Everyone, welcome to the April 28th, 2026 uh regular meeting of um ISD94 school board. Um we'll start with roll call to my right. >> Tony Rankenberg. >> You're on. Red is on. >> I wasn't on before.
>> Carly Anderson, >> Amber Cameron, >> Emily McDonald, >> Kim Baker, >> Paul Carbone, Brian Thompson. >> Great. And if everyone could stand as they're able um to say the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> All right. Oh, sorry y'all. I switched the roll call, but we did that. All right. I'll turn over to Emily McDonald for good news. Wonderful. Get
comfortable everyone. We know we have amazing students and we have a lot of good news to share this evening. We'll start with Lakeville weightlifting teams continue championship tradition at state. Student athletes from Lakeville North and Lakeville South weightlifting teams delivered outstanding performances
at the 2026 state weightlifting championships. Lakeville South captured its seventh consecutive varsity team state championship. In total, Lakeville athletes earned 14 individual state championships and 23 medals. Is that the end of it?
>> It is the end of it. That's great. >> All right. Uh, three Lakeville students from Lakeville South and six students from Lakeville North earned awards at the 2026 Minnesota Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. Entries were awarded
based on originality, skill, and the expression of voice or vision that stands out from classroom assignments and social media trends. Gold Key Awards will go on to compete at the national level. So, congratulations. Uh, Lakeville artists make their mark at
the South Suburban Visual Arts Exhibit. 10 pieces of student artwork from both Lakeville North and Lakeville South were recently showcased at the South Suburban Conference visual arts exhibit, highlighting the creativity and talent of Lakeville's young artists. The
exhibits featured a wide range of mediums and styles reflecting the students skill, originality, and artistic voice. Among the outstanding submissions, five Lakeville Area High School students earned awards for their outstanding work. Please take a look at the amazing artistic talent we have at
Lakeville Area Schools at isd194.org/news. Lakeville South Encore represents Minnesota on a big stage. For the second year in a row, Lakeville South Encore proudly represented Minnesota at the Varsity Vocals International Championship of a High School AC Capella
Great Lakes Semifinals held in Milwaukee in late March. Encore earned their spot after an impressive second place finish at the Great Lakes quarterfinals, advancing as one of just 10 top groups in the region. While Encore didn't advance to the final round in New York
City, the singers left everything on the stage and made it an unforgettable performance. Congratulations. Lakeville students shine at the state HOSA leadership conference. 20 students from Lakeville North and 14 from Lakeville South HOSA future health
professionals chapters recently demonstrated their knowledge, leadership, and passion at the state leadership conference. The conference provided students with hands-on experience that build leadership and career ready skills while connecting with peers from across the state. HOSA
helps students explore health care pathways, develop professional skills, and prepare for future opportunities in high demand fields. Lakeville North esports team earns top finishes at the state tournament. Congratulations to the Lakeville North
esport team for taking home second place in the Minnesota Varsity League Winter State Tournament. Each Lakeville North team that participated in the tournament placed in the top four in their respective game. Congratulations. And in sports, the Cougars take the
court to state. Congratulations to the Lakeville South boys basketball team on an incredible season. The Cougars secured a section championship with a hard-fought 7671 victory over the Farmington Tigers and advanced to the state tournament
quarterfinals at Target Center. Congratulations. A Century Middle School student earns top honors for cancer research project. Century Middle School 7th grader Nam Doe has gained major recognition for an
innovative science research project focused on cancer treatment. His project uses machine learning to identify key biomarkers and dependencies for targeted focal adhesion kynise cancer therapies. At the state science and engineering
fair, he received the Dasaurin merit award given to just five middle school students for outstanding experimental design and strong application of the scientific method. Congratulations, Nam. It's exciting. Lakeville North students selected for
2026 electric cooperative youth tour. Congratulations, Alexandra Reigns, a sophomore at Lakeville North on being se selected by the Dakota Electric Association as one of five local high school students to participate in the 2026 Electric Cooperative Youth Tour.
This incredible opportunity will take her all the way to Washington DC this June to explore how government and electric cooperatives work together, meet with members of Congress, and connect with students from across the country. Congratulations, And we are very excited to share that we
have two appreciation weeks. Um the first one is student nutrition. The week of April 27th through May 1st is student nutrition appreciation week in Lakeville area schools. We're proud to celebrate the incredible staff who keep our students fueled and ready to learn each
day. From preparing nutritious meals to creating positive, welcoming cafeteria environments, their work supports both student well-being and a sense of community. Through their dedication and care, they play a vital role in helping every student succeed academically,
socially, civically, and personally. We're very lucky to have an amazing nutrition staff. So, thank you for your work. And lastly, we have Educator Appreciation Week coming up the week of May 4th through 8th. Next week, May 4th through the 8th is Educator Appreciation
Week in Lakeville Area Schools. We're proud to celebrate the extraordinary educators who make a lasting difference in the lives of our students every single day. Through their passion, dedication, and care, they inspire curiosity, build confidence, and open
doors to possibility. They create meaningful connections and engaging experience that shape not only what students learn, but who they become. Their impact reaches far beyond the classroom, helping prepare every student for academic, social, civic, and
personal success. So, we're excited to celebrate our teachers next week. And that concludes the good news. Great. Wonderful. Thank you. Um I have two things on board communications. one. Um, on behalf of all of us, all the board
members here, I just want to extend a thank you to the Lakeville City Council for inviting us last night for a joint meeting. Uh, we met um at Lakeville City Hall to discuss um the growing uh Lakeville community um and how that relates to student enrollment um
projection and building plans for our district. And so I think um I saw um it's been over a decade I think since the two bodies have have um gotten together for a joint meeting and so it was a a nice time to connect um to learn about each other's work but also build relationships. So um thanks to our board
for being there for an extra meeting as well. Um the other thing I wanted to just pro Oh, you want to clap? Okay, great. I agree. Um the other uh thing I want to um uh
mention on behalf of the board is uh at the end of our April meeting, we went into close session to do a superintendent evaluation of uh superintendent Bowman um as a mid-year evaluation. Um per state statute, um those are close session meetings, but
that we are um to kind of provide a summary of the things that we discussed with um Superintendent Bowman in that closed session. Um so at that um during that time there were three goal areas that we um reviewed with superintendent Bowman. Uh the first was around student
achievement including curriculum and instruction. The second was around finance and bud budget management and the third was around operations and resource management. Um overall the board is very pleased with Michael's leadership especially in his efforts to
create consistency throughout the entire system um in many areas including teaching and learning and co-curricular activities. We know that there's a long way to go still with that but um that um his leadership is is um uh moving in the right direction and kind of making sure
that every student within our community has the same uh relative experience no matter what school they attend. Um the board was also very pleased with the budget trajectory of our district. Um while there you probably see in the news there are many districts that are having to face budget cuts at this moment. Um
194's budget is stable and the fund balance has been brought to a to a level um that we are very comfortable with as we continue to work towards the 10% uh goal that the board set. Um, the board also noted that Michael excels at communication, especially with the board
and members of of the community and um, giving time for people to voice their their needs and and opinions about how to improve our system. Um and then the board had continued discussion about um identifying district needs and having
Michael with his team prioritize those needs and associated costs so that um as we can consider with a limited resource um environment um what are the things that um can help move the dial on on the number of goals that we we um discuss with him. So, um, we'll do another final
evaluation at the end of the academic year with Superintendent Bowman, but this is a check-in, um, for the board with him, and, um, that's a summary. Anything anybody would like to add to that or anything I missed? Okay. Um, great. Well, with that, we'll
move to approval of agenda. Um, is there a motion to approve? >> Make a motion to approve. >> Okay. Um, first, um, motion by Rekenberger, second by Carbone. Um, any discussion? All in favor of approving say I. I. >> I.
>> Any opposed. All right. Motion passes. 6. And with that, we'll move to public comment. Um I'll read the the information about public comment. We have two names tonight. Uh the board will open up the floor for 30 minutes to allow the public to address uh the board
with comments and concerns. To participate in public comment, individuals must have registered in advance using the form provided on the website by noon on the Monday before the scheduled public comment session. There will be no board response during the session. Public comments framed as
complaints and/or concerns about students and our staff are not appropriate in a public forum due to data privacy laws. These comments should be addressed to the administration outside of a public meeting. Likewise, complaints about schoolboard members should be privately directed to the
board chair and/or superintendent. No formal action will be taken on a topic presented during public comment. As necessary, the administration will follow up with the appropriate personnel and any concerns that need to be addressed individually. Also, if necessary, the board will follow up
during board communications at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Individual remarks are limited to three minutes. The board will provide a signal. Thank you, Kim. Do you have a signal? Great. No, that's fine. When the participant has 30 seconds remaining of their time, please try to keep audience
noise to a minimum to allow everyone the opportunity to speak uninterrupted. So, with that, um, I'll draw the first name. It is Jana um, Spanovich. Did I Did I get that right? >> Yeah. Okay. >> And friends. Yeah. Great.
>> And friends. Does this go low enough? Yes. >> Thank you, Kim. I am a short girl. Okay. Tell tell me when when to start to like tell me. >> Okay. Good evening. My name is Jana and I am a classroom teacher at Cherry View
Elementary. This past fall, several members of your team visited my third grade classroom. Hi to you. We are here to let you know that our elementary schools have a clear and immediate need for access tol
is a comprehensive K through2 digital learning platform that supports instruction in math language arts and more. It provides adaptive practice real-time data and alignment with state and district standards. Most importantly, it meets students exactly
where they are and helps them grow. While our current math curriculum lacks a digital component for individualized practice, IXL provides adaptive standards aligned supports that meet students again at their level and promotes measurable growth. I was delighted to learn that it even has
skill plans for our bridges math curriculum broken down into each specified unit. Woohoo. to to whoopl is already a district approved resource used in our middle schools and elementary schools are requesting access for both math and language arts. One of
EXL's greatest strengths is it its ability to support students with diverse backgrounds, languages, and learning needs. Its adaptive design allows for targeted differentiation, making it especially valuable in classrooms with a wide range of abilities. Lakeville is
seeing an increasing number of students with limited English proficiency and in some cases limited prior formal education. These students require immediate individualized support, something is well equipped to provide. From my personal experience this year,
access to EXL would have significantly improved my ability to support newly arrived multilingual learners. It would support immediate level appropriate engagement while eliminating the need for extensive paper-based materials, something that is neither sustainable
nor particularly popular with my personal principal. Additionally, students are expected to complete multiple digital assessments each year on the iPad, including fastbridge test, access test, KGAT test, CAPY test, MCA, Minnesota comprehensive
assessment tests, all on an iPad. Yet, we lack adequate tools to help them build these skills. IXL helps bridge that gap while also reducing the unsustainable reliance on paper-based materials. At an estimated cost of $5 to$10 per student annually, this is a
practical and impactful investment. While we understand the 2627 budget is set, we strongly encourage the district to explore alternative funding sources, grants, or PTOs to make this possible. Providing access to EXL is not just an enhancement. It is a necessary step to
ensure equity to support our teachers and improve student outcomes. Thank you for your time and consideration. >> Great. Thank you. >> Okay. And our second speaker is um Shalom Ewald. Did I get that right? >> Yes.
>> Okay, great. >> Come on up. >> Thank you. >> So, um I second that, but that's not mine. So, um, I come here as a school district employee and a volunteer coach for Girls on the Run after school program. Alongside four of my one of
them back there colleagues, we stay after school twice a week for eight weeks and lead this program for our students. Girls on the Run uses an experienced curriculum, excuse me, an experience-based curriculum that integrates running while building physical, emotional, and social skills
in students grade three through five. program is intentionally inclusive and welcomes all third through fifth grade participants regardless of income, regardless of who they are. Everyone can be included. I respectfully ask for you to consider waving facility usage fees
for this program. There are sever there are several reasons why I request this. First, mission alignment. Girls on the Run and District 194 are very similar in this. Girls on the Run directly supports the district's strategic goals around social, civic, and personal readiness.
Its curriculum reinforces the same exact social, emotional learning outcomes that our schools always prioritize. Two, market comparison because we always have to compare ourselves to others, finances, student achievement, everything. Here it is. Neighboring
districts 191 of Burnsville and Rosemont, Apple Valley Egan, 196 charge zero fees. none at all for the programs that run in over 12 schools in those districts. In fact, many schools throughout Minnesota wave these fees to ensure accessibilities to all of the
families that want to participate. Number three, equitable access. Girls on the Run operates pay what you can model, ensuring that no students turned away due to financial hardship. Facility fees create an added burden and may limit the number of students who can participate.
Notably, the fees paid by my school, Christina Huddleston, and Oak Hills alone would be enough to fund the participation of approximately eight students who might not otherwise be able to have access to this program. Four, community partnership. This program is
delivered at zero cost to the district and the school or the school and it's staffed entirely by volunteers, many of whom whom are district employees, demonstrating a strong commitment to students way beyond the school day.
Waving these fees would be a meaningful way for Lakeville area schools to demonstrate its commitment to being both community connected and student focused. And most importantly, it would directly support the growth and well-being of students at Christina Huddleston and
across the district. Today, someone asked me why I was coming to school board. I said, "It's because we get charged for girls on the run." And they said, "Well, that's crazy." I said, "There's an opportunity cost to everything. I chose to be in politer. That was my opportunity cost. I ask you to look at your opportunity cost and
choose to make that available." That's it. And thank you. Well, thank you. That concludes uh public comment for tonight. Um we'll move to um consideration of the consent agenda. Um items in the consent agenda
tonight include board minutes from our March 24th and April 14th meetings. Uh B, employment recommendations including leaves and resignations, payments of bills and claims, wire transfers and investments. a resolution
regarding acceptance of gift donations, approval of extended field trips, an update to the 2025 calendar, uh, which, um, changes one day for secondary students, I believe. Is that correct? Okay. >> For high school. Um and then um prior
discussion at our work session uh what is being presented for policy updates in the consent agenda are all of the um policies from the MSB a MSBA audit that um had technical updates only um no um
no substance uh changes for any of the policies listed. So with that um is there any item that any board member um is interested in discussing more um and and pulling from the consent agenda.
