District YouTube channel on the district website the meeting is now called to order it is February 19th 2025 and the time is 6:32 p.m. our mission is to provide a safe and caring climate and culture in which we engage Inspire
educate prepare and Empower all Learners in partnership with their surrounding Community to be successful in today's and tomorrow's Society um Heather's not here so Zach can you
please lead us in the pledge allegiance pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all thanks for stepping in and doing
that and then can you call roll okay Scott andreon here Natalie Copeland here Zack Doral is here Diana Fenton here Shannon hods here and the following board members are not present which would just include Heather
Williams and the following cabinet members and staff are present at the District administration office superintendent Dr Lorie putam assistant superintendent of secondary education Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of E12 Educational Services Shannon avenson executive director of Community
Education Adam Holm EX executive director of finance and business services Amy scal executive director of operations Joel heid Camp executive director of research enrollment and assessments Don roer executive director of Special Projects Gary gangji media technicians Paul Novak and Gordy Scott
and the custodian on site is Austin goodwater I think I got everybody who's present okay thank you uh then I'm looking for a motion to approve tonight's Board of Education
meeting agenda so move I have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Zack can you call vote on that Shannon hods yes Dan Fenton yes Zack Doral yes Natalie Copeland yes Scott andreon yes thank you
then we have the consent agenda the consent agenda consists of non-controversial items the board adopts routinely without debate any single member May remove an item from the consent agenda by requesting removal at the time the consent agenda is move for adoption uh up on the consent agenda
item a approval of minutes from January 6 2025 January 8 2025 and January 22nd 2025 Item B approval of bills and other Financial transactions oh now I'm in trouble in the grand total amount
of oh I got it on this one 21986 18555 item C approval of personnel staff changes item D acceptance and Grant Awards and donations item e bid award uh
nor junor high ltfm improvements item F bid award self Junior High ltmf improvements item G propose revised board policy 522 Title 9 sex non-discrimination policy and grievance
procedure change in law I have um one we have item D being um pull for by Natalie she's going to recuse herself and then Scott am I polling E and F okay can I get a motion
to approve item A B C and G second I have a motion by Natalie a second by Scott um Zach can you call vote for those items Scott andreon yes
Natalie Copeland yes Z orol CS Diana fent yes Shannon H yes and then um can I get a Natalie's for item D Natalie's going to recuse herself can I get a motion to approve item D so move and
thank you um motion by Scott and a second by Diana and so Zack can you call vote on that one canot Diana Fenton yes Zach toal yes Natalie Copeland oh sorry Scott it
grayon shennon H yes okay and then let's uh last two items e and f um Scott you pulled those questions uh yes so we didn't have a finance meeting so I'd like to know what uh these are about um yep so this is our
summer ltfm projects at North and South um so the majority of it is converting um existing restrooms to single user restrooms um replacing the movable wall in the gym um pel board replacement and window replacement um which is only at North the rest um of those are at both
so all of the items are um aligned with that uh ltfm plan that the board would have approved last July thank you thank you Amy uh can I then get a motion to approve items E and F so move
I have a motion by Scott a second by Natalie Zach can you call vote on that Natalie Copeland yes there doorold CS Diana Fenton yes Shannon Hots yes Scott andreon yes all right thank you um moving on to information items we have
the Clear View School presentation um presented tonight by principal and help me out here jtz I like that one welcome glad to have you appreciate you coming out in the
cold and joining us here it's nice to be here thank you okay well board chair Haw uh board members uh Dr putam and other administrative leaders it's a real pleasure for me to be here I'm kind of humbled and honored uh to represent
Clear viiew Elementary um you'll see here we are one community and two programs we're a dual language immersion in Spanish and English um and we're our Focus or our commitment is a safe and caring environment um that is uh
emphasizing positive behavior intervention supports academic excellence and inclusion in an imersion setting so you'll see that we had kindness week last week um the kids got to dress up for each day uh the first
day they uh defined what kindness was and then they thought of ways to be kind to thems eles kind to their friends kind to their families and then kindness to their Community um we also have very much enjoyed launching the one uh
district one book initiative um with the robots uh our kids actually dress the books up in boxes that were robots they dressed up as robots and we had a door a decorating competition um for the book as well the wild robot uh escapes and we
launched our book Bingo family event to coincide with the district launch of the book um so that we kind of focused on that as well with the family so it's a new beginning for me in St Cloud um and with clear viw and so that
means really building new relationships that's been my focus this year with all of the different teachers um our theme is poco a Poco and poito and mucho it's little by little a little becomes a lot so trust really comes um through
relationship building and that creates safety and then we have to think about our priorities because when everything's a priority nothing is and then you get peac meal initiatives so our goal really this year was to maintain a lot of the initiatives we were doing and to expand those um as best we can for the kids and
the families I wanted to honor strengths um and learn what was going well uh I got a credit a big shout out to Edith Boucher who's now at Madison she really helped me a lot in uh being onboarded both in
the district and into clear viw um my instructional leadership team has really been uh pretty amazing in um collaborating on uh our strategic initiative plan our our continuous Improvement plan and then other District
leaders like Nikki Hansen and Laura stebner have been very very helpful along with the grade level academic leads and what else has been going very very well are the community connections um our PTA is very supportive of our staff and our teachers um we have a great Veterans Day program that we're
connected with the community uh St John's Outdoor University and um we're looking forward to uh a new phase in the forest project um that we're planning for the spring um as far as the plan and then implementing in the fall when the kids return to school so that's pretty
exciting so I'm going to go ahead and let the people of the school speak uh on behalf of clear viiew overall um um and I'll just get that video running I start with the we start with the a day in the life of Clear View with announcements and then we finish up that way too
so we're going to move on to the Clear View pledge and then the mindful breathing so I am going to turn it over again to Winward today I pledge to be kind responsible and safe I pledge to be kind
