##VIDEO ID:ZCjbaz9iZNg## ate outside and we just asked them a question what can we do to help and that's what started they said there are two things we need help with we need help in the media center at that time it was pretty young staff and books were piling up and kids didn't always have access to the media CER media center and then the other thing is they said you know we're just like everybody else we're trying to get our third graders up to grade level reading and we could use some help so um with the media center being staffed where vessel volunteers are no longer in the media centers for the most part but we have done a kind of a full CT press on helping teachers and students with the reading program and it's been um very rewarding um we uh so it's a coordinated program I um we work to uh provide some instruction to volunteers on work with a kid who's trying to read so we're true to the science of reading we um all have our um depending on what class we're in we generally are in kindergarten first and second grade we do this in third grade and um in 2018 we started out with Stonebridge in Rutherford we had about a dozen volunteers and today uh the last email I sent out to all vess volunteers went to 54 people um we're in six schools and um we're we're this year we're actually now going to be helping children in Spanish Immersion classes we have some volunteers who are fluent in Spanish um we're now getting asked to um uh expand the program into math literacy and we have one volunteer who's already started on that and we're going to uh hopefully expand into that as time goes on so it's a growing program um I just I don't want to get longwinded but I do want to say a few thank yous um my first thank you goes well of course tonight with recognition it's very nice of you to do this um but I first want to rec say thank you to the teachers who invite us into their classrooms it's huge that a teacher says you know what I would like to have you come in and help and I um stood at in the middle of my classroom with my kindergarten teacher last year and com to the end of the year and she said this is just amazing what these kids are doing this year read she said I've never seen scores like this before so it does make a difference to have more hands on that second thank you um to Sky hster the curriculum coordinator she's the one who Shepherds the program from the district level and um it's been just fantastic to work with great ideas and my third thank you and my most heartfelt thank you goes to all these volunteers I've got I think about 20 volunteers back there tonight if it hadn't been Thanksgiving week I think we would have had but um they are fantastic and they give of their time it's a program that we are in the classroom every week um and it's all year uh once we start great and with that I would like give um time for a few volunteers to just give some testimonials and Michelle you want go first [Laughter] [Music] sure microphones okay to hold a microphone so I wrote something because I didn't want to ramble on so I have a one minute thing here um and mine truly is a testimon I'm trying to sell this program because I think everybody should do it um this is my third year with vessel at Anderson Elementary and I love it when I retired from my full-time job a few years ago I knew I wanted to do something meaningful to help children and the vessel program and Dave especially made it easy to do right in my own Community I truly believe that every little bit of time that we spend reading with kids I feel like this is too loud now okay then can you still hear me okay good all right all right um I truly believe that every little bit of time we spend reading with kids helps and we all know how much that is needed right now for that reason and many others I highly recommend joining vessel to anyone who can spare even just one hour a week it will not only help the students do better it will help you feel better I guarantee you will look forward to watching the kiddos light up as they make progress mastering new words or discovering the idiosyncrasies of the English language like all those homonyms you know like write and write and read and read all that and those seemingly useless silent letters but they do figure it out and you will find it especially rewarding because you get to see their confidence grow knowing you played a small part in fostering a lifelong love of reading and the hugs aren't bad either um I'm Kathy Saltzman and I have had two children graduate from the district and as of Friday I have four grandchildren who will be going to school here and this is my third year in vessel you know first you learn to read and then you read to learn and that really sums up the important critical need for students to be able to be proficient in reading and um by by third grade so so early literacy has been really a focus of mine for the past 18 years as the first executive director of the Minnesota reading Corps which I saw in action today um I saw firsthand the impact of implementing effective research-based reading strategies with struggling readers and I also saw that it worked and that is why the vessel program is of such interest to me because for the past two years I've been able to support our teachers who are on the front line of re and and also reinforcing the work that they are doing with our our youngest students and my time with these students is a highlight of my week and today when I was at at at at um Rutherford you know my readers from last year are waving to me you know in the class like you know in the Halls which is really pretty cool um the Sunrise Rotary should be commended and I especially want to acknowledge David because he is coordinating all of us and look at us um to the teachers who put in the the extra effort to put um The Vessel um you know um um incorporate us into their classrooms I just want to say they are rock stars they are doing extra work to have you know lesson plans for us and so thank you and to the community um you know who has stepped forward what a force you are so early literacy is not something that just our schools must address it involves parents and also community and for that I am most most grateful to be part of a community and District that has welcomed all of us into our schools to address such a critical need and I just want to reinforce you will get much more out of this than the students it is just a great experience I'm Paula heer being a volunteer on the vessel program I find to be mutually beneficial which you both said that too I was a high school English teacher and then a psychologist in this district for more than four decades so being able to come back into the district go to Stonebridge and be part of that learning process is so gratifying and it's so gratifying to watch these first and second graders reading Blossom I I can't say more about that but a year ago I had a couple of first graders who were really struggling I mean they were um having to sound out just about every letter of even basic words but they were very persistent and by Christmas it was so much fun to see their confidence growing they were so proud to bring out their little books and read fluently at their level when they came back after Christmas one of those reluctant readers said to me I just love reading and another one said to me I like reading better than my art class so being part of their Learning Journey is just wonderful and I am so pleased that we have this program that you support it and that you recognize it thank you good didn't we get everybody to come on up and we'll stand in front of these chairs hearing something I got pict pict got picture of the either way here it'll prob okay all right hang on hang on you have more coming okay I suppose we should stand up then if she wants to get us too get a screenshot off the camera thank [Applause] you so just out of just to because it is such a successful program so how if you're a Community member watching this do you start with sky or with D do you know I think you if you want you can contact sky or your principal and then they'll get you in contact with Dave and we'll we'll kind of go from there that works actually you can actually go on to the website and um it'll say it'll give my uh email address and the volunteers often times that's how they reach me perfect so they that's how you can do it perfect maybe we can get you some more volunteers quite the testimonial thank you to all of our vessel volunteers thanks for coming everybody yes thank you [Applause] all right um we do not have any public comment tonight so I would like to call this meeting to order Joan roll call director hackard director kenberg here director low here director Petri here director thander here chair Sherman here you have a COR great let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance a pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liy and justice for all all right I will make a motion to approve tonight's meeting agenda can I get a second I'll second great director thinder with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda raise your hand and say I I I opposed agenda past we'll start with our student report today I don't know who's going first but I will be all right all right oh we'll kick um we'll kick things off tonight with just some exciting news from our art program so earlier this month our high school choir hosted their annual Coral Festival to celebrate the fall season and so this event just brought together all of our choirs from grades eight through grade 12 for an evening and beautiful music and each group performed a selection of songs and then join together to perform two Mass pieces we also had our Orchestra program have had their first fall concert it was all grades and from what we can tell it was a very nice start to the concert season and went really well um and then the high school's fall production of A Midsummer Night's Dream has concluded um they performed six shows over two weekends in early November and ay and I were fortunate enough to attend one of the shows and we were just so impressed by the humor and the charm and the creativity they had on display um we all around have really incredible Talent um talented students in our district um and then the Juniors also had a test Drive day where they chose an occupation and had like a life simulation based on that occupation for financial expectations and planning and from what we could tell it was a super eye opening experience and went really well for them yeah and then winter sports have begun so we've got basketball wrestling hockey gymnastics um skiing and then swimming and Diving they're all getting started so we just want to wish them the best of luck on their season this year and finally Ma and I went to the mba's student council school board meeting and that was a super interesting experience because we took a lot away from our progress at Still Water because it it's really eye openening how far we've come as a school district specifically especially in comparison to other schools and what we can expect moving forward so we have for you today great well thank you all right um superintendent Funk so you know keeping with the thema of literacy but district has a new literacy committee that has formed and has met twice and the committee is in the process of reviewing curriculum that has been approved by mde for our elementary literacy program as you're aware as board members the current curriculum we have is not on the approved list by the Department of Education um so we have a third meeting coming up I think in the next week or two and then on January 17th here at Oak Park uh the public will actually have an opportunity to come in and review some of the curricular materials that we're considering and um we can uh get input from them um as well um the other thing speaking of input is um you know I think and I got this actually from the conference you were at that I I got feedback from um we are going to start a student Advisory Group um that I have you know currently I have a community Advisory Group made of of adults in the community um but now we're going to start a student one at the High School that'll beet quarterly so I think we're going to meet in the middle of December I think the 16th is our first meeting and then uh I will be meeting with students in grades 9 through 12 um to discuss things uh that uh might be impacting them that we discuss around this table and it's just another great opportunity for me to get um feedback from a different group of stakeholders so that's it for tonight that um just a followup that January 17th will that be here like for was that Jan to look at the literacy is that January 17th yep here in this okay and the community is invited they are okay we'll s out more formal okay so watching kind of school newsletters more okay great thank you for doing that that's great okay and um for my report I just would like to say I we Katie Hawker and I attended that conference msba conference with you guys and I would concur I mean I think we're doing a lot of things really well um a lot of different schools either are just starting they're um they're board kind of student board reps or they're struggling a little bit I would say that's fair right um and so I think we just really do a good job at including them in in the dialogue and the conversation and that was not from me that was from their their feedback um so it was uh it was good but I do think that the idea that super we shared with superintendent Funk is a good one just to have more voices um in the conversation other than student council reps so I'm excited to hear how that goes for you superintendent Funk that was all we had um so we'll move on to consent agenda is there a motion to approve tonight's consent agenda so moved director Petri and then second director low all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda raise your hand and say I I opposed consent agenda passes and tonight we are um kicking