good evening the work session of the ISD 279 School Board is being held in the Forum room of the Educational Service Center at 11200 93rd Avenue North in Maple Grove on Tuesday June 11th 2024 the work session is being audio recorded
the recording will be made available on the district website within two business days after the work session has ended with regard to audio recording our communication staff has asked that we share friendly reminder that side conversations during the work session are picked up by the recorder and can
affect sound quality also conversations during transitions between agenda items are on the recording as well the intent of the Schoolboard work session is to allow for Schoolboard discussion of topics work sessions do not include an opportunity for audience members to address the board to acknowledge
attendance this evening I'll ask that all present at the table State their name starting with to my left Jackie mosa Jones School Board member Thomas Brook Schoolboard member Anthony patus executive director of Technology Sarah Mitchell School Board member Laura
Anderson Executive Director of Human Resources Kelly parpart assistant superintendent of secondary schools John Moret Executive Director of Finance and operations Valerie do K executive director of community relations Steve Fisk assistant superintendent for the
elementary schools Brian bassist is superintendent of equity and achievement Heather Douglas School member Brian Severson Hall executive director of community engagement Amy Moore general counsel Tamara Grady she her hers uh School Board member Kim H superintendent
and I Tanya Prince Schoolboard member m present the purpose of the Schoolboard work session is to build trust and teamwork to exchange information and when applicable to provide Direction in order to facilitate efficient and effective decision-making at regular board meetings Dr Hy would you please
share your checkin yes we before we start I just want to say we just came up at least I came up a high from last week of all of our graduations that we had uh we had 27 online and parer and o oh oio senior and maple gr vle a senior then
the prior of the week we had oec um O A LC and c and a a b e like there's a macron for you but anyway so it's just beautiful see all the different Pathways in much
over reach needs of our Scholars so it was just uplifting time so I just wanted to throw that out so we'll go ahead and get started because we got a full schedule today so we're going to first get started with uh Valerie doin I'll be all Consulting for our legislative update good evening Valerie great well
thank you superintendent uh good evening board members thank you for having me tonight uh I do I did provide a narrative for your board packet which I will be uh speaking from um the24 legislative session which ran from February 12th who May 19th concluded on
schedule with the passage of a supplemental budget and tax bill I would say however the the end of the uh legislative session was far from smooth uh it was marked by uh things that I never imagined would have been happening towards the end of session including
burglary charges against the sitting Senator um long C Busters in both the House and Senate and um not unexpectedly very heated debates on high-profile bills towards the end uh the fail year to pass a bonding bill which is it's always a big question whether or not a
bonding bill will pass uh but a bonding Bill did not pass this year and then there were some very tumultuous uh final moments on the House and Senate floors at the very end of session um however they did finish on time and they did finish with a supplemental education
budget Bill and a supplemental policy Bill uh just some uh context for what we started when we went into the beginning of the legislative session uh the second year of the legislative session is is always considered the short legislative session they don't have to really do anything they've already passed a
two-year state budget U but often the legislature likes to come back and pass a supplemental budget if a budget forecast allows it and fix uh change fix and provide technical claric clarifications to bills passed the previous year uh and then also the
second year the legislative session is really uh time for the legislature to focus legislature and the governor to focus on a bonding Bill uh the February forecast uh revealed a larger Surplus than what had been ant anticipated uh
however uh the governor and legislative leaders really uh moved forward with caution on a supplemental budget because the budget forecast did not show that the funding was sustainable into the next pum so much of the Surplus was considered one time um overall a state B
supplemental budget was pass about $512 million uh and the governor and the legislature really emphasized one time money so going into when Su session started when the updated forecast came out we knew there was not going to be any ongoing funding for Education
despite a lot of needs being uh expressed by school districts from around the state for you ongoing funding on the special ed for on the per people formula Etc uh so overall the education budget Bill and education policy Bill did not get mired in the very last few
days of the legislative session they that those bills did pass the the week before for the end of special s end of the regular session which was was nice um overall the education budget Bill appropriated $43 million in onetime
funds um most of that went towards the react uh and they also uh the bill also allocated uh some $50 million in funds that were kind of set aside from the 2023 session to be used to expand the number of spots from voluntary prek so
those were the two main priorities uh the other PRI priorities of the legislature were to look at the teacher shortage and what initiatives could be moved forward to look at teacher shortage as well as uh a growing interest in really student attendance in treny and those were the the main
focuses in both the House and Senate I I'm not really going to go into a lot of the details about what was passed um but just provide you with some context on the conversations that happened about the read act um two things of note uh from the very beginning of session and really prior to the beginning of session
school districts uh continued to tell their local legislators and education advocacy organizations continued to tell the legislature school districts need more time money and flexibility to implement the read act I think uh for uh
some time I wasn't sure school districts were going to get the flexibility but uh towards the end the legislature did listen um they did reallocate uh $330 million that was originally reserved specifically for curriculum did reallocate it on a for per people
formula basis to allow school districts to use how they see fit as long as it's aligned with the requirements of literacy incentive Aid or the redex so you did not have to use it only for a curriculum uh it amounted to about $39 a pupil which I uh know districts
need a lot more resources to implement the redc but given that flexibility uh we did not think we were going to get that until really kind of at the uh when the budget bills were coming together um as I mentioned most of the money in the supplemental budget Bill did go towards
uh the read act and it was their main priority was to make sure there was funding to cover staff compensation or teacher stiens uh there is language that says districts have to work with their local union on a memorandum of understanding on how that additional
funding will be used for the staff compensation uh so I consider it even though it was a very small budget bill I consider it getting flexibility on the re uh a big win also they did uh extend the training timelines for the first round of teachers and staff that need to
be trained they extended that by another year so I think that was also another big win uh in regards to the oio district priorities uh a number of items that were on the district's platform were included in the final bill or or or
in a separate bill for instance the uh clarification on school resource officers legislation passed very quickly at the beginning of session as I mentioned there is additional funding for redact implementation there is a little provision that will result in
some special uh paperwork reduction and it's allowing for a standalone assessment for developmental adapted physical education uh some of the onetime money did go towards addressing the teacher shortage uh primarily for student teacher stiens and some
additional funding for the aspiring teacher of color scholarship program and then uh some there is a proposal to look at making reciprocity easier in the areas of specialized lure and then I would just add you know legislators heard the message on the impact that the
mandates from last session had uh we heard over and over again from legislators There Was 80 mandates passed we've heard from our school districts about the impact and while there are a few mandates that were passed as part of this last session I think they were definitely at a minimum this year um
some other items passed that were aligned for they didn't pass but they did advance that are align with the district's priority there was legislation that Pro was heard that extended local optional revenue and it would have allowed districts to use that
funding to uh pay for the unemployment insurance for hourly School Employees as well as Paid Family Medical Leave costs there was legislation to increase the General Ed formula by additional 2% that was also heard uh and then uh expanding
the allowable uses of long-term f facilities maintenance Revenue those were introduced and they received hearings but they did not advance and then lastly just looking towards the uh over the interim and the 2025 legislative session there were several task forces and working groups that were
appointed or were created one is on true and Senor attendance another one is on El funding and then uh special education lure reciprocity workg group and then there's a work group on teacher and staff compensation and I will certainly be monitoring all of those and letting
the district know on on what's happening with those work groups they will be bringing forward recommendations to the legislature next session and then 2024 is an election year the entire Minnesota House of Representatives is up for reelection uh there the Senate is not up
for reelection this year but there is a special election for a seat um Senator Kelling Morrison has stepped down because she's running for congress so there will be a uh special election in that seat um and then lastly just of note representative Mike Nelson long
time state representative and uh I think he graduated from champan Park uh uh and a longtime representative of the oio area schools is is retiring oh okay thank you I have one quick
question sorry um the EXP extending the timeline for teachers that's the first group um so classroom teachers Etc and then there's another group did that also get extended or is that now we have to train Everybody by
2026 no I think the second group is 2027 okay thank you and I believe they always were 2027 are there any other questions or comments thank you for your work we appreciate it thank you thank you thank you thank you
all right so next we'll have our next guest come to the table it's your house you're not guest come come to the table um and we'll have Dr Brian bass introduce our work around uh lgbtq I
resolution all right good evening uh chair Miss ska Jones Vice chair Prince members of the board superintendent and community members thank you for the opportunity to present an update on the implementation of the lgbtqi plus history and culture resolution joining me for tonight's
presentation uh Scholars uh from Park Center Queen NAA pure Earth is with us um and then she does have a another student who's going to be joining I think she might be walking in while we're presenting um Jules uh Harris will be joining and then staff here uh Marcy
Redmond from Maple Gro Senior High uh Suzanne Blum rundes I got it all right Park Center Senior High Jessica Stewart Jeff Stewart from 279 online and then Robin Gonzalez director of learning and achievement
thank you all for joining us tonight and and queen I know this is this is we're infringing on your summer summer time thank you so much for for joining us I got so our outcomes for tonight's presentation W to provide a progress update on the implementation of the
resolution and to share next steps uh for in progress work our strategic priorities uh for the year you'll see alignment to strategic Direction a create safe welcoming and inclusive learning environments that Foster Global curiosity belonging
Innovation and engagement and then the specific high priority initiative uh strategic priority of respect value and humanize each and every Scholar's race culture and identity um all of this aligns to the implementation efforts of the
resolution trying to get us to the the speakers so uh as a reminder the resolution was adopted in June of 2022 the resolution aims to acknowledge the value of the lives of our trans
lesbian gay bisexual queer intersex TWP asexual non-binary and gender expansive Scholars and staff the resolution includes 10 action items tonight's presentation will include updates for each action item efforts will be
categorized as completed or in progress so our first two action items um and I think it's important uh because these these um are not action items that we refer to frequently throughout the year so I I I really don't like reading from the slide but I am going to read
from the slide for the action items okay yay so so the first action item Declaration of June as pride month AIO Area School Board declares June as pride month and directs the superintendent and all District staff to
support policies practices and curricula that respect lgbtqia plus students and their families in June and throughout the school year action item two we recommit to practices within the oio school district that protect and affirm our transgender non-binary and gender
expansive Scholars this includes the full implementation of our gender inclusion policy support for gender sexuality alliances or gsas and queer straight alliances or qsas in our school's professional development for all School staff and gender affirming
curriculum and pedagogical practices so here we have uh for each action item we'll pause and show the examples of completed work and then work that
continues to be in progress so for action item one we see completed is we have created an identity based harm protocol and we have communicated pride month to all of our stakeholders what is in progress is the welcome uh
implementation of the identity based harm protocol for action item two we've completed and the completed section we have created and facilitated professional learning modules for high school teachers so we have foundational
module we have the module that supports the lesson delivery and then we have differentiated versions of the lesson for students receiving specialized services or who are newcomers or multilingual Learners the in progress work for action item two includes
refinement of the lesson for High School Scholars based on all the feedback that we've received research and pilot instructional resources for the Middle School continue supporting scholar Le lgbtqia plus Affinity groups across secondary sites and provide the pro the
the foundational professional learning module for Middle School teachers so this is the time where will'll pause and uh share space with our Scholars to talk about their experience with uh Affinity groups so thank you for joining us um we just
introduce our yes please all right hello everybody my name is King pure Earth um I'm a recent parer graduate um I was also a member of prism at my time during high school and I also did a bunch of other extracurriculars such as competitive cheerleading sideline
cheerleading Orchestra choire um and just volunteer work all that kind of stuff so I'm very exit to be here and to share my experience with y'all so thank you hello y'all my name is Jules um much like my I was also on the cheer team I have done dance and numerous of other
after school activities and also very excited to be here and share my story J is on the slide right yeah oh yeah I'm right we start with question the question oh like okay yeah you st back and forth yeah I guess I can start um
for the first question about what kind of Drew me to prism um my sophomore year I'm being honest I went into it not really knowing how many friends I was going to have because it was just straight out of Co you know I was a little awkward and I didn't really have a good grasp what high school was going
to mean for me um so Prisma before being honest the first reason that I joined was because a lot of my friends that I had made participated in the club and so the thought of building upon and like creating a community of people that valued and respected me not only as a
person but also for my identity really brought me into it um and after joining that was really through that for doing right um much like NAA I came in to first center myself year um but what kind of Drew me into prism is because
the school where I was at um in the past it was very like you know small it didn't have like it wasn't very much diversity there and um I didn't I wasn't really comfortable like you know being out or really talking so then when I came to Park Center and you know much
like her a lot of my friends were in prison like okay let me try to get that a shot I went to prism and I was just like welcomed with open arms and I felt comfortable and I met so many great people so that's what drew me into prism
so as why Infinity spaces are apped to me personally um I'd say prism along with other Infinity spaces at Park Center and schools all over the district gave students like me and jwes the opportunity to feel seen valued and heard in areas that
sometimes make that hard doors were really opened um to have conversations about the niche experiences I and many others had which made my high school experience way less isolating um the feeling that I was not alone in the different Joys and hardships I experienced really
encouraged me to start working to ensure that others have the privilege of feeling the same way that prism made me feel um that's why like for competitive cheering the whole reason that I joined was because I noticed in the cheer Road there was a lack of representation for
black girls like me um while it's a different Community I feel like the issues still still relate um and so I join despite knowing that um in hopes of you know making others feel represented and encouraged in the same way that I've
been like I said how person had made me feel and I feel like throughout my time that I like at Park Center I definitely reached that goal I had a lot of people come up to me and express how they were my how I was their favorite cheerleader and how they were going to try out and things of that nature and so I really do
just I get all the thanks to prism for encouraging me and showing me that you have to be the one to you know build that community and make that space that makes sense even if it's uncomfortable sometimes also expanding on what she said um yeah also going because me and
her we went into um the cheer was a practice together um I only went cuz she was there and I'm like I don't know if I want to do that but um so I went in I you know I did my little thing and it was honestly the coach she was like she was like oh my
god really want you on the team like you did great y y y so I ended up join joining cheer and of course I was a little nervous because being a black Trans woman I didn't necessarily know what to expect I didn't know if I was going to be judged I didn't know if they were going to welcome me as much as they
did but again all I was like mad with was just open arms and everyone supporting me and it felt great to be out there on the court so you know there was that too and that's why I think it's just so important just to have different Affinity spaces for people so they know
that they're not alone and that there are people out there who will look out for them and who can relate to them in similar ways and I think that was definitely much more important for me as well because I didn't really I didn't feel like I was like a black Trans girl on the cheer team I felt like I was a
part of the team I was just another regular girl doing my thing out there on the court so that's why I think it's just so important that people know that they have access to these groups and and that they're going to be feeling safe and they're going to be feeling welcomed
and they're not going to be judged because truthfully these spaces really helped me throughout my high school year become like the person that I am because my confidence now is at an all-time high um I've made multiple friends I've tried multiple different things that I never would have thought I would have done
before and again now going back to prison prison just truly helped me find myself and it helped me you know gain confidence and make lifetime friendships because like now I'm with this one and be here together and now we're staying at the school
point the power of it all honestly kind of adding on to that like how we all like how we started at a certain place and now who we are now and the role that prison played into that um I would say I haven't went to prison
meetings as much as I gotten older but that's only because I've started to prism encourage me to participate in other things that's something that I really appreciated about Park Center um Miss Suzanne is that she and prison was always something that I and jewels and
