brighter than usual. >> Yes. >> More in our eyes. I do want you to know that I do things backwards every week. >> Put that light on here. >> But
I can't get into the internet. >> We have a new timer. It's sitting on the box right now. Okay. So, just go up. >> Hey, at least I have a new password and I can get in to my documents. That was a
problem earlier today. This regular meeting of the Independent School District 535 School Board is called to order at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, January 20th, 2026 in room 137 of the Edison building. Present at this meeting are school board members, Superintendent
Kent Pquel, a non- voting exeicio member, and assistant school board clerk, Miss Anne Kramer. Miss Kramer, would you please call the role? here. here. >> Here >> 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. At this time, we offer the opportunity to say the pledge of >> allegiance to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for it stands nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Our next agenda item is the Rochester Public Schools mission, vision, and values.
During this agenda item, at every regular meeting, a board member will read a our mission, our vision, or one of our six values to emphasize their importance in our work as a district and our decisions as a board. Director Workman, >> today we focus on our third value,
ensuring excellence through evidence guided by research and data. We enrich student learning and well-being through intentional decisions supported by proven practices. Item 2.1 is approval of the agenda. Are
there any changes to the agenda? >> No approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to approve the agenda. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. The agenda has been approved. The agenda and documents for this meeting are available online at
rochesterchools.org/sembly. org/sembly. 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, and hear during our 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 p.m. on the Monday before the school board meeting to sign up for a time slot. The form is available on the RPS website and on the assembly main page. Speakers, when your
name is called, please come to this table. If you have written materials, 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 school board. You'll have
three minutes to speak and the timer will be displayed on the timer will be displayed on this timer right in front of me. Please begin your remarks by stating your name. Our first speaker tonight is Wes Lond. Not seeing our first speaker. Our second
speaker tonight is Jane Shalom. agenda item is 4.1 under information and outreach recognition of education support professionals and paraprofessional recognition week. Governor Walls has proclaimed the week of January 19th through the 25th as
paraprofessional recognition week. We call them educational support professionals or ESPs here in RPS and they work in a variety of positions and are included in a range of important school roles. We celebrate our RPS educational support professionals for
the contributions they make as instructional and student support assistants for their work on our special need for their work with our special needs and multilingual learners for the safe spaces they create for students in the lunchroom in the halls on the playground and for their work in our
media centers and on our vans and buses. The governor's proclamation is included as an attachment to this agenda item. Do we have any ESPs in the audience tonight? Well, if you have a chance to see them during this recognition week, please sh
please share your thanks with them. Our next agenda item is the Rochester Public School Foundation grant awards presentation. Superintendent Cal. Thank you, Chair Nathan. And I apologize because I don't have in my notes exactly who is coming up to do the presentation.
And so, uh, it's fantastic to have, uh, both recipients of the foundation's incredible work, um, and then always members of the foundation board to give us an overview. And you are one of the most important community, um, organizations that exists in Rochester
in supporting kids. And so, thank you for all the work and look forward to hearing uh, what you have been working on. >> Good evening. So, thank you for having us first and foremost. We know you guys are completely busy all the time. Um,
I'm Julie Dashis. I'm here on behalf of Rochester Public Schools Foundation board. Um, I'm their secretary and was the chosen delegate tonight to come see you guys. Um, and I also work out at um, Rochester Alternative Learning Center as an instructional coach. We're mainly
here tonight um, for Josh. We'll get to that real quick. Um, RPS RPSF's mission um continues um continues as a nonprofit community foundation that connects the community
in our schools to advance and inspire educational opportunities for all students. Um to date, um since 1988 and its inception, um we've given um away approximately $700,000 in grants, um to
RPSF staff and teachers for um innovative enhancements to curriculum that may not otherwise have occurred due to um financial limited resources. These all come from personal donations, payroll donations, staff member um fund
honorary staff member fundraisers, and periodic RPSF fundraisers as well as established memorial funds. And when we stop by to see you guys once or twice a year, we like to remind you of some of the great educators um and and community members who have come before um and left
money to the foundation. So, continuing on with the Sebasta Fund, the Goodyear Fund, the Lumen Fund, and the Gisenhower Memorial Fund, as well as the Ladden Fund, STEM Fund, the Athletics and Fine Art Fund, um, and the Chance Fund. So,
these are all, um, I won't take your guys' time this evening, but these are all funds that continue to be part of, um, the scholarships that we award t-shirts. In the fall grant cycle, we awarded um just over $9,500 for seven
innovative projects um and received 13 applications from district staff. So, an increase in ask for funds. And we were able to fund or partially fund seven of those projects. Um all the projects are selected by the grant committee after a
group of volunteer grant scores, um which includes district staff and well over 75 community members. um outside of district staff that score those. So, it's it's quite a large bank of people that go into scoring that and we try to
honor their um their input into what they feel is valid use of RPSF funds. So, it's not just the small board that's making decisions about money. Um and really what we're here for
tonight is uh our spotlight on grants. And so, um, we wanted to lift up the work that Josh Halverson's been doing, um, in the district the past these past two grant cycles. So, um, Josh first, um, was awarded a grant, um, a past
grant and has a grant that he's currently working on through the board. And so, we wanted to, um, really just give time to Josh to kind of highlight some of the work that he's doing um, with marginalized populations within our district.
