##VIDEO ID:hPKvjzbC3ck## um great work that they do so I've been a superintendent for quite a while and super School Board recognition I think my entire career has been February yeah somebody decided to change it this year so we had one in February well again we're having it now in September so now September is now Minnesota school board recognition all right so um you know as a board you sign up um do you want to do what's best in our community and often times you don't hear a lot of the positives instead you hear people concerns what's going on as administrators we really appreciate MERS students the distri all really a lot what we're do as administra they realize it as much as I do and they have seen when are not support so I'm just G to walk around we're [Laughter] notal Kati thank you very much for what you do PE thank sir thank you you back and thanks for you do thank you very much for everything thank you all right ofuse thank you for that and with that I'll turn it back over to you for great all right tonight we're gonna before we start our meeting we're going to have our public comment period and we have two speakers to tonight um when I call your name uh go ahead and just take a seat in front of the microphone here uh before I call names I'll just quickly read the uh public comment expectations the school board encourages Community input while comments and questions are welcome law prohibits the board from discussing concerns about individual employees or students in a public meeting the board will not deliberate discuss or engage in conversation with speakers however the board may ask Administration to review the concerns presented speakers must present their testimony in a respectful manner vulgarity character attacks malice or specific complaints identifying staff or students by name or implication will not be prohibit permitted we will stop the proceedings immediately if employee or student privacy issues are raised and direct the speaker to forward comments regarding individual employees or students to the superintendent with that being read we have our first speaker Eric and Eric I always is it uden uden I would not have gotten that that would have been like third or four hope it doesn't matter and so we have three minutes and then Katie Hawker is the director who will um kind of nicely have some time cards that okay all right all right thank you for having me um well I want to start my timer all right so I'm here to talk about speech compelled speech and um um beliefs and freedoms and so what I want to start with is as I think on this side over here was a recent classroom activity it shows a person's name the pronoun that they have on there and it also shows what did you do over the summer um I I don't think anybody here is going to debate that teachers have positional power okay we acknowledge that in our school policies we know that they have them in classrooms in fact we expect them to have that in classroom so with that and putting pronoun on an activ ity I want to talk about compelling answers from students is not free speech okay I have something I'll hand out later about compelled speech um any person should be able to believe what they want this isn't about that this is about but that means every person should be able to believe what they want if one child does not believe what another child believes both should be protected there should be no test on this neither child should be tested on their beliefs we don't have a test if a child says this is what I believe prove it we don't do that so neither child should have to prove what they believe one person belief and feelings do not outweigh or negate another person's beliefs and feelings compelling someone to say something which is what happens in an assignment or an activity like this takes choice and freedom away and it turns and in turn hurts that person and takes their freedom away the choice to not answer also has consequences so there is harm in not answering and we know that socially this happens they might think you are against them they might think you're hateful or trying to hurt them when the reality is you may be trying to self-preserving yourself but also that can lead to social consequences and we know those to be true as well what is harm you'll say any student that is compelled or has their freedom taken away uh has their freedom taken away is harmed most as the freedom to not agree or respond or go along is not one-sided it should be protected for everybody taking away another's freedom to their own beliefs causes fear silence and eventually less trust in a system designed to educate it is thoughtless irresponsible one-sided to place responsibility of using the correct pronoun or possibly misgendering on the shoulders of students ultimately this Board needs to decide who beliefs should be valued and right and who gets to have beliefs and who doesn't if this is the setting we're going to have thank you I make do you do you want those or you can I just left them for you okay you can leave them we can yeah we'll take them and Joan can take them thank you thank you okay our next speaker is Katherine Hobs thank you Joan I want to open by saying a word on how good the special education teaching staff in this district is an amazing job their Early Childhood uh staff was kind genuinely loved my daughter and I really can't praise them enough for everything that they did um and I've also only heard good things about the staff at Elementary School level as well um the reason I came today is my beautiful helpless and medically fragile daughter was hurt her second day of school um I want to reiterate that the staff response was perfect and I have no issue with that but um I really think there needs to be a focus on a better smoother transition process between the Early Childhood Center programming and the elementary school and there is a dire need for trained Paris who know how to keep the kids safe I really shouldn't have to put into her IEP that I'm notified when they're shorter staffed so that I can keep her home so I can keep her safe that that's just wrong um and what makes me even matter is I know how much money you guys spent on universal bathrooms my daughter does not even use those um I it's ridiculous um a trained par in Minnesota is 45,000 a year average um how much is spent on the sports facilities um you guys get hundreds of millions of dollars every year and you couldn't you can't get some funds for a few extra Paras it's it's wrong um I I really now I mean I know you guys aren't aware of what's going on at the school level but now you know and it's in your power to change this so that our most vulnerable students are safe as they should be and I hope you guys fix this thank you you thank you all right with that um our public comment period is concluded thank you to tonight's speakers and we will call tonight's meeting to order Joan roll call please director Hawker here director kelzenberg here bow director Petri here direct theander here Cher Sherman here you have a COR all right let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge of aliance to the FL of the United States of America and to the rep for it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all right I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's agenda can I get a second second director kenberg with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's meeting agenda raise your hand and say I I opposed agenda passes we're g to move on tonight to our student report who's on first all right thank you all right so we'll start off with last week we had our homecoming week for Still Water um it was just amazing just a great week great week to uplift our Pony pride and it was awesome um we had a cornhole tournament on Tuesday we had the junior vs senior girls Powderpuff game on Wednesday and then some seniors got to visit their old elementary schools and give them little like tattoos as they walk into schools on Friday morning and then we had our pet Fest during the day which am and I had the pleasure of hosting and it was such a wonderful experience um then we finished off homecoming week with our dance on Saturday night and it's always just a good time we also wanted to thank everybody that was involved in homecoming week it took a lot of preparation and super short notice being so close to the start date of school so to student council members Dusty Dennis and Mr Bach um all their work throughout these events was greatly appreciated um their contribution to make it a spirited United week was super special um overall for school it's been going super well we start office hours next week so that's exciting and it shifted to the morning so we'll see how that um plays out this year it's a change we had the academic award ceremony for students with GPH achievements last night that went super well Mason spoke at that um and then also part of homecoming week we had the activities fair so we had a bunch of students joining new clubs and extracurricular so we're getting more school involvement and then our final thing is that um upcoming next week we'll have the Freshman elections for student council so then we'll have a full 30 34 person Council in a few weeks which is awesome it's going to be great but that's what we have than you so I have to ask who won the Powder Puff game the senior I have a question too yes um office hours uh it used to be Wednesday you uh school would be done halfway through but now it's going to be starting late rather than getting out early and is that still on Wednesdays yes okay y yep I think it's starting in the morning so it'll be 8:40 until 2:10 will be the new we'll be like the when hour one will start I think at 8:30 or 8:40 and