well good evening and welcome to the March 27th minona School Board study session uh it is six o'clock which is the time for citizen input do we have anyone here wishing to give it citizen input all right we will move past that
item to the first item on our agenda which is a discussion on student voice on the board superintendent law Mr chair members of the board we have two Schoolboard goal items tonight to kick up the board meeting the first is a very fun one as we typically highlight
students at each board meeting uh we're going to have a discussion about student voice in District decision making including potential student voice on the school board but we're going to start with a summary of all the different ways we
include stud stent voice in our system and we'll end the Highlight with some students who have been active participants in a variety of Student Activities so we have a presentation tonight Dr Getty um just a for the members of the
public who who are wondering about this topic we're laying the foundation for ways that we involve students across the District student voice as you as you all know gives us insight to what's happening in our school system we don't just include students at
the high school there are opportunities at every grade level for students to have a significant impact on the school as we saw last board meeting with minona Middle School West as we've seen at other meetings throughout the year with leadership opportunities at the
elementary level one of the ways that we include all students in decision making are through surveys And We Gather survey information on climate initiatives on belonging information uh We've also gathered
student voice on things like uh as we go through policy change that directly impact students we do surveys across um if we remember a year ago on our weighted grade policy we surveyed all the students involved in advanced cours workk
schools across our district use the committee structure to provide input about the school at elementary middle school and high school level there are various versions of a principal's advisory committee um the high school in particular has a belonging committee
there are student leadership committees Student Government committees at most schools high school continues to have an innovation team we have student advisory for coursework like in our Vantage student Advisory Board Student Government at the high school as well as student clubs and Affinity
groups that we offer to one both support students and gather input from students at the district level we have a variety of uh committees that involve students one of the examples this year that has been really robust over the
last three years and um this year is is just impressive is our teaching and learning advisory committee where the same conversations that happen with the teaching and learning advisory committee that meets in the evening happen with a group of 40 students and they give input
on coursework or uh curriculum changes or process curriculum changes we have a Community Committee called honka cares and we have had student presenters on that committee and students who sit in just to learn about it and this year our new community ad
director Kim Carlson has uh invited two students to sit on their Community Ed advisory committee students that are involved in Community Education and they attend those as they're available another way that we showcase students and their input are through
videos feature articles podcasts we've interviewed students on unique stories um Publications as well as traditional media feature stories and articles so all of these are different ways to include student perspective on the things that are are happening in our
system uh another uh very high level student involvement are across our system morning shows or uh at the high school there you know there's student uh shows and student announcements uh our elementary schools
do some student Le programming students Also may create clubs and organizations that align with their interest um that is another way that student voic impacts student experience and we have used student surveys at the middle school to weigh in
on what are the programming that kids would like to see our our high or middle school principals actually went to the high school and met with 10th graders and said what what's missing in middle school and that was a key input piece this year after last May's um
school board's uh planning we identified a handful of ways to ramp up student involvement um in decisionmaking and we made three key changes one was that the board adopted
grade levels and we had our first meeting in the fall and the second one scheduled where each of you are paired up with a grade level and you'll follow them through their experience we've also as you remember in November had B AG public policy students
present to the board after doing some research on what student School Board representation might look like and actually we have students here tonight that were participating in that presented and went through the whole process uh so we uh most recently did at
the high school a student forum and some of you were there for part of that where we had about 40 students and they listen to presentations and provided feedback on experiential learning our belonging efforts and our facility studies
specifically to the high school that feedback is going to come back to the board when principal Ericson comes in May and he'll be sharing some of that feedback he may even be bringing student leaders to share that feedback so tonight before we talk about what might be next I've asked three
students who have participated in different student voice opportunities to answer some questions for the board to give perspective and I'm going to start by having the students introduce themselves and which activities they've been involved with hello I'm Rory shown I'm a junior
currently I'm involved in the student teaching and learning Advisory Board I was a part of the Vantage public policy group who presented to the board earlier this fall and I was also a table captain at the student student Forum recently hello my name is Shania Gibson
I am a part of a few clubs but my main ones I'm participating right now in is the student belonging committee I was also a table leader at the student Forum that we just had recently and I also participate in rugby and our women of color club at minona um I'm Charlie Welch um and I am
part of principal advisory Council and I was also a um table captain at The Forum and then I'm also heavily involved in the uh theater program we talked earlier this week why are you involved in giving student voice in The District what what makes you want
to do that um I just I think it's important to hear everybody's voices um because we're you know we're all a pretty diverse community and we need um we need to be able to express our opinions and to be able to create positive change within
our community I think it's important for me to be involved just because I know some pretty big decisions are made and I think having that student perspective on those decisions that are impacting students um definitely helps a lot just to get another perspective and just kind of hear out what we go through as well
to make those decisions um I think when I hear the phrase represent us well that means me representing the biggest um stakeholder in our school which is our thousands of students and I think it's important that we hear as many of those voices as possible when it comes to making decisions that impact all of those
students lives are there examples of where you've participated in student voice and you saw change um well at uh through the public policy presentation we did I definitely saw more opportunity um in students just
realizing the impact that they can have it almost seems from my perspective that there's kind of a border between the adults who make decisions then us students so getting to participate in that presentation and knowing that the board wanted to hear from us was really exciting and felt really helpful for all
of us um for a student belonging committee one of our main goals this year was to see how teachers can make students feel like they belong in the school and that they have a trusted adult with them so we threw out a bunch of ideas through our meetings and one of the main ones
were having a survey and typically we did have a survey but going deeper into those questions of what can a teacher do to make you feel like you belong here and after a couple of months of thinking of questions and going about that the survey did go out and we are still
revising that for next year as well for going deeper in how can we make more change in student teacher relationships um with principal advisory Council the biggest thing that we saw change last year there's a big focus on talking about anchor time um and um you
know some students think maybe like you know is this a waste of time are we actually benefiting from this and I think the general consensus is that we are and um last year as principales advisory Council we kind of all decided it might be best to move anchor time to always be after class because then
especially if it's first hour kids are more likely to show up and attendance will be better because it when it was before first hour some kids would just be like okay I won't go to Anchor time but I'm going to come to class um and then it doesn't always work out but you can also there's a lot more time to study for tests if you have a test you'd like to study for and then that
test is next hour it's a lot easier to do that go straight from that go straight from anchor time into class not anchor time different class and then go to that class and take that test thank you are there ways that you gather feedback from your classmates
before you have a chance to give input how how is your voice more than just the three of you if it is um I would say for me a lot of it is just my own opinions but I would say um obviously principal advisory Council we talk about a lot of stuff but then also
being in theater it's a lot of kids um the show right now I think it has like 40 kids in it and it's all grade levels and you know we talk about things because we talk about how the show we're doing um plays into you know the broader world and what's going on in our
community so that's the main way I kind of um get that sense from my other my fellow classmates for me I get that definitely just through communication with all my peers so I know we're all in classes so we have certain things that we feel and