many other people could go back to um and always just kind of feel comforted and like there was a home there you know kind of like with your actual house where you know you stay it's your childhood you stay there but then as you grow up you know you start to fin roing your own and gradually leave the n and
um prism just that was I felt the same thing you know even now like I feel like I just go back like Hey Y'all Le from sophomore year um and I feel like just all Infinity spaces are like that you know you're meant to it's meant to always be there for you if that makes sense but you're not supposed to only be
that thing it's supposed to show you that you're capable of many other things um so kind of connecting that to activities that we did at prism um we did the usual things like eat snacks do typical ice breakers but we also branched out and we had many
different conversations about things that we wouldn't have had in non-lgbtq plus spaces these topics range from better understanding tands to Sexual Health as a queer person and I think knowledge tailored to one specific experience is important and often
overlooked and prison's acknowledgement of that is something that I really appreciated um and then now I want to add that while we obviously do things that are revolved around being lgbtq I think it's also important to recognize that end of the day prism is
just like any other club there were talent shows we played games we've been on field trips and hosted clothing swaps and area various other methods of fun um like any other groups would have um Affinity groups like prism give students the ability to meet new friends and
create memories and spaces that L them as they are and that aspect is something like I said I really appreciate it and it's something that I will cherish for the rest of my life and carry with me as I continue to volunteer work and just go postsecondary education you know and
continue just working to make others feel welcomed like prism at Park Center and I think GSA clubs at schools all around the district do um also expanding on to what she said um yes we did a lot of the same activities like you know normal gruce
would do but another like one thing that I would like to highlight that I think PR did really well that really helped me is that every day before we would start talking about what was on our daily agenda we would do something called aose and a thorn and what a rose was it was like something positive that's going on
in your life and then the thorn was something that wasn't so positive going on in your life and I feel like the reason why I wanted to like put significance on like you know the more simpler aspects of what prism provided was the fact that it allowed me to talk about it like something that I was going
through or it allowed me to try to you know say something that I normally wouldn't say outside of that um that group or you know with people who I didn't think would necessarily understand what I was going through and I know like having those conversations like every meeting was just very
important to me because I'm like oh now I can talk about you know this that I didn't want to talk about before or listening to others and hearing what they um hearing what they were going through and then through that people would um come to me on the side and like kind of expand on what they were talking
about in the um group and I was able to help other um people like you know like really whatever there was going like whatever they were going through but I feel like that's why for me like with prism like what they did really well they truly just provided a this is that
included cly just provided a very nice comfortable open honest and very positive um group for us to come and realize that we are not alone and we are here and we are staying so that's what we
did well thank you so much I'm not sure if we want to wait till the end the presentation to ask questions of the students or if you want do we can keep well what do you guys prefer let's keep going yeah that's okay all right all right
so so action items three and four so action item three Elevate the voices of lgbtqi plus Scholars and staff to help dismantle systemic barriers in our school district by establishing an lgbtqia plus employee affinity group and
establishing an lgbtqia plus scholar parent caregiver Ally Advisory Group this committee will advise our District administration and school board on structural barriers inequities and the lived experience of lgbtqi plus Scholars
and their families and then uh A4 action item four ensure there is adequate initial and ongoing support for the assistant superintendent of equity achievement and the equity Department to implement an intersectional approach to systemic barriers to equity all forms and I think uh Queen um and Jules both
spoke to um that inter seexual U that intersectional experience um of being both black and female and a member of the lgbtq plus community and and um and that experience and so being able to to acknowledge all of that in the
space so the action items uh the progress completed work and in progress work uh for action item three we have um collected feedback from the advisor committee on the five month lesson uh and we're going to go in more depth here um Jeff Stewart's going to speak to more
of the work of the advisory committee um soliciting feedback from scholar and staff Affinity groups the impr progress work is to continue the facilitation and support of the lgbtqi plus advisory committee and continue the facilitation of the lgbtqi plus staff affinity group
and Marcy will speak to the staff affinity group experience and then action item four uh is our completed work is that we've provided the professional learning module to all D dtl staff and our in progress work is to continue partnership with mde the MD
cohort for rural suburban and urban districts and then provide foundational professional learning module to all of our new uh dtl staff and so we will pause here um and turn uh over to justu
it first to talk about the advisory committee and then we'll pass to uh Marc to talk about the employee Affinity experience and then Suzanne feel free to to jump in as well good evening everyone um I thought it would make it to one board meeting without getting emotional
and then I'm listening and getting all choked up again um my name is Jess Stewart you she her pronouns um I'm a member of the lgbtq advisory committee I've been in the district for 25 years and I witnessed firsthand our journey toward um Equity so as I reflect on our
beginnings with things like Peg and Beyond diversity I recall all the courage it took to navigate excuse me um uncharted waters and Pioneer courageous conversations so today as we continue to forge ahead we're once again summon to courage um as
we create spaces to learn and celebrate All facets of identity transformation as we know with any organization can be really really daunting um it's marked by uncertainty but it also really offers an opportunity to embark on New Paths
forward and I really feel like this is what we we are um currently doing so this was the advisory committee's first year in existence and I'm going to provide an update of kind of what we went through and what we did this year so members of the um lgbtq advisory committee we collaborated with District
leadership and other staff to design and execute professional development and we delivered that to all high school licensed staff in February um I had the privilege of working with colleagues and District leadership to co-create that professional development and also had
the opportunity to co-present it on February 5th um because of the heightened awareness and the scrutiny surrounding uh that particular day in that lesson I did go into it feeling uh a height and Sun of nervousness but I will say that I was also super super
confident and I held great comfort because I believe so passionately in what we are doing and I co- facilitated with an amazing colleague and we had an amazing space um I co- facilitated with um Park Center colleagues and it was just an amazing learning opportunity and
it felt like a really really good space to be in um members from the advisory committee also collaborated in um crafting and implementing the history the lgbtq history and culture lesson that we delivered to students in April um members of that committee we
dedicated extensive time and effort to really make sure that that lesson tightly aligned with the expectations in the lgbtq history and culture resolution um and we take immense Pride immense
pride in the work that we did um making that lesson high quality making that lesson accessible to our Scholars um and we know and we acknowledge that there was a varying degree of experiences we heard that at the board meeting of some of our
Scholars but it's really important to emphasize that the actual lesson that was created um it was welld designed it was aimed at providing a valuable learning experience and we really feel like we hit the mark on that and the
lesson truly did what it was um aimed to do and then finally the members from the advisory committee we also some of us participated um with mde this year in an mde gender inclusive learning cohort and so this cohort was first of its kind so
that was really neat um and it was um Urban and suburban and Rural schools from across the state we came together for professional development policy support and the exchange of best practices and all of this was aimed at
fostering environments where all of our Scholars feel like they are valued that they're supported um and that they're empowered and really this cohort provided um an invaluable opportunity for the team that was there so there was
six of us um including Dr Bass to really engage in some meaningful and really critical conversations um it allowed us the opportunity to assess our progress what are we doing well where are we going and then it also allowed us an opportunity
to identify areas for growth um and then our learning this year with mde and being in community with other districts across the state really gave us an opportunity to engage where everyone was at um and we know that we have a lot of
work to do in AO ear schools um but we also were able to see that some districts are just starting to have the conversation and they're at the very beginning um of their journey and so we can take pride in the fact that we provided professional development we
rolled out a lesson and all of our admin are trained in identity based harm protocol and there are a lot of districts that don't have that and so I want to make sure that that doesn't get lost in some of the conversations and some of the things that we know that we
are working forward to make better um and all of those things that we have done this year really provide us with this strong foundation and then we can use that and then we build on that from um as we move forward so again well we know that being Trailblazers does not
come without hiccups um and doesn't come without some challenges and we know that that's going to continue but we know that we have the commitment of the district leadership we know that we have the commitment of the advisory Council and then that partnership um we are
committed to cultivating an environment where all of our Scholars all of them feel a sense of belonging and confidently show up in their prism spaces and on the dance floor um and
that just becomes the norm of who we are and the environment we cultivate um in what asio area school stands for and we really want to make sure that our Scholars are able to show up as their authentic selves and the work that did this year um truly is laying the foundation for us to be able to provide
that for our Scholars and so between District leadership between our committee the work that we've done we are committed to realizing that vision for our district so thank you um I am RC Redman new the Browns um
I've been active in the F group The Advisory team and the lesson development team nde so I will let you know that part of um when I talk about this I focus on Infinity I'm really TIY to say focus on S Infinity but my fingers have been in a little bit of everything so a little bit more might come out um I
appreciate the opportunity um provided this year to build a greater community and have a safe place to talk and work as we build personal relationships outside of work um the district actively supported a small team um to nde um monthly social Gatherings and lunches
during PD days um and similar to Youth and we all still in high school and some of those things carry all the way through that it's nice to talk about more than just what you're doing at school but what our lives are like outside a place to know you get to be yourself and to really kind of connect with others and just um create deeper
relationships um I appreciate having infy space to just be one's true self and to know you are welcomed and appreciated for who you are as one of the TSA advisers I also appreciate the opportunity to be in a space that I also Tred to create this space for students the emotional support has been very important to me in these spaces and also
been appreciated by the students as well because these spaces were formed we as staff also had new places to process reflect and gain support um and truly I've been in the district for nine years and this is the first year that I was really able to do that across building
um which was very meaningful and Powerful um with recent um assault on Cobalt sing from Hopkins we are again reminded of the harm that can happen to students that are seen to identify or associate with this community um this was a horrendous event the awareness of
this can happen can be overwhelming more often our students and staff experience veral comments or threats or a variety of imicro aggressions there can be Affinity groups for all kinds of reasons but their important goal is the same to be seen to be heard and understood to be
able to breathe a little easier because they are with people that understand a part of their life that others don't fear can be a heavy burden and INF spaces are one of the many antidotes that can bring relief I also believe education and information is an important ad andot as well the
resolution for a lesson is a good thing a brave thing to do it is good for teachers to learn how to support and respect all students and staff's idenity seeing staff and students not participate was painful and disappointing I appreciate the space of
time given to process this so this year was a significant step in the right direction to building a new Foundation um is there more work to do yes is there more learning to do absolutely I look forward to contining having courageous conversations about how we Elevate learning about ourselves and others
we've taken a first step in many areas which can nothing be the hardest and I look forward to taking more any more with your support in your leaders are all hard acts to follow all right I'm Suzanne Blum greson and if any of you worked in the district between
1982 and 1995 you would have known me as Susie Blum who went to Elm Creek AIO and AIO and um my parents still live in the house they built when I too um right by El Creek element um I left Minnesota for 18 years and returned um and two years
after I returned to Minnesota I got a job at Middle School um I was there for two years and I had the pleasure of teaching Naima in math in seventh grade Queen NAA excuse me and um and having you in kind which was our um targeted
Services diversity group GSA and it was great um so it's been really six years watching this beautiful human grow and evolv um I got Co shuffled by this beautiful district and uh was a setting three float for a year and then I landed
at perk Center as the special education building coordinator and um the second question I was asked in my interview sorry Laurel if this is not protocol um was I heard you might be willing to run our GSA and I said I would love to i' be
thrilled to um and then of course we did all the other appropriate interview questions um I want to share a couple background things really quick Dr H and I have had the privilege to have some conversations and she's really stressed to me the
importance of knowing people's stories um and I tell you about my background in this District because I am a product fully from kindergarten through 12th grade of this district and my parents have paid taxes for 45 years in this
district and voted yes on every single Bond though um I'm very proud of that I'm very proud of being from here and um I did PSO at buffl I have a Theology and sociology degree I then went on to get a M's in community organizing and
development and then a M's in teaching and finally a principal's license at Hamin um so Community is really important to me I obviously returned to my home Community after a long time away um with the lessons I learned um and I've told the kids this you're
not but I've told the kids this a 100 times is that my whole goal is to be the adult I needed when I was a kid I had fantastic teachers that prio and AIO I I'm still in touch with some of them um but there was a whole part of myself
that was hidden and that I couldn't be myself in and there were a lot of years of pain and hurt um for my friends and myself um that didn't need to happen um and I'm hoping it is my deepest desire that my
voice in this space and my voice at Park Center and at any space in any District I'm a part of um creates a smoother path for someone else um I have a couple notes and then I sorry that was all from the I do have
notes I promise um I want to share a quote qu that's really important to me um it's not a quote it's um if you haven't heard there's something called the Paradox of Tolerance and the Paradox of Tolerance states that if a society's practice of
Tolerance is inclusive of the intolerant then intolerance will ultimately dominate eliminating the tolerance and the practice of Tolerance with them you can learn more about that it's work by Carl poer um one of our prism members who's
not at the table tonight so I won't share their name um but who lives in a really hard home and is probably moving out this week went with us to the outfront youth Summit uh this year which is a wonderful Summit that our prism kids have gone to the last few years and
they said thank you so much for bringing me on that field trip today I had a really great time seeing so many people be openly queer and to know there are resources for me and a space to be joyful um all a lot of our kidss have never
been open here have never been openly and fully themselves I was never openly and fully myself so I was 27 years old and it's a heavy weight to carry and if we can lessen the load of our students
by being fully seen by being fully themselves by being fully accepted and celebrated and not just tolerated um we are giving them a gift of space to do other things pra doesn't know I'm going to
call her out but one of the things she's done a lot in the last year and a half has apologized to me for not being at prism all the time and I am like baby bird fly right she's not there because she's got 700 other activities she's trying choir she's trying cheer she's
trying theater she's everything and the fact that she I call our prism like Foundation right that's where you go to find your safe base right and we have a ton of ninth and 10th graders that flock to prism right
they need to find their tribe they need to find their people they need to find that safe space and in 11th and 12th grade they show up at lunches we do um after school once or twice a month and lunches twice a month so that kids can come at different times they'll show up
for lunches or they'll pop by for the first 10 minutes grab a snack check in and then they're like sorry got to go I have these 700 things when they're juniors and seniors and to me I don't feel bad I feel proud I feel glad I
feel thankful that they feel strong and that they are going out and trying all the other things because we are intersectional whole human beings right my identity is not just as a queer woman but the 900 other parts of my life that I love and enjoy and experience and have
his background and although I love my queer joy and my queer community and my queer friends and my queer family that is just one portion of who I am and so the strength to be safe in a space and then go out and try all the other things and what that does
for kids to feel safe like you can come back home if you need to but go out and explore right what what is that saying that you know parents are supposed to give you roots and wings right well I am not your parent but but I will be if you
need me to um um but but that is my goal always as a teacher right you are deeply rooted here and you are always welcome here but use your wings and fly and I really believe that um the space we hold in gsas and
Affinity spaces for all students um gives them that strength and Foundation those deep groups to know where to draw from when they need it when they hit bumps in the road right
um sorry o get this ass then um when I first got married I put a wedding picture up of my wife and I um in full disclosure I was married to a man when I was very young at thought shocker and I put up his and my picture
in my first school I worked up and no one ever said a word except ask like his name right um not in our district but I put up a wedding picture after my wife and I got married and I had several people asking why I would that right why I would share that openly and I said I
share it openly because I never saw like this when I was growing up and I didn't know this there a possibility our students our Scholars our children our neighbors our community need to know the wholeness of who they can be they need to know the
