##VIDEO ID:jL3tJ9zvi7k## it is October 16th 2024 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 of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flague 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 all and Scott andreon here Natalie Copeland here El doen here Zack dhol is here Shannon hos here on gar Schwarz here Heather Williams here and the following cabinet members and staff are present at the District administration office assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of prek through grade 5 education Nikki Hansen assistant superintendent of special education and student services Shannon avenson executive director of Community Education Adam Holm executive director of operations CH height Camp executive director of par partnership programs Gary gangji executive director of research enrollment and assessments Donna rooper director of community engagement and Communications Tammy Dand media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott and custodian on site is Aiden Ander thank you then we need a motion to approve tonight's Board of Education meeting agenda so move classic I have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Zach can you call vote um Monica SAR Schwarz yes Shannon hos yes Zack dhol yes El doen yes Natalie Copland yes scard and Dron yes Heather weams yes 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 minutes of September 4th 2024 and September 18th 2024 Item B approval of bills and other Financial transactions in the grand total amount of 7,596 26757 cents item C approval of personnel staff changes item D acceptance of Grant Awards and donations item e quarterly expenditures for board members item F approval of monthly Financial reports for August 2024 item G approval monthly Treasures report for August 2024 item H Apollo area Roof replacement change order totaling $19,990 item I Apollo area a roof replacement change order totaling $58,900 183 and item J McKinley addition and renovation change order totaling $2,789 um we do have a request for removal of item D is that correct item D okay two people removing that um anybody else okay so um can I get a motion to approve items a through J um except item D so move second I'm a motion by Scott and a second by Monica Zach can you call vote and uh Shannon hos yes Monica sigara Schwarz yes Heather Williams yes Scot and Dron yes Natalie Copeland yes El doen yes Z doorold yes thank you and then we have um item D acceptance of Grant Awards and donations um by itself Madam chair I would like to recuse myself from this item uh donation from monsp child and uh Madam chair would like to do the same for the donation from Leaf 742 okay okay so I'm looking for a motion to approve uh item D so move second I have a motion by Monica a second by uh Scott so Zach can you call vote for the five of us El doen oh I'm sorry Zach door holds yes Shannon hos yes Monica Shara Schwartz yes Heather Williams yes Scott and Dron yes all right thank you um up tonight we have one information item we have the North Junior High School presentation being presented by principal Sasha Hansen welcome glad to have [Music] you all right good evening chair HW members of the board assistant superintendent tonight uh in District administration my name is Sasha Hansen and I am the proud principal of North Junior High before we get started with the presentation I did make some edits and additions so um it is also Unity day today so um for those of you that don't know what Unity day is um it is an anti-bullying inclusive day um put on by Pacer and so there are a few pictures there that we uh want to highlight um our awesome uh PBIS team our positive behavior interventions and sports team uh put on some activities today so you'll see just from the start um every kid got a positive affirmation today at their locker um that our advisory students and staff put together for our kids we also engaged in a Unity rock paper scissors challenge with um orange beads today um and so you can see that is our school resource officer officer Lester uh in the lunchroom Challen uh G being challenged by students um and then the picture on the left our our students that made it to the finale and you can see eighth grader Sam with all of the beads in the middle he was a champion I had 33 beads left at the end of the day and he um I challenged him at the end for students versus staff and he was the Victor we live streamed it and so we also have uh Unity Day t-shirts for our board members um and so you will see it says it's going through really fast um let's put unity and community and then you belong here so I got one for all of you today so please pass all right so um throughout the presentation today you'll kind of see four um different things um it'll start with our four pillars of belonging um collaboration um excellence and expected outcomes for our students and then also safety and so with in there I started with how it ties to our continuous Improvement plan that our leadership team um kind of put together with uh the overall theme of what we're trying to do and then what that measurable outcome is and then we'll go through kind of specific things that we are doing in strategies for each of those areas um and then you'll also see some pictures of it in motion with uh within our school community so the first area sense of belonging we broke it down between students um families and staff and so our overall goal is to make sure that every kid has at least one positive adult within our school Community um by the end of the school year and so we're going to do um surveys a few different times a year to see how we're progressing with that and um hopefully by the end of the year we have at least one trusted adult because we know that improves income uh outcomes for kids and then we also have a goal to decrease measure of physical altercations fights and assaults by 10% this school year all right so here are all the awesome things that we are doing um to create a sense of belonging for students and so um the big thing that is um has been for the past couple of years are restorative practices and So within our school community in our classroom every single teacher has done uh Community Building circles with our students to get to know them on an individual level and for kids to get to know each other to build empathy and understanding uh for each other within our classrooms they created respect agreements which means um they sat down in that Circle and they talked about um how do students expect to um demonstrate respect to each other um what do students expect from the adult in the space and the teacher and then what does a teacher expect from the students in regards to respect and then how are we respecting the the whole community and so each class came up with respect agreements they're posted on schooly um and within their classrooms and again when when things maybe aren't going the way that everybody expected and agreed to we go back to those respect agreements to make sure we're all on the same page uh next thing at the middle level um building assets reducing risks um our bar program um started out at the high schools and so this was the first year we did full implementation in grades six seven and eight and So within those eye time lessons the I stands for the individual so again this is a diff another strategy explicit strategy that teachers are doing within the core content areas to understand how who kids are individually and so once a month um one of our four teachers teaches one of those eye times lessons again to BU build that Community within the classroom uh we have a ton of celebrations um that are listed there so we just Tred to highlight kind of the big ones again our PBIS or positive behavior interventions and supports uh we do students of the month um this year we implemented uh cheerful students of the week and so we have um a live stream on Tuesdays and Thursdays one of our dean of students um does that live stream for announcements and our new assistant principal uh assistant principal ch and so students nominate each other who's bringing Joy who uh is spreading cheer within our school community so they highlight um uh a student of the week in that uh we have birthday shoutouts both in announcements but also um we will sing Happy Birthday in the lunchroom for all of our students so we have printed all of our students birthdays and we will uh celebrate them uh both in announcements and during um lunch and then again PBIS we have Eagle paride blue slips um so you'll see in the next