Kim, can you hear us? Okay, perfect. All right. Um, because we have someone appearing remotely, too, just remind me if I mess up that we will have to do a roll call vote for any vote. Um, and maybe there won't be that many. So, are there any requested changes or
additions to the agenda? Uh, if there are none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the agenda as drafted. I'll make Go ahead, Paul. Oh, good. So, moved. All right. There's a motion by Director Anderson. Is there a second? I'll second it. It's seconded by Director Carbone. Uh,
probably no discussion on it. Uh, can we do a roll call vote on the motion to approve the agenda as drafted? Carly Anderson. Yes. Brett Nicholson, yes. Ryan Thompson, no. Amber Cameron, yay. Matt Swanson,
yes. Baker, yes. Yes. All right, it is approved. Uh, we'll move on. Superintendent Bowman, the good news. All right, thank you, Mr. Chair. Good
news for September 23rd. uh custodial grounds facilities and maintenance appreciation week. Next week, September 29th through October 3rd, is custodial grounds facilities and maintenance appreciation week here in Lakeville Area Schools. And we want to take the opportunity to recognize and say a
hearty thank you these dedicated staff members who work very hard ensure our schools and buildings are safe, clean, and welcoming spaces where students can thrive. from keeping classrooms ready for learning and maintaining the
grounds, buildings and their efforts support our mission of ensuring academic, social, civic and personal readiness for every student. Tip of the cap and thank you very very much to all of our custodial grounds facilities and maintenance personnel. We appreciate
you. Kaylee Fischer awarded the 4 honor at DNR Commissioner Youth Awards. Congratulations Kaylee Fischer, an eighth grader at Meguire Middle School for receiving the 4 Award and the annual DNR Commissioners Youth Awards at
Minnesota State Fair this year. Kayleie's a member of the club Lake Beavers 4 Club in Dakota County. From working with a master naturalist to monitor osprey and beavers to studying the survival challenges of snapping
turtles, she's making a huge impact in Minnesota conservation. Way to go, Kaylee. Uh you can read more about amazing things happening in our district at isd194.org/news. Back to you, Mr. Chair. All right. Thank you, Superintendent
Bowman. Uh we're going to move over to public comment. Uh the board will open up the floor for 30 minutes to allow the public to address the board with comments and concerns. Uh to participate in public comment, individuals must have registered in advance using the form provided on our website by noon on the Monday prior to our scheduled meeting.
Uh there will be no board response during the session. Public comments framed as complaints and or concerns about students under staff are not appropriate in the public forum due to data privacy laws. Uh the 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 the superintendent. Uh if we start going down that route, I will gave it down. Um no formal action will be taken on a topic presented during public comment and as necessary, the administration will follow up with the appropriate personnel on any concerns that need to
be individually addressed. Also, if necessary, the board will follow up during board communications at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Uh individual remarks um are limited to three minutes. Uh the vice chair here will hold up a sign when you have 30 seconds left and then we'll let you know
when your time is up. Uh if the audience would please keep the noise to a minimum so that everyone can hear the speaker uninterrupted. And so with that uh the first person, uh Katherine Staples. Can you hear me? All right. Hello, Superintendent Bowman and members
of the board. I'm here today to talk about money, but not to ask for it. I'm asking for your support in a partnership that reduces your burden and eases your budget. On behalf of the Kenwood Trail PTO and speaking in earnest support of the other Lakeville PTO's, I'm requesting an immediate change of the rules related to the use of school
communication channels. The parent teacher organizations for Lakeville area schools have fundraising goals to meet the needs of our budgets. Our budgets offset yours with 100% of the funds raised being used for the benefit of the school. We cover or offset the costs of things like recess equipment, field
trips, school events, positive behavior rewards, teacher and staff appreciation, resource dogs, and more. Our principles tell us that PTO's have a direct and positive impact on school culture. This year, the PTO fall fundraisers across Lakeville area schools were aiming to raise over $315,000 total, but these
funds are in jeopardy. We may raise only a fraction of the amount. Knowing that you cannot absorb these expenses in your budget, this will mean less of all the things I just mentioned. You may or may not be aware of the reason for the change. In the past, we were able to send our school administrators an email which they would send to parents. It was clearly on behalf of the PTO asking them
to participate in the fundraiser. This year, the district is saying the schools cannot send fundraising requests on behalf of the PTO, citing the state of Minnesota's public purpose doctrine as the reason. We understand and appreciate that the district needs to operate within the state doctrine. Our concern is that we believe it is being
unnecessarily restrictively interpreted. As you know, the spirit of the doctrine is to not misallocate funds to prevent having public funds given to private parties and organizations without a public purpose or related to functions of the government. I know we can all agree that public schools have both a public purpose and are related to functions of the government. We were
instructed to use our own channels like Facebook, non-district websites, peach jar, and small contact lists instead of direct communication with the full contact list. These methods are less effective, leading to significantly reduced fundraising and notably more work for our PTO volunteers. PTO volunteers participate because we
believe in the good work that can be done and we want to make our schools an even better place. We are short-handed with fewer and fewer parents being willing to give extra time for these efforts. As one example, our P Kenwood PTO is five people serving over 900 students and staff. We have spent countless hours over the past 10 days
stressing over how we'll make this work, how we can pivot within these district rules, and how we'll adapt if we don't raise the funds. Please hear me on this. Our small group of volunteers has stressed and spent more time than usual. And I hope that shows you how much we care, but also that stress is unnecessary. We need fewer barriers to
success. We need our administrators in the district to be our partners and our allies. We need funds and so we need your help to be successful. My ask is that you immediately revisit your interpretation of this doctrine since these funds are used entirely for the school. Please amend this rule to allow schools to communicate fundraiser
details, including links and progress updates to families at their school. The fundraiser are open now, but they're closing soon, some in the next few days. If we act quickly, there's hope we may be able to salvage the impacted fundraisers this year and help make this all easier and less stressful next year. Thank you.
Thank you, Miss Staples. [Music] All right, next up, Howard Schneider. Okay. Uh, board member Swanson, board members, I'm sorry, board chair Swanson and board members, thank you for this time. Uh, first, I appreciate two steps
that the board has taken. uh recently you're receiving regular financial reports which hadn't occurred before and you're working on a dashboard to measure how well the school district is doing that's not been done before what I wish to offer now are comments about school
board meetings as I agree with the apparent consensus of board members that too often meetings go on for too long often discussions go off track and even head down a rabbit hole while it seems there's not agreement however about the
issue of sexism. I hope that you do find a way to address this matter. Maybe at the uh board self-evaluation session or in another setting. But with my three minutes, I wish to provide a hint that meetings can change. That meetings can
have a brighter future. There are three components I will identify. Preparation, process, and presentation. Preparation. And I like that sign. I suggest you add time limits to all the agenda items, not
just those for public comment. This helps establish a mindset, a framework on how to plan meetings and uh what is really important for you to accomplish during a set period of time. Uh those
time limits are not rigid. They can change as needed during the meeting. Uh even consider a timekeeper, not a board member, uh perhaps a staff person. So that's not the responsibility of the chair who has a very difficult job leading discussions, calling on people,
offering their own comments. Maybe a staff person uh can accept that task process practice active facilitation. So as acknowledged sometimes meetings uh topics uh uh uh staff discussion goes uh
I'm sorry board discussion goes off topic. Uh so when the discussion wanders uh it's helpful to stop, do a check-in, identify what's going on and maybe simply say we're off topic now. Let's get back to comments that directly
address the topic that we're discussing. Or maybe there's a confusion about some terms and that's holding back the discussion. I've I've seen that happen. It's very natural. So it's time call to stop identify uh those terms that apparently about which there's some
confusion clarify that so that you can move forward. Uh focus presentations at the United Way uh uh uh research department I worked at 45 years ago. We had lengthy uh reports.
The supervisor demanded that we ask ourselves what are the five most important areas that we need to identify to the board. That should be done. Uh powerpoints uh drive me crazy. Thank you. I will
uh I now have my own meeting to attend to in a short while. I'll see if I follow my admonitions. Thank you, Howard. All right, that concludes uh public comment. Moving on to consideration approval of the consent agenda. Are there any items that anyone wants to
remove from the consent agenda? If there are none, I'd entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda. Motion to approve the consent agenda. A motion by Director Nicholson. Is there a second? Second. A second by Director Cameron. with the first and a second. Um, I'll do a roll
call to approve the consent agenda. She may not hear you. There might be a delay. We can hear Baker. Amber Cameron. Yay. Paul, yes. Brett Nicholson, yes. Carly Anderson, yes.
And Thompson, yes. Matt Swanson, yes. All right. The consent agenda is approved. Uh move on to reports and discussions starting with the teaching and learning department. Miss Bro, Mrs. Georgie.
Uh good evening, Chair Swanson, board members, Superintendent Bowman, uh Sandy Gorggy and I are here to um present to you information around teaching and learning and how we can continue to strengthen teaching teaching and
learning and grow that throughout our district. I am honored to be here with Sandy Gorggy who is our director of teaching and learning for prek through 12. She has been an amazing partner to have in this work, our 30 days of work
that we've had so far. Um she's been an amazing partner to collaborate with and to um help lead our district forward in this work. You'll see in front of you our mission and vision statement and these are they
don't only guide our work but they are our work. It is what we do each and every day. Um, we take our mission and vision seriously. It's not just something that we um have in a binder and put on a shelf. This is what we look to to help continue to guide the work
that we do each and every day. Our core purpose as a district is helping every student learn and grow. Um, teaching and learning is the name of our department, but it is the work of our entire organization. It is really why we exist
as an organization to make sure that um our students are able to learn each and every day. And so every decision that we make across the board should be around how does this support student learning. This makes sure that we put students at
the center of everything that we do across the district. When we look at our district, the first thing we'd always like to do is celebrate our strengths. And one of the things that we've noticed in our our our tenure with the district is that we have
amazing dedicated teachers, leaders, and staff across our district who create powerful learning experiences each and every day. Our students are learning and at high levels every single day. Our teachers and leaders are engaged in the
work and they go above and beyond to support our students. Our families partner with our staff to prepare our students for the future. So really the heart of the success that we have in our district is the people and the work that they want to do each and every day with
our students. Student success, as you've seen before, comes in many different forms. And you'll see up here on this screen is our profile of a graduate. As I said, our students are learning and growing every day. And our success begins really early
in our um uh early childhood education programs as Molly Dexter presented to you a few weeks ago. You saw that in early childhood we set strong foundations for literacy, math, um social emotional learning in throughout
their programming. We also have opportunities that expand as our students grow through elementary school and middle school. We have enrichment activities. We have leadership and service. And as our students get into high school, we have other um
opportunities for them from um our AP courses and concurrent enrollment PSO. We have pathways um through our um career and college readiness activities. We see success of our students through our high GPA, our ACT scores, and our
graduation uh rates from all of our students. We want to make sure that each and every day we're looking at our student success as a balanced approach. Academic achievement is essential, but we also
feel that it's equally important to look at our social and emotional well-being of our students, their engagement and belonging and how we welcome them into our schools and their opportunities to be able to explore their passions and their interests. And if we go back to
our mission statement, it's about academic, social, civic, and personal readiness for every student. It's not just about that academic side. We want to continue to build on our strengths. As I said, we have dedicated
staff and we have successful students. Um, another side of the puzzle is to in order to keep moving forward though, we do have to face areas where we need to look at growth and where we can grow as a district. And one of the places where
we see some growth is through our MCA scores. They do show that there is room for improvement. And as Sandy and I have gotten started in these roles, we see that we need to build systems throughout our
organization that are going to support the dedicated individuals that are um working with us each and every day. Um it is our responsibility to build those systems so that every student has access to grade level learning and the support
they need to be able to see s to be successful. Uh Sandy and I both have an entry plan into the district. We have our 90-day uh entry plans and uh the first part in our first 30 days was to really build trust
and gather insight as to what was happening across our organization and lay that foundation for improvement and how we want to uh move forward. So some of the key actions that action steps that we've taken so far have been having
one-to-one meetings with principles, meeting with our teaching and learning staff. We've met with teachers and we've also um visited with quite a few students. We've listened across the district and we wanted to identify themes that show what improvement might
mean to everybody across the district, not just what we believe. We've reviewed student learning data and school and district um uh improvement plans. Uh and we are reviewing staffing and how that contributes to improvement across our
district and also our budget and how that uh contributes to improvement across our district. Meanwhile, we're building collaborative relationships um interdep departmental between school sites and um in order for us to get a
good start and to move the work forward, we've had to build trusting relationships and collaborative relationships across the district. As a result of this work in our first 30 days, we have identified some themes that we want to share with you tonight
as to how we're going to move forward. So you'll see that there are six themes that we've identified for improvement and we're going to go through each one of these um in the next few slides. The first is creating a culture of
collective responsibility. And creating a culture of collective responsibility means that we all have shared expectations for student learning across all of our schools. We want to make sure that we're all moving in the same direction in our words and what we put
into action in our buildings. The uh mission and vision that we have, it's words, but it also defines what our actions are going to be as we move forward. Uh also our uh we have a collective responsibility.
