John roll call. Director Chris here. Dr. Hawker here. Dr. Kelzenberg. Dr. Lowour here. Dr. Parker. Dr. Theelander here. Chair Sherman here. You have a qu. Great. Let's stand for the pledge of allegiance.
I pledge algiance 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. Great. I will go ahead and make a motion
to approve tonight's agenda. Can I get a second? Great. Director Theelander with the second. All those in favor of approving tonight's agenda, raise your hand and say, "I." I I opposed. Motion passes. We'll move on to
our consent agenda. Very small here. Just one item tonight and I'll go ahead and make the motion to approve consent. Can I get a second? Great. Director Lowour with a second. All those in favor of approving tonight's consent agenda, raise your hand and say I. I.
Opposed. Consent agenda passes. We have no uh business items tonight, but uh we do have a workshop, a study session topic, we are going to be talking about um expanding opportunities at Stillwater Area High School and we have quite a few
people here. But just to summarize for the those watching at home, this is I think the fourth time since 2023 that you've come here to talk to us about these opportunities. and we're glad to have you back and kind of hear how the work is progressing and what opportunities we can uh provide our
students. So, thank you. Thank you for having us. Glad you're not sick of us quite yet. Yeah. I'll uh give my crack team an opportunity to introduce themselves first, but uh again, I'm Rob Bach, principal at Stillwater High School. Thank you for having us. Matt Craft, assistant principal at Stillwater High School. Thank you for having us.
Rachel Style, journalism teacher and career pathways coordinator. Sydney Pyro, school counselor at the high school. Okay. And as board chairman pointed out, um we're here to talk about expanding some opportunities for our students at Stillwater Area High School. And that looks like a number of different things.
And so, um some of the pieces that we'll outline for you tonight are we have a number of new course proposals. So, as we look to round out electives and offer different kinds of opportunities for students within a traditional school day, um there are a number of things that we have on the table. Um we're going to talk about um a pathways
concentration. So, it's an opportunity for students to continue to immerse themselves in some kind of experience um from introductory to intermediate to advanced levels um as they go through high school. We're going to talk about the possibility of a nth grade seminar um some certifications um some
opportunities for intervention that currently are very very difficult to schedule in our day. Um we're going to talk about expanding access to some career ready skills. we have an opportunity um we're very very close right now to being able to offer our students an associate arts degree um
when they graduate. Um so we'll talk about that a little bit. Um we are developing an online learning academy which we've presented a little bit um on before and expanding some support uh for student well-being and our and our mental health. Joan, can you maybe click me?
Should I try to pause for a second? Um Rob just Parker, Director Parker. So, we're gonna put him in on Zoom and then we can Um, while we're doing this, can I just um get Zach to introduce our our new face at the table here?
This is Katie. Katie is a junior on student council right now and she's subbing in for Aurora today. Great. Welcome Katie. We we appreciate having two students and feel free again just to raise your hand and we want to hear your voice as we um have this discussion since it impacts you and
other students. So, thank you. Thank you. All right, we got Parker. Sorry. Oops. Well, to do the the presentation I'm gonna have to have to be shy. Sorry.
That's fine. Okay. Yeah. So, Parker, we can't see you because we're looking at the presentation, but I hope that you're there. Text and make sure. Thank you, Joe. Is it not advancing?
No, we got it. We're good. Okay. So, um like I said, a number of different opportunities that are kind of on the table. So, we'll kind of break them down a little bit in some of the the order that I introduced them. And so, um to start talking about some of the elective opportunities that are present through our pathways program, um I'll turn things over to Rachel.
Thank you again. Thanks for having us tonight. So, you might know that the career teched career reel changed about a year ago. So to be responsive to that, Bob and I completely revamped our pathways. You might know that we used to have four pathways at the high school.
Now we have six. And as you walk up and down our stairwells and around our school, you're going to start seeing uh examples of what those uh pathways are in individual programs of study. And so what I'm going to talk about are some opportunities where we're hoping to expand over the course of this year and
into the next coming years. Here's a current example of our computer science program of study. In our pathways model, a program of study should include introductory, intermediate, and advanced programming. But as you look at this particular example, what you're noticing
is we have an intermediate and advanced course. Both are labeled as AP. We don't have a lot of entry points for some of our students who are interested in digital technologies without having to jump right into an AP class. And so as we look ahead, even if you'd look on the
side, for example, artificial intelligence, cyber security, multimedia design, networking administration, software engineering, these are some of the top three labor market shortages over the course of the next 10 years. And currently, we're not offering any
programming to address that or providing highinterest courses for our kids. Here's an example of a different program of study. This is our trades and industry. And if you look at this one, it has introductory, intermediate, and advanced. And over the course of the past two years, Bob and I have been
working closely through a youth skills training grant with both of our trades teachers to develop that sequence of programming. And just visually, you can see what we're talking about when we say we want to expand opportunities. We don't want this for our kids. We want
sequences of courses where our kids can work through and have career ready skills by the time they graduate. Not just college preparatory coursework, but actual career ready experiences that land themselves into internships and job
shadowing, getting them into work-based learning. And right now it's very difficult for our staff because if they create a new course they're not entirely certain our kids will take it because on a six by two schedule they have a lot of limitations. And so it's been very challenging for our staff to build new
coursework under our current model. So one example of the kinds of programming pathways does is we help build new courses with those sequences in mind to help flush out our career clusters. I'm going to turn it over to Sydney who's going to introduce our AA degree.
So, as Rachel said, part of um our movement forward is of course expanding the career opportunities within the various pathways. Um and that is kind of in conjunction with what we are seeing with students moving online and doing PSO. And so, one of the kind of pieces
that we're looking at is incorporating an associate of arts degree within our high school. Uh there's a couple other school districts that have moved towards this direction and have offered it to their students. It takes a lot of work behind the scenes uh to make this happen
both from a programming side of things, a teaching side of things and then obviously an education. Um but just as an example, when students are, you know, coming to meet with counselors and are saying, "Hey, I'm interested in doing PSO, um what classes would make sense, right? It's a very nuanced conversation.
We're not just, you know, yep, sign this form. Here you go." Right? Um we're having conversations with them in terms of, you know, where do you see yourself? What are you hoping to do? like after high school. And so when they are looking at doing PSO and then thinking about courses, um we are first and
foremost always concerned about making sure they're meeting high school graduation requirements, right? Um and of the majority of the classes that they would be taking that satisfy high school graduation requirements are actually part of what's called the Minnesota transfer curriculum. So, just for some
education, that is at minimum 40 credits that cover general education requirements for all of the two-year and four-year colleges in the state of Minnesota. Um, that includes private schools. There's, you know, some of the private colleges have a couple extra components to them, but for the most
part, when students complete 40 credits of their general education classes, um, those are guaranteed to transfer to any public or, uh, private college in the state of Minnesota. And if you've done the math right, that uh leaves out about
20ish credits where based on the courses that we offer um and in collaboration with those colleges in Invert Hills, we are in a position to meet an associate of arts degree. And so for those of you, it's a two-year degree. 40 credits are
your general ed and then the additional 24 are kind of what we have been used to as electives but they're generally classes that students take that are geared towards an eventual major or a career right and so what you're seeing right now is a list of the 10 goal areas
that are incorporated of a of those Minnesota transfer requirements the general education um so you'll see like goal area one is communication uh goal area two is critical thinking goal area three is science Um, so you can kind of see that correlation and then the courses that we are already currently
offering as well as kind of Rachel alluded to some course proposals that we're working on. Uh, there's a couple of areas that we have identified that we still need to work on and and kind of flush out a little bit. Uh, but for the most part, we are just about there. And
so with uh it's a beautiful time for us to um between the course proposals and between what we're seeing with our PSO students, uh it's a beautiful time to recapture that and actually be able to offer that within our own building. And so again, um that's one of the things
that we're working towards right now. We're pretty close uh two, three classes off. Um, and there would be a obviously some education that needs to happen within our our staff, our community, parents, students, um, starting early on in in terms of identifying students that would actually meet this criteria based
on the courses they're interested in taking and the rigor. Um, but right now, I mean, in my career, I've been doing this now 11 years. I've had about five or six students on my case load that have challenged themselves to actually graduate with an AA degree. And just by the nature of a calendar, they've actually graduated with their AA degree
before they graduate with their high school diploma. Um, and all of those students have then gone forward to a four-year college. They've been able to complete college at an earlier time. Obviously, have saved themselves a significant amount of money. Um, and have been able to then really get into
the career and the job that they're looking towards. So, it's a great opportunity for us to again expand some of our curriculum. um be attractive for students to take some of those classes within our own building and our own walls while also saving them money and getting them guaranteed college credit.