Yeah, again, I'm Josh. I am our coordinator of community partnerships. So, my role is very much about working with other groups to make things happen for students that couldn't otherwise be possible. Um, the last time I was here talking about this, I remember director Cook commenting on how this was maybe the first time community had ever gotten
an award for this project. So, um I hope I can capture some of that same excitement. Um Prism is a event series. It's aimed at students who are in middle school and high school. It's open to all students who are in middle and high school. And it's really aimed at
students who identify as LGBTQ plus. And the focus is on um being healthy, having fun, and doing things with peers. When I had started in community ed, I noticed that some of our students had struggles with mental health. they
had trouble feeling like they belong at school and very clearly they felt like maybe they did not have a shot at being successful in school and in life. Um, and this was especially true or amplified for some of our queer students. And I wanted to do something
to address that and there's only so much money and time and um effort in the world. So I decided to team up with partnering organizations to see can we make kind of a program that feels continuous for these students. And for
the first summer in 2023 um we had students touring labs at Mayo Clinic with their uh graduate school. There were students at um University of Minnesota Rochester learning about biology. They were playing board games. They were doing arts. And it was all kind of held together by all of these um
volunteers and program leaders around the city who made it work. And when we started um we're really doing stuff that was free. There was a commitment that this was going to be a free program for every student for every event. So it's accessible to the the people who need
it. And um the foundation really allowed us to um follow student voice beyond that. So after a year of saying like this is successful, there's partners who want to work with us. We have a kind of
framework of these two-hour events that people are actually showing up to. Um let's just ask students what they want to do. And out of that came um a movie night at Pops Art Theater where we rented out the theater. We went rock
climbing um with AOA. We um worked with local artists where they kind of talked about their personal and professional journeys as artists and kind of led workshops and that was kind of um our PSF's
um you know pushing us forward. They were able to we were able to do what students wanted to do because they um helped to pitch in and then throughout that we've been able to continue the programming with um donations and other sources of funding. Um, I had a call out
to um the 2025 image of a dog that is made out of Rice Krispie treat and it was the winning entry to that year's Great Rainbow Bake Off um which is a competition um that's loosely maybe copyright infringing or at least
parodying um a certain Netflix show. Um so that was an example of um students telling me baking was great but baking has winners. Um, and that form of student voice is learning that my understanding or maybe our adult understanding of what is um, fun is not
the fun part. And I think competing and bringing people into judge and even having some of the RPSF members judging has been a really great thing. And then the project for this year's grant is again really rooted in mental health and
trying to figure out um ways for students to do art and play games like they like while also um being health consscious. So we are reaching out to different um health care organizations and healthc care providers for just
tidbits of health advice and then we are reaching out to youth for art and their tidbits of health advice and the design kind of went through a couple iterations and the current plan is to make decks of cards. So we'll have in theory 52 people
to submit things. We're not quite there yet but on the screen there's a few examples. I wanted to read them. I can only see one of them, but uh Dr. Lily Glow is a child psychologist in Rochester and RPS crowd and she talked about how um eating and sleeping and
drinking water is really important to her practice as a mental health person. Um Ash said, "Remember to reach out. People love you. Don't forget that." So, kind of a different perspective on what it means to take care of yourself or what um he wanted to share with peers.
And then Youth Health Connect is a um service by the University of Minnesota that's um kind of like a Google Maps enabled thing where you can look up resources and then they've like tagged it uh like crazy for um who it's for,
what are their services, how accessible is it um if you're homeless especially. Um so we're really excited to see what students do with that. And again, I think the theme is I think RPSF really is looking for innovation and like in my
art over the past three years that's looked like following what students do and being able to keep chasing that. So >> So um preparations are already underway for the next grant cycle um for projects that will take place in 26 and 27. Um,
and applications are expected to be distributed in March. We're still seeking new board members as well as people to read and score grant applications. So, if anyone is interested in that, please feel free to pass along our information. Um, and as
always, we're grateful to the the district for its support and cooperation in these innovative proposals and giving staff and teachers an opportunity to try something, even if that sometimes means that we're super successful or we fail forward. Um, for more information about
RPSF, including how to join the board, um, anyone can go to rpsf.org. Any questions you have for Josh? Hopefully Josh and not me tonight, but um, we'll take your questions. >> Director Cook. >> Yeah, I I had one. I I guess uh first
just to clarify the the bakeoff competition not only was a parody but uh uh demonstrated a transform transformative educational purpose that is certainly a fair use under copyright law. But um also hats off to the the
contributions that you've made to um the educational experience in in our schools. And I I just wanted to to highlight one thing um that was mentioned in the in the uh the deck here. Um but the honor of staff member
opportunity really is a wonderful way to demonstrate some appreciation for teachers and for those inclined around holiday time or end of year or whatever to um otherwise provide some kind of recognition to um uh the teachers that they're most familiar with. Uh the honor
a staff member um program allows you to do that without having to wrap anything or pack anything or remember to take anything or any of the other things that are um would otherwise get in the way of that. So it's a really nice way and it's always very much appreciated. So um
anyway, thanks for coming in and um wonderful program that you put together, Josh. Congrats. >> Thank you. So, as um someone who had the honor of being a judge at the Great Rainbow Off for a few years now, um I can say the
the excitement and the creativity and uh just the ability to watch those kids together um working in groups create uh uh presenting and talking about the the inspiration and the motivation behind um
their their baked goods is is the best part. Um, I'm not sure eating each one is the best part because it's it's a lot of cake or baked goods. Um, but it it's a great event every year and I really
appreciate the time I've been able to spend with this group and um I think this is um really an important model for uh getting our community partners involved in in making opportunities for
our students. So, thank you for supporting that work and thank you for the effort in making it happen. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Our next item are board member updates. Does any board member have updates from their committees uh or information to
share? Director Marvin, >> I would like to invite some amazing young people we have from the student school board to come forward, please, and sit at this table. uh student school board as you know has representatives from all of our high schools. Um these are incredible kids who uh work with the
superintendent and with district staff on issues that the school board and the district is uh is dealing with and they have a lot to say and it's always valuable and it's it's one of the best most rewarding things I get to do as a
board member because I learn something every month. Could you introduce yourselves, please? I I know who you are, but they may not. So, >> and they're going to report on the uh last meeting or two that we've had. >> And are the lights on your microphones red or green?
>> Push the button. There you go. >> And we're going to speak up loudly and slowly, right? >> So, December monthly meeting, the students were invited to share our opinions on the district's new strategic plan um which is currently being finalized. And so we worked in small
groups where we gave um some of our feedback to a few of the leaders of the student school board um including like course registration, um if nth graders have should have more flexibility in their schedules, home room and advisory. and we also addressed several topics
that were related to student experience and support. Uh at that meeting we also broke into small groups and had other conversations. Our feedback was used in order to kind of help along the strategic plan uh which had been altered
after that meeting. Mr. Sherman who is working with the district as the leader of the team that's gathering the community input on the strategic plan presented the newer plan to us and we continue to discuss it with the students from Century and JM
on our thoughts and ideas and um Mr. Sherman. Yeah, he brought it back to us with the complete and final plan. >> And then along with this, like at the individual high schools, we've all been working to kind of continue planning outreach efforts uh so that we can have
high school students go in and meet with middle school and elementary school students that are going into nth grade and going into sixth grade. Um because like we recognize as high school students that the transition is like a tough period of time and we'd like to go in and kind of give them advice and information to make the transition a lot
smoother for them. Our plan is to start having other high school students, the Century JM and Mayo students sign up to go speak at the middle schools in their area. So, because we go to Mayo, we would speak at Willow Creek and
potentially Lincoln. And we would speak with these students like as Elizabeth said to kind of help them ease into this big transition in their life, give them advice. We would speak to them in a classroom setting and then maybe break up into smaller groups so the students
can ask more personal questions and not feel like they have to kind of >> like they aren't like intimidated setting. >> Yeah. Um and this is supposed to kind of help foster a sense of belonging and
understanding among these students to their new school and help that transition that the students are facing. Thank you. >> You >> Thank you. >> Any other updates, board members?