>> Can I make a motion to approve the consent agenda? >> Motion to approve. Is there a second? >> I'll second it. >> Okay. Any discussion? Uh Brian? Yeah, there are, I think, 25ish or so policies that are that are going through a technical update. So,
what I've read was a lot of the changes were just removing the board of education and replacing it with school board. And so, I think that the red lines are pretty clear with what what changed and what didn't change. Uh, but what I did notice that there were a lot of policies that had notes inside. Uh,
and there's a lot of policies that uh refer to the model policy to MSBA. And so are those going to be removed from the final version and and will they be up updated uh to reference Lakeville policies so that a community member
would be like well I don't have access to MSBA like how do I get this model policy right thanks for that question and Brenda if you want to come up you're welcome but my understanding is that all notes are getting removed correct and then I'm looking at Brenda I'm not trying to bypass your um and that yes
anytime um it was cross referenced with an MSBA BA policy, we need to change that to 194 um and ensure that it's not just matching numbers, but ensure that the topic is matched correctly. So that that will be done right before publication.
>> Okay, Brena is saying yes. Shaking her head. Yes. Yeah. Any other discussion? Okay. All in Oh, go ahead, Brian. And and while these are technical updates, u I do think that we we
probably need to establish a cadence and we did talk about that at at the working session to kind of talk through this. There's a lot of policies in here that might need another lens. And so when we make updates uh to the respective policy, do we have clear designation in each policy that says the latest update
was X date and it was a technical update. It was not an official board review. It is not official whatever. There may be instances where a um a community member will say, "Well, this this whole policy was reviewed on and approved on April 28th." So, everything
in there must be accurate, which it is because that's what it is in there. But it I just want to make sure that we're mindful that when we make edits to the document, we're clearly articulating a technical update, but the board of education did not do a full review on
the policy itself. Does that make sense? >> Yes. >> Is there Carly? >> I don't know that we're I I don't want to speak for the whole board. I don't know that we intended to put like clarify that on the policy specifically.
I think when we met for our work session just to update the public who maybe weren't con connected to that. Um, we had an expert from MSBA come and talk about where we are with our policy and it is very clear that we're outdated and putting our um, legal team and our HR
team at risk with where we are. And so this is kind of a cursory review of a lot of policies to make sure we're up to date with statute and other things we need to be in compliance with. and then we go back and we take an approach of how we're going to more comprehensively
look at each series. Um, so I don't I don't know that we would have on you know how it says updated this date. >> I don't know that we're going to add technical up. We can talk about that as a board. I don't know that we would want to do that versus let's get all of our ducks in a row and then tackle it from a
okay, we're going to look at the 200 series or 500 series from there. I don't know how other people feel. Other thoughts, Brian? >> Yeah. Uh, I'm not opposed to the updates itself. I think what I want to be mindful of is that how does this look to
uh to the public where if they go to the website, they see that was the that the policy was updated on 428. And I think when I joined 3 years ago, we were looking at policies that weren't even touched until like 2013. They were like 10 years old or something like
that. And so maybe those policies were touched and revised, but the actual policy revision date wasn't updated. I don't know. That's a separate conversation. What I'm trying to get to is that if we show that this policy was updated on April 26th, uh will a
consumer I'm sorry, would a stakeholder view that as oh the board looked at it, the board approved it. They agree they they agree that everything is what they uh what I'm trying to get to is I don't want to put my name on these policies because we didn't have any discussions
on them. So if you want to put that there were uh a technical update on April 28th and then a full update wasn't reviewed by the board. Uh the previous full update by the board was four years ago. You know there there needs to be a
differentiation if that's what I'm trying to get to >> for you personally. For me personally, I mean because I like then because if that's the case then I'm going to say no to all of this because I didn't we didn't review we didn't discuss any of these topics and and so I'm putting my name on that. So that's there that's
where I want to be mindful of. >> Brenda, you want to >> Yeah. T typically um technical updates of this nature would not be uh listed on the policy as reviewed or revised on X date uh because the board isn't reviewing the policy. We're just
approving some technical updates which are typically school board or an update to a statute number, something like that. So nothing like that would be changed on the policy that's posted on the website. It would just be the red lines taking the notes out. That's it.
>> So Brenda, your recommendation is we would retain the previous approved date, whatever that is. >> Yes. Correct. What? What? So then, so then how do we know if someone looked at it and said that that that the school board was changed today vers and and all the
references were updated today? Because if they look at that policy and if the policy states that the last revision was in 2013, I the next school board member would come in like oh these these haven't been touched since 26 2013 like that. You know what I mean? So there has to be
some sort of version history is but we don't have that is what I'm hearing. >> Uh well >> does that make sense? Does anyone tracking >> I get what you're saying. >> It would be in the agenda, the board agenda, the board minutes. Um it would be referenced there. Um >> but on the policy
>> not not in the policy, but it's not I don't is it is it necessary? >> I I don't know. You guys tell me. I mean, if if if I looked if I was a new board member and looked at the policy date and said 2013 and and and hasn't been reviewed, I would assume that no
one's touched it, no one has looked at it, no content has been updated, no references has been updated. But if we're doing it now and we're not documenting it anywhere on the policy itself, then someone will say, "Well, you guys you guys haven't touched this this stuff for 10 years."
>> Does that make sense? >> Yeah. Tech Oh, sorry. >> Kim and then Paul. Sorry, I'm getting used to which which is on and which is off. Um, I get what you're saying, Brian, but technically we haven't updated the policy. So, what you're saying is essentially correct. It
hasn't been looked at since 2013 because it hasn't been reviewed. So, this is just a language update switching school board for or education for school board. So, um, yeah, I'm fine with it staying that way because we haven't reviewed it. So then as a new board member coming in,
you would know that that policy still needs to be reviewed because it has been reviewed, >> right? >> Yeah. Paul. >> Yeah. And and I think that um I want to go back to something that Carly said because when we were at the work session, one of the things that we all
acknowledged was that we're putting HR at risk and and some other areas at risk and we wanted to move that along so that you're you're you weren't vulnerable. And that was part of the reason that we're doing a list like this and just mass mass approving it. Um, you know,
one of the things I know we also talked about was no matter what we do, any board member or multiple board members can pull a policy and say, I I don't think this is good. We need to sit down and revisit it. So there's always that
ability to do that, of course. So again, I want to come back to I don't think it would be responsible if we made HR and some other areas vulnerable to um I'll just leave it at that. >> I think it would be helpful and maybe
this is a work session discussion of how to document these things beyond this. But I think to your point, Brian, it would be helpful to put even if a even if a like let's say we're going to well tonight we're going to talk about other policies, right? and
let's say we decide to change nothing. I think it would still be a good idea to put um reviewed on X date by the board so that the community knows that if we get in this three-year cycle, right, of reviewing all of our policies that it's
clear that we are holding true to that and reviewing them as part of our cycle. And so maybe we need to think about how we how we address that. But I'm in agreement that we're not we're not reviewing these. We're just updating them for tech, right? So perhaps the
date shouldn't change yet, but when we get to them, it could. >> Agreed. But but we're making changes to the policy whether you agree with it or not agree with it. And and and so there are certain levels of those changes. And there's a little bit of governance controls that we need to have in place. And so I know we don't have the definitions aligned. I'm okay approving
this if we can add it to a working session to say what would be those uh change control designations like a technical update or it was brought to the board nothing changed or major revisions or something of that nature.
But but but it it has to have some sort of of of versioning history cuz we're about to make changes and if we don't have it listed anywhere that we changed it then it just looks >> like we haven't listing specifically for the public like we could keep an internal list of course but you were
saying publicly >> for the public too. Yes. >> Carly and then Paul. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that when um Terry was with us, Terry Marorrow from MSBA, I feel like he provided a very good document for us in terms of where we were and the color coding. And so, I can
see us developing something internally that documents all of that in terms of where we are. Um, I'm not necessarily opposed to creating something that is public facing as well if we think that the public would be interested in such a document. So, I think it's super
important to follow internally. Um, so we make sure we're doing our proper cycling. Um, we could, like you're saying, why don't we in our next work session talk about like how we're going to be communicating that to the public?
>> Yeah. And Brenda, is there a spot on the on the website or wherever might be appropriate to Brian's point where uh we could put on on uh you know, April 28th and list the the policy numbers all of
these were technically changed or whatever Brian is saying here. Is is it can we just do like a like an asterisk type of thing as opposed to putting something in each in each um policy or is that >> I kind of I kind of see like a grid like
a visual grid where we could cuz Terry did a good job kind of like like we're saying kind of color coding. We could just have something that kind of more states these were reviewed by the board versus these were technical edits on such such a >> but I don't think we put them on our
policy in our listed policies >> and I think that's that's the discussion. Do we put it >> do we put it on 25 30 each policy or do we or do we just have a blanket statement that says policy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 had this on this date? I mean, can I jump in? Is that okay? >> Um, I think you were going to say more, but I mean, to Brian's point, I think we are figuring out how to get back in alignment with with a consistent process
right here with policy. So, I don't I mean, Brian, to your point, I don't think it would be it would be harmful to put this to put April 28th technical edits only. >> I don't think so either. And so I mean we're going to be going in and updating
every PDF or whatever is however it's posted on the website. It's probably not PDF. So to add this I don't think would be a tremendous amount of work. >> But I think it would be easier I think it would be if we're looking at public monitoring of things. I think it
would be easier to have something that shows our cadence of things online as opposed to us having to search individual documents for technical edits. So instead of it's on a policy under the policies, just have a table that lists the policies and when they
were technically updated, >> right? >> So So when you go to the Lakeville website right now and you look at a policy, it it has two designations. The date that it was adopted and the date that it was revised and that's it. And so we got two different pathways. Uh I
think uh Director Breaker said that leave the revised date as is and don't touch it. Well, we're making revisions and so that data is wrong. And so I get that the board hasn't reviewed it. Uh and so it's an indication that we should go back and go look at it. But if we're making updates to references, changing
board of education to school board and other miscellaneous things like that, you've made an update to the policy. And so it was revised. But those are the two designations adopted and revised. uh revise. How again I I would view that as if I was a community member, I would view review that as the board looked at
this document. They agree 100% with everything in it. They've discussed about it. They revised it on April 28th and they agree with everything that's in it. That's that's how I would look at it because they're not going to know the difference between what we're doing and what revised means on the policy uh
document itself. So I I I would uh I would propose that if all these uh documents that we're doing technical updates that we do say leave leave adopted, leave revised and then we can say revi technical revise April 28th,
2026. So, a method potentially that I know I think I believe the legislature uses, correct me if I'm wrong, but they list their updates at the end of the policy and anytime something is revised, they they include the date that by which it happened. So, you know, we have it at
the top of the policy, which I think as a header, you don't want it to become this giant thing before you can actually get to the policy. But what if we what if >> Well, I don't fine at the bottom. I that I'm okay with that. Yeah, my idea is like what if instead of we moved it to a footer where we had the history of any
time the policy was reviewed and or edited, we we retain a record of that, >> which I think is what you're getting to. >> Yeah, because I think MSBA has that on their website. So when you go look at policies at MSBA's uh website, you'll
see any updates that they have and you'll see the red line version and then the previous year's version to that. And so then so what I'm hearing then if you go down that path and now we're going to solutioning and we should probably if she if Brenda wants to sit down she probably can. >> Yeah. Brenda what do you think about
>> about sitting down? >> Well no about about the idea of like >> no no she can sit down. She wants what I'm saying but um >> just one will you wait one second >> I don't I don't want like we shouldn't have two policies listed. Uh like if if
the 2011 policy someone clicks on it. Yes. But if from what I'm hearing you uh correctly is that you want the 2011 original policy that the the most recent one that was approved and then in addition to that the previous policy that was after. So a policy that might be two pages is actually not four pages
because it's showing the revision history. >> No no what I'm saying is we have our current policy published y just like they are. >> Move the move our content that's in the header which is more succinct of when it was adopted and revised >> to list that in here. >> What? it doesn't listen that as a
policy. >> It depends on what policy you're on. If you're on like 101, it has that. >> There are policies that have that at the end versus the header. >> So maybe we just need to create a consistent method whereby any revision or review is documented,
but only the current version is published. Yes, but but we but we need to label it correctly. That's what I'm trying to get to. Okay. >> That would be part of this. >> It's just a technical update. The board didn't re didn't do a full assessment. didn't didn't do a full review. >> We wouldn't have a full paragraph, but it would just say technical.
>> I I think you guys are on the same page. >> Yes. Okay. >> So, as long as that happens, we have a we we make consistent the way that we're recording that the times the board has reviewed or edited. >> Yes. >> Which we can talk about at the work
session exactly how it could look. >> Are you comfortable moving forward? >> No. until then because we may not have that meeting and then are we going to go retro and we're going to come back to these meetings and get these updated and saying that the these were technical updates because I'm not going to vote yes if we're not going to have
>> Can I make an amendment to the motion? >> Sure. Um, so I'd like to make an amendment to the motion whereby we're approving the consent agenda and we are creating for every policy in um, starting with the ones approving in the
consent agenda a documentation in a footer of the dates by which the policy was approved and any time it was revised or reviewed by the board with the appropriate notation on what happened. So in this case, these would be listed
as technical edits on April 28th. >> Okay. >> Is that >> then? I'll second that. >> Okay. Second that. Okay. Um so first and a second on the >> Can you do that during >> amended a motion? What >> can we do that during consent agendas? I don't know if you can or not.
>> Yeah, sure. All right. >> Um any discussion on that amendment? >> No. >> Okay. Carly, >> I guess my only question is like if are we the only people doing this in terms of getting to this level of granular
detail and that's the only thing I ask the board. But it's time to be effective with all of this. So this is the way forward then this is the way forward. But I >> they literally copy and paste and put it on the bottom of the policy revision word document. Like >> Kim,
>> I guess my only question would be if we have the work session and make a different decision as far as what this looks like. Maybe a majority of the board says they want to do um a table like what are we going to do then if
we've already voted on this because we said we are going to discuss it at a work session. I think we're kind of putting the cart before the horse. >> I think my personal feeling is that we could have this documentation on the individual policies and then also to your earlier point and and now yours
having a table that explains to the public when we're going to be reviewing which policies like the cycle. >> But I mean, yes, we needed to discuss that more in work session, Paul. >> Right. And and if something different did come out of the work session, we can always bring it back here for a vote and
and make the the adjustment. So I'm I'm not concerned about that. >> Yeah. >> I again I think we we we do need to move some of these forward. >> Did you did you have your hand up? No. >> Any other discussion? >> Okay. Um hearing none with the first and
second. First we need to vote on the amendment. So, this would be basically changing the header to the footer with more detail. All in favor of that um say I. >> I. >> I. >> Any opposed? Okay. Um the amendment passes. Um so,
going back to the original motion to approve the consent agenda um with the with the approved amendment um was already first and second. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none. Um all in favor of approving the consent agenda uh say I. >> I.