So, that's just one of the aspects that we're working on, especially when it relates to a new schedule um and creating different opportunities for students. Thank you. Um to piggyback on Sydney a little bit, how does this relate to Pathways? Pathway's research shows that when you embed four to six early college
credits or transcripted credits into each program of study, our kids have a higher success rate about when they enter college and they tend to stay in college longer. And so that's why all of this work is falling into our pathways program. We launched eight new concurrent enrollment courses this year
and we have nine more concurrent enrollment courses on the docket for next fall. And so we're looking to Burnsville as our exemplar of a really strong metro area high school with a comparable AA program. Their first year they had 40 students graduate on the AA degree and they're on track to have 60
this coming spring. So we're meeting with them at the end of the month to learn how they roll this out to their community. And like Sydney mentioned, we're about one course away from having the full program or menu of courses on our campus. So stay tuned. I know we talked about this about a year ago at this time and we're a lot closer than we
were then. So can I just ask a quick question and as questions come up because this is a study session. I don't want to derail the presentation but it just might make sense to ask some questions because I'm connecting this to your earlier presentation uh principal back about like keeping PSO kids in the
building and keeping that funding that we that we know we lose. Would this keep the funding in the high school if it's our program? It's a strategic play for sure. And so I mean the as as we've talked about before the allure of PSO the draw of PSO is
college credits. These are college credits. So this is one other opportunity for us to respond to and give students an opportunity and a reason to stay to take those courses with our teachers. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Another opportunity that we're exploring
are programs of study that as I mentioned embed early college credit and experiential learning. So, I'm going to share an example of uh what we want to model in all 15 of our programs of study. This is a healthcare endorsement program that we are hoping to launch
next fall. And what you'll notice is we have a sequence of coursework from introductory to intermediate to advanced. And within this program of study, our students will get a healthcare endorsement, their CNA certification, so certified uh nursing
assistant, as well as an internship and work experience. And so we are partnering with Bethl University to offer our students 14 college credits, so transcripted credits in the health care profession as well as exploring the opportunity to add a CNA certification
and become a testing site on campus. And the research we're learning from other schools that are implementing these things is it has a high recapture rate for students. So to your point about re recapturing our kids, keeping them in a wall-to-all program where they can get that rigorous coursework while accessing
their activities and their athletics and their support interventions right on campus. So this is just an example of the kind of thing that we're using as a template as we build out. So once we have a new schedule implemented and kids have an opportunity to get eight additional elective credits, they'll
have access to this type of programming in our pathways. Okay. still me. Um, another opportunity that we are exploring through our pathways program is building an online academy. So, our Stillwater area online academy, over the course of this last
summer, 15 staff members met on five different occasions to research standards of delivering online programming. Over the course of the last 12 to 18 months, we've seen an explosion in our students leaning into online coursework from outside vendors. is
happening primarily in our uh core coursework but we are seeing it happen in some elective areas as well and so our staff met this summer and we looked at building with the end in mind so looking at if this scales in comparison to what we're seeing in other districts
if we were to become a fully K12 academy at some point into the future how are we building our courses and our programming now so we're building with that down the road and so this coming fall we are offering nine online courses. Those nine
courses represent the highest concentration of registration from this past academic year. Uh we have been working to ensure that the programming is flexible and adaptable for our students as they have identified that is one of the main reasons that they're
choosing to go into an online platform. We have staff who are looking at different pedagogical research to learn how do you continue to leverage relationships and build strong communication while allowing our students to work at their own pace in this flexible environment. We know that
typically our students don't succeed as well in an online platform. If we look at our students doing PSO online, they're not passing at about a 15% rate and our outside vendors, they're not passing at a 19% rate. Whereas our
onampus to give you a comparison is about 2.7 non-passing rate. So what we're trying to achieve in doing this, we have our teachers access to rigorous coursework, access to all of our support systems with counseling and teachers available
so we can build programming where our students do have a higher success rate and still stay connected to Stillwater schools and the sports activities and programs that they love. So, as we launch next fall, we'll evaluate, look at the success of that and determine
whether or not we can continue to scale. So, just to go back and summarize again some of the the pieces that we've talked about, um everything that we have talked about to this point represents um areas of growth for us as a school and as a district quite honestly. And all of
these things require work. They require investment. They require resource. A lot of which we have already provided because a lot of this work, like I said, has already been started. But all of that work represents strategic investment to exactly the question that Chair Sherman asked earlier. All of these things are designed to offer
opportunities to recapture students, keep students here, give students the best possible experience in our schools so they won't want to go anywhere else. the online academy that Rachel just talked about can maybe be considered a slightly separate piece, but all of the other pieces that we've talked about in
terms of expanding elective opportunities, um, expanding um, talking about a concentration potentially in a pathway so that, you know, maybe we require that as part of a a student's experience where they have to progress through a program of study. Right now, our students schedules are impacted to
the ability that they're not necessarily able to to do that. Certainly not very well. I've shared the story um a couple of different times before about students who have come to me. I've had multiple students over the years come to me and tell me, "Mr. Bach, um you know, as I see them a year or two later, hey, where
are you?" And and what do you remind me, refresh my memory, where are you going to school? Oh, I'm at Carlson School of Management, blah blah blah blah. Oh, that's great. So, you're majoring in business. You know, you must have been super well prepared. Yeah, I was well prepared, but you know what? I didn't have room to actually take a business class. they're majoring in business at the Carlson School of Management and did
not have room in high school to take a business class as an elective. Those are those are things that represent um problems for us. And so, in order to fully realize the opportunities that we've been laying out um again, as Chair Sherman said, not the
first time that we've talked about this, but we need to adopt a different bell schedule for students. We currently are on a six period day in a semester system. And just again the the way that that schedule is structured just simply does not allow students to fully take
advantage of all the opportunities that we feel we'd like to offer them and we feel that they are deserving of as high school students in our system. So a new schedule is something that would allow us Go ahead Dr. B. So two questions. First one's for Rachel. Rachel, how long we've been on
the sixth period day ballpark? At least 20 years. Okay. Second question is for you Rob. You've been principal here for how long? 10 years. 12 years. 12. Have you looked at the schedule
previously earlier on in your career here as principal here? No. Okay. So, we've been engaged in this process for coming a year and a half coming up on two years probably now. But prior to that, no. Okay. So, this is the first these last couple years have been the first time
we've we've tried to address the six period day. Um, any prior engagement on trying to get a new schedule that you can recall? We've talked about it over the years. When I started a very, very long time ago, we were on the 7 by two traditional schedule. We pivoted to the 5x3 for a
very short period of time and we've been on the 62 for cost savings ever since that 5x3. So, I think there's been a desire to, but it's been a funding issue. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. No, thanks for the for the question. Um, so again, at the at
the end of the day, in order to fully realize the opportunities that we're outlining here, we need a different schedule at Stillwater Area High School. We've talked to the board as chair Sherman said before a number of different times and we actually presented last spring after going through and again we've done we've been
doing our our homework for quite some time now probably over a year and I think the last time that we presented last spring we were leaning towards a 4x4 block schedule. Um we've pivoted recently and we're looking at a schedule we'd like to adopt a schedule that is somewhat similar in nature. It offers
some of the same characteristics um of the 4x4 schedule. However, as we looked at it, I think initially um a lot of our conversation centered around the number one goal was to increase student elective opportunities and the 4x4 was the schedule that offered us the most
elective opportunities. And so certainly on the surface of things, that's a that's an appealing piece. I think as our staff has dived in and and taken a closer look, we recognize that the 7 by two schedule offers a number of the other pieces that we had talked about.
