everybody ready I now call this meeting of school board indep School Board of Independent School District 624 to order um I'll ask the clerk please call the role Thompson here Aran here Ellison here
scar okay the first item we have is discussion item B1 update on mde after school Community Learning Grant programs Mr Mau and Miss Oswald thank you chair arcan members of the board Nicole and I are joined
tonight by uh or with Nicole oswal our assistant director of aut school time programs uh we are very excited to be here tonight to share an update on what we've been doing with our after school Community Learning Grant uh this is a grant that became a available in 2023 which we applied for and were awarded uh
last spring late uh spring 2024 in May uh and began implementation right away in the summer months so we have a lot of updates and information to share with you guys and happy to answer any questions at the end um so the after school Community Le or uh Community Learning Grant what is it
um the purpose of this grant is to connect schools and communities so that they can offer culturally affirming and enriching After School summer learning programs that meet the needs of young people and their families um uh so again this grant we were awarded in the spring uh last year and began implemented in
the summer there were three objectives this is very sensitive tonight three objectives as part of is it better to use the space bar there we go uh three main Grant objectives uh as part of the application process for this one of them was to increase access to
comprehensive and culturally affirming after school and summer learning and enrichment opportunities that meet the academic and social and emotional needs of historically underserved young people uh promote engagement in learning and connections to school and Community uh and encourage School attendance and
improve academic performance this was a very extensive uh Grant application process a lot a lot went into it and the credit for the success of the grant really does Goen Nicole and all the work she did to pull all of our data together um and all the programs making the connections with the buildings that we
focused on as part of the grant um so a lot of uh well all the credit does go to her to making that a successful uh uh process for us to be awarded and we're very lucky to have it um uh as part of that Grant so we were only one of 24 grantees across the state
that were awarded this opportunity and out of uh we were one of four school districts that were included in that as well and this will apply or provide uh around $1.4 million for us over that threeyear span so roughly just under uh
$500,000 a year uh for us to uh provide those after school and summer learning opportunities for kids um uh as part of the grant um moving forward here Nicole is going to speak to some of the data points and items that we use as part of the Grant application uh we will then
share how we implemented some pieces with the grant last summer and then also share things that we're currently doing right now during the school year and then some of the goals we have for the upcoming summer months as well so I'm going to turn this portion over to Nicole great thank you um so this slide
kind of goes through some of our data as a school district and it was most of the basis for what we presented um in our application in order to show that there was the need for the these programs and this funding um some of the larger data points that we used were the percentage
of students who qualified for educational uh benefits by buan academic screeners and enrollment numbers in our tuition based programs so things like extended day or vendor Le enrichment camps um so through this through these
three different data points we were able to make a pretty solid argument that these funds would increase our access for our underserved populations and our community um so as Tim had mentioned we were officially awarded this in late May and our first program were offered at the beginning of July so it was a pretty
quick turnaround you can go the next if you want can I can I just ask a quick yeah clarified question for some people don't know when we looking at the percentage of student population qualifying for educational benefits can you describe what that is so everybody knows yeah so educational benefits is
the verbage and maybe someone else knows a little bit more than I do but that replaced free and reduced lunch applications um so with the legislation that went through granting access to all students having free reduce lunch we changed the the name of that to be able
to um still accommodate other methods in which people can access grants and funding yeah no thanks um so then our our program started in July um we have two summer learning programs that were accessing
Grant funds so we applied for this grant um in collaboration with our freedom School model as well so the first one um is our camp summer model which is a 4-week program that runs in July it's like early July to Late July um and it's
four weeks Monday through Thursday um with this grant they require that we that students have access to 100 hours of programming so this year what we did was we added an enrichment section to the afternoon typically it was a half day program so running from about 7:45
to 12:45 and we increased the number of hours to go until 2:15 so that and um the end of the day portion was an enrichment portion that we we offered um through the Grant and Community connections so with that we offered 24 different courses and I'll get more into
what we offered in a little bit um we were able to serve 63 students in session one which was the first two weeks and 75 in session two um some of those are duplicates because students can enroll for all four weeks if they'd like to yep and part of the area of the
grant that we attributed to Freedom schools the benefit of that was to increase the number of seats so the number of uh students were able to serve so so with freedom schools there is a cap on the number of students were able to serve in that program uh so we originally applied uh when I applied for last year we applied for it to serve 100
kids and we run this program at Willow Lane in the summertime uh as part of the Grant application we're able to increase that by the number of 20 seat so we had a little over 120 kids serve uh served in the program last year um there and then Nicole going to share
some evidence-based practices that we apply yeah so part of um what we had submitted as well in our gr application was just how we would meet um all of these evidence based practices for student learning is uh specifically in our targeted Services programs so
programs that occur outside of the um General school day so uh the six portions that we had addressed were access to basic needs class sizes being 12 to 15 students setting high goals and expectations opportunities for project and inquiry based learning communication
of the benefits of attendance of these programs and then also offering a additional enrichment options um so both of the programs between freedom school and camp summer addressing basic needs we provide breakfast lunch and transportation free of charge to families for these summer learning programs um of course in addition to
welcoming staff to create those environments of um solid relationships air conditioning and Brake spaces really important in the summer if you don't have it it's you know especially with air quality things and different things it does really help um with the learning environment so our camp summer classes
ended up being about 10 to 12 students per one licensed teacher and we also had some additional PA of support um the Freedom School model is a partnered model between targeted services and then the servant leader in term positions and that's 20 students per class so it's 20
students with two adults at a 1 to 10 ratio um setting high goals and expectations our documentation for these programs is in a continual learning plan um which is created with assessment data that is collected by teachers throughout the school year and then each student
gets an individualized goal or several goals that are all aligned with what um our district initiatives are in terms of those um project and inquiry based learning so opportunities to kind of seek out things on your own or do some some Project based things through Freedom SCH there's the national day of
social action yep you want to more about yeah just as part of the so all the there we're one of 14 or 15 chapters in the Metro that offer a freedom schools program but the the program across the entire us does all group together for a round a national day of social action
and every day every year they pick a different theme uh or topic they would like to address last year we our Focus was on access to books um so we actually partnered with the local library uh had the uh can't remember her official title uh but I'll just call her the director of the Ramy County Library here in white
fa Lake uh came out and was one of our morning readers talked about all the uh resources that are available to students in the library uh and then we also provided them with applications to get their own Library card and for those that weren't able to get there so uh you all the students filled out an application for a card and they even if
they didn't we did take a field trip to the library as well um so they could see all that was there and they were awarded their card that day when they got there and then everybody that applied late were able to get them their card at a different time so it was really nice to kind of showcase what's available to them for free at no cost to them uh
right here in our local downtown area and then in our camp summer model um the morning program is um created by licensed teachers and we've moved it to be theme- based for summer learning so they have the opportunity to potentially create their own business um learn about
animal adaptations and kind of do a project based learning around that um daily wonderings there's there's a lot of different bugs um baking cooking all sorts of things that teachers have come up with that have been really great for kids to um want to keep coming back every day in the summer um so
communication of the benefits of attendance so we communicated this in several um individual phone conversations we had Flyers it was all over those pieces um registration email to families and newsletters and just sharing that the more consistently you can attend the better the outcomes for
your student um and then adding additional enrichment opportunities so in Freedom School there's two hours in the afternoon and camp summer there's an hour and a half um that we just added this last year um and then each of the programs has a little bit of a different schedule
so Tim is going to run us through Freedom schools yeah thank uh yeah so this is just kind of a snapshot of a day in the life of our summer Freedom schools program and really I mean the program itself just like most of our summer learning is really to get the kids engaged to think about school a little bit differently right get them in our buildings have a
great time have a great experience outside of what a traditional school day might look like to just to to gain that positive relationship with their building their activities their students their peers and the people then the adults working in the building so we start every day uh with breakfast in the morning um our our teachers and staff
are encour enage to sit and have breakfast with the kids in the morning as they get there they get a little recess time before we bring everybody else in for the morning harambe which is a morning daily morning kickoff kind of celebration for the day uh if you've ever been there to visit with us it's
