good evening everybody i'd like to start off by calling the March 18th school board business meeting to order if you would like to we would uh stand for the pledge of allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible liberty and justice for all thank you everybody and welcome uh we're going to start off with the uh approval of the agenda but before that um Dr
lewis do we have any changes actually I have a change okay i have a change to the agenda um I propose we remove item D5 strike it from the agenda d5 okay I have that as DE but that'll
work um do I have a second to amend the second by Jones um I do not think we need a roll call for this vote um so all those in favor of amending the agenda by striking uh items D5 please signify by stating I i all those opposed uh motion
passes so with that I would entertain a motion to accept the amended agenda for tonight's meeting so moved uh motion made by Meisner do I have a second second second by Keeler all those in favor please signify by saying I i all
those opposed motion passes with that I will turn it over to Dr lewis for her superintendent update thank you so much Chair it's with absolute delight that I get to welcome our students and our staff to give us an
update on youth and government and I'm a former YAG mom and hopefully soon to be YAG mom again at some point so I am just thrilled to hear from you and so proud of your leadership and action so this is the most exciting part of the meeting
for me so come on up team and you can take seats right here yep just pull another chair everybody can fit thank you perfect well hello thank you so much for having us i'm Steve Holt i'm a really high school teacher um taught at the
middle school um and I'm really honored to be part of this incredible group we've had I'm not going to lie you're not supposed to say this but this may have been my favorite year in in many years at Youth and Government our leadership is our student leadership is strong we're losing some great leaders as seniors but we have some incredible
leaders coming up and if I can just take a moment I like to kind of and how did I end up here in front of you tonight and and all these years doing youth and government um I I taught down in Ecuador for five years and I love the diversity and when I got up uh the end near the end I started a model a model club there
and I was able to take a group of students up to the South American Mio United Nations with kids from Argentina down to from down in Argentina up to Alaska and everywhere in between and I kind of fell in love with that i didn't get to do that as a student and when I when I interviewed with Fidley in 97 I think the two questions I remember
asking was first about diversity and at the time it was a very different uh population and I was really looking for a very diverse school and I was a little bit like uh I don't know and Margaret Life think I thank her for like encouraging me that we're changing um and that it's going to be exciting
voyage and boy has it been it's been great and then I asked about if you have model UN and they mentioned something about Yig and I had never heard that before i didn't know what that was um despite despite the fact that it's been in this country for whatif 70 77 years see I knew they would know a long time
um I did not get to do that as a student so I somehow managed to take 82 eighth graders my first year um out of a class of about 200 and um it's been a ride ever since um we at that time it was $275 per
student um we had very few students that applied for financial aid and now we have um we took 90 students this year 8 through 12 to the Y conference and almost all of them require huge amounts of financial aid and the cost is now $500 um so um I want to thank the school
board really without um and the district it support for youth and government over the years and the community has been incredible with our families our admin it's just it's just we're we're so lucky um because this is as you'll probably hear from them tonight such an important part of not just some of our leaders
here tonight but for our students this is for for many of them their most important and most favorite uh part of of high school um I do also want to tie in a little bit to the IB internationalmindedness one of the reasons it's such a joy to take these students is um you know Fidley students
we we live in a bit of our own bubble and for them to go and represent Fidley and represent some diversity that for a statewide program to have kids come down and and you know some of them have never say talked to a kid in a hijab they they've never spoken with hijabi and our
kids representing their lived experiences is so valuable for the state and and vice versa they get to talk to students where you know when I first started teaching frilly it was hard to teach on the first day of of fishing and when fishing opened up and hunting i'm not one of those people i don't know the terminology but I knew all of a sudden
half my class was gone i'm Oh okay and now it's now it's such a neat part of that experience to step back and watch our students shine so thanks again for all the support i'm going to let the students kind of walk through what the FR what the Yig program is uh hello my name's uh So yeah hello my name is Jesus
and I am the treasure of the club youth of government is split into uh three parts um the conference itself uh Yig and uh model UN and Kona which Yahhira can cover later uh just wanted uh not
it's not today's focus but just wanted to point out a bit of about MUN uh to uh in spring break uh we'll have around 28 students uh in the mother UN conference but what is mother UN mother UN is Mach
United Nations and uh students choose the nation that they want and they represent it yeah that's basically all I've got think that's it oh sorry guys common mistake Yes all right so um what is the
conference so as Mr holt said we brought 90 Fly students to the student le um simulation of our Minnesota government we bring kids from all over from Wisconsin to Minnesota to take part in this conference every year this year we brought over 1,500 students to this
4-day conference in Minneapolis where kids go all the way to Minneapolis and to the capitol to do different activities um for this conference it's all student led like we hardly see the adults I think ever um you can be a de
like a normal delegate who do more of the what some of us call grunt work or you can work your way up to be an appointed or an elected that run the different program areas from a day-to-day basis um if you choose to do Oh oh hey
sorry about that um promise we won't make you start over um if you want to do like being an elected or being appointed then this conference becomes more of an all year thing you are planning these different training things where you children are
training other kids to take part in this conference um from a day-to-day basis we are probably in our different program areas for about 9 to 12 hours a day depending which area you're in and we're working like a normal government would
passing bills debating arguments um writing our own bills there's about a million different things every different student does next one oh I did it again i'm sorry okay and then each year before we get to
conference we host a launch to train um all of our delegates for the actual conference in the year it's an all day thing and this year Fidley hosted our statewide training event um so again we brought about 1500 students to Fidley High School and we trained all of these kids to lead them for the conference um
our leading sessions prepare all the different students for their different program areas so they teach them how to write a bill how to debate an argument how to win an argument different all different speaking aspects how to speak
properly what's the current legal jargon and how do you use it properly it's a lot of work and we spend a lot of time there i think launch is what 9 hours oh my gosh it's an extreme 7 a.m till like 4 or 5:00 p.m yeah it's an extremely
long day okay um and before launch all of our students have to write and submit written work for their program area to make sure that they have an understanding of what we're going to do when we get to the conference so students are just you know going haywire um and luckily this year all of our Fidley students submitted their work on
time so we were on top of things this year and just to add for that that has never happened in Fidley history where um all students have submitted their written work and their bills on time and that was just it's really impressive as like someone who leads that and is in charge
of that having that happen was really really nice to have and I would credit the leaders they they had all these extra trainings where they did extra workshops well attended it was fantastic on top of launch we do weekly meetings and for lead delegates ourselves to make sure
that we're prepared for everything and know what's going on so this conference is a lot of work yes um okay so we'll be talking about some of the program areas in Yig oh you want I'll get There you go sorry thank you i was going to project but um so the one of the the biggest um
program area in Yig is legislative there is underassman have lower legislative where they're in the hotel the whole time but they have two senates and two houses just so it runs quicker but then the upper classman they get to go to the actual Senate and the actual House of Representatives and they get to sit in
the actual chairs of our Minnesota lawmakers you see their names on it it's really really cool and you can click the button of yes and no and it lights up on the screen like it's a it is the real deal and it's for upper classman there and then I'll get to lobbyist real quick it's actual lobbyists like you get
trained with actual lobbyists so you can become an appointed write your reason to become a lobbyist we have many lobbyists in Fidley and actually I got the opportunity to work with one of lobbyists from Fidley so we work together on my bill to get it passed in the committee it's we do the exact form how we pass bills in the Minnesota um
government so it's really nice to have that and we're going going to go on to courts so I didn't state this earlier but um I'm actually afford delegates court specialist i've been in the for uh in the courts for four years now um and with all of these the trials court of
appeals district and supreme they're all held at um the judicial center or the actual um Why am I blinking oh the capital itself um we have district court is held at the hotel this year but soon it's going to be moved to the actual building once it's finished renovating
so that'll be really cool um but it's it's such an amazing experience because these court of appeals students and the Supreme Court students actually sit where our actual courts leaders sit right where they are in their chairs like you see the name plate we have our
own microphones we're standing at the like the stands and um sometimes for different launch sessions and whatnot we'll have actual attorneys and lawyers or sometimes from college to come in and teach us how to pro like actually argue from somebody who's learning how to do it right now we'll have mock mock
arguments from actual attorneys and lawyers to teach us i was a Supreme Court appointed official this year and we um brought some people in and it was a super amazing experience experience just to see and then with me and my group of appointed and electeds we then
did our own mock trial and yeah and then with district and trial they do a lot of the same things it's just for the younger students to get them into the the courts courts area and kind of teach them some of the the easier parts of the
courts all right um hello guys my name is Yahira and I am the chair of Fidley Youth and Government and I am going to talk about the um cabinet like the executive branch of Fidley not Fidley Youth and Government
Minnesota Youth and Government um I have been a part of the executive branch for three years now my first two years I served as a com well my first year I served as a commissioner for the governor and then as the press secretary for the governor and then this year I got to serve as a youth secretary of
state and the executive branch is exactly like the real world executive branch there's a youth secretary of state a youth lieutenant governor and a youth governor all of the governors have commissioners um they have press secretaries a chief of staff an executive assistant you name it they
have it um and it's pretty much the same with the Secretary of State i think I had about I had eight staffers and then I had two deputies one for the legislation and one for for elections and it works exactly like the real government would work the commissioners
are running back and forth from committees and running back and forth from the House floor or the Senate floor trying to get bills that the governor wants signed um pushed forward and the secretary of state is kind of bossed around by the commissioners to try to
get uh the house or the senate to push bills forward um the governor the lieutenant governor and the secretary of state are known as the three highest offices of the entire conference which is really really cool because we get to stay in a suite so I
