##VIDEO ID:64sWCWBZOjk## e e e e e e e we're going to call this meeting to order never have to do that I know EXC Joan roll call director hacker here director kenberg here director low here director Petri here director theander here chair Sherman here you have a COR great let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivisible with the liberty and justice for all I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's agenda can I get a second second great director hacker with a second all those in favor of approving tonight's meeting agenda raise your hand and say I I I opposed motion passes next we'll move on to our consent agenda this evening we have two items here one policy related and one a payment of invoices is there a motion to approve to approve great and a second second great Dr kelzenberg with a second all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda raise your hand and say I I I opposed consent agenda passes all right we are going to move on to um strategic strategic Direction a ensure the learning process is adaptable to meet individual student needs and with that we are going to bring up the principal of Anderson and welcome Anna and um we're going to get an update on Anderson Elementary all right I'll get myself organized you brought a fan club I didn't know I didn't know I'd have such a welcome well we have an amazing school thank you so much director Sherman and board members for having me here this evening it is truly my honor and privilege to tell you about Anderson Elementary School and give you an update tonight um just a little note before I move into this this you need to understand how much Anderson Elementary means to me um my own children went to Anderson three of my girls actually went through Anderson I had the pleasure of being a teacher and now the honor of being a principal in this building and the responsibility of this role really means a lot to me and so I'm excited to tell you more about our school so our demographics as you check um what's on the screen you'll notice we're pretty well in line with the rest of the district um the not notice the numbers in red are actually The Unofficial numbers right now so there's a little bit of Shifting as we move into the school year um but whatever demographics are here for you I need you to know beyond the demographics the primary goal whoever it is that we are here to serve we're here to serve all and so we can look at each of those categories I could dig into data and we do look at data for the these various areas but our work is about serving all of those students and that's been our Focus as we start this school year you're going to notice with my presentation um that I need to start with the challenges and the opportunities um we have an amazing school on the strength side of this presentation I can talk about the heart I can talk about the way that we have made Anderson a warm welcoming place for kids for the staff who are working there but are essential goal and what is most important to us is that within that welcoming environment students are learning students are achieving and they're getting the education they need to grow that is what is going to give them the best hope and the best opportunity for the world that they're living in right now so we are leaning right in I'm going to dive right into the challenges and opportunities and this is a slide that I can tell you um as as I look at our student achievement data it's of course painful and it is frustrating and not where we want to be there's nobody that feels good about where we are we can look at the fact that there's some growth moving in certain directions we can see that we are flatlining in um reading right now but we're clearly not where we want to be and it's certainly for us as Educators we want to be doing more because we want to know that our work is making a difference it's making an impact but it's because our students aren't we aren't where we want them to be so we take this very seriously um at the end of the school year last year when we were looking at our data as it was coming in um was painful it was hard but we spent our last weeks of school certainly celebrating good work that was done but also really thinking about what we're going to do differently because clearly what we have been doing with this data has not made um the aggressive growth impact that we need for our students so I want to tell you what it is that we have been doing and what we've learned during the Spring as we were auditing and and going back into this journey thinking about where we have been um post pandemic trying to figure out how to best serve our kids um we've really focused in tier two and I believe you have a glossery about things like tier two tier three and tier one in mtss but as we think about our journey as a school tier three is that way that we serve students who really need more intensive support it's the RTI pyramid um you'll notice where we've been our pyramid is really upside down um and I'll I'll tell you focus on things like student Behavior getting our systems around spe special education feeling like our classroom teachers and our special Educators have been working well well together to um know how to collaborate for kids who have higher level of needs has been a priority um over the past years tier two we actually have made some really important growth there I know you heard from Sky hookstra um I think back in October when you were learning more about that process of looking at data and how we identify students for tier 2 and tier three intervention the last proba not not as much last year the year before it was it was a challenge getting teachers to really revisit what they do in the classroom to get to those tier 2 Learners themselves and then how we identify students who need that tier three intervention support um was a learning curve so we have been working um please know the work we have been doing has just not been in the right place we've focused on tier three we've focused on tier two and what we have learned and what we know now is that we need to put all of our time and energy into tier one instruction and that's what everybody gets that's what everybody should have access to tier two and tier three are those extra scoops of support we have shifted our Focus we are now spending our time looking at what does everyday classroom learning look like for our students and how do we ensure that it's rigorous that it is meeting them right in a place where they're having that productive struggle um so it's also engaging this is what our work is currently I want to explain to you a little bit more about how this Gap has occurred and this is actually something that I've had the privilege of being a part of as a member of our tier one um MN mtss cohort as a district with the help of Danielle McGill as one of the leaders and Paul Lee has helped us acquire this learning opportunity I'm a principal representative on that group one of my first grade teachers is also a part of that and we are learning more about what is the remediation problem versus acceleration so very common thing for us to believe as teachers and I have watched models being built around this concept that if a child is behind say you're a fifth grader and you're in math and your performances more at that third grade level will differentiate and will meet them where they're at well meeting them where they're at and then only moving forward slowly and not getting to fifth grade content until the end of the school year only magnifies that Gap and so the best of intentions teachers trying to think that they're doing what they need to to get to students where they're at and try to help them grow and catch up it's not viable we can't have kids catch up if we don't give them grade level standards based access to learning so the two models that you are seeing there show at the top what happens with that remediation approach we are losing the opportunity to even get through all of the curriculum in some circumstances the acceleration model on the bottom is showing how we might do a little bit of review of some of the past Concepts and skills but we're getting right into fifth grade curriculum and we find scaffolds and ways for everybody in the room to have that learning experience and then when we know there's something more challenging coming or if we've looked at data to understand where a student or a group of students has struggled that teacher might take that group of kids aside and do a little bit of practice on how they're going to maybe get to two-digit multiplication to be able to solve a more complex math problem later when they're with the group but you'll see that whole school year it's access to fifth grade content with just in time support so kids can continue moving forward Sky did a great job of also sharing an analogy that really stuck for me and for our staff because when we were really digging into this looking at our data and trying to decide what are we going to do differently how are we going to address this problem this made sense you can move up a ladder with all of the rungs but you can also move up a ladder with a rung missing with the right help with the right support a child can keep moving forward and the other thing that I like about the acceleration model it it shows kids that we believe in them and that productive struggle and their ability to get through complex content is good for them that is how they learn how to solve problems and there is opportunity with that kind of instruction for those leaders in the classroom to provide support for those conversations around learning to happen so it really is the best way for us to move forward now we have to figure out how do we do this and that's what we are spending our time on currently so tier one instruction for all is our primary focus that's why I wanted to begin with this our actions are figuring out what it looks like like in the classroom right now what do teachers need to know and do in order to make sure they're providing um the best tier one instruction and then how are we checking to make sure that it is effective and that it's working um and we are doing things like our cat you've heard maybe about collaborative action teams I don't mean our pet or unless you have a Schoolboard cat um but we cat is collaborative action teams or our plc's teachers and grade levels are meeting regularly to look at data they're identifying areas like maybe they want to work on pheic awarness and they're using that information to make sure that they know where kids are performing and then they're infusing that into their planning as they work with students in that tier one instruction um the we are PRI prioritizing learning and support um for teachers in this as well I decided to give a survey I gave the teachers a survey I because you can assume nothing um if you've been teaching in one way for a long time and you have this curriculum that's been in your classroom for a long time what we're learning are there essential elements of that curriculum that maybe we aren't taking advantage of we also have the benefit of some amazing leaders in our district like Amy fiser um Amy fiser has been a member of our built team along with sky and um I we just met with Amy this morning I have a great team of um building instructional leaders um we knew we needed another meeting to talk about this we had a meeting last week and we weren't done so we're we were looking at survey data realizing that we need to know what is essential in our math expressions that we should be getting to and there are things within math expressions that like the the number talk why are we maybe not always getting to this is it because of time is it because we don't know about it and we also have people coming in and out of our systems too I have a brand new teach two brand new teachers in my fifth grade um this year who are trying to get it right and make sure that they're doing everything that they can to engage students but they have to know where to find those resources and so a survey like this has provided us with some areas where we can provide support to teachers and we're having conversations in our building instructional leadership team to determine how we can collaborate to make this instruction stronger um the district as I mentioned is looking at this too acceleration for Anderson is vital it's urgent we have to make sure that we are