rather than like expressing that to a teacher because we are like friends we'll tell each other I don't really like this and I don't like this or I think we could approve upon this certain aspect and with that I carry that with me and when I go to like a student belonging meeting I'm able to voice that
concern that's more than just like my personal opinions but also there's other people who can back that up as well I think um just from Universal experience for example I'm a student athlete I'm on our uh school's volleyball team and I think from my
experience with communicating with my peers whether they're in the same or different sports we've all kind of had a universal experience as an athlete in Minot Tonka so I keep that in mind and then I think relay that into what I do and how I share board members we have three
amazing students in front of us before we have a discussion tonight are there any questions you'd have for this group um unique to our discussion about student voice uh whether it's on the model we're proposing or that's been proposed to us
or other topics about student voice um do you folks when you have an issue that you've brought to your peer group and and there's a a consensus that this is important and we'd like to see some change around that do you feel like
that results in meaningful change and that communication makes it to the people who it needs to get to um yeah I do personally in my experience with the student teaching and learning Advisory Board we work with um
Dr Leo and one of the things I brought up at a recent meeting was I personally struggled with finding information about the SAT and the ACT um it kind of seemed in my experience that there was this assumption that all Juniors knew what was going on and that was kind of a
self-led process when I was kind of waiting for someone to give me the steps to go through that and when I shared that experience my peers then on the board who have had different experiences at minona all kind of agreed that this was a big source of anxiety and seeing the adults in the room then KN along and
write things down really made me felt made me feel hurt um so for each of you if imagine your that you were selected as a person to represent the student body on the board or with the board um can you kind of
brainstorm quickly some ideas about how you would try to get as much input from a broad uh you know a broad selection of your fellow students to to bring that input to the board I think that a way that we've already achieved this that's gone pretty
well is the survey style especially um this year when we did like I mentioned before the teacher survey asking students um what looks like a teacher that cares about you aspect and I think it's able to reach the whole entire school because they're sat in class and
they're like here's the survey if you would like to please take it and I think by giving the option to take it or not take it it's having people who genuinely care about the cause giving valid information that we can go forward with and then we can hear as many voices as possible and then go forward with the
decision um I would also going along with what she said about um you know the students taking the survey ACT people who care about the causes I think um it's important if that were to happen where there would be student Representatives that um I know Mr law mentioned this when he talks to us the
other day but how it would the current idea would be maybe they'd be nominated by their teachers and then voted on by the students and I think that's very important because the teachers can see more um what the students care about as opposed to it being kind of a popularity contest of who gets to represent the
student body I think in my personal opinion I think there's strength in numbers I don't think one person can necessarily represent every experience but like in my experience with the teaching and learning Advisory Board um I have that experience of I uh went to school here
through the Navigator program then through the humanities program versus the person next to me went through immersion or went through different classes I think their strength in having a different number of students with different experiences who can then advocate for different aspects and I really think that that's how you're
going to get the most productive opinion and feedback yes s so I've been trying to think of how to pose this question it's about um some folks may think that engaging students in these
kinds of um discussions can be somewhat performative like oh good you had the students at the table and I know your experience has been you've actually been at the table and you've already shared with us some of how you feel like your voices were heard what's the general vibe in the high school from what you can detect I realize that you know the
period of time that you're in in high school is only a short number of years but what's the vibe among the student body in general in terms of do they feel as if leadership in the school is responsive um I I was thinking about this earlier after I met with
superintendent law um in my personal experience like I mentioned earlier it kind of seems like there might be a barrier before I got involved in all of these student voice aspects in the last year or so I felt that barrier especially when big decisions come out like anchor time like the removal of
mask like the use of the Hub all of which turned out to be positive decisions but it almost felt like as students we were a little blindsided all of a sudden our day is taking on a completely different form and we weren't aware if students had input if anyone had heard from us and thankfully
everything turned out to be really great decision-making and now the Hub and anchor time are really productive uses of our time but at the time it kind of feels felt like oh they're making decisions about our day without consulting us and we weren't we were just kind of told all right this is how
the process is going to be we're not going to maybe trickle it in or experiment with it so it maybe felt a little abrupt and I think having students at the table just to listen even and to feel included and that sort of thing would really help to break that
barrier yeah I completely agree with that statement I think on decisions that do end up affecting students and how they're going to progress in like their high school years I think it's very important to have their voice on that aspect just for the performance of the student to see how they can excel in
these bigger decisions that are made like anchor time or the Hub and I feel like as a student body like you said we're a little bit blindsided and it did end up helping us so much but just having a voice of a student at the table to give their input of how it can go
about or just like throwing out ideas would be very beneficial um yeah I totally agree with what they both said as well um and the only thing I'll add is C me if I'm wrong but Schoolboard meetings are open to the public correct I would say maybe make that a little more welln I think if if
students knew that they could come to these meetings and sit in and hear the decisions that are going to be impacting their day-to-day life um cuz I up until this year I don't think I knew that you could come to these meetings and hear what was going on you're welcome
anytime yes Megan uh my question is more around the communication piece so you guys as teenagers youth tend to communicate a little bit differently than us adults do I mean I didn't have an email address
until I was in high school so it's like a different Paradigm so right now we're doing kind of inperson opportunities and then you guys have talked about surveys but are there any other like mechanisms that you guys feel would be um easier or
more efficient to provide feedback to us or to to be involved in a way that maybe we're not able to generate on our own you know like is there is there anything that that we could open up as a way for PE for students to provide input that
we're not doing right now I think it's more of making that um input Avenue more accessible to students so I know that social media right now is a really big thing like when we want to know things are happening in our school we go to our principal's Instagram and see all the updates that are there so
it's more of maybe having a social media page that hey this thing is coming up soon if you click this link you can sign up for this and then the Avenues are there for you to express yourself and go forward with that um I would say um a big way a lot
of us get information including myself is through the morning show as was mentioned um and a lot of times clubs will put up there'll be a student Club talking and they'll they'll hold a QR code and be like scan this for more information and every kid is um I believe advantage to do they play The
Morning Show Advantage so every kid at the high school is watching The Morning Show teachers always say put your phones away it's Morning Show especially when Mr ericon is talking um so just having a QR code up that we could have our iPads scan the QR code fill out whatever it is you want us to fill
out I think if I could add to that idea if we're just brainstorming the morning show is something everyone sees if there's decision making that happens at the board the previous night I think it would be really interesting to see if students were able to then like receive kind of an update like a just one of
their peers coming up on screen and saying hey this is what was talked about at the board last night or the day before this is what's on the agenda if you're interested in these things because I think if you find if you reach a greater audience you will find that there are students who are interested in what the most of what you discuss so
that could potentially be an Avenue I think anything else Dan just one one last you know there there are a lot of things that we juggle as a school board a lot of things we're responsible for the number of balls David and the administration have in the air at any given time is staggering so we're we're
always dealing with a a great variety of issues big and small I'm just curious for each of you particularly is is there a topic that you feel student voice would be really really
important for us to hear right now I know that um at the student Forum one of the topics was experiential learning and how could we expand that and go further with that I think that would be very crucial to have students talking in or having their voice in that
