microphone test two for work session July 22nd [Music] 2024 microphone test three for work session July 22nd 2024 e
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good afternoon the time is now exactly 400 p.m. the WIA Public Schools Board of Education work session for July 22nd 2024 will please come to order let's go around the table for a roll call introduction we'll start from my right
Heidi ker Sheila prior danra Paris Bend valtin Chase Anderson and I'm milen soney thank you so much everyone and welcome on this nice warm a little sultry summer
day um the first item on the agenda for the work session today is the Communications Department which will start us off with a presentation on a district a new District Communications tool called parents Square director of communications and Community engagement Amy Parnell
director of Technology we Philips and Communications and Community engagement manager Zach Nelson will make the presentations over to you guys okay good afternoon Mr chair superintendent Anderson and members of the board we're really excited to be with you this
afternoon to give you some more information about parent Square the new comprehensive Communications tool that we're actually already in the process of launching um you've already introduced um Zach and Wade who are with today and
we're going to just each of us share some information and then open it up for questions at the end so like I said we've already started the training of Staff throughout the district Zach is taking the lead on all of that and we will share more as we
go so why is a new Communications tool needed um based on pretty consistent feedback that we've got through surveys and anecdotally from staff and families it was pretty clear that a new Communications tool was needed for a
number of reasons to help us improve the two-way communication between staff and families throughout the district um we really needed a reliable automatic translation tool that made our communication accessible to staff and families um
providing texting as an option is really um necessary in this day and age and so we needed a tool that would allow us to provide texting as an option um we also we hearing pretty consistently that not all of our families were receiving all
of our messages sometimes at a school level sometimes at a district level and there was a lot of troubleshooting that um needed to happen to see why that was happening um we also really want to you know just as we focus on each and every first
students we want to be able to personalize our Communications as much as possible based on family preferences Some people prefer emails Some people prefer texting so this system will allow for some of those preferences that weren't able to be accommodated in the
past and then we just really wanted to streamline the number of District tools that were be that were being used and will mention a couple of those that have been sunsetted um the majority will remain in place as we launch parent square and get a sense of you know you
know can we maybe um streamline even more but at this point we really want to give people the flexibility to learn the new tool and time uh we want to be sensitive to that as well so we won't be making any immediately changes on a
number of our of our systems so how was parent Square collected again or selected excuse me like I said we gathered a lot of feedback from department heads principls admin Pros teachers and like I said um the feedback we were getting from families as well um
that we're finding it challenging with some of our messaging and from there we identified the features that we thought were necessary in a new communication system and I mentioned some of those the translation the texting um the
reliability um all the things that would be important for um a new vendor to have and from there um Zach worked really closely with the technology team to UM Vet a number of possible vendors that
could that could meet our needs um from that we did a lot of interviewing of those possible vendors and ultimately selected parent Square as the best tool to meet um our needs moving forward um since then we've connected with a number
of districts that are successfully using parent Square um to find out what's working well maybe where some you know how would they do things differently what could we learn from that um what we determined is that one of the most important things would be to roll this
system out slowly especially for staff um it's a very userfriendly system and I think that our families probably aren't going to notice that much in terms of how it looks other than the new features we're hoping that they'll appreciate those right away um but we really wanted
to give staff some time to kind of ease into it to learn the tool to use what they're currently using you know while they are learning um and embracing parent Square um and I did mention um School messenger and talking points are
two of those tools that we no longer have effective uh June 30th School messenger was our primary crisis communication tool so anytime we had like a snow day or an event that required an emergency message that was
the system that we used it had a very limited number of users and parent Square allows us to do that crisis Communications and talking points was another system that had a relatively low number of users um and that was what was
being used um primarily by our English um learner teachers and a few other staff to translate messages between them and Families so again um that automated translation is an important new feature
of the parent Square system so as we went through the process of selecting parent Square some key features and benefits jumped out right away um one of our main goals was to create a One-Stop shop for district Communications we talk about all the
disjointed tools that are being used at a district level that also makes it difficult for families to remain engaged when they have to go somewhere new for a message from their teacher versus the district versus another staff member um so parent square is a centralized tool
for communication that will consolidate announcements alerts event details and essential updates all in one location um Amy mentioned the text messaging email emergency voice alerts and downloadable mobile app um are some of the key
features of parent Square um realtime messaging in multiple languages parent Square provides instant and multilingual communication between teachers administrators and families um and this is two-way translation um as well so a message is sent out from a
teacher in English um it's received in the family's preferred language which they have the ability to customize and select they respond in that preferred language it's translated back into English for the teacher um so that two-way uh translation capability and
translation across all different ways of communicating a parent square is really important um it's very easy to use um which will improve engagement so it provides a user-friendly interface that's designed intentionally uh to look like a feed uh as we're all very
familiar with u browsing different feeds of of social media or online platforms um and families can customize the feed their notifications in a way that works best for them um and and we believe that
uh creating a One-Stop shop for communication with the ability to customize notifications uh will lead to um greater academic success and engagement from families across the board so some of the things that parents wereare can do um include and are not
limited to uh calendar and RSVP um for RSVP and for events volunteer signups we' mentioned mass communications for snow days or other types of alerts that need to get out right away um attendance call outs that
are automated um that sync up with our student information system um a mobile app that families can choose to download appointment signups um so that includes technology pickups perhaps even conferences uh forms and permission
slips um direct messaging between staff and families that two-way translation and classroom communication and again this is all in one centralized location uh for families to access and then we have a uh a short video that kind of
gives a a more of a high level overview of of what parent square is parent Square our goal is to help you streamline your communication and parent engagement efforts across your schools Parent Square unifies communication for all stakeholders and is 100% parent
Centric that means that everyone is using the same platform including teachers principals staff admin even the superintendent here we're logged in as a principal at Lincoln Elementary School as an admin in parent Square I know
exactly what's going on at my school and have full access and insight into all schoolto home communication I can also send out messages to the entire school or I can send to specific grade levels class rooms or groups we integrate and sync on a nightly basis with your
student information system to ensure accurate reach at all times and minimal effort for all users to get started there are three main ways to communicate in parent Square alerts and notifications posts and private chats let's start by sending out an emergency
alert from the app traditional onewe alerts and emergency notifications Deliver Us phone calls emails text or app notifications you can also send alerts from the web portal the second way to communicate in parents square is via a post sending
posts are for day-to-day communication used by teachers for their classroom communication and administrators for school or districtwide communication a teacher has access to send messages to their classroom grade level and select groups only and roles can be restricted
even further posts include plenty of different features such as photos and files links and item requests if you're you're sharing an event you can quickly add it to your event calendar which syncs with your existing calendars you can also request RSVPs ask for a few
volunteers or even set up online payments you can also send forms electronically through parent Square paper permission slips often end up lost at the bottom of students backpacks ensure your important forms are delivered directly to parents by adding a digital form with optional electronic
signature to your post you can also send out newsletters with our newsletter template option we build everything in house so the look and feel will remain the same whether you use one or all of our add-ons a post will reach parents via email text or app notification
depending on their preference the third main way to communicate in parents square is via private chats one to one or one to many parents can also initiate these private chats if they want to reach their child's teacher and all communication is done via the private
portal or app now that everyone at your school or district is using the same communication platform we can gather statistics for you and help measure not only reach and delivery but also parent engagement and usage also admins can assign different roles with restricted
access so you know with confidence that your staff are communicating with the right group class and grade level at all times a district account will have super user access available to communicate districtwide alerts and announcements as well as insight and access to all site
communication including private chats as you can see there's no need to go outside of parent Square for any of your communication and parent engagement needs all features are available at Lincoln Elementary but you can start with as few or as many of our features as you'd like since we offer three
different packages I hope you enjoyed learning more about parent Square I look forward to discussing how we can help engage your school community okay so that's a really really good overview of parent Square as a whole um I'm going to run through a little bit of
what the timeline looks like from an implementation point of view so as Amy shared earlier this is something that's been in the work for works for some time we spent a good amount of time last year uh prior to this May June timeline that's on the slide really going through research and options um and and
ultimately coming to A decis ision on parent Square as our as our Preferred Choice as a as a vendor partner uh that that gave us a great option last year as we entered kind of that spring or that winter pre-spring timeline to um go
through some vendor AC acquisition pieces and and as a video showed work with our uh student information system to connect uh parent Square as a system into our system so we can do some of that data flow uh so prior to may we got all the system set up and and did all
that work and then as we entered into that May June timeline um a big part of our our work was to begin to work with our um our internal like early adopter uh individuals so we can do some some staff training and some early early set
up so we spent some time with our our groups doing that and then we also built some communication to share both internally with our stakeholders um whether it be uh leadership Andor teachers or other groups so they had a at a had a good sense about what we were doing uh what
it was going to look like and and and how it was going to play out over the summer as we entered into the June in July timeline uh we had a couple groups who were willing to uh join into a pilot group our transportation group and our summer learning program uh jumped down
to parents square and they're able to use it uh kind of in production and it was a great opportunity again as a district for us to take the system uh run it through some tests and and get some individuals engaged with this we can uh learn from the system and be able to improve it as we went uh we also have
done a lot of different work around communicating again the fact that a new systems coming um coming out in in the August timeline so we've uh produced some of those Communications and we're uh going to send one out to families here soon uh that this new uh this new
tool set will be released here in August uh last week as you may have seen there was a uh a big Global it outage uh so that gave us a little bit of an opportunity to use parent Square as our primary tool set it just so happened that the other tool that we had in the