slide we have a a monthly drawing for four different prizes uh kids can figure out when they um are being safe responsible kind our um adults on Earth the space will give an eagle Pride blue slip and they'll put them in one of those four areas um a really popular thing that has happened over the last two years is student versus staff dodgeball in the morning that we also live stream um and so they get to choose where they want to what what um they would like to earn um and then the last celebration that we do um twice a year year is we have a no tardy uh party challenge for students to get to class on time so over a 3-week span we will track all of our tardies and if students have three or less in that time frame um they get to have an after school uh party with their their peers and their um the teachers and staff in our building and then last but certainly not least uh trying to build a sense of belonging for kids is uh we have a where everybody belongs um eighth grade leaders ship um a leadership team where they will connect with sixth grades not only that first day of school but we also have advisories where they'll push into advisories and do some different activities with their sixth grade students uh we you'll see on the next page we have Spirit uh the week and dress up days um we just talked about Unity day this morning and then we um celebrate different Heritage months so we just finished celebrating uh Hispanic Heritage Month which just finished it was October 15th until yesterday um and then we also have a culture night at the end of the um school year and so here are different a bunch of different um students involved in activities one thing I did not highlight another focus of ours is increase in activities by 5% um our fall uh activities rate was um extremely higher especially for our females which I know has been a focus for our activities coordinator and activities directors um so that was awesome to see I think the biggest highlight was volleyball went from 48 to 68 participants um this is um our uh uh Hispanic Heritage Month Miss Rosie is our bilingual Communications sports specialist she has a fabulous job um putting on um different things and activities for our kids to engage with at that time um the top two are pictures from our culture night from last year so we have um students that um not only did um some cultural dancing but also um did a fashion show and then an upper left um we have a student that volunteered to do some henna on that night and then this is part of our twinning Tuesday for one of our spirit weeks and so you can see uh the connection with students and staff as they decided to Twin with um one of the adults in the spaces and then uh last but not least again um we had our no tardy party last year um we had a dance party that's the top one in the Middle where they are um at the photo booth we had face painting we had um an inflatable bounce house um for kids to engage in and then you can see that's the student versus staff dodgeball game that we live stream and then um we had a bingo activity as well last year where kids were coming down to get prizes uh as principal Nutter in the um Eagle for those of you that remember him from last year so um just trying to build community uh in connection with our kids uh belonging for families this is again one of our Focus uh main focuses this year is to increase our connection and belonging for families so we did a connections conference this year instead of an open house where they had individual conferences with advisory teacher teachers and we had 76% of our family show up for a conference and so that was a noticeable increase about open house or people are just dropping in uh we surveyed our staff and they liked having that intentional time with families uh and families uh said that they really enjoyed it too because they got a connection Point um so they met with their advisory teacher so that was really well attended we did for the first time this year we recognized from feedback from families that um there was uh the fifth grade to sixth grade transition is really difficult especially if it's your oldest and so we um Katie Schneider is our family engagement coordinator and so we did a build-a binder night uh trap keepers are back because backpacks have to be in their lockers and so uh the Trap keeper um it was our binder right but we had every kid that showed up got a free binder um and then they had different stations and rotations to learn different things about technology schooo Skyward um they got to beedazzled their their binder so the kids had a time where they had an opportunity to put whatever it is that they wanted stickers or or color or marker on it um and then we had um just some information was it like to be a middle schooler and so the administration put on just a a short little presentation about what how how different it is and what what supports we have within our building um another focus is positive communication home every student every trimester and so we're tracking how many kids are getting um a our families are getting a positive connection home to try to again build that partnership that we're in this together right we want to we both want what's best for their child and so we want to make sure that we are having that proactive communication so if we have to have a reactive one we already kind of have um that that partnership and that connection uh we do students of the a month family breakfast each trimester um we're doing our open house differently for incoming fifth graders so in January we're going to have an open house only for our fifth grade students so they get to come and they get to have a night dedicated for themselves they get to meet all of their sixth grade teachers but then our seventh and eighth grade teachers will also have different activities for them to do too so we're really trying to make it a grand um event for our families um we're doing a math literacy and bingo night in February and then again we'll um have a student Showcase in May so while our culture night was all really well attended we want to we want to expand on that and open it up to anything kids want to showcase so it could be something that they're proud of academically extracurricularly or it could be a cultur thing and kids are going to get to choose and so here just a picture of our Builder binder night um and our uh individual family connections at connections conferences um belonging for staff again um we have done really intentional things for our staff to get together at um in service time and during staff meetings to get to know each other an individual level um we have building buddies for our new teachers uh because again we're working on retention and recruitment so if they feel like they belong and they have somebody that they can go to in our building uh we're hoping to keep them longer um we have again the cheerful staff of the week is too so that can be nominated um administrators are doing temperature checks for staff and so we just want to know like where are you at from a 1 to five um is there anything that you need from us do you have a positive Connection in the building and then just thinking about how can we spread joy and cheer within our building so getting Fe feedback from them as well and then a couple fun things we did a September uh each month we're doing something to bring joy within our building so September we did a bloom flower bar and October we have a cookie decorating at the end of the month and so you will see there um for those of you that don't know what a bloom flower bar is you literally get to take a vase and make your own flowers and we did that at the end of our inservice week um we also have a wellness room this year for staff and so a dedicated space where they can take a break they can decompressed they can get out of their classroom for a minute because there's so much to do but we know if um staff aren't taking care of themselves it's hard to take care of of kids and so we have a a dedicated space for them as well uh the next area is around collaboration so again um we're looking to increase attendance at conferences families engagement by collaborating and partnering uh proactively with families um and then again we want one positive communication home and so here's collaboration within our system and so again we talked about building assets reducing risk so um what we have intentionally done is we have at least 80% of our six sth and eighth graders have three or more of their core teachers together and so that