immersion program those same benefits as well I believe that being bilingual has not only help me help my social skills but also many cognitive capabilities as well for example my creativity my memory attention span and it's also made me more self-reliant since I can't go to my parents for helping for help with my Chinese homework um and uh in my basic education needs were not hindered in my imers school either I learned the basic Elementary School uh to Middle School curriculum while also having a very helpful skill that will help me in the future the second thing I would like to make clear is about the commute I had to take to go to my middle school so inua Academy is a Chinese imer school that's located in North Minneapolis that means I didn't have a bus to take me there since I was based out here in Apple Valley and that means my parents had to drive me so on a good day uh it would take about 45 minutes to get there and on the way back about an hour to drive back cuz of traffic and because of that uh my Emer school oh sorry my emergeny school went from kindergarten to 8th grade so that school trip so I went to school there for about N9 years of my life and as you can tell going there for 5 days a week for nine years is very taxing on not only my parents' finances but also I sometimes think that it made my dad a little bit insane driving there back and forth a lot now I come from a well-off family so it didn't really have any negative impacts but some families here are't as fortunate as some of us here and that amount of driving canot only be good for their monthly finance that cannot be good for their monthly finances adding the school closer in range to many families looking for their children to take Spanish Immersion will not only help remove the need to drive them to a farther school it would also help them learn Spanish faster since younger children learn language is quicker than a fully adult developed adult C uh I hope my words have made an impact on your decision and I thank you for your time and listening to my story thank you I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Sarah Scutter and similar ma'am if you could start by just introducing yourself and connection to the district uh my name is Sarah Scutter and I'm a resident of 196 good evening thank you for your time and service to district 196 my name is Sarah Scutter and I'm thrilled to be a new physical therapist in district 196 and a mom to two little girls who will soon be a part of this amazing District I'm here tonight along with others to passionately advocate for a Spanish Immersion program in 196 I've had countless conversations with students parents and teachers who are all excited about the prospect of a Spanish Immersion program let's work together to make this happen and provide an incredible opportunity for our students when my child was first an infant I looked into Spanish emersion programs but was surprised to find that there were no options within the district despite the district's great educational system I discovered that most families seeking dual language education were going to other cities there are Spanish Immersion daycares nearby but no opportunities for continued uh immersion in the district my personal story is growing up in sual South Dakota I was very studious and a student and I didn't take Spanish until later in high school for three years I even took a proficiency test and got credit into college because I was a good memorizer and I knew enough to get by but right now in my daily professional career I don't have anything to show for it my experience is that it was hard to learn this at a later time in my academic career and the missing piece was not being immersed in it it just didn't stick and it's one of the biggest regrets I have today at an early age children have the remarkable ability to learn and absorb a great deal of information due to their increased neuroplasticity starting language emersion early helps children attain native language proficiently research at Cornell University shows that learning a second language does not cause confusion delay or cognitive deficit it children in immersion programs perform well in standardized tests and maintain attention better before my recent mooved to district 196 I work at Shriner's healthcare for children where I treated a variety of children as a physical therapist over 75% of my case load was Spanish speaking patients I heavily relied on in-person or remote interpreters and without them I couldn't do my job effectively having the ability to speak Spanish would not only benefit many families but would also help me establish even deeper connections through language a shared language helps build trust I had a conversation with a Spanish-speaking mother in district 196 whose child was being bullied because of his English accent as a result he stopped speaking at school for over a year I believe that incorporating a Spanish Immersion program could help students like him feel proud of their language and culture this program could also be expanded to include a mentorship component where students can build relationships across cultures district 196 aims to educate develop and Inspire students for lifelong learning a Spanish emersion program aligns with our missions and beliefs emphasizing inclusive learning and Innovation for my own experience I know that being bilingual can open up many opportunities to various Fields especially since Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages globally I've heard the main reason the Spanish emergent program isn't hasn't been implemented is the District in the district due to perceived lack of demand however considering that 65% of the Dual language programs in Minnesota are Spanish Immersion it's clear that there is indeed demand many of these programs have either a lottery system or waiting L for enrollment um can you provide us with some specific number of signatures required to demonstrate demand or suggest other ways to show the demand so we can address this issue I'm excited to learn um and look forward to this being the beginning stages of collaborating to develop Spanish Immersion to enhance learning Empower change build community and serve our students thank you for your [Applause] time I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Jay Cody and please correct me if I mispronounced your name as well straight um um I'm Jay Cody I am a language teacher at Apple Valley High School I'm also a district resident and I am the parent of two District 1996 students one at Blackhawk and one at Glacier Hills um chairperson Johnson superintendent Bon and board members I'm here today asking the board to consider creating a Spanish dual immersion option for elementary students in our district this is a program where approximately equal numbers of Spanish-speaking students and students learning Spanish are together in a classroom where instruction takes place half in English and half in Spanish in this way all students students are able to develop academic language and interpersonal skills in both languages multiple research studies have found this system to lead to the greatest academic success for Spanish speaking students in dual immersion programs these students are in schools where the Knowledge and Skills they bring to the classroom are both implicitly and explicitly valued by the community and they are supported in becoming literate in both Spanish and English the Spanish Learners in the classroom are able to achieve content knowledge at or above grade level while also becoming Prof proficient in Spanish and attaining greater cultural competency many of the problems that our graduates will face are Global in nature and the ability to understand different cultural perspectives is key to understanding problems and making solutions that will actually work when I think about what I want from my own children as well as my students and all of the students of 196 it is for them to leave here with the ability desire and determination to improve their communities and I think immersion education will help them get there as the other speakers have mentioned there's a strong demand within and around our district for immersion anecdotally before my son started kindergarten I was working at Apple Valley and living in Robinsdale basically the similar commute that Gabe was talking about um we applied to the immersion program in Robinsdale and we ended up 107 on the waiting list um that was basically the Catalyst to move so that my kids could attend school and District where I was working um but if he had gotten in um the immersion would have been a really strong incentive to try and stay and make it work considering the many offerings of 196 and our desire to provide Equitable education with the best positive impact on our students trajectory for all of our students a Spanish Immersion program seems like the next step in a district with over 2,000 students who speak Spanish at home as we consider changing boundaries for elementary schools I hope the possibility of adding Spanish Immersion as an option for families in our community as part of the conversation um I student taught at the German ersion school in St Paul I also did my Master's Degree research um on beginning immersion teachers and have a graduate certificate in immersion I have spent a lot of time in immersing classrooms I have immersion graduates in my German classes I take students to the zoo once a year for German day at the zoo and my level three students who have been taking German for three years at the high school level go around and the fourth graders from the German Merion school are there presenting and they are so confident and so fluent and my kids are always asking me like where did those kids come from are there like a bunch of German kids running around and I explained to them the kind of education