##VIDEO ID:ZHXC31jUQ4g## e e e e e e evening everyone um tonight is Monday November 4th and we have a quorum so I'll call the meeting to order um first we need to approve our agenda do I have a motion to approve our agenda for tonight's meeting so move is there a second second we will now vote to approve our agenda all those in favor say I I I anyone opposed um tonight's agenda is approved Dr Stanley would you please review our agenda for the even or the meeting tonight uh absolutely so we are going to have excellence in action deepan is excellence and action the pictures Excell excellence and action is it the pictures I have something to read here is that the pictures in the room okay okay I had something in my bind here um we will have an opportunity to hear from um members of the public consent agenda we have a few discussion items uh we're getting a report on our social emotional learning we getting report on curriculum um we have several policies and then for Action uh we the board will vote on graduation requirements related to the new requirement for financial literacy uh we have a react umou um we have a few collective bargaining um agreements um that have been settled and um director sailor will bring those forward we have a few policy policies that are bringing we're bringing forward for action and then we have uh committee updates leadership updates uh superintendent updates and we will adjourn note that there are items for information uh in the board packet thank you Dr Stanley um our next agenda item is our excellence in action tonight and this month uh 22 students from Edina High School travel to Lisbon Portugal to take part in a global conservation program through the Council on International educational exchange students actively exchanged in the Portuguese Community while learning about conservation about how conservation impacts their Global Community as well as reflecting on impacts in their local community in Idina students Zena Al Rahi grade 11 Madison Brian grade 12 and Lindsay SMA the high school science teacher and the daa rotary Global Scholars Program Coordinator are joining us to share their experiences welcome good evening first of all thank you Bor so much for inviting us here're really excited to share our experience from Portugal just a few short weeks ago um and I have two really awesome students who um we're on the trip so I just wanted to highlight as we go into these travel experiences um we really look at our edina's portrait of a well-rounded um graduate so when we're designing these we want to hit as many as we can um and I think as I reflected and put this slideshow together we really were able to hit on each and every one of them um so I designed it here uh three program goals three main goals our first one was science conservation it was a science trip um learning about conservation specifically in Portugal um as well as global citizenship what students are doing um to impact um their Community both locally and globally and then also take part in a cultural Exchange and immerse themselves so I just want to introduce the staff that we had um so it was myself um chemistry teacher and Global Scholars coordinator um Mr Eric burin he's our environmental science teacher we had Jen Carter our assistant um assistant principal at Edina High School and then we had some fabulous um Portuguese staff on site um we had a scientist um his name is Dogo he's the upper um middle pict or middle picture um he was our resident scientist has been studying all over the world and was a great asset and then we had three Portuguese program coordinators so our first two goals um I wanted to highlight what the targets that we um were working on while we were there so um the whole program was centered around the United Nations sustainable development goals 17 goals um put forth by the United Nations um to achieve by 2030 and we focused on two um science focused ones Life Below water and life on land and then those are our seven targets and each day we kind of focused on one target took part in activity and then reflected on our experience so I'm going to have the students talk about all of these targets okay um hi I'm Maddie our first Target was plan and manage all areas to reduce biodiversity loss and we went and watched dolphins we learned about how for Dolphin washing they have a lot of regulations and like you can't get too close you can't spend more than 20 minutes with them um and so that was really interesting to learn about and see kind of what they're doing not only for the Dolphins but also just uh in kind of that uh area and we actually the Dolphins swam under us which was super cool and they weren't supposed to do that but um and then the um drivers of the boat knew all the dolphins based on their fins which I thought was super cool so they all had names that the um elementary school kids gave the Dolphins so that was really sweet hi I'm Zena and our second target was learning about how Portugal specifically is restoring 30% of all degraded ecosystems so while we were there we had the ability to visit a concer cons a site where lots of conservationists were building sand dunes to help protect the um ocean and create a habitat for endangered species so that was this was probably my favorite activity because we were able to directly impact the Portuguese community Through learning about these sand dunes and how we can further protect the ocean all around the world um so we had the opportunity to paint signs that encouraged protecting these dunes and marine life in general we also remove moved invasive species from the area which was definitely um impactful for all the species there and we also helped engage in Ocean cleanup so there was a lot of plastic cigarette butts all disgusting stuff you can think of on the ocean and we helped clean that up to help restore the degraded ecosystems in Portugal um this was also my favorite activity and it really just made me think about like in general the amount of stuff that's just everywhere like microplastics and cigarettes like even when I got off of the plane and came back into Minnesota I saw cigarettes on the ground and it was something I hadn't really thought of before which I thought was really interesting and connected to my life um our third target was conserve 30% of land Waters and seas and we visited an aquarium uh this was super cool to see like not only Portuguese animals but also just like around the world um our favorite were the sea otters they were so cute and cuddly um we probably spent like I don't even know a lot of time just watching them um and then um we also over the course of the trip we answered prompts based on our activities for the day and for this one we were we learned about and researched like a different type of animal that's um struggling and uh that was super interesting I did mine on seahorses which very not an animal you think about a lot but it it's cool um so our next Target was to learn about how Portugal is trying to Halt species Extinction protect genetic diversity and manage human Wildlife conflicts so by um learning about this we went to an Iberian Wolf Center that was centered on protecting um the wolves that are endangered in Portugal and all around the world as well so we learned about how Portugal is trying to Ally with surrounding countries specifically Spain to protect these wolves and make sure they have a habitat where they can Thrive and not be threatened by human activities and we actually did get to see one wolf in a protected area which was really cool I was not expecting us to see it actually that up close which was really interesting um but we also just got an opportunity to walk and Hike through the Wolves natural habitat which was definitely crucial in learning about how the Wolves thrive in the wild but in a place that they are protected so that was definitely one of my other favorite activities that we did um Target five was ensure sustainability sustainability safe and legal harvesting and trade of wild species so uh we went snorkeling that day and we got to see the wild species of Portugal in real life and see their habitat and then on my boat we actually cleaned up some trash that was left in the ocean so that was really impactful for me and we also went to a fish market and saw like local harvesting and how that kind of plays a role and um more specifically like their environment in their Village instead of just like Mass P stuff um yeah um our next Target was to reduce pollution to levels that are not harmful to biodiversity so on our last day there we engaged in a forest park I guess like tour through um a very diverse forest in Portugal and we learned about all the different species that they are trying to protect in this area and across um Portuguese forests we learned about the different birds that they're trying to protect leaves trees all of those kinds of things and it was really cool to just connect directly with nature and sort of just be one with the environment to really be motivated to protect the ecosystems there um after that we met a guy named the trash traveler whose mission is to walk along the coast of Portugal and pick up trash to help save the oceans and to get a little flavor of that we helped pick up cigarette butts in the forest area area and then made art pieces with them which was really cool to just kind of visualize how we can reduce reuse and recycle back at home as well cigarettes cigarett cigarett cigarettes cigarettes is nut cigarettes contain woo y cigarett cigarettes cigarett we go um he does have 30,000 followers on Instagram if you're interested in checking that out um our seventh Target was minimize the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and build resilience uh we had a surf class this day this was super fun and super exciting even though it was kind of cold it was really we had wet suits so we were all warm but um being in Ocean like that really kind of changed my mind and um being in Minnesota you don't experience that so you don't really think about the impact that we have um on the ocean but even like the Surfers there they all have initiatives to protect it because they spend so much time and um and a lot of their life in the ocean so I think that was very benefit official to like experience that and realize that everything I do has such a huge impact on the ocean and the ocean connects everywhere so it's important to keep it protected language um so while we were in Portugal to just get a glimpse of the language and culture that they use there we had a Portuguese language class with an amazing teacher that I'll never forget um but he taught us how to say just basic phrases to really immerse ourselves into the culture and respect the language that they use there and just demonstrate that we are willing to sort of like integrate our mindsets into their culture and not try to reform it so that was super interesting and yeah I don't know if you want to add yeah I can um I got to order or like check out what I bought at the fish market in Portuguese which I thought was really fun for me and um I kind of went into the experience thinking like oh they speak Spanish like I'll be able to do that but then I found out they don't and um so that was kind of like a culture shock thing for me but it was really cool to learn and see the similarities and differences and uh just kind of stuff like that so while we were there we again immersed ourselves into the culture through different historical tours of architecture and just important sites that are in Portugal so on the left hand side we went to visit the Palace of Mafra which was definitely a highlight because we learned about the history of like the Portuguese monarchy and how it became a rep public and then also we just got to walk through this amazing palace with Incredible paintings and architecture which was really amazing um then we also took um a t toque tour which are like the little like vehicle golf cart motorcycle kind of things um but that was super fun for me cuz the driver we had was just hilarious and she was playing Portuguese music and just connecting with us in a really authentic way um we also visited many different cities like say tuba which was the island we went to for the dolphin watching and SRA and yeah we just really immersed ourselves into the culture and saw the similarities and differences across Portuguese cities um specifically in CRA that was where one of the staff um spent a lot of his time with his mom going to can't remember what it's called but it's they have a bunch of castles and palaces there and um we really got to hear about the act on of Tourism specifically there because it's um a lot more touristy than a lot of the other places we went and everything was a lot more expensive uh our staff um franchisco talked about how when he was a kid it everything was free to the public and you could go and see the sites and just have a nice day and now it was filled with people and trash and other things so that was interesting to hear about impacts that we have um this is also kind of tied to science but the students were able to visit um this is a old Gunpowder Factory that they turned into um an urban conservation Haven so it was a cool way to show students um a way we can take an urban site and an old abandoned site and turn it into a place where we can preserve species um Portuguese food the little pastry Pata is their um kind of country food um it was super good and like I've never had anything like it um and they put cinnamon on it too which was interesting I was not expecting to like it that much and we had a cooking class and we made tomato soup which what did they call it it was I don't know they called it tomato and I was like not expecting to have tomato soup but it was really good and then we made chicken and rice which like is an I feel like an Universal kind of dish but we added a lot of stuff to it and made it kind of a more Portuguese Cuisine yeah and it just really allowed us to get like a taste of Portugese culture along with what everything we were seeing we got to narrow it down to actually the flavors that Define Portugal as a culture so that was really cool for me this is our staff so there was franchisco Ronaldo and Dogo they were all so sweet and silly and like we're totally okay to be chatting and having fun um in one of the photos you can see Bridget trying um Espress for the first time after our cooking class um a lot of girls tried it and they did not like it but it was definitely like an opening eye opening experience um yeah they were all super sweet and were really good at immersing us in their ways of life yeah just like very memorable I won't ever forget the connections I made with the staff there and I hope I can see them again one day yeah we we've been snapping them about our us activities and so that's really fun to kind of show them our side