what I love about it is I think it's it's a nice way to start your morning and it feels good to know that you're like helping students start their day so this is my second year at clear viiew and I I just absolutely love it here everyone makes you feel part of
something bigger than just what you're doing right it's like coming in I just really felt like already part of the team the minute that I got here I feel like with teachers is the same as with kids if if we feel like we are belonging and we are part of something bigger that
then we can all work together to create something great for the children in terms of just spe special education as a whole just having opportunities for them to be a part of what's going on in their group I think is key you know like
our you know main goal of special education is to have that least restrictive environment so as much as we can keep them in their classroom and keep them with their peers is going to ultimately be better for them we knew that with our oldest who's now in eth grade um that if we had any interest in
trying Spanish Merion program we would have to obviously start when she was in kindergarten and they' just really enjoyed the program they've been able to Blossom and we've really appreciated the sense of community that we found at clear viw it was really been nice too as our kids have moved up now into Middle School it's been nice that they kind of have as they follow with that immersion
cohort they kind of have that little built-in support system but then to see them Branch out and connect with other kids as well too from the other schools as they move into a larger school it's just been a really great aspect of being able to keep some very similar friends from their cohort but then expand that
friend group as as well I would say that claric Community some people say it is a small community but having a small community is sometimes more beneficial you get to know everybody and everybody can get to
know you that means that if you want to do something or you want to collaborate with another teacher we can do that because we didn't know anything at the beginning but now we know more because we have more friends we have more community that is around us in clear
viiew that can help us one of the gifts of the Spanish Immersion program is the ability to form a bridge and make connections with new cultures and people of diverse backgrounds and we see that our students have the opportunity to use
the program to give them additional opportunities to serve the community to visit new places and to connect for so as our program has continued to grow
we see all of the students working on just the normal grade level things but in Spanish and it's just amazing to watch how their brains are capable of not only learning the grade level material but also utilizing Spanish as the ways to understand what they're learning in the
classroom one of the really exciting things about uh building a maker space like this is that idea of students getting actual Hands-On EXP experiences especially when it comes to things like stem a lot of our kids right now we we've got our devices but that's only one piece it's not just all all digital
we want those kids you know diving into things building things getting that engineering piece in there so like I mentioned like some big uh grandiose ideas to really push that idea of academic excellence and how we can really enhance what we're already doing
uh at cleair View and in the district we're going to make it a great day and go cgar yeah all right nice job we're going to move on to the Clear
View pledge and then the mindful breathing okay so um we really are focusing on um the two main pillars of belonging in academic Excellence although of course we're um you know promoting collaboration and safety as well but our continuous Improvement plan
um two of the Strategic initiatives we've decided to continue on with from last year are the positive climate and culture fostering safe and welcoming uh School climate um where students and families experience a sense of belonging and then also the family and Community
engagement to strengthen and expand family engagement um and Partnerships to support Student Success and increase positive climate and culture so we had a back to school barbecue in September we had 50 people attend that um in trimester 2 we're trying for a big event
for families each trimester so we did the book bingo with the one district one book and we'll do a steam um family event in April you'll see the that's the barbecue and the book Bingo down below and we have some indicators from
our our plan that show um that we are really living into the positive behavior intervention supports um 82% of our teachers feel supported strongly with um student behaviors and and moving that in a positive direction and then we also want our teachers and our staff to feel
a part of our community and 87% have said that um that's been a positive experience for them um this year below you see uh one of our uh teachers our Music Teacher was in the waitress's performance at the paramont and so these were there was a group of us that all
decided to go see her she's also going to be in the Mary Poppins um Paramount presentation in the in the spring so up above you'll see our Cougar Cubs this is kind of like the orange frog only one of our teachers actually knitted three um baby cougars and then we dressed them in
Orange and we give these out each week um circulating among staff um for appreciation of their efforts at our school we also like to celebrate staff and we see a lot of ways in which the students actually are appreciative of their teachers um Professor Susanna was
nominated by the Light FM radio um by a student and and she won that award um you see her surprised there uh the kids honored the vet veterans on the Veterans Day um we had one of our cafeteria supervisors was a St Cloud State University student um he's from Japan
this is Masa and so he left us after a semester so he could do his student teaching experience but the kids loved him so much they wanted to make a big thank you poster for him um so they did that um we have a rock and into a TR two and we're going to surf into trimester 3
um and then of course we we have various bingo events that was holiday bingo as well and then of course there's the focus on the um in instruction that produces positive outcomes so that's our third main strategic initiative in our in our sip um in which teachers will
collaborate using the adopted curriculum and data along with reflection to incre increase student achievement and learning um so that we had a new math program last year um the I ready math program that's been going quite well and this year we have the the new science
program based on um Next Generation science standards and Hands-On student centered science and then for literacy we really focused in on the equity piece as well with the Spanish Immersion because we now have phonics in K2 for
English and Spanish um one of the things that really uh secures and allows is native Spanish families or Heritage families that have Spanish in the home have the opportunity for their children to um learn as much English as they with Spanish and you're going to see too how
just the Dual language environment um really promotes that kind of uh um high achievement and and language acquisition so we can ask ourselves why biliteracy or why learning uh other languages and I don't know if most
people know but uh the research shows that we naturally uh acquire languages at a fluent level up until about the age of 12 and then after that we lose that ability and uh we kind of have to learn it um as many of us did in in middle school and high school in a more