that those students received that in one year of kindergarten they've had more contact time with German and more German instruction than my kids get through taking College in the school's level German and every year there are many kids in my room who said why didn't we have that opportunity that's so cool and um while it's too late for my own children um I am hopeful that this becomes a possibility for district 196 students in the future thank you for listening and for supporting our community by serving on the [Applause] board I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Jennifer a Ernst and similar if you could start by introducing yourself and connection to the district sure good evening I'm Jennifer erns and I'm a district resident not only am I District resident um I'm a Rosemont High School graduate a parent of a student from district 196 and I'm a cultural family advocate in district 196 and this evening I'm just here to share a little bit of my why I love my job I love the families that I serve I love supporting students and creating welcoming spaces sharing School resources and solving problems I love district 196 and the work that we do as cultural family advocates is essential for students and families of color in this District I graduated from Rosemont High School and when I was a student from Diamond path to Scott Highlands to Rosemont I was one of the only students of color I never encountered a teacher or an administrator that looked like I did since I graduated our students demographics have changed dram D drastically they've changed drastically since I was in school those students deserve to have some cultural specific support when you've been through these experiences yourself you can help those students go through the challenging times they may face being the only student of color and I'm excited that our district has more students of color than when I was a student I'm passionate about helping district 196 students and families be successful the data is clear students who have an educator who look like them are more likely to be successful students don't understand that there's a place for them in power or leadership and we show that to them every day all of the cultural family advocates feel this way we make school less daunting more accepting more tolerant of language and cultural differences and more effective for students of color because of cultural family advocates you see a more stable happy diverse student body because of cultural family advocates you see more engaged families of color in Stu in school events and functions that have been traditionally white spaces because of cultural family advoc kits our students of color can overcome the harsh racial disparities that we see across our state cultural family advocates help remove those barriers so that every student in our district has an opportunity and the resources to thrive both in and out of the classroom we are that bridge for students families and schools we're a safe place for parents parents reach out to to us when because they understand we understand their culture and their cultural background if there's something parents don't understand or a concern that parents have we're usually their first stop we work tirelessly to build trusting relationships with parents and these relationships allow our families to engage in school activities that would be inaccessible without the work that we do we're also a safe place for students they see us we look like them and we develop a sense of trust because they see themselves reflected in us while I had many amazing Educators in 196 none of those Educators looked like me I see him running short on time but I just would like the district to understand the role that we play as cultural family advocates in this school district is essential it it would have made a difference in my education and I hope that I'm making a difference in the students of color in this District's education too thank [Applause] [Music] you I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Becky bunol and similar ma if you could start by introducing yourself and connection to the district good evening School Board superintendent my name is Becky bun Holz and I'm a former alumni and parent of two biracial children who graduated from district 196 it has been brought to my attention that there are negotiations taking place in regard to the fair pay that the cultural family advocates of district 196 wholeheartedly deserve it pains me to think this should even be up for a debate however I was inclined to speak tonight on their behalf based on the much needed support I received for both of my children throughout their schooling I have had a cultural family Advocate follow both of my children K through 12 I can guarantee you that without a CFA in place neither of my children would have graduated high school just a backstory I graduated from myself from Rosemont High School in 1994 my daughter graduated in 2015 and now my son just graduated in 2024 when I was in school there was maybe 1% minority population at my school I can count on one maybe two hands the total number of kids of color in my school compared to now where I don't know what the actual percentage is but something like 67% or more are children of color at Apple Valley High School representation matters both of my kids have struggled with identity issues being biracial especially in school my son has had an IEP since he was in the first grade he he has struggled with his identity as well as many learning challenges my son having had dyslexia dysraphia and disc calcula basically Reading Writing and math challenges caused many issues needless to say school was not his friend um he hated school because of these challenges but never wanted to ask for help that being said having had these challenges led to Oppositional Defiant behaviors in school schools was was by far his biggest struggle he went from being kicked out of elementary school to being sent to a level three school where he was the only child of color in his class I have had a district 196 CFA follow my son to be part of every meeting every suspension every IEP meeting since the first grade my son knew that he was that was the one person that he could meet him where he was at the level of communication my CFA was able to provide and the ability to advocate and provide insight into school Personnel was lifechanging as he was transferred to three different elementary schools Apple Valley Middle School and ending with Apple Valley High School I can honestly say that my son would have not made it through school if it wasn't for a CFA I'm going to be honest my son wouldn't listen to White teachers um he had been singled out many times by certain teachers to where he did feel like he was being treated differently every little thing was a big thing my son was suspended probably 30 times from elementary through high school he had already been labeled if I did not have a CFA that advocated for my son I can assure you he would have been another statistic my point being is that you can't put a price on what these teachers do to not offer them Fair contracts and proper funding is morally wrong these Advocates provide what many teachers are unable to do they are able to reach the kids of color which is now in some in the majority of the district 196 schools the representation that they provide in these schools are nowhere where they need to be and to not be acknowledged for what they do and the impact that they have on district 196 students is disheartening they are just asking for fair pay and they deserve that and more My Hope Is that the school board acknowledges that cfas make a substantial impact to not just students of color but all students and families in the district I would like the school board to acknowledge the necessity of cfas My Hope Is that the administration implements the financial support to build and maintain a strong CFA team for the betterment of the district students and families thank [Applause] you I'd like to welcome our next speaker to the podium Tui Jones and similarly Ma you could start bying yourself and connection to the district all right so uh my name is twe Jones I am a ala Valley High School alumni I am also a former staff for the district and I am a uh mother of three boys who attend Cedar Park Elementary or magnet I'm going to move this here okay so I am also a former wife of a cultural family Advocate or a former Cultural Family I'm still his wife I promise but he was a cultural family advocate here um I've had the privilege of seeing the impact of family advocates and many roles within our district and I'm here to share why I believe they are so essential to the success of our students and Community throughout my speech I hope to show you just how valuable our cfas are and to urge you to consider giving them a well-deserved contract that reflects the economic realities and the changing costs of health insurance I loved watching my husband be a CFA it was very purposeful and impactful and I saw many highs and I saw many lows and essentially at the end of the day the work was very hard um I saw my husband help students fill out fafsas fafsas I saw my husband Advocate with police on behalf of the district for our students I saw my husband organized to help students organize demonstration because they were like we're fun to leave and he was like no don't just leave there's a way that you can actually share your voice be heard and then not get in trouble for it for all the times that they felt like they were just they were being um not served justly um and I watched my husband um hold hard conversations between adults and students who have very much um been harmed by these adults but like I said there were a lot of highs like really really good highs um for the love and for the love of their students and the relationships that