fullness of of who they can be and when we try to hide those options we try to stuffing back in that closet I swear I won't fit anymore it's too small um they don't get to see all the ways
they can be who they are and I promise you living your most authentic beautiful self out loud is just it it's the most success you can ever have and so I don't care if my student
becomes a dishwasher or a senator or a lawyer or I don't even know a manufacturer I care that they find joy and connection and are able to be authentically and fully the whes that's
success to me and if the kids who are in my spaces in my office and my gsas and my classrooms um feel fully seen and feel safe then then that is what I want and I think that the more that our district can do this the more that our
district can allow all students to do this in their full Humanity the more successful all of our Scholars will and I thank you for your time I thank you for listening thank you is gonna take
the action items thank you all right um action item number five is to require system leaders to measure disparities and track District performance to inform progress on
lbgtqia plus disparities through policy practice and pedagogy and action item number six is to ensure that all all facility design standards incl increased privacy and greater student choice in restrooms and locker
rooms so the act so where we are on this P um for action item number five from action number five in the completed work category this year we collected feedback to help us evaluate our efforts in providing the pride month
lesson that was delivered on April 3rd the information we received will inform the structure and content of future lessons along with the professional learning sessions that we develop for staff in progress work for action item
number five is that um we're continuing to examine policy practice and pedagogy to ensure that we're eliminating obstacles and creating opportunities so that that our lgbtqia plus Scholars along with all of our Scholars can achieve at high levels and feel
respected and welcome at all of our sites for action item number six the completed work is that we have committed to providing choice in restrooms and locker rooms and because of this commitment we applied for the mde grant that would have helped provide
additional financial support for these efforts while we were not awarded the grant this year we will continue these efforts one project that has been completed is the locker room space at Park Center Senior High the space includes restrooms and changing spaces
spaces that allow for student choice for more privacy in progress work for action item number six um is through the build of better future and long-term facility maintenance plans and is that we're going to continue to design Choice options in new construction areas for
restrooms and changing SP spaces if for a resolution items number seven and eight seven is to establish a full month before June during each Academic Year to observe LBGTQ
lbgtqia plus history and culture month because it is essential for our education system to teach the experiences honor the history and highlight the contributions of transgender gender and gender expansive and non-binary
people and item eight is to provide resources for families and caregivers in the district to understand and talk with their Scholars about lgbtq plus identities cor item seven this year April was designated as the month to
observe the history culture contri history culture and contributions of the lgbtqia plus Community the pride month advisory lesson took place in April an in progress work for action item number seven is that we will continue to
highlight the history and contributions of the lgbtqia community Through lessons and communication action item number eight um is in for completed work is we communicated to high school families about pride month lessons we shared the
resolution in gender inclusive policy also at that time additionally a landing page was created on our district website that contained the communication that was emailed to all parents and included additional links to updated res updates
um and resources we also provided opportunities for families and community members to preview the lesson before it was presented and also to review the lesson after it was presented for action item number eight um the so those are the p pieces that we
will continue to work on and there we are still in learning work about um knowing you know figuring out the best ways to support our students and one of the things in progress is that we're continuing to share resources to support um Scholars through
counselors and other trained staff and then we're looking forward and learning about work to um present families and um families and caregivers with additional learning opportunities and resources to support their own students that's one of
the things we're still working to learn about and research best practices in that area action item number nine was in recognition of the lgbtqia Plus in June each calendar year the O of school board invites the community to join in
Celebration by raising the lgbtqia progress pride flag on June 1st at all district build and in the school board room as a symbol of support to our lgbtqia plus students staff and
families and action item number 10 was to Pro report the progress of this resolution annually to AIO School Board mbers during the month of June we are we have um completed word for action
item 10 is that the GT K plus project PR fls are displayed in each district building throughout the year and this was um by recommendation of the cabinet and in for action item number 10 um we
are presenting to you tonight um for the resolution update and we'll continue to do that suzan's Library here yes for pictures you want to share a little bit of the context for some of those photos sure sorry I'm in most of them um that's what you get when you ask for pictures
um these are some pictures of both prism experiences and um affinity group spaces I'll highlight the top right and bottom two on the right or middle and right first um when looking at them which are um prism experiences the two largest
groups are at the outfront youth Summit which is put on by the outfront organ organization um each year uh this is an invaluable experience and I welcome The Scholar to add in just a moment anything they'd like to share because they both attended
um we've had amazing support from our district to attend this and last year we were able to um end this year configure busing in order so so that 279 online oalc Scholars could also attend with the
buses from Park Center so um one of the joys of our affinity space of learning what our colleagues are doing at other schools is that we also then resource for each other when we say hey between us we could use one bus let's figure out
how to arrange this and all go together and then the other result of that is that our kids start to know each other and start to know that there's other kids like them within the district that they can talk about what's happening in their schools as well so the outr youth Summit is a amazing resource and place
for teenagers um they have organiz ations there with resources for teenagers um that are age appropriate um you all want to talk about that at all um so I've been to the you Summit um
for about two years the first year it was still online oh yeah okay well yeah two years now and um every time I go to the um you Summit it's just I it's just like I'm bombarded with just like a plethora of just like like diversity smiling fa is there's like a
bunch of different like you know clubs that you can go to they have like what is it called workshops that we go to um and some of these workshops may include um one specific one for um queer Black Folk and when I went into that one cuz that's one of the um workshops that I
chose um met by a bunch of people shared experiences we were able to laugh talk um still have a lot of the same um people I also talk to them on a daily basis now from meeting them at the youth center um and it truly just brings um
recognition that we are here and I just I couldn't be more grateful I I love every experience every time I go to the you Summit it's definitely something that I look forward to I get to meet new people they put on um performances um there was one her name is Sid was it Sid
SciFi SciFi and the year before it was NE Blaze yeah both of which was amazing got pictures it was so cool but um yeah I love the youth Summit I think it definitely has taught me a lot um especially with about information that I
you don't really typically find um elsewhere and also it just helps that all the staff all the students everyone is just so supporting and nice and sweet and it just makes you feel truly comfortable there um I beened the youth Summit one
year I couldn't go this year I'm pretty sure I had something to do at school on that day but it one year that I did go I think it's something I always remember it was so like I don't know I think it just reminded me that the lgbtq plus Community is not a monolith you know
everybody has different like different experiences different personalities different styles there's some people you like there's some people you don't that's just a part of The Human Experience you know and while there are certain aspects of it
that like like I said not liking everybody or not liking every single thing those are things that you don't like right there's there's this weird kind of joy that comes from it you know cuz you're reminded that like I'm like I'm a human
being if that makes sense which sounds it's a it's kind of complex to just say right here and right now but you know there's a lot of ups and downs to it um and going to the conference seeing all the different people it just helps to certify that and I just really
appreciate it and I would honestly love to see District 279 do something like that within our school buildings you know I feel like it would be really fun and give a lot of students who may not feel like prism or Affinity groups are the areas for them um something like
that could show them like they showed me that we're not everybody's not the same that you can have a wide range of experiences that need a wide range of people um but just I don't know putting your foot in the door thank you the bottom right I want to just highlight is Eastman Nature
Center they do an amazing job with a program called outside with pride um and it is intentionally meant to build nature nature confidence in queer folks um and so we went in November and we did
a nighttime walk uh with them and had an amazing time and um they put on a really I wish we could have gone more but they have it in the evenings and so that's a hard field trip to have from 4: to 7: um but they do an
amazing job they've done a lot of Outreach to our students and outside with pride is a great program we're going to partner with them again next year and try to see if we can adapt a time for for our Scholars specifically to go right after school a few days um and kids um some of the kids that went
on that trip just said it was the the most different experience they'd ever had we spread out about 50 to 100 ft apart in the dark and then on this big trail and and everyone sat for like I think it was only 10 minutes but it felt like two hours and uh and then we came
back together and talked about it it was really um grounding and for kids um I grew up camping my mom is that person but um but for kids who had like never camped they talked about how powerful that experience was um and then the other three pictures um to the left side
and middle are Affinity um staff members from our district the top left is bowling at Bryant Lake Bowl The Middle on the top is a picnic we just had a pot luck at um at the nature at the park reserve um and then the bottom left is
actually my house over Christmas um we just all got together and um did a secret Santa gift exchange um uh and half those folks play Bachi with me in my career Sports League um and we wouldn't have all known if we didn't come together in effinity spaces right
finding your people and finding your tribe um I take a lot of pictures of kids know this I ask them all the time um luckily they're beautiful and photogenic and um are going to all be on America's top model one day but um and and all of the kids pictures were used
with permission I asked them off a long time ago um but those are just some examples of some of the things we do that are more out and extraordinary but you know three times a month we hang out together and just talk about our roses and thorns and eat lunch and talk about
tests and homework and parents and jobs and classes and crushes and whatever else comes up thank you thank you yeah thank you all questions yeah um board members
questions or comments I do have a question but first I just want to say that Queen and Jules you are both very lovely thank you for being here um I wrote down what you said I love that you said um you felt seen valued heard and not alone I think that's something at this table um we can find great unity in
I a friend that calls it no lonely Journeys and so I love that you've had that experience so thank you for sharing that and Jules um you can add to the Rose Thorn have you heard of adding a bud to that something you're looking forward to my kids have taught me that so when you play that you can add that okay thank you um and just my question
Brian can you help me um understand when I have um people ask questions in the community the pilot stage um it was under refinement for um doing this lesson at the middle school level can you help me understand um kind of what the refinement stages and what the
timeline and how that would be communicated right so for next year we'll be differentiating uh the the lesson for middle school and we'll be providing the foundational training that we piloted this year with high school teachers for
Middle School teachers next year so um all of the the the timeline for all of that we haven't yet put in in stone yet but those are the those are the those are the in progress items for this year for this upcoming school year okay and how will that be communicated to the
board and to um parents and teachers kind of the timeline for that um I don't know how soon well the board as soon as we have it you would just get that in a regular update or an email uh teachers would be
just like a regular PD right we would notify teachers of the p right right right and if we ever do anything with students April's chosen as right the month okay so that would be April we do have some feedback that we haven't like
crunched all the way but there's maybe some suggestions that April there's some questions around April so we haven't yet gotten a firm recommendation from the committee yet on on that oh okay go ahead queen yesen go ahead
girl um I just have one kind of cuz I know we're about to get done with I just wanted to say that I really appreci the district and the school board's efforts to make sure that lgbtq students and staff like seen and heard um High School
Middle School just the school experience as somebody that just graduated um can be a very tedious one um and it's not easy you know academics and socially um so walking away from the district now
and see all this is happening and being in order and being in Pilot being piloted and all of that um I really appreciate it um and I'm really excited to see where Park Center and schools all around the district go um and then
suan no I say and I really didn't want to emphasize how important representation is um I remember in seventh grade I had never seen like or met an lgbtq plus person in my life like which is kind of crazy to say but then I
met M Dan and I remember it was like the last day of school or something but I was really into this video game at a time and I made like an lgbtq plus character and I gave it to her as I was walking out and it's just little things like that um and people like her um and
efforts like these that really helped students to feel more comfortable in the classroom and give them the ability to focus on their learning on their academics I'm grad with honors I've done a lot of great things and um I really
can say that PR them like I said teachers like current efforts like these are a big reason as to why I am where I am now so just thank you to you all keep doing what you doing we heard you drop that graduate with honors just say it
just she's always been the most lck other other questions to com I'm sorry I just want to add one thing on to that um when I went to oio um a student in my class died by Suicide and in our PE class in ninth grade we
played smeir the Queer as directed by our PE teacher being out and having these lessons and having these spaces is suicide prevention and I want to say it really loud and clear and I meant to say it
earlier this is suicide prevention this is addiction prevention this is powerful and lifegiving in ways that you may not know until you know so I just want to say that out loud hearing
you say what you said made me think of Jake who died when we were 16 he was in my PE class when we were inth grade when we played music gr and I want to say out loud that the
district's support and care and progress and continuing to move forward on this is 100% life feeling and suicide prevention for our community also extend really quick um when you mentioned that what this is
suicide prevention um towards the beginning I don't know if some of you recall but I that I came from a very close-minded um kind of town um it's like an hour from here it's called Kimble um and like I said I was the only black queer person at that
school um emphasis on I was on the only black kid at the school too but um black inquery it just it really it really was a lot um I didn't really like talking to anyone it was hard since I was dealing with that at school and then also at
home and so I didn't want to be out I didn't want to talk I didn't want to do activities I didn't want to do absolutely anything and then I came to Park Center and was welcomed by you know Suzanne by NAA by a bunch of other like people who pushed me to try my hardest
and who pushed me to get out there CU of her I would have never tried cheer because of Miss Suzanne I probably wouldn't be succeeding as much as I am in school also graduated with honors thank you just say I just want to say that like I said like
as they both have said thank you guys so much because going to park Center like out of all the schools I've ever been to because I'm an army kid my stepfather was in the Army and I traveled from California to Germany to wherever and truly per Center has given me an
experience that is like something I never would have imagined um and also going back to the suicide thing I also had you know um some struggles with suicide and that like that was before I came to Park Center and um so glad that
I didn't because like the life I'm living now is just so amazing like I'm out I'm proud I'm happy I'm confident I know I am beautiful I'm going down to New York um I'm going to the New York Conservatory of the dramatic arts on an
annual $111,000 scholarship and I'm like like like I I put on um there's like these little TVs get your autographs now I put on these TVs at school where it's like the uh what is it uh it's like what college are you going to and you can add something um I said um you know
my goal is you know to be a TV actress and all that and then I put under there don't worry y'all going to see me on TV I put that like mostly as a joke but it it really was important to me because I didn't have the confidence that I can you know make it as an actress um I was
scared I didn't want to venture off to do absolutely anything um but being at Park Center like they have shown me the utmost love that I could have ever imagined and I have truly met my forever family um like I said didn't have it
from my biological family and that hurt a while but these amazing wonderful people have surely helped me like be shaped into the proud amazing trans woman that I am today and I'm going off into the future and I'm going to achieve
my dreams and I would have never been as confident or POS positive if it wasn't for personent in these beautiful people and for that I will be forever grateful and forever grateful for every single one of you who are here helping and making sure that these future kids have the space that we had and have the
experiences that we were able to have and so that they will be able to go out and achieve their dreams for those as well so thank you guys thank you thank you thank you so much for coming and presenting um it's always incredible the um ability and talent that's always
shown when students come and speak and thank you for so um wonderfully articulating your experiences um and um kind of the impact that the affinity group has had for your benefit and all the people have supported you and I think um Park Center isn't isn't unique
but it's a little unique that um that the experience really is like amongst students of building a strong culture that's welcoming for everybody so it's um wonderful to kind of hear those experiences and we need more and more students to come present to the work session because the most important thing
is to hear from students that decisions a fact um as well in addition to all of the adults and staff as well so thank you for coming and sharing um what other questions or comments on the overall presentation um did you want no you can
go first wow thank you each and every single one of you um I ran for school board in order to make this this community safer for kids like mine and to see the progress is really empowering
it's amazing what you do when you add love and unconditional support to anybody to see them fly and I'm so proud and so happy all for all of you um we still do have a lot of work to do there's been a lot of misinformation a