Um we um board members attended the uh MSBA legislative conference uh last Thursday and Friday um up in the cities. And I'm wondering if any board members have anything to share from any of your workshops or any insights you gained
from that gathering. >> Dr. C. >> Uh so yeah, I I attended the leadership conference on Thursday, attended a number of sessions on upcoming legislation and on um best practices when incorporating AI. As one can
imagine any conference you go to right now around half of the sessions are going to be about AI in one way or another. Um but actually the thing that I took away that was most impactful for me and I think um offers some um some
wisdom that I that I hope to continue to apply was in the conversation I had with several students who were demonstrating their robots as part of the first robotics competition um program. There were several teams uh
there that were demonstrating the robots and I had conversations with several of the students there. One of them I asked if they could define for me this concept that comes from uh the first robotics competition of cooperition.
It's sort of a um a port manto of competition and cooperation. And um I've asked a number of students in a number of settings if they could define this term for me. And I think I
got the best definition that that um to me offers some insights that have broad application in our world, which is to compete as hard as one can while preserving the reputation necessary to
compete in the future. And in the world of business and I would say in the world of geopolitics um that is exactly the right analysis to apply um and uh just a a wonderful
insightful way to encapsulate um that concept. So something that I will certainly not soon forget. >> Director Rick Lockford >> um I also attended several of those AI um presentations and a lot to think
about. Some of them were focused on how different districts are incorporating AI into their curriculums and their teaching, which was really exciting to see and see the possibility of replicating or adding on to some of that here in Rochester. The other one that I
attended that I thought was actually really helpful to the work of the board is it actually talked about how AI can be used in our board preparation and our learning about the various topics on our agendas. and I'm excited to find some time to try to use some of those tools.
>> Dr. White, >> it's gonna sound crazy by saying I also attended some AI things. I did um but I was also interested and attended um some seminars around um vocational learning um and the
reemergence of it and uh horiculture and um auto mechanics and different things. Um it was it was a lot of information. I will say that there some districts have come up with some pretty innovative ways
and some pretty innovative grants that I hope to be able to share at some point of where they found funding um outside and specifically um to have some of these vocational programs. Um so I think that was very interesting. Um also uh was speaking to
some districts of similar size. Those were some good conversations as to how they're implementing different things even as far as their cell phone plan. Um, and to know that we're kind of right on task with some districts our size. But it was a very good conference, a lot
of information. Um, and again, a lot of things around AI. Uh, and my piece of AI that interests me was in learning how to find good AI. Um, because it's not something that's going to leave us, but how to um, incorporate it. responsibly
um and things that we should be looking for when we're looking at AI programs and looking to implement them into the school. Something I probably hadn't put a whole lot of thought into, but now I'm thinking about as you're thinking about as we use those tools.
>> Director, I also went to an AI um workshop. I think it might have been the same one that director McWlin went to, but there were a number of things that were really stressed. One was concerning the use of data privacy and how you do
not feed it into AI which put everybody in a kind of a moment. Um but then they talked he talked about two other things. Notebook ln uses only the information that you put into it and you can get an
audio overview of what you do. it can turn into a podcast and the board meeting minutes can be extracted from the recording. So, I thought that was all really interesting. Um, that a AI
doesn't do the work for you. You still have to think um some suggestions on using prompts. It was all very informative and um I think we'll be talking about AI a lot. Well, I'm going to intentionally disrupt
the algorithm of AI. I did not attend the leadership conference. I do however have um something I'd like to share. Uh, I have a grandson who is neurode divergent and if he weren't, I probably would not be
able to share what I'm about to in terms of having attended uh, and observe the Rochester Raiders um, adaptive high school sport team. Uh, they're in their field hockey or floor hockey season now.
And um to see all the parents and uh siblings there and it just caused me to realize that you don't know what you don't know but if you don't put forth the effort to discover what you don't know then you remain in that realm of uh not knowing. Uh so I I share this to
encourage um not just my fellow board members but uh members of the community to uh look beyond the interest of the self-interest of how your son or daughter might be doing in school and
and maybe look at the full array of the program offerings that RPS provides. uh I left thinking, "Wow, we're even a greater more of a greater district than I had uh uh than what my experience
has been." And and so I wanted to put that into play and just encouraging others to uh uh be intentional in uh visiting things that you maybe you don't have a child, grandchild to uh even
consider. Uh the second thing is um uh participated in a skip visit to Churchill Elementary and uh I'm so thankful for the opportunities that uh we have to at least uh once to twice a month go to
different uh schools uh and and to see uh what things are working. uh to see how uh many of our schools are uh pushing, if you will, challenging our
students to go beyond really the educational um constructs that existed when perhaps we were in school. I'm I'm thinking specifically now of the wedding and wisdom uh fourth grade uh concept development.
Uh I I was just blown away to see how they were able to engage in the transfer of concepts to develop alternative themes. And I'm thinking, wow, this is fourth grade and many of us um as adults are still trying to do that. But we're
as a district uh introducing our children to these things now. And yes, we are truly challenging them uh to strive and we're supporting them uh to thrive. And I look forward to what the future will be because we're separate
from the AI consideration, we are well on our way uh to u creating the future that our children are deserving of and uh irrespective of the future of AI, I believe our children will be ready to
face those challenges head on. Just wanted to uh principal Emily Pearson and her team, they're doing a great job there as I believe most of our schools are and we look forward to the ones we'll be visiting this coming month.