means they have the same language arts teacher social studies teacher science teacher uh math teacher and so that really allows our teachers to get their no a smaller cohort of students and then um those teachers have a small block meeting every week where they talk about who's thriving what celeb ations our kids having they talk about their eye times and what they learned about kids and then they also talk about maybe some kids that are moving and struggling a little bit more um and then in our big block meetings we have twice a month and that is um those core teachers any of the Allied elective teachers but then also um Administration counselors and deans of students so we're trying to create intentional intervention sooner on um and then if kids are still continuing struggling every week we have Community connect so that's our school psychologist uh our chemical health coordinator our school um special ed lead and so again we're trying to think about what interventions have not worked what else could we try to make sure that we're being um adaptive to what's going on and we can um have a better outcome in in um making some changes for students or getting them additional wraparound supports that they might need um at North each each day at 9:00 our student support team has meetings and we found that um instead of being reactive all the time with our student support team they're starting to figure out what's going on and in a proactive way intervening um and so that has been really helpful in and lowering the amount of discipline referrals that we have from staff um and then our community uh accountability and prevention our cap program is an alternative suspension and so that has been really um a wonderful tool for us because we know when kids are at home it's really difficult for them to learn and so um it's an alternative to just having an out of school suspension and sending them home home um we partner with them and so they get their academic work they work on some restorative practices um and then we get a report from them so we're partnering with them in order to make sure that we have a better plan to try to uh prevent that from happening in the future and then principal strata over at South and I um meet every month and so we're really trying to align programming um and responses she's my accountability partner so um if there's something that happens uh I she's on my speed dial I give her a call and we kind of problem solve together to make sure we're having a similar response um uh and and thinking about things potentially differently than maybe we have done in the past um outside of our um system are we have full service Community Schools so I know um that's going to be rolling out in January we have 13 Community Partners um that will be providing programming not only in supports not only for our students but our community members and our families um a Boys and Girls Club are partnering with us for the first time at the middle level so during Eagle time um that's a 30 minute opposite of lunch they're going to be providing some uh we're going to try to do some eighth grade mini Credit Recovery uh second trimester and third trimester um and so they're going to be providing some additional supports for students that have not um been passing their classes as we're preparing them for High School uh we have a 21st century schools Grant with United Way um that provides Afterschool tutoring right now but we're also going to look at some enrichment opportunities this year um and Anar re provides group within the day so during um their lunches we have a diff a set of group where they're working on healthy relationships and social skills um the power of the people Institute we have two different clubs or organizations it's boys of Hope and girls taking action so these are students that we really see the potential of having awesome leadership skills and so they work with that group once a week um and take them on some some field trips um and so that has been awesome we've had uh girls taking action for three years and boys have hope for two years uh this year we have a partnership with Dr Cory Jagger for Harmony Road um and really working on doing some kind of life coaching for um some of our students that have really struggled with anything that we've tried and wraparound services and so he's kind of doing some life coaching and and um trying to get students to um see what what their actions now are and how that will impact what their goals are in the future um we have too much talent with uh Lenora hunt um and then obviously our greater Minnesota Mental Health support um has been in place but is a great asset for us to use um Miss Carol when we are needing additional mental health supports for our students and so here are just a few of our pictures those are our girls taking action boys of Hope um Clifton in the upper right is a mentor he was a graduate uh from Apollo a few years ago and he went through North and so he has a really great message for kids about um he was there he understands the struggle sometimes of putting academics first and so he has been a great partner for us and then um abdalah is in the middle there is our first full service Community Schools coordinator at north um he did a origami um uh club for like six se sessions after school um this year just to get kids and families to start to know him and so he has been a great asset too and we're excited to partner with him as we start rolling out our services in January for full service Community Schools um two two to go um excellent High Excellence high expectations High support so again um our our schoolwide uh Focus this year is to decrease all of our fail rates by 10% and so that is our building-wide goal because we know if kids um are given opportunities in different ways to master um standards we know that are we are standards based align so if we can reduce our fail rates we know kids are learning and that should impact our MCAS and all the other things that uh people care about but we really want kids to not give up hope if they have um tons of missing assignments or they're failing assessments we want to make sure that we're giv them every opportunity um to learn right because grades are one thing and that's a report but we want them to learn the material and so that is our building wide Focus this this school year and so what are we doing to do that um tier one tier one means universally this is what everybody's doing every single one of our classrooms will have content language objectives that was um our first professional development that we had a few weeks ago um and so this really the what that means is that kids will know what they're expected to do and they will know how they are supposed to demonstrate their learning and so when I'm walking in through learning walks or informals when I talk with kids at lunch I want to say what were you learning in so and so's class and I want them to be able to tell me in their own language right I don't want them like last year to say oh I was reading okay great that yep you were in language arts class but what were you exactly supposed to do and so I believe of kids and the search would say if kidss know what they're supposed to do and how they're demonstrating their knowledge they're going to be more engaged because they they know what the goal is and so that's universally what we're doing uh the other tier one thing is we're doing content writing in every class every week and that's like pen to paper right we know that technology is great but there's also new research coming out that like if you don't write it down you're not going to be able to absorb as much of that information so in every content every week uh kids will be writing down um uh some sort of response to whether it's a learning objective um or the content um objective they'll be writing something down um other focuses again we have consistent expectations for schoology that helps with families too um we changed up our interventions for math this year and so um kids are getting a double scoop of of of math it could be um in their their Eagle time um and then we're starting after school homework help in November that's through our 21st century School Grant and and then this year we increased our talent development and accelerated Services Specialists our Tas person while working with young scholars um students from elementary school so we're trying to expand that at the middle level so that um uh her name is Mony and she is uh now halime at North and halftime at