very loud it's very high energy uh but yeah so we have songs in the morning um a daily affirmation type pieces with the kids uh we bring in a morning read aloud read aloud guest every day to read a book that either was important to them growing up or something that's important
to them now that they want to share with the scholars and then have give time for those Scholars to ask questions about oh why' they pick that book or uh as an example when the director from the library came in you know they get to ask her questions about the library or what else can they do there and uh to really kind of give them time to to we really
try to focus on asking high level uh questions not just yes or no questions but why do you like this book like what's speak what what about this book speaks to you why did you want us to learn about it um then a good chunk of the morning is is is grounded in our our academic and curriculum time with a
break for snack as well as a break uh to for deer time which is drop everything and read uh over the span of an hour we have lunch and recess time uh for the kids and the staff as well and then as Nicole mentioned earlier our afternoons two hours in the afternoon are are based in uh kind of more enrichment based
programming uh which could be a variety of different uh arts and grass arts and crafts activities uh physical games or physical activities outside sports activities different games um we have a music and arts portion and we have a lot of skilled uh teachers and individuals
at work that bring a lot of special talents into the program and it's really nice to be able to see them share their gifts with the students as well to create uh some cool things in the afternoon a lot of the music and the Arts pieces where we do an end of the uh summer celebration our last day invite
parents in and so they put together different performances and that type of uh activities and different things for the parents to participate as well um and then obviously we always want student voice uh at the table as well so if students have different ideas of things they would like to do in the afternoon uh our hope is that we can
partner with some of our adult leaders and teachers in the program to provide uh that opportunity for them to explore those interests um that they might have in our afternoon time uh then we end the day every day around 3:30 so it is uh 5-day week program basically kind of a
full school day as far as time goes uh and and that's kind of what a typical day looks like and then Nicole will speak to oh oh sorry um yeah just some pictures of different activities uh we tried to do one field trip a week in the program uh those pictures on the left is when we took a trip out to Big River
Farms uh uh we have a partnership with them in nutrition services um and the kids got to go kind of walk some property is out in uh Marina in St Croy and we got to speak with one of the uh Farmers that has property there and what how she what vegetables she grows who
she partners with to bring her food to when it's ready um it was very very hot that day if you remember that day kids had fun but they would tell you that it was also kind of miserable because it was so hot uh that picture on the bottom left is our trip to the uh Science Museum uh so there is a freedom
schools chapter at the Science Museum and every summer the science museum blocks a whole day off so all the freedom schools chapters come together uh for one day at the science museum which is um yeah it's a very it is a pretty cool thing so we are rocking those green shirts there in that picture
uh and then Alie Meyer one of our ml teachers who also worked works with us in the program uh doing some Outdoor Learning with the kids uh a picture of uh kind of a morning setup in harambe there with our guest reader uh up on the screen and then the bottom is some of our staff that work in our building with
us during the school year and then also work with us in the summer but it's nice there's a lot of opportunities for them to network and be connected with the broader uh Minnesota Freedom schools chapters uh for different opportunities so they were a couple of them were awarded some recognition at an event we
had so it's nice for them to uh network with other school districts and organizations that also run that uh and be um and just kind of create those uh opportunities for you know peer teaching and learning of what other programs are doing uh and get them connected to other
areas outside of just here in white be lake so then um our camp summer model is set up a little bit similarly but with a little bit of a different vibe um the morning is that kind of learning based opportunity that students are signing up for based on interest so whether it's
bugs or garding gardening astronauts space stem um there's a bunch of different options for them to sign up for and then licensed teachers put together that curriculum um they present the topics for the day students practice their academic skills um math literacy
social emotional learning there's a fied rotation each day for each class um some Project based learning our lunchtime um and then the afternoon enrichment activities so this summer um we we tried to theme our days a little bit uh to get the kids excited about it cuz it was a
little bit of a longer day than they were anticipating signing up for um so Mondays uh the theme was The Great Outdoors Tuesdays Science Tech engineering and math or stem Wednesdays career explorers and Thursdays was health and fun so we can go each slide
um next goes into these a little bit more with the Partnerships that we used on each of the days so on Mondays it was outdoor recreation the students got to um go fishing at the pier right by the BFW which was really cool um twin pandas
took some of the kiddos kaying at belir beach so they went out and just kind of tried that out a little bit um fishing Library another local um entrepreneur he was able to bring kind of the fishing practice inside into the gym so the kids
would practice casting and they would play games and different things before they actually went out to fish then in real life with a hook um and then there were a couple CP of teacher-led um activities there was a fish life cycle and habitat sensory box that the kids really loved and then we did the
wildlife protection agency that helped them kind of explore some of the environmental stewardship and being able to do a a scavenger hunt and kind of taking care of their community and picking up the trash um so then Tuesdays was Science Tech and Engineering this was mostly led
by our teachers um through our mind works curriculum which the two um curriculums that we really love are Grossology and Allstars Grossology is a lot of fun it's um they can teach you how to make scabs like fake scabs it's a lot of health related things that you
know kids just absolutely eat up so that was really fun and then all star was just um focused on kind of team building and the math components um Wednesdays was career exploration so there was a fun Bingo where they won career related prizes so
they could kind of explore some different options we had a local author come in she was a retired teacher and so after she retired she became an author so she kind of talked about her journey that way um one of our a couple of our teachers did some greeting card
illustrators and graphic designers to explore some of those pieces um entrepreneurship small business and then a muralist a community muralist came in and and did some activism pieces and and helped them kind of take their own way
of social action so that was very fun if you guys um if you remember the White Center for the Arts did a um uh I can't remember the name if you saw the murals outside of there the big murals they did uh I can't think of the name of the
exhibit sorry I forgot the name of but yeah the Center for the Arts got we connected with K Herrera he also did a mural um down on the George Floyd he did the George Floyd mural did a couple other ones in St Paul so he did um worked with us for an exhibit over there
um um and then we were able to to reach out to him and he was gracious enough to come out and work with us last summer yeah it's a really nice experience with kids and then Thursdays was health and fun um so this is where we started kind of some of our collaboration with our school Age Care Program which is also um
something that I oversee so on Thursdays they explored some of the extended day spaces and did some different things um with just kind of the play based learning so dramatic play arts and crafts creative building um gym games very popular after being kind of in the
classroom all day they like to be active in the afternoon so some different um Lead Gym games that they could play our nutrition services department did a local produce tasting and health lesson which was really popular whenever Foods involved the kids get real excited um and then a safety demonstration with a
key9 um dog and with the police department so that was just kind of some fun things but where where everything was random and didn't fit in it happened on Thursdays um and so this work has now continued into this school year where we've been offering um these Community connections
and programs in our after school model um so this is the afternoon schedule that we proposed in the grant program model and basically what it does is it increases access to after school but also alleviating some of the barriers
that we were experiencing so Staffing and then some of them for families as well transportation and tuition costs um um so over the last few years we've had a challenge recruiting staff from 2:15 to 3:30 to provide access to everyone in our community who needs it this
partnership with some of our vendors um who run classes from 2:15 to 3:30 and then um the kids kind of come into our school Age Care Program where we have high school staff who are able to start at 3:30 and then families are able to opt into Transportation home at 5:00 if
that's a barrier for them and it's in partnership with uh neutrex which is a community Transportation vendor um and then the program closes at 5:30 so if parents didn't want to opt into Transportation they could pick up their kiddo anytime before
5:30 um so through this model yeah last one um through this model over the course of the time so we started it right after mea October 21st and it'll run all the way to the end of the school year um it's at Birch Lake a Badness and
Willow we are we are and have um offered 51 different types of courses and I'll get into some examples in a little bit um that's 871 individual sessions so each day there are several sessions that happen um that kids can can choose from
so it gives them about two to four options each afternoon to explore something in which they might be interested um we've been able to offer 50 scholarships for students we're currently transporting 23 students home and we have are serving 319 total
students which is just shy of our 400 student goal so we're feeling really good about that in the first year um but that's kind of some of what we're going to focus on next year is more access to transportation and then serving some more students all right so these are some of
the Partnerships that we've been able to work with um in the after school programs so there you can kind of see if there there's a wide variety of different things that students can access foreign language and culture engineering and stem Sports and games
cooking and gardening architecture arts and theater and the theater one of the theater programs also includes a partnership with the children's Performing Arts Center at Badness where we started our first Blended model of targeted Services um academic and then also the Community Partners so there's a
licensed teacher partnering with that um Community vendor to be able to create um what we hope to kind of move forward in the future just because there's um this is this has been a model that's been able to help students explore different