district was not functioning at that time so we did go live with it last week uh we we built some communication and we put that out to our internal uh user groups um and that was successful and I would say from our use of it it really it really did hit all those different areas was easy to use uh we were able to
get into the system and and create communication and distributed uh very quickly and then look at some of that data on the back end to see how um how how well the reach was so June July is really about preparation and and and and Readiness for August and the rest of the
year so as we're looking forward to August um I think one of our big goals is again to have parent Square be adopted as a primary communication uh tool in the district we do uh recognize and realize that there's going to be some other tools out in the district that will be used here and there but we
really want to consolidate the use of um our our big primary tool sets into this uh into this one um into this one system so as we get into back to school Communications um and newsletters and um school to home communication parents will be the delivery of that we'll spend
a lot of time uh in in work and effort around training um and sitting with our our principles or admin teams our admin Pros uh individuals who use the system to get it prepped and ready to deliver those Communications out to our our families and parents and
Guardians um and then really work uh with the buildings either in staff meetings or or side to side hip to hip with some of the individuals who are going to use it so they can feel more comfortable uh with the system um be able to get into all those different tool sets to get that information out and and be uh be and feel really
confident and confident through the use of it uh if you were to follow uh Zach and others around on the team last week or in the coming weeks you'll see him as he mentioned going out and and really working on um doing training and and staff development around the tool and I
think that'll be a big part of our our work here in the next couple months is to get all of our different user groups up um on the tool feeling really comfortable about getting in and getting things out the door um in in this timeline the August to June is is really long so we re we
recognize and realize there's a lot of things that are going on in the organization and while this is a priority and we want to make sure that it's um well positioned and well deployed we know there's some other things that are going on so everybody's going to start at a different a different place we know we have to get some things ready and and ready to go
for some of those back to school Communications but we also know like our teacher group um they have some things on their plates that we'll try to meet them where they are we'll get them in um and be really conent uh conent and U mindful about um having them ready for
uh the roll out so it's a long a Long View um we'll be working on it all year and we'll work towards continuous Improvement as we go uh as far as quotes from other districts as as you kind of look at different systems that are out there uh you know either nationally or locally
you'll find a lot of these uh same things said about parent Square uh when we chose a vendor and a partner we want somebody who's going to come in um be really easy to use be really robust from a system point of view so they can do what we need to do wanted them to be operational obviously which they were
able to prove that fact last week um and then ultimately we want to be able to take our communication and deliver that um through multiple means uh in a really successful way uh through multiple languages through the system so these are some quotes from other districts who have used it uh there's some locally that you'll see that we're in good um
part um we have we have a lot of districts around us who are using a tool as well so we'll have some partners that we can work with uh to to use and better um both our deployment and the use of the system overall uh so with that I think we'll open it up to any kind of questions or
feedback that you have around uh parent square and the implementation of it well thank you me Zach and vade before I turn it over to my colleagues for questions I have a quick comment how different the communications was 41
plus years ago when I came to the US Not only was the calling you know phone calls were expensive we had to go through you know operator assisted calls just just incredibly slow and bad and I think communication is the biggest tool
that has made this world so small right it's it's just just so so much better now than it used to be and I think we are at the Forefront of many school districts because of our focus and effort on the way we communicate so thank you thank you all of you uh would colleagues any questions
Sheila yeah this looks like it has a lot of great features and I'm looking forward to it um as a parent um I I know that this is for communication and we have some other portals that we use as parents um Skyward and
um EP so I know that they don't this isn't to replace those but are there are there plans to integrate them or provide links somehow so they're easier to access or anything yeah it's a really good question so this this is obviously not a
One-Stop shop for all Educational Tools that we have in the district and we recognized that as we were looking at it and we really tried to hone it in as a here's a communication tool with a lot of different features and functions that we thought we'd meet the the needs of the district um so I think that's a long-term work like how do you integrate
things and how to syst talk and and ultimately I think it's really really hard to get a One-Stop shop for everything um when when you look at tools like this or Skyward you mentioned or other pce systems they do what they do really well and it's hard to get just enough of those you know pieces and
parts into other systems I think this one has a lot of opportunity and I think we we're we're working hard to try to consolidate some of those resources as much as possible um but kind of as I mentioned we have to recognize that if you're in canvas and you're in your building course work and you're
communicating that with students that's still going to exist in the system and that's not necessarily going to go away so I think it's about focus on what the tool is used for um try to consolidate as much as we can um try to use like the resources that are at our disposal um you know and and just try to continue to
do better as we go along good question well one thing I'll add quick is you mentioned Skyward and EP and I think one thing I appreciate about parents gr who providing them is they understand what they do well and understand where they're limitations are
so a really easy example is there's a future in parents where that's just simply links and we can add quick links to other uh District uh platforms that people can access from that main dashboard so um you know parents Square
maybe we're not going to use it for payments at least right away okay we have a link to ePay so it's about making it easier for families to get the information they need so if it's there's a newsletter that's sent out it's go to ePay and and pay whatever there's a quick link that they can access right
away and the same with Skyward so it's understanding um they do a really good job at we do what we do really well understand where our limitations are but how we make this easier for families and I think it's it's a really good system for
that yeah so just the extension of that question are we thinking about extending audience to PTO athletic meetings communication or is it strictly right now with students and teachers there are external groups that
um other districts use uh the platform with so think of coaches um Youth Sports organizations clubs um that at some point there could be use in parents Square I think we're intentionally rolling it out um in a more limited basis for staff and families um but they
do have the ability to um incorporate some of these Community groups as well I think that that will be of great help and not sound tech nerdy but going back to her question on links is this pre password post password so if you add
links do we have to log in again or is it single signon on that specific question it wouldn't likely not be single sign on so if we're adding a link into ePay per right for that example you'd have to log in ePay okay so I think then that'll be
an opportunity I think especially on the pay and you saw in the video that there's a pay option here that's a whole other you know sequence of you systems and services we need to look at yeah especially given it it has uh mobile application yeah if there is a way for us to do SSO I think that'll be that'll
be of great help so uh and then one last question is around the data privacy and governance are we exchanging any data with the vendor or is it stays with us just sort of you know using applications through apis or do we actually exchange
our data with the vendor yeah really good question we do exchange data with the vendor so um we do have them hooked up to uh certain data either from the student information system Andor from our HR System so we pull that data in uh so that's part of the contract that's part of the agreement part of some of
our so in terms of data governance data security privacy we are all covered through our contracts correct good question I agree with Sheila this looks really exciting and I like a One-Stop shop a lot and I know but I know it's not everything all in one spot um you
had mentioned something about Transportation how who plays into that another good question so transportation is uh contracted services with the district today so the the pilot that we did with them uh during summer
learning was really to get our bus route information into the system so that's a primary use that they had from our previous system now to this so they use it if a if a bus route was late for example so we're able to slice and dice some of the data that we just referred to in the system to identify here's a
group of students um Andor families or Guardians who need to be notified because of aay bus as an example so that's a way in which that they use a system that's going to be really useful actually especially in the winter time and and just to be clear now we're not taking away the the bustling system that we already have still part of a
different system but this allows us to communicate some of those key those key factors great thank you I have one more question that's PTA specific uh are signups for ptas going to be available or is that still going to need to be something that's external it's a good
question um I think that falls into the um the kind of the later development um we have talks to some districts who have used this um for communication purposes for signups for these uh parent teacher organizations um I think our goal is
let's get staff on board let's get our our families on board and then see where we can take it from there I think there are some features that show a lot of PR for um that engagement but um I think that is kind of a later phase development for us sounds good thank
you so you talked with some of the um predecessors to uh parent Square you know being you know School messenger talking points and whatnot and so just in terms of you ease of access accessibility so families would have an account with those programs and then do
those same accounts carry over into parents schore or will they have to create a new account so the systems you mentioned School messenger talking points some of our district communication through our website vendor final site um those
specific systems parents do not have an account they receive the communications like a one-way communication through email um School messenger can be through SMS or text um so the difference here is parent score does allow families to log
into an account uh create an account and it's already synced up with our student information system so the first time you go to log in um as a parent or Guardian It'll recognize um your email or phone and say it basically go through a confirmation process send you a code to
your phone send you a code to your email um and so it'll allow more for an interactive piece that direct messaging um with staff with teachers um and then there's some Learning Management Systems canvas seesaw those um those will remain
but those are a little more um interactive in terms of families having an account so um one of the key differences as I mentioned is uh families are going to be invited to log in create an account download a mobile app view on a dashboard um but I think
it's important to mention they don't have to do that they still are going to receive communication through email through text through voice um without having to go in and create an account so it's kind of meeting uh parents or Guardians where they are if they prefer to log in and create an account they can but they're still going to receive
important communication um if it's necessary thank you I have a couple questions one of them is how many languages uh it is capable of uh translating there's about 75 languages um and to what degree is the
quality of translation uh because to be honest I in the past I used to help teachers to translate and when I uh one time teacher used Google transl translate it sounds separately words sound good but when you read it as a language carrier it sounds to be honest
like a I mean it doesn't make sense uh if you go deeper sometimes where is can be that kind of miscommunication obviously technology is changing uh what do you know about that part yeah it's a great question so the initial translation is through Google translate
um we do have the ability to go in and tweak the translations um and that's something we envision we have to um family Lea son that work for our equity and inclusion Department that are native Spanish speaking or Somali speaking so if there was an important message we knew we were going to send out um we
could have them go into the system and tweak the translation now obviously we don't um have like 75 translators in um those native languages but the initial translation is done through Google translate okay thank you and second one is if I can um you mentioned about
appointment uh signups and uh mention about conference is it going to be teacher parent is it going to be used for Teacher parent conference sign up that particular yeah it's a good question um right now parent teacher conference signup is done through
