on the list for public input I'm going to read a a short uh start here in the meantime uh Janet Miller you can come up to the podium um all individual comments should be less than five minutes any group of
five or more persons must appoint one person to present the group's views to the board depending on the number of persons present the school board chair reserves the right set further time limits to allow participation within the allocated time the board shall not allow
negative comments in public sessions about individual employees or students specific factual information or recitation of existing policy may be furnished in response to inquiries but the board shall not deliberate or decide regarding any issue that is not included
on the agenda posted with the notice of the meeting if there are more requests and time available priority will be given to persons that reside within the Grand Rapids area school district uh Janet you have five
minutes hello I just wanted to talk a little bit in response to the bathroom um incident that happened last week and just provide what I think is a little bit of clarity as well on on some other insights so for
me the real Crux of the problem is that we have some some people in our community that they perceive someone as male in the women's bathroom they are perpetuating The Narrative that men are sexual predators even though this student is a young trans woman they see
the maleness and zoom thre threat and sexual predor I don't see this as just a trans issue I see this as an injustice to men and trans people I love and Trust many men they are husbands fathers Sons
Schoolboard officials uncles police officers teachers humans we cannot continue to blame get a whole gender of humans under this category there is bad and good in every gender so I refuse to stand idly by as
this narrative is further spread and will continue to actively fight against it for every man and transp person who doesn't deserve that label um and that's all I have to say thank you thank you uh next sign up on the list is Elton
Rogala sorry about the pronunciation oh no worries it happens a lot um uh I am actually also here to uh make some comments about the bathroom issue uh currently I live in duth but I
graduated from grhs in 2019 and I am a trans man so I am transgender I was born a female and currently as I'm sure you all can see I am a man and I just wanted to sort of
like bring my own insights into this as a student who attended uh JHS um and I didn't write anything down so forgive me if I ramble a little bit but um my basically I just want to say trans
children have a right to exist they have a right to go to school get an education just like every other child in this community and in anywhere in the world and they deserve the right like all
children do to go to the bathroom during school they like all children deserve to not be harassed while they are trying to use the restroom at school and I am just so appalled by some of the comments that I have seen online
about this child and I I realize that maybe this is not exactly the Ward's jurisdiction but I just wish that ISD 318 would do more to protect
the uh rights and Liberties of their queer and trans students in the school that they would um forgive me I've lost my train of thought but that they would make it so
that no student has to feel afraid to be themselves at school to do the things that they need to do in school and to get the education so that they may live a full and happy life and again granted maybe this is not exactly the board's
job per se but I just thought that I would come up here tonight as somebody who lived here for much of my life and as a former student and as a transperson that you know I thought that
I would be able to come and say some things so thank you thank you thank you uh the next person on the list uh ranada and I I can't quite read your
last name I think it's probably me uh it's rata Regala Regala okay um I'm here as a transparent I didn't realize that Elon had signed up to to talk to but um I'm here just to talk to
the Schoolboard members and to thank you for allowing us this opportunity um I'm here to ask your support and allyship for our trans students the young people in our district need adults to stand by them they are trying to be who they were born to be and should not have to be
bullied to be able to be themselves they should be able to go to school and not have to worry about being able to use the restrooms let alone worry somebody's going to take their photographs while they're in there this is bullying and I requested the board check into this with
the school and see what has happened if there was disciplinary actions and to see if there is something that can be done about this if you don't show that bullying is not allowed and not tolerated it's possible that you shouldn't have your positions and I did vote for three of you in this last
election and I would hope that I voted for the right people and I'm asking you to support and protect all of our students thank you thank you thank you did we have anybody else that wanted to sign up for
input come on up I I need your name first you're in bck c i a r a an last name b a l l e k okay I come here with nothing prepared
but I do come here as a failure from the 318 Administration I don't know if you remember me but you were vice principal when I attended grhs I actually ate lunch with Maya frequently and I moved here a freshman
year of high school from Indiana it was very very hard to assimilate and even harder to make friends and keep them I was bullied so horrifically at grhs I ate lunch in the bathroom most days the
only teacher that ever took time out of their day to make my day livable was Mr shrimpton he's no longer there but he is the best damn choir teacher I've ever seen and he's the only reason that I stayed in school for as long as I did but at the end of my sophomore year
after bringing evidence forth to smokovich recordings of people threatening to harm me to beat me up I was told that I needed to go to ALC that I was a problem and I was best left unseen and
unheard and I would be very remiss if I didn't speak upon every student who is too afraid to come to you for Fears of being told that they're the problem at the end of my sophomore year I dropped out of high school because I attempted to take my own life it became
a battle of living or learning and I realized that I did not need books to be a good person I come here today to plead to you to listen do not fail any more students thankfully I've been able to make a good
life for myself but imagine how many other students don't have that opportunity you are what stands between them and protections for their civil rights and I just hope that you take your oath as administrative members care about your students care about what
they're going through and listen to them stop seeing them as numbers stop seeing them as kids but care about them because they trust you too thank you thank you thank you uh at this time the next thing up on
the agenda for the workshop is anal Loyd um would you prefer to start and do a break and come in partway through the board meeting or you want to just start in the board meeting all right hi everyone um thanks for having
me here tonight uh my name is Anna Lloyd I'm the director of special services for the grand area schools um Matt asked me to come to the board today and talk about special education specifically and do an overview of
special education um and how that looks in Grand Rapids area schools so we'll get through as much as we can before we break is that better um we'll get through as much as we can here before we break and then we
will um we'll reconvene afterwards so we're going to talk a little bit about what is special education key components of special education some common misconceptions that come up in special education how special education is regulated how it's funded and what it
looks like in our district and then we're going to talk about some of the progress we've made over the last handful of years here um so we are going to just hit the tip of the ice today we could probably talk about each one of these slides for a whole a whole another
presentation each um so just know there's a lot more detail and Nuance um but we'll do an overview today and then do a deeper dive at a later date um so what is special education special education is a tailored approach to teaching and supporting students
that's individualized for students who are identified with educational disabilities um so it is our Mission at 318 in Grand Rapids area schools that our special education programs are designed to meet each child's
individualized unique learning needs um and really ensure that they can Thrive academically socially and emotionally so how do students qualify for special education um first off there needs to be a referral from somewhere
this can come from um a school staff this can come from a parent this can come from a community person such as a social worker a doctor um there's a lot of different sources for referrals um so if those folks suspect that their child
has a disability they can request an evaluation um one key thing in that referral process in order to start an evaluation we have to receive parental consent to do so so we cannot evaluate a student without the parents consent um
from there once that can sent is received we complete a com comprehensive evaluation so what comprehensive means is that we're not looking for something specific we're looking at all of the data surrounding that student and Gathering data to get a comprehensive
picture of how that student is doing in their education and making progress towards their general education curriculum and then from there the team comes together to determine eligibility um we have three School psychologists in place um that help us determine
eligibility and their primary role in the district is to oversee this process um we're looking or projecting that we're going to complete about 350 evaluations in this school year um
so a student can meet eligibility criteria in one or more of the 13 disability categories outlined by the individuals with disabilities and Education Act um these are out LED also in Minnesota State Statute you have a handout that lists them in a brief very
brief summary um of what that criteria looks like but just know um most of those ex uh criteria are pretty extensive and have several components that um that need to be met in order to ident be identified with an educational disability um so I mentioned the
individuals with disabilities and Education Act the purpose of that um of this law is really to ensure that all students with disabilities in school that they're um that their rights are
maintained in the school setting so this law was originally enacted in 1975 it was originally called the education for all handicapp children act and then renamed idea in 1990 um but this ensures that students
with disabilities are provided with a free and appropriate public education which we're going to talk about a little bit more in a bit and the purpose is to protect their rights and ensure they have access to all of the same educational opportunities that all
students have access to um so again we want our students thriving um in their academic achievement their in Independence and working towards that full participation in society um I just want to note too the
individuals with disabilities Education Act um the law and all of its regulations is about 1,700 Pages or just over um so the process is highly regulated and most of the process and well pretty much all of the processing
procedure that we use in 318 is Guided by idea and then furthermore State Statute so States um some states interpret those statutes at a higher level um and in Minnesota that's the case in several areas uh so so we follow
those statutes in our process and procedure um idea has several critical foundational components um that Educators need to know and understand and we're going to go through each one of those we touched on comprehensive evaluation already um but a couple
additional factors if a student is being served in special education they need to be re-evaluated every three years to determine continued eligibility um and then from those evaluations eligibility is determined like we discussed but then also
educational needs are identified and from those educational needs the team develops an individualized education plan or an IEP which I'm sure you've heard that acronym um in your time so far with the schools so some things that are
important to note about an IEP it's a legally binding document that outlines the the goals services and accommodations of modifications that a student gets to meet their unique needs that were identified in that evaluation
um this is developed by a team that includes um teachers Specialists um Administration parents uh parents have a right to input in the IEP process we're going to talk more about that in a minute um but these are reviewed and
updated annually and in order to be implemented a parent needs to consent to the plan so so an important thing to note as well is that IEPs cannot be changed without consultation with that IEP team
so changes to an IEP typically don't happen quickly that IEP team needs to meet the team needs to discuss the proposed change team members need to give input on that proposed change and then parents have to consent to the new proposed
IEP any questions so far good I just have one quick question I hear you saying that um the changes are not quick and you did say that um it's an annual meeting if if there happens to be
something that occurs within that year can an iup can that evaluation happen mid year or you know I don't know couple months into that year could something like that happened and then IP team meets parent meets and they figure it out and change
it doesn't it's not just setting Stone it's that one year you can't do anything until that next time great question and um that IEP can absolutely be changed within the year so a lot of times we as a school team will notice we're not making the progress that we want to on
that IEP and we'll initiate a meeting um to propose an IEP that we think would better serve the child um parents can also request an IEP meeting in that process um and then from there the team you know the team will meet determine you know look at the proposed change and
then determine what that free and appropriate public education looks like moving forward so what is a free and appropriate public education um it's you'll hear this come up a lot and I would say you know this is probably where a lot of the confusion comes up
and it is kind of confusing but the first and most important you know piece of this is that students with disabilities have a right to receive an education that's free um so there cannot be costs associated with any of the services that are provided in schools um
