##VIDEO ID:vYTA9J5QXgM## e e e e forget if only for a second all right we're gonna start we're gonna start this evening with a very special recognition I think I'll turn it over to you first Dr Funk and turn it over to why don't you come on up and want you bring up yeah bring everybody up up here well good evening everyone um I'm Nate Cox the activities director at the high school um it's great to be here with you this morning to share a little bit about the wonderful um actions of our staff um many of you obviously probably heard about September 24th and I know it's one that the five of us hope that we never you know have to be involved with ever again in our careers but um uh due to um the amazing actions of these four people as well as other community um emergency responders that we get to partner with um Keegan Hawk is alive and well um their family has been absolutely amazing to work with and communicate with they've been so gracious and kind and U wondering how all of us are doing in the midst of caring for their amazing son um so it's just a quick uh opportunity for us to recognize Paul weand Matt hemway Olivia Duo and Matt Renfro um Mike i m but I'm gonna let them I'm gonna let I'm Gonna Let each of them just introduce themselves real quick and maybe just a little bit of something about um the experience or maybe a takeaway a lesson learned for us but it was a really proud moment for our community amidst the tragedy of it um to see the amazing work by these folks so sure hi I'm I'm Paul weand uh I'm the head sophomore football coach and know the incident the incident is one that I'm glad to be behind us I'm really glad it has a happy ending and in reality you know it's it's really a testament to our community and support of our kidss and our willingness to you know prepare coaches and to have trainers and to um make sure that when moments like this happen we all know what to do so this is a a systems this is a system that work mat one of our assistant football coaches I was the first went down in front of me feel was crazy uh but just thankful that we have such wonderful over here that did exactly what needed to bew I'm Olivia I'm one of the athletic trainers I've only been an athletic trainer since 2021 I think so this happened pretty quick into my career um but yeah Mike and I both just like instincts took place or took over and we were able to do the chest compression CPR things like that so that by the time EMS got there everything had kind so we were was I've been an athletic trainer for about 15 years my name is Mike R um but yeah about 15 years and I've never had an experience like that and um I know several other athletic trainers who have and it's just it's a very shocking wow moment when you realize how serious it is and um me and Olivia have had many conversations afterwards and um the thing I keep going back to is our training prepared us and it worked it everything that we have been taught and trained um from a CPR standpoint operating aeds going through emergency action plans um was prepped us for the real thing and it and when you prepare uh for that kind of situation that scenario it uh it can make a difference this the situation so I'm I'm super thankful for the outcome uh the coaches were fantastic when they were working with us they did a great job providing for the other kids there too it wasn't just Keegan that was getting taken care of so um they did a great job taking care of their athletes and um I want to shout out the EMS team as well they were absolutely on top of us uh I've called EMS out to different venues here at still water and that was one of the fastest response times I've ever um obviously you know sometimes it takes a while because they got other things going on but um that was just that was fantastic so they did a wonderful job as well thank you so much um for coming yeah and I mean just such an amazing outcome given a really scary incident and we're so grateful that the student is okay sounds like that you're working closely with the other team members who are obviously impacted as well and hopefully taking care of yourselves but as a community I know we're so grateful I know Pete you had a question or two yeah I had a comment too so um Keegan's mom Katie I talked to her uh about a week afterwards and so first of all Keegan is at ease with what happened you know he's uh very comfor he's doesn't seem shocked and overwhelmed by it that's that's good to see but anyway she is a first responder herself and so she was very impressed with the response that happened but also because of this she is uh taking efforts to raise money for aeds and we even just talked if if you bought a thousand these of these things throughout the state and used one in 10 years it's worth it you know so it's good to have these things and I believe they have to be tested on a certain amount of time know the batteries and whatnot so if you see any mention of that you know participate and any fundraiser there and uh she would say congratulations too if she was here for yes director Petri thank thank you so much for what you all did um it it's um it's shocking when something like that happens and it's it's such a warm feeling to know that you actually made a difference and I love the fact that you just you sort of acted instinctively you had the systems were in place you were all sort of you know ready to do what you needed to do I'm just sort of curious um where is the AED and how how long does it take you to put your hands on something like that in an emergency see like this so there's actually several that are at our high school um we obviously mainly operate on the athletic side of the school so closer to the fields um there's one that's right outside of Nate's office um we carry one in our athletic training room which is right by double doors that open out to the practice fields it goes with us on our cart when we go out to practices to games we always have one on our Sidelines and then we have a third one actually in the cafeteria which is just by the main basketball gym so we have three at our dis right there um for anybody in the stands that needs one there's always we we try to always make sure we have it on our Sidelines and our our cart good that's reassuring thank you confirmation from the high school team back there so there's a lot they're spread out and it's it's really Shar to know any other yes you know we talk about making the difference in the lives of our students every day and what you guys did on the 24th was Sav the life of one of our students so thank you for that absolutely thank you for coming in and allowing us to recognize your efforts and we hope that the team is doing okay and all the families and we know we feel much better knowing that you're caring for them and and taking care of each other too so just beyond grateful for your efforts so thank you so [Applause] much all right um next we're going to move on to public comment I'll quickly read the expectations and we have one speaker tonight um 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 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 directly to the superintendent and with that our speaker tonight is Kristen holis hi just sit here and then director hackard has all the time cards I don't get the full hour so thank you good evening chair Sherman uh directors superintendent Funk tonight I'm here to address uh bell times in in part only because I've seen on social media like I was aware of decisions being made and I saw on social media the conversation has reared its head now most of you know me know I no longer have a dog in the hunt if you will as far as the impact um I tend to trust the governing body and the decisions that you make um the one thing or a few things that I want to bring is maybe my area of expertise as it relates to the decision that was made um I don't want to be presumptive that this wasn't discussed at cabinet and at different levels maybe it was I'm not privy to those conversations but when I see something and I can potentially um provide some thought as to maybe an impact I I think I'm in a position to do that in this particular time so when going back and watching the video um for the December 19th 2023 conversation the in and moving tears what was mentioned uh was operate in a fiscally responsible manner believing it to be cost neutral and or a reduction and that might be true um the parts that concern me that I'm thinking I don't know how that can be um specifically relate to the middle schools releasing ahead of the high school and the reason why I say that is we had the system that was designed was designed where your biggest body then spreads out to your middle schools and I understand moving the middle schools first you reduce the shuttle the challenge lies um with Oakland quite honestly because if you start at Oakland the likelihood of bringing those kids to the high school to get to their to pick up that route and then move back to Oakland South is probably unlikely that that's going to happen those kids at Oakland are going to progress throughout the South and not come to the high school which intuitively creates more runs so what you may or may not save in a shuttle in all likelihood you could you could lose that loss and actually spend more in routes because of Oakland another thing is we had staggered routes coming into the middle schools five 10 minute intervals I don't know that you can stage Oakland without popping out on to 10 with the number of buses that are going to sit there for pickup at release time so to me there and again I don't know when with construction and everything that's happening I'm just thinking it could be a staging issue as well which is a safety that pushes those buses onto the road again I recognize maybe this was talked about I just wanted to call it to your attention believing that there could be cost and uh safety implications that's what I had great thank you very much thank you and we'll ask the superintendent just to follow up and look into sure any issues great all right um that ends public comment and with that we will call this meeting to order Joan roll call director Hawker here director kenberg here director lower here director Petri here here Sher here you great let's stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America to the Republic for it stands one nation under God indivis with liberty and justice for all all right I'm going to go ahead and make a motion to approve tonight's agenda can I get a second second great director thelander with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's agenda raise your hand and say I I I opposed motion passes we're gon to start with our student report thank you so much all right we'll start with just a quick update on one of our artart programs so our Band program had their Kaleidoscope concert last week um which was all of their bands 9 through 12 um performing and it was just a fall concert celebration of their hard work um throughout the year so far um then this Thursday on October 24th we have our Pathways day um and each grade is going to be doing something different um to kind of do some preparation for college if that's where they're wanting to do um just whatever in preparation for the future so the freshmen are doing some community service oriented projects our sophomores are doing the preac or the pre sat juniors are doing career Pathways day and seniors are doing College visit visits and college application work um student council's hosting a new event on Tuesday which is going to be a Halloween movie night um typically we only have last week and homecoming week for events at the high school and so we're working on incorporating more sporadic events throughout the years have more engagement in the student body um we would also like to welcome eight new freshman Representatives under student council they all did a wonderful job um I think two weeks ago um having a respectful and informative campaign and we are very excited to work with each and every one of them this year we've also been working with our ethnic and cultural studies course at