Skyward um and that is the plan um as of now going forward we have as we've gone through the process of presenting this to some principles and um office staff at schools they've expressed interest in the ease of use in the appointment sign up in the system so I think it's going
to be um to some degree it could be up to the school and what they want to manage in terms of conference sign up in the past to be honest as a parent I experien especially if you have multiple kids in the same even building I had to do mental math and quick enough because
things slots were taken quickly last year I really enjoyed uh through High School Hub uh I believe uh that was doing pretty good math for me so to speak it was even saying you already have you already took this time you can't took uh take this this time for your uh second child kind of thing it
was very useful because in the past I had to lay out literally like a planogram okay I'm using this time for time for that one kind of thing so I'm hoping that you will have a how to say
before um ma major first parent teacher conference you will have a chance to run it because at one time I think that we had a huge Hiccup and when you're busy when you put everything like 8:00 a.m. you uh come earli to work try to log in
and all of a sudden it doesn't work it means that you spend so much time and no results kind of thing and then obviously after work you try to sign up being WIS out appearance are very involved looks like all of a sudden you are finding you have only here and there left uh kind of
experience so what is um what is the plan so that we're not going to have that kind of pick up with this system one of the pieces that um I think could help with alleviating some confusion for families is since everything is integrated with our
student information system if you were to do a conference sign up or send out a form for permission slip in RSVP um the student data is synced into the system so we need go to sign in sign up for a conference um if you have a student at birchville elementary um when you get
the message you can there's a drop down and you select your student so there's no data entry so you just select your student and that information is saved into the system when you sign up for for a conference slot um and it's it's really easy to maintain um some of that
information as you um as you get multiple signups from different schools it's all it's all embedded in the system the student ID and everything so um that's I hopefully that will help ease some of the um some of the difficulties
in what am I signing up for and um entering the information as far as reducing the data entry piece hey just out of curiosity um from ongoing maintenance standpoint how much do you guys expect or anticipate the
data management aspect so in that video there were roles so you know you have by grade by communication preference and that might change every year so is this something what we experience today and again it's it's kind of like similar
experience with the new tool or with new tool you are expecting more ongoing maintenance and managing these roles and preferences all of that is there increased effort yeah really good question um part of what I spoke to of
the of the winter to Spring timeline we've done all that mapping and it's it's mapping that's pretty typical to other systems that we have so I mean they all have their little quirks and their little tweaks but once once you get the mapping set up it really just becomes a part of Maintenance of it uh
you know something could you know there could be an issue with the delivery of it and we might have to jump in on that and then or the trans you know transition from year to year where you do a little bit of cleanup or other mapping um but yeah it's kind of a a set it and forget it and let it run so that part's easy and I think that's again one
of those areas that delivers a little bit of value thinking about like from a classroom point of view your teacher all your your kids are already in there they're already in their sections they're already in their areas so it gives them a little bit of an easier way to slice and dice and and really Target the communication to the right kids at
the right time or the right families at the right time so really that initial configuration you would do when you move from one system to another but ongoing maintenance it's similar to what we have today plus the outcome is better so agree and and it allowed us to consolidate some systems too so instead
of have multiple systems do this we're we're able to collapse a couple into one that time in that process and and again we have to secure the data at the end from vendor to vendor so that does lower lower our risk as well got it thanks really good question thank
you so is it my understanding is that the translation piece was not available or is not available in the existing system but when we move over to the new tool so I think that speaks to a lot about our our desire and the focus on inclusion because the diversity in this
district is growing leavs by lips and Bounds so Kos for that um I have two questions um there are about 13,000 students so let's say 20,000 plus parents and Guardians who would have access to these not everybody's
technology Savvy I if I see a new app or new system I get scared so there are I'm sure there are parents that not comfortable initially at least how do you how do you make sure that these parents or Guardians are adapting as
quickly as possible and do you have any idea how quickly they are doing that it's a good question um I think as I mentioned earlier families will still receive communication if they choose not to engage with some of the extra uh features such as a mobile app or
dashboard um so it's laid out in a similar format as we're sending out communication now branded temp place this is from uh the high school this is from the district this is from whatever elementary school so I think that's really important um we also built out a
um public facing web page that we will launch that has resources for families and how to do specific things how to sign in how to access class information how to send a direct message to their son or daughters or child's teacher um so just making sure that they have the
resources they need to be successful um and I guess anecdotally as we've gone through training with some schools um and departments um the feedback that we've gotten overwhelmingly is wow this is really easy to use and I think that's
been important for us as we think about um rolling it out to staff and ultimately rolling it out to families so just trying to get as many resources in front of them as possible to make sure they can uh participate in as much or as little as they choose okay thank you and
one one last question I have um you you can say I don't know or we don't know if you don't know um what's what's the approximate cost of this system versus what we have used in the past off the top of my head I'll say I
don't know specifically uh the cost is covered within the technology Levy so this is a technology Levy expense um the we Consolidated uh two tool sets into the system so those two would be at a wash and I think if anything we might
have acquired onethird additional cost for the different bells and features so overall I think we have a great value in some reduced costs in some other areas wonderful that that's the word I would looking for the value is value is what what we look at right yeah okay thank you any other questions I also wanted to
add that we've been working closely with our equity and inclusion and teaching and learning departments to both um working Clos with our family Liaisons and the Family Partnership leads in the buildings to be able to help families that maybe need some additional support
in using the new tool and um our technology integration am I getting that right um so we've got some extra staff to help with staff as well to get them comfortable so we've we've put those supports in place too thank you uh if
there are no other questions thank you Amy Zach and Wade appreciate your coming here and presenting this to us and good luck with the system okay so there are no teaching and learning reports today so we'll move on to the next item on the agenda which is the
Human Services reports executive director Stacy was will give us a calendar update for the year 20242 Stacy good afternoon chair soney and members of the board mine is quick today just uh FYI we've had to make two adjustments to
our 2425 calendar one mandated by legislation so we have to do it we just have to pick the date and the other one um just um in response to making some calendar changes um I was told or asked if I could also throw in this calendar
change uh so that we have good communication a good and timely communication with our parents uh so the first change would uh be impacting our students K through five so all of our elementary schools and this is a legislative action based upon the read
act um mandates and uh basically uh based upon some feedback that they received the legislators determined that teachers completing the read act would have 5.5 or basically a full day uh with
no students in which to complete that training which we're very supportive of um so we have had conversations and feel that that Monday after mea um would be prime time to offer that day to our teachers to complete that work so that
would be October 21st um that none of our elementary students so that's K through five would be in session it would be treated very similarly to our planning days um that we already have enacted so we have that
day and then on February 13 2025 our part day pre preschool students would not be reporting um because um we have had a change in enrollment and due to the high number of parent teacher
conferences that we have we need that additional um day uh to conduct those very important meetings with our parents so the updated calendar will be shared and presented uh to you August 12th so you can officially uh vote on those
calendar changes um but wanted to bring the to your attention so you could ask questions today um and be comfortable with making that vote at the August 12th board meeting so questions thank you Stacey any questions colleagues ID yes
okay so as we think about mea that means K through five will have Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday off correct correct yes and then everybody else 6 through 12 is in session that Monday so they have five
days instead of six days cont okay thank you and just as kind of a reminder to piggyback on that we're kind of limited to the amount or the time that we can offer that day um remember in September we have a flex day October we have
conferences along with this and then November 8th is the date that they already have to have the training done so we're kind of limited to the days um that we could pick so thanks for bringing that up and allowing me to add that additional piece of inform so Stacy
these two changes will have no effect on the student contact days holidays nothing else in the calendar will be affected is that correct yes yes going do um I'm hoping after using V that day at least we're going to
have very highly uh trained teachers and our kids will get um obviously Advantage out of it but my question is uh after this year next year uh do you anticipate that we will abandon uh that kind of
practice as flx day and all because I understand for school district it might be money saving but I can see that for parents it's not money saving at all because parents are also working and
then they have to find out other ways they have to take care of the kids during that time correct that's a calendar committee conversation so the calendar committee determines those um and the our contracts determine planning
days and um professional development days so this conversation doesn't impact um what you're talking about because we don't have a choice in this the legislators have said we have to offer this as a day to our teachers
but I guess what I can ask uh next time or if it's okay to ask right now um about specifically when flex days what we started using after covid era Co is done my question is do you foresee that
um we will abandon this practice and when do you think that we will abandon this practice of using additional days as at home learning or flx day um majority at least with elementary kids um parents I think understand not that
much of a learning is happening at home when parents are working so I can just share my opinion um because I haven't consulted or asked Beyond Myself here at this point I anticipate that the flex days will continue because teachers
need professional development and support as the students who come to us are um more needing of additional Services um I think teachers will share with you in conversations that they're
feeling that they need more support to address all of the needs that our students are bringing to school um and so I don't see the need for helping teachers be better in the classroom going away um anytime soon but that's
just my opinion again we solicit a lot of input from our teachers through the calendar committee we did survey our parents and while they um did share that they wanted a reduction in the number of
um days that their children were not at school um we also cannot eliminate those days in order to do the work to support our teachers in the challenging positions that they have excuse me thank
you yeah can I ask a followup to that question question as well as you're sipping your water um my question is during teacher negotiations is that a part of negotiations of their how much time they get for training and development um it is a part of their
calendar um and that the part that's negotiated there is we have the 172 student days and then the 184 days for teachers um the other part that's negotiated are planning days so those
are the K5 days in which teachers um at the elementary levels are given days in which to plan to compensate for the PLC time that our secondary teachers have um in their school
day I think if I can add a little bit to the flex in those um PD days too and where I would agree that I don't see those decreasing is we have new math standards coming we'll continue with the reading um we have new social studies and so those flux learning days are when we Implement that curriculum and work
