What works best? A lot of people have never seen a wrestling competition and the whole crew that shows up there. It's totally I mean they show up with coolers. It's an all day event.
Yeah. They're kind of curing at the gym for a day. You know, that's how the YMCA swim meets are. They just sleeping bags and their shots and their towels and everybody just takes over. Yeah, you just take over.
Uh let's look at big kids don't get to do that so much. Okay. Through that. Thought it was interesting. Yeah. Yeah, I Yeah, good work.
We saw his name on the thing but didn't see or hear. Oh my pressure, Tom. Yeah, I did. I felt it. Oh, my arm, right?
Uhhuh. Twist your arm, I suppose. I can say that. Thank you. You didn't really have a choice. So, I thought you weren't here today. I don't know how to read a calendar.
Okay. I just Leave me alone. Stop holding me accountable for my behavior. Goodness. No. Um, it's next week. Yeah, for sure. This I don't know what I don't know how to read a calendar. I'm happy to see you.
Thank you. I'm sorry. I just I screwed Julie all up. I'm sorry. I apologize. No, I thought it was I thought this week was already next week and next week I won't be here. It's Ella's first swim meet in Hib. Oh, in Hibby?
Yeah. Starts off the season. So, what does she swim? Oh my gosh. Uh, all of it. She swims everything. Yeah. Breast, back, fly free. Okay. She's an IM swimmer. She'll do the 50 free. She does the IM uh 200 IM and then
200 freestyle. Yeah. Oh, we are pretty centered now. Call workshops ordered. Um, I guess we want to find out who's going to be here. August 25th. Check their calendars.
That's next week Monday, correct? It is. I will not be here for sure. Next week. We've heard that before. I know. I'm sorry, but I mean it this time. I'm serious. I'm here. Okay. I'll be here. I haven't heard yet. As far as I know,
he's planning to be, but I have not heard. You here, Tom? Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. Sorry about that. If I need to be here, Julie, I absolutely can be. It's not a horrible thing if I miss it. It's It's not I
would like to not, but if I have at three I mean we could cancel, right? Yeah. The the 25th we just looking ahead a couple weeks. So we have the meeting on the 25th and then
Tuesday the third uh the 2nd we have a meeting. There's nothing urgent that would like there's nothing urgent that we need to do on the 25th. So if we were even
unsure about who could be there on the 25th, it wouldn't be a big deal for us to cancel the 25th. Okay. Have we uh planned for board presence at the different sites for opening today? I have not decided who's going where
yet, but yeah, I thought generally that's kind of what we Dave or Dave, can you hear us? Yes, I can. Hey guys, can you hear me? Okay. Yes, we're just asking about August 25th if
you're going to be here or not. Uh, one second. Let me look. August 25th. Oh, that's next Monday. Yeah, we get back
in the morning, right? So, yeah. Yeah, I plan to be back uh at at the meeting in person. Melissa won't be here. Where's that leave us? Okay. So, that's you guys have there's four.
So, you have to show up, Matt. Sorry. Dang it. Oh, it's all good. All good with me. I want to know what I want to know where Dave is right now. in Wyoming, North Dakota.
So, we just got went across the border. So, okay. Yeah, I think the the first thing on the agenda um under stewardship of resources uh school
board goals 2526. You want to kind of lead off there? Sure. Um so this is the time of the year where the board um has historically set uh goals or aims. Um and I included a
couple different things. One was our aims from last year. We did review these over the last year uh once or twice and kind of did some status updates, but I thought we could kind of start with that so you could get grounded in that a
little bit and then talk about some possibilities for this next year. Um maybe before we even go there, Julie, if you go to the next slide, just to give an overview of how we get
to where we are with a number of things. So rewinding back, especially for our newer board members, in 2022, we did a pretty extensive community um survey. So, no, I would say community input
gathering because a survey was part of it. Focus groups were part of it. Phone interviews were part of it. Um, and we got some help from some a couple local people that do this for a living and they created this report. Um, if you
haven't seen this report, it might be good to get your hands on. I don't know. Have you seen it, Tom? Oh, I have not. Okay. So, you can we email that out to the new maybe to the whole board so they have it. Yeah. Um that report identified a number
of things that uh that we were doing well and things that the community wanted us to work on that resulted in us developing these uh strategic directions and then those strategic directions um
resulted in our operational plan and our board aims or board goals as well as the strategy team goals. I'd say the board aims or goals really work in support of the strategic directions. Uh um and the strategy team goals really work on the
this more discreet action plan that is the operational plan. Um I won't even say it's an action plan. It contains objectives and then the strategy team drills it down into what are the actual actions that we take. So the operational
plan talks about disparities. the strategy team gets into we have to make this change to our data system so that we can accurately you know do these assessments or that kind of thing. So the strategy team's purpose is really to
work in service of this operational plan. Um so to the uh if we look at the aims from last year the first one was to improve student achievement. You can see there, I won't read all this, but you can kind of see um how it tied to the
directions, the timeline, the measurables or the date we're going to gather data from, and then um the status of those. You heard some of that last week from Jill Carol. Um MCA results will be out
