##VIDEO ID:7T5S0rGZbBM## e e this regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m on Tuesday January 21st 2025 in room 137 of the Edison building the board acknowledges this site and all RPS sites are situated on the ancestral land of the Dakota people and we honor the Dakota Nations and the sacred land of all indigenous peoples present at this meeting are school board members superintendent Kent pel a non-voting ex officio memb and assistant school board clerk Miss Anne Kramer Miss Kramer would you please call the role here here here here here here here at this time we offer the opportunity to say the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge Al flag the United States of America to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item 2.1 is approval of the agenda are there any changes to the agenda move approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda all those in favor say I I any opposed the agenda has been approved the agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at Rochester schools.org assembly item three is comments to the board it is important for the school board to hear from our stakeholders regarding issues that impact our students staff families and schools we welcome communication via email phone call at our community engagement listening sessions and here during comments to the board the purpose of comments to the board is to give community members an opportunity to provide input directly to the school board about issues that fall within our Authority the board and superintendent do not respond directly to the speaker's comments during the meeting but may follow up with the speaker if requested and appropriate persons who want to make comments to the board must fill out the online form by 5:00 pm on the Monday before the school board meeting this form is available on the RPS website and on the assembly main page a reminder that policy 206 and procedure 206a set the time place and manner procedures and restrictions on comments to the board by participating in the public comment period each speaker agrees to abide by this public comment procedure speakers when your name is called please come to this table if you have written materials for the board please provide them to the assistant school board clerk prior to your remarks and she will distribute them to board members choose a microphone to speak into and be seated please direct your remarks to the board board you will have 3 minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed right in front of me please begin your remarks by stating your name our first Speaker tonight is Jennifer [Music] Benson e e e e e e e e e e e e e e is recognitions of our par professionals or our education education support professionals Governor walls has proclaimed the week of January 20th through 26 2025 as paraprofessional recognition week paraprofessionals or as we call them educational support professionals at RPS work in a variety of positions and are included in a range of important School roles s we celebrate our RPS educational support Professionals for the contributions they make as instructional and student support assistance for their work with our special needs and multilingual learners for their assistance in the lunchroom in the halls and on the playgrounds and for their work in our media centers and on our vans and buses item 4.2 is our RP Rochester Public School Foundation Grant Awards presentation this is an information item superintendent pel thank you very much and I believe we have uh a good friend uh coming from Ron mener one of the directors of our Rochester Public Schools Foundation um here to share some information I am hoping that the tech is going to work so you can see everything and don't need to move back and the clicker should be all teed up and it's exciting to hear uh the awards that the foundation has made to support the great work that's going on in our classroom so thank thank you R well it's a real honor for me to be here as many of you know I've been to many of these board meetings but I've never spoken so now is my first chance so as I'm working through these slides here I'm a new director so I'm gonna I'm representing my colleagues who are um unavailable to be here today as you know the Rochester Public School Foundation is a nonprofit Foundation that connects the community and our schools to advance and Inspire educational opportunities for students and we're very happy to say since 1988 we've awarded over $650,000 and that is a significant dollar amount and the come funds come from a variety of sources personal business donations um School District payroll um sometimes it's honoring a staff member other Rochester Public School Foundation fundraisers we're working on some of those right now and establish Memorial funds and special projects these are some of those funds I'm not going to spend the time to go through all of them but it's inspiring to know that um that funds have been established for memorials for teachers for students for people that have been involved with the various schools and they go back um since the beginning of the foundation since 1988 1989 and again you can see some of the reasons and rationale for some of these funds and um and who they're honoring and also the opportunities they present in photography and other um unique circumstances and as I'm getting my arms around the Rochester Public Schools Foundation I'm seeing potential opportunities to along with my colleagues as directors to say how can we how can we expand this to leverage the funds that are available from the Rochester Public Schools district and again you've you can see some of the opportunities and the opportunities to establish more funds this year we awarded $1,351 to fund five Innovative projects now this is where I'm going to have to be particularly creative because I don't know who is here representing um so if there's someone from the tunes um for transition programs chrisy could you join me all right christe is coming I have notes just in case but I'm going to let the person spend 60 to 90 seconds to explain and I'm meeting christe for the first time my name is Christy BS I teach at the real program in the fredell building uh my tunes and transition Grant is allowing for a music therapist from healing rhythms to do classes for 40 of our students um because of the large size it's set into three groups and I have it set up in February so they'll have four consecutive weeks of music therapy classes uh and we're looking forward to the benefit of learning how to use music to control our emotions thank you thank you that's awesome aome the second program I know the individuals here because I met Christie and so christe is going to join me to talk about the exciting launching into literacy engaging students through book clubs initiative I am a third grade teacher at Gibbs Elementary and our purpose of our project was to further engage students in reading this year we have begun implementing wit and wisdom this is a wonderful whole group curriculum that builds students knowledge we are adding a small group component to The Curriculum by implementing student L book clubs in our book club students aren't just passive readers they take charge of their learning through engaging discussions they have the opportunity to express their thoughts challenge each other's ideas and deepen their understandings of text this is a collaborative approach not only enhances their comprehension but also builds their um confidence and camaraderie between peers we've used the grant money to purchase books that complement the topic module 2 outer space and module 3 a new home our goal is to give students the opportunity to grow their own reading ability by digesting a high volume of books surrounding these topics additionally we are committed to adding a diverse catalog of books that include many culturally diverse character to allow our students to see themselves in the books they read by providing a variety of books that highlight different perspectives and experiences the students can connect more deeply with the material and see themselves in the stories that they read thank you congrats we are going to applaud but I'm saving Ron's time so okay um another project is the green bandana project and I don't know if anyone is here for from that group and we do why everyone came it's awesome good evening the green bandana project is a program for students that raises mental health awareness reduces stigma and connects students to mental health and suicide prevention resources through this program students at the Rochester Alternative Learning Center will have the opportunity to attend a short training course where they will learn the skills and resources needed to connect peers and with mental health supports green is the color of mental health awareness students who opt into the training will carry resource cards and tie a green bandana to their backpack or another visible location as a way to let their peers know that they are a member of the green bandana project and a trusted person who knows how and where to reach out for help the green bandana project was created by Dr Betsy gerbick at the University of Wisconsin River Falls in 2014 after losing her son Daniel to Suicide we're thankful for the opportunity to bring this program to the alc and thank the Rochester Public School foundation for their generosity and support our chapter of the green bandana project will be headed by Mayo Clinic student health services staff Megan Johnson RN Karen Townson Pac and by Student Services Program Coordinator Alina Bachmann thank you thank you fourth project is a future upward climbers and I should have known this because I met Shannon before so Shannon's going to join us about this exciting project the fourth of five thank you we're very honored to have this grant opportunity um we are going to build a grant or a climbing wall for our kids at Hoover Els our early learning school and uh to really work on self-confidence um different learning through different ways to climb on the wall um and we're just we're really excited for this opportunity thank you and this is for three to five year olds right three to five year olds great and the fifth project is Jasmine or someone from the team here slate I'm not jasine y I got it Tim limberg uh principal at the alc um Jasmine asked to uh just come and uh explain the the project basically at the alc our students have a lot going on and that's what that a lot of times that's why they come here and during the day oftentimes they find themselves out of out of sorts they just need to be re-regulated sometimes that can happen through a conversation sometimes it just happens through just uh taking taking away and getting in their own space and so uh many members of the alc Community wrote this grant to just create a multi-sensor room where students could go and use some of the tools and some of the uh the different things that are out there in the market to just get themselves back regulated so that they could go and do school so we're thankful for the public schools foundation for funding this project and uh on behalf of the alc we uh look forward to how this can support our students in keeping them in school and uh keep the learning process moving forward so thank you very exciting um I was asked to also remind everyone um that we can honor an RPS staff member by accepting donations in the following names um and that since the last time we were here that the following staff were honored and you can see the names up there um there is a next Grant cycle that's already being worked on we do this twice a year and we're always seeking individuals to um report on these projects because it's not the board that is doing the review there's a highly refined transparent criteria evidence-based process that we're using to make certain that those that should be awarded are awarded um and we're always looking for people that are interested not necessarily being on the board but maybe involving um working on the the review of a project so now I'll turn it over for questions well I think the first thing we should do is thank you for getting into your in in getting your presentation in within the time period and let's give a round of applause to all the grant recipients [Applause] board members any questions or comments well director I just noticed um just by accident a lot of these are at the alc and I appreciate that that I think that that's a good thing that we can do to support the students that attend there you have to stop talking okay director CL I well uh since being on the board and even um in the the past my involvement with the uh the public schools Foundation I just find that so many of the the bright spots the peaks in our district um can be traced back to the innovation of our Educators and the kind of seed funding that comes from um from this organization so thank you for lifting these projects off the ground getting them started thank you for the creativity of the Educators that um are taking this opportunity to bring their ideas to life and um light