South and so we're excited to be able to boost that up a little bit because that's kind of fallen off uh prior to this year so we're excited to work with her um again these are um some students we have a student obviously in our art uh class the bottom um it was pretty fascinating I was out there and they were um trying to see who can go the furthest in their tech ed class with their model um and I started with like four and then as I started kind of taking pictures and and and videotaping them I all a sudden got just about a whole class in there that was super proud to Showcase um what they have developed uh last but certainly not least is around safety again uh this is similar to our sip goal from the beginning of belonging so um student survey having at least one positive adult and decreasing moror major physical um altercation so again we believe that if we are doing the first three really well that this will just kind of fall in place for us uh because everybody feels like they are part of a community um and there's conflict right in every family community there's conflict but how are we resolving those things proactively um so something we did this summer is we added key card access to our second Vesti doors um by um by door 7 which is our bus shoot uh our hope is that we also do that in door three so so then both vestibules will be locked um so if you get into that first vestibule um outside of our main entrance both of them will be locked and you need a key card to get in we're working with um working with Katie herbolt because the accessibility handicap accessibility and door three kind of um threw us for a little bit of a loop so I'm working on that this year so hopefully we'll have both of those done by then um partnering with our school resource officers to promote physical emotional safety so uh officer Lester and I did a a a video uh or live stream um opposite of our presentation that we had to just talk about like what does that mean what does that look like sound like and feel like and so we did a live stream collectively together and then have gone to classes or individual students that had still had question um this has been a big one for us over the past three years we have active supervision spots in all of our locations during unstructured time so all of our adults in our building that um aren't assigned a classroom have a spot to be at dur before school after school and during passing time and we've noticed right like when kidss see people they just continue to get to where they need to be um if they don't see adults sometimes they'll say okay let's go there and so we're really proactive in trying to make sure that we're intentional where people are um to lower again that 10% of um physical uh altercations that we have in our building we talked about our daily support meetings and then we have a restorative practitioner at the middle level his name is Mr Ernie he'll be on the video later um and we are really focused intentional about conflict resolution um and understanding other people's perspective and we've noticed over the past year that when kids sit down when they've caused harm whether it's with another student or with an adult in the space um they become reflective right and and we can articulate that it might not have been that person but it was what I was carrying with me that day and so um a lot of times again adults and students will just will assume like well you don't like me or you this happened right and um when they sit down and talk about it it's typically not that right and so that's been super helpful for us um this year as well all right we're going to get to our video Don't for a sense of belonging for the students I really try to make sure they feel like they are welcome here that they belong here there is a reason that they are in my classroom I love to learn about them and get to know what they did on the weekend and just let them know that they can be successful even if they think something's going on at home or there's anything happening that they can come in my space they can feel safe they can feel like they are loved and they are welcomed in here and they're cared for we have our relationship and our community building right there I like to create a sense of belonging for the students at North I think it's important because kids to find what they feel comfortable in doing in life and achieve their goals for when they get older be a bigger person in life and do what's right in in the world it's important for a web to make students think that they matter so they don't feel left out for students to be able to know who they are for students to achieve their goals to make them feel like they matter so I am a BRS over here at North basically stands for a behavior resource specialist it looks a little bit different at every school but at North what that basically means is I am in between admin and the teachers as well as the students and I kind of give students an opportunity to kind of reset evaluate what's going on and get them back into the learning space on the other side I do a lot of relationship building with students and staffs at the school I push into a lot of classes as well just to do classroom support for teachers who are feel a little bit overwhelmed with their class load or if they just need another adult just to kind of help out in the classroom just being here to help them but also giving them the tools to advocate for themselves and just pushing that empathy and understanding kind of creates like a inclusive space and a safe space at the school we have our students come down if they have a conflict between each other bring them down here and we just kind of put them in even a circle or sometimes just face to face whatever works um to their comfortability and we just have them talk them about and I'm the're kind of the mediator in that so they ask me questions and we kind of just want to sort out what their issue is and make sure they do it in a positive and respectful way instead of the alternative obviously it brings a good sense of belonging to them they know they have an outlet which is Us in hota that they can just come to and they feel safe it's a safe space they can talk about their problems and not be judged and I think that's a big thing and it really helps them kind of see a different way well I truly believe that everything in education really begins with our families and ultimately when families choose us to educate their children there should be a great partnership between the schools and the families once we build those Partnerships and we work with the communities then we definitely start building more of a sense of belonging for not only our students but also for our families and community members we now have what is called Full Service Community Schools and we are grateful to have abdulah our coordinator here at no junior high so being new here my understanding of full service Community Schools there's a couple different definitions I would say bringing community and bridging that gap between schools and Community we started off with meetings with our Community Partners to kind of establish who everybody is and all these different Community Partners bring different services to our communities really trying to make North more of a hub for Community Services here in the district having the parents as well as the students after school programs through fscs that creates more of a sense of belonging as well as safety we know that our families love their children and they want to make sure that when their child comes to school that they feel safe and that they [Music] belong super Missy you belong [Music] here all right thank you and now I'm ready for any questions you may have about North Natalie are you crying too that was good okay go ahead yeah three of my kids went there so it's a little bit nostalgic for me um thank you Sasha for sharing so many pictures and just letting us see what's going on at north um the question I have is in regards to the data deck and it is something we've been talking about in um the achievement integration and Equity committee and it is in regards to this really interesting data around our um the our not the Minnesota student survey but the survey that we give our kids um our students and it's like so the the question about um or the statement I feel socially acceptable a majority of North students agree or strongly agree with that um but then we go to our um the one that we've been talking about a lot students and at this school respect each