lot of hurtful rhetoric a lot of harmful things and really what that has to do with keep building your space of community and strength and know that our district has us on here is to keep educating the community about kindness
and compassion and tolerance for everyone because that's what a public institution does so thank you everyone um I just wanted to say um well actually kind of to build little bit on what Tamar said about the growth that
we've seen I also am a graduate of AIO schools and I grew up in the community um and know that in different categories different areas um the district has grown in a lot of ways there's things that happened before that don't happen now um and that's really great and I
also really want to specifically say to both of you I'm so thankful that your experience has been so positive here um it's really really wonderful to hear that um from a student perspective a lot of times um when students come to the board it's because of a negative
experience um so hearing those positive experiences like Tanya said it's so important for us to hear that and from your perspective what you're what you're experiencing um and I was a cheerleader so I just share that with you and how important it is to have friends I wouldn't have done it without my friends
either so um and I think that speaks to Queen your comments about The Human Experience right and that we have different interests they're not all the same but we have areas where we intersect so I just wanted to say thank you for that and sharing all of that um
I really appreciate hearing from you tonight um and then I actually had some questions and comments for um Brian and the team first I wanted to say that the outline of um the listening session and
what um what questions and comments and all of the data is really well organized um easy to um dissect and understand I appreciate from The High School principles the way that was broken down into four really specific um sections
with you know what are the challenges what actually happened what did we expect to have happened um those are the types of questions that we need to be asking when we Implement something new so um thank you for sharing that with us um in this way and um my next my
question really is what are we going to do with the information that we have now so uh as we um will assemble the group that is working on our material for next year we will be um all of this
information will be information that we review in the context of how we refine um and improve upon this year's effort so it will will absolutely help us inform and guide um take two yeah so um I guess to get a little bit more specific there were
recommendations that were made that came out of these or suggestions um from each different group and um and I understand due to the um protecting the privacy of the affinity group that information wasn't
shared um but where do we go with those recommendations particularly when they aren't aligned I think um I love the question I think I got to think about it um some more to to fully um understand how because obviously
we're going to have to take all of this information and then we're going to have have to you know blow it up make it visible and say okay which of these things um according to the language of the resolution can we honor because some of the recommendations violate the the resolution language and so we can't do
that so of the ones that are within the the parameters of the of the resolution language we'll have to prioritize within that I that's that's that's me giving you my thinking right now okay not not having spent time with our group and our stakeholders okay
and I think to your point also some of these things also conflict with other policies and procedures that we have in place so that's that's kind of where I was wondering where we to go with it okay thank you and building on what Heather said I
really appreciate all of the detail that was in the report um and all of the comments and feedback and recognizing all of the different perspectives one question or thought I might have is um you know when it comes to instruction on
identity that's we know that's really difficult ground because we all experience our identity differently and we are a district of many different cultural groups that also have um uh values and Views around identity not
just this racial ethnicity every um thing so I know the care and attention that's taken to develop something when it comes to educating students or providing information about identity because it's our most sacred element of who we are is our identity and as
parents that's our the most sacred element of our children and what gets instructed to them about their Identity or um values around identity so um I think one suggestion might be to continue to work with all of the
different cultural groups um in the district on as we refine the lesson in the future and to make sure we're including multiple perspectives in in the VI and the input in advance of the final creation WR all that
down Jules and queen NAA do you plan on staying for the rest of the work session or do you think you want to head out after this the reason I asked take me there a choice can watch review the budget with
them actually actually the question is for all of you because I would like to either offer a handshake or a hug because um my children's best friend died at 17 by Suicide
um because he was in a uh in a community that didn't allow him to be who he was and so hearing all of you speak on this and um my daughter was outed by some people
at her school and got bullied severely by cheerleaders she's a cheerleader and so to hear your experience gives me so much hope for the future so that students don't have to experience um what my personal children
have experienced so um I don't want to make it about me but I want to make it about how um your power is bigger than you probably will ever know with all types of people and I
appreciate that we we'll give so if you're all you know Jackie to answer your question I think we were all planning to go after this section was we'll give a moment in between as we transition so you can exchange did you want to say anything
anything else but as we transition yeah I'll just say uh just want to say thank you for coming and speaking um to all of you I wish I would have had uh teachers like you U when I was in school and um
what you're able to do for Scholars is so incredibly powerful um and I know that firsthand um I think you know I won't speak for for um director Grady or any other Schoolboard members but um what was talked about today was very
much the essence of this resolution it was to lay the foundation and show um positive representation successful representation resilient representation of the LGBT lgbtq community so that um you could um Inspire um and achieve your
dreams and so to to hear those success stories and um to know the JS is going to be on TV one day um seriously autograph not kidding I mean it it feels like mission accomplish but as director Grady said there is so much more work
that we need to do um but thank you for everything that you've done for Park Center um and being here today to contribute to uh what's going forward thank you and see if it works what's a pirate always a pirate class of 88
don't do the math we'll take a moment all right we're going to go ahead and get started so it's always just outstanding to have our babies here our Scholars here so our graduating Scholars here so hon
hon yeah so um we'll start with the 20 2425 preliminary budget and John will'll have you introduce someone who doesn't need to be introduced but go ahead well I got a few things to say oh you too oh okay I got I got to justify my job okay
all right so this evening we'll get board members the first look at the proposed budget for fiscal year 25 um June represents the culmination of our long range financial planning process that has been implemented over the past year with this presentation as well as a request for approval that'll be brought
forward at the June 25th regular board meeting the board will have spent parts of nine work sessions and board meetings receiving information giving direction and taking action to approve the final comprehensive budget this evening we'll go through the important elements of the
fiscal year 25 budget as well as review The Five-Year Financial forecast tool for our operating funds before I turn it over to Kelly inter team to take you through those items want to give you a little bit of context about what you'll be reviewing and highlight some changes to our assumptions
starting with the assumptions which we regularly review for both revenue and expense to make um our most accurate projection possible the following assumptions as what changes in legislation and are trending going forward Revenue assumptions for the
general education formula um the base amount the state provides per pupil are now based on the Consumer Price indexed or CPI with a minimum of 2% and a cap of no more than 3% for fiscal year 25 we have a fixed amount of 2% that was set
in legislation in 23 and then CPI kicks in starting with all the other years coming forward so for 26 through 29 we'll use the CPI for those years um just for uh awareness when when we talk about
we're getting 2% on the general formula that that affects roughly half of the dollars we actually receive so a 2% increase actually moves our Revenue by about 1% overall as a total package so just something to keep in mind as we're
as we're talking about it um one of the things that this should do um with Revenue moving to the CPI is it should be much more predictable um by following that but the days of being able to ask for more than the Consumer
Price Index so that amount are probably gone so so the days of a 4% or or something outside that range I think we will not see unless there's somehow a change in legislation to say we're willing to go above and beyond that we we um we've always advocated for it for
consistency but at the same time um when when it was put in as a range and a cap we've tied our hands a little bit so it's it's got its pluses and minuses in the expense area expenditure assumptions have been more volatile over the past 10 years um they're starting to
come back in line a little bit uh still averaging just a bit above 3% so we're going to plan to maintain a 3% increase in expenses through fiscal year 29 um with the continuing effects of inflation we may need to make a upward
revision towards 3 and a half% on that um normally in our financial projection we start with three and a half and we actually back down to 3% so there is a possibility as we continue forward um if pressure continues that we would have to push that amount up which will have a
notable imp impact on our expenses the 5-year um Financial projection model as we're as we're just kind of highlighting a few things this next year represents year two of our operating and capital projects technology levies um we have added in the
information from last year's legislation which took considerably longer to unpack all of the pieces the 80 some mandates and and money additional money is given to us additional responsibility is also provided um and as we've un unpacked that we've been adding those into the
budget um and we'll continue to do that and make any revisions in the mid year going forward um there is we did add it fiscal year 29 to the end of the range um which typically when you add that last year you see a very noticeable deficit spend which is if we ever talk
about a fiscal cliff that's what it is um it's that big jump at the end that doesn't seem like wow how are we going to have to go spend you know $20 million in the whole just to survive that year that's a long ways out with a lot of assumptions that change as as information gets better and better so think of it as a funnel that year 29's
the top of the funnel where 25 that we're going into is much more down in the neck of the funnel we know a lot more information so the closer we get to that the better we are with that number to kick things off um we will go through a summary of the
proposed 25 budget that we're recommending um we're projecting that the estimated fund balance for fiscal year 25 will end at just over $100 million or about 29.6% uh which when you put it into the
equivalent weeks and months is 15.3 weeks or just over five three and a half months of operations that we would have in reserve you'll see on the first page um some of the key contact points we've had with the school board during this process include the levy preliminary and
final approvals direction of the planning process and initial budget development and approval of the fiscal year 24 M year adjustments and fiscal 25 operating pair and capital adjustments I will now turn it over to Kelly benusa Director of Business
Services as you know our district is known for having a very robust budget process and Kelly and her team work tirelessly to guide everyone through that process and maintain it so a special thanks to Kelly and and everyone Mike's here um who do that it's it is a
ton of work um especially with all legislative changes as they were diving through the year like I felt like every other day we were going wait a minute how do we have to handle that um so lots and lots of changes but they've done a fantastic job um Kell's going to walk through the general fund normally Jeff
ansorge um our director of nutrition services would walk through food nutrition he is sick today so I'm going to take that part for him and then Brian serson Hall executive director Community engagement will take the Community Education Financial forecast and then
Kelly will W us back up with DEC capital P so with that I'll hand her off to K thanks John I feel like a lot of it's going to be being rtion but we'll start off so good evening um before I start I again
want to express my sincere appreciation to Myer's this evening our assistant off for business services and then also Michelle Larson who's our coordinator of business services and our contr control the business services they are absolutely
instrumental um as we go through the budget process every year and this is this is no exception this year I also want to extend a thank you to all of budg managers across our district their assistance in the compilation of all the material you're
going to be seeing tonight as John mentioned this year has been a challenging from a financial standpoint and the fiscal year 25 adoption is absolutely no exception to so in your packets if you're following
along if you go to page 36 number on the bottom we're going to start with the memo um and as we get to that memo you can see that the timeline which John referred to is embeded withing that memo
for our F year 25 for fol year 25 our budget planning process there are multiple opportunities for the board to provide diretion and also to take action on the second page of the memo so page 37
packet I'm just going to scroll so it's on the screen to help everybody want care as well just with a reference um we've compared we've provided comparisons of the 25 budget in two different ways so the first comparison is of the proposed adopted budget for f
year 25 versus the revised budget fisal year so turn 25 the table shows a plan decrease of about 1.7 million to fund balance for fiscal year 2025 there are several adjustments which
John referred to that are included in the proposed 25 budget and those adjustments include um the board approved February 20th fiscal year 25 Bud budget adjustments for a net increase of about 2.1 million this
amount is comprised of lerp adjustments including three different areas enrollment alignment of 1.2 strategic strategic Investments for one year only for a million dollars however we were able to net those with savings from a one FTE assistant
principal elimination at 27999 for $20,000 we also have an increase of 157,000 for the family medal act in the item is the board approved February 20th this will year 2024 M your
budget adjustment we had one time Savings of about 1.7 million and those are now added and included in our 25 adopted budget and then this is the big one as planned almost $9 million of Grant
adjustments are being added to our budget can we break that down just a little B so we had Esser 3 which was our third vir or Co dollars people might be referring to there was an 80% component in and what we used is we use those
monies for 23 and 24 to stay off budget reductions as we were planning for our operting so those are getting added back for about 10.1 million then we have our s maintenance of effer adjustments of 500,000 being added back
we have our Esser learning recovery Grant adjustments of almost 110,000 from both 23 and 24 being added back and then we have a reduction for learning loss S3 20% of almost $1.8
million so that would a lot to draft this year for all of our budget managers and so with these adjustments the percentage increase in the expenditure budget is 8.6% which is of course above our Target 3% and our projected year in fund
balance is 100.7 million projected so now we're going to go to the next page so page 38 in your p and so the second comparison is of our proposed adopted budget for fiscal year 25 versus our projected fiscal year 25
by your financial projection model from February 20th so the proposed budget shows spending more fund balance initially projected by2 million so I just want to impress on one that's very very
close so revenues are higher by 520,000 so when we look at the revenues we had more special special Revenue increase which also included the revers reversal of a prior year under approval so
specialized going up about 1.1 we have local optional Revenue which is decreasing about a million we have Revenue decreasing by about 775,000 then we have our summer employment that came us for the first time last year so now this will be our second year so we are a full year of sum
unemployment and that's an increase of 760,000 but we're going to see an offset by about that same amount in expenditures then we've got our general education Aid 2% increase on the basic formula amounts we have an additional
347 students that we projecting for next year so that's inreasing Revenue about 578,000 and we've got our desegregation Transportation decreasing about 400,000 and that has to do with our projected cost for fiscal year 24 we're
reimbursed on the formul for 25 for those expenditures and then student support Personnel PID which is near the less than 24 so slight increase for next year of 127,000 and that's being outset by expenditures that are increasing then
we've got our TR adjustment Revenue increase of 119,000 which of course iset by so those are our revenues if you go to page 39 in your packet we'll go for the
expenditures so expenditures are higher by about 2.6 million so again we those expenditures categories salaries benefit supplies of so our salaries are decreasing 329,000 on our projections so
project settlements total FTE adjustments Tak in salary for adopted budget and then reigned benefits at mid year that's 2.1 million so a lot of those Grant items go included in that line we're adding back salaries from the
24 midyear adjustment of 2.3 2.4 million we're adding back the two strategic Investments for online teachers that have not been deployed yet um of 792 th000 and then we're adding one FTE for
Adis program from ESS learning recovery due to an increase in the revenue allocation of 109,000 and then the remaining difference is attributed to attrition and allocation of Staff then if we look at benefits they're increasing about 3.9 million so
the largest area is all those other items comb walk with our salary adjustments um so our pra our retirement savings are the benefits and then any FTE adjustments um taking as salary for the adopted budget will adjust those when we get our mid year so 1 almost 1.9
million our medical insurance and HSA increases for 25 so our rates for UNR and for PE our employed plan migration and then we're add back 120 21 open positions from 24 so in
15,000 our summer unemployment we saw the revenue increase so here's the expenditure increase of 720,000 and then we're adding back benefits from the 24 mid onetime saving 24,000 and then we had a 27% increase in
our workers compensation and so an increase of 183,000 moving on to purchase Services we're seeing a decrease of almost 1.3 million um we're adding back from the purchase services so it's to
decrease 1.5 million from our here we have our student resources resource officers back 100% this5 due to legislation clarification and then we can see there's an offset for that for what we did in 24 for
supplies so this is going up for student resource officers for 460,000 utilities are anticipated to decrease for electric by about 400,000 and then removing some budget capacity from supplies so increase here of
23,000 and then some other smaller items that not then if we go to the last page of that chart on page 40 um you can see the other services so we've got our curriculum adoption budget
capacity we're increasing that 1 million for our maximum that is 2.5 million for additional curriculum adoption needs in the future we have our safe schools budget capacity that's that offset so decrease 462,000 and then
$230,000 offset to our purchase services to round out the changes in our expenditures so the next steps as we follow this budget cycle on June 25th we'll bring um the budget before the board for adoption for all our
for and then in July of 2024 we're going preparations for our we're already having our com for their preliminary work um here in June and then November 19th the school board will accept them
