- I now call this meeting of the School Board of Independent School District 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. - Daniels here, Ellison? - Here. - Skaar. - Here. - Streiff Oji. - Here. - Thompson. - Here. - Arcand. - Here. - Thank you. - All right, we're gonna go on to discussion items B1, Oneka Elementary Update. Dr. Gillespie? - Yeah, good evening, chair, our members of the board. I will introduce Lori Mosser, principal at Oneka Elementary, who will update us on what's going on at Oneka. - Welcome, Lori. - Hello, welcome. - Thank you.
So I just wanna start by saying just thank you to the school board for everything that you do for us, for our district, for our teachers, especially for our leaders. Like I am just, I've always been so impressed and just have always wanted to say thank you, but I've really never had that big of a chance. So today I just wanna say thank you and thank you for having me tonight so I can share everything about Oneka. Alright, so I started with this photo. I love this photo. It was shared by a parent during the pandemic, and I've loved the background with the rainbow, so you're like, yes, we are gonna come out of this.
So that's why this is the first photo. All right, so tonight I'll just talk, give you an overview of Oneka, kind of go through our academic goals, our family engagement, our future goals and plans, and then just a summary at the end. So demographics, we are K-5 Neighborhood School. We have approximately right now 443 students. We have 23.65% on free and reduced price lunch, 22% students of color. And then we have five different special ed
programming in our building. So an ASD, a DSD program or DCD program, sorry, a cross-categorical, a cluster pathway program, and then a tier two program. And then 7% of our students receive multilingual services. So different student experiences that we have through our building Wargo, we partner with them, they come out and do different lessons and experiences for our kids on site. And then our fifth graders actually travel to Wargo twice a year to experience, you know,
like everything that has to do with what Minnesota, you know, native species are plant life, et cetera. So that's a really great program that we have. And we've been doing that ever since I started in 2019. And then Ashland Theater has been a part of our building too, since 2019. So they will come in, we have kids that start from second through fifth grade, they can audition to be a part, and everybody gets apart. It's a great little theater program
that they put on then in the theater in Maplewood. And they practice at our school for, I don't know, months. Like they start in November, they put it on in March, and then they do a, so this photo down there was taken, they'll put on part of their play for the entire school in the spring, right before they just, it's kinda like a dress rehearsal before they do their whole thing. So, and it's great. You can just see students that you would never think would go up on stage in front of people and act do. And it's just such a rewarding experience
and their self-esteem just grows. I mean, it's just phenomenal to see what our students can do. It's just great. And then Boosterthon, we do a fun run through our PTA and we've done it all kinds of different ways. So we've done it in our gym, and then it's a glow, so you can see that they turn the lights off and it glow in the dark and then they have music and it's fantastic. We've also done it outside. And then we have a bunch of parent volunteers that come in and they run with the kids. I run with the kids the whole time. I usually get up to about 20 miles that day. I'm not joking because it's like all day long,
so kids come through during their specialist time and we just run and we run around the gym or we run outside on the field. So it's just a really good way to have the kids raise money. And then the boosterthon itself, they come in and do a week long group of lessons where they learn about, you know, like anti-bullying, self-esteem, how to be like a good citizen, service learning. So it's a whole program within itself that actually, you know, the kids are learning and experiencing things, you know, to be a better citizen too, as well.
And then it culminates with the fun run. So that's what that is. Coding, so Molly Lee, one of our media specialists has been doing this with our kids. So this is a kindergarten class that works with robots and they program these robots to do specific tasks around just, this is in our media center, so they, like color code them to move from color to color or to do like different tasks to go and pick up something and then bring it back to them. So this is something that's been pretty fantastic
that the kids absolutely love doing. So they set up how the robot moves and how, so they control it. And then they, as you can see, they're just so excited to see, like, I did some things in a computer and then this robot moved and did what I wanted it to do. Like, it's just, it's such a fantastic experience and they do that for all grade levels. So K through five, we'll do this. Alright, so now academic goals. So this, I just put our school's mission there. I don't know, do you want me to read it or does you, okay. So we have been working on this
and we've kind of tweaked it over the years since I started in 2019. And so this was our last iteration when we met in August. And so we made sure that we wanted to incorporate everything that we've been doing and working toward, to ensure that all of our students, are accounted for and have a voice. And we make sure that community is part of that, not just our school community, but our outside the community of Hugo,
and what we're doing to teach the whole child and not just academics. So we have, we split up our academic goals, kindergarten to second grade primary, and then third to fifth grade intermediate to like really look at what do we want our students to do and know and grow. So, and we have two different percentages there. So you may be asking, like why we have 80% here, 75% there. And at looking at our data, we wanted to have a stretch goal, yet an attainable goal.