got to stay in a really nice suite with the governor and the lieutenant governor it was a really cool experience we would have our nightly elected officer meetings in there and because we were um quote unquote like the highest branch we also got like snacks and that kind of
stuff for breakfast so uh that was really nice but yeah I mean like I said it's pretty much how the real government works and you really only see commissioners running around back and forth and the governor sitting back and just waiting for the commissioners to come back with a paper for them to sign
so it's it's it's pretty much how the real government works okay okay oh oh no never mind okay oh okay uh National Issues Forum where do I start uh un uh it's believe it's the similar
to uh legislative but a little bit more upscale national issues forum I believe is the second largest program area I don't know someone fact check that for me um but yeah what we do in national issues forum is that we focus on current
problems and basically find a solution to them uh uh at this year's conference I was focused on the housing prices and the housing crisis on how uh the the prices of houses were increasing unfortunately
uh mine didn't go that far but there's a lot more fiddly kids that really did well there and yeah um and then we'll jump to media so media covers the entire conference all the way from the hotel to the capital there's
buses going every 30 minutes mainly for media kids to jump back and forth to record the entire um conference they write newspapers like actual physical newspapers that you'll find in different stands around um and then at the end of every night they do a broadcast where it's like it's the act everything that
happened throughout the day there's live recordings and videos of everything everyone's done and then they also go in and they interview the governor the lieutenant governor different electeds stuff like that and just kind of do a recap of all the days so everyone knows what everyone else was up to okay uh so the benefits of youth and
government so obviously you got to hear how fun it is for us to go on and you know play pretend for a weekend and you know just mess around in the capital for a weekend which you'd get yelled at if you were going on just as on a regular tour um but youth and government does so
much more than just having us play pretend for a weekend it teaches us a lot of how we can be better people to the world how we can be better citizens and most importantly it gives us confidence to be
here sitting in front of you guys today and tell you tell you guys our um how it went for us what it has done for us i mean Youth and Government has connected me to many other programs outside of Youth and Government it's run through the Y it has brought me to things like
Model United Nations and the Conference on National Affairs which you saw in a previous slide um I was actually also picked to go off to Washington DC and advocate with the YMCA i think it was two weeks ago and it was all because of youth and government
this is where I learned where and how to be the person that I am today i always knew that I had like passion for the government and how our politics work but I never knew where to start i never knew how to speak up for myself i did not know where I could develop these skills
and Youth and Government was the place for me youth and Government has been life-changing not just to me but to every single one of these students that is sitting here with us and I would say every single student that has been to Youth and Government has come back with a positive story they have either come back with knowing how to speak up uh
with learning on other issues around the state that they didn't even think were issues around the state it is a place where you learn so much knowledge and you just learn to be a better person for our world all right and um Fidley youth and Fidley kids are actually a pretty big
deal in the leadership world for the YMCA so Amamira um actually ran to be the National Issues Forum presiding officer and she won um by one vote it was a very
very scary election but she won she did it and she is not able to be here with us today but it was something that she is she was truly passionate about she is still truly passionate about and she was so excited when she won and it is something that she has been wanting to
do for a while so that she can give back to this program area that she loves so much um and then the second name on there is me i'm Yahira um I am I have been able to be one of the conference on national affairs students so it's also
known as Kona um every year the YMCA picks 25 students from the state to go off to the national conference it's basically youth and government but on a national level um and I have been picked for two years in a row now which has
been truly life-changing it has brought me to hear some more extreme issues that are going on in in the world as it is a n like we talk about worldwide issues there and I was also actually a committee chair for that conference
which is also which is also a pretty big deal because I think it's about 600 students and only about 20 are committee chairs and yeah it's just it was I don't even I I can't even explain to you guys how magical that was for me as as a student that has always been like really
passionate about politics and government and the second thing on there is Secretary of State so this year I got to serve as the youth secretary of state which I was voted in LA at last conference um and then this conference I was able to serve in that position but leading up to that conference I had to
work closely with the center for youth voice and with the governor the lieutenant governor and with all of the other elected officers to make this conference run as smoothly as possible as the secretary of state is the one in charge to move bills from committee to chambers and if we lose a bill then it's
over for all the other chambers um which is something that can be challenging sometimes when you only have about eight 10 people working on that and you have over a thousand kids that have built um but we were able to do a pretty good job at that as far as I know my staff did
not lose a any bills um which they could have hid from me they could have hid that information from me but even if they did I'm just going to act like I didn't hear that um and we also run elections which I actually got to see every single one of
these students win or lose their elections and was also well I also went to one of our like every night we have like delegation meetings and I ended up at our delegation meeting and I was like oh my god cuz I knew how the results were going and I knew who had won and I
knew who didn't and I just wanted to hug students and be like like I'm so happy for you or I'm like so upset for you but I couldn't so here I was in the corner just like "Oh my god." Like um it was a super great experience as well and the second thing on there oh the third thing
I'm sorry uh sorry there's just a lot of things underneath my name but uh state steering committee state steering committee so as chair of Fidley Youth and Government I have to go to these meetings which I adore going to i think there's like one
meeting every two months which is every single every single delegation has to send a representative to this meeting and essentially it's just a studentrun meeting on how we can improve the conference so I get to meet with all of these other amazing leaders on how we
can continue improving youth and government and within the state steering committee I am also the chair of the election rules committee where I get to write the election rules and I get to say "Hey this is what we're going to do and this is what we're not going to allow to happen." And this year it was
actually a pretty interesting state steering committee because I passed a pretty controversial election rules um it passed so if anything goes wrong that's a next year problem sorry to you guys but um it is incredible meeting
with all of these other student leaders and getting to work with other students to continue to improve the conference and then the last thing on there is the national being a national youth advocate so as I stated youth and government is where I have been able to learn to
develop my leadership skills my public speaking skills my confidence this is where it all started for me and the staff at Fidley Youth not only at Fidley but at the YMCA have been super super supportive and they have heard my story
they have heard where it all started they know that youth and government has been life-changing and a really really big deal for me and that is why I was chosen to be um one of two students to go on to Washington DC and speak on the YMCA's priorities where we got to talk
about more funding for programs like youth and government more funding for child care uh ensuring that the YMCA keeps their tax exempt uh status because they are a nonprofit and it was incredible uh I got to speak to staff members of every single representative
and senate office of Minnesota and I got to I also got some Senate and Gall Gallery Senate Senate gallery passes which is really nice and cool to like just go into the gallery of the Senate um but
essentially this program is like incredible like that's all I could really say um and then Sophia Good is on there who will be serving as next year's chair of youth in Fidley youth and government uh she was not able to be here with us today but she actually
served as the president of Spear Senate um and I know that she completely fell in love with that she decided to actually run to be youth secretary of state this year unfortunately she lost by 1.5% I think it was which again was
super heartbreaking for me as a Fidley student to see another Fidley student lose such a competitive race um but I know that this program has been truly life-changing for her as well forgive me for not introducing myself i'm Siccilia Felner i'm the vice of Fidley um just a little thing about
Sophia i've known her forever in her first year conference she didn't know how to talk to anyone she would try to hang out with me as much as possible she was in eighth grade and I was a sophomore in N so we didn't see each other as much but this year like she spent months advocating her media and
campaigning and getting to know a bunch of people around the state and if that doesn't tell you from one example of how youth government can benefit Fidley students well there will be more in store but this is just one like I know I know she's not here but she is seriously like came out of her shell with the government and with Fidley this would
not be able to happen so thank you um we will get into some other highlights so Sophia Good she did run for Secretary of State but then lost by the 1.7% unfortunately um my dear friend Ari she she ran for the Supreme Court justice one the
highest honor in the Supreme Court and also lost by one vote and then Malik Va he so he's in lower ledge cuz he's a a sophomore now but he campaigned to run for an upper classman legislative not knowing anyone
never even stepped foot in that capital for the four days and him and I we we were down in the hotel by 7:00 a.m ready to go ready to advocate he came there and he owned the the youth and government he knew people and he did great unfortunately he lost by like two
votes too so it it's very competitive in there but those are just some stu like we have so many other students that ran for positions appointed they filled out their appointed official ballots so many other leadership opportunities that for the youth and government gets to have and it's truly truly
remarkable and then we have some other highlights so Becky Jang she was voted most outstanding delegate in her program there is how many eighth graders do you think there is a 200 out 200 she was one of the top like five that got voted this
and then Eleanor she was selected um out of to to give a speech the closing speech 2,000 people in the closing ceremony now personally Elanor she reached out to me and she was like you're because we had closing speeches you hear her and I for our delegation and she was like your speech was so amazing i don't know how I'm gonna beat
that for the closing speech and I was like "Don't worry Eleanor you're gonna do amazing." And when I tell you I was standing there like a Facebook mom recording Eleanor so proud i was like me and Mr cutthur our eighth grade adviser were the only people standing i was like "Do you think it's really?" And I was
like "I don't even care." Like she's just so cool but and that was really really special and then within our 90 delegates that went to the Fidley Youth and Government the sorry the Youth and Government Conference 13 of them were appointed getting appointed is hard and that is truly honored to have so many
leadership roles amongst Fidley um and then to close it I have a couple words okay as we wrap up our youth and government showcase I want to talk about the impact youth and government how it impact government how Fly Youth and Government truly impacts the Fly students amongst our community with a
lasting influence that brings youth and government students learning about advocacy learning about other students among the state and overall learning about democracy within our state and our nation now my youth and government jury and I think all of us us three it has sorry us four it has not been the