then at 7:40 the office hours will be happening interesting great any other questions I just kind of wanted to give a shout out like you did for homecoming I know a few of us were at the um homecoming uh Carnival and it was a lot of fun and I know that takes a lot of effort from staff and um students and everyone involved so it was a lot of fun it's nice to see all the young ponies and the food carts and everything so it was a it was a great time great weather too so thank you for those updates appreciate it and we'll move on to superintendent's report so as I reported I think last time we uh are still short um some hourly employees particularly Paras I had an amsd meeting last Thursday and not only are we seeing Paris shortages throughout the me Metro but Deb Henton from Masa the state superintendent Association um reported that it's a Statewide issue so what I think AMS is going to be doing we'll be they'll be sending out a survey um Financial survey but I think Staffing there'll be a staffing component of it as well so that we can get some real hard data to show what's Happening um just for Statewide regarding the uh the impact of the hourly um employees being able to to take unemployment over the summer the other thing is uh they said that um we are almost the state is almost out of money to reimburse partially reimburse school districts for the summer unemployment so I think that's going to be an issue that comes up at the next legislative session as well where there'll be that fund will have to be replenished or else there will be more financial impact on on districts I will try to give you a better indicator as we get a um handle on what our summer unemployment impact is financially um sometime in the next couple months so um you know and you heard it for firsthand tonight U from one of our speakers the impact of not having Paris on what's happening in the daily lives of our students and that's not because we're short money it's because we have pairs who are not uh you know we don't have time to fill the positions um the uh um other thing that uh um I want to bring up and and I know that this has kind of been something different for the upcoming school year or this school year is our approach to conferences is changing and um you know we are um as you're very well aware we are compelled to do a number of things from the state and one of those is letters training so rather than pull teachers away from students during the school day um we have reshaped how we're doing our conferences and so we're instead of having dedicated days to conferencing we're doing it based upon the needs of the students and when the parents can meet with the teachers so really it's a it's a uh I think we're going to like it better in the long run but it's but it's a change so historically teachers parents have met with families on X date in the fall and X date in the spring and it's when we all come in and we sit down and we do our you know 20 minutes of of conferencing and then we go home now we're structuring it so if a teach teacher feels hey you know what there's an issue going on with a student I think we need to get talk to the parents we do it now rather than wait to for conferences or if a parent says hey you know what something's going on in school my son or daughter is not happy with what's or not comfortable about something now we do it when we when uh um when it when it's better to meet the needs of the student that is not to say that we can't meet with parents in person absolutely we would encourage enourage people to do that we could do it virtually um you know I will say this an email is not a conference so emailing will not be considered a conference yep it can be a way of communication but we expect our staff to have solid relationships with our our teachers our parents and um that's the expectation moving forward so um if your question on that as a board uh that's our approach and we want our staff working with our families um to best meet the needs of our students so it's a different approach this year um but we we think it's going to be in the long run more effective but it's it's new for some folks so I think there's some chatter on what that looks like out in the community and finally last thing I want to talk about is on September 30th um we have our first professional development day of the year and we have a great plan that's been laid out by step Gordy our professional development lead in The District and we're going to be doing the letters training for a number of our teachers number of our teachers are going to be trained um or continue with the training in bar um we have other teachers who are um Mental Health First Aid so it's really very well structured out day and it's really aligned to what we're talking about with our strategic plan so I'm this is the first and then we're gonna you know we'll have others throughout the year so really looking forward to see what that looks like great any questions for superintendent ask a quick question um it's about the professional development day um I I believe there's a whole bunch that is happening at that day are teachers like voluntarily choosing what they're going to are they going to multiple sessions like are they assigned to certain things kind of how how does that work there's in the elementary there's cohorts so they're assigned to certain things so now there are some teachers who have been trained in letters already so they will have some more flexibility as far as what they are doing um but for the most part it people are pretty assigned as far as what um the expectation is for them during the uh during the day okay thank you it's there's a lot of lot of different things going and we have different people training different things so Stephen and the teaching and learning team have just done a magnificent job of trying to uh figure this thing out yeah I was very impressed with the outline that was sent and just the the appropriateness based on your position seemed it I don't know if that was going on last year or not maybe we just didn't get copied on the email but it was very buttoned up and very T it seemed like the training being delivered is very appropriate to the position you have at this District so I appreciate that yes just a couple of questions uh first of all regarding new conferences I think as a as a parent I think the schools and the teachers have done a good job of communicating the change which has been nice from a parent standpoint of you know here's the new um kind of format this is why and you know what works best for your family so uh from your end have you received any feedback from teachers or because I have not as a board member just I we had a principal meeting today just some more clarity on what things look like and uh and how we can communicate that to families and we have communicated but again I think since it's a change you can't overc communicate yep so and then um regarding the pair open positions how many do we have open at this point 10 yeah and um thank you for keeping us updated on the pair of position because as we heard tonight I mean it's it's and we acknowledge it and can empathize it's it's frustrating and I know that everyone every one of our staff members would like to have these positions filled so it's unfortunate there's there's two pieces to it there's the vacancy and then there's the time that we need to get our parents up to speed so that they are train really proficient on what they're doing right and so that with the late notice that really puts us um puts us back something for a legislative platform perhaps great thank you very much um I do not have anything tonight so we're going to move forward on the consent agenda the consent agenda is on the screen um and I'm GNA ask director uh thelander for the motion yes um uh chair Sher I'd like to make a motion to PLL from the consent agenda the Human Resources Personnel report uh due to a familial conflict of interest that I want to recuse myself from that vote great so we is there a motion to approve items a b c and d would you like to make that motion I'll make that motion director ther makes that motion I'll second all those in favor of approving um items a b c and d raise your hand and say I I I opposed consent items a through D pass we will um take on separate as a separate action item uh e the human resources Personnel report um director thelander as he said is going to recuse himself and abstain from this vote uh I will go ahead and make a motion to approve item e is there a second I'll second great director hacker with a second all those in favor of approving item e on the consent agenda raise your hand and say I I and abstained I guess if you want to formally obain great um so that passes as well thank you very much and and we will move on to um strategic Direction a which is ensuring the learning process is adaptable to meet individual student needs and under this we have Elementary data overview Elsa come on Elsa welcome back thank you good evening thank you for having me I'm gonna take you on really a whirlwind whip around tour of our elementary MCN M toas data um it'll follow the same structure we'll start at the grade level then look at student groups and then go through the schools with comparison uh this is the same grounding as we looked at last time but really the MCA assessments are designed to measure our achievement towards meeting the Minnesota academic standards we'll talk a little bit about that tonight with science as those standards are changing and we'll see that reflected in the tests but again these results should be used at a summarized level so we're going to be looking at the district school grade and student groups to examine our students