So when we talk about um things like the ability to to run bar and incorporate social emotional learning into the school day, which is already a pretty embedded part of of what we do, the ability to be able to keep that actually lends itself to potentially a different schedule. Um we talked about um a
personalized learning plan and how do we how do we better incorporate pathways? Some of those pieces again are eas more easily capitalized on I think through the out the schedule that we're going to outline for you today which is actually a 7 by two schedule. It's not a traditional 7 by two as Rachel had
talked about. It's a modified schedule. And so we're going to talk with you um about what that would look like. So uh the 7 by2 modified schedule um really what is I mean what is any schedule? A schedule a schedule is a
vehicle that delivers your priorities and your objectives right. So as the team talked about expanded programming in pathways um expanded access to career ready
skills and then additional support for students. The 7 by two modified schedule provides us an opportunity to prioritize those things within the schedule much more so uh than the 6 by two. In fact, the 6x2 you run into a dead end as as
Rob explained. um you know, you've got a typical student, let's say as an example, who's taking all of the required courses that they need for graduation, but they also are taking advantage of our amazing world language courses and they want to
take four years of of world language. K's over here. Um and and please interject when when you feel like this is a good opportunity to do so. You're taking four years of world language. You're you're participating in our superior music programs for four years. Why wouldn't you? If you're a student
musician, right? You add up those required courses. That's it. That's your schedule. So to Rob's example, you're going to Carlson management and you haven't taken any business electives, right? So first off, the 7 by two modified gives our students the
opportunity to have more access to pathways, opportunities to get outside of, you know, the music, the world language. Not to mention, oh, now I'm taking health online. Now I'm taking FIET online, right? and I'm adding that in because those are required courses.
So just to interject, I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but just if if you're not familiar, the terminology around 7 by two, seven refers to the number of class periods that would be on a student's schedule. Two refers to the number of grading periods. So as Mr. Craft will outline for you kind of going
forward here, a 7 by two offers 14 credit bearing opportunities over the course of a year as opposed to the current 6x2 that we're on right now, which is 12. And so as we talk through the the different numbers that are there on the chart, that's kind of where that originates from. But that's also terminology. And I know that I get questions on that every now and then by
people who are like, "What the heck does that actually mean?" For those of us that don't live this every day. So apologize for interrupting, but I just wanted to to throw that out. Thank you. Thank you. Yay. So um so a little math here. So current 6x2 schedule, again, as Rob indicated, that's six classes, um
two semesters on that current schedule column. And then in comparison, the new schedule column of seven periods, two semesters. And so what does that change? Um what does that improve? So
obviously your total credits available increases by eight over the course of a 4-year high school career. Again, that's eight more opportunities to um take your health and your FIED uh
your personal finance. That's a new requirement in the state of Minnesota starting with the class of 2029. Um and to get into those pathways, um electives and programs that that you want to um explore and dive into.
Graduation requirements. This is one that would have to be revisited in the change of the schedule. Currently, there's 43 credits required for graduation with expanded credit opportunities. We would need to update that number that what's required to to
graduate. Um, and so you can see um in that second to last row required credits, we have to add in one because of personal finance, right? So again, we're continuing to add in requirements
for students and the 6 by two just runs out of steam. It's just not a schedule that delivers our priorities and our objectives anymore as a as a high school. And then obviously the the one at the bottom there that um is eye opening in increasing those elective
opportunities by up to eight um eight courses which um then also gives you the opportunity to really think about um a course like a ninth grade seminar. So bringing students into high school,
right? uh the the single most important transition in a student's K or preK12 career is nth grade. Uh that's the research that's just not that's not just me talking. And so providing a purposeful transition for our nth grade
students in a course like a nth grade seminar and then the outro would be like a 12th grade capstone course. So what have you learned? What skills and knowledge have you learned? and how are you going to take that forward after high school? And
having that capstone opportunity, again, increasing um options by eight choices over the course of four years provides the opportunity for us to to delve into that. I think it's important for you to see numbers, right? So, that's part of why we put a a chart on there. But I also
want to emphasize, as Mr. craft um very deafly outlined there are asterisks next to those three numbers because I recognize final graduation requirements have to be approved by the board. So we are more than happy to to come forward with a proposal here pretty quickly but
um that gives you kind of a ballpark figure but just recognize that those numbers could potentially be adjusted. Matt talked about the the number of required credits going from 32 to 33 because we now have personal finance on the books. If we were to require a ninth grade seminar course, which we currently
have as a proposal on the books and would be part of a proposal that comes forward, that would theoretically be one more required credit, one less elective credit. However, the number of elective opportunities is still going to be significantly higher for students. So, they're getting the best of both worlds. They're getting more opportunities for
choice in their day and they're also getting programming on top of that. One thing I want to interject real quick as we're talking about the electives is um when we look at Knack which is the organization association that does all of college admissions. Um we keep
hitting on the electives and giving students choice especially within their career focus or an area of interest the pathways. Um when colleges are surveyed one of the top 10 things that they look at is on a student's transcript that they have taken courses that are in or
related to their their major. Right? So part of their application is what major I'm interested in. And colleges, again, one of the top things they're looking at is did you take courses in high school that are relevant to that major? Because again, back to that point, how can you say you want to go into business management and you've never taken a
business course, right? So again, just in in terms of trying to do uh what's right for our students and their future, it's another reason um that this work needs to continue. So what does the modified mean? So this
is a look at a modified 7 by two schedule. So what you'll see in this um this would be a an an example of a week, right? So what this allows us to do is to create like three separate days, an A day, a B day, and a C day. And we can
arrange those um in flexible ways. Um so for example, if we have a three-day week, which we have coming up next week, right? We could do an A, a B, and a C, right? If we had a 4 day week, we could do two A's and and two B's, right? So, it allows for that flexibility. More so,
what it allows us to do is it allows us to really stretch out those seven periods in a way that meets the students where they're at. So, you can see in the the typical Aday, um, a student would have four periods
during the day. Um, and so these these periods would be longer. They would allow students and teachers um an 85 to 90 minute period where they could dive into content.
It allows for um the the implementation of intervention and acceleration in these periods of time. That's easier to do than um a period that's only twothirds that amount of time. On the student side of it, it
provides four courses to focus on in one specific day. Um, it's the same with Bday except for now we have an additional opt additional opportunity which could be a flex period. Um, we'll talk more about the flex period in the
next slide, but the flex period provides us some great opportunities for additional student supports and opportunities to engage in the high school experience. And then that C day, that's one where if we needed a touch point to get students
to um all of their classes in a specific day, um that's an opportunity for that day and that schedule as well. I'm going to pause. Yep. Can I put you on on um on notice here, but what do you think about a schedule
like this? What what comes to mind um first when you see this? to start. I have friends that have this type of schedule where they have like the A and B days and they switch back and forth between having class on different days. And I think it's great to not only let you have more courses cuz like going
back on like the last slide, the biggest thing that for me was the electives and I think that's extremely important because I know like you have band and then also just like a lot of like the classes I'm trying to take this year even it's kind of hard like I'm not able to take any. I want to possibly go into
business, but I can't take any this year and I've been unable to because of languages and then I'm in Avid, which is I've been taking that for the whole time and there's not really room even with like trying to figure out what to do. So, it can just be kind of difficult to balance everything. And I think this gives the opportunity not only to have
more electives, but then also to stretch it out so it's less stressful. Yeah. Um, I definitely agree with Zach. Um, going back to the last slide as well, um, I am a student who's also in the music program and the band program and also in a language. I'm in Spanish 4 as a junior. And I definitely see a
crunch in my schedule. I mean, I've seen that since 8th grade when I was looking forward to seeing what classes am I taking, where am I going to go? And I definitely saw, oh, I don't have time for health and gym. I already have taken those online. And I mean, I want to go
into the biology field. And I besides AP bio, I have not had the opportunity to have a certain class like that. Um, and I feel as though I'm not being properly prepared for a certain major that I want to go into in the future. Um, but with
the schedule, I mean, at first change is going to be definitely startling. I know. I mean, people have already been talking about it. Um, and people are definitely startled by the schedule. I think people will come to like the schedule, but it will just take time.
Um I think as long as students are very well aware that this is happening I think change will come more smoothly than just the fact of oh this is a schedule that we are going to be facing next year. Um but overall I do like um
the like there's more classes opportunities. I do worry about attention span um and also in music I know um in choir and also in instruments uh the perspective um we can get tired um for playing that long and I know that
I mean that's just from my perspective but I just worry about attention span so um yes Parker had a question online and then I'll go to you next Parker I don't think so. Sorry.