and since they got to tell us about their life um so while we were there we got to meet all different kinds of people like I met Maddie for example I don't know if I would have met her otherwise um but I definitely created connections with other people in my in Addie high school that would last a lifetime time I hope but it was definitely impactful to create new connections with people that have different backgrounds and perspectives than mine and we all had a common interest for broadening our cultural awareness and embarking on this trip to Portugal uh yeah just meeting new friends and seeing people in the Halls now that I didn't even pay attention to before and we all like text and we're like oh my gosh like we saw this person or I saw an Instagram post about this and it's just really fun to have those people that you got so close to in short amount of time um so there was lots of impacts for me from the trip but I think one thing that's really important that I gained from the trip was just a broader cultural understanding of different perspectives I me I think in America we sometimes get a very narrow vision of the cultures that are present so being able to study abroad really helped me expand my awareness and my conscious of different perspectives and experiences um I again like I said I made connections that definitely bettered me as an individual and I'm super grateful for the cultural exchange that I had and I hope I get to do it again uh this is my first time going abroad so this is definitely a very new experience for me and I just had an amazing time and I wasn't expecting to have as much fun as I did and uh now going off to college it's really important for me to kind of figure out who I am and where I want to be and what I want to do and I definitely think I kind of found myself and experienced new things so I can kind of help shape where I what I want to do yeah that's it thank you all for coming here to share experience I really appreciate it sounds like an amazing trip if you ever need a board member to uh accompany you I'll be happy to be first in line exactly um we are going to move on to our hearings for members of the public um thank you to those of you that are here to address the board when you signed in and asked to speak you acknowledge an understanding and adherence to board policy 206 which are Community comment guidelines pursuant to this policy each speaker has a maximum of 3 minutes to speak a clock on the screen will be a visual reminder of your time remaining and I will prompt you verbally if you going over 3 minutes when those 3 minutes are up you must conclude your remarks this time is not designated is not a Time designated to address items concerning specific staff or students and personal attacks by anyone at the podium are unacceptable if this happens you will be warned and if you persist you will no longer be able to continue your remarks any feedback about District employees needs to go to their respective site level leader the superintendent or or be submitted to the board in writing the public comment period will be limited to 15 individuals per updated protocols the school board will give first priority to Edina Public School students individuals who have children attending school in the district individuals who reside in the district or individuals who are employed by the district the school board will give second priority to individuals who wish to address a specific item that is on the agenda for that meeting if your form was not filled out completely you are not eligible to be called to speak all efforts have been made to ensure multiple viewpoints are expressed multiple individuals expressing the same Viewpoint or multiple people from the same organization should consider consolidating the remarks um finally during public comment period our role as a board is to listen but this is not the place for the board to resolve any concerns and as such no comments will be made from the board issues will potentially be referred to the superintendent for appropriate followup thank you for your cooperation um I want to make sure we get our clock on the screen ah thank you I appreciate that um first up we have uh Rebecca mang and I apologize if I don't pronounce that was perfect uh names correctly thank you so oh will you turn on the mic please there you go oh there we go thank you uh hi my name is Rebecca Ming thank you so much for allowing me to speak today I have three children currently in Idina school district and today I really want to share Julia's experience who is my second grader at Normandale Julia really wanted to come and she couldn't so she made me bring a picture which I will show while I'm talking to only a three minutes but Julia um last year when she was in first grade had lights four times in a row I was losing my mind and didn't know what to do and it was very expensive I spent a lot of time talking to other leaders at the school to the nurse and to other people trying to figure out what we could do I had heard from the experts across the board on lice talk to many people that notices were important because the way we had to stop it was to stop her from getting it from other kids in her classroom that she was getting it from so I decided to take action into my own hands and I went on Facebook on a Normandale Facebook page and shared that Julie had had lice four times and asked people to check their children within 24 hours I had more than five people six people I guess it was uh messaged me privately to tell me that they had checked their child they were in her class and they had found lice one person said they had found all three kids had had lice and they were like it's pretty bad and this was great I was so excited because notices worked right I noticed I told them it worked but there was an uned consequence to that you see Julia who is very strong looking and very happy also has autism something that we can't see in the picture and since she was three years old she'd been working with the ad School District around things in her plan and the top thing was about making friends and creating connections with people in first grade her top goal was being able to talk to and ask other kids to play with her she had a goals very specifically to go up to children and say would you like to play and few days after this experience of me putting this online somebody came up to Julia and she asked them if they wanted to play and she said I can't play with you my mom says because you have lice and while that broke my heart and it is very sad that it's not what I want to leave you with what I want to leave you with is that this didn't have to happen we saw that notices were worked telling people that other kids have lice in their classroom and motivates people to check their children and find it and it takes that burden off of the parents to have that conversation and have to share their specific child's story with people so that's really the ask is just to get notices out uh to people around lice on obviously Anonymous and don't want to share people's names thank you for your time thank you um Jenny Zin is it on okay um hi my name is Jenny Shin I'm a practicing physician and a mother of three children two of whom attend Normandale um I'm here tonight to express concerns over the the current life policy which is um notifying parents when there is three cases per classroom um I appreciate the effort that district has made to address concerns however I feel that it could be improved um the most recent email was in October and it was titled in the no homecoming 2024 recap kindergarten information nights and more um um and that email included new changes but it was buried within the text and only accessible via a hyper link you had to click on and I thought it could be very easily missed my kids attended Norman uh s my kids attended kids club this summer and a parent kindly emailed me to Noti find me that they had lice I very much appreciated the email so then I could check my heads my kids immediately um I didn't find anything at first um I thought it was in the clear but it wasn't until 3 weeks later that I found NS in both my um Elementary age children so from my um research it can take four to six weeks after being exposed Delight for symptoms to appear if we waited for three cases in one classroom that could allow for potentially 12 weeks of Life spreading without any notifications um so notifications to families at that three case threshold is far too low a bar for systemic reporting um furthermore elementary kids have lunch uh recess kids club bus together so reporting by classroom alone can let life spread even long longer um and as you know a parent started A din Li line in order to um Anonymous anonymously track cases and data from the LI line show that there have been 84 cases reported and but only three classrooms exceeded that three case threshold um while the lifeline has been a wonderful parent run resource it is likely only capturing a fraction of the cases and only dinet Health Services can reach everyone in our community so I propose that New Life policies be sent in a dedicated email where everyone can see the changes and our school system do their part within our community to report each case of lice that is discovered thank you thank you um Becky cinberg hello my name is Becky kenberg and three of my four children attend EPS in kindergarten in second grade in the last 9 months my family has dealt with lice four times all of these were separate incidents that were professionally identified and treated we utilized hats mint spray and hair up daily to prevent infestations unfortunately multiple cases of Li within a given year are not unusual for many Adina families however my family's experience has been exceedingly challenging because several of my children are neurode Divergent with sensory processing differences the treatment process and disruption to routine brought on by each battle with li has led to days of emotional disregulation meltdowns anxiety shame and difficulty in school one of my children who struggles with eating issues even became so phobic afterwards that they began to panic at The of pepper on food fearing it to be nits in case you are fortunate enough not to have dealt with lice please understand that it's no quick fix it involves hours of tedious combing and protesting children and countless more hours lost to cleaning laundry linen changes and trips to the lce salon each time we have had lice we are dealt with a difficult choice to make for our single income family of six take the affordable DIY route which includes over the count or pesticide treatments that studies suggest don't treat the new evolved strain of superlice or go to a clinic where we are guaranteed results without pesticides for over $1,500 a round for my family this does not include the cost of treating grandparents who are affected nor my sister who was unable to round on her patients in a timely manner due to ineffective atome treatment attempts I have personally reached out to at least nine different EPS employees across multiple roles I asked for support in notifying Clos contacts but in every case this was met with minimizing or refusal and sometimes my emails weren't even responded to not once did someone seek to engage on what an effective response could look like the lack of policies in place and the district's refusal to promote act more promote shame secrecy and leave families stranded and special education students are paying the greatest toll of all we need EPS to recognize an needs of its community and collaborate with families in addressing this crucial issue rather than leaving us to struggle alone notifications are needed for each case in a classroom or group teachers may help prevent spread through education and classroom procedures that avoid sharing headphones or layering napmats families also need clear guidance as to where and to whom cases should be reported so that data can be tracked to interventions assessed thank you so much for your time this evening thank you lean James we make sure the microphones on there we go thank you sorry I get anxiety in a room full of people be patient with me okay I'm Lesean James and I have two students that attend Valley View Middle School um they also attended Creek Valley and I want to talk about uh IEP and diversity how are you all committed to individuals in your District that are not meeting grade level requirements do you guys participate in equity inclusion what are we doing to make diversity normal in District 273 um also when it comes to IEP I'm curious um about the amount of funding per children or per child also I'm curious about what is it is funding moving forward towards I also would like to talk about racism and how it's affecting the students and us being in 2024 and as a team moving forward to try to make it better for all students because we live in America and we diversity also with children with iep's understanding to make sure that we are keeping up with that and making sure children are feeling a part of their IEP and that they're succeeding so they can succeed mentally I depend on this board um I have three children that attend with you guys and the people that work under you and the accountability that is had for them and the looking over things that is happening and I'm asking the board to review those things and to try to make sure that the teams that put in place for them are making sure their follow through so that the ad District continues to have the look for the IEP students to still meet standards and to at least get there at some point not get into high school still in a sixth grade level thank you thank you Miss James uh Claire hanaman um good evening uh like many here tonight uh lice has graced my family's doorstep three times in the last eight months I have two daughters in elementary school second and fifth grade and had never had lice prior to this past spring like many others I have spent hundreds probably close to $1,000 on treatment attempting a balance between the guaranteed but costly lice ladies and the at home remedies so I wanted to use my three minutes just to take a step back and make sure that the board is really aware of what we're talking about the lice today is not the lice we grew up with super lice was a media coin term in 2015 but it has a scientific definition and denotes a very real difference in the lice of today than when we were younger like bacteria that has grown resistant to antibiotics researchers have found that 98% of lice in the 48 Continental states are genetically mutated to be resistant to the over thee C treatments like ncks a study done more than 23 years ago showed that the effectiveness of those drugstore overthe counter treatments can be as low as 28% so to make matters worse did you know that for most of a L's life they're actually clear nowadays and while