Every student is everyone's student. So, we all have to own each one of our students and believe in each one of our students as we move forward. And the final thing I'd like to highlight here is that teaching and learning again is the districtwide priority. And I'll have
to say that Superintendent Bowman has done an excellent job as he's going out and he's presenting to all of our buildings. He is sharing that teaching and learning is that priority across our district. The second piece that uh we have noticed
is around instructional leadership. Our principles and assistant principles are the leaders of learning within their schools. And in the past, we haven't had systems in place to allow them to step
into that role as an instructional leader. Um I we met with our uh district leadership team today and I had made the comment that I started in this district when uh COVID started and they definitely had to be managers of their
buildings during COVID. Um managing all the the the pieces the virtual learning, the hybrid learning, the getting the masks out to people and all of those pieces. And so, how do we empower them to be instructional leaders within their
buildings? We haven't had systems in place, but in the last few years, we have we have added assistant principles at our secondary schools. We have added counselors in our um high schools as well. And those are pieces that allow
our leaders to begin to be instructional leaders and lead that work across their buildings. Um, another interesting piece of research that we talked about today was the most important piece to move student achievement in a in a school
building is the classroom teacher, right? That is the most important part. But the second most important part is that leader in the building because that's the leader of all the teachers. And so how are they working to improve that instruction for our teachers and
how are we at the district office supporting them in that um very difficult work. Uh when uh this this next piece is around building consistency and continuity through standards and data.
Um when I started off as a teacher many years ago, uh I was a health and physical education teacher and I walked into the classroom. I was teaching middle school and nobody handed me a resource. Nobody said, "Here are the
things you need to teach." Sorry. Nobody gave me standards to be able to teach. And so I walked into that classroom and I thought, "What should an eighth grader know about health?" And I used my own judgment to determine what those
students should be learning uh within that school year. In PE, I did teach pickle ball. So now all those kids must think I'm pretty much a star. Um but I was left to my own devices, right? I didn't have a textbook that guided me.
Back when we were in school in math class, you might have just walked right through the textbook and that was what your curriculum was. Um, today curriculum is much more than just a teacher deciding what they're going to
teach or walking through a textbook. Um, we know that the Minnesota standards are dictating what we need to teach every single day. I think the first standards came in what 2007 or so, 2010 somewhere. Um,
actually around 1998. I'm I'm a little I'm a little off. Yeah, that's when the first No Child Left Behind was. No Child Left Behind. I was pregnant at the time. Oh, that's how come I remember it was very memorable. Um, we also didn't have a test that told
us if we were teaching the right things for our students. Um, we know now that the MCA is what is telling us if we are teaching those standards in our classrooms, right? So building that consistency and continuity is um
something that we are working on as a district and Sandy is going to take you through how that's working within our district and where we are going to um continue for some new growth. Excellent. All right. Good evening everyone. Um, as uh Tracy mentioned,
building consistency and continuity throughout the standards and data ensures that all students learn what is expected. Teaching standards with fidelity aligns curriculum instruction and most importantly, professional development. Analyzing our MCAs, our
FastBridge results, and common assessments help identify gaps in our tier one instruction and guides us through targeted support for not only re-engagement, enrichment, and the needs of our English language learners and special education students. It also
supports the identification and the allocation of our targeted resources. In addition, we focus on building consistency and continuity through standards and data by ensuring all students learn the same essential
content, reducing gaps between grades and schools, supporting tier one instruction, guiding targeted interventions and enrichment, and strengthening confidence that our MCA results reflect what students have
learned. Students serve as the foundation for all that we do from curriculum and instruction to professional development, intervention, resources and assessments. They give teachers clarity, ensure alignment across learning, instruction
and assessment and prepare students for MCA and future success and guide strategic district investments. As you'll notice, you'll see the triangle that is on this slide. All of those pieces denote curriculum. You need to not only have the instructional
resources, but the aligned assessments to the Minnesota standards and ensure that you have evidence-based practices happening within your instruction. Minnesota reviews and revises K12 academic standards on a 10-year cycle
following a structured process guided by state statutes. The Minnesota Review Committee includes diverse representations including teachers, administrators, parents, schoolboard members, higher education faculty and business leaders.
The process involves research, public feedback on drafted standards, and careful planning of implementation within our district. The standardsbased review process follows this structured approach in four phases. Phase one
engages teachers in learning the key shifts and concepts and evidence-based practices, developing content frameworks and reflection tools, while TNL is evaluating potential field test resources. Phase two focuses on unpacking the
standards, identifying the student learning targets, the level of rigor of instruction, academic vocabulary, and developing proficiency skills. while teachers field test a minimum of two two resources throughout that year. Phase
three includes professional learning on the approved resources, creating scope and sequences, common assessments, pacing guides, alignment documents, and developing and identifying supplementary materials where needed alongside student
data review. Phase four fully implements the selected field test resource and standards with ongoing support and PLC's to maint maintain fidelity and continuous improvement. I'd like you to take special note of the colored arrows
that are at the bottom of the chart. I'll be referring to these in just a moment. This particular slide um is an overview and outlines what the work looks like in phase two as we are unpacking grade level benchmarks. So on this slide you
will see we have highlighted a grade three math benchmark. The benchmark reads, "Use strategies and algorithms based on knowledge of place value, equality, and properties of addition and multiplication to multiply
a two or a threedigit number by a one-digit number. There's a lot in there. What I'd like you to do is to take a moment and self-reflect or as we like to say at the elementary level, discuss with an elbow partner using the
benchmarks as a guide to reflect and respond to these two following prompts. What do you think students need to know, do, and understand? And at what level of rigor do they need to know, do, and understand? The second prompt I'd like
you to reflect and maybe visit with an elbow partner on is how would you know that a student has mastered this grade level benchmark? So, I'll give you just a few moments and then we'll talk a little bit.
You have an assignment. Yes, you have a task. They're having a good time. Okay, we'll give you 30 more seconds. Okay, are we ready? We'll move on. What do they think? Feedback. What do you think?
Yeah. All right. So the first thing I'm going to ask you is one of the tasks that we ask our teachers to do is unwrap that benchmark into a learning target. What would be the target that you would ask students to reach?
If you were to unpack that, anybody want to take a stab at it? I need to find target. So what is it that we want our students to know, do, and understand? So in our classrooms you will see that teachers might have on their whiteboards or they
might have in their slide decks what it is the student outcome is. We want to make sure that not only the teacher knows the outcome but we also want to make sure that the student knows the outcome. What is the outcome that we would expect in a studentfriendly language? [Laughter]
Go to how to do math kids. So, so this one, this benchmark was related to multiplying one or twodigit number by a one-digit number. Is that Did I hear that right? Yeah. So, being able to do like multiplication
tables, how to construct a Sorry, I'm not using kid-friendly language, but like how would you draw out a problem? Yeah. Um, so Okay. Yeah. Is it asking particularly for you to regurgitate an algorithm or is it asking you to look at your conceptual
understanding first before you develop your procedural phily well I think part of the depth of knowledge bullet point is exactly that you know if you mechanically come up with the answer six months from now you won't even know what you what you
thought about unless you do bullet point number two and you understand the the recall the application, the critical thinking, you know, the types of things you're talking about. If you process it mentally, there's a tendency that it'll imprint and last longer. Excellent.