doing this now but this is also a model that is going to help all of our students grow in the district and what we're learning we're struggling we're we're in a place of course we know this but we're getting stronger because we have to look at this it is like as I said it's vital for us to figure out how our systems how we're using data will help our kids climb out of this achievement Gap so we hope that what we're learning and some of the systems that we're putting into place will be something that can be be replicated for everyone to keep on growing um continuous Improvement through bright works too I want to mention one benefit that I have and I it also shines a light on a unique position that I'm in as an elementary principal can be lonely sometimes I have amazing principal colleagues but each of our buildings are our own buildings we have our own staff we have our own unique strengths and challenges having someone to just be a thought partner and to help you put forward ideas or to gather resources for you or with you or alongside you of you is really a gift being identified as a school who needs support um certainly nobody wants to be in that place but it has come with this wonderful opportunity to build a partnership with Carrie Muse who is our Advocate um we've only been with him for two years this is our second year with him we had a different person the first year that we didn't spend as much time together that was just a different situation but Carrie is someone I can talk to and say Carrie what resources do you know because there are other schools in Minnesota who are going through this same um situation and so being able to talk with someone and say what do you know about this element of tier one instruction do you have some great resources that you can share with me or our team about student engagement so this is where we are putting all of our focus and we are learning and we are looking at data and we are excited about this work that we are doing and I should say because I I we kind of ask questions as we go so Katie was just saying she had a question before you jump into the next section of the social emotional learning I figured um I'll get it while we have it um could we flip back a couple slides to the little pyramid one yeah yeah um I had just a question on that one yes okay so first of all thank you so much for explaining kind of the bigger picture and it's clear that you guys are really digging into um what needs to maybe have some improvement um at Anderson and I appreciate that um my question is how did we get to the inverted pyramid and kind of how long had that been the priority um like was that looking at just the numbers here it looks like the pandemic might have had something to do with it or was it before that um that that was a priority I would say it's again knowing this is our knowing better now a mindset around oh my goodness our students are struggling the and I would yes the pandemic definitely played a role in everybody's achievement but I think we saw that Anderson had been one of the schools that had we had changed we had new sta I mean there we can look back at all the reasons why but the reality is the DAT data was showing us that there was a decline and again out of no intentional harm teachers wanting to do their best to meet children where they were at were staying there and we weren't giving them that grade level rigorous content Specific Instructions that they needed um with that idea that this is the right thing to do to help them catch up as a teacher I can say I mean that's um a mindset is there sometimes to the fault of differentiating to a level which is a lot of work to differentiate your classroom to have just right assignments for everyone is really really hard to do but we know better we know now that we have to have all kids all of the kids getting that core instruction tier one instruction at the grade level that they're at even if they're behind if they are so far behind what our system does is with swim you all learned about swim um with swim we now are able to use data on regular Cycles to be able to say these children need their teacher to work with them at the tier one tier two level that's our classroom intervention our teachers every day during what is called wind time I don't know if that was in your glass or not but when is what I need and that is a time when teachers are working with kids at their table to um do a tier 2 intervention we use press press is a different literacy curriculum that kids come to the table they're working on comprehension they're working on different skills to make sure that those kids who were identified not just because we think they maybe could use a little help we're using data to see what they're how they're performing and then what the impact Act of that data is the Cycles are great because the teachers have to progress monitor so they are doing little checks they're doing quick um checkins to make sure that the kids are either making growth or if they're not then they change what that intervention is or if it's really significant that is where our students qualify for tier three instruction with an interventionist um this same model though also applies to oural um supports as well and this is a newer model for us as well um students who are being identified through Sabers because they have a need in the tier three or the tier 2 level also have access to interventions in that way questions yes can I just follow up on that for a second um so and I don't want to assume here but it sounds like it's a a different way of teaching perhaps in the classroom and I'm just kind of wondering you know where um are teachers like getting mentoring from other teachers in the district who are doing that I mean how did it come about that this change I mean this is a kind of a Monumental change it looks like to me and I'm just kind of wondering what sort of supports and assistance the teachers had in being able to manage their classrooms differently I think it's ongoing it's there are essential elements of tier one instruction that are actually like what teaching has always been about right it's making sure that you have a Core Curriculum that you are using you're using the there have been times I think a lot of our teachers in our district are supplementing materials because they think oh this is really great this seems like it's going to get to um what these students need this group of students will really do well with this um worksheet or this activity that's some of the Direction Where We have maybe gone off path using the essential approved curriculum that we had have in all of its um ways is an important part of tier one instruction so I would say the way that teachers are moving forward right now is they're going back to the basics in some ways they're being able to look at the curriculum and then fully understand what elements they need to use and they can't be afraid to put that rigorous material in front of students who are not there yet but we can find ways for them to engage in it in some meaningful way so I don't trust me it definitely is there's the art and of teaching and that's what our team is spending time doing right now we've just decided to use our November 20th staff meeting to look at this very thing it's going to be all about planning um because my survey as I mentioned gave me information that they believe our teachers believe that collaboration and time around this concept of tier one rigorous accelerated instruction if they can get together they can share their ideas and their brain power that they can find better ways to move forward with kids because you know there's greater power in um all those brains in the room and so that's what we'll be doing on November 20th but it's ongoing opportunities for them to collaborate and they're wonderful uh about collaborating at the grade level but we also know there's room with the vertical teams for them to have um valuable conversations as well so it's it's not you're right it's not a quick here's what you do but we can lean on the the adopted curriculum that is here in our district now from A literacy standpoint we know we're moving in a different direction there I actually have the gift of having um my first grade team piloting Benchmark right now they're all in figuring out they're experiencing firsthand what rigorous um first grade literacy curricul curriculum is like and I can tell you some of the challenges that they have trying to fit that into the day but those are for later slides and I'm Dr Funk is probably gonna tell me to keep clicking Anna so I'll keep clicking I can I can tell all right so social emotional learning um is certainly not something that we just set aside when we're focused on all of our academic um goals for our students but I can tell you um we all know that students who are feeling like they are safe and supported in their classroom and are regulated and calm and ready for learning it's essential um we have adapted some things with our Green Room we really have been looking at our data of from The Green Room particularly last year and at by the end of the school year and fall this year we knew we wanted to um take on a new approach we love what we have done this year with the green room and this was another opportunity to go back to an essential mindset the first six weeks of school responsive classroom is all about teachers setting up systems within their own classroom to be able to address the needs of students and to build those strong relationships and to be able to find ways to help students find that calm have that engagement have that support so they can stay in the room for learning so our Green Room was really in essence closed in a lot of ways for the first six weeks of school with some special exceptions because we do partner of course with our um Special Education team and there's some students that we just know they really need it but we also don't assume that just because it worked well for students in the past that they needed it again again auditing the systems looking at the data looking at the numbers and determining that this was a better way to move forward our Green Room par professional who's actually she's kindly here tonight was on board for something new and I need you to know the role that she plays in helping to support our students goes beyond giving a Break um to kids in her space she is a coordinator of Buddy rooms she will help our teachers determine that one of the moves a student might need is the chance to be able to go take a break in a another buddy teacher's classroom seems like maybe you know the teacher has finished their instruction and somebody really needs to move or they're having a hard time getting regulated they might might just need the chance to walk next door and take a break in another caring teacher's classroom it's amazing how that can help a child go okay I'm back with my third grade teacher and I'm having a minute to breathe for a second and now I'm ready to go back to the classroom Evelyn helps us coordinate things like that Evelyn spent the first six weeks of of the school year going into our classrooms checking on students who had previously seen her for different breaks giving them a positive note in their locker saying I saw you in the classroom doing a great job I love how you you were there and engaged in your learning so again a change that we made with this system something we're feeling really great about we just had our first Seal Swim meetings and this is the first time that we are actually scheduling students who need breaks at specific times outside of core instruction mindfully purposefully and then we'll track the data on that the other thing that Evelyn does with the green room is she has children check in with her at the beginning of the day they have goals that are set maybe it is I'm going to keep my body safe I'm going to U make sure I am keeping my focus on the teacher two goals she'll give them a pep talk they have a chart their teacher is giving them positive feedback throughout the day and then at the end of the day she go they go back to her she gives them positive feedback and they maybe have an incentive or they this chart goes home to their families it is amazing what children will do to have just that interaction with Evelyn it's it's a very um effective intervention for a lot of our students in thisal area all right I need to keep me moving because I