a spark under our students and or in front of our students or something but um it's exciting thank you and uh thanks for sharing and I would be remissed if I did not highlight the website is www.rps.net we'll get a picture for everyone okay great our next agenda item is 4.3 board member committee board member updates does any board member have updates from committees or any other events um that they would like to share including any observations from attendance at the msba leadership conference last week director mvin two things um I don't think we've talked about our skip visit to Sunset Terrace uh since we uh visit there a few weeks ago um amazing school I am I think that all of us who are able to attend these visits at the school um really believe that this is the way to find out what we need to know uh about what's going on and to see the kind of innovative creative teaching and administration um at these buildings to see it firsthand uh at Sunset Terrace especially they talked about how successful their family engagement has been and uh they talked about the huge number of people who come to the events that they have um always there's information that can be provided but the focus has been to share a meal and to just get to know each other so that families feel comfortable coming into the building that they know the teacher they know the staff kids come and have fun sometimes it's just game nights but that was wonderful and then the um conference later okay okay right any other non-conference conversations all right you started us director Marvin go ahead okay well two things about the Minnesota uh School boards Association state conference Minnesota I guess it would be the state um they have a amazing speakers uh speaking to hundreds and hundreds how many people were there 1400 1400 so that's hundreds and hundreds of people and the first person in particular found a way to combine his love of music with his love for teaching and he really focused on how important teachers are and how important it is for us to appreciate the importance of teachers as they connect with students uh that until students know that their teachers believe in them at least one teacher really believes in them and sees them for who they are it's more difficult for that kid to become a success um then there were a number of breakout sessions I went to one on artificial intelligence just because it terrifies me and uh they did a Wordle thing whatever at the beginning where you supposed to put words in when you think of artificial intelligence what comes to mind and the two biggest reactions were scary and exciting um they talked about how artificial intelligence can be a huge Boon to classroom teachers as they differentiate lessons for kids who have special needs for second language Learners uh the potential that's there and also the importance of school districts making sure that safeguards are in place U but one thing that I remember in particular was that they said this can be a terrifying transition for a lot of people uh but they said but so was the Gutenberg printing press about 600 years ago so were uh the use of calculators in classrooms about 30 years ago and we have weathered those so I think we should all believe that we're going to be fine I hope director mclin I happen to attend the same um breakout session on the AI and it was so well attended that we didn't know we were both there well there you go so that was good um one of the reasons I picked that one though is that last year at the leadership conference the AI was a kind of a key Topic at our large group sessions and I was curious to know how that was going to carry over into workshops and other um opportunities at this leadership session and the things that I took away a couple of the slides talked about starting a conversation in the district about what role that AI can play in our learning environment and what are the guidelines for AI in our organization and how do our current practices and policies align to our vision and guidelines with AI it was also interesting to learn that um one of the main concepts of this Workshop was creating a culture of learning and innovation and then the other thing I wanted to pass on to others in the district is that this particular Workshop was put on by a group of people the presenters were from St Cloud school district and the Department of Education but they meet regularly in a group called mangaya I thought that was a really strange word but that's how they that's what they call themselves and if anyone's interested in joining that group they invited us to join so I don't know if people in the district whether teachers or staff or administrators are interested in that um reach out to me and I can get you their contact information and if I could just take the Liberty to talk about one other session as well I also did one of the pre uh conference um sessions and it was also about AI so it was kind of a theme for me this year and that was taught by um uh someone from the Missouri School Board Association things I learned there is that um chat GPT it took 5 days to have one million users of chat GPT and that shows how the exciting part people were very excited about it um it was the fastest um that an app had been used that quickly they showed a graphic of other apps took periods of time and um chat GPT was the fastest to get to 1 million they also talked about the seven things that districts can do to address AI in our districts including policies um following confidentiality law delegating Authority making sure that teachers understand they their jobs are safe educating stakeholders vetting the AI tools and reviewing the vendors that the district may use and I think um I just got the slides from that presenter this morning and I'll share those with the board as well but it kind of grounded me in thinking about our future because I think the message I took away from both sessions is that AR AI is here it's here to stay we need to figure out how to implement it into our district director Workman um I'll touch briefly on on three components of the conference starting with the opening session which was as those of us who were there know um the presenter was a saxophone player and he actually intermingled in the audience um what really impressed me was that he had a kind of a call in response that we sort of sang back to him and it kept modulating and the audience for the most part really stuck with him which shows to me that at some point the people in the room had some kind of training in music education so I would like to tie that together with the grant recipient for the music therapy classes at uh the alc and how important music and the Arts are to our lives which he also emphasized um the second thing was I attended a a very interesting session uh part of which talked about the uh our first amendment rights and how sometimes those rights overlap or clash with with each other and how to navigate that and I found it to be very interesting I learned um a lot of things that I hadn't learned or hadn't known before which was always good to know uh learn new things and then finally um every other week the Minnesota Schoolboard Association has a a coffee and conversation virtual meeting online we have to provide the coffee they don't do that for us and so it was really great to meet in person so many of the faces that I've been interacting with over the past um number of years and once again talking to other school board members from other districts um really impressed on me the fact that I think we are doing a lot of really really good things and really right things in Rochester and I'm anticipating that we will continue to be leaders in many of these areas director whor she was going to call my name even if my hand would I'm slow huh okay so um this was my first um conference so it was a lot of a lot of information it was a lot of information um I will say uh just to mirror exactly what director Workman said I'm I'm always very excited about music as well um so it was really invigorating to see how actually both the opening presenter and the closing presenter both um used music in their presentations to really grasp people's attention and how it really sticks um and was also going to say that I'm also excited about the music therapy and I hope that is something that um really takes off and that they can begin to see the value in um as in the presentations we could see how music was such a common language for so many people it transcends races Generations it transcends so many things um and it is usually an expression of emotion um and regardless if you can sing hold a note or not um most people tried to dance or sing or or something so um I just thought of how powerful that was and that really stuck with me as well um I'm a big on quotes um so I have been um I can't think of the author's name but there's a book that's called what know your why or what is your why I was interested um in the opening presentation I believe he said to be who so who are you so more so of just what why is um what I really did take from the conference is that it can take one person to make a significant change in a lot of places um but someone has to stand out front um some of the quotes that I took over the day was my strength is not in me but in we um not everything counts but everything matters um and then have you been seen or do you see others um another consistent thing that I noticed throughout the conference was um the value and for everybody in being seen um or that people recognizing that you are in a space um and I guess what I really took from a lot of the information because there was a myriad of information um I attended some conferences about um collaborating learning as as far as our Community Education and how do we better collaborate with them uh with the district and how do we get the the community um more more involved um in our community learning um also attended a session um that was around collaborating with the students and the business owners and the Educators as we try to solve some of the issues that we have within um our school district and the value um of people coming together um because I was new I I unlike uh director mlin here I did I I I went all different places I didn't I didn't stay with a theme um so I attended everything from um learning how you can get your student loans paid off to to learning about um how the Minnesota Department of Agriculture um could be an assistant to our students um and I did that because there are so many different areas um that our students can use support in um every student is not going to school to become a doctor um and every student is not going to school to become a farmer but we need to make sure that we are providing supports for all of our students um and that could be done in a myriad of ways so I took in a lot of information I I didn't bring my notes because it would be very embarrassing there were a lot of pages of things everywhere um but my final takeaway from this weekend was the importance of Love um and that uh I like how uh the presenter put it that love is an expression of care and consistency and that is what our children need more so than anything else um I know we look at a lot of different issues but despite of all of those things what our children really need is for us to be United and for them to know that we all care not for us all to always agree on everything but for the people that are involved to really have these children's best interest in mind and for us as adults to see them and be present in their lives as as today so that's what it took away excellent so I went to a session that um made me very excited about what we have on our schedule this year for the work that we're doing with developing a new strategic plan with our profile of a graduate with our um our mission our vision and our values Austin Public Schools has gone through this process of developing a new strategic plan and what they call the Packer profile which are the community shared aspirations for students and what it means to be a graduate of Austin Public Schools um and then they've also developed uh curriculum and coursework for the students to bring to life these core values they have a scope and sequence of courses starting in ninth grade so they've added a required course in ninth grade that runs the whole year that covers um essentially what they feel students need to be prepared and ready to be successful in high school and Beyond and then in 10th and 11th and 12th grade they meet four times a year um in a seminar format to continue to build on the Packer profile and part of uh one of the tools that they that the students develop through this process is what they call the Packer portfolio so they're uh creating an opportunity for students and I think that opportunity is available in zel for students to collect uh examples of their work and examples of what they have accomplished through their uh educational career to use either in preparing for applications or or job applications or um demonstrating what they've learned past uh to be used past