##VIDEO ID:-pdxVClBAM4## to order it is September 4th 2024 and the time is 6:35 p.m. our mission is to provide a safe and caring climate and culture in which we engage Inspire educate prepare and Empower all Learners in partnership with their surrounding Community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's Society Zach can you please lead us in the pledge allegiance pledge allegiance 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 thank you and then when you're ready can you please call roll uh the following board members are present at the District administration office Scott andron here Natalie Copeland here El dalren yep Zack dhol is here uh Shannon hos here Heather Williams here and not present is Monica sigara Schwartz the following cabinet members and staff are present at the District administration office superintendent Dr Lori putam assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of prek through grade five education Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of E12 Education Services Shannon avenson executive director of Community Education Adam Holm executive director of finance and business services Amy scall executive director of operations Joel hiid Camp executive director of Special Projects Gary gangji executive director of research enrollment and assessments Donna rooper media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott and the custodian onsite is Aiden oner thank you then can I get a motion to approve tonight's Board of Education meeting and work session agenda no move and do I have a second second I have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Zack can you call vote uh Heather Williams yes Scott andreon yes Shannon hos yes Natalie Copeland yes El L yes Zack door holds yes thank you then we have the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of non-controversial items that the board adopts routinely without debate any single member May remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is moved for adoption on tonight's consent agenda item a approval of personnel staff changes Item B approval of monthly Financial reports for July 2024 item C approval monthly Treasures report for July 2024 item D approval of board policy 704 as revised third reading item e Apollo ltfm improvements change order totaling 59,500 92 and item F Apollo Theater improvements change order totaling $2,877 87 cents at this time would any board member wish to remove an item Heather can I remove item a okay then uh with that removal looking for a motion to approve Item B through F so move have a motion by Scott second by Natalie Zach can you call a vote and Natalie Copeland yes El doen yes Zach doorold yes Shannon hos yes Heather Williams yes Scott andreon yes okay thank you uh moving on to item a just removing yourself from the vote correct okay so can I get a motion to uh approve item a so move again a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Zack can you call vote just for just for item a and not calling Heather's name okay uh Shannon H yes Zach dhol yes El dogr yes Natalie Copeland yes Scott and Drayson yes okay just to clarify that mean she recused from that correct correct yes okay recusing yourself conflict of interest okay okay thank you all oh okay uh moving on to information items tonight we have first up we have summer programming review and then um are these going together nope uh summer PR PR programming review presented tonight by Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of PK through five education and Christa Potter welcome director of title programs and multilingual student services hello okay I was here I think in June or May giving you kind of the plan of what we were going to do for summer and so I'm excited to be here today um to give you kind of an update on how things went so I am Christa Potter I'm the director of title programs and multilingual student services I do oversee the targeted services and a lot of the summer programming so here's a quick reminder of the programs that we ran this summer in our school district we had three four separate esy programs um esy stands for extended school year that's a program that's specific for students that have it written in their IEP that they need additional time outside of the school year to be um accessing what they need then we have a K5 targeted services and a K5 newcomer program that was at Discovery a 612 newcomer program that was held at Tech this year Credit Recovery which is run through our ALC was at North Junior High we tried something new with a Lincoln summer camp that was at Lincoln and then we also had a newer program where we partnered with the boys and girls club and the tahi kid stop to deliver Services um while students were at those locations in the summertime so a quick overview of credit recovery we did have 603 students that were enrolled this year and 590 credits were earned so almost every student that was enrolled got at least a credit which is great for extended school year this is the one where students need to have this in their IEP um we did have 63 students for preschool 196 for elementary 111 at middle and high school and our journey is our separate sites where those students need that intensive um that intensive instruction and we had 10 students there overall attendance rate was 98% so pretty much every kid was showing up every single day which is really awesome our K5 targeted services and newcomer group they were held at Discovery um we did Bunch them into two sessions because of busing and transportation so you can see that Lincoln tahi clear viiew and Oak Hill attended the first session this happened right after school um ended and we had 135 students attend in that one and then the second session happened a little later in June and into July and that was Madison Westwood Kennedy and Discovery and we had 184 students which was up from what we had thought um there was a few students that heard how fun it was and they talked to their friends and they joined um joined in a couple days later so our average attendance for This was 73% um which is still really great we also ran a separate newcomer program that was three weeks in June at Tech High School we had 40 students attend this there were eight different languages that were represented and spoken which was awesome and it had a great attendance rate at 72% as well the Lincoln summer camp was was a little bit new this year was a 4-day camp that we held at Lincoln it was kind of um inspired by teachers ideas and their passions and joys of things outside of the classroom that they like to do as well as partnership with our United Way partners and so it was four days and each student that came to this Camp got access to three different classes each day um the different classes we offered was related to science robotics there was an art class step and dance and then jiujitsu um and so some of the things you can see below that they got to is some Bridge making circuit building friendships and connections through ART clay and paint and then the Jiu-Jitsu which I heard over and over and over the kids absolutely loved it so and we'll get to see a video later of some of them um interacting with that so it was fun um and it was definitely more of an enriching style of a summer school session um the partnership program is something we also tried um we're looking to partner with a lot of Community Partners moving forward in ways in which we can serve students where they're already at um it doesn't always require transportation to bring them to our schools but we can provide teachers on those sites sometimes to support needs of students so we did have two teachers delivering reading instruction while students were at the boys and girls club and tahi kidstop um and so we had 24 students that received instruction that way and they were already there attending those programs and we just housed their teachers there to be able to teach them and do some reading intervention with those kids um it was meaningful and the kids responded really well to it some of the staff feedback we got was that they really like having small class sizes um they love being able to provide those Hands-On experiences 100% of the teachers in the elementary the K5 targeted Services really felt they made a positive impact on the lives of students which was great to hear so it was really rewarding for them um students were highly engaged in the huddle up huddle up is provided by the Yes Network they have a group of people that come to the site and they do some social emotional learning and it's fun and it's engaging and apparently the kids really loved it um and then being able to provide meals was also really really crucial for our Student Success especially in the summer time when they don't have that regular meal sometimes at school um here's some of our Partnerships which I've already mentioned United Way was great um they gave us some grants to be able to work with some Community Partners and just the Partnerships in general so they provide provided us with some family advocates that hearts in action and um the jiujitsu um the Yes Network did the meals and the huddle up we also partnered with our grow your own Grant which is a student grant we have with scsu where we take future um high schoolers that are interested in being teachers or exploring the option of being a teacher and they got to go spend a day or two actually I think it was three days at an elementary school reading to students in the classroom to kind of get a feel for what it would be like to be a teacher um so that was great some of our own high school students got to do that reading Corp came in and volunteered as well as that boys and girls club and promised neighborhood partnership and then we also offer um a route for any interested pair of professionals or people in our district that want to become teachers or aspiring teachers and we trained three teachers um this summer through teach Minnesota and they are currently employed with us as a firste new teacher um and they have jobs in our district so we're very excited to be able to start um growing our own candidates and providing those Pathways for people um especially people who maybe weren't planning to be teachers right after they graduated high school so here's a couple picture highlights um you'll just see a lot of Hands-On learning the kids loved it they have a lot of happy faces um getting outside doing some playing doing some learning a lot of um experiential things that maybe you don't always have time for just in a different way in summer making it fun so it's thought the same thing here they're learning about some plants um this is one of the newcomer groups and they're learning about the different pieces of the plants they went out they went on a walk and gathered the plants and then they're sorting them into the different groups these are some fun little videos of the jiujitsu and this was highly highly rated by the the students [Applause] Down 2 down 3 down 4 down 5 down 6 down 7 down so Lincoln is um is uh fourth and fifth graders um and so the students that attended this were in that upper age range that's hard [Applause] go it's pretty impressive for that little guy oh wow and then this one's Bridge making right here we're good to let go that's a little idea get this Chamberlain in here you guys ready go right now you put your finger right there you probably hold it okay when you're ready so they were learning about building different structures and kind of the impact of that force and different things like that so it was really Hands-On and fun for the students as well so um yeah that's all I have for you so are there any questions Scott what's targeted in targeted Services that's a great question so that's a term from the state of Minnesota and they um they have different types of out of school time learning and so one of the specific types is called targeted services and it kind of implies what the title implies is that we're going to provide a service that's specific and it's targeted so it requires us to come up with a very specific plan of what we're doing it could be an after school program or even a before school or a summer program but it fits in the category of not during the school day kind like with an IEP is it connected with that it is completely separate although