structured way so many of our students as you saw one in the video like he learned all of his Spanish through the school program and he's got native uh fluency um but in addition to that the brain stimulation really helps students regulate themselves it focuses their
attention um and also helps them um move away from the emotional Center and into the intellectual Center so that they can manage their behavior betters uh it does prevent Alzheimer's there's been studies to show that people who learn second languages um and third languages uh do
better there um not to mention as uh one of our teachers uh said in the the video the effective communication so it's not just about learning a language it's about learning a culture and different ways of doing things so it increases sort of your communication abilities
your empathy and also your social intelligence and then when we talk about the science of reading um a lot of times people will see just one half of of this um sort of arching uh cross- linguistic transfer uh the studies all show that
students who have a foundation in a home language whether it's English or Spanish um they can use that connection of that language to access that second language and so the language comprehension and word recognition of of one language can
actually create skilled readers in the second language through that cross-linguistic transfer an example would be that 92% of the Sounds in Spanish are actually produced in the English language as well um that's mostly the consonants the vowels are a different story um but that cross-
linguistic transfer really has demonstrated particularly among our multilingual Learners that their acquisition of English um skyrockets when they're placed into a program that's a dual language immersion we also talk about uh academic excellence and Innovation and so we've
taken one of our old computer labs uh thanks to the Carpenters who um were able to deconstruct the tables and rebuild them um into a space where um we can turn it into a maker space and do more engineering activities uh you also saw Kyle Turk who was an ed technologist
and he um he did some AI training with our teachers there are certain programs that allow elementary students to experience AI with um guard rails that are up so they're not open to the worldwide web but that helps train them for for their futures um our fifth grade
a couple of fifth grade teachers are are trained in the modern classroom um that's a an approach to doing math where there are uh peer coaching and teacher coaching opportunities as well as self-paced Mastery and then I've been doing a lot of instructional leadership
on how we can bring the language more actively alive with students particularly in their um writing and in their oral production um and by using kind of iPads and our seesaw platform the kids can record themselves and then listen to one another um and relisten to
themselves speaking to to improve their overall performance um all of these initiatives are really focused on student centered instruction and how we place the kids at the center of their learning so this all comes with uh systems connections to what we call
Collective efficacy that means we as a team are all working together to move in the same direction and our continuous Improvement plan while we we had the instructional leadership team um really help develop that with positive culture and quality instruction the teacher
goals have really focused this year on the positive relationships and the culture of thinking and learning so that the goals of the teachers are in parallel with um what the instructional leadership team has um connected our sip to the uh strategic
initiatives and then we had school committees um are uh were revived this year we had opportunity to have school committees again and so when our instructional leadership team chose those committees they chose those committees to align with the uh continuous Improvement plan so one committee is for positive behavior
intervention that's for the P positive climate and culture uh we have a family engagement committee that's planning those family events and grade level events as well uh we have an academic celebration committee that is um we have a Lexia Wall of Fame where the kids get their pictures taken when they level up
in their reading um and then we have a sunr a sun shine and wellness committee that's um really doing wraparound to make sure that the staff and uh teachers are feeling as um as sort of welcome and belonging as as we're making the families and the
kids so I appreciate that muchas gracias um and I'm happy to take any questions that you might have thank you anybody have any questions or comments at all Scott go ahead
I'm really impressed with your Spanish Immersion program um in fact it looks like it's been so good that a Westwood decided to adopt it um what's been like working with uh with
Westwood and your schools and coordinating this program yeah I know that um coming in uh what's been really interesting is how we had we did want to have all new teachers developing the Westwood program and so there was staff that you know we had a
staff member that was experienced that was shifted over to Westwood um we're very open when we look at Staffing at how teachers might be able to be shared um to share best practices we also had um the immersion coordinator did a um a
dual language immersion Workshop in August where all the immersion teachers came together to talk about best practices in language acquisition um and we broke into the Chinese and the Spanish um sort of cohorts uh to be able to talk about that to launch the school
year I think it was like a three-day a three-day Workshop um and then we also linked in um Minnesota Department of Education to help us with some of that development as well sounds good um I did notice that there are some
declining enrollment from over the years uh any thoughts on that yeah I mean I'm looking at the data you know new um like you as this is my first year I I did see obviously declining enrollment that happened definitely with the pandemic
and it has kind of turned around and and you know risen again um we hope that with the boundary changes that will also help capture um some um and relieve the pressure at some of the tahi Oak Hill buildings that would be able to come into um to our building to keep that
stable and and support the entire District overall uh the boundary changes have they kicked in yet or no they would start next year but we're anticipating and and looking at what parts of that population would
stabilize in Clear View as they um graduate up so families that are in that area obviously can can come in or they can choose to stay where they are um but over time then um we'll see some stability in those numbers that would add to the clear population okay thank
you m I love the video as I always do and I Lov the I know he probably doesn't want to be called a little guy but little fifth grader and um it's just neat to see students so engaged and that's
purposeful on your part so thank you for that um I have two questions what first of all what surprised you the most about clear view in 742 since you're newish on the on the scene yeah I um yeah I the the community at Clear
viiew has just got a really positive energy um the teachers are very committed to the philosophy of the program um they're very open and collaborative um and that is that's just huge I mean to walk into a situation