access to that curriculum another thing to remember is that the MCA content is different at each grade level so that means we don't really look at average scores we don't look at a distribution however there is of course a distribution in how our students perform and it's easy to lose sight of that when we're just looking at bar charts so I did want to make sure we ground ourselves in that but we will be looking at summaries of profen proficiency rather than distributions of scores so before we jump in a quick word about participation rates these are for all grade levels not just Elementary but we see that our MCA participation rates are by and large back to their pre-pandemic levels especially in reading and math those are really really strong science is particularly impacted by High School Sciences taken at grade five grade eight and our biology students grade five is at I believe 97% participation grade 8 94 I'll check and make sure science is in the high 70s uh for high school so that's one thing to keep in mind we want to make sure we have an accurate representation of all of our students and keep that participation as high as possible so we're going to start with reading and looking at reading by grade level we are outperforming the state by approximately 10% at each grade level and this is quite consistent with fifth grade being the strongest over time we see some slight increase in our performance in third and fourth grades ticking up at the end of the chart there fifth grade is really kind of holding steady and we do see this um difference in the third fourth and fifth grade test scores throughout the cohort so those who were in third grade and 2022 are in fifth grade in the spring of 2024 um and we see a consistent for still water it's about a what is that a 16o gap and for Minnesota as a whole it's about a 10 percentage Point Gap so there is some natural increase in those scores between third and fifth grade but we also see a stronger increase within Still Water we'll go through these quite quickly because it's quite a lot of information all in one place but we do see some achievement gaps by Race by gender by free and reduce lunch um by English language learning status and by special education um this is for third through fifth grade as a whole because that gives us a big enough sample without having to drill down too deep Elsa do you want to explain to the board does not partially mean succeeds yeah so this is the one time we get closer to a distribution these are the four achievement levels that mde sorts students into meets and exceeds expectations in the green and the blue are those students we consider proficient uh partially meets and I believe it's does not meet are below proficiency so we see the highest proficiency level within reading for our white students we see the highest proficiency levels in Reading in female students but it's quite a smaller Gap if we can go to the next slide we also see those gaps by free and reduced lunch status which is about again 20% of our student population by English learner status and by special education status lastly by school we see the majority of schools outperforming the state average they're really close clustered around that high 50s point with some outliers on either end so we see Anderson Elementary at the low end we see Aton Lakeland at the higher end and of course that variation in between so I'm glad that you have a copy of this printed out because it's kind of hard to read but we do see quite a bit of movement within each individual school um we spoke a bit about this last time we don't want to get too excited with one year of improvement we saw some schools had a really great year between 2023 and 2024 but we also see some consistent Improvement particularly at Aton Lakeland and we see some schools that are holding steady we're gonna jump into math do we hold on a second let's go back questions from the board on you know any of the reading material that or data that's been shared so far yeah I thought it might be good to just tackle this by subject if there are questions or comments yes I guess um we could go back to the MCA reading by student group the one with the free and reduced lunch specialed and E that one yes um so this one what really jumped out to me was the e um there seems to be quite a stark difference um including no kids meeting the excellent in the E there's a very very small or maybe it's very small I just couldn't see it um so I'm just curious this is more direction to superintendent like how is that a normal Trend that we've been seeing is that something that we are are addressing um particularly in Reading eel is hard because you have kids in eel who are different levels but they are still within eel so it is a um it's harder to measure um within that so I don't have a quick answer for you um but as you can see by the data we have some considerable work to do in that area do we have another assessment that we give specifically to our El students yes and we do and that's also part of Minnesota's accountability measures is the weda access exam that measures their progress towards their growth goals and their progress in acquiring the English language okay so maybe that would break down the data a little better to figure out yeah that can tell you where where different kids are at within the El Spectrum okay all right well thank you we can try to get that to you that'd be great yeah yes so this and I'm I'm on the same one too um I'm wondering whether this um whether our interventions Co um correlate to what we're seeing here and and this is kind of a big question but I mean you know we sort of need to say to our community what we're doing to try to make these numbers look better next time y Elsa and I met for a while once you first started that's one of the questions that I answer is okay so you know is we shift to a priority based approach to how we um utilize our resources we have interventionists we have green rooms we have a lot of different things that we do and so the question becomes okay if we are providing intervention services for these students how are they doing um another one for you and we're going to try to try to get this information for you as well is our summer targeted Services Program all right so we provide students another scoop of instruction over the summer okay what is the growth of those students as opposed to the to the students who do not get it same thing with interventionist so um we've had this discussion her first task has been getting okay look at through the MCA um but we will be able to dive into some of that those other pieces and really um provide the admin team and the board um a better side picture of if we're really putting because we an example adsis we get you know state provides us two-thirds of the funding for position we provide the other third they're interventionist all right is are they meeting the needs of our students are they making a difference um and until we really dive into the to the data we don't know and we haven't really um until now and so that is one of the things that we're we're going to be taking a look at so that has not really been tracked very um robustly in the past in terms of we're trying to help these students but we don't exactly know whether our efforts are bearing fruit or not is that at the district level we have not done that that is correct and that is something that we are going to be focusing on Absol the future yeah and that's why that's really a real purpose of uh having a a real statistician in here to help us analyze that data and then okay if it if if intervention is working or it's not working what component of it is and so how do we dive even deeper into you know is it is it how we're doing the intervention is it um you know don't know um but but that's something that we can take a look at as well thank you yep um I had one question and I didn't know what the state uh numbers were but do are we pretty typical with the female male the gender that's a really great question I can look into it okay that would be I would I was curious because I did notice I mean there was quite a bit of difference between male and female and the does not meet in the partially meets um yeah it was just interesting to me to see that and then of course I mean no one's going to sit here and look at our um just our achievement Gap are and say we're happy I mean these numbers are terrible I and it's Statewide and it's impacting still water and um I'm appreciative of the fact that we have a community that is um on this journey with us and I think that Dr Peter you bring up a good point is just being able to outline what exactly we're doing but I have appreciated Dr funk's efforts with his staff in place to really get into to the data because I don't think I mean just even having you here Elsa a couple times this is what the board has wanted to start to kind of dive into some of the data and I know we could go a lot deeper this is a very surface level but um I trust that those conversations are being um looked at in depth by the two of you and the people at this table so um but we need to do better I mean there's just no doubt about it and I know there isn't anyone here that doesn't doesn't agree with that I was pleased to see that some schools did see a good a good year you know other schools went down and that's disappointing I don't know the if I'm sure that at a school level we'll maybe get some more information as schools come in and present to us um but then also I'm sure there's some deep diving being done at the school level um to figure out that but you know that's much how of the way of these tests these assessments go up and down and you know I just I look forward to kind of