other and a majority disagree or strongly disagree I've definitely heard a lot of things in your uh presentation like conf resolution that are obviously built towards that but can you talk a little bit about that Jos and how you see they're feeling like they're to me and tell me if I'm wrong with this it's like they're belonging with the adults and they're belonging with their friend groups but there's something missing between groups of people or what do you think is is that um difference there yeah great question so I I don't feel and again this is my personal local meting I don't feel like it's um any time that there's a conflict with students it's not um typically around like where you come from what your social economic status is right your religion your culture any of that it typically is around just a miscommunication and where we're we're find is that uh when kids are on social media and they're looking at things they're seeing uh really mean things and so we're trying to teach our students that that that isn't socially normal it's not acceptable right and it it's not okay here and so I think when the question is like you know that people are respectful I think it's because the social Norm in culture like youth culture is just not super kind right now and so youth culture but yeah yeah well yes and and other but specifically when you look at social media you're looking at youth things it's like it just there's there's that disconnect of like what I say impacts right and so what we've really worked on in the last year and a half is like intention versus impact you might say something that is your intention wasn't to cause harm but what we find is the impact is that it does right whether that's with the peer or with it's how you're treating or acting towards an adult um so that's where we're kind of trying to get kids to stop and reflect on Words do matter and so I think that that's where the the disc is is because I truly feel like all of our kids are like yep you come where wherever whatever you come wherever you come in from like you're you belong here you're accepted here but I might not always treat you nice and so that's where we're really trying to get at um with our restorative practices yeah and I heard you mentioned social media there how has it been and without cell phones it's been fabulous tell us more about that it's been fabulous right so I was assistant principal uh two years prior to being at North and um again the first year was there right we had U kids have halls in lunch right um but the just the amount of like um focus and attention that only the kids understand that like that's a brain wired is like when they have it um that they're always thinking about who sent me a message what is it what does it look like you know like what's going on but then also if someone sends something me and you see it at lunch and then all a sudden it's spirals all afternoon and so um I would tell you um the majority of our kids have it stored in their locker um and we just haven't seen it right it's not a battle with with adults they just know that again tier one everybody in our school Community has it away for the day and that has made a huge impact we still get some social media that comes outside and so sometimes it's a learning thing for for families to say like yep if it if it significantly substantially impacts the school environment how somebody feels we'll deal with it but we also let them know like you as a parent get to have your rights in in can monitor whatever you want at home and if it gets to the point where it's super mean you always can call the police and so that has been helpful too so we haven't seen a ton of stuff actually come outside of school into school anymore either over the past year and kids are here to learn right that's what we say your parents are sending you here to learn and you're focused on being your classroom and learning the message again that's what I tell my kids it's their job that's your job is to learn so thank you Sasha thank you heather just a couple of comments um and I'm inspired by what you do and what you presented um I I'm reading right now the anxious Generation by Jonathan hate um if anyone hasn't read it it really is it is really literally about the rewiring that cell phones are doing to our kids and I think it relates to all of the work that that I mean I look at I think about back to my own schooling and when you present and show us the number of programs and the number of interventions that are happening just as the course of normal day it's actually quite foreign from probably where most of us were and and they literally go back to 2010 11 12 and the interface or the introduction of uh the the iPhone um and they can trace it very almost scientifically to to where that's at so credit to you um I also talk a little bit about because I I um I think this is the first presentation that I at least recall um with so such attention on staff belonging um and I think that that's fantastic um because I think that's just as important particularly in difficult environments to have that sort of um connection talk a little bit about how your staff have responded to that and is that new the intentionality around it has been new right we've always had um uh kind of orange frog committee that is trying to build that connection within our community but I think specific at North like they're intentional we're intentional about every month doing something um at the end of last year in leadership they talked about um again if if you um teach sixth grade you're up in a kind of a corner on your own and so getting to know people on the other side um has been a challenge and so we problem solved right we call it sometimes Force family fun and we've all been through it um and so some people love it and some people AR getting feedback that's not their most favorite thing but we're trying to be like if that's a if that's a concern then we got to do something about it right we got to sit with different people at staff meetings we have sign sign spots different things we do um some sort of connection at the beginning to get them talking to each other um and so that that has been different and intentional but I'm also um really in tune with like I'm an extrovert right that feels good to me but I we also do some things we did like a rare bird independent exercise that says like here's unique things about myself and then we pull them out two at every staff member right so you got to do that independently but then it's like okay I need to know what door holds into because I want to be able to guess him right at the staff meeting because I want to know what his rare bird was right so it's a um trying to appease to all of the different personalities that we have in our building my last comment simply um I like the simplification of your goal being that every student has one adult person with whom they connect um sometimes we get so caught up in uh crazy data um and and something that is as simple as saying you know I always used to say this when I worked at University uh in in my estimation if a university was doing its its job really well every student who walked across the stage to accepted diploma could point to one adult person um other than their parents who had made a difference in their life because I think then that's a very um capturable understanding of what it means to to have a mentor or to have support somewhere um and so kudos to Youk uh Monica then Scott are you okay thank you so much um I I'm I'm with her about the the a staff belonging really think that is important um uh I love what you said about do you have 70% of attendance to cultural nights was it cultural nights yeah our cultural night in May in May are you asking for attendance yeah that was a 70% right yep so I don't know the exact percentage because we didn't take like there was no way for us to check in like an advisory teacher with connections and conferences um but we planned uh for 6 100 meals CU we give different Culture Night meals and so uh it was probably right around the 600 Mark of total people that came so we invite families right siblings we had some kids uh from Apollo come back CU they knew it was uh a night where they could get to see all of their favorite uh favorite staff members and whatnot so last year was probably right around 600 people so the sun person was for parent conference or for the open house it was uh our connections conferences that replaced open house this past school year so we had 551 families um have a 20-minute