preparing to speak tonight and researching I've learned that the lights can actually change color over their life cycle to blend in with the host's hair lice you used to be closer to the size of a sesame seed and nymphs and knits now can literally be microscopic I know this firsthand as my daughter last spring kept scratching her head and I kept checking for lice and I used a knit comb and I checked for lice no lice she went to a scout sleepover another parent called and said my daughter has lice I checked my daughter has lice but I've learned that the itching associated with lice is like a mosquito bite you know it's the saliva that makes your skin itch well so a person's allergic response can be very different you can have asymptomatic lice or you can have people who like my daughter had an itch but they only have an itch after several weeks of having an infection pun intended this problem is not a head scratcher Co taught us that disease spreads in the absence of information and understanding I am imploring the board to help us pull back this veil of secrecy around the topic remove the stigma spreading the word will help keep our students in school our wallets reserved for better things than life treatments and US parents will stay out of y'all's Hair We humbly ask that the school district report for each case in each classroom anonymously when there is a a report when there is more than one case in a Grade please send a grade wide notification since as previously stated Elementary St students attend lunch recess and Kids Club not by grade thank you thank you very much Tim O'Neal hello thank you all uh my name is Tim O'Neal my wife Annie and I have four kids two at the high school and two at Southview first I wanted to thank you all for sitting and listening and allowing people like us to speak for three minutes um what I wanted to talk about tonight was something different um I wanted to respectfully request that the school board and the administration re-evaluate the way that Edina High School handles academic honors since we have two sophomores at Edina High School we're learning that while the high school does many things really really well we're also learning that the high school is an outlier when compared to neighboring public and private high schools with the way it Awards or does not award academic honors and distinction based on what we've learned this falls into three main areas National Honor Society awarding an academic letter and recognizing students for academic success in the form of an honor role First National Honor Society after calling around to the top 20 Minnesota high schools I was super surprised to hear what with the exception of one small private high school Edina was the only high school that didn't offer National Honor Society and while there is a volunteer letter at Idina High School which is great it does not offer the other three pillars of National Honor Society second awarding the high school's top Learners with an academic letter annually Edina Scholars is a great program but it's not offered until graduation and most Juniors applying to colleges can't list that so we would offer that that academic letter be expanded to annually finally reinstating the A and B honor role it used to exist in Edina and while I don't want to use motanka as an example they are a great leader right on their website for academic honors they list National Honor Society honor roles academic lettering and they still use the LA Latin model even though they also don't do valedictorians which I think is fine which Edina has not done for a long time I think we should reward all of our students I couldn't think of any other student Club whether it's um Athletics the soccer team won it all last year didn't win it this year but those girls and boys and all students are awarded annually when they do something great I think we should um focus on our strategic plan and on academics and reward those kids that are working hard and um give them an award annually because it helps them motivate um to keep doing better which will make you dinina better so thank you thank you Mr O'Neal um Heather HLA hello my name is Heather HLA I'm an Adina resident and proud Countryside Elementary parent like many families in our community mine has also dealt with lice this year and I'm here tonight to advocate for a more familyfriendly lice notification policy yes lice is absolutely always out there in the community especially in the elementary setting but that doesn't mean we should sit by and be complacent about trying to stay ahead of it lice isn't harmful in the way many infectious diseases can be but it does take a big toll on families in several ways time expense and a lot of anxiety I've spend some time benchmarking with parents in neighboring school districts as you can imagine the lice notification process is truly all over the board some parents in the say their districts don't notify and they wish they did other parents like a friend in West Tonka gets a notification every time there is a reported case of lice in their child's grade the school nurse at at Hilltop Primary in West Tonka sends the notification which includes information on what to look for and how to treat as well as the following ask if you should discover a case of headlice please notify Mrs cray the school nurse this is the best way to protect your family and your community another friend at Glen Lake Elementary in the Hopkins District also receives lice notifications when there is more than one reported case in their child's grade this notification comes from nurse Judy mcdermit batty and includes an attachment about lice as well as tips on how to manage through treatment and prevention a nurse in the White Bear Lake School District sends notifications in said we listened to our parents and designed a process that best meets their Community needs a minona school nurse who sends notifications stated the following unlike strep parents don't always know about lice because they travel quietly and then suddenly everyone seems to have it my ask today is that ad Public Schools reconsiders their policy on lice notifications a better system would include encouraging parents to notify anonymously anytime they have discovered their child has lice and that the school nurse sends out a notification to their class as well as a notification when there is more than one reported case in any given grade notifications are invaluable when it comes to improving awareness and enhancing prevention efforts I'll close by acknowledging that this is an ask this is an additional ask of the EPS health services and I recognize that School nurses are extremely busy and already stretched very thin however implementing an improved lice notification system will greatly improve the experience of Children and Families in the ad School District thank you thank you um next is Caroline Dixon good evening members of the school board my name is Carolyn Dixon and I have a kindergartener and a second grader in the district I'm here tonight to advocate for districtwide lice notification just as we are notified about strep and flu cases I believe lice notification should be standard practice as well the lice line that was started by an anonymous parent fills a crucial need in our district but it shouldn't be the responsibility of one parent to monitor the situation for everyone my family faced a lice infestation at the end of August which cost us nearly $800 for professional treatment on top of that we spent countless hours vacuuming washing bagging and freezing things while also notifying friends and family to get checked it was an isolating experience for us by not doing more to notify families we risk allowing the level of cases to continue unchecked I urge you to consider implementing districtwide lice notifications to better support our families and create a healthier Community for our children thank you for your time thank you um Sarah Paisley good evening my name is Sarah Paisley I'm the mom of two Normandale students a full-time working parent a room parent a French intern host parent and volunteer my family moved to udina three years ago primarily for the exceptional Public Schools I'm proud to say I'm from udina my kids go to EPs and I appreciate the work you all do to keep our district excellent just sitting here tonight I know you all deal with serious problems with complex Solutions all day every day I'm imploring you to appreciate that this lice outbreak is a serious problem but fortunately we have a pretty simple solution that we're proposing I'm here as part of this group of concerned parents asking the district to please reconsider your policies around lice and specifically to start reporting each individual case to help us stop the spread I won't go into my story over the last 6 to eight months because because it's fairly similar to the ones you've heard already but safe to say we've experienced multiple outbreaks in our house I've spent hundreds of dollars trying to deal with this and many many days of my time unlike the flu or strep throat lice can go undetected on a kids head for months and spread unseen through classrooms grades in school there's no end in sight unfortunately unless the district is willing to take a more active role we do not expect EPS to make lice go away what we do hope is that you will consider the simple ask and take a small element of this burden notifying our peers off the plates of your responsible caring and busy parents despite the underground efforts of many of us here most parents still do not recognize the severe break that's happening in eer right now and the need to vigilantly check our kids to hopefully Cur the spread this is not what we and Ido want to be known for please help us amplify our voices thank you thank you uh Lara lucans hi I'm I'm Laura lucans I have three kids including an EPS second grader and kindergart kindergartner two months ago I spoke to you about the lice outbreak and asked the District to send anonymous notifications for lice just like you do for flu or strep I didn't expect to be back here or want to be no offense um being edina's Lice Lady isn't quite the look I'm going for um I also have such respect for all of you and never wanted to bring forward a problem with no solution you've got enough of those notifications for lice seemed like an easy way to address a major issue for E Dina families unfortunately nothing about the last two months has been easy families continue to struggle with Li and the district continues to resist parents attempts to collaborate on a response at first I understood your hesitation parents were sharing evidence that was anecdotal and this District makes decisions based on data but then a parent started a case tracking website called e Dino leline 8 Elementary families have signed up for notifications reporting 84 cases in a school year that's just 2 months old this data proves that the outbreak is real and that parents value notifications the district responded with a policy change that didn't actually lead to real change and you made one thing clear your hands were tied the mdh the CDC the AAP they prevented you from sending the notifications that parents asked for when I asked for Clarity on these policies or for a meeting to discuss further I was dismissed I looked for answers myself and here's what I learned those policies don't exist I called the mdh here's what their school nurse advisor said about lice notifications and this is a direct quote mdh doesn't say anywhere that you can't notify we don't have a stance one way or the other it's a local decision the CDC and the AAP take the same neutral stance end quote I'll ask you to check your email for the name of this mdh employee and for more detail on the ask we're making so here's where we are now families don't feel heard the district is misrepresenting policy a parent is running a website to do the job of your health office and nearly everyone in this room has spent far too much time on an ask that was never intended to be burdensome sending notifications was and still is achievable it won't solve the lies problem but it's an easy way to help if you disagree that's okay but please talk to us meet with us we want to collaborate we are 500 strong and we are waiting to be heard thank you that concludes our community comments for tonight thank you to everyone that took time out of their night to come and speak to us um and we are going to move on to our the rest of our agenda with our consent agenda um do I have a motion to approve our consent agenda so moved I should have asked first is there anything anyone would like to remove from our consent agenda and then Karen motion to approve our consent agenda do I have a second to approve our consent agenda um all those in favor of approving our consent agenda say I I is anyone opposed hearing no opposition the consent agenda has been approved thank you thank you we have very touchy microphones um now we're going to move on to our discussion items oh before we move on to our discussion items I just wanted to point out um as part of our consent agenda that we were approving our National Merit Scholars and I just wanted to make sure that I took a moment to recognize that we had 30 National Merit scholar semi-finalist and commended students and I didn't want that to go um go unnotice and I wanted to make sure that they got the Commendation of the board and the community um for their amazing achievement so that was approved as part of our consent agenda and I just wanted to pull that out and make sure they were recognized um now we're going to move on to our consent agenda um our first sorry our discussion item this is what happened when I skipped dinner um our first discussion item is our social and emotional learning update and I'd like to invite the director of teaching and learning jod D St Hubert up and is Leanne here okay so just Miss D director DC Newber thank you uh good evening Dr Stanley Chair allenburg board directors uh community and colleagues um yes leam is not able to be here with me tonight because she is um homesick with uh bronchitis I think so I have uh notes from her and I've worked with her um throughout the process with this seal update so I'm happy to um present the highlights and then hear from you the feedback and questions that you have and we'll do some followup directly with her as she leads this project um in March um it was March 26 2024 we provided an seal update for the board stands for as we know social and emotional learning since the March update Edina was awarded two grants in the winter of 2024 uh lean fely and anarie Leland worked very closely together to get those grants and they're instrumental in helping support the continuous Improvement in the area of seal the first grant is a multi-tiered Systems Support Grant um which supports the district and implementation of mnm TSS the