the second is that that education must be tailored to their unique needs that were outlined and derived from that evaluation process and the plan has to be reasonably calculated for that student to make progress so one of the
things that we do is we um if we notice a student isn't making progress at the rate that we anticipate I ated that they were going to make that's when the school team might trigger a meeting to come back together um because we know we might need to do something different to
get that progress happening at a faster rate um so you'll hear this come up a lot but ultimately this is the IEP team's responsibility to come up with a plan um that meets a fape
okay time all right next least restrictive environment um this this is this premise outlines that students with disabilities should be educated alongside their non-disabled peers to the greatest extent possible um and one of the
oversimplifications that I hear happen a lot or um one of the misconceptions is that it's either special ed or General Ed it's like All or Nothing one or the other and there's a lot that actually happens um or that can happen right in that general education setting to meet
the needs of students so when we're coming together when that IEP team is coming together we're making the minimum amount of change possible to get the results that we want to see without impacting their independence and participation in that General Ed setting
we want to impact that as least as possible because we know the more Stu the more students have access to that they're going to have higher rates of progress in a lot of areas um specifically the social emotional area having access access to their same age peers is really important for
that um so those services are really considered on a Continuum not an either or next and I touched on this briefly um we are required to monitor progress towards IEP goals so over the course of
the year we take data on those IEP goals and then we have to report progress to families at the same rate that report cards go out so that would be four times a year um and that's that will be so if the goal um specifies a certain data
collection strategy that's what we have to use to report progress right another key premise is that parents have a right to be involved in all decisions res re regarding their child's education and special education so again decisions cannot be
unilaterally made about that IEP um without that parent input and that's what that IEP team meeting is for um parents can request evaluations participate in IEP meetings and challenge decisions through due process if they feel
necessary um so they really that challenging process really comes down to procedural safeguards so there's a set of procedures that families and districts use to navigate any disputes around what
you know what constit Utes of fape um for that IEP so procedural safeguards are in place to ensure that students rights are protected under the idea so this includes um we have conciliation processes um we can work with mde for
options like facilitated IEP meetings mediation um and due process hearings we are obligated um under the child find law to um to identify and evaluate students
who may have disabilities so again going back to that referral process that we talked about in evaluation we look a lot to our partners to help us identify students who may have disabilities within the community and then work with their families to determine a plan to
evaluate them there's several ways we do this we do this through screening um we do this through teacher observation we do this through benchmark assessments um parent referrals those sorts of things are all part of that child B
process all right yeah okay we're about five minutes so you want to we'll break here and then bring you back uh in the regular meeting sounds good okay at this time the workshop's adjourned thank you an
so we'll come back into session at uh 6:30 hey Jaden Jen did you get what for e e for for for
e for for they their yeah have to use your gav here we go call this time we'll call the board member the board meeting allegiance to the flag of the
United States of America States of America to The Republic indis a reminder that uh Melissa bar is absent with notice today and Tom Guston is attending remotely uh at this time I'm looking for
a motion to approve the agenda with the modification that anoyd is going to finish her presentation mov by Ashley second D second by David uh we need a roll call vote
Julie okay David Marty yes Dave Cowen yes Ashley Goodman yes Tom Guston yes and Mark schroer yes motion passes agenda is approved Anna you're back on the on the stage
here I'm back okay um okay so we covered um we covered a summary of the key parts of idea so next I thought it might be
helpful um uh oh is my clicker not working did Mr gr touch it he usually breaks those clickers there we go um so I thought it might be helpful to go over some common misconceptions that
we see come up in special education um so misconception number one is that special education is only for students with severe disabilities and that's not true um the evaluation process determines an educational
disability and we have students um on a full range or Continuum of services so we have some students that get five minutes of service a day all the way down to students you know who have their entire day is within that special education setting um but actually the
majority of our students spend most of their day in the general education setting um misconception two is that special education is the only way that students can receive support Beyond core
instruction and that's not true um we have a lot of other services and supports available for students um both in addition to special ed that can be layered on top of special ed but also that can come before that special education process in order to provide a
least restrictive intervention um so our multi-tiered systems of support process and system um that provides tier 2 interventions so we have tier 2 interventions for academics and social emotional behavioral needs um we have
school-based mental health support in every site um in our in our district um so students can access both mental health skills and in some cases therapy right in the school setting um students can receive
accommodations and modifications through 504 plans um um we also have academic enrichment programs like learning academy so Learning Academy Schools um kids can come in for after school to get some um additional learning as well as summer we have credit recovery at the
high school and I also just want to note that there's so many accommodations and interventions that happen right in the classroom so general education teachers are identifying a need and they're responding I'm I'm always impressed by our Educators and when I talk to them um
about what a lot of times what's already been done um before they've moved a student on in the process misconception um three is that I just have to ask for special education and my child will receive the services
um and again this we would love to do that for everybody but ultimately the law states that we have to um we students have to be identified with an educational disability and part of those criteria outlined um most of the
criteria have a statement in there about there being a severe discrepancy between their performance and what the expectation is for same age peers um so that evaluation process determines eligibility um we do
not um so that kind of leads me to misconception number two that all students with disabling conditions have an IEP um and that's not true either a lot of students with disabilities are having great success within the general education setting without any additional
supports um if we know about that um if we know about their condition there are several kids through our counseling department student support Specialists that we keep track of those kids and just make sure that they're making adequate progress um we also note that
within our system so that through our intervention process we can keep an eye on their progresses well um so other common reasons that students um with a disability may not receive special education services is it didn't impact
learning significantly enough to qualify for one of those criteria um those supports are provided through other means 504 plan gened supports mental health support um the student or the family declines
services so the family has a right to decline Services um if they don't want them so we have students who qualify um and and they don't get Services because the family doesn't consent um students are able to make those decisions for
themselves when they turn 18 in most cases unless a guardian has been assigned um so they can decide for themselves at that time too um so again they have to have that qualifying disability and they have to require specialized instruction we have
some students who have a disability but they don't require explicit specialized instruction they really only need accommodations and modifications and those students we we look to a 504 plan to meet their needs next misconception is that a
student on an IEP is not sub subject to behavior policies in schools um so this is a common one um but really students with disabilities are accountable to school behavioral policies but schools have to follow special procedures that
ensure that the discipline is appropriate and doesn't discriminate against the student um so the school needs to ensure that the consequences factor in the students disability and how their specific disability impacted
the behavior that required the discipline a special education teacher is solely responsible once they're in special education and it actually takes a whole team to provide uh to implement that IEP um gened teachers have a role in those
accommodations and modifications the special education teacher is kind of The Keeper of the plan and making sure they're providing explicit instruction and that the whole team knows what they're doing um and there's a variety of other service providers School administrators play a key role in the
IEP process too by guiding um those IEP team meetings and decisions and really serving as um the allocation of resources person um so our principles do that for most of the IAP meetings and then the parents and the
students themselves are also contributing to that process next one if a student has an IEP they won't be able to access postsecondary options um I hear this a lot from families as their starting to think about what adulthood will look
like for their for their child and this really is not true um in IEP does not appear on college applications and does not prevent College admission but the thing that IEP teams need to pay attention to is if the students plan in
high school is reasonably calculated to meet the requirements of the postsecondary institution so for example if you subbed um um a general education subbed their all their mathematics
throughout High School um you subbed special education courses for the general education courses that could greatly impact somebody's likelihood of getting into a four-year institution um so those types of decisions need to be handled with care
and we have a process um through the IEP that we use to talk with kids about what their transition plans are and and do that planning with the IEP team so we don't run into these issues um but ultimately it's it's not that the student has an IEP it's what happened in
that IEP or you know what was modified that can some sometimes affect College admission later on so we have to be sure that the plan is aligned with the students postsecondary goals any questions on that one or any
of the ones that we went over I had one question um a few slides back um you had made a note that U Mental Health Services are available to the students um with IEPs are those also available in the schools to students that are not in
the special ed situation absolutely okay um we have anywhere at any given time the numbers have kind of ranged between 300 and 400 students receiving Mental Health Services um throughout our district and those are students on IEPs and those are
students not on IEPs okay yep so um we work with a collocated provider North homes to provide those Services perfect thank you yep any other questions Anna this Tom guson and I apologize it's a little challenging
remote but I but I did have a couple questions and I kind of wrote them down here so I'm gonna be jumping around if that's all right yeah no problem if you were to do do you have any feel for the percentage of students
within our our uh District that that participate in in these programs let's say for special education do we have any feel for that or yeah so um that number can be calculated a lot of different
ways um but we based on the December 1 child count which is what we use to determine that it looks like approximately um 21 21 and a half% of our students are receiving special education services so about you know one
of our student body okay and and of course that can vary quite a bit from maybe just lack of better terms minor tutoring all the way to to maybe quite a bit more right you're you're saying it's just a student count at that point
basically yes yes the total number who have active IEPs sure sure when we talk about IEPs is that really in you know I'm in that learning process right as a new board member um are we talking
about how we determine what is passing and failing for these individuals then is that really what we're looking at in these plans is we outline goals he talked about goals and making sure we're meeting them and because obviously they're not I'm assuming that they're
not always going to be at a typical grading curve for lack of a better yeah yep so um that's a great question and ultimately um we have students that
meet all of the general education requirements who are on IEPs um but with some specialized instruction and with some accommodations they can meet those expectations just fine so we have some students where the grading standard is
not modified at all um all and then we have students where the grading standard is modified significantly so um and again when we talk about least restrictive environment I kind of think you know we talk about you know accommodations first so that's the
standard isn't changed um we just put some supports in place to get that student up to um being able to meet the standard and then when we talk about modifications that's where we change the standard for the student so this means
we change um what their benchmarks are for a specific course or um or content area um and then you know all the way down to the you know they're re receiving that content area completely