just because they are going to be offered these classes they can express like what class we do want what we don't want and also I think it's very important just because it is at the end of the day their education um the ever since I've been in
manona the thing I've always wanted changed is the diversity I think there needs to be a lot more diversity um I'm not sure how you go about doing that but um in elementary school I went to the international school in Minnesota and it was you know it was like people like me were in the minority and it was great to
experience that because you got to obviously you weren't treated as poorly as some people were but you kind of got to experience what that life was like and um you know like with theater um and this isn't because you know they're not accepting these people we have um our
director always puts on the website everybody is welcome diversity is um encouraged but you know the shows we do like we're on stage and it's just a bunch of white people and that's kind of sad to me honestly um that um there's
thousands of kids in our school and and there's not a whole lot of diversity I think it would be very important to hear students voices on just kind of the aspects of scheduling and planning for the future um a big stressor in high school you know you hear about homework you hear about
mental health but that big stressor is planning your future and I think um when it comes down to it we need to better prepare students for planning out their courses because for me in my experience and in a lot of my PE experience we had to a junior year and all of a sudden there's classes well you can't take that
as a senior because you don't maybe have a prerequisite or this only happens during this certain hour I think talking to students about what impacts um and what puts stress on them when they're planning their future whether it's beyond high school or just in high school is extremely important because I
know that's one of bat tonka's main goals is preparing successful students to then become successful leaders in their future so preparation and then de-stressing that process I think is very very important to hear student voice upon
great thank you all we'll certainly have this all in mind as we talk further thank you thank you very much for coming tonight thank you for this [Music] opportunity Mr Sher this is a chance to talk about the proposal we have um for
student voice at the school board uh the recommendation that came through last November was that and we heard bits of it tonight teachers would recommend students by grade level who would be good student School Board representatives and that group of 16 to
20 people would meet on a monthly basis and review future board meetings and then determine which topics they might be interested in weighing in on and then they'd have some time to gather feedback they would elect people to come so there's a chance it wouldn't be the same person every month or there might even
be months where we wouldn't have students but we'd have a structure to grab feedback on a topic the board could also talk about future board meetings and say this would be a topic that we'd have students weigh in on um so this uh if that is the direction of the board we
we would um we can form that these other structures have not been formed through board action it's a board direction if the board wants to move forward with that suggestion we would start uh recruiting next year's seniors Juniors
and sophomores with teachers probably in April with some voting in May and open to board feedback so is the model then the teachers will nominate uh a pool of students who are selected from
by their peers or is it just I'm just not so teachers would identify students we would give teachers the criteria that we're looking for students it would be representative good representatives of the student body that could gather information identify leaders who might
come to the board meeting and I Envision it closer to what we had tonight where they would sit and present student input about a topic um more than sitting and attending the the full board meeting just based on represent what we've heard from our
students but certainly I'm open to board feedback uh Megan um I had two questions I know at one point there was a proposal somewhere in the legislature to actually require student board members do we know
what the status is of that I don't now if that was the case we'd have to do some work to see if what we're proposing would meet that requirement I I think that requirement was the rigid someone sits at the Das and and is attend full board meetings um
we'll monitor it and we'd come back to it okay yeah I just wasn't sure if there had been an update on that um and then my second question was I was just kind of thinking of the questions that we were asking the students and I'm I'm just wondering how we would scaffold um the students that were
selected or just be thoughtful about kind of training them um around how to gather feedback from a broader perspective so I would say I'm not giving like input into this I just want us to think about what that would look like because they're not going to just
jump into this role and know what to do um so just kind kind of have us think about what does that look like who's responsible for that scaffolding kind of mentoring especially like the first couple once you've done it for a few
years and you have older students that can kind of Mentor younger students and whatnot I think it gets a little bit more routine but in those initial stages I think we'll have to be really intentional about making sure that the students are prepared to step into that
role and do and be successful at it because I don't want students to come here feeling like they're um you know not prepared or not ready or um just like tokens like I want if we're going to have students here I want them to be actually able to do the role and have it
be a not performative but like a real useful thing for both them and us so um just want us to think about that yeah s just a quick response on the question about the legisl legis proposed legislation it did come up at the last
amsd legislative committee um meeting just just that it was on the table and uh there's a meeting tomorrow morning and I will ask and let folks know anyone else Dan um I I like the timeline I think
that sounds great so we can kick off the next school year with some sort of structure in place um and and to to Megan's point about the the trying trying to make sure that this is a substantive and not performative way to
to gather student voice um I don't know where exactly I sit on just presenting on certain topics versus actually being up on the de and having freedom I I think it's important that students have freedom to to speak
to anything on the agenda that might be of interest to them but agree that the whole agenda might not and they might have specific things that they want to talk about or present about so I would just want to see if we can figure out a way to
flexibly allow whoever's sitting and representing the students on the board to weigh in on whatever is in front of the board that evening because spontaneously they might have input on something that would be really valuable for us to hear practically
speaking it's a lot of work to to get seven board members who are committed to the work adequately informed twice a month for everything we're talking about and you're not taking a full load of High School courses and activities I I admire the aspiration I can't think of a
structure that wouldn't require me camped at the high school every two weeks spending lots of time so I just I I I'm not saying no I'm just saying you you're talking about allocating eight hours every two weeks
or four hours or a significant amount of my time or someone's time to bring people up to speed on things you're talking about I I I don't know how that will work in theory yeah I think and and I'm not saying it even needs to be standard
practice but if just there's there's wiggle room for flexibility to for for students to call an audible and say oh wait we talked about this we do have something to say Chris yeah just EO superintendent law a little bit
um uh and well maybe first to to Dan's point I mean going back to the student presentation and and the proposal I mean I think we I thought we heard from the students that that you know they didn't want to attend meetings and sit here for for the entire piece and and so I think
that was part of the recommendation and I I would second superintendent law and just bring to the board like how much time do we want Administration spending on this right we get an incredible amount of student voice and and in all these different things and think about
the the student panel and the amount of District resources that were were spent on that on that that event and I think there's lots of good things and so how much do we want to I mean again you know our goal is to get as much student voice
as possible so I'm not saying that that this isn't um the the direction but we get a ton Administration gets a ton I think the board has learned so much through this process about where student voice is is being implemented uh and and it's
being heard maybe the the board isn't hearing it directly but we're getting it through Administration and and to me I'd rather them spending their time on that um than prepping you know a group of of of kids or really adding one more thing
that Administration has to do to get ready for for this I I think we just need to take that and consideration uh because it's it's definitely a concern of mine Megan um I was just actually looking back at the nove I guess my understanding was different of what the
students proposed in the fall I thought that they proposed that there would be a student panel or I can't remember what they called it of elected from teacher nominations and that one or two of them
would be designated as the meeting Representatives and that we would format the meetings so the stuff that would be more interesting to students would be at the beginning so that they could then leave um so I guess some clarification around what that
proposal was as needed because I think it sounds like we had different understandings of what the proposal was um but also I think you know to Dan's point like I don't know that there would need to be hours of discussion I think