off our cell phone uh policy discussion and with a presentation so I'll turn it over to Carissa ker to make that introduction thank you thank you board chair Sherman superintendent buk and members of the board um as you are well aware there's new legislation from the state that requires all districts to have a cell phone policy in place as a district we have practices we kind of have a process or procedures that we use at the school level but we don't have a formal policy and so tonight um we are going to have a presenter from the phone free schools movement share with us a little bit of information but before I got started and introduced to her I just wanted to rem or remind all of you that it's not just the legislation that we're really concerned about it's student emotional health mental um mental health and wellness that's part of your Pony plan that you've approved that's one of our key initiatives this year is really to focus on social emotional learning and mental health so as we're looking at this it's not just a policy because we have to have a policy it's a opportunity for us as a community to really think about what's best for our kids and put together a plan that is going to meet the needs of our staff our students and our families so I wanted to get that grounding there because I think that's such an important part of what Kim Whitman is going to talk about as well she's the co-founder of the phone free schools movement uh and they spend a lot of time talking to people around the country about how they have implemented these sorts of policies and what they're seeing as a result she has some great information to share with you so I'm going to turn it over to Kim I see her on there and she can present and then um if it's okay to save questions I think that would be easier for her since we're kind of remote but we will definitely have time for questions at the end so with that I'll turn it over to Kim thank you so much Carissa I just want to make sure you can hear me okay we can yes and you can see my screen yes we can great well thank you so much I'm honored to be here presenting to you tonight as CHR said I'm Kim I'm one of the three co-founders of the F schools movement and we are a nonprofit organization I also like to point out that we do do not accept any industry funding therefore we are a truly independent voice uh the phone free schools movement mission is to provide youth the freedom to excel academically and develop socially without the pressures and harms of phones and social media during the school day by removing and personal devices we can create a distraction free environment where students can Thrive both academically and socially for tonight's presentation I'm G to begin by defining the problem then address the solution and finally as Chris has said I will open it up to questions that you may have I have a lot of data and research to share so I'm gonna move kind of quickly through all these slides so again we'll start with how do phones negatively students in school days what we know about phone use by teenagers according to reports by Common Sense Media 97% of students say they use their phone during school hours and on average teens spend 43 minutes of the school day on their phone that 43 minutes is spent mostly on social media YouTube and gaming no surprises there onethird of teens report being exposed to pornography at school 35% of teens admit to using their phone to cheat 65% of students report being distracted by digital devices in class and according to the Pew Research Center 72% of high school teachers say cell phone distraction is a major problem in the in the classroom I wanted to share this significant St study done in 2017 called the brain grain study they found that the mere presence of a cell phone even when it is silence and stored out of sight reduces cognitive capacity they did a study where they had students take a test with the phone on the desk then they had them take the test with the phone in their backpack and then they had them take the test with the phone outside the classroom and they found an a significant Improvement when the phone was removed from the classroom um important this is important when taking tests but they found that was even more crucial when learning a new something new and also on this slide I know you all have the presentation there is a little video that you can watch that summarizes the research from The Brain Drain study moving on to to the ne poll the National Education Association conducted a poll earlier this year um some of the significant uh numbers from that poll one was 83% of members support prohibiting cell phone personal device usage during the entire school day so from first Bell to last bell over 90% of Educators feel students mental health is a serious issue at their school and a majority also say there has been a significant increase and concerns related to student mental health in the past few years and here's why 95% of teenagers are on social media and 40% of 8 to 12y olds teens spend nearly five hours per day on social media platforms according to the American Psychological Association when teens spend more than three hours per day on social media their risk of hormonal Health Devils so they are twice as likely to become depressed or anxious and not surprising we have seen a steep incline in both anxiety and depression since 2010 there has been a staggering 134% increase in teen anxiety and a whopping 106% increase in teen depression another another alarming statistic is the rate of loneliness in school has doubled between 2012 and 2018 this graph does a great job illustrating those stats it is part of a psych of psychologist Jean tangy's extensive research on youth mental health as it relates to digital media it charts the increase in depression self harm and suicide Among Us adolescents this graph is specific to girls the sharp increase that you see is around 2012 which is the Year Facebook bought Instagram and there was a tremendous growth in social media use I believe most of you are aware if not all of you are aware of the book The anxious Generation by Jonathan height which came out in March of this year it discusses how after more than a decade of stability or improvement with mental health and Adolescence it plunged in the early 2010s rates of depression anxiety self harm and suicide Rose sharply more than doubling on most measures as we just saw he explains two reasons for this one we've moved from a play based childhood to a phone based childhood and two we're overprotecting kids in the re real world and under prototec them in the virtual world Hy also describes four Collective action Norms that parents teachers and students can take to end the epidemic of mental illness and restore a healthy childhood number one is no smartphones until at least High School number two is no social media before for the age of 16 number three phonefree schools four more unsup unsupervised play and childhood Independence so schools can play a significant role in educating their Community around these four Norms as well as by implementing the third Norm Pham free schools Dr height serves on our Advisory board at the Pham free schools movement and he helped us develop our foam free school definition that I will share later in the presentation um the mental health epidemic that's happening has also gained the attention of our nation's top doctor in 2023 the US Surgeon General issued an an advisory on social media and youth mental health in that advisory do Murthy States at this time we do not yet have enough evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents again these are the same platforms that on average team spend nearly 5 hours a day and as stated earlier we know that spending over three hours per day on these platforms doubles the risk of poor mental health Dr Murthy continues to sound the alarm in June of this year he wrote an oped for the New York Times calling for social media platforms to have warning labels in that essay he stated schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are ffree experiences schools can be a critical part of the solution for freeing children from The Addictive design of these devices and the harmful social environment they create so what is the hesitation why aren't all schools going phone free some of the common push backs to phone free school policies that we hear are number one parents need to reach their children during the school day so parents may want this convenience but in reality they are disrupting their child's school day by contacting them via their phone it also opens up the door to children responding to the hundreds of other notifications that they are receiving best practice is for the school to have a policy in place where parents can call the main office for staff to communicate necessary messages students would be able to access the phone in the office as well if they need to get a hold of their parents as a whole we must stop prioritizing convenience over these developmental needs of children and children really need a school day with without distractions another push back that we hear often is phones are essential to learning um they are not um with most districts including your own providing School issue devices phones are not necessary in addition schools don't have the ability to monitor personal devices it's much safer for students to do school work on school issue devices that have appropriate content filters also expecting students to utilize their personal phone is an equity issue when teachers expect students to use their phone for assignments it unfairly calls out students that don't have smartphones bottom line if a tool is needed for education then the school should be providing it they shouldn't rely on students personal phones and the most common push back we hear is students need phones for safety but in reality what we know is that students having access to phones can hinder crisis management not help all classrooms are equipped with phones and some districts even have installed um buttons that they can call 911 directly uh because crisis situations is the number one concern we hear from parents I want to address it in Greater detail it is a is a natural instinct I'm a mom to want to reach out to my child during an emergency to know that they're okay we all probably have that that emotional need it's real but more important is that our students are safe so National Security Experts have outlined why phones compromise student safety during emergencies um number one phones distract students when they should be following safety instructions picture a classroom with 25 students all on their phones as a teacher is trying to give them direction do you think they're listening not likely uh the second is if the phone dings or lights up it could alert an intruder to their location students could unknowingly be spreading rumors since they aren't aware of exactly what is happening this actually happened at my kids High School recently someone had a medical emergency on campus and First Responders arrived students saw emergency vehicles and immediately started texting their parents to come get them or there was something going on so rumors ensued parents panicked and it was a an unnecessary Interruption to the school day and that leads to the the fourth concern it could also cause an influx influx of parents to the school which could interfere with evacu evacuation efforts and First Responders even getting to the school and the last is another con the other concern is high call volumes can overwhelm the communication systems and potentially block phone lines so bottom line we want to ensure our students are safe as possible and nothing is interfering with trained staff and emergency Personnel now I'd like to shift gears and um share how to protect students in the school day from cell phone distractions we'll start with the phone free schools movement best practice definition so a phone free school is a school with a first Bell to last bell policy that requires all personal electronic devices to be turned off securely locked away and inaccessible for the entire school day this definition is the culmination of extensive conversations with school administrators who have implemented successful policies teachers who are experiencing the challenges firsthand as well as other experts in the field of education and Child Development again a foam free school is first Bell to last spell meaning the en entire day it also requires a a storage tool um and I want to Define what personal electronic devices means um we're not just talking phones we our definition is broader we include SmartWatches earbud earbuds airpods Fitness tractors Bluetooth connected headphones so anything connected to the internet and we have eted on there because technology is ever changing right who knows what the next thing will be um also I want to point out there are exceptions to to always we want to set policy for the general population but there are exceptions for students with IEPs or 504 plans that require the use of a personal device for example diabetes um if a student needs to monitor their insulin levels with that device so there's always um exceptions to the definition next I want to start by going through some of the storage options the most um effective cost effective solution we have seen seen are um pencil pouches just a zippered pencil pouch that you put your device in um and and put them in these baskets this the first two images are from a school in Washington DC they had it was a middle school with 640 students and so they as they came in they dropped their pencil pouch and the basket for their last hour teacher um administrators then wield those baskets to a secure location in the office and then at the very end of the day they distribute the baskets to each of the last hour teachers and those teachers hand the pouches back to the student when the final Bell of the Day rings this last image on this slide is a school