second Grant is a non-exclusionary discipline Grant um funding for this grant supports the development and implementation of a professional learning plan for school staff to implement nonex exclusionary discipline practices that maintain the respect trust and attention of students and help keep students in the classroom so that they are able to best learn utilizing consistent tier Oneal practices and curricula fits with the broad umbrella of non-exclusionary practices so one of the biggest outcomes of the grants um was that we are able to start a tier one Seal Team um design team which was created in the spring of 2024 the team is currently in Exploration phase of the implementation science process and has determined five outcomes um that are outlined in the board report those outcomes are goals that they are working towards each building has at least one representative on the Cal team um that the design team that's working together and I also want to note that there's representation from Community Education um to ensure that our tier one seal efforts are extending to places such as kids clubs and Community egg classes as well in the spring the team was able to meet um one time but did some really critical and important work grounding in their goals together and um they determined the following five statements to be the team's vision foral and those five statements are also outlined in the board report working towards the first outcome um that they determined of articulating and aligning outcomes for all EPS stud students the team did a deep dive in a couple of areas those areas are the five Castle seal competencies the M the Minnesota seal standards and then also culturally proficient school systems essential elements in the tier Oneal team worked from the definition of culture aligned with Ed cpss work being that culture is shared beliefs values Traditions social norms and behaviors of a group of people who share the same who have the sh who share the same living environment and that quote is in the board report and noted that it's by and I might I don't know how to pronounce these last names correctly so I'll say that right away Nike Baka and mo ini um the tier Oneal team will be meeting um four times this year to continue the work towards the five outcomes that are listed in the board report and the immediate Next Step that they will be working on is determining best practices foral data collection in our schools and the other part of the uh Ned grant that and that's the non-exclusionary discipline Grant that's highlighted in the board report is caring and committed conversations and the caring and committed conversations are being worked on collaboration with Dr Franny beare um through partnering with Sarah Miller and Malik Pier from Jordan Min U Minnesota and the public schools and some work that they have done throughout our um throughout that community and this is a training that is in the process of valuing diversity and honoring differences and celebrating commonalities through specifically elevating student voices um so um the last little bits to highlight highlight are that the staff has received some professional development on that and I think I believe we've engaged in our first conversation with students just recently and the goal for Rina high school is to have two caring and committed conversations taking place before for one before winter break which I think is the one that just occurred and one after spring break so with those highlights of the work that's happening withal knowing that there's a lot more work ahead of us um and open up for feedback and questions board members what feedback and questions do you have director Gaper thank you for this report and thank you to Leanne too cuz I know she's really instrumental in our work here I did want to draw um just for those listening back in October we had an opportunity to hear our data metrics and in our data metrics report we receive our Panorama data or we get to see it or it's woven in there um and there are some social emotional learning benchmarks that we use and there was some really there was some highlights in there that I was I thought were really um were celebrating one of those being that one of the questions that our students get asked is do you have an adult that you that cares about you and we across the board with all of our student groups age culture like it it was they were very high so um I wanted to mention that because this is an area that we're committed to it's an area that um we've shown some really great results in um can you talk a little bit more about how the high school settled on caring and committing conversations as pilot it just and my question comes from usually we as a board get to kind of understand like we vetted these couple different ideas and this is how we settled on this can you talk a little bit about that I'm wondering Dr beair do you want to speak to that just from where you are even thank you appreciate it um so with caring and committed conversations how we landed on it when we began writing the grant um I had in my previous role in my previous District I had led a very similar process with creating a student Equity Group and training the students um how to lead this work and have conversations with each other what happened is taking on all of the work with uh the tools of cultural proficiency and all the training that I'm doing I my capacity to work directly with the students and train them became incredibly limited I am part of a group that's called U metro area Equity leads and we meet once a month and we talk about ways that as Equity leads within the metro area that we can support each other I had heard about Sarah and Malik in their work they they work with actually quite a few districts um Jordan oio some across the river um leading caring and committed conversations so we met with them so I brought the idea to Ann Marie and uh Leanne and said I'm going to be honest at the end of last year where my capacity is with this we need to bring this work to the high school I do not have the capacity to lead it in the way that we thought we originally did um after a a pretty thorough vetting process so we I met with them then the team met with them then we actually met went and met with them at the high school after all of those conversations we felt okay this is aligned with the grant this is what we it is aligned with what we originally wrote in the Grant and Carries forward that action step so that is how we aligned with caring and committing conversations great question thank you for that and and as we pilot this will we be using similar to what we we've seen in the past in terms of a rubric of how we're measuring its efficiency what our students are saying about it what teachers are saying about it can we expect that absolutely in fact we already have a little bit of feedback from the the adults in the first adult PD session and so um that's anecdotal right now but it's important so we're always Gathering that feedback and we will absolutely put a a more concrete um process in place okay great and then my second question um so I really appreciate uh Fran's explanation there and I know that as a district we're very committed to using the lens of cpss through everything we do whether we're choosing a social studies curriculum whether we're choosing um when I read the report I think that was very forward front for me which I think is important but I think um I didn't see a lot of some of the the kind of the known entities of social emotional learning that that even in your the report where it talks about linking to um what is it C the five Castle seal and the mdal standards like SE is about managing emotions empathy you know helping students make responsible decisions I didn't see a lot of that in that High School curriculum so I just was curious if that is if we've kind of taken another route on how we're viewing us l or or how where that was in this great question and when you say High School curriculum do you mean the car I mean carrying and committing because I know that what we've like the what are we using Elementary is um character strong or at least what we're piloting yes and that is very much those kind of tentacles of social emotional it's hitting on all of those and I didn't see those tentacles in the report nor in kind of how the caring and committing classrooms was explained so I think that's a really good clarification I'm glad you're asking that so the carrying and committed um conversations is not necessarily a curriculum that we're looking at for the high school it's a strategy right now that we're leaning into to for the professional development of non-exclusionary discipline practices so the Seal team as a k through 12 with some contact with Early Learning because they're critical in this conversation as well as with Community Education are still working on what that curriculum will be across the district and um so we're although we have some Elementary piloting and character strong um because the committee has literally only met twice now um we are still very much in that exploration process so great question very important that I knowe that that caring and committed conversations is not going is not there for a curriculum it's more part of that non-exclusionary Grant and that we'll hopefully be able to provide more updates at another point on where we're at with that curriculum so it's a small subset of that bigger umbrella of social emotional are are we what are we doing for social emotional learning at the high school like are we looking for a curriculum for that absolutely we're continuing to um character strong was piloted at the high school so it's not that that is um off the table right um the group is definitely committed to a layer of consistency and naming this in the in the consistency being they haven't determined what that consistency exactly is yet except that they'll be consistent in the the castle strategies that you're talking about and there's very specific language in our strategic plan that aligns with those Castle strategies so um I think if I'm remembering correctly those were on about the second page of the report so it talks about applying the social emotional competency of self-awareness self-management social awareness relationship skills responsible decision making is outlined in the Strategic plan we will yes we're absolutely looking at that for secondary perect in a curriculum per that's what I wanted to make sure we were not okay thank you yes great question so Director D Hubert I had a similar question in teaching and learning and this reminds me a lot about the very beginning of what when we were working on our literacy plan yes and there's so much good work going on it can be really hard as board members and as a community to know what are we talking about and where is it what part are we talking about and I'm wondering if when we see presentations similar or any information similar to how you sort of ended up breaking out a lot of the stuff with um the literacy plan to sort of give us um markers of yeah even if you look at the um the uh Seal Team updates and these are the five things we're working towards it's like every single time we see an update yeah which one of these markers does this have to do with that's a great feedback um because I think that would just help so much when board members and community members that aren't in this every single day can know oh this is in this bucket oh this is in this bucket yes um because if you don't see it if you see it every six months and you're trying to remember back I know um I just think that'd be really helpful from an organization perspective and reduce a lot of the questions great feedback thank you okay sorry director Bertman I just wanted to no no that no I you're we going along the same lines I was the only thing I would add to that would be be in this report it doesn't quite give us the kind of forward timeline of when things will come back um to to that point that even if it's six months or more importantly even for this current school year are we anticipated to get something by April or or whatever it might be when we think about that I think that just sets the expectation of as the team is working through this this process of understanding and um triing out different things and so and the learnings that we're going to take from that when will we and the community know like okay here's the kind of timeline that's going to happen from that I'm not necessarily saying we need a Gant chart that shows all of those different elements but I think it's sort of setting the expectation of this is the kind of General time cycle we on I think that would then help people when they read something like this that doesn't necessarily explicitly say that it's like okay they're working on it they got three more they only had two meetings they're going to have four more or whatever it's going to be when it's completed after those means happen this is when we would anticipate coming back and this is what we learned and here's how we're leaning into that next process that might be helpful when you're when it's a little bit abstract at the moment and it will get more specific as we go along I think we generally understand that but I think it's hard to retain that information without some stakes in the ground that like okay we should anticipate around this time this is what's going to happen great any other questions from board members comments great thank you and I believe you're here next for the next update which is a curriculum update yes okay yes thank you chair Ellenburg um the next update is the curriculum update um this is specifically worked on I want to acknowledge Bethany van ell our assistant director of teaching and learning and Mark Carlson who's our K12 science and math coordinator um this report was done in collaboration with them and truly the work that's reflected in the report is done under their leadership so I want to acknowledge the incredible work they're doing and um supporting um throughout our district so um this curcum update begins with an overview really grounding in implementation science in alignment with policy 603 and the formation of District design teams um so we just alluded to design teams or theal team that's working together and that's what's happened in all of these curriculum updates a design team was formed and it's most often formed during a curriculum review that's prompted by a change in Minnesota standards in a specific content or subject area not always but that's often the case that prompts a design team to be formed the three areas in this report which have recently been reviewed and or are still well they all are still in process um but at different stages of process are science um Ela and social studies and so what we did in outlining these subject areas we started with science