it does kind of sound like an like a special education term but it is not the same thing okay thank you hea Mr you talked about um the the feedback that you received and it was all positive were there also uh was there also feedback that included um opportunities or or some critical feedback that we could do better um in aligning and and challenging our students yes absolutely there was a lot of um feedback that we received on a lot of the systems um of things that we can do better communicating with parents and also reminding as well as some of some of the times in which we program um and how that impacts families and students and so we do take that year-to year and we did gather um some feedback on how we can refine things and make things better for the future um overall the feedback on the programming was that um families parents students and teachers really like doing the Hands-On ex experiences um and so a lot of the feedback that was really geared toward growth was on our systems and how well we're communicating when we're sending things out um and making sure that families are consistently in the loop and they know what's going on and when it's happening else thank you all right thank you so much okay our other informational item tonight is the summer projects status report uh presented by Joel Hamp executive director of [Music] operations all right good evening chair HW superintendent Pam and members of the board I have the pleasure tonight of kind of sharing the final piece to the puzzle um all of the work that went into uh a long summer with lots of projects going on and so uh as we go through this uh presentation going to leave out the things that already were completed at the August 7th update and so um just share the final updates on some last pieces at three of our sites starting first at Lincoln uh this is the new prek playground in the uh would be the Northeast portion of that of that property out the preschool Wing um and so uh although it looks a little rough it that grass came fast we had great weather through the last few weeks of August and so that got over seated and drill seated and so that's coming in well the new fence was put in and our great custodial and engineer staff started putting together the the first pieces of the playground also at Lincoln you can see on the le- hand side there the uh picture that I shared in early August of the refacing and repainting of the cabinets and so all of the cabinets throughout the building now match with that new um kind of soft lavender color which uh goes very very well with the uh rest of the color scheme throughout the building and there's a maybe even a better picture they look really they look really nice they did a really nice job at McKinley um I have a few before and after pictures here as well on the left hand side that was the single stall restrooms that were going in uh for our student use and that picture on the right hand side is just a handful of days ago it says today it was just a couple of days ago and some better shots there you can see one from the angle of uh looking into those single stall restrooms the picture on the left hand side is kind of with the single stalls behind you seeing where students can now wash their hands looking out into that hallway space and then just one more good one from uh even further back to give a full picture inside each one of those stalls you've got the the picture there each one of those looks just like that and then this is the new set of restrooms that's up by the main office uh principal cager shared this with me I'm real real grateful to have those nice ones to use as well for uh guests that may enter the building and this would be the new addition and as you can see at the bottom I wrote not a lot of changes outside when I when you pull up it looks like it did kind of a couple of weeks ago um but when you get inside um is where you really see the the dynamic changes and so we've got walls already going up hallways taking form um really really uh interesting to see how fast they can they can put those spaces together inside and it won't be long on uh and the that outside piece that we see when we drive by will start taking shape as well at Apollo I'm going to start in the upper just I'll start in the upper left hand corner and work my way clockwise around um that first picture there is the picture of the commons area as you walk in where uh the main entrance is at uh Apollo High School uh you can see those are the offices there in the in the back corner of that picture I was at Apollo spent some time there just before uh lunch today and through part of the lunch period and uh those those spaces were occupied quite quickly uh during some of that free student time so a really nice collaborative space and um great use by students already it was fun to see the volleyball team already taking uh advantage of the beautiful gym with the new paint job that we talked about new scoreboard there is up and running um and and just a really really great um Vibe and feel inside that exciting space the two pictures on the bottom are the finished product of our single stall restrooms at uh Apollo High School as well the picture in the upper leftand corner uh is just as you come in the activities entrance um just wanted to highlight that that hallway on the would be the north side of the theater um has been blocked off as that project continues to happen uh throughout February and so they did a nice job of blocking it off and then kind of like you would see if you were going to a mall where they're doing some renovation nice picture of hey this is this is coming soon be ready for it um but that's why it looks a little bit out of place and so that's what that sign basically says there that the new Performing Art Center uh is coming soon picture in the upper right hand corner is what a typical classroom looks like now with brand new uh flowex flooring uh that we picked solely because it is uh almost indestructible uh they the uh representatives from that company um they dumped Every chemical you could think of any anything you can think to stain it with I think they even smeared lipstick red lipstick and they got it out of that carpet and so uh it's great great material for our buildings and should look nice for a real long time in the bottom right hand corner are some of the graphics that have been put throughout the hallway to show some of Apollo's pride and then that picture in the lower leftand corner is what the north side of the um Auditorium or Performing Art Center looks like and so that area that's blocked off uh on the picture right above it will look very similar to that um just open spaces for people to um to congregate and gather as they wait for a performance or uh students were again using that because it's right around the corner from the commons area as you enter the activities entrance and the common area on the north side of the building that is the finished uh School logo which turned out beautifully and uh very very easy to see now as you are entering that facility of where you should go if you are coming to an after school event at Apollo and that sign does also light up uh at in the evening so um easy to see at all times of the day the new bus shoot I got to see that this afternoon as well over at at Apollo during dismissal time uh turned out very very well um again you can see in just a few short weeks how fast it all came together uh with the the new tar it's all lined and striped and ready to go for student and bus use and then the brand new parking lot is real very very um um user friendly for our our students and families with the new boulevards and um the new stripes and just turned out well as well a late M late last minute project is we did some Landscaping uh around this is around the main entrance and so if you hadn't been to Apollo or had been to Apollo in the last few weeks this should look very different uh we did this work just before open house and we also tackled the um the courtyards where students were eating lunch today uh and they look they look really really uh great with a with a new upgrade and a new facelift just a reminder that uh we did the completion of the roofs in two port in two parts um the part on the um east side of the building did get complete the part on the north and west side of the building um we wrapped up that project on August 16th it is all sealed up and ready for the elements of the winter and as soon as it gets nice that project will be completed in the spring and that ends our our projects over a long and busy summer and if there's any questions I'll do my best to answer them thank you anybody have any questions all right thank you very much excellent okay we have one action item tonight um it's the approval of the proposed resolution for the msba delegate conference presented by board member El delren so this should have been emailed out to everybody in the past week or so uh it is the proposed it's the proposed resolution for the Charter School uh resolution that we talked about bringing the resolution itself is be it resolved that msba urges the legislature to fund a new study to review practices and outcomes of charter schools to determine if they're meeting their purpose and intent and their effect on public school districts and the background information down below is really from uh the past resolutions um so I don't I'm not going to I'm not going to read that whole part it's in yours that you received um but it's open for discussion Natalie I thought this looked really good so thanks for all the folks who worked on it that weren't me um appreciate when things look really good and I had nothing to do with it um the only question I have is on that first part that you just read Al MH you know how it says public school districts Charter Schools as you know are public school districts like they're their own districts so I don't know if there's do we say non-charter public school districts or is it just implied there that that's fine um that's just a push back sometimes that I hear from Charter Schools like we are public school districts so I know we're not writing this for a charter school obviously but um just the wording there is what caught my eye we can add non-charter I don't have any or public non-charter school districts yeah that'd be great thank you L you look concerned I agree that they are public schools but I don't think they're District so I think saying public school districts when I read the what comes out of mde they'll say public school districts Charters and tribal um Nations and school so I don't know if um I don't know if it's that District's piece that yeah makes I could be wrong I thought that I think that it is a district but maybe we can just look into that to see if there is needed clarify that from MD okay thanks Dr bam yeah absolutely thank you oh my computer just died Scott and then I think uh Zach I mentioned that there's tribal schools should there be a reference to that in this or no I wouldn't I wouldn't the impact on public school districts I agree with that language because that is um possibly the core of some issues right the impact on School District um where these Charter Schools exist within um so keeping that districts to me makes sense if I look it up on line it says Charter Schools account for 243 of the state's public schools which operate with more autonomy than district schools this is the first time I've been now you can yeah and Charter School schools operate under a contract with an authorizer either the state's public education Authority or a school district so okay any other comments or thoughts on this are we good to go yep I need a motion to uh approve the proposed resolution for the MSB delegate conference what are we calling it the charter school propos it is the legislative action requiring the legislature to fund a study into Charter School purpose and outcomes yes you can I'm okay if I'm wrong really but I the what reason I was saying it is because there Minnesota's Charles schools Charter Schools do have District numbers I just looked that up to make sure so I think that was the clarification but both it's a both and we're both right okay so you're still going on on your record here it's really not that [Laughter] important also move what you just read okay yes that was two lines