If you just do it mechan I'm sorry, I'll keep quiet. Well, you know what? We have a standardsbased review um meeting coming up soon. We'll invite you, Dr. Carbone. You're doing fantastic. So, you're right. The learning target is I can use what I know about place value, equality,
addition, and multiplication rules to multiply a two and a three-digit number by a one-digit number. And the level of rigor that we're looking for here is a DK2. We call that depth of knowledge. And it's really about applying. Can you
apply all of those other conceptual understandings to be able to solve that problem? And we want to be sure that our students have the prerequisite skills of the academic vocabulary of place value. Do they understand that at a deep level? That really hangs up our students when they're having difficulty with place
value. Do they understand equality and the works of an equal sign and what that actually means? Do they understand what an algorithm is? And do they know how to use the strategies in addition in order to apply them to multiplication? So when
we think about this, we can see that this is really complex work. It requires teachers to build a shared understanding of the benchmarks to ensure consistent instruction. Already here amongst all of you, you might have had a different understanding of what that outcome of
that benchmark is. Unpacking a full set of content benchmarks can take teachers up to six full days. They can have anywhere between 34 to 56 benchmarks depending on what that particular grade level is. and for that content area. And if you're elementary, multiply that by
four content areas. The value comes from learning by doing. Moving from benchmarks to clear learning targets that guide lessons and units. Unpacking a grade level benchmark involves identifying the learning target, what students need to know, do, and understand, and the level of rigor, key
academic vocabulary, and the proficiency level students must reach to demonstrate mastery. The shared understanding amongst teachers is critical, as you can imagine, in order to ensure a consistent cohesive curriculum across our system. And it's also important in order to
deliver effective evidence-based instruction while maintaining the delivery of those key shifts and concepts and standards that we have set forth to us by the state. Sandy, can we go just um go back to the triangle? Yeah. Whoops. We could if I knew how to
operate this. Am I going the right direction? I'm gonna let you go for it. Can I make just a quick comment? Like I when I look at your benchmark grade three definition, I I think this is uh
fascinating just from a from a an education lens because I don't know these respective steps. But I think what really resonates with me is like how do you convey this that third graders would actually understand? And so when we look at workbooks, when we work at um uh the
the apps that might be available, like how do we convey that, you know, to third graders to multiply, you know, with two or three digit numbers by one? And I just wrote two examples and and I don't know if this is how it's taught in third grade, but like if you're in the playground and you need to create four teams with 11 people in it, how do you
do that? you know, like that's that kind of math in my mind would would resonate with kids where you're you're having lunch and you can only pick, you know, 11 buddies, you know, how many people do you how many tables do you need if you if you have 33 kids or something of that nature. So, I don't know exactly what's
being taught like the the curriculum or the the kind of content, but but my hope is that when I read this, I'm lost, but trying to convey to a third grader, my hope is that you guys are aligned with kind of that approach. So that's all. Um, thank you for that. And I wanted uh
Sandy to go back to this slide because I think this triangle shows a lot. Um, sometimes we think that just buying a textbook for the teachers is enough and that's the curriculum, but it's not. The curriculum are all of these pieces put
together. So we start with the standards and you can see how difficult it is at uh just looking at a third grade standard or a benchmark to be able to unpack that in all of you all of you having the same understanding around that and then what rigor do the students
have to learn that um also how do I teach that in my class and then how do I assess that because the MCA is going to assess that right so if I'm assessing that as Sandy Andy said, um, this was a DOK2 level, but if I'm assessing that as
a one, then I'm assessing it at the wrong space, and the MCA is going to assess it at that DK2. So, as a teacher, I'm missing the boat there. And so it is really important to go through this standards review process and um with
fidelity to the standards review process because it is researchbased and it encompasses all of those pieces around curriculum not just buying the textbook. It is taking the teacher through each one of those phases so they could be
very instrumental in that classroom in reaching those standards and reaching those students in their learning. Director Thompson. So, so as as someone who recently saw our MCA scores for M for Lakeville and I think reading is at like at 59% and and
math was at like 55%. Is that an indication that our curriculum is not meeting math standards and reading standards today? So, that's what we're looking at when we look at all of these pieces. Where's the
gap? Is the gap in uh the rigor that we're teaching to? Is the gap in the instruction? Do the students know the standards really well? Um is the gap in the resource that we're using to um to teach to that standard? So that's the
work that Sandy and I are doing looking into why um why are we there? Just a quick followup that the answer to that is like we don't know and that's what we've got to go find out. Correct. Okay, Director Anderson, can I just clarify though because we do have pretty drastic changes happening
with our curriculum at this point, both with math and reading. So, how do you take that into account as we are transitioning? Um, yeah, sorry. Thank you, Director Anderson. I think you're absolutely right. When you when we are asking our teachers to implement
new standards, along with that comes key shifts and concepts and different evidence-based practices. Not only do they have to learn the new standards and at what level of rigor, they also have to learn what are the key shifts and concepts and the evidence-based practices that I need to deliver at
them. It's no longer appropriate just to deliver math through procedural fluency. We need to be thinking about that conceptual understanding and that independent application as you mentioned Director Thompson. So, not only are the teachers learning the new standards, the new expectations as it relates to the
pedagogy that goes with those new standards, they're also learning how to use that new resource at a robust level. And that's a lot of learning that's happening. When we think about it from an elementary lens, imagine that those elementary teachers are getting new
standards every year because it's on a 10-year cycle. So that means ELA comes up every 10 years, math comes up every 10 years, science comes up every 10 years, but what the state does is they stack them. So every year from now until
2034, our elementary teachers will have to implement new standards. So just when they get good at maybe ELA, then comes new math standards. And so it's a it's a juggling point. The challenge at the secondary level is you might have math standards, but you have multiple courses
that represent those math standards. And what does that look to ensure that you have a proper sequence and that you're building on that from grade level to grade level and course to course? Can I just ask a question? When you say you they stack them, what do you mean by that? Because is it a new set of standards every 10 years or are they
giving you new standards every year that are part of the approval process from that 10-year review? Yeah. So for example, science was put into place last year in the 2425 school year. That's full implementation set forth by the state. This year the state has set full implementation for the ELAS
for 2526. Then next year the state has put in full implementation for the social studies. Then the following year the state has put full implementation for math. So now imagine for after the course of those years those three those big hitters you have science, ELA, social studies,
math year after year after year. Sure. Director Nicholson. So the the part that I always struggle with is you know we talk about new standards how much of the standard changes yeartoyear like how many
elements change? because I've started going through MD's standards and yeah, there's a lot but are are you telling me that every year they reshuffle them, add two or three things to every different category? Like how much changes from year to year and how much are we really
talking about having to shift year to year? I mean I I guess you know looking at it if we've developed and I know you mentioned we don't have systems but if we had systems in place where we kind of did the same thing year over year over year I feel like we shouldn't be making
monumental leaps every year in terms of what the new information is that has to be conveyed. It should be minor tweaks here and there year to year until major review maybe once every 10 years is what you're saying but clarify
please I'm absolutely Dr. our director Nicholson. Yeah, the doctor. Maybe not yet. Maybe not yet. Um, so let's just take math for a moment. The last time we had standards in math was 2007. And there's a lot of reasons why
it was delayed. There was some financial pieces at MDE. The common core came on for math. Minnesota decided not to adopt those. So the next time that we had new standards in the state is 2022 which is to be implemented in 2728.
There are significant changes in those standards not only in the content but the level of rigor and also how we deliver those standards. So each time you come up to a review there is significant changes. There is also
significant changes in our science standards. We're really coming from a phenomena based of learning with three-dimensional learning and it's really an inquiry approach, not just learning the content. So there are significant changes for our teachers, not only in the content, but the level
of rigor that the students need to be showing that they're learning. For example, at the new science MCAs, which just came out this last spring, there's not one question that is written on that test at a level um one do. So it's all at a higher level. So that
requires some shifts too of not only our students but also of our teachers. Director Thompson, I this is fascinating and and I appreciate uh the word standards that we're using. Is is the state of Minnesota standards legally required
that we have to use and follow and or like we can't we can't say I don't want to we're not going to do this because what we have put in place for the past 10 years shows that we've got the foundation it works and now we have to go to what they recommend. I because I
don't know. Yeah, by state statute, we are required to implement those standards. We are told what the what is. As a district, we have that latitude for the how. And that really comes at the local decision to determine what curricular resources you
want to use to juxosition to the what, but we don't have a choice in the what. Director Carbone. Yeah. Thank you, Matt. Um, I know that first of all, are you good?
Sorry. First of all, it's it's nice to see fresh eyes looking at this. Um, since February, we've been talking about curriculum, teaching and learning and so forth. And and one of the conversations that's come up multiple times is the
consistency of content. So that if a seventh grader in Kenwood should know what a um seventh grader in Meuire is doing and that's a good thing like that. Um my question is though as a board and I and I go back to Bill because I've
heard Bill say this many times that we're spending millions on curriculum. That being said, as a board, and I know you're going to show like different colored arrows and all of that, and and that's really part of my question here.
Um, what should the board be deimplementing uh that's redundant or of low value for academics and is costing us a lot of money? and how do we turn some of these
things around and get more return, you know, more return on investment? Now, I'm going to ask that and give you a little bit of grace because you've only been doing this for what, 30 days? It's a big question, but but it's something that I I think the board would like to know. If if you don't know that answer now, I I totally
understand, but it's something we'd like to know. So, I when I think about resources, one of the things that comes to my mind is return on investment. Mhm. When I'm working with a team of teachers or when I'm working with our coordinators as we're working with
teachers and we are in that um phase two and three when we are considering what field test resources we might want to bring forward to try and then eventually bring to the board for approval. What's happening in the background in phase one
and phase two is the coordinators are working very diligently to determine what resources might we even want to bring to the table for teachers to test because we're not just going to bring them things willy-nilly and we really want to be thinking about those
resources. Are they highly aligned to the standards? We're not going to bring something to be field tested if we're not going to get a return on investment of at least 80% of that product. Now, our state standards are based off of national standards. And so, the
difference between national standards and state standards could be up to 20%. Who do you think core vendors write to? Do they write to the Minnesota standards? They do not. Who do they write to? They write to the big states, Texas, California, New York, and many of those
states, those education departments choose to adopt the national standards. Minnesota doesn't. So, we know right off the bat there's going to be gaps, whatever resource we decide to purchase. So, the first thing we do is we investigate that and we bring the
products to our teachers that best align to those standards and best align to those evidence-based practices and the shifts that we want to see happen in instruction. And then when we're in phase three, once it's been approved by the board, then we develop our scope and sequences or a
pacing guide where we are doing that direct alignment, looking at that resource, aligning it to those units, figuring out what units might not be at the level of rigor. I'll give you an example. One of our resources in science during the next generation science
standard, they decided to put a benchmark that was in first grade into fourth grade. That didn't help us, did it? Because the unit was written for those national standards. We had to really look at that and either decide, do we not do that unit? How do we beef up that unit to be
developmentally appropriate and at the level of rigor? So, when we look at return on investment, we're looking at those pieces. How well does it align to it? And we're also looking for student engagement, um, teacher efficiency, um, and then we have a whole resource rubric
where we're looking at a multitude of things in order to determine if it's a valid, um, resource to bring forward to field test and then to finally bring to you for approval. So, in addition to that, um, Sandy is, um, highlighting how we choose
instructional resources, um, textbooks, online resources, those pieces. The other part of the work that Sandy and I are doing are when you look at the the bullets that are up there that standards are the blueprint for instructional strategies, professional development,
interventions and supports, assessment, design and use. We're looking at what's in the system. What do we currently have for staffing resources or programming that's in the district that maybe isn't working anymore? That isn't giving us a
return on investment. So, it's not only the resources that align with the standards, but also the programming that we have across the district. And no, we're not ready to answer that yet, but it is something that we're looking into. Director Nicholson,
um, two quick questions. uh do you are and and I've had a couple conversations with some educators um one on the screen and a number of others but do you believe the MDE standards are developmentally appropriate? Do you
think they push too much at too young of an age right now? Do you think I' I'd love just to know do you think it's a reasonable expectation or do you think they push too hard?
They definitely are more rigorous. That is for sure. The saying goes um with kindergarten. Kindergarten is kind of like the new first grade. It truly is. We expect them to be readers at the end of kindergarten. I think about my husband who took a nap three times in kindergarten. He had his mom as a
kindergarten teacher. he just left the classroom and took a nap. Um, is he still a successful engineer, part owner in his business? Absolutely he is. But they are getting more rigorous and the expectation is higher. And it's no longer just to your point, Director
Carbone, regurgitating the answer. It's being able to fix a math problem when it's broken. Like to have to be nimble in your math to be able to find other ways to solve it. And I think about when I go to the grocery store with and I'm
going to go back to my husband who's like the human calculator, you know, I'll be taking out my phone and I'll be he goes, "Come on, Sandy. Just round it up and do this." Oh, yeah. Yep. That's being nimble. And that's where we want our students to be is in that place. And
it is putting them in a place of rigor, but also a place of relevance so that they can apply it in real world settings. And that really is the shift with the standards. its rigor, relevance, and application in real world settings because we want them to be thinkers when they leave us.