>> Dr. Marvin, >> two things quickly. Um a number of us were able to attend the state of the uh city u meeting hosted by uh uh Mayor Norton. Um, Chair Nathan did a wonderful job of summarizing some of the
highlights of this year's uh events and and goals in Rochester public schools. Um, and uh, Mayor Norton has once again decided that this coming year is going to be the year of youth. So, it was it was wonderful listening to school
district as well as community leaders uh city uh county and other big organizations talk about what they did and how together we can all support our kids. And then at that MSBA conference,
I went to one um session on AI and it was provided by a law firm in the Twin Cities that specialized in school law. And they made it very clear that AI is being developed much more quickly than it can be regulated, that it can be used
for good or evil. Uh they were talking specifically about how it's used in school. They were adamant that AI will never replace good teachers. But then, as you've heard before, they were also adamant that we need to tell our children, do not provide personal
information when you're online because now there are so many different ways that kids can interact with these fictitious whatever they are. Um because it's not confidential. Even though they say it is, it's not. uh they said when when
kids are doing research verify because it's very easy to for anybody to input uh false information into AI and for kids to take it that it is um true. Um, and then we were also told up
there that MSBA is going to be coming out with a model policy on February 2nd, which will be interesting for us to look at in terms of how do we deal with this thing that is here. It has tremendous power, but again, for good or evil. And
beyond everything else, we need to teach our kids how to use it responsibly and um because it's going to be part of their future as well. So, one more PE. Oh, sorry, Director Whitman. Go ahead. >> Um, so and also some of the board
members. We attended the MLK event on yesterday. Um, great event as as it usually is that's put on by the NAACP. Um, I think it touched on a lot of current topics that we're having here in Rochester. We got to hear some testimonials from
some people who have been impacted by uh some of the events with ICE and and how that has directly impacted their community and family. Um which always brings a personal uh I mean if it's not if it's not already concerning it it it
makes it a little more concerning. Um I I would say that my my only downfall was I would have liked to see more youth um at involved in the program and I've seen over the years we've had a little bit of a decline in in the um youth participation in the in the MLK events.
um being negative 25 does not particularly help uh parents bring their children outdoors but um I I would like to see how we can be u more robust in um getting children back um and involved.
Um I think I think it was a great event overall. Uh we had a good panel um on the second half. Um I myself did bring up you know the importance of history and people understanding their history so we're not doomed to repeat it. Um, and how do we do that in a in a in a
culturally cultural culturally mindful manner? Um, because there are things that uh could be beneficial to our children understanding um especially in this age of misinformation. Um, but I think we had good conversation and good panel
to be a part of it. >> So, one last piece of business from the MSBA legislative conference. Um MSBA takes the opportunity of the conference to recognize board members who have accomplished certain levels of professional development and this year Justin Cook um is a recipient of the
leadership development certificate um because he has completed the phase one, phase two, phase three and phase four workshops. So on behalf of MSBA, we have this lovely certificate. Pass it down to director Cook and thank you for your commitment to development.
And I know it's sometimes a struggle to get those workshops done, but um I know we've all found it beneficial and we're glad to have you in the club. >> Well, I I I only did it for the certificate. >> Now you have. Now you have wonder what
that's going to look like in posting. Our next agenda items are our consent agenda uh 5.1 through 510. Uh would any board member like any item removed from the consent agenda for separate consideration? >> Move approval. >> Second. >> It has been moved and seconded to
approve the consent agenda. All those in favor say I. >> I. Opposed. The consent agenda has been approved. >> Our next uh agenda item is a quick monitoring item on the schoolboard committee assignments. Uh the schoolboard committee assignments for
the 202526 school year are unchanged and are included in the background information as are the committee assignments related to the officers who are elected at the January 6th meeting. For the policy committee, uh vice chair Workman is an automatic member and we had three additional board members
interested in serving. Gene Marvin, Justin Cook, and Kathy Nathan. Um so what we'll do in order to uh make sure that all of these board members experience and expertise and interests can be um contributing to our policy development um we'll rotate um the
membership of the policy committee meeting so that only three members are in attendance at each meeting each month and um that way we can all participate and benefit from their voice and their insights. Our next agenda item is a prep for
action item, the student information system adoption. We're scheduled to take action at the February 3rd meeting. Superintendent Pickup. >> Thank you, Chair Nathan. I'd like to invite uh I believe Mike Johnson, Simon Williams, Peter Ruck are going to be joining us for uh this presentation. I'll let you all um come on up here and
join uh the places at the table. Um board members, we talk often um and I think on the whole we strike the right balance between you as board members setting the governance agenda for the district. Um whether it involves policy or the strategic plan or approving the
budget and then charging uh me and our principles and our staff with advancing that policy. And there are some purists who suggest that board members, schoolboard members really should never get much below that. In fact, some of
you may have seen in in recent um uh American Association Administrators uh uh magazine, the main column suggested schoolboard members shouldn't even approve the strategic plan. You should just set the goals. I think that would be absurd because the
policy is in the details. But we don't want this board focused on just process for process's sake. um you need to be focused on the drivers of strategic change. Um so you're not just setting high expectations for reading, you're
understanding to the point that Dr. Barlo was just making the substance of wit and wisdom and actually what we're seeing in the curriculum and you're not just um talking about our graduation strategy. You know what we're doing with nth grade on track to try and so you got
to focus on those main drivers of strategic change. The issue that is before you now, which might seem way down in the weeds, is in fact a gigantic driver of strategic change. As uh the team is going to
describe for you, a student information system is the data and electronic connective tissue of a modern school district. And a ton of work has gone into the recommendation that I am making that um you're going to hear about uh
tonight. And should you approve this recommendation at your next meeting, a ton of work will go into planning for implementation. I will tell you even if and we are committed to make the conversion of this student information system seamless and
high quality. You're going to hear about this. This touches every aspect of teaching and learning. You're going to hear about it from teachers. You're going to hear about it from students. You're going to hear about it from parents. I've lived through the conversion of one student information system to another. um as a educator in
St. Paul public schools and I can just tell you uh this is going to be a big deal. It's not uh imminent because uh we are in the midst of converting our finance system right now and so we are asking for your approval so we can begin a prudent on-ramp to launching a new
student information system. So, let me just give you one final example of the complete quantum leap that I believe we are on the cusp of with this technology system in RPS. Last week, as concerns about immigration and customs
enforcement actions were raising interest and questions about the effect on absenteeism rates, a reporter here in Rochester contacted me and said, "Have you seen a decline in absenteeism rates today compared to yesterday?" Because,
as we all know, this circumstance is moving very, very quickly. So, I immediately contacted our uh attendance team uh and our the team that runs our current student information system called Skyward said, "Well, can we quickly put together uh some data
that shows whether our district-wide attendance rate has declined uh one day over another?" And in 2026, in a very technology school technology-driven school district, the short answer was no. because essentially every school is
a separate database in our current system. And so the response I got was I can tell you what happened at Sunset Terrace or at Bamber Valley or at Riverside, but it's going to take time to do the analysis to aggregate that data to be able to give you a number for
the district as a whole. This new system will be able to do that and much more. But that's an example of the kind of very frankly rudimentary analysis that our current student information system doesn't enable us to do. So, um it's so old that the vendor is not going to
support it uh more than a couple of years. So, board members, you must make some decision whether you choose to approve this one or not. Um, but I hope that gives you a glimpse of how something that was as present in all of our minds as student attendance amidst ICE enforcement actions last week is
tied to this kind of a decision that uh is going to be before you uh for a vote at your next meeting. So, let me turn it over to you if you could just uh each introduce yourselves and then uh we will dive way down into these weeds. >> Thank you so much. Thank you for that tea and uh all that information. That's
absolutely correct. I'm Mike Johnson, the director of technology. >> And I'm Simon Williams. I'm the Skyward support lead. >> And I'm Peter Ruck, director of research and evidence. >> So here we're here to brief you on um the SIS modernization uh initiative that
we had started last uh spring. Um I think what what he what uh superintendent mentioned that it's important that we make a decision now. Uh Skyward is wanting all of Minnesota districts off of this platform at the beginning of the 2028 school year.