aligning with the standards and kind of seeing these become a little bit more flat you know I think you talked about that Dr Funk where you want to get away from that roller coaster and I don't want them flat I want them like this yes exactly we want to kind of have them but this up and down it's really hard to know what you know one year a school is great and the next year something happens and you just don't exactly know what it is um so but thank you for the data I appreciate the insight into the reading did you have a question um yeah but we just F out slide shoot can go back or um back to the slide that was the um MCA reading by student group again this time the one with the the different races the one before that one that's what we were on thank you um so this one also I mean both of these slides jumped out at me um because again this is achievement Gap issues in our district and I do know that um like that lovely professional development list that we got sent um I did notice that there's um culturally responsive cohort um that is involved in that um and I really just wanted to kind of connect conect those dots but also ask are there other initiatives to kind of directly tackle achievement Gap I mean I also know we it's part of our strategic plan um to really break down problems that we're having um and try to formulate plans to address it but I just wanted to highlight this and ask I think the first thing that we need to take a look at is what we are teaching all right so there's some significant gaps and she's going to get to that I think in fifth grade math here in a little bit um but are we consistent about our approach to just our Core Curriculum and once we are consistent there then okay we need to start taking a look at all right the cultural responsive piece of how we're teaching um I think they go together but from my from my lens of the world all right we got to make sure that we are we are addressing the standards and then how we are addressing the standards is almost is equally as important but that's kind of into the that's the step-by-step process that I have in my mind and you know we are there is a cultural responsive peace to it um but we are not um we're not that far along yet but we need to be okay thank you if there's no other reading questions we'll move on to math great thank you and I think we'll see a lot of those same themes resurfaced when we go through math and when we go through science uh math we see sort of the reverse grade byg grade Trend as in Reading third and fourth grade are outperforming in the state by about over 10% about 12% but fifth grade is just barely outperforming the state so we see really really strong performance in third and fourth and then fifth is that exception and we see that over time as well both third and fourth grade are more or less back at their pre-pandemic levels obviously there's room for improvement but that third grade is at 72% proficiency and fourth grade is at 70% proficiency so when we think about interventions we're looking for 80% of students meet proficiency without additional supports obviously we want all students to meet proficiency but 80% is that threshold for further intervention we're at 70% uh fifth grade is holding very very steady um we're gonna I think this slide is in there twice so we'll go ahead perect and talk a little bit more about the different strands within fifth grade and there's a couple different ways that we can slice um performance at each grade level and subject level for the MCA a lot of that work is done by our content coordinators by our building staff we can look down to the individual standards we're going to stay at the Strand level and get that kind of higher level overview but we see that strand number one and number three so that's number and operation and geometry and measurement are the weakest overall and both and the weakest in in contrast to the state's performance um geometry and measurement is the only area in which the fifth grade math cohort performed at a lower level than the state average um algebra is a really strong suit within the fifth grade curriculum the curriculum that we use now is designed for 68 and has a strong algebra focus and that's born out in the data that when we put those resources into that content we see more results that being said there's other fifth grade standards um and there's a lot of work being done to realign uh the curriculum to meet the fifth grade standards as in the Minnesota standards and not just in the curriculum materials now these look relatively similar to what we saw for reading there's of course variation at each level we see that our gender gap is swapped uh we can look at the next slide as well um to your question about El we see less of that impact of language within math proficiency um but again the gaps by free reduce lunch by special education now can I ask the the math test can be um read to students correct is that so is that why the e or is that it can't be okay it would be an accommodation itom okay yeah math by school I have to keep up with myself this time we're clustered really around the low 60s with those same outliers we see Anderson Elementary at 44% uh below the state average of 53% Afton Lakeland at 72% um and we can look at that growth as well uh again we see some good years we see some consistent growth uh more kind of consistent growth than in Reading I would actually say but especially from it's Aton lenland in the dark blue we see a little bit from Brook viiew and the light blue and then that green is Lily Lake who saw more growth last year but maintained it this year and really all of this is in contrast to the state which is holding quite steady without a lot of movement of course it's a lot of schools and students that get averaged out but we can pause there and talk about math so I noticed the fifth grade I mean I think anyone that looked at the numbers was the fifth grade and we noticed that there's the standards maybe are not aligned with the curriculum is there anything that is being done or what's the plan to address that going into next year or is there so Amy fiser is our math coordinator uh within the the elementary and she's been I think she's either meeting with or or soon to be meeting with the fifth grade staff to take a look at you know the Strand data um but the problem as I have stated previously I think to the board is there's Middle School tension in sixth grade that the elementary kids don't understand math so at some point years ago in still waterer they decided we're going to go with the Holt curriculum in fifth grade which is a 68 curriculum instead of the um what is it math expression math expressions which is our K5 curriculum so we're not using the same curriculum that we're being assessed on so the K5 curriculum is aligned to the standards 68 is not because it's a fifth grade test um so one of the areas and again I'm going to go back to two years ago when I talked about all right curriculum um I don't think we've updated our math curriculum probably 10 years or more um and so after we do the reading update within the next year or so I think math will be the next thing on the list but shortterm wise we have to work with our teachers to identify all right if these are the state expectations for the math standards what are we doing with the curriculum we have to meet those standards and so that those are some challenging conversations because I think people have different opinions on it but at the end of the day we are compelled to teach our students the standards from the state of Minnesota and so that's what we need to do um and as you can see I mean the a troubling piece for me about this graph is you see the state is pretty much like this all right we're kind of Every Which Way possible on this graph so this this again is a clear indication that um we have not done anything systemic as a district okay we have buildings doing different things but there's really been not a a systemic approach to how we're going to do um math or how we're going to do reading and so that's why I'm pretty excited with the new team we have in place who are really focused in providing centralized Direction and expectations um to our buildings and to our staff so that we can get aligned um to do the right things and uh and the other piece of that is as Bev you mentioned is okay is our intervention work aligned to what we're doing as well so um if if we this is not I mean it's not hard when you're looking at okay well we have to teach the standards and we have to have a curriculum that's aligned it sounds pretty simple but getting folks to do something different um when we've been doing different things for a number of years is uh is a challenge but if if we're focused on what's doing best what's best for kids um our staff will they'll rally to it and and we'll I think we'll be better off for it but the concerning part as I said on this slide is we're up and down and uh and you see the state just kind of consistent along yes dror Petri um so we do other kinds of Assessments though yes when it comes to math so do they are they consistent with what we see here and you know I okay I'll just stop there have you had a chance to dig into fast Bridge much a little bit the one interesting piece that complicates the picture is that fifth grade math doesn't jump out the same way in fast Bridge as it does year and part of that is because fifth grade math on Fast Bridge fast is not aligned to the Minnesota state standards it's a national exam it's nationally normed um so it's a different measure of skill than the MCAS are which is both good news and bad news right it means that it doesn't have the same predictive power for the MCAS but it means that