know these were supposed to be 15 minutes um implementation of theal swim we are doing that actually just like our academic swim we're doing swim together in person with our whole team um with the learning um book I would recommend for you connections over compliance this is actually about Educators because what you mentioned the hard work teachers are doing to make sure they're doing this the right way and supporting the emotional needs of all of the kids in um their classroom takes a toll on them too they need to be emotionally resilient they need to know how to take care of themselves and so connections over compliance is a book about helping teachers know how to co-regulate with students so that when a student is having a hard time how can I take care of myself in this moment to be able to meet them and supp support them and then I don't want to pass over the last bullet point engaging academics is one of the most impactful things to help students feel connected in their classroom helps them with their behavior it helps them to be feeling like they're connected with their peers well-designed academics can have just as powerful and effect so oural data growth we have a trend of growth in oural data which is great and it matches the fact that that is where we have spent a lot of our time over the last years is really working to bring a calm to our school and we would say the way that this school year feels and how things are starting it's one of our best starts to the school year um another area where we want to oh yep what is that exactly this that thank you for asking social emotional learning for um swim is Sabers day the teachers all are screening their students using Sabers it's a Sab screener this is something just like our academic swim we are now doing in all of our elementaries across the district and so the teachers just do an audit of how their students are doing this is data that we then use to determine who will will be getting an extra scoop of support from a social emotional learning standpoint in the classroom or maybe with the support of a social worker okay great I I'm familiar with Savers but I just wasn't quite sure what we were measuring with this so okay all right thank you y um instructional and collaborative time was another area where I've already really mentioned this Slide the teachers know that um this tier one work what they'd like to be able to do is to have time together to plan mindfully and it's not just time for the sake of time this has to be purposeful time that's what we're trying to provide in answering what they say they need is time to be able to collaborate to plan the very best instruction to look at data our building instructional leadership team is working to generate solutions for this um an example of one way we are trying to do that is continuing to use our staff meeting for collaborative time I can give them nuts and bolts information about what's going on in the building in my weekly staff update on my website that they have so we want to use every moment of time that we have together for Learning and for purposeful work one other challenge is our economy of scale and um yes we are small we have had an ongoing rotation of Specialists and you know there are things that happen with our staffing because we are small that does add to a a problem with stability in some areas where we wish we had that longtime music teacher or fied teacher who knows the children from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade that has been a challenge but we know that we are moving into an a very exciting place with a new school for our students and we know the size of that school will help us um with this problem so I had a question on this with the specialist is that does that also include like intervent like are there sta other staff other than just the um music art and CAD that would be included in that um you did hear my colleague Gina talk about our MML teacher we share with outon so that's another shared position um so it is outside of the Specialists um but that is for us the probably the hardest hit area and I don't know if you would agree with this but I I get the question sometimes from community members that because I know we've talked about the specialist um teachers at Anderson before and that it is a is it is a struggle and I guess the way I explain it and so tell me if this is correct I explain it to community MERS who say well how does that impact academics and I and I can let you answer but the way I explain it I guess is just that those specialist enrichment classes are a Lifeline for some of those students and that they build build those strong relationships with those teachers and if they're kind of turning over all the time it can lead to some impact in the classroom as well is that kind of I guess where you would stand or ABS absolutely and I would go further to say that um a teacher who doesn't know students in that way goes to fied and a longtime fied teacher would have that ability to say oh Joey's going to have a problem with this very competitive game I want to give him some pep a pep talk ahead of time to make sure he is feeling good but then the other thing when Joey leaves class and he's had a bad experience in fied and he has he's now going to go to his fifth grade classroom feeling disregulated or upset that carries over into the learning time and there you know there have been times over um the course of the last years where it's that transition back to learning that is also so challenging so it impacts what teachers our classroom teachers need to be doing to work with kids to revisit rules and they end up having to really do a lot more partnering um with teachers who are sometimes teaching out of field it's just the reality to fill a 35 art position is you know we're not going to find always a beautiful wonderful amazing candidate to fill that role so that would be great for the new school yes definitely so we do have incredible strengths that we can lean into for this important work I've already mentioned my building instructional leadership team they are collaborative they are they want to spend extra time on this work because it's important and they're um very passionate about doing better and supporting our whole team our vertical team teams and our community connect we are trying to steal or I will say bar borrow from the bar schools because we're not a bar school yet but I appreciate visiting with my colleagues who have um the bar system in place and we know vertical teaming is a component of that that is really supportive so we have launched that um doing our best version of how we can have vertical teams to make sure that when we're solving problems there's Representatives K through five other building members our my support team in the front office joins these team uh meetings as well because we know our cafeteria team has a lot of insight on what kids are doing in the lunchroom and that can they can offer wonderful nuggets to help come up with a support plan for a student um our Green Room team as I've mentioned already um is a strength our collaborative action teams are actually actually implementing some new tools that are being shared I was at the um Caitlyn kindly invit invited us as principles to join the cat teams this past week our cat leaders were meeting um we were excited to share a benchmark tracker that our team created at Anderson for teachers to use as a part of their catwork that other teams are now going to be adopting as well as a way to track Benchmark by Benchmark what are the things that we're working on being able to have a visual tool for how teams are progressing um and then student Support Services team this is the second full year that I have have um two special education teachers at Anderson and they are doing incredible work collaborating with the teachers with Evelyn with our school social worker collaboration is a large part of what is making this hard work possible um we are all Learners and I include myself as um the chief learner of the school because I've never been in this situation before in a building where we have this set of data where I have the people here to work with um the teams in place but we're all learning how to make the most of our strengths and to lean in where we need to letters um I have three fully trained letters teachers already on my staff that's a great strength for us I personally am taking the full letters I've had the administrative letters but I need to be able to be an instructional leader I want to be side by side with them and be able to have conversations and really understand what it takes to be a reader as I mentioned my first grade team is piloting lit receive curriculum we are learning a lot about that through them and they are working hard reading like 30 pages of curriculum a night um and observation cycles and instructional learning conversations is something that I'm doing that I just love and this is the result of having a more calm school that is feeling really great I've been into 22 classrooms already and had 22 conversations with my teachers um and it's been me just taking some informative data around specific pieces of the um 5D rubric we know at the start of the year it's about purpose we also know that it's about classroom environment when kids know why they're there and they feel good about the space that they're learning in then we are off to a great start so I'm continuing to do these formative assessments Beyond TP now that's a not every that's not possible everywhere I I hope that I can sustain this through other Cycles but I'm taking advantage of it while I can um and then I can't not mention our pair of professionals they are unsung heroes in our buildings and um if you I know that I believe you respect and know that already but I need you to know that I'm so proud of the leadership and the way that they are working together and with our students they are the ones who can keep that calm in the classroom and support some of our students so that our teachers can do that important tier one instructional work I'm doing something differently by meeting with them individually we still have our own pair of meetings but they're setting their own goals they are identifying areas that they want to learn and that they want to grow this makes our team stronger they should be valued they have a great perspective on what's happening in our building sometimes more than I do they've been all over they've been in classrooms they've been on the playground and in the lunchroom more times um throughout the day than I can get to some days so they're very valuable and we want them to feel value Val and we want to learn with them and from them culture of belonging I'm not going to spend a lot of time here I think you know that Anderson Elementary is a place that welcomes families that we want all of our um students our families our staff to feel connected we do have shared expectations that is another I guess that's a new thing I should highlight last year um we decided to with this this turnover sometimes that we have in our Specialists that we need to have clear expectations and not just here's a list of rules but literally here is what we do to be able to know how to walk in the hallway at Anderson Elementary it seems like maybe there isn't a need for a lesson plan for this but there actually is so we have taken interactive modeling lessons to say here's what adults are doing in the hallway here's what students are doing in the hallway here's how we work together and if we have this common language common expectations that makes our building feel better we have all School morning meetings we have a new show in the Morning Anderson live where students come in and share what they're learning I like to pull them right after and check in with them to have them personally tell me how's your year going what are the things that you notice about the school year that are going well what are things that Mrs wilsack should know to be um a better principal to help you what what can you tell me um so this is a great um special part of our school as well and I'm going to save my our Anderson uh motto for the end but I know um you hear this all the time all students students means all students that culture of belonging is critical and we have to audit this and we can't take um for granted that there are some students who don't always feel like they are all and that is work