um any day now. The second one was around improving the employee experience. We really engaged our wellness committee um this last year in that work. They held the first all district employee event that we've had
in a long time. I got to sit at the dunk tank um on a cold day. So that was fun for people. Um and then we redid or did another staff wellness survey to see how staff were doing with um a variety of
things and the wellness committee took a dive into that data. this spring and we're teed up to do that again uh in February. The third goal or aim was around the readact and wisdom. Um and what's
unique about the board I think you know you're not doing this work every day, right? Like the work the work of the board is supporting kind of supporting this work. So how did you support this work? you approved the you approved the curriculum um
implementation position and that position Carol's position has been really monumental in both of those items. So, uh, the board played a huge role in in supporting that work and, um,
we have all of our teachers trained, but our seven new ones, uh, which was significant. And I'd say that our district I don't I don't want to make it sound like we were I don't want to, you know, what what did my dad always say? Don't break your arm, patting yourself
on the back. Uh, it sounds sounds like it. Um but we did get out ahead of theou for the readact that we needed to do as far as um how we were going to compensate staff and we made decisions early and that really helped move that
along so we weren't scrambling. So um and that all comes back to decisions here too and getting anou done and things like that. So um uh four I mentioned the strategy team
already in terms of partnerships. As you can see there was a an aim in every one of the strategic directions last year. Uh and you'll see strategic uh new strategic team goals soon. Um that team has those
ready to go. the newsletter and the targeted campaign. Um, last year that was the one of the board aims and we did uh rolled out two newsletters with again without a full-time communications person and um
also created a targeted campaign around uh small community spirit big time opportunities which uh you know we have a video that was created. It's been on billboards things like that was in those newsletters. So uh we executed on that and then the balanced the financial the
stewardship of resources piece um for fiscal 25. So that was where we landed last year. Um included in your materials is
uh the operational plan and the strategic directions. And then you'll also see the colorful looking sheet. Those are the strategic uh or the strategy team's goals for the upcoming year. And again, you can kind of see how
this gets a lot more granular. This is kind of the everyday work. Um we get into specific language about uh adoption objectives. very specific uh naming curriculum by uh or curriculum
by actual material name um MTSS language that gets very specific about percentages and MTSS playbooks what's happening at the so this just drills into the what does this look like
every day again in the service of that operational plan so Um the last thing is just is the aims for this upcoming year. Um I took a look at what we had had before. I included some recommendations.
Um but these are strictly some thoughts. Uh obviously you're the board and you can um uh work through this in any way that you'd like, but there is a a every one of our strategic directions
is represented here, which I think is important and should be important no matter where we land. I think that's a good thing to do. Um, so yeah, I guess I'm not sure if if we want to just go through these recommendations or if you want to take a
uh kind of piece by piece or what the board would uh prefer to do. Um, I for me I think I'd like to go through the recommendations. Okay. Oh no,
it's a test. Thank you. Wow. At least we know that you're safe, David. Yes. Is that correct? Correct. Thank you. Sorry about that. Wow. I know. That's amazing. That was quick. It's good to know.
It's new for me. Yes. Correct. Correct. I'm having a hard time understanding you. Correct. Oh, no. Excuse me. Y'all want to take your phone?
They're gonna call Sharon. Sharon. Yeah, we'll have EMS here. No, I do not. Thank you. What was a test? You were testing. Is that correct? Correct. Sorry about that.
If anybody needs help, let me know. Okay. You're also good. Um, yeah, I agree. I go through the recommendations. Okay. So, the first one, um, is
continuing a focus on student achievement. I think that's central to what we do as a school district and I think having it central to the work even again even though the school board's not in the classroom teaching the children I think um it's important that that's
lifted up in the center. uh this really I think creates the opportunity and the obligation for the data to be showing up in front of you which I think is important not only for you but also the community to see that that data is um
uh here so you get reports a couple times you got one last week from Jill and Carol we have a data for learning one that will come out to you in uh November or December there'll be a deeper dive into what
we're doing with data. So, kind of creates the opportunity for that to be front and center for you. I agree. The second Hey, Matt, can you hear me? Yep. I I what I just I Sorry if I'm not sure if I'm breaking up or not, but what I
like about that one being number one is that is the core of what we're all here for. And I think it makes sense for that to be number one. Not only is it important to be on the list, but to be number one, I think sends a message to the community and to the whole all the
stakeholders of our district. So, I just wanted to call that out. Yes. Agreed. Do we want to do you want to land on like Yep. We're going to keep that one or do we want to go through all of them and then decide? I I'm I would like to keep it. I think we need to keep that.