with our teachers throughout um that time to make that work it's not a cost savings to us because we're paying our teachers so there's no cost Savings in this and in reality those are days that we were always pulling teachers out the old model was that we pulled them out during the school day like we might pull
all third grade teachers on Tuesday and we had subs for that and then Wednesday we would pull all third grade teachers and we would have subs for that and so really the teacher time out of the classroom away from the students was very similar and so feedback we've gotten is it's hard to have and we we do
have a sub shortage but it's also hard to have all those subs in the building and and plan for that so instead of doing that model we have gone to those two flex days to try to be consistent and it also allows us to do that training across grade levels so that it's not just first grade only with
first grade but they can be talking to kindergarten in second grade on how that curriculum transitions so it's really important work if we're going to if we remember our teachers are our number one influencer on our student outcome so we really need to make sure we're investing um in those teachers as
well all right thank you Stacy um moving on to the next item on the agenda which is the finance and operations report executive director Scott Lage could not be present today so director of facilities and transportation John de and Director of Finance David
askovich will give us an update on the ltfm plan soney board members um we're in front of you to just present our ltfm 10e plan um we have a presentation we will go through and this is similar to
the presentation from April um at the end we'll ask questions and then after that we will then ask for a special session in which to approve it um which is part of the requirement that we have in front of us so um ltfm or long-term facility
maintenance the agenda that we're going to talk about is we'll talk about what it is we'll talk about um B basically the annual updates we will look at our 10-year revenue and expenditures uh we'll talk next steps and then open it up to questions long-term facility maintenance
is a program which uh falls under State Statute that allows for districts to Reven or um to Levy for revenues for projects that will basically uh prevent further erosion of facilities looks at
increasing accessibility in our buildings um health and safety environmental health and safety Falls in this and then um it also looks at the need to pay General obligation bonds um annual requirement we're required on
an annual basis to update our 10-year plan look at a three to fiveyear plan um and then move forward with that that submits to Department of Education uh commissioner at Department of Education that um you would then take action on
and then there's a statement of assurances that says that we have come forward we've done our due diligence and that everyone agrees with with the direction that we're moving in historically this has been called alternative
facilities um and it used to be reserved only for the largest districts in the state that qualified either based on age and square footage and there were two different um avenues that or two different parameters that looked at it was looked at as how much square foot an average age of buildings um it used to
be 1.5 million square feet at an average age of 35 years um now all districts qualify for long-term facility maintenance uh to qualify uh we must like I said have board approval and and approved and sent to the commissioner of
Education um as we look at long-term facility maintenance there's um items called eup fars codes eup fars Finance codes really what these are these are just general areas of which the funding or which projects can fall under the ones on your left you will notice a lot
of those are health and safety related um 367 is the first one that really falls into to the long-term facility maintenance that's accessibility then the ones on the right look at just different building components of which uh funding can be used for
so ltf Revenue like I said can be used for the following purposes deferred capital projects that further prevent erosion of our facilities increase accessibility any project that falls under the health and safety statute of 123
b57 um and then as of fy2 we are allowed to use money for remodeling of gender neutral single use restrooms that are facilities it cannot be used for new facilities remodeling of existing facilities purchase a portable
classrooms um things of that nature um it also cannot be used to finance a a lease purchase agreement it also cannot be used for Energy Efficiency projects of which would be the primary focus of those and then the last one violence
prevention facility security ergonomics and emergency communication devices one thing that we wanted to explain is as we come up with our projects we really look at six different items that we are um that we focus on to
figure out where projects should fall and when we should do them uh we just look at facility needs forecasting basically well how are our facilities doing look at Capital request meetings that we have with our principles or building leaders we look at age versus life expectancy of different building
materials um we have a a full-blown work order system so we will also track how much work you know how many work orders are we receiving on certain things um we do send out surveys whether we do them internally or we hire Engineers to do it
and then also the historical data of of M costs an example of that would be is if I have a roof where I'm spending a lot of money just fixing leaks it's probably time for that roof to be just full-blown replaced um the district is operating in
a 10e plan since 2010 over the last 10 years uh we have seen anywhere from 90 to100 million in long-term facility maintenance projects uh we've always targeted to do somewhere between 8 and16 million a year that's been kind of a moving Target based on we may have
projects that we do not complete um because of use of our facilities over the summer um or just maybe something else happens we may find a a much cheaper fix or a solution that doesn't cost the complete replacement
so our uh spreadsheet looked at it um we provided our spreadsheet we are initially calculating average ages of buildings and and project cost um it is largely based on the per pupil driven formula and we are considered a 1A
district which basically because we were in the program before they opened up um to all other school districts we actually get the credit of where we have or what the program was before um so there's there's some limitations that
other districts have in terms of what they're doing I we'll turn it over to Mr dasovich for this part so this slide shows that the 10-year ltfm Revenue plan um we're going
for 2026 um that is 15 milon 82,6 180 and it's not a complete 15 million it's a little above because we have to include the intermediate District 287 which levies through their surrounding districts that are part of their partnership um after about 3 years it
kind of becomes uh closer guess cuz as you know we'll come back with this plan every every year and we'll revise it as we get to that close to those next fiscal years the 10-year expenditure plan she contains it thank you John uh contains
the school district's best estimate of the cost that incurve for the 10 fiscal years the expenditure plan reflects how the district will be using the revenue to best meet the facility needs which is why we have our facilities teams and goes through that process of what looking at what we need to update and
replace in our district uh the 10-year expenditure plan shows the health and safety program maintenance accessibility expenditures are reasonable in that school district is planning deferred maintenance projects appropriate for the age and condition of the school buildings uh wetta Public Schools 10year
expenditure plan is updated by the district on an annual basis and is based on updated information plan changes and priorities so the next slide is the 10-year ltfm plan um it will what you'll see is it's awfully small 2026 the expenditures will
match the revenues so you'll see 15 million 82,000 $680 it's relatively small um but after that it becomes kind of the next three years are a little bit closer we have a better idea what's going on with those
through fiscal years after that it becomes kind of a guess and then we come to the school board every year to update those so the next steps Administration will submit for approval for the FY 26 budget and update annual ltfm 10-year
plan and then we will submit the required documents stem to you by July 31st 2024 and then the next PLL Point School Board resolution statement of assurances signed by superintendent and then FY 26 l FM 10year expenditure and revenue
plan all right thank you John and Dave uh would colleagues any questions hey um so when you look at year-over-year budget and actuals there could be difference because you know
work doesn't get completed for whatever reason and it spills over next year and so on so at what point in time you kind of tally the overall budget is it like over 10 year period rolling 5 years how does that work so here's here's where we differ I
mean and this is where this comes and this is challenging you know the fiscal year start July one so fiscal year starts right in the middle of all construction projects so if I were to wait till July 1 that would give me literally six weeks to do all the work so when when my team is doing these
projects we look at it by a project by project budget and we don't necessarily look at it as a fiscal year until we're doing it and then that's when David's team comes in so we actually look at it as a three-year as a threee it's the current year the year before and the
year after okay and that three years is just kind of this rolling three years so we are every year looking at it it's just the current year becomes last year and then you know that piece of it that's really where we're going so um one of the questions we've had is is
that 90 to $100 million that doesn't seem to make sense when you look at how much we're spending or how much we're asking for every year and that is specifically because of that rolling budget the way that it is is that there are years that we are not able to to get
work accomplished whether it's basically contractor availability whether it's material availability which we've been going through um or it's it's just is the school you know able for us to to do this what is happening at those buildings every year in the spring or or
winter spring we have uh discussions about what's happening in our facilities and every year when we look at the elementary schools and how we use our elementary schools and the summer programming and the wetta kids Child Care Program and things like that we are
able to maybe close three buildings a year and then the other buildings we're working around programs that are in there um and that really takes a toll on on um the work that we're doing because you may say okay you can close three
buildings do everything you can in those three buildings we're still limited by time we're still limited by the resource by human resource and things of that nature so I think that's the challenge that we come up with and that's what happens is it's every three years right so that's a great question so when you
think of a project is it bub building is it sort of you know within that building what you can accomplish so where I'm getting with that is it sounds like you manage project at the or manage budget at the project level how we roll it up whether it is 3 years 10 years that's a
different science but just from money standpoint you look at individual project and make sure what our estimates are where our actuals are and we don't have any surprises is that fair Yeah we actually look at our project budgets are
by building or they're by efar code and sometimes we have projects that'll be multiple buildings or multiple uars code oh okay okay and so that's the challenging we will package them together and how we think it makes sense okay but individual unit of work which
is a project that's where you track what was your estimates versus actual so we don't have to wait for three years to know hey I'm out of budget or I'm running over or under Okay no Okay um and then the last question is so the category 2 and category 3A um it is
obviously for safety purposes but there is nothing for 10 years in those categories is that normal or if something pops up 3 years four years down the line would we be able to shift numbers between other categories or these are like lock and
loaded can you repeat that just um so the the spreadsheet expenditure spreadsheet so the category 2 and category 3A and even I think 3B there were like no items at all so there is no
cost no expenditure so is that like by Design or will we have ability to move dollars if we think something is required next year year after yeah you'll be able to when you do update it so category uh two in category
well category two is what you talked about Was the spus removal of you know encapsulated fire safety indoor Health Quality I guess if we were to hit those we're not planning on hitting any of those right now okay and so if we were we will update those in the future yep
and we are able to we are able to move those categories have uh parameters like it goes from 1A to 2A depending on the cost um when you look at aestus removal fire life safety and indoor air quality
most of those we've already accomplished so we're not doing large scale projects these are called out so that mde actually specifically pulls those projects and then they have different requirements um they have engineering sign offs that have to be done in in
this page seven document that that um that requires that we're we're a little bit past that okay in terms of having to do that we also because we are a 1A district some of our HVAC are in quality projects would fall
under um 380 rather than 366 because we're not doing them for indoor air quality purposes we're up to speed meeting today's ashray standards we're actually replacing like equipment for equipment okay so that's the difference okay great