what I'm guessing and you can correct me if I'm wrong but the students would get the same board packet that we get and if there's something that they wanted to contribute or wanted to comment on I wouldn't want to stop them from doing so
um if they're here and present and want to contribute I I wouldn't want to say like no you're not presenting on that tonight so I I guess that was a question and a comment but iation and again I just I'm thinking practically
you get your board packet a week before the board meeting in order to have them have the opportunity to be informed someone's going to need to review it with them before they come on Thursday night I think or or not and then they can just
come to the board meeting and get the same information you do um we would have to be intentional about frontloading what topics would be student relevant you have the luxury of of discussing what you'd like to do I'm I'm
thinking about operationalizing it that's all yeah Sally yeah I would I in respect to that I would say let's not overwork the dough let's start with something simple and see how well it is received and how well that engagement goes with the students and whether it's sustainable and then if the students say
hey we really like this and want to expand on it maybe that's we take our take our lead from them yeah uh C I thought I heard one of the students say that she liked the idea of having a lot of input from the students and not
just having one or two students sitting here I it's like she it was your question about the social media she said it would be good if if one student was able to look at the agenda the day before or something and say Here's what's coming and then being able to
report back the day after or something like that which is kind of my concern as well is I loved the student Forum because we had so many different students and I came out of there thinking this is great because it's not just one or two students at the board which has been my concern for a while of
having one student um and I just thought the way we've been tapping into all of these different committees related to the students has been eye openening for me personally with all of the different diverse committees that we have so that was just kind of input that I was
wanting to share yeah I just want to throw out I those are good points um I want to throw out that um we're sort of talking about a bunch of things all at once right I mean a lot of what we heard from the three students that were here and talking about all of the student voice opportunities that exist are I
mean those have grown and that's because of board Direction and and your administrations work on that so we're grateful for all of that I think keeping some of these things in the hopper like the student Forum things as sort of separate from this what uh sort of
student involvement in the actual board is is important and it also tells me that there remains to be a high level of enthusiasm uh in the student body for these opportunities um I I am not going to say that we won't get some student
Representatives especially if we have teachers selecting them and then they're uh either elected by their peers or acknowledged by their peers in some way that we might not get some really fantastic student leaders who want to come and are enthusiastic to attend
every two weeks even if it's only the first 45 minutes or something like that and that they if if it was clear that these are non- voting members which is all we're talking about they are only going to be providing the student lens
on issues if they have an issue that they are concerned about it's not simply because they're politically active and they really want to chase something that they think the board should be doing it's because they have a student a student perspective to offer and then
having them on a similar schedule where they look at the packet and they send something out to their peers and say Here's the agenda for the meeting next week uh I'll be available after school if anyone who wants to give me your full
that would be up to the students to figure out and with all of that said I think Sally is right on I think we need to sort of start with something that is going to be achievable and is going to give them a taste
of what what is helpful to them and what is helpful to us we want to we want to continue getting their their input on decisions that we have before us and topics that are bubbling through um you know Dan's question elicited three
different topics from just those three students about things that they'd be interested in in knowing about so I think I think there's a I think putting the recommendation in a written form that the board can look over and make sure
we're talking about the same thing make sense to me so that we can if if there are because I I agree with you Megan I sort of heard a slightly different version of what you described but I didn't even go to all of the student forum either so I I I know less than some of you about what we've done
recently but I think getting that in writing before all of us so we can you know sort of say okay yes this no that let's just work it out in a way and then the other thing that came up out of that is there's some other Outreach we can continue to do the principles can do or
we can do like a social media account like uh maybe uh once a month two of us show up on the morning show uh the week before the board meeting uh you know I think we can um those three students are very engaged
and active in their High School community and we're a little surprised that you could come to this meeting twice a month if you want to and just sit and listen so I think if we sort of make that push I bet we will have some interested and engaged students and if
we don't maybe that tells us that we only need a small small Megan um I found myself wondering like their idea about using the morning show and maybe a QR code or something that I think that is a really powerful
thing to think about because I I was kind of thinking about okay well how could we make this so that it's not another lift for administration or for um Jeff Ericson or I mean is there a reason that like a board member couldn't
meet with the leaders of that group um you know like a week whenever we get the packet one of us could go and sit down with them and kind of just go through it and if they see something in there that they really want to gather student input on then maybe they could generate a QR
code to put in the morning show board's going to be talking about this next week uh I'm I'm just trying to think about like because I I don't want it to be more work for admin um but I also think I don't want to give up on the
idea of tapping into that as just another Avenue um and then you know if they can if they gather information and they want to come and have a part of that conversation on that topic I think um it wouldn't have to be
necessarily a lift like I'm guessing that one of the board members would be happy to sit down with students once a month or twice a month um and that could even be like a role we designate if it becomes a regular thing and useful and whatnot
so um there's an existing written proposal and I think I shared it in February with all board members about what this would look like and I can resurface it um we've got some Logistics this group won't be prepped for either August
meeting um right so school has started school hasn't started so there there's a just some um Logistics we can probably turn around from April until May one more discussion about it with the
proposal and as much as we can run out at that point in time on a on a plan for the piece that's not in there is the leg Logistics of how do we inform this group and what do we expect them to do with it because what they had identified is they
would ident I mean having interacted with the group many times they would identify topics of Interest have discussions and send Representatives we can structure it so that we expect people to come to every board meeting um that would that would
be different than what was proposed but we can certainly do that and then we can start the year and have a year where they either have root ating people who come to board meetings or they Identify two people who are going to cover the evening board meetings as much as possible and maybe an alternate that's a detail we have to figure out what we
what what we have to come up with next is is our expectation that these are people that review every board agenda and identify if they want to send people then some Logistics about where they are going to sit because we're not we don't have two empty seats up here currently
we we've talked a little bit about that but we'll bring that back for the April board meeting and we'll with an anticipation that we might be moving forward in May and then and then before then do you just need agreement from us as far as proceeding with the plan to
select all of the students just so the teachers have enough time to roll that out and and do that process um I'm I'm fully supportive of that while we continue to work on exactly how we're going to implement the involvement sure I I think no one has questioned the idea
that teachers might nominate students and students would vote on them so that I think we can move forward with that then we can if we can keep our timeline that way and then we're not holding up the process sure yeah I I have no doubt we're going to learn some valuable things and there's going to be some bumps you
should be prepared for students who want to identify board topics um currently the only people who can identify board topics are the chair and vice chair so you should be thinking about how how do we you know they don't vote and they don't set agendas so probably have to
process how do We Gather in from people who are going to have different things to talk about so okay any other last words on this topic I should say okay
all right we'll move on to the nutrition services update superintendent law Mr chair members of the board another board goal was to continue to provide the highest quality meals possible to our
Community um tonight we have an exciting update on the progress we've made towards that board goal and I have Executive Director of Finance and operations Mr bis and director of nutrition services kren turnblad Mr bis thank you superintendent law I just got