Maybe. Is he muted? Are you muted, Parker? Okay, we'll go with Andrew and we'll work on Parker. Okay, go ahead, Andrew. Yeah. No, I appreciate the both of your uh input and comments and and I would agree. I think an engaged learner is
definitely going to be a better learner and taking courses of interest I think will hopefully parlay itself into more success as both a high school student and hopefully um you know continued lifelong learner. Um and uh Principal Bach, I appreciate you kind of sharing some thoughts in terms of how you've
pivoted from before where it seemed like there was a lot of interest in the 4x4 kind of pivoting to the modified 7 by two. Um, and you know, based on a lot of the things you outlined, it seems to make a lot of sense. You know, I know one thing that really stood out for me with the 4x4 was um some of the the
depth of learning, but it seems like within that schedule that we're going to you have with the uh um the comparison of the current uh versus a newer even against the 4x there's it's still essentially a hybrid depth, I would imagine. So, you're still digging into
some things within some of those A, B, and C, A and B um tradeoff. Um, but I think to me it seems like one of the main benefits is just that continued sequential exposure to classes. you're not having any gaps, which to me, I
think from an equity and an access standpoint, that should hopefully be more beneficial for the students that maybe need some additional support and services versus um you know, the high performers will always be the high performers, but making sure that we're meeting the needs of all students. I guess what would be your thoughts?
Thanks for your observation on that. And you know, um, to your initial point, I think what this schedule does is it capitalizes on some of the aspects of the block schedule that we liked. We talked about, um, the benefits of an 85minute block. And to Katie's point,
sometimes students right out of the gate and teachers too for that matter are looking at that going, "Holy cow, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with that chunk of time with students for that chunk of time." And I remember when we did our site visit to go look at the block schedule, we looked at math. You know, it's your stereotypical
prototypical class where our kids are like, "Oh my god, I can't sit in there for 85 minutes and sit there and do problems." And the way they instructed on the block was fundamentally different. And all of our kids coming out of there said, "We got to do this. This is this is how we should be doing
math." Again, was kind of the the topic duour. But the the reality was that was being expressed in as they were coming out of their art class. It was being expressed as they came out of their social studies class. And so this schedule allows us to still be able to capitalize on some of those aspects. Granted, we need some and I'll talk
about this um coming up. We'll need some professional development time and there's some plans to to make sure that we know how to how to execute that well. Um, so that will be on us, but it incorporates some of the best of both worlds while also being able to do some of the intervention pieces that you're talking about that are a little bit
trickier to do on the traditional block. Perfect. Thank you. Um, Parker, you there? Hang on. Are you there? Got an ear ache? Okay, try now. Hey, thanks a lot. Hey, um, can you hear
me okay now? Yeah. Okay. Uh, thank you guys very much for the presentation. I appreciate it. I have uh two questions. One first when it talks about college readiness and looking at what colleges are requiring
and looking at for uh qualifications. One thing as I understand is percentage of high AP classes taken or college ready courses taken. And so
if we add credits to the day, does that require our students to then take more of those classes to keep their percentage of those classes up? So that's the first question. I'll wait. He's wondering. I think I mean I guess Director Parker
from a simple math standpoint if they're looking at the at that percentage. Yes. I might defer to to Sydney a little bit, but my experience with college admissions counselors is that the primary piece that they're looking at is a student's transcript. They're looking at what, you know, what are you taking
relative to to what your school has offered? And if you are taking those things, we're encouraging all of our students to participate, not just in AP, but also the concurrent enrollment piece because that's kind of a I don't want to say equivalent, but it's a very comparable um course of study. And all
of our students are getting that. And to the point that Rachel talked about earlier, um, where when we talk about a concentration and a pathway, each pathway in each program of study is going to be offering advanced courses of study and students are going to have the opportunity to get to those advanced
courses of study in an easier way in all probability than than what they had before. So my my sense is the the short answer to your question is would they have to increase the number of classes taken to keep that percentage the same? Yes, but they would probably have more access to be more more easy to do. So,
this might get into the weeds a little bit, but when a student applies for for college, um the colleges are asking for what's called a school report uh that has a list of all of our rigorous courses because obviously schools provide different options that way and different kind of um selections. And so,
um, we actually fill out a school report that lists all of our, uh, rigorous courses and we identify those as, uh, any class that is eligible for college credit. So, classes like our advanced placement, our project lead the way, some of our enriched courses, our concurrent enrollment courses, all of
those get identified as rigorous courses. Um, and so what we're actually seeing is with the changes being made, our students are actually accessing more rigorous courses that they can report to colleges and that we are verifying through that reporting process that counselors have to fulfill um, on our
side of things. And so we're actually seeing students increase those opportunities. And that comment that I made earlier about the elective options and making sure they're related to their course um of study later on in college, it typically is they want to see obviously a strong GPA, right? They want
to see students access rigorous courses and then one of the other top pieces is that they've accessed rigorous courses in that possible field of study. So those are some again just some of the top 10 things that college admissions officers are looking at. And again, a lot of those are indicated within their transcript and within the reports that
we follow up with those colleges on. And did you have a second question, Parker? Thank you very much for that. And that was very the I guess my point is one of the goals that we highlighted was reduc reducing the burden on our high
performing students as well. This seems like changing this over would actually increase potentially the burden on the high performing students to add another class to their curriculum while while being very interesting to them or something they're engaged in. Um I just think we need to think about those guiding principles that that were laid
out at the beginning uh when addressing this. Uh second, what is the process for us to look at the schedule overall? I think this is the fourth meeting on the block schedule and maybe our third
different version. I'm just curious what is our sort of process to get to a vote or to to review all of the, you know, the the pros, the cons, the cost options, and then the feedback from the
various parties. Feels like we saw a previous version that was recommending one thing. Now we're seeing one that's recommending a second thing. And it seems like understanding those tradeoffs directly would be very important in making a decision. I'll let Dr. Funk answer that.
So, a couple thoughts on that. So, the the when we're talking school schedules, whether it's at the elementary level, the middle school level, or the high school level, schedule permutations are made at different times. This is typically not a
board vote. the board's purview comes into budget oversight on whether or not if there's a change in the schedule, how the uh the impact on that is with the budget and and I think Rob is prepared to talk about that in a little bit. The
other thing that the board has oversight on is our graduation requirements and the courses we teach. And so I think you're going to touch base on all three of those things um a little bit here in later in the presentation. Okay, let's circle back to that um question if it's
not answered a little bit more clearly, Parker, at the end of the presentation. We'll kind of let you guys continue for a minute. Thank you. Thank you. So, um as director Parker noted or asked
the question, you know, adding another period, adding another first that that seems kind of counterintuitive to reducing stress or reducing the load for students. And and as we pointed out with the schedule, I think Zach, you you said
it as well, it kind of stretches out the experience a little bit, right? So that you're only focusing on so many courses during the day. And then in the in the Bday, you see the the flex option there twice during during a typical week. What
is a flex? So, here could be some examples of flex time on Bdays. And these could be opportunities for academic focus or for experiential learning um that we can incorporate into a student's schedule and experience that we just don't have the opportunity to do
so right now. So, you know, right now at at the high school, we do have office hours, if you're familiar with that um opportunity. So, it's once a week. It's on Wednesday mornings. We've got one coming up tomorrow morning. And um students um at this point it's it's it's
100% an academic opportunity. Um students are tapped on the shoulder by a a teacher to say, "Hey, come to my office hours." Um need to see you to review this content or retake a test or or whatever. Um or students can say, "I
want to go into this class and I'd like to spend more time with the teacher. I'd like to spend more time in the content." um or students that have um exceeded the standard for academic performance can choose to take take that time um away
from the academic setting. This provides much more than that two times a week. It's going to provide an opportunity for students to engage in some of the clubs and activities and things that really um get them out of bed in the morning and
get them to school, right? Um, it's going to give them the opportunity to have additional experiential learning. We talked about, uh, the pathways, capstone opportunity for seniors. Um, college and career center visits,
opportunity for that in their schedule rather than having to get a pass and and missing class in order to go see um, college reps coming in and talking about their their universities. um doing some really cool things with um peer tutors,
peer helpers, um work-based learning, community service. And again, that twice um twice a week intentional and purposeful time um again gives those students the opportunity to really settle into their schedule as well as provide more
opportunities. Um just about the block schedule too, I was able to tour. where I had the opportunity to go to a different high school and see what it would be like to be in that class and that setting of having like the four different periods during like for one day. And I think the
major takeaway was how they like used the time. I only was able to experience like core classes. So nothing with like any art or music depending on how that would be. But they went over the lesson, they were able to do it and then they also got to do homework and then they got like one-on-one help with teachers
more than being rushed. like if they had any questions or help, they had more opportunity to be able to get help and get that extra help that they need. I think that was really eye opening. Also, all the students I talked to, it didn't feel long and even when I was in that class for that whole time, it didn't feel as long as it sounds, which was
nice. But also, the flex period, um, I think that's great, especially for like sports. Like you can't really go to any after school clubs if you have sports right after school. And also having it during like the second one is also like kind of a push to have people participate, have people go to clubs,
have people join, and also just get that more time to, you know, be in school. So I think that's great. And I think what Zach's sitting on actually speaks a little bit to director Parker's question earlier around the mental health because certainly yes, that was absolutely a goal of a schedule
change is trying to address, you know, the the need for students mental health. And as Zach said, on the on the block schedule, students were more able to take care of a lot of their stuff during the course of the school day because we're not talking a traditional 4x4, but we're talking a seven period spread out
over two days where we have the ability to do that flex time, too. That's another opportunity for students to get in and check and connect with a teacher, get they can use it as independent study if if nothing else, if they if they want to do it for that, but they can make up homework, they can meet with their club,
they can meet with their adviser, they can get that stuff done during the course of the school day, which decreases the amount of time that's needed outside of the school day. So again, it's kind of a a best of both worlds type of type of situation. Yes, we are adding one more class period throughout the course of a grading
period. But by concentrating on four of them in a day, that's another thing instructionally that we can talk about going forward, we can figure out, hey, what's a what's good practice related to homework? What's good practice related to what we're asking of our students during the course of the day and I think we can hit on that.