because as you'll see there's a a chart that takes us through the years and that started preco in Exploration and got a little bit um it got interrupted and kind of Ed imploded in the implementation science phases which which I do want to note they aren't always linear some you know it feels very linear but sometimes things happen where we go back and forth um but science started in 2019 and then the chart really shows you how we've gone through exploration to installation to initial implementation to full implementation this year is when the new MCA assessments for um this for for aligning with the new standards actually occurs so you see the um material purchases in that chart as well and that's broken down K5 68 and 912 for science then at the end um or at the beginning of each of those um sections is just really an overview of what that's looking like in the current phase so for science it highlights what each level is doing and how they're doing with full implementation um early learning through 12 is language arts um we're very intentional with our comprehensive literacy plan as part of our strategic plan to include Early Learning in that and same thing is happening in a chart there um where that review started in 2021 um and we are moving towards implementation um you'll sometimes see in the charts that the elementary might be at a different phase than the middle school and the middle school might be at a different phase than the high school so it's um a a constant collaboration with these design team members on our professional staff and um EV inlu and what their the support they need is and then um social studies is the last area that's updated in there for you and um we're really right now um in Exploration at the 612 level and a little bit of exploration to installation still in our elementary level so the appendix one just notes lots of names um trying to highlight I mentioned that um Bethany van ozell and Mark Carlson are critical and leading this work but um what they do is facilitate all of these staff members that are involved to come to decisions on how not only what we're going to purchase but that next absolutely most critical step of how we're going to implement it and support it through full implementation so um what questions and feedback do you have for the curriculum update as a non tnl member of the board this is excellent because it gives me a nice framework of the different elements that are then there I think it's a very concise report to show that and in this case right you are getting that sort of yes timeline that's exactly kind of what I was trying to say in the last part that really does help kind of see how that's progressing along from that standpoint so for me even though I'm not in those conversations on a regular basis it helped me track where that was going so I just wanted to say that as a non-teaching learning uh Community member this definitely met my needs uh for understanding thank you I think it's helpful both as a board and as a community like you said to ground us and then also when we're looking at data and we're hearing understanding the science of curriculum implementation um when we're shifting things it understanding like full implementation takes multiple years and then understanding this is exactly where we are across multiple subjects it's hard to ground yourself I mean I can't remember it so having this is I found very helpful and I appreciate you doing that director Gable I don't have a question but I just wanted to take an opportunity to thank you and all the teachers that are piloting new curriculum because it is a heavy lift and it's a multi-year process and as your report States um staff are currently experiencing a balance of both Challenge and successes this is expected but you kind of find out oh we got to supplement this part of it or this doesn't quite work like we wanted and so um I just wanted to call that out because that's that's a heavy lift for staff it absolutely is I I've shared with many of you maybe not all of you um maybe tnl board Committee in um particular but I got the opportunity to sit in the Middle School PD on our October session that we had and it was on the new curriculum study sync and it was a really good reminder for me as to what a big change that is for staff there was so much positive energy in it and it just takes time it takes time to learn it and takes different supports so I appreciate you acknowledging how much um how dedicated our staff are in the process and it's also a key thing to remind um parents and community that as these happen we're also getting data through the Panorama process to see how things are actually going at the individual student level and where do we then need extra supports or other things for any student who's falling through the I don't want to say a crack but more of like they're not quite at the stand that we want to have that data is then helpful and the tools and the and the the the skills that are being offered to the teacher and the other staff members to help with that this all part of as the curriculum continues to evolve we have those mechanisms in place to help identify if for whatever reason there's a subset of our student population that's not quite connecting with that how do we then address that very good point and staff just continue to level up on how they are collecting data and responding to it and teaming so it's really very good point Thank you for noting that great thank you director dber um we're going to move on to our policy review I'll turn it over to policy chair chair Gaper Dr Gaper thank you um we have several policies up for discussion tonight and um first I'm going to call up assistant superintendent Nate Swenson and Nate has a number of policies that he is going to take us through or just two policies actually 501 and 502 director gabler Madam chair members of the board Dr Stanley thank you um the first policy that uh we're taking a look at is policy 501 School weapons policy and um just to begin this policy was reviewed by myself and principles and uh our Emergency Management and safety coordinator Alex hatom um some of the changes um being proposed in the document one was frankly a little bit difficult to understand and it was about the flammable liquids one and uh I think I have a better standing now but this this section of the policy defines and prohibits flammable liquids that could be used as Weapons or to create incendiary devices while being careful not to inadvertently ban something common like hand sanitizers or perfumes or something like that so um we also are proposing to tighten up the language around who has the authority to allow for a dangerous weapon to be on campus and just to be clear what that would mean is if there was a play taking place at a school and one of the cast members was asked to bring in a look lookalike or replica um weapon that there would be certain individuals in the district um who could um approve such a move as that and we're proposing that that be superintendent assistant superintendent principles and then the director of early learning and then finally um there is one part of the policy that I I am still getting Clarity on just to make sure it's not an additional reporting policy about dangerous weapons in school zones um but that was an additional piece that was added to the policy board members before we open up for questions um I don't need to State this to you but I'm going to we obviously have uh the con institution that we have to work around here so you know as you read this and have questions I mean we had a big discussion at policy around what can and cannot happen and and um Alex hatom as you mentioned before was a huge help of bringing kind of some clarity to some of that so does anyone have any questions director Barry um I have a question about uh the section four part D firearms and school parking lots um cuz I was kind of surprised to learn when I was reading this that we may not prohibit um lawful carry of firearms in a school parking lot and it just brought to my brought to mind you know around the country we are seeing more and more issues in parking lots after sporting events and thankfully we have not had issues with that here but um if we are not allowed to um prohibit Firearms there and I see the policy is that you know any person who with a permit can't have it beyond the vicinity of their car but I think we're way past caring about policy if someone is in that situation um I don't know if director hatom had any thoughts on that or if this is just something we should keep in mind as we're talking to lawmakers as part of our advocacy this winter yeah we really dug into that um as well and and Al brought that to us as well it's state statute and we went through the state statute with uh fine tooth comb um to see if there were any ways that we could move beyond that and the key word there is if they have a license for conceal and carry or to have a gun it needs to be in their vehicle um yeah and and we just look deeply into that to determine whether or not if it was on school grounds but as long as it's in their vehicle then there is nothing we can do about that I would just add to that this is language from msba too so it is um it's not specific to Edina but is very broadly applied to policy in schools excellent question and to answer your question taking it up with our legislators might be the right route because your response was the same as my response they kind of had to peel me off the ceiling the meeting I have a comment and a question um my comment is um I appreciate the definition um the addition additional definition um since we did such a good job defining specifically what a dangerous weapon is um I guess I'm struggling with 4 a with the exceptions I absolutely can understand the exceptions when it comes to lookalike weapons or like box cutters and things like that I'm struggling with us making an exception with a student that brings a dangerous weapon whether it's intentional or not MH um I don't know I just um someone having a gun a loaded gun I I think it takes some level of awareness to be carrying a gun and a dangerous weapon and I think it's easy to say I didn't know I had that weapon on me um um I person would preclude dangerous weapons from our exceptions policy yeah I think if I could um just add more context around that um first of all I feel like I understand where you're where you're coming from and why it's why it can be alarming the situation I'm thinking about is a student who um uh for a lack of better words let's they're out doing some type of an activity and there's something in their backpack that they forgot about and that student comes and self-reports it to an administrator honestly aside from keeping that at home and never having it on them that's exactly what we would want the student to do and it it would be um it would be really challenging as an administrator to then Med out discipline with a student like that when they are essentially kind of doing what they what they should be doing acknowledging they shouldn't have it on them um so I think it's complicated is all all is what I'm saying and and I would hate for our building leaders to be put in a position where a student comes and self-reports and then we met out discipline on top of that um I think that that could be tricky and some more more context in our conversation in policy committee was you talked about rural Minnesota so you said like a students doing an activity hunting yeah and they don't take their rifle out of their truck now we're City people so that's sometimes a little bit of a stretch for us to imagine that but for those who have worked in Ro Minnesota it's it's real a lot of our policy is taken from msba because of the legal consequences of it what gave me a little bit of comfort in that same question was our policy 506 which is our discipline policy which under no circumstances you bring a weapon to school you're gone and so this gives a little bit of Grace that if that administrator is like that child does have a cabin and and I don't know or they find something in the the bushes I hear what you're saying it'd be very easy for a student to say I found this but if they're bringing it I think that's where we have to trust that our administr ators would have to dig in and realize like that's not what really happened there and I appreciate your point about wanting students to do the right thing so if It ultimately creates an environment where it's keeping our students safer I didn't look at it from that lens so I appreciate that feedback um it's just it's this whole thing is a not pleasant to talk about so thank you for clarifying that um my question actually you addressed a little bit was about the um B8 about the possession of dangerous weapons BB guns and replica Firearms need the written permission of a superintendent and an assistant superintendent um again would this fall in a example of like uh a student um after school is going to go pheasant hunting I'm just trying to think of any instance ever where we would give permission to a student to bring a dangerous gun into one of our facilities yeah I think Alex brought up a really good example of where like you have um hunter safety where perhaps you know they bring in a real firearm um for something like that that that could be an example where that would be the case in my own experience as principal it's largely been around replica um devices where a historian would bring something in um so to your point I do believe it would be incredibly rare um for that to happen but that's what comes to my mind when I when I read that I think and it completely makes sense that oftentimes especially in our day and time that we're thinking about the school day these usually happen where an organization has um rented out our facilities they actually they you know they have the permission to be on the property um and it is gun safety or it is a gun show yeah a gun show and and that is where they would have to have permission um to have that on the property or as as Nate talked about um for a play or something like that they'd have to get permission the key is we really wanted that changed so that I know about that sist superintendent Swinson knows about that principal knows about that yeah which I I appreciate that I just want him I'm like I don't want to replica gun at a a play to like be as as as uh you know as uh close to a gun I like I don't think that's appropriate for a a a school setting so I just want to make sure people aren't reading into this that um that is okay no matter I I get your scenarios but for dramatic purposes or whatever we're still an educational institute and I don't think that um it is appropriate for firearms to be present I just wanted to make a comment really quickly because we had a very very in-depth conversation on this particular issue I'm the