the high school um we're working through District level like Equity self assessments and the process in addressing racism in school setting um this is specifically in regards to the disciplinary Matrix and proactive action when faced with various racist incidents there'll be more information to come on this as we work with them but we just want wanted to inform you all that we have been working with students and staff on issues that may revolve around this topic in the school but that's all yeah great thank you very much any questions for the students one comment so even I was there even though it was a band concert there is one number where two singers came out and uh did a marvelous number and uh one of those singers is right here telling us about that band concert well done it was and the event the whole event was very nice very impressive okay we'll move on to the superintendent report so last week uh on the 16th last Wednesday we had our uh second day of professional development that's throughout the the school year uh again Focus was on letters training for for the literacy piece of it um High School um had a different a number of different initiatives that they were working on as they're preparing for the for the future in the building there um we ALS so um this week had a training today with our principles on um something that we're calling identity harm protocols and what this is and you guys mentioned the behavior Matrix just a minute ago the these are protocols for the school district if there's harm that's more than just you know teasing somebody or picking on them if it's harm that's related to to race or or gender or or some other um area yeah and so um we've been working really this this work started almost a year and a half ago um when we met with uh Paula Forbes members of the the district leadership team and we've been moving towards adoption of the the harm protocols here and so we have another training coming up on November 7th uh I think Robin Francis is going to be coming and that's the hope to and she started these protocols in eastern Carver a number of years ago and um really so that we get a better flavor for what they're about you know it's great that uh you guys were talking about um the behavior Matrix and and some potential harm within that we're looking for how many reps Caitlyn like four to five from each building um so because we really want to get the student flavor on on their feel for what these are about so that'll be coming we'll be We'll be asking principles for Representatives here in the next next few weeks and then um at some point in the near future I will have uh Jacqueline bis come to the board and and show the board what these Protocols are about now in addition to that on on the diversity side of things um we uh the board chair and I met with uh Chris stri o a few weeks ago and um she's a board member in Whitebear Lake and she also does uh training of of leaders in the areas of diversity and we asked her if she'd be interested in in working with our board on it and she said yes and she's got somebody who work with her we originally were trying to get a training set up for November 12th which is uh our next study session but white bear lakes's board meeting got moved from Veterans Day the 11th to the 12th so she's not going to be available so we'll have to pick a different day for that but she will do um up to four trainings with our school board um on uh some of the uh challenges that communities face as we become more diverse so that's my report tonight thank you all right um and just to add on to that I know that um we were looking for some training and so that training will be two parts what Dr Funk had mentioned um because it is in line with um the Strategic plan and having that cultural competency need we need to as a board we discuss this kind of um have that training so that we're also doing um what the staff is doing and what the students and families are telling us through the community surveys that went into that strategic plan what they're looking for so um I think the interesting part about this person's background is that they are a board director so they can have some insight on that governance level what that might look like so um so that and then also we will at the same um same session we're thinking the threeyear that TBD on if it's the same one I guess it depends how long the first training is but we still are going to like we talked about that three-year we still are planning to address that as well the priorities at the board level so we'll be doing that too so more to come on in terms of dates and that was it um let's move on to tonight's consent agenda we have items a through G up on the board and can I get a motion for the consent agenda tonight soov great motion to approve tonight's consent agenda and director low with the second all those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda a through G raise your hand and say I I I opposed motion passes okay we have two reports tonight we're going to actually start with the high school schedule planning update welcome sorry I just got to raise that seat up a little bit I feel like a kid at Thanksgiving sent the kits table um good evening director Sherman uh or chair Sherman excuse me directors superintendent Funk um thank you for the opportunity to be here tonight um I'm Rob bacham the principal at the high school and I've brought um couple members of my crack team here and I'll give them a chance to introduce themselves Sydney pyus school counselor at the high school Rachel style journalism teacher and Pathways coordinator at the high school and it's a pleasure to be here tonight to talk once again about the high school schedule um we've delivered a couple of presentations as you know over the course of the past year or so and um so i' would like to update you on um some of the things that have transpired some of the conversations that have taken place and kind of where we are right about now as we uh as we head in so as he said we've had a couple of these presentations so hopefully this is mostly review if not uh we'll talk later uh so anyways back in the spring uh the school board asked that we would consider some different scheduling options uh we had been hearing from families and students that they weren't being able to choose some of the electives that made sense for their future plans or even just some interest that they were having and so we were tasked with that uh with that charge and so some of the things that we were keeping in mind were that kind of piece about increasing the elective options and opportunities that students have we've also been talking about creating some more flexibility for students and so uh with the kind of locked in schedule that we're having right now it's not allowing for that flexibility to even do some makeup stuff um or some uh kind of filling in the gaps or even enrichment right we're pretty set with uh the time that we have and and going through things in a quick way um and the other big thing of course is addressing the mental health uh there was already a mental health crisis before covid and obviously with covid that has only been exacerbated sense um and some of the things that we know about students uh well-being both academically um mental healthwise physical health all those kind of things is that when they have fewer transitions uh they end up doing better and so that can be everything from six classes a day to different you know a four period day one day a four period four period day the next day so decreasing the amount of transition students are having through their week as well from uh within their days um and then the other big thing with those transitions is that as some of these students might be able to attest in ninth and 10th grade especially juggling six different classes every single day is a lot if you end up missing one school day it ends up being almost two to three days to get caught up and I'm seeing some shaking of heads yeah it's really really tough to miss school um and even if they're s for very valuable reasons that maybe are even related to mental health or related to their after school activities um or even field trips whatever it might be uh students are having to spend a lot of time getting caught up and so it's impacting them uh in terms of just being able to organize and we talk about you know nth and 10th graders and their brain development right executive functioning skills the way to plan organize it's really challenging from even just a brain psychology standpoint uh for them to to manage that and then of course the other piece is being able to go deeper into the content uh as I mentioned right now staff are tasked with getting through quite a bit of Standards pretty quick and aren't always able to go deeper and more rigorous into the content and so those were some of the factors that we were considering when we were looking at uh some possible schedule changes and those have been some of the priorities that we've been keeping in mind when we were evaluating them um as well as visiting the different schools which I know we'll talk about in a moment can I also just um to add to this gring because we have had some conversations but just to for the community that might be turning in tuning in for the first time here I will say that didn't and maybe you can confirm this but this also started because as the state is requiring more classes are is is it not that our sixth period day is just pretty restrictive so that we might get kids that have to decide between you know some real core classes like that are preol prep or maybe they're in line with like a music or uh choir or you know so I think that was that part playing a role in this yeah that's where like Sydney said our our first goal there really was to um allow more elective opportunities for students and as you said um chair Sherman there's a number of students who already find their schedules to be impacted traditionally um our four-year college students who are involved in a music program that's their whole entire schedule for four years and on top of that they've got to figure out how to fit in a health requirement and a fiad requirement so a number number of those students are already doing online and while online is great um because it offers an outlet and a vehicle to be able to do that the reality is that's a seventh class that's a class on top of the current six classes that those students carry in addition to that as you mentioned the legislature is um adopting additional requirements we have a personal finance class that's coming on board that are um is going to kick in and our uh 10th grade students are going to have to have um before they graduate so that's one additional um course that's got to get squeezed in somewhere and so when you do the math you realize very quickly a number of students are out of options they have to start making hard choices and in some instances while making choices isn't bad um we also felt like we had an opportunity to look at things where we could open things up and rather than limit students opportunities by forcing them to make a choice let's allow them to make a choice and opt into things that they want to so this process um as you can see by the slide started in the spring of 2023 so that's about a year and a half ago and that's what kicked off the process where we sat down with our staff and said okay if we were going to explore a schedule change what would we want to accomplish and those were the three goals that emerged so ultimately the reason why we um started this process again more opportunities more electives for students trying to find a schedule that allows for better flexibility during the day and then hopefully finding a way of addressing students mental health needs that transitioned into last year where we really began the work and really got into into the the research this is where we did our homework um and this is what we presented to you last spring we put teams of people together um we had a group of 20 to 24 students uh and staff members who conducted site visits um at