were here and sorry who said a second second okay I have a motion by Scott and a second by Zach any further discussion at all okay Zach can you call vote Zack doorold say yes Scott andron yes Natalie Copeland yes El D yes Heather Williams yes Shannon hop yes thank you everyone so I will forward that to the msba uh I should be able to do it tomorrow I don't if there's no changes to this sou I'll forward it tomorrow and she was looking forward to getting it so they they and I did forward the other to right after our last meeting so they have those and she forwarded those to wherever she needed to forward them too thank you okay moving on to uh reports we have a board of education standing committee reports I believe we just have one report tonight board development policy and governance committee chair Scott andreason uh the board development committee met on August 28th 2024 assistant superintendent uh Harris and avenson brought forward a proposed board policy 520 uh student surveys the policy was reviewed with a recommendation to move forward for a first reading at tonight's uh board meeting uh the committee also discussed uh bringing forward any upcoming 400 policies that have minor legislative or msba changes that can move forward through the consent agenda to stay updated on the policy review cycle that's our report thank you and I didn't miss anybody correct okay um then we have future agenda items September 8th board meeting topics will include the 20242 strategic Communications plan approval of preliminary Levy certification final Levy certification announcement enrollment report the 2023 through 2026 strategic plan review and policy readings at this time does any board member want to suggest a future agenda item okay then I'm looking for a motion to adjourn tonight's regular board meeting question does the superintendent give the report not on this rotation which is a good thing because her computer oh she has her phone how was that oh okay I have a motion by Heather and a second by Natalie correct um oh and all in favor say I I opposed is no one so um adjournment of the board meeting is at 7:07 p.m. and at that same time we are opening up the Board of Education work session we have three items um on tonight's agenda first up we have Innovation and instruction road map uh presented tonight by Katie herbal I hope I pronounced that right uh director of innovation and Technology Services welcome back Katie and uh do you want to introduce your team here chair HW superintendent putham and members of the board I would love to introduce these wonderful people here are part of my team um over on the far end here we've got Kyle Turk who is our elementary Innovation coach and has been for a few years now and then uh here we have Kate clug who is our secondary Innovation coach and has been for a few weeks now so we've got a few uh both ends of the spectrum here and it looks like I dropped off the TV sorry about that I know tech support for the tech director please apparently am what' you guys do to me good timing sweet oh it's still oh it's gonna this is good stuff my computer screen's pretty big um it's coming hey Noe we're good we're good it would happen to me it would we're back okay so we're here to talk a little bit about where um we're headed for Innovation and Technology throughout this school year and even looking to the Future um in previous years we've put together these road maps of like five or six years ahead of time um one of the things that we found um especially over the past year or so with uh a lot of new Innovations coming out it's really hard to predict where technology and instruction is going to be over a period of five or six years so we want to look a little bit at where we are now and where we can go knowing that that Target is likely going to change as we continue to grow with our students and our families so previous Focus um for our department was our Inspire one:1 program um which is getting in a device in front of every single student and with our Learning Management Systems like schooly and seesaw um this isn't really an Innovative practice anymore a lot of districts do this most districts in the state of Minnesota have a onetoone program and use Learning Management Systems so what we want to thought think about is how our department moves forward in Innovation and that leads us into instructional support and student- centered learning how can we use technology and Innovative practices to support our classroom teachers with our curriculum and our standards in order to improve outcomes for our students and keeping those things student centered and focused on them so we have two things we're going to talk about tonight the first one is the modern classrooms project modern classrooms um is a different kind of way or a different way of teaching um and we think about our traditional classrooms when we think about modern classrooms a traditional classroom that might exclusively rely on lectures and fix paac learning tend to fail our students and stress out our teachers so we see this a lot in our 742 classrooms where we have a teacher who is working with students who are on many different levels of proficiency and it's really hard as a teacher to meet all those needs especially when you're standing up in front of a classroom in order to get to know all the students in your room along with all their needs and all their uh all their assets as well so we often find that we have a group of students that might think the curriculum is too easy we have some students who maybe have been absent for various reasons and are having a hard time catching up we might have some students who are just a little bit below proficiency and find that they're lost with the current pace of their instruction so what the modern classrooms is is it was created by teachers um that were experiencing these problems in their classrooms and they developed a new approach to teaching th that approach has three parts um a personalized training program that includes Blended instruction self-paced structures and Mastery based learning we'll talk a little bit about these as we go but Blended instruction is where students are accessing their content through teacher created videos but also um with their teachers and small groups so it's not just on technology it's a blend of uh technology and also Hands-On learning there's self-paced structures where students are able to control the pace of their learning and Mastery based learning where students go from one lesson to the next when they demonstrate that they know the content so we talk about Blended instruction um using Blended instructions help helps reduce uh whole class lectures uh teachers are developing their own videos and those videos are creative and personal this also provides teachers time to do one-on ones with their students in small groups for any direct instruction that they have a self-paced structure is once you eliminate lectures students are able to self-pace within each unit they're not necessarily self-pacing over an entire year but they are self-pacing within a unit they're able to classify lessons as must do should do and aspire to do so all students are going to do the must do lessons many students are going to move to the should do and those students looking for an extra challenge are going to be able to do those aspired too lessons and teachers track student progress um through a public or a personal tracker and they help students stay on course the picture you see right here is actually from Kate Clo's classroom as she taught in this model in her science classroom anything you want to add to that one I can ab sure this on okay so uh students uh they use lots of different kinds of progress trackers and the progress tracker is a really important piece of this model because students can have that really visual piece and see where they're at in their lessons they can see where other students are at so they know who can collaborate with if they have questions about an assignment or where they're at and it really is an opportunity for them to celebrate that movement of going forward so every time they're able to move into the next lesson they can celebrate each other and they can celebrate their celebrate their progress and this one was really fun you'd walk into Kate's room the kids would come in grab a magnet put their name on it and go put where they were um in their lessons for that unit Mastery based grading is uh regardless of curriculum or content Area Teachers are building these bite-size assessments called Mastery checks um and students are completing Mastery checks as they get to that part of the content they don't move to their next lesson until they've shown Mastery on the previous lesson in a Mastery check we might be used to seeing giant unit tests these are going to be much smaller chunks of information where students are able to demonstrate Mastery in smaller pieces um and then also build off of each other and teachers have policies in their classrooms for revision reassessment and reflection to help the students grow on these Mastery checks the best part about this is as students are learning at their own pace teachers are able to do one-on-ones with students about these Mastery checks to talk over where they're maybe not hitting the mark and maybe where they're even exceeding the mark So students have a really good idea about where they are and their Mastery of certain standards um how are our teachers getting this training um many start out with the modern classrooms project free course there are self-paced modules um I don't have the data over the last 3 years but just last year 87 teachers completed the free online course and earned professional learning cus we can go a step further teachers who do the free course often choose to do uh the mCP virtual mentorship program we do a partnership with title funding in order to uh pay for teachers to do this in the summer um they are paired with a virtual Mentor from around the United States that's in the same content area and that is a classroom teacher so they're working with someone who is teaching in this model currently and able to talk with them to make see what works and what doesn't work and Kate is actually a virtual Mentor for the modern classroom program now as well um so they work one-on-one with these expert mentors they can engage in live presentations and they create classroom ready content um they go through a Mastery plan a self-pacing plan a blended instruction plan a learning design plan and then they do a culminating submission where they basically end up with their first unit of study with their students over the past two years we have trained 97 teachers in the virtual mentorship program that from 14 different schools nine teachers have earned a credential called a distinguished modern classroom educator credential where they have demonstrated that they're doing all the parts of a modern classroom and we have 10 more that are applications that are in progress so if those 10 earned that credential we would be at 19 teachers who are distinguished modern classroom educators we did a survey of our teachers and our students last year who were teaching in modern classrooms or learning in modern classroom um and learning in modern classroom uh classes this particular survey is from Modern classroom based on the virtual mentorship project so you can see the before and after how our teachers felt about self-paced study accessing um efficiency based on Mastery visioning for students learning the gray is the before and the blue is the after um so I like to see uh the one in the middle I have a Clear Vision for how my students will learn 55% before doing the virtual mentorship and 97% after and you can see that um overall the 97 teachers that have taken this program um would recommend it to other teachers um sharing some details about their experience and the program um you can see very positive reactions to the program being inspiring and engaging and effective and working with their mentor this is some feedback from our 742 teachers about actually teaching with the modern classrooms model um you can see 100% of the teachers that we surveyed last sum uh last spring which would not be the teachers that did the mentorship this summer it would be the teachers who did it the summer before 