specialized So reading math writing um those are the most common areas for um specialized instruction so um but in that case the great the the standards are greatly modified if they're in that pullout setting um if but again we can
modify the standard within the general education setting as well well okay and then and then uh one final question I guess here when we start talking about you know our met you know the state obviously uses metrics right to to judge
how we're doing our job right as a school district and when we start talking about standardized tests for States and and other outside organizations uh where where does that fit into for these people individuals in
this group are they just put right into it or are they evaluated in a different way in regards to standardized tests yeah so most of our students take the MCAS just like everybody else for um for the Statewide testing uh there are
several accommodations we can put in place those accommodations need some they can access because all students can access them um so those are just accommodations that are built into the test and are available to anybody other accommodations we have to get
specialized materials and um or we have to use a special procedure and then in those cases those have to be outlined in the IEP so if there are accommodations to testing um those are outlined in the IEP
and for a very small group of our students um we have what's called um we have an alternative assessment called the mtas and what that is and again only about one % of our student body takes that test so if we have 4,000 students
in the district you can anticipate about 40 students will be taking that test and there's actually a state cap on how many kids can take that so if you're over that you have to justify why you're over that 1% um but that test is highly modified
um so there is kind of a pretty big gap for students um between because the MCA with accommod the content can't be modified in any capacity the only way you can modify the content is through that mtas and a very
small group of students meet criteria for that and that's determined by criteria okay and again if it's modified at that point it's modified to one standard I'm assuming at that point or is it custom for that 1%
completely it's it's pretty customized for that one and it's really the the process of delivering it is highly facilitated by an adult okay y thank you yeah and an example of an accommodation might be
having a question read to you or the student having a question read to them would be an example yep another example would be um given a paper pencil test so we can request paper pencil
materials and and those accommodation would be offered to everybody regardless of status in the in the Special Services Program correct or nope um both of those accommodations the
you know the having questions read by an adult um by a person and having a scripted paper pencil test both are accommodations that would need to be in their IEP however on the MCA there is an option like a button you can push for
question that can be read out loud so on the math test this is more common the reading test they'll read the directions to you but they won't read the content um you can push that button and you'll get the computer to read the test to you and that's available to all kids it's built within the system yep yeah thank
you yeah any other questions all right we're going to move on um so how is special education regulated as we talked about with idea there's it's it's a highly outlined process and most of what we do is
outline somewhere in statute um mde takes several steps to ensure that we're doing things the way that we're supposed to um the first we're going to go through these individually the first one is how we handle um special ed expenses so this is our we coding appropriate
things to special ed that sort of thing um we get fiscal monitoring that's specific to special education um so the district gets audited they have their own process for that special ed has a whole separate
process um that Cara and I work through um we have yearly program monitoring to ensure that we're following due process procedures appropriately um this they look at target areas that are set by the federal government or the state
government um and then they they send us a list of kids and then who we need to look at their file review the file and then we have to send them the results um so that happens every single year we're getting files pulled for that monitoring
process they also have intermittent surveys of families and students the two most recent we did a post School outcome survey in that one mde gives us the name of kids We Gather that data and then send it back to mde um but some they
just ask us for contact information and then they reach out directly um so there was a family survey given last year that that was the case they reach out directly but this is just part of their monitoring process um we also have a six-year comprehensive
program monitoring so beyond the yearly program monitoring every six years we get a large cycle monitoring um and that can look a variety of ways depending on your risk level um risk level is determined by a whole lot of factors your child count um your setting
placement if you have students and a lot of students in highly restrictive settings this can trigger monitoring to happen at a higher level um if your teachers if you have a lot of teachers that are tier 2 licenses or out of field permissions that can trigger monitoring
how um what your expenses look like um student performance what courses you have available to students with disabilities Dropout rates um and then if when you were last monitored and if you have a new special ed director we I met with my monitor last spring um
and we are considered low risk so that's good how is special education funded um this is always a bit of a confusing topic and hard to do a driveby on but I'm gonna do my best today um I'm sure there will there will be follow-up questions later on um so the key thing
to know about students with disabilities is they receive the full they're generating the full general education state aid so first and foremost they're a general education student first um so any expense that all students have um
cannot be coded to special education in any way so special education Aid will only fund the excess cost for a student so um that means anything that's not provided to to all the students um in
the district so special ed funds cannot be spent on things unrelated to providing services to Children um the one I get the most Gruff about is providing lunch or anything like that at trainings I'm like the least fun person to do trainings with because I can't do
anything fun with the money that I have access to um so so we can't uh do anything like that with special education funds all of the money goes directly to serving the children or people associated with serving the children
um and our funding is based on the prior year so the funding we received for this year was based on information from last year and sometimes that can affect um the cross subsidy which we're going to talk about in a minute so I'll give you an example of
how special education funding Works using iPads so because every like we look at grades six through 12 every student gets an iPad if we have 21% of our students are students with disabilities so you can't say we're going to pay for
21% of those iPads with special education funds because all students get that so General Ed has to cover that cost special ed now if they needed a special program on that iPad we have a lot of students who have um assistive
technology to help them communicate um that would be a special ed cost for the program but the device everybody gets one so that has to be paid for for with general education funds does that make sense okay um so we had close to 11 million in
Revenue last year our biggest source of Revenue is state aid the second largest source is um Federal special education Aid and we also um this one's probably the most confusing for people but we are required by Statute in Minnesota to
generate revenue for medical services that we provide in school so a lot of students have medical services as part of their IEPs this could include PCA Services occupational therapy Physical Therapy speech therapy um a whole variety of things and we have um a
thirdparty billing secretary who works tirelessly um with teams to generate revenue for these Services um and we work with the Department of Human Services to do that so Amy Bean our thirdparty billing Guru is absolutely
awesome um and we generate between On Any Given year it's pretty volatile because they change the rules to it a lot um but between 500 and $800,000 a year for the medical services that we provide in schools and again we're
required by Statute to do that can I ask a question quick yeah how what do you mean generate Revenue look from insurance companies or yep so for students it's medical assistance um and this comes from students who are
receiving public medical assistance benefits so if it's a student who's receiving that public medical assistance and they have medical services in their IEP they're eligible for billing yeah you um our next source is special
Transportation Revenue um so this has historically been reimbursed at 100% um based on the governor's proposal it doesn't look like that's going to be the case moving forward um so we're going to have to watch that and then of course the general education fund provides
support um that isn't covered by these other areas and that is not included in the total revenue amount we didn't consider that in the in the revenue pie chart but this is called a cross subsidy so when General Ed money is spent to cover special ed cost costs that's
called a cross subsidy you'll hear that come up a lot in the legislative session I'm sure um so here's what our expenditures look like uh you can see that people salaries
and benefits are the largest portion of our cost and actually the purchased services so those are contracts we have with um with other districts or providers most of that is people too so um so people make up the large majority
um we have a small Supply expenditure of approximately 2% we have a lot of equipment that we need to purchase for students um so this could be hearing aids this could be standard this can be changing tables we have a lot of just equipment that needs to be purchased to
provide services to students um so that's most of the supplies but you can see the biggest part of our budget is people um our crft subsidy uh again this is the amount funded by the general education fund um this is what it has
looked like since fy18 and you can see last year we had a really good year um so that's great there was a new line item in the formula some cross subsidy Aid that was way more L lucrative than we anticipated it to be um so we're
really hoping that doesn't change but the cross subsidy can be really volatile from year to year but it can have a big impact on that general education fund and there's a lot of different factors that affect the cross subsidy so our biggest funding source is state Aid and
that's the that source is not reimbursed at 100% um so there's a very lengthy formula that determines how much you get in state aid and line items in that formula can greatly affect the cross subsidy um so the other thing that
happens is the state forecasts how much districts are going to spend on special education each year um and right now in this fiscal year what they projected and what's being spent is outpacing what they projected so then sometimes we get
a pration factor we already know we have a pration factor for this year of 95% meaning that what we're entitled to in the formula we're only going to get 95% of so those things really affect what that cross subsidy looks like from
year to year um and again we talked about ma Revenue being highly volatile we use that whenever we can but it really depends year toe how much we generate there andna just a quick
comment I think it's important to to note here that when Ida went into place the Federal Government uh indicated that they were going to pay 40% of the costs of special education and they've never
covered more than 17 I think is the number that Gap that gap of funding between what the federal government has promised when they required the programming that bill has been picked up by the state so when we talk about cross
subsidies we can kind of talk about or think about it almost from two two sets of lenses one is the gap that we are making up with regular education funds to cover the unfunded costs that we have
and the state is spending billions on special education funding that it shouldn't have to had the federal government done what it was supposed to do and made good on its promise so I think like there's this it's not even a trickle down uh it's a
giant it's too big for that to describe but that is affecting when we look at our state's overall budget a big part of it is compensating for the fact that the federal government hasn't uh me it's obligation for a law that it
passed so sorry no that's a that's a really important factor yep um our Professional Organization works with case the national you know the National Society too to make sure that we're advocating for appropriate funding for
our students with disabilities in our school districts so so I have one question here if you have just a moment CH yeah um I think I I think at one point I had heard you comment about transportation that
there's that there's kind of a change coming up it was fully funded before and it it may not be going forward is that correct yeah the governor's proposal yep the governor's prop proposal indicated that that was going to decrease by 5% to
95% um it doesn't look like that's going to be a gigantic impact um to our system but but it's still you know it's it's kind of one of the many little implications um that those decisions make and they all add up yeah well yeah
and I was just you you know my my concern came just because the overall numbers I mean when you when you talk about it when you looked at the revenue were 11 million well 11 million of 63 million is a pretty significant percentage right yeah um and any any
loss in Revenue generation there can can be a big hit to our generals so or you know just a big hit to us overall and that's where my concern came in because when I started running the numbers Transportation 7% of that 11 million
which came out to three4 of a million right there so we're maybe looking at a 5% hit on three quers of a million is what we're kind of thinking is that sound right I think Cara and I when we looked at it were estimating it was going to be between you know probably about