smoothest it is difficult spending 14 hours walking around the cap with the craziest debates like I've ever heard and busting to the cap from St paul to Minneapolis it's in the snow in the snow by the way it's absolutely insane
working with 1,500 students for 4 days learning about everyone in your group is truly remarkable and I can say with full confidence that youth in government taught me how to delegate students in our friendly community to fully ensure that students can use their voice and learn how to use voice to advocate for
issues in their community and advocate for themselves which is a lifelong which is a lifelong skill that makes you have a lasting impact as a person within this in addition to leading the Fley delegation I got the opportunity to learn more about our Fley students as a PSO student I don't really get to see
our Fly students but with this program I get to learn about Fley students learn about what they're passionate for learning about their issues and learning about how they can rise as a leader and as a senior leading this is one of the most remarkable things I get to have and get to learn um and it truly reminds me
how bright for these students are in our small community we're actually the fourth largest delegation in the youth and government community like the top three are Shaka Weisetta oh my gosh Mountains View i'm so sorry and so having those like 2,000 student schools
and we're fourth it's truly like it's truly truly remarkable number one per capita yeah number one thank you number one per capita um with this frilly students being benefited from the youth and government program it lets me have insurance that our Frley students can benefit our home school and community
with a lifelong lasting impact now my biggest takeaway from the youth and government program is the influence I brought upon other delegates helping delegates to make sure they become their leaders become their advocacy and to remind themselves that your voice matters within this I truly want to thank the Fly Steering Committee all of
our members Yhira Ari uh Jesus Malik Amamira our team we worked tirelessly like August even before when school the year before we worked we met we had meetings where kids can come in the week before Yig being like "Cece I don't know
what I'm supposed to do." And I'm like well that's okay and it I know we previously said this but having a 100% of our bills turned in last year was about 50% so having this and students can come in being like I don't even know what should I write my bill about i'm like well what is one thing you want to change in our state and how would you do
it and learning what students want to learn about and what they want to change is one of the biggest factors that Y can bring to all students in our state now it really wouldn't be possible without our adviserss Mr cuthbert Mr tryan Miss Shy Mr anderson and Holt I owe all of
for the youth and guns recognition and legacy to the administration team of Fredley during my old during my own experience these four years i truly own all of it to Mr holt so I'd like to thank Mr holt for always listening to me encouraging me and believing in my in me in these past four years i truly would
not be here today without the guidance and support of Mr holt no matter what even with applying to colleges he still gives me the encouragement to do whatever I can do and it truly Mr mr hall has dedicated his passion and his love for Fidley Yig he works tire see I'm going to jump in and you're going to
see why in a second okay that's fine so we were semi lied to you but semi told the truth so our next slide oh oh so we um I was able to meet with Cece
um she sat me out and said all of your accolades and we met for probably over a half an hour and she still wasn't done telling me about all of your accolades so Cece with all the love in the world I cut you off
just to resume but I wanted you to see Mr hull the value that you bring this is a student recommendation we all agree um often the supervisor of the person that's our employee of excellence um
talks about them but Cece as you can see can speak to how we all feel about you so Cece pardon me for interrupting you and please resume we're so proud of you Mr holtz thank you okay um I forgot
where I was i'm sorry no no no no something about grade or something okay make it sound i'll try my best okay i would like to thank Mr holt for always listening to me encouraging me and believing me these past four years okay life lost with the words of
Yhira our president M and these quotes I quote "Yahhira has sorry he has always been encouraged to apply others in their positions and was incredibly supportive when I ran for you secretary of state ethan government has become a second home to me and for many other students that home has always started with Mr
holt i am forever grateful for Mr holt's efforts and adviser as a mentor mr holt has always given students encouragement no matter the circumstances with his efforts I'm forever honored to award Mr holt the Furley Public Schools Foundation the Employee of Excellence
Award cece's mom do you want to come up and take a pick from the front yeah you can come right up here it's just fine you're gonna be on TV though well I want you to get a good shot or should I stand here yeah do you want to stand
with me oh congratulations thank you so nice of you we're gonna get We're gonna get a good picture yeah can we get a good photo yeah so cute
so cute so that's all we have for our presentation we're open for any questions if you guys would like some that was a short version so uh so I'm gonna defer to Miss Stark so she's like our political government guru like if you guys want to get involved in
politics grab her like she will put you in the right direction so with that so I was pulling up some photos um because we Well so first of all I have to say that thank you Mr holt every time I've reached out with a crazy idea and said "Hey if you want to send some kids to me
send them to me." Um and so a group came to our annual event called Brunch for Better where they met Mayor Fry and a bunch of legislators so I pulled up the pictures so if anybody wants to see pictures um Representative Hornstein Representative Jordan um Senator Mchuan
and everybody was so excited to meet the the students as soon as I saw lawmaker come in I was like you have to go to that table over there um and so I just was so impressed that so many students got up on a Sunday morning no less um to
come and experience this event with all these legislators um I was at the so my full-time job I am the state director of a nonprofit but during the legislative session I'm there um I'm the principal lobbyist and I used to be Senate staff so we were in the legislative session
right now and as I'm at the legislature I'm sitting in the Wrath Skeller which is the little cafe under the Capitol eating and all of a sudden I'm like "Those are Fly kids i know them i know them." And I just was so impressed by the way that they were holding themselves and so respectful and so excited and they you know I chatted with
them for a brief minute but they're like "I got to go i got stuff to do." Like they were on a schedule um and so the offer is always open if you want to spend a day at the legislature if you want to testify on a bill if you want to go into legislative meetings if you want to learn about that process you can come
hang out anytime um there's a lot going on right now um and it's it's good that you already kind of know how the sausage gets made because it can be kind of messy um so it's really exciting to hear about young people getting excited because right now is a really hard time to be excited
about politics so I'm just more curious about what you want to do next where do you want to go to school what do you want to study who do you want to be like what do you want to do how does this prepare you for the next step yeah you can talk that's for the students
i mean I'm 41 and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up um so as I mentioned I have actually always been interested in like politics and how like our government works and all that so what I actually plan on
taking on from youth and government is well one I was able to create so many connections within government which gave me really good recommendation letters for college um and right now I am debating between a couple colleges of where I want to go to but I will be
majoring in political science and my plan is to hopefully work for a um a senator or a representative while I'm in college and gain some experience in that field hopefully become a legislative assistant and I do hope to one day
become a lawyer uh to be more specific an immigration lawyer open my own law firm and maybe maybe who knows one day run for office um I would really like to be a US senator that's like my dream like my all-star dream to become a US senator um especially after I saw what
their offices look like I was like "Oh that's so nice." Um but yeah like with Fidley with with one not just Fidley youth and government having all of that support but youth and government itself like I always knew I wanted politics but I did not know what field what I wanted to actually do but youth and government
showed me hey so there's more than just actually being a representative and a senator there's staff people that work underneath these representatives in the in these senators and you can do that get paid really well and live a really good life so I'm like "Hey that is what I want to do." Cuz I don't know if I
want to go right away and be on TV or be shown as a controversial person but I can be behind the scenes for like my first 10 years after college and then maybe after that I plan to run for office oh yeah is that
where I can It's going to be hard to be e-hero with her college plans i'm not going to lie but with this I do plan to major in sport administration with the inner workings and businesses of sport leagues and professional teams and with the leadership and the lessons I've learned from youth and government I will
1,000% carry in that and carry the characteristics that I've gained with that pro with this program and just learn how to like overall delegate like sports teams and making sure that advocacy is within the sports teams and just make sports just a better place for all people the only thing more political
than politics is sports yeah I totally agree actually and then do you want anybody else yeah I was say um I'm sorry you hear and I are both seniors so that's we kind of have it um I'm a PSO student at Bethl University
and I actually got into the nursing major program so I'm planning to be a nursing student but um because of my uh advocacy in youth and government I'm going into the more political field field of healthcare um once you get your nursing degree you can actually go into the political side of things and become
a nurse on different cases and give your actual like opinion like nurs's opinion on different cases and spread political views and whatnot on that and so yeah that's hopefully my end goal right now we'll see if that changes but I don't know how
Well I'm still a sophomore so I got time uh but with what I know right now and I'll probably majoring if I were to major something I'd probably go like around political science because it's what I know know most and it's what I've
been doing basically ever since 8th grade uh recently me and my family were able to be at the capital last Thursday to talk about a specific bill or well hostile how they describe it over there uh and yeah I think it's a very
promising future if I do go for it and apart from that wherever the wind takes me that all sounds wonderful um and I have very specific advice for you related to that so will you connect
wonderful great thanks B anybody else oh and I have a a boatload of photos if anybody wants to see them of them like being fabulous and meeting uh Director Stark if you can send those to uh Miss Anler we'll put them in the
soup update awesome thank you yes chair um just there's so many things that I could say from the inspiring uh comments and efforts and accomplishments that you have but I will just sum it up in one comment you give
me hope for the next generation well said good job and the the future certainly bright with the four of you in it so congratulations thank you thank you thank you so much thank you thank you thank you so much i'm excited to you have to sorry follow
that up well I think we have two people that can so we have two fabulous seniors of ours so I am absolutely thrilled to invite up our AAA recipients Maya Karsten and Aiden Andler so we are so
excited to welcome you uh coaches can you help with the mic there um just that it's on okay you're good Maya yep yep so these two they're a little more on the shy end i like Cece there so I thought I'd do a
quick introduction for them so we have Adrian Adler here and Maya Carson who are been friendly students through and through since third grade it was actually in the same third grade class at Hayes so that's pretty cool um they truly exemplifies what we look for in a student athlete in in activities here
like they both were part of all the musicals and plays in addition to doing that they're um in multiple sports it's been many years where you know Aiden he ran track for us and did tennis in the same season maya played soccer and kick