in Ohio that was featured on the Today's Show they have students Place their phone in padded manila envelopes that are arranged in alphabetical order by grade and stored in baskets this slide shows some different locked phone Locker options um the first one what I love about it is it was built by students um it is individual Cubbies that you put individual locks on the second is in Vermont a school just utilized a a mail system that they were no longer utilizing in the mail room and they they put numbers for each each phone and then attached a h door with a pad lock it was that simple they just basically Reus something they had the the third image is of a A system that a parent built and donated to a school another popular option is Yonder which Yonder is a a neoprene pouch that students store their phone in when they enter the school they put it in the pouch and they turn it off first and put it in the pouch they can keep it with them throughout the day as it's locked um we actually recommend that that students keep them in their locker versus in their backpack because of the brain drain study and wanting that removed from the student so at the end of the day um the administrators put out the unlocking mechanisms and they go by and tap their pouch on it it's a magnetic block and it releases it um I know some schools even put unlocking mechanisms on the school buses to ensure that nobody's late getting on the bus and and if they forgot to unlock it they can still unlock it on the bus so this method is um one of the more expensive at around $30 per pouch one of the other benefits of it is Yonder actually helps you with implementation and the whole whole system they come out and they educate the staff as well the following storage options allow access to the phone and therefore they typically do not work long term those three are on the person in their backpack or in the students's personal Locker as we all know devices and platforms are designed to be addictive making it nearly impossible for students to resist checking notifications um the fear of missing out ensures many students will check their phone between classes if not even during class we've also heard from teachers that students request to use the restroom during class and then retrieve their phone from their personal Locker if that's where it's being stored this creates a constant battle between students and their teacher and eventually some teachers will stop fighting that battle bottom line if students can access their phones then many will um and the distractions and negative impacts associated with the phones will still exist during the school day I'd now like to shift to um the benefits of phone free policy so um some schools have implemented instructional time only policies class time only which do have a few benefits they include more engagement in the classroom and focus which lead to improved academics also there is less cheating when students don't have access to their phones in the classroom one of the biggest challenges with a class time M policy is the teacher again Remains the Pham police so students will continue to push back and teachers understandably tired of enforcing it the so the policy is not sustainable additionally if students still have access to phones during passing periods and lunch then they won't experience all the benefits of a Pham free school day so this slide um shows you the comprehensive benefits of a policy from Bell to Bell from first Bell to last Bell so you still get the benefits on the the left the more engagement increased focus and improved academics and less cheating but you also see all of the benefits on the right um developmental development excuse me of social emotional skills so face-to-face engagement among peers improves administrators and teachers share that lunch rooms are loud and more vibrant because students are actually talking to one another which is so important for developing social emotional skills um Mid class absenteeism decreases students don't request to use the restroom as often when they don't have their phones all day attendance improves students can no longer text their parents and claim they aren't doing anything the rest of the day and have them call them out of class one of my own kids tried to do this recently to no avail uh but many students are successful and we all know that um attendance is a huge issue right now National crisis um students get to practice Independence so experiencing independence from their parents in a safe and controlled School environment Fosters a child's self-confidence resilience and problem solving ability which are all needed skills to be successful in adulthood so being Tethered to our parents can actually fuel a cycle of codependency which can increase anxiety uh safety improves many schools report that 75 to 95% of discipline referrals are related to phones and social media drama so with a bell tobell phone free policy discipline referrals decrease significantly that includes cyber bullying physical fights privacy violations and that sort of thing teacher morale and retention improves the burden of having to police bones is removed from the teacher and the teachers report greater job satisfaction and in turn teacher retention improves there are additional benefits in the classroom as well when students have access to cell phones and social media in between classes it is difficult for them to shift gears and focus back to learning for example if during a passing period a student views a troubling text message or sees drama playing out on social media they are not likely to be ready to focus and learn in the following class and finally mental health improves providing students with 6 and a half hours free from their phone and social media is a well- needed break from being on all the time it also allows students to engage with one another face to face which results in happier students that have a greater sense of belonging although we don't have a a lot of hard data and research in the US we do have plenty of anecdotal evidence regarding all day Pham free policies so I'll just run down this list teachers report being ahead of schedule on their lesson plans because they aren't spending time placing phones one District we worked with said teachers are saving five to 10 minutes per class period so that really adds up students are completing classwork and assignments faster students even reported getting an a for the first time in algebra or or whatever class there are more books checked out of the libraries this is one of my favorites one District had four times more books being checked out after the B tobell policy was in place I know when my kid is done with with schoolwork I want them to be reading a book not be on their phone so as I reported earlier lunchrooms and hallways are markedly louder because students are having those face-to-face conversations school counselors are seeing a decrease in the rate of Mental Health visits administrators report spending signicant ific anly less time on discipline referrals peer conflicts are deescalate quicker as social skills improve more after school club participation one District that went Bell to Bell this year shared that they have record numbers of students participating in school activities which is wonderful teachers have more job satisfaction because they are doing what they love instead of leasing phones this re results in improved teacher retention I also want to share this recent study out of Norway they found that post Pham free ban at 46% of girls and 43% of boys experienced a reduction in bullying so almost half also girls from lower socioeconomic backgrounds saw the greatest benefits with reduced visits for mental health care as well as an improvement in grades I believe you all know that our organization has put together a Pham free schools administrator toolkit it's designed to help administrators engage all stakeholders minimize push back and facilitate a smooth transition to a Pham free environment um this is available on our website for free and with that I'm happy to stand for any questions you may have thank you so much Kim board we'll open it up for questions yes superintendent Funk hi this is Mike Funk I'm the superintendent thank you very much Kim for the presentation that you provided us uh fascinating we haven't seen the slides yet but uh we we'll make sure we get them to the board um one of the uh questions I've got as an educator you know one of the things that we often hear is our our role is to prepare students for the future so when we go to a phonefree environment in the schools how does that impact you know the the people who say well we should be teaching kids about digital citizenship Etc like that what are your thoughts on that well I agree that you the schools should be teaching kids about digital citizenship but you can educate without access you can just like with drugs we educate for drug free students but we don't provide them the drugs right so we can still educate with without giving them access to phones during the day okay and then the other question I think this is more of a maybe a national or Global question but you know in Minnesota here we are required to have a policy in place by I think March 15th are many districts going phone free or they kind of you know the Bell to Bell as you described or are they kind of go in the well don't have it out in class um what what are you seeing from from your persp perspective so we spent an entire year talking to administrators on their policies the different policies and there is a mix for sure some are going with class time only policies some have decided that those half measures don't work and they they want to be bold and really experience all the benefits and go with a all day phone policy what we found when talking to all those folks was that the administrators the schools that had the all day policies were having the most success that the the class time only policies they just weren't as successful or as lasting or sustainable I don't know if you know but Florida was the first state to implement a law regarding phones and their law was for class time only I recently spoke at a conference a National Education conference with the speaker of the Florida house who who said his one regret he just termed out his one regret in office was that he didn't do a b tobell policy and therefore um his hope is that others will do that in 2025 and I know a lot of states are talking about it thank you any other questions yep director kelzenberg I have a few questions I'll start with one here so you know if you went Bell to Bell I think the concept is real easy no no phones but I think the implementation might be a more of a challenge kids can be clever you know they'll get an old phone turn that in let's edit this out of this uh comment when I'm done and keep their uh keep their good phones um they'll keep another one in their pocket uh but it comes down to enforcement and how that might not be a question for you but for us or whatever is how do you enforce it how do we back up the teachers they're going to take a phone away do we support them in that um any comments there completely agree with you it comes down to enforcement which is why we actually see an improvement in Bell to Bell because um when you have a class time only policy every teacher might have a different way of handling it but when you have a bell tobell with administrators supporting them it seems um to be more effective I know some schools um immediately call an administrator when they see a phone out and an administrator comes and gets the phone and that eliminates any push back or um discomfort for the teacher I know other schools where they just um have the student place the phone on the teacher's desk until they can take it to the office so there's different methods but you can't just have the Bell tobell policy without having pretty strict consequences to back it up um so the the number one thing is there there aren't warnings that the phone has to be removed you can't just keep asking them to put it away that doesn't work so typically what we recommend is are three three consequences the first being the phone is taken away and the student um has to get it from the office at the end of the school day the second consequence that a lot of schools do is again the phone's taken away and moved to the office and then the parent has to pick it up at the end of the day and the third offense would be all of the all of the above and then a a meeting with um the students the parents and the administrator to to formulate a plan and some some schools then require that that phone be taken every day to the office or that that student can't even bring the phone to school to address that some will be clever and use an old phone or what have you I'm told that happens but it's it's a small percent so it's like 5% and so if 95% of the school is following following the rules then then students don't have a fear of missing out because the majority of the school isn't on social media or isn't texting or planning fights right that way and if they have it out it still gets taken away so you have to have that strong uh policy with consequences supporting it let me ask a followup on that one then everybody else is going to have a lot of other questions but uh you talk to teachers and they'll be looking at the classroom and when the kid's on the phone he's not like this on the phone it's down here so you don't actually see it and then if the teacher walks over there he puts it in his pocket now you can't really check him I I I think the bigger issue is going to be um enforcement I guess I'm seeing that a second time now but um me will end up talking about that is how do you actually enforce it realistically so thanks this is why we advocate for a storage tool um because that does present how does a teacher control 25 plus students how does how does he or she see um sneaky students right on their phones so that's why a storage tool