question sounds good thank you uh can you hear me can you go to slide three please okay um I think somewhere it talks about yeah the last Bullet by board resolution to transfer money from the general fund
reserve for ltfm to the debt debt R Redemption fund to pay the amounts needed on General obligation bonds issued have we ever done that has the school board ever been been asked to vote that you know have no
we haven't issued bonds for the ltfm program or transferred anything to cover debt okay good and then slide four the next one the first bullet there can you explain the annual three and five year updates what what what exactly are you
talking about that's a little bit of what I was talking about about those rolling projects and things like that okay the other piece of it is it is virtually impossible for us to submit a 10-year budget that so those are just kind of benchmarks of
what we have um going forward okay that language specific really is for some of the newer districts that are just getting in the program so um there's a there's a little bit more reporting requirements that they have okay they go through it okay um the third question
then is once it gets approved by the board then superintendent Anderson signs it sends it over to the commissioner do you foresee any reason if we later on at in the special meeting
if we approve the budget and it's submitted to the department department of education do you see foresee anything that they might come back with and say we have to do this you have to do that change this or change that at this point no okay if you
did you would tell us right you would already include that in there absolutely no um it has this program has really become more at the school district level in terms of the approval process okay that's why it's a formal that's why you
ask for formal approval because it's it it is the school district's responsibility to meet those you know meet the requirements and and out of the state statute so and then the last question I have is and know I'm not trying to change anything or you know put a
wrench in the budget plan that you already have but I have a question nagging thing that has been nagging me since that one parent came and spoke about his wheel access uh wheelchair accessible access
child and the need for accessible wheelchair accessible equipment on the in playgrounds in addition to just being able to go to the playgrounds and not be able to do anything youfor code 367 I think is what would what would be
pertaining to that and one of the roles that the board plays very important role that school boards typically play is advocacy in the legislature uh do you think we might need advocacy in the legislature to have
some funds more increased funds from the ltfm budget for equipment like that would that would that help I I think it's always good to advocate for the LT ltfm and and you
know that program um One Challenge that you will have is we've talked about this but what is accessible and what is considered by State Statute to be accessible and what is by actual operation to be accessible and I think
that's the challenge right now um that you will that you will come into we do focus on accessibility in a lot of what we do um the other piece of that that state statute or that requirement of accessibility and what is accessible is
constantly changing we have build buildings in in our district that were built in the 50s 60s 7s that don't meet the accessibility standards of what we have today so we do do a um what's
called a transition plan where you know where you have issues or where you may not meet it and you make sure that all your buildings have at least like experiences that allow us student um that may have accessibility or mobility issues like that so um absolutely I will
tell you that long-term facility maintenance is when it became a program was focused inside the building or of the building and inside the building playgrounds it's still a little bit of a um a different area uh because you could
also go to your playfields and talk about those being accessible in terms of you know it's just where does that where do you go so our Ada plan our Ada transition plan is just constantly making improvements everywhere we go um
and so that's that's basically what we're doing but I would always advocate for that sure advocacy a big part of advocacy is educating the legislators obviously right so that's why I asked you if that is something that that The Advocates can do maybe the legislatures
will listen and maybe they will you know put something in a bill form where accessible playgrounds not just you know have the kid go on a wheelchair and watch watch everybody else play but be able to do you know go and play
themselves is a part of the ltfm budget so just a curiosity question thank you John thank you yes anyone else Valentina yeah uh yes I have a question um help me understand please maybe I'm I mean maybe I'm not understanding very well uh so my
question is um I'm very happy that we are maintaining for example if something is leaking it's much more easier cost wise and all to fix it instead of waiting when it's it it is becoming a bigger problem so this case I appreciated that it is happening but
when I'm looking at the numbers like uh specifically in April I believe we received information that we spent about um from 10 uh uh 2010 we started um participating am I right until this day
uh we spent about 100 million am I right yeah that's it's a general number so it's about over seven million a year it's yeah it it could be a little bit more I think we're talking in just in generalities in terms of and obviously
sometimes you can uh depending on weather or I mean labor especially obviously we had in cost one some years you might be spending less sometimes uh some years you might be spending more last time in April I I remember the uh
the numbers we received it was we sometimes spending about 8 to 12 million uh right now I saw that it is 88 to6 million and looks like uh from today we're asking for more um during
committee meeting I heard that yes we obviously have inflation but um and uh labor cost more but um it sounds like um let's say on average if it is about 8 million and
about right now we're asking about 15 so we are asking I mean quite what is affecting other than I mean inflation is it the bad High even um that is um I also I also think that
we've had two significant Bond issuances since we've you know during that time frame so there were a couple of years where they're just you know again as we're as we're building buildings putting on additions things like that we've actually there's times where the ltfm dollars you know either were
dedicated somewhere else or maybe be those projects were funded under different things so I think we're talking just in kind of a general sense um in terms of what we've spent I don't think that we were getting specific but yeah we've it has been
anywhere from eight to 10 to 12 to 15 to 16 to 13 like it depends on on basically our finance department will look at our Levy Authority it will look at our our tax impact and things like that and kind of balance that the other
part of it is the size of projects again in terms of what we're doing when we're doing um we have not been this high in ltfm over the past couple years I don't feel partly because we had a very large amount of of um indoor air quality or
ventilation type projects and now we're just kind of getting back to it um but there's been other funding sources that we've been able to use uh for parking lots and things like that that really have affected ltfm dollars too so but I
think it for air quality um again tell me if I'm wrong I believe you were able at least many schools uh since uh covid era it had been pressed obviously that schools have to uh do something about uh quality of air so I I think that schools
were using Esser funds for that isn't it to change ventilations and we did not have to do anything to our ventilation systems because back in 20 2011 to about 20167 we had done all this work we had
brought the the correct amount of in um outside air we have the we have the correct filters in our systems we have all of that so we didn't we did not oh so we didn't need even to spend that money uh so uh based on hearing that you
are so good at maintaining facilities and other than um inflation uh labor cost uh obviously more uh why is it still higher I wanted to I Scott reminded me to touch base on this
because it was really important that wall did a study if I remember this correctly that it would cost us $20 million just to maintain what we have with in our district and so the 177 is not really even close to where we need to maintain everything so we're just
we're just touching the clip of it so as we get into it and we can shut down buildings when we can we'd like to get closer to a $2 million because that would actually be maintaining the district to where it needs to be and that's a $20 million annually is
kind of projected based on the facility study and the work that wal and K Anderson does within our district correct yes thank you okay thank you the the other piece that I can explain is if you think about the year that we're in 2024 but you think about when we started the program
in two in 2011 look at the age of the high school I mean the high school is this is this big building that's sitting there up until about now you we didn't have to do much at the high school we weren't planning for a lot we did some things right but you know your carpet
your paint your things like that are 10 12 15 years old you're not you're not too concerned about at that point when you have buildings that are built in the 60s 70s and 80s but that building now is coming online and we are we are doing significant mechanical repairs things
like that as as as necessary um a boiler plant at the high school is is probably one of those larger projects that's going to be coming online so that's really what drives this in terms of when when we're doing it um we look at that age in life
expectancy piece and buildings are getting buildings your buildings are getting older and we have more square footage yeah I mean we are up to over 2 million square foot where when we started here we were at 1.6 I think or something like that so I mean
we're continually getting bigger and that's going to continually Drive the cost of what you need to do because things are getting deferred in year to year thank you for explanation so one one one quick question um John and David uh does this
fund have a fund balance is this is an assigned fund balance right or no fund balance at all this is a restricted fund balance um so when we talked about the budget just in uh June we talked about that there is a fund balance in it but it does get adjusted based on what you're spending so it'll mde will take
back those funds and it'll just adjust the fund balance but it does nothing to the unassigned or assign fund balances its own restricted fund balance and is that fund balance usable in later years it is not you what you would do is you would Levy for your additional projects so you'd always be continuing to Levy As
you move forward so some projects didn't happen in the current year you can reach out to Sarah Miller and then sometimes you can defer that restricted fund balance until the next fiscal year so it won't be adjusted in your Levy so there there are things we are working forwards you know towards as we move forward so
thank you thank you and we'll see you again in a little bit at a special work session thank you so colleagues note that immediately following the work session we will convene in a special session to approve the 10e ltfm budget as well all right moving on to
superintendent reports Dr Anderson will review the 2324 school year and present the focus areas for the 20242 school year Dr Anderson thank thank you Mr chair and members of the board I appreciate having
an opportunity to uh share a few highlights from the 23 24 school year so this has been somewhat of a tradition um not necessarily only in July often in July but probably have given this report in August maybe last year even September
or October an overview of the previous school year so I do this for a variety of reasons one just to provide an overview of all the moving Parts within our school district and to uh highlight a few priority areas and also to somewhat set the stage for some ideas
that I've put forth to you in regard to considerations for how you'd like for me to focus uh my work and our time uh together with our leadership team and with the board in the coming school year so I've prepared a number of slides you also were presented with a fairly
lengthy narrative with a lot of background information that hopefully was insightful and helpful and part of the reason I provide that to you is as well is just because I think it gives a good overview of things that are happening and it helps you maybe frame up some questions that might come in your mind as we move into and you're
going to hear more about this from Heidi after uh uh toward the end of the work session today just in regard to the superintendent evaluation and the focus areas for the school district and I think that that can kind of help you generate some questions in your mind uh
as to what might uh be good Focus areas for us in the coming year so you've heard a couple of examples tonight of things that probably I didn't necessarily highlight so much uh within the report although I did touch on the long-term facilities maintenance with the facilities uh component but when you
think in terms of calendar and you think in terms of um um other reports that we've had during the course of the the school year um any of those things could have probably been listed on here I could probably have had a hundred paragraphs of summary things of projects
that are happening and uh one that uh you'll see on the radar for the coming year but I didn't necessarily highlight specifically for this year is the work on the react so I'm sure Dana has been anxiously waiting opportunities for me to uh share highlights on that but
that'll be something that will uh certainly have a a high presence in the coming year so I will work through these slides and then uh certainly give you some opportunity to uh uh offer some questions and some preliminary insights as we think in terms of gearing up for