that is ongoing for us but we are committed to it family engagement we have a strong Anderson parent group um I love that the activities um that they provide to our families are very much welcoming to all our um school carnival had moved away from fees things are free we're on the playground it is very easy access for all of our families they support our fam support us with um academics and arts and Community nights um we are we have probably one of the really cool things I would want to highlight on this slide is that I have added parent Representatives family Representatives on the building instructional leadership team so our last building instructional leadership team I had two of our members join us for that meeting um and it was great they had great questions but they got to hear about all of this work post our tier one survey they were hearing that conversation it's important for them to know what we are working on and it's important for them to ask questions that um we need to hear again Anderson deeply rooted in the community um we have been involved with vessel we have I believe I think 11 volunteers right now um we love our vessel volunteers and Dave walmi the strong Community Connection that we have from the Bayport library to um cyale um people coming in to share lots of wonderful um activities and learning experiences for us through Discovery day our community night and our we have a parent group member who is so talented she has written a grant in collaboration with um Julie Coleman with me um to help us Bridge learning through science the um our standards and science to the new school um we have a hug a Anderson Foundation grant that we have been awarded that will allow our students to have some meaningful standards-based science um experiences that will allow us to take some learning um opportunities now and apply them to where we are moving in Barker's elps because the river it's based on this book the river is the theme of the the new school this was also our responsive classroom book that we are using now so so um again great connections to the community but in summary when we know better we do better and I don't want you to think for one moment that we take for granted how critical this moment is for our school and the work that we need to do it's not easy how we are going to hold fast and true to our instructional models to make sure we are serving all kids and giving them the rigorous engaging opportunities to learn every day it's not going to be perfect but we will not stop trying I have an amazing team of Educators who are Learners I am a learner but we are committed because all students me all we are here to reach and teach all of them their strengths to leverage but the focus has to be on growth and knowing that our kids will be in the best place possible not only because we love them and we want them to be a part of the Anderson Community but because they are Learners this is the beginning of their Journey if they come out of Anderson Elementary School being readers being Learners that sets them up for more success as they move through our system thank you great um any questions I you know I had I I really appreciate this information and um I think it I would be I'm glad to see that you're concerned and the teachers are concerned and um obviously we're not going to deny that the MCA scores are what they are I think that's what we're talking about and um we want to do better and there isn't a single staff member including yourself and your teachers and your Paras and parents who don't want to see things improve and so I was happy to see kind of that Paradigm Shift of how you're going about teaching this year and how it's being how you're changing it to to get a better result have you thought about like how will you defi like what are you what are your expectations for measurement and what will be how will you deem this new approach of success well we've set goals I mean our our student achievement goal as a district again we are looking for growth in our MCA scores with a focus primarily being on those kids who are um right between the 40th and 60th percentile wanting those kids to be showing appropriate growth because what we've learned we we aren't just looking at MCA data that's our once AE data it's our fast bridge data that is essential and we have to know we we know that the fast bridge data and the MCA data doesn't always line up well so it's ongoing checks and um we're just really trying to be on top of it using the data that we have but I I agree um growth is essential and I feel like the way that we are approaching things from the swim model that is part of it but cat is another place um the collaborative action teams and really looking at those MCA benchmarks that we have infused into that work gives us other like week by week um information as well so so you are getting that okay yeah yeah questions I'm trying to look at my oh yes well thank you for the presentation and uh the really helpful overview of Anderson so um I know you talked about like uh transitions being a challenge and I know there's probably some greater challenges with an Anderson and some of limitations from a um just the school I mean it's the darling school but it's it's tight and not and I know the busing in the morning is always that's that's a little bit you know chaotic do a great job but it's little chaotic with some of those Transitions and so would you envision you know as we look at from a board level you know making sure that all students have access to the same type of opportunities and having you know you know hopefully more regular consistent Staffing so those students can build those relationships with the specialist um I would imagine that should be helpful with a new school and seeing you know having the space for that but obviously you know from the busing and the transitions um I would imagine that's kind of a a point of emphasis that I see that you kind of highlighted which um it would be great to see how that's measured in the new building yes I I agree and you know it was Dr Funk who when we first met in the first years of you joining our school taking a look at our school and the size and starting to dream about what would be better for our students and yes a school of a size in this 300 350 range we it's just the to be able to support that Staffing it just doesn't work all the things about the I mean the planning that has has gone into this new school the thoughtfulness about around the spaces and the idea that we'll be able to create these learning pods where our students will be able to really move from place to place and teachers will be able to collaborate all of the things they're asking for to provide their best instruction are much more possible in the design of a building like that and we won't have to park on the street and have the challenges yes um so I would like to just for my own personal notes kind of leave with some themes that I note so I just want to run them by you sounds like you would love to be our school I mean a little bit because you're adopting trying on your own to kind of already adopt that um kind of the Staffing model structure I think will fix itself when you're in the new building but that's a challenge right now um and then obviously the the reverse periods pyramids so can change the way that you're operating and then just measuring that throughout the year but the time for teachers so I I would suppose that you support I mean has it been better with having more PD throughout the calendar year I know we have some we have step Gordy now kind of leading the charge for kind of structuring that PD has that been helpful for your staff well quite frankly our PD is really focused on letters right now and making sure that we are having everyone get what they need to in terms of that letters training so there's not as much wiggle room right now within the professional development model for things like working on our tier one instruction but we find time and I know I'm not alone we've shifted away from that um staff meeting model being something where we're just doing the nuts and bolts to using time the way that we need to um to support professional development Endeavors of Our Own and can you share more about the first grade literacy program was obviously with letters I mean that's a lot in itself yes and a whole new program and you mentioned you know your teachers in first grade are spending a lot of time outside of class trying to get up to speed um you know it just seems like that's quite a big ask for them and and kind of uh but obviously it's a seems like a great opportunity how does that align with what the district's doing as a whole and and kind of what are kind of your outcomes that you're looking at from first grade level that we can look at from a greater District standpoint well a wonderful structure has been put into place to take a look at all of the various literacy programs that the district is considering um I know my team is just one team of a number of teams who are piloting some things and um they've just brought forth the new literacy committee who will make the the selections I will tell you with um just from my experience of being in the classroom with teachers trying to teach with this curriculum it is intense it has it's all inone which is beautiful because every resource that you would need is within this current program that they are looking at but I watched one of my first grade teachers I wanted to give her a gator AG she was moving from one thing to the other to make sure that in the amount of instructional time she was fitting in all of those Essentials so I think these are the things that we are navigating as well getting everything fit into that instructional time is a challenge and there's very little wiggle room for transition and this is the student experience um I would say across the board and something all of our teachers are experiencing is how do they fit everything in that they want to within our instructional day um I know I don't know how would this how this would work but I know that the board it would probably appreciate just some updates on I don't know if that comes from you superintendent or um from the principal just on how the progress is going with this kind of shift and Caitlyn can provide it in weekly updates you know periodically quarter probably quarterly to the board okay just to see kind of like how things are progressing throughout the year sure I think yeah um thank you for this I really appreciate it um you know um we look at those MC scores just like you do and nobody's happy with those um and I appreciate that that you use the word urgency during your presentation because it it certainly seems to me that it is kind of an urgent situation um and I appreciate that you are looking at you know your entire system and and how um how all of the people in the building approach you know instruction for students I think that that's 100% necessary and I admire you for doing that and I am just cring my fingers that we get some of the results that we know that these students are capable of um and I'm assuming that you're getting what you I mean from from our perspective you know are you getting the resources that you need for this um transformation yes and as we go through again we've never been everyone who is a part of our Anderson team has never been in this sit situation in this time with this team at this moment so we are putting our best foot forward and using all of the data and information and supports and learning that we can to do our best for kids but I'm learning something new every day I will literally on Thursday go to the next tier one MN mtss cohort and learn um along with other Educators in our system who are just getting information about tier one and then I will be figuring out how can I take this and bring this back my colle colleagues are they're not a part of this tier one mtss cohort yet this is a I'm fortunate that I'm in this position to learn so I think even as principles we need time to collaborate we have you know moments in time when we can get together and we're learning and um we're focused on some really important work in the district right now too with some larger District initiatives but I would say instructional leadership and finding tools and resources and time to collaborate around how we can make sure we're supporting teachers the very best ways that we can is an