for us on the football team in the same season and they did all of this while still maintaining over a 4.0 GPA so to receive this award is truly what we look for in friendly activities and I'm going to pass it on to Maya who's going to start oh I'll start yeah so for the
winter season in activities we had for up first concert band the concert band performed at Anoga High School they had the opportunity to work with Dr heidi Miller director of bands at Gustavis we were specifically praised for playing with a lot of heart and an impressively big sound considering our relatively
small size and we received an excellent rating for our performance and up next we had HOSA fidley completed at the HOSA conference and represented Fidley High School very well beating teams from Weisetta and Lakeville North they won the first and second rounds of medical knowledge competition and then we just
had Yig so I think I'll skip that one for now up next then speech where we had three allconerence winners nathan Gonzalez in poetry Amina Nagosh in informative and Mimi Fowler in storytelling we had many second and
third place who received all conference honorable mentions including Nazerdine Hussein in discussion Kale Hol and serious pros Wong Xiang in storytelling Jana Catham in discussion Hebo Ysef in informative Amamira Hussein in poetry
Vivian Neely in storytelling and Natalie Larson and Kashan Caldwell in duo then for student council student council attended a leadership conference last month ava Wilson was voted in as a student council Eastern division officer for next school year and the trimero
leadership conference nine student nine Fley students attended the winter trimetro leadership conference at Richfield High School on Friday January 24th they participated in three different team building exercises with leaders of from each of the trimetro schools this helped all of the leaders
learn how to collaborate communicate and complete an objective with people from other schools lastly we have the one act the Sparrow advanced to the section final at Stillwater High School and for the last thing in activities we have the AAA award winners
so I'll just speak a little bit about myself and then Maya so I came to Fidley in third grade and ever since it has been an amazing experience it has taught me so much and I first started doing activities in
seventh grade i started with cross country and then I eventually found tech work in the high school auditorium helping out with shows and it was a lot of fun and then once I got into
sophomore year I decided that I wanted to take on a little bit harder classes and so I decided to do PSO when I became a junior and that's what I'm currently still doing but I still try to stay involved with my activities and athletics here at the high school and I
think I've done a pretty good job of doing that maya um I'm Maya if you uh forgot my name um uh I have been in Fidley since kindergarten i went to Hayes started in Hayes uh through and through um I've been in activities ever
since I could probably touch a ball or shoot a ball um I play basketball softball I played soccer and then kicked for the football team i was actually here in the fall for the superintendent update um and I've been in band since fifth grade and I participate in the
band the jazz band um I play in the pit orchestra for the shows um marching band marching band season is right around so that's fun um and then in all types types of academics um I obviously I'm a student before an athlete um and it's just been really fun and Philly has been
a a good place to get involved in all sorts of athletics and activities um so to recap the winter season in athletics uh to start with dance um dance had both JV and varsity jazz and kick teams this
year which is um almost double the participants compared to last year so that's a big update um boys basketball boys basketball did pretty good this year they won their first round of sections as a five seed against a four seed so they were the upset um also in
one of the last games of the season season uh senior Trenton Woodall Jones broke the most or broke the record for the most three-pointers made in a game with nine at home which was pretty exciting um girls basketball also had a pretty good season we had a new coach this year with coach Kennedy Johnson and
it was a pleasure to have her a young energetic very energetic um person but she was good to rope in a bunch of uh new kids we had three teams this year which we haven't had three teams in a while um and senior Aubrey Cochran Star
hit her a thousandth point and senior Brandy Washington was also a Miss Basketball nomination um and we also won our first round of sections as a six seed against a three seed who we had lost uh pretty badly to during the season so that was good to have a little comeback um Fidley Wrestling had five
state participants this year um multiple allconerence and honorable mention athletes uh senior Brian Weston also won his 70th match this year um which is extremely impressive because he's only wrestled for three seasons um and then coach Eric Anderson was also the section
5A coach of the year and then lastly swim and dive had multiple state participants this year um Ugo finished 24th in the state for diving um the 200 yard freestyle relay also took 24th in state and Quinn Hendrickson took 21st at
state for the hundredyard butterfly and that is winter sports awesome uh thank you for that update it's really cool to to hear it from your your lens um the the AAA like it's it's cool right like we we know that but I
think it's you guys are like the epitome of Fidley like you can you can play multiple sports and and then at halftime go play at the halftime band right so So the fact that we have those opportunities here I think you guys really highlight that you really took
advantage of it i was joking with both of them i don't know who who Justin's going to get to do these reports when you guys leave uh but yeah so congratulations great job finished the year strong um I know we have some proud parents or at least a proud parent lori do you want to have anything to say
i'm always proud of him any other uh board members comments questions impressive well done you two well done congratulations so proud of you both next up I'm so excited to welcome Renee
Arbagas to talk to us about what's cooking in our kitchens welcome Renee i think that's Oh there it is um thank you so much school board and um Superintendent Lewis for letting me come today to just kind of talk a little bit about what's going on in our kitchens
what's going on in nutritional services um and how we support what is um happening with our students let's see if I can get this right nope wrong way nope sorry Rene that's okay do you need to do
it for me you'll be able to click in just a moment okay yeah yep there you go okay okay so um what I wanted to kind of highlight was some of the things that we're doing um in nutritional services i
first want to mention that every photo that you are going to see in this presentation um is representative of what we serve our students um as well as you will see some of our students enjoying our meals um I find it's very important that um you guys and the
community get to see what we serve because um school lunch has changed um and it's changed a lot and it continues to evolve and change um currently I have um 22 um dedicated school nutritional professionals that those are my cooks
those are my servers those are my cook managers who day in and day out um are committed to giving our students the best quality meals that we can um within our um restrictions and every single one of them is very passionate about what we
do um we all want to make sure that our students are receiving good nutritious meals so that they are able to learn um in the classrooms um also too I want to make sure that we are really looking at how we purchase our meals um and I'll
talk a little bit about this later um we are really embracing um purchasing a lot of locally grown items um I realize that you know some of the things have been changing but we continue to purchase a lot of our our cheeses our fruits our
vegetables all of that from Minnesota Wisconsin and the Midwest um we continue to um prepare new and different items um for our students um but while we're doing that we're also making sure that we include student voice we include
taste testing we include um them in the conversations so that what we are serving our students is what they are most excited about um which is very difficult because we have a wide variety of students here um and one of one of the things that all of my team look at
is we really look at our cafeterias and our kitchens as an extension of the classroom so we really try to embrace those IB um values in what we are doing on a daily basis um just a little bit about our menus um actually the picture
to the left with the penet Rosa today um is actually we serve for lunch um and this was a new recipe for our elementary students this year um and it's been so successful that it's going to roll out to our middle school and high school next year um where we're making the homemade sauce we're making everything
from scratch um as much as we can in there and our students are loving it um as well as we have increased the number of roasted vegetables that we are doing we've gone beyond potatoes and carrots we're now doing zucchini we're doing
hikima we're doing brussel sprouts we're doing um a lot of broccoli a lot of those types of things just to promote those um healthy nutrients to help our kids be able to focus while they are in um the classrooms we all know that this
is an important time of the year and that is our role in helping support our students here at Fidley um as well as when we are serving our items we're really focused on decreasing the amount of sodium decreasing the amount of sugar
um and really looking at those whole food items which is really challenging because we still have a large percentage of students who are only familiar with chicken nuggets hamburgers um and things that aren't prepared at home so trying
to find that fine balancing act has been a challenge for us um and then the item that you see on the right hand side is actually the sweet potato cobbler that we made as part of Black History Month um and we do continue to um try to
embrace our um students culture this year we did celebrate three different um cultural months we did the um Hispanic Heritage Month where we um served tamales and we served papooseas with um
El Salvador and klela um when we got some input from our students on how to make the kleslaw we also did um Native American month where we did a wild rice medley we did Wajapi and we did three sister salad as well as we did black
history month where we did baked okra we did hush puppies and we did our sweet potato cobbler and I would say the sweet potato cobbler was a elementary school favorite we had a lot of kids come back and ask for additional servings which was very exciting for us
um just a couple of things about what we are focusing on within my department um is really encouraging kids to try new foods it is really um challenging at times to encourage them to be risktakers but we really provide a lot of positive
reinforcement a positive encouragement to make sure that they are trying items even if it's just giving them a little taste when they're coming through and getting the alternate item um and we really do embrace what we're doing um to help them try new items which is why you
see a lot of whole fruits and vegetables on our salad bars we continue to focus on our team development um we're really focusing on our culinary skills we're focusing on how to use our equipment um a lot of our staff are not as familiar
with our comi ovens and our skillets so really helping them feel comfortable so we can then take our menus to that next step in making more and most of our items from scratch so we can control the seasonings we can control the sodium and we can control the amount of um sugar
that we're adding to it um and finally really focusing on those whole foods um we do purchase a lot of whole apples whole produce um if you go to the middle and high school at lunchtime there is about five to six different fresh
vegetables there's two to three different servings of fruits on the salad bar middle or um elementary school has at least three servings or three different types of vegetables that they can choose from to allow them to be able to pick what they want um as well as two
to three different types of fruit um plus our um hot items so we are really trying hard to encourage them to try new items try different things um that we have going on in our kitchens um as I mentioned too for
procurement this year I had over 50 different locally grown produced items that we purchased um previous years I've been about 25 to 30 so we've really been focusing on that to make sure that we are providing those nutritious meals um
and what you'll see too um is we may take some items that are partially um cooked and then we will modify them a good example of that is the middle one with our pickle pizza um super popular at the at the high school um when we have homemade pizza day um they
frequently go and get that as well as our Alfredo pizza and our taco pizza um sambouas are still the favorite of our students um continue to serve them um and those are made right here in Minnesota they're made in Minneapolis um