Yeah. Yeah. Um the second one uh we you know like I I said earlier we did do a pretty good job of getting going on the readact. We're not done. Uh it really the readact
implementation is really going to be I hesitate to say three it'll take three years to implement the law. Uh the the the technicalities of the law. It'll take years to really implement what the Reed Act is about.
Um so in its narrowest sense the redact the law is about specific training specific curriculum. We are in what I would consider or what I think MDE would call an in between year now. Originally in their
timeline uh last year was supposed to be year one. This year was going to be year two and and yeah year one and then year two. they delayed the implementation of year two because they weren't ready to
do year two yet. Um so what we're focused on who were focused on training this year is the individuals that didn't go through the training last year which is one of the challenges of the act to
begin with. Our our staff went through an entire year of a training protocol. It was Wednesdays. It was out of work time that they got paid a stipen to do.
They were taking assessments. Like it was a, you know, in some cases uh some places they looked at how to grant graduate credit for it. It was that much work. Um, so you go through all this in our case with this whole group of
people, then you have people leave and you hire new people and you're not you can't recreate that thing, right? So um and the and the state created three curriculums
um or three training protocols that could be used. One was carry all um one was I should know because my wife did it here. Letters and the third one I don't remember and I
forget that one every time. Um I think that's the one that Greenway did actually. Um we're going to be able to partner with the Northwest Service Co-op because they're offering training in carry all for our new teachers. So they're going
to be our new teachers are going to have I think eight training days during the year where they're going to be able to get the training the carry all training get the same you know level of certification etc. Um but that's something we're going to have to be managing
all the time until the until teachers are coming out of college with that. Right. Um, and they don't all they all of our teachers don't have to have the same. They just have to have one of those three. So, if we have a
teacher that comes and they went through the full letters training, which actually I think is longer than ours. It's two years as letters. They went through all the letters training, they're good to go. But they just have to have one of those three done. Um, and
that is for K8 teachers who teach reading primarily. Phase two is secondary uh primarily secondary and special ed. So that is
upcoming. So we're going to need to update that redactou so that it's relevant for this batch this year. Um and we'll probably have to have some form of it for the foreseeable future.
So anyway, that that's I guess a status update of of where we are with the redact. All to say we still have we still have to keep our foot on that pedal uh in order to be um
meet the standards of the law. So a couple of questions uh in that regard. Are we supporting uh those teachers who have gone through a year of training? Uh so that it's not just you had a year of training.
Yeah. So the I think the they are they are implementing the practices that they learned during that training in their implementation of the new curriculum. Okay.
That's right. That's exactly right. So the The carry all training, the letters training really gets at how do children learn how to read? How do you recognize difficulties? It's sort
of the um philosophy, the philosophy behind the the teaching methods, the pedagogy. And then the wit and wisdom is the kind of the how part of it is the materials
that we use. And we have uh uh we've got a lot of substitutes coming in. Yeah. Various reasons. Are they up to speed? Yeah. So, I'm glad you asked. On Wednesday, we're hosting a training
day, most of the day for our guest teachers. We have 70 teachers registered. Um the last part of that day will be Carol here talking through wit and wisdom. Okay, good.
How does you fly fit into all of this? Yeah, it's a good question. So you you know you fly OG, you know, blah blah blah, right? And um so Orton Gilling and I'm not a literacy expert, so I'm going to start with that. Um, Orton Gillingham
is like a foundational approach to how children learn letter sounds, phonics, like it's like a stuff they get in prek, K1, like those early ages. And it also for many years was like the standard for
uh dyslexia uh work because it it helps sort of sort create that schema for kids as they learn how to read. uh the basic foundational skills. Um
we we started implementing Orton Gillingham OG maybe four years ago, three years ago and teachers got trained in that and it had a it had a really good impact and
we've kind of plateaued with uh we've kind of plateaued with our implementation. uh our achievement, our results are kind of plateaued and what we're running into and the teachers have shared like there's some pacing challenges with it.
There's like um how much time that it takes challenges of it. So they shared a bunch of challenges and in the meantime the University of Florida uh literacy institute I think that's what it stands for take that yes
you fly they developed a program that's based on OG but it's sort of like just the basics it's like OG light just the basics and it addresses a lot of the issues that our teachers were like this
is a barrier this is a friction spot like this is a tension point time, pacing, approach, um maybe fidelity of time like maybe with OG because it was very regimented and you do it this particular way and you have this you know sandbox thing
here and UFI is very efficient maybe is a better way to say it and so that actually meshes well with OG that we've had and it meshes well with the the concerns we heard from teachers and and
it also continues to lay the groundwork for the wit and wisdom stuff to carry out. So will we have will we be supporting incoming staff that are brand new in making sure that they're trained on OG as well as well as you fly.