area where we can continue to use ongoing support I'm creating tools that I want to try to use in addition to what we know is our observational evaluation system I know my colleagues are having other conversations and doing things so there's great opportunity there and I think that's another opportunity we have as a district as well well thank you so much I mean I I appreciate everything that all the comments and um just thank you for everything you're doing it Anderson thank you to all the staff and the teachers and the Paris and the custodians and the you know everyone who works in the cafeteras and it's a team collaborative effort to support those students and the students deserve our very best so I'm glad that you're working so hard they do thank you very much for your time tonight I appreciate it okay let's move on to um a progress report on achievement and Civic Readiness welcome Caitlyn good evening hopefully this will not be 55 minutes it won't I he has spoken okay so I am here this evening to provide you with progress report update on the comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness Plan which you all probably know as world's best Workforce so that uh title has changed per legislation this past summer also a component of our comprehensive achievement in Civic Readiness Plan is also our achievement and integration plan and so we'll provide an update on that one as well and when we get to that point I'll have jacqu le come up and join us too because she'll be able to speak to it in more more in depth for you um okay so comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness formerly world's best Workforce this is really legislation that's there to ensure that school districts are um working to make sure that all students are ready for school all racial and economic achievement gaps are closed students are ready for career in college and that all students graduate from high school um there are some legislative changes that I'll share at the end that will impact our plan for next year but tonight really the focus is providing you with updates for our current goals in this plan so one of our goals is all students are ready for school the way we measure that is using uh core which is a phonological awareness assessment for pre um I believe our goal is 80% or above so we did meet that goal with 85% of our four-year-old preschool students demonstrating at least one level of growth another component of this plan is closing the achievement gaps um unfortunately we are not on track you all have seen the data throughout the fall and our growing achievement gaps so I don't think this slide should come as a surprise to anyone um where we are seeing a reduction is with two or more races beyond that we're not seeing any consistent um closing of those gaps in fact we're we're seeing the opposite we're seeing some increases so opportunities here for sure for um Improvement and then kayn just to make sure I'm understanding so obviously you see increase not increased proficiency it's increased Gap incre Gap the red and is a bad thing right the red is a bad thing so our goal in this specifically is that we will not have more than a 5% gap between our white students and our non-white students and we don't have we have nowhere where we've met that goal all students are career College ready by graduation um so we use the ACT to measure this last year we also added the ASVAB and the acup Placer so if you're not familiar the ASVAB is the test for um military and acup Placer is a placement exam for Community and Technical College that kind gives you an idea of how much uh remedial course work or what point will you enter in those Generals in certain certain areas um so we've seen a a slight decline in our ACT scores we've also seen an increase in participation um but then of course there's also been while there's an increase in participation I think the with the changes to some colleges in looking at ACT scores there's also different levels of student engagement so I would be remiss if I did not bring that up Rob would call me and say reminder some of our students are while they're taking this they're not seeing it as high stakes as they maybe previously have um all students graduate so our goal um is 96% uh 92% of our students in 2023 graduated in four years so this is a decrease um in parentheses is last year's graduation rate at each of those two so these are the two um sites the high school and the alc that are me measured for this can we make a seven-year goal for the alc I believe so okay I mean I think internally we should be measuring that I believe so so I think I think there's and what I'll say about all of these goals I don't love sitting here reporting not on track rep not on track not on track right like this doesn't feel good um I think there is a lot of opportunity and so we as we build our plan for next year we really need to think about the the outputs that we want to see and are we putting the right inputs so when I look when I really like peel this plan back we're doing a lot of pocketed work right we're targeting small groups of students in different places but then we're measuring it at a systems level right so we're not going to see we're not measuring where we're putting the work and also are we if we know that what is good for some students is good for all students if we start looking at these pocket groups and we're seeing some good things happening then how do we systematize that and make that something that's happening for all students in the system and so I think that's the opportunity that we have as we move forward in creating a new um comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness Plan I have to reprogram that from world's best work yep and um as well as our Ani plan because there's going to be a lot of overlap with student groups that we need to Target with these l i I just want to say I'm glad that you're kind of rethinking the way these goals are phrased and worded I I think that you know words like all you know that's an almost setting yourself up for not succeeding because that's just not possible some of the goals just the language in them I think are just a little off and need to be tweaked yes I agree and so I think we'll have a really good specifically next year with our um comprehensive achievement Civic Readiness Plan and then two years or a year from now uh we can talk about changing our achievement and integration plan because that is a three-year plan so um lots of opportunity but opportunity is fun right um okay so just a reminder I I briefly said this at the beginning uh there was some legislation related to this uh this summer and there's an additional goal that is going to be required so if you remember in the previous world best Workforce plans there there was always a read well by third grade goal that goal has come off of the comprehensive achievement Civic Readiness and is moved over to the literacy plan under the read Act and the way that goal reads is that all students will read at grade level so it's not necessarily targeting third grade specifically but that we expect students to read at grade level and then in replacing that is the goal and this is about as much information as I've been given so far from the Department of Education is that students are prepared to be lifelong Learners so um next year when we when I'm here to provide you an update there will be a goal around how we are preparing students to be lifelong L it will be how do you measure wonderful question I don't know um I I have so I mean my thoughts are to me that's like the umbrella right like all students are prepared to be lifelong Learners and I think the way we measure that is all all our students ready for school are we closing the achievement gaps are they career in college ready so to me if if we can say check check check check then we have every indication to say we're we're preparing students for lifelong learning because we've given them the academic executive functioning you know Independent Living skills that are needed to be an adult answer that's how I would answer that question I don't know if that's the intention with that change in legislation yet so I hope to kind of collaborate with some other districts and hear what they do I glad you're doing that too because this is like I served on this committee for a while it's just so big it's such a a beast um and so just to see how other districts are chunking this out and making it more actionable and like you said I like that you're saying like how are we taking this back and you know actioning it in other buildings or in other it just there's work to be done so that's why you're in the role thank you I'm I'm happy to do it um so moving into it because we take achievement and integration dollars we also have a corresponding achievement integration plan and I'm going to invite jacquelene up to help me walk through this progress report for you all um similarly to our comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness Plan I I do call it kacker but I'm trying to avoid that that just sounds sick um we we have the goals in our achievement and integration plan so we have to have an achievement goal an integration goal and an equity goal I believe in our current plan we have two achievement goals we have two achievement goals and an equity goal and an integration goal so we'll go through through those and again um this is also a place where like in the previous slides I walked you through there's a lot of opportunity uh so this is our current goal we will increase by 2% each year um the percentage of Hispanic and black students who demonstrate College and Career Readiness using that act accuplacer and asab we are not moving in the right direction I have questions on why we're specifically targeting Hispanic and black um as opposed to look targeting and looking at all of our non-white students and how they're performing and how we're supporting that again knowing that what helps smaller student groups also helps larger student groups um again this one is around the number of enriched or advanced placement College in the schools um and PSO courses that are taken by specifically what we're measuring is our Hispanic and black students uh there was a decrease there might have also been in speaking with Rob a decrease in that cohort of students so organically we should have expected to see some level of a maybe a percentage I don't know right right so um one of the things I find interesting about our current plan is everything is targeted at the secondary specifically High School level and I don't know why that is and I think there's an opportunity again for us to look at a more integrated I mean it's an integration plan right an integrated approach to how we're doing achievement how we're looking at the achievement of all of our students prek through 12 plus and so um which brings us to our integration goals so we have historically used story arc to um provide the integration components of our achievement and integration plan and uh we have kind of some that we're relying upon them for the data right so uh they they bring us that kind of anecdotal data and um again I think that this is really great work done in a small pocket so it's what the conver conv a should be is how do we leverage what this work is in a more systematized way that gives more students access to these kinds of experiences and you can always jump in if you feel like I'm under under selling something because she came up to make you feel better that's right I'm he from somebody else can say that um okay so our Equity goal is to create and retain a racially diverse teacher Workforce and uh as you can see we have not made any substantial growth in that area neither have our uh counterparts in other districts made significant growth in this area um I think moving forward we really need to talk about how are we preparing our current staff for teaching and learning in a more diverse uh classroom school and community and as we develop our cultural competency as a district it will become a more appealing place for people of color to want to come and be employed but I think until we start shifting us as a collective we're going to continue to to hit barriers and this is where I would add in that mde knows that a goal like this is a goal that's not really attainable in most districts because in the state of Minnesota we don't have teachers we don't have