I like that, Director Cameron. Um, thanks for that. A question I have is that um I'm hearing that we need to make sure obviously our curriculum and other resources are aligned with standards and that it can be challenging at times, right, to to find the
appropriate pieces given the national landscape. Obviously, we're one district with hundreds, right? Or maybe thousands across the state of Minnesota. I'm curious like what does the ecosystem look like? How are we how are we partnering with our peers, our other
large school districts to help make these decisions? I don't I don't think we all need to reg or reinvent the wheel, right? So, how can we learn best practices from other districts or resources and vice versa? And how are we how are we utilizing um those networks to to make it better here in 184? Yeah,
I really appreciate that question. Um, and I'll speak from my experience. Um, so when we were making the decision of what resources to bring forward to field test for math, we did exactly that. AM Amber, we interviewed all the vendors and then we sent out a survey to our um,
Minnesota area curriculum leaders and asked them, "What are you currently using? What might you use with these new standards?" And then we interviewed probably over a dozen um different districts to kind of get a sense of where they were. And then when we landed
on bridges as our curriculum, we leaned heavily on Weisetta and Anoka Henipin. Weisetta has been using bridges for about seven to eight years. They have the top math scores in the state and have had them for seven to eight years. They'll say a lot of that has to do with not only the excellent teachers that
they have in their system, but also the resource that they're using. They helped us out tremendously. They shared with us before we even uncovered where the gaps might have been in fifth grade. They shared with us how they addressed those gaps and we also went to Anoka Hannipin
and learned from them. We stole things from both the Anoka Hannipin and Weisetta and we created something richer here for our district. We're currently doing that for social studies where we know that there is an excellent resource that we really want to move forward with, but we know off the bat there's a gap in third grade. We know that, but we
also know that Bloomington and Eastern Carver are also going to be looking at this resource. We're going to be hosting next week our um field testing um PD with this particular resource. Bloomington is reaching out to us and they want to be a part of it. So, we're going to collaboratively if we choose to
move forward with that and if it is approved by the board to create something where that gap is. We already know that and there will always be gaps. So, we are taking advantage of that. The work is too tough and we know that across our whole metro area. We go on these calls. It's a lot between the
readact, the standards, the expectations. It's a lot to manage and it's also a lot to manage when you're thinking about the workload of your teachers because you want them to hang in there with you. Um, and you want to be able to chunk it for them so that they can come along with you for the ride because it's a lot.
Back on uh, Director Carbone's question, and I can't remember if we discussed this at a prior meeting or if it was offline, do we have certain limitations as far as what is reimburseable when we're looking at the different resource options for our school district? So, I'll speak to you maybe now on ELA.
We'll switch gears just a little bit. Um, there's different funding sources, as you know. There's literacy aid, literacy incentive aid um that comes to us as a district and this is what making it a little bit tricky particularly at the elementary with ELA. The same
constraints aren't around secondary but at the elementary level um this is the first time ever that the state um is making recommendations for resources. They always say that's local control but for literacy they are not. Then they have identified one highly aligned
comprehensive resource. That's it. And it's an online open-source resource. We've interviewed our neighboring districts who have tried it on. There's some challenges with it. I'm not sure if that's the direction we would want to go in our district, but going back to your funding source, the state
originally said that you could only use your literacy um aid dollars for those that were highly aligned. Okay? So if you purchased that particular e education, you could use those dollars to be able to support that. Now within
the last 72 hours, I would say maybe even a little bit longer. They have now loosened that up a little bit and they said that you can use your dollars for not only highly aligned, but also partially aligned. There's not a whole lot in the partially aligned, but it's a lot better than only having one to choose from.
Thompson, can we like start our own school district curriculum? I I think there's a governor's race coming up like if you've got 300 plus districts that need to do this, they're all doing the exact same dang thing and and while
we can try to form partnerships like we're recreating the wheel. I mean like this is for 20%. And and I get that there there's a big gap and there's there's going to be some districts that can't afford it or they can't even do the 20%. And so the most that they're going to
get is 80. So we're pretty fortunate that we can even try to you know cover the gap of the 20. But man, this we should look into that. Director Cameron. Yeah, it's complex. For sure. For sure. And so when we're trying to pinpoint what is the one reason, there
isn't one reason. It's like a science experiment. There's so many variables. But here's the thing that I just want everybody to understand. It's my goal and I believe this team AC that's standing in front of you but
across the system is we have to find a way to simplify in order to focus and because there's so many attendant complexities but if you focus on state standards that's that's where we're going. If we stay on that,
we have our best opportunity for success. So, I I just want to make sure the context of that is not lost in the complexities of what we're trying to accomplish here. I know we we've discussed a lot, so but I I am I'm curious about this and this
um kind of aligns with Director Carbone's question. I'm I'm curious with all of this, how how do I phrase this? I think it's important for individual teachers to run small units or projects that they're
really passionate about, right? Every educator has these unique things that are their skills, right? They can do a cool science lab or they can do a cool art project, you know, whatever it is. And I think those are really important to create connections with students and and um invigorate learning. And um I'm
cur like a conversation came up actually this last weekend where someone asked um my daughter, "Oh, they're in fourth grade. Are they doing cursive?" She's like, "Well, no, we did cursive in third grade." Well, this student is doing it in fourth grade at a different elementary. And so, and that was like
pretty extensive um unit, the cursive unit one. I don't even know if cursive is necessary, but that's, you know, that's not my daughter loved it. Don't get me wrong. not in a standard, but but it made me think like these units are happening at different even
different grade levels within our district. And so, um, how are we thinking about that? Um, how do we make sure that there's the opportunity for teachers to to do unique projects, right, with their classrooms, but but
also um create consistency amongst the the buildings no matter where they go to school. Does that kind of make balancing that? Yeah, I think it's the art and science of teaching is what you're speaking to, Amber. Um, and it's also a guaranteed
and viable curriculum. So, what is the standard? And then once that standard has met, where do we allow for some of that art and that responsiveness to student need? Because the students that you have in front of you could be very different than the students that Brett has. So there has to be multiple ways to
access, engage and express learning because we have to differentiate for the students needs that we have in front and we want our teachers to be responsive in addition to being predictive in ensuring that all of our students have access to grade level benchmarks at a high level.
So it's an and it's not an or. And that adds another layer of complexity because imagine if you were an elementary teacher, you have 45 ELA standards, 35 math standards, 32 science. I'm just making up some numbers, but that's a lot
to juggle in your day and then you don't have enough time in the day. So, how do you integrate them? How do you put maybe some social studies in your ELA and some of your science and your math? And so, it's a lot. and then attune to the social emotional needs that we have of our students and the disregulation that
we have since co um but you go into a classroom and there are miracles that are happening. I've been in many classrooms and I'm proud to be a part of this district and I'm proud to support and serve our teachers because there's amazing things and I get a little emotional because it's pretty fantastic
and make sure you get in there. So, if we're ready, I'll move on a little bit and then you can ask some more questions. All right, there's a lot here, so I'll do my very best. Um, and then I'm going to use math again since that's been kind of our standard example, but the next
three slides show our progress um with the standardsbased review process at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. Some phases are not complete, and we'll address those gaps moving forward. And we recognize we have gaps for a variety of reasons for all the complex issues that we have just talked
about. I'll model with math at each level to show how the phases unfold and align with the expectation of the Minnesota Department of Education's predictive 10-year cycle. Couple of things I want you to notice is there's some flags here. So, if you see a red
flag, that is when the state has determined full implementation of that standards. So if you remember I said 2425 was science, 25 26 is ELA, 26 27 is social studies, 2728 is math and then I could keep going on but they keep going
forward. Um and then you'll notice um the MCAs when the full implementation happens. So say for example for ELA because we're in that in the 2526 school year, you'll notice that the MCAs will happen in the spring of that year. So then that would be a yellow flag. Um the
reason or excuse me blue thank you Tracy it's been a long day. Um the yellow flag um is interesting because health we have not had local control of our standards. The last time we've really looked at those are the national standards that
were in 2007. But if you're following the state department guess what Minnesota's going to have local health standards. And this will be the first time ever with full implementation I believe in 3435. I don't know if you'll see Tracy and I in 34 or 35, but those will be fully implemented um during that
time. So, let's just take a peek at math and we'll do it at the elementary level first. Um at the elementary level, phase one, which is green, so if you're following those arrows, actually began in 2020, though it's not shown on this timeline. In 2324, phase 2 began for
grades K and five and continued for grades K and three into 2425. while grades four and five advanced to phase three. That's a lot to understand there. But guess what happened that created that uniqueness? The read act. The split was due to the read act
professional learning for grades K3 while grades four five moving ahead to phase three. This year in 2526 grade four five entered the full implementation which means that they have had professional development on the resource have created their pacing or
their scope in sequence um and are ready for that full implementation. Grades K3 um K through three are advancing to phase three. All grades remain on track for full implementation in the 2728 school year with alignment of the MCAs coming the spring of 28. It's easy to
follow elementary gets a little bit more complicated because remember for each of those content areas there's multiple courses at the secondary level. So you're going to have more arrows to follow which also means there's more groups that we have to manage to ensure that they're at that
full implementation. So at the middle school level in math phase one begins in 2425 with phase 2 and three and 2526. Full implementation follows in 2627 again keeping us on track for the new
MCA4 in the spring of 28. And then finally at the high school level in math like the middle school phase one began began in 2425 and phase two and three in 2526. Phase three continues in 2627
and again while keeping on track for full implementation in 2728 with the MCAs in 28. So this is our standardsbased review, kind of our curriculum audit, so to speak. Because if you think about curriculum more than just the resources, it's really about
the instruction, the assessment, the evidence-based practices, the standards, and the resources that you use. So all of those pieces are need to be embedded in order to be at that full implementation. Director Thompson. Hey, I I noticed that the MCA is it the
MCA exam that's going to be done in spring, but if we're implementing it in I'm looking at math the fall of 2027, like we still have things to be taught throughout the end of the year. And so in the first year of it's not even in that first year, I
think just in general, we're missing out on two potentially three months worth of content. Correct? Is that a fair statement? I mean, I don't know how we're going to fix that, but the MCAs um depending on the schedule because you have reading, math, and science that you
have to all fit in and sometimes we can start as early with science in March. And you're right, we still have more instruction. So that also puts some complexity for the teacher because if you are a grade level that is um assessing for an MCA, you have to have a whole year's done
probably by that April when you're assessing even though we go into the first second week of June. So that adds another complexity of compressing some of those things. And think about our students and their developmentally appropriateness where they're at with that. the spring of the year. If you've
ever been in a classroom in the spring of the year, there's there's a little bit of excitement that goes on with that. It's spring. Does the state not take that into account when they're preparing the MCAs that hey, if we're taking this in April that we we shouldn't be expecting them
to know all the material that will be taught through the end of or start of June. No, there's no unless we unless we start, like I think I shared this before, unless we move things up, you know, one or two months in advance. I mean, in in the month of May is when
you start the next curriculum so that we have an opportunity so that you don't have a shorter window. I mean, I don't I don't know how how hard that would be, but it'd be a curriculum change. Yeah. And then you think about, you know, your littles at your younger grades. That first month is a lot of
setting rituals and routines and a sense of belonging and relationships and friendships and how do you line up, you know, to go to PE class, etc. So, there's a lot that goes into it. Director Nixon,