and they were recently just featured on Care 11 for their their work so um we do continue to embrace those types of things as well um and when we are purchasing we're purchasing from Goodacre we're purchasing from Bix um we
are purchasing wherever we can um to make sure that we are getting the freshest items just a little bit about who's eating um actually we have about 65% of our um K through 8 that eat um
breakfast with us every single day um and then we have about 50% of our 9th through 12th graders i just want to mention that our lunch participation continues to rise we have um about 85% of our K through 8 students eat lunch
with us every day stevenson's actually closer to 90% um that they're coming through and having lunch um high schoolers were at about 70% which is very typical for a high school student um but we are definitely a little bit above the state of Minnesota average so
thank you for your time any questions it looks all wonderful i always appreciate I always I don't know i always appreciate how you care so well for our community and that you have
just our students and our families and um their needs at the very front of what you what you are doing in the work and how that is so important in the classroom for our kids to be able to learn so I am so thankful for your contribution to their success and the way that you're leading your team thank
you thank you i was at the the middle school for a a field trip but before that they fed them all and there were a lot of clean plates yep so that's usually a good sign right it is yeah yep thank you for your work anybody else
all right thanks Renee thanks Renee much have a great night appreciate it all right next up I'm so honored to introduce Dr amy Cochran principal of Fidley Middle School as well as Mr matt Inglehart and before you get started I have to share
that I have an absolute proud superintendent moment of how far you have gone in leading the work around centering teaching and learning at Fidley Middle School i also want to let the board know that Dr cochran as well
as Matt and others will be presenting at the Minnesota Association of School Administrators on Thursday this is a highly competitive um process for a proposal to get through so they will be showcased um about different than
achievement season but next year we'll put in for achievement season um but on our summer programming so I just continue to be so proud of the transformative work that you've done around um just all of things uh student
achievement i do want to end by sharing a quote that I saw yesterday and I couldn't stop but thinking about the two of you and it says test scores don't change climate and culture climate and culture changes test scores so with that
I'm just thrilled to have you tonight thank you so much thank you so much for having us tonight we are really excited um to share what we've been doing at the middle school and I think some of you have students there and and know kind of what we're up to and I'm also just really excited to
share our big focus on um math and literacy and just a really big um push on academics this year it's been really fantastic so our Oh one second lori leaves for 30 seconds it's job security
okay i have it in hold on one second i think you can click now perfect okay um so tonight we're just going to share with you um you know why did we decide to do this um what we're calling achievement season what is it um
kind of the phase that we're in right now with it um a big piece of it is really about building a culture of confidence in students um and then just kind of some of our key takeaways so um first and foremost just to center us kind of in our data um and this is not a surprise to anyone but this is just
where we are currently at these are our MCA scores in both math reading and science over the last four years so really um coming out of the pandemic um you can see from 2021 to today um our scores have been pretty flat so um in
last spring we had about 22% of our students were achieving proficiency in math 35% achieving proficiency in reading and then in science our eighth graders and our fifth graders takes the take the science MCA test and so about 21% of our students were proficient in
science and so knowing um that this has been our data there's again been not a lot of change over the course of the years even pre- pandemic this is pretty much what you would see um and so we want to take away the excuses of this was because of COVID and really just frame it in the sense that this is where
we're currently at and that we need to have a focus on academics and really know that we need to think about teaching and learning differently um as we've entered into achievement season so this year we set out with a lofty goal um and have really had an very very
intentional focus on our math and reading scores this year um we have a a goal to improve by 10% in the number of students that are scoring proficient in our math MCAs and then in reading same thing a 10% growth in the students scoring proficient so that means that
we're hoping to move students that are either in the below or um partially meeting up to proficiency um and that would bring us from 22% up to 32% in math and from 35 up to 45 in reading so as you can tell we still have a lot of work to do um but we also know that
that's going to take kind of baby steps year by year and so our 10% growth um feels really loftly but we're really hopeful with our really intentional focus um that we're going to get there this year all right so um why achievement season
dr cochran just named it uh our data right everything is rooted in data and the reason that we're doing this is because we have seen the same results for multiple years um we talked a lot about how to break out of that and we have to try something new um achievement
season has been this revelation in our building it has been something that has started in the summer and we'll talk about that at NASA later this week um but it's really gone from the summer throughout this entire school year the focus on academic achievement throughout
the entire building has just stepped up another notch because we know our kids need that right we the data that we show that doesn't reflect our kids and we talk about that a lot the data is a very quick snapshot but we know what our kids
can accomplish um and so you know the four bullet points on here are really all rooted in data so yes we um are really trying to build that strong foundation uh Dr cochran will talk uh specifically about some different plans
that we are using but it is really building that strong foundation within our kids for math and literacy we are also developing useful skills for the future uh giving kids the strategies that can be applied in different subject areas okay this is math and literacy but
this is happening across our entire building students are implementing these plans in PE in health in college and career in science they are doing it in all of their classes and so we really want to make sure that it is a buildingwide focus uh where we are
teaching students strategies that they can use in different subject areas we are also um looking to support our students in the understanding of using language effectively again in all subjects um yes again we look at the
snapshot of our data our MCA data but realistically um these skills that our kids are learning benefit them across the building the second they walk in no matter what classroom they walk into they utilize the skills that they are really learning and these strategic plans that they are utilizing in all of
their skill or in all of their classes and then finally equipping students with the skills to um ensure lifelong learning and success one of the questions is are we doing this to go towards a test and the answer is no we are preparing our students for life
because everything that we do right there is generally a test whether it is your permit test whether it is the ACT whether it's a job test whatever it may be the skills that our kids are learning now are transferable across
life so Dr cochran also talked about like the intentionality and the structure behind what this is um we are currently in week uh seven of our 9-week plan that is focused on academic growth uh the plan is very scripted and it is
very specific for math and reading but it is really work working on the transferable skills that are um applicable no matter where students go in the building uh it is tied again to MCA state standards um and one of the
coolest things is I talked about data earlier but we progress monitor throughout this entire thing our our teachers our students we are looking at data every single day to make sure that we are seeing growth in our students um and if we're not seeing growth areas
that we can really target to make sure that our students are continuing that learning it comes in three different phases we are currently in phase three we just kicked it off this week uh and fa the phases really build upon one another so to start there is a focus on
participation because this is new this is new for our teachers this is new for our students this is new for our building and our district right um and so we really are trying to kind of like rope our kids into like this idea that this is going to benefit you right and the the participation really was weeks
one through three um four through six was goal achievement all of our students wrote individual goals um really centered around like completion of different things completion of the strategic reading plan completion of different things um and in phase three which is what we're in now we are
focusing on mastery all right we are looking to see mastery of skills um that our students have built across the first six weeks of this um achievement season um and students are again making their own individual goals for what that looks
like this does end in MCA state testing in reading math and science uh but again this is not just working directly towards a test this is building skills that benefit our kids for their lifetime all right so essentially you're probably
thinking what does that look like in the classroom on an everyday basis like what sorry what does that look like every day in the classroom or like what are students learning um and so we're talking about the transferable skills that students are learning specifically around reading they're using something called a strategic reading plan and
really it's all about how what do good readers do every single time they pick up a text um and so it helps students learn again whether I'm reading a text in science social studies um health class again I pick up the newspaper a magazine at home no matter what I'm reading we know that reading is a
lifelong skill that really is going to um you know benefit our students throughout college and into life and so this is a skill that they can take with them no matter where they are essentially as a student approaches a text the first thing that they're going to do is again using these different skills that they've learned is previewing the text to be able to
identify the genre right now our students are rock stars at this they can pick up a text right now they can tell you if it's poetry informational or fiction and then based on that when they're reading their specific thinking work we call it that they're looking for as they're reading and so it's the way
that they're annotating their text when they're reading and there's some anchor charts up there so you can kind of see what that looks like they're hanging in the classrooms for students to have reminders at this point they can pretty much do it without looking no matter what they're reading so for example if a student identifies that it is aformational text um when they're
reading the things that they're looking for is like what is the topic of this what is it teaching me and then what is the author's point of view anytime we read anything that's informational the author that's writing it is always going to have a specific stance on what they're trying to write if a student's reading poetry they're really looking
for what's the literal meaning of it and what's the deeper meaning of it so as they are writing or as they are reading these are the things that we want them to think of so it's a a lot more focused way for students as they're reading instead of just saying highlight right like if you have ever read a you know a
text and you start highlighting everything you're like why am I highlighting this this is really intentional for students to think about these are the things we want you to think about by the time they're done reading and they've been able to identify each one of these areas of their thinking work students then are
able to typically pull the main idea um and so the the idea is that if you're doing the thinking work correctly the main idea of whatever it is that you're reading should really stand out at you and when you can find the main idea of whatever it is that you're reading it helps with your comprehension so again
this the the first part of this plan is really about how we do we develop good readers the second The second part of it is then is where we come in with our test taking strategies and so if students are taking a multiple choice like if they're going to do multiple choice questions which is