where you have um that kind of energy from a team they hold themselves to very high standards they hold me to high standards so uh I appreciate that um but I think that I don't know if I would call it a surprise I mean um I was overseas for 10 years previously I was
in the St Louis Park School District in the high school um but I'm I know their Spanish Immersion program well and I served for four years as a as a head of school in a German Immersion Charter program so y um y yeah is mine
talking that's my end yeah yeah so yeah German I learned when I was I was over in Germany for a while and then I was in Barcelona Spain too so but yeah so I'm I'm a big believer in in what languages do for you
know um brain development Economic Opportunity and just cultural awareness and um social intelligence so but yeah it's been it's been really lovely um being embraced by the community and included and I will shout out uh Carissa
um Hopkins H and Elizabeth henon our new videographer because they were instrumental in in making that video which I think they did a beautiful job job thank you for sharing that um what are you most looking forward to in trimester
3 well warming weather come on yes um I I think I'm looking for I'm looking forward to you know coming to the conclusion of of my first year and to really look and see to um how the data that we've been looking at the
formative data and the interventions and then the continued use of we're using the fast bridge for seeing how students are growing um last year we did the language test stamp across all the grade levels because we wanted to have a baseline but now just because we don't
want to over test kids we're going to do second and fourth grade so I'm really interested in see being you know I'm I'm a big you know I I like to look both at longitudinal data and I also like to look at cohort data um because I think you can have different groups of kids that go through so you want to kind of
see how they evolve as a group but then you also want to keep some of that longitudinal data for one of the things we see is in K2 their scores are a bit lower because they're grappling with two languages but suddenly in like fourth and fifth grade they pop um and they often go on then in middle and high
school to do as as well as or better than their monolingual peers so keeping an eye on on you know the end of that first year and seeing how some of the initiatives and the second year of I ready and other things um sort of show in in our
data yeah um lastly I was looking at your um data deck and almost all students said they are very not concerned it was really great it was like um I I take charge of my learning basically like yeah let's go
and so I think it was like 1% said disagree that was just a mistake it was 100% we're going to say the interesting thing about looking at this data for every school is that you start to see some Trends and this is I think for as many times as we've had schools present
I've asked about um the students are kind to each other we see that that's a little bit lower the disagree and strongly disagrees is about 25% so can you speak to that and maybe what you think is going on in students mind when they click that
yeah we um this comes from um superintendent putnam's Initiative for her climate Summit which um the data came out I think in 23 24 but she has just asked all of the instructional leadership teams to Circle back um to
that and uh it was our last um I think it was the early out on just the 14th we actually had the instructional leadership team design slides to talk about um how are students kind to other students how are
students kind to teachers um how are we working on the positive behavior interventions and the three prompts were like what's going well um what needs like work and then what ideas do you have to be able to contribute so we've
talked a little bit about revisiting um some of the conscious discipline revisiting some of the envoy strategies um for helping regulate that and helping teachers have the strategies for being able to do that um and now our instructional leadership team is gathering that input from the entire um
staff community that was the PA professionals and the teachers as well um to then see what initiatives do we want to take um where we can find time to do like retraining on things because sometimes when you have newer teachers they didn't have as much conscious
discipline or they didn't have as much and so how do we sort of like recommit to those and then also retrain so we can all um work and that's the big one too I would say definitely is helping kids like be kind to each other and uh yeah
yeah well you can go to the conscious discipline training and then all of a sudden you implement it that's a whole other a whole other thing when you're in the classroom for sure so thanks for sharing yeah okay thank you very much for joining us
tonight next up we have the mde review and comment summary presented by Amy scall executive director of finance and business services good evening chair H superintendent putam members of the board um I'm not going to project because the review and comment summary
is a uh four four page and little tiny print uh very wordy document from mde so um it is attached in the board agenda if you'd like to look at it um but really just going to kind of summarize um why we're here to discuss this and what the
requirement is um so as part of any uh proposed uh construction project whether that be a referendum or any sort of um project Minnesota statutes require that a review and comment um be submitted to the Department of Education for review
and approval um so that they can comment on the economic advisability of the project whether that seems to be in the best interest of the district um and then in addition State Statute requires that that summary that we get back from um the Department of Education be
presented at a public meeting which is why we are here tonight um so the district submitted that required documentation uh which is a very lengthy document uh it includes information on our existing facilities the proposed projects um what are the identified
needs or or gaps in existing um opportunities and and Facilities that we have that weren't the project um what are the financial budgets what's the financing mechanism um so a whole bunch of information that gets submitted to the department uh we did receive back a
positive review and comment from mde um and that's what the letter that you have attached to the board agenda agenda is the response that we got back um and so that does indicate that mde feels that both uh questions one and two are in the long-term best interests of the district
um statute also requires that the review and comment summary we get back includes any comments that the public has made directly to mde up until the date of the review and comment um submitted back which was February 12th and as of that date mde had received no um public
comments on our proposed projects um I will also add that there is a requirement to publish that uh same mde uh two-page summary in our official newspaper and that was completed last week as well so if there's any questions on the
review and comment process or anything I can certainly answer them okay thank you very much appreciate it okay last uh information item tonight we have the American Indian education
update um welcome we have Ian Omar Equity Services director Kip Perkins coordinator of American education and Heather broa American Indian education cultural