a few quick comments and then I'll turn it over to Kristen but um when uh when I started with the district uh Kathy Jorgenson was ah head of she was the director of Food Services uh and uh what's it what's in a name right award but um one of the first
things I asked Dr Peterson to do was is it okay if we can change to nutrition services uh because it says a lot more about that uh and S I mean the the fund was being operated in in very good condition from a financial standpoint at that time and and everybody's doing the
best they can to get the best food for students so but uh many school districts in the state don't break even they require a subsidy from the general fund and we have not had to do that even during the covid years
uh we had deficit uh deficit spending uh our revenues were low but and but we're still delivering meals but we had enough of a fund balance that we did not have to impact the general fund either and we've been we've continued to operate in that manner where we are self-sustaining self- sustaining for equipment because
um then we're not competing with uh for equipment out of the capital projects fund or out of the operating Capital fund again just trying to push push things into the classroom as much as we can and and operate well uh Jane Bender uh was Kathy Jorgenson's assistant at the time and uh she assumed
the Reigns and she worked until in that position until uh last year and it seems like a million years ago though um but uh and Jane did a great job and Kristen came on board in 2012 right working as an assistant
Kristen actually was able to fill in uh very very ay for Jane while Jane was out with open heart surgery for was it nine months almost um so I always like to say that uh uh we run the biggest restaurant chain on the
Southshore um so last last year we served over 1.4 million meals uh so we we it's a lot of food a lot of hard work and um and we're doing it with fewer people because uh we still have the positions allocated but we hire if you
know if you know anybody interested we're still we're still hiring so uh the one other thing that I'd like to say is that uh Kristen has done a great job since she started in the full-time in at the helm little little Skipper lingo there and um uh you know I like
metaphors right and so I just want to say she's been doing an excellent job and in my book Kristen is the Caitlyn Clark of nutrition services director so anyway over to Kristen nothing but that oh Mr chair superintendent law
members of the board thank you for having me tonight um I'm tonight I'm going to share with you just what we've accomplished so far this school year changes that we've implemented um and then what's to come yet this year um all right so I added a new member to
our district team uh this fall her name is Alex she goes by Alex Alexandria Bosley um she is a registered dietitian nutritionist she um uh started with us mid-september after finishing her master's program um at the University of
Wisconsin Madison um where she studied clinical nutrition she also had her undergrad from Wisconsin um in Madison as well uh she is our coordinator of student nutrition uh she sits with me on our nutrition advisory committee um and
she's a lot of the backbone of what we've been able to accomplish um which I'll be sharing with you next we have um taken a lot of marketing initiatives um this school year um a big part of what I wanted to change when I
started is just communicating what we do getting that out to the parents out to the community out to the students um so we started an Instagram account we started a newsletter um we revamped our website we were getting um a lot of common questions asked by parents or
even students and so what better way than to put that information on the website um Jackie's team um Communications has been instrumental in helping us um navigate how to start Instagram the dos and the don'ts um the
newsletter um the website as well um so thank you for that um we've also done a lot of flyers and announcements um at especially at the high school level um and then we also revamped our neutr slice which is our um parent facing app
um and students it's in their App Store on their iPads um we are showcasing the items that we provide um every day on the menu individual so you have pictures um and I'll talk more about what you can um do on that app or online in a little
bit I first started um by wanting to kind of in a way Rebrand the department right let's start fresh um what better way than to call it Tonka fresh um and so we came out with a new uh logo this year um we have that on our newsletter
it's our logo on our Instagram account um it will also be coming um soon on some of the items that we'll be selling in the future here our Instagram account um we have a lot of fun with it right you need to have some fun at work um we have a lot
of fun the students love um to be in our pictures they want to be they want to give the thumbs up or do the orange with um slice with a smiley face you know and be in in photos um we do some local spotlights we do um kind of what we're doing every day out and about whether
we're sampling um whether we're taking part in the undercover principal um video that came out with Chuck Arthur if you all got to uh meet him um and then we also showcase our staff um we also celebrate like National um breakfast
week we did um National um nutrition month is currently this month um we also celebrated Alex because she actually has a day in March um to celebrate rdns um and we just have fun with it showc case what we're doing um new menu
items um and a lot of it is student focused our newsletter then kind of takes a deeper dive into what we post on Instagram um we pick some topics we always um showcase or highlight a local um company local partner of ours and we
kind of Define local as we're including Wisconsin a little bit of Iowa and then Minnesota um so it's still pretty local um and then we also o talk about um samplings or uh specific topics um we've
talked about in um including um more ethnic foods cultural um Foods in different areas whether we're doing um Indian food we had chicken Tika Masala today at the elementary schools um most of the older kids did care did like it
so that was great um we've also done sambusas um which are more of the Somali culture um and those have been a hit at all grade levels as well um so we started at the high school with new menu items and then we've kind of um made it all the way now down to Elementary so
that they can experience those as well all right and then our department um website just updating that we have um uh allergens and special diets have actually become more of a Hot Topic um amongst uh parents or new families to us
or recent diagnosed um with celiac disease for example so we wanted to make sure we're highlighting that on the website so that parents know that we they can still partake in lunch with us they don't have to just pack a home lunch um so we showcase um Alex and
being able to contact her she walks them through um how to request a special diet meal what options we have um currently we have a onewe cycle but we will be expanding that next year we have a lot of great items that we have sourced um to be able to have a gluten-free bun
instead of getting a bag of Tostitos so we're going to be expanding that next school year um and then flyers and announcements you guys were talking about that just recently with the student voice um we do do a lot of Flyers with QR codes at the high school um we did that to learn what
um like their favorite vegetables are what would they like to see on the menu what kind of fruits would they like um we also do that uh announcing new menu items today at the high school we had the debut of The Omelette bar um and we always do an announcement in um the
morning and we also come in to give them a couple days heads up too so they can plan think ahead um it's a great way to Showcase you know what's to come all right the neutr slice app so we gave it a little bit of a facelift this year um we broke it up by choosing one
entree so parents know that we're providing more than one um choice to them to the students every day they most of the times at the high school have four items every day that they can choose from same thing at the high school and the elementary is two choices and and then it lists all the sides
available so you can have you can pick your entree and then you have all of the sides as well if you click on each of the items um in the menu you can actually see a picture so that is new this year um we have been taking pictures we have a a ring light to go on
the phone and we have a little setup it's kind of fun uh photog food photography uh we're not experts at it but um we also have ingredients listed now online um all the nutrition facts are there as well um we've put some
allergen icons on items now too as you can see in the photo um it just helps kind of ease that experience at home when getting ready for the day for students um the other great thing that there is is there's a carb count calculator now most people probably
wouldn't look at that but there's a lot of high school students right now learning in their nutrition um classes about car um carb counts or even with Athletics like they're learning from their coach hey we need more protein that sort of thing um they're using this calculator and we've actually been uh
showing students this week and now we're just spreading that they can use that carb count um you know for their their use um and then we have a fun feature called the allergen Eliminator is what I call it but it actually can filter out allergens so that you it will actually
cross out and eliminate that food item if it contains an allergen that a student cannot have um we also have some new highlights that we can put on um items which will will be showcasing that next school year which will be local what's local um what's um farm fresh or
Farm to school that sort of thing so some exciting highlights in um that area um student voice has been really big for us this year it's probably one of my favorite areas that um we've done um with sample tasting surveys and then
student groups so with um taste testing in November we did hikma sugar snap peas and orange bell pepper slices um we um had a sign up for volunteers from our nutrition advisory committee where they
were be um volunteering to help serve um uh food to the students um hikima we had explained that over and over they're like What's the we want more white stuff what is that right so then hik on well how do you spell that right so um we had some fun with that that was probably