there's other good work being done in fifth grade so that's one piece that comes to mind yeah because you you hear sometimes that you know um this is a me me the MCAS are a measure of how we are doing at a school and a district level but but when the rber meets the road there are other assessments for the individual students and um and I think that you know teachers perhaps would prefer that we concentrate on that but MCAS are how we get judged by our community so we have to pay attention to that as well and so I was just kind of wondering whether the whether there's any dovetailing between what we see because you know with the MCAS you're measuring a different group of students every time you do the test right right um so there's no you can't see any sort of growth whereas with fers you can so um I'm not sure how we you know correct square square that Circle or I mean I I'm just not sure how we manage that even at the at the secondary level which we'll talk you you know next month we'll be talking about that um you know tension for years and years years and years is has been okay we do these MCA tests which are meaningless to kids at the secondary level because they're focused on act pet whatever um and so you know the I have always been an advocate for at the secondary level all right our test should be a and we align what we do to the ACT that's going to prepare Kids for Life after school or or the plan test which is a an it's a academic test for kids who are not necessarily going to go to college but they're going to learn a trade so um but we we still are basing things up on the MCA when if you were talk to a high school administrator or teacher I'd much rather have okay here's a here's what we want to be focused on um and so some districts or some states have done that they said we're not doing different standards for the secondary we're going to just go with with act U so there's some political you know issues with that but as well but um it helps clarify things in in the minds of the teachers yes um fascinating point about the fast Bridge um and how that doesn't quite Jive um which made me think when will the Minnesota state legislature um look at our math standards or or DPI or whoever looks at it is that coming up soon and how long does that process go I believe new standards are being implemented 26 or 27 I can't remember exactly which year but they've been approved okay yeah which they give you time to which will then change the test right yes exactly yep okay so then but the good part for us is if they're getting approved the next year or two we're not going to be purchasing curriculum until after they approv then it aligns well for us okay good to know thank you one thing that I would be curious about too is hearing a little bit now this is the second meeting which I appreciate you re-explaining that fifth grade there's been this kind of philosophical split of Are We teaching to the standards or are we better preparing them um for math in sixth grade it would just be interesting as we look at sixth grade math to know do we see a bump back up is there any anecdotal evidence that that's even working like yeah you know so I guess that's what I would be curious about too yeah I had that same question chair Sherman just in terms of if we're using the Holt model in order to better prepare them for middle school math are we seeing that correlation of improved outcomes within the math scores based on that and then you know obviously that's you know MCAS are the sand box we have to be we have to play Within and be measured from but we're still looking at the big picture of you know what are overall student outcomes um so i' be f to see what that data looks like and and another question is um and this is maybe greater what type of communications are we doing in a district uh because MCA scores just got sent out to students to better explain you know for families to understand how to interpret the data you know what questions should they be asking you know their child what questions should be asked in their student so I know like um you know there's what families need to know there's some materials that are available through the St St are we how are we communicating that so um we can also help empower the students and the families to kind of help do their part to hopefully you know provide better outcomes as well I don't know if there's been a district level approach to it but that's something that uh Carissa and uh the building principles can certainly take a look at it's a great idea yeah I agree with that because there are resources I think that are shared with you when you get those test scores and how they could be utilized right and again all right these scores are a point in time yep but they are a indicator of how our system is doing in our students mastering the standards so I'm not interested in you know improving test scores for the sake of improving test scores right I'm interested in getting the right systems in place so that we're supporting our teachers who are meeting the needs of our students in a better manner and so that's that's what I'm interested in because if we do those things the scores will take care of themselves right I agree I I do think though that there are some families that probably look at their child's schools like I think it was Dr Petri that said you know this is parents can it's some it's information that's readily accessible and so that you might be looking at your school and if you've had a down year or a down few years you might be saying you know what's going on or what I need so I think that communication piece is um is critical in all of this so great any other math Focus questions okay move on great and we'll talk a little bit about science science is kind of the odd one out here because it covers three grade levels worth of content and one grade of testing so students are tested on standards from third through fifth grade they're tested in Spring of fifth grade uh we saw this last time as a strong point compared to our neighboring districts and it's a strong point compared to the state we about nine percentage points higher than the state average we do see it going down Over time however and this is another place where those standards come into play last year we were teaching to the new science standards but tested on the old science standards this year in the spring we'll be tested on the new science standards but that transition again because it covers content third through fifth grade is going to be on that leg so if I'm in fifth grade now I received instruction in the new standards last year and this year but third grade was with the old standard so there's still kind of that disconnect so two pieces with that as well all right one is new curriculum last year in in the elementary schools so teachers were getting proficient with that um the other piece that I'm hearing from talking to folks the new curriculum is great but it takes a lot of time to get set up and so teachers are challenged with that and trying to get everything else in during the day um so we were taking a look at okay what are some things we can do to to to help with that um so you know typically in my history if you adopt a new curriculum you're going to see a dip in year one because it's new and people are just getting used to it and and um but in years two and three you should see it start to rebound um especially now that we're going to be having a the uh standards are now going to be new standards are now going to be part of the assessment do you antip iate though because those because of kind of that graduation that it may be a dip for longer than a year just because third grade what I really what I've seen okay is if if you have a strong fifth grade um science teacher they more than make up for okay what happened in third and fourth grade um can you refresh my memory on those um new science standards my uh I know that we there was a flip in the way it's taught in the sense that experiments first and lecture later as opposed to lecture first and experiments later but did the content of the science curriculum change dramatically too because I'm just thinking about that lag three four five kind of thing are they teaching different kinds of things also I I think the content is aligned to the new standards so yes I think it changed um but I I can't tell really anything more than that at this point okay and we'll go through our student groups very quickly um it looks again similar these are quite consistent Trends across subject material um we have race by gender uh by free and reduced lunch English learner status status excuse me and by special education and this is the chart where we don't see any students in that um exceeds category within our English Learners when we look by School uh we see a little bit more variation than with the other subjects we're clustered in the kind of low 50s um with as Brookview Elementary is performing the strongest and Lake Elmo um below the state average and we see quite a bit of fluctuation with in this graph um knocking this and in almost every school we see that dip between 2023 and 2024 with the curriculum implementation but we do see some bright spots as well um with Lily Lake and I believe that's Aton Lakeland and we see quite a big jump within Anderson we can pause if there's other science questions questions and then we'll kind of do a wrap up in general questions so all in all our scores look very different by school and by student group we are exceeding the state average across subjects at the elementary level we've seen Improvement since 2022 in reading and math but that decrease in science and the achievement gaps are quite persistent across subject levels um