academic skills in different ways so like for example the um 101 Dalmations play at Badness there's there's 30 students currently participating 15 of those have continual learning plans that have individual literacy goals aligned
to that um play so they're working on their comprehension their questioning those kinds of things in sort of a different format um and then that leads us to our program goals for the upcoming summer and next year so we hope to increase more of those opportunities like we were
talking about where we're partnering um a licensed teacher and a community vendor together to provide classes for students reaching our goal of serving 400 students across the for buildings increasing our number of students accessing transportation and then for summer for the upcoming summer um Tim
and I hope to work more in collaboration with our enrichment pieces to be able to potentially Blend or work more efficiently with the a enrichment between freedom schools and CM summer I mean we're we're blessed to have a lot of great staff and teachers and people that work in our programs to provide
these opportunities but that afternoon enrichment piece is really nice to be able to bring outside people in as well just to provide those additional experiences from different Community experts uh and again being able to bring that in to provide just a broader variety for our students participate is going to be really exciting so we're
looking to to embed more of that in uh for this upcoming summer uh but we know that was a lot of information but thank you guys for your time and if there's any other questions we are them we have any questions uh Miss Ellison thank you so much this is an incredible amount of
work um so my question is are there ways for the community to get involved I mean I know people might not know that this is happening so are there places for people to come in and be readers or you know H how do people know about how they can
participate yeah I think as far as like I'll just reference like Freedom schools for like our read loud guests like I'll usually put an all call out to staff and send messages out to uh the board and my advisory counsel if if they have an interest or they know anybody else in the community that might have an interest or a connection that want to do
that we are more we try to get as big of a variety as we can of people to come in so we've had uh everybody from I think we had a few City Council Members come from here from the city um uh I can't remember all I'm at this time but a lot of variety of different staff will come
in from across our you know our entire School dist will come in and help out too but we have people from the county come in a lot of different representation and other uh Team Member had a a relationship with a different author that came in and shared their book and answer questions about that stuff too and yeah and after school and
in cam summer we would love any opportunity is possible um I'm kind of the one who's coordinating and planning those pieces so if anyone knows anyone that would like to be involved absolutely send them my way yeah and we did our summer school tour to all the buildings and spoke with all the teachers and remind them too like
there's opportunities for them to be involved in our programs this summer um in either a capacity as a teacher in one of these programs or um if interested to we have have teachers reach out too that say yeah but let them do a summer camp opportunity uh which is always available to any of our staff that's tremendous I
mean there's it's hard in the summer especially if parents are working this really is such a a great space for for students so thank you okay Mr thank you um that the Freedom School how was that how was that
funded is that funded through MBE or through the Federal Department of Education how is that funded well currently that's funded through um Ani dollars achievement integration dollars as well as blended with Target Services okay Y and then um and now the grant
sorry so when you got I'm just curious when you're applying for a grant like this um do is there any out of pocket cost associated with the application or do we do it in with our own staff to do to apply for the grant yep well mostly
it's just our time okay great um when when you look at the 1.4 million over the next three years what percentage would you say is do we have to hire new staff or do we use existing staff what's the lay of the land for how that $1.4
million is spent yeah so that mean it's it's laid out we hire staff to fill our needs in the program we could be staff that we already have part of our program um or staff that are currently they could be a teacher during the year and then applying for a summer position with us internally um and then for Freedom
School specifically too we have a lot of internal staff that are looking for summer work options and we have a small handful of new hires and stuff that are coming in from outside the district as well uh for those programs um I forget the other part of your question for those is it where the money where the
money goes yeah so it's mostly staff is what you're saying well staff and then a lot of our um and Nicole can speak to a little more detail with this but we we we have a budget sheet that we have to present to them of you know where where our expenses are going to go and that'll fall anywhere from staff expenses uh vendor experiences other costs that are
associated with the program in terms of any uh sometimes there's training involved for certain things or just different costs for supplies uh Transportation like we mentioned before earlier um but all those things are spelled out as part of that application approved by them before they uh awarded
us just one a couple other questions one is on the grand objective you guys didn't come up with those CU they have number three I imagine their priority order but number three is to encourage School attendance and improve academic performance you know that to me
should be number one right I mean I think they got their priorities screwed up um a little bit and then the other thing is on your goals if you could put that back up the fact uh I thought that was I was delighted to see that you had a
measurable go there terms of the reaching the goal of ser serving 400 students across four buildings I think that's great if you on the other three goals if you could think about putting some numbers on that that would be helpful um but um I mean sounds like
it's a lot of work it's a great sounds like it's a great program so thank you for providing this update thank you okay any questions M Thompson no question just a comment on I know how much work that was I I looked through the
requirements of the grant while doing my little bit of research on that was a lot of work so thank you they always are a lot of work but I just wanted to kind of see what you had to do and provide to them in order to get the funding so thank you for that um and being one of the few that were
selected that's you know hats off to you um I have been a reader I think the first year I got to come in and read a lot of fun so if he sends out the email and asks you if you want to go and read I highly recommend it it is a great time and just to be able to be there and it's
high energy the kids yeah we always warn everybody it's going to be loud it's going to be energetic and don't be surprised if you're asked to dance a little bit at the end right yeah we did a little bit of that and bringing in the Community Partnerships is great because it aligns with our strategic plan and the mission of the district to kind of bring the community into the schools and
find ways to partner with them so that they can be involved which is always a great thing so thank you so much it's great and the air conditioning yeah it is nice it is nice very nice well thank you and I just want to say that the things that caught my eye
the C career exploration is huge we know that we've got to start doing it earlier and earlier of having students the opportunity to kind of look and think about the different careers that they're going to have out there that was wonderful and then contextual learning we know when kids get to choose what they want to do um it has meaning and
they learn it quicker and better because they're learning it for a reason and they know why they're learning it and that just helps so those two things that makes that program all worth it so thank you for everything you do thank you thank you okay we're going to move on then to
discussion item B2 Mariner Middle School Dr gillesby and Dr Pierre they coming up I'll introduce Dr Christina Pierre the principal at Mariner Middle School and I'll let Christina introduce her rockar yes
hand and members of the board um very happy to be here with our associate principal Ryan Clark as well as our instructional coach Rachel Schmid we're just going to give you an update on what's been happening at Mariner this year so this is our um our mission
statement we love our diversity we want our community to feel like a family we value our students unique strengths and we commit to the success of every learner this statement was created by a group of staff students and families that came together a couple years ago um
to talk about who who will we be at Mariner Middle School and and just so everyone remembers this was this is our inaugural year this is our first year of existing as Mariner Middle School and we build on the legacies of three outstanding White Bear Lake
schools so certainly there's Mariner High School because we moved into the building that was originally Mariner High School and we bring with us the legacies of Sunrise Park Junior High and sunrise Park Middle School so the staff and students moved out of Sunrise park into
Mariner Middle School and and so we carry all of those legacies forward with us and a really special numerical fact to share with you all the first graduating class of Mariner High School
happened in 19 1974 and then 50 years later we opened Mariner Middle School in 2024 and now I'm going to hand it over Ryan's going to start talking about what we've been doing this fall well this fall and winter at
Mariner so I want to tell you life at Mariner Middle School has been busy um we've jam-packed a lot of activities into our first year um one of the things we did is we we moved in and we set sail and so uh existing staff members um said goodbye to Old
classrooms and and moved into new classrooms with new furniture um our students traversed unfamiliar Pathways from classroom to classroom without much disruption um and we really did get back down to the business of learningbook H
oh that's fast all right here we go well I'll tell you a little bit about um an event we held in October uh was the set sale event uh where we um held a community event to show off our new newly opened School building uh in this event we
collected memorability to Showcase and we posted enlarged images from from old Mariner year books that um Mariner grad grates and employees and curious community members got to um sort through and find themselves in we spent some
time uh both uh showing off the new building and honoring our past this year we've also hosted a few legislators in our building uh state representative Bon Kieran and us uh United States Congressman Betty McCollum stopped by Mariner Middle School their
visits were jam-packed they got to experience things like a riveting civics lesson in Mr W's US history class they got to meet students in our allies program and they got to see some of the wonderful learning in happening in our um ASD cluster
program here we go we've really been enjoying our new spaces at Mariner Middle School um and so one of those spaces is our Auditorium which is a new um opportunity for us we've hosted Ensemble music concerts and grade level