they built I actually reached out to a couple of students um and here are just testimonies of their words of why they feel like cfas are so valuable having a CFA was valuable because I could relate to JD he didn't speak down to me and understood my living situation my mom was sick and leaving a violent relationship so I miss school to help with my siblings JD helped me stay organized gave me resources and kept me on track with my credits I actually graduated on time because he sat me down told me what I was missing and we created a plan for me to catch up Kia Apple Valley High School 2017 alumni JD created a relationship role in my life and helped me understand what it looked like to buckle down and look at the bigger picture coming from a broken home you lose a lot of confidence respect and hope CFA is allowed new relationships to be built and help create opportunities within people who didn't believe exist I know I'm not the only student from the district that benefits from cfas Dennis Apple Valley High School 2015 alumni the role of our cfas is to help close the achievement Gap it is obvious with these two testimonies that these kids would have fallen through the cracks without our cfas this is two students one Advocate one school only a couple years in between imagine how many more lives have been impacted by our cfas today even me right now as a parent who was very well versed in the school along with my husband we still call on our cfas to help us navigate through situations and understand different things what makes them valuable is that they represent the district which positions them to build trust with students schools families and all other involved in the students life with limited time I want to highlight two key aspects of family advocates that set them apart from other position the trust they're able to build and their lived experiences trust is built through connection and sense of safety and cfas uniquely Foster both creating a much stronger sense of security for our students and our families lived experience are valuable because they bring Authority and insight to the real life challenges leading to more informed decisions and efficient Solutions in closing I want to emphasize that cfas are more than just staff members they are vital bridges of trust and understanding between students families in the district the lived experience allow them to connect in ways that other positions simply cannot provideing critical support that help students overcome obstacles and succeed by investing in our cfas we are investing in the future of our students and the strength of our community I urge you to show your commitment to justice justice and Equity by giving our cfas the recognitions they deserve a contract that reflects their invaluable role in the current economic realities thank [Applause] you I'd like to welcome our last speaker tonight to the Podium Kendra KF and again please correct me if I if I pronounced your last name wrong good evening um Mr chair fellow board members and superintendent balson I'm hoping my voice carries me through tonight so I apologize my name is Kendrick adff and I'm a teacher at Valley Middle School of stem I'm here today to stand in solidarity with the district 196s Cultural Family Advocates as they fight for a fair contract these are incredible educators of color who help us do our jobs better and they deserve more when I came to this District three years ago I left one that needed and wanted the resources to add cfas to their staff I love district 196 because of the programs and resources they utilize to ensure that all of our students Thrive and cfas are a huge part of that I personally experienced critical support from R cfas in working with families in situations that culturally might have been challenging to navigate but instead we're collaboratively collaboratively solved with the well-informed decisions and resources shared as a teacher I have benefited from their guidance um with my teaching when I've sought it out to be culturally responsive because of the work of our C uh cfas you see more engagement from families of color in school events and functions that have traditionally been white spaces our students of color can overcome those harsh racial disparities that we see across the state doing well in classes and graduating with a bright future ahead of them and district 196 students and families have access to more resources one-on-one help as described previously by our speakers and career and life planning services and more they have a promising future and with an ever grow growing diverse student body and resulting increased workload for each CFA it's vitally important that we support them with a fair contract we should support these dedicated people with the compensation that scales with inflation and covers healthc care increases I cannot think of a more worthy area to invest in and their ask is not unreasonable each of these 20 experienced and professional educators of color deserve a contract Minnesota as with the rest of the country has had a history of creating environments in which students of color can face barriers to their success that the district white students do not our CFA team does an incredible job addressing those barriers that keep our students of color limited and we are a better district for that the district 196 mission statement declares the beliefs that guide the actions and decisions that take place as a trained internal strategic plan facilitator I know the time and work that goes into these strategic plans I believe you meant it when you adopted this document as one based on shared beliefs of this board and the community a few items listed in those beliefs are that students come first that learning is maximized in a safe respectful and inclusive environment that if effective management of resources is critical and Partnerships and collaboration enhance educational programming and lastly an informed and engaged Community guides effective decision-making now in My View From my perspective the fair and deserved treatment of our cfas and their work match those given beliefs their work is for the kids to come first they do play a huge part of an inclusive and respectful environment using our district resources to retain and maintain them is critical their partnership and collaboration has been incredibly edifying for our district programming and now being informed with their invaluable worth if you weren't before your decision-making in this matter should be easy judging from the demonstrated merits and support that this group has received from various members of our community it should not be difficult I'm proud to stand in solidarity with our cfas and I thank you for your consideration and the essential work that you do as our school [Applause] board right our next item of business tonight is the consent agenda board members we have 17 items on our consent agenda tonight those items include the minutes of the September 23rd 2024 regular Schoolboard meeting gifts Treasures report for August 202 summary of claims for August 2024 scheduled Investments for August 2024 revenues and expenditures report for August 2024 Personnel agreement for student teaching with Hamlin University agreement for student teaching with North Central University Assurance of compliance bus purchase new Rosemont Middle School bid pack number one 2024 25 snow removal services mshsl Constitutional Amendments mshsl Cooperative sponsorship Nordic ski nutritional service employees Appreciation Week October 14th through the 18th 2024 and transportation employees Appreciation Week October 25th 21st through the 25th 2024 are there any items on the consent agenda that board members would like to remove today seeing none is there a motion to approve motion by Soden second by Leah all those in favor of approving the consent say I I those opposed motion carries on a -0 vote next on our agenda is brings us to the report section and I would like to welcome Jeremy senson and Eric Hansen to the podium to give us a back back to school update all right good evening chair Johnson superintendent Bon and board members Eric Hansen our director of secondary Ed and myself are here tonight to provide a back to school update I forgot my glasses but I'm going to get through this all right at the elementary level our focus is on implementing new curriculum I'd like to start by sincerely thanking our teachers they are taking on a lot of new learning this year as we have new curriculum in our core areas at the elementary level literacy Math and Science for literacy we have adopted state approved curriculums through the read act functional phonics which is a foundational skills program and El openup which is a content-based program that builds vocabulary background knowledge and writing skills we've also adopted an update math program called I ready and a science curriculum called amplify these are cons considered core areas because these are the areas that are assessed by the state standardized testing through the Minesota Minnesota comprehensive assessment or MCAS both literacy and math are assessed grades 3 through five every year and science is assessed in fifth grade this has been the largest investment in updating our elementary curriculum in several years it's the first time since 2010 we've updated our math curriculum and the first time in 10 years we've updated our literacy curriculum these new curriculums provide a significant shift in the daily routine and experience for both our teachers and students in a structured literacy approach instruction is explicit and follows a clear sequence from pheic awareness to phonics fluency vocabulary and comprehension in contrast with the more flexible student-led nature of balanced literacy where teachers might guide students to infer or discover reading strategies on their own this shifts to a more