45,000 yeah okay okay well okay then I I can get that number exactly something a little wrong there okay yeah that's fine thank you no yeah no problem any other questions okay all right so what does special
education look like at Grand Rapids area schools so who do we all serve uh so this is kind of of a surprising question to a lot of people but we serve students birth to 22 um so we have um a team of
people one of them's in the back here who um we have three individuals who primarily serve students in the home setting that are birth to two uh so that's a surprise to people but um it's a big part of our programming and
oftentimes the very first connection that we make with families um we also serve students in the preschool setting this is not only preschool settings that we're associated with but every preschool setting in the community so this can be private preschools um the
why uh early Edge Head Start all of them so um we've had students at all of them uh we also serve transition students 18 to 22 years old um if they qualify for those transition Services After High
School and we also of private school students and homeschool students so public schools are responsible for covering the special education needs of students in the private schools in the Resident district and the H school students residing in the Resident
District so if a student transitions to home school um the first thing we do is let them know that they're still eligible and entitled to receive special education services so that brings up a question do we still get the funding source for when
we have to provide those services for a private or homeschooled student yeah so um so we don't get the full general education aid but we do get the excess cost Aid so um those expenditures are um part of the special education formula
and then we get an ADM for for the time that we serve Y and Anna those are the same services that they would receive if they were a public school student correct they the same service would transition over to the private school Andor hom school students yep so a lot
of times those IEP meetings are meeting as part of that transition because sometimes the services just need to look different with the change of setting um and be renegotiated in that sense but um but yeah they're the same Services the same providers and um and we've seen a
big increase in this um this number over the last handful of years here do you know about how many students we're providing services for that are in these two buckets yep we have um you know it kind of varies dayto day but probably at
any given time between 18 and 23 students y all right um we have 931 students receiving special education and when we ask what the percentag is of our total student body this number feels a little inflated if
you're calculating it because we serve that birth to two all the way through prek so we can't take our K12 enrollment numbers and apply this number to that um but but again if you just take just K12 it's about
21% um 188% or 188 students receiving special ed are open enrolled so this means that we're getting them from other districts um we lose a about 120 to open enrollment but we are positive um and
most of those kind of we lose a lot of students up in that upper corner that goes around Deer River and then on the other side up by Togo um they we lose them to Hibbing and Nash walk um but ultimately we're we're largely positive
on open enrollment in Grand Rapids area schools we have about 60 we're net positive about 68 students um here are the students that we serve by disability category on this chart you can see our largest categories are um
specific learning disabilities other health disabilities and emotional behavioral disabilities and that's very common um across districts those in most districts are going to be your largest disability
areas um you can see in this chart from 2019 to 2024 in the December 1 child count um we've grown significantly we had a little dip uh during covid you can see that in 2021 um but you can see that we've kind
of been on a steady Pace um of increasing students who are identified with disabilities um here are the categories that have been impacted the most um outside of these two categories the other categories have stayed pretty stagnant um but specific learning
disabilities and other health disabilities are our two biggest factors for that number increasing from year to year um you know it's hard to say exactly why uh but here this is my hypothesis based on watching the system
for the last six years um I think first off we have an effective multi-tiered systems of support um we're doing really good Benchmark testing we're doing more as a district to identify students who aren't successful with the Core Curriculum um before we had that
Benchmark testing procedure it was hard to catch um students who weren't making progress especially if those students were um not a behavior concern you know um if they were quiet you know complied with directions but we're just
struggling with the academic curriculum um we've seen an increase in parent requests for evaluation since covid um this really took off during covid and we just haven't seen that let up yet um also CommunityWide we've seen
a significant increase in mental health diagnosis in children so when we talk about that other health disabilities category that's the category that students tend to qualify for if they have um a mental health condition that's impacting their learning significantly
like anxiety or severe depression ADHD anything along those lines um we've had an increase in initial evaluations at the secondary level um and that's new uh typically we don't have many up there
so that's trending up and we're um we're trying to get a handle on why that is um our child findind obligations are really you know when we're trying to determine how to apply um these idea laws in Minnesota State Statute we really watch
how mde rules on complaint findings or hearing findings or um case law case law that comes out of the eth Circuit Court that's our court and then the Supreme Court and we make decisions on our procedures based on that and we've seen an increased obligation in the findings
through mde and case law um that we've really ramped up our child findind processes and procedures over the last few years and I think that's leading to an uptick in numbers as well um we've seen an increase in homeschool and private school uh students served and
that's been communication um we've done a better job of communicating with these entities um that that were here to serve students and then we've had a lot of new enrollments that have come in identified with a disability so um from the
beginning of the year till a couple weeks ago we looked at all the students that we've received in special education versus all the students that have exited and we're positive 11 students so we're getting more enrollments than we have exiting um that are and those student
you know for students identified with disabilities so we have 178 special education staff that work to serve the students um most of those are teachers and esps in the building and you can see that here um we also have a lot of district-wide staff
that people don't realize are out there supporting children um so we have 35 or 34 additional staff um such as we have access to an audiologist we have a deaf heart of hearing teacher um we have physical therapists we have
occupational therapists we have psychologists we talked about that um we have an Autism specialist we have all kinds of people out there that are needed and we're obligated to have as a district to ensure students with IEPs get the services that they need um the
one that always surprises people is our bra list so we have a stu um a person where their main responsibility is developing Braille materials so transitioning class materials to Braille for for students who need that
so um so that's what our staff looks like so any question on student demographics or staff okay one question on staff what what yeah what is our FTE equivalent for the whole districtwide um you know I guess I'm
trying to look at that Staffing you know we were 178 plus 34 what that is for a percentage of Staff right is what I'm just kind of asking yeah and it's 178 including the 34 so um so 178 is the total number yep
okay okay I'm sorry but anyways if if we look at 178 where does that from a percentage sit in within our districtwide staffing um Can anyone I I
think like 570 as a round number okay uh is a that's a pretty good round number okay thank you Matt yep okay and some of these are partial FTE too um so you can see that we work
with area Partners to share some of these low incidence Services um in order to make sure that kids get what they need but also be fiscally responsible so you can see that on this chart here all right so our last section is
just we're going to talk a a little bit about some progress that we've made over the last handful of years here um when I started I think we had a lot of people leaving um we had turnover um people seemed really stressed and we had to get
to the bottom of why that was happening and ultimately we just started working on collecting feedback from people um and from that feedback we established a leadership team um we developed a mission that really guides and priori
IES our demands and um in that we realized that people you know there was a high degree of variability from building to building around procedures and how people were moving forward so um so we really worked with that leadership team to develop um a communication plan
and routine and procedures that we applied across the district that were consistent and then worked towards consistent implementation um so we've gone from kind of a little bit the Wild West to to having a pretty clear system of um
procedures and supports for staff um we implemented a whole variety of teacher supports um I'm sure you've heard it's hard to keep staff in special education um it's a tough job it's a high stress job there's a lot of unpredictability and gray area and we
knew we had to do better in this area um so we added we developed an annual training schedule with a variety of professional development opportunities for staff um we put together an information Hub so there's a special education shared Drive where on common
processes and procedures teachers can go to that drive and there's guidance documents on how to implement those procedures there's on demand videos um there's examples of due what you know a good due process example would look like um so they can access support anytime
they need it uh starting with that we put together due process nights so people can come they can get paid and they can get support on their paperwork um we put together a procedure for requesting additional support a lot of unexpected come up in special education
and we had to we had to find a way to support people when the workload kind of you know crashed in on them and sometimes that happens there's just no way to prevent it um our coordinators do a wonderful job providing consultation and coaching and that's part of that um
people can request coaching and consultation anytime um we significantly have increased our curricular resources um we've continued to listen and respond to our teachers through that leadership process um and one of the things we heard a handful of years back was that
specialed teachers were really lonely they felt isolated um they weren't connected in their buildings so two things that we did to kind of work through that was we established teaching teams um so that they're partnered with people who are teaching the same type of
thing that they are um and we put them together and organized them in teams and then we've worked a lot with the principles and increasing their understanding of the demands um that a special education teacher has so that they can provide building
support um for new teachers we put a lot of effort and resources into teacher recruitment development and retention so we've developed a three-year process a lot of people we don't get a lot of fully licensed applicants so we have
really learned to develop people on our own um so we've built a system of benchmarks so we have year one two and three benchmarks for new teachers um and then we've put together a comprehensive training structure with six total days between August and February to help them
meet those benchmarks um they are provided with required coaching um so so they get coaching on the first few times that they do things or Implement certain processes um and then they can request coaching um after the required time is
done um and then we connect them with a building Mentor we have also supported several teachers through tuition support opportunities through the region and then a grow your own grant that we partner with iason um so it's not impacting the
general fund um to get teachers um in the to get teachers licensed in the areas that we need them licensed in um we've increased the collaboration between special education teachers and education support professionals we've worked with both unions to come up with
a process around how these two groups work together um and that's been a work in process over the last few years we have also significantly increased our supports for lowi incidence services such as DEA heart of hearing physical impairments and um
autism so we've put special we've increased FTE and specialists in all of these areas and we've actually done that without any impact to the general fund through partnering with itasa area schools collaborative um so it's great
kids get more of what they need and um and we don't we don't have a budget impact to that but so that's good news um we have increased over the last handful of years are students getting services in inclusive settings so we
measure the um with by designating on each IEP whether a student is in setting one two or three one being the least restrictive three being the most restrictive four a mainstream setting and you can see from
the data here we've increased students receiving services in a setting one by almost five and a half percent and we've decreased students receiving services in a setting three by um just over five and
half half percent so that's great mde reached out to us last week to gather information about what we were doing so that they can support other districts in this effort um we have added a variety of learning opportunities targeted at transition skills so this is work-based
learning skills um post you know postsecondary options that sort of thing independent living as an adult um we put a new curriculum in place we've been working on building our transition program Quest we have transition Expo Every Spring that kids and their
families can access that goes over things like guardianship Social Security all of those things and we have another four teachers that are currently that we put through um work-based learning certification programs for free through