assemblies um our science teachers have really enjoyed uh teaching in college laboratory sized classrooms um our gymnast or sorry our physical education staff has enjoyed the challenge of getting kids to move throughout every square inch of our
expanded gymnasium space um and our teachers have really enjoyed pushing into our Flex spaces and new maker space uh to Foster Collaborative Learning hey um if you come to Mariner Middle School you might hear me saying
middle school is fun we do fun there um and it is fun they've our students have enjoyed a variety of engaging in a variety of Middle School clubs and enrichment activities um we have held school dances we've gone on field trips and middle school kids have just enjoyed
being middle school kids all right so now we're going to shift talking about our building goals for the year Rachel will talk about that so I'm going to talk about the way we have um sort of streamlined our goal setting process
to empower teachers to and also help make these goals more tangible across the building and make it more likely that we need our goals so in August we meant to uh we being uh teacher leaders admin we meant to set goals for the year that's pretty standard stuff uh exciting
for later uh but we had four goals uh first round goal dired Behavior so that's measured um on our uh seal uh screener um for and it's basically a combination of two things um students reporting whether they can uh make
responsible decisions and also whether they can manage themselves in those decisions also a student engagement goal that was uh measured by our 5D framework and rs and such student agency and recognition um also on Desa those
measurements for that really focused on students reporting um whether they feel seen and heard in school and literacy achievement was our fourth goal specifically through an equity lens and this is where it gets exciting so we really tried to change the
architecture of how these goals were working to help make there be a little bit more of an authentic learning process through the goals so we leverage our professional learning leads by asking them which of those four goals are is where there's a professional
interest and skills lie and then plls and meet myself and admin were then assigned a goal to sort of own as that is the building goal that we are going to take on and then that goal then becomes a committee so teachers then picked a committee to be on and that
committee led by the professional learning lead it's their job to help the building meet that goal and also the teacher student learning goal is based on that so your you would have your own measurable smart go around say literacy or go directed Behavior and the cool
thing that happens then is that the professional learning leads are then sort of empowered to lead kind of this PLC doing action research learning about best practices giving individualized coaching to their um like committee members to actually help them meet their
goals and meanwhile we are sort of empowering those plls with those skills as well um which is very exciting and just to clarify U pll's professional learning leads they are teacher leaders in our building so what we're really doing is empowering our teachers to lead
other teachers and and um achieve our goals uh so I'll talk about two of the goals the first is our uh biggest committee which is very exciting which is the student engagement goal they have been uh doing action research Cycles where they will bring sort of Engagement concerns or engagement thoughts to the
table uh they will then develop a strategy to work on together they'll enact that strategy then come back to the table discuss it refine it Etc and the cool thing is that as they do that the the cream Rises to the top right the Eng strategies that work best start
coming up again and again so they are developing a student engagement toolbox to sort of codify their work and help it you know keep running for years to come and it has these four components this is what they're discussing instructional strategies classroom systems classroom management inter relational capacity all
of which have to do with student engagement um and then the next one my committee is so fun so like I said uh gold directed behavior is two measurements which is responsible decision making itself management and I don't know if you've met middle schoolers but that does tend to be a
growth area for them um and so the first thing we did was we reviewed research on sort of why that is such a sticky thing uh in middle school so that we could Infuse our um goal setting with students with best practices so then teachers are working on better goal study with students in their classroom we also did
a building wide uh we're going to do two building wide intervention setting to help us continue now I'm going to tell you about uh two of our other committees the first is our student agency and recognition committee um and what I want to tell you about this committee is that we know the sense
of belonging is really important in middle school it's just a kind of a a truth um and so this group has really been rolling up their sleeves and learning more getting kind of curious and learning more about what makes a middle school student feel a sense of belonging um we've jumped into our Desa
data um if you're unfamiliar with Desa it's a questionnaire that measures the students socially tional skills um after analyzing our data uh our committee has engaged in what we call empathy interviews to learn more about the data right um and what our students have told us is they feel a really strong sense of
connection with the staff and the adults in our building uh but some of their peers can be a little less predictable and so there's an opportunity for for development and growth there um and so our committee members have piloted small uh belonging interventions in their classroom spaces in their content area
and the work is ongoing our uh next committee is is literacy achievement committee uh teachers on this committee identified students that were behind and developed interventions to increase literacy uh looking forward their plans are to gather data reflect adjust and redesign and implement the
next round of interventions so that's what's been happening that manner you have any questions any questions SK thank you hey thanks for presenting this this me you all what a couple of things one of the things is
when you go to uh the first slide at marer middle school we we have all of these things but I don't see anything about like academic achievement which is in academics and education which is our
primary goal under the state mandate so I would just take that back to say we need to huddle around academic Excellence focus on that um in our kind of in our mission statement because it's important and I have a keen sense of the obvious so I saw that I
thought well that's not there maybe we should kind of take a look at that the other thing is how do you how do you guys that since you're new how are you establishing like a baseline to measure yourself in you know down Road do we
already have a baseline we already have that so we our entire staff and student body moved from one building to another so like we're we're a new school in some ways but in other ways we do have some
longevity um to look back on so when we look at data we're comparing to Sunrise 20120 but that's the same so we would look at like our old Sunrise data with our last year data we we don't think we don't have that I see so the other thing is on your goals um you know can we get
some can we get some kind of meet around them in terms of where we are and where we think and just the numbers you know we project a we're at a we plan to be at B and this is kind of you kind of have the
how part but not the you know the the number part what we're trying to do yeah you're absolutely right we we have the numbers we just didn't put them in the presentation they get to choose from a menu of things to talk about these specific ones we absolutely can get you the dat each one of our buildings has
measurable goals with those around different topics engagement academic and then also goal our thank you and then just one other question like for sense of belonging I know that's really important middle
schools I switched middle schools when I was young and I think it probably had an impact on me an adverse impact no I I don't I'm just kidding um that manifest itself itself today anyway but you know one of the things is
like sense of belonging is important but in the broader sphere sphere of things it's like happiness I mean kids that are happy you know are going to have a sense of belonging they're also going to do this that so you know it's just it's the
whole picture yeah yeah comment thank you thank you okay chair I mean sorry Miss the G I got used to that last time um well I have two
Mariner kids living in my house and so one is an eighth grader who had to transition from sunrise and the other one is a sixth grader so coming to Middle School um for the first time and the first couple of weeks I'm sure that you felt it it was just like a beehive
as everybody was kind of learning everything but what I found that as as they both have settled in Mariner feels really good to both of them you know the the older one had to learn this new school but he he talks
about Mariner and not Sunrise right and then the little one I mean the fact that that you can host band concerts at the building is so important because it's not like students having to go elsewhere
so I think that sense of community is is really strong ju I mean just from the two that that live in my my house um I also have a question about student belonging because I feel like that is so important for the middle schoolers because if they don't feel like they belong it's going to be hard for them to
do all of the other things so my question is as you continue with these four committees how are you going to involve students in those outcomes I mean I love that you're having these empathy conversations because it's hard to be in
Middle School yes um so how how are students going to be part of the solution well I think that's the opportunity right um we've explored with a lot of um interventions in class to to know and be known our classmates right to to share a little bit about each
other but I do think that the the opportunity there is is leveraging students for each other right leveraging their relationships um and leveraging ways for for them to be more predictable for each other and and Foster more of a sense of community with them um how that
looks like you know that's really what the committee is for right it's ongoing work with that group but we are putting some of our best people on it wonderful thank you thank you Miss do any other questions Miss Thompson just a few comments this is great thank you so
much for uh this and I'm sure it's been interesting this first year in the building um I did go to the open house with my daughter who is a 10th grader so she's never had the pleasure of being in that building um other than for some functions here and there and it's
interesting because you often hear kids would complain about the circles right but she's like oh my gosh how do you even know where you're going in the building so it's just fun to see the different perspective from kids who haven't been in that building or you know she won't be in that building um
talk I think you guys had mentioned the student engagement piece and the students had actually recognized that they need to build connection amongst themselves which I think it's middle school kids recognizing that that's fantastic so that's a great place to start to kind of work on that piece of