100% of those um due to the model reported good personal relationships with their students 95% said they know what the student has and has not mastered each day and 100% report that they enjoy teaching because of the model and so we love that to see that for Teacher retention and we looked at um over 300 students that were in secondary students that were um in modern classrooms classes um 90% reported that they enjoyed their mCP based course 86% said they could teach themselves new academic skills without giving up so giving some of that autonomy and say their 85% say their teacher knows what they're good at and what they need help with and again from our coming from our students we think these are really good numbers that they have really good relationship ships with their teachers and are able to teach themselves new things so we started off in 2223 with teachers uh like Kate and Kyle who were just willing to try something different um and then in this last year we expanded the pilot we've added even more teachers that are using the modern classrooms me uh mentorship program um and then this year we're looking to deepen our approach we're looking to uh continue to allow teachers who are using the model to expand on use in the model and find new ways to use it and ways that work for them and work for our students and then as we look to the future we want to think about adding more teachers to this model and transforming our system even 97 teachers is only about 10% of our total teachers in the district so we're seeing really good results with these so part of our road map moving forward is to continue to deepen this approach and add more teachers using these practices um I added some resources to this slide just uh these are are no start playing it um there's the modern classroom video that uh again featured Kate so if you want to see more Kate she's in the video um and then uh Devin Boker a science teacher from Apollo High School on our very first coffee cast podcast um talked a lot about modern classrooms and it was great and then I also uh gave you a handout which is from Modern classrooms that's a little bit about the impact of the program um and data from Over the that was obtained from teachers over the summer about how they felt about the virtual mentorship program and in there there's also a little bit about what's possible how some other schools have really expanded on this program and used it um to improve their student outcomes so I do have another little bit of section but it's a little bit different so we want to pause here so if you have modern classrooms questions um I'd love to answer those or we have two very highly trained uh people over here that can also help out go um I like the idea it's not new when I was in high school decades and decades ago they did something very similar in our English class they called it English 3200 where you had to answer 3,200 questions with Mastery checks along the way and one of the things we found is that uh some people took their time getting through it and other people blasted through it in uh just a few days and then teacher was trying to figure out what what are you going to do with these uh people that have finished their 3,200 questions do you have that problem here I am going to let the teacher who taught in the model last year uh actually answer that because I know she's got she experienced this yeah so I think the biggest thing with that is making sure that the the Mastery that you're really checking for is assessing what they've learned and so if you when teachers create Mastery checks that really pause and make kids think about what they've learned and really dig deep into their knowledge then you can look at the the revision and the retach process if students have really deepened their thinking and learned something and mastered it then they have that option to go into a should do or an Aspire to-do or an extension um to that particular lesson or standard and in my experience uh students have no no issue with that because they're there to learn and they want to learn more what do you do with these kids that are just really bright and just really blast through everything they they'll go into those aspired to do activities where they will complete something else uh that is on topic but then digs deeper into what they're learning these are often projects that where students are are finding something that they're passionate about that relate to these uh these standards and Mastery that they're doing and so it's something that they want to work on and they want to continue to work on and can often come back to later Heather and then Dand how do the standards and the Mastery um checks that you're working with correspond or align with the testing that takes place and how do you know if you're if the students at least based upon standardized tests are making advancement I mean are you seeing in the classrooms where you're seeing this are you seeing outcomes that can be aligned with standardized testing that's something we haven't pulled specifically classrooms that are doing modern classrooms and that's data I think we need to start looking at as we start to increase the number of teachers who are doing this um generally uh teachers are using those Mastery checks to align with their standards before they're moving on and I know Kate and Kyle you can speak to that if you want to more but generally they're just looking they're looking at the standards as they're developing those Mastery checks and modern classrooms in the virtual mentorship does point that out to look at those State Standards When developing those Mastery checks making sure that what you're asking students to explain is something that fits in with your state standards part of the approach is that backwards planning piece where you start with the standard then you figure out what you want them to know and then you plan the lesson and everything that goes with it I'm going to date myself I was um first generation Mastery learning in high school um an early adopter of it and as a student I'm not sure that I would have recommended it does it give students an I'll call it an out um in providing them less motivation to learn the material I mean at least as I learned mastery it it essentially meant and um and I know I had peers who did this it meant that I can go at my own pace um if I'm not prepared for whatever is the check mark or at that time test um I'll get another chance to do it and so deadlines became less important and progress was um maybe not as linear what's your experience and how has it changed in many many years I'll let these guys talk in a second um one of the things is is those progress trackers and by taking the teacher out of the front of the room doing a lecture um it allows them to then meet with those students one-on-one and that's what we see when we go into modern classrooms is we see teachers pulling kids oneon-one or in small groups and talking about where they are in that progress and so that also helps students know where they are and also keeps them um you know onto the fact that look look you're on you're still on Lesson 1.1 and where you should be is at lesson 1.3 so what are we going to do it's all about helping students plan what can you do to get yourself up to lesson 1.3 and to get yourself up on Pace um a lot of people think that you know that kind of common misconception is that students could stay at unit one for the entire year um that is not the case we self-pace within units just making sure that students are getting to that area of the should dece which is the general Mastery before moving on um and even if students aren't doing that making sure that they just get the skills they need before they move on to the next part so you guys have any any other a lot of the teachers use hard deadlines so they will set a a hard deadline for a Mastery check halfway through the unit or they will set one for each Mastery check so that kind of holds kids accountable and keeps them honest to staying on track while still giving them the autonomy to work at their own pace uh lot teachers use a do now sheet when they walk into class students pick it up and they talk about and on there they might do a little bit about how they're feeling that day or kind of where they're at they look at where they are in the unit and what their goal is to accomplish by the end of the day or the end of the week and so that's another way that teachers and teachers talk with them um about those do now sheets or they're they're setting goals and understanding where they need to move to as they go throughout the unit I just you know U my son who graduated last year he would talk about a Mastery check in was at Apollo and it was some AP science or math class and what was really interesting to hear from him is he had one student uh one friend um who was with him in all the AP classes but he said well I know my friend is farther in his Mastery checks if that's what they even call it I yep okay um or I don't even think he used those words but I think he was talking about master checks um you know in yeah in this class and I'm actually farther in this class and so they kind of swap helping each other and um that just was a really beautiful story to me that um when a teacher is working with another student you know that you don't have to wait your 15 minutes or whatever to be able to say hey I don't understand this you know who that board was like a aha moment like oh that's maybe how he knew that he was further ahead than Aaron then Aaron the other way so um y yeah and students talk about it amongst themselves too like oh you're you're going to 1.3 I'm still on 1.2 and how did you do this so that is one of the beautiful Parts about that collaboration that happens among students in the room and the funny thing is they're both at U ofm both studying engineering and they're taking those two classes again and so he's like I'll do this with you and you do this with me and we'll continue 742 here at the U ofm collaboration continues yes beautiful thing thank you guys uh what grade levels are you offering these uh I didn't run into English 3200 until I was a senior great question it was terrific because I finally learned all the stuff I didn't learn all the gr through from through school but um do you do this at every level yeah it looks a little bit different I'll let Kyle talk about how it works in elementary yeah so um at the elementary level especially and you don't see kindergarteners in front of their devices looking at videos instead of the teacher that's not what we do um so it's a lot more of that self-paced Mastery um portion of the modern classrooms I have a few kindergarten teachers that I work very closely with that have found ways to get kindergarteners self-pacing and learning through Mastery checks and it's it's amazing to see so if we can do it at kindergarten then we can slowly start to ramp that up as we get to that second third grade level maybe it's a little bit more device and that instructional video piece fourth fifth and then we're at that 6 12 level where that's that's where they're really really hitting it and it's nothing new to them at that point that's where we want to get to so and they're not really a lot of times in elementary they're not necessarily self-pacing all day in in all of their subjects um often math is a good one that that teachers are able to use some of the modern classroom self-pacing um so they're doing it in certain subject areas or extensions um but they're still getting that exposure to how am I setting my Pace how am I setting goals for myself and how am I teaching myself new things yeah I I mean the the whole program is really great for students who you know are on any type of IEP or or need any sort of support or assistance um the instructional videos are very helpful if you're if you're specifically about dyslexia we the instructional videos are really helpful it's not all about reading in that case um but because the teacher is more available to the students as the students are learning um all students have more access to their teacher and are able to get more assistance and help when needed tough fun for me to ask questions and I'm not an educator so this is getting a little bit operational for me as to you know I can sit and watch it and say that's