Yes. Um, I would just like to say um that with the four classes or three classes during the day, I mean that's less homework at night and also that's less buildup of tests if there are multiple tests in different classes. Um, but also I was just curious how like
flex like what was the was the thought process behind making it second um in the schedule and also how would lunch with like A, B, C and D with you know how like classes are split up and stuff like that is that into the flex is that like splitting up flex for certain people or is that like period 4? I was
just curious. That's a great question and I think I need to put you on my committee when we sit down to figure that out because those are some of the levels of details that we're not quite at yet, but once this becomes formalized and approved and all that, those are the the details that we'll have yet to to work out.
Can I ask to um and I don't want to put words in your mouth. I want to have you kind of organically talk a little bit about the process because I think um you know when you did come I mean we started out by just saying obviously people support Pathways. I mean, we've surveyed taxpayers before and it's it's high
ranking up there in terms of what our community wants for our students. Um, I think that they maybe don't understand the connection between the schedule and pathways. You know, if you say, "Do you want a change in a schedule?" Well, that might be no. Um, I'm not I don't want to
change. But if they understand that we can't do pathways as a school district, as a high school, if we don't have a schedule that supports it. But did you get you started out with the 4x4? Well, you started out very open and I know you kind of came back last time and it's a
working group so we see certain points. You see the entire evolution, right? So, um, when you come back here with the 7 by two modified, is it did you get like teacher feedback along the way that maybe led you off of the 4x4? Did you
get student feedback? Like, we're hearing students here, or how did that organically kind of evolve over time? I'm sure cost was an impact, which I appreciate. I'll get to the the cost. We're not quite done on the the presentation, so I'll loop back on that. students. Um,
yeah, Zach can attest to the idea that we took students out to look at a couple of these different schedules, came back. I've hosted some meeting groups. Um, sat down with student council. They're actually on the docket to to go to literally like starting up next week is to start the the communication plan with
them. Um, I did roll this out um last year also during class meetings. So right away at the start of the year because at that time we actually thought that we'd be going forward this year and so started introducing or engaging students right away in the idea that hey this is these are things that we're talking about to try to make your
experience better here. So students have been notified to Katie's point um you know yeah this isn't on the announcements every single day and and not something that we're talking about every single day but um there has been engagement there. I would say over the course of the past couple of weeks, we've engaged in some pretty intensive
um staff feedback sessions where we've sat down and and hosted open sessions pretty much every class period where teachers can come down and kind of talk through some of the pros and cons or ask clarifying questions to familiarize themselves with both of these schedules. And so those have been learning sessions
for teachers as feedback sessions for um those of us in in decision-making capacities. And so trying to take all of that stuff in to come up with the the best possible thing to deliver. And again, I think the the primary pieces of feedback that came back were some of the
programming that we can deliver here on this model. This model was preferable than the the one that we had previously. Great. Thank you for that. I'll flip ahead then and and again obviously there's u um time at the end for for questions but I know as a board
you're obviously concerned about cost. Cost is broken down into a couple of different categories or a couple of different ways. The most significant one bar none is staffing. This schedule will require more staff. And so that's where the the primary bulk of cost would come
in. The way we calculate this um it is based on obviously a couple of different estimates. The first estimate that we throw out is whatever our student population is currently. Right now we're operating at about 2700 students. Actually about 2710ish thereabouts, but we'll round off just
for for simplicity sake. Call it 2700. You multiply that by the number of courses that a student would request on a six period day. Our current schedule students are requesting 12 courses. On the 7 by two, they'd be requesting 14 courses. So that's the number of student
course requests that get generated through our registration process. So just to give you a a little sneak behind the curtain and how the secret sauce is made, this guy to my left is that's the amount of data that he is processing to build a schedule that meets all of our students needs. The the total number of
sections is determined by dividing by however many sections a teacher teaches. So for example, on our current schedule right now, we're on a six period day. teachers teach five periods out of six. That means that if they have five periods first semester, five periods second semester, um they wind up with 10 total
um 10 total sections that they're teaching. That then becomes uh the number of FTEEs that are required. And sorry, I misspoke. For the total number of sections, you want to divide it by your staff ratio. If there's 33.1 students in every class, you take the number of requests, divide it by the
number of students. That tells you your number of sections. Once you have your number of sections, divide that by the number of sections the teacher teaches. That tells you roughly how much staffing you're going to need. So on our current model right now with 2700 students organized the way it is, our base
staffing model would be right around 98 FTE. On the new schedule that we are proposing, again, there would be more course requests because there are more courses on a student's schedule. The total number of um sections again is still found the same way because if our
staffing ratio stays the same again that's another estimate. But if the staffing ratio remains the same you divide that by that. And then to calculate the total number of FTE again you're going to divide that by the number of sections that a teacher is teaching. And on this model what we have
based all of our projections on is the idea that teachers from a staffing allocation or a staffing model would be teaching 11 out of 14. So 5.5 out of seven. Roughly what that translates to is during one semester teachers would likely be teaching five out of seven. On
a different semester they'd be teaching six out of seven. So from a math standpoint that becomes 5.5 out of seven. And that's how that um that's how those numbers are arrived at. So as an estimate we could say safely to run this schedule we would be looking at an
increase of roughly six FTE. And so again, depending on what the average cost of an FTE is, that's what that total number will translate to. So I put a number there for you so that you have a ballpark figure, but again, those are are based on estimates which are going to vary depending on what your student
enrollment is, what your staffing ratio is, and what the average cost of an FTE is. Besides the staffing, there are um a couple of other buckets that the costs fall into. One of which is curriculum writing. Um we have on the books right
now. We actually started this process last year. Um last year we started throwing this out because we knew that we were going to need new courses if we were going to run a new schedule. Um new electives or elective opportunities mean we need to to develop courses too. So,
we currently have in the hopper, we actually have over 25 new courses. We're not going to put them all out. Some of those are going to have to end up on the on the cutting room floor because you need a sustainable way of running a registration process. Also, and as Rachel outlined, um we've talked about
some of the strategic points that we're trying to hit. So, we're going to align the courses that we propose with those strategic areas. So, what are the courses that we need to give us an AA degree? What are the courses that we need to round out those pathways pieces so that we don't wind up with gaping
holes in the registration process? Those are the ones those are the priorities that we have identified for the new courses that we will be putting forward. We have a meeting with the curriculum advisory council or the district advisory council on Monday the 13th. Um that's a group as you know that consists
of um educators throughout the district, administrators throughout the district, but also community members. and it's our first opportunity to kind of vet the the new courses um in front of the community. And so it gives us an opportunity to receive some feedback from the community before they come here
formally to the board for approval. But right now our tenative plan is we have about 18 courses that we've identified. Each of those courses ballpark figure requires about roughly $1,000 worth of curriculum writing. Typically 40 hours
is what has been allocated for a new course starting up from scratch. That's something that um again we've used kind of as a a baseline model. That's compensated at $25 an hour. That's roughly $1,000. If we have 18 courses, that's $18,000 for curriculum writing. On top of that, once a course is
approved, obviously there are other resources and materials. If I'm starting up a chemistry in the community course, I'm going to need consumables. I'm going to need glassware. I'm going to need lab equipment. All of those kinds of pieces. So, for all of our teachers that submitted um a course proposal, we asked
them to itemize out what are your estimates for the cost of running your class? What kind of materials are you going to need? Um that's um ballpark estimate around $35,000. And then because a number of the courses, the new courses that we are proposing, as Rachel indicated earlier,
are concurrent enrollment, there are fees that we have to pay with our partnering universities. that totals potentially $47,000 again depending on the the courses that we have. But I want to emphasize that the resources and materials budget as well as the
concurrent enrollment fees, we have been very very adept at recouping almost all if not all of those costs through grants. So those while they are costs and represent an investment, those are pieces that we have been able to recoup either through the office of
higher ed YST grants but a number of different things. If one of these happens to be a Perkins related class, sometimes Perkins kicks in, but there's a number of different avenues that we can tap into to minimize the the cost impact for us on resources and materials.