a couple of schools across the Metro we went to Idina High School um which runs a modified seven period Day schedule and we went to Yetta High School which runs um a pretty traditional block schedule which is a like a four period day um while we were there obviously we conducted a number of interviews with students who attended school there we talked with staff who taught on those models um and we observed instruction we spent the the bulk of time in classrooms um observing how do teachers interact with students how does this look different um what do they have the ability to do on these schedules that we currently don't have the ability to do um and how can we change that potentially in addition to that um our leadership team dug into some educational research um we tried to study all kinds of different factors we looked at how does the schedule impact academic achievement we looked at how does the schedule um affect mental health what's the correlation between student discipline what's the correlation um between that and attendance all of these things were things that our our leadership team kind of kind of dug into um in addition to that we also contacted and reached out to our students um and our families and we asked them what is important in a schedule what should a schedule reflect and what should a schedule allow your students the opport opportunities to be able to do and as we took all of that in we also were working with our staff really throughout the course of the whole year we started our very first staff meeting probably back in September with an exercise um to try to start examining different schedules and that continued really all the way through into the the spring and long story short The Cliffs notes version of that is that we settled on the 4x4 block schedule as the the preferred schedule and the the piece that we ultimately ended up recommending um and coming to the board proposing uh last spring as far as where we are right now um while we feel really really good about the work that has been done the last year and also the work that's been done over the course of the summer our staff has not stopped working on this transition and I want to give a huge shout out to the members of our um staff and our team um in particular the teaching and learning department has been great Rachel style has been a leader in getting our staff the tools and the resources that they need to help through this transition um we feel very strongly however as everybody does because we're still water we want to deliver an outstanding product and we want to make sure that when the scheduled change goes through that everyone feels good about that change and while I'm very confident and I think I can speak for our staff is saying that we're pretty confident that internally um we would be ready to to make this change change is is difficult and they're certainly going to be bumps along the way but I do feel very confident and feeling like we we could deliver on that the bottom bot line is there are a number of moving Parts as you can imagine and there are a lot of different departments that are impacted your human resources department is impacted as we talk about Staffing your finance department is impacted as we're talking about budgeting your technology department is impacted as we talk about um the guts of a student information system and what are the changes behind the scenes that need to be reflected to to make that change happen and we want to make sure that all of those departments have an opportunity to catch up with us and make sure that we're all on the same page and so um again while I I think that we absolutely we could uh make this change the reality is as we've sat and looked at that we want to make sure that we're in the best position to make sure that the the change is as smooth as possible and that everybody is up to speed and feels very very good about that so we are actually proposing that we delay one year and while we had initially proposed last spring that we would be on target to start this change in the fall of 2025 so this upcoming school year um we're in a position now to say that we would actually prefer to wait one year and we're going to implement or look to implement in the fall of 2026 as far as a timeline and what that kind of looks like um we have started the process already as Dr Funk said of providing professional development we just finished our second professional development day and we've already been laying the foundation for what instructional practice should look like on a block schedule um it hasn't gotten quite that specific yet but starting second semester that's what that's going to morph into and again the building blocks that we have laid with our day in September and our day in October have been a progression leading up to that in addition to that um work has already begun on developing new course proposals and that will continue um into next year for this year we will um focus quite a bit on what the new credit requirements would be for graduation so that we have an airtight proposal for you and I would anticipate that we can have that um relatively quickly I'd feel very confident coming back this winter and outlining uh a proposal for you in terms of what credit requirements would look like for graduation on a block schedule um and then we're also going to engage in conversation around what does the intervention and the student support model look like um as we mentioned one of the goals was to try to provide flexibility during the school day the block schedule is a vehicle that allows us to be able to deliver on that better than our current schedule which is a six period day with that said we need to refine that we need to polish that up to make sure that we know where those opportun ities are and what those opportunities look like and um that's work that's going to continue over the course of this year for next year there is additional work that would be done on new course proposals and that really is where um a lot of the curriculum writing I think would get done and as I talked about some of the other departments kind of getting caught up with us um teaching and learning has been great um to partner with um from a resource standpoint however we know that there's a number of resources that are going to have to go into any new course in addition to curriculum writing time there's also supplies that need to be ordered textbooks curriculum that has to get ordered and this allows a little bit more time to make sure that we plann for that um and are just planful and how we go about that so as far as the the purchasing of those pieces are concerned will be a little bit more dialed in um again I gave a shout out earlier to to Rachel and some of the work that she has led with our staff we had we had over 30 teachers come in over the summer um for two Workshop days to get up to speed on how to develop a new course um if we're going to develop a new course because there's more elective opportunities now we know we're going to need new courses but if we're going to develop a new course that's solid um we need to rely on more than just a pet project for a teacher we have to make sure again that if we're really a school that's interested in Pathways that we're delivering an education that's going to prepare students for a labor market that exists so we examine labor market data we also want to be responsive to students what are our students actually asking us for um and so we with the new School links platform that we have adopted we have better data and better ways to tap in that's part of why the pathways day that we have coming up Thursday is going to be very important because that's part of how we start to establish the foundation of all of that data nth grade students and 10th grade students are going to start inputting data and building their profile so that we have a better sense of where are students what do they want but we also know that we need to look at emerging Trends too it can't just be the the old wood shop metal shop we have things like cyber security we have things like Aviation we have things like um anything related to cryptocurrency I mean there's a million different things that are emerging in the world today that were not topics 10 years ago 15 years ago 20 years ago or God forbid back when Jer Sherman and I were back in school longer than that right so those are things that we need to to stay a breast of and this gives us an opportunity to to be able to do that okay well Sydney and Rob talked a little bit about where we've been and I get to talk about where we're going and so this is the exciting part um is we were gathering feedback from our staff over the course of last winter we held six ideation station sessions with our staff to share ideas about you know in a perfect world if you could create the schedule of your dreams what would it look like and we did land on a 4x4 which is not a Brand New Concept but what came out of that was what happens when we decide the schedule like what is the net stop and so um we created three working groups at the high school one of them we call our academic working group the second is culture and the third is student engagement and again those committees came out of the staff ideation in terms of we want to be able to hit the ground running and have a schedule that really reflects an opportunity in some cases to reboot to expand or to enhance what we're currently doing so I'm going to talk a little bit about each of these working groups and what we've been working on since we made that decision last spring I'm one of the co- facilitators of the academic working group and I was going to give a little teaser about the courses Rob kind of beat me to it a little bit but we did start with some course proposal workshops over the summer we had one for all staff on our PD day and I believe we have over 20 25 brand new courses it's including some uh shift to concurrent enrollment as well which is an initiative we're looking at at the high school to try to recapture some of our PSO students but we do have a lot of new courses and I thought I'd teas you with some of my f favorit that I've been working alongside staff one is the S the science of food the second is a caps course Center for Applied professional studies called contemporary lit and film studies and another one that excites me is Eastern philosophy this is one of many different courses that our staff have worked to do exactly what Rob talked about look at data to inform our conversations about what are the skills that our kids are going to need when they enter the workforce and now that they have more elective opportunities they'll actually be able to take them so that work is one of the piece of our academic working group as Rob mentioned we're revisiting graduation credits with some new uh state requirements in terms of personal finance but we're also looking at what are some other ways that we can serve all of our kids maybe offering a first year seminar course for our freshman that combines Avid bar and pathway skills getting them started on College and Career Readiness right away when they're at freshman and also looking at some of those learning skills those Avid schoolwide skills so that's that a conversation we're having alongside maybe even a senior Capstone what does that look like at the end of your journey as you plan for what's next After High School um our culture committee is really taking a look at how do we want our students to feel connected and safe in our building and what is the academic mindset that goes along with it so they're having conversations around attendance what is you know why are our kids not coming you know taking a look at that and what can we do to make them feel welcome and safe looking at office hours is that still a need or can we embed that in some of our longer class periods looking at personalized learning options that's part of the personalized learning plan that we've been working with through Pathways um and as I mentioned the nth grade seminar our student engagement team is looking at what are the