one who said as it was previously written it left it pretty open for interpretation of who was actually authorized to Grant permission for something like this even though it's highly improbable that it would happen um we were dumbfounded that um under constitutional rights as well as equal access uh requirements and so on so forth that our buildings not NE during the school day but on other non-school day related things to where we might be forced to Grant access to people to bring dangerous weapons on campus Because by law we're required to provide that access has it happened no do we anticipate it happening no do we are advocating and and seeking people to be able to do that no but the troubling part is the way the laws are written and certain rights have been adjudicated I think in the courts we're still obligated to be able to do that and so this is a very sensitive sensitive issue um that was not lost on the policy committee and I think the comments that are being heard tonight right now we share in them I think it's a very difficult needle to thread um just real quick on that was there any consideration to having Alex being one of the people that approved it or register the the um the weapon as a like so that he's tracking um for like the replica yeah sorry for Di no I think we really it was very broad it was very Broad and we wanted it narrowed um and I think in most of these situations if it was a real one Alex is going to be called in immediately I think the replic we just wanted to make sure someone in high up in leadership was aware of this um but Alex was not con yeah that doesn't preclude us from really talking with Alex and getting more information it if if there is going to be something that's considered a dangerous weapon I need to know about that or Nate needs to know about that and even with the principal they're going to notify Nate and me that that request is there okay because the only thing I was worried about was if let's say an SRO didn't get that notification or somebody on Alex's team and somebody made a report to the SRO and only you or Nate or somebody knew about it like is there is there something that you know that point of contact would have the ability to look up and reference and say this person's authorized to have it on there on pre premisis and so therefore not causing a panic and that kind of thing that that's the that's really good feedback I had not considered that any other questions I think i' only make one more comment about that is that this isn't about where oh the superintendent or assistant superintendent or principal are obligated to provide that permission right so going to what I think Erica was just saying a few minutes ago I think the general practice is going to be like no we're not going to be providing that like that level of permission and access for dangerous weapons it would have to be a pretty extraordinary example of us doing that and making sure that the proper Authority has thoughtfully considered what that is we really wanted to narrow exactly what that was the communication elements of then if that was going to be provided permission leaving the administration to ensure the proper notification to the people that need to know about it including our our leaders in in safety board members any other questions um just because this is such a robust conversation and by the way great questions these were all brought up in policy um I want to be very clear it's been said tonight but I want to be very very clear to anyone that's watching this that we take your students safety extremely seriously and so as you're reading this some of the responses we had as we were reading it just know that we were reading it with the same we vetted this through what we have as rights and what we can limit um and if you're at home watching this and are really bothered by this please reach out to your legislature and ask for further action around our schools so thank you okay 502 all right 502 is search of student lockers desks personal possessions and students person again reviewed by principles and Alex hatom um to be honest with you most of the changes that were are being suggested for this policy are um around formatting the policy is largely intact as you as you read it so not suggesting any ma uh major changes at all board members questions on 502 I have one um so I noticed in part Part D after a student's possessions are searched the district will notify the student as soon as possible just out of curiosity do we ever notice notify a student's parents that their possessions have been searched you all ask so many of the same questions this is great this came up in policy committee too um best practice is to always notify parents when any type of a of a search is done I cannot think of a time when I did not uh reach out to a parent about a search that I had to do as a as a principal whether it be possessions phone Locker you name it best practi is always to reach out to um to the parents okay if it's best practice should we put it in the policy I is there a reason that's not in there uh we talked about that too um I would not like to position our building administrators in a paper trap for um like let's say there's an extenuating circumstances that where they're unable to reach out to a family because of a b or c comes up I I wouldn't it would be bad to have the policy weaponized against them um in that in that way especially when they have a right to be able to do it to be able to keep people safe in the school and and stuff like that so I would I would caution us from adding the parent part but know that um it is very much so like an expectation okay I get I appreciate that response thank you yeah thanks for that question uh any other questions on 502 all right hearing none this will move forward for Action at our December meeting thank you assistant superintendent Swanson uh next up we have uh director of uh student Support Services uh jod remsing to talk to us about a number of policies microphone just saying good evening Vice chair gaer and members of the board great all right uh the first one that we're going to talk about this evening is 516 student Med medication yeah so there were some updates that were made to this policy in the committee um some of the updates include um including the district's um ability to obtain and possess epinephrine Auto injectors to be used under specific circumstances generally an allergic reaction the policy also permits the district to obtain epinephrine Auto injectors um at you know either the free market rate free or reduced prices sunscreen was also added to the policy which permits students to possess and apply their own sunscreen without having a prescription an additional detail um regarding the transport of unclaimed medic medications that are controlled substances what added to reflect that we need to have law enforcement transport these medications to collection bids that are specific for their disposal and lastly um there was a written parent permission was added whenever we are transporting controlled substances on field trips and there were a few other changes that were made but none of them were substantive in nature board members questions about this policy I have a question we added that section about epinephrine which I think is great is there a reason or would we want to add narcon to this because we just had that um new state law LA and I just didn't know why that was excluded should it be included have a policy we have we do and I just didn't know if they needed to reflect each other um hold on let me um we do have a cross referenced in here okay is it our overdose one do you well first let me give you an opportunity to respond to that do you have a response to that Jody just that we were going to cross reference it for this for the same purposes so that we could check that policy as well do you feel like it should be specifically called out I just didn't know cuz we're specifically calling out epinephrine and our right to in good faith um give epinephrine and I just didn't know since we're specifically calling out epinephrine why we wouldn't call out our right to give naron I think this is because it's actually student medication so like a student would have an epip pen prescribed to them where you're probably not going to have students in your high school with they're not going to have a prescription for naram so I read this differently that um and this could be my misinterpretation of it that the district can obtain and possess epinephrine Auto inject injectors so that to me read that unrelated to a student prescription as a district we would have epinephrine on site in case a student has a severe anaphylactic reaction and then we can use that medication I see the part you're looking at sure so I just I think that the reason for that is because we have a policy specific to dark can we don't have a policy specific to these other medications that's fine I not I mean thank you does that does that work for you or would you want it to be specifically called out that works for me um that's fine okay and a lot of the policy is yes it's about some days there's policy and then there's the actual procedures and yes we want them to align but there's also a legal piece to this and so that cross referencing gives us that a little bit of protection thank you for that question any other questions on 516 oh I just had a quick question um does the administration of medication on field trips does that include extended travel overnight stays that was my understanding that it's all field trips okay any other questions okay then this will move forward for next month for approval and then we are moving on to policy 605 alternative programs and services okay oh I'll stay close director of teaching and learning Jody D St Hubert thank you chair gabler um in this policy 605 the updates have been made to ma um match that msba policy so the the main one to point out is um under number four responsibility a there's an additional added there and then there's just a couple of tweaks to the words throughout all right any questions on this one okay great then this will move forward I'm sorry I got my jodies mixed up that's okay all right back to jod ramsy uh we will look at policy 607 special accommodation Services okay so the recommendation um is that we um remove this policy and it and that we Sunset it because it's duplicative in nature with policy 521 which covers student disability and non-discrimination as part of the policy committee um meeting we went through and just kind of made sure that all the areas were covered in that policy and so it really is duplicative in nature for us to have two policies addressing the same issues and board members before we take questions um what we've found in policy over the last several years is that there was a period in our district where there was a lot of policies being created sometimes for different situations and we found as we're trying to streamline and make sure that we've we are they're user friendly that there are these situations and you've been you've all been on the board when this has happened where we've had to Sunset policies so this is one of those cases where there's it's already already in our policies just and Jody you did speak with Amy mace about this as well do you want to talk about that did yeah I reached out to Amy Ma and I just asked her because I had some concerns with the with the um policy and and asked her if she saw any reason for it or if she took any issue with any of the revisions or things like that and she said no no I agree with you and I recommend sunsetting this policy and then I also reviewed other neighboring districts around and they um also only have a policy similar to 521 no other District that we really compared to in any other way had a policy that resembled 607 Cher elenberg so my only comment is I didn't I didn't understand why this was being rescinded and I had no idea it had anything to do with 528 so I haven't had a chance to really look to see if there's differences or anything that I have a concern about and so I would like the opportunity to maybe mhm no that's fair look at it through that lens because my question was why are we resending this yeah so um B would you be okay if we first of all I should ask is there any reason that this needs to be approved is there a time no calendar for this one no this is not time sensitive okay so board would you be okay if we push this to discussion in December and you had an opportunity Jody can you uh restate which policy you feel like this mimics yeah so um policy 521 student disability non-discrimination really covers 54 and um the prohibition of of discrimination based upon disability great and board members I will send you an email with all of this in there just so that you have links to both of them so that you you don't have to remember it's 521 so and probably send that okay and would you send that thank you there was a really solid document that jod provided which did a side by side compare and contrast and I wonder if we provide that if you could give that to an and an provides that as well I think that would be really helpful um so that that information is there I mean it was really helpful that' be great I'd appreciate that okay then we will move on to policy 608 instruction Services special education um the only substantive change um made to this policy was to include the district's ability to conduct a standalone evaluation for developmental adaptive physical education without opening up a new comprehensive special education evaluation this change aligns with the Minnesota rule um with new Minnesota rule in effort to reduce special education paperwork board members any questions on 608 okay this will move forward then for Action in December and the last one this evening is policy 636 workload limits for certain special education teachers and there are no substantive changes proposed to that policy either board members any questions okay great then this one we'll move forward thank you Jody there was a lot to go over thank you director reming and policy committee I appreciate that um that concludes our discussion item so we're going to move on to our action items um do I have a motion to approve the um total semester graduation credits required for graduating from Edina High School increasing from 43 to 44 so moved is there a second second I would like to welcome Director D St Hubert and principal udina High School Principal Paul Patel and before they get up here and we get on this discussion I would be remiss if I didn't mention that a little birdie told me it might be your birthday that's true and I know that all you ever wanted to do for your birthday was come to any Dino school board meeting and work session and work session and so thank you for spending your evening here and happy birthday no one would ever want