conference with their or 15-minute conference with their advisory teacher so what was different that you were able to get that that High attendance yep two different things one we just had open house right so um PE some people like open house because there's flexibility in it but I think um it's like yeah we hope you come but it's still okay if you don't right so it was very intentional to be like we want you here right we want to know about your family we want to know about your kids strengths we want to know what your goals are for your kid and so um I um took took some time out of um the summer for some of our bilingual uh communication Specialists so I paid two full days for a Somali and um Spanish speaking um du language uh staff member to call uh and Slot those families in and so um we we communicated and communicated and we said we want you to be here so we emailed all text um through our Sky alert messaging so I think we increase communication but we also were like we really really want you here and so if families didn't sign up prior to open house then our teachers called and they said hey we noticed you haven't you haven't signed up for a conference yet we really want to meet you uh so it was a little bit more intentional with our communication and saying we really want you in was that the same strategy with English speaking families yes yep wonderful what do you find different right now you you met more families you have more families what feedback do you get um yep so we also took time uh in our educ climber format to fill out kind of like strengths goals for that student so now in our bar meetings um all of our teachers have access to that that survey that families gave and so now they can use that um as uh information for them as they're thinking about what strengths do our kids have right we always want to have an asset base that's a big part of bar is like knowing what kids the strength are but then also being able to figure out what specific interventions that we might have for them so it's just great information and it's also important for us to have that that go-to person for families it's like I met my advisory teacher I can connect with them if I'm having some struggles cool um I also noticed that you several of your measurements and I love that you're measuring that you're keeping accountability to yourself but several of them are going to be measured by surveys to students MH are you what's your strategy for those surveys how are you making sure that they respond to surveys that they honest in the survey and that they are not over survey good question so we did our first survey um in October again I was opposite of our speaker and I had 489 students completed and so the first one was kind of like yep we're going to get your feedback it was kind of like how are they feeling about school it was about um where they're currently at in their grades as we're approaching mid trimester and then they had to come up with strategic things that they were going to try to do differently to boost their grade up um the next round when we do it um next trimester We'll add that um question about do you have a trusted adult in the building so we have a good understanding of that um but really our advisor like we found in that in that survey um when you have it and you're doing it with an advisory and I get on and say come on it's the expectation that we all do it um most of our students will do that um the followup from that is then our advisory teach teachers will get a list of who has not completed it yet and then sit down and be like okay we we need to finish this in our advisory class which is nice cuz we have about 10 minutes of flexibility in our advisories to do those things so are those surveys Anonymous um no we C we we get the information from um their email address um but I'm going to tell you middle school kids are pretty honest right like some of them told me um some things in there that we're brutally honest which is good feedback to have so um they don't they are not shy or bashful um because one is just other other things you want principal Hansen to know and so they put some things on there so Joel if we could get pizza back that was one that was on there okay and every week uh someone talks to me about where' the pizza line go yeah um I I actually like those type of service to be not Anonymous um it's hard to get back to people when they don't tell you who they are um um so what is a cultural night good question so this um kind of derived from um our PBIS group and our um support staff so miss Hoffs there a BRS really wanted to try to Showcase all of the wonderful different cultures that we had in our community um and so it really has started um from kids and so they came up with the dance you know that they wanted to dance they want to showc their cultural dance they wanted to um do a fashion show and so it started small two years ago with just a small group of students and then last year kind of got pretty big um and so really comes from what students want to do but this year we talked about with our family engagement night we want to start showcasing more things that kids are proud of right and so whether that's connection to school but also we want to try to get more cultures right it was uh heavily focused on our Somali culture um and our uh Latino culture uh because we had our some support staff that were really passionate about getting kids to be involved in that but we want to expand it to more more things so um do you have any strategies or opportunities for um white kids from around here to express their culture in the culture night yeah we do uh we don't have a lot kid ton of kids it was more staff based but we had like hammer schlog in So like um our clerical person dressed up in ger like authentic German clothing and did a hammer login so we had a lot of um students be like I've never tried that before and so they tried that um we had um one of our um other clericals have like a a hobby farm so she brought a lot of like animals for you know like rural culture like I grew up on a farm so I've been exposed to that but a lot of her students haven't been exposed to that um um I had another question where it goes so um I love what you mentioned that you have an accountability partner does every staff member has an accountability partner um every administrator this year has an accountability partner and um so how how does that work tell us more a little tell us more about it y so anytime um there is a code of conduct violation that might be 3 four or five uh um we look at we have you know kind of similar sheets kind of what responses could be um but it really is getting to the heart of like um have we thought of all things that we could potentially do before we go to a suspension and so I call her she doesn't answer I text and say hey accountability partner I need you uh right because it's busy the days are busy you never know what you're going to kind of step into uh but we just we just processed through kind of have you thought about this what you know like um using a lot of our Partnerships that we have right as an intervention because um we we feel sometimes we're like trying to exhaust everything that we can but there's always sometimes something else that you just didn't think about in the moment and so um we talk about that we talk about programming right as accountability partner like um there's certain things that like sometimes get brought to me um that doesn't get brought over to the sou side so I'm like what about you know Becky on the sou side and so uh we try to you know at least once a week talk and um we have kind of middle level programming set up monthly for us to have some intentional time to do those things well since when are you implementing this have since when have you been implementing this um since August of this year but Becky and I started planning um kind of spring of last year informally but when we had our um professional development for administrators that's when we kind of intentionally um came up with our our accountability plan when we're going to meet when we're going to talk well and most of the things that you have been explaining today have been also from that time yeah we're still it's still work in progress right so she's new and I have the benefit of I've been at north um for her it's a little bit more of a learning curve of kind of what their school culture looks like and um being a new place in a in a new school you want to listen for understanding uh before you just start making