experiences we want our kids to have beyond the curriculum and so they're looking at leadership opportunities how can we leverage our students to be leaders within our building whether that be through peer tutoring through volunteering through serving on committees those kinds of things how do we building community service is a common part of what all of our kids have when they're in still water and then finally we know Pathways is you know an integral part of what we want our students to experience so how can we build in some of those opportunities in the school day to make that more Equitable for our kids so this is just a tiny snapshot of the work that our working groups are currently working on but there's a lot of great energy a lot of Staff engaged I would say well over 50 of our staff are sitting on one of our three working groups looking forward to think about yes it's the schedule but what are all the pieces that wrap around a schedule to create a great experience for our kids and lastly we talked about um in the spring about the idea that you know change is the only constant right and the reason behind this is again we feel that this can deliver a much better product and a much better experience for our students coming in and so if we're in position to be able to do that that's an exciting piece um and while it's challenging to to do um certainly one that we're all very excited to undertake as Rachel said we've got 50 um staff members over 50 staff members who are actively engaged and trying to bring about that kind of reboot um to the high school experience so that when our kids come in um they're getting the the best possible experience in any school um in the state of Minnesota and so um we want to make sure that again when that comes everybody feels as good as humanly possible about that uh that change and so again that's why we'll take an extra year to make sure that our planning is good um and that everybody feels like we're in an airtight position and that all of our departments have a chance to to be on the same page so that's the end of your presentation board questions go first yes I can go first um okay thank you for that that was a great update um and I can tell there's just so much thought that's going on on multiple levels to prepare for this um and I do appreciate having that asking for that extra time um in an extra year to make sure that this is done well um and executable um my kind of lingering question has to do with how this is going to change the experience for our students and how are we planning on communicating that or are we communicating that to our students um in the year that we have for instance like you mentioned U missing a day of school now you have six classes that you have to make up um under a block schedule I remember talking about this that attendance was an issue because when you miss a day you have four classes but it's like like twice as much work or I don't know how much work but um more work than would have been under our current schedule so attendance is an even bigger issue in some ways under a black schedule so um things like that I'm sure there are a lot of other kind of cultural shifts that would be happening for the lives of students um are there discussions on how to bring them along or include them in that process and anticipating how things will change for them too as a student I'd like to say I feel like um You' probably be more likely to go if you only have four classes because it's less of like stressful I suppose or it's like less of an obligation and you don't feel overwhelmed so if you only have four I feel like going to school feels easier to manage for some students I can imagine and so I feel like that would be just a theory that the um like attendance would increase with that hopefully there is actually some one of the research studies that we show did show actually a little bit of a bump in attendance probably due to to that concern um just the idea that students know you know what this is really really important and I need to be there I think the larger um part of your question goes to just like the the marketing piece right like how do we how do we get the message out to to students um and families and yes that's something that I'm very big on I like getting communication out to our families so that our families know what's going on so that they understand why we're doing something but also what the the advantages of that are um to the point about working with students I actually started with that I met with students anley and Mason didn't have the the privilege of this because they're seniors so they they got a different Spiel but during the first week of school or actually second week of school I meet with all of our students so we have ninth graders come down for a day 10th graders come down for a day 11th graders come down for a day and we talk about this is the big picture of school this is you know this is how School kind of impacts you in 10th Grade and impacts you in 11th grade and so each of them is differentiated a little bit by class but one of the main themes there one kind of main piece that I'm that I'm bringing through all of it and this year it was the schedule and so I introduced that to students and started that conversation so right away at the beginning of the year because at that point in time Our intention was to start up this next fall on a new schedule so right away coming out of the gate I wanted students to be aware hey this is a change that's coming up this is what we're talking about this is what it will look like these are the reasons why this is what it can do for you obviously conversation to be continued but that's started kind of right out of the gate and so anytime that I have an opportunity to get up in front of students to to do that we put together videos that we share out with families um but I'm up in front of students talking with them I pop into classrooms and talk with them but um Carissa is very good at helping me put out mass communication efforts to make sure that our families understand the why okay thank you yes Dr pet um so one of the things that I have actually kind of heard out in the community is um perhaps a um people are a little bit skeptical about the whole four periods in the day because they feel as though students these days have a shorter attention spam than they ever did and so how do you keep students engaged it strikes me that it's probably a different way of teaching entirely um and so I'm wondering if you can talk about that a little bit I can jump in so part of the slide that Rob highlighted was the different instructional uh PD that we're going to be having over the course of the next year and a half and you do have to start thinking in terms of chunking your curriculum and some of those Avid strategies so I mean most of us probably don't teach you know lecture for 53 minutes anyway right we have multiple different pieces of our lesson or class period we're just going to have to have more of that right and it's not like we heard from all the schools we visited it's not like you're taking two days and cramming them into one that's not the math but we have to rethink how we how we package our content how we you know bundle that within a class period it's going to be a lot more chunking and that's where we can leverage those Avid strategies instructionally to help our staff rethink that and that time next year as we replan maybe we don't have six units in year maybe we have five but we go deeper into the five and those kinds of things that we'll be able to plan for I would like to add one quick piece to that that ties in uh Rachel's comments as well as Angel really nicely is when we are looking at increasing our course offerings and diversifying our electives the hope with that would be that students are having more Choice with those right and that when those choices are being made it's because it's something that they're interested in it applies somehow to their future or is getting them ready you know for the admission requirements right and so um the other piece with the attendance is when it's something that is making sense to them it's something that they're interested in they are going to be more willing to be engaged with it and pay more attention to it and not be as distracted as they might be right now and it actually does show that then their attendance approve improves as well so it's not just from the four classes and um not as much Transitions and things to hold and how heavy you know coming into six classes can be it's also that it might be things that are a little bit more relevant to them and things that they're interested in too and I'll just Pigg you back one more comment that we heard from the students when we were out especially in wetta talked about when you have a longer class period you have more embedded work time so you're able to do more of that homework in school with your teacher right alongside you rather than sending all of this home and trying to have the students figure it out without the support that they need from their instructor so they talked about how a lot more of that was embedded into the class period and students performance accelerated and increased Rachel stole a little bit of my thunder there um I was gonna just acknowledge that's a legitimate question and it's a absolutely a legitimate concern and when we went to um one of the high schools um because both of them actually had a fairly similar schedule but when we went to one of the high schools um the group of student students that we took and again I'll acknowledge the group of students I fully acknowledge is not can't automatically speak for the whole entire student population I get that but each of them was skeptical too and one of the things that I told them is they said you all have to go to at least one math class they said you know they followed students around but I said each of you asked to make sure that you go to a math class because if there's one class that kids tend to get anxiety over and think oh my God this is going to be the most boring thing I if I don't like math on a 60 Minute schedule how on Earth am I going to man it on an 80 to an 85 minute schedule I said you're going to go and you're going to watch this and you're going to come back and tell me what you think again small sample size I fully admit every student came back and said I was really skeptical going in I really liked what I saw I wish that I had math on this kind of schedule and as Rachel said the instructional techniques vary and it's student driven and our teachers will have to adapt instruction should not look the same on the Block as it does on a on a more tradition traditional schedule but every single one of those students walked out saying to to themselves and saying to me yes that is a preferable way to to do that I really liked my experience in that cow did they say why again I think they saw the student driven aspect of it they were the level of Engagement was higher when you when you chunk a schedule down um to a shorter sample size it's easier to fall into a bit of a routine to say okay we're going to take you know 10 minutes to cover some questions from the homework assignment then we've got 15 minutes of direct instruction and then you know you've got you know 20 minutes to to do this example and then you've got homework time and you just fall into those buckets the the strategies that we saw um were far more varied than that and so the student participation and the student engagement was just at a at a different level and I think that's what our kids picked up on during the course of that experience some of that we want to try to capture and and bottle in any way we can so regardless of whether we're on a 60-minute schedule or an 80-minute schedule what can we take out of there to to try to learn from but again I think the important thing that the the kids came out with was the idea that this is a vehicle that is more conducive to doing this and they were they were all in thank you um thank you for the update um one thing I was thinking about from one of the previous