what we've been practicing right now we know that that's what our MCA test is going to be so we're really wanting to mirror the work that they're practicing right now after what the questions are going to be um and so again this is where those test taking strategies come in again whether it's the ACT test whether it's an MCA test whether it's my
permit test how can I really utilize this strategy to help me be able to work through the answers using what I just read or what I've comprehended um and so it's again the strategy is that students cover the answer choices that they're not trying to use the multiple choice questions but they really want to cover
them up first um a lot of times we get stuck in like what is the question actually asking me um we know that sometimes when there's questions on exams or whatever it is sometimes they can be lengthy confusing so it's really helping students like narrow down what does it actually want to know and then
what is my plan to answer this using the work that I've annotated using my main idea what am I going to use to tackle this um they have a fun little saying then they kind of go through um to find evidence in the text to help them answer the question and then going through and thinking about we're calling it slash
the trash right now so we get rid of all the answers that don't make sense there's no evidence in the text to match them um and then you're narrowing it down to be able to to be able to find the evidence um of what you've done so students are able to do this again right now we are we've been doing this again across our building in every single
subject area um for the last five weeks and so they're pretty experts at it right now students are I would say their comprehension skills have just significantly gone up because of this strategy very similar in math a lot of what we are talking about in math is
just about work habits again so yes we are still working on math but it's also about the habits that students form when they're working on any math problem and again this is the transferable skill that is going to be able to be no matter what math class you're in doesn't matter what level math you're in if our work habits are solid and strong it's going
to be something that will be transferable for students and so again um thinking about the different areas first um asking students to read and interpret the question again if you've looked at a math problem lately it can be really lengthy they can be really confusing and if they're word problems
even like times 10 right because it's like what in the world does this problem really want me to solve if it's a word problem so it's asking students to be able to kind of slow down pick out what is the question actually asking me and then what is my plan to solve it um again if it's multiple choice which
sometimes in math it is sometimes in math it's not we know that on our MCA test or any kind of standardized test it typically will be multiple choice so again similar strategy of covering the answers because we don't want students to think again let me use these multiple choice answers to help me solve it we
want students to be working through the problem and then finding see if their answers on the multiple choice um also it's just really about organizing their workspace or really thinking about how they are solving the problem are they labeling their work as they go um because again oftentimes that is where students will get caught up and they're
not labeling they're not thinking about how they're organizing their space their paper as they're writing taking notes with math so a lot of the math that we are really focusing on right now is again the work habits within whatever math class students are in so we mentioned that this was like a
three-phase plan so students have been really really solid in learning both of those the strategic reading plan and the mathematicians plan in all of their classes in all of the grades as we've entered phase three now um we've been taking daily data with students entering it into um daily data trackers we're
having daily data conversations with teachers how are our students growing where are the misconceptions what do we need to help students with where are those gaps um we've just started phase three this week so a little bit of a change in their schedule so from 8:00 to 9:10 um in the morning we've altered our
bell schedule a little bit every student in our building is working on literacy and every single teacher has become a literacy teacher and so they've all had training on what the strategic reading plan is how do we help students and coach students around where they're struggling we might notice okay everyone
is really struggling with this part of understanding this text and so as as the teacher how am I going to coach around that um and so for the next three weeks everybody will continue to be literacy teachers from 8 to 910 um while students are working on this in math students are placed in strategic groups but they are
doing that through their math class so they've they've been placed in a little bit smaller group that's really focused on um you know maybe Mr inglehart needs help with this particular area in math and then I need help with something else so we're really being able to kind of divide up in order to close those content gaps but that's happening during
their math class and again this is happening just in the three weeks leading up to our MCA test so that we can really focus on like closing those those gaps um and then also a piece of our phase three is that we are going to have some dress rehearsal days so never before have we practiced the MCA test
before we've taken it and one piece of that and Mr ingart's going to talk next about building that culture of confidence is test anxiety and just that students are really nervous about it like when you are taking a standardized test a lot of kids have test anxiety and so how do we by the time they take the real MCA test how can we have really
helped eliminate that like how can we make it the most comfortable they know what room they're going to test in they know who the proctor's going to be they know exactly what to expect they know how to use all the tools on the MCA exam um so that by the time they walk in they're like "We got this." Um so actually this week Thursday is dress
rehearsal for reading so we're going to practice taking a practice reading test on a um web- based app we are it's not the exact MCA site but we are using another um web- based app called Lumos Learning that is going to again simulate the MCAs and it also will give students a really good idea of where their score
is at so leave leaving out a dress rehearsal students should kind of have an idea of what where they are at as far as growth goes all right um as Dr cochran mentioned uh one of the biggest things that we're trying to do is give our students um
just practice of what this is going to look like right a lot of our students have gone through the MCA tests um but a lot of students when they get to the test on that day it's really scary right things are different things feel different in the building it just feels a little heavier right like I have so
much on my shoulders today um and so one of the things that we want our students to come away with um from these nine weeks is really feeling confident about what they're doing we want them to feel like okay it's MCA test day today but I got this i've been here before i've done
this okay like this is not scary to me anymore because like Dr cochran said we are doing dress rehearsal days we are using um computer-based programs um and uh paper that students are getting questions that mirror what they see on
the MCA so when they get that piece of paper they get um that computer in front of them it's not scary it's not new they have done this work um and our goal is to build that confidence in each and every student to make sure that that when that day arrives that they're ready
um part of that is is to uh make sure our kids are seeing data all the time right seeing their improvement seeing what is happening um but part of that also is understanding that it's 9 weeks long um and 9 weeks to us might not seem
that long but 9 weeks to students who are very used to instant gratification uh 9 weeks seems like seven years all right and so they feel it right they they're like "Oh it's a really long time." But for our students what we want to make sure that we are showing them is
how proud we are of each and every one of them so what we are doing every single week um is I talked about the three different phases um phase one we are doing incentives for our students right to say I am so proud of how you
have done and what we are doing is our students get these um it's a small example up there but um it's like an incentive tracker or an incentive sheet um students either we set a goal every single week for what we want our students to accomplish currently right
now students uh created their own individual goals because we want to make sure that again this is also individualized right our students we want to see them push themselves um and feel that sense of comp accomplishment and confidence um and so students go
through and as they are meeting their goals in the classrooms um all of our teachers got these really cool little tiger paw stamps and so they go through um and every time they see a student accomplishing their goal they give them a little stamp on their sheet seems really simple but our kids are so
excited to show that off um we have done different incentives up to this point phase three we're really excited about it we're taking a little page out of um the high school's book and we're doing something called fun lunch our students
have really worked and and shared their perspective of like they want experiences right they want to go and do something fun and so we have been able to plan something across our building that during lunchtimes we're going to offer them a couple different choices um
a game room an art room open gym time um and we have worked really really hard to make sure that our students we hear what they want too right this is what we want them to be incentivized um to grow um during phase three um and so
our kids are really excited this week we are upping um and for the next three weeks kind of upping uh what we are expecting out of our students because as we said earlier phase three is really about mastery um the other part of it is
I just have to put the plug in um we have had amazing donors um so far as we approach this achievement season um we have had amazing donors who have donated to uh things like bingo night which was our kickoff event for this um we've been
able to provide a lot of amazing incentives for our students um we on Fridays we do a golden ticket award so if students win or if students get uh 10 stamps throughout the week they get entered into a drawing we've been able to uh get donations that have got kids
gift cards to Starbucks and McDonald's and and different um stores around Fidley as well and it's just been super great so in this uh setting I just want to say um some of you have been vital to that as well so I just want to say thank you um not only to the group here but
also to our overall Fredley community the other thing to uh with this culture of confidence um again what I started with is this idea of tracking our data all right um tracking our data is how our students see that growth and
how they feel that um sense of confidence as they approach our MCAs um our this is an example of what is happening in a couple of our sixth grade classrooms uh like I said students set their own individual goals and as they accomplish it they get to track their
own data there's something very powerful about looking at my own personal goal sheet and crossing something off it resonates with students it resonates that I have done something really great um and so we are putting this back on
our students to say be proud of yourself again going back to that culture of confidence um is a huge component of what we are trying to accomplish during these nine weeks all right well we'll just we'll just end with we've got some key dates coming up
and we can't wait to come back and share with you our MCA results we will be back with some really awesome results but um this week Thursday Friday we are doing our reading dress rehearsals um and then the week before spring break we are going to do our math dress rehearsals so that students have an opportunity to
practice see where their scores are at again really get comfortable with where they'll be testing um and then we know that our MCAs for both reading and math are coming up at the end of April and if they are in fifth and eighth grade they will take the science test immediately following that the last week of April and then 1st of May and then we just
have a QR code here that has lots of information so if you want to read more about it it has a folder full of all sorts of everything and all things achievement season okay chair i'm just going to take a moment here can you two see yourselves
like were you talking like this last year it's pretty great i mean this is phenomenal i'm going to go on camera and say I'm terrified that other districts are going to take you um I am so proud you are grounding in academics you are
grounding in our core mission and you are modeling it also our high school is right there like we want this too our elementaryaries are like we want achievement season like right now Brenda we need it we want it summer rise you