either a deed Grant or a Perkins Grant and just to look at the pays lab in a little bit more detail here um this is an assessment lab that assesses a student's work skills or what their strengths are in the work setting so it
assesses them over the course of a semester or year on a variety of work tasks we have been wanting to add this for years and we just couldn't fiscally do it and figure out how to have the manpower to run it um in Jackie Skelly the is uh executive director and I came
together and we said we want to get it done and how are we going to get it done and um luckily with both of us we've been able to figure it out without an impact the general fund so um so we have students now accessing the pay lab and the reason this is so important is
because this helps us plan their learning up until they leave us so it helps us plan their work experiences it helps us plan all and really put them in settings where they can be successful um we've had a significant
reduction in our disproportionality of students identified with an emotional behavioral disorder um in 2018 we were cited by the state as identifying two many um Native
American students as EBD and we've worked really hard to get that number down and we've put in some tier 2 interventions we've done a bunch of work um kind of through that evaluation process and the pre-referral intervention process we've worked
closely with that mtss process to be sure that there's um there's supports in the building level to prevent um to prevent referrals from coming through that um that aren't necessary and you can see in this chart
we've decreased our EBD numbers overall um significantly over the last few years and been able to maintain that progress for several years um but also we're no longer cited as having significant disproportionality and haven't been in a few years
now um we've had a very significant reduction in the use of restrictive procedures we've put in a lot of pro programs and done a lot of professional development with our staff working with our students with behavioral concerns and we've seen an 85% decrease in our
use of restrictive procedures since 20121 this fall the department of Ed did a case study on our department to learn about what we were doing so they could use that for some um funding ADV advocacy efforts and support other districts Anna can you just talk about what a restrictive proced procedur is
yeah um so for there's two things that can be considered a restrictive procedure one is seclusion meaning a student is in a room by themselves like barred into that room we do not use that in 318 we do not use seclusion at all
here the second one is physical holding so that's if a that can only be applied if a student is a physical threat to themselves or to somebody else um a physical hold would be like a last resort intervention to ensure that students safety and the
safety of others um so obviously you know those are things that we don't want happening at a high rate in our district and we want to be able to apply least restrictive interventions um most of the time so we've worked really hard to decrease that
number thank you for the clarification on that because I would have never understood the definition of restrictive before that procedures are so yeah and again you know we want to keep kids in school um we want kids to
be here with us um even students who struggle the most to be here with us um it's important that they can come and we can still keep everybody safe uh so at times these things are necessary but we try to prevent them to the greatest extent possible I think too just one of
the things that happens um our staff are trained just on this uh CPI is the training that they go through in order how to uh in order to know how to effectively do procedures that are safe um in particular to their environment
but I think one of the things and why this is so important um holds are holds can have some significantly damaging effects on relationships so that's why it's really important that we're using them as an absolutely Last Resort um
it's really for those really extreme situations and part of the training is recognizing when all of the other options are exhausted and when uh you know when that last resort has to kick in I don't know if I yeah did did a good job with that anab but yeah and as a
recovering EBD teacher myself um that was my content area um but you know we just we want schools that feel safe physically safe psychologically safe for every student and this was you know when
I started one of our absolute key like like we need to tackle this and make sure that that's happening for all kids um so so I could probably spend a day on how we did that but I'll spare you for tonight um okay we're gonna talk a
little bit about reading um so this graph is a little confusing but you can see that this is our our kindergarten and first grade average fast Bridge score um between fall 2020 and spring 2024 so the low points are the fall score
and then the Peaks are the spring scores and as you can see um we have had a 177% increase in the average spring score over the last four years and we've done a lot of work to to get that to happen starting in early childhood with a
classroom engagement initiative so really working with kids on learning how to learn learning how to be part of a classroom um learning how to engage with the adults in their life um so so this work is really started in prek and then
we have been working with Orton Gillingham curriculum um for several years now seven or eight years um you can see our second grade a reading data um this is just 2020 2324 data um prior to this
from 2223 to 2324 we had a 25% increase in the number of elementary students who were proficient in Reading elementary students with disabilities so this is coming off a pretty good increase um but we saw another great increase last year and we reduced students in the high-risk
category by 88.4% over the course of last year from Fall to Spring um and then you can see at the middle school um middle school and Bigfork students so this is grades six through eight students with disabilities um our star reading data indicates that
we've reduced the number of students in Risk categories by 15 um 15 .8% so we've been working hard on reading we primarily use an Orton Gillingham based Intervention Program um along with other interventions for
comprehension and fluency uh but the foundation is really um our Orton Gillingham uh and these two are really fun we have a unified physical education class at the high school so this is um Mandy gfin teaches this and students
come to this gym class um so it's a DPE class an Adaptive fied class but students volunteer to come out of their lunch at the high school and participate in this class as a gened peer um so the gened students become a really big part
of these um of our students lives and and create some really great friendships and they go to various Special Olympics um unified events throughout the area so they go to um you know they've had bowling tournaments they've had basketball tournaments softball
tournaments um but these are really fun to attend so if you're interested let us know we hosted a basketball tournament um this winter that was just wonderful and that's what these pictures are from we had several other districts come um and we're hosting a softball tournament
this spring so if you're interested let us know um and then this is another thing that we partnered with I ask on um to put on prom with purpose so the area student councils came together um to put on a prom for their peers with
disabilities who maybe couldn't access um the regular prom because of some of the sensory barriers are the primary reason here um so we we worked through we worked with our parent advisory committee to identify what barriers potentially would be to attending a prom
and we just accommodated for all those barriers and we had a really great day um the kids came we had a lot of gened kids from um student councils and from that unified class come and support the students and it was a seven district initiative just a really really fun day
we're going to have it again this year so in summary uh we have a really incredible team of Educators who are very dedicated to our mission and our district is committed to providing the best possible services for students with disabilities our main focus over the
last six years has been um to increase and build resilience in our department um through communication collabor ation Clarity and competence um so despite the many obstacles uh you know covid budget cuts
all the things um we've really been able to move forward and improve outcomes for students and improve access and increase meaningful experiences for students with disabilities so any
questions I have like a thousand but um tonight's fry out the night but I'd love to just meet with you at some point and go deeper into things yeah absolutely incredible presentation thank you so much sorry it was so long thank you one of the things we talked about was this
you know we we have especially for our new board members have our third session of our or orientation coming up and as one of the items on the agenda so if you have questions uh jot them down and we can just incorporate that as part of that uh that third session so thank you
there's a lot there and thank you uh tremendous presentation uh great respect for your work and also for the uh uh the special ed teachers and staff that we have and
for the esps working with them it's really incredible I hope you'll share uh that note with them 100% and really that7 they're all the yeah yeah they're the incredible ones
thank you Anna thank you Anna next item on the agenda online learning update superintendent gross all right uh let's see get my microphone on thank you uh over the last couple months we've had a number of
discussions about online learning and uh and I wanted to just kind of give you an update on where we're at with that um let's see first of all uh why why are we looking at online learning and the
first is to meet student and family needs that are currently unmet we have students and families that are choosing to enroll in other programs whether that's online or other options because what we're offering doesn't fit what they need and that means we have you
know parts of our community that are feeling that are kind of left out these unique needs could be uh related to things like health concerns anxiety uh options flexibility things like that and and we don't have an option currently to meet that that needs
like that and we have families floating with their feet in a way letting us know that uh there's an opportunity there second the landscape has changed in 2003 the state passed the online learning act that opened the door to online learning in Minnesota uh we actually as a school
district were part of designing an online learning program uh in 2004 five kind of five I guess time frame to fill in gaps for schedules and low incidents courses or low enrollment courses and
the landscape has continued to change uh most currently I think impacted by the pandemic that really accelerated and changed the technology around distance learning the availability of distance learning people's uh acceptance of
distance learning and now really District districts are competing in a sense um in ways like we've never seen before I just had a text today from someone that it was an advertisement for an online learning program for a school district and I saw two or three of those
this weekend it's just a whole different environment the game's changed and uh we're currently not uh we don't have a uniform currently so um so something one of the reasons there third uh currently the way that the law
reads around enrollment uh students families can choose programs and there's really not a lot that our district has to say as far as uh guidance or uh where that enrollment is
they just have the ability to enroll anywhere uh same thing you'll see some data in a second around homeschool uh similar there and we don't have we lose connection essentially with those kids in terms of what it is that they're taking the rigor of that how that lines
up with what we're doing and you know ultimately we want those students to be successful in their community and the world we also know that sometimes those kids come back and if they come back we want them to be in a place where we can uh merge them back into our learning
environment finally I've talked uh you know for a while about how school districts balance their budget and the first one on that list of four is adding students and there aren't that many places where we can do that this is one of those places that we can look at
making an impact our objective as we've talked about this is to retain and return students that are ours back to our school district uh while continuing to emphasize the importance and you know the the just the uh the reality of face to face
learning looking at how this fits we always need to look at this through the lens of our our uh strategic directions this program expands access to more kids than we're even serving now uh it enable students that aren't connected to our school district to be connected to our
school district despite unique circumstances that they might have um the program that I'll that we're going to continue to to roll out and look at uh is delivered by licensed Minnesota teachers heavy emphasis on State
Standards uh I'll talk about in a minute why we're taking the approach we are and working with a partner to uh leverage this opportunity the best we can with the an eye on the future uh like I mentioned a minute ago we there are some families and and
students that we've lost connection with because of choices that they're making that aren't us and we think this is an opportunity to grow those back and uh like I said a minute ago uh this is an opportunity for us to retain and return students back to our school district uh
which ultimately uh not only benefits them benefits our school districts and benefits benefits our bottom line so here's some data relative to our online learning or or the opportunity that's there on the far left you can see homeschool students essentially balanced
out between k6 and 712 about 150 students in each one of those categories totaling around 300 students in the middle you'll see the online that's a little bit more heavy in the upper grades as you'd expect overall on the far right uh we're talking about 432 430
students choosing online or homeschool uh which equates to about a section per grade that are choosing something other than uh istd 318 and uh in some cases you know for really valid reasons like I said and we're not providing an option