They won't need OG. They'll only need to be trained in you fly. Yep. So, it'll be kind of like the the OG OG teachers. Uh, they got the full thing more than they'll actually
maybe use now. Um, and and I think you heard Carol mention it the other day, one of the benefits too, University of Florida is putting this out there as a, you know, public service. All the materials are free. Um and it's re I mean it's a research institution. So
there are so it's it's how it should work. Yeah. Like our postsecondary institutions that are doing research on education and how the brain works like they should be informing us informing our work. So I
think that's a good it's a good thing. So uh you know we went through this transition last spring talked to a number of teachers. We've actually pulled our um English langu English language arts committee together and said look these are the concerns we've
heard this is how it's being addressed other places you fly is an option what do you think and of course like it was one more piece of change in another in an already changefilled year but our once our teachers got past the kind of
the initial here we kind of thing. They saw that it met the needs that they were actually many of them most of them saw that this is actually going to help us. Um and so we talked about it as you know this was
like a 20 degree pivot not necessarily a 180 degree change it was just pivoting a little bit. Um B and I
one of the things if you were to look back um into a let's see a previous version of our operational plan um or actually if you
look there now so if you look on page two of our operational plan that thing didn't print. I think I shifted formats on Julie here. Um, but objective 3.1234.
You can see there it says a curriculum cycle and review process aligned with the MDE standards review cycle and best practices is developed and implemented. So that was an objective in our operational plan two years ago. Our
strategy team took that did it. We now have a curriculum uh implementation plan and cycle that's complete. That's what we worked through with English language arts. So, that objective is completed and now we're at
a place where we can be utilizing that in science and math and the other curriculums as they come across. So it was good to share that with the group like from you know we need to do this
and check that off and that teed us up then for the next thing that we need to do um in our plan. So we science was sort of a little bit um how do I say it? They were science was sort
of downstream a little bit before this planning document was put together. So, we're having to like real science back in uh and make that implementation fit our
our plan versus having the plan done on the front like we are with math where the the how we're going to select curriculum is done that that process is laid out. Math will go through that process from beginning to end. Science
we kind of jumped in mid-stream to that. uh and are having, you know, we're kind of circling back on some things. Matt, can I ask a quick question? Yeah. Yeah. So when you talk about a curriculum development plan uh across English, math
and science, are they unique enough that they need to be separate um curriculum development plans based on their subjects or are we looking to have a more comprehensive what does curriculum development plan selection
look like at Grand Rapids? Yeah. Um I really want to show something, Julie. How can I do that? All right. So, I need to I'll show I'll show you what we've been working on just so it's more um concrete because I know
what I'm talking about is sort of out in the talking theoretically that I have. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Um go here. All right. So then I need to present. Is
that right? All right. So what's going to pop up is something that we put together this year. Um, you will probably won't be able to see it very well, Dave, but this is a resource for our principles. It's a dashboard with links to um
it's a link. It's a just it's a spreadsheet with links to all the most important things in their life at work. Okay? So, it's kind of all in front of them. It's all in front of them. uh versus having to chase down a thousand
different links. Um that's not the point of what I'm doing right now. I will so under curriculum I will show you this will get at your question. I think. All right. So,
when I talk about our process, this is our curriculum review process. And I will try to make it Can you see this at all, Dave? It's got to be tough. Yep. Yep. Yep. No, I can see it just fine. I'm I'm zooming in on it so I can see it. Yep.
So, we talk about it in terms of learn, learn, deep, and know. That's sort of our rhythm. And we can stay in a phase longer than a year if we need to or two years if we need to. Um it's as long as we need to do that in order to to
accomplish the phase. So this document goes through and again this was the the objective in our our operational plan that I mentioned earlier was developing this because the process itself should
be pretty similar no matter what curricular area we're talking about. we should start with, you know, getting together and checking our budget. Um, getting a team together, looking at standards, like that is a a process we
should do pretty much every time. And then there are nuances there for sure that you have to work through. So like one of the nuances that happened with the ELA curriculum was the state saying you can pick from this or this or this.