conversations was about um you you know daily touches with like music and the idea of a I think skinny with the benefit of times and you know and and you know talking to other schools and and talking with the teachers is is that still something that's on on the the table or yeah those are things that we will discuss and again we actually had that discussion prior to the uh presentation that we delivered back last spring where we had a lot of conversation with the music uh te teachers about how can this work for you and so part of what we've talked about is that we will establish some objective criteria for classes that would benefit from a year-long touch point maybe every class might think that they would benefit from a year-long touch point but the reality is we're going to establish some objective criteria and part of what we talked about is that from the the pieces that we've talked about preliminarily music it's pretty easy to see how they would do that but part of what we've talked about is Shifting that potentially in nth grade and 10th grade so that it's more of an every other day piece whereas by the time they're in 11th grade and 12th grade and have matriculated through to the higher levels the reality is they'd be in that music class probably every day um as it is and have that music class take up one of their one of the blocks in their schedule that's an acceptable piece for the the highest level of music that we have the introductory levels we'd probably be piggybacking that off of other classes that that nth grade and 10th grade students are in thanks drer yes thank you all for coming back and for your significant uh efforts over the summer obviously it's easy for the board just to sit back like oh wow ton of uh work that's been happening so thank you all um you know and also for your just your diligence in making the decision uh which I imagine would is difficult uh to push out the uh implementation date um as you know as I would think if I was a junior I'd be like oh man that's too bad to miss out on the opportunity uh but I get the idea and and I you know having more time to reflect upon uh this you know recommendation and decision um you know I I I like it even more you know just the the fact that you know students are going to have you know more agency around um you know essentially becoming you know the CEO of their educational journey and what a great life skill for them to develop to better you know tailor their interest and aspirations around you know whole wide different assortments of uh different classes um so so Kudos and thank you for everyone that's involved in that uh one question I did have though is around some of the the course offerings uh is there anything that we're looking around at some of our you know peer schools and saying Hey What Can you know still water is is is awesome what can we do to make it even more awesome and offer unique you know differentiators from classes from a an enrollment standpoint obious from the board would be lovely you know Contin to see increases from that yes um so our team has done a great great job Rachel in particular has done a great job finding registration guides from a lot of our neighboring schools and so in particular schools that are on a block schedule that that do have more offerings to see what are they offering maybe we don't have to to start over and reinvent the wheel but the the reality is we also want to marry that and merge that with what our student interests are one of the pieces our our students indicated an interest in was tourism and Hospitality we have nothing related to tourism and Hospitality we don't have again our vehicle right now even if we create created that course we probably wouldn't be able to get legs to actually run the course we wouldn't be able to get enough students to register for the course to actually run it you need a vehicle that allows you to be able to to capitalize on that and take advantage of that so um we have paid attention to what other um what other schools are offering but we're also looking at labor market data to see what are the emerging Trends we're looking at what is what our students telling us they're interested in um and a number of other factors yeah I can just pick you back on that one of the first things Bob and I did as we prepared for the course proposal workshops was we looked at the new mde recommendation you probably all remember the labor market wheel right with the spokes um so they redid that over the summer and it's now a grid of 16 different Industries some of them cross cross cutting Industries but some of them unique Pathways and so we audited our own Pathways we have four and we recognized that we really should expand up to seven that was kind of our first conversation over the spring and we shared that feedback with our staff from there we identif ified what are the programs of study we currently offer and where are the gaps or opportunities in our C curriculum to really prepare our kids across all 16 of those different programs of study so that's where we started the conversation with staff is let's look at where we're really strong and where do we have gaps that we need to fill for our kids then we looked at our deed data we looked at our real-time Talent data we pulled up our school links data from last Spring's Pathways and we looked at when our kids do interest inventories and skills in inventories what are the top industries that are matching and where do we have deficits in what we're offering so if I'm a student and I'm you know wanting to go into entrepreneurialship what in our program guide or registration guide offers that for our kids so then we started looking at sequences of courses you know might have an introductory level course but we don't have you know middle or Advance because kids just don't have time in their day to do that so that's how we started to look at building those 20 some courses I mentioned earlier they're very data driven and data informed of course some of them are passion projects and some of them are going to be great exciting courses for kids but we also want to make sure that we're filling needs our kids have when they graduate one of the other pieces of data that we also looked at was our PSO numbers in terms of what classes students are signing up for and trying to also increase our concurrent enrollment offerings uh through that course approval process and so that's another piece of data that we've been looking at is just what are those classes that students are taking when they are leaving our school for PS and how can we embed some of those within our own uh building so a year and a half ago we really tasked you with looking at different options and you know I I from what I hear you were running Full Speed Ahead on the on the four period day what I would just like to say to the to the board and the community is we need a new schedule at Still Water Area High School all right with with the changes coming from the state I mean I just got excited listening with the energy level of these potential new courses that are our students can have um and so really what it and the other thing I want to say is this so you mentioned vehicle all right so how long have we been on the sixth period day at uh soat High School Rachel help me out I want to say like 200ish 2005 something I think it's time to trade that vehicle [Laughter] in okay so so really you know in in uh you know as sitting here listening um and I I concur with your assessment let's push this back a year because what we're going to need a year from now actually probably even starting in September is if you're talking a number of course approvals they're going to have to start flowing to the board get them through the curriculum committees and so we're going to have a you know a timeline that we're going to we're going to have to be you know moving um the the other thing I can say is um you know people are you know as we sit here with with the 1% fund balance and you know the budgetary side of things um one of the things that we are going to be looking at starting the next month or two is what are our priorities as a school district and how does this fit into our priorities as a district in providing um more opportunities expecting more uh for our for our high school students so I think that will be part of the discussion one of the things that you know from listening to to you and you know my too often I think we we have to feel that okay we're going to do it's going to be perfect on day one um yeah way back in the day I I went from uh as a high school social studies teacher from a seven period day we went to a block and what we did is we scaffolded it over time okay so year one of the block we may not have 20 new courses okay we may have you know know 12 15 whatever it may be year two we can add more etc etc so so we have an opportunity to to scaffold things if if we need to um but you know for us okay we're going to have to take a look at and again as we're we're starting to develop budgets for the next year or two um how many courses are we looking at adding you talked about the resources as far as uh Capital expenditures and and books and things like that um but as a district you know I think we have to have this discussion and what we prioritize and I've told I told QSC which is our our quality steering committee you know they asked about this and I said you know if if this is what's good for the for the kids we'll figure out a way to do it and I think having these conversations and having conversations with the wider community on you know okay we can offer the food class we can offer Aeronautics we can offer all these things that uh I know other schools do um so we have been as Rob said we've been hamstrung by our vehicle and we we need uh to tweak that trade it in and uh um figure out a A Better Way Forward and and I think you and your team are are well on your way to doing that so but what we have to do at the district level is support it and that is through student information system technology teaching and learning and uh you know I think uh um go fast enough to get there but slow enough to see um I think that's a perfect uh statement so that's my my two cents on it thank you go ahead oh sure um so you know we're getting this information now and there's probably a few parents out there that aren't watching this meeting right now how will this be rolled out you know I'm hearing from a staff a little bit right now pluses and minuses on this students you know your Juniors and seniors aren't going to be affected so it's going to be freshman and sophomore that'll be starting in uh 26 but how will this be introduced to the parents uh so that they're not reacting come August of 26 for the first time well they won't be reacting in August of 26 because we have a pretty comprehensive registration process so you know incoming ninth grade students um in particular get a huge introduction into what registration looks like and how to schedule for for ninth grade and really we're trying to hit them with a the idea of establishing a four-year plan right then and there for other parents we also send out a ton of information around that registration process for 10 through 12 so the process looks a little bit different for 10 through 12 than it does um in nth grade and part of what we've talked about is you know the need to differentiate probably for just about every class because every class is going to have a different number of graduation requirements and so part of how we would do that director kelzenberg is we'd have one message specific for n9th grade that's easy we can take care of that because we hold inhouse meetings um where literally we get we get about 500 parents coming in out of 700 to come in to to learn about what the registration process looks like in nth grade we don't rely on in-person meetings necessarily for 10 through 12 but we are talking about and we'll probably deliver a standardized message for 10th grade a standardized message for 11th grade and a and a differentiated message for 12th grade so that everybody understands what are