belonging um and just to add to it is important for all of our kids to feel like they belong in all of our buildings throughout their entire experience in our district um ensuring I would just add that it's hard to ensure they're happy we can do our best to ensure that
they're happy but but we can't fix all the things that are outside of our control right so Ure that when they come to our buildings they do feel like they belong there and they can have that little reprise in our buildings to make it so that they want
to come to school which I see is really what you guys are working at building here is having them be um excited to come to school and to have that time there and that I mean if they're already working on it and recognizing they themselves need to figure out how to build relationships among themselves I
that's a big win so thank you so much thank you and we all know that I have a special spot for Mariner um I want to say thank you because a lot of the things when we talk about we love our diversity we want our we want a community to feel like a family uh we
value our our students unique strengths and we we commit to success of every learner I felt like that's a continuation from when we were at high school there and that was important because you felt like you could conquer anything you could move on uh uh when you're a family you you want to go to
school if you you can be happy and confident even when things don't go the way we want being part of the family was important so thank you for that and let's keep it up and I think that uh that's just going to help us continue to be successful thank you
depends all right well thank you all right B3 our next item is Willow Lane Elementary Dr Gillespie and Mr Miner introduce mat man principal at [Music]
element thank you very much thank you chair Aran and board members it's good to see you again and nice to meet you for the first time uh Mr scar uh I'm Matt manir I'm the principal of will Lane happy to be
presenting to you I don't know if do I just click on the next thing beautiful uh so I'm going toh give a little update on what's been going on in our building speak specifically to one of our building goals uh talk a little bit
about some of the both academic and behavioral successes that we have seen over the year but first and foremost put our beautiful children at the Forefront here uh when you come to Willow you'll find a very caring and uh committed
community that uh celebrates and welcomes uh perspectives and certainly has a population that I'm proud to uh be one of the leaders of some of the things that we have done so far this year
include um allowing students to be recognized uh with bear books and so every day on the announcements I announce a birthday and as a result of some of our title funds were're able to build Partnerships with our families we
allow the kids to pick out a book that we purchase with our title funds we send home activities to make sure that the parents are working with their students on improving their literacy scores uh but we always find that it's a a nice opportunity to honor
them next I'm really proud of the ways that we have build in outdoor experiences and this opportunity for students to play and explore uh different spaces uh so each one of our grade levels will will do some aspect of
camping throughout the year most notably our fifth graders at the end of the year will go to uh camp aagan in Wisconsin to spend a couple of nights there to learn more about the environment around them and each one of our uh other grade
levels will go to a Nature Park for a day uh most recently our uh fourth graders were um over at Dodge Nature Center and we were um doing some science projects so we were uh looking at the thickness of the ice and
and using an ice augur to determine how uh cold the water was right so we dropped a thermometer in the water made some predictions about how cold we thought the water was uh we also learned how to build a shelter as you can see uh the girls put together a nice shelter to
protect themselves from the wind we learned how to build a fire and so that's a part of us making sure that we understand the world around us and that's connected to us one of the other areas that I'm very
proud of um is our ability to understand that our world is bigger than just ourselves so Service Learning is a big component of what we try to bring and and bring into our environment because
we are a student uh we are a school that receives a lot of money from compensatory funding one of the ways that we've been able to allow students to give back is to build connections with our community members uh the rotary
um Subaru some other Community Partners what happens is those Community Partners donate money to uh our school district Willow specifically our students then participate in something called minnow tank which is a play of sharp tank and
uh they are able to then research a topic that they're interested in learning more about and to give money back to they present to the Sharks I know that I see a or minnows I see a couple of minnows in the room today who have had an opportunity to listen to our
third and fourth graders present on various causes cancer dogs homelessness what have you and then the Sharks minnows then uh decide which group will win so this is a very Project based uh
learning it uh talks about service and uh allows our students to uh charitably donate to an organization that they that really resonates with them uh and so uh one of the pictures there at the bottom is one of the organizations um and that
was um uh an organization where students were able to purchase beds for students that do not have beds um and so they were able to present that check to them and uh you can even see some other District staff members there like uh Carl bacon that helps to lead one one of the
groups uh and so while those are very fun I want to make sure that we're intentional about what our student outcomes are both academically and uh through our social and emotional in um learning and um as a result of my my
leadership at Willow and the opportunity to learn more about what what we need to do from a school perspective when you really boil down what we try to do uh in terms of initiatives with our staff members you really need you can focus on
two things well uh so a few years ago I said when we really strip this all down what do we ultimately want our students to be able to do so we got down to we need students to be able to read
period uh and then when they come to Willow they need to feel the love and you mentioned multiple times when you were talking to my colleagues from Marin how it matters to feel like you belong in middle school I will say the same things apply in elementary they apply in every aspect of our building so we're
going to do two things we're going to teach them how to read and we're going to make sure that they feel the love how are we going to do that we do that not only through our staff becoming more knowledgeable about how to teach reading through the science of reading so um most of my staff members have
participated in that um the only people that haven't yet are people that are new to our system and they're starting to uh start that journey and then by implementing our tier one instruction uh in our curriculum through CK which is uh
our board approved literacy curriculum how will they feel the love there's really two areas that we focus on at willane our board approved curriculum of Second Step which uh allows us to explicitly teach kids how to problem
solve and how to navigate um situations are my colleagues over at Mariner talked about the fact that they're using the Desa to quantify some of those results and so how are kids reporting that out and then secondly we we are in our third
year of being a bar School uh bar as some of you know uh oh actually I'll go back just one second uh bar stands for building assets reducing risk I'll talk about that in just a second so to speak specifically well not really specifically but more so about some of
the ways that we've been highlighted or featured at Willow um most recently we were uh featured as a um school that was really being intentional about the ways that we're helping our kindergarteners to learn uh I was presenting in front of
this board a little less than a year ago about some of our results that we have seen with kindergarteners and uh the way that we're able to decode the way that we are able to understand letter sounds and then obviously how that leads to reading uh Minnesota educator highlighted us and our kindergarten team
on that and most recently uh we were also highlighted on MPR uh where I was able to talk to Elizabeth shakman and uh tell her a little bit about our success as a school and the ways that we are moving forward in terms of literacy that are very
exciting um we uh myself and along with a couple other colleagues also presented most uh recently in the summer at a lead conference which would be one of the um it's a it's a pretty prestigious conference uh that takes place at the U um and so we were lucky enough to be
able to present at that and present some of our academic success talking a little bit about the ways that we help the kid the whole student from a perspective uh we really Implement two strategies one being second step which is again our board
approved seal curriculum about how we help students navigate issues when they arise and then secondly uh using bar bar is really a framework for how we talk about students and how we build on their assets and then begin to create
Solutions and strategies to help them um I will say that bar does an excellent job of building those relationships so when we started to talk about well what is that sense of belonging uh I will say that relationships at time precede the learning and so how do our staff be able
to understand what the students needs are and then uh consequently how can students learn a little bit more about themselves and others as we explore this in our uh morning meetings and what have
not um so we have three goals one is our academic goal and one is our family engagement goal the one I'm talking about tonight is our students student experience goal and so we said by Spring of 2025 as measured by Desa and I can
talk a little bit more about that Mariner talked a little bit about what the Desa is uh but it's a screener that allows us to determine how students are thriving and and what are some areas that they might need a little bit more instruction we'll decrease the number of students who need instruction so
whatever those area there are eight different uh competencies that we're looking at and uh Mariner talked about a couple of them um but how are we taking that Desa screener that we do a little bit different in the Middle School the students
self-report where they are in elementary school the teacher does the analysis of where they think the students are thriving and where are some areas where they need um a little bit more instruction um so Desa is is what we use
to to screen that um so we have both quantitative data that we can see from Desa and then those bar or second step activities allow us to have some qualitative data how is the student participating in this why are they more reserved how are they uh navigating some
of those conversations that we have I also want to talk just very briefly the state of Minnesota has mtss um as a as a way for us to advise schools on how to utilize these five different
components our three building goals that I mentioned tie to every one of these and bar allows us to uh do that in a way that is very streamlined so that we can talk about every single student regardless if they are thriving or whether they are needing a little bit
more of instruction by the end of the year in in fact typically by about mea so uh mid October we will have uh talked about every single student in our building whether they are thriving uh doing just exactly what they need or