High School um so it's really exciting just to see from a strategic plan process to a mission vision and values process to actual coursework being developed and what they're showing with the data is this ninth grade work which the superintendent has also talked about before uh focusing on Ninth Grade success is reducing the amount of failure rate of n9th grade our es and they're hoping that once these ninth graders move through the four years it will increase their graduation rates so it was exciting to see them so excited about implementing this program and what it might mean for us here um the other item wasn't a workshop but it's an initiative that um I hope we'll be able to share with you through the year the Minnesota School Board Association and a number of other educational organizations in state of Minnesota are um beginning a campaign called One Voice um be a unifying voice for public education um where they're pulling together a coalition of individuals to just emphasize the importance of public education the kind of support public education needs um both financially in terms of policy and law and they're looking for voices um who are willing to speak out and stand up for for our Public Schools so you'll be hearing more of that through the year but that kicked off at the conference as well superintendent anything this is going to seem really I I can't think of a a totally uh perfect term um I was struck by what AO good school board we have no I'm I'm serious we have got I think this every day but it's when I get there with 1400 other board members that we have got a board that is really serious about kids and fun to hang out with but um uh that's that's not always the case I have to be honest there are sometimes I sat in the back of those conference rooms and people are checking their phones and leaving early and that's just the lowest level of it but more than that um these board members were like for those of you who get the reference they like Pac-Man eating up they were going to constantly they were coming back comparing um and it was I was struck and that that was just one expression of how I see that I see at every board meeting with the degre degre we have a board that preps and reads for these meetings um so um that was I think something that was um re reassuring to me um in the opportunity to work for a board that takes this work as seriously um as you do thank you thank you and I will share a secret about our new our newest board member when she said there's some people who can't or can carry a tune she can carry a tune and she knew the lyrics for every song on the mixtape that that speaker brought up at the closing session so maybe we'll need to integrate music into our board me board meeting members yeah Stephanie's about it our next agenda item is our consent agenda 5.1 through 511 would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration approval second it has been moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda all those in favor say I I any oppose the consent agenda has been approved our next item is a focused topic student and staff survey data review update superintendent pel thank you Jo Nathan and you can see our director of research um and Improvement Dr Peter Ruck is coming up he'll be giving this presentation um in meeting with the chair and vice chair this week I recognize that this presentation tonight is a bit of a holdover from the way our board meetings have treated data updates to dat and Monet Perkins our chief academic officer coming up too okay okaying I'm just sitting up here with them all right um as board members board members will recall in our previous model we would give the board an update on the most recent indicators from the things and what we called the grid the broad indicators of performance in RPS of which there are 33 so quite an ambitious agenda so in the MCA scores came out we would do a briefing on the MCA scores when the grad rates came out we would do a briefing on the grad rates that was not always connected to what we're doing to improve those outcomes the initiatives and in the new model we've adopted uh in the ABCD for this year whenever we look at an issue we're also giving the board and uh other folks who are watching an update on how we are working to improve literacy scores or grad rates or staff satisfaction rates this present this presentation is a bit of a hold over from our old model this was the the Panorama survey was given in the fall it was something that with the referendum going on and other things going on we didn't get on the agenda and so in talking with Kathy and Julie at exec I was remembering this is something that I was looking for an opportunity to share with the board so what you are going to hear tonight are not the many things we're doing to address the measures that Peter and Mona are going to walk us through um but we will return to this data when we talk at discipline data this summer when we talk about attendance data coming up when we also talk um as many remember Peter shared some fascinating data looking at associations between MCA data and the degree to which kids F they belong in their schools based on the Panorama survey we will be using this data in the other sessions this year where we're looking not just at what does the data say but what are we doing to address the data tonight is kind of a throwback to where we were before we adopted that new model and um I still think it's it's very useful our school Improvement team as this new skip process begins uh in February we'll be making use of this data so it's useful for the board to get an overview of where we are but I wanted to kind of explain that hold over from our previous approach to sharing data um relative to the one that we'll be looking at in the rest of the year ahead so with that turn it over to uh Peter and Mona and let's jump in well good evening you have me two weeks in a row it's a very lucky day all right so today uh this evening I'm with you for our 2024 Panorama results I will take us through uh just some basics of the survey structure and how it works why we do it uh I will then go over some summary metrics uh for our results and then share a few conclusions about what the evidence may be suggesting for us and where we're headed next all right so an overview of Panorama uh Panorama is a set of surveys that we license uh from a vendor and it covers a wide variety of topics for both students and for employees uh more on that on the next slide we've conducted it uh since 2019 historically there have been years where we did it twice a year there have also been years where we did it once a year the surveys that we have conducted have also changed over time and you'll see that when we get to the results slides uh with the trend lines when we originally acquired Panorama we did so because it was systematic it helps us understand a lot about group level Dynamics uh even with secondary students that are notoriously hard to reach on some of this stuff um it's confidential and administration is not terribly taxing uh it really only takes 25 minutes is to uh to do it so not even a full class period the reporting components span grades 3 through 12 they don't uh administer Panorama to K1 and two uh we do have a couple of schools that do some uh sort of more qualitative surveys with their younger students that mirror some of these uh items but the survey itself only goes down to third grade covers uh items around belonging and social awareness some school climate and environment items and then also uh scales related to classroom experience uh pedagogical Effectiveness and impressions of rigor Panorama results actually give us a lot of information that we can use to support any number of our strategic plans building blocks but specifically the four that I call out here are cases where the Panorama results have been directly useful so that includes uh elevating deeper learning enhancing belonging and behavior getting Baseline information from parents and caregivers and uplifting student voice from a systematic level gives us another uh angle besides some of our other initiatives when you look at the results it's important to digest them carefully uh some of you will remember this from the last time I presented Panorama the way the survey Works in almost all cases is you have five answer choices and the two answer choices that we would hope people would pick are the two that you add together and that's what gives you your percent favorable so in this case we would hope that students would either be quite excited or very excited to go to class and thus the two together give us 81% favorable it can be a bit confusing I made an example with some fake data when it's something that we don't consider desirable so we don't want students to worry about violence in school but the way Panorama does this is it takes the per ENT of students who don't worry about violence very often and says responded favorably if you read the question how often do you worry about violence in your school and 60% respond favorably most of us read that and think 60% of students worry it's actually the other way around got to get under the hood and look at some of those question details other thing I'll mention on this and it was uh with some of our high school colleagues that uh helped point this out to me a couple years ago there are also cases where that middle Choice may be very informative as well a sometimes Choice even though it's not necessarily included in the percent responding fig so these are the six items using the older survey that were behind that scale the scale is just adding up how many people added favorably and calculating the average but there are almost always specific items that drive those averages so in my fake data example these are the two questions that were Salient in making that percent favorable the way that it was while the other four might not matter as much this gets to some of the points of uh Panorama being a a broad level screening device for us response rates I always like to celebrate our our highest response rates on average for elementary middle and high school the highest for each level Gibbs Kellogg and John Marshall and John Marshall it's their first time at the top of the pack so special congrats to them uh staff response rates slipped a bit this year uh anecdotally and in the brief looking I did at the data itself uh that appeared to be a drop among Elementary School teachers um which given everything that's going on right now as well as when the survey was administered right before uh the Thanksgiving holiday um just lower uptake there this year than there has been in the past so an area for us to improve upon now that we've covered basic structure some reminders of how this works here are our results broken down by Elementary and secondary on the screen you'll see a trend line with dots representing each administration of the survey and on the column on the far right you will see uh remarks that I put there the elementary school survey this year was revised the question language changed and that affected results Nationwide which I'll talk about a little bit later on the reason you see for example we have nine observations for school safety but only eight for school climate is because that survey was not originally administered in 2019 so there's one fewer Administration that gets to be even more Salient in some of our later slids so here you can see that uh school safety increased by about four percentage points in general when you're looking at these slides this is just a heuristic but um any anything two to three points that could easily be statistical noise when you start to get to four and five percentage points that's a larger movement the vendor noticed at uh the elementary level that school climate sense of belonging in a specially social awareness uh dropped Nationwide uh based on their new survey language uh their average drop on those was between eight and 12 percentage points uh just based on clearing up some of the question language to make it easier for especially third and fourth graders so some of this uh that you're seeing in such a different Trend obviously against where things were is that the survey itself did change um so that's important to keep in mind where that's noted down through emotion regulation and then two of our more recent surveys that we've added pedagogical Effectiveness and student impressions of rigorous expectations School climate and belonging engagement was another one where the vendor noted large decreases nationally not just for us um and student teacher relationships same story for the most part if you take into account what the vendor said about the question language changing these are relatively stable results we'll know more when we do it again Secondary School uh going through some of the same items and the same metrics these questions did not change as much much there was a little bit of change in the social awareness survey if I remember correctly they changed a question uh to be sure on that one but again you see uh pretty similar Trends over