know the expansion of that um I am beyond proud of your transformative work chair thank you well said you guys you guys are killing it um we had conferences last week last week and uh just a shout out to Miss Maulville uh so
she's EMTT's science teacher but she's got him for math and she did a fantastic job of explaining what that looks like right he's he's not getting math but he kind of is right not his normal math um but you can you can really tell about the leadership in a building
when your teachers and staff can duplicate what you're saying and and not just duplicate it because you're a parrot but duplicate it because they mean it and like Miss Mullville she meant it she understood it we had a great open frank conversation about what his small group will look like so she's
she's buying into that and I'm and I'm pretty sure that's pretty consistent throughout the the school so you guys doing a fantastic job um I do have just a couple questions when will you guys have the data back from the tests i know we get them in the mail and all that stuff but when when
will you guys be back to report take this and then I'm going to put it to you we have it but it's not public i mean we don't have it currently um we get it pretty quickly but it's not um it's embargoed and so like our licenses
depend on that um so Amy or Dr dr cochran I'm going to let you then share when it will be available for our board to actually see and the board um does not have the ability to see that
data before it's unembarged go ahead yeah we can share individual scores with students when they're embargoed um as long as students know that they're not official we can't aggregate the data so we won't be able to say we've made a 10% growth in our data or more um until
they're official which won't be until the fall okay but students can have their individual scores which is just as important because students right now um this week actually we you will see them go up soon in the hallways made little tiger paws we had students look at their scores from last year really have an
understanding of what their scores mean they each set individual goals on what they want their scores to be we're going to put those on pause around the building so students can see their goals hanging up on the walls so really important for students to be able to see their scores so they can have their individual ones but the whole thing But the whole thing we won't know our whole
overall growth until the fall we'll wait but it'll be great any other questions or comments uh yes chair uh you guys kind of brought me on a roller coaster with this presentation because you started with a chart that
none of us like right that has been the bane of education's existence for a long time it's a it's a stressinducing discouraging chart um and we've been working on it for years and I'm like man we've been working on this stuff for
years administration staff board um and trying new things that that we're being data driven which I really appreciate and you acknowledged this is not what you know we've been trying we got good
people working hard um so I'm delighted to hear about this new effort we got to keep trying i last year and the year before we probably tried new things too my memor is not good enough to remember but somebody was saying they're going "Well we didn't do it in 2021 so we're doing something now in Right we keep
trying i really respect that and appreciate it." Um and so I started off on the low end of the roller coaster and then I I came up as uh I heard about the and this is all students participating is that correct
yep right because the summer the other one was not all students right so it's open to all right all right it was choice right um and then I hope I hope we get the results that that you want we all hope that uh
and then I'm going to be really curious to understand if nine weeks of focused effort through some new lens that you have and some new execution works that's huge i mean we can do a lot
of nine weeks right and I know that this is kind of targeted a little bit to the MCAs and I know that we don't want to teach to the test and I don't advocate for that but I also know as an engineer and a business guy that you can't fix what you can't measure so the tests play
a role love them or hate them um and I and and presumably those tests are designed to measure things that we think are generally important across the state so this kind of effort I'm I'm really going to be curious about the experiment
that you guys are doing and I'm very encouraged like like the chair said uh that it seems to be working or that you seem to be on the right path and then I'm going to have one last little nitpick point and this is because
I've had this conversation with many of my past employees and my colleagues for 40 I don't think you want a 10% improvement because that would be 2 and a.5% you want a 10 percentage point
improvement 10 percentage points and so this goes on in business world all the time and um I believe we want a 10 percentage point improvement and I hope you get it thank you so much i I will just say I just want to shout out our
teachers i like I really do that that this is a lot for them right i am a science teacher and I'm a math teacher too i am a Chinese teacher but Miss Nordine has taught math for us in summer school she's a rockstar in math she's helping with the math small group so I
mean this is not a small undertaking for teachers to be able to really um help and support in content areas that they might not be specialists in but they have knowledge in and we really tried to say like this is every single person in our building
is helping and this is a full-fledged effort right and again we are all reading teachers it doesn't matter what your content area is we all teach reading you read in every single subject we read in our life right so everybody can teach reading and we can help train you to do that we can help give you the skills to do that so I just want a huge
shout out to our teachers they've been just true rock stars our pair educators again schedules have been changed they're assisting in classrooms that they haven't been in um and our students are also just so resilient i know kids are like "Okay what are we doing today?" Like "Here we go." Like but our students
have been our students are so resilient and they are ready and they are rocking it and we are seeing on our daily data trackers we're seeing that growth go up so we're really excited i I actually meant to say one of the one of the high points on the roller coaster uh was some people would look at this data and say
"This is an all hands- on deck problem right low reading scores low math scores." And you just demonstrated all hands on deck okay we're taking 70 minutes in the morning and we're all g because reading is fundamental i meant to I meant to acknowledge that and I
think that's that's how you solve the problem you get all hands on deck i would just add one more thing um I I think one of the things that we are so excited about is what you flip your mic i think it's on it's supposed
to be on okay can you just use Dr c thank you i think one of the things that you touched on that we have talked a lot about is it's nine weeks right however when we see our growth it gives us such excitement going into next year to be
able to say look at we put this focused effort in 9 weeks think about coming into next year having our teachers feel that sense of accomplishment having our students feel that sense of accomplishment and just what we can build upon that right to say we are
trying something for 9 weeks and we see growth from it we can come into next year being like look what our kids are made of right our kids can do anything that they put their mind to and coming into next year after this it is a lift
but also telling our teachers this was new change is hard but at the same time look what you did right celebrate yourselves as well because again this is an all hands-on deck thing and it's an all hands-on deck thing with our students our staff and our community
like I referenced before so um we're just really excited to see where we go from here okay awesome i'm just going to do a tech check David um I'm getting notification that we're not live streaming so if you can look into that that would be great
um excellent job team thank you okay thank you all thank you so much um board can't wait to hear thank you sorry uh Director Meisner uh chair ready for me to go to the next slide okay board very similar to what we
did with referendum you're going to hear the same legislative advocacy update every meeting because it's important that we get this message out in multiple formats so I just want to say firstly last
week's was exceptional Monday and Tuesday full days getting Fidley's voice and public K12 in Minnesota voice and I ordered that the way I did for a reason out there i want to also acknowledge and
state that we have fantastic representatives for the Fidley area what I think is even better demonstration is we made our voices heard to lawmakers that won't
don't want to hear our voice and we locked in on that we gave the facts and the data points we approached it from a nonpartisan viewpoint it is not in our control how they vote on bills however
it is in our control that we clearly messaged and I think we brought preparedness advocacy data and we are actually not there on emotion we're there on facts and numbers so I want to
start that way and I'll actually end with a statement about that so our legislative agenda and I am so hopeful um team this isn't in the slide deck but um I'll just talk from it you've all seen this more than once i am very
hopeful that I can pull these off as we go through maybe we'll have some um bills make it through earlier rather than later such as compensatory um so what our first item is compensatory
uh absent an adjustment uh bill or the governor's proposal or something um like that Fidley is slated to lose $1.2 million some districts are choosing to make budget cuts uh in anticipation of
losing that i refuse to make budget cuts on that that is money that is a technical issue right now that we are entitled to get and in fact the formula when our forms and our direct certification are counted correctly we
are actually because of our increase in enrollment slated to get $200,000 more than that 1.2 million in cut i do not think it's wise for us to make cuts at this time also if we demonstrate that we
are able and willing to cut into bone marrow not bone we will never get that money back so I stand before you to say the budget that will come forward to you in May will not include cuts to compensatory at this time however if
something happens and it's firm that we are losing that which that will not be without a fight then I will recommend potentially some adjustments but I'm not budging on that secondly equalization we have talked this again
and again and again fidley Public Schools taxpayers run three times around the track for the same amount of money when Minneapolis runs one time around the track those of us that attended the staff advocacy day last week it was awful to see the comps on that and we're
going to put that in the update uh the superintendent update we're just having a problem with the format because we don't have an electronic version however it is absolutely unacceptable to see where Fidley sits we're I mean let's not even talk about
Metro because we know where we sit metro we are one of the biggest losers in the entire state um and that's unacceptable something has to be done about that tomorrow Chair Carnup and I are testifying uh to the Ed Finance
Committee um we're testifying differently than was testified on by Fidley Public Schools last week on equalization however the bill we're testifying on also carries an equalization factor um what we are testifying on tomorrow simply keeps up
with inflation $200 more a student we're not asking for astronomical things here we are asking to be funded at a level that creates and sustains fairness in our district and throughout the state of
Minnesota qc comp i messaged or I happened to say to Governor Walls last week i said probably not the prof most professional but I said "Dude give me my compad back." I mean my cucumber back i
did mention compensatory too i said "Dude give me my cucumber back." So he's like I said "I'm over 700K." So I had enough said about cucumber right um literacy aid we believe in the
mandate around literacy we believe in that our Fidley students are not reading at grade level they aren't right you heard about that tonight the efforts that we're working just fund the mandate so we're asking for that to be fully
funded also there's an introduction that there's not a lot of details on around poverty indexing that could benefit Fidley public schools however we saw for compensatory education were one of the poorest districts in the state and it did not
benefit us so I am very concerned about poverty indexing and there's no runs out of MDE yet on that unemployment we believe in our um non-year round employees that are eligible parah educators student
nutrition services if we had bus drivers employed through us bus drivers we believe in them getting unemployment that sustains a healthy workforce for us uh our funding for that ends after this summer we also do not have the ability