So that changed everything, right? um it didn't change our need to get a team together and um we developed um protocols for who's on the team and what they're signing up for. So every team like the math team that's meeting
or is getting together Carol mentioned that team will go through these same commitments that says hey if I'm a part of this team I'm going to attend collaborate I'm going to participate I'm going to lead PD I'm going to so all of our staff know going into the process
what does it mean to be on the curriculum review team and our ELA team our English language arts team. They really were rock stars in the process because they were the ones that
said, "Hey, these are what the teacher expectations are as far as implementation of this curriculum. This is what we should be doing on this day. This is what we should do. This is how we're going to go about doing this." They created accountability mechanisms for the
teacher team. It wasn't the principles, you know, from up on high saying, "Do this by this date." It was the team looking at the materials going, you know, how, you know, let's figure out how to do this. And there was revision. Um, it was our first time through the
curriculum. We had to make changes. And we did that. We pulled the team together and said, "This is, you know, what's not working? How do we adapt?" And that team did an amazing job. It's not an easy thing to do because you're kind of putting your neck out there, right? Um,
so I'm really proud of that group. Um, let me go back to Yeah, I'll go back to this. Keep looking at Dave, but you might want to look at this instead. Um so again you can see in that left
column developing committee digging into standards developing timelines um coming up with a a rubric in order to evaluate curriculum. So you know when we get to this math selection piece
I wouldn't be surprised if there's 30 curriculums that we start out with. That's how long the list will be. Mhm. It's just going to be enormous. And so having a rubric that we can start from that says we're going to this whole
group's out because they don't, you know, meet Minnesota standards or they don't incorporate this particular, you know, criteria we have. So that's going to be really important once we get through that. You can see phase three. Um that's the adoption year. So that's
when we start implementing or we start getting into the curriculum materials and then phase four is okay we're deepening. So last year in our wit and wisdom year was learn do walkthroughs monitor respond to
implementation data. Carol shared some of that in the last six months. And then deepen we're heading into that this year where it's like okay we've been through it once. So, one of the things that that Carol put together was
some um teacher support mechanism. So, like if a teacher is behind five lessons, what do we do? So, we have a protocol for that. Now, what happens if a teacher's struggling? What does support look like? If a teacher's ahead five lessons, what does that mean? Uh
how do we respond there? And then you know no is sort of in the plan do study act or that kind of long-term change cycle. No is like that we're we're uh running the program now and making the small changes as they come along.
So this is the this is the process Dave that we will use with any uh content area with the caveat that every content area is going to have some nuance. We're going to have to you know the team might
look different. The standards in some cases like going into the weeds here but FIED for instance doesn't have state I think they have state standards for FIAD. I think we have national FIAD
standards. So what standards we're using is different. Um but there's nuances like that. So this is the process. Does that answer your question? It does. And so I guess my follow-up then would be that we so we did the
English language arts curriculum. Um we're we did one year. We're going into the second year of that now. Um, next up is math and then science is right after that. Is that correct? It's kind of like science we started implementing science three
years ago before this document was developed. So we didn't implement science as well as we implemented ELA because we didn't have these protocols in place, the fidelity checks in place. And so we're
kind of having to go back to science and go okay how are we like what do walkthroughs what do principles look for now with science implementations we're kind of having to go back so kind of having to go back
language arts it was like in the moment we're developing this math is next and will really be the most you know on time implementation of this process because even the ELA one we
were developing this process as we were going through it. It was really helpful to inform the process that we needed. Math will be the first one where we're running the program um while we're not in it. That makes sense.
Got it. Yep, it does. And so do we have goal years then for those? Yes. So math on 20 is that listed on the the goal sheet. Yeah, it's not listed on the No, it's not listed on here.
That would be helpful. I bet I would think so because I think that's something we can go to the community and say, "Hey, we did English language arts this year. This year, you know, x years when we're going to have math adopted and go through that same transition, same with science, same with anything."
And that way people can, you know, we can just hold ourselves accountable to that because honestly, given that this is a what I believe to be the case, a four-year implementation kind of Yeah. uh timeline, uh some of us may not even
see these come to be during our terms on the board. So what we're doing here now is it's it's really important that we get it right because generations of boards will be working through this stuff after us. I would have preferred if you said some
of you know. Yeah. Uh yep. That's you you don't need to read into any that any of that. So, I'm gonna I'm gonna go on mute now. Again, I've said too much.
All right, I'll add some years there so we can kind of have that marker in that document. Um, so it's clear kind of where we're landing with these. That's good. The the last piece I had to that one and again um this is flexible is but is just
so again this is sort of in this evidence-based practices and student centered learning direction. I listed, you know, monitor the implementation of Grava. So, we developed performance indicators for Graa. That data will come to you. Um, and it seemed like it made
sense to have that included in here uh as one of the aims for the board. Thoughts on on that? Number two, we have enough specificity uh on Redact. It says it's kind of generic support
ongoing implementation predict. Um it feels to me like we're pushing further beyond that u into wit and wisdom and additional levels and I does
this does this cover what we intend? I could be more specific about this being um kind of where we are in 2526 as it relates to the read Act, what year we're in. Just feels like we have a
higher uh commitment there than continue continue to support Flex. When do we realistically think that we're going to get to a point that we hire teachers and we don't have to train them? You
know, they're ready to go in our, you know, carry all car, you know, they already have their carry all or whatever. And you know, I mean, you know, because what I'm hearing here, I'm concerned that we've got maybe 10 years
that we're going to have to bridge here pretty active training, right, on a regular basis to try to My experience is that teacher education colleges do not pick up on this stuff very quickly. That's what I'm concerned about. Yeah.