really does make enforcement easier because just once a day you're requiring the students to to put the phone in that storage tool and hopefully um frees them up from that urge and that uh need to be on it because it is actually removed from them thank you great um we'll go director petrier thank you for this presentation um can you give us a little bit more background on your organization um I heard you say that you're not I'm not familiar with it at all um I heard you say that you're a nonprofit where are you based and how long have you been operating well there's three co-founders as I said we're all three moms we have eight kids between us I'm located in Kansas City the other two co-founders are in Pennsylvania and our board Advisory Board is from all over the nation it ranges from Jonathan height to Dr John Hutton who has done brain research on screen time with young children uh we have a psychiatrist Dr Stacy in in Arkansas we have a an attorney um in Seattle that's with the social media victims Law Center and then we also have a superintendent a principal and a teacher and a student on our Advisory Board we um started almost two years ago and officially didn't become a nonprofit until uh the end of 2023 so we haven't been around long we at the time our oldest children were 16 and we wanted um a better school environment for not only our kids but all kids and what we have seen in that short amount of time especially with the book The anxious generation coming coming out um is a huge swing and more and more schools moving uh to phone- free policies and we really feel like sooner sooner than later um if you don't have a Pham free policy then you're you're GNA be behind um just a follow-up question so um since you have been monitoring this situation um how many states or or I'm I'm not even sure how you measure it how many states how many school districts have policies like this um it's sounds like this is a very new um development is that true I mean what can you tell us about just the the overall landscape I I would agree we're seeing a shift when we started this we called the 50 largest school districts in the nation to find out which districts had all day Pham free policies and what we were told is we had to call each individual school that was in the the summer of 23 the big districts didn't didn't have policies and a year later in the summer of 24 we saw lots of districts putting in place policies to be honest it's really hard we're we're trying but to um to make a spreadsheet of all those districts because it's helpful to know but what we find is a lot of the media likes to present schools as phone free but then when you dive in it might be a class time only policy it doesn't actually meet our definition um I did just see there was some research that said 30 States in 20204 um attempted some sort of legislation and I think it was only 12 that had different types of legislation in PL in place it might be um that a the districts have to have a policy similar to Minnesota right so it's it's all all varying degrees I did just go to the National Summit on education uh two weeks ago and there were several states there and they were all talking about introducing legislation in 2025 so again the the needle is moving quickly and so it sounds like also that since this is so new we don't necessarily have a lot of um assessment true assessment about how this is all going I mean it it certainly sounds like it's the right direction ction for students um um and I'm reading the anxious generation right now so but um but in terms of actual hard data you probably don't have a lot of that at this point if things were just getting cook in in 23 right that's correct it's mostly anecdotal evidence we are partnering with the with UNC and they are doing research this year and all schools are open if they want to to apply to be a part of that research study so their their hope is at the end of this school year we will have some hard data that you're asking about because it's true there's very little hard data but a lot of schools are just reporting all of the benefits and we're we're we're working again with UNCC to have that hard data okay thank you charger thander yes uh thank you again for your time and uh advocacy around this um you know you know this challenging and complex issue so it's great to have you here tonight um you know obviously as a public school we're in the education business um and it takes a whole Community uh to be able to have something be effective you know what types of tools and approaches have you seen that uh work in terms of helping to educate families to make sure there's the buying at the household level so that they can be you know better partners with the schools and the teachers um to enforce these types of policies what type of experience have you had with that so far well I want to thank you for that question because I completely agree engaging the community is essential in the success of the policy because it a huge part of it is educating the stakeholders and the anxious generation is really number one on um the number one book we see that districts will will share they'll host book discussions they'll get ptas involved to to help um educ families on the research we also recommend you'll see in our administrator toolkit there's a roll out timeline so we recommend um a couple months where you actually engage all stakeholders and you host informational meetings and we find it's very important um for schools to not only share the research and the reason why but to share what's going wrong and what are the problems that you're seeing in the schools because I think sometimes parents parents can get shortsighted and and be very focused on just wanting that contact with their kid right that convenience factor to be able to coordinate dinner or what have you after school activities so they they kind of lose sight of the bigger picture that not only um when the kids have access to their phones or they not having that communication with their parents but with the other 237 notifications they receive during that day right so education is key and hosting those um Gatherings whether it be around the anxious generation I don't know if you guys are also familiar with the the documentary The the social dilemma that's a a documentary that's really good to to have schools host a presentation of that documentary uh childhood 2.0 is another documentary more for older students and families to share those would be a couple suggestions I hope that helps yeah and so um one of the things you mentioned in terms of um you know there was some things that would be restricted you know one things that would be allowed would be school issue devices so for example um you know still water provides Chromebooks uh from sixth grade and and older um and Jonathan height in in his book which is fascinating and eye opening to say the least um you know he kind of talks about the doping hits and be able to scroll and you know and so part of like well uh the Chromebooks are owned by Google Google has YouTube how do you take YouTube off the Chromebook which is to me I found it to be impossible so you know there's still access to these things even on school issue devices how do we work around some of these techn you know technology challenges due to you know you have these companies that are trying to do what's in their best interest and schools and families are trying to do what's in their own best interest that is a great question and I do believe the next step you know removing phones isn't the only solution there it's part of the solution so addressing um different access points whether it be websites or communication chats via School issue devices is a concern as well I do actually do know a district or two that have um blocked YouTube it is possible my understanding is it is possible and I'm I'm thankful that you're asking that question because it's not as simple as getting rid of the phones you do have to take look at the next layer and that's what happens on the district devices as well yes we have um Kim just so you know I don't know if you were listening to our meeting earlier we have two students that are on our school board so one of the students here has a question um first of all I appreciate you presenting all this information and like the benefits and takeaways of not having phones um one concern I have in regards that might be more specific to our school specifically um is how PSO students and seniors with senior Alex would check out their phone if we did Bell to Bell because they would have a period of so I don't know how they would necessarily go to check it out if they had a designated place for advisory or how that would operate um but also I like the idea of having a beginning and end place to put your phone specifically and then that could also be used as like a Communication Center like an advisory class for what's going on around the school and different updates that are happening but I can share what I've seen in other schools and then if if somebody else wants to address your District specifically but in schools that utilize Yonder which I should add that I know at least 2,000 districts in in the United States do use Yonder pouches um they they have mobile unlocking devices so there's always an unlocking device in the office so if a student is leaving for an elective class off campus they when they check out of the office they can unlock that pouch there and then when they check back in they go through the office and lock it back up and and that is also why um a lot of districts do decide to store secure the phones in the office area for students that are are leaving throughout the school day thank you um and I it's I'm glad that we have a couple students here because um we talk about buyin and I think the the community that we need the most Buy in from are our students I hate the idea of this being a policy that is forced on students but to get that buy in is something I would hope to achieve as a school board and as a community um is there anything different besides I know you mentioned like the book club or the screening of a video is there anything else specifically to educate students that you have seen best practices on well I think the number one is including them in the conversation which it sounds like you guys are already doing I love to that students are here and and hearing their feedback tonight is positive so getting that by and and and offering those experiences you know um a lot of seniors are were born the year the iPhone came out in 2007 so current seniors they that's all they've known right so a lot haven't even had that experience of of a Pham free couple hours let alone a whole school day so um we have found that there's usually a couple weeks transition but after the two to three weeks of the policy even students are admitting that um their focus has improved and they're getting more out of class and and they aren't as distracted and they're engaged more so including them in all those pre-con conversations is is key and and I think the social dilemma speaks to a lot of teenagers I know I showed it to my own children when they were probably a middle school age and it it really had an impact understanding you know that these platforms are designed to addict you right and that um they make money off of our time and attention so I know that a lot of students resonate with that when they realize that that's what's happening they aren't really built for social connection like we assume and we did just recently go through a strategic planning process and I think we heard a lot from our students about bullying disconnection loneliness um things that are we're trying to kind of fix so I do think that there are students that would probably Embrace this I'm curious to ask the two students that we have here to put you guys on the spot yeah um what are your thoughts hearing this or if it's yeah um I think our school would really benefit from this I know I think it'd be a hard transition I think a lot of students would push back because obviously they want to have their phone during the school day but I think our students would really benefit from this and we have a large school a lots of things going on and I think it's something that we need to have so that's my personal opinion yeah I agree I think that the benefits definitely outweigh what's going on right now but I do think it needs to be promoted and Mark like advertised to the student body in a positive light instead of like we're taking away something from you because students are then going to push back and then find other ways to maneuver like having a burner phone and then checking that in so as long as you are having students advocate for this and having resources that show that students are supporting this idea instead of adults who haven't had an education with cell phones it doesn't students aren't going to listen if you're like you are going to benefit from this because I had this education you need to have other students who have dealt with this policy to advocate for it so then it's more like a band wig and join this idea if that makes sense that makes perfect sense I love hearing that I think um students are the best Advocates right so you have two in the room right now that would be tremendous advocates for the for the new policy and the terminology is is huge I agree with that that's why we are the phone free schools movement and not the phone ban schools movement right so keeping it positive and some students might may think they're being punished but really we're protecting students and we're protecting the school day so that that's the terminology that we like to use great Dr Petri so it seems as though uh phone free school is just one aspect of trying to get control of the um the technology environment that students are in these days and I noticed that you mentioned earlier that you also recommend things like uh or maybe it isn't you but someone was recommending um no