next time we'll look at secondary data following kind of the same format great thank you for this information I do think it would be helpful I don't know if the we didn't really set this up but last year we did kind of pull out our special programs and I actually appreciate it just being you know all that are tested in the buildings um just to see it a little bit more like that because they're taking the test they're accountable to the same standards I know that um um I know it's a different way to look at it than we did last year but I appreciated it this way as well so any other comments great thank you so much all right we're moving on to strategic Direction C utilize systems and align resources in an efficient manner to support learning and we're going to bring Marie up here to um help us take action on adopting a PR proposed property tax levy 2024 payable in 2025 good evening so before you this evening is um the purpose of this is to basically um bring forward the levy ceiling so the the amount that um we would certify or propose to the home county auditor and the state um to then um put into the uh notices that would go out to um the community taxpayers and then also this evening to set our um meeting date for our truth and Taxation hearing for uh December so again um some of the key messages around our uh preliminary proposed um 20 uh 25 uh property tax levy is our Levy certifications part of the overall process um that um must be done before September 30th it's based on calculations that mde has been running um and our latest one is as of Monday um they continue to change um we're at a good point right now where I feel like we um they those calculations have stabilized um but things do um change and um it it allows for greater flexibility um if we do certify as the maximum or that ceiling um revisions do happen um numbers do change but again we're giving you that best estimate um that we know Levy can only move downward after October 1st and um the school board again is scheduled to certify that final um number at the uh December 17th meeting so again this is not the final decision on the levy it is the ceiling or the maximum that um the district can go it can always go downward so just some Levy Basics uh School levity Levy Authority it's established in law um our budgets are a combination of uh state federal and then the local funding which is uh before us here and that includes um the voter approved operating Bond and Technology levies um unlike cities and counties uh the levy that um would be payable for next year um that would be certified in December that is for the following school year so next fall 2025 26 that fiscal year so we're we're a year ahead and um that Levy revenue is approximately 34% of our total budget so looking at the budget that we currently have for this year it's about 30 34% so some of the factors that impact uh School District levies uh changes in tax base um that increase um results um sometimes in less state aid um those are calculations uh changes in enrollment um just one example you'll see in our calculations on our general fund is um as our resident pupil counts increase uh that does impact our referendum so our referendum as our estimates increase as more um families move into the dist district with um new homes new construction that Resident base grows um those projections for enrollment two years out um does drive up our estimates for our referendum dollars um that Levy so that is an example of a change in enrollment as we project these levies uh legislative changes uh to education formulas uh we know that one too well um um referendum inflationary increases um 2.4% is the estimate that was on the levy run pension contribution changes required by law um employment changes that drive Severance and unemployment levies and then Capital bonding uh Bond refundings um and ltfm health and safety projects and leases those are just some of the things um this this is um pretty small to read so I'm just going to highlight some of the key changes that took place or that are in the cels of our overall general fund um Levy for um payable 2025 uh one of the larger ones is the um operating referendum the voter approved so there are some factors here um again the inflationary um increase of that 2.4 uh the pupil counts so that estimated um number that we put in for 2025 26 uh resident pupils um that increase um and that's again a projection that we put in um we um estimated an increase of about 200 um um two years out so that drives that increase um in addition to uh there were prior year adjustments um on our referendum due to some enrollment changes um to actuals so a couple years ago can I ask a question because you mentioned the um the inflationary increase that's attached to that's the operating Levy yes and the tech Levy or that was just on the operating that's I and yes is that's only what did you say it was two 2.43 it's not keeping track with actual inflation then so it's not designed to keep with that is the inflation that they that set to they calculate okay yep so those overall increases um were 82,000 83,000 and 744 th000 so those are just some of the areas bottom line in those referendum um increases the other one is our capital projects Levy or the tech Levy um that was about 867,000 um that major that increase is really due to the net tax capacity um increase that we're seeing um just to highlight a couple other areas that we're seeing increases are ual OPB Levy um that saw an increase along with our prior year adjustments those were for our long long-term facility maintenance projects however they were all offset by an adjustment we had in our um long-term facility maintenance uh Levy so those to offset each other uh we had some adjustments in our projects overall so those basically net net each other um the ltfm um we levied less however we had some adjustments from um two years ago that um are on this Levy so again um I've the projects themselves um will be done um we made some adjustments um to the projects and um again we will continue to um go forward with those and I just wanted to say I appreciate staff proactively reducing that because I remember at the time when we went out to the community for the bond we assumed that it wasn't you know that you always assume that okay this is going to be work we're going to have to do at older buildings like Elmo Anderson and because the community did pass that facilities Bond we did actually follow through and lower that in and um sometimes I think there are community members who maybe don't um think that we actually do lower something and we and I appreciate staff doing that I think it's a good way to build trust with the community so thank you the next slide is the community service levies and that just to highlight there's one uh the Early Child um child family education Levy that is um the main increase here um that's due to net tax capacity and there's a ECFE tax rate um that's adjusted there so that's the main increase there for community service fund or Community Ed next slide and then our debt service fund again you'll see the overall changes are um a result of what is necessary um to maintain our um Bond payments um you can see on the second line there there's a decrease there um that was our overall um Bond Levy last year that moves to the Top Line um and those are the payments that are required um as we move forward now with our our bond Levy or bonds going forward um you can see that bottom line change there of 825,000 roughly again that's also um we we Levy an additional um percentage to um maintain The Debt Service fund so before you is um the overall net changes again um this did change a little bit um the other uh evening when the state ran it um it's 5.83% now so it's a little less but like to see a little less and so we'll just continue to monitor this um I don't anticipate any more changes between now and September 30th um but again before you the that overall preliminary Levy change or increase will be 3,670 to uh 196 or um what you see there is 5.88 but it's about 5.83 so it'll be a little bit less so Joan will pull up um the overall um tax impact and what I just want to highlight here John can you zoom that up in a little bit okay it's fine if you can't what I'd just like to highlight here and um for those that can um um see is the on the 5.88% this was the scenario that was run on September 20th um this is provided by um aers that's our financial advisor um when they ran the scenario there's a couple different things going on our overall net tax capacity um and our Market values but there's also so what changed was our Homestead market value exclusion they changed that in the legislature um to reach further to that um homes up to 57,000 so at some point you'll see on this um net ta the estimated change there's a point where the the taxes um change from 5.8 to 7.2% that impact that's where the homestead exclusion um starts to fall off and so um and that Homestead exclusion basically gives you it drops your taxable market value your market value so um that exclusion uh was up to $95,000 um and there's a a percentage that's um over time it's phased in up until uh homes that are worth 57,000 so you can see it it's kind of phased in um more is given to homes that are um at the lower end of that market value and as you reach 517,000 it phases out so you can see those credits are not given and um 7 . 