results I'm just going to go through the information and question so um next we're going to move to page 43 in the scroll just a little bit here the general fuction so we're going
to start reviewing the projection model starting with the general fund here on page 43 so again a little bit of history on the lrp process is a strategic priority with two goals or outcomes the first one
was to build a framework for our budget process and the second was to design a long range Financial forecast model so we're going to review the general fund projection model and again it's it's a high level visual organizer for a
financial forast uh detailed information supporting this projection is provided on the following Pages I'm not going to readie that forine reviewing tonight going to be for the others that are presenting this evening there are three sections to this projection which is the
same for all funds being presented tonight the assumptions and all parameters are differentiated BS so in this top section it shows the revenue expenditures differences fund balance and then fund balance percentage for that sevene window that John spoke about
so the first year in this projection is phisical year 23 that's our actual so that was the last year that's been audited and then we've got revised budgets for 24 and now the adopted budget for 25 that I just presented along with projections now for 26 through
29 so we see operational adjustments under this chart there aren't any at this time uh the assumptions show the revenue expenditure assumptions being used for about 26 to 29 F school years and we have Revenue increasing based on changes in
legislation um and our revenues fluctuating as John said between 2 and 3% on that General basic and then the estimates from mde are now included on this graph as to what the best estimates are for what the inflations will be in that pH of formal
allowance for each of those expenditures are projected to increase 3% which is consistent prior your tactics and isn't being changed at this time so if it exceeds the 3% cost the outside the parameters and would be deficit spending at a greater rate than
you can see on this so now moving to the middle section which is the blue and red bars the trend lines of those same colors show annual actual budget and projections for each of those items and as you can see
even with the general form allowance the revenue being inflation out beginning in year 202 and the final section looks at the fund balance projections for the same period the
green bars are using our actual and projected fund balances for each year and in the orange bar shows the minimum required fund balance of 5% as set in policy again the trend line show the annual projected fund balances related to the minimum and as you can see we're projecting a fund balance in fiscal year
2029 that still exceeds the board required minimum 5% so key factors included in the projection model OT starting in F year 24 o is at the current operating refer cap with inflation which waser approved back in
November 2023 um this means we can't use the operating referend in the future to increase revenues to help us balance future budget deficits our Revenue also includes the estimated increase in special education process be funded at
50% which will start in F 2027 currently we're still at 34% and then the expected expenditure tactics include the operating capacity for the new Elementary which is included in 26 and 27 fiscal years and then
additional support for the FMLA the Family Medical 2026 and then for f year 2025 we have the onetime Strategic Investments which are going to be year 26 and uh Food Service fund so we're just
going to walk through the one page here real quick so um just to set a little bit of context as you're looking at the actuals from 23 that show a loss of 1.7 excuse me we had budgeted for about $700,000 of that to be Capital um improvements in
facility upgrades and spend down the additional amount was due to inflation and the cost of food um our food inflation that year was 11.4% based on information from the Bureau of Labor and statistics uh we budgeted 33.4 and came in at
42.7 um just for reference in preco years we our food cost came in between 31 and 34% pretty normal so so a noticeable increase in cost that wasn't necessarily expected the current year 24 um we are still projecting a loss again
due to continued facilities upgrades um originally our fund balance was high enough that the state had asked us to um we hit the trigger where they said you need to have a plan to spend out so we're using that for Capital Improvements making a number of improvements to all the kitchens where we can make improvements in our building
so we're again spending down um a good portion of that this year replacing walk-in coolers and freezers our food cost continues to hover at about 11% um the other major item in 24 that changed was there was some additional Co reimbursements for of 40 cents per lunch
and 15% or 15 cents per breakfast that we do not get any longer um that had a significant impact on our revenue for fiscal year 25 we're projecting a just over $300,000 reduction in fund balance
um and then some futuree reductions to maintain the 12% fund balance um this is all based on a very conservative Assumption of a 2% increase in reimbursement for breakfast lunch and snacks historically reimbursement increases have trended between 7 and 8%
so we're projecting a little bit lower and feel that uh if if those numbers come in and again with with it being year one of universal free meals we wanted to be very conservative before we know how they react to it with those um adjustments so we're trying to stay on the very
conservative side but expect that should that come in where where it's anticipated um there won't be need for for any um operational cuts that especially have any effect of Staffing in the future and so we would be able to maintain our 12% through the rest of
2029 and alternative is it Bri next all right thank you so I'll go over the community service with yall we'll start on the upper left uh you can see in and just as I know this board has
been together for a minute but you know we've had quite the fluctuation since 2020 I think that's a understatement um but you know in 20123 once again our Revenue outpaced our expenditures by
$1.2 million which brought our fund balance all the way up to 47% which is crazy high right and way out outside the parameters that I like it to be at um and that's for a lot of reasons that we've discussed in previous
meetings and here in Fisco year 2024 those numbers are a lot closer with a a loss projected of 885,000 bringing the fund balance down to 34.1 so I think what you can see as you go across from left to right is we're
getting back to uh what we try to do which is have our our assumptions be that our revenue and expens expenditures both increase by approximately 3.4 3.5% so you're going to see and on the bottom that really stands out where the two lines wide
apart now they're leveling out and we're hoping to be more kind of even right and I I've shared many times uh that for me uh my preferred fund balance range is a little different than what we do for the overall general fund but I try to have
it be between 7 and 15% 15% on the high end if I go much higher than that it's my belief since over 70% of my funds are from participation fees that we might be charging too much or we might be under Staffing right these are some of the
factors that are there um and I try not to go below uh 7% because I also want kind of the entrepreneurial opportunity to try new programs or try new things right so for me that's my preferred uh fund balance
area we're moving back toward that um this uh year that we're about to be in right in 3 weeks um I'm very excited uh you can see we're having a pretty big jump in expenditures but that's because
through the pair process last year uh we added a Communications Specialists to the Community Education Department this upcoming year we'll be adding our talent acquisition specialist partnering with HR to help us with Staffing and um we're
also adding 10 site super visors to our kid stop program which I'm really excited about because that program uh the last four years their revenues have been outpacing their expenditures even though we've kind of paused fees and so we're we're reinvesting back into that
program over a million doll um and actually we started that on June 3rd which was Monday right because we had such a significant fund balance we were able to execute that pair before July 1st and I thought it would be a good idea to get those folks
in the week before we started summer programming which was yesterday right so summer programming has already started so I'm very excited that uh our programs have grown I can't remember the last time we were together if you all knew this yet I know the cabinet team knows
for the first time in four Summers I have zero kids on a wait list for summer programs do a Wooh you know last year it was 400 30 right so you know yeah and I've shared it before our community Ed's
purpose statement talks about creating opportunities for people not denying opportunities right you know so for us uh to be at a place where all the students who registered for any of the multiple programs that are happening this summer to be able to go because
we're fully staff or some of the other work we've done around uh finding staff I'm thrilled about um you know on the revenue side that's also a positive thing for us right so you figure this is just easy math that I can
do on a Tuesday night at 8 or whatever time it is right if you have 430 kids at 42 43 bucks a day that's $18,000 a day in Revenue that we were missing last year right every single day and that adds up over 10 weeks right so and then
that Revenue allows us to reinvest in the program so overall I guess what I would want you to take away from looking at this sheet is we kind we're starting to normalize a little bit or and by normalize I mean have our revenue and expenditure be
closer even though we're doing a pretty good expenditure jump uh this year and we're back to uh being able to serve the people who uh want to participate which is very positive we've only got one little sliver um that we're still
working on which is finding building supervisor for Community use of school facilities that's probably my one um opportunity to tackle I guess this year and I think we'll do that with our talent acquisition specialist so U
overall good news I think you know when we have a chance to do midyear budgeting next year that'll be a good time to report back because we'll actually have you know 7 eight months under our belt where we're where we think we're back at the right Staffing level so I'll be uh
Curious to get to report that so Kelly that would be what I would share for the community service fund we're going to move into the last fund the capital fund so again it's the same document so if you go to page 49 in your
packet see the capital fund and for this fund you will see some operational adjustments under that first chart um again this this line is just highlighting the adjustments that are needed and been included in the expend
listed above um and the total for all those years is listed on the right hand side of the document uh the Assumption section show the revenue expenditures at 0% for fisal year 26 through 29 the middle section of this document shows
the budget projections for just revenues in blue and expenditures in red and those lines of the same color show them actual budget and projections for each of those items as our expenditures are projected to help past revenues beginning this of 27 and you can see
that we also are spending on our fund balance here because we're adding expenditures um to our budget for all of those outline years and so the last section here shows um our fund balance projection for that same period of time and the green bars represent our actual
and then our projection fund balances for each year and then the orange bar show the minimum required fund which is 10% for this fund and those turn lines show the ual projected fund balances related to the minimum and we're planning for operational increases of about a million dollars spread over
those last three years of the projection um due to the increases that we are expected to see in our Capital technology safety do TI to the market and so that will conclude the
presentation this evening um however behind this there's another large document Pages awesome it's really awesome on June 25th been posted out on our on our website and so that document
contains five sections that introductory section which starts with our executive summary it provides just another review of our budget and also our model we have organization section which includes information both budget summaries um we
have a financial section which um shows more key policies and display of the budget data just another way to our data an informational section which is most of the information we've G over just now along with en projections and Staffing resource allocations and then the last
section is our Benchmark comparison which includes data points financial benar and so now stop and see I love The Benchmark graphs that's very useful thank you I appreciate
it I I uh want to go back to the page that emphasized the0 2% and the point was at 8% within the Assumption um just the remarkable accuracy that we have with all of the
variables that we have um every budget cycle is extremely impressive so as always that's that's great work and your department on um continuing to show that excellence and be recognized with um Awards of Excellence as well is um
really um critical to providing the financial foundation for the delivery of all of our Educational Services and instruction so um it's an important engine of what we do in the district and um question is this so the report that you mentioned here this is
on the website already or will be 24 on now as the approves the 25g website okay yeah can we put this on Facebook everywhere because because the number one question no seriously
likebook but this no the degree of seriously the degree of budget transparency that we provide is really significant right now the number one question that I'm being asked maybe some of you in the community are is okay we just had these levies packed which is one thing but what are you doing to be
fiscally responsible because from a general um person in the community the there's the bonding element and the building and the construction and then um there's a perception about kind of how we use our funds elsewhere it's not it's not differentiated so the the fact
that we have this degree of transparency is um I think an asset to our district in communicating out into our community into our taxpayers so if you can find creative ways to keep getting out on how we use our budget and um just
the data there is really I think essential to a good Community engagement oh and another question is the building I was looking at the building the better future is all of the original content still out there on the website or is it only on the next phase
okay yeah I mean we have information um from when it was shared last year but it's been updated so that's a little bit further I mean but it's there it's got both are still okay that that's another good piece of information because as people become more aware um there's still I
think a gap in some as much as we put information out there there's still a little bit of it so be able to like communicate go back okay this is what we said this is all there now here's what we're doing is a good Lage and we have grad but we're going to continue to do that yeah great
yeah it I agree I get questions all the time that if it's obvious people are not receiving the information in a way that is digestible to them um not that they're not getting it but some of the questions that I receive about what's
happening with our schools Boggle my mind a little bit and part of me is like is that because I'm in it yeah yeah or um is this everybody's experience um because you know like I just had questions I think I told Kim about the
OAC took down their playground was being replaced and the whole neighborhood was in an uproar because they're taking away our playground and they didn't even think the school was in use so you know there's a huge knowledge barrier there so anyway
yeah I mean to an an average person who's not following the school district it appear you know we just had two years of what is tax increases so there's a lot of questions about um how are we using the funding what's happening and so um I guess you know a uh age-old
adage you can you can never over commun communicate enough right other questions thoughts on budget and until people start to see dirt move and cranes in places they'll go what are you doing with the money there's nothing tangible today
that we can show you until well actually probably started yesterday in the first two buildings um but but until you really start to see that and we can again keep pushing that information and putting up updates then it'll start to come but it'll be as slow at first so we
won't see like the the the new school and the major addition to Maple Grove and the addition to oio that's next year that doesn't start till spring so we won't see any of that move so we're going to have six more months before you know really eight more months before you really see stuff start to happen
great I do love at um the end of the summer when we complete our projects and we get to hear about all the savings that we identified along the way that's always fun I mean seriously though it's it's a great job of like the work that is done
to make all of the improvements every summer but then also do it with significant um Financial scrutiny is is it's a big deal all right thank you Kelly Mike all the other budget managers you all right
we'll switch over here to vision card A and B so we let U Robin will you introduce themely I think this is Robin's last meeting she's got tickets to ity she's out she's going to ity she's
out here grab your I well I'm excited to be presenting the vision cards tonight um thank you for having us um I've got people with me here which is super fun to have so good evening to
everyone um tonight Jenna um John sh Arad and Tom Watkins who are um coordinators of data and assessment got Alex ver who is currently principle of school but next year princip I've got Ryan Bon who is the
assistant principal of 279 online in the oalc and Eric Thompson who's the assistant principal of Park Center Senior High and tonight we're going to be presenting on both strategic directions A and B and we'll also be highlighting or they will be highlighting some of the work that's
happening at their site that aligns with the Strategic directions that we we are going to be talking about and has a positive impact on the student achievement and their experiences in our sites um as we start this vision card presentation um this is our second year
or the end of our second year and as we started this we were doing the best we could with the information we had and really trying to um follow the directives that we were given and as we're going through our second year we're realizing that we are giving you a
lot of data all the time and so next year um I just say we but and say they they now I can they will be working to really fine-tune and narrow the focus of the data to ensure that what we're
presenting on is really aligned with the Strategic directions which we know it is now but also really highlights the really high impact practices that we know will make a difference in our schools um so as we go through just kind of be knowing that we're we're sharing a
lot of data and we know we need to narrow it but this is how we started two years ago and we wanted to have the experience and kind of go through the experience so that we can make it better and better for you as we go through so that being said um the objectives tonight are to um that you're going to
receive um the high priority initiatives for strategic directions A and B and understand the alignment of the operational plan to the vision card data collection and this is a slide that you've seen before but I think it's really important to kind of ground us
again on the purpose of the vision cards so over the past few years Vision cards have served as tools for tracking the district's progress towards its strategic goals and providing critical data on performance and Improvement they measure success in achieving the desired
outcomes outlined in the Strategic road map by setting clear measurable goals Vision cards support continuous Improvement and informed decision making this structured approach ures accountability and enhances the educational experience for Scholars
staff and families this is also uh a slide that you've seen before and we're going to continue to show it as we're working to really highlight on the different kinds of data so while the data that we are presenting tonight on the vision cards
as that really high um level data satellite data we the year for some of the indicators we're get able to touch a little bit closer to m data and look at specific groups of Scholars some of the student groups that we're going to be focusing on or sharing about um are
really small groups so the the data will be variable over the years as we look at that really small group of students so knowing that it won't it's going to be hard to maintain at the same level when we're talking about so few students on this slide you'll see the
learning work and implementation work for this um for the school district um and it's aligned to strategic Direction a which is create safe welcoming and inclusive learning environments that Foster Global curiosity belonging Innovation and