time since we started that in 2018 you'll notice however that even though the trends look broadly consistent with including our uh or set against our elementary students that the percentiles for uh placing our secondary schools nationally are quite a bit lower for secondary than they are for elementary last student results slide of uh relationships belonging and engagement at the secondary level the survey also goes to non-instructional staff and instructional staff and it divides the two accordingly uh the most encouraging thing I think on this slide and the next slide is that the measure of school climate for both licensed teaching staff and non-instructional staff has been steadily slowly increasing over multiple administrations there's been a pretty concerted effort on that among many of our leaders uh and so that gives us some interesting evidence to work with similar patterns uh for our licensed teaching staff as well we did have some standouts as always so percentage Point increases some places to celebrate and look at at the elementary level the school safety uh index at Franklin improved by 19 points between years Bishop 13 points and Elton Hills 10 points classroom climate at Long Fellow 13 points up Minn which I know that uh Brandon and his team have done a lot of specific uh work on this actually saw classroom climate improveed by 26 points between Serv uh and climate Long Fellow again another 10o increase at the secondary level all of the schools increased for classroom belonging the lowest increase was six points and the highest was 12 for school safety it's especially notable that these three schools Century Dakota and Willow Creek lead our pack uh nine points up 11 points and 12 points respectively again every single school did improve and finally the sense of belonging again across the board every school in improved the lowest increase was six points and the highest was 12 points so this gives us enough evidence to draw some uh conclusions the evidence would suggest that our efforts to increase belonging and climate are paying off especially at the secondary level for students it also suggests that our initiatives for pedagogical Effectiveness and rigor still needs some attention generally speaking across all of our metrics our elementary schools compare slightly above average to their National peers 60 to 70 percentile whereas our secondary schools uh compare much less uh favorably to their National years and the change in question language really did impact our results in certain areas um such that some of those Trend data may be a bit obusca so what comes next two favorite quotes of mine I think that uh especially in education we are very guilty of jumping to the solution before we fully and completely understand the facets of the problem so what does Panorama allow us to do it gives us a place to dig deeper it's kind of like a screener like Fast Bridge gives us a guide of where we need to understand metrics surveys are good for Theory testing but they're not good for Theory formulation in general that's when you need to go start talking to people uh and having conversations with your uh important stakeholders at your school some of the panoram metrics uh as Dr Mel mentioned are likely to uh appear in some of our planning for skip 2.0 but one thing we would not use is Student Self reports of their own competencies it turns out that if you look at the scientific research on it students are relatively poor at rating their own learning in system so we wouldn't necessarily use uh Student Self reports at competencies but self-reports of their own experience and Impressions within the school as bit of a difference and with that be more than willing to answer any questions that you may have director cook um I I'm just wondering if there's any way or if we have any information on the students especially at the high school level that are responding to this survey because um both in assessing what the trends mean that are positive and just the absolute National um percent ranking um I I don't know do we do we know anything about the half of students that are filling out this survey and whether they are skewed in one way or another um that's a really good question we the Panorama platform divides up the demographics of the people who take the survey but not the ones who don't so that's but the data is available to us so that's certainly something we could look into I have not done that specifically um C yeah I mean with a 60% response rate on any survey you're getting really high so that's even an inperson survey um I certainly wouldn't be concerned about representativeness of it um where High School that to between 50 and 60 yeah I think the lowest response rate was Mayo at 48 they all okay that's help thanks director work uh Marvin you does students take this at school or is it sent out and they do it at home so it's sent out by email the schools do shelter time for them to do it um some students find it in their email before the school like time to do it but that's very few um there's always like 20 or 30 kids that take it like the night the email goes out at midnight it's actually kind of impressive that way but there's class time then dedicated corre every single school devotes class time to it and so if 40% of the students don't take it they just sit sit uh it can depend on attendance it can depend on you know if you're if the school's doing it at a time when a lot of students are at P SEO or activities or um any of those things can drive a lot of that um also frankly you know nobody since it's a confidential survey nobody's watching over their shoulder on their device to make sure that's what they're doing so they may also just choose not to complete it when they're given the opportunity okay thanks for that because I think that Mr Cook's question was a good one yeah the kids who aren't taking it what do we not know about how they feel yeah and we the response rates have varied at the high school level over the years they were as high as 70 uh two years ago um and last year as well we had a drop off this year in particular the demographics of who takes the survey broadly matches the demographics of the school which is why there's not really reason to suspect that those who aren't taking it are like systematically different um but it's some certainly something worth looking into the data is available to us so superintendent I think um to director Cook's question about kind of what I think of as the so what now what question when you have data like this and also to Dr Marvins over time we want to see shift in these data at the system level but they really are most useful at the school level because because kids at one school are uh only incredibly indirectly connected to the sense of belonging in another school it's really in that school and so when we look at this as a as a indicator of interventions that schools can be putting in place in their school Improvement plans with District support that's really where the rubber meets the road and where we need to dig into that data um to me the single most interesting finding in this year's Panorama data was the school safety information for Century Dakota and Willow Creek all three of those schools have struggled with that and not only have we seen improvements in some of the discipline metrics um we saw improvements in kids report of that safety and so now digging into that and saying which kids said they still don't feel safe can point those schools toward the where do we actually need to dig in is it our multilanguage Learners is it our girls it is our boys maybe there's no way to generalize often there is and so that's where that next phase of that would come so that you know if if if Willow Creek is going to build on their 12% improve 12 percentage Point Improvement or Dakota 11 percentage Point who is still self-reporting that that absence of feeling safe and that plays out across other you know areas as well that was one that I thought was particularly of note I also think as Peter alluded to going forward assuming we stick with Panorama and there's there's no perfect instrument um I think we can shift to choosing the areas that are most actionable for schools because to sort of pick pick measures that don't change much because they're really reporting on how kids kind of see the world as opposed to how I feel in my school how how the teaching is how the safety is is much less useful than those kinds of things that are actionable um for schools and so we'll be asking you to approve as a board this spring the highest level success measures in our new school improvement process and ultimately the Strategic plan some of those will be survey based measures from kids and staff and for all of them we'll break them down demographically how to staff from different uh racial backgrounds genders things things how do they report and then of course the same thing for students so I'm sort of uh I think it's important to take this super high level 30,000 foot look but the real value is at the building level and then it's in breaking it down beneath even the building level so we're like what's happening with safety in third grade what's happening with pedagogical Effectiveness is a fancy way of saying how engaging and Powerful is the teaching in 11th grade that's that's where these data are going to be you know most useful I director waor um so just uh like uh director cook um took my question right off on my little sheet of paper um but what I would also like to know is how are our percentages in comparison to the national average right so you said this is a national survey so is our turnout also similar to what they're seeing Nationwide or CU When You're comparing us to other to a national average I guess I'd be curious to know if we are at par um with the completion of these surveys as well or are you know we above or below fantastic question I actually asked the vendor that last week so our elementaries are above average for response rates and our middles are right Sage responses not massively but a little bit I'm sorry and to uh and to to add to that question does that do you think that has any correlation because you did mention that you think that the turnout was due to the timing of the roll out like you administered right before Thanksgiving break is there a reason why we chose that time knowing that you know students and families will be traveling or is it possible have we tried other times and got similar results or do we always do it at the same time of year um or is there great question um so it was the this year was the first full week of November um it was a Thanksgiving week but close to that time um last year it was the last full week of October the year before that uh we did it twice and it was October and um in general uh survey best practice for uh schools would suggest that the best time to measure when you're not going to get like excitement that we're back or excitement that we're about to be done is like January February um is a is a particularly good time to survey on but we don't do it in J but we are planning to uh pivot some of that structure as we move forward skip 2.0 because the surveys will be an important part of our needs assist so it would occur at that time of year in future I also wonder if there's some room for I'm not I'm not exactly in all honesty I'm not exactly sure like how they roll it out is when when it's scheduled during the day and I can dig into that to figure out there's a better way to to schedule it there the um when the high schools run a uh assembly schedule and have everybody do the survey at the exact same time schoolwide they tend to have better responses that's also complex for the schools to manage and we don't have a central mandate on how they do the survey Administration so I know for example this year I don't believe any of the three did um right and in other schools it's like well we'll just have all English it whereas another school might be all second hour right but if you're in I think some of that stuff can impact it because if it's all second hour but if you have an open hour second hour or if you're in PSO that's going to impact your your num so I just wonder if there's some ways if we really wanted to increase the response rate especially at the high school I think there's some ways we oh for sure we can work with the high schools and and do that and my last little piece and then I'll let somebody else speak is do we have any way of gauging is there a parent portion now you said the teacher portion was down but do we also survey uh the parents feelings towards you know how teaching is going because you know kids can be excited but it may not necessarily be meeting parents expectations of what they think should be happening in fourth grade do we we also have any surveys we do have right now it lives outside of Panorama we have a family engagement survey that's run out of our office of equity and engagement and I believe that's either you guys start it already or it's really soon I think March so in another so it'll be separated it wouldn't be incorporated