Um I I would be surprised if a lot of them have implemented this in five or 10 years even. Yeah, I'd say I would agree. I would say that I would be surprised if we saw
trained candidates sooner than 2930. Yeah. So, we're going to have to have a pretty outlined onboarding plan for the next 10 years
potentially, right? Is what I'm kind of hearing because at least the next five for sure, you know, of how when we bring people on, they're going to have to have this, this, this, and yeah, how do we implement that? How do we do
it cost effectively, too? Right. I I mean because that's the other part is you get some you get some scales of efficiency of scales when you're doing it in a group somewhat now when you're trying to implement it in smaller groups. Yeah. Um that's why I think we need to have
some sort of legislative lobby or whatever or read act um funding. I mean I mean we got a couple years but that's not going to do it for us. you know, and
as long as we don't have funding coming from the state, we we know where that comes from, you know, not general fund. And you know to some degree there will what we're talking about when I'm saying
2930 I'm talking about colleges and universities in the state of Minnesota that get their teaching licensing credentials through the state of Minnesota. They have to
comply if they're going to be able to issue or or work with kids on licenses. If you're a teacher from North Dakota coming and taking a job in East Grand Forks in 10 years or whenever they're not they
won't have it. I I don't I don't you know I don't see the you know South Dakota State University's not going to ch add carry all to its list. I don't know. they could add letters because carry all
really a University of Minnesota program. Um, so yeah, I it's going to be an ongoing issue and it's one of the things that superintendents brought up right away with the readact like wait a minute,
what about this and it was like charge for charge for charge. Yeah. the the good thing uh that I think that we have going for us is we have a
stronger relationship with the service co-ops than we've ever had. So just from a a high level, uh each region of the state is served by a service co-op that's organized
um under the laws of Minnesota. And they're intended to serve regional groups of school districts. And these service co-ops all operate, even though they were originally
created the same, they operate very different now. Um, you have some service co-ops like in the southwest west central area of the state. They're huge. They have hundreds of employees. They're
providing direct service to children. some schools I think like contract with them for their staff. They're enormous. Um you have some service co-ops that have become money making machines by
negotiating contracts for volume purchasing across the country. Um and then you have some service co-ops that have done kind of taken a different approach. Ours is Northeast. It's out of Mount Iron.
And our co-op has predominantly focused on insurance. They all started with insurance some way, but they focused on group insurance, broadband, um
some of technology affiliated with that broadband, and then they've done some stuff around real low incidence uh special ed services, you know, hearing, vision, things like that. They
haven't done a lot with teaching and learning historically. Now over the last five years, MDE has rolled out a number of things because of legislation in most cases and that's resulted in
MDE using the service co-ops more to support schools universally. So, our service co-op now has staff supporting us with implementation of the Reed Act,
supporting us with other training. Um, and that's when I said earlier, our service co-op isn't doing carry all, but our teachers are getting connected with the Northwest Service Co-op, which is
like out of Boston. I think it's Austin. um to get that training. So, that's what they're going to have to continue to do. They're going to have to continue to work through these regional cooperatives
to support school districts, especially in outstate because in the metro, it's no big deal. An Oka Henipin could put on a training and get 80 teachers there from the neighboring school districts because between the handful of them,
they employ 5,000 teachers. those 80 might live in that school district already. That's right. So, that's right. That's right. And you have to have a certain number of them to do the training. So, um the service co-ops are going to be more important than ever. Oh, so the so the state who is it the
state that's who's monitoring that we're implementing this and how is it being regulated right now? Is it is it through teacher lensure that your licensing can revoked or how how are they how are they enforcing checking for lack of a better
term? How are they I don't I don't know the answer to that rules. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that for sure. I do know that every year we have to upload
what's called a star report to the state and that ba that report essentially matches the lensure of every teacher against the courses that we say they're teaching and then there's a discrepancy report that gets kicked out that says
hey this you know Matt Gross you say he's teaching Ed and he's licensed in math can't do that. And then so uh if it's not happening that way, I'd be surprised that there's some component of STAR where we're having to validate that
those teachers have h uh completed that training, but they haven't outlined that yet. I I I don't know for sure. Okay. Casey Casey probably would know more about that. Yeah. as far as like the, you know,
as far as some of the other monitoring compliance pieces, it's like a lot of things with the legislature or MDE. Pass it and figure it out later.