Yes. Um, so some of that money comes back, but let's call it 900,000. Um, is any of this replacing other classes? Are there savings to be had in in other
classes? Well, again, keep in mind students are signing up for a set number of classes. And so if the so the total number of um classes, assuming your schedule stays the same, the total number of classes doesn't change, right?
So if we offer a new course and two sections of that course happen to form, let's say that 65 kids sign up for that course. So we're going to run two sections of that course. It's not like we have two more sections added to the total of what we had the previous year. Those two sections, kids are signing up
for those because now they're not signing up for something else. So the net on the total number of courses is even. In this particular example, the net's not going to be even because we are talking about a schedule change. But I think the way that your your question is framed as kids sign up for one
course, that's going to come at the expense of another course. This is a different year simply because the the schedule change that we're talking about now requires a different number. So it's not quite an apples to apples comparison, but in a normal year that would not represent necessarily a an
increase or a decrease. Are there any um professional development costs outside of like any kind of training or that would be add to the cost or budget or is that included maybe? And I'm just not potentially, but I'm gonna I'm gonna give Dr. fun some props here for um
helping to shepherd through a calendar that incorporates professional development throughout the course of the year. We have seven professional development days um that are built into our teachers um calendar at this point and so part of our job needs to be and I started with our building leadership
team. Um, we met yesterday and one of the questions that I asked them was to sit down and engage in an exercise where they began to outline a scope and sequence of what is the professional development that would be needed to execute this kind of schedule. Our teachers want some training on what it
means to to teach on the block schedule. I would like to provide them with opportunities to continue to go do site visits so that some of the people who went last time now there's some new people that can go and bring some of those ideas back. Maybe there are people there at some of those schools who would be willing to come and present to us
during professional development. So there are some costs there but again the the most important resource that we have is time and that time is kind of embedded in. It's now our job to make sure that we efficiently use that time and maximize the the impact that we have
with that time. But that's part of our plan. Thank you. Great. In terms of next steps for us then, um, one of the next pieces would be to come back to the board at some point with a proposal for graduation requirements.
Um, that will be, you know, I'll just preface that by saying it's a little bit tricky because, um, if and when a schedule change goes into effect next year, you got to keep in mind you're going to have seniors who are going to have one year on that schedule and three years on a 6 by two. You're going to
have a class of juniors that will have two and two, a class of 10th graders. So, every class is going to have a different set of graduation requirements until the the first ninth grade class on that new schedule has a chance to cycle all the way through and then it becomes fairly simple. But we will break all of
that down for you, including um the proposals that we have for what additional things would we like to incorporate into the high school experience. We talked about a nth grade seminar, you know, grabbing nth graders as soon as they come into the high school and giving them a required course that teaches them how to be a high
school student. Let's talk about how to take notes formally. Let's talk about how to keep a binder. Let's talk about um how to how to organize all of your your classes, how to use a planner, all of those skills that right now we're trying to interject a little bit through bar. we can have an actual class where
that becomes a a requirement so that kids really truly have skin in the game to to do that. All of those things we'll we'll outline for you. Again, we want to we need the opportunity to run some of these new courses past the district advisory council next week. Uh but then shortly after that, we'll be in a
position to to come and outline those for you. We also um talked about the curriculum writing time. Again, Rachel's done a fantastic job leading um professional development over the past two summers where teachers have started in on their proposals. They have the
ideas in place. They just now need the the go-ahhead for the time to sit down and put pen to paper to put those um ideas to life. We've talked about the professional development. Thank you, uh Chair Sherman. Um and then obviously we'll just need some time to refine the new model as Katie pointed out. You know, we need a we need a bell schedule.
We need to figure out exactly where that flex time is going to go and all of those details, but the the larger piece is settling in on the idea that this is what we'd like to do. Um, sorry, just one thing on the cost because the costs are kind of what I'm trying to hone in on. The $800,000
that's kind of an annual cost, not the one time kind of the fees for the the hundred,000. Is that um factoring in the fact that like will that grow? Um because like you mentioned, seniors won't be fully on it. I mean, is is this in all-incclusive like is this going to
increase as as it gets implemented or is there all implementation? No, that go ahead. That's an implementation piece. That number I mean we're going to need, you know, the number I think I had up there was a little over 103 or close to 104 staff members. Y
that number will stay the same. But again, the idea is when we shift to this next year, that's the number of staff members that we will need to run that schedule next year. But we're running that schedule for all of our students in our entity that year. So that cost isn't going to change after that. Okay. So it's not going to go up or
down. Okay. Perfect. Questions? Yes. Oh, what? Thank you all again for the time and presentation. Um and just all the work that's been done behind the scenes. I It sounds like it's quite a bit. So thank you. Um, what do you see as kind of the the main roadblocks to
success with a modified 7 by two? Budget aside, you know, that's where Marie figure it out. High five. But I guess from your perspective, what are you seeing as some of the main roadblocks which obviously takes a lot
of buy in um a lot of moving parts. Um, a tremendous amount of moving parts. But, you know, I think from a board standpoint, we've always focused on what's in the best interest of students. And to me, it seems like it's a slam dunk that it makes a lot of sense to
implement something like that to give students more choices. Um, that's better meet their needs. Um, so what do you see as some things that are going to potentially derail the success a successful outcome? Well, I'll be honest. I don't see
anything as derailing. I see again this is this is a better this is good for students and so from that standpoint to your point that's our job that's what we're tasked with in terms of challenges um you know Katie kind of hit the nail on the head earlier change is hard right
it's hard for all of it's going to be work you know even for somebody like me that's excited about the possibilities that this brings and excited about the the work of doing something good for students we got a lot of work ahead of us um but we've done a lot of work to get to this point and I um extremely
proud of our staff for the time that they have put in, the engagement that they have gone through to get to a point where we've got something that we're that we're ready to put forward. But um changes are we're going to have to communicate with students so that students understand what the opportunities are, what the benefits
are, and why we're doing this and the idea that we're doing this for them and that there are positives in this um staff the the same way. And so I think we've already talked with Cararissa about what is uh we need a communications plan, right? Families need to understand the same thing. You
know, anytime we have a change, whether it's a calendar, whether it's start time, any of those things, some cell phones, right? I mean, if we took a a vote right now on the the cell phone policy and the way that thing is going, I mean, we're getting kudos all over the place for how that's gone. And yet, at
the start of that, you know, there was some concern, right? Parents were concerned, how am I going to get a hold of my kid? students were concerned, what am I going to do during the course of the day? And yet, when I talk with students today, students are like, "Yeah, this is this is just fine. This is working out fine." And our teachers who were concerned that they were going
to have to play bad cop all the time, our teachers are like, "This is a gamecher. This is this is great." And so, at some level, there's got to be some trust in the process that what we're doing is the right thing. And if we're able to communicate that well and communicate that effectively, that's how we work through that.