They're making a very concerted effort to do that. So, uh now's the time to really get that ball rolling and I think uh with what we have done here, we we have a we have a pretty good opportunity to make some great strides in uh modernization.
So, the main question here is what is an SIS? And an SIS is a student information system. It is the platform um that everyone uses every day. Um in short, it's a central data repository for all student records. Um allows for
administrative streamlining um for high volume tasks. It allows for academic management like grade books and transcripts uh for communication between teachers and students, students and families and uh interdep department uh communication.
Why is all this important? Um it optimizes efficiency. It's one spot where we can get all this information together. People know where to go. Um it ensures accuracy for reporting and compliance. We have uh several reports that we have to do for
the state and federal ensures that compliance. It's capable of giving us targeted supports and early warnings for based upon that data and what we're seeing in trends informing uh our leadership on
those trends. Um, and it helps make us helps to facilitate datadriven decision- making. I think that's important that we have data behind what we do and uh we're we're correctly acting on those things. So, it is a single source of truth. So,
this is where we go for all information pertaining to student records and student information. Um, as I stated before, it's also helps us uh do mandated uh reporting and helps us plan.
So, when we're meeting with uh various stakeholders uh throughout the districts prior to our RFP process, um we asked them a bunch of questions. Um one of those things was what what is the what do you feel is the the issues with our current SIS Skyward 2.0?
Um there are some things that really bubble to the top. One of the biggest thing was that people felt that the interface was clunky and and out of date. It felt like it's not of this decade that it's it's very old. Um the century >> Yeah, you're right. Century.
>> Yep. >> Um reporting was not intuitive. It's it was really hard to get information that was relevant or necessary. Um, when doing integrations with this system and into other systems which we need to gather information, there's a lot of
manual time and effort and workarounds to to get those integrations made. For specific areas like grade books, it didn't allow for flexibility in the way that our instructors wanted to um grade our students and assess our students. And the accessing the information was
all over the place. and and even if you knew the system, sometimes it was really tough to get that relevant information in a timely manner if you didn't know the recesses of the of the system, where to look or how to get it. So those things really bubble to the top.
So what are the fe features uh that we're gaining? What are the benefits of synergy that uh we're seeing? Um first of all, it's it's a modern system that's of this century. I think that's uh it it's really uh shouldn't be understated um
how many things how many key features that we are not able to leverage and should be able to leverage. One of those you know big things is the interface and usability. Um it's a cleaner interface. There's uh visual
indicators everywhere. Um, there's a searchable and and sortable fields. You can move the fields around. Basically, getting to that information is not um just throwing something at the dart board and hoping you're hitting the
right spot. It's this is there's ways to find it. And if you don't know, there is a search feature that's global that you just type it in and it'll find it. Um, again, customizable views. Um, this presents intervation information that's
job or task specific for your job or or what you're doing. And this could be customized to your jobs function or a group of people and we can make that and push that out to other users. Um, widgets are available and you can we
users can create their widgets or share widgets uh based upon what sort of data they want to see at a glance. And this can be dragged and dropped, moved around, resized. It's it's very responsive uh user interface. So you can move your graphs around, your charts
around, information at your fingertips. I think that's one of the the key differentiators here. When we were talking with our stakeholders, especially our registars, one of the the big things that they were concerned about is um creating schedules. This is something that they
currently do using boards and post-it notes that takes literally weeks. Um, not as an exaggeration. They they sit in a room, they move around pieces of to make scheduling work. Um, with this system, there's a there's several tools
for scheduling. Analyzer, a builder, loader, resolver. So, you can you can build in certain criteria. Uh, you can run that um, and it'll it'll send out a schedule.
This master schedule builder will also create multiple sets of options. And one of the one of the fun things that uh the registars's noticed is that you can run this mid year. There's a there's a method to run this against the next year's projections or this year. Um drop
in scheduling al is also a reality. I know this is a big task for what they're doing now. Um, this was a a we received a lot of really good feedback on this one. Really positive. Um, another option here is multiple
grade books. Traditional grading is your your abs and C's and standards based grading is uh grading based on on uh subjects learned. So there's a there's a difference between traditional
grade books and standards based grading. Currently with our system, this cannot be done effectively. There's some workarounds, but it's it's not super great in the way it functions. With Synergy, this is built in. You can use either traditional grading or
standardsbased grading or combination thereof. You're not locked into one way or another. From my perspective, what I'm really excited about is the integrations with other systems already built in. So as you can see direct integrations with
Google for education right there. Um one roster big one for me uh in our team that is connecting our rostering system which is our students as well as our staff as well as our um as classes and
everything that encompasses a teaching environment. So we can interface with other thirdparty systems have that tie in directly without having to do those manual manipulations that we were talking about earlier. Um it is ADF 5 certified and there's
already 400 plus classroom tools built in. These are the partners that they directly integrate with that are our actual partners now. Google Classroom, Edi, Zello, Instructure, and uh EdTE
uh reporting data mining. Um the current system as stated was that it's very difficult to find reports, get get data out of the system. We know the data is in there, but it's not real easy to get that data out of the system. One
of the key features here is that There is a report builder um that will also let you output this data into multiple formats that you can directly access and use. Our current system only exports as a PDF. So if you
worked with a PDF before and try to get that back into an Excel spreadsheet to do some data manipulation, you know what it how cumbersome that might be. Um this allows us to export in different file formats easily.