liaison glad to have you guys e make sure this is on okay perfect all right good evening chair hos superintendent putam and members of the school board uh as required by MD statue districts or schools that report to have a minimum of 20 American Indian students
on the October four 1st Mars reporting deadline are eligible to receive funding for the American Indian education program additionally such districts must either have an American Indian parent advisory committee or be working collaboratively with office of American
Indian Ed to form one fortunately for us we have a robust programming that is supported by a committed group of napac parents this evening kit Perkins our American Indian education programs coordinator Heather broa American Indian
education cultural liaison and I will provide an update on our American Indian education programming and activities Kip and Heather play a key role in affirming the unique cultural identity and history of our American Indian students and
their families ensuring that our staff are equipped with the resources and skills to support these students in reaching their full potential through meaningful Equitable and culturally relevant educational experiences so we'll go ahead and get
started uh as mentioned our uh program collaborates with na napac uh previously APAC and I'll give you the context of that in a little bit here um designs programming and instructional activities that affirm the cultural identity of
American Indian students and their families right hello everyone um currently we have um 275 students in our our school district that um identify as Native
American um of that 275 56% are at the elementary level and 44 at the secondary level uh for our secondary students uh we work with building leaders to provide a space for our native students to
smudge uh we also went on a couple uh College centered field trips uh which I'll talk a little bit about later um in another slide another thing we do is we hold regular beating groups for our
Secondary High School level um students and um then at our elementary level I'll invite Heather to share a little bit about what uh she's been doing at the El at the elementary level and just to add a little bit to
Kip's uh Point here we have ilps we continue in um creating ilps for all of our American Indian students that has a cultural identity goal Bou everybody that's hello in OJ um
I'm new to the school district and to St Cloud um I moved here from Leech Lake reservation which is my home and I've been here since October so I'm very new um and so the programming is also very new as there was only one person and a couple Consultants here and there throat
the history here and so what I've been doing um is working with the elementary students by hosting lunch meetings with the students um and then we'll do like a cultural activity while while we're eating lunch or just visit and get to know each other um one of the things I
discovered a lot of them didn't know each other or that each other were Native of American we come in all shades so sometimes you don't know whether somebody is Native American or not and so uh one of of the greatest experiences I've had with students is there was a
group of um three young boys third grade boys all in the same class all looked different and once they realized they were all Native American and they got to come have lunch with me they put their arms around each other in the cafeteria and said we're the native boys we're the
native boys and um I just felt that that was affirming for all of them to know that each other were in the class together um another one of the students um he struggled with um friendship and with attendance at school and since I've
been working with him he mentioned to me during lunch one day I haven't missed a day of school this week so we high-fived so that's just an example of what you know having somebody present in the school that they identify with that's what matters to these kids um and so
we're going to be doing more reading groups um and with some puppets and things we have all kinds of things available and I'm just finding things as I go along and then what else and then just one-on-one meetings with students um if they want here for support for
parents we've had a lot of parents Reach Out sharing um information also asking for help um with IEP meetings and with um conferences even where where we have some reaching out to us so that's and I'm and I'm new there's lots of of ideas
there's you know it's just getting to know everybody all the schools because I'm spread out through all the elementary schools so it doesn't give a lot of time and focus to one school with tah is our highest population right now so it's nice to meet you all me
which all right uh like I mentioned earlier we went on a couple field trips the first field trip was to uh the U ofm they host an annual event where they highlight their indanet program uh highlighting their various resources
that they offer that they can offer native students uh one cool thing they did was they talked about um the various careers you can pursue if you take a Native Studies major and I thought that was really cool they had a
like so many jobs our careers up there that I never even thought of before but that was cool our second trip uh was to the Minnesota History Center in St Paul uh that's an annual Native American college fair it's a nationwide college
fair and there they just the students get to uh have conversations with representatives from different schools throughout the nation and then uh a few things we're hoping to do uh upcoming is host financial aid assistance specific to our
American Indian students uh including Minnesota Indian scholarship tribal scholarships and American Indian tuition waiver schools um we had the 2024 Community graduation honoring in collaboration with the city of St Claud for the first time um we continue to collaborate with
st Claud State sctcc St John St Ben as well as SEL St Stevens with the ultimate goal being creating a community here for American Indians students since the numbers are so low um we were hosted by
mayor David k um as of last year our 60% of our American Indian students graduated uh we continue to Aspire for 100% uh we have 23 students seniors this year uh in the graduating
class um now I'll highlight uh the indigenous people's day um at least one hour of instructions dedicated to learning about the indigenous people of this land uh we collaborate with our director of uh secondary education and also Elementary
education in ensuring that uh on this day teachers have a variety of activities um instruction material to use to ensure that we are uh able to provide an hour of instruction we do have our 2023 video that we created ated
that we continue to show um looking to update that here next year but I have that for those of you who are newer to the board make this one simple change when filling out your FAFSA h i research FAFSA a lot
people's day requires program related to our American Indian education program educating all students
about Heritage creates a more historically aware Society so we may do better together honor indigenous partnered with st CL to support and prair cleanup at
Kennedy American Heritage teaches us the reciprocal relationship between humans and nature calling each of us to respect and care for the environment this day reminds us of the responsibilities we hold to each other communities that are an integral part of
who we are for me being indigenous and working in education means fostering culture true understanding and EMP powering future Generations by Bridging the Gap between knowledge it also means Insurance Educators have the tools they