the coming school year so of all of those uh what I what I did is I took last year's uh things on the radar so to speak on that summary document from a year ago and tried to highlight what were some of the key Focus areas that we had for the 23 24 school year so you
have Painful awareness and uh reflection back on the budget process probably and the Cost Containment activities that we've been involved with over the past uh couple two three years and uh one of the goals obviously every year prior to July 1st is the passage of
a balanced budget um for um the next fiscal year and we accomplished that uh back in uh at the June special meeting uh following the the school board work session so that has been completed the uh uh passing of the district technology
Levy you'll recall we have two uh technology levies in place the one that passed back in October or November that was presented to the community brings us about $5.7 million annually to be uh utilized for Hardware software professional development Personnel etc
for delivery of our technology uh plan as a reminder to you and members of to the members of the community um we have two levies another one that I think is a little bit less than this one I'm not quite sure what the current inflationary value is for that one but we bring in I
think or10 million annually to be Iz toward implementation of our technology systems and you know a good example was the communications plan that was presented earlier tonight that in and of itself probably could have been another goal area is to streamline communication
systems uh to be used across the district but uh those are all examples as uh Wade Phillips indicated that the technology dollars Help U fund for us and then uh we updated the Strategic road map those of you who were active
board members back in September remember taking action on the uh updated strategic road map I'll speak a little bit more about that uh throughout the slides and then also some preliminary work on the district operational plan which is uh still in progress and being
developed and a recommended timeline that I put on here is hopefully by no later than early fall we'll have that in good shape for uh a focus on the uh objectives for the the coming school year uh three other fol Focus areas that
I I thought were worthy of of highlighting and mentioned were the work that we've done with the Cal our Center for educational leadership that's really is uh becoming the framework for a big part of the framework for instructional delivery um working in tandem with the uh teaching and learning Department uh
we continue to learn and grow within this model and had some uh really solid areas of success with it we'll continue to train some additional people this year in fact I've been working closely with uh Dana Miller our executive director of teaching and learning uh
with this initiative you'll recall that Nate flansburg are uh recently moved on associate superintendent uh was uh one of the key Point people for this uh program or this uh um approach working in tandem with our uh principles very
closely and also our teaching and learning department so we're in the process of try uh somewhat retooling this and getting a better understanding with uh fewer Personnel to implement and to uh monitor how can we build in some additional efficiencies yet maintain
that strong Effectiveness that we think this focus on instruction the uh discussion that our uh teachers have with teacher leaders and members of the teaching and learning Department in our uh uh professional learning communities and within our built teams which is the
building instructional leadership team which each one of our schools has um how can we continue to uh Garner uh even greater momentum with with that um you've heard we just had a lengthy presentation on long-term facilities uh maintenance programming as well as our
facility needs so we're in the process of uh you know I just put continuously in process our progress because it it always is we're always in the throws of of uh some type of a facility study and and taking a look at what our capacity needs are and what our program needs are
and then what our general maintenance needs are and then finally in recent board meetings you've had had uh presentations from Ray Queener from Teamworks International in regard to the enrollment and housing study and the followup uh attendance area uh process
that we're going to be uh involved with so this Thursday will be our first design team meeting with a relatively large group of our administrative team from Leadership Council and I think we have eight or nine meetings scheduled out through sometime in October um that
are on the calendar with the uh team members that are part of that we also are planning to have at least two input teams which will be kind of the balance of the other Leadership Council Members which our district administrators as well as principles and
that will also include some Community uh uh input from parents and and staff from each one of the schools so we're not quite as far down the road in uh planning for that but that uh is on my list of things to start uh bringing greater organization to so the process
of selecting the consultant is complete uh which is what the complete means here for number six that does not mean obviously that we have all the attendance areas figured out if I got your hopes up with that I apologize that's still the good work that's uh in front of us so those were kind of the
the six key areas that uh I saw and I want to just focus on the Strategic road map so when I came to The District in 2008 we had a handful of what we called District directions so they were uh probably more reflective
of um a less specific set of guiding areas or Focus areas that would probably have less specificity than even our strategic directions have so it was pretty Loosely knit at the time I'm not being critical I'm just indicating that it was more of a highlevel general
aspirational type of document and then in 2011 uh after a pretty lengthy process with a consultant from Teamworks International we developed our first uh strategic Road map and that included a Mission Vision core values and strategic
directions that was again reviewed and revised in 2015 in 2019 and then as I indicated before we updated the road map last fall and uh the board took action in September of 2023 we created uh seven new strategic directions we Sunset the
four that were uh in place before I think these bring greater specificity um one of the things that we've been wrestling with well a couple things actually W some turnover in staff and uh Point people who uh were working closely with this and two as you uh hear of
initiatives such as with the communications uh Department uh tool that we uh heard about earlier all of our departments are involved in strategic types of upgrades and improvements that they're making within their department so I think one of the challenges and maybe uh something the
board can help me with is how to find those larger umbrella uh objectives or goals uh taking into account what the individual departments are doing so that we're not creating things that might feel like busy work or uh overly aspirational so they're excessively hard
to measure but are things that legitimately make good sense from a high level on um what you would like to see uh me and and our team focus on and I think the development of that operational plan will be helpful with that and that will as I indicated in the
larger document that I provide to you will continue through the summer and into probably early fall hopefully with board action on um uh that operational plan in whatever form that might look like sometime in the the coming uh two to three months I
think so on our uh strategic road map the mission and vision for the most part have stayed pretty much the same since 2011 I don't think the mission has had any edits made the vision statement there's been a you know various formats but again it uh I often time speak about
these three key areas of sort of our you know all organizations have products and services they all have operations and they all have customers and uh really our exceptional student learning experiences and relationships tie into
those uh curriculum uh programming uh uh academic areas that we deliver our co-curricular our student Support Services Etc that's that's kind of our product and our service that we provide to our students and community and then our larger uh Community where we look
for that trust confidence and partnership or parents students staff those are to a large degree our customers and you could argue all 70 plus 70,000 plus residents within the footprint of the school district all have a vested interest in the school
district and we want for all of our constituents to feel like they are owners within the larger School District which they are and then finally the operational excellence and that's that sweet spot of efficiency and Effectiveness and always striving to
maximize our re resources and maximize the uh outcomes from uh the products and services that we deliver to our community our core values have changed a little bit but not too much uh since the uh onset or the development of that very
first uh strategic road map back in 2011 I won't read all the detail but the headers for the core values are achievement collaboration community Equity integrity and respect and again those have stayed uh pretty pretty consistent throughout the the
duration uh these are the first four of our seven strategic directions that were updated back in September 2023 and it'll be from these where the uh a district operational plan um will have as its kind of its roots or its seed uh to
develop more into the actions and activities within the district but um I don't know I'll try to just give a quick summary of each but you know that number one is really our uh one of our main focus areas is you know what the student experience making sure that when our students come to our schools each day
that they have a great experience with us we deliver highquality instruction that ties into that Cal work that I spoke about uh some of you are familiar with the uh high school work with the portrait of a graduate that's a great uh example of the developing uh focus on
the student experience so we want our students to to learn the academics but we also want them to have fond Recollections about how did I feel when I was at our school and and what was the type of experience that I had uh number three really ties into uh all of our
staff that do hiring but in many ways it's kind of rooted within our human resources department and a focus area that Stacy has I know know as always to focus on recruiting hiring supporting and developing our staff and and retaining them so that when after we
hire them and put uh invested dollars into developing them that uh we make sure that they stay and they they retain maintain their uh high quality deliver of whatever their work function might be next uh continuing to build that uh health and well-being of our students
and in our school district Community whether it's physical health or uh mental and uh physical Health Combined number five learning and improving from Community engagement strategic Partnerships I think that again that's a focus area for all of departments really all of these can fit
in all of our departments but maybe our Communications and Communications uh Community engagement Department um specifically focuses on this just having better communication delivery models like we heard about tonight is one way of doing that and uh seeking ways to get
feedback so that we can continuously improve and get better always striving for that operational excellence or efficient use of District resources I think over the years we've been really good at that actually in trying to stretch each dollar the best we can and
uh be efficient take good care of our facilities uh to a point made by a Valentina earlier this evening about getting out in front of repair and maintenance so that uh something may not happen that creates a bigger problem than uh could have been avoided so always trying to be efficient and
effective with that and then number seven just aligning our uh uh teams our our departments and all of the different uh types of collaboration that needs to happen it's essential that all of our departments work closely together
whether it's Finance with HR or HR with teaching and learning uh there's just so much overlap that even though we have our uh special specialized areas and work within each department um it really takes strong collaboration teamwork and
a focus on helping bring out the best in each other uh as individual professionals as well as uh from the Departments that uh we interact with and work with so closely some other important work that happened in 23 24 again I don't know I
think I have 11 or 12 things listed here on these two slides but I probably could have had 50 listed on here I don't know it's hard to choose those sometimes but um they're driven a little bit from the focus areas that were on the radar at the end of last year but obviously our
work with local legislators um I think in the 20123 session I I probably did as much uh engagement during that session as I did all the previous years in my role as superintendent 24 was a little different just because it wasn't a funding year and a lot of the
conversations there was with uh uh at least with our vested interest was with sro's with the uh re act uh funding for professional development Etc which there there were positive results from both of those so we're appreciative for uh the work they did with the SRO I'll speak a
little bit about some new policies that I think evolved from some of those legislative changes um School Board election obviously um four of you were uh elected to the board one reelected three elected for the first time and uh
you that's a certainly a big event for a school district when we're running an election so I appreciate the work that Amy G did and her maiden voyage on uh uh providing leadership and oversight to that she's still smiling so that's a good sign um but that was a tremendous
effort she did a wonderful job with it I can't say enough positives about it um striving for excellence in each departmental area I listed the leadership uh persons in each one of those areas I think in the narrative document but again just the high quality staff that we're fortunate to have in our departments and the the level of