the implications of this schedule what does this mean for how I go about selecting courses going into that that next year thank you yes although I need to bring back to Dr Funk I had a comment about yours um so I can definitely see all the the high educational value that this um proposal is bringing and um all the High student touch points being a single school or High School District I mean every kid is going to be touched by this change so um to me it it makes sense to have this as a priority but going back to that budget um that is a huge concern of mine and the reality is we passed a levy recently but it was just a levy renewal um and that we have a history in this District of budget cutting every couple years so I have a lot of concerns of all the incredible work that is going on and the investment that is going to be required to create this new schedule I do not want to be in a position in the future where we cannot afford it anymore so I am hoping that there are plans um to protect or to perhaps look at another Levy to actually sustain sustainably fund this into the future um or are we just going to try to do internal moving of funds um that option is a little more nerve-wracking for me since I know we have a pretty tight budget to begin with um so all those budgetary things that I know fall in the district and you guys have done a great job um and that's something that we definitely need to figure out but those are weighing heavily on me in this decision as well they are on on me as well but I want to make it clear all right to you and your staff all right if we go forward on this all right as your superintendent as we go forward on this I should say we're going to figure out a way to do it okay and uh we're going to as I said you might have to to scaffold it initially um but we'll figure out and that'll be discussion later in uh probably February March as far as when we start bringing proposed budgets to the board for for the upcoming year uh but we have status quo as far as I'm concerned is not acceptable and so our community and our students deserve better we just have to figure out a way to do it and that's on myself and our Chief Financial Officer over there regarding costs I imagine there would be some obvious some upfront cost just to make this conversion but on an ongoing basis will this program cost more than what we're doing now and why would it the day is not longer and why would it cost more more classes more more classes more electives more staff more text um but there's also some potential savings you know we are seeing a significant uptick in postsecondary enrollment where kids go to a college the district pays the tuition for them to go to the college as as Rachel was talking we're looking and adding a number of concurrent enrollment classes where kids can stay at so waterer high school and earn credit there which the cost is significantly reduced so there's some potential cost Savings in doing that okay and I think back in May when I went back because I went back before this presentation just to refresh myself it was and it probably didn't include the cost savings that you're I mean this was back in May so it was 1.5 million um was the cost that we were given then but again that doesn't take into account um efficiencies that will'll have future conversations on because I can I agree with um director Packer I love everything about this I love all the presentation the benefits I I'm on board I just um you know the board ultimately has to have some budget conversations with with the superintendent and um and staff to make sure we're creating something that is sustainable um for years to come so and it sounds like that's going to be kind of the next phase of this but I actually wanted to go back really quick I had a question on um the three working teams are those staff only working teams I mean I want to make sure we're involving because I feel like getting the community getting behind this I think you director um kelzenberg had this was like are our parents contributing to any of these committees are our students contributing to any of these committees where it's almost like that we know how powerful word of mouth is in our community we get surveys that say that all the time where it's like if we can build that excitement within the students um and within families that might be able to help I don't know that just seems like something I don't know if we're doing that now or if there are plans yeah so for um again there's three working teams and primarily the the academic team um that's one where we just need to we need to sit down and kind of just crunch math that's going to that's going to be some numbers and um so there'll be a number of pieces there there's a number of new cours proposals as as we've talked about that are also part of that academic piece and those all get vetted before the curriculum advisory committee so that's a a committee again that um consists of parents so parents are a part of that too um the student engagement um group is one that will heavily involve students because we're talking about yeah how to engage them right and so as we talk about what are the experiences that we're looking to to engage you in to to make that meaningful yes that group will absolutely be drawn in there the culture piece um is a piece that we're actually working with Carissa on right now I was talking with her over the course of this past week where we we don't want to just completely revamp and say Stillwater area high school is a separate entity from the rest of the district the district has done a number of culture building kinds of pieces we've identified the themes about what we want our culture to be how do we make sure that we at Stillwater area high school are continuing to do that I'm looking at the pony commitments that's on the poster on the wall right behind you how do we make sure that who we are reflects all of that so that's work that already has um been involved and engaged our community and quite frankly just we need to do a a better job making sure that we are aware of all of that work that's been done outside the district to make sure that our work is done in conjunction with that so I think the work that um gets done whether it's directly involving them or not as a reflection of work that's been done by our larger Community for sure I'm glad to hear that there's plans in place that are you know so we can hear all those important voices and then my last my last question was um you know we always he in the community with career Pathways so it's great that you're here Rachel and everyone loves career Pathways um that knows about it some don't know about it and some many many students because of our archaic schedule can't take full advantage can you just speak to like parents I talk to that love career Pathways why can't my child and that's what I hear more than anything I wish this I had known this existed I wish my kid had time to do career Pathways this is amazing how does this schedule game change for like career Pathways for that vehicle it's a great question Rob mentioned the word he said flexibility and how the four period block is us the flexibility to do the kinds of programming we want to do we've tried offering things during office hours before after school it's challenging is challenging to find time when we can get access to the majority of our kids without interference from Athletics and activities or their own academic needs during office hours so we've been pretty much hamstering to our Pathways days which we think are becoming more you know widespread and and supported in our school and and from families but the idea of taking a career seminar career internship I know Dr funk's daughter took that in the spring and and really kind of allowed her an opportunity to build some of those profession-based learning skills we have a very low number of our students doing work-based learning we would like to see that expanded and I think that can happen as a result of this schedule as well so when you look at opportunities for flexibility within the schedule but then have kids having more elective opportunities within the schedule to participate in those course offerings that we have on campus it'll be an asset to support Pathways I don't have some of the slides in front of me obviously but if you go back to the presentation from the spring there were a couple of slides up there where we put sample schedules um so example pieces mock things again just as a math problem we're currently on a six period day semester system so six periods times two grading periods is 12 course opportunities that students have each year 12 each year times four years means that our kids right now have 48 credit bearing opportunities on a four period day block schedule that number will increase from 48 up to 64 that's the number of spaces that students have then to take um courses so as Rachel talked about one of the things that we've talked about is how do we embed some of the pathways into this schedule now that we have room to do it ninth grade wouldn't it be great to offer a seminar where we teach all of our kids how to organize things in a binder how to take notes these are things that will last you throughout High School this is how you do high school let's not just do it on the Fly let's do it as a course we talked about the student engagement committee um and Rachel mentioned a Capstone project a Capstone project could be an internship it could be some other Pathways opportunity it could be a community service project for some of our kids who do Eagle Scout work or whatever but how do we embed that work that some of them are already doing with something that they want to do that they feel passionate about and say this is something that everybody's going to get throughout their experience in 10th and 11th grade we know we're required to have a personalized learning plan for every student every public high school in the state of Minnesota is required to track personalized learning plans for students but you know as well as I do that some schools do that with much more Fidelity than others this is something that allows us to do that with Fidelity what if we had a course built in where students in 10th Grade had a differentiated experience that made sense to them as a 10th grader that allowed them to continue to kind of build with the end in mind and then another course built in in 11th grade we have room to do that now where there's still going to be more room for electives than students have on our current schedule but we also have the ability to embed all of these pieces that we're trying to do on the fly right now Pathways day is great it's awesome but it's a one-day snapshot right now and right now we're sitting here trying to talk to kids about because it's not part of their regular everyday schedule we're going out of our way to try to explain to them how great this is and what this has the the potential to do for you and if kids don't get that message or whatever or you happen to get sick on that one day guess what I mean I can't tell you how many kids I had come in a the day after Pathways last year and say oh man you guys did all that stuff how can I get that guess what the train left the station you know that's we can't go back and replicate that kind of day but you have a vehicle that allows you to embed that into their experience so that along the way there are opportunities to do that throughout their High School experience that is how that's a game changer that I think is the answer to your question and I just I mean I'm I'm a fan of this so um I just think that from a community standpoint when I talk to other parents they they need to understand that when they come to me and when I and when I have these conversations when they're kind of bummed out that they don't they don't have time for Pathways I'm like that's why these schedule conversations are so important because this is what gets your student that ability to not have to make a choice between music or you know band Orchestra choir foreign language or Pathways and that's what I think a lot