>> I. Any um uh nays. All right. Um motion passes 6. >> All right. Um with that we will move to the district reports and discussion. So I'm excited to invite up our um high school team um principal Booty,
Principal um Murphy, and um Principal Gore. Gar, sorry, G. All right, board chairman Cameron, assistant princ uh assistant superintendent McDonald and members of the board. We're really excited to be here as we were introduced. I am Kim Body. I'm the principal at Lakeville
North. >> Sean Murphy, principal Lakeville South. >> Margaret Gar, principal of alternative programs. >> We are um Do we do this? Do we run this? There we go. All right. We are we are
all all moving now. Uh we are grateful to be the culmination of many years of school experiences for the students in Lakeville. Principal Booty, can I interject one real quick? Can we hold questions of the board until the end of the presentation just because sometimes we get you got to get to things that we
ask questions about. So if we can just have that as our practice. >> Sean, are you okay with that? >> Is that okay with that? >> Okay, I think we're good. Yeah, >> I'm okay with that. >> Um I will start again. We are grateful to be the culmination of many years of school experiences for the students of
Lakeville. We want to acknowledge the through the help of all teachers, staff, and administration, preK through 12, that we are able to celebrate the journey through graduation. It is important for us to be seen as not the ending point in a student's life journey, but the connection between
their school career and their students future. We like to say that high school is the time of life where we help students turn their passions into professions. While the journey includes many chapters of growth in academics, we feel our work is just as meaningful in
teaching, problem solving, communication, health and wellness, and future readiness. These lessons come through many classrooms, stages, fields, hallways, lunchrooms, and afterchool experiences. We'd like to share with you just a little bit what we um our
students have to say about what they've learned in high school. I would say the hardest thing I've learned in high school in general is just how to manage my time. I'm a three sport varsity athlete for the majority of my high school career. I take a lot of APs. I am a good student. I try hard
to get good grades. Balancing sports, sleep, nutrition, friends, family. It's a hard struggle, but I'm like proud to say that I think I have done my best in high school and I think I've really mastered it and I think that's a really important skill that I'll carry with me
to college, too. The hardest thing I learned this year, I don't know the specific name for it, but it was in my calc class. It's like there's this one sort of problem, but there was like 20 different ways to solve it. I like couldn't figure out how to do it for the life of me. But thankfully, my teacher,
he doesn't care how far behind you are. He's always like open to give you a helping hand. >> I think the hardest thing I've learned this year is how to connect with my teachers. I finally got it by like talking to my teachers and realizing that they're humans like us. Also, I realized that it's really important to have that connection cuz it helps you a
lot. And I just think that it really improved my like academic experience and it made me enjoy school a lot more. >> Honestly, all of the teachers really do a good job. Like they're always smiling. They're always happy. But like one of them, for example, is the AP bio
teacher. She's always like willing to laugh at our jokes, always willing to smile, and always just being a great person. But this is also just almost every single teacher at this school. Also, I would say my math teacher, Mr. Pearson. He's really helpful like going in before or after school like for math
help especially cuz math is really hard. Um and Miss Roth and all my friends are really just like encouraging. Security named Peter. He always has a smile on his face and greets me every morning when I come in for early morning chats and he always just makes me smile.
Picturing the person I walked in here as compared to personal is different. And I think the staff is that big part of all of that. >> For me as a ninth grader, I was pretty in my shell. I didn't socialize as much,
but after the course of these four years, I've learned how to come out and be myself and have fun all the time. >> Not only dedicated to like making a change and dedicated to like our students and the staff and everything. We are proud. We are a strong community.
I think that we have a really good pride and we just really are like a group of people here that really want to see each other improve and do the best we can. >> I feel like a parent right now. I'm so proud of those kids. All of those kids. All those schools are great. Uh we want
to just give you an overview of our uh enrollment and demographics. As you can see, the total enrollment continues to grow at our high schools. As we become more diverse, we celebrate the growth and learning that happens in our buildings. We continue to focus on how to responsibly use our spaces. However,
we are beginning to run out of room and our sites do need modernization. We'll talk about that at the end of this presentation. My turn. My turn. One of our greatest additional supports to our schools has been the addition of counselors. We have
constant interactions with our counseling team between admin, staff, and students. The bridge uh the the bridge they gap in many ways that is something that we didn't have before. At the time of gathering this information, the counseling offices had over 3,000
scheduled appointments since the start of the school year. And as you can see by the chart on this graph, over 58% of the scheduled appointments are for academic support in our building. These appointments do not count the drop-ins, the career center, our career lunch table visits, the hallway interactions
that occur over the course of an entire day. Since following the state of the high school presentation, we'll be reporting in more detail about our counseling team, we will continue our conversation then. >> All right. We have been very busy uh since the last time we had did this
presentation last year um to ensure that we have a guaranteed and viable curriculum across all three of our buildings uh LOA Pathways Lakeville North and Lakeville South. So as you can see um this year we dedicated five full staff development days for curriculum
alignment across all the high schools. Uh so we worked together as a team. We came to one building five times and we mapped out a scope and sequence for all of our courses. So all of our students in Lake Valeria public schools are learning the same thing as they go from
each course. Next year we will work together to create common assessments for each unit of study in the high school. We did one this year and next year we plan to to make uh common assessments for each unit of study um across our high schools. Year three, we
will be in full PLC implementation mode to examine data from those common assessments and have meaningful uh professional discussions on how we can improve. We talked about bar last year as well. Um so we have an update for you. Um we told you we'd bring you some data and we
brought you some data. So as we complete year two of bar implementation for our nth grade students, we have some very positive data to show you on the screen here. So, what we know, um, nationally, students who pass all their classes in 9th grade are four times more likely to
graduate on time than those who fail one or more courses. So, we really targeted our nth grade students with the bar program. As you can see from our failure rates, our nth grade students have the lowest percentage of failure rates in our buildings, which is very impressive because that's not typically the case as
students adjust to high school. Typically, 9th grade can be the most common year that students fill courses. I believe that bar uh is the main reason for this. All of our students in Lake Valaria public schools benefit from BAR. So, every student is put into a bar team with a group of teachers, counselors,
and administrators who talk about them weekly and intervene when needed to ensure they are successful. Students feel connected to the school because of this. Typically, um you know, we're seeing high results in our freshmen also with attendance. You can see there with
attendance rates uh it's it's the best out of all four grade levels. That is very important uh because there's a direct correlation between attendance and passing your classes. Um finally, you can see the major behaviors there. Um they are the highest, but that's typical. We do expect as students age
that they mature and display fewer behaviors. So that's not atypical. Um that they are the highest, but it's not by much. Um so they're they're behaving well as well. So, we're getting a lot of uh a lot of results out of our our bar program.
We do have a sneak peek. Uh I don't know if you've seen these results yet, but they're very positive, and that's a testament to everybody in this room. I believe the school board, our superintendent, um our our teachers, our support staff, our administrators. We're seeing a lot of good results from our daily desired experiences. Lakeville
really is an amazing place to be. Um and and and the results show that. Um you can see um as our attendance uh especially with link crew we talked about link crew last year as well but making uh freshmen feel connected to our buildings is extremely important and you
can see the last 3 years it's steadily increased and their sense of belonging to our buildings which is very important to us. We want them to feel like they belong. We want them to feel like they have classes that are relevant and engaging. Uh and we also want them to be able to explore their interests and and
we're seeing those results. So, we're going to show you more of those results later, but that's a sneak peek. >> I'm here to celebrate this slide with you. This is our graduation rate and our credit recovery groups. As you can see in the chart to the left, main chart
here, um, all of our subcategories for our graduation rates have gone up for the 25 school year in every category. This is this is amazing for all of our students. I believe that counselors, the bar program link, every piece that we've put in place and systematically put in
place slowly increases those graduation rates. Off to the right, you see um our four little boxes there. Those are our graduation numbers for each building and myself. So that total number is 937. That's how many students walked across
stages, received diplomas, and really got to celebrate their journey. K12 high school is just the end of it. Their whole journey is 13 years. Down in the bottom right hand corner, you're going to see the credit recovery. That's kind of my baby there. Um, over the summer,
we completed 400 or 245 courses. That means those students completed those courses, got back on track for graduation. Those are core classes, science, math, all the ones that are absolutely necessary in their building blocks. during the school year. Currently, when this presentation was
put together, there were 130 school uh students or credits recovered, sorry, credits and classes recovered um throughout the school year. These are students who are taking full course loads at either of these buildings and then they're coming after school a couple of times a week to work on these
classes and advance forward, get on track for graduation, and be on time with their classes. Um we see them, they love our credit recovery. Our counselors actually have stopped in after school. They make and those are those stopins that you don't know about, but they've
made it a priority to connect with the students and actually get them there so they complete their their materials. One of the areas we talked about last year was concurrent enrollment. We want to give you an update of some of the action steps that we took this year uh to pursue that um goal of concurrent
enrollment. uh we have spent the the year exploring different programs that would support our growth of concurrent enrollment in our schools. We've looked at college in the schools which is offered through the University of Minnesota as well as other concurrent enro enrollment programs offered by the
Minscu system. Our highest priority is to select programs that will allow our teachers to be accredited through the college system and support our student needs of support by staying on our school campuses. We are intending to offer transferable curriculum, which is entry- level courses in subject areas
that NASEP, which is the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships, has aligned to and is honored within the state of Minnesota. We are continuing our work to find fiscally responsible and academically appealing courses for programming, and it is our hope that we will be presenting these courses in the fall to
be included in our 2728 program of studies. All right. Future needs. Yeah. Uh we know that the bubble, which is currently in fourth grade, will be headed our way in just 5 years. And just
as the elementary schools have put a little additional pressure on the space in our middle schools right now, the high schools will be facing that same pressure in 2030. So, we are already future planning and visioning for what a destination high school looks like. We
are looking at our spaces and up updated needs within our schools. Um, it's important to know that our classrooms were never meant to have the numbers of students that we do have in our classrooms. They were never built for the number. Um, our furniture needs to be updated. We currently have, at least in my building, um, furniture that on
the bottom is labeled Kenwood and that is when the high school was at Kenwood. So, we have made really good use of that furniture. We've given it a really long life, but we're also having students who sit in desks and they start to cave because the uh the welding just is it's
done. Um, and then we would like to make a a really good effort of looking at our trades and professional programming in our high schools and we know that they need to be updated to be current with the the job market. So, we are already planning what the future of our high schools look like so that when we come
to you in the future, our plans will be carefully considered and researched. I get the personnel slide. Um, one of the requests or what we see is I see as a need is an assistant principal or an administrator with LOA and LPA.
Currently my numbers um and I run these out of el uh out of Kenwood out of the basement, but we have about 181 students to date with after school, summer school, and my LPA program. The um
Pathways program right now holds about 80 students, but they're all students that qualify under the graduation incentives act, which means they're students of need. Most of these things are they're not just one-offs. they are consistent pieces in their lives that
demand attention because otherwise they won't function in school. Um also LOA we when we merged we have the Lakeville online currently I have about 1,68 students full and part-time that we've provided service for this year. They're
not all currently enrolled. They might take a class first semester but not second semester. But all the tracking, all of the pieces that go with that to make sure that we are on track for graduation, it doesn't matter if they're full-time or part-time, we still have to do that along with the PSO. Uh
coordination of outside agencies, which could mean hospitalizations or any of those pieces that go along with it. Then there's the intervention support for literacy and math. The high schools currently do not have a dedicated staff to um implement our interventions that
are needed for our students. Many students have a skill that could be a building skill that that's all they need. If we can supplement and build that skill back up, they will then in turn be able to scaffold that up moving forward in the curriculum and be successful. This should in theory um
decrease the number of special ed referrals because we've tackled that skill and made our students successful in the process. These interventions are structured and involve progress monitoring so that we can see they're actually doing something for our students. And then the final one is a districtwide registar. The number of
students that are coming into our district and when they move in and out to be able to focus on this, I see it at the high school level. We have PSO transcripts that come in. We have transcripts that come in from all over the world. And part of it is having to
interpret those transcripts, post them on our transcript so they make sense and process that pay paperwork through. Currently it runs through our administration and our counselors. Um for me it just runs through my office. All right. Um some system needs the top
two structured interventions in reading and math uh are very important that we have identified as a need. uh and also the continuation of the bar programming. Um all that can be made um a lot easier if we have flexible scheduling. Uh you
heard me last year pound that drum pretty hard about flexible scheduling. I've been in Lakeville going on almost 25 years now and it's it's something that I'll continue to preach and until I'm here. Uh my daughter graduated from Lakeville South last year as many you were witness to. Uh and she was one of
those students that had a world language and was in in music. She was in choir. Uh so if you have that as a student, you don't have any elective opportunities till your junior senior year. Well, that really uh handcuffs you when you're trying to explore college and career readiness at the high school level. Um
and so talking to my colleague over at Prior Lake High School who was experiencing some budget cuts and they're going to a sixth period day. He's like, "Ah, have you guys done it for so long?" And I you know for us it's just you know we've always done it this way but we've come up with some creative ideas such as academic seminar and then
we move to advisory and now we have some win time. So we try and embed some time during that six period day but it's not enough time uh to creatively explore for students and to get the interventions that they need. So um we're really really going to ask you you know to
explore this in the future because it would benefit all students. It benefits students who who participate in after school activities uh with minimal time to study or complete work. Obviously, students who are struggling and fall behind uh if they're struggling in math, say they have math in the beginning of the day, they could have a structured
study hall later for math at the end of the day. So, we could do some interventions. Um and it really helps uh students turn passions into professions by exploring electives. So, uh finally, you heard about infrastructure. Um, our buildings are getting older even south.