need to provide inclusive and culturally responsive learning environments I strive to instill pride and Indigenous identities of our students us cultural respect within the educational landscape Fondulac and duj my family is from bed
River Fondulac redcliff Indian reservations I just did an introduction in a J in a jet my name is Ja means blue sky woman so my name is Teresa zarth Mar and we're celebrating indigenous people's day being indigenous to me
means to having good thoughts and to exist with others and nature in a respectful way my mom taught me to do something good with each day and I can't think of a better way to do good than to serve children and Inspire learning I'm happy to be a part of making an educational difference for Native
students and implementing American Indian education for all here at District 742 this day of recognition was proclaimed in October 2021 by the Minnesota State Governor Tim Walls as we celebrate this day here at
ISD 742 let's Embrace this opportunity to acknowledge that indigenous people's day serves as an important time to reflect on the experiences of indigenous peoples and explore ways to provide greater
access and opportunity for native people hi my name is Stephanie opmer and I'm a counselor at Apollo High School I'm also a member of the lud band of ajibu in Wisconsin growing up my dad talked to me often about our Native American history its values traditions and beliefs
including the importance of keeping our heritage alive through recognition and and education indigenous people's day is important to me because it does just that it recognizes and celebrates the amazing culture and history that I feel so fortunate to be a part of and as an
educator I feel proud that I can honor my dad by passing on the lessons and values he once taught me to all the students that I work with um last year we hosted AO in collaboration with um St Cloud State uh
St Cloud Technical College St John St pens and the sartel school district um this year was hosted by St Cloud Tech but it was hosted at our Apollo building
um and we are in talks to uh have another po um it and it usually starts in the fall or in the fall um in November um oh oh this year this power sorry I
just got excited um yeah yeah it was uh it for me it was our biggest turnout ever for as far as Spectators uh so that was cool because um we had two uh competing Powers one in
the cities and one in lth which have High um uh Native populations so we did pretty well with that all right and then thisa native study summer workshop for educators is a yearly summerly event host hosted by St
Cloud State um this year we sent seven and School Employees up to the boys Fort boys Fort reservation um uh that's a oju community uh and uh
we we learn about both Dakota and ojibway and the the uh Dakota culture is being taught by Darlene St Clair from St Cloud State uh she does a really good job at that and uh we plan to go again this year um but this year they're going
to have two dates um and one will be at Shaka and the other one is yet to be determined all right and then uh one one more thing is our um Minnesota Indian Education Association conference this year it's being held in Shaka again they get all
the cool things um it's a two-day conference and where they um have breakout sessions for educators to teach them about various things about Native culture best best practices to work with Native
students and there's a whole list of different breakout sessions that are led by some really smart people and um it's really good conference and I encourage everybody to go and we continue our uh virtual
professional development with Dr Anto trer who uh did an amazing PD for uh districtwide PD uh we were able to record his presentation and make it available and accessible to our teachers for relicensure um per MD requirement Now
American Indian education culture and history is a required licenser outside of cultural competency so we make that available to all our teachers via schooo and Via professional learning platform um oh sorry um
tidbit Tony Troy Anton Troyer he's from where I'm from but we just watched um Star Wars in no jibway and he's one of the voice actors for that just a little tidbit so if you have Disney plus you have to select it go to the extras and it's in Navajo and ojibway and there's
English subtitles so you'll know what's happening because I don't know enough ojibway to know what was happening so anyways cultural events that um we have collaborated with different schools are um Joe Jordan is an oju um drummer
singer and so he's um come with his drum to our Affinity space he came to tahi for cultural night and those boys that I have lunch with all want to make a hand drum one of them got to meet Joe and so hopefully we're going to be hosting that coming up and then the red tree drum
group will be performing at all the graduations um for both Apollo Tech and then also McKinley and then um South Junior has I had a Storyteller Native American Storyteller Fern Renville she's Dakota senica um and then we actually
are naac committee is hosting an ojibway Storyteller um Dey Fairbanks on Saturday um and so that's open to our naac families and students and then we also have scheduled um I don't know if you saw Teresa what she was wearing in the video she was wearing a ribbon skirt so
we're hosting um on March 1st and 2nd a ribbon skirt and ribbon shirt making for our families to come and um what else I think uh Martha Redbone is coming to one of the schools she's afro indigenous artist music artist she's amazing um
she's also performing at the parmount um what else I thought there was one other thing I wanted to mention but as of right now that's what we've we've done so far oh the second grade all second grade sections from tahi um we planned a field trip to the Mala Indian museum in
collaboration with the teachers and so through three sections or three different days all the sections will go attend all right one one more another thing that we have on the horizon is the construct tomorrow career fair um and
the idea behind this career fair is to bring awareness to high school students about the amazing postsecondary opportunities in the Construction and building trade Industries in this year oh we we planned to go last year but um
it just came up too fast it was it was the closest one was held in duth um but this year they're coming to St Cloud in April at the convention center so we are looking into taking some students um to that this
year thank you okay that was impressive great stuff anybody have any questions at all Scott okay
um you said it's npac not APAC what happened um so our naac just on a personal note most people that I know prefer Native American over American Indian and so the parent committee voted
to change the name for that reason um it's just more inclusive um as far as tribal because every tribe um would prefer to be called what what we are which is anishinabi but we say ojibway um and so it's just it's just a preference and so a lot of school um
parent advisory committees have voted to change to napac instead of APAC so that's where that came from thank you um how do you find the time for the cultural stuff like like beating or I
mean the days are so packed already yeah we um try to do them during their Eagle time and tiger time things like that they're really quick session so we have to be consistent about it so that they don't lose interest in their projects they're working on and they
take them home and finish them there was a picture of a hat that a student started beating and he brought it today to our group and he completed it so yeah there it is yep that one so he Beed the brim all the way