structured curricul is similar in math and science as well teachers have been adopting a consistent daily routine for teaching foundational skills like phonics and decoding this means teachers will spend less time planning for a workshop model and more time using proven research-based methods these curriculums provide teachers with clear expectations and measurable goals such as ensuring all students reach specific decoding Milestones students will benefit from building stronger foundational skills which are crucial for long-term success uccess as we move through the year we will gather feedback and adjust accordingly we know it's been a heavy lift for our elementary teachers we're excited to monitor student progress and looking forward to celebrating the hard work our teachers are putting in on learning and implementing these new materials good evening chairperson Johnson superintendent Bon and members of the school board as many of us know entering a new school year is exciting rejuvenating and full of New Hope seeing our students and families back in the school each year is like a reunion in the fall our fall our fall Arts activities are in full swing as our students prepare for Choir concerts participate in marching band performances fall plays dance line performances and so much more our fall Athletics are competing and practicing just about every night in the last two weeks we had four homecoming football games and festivities volleyball matches soccer games swim meets cross country competitions and tennis matches although we've had a few weather related delays for the most part we've been fortunate to have a very pleasant fall for our outdoor competitions moving our Focus to the classroom and academics as our as our secondary schools continue to focus focus on providing a well-balanced education for all our students our middle school students are in their second our middle schools are in their second year with aligned expectations with student cell phone use middle school students and families have been communicated that student cell phones should be off and Away during the school day families that need to get a hold hold of their student during the school they are encouraged to call the main office and the student will be provided the message or put in contact with the family member and likewise students need to contact a parent can do so by using the school student phone or school office phone our high schools are also aligned across our district with student cell phone expectations as well when students enter a class classroom or learning environment they simply Place their cell phone in an assigned sleeve in the cell phone caddy the slide on the slide showing right now uh show students doing just that a high school teacher recently said the students after just a few days have learned this routine and simply Place their phone in their designated sleeve another high school teacher reported to their Administration I saw 10060 seniors yesterday and all the students put their cell phones in the caddy every hour all hour long and not a single complaint now I recognize that not every student is in full support of what we're doing with cell phones we believe that the consistent effort across our buildings though will increase classroom engagement and create stronger relationships within our schools and our community lastly and another area of focus with our secondary schools is on supporting our students consistently attending school consistently attending is defined by the Minnesota Department of Education as a student attending school more than 90% of the school days consistently attending school helps our students enjoy School more and feel connected to their school and classroom Community it also boosts academic performance and will enhance social skills in 2022 75.9% of our middle school students consistently attended and this increased to 85.5% in the 2023 23 school year for our high schools our students who consistently attended went from 73% in 2022 up to 77.9% in 2023 our goal in each of our buildings would have 90% of our students consistently attending our schools stand ready to support our students and families with consistent attendance school support in attendance will include student check-ins family check-ins ideas to create connections to the school Community as well as listening to families and students to learn more about why it is that they are missing knowing why students are not attending on a regular basis helps our student our school teams partner with students and families in creating specific plans for improved attendance I do look forward to Bringing more updated data around our student attendants as we progress through this school year are there any questions that you would like us to answer at this time are there any questions or comments from the audience seeing none questions or comments from board members be mind if you have a question or comment you're going have to come up and come over on this side well I just wanted to say thank you for the presentation and the report just to giving us an update how the back to school has started one thing that you had mentioned was that shal wellbeing and uh also wellbeing in general and social wellbeing uh and the checking so that's a something I'm looking forward the report just wanted to say when would that be available or what is Snapchat in time I mean the data has been improving I like it just to see that every day counts kids learn when they're into school in classrooms uh when would the updated data be available and what is preliminary data show as we started yeah yeah so good question in terms of uh regular checking so first of all we have these conversations about our data uh in our principal meetings which we have once a month but bringing it back to the board we need enough days I think behind us from this year to have a baseline data to see how we're improving but we do have plans for check-ins to make sure that we can present back um on where we're at in our status questions com um first of all thank you for that uh cell phone policy I can verify from my recently graduated high school student that she was very resistant she didn't feel it was fair since she did all her homework and was doing well in school and I explained to her that um this is a everyone or no one situation and so you'll support your teacher and the new policy and I'd love that you talked about the benefits um of of putting the cell phones away and what that is building Community attention all those great things so thank you for sharing that um I'm always going to ask can we disaggregate the information as especially in terms of achievement um with our uh marginalized identities and specifically the correlation between the two so I don't know if you have that information yet if you're working on it that would be great so I can I can jump in on the academic piece and I think Rachel's going to provide a little bit about our our new assessment framework fast bridge but as we move through the year we can disaggregate data through our fast bridge for academic and those kinds of things it's a new tool that we just started last year and we're learning to use it but that's one of the areas that we'll be focusing on so great question that we will be following up so I agree um coming back with more specific data is important that we can do that so I appreciate that question I also appreciate your support in terms of as a parent with cell phones I have uh two students as well and it's not always easy to uh answer the why behind that but certainly um uh detailed data going forward and how it correlates uh to academics as well as important other questions or comments from board members all right thank you thank you very much for the update all right next I'm going to welcome Jeremy senson back to the podium to give us an update on the Elementary attendance areas I'm just going to wait till I see the Pres presentation up here before I get started all right we're ready to go here so good evening again chair Johnson superintendent B and board members I'm here tonight to provide updates on the attendance area adjustment proposals that we presented on on September 23rd so just for some quick context um as a reminder these are some of the main focuses we use When developing our proposal uh first we looked to maintain optimal School sizes and provide Equitable experiences for students and staff by targeting the ideal student population range of 6 to 800 students per building we're aiming to ensure consistent educational experience across the district uh we're also looking to alleviate overcrowding in elementary schools the schools we specifically were're looking at were East Lake Elementary and Rosemont Elementary in these cases and then lastly we're looking to create more space for expanding Early Learning programming to ensure that our facilities can continue to meet the needs of all students from Early Childhood through Elementary education all right so the slide up here I have says common questions for Zone one so so far we've received about 186 questions or comments related to the attendance area proposals for Zone one and Zone 2 and there are s clear themes within the questions and comments here we're talking about Zone one so creating boundaries for the new Elementary building and alleviating overcrowding at Rosemont Elementary a theme for Zone one has been why isn't my neighborhood included in the attendance area of the new building um so we looked at a variety of possibilities our software shows us through um pin maps of students that this area is a very densely populated area so taking any sort of neighborhood or section in that area involves moving a lot of students right now about 2third of the population of the new building were taken from the existing Rosemount Elementary attendance areas as part of this process we use