how do you track all this? Do you guys have some sort of massive spreadsheet SQL database? Do you got uh something like that? So, as new standards come along, you have something you're kind of checking against. You're saying, "Okay, what's the switch?" And for sure, we have a master spreadsheet
um that really not only puts it in the phases, but what are the products that need to happen in each of those phases um and products that are key guiding documents for teachers. And when you're thinking of it, it's like a giant puzzle piece. um you have to be really spatial because you also have to think about not
overloading your teachers. So if we are field testing this but implementing this but PD is required in read act I have to make sure that nobody looks like the top has just been put off the blender right because I have to think about that workload for the teacher and you have to
pace that out and so that they're not implementing five six different things at one time and so that creates a little bit of finesse with also being on track with what the state statute requires um which makes a little tricky I'm telling you with social studies right Right now,
we're a little bit jammed. Um, it's probably not the longest runway that we would have liked, but we needed to do math out of sequence because we had 25 year old resources. Um, and Reed came along. So, you have to make some decisions, too based on the
uniqueness that you have from your district and what are the needs. Director Anderson, we would also like to say that we have some outstanding coordinators. Uh, we have one of our coordinators here, Natalie Nelson. um and they do an outstanding job working with each one of
our um content areas at the secondary and elementary. And they are keeping track of which course is at what place in the standardsbased review uh process because one course in science might be
further along than another course in science, seventh or eighth grade or high school. And so they do a fantastic job of juggling all this, working with our teachers and uh coordinating that work. Yeah. And it's not an easy task whatsoever. And just like there's
different needs of students in the classroom, there's different needs of our teachers too based on their capacity and agency and what they might need. Um but it is a lot. And as Tracy said, we have some phenomenal coordinators and we have some great partners in our buildings, too. From our learning
specialists to our deans to our principles and our instructional coaches. It takes all of us. And as Tracy had mentioned, teaching is learning is who we are in Lakeville. It's not a department. And we need every integral part in order to um support and
service our teachers through our students. Director Anderson. Yes. So, I'm thinking about kind of what we've been asking of our teachers last year and this year with all these changes in curriculum, which is a lot. I know there's been a lot of PD time and those of us who are parents knew there were more days off from school, which
was in support of our teachers. Um, but I'm also wondering about new teachers or trans maybe teachers coming from other districts and how because you kind of mentioned chunking it like how what is how do we support people coming into the
district doing all of this at the same I mean not only coming into a new building new colleagues new students but also taking on all of this and making sure they we retain them because I think retention is something we're thinking about too,
right? So, um we have been talking quite a bit about a mentoring program and uh last spring we um kicked off a mentoring program with building mentors that would support those um new people. Um we are
continuing that program in this fall. We also have our um IDSS coaches who visit with our new teachers on a a regular basis in their buildings to make sure that they um answer any questions they
might have, that they can coach them, they can watch a lesson and help support them through that. We also have our um principles who have meetings for our new teachers and um walk them through and help support them as they're growing and
learning. Um there's also PD during the uh pre before school workshop time. We do have time for new staff to get acquainted with the the uh curriculum that they'll be supporting. I think are they learning all of that
information in a time when I'm just thinking about how we've given this PD time across last year for instance for all the teachers learn redact or learn bridges and flopping now. So, like the people coming in are learning all of this kind of as they're going, which is just I think I don't know if there's any
way we can offer additional supports or it's a lot. And I would um also, as Tracy mentioned, give a shout out for our coordinators because they work closely with our building leaders at the elementary level. They work closely with our learning specialists to help onboard
um our new teachers. We're also looking at how do we create some um courses and some slide decks. We have a curriculum hub both at the elementary and at the secondary level. And we're also trying to build that out. So if you're new to our system, you'll be able to see all of
those slide decks, those PDs, we have videos where we can show some exemplars of what it looks like in the classroom. So they're a place where teachers can go to and then the support that we have in the buildings um whether it's a learning specialist or a coach or a principal or AP can also support them in that area.
Um but again, hats off to um our coordinators in really developing those curriculum hubs, not only for our present teachers, but also as a way to onboard new teachers. It's not the same as getting 60 hours of PD and bridges. It just isn't. And it's hard to recreate that.
Uh Director Thompson. Yeah. Uh, I think I think what you just said and what you shared, I think are are fantastic topics that we have to make sure that we're aligned in because when we have new teachers coming in, I think we have a hundred new staff that joined this year and and they don't know what what they don't know. Obviously,
they've got their experiences that they bring to the table, but it might be different curriculum. It might be a different way of presenting and and so forth. So, having that uh course hub, I think, is is amazing. Like if we want to ensure that we've got accurate systems in place where there's consistency
across all of our grades, we've got what 40 first grade teachers and 40 second grade teachers and and if the standard doesn't change ideally for after 10 years, we should be able to like I don't know if I was a teacher and I was able to receive like an email saying here's
my lesson plan, here's what I need to do, here's the video of how to instruct and how to teach it and then sprinkle your own you know charismatic style to it in your delivery. like that would show consistency. But again, I I I don't know. But I do feel that having all of our teachers recreate how to do things
doesn't make sense. So the more systems that we can play have in place, let us know what additional funding uh is needed because I think those are uh in my mind a great investment because they're created, they can be reused and watched by multiple staff over the
course of the years. So yeah, Director Cameron, um related to um Director Anderson's question, at least at the elementary level, we have some buildings that are twice the size of others, right? Or about twice the size. And so I'm
cognizant of your slides saying that the principles are the instructional leaders and guests. and especially if there are no um APS at a uh at our elementaryaries. I can't remember if we have them right now or not, but we do not.
Okay. Just two schools that are 700 students or more. So, I I think it's important to think about, you know, a principal at a smaller school will have the ability, right, to connect on a more regular basis versus the larger schools and also
doing teacher evaluations and whatnot. Um, how are we creating the systems? You don't have to answer this right now, but I think that's important to think about. Yeah, definitely. Okay, you ready? Yep, we're ready. So, we're going to move on to a little bit with professional development. Um, and our
professional development focuses directly on strengthening um that tier one instruction using a goal, action, outcome framework. Professional development moves beyond just information sharing to change practice strategies through ongoing coaching
which we've spoken to. Feedback and collaboration amongst our teachers. Um accountability loops ensure professional development leads to measurable improvements building teacher and leader capacity to enhance student learning. So another theme that we saw was
building systems of support. um the standardsbased system. We need to make sure that all of our teachers know their standards. They know what students need to be able to um understand and uh do. Um we also need to be implementing
interventions that are guided by clear expectations. Um they have to be strateg strategic and targeted and responsive to our student data. And that's all part of that standards um based foundation. We also
need to be looking at our school day structures. Our current high school six period schedule limits our flexibility. Our flexibility for students to have interventions, our students to be able to engage in more electives throughout
their school day. And so we need to make sure that we're creating a system that allows time for intervention and students to be able to get that extra help that they might need. Um, we also need to make sure that at our other schools, at middle schools and elementary schools, that our schedules
are providing space for targeted support within the school day for our students. And then our staffing needs to be aligned to student needs. And so, how do we look at um staffing and where our um people resources are needed to be able
to maximize that support for interventions for students. So, we want to be able to offer that extra help for our students, but we need to make sure that we have a system in place that's going to be able to give those students that support. And then another theme is
around collaboration and accountability. And as you've heard throughout our presentation that teaching and learning is the work of the entire organization. So, we need everybody to think about teaching and learning and how their decisions impact teaching and learning.
It can't be siloed. We need to make sure that we're clear on our expectations that teachers are teaching to the standards, what we expect our um instructional leaders to do throughout the buildings. And we need to make sure that um our teachers are owning the
learning of all of our students, whether they're EL students or special or students that are in special education. No matter what programming you have, we want to make sure that all of our teachers share that responsibility of educating our students.
So, our next steps and we've aligned our action steps to the themes that we um we've established here um under cult our culture of collective responsibility. First off, we want to send a unified message which I said superintendent
Bowman has already started to um send across our district. We want to make sure that our district departments are working in partnership with our site administrators. And so Sandy and I have been reaching out to all of our admin to make sure that we're working uh
handinhand with them to develop these systems as we move forward. We need a long range teaching and learning plan. We need to know where we want to be as a school district five years from now and then work backwards from there and build the systems um in order to enable
learning. We need to engage our community and our families for feedback and we need to make sure that we're all taking ownership of our student progress in instructional leadership. We want to make sure that we're targeting professional learning for our
instructional leaders. We have an updated um principal development and evaluation that is tied to our strategic goals. And so that's a new evaluation system for our our principles. Uh we also have district-wide principal and
assistant principal meetings that are going to be focused on instructional leadership and how we empower them to um enhance their instructional leadership um in their buildings. Our next theme was building consistency through standards and data. We want to make sure
that we are systematizing the standardsbased review process. And what a dynamic partner I have in this work. You can just see the passion that Sandy has for this work. Um, and I'm just excited to continue working right alongside her because she thinks through
a system lens and a process lens. And so we want to make sure that all of the documentation and the process all look the same. So when a new teacher comes in, they don't have to look at five different types of um documentation that
they're looking at the same thing. Our principles are seeing the same documentation aligned to the standardsbased review process. Our PLC work is very important. That is professional learning communities work. That's when our teachers have time to
actually come together and talk about their teaching. We need to make sure that we are focused and we're giving our teachers time to do that PLC work. Um and then uh preK through 12 vertical alignment. We need to make sure that
those standards are aligned vertically uh and not just across a grade level. in professional development. We've said that uh uh you've heard Sandy talk about our bridges elementary math training, our readact. Uh we are going to be
working with our secondary teachers in the course of the next uh five P uh PD days, professional development days that they have to target their learning around assessment. We are also providing targeted feedback and coaching for our
leaders. And I talked a little bit about our mentor pilot program that we're moving forward with. In our theme of building systems of support, I said teaching and learning is providing cons consistent documentation and processes
from preK all the way through 12th grade. We are uh pulling together a workg group to talk about interventions and how we systematize interventions rather than have oneoffs depending on what school building that you are
located in. We also want to talk about um reviewing our middle school and high school schedules so that we find time for interventions. Uh going back to our six period day that we have uh right now for our high schools.
um creating that long range teaching and learning plan and then aligning our budget to our priorities so that we can create sustainable systems um for accountability. Moving into collaboration and accountability, each
one of our buildings has a SCOP which is a site continuous improvement plan. We want to make sure that we're providing support in how they write those plans and how they set up their actions so that we can see progress in their building as to how they are moving
forward. And we also have a new TDE framework which is a teacher development and evaluation framework. We're working on the process of implementing that and how our principles develop interrator reliability so that they are evaluating
our teachers in a consistent framework. and then we have a reboot of our professional learning communities. So a as we conclude here, there's been a lot of learning um for you and thank you very much for your thoughtful questions.