There's not. Yeah. Pass it, figure it out later. or there's no there's no plan and may never be one to truly monitor compliance. How are we I mean we're documenting it
obviously. Yep. So, one of the things that, you know, Carol had to include in her literacy plan was some information that would um indicate compliance with the
read Act and that literacy plan that we submit triggers or opens the door for funding. So, I mean there's there is a piece there. Yeah. Um, but back to so I can uh put some
more detail around the years for these curricular areas. I can put a more a little bit more flesh on the bone with the redact piece. Thank you. Um, any other pieces of this you'd like to see changed, deleted,
strike and replace? I think two is good. I'd like to keep that. Okay. Um three three you know in the partnerships and collaboration I think um the strategy team has really
tried to take its queue from the board. That's why there's at least two very specific reports about the strategy team. Um, that's why these goals are tied back to what you know the
board's setting. Um, I don't know that a real hardcore uh I guess I I I don't know about this goal, but I guess what I'm s getting at is I think that the strategy team
knowing that they're connected to you is really important to them as a team because they put a lot of work in to make sure the nuts and bolts are happening. So, I don't know if there's a
better way to talk about this or to frame this. Um, it's not like a real clean, perfect strategic planny kind of a an aim, but that was my intention of having some
kind of a connection in here to the strategy team. I think just leave it as is. and we get the reports from them. That is important that we hear from them. Do is it says here two times a year? Do
we feel like that's uh that that's enough time? Uh should it be a couple? I mean, I'm just I'm thinking if it's one per semester essentially, right, throughout the school year, then that's fine. But Uh, are we anticipating
things to be different each quarter? Will they feel like they need to at the end of each quarter give us a little bit of update? I'm just thinking I would even promote uh a monthly update. Doesn't need to be a full
report, but like we have board reports. Just have a monthly update from this uh strategy team so they know we're connected and we know what they're up to and that in addition to twice a year a
full Yeah. only because I'm just thinking that um things are just happening all the time, right? And so they might be able to give more insight if we do like you're suggesting that once a month meeting. Um
there might be a little bit more um I don't know thought processes shared amongst each other. if they were able to more information and then that two times a year just this is what this is every every month we met with you guys this is what we discussed
these are some of the ideas that were brought up and this is what we were able to implement beyond that have that it is it is a pretty comprehensive report and I know it takes them a lot of time to put it together
yeah Mark um if I could jump in to I think um I'm gonna uh disagree a bit there because from a strategic standpoint um let's see h um
if we if we are constantly filling out the report um we're not necessarily living the strategy and I think strategy is something that um you set and you revisit over longer periods of time than
a month and so I guess my opinion is that twice a year seems relevant because otherwise we can get into this whipssaw effect of oh this didn't work this month let's try something do new next month and then then we don't have a cohesive long-term strategic plan we have more of
a well how do we do this month oh let's change and let's go somewhere else that's fair that makes sense something I could do if if I mean it might be too micro for the board but our strategy team meets you know monthly
Um, I could either synthesize the minutes from that meeting or I mean it would really just be looking into the nitty-gritty of the of that work. So that would be something that that would be possible
as part of the superintendent's report as part of my report the my my superintendent's report I could do that I would address my and exactly and like understanding exactly what Dave is saying that makes sense that's that's absolutely fair and then to
just let them know that um that they are supported in that and then uh yeah it doesn't make sense to have to keep meeting like Dave saying you are you're constantly changing things and what's your strategy and how are you actually implementing anything and how
are you watching that play out okay it's a good point Dave maybe I'll add monitor and support there too maybe I'll add that word that it and we got we have really good
people we have really good pe we have really good people here and I'm I'm really proud of the the work you're doing. But so with that, adding that to my soups report, um keep that one then.
Agreed. I think so. Yeah. Um the fourth one that I recommended was to plan and execute the community engagement process we've been talking about for a while. That seems very direct and relevant. Um we actually have a meeting coming up this Wednesday for
that. uh committee that subcommittee. Um so that one seems very straightforward. Yeah, I have no issues with that one. I think that's perfect. Any concerns with that one? Okay. The the last one um in kind of under the
stewardship of resources realm that I'm recommending this isn't because of OPED. This isn't going to be a year where we can talk about um a balanced budget per se because we're
going to have to you know pay cash on the front end for these OPED benefits. So when we run this audit, it won't the next year's audit, it won't there's really nothing we could do to balance the budget on paper. Um so rather than
focus on that as a goal, uh my recommendation or thought process uh and and uh met with Mark 2 to to talk about it was to develop and implement the plan for OPED. that includes, you know, um
our levy plan. It also includes adjustments to uh OPE uh retiree health or whatever it is that we need to do there. That that's really the objective of this uh is to have that plan solidified in the next year.
And probably if we're going to depending on the cycle we want to hit with open enrollment could be the next four months. with that. I think that's fair. Okay. Last statement. Last mean, how does open
enrollment have to do um uh sorry, open enrollment for health insurance, not Yeah. Okay. Okay. Now I understand. Yeah. I'm thinking of a different open Yeah. Right. Sorry. Yep.
Yeah. Okay. So, we have to make decisions about alignment with Medicare open enrollment. Yeah. Yep. Sorry. No, I same acronyms all over the place, right? Or Okay.