for them to stay with us currently as we've broken this down and taken a look at it ultimately this factors into our enrollment which ultimately factors into our budget uh we've taken what I think a a pretty conservative approach to
estimating students that would be willing to return and we've had conversations with families about that and we're you know preparing to embark on a little bit more formal way to do that but uh five or six kids per grade
level would would amount to that 65 to 75 student Mark and I think we uh I think that's a really reasonable and attainable goal mat I have a quick question um as far as some of those students that are either onl online or
homeschool students um when then they would enroll in essentially our online program that would then mean that they are a student of the Grand Rapids area schools right system so that right I because I know
that in you know for a lot of families um Sports is a big factor so then they would be able to then enroll their students back into our athletic programs is that's right they would be a Grand Rapids area school student with all the benefits and Mamont of that so they
could play in sports Fine Arts do all those things that uh um students that aren't 318 students can't uh can't access okay join the Big Fork robotic team that just won the tournament in duth stuff
like that um so just a few details about uh the program uh we're looking at this K12 at the elementary fulltime at the secondary level students would be able to enroll full or part-time so that could be a student
might be you know for instance come to school one first through fourth hour and then uh do online learning uh for the remainder of the day or get a job as you'll see this is an asynchronous program so that means students would learn when they want uh where they want
and so there's a lot of flexibility there we have students that do this now they're just doing it through through other online providers they might be doing PSO asynchronously so we're losing some of these students now to that uh as well would that secondary group be able
to access like our um not so not the PSO programs but like our our IB courses through this particular or would they have something equivalent to that through this I'm glad Darren is here but um my understanding is IB doesn't allow
for digital learning like this it has to be face Toof face okay thank you for that uh we're we when we first started looking at this uh this a program uh incorporating a program uh one of the
things that we learned quickly is we especially at the beginning wouldn't necessarily have scale or expertise to do this ourself we're talking like I said 65 to 75 students maybe this first year that's five or six kids a grade level uh that's not enough to scale up
and have one of our own teachers do that right away uh similarly at the high school if we're talking about five or six kids in a course that's not enough where we could pay a teacher to do that so um we're uh we're most interested in working with a partner have had a number
of conversations with them uh the partner that we're working with enables us to have the ability to scale up or scale down so we can be this program with only 65 students in it and it still provides that full access the program
also enables us if the program were to grow to the place where you know let's say that we ended up with you know 30 kids that wanted to take a particular course we would have the ability to have that be taught by our own teacher uh and
have that grow over time and that's what this program or the provider that we're working with has seen happen over time with a number of school districts their own teachers take over courses more and more as the scale changes the company that we've been talking to
has a lot of experience in the online space when I looked into the list of districts that they're working with uh they're in many cases in the background of the programs uh it can either be very very evident if the uh the the program
is out front or it can be in the background if the teachers are uh employed by a particular School District you may not know that uh in our case imagine genuity of this company you may not know that they're actually involved it's just that they're on the back end
with curriculum and kind of Technology support Minnesota standards licensed teachers that's obviously uh a non-negotiable for us very very broad curriculum offering so everything from CTE to advanced
placement uh and everything in between so there's a lot of options there for students like we just talked about a student enrolling this this program essentially we would need to create a School site uh it would be called during the summer uh or by by the summer uh so
our program would have its own number the school if you will would have its own number and those students would be uh Grand Rapids area schools enrolled students just like a student would be enrolled at Easter Cohasset or uh the middle school I'm sorry Matt I have one
more question yeah um in this particular instance with online learning because I know that we don't offer it um for students now as far as like a summer school program is concerned and not so much for the students that would need it to be um to
be able to catch up but maybe for those students that wanted to excel is that something that the online program uh or that this particular company uh discusses or talks about or is that something that we would be looking into at all or we would have the ability to
do that there's no funding for it so we're not funded for a regular ed student in the summer Goa okay there is the potential for this to uh come alongside or align with or maybe amplify our ALC or area Learning Center
offerings in a way that might enable us to serve more students as well as the potential for us to um use it for credit recovery uh which is something that we have some of but uh this could really help us with that because it's it we it
has the abil ility to be uh Competency Based where if a student you know missed part of a course and failed the course they wouldn't have to take the whole course over they could just kind of step in or do a preest to find out what it is
if they don't know yeah so so they they could be kind of hybrid enrolled also or they're going to normal classes and then also going online is that what I'm hearing too yep that's one of the options Tom yep okay
and this wouldn't replace Infinity online that should be an option for what she was talking about as an expense to the family yeah Infinity online would still be an option for like if a family wanted to pay for a summer school class to get a credit ahead of time that still
would be an option yep yep we I do think that this could have an effect on the Infinity on Infinity online school year enrollment because this program is uh cheaper per per
course and and I say that also like if a parent chooses Infinity online we can't refuse them that so we can't force someone to choose our program yep okay that
makes sense um in the policy that is on the agenda tonight our online learning policy as a school district that we've had we've made some changes to reflect you know the fact that there's some some more specifics involved here so the policy gets into you know if a student
uh goes online how do where do they graduate from what school can they participate in activities from and for a resident student essentially is the same school that they would graduate from and participate in if had they been face Toof face so if you live within the
attendance boundaries of Bigfork High School you would affiliate with them for a non for a non resident student they would to declare that and maintain that declaration uh if they were a high school student so so theoretically a family
could love Grand rapider schools they move to the Twin Cities and they still stay a grand are School yep they would have the ability to do that yep they could get a diploma from Grand ridts high school as long as they met the graduation requirements everything
yep y do the do they have to be in the state um I would well good question you don't need to I mean yeah I don't know um I'm just thinking if families move out of state
is that going to be an option or not or if it's even to consideration that they I think if they were out of the state it would I mean again come back to if they were a resident of a state that wasn't ours we wouldn't be able to collect funding for them because they wouldn't be a resident they
wouldn't be a resident of Minnesota sure the only time that I know that there's some uh uh Flex it took me a minute to sort of piece that together um the only places where I'm aware that there's some sort of trading that happens there is around border schools uh there's some
reciprocity there like you're right on the bo border of South Dakota I think there are some reciprocity pieces there but otherwise uh no uh so some next steps uh we're continuing to investigate and develop
the program I've identified a couple assistant principles that are going to take the lead on this at the elementary and secondary levels uh so they're going to be the point people because ultimately um and one of them shared this he's like I want to make sure that our our um students and our families
that are enrolled in this know that they have somebody here that uh they can call and this connected here and build connections and relationships with so that's definitely the kind of program that we want to be that you know again um if someone it was part of an online
program from another part of the State uh they wouldn't necessarily have that ultimately I'm going to be looking for the board to approve moving forward with this online learning site and so um so far it's just sort of been like
proceeding down the intersections and seeing green lights and uh kind of doing that so on the 24th I'll have that agenda item for approval for the board that just kind of greenlights kind of officially greenlights applying for that School site and entering into an agreement with this
provider we have to create a name for the school so if you have any great ideas there uh let me know uh and uh We've kicked around some things but you know that'll that'll be interesting maybe Jaden has some ideas I don't know um gathering information from parents
and meeting with families one of the things the provider talked about doing is they would come here and have an open house and buy pizza for families and say hey come and learn about what this is connect again I think it's easy to think about online is like there's no connection then this is like how do we
build connection I know in some cases there are schools that have um uh arranged for field trips with their online learning community and families to again create connection so uh it'll be interesting to see where that goes
especially over time lots of policies and procedures that we need to continue to flesh out and then it becomes about enrollment uh we have been including our Mars staff and our uh you know Christina down that does the enrollment into the
meetings too so they kind of are aware of what this looks like how this feels how do we work with uh parents Christina has been telling kind of parents as they've been she's been communicating even yet this spring hey this might be an option for you in the fall so just uh you know be
aware and there's excitement about the potential here and then to support uh support families uh in the process so um the program that we're the the provider that we're working with has some really good support built in um at the
elementary level there's some connection that's scheduled with the teacher so it's not just a you know a name on a on a computer and so I feel really good about that and then there are some connections uh around attendance too so
if the student is not engaged uh there's communication that happens with the student with the parent if that's appropriate with the school so that we can make sure that we don't lose uh lose students that way either that's the update so far any
questions or more questions or thoughts as we kind of continue to go through the green lights here I would ask if we could potentially put this on the agenda for the work session to talk a little bit more deeply yeah for sure yeah the time here yeah can do
so we have that scheduled for the 17th We'll add that to that agenda too great yeah yeah we can uh I can take a little bit deeper dive into the particulars of the provider and kind of what that looks like we can send questions to you ahead
of time to to yeah cool that sounds great that's it Mr chair yeah thank you very very uh interesting exciting program uh next item on the agenda G to keep you talking here
Matt approve the international Club field request to Japan for the summer 2027 thank you Mr chair we had some discussion about this uh uh or this was presented at our last board meeting uh I should say and
um I'm recommending approval of the international Club field trip to Japan during the summer of 2027 uh again just to make sure it's it's clearly understood by folks the the Trip's fully funded through personal and fundraising efforts and comes at no cost to the
school district looking for a motion to approve the David move by David second by Dave this uh discussion great opportunity for children heing none Julie we need a a
roll call yep David Marty yes Dave cin yes Ashley Goodman yes Tom gustofson yes and Mark schroer yes International Club field trip to Japan is approved next item on the agenda approve
the minutes of the February 10th 25 regular school board meeting do I have a motion so moved moved by Ashley have second second second by Dave
discussion hearing none Julie Mark schroer yes David Marty yes Dave Colin yes Ashley Goodman yes Tom gustofson yes consent uh the minutes of the February 10th meeting are
approved next item on the agenda is to approve the consent agenda uh reminder that uh these are tend to be routine items and do not require discussion I have a motion to approve the consent agenda so mooved move by Dave second
David second by David uh there's no discussion Julie can we have a roll call Tom gustofson yes Mark schroer yes David Marty yes Dave Cowen yes Ashley Goodman
yes consent agenda is approved next item on the agenda approve permission to post a teacher on special assignment literacy lead curriculum integration specialist super Senate gross thank you Mr chair one of the
requirements of the read act that was passed in 2023 was the um that school districts must employer contract for aill literacy lead by August of 2025 and um over the last few months
we've seen I think the impact of having a person dedicated to uh curriculum integration and so when looking at this looking at what um opportunities existed funding wise that wouldn't affect or