social media for students before the age of 16 so I'm just wondering since you sort of keep your um fingers on the pulse of what schools are doing Nation are there any schools or districts that are taking a more um wide ranging approach to this and and instead of just dealing with the phones in the schools they're they also have gotten Buy in from the parents in the community to experiment with the whole idea of no social media until the age of 16 is anybody doing that and if so what what are the what are what are we hearing about what they're doing I think there's lots movement in that area I'm I'm also a part of this smartphone free childhood movement it started in the UK and it it grew phenomenally just quickly overnight it expounded um exponentially and that was I want to say maybe a year ago and it is now expanded into I believe 75 different countries so the US has um a smartphone free childhood branch that you can find online and they have Advocates all over the us that are trying to get parents to buy in to those four Norms that Jonathan height recommends the no smartphone until at least High School no social media until at least 16 he will tell you that research says 18 but he's trying to make people where they're at there a little bit and be realistic um phone free schools and more independent play or the four so smartphone free childhood is a great resource also if you've heard of the wait until 8th pledge it started I believe in 2017 and um their pledge which has I think close to 100,000 parents across the US um if if 10 parents pledge to wait until the end of 8th grade um at least till the end of eth grade to give their child a phone once there's 10 parents and in the grade level that sign that pledge then you're notified so you can act together as a as a community right it's much easier to make these changes as Jonathan height says as a collective action right it's really hard just ask my kids who are 15 and 17 who don't have social media it is really hard to be in the 5% that don't have social media so um it if there's a way to activate parents around those pledges green strong is another organization that has a great podcast um for for parents that talks about waiting until 18 to get a smartphone so there are lots of nonprofits out there that you can tap into um if you want to activate your community thank you yeah so uh if you want to stop a thief you got to think like a thief and I'm trying to think like a student here and um I'm I'm see it as a moving Target so I mean I I like the concept but I'm thinking of the implementation and um so you lock out YouTube today there's going to be workaround tomorrow especially from the young guys who if I need T help I find somebody younger than me not somebody older than me and um and the phones are an addiction so you know if you're starting this in third grade yeah that might be easier but somebody who's a sophomore junior senior right now now they're addicted to their phones and we're taking that away and now we're dealing with an addiction uh thing and uh that's where I see the challenge is implementation of this like my earlier question ped I'll answer that sure it's a lot easier if we say no phones then if we say okay can't have them in your classroom if the district says no phones then the administration is saying no phones they're telling parents no phones and then we deal with the isolated pieces that that pop out of that but if we go with an approach that is well you can have it from here to here but not here then it puts the onus back on the teacher and it it becomes much more uh of a challenging uh environment to enforce so I think if we if again this is going to be your call as a board but um the simple the most simple approach to do it is the one that we're going to be able to be consistent on can I add one thing too since you're using the word Addiction think about the other things that we're addicted to and alcoholic we don't expect an Al alcoholic to go into a bar and not have a drink right in all other conditions a drug addict we they don't carry drugs in their pocket and you can't expect them not to do those drugs right so why do we expect students with don't have fully developed brains to be able to resist that that error to check their phone so that full removal I agree is is the best solution one of my and I know this is just our first discussion so there's a lot of details in conversation to have but one of my um one something I would like to explore would be cost because if we you know if we did those lock devices you know where would that where would that money come from do we need more staff if students don't have phones um do we need more um receptionists or you know office employees that are taking messages for parents who might be calling in or you know so I think there's maybe unintended um costs that could be involved here um Bo I think of our some of our schools that don't even have an assistant principal and we're hearing sometimes that they're already dealing with a lot of Behavior when they want to be doing instructional I mean I know it's a it's an investment for the long term because they'll eventually get to more instructional work but just some of those things that I appreciate you bringing up those other things I do just want to add I don't know any schools that have had to add staff they have found that just that staff are happy to help monitor in the morning right as as students lock up their phones and help at the end if they don't have to deal with the phones all day I will say that um it's helpful to talk with another school that's already been through the process so we we work closely the Richardson Independent School District in Texas the superintendent is on our Advisory Board and I just had their one of their High School principls present to another district and they did a phenomenal job explaining how it all works their High School I believe has 2600 students so very similar size to yours so that might be a great way to talk through all of the other ramifications if there are any other items you need to address they would be a great resource um to our students I mean I would love to get your input and so not putting you on the spot because we're just kicking this off but um you know what are those methods to best reach students maybe if you guys could put some thought into like how we can craft a meth because I mean I think we all can understand how important this is but I really want it to seem like we're doing this for you not to you and we're trying to help not hurt you know and so I do think that this is an important conversation to have and to include our students and I'm sure it'll come up in your student advisory meeting that's coming up so you know Andrew and I were just just talking I think a real key component of this and this is why we're approaching this in this manner is our wider Community because if Johnny has a cell phone in class and okay we tell Johnny your parent now it's the second time your parent has to come pick it up and if the parent is not supporting that yep that becomes a bigger issue for for the school and for the community so it's it's really I I think Inc combing upon us to educate our community and that's part of what tonight is on um you know the impacts of the the cell phones on our kids and kind of the why is we're looking at different ways of addressing this issue so but I I really think students is absolutely they're crucial but I I also think families in the wider Community is as well I agree with you I I think that families are crucial in supporting this because this is goes beyond the schools I mean it really hopefully changes Minds at home too I mean if we can educate people properly and get their engagement um I totally agree with you I wonder too one of my thoughts was you know when you were talking about the school safety because that's probably the number one thing I've heard right now is I need to be able to get you know there's unfortunately a lot of um you know just a lot of violence in schools and I need to be able to reach my child and I don't know if I'm you know comfortable not being able to reach my child when I need to reach them and so I wonder if maybe our SRO officers we have a really good relationship with them could speak locally to May to some of the anecdotal evidence that you shared here tonight Kim just about like how it jams Communications how it spreads false information I do think that safety concern is something that's Paramount with parents right now that I'm hearing from I think in general I'm hearing a lot of support in the community but I think it's out you know really identifying what our expectations are in how that support looks if you're a family member because you're right Dr frunk if someone gets a call that says come pick up your students phone that's not going to be a great phone call to make um you know and so is that parent going to be as happy when they're getting that phone call to come and pick up that phone great any other questions yeah um I do think as in for the advertisement of how to promote it I think using long-term benefits of students like how they're going to benefit this from the how they're going to benefit from this in the future like how their education is going to develop and progress better and how they're going to develop more social skills specifically with more social interaction between teachers and students and then also using hard data and statistics I think would really be this is the evidence and this is where it's going to get you if you follow this and so they'll see more benefit than negative takeaway if I could piggyback on that I Know A District who is using the campaign message less media more social so they they've created all kinds of graphics and um and social media posts and such to their families to to focus on that messaging so we shouldn't probably use social media to promote it was you'd have to be here for our for our conversation last year our student reps were talking about how they were using more social media to get the word out so with student we don't recommend it with students great well thank you so much Kim for coming and talking into the group and um and I'm sure you may get followup questions from Carissa as well so thank you absolutely I appreciate your time and I'm I'm grateful that your district is taking a thoughtful approach well thank you for all your work in advocacy in this area it's it's important an important role so thank you take care thank you and before we move on I do have a couple just next steps to update you on what happens next so tonight was really the kickoff of a larger campaign for our community so this was an opportunity for people to understand the why of um this whole conversation so we are going to be launching um actually it went live at 5 o'clock tonight a community thought exchange we're inviting our community to go on to our website um that's actually the next slide Joan if you want to click to that for me real quick and you can join the conversation about this you can scan that QR code to go to our web page and there's a thought exchange process which lets people weigh in with what are their um thoughts or concerns or questions about this what are the main things we need to be thinking about as decision makers as we work on a policy so I'm sure we will hear things like safety but there might be a lot of other things we don't know of that people are going to bring forward so this information coming from our community community will be really helpful in addition we're going to be surveying students so we are planning uh in December after Thanksgiving break when we come back all of our middle school and high school students will have the opportunity to take part in a survey and that survey for students is designed to get a feel for kind of how they're using their phones in school right now getting some of that data for us and then um getting some feedback on what are their questions or concerns if we were to implement a policy we're also going to be asking our staff to complete a survey and that's going to give us a feel for what are what are the common issues they're already having because we do have uh it's not an official policy but all of our schools have some sort of rules about cell phone use so we've been trying to do this so we can get some feedback on what's really working what are the obstacles what are the hindrances what do things look like for you are we going to educate before we survey there's a littleit of information that we are providing ahead of time but not particularly the students is what I'm we can certainly try to do that I mean what I have right now is a little bit of basic information about it I think we can certainly work on maybe pulling out some of the facts and things that we heard from tonight's presentation and have that as kind of an introduction to the survey before it's launched um I think that'd be important yep definitely and then Joan if you go backwards um this is our overall timeline so we do have to make a decision by March on a policy um but then we have until fall of 25 to implement and that's really where we can spend a lot of time coming up with all of the what are the what are the consequences going to be how are we going to implement this what is that going to look like and then the education piece too I've had some conversations already with our community ed team about getting a community book club around the anxious generation I met yesterday with our uh PTO leaders to talk about this and see what kind of things maybe at a PTO level we could do so we can share some of these resources that Kim gave us tonight of some of these other um convers ations the wait until 8th pledge or the smartphone free childhood things to see if our community wants to get involved in this I do have exciting news that the partnership plan has approved a grant for next fall for us to bring in a national speaker to talk to all of our middle school students about social media