really interesting but I don't know if it really applies to my board work and I'm not educated in education so I don't really know if what I think or my interpretation of what you're doing I don't really don't know how that applies because it it I'm I'm in I'm in a different World from day to day but a couple of things a couple of comments that I would have first of all I have a question is it subject dependent is it available to all subjects or is it some subjects that works really well with and other ones we wouldn't even think about doing it it is not subject dependent um teachers of all subjects have uh done the training and worked through the model um so no it works it works everywhere Kate was science like we have kindergarten we have La we have math it does the model appeals to certain subjects earlier I think I think Math teachers really pick it up quickly um just based on how math has been instructed before but of all levels and all subject areas we have classrooms what about things like music uh physical education um it's not IND industrial Arts anymore career and Tech Career and Tech oriented classes yeah especially the career and Tech oriented classes especially when it comes to um instructional videos it's been some and fied and even art um those are things that have come really easily to those uh those curriculums um music anything where you can create a video to help a student that a student can watch and rewatch to help them learn a skill or a concept um comes really easily to those to teachers of those subject areas so yeah it's been used in in those areas too it's hard to do a full band lesson independently right like you know if you're if the whole band is playing um you kind of want them to play together you know at a certain time so um within the model there are times where whole group um is working together small group might be working together pulling out different um instrument sections and even like the solos or the individual students so it still works in all of those facets are classes identified in the course manual when students are registering not currently but that's a really interesting idea a moving forward so they don't know that they're getting into a classroom until they get into the classroom so that's they kind of know the in high school and probably Middle School too Middle School they don't have as much choice but in high school they kind of know the teachers who are doing it and and often those are teachers that they want um okay the last one here is a comment and I don't know if it has any value or not but I don't like the name that's being used modern class room to me it's a class system you're either you either are or you aren't you either have it or you don't have it and if you don't have it and we said 10% of the classrooms have it so 90% of our classrooms don't have it and it's almost shaming to the 90% who don't have it and it isn't modern classroom isn't really speaking to what the difference is I mean modern classroom sounds like wow the district spent a lot of money and put all new modern stuff in here classroom you got this great facility but really it's a teach it's an enhancement to the way that you're teaching or a a proc a different in process in the way that you're teaching and it's a different approach to teaching so if the if the name was something that was a little bit more in reference to the different process rather than it just doesn't seem relevant to me it seems like it's it's CL it's a class system and could could create some issues just just a thought on that um I think that's all I got on it I I I I I agree with Heather I can see I can see some really positive outcomes from it and I can also see where it could create some larger barriers to learning also I think um so thanks for showing us that's yeah that's all I got I I'm totally fine with modern because it means characteristic of recent past Indoor current present time um so um what stuck out to me the most there was teachers having more bandwidth and holy cow is that something they've wanted and needed for a long time I'm just curious as to um like if I was in learning this new technology stuff and again I'm not a teacher educator either um I'm now realizing how behind I am with technology when I used to be you know writing HTML just for fun um but that's old school right so um teachers or other staff who find this challenging and and it didn't look like it compared here and I don't know how far we've reached in um but are you seeing any difficulties there and if so what kind of things can we do to to help staff that um might I need a little extra support these two people are a big part of that extra support and they do a great job of of supporting teachers and in any needs that they have for technology or Innovative instruction um if you want to look at one of the positive things uh this system relies a lot on instructional video and that's something that we got pretty good at because of a global pandemic so it making videos was one of the things that teachers really Le leaned into when students were learning from home so we haven't had to do a lot as far as like how do you make an instructional video that's become I mean over the past few years that's become something that most teachers know how to do it's really elementary teachers get Mastery easily it's harder for secondary teachers to to really pull Mastery into what they're doing in their classrooms and so when Kate's going out and working with people she will often probably be working on that Mastery and that self-pacing the technology really isn't a barrier um to the teachers that we have right now I'm just thinking of the ways that what my kids have said about these sort of things and during the pandemic it's like the thing that I saw my kids doing that they weren't able to do before in some classrooms is going back and watching the video and so that I think actually was a real big game changer for my daughter um who has more neurode Divergence and just was like you know participating in a lecture based thing is like okay I'll try the best I can but then I've seen her like okay I'm going to go back and especially with math let me watch this again oh that's how you do it so I I I have seen it work with my kids I think in that way and you know the pandemic was a horrible time and we really I think like you said learned my our kids my kids learn a different way now than they did post uh pre pandemic and um in some ways it works in some ways doesn't you know but um it's another tool that's what it seems like to me that this is as a former teacher is like I could see ways I could even use it in my choir classroom and like I was teaching pep band let me you know break out the parts for you and stuff like that but yeah um so makes that content accessible to students when they need it so if they need to go back and look where they can go back and ask this teacher to do the lecture again when they're at home back in the 1900s I didn't have that ability in soer find phone number in in the yeah the exactly thanks for sharing today I do it with YouTube all the [Laughter] time do they have access to the lessons outside of class periods so theoretically they can access them all from home at any time that they want yep so in some ways the basic to the should and the aspire to those who are motivated would be able to work through those yeah whenever they want yep we have uh online learning about do you do a lot of this online for the people that don't go to physical school anymore the the teachers in our Central Minnesota Virtual Academy that have done modern classrooms have found it very helpful um because the instructional video is the main piece of instruction in that Central Minnesota Virtual Academy so it it is a it can be used very similarly in that in that space as well we do have a second part I'm trying to think about it and my mom is a former educator well probably a current educator but a former educator and one of the things that she and I have talked about is you can Master skills but then the ultimate question is what now what's the piece that pushes um students to think take take what they've mastered to think critically whether it's in civics or whether it's in math or whether it's in literature whatever it is to to connect the next step to say okay I've mastered the the content what does it really mean and how does it apply to the world today K is very excited to answer this question yeah a a lot of uh teachers who are using this approach uh their their assessment their final assess M will be an application of all of the knowledge so they'll find some way that these students will apply what they're learning to either create something to apply it to a current event or something like that so that they can really take what they've learned and they can say this is how this is what I know and this is how it's used all right cool um the next part is really exciting it's generative AI um so before we get started we did want to give a huge thank you to this board for being incredibly supportive and all the work that the district is doing our teachers our students our staff using generative Ai and navigating through a very new world in education um I don't think there's a board in Minnesota that has been more supportive and more on the front edge of everything that's been happening here so thanks you and thanks to superintendent putam as well for for leading all of that work it's been um it's been great for us because it is right in our Innovation wheelhouse right um so why are we uh talking about generative AI we know this uh we interact with it every day we want to prepare our students for future careers but we also want to teach responsible use of generative AI in our classrooms um we want to improve learning outcomes and we want students to have Equitable access to emerging Technologies like generative AI um we know that Ai and machine learning jobs are growing um so the world economic Forum did a study and we're finding that uh uh machine learning jobs will grow by 40% and a million new jobs in that field are expected by 2027 um the skills that are required for new jobs new job skills is changing and increasing uh 65% by 2030 um and when we look at job posting it's English language job postings is all this study looked at um but that mentioned GPT or chat GPT have increased by 21 times since November of 2022 so we want to make sure that our students are future ready and job ready um we talk a lot about what AI is and isn't and this is still uh uh kind of difficult for people but like I said AI is your online shopping it's uh helping determine what your insurance rates are it's doing your text to speech it's your language translation it's navigating you around your car and getting through all that summer road construction um AI is not a killer robot it's not alive um and it's not just for people who are in the technology field um AI is really for everyone and can help everyone and it's not going away so education with and with and what education with AI is can lead to just what we talked about with our with our modern classrooms more personalized learning differentiation in seconds increasing student persistence um and doing some of those uh those things to help our students who need assistance in text to speech or in language translation it's not going to replace teachers it doesn't solve every problem in education we we know that um and it's not really one more thing that needs to take a lot of time for teachers and it's not really a subject that needs to be separated and taught as a separate subject it can be integrated into all subjects there are benefits and risks to using AI in education and so when we think about the benefits we think about how we can help our students and their outcomes and help our students grow when we think about risks we need to think about ways that we are assisting our students use AI responsibly in order to help mitigate those risks like with accountability and privacy um our old digital divide which is still a digital divide but um computers and schools high-speed internet one toone devices in districts um during Co a lot of money was put into bridging that digital divide um we still want to make sure that all of our students have access to those things but we also need to consider what the new