engagement we're starting tonight with um strategic Direction a and for strategic Direction a there are five indicators that we'll be talking and Reporting about um positive behavior intervention and support um
implementation review classroom environment climate Equity review bullying harassment and student safety belonging help and trusting adults and Tom Watkins will start speaking about indicator A1 these
results for indicator A1 um were shared with board in June of 2023 so the tiered Fidelity inventory or TFI is a process indicator and it's used to determine the degree to which school staff are impl core features of positive behavior
intervention and support or PBIS this instrument is administered three times each year by a team from each site and includes three sections tier one are Universal features tier two or targeted features and tier three or intensive
features for this vision card indicator we're using the TFI total ratio as our primary measure with a benchmark set at 60% and this was based on four reasons first all the components of the TFI count in the results second this
reflects the research base behind PBIS third these results were meaningful manageable and sustainable for reporting and finally The Benchmark will be reasonable and yet challenging because it represents the top 30% of all tfis administered in oio and among comparable
districts in 2223 the district's TFI total ratio increased from 133% uh from 2019 to 2021 and has been at or above the 60% Benchmark for two of the
past three years and on this vision card the result for 2022 was established as the Bas n classroom environment is an outcome indicator including two measures Behavior incidents per student and out of school suspensions per student in
this presentation I'll refer to other school suspensions as just suspensions behavior in and suspensions are both calculated for all students in rol at any time during the school year at the secondary level which is grade 6 through 12 the percentages listed on the vision
card refer to the percentage of student groups meeting or exceeding the goal this table includes data for the last three school years in which students and staff in Brick and Order schools were in person for the whole year in order to address the historical
over representation of some groups on each measures we're looking at the number of incidents and suspensions divided by the number of students enrolled after reviewing the data for the last two school years in this table we set benchmarks of less than one Behavior incident and less than .1
suspensions per student per year the data table highlights groups that met this Benchmark in green and provides the percentage of groups meeting The Benchmark in the bottom row from this analysis we can see that the following groups have met the behavior
incident Ben Mark for the past 3 years grade six and 10 through 12 students identifying as Asian Hispanic white or female and the total across all students you can also see that the following groups have met the suspension Benchmark for the past three school years grade
six grades 10 through 12 students identifying as Asian white and female and as we look at the trends in the percent or groups meeting The Benchmark the percent meeting the behavior incident Benchmark has increased 30% from 2019 to
2023 while the percent meeting the suspension Park Benchmark has decreased 30% as we look more closely we can see that all of the groups that were not meeting suspensions Benchmark in 2019 also did not meet The Benchmark in 20203 while six groups grade six grade
nine students identifying as Hawaii Pacific Islander Or Hispanic and students receiving multilingual services and the total across all students all met the bench in 2019 but did not meet The Benchmark in 2023 um indicator A3 the climate Equity
review includes three scales from the ecometric survey ecometrics is a poll survey that a schools in collaboration with an outside organization Infinity systems conducts annually to assess how the district rates in the areas of diversity equity and inclusion as well
as cultural competency the survey consists of nine scales or groups of related questions and in this indicator we focus on three of these scales diversity equity and inclusion in 2023 a total of
1,478 out of 3,49 Staff members completed the survey for a response rate of 49% to each question staff respond on a scale from 1 to 10 the response of N9 or 10 indicates that they strongly agree response of seven or eight indicates
they agree and response of 1 to six indicates that it's neutral to strongly disagree the percentages in the table below show the percentage of Staff who indicated sorry this table um they agree or strongly agree with the statement and
it's important to note that a response would need to be a seven or higher to be included in the agree or strongly agree category and this sets a higher bar for agreement than a typical four or five point scale it allows for more granularity when examining responses as
survey responses tend to skew part so Jenna will share the results for the next me I think there just a setion of Staff St um so for the purposes of this card we focused on um scale and question
averages for specific groups of staff and develop color coding to highlight differences between groups with green being above average and orange being below average in this table we can see that no group was in the above average range
each year on each scale on the safety question while are the staff groups with the most positive perceptions overall work in early childhood or work in early childhood or adult sites or we District level staff the medium scores and across
all groups at the bottom of the table were used for the vision card and these indicate changes of only1 scale points and 2% positive in on the safety um question this limited range of variability over time was accounted for
in developing reasonable yet challenging benchmarks for these meurs on we can go back up to the eometric tables I think there was just a couple of items on the the summary page this one yes yes we can
go back to that one thank you so next we can take a deeper look at the ecometric scales and items overall in each year the inclusion scale had the highest rate of agreement at 66.5% in 2023 the two statements with
the highest levels of agreement were in my organization people are included regardless of background or experience at 67.5% and I have a person or a group that is a source of support or advocacy in my organization at
69.5% the next highest rated scale for each of the three years was the diversity scale at 64% in 2023 the two statements with the highest agreement were my organization actively promotes diversity within the organization with
73% agreeing in 2023 and my organization seeks diversity in our hiring practices with 68.3% agreement the third scale Equity had an agreement rate of 59.2% overall in 2023 the statement of
the highest agreement was in my organization under repesentative populations are supported at 63.2% the single statement that increased the most in agreement from 2021 to 2023 was my organization seeks
diversity in our hiring practices up from 61 6% to 68.3% the Chart here shows just the N9 and 10 responses are those who strongly agree in regards to each scale disaggregated by race and ethnicity the
fear here is that those who select a nine or a 10 would be considered promoters or would have a strong likelihood to talk positively about the organization in regards to the topic um the district overall is also included as a Benchmark so you can see
that at the top the parts of the table highlighted in green indicate a rate of strong agreement higher than the district average staff who identify as American Indian or Alaskan native and staff who identify as Hispanic or Latino have average scale scores above the district average on all three
scales and so um at this point we can go down to the U bu harassment so indicator A4 so the following results for indicator A4 were provided to the board in June of
2023 this outcome indicator first looks at bullying harassment and safety data from the Minnesota student survey and as a reminder this is a survey that's administered every 3 years um just to grades 5 8 9 and 11 the numbers that are reported are index scores that allow us
to capture all response types from the favorable responses to not so favorable ones for the bullying and harassment portion the closer get to an index score of 8.0 the closer we get to 100% of our students answering that they are never victims or perpetrator self bullying or
harassment for safety the closer we get to a score of 7.5 uh is the closer we get to 100% of our students answering that they feel safe at school so those are some of the benchmarks for bullying and harassment we saw a slight increase from 2019 to
2022 with an index score of 7.6 to 7. 7 for students sense of safety at school there was a decrease from 2019 to 2022 with index scores of 5.8 to 5.4 in the monitoring report you'll find more details about the specific survey questions that were used in the analysis
and the trend data broken down by grade level in gender from 2016 2019 and 2022 future reporting will include data broken down by racial groups on makes the 2022 disaggregated de available available sorry District data along with
State data were used for benchmarking um results from our district and that of the states were both very similar in the two categories and throughout the three years that are being reported for the bullying and harassment category our District's data and the state's data repeatedly had index scores that were
nearly 8.0 but not quite there again an index score 8.0 is 100% of our students responding that they were never victims or perpetrators of bully and harassment so even though we're close to that we're not yet there one of the things I wanted
to add was the um and we had this question I think before when we presented so this um information is on the Minnesota student survey which is given which is not given every year and so what we um changed in our our own student survey here in AIO Area Schools
is we added some of the questions that we're referring to and using for this scale into the survey that we give yearly but that data is just being finished um as students left this school year and that will be will be able to present on that next year so that's why the N are there we wanted to keep it in
the Forefront and let you know that we took the recommendations to include those questions and some of the scale questions um in our home student thank you I don't know if you wanted to add anything in terms of the last item there
I think to stop it yep um so um again we have a place folder here for our stop it incidents um we will be reporting data for next year we weren't able to report again for this year because we don't have a full School Year's worth of data
um but in the monitoring report you can see an example of what that data will look like um as we had I believe it was about 2 and a half months of data from the time it was implemented to the end of the school last year um so you can see what that will look like um for our
next year's recording we have that data okay so we're down to A5 um so results for indicator A5 were shared with the board in June of 2023 the student stakeholder survey has been administered to most students in grades 3 through 12 in the district from 2015
to 2023 and this indicator includes four scales or groups of questions from this survey the table includes the percent positive or students responding yes always or mostly yes for each of the questions on the scale the student
stakeholder survey was not administered during the 2020 to sorry 2021 school year due to pandemic from 2015 to 2022 the largest increase was in the classroom the spe scale especially questions about teachers listening
carefully and students behavior meeting teacher expectations over this period student perception of the decreased by 2.6% overall including 4.6% drop on the question I feel like I belong at school and general share results on the next
me yeah so um our next measure is the handing stakeholder survey uh safe welcoming and inclusive learning environment scale and unfortunately again for this metric we don't have data
um for this um reporting period as we uh administer that survey every other year so our most recent data from that survey is from the 2122 school year um and I'll just do a little refresh I guess of that
data um so we had uh 76% of respondents selecting often or always when considering the items on that Ste we'll take a look at that a little bit more in depth yeah one more slide okay all right so going through the
student side so this table provides the scale results by student group will past four survey years and this is on this student State older survey site um the annual median across all the student groups is used on the card and in order to see differences and trends for each
student group the fouryear median was used to establish color coding with green indicating a 2% or more above the 4year medium and orange representing 2% or more below the for median in this table we can see that students identifying as white consistently had above average
percentages on all four scales while male students had higher percentages each year on all scales except TR and adults students receiving services for special education were higher than average in all four years on the health scale on the other hand students
identifying as black indicated lower than average percentages on belonging help and trusting adults students identifying as American Indian and students receiving CER reduced price meals had lower than average perceptions of TR adults all four years and you're
land back to J thank you um so like I mentioned this is a further breakdown of that 76% that we saw on um that first overall slide um and so we can see each of the survey
items that are included in that scale and the percent of uh families agreeing or um strongly agreeing or saying often or very um to those questions and so some highlights from this were that um the
school staff treat my scholar with respect in that 89% of our families responded positively to that and then my scholar experiences positive representation of their identity in the school environment was at
83% and um just a reminder we do have the family stakeholder survey results um collected and analyzed for this year and we'll be able to report on that for the next go of these Vision cards ran is going to share what does
this look what does all this data what what does it look like at to yes good evening everyone so excited to be here and sharing about what happens um somewhere in the internet the
279 online um to help us accomplish our mission and achieve the Strategic Direction specifically around vision card a um so 279 online our brand who we are at our core is innovation and
humanization the first three years of our school have been founded on the principles of transformational scholar learning experiences um and that's experiences that go beyond the walls of the classroom um but we built our structures and our systems using the tools of the
district and using the tools that are best practices um and researched for our Scholars um and so I'll talk specifically about PBIS um our strategies for implementing these have to be really intentional and we have to
get very creative because we don't have walls we don't have bells we don't have buses we don't have a bus stop where we can depend on a scholar getting on the bus um our Scholars have to physically open up their computer and want to click
join and so our actions are very intentional and so I'm going to quote my Angelo I've learned that people will forget what you said or what you did but they will never forget how you made them feel and that's our Vibe right that's our
Vibe um so it's those experiences that we're really being intentional about about creating and providing because we need them to feel like if they are not there there will be a void in our community um um and so our efforts for implementing PBIS um are based on lived
experiences for our Scholars for our staff for our families and so on this first um this first visual on this slide that I've created for you is the TFI which Tom um processed through for
indicators for success with PBIS so the T the TFI is at the core of our work but what is around that is advisory task force caregiv stakeholder groups tier one PBIS team tier 2 student support
team all staff Elementary Scholars Middle School Scholars High School Scholars as we are K12 um so the PBIS team monitors the implementation and our impact throughout the year this happens daily this happens weekly this happens
monthly um and so most of our questions though that we ask oursel outside of just the the checky boxes the TFI are what do we want every space to feel like into 279 online that's just not one Google meet but that's an internet
exchange that's an email that's a talking points that's a phone call that's a breakout room that's when they're working independently but we are still available for them so really thinking through all of those things as we create our environment so when tier
one strategies have been exhausted though we do ask our staff to submit a tier one form sharing with us here are all the things I've tried and it still didn't work and so then our tier 2 Team processes this feedback as we create
individual scholar plans but how we use that with the rest of our stakeholder groups is that we monitor Trends and behaviors in our school so that I can go to my middle school team and say hey engagement is down our teachers are using these Nua strategies but we aren't
getting a lot of response in the chat we aren't getting a lot of response um with unmuting what's going on and they will share things with us like well they don't know each other and so they don't feel safe sharing academically and then
we say well then what do we do um so things like fun fridays that's all come from our middle school teams and our high school teams give us space to be a collective as a seventh grade group and just have fun give us those low stakes
Community environment spaces so that we can build relationships so that when we are in that space I might be brave and turn on my camera or I know absolutely I can trust that when I type in a chat or I have a spelling error all of those little things that we really have to
pause and be intentional about in our environment um other things um other ways that we've tried to make impact and work towards that vision card a um we also noticed that attendance started to
dip a little and again bringing it to our high school and our Middle School groups what's going on what what's the vibe what's the street data Robin referred to that earlier when we were um when she was processing this as well and that from Scholars um they're
nervous about showing up to class because there might be a consequence been there for a while so it's scary to click join the first time so as an initiative based on scholar feedback our staff took one of our staff development days and we thought of all the students we hadn't seen and we wrote them with a
postcard some something tangible um handw wrote them a message I really miss you you have something to share in our space please join us I can't wait to see you you matter I can't wait to learn more about you um and it made it impact
so creating experiences for us using the TFI but thinking very strategically about making Scholars feel like this is their community and giving them a sense of belonging um so in celebration um connected to our student stakeholder
results connected to trust at the elementary level 93% of our elementary Scholars reported that adults in my school believe I can learn and will be successful the results at Middle School matched Elementary School 93% of the
adults believe in me and at the High School level 91% so it's important to reflect it's important to celebrate I do know we have a lot more work to do but I trust the cycles that we've built and the advocacy
and the empowering that we've got in our scholar voice um to continue to do the good work um so it's one thing to do the work but it's that heart work to stop and listen to our Scholars and uncover their experiences and then live at them
by responding to their voice and I welcome any and all of you to stop in anytime with just a quick thank you um Alex for you spend time What's happen yeah a bit of a story I guess the last year or so so uh at Northview uh we
do a lot to support Vision cards A&B we do a lot to promote PBIS as well as a safe an inclusive a welcoming and Equitable uh environment um for all students probably the the the biggest component
of that uh it's something you'd be most likely to see upon a visit is our efforts to uh encourage to recognize and then to celebrate Student Success um and well we call it showing night Pride with
the north units if you didn't know um but the pictures up there which I I didn't know what the screen situation would be so maybe not the most viable but uh that is from this year's March Madness celebrations we do monthly celebrations uh that's a that's probably our most popular it runs for the entire
month of March at coincides with the college basketball tournament kids love it uh great energy uh there's something for everyone to do so it's super inclusive uh and it's events like that and then all of our other monthly celebrations that we've built upon over
the years that have truly uh transformed the culture at North viiew and and I feel that that's my opinion but data on on stakeholder surveys climate surveys also supports it uh that we've just seen this this absolute buy into the north Feld culture over the last five to seven
years and yet we also know that um it's not enough for everyone or at least it's not working well enough for all students and so uh to put it in PBIS language I'm talking about tier two or tier three supports basically a higher level of