a ton of changes and so I know like they might be a little bit further behind and some restora of practices things uh but their assist in principle have reached out to me for like um resources different things and how we've really really um jumped into Fe with that over the past couple of years cool interesting so when you are join us all these goals and decrease in percentages on this 10% of lower rate so this is by when yep so we will look at it as a whole building uh midt try and end of try so for like our our fail rates will that's when we'll start looking at them right and so we kind of know where we're at right but overall I mean each trimester we want to do that but also by the end of the year we want to make sure that we have at least 10% of reduction of failure rates and that's why we're looking at um second try and third try for our eighth grade friends um doing a mini Credit Recovery um so we can be more proactive uh because sometimes we get grades don't matter in middle school and and while they're true they don't end up on a transcript it is forming heav and again we want if if we're standards based we want the learning to be done so they show Mastery so they can pass their classes so then that will translate to high school I was I I'm not going to I don't ever want to hear again that grad don't matter I don't either you said that's sometimes what kids will the kids will say right like it's not on my transcript right so it's it's hard for them to get that tangible thing sometimes and so we're working on it we give them a transcript um yeah we can give them a transcript right give them report cards right now is that what they want so give them that um all right the last question that I have Miss um I wanted to ask you do you have any requests for us for the board when do you need help and what attention or support do you need great great question um I would say um for for us um I think the just the biggest support is to um I I think it's always nice when people come and see right because sometimes um stories will be written for you that are inaccurate right and their perceptions and they're not realities um so I I think it's always great um for for people to come in and just see we'd love love to have people in and um see what it feels like um to see it I would say um the biggest thing for me is we're working on and and Joel and and his awesome team just came in to think about um just upgrading and different things um sometimes the middle level feels like left out a little bit and and kind of left in the dust and so um I'm working on I have a little bit of carryover budget to try to think about how we can get um some updated furniture and some of those things because um some of it is really old I'm just going to be honest um and so just just thinking about that I know there's there's only a certain allocation of money but we're excited um when we met with Joel to think about how we can get some of our upgrades um with ltfm and those types of things but I'm always trying to think about how can I get resources to have kids you know cuz feeling is super important right and we we keep our space clean because we know that that matters we talk to our custodial staff like what you do impacts achievement and so we want kids to to value our space and have things that are that are Equitable with other spaces within our school communities Scott well you've answered a lot of stuff already no problem um are you a community school like we are one of the full service Community Schools yep uh what's that involved tell me about it yep so we uh we awarded in January we had a one year for planning and so we are potentially starting to roll out services in January um we have 13 Community Partners and so right now abdala and S um and her team are really thinking about strategically what when can we have the services and when uh we um are just doing a needs analysis A needs assessment for our families so while I might think hey this is what we really need to offer for kids and families in our community or song or abdala it's really good in information to get from families and so they've been at all of our family engagement nights trying to get as many parents to fill out the needs assessment so this is also a push for anybody watching I just sent another reminder uh this afternoon um we are looking to try to get 75% of our families to fill out that needs assessment so we can intentionally program for what families are in saying they need for themselves and for students are you going to have enough uh physical space we do yep we have excuse me a dedicated space for full service Community Schools that has um access to water right so if we do dental services they have water there um we have a big enough space to have like a food pantry so fact is one of our partners they're already our partners but they're looking to expand and have potentially a food pantry within our building too um I recently ushered at the paramont and they had an international Student Association there and I was wondering uh how your emerging classes uh are fitting in with the with the broader scope yeah great question so our emerging classes are fitting in just fine um it is one classroom right so some students don't even know that we have Chinese immersion um I know that we're looking to try to figure out what we can intentionally do to retain some of those students because sometimes we'll see a drop off from elementary to um middle level um but definitely a valued um program within our building and offers great opportunities for our kids because we know um I'm always amazed not only with Chinese programming but also with like how many of our students just are dual language or tril langual right it's it's amazing to me because I am just one right and so um they always blow me away when I'm in those spaces to see what kids are doing and learning in those spaces um do Westwood kids come to your School Westwood does come to my school yeah you know they have recently started a Spanish Immersion program at Westwood um what sort of preparations are you making for this new bunch of kids that's a great question we have I believe four years to to plan and program for that so I I'm I'm going to be honest with you uh we haven't had a ton of conversations yet and so um I'll be working with assistant superintendent Hansen and assistant superintendent uh Harris to come up with a a great plan um we do have space which is nice right I think over you know the last however many years um we've been decreasing in population a little bit and so we do have space which is a nice thing to have thank you um you're familiar with RSVP a retired uh senior volunteer program I am yep uh do you have those folks in your building we do um typically what we see that at the middle level is some of our more um specialized programs so Orchestra has one will come and and work with kids oneon-one or in small groups uh while Mr Bon has the rest of the group um working collectively together okay um a little more about Community accountability program cap C program sure so um if a student gets into a physical altercation right instead of sending them home and saying stay home for 3 days we uh sign them 3 days at uh our cap program so students will get bused to North just like normal um they will go to our student support room uh a van will come with cap staff they will get on the van and they will go to that alternative location um which I believe is in uh Roosevelt um and they will go through um individual like oneon-one they have um staff that will meet with them and talk about and and go through what the incident was and what led to that um they'll do a full group kind of circle and then they'll also do academics and enrichment there they also have special ed uh staff there so um sometimes like when you keep get inhouse and it's like a ISS space um if the students do not get their specialized Services um in those classes with those peers um it counts as a suspension and so it's a really intentional program to try to reduce our suspension rates and have kids actually learn uh not only academic but also what can they learn so we can get them back within our school community and make better choices in the future sounds good so this is actually done at Rosevelt but the kids come to North first and then transfer over to Rosevelt and back I would assum that is correct yep and it's um all of our secondary buildings have the opportunity to refer student to cap okay I think that's good thank you yeah thank you I I did some time in in