Um I you know, I would have to say that the the appreciation I have of this is you know, we're looking at options, right? I mean, I know we can levy for it, but that's not necessarily what we want to
do, right? We we need to explore what if we can get the same effect with a lot less costs, right? Be financially responsible to everyone on this. I appreciate the way we've looked at it, not just
Those were the five that um that surfaced for me in my thought process. I guess I'm curious if there are other things that the board uh thinks we should include. Uh I think it's a a nice balance of the
things that we are charged to do like number one and and focusing on student achievement, but also with the stewardship of resources and the situation we find ourselves in the following laws that are are out there now, the redact um I think it's the
right blend of of focuses for us. So, I I wouldn't have anything else to add and I I think that you've done a nice job putting together and kind of bubbling up the ones that need to be on the list. So, I guess I I I like where it lands.
Is there anything else that people would want to add? Do we want, you know, we're we're taking on a new venture in our district with the online education, right? Do we need to I mean
how are we monitoring that? How are we determining if that's a path we want to continue and if it's doing the success the the intentions we want with it? I again I want to make sure if we're doing it we're our students are successful
when they come out of that. Right. Um, and do we need because it is a complete venture, does it need to be something that we're putting into here and considering measurable goals on and regular
regular kind of look backs on. Yeah, I might have skated I might have skated over it too quick, Tom, in 2C. Um, so Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. So that was Yeah. Yeah. The acronym in there. Yeah. There's another Yeah.
Well, but but should we separate that completely because it is a separate school, you know, it is considered a separate school for us, right? Yep. Um yeah, we definitely could do that. We could pull it into a separate one. These
are the um just I'm just concerned that it's so different from anything we've approached before that we we don't even know what we don't know about it now is what I'm concerned about. Right. Yeah. You know, what do you what do y'all think
supportive of that? Just pull into a sixth one. We had six last year, so it's not there's nothing magical about the number. Um that's fine. This this is the uh these are the key performance indicators that we talked about when we rolled this to the data to grab. So that this should be
the this should be the data we need when that comes around. Um so I'll pull that one to I'll pull that pull that one into a separate separate category. And do we have uh two of our principles are supervising that program, right?
Yeah. Yeah, we should build some reports in um build some reports in there for Andy and Clayton. Y it might also be good to um you know we interact a lot and well a
lot is um subjective but we do interact with students that go to our brick and mortar schools in different ways at events or pepfests or visits or whatever. But is there a way we can somehow incorporate some feedback mechanism from parents and
students that are in the virtual academy as part of their reports or in addition to the reports just to hear kind of from the hor's mouth what their experience is like along the way this year? Yeah, I think it'd be good to just check in and see
how things are going with those students because, you know, naturally within the essence of that program, you don't have the physical touch points that we have with the rest of the students. Okay, I'll uh I'll add that into I think one
of the I don't I closed it. One of the performance indicators had to do with uh family and student data, but I think we that was more summitative focused and I think what you're talking about is more like checking the temperature along the way. Um
we can build that out. Yep. I think that's I think that'll help us a lot with as we assess its effectiveness and if we want to continue to support it. It's a data point that'll be helpful. Okay,
Mr. Chair, we've uh uh we talked a little bit about the planning and executing the community engagement process and we talked about the board's responsibility for resource development uh for the organization specifically.
I don't I I think Wednesday that this initial the 20th, I think. Right. Yeah. I I don't think we've really gotten too deep into that, though.
Well, it's, you know, the community uh is is certainly a major element of that, but uh we certainly have uh uh federal and state resources uh that feed into this as well. We as a board need to weigh in on that. It's a
question, but that's statement. Can you say more about the state and federal resources? Well, uh we are dependent in large part on state funding for the schools. If the state starts uh nickel and dimming us
that comes out of our bottom line every time. Uh, do we need to as a board do we need to uh uh have a uh position on state and federal funding and and other
resources just funding in general? Do you think that would sound like to like developing a uh uh a platform like a position platform legislative legislative platform
is that I think that definitely be relevant be a little more formal basically coming to yeah representative
I can definitely add that. I think that's good. I think it's good. Great work. Okay. Anything else anybody would like to add here? You and Julie kind of put together or the following week.
All right. You'll see this uh Yeah, you'll see a finished one either the 25th or the second. Okay. Thank you for work. Any other business? Hey,
can I ask one quick question? Uh, where did we land for the 25th? Then are we still going to have the meeting? It sounds like there will be enough uh attendance to hold the meeting. Okay. If that changes, you'll just let
us know. I see. Okay. Okay, just I think quickly I don't want to um I think Melissa will be communic Melissa comm communicated with the board at all about
she has some things going on in her family um medically and I I think I'll leave it at that um that are going to make it they're going to require her to step away for a little