of families feel like right now is that if you're in those activities then you can't do something else so I mean you know like Dr Funk said which I think is a great anal analogy or trading in a very old vehicle at this point so I like that and not only is it old it's a [Laughter] Yugo great um and the only other thing I wanted to add is just policy will probably have to be embedded in this because as we start talking about graduation requirements I know we've been waiting on that so thank you very much for the opportunity to be here tonight again very exciting thank you so much all right and now we're going to talk secondary data review and we're GNA have Elsa hi Elsa good evening Bo superintendent Punk can you hear me okay welcome back yeah thank you for having me um we'll do a quick tour through our secondary MCA and mtas data and we'll just start I have to clicker today with our quick grounding um as we know the MCA assessments are designed to measure achievement at a really high level at the district level the school level the grade level as well as student groups so that's the lens we're going to take today um and of course it's just one piece of our District's assessment system and can't be used in isolation from our other data sources uh we look at proficiency so percent proficient is kind of our cut score that hides all the gradations in student performance because it's just a it's a yes no question right did you meet proficiency or not there's much more to student performance than that and that's something to keep in mind but it's also a really really useful tool to aggregate across grade levels across schools to the district level so before we jump into our scores we're going to talk really briefly about participation rates at the middle school level our participation looks really really strong certainly on Pace with State participation and in the high 90% that's really what we would want to see what we'd expect to see taking into account refusals absences all of that at the high school we see more variation from where the state is all three tests are now slightly outperforming the state it's quite difficult to see for science but it just um is about three percentage points higher than the state [Music] so obviously we'd like to see math and science higher we get a better picture of all of our students one more of our students participate a couple fact s in this is that math takes place in grade 11 so if we think about our students who are in PSO who are taking other tests it's another piece of that puzzle to fit in and for science similarly we have those scheduling pieces and they take it at the end of their biology course so not all students take science at the exact same time if we jump into reading by grade level we see that each grade is outperforming the state average with our highest grade levels being six and 10 and about a 10o spread in between those different grade levels over time we're not really seeing a ton of movement we see a little bit of growth especially in grade eight and grade 10 between last year and this year but again we're looking for a really consistent Trend and we're not seeing that yet one piece to note is that new standards will be not this year but the following year 2025 2026 will be tested on the new MCA four we're on MCA 3 right now when we look at gaps by student group these look similar to some graphs that we saw at the elementary level one thing I wanted to call out is that at the elementary level we saw quite a significant Gap by gender in reading that seems to more or less have washed out by the time those students are in high school one thing that'd be interesting is to look at that at a cohort level so we're comparing the same students but this was encouraging to me to see and we see the same Trends by free and reduced lunch special education status and English learning status when we look by school each school is outperforming the state with the exception of Oakland and as we look at our Trends over time all schools see that big big drop between 2019 and 2022 hey go back a slide for a second so have you done much analysis probably not had a chance yet but what are your just thoughts on why the difference between Oakland and Stillwater Middle it's a really good question I think that's definitely the next step to start to look at what we see in our students what we see in our course taking that interests me more with math um whether we have access to algebra in 8th grade or which um advanced math courses the eighth graders take um and then for reading as well we think about access to grade level content remediation those kinds of things the other thing is you know demographic wise are we seeing more free and reduced kids at Oakland Middle are we you know um I don't know off the top of my head but okay I mean just that's the first thing that I thought of too is like and we talk a lot about this at the board table where it's you know there seems to be a disparity between the two middle schools in some categories and just getting as to the why so we can fix it and address it yeah absolutely and when we look at those two middle schools we also see that based on their different starting points we have different ending points so the drop for still water is slightly less severe compared to the drop for Oakland in the red and then the high school is right in the middle of the two and we saw quite a good-looking jump last year both for the high school and for OMS as well but we can pause there before we move on to math if there's other reading specific questions I mean I guess just following up on what was just said there I mean um is is this going to be a goal to try to figure out what is different between these because I mean it I'm sure it jumped out to everybody at this board table when you were looking at this presentation and you know I mean I think I was thinking about well could it be um the turnover in principles yeah but we've had turnover at both princip we've had turnover at both schools in terms of the principles so leadership you know that may not be a factor and so what are the factors you know because I I do think that this discrepancy should be addressed in some way but you have to figure out what's at the at the bottom of it first right I mean and that's resources are going to be put toward trying to figure that out I'm assuming right I mean part of I can give you one example right now um we have I think it's Algebra 2 at Stillwater Middle we don't have that at Oklahom middle why is that somebody made a decision a few years ago that we're going to add it here but not here okay that's not Equitable um so that's just not I even talking reading here um that but that's just one example um and you're right you know I think I've been here this is year three there's been two principles that Oakland middle and you know two different principles my first two years and there's a new principle it's still water middle when I started so I think there takes some time um but uh I just yeah I mean we we have to get a you know I don't know why well we have to dive into it and that's part of what why else is here um and in some ways it makes sense because I know demographically it's a it's a more diverse school and so if we're seeing achievement gaps that in all of the data it would make sense then that well there's more probably more languages spoken uh you know ml students in the building who are learning English um so that could be a factor as well uh but again that's pretty significant disparity right I mean we do I'm sorry I just was sort of yeah continuing on that but I mean yes we see the E data here which is kind of you know um profound and you know if we have more eel students um at Oakland then that could be an explanation but I guess first before we can do anything about it we just need to know what what the pressure points are and how we can address them but on that slide that we're kind of reacting to that's a one-time one test snapshot right and there there could be so many factors just the environment how comfortable was in school was there any other distractions but also in general it's always been my problem with the MCA test is what's the incentive for the student taking the test it doesn't affect their grade uh there's no prize there's no ice cream at the end there there's what's their reason for wanting to do well you you see much more of that at the high school level than I think you do at the middle or the elementaries um just from years of experience does that get talked about Beyond me saying in this right now I mean the incentive because even at the high school sometimes it's hey this is a day away from me studying something else and does that get taken into effect into account I not I mean not statistically it does all right thanks I had to say it yeah one thing to think about is those same pressures are also felt by the rest of the state which is one reason it's help of the state as a benchmark high schoolers all over the state might think not so sure that I want to spend this day taking the MCAS fifth graders all over the state eighth graders all over the state might run up the clock and we would think that that would be more or less evenly distributed across all the schools so it's helpful to have other schools as that Benchmark to at least know where comparing something similar well I mean and I'm just pulling up on the um report card because certainly I would question like course sequencing what's available in one school resources you know more languages but but you do have um I mean it's a a notable difference in in diversity and demographic makeup so it's like 67 to 82 and how are we supporting those that we know that there's an inherent achievement Gap I mean we see it throughout the state the country and certainly in our own schools and so what are we doing to support that I think is a really valid question I appreciate you bringing that to it to um to the conversation Dr Funk we'll see quite a few similarities when we look by math um one difference between math and reading is we see that the proficiency level for math gets slightly lower every single grade level sixth grade is the strongest down through 11th grade at the lowest but again at every level we are performing stronger than the state um we can look at our change over time and again it's kind of a was we see some moments of excitement um in 11th grade and seventh grade but not anything stable that we see for more than one year at a time uh last time we spoke about fifth grade math and one question that was posed was okay if we're making this choice in fifth grade math to set our students up better for sixth grade math is it paying off so this looks at fifth and sixth grade math proficiency over time um and then below we would see those cohorts highlighted so if I'm a fifth grader in 2016 then I'm a sixth grader in 2017 and we start to see a Divergence between the two proficiency levels right around 2017 so both scores begin to decline with fifth grade taking a faster pace so while we do see sixth grade performing better consistently it's also not a resounding um confirmation of our strategy in fifth grade again we talk about our U achievement gaps by Race by gender by free and reduced lunch special education and English Learners um we'll see that that Gap is less severe for our English Learners in math which makes sense um due to the content of the test right if I were proficient in English I wouldn't be classified as an English learner necessarily I would be about to be reclassified out of that program uh similarly School levels of proficiency we see now the high school at the lowest level still water mle at the highest level but all schools outperforming the state we'll look at our Trend over time and then kind of pause there as well here we see less movement uh with the notable exception of 11th grade that's that jump between 2023 and 2024 but the middle schools look quite stable similar to the state also on what MCA version are we on with math so we're on three this one will be the last to change that'll be I wrote it down 2627 tentatively they it's