Um we want to build systems so that um we can ensure success for our not only our our students but our staff who come to work every single day and want to do what's best for our students. Um,
student learning is our core purpose as a district. And as I said numerous times, we have excellent staff and leaders who care deeply about our students. We just need to set up the system so that they can be successful in
that work. Uh, thank you so much for all of that. That was amazing. Um, I think we could probably spend three hours. Yeah. Uh, before I forget though, Director Baker, did you have a question? No. Okay. Director Cameron.
Uh, thank you so much for the presentation and the conversation. This kind of bridges our next topic. So, if it's better to wait for that, let me know. But, um, I'm really excited to see all of the work going especially around intervention. I think that's been a huge
gap in our school district and and so the systems that we need to to allocate to intervention and making sure that um all kids are successful is really important, right? Um that being said, I'm curious about so when I looked at the MCAs, I just did kind of a a quick
glance at the latest data and if you look at elementary for example, um at most of our buildings, at all of our buildings, 30 to 40% of our students are scoring above grade level. That's a huge number of students who are like thriving, right? And so, while it's
critical that we do this part that we're talking about, I also am curious how our district is continuing to provide rigorous opportunities for that 40% of our students and not just through like a gifted lens, but really as part of our
like core curriculum. Um, and and I know we have limited resources, right? But I think that is a group that needs a lot of additional support as well. So, um, going back to the math example, um, Director Cameron, um, when we made
the decision to think about what we were going to field test for math, the reason why Bridges was at the top of the list is because it had builtin enrichment through the concept quest and it had built-in interventions. So then we didn't have to peacemill things that
didn't cohesively connect. And so that was done intentionally. And when we look at resources to bring to field test, one of the thing that's on the resource rubric, regardless of what the content area is, is what does that resource bring and support with differentiation
so that the teacher doesn't have to create all of those pieces. And within that new resource, for example, with bridges, there is a very robust component um with that concept quest. And then one of our coordinators who is leading that at the elementary level is
also the one that is supporting our advanced learning not only just the individuals who are identified in a gifted paradigm but also in a differentiated paradigm. So we do take that um into consideration. So I appreciate that. But it's all of our students and so how do we meet the needs
no matter where they are at? Director Nicholson kind of piggybacking on this question a little bit. Um, is there any plans to remove the honor level coursework courses right now? The next year, two years, three years. Any plan to remove
that? We don't have any plan for that. We That's good. Okay, that's all. A no is a perfect answer. And I'm moving on. Director Thompson, we we've gotten a few emails and inquiries around that. So, that's good to know. So, that now it's on the record. We're good. Um, uh, what you
shared about the five-year plan, I think that's super super critical. like I don't even know where we're going to be in five years. I mean I in where I work at technology is advancing way very very quickly and so but but with that being said like it those we've got kids that
are accelerating and and you know overachievers and they want to go and and they and they grasp things very quickly for what for for where some of these kids are at. while the robust curriculum may be good as a as a bridge
but if they can go faster how do we provide a lane where they can take the you know the fast lane and and so I don't know if you guys have already explored AI tools or or other things where the rigor is still there but if they know it and they can show
proficiency of it and mastery can like what's stopping them from going to the next level now maybe there's developmental reasons why they got to stay in the grade level but I just want better understand in the next five years things are going to shift and I'd love for our school district to be able to think forward on uh what alternative
education delivery methods do we need to consider. So that's all right Dr. Anderson, I just want to express appre appreciation for your presentation and also um I think consistency across the system has been something that I've cared a lot about since um coming onto
this board and so I really appreciate the path you're taking and where you're going. So, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. It was amazing. Thanks, ladies. Thank you, Superintendent Bowman. Mr. Chair, board members, ladies and gentlemen, uh wanted to take an
opportunity this evening to move forward uh our conversation and our efforts at establishing an executive dashboard or metrics uh in the areas of academics, student services, human resources,
operations, and finance. uh you have in your packets the um recommendation from the administration on the metrics in a format of leading and lagging metrics and then uh our
baseline for each of those uh domains. Um and my hope is that we can uh do a couple of things tonight. One is uh get feedback from you each of you or any of you or collectively
uh what where you are uh in terms of guidance to proceed. And then our next uh steps would be to establish goals for school year 26 and 27 departing from the baseline and bring those to the board uh
in our next uh our next board meeting. And so I'm simply asking if there's concurrence around these. Uh you asked me to provide those before 9 September and I did by five September I think was the date. Um so I I hope we're at a
place where we can step forward. Uh we intend to do a quarterly business review. We've uh looked at October as our first opportunity to do that. So time is of the essence. Um, this is our last
meeting in September. Uh, the implied task then is is the end of October or our second meeting in October. So, I'm trying to get in that framework and uh move this forward best we can. So, that's my presentation.
Director Carbone, I know Howard's not here, but no PowerPoints. Howard, Superintendent Bowman, I appreciate you putting this together and it was it wasn't I mean it was a group effort. I know. Correct. It's the the whole staff working uh and taking your feedback over
weeks, months, I would say, and trying to shape this uh as close to alignment as we can get. Yeah. And I and I think this is a a a good start. One of the things I know I mentioned um previously and and I think
it's true um we start with this but in three months five of these may not be relevant. We need five different ones. I mean this is to me this is a living document as as we breathe and as we move along. fully concur and expect that uh
as we move through time and we want to adjust to the situation that we face uh we have to do that work right okay director Nicholson quick question on
quick question on the uh the GPA is that a weighted GPA is that everything brought back to 4.0 or we're going to start with weighted. Okay. Uh we can look at the pros and cons of
changing that. I know it's been an ask. Um it's in the blender and we're keeping the top on, but that's where we're starting. I was curious for clarification. That's all. Um the fast the two fast bridge uh
sets of metrics. Can you explain or extrapolate a little bit on FastBridge A-reading and math growth data grades 2 through nine versus the proficiency data? I'm going to bring the subject matter
expert to give you the subject matter expert answer. Sandy, well, I'm sure Brett will repeat it for you. There is fast brbridge proficiency reading and math and then there is fast brbridge a-reading and math growth data.
Can you explain those two differences for us all please? Thank you. Thank you. Um okay. So I think I understand your question after I was kneede in a couple of texts. So thank you for your patience on that. Um we were getting a lot of nice texts that we did a nice job. So um
okay. So the difference between um proficiency and growth is when we're looking at proficiency um there are target scores that are identified national target scores and what we do is we evaluate where the
students are based on those target scores and that tells us whether or not they are proficient um what we would expect for a grade level outcome. Now the growth score is a little bit different because you could have a student who is not meeting that target
score for that grade level but they have shown an incredible amount of growth. Now ideally you want both right you want students to be at grade level and you want to be accelerating. So when you have students who are not performing at grade level you really want to make sure
that that growth that rate of improvement is larger. so that you can decrease that gap that is there and we call that accelerated learning. So what strategies can we put in place such as
intervention models to accelerate that growth so we can keep them on track to being at grade level benchmarks. Was that the question and answer you asked? It it is. Um, the only piece that I'm kind of looking for then is what is a
good or acceptable or reasonable type of number for the growth data number. We use 60% for that growth. Um, however, I'm going to give a caveat with that because one of the things that Cheryl and I did, she's our our data person.
Um, couldn't do a lot of this work without Cheryl. So, shout out to Cheryl. Um but this past summer both Cheryl and I presented at a Compass um uh conference and we talked about exactly that that rate of improvement because if you just keep at that 60% growth which
is that average growth and I'm below grade level do you see that it just keeps me like this parallel. So you need to have that rate of improvement of almost like a 1.5 year in order to close
that gap. So for your average student, it's at 60% growth. But if you have a student that is below, you have to bump that up. And within our platforms, we're able to adjust that rate of improvement so that we can accelerate that growth
and close that gap. So one of the things that we just recently put on at the elementary level is licensed reading interventionists in all of our buildings. Um and one of our our literacy lead is working closely with them to provide some professional development not only in the
instructional strategies but how they can track that data and then through that progress monitoring. So it doesn't just happen at the benchmarkings of fall, winter, and spring, but then if you have a student who's not on track, then you're progress monitoring at an intensive level weekly and sometimes
bi-weekly for those strategic levels so that you can ensure that you're doing this and not this. Are we able to segregate the data so we can look at the students that are not meeting that benchmark proficiency and then track what their growth is over the year?
Yeah, we can do that. We have we have a platform in edge of climber that allows us to do quite a bit of that work and that's the platform that our teachers use. And then when they are in their PLC's and you think about the coralary coralary questions that teachers are doing, what is it we want students to
know? That's the standards. How do we know that's the data and that's that progress monitoring. What do you do when they have it? That's the intervention. What do you do when they don't have it? And so they look at all sorts of assessments um to be able to determine that not only these interim general
outcome measures and fastbridge, but then also the common assessments. But the neat thing about the fast bridge of being a general outcome measure is that it has a built-in progress monitoring that's sensitive enough that you can give an assessment weekly to be able to see that growth. a common assessment
that's developed at the classroom level or at the PLC level is not sensitive enough to be able to see that growth on specific skills. Director Anderson. Um, yes. So, thank you for putting this together to all of the team. Um, one of
the questions I have, um, I guess I'm thinking about the or I'm looking at the student services and student engagement section. Um, and I maybe this might be kind of just technical language, but I'm thinking about this from like an engagement and well-being perspective.
You know, if we think about kind of our mission or the vision of the district being kind of social and personal readiness, um, you know, how are they how are they doing in our schools from kind of that social emotional perspective? And so, um, I'm wondering
if there are opportunities to add here. Uh, I know the student desired daily experiences survey only goes out once per year. Is that correct? Yes. So, just wondering I know there's some fast bridge data around social emotional
health or kind of ratings. Um, so I'm wondering if we can include that. And also, um, I'm wondering, and this might just be some follow-up conversation, but is there a way that we can look at
engagement with mental health services more comprehensively? So, I guess something I'd be wondering is um how are students engaging in those mental health services and what are what is the outcome of those services? So, are they completing a course of treatment? or are they um do we have any
information that would help us understand the outcome? Um so yeah, being able to kind of measure and I don't know, Mr. Bone, if you know if there's anything at the higher level to more um kind of engage
or gauge uh how our secondary students are doing. I know the fast bridge data is at available at the at the elementary level, but it is it available across I think we're getting fast bridge in the ninth grade now, right? Is there anything from a high school?