Engagement they have with each other is appreciated I do my best to stay connected to PTA and PTO groups I think almost all of the 16 years I've been here I've probably been to at least one PTA meeting in each of our buildings so that's a a pretty involved uh process
and I also am always attire District L on meetings which is a great opportunity for us if you go back to one of those strategic directions harvesting those insights from our community and there's a lot of ways you do that that aren't necessarily tied into a specific smart goal or you know a specific way of
categorizing everything you do but you know frankly I do a lot of that at HIV and Target probably when I'm just out and communicating with parents that I run into and I enjoy that it's a great opportunity and you pick up a lot of great insights even when you're looking for them sometimes but that's a good
thing uh same thing at Student Activities and being involved with all the great things that our students uh are connected to I enjoy being at uh as many of those types of things as I can get to um I believe I could go to at least three things every night maybe weekends included um I try to have a
night at home periodically and uh do my best with that I also go to a lot of advisory committee meetings and and strategic partner groups examples of those would be our District 287 wetta education fund a member of the wetta rotary so there are a lot of
different ways that uh superintendents and our staff have opportunities to connect in with the community um I just mentioned the Ed fund I've been involved with that all 16 years that I've been here and uh think I've been helpful in providing some guidance and assistance with fundraising and different things
with that city government involvement um right now Madina and corkran are really heavy on the radar because that's where the uh developments housing developments are and we continue to grow Plymouth and Plymouth is pretty well filled out I think Maple Grove is pretty well filled
out wetta has been for quite some time with just some you know smaller developments I I think we're still even though we try not to think keep thinking about oh who wants to keep thinking about and talking about the pandemic not me I've had enough of it quite frankly but the reality of it is we know what's
still out there the resonating impact hasn't fully left us and you know it it es and flows and comes back and I think right now we're in a little bit of an uptick again uh nationally with it probably locally and in the state as well but I think we're we're kind of on a new trajectory is how I would Define
it or describe it it's different than you know where we were headed five years ago because we kind of got blown off course and now we're just on a new course and we're adjusting to that and doing our best to uh maintain the you know the old days whatever that might be
and at the same time realizing that we are on a bit of a different trajectory and need to continue to be responsive to that to the best we can uh school board meetings and board committee meetings obviously uh very involved with that and that's an important I think it's been an important
culture developer for this District over the years is just those opportunities to engage with board members in smaller settings in uh topic areas of Interest whether it's facilities policy um Finance whatever the case might be HR you know it gives opportunities for
board members to provide their expertise from their own life experiences and professional experiences that are really helpful and it's an opportunity for you to get to know our team members and worth getting to know I think so I think it's a great opportunity for you and then I highlighted uh some of the
college and university visits that I've done I won't elaborate much on that but um I think it's important to develop relationships across the country with where 85 to 90% of our kids go every year uh many in the state but many outside of
the state and even outside of the country some possible Focus areas for 2425 again I'll try to hit these quickly um but I think this is what we'll be uh working on you know in the coming month or six weeks here during the evaluation
process and the planning process for um the the coming school year but the operational plan I spoke about before uh we're in the process that could have been another one I could have put down for this year in the process of Reinventing our welcome center and it's going to be more uh connected to
Community Education and our Communications Department than in previous uh in the past uh with the finance part still being within our finance department to ensure that we get uh all the maximum funding for each student and that involves coding appropriately when students enroll into
the district Etc so I really like how that's evolving we had a consultant come in former staff member at former HR Director Annie Dodie who came in and do did a pretty extensive evaluation and uh
set of interviews in regard to our Uh current functions within the Welcome Center and made recommendations uh that I think will end up being really helpful Jenny Ebert has worked really hard on this and I know that uh Amy Parnell and several others have worked to uh through
good teamwork to help develop uh some preliminary concepts for this so that'll be ongoing throughout the year um Cost Containment budget um again we're I think positioned better than we've been in the last few years I think it's kind of leveling off and uh we need to always
focus on that one-year plan of what's next year's budget look like but also make sure that we're in a good position to maintain good long-term Financial sustainability and be consistent with those fund balance uh goals that the district has set number four the enrollment housing study um we will
complete that it will be completed by uh early December at the latest and you will be in a position to take action on on those new attendance areas probably at that uh December school board meeting at the latest because we need that time frame in order for us to be able to plan for the 25 26 school year so I think we
have a good plan lined up I'm feeling confident in the consultant that we selected and and I think that they'll do a really good job for us on that um continue with the district's facilities plan we've had quite a lot of conversation about that so I won't speak too much about that but um just
continuing to take a look at capacity needs and the quality of the programming uh venues that we provide to our students continuing with the Cal work in our instructional delivery working closely with teaching and learning I think Dana and I will be kind of the the team uh for that this year and uh
working closely with ensuring that uh that continues to move forward uh continue to work with legislators the next round will be a funding year again so we can gear up and and look forward to that and hope that uh funding uh streams will continue to to come to the
district to help us uh continue to grow out of the challenges we've had and again to uh hopefully keep up with of inflationary pressures uh continue here's Dana this will make you happy that I included this for the radar for the coming year but continuing with the
implementation of the re act and uh we did get some additional funding from the legislature for that I think the the calendar component that you approved or didn't approve but you will at the next meeting is tied into that as well in that some profession development days were required to be built in uh
implementing the new Middle School model you might still recall that we made some modifications there principles are working really hard uh to accommodate the elective uh requests uh by students and uh uh wrestling with that new
schedule new schedules are always tough so keep the Middle School principles in your thoughts here if you would as they uh scramble to keep that moving forward they'll land it but it's it's a challenge right now but they'll they'll take care of it and then uh always taking a look at our student support
service models so I offer those as insights we're going to work on all those things regardless I think as we gear up for uh your engagement with me here in the coming four to six weeks you know you might want to think in terms of what are the priorities of those Andor what might 11 through 15 or 11 through
40 look like and you know which ones do you you know would you want for us to focus on so with that that was a high fly over I don't how much time that took but more than I thought it probably would because I can get rambly at the mic sometimes but um hopefully that provides you some insight and hopefully
the uh document that I shared with you earlier on the weekend and then it's included in board book uh for anybody else who may have an interest in reviewing that hopefully those things were helpful to give kind of some perspective so with that Mr chair I'll turn it back over to you if anybody has any questions on that regard thank you
Dr Anderson so board colleagues just remember that U we have the superintendent evaluation coming up soon I think this is a very good document to keep in front of you and look at what Dr Anderson has shared
with us to make your comments uh with respect to that so um any questions on that piece you can always ask those at the superintendent evaluation meeting as well but if you
have some right now go ahead Sheila yeah have more of a comment first of all thank you for sharing that um it has been an interesting year and um thank you for all that you've done and I'm sorry that Nate is gone um because
that's putting a lot of you know extra jobs onto people um I was you know the Cal work and the read act um have been so beneficial to our students and I'm glad to see that you know that both of
those are our Focus for the next year um we heard lots of stories well we not lots but we at one meeting had heard about how students are making amazing gains through some of the you know through some of the new practices
that teachers are implementing due to Cal work but also the react and I just you know I hope that these practices can spread to all of the elementary schools and again I'm very happy to see that as a focus and hope that um you recognize
the value of it as well and we'll continue on with that with Dana definitely thanks for that and I'll just say Dana and the teaching and learning team have been deeply involved in that process too with the instructional coaches and the focus on literacy and
it's all aligned within this you know the C's kind of framework and the the meeting patterns and the focus on data are kind of all uh things that we've elevated our focus on and uh you know I think there will continue to be some coalescing of all of these different
things into uh something that will be really solid but I appreciate her work and the work of your team thank you for your inputs no other questions thank you Dr Anderson we will move on to the next item all right your reports the policies
thank you um before you and I look through my packet I'm not sure that I don't know if I have them I don't know if I need them in front of me but you have them uh on board book I'll just kind of speak to them because I wasn't planning on going through them in great detail but there are two new policy requirements and I mentioned the SRO uh
work that was done you'll probably recall the history that there were some legislative changes made in the 2023 session which uh ended up resulting in our local police departments removing their SRO from the schools uh through uh
I don't know the I can't remember the exact date it was I suppose it was uh along the way last spring somewhere and we were without sro's and then for a while I think uh yeah I don't know I'm kind of losing
my train of thought in regard to the timelines but anyway they were out of our schools for a while as a reminder we have two full-time officers at wetta high school and we've had one full-time officer at each of our three middle schools um wetta Police Department provides the West Middle School SRO and
then uh the Plymouth Police Department provide sro's to East Central and the high school and to um Robinsdale district for schools that have SRO there as well the Plymouth Police Department provides uh officers there too so we
often thinks in terms of it's only four but for them it's four plus oops plus whatever they have uh in their other uh school districts that are part of the city of Plymouth so the good news is and I connected up with both uh um Eric
faden and Mark Schultz the lead uh uh police Chiefs at the uh city of Plymouth and city of wetta they will have full-time SRO for us at the start of school year so we'll have two at the high school one at East one at Central uh provided by Plymouth and then one
full-time at wi Isetta a big part of the new policies 504 which is school resource officers and 523 uh the corporal punishment prone restraint that she had an opportunity to take a look at a lot of the wording in that is driven by by the changes that
were made that brought that peace of mind back to the local police departments to return SRO to the buildings and a big part of that is focused on training so um because there was turnover with the uh Yetta police department and there's a a time frame
that the training needs to occur by I think there's kind of a grace period for a while but um I I would just have to say all of our officers in Plymouth and we are very well trained the specific SRO training uh needs to occur I think it was within six months at the start of the school year or something on that
order and we will meet all those training requirements I think the four that will be provided by uh Plymouth Police will have that training in place prior to the start of the school year and for West Middle School uh where the
uh WIS Zetta officer will be placed um because of some changes in their personnel and because the new person assigned to that role was not able to get registered into the training prior to the start of school year it'll happen early in the school year so um but still
within the time frame of what the statute required so I think both of our departments have been really great and making sure that our sro's have very strong training uh the police departments provide that some have asked do the school districts provide that or what kind of training do they get we