Thank you. I had a few questions and my best questions were already asked by Katie. Thank you. So, I'll cross those off. Um I think one thing that really moved the needle for me um was Sydney's comment about there's more stuff on your college transcript. So, that's really going to help that out. So, thanks for pointing
that out. Um so, trying to think of an analogy here. So, currently we got 12 eggs in the carton. Right now, we want to put 14 in that carton. Right? So, the carton's not getting bigger. So are the current classes just going to be a little bit weaker uh you know a little
bit shorter to accommodate the more classes in the day you know what I'm saying there will be a difference in terms of the total number of minutes over a grading period so yes our teachers will have to do some work that's part of what that curriculum writing time is that's part of the
professional development work that we will have to do with our staff is they will have to sit down and kind of take an examination of what are the minutes that we have to work with. What's the difference? And how are we going to identify what the true power standards are? We've talked about depth over
breath. And this gives us an opportunity to do that. We're going to have to sit down collectively as a staff and each individual collaborative action team is going to have to do some exercises where they look at the standards and acknowledge these are the power standards that we need to hang our hat on and that will be a that will be a
process. But there, you know, anytime there's a difference in minutes, yeah, there will have to be some changes that that go along with that. I'm not going to say at all that it's watered down because again, that's one of the advantages of depth over breath. You know, when we have an opportunity to go deeper into something, the idea is is that understanding sinks. And so, if
we've done a good job identifying what those power standards are, the opportunity to go a little bit deeper in that can benefit our kids even if they didn't get the, you know, the one or two lessons over here that they might have gotten previously. Does that mean Zach and Katie now have more homework because the uh breath is
going to come outside of the classroom day? Don't answer that. Um, okay. So, the other question is, might we recover some cost? Now, they say 800,000, but if we can keep some students here that would otherwise go, I imagine that's more
money, right? So, that 800,000, we'll nibble some off of that. Hopefully. Yeah. So, like what Rachel was talking about is when we looked, for example, the online learning academy, when we look at the courses that our students are taking, she mentioned a good chunk of them are in the core areas, right? So students are electing to take those
courses through an outside vendor. Um but very closely next to that are students taking electives that we actually don't offer here. Right? So I've seen the cyber security. I've seen them do some of these advertising, social media, marketing classes that we just don't have the ability to offer.
And so there is an opportunity here by expanding the type of courses that we're offering through our schedule process and through the additional courses and including that AA kind of aspect with current enrollment. um that we would be potentially recouping some of those costs that now right now we're sending
to outside vendors or to colleges. So there is that opportunity for sure. And I guess we won't know completely until afterwards, but we could speculate. Um other question here is are there any other schools beside Edina that are doing this right now that we know of? Edina is the big one in the metro area
that I'm most familiar with and so that's the one that we have studied the the most. Most other schools are probably on some version of a six period day schedule, maybe a couple on a five. Some schools will go back and forth between trimesters and semesters. Trimesters was something that came up
very very early in our process that um was kind of a I don't want to say it was a non-starter, but um was not generating a lot of enthusiasm at all. And so that's kind of what put us in the other directions. I can I believe Hill Murray offers a similar schedule as well. Hill Murray. Okay. Thanks. I would also
like to say that, you know, as a counselor, when we're receiving transcripts from students coming into us from outside um districts, right? Um you know, we talked about that 9th grade uh seminar course that in like a home room kind of idea. That's pretty standard.
When we get students coming to us from other schools, they're coming in with that type of curriculum and that type of graduation requirement. Um, and then I would also say that when we're looking at those transcripts, oftent times students are either on a semester or a
trimester, semester by far are way more popular um that we see. And it is somewhere between six and eight classes that they're taking. So, it's pretty standard in terms of, you know, even just students coming into our district from other high schools. It's pretty standard. And to piggyback on that nth grade
seminar, Rob mentioned study skills. So that was kind of AVID schoolwide, but we're one of the few districts that don't have a few districts with pathways that don't have college and career readiness exploration equitably for all of our students in 9th grade. So this would provide an opportunity for all of
our nth graders to be introduced to those career clusters. So to Sydney's point about taking courses in the careers that you're most interested in pursuing, our kids don't some often know what they're interested in pursuing. So, this would allow us an opportunity to do some of that education and exploration
with our kids. Thank you. Yes, I'm gonna piggyback right off this conversation because this is where my initial thoughts were going. Um, first of all, thank you for this. The update on kind of how this whole process has gone gone. Um, the amount of work you guys have put into this concept of a
schedule change over basically two years um is really impressive and I really appreciate all the feedback that you're taking and adjusting and fixing and trying to make this really um the best option for all of our students. So, I really appreciate all that. Um, you've
answered most of my questions about the actual schedule change, but now I'm already jumping ahead to the graduation requirements um because that is a piece that we have not discussed as a board. Um, and you guys are kind of teeing this up a bit. My big question, I don't expect an answer tonight. Um, but I'm
really starting to wonder how do our graduation requirements compare to other schools in the area? Um, like is there a sweet spot for a number of credits versus maybe it's particular courses that were um that we don't have um as you guys are just highlighting. So I'm
not necessarily looking for an answer, but this is just kind of where I'm I'm beginning to start thinking like the next phase of this discussion. So we had several working groups last year exploring a variety of different conversations related to a schedule change and one of those was graduation requirements. We're at about what about
89% of our kids 89% of classes to graduate. We did look at increasing that when we were using the 4x4 as our sample um to 60 out of 64. um we'll have to revisit and determine whether or not we want to stay with that same percentage
and really incentivize our kids to want to stay. So, we've used that term pathways concentration, having our kids take multiple courses within a sequence instead of doing other things like a senior elective or other things where students are choosing to leave. We want to do things that incentivize them to
stay and take our courses. As Rachel said, we're at about 89% right now. We require um in order to graduate, students need 43 credits. They have 48 opportunities. 43 out of 48 is about 88.75%. So right around 89%. And that is on the
low end of what all of our neighbors are. So what I would tell you in a generic sense, Director Hockard, is that I am very confident that the proposal that we bring to you for graduation requirements will increase that percentage. So the the increase in total
number of courses will very likely also represent an increase in the percentage of classes that would be required for to graduate. Okay. Thank you. Any other questions? For me um and I know the board needs to talk about cost. I don't know if we want
to have those conversations today or but I think for me be before we even get into the cost conversations and the board kind of had some training um earlier this year and it kind of it's always resonating in my mind and so maybe you would have a thought but um
there's opportunity um there's potential for opportunity right but within action I worry that there's an opportunity for loss loss of students loss of revenue lots of kids being prepared for what comes after high
school. Um, and so I don't know, I mean, I have been and I think the whole board has been a huge proponents for career pathways. Um, but can you maybe speak to a little bit about what does career pathways look like if there isn't a schedule change? I mean, how hard is it
to operate an effective career pathways program without this? I think we can say that that you can see this in two different ways within the schedule. One is if you use that flex time for example in giving kids access to things like earning credentials, learning how to write their resume,
creating a LinkedIn profile. We used to do career conversations where we would bring in nine professionals among a variety of different educational educational attainment levels. And the problem was we were competing with office hours and so kids had to make a force choice between do I want to go to office hours and make up a math test or
do I want to go to who's in the O. And so within the school day, embedding that flex time allows our kids an opportunity to access that that really personalized programming that helps them get access to pathways. The other piece is the course development that we talked about
a little bit earlier this evening where we we have inequitable uh programs of study where some are maybe really heavy on introductory level classes, some are heavy on the advanced classes, but we don't have in our 15 very few of them have that sequence like
I showed you in trades and industry. And so if we don't do something that gives our kids more elective opportunities or buckets within their school day, we're just going to stay stagnant. And so um to your point in action we're just not going to continue to grow those courses
like cyber security you mentioned software game design those are the kinds of things our our students are indicating the healthcare credential program right now in our schoolings platform that's where we gather our students data uh the number one career field our kids are indicating is medical
medical careers and number two is registered nursing right now we've got one healthcare course on campus and so when we look at what we're offering compared to what our kids are saying they want to do. This is really an opportunity for us. Yes. Can I piggy back one quick thing too and I think Rachel kind of touched on it,
but by moving a schedule like this and by increasing some of these opportunities like a nth grade seminar, um it allows us to provide some amazing opportunities for all and not just some. And I think that's been the biggest struggle that I
know Pathways and us as counselors have had is we want to be able to have students have access to this level of um career exploration to some of these skills to some of these classes at an early age and for all and not just some because they're able to not go to office
hours or because their teacher does let them miss a little bit of this class so they can go visit with this college, right? And so we as adults are putting our kids into really tough spots and situations where they're having to make these choices that we have an ability
right now to pivot and provide those opportunities for all and not have them be in that tough spot of making some of those choices. So again, that's that's one of the highlights that I see of in an opportunity is it is for all and not just some. Thank you. Yes,
just a couple points. Uh first of all, we are building a brand new hospital for about $450 million, which is in going to be in significant need of medical support. So, a medical pathway would be just welcomed and and just tremendous.