We're 20 years old now. And once, you know, if you're a homeowner, you know, uh, 20 years things start, you know, crumbling uh, and expenses start occurring. Kim talked about furniture. We also have needs for special ed program spacing. Uh, we're really packed to the gills there and and we need
larger spaces for our activities as well. And our cafeterias are are bulging at the seams as well. And of course, IT needs and spaces. So, we're going to be exploring that with you in in the years to come. Uh, we know we're getting a an influx of students coming our way and so
we're going to be as creative as as we possibly can and and look at what other districts are doing and how to maximize our resources. In conclusion, we are incredibly proud of our students and our staff in our schools. Uh we sometimes reflect that while the world gives teenagers a lot of
side glances, we proudly look to the future and the future of our world in our students. We do not look at it with concern. We see the best and the brightest in professions that haven't even been dreamed of yet. We are grateful for this opportunity to share with you a small look into our daily
practices and systems. And we look forward to sharing with you again in the future as we never tire about talking about how ho how proud of our students and staff we are. Great. Well, thank you so much for that presentation. Like to open it now for discussion with all of you and
questions. Paul? >> Yeah, please. Thank you. Um, last year the board had a number of discussions on curriculum alignment and and common assessments. So, I'm really glad to see that you focused on it and that you literally have deadlines that that
you've given yourself. I think that's terrific. Um I did have a question about the ninth graders and failing one or more course courses. Uh it was just just not quite 7% of kids were failing one or
more. My question is how many are failing multiple and is there a specific class or classes that seem to be the ones that people are failing or is it just random across the board? I don't know that we can give a straight
answer on that one without having the data in front of us. I mean, I do think >> we often see students who struggled in middle school in a particular class will struggle that first year coming in. So, if it was if they struggled in math,
they might struggle as well in um math their freshman year. I don't know that. I mean, I think the core classes are always hard because the rigor is is upped, right? So, it's that transition into high school. Um, and that is why
we've really focused on our core teachers being those bar leaders to really bring students forward to have discussions and help them make that transition uh to notice what's going well, what isn't going well, and how we can support them as we work through that.
>> Okay. And then the second question I had was um with America 250, you know, Declaration of Independence this July and I know seniors everybody's going to be out of school, but are the high schools doing anything special in regards to focusing on the, you know,
the founding documents, the declaration, the constitution, um civic citizenship, anything to sort of uh celebrate that with the country? >> Um Tracy, where are you? Sandy
No, I fully anticipate that yes, there will be some some of our social studies getting together. They do that anyways every year. Uh they do a great job of uh of covering that. And anytime there's a significant milestone in our country, right? Uh we make it a point as a district um to really emphasize on that
and our our teachers will be probably working with teaching and learning and they usually do a great job of providing us lessons and some history and some context for our teachers to to give to our students. >> Good. Thank you, >> Kim. So, I have several points I want to make
real quick. Um first of all, we have an online school program within Oatana schools as well. And I know the amount of work that it takes to keep that running, it's it's no simple task because you have kids that are moving in and out of that program all the time. So every time an end of the quarter comes,
I'm like, "Oh god, starting again." And they come. So I understand like that's a lot of kids and a lot of movement and a lot of paperwork that happens with that. Um, number two, like one of the things that I noticed when I was watching your presentation and listening to you speak,
um, was that the ALC campus wasn't included in the need. Um, I think that that that should be added. That's something I continue to advocate for. It was never supposed to be a place where those, not those students, but our students stayed. Um, and I'm hoping that in this next phase when we think about
expanding the high schools or what that can look like and adding those technical programs that it will include some type of program or plan for our ALC campus as well. Um, last question for all three of you. Um, something the board has discussed in great detail is interventions at all levels um,
elementary as well as um, middle school and high school. So, are there interventions that you have investigated as a team that you feel um would be beneficial to your students? Do you have suggestions along with the flexible scheduling? Because I I'm going to say
it so you can continue to hear that flexible scheduling is in included in the intervention process there. So, just curious to what your thoughts are and what work you've done with your teams. >> Yeah. Well, you kind of nailed it there. The teachers are the the primary resource. So reteing and having time in
the day to do that is critical. Um you heard about we've utilized that program in math programs such as that when you can leverage technology um for students to to get retaught information that they missed um is crucial as well. So but just time in the schedule, flexible
scheduling uh having students be able to have time to to do this because many students maybe don't necessarily have time to do this after school. Maybe they're babysitting a sibling. maybe they have a job uh that doesn't provide for this and so time during the school that we found to be the most impactful
especially with our experts or educators. >> Carly. >> Okay. So, I have a couple questions. Um one I want to clarify for the public flexible scheduling and maybe for myself means the 7-hour day that we keep coming back to, correct?
>> Yeah. >> Okay. or or another model just to investigate >> something that offers more time >> yes >> cool all right so I want to say I'm so excited to see the bar data um and I do have a question I have two questions one
about bar and um then I'll remember my other one but with regard to bar I know we've talked about would it be helpful to be extending bar so I know you're or do you feel that bar is really for that entry and transition And I know in an
ideal world maybe you would have it at all levels but are you feeling you need anything beyond 9th grade at this point? >> Um some schools have experimented with doing it in 10th grade. It it gets more difficult to do because of scheduling uh because ideally the teachers in the bar
team have at least 80% of the students that they share. And so as you get in the older grade levels it becomes more difficult. What we've seen districts do is go downward um into lower levels like middle school. Um um and so you'll you'll see that that's really effective
at those lower levels. So we have talked about it with our bar coach, both Kim and I. Um and right now it's uh we do believe obviously with the freshman year getting them connected and having teachers make those personal connections with students really is beneficial, but
it's not something that you know we haven't looked at, but it's just right now it's you know not in the cards for us. So expanding it. >> Okay. And then the one other question I have, I'm very excited to see you guys um exploring the concurrent enrollment that many of us have been asking about.
Um is there I guess when you're talking about fall exploration or fall discussion of what's going to be on the next year's curriculum potentially, is there a need from the district in terms of preparing teachers or have you explored that there's already teachers
who are qualified to do this? that is part of our our exploration process because teachers must have a master's degree and then additional 18 credits in content. And so what we're finding is there are programs where you can get
that 18 credits at a reduced rate. And we just found a program that actually provides as long as your teachers are committed to following through on the concurrent enrollment. Um they will give you a grace window and help do the training over a course of a a year. Um,
so we're hoping that having it not be an expense on top of the teachers backs will help us recruit and retain some great teachers that would give that concurrent enrollment uh the accreditation it needs in order for us to actually teach those concurrent courses and to um ensure that we can
continue to grow in a way that is logical and and makes a lot of sense for our students. >> Thank you, Matt. >> Uh, thank you. I have a couple questions on a couple different subjects. Um, but just going off concurrent enrollment, do
you do you have an estimate of how many courses you're thinking that you'd be able to add to our current offering come 2028? >> Uh, I don't know that. It's going to depend on the number of teachers accredited. So, we're hoping that over the course of this next year, we can really push that. I would hope I mean,
if nobody, this is Kim's, this is Kim's world, right? I would hope that we would add courses in all core uh all four cores um the first year and then continue to build off of that into uh multiple levels in those courses and then into electives as well.
>> Right. And are we looking at other districts and what they're doing as far as and I I want to say it might even be one >> might be Burnsville where you can come out with your associates degree. >> Yeah, that is a pretty intentional structure. Um, and I do think that that
is a long-term vision for us is that you can you could come out with an actual AA degree in a in a content area. >> Um, >> all right. Uh, on the bar program, can you explain just a little bit? I know we talked about a little bit last
year. I mean, what what exactly does it look like from a practical matter um, as compared to what we would do normally? like what does it add? Um and then how do we know that we can tie you know that investment to this performance and these
results? >> I I'll start and Sean can fill finish because he he does a good job of of filling in the gaps for me. What we do is we do have students scheduled so that they have the same uh science, math and English teachers. They meet weekly uh
with their students and they actually go through data based on their classrooms that things they notice, things that they um things that are going well, things that uh pro processes and progress that students have made. So, we try to celebrate the good too. Like we've we've made some good progress. In
addition, some of the there is a a monthly curriculum that is kind of a connection curriculum. It's it's different lessons. They're called eye times. And what they're really set up to do is give teachers kind of a qualitative look at a lesson of who's
interacting, who is choosing not to, what are the things that our students are talking about, what what kind of interactions are happening. So again, it's it's to build community. It's to build uh to break down some of the barriers of of freshmen not knowing each other and trying to get to know each
other. So, uh, I think that once students realize that their teachers are paying attention to them, paying attention to the details of who they are, acknowledging when things are going well, that all contributes to the data. >> Yeah. So, just to add a little bit to
that, um, so we have small block means where the teachers are meeting those teams talking about students and looking at data and so they know the students because they share the students. Before you had a a building of close to 2,000 students and it was just there you go. No, nobody's sharing students. Nobody's
really talking about them because it wasn't built into the structure. Now it is. We've also both Kim and I have been intentional on making sure that our nth grade class size are a little bit lower um than the other grade levels. Um that's important. Uh so teachers, you know, are able to have that time to meet
with those students and and really intervene early. Um we also have our counselors working and our administrators now freed up because of our counselors working on uh during the big block meetings. So they meet monthly to talk about students and to to catch
students early when they're falling um to get them tier 2 support to get them tier three support if needed. That's extremely important to catch students early um when they're struggling. And now all our students are being talked to as Kim talked about our itime lessons. These are the best lessons in the
country that these bar coaches have gone around the country learning from the best teachers in the country getting the best lessons get to know you activities and making still students feel included in the building. So still students feel valued when they walk into our high schools now uh cuz they're doing these
activities uh with their teachers which we hadn't done before to this level. Um and then you're seeing it in our results in our daily desired experiences. So um bar has been great. It's it's a it's a proven formula. It's it's spreading all across the country. It started in
Minnesota, which is very unique. Um and um and now it's out out east. It's very big out east and it's very big out out west. And uh it's proven it's it's data driven, which is important uh for us. Um and uh it works on academic, mental
health, college, careeress, and and all the things. So it's Yeah, I could sell it all day, but it's it's really good stuff. So I mean is it kind of >> similar to what we have at the the middle school level then like a team's model? Yes. >> Kind of. And then you're just implementing that in nth grade. >> That's a high school version of a team's
model. >> Okay. Is that the biggest change that comes with bar? Would you say? >> Well, it's you also provided a bar coach from from bar uh that comes in and it basically takes that middle school model and provides um data uh eye time
activities uh professional development. We have two days of training in the summer with all our teachers. Um, so it really takes that and it gives it a lot of structure and proven strategies that have worked in other high schools across the country. So >> are there any other questions on bar
before I go to a different subject? >> No. Um, back on the curriculum alignment which I'm excited to hear about. Uh, wondering if you could provide a little background on you you'd said that you have one common assessment completed. Uh, just wondering if you could talk about that. what what's the process of
creating a common assessment? You know, what does that mean for you as principles, you know, as educational leaders of the school? Um, and outside of the common assessment, like what are you using currently, you know, to analyze performance of students
and teachers within your school? So, there's probably three questions there, but so obviously you have, you know, the the macro level of the MCA results, ACT results, graduation rates, all that stuff. But then you you go down to the micro level and see how our students are doing. Uh you can't PLC without common
assessments. Okay? So you can't grow professionally if you can't talk about data and how you're doing. And so the goal of common assessments is to look at data and see how we can help each other improve. And we're in that journey together uh us educators and it's not about taking away any creativity of a
teacher or anything like that. You still have your creative craft as a teacher when you go into the classroom and teach. Um, however, if we have common assessments, we can now look at data and see how we're doing. So, if I'm if I have three teachers in my PLC and teacher C is just really doing really
well. I taught social studies, so is doing really well in the World War II unit and maybe my scores weren't. I'm going to ask him, hey, what did you do um for lessons that week? And the best teachers are the best pirates. I I firmly believe that the best educators are the best pirates. Um, and then they
they steal from each other and they they make each other better. they talk about how we can improve experiences for our students because ultimately at the end of the day we want our students to do well. I I just want to add I think that one piece that is that that you might be
expecting that it's already in place or should be already in place you there was a a a good number of years where the curriculum revision process was on pause or slowed down and so we've had some years where yes some people are in standardsbased review right now so they
are talking about this at this time and there are some people who over time it's been a long time and we've had a lot of people change and move in and out. So, it it this year was really about grounding ourselves to make sure that we had a scope and sequence and that we
truly were teaching the same things and we we agreed on what those same things were in alignment with our standards. And so, um it it might feel like, well, why haven't we been doing common assessments forever? It's because we haven't we haven't slowed down and sat
down next to each other, compared notes, and really planned out our school years between the three schools. Um, middle schools also did the same thing. And and this is the first time we really slowed down to do that process. So maybe that helps a little bit. Maybe I could see the concern like maybe, well, what the
heck have you been teaching? Um, it is the reality is is we we grounded ourselves so that we're all in the same point. That was a big piece of work this year and our teachers did an amazing job of truly agreeing on what that looked like over the course of a school year.
>> Yeah. And again, I'm all for it. I I hope that comes across. But, uh, I guess my question was if our we're getting the curriculum in alignment, is the curriculum that we're putting into place, does it not have like unit assessments already built into the curriculum? Is that what
>> Not necessarily. I mean we we don't always just use a textbook chapter one textbook chapter test go on to chapter two it it is when textbooks are put together and things like that. It not is it's not always Minnesota standards when
they put those together. So there is some negotiations and some moving things around that would cause teachers to uh be in a different spot or to work through that a little bit. >> All right. And so the goal is to have the common assessment reflect what's being taught in the classrooms which
will be in alignment with the state standards then >> for each unit. >> Correct. >> Okay. I mean so we have one and you're thinking next year we'll have >> we should be set >> should have a year's worth? Yeah. >> That is the intention. >> Great. >> That's good.
>> Yeah. >> Connie, do you have Oh, sorry. Just just to piggyback on what what Matt said. I think he was right. I mean, just want to share that from my understanding, 80% of the curriculum that we purchase is at the national level and 20% is missing Minnesota standards. And so, we got to
go back and either recreate it, have a bunch of teachers figure it out, and then every school district has to do it themselves because there's no centralized unit. And so, when you go to each individual, I'm assuming chapter 80% of that is Minnesota standards is going to be 20% is not. So you got to
fill that gap and then you got to create a new assessment on top of that to make sure it meets the Minnesota standard and you got to do that for every single chapter, every single class, every single subject. And so that probably you can't do that with AI maybe. I don't know. >> So you can >> you can probably you can but that was
just my my comment. I got a bunch of questions but I'll pause because I know Director Reenberger has had his hand up. >> Are you done? >> First off, I want to say congratulations. Um looking at these graduation rates you guys offer here and um having numbers nine points higher
than state average um the number of substantially higher across all these various indicators uh that is an exceptional exceptional work um I think that's reflective on um the school district
it's reflective on the principles it's reflective it's it's reflective of the educators teachers within Oops. Thank you. Um the educators and the schools and I uh I just want to say congratulations and thank you. Um that
is an exceptional exceptional mark. Um and it shows that Lakeville schools are doing something pretty impressive. Um and congratulations to all the all the seniors who are graduating too. Um you mentioned um you brought up um the facilities for trades um that are going
to need to be upgraded. um trades uh as far as like you know facilities and as far as equipment and machinery that represents a relatively large capital expense and I'm I'm just thinking ahead I'm just uh throwing these ideas out here to you. Um if there are particular
areas um uh as far as individual trades um that you see needing uh immediate upgrades or um areas where we should um start looking as far as an investment um as far as putting money towards certain aspects of uh these areas.