have a big effect on our general fund um I feel like it makes sense to lump these two pieces together uh and so this is a new position uh the position that we've had someone in was temporary uh and so what I'm looking to do is to post
a teacher on special assignment uh that will be filling that literacy lead component as well as curriculum integration and um the literacy lead component of it is about implementing the read act uh and all of the
components of that around around literacy and training and and development the second part of it is um continue to implement the wh wisdom program uh curriculum that we purchased uh you've seen uh quite a bit about that
but um it's not something that you can kind of do once and then back away from uh Fidelity of implementation is very very important and so it's a multiple year process to continue to do that but also on the heels of that um we have
math that needs to be reviewed and ultimately purchased our math curriculum uh we have social studies that needs to be reviewed uh we have science implementation that needs to be girded up and so this person would be responsible also for in case of math for
instance developing the committee coming up with those agendas um developing with the committee the rubric around uh curriculum and and standards development and then um helping that committee
identify a curriculum that would work you know um purchase that Implement that um we had the benefit now that the person in a the role most similar to this is a language arts person uh we ultimately won't have the benefit of
that in the future because we won't find somebody that has language arts Math Science Social Studies but really that part of it will be about process um and if they're not a math person it will be how do we leverage the people in our school Community our staff that are math
experts to do that coaching work um expectation development work that kind of thing this will be paid for almost exclusively from title two which is about um can or I shouldn't say is it can be spent on class size reduction in
very very particular ways um not like it used to but it can also be spent on teacher professional development so a large part of this will be paid for of that and a large part will be paid for out of literacy incentive Aid which is Aid that we get as a result of uh uh
English results so I'm looking for permission to post uh this will be an internal posting to start with and then uh and then if we don't fill it internally would look externally so move David move by David second second by Ashley discussion um
just a question Mr chair or Mr superintendent is there um you know I think we'll talk a little bit more in board reports but about the curriculum night and the Wht and wisdom implementation that's been going on so far and really well is there a desire by the current holder of that role
to pursue this position uh I think that's possible yeah I think that's possible okay yep all right that's all I have any further discussion Mr chair I'm particularly pleased to see this uh uh development of curriculum I think we've
been uh uh a little LAX in the development of that uh with our recent Cuts do I guess my qu question is um do we feel that we can find one
person that's gonna meet you know it sounds like this is going to expand at some point into other other uh more than just language arts right and uh and other developments and is it
going to result in an expansion in more positions in this or do we feel that we should be trying to make this less than a one FTE and putting it on one p you know break the FTE portion part and
giving multiple assignments part-time assignments to other positions potentially I guess is the way I'm asking yeah I think you know um generally speaking I would say that
um this isn't entirely answering your question but I'll get to it uh r teaching and learning Department in general is very uh well very understaffed um teaching and learning is our Core Business and and we currently
don't have anybody in our district that gets up every day thinking about that and that's a function of the cuts we've had to make um I think your point is well taken Tom that you know um the idea of having someone who was had expertise
in these particular areas would ultimately be ideal and if we were a larger District that was resourced that's what you'd find you'd find someone that was a reading specialist a math specialist a science specialist social studies specialist and you'd see
something like that um obviously that's not our situation because of our scale or or funding um I definitely think that proceeding like this will change the nature of you know
what we've been experiencing you know we've had someone in a role the last four months who's been focused exclusively on wi and wisdom implementation and this definitely won't
be that um there's no way that this person in this in the in the role that we're posting could continue that level of intensity um with wit and wisdom or to add on to that with any other curriculum
um and ideally um you know that should be something we should be able to slowly we call it an education we call it a GL gradual re gradual release of
responsibility um that over time that level of intensity of support should be uh be able to be dialed back with language arts we won't be ready to do that completely um but we feel like we're in a spot
where we can slowly phase that out while we phas in other things um I'm not sure that splitting it up the way that you suggested is a bad idea um I'm just not sure at this point if we could carve
that out of enough spots where we could you know staff it but I do think there're could be a time where we need to re we need to re-evaluate it now as I as I understand the the Wht and wisdom
program was really State program kind of pushed down or or a curriculum change pushed down by the state is that a correct statement yeah the the read act that was passed essentially established
that um we we had to we had to do very spe specific training and then it also said that the state would reimburse us for curriculum if we chose curriculum
that was on a list of vetted options that the state curated uh there isn't a list like that for math or for science or for the other curriculum areas the state's never been
involved as heavily in the identification of particular curriculum so in some ways um this work will be even more important because while with the react we were able to start with maybe a
smaller field and I'm not saying we didn't even consider other options but it made the most sense to consider the options that were curated by the University of Minnesota or identified we won't have that luxury I guess maybe isn't the right
word but we won't have that opportunity to have the field narrowed so the development of a rubric for instance on the front end that we're going to judge these math curriculums on will be even more important and and has what's our time
frame that the state is I'm assuming we have the same curriculum reviews being dictated to us for these other curriculum so the yeah the the curriculum review is really driven by
the schedule of standard um revision and I would say that we are a little behind on the math if we were if we had capacity we would
have been doing the preliminary steps of the math work this year um so we're a we're a little bit behind I'm not like uh losing sleep about that I think we needed to make sure we needed a we
did a really good job on the language arts but it'll be really important that we start math next so it's really driven by the schedule of the standard revisions that the state does and we have a I can share that we
have a a like a calendar that lays out you know the next few years what we need to be doing when uh I can share that with you okay in in our discussions thus far on budgeting and where we are have we
assumed a number for this position yeah the we we haven't assumed an increase in our general fund because this will be funded out of uh title two Grant funds in uh our literacy Aid
okay okay thank you any further discussion hearing none we have a motion in a second Julie can we have a roll call yes Ashley Goodman yes Tom gustofson
yes Mark schroer yes David Marty yes and Dave Cen yes permission to post is approved next item on the agenda uh except the first reading of policy 624 superintendent grow thank you Mr
chair you'll see a lot of Red Line in this version uh because this looks this is a um significant adoption of the msba model policy and that changed as a result of in large part redefinition and
reorganization by the uh Minnesota online learning act so you can see in the definition section Blended learning the differences that were changed about digital learn so there's a lot of definitions that were changed um as things have been updated
really and how online learning has changed and the requirements for for districts one of the uh one of the most relevant sections to us is in see it pass this red line
St um in section six under enrolling District you'll see towards the end of that in JK JK and L where we have some things that are specific to our school
district that were added that I mentioned earlier when we're talking about online learning where kids would graduate what happens about Resident non-resident those kinds of things um I should just while we are reviewing this there
are there's a distinction in Minnesota as a result of this policy between what's called a supplemental online provider or supplemental online courses uh if a district is applying to be a
supplemental provider that means that they are um creating a program in which students can take courses uh part-time from another school
district there's significant process there so in that case the a student would like let's say a student from whatever Wilmer wanted to take a course or two from Grand Rapids area schools they could do that and still remain a
Wilmer student in order to have that kind of an arrangement uh you have to be you have to apply for and be accepted as a supplemental online provider and those are called supplemental online courses that's not we're doing and so um we
don't need to do that because our aim is to serve resident students um or that student like you were talking about Dave where they were our student maybe they don't live here anymore but they are enrolled with us full-time so that's just a distinction that you might want
to pay attention to um other than that this is the first reading again it's an adoption of mba's model policy with the exception of those uh spefic specific items in jkl and then also I would say the other
distinction is at the beginning when it's talking about uh where teachers come from and it gives us the ability of not only having our own teachers but if we need to uh
like we're talking about at the beginning of this to be able to use um a provider's online teachers licensed teachers so you'll see this again uh in March uh on the 24th so so reminder this is uh
first reading only no action will be taken is there any discussion before we move to the next agenda item thank you next item on the agenda approve changes to the following policies in one
reading uh superintendent gross as you're aware the board has the ability to change policies in one reading provided they are uh driven by legislation or
clerical small clerical changes that's the case with these seven policies now 519 there are some procedural changes in there driven by law 63 there was some language change in there around
standards if you look through that the school testing plan there was a a paragraph stricken in there about retaliation again that's a reflection of state law credit for learning the changes there in the law predominantly had to do with
postsecondary um 701 uh it just provided that you could the district the district could use the fund balance if the expenses were in excess of revenues which is what most districts do so that really wasn't a substance of
or meaning meaningful change 709 um I have to stop there because I think it's a great example of um legislative overreach and it it it's a a really
simple and kind of it's a simple example but I really it's really uh illustrative of the frustrations that I think school districts have so if you have the ability to look at page three
of 22 on policy 709 this was in law so this is this is the law um in article C item number one there in B it says we must provide
pupils enrolls enrolled in grades 4 through eight with some training and at minimum it must include and if you look at what were required to train students in grades fourth through e8th grade on
now it's in electric assisted bicycle safety including that a person under the age of 15 is not allowed to operate an electric assisted bicycle this was awesome kids in grades 4 through eight are under the age of 15 so we're now
required to train kids that legally can't operate an electric assisted bike in how to use electric assisted bikes that this is the stuff that drives school boards and superintendant crazy
and I had to point it out yeah so there you go um because we don't have anything better to do uh sorry I'm not sorry never mind you're um
yeah I'm not I'm not sorry at all uh policy 721 there was a change in dollar amounts uh again reflective of student or uh state law car has reviewed it and has no problems with that so one reading uh if the board so pleases and I would
approve uh or I would recommend that the board approve them uh in that manner DAV move by David second second second by Ashley discussion I saw nothing in reading them
that would warrant anything other than this Julie can we have a roll sure can Dave Cowen yes Ashley Goodman yes Tom Guston yes Mark schroer yes David Marty
yes those changes are approved in the first reading next item on the agenda is board reports uh Jane do we want to start with you yeah uh last week we did a bus driver
appreciation where a bunch of student council members went over to the bus garage and had donuts and coffee and tea for them and we got a huning out with them through first hour and just chat with them and you could tell it really made their day and I think it made ours as
well we also recognized 150 students that were nominated by all teachers got the chance to nominate students for the I am I'm here for an award so we did LA that last week and you could tell that boosted student
morale which was good to see for our Ronald McDonald house we're up to over 35,000 pop tabs collected and this is just within the first three weeks and we're going until uh May 2nd so we have a lot so we'll be able to donate a lot to
them um Key Club saw 74 units of blood donated HOSA was able to have another healthc care person come talk to them and Senor appears to Spanish 2 class was able to
go to El poo and they got the chance to order in Spanish and just see that whole experience um over the weekend we had wrestling at state which Christian jelly is now a two-time state champion and