they need a little bit of help we do that through our big and small block meetings and um that can focus on either some of their academic successes or some of the ways that they need some uh extra help when it comes to doing some of
those things that make them a um a well functioning student so while I we don't go into um those five different components with our students we tie everything around these three qualities with our uh staff and
students whenever you're at Willow you will hear us talking to students in one of these three components self-control empathy and cooperation if you come to Willow and you ask a kindergartner what it means to be empathetic they will be able to tell you if you ask a fifth
grader what it looks like what it means to cooperate with one another they will tell you what that looks like everything that we do is very specific very concrete I do not say to a kindergarten it seems like you have a wiggly body I will not say that our staff will not say
that they will say it seems like you're having some trouble with self-control how come we help with that or we'll go to a first grader like when you pick up that student off the playground you were showing empathy do you understand what that means it's really cool to see a
kindergartener or a first grader be able to use some pretty big terms to describe what they are doing or what they are not doing these connect uh these three This Promise connects to the the things that we're doing in the classroom U times are
uh opportunities for us in bar to build relationships second step is our ability to work with kids to help problem solve so can I click on this okay okay so every day I do a morning announcement and we highlight students that are
demonstrating the will of Lane promise every month we have a theme this month happened to be the month of uh show showing perseverance the Willow Lane promise ties into that right being empathetic there's aspects of perseverance being in cooperation being
in self-control this is Noah he was a kindergarten this was an announcement from last year uh but I think it does a really good job of showing how Noah has persevered from not knowing how to read when he came to school to now knowing how to read
and if we don't have time for the video that's okay it is very cute holy cow all right so let me tell you why Noah is here Noah is here because he's a student that shows perseverance that's a big word isn't it
Noah yeah yeah it's a big word and we have to continue to kind of Define what that word means what is perseverance oh yeah go ahead giving up never giving up that's right and now listen to what what Miss Morehead said about
Noah Noah regularly shows perseverance throughout our learning times each day during our morning literacy time Noah demonstrates perseverance by using self-control and this one's really important he's using
his listening skills to stay on track if he feels that she that Miss Morhead is going too fast on the activity he uses his words he takes a deep breath and he perseveres through the the activity that's really tough because
sometimes when our teachers are teaching sometimes like oh my gosh I'm starting to get tired and I'm starting to like o I didn't sleep well last night but Noah perseveres through that Noah has been working very hard in the skill and I'm so proud of him and so Noah why do you
do that why is it important to persevere well if you give up you don't get to do it but if you like keep doing it you might get to get it finished now one of the things that I saw Noah persevering with just uh you know
yesterday was he was reading three-letter words do you remember that when you were doing that and I saw him like some of the words were kind of tough right but he didn't give up and he was able to sound out the words now Noah before you became in kindergarten were
you able to like read the way that you're reading no no is it easy to just learn how to read or is it hard it's hard it's hard does that mean that we should give up and not be able to read no no because
now are you starting to read books and words on your own and doesn't that feel good that you can actually do that so I asked Noah does Miss Morehead persevere and what did you tell me do you remember Miss Morehead when she doesn't
get what we're saying she doesn't give up listening she doesn't give up listening so some sometimes maybe somebody says something and she doesn't quite like hear it or she doesn't quite understand it am I right about that but she's just like doesn't matter no what
what does she do how does she persevere what does she do well we try to do it in a different way so she can know ah we do things in a different way sometimes we have to do things in a different way my goodness look how smart he is he's just
so smart from his mouth to our ears we've got to be able to persevere when things get hard uh okay so what else is going on today oh my so that's Noah the kid clearly
understands what perseverance is he's demonstrating what perseverance is and Noah is a successful reader as a result of the hard work that we are doing on a daily basis to ensure that these letter sounds turn into words which then turn into paragraphs and
sentences uh so what do we do in terms of Our Family Outreach then with that uh the teachers nominate the student for whatever it is I take that nomination I find the student I bring them in we do the morning announcements I send this
email out to our families I talk about in this case this was an email about growth mindset I talk about what the teacher said about the student to the parent and sometimes I don't get a response back from the parent okay sometimes I get a
resp response back from the parent that says when we transferred a few years ago we didn't know what to expect a parent always hopes that their child's school is a safe and supportive place for their student to not only learn academically
but also emotionally emotionally I haven't interacted with a single soul who doesn't have a spirit of good willll for the students and their families your staff have made a considerable impact on my child's overall well-being from navigating the changing educational landscape during the pandemic to
reincorporating community building to parent engagement nights will Elaine has hit the mark there are times again when I think it's really important for our staff to see this that this Collective effort and this Collective efficacy really matters and the smallest little
thing can be promoted to our families and once they see that it makes it much easier the next time I have to make a phone call that maybe is as smooth as an email like this so how do we monitor success I'm
just going to briefly talk about how we do uh what what we're doing when we're talking about uh having our times to be able to talk about a students uh progress at block meetings we me regularly so on a weekly basis we talk about students again all across the
board to monitor their academic and social uh social and emotional progress and then allows us to highlight some of those strengths um we get to learn a little bit more about our students our fifth grader fifth grade girls just won a basketball tournament and so we talk
about that as much as we talk about how they are progressing and then how do we help those students that need a little bit more support and instruction I'm not going to go in too much with Desa may already talked a little bit about this but we do a Desa screening and the fall
winter and spring fall winter and spring and so what we were able to determine from the fall winter and spring and it's a little bit tough to see but the areas in red are areas that in the fall as compared to the winter would be students
that have some need for instruction some additional instruction in one of those eight competencies in the blue is where typical students should be and then the green highlighting student strengths where they're really um shining in in a particular area I will say that
nationally at the end of the school year you should typically have 16% of your students that have a need for instruction you should typically have students about 16% that have a strength of some sort as measured by the Desa and
then the rest kind of fall into that typical range we had a goal if you go back to our student experience goal that we wanted to have 5% of our students with a need for instruction at the end of this year we've gone from 15 to 12% still below what the national Norm would
be and uh we have grown our students with uh strengths from 20% to 30% and so that allows us to understand that the work that we're doing has value that it means that students feel valued
for who they are and that we continue to find ways to help those students that need some um areas for growth when it comes to needs instruction and that is my presentation any questions Mr
Scott thanks wel um I think one of one of your keys to success is your focus I me you're very focused you have the numbers I mean I think it's um you know it's great and um I think one of the
insights that you kind of glossed glossed over was and I wrote it down because I said it many times people and kids want to be some want to be part something bigger than themselves right
so that leads to you know this sensible Army I think that was an I think that's really important and you and I'm rewarding it a little bit but it also goes back to the sense of belonging and
also happiness and I've done a lot of research on happiness because as a parent you're only as happy as your least happy kid right so um gratitude is a direct correlation to happiness so I
think if you you know you had perseverance there so just as a suggestion another virtue is demonstrating gratitude because it's tied to happiness but other than that thank you and I really appreciate your
focus on two initiatives and really driving those initiatives because you're getting the results yeah I appreciate and uh you'll be happy to know that November is our month to celebrate gratitude for that is one of the themes love [Laughter]
you other questions Miss Ellison just want to say thank you for this work more kindergarten videos please yeah they're pretty great well I mean it it was really good though because I love having the numbers and I love having the the
data but to see it articulated clearly by a five or six-year-old I mean that's the work right there so thank you yeah and it's interesting when when we first developed the wiing promise which was the beginning of last year um you know there was there was somebody that
that kind of mentioned like what does a kid know what does a first grader know about empathy and and we had already been teaching them right and so oh Carl come on over here soone so wants to know about empathy well empathy is like when you know how somebody else is feeling and then you can kind of read their body
language and understand if you should help or if you should not help I like all right Carl see you later any other questions great so there's empathy and uh and we see our kids working on that uh on a daily basis and so um so I it really is something where
you when you teach them they'll they'll do it they know how to do it um and then when they miss the mark then we remind them that's not showing empty or perseverance or whatever it is well and you're giving them credit for the fact that kids can learn this stuff no they're more than capable so I
appreciate that yeah thank you okay m t oh yeah great stuff in the kindergart yeah I see anytime we can see the kids signment that was wonderful when you send out the parent letters yeah um we have a very diverse population of
families in our district and some of them a might not be able to read which I know we don't know wouldn't be able to like discern that but if they speak a different language in their home I'm sure are you guys sending the letter home in a format that family would be