don't provide the formal SRO training but the police departments uh work I don't know either within their departments or more broadly across the state to register for those so that they uh get all the appropriate training but they our officers do work very closely
with uh our leadership teams in the buildings our administrators um and others to uh learn from them about building protocols and and I think there's a lot of training and Leadership that occurs with that so anyway the policies that are before you are new
required policies you're not going to be taking action on them tonight we're bringing them here tonight for you for first reading so that you have a chance to review them prior to uh the August school board meeting when we'll bring those back for your action um so that uh you have a chance to review them ask any questions take
action on them in August hopefully approve them and then we'll have them in place well in advance at the start of the school year so um with that I don't think I have any more to offer on those two policies um and if anybody has any questions you can
feel free to ask at this time if you wish okay thank you Dr Anderson board colleagues just to note that these new these two new policies which have been the result of bills passed in the state legislature over the last couple of years couple of sessions uh the
SRO policy was introduced in the session before last and then there was a big upheaval I guess kind of um where the Attorney General jumped in and then they there were a lot of associations that did not like the wording so they
went back and modified modified that and now now it is acceptable to to all the legislators I guess um um so this is the first reading like Dr Anderson said and these are both adopted
from the model policies that we typically do that msba writes and so those are also available for your review as well so this is the first reading we will have a policy committee meeting tomor tomorrow morning we will be discussing this again tomorrow and we
then propos this to be brought in front of the board at the August 12th meeting for approval any questions for Dr Anderson Just a comment yes ma'am well I think to be honest the way how Society was uh treating our police um men I uh kudos
for a department that they stood up for their men because um police um officers need to be respected because they life always also in the line and I'm glad that obviously we as school also very
much so needed uh them SRO in fact I heard feedback from my own son that SRO it was not like a punishment SRO is was the onlyest guy one day when he had a trouble kind of first day of a middle school that's the onlyest person who was
there who saw it and helped and um my son said at the time can can we buy when it was to be honest Scout fundraising can we buy a reef uh for Police Department uh for example so it's a positive interaction and I'm glad that
they were able to work out such way that um policemen is respected and hopefully they will um they will not think about that uh if and uh they will get in trouble but at the same time our kids are getting uh what they need thank you
for um being able to work for it yeah I appreciate that and I'll just say we have a wonderful working relationship with both of our police departments and and I would affirm what you shared Valentina that the uh relationships that they're able to develop with our students are uh impressive and and very
helpful uh to the to the police departments and to our students as well yes thank you to P pouth police department and the WIA Police Department for working with us very closely and I think I think they do a great job so thank thank you to them thanks everybody
thank you Dr Anderson so the final item on this agenda for this work session is evening is School Board reports uh director kader will now give a brief update on the superintendent evaluation process thank you everybody um we can
hop right in I hear some thunder so I'm going to try to move as quickly as possible to get us all home safely um let's go into the first slide so what I realized is you know not everyone on the on our board may have been through or experienced um an evaluation process or
a 360 review they come they come with many names um and so what I wanted to start with was what's the purpose of a performance evaluation um and I'm just going to go through just a little bit of information to frame us up into this new process
that we're going to be going through together as a board so it is supposed to be a POS positive process that aims to acknowledge and encourage high quality performance it is intended to ensure a culture of continuous Improvement and
growth which I think aligns really well with our district um road map it is to build on and increase the effectiveness of the recipient it's to provide constructive feedback so it's our opportunity to provide that constructive feedback about
overall job performance influential behaviors and opportunity for improvement and really we want to focus on the opportunity piece of it um and what it does is as Dr Anderson um read his annual you know his um uh uh
year in review what it does is it helps us to kind of lead into the next year it sets a stage and leads into the next year for areas of focus and so he his areas of focus kind of come from both what him the administration our
principles which means our teachers and all of that built-in C work is coming up into and also our feedback through this evaluation process we can go to the next slide so for our evaluation so that's that's really you know the the
background of what an evaluation process is and what it's intended to do it's it's really supposed to be a positive um approach so the goals and expectations for this evaluation for Dr Andy is that again it's an Avenue for us to offer annual feedback um board members
are expected to be engaged in being thoughtful and constructive in the annual feedback process so that's we're going to go through what the the entire process is going to look like here in a minute um we want to ensure that the board is aligned with the office of superintendent and so as we were talking
in our development um um meeting about how we interact with the office of the superintendent this is one of those ways that we can ensure that we are aligned with the office of the superintendent and he's aligned with us um it keeps us on track with the Strategic road map as Dr Anderson said there is a million
things that are going on in the district at any given time and we really have to make sure that we are kind of putting bumpers on and and staying aligned to that strategic road map um any good evaluation process if you talk to any HR person will tell you that there should
be no surprises during the evaluation process so during the course of the Year this is just the Capstone right but during the course of the year um we have been giving feedback we have been having the opportunity to get information from the district from Dr Anderson and
there's that constant um feedback loop that um we should be engaged in and so the end of the year really shouldn't have any giant surprises um the outcome of this is going to be a written evaluation that is shared with the superintendent and the
public um and it will include thoughts from us as the board on areas of focus for the upcoming year okay so hopping into the timeline there are some extra there's extra work involved in this right so today was kind
of the kickoff of the evaluation process um and so between during this week sometime you will receive in your inbox an evaluation survey that is sent to you electronically um it'll come directly
from me and you will have from the 27th approximately maybe a little bit more time than that to August 13th to complete your survey as an individual then what happens so each person we will have seven different
replies right and then what happens is the committee comes together to prepare the materials we're going to have one person off of the committee who's um preparing the materials and then we go into a closed session as a board so the seven of us will go into closed session
to review and discuss the results and I'll walk you through what that process looks like when we get to that meeting um after that so between August 21st and 23rd the evaluation the um
superintendent evaluation committee will meet to make sure that we finalized the written evaluation letter what we're going to do as a board together is we'll start drafting it together we'll have ideas in there and then uh the committee will finalize it there will be a short
version that is read out loud at a board meeting and then a long version that's also included um in board book and given to do Anderson um between the 23rd and 25th after the committee has um finalized that letter the whole board will have an
opportunity to review it one last time and then the plan is on August 26th we'll go into close session with Dr Anderson after our regularly scheduled work session to go over the evaluation um on September 9th then we will present
the evaluation at the regular meeting for the entire Community to hear so this is a process that has worked many many times in the past um again I'm sorry but it is a couple extra meetings for us during the end of the summer um but I think we've landed on some dates that
work for everybody dates and times and so Amy is going to be gracious enough to get those posted for me um and we'll move forward that way if there are any questions I'm happy to answer them I have a question sure um who uh I still didn't hear though who is going to be uh
seeing all this um feedback and who is going to be uh putting to be honest I can see here personal um biases because uh when you're making a
short uh version you are choosing what you like I'm talking talking about somebody who would be doing it uh so is it going to be a person from our committee or is it going to be one of us as a um members uh one of seven of us
how we are going to be how what do you expect so for the for the writing of the actual evaluation there's a short version and a long version right yes yes my intention is that during our closed session as the seven members of a board
we'll be drafting it so I'll have a screen up and I'll be typing it up as we go along so that the entire board has has input into what's included and what's not included and then again we have that second checkpoint of so then there's you know it's the the big level
is drafted and then we as a committee go together to make sure that it's kind of finalized and ready we send it out to the board a second time in order for the board to be able to review it again before we go into close session with Dr Anderson so everyone will have
opportunity to say what needs to be included so are you saying that we will be able to see each other's feedback AB Anonymous or how does it look like in the past it has been Anonymous okay um
because we don't ask for names so what we do is we we've had in the past we've used a a Survey Monkey um what I'm learning is that it's not entirely as secure as we want it to be and so this year it may be um in the form of a Google Document because it's
more secure we can we can add some controls on it of who's able to go in and who's not um and so it will be anonymous in that we don't ask for your name in the actual survey now if there is something that needs to
be tracked it's included be if somebody's clicking into a Google form you're able to see who's clicking into a Google form and we know that each one of the seven of us will be responding and so we will all see everybody's answers but they won't be
associated with each other's names does that make sense can I make a quick comment yes I I I I was in the past two evaluations and you're right there was a Survey Monkey survey however immediately after that
when when we meet for the first time as a board we have a discussion and there are members that Express their opinions so at that point it really is not Anonymous as far as how they feel the survey itself I think the responses to
the survey are Anonymous but when if I express something during that meeting it is not Anonymous Valentina will know what I'm thinking you will know what I'm thinking so I think I think that's okay that's okay I I agree with you I think that has to be we we are are all going to have to find our voices it can be a little bit uncomfortable as we're
talking about these topics but um again the process is supposed to be one that's engaging and positive and moving us forward in the district and so um hopefully you'll be able to find a level of comfort as you're going through the process you're with your board colleagues right it's supposed to be a
trusted space that we can talk freely and um and share our opinions and thoughts so so that's that's the hope and I'm hoping that during that uh uh meetings we will be able to also discuss that some of our goals need to be
measured measurable anywhere businesslike you measure and I would like also to see that um goals are measured they need to be attainable nobody is asking to do something what is not uh doable uh we
all know this past year had been very difficult on teachers um I mean many through uh many districts so but uh that's why I'm not challenging to to do anything too difficult but it's at the same time if
you put a goal which is attainable but at the same time time it is measurable at least you know that you are doing something you are changing when it is um without um measurement it is very it is very hard to give a
feedback I may I interrupt I think this Valentina you have a valid point there but that is something that is what I think we should take up at the evaluation meeting itself okay okay not make this one no no this is just was a comment absolutely thank thank
you okay any other questions thoughts concerns if there's anything feel free to reach out to me I'm always available and then um look forward to seeing uh a survey come through your email box this week from me thank you so much um this
completes our agenda for this evening uh we will now take a 2minute break instead of a 5 minute break I had a 5 minute break written in my script but because of the Thunder ID is it okay for 2 minutes okay following which we will reconvene for a special regular meeting of the board it is now 6:05 p.m. the
wieta Public Schools Board of Education work session for July 22nd 2024 is adjourned