digital divide is which is who is empowered to learn with and about Ai and we want to make sure that our students in our district are empowered Learners of AI so they are ready in their future so how has our department looked at ways that we can do this and ways that we can be effective um we want to off make sure we're offering the professional learning that our teachers need to use it for themselves and use it with their students um we have a wonderful it Department of uh Innovation coaches technicians and everybody who might work with these Technologies um and then we have lots of building resources like media Specialists and our teachers who are working with these every single day um so some of the things that we have already offered and are planning to offer in the future we did an AI boot camp for um Educators in June 2020 one-day Workshop of all things gen AI we had 20 teachers and one superintendent um we offer asynchronous courses these are some of the ones we're working towards uh offering this year we offered a bunch of really introductory AI courses last year and now we want to offer more about actual use um for teachers so uh Kate talked about backwards design earlier how can we use AI to help us backwards design where we start with our identified results and then we determine what our evidence and what our learning experiences are going to be from there um General teacher tools for both Elementary and secondary and then supplementing curriculum with AI um we also have already offered some Workshop week PD sessions these two um have been out in our schools is offering some PD sessions to all of our teachers about examples of assignments with assisted Ai and AI tools to help teachers um when we're thinking about an age of AI we also have to think about computer science it isn't necessary uh it's foundational um and as we talked about uh Minnesota is lagging behind in computer science and Kyle has a little bit to share about computer science moving forward y um so yeah at the elementary level we're not going to be having kids just play around on chat gbt all day long that wouldn't benefit anybody but at that level we can develop all of those foundational skills like the slide here shows um and that could be something as simple as just how to use computers so that computer usage should be efficient by the time they're at that sixth grade level and ready for these types of things um my job a lot of what I do is actually helping teachers integrate computer science into into the curriculum that they're already using So Into You know their math their reading all of those subject areas so that it's not just one more thing anymore because it's technology and computers science has always just kind of been oh it's that extra thing we'll get to that after we do math and reading we don't want that mentality anymore we can't have that mentality anymore so me helping teachers find ways to incorporate computer science into what they're already doing is going to be key for that and that's going to look a little different at each each grade level if we look at our primary grades our K2 they're going to be doing a lot more stuff that's not even touching a device it's going to be a lot more unplugged activities maybe doing things with patterns or sequencing just to get that that thinking piece involved in there and then it could be something very basic like your scratch Junior platform very easy coding stuff and then when you get to 35 you can kind of ramp that up and you can be a little bit more uh more robust like your code.org and maybe even some basic robotics or we've got our um robotics teams even at some of our elementary buildings so and all of this too it it can be centered around um we've got a lot of great computer science resources and standards available to us like the IST standards would be fantastic to really get our buildings a little bit more involved with right and we have uh some examples of where students are already using AI in the classroom um some of the things they might use them for are sentence starters um helping revise answers some project planning AI tutors um one of our media centers uh used AI to help students get book recommendations which was really cool um writing feedback brainstorming and a lot more um I'm actually going to give Kate just a minute here to talk about a couple of things that she has done uh in her classroom last year so students had opportunities to work with two different different AI approaches in class they were able to work with this class companion that you see on the screen where they would answer open-ended questions and get feedback on their questions and then opportunities to revise their answers and they would basically have a conversation with this based on what what input they were getting and then the feedback that they were able to do uh students they they loved it and hated it all at the same time uh they didn't like being told that they were wrong or that they needed to revise their answer uh but they also enjoyed the opportunity to grow and think about how they can expand what they're learning and what they're trying to communicate in that uh regard uh the other one that we used a lot was this magic schools that you're looking at and students uh had an opportunity to kind of individualize what they were using it for in class and specifically they would use it for their sentence starters or sentence stems and they would use prior to small group conver collaboration or conversations before large group conversations and it really gave all students a Level Playing Field where they were able to come up with a sentence stem uh along with their thinking a sentence stem that worked for them to enable in order for them to give a full sentence and share in a large group and feel really confident about what they were giving and participating in a class discussion um we know that that uh our 742 families and working with AI uh that parents believe that the potential benefits um to AI probably outweigh the potential drawbacks but only about 16% of parents in the study had a detailed understanding of what AI is so some things uh Ryan last year offered a AI parent engagement um in cooperation with our Equity Department um for parents and they were able to come in learn a little about bit about generative AI and how it works in the classroom is a pretty good group pretty large group and then we are planning for more events for families and moving forward thinking about a Community Education course um for parents and families and community members we have some guiding practices for AI that mde did come out with some kind of guard rails or guiding principles for AI and education we have our own 742 generative AI guidelines that are found in our district website that were uh created by uh our very own teachers in our uh 742 task force and we're actually referenced in The mde Guiding principles so we were ahead of the curve on that one one of the things that we're using with our secondary students this year is a um stoplight uh the principal of Apollo High School Justin scholar rude was really forth thinking in uh uh proposing this type of graphic for students in order to see when AI usage is appropriate and when it is not teachers are utilizing this graphic and these symbols in their schooly courses so that students can easily see when an assignment should be AI free when it can be used for certain tasks in AI assisted and when AI can enhance and be actively used and interactively used uh throughout their assignment we're heading maybe towards an AI powered environment where uh students are empowered to use AI um and that is where we want to get to we know some teachers it might be tough to start out with um and they might have a lot of AI free assignments but we want to look for growth where they are able to allow students to use AI in different areas because they may not be able to get those guard rails and that instruction of responsible use outside of the classroom we can provide that for them inside the classroom so again we're still um last year was a lot of the people who were really uh ready to try something um and here we're talking about expanding our usage through professional learning and then growing in the future we want to be deepening our approach and utilizing with students more um offering courses and and within other courses and then uh working on preparing our future ready students so questions about that one and there is no third part this is the this is the last part anybody have any other questions or comments Natalie thanks for presenting on this I just wanted to share a story about my 10th grader who decided she would put her her two weeks in at her current or former job because she was taking another job she said first she didn't ask me about any of this she just said first I uh ran my my paragraph that I was going to text to my boss um through chat chat GPT what else did she use grammarly and also Snapchat Ai and she said Snapchat AI told me I better do it in person and so I stopped listening to snap Snapchat and just went ahead and texted so uh it's it's very interesting to me that that how that's the way that my kids are using it because I don't even think of those things I'm like let me just write it myself and get no assistance but yeah so thanks for being on the curve ahead of the curve on all of this I think that brings up a good point of which I we have talked about it in this board and this board made me aware of AI in a whole different way than I was probably tracking earlier and so I I certainly see the benefits I am also highly concerned about the generations that we are putting out and their mental health cap um situation um and their ability to interact and find and self self sooe in some ways and and find connection that is Meaningful and simply not on a screen um or that sort of thing when does that conversation start because I I do think to Natalie's point and her daughter finding from Snapchat that you should talk to somebody in person and her choosing to text is very common at the detriment I think of mental health of of a population that is aging and of which we have not been able to find a solution to how are you approaching those conversations with students and how integrated is that into the classroom and and just like we talked about with instructional practices um it's not always all about technology right so we want to students to be future ready and we want them to use Ai and to have a deep understanding of it but not at the expense of social emotional learning so I think AI is something that we want to make sure that we are allowing those guardrails for but we're not saying do this in place of talking with your peers doing group work um those types of things that are really important for our emotional growth of our students um and overall but I mean I totally get it like I still don't like calling the doctor to make an appointment so totally understand um uh but we want to make sure that students are getting that interaction in school and they're not completely focused on on their screen at all times but as far as like what practices are going not super informed on that piece but I do know that we wouldn't want it to replace any of those things as a district we're out there and we are in front of it and I think that's good because personally I think AI is good and it's bad I think it scares the hack aomy in certain ways and and the main the main reason that it scares the heck aomy is it's giving somebody somewhere someone's getting an awful lot of power out of this stuff and be and and the more dependent the Next Generation becomes on AI the more power those people have or those that whoever it is that's getting the power out of it the more power they have because they AI can shape answers and and it definitely does shape answers and it doesn't always give the right answers it gives it gives whatever it deems is the right answer and it's scary to me as AI becomes more and more powerful what we're handing over to this system and it's a system I can't tell you who who's in control of AI I have no idea no idea um they want you to believe it's just some integration of computer systems that's it's like I don't know it's like Bitcoin I don't know what that is either but you know blockchain I I don't know what this stuff