mental health the impact of having their devices and social media on them Middle School is really that critical age in development where kids are getting addicted and not really having the um developmental ability to to pull themselves away from that and really getting sucked into things that we we don't want them to be in so I think that's a really great opportunity for us to kick this off with the why for our kids as they're coming into a new school year with a new policy to have that um happen I think is great so we look forward to that and our very appreciative to the partnership plan it's a big grant that we asked and it really supports mental health initiative so those are some of the things in the works we certainly have a lot more we Le today that we can be working on but our goal is to get a lot of feedback from the community to help us in drafting that policy and for us to be able to thoughtfully put together a plan for implementation before fall is it ever possible to um screen show like that social Dilemma to have something even at the high school or for kids yeah I'm looking into it so I have looked into some of those they do have some costs associated with them because they're copyrighted films so we'd um probably have to look for some granting opportunities but they're definitely okay I'd be curious on those cost I've heard really good things about that I had a conversation this morning with our middle School principles who are also very interested in bringing someone to talk to parents just about how they can actually lock down some of the devices at home too um she talked about it a little bit but in the anxious generation they talk about how we don't a lot of parents just don't know how they can lock down some of these things to keep their kids safe at home when they're online um there's a lot of great tools out there and so just being able to provide some of that for families is something they've been asking for too um we're certainly not drawing on a blank slate right now so there must be a rule currently in place at stowater middle Oakland middle and the high school yep are they the same are they different do we have any kind of feedback right now from what one principal likes versus the other or that's what we've we've started to gather I mean I think to to Dr funk's point before we do have a policy or practice in place at the schools that you're not supposed to have your phones out during um class time however different teachers use that in different ways some teachers are you know collecting phones at the door and putting them in a basket are having them on a door hanging up and others are just saying don't let me see it and others are just like yeah pull your phones out you know if you have a break you can go ahead and use them so it's just kind of been a however teachers want to handle it right now um at the middle school I think it's also they can have them during hallway passing time and at lunch um and at the elementary schools they're not supposed to be having phones but it it varies you can walk into a classroom in any building and see something completely different going on I'm sure you guys see that Yeahs will tonight's presentation be online too uh yeah yes so this is live it's going to be archived we're planning to pull out that portion of the video and share it in the newsletters um next week because it's a short week this week but next week prob L it will be set up similar to the starttime conversation where it'll yes so if you go to that um page if you go ahead again um that QR Code by tomorrow sometime tomorrow we'll have the video posted we won't be able to get up tonight but by tomorrow we'll have that posted so you can watch the video right there on this page okay and I'm assuming with the thought Exchange teachers and students could participate in that now they can participate in that now yes and then they'll also have the opportunity to do the survey um after a Thanksgiving break any other questions or comments I think for me just the one thing that I want to make it very clear and I felt like we did that with start times I'm just going to bring this up we're not um we're pro we want information back for people right we fully aware that there are going to be people that reply to this and in support and many opposed um we're not deferring the board's decision to thought exchange or to an unscientific you know survey or capturing that information because we do the best we can but it's all optional this is not this is not scientific data that we're getting and I think the important thing to note with this one is we have to have some sort of policy so what we're looking for from our community right now is tell us what you need us to be thinking about as we're developing this process what are the concerns or questions you have we're not asking people do you like this idea yes or no we're really asking them help us develop a policy that's going to meet our needs so give us the The Good the Bad the Ugly about what we we need to think about as we're putting together and I just want to make that clear because it is it's hard it's confusing people are ask their opinions and they think that that's going to be the position that carries the day and there you know there's the board makes those decisions and we want to be very transparent and inclusive that was something that I know is important to our staff and important to this board and with that you know can leave some difficult feelings so but the flip side of that is what I would say the vast majority of the school districts in the state are doing is they're just okay here's our new policy boom so I I'm not aware of another school district that is having this conversation with their community on it so I I think that's this kudos to the board for for taking this approach I think I and thank you for doing this and I I'm excited to see where this goes and how we can um educate families and students and and really have that exchange of how they're using it now and the negative impacts I mean I talk to and I'm sure everyone on the board and our teachers and staff there are there is bullying that goes on there is loneliness and we have the data that shows the depression and so I think there's definitely a link to look at so thank you I'm excited for this well I plan to be back in January to share you with you some of the results of the research We Gather um prior to winter break great thank you thank you all right all right now we're up for policy report on um policy 802 a second read yes uh good evening chair Sherman and members of the board um we're going to stick with our policies and um it's nice seeing you a little bit earlier in the meeting tonight um so with that with that we are we are we are here for the second reading of policy 802 which is the disposition of obsolete equipment and material as we reviewed at the last board meeting uh this is a new policy uh for the district and it does uh contain statutory requirements um for the district um again the overall purpose of the policy is to provide guidelines for the superintendent to assist in timely disposition of obsolete equipment and material so I've I've not received any uh additional feedback um from from the community regarding this at this time I'm so shocked it's a compelling policy I'm surprised public comment wasn't flooded um were there any other comments on policy 802 if not we will go ahead and move this to an action item this evening and I will go ahead and make a motion to approve policy 802 can I get a second director low with the second all those in favor of approving the policy before us tonight 802 raise your hand and say I I I opposed policy pass thank you thank you all right and our next item is school board meeting dates so um I have heard from a couple people on some individual conflicts um and that that does happen so um but the one thing I wanted to talk about on this is right now we are meeting at six o'clock and we are doing that um we had a former director um poor Benny had some work conflicts she was coming from the cities it was just really hard for her to make a 5:30 start time and we were hoping to perhaps revisit that and move it to 5:30 as a start time for our meetings is anyone does that a problem for anyone I don't know if if you guys at 5:30 would work for me it there's not a conflict I know director Hawker um I spoke to her knowing she wasn't going to be here there's no conflict for her she would um prefer meeting earlier in fact um so I think that that's one thing we're going to change if we're all okay with that 5:30 5:30 great I think it just um and you can feel free to say how it benefits staff but I think it's just we have a lot of of staff that works all day and then they're stuck here with this window here um before we meet at six o'clock so it can go a little later than we would like okay any other comments on the calendar Tuesdays still yep Tuesday still all the dates on there um if you have an individual conflict let me know and we can work around it um it's always helpful to know in advance so great is there a motion to approve motion great director kenberg makes the motion as there a second call second okay director thander with a second all those in favor of approving the calendar raise your hand and say I I I opposed calendar passes okay welcome so now we're talking about the calendar proposal for the school year 2627 not to be confused with the board meeting calendar and welcome Mark good evening chair Sherman members of the board at the last meeting I went over the proposed 2627 school year um calendar kind of went month by month day by day of all the different days off and now we're here looking for action for this calendar so I'll be here to answer any questions or comments you may have since the last meeting great any comments or questions I will go ahead and make a motion uh to approve the calendar is there a second second okay director kelzenberg with a second again any questions for for Mark seeing none all those in favor of approving the 26 27 school year calendar raise your hand say I I I opposed motion passes thank you okay now we're moving on to a report this is the first time we're seeing this it's for the Stillwater area high school course proposals and Rob Bach is the speaker not Kayla I say that was hey Rob and Rachel Rachel got the tall chair and I got the low one I'm not sure how that worked out good evening uh chair Sherman members of the boards Dr Funk um thank you for having us I'm Rob Bach principal at the high school and I'm here with Rachel style give Rachel a minute to introduce herself everybody thanks for having us Rachel style Pathways coordinator and journalism teacher at the high school yeah as you said uh Caitlyn Willis was actually on the agenda tonight but apparently called in the B team so I'm sorry that get to get to deal with the subs um we're here to talk with you about some new course proposals for Stillwater area high school going into next year um this is a great opportunity to talk um I think the last time that I was here was probably a little over a month or so ago uh and I spoke to the board about our proposed schedule change as you know we've been in heavy discussions around switching our schedule from a six period Day to a block schedule and we were on target to proceed with that thinking we kind of went into this school year thinking that that transition would take place starting at the start of next school year and so we began a lot of work in Earnest over the summer to prepare for that one of the pieces that we were doing was looking at a number of new courses we KN we know that as part of that transition we're going to need additional courses to round out a block schedule and so our teachers started um working in erest to develop some of those new courses um as we come before for you today obviously as you know we've elected to delay the transition to the block schedule by one year and one of the other opportunities that that kind of presents for us is the ability to stagger out some of the new course proposals that we've been talking about and that we have developed this is um potentially a positive change for us because it allows us to not necessarily put all of our new courses into the basket for the next year we know that there's going to be some transition there are costs associated with new es um this allows us again to kind of stagger that over the the course of two years and what Rachel and I are going to talk with you about tonight is um kind of represents a bit of a philosophical shift um we noticed and have been tracking but in particular over the course of about the past four years so probably coinciding with right around the time that we were going through covid we have noticed a pretty precipitous drop in the number of students that are signing up for AP courses at the high school conversely we have also in noticed an increase in the number of students that uh are enrolling in PSO and just again for people that may be watching and may not be quite as familiar Advanced PL AP stands for advanced placement um they are very rigorous courses and the one of the primary draws in addition to just providing uh a rigorous educational experience one of the draws for students and families is the idea that students have the potential to earn college credit at the end of the course the way it works for AP is you go all the way through the course and then um there's an end of course comprehensive culminating examination if students score satisfactorily high enough on the course that can potentially translate to college credit depends on the college they want to go to different schools will have different standards for for what they'll allow to to transfer in but the bottom line is that's one of the primary draws for students and uh families PS o stands for post-secondary enrollment option and in PSO students leave Stillwater area high school and they go to become college students they get high school credit at the same time