Are there ones that we need specifically >> any immediate and then anything kind of long-term as far as like where we should be focusing our attention as far as um uh increasing the investment as far as these trade programs? >> Yeah, I I I'm going to just jump in. One of the things that I would really uh one of the pieces that we have in place
right now is that we have um concurrent enrollment for welding. And so I would want to partner with our technical and career colleges uh in the neighborhoods to figure out how can we utilize their resources as well as our resources so that it's not just um an investment on
ours like what how can we partner how can we bring our students to the level of what is happening in those uh facilities because it it's they are the ones that are cutting edge really they're the ones that have the training and ready to go. So building those partnerships. Do I know that it's going
to be welding woods it? I don't know that yet. I'd want to spend some time as we begin that journey of what our schools are going to look like in the future to know what are the what are the solids and what are the the reaches for us to build those tech and trade programs.
>> Yeah, I would just echo um we're running into space issues right now at South um with our engine technology uh program. So, we have students that want to take the class, but we only have x amount of space to to host these classes. And so, there's a there's space constraint for
everything, but to expand to answer your question, some of the some of we're seeing students really getting interested in are welding, uh, HVAC, plumbing, electrical especially, um, and then of course the engineering. So, electrical engineering, um, and that all
requires space. It all requires equipment. Um, we we do a great job with what we have right now. North has welding and so the south kids go over to North for welding classes and South has a wood shop uh and carpentry and some electricity stuff that we're doing. So,
North kids are coming to South so we get to share our students. Um, but you can imagine uh the space constraints that we have with all these programs. So, our STEM teachers would be more than happy to talk to you about u what they're seeing and and some of the technology that their students are telling them.
Um, and I invite you anytime you want to come in, uh, listen to our capstones. We do them. We'll be doing them starting uh, next week, I believe, or the week after. Our seniors will be giving their capstones on their projects. They work with local companies, and we, uh, invite people, the public, to come in all the time to listen to those capstones, and
you'll get a really good snapshot of what's going on. So, um, but yes, it's a great question. Uh, space is a is a real issue. >> I can add on that. I can also add on and as a former work coordinator, I have worked a number of businesses over time. We have lots of
them in our area that want to pair with our schools. We're talking our trade unions like the 49ers union has actually already developed part of the curriculum, works with the state of Minnesota and it is a costneutral to us if we get that implemented where our students will be able to take classes now and go out into their sandboxes,
work the big equipment and they will be able to use those hours for their apprenticeship programs. There are different HVAC ones that are built that way also because our two-year colleges are on waiting lists right now. So, anything we can do in our schools is giving our students that leg up when
they go out into the workforce. >> Great. Tony, you have more? >> No. >> Matt, should we circle back to your last one and then over to you? >> Sure. >> Um, uh, Sud mentioned leveraging technology and using. I think I've seen it at the
lower levels with our kids where it's like they're trying to get to 90 or whatever. They do a problem, if they get it right, it goes up. If they get a problem wrong, it goes down. Right. Is that the same kind of >> It's the same program. >> Something similar you guys. >> It's just focused on uh with algebra,
intermediate algebra and geometry are the two two classes that we align or use. And I know there's a discussion we still have to use on the board or have on the board, but has there been any discussion about using like an AI tutor program at the high school level where
it's actually, you know, doing some teaching as well as not just giving you questions. >> I think we've talked about it. I think we're talking about it through the curriculum revision process as well to make sure that we're we're using products that we feel good about. I we're we're nowhere near the discussion
uh full implementation yet. Brian. >> Yeah. So, thanks. There's a lot of topics that were discussed. I've just got three, but I probably have like a bunch of questions within each one, so bear with me. Um, one is the the academics. Uh, second one's counselors, and then future plans. Uh, from the
academics perspective, uh, category. Uh, there was a credit recovery. I saw 120 in the 255 number on the slide. Uh, it showed a massive reduction or, uh, based on kind of where we were at the end of of April. I'm just curious uh does the
credit recovery influx as you get into summer with people not graduating on time? So I'm just curious if the 120 is slightly skewed or is 120 >> those are two separate numbers Brian summer numbers and academic year and then they'll be summer numbers again correct principal >> guard. So the academic year was 130 and
then the summer numbers down here are the 245. >> So we had 245 students who had to do academic recovery over the summers. >> No 245 classes. 245 classes. >> I think it was about, >> don't hold me to this completely, about
158 students, give or take, for that 245 that was recovered. >> Got it. And so then, but the 120 is a reduction from the previous year. Is that what you're saying? >> No. >> No. >> All of those understood that then. >> Okay. So, the current numbers are classes that they have done in the 2526
school year. So, I don't have a reduction number on here. I didn't compare the two for would it be fair to say principal guard that the summer is a more intensive time for credit recovery. So that's why those numbers are high and then during the academic year you have fewer. >> Correct. >> And then you'll probably have high numbers again this summer.
>> Right. Currently we don't have an academic credit recovery program for 15y olds. The application is into the state. So that summer we get a number of kids that turn 16 so we can do our independent study credit recovery. So you see that larger influx. >> Yeah. And I'm able just to have more
students during that time because everybody else is gone. So I can have multiple classrooms and we're in South. >> Got it. Yeah. I I I'm sorry. I I I was uh I didn't understand the numbers very well. So then I I I interpreted the 255 was the total at the end of summer and then we're at 120 and I'm like, well,
are we going to get an influx going into summer? But thank you for the clarity. Um Director Swanson, I I think you're right. the in regards to the the iPads, the technology, the LL, how do we have um AI uh education a as a supplement to what what what our students can do. I
know they all have iPads right now. Every single one of them, I think we approved one and they get a brand new one uh or not a brand new one, but it's like 100 bucks a year for each one that we end up uh leasing out for an iPad. But the the tools there, we just need to find the program. And I I'm assuming the cost of the program can't be that
expensive. And so if there are opportunities where whether it be Khan Academy or EXL, I know that my son when he was about to take his algebra class to get into Normanddale PSO, he had to do this thing called Alex AKS or something like that. It was just a
self-study math course. He did it for about four weeks. Uh it showed him his proficiency and then he took the exam. And so there's capabilities out there now. It's got to be uh I I I really think there's that's an area for us as a board to decide if that's something that
we want to uh nudge even f further or faster so that we can implement that cuz if we've got wind time, we've got breaks, uh they all have iPads, they just need the software license to just do it, that that might be something for consideration. Um the the academic
advisoring piece I saw 58% on the on the graph that said they were doing uh the school counselors were doing academic adviserss or advising. Curious is there a requirement at the high school level where the counselors need to meet with every single student at least once a year kind of like you were a financial
adviser. you meet with your student so that they know where there are where they are what classes that they're taking or is it just more of whoever signs up gets to go see them at this point there is no requirement that they need to but I do think students work pretty hard to connect
with their counselors especially those juniors and seniors who are looking for what comes next um in that whole academic piece you know the 53 58% 53 whatever the percentage was um we'll talk about that a little bit more, break it down a little bit more in the next
presentation, but it it could be everything from uh letters of recommendation, PSO, college planning, college applications, changing schedules, um needing help with some advice about how to study, how to how to do better in the classes. So, it could
be >> there could be instances where like a student doesn't talk to their counselor at all because there's no requirement. >> That is true. At this point, there's not a requirement. And so then and when they pick classes uh with the assumption that they're assigning they're picking classes that the parents are helping or their
guardians or their friends are helping but no one is providing oversight on class selection either. >> Not sitting down individually checking boxes but they are in the registration spaces to answer questions to make sure that they are on track with their career
plans or with their their school plan. >> Uh and and so my last uh commentary maybe less of a question. Well, I do have one question in this. It's just the future plans. Uh the concurrent programs 100%. I think that sounds like there's lots of uh enthusiasm by the board for implementing that. Super fortunate for
me. I my son is going through a PSO program and and will um and is taking advantage of that because of the limitations of concurrent. Um I know that my son had to fill out some applications to even get into these collegic programs. So, I'm assuming that if we do concurrent programs, students
are going to have to follow a similar pathway. they have to meet certain GPA, certain XYZ to to get into that. And then based on just class size availability, you know, we're we're only going to be able to take so many. I mean, you're going to run the course of um uh we're going to run into probably
scenarios where AP students are going to be like, hey, I'm going to just take a concurren concurrent class and and then go from there. So interesting. Um the future plans also had I think seventh hour. I wrote that down. So that was a big thing. So maybe over the summer we need to have conversations of what that
looks like because I think that's a huge um that's a huge huge not a deal breaker but like an unlock to give our students more capacity to pick and choose uh but more importantly that seventh hour can be used for remediation and then if you've got in technology tools that can
be used during those remediation sessions it just makes our uh students uh get to the level that they need to much faster. Uh, I think the last thing I wrote was Lake Lake Lakeville West High School. Was that No. Okay. But but uh but back to but back to
what you said earlier about having some sort of trade center, trade hub. I 100% agree. Uh we've got and so this is where it's like super fascinating like philosophically like what is the intent of an education institution? Like is it to provide reading, math, science? Is it
to uh you know give your kids well-roundedness before they leave or is it to give them something more tactical tangible skill set so that they are productive members of society as they leave? Uh not everyone will go to college. Uh some will want to be welding and we've got components of that now. Uh
um but we don't have an electrician program. We don't have a cosmetology program or a nursing program or a pre pilot program. And so these are things that you know as a school board do we want to uh make a case to the community to say this is something we should
invest in. Uh there is value uh in having your kids uh academically ready but also have something tangible ready when they're post high school. Uh because I don't know a college degree nowadays with technology where it where is it where it is today in four years.
um you know someone can spin up an open claw in cloud code and create something over the weekend and next thing you know right they've got they got an an app they've got a product they got a company and so when we have uh AI so involved with day-to-day life today and and and
not sure how much AI is integrated into high school life today are we setting our kids up to be not as successful because they're not well verssed in the pros and the cons of that respective tool uh But if we wanted to uh consider Lakeville West High School later, uh something we can talk about over the
summer or a tech center, um I'm 100% on board with uh what that future state might look like. So, look forward to to an update from you guys. So, thank you. >> You have your hand up. >> I do. Sure. >> So, I was going to wait until um board
communications to share this where the board members talk about the different things because at 9:17 um our last meeting we did have a career and technical uh presentation that was provided to our board. Um and since 917
is our partner district and we um partner with them for special education, they also have a career and tech program. uh we used to participate in this to a certain extent. Um the thing that we struggled with with it is the scheduling because they only have certain blocks of time and so we kind of
struggled with scheduling some classes. Um we also had a difficult time with transportation for students to get there. So at one time we did provide a bus and then we stopped providing the bus because it was a budget cut. Um but they have really invested this last year specifically in the career and tech
program. So, um I have all of these wonderful brochures of things that you can get now with their career and tech program, which is nail technician, power sports, um cyber security, mechatronics, construction trades, heavy duty trucks, that's a really popular
one, graphic design, video game design, um total auto care, um and career seminars. So, these are things that our students can access now through a member district that we have. um we just have to provide that opportunity for our
students. So, I would love to get it here as much as we can, but knowing that kids need access to these things now, um this is an opportunity for our district to take advantage of. Um I will say that my son participated in all of the
welding classes. He was a South student and um had transportation over to North. He did that the entire high school career. Um, as soon as he graduated, he was on a waiting list for the welding program. It was quite a waiting list. He waited, so he did Tessa while he was
waiting for that at 9:17. Um, he finally got into the program and he's graduating May 7th with his um, welding certificate. So, thank you to Lakeville Schools for that. So, it is there, but again, I speak to the concerns that you have with the weight list for it. Um, we do have opportunities for kids right
here. We just need to be able to take advantage of it. So, um, if you'd love to see the things from 917, just let me know. I can share those. And also, Dr. Faber and his team would love to come and present to the board about that. So, those are things that we can all look into because they were options that we
had for our kids and we just don't have them anymore. So, >> thanks, Kim. Carly, >> I just wanted to um say two things. One, some things that have come up um in discussion tonight. one being kind of with the flexible day and some other things that we've explored as a board in
terms of uh one thing that um Cherammer and I have talked with the superintendent about is how do we kind of bring forth the various things that you know not just the high school principles but the middle school and elementary principles have brought to us in terms of needs or desires and so
that's something I think we're trying to put more numbers to like in terms of what what we can explore going further and then the other thing and I'm going I'm going to be I'm going to be the neurosychologist in the room. Um I am very concerned about tech and how we implement tech in the schools and so I
think um people are bringing that up as if we know that it's going to be a clear benefit and I think we were talking about just um how ex exploration on this is needed and will be discussed at a future board meeting. So that's to come.