2% is a result of not only the 5.8% the district has for tax but also that um market value exclusion for Homestead is not part of the um reduction of the taxes so that is um a little bit what's going on right now in those scenarios um as we run the property tax impact you can see overall the dollars um that estimated change annually um on a $500,000 home it's $130 um and as you look you know as a a $400,000 home is $84 um commercial industrial um on a $750,000 property um $238 on a million dooll apartment it's $37 so those are just some examples of overall property tax impacts um thanks for explaining all this I know there's a lot going on um this Homestead market value exclusion that new cap is was that adjusted up or was that adjusted down the 517 it was adjusted up to give okay a credit to the higher it it basically it extended the credit higher um on the homes so um basically um the exclusion incre it it basically increases as your values decrease so it's on a $500,000 home you're getting very little um back um where as before it was at 400,000 so they extended the credit but um the amount is little it basically they've stretched it more and um homes that are now within um $25,000 or 70 5 to 250,000 they're getting little bit more than homes that are on that higher end of the range so that is why we're seeing those ranges between 5.4 to 7.4 those homes that are in that 300,000 to 700,000 they're being impacted more thank you yes um is that same effect going to be seen with City and County taxes as well yes this is a this is a shift like tax wide for all yes so it's out of the school district's control yes yes thank you for that clarification because when I was looking at this I was wondering that doesn't that seems higher than I would have thought so I had called you and you were generous enough to explain that so and I think it's an important point for the community to be aware of too any other questions and so before you is the levy timeline um this evening again um there's a couple action items on the next slide um the 30th is when we will um basically certify the levy ceiling the proposed Levy ceiling um and and provide uh the county and mde with information at that point then um the county will start to mail statements November 10th through the the 24th and then uh December so it's a little different than last year we had some additional steps this is more um of a condensed Levy process last year we had the bond Levy which had a additional steps so the recommended actions this evening um would be to adopt the maximum uh proposed um payable 2025 uh Levy uh this evening and then set the truth and Taxation uh meeting for December 3rd here at o Park do we need we don't need to take do we have to take a vote on the truth and Taxation date you'll take it you'll do the truth and Taxation on the 5th or 3D of December and then you'll do then you'll do the vote on the 17th right but do we in terms of the action is it do we have to take action on both you said you said the date yeah okay so I will go ahead and make a motion to do both of these um items if we can combine them in one yes is there a second second okay director Petri with the second all those in favor with adopting the recommendations proposed by Marie raise your hand and say I I opposed motions passed and then we're GNA keep you here we're going to move on to a revised resolution authorizing Administration to lease purchase and contract for goods and services so before you this evening is uh revised resolution solution um um basically the changes before you um are to uh number one make some changes to uh my title within the resolution but also to addon our Assistant Director of Finance um in the authority to um sign um contracts and for procurement of goods and services um at an additional level of authority at that um up to $50,000 per transaction level uh within the budget um as approved by the board so again it's adding that additional level um within the uh procurement the resolution so um this is I'll make a motion to approve this we'll have to do a roll call vote but um can I get a second and then we can ask Marie any questions great director theander with the second questions or comments for Marie I have a comment yeah so again the importance of this position two two pieces to it one of the things that that uh I have recognized uh in my time here is we don't have a lot of systems and processes in place and that can be on the educational side of the house it can be on the business side of the the house um you know Marie is doing a great job um but she's writing the entire fi writing the entire Financial ship in the district and um there's only one of her to uh to do that so so we've had some challenges there and you know we've you've heard us talk busing copers whatever it may be um so we're going to with with the hire of Jamie Jamie stand up I think you're back here someplace this is this is Jamie he's our new assistant Finance director um we are going to um be able to a put some processes in place and follow proper request for proposals but the other real key part of this is we are building two brand new schools we are making a significant addition to one and and a partial addition to another and there are contracts and pieces that Galore that go along with each one of these and we do not have the team without Jamie here um to really have the capacity to do that and so I think he's going to help us out by really helping solidify some systems and then really be the go-to for a lot of the Contracting that's going to be going on here so um it's a it's a real Plus for the district he's got a lot of experience in doing this Dr Petri um so I noticed that the um the Chief Financial Officer has a $175,000 limit which I know is set in statute I see that the Assistant Director of Finance is authorized 50,000 is that in statute as well or did we establish that internally here I establish that and the rationale for that is I mean I I think he comes with great recommendations but there's two people in the district who have that Authority it's myself and the Chief Financial Officer and so you know we may revisit this in a few months time um but um I I think if his in you know 50,000 will take probably 90 some percent of of what he does um but I want him talking to marer myself okay this is a bigger transaction um so that's kind of the rationale behind it because with the 175 then it comes to the board correct so with the 50,000 where does it go from there then he's going to talk to marer me okay all right thank you yep right any additional questions can I just make a I don't have a question yes um I just I appreciate kind of the explanation of why we are adding an extra um assistant Finance director um and kind of the context and the importance of that role and with the unfortunate history in our district of a revolving door of Finance directors not that Marie's going anywhere um anytime soon but I really just kind of appreciate the foresight in creating systems that are hopefully going to be sustainable beyond the individual um in that position um I feel like that's a good investment and particularly with our large $175,000 or million dollar Bond um that's a lot of money to be in charge of so I appreciate having a dedicated person who is going to be the goto um and then it also allows Marie and her staff the time to continue to work through the systems um in our own rest of the financial World which is very complicated in itself so I really appreciate that this person's being brought on Jamie is bring BR on so the other thing I want to mention with that is again we are structuring this so we are a significant part of the this position and a significant part of a couple other positions are being paid for through the bond so this is not a General Dollar so when people are saying well you know you're raising taxes okay this is at least for the next few years a position that is being paid for not out of the general dollars so I think it's important for people to understand that's a great clarification too thank you great um any other comments or questions okay Joan roll call director hacker yes director kenberg yes director laow I'm sorry director Petri yes director theer yes CH shman yes motion passes resolution passes and Mar I think you're done thank you all right are we have a report this evening for second reading and welcome Paul good evening chair Sherman and members of the board so I join you tonight to uh review second readings of four policies uh that uh we looked at at first reading um at our last board meeting so the first policy is policy 519 interviews of students by outside agencies um and this is would be a new policy uh for us here in the district the the second is policy 527 student use and parking of Motor Vehicles patrols inspections and searches this again will be a new policy for us um within our group of policies the third is 611 uh homeschooling this again is a new policy and this policy is important it does contain some legal requirements to to make sure we're um abiding by those requirements as a district uh and the final is policy 615 testing accommodations modifications and exceptions for IEPs Section 504 plans and LEP students uh this is a new policy um for us here in the district so I I have not received any feedback on on any of the four policies between our last reading I'm not sure if anyone else has on the board or committee um great thank you for that report we'll move on to the action concerning these um items next these policies so I'll go ahead and make a motion to approve all these policies 519 527 611 and 615 can I get a second I'll second great director hacker with a second um comments or questions before we vote great all those in favor of approving this package of policy raise your hand and say I I I opposed policies passed thank you thank you now we're going to move on to our next item which is under the Strategic Direction D develop strong Partnerships with the communities serve and for that we're gonna have Carissa come and give us an update on