into this data it would be nice to have it all yeah and I think uh there are some thoughts about how to how to do that in the future with skip 2.0 as well superintendent uh very briefly these response rates are solid so just to be really clear there are there are major studies that get done with % response rates we have a few schools so these are we shouldn't we can always do better um uh we do not have a a i a family engagement survey that fully meets our needs um it has been invaluable to get the family engagement work started but we need some better measures in particular it focuses a lot on how much do families and I look forward to sharing with you because I know Dr White this is a particular concern and passion of yours it's a lot about how much do families get to influence what happens in schools which just part of it it's less how do families feel the school is meeting their needs with their kid um and so that's it's kind of it's very focused on families as contributors to what schools are working on to improve less I really feel my kids teacher is super responsive to my needs my kids principal that's the piece that I think we want to build out we don't want to lose the other but it needs to kind of have a little more for lack of a better way to put it the customer service side of working with families and so that's one thing there's not a uh the I do not like the Panorama family engagement survey I I've looked at it extensively I think Peter at least agrees I I don't know I haven't talked with will or Jennifer smidler Craig about it but we and it it costs extra money it's like an upsell for Panorama and it wouldn't get us what we need so we have a we have a measurement opportunity with our family engagement work that we need to fill out in the next year but we are going to give the survey and we we will be sharing it we do our update on family engagement like I was saying at the outset we'll be marrying that data with what we're doing to strengthen it in a coming presentation Dr Barlo I just wanted to be sure I understood um we're not so much concerned about the response rates uh uh were good uh survey results though uh and uh that's where we will potentially as you've suggested and uh the superintendent as air term will uh be used to uh frame to some degree skip 2.0 okay I just wanted to be sure I understood that Dr mman um if I'm understanding the discussion that the schedule this year is to just do this once correct yes are there opportunities with uh following up on what um Dr pel talked about if there's something that the school wants to dig in deeper you know if it is an issue with girls and school safety or something like that can schools choose to do that if they want or and we have had some who do it's largely though it's not within the Panorama platform they do it uh using their own but yes we have had schools do that okay so not these same questions then to like rep the platform for the year so they do use very similar questions although almost every school tweaks them a little bit because they want them to be um but when we pay the Panorama license it's for the entire year regardless how many times we do okay so schools have the opportunity to do that to follow up if they choose to awesome and okay good and then I just want to make sure that I'm understanding how the survey works that something like school safety is when you report the data there that's not just one question about school safety it's it's like a a a grouping yes thank you uh no great clarification so each one of those scales with the line is an average of eight to 16 questions well how many questions are on it uh on E on the student survey it's less than 30 and on the staff survey it's less than 20 i' have check so do some questions then evaluate more than one of these things no each question only goes to one SK got is it evident to the students that this is what they're a answering about necessarily uh I'm not sure I understand are they do they know they're answering a question about school safety on all the questions even like the third graders they know from the get the topic of the survey is right there yeah okay got it thank you so I asked you a question ahead of time about um the data for grades 6 through 12 all being together and if we were to look at it separately would we see anything differently and I know you mentioned that one of the uses is looking at individual schools but can you say a little bit about how the data changes 6th to 12th grade so the data are a bit of a parabola it's like a u shape so that tends to start if you analyze it by if you only break it out into high school and middle school there's not actually a whole lot of difference it's when you do grade by grade by grade that you start to see it so starts a little bit higher in sixth grade drops drops drops tends to bottom out around ninth and 10th grade and then starts to increase again um and that's consistent that's a consistent pattern across just about every one of these stud is that a consistent pattern in schools generally or is it from the evidence I've been able to find so far yet it's it's a it's a function of early adolescence and if anybody wants a great book on this I'm reading called 10 to 25 by David jger who's a great psychologist and early adolescence is a time of heightened Detachment from what the adults and the system think I ought to be doing and thinking and saying and so even whether you're answering a question or sitting calmly in a Middle School there's a different neurobiological and social response to what you're supposed to be doing that as as hard as it may seem if you're teaching 11th and 12th graders there's a lot more compliance and sort of positive AFF effect up there than there is in those Middle grades it's you know it's like that um it's a critical time though in kids development um to be engaging them around you know this sense of who am I you have high expectations for me but you really support me and believe in me that matters for all kids at all uh ages but boy in that early adolescent uh period it's just uh critical because we see kids get on a different trajectory kids who get off track often it's happening any other questions board members thank you for diving into the data for us thank you our next agenda item is a prep for action item um Schoolboard compensation for fiscal year 26 so it is our practice to have a conversation about our compensation in January each year and when we talked about it at the January 7th meeting there was consensus that we wanted to separate this discussion of our budget um and have a discussion tonight um the board is only required to discuss the member compensation annually there's no requirement for us to take any action unless the board chooses to do so so just remind everybody Minnesota statute states that members of the board shall also receive such compensation as may be fixed by the board the school board in May of 2021 set our compensation at $116,000 per board member with a $1,600 additional stien for board chair and the total budget for school board salaries is $133,600 um there was some information that was provided in the agenda item um regarding various calculations related to increasing our compensation should we decide to choose should we decide to choose to do so and that's for information only and I will open it up to the board if anybody has any conversation they'd like to have director Workman um I did a little bit of of digging into what our other government um groups do namely the city council and the County commission for their um compensation so um the County Commission has raised their um salary 10% of each of the last two years the goal has been to get it to $75,000 per year in 2025 that amount is at $64,000 a year they also have $400 a month for expenses which is an additional $4,800 per year that includes mileage where workshops and events the city council in the fourth quarter of 2019 uh their compensation was $27,000 per year as opposed to ours at that point which was 7200 um in 20122 and TW 2020 and 2021 they set their compensation to be 80% of the Ami which is the area media income if you're interested in that you can look it up it's something that we don't use because it has to do with a lot to do with housing and um low-income housing and that kind of thing um so that meant for th those two years it was at $46,000 in 2022 they raised it to um 90% of Ami um So currently they're I think are at I write this down I have it on a note here I'll get it for you in a minute um they also get it support driving in phone which amounts to less than $3,000 a year the city council gets more than that so the city council at this point is at $56,000 plus the additional compensation that I mentioned which brings that up to about 59,000 director white horn um so when um when I was reviewing this and I'm looking um at the numbers um I'm not a numbers girl which you guys will see numbers is not my thing um people are my thing so what I would say is when we are thinking of compensating for the board um and we're thinking of future years I would ask that we all keep in mind that we want to keep true democracy in mind as well when we're thinking of this uh we want to make sure that when people are deciding if they want to be a part of the board um because there is some time commitments and we do have families and individuals that work additional jobs and do other things um what we have found on the boots on the ground side is that compensation is sometimes a reason why people cannot be as involved in certain things as they would like to be and I say this cautiously because we don't want to continue to have all our boards just made up of people who because they have the income and the additional time can show up if I'm making a little sense here so I just hope that we keep in mind that we want to make sure that um as we grow as a community and as we grow as a board and you know as much as all of us want to just be here forever we know that eventually we we will need new blood here we want to make sure that um inability to compensate is not a reason that people are not able to be here and if somebody else wants to clarify that in better terms than I did but um I do know that compensation is something that keeps some communities away um from participating in some events because they literally cannot afford um to lose a second income or um be present at some of these things so I do want to say that compensation is serious conversation um and we do need to consider those things when we consider the growth of our boards and the growth of us wanting to diversify and hear new voices that as much as it pains me money money is a real thing um people sell bills to pay carton eggs is 20 bucks uh for 60 eggs so uh and it may not impact everyone at this table or some tables as much but it does impact some of our community members and we do want to make sure that everybody feels that they can participate wholeheartedly um in our democracy without feeling that they will be losing income um in order to participate Dr Workman um yeah the other thing I'd like to add is um all three of these jobs city council County Commission and Schoolboard are part-time jobs so $69,000 a year for a part-time job is pretty darn good I think um I have no idea the scope of what the the uh County Commission does do they do more work less work than we do the same thing for the city these three organizations are all very different in terms of the scope of our work and um what it provides to the community so I think uh we we need to bear that in mind as well um your point is well taken it was one that was considered back in 2019 as to um that being a barrier for people to run for the board um nobody here is getting rich on a Schoolboard salary um but at the same time it can be very helpful for people who actually really could use that income um there's no means test to be on the on the Schoolboard which is a good thing but um you know whether it in fact will bear fruit and attract more people who maybe do have some of those concerns um you know remains to be seen but I think I think your point is well taken director mbin um I also agree that your point is well taken and I think it's something that we considered when we increase the salary is that from the low level that it was at until what it is currently I'm hopeful will increase the pool of people who are able to access these rules um to Dr workman's point or director workman's point I I think I would push back a little bit on the part-time part I think the people that hold those positions would disagree with you that it's parttime it's somewhere between part time and fulltime I think the the two people that I had contact with um seemed to think that it was unofficially a part-time job whether how much I mean the hours per month that um school board members indicated they worked back in our survey in 2019 ranged anywhere between 40 and 90 hours a month on Schoolboard work which included not obviously you know meetings committee work um events in the community their own preparation for school board members and