me to sing publicly or priv so we won't sing but happy birthday thank you appreciate thank you happy birthday even know I won't tell you who told me all right thank you I'll I'll turn it over to Director D Hubert okay uh good evening Dr Stanley Chair Ellenburg board directors um we uh principal pel birthday individual and I are here tonight to take action on the recommendation to increase graduation credits from 43 to 44 for due to the new legislation requiring a finance credit um this topic was brought to the board for discussion on 820 924 and 107 there is one new slide added um it was noted that there were two um in the attachments but there is one on slide 25 and it just expands on a data point that has been discussed in all of our other discussions um that data point stated that over half of our students are graduating with 50 or more credits and that the slide um that slide shows you that um the actual percentage in 2024 um of students that graduated with 50 or more credits was 69.1 6% um those that graduated with 48 or 49 was 14.83 those that graduated with 45 to 47 was 6.17 and then those that graduated 44 or 43 was 4.26 so just to give a little bit more concrete information on that general statement that we had presented before and those that were at 43 or fewer credits was 5.58% um so with that new information and past previous information and discussions I leave it open to the board for questions or comments um board members what comments do you have or questions do you have um relating sorry regarding this topic before we vote on IT director arum I just want to say thanks for that additional slide that was helpful for me when kind of reviewing things and then um in light of our conversation about Pathways and stuff I just you know want to be uh cognizant of you know the impacts of that and the potential piece for this so director c i was pausing over um I I think if anybody's watching this or watching this afterwards it is important to reference what director danan Hubert said we have been discussing this now for a couple of months and there's a lot of information out there to kind of tell the story because we sometimes forget when we're dealing with this that if you're just tuning in now there's been a whole host of discussions that might get you up to speed on this um I've been pretty I think I've raised I I've raised my questions in the past and you've been great about answering that um I I think that um what your reporting has showed us is that um there's still a lot of information or a lot of of ideas that we could sus out with this in terms of the reason that we're here discussing this tonight is because the state has said we're adding a personal finance which I think most people are thrilled about about um we're here having to have a conversation of if we take away that fied credit and I think you've done a great job of showing us information and scenarios um about our high school graduation experience and credits as a whole and I think we have some room with the research that you've shown us or this information that you've shown us to further study our physical education opportunities so I'm voting tonight to increase our credit loads for several reasons our strap plan being one we know how important um physical education is to those well-rounded students that we talk about um educator voice the lead team which is not just fiad teachers are recommending this um and really time I think if we're really going to take a comprehensive look at Pathways and we just looked at Social Studies um I said it in our first meeting I I need a longer Runway to really dig into this there were some options or like further options slides where it was like could we allow athletes to get credit could we look at you know we just heard about Pathways with um CPR well could that be a fied class you know some of that where I think there's a potential where we can make this a winwin and I don't think we're right there yet so I'm not ready to take that credit away with that being said I feel like I need to have the justification of why why do we go above and beyond what the state requires um and I I think we have that in our personal values I know all of my board members have struggled with this conversation but if we're going to go above if we're saying two then let's make sure we have really outstanding reasons for that and programming around that and students engagement that say yeah I really got a lot out of those classes so um I think there's an opportunity there I would love for us to be able to dig into that a little bit more and not have this conversation end tonight so that's all I wanted to say thank you director G director bman and I just wanted to repeat something I said I think last month well this is a difficult position that we're in to have to make this decision because it's I don't think anyone feels great about it in terms of which direction we go and there's risks or unintended consequences both directions um and I've come through a lot of this process over the last few months as to the impact it has for people on Choice the impact as it has for our strategic plan and what we say a well-rounded graduate includes as far as Wellness um what I said last time was is that we're making a decision tonight but it doesn't it's not the end all be all forever let's do this decision as director Gable just said let's really make sure we're learning what's working what's not working and if necessary not I come back with information about it but if we for whatever reason the unintended consequences were a lot worse than we thought they would be Bas on what we choose to do here tonight whichever direction it is we can change it um and not that we want to be in the business of constantly changing things around graduation requirements because that's not a really good strategy with something like this where we don't have perfect information we shouldn't be um anchored to any one decision that's made tonight um because we are constantly evolving and understanding where we're at so I just wanted to kind of reiterate that one more time um before we take action thank you um so I I agree with what my colleague said um I think the thing I'm struggling with the most about this is um our students at our high school and the amount of stress and pressure they're under and um I agree with director gabler we wouldn't be here if it weren't for a change to the state no matter how many people like personal finance it um we've been put in a position to do this in a very quick amount of time without having enough time to really look at things holistically and how we can make um flexible options I um I'm just really struck by the amount of pressure students put on themselves um we can say to ourselves something like this doesn't matter that much but onboarding multiple students to college the pressure and messages that students get about what they need to do to get to a college it's really unfair to our students um and I appreciated um on our Discovery um presentation tonight referencing the Minnesota student survey and I look actually looked up our 11th grade stress levels and um 77% of our 11th graders report that they've felt nervous anxious or on edge in the last two weeks compared with 69 % of the rest of the state and I think that's because they we're in a high pressure the Excellence of Edina comes with a cost um and I don't want to do anything to contribute to that and my concern is this this adding another graduation credit is going to contribute to contribute to that the the mental health and wellness there's a balance if they had another PE class would that help I don't know the answer to that um um I would like to challenge my board members that as this St as this stands I don't know if I can approve increasing our graduation credits for that reasons however I could vote to increase our graduation credits with the caveat that a year from now or a year and a half from now before these students that are impacted Ed you guys are given the opportunity to look at how can we provide flexibility for students whether it's PE whether it's personal finance um taking into consideration that holistic look at our students and what's impacting them which you guys just haven't had enough time to do and I don't fa I just want to make sure it very clear I'm not faulting you guys for that it's the timing we were given from the state um so I could approve this if that was part of the approval that it would be a yes end um we need to look into more flexible options and taking Pathways into consideration and really doing a deep dive into our graduation requirement experience um and I just wanted to see what the rest of the board thought about that I would concur with that I think the question really is to Administration is is it reasonable that you would be able to do that so I agree 100% with that but are you able to actually commit that you'd be able to effectively look at those flexibilities provide something back to us to where if we needed to modify something we'd be able to before it has the impact that chair alberg just described you I think it's a double check agenda that we'd be talking about remind me jod when personal finance is required 2526 it's for yes it's for the current n9th graders need to take it in 10th 11th or 12th so starting in 25 26 um so the challenge there would be the fact that when you're talking about the curriculum and and the and the the catalog for 25 26 we typically finish that towards the end of this year very early right yeah I mean so so I think the question is is that the class itself is not necessarily the question the problem is is that we probably wouldn't have enough time to come up with applying the credit for you know um Athletics and whatever it is to something or whatever it might be that's where that's going to be more time so not for next year just to be clear not for next year there's nothing we can do for next year I'm saying for a year year from now knowing that we just have told this year's freshman you now have to take an additional personal finance class can we a year from now come back and say yes you still have to take these 44 credits but now we've opened up these flexible ways for you to do that um or maybe a year or a year and a half from now the answer is we've looked everything and we just don't think any of that's a good idea and then maybe we'll have the opportunity to relook at the pathways and everything like that maybe our answer still is this is the best thing to do I want to give our Administration time to look at some of these things that they haven't had enough time to look at knowing for this year we can't do or change anything unless we decide tonight to reduce the credits yeah I mean the only last comment I would make is that I from the work sessions and the other conversations we've been having over this last few months there seem to be and hopefully everyone else will chime in there seem to be interest that yes if we could figure out flexibility about how we could apply this credit across different things if we could do that I think there seem to be a lot of favorable impression that we would like to do that the question really just is can we effectively do that Dr bman just for clarity are you talking about for for finance or are you talking about for fied I'm thinking about we talked in different parts either one or both knowing that there's something things that we could possibly do some things we can't do so for example I think there was something about the personal finance that had certain requirements that trying to blend it with something else we didn't have a lot of flexibility with that whereas within physical education Wellness there was a lot of innovative ideas about what we might be able to do with that but again did it meet the standards that the mde requires us to do so it's probably less on the finance side Dr Stanley than it is on the on the PE side the question would be is who knows maybe with Innovation we could come up with something on the personal finance side that we could do but I'm not I don't know that to be true so it's really giv you guys the opportunity to examine that a little bit further and say really there's nothing we can do on on phys on um personal finance but we could legitimately do these two or three things on the personal or a physical education Wellness side that meets what we're talking about that's what I that's what I remember in the dialogue that we've had so I would love to hear if I read that correctly of the bo rest of the board is that kind of how it stood or people kind of felt nope that's not where that was going I guess my question would be um our Administration our staff gave us those recommendations did they already feel that they gave us that information are we just saying we didn't maybe like that information and we want different information is my only concern or do we want it to go farther um and I because I don't want to send staff back with the charge of hey give us this report again and I don't know if that was a report that they gave to us more of we have this set of time and these are the best options we have in this amount of time or if it or if they felt that was a holistic report and these are the recommendations and we recommend that we add one and I love question lean toward I feel like they gave us that report already for some degree but but I'm I'm willing to um to have that discussion if it's if it is something where we feel like they weren't able to maybe go as deep as they wanted or we wanted them to but I mean that's awkward position right and um the this is what I will say I believe that the team had a lot of questions over the past couple of months um starting in August really important to note that jod actually started this work May probably June probably you know we had a short period of time there where we really couldn't bring teachers in because they were off for the summer um but there's a significant amount of time that went into this um I believe what we're bringing forward as Administration is what we believe is what's best right now [Music] um I mean I'll just leave it at that I believe it was a comprehensive look and what we're bringing forward is what we believe is what's best right now if the board wants to change I think you have to decide that um okay so understanding now we are going to vote on this tonight um I think it's it's hard for me to come out of the work session when we're talking about all of these new additions that we'd like to bring on board and you know if you take these five classes and then you get to do something a really cool experience well where's that going to go I think we're running up into a math problem um and I think from that report bringing student voice into this conversation when we're hearing that it is an additional stress for a significant number of students to participate