people of color entering the teaching Force nor are they staying so we write this goal knowing that it's probably a goal that's not going to be met well and just to I'm just this isn't my job but could a goal in theory be something about just an initiative that could be done like forming because what I hear when I'm just at our Schoolboard conversations and I'm sure other board members have heard it is to have kind of those those in Affinity groups within your team teaching to just to support teachers who are in the district and who need that collaboration with other teachers of color I think it also like grow your own okay what are we doing to develop the internal Pipeline with the Educators we have who may be supporting us in some other role that aren't necessarily teachers but okay what are we doing to support them to um that's where I've seen it be more successful in All State okay so so um next Schoolboard meeting we're we're actually going to be asking you to approve an amendment to our achievement and integration plan usually it's a three-year plan and we don't get to make these amendments um but we are required to amend our plan to reflect Brook views been identified as a school that is racially identifiable so because of that Brook View gets to have its own um specific Equity integration and achievement goals related to their racially identifiable status so that's an opportunity for us to um create goals that are more reflective of the work that we're doing and measuring the work we're doing for all students and then from there when this three-year plan expires we can look at are those goals moving the needle at at Brookview and if so then how do we leverage that and systematize that across all of our schools for all of our students so I'm going to let jacine talk about the specific goals because this is really her work um that she's worked with Melinda and Brett at Brookview as well as some of the other staff and collaborated with other districts around what are appropriate goals for Brookview for our achievement and integration plan so when we were looking at the goals for Brook viiew we had to have an academic equity and integration goal and our Focus was really trying to not add on more work and just another thing for teachers to do but to really look at the great things that Brook viw is already doing and how we can build the capacity of the teachers that are there so for our academic goal um we looked at their literacy um the work that they're doing with letters and created this goal that students um of the students that are on or above grade level 85% or more will score at the 60th percentile or higher on their spring 2025 fast Bridge assessment so they're already doing the letters training um we already have some really good work happening with literature circles and some other great things that are taking place within the school and we're already tracking this so seeing if using that is something that we can then replicate and systematize for Equity we stepped away from saying that we were going to try and attract uh teachers of color brookly does not have any teachers of color um so instead we're going to provide bite-size PD that will place during staff meetings to build the cultural competency of the staff so that they have the capacity to work with a more diverse student body so we're going to say 100% of the brook viiew teachers will receive p and culturally relevant teaching pedagogy so that students have greater access to culturally responsive teachers that is something that we have control over we can help to better prepare and support the teachers that we have and then for integration this one is hard um we had a very short period of time um um to figure out what we can do for integration this is also the spot where I think we have the most opportunity um so for integration what we want to do what mde says we have to do is you have a racially identifiable school you have to find opportunities for them to connect with students outside of their school so it's really great but also sometimes problematic when you think about um some limitations just financially um so we're tapping into their sense of belonging and increasing inner District Partnerships to promote student leadership collaboration and academic and social interaction opportunities so Brookview and Lake Elmo both elementaries uh do culturally responsive student leadership with story arc um they actually just wrapped that up so this year we created collaborative opportunities between the students at both schools and then they looked at what are the characteristics of strong leaders and they cre comic strips and what we've asked story arc to do is to allow the students to work together to create one digital um anthology of sorts that can then be shared throughout the district as a way to just kind of dip our toe into this integration knowing that this is just one program but based on this how can we grow that into something more the other thing I will say is is with regard to the equity goal because we are very far into our training and subsequent implementation of the identity harm protocol this is something that we're already doing right we're already doing all of this work and foundational work around our cultural competencies and what is identity harm and how is that um managed in the classroom and so this again not to be something additional but what is the work that we're already doing and how can we make sure that that's reflected in our plan and that's what we're measuring so that we know our inputs and our outputs match because right now they're we're putting a lot of things in but we're measuring different things so we don't know yet what's effective and what isn't and when you say on the academic goal of the students um that are is that certain demographics are you going to open it up now to all stud all students students okay so what we did with Brookview goals is there's not a single one of these goals that focusing on one demographic we very deliberately um said we want to focus on every single one of these students because when we only focus on small groups of students other people are going to miss out and that's just not going to be that's not the heart in Integrity of doing academic integr like Equity work so not a single one of these was written with one demographic in mind and that was done purposefully I like that that's also our literacy goal for all of our buildings or I component one component of our literacy goal for all of our buildings and I I personally like your integration goal and just leveraging other relationships I think that um just selfishly I think that there's opportunity to maybe even talk to some of our high school students and you know for to kind of ask them what would you have benefited from when you were in elementary school or even like mentorships with older students and younger students I mean I feel like there's some good opportunity in future years to do some really good work there it is the one goal that really excites me because I do think there's a lot of creativity um I just don't know what that's going to look like yet but I think that's the fun part is we don't necessarily know what the answer is but we know that there's room okay so next steps is um we will just ask you to vote on the amendment at our next board meeting to add those three goal areas to our achievement and integration plan so that we can move forward and align with that work on kind of on the behind the curtain work related to that is looking at both our achievement and integration budget and our Indian education budget and aligning the work with the goals um so again there's sometimes misalignment and so we need to make sure that we're prioritizing our fiscal resources to match what what we're expect where we're putting the work and where we're looking for outcomes so Jacqueline's been working very closely with Marie on making sure that those things are aligned moving forward any other questions I just have kind of a high level question I guess um in looking at tying it back to the funding piece and looking at our plan that we are not meeting the goals and this is not the first year we've heard this type news does that have an impact on done funding going forward are there consequences for not meeting goals okay so as long as we keep planning and working towards it right we will continue to receive some funding yes yes we will continue to receive the funding what I will say is I think well I just think it says it on the slide expect more I think we should expect more and I think um we have an opportunity to write better goals that are more reflective of the work we are doing um and more comprehensive and I think doing just in doing that we'll see more progress I'm not saying that's like the magic wand but um I think it's a place to start because it's more strategic and it's also more systematized and so I'm I'm hope is not a strategy so I believe that if we do that that that will be the outcome we see great thanks yes um couple questions um first one with the achievement and integration plan it's a three-year plan um I mean I see from these slides here that we haven't had much success with the um plan that we have so far are we allowed to change what we're doing in the middle of the three-year plan no we so what we are allowed to do is we're allowed to put our our stuff in for Brook viiew we're allowed to take a look at our budget a little bit and make sure that our budget aligns a little bit better but our goals are our goals um and so this time next year we're going to start writing our next AI plan and that's when we can write new goals based on the work that we're doing and what we've written for Brook viiew is kind of a good start for us to think about is this something that we could do districtwide kind of based on what we're doing with Brookview okay so I mean you can't adjust I mean the goals could stay the same but the methods that you use to try to achieve goals you can't even change that really oh we can change methods we just can't change the goals you can't change the goals but you could take a different approach abely before the three years is up and that was I think what I was alluding to we already are changing the methods we're changing the inputs the problem is we're not measuring the inputs because our goals are written to measure something different we can internally measure but we're not measuring according to the state plan right so when I set up here and I report on this I'm reporting on how the goal is written and the data we have related to that specific subgroup or subgroups even though there is other work and methodologies and strategies that we're starting to do that I would say are maybe too much in their empy to to be able to comment with data yet but but before long I think we'll have some good good data that will support these goals but even just the way they're written reporting out I'm not sure that it would change it luckily this is the last year of that plan so as jacene said we get to to think about our year next year 2026 thank you 2026 is the end of the plan and then the other question that I had is um I mean this is a state requirement all districts in the state get AI funding because not all them not all districts most okay just ones that have racially identified schools or I don't I don't know how you have to meet a certain criteria with racial identification and then but but it's voluntary to apply you don't necessarily have to um so oh that's interesting I didn't know that yeah my two previous districts we were neither one of them was part of a Ani till I got there and then we became a Andi and both of them um so yeah and there's a lot of great opportunities for our students we can utilize through the funding um so but no not everybody is part of the uh and and the other thing is if you're Minneapolis or St Paul your funding for AI is a significantly higher dollar amount per pupil than it is for other districts ouri funding is like like a million or less it's like just just over a million I believe yeah okay so the question I was going to get to is um um is there a lot of sharing among the districts that do AI um so that we can learn from other successes is that is that a thing I mean do you guys have conferences what how does that work yeah I routinely meet with Forest Lake Roseville South Washington County uh South St Paul I've I meet with them uh every