Um great thing here data querying tool. So that's visual base where we can build tools create exports we can share them amongst users if if we need or we can create them from our team and share those out to departments or departments can create those and share that for
other purposes. Great value there. This is a direct quote. We saw that synergy can push directwide assignments to specific grade levels or subjects. this capability is a potential game changer for us in our curricular analysis. I thought that was a pretty powerful
statement. And with that, I'm gonna hand it off to Dr. Peter Rucker. >> Thank you. So, just a couple of informal comments. I mean, obviously my end tends to be more on utilizing the data. But folks in my line of work think about three different cycles. We think about how data are input, how they're
maintained, and then how they're extracted. And those three items tend to drive almost all of the time that is spent on data analysis. A if you get a table or an analysis from me, 85% of the time is getting the data out of the system and cleaning it so you can
actually do something with it. Um, if you were to ask me now to uh produce an attendance trend, simple trend, three years, just three years, I would have to open 81 digital file cabinets because each school has its own file cabinets,
so to speak, for each year. So to create just that, I got to do 81 different file cabinets and look for the information, then try to link it and make sure they don't overlap. That's because of how Skyward's designed. The new system is designed where the students the and all of the data follows the student. And so
it dramatically decreases the complexity, the opportunities for translation, errors between different data fields, all sorts of different things that modern databases have been capable of doing for some time over just uh the version we're on hasn't. It's
also that really key opportunity and I know we've had this conversation too about that first cycle, the data inputting. As we're transitioning to a new SAS, it's a fantastic time to revisit your standard operating procedures for who inputs what, when,
and how, so to speak. Um, because if it's bad data in, it's bad data out, but someone like me three years later who was never in the school when it was input has no way of knowing, right? So context really matters on on each of those cycles and how they fit together. Synergy is going to be a huge
improvement for us in that respect. There is no doubt. And when that attendance question comes up again, it will be within a dashboard that's right inside a synergy with a district-wide attendance graph over time. And so the question will go from four days of trying to piece together information to
well, Mr. uh superintendent, please just log in and click here and you will see. >> I'm not going to do it. >> I'm very aware you'll tell me to. >> So what is the cost value proposition here? Um, looking at the five-year cost
of implementation, we're looking at 1.2 million. Um, that's a cost of approximately 242,000 per year. When considering the again stating that we are we need to move away from this system um if we were to move to
cumulative which is our current it's Skyward's newest product uh that replaces Skyward 2.0. uh that was uh 1.1 million. So over five years that differential is about $22,000 a year without all the benefits
that we would see with the analytics piece that's built into this costing. So the implementation timeline I think this is important to note that this is a an example of a 12 month runway. I think uh a good implementation timeline is
more like 12 to 18 months and that has a lot to do with um letting people know what's going on that messaging getting things prepared uh making sure our data is correct even before we start the process with implementing the uh actual
SIS system. And I think the biggest piece here is training with our staff having them aware of what's going on and how to use the system. Um, this is built into the synergy implementation timeline. There's 48 days outlined here for staff
training. That's before, during, and after. I do think this is going to be ongoing because any new system takes training and and uh we're not we're only as successful as as well as we know how to
use the systems. So I think that's key. Um based upon everything that the stakeholders gave us back are using the system and and uh sandboxing it. It is our recommendation that uh Edgupoint Synergy replace our current SIS 2.0
system here at Rochester Public Schools. >> Director Cook, >> thank you for the presentation, the recommendation. Um I have uh uh two questions for for this group here. Um and the first one is grounded in my experience as a parent because as a
parent I interact with Skyward um certainly multiple times a week, probably a dozen times a week or something like that. Um and it's anything from interacting with the attendance system to checking grade books and then inevitably that leads to questions about oh that was that was
graded but it was in Google Classroom. It's not in Skyward yet. It's it's obvious that these things don't talk to each other, right? Um so my first question is what type of feedback um or information you've been able to gather um from the parent perspective of the
how this new platform would affect their um you know engagement. And then the other question is uh kind of reflecting back on the experience of this district in particular and many others across the country um with cyber
security events. I would expect that among other things going from an on-prem inst instantiation to a cloud-based um server is going to increase our um expectation of cyber security. But if you could just tell me a little bit about what type of analysis was done to
assess that and what information you can share um in terms of your expectation of cyber security with this new platform. There's two pieces of information. >> First piece of information um we did survey our our staff here who are also parents um on very specific things. uh
with all the products we did note that there is a much much better interaction with with with the parent app that's also on phones across the board. So modernize
um parental apps. Um, one of the the biggest things that I've noticed as a parent is when assignment is um sent into Google for example and where is reflected in the SIS is there's often a lead time and that often has to do with how you know when when the teacher does
certain things um there's a there's a direct sync within Synergy at a moment where you press it, it'll sync right away. There's no manual input that we have to do. Um and it also does that at an interval. So I think that will really
create or increase u parent engagement on that part. It would for me. So I could see that instantly. Um I'd like to I'd like to add also for the parents of prospective parents currently
with Skyward SMS 2.0 our like new student online like um enrollment. it isn't functional. But with Synergy, what they propose, they do have a system that is able to be accessed mobiley, which I think removes a big barrier for a lot of
our families in the district to be able to apply and hopefully enroll with the district. So, I just wanted to add that piece as well. >> Yeah. No, that is important. >> Um, for your second the second part of your question, uh, we are looking at a hosted service that's not compliant. Um
that's something that we ask all our vendors you know what is how are you storing that data? How are you keeping it safe? What is what are you doing for backups etc. Um I do have to say that synergy came in much higher than a couple other ones. So pretty much at the
top of the list there I hope that answers your question. >> Yeah we can I can give you specifics on exactly what the uh what the compliance is. No, I'm I'm I'm happy to know it was evaluated and it ranked at the top of the of the options
available. That's helpful context. And thank you. >> I'd like to build on Director Cook's question about the parents and guardians. Um my work with uh various parent organizations. I know the frustration of Skyward. We've heard it over and over again. And one of the
concerns was the training uh training modules available to parents for Skyward were we we they had to create them or they were difficult. >> Um, so can you talk a little bit about is there anything that's automatically offered um with synergy or what what the
plan is for really training parents on this >> with synergy? There are some pre-anned things available, but I would really like to work with communications on creating something that's custom for us. Um, there are several templates that we can leverage for that.