then we had two more students that were placed fourth and fifth boys basketball has a section game this week and swimming had their last section meet and they'll be sending 16 people to State thank you Ashley um I have uh two
um committees well one committee and then one um event that happened at our middle school that I wanted to discuss a little bit about um for our health and wellness committee uh we have what is uh called Empower your mind a March miniseries um this is a three-part
miniseries it's intended for school staff parents and Guardians along with community members um invested in supporting youth mental health and well-being um CEUs are available dinner provided starting at 5:30 pm and continuing while supplies last um March
10th there's going to be a mental health Continuum um and that will be um here here in our boardroom from 6: to 7:00 p.m. uh March 19th uh we have um Aces and
PC uh it's a looking at the whole picture so we have some information um that is going to be provided for that and also here in the boardroom from 6:00 to 7.m and then finally March 27th we have the digital
well-being and safety which is again going to be in this boardroom from 6:00 to 7: p.m. and these are all just um ways to get our community and others involved in um just helping out with um uh different mental health aspects
that um that people are going through there is a uh QR code that has gone out that I believe our Facebook page uh just shared today if I'm not mistaken um so that is something that the community can
look for and then the um let's see so at uh our Robert J elington Middle School we had a resident poet come in by the name of Kyle Tran
Meyer um AKA guante uh he spent a couple of days at our Middle School um our Middle School English language arts teachers um were able to pay for this through an endowment Grant through the end committee which was amazing um he
came in and the first day he was there which was Session One um and the second day included a spoken word 101 presentation emphasizing the importance of this art form um he explained Kyle explained that spoken word is more than just saying a poem out loud it is about
using art and expression to discuss what matters most to us connecting with others and fostering personal growth this historical and cultural context provided our students with a deeper understanding of why spoken word is a valuable part of their education he introduced some writing exercises that
framed the single most useful writing exercise that he has learned this activity Force I'm sorry focus on the difference between concrete and abstract language encouraging students to zoom in from a big idea to a specific detailed
image by the end of the exercise each student had crafted a single Vivid and descriptive sentence that they could later use in their performances uh session two which was the last two days which I believe was Thursday and Friday um he continued um with allowing our
students um to share their uh poems um he taught them essentially which started out as um the base of the pyramid is simply being yourself and having fun the next level focus is on projection Annunciation and Tempo while the higher
levels explore Advanced theatrical Techni techniques for our students um Kyle emphasized the first two steps ensuring they felt confident and supported as they began to explore performance to help students navigate their nervousness Kyle letting navigation our navigating our
nervousness activity this involved a collaborative list making exercise where students shared tools and tactics for dealing with Stage Fright um the session concluded with projection enunciation and Tempo practice and then like I said um the last couple of days
were where our students were able to share their poems that they created with the help of um Kyle many students turned in their poems um they sat around in a big circle and they were offered the opportunity to share I think we only had
um two students that really just weren't comfortable to share so they had him read their poems for them uh it ranged from personal life experiences to we had a lot of uh hockey volleyball summer vacation fishing just things that were
important to these children that they felt like they could share out loud with their peers and it was just really interesting to um witness the um support from not just you know the teachers that came in and watched but from the their
peers in general um you know giving them support on their their own experiences and so as you know eighth grade students you you know you see a lot of kids that are just really shy they're they don't want to talk about it's not cool to talk about their own their own you know
personal life or anything like that but they all they all had a really awesome time um they came up with really awesome poems and it was a great experience to have this poet in in our school to teach
these kids um just some valuable just some valuable life lessons about having to speak and how to do that and not feel embarrassed or shy and it was an it was an awesome opportunity to be a part of and watch them do do that
so thank you DAV uh yeah uh kayen thank you for uh catching us up on some of the uh sports that was happening I think the uh Grand Rapids Herald Review uh uh is filled front to back with the successes of our
students and I'll let you talk about swiming but one thing I did want to bring attention to is our speech students at the uh Middle School uh we had uh several uh ribbon winners in recently uh and we've just had such
great success with students the uh last Friday I was able to attend as were you uh the uh Grand Rapids High School uh student of the month Awards and it was really exciting and impressive to see uh
the the interplay between our students and our faculty and recognizing these students for the tremendous work that they're doing and making a real difference in our school and in our community uh the endowment is uh uh
monitoring the grants including the uh uh poet that you just heard about uh and uh uh working on that attended uh world's best Workforce meeting uh last week Sean lunder came in uh and uh
presented information on the FFA which again is a huge story uh we have uh incredible leadership in the FFA uh National leadership uh these guys are really uh making an incredible difference um I thought I was important
because I could judge CS but they told me over yourself David um uh went to uh we've all as board members spent some time on budget workshops and that's it's a challenge it's a challenge and we'll
we'll get through that uh and I had the opportunity uh to uh go to a negociations workshop and I'll let you chat about that a bit uh and uh this past weekend I went to a clerk officer Workshop in St Cloud to learn uh the
duties of a of a clerk um it's been a full uh full board schedule thank you David dve all right thank you Mr chair uh on February 18th I attended the r board meeting um where it
was shared that the rif center was awarded a $450,000 Grant uh from the Blandon Foundation um and that is designed to help start a process start a process of exploring the building of an Amphitheater and a
cultural center um off of R and school grounds um so that's prettyy exciting I know the r uh board is looking forward to getting that process underway um I also intended the literacy night presentation at West Rapids Elementary on February 20th um it was a wonderful
presentation from um the leader Carol uh as well as teachers and students and it was great to see the students that were not quite ready but just get a little bit of a push and then and then take it and run with it and it was just fabulous to see that so great job there
um uh before I get into swimming uh I uh this is a little bit related but uh the other night I attended a graduation night for the itasa county sheriff's office Citizens Academy uh my wife happened to go through that program and in there there was also a high school
student that participated that looks like he's pursuing a career in law enforcement and just a shout out to sh Sheriff Joe dasovich and his team for putting that on um I know that I got an ear full after every class for my wife
and I still do um so that's great program and I would encourage kids that are over 18 because they have to be over 18 to participate in that especially if they're looking for a career in law enforcement and lastly um just a special shout out to the swim team um they had a
tremendous uh record setting um section meet this past weekend um and it's not just the kids swimming it's the coaches it's the booster club it is the team of a village that's running those meets it does not just happen
um you just it's an incredible amount of people that takes to put those meets on one of those people is at this table and I just want to recognize um Miss Goodman for um helping to run that because it is there's so much going on um so thank you for that and in addition to that uh to
your point about the Herald Review um I've been the person sending information in about each meet and John Ryan at The Herald Review and all of our local media does a great job covering and celebrating the successes of our students so thank you thank you
Tom yeah um unfortunately I I missed the last Big Fork School advisory meeting I was out of town there so hopefully uh Mark can talk a little bit about that but um I did uh there was a little
misunderstanding there I went in to do the staff development meeting last month but there was none uh we do have one on the schedule um it's on my calendar now for the 13th of this month um I also signed up to participate next week in
the uh msba joint day at the capital um with all that's been going on I think it's real important and everyone's talked about us getting in front of the in front of the lawmakers there to uh express some
of the concerns of some of the things challenges that get thrown at our school districts there so I'm uh planning on going down there for that that's all I have thank you Tom um while you're in luck with the big fork uh advisory we
had to cancel and reschedule so I didn't miss anything Miss that'll be coming up uh next month uh the other thing that I did attend um David and I attended a negotiation seminar in Mountain Iron uh
I guess it was last Tuesday Tuesday I think it was um real good session probably the most interesting thing to come out of it was um almost all the districts uh are really struggling with
how they're going to make budget and and of course these are tough time for times for school districts you know when you look into to um recognize your employees and and provide them with what they need and and looking at budgets and it's a a
really challenging time Statewide not just uh Grand Rapids superintendent's report thank you Mr chair um just uh W to issue a note of thanks to the teachers that um came out
for literacy nights we had those at Bigfork and Cohasset and West as Mr col mention uh also just a shout out to Carol cop those were largely the result of her efforts and uh that was her
brainchild I think uh it was a good opportunity to be very very transparent with our community about what our curriculum is there was there were books there to review there were materials there to review and so um a lot of
openness about what our language arts curriculum looks like uh I I do want to thank Grand Rapids GM they were our kind of title sponsor for that and so great Community Partnership we also had some donations from L&M and so just uh
grateful to Our Community Partnerships there uh literacy obviously is a big deal um to our businesses having a populace that can read and write is important to everybody um we did receive notice late last Friday or last Friday
from the uh Department of Education we've been watching and waiting for this inflationary factor and some of you probably saw that that did come out at 2.74% so that's good news for us we based our our budget assumptions on 2.4 again our approach has been conservative
and so that's um that's good to have that be a little bit more than we expected um as we prepare for this session uh I've been very vocal with the legislators and testifying about compensatory and unemployment insurance
needing to make sure that those get dealt with and dealt with quickly I think there is probably a little bit of a waiting game going on until the February budget forecast comes out on the 6th and the governor will update his budget proposal at that point and then I
think maybe we'll see some bills start to get a little bit more uh serious but we not only need those things fixed we need those things fixed fast I shared that with our city council too here in Grand Rapids last week um the other thing that I think we need to be
advocating for is a delay on the paid family medical leave uh it sounds to me like the state isn't quite ready to administer that program and there's a savings there probably of over $100,000 for us by the time we factor in our
contribution to that as well as the The increased in substitutes that we're expecting as a result of that uh that program um finally there is a bill that is getting traction and attention for the
mascot that would provide us a pathway to an exemption and also provide uh a pathway for us to be funded if the exemption were to be uh denied but the exemption would be an opportunity to
work with our local tribe and that's one of the things that we've been asking for and uh there's been some listening going on that's really great uh I think it's been good that we've taken the approach that we have and I think that'll be important to talk about uh with legislators next week because I think uh
once those bills get introduced you start to see hearings come in I think there might be a hearing in the works for that particular bill so uh and there's some bipartisan support whether they're authors or not there is bipartisan support for that
approach um we had some kids uh do well in science fair too that not I mean the list of things that we have some stuff going on that's great is long science fair has also been uh something fun to watch so a lot happening uh I've been uh
asking a lot of my admin team as we've worked through our budget reductions to bring to you uh we're getting our list you know going from really uh I'd like to say you know whole milk down to 2% milk down to 1% milk and we're getting
closer to skim here so hopefully in not too long it'll be a lot more clear so but we always start with that approach and eventually get there so um that's all I have Mr chair thank you uh great analogy
um upcoming Schoolboard committee meeting dates are posted on each agenda Schoolboard meeting agendas can be found at the district website and on the designated posting site at the ISD 318 Educational Services
Center is there any other business to come before the board Julie has anyone put in for public input not me returned