I have a couple of things um kind of waiting my my turn to the end, but I echo what Carly just mentioned. I think we need to do um our due diligence and making sure we are using tools that we can afford of course, but are also best practice in in education. And um I think
looking at the data and how those tools um would be effective or not um is is critical. And so while AI might be an option and can be an option to explore, I am also seeing a lot of literature coming out recently like Sweden for
example with their conservative majority now has banned iPads and technology um in terms of an instructional strategy because the research for Sweden is showing that that's not how kids learn and that we've had this like push from edtech to spend all this money over you
know the last decade or so. And so I think it's interesting that like an entire country is now moving towards textbooks and paperbased instruction again because that's how our brains retain information better. So I think I think there's movements both ways, right? And there's there's pros and cons
to both and pressures that we need to consider. Um I was just talking last night to my husband and um he's a dean at at Shakape I think you know and he was saying for for students at Shakipi at least the number one issue he hears from students is issues with math and that because they don't have a textbook
they have nothing to refer back to and so they're struggling because they can't flip a page. They have to go watch an entire video to be able to relearn a skill rather than when we could just flip a page and be like oh yeah this this is working me through it. And so I think I think there's things to think
about here, right? And and I think ultimately it's like what is the data saying? Are our numbers in student achievement going up with edtech or are they going down? And and there's I think um things to explore there. Um I also
love the data on bar and and am really excited to see the success of that and if it makes sense to expand it. I think that's something to to think about for the district. But I think it also speaks to me that we need strong curriculum in our district and we need strong programs
like bar. A student just doesn't excel because we put um you know a digital curriculum in front of them but they succeed because of things that have been mentioned like belonging and in wanting to be there and feeling positive about who they are. So I think that is critical to academic success and
sometimes we parse them separately but to me they are fully integrated. Um, a question for Principal Gar probably primarily but or G. Sorry, I keep saying your last I always call you Margaret and I'm just Okay. I know. I feel like my my husband was an ALC guy
and like everyone goes by first names. So, um Okay. So Margaret, um, with credit recovery, do you feel like we are kind of at at the the right numbers for student interest and and capacity or do you feel like there's opportunities to
increase our program to allow more students to benefit? >> We identify all of them. We invite all of them. Um, we have multiple levels that we do the identification. I work really closely with both buildings. We use our IST process for identifying
them. We run percentage rates during the middle of the semester and quarter to try and identify them even earlier. And if we see low percentages, we we'll call the counselors in the other buildings and say, "Hey, can you pull this kid? You want to find out what's going on?" So, we try and get down to like the
micro level when we identify. So, the engagement portion is always the tough part because we're working with kids that have failed and and they don't want to look stupid. They don't want to look like different from everybody else. So finding those after school times where
they come in and those pieces. Um >> could it be bigger? I hope not. With all the other implementations we put in place, I think that number should be a 10% or less of overall population. >> Okay, great. And then um my other question was around common assessments
and um I think I I'm I'm come from a liberal arts background and so I appreciate having a test where we can quickly verify like a student got a 98 or a 90 and we can yep one is better than the other, right? But I'm also wanting to make sure our students are getting
assessed on things like writing and and more nuanced ways of uh or or presentations and you know how are we thinking about common assessments? Are we only thinking about tests or are we integrating kind of a diverse range of assessment types? >> There are both formative and sumitative
but most of the um common assessments are just agreed upon based on the co scope and sequence. >> Okay. >> So, but back to an earlier question about the canned test or things that come with the curriculum. That's where those questions of depth of knowledge come in. So, they're created by the teacher. So most of those are kind of a
comprehension question and they can't be faked because the student actually has to write them and it's not just multiple choice which are really important as we're changing and meeting the standards so that they understand the depth of the standard. >> Um that's how those create tests are created.
>> Great. I think also with a liberal arts background I think it's important to know that not every assessment has to be a test. It could be a rubric >> um that measures a speech or a performance or a paper or a >> whatever that that assessment that is
the common is measuring the standards and what level they're proficient at it. It doesn't necessarily need to be a bubble answer test. >> Okay. And there's pros and cons that depending upon the topic, right, of when that those should be implemented. >> Okay. Great. Any other questions or
discussion? >> Right. Great. Well, thank you one more question. Oh, sorry. Go ahead. >> Um, >> this close >> on the uh the seminar 7-hour class day, would that affect, you know, students being able to earn credits in order to graduate? I mean, is that because one,
we're going to have one more class period, so there's going to be less time in each class period. So, how does that affect >> No, you Yes, that will impact the amount of credits required to graduate. And so, that would be something that we'd have to work with with Dr. McDonald. We've t
we've had many discussions on that. and how we would reboot that. So, absolutely that would that would impact that. >> Okay. Anything else? >> I do have a comment on common assessment. I think you guys explained it really well, but yeah, when I keep saying common assessments, it's really
the goal should be how how well are the students learning what we're we're supposed to teach them or trying to teach them, you know, and then having that a consistent assessment across the district as you know, uh, Principal Murphy said it very well. So, we can compare like where where we excelling
and where do we need more help and what practices are really working that we can mimic across the system and be most efficient. So, cuz otherwise we're just waiting for fastbridge results that don't necessarily align with our curriculum or uh the MCA results which are once a year and by the time we get
the data it's the year's done. So, >> appreciate appreciate that effort though. >> Thank you. Thank you for being here. >> All right. Um next we'll move to our next presentation. Thank you for waiting it out. Um we have uh director of student health, safety, and wellness uh
Karen Cohen. Thank you. With an update on school counseling. >> Yes. Excuse me. Um, good evening, Chair Cameron, board members, and assistant superintendent Dr. McDonald. Thank you.
Middle button. Okay. Um, as you heard from the previous presentation, our school counselors play an important role in student success. So, now we're just going to go a little bit deeper in um kind of what that looks
like and daytoday why we made that shift and um we're in year two. So, we're going to look at both the impact and maybe some future needs. So, the research consistently shows that school counselors play an important role
in student outcomes. Schools with more access to to counseling services see improvements in attendance, performance, and graduation rates. Counselors play a critical role in helping students plan for life after
high school with research showing that significant a significantly um increase in college access, financial and completion, financial aid completion, and post-secary enrollment. They also support students in exploring career
pathways, identifying um their interest and strengths, and completing key post-secondary planning steps. Research shows that academic success is not only about content knowledge. It
also depends on skills such as self-management, goal setting, and problem solving. And as you heard in that video, um they talked about time management and making connections. All students benefits benefit from
developing these skills, including those who already are demonstrating proficiency in those skills. Um school counselors play an important role in building uh these competencies and helping remove barriers that may
interfere from learning. So you can see here um the high school um adoption began um in spring of 2024 with the planning to for this transition. It started with defining roles of the
school counselors, the assistant principles, um professional development opportunities for those perspective roles and some training on bar. In 2024 25, we started with three high school
counselors and then this year 2526 school year, we added a fourth school counselor. Just like our academic programs, our school counseling model is grounded in standards, in MTSS, which is
multi-tiered systems of support and in data. The American School Counselor Association or ASCA is what we call it provides standards that guide our comprehensive counseling model and the Minnesota Department of Education
provides a social social emotional learning framework. Together, these ensure we are helping students build the skills they need to be successful in school and beyond. Second, our model is aligned with MTSS
or multi-tered system of supports. This means that we provide um service for all students, tier 1, tier 2, and tier three. So, we can match the level of service to the students needs. And in
the next slide, we will be talking more what tier 1, tier 2, and three might look like. And finally, data. Data plays a critical role. We use um data to identify the student needs. We target the supports.
We measure the results by analyzing attendance, academic, and behavior data. And we monitor student progress and evaluate our interventions. So, we're continuing to build out these data systems um so we can clearly demonstrate
impact over time. All right. Hello again. Um, I get to talk about how counselors are supporting all our students. So, at the tier one level, they're supporting all of our students and they've done a really good job in both buildings uh
during advisory time. So, that's the time that we've been creative during that sixth period day to get some extra activities and supports in for our students. uh particularly they've been uh creating uh MCIS lessons, college and career readiness um skills inventories
etc throughout the school year. Um but they've also been doing some other activities activities during the advisory period. Um and then as you can see tier 2 has more targeted skill acquisitions u interventions based on screening data. They'll identify groups
that maybe need help with study habits, uh, social skills, etc., organization, and sometimes they'll do those in smaller group settings, uh, to help students during that time period. And of course, uh, tier three is where they've really stepped up, um, where we just didn't have the resources at the high
school level when you need that highly individualized intensive services, meetings with parents and providers to get students that intensive support that they need so we can get them back um, to learning. and and at a high level. So, they're they're constantly doing risk
assessments and crisis response support for our families. Uh and they've done an outstanding job at both buildings with that typical day on the job. Obviously, this is very uh can can fluctuate greatly. Uh
alls it takes is one crisis to to side rail a day like this. But, um they came together and and worked with actually Margaret Gar during those five days. and you know what would a typical day look like if it was kind of that perfect yeah you actually followed your schedule type of day and this is what they came up
with. So you can kind of see how it's chunked out. Um and and you can see all the different activities that they're doing. Uh what has this done to improve our systems at the high school level. Well, it's really freed up our administrators uh to do the instructional leadership, to do the
common assessment, uh writing with our teachers, the scope and sequence development, uh to lead the their different areas that they lead, and then obviously um our students are getting more onetoone attention. You I think it was Brian that asked, you know, have they attempted to meet with every
student? I think that's a great question. Yes, they have. Some of them have uh and they're getting there. I think that should be a goal for them to have fiveminute meetings. Uh I know they tried to start with our freshman and our seniors and then work their way in. Not that the sophomores and juniors aren't
important, but um I I do believe we're going to get there where they're going to at least have a contact with each student. I think that's extremely important. So um you can see that there this is the first year where we've had a full team and they've they've really done a good job kind of dividing what they've done. We're going to look this
summer as administrative teams uh with our counselors because they have time in the summer to work in addition to the school year which is very nice and we're going to kind of enhance this every year and you know what can we give up what can we enhance is those fiveminute means that every student which I think is very
important so every student at least meets their counselor in person all those things are important so we got to prioritize this and it's going to hopefully get better every year >> Sean got excited and stole some of my thunder. So, um, these are some of the things that
we're seeing in our school since the adoption. We're seeing that we have more collaboration with our staff and with our families. More student, more parents are coming in to have discussions about the the four-year plan and beyond. Um, we are spending a lot of time,
especially this time of year, getting our students to graduation. It's another person on our team to help our students get there. Um we continue to refine and define systems and processes to help our students get the support they need whether that is academic or it is social
emotional. Um I think one of the things that as an administrator I see most uh and where I've seen the greatest change is how we do operations within our building. Uh the operations now allow our administrative team to be actively engaged in the school system process. We
are in the halls. We're meeting with teachers. We're supporting behaviors. we're working on prevention and and any disruptions of learning. It gives us a chance to really focus on the systems side and not try to spread ourselves so thin. Um, many times in the past before we had this model as a principal, I
found myself rather alone in trying to run the systems of the building, the academic portion of the building, the check-ins with the teachers and many times ended up also side by side uh with my team doing the disciplinary issues on top of all the other things. And so
it feels like we all are now in the right lane of the the carpool lanes. we have the right people in the right places so that we can continue to move more quickly through the city as we work through how to support our students and our families as they go through their
school system. So yes, our counselors have been a great addition to our high schools. So we look to building our future and take a look at that. I'll give you a minute to take a look at that table. Um, the American School Counselor um,
Association um, recommends a ratio of 250 students to one counselor. As you can see from those surrounding districts, all are above that recommended ratio, but Lakeville is amongst the highest.
that directly impacts the amount of time counselors can spend providing service to all of our students. While we've made improvements and progress adding these two positions, you can still see that there's a wide gap and um currently um
capacity um where we could increase. So we are um more to the recommended ratio um of the American social um sorry um school counselor association.
So as our district continues to grow, moving closer to the recommend recommended ratio will allow counselors to spend more time working directly with students supporting their academic progress, well-being, and their post-secary education. Um, in addition,
there's always in addition to that, an important opportunity we would like to see is expanding this counseling model to our middle schools. Earlier um support in the middle school levels would be strong would allow them to have um stronger skill development and
earlier intervention which would hopefully um go to fewer escalated challenges as students enter into our high schools. So ultimately the work is about ensuring that every student has the support they need to stay engaged um
succeed academically and graduate with a plan for their future. That's not the ending. >> No. >> Okay. Wait. Pause. We'll start there. Um, okay. So, we talked about the systems and the impact.
Um, but the work is really about our students. So, this video gives you a chance to hear directly from um, students across grade levels. So, you'll see both elementary and high school students working with high school and elementary counselors. I know our focus
was on high school tonight, but it gives you a chance to see more of a broader perspective and how the counseling um can work systemwide. I'm afraid. Go back. Look. Oh,
maybe they can run it from the back. Here it goes. Yay. Show and tell. >> Hi, welcome back to Show and Tell. My name's Lisa. >> Welcome back to Show and Tell. I'm Lala Perkins and we're going to be talking to
our student services today. Could you tell us what it's like being a school counselor? >> So, the days go really fast because there's a lot of work to be done and no two days are the same. >> And can you tell us what's something that you've learned in your time of being a school counselor? I've learned
that it takes a lot of practice to do something new and it takes a lot of courage and that's something that I want my students to know, too. >> And can you tell us what's your favorite part about your job? >> Well, I love to see students succeed and I'm their biggest cheerleader. >> How about you show us some things? Can
you show me something that really helps students? >> So, I want to show you this. It is a breathing ball. We work a lot with slowing down breathing. Um, and this helps students to take slow deep breaths. and tell me how awesome did I do as an interviewer?
>> You were amazing. >> Hey, can I ask you guys a couple questions about student support? >> Yeah, of course. >> Greg, how do you like the counselors and student support at Lakeville South? >> Um, I I love them. They're like um available like in any way, shape, or form. It's like um a welcome place, an
open place. You can just go in there, talk to them, ask them questions. So, obviously, as all of us are juniors, we're getting ready to prepare for college, making sure we have all of our credits. Have you guys gone to counselors to help with any of that? >> Yes, definitely. I've gone to her to ask about kind of just like what I want to
do in the future cuz I kind of had like a bunch of different paths that I could choose. And she's very helpful with that. And then college, they're all very good resources. They all know what they're talking about. And you can go to them, ask them, and help you kind of decide what path you want to take. >> So, Katie, how do you like the counselors here at school? I feel like
they're always very supportive and are always there for you whenever you need them. How does school counselors make school easy for you? >> They really help me when I feel like, for example, like sad or I'm annoyed about something. They can really just
help me with how I'm feeling and then that can lead to just overall doing a lot better in school. How about you, Jackson? Having a school supportive dog really cheers kids up when they can like pet it and stuff. >> Thank you guys for answering these
questions and giving us your time. And Piper, how do you like being the school counselor's dog? >> Good girl. You can give it to her. >> There you go. >> What is something that you think the students should know about student supports that you don't think they do? >> With how new counseling is this year,
kids don't really know what we're here for. So, we're just here to help whatever that might look like for each student. So, if it's I'm having a bad day, come on in. We can help with schedule changes or we're working on creating groups so that we can just work with multiple students at a time that maybe have a shared experience. We just
want kids to know that we are here and we're available for whatever they might need. Okay. So, you've told us a bunch of stuff, but now can you show us what's going on right here? Cuz I've been looking at that the whole time. >> Yes. So, these are just a bunch of fidgets. Sometimes it's just nice to hold on to something and to just squish
something or, you know, distract yourself a little bit. It's a lot easier to talk when you're just kind of having fun. >> What is your motivation for why you chose this path? >> I had an incredible counselor in high school and she was just the most impactful person on my life. She just
helped me feel loved and cared for and supported and and I just think every kid should have that. >> Thank you for watching Show and Tell and I'll see you later. >> Thank you guys for watching this show and tell. I hope you learned something new and interesting about our counselors and I hope you guys have a good rest of your school year.