our guiding principles to develop natural boundaries and roadways for transportation adding additional neighborhoods to the attendance area for the new building would require us to remove other neighborhoods to keep us from overcrowding the new building another theme in zone one was about families staying at their existing School uh families can apply through the intradistrict transfer process there would not be Transportation provided and acceptance would be based on available space our main goal here is to alleviate overcrowding at Rosemont Elementary while making room for future developments in this area I will point out and we'll communicate this broadly with our community um but we will see the apply through interdistrict transfer process um that starts October 7th and the deadline is December 15th so we're encouraging families if they want to stay at their building that's the process they would use and we would go through our process based on except on on capacity so this slide is still on is is talking about zone two um we put East Lake questions on zone two uh there were questions from all the schools but the vast majority of our questions came from the East Lake uh student populations and families which makes sense we're alleviating overcrowding from East lak so there was a lot of movement from that attendance area area so here we're talking about Zone 2 and the rebalance of a number of our Southern elementary schools East Lake Diamond path Highland and Shannon Park our goal here is to balance enrollment and alleviate overcrowding at East Lake Elementary a theme of questions and comments for Zone 2 was for students who were current third and fourth graders being able to finish their Elementary time at their existing school we are proposing a transition plan for our current third and fourth graders who will be fourth and fifth graders next year to allow them to stay at their existing schools if they wish to do so this plan would would Impact Zone 2 only where there are students who are moving from an existing school to another existing school if a family with a current K through second grade student wishes to stay in their current building they may apply through the intradistrict transfer process Transportation would not be provided and acceptance would be based on capacity so I'm going to go back to the slide on the top there for our current third and fourth graders who would be fourth and next year we are proposing a transition or a transportation for uh 2 years we can see the timelines up there again we'll communicate this broadly to our community the one thing that we'll see is we want families to apply through the intradistrict transfer process again so we can keep track of who these families are so we can get ourselves organized uh to help create bus routes and those kinds of things and get a pulse on the number of students who who are actually wanting to try to stay so we're going to stay on zone two because there was another uh set of questions particularly at Diamond path um so on this slide we're talking specifically about Diamond path Elementary in our proposal Diamond path keeps its theme of international studies but moves away from its magnet designation meaning meaning we would move away from providing magnet transportation to Diamond path questions and comments specific the diamond path were related to the ability to stay in the school because of their International Studies theme for Diamond path the transition process would be similar for the rest of Zone 2 we are proposing a transition plan for current third and fourth graders who will be fourth and fifth grade next year to allow them to stay at Diamond path if they wish to do so if a family with a current K through second grader wishes to stay at Diamond path they may apply through the intradistrict transfer process Transportation would not be provided and accept acceptance would be based on capacity so again I'll point out this slide we're asking families to fill out the intradistrict transfer process so we can keep track of of who it wants to say at their current building um and the there's timelines up there that the application process is due by December 15th all right moving on to some next steps our goal is to continue to gather feedback from families we have four family information sessions scheduled through the month of October our first information session is tomorrow evening Tuesday October 8th 6:00 p.m. at Rose M Middle School we also have family information sessions scheduled for Monday October 14th Monday October 21st and Monday October 28th will we use the feedback We Gather to make any appropriate adjustments we plan on bringing our final recommendations to the board in mid November for any families planning on applying for the interdistrict transfer process the deadline for those applications is December 15th and the Elementary Magnet School application deadline is January 3rd um so we put those on there because they're upcoming deadlines I will be happy to answer any questions thank you at this time are there any questions or comments from the audience seeing none questions or comments from board members I just had one quick question I was looking at it that December 15th deadline is that our interdistrict transfer deadline for all applications regardless if they're affected to school or not like our standard deadline yes that's our that's our first deadline um we use that deadline um as a marker people can still fill it out after that but you kind of get on a waiting list after that so we have that December 15th deadline um there for all of our students okay got it as you were talking and I was thinking about that it's good to know that people if they submit it after it be more like a weight list but it's not just an automatic no I think that's important as well um as I was thinking through that I'm going that's only a month and a half or so away and I still feel like the school year just started I'm not thinking about next year as a parent it comes fast every year yes so I'm just uh I'd love to that um we're thinking about that especially if some some parents probably aren't ready to think about next year and that will come really quick on them so as long as we're still keeping that open knowing that they passed that first deadline but it's not an automatic no just a little different process so yep excellent thank you all right our next agenda item I would like to welcome Rachel Hughes to the podium to go over our data informed decisionmaking and fastbridge thank you board chair Johnson superintendent boson and other school board members I'm Rachel Hughes the new director of instruction and achievement and this is my first board report tonight I'm going to provide an overview about our strategic priority achievement strengthening and aligning curriculum and instructional practices across all classrooms to improve student outcomes tonight I will introduce fastbridge the screening tool we use and how it will shape our educational practices to better support students teachers and families the use of fastbridge aligns our larger goal of becoming a more data informed system by collecting and analyzing data at multiple points during the year we can make informed decisions at both the classroom and District level this data will guide instructional planning resource allocation professional development and ensuring that our practices are rooted in evidence and aimed at improving outcomes for all students fastbridge is more more than just an assessment tool it is a vital component of our strategy to create a responsive personalized and effective learning environment for every student by using the data in collaboration with families and across our system we are taking important steps toward fulfilling our mission educating our students for lifelong success this fall all students in kindergarten through 6th grade participated in a fall assessment using fastbridge this has helped teachers understand how well students are learning important skills in reading and in math it's like a checkup for learning like if you went to the doctor and got a checkup the screening data gives teachers a real-time understanding of each student's academic progress it allows for quick identification of students who may be at risk of falling behind enabling us to intervene early with intentional support on the other hand for students who are excelling the data helps teachers to provide enrichment opportunities ensuring their AC academic growth is nurtured fashionb scores help teachers to know what kind of teaching each student needs to help them grow both individually and as part of a whole class in addition Minnesota state law requires us to screen students and share the results with families in literacy and math at least two times a year in district 196 we screen students to monitor their progress three times a year fall winter and spring we believe the mid-year checkup provides another opportunity to answer the question are students on track for their grade level fastbridge measures how well students are doing and basic math and literacy skills for math it checks things like how well students are can recognize and Order numbers add subtract multiply and solve problems it also looks at how quickly and correctly they can answer math questions for literacy fastbridge measures how well students can sound out letters and words understand what they read and how quickly they can read words and sentences it's all about making sure students are on track with the skills they need to be successful teachers will use the data three times throughout the year we just completed our first round of fastbridge so teachers are using the data to determine how well students are doing in math and reading this helps them understand which students might need extra help right away which ones are on track to meet grade level