Um I I don't know, but certainly we can find out. So just clarifying questions back to you just so I understand. Um uh are you wanting that added now or is this something we want
to do um future? Because my hope is but I'll take whatever the direction is um that we can settle here and then build forward. Um and and these are two excellent
items. If you want me to add them now, then if I need time to research that and get that added into the Well, I don't want to speak for the whole I guess the whole board should weigh in. My thought would be the fast bridge data is available at this point.
whether the district um administration could consider any way to gauge kind of mental health of our high school students. There's a lot of our students who aren't probably engaging in mental health services through the district. So, um is there a way we can do any sort
of uh survey with greater frequency than once per year? Okay, that would be a later item, but I that's my thought. But I don't know how the rest are you asking what services what the topics are or what the services are or are you looking for the results of the
actual session? Oh well we can't well not with the individual but like you could categorize it like I guess I'm confused. I'm not really sure. Say um let's say you know uh with the counseling services or mental health services is this having a number in
terms of understanding how much the services were accessed is one single number but knowing is someone completing completing a therapy or something like that versus are they terminating early or are they you know so to help us gauge
what is the effectiveness of the services that we are offering students not not the dis sometimes it's going out of our district with the contracted services but it would be good for us to know with the contracted services what is the success of those services
but is that metric outside of our control I mean do we have any jurisdiction to say they have to do more or less other than we just want to say how many did we just contract out no I mean I think if we're contracting with a certain group and talk about a
return on investment that's someone we're contracting with and there's money exchange. Are is is there success happening? Sure. In that therapy? Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Cameron, um I just want to reiterate I agree with Dr. Director Anderson about adding the
fastbridge social emotional assessment for elementaryaries. Parents are seeing that data for their individual children and they're getting flagged if they're, you know, there's concern they're doing fine, if they're excelling. So I I think adding that would be should be easy. If we can do the reading with fast bridge,
this should be um a a number to to add. My other question is around MCAs and there might be other things and my question is having just one number for the MCA. I realize we can make a goal to well we
have made a goal to increase it to 90%. um knowing at the secondary level, especially high school, are the numbers of students taking that are significantly low, bringing down the district average.
To what extent would it be helpful to break this by grade or even by elementary, middle, hot, and high school to give the board, the community a better sense of what each like grouping of students, how they're performing
because I do think these numbers can be misleading um because of the number of students taking them at the different grade levels. And yeah, and I think we're doing that. I think that's what we asked for. Um, okay. I know that this is all just, and correct
me if I'm wrong, Superintendent Bowman. Um, because I know we just did through 9th grade, um, because of the issues with the high school reliability and the participation rate. But no, I would I would second that request and hopefully we would have access to the data on the dashboard and be able to break it down,
you know, by grade, even by school. And I know you're going to have separate goals for each school and each grade level. Um, yeah, and have already The easiest, quickest answer is yes. when we get to the QBR, uh, you know, I'll work with the board on what that
looks like so that we can be reporting it in the manner that is being articulated here. So, I can volunteer for for that. Well, I I have no doubt that you will be all over that. We appreciate it, just so you know. So, I had a question just generally
speaking um in your ask for the board. Um, are you thinking of setting coming back with goals for all of these or are you going going to select some that you as a staff are focusing in on and recommending? The second thing. Okay. Um, and then I assume you'll
identify those and then we can discuss what else we want to add along the way. Does that sound okay to everyone? Yeah. Um other question when when do you think that we'll have like an interactive dashboard with some or all of this
operational? Well, c can I anybody want? Yeah, I think the so for my in my opinion, I don't think the interactive dashboard is as as critical. I I think what we need to do is um look at the metrics and say what are the targets that you want to go after and then do we
align on that that way at least you have guidance for the next three for the next year and we can build that interactive dashboard over the next 90 days. if you would indulge me and give me a little bit of time to look. Some of this we already have. Sure. Um, as I stand here right now, I should
have been able to tick it off, but I I haven't. Uh, but some of this we do have, some of it we are still building, and you know what we've gone through with with trying to set those conditions. So, um, yeah, let me get a let me get a clear
picture of that and I'll share that publicly slash with the board as well. Okay. Otherwise, we're looking at recommendations for goals in next meeting. Next meeting. Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah. Outside of just formatting and and
then also being able to dive a little bit deeper to like the MCAs by elementary, middle school, high school as an option. I know there there is um you know number of students failing more than one or more high school course, 647 students. I'd like to see that at each
grade level. But again, these are just formatting and and the data is already there. But I think the biggest issue for us as a board is to be able to look at the baseline metrics and say, "Hey, this is where we're at at an aggregate level at the district." And so, I mean, a AP classes, right? I I it doesn't say
how many students are taking them, but it does say that the average like the percentage of students scoring a three or above on AP exams is 80%. And so if we have over a thousand students taking AP classes, 200 of them are not getting
credit for that particular class. And so it's like these are the metrics that I am glad that we're able to see and now we have something to have conversations with at the next meeting. Director Nicholson, uh are we developing any uh quarterly
assessments for like core curriculum and things like that? We're working on You're talking about uh did you say common assessment? Yeah, like for core curriculum or for core Yeah. core classes.
Do you want to address that? Can you clarify? Are you talking about a curriculum audit? Uh no. Are we do we have like any sort of common assessments across grade level for key areas of study? You know, math,
reading, science, that sort of stuff. That's consistent for us in Lakeville here. That's not necessarily FastBridge or MCAs. So, we don't now, but we are developing those or we're making a plan to develop them. So um different content areas are
in different stages um because that goes along with the phases of the standardsbased review process. So they have to know what they're going to teach and what students need to be able to know and do before they can look
at creating the assessments. Director Cameron, so like with the Bridges curriculum, Yep. At the end of a unit, will all of the third graders at that end of that unit take the same assessment in Lakeville? Is that the goal?
Yes. Yes. Do you want to come up? Yes. And I think you have to have some summitative assessments that help determine where the student is in those particular units. But the other thing that we need to be thinking about
assessment is also the formative pieces that drive instruction. So there's two parts of it. So when we're talking about the common assessments, it's the formative pieces that tell the teacher what is the next step that they need to do and then it's the summitative piece
that tells the teacher they have this and we can move on and maybe we can go to director Thompson's um point earlier in a place of enrichment. So yes, that is somewhere that we want to be um moving our direction towards. The other thing that is unique that I think that
we're we would want to explore too is these common assessments are criterion referenced. um they would aligned to those grade level benchmarks. And there are platforms that are out there that we're going to be investigating that you might be able to put in the state
standard and be able to then populate um some questions that would help us maybe be more efficient with this process because creating assessments is a lot of work. And just when you saw how we were calibrating with the standard, imagine what the calibration would have to
happen with the assessment to ensure that we would have reliability and validity. And we have to really assess as a system. Do we have the capacity in the agency to do that or what other sources could we bring in to support us? Whether it's the unit assessments that
are built in with the curricular resources that we purchase or an outside platform because you can have this assessment but then the assessment is only as good as it is reliable and valid to what you're collecting from. And our teachers didn't go to school to be assessment writers per se. So we have to
keep that in mind too of what that data would show us. When you're talking about like an outside resource, are you talking about like um the Excel program we have for math right now? Um or are you saying like Yeah. No, I wouldn't say it would be something like um there's different platforms that are
out there where you can put in the grade level benchmarks and then they will and the level of rigor and they'll populate um some questions. Some of them are I ready, some are better than others. And to be quite honest um it's in the infancy stage too, you know, as we're
entering all sorts of new technology and AI. Director Cameron. Um thanks. Um, Director Georgie, a question for um, Superintendent Bowman. I forget what meeting it was, but there was a meeting where we passed a lot of, um, items that we wanted on the, um,
data dashboard that are not present here. So, is your goal at some point to go back to those board approved items and add them or um, I'm just curious. I want to keep in mind we we talked about a bunch of
metrics. Ultimately, yes. Uh the the challenge right now, I think, is is to create that initial common operating picture that we can build from. And as Director Carbone was saying, you know, some of these might fall off, other ones might come back in. Uh we we have we had
a plethora of stuff um that we're trying to organize, and I'd just like to take that first step forward and try to get the synergy going. uh from this point forward is so
the answer is yes um how we do that I would like to start from a base and this is this is our recommendation that's helpful I just don't see any of the ones that I made a motion are on here so I just thought I would highlight that okay
that we all approved yeah any other questions yeah what's missing because I because if if we're all right so you know what let's let's Well, let's bring let's make sure that they're added. So, got it. Yep.
Any other questions? All right, that's all we got. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Michael. Any board member reports? Director Nicholson, I would like to say because I missed uh
or wasn't able to connect uh last week that I had a chance to pop in at uh North uh first week of school. Uh saw the freshman pictures getting taken and got to sort of hang out with uh
Principal Booty there and they did a bangup job getting ready for week one. And I think they I didn't have a chance to see a lot of other schools, but I saw them and I think they were they were ready to roll week one. So, just want to give them a little credit that I didn't
get a chance to share last week. Okay. So, Director Cameron, um last week I believe it was I attended the levy information meeting with um Chair Swanson. That was last week, right? I think so. I just wanted to thank um Superintendent Bowman for doing a great
job on um the presentation, for engaging in conversation with community members. I thought it was a um a good conversation with some tough questions, but um uh Superintendent Bowman, you did an excellent job and um appreciate the community members who attended that event.
On that topic, I do want to give a shout out to um I've been at a couple football games recently, high school football games, and we've had staff members manning tables uh including Mrs. Pop um in some terrible weather conditions and just passing out information regarding the levy renewal. So, uh yeah,
appreciate those efforts. If there's nothing else, Superintendent Bowman, thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of uh items to report on and uh also thank you. I know that the board chair and uh director Cameron were at that meeting.
Thank you. I appreciate that support all the time. Um but we are working hard to share information about the levy renewal request that's on the ballot this fall. And last week, I did host a community meeting to share detailed information about how this levy has been used and
will be used to maintain educational technology and security technology across the district. As recently as last night, I was with the Lions Club. Uh had a great opportunity to talk about um where we are with our schools and talk about the uh levy renewal and answer
their questions. and I will be going Thursday as well to uh our Lakeville Rotary and sharing with them. Uh the next community meeting will be held here or held at Lakeville South High School
uh on October 13th at 6 PM. And if you can't make it in person, you can watch a recording of last week's presentation on our levy web page at isd194.org/vote. Uh, finally, early voting began on Friday. Anyone who lives in the district
can vote early here at the district office from 8 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Uh, now uh through the 3rd of November. Uh, election day is November 4th and voters can go to our polling locations and
detailed voting information is also available at isd194.orgvote. Another item I'd like to report on and uh make sure our community is aware of on Monday, September 29th from 6 pm to 8:00 pm over at our Kenwood Trails
Middle School where are cordially inviting families to a parent and caregiver learning event on supporting students digital well-being. The evening will include a presentation from a premier school safety and
educational organization, safer schools together, and a panel with local law enforcement and our district threat assessment specialists will also be present. Parents of middle and high schoolers will get an opportunity to
gain tips for setting family tech rules, monitoring digital use, and staying aware of online trends. And you can learn more about this at isd194.orgnews. And I hope we can get a fill up Kenwood Trails uh middle school auditorium uh
that was recently um renovated and it it was definitely in need has been programmed for a long time. So um it's a wonderful space to sit down and learn about uh tech use in our school system. I think that's
I think that's all I got. Sounds good. Can I just say I'm super thrilled that that is on the calendar. I attended the last one. It was amazing. Every parent should go. It will be eye opening and you will want to throw all cell phones in the lake.