support is needed to really get all North um achieving at at their their peak level what they're capable of and so um this year we came in really uh motivated to do something about it and the thing the sort of vehicle that we latched on
to to take that work forward is our District's uh uh Dropout prevention data so shout out to Tom he didn't ask me to put this in here I didn't know he was going to be here so um but uh Tom Watkins supplied this this data for us early in the year and um we also did it
because just as a side note this this is not just data uh we believe for the high schools we think the middle schools also share a responsibility to care about this data and so um it was kind of a new angle for us to take so we got a team together a lot of individuals
perspectives backgrounds that sort of thing uh we we we developed this process which is sort of in the color circles there all I'll refer back to it but uh in a nutshell what our team did was and what you see here on this graph here this is some of that drop out prevention
data we went line by line over the course of the year which is to say student by student uh a way to humanize the data to make it personal for all of us involved and we looked for these indicators things that jumped off the page that said here is why this child is
showing up on this spreadsheet that says they're at high risk to drop out so uh just to make it easy on the eyes I highlighted a few of the examples of numbers that would uh have been something to get our attention and I won't deep dive on all of them for time but like in that one
column the 67% that's an absence percentage for trimester one uh two out of three days that would definitely um be on our radar we're jumping all the way over a 0.39 GPA this is clearly something that's going to call for
academic intervention of some kind uh jumping back uh the nine the 9.0 under odr that's discipline referral so to give a little insight into what that might look like um our team would look at that and we'd look at those referrals and we'd say where are they coming from it's a certain time of day is a certain
content area is it certain Behavior showing up over and over again is there a teacher is there a teacher that's showing up predominantly writing these and we would ask questions like is there some skill building to be done or perhaps we need to to do some restorative work between a student and a teacher something like that again this
is like the nutshell version it's actually much more involved um the my saer score if you don't know Sabers it's kind of like a social emotional mental health screener a student registering in the 10th percentile that would set off a major alarm for us so we're looking at
counseling or social work uh minutes within the school we have a number of affinity groups that perhaps we could set that student up with we also contract with two external Therapy Services and and after conversation with student and family that could be a path we would go down um and so this was the
process this went on for months and months on the last Circle there that accountability that was the last piece of it for each child that we reviewed we assigned a point person or or more likely like a like a champion an advocate and this person's role usually it already existed we didn't have to
assign anything people were jumping up to to volunteer but it was one to make sure all these children had an advocate at school someone they could go to someone with a trusting relationship but then that person's job was serious because it also said you have to make sure that as the year picks
up and we seem to like accelerate as every school year does we don't lose track of what we're doing that everything we said we're going to implement we do it everything we said we were going to communicate we're doing that we're hitting our deadlines and we're reviewing we're we're circling back to see the progress that's
happening so we did this this year uh we reviewed 58 students through this process which was a pretty good chunk of the north be population from a percentage standpoint uh our team felt really good about it felt energized it felt like responsive it felt like uh we were really making a difference uh but
again go back to the data and because this was our first kind of trial run with it there isn't a ton of data but the one data point I lock on to is from trimester 1 to trimester 2 uh so this is trimester 1 data to trimester 2 we had a 19 19% decline in the number of students
who were showing up on this list so essentially one out of five dropped off the at risk uh chart spreadsheet here so obviously there's more to it than just the work of our team I wouldn't suggest that but I do think it is interesting enough and exciting enough creates
enough of a mandate to really double down on this work next year uh which is already in the works uh with the with a big addition of not waiting till the end of Tri one like week two in the year already jump on this stuff from the gigo and and people are really excited about
it so I guess that's something we've done to to support Mission C here much are now moving to um the second part which is V and on this slide you'll see the learning work initiatives and the implementation work initiatives that are
on the district through your operational plan and align with strategic Direction B which is build and nurture a culture of achievement by providing content Rich rigorous and individualized Pathways um we'll be sharing data around
the five indicators unision card um for vision card B and um the dat colle on this card is data that we have um last time was really last year was really the first time we looked at some of this data and I remember sharing this card
with you and saying this is data that really speaks to programming and opportunities that we provide for students and these are things that we can look at and watch and um have the data points have research behind them to show that they are um impactful for
students so we can um as we move forward we will be talking about that before IND ators are instruction and management review classroom climate and respect culture of achievement graduation
continuation and IEP based diplomas right so within our first indicator our instruction and management review we have our two metrics that are related to staff professional learning the first is our system professional
learning participation and then the second is our system monthly learning participation our system professional learning occurs three times a year at the beginning of the year which is usually in October uh mid year and then at the end of the year usually in April or May this learning opportunity brings
together our licensed staff from all of our sites and the ESC to participate in required and optional sessions that are tailored to our specific staff roles and it's on these days where we can learn about new curriculum adoptions tools
best practices as well as deepen the understanding among staff in their skill of previously adopted curriculum and um to improve their practice so to calculate this metric the average attendance across all three sessions
within each site was determined and then the median of those sites um was calculated to avoid one site from skewing the data in either direction and the median of those site averages was 75% um and that placed it into that
intering um Range the second metric our system monthly learning participation is similar to the first metric except the learning takes place at individual sites and occurs on a monthly basis these learning opportunities cover similar
content to the system professional learning day but may also include site specific learning needs related to the site student culation or their operational plan goals similar to the previous metric the average across all the months within the site
was calculated and then a median across the sites was determined and the median across sites was 58% for the staff participation for this year and that remains within the Baseline range um so here we are seeing that data
disaggregated by element and secondary sites and so we can understand these data a little at a little deeper level so at the elementary level a median of 87% participated and at the secondary level a median of 74% participated in
the system professional learning days those are those three times a year learning days and then within the system monthly data um we can see disaggregated by theg grade levels served the median participation at the elementary level was 55% and the median participation at
the secondary level was 56% So within elementary schools the average participation rate ranged from 33% to 73% and among secondary schools that range was 38 to 71% so next our data source for our
classroom climate and respect indicator is the family stakeholder survey C of achievement scale and um again we don't have data for that scale this year um as I mentioned in the um division card a we don't collect that every year it's on
every other year basis and so we did collect it this year and then we'll have data for that um next time we report um but just as a reminder um for the 22 school year we had 77% of our respondents selecting often are always
when considering the items within that scale and here we can see what those actual items were um and a couple highlights from there were that staff believe my scholar can succeed was the highest um
rated at 87% and then staff effectively communicate with my scholar at 81% so our next indicator is an alcome indicator around the culture of achievement and it consists of two
metrics it's our achievement index and 12 by 12 and the achievement index metric consists of four different measures those include students earning at least one semester or trimester Credit in the following types of courses
PSO concurrent or articulated AP IB or HP performance veres and then um students earning a professional certification in one or more of the following CPR or first aid
EMT or EMR students completing an internship apprenticeship or related experience or students earning a Minnesota bilingual seal in this metric each student was counted one time regardless of how many
of these items they achieved and a total of 62% of students enrolled during the 22 three school year um did meet one of these four items and that was up from 3% from the prior year
so that was an exciting um increase and um this metric remain within that Baseline range for that year these particular metrics as Robin mentioned were chosen as an inclusive variety of Pathways for students to show
College and Career Readiness and are um research based the 12 by 12 metric um which is our next one down is um the percent shows the percent of students who are on track to or have earned 12 credits that could
lead to college um credit by the time they graduate courses that could lead to the student earning college credit include PSO concurrent articulated AP and IV courses so to be considered on
track in this metri students in grade n must have earned three or more credits students in grade 10 must have earned six or more credits students in grade 11 must have earned nine or more credits and students in grade 12 must have earned 12 or more credits in any of
those before mentioned courses by the end of the 2223 school year and so a total of 9% of students were either on track or had earned those 12 credits by the end of their 12th grade year um last year and this outcome um places
the metric within that orange um range of concern so um just a little bit more background on why we chose this metric it provides students with more advanced rigorous cours worth and improves their
high school education prepares them for the expectations of college it provides College coursework exposure to students who are underrepresented in postsecondary institutions or may have not considered colleges a possible pathway and um participation in these
courses is a really positive um predictor of high school graduation College enrollment College persistence and a lower time to college graduation so here we can see the achievement index data disaggregated by
race and ethnicity these data show that the groups with the highest rates of the achievement were students identifying as white at 72% and students identifying as Asian at 65% this next slide shows um the data disaggregated by Service Group and
gender and of students receiving Services those who received PR reduced price meals had the highest rate of achievement at 58% which was an 11% increase from the previous here and when looking at rates
by gender 66% of students identifying as female and 60% of those identifying as male achieved at least one of these accomplishments within that achievement index and those rates increased um for both of those groups 3% for those
identifying as female and five for male this chart shows the 12 by 12 metric gated by um R City again the students group student groups that had the highest rates here of being on track for or meeting the requirements of the
metric where students who identifies Asian at 12% and um white at 11% and multi-racial at 10% this metric was also disaggregated by those Service Groups and gender and
students receiving reduced price meals had the highest rate of achieving a 12 by 12 of all the Service Groups at 7% and that was a 1% increase from the last time we reported this and students who identified as female achieve or TR
achieve the 12 by 12 at a rate of 10% and at a rate of 8% now I'll pass it to Tom to talk about indicator four thank you this indicator we have four student outcome measures um each of these measures focuses on
graduation continuation and or Dropout rates for students in the classes of 2021 to 2023 incorporating all data provided by the Minnesota Department of Education we expect to receive results for the class of 2024 sometime in the spring of
2025 we can see that we reached the progress Andor Vision performance levels on most measures for the class 2022 and for half of the measures for the class of 2023 the measure on which the most consistent progress has been achieved
was the percent of continuing students receiving IEP based devs on this measure the district improved from Baseline to progress to Vision progress level over the past three years in the next few slides we'll describe results for each
of these measures in Greater detail the graduation or continuation rate refers to students graduating in four years or continuing on for a fifth year in special education or multilingual or El program we're looking
at the first two slides of results here we can see graduation or continuation rates of 90% or more for nine groups in the class of 2023 with these results highlight in blo in addition there were 10 groups with
graduation or continuation rates of 80 to 89% and these results are and green as one highlight students identifying as American Indian achieved their highest graduation or continuation rates in 2023 this is the second slide of results
on graduation or continuation rate as a reminder s refers to students with limited or interrupted formal education which is an important subset of mold at the bottom of the table above we can see a percent of student 80% or more
students graduating in four years or continuing on for fifth year in special education or multilingual El programming defined as the Benchmark for this indicator the classes of 2022 and 2023 both have reached the progressing
performance level these were the values used for this measure on car there was an increase of 8% for the class of 2022 and another increase of 5% for the class of 2023 our second measure in this indicator we calculate the 4 year on
time drop off rates for students receiving special education services at some point in high school as in previous years our Benchmark level for dropout rate remained at 0% this table breaks down the Dropout rates by rates program and gender within
students receiving special education services we can see differences between group and over time from the class of 2020 to the class of 2023 the class of 2020 had the lowest dropout rate overall for students receiving special education services the percent of student groups
reaching the 0% Benchmark dropped from the class of 20120 to the class of 2021 increased 10% for the class of 2022 and decreased 6% for the class of uh 2023 and again results for class of 2024
are expected in 2 our third measure focuses on a subset of students receiving special education services who we expect to graduate with non based upon their IEP this analysis
includes students last enrolled in 12th grade in 279 Online High School Maple Grove Senior High AIO senior high or Park Center Senor high and credited to a schools by the Minnesota Department of Education for our official fouryear on
time graduation drop AES students last enrolled at ALC uh or oec were excluded from this analysis students receiving services for a 5 and4 plan autism dcv physical
impairment or severe mul impairment and students receiving services in second three or four were also removed from this analysis results were only reported for groups of three or more students so IEP based diplomas refer to cases where students receiving special
education services earn a diploma by completing requirements in their individualized education plan IEP so the non graduation rate is the percent to meet the standard graduation reforms The Benchmark of 60% was set based upon the
range of group values for the class of 2021 for the class of 2022 six of the seven reported groups reached this Benchmark so 86% shown in Green for the class of 2023 three of the six reported groups reach
the bench mark So 50% and here we transition to our fourth measure for indicator V4 which is the percent of continuing students receiving IEP B based diplomas this is a different group of students with different expectations in their IEP and that's why
our Focus shifts here to earning IEP based diment rather than the non standard looking at the two most recent graduating classes there's been a decrease in the number of students receiving special education services continuing past their fourth year from
54 to 46 and an increase in the percentage of these continuing special education students who eventually earn IP based diploma which increased from 56% to 63% and this table breaks down uh I think the next slide
there um this table breaks down the continuing students receiving Services by race program agenda this measure focuses on the green Benchmark coloring and percentages at the bottom the percent of student groups reaching the Benchmark of 40% are more students
earning IEP based diplomas the IEP diploma percentages for the class of 2022 and 2023 are more than 50% higher than they were for the classes of 2020 and 202 one which is what led to this measure increasing from Baseline to
progressing to Vision performance level on the vision C and this point about what is happening at Center just support students and are vision card so yeah the question is what does this then look like what
does this data look like in action at uh the senior high specifically at Park Center Senior High this was our first year under new leadership with Dr Antoine Harris taking over at Park Center and referring to this as year zero uh before we launch into his threeyear plan of of how we're going to
better support our students and increase the academic outcomes for for every student inside of our building and a lot of our work was normalizing what how we Define relevant rigorous and engaging ccul and and what did it look like inside of our
classrooms and a lot of our work then aligned with supporting our staff so that they can in turn to support our students through professional development through learning opportunities through aligning our work so that our students would be able to see increased um engagement in the classroom and then ultimately see
improved classroom scores a lot of our work then focused on our myp unit planner is a unified space where we're able to collectively plan our lessons our curriculum so that uh departments are working together under the
international Balor middle program model um and then really diving into what authentic and relevant assessments meant to our students with the idea of if I have an opportunity to show you what I think rather than what I remember um I am going to dive in and I'm going to really be able to to demonstrate my
knowledge and how I'm interacting with the content um in addition to that it allows us a basis for staff to use common rubrics to align our work and do level setting of what is a four a three a two or a one look like inside of each of our courses doing Universal Design
and then um providing choice for students so that they're able to really tap into to their interests and their passions and again demonstrate knowledge in a way that is authentic to themselves and then these steps allowed us to increase the level of academic rigor in our classrooms um and then improve
overall academic success for our students a couple of different examples we're Cen NAA and Jules here this evening about the best data that we can provide for you uh in addition to that uh one of the things that we did throughout the course of the year was have the staff reflect on their data
their grades from throughout the course of the Year and have some reflection prompts and meet with us as as admin teams to talk about what type of support that they need to move their work forward um we got some great information out of that we're able to send staff to some additional trainings through that
we're doing some vertical alignment with math to make sure that through the middle schools into the secondary schools we're we're seeing continuity of curriculum in those two spaces um I'll jump into the second Point next year we are going to IB for all for our 11th