>> So, yep. Y um you just heard it gets me every time. It really does. Um but what you heard just brings their work to life. um behind the systems and the data and the structure is students and students they are feeling more connected. They're feeling um more
engaged and they're feeling more that they're better prepared for their futures and that's the true impact that we're working to really build and sustain here. >> Great. Thank you. >> Uh we'll open it up for questions and discussion. Dr. Thompson, I'm sure you already have your hand up. I appreciate
you sharing kind of the metrics around I think uh 58% was related to um academic focus and uh some some other 38% for social emotional learning. Um so I get the the I think the goal was 250
to1 or something of that nature. Dino was at about 271 and we're like 500 uh which is a huge number from because we got one counselor for every single student for each grade. But I don't think you guys are you're not we don't have them separated by grade. is based on alphabetical order so that it's the
same counselor for the rest of their four-year term. Great. Great. Um I guess what I'm I'm I'm I'm curious and and and not to ask that counselors are not the are not valuable, but it's like uh I I'm trying to think of I'm trying to use the
data to just understand um uh the volume of work that they that they're doing. And so as I listen to this uh it's it's an individual doors open pretty much any topic from A to Z uh is what I'm is what I'm hearing. Uh and and there's certain
categories of XYZ that that that we try to kind of classify that that particular reason or request of why they came in. So is there a ticketing system that says hey student came in uh there is a this is the topic and then it's it's checked off. Um, is there a backlog of a
counselor is booked out two weeks in advance and they're just they're just full because they've got appointments uh scheduled or is it based on first come first- serve basis? I'm trying to justify or not justify, I'm just trying to understand the volume of work. Is it busy work because they're just busy or
is it busy value added work? Does that make sense? It's busy because there's lots of students that have needs, different needs. And so we have the dis different tiers of support. So they might be doing
um um like a session for planning um and looking at schedules for all students or their their alpha. They could be doing a small group as um principal Murphy explained a small group on um how to
time manage how to manage your time and how to do some study skills or they might be doing some individual supports. Um a student might feel they're in crisis. So it really depends on the needs and they have to prioritize their day every day and they do have a logging
um they log when they see students. >> When they see students Got it. Got it. And so can students schedule appointments with them for a future date? So so are they are they booked out for like two weeks out or is it is it >> depends on the time of year?
>> Yeah. And and the reason I'm asking is that I get the the 250 number but and while we have 495 to one is it just because kids are just randomly coming in. There is no schedule. I'm just trying to understand the the volume and the type of kind of
requests that are coming in that might justify the need of we need to have four more if for each for each high school. And so if we have eight, is it going to be more I don't want to say busy work, but it's like you know what I mean? I'm like what you can only do so much
>> academic planning? You can do so much of XYZ, but if people are or if students are coming in just to go hang out I I I don't know. Does that make sense? >> Yes. So, I think one of your other questions was um do they see all of
their students currently? I would say no, they don't. They're not able to like like Mr. Principal Murphy said they started with 9th grade and 12th grade and they're trying to, but they just have so many students. So, if you had a smaller ratio, you'd be allowed, you
would have the time um available or um you would be able to see all of your students on your alpha. You would have that connection. You'd be able to have more of a personal relationship. And we all know that the more engaged students feel at school, they will come to
school, they attend, and they have better academic performance. >> Well, but but you could do that now. You could have every morning blocked where you would see I mean, we've got 500 students You've got uh what 180 school 170 school days. If you see three students a day for 10 minutes, uh that's
30 minutes. So every morning if you block from 9 until 11 or 10:30, you can bust out 5 to 10 students and so that they are they are guaranteed to be connected and touched and then you leave the rest of the afternoon open for walk-ins for whatever you may want to
do. And so like that that is a governance scheduling structure that could be considered. So, >> I'm wondering at the building level, like do you have a perspective on how this plays out? >> Yeah, I I just wanted to add you're doing a great job, but I just wanted to add what it looks like at the school.
Um, we do have they do have times that they set aside for appointments. Of course, um, every student that comes in does log in. They actually have to sign in and with their purpose. So, we we do have the the numbers and the metrics to
show that they are busy all the time. It is it is one of the pieces that we probably didn't go into great detail is when there is a a crisis situation whether it's through the random the anonymous reporting system or it's through our um kind of our technology
lens. There are a lot of times that they are the first person that will then respond and in those situations those aren't five or 10 minute meetings. So then what happens is then things get shifted around. They get so kids may be rescheduled they get moved around. I I would say it is rare for a counselor not
to have somebody in their their room or in their counseling office um because they they are intentional about if there was a moment or there was time that they didn't have something scheduled, they're in the hallway, they're in the lunchroom, they're wherever, they really are doing a good job of being really
visible so that students know who they are and that they can connect with them. >> Yeah, Carly and then Kim. Yeah, I was going to say I think one of the things that I'm hearing come through that I know we talked about before was
and I I do hear that this would be lovely to extend to the middle level is um when you have deans or APS serving various roles that can get really confusing for students and not feeling like they know who to go to for support or that person is also there when they
are getting in trouble for something or etc. And so I think what I really appreciate and why it makes sense to expand is obviously they're doing a lot to help prep on the kind of what comes after high school and also when we see
them serving in that role that allows APS and deans to do what they need to do that allows our principles to be freed up to do the other things. So I guess the one question I have is I I have been hearing about space issues. So let's say
you did get a wish and your wish came true or you had a wish and you had more counselors. Are are there space are those student services centers set set up for more counselors? >> Yeah, we would we would figure it out.
>> Make very good at being resourceful with the spaces. Is there any cuz I know were these positions on grant money or are so I guess I'm wondering like are there opportunities do you see opportunities to increase funding for these positions
that might be grant-based or >> I can respond to that question. Thank you. And Bill feel free to jump in here. Um these positions were uh created um a number of years ago by the previous uh executive director of student services
who first did a restructure of his um department. So you know the budget is the budget and it's tight and you can't keep adding things without taking some things away. So he looked at it through that lens, did a restructure, and then
the state provided us with some dollars um specifically to support student service work exclusively, right, Bill? And that's how it was sort of cobbled together. >> Yeah. Uh two years ago, um there's a
brand new revenue stream for school districts called student support and that's where we got by far the majority of the funds to put the new counselors in place >> because we went for a levy on this and it did not pass. And so I think a lot of
people are like, well, where did this come from? It came from pursuing other avenues. And so I guess are we at our max with that? Is there any opportunity for more funds? Yeah, we don't currently see any opportunity from for additional funds e either um internally or from the
state. So, um it was one of those things to give up some things and to utilize the new um funding that was available to us. Um this was a priority and specifically with the funds from the state, they could only be used for certain positions and this happened to be one of them. So, it sort of worked
all in our favor in that way. But, um, as far as additional capacity, I don't I don't see that at this time. >> Is that funding ongoing or is that just a a two-year funding model? >> It it is ongoing at this point, but the state legislature, you know, is has a
pretty tight budget, so I don't know what's going to happen >> because they could cut it, too. Okay. >> Kim, are you done? Kim. Um, so one question because I think this is where um members of the community kind of get confused on who does what. So we also
have social workers and then you have counselors and then deans and you know all the different things. Who is managing the 504 plans within the building? >> Currently at the high schools the social workers do.
>> Okay. So that ties up our social workers time considerably. Um 504s you don't have to I' I've been to I manage the 504s too. So it's um it's a big job. It takes up a lot of time and
there's a lot of students on that and they need to manage those accommodations, make sure they're met, update the plans, like all the different things. Um so that would fill up like a social worker's time making it difficult for the counselors too. Some of that's going going to spill into the
counselor's role as well. Correct. >> Yes. >> Okay. Yeah. I also have a high schooler who tries to see his counselor and struggles to get in because they're always full. So, yeah. >> All right. Great. Um, Matt. >> Yeah. And kind of kind of going off for
what Carly said and mentioned the the I think it was a levy that failed back in 2023. Um, you know, to add additional supports. And I would just say I'd like to see um you know in future presentations just for the public's sake you know actual
data from our district and what has changed since you know we've put in these counselors um because I don't think just saying research shows you know gets the point across you know as far as if we want to go out and ask for additional funds um because research can
you can find research to show anything you want it to show. Um, and so I I I would just encourage that and I don't know if there's any way we can track it more specifically with the benefits. I mean, there's obviously the benefit of these counselors are doing work other
people were doing, you know, and if you didn't have the counselors, somebody else at the at the school would have to be doing utilizing their time. So, it is, you know, an additional resource. But if we can show, you know, the public, you know, with concrete evidence, like, look, this is what it
was like before we had counselors, this is what it's like now. I mean, I think that puts us in a lot better position to go to the public and say, look, this is you're getting a benefit from it. You know, our schools are benefiting from it. Um, one of those I had a question. You know, there's a slide regarding
decreased behavioral risks um in relationship to the the counselors. I I was wondering one what does that entail and two how are the counselors involved in that rel that relationship with the decreased behavioral risks.
I think that comes into play when we've identified students who have some behavioral risks or have some concerns about the their their time at school. And so we create small groups um groups that might talk about anger management. there groups that are talking about we
have groups that talk about homework um prioritizing organization how to use planners um so there are different different groups based off of the needs that we're discovering a lot of times in our bar groups when we are having discussions about groups of students and
behaviors that we might be seeing that we can then support them um you know every every behavior is is a way of communicating and if we can help our students learn to communicate in positive and constructive ways rather
than being frustrated and communicating in um destructive ways. That gives us a chance to really work on how to how to better change those behaviors in the process. Mhm. >> I I also think the counselors are able
to make um relationships with these students and with their students and the more relationships you have. And I will say that the better relationships you have and the more engaged you are at school, your attendance will improve, your grades will improve, you'll feel safe at school. It's a good place to
come. So, I think that has um our counselors have had the um ability to establish relationships with our students and that also decreases behaviors. >> Yeah. And and I appreciate all that and I don't doubt their value at all. I'm
just saying, you know, from the position of the board and the district will have to sell this, you know, if we want to go back being able to tie it to actual data. I even think it helps showing like this is how many visits they have, you know, for, you know, helping with FAFSA forms, helping with college
applications. Um, and I don't know, I know we talked about this a little last time you were here, being able to track the before and after. You know, I know there's some privacy concerns which you guys can probably address, but I don't know, maybe that's something you guys can think about. you know what how could
we how could we track you know the utilization of our counselors better in order to convey to the community >> that hey there's value here that you should look at >> other questions or comments >> I just have two brief ones and I think
it goes to what Matt is talking about and Carly too um I know it's difficult to say that because we have counselors X has happened in some cases right because we're implementing all of these various things at one time to help a student succeed, whether it's bar or um a new
curriculum or maybe there's a new athletic co. You know, there's so many things that influence the success of a kid. But I think to the extent that we can parcel it out would be helpful. And so one question I have is on the desired daily experience survey, which I know the numbers are um more positive, right?
And they were they were positive, but they're even better now. Are there questions related to counselors specifically andor and and if not are we seeing in any of the open-ended questions like with qualitative data students choosing to speak about the counseling staff and
their experience and are we are do we have the expertise to then code that data to make the make the connection on on a student's um success? I can speak to to one not the um daily desired experiences necessarily but um I had
mentioned that we still want to build out we're in implementation imp implementation year number two. So, we still want to build out what what data we can collect and what we want. And one of those things is a is a schoolwide or high schoolwide kind of needs assessment
and to see some of those some of those questions and and are we being in are they being impacted? Are the students, you know, finding those their value? >> Okay, great. >> So, do you want to >> My other you can jump in, Sean, if I think my other question might be for
more the building staff, but Karen, if it's more you, that's fine. Um, and it comes from my own husband's experience working at another high school right in our conference. And I'm I'm aware at least at his building, the team environment that's created amongst the administrative staff to connect students
to counselors and vice versa based on whatever is happening. Can you speak to like how the principles, deans, counselors? You read my mind. >> Okay, great. And so that that's part of the tandemness that I I think that um we
have a couple things that that they actually cited that you guys are starting to get at and uh how can they track data better and um to justify the the work that they're doing. So talking about um you know um data regarding uh
tier 2 interventions when students are really struggling. you know, we had the tier one stuff that every kid's getting, but then that tier 2 intervention and how can we track that better is something that they're looking at doing next year. Uh, but they do work in tandem with our assistant principles. Um, and they get to know families really
well. And so, um, often times, um, uh, when there's a behavior, you know, they're able to to come at a different angle than the assistant principal would be able to come from or the dean, uh, during this this process and be an advocate for the student. U, making sure
they get their homework if they are suspended. Um, making sure that they work with the family to get the supports that they need for the reason for the behavior and being very proactive at those intake meetings when students come back. because the goal of an intake mean is to be successful and to not make the same mistakes twice and then to get the
help and the supports you need. So data tracking that u uh and the interventions that they do uh I think you're right on with that. So they are looking at that. They're also looking at how they can intervene um with uh with drugs and alcohol and chemicals um and and get
some some separate training on that to get some certification training with that and then obviously you can track that data very easily um in a school you know how many students are getting help with with chemical needs uh how many students are getting caught with chemicals I have seen a decrease so we
do have a data there at south and I can't speak to north but we have seen a a dramatic decrease increase in vaping in in our school and a lot of that's information. So, you know, counselors giving lessons during advisory, uh, giving family resources, the harmful
effects of vaping, but then also just getting them the help they need. Um, so there is data that they can track and and they can report to you and they they are looking at that. >> Okay, great. Any other questions or discussion? >> All right. Well, thank you very much for
the presentation. Appreciate it. >> All right. Um, moving on to some policy discussions. So, we're going to start with um policy 512, school sponsored student publications and activities. Dr. Albert, did you want to come and I forget? Are you are you wanting to frame
this or do you want me to >> Okay, subject matter experts. >> Oh, wonderful. Great. Okay. >> Um, no, that's fine. I think um one point of clarification maybe um is that at our last work session it was noted
that we did not have a 512 um by Terry Mororrow. Correct. And then what is being presented in our board packet is the MSBA version of um of the MSB the MSBA model policy for for 512.