you know so when people ask me how many hours do you spend on a week and I it kind of depends on what the topic is and ongoing preparation for that so it's it's really you know it's been a little tricky for me to to nail down because I haven't kept a real detailed time sheet and I appreciate that guess my point is that what I'm hearing in the community is that there's a difference of opinion on those boards about how big their roles are the other thing that I want to add to the discussion now that I've been on the board a little while is just to share the information um in a big picture about my personal circumstances I do have a full-time job um in addition to this role and where I find myself at times is for instance the the um conference we went to last week I used a day of personal time from my employer to attend that so that's where the Schoolboard salary then helps compensate me for those the time I'm missing from my regular job um and we have some different ways that we do that um internally with my workplace but um just to recognize that um it is something that uh people can do with another job but I'll be honest it's hard it's really hard um and it's and I have to pick and choose the daytime events that I go to sometimes um I try to get to some of the things that I can but I recognize that I'm either working then into the evening or um taking my um personal time off to accomplish that and I make those decisions for myself but I want to be transparent with the community that um it can be done but it is challenging and that's how I manage it and I think that's I think that's a really good point to make um if you look at our faces there are some faces that are older than others um those of us who are retired do have more time to devote to it than we would have if when we were working our full-time jobs as well and so when we say well we need younger people on the board you know how do we do that if you have h a board member with children um a board member with lots of children and I mean full-time job lots of responsibilities part from this you know the juggling is really can be really really difficult director Marvin yeah this really hearkens back to the conversation we had when we voted a raise for school board um we want to be sure that people who have who are going to need to get daycare or babysitters for their kids to get to a meeting uh that that they have the ability to come to events during during the day which is going to have some uh cost for them as well um so that's why we voted to give the the raise and I think that was important because I think we don't want to preclude people from uh wanting to serve on the school board because they can't afford to it just it's going to cost them more and this salary wouldn't cover it that said and I remember that conversation too you know being fiscally responsible for our budget and um so I'm really torn um I I think that you know a small raise per year or every two years to keep up with inflation is probably acceptable we know that all of our uh employee groups uh get some raise each year but I I think anything substantial is especially now as a mistake Dr bar well uh two things um when I originally ran for school board and was elected um I was surprised to find out that there was compensation uh that being said uh I was pleased to find out that there was um and have learned to realize or grown to realize Through Time effort uh experience that um um the current compensation does not truly if you will rise to that level of uh paying for the total amount of time effort energy expended um and I find it odd you know certainly uh and I've not attended a uh County Commissioner meeting when they discussed what when the wages were well pay increases were presented uh or Council when they discussed it and if they had to go to the extent that we simul do to justify or try to make the public feel that you know we're deserving of worthy of um and so I always feel awkward uh maybe that's somewhat reflective of the generation I represent uh my daughter's generation they have no problem uh saying what they'll take the job for and I'm thinking wow you know but I think it is important that uh uh the three options that uh uh are available I'm not going to go into they're available to be viewed we're not talking for one it would be a total budgetary impact of $112,000 just over 12 a year another would be uh 24 and another just over 25,000 uh and um um and it's not our job I I heard I believe someone had mentioned well we if we approve it then we have to well where are we going to get the money to pay for that's not our job to figure out where we going to get the money to pay for it in terms of our own salaries that if we were to approve this and the uh uh director Finance would much like with contracts and everything else would would uh work the magic uh and and all I'm suggesting is um and and there's not a vote yet this is just a discussion and uh I don't know how you plan on proceeding with this if uh you stated that annually we agreed to discuss this and this is part of what we're doing annually uh so I don't know really how much more needs to be said if this isn't going to be tied to an action or a result or if we're simply uh discussing it and then having on due diligence to our ABCD uh we move to the next item so I don't really know what uh the uh plan expectation is beyond of this aspect of discussion if I could maybe know that so this being a prep for action item um we're discussing whether or not we want to take action so if a board member did want to uh propose a specific compensation level it could be to maintain compensation at whatever it is currently or it could be some sort of increase um one of the things that I've been thinking about and I I agree the word awkward is the word that I always think of when we're doing this um in terms because it it's always it's always perceived as raising your own salary but I think about what director whorn said and what the conversation has been in the past is that we want to make sure that people considering running for a board position are doing it um because uh the compensation is attractive to them to meet their needs so I wonder if the board would be willing to consider um a Forward Thinking action where we would ra we could consider raising the compensation but put it into effect for board members who would take office after the upcoming election that happens in 2026 so it wouldn't take effect until those new board members would be elected so people who would be running for the board in 2026 would know their compensation level would be whatever we set it as and those of us on the board would only be affected would be the three that would remain in office after 2027 and anyone else who is reelected to the board if we think it's an important statement to make that school board members should be compensated at a certain level but we're not comfortable raising our own compensation at this time and luckily for us it's not a decision we would have to make tonight because we could have that discussion in we could keep our our own compensation the same right now and then we could have that com uh conversation in January of 2026 and that would still be a decision we can make in time for the election cycle that happens in starting in May of 2026 that was one way I was thinking about it Dr Cook um I'm glad that this is a prep for action item and that we took the the time afforded by us at the last meeting to um spend some more time thinking about this because I I I am really glad that I've had the opportunity to hear from my colleagues um and I'm glad that we're not deciding anything tonight because um I'm going to continue to reflect on a lot of this but um the point that I wanted to raise for my fellow directors uh before we move on is where we were in our study session last week and the importance of being able to hold very firm um in our contract renewals in our um lease services and very respectfully director Barlo I think it is absolutely Our obligation to decide where this money would come from and it isn't so much the incremental 10 to $20,000 a year but it's the argument um and and a very valid argument or concern um that we would be granting to those looking for um a a material increase in their their next contract renewal and how we would uh be able to how how we feel like this decision would impact our ability to meet our our fiscal obligations um for contract renewals that will be coming up in the next year I I think uh chair Nathan your suggestion about um really tying any potential increase to the term of a new uh newly seated board after an election um to address precisely the concerns that uh director white horn raised and and elaborated on really um quite eloquently um is a is one that I'll continue to consider very carefully but I I had thought of that and uh yeah anyway I I'll I'll continue to think D mclin um I appreciate that idea as well and definitely will um put some thought into that the only other thing I wanted to add to the discussion is I was on the board at the time that we made the the most recent increase my view at that time I remember thinking that the compensation prior to that increase was artificially low and it had been the the same for so long that it made a lot of sense to modernize and upgrade the salary for this role in our community I think it's a harder decision now yes director W so I just want to say I do I do agree with a lot of the statements here tonight um I do think I do agree that it is some of our responsibility to keep our budget in mind um even though it uh like uh to director Bar's point that there are some things that we can and cannot do right um some of it is our job and some of it isn't but we still want to be mindful uh when we are making these changes and I think we just I think everyone is kind of saying the same thing there's a mindfulness on both sides uh we want to make sure that we from um a small business owner's perspective I will say you get what you pay for right if you you know what you're what you're offering is is will determine what you're attracting for cand right um that's just from a simple business model if I'm paying below my competitors then I am going to attract either people who are already financially stable or you know people that may be very desperate you know which is why uh as a small business owner we also have to try to be competitive um so there is a realness to compensation um in the value of people's time um unfortunately that is the time we are living in now that people attach their compensation so their to their value um so those are things to be mindful of and we also need to be mindful as director cook said of um our financial obligations that we are not putting our school board in a position uh that we now have to figure out how to compensate things that our children uh will need educationally um so I agree that I'm glad we're not voting on this tonight um but I do think there's some mindfulness on on both sides and hopefully we can find a a happy medium um that will allow uh for growth and not allow for uh putting damage towards our school district Dr wkman um so I noticed in in your exact um update chair Nathan that you mentioned that nobody had signed up for the Kasa con uh conference yet so that's in our budget you know how how much of a part of our budget you know what is that dollar amount Mr Carlson you don't have to give it to me right now you know in previous years we have budgeted for all seven Schoolboard members to go to the National School Board Association conference many years we all went sometimes we didn't that doesn't seem to be a part of our budget now so if there's any place where we are not spending the money that we had budgeted at one point I don't know if that would be helpful in looking at the total um just for those kinds of comp compensation I'm not talking about um you know increases in in well I won't say benefits because we don't have benefits but all the other things that go go into our our compensation which aren't directly related to salary well the last meeting we made a decision for the uh fiscal year 26 budget to keep everything at the same level it was this year right and the cosba conference cost is $6,000 that we budgeted for two board members to attend so that's the amount that's in the budget director bar and that there uh appears to be no real appetite or desire uh to um uh Vote or to consider any um extensions uh for uh Schoolboard compensation I'd like to make a motion that uh our school board salaries remain currently as is and second we're not taking action tonight okay we're going to come with a consensus of what you like the resolution to look like so I'm hearing um our current amount is $166,000 with would you like to continue the board um additional stip in which is set at 10% of the salary chair the board chair sorry I personally object to that but I didn't get a second the first time I raised that so I think it should be higher but I I was on my own on that I was going to say no um but you want to keep it at 10% which is what $1,600 now