in gym class during the school day um I have a hard time voting to increase the the school credits um and I heard you director Gabriel last time when you said well you know kids don't like math either and they take math not all kids lot of kids like math um that's true lots of do like math but um the difference in my mind is that you know with math we're teaching you the right way to get to the right answer and there's a right answer and when we're talking about personal Wellness there is not a right answer for everyone and what I do for for Fitness and Wellness um which is really important to my mental health um and I take that very seriously it looks very different than what anybody else does and um even though I love what I do what I want to do it in the middle of a work day I don't know um so that's kind of where where my thinking is any comments from other board members dror Hui we can only make decisions on what we know today things we were talking about in the work session are not today those are future [Music] and removing the requirement for the second PE class today would also cause disruption because they're was it half the half half of the requirements are like they're kind of split right so you'd have to find where do we put those other standards within somebody's c a teacher's curriculum teaching or find someplace else for them so that is also disruptive [Music] and so in my mind what I know today it makes the most sense to increase the credit level going on what director Birman was saying earlier down the road there may be different decisions made because there's a different reality in front of us and from where I sit today it makes the most sense to add the credit [Music] um and I would hope that we would see this as a way for students to have those experiences or find those relief mechanisms that maybe they don't know about today even because they haven't experienced whatever that class is or learned because it's health and it's like wellness it's not just about physical activity it's also about learning nutrition and how to manage some of those things um I learned a lot helping my son through some of these online courses and we do have some flexibility there is there are online options there are different things but I would ask if we can be a little bit more creative and flexible for some of the credit um as we were saying a lot of students are already involved in athletics and different things so future future me would like to see that today me for where I sit today with the reality today I would support the add additional credit anything else from board members I'm can ask for a roll call vote so I can actually see what are who's voting for what um or can you can you do that thank you very much so I don't forget people can you like a yes and a no um a Yes means that you're voting to increase the graduation requirements from 43 to 44 and no vote means that it would stay at 43 so we would be removing a PE requirement take two separate VES for that I don't think so no allenberg no arum yes Barry no Birdman yes gabler yes hovie yes man yes so on a vote of five to2 um the recommendation passes to increase the graduation requirements from 43 to 44 thank you thank you very much thank you happy [Laughter] birthday okay do I have a motion to approve the read act professional development memorandum of understanding so moved is there a second second Director D Hubert and director SE are welcome thank you Dr Stanley Chair allenberg board members executive director Sonia s salor and I are excited to share the read act professional development training mou Report with all of you for Action tonight um the background um on the cover letter highlights a timeline for the science of reading specifically that professional development in Idina Edina started the science of reading PD in 2021 um even before that with some pilot and pockets of teachers doing that work um but in 2021 we committed to having um all of our K through3 our e our special Leed and our intervention staff specifically working in reading all trained in the science of reading in alignment with our early learning through 12 comprehensive literacy plan our teachers um can't speak enough about how highly um motivated and collaborative they were in jumping into this professional development then a couple years later we had 2023 phase one of the read act um was passed legislatively requiring all staff um to have science of reading professional development we were well underway with this work at that time and yet there were some important parts of legislation for us to review and make sure we were in alignment with and then recently in 2024 um we had the another phase of the statutary requirement to negotiate um um compensation for teachers in relation to the training on the science of reading so theou is specific to that compensation for teachers in specific um for their professional development in the science of reading when we started our commitment for all in 2021 we worked very very closely with em with human resources and we determined from the GetGo that we would be compensating our teachers for any work done outside of their school time or their work time at their daily rate and so the plan in front of you um provides is a reflection of that plan that we have had in place since 2021 um I appreciate the partnership with uh executive director sailor and Jason doctor both in just finalizing the details and the wording and make sure we're acknowledging the the sign significant amount of time and commitment that our teachers have demonstrated in this work would you like to add anything the only thing I'd like to add is um a reflection of the really hard work that Director D Hubert has done here as a in HR because this first went into place the re act in 2023 and then of course the the requirement of the mou in 2024 had many many emails from colleagues in many other districts what are you going to do what training are you going to do which program are you picking how are you going to pay and the fact that this was almost old news for us at this point we've been in doing this for three years Jo um Director D St Hubert all of those things that already been established was and we were that much further ahead right um it was it was nice to be able to say that so that's all I wanted to mention as well so for Action tonight are there any points of discussion or questions I'll just Echo what director sailor said thank you for your work on this and all our Educators it's greatly appreciated um we will now vote to approve the read act professional development mou all those in favor say I I anyone opposed um the motion passes and it is approved thank you um do I have a motion to approve um the 2024 2025 Collective collective bargaining agreement between Independent School District 273 and the admin I'm sorry the Diana Administration Council so moved is there a second second director sailor and director wooder so chair elenburg Dr Stanley members of the board uh Dr Woodard and I are pleased to announce that the administrative ad administrative Council which is otherwise known as our principles and our assistant principles in our school district have ratified a tenative agreement for a new contract um effective July 1 2024 and through June 30th 2026 um our negotiations teams worked class collaboratively to align uh compensation and benefits with our comparison school districts in the metropolitan area while also respecting the school board's Financial parameters financial highlights of the pro proposed agreement include step advancement for eligible principles and assistant principles in both years of the agreement with retroactive application to july1 2024 a market adjustment in the first year of the agreement to provide principles and assistant principles with comparable salaries to our District's comparison school districts and a 2% increase in the second year in exchange for the first year Market adjustment an elimination of the early retirement payments provision often referred to as Severance for all principles and assistant principles who had not already qualified for the benefit as of June 30th 2024 an increase of $624 per month towards the district's contribution towards single health insurance beginning with the 2025 calendar year and removal of the um cap on the $4,250 cap on the 3% employer match towards the district's 403b plan uh using the Minnesota school board's association's costing formula the 2-year percentage increase is 12.71% it's important to note that these Mount amount or amount does not reflect the future savings the district will recognize to the change in the early retirement payment provision um this tenative agreement is within the authority provided to us the school districts negotiations team by the school board and as a result we seek your approval for this agreement do you have any questions questions comments for board members okay we will now vote to approve the 2024 2026 collective bargaining agreement between Independent School District 273 in the Dina administrative Council all those in favor say I I anyone opposed the 2024 2026 collective bargaining agreement is approved thank you do I have a motion to approve the 2024 2026 collective bargaining agreement between Independent School District 273 and the service employees International Union so moved 284 representing Transportation employees sorry I didn't realize it was that long my bad second so moved sorry moved by director Burman prematurely and seconded by director arum um director sailor and director Ward so we're also pleased to announce that um the service employees International Union our transportation employees have ratified a tenative agreement for the same time period July 1 2024 through June 30th 2026 so our transportation employees include of course our bus drivers they also include our route programmers and um bus mechanics and our inter School mail mail driver um the financial highlights of the proposed agreement include step advancement in both years of of the agreement for eligible employees a 7% hourly wage increase in the first year and a 3% increase in the second year beginning January 1 2025 the district's monthly contribution towards health insurance will increase by $73.50 7 for single plans 2460 for single plus one and 2543 for family plans um the paid vacation provision will be eliminated for school term or 9month employees in exchange for nine paid holidays with Summer bus drivers earning one additional paid holiday if they meet the summer hour driving requirements um using the Minnesota school board's association's costing formula the two-year percentage is 8.62% this tenative agreement is also within the authority provided to the district's negotiations team by the school board and as a result we seek your approval do you have any questions I don't have questions I wanted to thank you both for your work getting all of these bargaining agreements done and within parameters of the board really appreciate it you both are outstanding at your jobs so thank you um we will now vote to approve the 2026 oops 2024 to 2026 collective bargaining agreement between ISD 273 and the service employees International Union Local 284 representing Transportation employees all those in favor say I I anyone oppose the collective bargaining agreement is approved thank you thank you do I have a motion to approve policies 418 507 5075 508 512 5165 so moved is there a second second director gaer yes thanks chair Ellenberg the policies before you for Action tonight were brought to you in the October meeting um there are no changes to what you have before you tonight board members questions or comments on these policies before we vote okay we will now vote to approve policies 418 507 507.00 um policies 418 507 5075 508 512 and 56.5 have been approved and that concludes our action items do any board um members or committee leads have updates for us tonight director arum uh just that we have our rescheduled date for La uh facility tours to November 21st and Lac is our legislative action committee for anyone that doesn't know the acronym thank you anyone else uh director Stanley do you have any superintendent updates I do first of all we got number 207 way to go uh boys um I know who who who was that that was yes that was fantastic we gosh super excited about that boys cross country congratul boys cross country they will be coming in um hopefully next month uh to be celebrated um and to be acknowledged by the board and so we're excited about that the other thing that I would like to highlight is the art display the art that is on display in the room um conquered uh art teacher Michelle Singer um she wanted to let you know that conquered display showcases a variety of grades and mediums first grade is showcasing bright sunflowers made with oil pastel blendings second grade and third grade experimented with color blending in their chalk pastel Landscapes and Bubbles and fifth grade used cut paper to create Japanese notan designs while learning about positive and negative space balance and contrast cornelia's teachers Shannon Steven Jenna well fellow um for their students the paintbrushes were created by Cornelius fourth graders they were studying artist Jim Dy and his work focusing on tools students were given many paintbrushes to draw from life then they created Shadows using permanent markers and pencils they used watercolor to Splatter and brush on bright colors to finish them second graders created a the shoe designs at Cornelia they also used their observation skills to add details from their shoes last they colored it with colored pencils to show their personality the abstract paintings were done by fourth graders practicing their painting techniques with watercolor and finally um from Normandale um Madame I think it's Madame Moselle Leanne French Amara madelle oh it's Madame Madame okay the fifth grade artist at Normandale created their own paintings after learning about the Mexican folk art of am mate paintings during Hispanic Heritage Month amate meaning paper is handmade from the pulp of fig and malberry trees then drawn on and then drawn and painted on norand doll artists created their own designs and drawings and painted these detailed Works using neon Paints in the same style as the traditional amate bark paintings I whenever I am out in schools I always go to our art classes because our out teachers are absolutely phenomenal um the kids are so engaged I like really get drawn in and I try to do some of the art myself I say I have a um growth mindset around my artwork and um just always impressed with the works that are provided for the boardroom thank you Dr Stanley um with that that concludes our meeting do I have a motion to adjourn so moved is there a second second all those in favor of adjourning the meeting say I I is there anyone opposed the meeting is adjourned thank you for