is and it doesn't it doesn't mean anything to me but there isn't a point person or there's not a point institution at the top that I can point a finger at and say they're the ones that did it or they're the ones that chose that and so it kind of creates almost a Godlike system that everyone believes in and hey if if chat GPT said that's right that's right and don't argue with chat GPT but it's not always right it's been phenomenal for me in doing some of the things like Natalie was pointing out it's like you I can write a little something and then I can go to chat GPT I can write down some characteristics then go to chat GPT and say can you write this for me or I can it's campaign season right I can write an ad and then I can put it in chat GPT and I can say shrink that down to 30 seconds and it comes right back and oh I got a 30 second ad or something that I can spit out in 30 seconds um so in C in certain ways it works really well I'll tell you something scared me though in these ads is I did chat GPT and I had some some specific wording within an ad that I wrote about two two weeks later I went back and I was rewriting a different one it didn't have that specific wording in it but I asked chat GPT to revise my what I had written and if those words didn't appear in the exact way that I said them in the last time and it scared the heck out of me because it tracked what I said a couple of weeks ago and it brought it back in knowing that it was me that was asking for that it brought it back in because it was like a characteristic that I wasn't talking about in the second one that I talked about in the first one and it's like this is too much it's just it's more than I want it out there and it's listening to everything that you say and more and more devices are going to have ai and they're going to be listening to everything that you say and pretty soon there's going to be no autonomy in the world so there's there's a lot of things that scare me about this there's a lot of things that I think are good about it I don't know how you can can control where it's going but we're leaden away yep that's that's where those that's where those those guard rails are important though where we we talk about it with students we talk about media literacy um hallucinations you know where where uh generative AI just makes something up um media literacy is so important um to our students right now in the world of generative AI um and that's something that we can't leave behind but I mean when you talk about it knowing even years ago if you uh were on Amazon and searched for you know ice cream I mean 3 days later you're going to get you know a Snickers bar yeah yeah cookies you just you buy ads and it'll your ads will appear only to people who did certain searches so if someone search for ice cream then you can go out and say I want to advertise to people who search for ice cream within the last three weeks and they are the ones who will see those ads okay are you're leing see now you know our phones are listening so everybody's going to get ads for ice cream now think cookies and cream specifically all right thank you guys thank you okay couple more things tonight we first have the student survey review being presented by Donna roer executive director of research enrollment and assessments thanks Donna for joining us good evening chair HW superintendent putam board members and listening Community out there um thank you for your curiosity about the student surveys in ISD 742 um I'm happy to be here tonight to just share with you a little bit about our process and then just also um speak a little bit to the min innesa student survey because that is a student survey that we do that's coming up in the 25 school year um and then just to answer any questions that you have um I know that the policy is coming up right after this so Jason's willing to tag team with me if there's things that he can answer um but what I first want to just share with you guys is that we we always survey with purpose so when we're putting out any student survey to any of our kiddos there's always a question that we have that we're trying to answer and we're we're really intentional and I will say at least since I have been here um we've been trying to gather all the student um surveys that happened or that had happened to just understand for what purpose um and um you know how was the administration process done and we've Now sort of aligned and tightened all of that that work up into our continuous improvement process so almost every student survey that we might do now that's internal is tightly related to our school Improvement plans our continuous improvement process and our climate survey um we have Community Partners that we work closely with like bar for example that's One external sort of partnership survey that we review closely so it used to be they would I think do those surveys just out of the high school they now all kind of come into our central office for review um so that the protocols are all followed just like they would be for any other um student survey questions are vetted we we try to understand does it align with the services they provide are these valid questions to improve those services and we have dialogue back and forth with our partners um so in a nutshell that's that's what we're doing with student surveys very intentional work very purposeful work um when it comes to the Minnesota student survey I did want to just touch on that briefly because I know that that is a little bit what has generated the Curiosity about our process here so that is a triennial survey it is the longest running student youth survey in the country country and in the state of Minnesota um I would say on average depending on the year they've had anywhere from you know 55% of students across the state all the way up to you know 70% of the students across the state answering and taking that survey so um when we think about why uh students in our district might take that survey or why we as a district would participate in the Minnesota student survey um there is a wealth of information that that not only benefit you know our district um but our community and so that that's a survey that is utilized by multiple stakeholders you know and it's comprehensive um and and we don't you know we don't have to say it's ours it's not it belongs to Wilder in the state of Minnesota put together by the Department of Health and um you know again um I I personally over the course of my career working with this survey um have observed that there is enough data collected now from the youth in the state of Minnesota using that instrument um that we have some pretty good data in there that is probably worth listening to and worth worth um understanding as a system so um that one is uh we handle that a little differently because we are required to do a um what's called a passive consent so we will very directly contact families email families um giving them a way to opt out of that Minnesota student survey um we do it from the district level and then when the schools go to administer it they also do it kind of a second run uh last year or the last time we did that survey in 2022 we did have about 75 families opt out of taking that survey but for the most part the majority of 5th 8th 9th and 11th graders did take that survey [Music] um uh it's voluntary they don't have to answer any question they don't want to answer students are told this so it's it's um 100% voluntary in terms of whether or not the kids have to answer all the questions um the the nice thing about that survey is there is a lot of consistency in the questions over time and then as new things arise in the community the survey is modified and updated to to get after some of those things for example when vaping sort of became a thing uh the Minnesota student survey ended up taking up questions regarding that behavior and they were able to collect some really really good data that then the Department of Health and other Human Services and counties were able to um intervene around so um those are just some strategic ways that they're using that data um trying to think if there's other questions that we wanted to answer I think the big things were really that we are giving full notice full disclosure the surveys are available for anyone to see and um it's a pretty tight tightly run process then Scott have questions too I can I can take a question sure oh you said TR any that's out of my vocabulary um so it's every three years but it's not every we we administer it every year correct nope we only administer it every three years we have our own internal climate so wait so wait a second so students are it's administered to 5ifth say that again 5ifth 8th fifth graders eighth graders 11 ninth graders and 11th graders take the Minnesota student survey but only one out of every three classes so two classes two there's two classes of students that would not get it they they it's again yeah they just every so we we now you could say in fifth grade they took it in 2019 and then when they were in eighth grade they took it again and then when they were in 11th grade they took it again so technically you could you could start to see some cohort data and patterns in the data set and again because they're surveying the entire State and they are getting a really high participation rate for a survey of this nature um the data is considered pretty you know pretty good quality but then they won't see it again until three years later correct and that's not the student that's the state this is a again this is a systems level sort of qualitative feedback measure that's used to inform counties and human Serv services and Mental Health Service Providers and various entities that want to um make the community so if it's given every three years and it's three years between when it's given is the three years between the age groups are they trying are they purposefully trying to hit the same students in 5ifth 8th and 11th or are they so it's not not as random but they're purposefully trying to see how that group matures I do think there was some strategery in there yes um you know I I do think that there was some thought that went into that and the questions are different for fifth graders and they are for eth graders and nth graders and 11th graders but there are some consistent types of questions so look at those transitional years right fifth grade you're going into middle school next year in sixth grade nth grade is it's the transition out of middle school and then 11th grade you should start to be thinking about postsecondary options and getting that information I think for when they want to ask the questions around those specific age groups I think those are key transitional points and we look at them all the time currently right now to see what are we doing if it goes into the modern classroom how are we really hitting and getting student information at those those are key transitional points and when we when we look at those years I think to to some of that we're going into year three now this is a 2025 is going to be this is a survey year 2025 correct and that's why we're doing policy review on this do you have more to present then I I think I just would say you know um we are going to you know we do share the results in our school reports so just to keep that in mind that as we do our own um student surveys here many of our questions come from the search institute's developmental assets um questions because those are calibrated and we can look at the data and we can say oh how do we compare nationally because so many people use those um calibrated questions and they are questions that align with our vision and our mission um aligned to sense of belonging commitment to learning positive identity those key things that you know we we know are Central to um academic um success so um you know we don't do the full-blown Minnesota stud student survey every year here we do our own focused on the developmental assets of Learners and we try to present that in the school reports so that you have some sense of you know what that data looks like so you're talking about two different surveys right this what you're saying so this one is the every 3 years and otherwise annually we're twice a year or yep annually we we have been doing it once a year so