they're doing it but they're no longer in our building um they're going out and so some students might go to the University of Minnesota some students might go to bethl some students might go to Century College but um schools the the numbers issue that we are seeing at Still Water High School are not specific to Stillwater area high school these are numbers that are being seen everywhere and in particular across the the state um in Minnesota and post-secondary enrollment is um turning into a little bit of the the wild west and so part of what we're talking about today um represents a shift for how to try to counter that a little bit and most of the courses that we're going to talk with you about today are proposals along the lines of what we call concurrent enrollment and what we believe is we believe that this has the potential to offer kind of The Best of Both Worlds the the college credit um that is attractive to students attractive to families and represents absolutely a pathway to equity for us and and for our students um is part of what's built into the course in other words in a concurrent enrollment course the student doesn't have to wait all the way to the end of the course and take a high stakes high pressure your exam and see whether or not they pass or whether or not they get a satisfactory score to get the college credit in a concurrent enrollment class if a student successfully completes the course they are granted college credit um what we believe again is that selfishly um or arrogantly however you want to put it we believe quite honestly that our education system is better our teachers are better and if our kids stick around here in school they're going to get a a better educational experience by being exposed to our teachers so we would rather figure out ways to get kids the college credit again not have to put all of their eggs into the basket of a high stakes exam um but do that and then also keep our kids here in school so that they're not leaving to to go off um that requires an awful lot of work and I'm going to let Rachel talk a little bit about um some of the steps that our staff has taken to do that because certainly we can't just Grant college credit willy-nilly there's a number of steps that have to to take place to make sure that that happens sure so just to put some numbers behind what Rob was talking about we saw last year about Le 1100 course registrations between just the University of Minnesota and Century College the year before that I believe we had 680 so we are seeing the amount of students leaving our campus increase by significant percentages each year and we look at which courses in particular they're primarily happening in our English and Social Studies classes um and so we put our efforts into those departments specifically for the upcoming school year we'll get some data and see how that's working you know as we track that over a period of time what does that mean for our teachers well in order to be an instructor who is allowed to teach concurrent enrollment you must have either a master's degree in the field so I would need a master's degree in English or a master's degree plus 18 graduate credits in English or I must have worked in the field of English or Communications for a significant period of time it's a little bit gray what that significant period of time is um but it is a lot for our staff and many of our staff have master's degrees in education so how do we roll this out well Mano has become our preferred partner because they will grant our staff those 18 graduate credits for free all our staff have to do are pay the application fee and textbooks so it's a great value for our staff especially younger staff who still want to move their up through their steps and Lanes so right now we have several teachers in the English and social studies Department who are provisionally approved to start next fall to teach both 11th and 12th grade A the conversion from AP to concurrent enrollment so when our students get their registration guides in the middle of January they're not going to see AP at the upper levels they're going to see CE which will be those opportunities to gain transcripted college credit yeah so um as we go into the the new course proposals part of why I think it's important that um Rachel had the opportunity to kind of share that information with you is again what this represents is it represents really um a philosophical shift in the high school but also a lot of work and a lot of support um because our our staff can't just automatically snap their fingers and say oh I want I want to do this there's a significant amount of work that that goes into that and so there's been buyin uh by our staff this has been talked about uh as a strategic response to some of the numbers that we are seeing and some of the shifts um in student desires that we are seeing and um our staff has been behind this so Joan if you want to click the the next slide um as Rachel said um the primary areas um that we have been focusing on right now are English and social studies because that happens to represent the the two primary areas where a a large number of our students are enrolling in these courses I'll let Rachel speak a little bit to the English proposals and then I'll talk a little bit about the the ones coming up after that yeah so we are seeing a lot of changes in the English Department for next year um it as we look at our Communications program um historically we have gated our journalism program at 11th grade meaning students can't take advantage of any of our journalism Communications programs until they become an 11th grader when we look at other districts across the state and across the country most high schools have some type of communication beginning in 9th grade as we know that we are living in an increasingly multimedia world we need to prepare our kids with those types of communication skills so we are pushing that down so starting next year we will have introduction to multimedia Communications we'll and that's a course students will be able to take as their English class then piggybacking on that in 10th Grade we have introduction to multimedia reporting in 11th grade the current uh English 11 newspaper is just a renamed course it's the same course but what is different is that will now be CIS in partnership with bethl so that is actually getting college credit this year but it will continue next year and is also CTE as well so um it will still have the publication but it'll be at a little bit more robust we also have an interdisciplinary course between English and social studies called American studies students will take that over two periods a day like they would um traditionally but we had those two teachers working um on interdisciplinary curriculum that they'll see um tie into both of those courses and then the current uh AP Lang will be uh concurrent enrollment composition one through univers uh Mano State University and then in 12th grade uh we are doing 12th grade over a two-year period so year one we are seeing a new course called caps modern literature and film studies cap stands for Center for Applied professional studies it's a National Organization of about 110 districts across the country that focus on profession-based and Project based learning so this is a combination of a 12th grade English class and an art class uh so Drew Smith and Debbie Drew will be working together in an is interdisciplinary model looking at how to integrate those two forms of communication and then AP Lit Literature will become kerna Roman literature also through Mano University we'll be adding on additional senior elective English classes the following year so seniors will have a total of five options Juniors will have a total of four and nine and 10 will have uh three choices each year so trying to expand the personalization of their programming and allowing students to kind of navigate their own pathway through there a little bit more straightforward in social studies um you can see again on the on the left is um a chart that outlines the offerings that we currently have so for 11th grade students for example um there's primarily two tracks 11th grade students um social studies is required and they're either going to take us history or they can opt into AP US History next year what we are proposing is while US History obviously Remains the Same that's a required credit all students need that in order to to graduate from high school in the state um but we're proposing um turning AP US History and replacing that with the concurrent enrollment US history so again our teachers our apus teachers have gone through the accreditation process to get themselves qualified to teach a concurrent enrollment class the idea being it's still going to be an advanced class it's still going to offer a higher Pace more in-depth reading more writing is going to be required all of those things that are commensurate with awarding a college credit but they're not going to have a high stakes exam at the at the end of the course and our hope again is that that's something that's attractive to students who will that be through all three of the social studies will be through Mano as well man okay um in 12th grade again as you can see currently the offerings for our students right now are government and politics there's micro Eon with gov um AP micro Eon with gov and then an AP govern politics class all of those offerings would be the same with the exception again of we're looking to transition the APG politics class into a concurrent enrollment government and politics class and an elective course that's open to our students right now is AP Psychology and again our AP psych teacher um has gone through the the process and is interested in looking at a concurrent enrollment offering rather than AP um in terms of rigor um what's the what would be the difference between AP and CE because can't you get some credit in college with an AP course I mean refresh our memory on that it's been a while you can the landscape's changing a little bit with regard to AP it used to be a little bit more Universal than it is today so it used to be kind of back in the old days if you took an AP exam AP exams are scored on a one to five basis and typically anything that was a three or higher was pretty much transferring to college credit at a four-year school right now what we're starting to see is that as more and more kids started opting into that and figuring out hey this is a great way to get college credit colleges started responding to that too because they started in all probability started losing dollars over that so they started adjusting that and so you are very select elective four-year schools are now either not maybe awarding AP credit or credit for AP or they're awarding it a little bit less or they're requiring you to get a four or a five on the exam and so kids are taking the exam but fewer and fewer kids are qualifying for it so it's not um kids absolutely can qualify for advanced for credit through AP my own kids did that um in high school they walked into the University of Madison with X number of credits that kind of took them out of the general circulation however when I look at the number of credits that they received relative to the number of AP exams and and courses that they were taking in high school um it doesn't translate as a as a onetoone the way that it did so these are called transcripted credits so think about your student goes to a one college their freshman year they walk away with a college transcript and go somewhere else their sophomore year those are your transcripted credits from a university these work the same way these kids basically have a college transcript from one of four different universities by the time they'll graduate from Stillwater High School the the key and concurrent enrollment is accepted pretty much in Minnesota maybe some of the other states in the Upper Midwest but it's not Universal like it is AP um so AP is pretty much everywhere but as Rob stated okay now the higher tougher schools to get into are saying okay okay you need to get a four or five for us to give you college credit Will those higher end universities accept a transcript from like a mano state will they be accepted or is that it's hard to make that guarantee in all cases obviously that's always going to be up to the institution right they could adjust or um anecdotally I had a my my oldest child was m in music he took AP music theory at the high school got a five got to the University of Minnesota he still had to go back and take music theory so again it's going to always be up to the partner University but it's not going to be as varied as it would be with an AP except anywhere from a three to a five or a certain amount because these are transcripted credits more often than not they're going to qualify for their general education requirements so what we're trying to work up to is a transfer curriculum where kids work get their generals at Stillwater high school and they'll be able to you know it'll check all those boxes in each of the goal areas again we can't guarantee that but most will but you can't guarantee I what is is PSO always guaranteed if you're transferring those credits to a top university I mean it would be comparable to PSO okay so our CE would be comparable PSO is pretty wide open though right now and they're it it's very loose and it's very wide ranging what the level of academic rigor is associated with the number of courses simply because it's so wide open there's a whole entire spectrum and part of the issue I appreciate your question earlier around AP as Dr Funk said uh advanced placement absolutely is currently more recognized across the board however as Rachel and I are sitting down even just looking at it from a staffing lens a couple years ago we sat down we had seven sections of AP lank now we're down to like three sections where are all these kids going they're not opting into that experience and so again we're