All right. Uh recommended actions, Mr. Baker, on the approval of preliminary pay 26 levy. Superintendent Bowman, Chair Swanson, Board of Education. Thank you very much for having me tonight. Um, we are here to uh go over what we presented for a
second time the uh prior meeting. Uh, do we have the slides? Just working on it. There. There we go. All right. So, the first thing that we're going to do is go over what the pay 26 levy actually is. So, the pay 26
levy, it raises funds for our school district via tax collections. These funds are for general education, special programs such as capital project levies. Uh oh yeah, I have control. Uh capital project levies or capital
projects um restricted funds, capital expenses like LTFM, community education, and debt service. The majority of these levies are enrollment based, the monies that we receive from them. Um there is an exception. We'll get down to that when we get to it in the slideshow. Uh
but so this is governed under state statutes 126 C and 275. This essentially allows counties, cities, townships, and other school districts, other governmental entities to collect taxes from their local constituents. Uh local taxes are highly
based on enrollment. And the board's role in this is the setting of the funding limit. Um they also govern the procedures that are surrounded around collecting taxes. So looking at the levy timeline, last uh
board meeting was that first one where we MD calculates the LO school levy. That's on September 8th. We are on the September 23rd where we are asking you to approve the preliminary pay 26 levy. And the next time you will be seeing Bill and I for uh revolving the levy is
the truth and taxation hearing in which we'll ask you to approve the school levy. So these are the variable or these are the variables affecting the pay 26 levy. There is the market value, net net tax capacity which I'll refer to as NTC, the
sales ratio and the adjusted NTC. So looking at the market value, this is the assessed value of your house. So the county sends out assessors. They give us or they give the county a value of your home. Now we look at NTC. This is the taxable
portion of your house. So, actually, I want to go back a slide real quick. So, looking at the percentage change. So, you know, in notice in 2022, we saw that major jump in property values. That's why that's at 23.93. We've since fallen and we're back down to a reasonable
3.15% for market value. Um, NTC follows relatively the same lines where it went to with that major jump in 22 to 23.62. 62 and now we're down to 4.13. So when we're looking at the sales
ratio, what this is is this is how much a house sells for above the um assessed value. So in other words, in 2024, if you sold your home, I could reasonably assume that you would have sold it for
7% more than what the assessed value of your house actually was. Now, we're looking at adjusted net tax capacity ent. It's important to note that when you divide a number by a number that's less
than one, you end up with a larger number. And this is the figure that they use when they're calculating the amounts that we receive on our levy. So, looking at different components, the RMV uh is our operating portion of our levy.
So it should have been kept. So with the RMV um it has inflation factor associated with it for the majority of it. That inflation factor for 20 or pay 26 was 2.88%. Which is where you're seeing that
growth. It is based on enrollment but there's also that inflation factor that's associated with it. Now we're going to look at the designative components and the main one I want you to focus on here is the vocational piece of it. So the vocational what that is is that basically our career and technical
education. So we are allowed to levy for that piece of it. But in order to receive the funding we need the teachers to be have the appropriate lensure or the appropriate autofield placement in order to actually get those dollars uh
for the district. Now our um teaching learning department has been doing a fantastic job of getting teachers their approp appropriate lensure or the appropriate OFP which is why you're seeing such a drastic increase in the vocational piece.
And these are some more um restrict or restricted components. Um it's pretty standard pretty normal. It's just small increases. Again these are all based on enrollment numbers. So now when we're looking at assigned components, the main piece I want to
draw your attention to is that capital projects levy. So right now we have it at 4.4 million for the pay 26 levy. But again, this is the one that's up for vote this November. So if it um that gets declined, that goes away entirely.
But we are assuming that it's going to pass for the purposes of the pay 26 uh certification. So this is the general fund with all the components associated with it. The net change in the general fund is roughly 4.7 million.
Now we're going to look at community ed. There is a typo in community ed. Um I thought that got changed. So the basic levy piece of community actually declined a little bit albeit not that much. The totals on it are correct. So the overall change in community ed is uh
a negative 114,000 but the major piece of that is that 120,000 in the adjustment. That 120,000 in the adjustment is related to um special ed after school care. So they just overlevy for it in the past and we're seeing an adjustment now going forward. If that adjustment was not there, we would
actually see an overall increase in community edit a small one. So looking at debt service, uh as Bill and I have told you in the past, we are allowed to levy for 105% of our overall debt cost. And when that uh balance gets
too large, we end up underleving and giving money back to the taxpayers in the form of reducing the overall increase in the tax rate. So this year the debt excess amount that we're giving back to taxpayers is uh 1,200 or uh that
number's actually wrong too. So I don't know where the slide came from but it's 1,35,712. So the overall change in the total debt service is4,282,364. This is the same presentation from last
time. That's why this is wrong. Okay. So, the percent change, the numbers online are correct. Not online, they're correct. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. So, the overall percent change for this is42%
essentially zero. It's flat. There's no changes in tax for this year. And just a little breakdown of what actually makes up the levy. So, general fund is 75%. The debt fund is 23% and
community ed is 2%. So we are recommending the following motion for the levy certification. Do we have any questions? I had a question. Um just like dumbing it down for me. Yeah. Uh I'm assuming this is part of like the
25% of our district's funding that just comes from our local taxpayers. Correct. Yes, that is correct. So, it's separate from the state funding that we get. Completely separate. All right. And we don't have I mean, you said we're approving uh the funding limit, but we don't have unlimited authority to just put as much tax on our
local constituents as we want. Correct. That is correct. Um so, if we go back to that first slide, so there is funding limits and we can set up to a certain funding limit. Mhm. And and these are the same things we do every year essentially.
Correct. Okay. Correct. Director Thompson, you had a question. No, I I think I was going to um ask what you shared. So, going back to the the very last slide, uh I just want to Yes, there is a Z change from pay 25 to pay
26. But, uh in the general fund, it's increasing by $4.7 million. So, maybe not the very last page, but the one right before that. um $4.7 million is the is the increase, but this increase is generally due to the valuation of our
community of of our homes. Correct. I mean, if if you want to just be super clear, how do you explain to someone why did it jump to $4.7 million? Is it because our property values have increased? Is that a fair statement? It's a mix of property values and enrollment. So, as our enrollment increases, the overall amount that we
get will increase as well. And so from a numbers perspective, the number of enrolled students last year was I think roughly 12,000 and now we're sitting at about 12,100ish. Does that sound about right? 149. 149. So we added 149 more students and the property value of our homes have
increased roughly 3%ish or so. But because of that, that is why um the the general tax levy of that went up to 58 million. Okay. And then for the debt service, uh last year we we uh we taxed
22.6 million. Now we're charging 18.4. It's a reduction of four. And then then how do you explain why are we reducing four? Why is it $4 million less? That's a great question. I wish I would have gone into it when I was on that slide. So as we pay our debt, we need to levy less because there's less of a
payment there that is associated with it. And as debt retires, that payment will substantially go down. Got it. Got it. So then uh but but ideally we want our debt payments to be relatively uh consistent. Correct. So that um we take out loans so we have
that money to make to make capital improvements in XYZ. But in this particular instance or in this particular year our debt payment is lower than what we have historically have had. And so that is why there's a decrease in 4 million. So next year what I'm trying to get to is next year it
could be 22.6 million. Right. Potentially. Yes. That's with the assumption if we took out loans and then we have that now payment that extra payment to pay. It depends on the size of the loans. It depends on what interest rates we get on. There's a lot of variables that are associated with it. So I mean I can't
reasonably assume what it'll be but it would increase if we were to take out more debt. Yeah. So so I want to be I want to be make sure that we're clear that the property values have gone up. Our student population has gone up. So our general fund taxes have gone up. our debt services for now because we're
paying them down. That is why we are breaking even. If our debt would have stayed the same, our property taxes would have gone up roughly $4 and a half million. There's also the debt excess piece. So, we're giving a little bit back that we overlev for. Yes. Yep. Okay.
Just for clarification, too, um for the public's sake, you're asking us to approve the maximum amount. Um my assumption is because we can't go back and levy more later if we need it. So, it's better to levy for the most and then we can get back like we're doing this year the next go around. Correct. Correct.
Okay. Within the within the levy um type or the Yeah. limit because our limitations. Yeah. Because our district has the ability to actually go to levy for additional operating capital. Correct. Or not capital but operating expenditures revenue
with we can levy for more dollars. Vot with voter approved voter approved. Yep. Yes. And this was a question I was going to ask last week, like um the general fund has $58.6 million. How much of that is actually voter approved? Meaning that if the voters decided not
to approve anything, we would still levy. Let me not we, but the district has the ability to generate taxes that is almost statemandated, right? Like how much would it be less? So the voter approval is right there.
$25 million. Okay, got it. So of the and then there's also the capital piece of it or um there's another piece um the capital projects levy is also voter approved which is 4.4. So in general roughly $30 million is what the community has
actually approved yes to pay and support to supplement our our funding for our school districts. Correct. And and just to that point because there is a cap, right? There's a cap that we can go up to. every district can go up to where do we for the operating? Yes, there is a cap.
Okay. And where do we sit as com you know in comparison to other districts? Generally speaking, we're not at the top. I know we're not at the top. You know, we there's still room in our cap. I can tell you that much right now. I don't know exactly. I'd have to look at other districts to kind of see where we sit,
but I know we still have room to go for more operating levy if we were to choose to do so. Yeah. Okay. If there are no further questions, I'd entertain a motion to approve the pay 26 preliminary levy for the maximum amount. So moved.
All right. There's a motion by director Cameron. Is there a second? I'll second. Being a first and a second motion to approve the pay 26 preliminary levy for the maximum amount. Uh is there any discussion? No, sorry. Any discussion? If there's no discussion, I'll call for
I'll call for a roll call vote on the motion to approve the pay 26 preliminary preliminary levy for the maximum amount. Miss Elson. Matt Swanson, yes. Brett Nicholson, yes. Ryan Thompson, yes. Amber Cameron, yes.
Anderson, yes. Yes. Baker, yes. All right, it is approved. Thank you very much, Mr. Baker. Uh before we adjourn, I did want to ask the board members, does next Tuesday
work if we were to do a possible special meeting. All right. Yeah, I have that on my calendar to be here. So, all right. Perfect. Treasure Baker. Yeah, that work for me. Okay.
Is the time still fixed? Uh, yeah. I mean, we can adjust as needed, but yeah. Um, all right. I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. Make the motion to adjurnn. Motion by director Carbone. Is there a second?
Second. Second by director Nicholson. Roll call vote. Miss Ellson. Yes. Anderson. Yes. Baker. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Yes. We are adjourned. Thank you.