expectations during the winter check teachers will look at the data to monitor the progress of each student teachers can then confidently continue successful instructional strategies while adjusting their approach for students who are not making progress providing a more targeted support to meet their individual needs the spring screening is a final check which demonstrates of students met grade level expectations teachers use this to see how well their teach methods worked and if and to make sure students are prepared for what's next so how will families use the screening data they will use the screening data to gain information about their child's progress three times a year during fall and winter conferences and end ofe report They will receive detailed reports on their child's Pro performance showing areas of strength and any areas where additional support may be needed a final a final summary report will highlight the students overall growth and and expected performance on the MCAS the screening data helps us partner with families to support each child's Learning Journey on a broader scale schools and district will use fast bridge data to look at how student groups are responding to our instructional system for example when data Trends are observed instructional practices can be assessed to determine whether additional professional development coaching or resources are needed to address any gaps at the district level fastbridge data gives us a bird's eye view of how our schools are performing this helps make informed decisions about where to allocate resources whether it's offering more training for teachers providing instructional materials or supporting specific interventions that can help students in short fastbridge data helps everyone teachers schools and the district to make informed decisions to ensure all students have the best chance to succeed when families attend conferences in November they'll receive a fast Ridge report much like the one that you're seeing on the screen right now that will show how their child is doing in reading and math here's how families can expect to see and understand their reports first families will see overview of skills the report will show reading and math skills were tested like reading speed understanding and basic math facts families will also see their child's score and how they compare to grade level expectations this helps parents understand whether the child's on track needs extra support or is meeting grade level expectations in certain areas over time we'll be able to show Families how much proog progress the child has made from the first test to the most recent one families will see if their child is improving and by how much during conferences teachers will use the report to explain what they're doing to support the child's learning whether it's giving them extra help in certain areas or continuing to challenge them families will get a clear picture of where their child is excelling and where they might need more support thank you thank you for this opportunity to share about fastbridge and how the data will be used to support student achievement I look forward to bringing back the data to you in a work session and presenting an update to our community at this time are there any questions or comments from the audience seeing none questions or comments from board members yes Anna I have one Rachel that was a question I thought that was a goodbye I'm sorry I'm sorry um sorry about that okay so one question how is this different from previous this looks different from what my kids had and so how was it different and then my next question is um just because we had cfas cfas here and they were talking about how much they support students I'm curious where the cfas fit in as part of this process in terms of of knowing the students um opportunities are and where they get engaged at what time in that piece yeah great questions I want to make sure I heard your first one sorry how is this different from previous assessments that we did um fast bridge is new I'm understanding so there must be some improvements and so what are those improvements absolutely um and then the second one's about the cfas yeah so the first um exciting thing is that fastbridge is a nationally Norm test okay um so it's Norm data it's a quick data point um so we can really get a pul somewhere our students are at whereas before we did the bass which took us probably teachers about 10 to 12 hours to complete we now can complete this pretty quickly and really get a pulse on how our students are doing how our schools are doing and what we can do to intervene so it does look a little bit differently and that's why we're excited to share these reports with families um in November so if I hearing you correctly it's much more efficient absolutely probably accurate and more accurate okay um Norm data yep love that thank you for sharing those benefits of this yes I would love to see anytime we do something that's new what are those benefits absolutely I'm excited to share more about that at a board session with you so I can answer some of those questions but it is definitely more specific and really intentional um we can desegregate it in lots of different ways whether it's by a classroom by a group of students individual students and then that's where cfa's kind of loop in is when we can really look at where individual students are doing and what their progress looks like where can we intervene um and support them as we're looking at the different data points throughout the whole school year fantastic thank you yeah other questions or comments from board members seeing none great first board presentation it won't be the last though uh next I'd like to welcome Danny Jen to the podium to go over our official official October enrollment good evening chair Johnson superintendent B Sony members of the school board and our district 196 community community my name is Danny duchan coordinator of Finance for district 196 and tonight I am pleased to present the district's official October 1st 2024 enrollment report for the 20242 school year before we dive into the actual enrollment data there are a few anecdotes I'd like to share that provide some important context regarding the data you're about to see a quick thank you to our student Information Systems teams our school registrars and members of the special education department who helped review the data pull the information scrub the data and make sure all of our kids are accounted for in the correct school and in the correct programs the October 1st enrollment report is one of the first enrollment data points required by mde each school year the October 1st enrollment data presented here tonight is a headcount of students enrolled in the district as of October 1st it's really critical to stress that the head count enrollment that is getting presented here tonight is different than the district's ADM head count enrollment is a snapshot at a specific time where ADM is based on a percentage of the entire school year in which a student is enrolled while ADM data is the primary driver for most State funding formulas the October 1st enrollment headcount is used by MD for some State funding calculations compensatory funding being a primary example internally our district utilizes this enrollment count to set our final budget allocations which allows our budget administrators and principles to make adjustments to the preliminary budget for the current school year the front page above the fold headline for the October 1st enrollment report is that the district experienced overall enrollment growth compared to both actual enrollment as of October 2nd 2023 from last year and enrollment growth over the 20242 enrollment projections approved by the school board in November of 2023 the content the following slides in the exhibit included in tonight's board packets illustrate this increase the district's official October 1st 2024 enrollment count is 2 29,0 49 students this first enrollment summary table Compares actual enrollments for October 1st 2024 to October 2nd 2023 just a quick side note when October 1st falls on a Saturday or Sunday our official enrollment gets pulled on Monday um following the 1st so either on October 2nd or October 3rd overall the district experienced an 88 student increase compared to similar data from one year ago that 88 student increase is comprised of a 12 student decrease in our non-sp special education levels and 100 student increase collectively within our center-based and early childhood special education programs it's important to note that the enrollments counts included in this table do not include the connections preschool counts as that program is primarily a fee based program that does not generate State funding one other footnote I'd like to call call out is that the district does receive some State funding for for certain amount of seats in our VPK program currently we receive state funding for 70 seats in that program which is held at Echo Park and o oakd elementary have 104 total participants now we shift over from comparing actuals from last year to comparing against the projections that we approved in November of 2023 to our current data last November the school board approved a 2025 enrollment 2425 enrollment projections of 2885 the October 1st 2024 enrollment count of 29,41 students is 244 students higher than projections this increase includes a collective 167 student increase in the non-sp special education levels and a 77 student increase in the center based and early childhood special education programs these next couple of slides will show some VAR visual representations of what's included in this October 1st 2024 enrollment count from this pie chart we can see that the elementary level makes up the largest share of enrollment at 39.6% with high school the high school level following