but we're going to keep it the same then it would be both um well that could be the resolution that we bring for Action um next meeting we're not taking action on it right now um is there any um consensus from the board that you would like to place the discussion of compensation we'll have it no no later than next January but is there any um further information or analysis that you would like before we make our decision I think the question for Mr cook might be a good one to have answered at least by the time we have this conversation next time which is if we increase our salary where does the money come from if we if we don't carve it out of our own budget which would mean taking for example maybe a cosba attendance um a lot of the other items that we talked about last week really can't be carved out except the MSB leg um leadership conference and I don't really think there's a lot of consensus for us not to attend that um so it could be a question for Mr Carl Mr Carlson to say if the board ever decided to increase its compensation where would that money come from and that was really the only point I was making when I made reference it's not our job to make the decisions that Mr Carlson would offer uh and very well stated Dr MCL I would entertain wanting to know a little bit more information about how other boards do this in the sense that um I appreciate director workman's work on the different options we have but they're all very different and if there's consensus of how another how other boards of our size do this I would be interested to know that set their compensation right or increases in compensation I guess would be the more is that that something you want to know before we take action next week or is that for a future I would say for future okay is that consensus of the board as well director Workman um so director Barlo made a a recommendation I'd like to make one as well in 2019 we had originally looked at adjusting it to inflation and the compensation would have been $177,000 at that point in 2019 and I guess we settled on $166,000 because it wasn't a prime number or something where so I my suggestion would be that we raise our compensation to $17,000 and if Mr Carlson feels that um I can't put the responsibility on you um you know where else in our budget we might be able to uh cut back the CB one would be obviously a if no if people decide not to go that would cover six SS of that increase so you would like the resolution to read that we would set our our compensation at $177,000 beginning um in fiscal year 26 okay well now we have two resolutions um but would your recommendation be though I mean I I think if we're going to make a recommendation to increase our compensation we should probably have a recommendation for decreasing our budget um somewhere else because I I agree with director cook I think um we all we all know what the budgets look like even for next year um and it may seem like I we're talking about um $8,000 no $7,100 of an increase and to the budget and if we don't do the cost but that would leave a thousand right but that's what I'm saying is that we would would the board consider a resolution where we would increase our our compensation to $177,000 and then also direct to change the decision we made last week to include attendance at the cosba conference in our budget for next year take that out of our budget which would leave us as you said $1,100 to find to pay for the increase director mclin um to clarify that question finding it within our Schoolboard budget or finding it within our with the District budget within the school board within our school board if we can I think we should make that clear that that's what we're we're not asking to increase our Schoolboard budget we're just shifting right funds from one that we'd have to find it all from within our Schoolboard budget and if we can't find that 7100 was that what you said the amount was no was more in my back of the envelope calculation yes yes um you know then we could if we just eliminate the Cosa conference which hasn't seemed to get much traction since it was um started a couple years ago um you know we could drop it to $6,000 total which would be 6,000 divided I'm not going to do the math in my head so if I hear some direction from the board I could suggest that I could work on two resolutions one would be to keep our compensation the same and one would be to increase it to $117,000 but in the meantime bring you a plan for how that would be paid within our current budget and not take any funds Elsewhere for fiscal year 26 well Madam chair yes if I may it might if that is indeed the direction we go in it might be useful for not only the board as a whole but the community to know since we're using this term Schoolboard budget to actually see what it is um so that we as a board know what what it is the community as well would know we're not talking well copious amounts of money it was in so um I think it was in the January 7th meeting yeah I think it was broken down the total amount was in last week's agenda but I could we have the option if you would like to see it in the context of the whole budget we could bring that information back next week not so much in terms of the whole budget well when you say School Board budget sorry yes okay so that you could see what our whole budet is okay thank you so but as I understand it the only piece we would want to revisit from the decision we made at the last meeting would be any decrease in the budget to make up for the increase in our compensation I hearing that yes we all get to vote on this too so this is not a direction of okay I'll just add one more thing because I um I and as I said I'm going to continue to think about this and so forth but I'm pretty sure I would have a very difficult time supporting anything that would give the increase the Schoolboard compensation by more than the 3% Target that we have set for our budget model for um wage growth over the next um year so that would be an increase to 16480 I'm still not sure I can get there but I'm almost certain I can't go beyond that so in case that informs anyone else's views here so 3% increase based on what we've used what has been used elsewhere in The District budget for increase in salary okay and you said 16 that would be 16480 okay so I'd like to ask a clarifying question when we voted on everything else last time under travel and conferences we had $1,000 for msba conference attendance by all board members and $6,000 for Co cosba so it looks to me that we did budget that amount say that again 11,000 for msba I'm reading from the um information that was presented on January 7th yep and how much for cosba 11,000 for msba and 6,000 for cosba right so there are $6,000 in our budget for fiscal year 26 to attend the cosba conference and also for msba well yeah oh that's this okay right but but but I thought Sor I was thinking I was think the national I was thinking National okay yeah no that's the the state conference we just did yeah but there is $6,000 in the budget should the board decide not to budget for attendance at the cosba National Conference that could be available to us to cover some of the increase in our compensation and then we would just have to look for an additional $1,100 somewhere else in our budget director whiteon I just have a clarifying question so just so I'm clear so it sounds like before I was involved with here there was was uh uh an increase suggested what was it 17,0 736 I'm not sure because she uh director work mly hasn't explained why uh we chose to go down to 16,000 evenly it was yeah we chose I'm not sure why we chose 16,000 over 177,000 I mean 17,000 would have been the straight inflationary um since 1987 and we decided on 16,000 like I said 16,000 is a nice rounder number compared to 17,000 which is not my recollection back to that is that we wanted to undercut it slightly okay like not go to the complete Max of the right inflationary increase but to soften that a little bit so again not being a numbers person we chose to take the decrease but the number was based off of the 17,000 right so that's that's like our our number for lack of words so that's the but we decided as a board hey we're going to take 16 can we not say we will we know the number but we can vote down so I say that to um director Cook's point right that this could be the number that it should be if we keep up with inflation and then we decide as a board this is where we we would accept to be but that's what it sound like happened before is not that we did not recognize that the salary in order to keep up should have been here so if we have that number playing in the background so we know where we are supposed to be with the 3% wage increase but the board is saying well this should be our number whatever that number is with 3% wage that's where it should be if we if we did it the technical way um but we say okay we're voting down I makeing sense yall or no the resolution was 16 ,000 I mean that was the resolution so we got the background information this is this would be the inflationary amount however the resolution was for 16,000 so there wasn't a real discussion at theard table and there's no there's no should be right we we could decide to set it according to Social Security increases We could decide to set it by a measure of the rate of inflation and there's different rates of inflation there's setting it um similar to uh what other employee groups have gotten I think the the issue that these calculations were reflecting is that we haven't increased our compensation for a few years so we've missed a few years of adjustment adjustment for what however you would want to adjust it and that's where these calculations come by I think we have to really careful about saying we're going to use inflation as the calculator I remember um back many decades ago when it was suggested that um teachers should simply receive an increase tied to inflation and the response at that time was we can't afford it so I would really be very reticent to say we're going to tie it to the rate of inflation when we don't do that generally for our other employees um so the first I mean I think the the first um example uh given with you know the increases that staff have gotten or traditionally gotten is would be for me a lot more realistic then which is the 3% well just or just or just what whatever I mean one year inflation was what almost 9% well I also think that there's there's two schools of thought as to how we're calculating the increase the um options not the options the calculations that were provided in the agenda item are designed to take our current compensation to a compensation that reflects increases for the past few years that we missed if you will because we didn't incre the board chose not to increase its compensation those years whereas what D and that amount would be depending on the the rate of increase we use um an increase to 17736 an increase to 1942 or an increase to 19538 and then director Workman said if we go back to where it would have been in 2019 that would have been that $177,000 number and then what director cook is saying is let's look at where we are now and not to consider making up for example for the past few years but just look at what we have budgeted in what we have put in our budget for other employee group increases and not exceed that and that's the 16,48 amount and I think one of the one of the conversations that we had back in in 2019 um director aminon amonson who was on the board then and I were the ones who did a lot of the research I'll credit with a big chunk of that um was that instead of waiting another 30 some years to make an adjustment and have this huge thing that it would be more prudent for us to make smaller adjustments every year or two um so I don't have it in me right now to go back and figure out how much the district has saved by not going with any inflationary increases for any of those years but I'm sure I mean I'm sure that the dollar am would be more than $1,100 personally since since the ability for the board to increase its compensation was in the board's hands every year and boards that we were on or not on chose not to increase it correct I'm comfortable not trying to make up right for actions that previous boards are combinations of boards didn't take I agree and simply consider what we might want to do to increase it going forward if at all so as I look at the numbers then we have one uh suggestion which is to keep our current compensation at 16,000 and not increase it for fiscal year 26 but perhaps have a conversation next January of increasing it for the next incoming board or if we were to consider an increase for fiscal year um 26 increasing it by 3% which would match what is being budgeted elsewhere in the budget for employee group increases and that would be that 16,48 amount director bar uh yes thank you for the clarification and um just want to be sure that uh with the resolutions um there I thought uh you had communicated that uh it seemed like there was a desire in the part of of the board to uh have the effective