this coming year we are looking at breaking it up and doing a fall climate where as we move towards um implementing our full service Community Schools and as we are interested in having actionable data to inform our continuous Improvement efforts we are finding more of a need to tie some of our end of year if you will climate survey questions to the beginning of the year for example and potentially in the middle of the year so we're right now in discussion about the three potential survey windows for our IND District student staff Community surveys and is that both surveys have passive consent so BEC so the passive consent comes in primarily because of the types of questions on that Minnesota student survey so many of the questions that we're we're putting in our internal surveys are not they don't fall under a sensitive nature if you will they're geared towards the environment the climate The Learning Experience and so we wouldn't necessarily be required to get parents consent to ask kids about their experience learning in the classroom for example if we were you know asking about behaviors related to you know outside of school potentially then in those cases absolutely we should you know always seek um passive consent for those kinds of surveys which is why we do for the Minnesota student survey so for the passive consent and parents have the ability to opt out can they see all the questions absolutely PRI prior to making that decision absolutely okay when the students are taking either one of these surveys is this their name on it anywhere no they the surveys that are done at least through the Rea department they are we tell students that your responses are um confidential voluntary and and an anonymous right when when we're doing them for the end of the year we do commit to that um so we're blind at seeing if somebody wrote something well I mean we we we are for the highlevel system surveys right um it isn't to say someone might ask an open-ended question to their class and get feedback and know who did it right yeah okay but that's a little bit more I would say instructional classroom feedback but typically we don't disaggregate we try to keep their identity an onized um often times we want to bring the results back to students so how long does it take to take a test are they on the computer yep and I would say they're most of them are very quick uh the Minnesota student survey so quick that's about a 55 minute okay um takes a whole period um but the other ones that we do are typically less than 20 minutes and then I know the answer to this but I just want to publicly say it that we don't tell people they can't share anything there was a concern from a from a local school district that that a student was told that they can't tell their parents about the survey and just to publicly say yeah no we would never do that right thank you yeah parents have a right to see the survey questions and we publish them email them yeah and I'm not saying that that was true or not I'm just it was something that was said in a different School District so um yeah and never a doubt in my mind I just wanted to say it out loud so thank you anybody else else have any questions about our student survey process before we move on to the policy I think it's perfect Donna so you stay because we're going to go right into the policy because it'll spark up a few more questions into how it looks from policy into what Donna just talked about in practice right and so uh good evening Sher uh superintendent plam school board members uh student policy 520 uh the last time it was revised from us was uh May 5th uh 2021 we have no major legislative or msba changes they updated the policy in uh January 2022 and so the purpose of the policy goes into what we know the policy should have parameters around how we sought information around surveys for from students and so uh in the general statement you had no major changes our policy align right with msba you had the um abbreviation from United States uh code section and it was spelled out and so in my learning um it ties to the uh protection of the pupil rights amendment and that's what that piece stands for and so I think our committee as we went through it was a good learning for all of us uh in that and and what our procedures kind of look like there but that was just a minor uh change there uh and uh student surveys in general we had a few language changes the superintendent may choose to disapprove any surveys that seek probate personal and sensitive information in result of identifying the survey participant kind of to chair H's point of how we're getting information around these specific things if it's discriminatory around age race color disability and so uh Al you want to share just a quick of uh what we did of why we changed uh it from may choose to uh may choose to disapprove in in that and just what uh tense wise of what came up in that and B I don't know what you're asking so the superintendent may choose not to approve we had a discussion that the superintendent may choose to disapprove any survey and it was language change there you you remember uh what was talked about Scott or Zack and and why we changed that specific to that word that the superintendent May disapprove right so Scott we were talking about language and and grammar and the double negative in in that sense didn't it have there was my mind my mind was sharper in a moment it has to do with choosing not to approve something yeah there there is a double negative in there and it's if you choose to disapprove it I chose I made a decision not to approve it but if you choose not to approve it doesn't mean you disapprove right so that that got us why we we changed the Chang the language in that and so uh that that double negative and so when you look at C uh it's just making sure we're ensuring the Guardian is notified and we took out a writing because we do it in multi modalities it's just not in writing uh in how the survey is administered and so you see a few language changes the parent or guardian of the student uh has the opportunity to opt out of the survey and we crossed out depending on how the survey is funded that doesn't matter of how the survey is funded it's specifically that they have an option to op out one of the things that we talked about was two things in the survey that sparked to chair H's piece was how folks are notified of the survey and then what specifically in the survey right and so and how folks s seek information in that piece so we went down to d uh it was no major changes here the district will take appropriate steps ensure the data is protected in accordance with and so Don's team does all those things around that and you just had a few minor changes with uh calling out Minnesota statu using were uh there Roman numeral 4 student service conducted as part of the department of education programs all the materials have a right to be uh specifically evaluated by parents anything that's uh that is a minister you see in a and then B kind of to we heard it again that students have a have to give consent you can't just say hey you take this survey they have to and then their parents if they're in that minor they have to be notified around that and it ties into Political affiliations sex behavior and attitudes and kind of some of the things that we talked about and it breaks it all the way down from one to eight to income and and status in that way uh no major changes C was the one we talked about because we looked at language and uh we even had a a an email into msba on some of the language would see around uh physical examination when you give a survey currently right now we don't know of any surveys that if I administer a survey I have to give some type of physical examination or any type of screening right and so we looked at some of the language maybe um in Shannon's terms what you call it Antiquated language yeah waiting for a response from msba we did get a response today but it was very very brief and so i i s some more clarification um regarding that yeah so so we we talked about that in the committee and that was one that we scratched but we was want to get a little history on kind of where have examinations taken place tied to a survey and then when you when you go down and look at the following policies that are adopted in cons in consultation excuse me with the parents uh we looked at um D was the one that talked about administer uh physical examinations and screenings but it also tied into uh individuals with disabilities uh in that piece and that's why that possibly could be uh something that takes place in that when we go all the way down to uh the notice it's just kind of some things that Donna talked about the school district must notify parents around uh the policy that at the beginning of the year uh around surveys and then if anything changes within the policy and so we follow all the procedures around that and and that was probably the end of uh just the the policy had no major changes to it as we went into it we wanted to look at what Pol what practices and policies that we have right here in place around that and you just see the last uh we took uh sex discrimination out anything I miss Shannon Don Al or Scott or Zack and that I think it was as we look through it our in our assessment we don't give a lot of surveys out we don't have a lot of surveys we can count them and me and Donna sat down and it's on hand of how many surveys and it's really monitored on how it's collected what's being notified how we notify imp appearance and all of it and so I think uh you know when we look at the policy that's where we are anybody have any questions or comments on this first reading all right this policy 520 student surveys thanks thank you tied to the yep policy itself I want to ask a question I just want to tie those last our last two conversations together one on AI and one on surveys which are administered on on tablets and the conversation that information is collected whether you want it collected or not you know when not when things again things that scare me are when you have a conversation with someone about something and then for the next two or three days on your phone all you get are ads for that thing that you were talking about with someone whether and and you didn't use your phone at all but it's listening constantly right how do we ensure with something like the Minnesota student survey when the students are taking it on a tablet that there's no access or no potential of those answers being a tied to the student and B being accessible outside of our [Music] system and if you don't have an answer I understand yeah well I'm I have I have some information I don't know if this is what you're looking for but what I can tell you about the Wilder survey that is is administered to students is it goes through a secure URL you're right it's it's done online but there's a very secure link that has to be used um we don't get Raw results back the only the only data we get back as a as a district is aggregated data and um so I know of no entity getting access to those Raw results other than Wilder research and they have a legal um obligation to um ensure anonymity and protect because we're talking about students and they're vulnerable citizens so they follow very very strict legal and ethical rules around the release of that data that's what I know about you know that process I just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you to Donna um because she has uh painstakingly um reviewed and not always made friends honestly with with some of the the state departments and some of our partners right because she has been so conscientious about taking caring for our students privacy and their data um and so we have supported her and not in holding that stubborn line right and um so I I just have not seen anybody in in many many years take that kind of care and consideration so I just wanted to say thank you for that it makes a big difference for our kids and it's it's work that goes widely unknown right so thank you okay are that's everything okay looking for a motion to adjourn our work session uh motion by Natalie second by Scott all in favor say I I opposed all right uh work session is adjourned it is 8:33 p.m. have a good night thanks for watching we'll be back on September 18th she