not quite set in stone but 26 27 no excuse me 2728 so even further out and did we ever get an answer on when we changed the math curriculum the last time oh well I know we changed the test in 200 of the curriculum I'm not sure Mark when did we change the math curriculum okay oh right after the standard we've had a few interations of testing since then all right we'll talk briefly about science um science both grade levels outperform the state significantly um and again I say grade levels High School is based on what course they were taking so their biology course um but here we do start to see some good-looking growth especially at 8th grade um at at the high school as well and this is one case where the curriculum changed in 2024 but the test didn't change yet the test will change this year for the new standards again we look at our achievement gaps by Race by gender by free and reduced lunch by special education and by E this this is what really stood out to me with El I thought this was the most St Gap and finally by school we see again the Divergence between our two middle schools as well as the high school at 60% is the highest of all the school levels obviously it's a different grade a different test but still exciting and then we do start to see again that growth that we saw by grade level now Broken Out by school um I wrote in my notes that Stillwater Middle School we love to see a straight line that Trend a year over year and we would hope to see that continue in the future but all schools are showing that growth if there's not any questions about science we'll keep going and look at the ECT very briefly I know I said this was a presentation about the MCA and well and can I just ask um because I know we have like other assessments um besides MCA have you really looked at those to see if these Trends because again MCA is one test one day but it is supposed to be an indic I mean to me we're not looking at individuals test results we're looking at Trends within the district and at school level we're in the process of implementing Fast 6 through 12 okay so that'll all be so that'll be what a year away from yeah well we we'll have a year Baseline at the end of this year okay um we were on nwaa um for a number of years yes yeah we won't necessarily be able to compare year to year right it's a different assessment but we've completed our fall screening for fast bridge and then we'll do winter in January so this is kind of all we have for the secondary at this point yeah we would like to get a couple screening periods of data just to get something a little more longitudinal and so one year-over-year data point that we can pull is act for the high school uh and we see a decline in the these are the super scores right so we might have a student who takes the test four times to get a better and better score they're only counted once here with their highest score for each um subtest uh it's a little hard to see on the screen and even on my paper but if we put those um subtests in order by score it goes reading science the composits in the middle and then math and then English we've seen participation numbers change over this time period it was a little under 600 in 2022 went up to 768 in 2023 and then back to 692 in 2024 so there is a change it's not really a consistent change over time but the participation has changed and we offer the ACT to all 11th graders in the spring yeah um do you have any thoughts on why there's a downward Trend there it's a really good question I don't know that I'm the best person to answer it but I might turn it over to superintendent oh thanks is it is it still in effect from the pandemic what do you think um I'm not sure I really don't I don't have a good feel for um but we are trending the wrong way um and I don't have a I don't have an answer for you at this point in time I know we we've um adopted a program last year called on to college that had you know videos for students to utilize and I know some teachers were using it in the classroom um not sure um I don't yeah I don't have a a quick answer for you there I was does it mere National data I mean that's what well I I I think one thing I can say from a national angle is right around 22 there colleges started to say tests are optional so maybe not as but we still have a lot of kids taking the test so but maybe they didn't put as much okay well if they're optional I don't I don't have to worry as much maybe um but I think what we're starting to see nationally now is colleges are going back saying you know we need we need a test um so that might be a a slight factor in it but uh I don't know this is anecdotally um but do you hear anything in the school most students regarding act that might provide Insight or just is it taken seriously is it I don't know if it's I feel like students take it seriously I just think fewer students take it okay I oh sorry I didn't I have to agree with them superintendent Funk about how since colleges have now kind of said okay it's optional to put your test score on application students are kind of like well then I won't try as hard on it I feel like they're also taking it less because I feel like in the past people have taken it more rigorously and more frequently but now I like people aren't retaking it so there's not as many high scores also could be an option but there's not like a specific like this is definitely what's happening just stuff you're seeing though mirrors what you're saying thank you for that yes yeah that was my question as well just from it' be interesting to see what the data on the participation levels and how that you know if that's in line with you know decreasing amount of students taking this the tests and less frequency and um it'll be it'll be interesting to see what that looks like and if there's a correlation or not yeah we saw the of these three years it's only years we have consistent data for the lowest participation was in 2022 the highest in that middle year and then lower the following year but not as low as the first year so a bit mixed and I believe you might have to correct me on my facts here in 2023 it was offered to all students was it offered to all students in 202 what we started to do in 23 is we have a testing day students can take the ACT they can take the ASVAB or the acup Placer so it depends on what the student wants most take the ACT still is that at no Char y yeah I think for me I'm just kind of maybe missing that National and Statewide Trend to see if our trend is an outlier um or if maybe it is because if the reasons that are being suggested here that you might see that at other other schools within the state we we can look at that data that would be helpful one question I often get is how the MCA relates to the act at the high school level and a saying that I love in education research is that tests are really good at predicting other tests in some ways it doesn't matter which test you're taking a lot of what you're measuring is very similar and we start to see that here so if you look in that lower left quadrant we see a lot of students who are below proficiency on the m and who are below that college readiness Benchmark on the ACT we also see in the upper right hand quadrant a lot of students who are above proficiency on the MCA and above the college readiness Benchmark on the ACT there's also that lower right quadrant and that would be students who are above proficiency on the MCA and Below college readiness on the AC math benchmark and that makes sense if we consider that we the ACT is expected to be a more rigorous test test and test a different set of math skills so more or less this Bears out kind of the conventional knowledge but we see quite a strong correlation between your MCA scores and your math scores I chose excuse me math in particular to start with because students take those the same year in 11th grade so we would see a tighter correlation um minsu also commissioned a study uh to look at the use of MCA scores for course placement um in an entry level course and found that MCA and ACT scores are about as good as each other at determining course success neither of them to put it out there were very good but the MCA slightly outperform the act in terms of measuring students preparedness for Minnesota state college entry level courses we see something very similar with reading but again it's a little Messier reading students take the MC in 10th Grade and they take the ACT in 11th grade so we have a Time Gap and it yeah it looks different but we also still see that correlation um between your MCA score and your act reading benchmark and reading in particular um more closely mirrors what's tested on the MCA versus the English subtest which is more grammar punctuation sentence structure all right all this to say we see that still wat's MCA and Mt scores exceed the state average across subjects at the secondary level uh Still Water scores have improved since 2022 in math and science but remain stagnant in reading and if I could revise this slide I would would say improved slightly since 2022 participation definitely has markedly improved post pandemic particularly at the high school but we do see significant variation in performance by schools and significant achievement gaps questions I know we kind of asked as we went along but mean again I just feel like I need to state that these scores don't make anyone happy I I mean there's so much room for improvement and so while we're we just need to you know what Dr Funk has been trying to do is create systems where notexist strengthen systems that do exist and perhaps eliminate some of the things that we're doing that just aren't working and it's a process and it's going to take time um but I'm really optimistic the direction we're headed and um and I just I know that everyone top to bottom in the organization is working their tails off so that's appreciated by everyone and so I don't know if I have anything else to say if anyone else but thank you so much Elsa and thank you um maybe we can schedule some time to really um dive into some of the Oakland the Middle School the inconsistencies in our schools at some point we'll work with superintendent on that thank you thank you all right um we have a couple action items so turn it over to superintendent funk for the first one of the evening the Minnesota State High School league Grant application so this is a resolution that we are required to pass if we want to try to get some dollars from the State High School league so um they have grants that they provide every year so I think it's due within a month so I'm recommending that the board approve this resolution great um I'll make a to approve this can I get a second second okay oh we to go with Dr Petri um and this is a roll call that unless there's questions I do we do this application have we done this in the past I've done it a number of times so I don't remember doing it here but okay grants are a good thing so great if there are no questions we'll do roll call vote director hacker yes director kelberg yes director lower yes Petri yes Dr fander yes chair shman yes resolution passes great resolution passes and now we're going to go on to um our policy work and Paul is unfortunately not here so I'm gonna step in for him and uh if director hacker or director Petri have anything to say as committee members feel free to speak up but it should be pretty straightforward Paul said that um he received one piece of feedback no change was made so so everything that you're seeing is matching and mirroring what we've already seen um and so we're looking at second reads on policies 707 transportation of public school students 710 extracurricular Transportation 711 video recording on school buses um are there any comments on that if there aren't we are our next item is to take action on these items so I will go ahead and make a motion to approve this package of um of policies can I get a second great director lower with the second all those in favor of approving policies 707 710 and 711 raise your hand and say I I opposed policies pass thank you and with that we're adjourned e for