next at 31.6% our Middle School level accounts for 22% Center based special education at 4.7% and early childhood special education at 2.0% this next slide is just a visual representation of the different proportions at each level over the course of the last 10 years the one thing I'd like to call out on this particular slide is that even though the total enrollment may have adjusted over the course of the last 10 years if you look at the different the proportions of each color in each year they've stayed relatively flat which has allowed which has aided the district in performing enrollment projections because we're not seeing big swings at any level From Any Given year looking at the same information in a little bit different way here on the next two slides this line graph shows the trends for K through2 non-sp special education enrollments for the past 10 years at the elementary middle school and high school levels starting in 2015 and concluding with the current report presented here tonight looking at the same 10 years of enrollment history for our ecsc and center-based programs there are two main data points that we need call out from this particular slide our center-based special education enrollment has increased every single year for the last 10 years which is seen in that bottom left to upper right trend line on the blue line additionally Early Childhood special education enrollment has rebounded to higher than prepandemic pre-pandemic levels with Gro each of the past three years what's important about these last two slides is it allows us to have a wide view of the impacts of the pandemic we can see in enrollment Counts from before the pandemic during the pandemic and now we're starting to see emerging emerging enrollment counts post pandemic to kind of get that full clear picture I mentioned earlier in this presentation that our October first enrollment count exceeded projections by 244 students while enrollment projections were quite close in fiscal years 23 and 24 that 244 student increase over projections for 2425 is the first time in The Last 5 Years that enrollment has actually exceeded our projections for October 1st which is great news to share as we look at the students who make up our enrollment count this chart shows the various racial and E ethnic demographics for our October first report our Stu our district student demographics continue to become more diverse with around 55% white students and 45% students of color which includes 14.8% black students 12.7% hispan I students 7.7% Asian students and 9.2% students who identify as multiple ethnicities additionally American Indian students and pa Pacific Islander students account for 36% and 0.09% of our student body if we look at a breakdown of our students of color at the three levels we can see that each level has a very comparable percentage of students of color so it's pretty consistent across the board this is about 7% higher than the state total from last year using the Minnesota report card for 222 or 2324 data and nearly 15% higher than District 186 from about 10 years ago data in 23 2013 2014 additionally our October 1st enrollment count includes 7.7 per of English Learners this percentage is slightly lower than what the state total was for the 2324 school year according to the Minnesota report card and about 3.33% higher than that same comparison data point from 10 years ago in 2013 2014 within our district at this time I'd like to welcome Janet fman director of special education to discuss our early childhood learning and center-based special education programs in more detail thank you Danny so we want to take a little bit of more time to look more deeply into our early childhood special education and special education center-based enrollment because as you heard from Dany both are growing exponentially and have been for the past several years often when we think about early early childhood learning we think about our preschool Early Childhood family education programs the prr programs you see on the slide in the blue both are fee based optional programs for families they are not included in our enrollment reports because they are optional fee for service programs we often have weight lists but those are not the programs that are causing concern there are two additional programs that are included in our enrollment report because they receive state Andor Federal funding that is our early childhood special education program and voluntary prek program growth in these programs have an immediate impact on Space because special education services typically have smaller student to staff ratios and recover require more square footage per child than general education classrooms there are many mandates we have for special education services but two I want to address tonight are the one the legal standard for providing I sorry the legal standard for providing education in a least restrictive environment in elementary middle or high schools we may hear this referred to as mainstream or inclusion the second legal standard is providing services from age birth through 22 I'll speak to that requirement in a moment when we address our center-based programs in June we talked about the need for additional Early Childhood space and it is largely because of growth in our early childhood Hood special education enrollment first Early Childhood special education is a federally mandated program servicing students identified with special education needs from birth through age five in the early years birth through Age 2 services are delivered at home in the students natural environment alongside families by age three research is clear that children develop best when served in an inclusive setting and childhood classroom with like AED peers learning alongside their preschool peers meets the legal definition for the least restrictive environment for learning what this looks like is a classroom of 16 preschoolers with eight general education preschoolers and eight special education preschoolers we accomplished this by partnering with our connections preschool our challenge is that with space at a premium if our CH early childhood special education numbers continue to grow as they have we are legally obligated to provide their education there are fewer spaces for general education preschoolers and we are not able to provide an inclusive education we are currently 21 sections short in serving our general education preschool families and we have classrooms of special education only preschool preschoolers in our elementary schools serving them in small group self-contained settings which provides minimal opportunity for inclusion for these students the next slide illustrates illustrates the scale of the space problem we are trying to solve as shown in the table there has been significant growth in the number of students qualifying for Early Childhood special education services as explained in our last slide a averaging about 50% per year the last three years for example we have 47 students who are currently in evaluation process right now who are not yet included in our October 1 numbers for this year if these Trends continue June numbers will have doubled over the past four years while we've always had a waight list for general education preschool in early childhood we've never seen this level of demand for special education services in early childhood the need for additional space is no longer a question of if it's a need we must address the second area we have seen significant growth is with students serviced in center-based programs sorry center-based programs serve students who need to be in in the special education classroom for more than 60% of or more of their day as shown in the table there has been significant growth in the number of students educated in our center-based special education programs particularly our programs that service students identified under the category of autism with this growth of students it is approximately 30 additional classroom spaces needed over the past four years depending on the type of program we service anywhere from six to 12 students in these classrooms students in Center based programs are our most vulnerable students the type of needs we need we support include but are not limited to students using alternative modes of communication students who are needing nursing support students who have cognitive delays and students who are not able to regulate their behavior in order to access their instruction in the general education classroom additional pressure for space is from a 2023 recent Minnesota law that had changed eligibility requirements for students with disabilities in Minnesota a free appropriate public education to students with disabilities continues until they reach age 22 as opposed to the previous version of the law which continued special education instruction and services until July 1st after the student with the disability reached 21 years old this also requires the need for additional space now I'm going to turn it back over to Dany to close the presentation thank you director fman to close out our enrollment report we look ahead at what's next based on the enrollment data presented here tonight first all of our enrollment information is included in all of the budget books that we published during each budget cycle so if the board or the community wants to look at historical Trends data enrollment information is included in all of those budget books the final budget cycle for the 2425 school year actually began today and these October 1st enrollment counts have been utilized to update the allocations to all the schools district budget administrators will be working over the next two months on the 2425 final budget which will be bring back to the board presented in December and January the October 1st 2024 enrollment count will also be input as a variable in