their favorite out of everything uh they sampled um hikima and sugar snap peas are now regularly on the menu each week um in March we just actually last week finished um sampling quinoa and brown rice that's that top left photo um the
kids actually really liked it there was no salt or Pepper or butter on it and they they enjoyed it we called it kind of the super grain right so Alex's has this wealth of knowledge on nutrition that she's able to talk with students and kind of explain it at their level
while it's ele whether it's Elementary or middle middle school or high school and explain you know the importance of having you know a whole grain within your diet um we also have coming up um in May mango was actually one of the top fruits that the high school students
wanted to see um so we're going to do mango sample testing in all the schools um we pick every day we're just there for the entire lunch service and um have fun they know that we're there cuz it's always Alex and I the duo and we just
around and they're excited and then they know that we can also take photos too so then they're even more excited um and at the high school level we've done a couple additional samplings and we've called it the try it Tuesday students know what try it Tuesday is we have a
specific area in the cafeteria it's in what used to be called The Lighthouse or it's still called The Lighthouse but what used to be called The Lighthouse and we've also done dragon fruit with them and then also uh papoa sampling so students surveys um just uh some that we've done we've done the
vegetable survey fruit survey and then also we did a survey with a QR code to um form a meatless interest um group so uh the student groups so this was an idea that I had um heard when I was were
um at my first director's meeting so we get together about every six months Southwest directors um we were talking about involving students um in in their choice and someone had mentioned that they do a student Choice day and so I was thinking about that on my drive back and I was like oh well we could do
student Choice day where we meet with individual leaders within each building um chosen by the principal and then we tell them the importance about nutrition how to build menus kind of give them an insight into our our world and then they actually get to pick new items and
actually pick a menu so this um this spring or winter spring we have been working with Clear Springs exceler and and deep Haven we've met with each of them um twice three times now and um they will be debuting their menu um
districtwide all elementaries in May um so we'll be meeting with them after spring break to um finalize they get a pick between two menus because we still have to make sure we're following our USDA guidelines so um they voted on the items that they would like um we get to go in the classrooms and some of these
we invited the excelsor kids to the boardroom which they thought was pretty cool uh superintendent law joined us for that first meeting as well um and then the other picture there is the meatless interest group um I brought in 19 different um options available to us
that would be meat lists that we could add to the menus um one of the more popular items was the impossible brand if you're familiar with that um and they really liked the burgers The Impossible Burgers um and then as far as the um
like well they call it kicking um instead of it being chicken um it's rebellious and that's actually um a company that I had found this summer when I had the opportunity to go to our annual National Conference and it's uh rebellious they're called kick in
patties and kick in spicy patties um but those will be debuting at high schools and middle schools in the next couple weeks after spring break so uh let's see all right and then our nutrition advisory committee um it's a picture of the two um moms that have
helped us at um papoa sampling for try it Tuesday at the high school um our three goals for the committee this year was breakfast particularly reducing the added sugars in breakfast that we provided um and expanding the choices
that we had providing more protein um less grain um and then uh also taking a look at the fruit so with breakfast um another item I had found this Summer that I um order three pet sub at a time
um is called that's it um you might see that maybe at Costco or in the store um but they're the many fruit bars well they came out with a new K12 product called crunchables um so we now offer um fruit bars and crunchables every other
day throughout the week along with a um it's called the big applesauce pouch I think by zz's um brand and that is a half a cup of Fruit so we kind of alternate that along with offering a fresh uh fruit as well every
day our second um goal in the nutrition services uh advisory committee was Communications um and that we have accomplished this year by with our new newsletter our website and then as well as creating Instagram uh we post about
two to three times a week on our Instagram we are up to like 230 followers which is great we're you know new but we'll get there we'll get there um and then Farm to school that's um was a a big topic too in our group um and there was a mom um that was part of the
group that offered to do some research behind it um we you know what would be sustainable you know we're feeding almost 8,000 meals a day how do we have something that's coming from Farm to be able to feed every single student right
so what we started first with was the great apple crunch I don't know if you're familiar with that but it's a great lakes apple crunch where this uh Minnesota was Wisconsin I believe Michigan as well partake in the second Thursday of October um where everybody
crunches into an apple it really supposed to do it at noon but they count any any apple crunch of a local Apple that day counts towards it so I signed us up and we participated um we also collaborated with the wellness committee so that the staff snack that month too
was also a local Apple um we had a lot of fun with that um and we also provided then with the wellness committee um Alex put together some um literature with um the great apple crunch as well as providing you know fun activities whether free or paid um to do apple
orchards that sort of thing um for weekend fun activities um we also have Hydroponics so we are doing Roma lettuce um through what's called uh Suburban farms in St Louis Park and we do we get about 80
heads of lettuce um so we aren't able to do every single school but rotate so that our Chef salads that we're making at the elementary level Middle School and High School level all will experience Hydroponics at least in some some fashion um and then our uh produce
company that we have does a fantastic job of sourcing local um fruits and veggies for us um that's where they look first before anything else um so we we can like when I needed dragon fruit I can be like hey can I get dragon fruit in a couple weeks and they're like
absolutely how much do you want um so there great partner to have as well so new menus um I had a goal of doing a new menu every month and I think I uh surpass that because we've been doing a couple like two or three new
menus a month um You probably have all heard about the dumpling menu that we introduced on the Chinese New Year um we do chicken veggie dumplings or vegetable dumplings um chicken Tika Masala is also new the burrito bowl um which we had um
tonight um for dinner and then the Sab uh sambusas uh we offer a beef or a lentil on that day um sweet and sour chicken uh we just served that the other day at the high school with fried rice and an egg roll uh the kids love the egg roll they wish they could just have the
egg roll but I'm like no let's have some chicken um we also started doing chili this year um a little late in the game next year we'll start earlier um with the Colder Weather but overall I think the kids enjoyed having that chili um they also get cornbread poppers they
kind of you know little cornbread poppers and Frito chips as well um we tried papusas we did a sample taste testing with that with the high school students um what we found when we brought that menu on um we've learned a lot so most of them have turned out well
um but papusas is one that we just no matter how many different sides we were trying with it it just wasn't something um that the students enjoyed um so you know we tried something new they tried something new and and we'll you know keep keep trying um new items uh beef
and lamb Euros that was a new one at the high school um this year as well um the omelet bar debuted at the high school this well and it will trickle to um trickle down to the middle schools um and in some fashion um Elementary and what we learned today they get a
cinnamon roll with that a whole grain Cinnamon Roll With The Omelette bar we're going to actually do scrambled eggs instead um so that they can add some diced bell pepper red and green um bell pepper they can also add a turkey ham diced turkey ham with it too we kind
of uh renamed it today we're going to call it the great Scrambler um so just you know trying a new menu item and it's okay if it doesn't work out we're going to revamp it and just keep trying so um we also did Nordic waffles that is um a company they actually have a booth at
the State Fair um Nordic waffles they've changed it into a whole grain waffle and then they have egg and cheese or sausage and egg um waffle and then in May our new menus that we'll be debuting um are the student Choice menus which are very
exciting and I have a feeling those will actually go the other way up into middle school and high school too because I think they're going to get jealous um okay the numbers so breakfast and lunch participation so I wanted to look for September to February year to
date um and I wanted to include where we were before um Co happened just to kind of give reference point um and before Co we were paid meals so um we did not have a breakfast program either we're in year two of that um and if you can look at
1819 school year to the 24 25 school year just at elementary alone we've grown 10% now yes meals are free um but I do have to attribute to some of that increased participation just in the changes and allowing them to pick what's
on the menu not just that it is free um um also the you know middle school has grown even the high school um we hit over um 2200 meals on sweet and sour chicken day um dumpling day also gets