date for uh compensation increase if it were approved to be reflective in the next election cycle is I if I understood that correctly okay which would suggest then we may be premature and focusing on the current budget oh we have X amount of dollars in the current budget for the ca uh conference which has no direct bearing on the discussion we're having uh for future compensation and I think I haven't quite heard the consensus from the whole board that nobody wants to consider increasing their compensation for fiscal year 26 if I if I hear that then we'll write the resolution that way that we want to keep our compensation at 16,000 for fiscal year 26 just a question of uh clarification so I thought I heard that uh we were out of consideration for future board candidates uh really looking to tie this toward the next election cycle that was a suggestion I made okay but then we had some additional conversation about whether we still wanted to consider your suggestion for the resolution which was to keep it at 16,000 or whether as director Workman mentioned to take it back to the amount that it could have been in 2019 if we had raised it to inflation then since we had that conversation I think we've also come around to say as I hear from the board and you can tell me if I'm hearing it wrong that we don't necessarily want to make up for the past few years of not increasing so that was the three options that were in the agenda item so now what only remains is keeping it at 16,000 or considering it to be no more than a 3% increase at 16,48 okay so that's the direction looking for the board is what would you like to see in that resolution next week my preference would be to keep it where it is and revisit in January for possible adjustment before a new board is seated that's where I'm at okay which is kind of why we were having this discussion right now because we weren't in alls so if I don't hear any objections that is the resolution that I will bring back to the board for Action at the next meeting and then we will cons continue to collect information so that our conversation next January which would involve both our it would be a conversation about our compensation but it could also include a conversation about compensation for the next board well on the same page yes good thank you board members we're getting for that awkward conversation our next item is 8.1 priorities for the 2025 legislative session this is an action item be it resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 hereby adopts the following legislative priorities for 2025 continue to address education funding focus on student centered policies and improve Schoolboard governance Mo approval second has been moved and seconded any questions or discussion legislative committee members do you want to run us through anything the only thought that I had on this is that um director Workman and I have taken the lead on this with the transition of the committee structure and it seems like a lot of priorities um so and I think I sent that an email to the board as well that if there's any thought on um removing any of these or potentially differing them to a following year or um somehow else modifying this lengthy list um I think the legislative committee would be interested in that director mvin would would there be any um would it be useful at all if we within each of these buckets prioritized yes because I can't think of anything on here that's not important but if we could say if you can only do three of these things in each list and when I converted what we dealt with at the study session to this I tried to do that um in this from the discussion at the study session so for example um I think B and C were together for the study session and they were the first listed but the discussion at the study session caused me to want to put the local option Revenue as the first one okay so you have them the ABC sort of that's the priority based on the discussion at the study session okay in in my own personal assessment of that discussion superintendent um you know this is a obviously the board's action but I appreciate it being involved in this I I think you could think of this as endorsing the Full Slate of options um thereby allowing us during the legislative session which is always inherently fluid especially the one we're currently in and we get asked to testify about things um unexpectedly issues come up uh Mr Carlson just got asked the other day to testifying a couple of issues that are here I think this is an instance I think the board knows I'm usually a fan of less is better this is one in which you're endorsing this full suite and it allows us over the course of the session to advocate for these priorities because you've endorse them all uh I've already uh asked Miss Kramer to schedule a meeting with the legislative committee so we can decide following board approval which of these to emphasize when and where so I think it actually could be productive to endorse this Full Slate and then charge the committee with working with me and the administration in deciding how we actually Advance these priorities especially tied to the opportunities that will present themselves over the course of the legislative session I guess what I'm hearing you say that and is looking at it more as a menu of things we can pick and choose off of based on events that we don't know are going to happen yet yeah I I would periodically I get asked to either testify or comment and if it hasn't been if on state leg legislation if it hasn't been approved by this board I don't do it um whereas I see now you're saying yep these things are all uh aligned with our priority and then I could work with uh the committee but also have this on hand so that we can uh move it forward and we can always kind of massage the presentation I think as long as we're true to the content that's here we might group them differently we might prioritize them differently and I guess I was looking at it from the perspective of speaking with our local legislators this is a lot for them to absorb and it may cause them to wonder what are our priorities but I think that's a separate conversation Dr bar well I was uh reflecting on your uh chair Nathan recent uh uh communicate to uh the board uh as a result of the of the executive committee that uh you Vice chair superintendent had in reference to this very subject and uh I support the suggested recommendation that you guys made that we would what the superintendent basically just said that they're good as is we can approve it and it's a living document if you will and as such uh when the opportunity presents itself to actually engage uh with the legislatures or to testify that'll be the opportunity for the superintendent to speak to and uh address them um in a timely fashion Dr Workman I think too if there should be something that comes up that is not on this list that we feel really passionate about this resolution can be amended to add that so it's not like on the I believe the amend the resolution is Broad enough yes it we shouldn't have to because we included a categories that we could add somebody comes up with an Innovative Bill yep I think we have the flexibility within the categories to to tackle it all right any other comments questions we ready to vote all right all those in favor of the resolution say I I opposed the resolution has been approved item 8. two approval of parameters for development of the 2025 2026 District budget this is an action item be it resolved that the school board of Independent School District 535 does hereby approve the 2025 26 budget parameters as presented in attachment a and requests that District administration prepares the budget in accordance with those parameters move approval it has been moved and seconded any discussion or questions director cook uh I'm excited about the the direction that this set of priorities sets forth and just want to note that I'm particularly I know that these numbered um items here aren't necessarily in order of importance but I am particularly um excited about item six um where the board is directing or upon passage of this uh of this item the board would be directing the administration to develop a long-term strategy to address the project deficits that we just reviewed at last week's study session I think that's really important um for our role in governing the district and um understanding the impact of the realistic budget forecast that we have on our ability to meet the needs of students so um look forward to supporting this D Workman um in line with what director cook said um when we talk about deficits that are projected for year 27 and Beyond it's like well didn't we just pass a referendum but that referendum also had a c caveat as to declining enrollments and that was the main main factor you know and right and Healthcare premium so um we can't keep the the budget the same if we have a thousand fewer students or 500 or you know whatever that director Mar uh I fully support um uh the resolution and uh just one question um we're well into the new year uh we do know that um uh we are experiencing uh declining birth rates as you have informed us that the class of 2025 uh will uh be the highest and then from there we will see declining numbers and so when will the demographer I'm I'm going sure as to who we're going to work with when will that information be pre available it will have a little bearing on the 2526 budget but it certainly will have a great bearing in terms of future oute so when will we have that information do you think our plan and a strong assumption is to have it for you when you begin deliberation of the budget in May and the long-term strategy so that we'll be conducting it and we'll be able to present the long-term strategy and also next year's budget there may be some things we learn about next year's budget but I think you're probably right mostly that's going to be close to our current projection we'll be able to share that at the time we bring you both the budget for next year and the long-term strategy thank you Jack mman um I also plan to vote in favor of this and I like the fact that these priorities have captured a lot of what the district has been working on as of late with the balanced budget model the referendum and the presentation about the um project deficits the only question I have is when I was looking at this just now right above item number one it looks like we maybe dropped a word at the end of that last line and I don't know if it's a word or more than one word budget the school district's what I'm assuming budget but yes sorry budget I must have been so excited makes it more to get to the list yes on your own adventure um I I too um you want Adventure added support these budget parameters and um while having to develop a strategy for future deficits is something that's um I I always makes people uncomfortable I just want to remind people that we did this three years ago and we had a strategy and we kept to that strategy each of those three years and it has put us in the healthy financial situation we are today um so I am pleased that we are using a time- tested process um and are continuing to do that so that we can have some consistency for our community as well as to how they see us making budget decisions and the information that comes from our from our superintendent so I look forward to doing it again might just super briefly the the the direction that um I'm recommending you give us is to develop that strategy the degree to which you feel prepared to vote on that strategy in June is something that we can talk about at that time to chair Nathan's point you did vote three years ago on the whole long-term strategy generally speaking that's the approach I would recommend you take you could also say we're voting on the budget for next year and we're going to work on the long-term strategy into the fall but this is charging us with giving you that strategy concurrent with the submission of the budget so frankly that we're really sure we don't kick the can down the road and that while we're asking you to vote on next year which our projections say will be a year where we will not have a deficit um that we are forcing ourselves to think ahead a year and present you with that long-term strategy hearing no other comments all those in favor of the resolution say I I I opposed the resolution has been approved item 9.1 is our board questions and responses there were questions submitted by board members before the meeting and they're available in this agenda item the current version of the ABCD is available in this agenda item for reference are there any agenda items board members would like to raise for consideration for a future meeting agenda hearing none we have a board meeting scheduled for February 18th at 5:30 PM with beginning with a special session on field trips with a regular meeting immediately following a board meeting on March 4th at 5:30 p.m. a regular meeting on March 18th at 5:30 p.m. and a regular meeting on April 8th at 5:30 p.m. and hearing no other business this meeting is adjourned at 7:43 p.m.