able to read what the great things their kid is doing in the school yeah we have the technological tools to be able to do that like through parents Square um you know what what's nice for me is when I go into our student information system I can read what um their home language is
and so then then I'm able to take that message translate it into their home language um so um while I can't do that necessarily with the video uh I can do it with an ability for them to see what the teacher said about love them yeah that's wonderful thank you so much hey
well thank you and I'm going to try to persevere here yeah and say thank you Mr manir get it correct and so and thank you for your empathy and that you know so let me let me learn it and remember it so thank you for everything you're doing and I just want to say anytime I've had an opportunity to go to Willow
it is a community of Love yeah and I love everything in there and just U the student leadership and all the just the joy and the fun that's going on so please keep yeah I appreciate that and uh I've been called a lot worse so you
have anything have a good night thank you thank you all right so now we're going to go to discussion item B4 student transportation primary vendor proposal Mr wal Mr Johnson and Mr [Music]
Watson thank you Sher Aran members of the board Dr kasm uh I have with me uh two very wise men in the world of Transportation first um a real legend when it comes to perseverance Dave Johnson our director
of Transportation because you could never do the job if we didn't have perseverance sure um and uh Dave how long have you been with our district 22 almost 23 years 23 years he knows where all the skeletons are HID in the transportation department for sure um
and uh Tom Watson with Watson Consulting Tom is a 37-year finance professor at the University of Minnesota retired from that position um several decades as mayor of North Oaks representing part of white fa School District that's right
that's right and uh an owner of Watson Consulting he provides expertise in um helping school districts negotiate Transportation contracts so today we're going to walk you through um is where we're at with our
primary vendor proposal uh school districts have multiple ways that they can provide transportation to their um to their students one is a district can provide all the services themselves
um uh and so uh some school districts can do this uh most school districts choose not to do it because um because of the cost of running a Transportation uh program can be expensive and the expertise required
um uh the overhead cost uh maintaining a Fleet Management expertise that's required repairs maintenance uh labor all of those things required to run a transportation department um uh but some school districts run
their own some uh contract out the second option to contract service provider and in this case uh State Statute allows districts to negotiate with um with contractors um and in agreeded terms are
up to 10 years um those contractors must follow all state laws and School District policies related to student transportation and often times um a contractor brings a level of expertise to a school district that they may not have within the world of transportation
and then finally um the combination district and contractor provided services and this is what we have done in White Bear Lake for as long as I recall um and that is a good balance of uh getting the management expertise of a
contractor as well as the in-house knowledge of the community so um uh so that this the families are well served um regarding having District provided services and benefit I think for our
school district is by uh having our own transportation department that provides some of our services our employees are local uh local employees who have a significant loyalty to the school district to the families of Whitebear Lake they know many of the families many
of our drivers have been with us for a good long time and so we've um we benefit from that loyalty and that internal knowledge of our district and Community we're able to um attract local employees locally as well as retain
them um having the knowledge of a regional or national company can be very helpful but in terms of them being loyal and committed to the school district as your only service provider um you tend to lose that a little bit so we think we
have that better personalized service within our um within our our transportation department um reason we asked Mr Watson to share with us tonight is that um he has guided us
through the r RFQ process and he's going to just describe the process over the next few slides I'll turn it over thank you sir um one of the pieces that I want to touch on on the slide here and the item at the bottom is got a red item with a
line through it called bits any of you that been around education long enough know that virtually everything you do is did there's three exceptions and those three exceptions are buying fuel to heat your buildings buying fuel to operate your
equipment and Contracting out student transportation services that's it everything else is a bid process um so every now and then I have to remind schools when they put their legal notice together and they'll call it we got the bid out I'll say no no no
no no don't don't do that uh um there's a provision in the law also says if you do this incorrectly the contract is void so you know we don't want to go through this twice um so the first step is obviously getting that legal notice out there uh
and then putting this RFQ Together part of what we do or what I do with districts in Minnesota and Iowa Wisconsin in looking at this first step in putting the RFQ together is to go back and kind of revisit the past couple three four years
in other words if we've had a fouryear term in the current experience is to go back and look at that and find out did that system work did the process did the contractor we hired for particular reasons work um are there things that have changed in the school district so
we go into the 25 26 year uh I get an opportunity to describe what you've been through this past year in terms of buildings um and and redesign and fact that we won be running nth and 10th graders up to North school so forth and
so on um and it doesn't make any difference if these contractors have been around the long time so that gets that piece together we have to publish your legal notice it has to be out in the newspapers as you know like anything else for two weeks um and we and we do
that what I maintain uh having been at this a long time I maintain a directory of virtually everybody that's ever operated a school bus in Minnesota and so rather than wait for them to call me um I will send out your
legal notice to those contractors begging them to let me know if they're interested or not a lot of of them are out there um I call them Harvesters they're out there getting the information because they actually don't want to bid on White Bear they just want
to have some tool to be able to go back to their other districts and leverage that see what they're doing in we fa well in this case because your prices are pretty good not doing a lot of that um to
yeah so then we gave them um basically six weeks to submit uh proposals and those kinds of things um and on February 11th we opened all of those we had 21 uh what we call type three providers
those are folks driving primarily minivans and 10 passenger vans and that sort of thing uh and we had um five full-time proposals on yellow buses conventional Class C buses that you see um every day in
and um it was a pretty good response um getting that many yellows here this year is actually Improvement I did mie last year and we had three so at least we're getting there a lot of the national firms are not coming into Minesota right
now and I'm not sure why um but I will find that out after part of my job in the summertime is to go back and connect with student transportation of America or somebody else to say why didn't you bid on white beer so we open those um I put together a spreadsheet that
summarizes all the data that U that both comes into the pricing as well as a lot of the the qualifications um and we'll we'll start going through that fairly soon I got to find uh Mr wal's calendar and figure out
how we get through that and we'll do that um then the uh next two items really are um putting together the proposals and presenting them to you um and our Target is right now to have
you act on this Mar 24th um which means we've got to be done on what March 17th so you got a week ahead of that and um the law requires us to uh disclose
that we have uh offered the contracts to a responsible service provider and the lowest cost that's not the way the law reads the statute says we're to provide it to the lowest responsible service provider I always
thought lest provider lest uh responsible service provider probably is a contradiction in terms um would that mean somebody is not very qualified you know some finess Us in some way and then run over
to the last um and then we've got managing the contracts that's why these two gentlemen get to hang around all year and do those kinds of things and uh in about a month and a half I'll leave uh and go into the
next U but we'll uh sit down and take a look uh most mostly the terms on lot of these contracts uh we advertise for a four-year term which was basically two years committed and a two-year option to extend but as
Tim pointed out um the legislature P modified the uh this particular section of law in 2020 that now allows us to actually uh offer terms up to 10 years however don't think that we're going to
get a good deal because they don't want to commit to 10 years any more than than you might think because uh these are price agreements and the only way they can lock us into multiple year is to be able to negotiate prices and stick to it
and they don't want to do that um they don't have any idea where the economy is going they have no idea where the government's going in in Washington or anything else um and so we're lucky usually to get two years and then we'll have probably we we'll structure options
which we may do but we won't have prices and that sort of thing in those out years like years four five six any question well finish up and then we'll yeah then we'll finish yeah we'll come back to questions so this um indicates our our
two full service providers those are the contractors provide all types of buses so the big yellow CND buses as well as the special ed rout or buses and the uh type three providers those vans and uh smaller vehicles and if you look at at
the bottom line you can see the kind of the trend of transportation from fiscal year 22 to um past year fiscal year 24 and our transportation um expenses continue to rise at a pretty aggressive clip and so
um we've been able to keep mileage down over the last few years but uh you know rates continue to be a challenge for school districts um when we look at uh line 723 that's our uh special ed special
needs Transportation includes mckin vento or does not include mckin vento that's okay uh that indicates 720 728 does yeah um so that's where we've seen the significant increase the
good thing about the special ed transportations we do get reimbursement on it um that's not that we want to see those rates go up but when we look at our net Transportation over those three years we've actually seen a decrease in what our transportation expenses are
after reimbursement come on okay so we're currently evaluating the quotes and you'll see what those uh uh type c and d buses what those quotes look like here in just a moment the 21 type 3 van providers those are those vehicles that
um can transport up to 10 students at a time they're generally Vans uh SUVs smaller vehicles um those are very complicated contracts because there's so many variables that go into it so um we haven't tackle that one yet we've been