that high as well um and that's just the lunch meals That's not including like the alloc cart that is also purchased we could turn that into the meals um but that's this is just school lunches that are purchased and breakfast all right so coming soon um
yes that is a food truck in a photo um and the other photo is it says campus Cuisine we're going to have a different sign it's um going to be bringing back the pier so I had the pier in high school when I was at the high school um and bringing back that name it's kind of
perfect so it's another all cart line um being added at the high school in our area um that we already exist have existing um and another way for students to not be inside the cafeteria but more out in the hallway so that the
um busyness is kind of spread out our food truck currently is getting um it's had its floor done its walls it's ceiling um they're putting in the windows on the outside um that will be debuting later um in April and then we
are going to bring it up to it will it will and then um we'll be bringing it up to the high school to end this year just as offering it as like an all cart line but we already have plans for next school year to be able to bring it to all schools um and have some menu ideas
for that so that it can be a reimbursable free lunch for all students um there are Logistics that need to go into that right um but we have a really solid plan on that so um pretty exciting stuff on
that um the pier um would be offering um menu ideas like Bento boxes and this is where that tanka fresh label is going to come in we will be putting label on all of our Bento boxes it's part of our requirement to make sure we're listing allergens and ingredients on those boxes
um these are just some examples we've already created like um um like a standard operating procedure on how to build the box for our staff so one would be um a a taco kit to go that's the bottom left the top one is a yogurt perit um and the bottom right one is
more of that turkey and cheese cracker Bento Box we also have salads um pre-made salads pre-made sandwiches and pre-made wraps too so those menus are already created um we're hoping to roll that out after spring break and then last but not least um
this is some of my staff without them we wouldn't be where we're at today um we did a challenge this year for Halloween that they could come up with themes within their kitchens um so this is just some of them not all of them um but we do like to have fun um that's what makes
the day go by right so thank you thank you for that great report uh any questions or I love seeing the progress we've made and this has been uh improvements in nutrition services has been a perennial
board goal and we're I'm I'm very pleased to see the direction it's going and looking forward to see what's coming next thank you Chris oh you stole most of what I was going to say but just echoing and just say thank you uh your openness to try new things um all the
different communication ideas uh love all all of the things that we heard and thanks for a great presentation thank you um I have two comments on a question okay um the comments are just kind of anecdotal and I've shared some of them with you but I thought that the rest of the board might like to hear him so I've
gone to some of the nutrition um advisory Council meetings and I think there's been a lot of enthusiasm um feedback that I've heard the kids really are liking the pictures um and the example I can give is this morning I said that the menu was Tika
Masala and my 9-year-old said what is that can I see a picture and so I pulled it up and he's like I'll try it um so I think that they're starting to recognize that those things are out there and that they can see a picture and help and it's
I think great the feedback I've heard is that from parents having the menu up and being able to like have the conversation or the kids can pull it up in their iPad and what the lch menu is it's letting kids make the choice and advocate for what they want to eat and I think that's
really great um the other piece uh around the carb count is we have a lot of students that have diabetes and um one of my neighbors has a young child with diabetes and's like this is great because now like it's easier for us to not pack a lunch um so that's another
just action step that I think makes a difference in all feel like kids feeling like they belong like they can get school lunch too so I really appreciate that my question was on um the slide that had the perent the um the
utilization of like who's getting lunches yeah so what there's two numbers what's the first one versus the second one so I should have explained that sorry about that um the first number is the breakfast program and the second number is the lunch program so 1819 we didn't have a breakfast program and then
it started last school year thank you m you're welcome um yeah just echoing what everyone else said I think this is awesome I love getting the newsletter and reading it and seeing what everyone's got to try the meals that you bring us here to try
are fantastic everything's been great my wife works in Clear Springs and the anecdotal feedback from that building is um is awesome I think it's it it's both just great nutrition practice and just
financially really really good that we're sourcing a lot of stuff locally especially with the uncertainty surrounding tariffs on agricultural products and things on the national level I think that's going to pay dividends for us and be a really Smart Financial move and my question is is
when these elementary schools premere the meals that the students designed is there any way you could let us know so we could maybe go and celebrate that with them of course absolutely yes we can arrange that thank you you're welcome any day you want to show up and
go through a line just show up and do we have do we have a number do we have a number to give at the register you you're doing research yes yes definitely yes scram y the great
Scrambler yes I thought you was talking about Fran Target didn't deep cut from PA yeah all right thank you thanks so much okay that brings us to item three
review of 20 2627 calendar superintendent law Mr chair members of the board our district plans calendars two years out so we recently approved earlier this month the calendar for next fall tonight is the first presentation
of the product of the calendar committee a committee that uh uh executive director of communications Dr Getty could provide insight about but that committee has previewed the year keep in mind some things that are are fixed in our calendar the legislature picks the
start day having to be after Labor Day and a late Labor Day drives an unusual calendar along with other things but Dr Getty will preview that calendar gather board feedback if necessary get send information to the calendar committee for this eventually to be approved as a
preliminary calendar Dr Getty thank you superintendent law Mr chair super at law and members of the board I'm sitting here today um in the shoes of our executive director of Human Resources Angie flowers who can't be with us and leads this calendar committee I do serve on it so I was here for all these
meetings and we've debriefed pretty thoroughly so I'm going to do my best to represent her words um Minnesota law requires us to adopt a school calendar by April 1st prior to the start of the upcoming year here in minona we stay one year ahead of that requirement as you
know we already have a calendar for next year set but in order to stay ahead of what we want and allow for our community to plan in advance we continue to meet in the spring and finalize the school calendar in the spring of each year in February on the 24th our committee met
it consisted of District staff of Administrators parents we had student Representatives Paras and teachers and we discussed the calendar options for 2627 as a committee we took into consideration the required parameters
for calendar planning as superintendent law mentioned some of which include the contractual agreements of the number of teacher Duty days the appropriate number of student contact days conference days the law requiring the school year not to begin before Labor day except under
certain circumstances which made it challenging because Labor Day falls in the second week of September that's the very last day that it can uh and that naturally will extend the school year further into June and so that was something that our committee wrestled with as we go through this
um Thanksgiving in the past two years teachers and students have been granted the day off before Thanksgiving and it's very popular and it's something the committee would like to continue longterm but is interested in pausing that option for this year for the 2627
year given how late Labor Day is on the draft calendar and so that is here that you all have um on the draft calendar you'll notice that the day before Thanksgiving is not listed as a day off for students and staff that is
being recommended so that the school year doesn't end on Monday June 14th for students and run inherently longer into the month of June than than it could uh this idea came from an administrator and was supported by the committee including the students and the parents who all
felt like getting that far into June would really be problematic for families the committee was clear that this was a recommendation for this year only and would like to come back with something else for the next year um we do have a lot of repeat members of the committee we have some that that come back and
then some that change out uh late starts and early releases was another topic we removed them from the calendar for 2627 given our recent change to full professional learning days for teachers the district has surveyed our community as you've seen in previous presentations from Dr Leo and there's been an
overwhelming support to continue with full professional learning days in Li of late starts and early releases the calendar committee agreed the dates that we have as placeholders of where we believe they may fit best at this at this time were what we said however following our meeting with the calendar
committee specifically as it related to Thanksgiving we gathered more input from the teaching and learning team about professional learning days and District administration now believes that moving the October 30th professional learning day to that day before Thanksgiving may be a better