around um are poo and Indigenous days the same thing are they different days or and when are they uh indigenous people's day is usually um the first week in um October
and it's a state holiday and then uh the poo is um just something we do to get together to try to build community no date set on that yet uh no not yet but it's usually the first
weekend in November oh okay so nothing this spring no I I was on another po committee that was planning to do a power in the spring but um with all the various poers throughout the state they
moved it to a winter po um and there at I was just uh um consultant kind of kind of teaching cuz nobody else had planned a PO before so I was kind of the one um as a consultant showing them how to do
it and all that but so yeah next year we'll probably be more of a partner in that one but this year was just more of like a trial trial and air type thing i' I've been to a couple of them they're a lot of fun I just want to know when the next one is thank you there's one coming up um
Leech Lake is hosting a urban poo down in Minneapolis on March I think it's 15th if that's a Saturday at the American Indian Center does say know anybody else have any other questions okay so then we're going to
move Kip staying right and we're going to slide over into the um discussion item the Native American parent advisory Council compliance the napac um again presented by Kip Perkins coordinator of
American Indian education and is Rosemary Wacker yeah uh joining us welcome Rosemary glad to have you too all right um again good evening chair super intendent Pam and members of
the school board districts that report an American Indian student population of 20 or more to the Minnesota Department uh are eligible for the American Indian education Aid uh the program uses the state reported American Indian student count along with perable funding formula
to estimate eight Awards mde requires clear collaboration between the district and APAC now napac each spring to ensure annual compliance also referred to as the vote of concurrence or non-c concurrence annual compliance serves as
a midyear reflection for the committee and has a specific requirements under State statutes I would like to introduce Rosemary Wacker whom you uh know from last year and our napac chair to provide contacts behind the rationale to
transition from APAC which you kind of already know now to naac and this year's vote and resolution can you hear me can you hear me now okay hello my name is Rosemary Wacker I have been in
the St Cloud area for about two years now um involved with uh the equity Services team with ion and Kip lots to learn um Minnesota is still very hot um my I am a new Pac Eskimo from Alaska on
the bearing streets region uh 30 mix 36 miles down the coast and my new back name is AIC I have a little man who goes to clear view so it was nice to see the presentation who is also in the Spanish Immersion program um it's cute to see
how he shares his words with me um and family he gets it confused sometimes he tells me it's English when he's actually speaking Spanish and he has shared with me that the school does um breathing techniques each morning so and then my 21-year-old so
they're age differences um very far apart 15 16 years apart um so the napac committee this year transitioned from APAC which was the American parent advisory committee um in transition to napac the Native American parent
advisory committee at the mea conference last year we did see other uh school districts within the state um transitioning to a new title as well um we as a committee um our
parents did vote non-c concurrence with School District um with recommendations to continue uh what was submitted last year um I have big shoes to fill so uh Lacy's
not here and we've got a great team so Kip's doing amazing um Heather's been a great asset um and it's great to hear that our students um are proud and happy to know that they have more of our own native people and students in their school districts um we do also ow
children at our naac meetings last year my son unfortunately was kind of a soul survivor and ion was uh there and Kip to uh keep him entertained this school year he was a little hesitant but we have had um great turnout so he is looking
forward to meeting new kids of our native culture there as well um Heather has met with him at Clear View a couple of times and he has come home very proud to see Heather as well so it's great to hear
um yeah any questions anybody have any questions or comments Scott I think last year there was quite a lengthy U thing written to the state of Minnesota that uh you spent a lot of
time on if I remember right um and this year were Main in the same program then or what are we doing so the recommendations were continued from last year the um parent uh committee has not
felt like that our numbers have um moved up enough for us to go with a concurrent uh in this area so the recommendation was to continue what was submitted a majority of everything that was sent last year thank you
yes I'm glad to hear that you're having great turnout so that's fantastic it is amazing and the kids seem to like it too so they get to connect with each other um which is nice so one thing I would like to
comment though so my daughter grew up in Alaska um at a young age she was very proud to say she was a new Pac Eskimo I shared with Kip and Heather at our last meeting um with all this cold we say my son also knows some AAC words that we use at home um and when we were going
into the school I'm like oh it's so alapa meaning it's so cold and he's like oh I'm not cold and I'm like oh is that CU you're a new back Eskimo and he was like no I'm not so seeing um just a little different I think because my
daughter grew up with our strong native culture in Alaska where our community is very strong with our native people made me realize that I should maybe address that a little bit more with my son being down here in the lower 48 and not having such
a broad community of our tradition um brought a lot of awareness to me so I will be uh embracing that a new back Eskimo uh word with my son so
yeah okay thank you very much yes thank you okay then we have another discussion item we have the proposed revised board policy 525 file prevention um this is a second reading presented by Shannon Aon assistant
superintendent of E12 Educational Services good evening everyone um we did go through both uh policies and in detail last week or last board meeting and we have not recommended any changes to the policies that we reviewed last
week I will note though however we did have a discussion about creating some guidance around the implementation planning of the the violence prevention um 525 and so that's another piece that I am working on but at this time there is no adjustments to the board policies
that we reviewed at the last board meeting okay does anybody have any questions since then then Shannon is presenting another second reading it's proposed revised board policy 535 this is our service
animals and schools and much like this last one um again we went through it in detail last weekend there were no suggested changes and so um we will just be moving forward with the request to to propose that for um the third the third and final
read anybody uh Scott I thought that there was something about facility animals versus uh service animals like the lady brought in dog
that was a facility animal that she kept with her versus a service animals that go with the uh the client yeah I think when we were talking about that we clarified that we