the Strategic plan thank you good evening board members and uh superintendent punk I have heard you numerous times today reference the Strategic plan and that makes me very happy because one of my roles as um chief of staff is to make sure that the action plan the Strategic plan is out front that we're paying attention to it that it's actually living and breathing and guiding our work so to hear you talk about it to reference it to hear some of our presenters reference it means that we are doing that and we want to show you that throughout the year by bringing in some of our school buildings having our principles talk to about what they're doing at their building level um to make this plan really come to life and make an impact on our student achievement and a lot of our other goals here so before we bring all of our principles here this year to share with you we wanted to just do a little grounding work uh board hopefully this is a refresher for you you've all been here since this started but for some of our community some of our staff even who are newer to the district it's important to have this grounding exercise so reminding you of two years ago when you hired a new superintendent and you asked him to help us create a new strategic plan we started by talking to our community and asking them what they Envision when they think of about a successful School District what do they want to see what would it look like to them so so we went through an exercise to create our desired daily experiences students told us what it would mean for them our families told them what they were looking for and our staff as well so this document I think is important to just set that groundwork of where this really came from it came from our community and this is what's driving the work that we're doing right now from those desired daily experiences we created our strategic directions they're on every board agenda you reference them every time you bring a presenter up these are the things we're trying to to set as our goals there's one around learning there's one around culture and environment in our schools there's one around our resources and about Partnerships from those we have our Focus we've talked a lot about these tonight as well uh these Focus areas should look familiar to you they were the same last year and that's an important part of this is that we're building our work every year we can't do all of this in one year it's not we're going to do one thing and it's going to magically fix all of our challenges it's really something that we have to build on and if we tried to do this in one year it would be overwhelming to our staff it would be unrealistic so we're building on this each year this year literacy is a huge emphasis we've talked a lot about tonight equity and inclusion and social emotional learning and mental health are continuing to drive our work so how this comes to life at a school level is through our action cards our staff have heard a lot about action cards the last two years they've been very Central in helping to develop these there are building level teams that sit down over the summer throughout the year to look at data and more and more just since we got started you know last year to this year they're digging deeper and deeper into the data to understand what's happening in their schools and to use that information to help them build their plans for school Improvement they're identifying goals outlining the steps that they're going to take creating responsible parties like who's going to do what work what's our timeline and then they're evaluating and monitoring that throughout the year this is just a idea of what the card looks like so they all have cards like this and they're filling it in for their teams and ultimately each building has four cards that they are putting together and they all are focused on our key areas so literacy social emotional Learning Systems alignment Partnerships and communication so the cards might look different by each building because they're going to have a different Focus but they all are centered and aligned to our strategic plan so this again is a quick overview meant to just help set the stage for you because we will be bringing our schools in throughout the year and into next year you're just seeing the presentations for this school year you'll notice not all schools are on here that's because they'll be coming to you the following year as well so we will get through each building and they will come in and they'll talk to you about their data who they are kind of the current reality of what's happening in their schools and the work that they're doing um this year maybe some of what they've done last year as they're building on on their plans to make sure that they're they're meeting the targets that they've set for themselves so our we're going to be kicking it off next meeting with um alphabetical order so poor Gina do has to be first but she's ready um she's she's ready to present what's happening at Aton Lakeland we'll just go alphabetical order through all of our elementary schools we'll get hit the high school at the end of the school year and then we'll bring in our secondaries and the remainder schools um as we get into next fall all of this of course is to help us meet our purpose which is really to inspire curiosity and a love of learning in kids um this is this is all about kids the work that we're doing and I think that was important to end on this just to remind us why we are here and why we are working so hard to bring this strategic plan to life any questions just I guess more of a clarification are the presentations from our different schools coming at the first meeting of the month so like work session the learning session session okay great thanks questions I think my only question and I didn't ask this in advance so if you want to do this at a different time that's fine but last year was kind of the first year that we had these action cards and so I know it was new for everyone right like we talk a lot about change and hard for community members students anyone but um staff as well how were the action cards received are they getting more comfortable in the buildings with um going into year two or what are you kind of maybe seeing I think so it was new last year um that said I think it overall was received fairly well um because it was aligned with a lot of the work we were already doing it was we ingrained them into site Improvement planning which is something that they've been doing for a while it was just kind of a different way to look at the information um I think there's a lot of support behind this now so the whole tnl team and Caitlyn and Fa have been working really really hard with each of these building teams to build out their plans so they're not doing this by themselves they have a great team around them um Elsa Sky the tnl coordinators are sitting down with them to look at the data to really understand what it means so I think that's really helped there's a lot of resources around this good thank you I I expected that it was probably Rocky I know we heard some things that maybe it was just a lot being thrown at people so I can tell it just seems a little bit more streamlined just anecdotally from emails and actions here and I think it's fair to say last year there was a lot I mean it wasn't just action cards there was a lot of things going on last year and there still are there are a lot of initiatives a lot of things we're trying to tackle but I I'm hoping what people feel is the alignment that they're seeing how these things are are really tying to our goals and how we're trying to streamline things so it's not so many different things they have to do but they can feel how it's really all supporting the same same work so things like our cat teams and some of these different um pieces that are in place are we're trying to simplify it and streamline those processes so that we can get the results that we need without all these all these things and what I hope too is that these cards are allowing um staff to celebrate little successes and because obviously you know getting to A system that is more aligned with curriculum and training and Comm I mean with getting everyone on the same page that's an Endeavor that can take years um in so I think it's important just to look at some of these little successes these key steps and say look at where we started where we're not all the way there but we can celebrate our progress so another key learning that you just sparked in my mind there was um last year I think we were looking at this as we had to do all these things and now this year I think we're being much more focused about it's little bite-sized pieces that we can do really well to get us where we need to go instead of trying to do 25 things let's do five things deeper um and and put more focus and Dr agbamu and Caitlyn have done a really great job working with principles this year to help them understand that this isn't everything has to be done in one year we have time over the next several years to get these things done so let's just do one step at a time in this process and I think that's helping staff to just breathe a little easier knowing okay we we don't have to do it all in one year I appreciate that any other comments good thank you thank you very much Chrissa and uh with that we're adjourn hold on oh wait when you adjourn Joan got us cupcakes oh so cuz it's board appreciation you know so all right and so I think there's enough cupcakes for some people up here if they want to eat them too so I'm not eating all those cupcakes on all right well thank you and Mike thank you thank Dr thank you thank you all right well we're Jed for cupcakes the for