But then I'm I'm noting that it says original and revised. is that MSBA is original and revised at the top of what's in our board packet. I just want to make sure that everyone's working off the same document. Sorry, >> that's okay. Um,
correct. It it it wouldn't it would be MSBA's revised, not ours because we don't have we've never had it before. Okay. >> Right. So, um, >> thank you. >> Yep. What I what I have is just that there there are there aren't any recommended changes because we don't have the policy yet. So, um it's being
recommended to adopt it as is. Um if the board has any clarifying questions on the content of the policy, um uh principles Booty and Murphy are here to assist in any questions that you may
have, but um yeah, other than that, it's a policy. I think to our earlier conversation, I just I wanted to make sure I was understanding what what the revision was on here for. So, um, tonight's, uh, charge with this policy in particular is that this would qualify as a first reading. Um, we're not voting
on this policy tonight. Um, but if there is questions or discussion on this, um, this is the time. Um, and per our conversation at the work session, um, Terry Morrow from MSBA strongly urged us to just get policies that are required
of us, um, uh, passed as quickly as possible. And then um of course if there's extensive reviews that we want to go through at some point, we can do that as well. Um but he I think he really pressured us to think about how to make sure we're in compliance. Um both both just to have them on our
website, but to help our our um administrative staff have the right tools to to do their jobs effectively. So, yep. Matt, >> um, just for context, I was wondering, I mean, because this is related to school sponsored media and activities. I was wondering what that all entails and, uh,
how frequently are pe students involved in this. I mean, is there a school newspaper? I know I know I've seen like videos of kids interviewing. >> Yeah, I do. You want us to go up there? Can we do it from here? That's fine. Um, this would entail things like a school
newspaper, a literary magazine, uh, a news broadcast or a show that students write the content for. Um, at this time, North does not have any of those type of programs. I don't think you have. >> We do a broadcast media course where
students do a show and we show your advisory about once a month. It's usually a news story on a sports team. um or a staff member or something interesting in teenagers lives. It's entertaining.
>> Yeah. >> Are there other questions or Yeah. Brian? >> Yeah. You know, when I'll ask I mean who reviews controversial content and like and who decides what content is appropriate and not appropriate? And while it is a school sponsored
uh student publication or or or an activity, um like is there rules and guidelines that need that we need to talk about that? I think you know obviously a few months back we we had there was a ICE had a bunch of folks that uh there was an ICE march or
something folks were coming out of school or out of classrooms uh to do >> that's not related to student publications. That could be >> I mean could it be I mean >> that situation wasn't so let's just I mean >> yeah I mean what's but what's considered school sponsored publications um
if so any faculty can support a publication of a student and so any faculty do they does a does a school teacher have the rights to say okay this is going to be a school sponsored activity for my classroom and so then that student can you know there's
publications that go out with that as well I like what are the guardrails like and who's who's providing those guardrails and the governance structure around it and then can students can students say like I don't I don't like that can students say they like that can parents say they don't like it I I don't
know >> these are my these are >> we have any practices in place right now even though we don't have a policy >> well in the case of we have a a class a teacher oversight it's called broadcast media so the teacher obviously if
there's anything vulgar or offensive or controversial is going to um be a supervisor of that course. >> So, so, so is that so we're relying or we are giving the the the authority at the at the indivi at the teacher level
for them to decide what's controversial, what's not controversial, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. So does that that individual have guidelines or other policies that guide their what guide that framework? >> I think the hard part is right now we don't have policies in place to guide
that. So it is then on a teacher opinion or a practice that has been in place. Um there students have a lot of first amendment rights when it comes to uh student publications and things like that. Without us having anything in
place, we we are pretty limited to how we can coach and support students in that process so that they can understand how to do journalism, how to do those pieces. So I think we have to have something in place so that we can even have the discussion about what is what
is the practice or what is the the policy for that. >> Kim, did you have a hand up? >> Yeah. So, I was just saying before we start asking these questions, maybe we should review the policy because I feel like a lot of the questions are in this
policy that people are asking. >> Okay. I mean, I assume everybody had a chance to read the policy, but if not, we could table it, too. Um Tony, >> yeah. Um, this kind of gets into that. Um, the definitions, there's some
definitional problems here. Um it says a school sponsored media um is material that's prepared wholly or substantially written, published, broadcast or otherwise disseminated by a student journalist, distributed to the students in the school and prepared by a student journalist under the supervision of a
student media adviser. And the student media adviser basically means a qualified teacher that the student the school district employs, appoints or designates to supervise student journalists. Um, so I think the issue is
are the schools going to be specifically designating somebody who is going to be the student media adviser in all these situations or can any teacher essentially be a student media adviser >> um instructing a kid you want to start a
podcast, do you want to put together a newsletter? Something of that nature. Um, I think narrowing that down and and clarifying that um would help um provide some instruction not just to the board but to the the people who are going to
be implementing this. >> Right now Sean, you just have one opportunity. So you have one person. >> Is that okay? We both used to have newspapers that were distributed and probably when this policy was written. >> It was more geared towards and those
newspapers were given at lunch once a month. That practice has been outdated. Um so yeah, I think some of it maybe still applies. Um, but it's it's different >> and I'm taking note of all of these
questions and obviously there's the recording that I would I I would ask that our administration bring to our next working sessions so that these things can have more recommendation going forward on on how we might handle this for the board to consider. Um, obviously we get to make set the policy
but um I think a recommendation how this would play out in practice would be helpful. Matt and then Paul. >> Yeah, go ahead Matt. Yeah, I I just wonder if the board would consider having um the principles be another layer of oversight. Uh because if we're just leaving it to
student student media advisor, I mean there is no reference to you know our building leaders in the policy but just having them be just another layer of oversight to if there is anything questionable that gets challenged that it would go to the principal as well.
>> Paul. >> Yeah. And and I think one of the things um when I was at the University of Pittsburgh, one of the things you couldn't do, and you know, you could argue the first amendment free speech, but one of the
things you couldn't do was use the brand or the brand equity and community goodwill and leverage off of that to express your opinion. So, let's just use politics for a moment. um whether you're left, right, or or in
between, you couldn't use Lakeville schools brand or community goodwill to express or leverage off of that to get your political opinion out to the public. So, I mean, I think that's something back to Brian's guard rail
comment. I do think we need to have something that encapsulates that so it's it's not the wild west. Okay, other comments or questions? We do not have that policy at the University of Minnesota, by the way, for faculty at least. Faculty can say what they want
whenever they want. Staff cannot. >> Okay. So, can I charge Emily um and related people um to think about these um and then we can bring these to the work session for further exploration and and revise um as needed for a second reading at our next meeting.
>> Absolutely. >> Okay, great. Um the next uh policy is um 606.5 library materials and form. I um would like to make a recommendation to the board that we um or like I would
like to make a motion to table this particular policy. Um I apologize if people spent a lot of time on this for this meeting. However, it it will not go um you you'll need it in the future. And that is that we don't have the content expert. Um uh she was not available to
be here any longer tonight. And I think it's important there's many things in this policy that require kind of decision decision points. And so my recommendation is to table this um we can bring it to the next work session to kind of hash through some of that but then we would have a first reading again
and a second reading. So apologies for kind of the duplicate work but that's my suggestion. Yes, >> I second that motion. >> All right. Um seconded by Swanson. Um any discussion on that or a desire to do it right now? Okay. Um all in favor of tableabling this?
>> I say I. >> Any opposed? >> Okay. motion uh passes uh to table. And then the last policy uh for review tonight is 704 which is um related to fixed assets. So this is also considered as a first
reading because we're changing um uh some of some of the language in the policy. We currently have this policy. So this is not a new one. Um, and the change change really actually was spurred by our auditor, as I understand it, um, correct, who was looking for us
to put the, um, $100,000 language into our policy. And so what, um, Brendan Bill did is presenting to us the MSBA model policy. And the red line edit that you see is our auditor's request for um,
changing MSBA's recommendation, which was the $25,000 threshold. They want it to be at the $100,000 threshold. Is that am I summarizing this correctly? >> Okay. Um so that is what's on the table for uh discussion um regarding edits to
this policy. So any questions? Bill probably could answer them the best, but is there any other things you want to add, Bill, about why they wanted this added or is that sufficient? >> The the biggest the biggest change is we've had that $5,000 threshold for many
years. Um 20 years ago we had to start putting fixed assets together when when the uh um the rules came from Gazsby going you need to capitalize and make your books more look more like a business. Okay. So now we have two sets
of books. We have a set of books that makes you look like a business and then we have our regular books like we always did our our fund accounting. Right. So this is this ties back to the what makes us look like a business. So, we're going to capitalize any large purchases that
we have and depreciate those ex over a period of time, right? Well, we had a threshold of $5,000. So, anything that costs more than $5,000, we're going to capitalize that and um depreciate it. Okay. Well, what happens is we have some
really large expenditures. Like when we buy iPads for our our students, well, they don't cost $5,000, but as a group, they do. So now we're looking at u a group expenditure. So when I when we c when we
spend $2 million, but we're going to take that and we're going to capitalize that and we're going to expense that over a period of time where before we weren't capitalizing or or you know including that into our fixed assets or our capital assets. um because of the larger school district we are, we have
many many many expenditures that are over $100,000. And so that's why we're picking that 100,000 because the smaller just we'd be be doing so much work. I have to hire more people to do the work. >> So our auditors and other big districts around us, you look at 196, you look at
um up the west side, you Eden Prairie and Yet, they're all going to this $100,000. So it's not just us. Brian, >> if you bought a vehicle for $45,000, that wouldn't be capitalized. Is that what I'm hearing?
>> Yes. Because that's one item, it's over 5,000. >> It's over. Okay. It's the larger purchases. >> So, the one pieces or air handler, we're getting all of those pieces. >> Okay. >> But the little piece, like you buy a bunch of furniture, like our our budget's over 600 grand for furniture, right? Well, we weren't capitalizing on those because all the little pieces
never hit 5,000. >> Got it. Yep. Other questions or comments? Does the anyone feel the need to bring this particular um policy to the work session? I'm because I'm hearing no further convers. Okay. So, we'll bring
it to the next meeting for um for second reading and then consideration for approval at that meeting. So, I'll uh we'll bring 512 um to the next work session and 606.5. Okay. Great. Um, there are no reports
with recommended action for tonight, so we can move to board member reports. Anyone with a report? >> Okay, thank you, Kim. Yeah, Kim already previewed hers. Anyone else? >> Yep. Carly. >> Uh, Chair Cameron and I had a lovely time at the Suds for Scholars event last
week. So, I want to uh put a special thanks out to our chamber again for raising money for our students. I think I don't know. I didn't hear this was official, but I heard someone mention $61,000 in scholarship money. Um, and so
it was a great event. Lots of people there. And um, yeah, it was wonderful. Thank you to the chamber. >> That's great. >> Brian, >> I don't I don't have a report, but is did I hear something about high school graduation? Something about we're moving a day.
>> About what? >> We're moving a day or is that not true? High school graduation. Is there anyone who can speak to high school graduation? >> Is there are there rumors or swirls or No, I don't know. >> Are you talking about the consent agenda item to >> No, you're not. You're talking about like weather.
>> No, the uh >> Did I miss it? >> Yeah. >> Oh, never mind. >> Oh, yeah. Calendar. Okay. Okay, you're fine. Okay. >> Um just a couple updates for me. Um my family and I went to see Mama Mia at Lakeville North and it was phenomenal.
um like very high quality and so just grateful for a talented arts program here in our district. Um I know Lakeville South also has um a production right now so I'm hoping to catch that. But um both schools Oh, it might be done. Okay. Well, both schools are putting on um tremendous um experiences
for kids. And then I believe since our last meeting, I attended the gifted and talented advisory. Um it was the last meeting for that advisory. And what we looked at was how other school districts um both within our conference and then
both like the higher performing districts, how are they um offering gifted and talented services. And so I um there was um breakout group discussions and a lot of um thoughts collected and people examining the different websites and offerings and
that that information I think will be coalated for um further discussion on how we might um enhance some programming here in 194. Um but I think the consensus among many people were that um many districts of our size have more
more opportunities around gifted and talented programming. more students are able to participate um which likely is due to funding and and resources. Correct. probably. Um, and so I think there was interest in thinking about um, you know, that tension between making it this like highly selective experience
for only the kids who kind of are at the very very top or is there or it should a district have a philosophy of trying to get, you know, the second or third crop of students who could really benefit from advanced learning who maybe aren't getting the opportunity right now and um, thinking about what's possible given
our resources. So, I think the gifted and talented team is thinking about that. Um, but that was the focus of the that meeting. So, Carly, >> I think that's lovely because when you think about like the superior range of intellect or high level learners that is above the 90th percentile. And so, when
we're talking about our kids only qualifying for something like Ignite at the 99th percentile for only reading or for both reading and math and then what qualifies for Discover, we're losing a a fair percentage of kids who are at the
superior level. And so that's great. I love that. >> I think what I appreciate too is um Dr. Leette from Oak Hills, principal at Oak Hills is on that committee because his school hosts the Ignite program. And one thing he talked about was the desire for all classes, GenEd classes to
incorporate more project-based learning like they do in more of the gifted um to help foster critical thinking skills and and higher levels of achievement. And I think that's an interesting topic too to think about and that's relates to curriculum, right? But um I I I jived with that perspective. So all right, any
other updates? Okay, we'll move to superintendent update. Thank you inter or um assistant superintendent. >> Thank you so much, Chair Cameron. Yes, I have one update uh tonight for you. Um with just two weeks left until our May 12th growing together referendum. Um
Superintendent Bowman and I want to encourage all the voters in the district to take advantage of early voting opportunities if you haven't already. Of course, the district office is open for early voting from 8:00 to 4:00 p.m. um through this Friday. So, for the rest of
this week, um and that's uh through May 1st. Um we will also be open for extended early voting hours next week, May 4th through 8th. So, we will be open here at the district office from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday, May 9th from
9:00 a.m. to 300 p.m. and Monday, May 11th from 8 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Um, election day is May 12th. Um, polls will be open on the 12th from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Please note that polling
locations have changed um since 2026. Um, so visit u Minnesota mnvotes.org. I'll say that again. mnvotes.org and enter your home address to find your combined polling location. Um, just a
note, the district office site is only open for early voting. It will not be open on election day. So, you will have to go to your appropriate polling location um on the day of the election if you choose to vote on that day. Um, you can learn more about early voting in
person and by mail, election day voting, and anything else you want to know about our Growing Together referendum by visiting our website, um, isd194.org/vote. Thank you so much. >> Great. Thanks, Emily. Uh, is there a motion to adjurnn?
>> First by Anderson, second by Reichenberger. Any discussion? All in favor? >> Any opposed? All right, we are journ. Thank you, everyone.