um that the therapy dogs the those um that they were sharing with us last week those are not a part of this policy so this is specific to those service animals and so this policy we would not add anything about um the therapy dogs
or uh the facility dogs to this particular policy okay all right thank you Shannon um then moving on to an action item just one action item tonight we
have uh Spring Golf Co-op presented by Dr Jason Harris assistant superintendent of secondary education and welcome back follow activities director Carl heiney uh good evening chera superintendent puam board members uh the administration
is looking for approval for uh Spring Crush Co-op and we have activities director uh heiny here at to County explain how the co-op came about yeah thank you good evening um so I just want to kind of lay the the groundwork again
here when we talk about co-ops and and the difference between creating a new crush Co-op or expanding a crush Co-op so anytime that we form co-ops or a school would reach out to us like in this case and would want to join our co-op with the High School league you
got to go through a formal process of dissolving a current Co-op adding all member schools back in and reforming a new co-op so um The Crush Gulf Co-op has been in existence for um several years actually Apollo and Tech competed
together in a co-op prior to forming as a crush four years ago um so the tech Apollo merger has been in place for for years and and both programs are staying consistent with numbers um last year we finished with about 24 girls and about
uh just under 30 uh boys and uh you know lose a few to graduation hopefully gain a few more um in the seventh graders that join in because it is a 712 sport so um this is just kind of an addition to an existing Co-op um not as elaborate as as recreating a new Crush Co-op but
um we are looking for the approval we've been approached by two schools uh primarily St Cloud Christian School um who they've seen a decline in their numbers and and aren't carrying a a golf program this year for their spring um and so they're asking us to take on um
their golfers uh currently they have three that are interested but know that if we were to accept them we would probably see a few more um but uh in that single digit range um would be adding we've also been approach on the boy Side by holding forward uh to add
one additional golfer to our boys golf team um that individual is already a member of our Crush Boys Hockey Co-op that includes holding for it as well so um it would be adding a student that already exists within our co-ops um to
that to that piece thank you for that explanation anybody have any questions at all okay so um this is an action item and administration is recommending we approve uh the new spring Gulf Co-op can
I get a motion for that okay thanks for working that out that was a motion by Scott and a second by Natalie Zack can you call vote Zack dhol yes Diana Fen yes Shannon hos yes Scott andreon Natalie Copeland
yes Carl thanks for sliding back over here to join us is the game over it's uh it's just uh getting going uh it was 1010 when I peaked back here a little while ago so okay it's right in the prime right now so awesome thanks
for coming back okay um just a few items left we have tonight we have um moving on to our reports first up we have the superintendent report presented by Dr Lori putam our superintendent thank you chair house members of the board
uh cabinet and the few of you who have stuck it out with us in the audience thank you so much um since I am spending the majority of my time right now uh working on the referendum that is what I'm going to speak about this evening um we have uh uh spent a a significant
portion of of most days uh reaching out to our community um talking not only to internal District staff but to um Family groups um to Civic organizations to higher education institutions truly anybody who will let us talk with them
um and when I say we uh um principal scall and I have been um doing the presentation though um Gary Genji and Tammy Dand have supported us um and and I think they've been with us every every presentation and so they too are are part of our of our team and grateful for
that um we are doing about 85 I think at last count it was at 85 presentations um and we're grateful for that opportunity um because we are so committed to making sure that everybody knows uh the importance of this effort uh question one of course is uh focused on safety uh
and learning uh updates at Apollo High School um and that uh um must pass before question two can be considered question two um was uh was not initially on our radar but was uh um uh our advisory committee asked us to they
identified the the need um and we in the community and we concurred that it would be ful in our school district for our students and staff and community so question two is uh to uh build a indoor multi-purpose athletic center uh that would be built on the Apollo grounds but
it would be open to all 742 students um our local uh youth organizations um and the community um and so we are um we are also pleased to offer that to our community and as I said question one must pass um because that really focuses on uh safety and
learning and question for question two to be considered and early voting starts this Friday uh at here at the district office um early voting uh can happen uh from 7:30 to 4:00 Monday through Friday um and people need to be registered if
they're not currently registered they need to be registered by May 15th um so we certainly encourage folks to get that done um and then um the early voting will continue until April 8 uh which is of course the the general election but
and here in the 7th thank you yep so it's good until April the through the 7th till April 8th um and then all of our polling locations will be open because um we certainly want every person in our community um to have uh free access to their their you know
citizenship to their citizen Hood and the and to be able to exercise that our right to vote without barrier and so I'm really really grateful for the board support in that area and so we certainly ask everybody in our community to to learn more at our uh there's a refence referendum website um and to get out and
vote uh on or before April 8 thank you then we have the Board of Education standing committee reports I believe we just have one achievement integation and Equity committee chair Diana Fenton uh superintendent putam
chair ha the achievement integration and Equity committee meeting met this morning and the information that was presented was on the American Indian education program which was presented tonight at the board um and we discussed in further detail what the non-c concurrence would look like in
the recommendation for the board to um meet the next reporting thanks do we anybody else have a comme okay I didn't think so um then we have future agenda items
March 12 2025 Board of board meeting topics will include clear view field uh Fields partnership the annual Staffing timelines say something presentation School updates and of course some policy readings at this time does any board
member want to suggest a future agenda item okay this is impressive um I am looking for a motion to adjourn tonight's board meeting uh I have a motion by Natalie do I have a second
I'll second oh okay my head just turns this way so I I don't even have a chance I know and a second by uh Diana all in favor say I I opposed okay meeting is adjourned it is
7:48 p.m. thank you for watching we will be back March 12th sh