mostly looking at the big buses but there'll be a lot of thought that goes into looking at those uh quotations because um one might look good in one category and be a disaster in another so uh spend some time on that one um we
have as Mr Watson said we have five full service providers I hope your eyes are better than mine uh when you look on the left hand side you can see the larger box there we have four um four providers who uh
presented quotations and so that's where the where the contractor provides a bus a driver and fuel all the things you need to transport students um United transport is not a company we've worked with in the past they're they have a
pretty low um quote there but they also will only provide a maximum of 10 routes and so they can't bite it all off but they could be a secondary provider potentially um we don't know much about them we've got more to learn Metro Transportation Network um you may have
seen those buses around town they say MTN on them um that's been a little bit more expensive backup transport provider for us um their quotation moving forward is pretty
flat and so um we know we're getting there they've been a pretty quality provider for us they yeah they've they've grown over the past few years yeah uh first student has been our primary vendor for many years uh right
now with fuel they're 451 route they uh proposal at 53272 is an 18% increase and so um that's a increase we're a little concerned about and we want to we'll work with them more to see if that can
be negotiated looking in the upper right hand where it says contractor provided bus and Driver District provides fuel that's the agreement we have with first student right now and so we're at 4161 18 with an increase to 4
487 that's if we provide the fuel so a 177% increase uh the final submission was from Dynamic transportation and they said well we we can't provide a bus but we'll give you a driver and Fuel and so
they uh I think six was their maximum that they could do and they have a rate for that too and that's probably not a solution that works very well for us so that's initially where we're at with with our uh Big Bus providers those type C and C and
D buses and we'll continue to negotiate or we'll begin to negotiate with those providers to see if we can get a little better rate on those um for your benefit one of the things you may want to consider as you're looking at these numbers as Tim was talking about it some fuel some D to
those currently at current diesel prices on your conventional buses these are the C buses with 70 kids on uh potentially um we think the cost per day is about $30 so when you want to compare those if
if you look at that table you know with fuel presume without fuel it's $30 if it's price with without fuel that's a $30 cost to the district yeah y
so and finally so we've presenting the preliminary quotation in the process tonight so you know what the work that we're doing we'll be coming back to you um after we' fleshed this out um have that work done by March 14th and then
present to the school board on March 24th with a recommendation we'll ask for the board to approve on March 24th that's what we have for you tonight any questions any questions Mr scar thank you um oh one
thing you're were talking about what requires a bid what doesn't require Professional Services don't require Professional Services Professional Services don't require bit most cases that's true but there's another little stickler in the law that
talks about contracts that exceed $175,000 a year yep I'm familiar with that I just wanted to make that point um are we looking at like best practices is that part of our re requirement that
they have to demonstrate some type of best practices or do we have any efficiency benchmarks that we're asking to provide anything like that the answer to that question is two parts one yes we do that but number two there's also a
section of subdivision law notice that when Tim was talking about subdivision one subdivision three there's a subdivision two that's a best practices provision for construction we can't use that must it so we have to to take a look at at um
you know their best practices relative to in interviewing other bus company I mean other school districts they worked with um Etc so we will be doing that that's what we're going to do over the next 10 days all fleets are you know are
are um looked at by the uh state state patrol yeah I think State Patrol and so we can look at the records too to see do they have buses that are frequently down that would be a concern to us so that's one you know metric we can look
at and um what so do we view Transportation as a core service of the district is this a is that course because obviously education is a core service is transportation a core
service of our district uh I don't know that I'd say it's a core service I think it's a you know it's an important service that we provide so that would be have we ever looked at you know just kind of Turn Key Outsource
all of all of the transportation how much do we spend in transportation this contract plus our internal costs we have that handy yeah our total expense for FY 24 was 9, 324,000 in transportation
costs our reimbursement from the state was 6,500,000 so we're at about 2 just over 2.8 million in in general fund Transportation exp so about onethird of it we is internal 2/3 is outsourced yeah
okay gotta and then um how how do we measure like how much how is transportation um what's our utilization I mean uh from time to time I see buses that have a lot of kids other times I
see they don't have a lot L of kids I mean how as a percentage of students in the district how many are using our transportation you know that yeah how many kids transport we trans
about 6,000 a day out you know providing 6,000 trips a day for students back and forth I think and uh about three four yeah the issue being the issue being as far as utilization goes um you know we
try to fulfill the needs generally you know the to and from that's the basic need but then in addition to that we go throughout the day providing uh additional services that might include uh shuttle services for teams or activities um so sometimes you'll you'll
see vehicles that have less than fully fully loaded vehicles um we do uh incorporate the type three vehicles uh quite a bit in that we have a lot of uh mckin event Mento students and homeless
students and uh we also have a a group of care and treatment students that you know were required to transport um just to get them through through their challenges and so you know we're we're kind of the the
Outsource over there that tries to help everybody as much as we can and uh so far um the Transportation has done a good job doing that for the most part one
thing I I don't know you know Wayne obviously knows me and and board members I'm sorry uh I don't know how many of you know me um my qu my my point being and I've told Wayne and Tim if you don't
know me I'm doing a good job right that is true uh most people are on the district know as safety Dave yeah one of question another maybe the final question and maybe a comment um but why
why did we feel we needed an outside consultant to help us with this is that typical it seems like you guys have the expertise that you could do this yourself without the without adding a third party to you know go through the bidding process what was the thought
process with that yeah I appreciate the question so Transportation bid or RFQ process is is pretty complicated and to have someone like Tom Watson who is familiar with what's going on across the state um and
and very specifically around the Metro knows the providers um knows the trajectory there on and so he's pretty good at being able to warn us we might want to stay away from this one um this one I've seen in these different districts here's what we're getting
here's what I'm seeing from them so that level of expertise is not Inc commmon for school districts and Most Metro school districts work with Consultants on transportation and then one last just a comment you know you can be low cost and
responsible at the same time for not mutually exclusive I just caught that one comment having been a low cost responsible bitter in the past I understand that that's what's in our statute just those very words yes
thank you other questions I just have one question I'm sorry I'm going to ask it so do our White Bear buses they operate within the White Bear area and then outside white bear that's where we contract is that is that
correct how do you how does it work so you want to answer yeah okay so your question being we operate primarily within within District boundary okay okay um we do
have we do operate outside the brary for um m m homeless mckin vento students and things like that for the most part the big buses uh those are within boundary and you'll see the question we have a District bus and we have a contracted
bus how do we know where they go how do we know what their routes are oh okay basically we uh we look at the routes and look at uh our services that you know the primary routes that maybe we want
District district drivers to be doing in particular versus uh different areas were like like MTN I'll just say that there are they we they provide nine of our buses and uh basically they cover
the Southside area okay we split between District buses and first student to cover Central Whitebear Hugo vness Heights area for the most part so we try to keep the buses kind of organized in
groups so they do get to know the area and uh that makes it more efficient because if we keep surprising everyone when they go through you know it's not efficient I get phone calls you get phone calls you know it goes in that level so we try to keep it for
efficiency the other thing I think you're doing all the routing too yeah we do the routing contractors are not doing that they're handed a a script so to speak okay that was my question thank you another comment that I would make uh just to bring you up to date on this
thing when Tim was talking about the expenditure table that we had in the document one of those line items is the Target in the governor's budget just so you have an idea um he's talking about reducing by 5% that reimbursement level
on special ed busing so um Tim and I are talking about how we're going to see can skin some of these contractors and get that 5% out of them well we're also evaluating what uh where's the best investment for us to
bring more Transportation um inous inhouse so that our we reduce our expenses where we can so that's part of this evaluation is how can we reduce our expenses stop the growth okay and Mr Thon you had one quick question now I have an additional
one just on that last comment about the governor wanting to reduce it so we have a day of advocacy at the capital as school board members it's coming up it's like March 10th or the 14th I'm sorry I don't remember so that's a great day for us to all go and advocate for that not to happen special education is already
underfunded and taking that away is just I mean we can't do that that that doesn't help districts that are already suffering with um cost of things and just a comment on like what you guys do in The District in your transportation I we had a meeting a couple years ago when
we kind of did the district yes the boundaries and just seeing how many routes in the it is it's amazing so thank you for all the things that you guys do to make our kids get to school every day it is quite something to see
we have a really good team it's great all right thank forward seeing you on March 24th you okay we're now at the point of our meeting at the uh adjournment can I get a motion for adjournment uh chair can I move to
adjourn okay M mson do I have a second second by Mr scar this will be a Voice vote all in favor say I I oppose same sign okay we are now adjourned