to levy for that under current law and I would lobby that we should not levy for that because of our already problematic low tax base we just need unemployment to be fully funded as it was meant to be
formula allowance um we're asking for 3% each year formula enhancement special education transportation there's a call for a 5% reduction in transportation uh special education transportation reimbursement for our districts that's for our district that's
66,000 and rising special education cross subsidy the federal government is supposed to fund us at 40% by us I mean all school districts in the nation we're funded at um 12% on that uh state of Minnesota is
trying uh to do their best we still pick up uh about 20% of the cost of legally required and um morally justified uh services that's nearly $2.6
million the one non-fiscal item is around school board elections um moving to uh solely eveners that impacts Fidley so we are um simply asking for boards to
retain the ability to uh locally decide on their election before I open this up to board members to comment on uh the lobbying efforts I have a statement that I'd like to read i first want to state thank the board for your
steadfast advocacy on behalf of our students staff and families your commitment to ensuring that every child receives a highquality education regardless of their background is what makes our district strong in times when public education is under scrutiny and
in some cases under attack your leadership matters more than ever as we heard in the governor's recent remarks at Fidley the challenges facing public schools are not abstract they are real and the impact they impact the daily
lives of our students and educators here in Fidley we serve a beautifully diverse student body many of whom navigate economic and systematic ba barriers we don't just teach our students we provide critical supports you heard this academic social and emotional to ensure
every student has a pathway to success every single day our ability to meet these needs is directly tied to funding state and federal dollars support everything from academic intervention to special ed services career pathway programs and professional development for our teachers these resources are not
excess they are essential yet time and again we see efforts to cut or undermine this support placing the burden on local districts to do more with less this is unacceptable our students deserve better and we are doing more with less public education is not a partisan issue it is
a fun uh fundamental right and while we will always seek solutions and adapt to challenges we cannot remain silent when the future of our schools is at stake we must continue to advocate for fair funding for policies that uplift rather than restrict and for the recognition
that investing in our students and is is an investment in our collective future i am proud of our board our educators and our Fidley community for standing firm in this belief together we will ensure that every child who walks through our doors is met with opportunity support and the promise of a bright future i
will not be quiet and I will ask you all to not be quiet chair I try to follow that my friend so anyways no Doc Dr lewis thank you for your leadership not only in Fidley but to be quite frank in the state of
Minnesota i do not see many superintendents putting the effort legislatively that you are doing in the state of Minnesota so thank you for that uh leadership thanks for pushing us to get involved and to my colleagues on the board thank you for the work that we've already done uh it's certainly not over
and look forward to pushing that agenda so thank you thank you board we'll open it up to anyone that participated or wants to weigh in on last week and our lobbying efforts it was definitely time and energy well invested it was even you know having the
conversation answering questions providing information making it tangible making it real about the students and the districts being affected um my appreciation to the administration the staff here for uh arranging it and
helping us all do that thank you i appreciate the uh encouragement to not be quiet since I'm typically so quiet about things um and I just appreciate the freedom that when I'm at the legislature and I'm testifying on other
things that I'm able to weave in schools right so like right now we're advocating that if data centers are coming to Minnesota they should be taxed fairly the fact that they're walking away with between 115 to $250 million a year without paying taxes i'm able to then
loop that in and talk about the reason we have to tax them is because the schools are struggling one data center being taxed would cover the entire state funding that we're looking for and so I just appreciate that freedom that while I'm doing my day job I'm able to be like
"Hey the environment also cares about schools." So I appreciate that anybody else i would just um like to express gratitude to our representatives and our local representatives but also the other representatives that we were
able to meet with throughout the state that they were willing to share their time with us and um in multiple different ways we met with several of them multiple times so we really do appreciate that awesome all right move on last slide of
the soup update this is two hours so thank you for that this is the first agenda item but we will we'll pick up speed here team um I would like to um ask board members to uh give any updates
that they have on various committees and boards that they serve on great i have 9:16 um so in our March meeting this month um we uh just a start
with their important calendar dates um there were many 916 representatives that were at the lobbying dates additionally but um very relevant to our board is that they are doing board tours if anybody wants to come with me on any of the board tours I will be at each of them at each of their facilities and we
have Fley students um that Fley is home district at each of the sites that are left to tour so if anybody wants to come with me I would love to bring you with me um and get to go see these spaces the one that is very close to us is North um Heights Academy
or excuse me Metro Heights Academy i'm so sorry metro Heights Academy and their tour is on April 16th at 8:00 a.m it is just off of University across from the city campus so if anybody wants to come with me let me know and that would be fantastic um we received in our
superintendent update from 9:16 a presentation on least restrictive environment and for our special ed students how they are working to make sure that their system is um aligned and supporting students returning back to their home districts when their goals are met and when that is the most
appropriate setting for them um so they shared with us what that system is looking like and how they are um collecting data tracking data flagging when students are potentially at that point and then what that looks like in alignment through the systems and the
connection between the 916 district and their home districts and making sure that that's standardized throughout all of the districts i heard that in our district we meet each year um around each of our students in our special eds department and that there's a point to
evaluate each of their goals and skills and make sure that they're still in the most appropriate fit and that transitions don't need to happen yet or transitions do need to happen and that that can be planned and prepared and um that we have the right fit for each of our students to be getting the education
that they deserve and are required to have um we also talked through or our finance director also um presented their budget assumptions to us and I just wanted to share those with you really quick so from 9:16 as they're preparing
their budget um they had six assumptions that they proposed to the board and that the board approved the first one was that the salaries and benefits would be budgeted to reflect the negotiated contracts that were already done and that the budgets would then the budget would then be set for any open contracts
based on the board's um parameters that they set the second assumption was on prior level of revenues and expenditures will be maintained in their certain funds um to achieve fund balance targets uh that the board sets and that the projected the actual and projected
variances will um impact the determination on final operating budgets and membership rates and tuition rates once those assumptions are all laid out here um the third was that the district will budget a preliminary membership fee
of $25 per adjusted pupil unit and that that will be finalized as the um budgets are final but that they will continue to um maintain their target fund balance they are not able to levy in the same
way that we are um as they don't have property in their district and so their fund balance management looks a little different than ours does um districts the fourth assumption is that districts will provide a set of career and teched programs on behalf of the member
districts career and teched program costs will be calculated on average um on an average slot basis and uniformly charged to member districts the district will budget a preliminary slot fee of $21 for regular education students and $24 for special education students and those will be um based on maintaining
their targeted fund balance as the um budget is finalized fifth is that all special ed tuition rates will be calculated um by MDE's by MDE the department of ed the revenues and will be projected to match the expenditures and special ed funds
and the last one is that districts will the district 916 will establish a fee for non-member stu school districts to access their programs the district will budget um $25 per hour for non-member districts to be receiving their
services and that is my report from 9:16 this past month thanks sir thursday okay and I do not have a AMSD report sounds good i am the superintendent rep
for tomorrow night for Northwest Suburban is that No not me anymore who's Northwest Suburban avana I'm sorry we made Do we meet Thursday thursday okay perfect i will adjust that on my
calendar thank you um so we will be there together virtually um the next item that Oh I'm done with my superintendent report chair Carnop I jumped ahead here okay so now we're on to business action
items yep all righty um so with that looking at the agenda I would entertain a motion to accept the Frley Public Schools health insurance bids for 2025 through 26 so I have a motion by Stark do I have
a second second by Anna uh all those in favor signify by saying I i all those opposed motion passes next up I would entertain a motion for the approval of the Fidley Middle School cooler replacement bid
so moved motion by Jones do I have a second second second by Anna um again all those in favor please signify by saying I all those opposed motion passes um next up we have I would entertain a motion for the second reading and
adoption of policies specific to policies 522 and 524 do I have a motion so moved motion by Mr meisner do I have a second second second by Keeler all those in favor please signify by saying I all those opposed motion passes um
next up I would entertain a motion for the approval of our student school board representative stipen um in the amount of $750 per year do I have a motion so move we'll go a motion by Jones do I have a second second we'll go a second by Keeler all those in favor
signify by saying I i all those posts awesome good work there 100% well deserved um next up on the business items I have just a consent agenda uh the chair would entertain a motion to approve the
consent agenda which discusses the meeting minutes of the February 18th meeting new contracts amendments lane changes leaves of absences resignations terminations and our monthly financial reports do I have a motion i have a
motion by Stark do I have a second second by Anna all those in favor signify by saying I i all those opposed motion passes and next up we've got our important dates that have been slightly
amended um we have the Fidley Middle School Musical um which will be featuring High School Musical Junior March 20th through the 21st at 7:00 p.m and March 22nd at 2 p.m at the district auditorium uh there will be no school on
March 28th for evaluation and planning and then of course we have no school for spring break March 31st through April 4th on April 7th at Hayes we have the Hayes Better Together family meeting at 5:00 obviously at the Hayes Elementary
uh school on April 10th at 7:00 at the district auditorium we have the Fidley High School spring concert with all Fley High School bands and choirs ourly um free family movie night the movie Flow will be on April 11th at 7:00 at the
district auditorium and we have an American Indian Powow scheduled for April 2nd from 1 to 3:00 at Champlain Park High School Fieldhouse and our next board meeting will be on April 15th here at the Fley Community Center work session at 5:30
public comment at 7:00 and a business meeting at 7:30 and I'd also note that Dr lewis will be having a discussion at this freely city council meeting coming up here on March um 24th and I believe the comments will be at 7 o'clock so looking forward to that with that um
unless I missed any dates uh I would entertain a motion to adjurnn so move motion by Stark do I have a second second all those in favor signify by saying I i opposed and the marathon
ends at 9:26 thank you everybody