grade English courses so all of our 11th grade students will either be taking ID or AP English um and the idea behind that is to remove the stigma away from rigorous courses um for our students and allow them to take a chance on themselves we're doing some vertical
alignment with our English team over the course of this summer to make sure that we're building the skills necessary in grades 9 and 10 so that students in grades 11 and 12 are are able to to be more successful in those courses um Additionally you see the
number of students that are taking um ipdp courses so it's not just we're trying to increase rigor their students are taking more chances on themselves in IB courses uh we're adding three concurrent math enrollment courses next year uh as well as additional sections
to our AP courses that we offer the ultimate metric Forest as Tom said um the ultimate metric Forest is our gradu uation rates and we won't know this year's graduation rate until next spring but we tried to crunch some numbers to really reflect on it and if we use like data from last year to this year the
number of students that were enrolled in our school at the end of last school year versus the number of students that graduated last year we were at 76% a number that is unacceptable this year if we use that same data the number of students that are enrolled in our school at the end of the school
year with the number of students that graduated we jumped to 87% um we took a massive Leap Forward and this was year year zero of really laying that Foundation uh next year we're leaning into the three pillars of Park Center and I'm going to get super acronym here but we have bar building
assets and reducing risks which is really about developing relationships with students and and diving in and better understanding how to interact and engage with students um Avid we are going to Avid School widen and bringing in the Avid 9 elective uh this summer
we're sending our entire nth grade team to summer Institute along with their co- teers to make sure that we're building in those wicker strategies from grade n into grade 10 and grade 11 into grade 12 um and then of course maintaining our work with IB as I mentioned IB for all
uh in 11th grade and then looking at 12th grade while increasing the number of students that are uh being full diploma students um this year we last year we had one full diploma student this year we'll have four and next year we have eight that are signed up to to
be full diploma students and so the the work is really about yes it's about Dropout yes it's about graduation and everything else but it's also the the spaces in between the power students engaging with it how are they finding their own Pathways with it and showing up as their authentic wonderful selves
at the end of their time at parks ever seen that thank you so next steps as I said in the beginning of this presentation to continue to improve on the delivery of vision cards for each strategic Direction we'll look to really nrow the
focus to ensure that the data that we are reporting on is directly aligned to practices that positively impact the achievement and experiences of our Scholars through the continuous Improvement um of the vision cards we will also need to look at the ranges
that you saw today when we came up with the ranges um we used the best information we had and we did used research to find the ranges but we may need to look at adjusting some of those ranges um because it was just our best effort at that time and now we've had another year of practice with them so we
can see where they someone else is going to do that so going wait until the following your team um and um and then also this has been on our next steps for vision cards since the beginning is really to humanize the data and include
student voices we've been able to do that a little bit I did reach out to get students to come tonight to speak but as graduation was um on Sunday no one was really J so I didn't want to make um and
ules Jules stay extra presentation but um they also poer but I said no good enough thank you um so this is what we have for vision card A and B and I really want to thank the people from sites who have come and shared what's
happening at their site um so many exciting things when you go out and listen to people and what everyone is talking about is students right what are our students doing we've gotten to a place where um that is just common language we are focused on student achievement and and what does that look
like across our sites one of the neat things that I think we've shared um previously in these meetings is that we have we're working on redesigning learning leaders so that uh learning leaders actually have an opportunity to share among themselves and so that's one of the
things we look forward to as we're sharing those best practices that continue to come we are open for any questions all right great board members any questions or comments I got a
few I'll be quick promise um I'm excited at um some of the um data that you've shared Street data that you've shared um um as Educators and I'm I'm looking
forward to seeing the um Strate B1 um change because of that um not B1 I'm sorry the um achievement one with the 12 x 12 plan and the and the achievement indicators um I have another question on B one
um I just I really can't with Park Center data I mean that's that's truly amazing and um would you say that uh the demographics of the students that are um
in the IB programs is reflective of your school's demographics fin yes yeah okay that's pretty awesome so I I I'm hoping to see some of these disparity numbers um change because of that um and I'm
glad that you'll be sharing with your colleagues all the wonderful things that you've learned um my question for uh Robin is um I when I looked at the professional development and we went from
89% participation to 75% participation is there something that we know that how that happened or we don't know exactly what has um what took place and this remember this was for the 29 school year so it wasn't this
school um but we have been doing and we continue to do it feedback from teachers each time we have a professional session we collect feedback on their recommendations and suggestions and how the how the professional learning has impacted them and we have not seen a
real change in that feedback it's pretty consistent um I mean once in a while we'll have a session that maybe people you know were blown away by or didn't love and and that's reflected but we have not seen like big changes to show this data like what's behind this and
there was no like somebody forgot to take attendance somewhere or something like that no we no we I was hoping um okay yeah that just as an educator that just makes me kind of sad I mean so you know um thinking about it
or just giving a narrative we know that that teachers have felt um challenged and overworked and and the day that you have professional learning you don't have to make some plans but but we're trying to change that perception and really ensure that you know what we're providing is um
really essential for them to Happ them they're really engaged and interested in Happ and I know we've done more of um engaging teachers on what professional development that um they feel that need they need along with um instructional
leaders um principles Vice principles Etc on what that is and maybe we'll get more engagement that way hopefully it was all right um this the last question I had is what are we
doing to encourage more Black and Hispanic students because I notic those were some of our lower um numbers in um um in the achievement indicators um to take R more rigorous
classes to um be in some of those CTE experiences to do some of those um things um I know probably don't have the whole list ready or anything but just uh throwing it out
there I think some of examples um about you know making sure that students have the support um the expectation and the support and I know that that was something that Dr Harris had really been um engaged into and that was actually I
think one of his thesis um when he was getting his Doctorate uh was inil how do we get more students engaged um that represent our school and so that's something we're going to be looking at and studying and moving along with but um I think that students have to see
themselves in those courses and we need to make that really evident that they're going to be successful and how support they need well and I really see um you know what Alex and Northview has been doing um as the stepping stone for that absolutely because if we can you know
identify those factors that may contribute or that occur at the very least um we can start younger and I I think too the work that we're doing around Aid we'll be helping that as that's going schoolwide and um and is
now in all of our secondary sites that's going to hopefully increase the confidence and the um the skills that students have to participate in those and and also the expectation that they can do that and the support that they have Game Changer
in Columbia Heights to that question at a site level um a couple of things that we're doing is at Park Center we're bringing in family and Community engagement the department into Park Center and we're housing them next year to better collaborate with our families uh We've shifted a lot of our evenings and our focuses from data driven nights
to information receiving nights where you know like for our registration conferences it went to a format of sharing out about curriculum rather than trying to make sure we understood how many tallies um each student was going to have and then even in terms of how we talked our students and when we talk to
our students and making sure like uh IV history was one of our our biggest ones is if we s if their 10th grade US history teacher was telling them you should be signing up for IB history they're taking leaps of faith on them and we go from this year one section of IB history in 11th grade to two sections
of it next year is it's really about that teacher to student connection and connection with the families and bringing them into the the F yeah I've seen that experienced in Columbia Heights too so thank you for doing that I'm done any other
questions I have just some questions and and short comments hopefully it's quick um I think one of the questions that I had was on one of the earlier slides um the behavior incidents um and I apologize if I missed the explanation but was just wondering
why the Baseline range is so large um it's one of the only ones I've seen that has such a large range and was just wondering that the uh thinking behind that the 40% to
79% I think we followed a similar benchmarking process as we did with some other indicators where we look at the full range of all of the school results all the group and school results and um get a sense for that pattern changing
over time knowing that we have high performing schools that are achieving this right right we have student groups that are achieving this and so it's really trying to get to that place of what is something that is reasonable and yet challenging and so that's uh that's
really where those ranges come from um is that bench parking process does that help at all is there it does I think my my concern with that is if it dips too much um I wonder if we
sort of lose a sense of urgency to intervene mhm um you know it fits it fits in that Baseline category but um we should be we should really be looking at it in the concern um category I just I hope we're not kind of missing the boat
on that good point um so uh the other comment that I wanted to make um just for Alex loved the street level data um I think uh with the exception of having students come into work sessions
these tend to be very high level so it's helpful to actually be able to see how it's working in schools and um impacting individual students so I appreciated that um and hope we can see more of that as it makes sense uh for what's to come
um one of the questions that I had um was the uh student stakeholder survey um belonging classroom respect hope and trusting adults um I was wondering if we could get some school level uh data for
American Indian Asian and black students okay um those had some of the lowest percentages and I was just wondering um how much uh School climate and um some of the supports that we have in place um in schools are impacting
these percentages um particularly thinking about you know the students we saw today so um that's a request I have for staff um just one follow up on that yeah are you more interested in looking at our results from this year so 2024
because that's a it's actually a new survey you know we've actually changed a bunch of the questions and I'll some of that is as Robin was mentioning earlier in response to the board would you be more interested in the 2024 data or looking back at what we have here going back to 2023 or
earlier I would prefer the 24 because okay that's where we're at um with the understanding that as we're looking at individual School data the numbers may be very small for American Indian students that each are you okay with the 24 I be I
mean assuming the percentages are similar with the updated questions I'd be fine with that okay but that's an assumption okay thank you um uh the other thing I had was uh so family survey um my Scholars culture cultural
history is represented accurately in the curriculum my Scholars opportunities to influence their learning experience my scholar sees how they're learning connects to the real world so those percentages were also really low um and it took me back to the uh presentation we had earlier um on the
resolution um I know we've talked a lot over the years about um expanding the ways that we are representing the cultures of our students in uh curriculum and in the classroom and uh create even creating programming um so I
don't know if there's been any more discussion I'm thinking about per course um in terms of expanding um some of our cultural programming um for our Liberian students or any other students that aren't feeling particularly represented or
connected um in ways that maybe other Scholars are starting to um so yeah I don't maybe I just don't know all the programs that you have the Park Center but um that's kind of a question that I had just wondering what we're doing to increase those percentages uh specifically at Park
Center two of the big pieces that I can tell that we do is you know we had we had a prism affinity group here this evening but that is uh one of about 40 different Affinity groups that we have at Park Center uh we do have a West and East African Student Union group we have a black student union group Asian
student group I me it just it runs the gam the idea is that every we want to be able to find a home for every one of our students so that they're better connected um specifically to the curriculum uh the three that I can rattle off the top of my head is English has done a lot of work this year about
reviewing the the literature that they're using books that they're using uh a lot of book clubs and choice options for students so that they're focusing it on the standards but also really allowing the students to identify with the literature that speaks to them
uh are two different curriculum adoptions that we've had with CPM and with um Rob correctly I forget all the different ones that we had for science but they're they're meant to be more real world applicable um with the staff having the opportunity to find more more
relevant um Community relevant opportunities and that's something that our staff has really been diving in in those those three different areas thank you um I think that's it I'll skip the
last question I had um I think one question I have just for maybe the superintendent and the board actually um I loved getting that presentation today from um some of our lgbtq
um it would be nice to get some updates on some of our other cultural programming that's happening throughout the year um and it doesn't have to be as in- depth um or take up as much time but um I know we don't get as many updates from the kids yeah
okay particularly when it aligns to the work that we're doing it's extra meaning uh really quick uh on the North View Middle School data are you the only school that's looking at the data this way or other schools looking at it in this
way well I can't Tom do we know okay so we have these metrics and okay got it that'ss Tom's been working on them for yeah Tom Tom actually comes out in the fall sets us down and as we were
meeting this year that's where the light bulb sparked where I just thought we have we see this and we look at it and we go oh this is this is not great and then we kind of move on with the usual way of doing and this year I just said you know what we've been looking for a different something new new Avenue to come at this and uh that was that was
the origin of it yeah so maybe schools are getting it but we can do more with with the data to actually act okay yeah we've been trying to expand what we have in unified insights as well so having you know Flags in there to you know demonstrate like oops flug bar you know
that's one that we'll have in there for next year and we've just been working with program you know staff to just make sure that the data is recorded somewhere in Synergy and then that means we can get unified insights and then then you have data that's updated daily you know
um so it's it's really powerful so we're just trying to use available tools as much as we cani our data collection our data analytics dashboard uh and then during the presentation multiple times it was mentioned that our internal dat data for
24 has just been kind of gathered will we be able to have those relevant components updated soon so that we can look at that data for what we do have or do you have to wait all the way well I mean that's one of the things that I think we need to look at with vision cards is when we report out because how
it has been as we're reporting out in the past year and then um and that makes it difficult but it also makes it difficult when we change the times and then some years we report on you know so that I think that really is something that we need to look at as a team about how do we how do we get to the most
relevant upto-date data and maybe it is combining the vision cards and doing it at specific times that when that data is available yeah I think we've talked quite a bit about our preference of internal data versus some of the state data as meaningful and actionable so
that that would be great as you continue to look at the metrics and timing and um usefulness for us to act I just wanted to kind of expand on Tanya's questions and um just really acknowledge I really appreciate the depth of information you guys shared
about what you're doing in your schools and what it really looks like in your schools um but it it sounds like and correct me if I'm wrong everybody gets the same data everybody has access to the same tools but it sounds like Alex you your team took it a step further
than the other teams is that what I'm understanding like no so all the schools do exactly they not the exact same thing but they all take their data and then they decide on what strategies they need to provide for their students and the needs in their particular buildings okay
to meet the so it looks different for each community group yes there's some things that are very common such as what uh Robin was mentioning about Avid being in all of our secondary schools and so there's some um they're all using like the Wicker strategies writing inquiry
communication organization I guess what I'm getting too is like they're looking at each student at RIS level they're doing that um but connecting a personal a person to that student I love that and hearing how that changed from one
trimester to another um and I think that also goes to what Jackie was talking about is how do we encourage more students when we're connecting with them individually is how we encourage them and identifying what their external
situations are that might be impacting their level of participation um because I think when we're talking about our underserved communities that's as much of a factor as what opportunities are if not more available to them so um I just think as
we're trying to encourage more students and increase their success that we really um also reflect on and help encourage where we can on those external factors um and just like anecdotally as as graduation just happened going to all
these grad parties and going into people's homes and seeing how their lives are so vastly different um and what opportunities were available to those kids makes it even more like in your face which kids had better
opportunities than other kids based on what their lived experiences are so I wanted to highlight Ryan because I didn't talk about you at all but um I wanted to highlight that in all this discussion it starts with um the
important data of are the kids there um do they feel like they belong um who's there to connect with them and to create that culture of you belong and and you know in in my classroom if a kid's gone we all say who's missing and we all like
we blow them some love you were talking four-year-olds you know but but just that we do but just that you know building that community of someone's missing and that's um that creates a
little hole for us and so please come back because we have a little hole CU you're missing um is we're talking down a dirty Street data right yeah so thank you I just wanted to thank you you beat me to it I'm
sorry okay any other questions thank you for hanging out with us until 9:26 and so with that this work session is adjourned at 9:26 p.m. [Music]