The second point I want to just touch base on regarding the fiscal side of this is, you know, we talk about typically in the spring of the year, we talk about priorities and, you know, party based
budgeting. And you know, I I think the high school uh team here before you tonight has come forward with a strong plan and they're saying it's, you know, it's about a $800,000 plus ongoing um impact to the uh to our budget. And
as uh as the chair alluded to earlier this summer, we had um Dennis Chesro here from uh his his strategic firm. I don't know what he's called these days. and uh um talked about strategic investment into into the school system
and you know sometimes you have to spend money uh to to do better and to to to improve the system and I think that's really what what uh uh the board is going to uh you know be uh I think uh wrestling with
over the the next few few um meetings here. Um the uh having said that the other thing I can share with you is as our um administrative team at the district level continues to mature and
continues to u identify um areas of strength within the district. I think for the first time, and this is year four, we have a pretty good handle on some operational opportunities to
save money that uh um don't impact the classroom. And we are at the beginning stages of developing a pilot for some of these and uh primarily related to
transportation savings. And so uh you certainly will be receiving more information on that as as we develop this this pilot concept further. Uh but uh you know we when we talked uh over the last few weeks with the team here uh
we met with uh Marie last week and we talked about priorities and and you know we haven't said this yet and I I'll share this. So, and help me if I'm wrong here, Rob, on the number, but when we were looking at the four period day, full
implementation of that was about 1.4 1.6, what was the 1.5ish? Yeah. So, this is about half of that cost of uh of the four period day and yet it still has a lot of uh similar
opportunities. So, um I just want to credit you and your team at the high school for uh um really, you know, your your fiscal student is there as well. And uh but the other piece of that is,
you know, you hear me stand up quite a bit and say expect more. All right, we aren't going to be able to expect more if we continue with the sixth period day on and on and on. So, um, they have taken that to heart at the high school
and they've got this great plan and, you know, I think what we're going to ask the board to do is, you know, support this as a priority. You know, you've probably heard us say this before previously, but Stillwater Area High School is the one
building that impacts eventually every student in this district. And so by investing into the high school, we are investing into into the all the students in this district. So I think that's important to keep in mind. Thank you. Um I think Parker had a question.
Okay, you're up. Hey guys, thanks a lot. Really appreciate it. So have two questions. I'm trying to kind of stack up. I know I'm not supposed to ask two questions in a row, but just because of the technical uh situation, I'll ask two. Um when we
look at that 800,000 that was for additional five or six teachers. Yeah, it was right around six teachers. Right around six teachers. Six teachers. So that's a like a fully based number about 140 or 130,000 per teacher.
Yeah, I would defer to HR or Marie on that. But yeah, whatever the the typical cost of a salary benefits on average. Okay. And then just looking at the minutes just uh what uh director Pete
had brought up and then I think Dr. uh Petri brought it up in a previous block meeting. It looks like we're just from simple math on my side, it looks like this would be reducing the inclass time around 30%. And then decreasing it potentially
further with that flex time and uh doing homework in the class. I'm just trying to wrap my head around like walking around US history. Is that going from a year-long class to a semester class and then we're take No, in fact.
That was good question. No, that was one of the pieces that um that came back on the on the block schedule, the traditional 4x4 schedule. That one actually has the greatest reduction in total minutes across a grading period. I
want to say that one was about 85% if you added up the total number of minutes on a course on the block schedule is about 85% and on that schedule a year-long course would be done in a semester or over the course of a semester and a semesterl long course
would be done um in a in a quarter. One of the pieces that we heard in the staff um feedback sessions that came up um numerous times was staff wanting to continue to have access to their students over the course of the entire year. So on this schedule again a
year-long course like a US history would still be conducted for the entire year. So you have first semester, you have second semester, you are still meeting, you know, three times, but two of those um meetings are blocked that are going
to be about 90 minutes. And so I apologize, I don't have the the percentage off the top of my head for you um director Parker on what the the reduction is. It's a reduction in total number of minutes from a 6x two, but it's not as dramatic a reduction in minutes as the 4x4 block had. in the 4x4
I want to say was a reduction of about 15% of total minutes across a grading period. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. any other I mean my um my only questions are just
how does the board and I don't know if this is the right time or if we can we should have like a separate meeting dedicated to the budget conversation but um you have a meeting coming up when we're looking at short-term budget right that maybe we can that's the next
I think that's in the next meeting so I think that'd be an appropriate time to okay to have that conversation Okay. Are there any other questions here? Oh, yes. Um, I just wanted to add I mean this may even play into budget, but with the flex
time that can definitely increase the amount of um students being informed about the Pathways program. I know that my first few years I did not use that program to its full extent. I mean, besides the Pathways days, I had no clue on how this could further my education um and my opportunities. And now this
year I'm realizing with pathways I can go to for example I'm going to the BCA and like you know I'm very interested in going to that and I'm very excited and I think with this flex time this can increase the use of pathways and that can also increase um I don't know if you're talking about like um payments
towards pathways and that can increase um people's interest and that can I think that canffect budget. I agree. I think that this having a strong pathways program is um I would gather because I think when I looked back it was the 2019 that we asked and
it rated just top with taxpayers in terms of wanting to support. I bet it would be more now because back in 2019, Pathways was just kind of, you know, just starting to be what people were talking about and now it's it's like a mandatory in most schools, I think, and
they're building it out and it's part of the way that students are prepared for life after high school. Um, and it doesn't always mean co a four-year co traditional college after high school. So, I'm excited at the opportunities and just the seeing the evolution of your
work has been um really helpful for the board, I think, to have you come back multiple times and kind of try to bring us along a little bit in your journey. And I'm appreciative that you've brought other voice into the conversation. Um because, you know, sometimes change can be hard, but I think if people feel like
they have if they've been heard and they've maybe helped shape um and change and modify the ideas, it can um you get more buy in. So, I want to say one of the things that's been hard to account for is we're talking a lot about the budget in terms of how it impacts our school district,
which rightfully so. But between the pathways, between the concurrent enrollment, and those types of pieces, one of the things that isn't being captured very well is how much money this potentially is saving our students and families long term. Right? So to Rachel's point, if a student is taking,
let's say, 8 to 12 college credits, you know, at most universities, we've just saved them anywhere from 10 to $20,000, right? So I I just don't want us to lose sight of that impact either on students and our families right now, but then, you know, to Dr. Funk's point, right,
this is also impacting them way in the future. And so just don't lose sight of that either. It's a great opportunity for students and families, too. Um, just to go right off of that, um, my sister graduated a few I think two years ago. I don't really remember, but she did a lot
of online to get an associates degree. Yeah, exactly. And she graduated with associates degree, but the turnout and like the opportunity cost was that she was fully online for her senior and junior year and she missed out on so much of in person. And then also, it's like she wasn't in person. So, I think
the opportunity of being able to have an associates degree here and being in person is so significant to saving money for families. I mean, she saved so much money for herself, but also for my family. And I'm honestly jealous. Like, if I had the associates opportunity in person, I would so take it. I think with
just everything going on, like my main thing was I want to be at like school and also be able to like be present and you know, your senior year, I want to be here. But I think the opportunity to have the associates degree just opens so many more doors and saves so much money for so many families.
Thank you. It's so nice to have students here during these conversations because it impacts them so much. So keep um sharing this if you don't mind with other students that you talk to and um see what the feedback is. So yeah. Anything else? All right. Well, we'll
get a budget priority conversation. Um we'll have we'll take this up then. So all right uh with that thank you for the discussion and all your work and we are adjourned. Thank you for having