month uh we have a meeting and we share ideas of what we're going to when I first took this position um I met with other districts just to see what they were doing to see how we could potentially improve um learning from some other things that other districts have like have been doing so this is a a really good small community of people that are trying to help each other because we know that doing this and doing it well is going to benefit our students and our communities so yeah we share often okay thank you I was just curious is that a legislative um mandate to not change a goal or is that mde mde and and again we're reporting on the goals right I mean so that that's that's another we have to give you an update on that as well that's a legis that's a legislative and the cap kacker comprehensive achievement and Civic Readiness those we CH we can change so like next year we'll have new goals the the unfortunate part about achievement integration is it's a three-year plan so I think again writing the goals more broadly allows for us to be able to report in a more you know whole system way and I know it doesn't feel good to see that we're not making progress but I do think that there is something about the transparency and saying these are the goals this is what we're learning from them here's some different strategies we can take so we can change our strategies even though we can't change the goals to go ahead and make some shifts and move forward and just learn from this initial plan as we move forward and I do appreciate the the desire and I know Dr Funk is um talked about this a lot is that system work where you know it's just having a reach that makes an impact and moves the needle because I think what we see is a lot of individual work and kind of boot programming like just pockets of really good programming and it the challenge is like how to system systematize it so I appreciate that really thoughtful about that right now thank you all right thank you all great thank you uh next we are moving on to a report with Annette on Adventure Club enrollment and weight list and you certainly will not be 55 minutes this was good news all right chair Sherman superintendent Funk and members of the board just a very brief update on where we are at um with the weit list for Adventure Club so as you can see right now we have 853 students enrolled in our weight list is at 68 these numbers are pretty dynamic they move around quite a bit for instance I asked for these numbers a little over a week ago and uh the enrollment at that time was at 861 and the weight list was at 54 so we have families coming on and off the lists we're right now in the process of contacting more families this is a daily occurrence in our office where we're oh we've got another spot let's call someone up let's see if we can get them in so it's a moving Target um and one thing that I will add and then I will answer any questions um that isn't on here that uh I should mention is that start on December 10th any family that is not does not currently need us but is in need of care for next school year they will have the opportunity to put their name on the list so that when we do do our enrollment in March um they will be on a list and we will reach out to them and they will be provided the opportunity to enroll in the time frame where space is available so with that December 10th for next year 10th for next year so if they're not in need of care this year they're just waiting for next year December 10th is that key date and does that get communicated to families we'll put it in newsletters okay the school newsletters so just a couple thoughts so you can see we've made significant progress on this which I I knew in that inter team would uh so which is a which is a real plus the challenge that awaits us is and and we've got data from other districts that have done this is when we go to the later start time um and our elementary kids um will be getting out later than our um high school students um excuse me reversed yep um the the challenge is going to be the afternoon daycare need will increase significantly so in addition to Staffing one of the things that uh We've identified and I know we're working with the the high school on is if we can do a work release program of some sort for our students who are interested in um Early Child Hood education or Elementary education and kids can earn credit and come and and work with the Adventure Club so that that's another um strategy that we will be utilizing uh come next Fall is there any opportunity to sorry real quick with um like junior colleges that have education Majors that potentially because one thing I do like about this change with our um flipping our times is that the shift is longer and I feel like that is my own son worked these and it was really hard to do like two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon and it's a little more attractive I think right right and we actually regularly reach out to River Falls and to Sentry and the um surrounding uh education programs to seek out individuals so if you had the staff you could eliminate the weight list right if you just had unlimited staff available to you so if joeo can start on Monday what does that do to the weight list how many people does that take off uh it does somewhat depend on which site you're talking about but generally speaking we carry between a 12 to1 in 15 to1 ratio so it could impact 12 to 15 students okay and if somebody quits does somebody have to then go back on take out of the system that's the trick right now someone has left now we're trying to fill that position which that does happen on a regular basis as well now different employees have different schedules not everybody works Monday through Friday so it has different impacts but we fill that in with substitutes until we can find someone to replace and I think I this came up before remind me can this be combined with other positions I'm thinking a launch position right yes and we have done that yep okay great yes yeah great work on the numbers I mean from where we were when we first started talking about you know the calendar and the school start times it's it's awesome so uh Kudos on that and thank you for the context as well around the 2019 2020 numbers I mean we're right at that same level with even a lot smaller weight list right um and and obviously you look at from August to now you know that's you know about a 130 120 person dist so are you know I'm assuming then either families deciding they have other alternative plans whether in in their house or other outside vendors are we seeing those families come back though as we see more spots open up uh not at this time because we're still carrying a weight l right so technically speaking if they came back they would be on the wait list okay so I don't know that that's necessarily the case but we have seen that as we reach out to families if they have found Alternative Care then they are turning down the position so their need is being n met which we're happy about that um certainly we would hope to serve any family that needs care but at the end of the day as long as they're getting their knee met we're we're pleased with that yeah um question I had and I had emailed you um this and You' said it you could ask a followup I don't know if you'll know this right off the top of your head but you had said that um you assume that if you need afternoon care that you'll need it again the next year yes are you going to make that same assumption with the time change in the morning I mean are you asking families to morning will be a little different next year you're right that um understanding that with the shrinking time frame that the there's likely a number of families that will no longer need us in the morning uh so we won't make as many assumptions there but we won't be wor as worried about Staffing it either as a result right whereas in the afternoon we expect our numbers to increase so that's where we're trying to get ahead of the game find out that information now of how many of those families are out there so that we can start making plans for how are we going to chip away at that total so we would want to encourage families right to sign up yes December 10th so we have an accurate picture of what's needed okay thank you this is great news I mean I it's this is wonderful and thanks to the effort that you and your team it's a lot of work behind this so pass that along thank you thank you all right our next item is calendar for 2627 school year get your popcorn ready good evening chair Sherman members of the board um tonight I'm here to talk about our calendar for the 26 27 school year um this calendar here is very similar to next year's calendar very similar Rhythm um where we are going to start earlier um and get out of school earlier so looking at our calendar we um had a calendar committee the calendar committee has um representation um from parents teachers students District administrators um as well as principles where we um reviewed our our calendar requirements both from the state as well as our contract requirements um analyze some of our input data and our input data is looking at the number of hours number of days that mde requires us to be in session looking at our contract both from the student contact days as well as the employee contract days um looking where holidays fall as well as elections um come into play and then also looking at our assessment calendars um to make sure that we have um school and and time for our academic windows with both MCAS fastbridge AP testing pad Etc um as well as some of the other activity needs that we have we also ran the calendar by our QSC which is our quality steering committee um of our teacher leadership to get their feedback and input here on this calendar that you're going to see just some highlights in terms of some of the calendar how next year's calendar as well as the 26 27 is going to to be a little bit different than the current Rhythm we have um it aligns with the natural breaks um so it's we have end of first quarter is done before mea end of second quarter or first semester is done before winter break um end of third quarter is done before Spring Break and then fourth quarter is done before mea break so kids when they go to those long extended breaks really have time to um relax recharge refocus and get ready to start a new semester a new quarter once they come back from a break and they're not studying or having have um tests or projects to do over those long extended time also just some of the kid Rhythm just looking at you know we're at the end of August kids are ready to go back to school um as they see if they may have older siblings they going back to college also looking at the end of May um you know around that Memorial time that they're ready to be done they're ready for those those summer months also with this calendar it has um more instructional time before we get that spring testing window of the AP and MCAS um it also is has more professional development and staff collaboration time as we have those seven PD days embedded throughout the school year versus the traditional three that we've had in previous years so looking at the calendar if we can get the calendar up we'll take a look right here so I'm just going to kind of go and I know you have the calendar in front of you um I'm just going to kind of go month by month and kind of talk real quickly about those and I'll open up to any questions or comments that you may have so looking in August um Workshop week for teachers is going to be the 10th through the 14th so um if you look at the 10th and you look at the 14th has a circle around it the circle means those are Workshop days for teachers to work in their classroom there are no district meetings those are available for teachers to work in their classrooms and then the Tuesday Wednesday Thursday the 11 12 13 has the sunshine those are professional development days so that Tuesday will be the district welcome back um where Dr Funk will meet at the high school and then that afternoon we'll be individual building welcome back meetings and then the Thursday and Friday will be um PD this is a very similar Rhythm to we had this year this is the first year we kind of um a book end on each end to have that Workshop day for staff and then have the PD in the middle and then talking to teachers they really appreciated just having that day before