I do think that if we base it here at RPS instead of something generic, it would probably impact a little bit better. >> Dr. Marvin, >> a comment and then two questions. I guess that's what we're doing is two questions. Um, first of all, I know this
is going to be a major change and the only one who likes change is a wet baby. Um, but it's it's it sounds like Skyward is on its way out anyway. So we have to do something. And so my first question is how many different systems did you
look at? >> There were I believe five that submitted RFP responses. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Thank you. And then under the train the trainers training which really is
tricky. Um 48 days who are the trainers going to be because this it sounds like exactly the right system for so many reasons. But Who are the trainers going to be that I'm assuming they'll be training the rest of the staff? >> We would have to identify those internally, but there is also trainers
by Synergy sent to train us to train the trainers. >> Okay. But will they be people at every every site? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Yes, >> director. supposed to have two. >> Uh so my first comment is I'm well
comments last question. Um interested in what you said about it follows the student. Um I'm just interested in that because I'm I assume that's what the other system did, but apparently not. Right. So um and I'd like maybe you to elaborate on that. And then my second
question would be because of we have we've been talking um and we keep having to back to this uh the complexity of multilanguage learners. Um so I guess my question with this being cloudbased is that a component that's already here uh because we've had to make so many
changes and re look at systems because that is a barrier uh for parents that speak other languages. So we have this great system but they can't use it. So is that uh was it being cloud-based and a little bit more up toate is that is
that into the system we have to >> I think I'll address that one first. Um with synergy there are built-in language translations. Do I think that any system has enough language translations built in to accommodate? I don't think so to the
degree that we would need it which is uh I think why we are using talking points. But I do have to say I know the system will integrate with talking points far better than our current system does. So with that, there will be um a better
connection there. Um and I I think I'm going to get too technical, so I'm going to hand this one off to >> the ML question is well taken though. I it was something that um we asked deliberately during the demonstrations as well is like are your translations based on just using translate? Have you
done any validation of things that are translated to make sure it makes sense? Each vendor spoke to that. um synergy did as well. Uh so it's a little bit of jargony about how databases are structured, but basically a a database in that you acquire today
like synergy, the students at the core. They're at the top and every other record that's stored about them are in all these different places, but in the end they're all tied back up to that student ID number, right? So attendance might be over here, grades might be over here, but it all comes back up to the
student. With our existing system, there's a file cabinet for each school and then within that school there's a file cabinet or a file for attendance. Right? So instead of pulling open the drawer and finding a student ID number, instead I got to find the school, pull open a drawer, pull out the attendance
folder and look for that student. The other way of doing that is I look for the student and then right there is all of their information. Now for a lot of our end users, they're not seeing that complexity because Skyward 2.0 you know, kind of has a fake like built on fake entity that sort of takes care of it,
but not really. Um, and so moving from that system to the new one, um, massively simplifies and reduces the chances of data. Does that answer your question? >> And if I can add to that, um, just as a
parent user, uh, some a complexity that we often have is, uh, if you have children with the same name. This might sound crazy, >> but I have my husband and my son have the same name and I have grandkids >> and for some reason one of the thing and
I it happens in a lot of systems and I know this is probably very specific but it automatically links us all together even though we you know we use this junior senior third um which create has which unbeknownst to us uh for some time
created some issues. So that's why I was asking about the the student days versus system because um there were some there's some to this day uh like I said I have a grandkid and I I'll get a call like I don't I didn't know he was he don't live here but because of the the
name linkage it automatically >> one school's file cabinet it's still linked that way from an old year but in this year's file cabinet it's not so it gets confused yeah >> uh thank you for your presentation you have me sold at widgets
I can't tell you uh separate from that how many u conversations I've heard my daughter and one of my grandsons engage in uh my daughter checks um skyward uh
to make sure he's on track and he he will say I am I've done I turn it in this and that because it's all tied to his device time and uh but uh I I'm going to go home tonight and tell my daughter, guess what? There's a solution
on the way. I'm looking forward to being able to vote on this. You have my full support looking forward to what it's going to the difference it will make in the district and uh in my household. >> Yes, Dr. Mar, >> just one one quick comment. Dr. Rock, I
cannot tell you how much I appreciate you using the analogy to file cabinets >> because I get that. I mean, I almost went with punch cards, but I stayed back from that one. >> That's a step too far, buddy. So, yeah, I know.
>> You're doing so well. >> I would have said primary key identifier. So, >> there you go. There you go. >> I would just uh maybe Simon, since you're one of the people who really makes the um current system work, um and thank you for that. What are you
personally most um I guess excited is But what are you personally looking forward to the most about the transition system? >> I have two things so I can be on the line of having two things. Um the first would be the reporting. Um it's going to
be a lot more robust and give us a lot more tools within our current system to do reporting instead of having to use outside tools, outside manipulations that aren't within the system, which does a lot for like data privacy. when you're sharing more data elsewhere, you
just have more chances at it being taken advantage of. So, if we can keep it all in one central housing, it keeps it a lot more safe. So, that's one. The other one is going to be more IT nerdy, which is the security that we can set up for our staff so they're able to have access
to what they need, but not given too much access. Because the current problem with SMS 2.0 I know is we end up giving too many staff too much access because we really don't have any other way for them to have, you know, certain access for certain groups that we have at our
sites. So, the more we can do to limit that and to kind of scope it according to people's jobs properly, um I think will be for the better and um will also in the end help protect our students and
our students data. That also actually ties into our other systems too, right? Like some of our tie-in systems, they take those credentials right from Skyward. So, as we clean those up, everything else improves at the same time. >> And I just want to add from a community
perspective and having uh been a part of other implementations of new systems, whether it's through the county or different things. Um something we may want to consider as well with the implementation is some kind of um advocate group, right? Because you're
gonna, you know, no matter how new and fancy and fresh and widgety our new um system is, you know, it's it's not as easy as it looks, right? Because it's a new system. Um there is going to be also a learning curve um for the community.