our enrollment projections model as we begin preparations for our official 2526 enrollment projections the enrollment projections model will also include variables such as boundary changes that were discussed once those are finalized um for the new elementary school that concludes our report and at this time I'd be happy to answer any questions if there are any questions or comments from the audience seeing none um questions from board members but I did have one just to clarify before turn over to my fellow board members if you don't mind I'm so Danny when you presented the enrollment numbers it show showed a 10 student increase in our early childhood special ed but when Janet did it showed a 54 student increase could you talk to a little bit about the numbers and why they're a little different um yeah that can be confusing so what we see in early childhood special ed is we take the October one counts and there's always significant growth over the course of this school year because we don't stop screening students and as we screen students those students if they fail screening continue to get referred for uh an evaluation potentially and then they would qualify over the course of the the year so we always grow from October to June does that make sense it does but the numbers I mentioned are the October 1 numbers I guess I'm not I should the power point we can I can we can dig into that a little bit more and follow up with you post post meeting that'd be great yeah thank you yeah so just to clarify your question the October the numbers on my slides were not the same is that what you're the numbers for October 1st enrollment on slide 14 showed a 54 student increase and the numbers for October 1st enrollment when Danny presented showed a 10 student increase okay so just curious where the discrepancy is since we get a better picture of where the growth is at I have a hunch but I'm not going to I'm perfect yeah you definitely if you can get back to us totally fine don't expect you have the answer and I just noticed it while you're presting because they were so different so other questions or comments from board members right singan thank you very much all right that brings us to Old business would like to welcome Jill Coyle to the podium to go over policy 101 district 196 Mission and beliefs good evening chairperson Johnson members of the board and uh superintendent Bon uh before you tonight is old business our administrative proposed changes both to policy 101 Mission and beliefs as well as policy 2011 um General organization so these are simple changes tonight they update the district's mission statement in both of the policies and then with respect to policy 101 they also add in some additional components of the district's strategic plan specific uh Vision Values and priorities so I'm happy to answer any questions that you have tonight uh if not this is a matter for your approval item tonight so before I go into questions is there a motion to approve motion by Anna is there a second a second by Leah at this time are there any questions or comments from the audience seeing none questions or comments from board members seems like a pretty straightforward second reading um all those there's a motion to approve by Anna seconded by Leah all those in favor of approval say I those opposed motion carries on a 5- z vote thank J we have no items on new business so that brings us to um other action items which is the process for filling Schoolboard vacancies and I get to present this one tonight so I'm I'm just going to stay here um all right so the process for filling School board vacancies so um as you know the school board received the resignation of art Coulson effective August 31st and vice chair suchin Isaac's effective at the end of this month October 31st which leaves us two different vacancies to fill um under Minnesota St statute the vacancies must be filled by board appointment at a regular or special meeting um evidence by resolution entered in the me entered in the minutes at the last board meeting I talked a a little bit about um how we're thinking about filling it and tonight I'm bringing you the um plan and dates for board approval so that we're all on the same page um the appointment is effec of 30 days following adoption of the resolution unless a valid petition to reject the appointee is filed with the Schoolboard clerk um once effective the appointment continues for the remainder of the unexpired term in the case of director coulson's seat in the case of Vice chair Isaac's seats um the appointment continues until a special election can be held for his unexpired term and that's because they had different um uh uh different years remaining on their terms um when they submitted their resignation um in the past the scob followed an application to interview process when appointing an individual to fill a board vacancy and I am recommending that we follow the same process this time which is what we um this process MIM uh mirrors pretty closely what we did um when Bianca Vern had a vacancy when she was elected to the House of Representatives um so November 13th is when the superintendent's office will make applications available to individuals interested um November 26 at the end of day will be the deadline to receive those applications the board will have between the um about two weeks between November 26th and December 9th to review candidates and then when proposing a special Schoolboard meeting on December 9th for the board to deliberate on which candidates we would like to bring in for an interview on December 16th we will actually interview those candidates at a public meeting um and make our selection of the candidates we would like to fill um because there is that 30-day waiting period um their appointment would be effective would be effective after 30 days but they wouldn't take their oath of off office until the February 10th meeting um so this is an action item tonight um so before I go into questions or comments is there a motion to approve um the process I laid out motion by Leah is there a second second second by Anna are this time are there any questions or comments from the audience seeing none questions or comments from board members all right seeing no comments hopefully it's a good process then um there is a motion to approve from Leah seconded by Anna all those in favor of approval say I I those opposed motion carries on a 5-0 vote at this time I will turn it over to Super superintendent Bon for superintendent updates thank you chair Johnson um I as always want to encourage all voters in district 196 who haven't already done so to participate in the Schoolboard election coming up um here by first getting informed about the candidates and then voting absentee voting is open by mail and in person voters can also vote at their polling place on Election Day Tuesday November 5th uh for more information on where to vote the secretary of state's website has that information at www.mn like minnesotamn votes.org www. mnvotes.org it's been busy uh in our communities and at our high schools especially over the last two weeks um four of our Comprehensive High Schools celebrated their homecomings which really is a community celebration of pride in our schools we want to thank everyone for participating in safe and fun celebrations and we especially want to thank our law enforcement Partners who help helped us manage larger crowds sometimes in the thousands attending football games um in the additional traffic due to those celebrations supporting our AAA philosophy I want to invite community members to enjoy the following fine art events at our high schools uh The Egan play Clue has already wrapped up but there are three more um fall events you can attend Apple Valley's fall musical Sister Act October 31st through November 9th East viiew uh just this upcoming weekend here has their fall play the ice fishing play October 9th through the 12th and this weekend also at Rosemount is the Curious Savage on October 10th through 11th we also have Choir concerts coming up on October 14th both Apple Valley and East viiew will be hosting Choir concerts on October 23rd Rosemount and on October 28th Egan's choir concert we also have band concerts as well on October 29th at both East viiew and Rosemount so um please uh feel free to come out and we'd love to see Folks at those events lastly as we enter this time of year when many businesses and organizations conduct their annual giving campaigns I would like to let people know about the district 196 Foundation each year funding from The District 1 196 Foundation provides direct support to hundreds of our students right here in district 196 funding from the foundation provides students weekend food bags books to read during the summer and musical instruments for students who otherwise would not have been able to participate in band if you would like to learn more about the district 196 Foundation or make a donation to support their efforts go to the website www.d district196 foundation.org thank you and at this time are there any Schoolboard members with items they'd like to share Jackie oh it just breaks my heart that we are accepting suchan's resignation to the board I've worked with suchen for the past several years and suchin is a man of Grace and wisdom and I would really like to thank thank him for sharing his heart his wisdom and his time with district 196 such and my friend you have made a difference and you will be missed any other uh members Schoolboard members with items they'd like to share seeing none that brings us to our end of the agenda tonight is there a motion to adjourn no one wants to adjourn yes okay Anna all right is there a second second by Leah all those in favor of adjournment please say I I I motion carries on a 5 vote we are adjourned our next regular meeting is Monday November 4th [Music] [Applause]