we met for them to get in the rooms get their things situated and really had them um in a calm more relaxed space to have those districtwide meetings and then they really like that last day before school started to get any last minute kids that may enroll or things to get their room ready before that um next day when students rock and roll so then first day of school is August 17th that again will be just for our sixth grade and our ninth grade um and then the rest of the secondary students will be on the 18th so that'll be 7th 8th grade and then 10 11 12 meanwhile our elementary folks will have Ready set go conferences from Monday through um Wednesday the 17th to 19th and then the first day of elementary school will start August 20th so that's kind of the Rhythm in August looking into September we have the Friday before um Labor day off so there's a 4-day weekend for both our staff and our families we have our first PD day and September 28th that's intentionally there after the fall testing window so provides opportunity both at the elementary and the Middle School level to look at our fast bridge data and have some of those um swim meetings we not pulling teachers away from classrooms and having Subs we can have a PD there to have those conversations on that PD day to start our intervention groups looking into October um the last day of first quarter it' be October 14th which right before mea on the 15th 16th and then um by contract after each quarter and semester there is a grading day so that's what the circle is on October 19th and then 20th is a PD day so that is a little longer extended kind of fall break for families um if they choose to to take advantage of a a few days off then looking at November um the 25th right before Thanksgiving is a PD Day Thanksgiving is the star that's a holiday and then the 27th is off looking at December the last day of second quarter or first semester would be Tuesday December 22nd the 23rd is the grading day and then we henter enter into winter break um from the 24th through January 1st and then coming back on Monday January 4th is the start of third quarter or the start of second semester and then in January um the 18th is a holiday so that's no school for students or staff on U Martin Luther King Day in February President's Day is a professional development day looking into March the last day of third quarter is the fourth with a little asteris bu it and the fifth is a workshop day for our staff spring break would be March 8th to the 12th um March 26 the PD day that is Good Friday looking into April April 9th is a PD day and that's intentionally before that spring testing window happens so looking that next week is typically the week of the 12 12 is MCA reading the week of the 19th is MCA math and then the week of August or April 26 is MCA science so that is right ahead of that um we want to keep those um weeks clean for our MCA testing um and then you look at may there's three weeks before the last day of school will be May 21st and then staff come back for the grading day on the 24th of May so just really high level of each of the months and just opened up to any questions or comments um Eid is on um March 10th over spring break so that's why spring break is intentionally over um that week that was actually because of the E holiday yep so oh yes Dr Petri um so I see that um in the first semester there are 82 um student days and in semester 290 how does that compare with the previous year which should be 2526 so that's very similar to 2526 our current year it's a little more balanced and maybe a day or two off it's closer to as we started to look at you know days and there is a little discrepancy but when you start to look at testing days that happening in the spring um you know there's days that are not um full academic days for MCA testing or AP testing that fall in the afternoon or the the second semester also you have more opportunities for a snow day um in that after in that that second semester so there are more days in second semester but there's also more days that are disrupted to other things going on within our system than there is in first semester okay and I had printed out the 25 26 it's like identical I think the only one it was quarter three has a fewer days than quarter four but I was wondering if that might have been with the spring break and the so we did move y to change where Eid fell and to have spring break fall over that that's where we had to adjust where third quarter ended and fourth quarter started the majority of our um classes K12 are run semester um the only ones that are quarter classes are our sixth and seventh grade wheel at the middle school so there's four classes that are sixth and seventh graders take on the wheel those are the only quarter classes we have in our system so in terms of quarters being unbalanced it isn't a bigger deal than some of the semesters um three days of already set go is that the same as we had the this year this year it's four four um y so we historically have had two for many years um two became four when Co hit um because you had to have a um a session off in between to clean the spaces so You' meet with the family for a block then the next block had to be off to clean the surfaces and those sorts of things before you met and then once those restrictions were lifted um we just kept the four we made it a little bit longer um but we can reduce it to three um and still get the same meaningful conversations we have now okay and then the elementary is actually starting that same week though on Thursday I think wasn't it this year they just started the foll they started the following week and they're intentionally being on Thursday so they kind of get those first two days to get the routines and go through the interactive modeling and the guided discoveries and some of those responsive classroom tenants to kind of get those done that first couple days and then start that following Monday Monday kind of ready on that full week ready to rock and roll okay I also noticed that you get lucky with Halloween being on a Saturday this year uh or or on that year but this year I I have heard from people they really appreciate it having the day after Halloween off November 1st um there were going to be out of sorts anyway that next day so we're doing that next year too or this year change Halloween yeah yes um just an observation um I um am on the legislative committee for the ass assciation of metropolitan school districts and one of the things that's under discussion for um a plank in their platform for this coming uh legislative year is to ask the legislature to allow districts to set their own calendars um um you know some years ago there was a big fight at the state capital between school districts and Resort owners um and the compromise that they came out with was that you know districts were not supposed to start until after Labor Day unless there was a certain amount of construction projects that happened which you know we qualify for that um exemption and we have to get mde to approve it every year so it's all kosher and all that kind of stuff but if you'll notice in this calendar um Labor Day does not fall until September 7th that's really late and a lot of the discussion at our legislative committee but superintendence um was that is really going to create um a mess for our calendar that year students are going to be going like way into June or they're going to have to like cut down on PD days or whatever it might be it's not a great calendar um generally speaking and is another reason why districts ought to be able to set their own calendars so having been a superintendent for many many years years now this happens about every five years this comes up and so typically what the solution is and this is this is what they were likely default to is well for this year we're gonna pass a bill that says districts can start early but we're just going to do it for this year um and so the the challenge is working because you're absolutely right and it's not just the resort owners it's the state fair Lobby um and and so working through that to to really just put the focus on what's best for our kids and you know and if and if it's your local community this is real important well then great then you decide that locally um but but there is a lot of lot of clout when it comes to some of these uh organizations at at the capital so in the crystal ball what I what I would see from what I've seen historically is okay well we'll do a one year um instead of just giving giving Districts The Authority so we'll see what happens but I know we're GNA probably put something in our platform related to that I would just be guessing any other questions so this will be at our next meeting for a vote for the board correct thank you Mark I appreciate it and thank you to the committee who these are this is hard work it looks easy but it's a lot of conversation so saving the best for laugh we've got policy on yes we'll move you first sometime well that's okay no I no I enjoy all the conversation it's EXC it's excellent I really do um so anyway good evening uh members of the board um this evening uh what we're looking at here is a first reading of a new policy for the district it is 802 number it's an msba model policy 802 and it's titled disposition of OBS obsolete equipment and material disposition we could we could substitute disposal uh of that so that's what's really what this policy is really about um it does um have some legal and statutory requirements uh built into it um that would keep the district in compliance uh the purpose uh of the uh policy is to provide guidelines for the superintendent to assist in timely disposition of obsolete equipment and materials and in a broader sense um that the effect effective use of school building space and considerations for safety of personnel will at times require disposal of obsolete equipment and material um it does just through your attention as you look uh maybe a little closer at it in the weeks to come um it really does break down uh nicely um regarding the disposal of equipment at three different levels of cost and there's different um requirements and responses to how that is done those that are over 175,000 those that fall in between a 25 and 175,000 and ones that are $25,000 or less um with each having a little less requirements but it keeps uh keeps everything above board and and in the responsibility of the administration so with that said happy to answer any questions but um we will bring bring this back as first second reading for the uh the meeting on the 26th so this is a new policy that's why it's being brought to you but it's relatively straightforward and has been vetted by staff to make sure that they um it's within the existing processes and procedures that they have so any questions you did say this was model from uh model policy from msba yep yep and it's been vetted through their attorneys yep all right excent all right all right thank you thank you great okay now we have two um action items their resolutions so Jan will be calling for a roll call votes and they're related to uh the school board uh elections that were recent so congratulations Dr hacker re for four years um and then we have um two new members coming on board too so we'll start with these resolutions the first one is canvasing returns of votes of school district election Clerk's certificate um as to abstract and return of votes cast so I'll make a motion to approve this can I get a second second director theander with a second and then Joan roll call please director hacker yes director kenberg yes director lower yes director Petri yes yes director fer yes chair Sherman yes resolution passes unanimously great and then our last resolution is uh authorizing issuance of certificates of general election and directing the school district clerk to perform other election related duties and I will go ahead and make a motion to approve this can I get a second great director lower with the second Joan roll call director hacker yes direct kenberg yes director laow yes director Petri yes director cander yes chair Sherman yes resolution passes un great and there are signatures that Joan needs from everyone um at the board table so if you could follow up with Joan and we're looking forward to having two new members join us so um we'll introduce them at Future meetings but uh with that this meeting is adjourned thank you e