trying to be somewhat responsive to where's the the market right now for our students and how do we ensure if they're not taking AP how do we make sure that they've got a rigorous experience that um that will actually earn them some kind of buying power or some kind of credit power somewhere and so our hope is is that students will recognize that and say hey you know what rather than go take some Fly by Night Online deal um through whatever institution I'm recognizing I can do that here and I don't have the high stakes piece and the pressure help me remember if there the difference AP kind of come boils down to that test at the end that one through five test just like on an MCA you hoping you're having a good day that day and you had a good breakfast and a good night's sleep but the PSO you get a grade in the class A through whatever and that's based on your coursework throughout the semester correct okay correct and now that we know that you think like a thief director kelzenberg you probably would have figured out a way to circumvent that whole process working on it yeah we talk with the students yeah yeah can I um can I ask how will you get this message out to families and students that hey this is comparable to a PSO and this is in response to what you're telling us you want it's a great question um we actually had a meeting uh yesterday with Karissa and members of the communications team um Carissa likes to throw this back at me that my favorite phrase is Market the heck out of this thing and so one of the pieces that we know we need to do is make sure that people are educated about this again this does repres presentent a strategic shift for us institutionally and so certainly there's some um communication that has to go out as part of that we have a good opportunity to do that as part of the registration process which comes up in January that's part of why we start here to make sure that our proposals are approved assuming they they do wind up being approved the next step in that is meeting with students um and talking with fam so that they understand kind of what's on the registration guide great um I appreciate that that's going to be asked I have one just personal experience that I want to share because I think this would be a good to for part of the marketing to parents is that when you have those online the online PSO is making it so much easier for students to enroll in those classes but if you're a student in those classes the teachers don't know if you're a high school student taking the class you're just a college student so I think one advantage to having a high school teacher teach a college level course is there are growing pains with that rigor and you have someone in front of you that knows who you are how you learn like how to motivate you and sometimes you can get a high school kid taking a PSO course and they just get a little lost in the shuffle and there's not that relationship there so I hope that that can get shared with parents too because I think that this is the best of both worlds there's no shortage of anecdotes that I could share with you very similar to that and the number of times that we have students who sign up for PSO don't really realize as much as we try to be upfront with them and we have them sign off on a number of understanding state that they understand that they have to be independent and that they're now kind of property of the institution and the college and all of that kind of stuff the reality is we're still dealing with a number of students who come back after their struggle want us to intervene and we can't our hands are tied at that point because that's not a Stillwater area high school course we do not have the ability to strong arm Century College or bethl or Mano state or any of those other institutions you are on your own and that's a it's been a hard lesson that a number of our students have learned the the hard way and and to your point this is hopefully something that will give us the opportunity to be able to triage that and say look put us in a position to be able to to help you through your experience so two other um courses just for your attention um we're also proposing a new CIS college algebra through modeling course CIS stands for college and the schools it's one very specific form of concurrent enrollment it's proprietary to the University of Minnesota um as Rachel talked about you know there's transfer capability for all of these credits and one of the questions that was asked earlier you know how do you know that one institution will take this credit versus another credit typically University of Minnesota pretty selective school so students that successfully complete a CIS course generally speaking that that's going to be golden just about anywhere that they go uh the college algebra course also the other Advantage is it represents another way for students to earn math credit we have a number of students um who struggle to fill out all of their required math credits um we know that students have to go all the way through Algebra 2 but they also need to get six credits of math and sometimes once a student gets through Algebra 2 boy if they struggle through Algebra 2 and they still need two other credits of math if the only other math levels are are levels that are above that that can present a a challenge for students and this is um potentially an elective opportunity for that and the one other course that I asked to be included in this is personal finance personal finance is actually technically not a new course we've had a personal finance course on the books at still waterer high school for many many years however uh MD has come out and now um directed that that be a required course and as such has also directed some of the standards that are associated with that course so we know that we need to audit our existing course and kind of bring that into alignment with what the expectations are right now for the state and there's also a number of different departments that are eligible to teach that that per mde and so that now involves social studies it actually involves a teachers um and several others that have been invited to the the party to take a look at our existing course question I was I was gonna ask um so obviously you said there's a cost related to developing new classes teachers teaching it that Mak sense are we capturing dollars though by not having kids go to PSO yes yes and do we have any sort of idea what what that looks like I mean based on we know what we're losing to PSO do we know what what the potential is if we can get by in with these new courses you mentioned I think doubling the number of kids um who are attending PSO we're talking hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars and so if and again there's a couple variables here we are Staffing to a high school that has x amount of students in it based upon a model that okay we have a few hundred kids go to PSO if suddenly now we are having 1100 kids going to PSO all right then we have to totally look at our staffing model at the high school um and and and reduce things there so by by doing this we believe we are providing a better education locally under parameters that we control um to to best meet the needs of our students and I would also say parents don't want their kids driving halfway across the Twin Cities to take a class when they can do the class right at the high school so you know Rob and Rachel talked about being strategic they're being very strategic in in uh how we're trying to address this issue for the needs of our students but also for the health of our district it's a great question yeah no it's um seems like an exciting opportunity just to retain the students and keep them here you know something that I think I've always heard is when kids uh you know still water high school students and graduates go off and college and Beyond they always talk about how like much easier College was and you know High School is actually some some cases harder and so what a great story to try to kind of craft but not just you know tell families and students but actually show them that you're going to be better equipped by staying home to take these classes get these credits even if some may not always transfer over it's going to be you know a worthwhile investment in your learning that will make you more successful so it'll be exciting to see what this will look like um and it's going to be great just to kind of keep all these students on site and see what they can do together so thank you for the work you're doing I had I wanted to I thank you for asking the financial question because that was one of my last questions so when we partner with Mano is it do we do are they getting some funding from our from the enrollment in those classes a great question so over four universities they all do it just a little bit differently okay sometimes we'll pay a flat fee for each teacher who teaches sometimes we pay a certain amount per student in some schools we pay a certain amount per credit so each of our partner un institutions does get a fee for students attending there it is less generally speaking than what we lose for PSO so if we lose our a full student all six hours of the day that's significantly more than what we would pay to have a teacher teach 30 students in their classroom last thing just that I'll close with um is as we talk about this we've tried to primarily emphasize the idea that um we believe this is going to be a better educational opportunity for students and that this is this is going to represent um a better educational experience for a number of students the one other piece that absolutely comes into play with this however is equity too and the irony of this is that one of the driving forces behind PSO when PSO first started was to try to provide Equitable access for students from disadvantaged backgrounds try to provide access for them to get college credit our current numbers when we break down the numbers of Stillwater area high school students who are accessing PSO does not bear that out we are behind what the state average is in terms of students of color students of disadvantaged backgrounds who are enrolling in those particular courses and part of what begs the question is again when that level of Independence is required students have to transport themselves how many of our students have transportation how many of our students can get there this has I I don't want to say it's automatically closed doors but the fact of the matter is our data does not support the idea that PSO has been Equitable for our students right now and um if we really want to to put our money where our mouth is with regard to equity we believe again that this is a potential response to that and this is a part of our effort to to capitalize on that thank you for sharing that that's important information um did you guys have any I mean are you is this lining up with what you're seeing in terms of popularity of AP kind of going down and more interest in the college and schools and the yeah no I actually really like this idea because I think it a lot of students want to do PSO for like the automatic college credit without taking an AP course and I think that this is a really great opportunity to get that and also then keep students here and then increase funding at the SAR high school so I think it's a great idea and I think it's really well thought out yeah I'll P you later I I already did great any other questions and the only thing I would say is when you know when we approve and I don't know if I'm the only only director but we approve these courses it would be great to sometimes go back and see the success of some of these so I don't know if that's possible when we start adding courses next year but I don't know maybe they all do great they just stay but we could audit the class I I would just love to hear you bought up a great point though not all these will fill probably okay so we're adding these and these are Now options but we're not for there's we're not for sure that they're going to fill up they'll all fill up but by getting these by hearing it tonight by approving it next month we'll be able to put them on in the in the registration guide and you and then if they don't fill up you I mean if they don't meet the Staffing requirements we don't have the class we won't fill we won't fill the class right but it's still it will still be an option into the Future Okay so get that registration going okay thank you so much for presentation all right our last item tonight is an action item and it's an amendment to our 2326 achievement and integration plan welcome Kaitlyn thank you you're here now I'm here yes hopefully this will not take very long so a few weeks ago you all received the um report on our achievement and integration plan which is a component of our comprehensive achievement in Civic Readiness formerly world's best Workforce a lot of words there plan um and so now it's just in the hands of you to approve the amend Amendment which we have to make to this plan because Brookview was identified as a racially identifiable school so we have to add components to our existing plan to reflect that and then um in 2026 we we will be able to develop a full new three-year plan okay so I'm gonna make the motion to approve can I get a second I'll second okay director the with a second comments questions I will say um again anecdotally I think I thought the last presentation I heard from the community that it was um just a breath of fresh air to have some conversation around um the lack of success we're having with our achievement and integration work and a lot of people excited about the work coming um forth from your you and Fa and others on the team so jacqu jacen yes Jac so we're excited about where this is going to go in the future great thank you there's a motion in a second um everyone in favor raise your hand say I I opposed right it passes thank you very much thank you and with that we're adjourned for