And I have seen programs that have pre-implemented these um kind of community advocate um groups, right, where they kind of have people that they've trained very very well on how parents need to use it. It also helps with some of that constant
call, right? Because you're going to have this space where people don't know what's going on or they think they know how to use it or they click this and the whole thing blew up. But it I've noticed that um in the implementation of these bigger changes of systems, sometimes it's nice
to have a group of individuals that um work with the community to help make sure that parents understand um even just how to download an app. You know, I can't tell you how many times you have to explain you got to got to take some of them pictures off, some of them videos. Come on. It's not the system.
Your system is full. But again, but it, you know, those type of conversations take up a lot of time from our staff that are trying to, you know, also use a new system. So, I noticed that wasn't a part of the training roll out, but I do think that is something um to consider
making a smoother transition into the community. >> And can I ask a question about the the budget? So, you've got a fiveyear um five years cost plus the onetime fee.
Are there any ongoing costs after that five years? >> That should be the the cost including hosting. >> So we don't have to pay a license every year. >> And will we say I I think I read in the memo or somewhere else where you you talked about how we've had to integrate with external systems. Will we be saving
any money because we won't need to use some of those others? >> There's potential there to to have significant savings if we um leverage what's already built into synergy in lie of uh other things. Uh there's there's potential to save lots of dollars.
>> I'm sorry. One more. So does that include updates? Because we also know in this time of technology that you buy something new, funky, and fresh, and in six years, it's no good anyway. So this Well, I mean, it's the truth. Stuff is not designed for a lifetime anymore. It's designed for a set amount of time.
Is that a question that we have asked, or is this something where it's going to be we'll need a new system again? five years. >> I just wanted to add that um for their updates, they did outline that they're on a two week update cycle. So when things are being updated, it's on that
two week cadence. I mean obviously if bigger issues do pop up they'll you know prioritize them but um the fact that we're moving to a more true SQL SQLbased system it's kind of the database that Peter was alluding to there shouldn't be
a need within you know 10 15 years because SQL kind of is the standard there shouldn't be a need to have to come back and um have to switch it so that's the hope >> and among the vendors the twoe sprint was the best if I remember correctly. I
think the next one was six weeks. So like two weeks is definitely a good good timeline. >> Well, I I just want to thank Director Ward and I think you have come up with our slogan for the SIS conversion effort with new funky and fresh.
>> So I see t-shirts, you know. >> So this is great and I want to thank the board for being willing to uh dig this uh deep. I do feel a certain responsibility to say that there is one person in RPS who likes the current
version of Skyward that I and I feel out there if he's listening or Steve Aken assistant assistant principal who has been one of those people first at John Marshall then at Century moving the pieces around. He is the mad genius of synergy and he
knows it. Not synergy of Skyward scheduling so well. And so Steve, I feel your pain, but you're going to love the new funky and fresh system eventually. And I think on this last slide that's up on the screen, um, to thank your team
for pulling together this impressive list of stakeholders that are representative of a number of different um, functions, a number of different roles, number of different buildings, and to thank those stakeholders for all the time that they put in because I know that there was a lot of conversations,
but then there was also a lot of hands-on having to work with it and and mess with it and um the fact that we had so many voices involved I think uh speaks to the the um the solid recommendation that you brought us. So thanks to them and thanks
to you. >> Big thanks to our stakeholders who gives a lot of time and effort. >> All right, we'll bring this back as an action item at the next meeting. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Our next prep for action item is our policy committee recommendations from
the December 18th meeting. This is the second of two prep for action briefings before the policies will be on the consent agenda at the February 3rd meeting. The briefing document is in the agenda item on assembly. Has anybody have any additional uh questions or comments?
>> Director Cook did have one comment on the new procedure 524A. Uh it this is the procedure that uh lays out the um procedure for use of cell phones um in our schools. And this is
the way we've been operating for some time now. But I do think it is appropriate and the time is right to make this part of the policy so that it is visible to anybody that wants to see exactly not only what the policies are at each school and at each level of
school, but also the um specific consequences for not following that procedure. Um I just think it's in the interest of the community that um this is um included in the the board's policies available on assembly. So that's all.
>> Great. >> All right. Then we'll move on to our action items. The first action item is the approval of the fiscal year 2027 budget reduction target revision. Um this was first discussed as a prep for action item on January 6th and I will
read the resolution. Be it resolved that the school board of independent school district 535 hereby adopts the revised revenue and expense projections of 310.8 million and 321.1 million respectively and budget
reduction target as presented to maintain a balanced budget. And be it further resolved that the school board of independent school district 535 does hereby approve the use of an additional 2 mill 2.0 0 million of unassigned general fund balance generated in the
2025 fiscal year for the fiscal year 2027 budget. >> Move approval. Second >> has been moved and seconded. Board members, any questions, discussions, or other comments? Hearing none. All in favor of the
resolution say I. >> I. Opposed. >> The resolution has been approved. The next action item is our schoolboard handbook, which we also discussed in prep for action at the January 6th meeting. Be it resolved that the school
board of ISD 535 approve the schoolboard handbook for 2026 and schedule an annual review of the handbook for December 2026 for approval at the first meeting in January 2027. >> Approve. >> Second. It has been moved and seconded.
Any uh questions or comments, board members? Hearing none. All those in favor of the resolution say I. >> I. Opposed. The resolution has been approved. On our other business, we have a current version of the ABCD available in the
agenda item um and the upcoming agenda items for the February 3rd meeting. Um, our focus topic is um, sorry, our monitoring item, our superintendent goals for 202526 midyear progress check. Our prep for
action item is related to our 2026 primary election. And our action item is a student information systems adoption. And then for February 17th, we have a project momentum update, our Dakota Middle School innovation update, and our
APAC uh we'll get a report on the APAC vote on our uh annual concurrence um letter, and then our prep for action item is the RPS improvement targets proposal. Any items board members would like to raise for consideration for a
future meeting agenda? Hearing none. Our upcoming meetings as February 3rd. Please note the earlier time from 4 to 6 PM to um accommodate precinct caucuses. February 17th, March 3rd, and March 17th are all regular
meetings that begin at 5:30 p.m. And hearing no additional business, this meeting is adjourned at 6:58 p.m. I can show and