school suspension junior high but so I throw out there um just just want to say I mean as a a parent of a seventh grader at North junr um you know you know several years ago people like oh you know there just going have to go to North it's kind of blah blah blah there and um nothing but um pleasant surprise every corner we've turned she's had a great experience and um just a comment um at a soccer game the other day where um they have a kid in seventh grade and they had had one in 11th grade and saying wow just the The Experience their younger person has is um they've noticed a significant kind of postco progress so whatever you're doing is is working and just um it's been uh a relief to know that my daughter's having a great time there so thank you yeah thank you for the feedback I appreciate that well I get to work with principal Hansen almost every day and uh shout out to her and her team at uh North Junior High School they're doing some amazing things and you saw it from building Community Building belonging all the things to bring to a culture to thrive and and do all the things that we want to see and grow to the families right I think we see it we talk about it and the things that are happening and we yesterday we were just at the conferences and just the community feel of the environment the diversity just the real experiences that we talked and saw Families Our soccer numbers are up in the girl soccer we were just talking about so we we so we we talked about volleyball and just all the things that we see uh to her and her staff they're doing amazing things over there continue the good work you all have a great night thank you very much okay next up we have one action item tonight we have the approval of the 2024 2027 strategic plan development uh Donna Rober executive director of research enrollment and assessments is going to do a recap we thoroughly discussed this last board meeting but welcome back thank you chair HW uh board members assistant superintendents happy to just answer any questions remaining regarding our strategic plan um as uh chair hos mentioned we did have a a pretty deep dive on this last time so I'm going to spare you of going through it again um but just to remind everyone this is a rolling strategic plan um for the 2427 plan year we have um some development work in um that's happening now and so um we're just looking for your approval tonight on the um strategic plan for the 2427 year does anybody have any questions or comments otherwise I we looking for um a motion to approve the 20124 20 through 2027 strategic plan development so move okay do I have a second and then um Monica I'll call on you second okay I have a motion by Scott a second by Heather any discussion Monica thank you could you please just briefly remind me how are you measuring this and how often like the the main goals so I think annually right we are bringing a review annually and um I don't think there's any planned changes to that no no how not how often we get the review but how what are your your your mark points for measuring um so for the 2427 plan just to kind of give everyone a little idea of what where where we're at and what we're doing because our um goal is to engage our stakeholders we will be sharing an update with our district assess or our Dak Group which is our world's best formerly world's best Workforce committee which is community and they will be kind of hearing what our plan is and weighing in on that will be taking their feedback um we are required to set annual goals for the new comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness report which is what is evolving the world's best Workforce is evolving to um together with um the district has four kind of major pillars this year around safety belonging collaboration and excellence and so we're we're looking at those four pillars you know what required by the state and we will be bringing a review of the the data from that work next year at this time does that answer your question yeah so is that you're taking just um so you're taking like a Baseline and a point is that kind of like we're trying to understand how is that the measure goes so you're you're you're depending of the goal you're measuring in different stages or it's just kind of once a year that you kind of overall assess everything so once a year we review the large outcomes throughout the year we will be using our continuous improvement process and our sip plans and those are I think quarterly um and and then even at the building level those are probably even more frequent like monthly or you know tri-weekly or whatever they have but so it's a system of process pieces that happened throughout the year related to our continuous improvement process and then um annually we will come back and share out on these highle outcomes got it thank you any other questions or comments okay I have a motion in a second Zach can you call vote uh Natalie Copeland yes Scott andreon yes Heather Williams yes Monica sigara Schwarz yes Shannon hods yes Zach D Holtz yes El delgren yes thank you Donna okay then we have um reports the Board of Education standing committee reports I believe we just have one achievement integation and Equity chair Natalie copelan thank you chair house we met this morning we talked about a couple of things we um reviewed uh the process proc for Minnesota student survey just to note that um the last time it happened was in 2022 the students will be taking it this school year with the results being ready at the beginning of next school year um Donna was able to show us um that we can access the data from 2013 to 2022 on um MD's website and so I have that uh linked for youall in our our notes here um it it's actually really specific you can go by school you can go by District you can go by um there's like you know however many different areas that students um are asked questions about so um definitely looking forward to kind of diving into that some more um and then also it's uh the one change that happened is that it's now included on the Minnesota report card as well so it's not just um test scores and things like that on the Minnesota report card the change there at the state was to include um Minnesota student survey data as well we uh talked for a long time about the question about what is the perception and experience of belonging amongst District 742 students and you asked you heard my question um to principal Hansen um it was kind of in that same vein so um we uh agreed that the committee sees interconnectedness and integration across race culture and class among students as an issue to explore um we're kind of talking about like a Tech versus Apollo look but you know aing that as well throughout our district and our wondering was uh how do structures and systems come into play in student involvement inclusion and engagement um so Donna shared with us again that we are tracking belonging and we've seen that um even tonight with Sasha's presentation um in District surveys and then um also it is one of our four pillars which are safety belonging collaboration and Excellence we reviewed some data which I attached to your email in a PDF um about our uh from our 2324 survey and so that goes along with my question again from earlier we observe as we have before at a board and District level that students feel that the vast majority of students feel they belong at school and that their teachers care about them but the data shows that students are struggling um as far as connecting uh with each other and then finally our committee had a suggestion for the board upcoming board retreat uh we were hoping to be able to start out with a a high Lev share out of data specifically around our four pillars which are that again that safety belonging collaboration and Excellence just to ground Us in those four pillars we keep hearing about uh every meeting lately so um and our next meeting is Wednesday November 13th thank you okay and last up is future agenda items our November 6th board meeting and work session top topics will include the inclement weather protocols the 2025 Board of Education legislative platform the referendum discussion School update and policy readings at this time does any board member want to suggest a future agenda item okay that was everything on our agenda tonight looking for a motion to adjourn our board meeting and do have a second I have a motion by Natalie a second by Heather all in favor say I opposed okay meeting is adjourned it is 7:49 p.m. thank you for watching we'll be back November 6th