option that would give more flexibility and more notice to families for Holiday planning as it is a swap so students would have that day off um and it doesn't hold any additional days at the end of the year given that the committee is recommending that we pause on having the day before Thanksgiving off for one
year we believe this is actually a good idea it would replace that um the dates can be modified by the board at any time uh we can discuss this change with the calendar committee if the board agrees that it supports the idea of swapping October 30th for a professional learning day with the day before
Thanksgiving there is no recommendation to add additional days for observ ations you will recall that we added yam kapor and Eid to the 2025 26 Calendar there was some discussion about reducing the number of days observed since we are
unable to include every observance but there was no change in the recommendation from the committee we continue to list observances on the published calendar and in addition Dr Matt riaa prepares an assessment calendar for teachers and administrators so they can be mindful for testing and assigning
major projects when there's a religious or cultural observance particularly when there's fasting involved for students and staff we balance days in each quarter as much as possible with the last quarter having the most days and largely that's because there's so many Assessments in the final
quarter um I'd like to now review the recommendation from the committee so if you want to grab your calendar if you haven't already um this formats for planning purposes only so this is not our final published calendar the calendars are eventually published online and of course we also currently
have a wall calendar as well um we'll begin the draft calendar by Rolling the we We Begin creating the draft calendar by Rolling the 2025 26 Calendar forward um August would continue to be our Workshop weeks and planning days and the first day of school is scheduled after
Labor Day on September 8th we have conferences and mea in October Thanksgiving break is proposed as two days for this year only but students will have the day before Thanksgiving off if we switch that professional learning day again from October 30th
winter break would begin on December 24th we understand that's a late start to winter break that was a hard one for the calendar committee to talk through but the committee believes that's the best day to begin based on meeting the other parameters of the calendar including in particular balancing the
semester days and having enough time for assessments um and AP and IB in particular at the end of the quarters um teachers would return for their planning day on January 4th before welcoming back students on Jan uary 5th teachers really preferred that option of having that day
back first planning and then having the students come in or and professional development um students Educators and parents all agreed with beginning spring break on March 29th um we actually had proposed it a week later and there was a really robust discussion about that and moving it back made sense to everyone
including our athletic direct director who also supported that recommendation we always do think about those spring Sports and where they fall on the calendar it affects a lot of families the outline for the recommended calendar is as follows the first day of school for all teachers would be Tuesday August 31st for professional learning in 2026
the first day of school for grades 1 through 12 students would be Tuesday September 8th the first day of school for kindergarten students would be Thursday September 11th fall conference dates are Thursday October 8th would be uh from 4 to 8 and
Friday October 9th from 8:00 to 4: and then there would be an additional 4 hours of conference time to be assigned by building sites for the weeks of October 5th and October 12th and that would round out that other day that full day um winter break would be December 24th through January 1st spring
conference dates would be Thursday March 4th from 4: to 8 and Friday March 5th from 8: to 4: with again an additional four hours of conference time to be assigned in the building sites the week of March 1st and March 8th spring break would be March 29th through April 2nd the last student day would be Friday
June 11th and the last teacher day would be Monday June [Music] 14th so that's what we have for you at this time we know it's a hard year I think we all struggled with that it's cycles and so there are always like we build up to this this is going to be the roughest as far as it goes for having a
short winter break a shorter spring break and to think about that day before um Thanksgiving so that is the recommendation thus far from the calendar committee and I'd welcome any questions board members any questions
comments Megan I always have a question um I noticed that Yetta is moving a week earlier before Labor Day and I kind of read the statutes there but I'm going to be honest I didn't quite understand so you can only go under you can only go
before Labor Day if you're doing construction that that exceeds like $400,000 right but then it's there's like agreements with a district qualifies or if it's a same schedule as an adjoining State can you just talk a
little bit about that or do you not maybe superintendent locken so the the construction piece is really about creating a longer summer the next year so because starting earlier
shortens your construction window but if you want to for example if on this calendar we wanted to create a long construction window in the summer of 27 we'd move a week earlier my perception is there there is some flexibility with the
state we might qualify our challenge would be if we weren't doing an atypical construction the state might ask what's new this year um uh we you know we typically do millions of dollars of construction every summer and we haven't never had to
adjust our calendar if we were going to do the bond that we have out for review and comment that might make sense the year before we plan to build so um sadly if
we were thinking we were going to do a bond in November and we're going to start construction the next year it would make sense to move the 25 26 Calendar and potentially this one 26 27 um that depending on how that all works so there
is a construction piece the adjacent State piece of course doesn't apply to us but that that's for districts that are um are trying they might sure busing across the border and so the North Dakota Wisconsin that doesn't have the state for summer Resort Lobby you could
align with those North Dakota routinely finishes in May and so there are some reasons why districts that border North Dakota would take that calendar so like I'm looking and Dina pretty much every year starts before
Labor Day and Y Zetta is for 26 27 so are they getting are they doing construction to make that happen or did they get some other exception I'm just wondering like if this really was a a problem going so late in June if that
was an option we could even consider or is do we not have anything that meets we could certainly if the board is interested in us exploring options for 2627 to start a week earlier there was a discussion at the capital this week also about this uh I don't know how much
traction they're going to get but I if you would like us to consider starting a week earlier this year we certainly can explore that and come back to you one thing we do here and I've been on the calendar committee for a long time is that families really enjoy that final long extended weekend as a wrap-up to
this summer um you know last time to go to their cabin or last big family trip and then starting fresh once the and our families um are used to it and so I think that that's just a consider consideration as well is that it would move everything forward including teacher training it you know everything
would move up and so that would cut into summer for teachers and for families at a minimum all research how Edina gets around it every yeah I was more just curious like if it was even discussed or if it wasn't discussed because it wasn't an option you know so if it it wasn't
discussed but but I don't know that it was because we didn't think it was an option I think it was not discussed like it wasn't something that someone raised and said we really should take it back but we certainly can take it back and discuss it if it's something the board wants us to um the committee didn't recommend it
but I will report back to the board on what Idina does to move their calendar forward our process now is this is our first time looking at it it comes back uh to a future board meeting for approval likely um in May
I'll just add I wasn't necessarily making a recommendation I was just more curious about if the conversation had happened or how these other districts I'm kind of wondering if some of our other surrounding districts like if wetta starts earlier then we're going to get the question of why didn't you guys
start earlier so just kind of thinking it through um yes and keep in mind we're a year early with this so we you approve a draft of the or I mean we just publish a draft of it and then we formally approve it the next March I think it's
worth having that conversation as to what the is it is it really an option for us or not if if it's if there's a if there's a way to deal with the statute but our families are uniformly opposed then that tells us something but if people are interested sure um it
is it does seem a weird feature of our calendars every we could certainly survey our community to see if there's interest in starting a week earlier in the 206 27 school year then you know of people who've responded if that's
important one thing too though is we really do try to structure the committee so that it's representative of the entire District like all the different constituents and then they bring input from all of their different so just offering that perspective as well it's about 40 people that sit around a table and we do it for about three hours and
then we come back again and talk for three more so perhaps we can determine if it's an option we can ask the committee if this is worth going back out to the community or if they have thoughts on it yeah I'd rather ask the committee because they do a lot of hard
work on this and I wouldn't want them to feel like we are going around that process I think it's been a very good productive conversation year after year okay thank you thank you yep you're bet that'll wrap us up for tonight
thanks everybody [Applause]