So when we looked at what our inter, or what our primary students could do, we knew that 80% was something that was attainable, and we know that we can reach it, with our FastBridge assessments. And then for third through fifth, we looked at our data and said, you know what, 75% is attainable, with our MCA scores. And then really focusing this year, all of us have been on first grade and literacy. So what I wanted to show you here was where our first grade students were this fall versus
where they were in January when we did the winter assessments. And so this is testing on their fluency, this is testing on their letter sounds and nonsense words and how they decode. And you can see that the first graders, made great gains, from going from that green, that low risk. So we gained almost 11% or 10% of our kids moving from that middle, that yellow, that 40% some risk. So we've closed those, even though you say, well,
you've gone from 10% to 12% in high risk. And yes, and we are addressing that. So I'm gonna go to the next slide and tell you how we are addressing that. But to see that we are making those gains is very positive, and I'm very excited about what our teachers have been doing to make those gains from fall to winter. So in order to do that, what we've been doing is our teachers, we have our WIN time or What I Need so we have 30 minutes of literacy WIN time every day, and 30 minutes of math, WIN time every day.
So our teachers are constantly working in those small groups to ensure that we are looking at targeted instruction and interventions for our students that are in those, that low and that high, or that, sorry, some and high risk group. And then we, as my instructional coach and myself, we set up data meetings with our teachers to go through and we look at every student individually where they're at, what their scores were from fall to winter,
where they currently are at, and the assessments that they've been doing since the winter assessments. And then we progress monitor to make sure that those students that are in the high and some risk are making gains towards moving out of those risk bands and into the low risk. So right now, since that winter screener has happened with our first grade students, and they've been doing targeted interventions, they've mixed up their groups. You know, they have certain teachers going, I'm going to work on these fluency pieces with these students,
and I'm gonna work on this with these students. So out of 22 students that we are really focused on, 59% are moving into that low risk category out of those 22. So our teachers are really focused on making, like really targeted instructional plans to make sure that that happens. And that's just until now, so with another two and a half months of school, I'm really excited to see where they'll be at the end of the school year working towards that 80% or more. All right. So family engagement, that's a photo from our bingo night.
Our bingo night is a huge draw. Like we have a lot of people that come to that. So I'll get to that in a second. So game night. Yeah, that's my beard. So I sent my glasses. So we had a game night this fall, and it was fantastic. We had the community come out, we had all kinds of different games set up in the gym, and our focus was play with your family, find another family to play with that you haven't ever met before, and do something fun together. So we had games, you know, like active games, like lawn games, you know, think of, you know,
we had actually pickle balls set up, we had bags, we had, the golf thing where you throw it and the little ball, like catches on the ladder thing. So we had all those different games that were going on in the gym. Then in our media center, we had like board games or card games set up so families could travel. And then this was in between, it was a photo booth. So then kids would come and like dress up like this and be funny, with their families or with their selves. And yeah. So that was kind of a fun way, an engaging way for people to meet each other.
And then during that time too, kids wrote their goals and hopes for the year, and then we put 'em up on one of the main walls in our schools so that they could walk by and see their goals and dreams for the year on the wall. So that was great. So here's our bingo night. So our gym has a capacity of 1300, and we fill up the whole gym. I don't think 1300 people came, but I mean, it looks like we have like a ton of people there. So it's always the big draw, it's so much fun. We always, like plan for this many people.
We always run outta tables, even though, we planned, okay, we had this many last year, I'm gonna go 20 more this year. Oh, I need 20 more next year. You know, or same with food. It's like, oh my goodness, how many times are we gonna run out of pizza? So, but it's just, it's so much fun. People come and go. It's just a great event. So it's a fun way to connect with the community and bring them in. And then last year was our first, very first ISI, Intentional Social Interaction. And we're planning another one next week. So next Thursday night, five to seven if you're available.
And so we provide, you know, like really fantastic food. We're dividing it up this year, so we want everyone to eat first and kind of meet people that way. Have some table starters. And then we're going to divide off. We're going to send the kids out to the playground, hopefully it's not raining. And then we will bring the adults down in the media center, and then we'll engage them in some really deep conversations about everything. You know, like what, how do you feel about your student here at school? You know, what more can we do academically? What more can we do with social emotional learning? You know, how do you feel?
Do you feel welcomed? And how can we, you know, like address that. So it's all of those things that we'll be doing at this dinner. And it's, and we always have a great turnout, or we did last year for that too. So I'm hoping for great turnout this year again. Our art party is another great draw. So this was last year's, but we are planning one for this year in May. And so what the kids do with our art teacher in the fall that we had our art teacher for semester one and the kids, like whatever projects they were doing and making, which were fantastic. So we saved all of those.
And then in May, we'll have an art gallery walk. So we'll put up all the artwork throughout the school, in the gym, and then invite families to come in and see all the artwork. And then they can take their students' artwork home at the end. And then in the interim then we'll have chalk, we'll have bubbles, we'll have face paint, tattoos, food trucks. Food trucks were a big hit last year and it was really cold. And everybody went to Kona ice, even though it was like 20 degrees outside. That was the longest line was our Kona ice. It was fantastic. So we're gonna do the same thing again
and hopefully the same kind of turnout. All right. And then our future goals and plans, we hope to continue to increase our student achievement and closing that opportunity gap with our students that are marginalized. And then strengthening our family and community engagement. Wow, this photo was- - Beautiful. - [Lori] Fantastic, it was taken by one of my paras. So that was at the height of, when we were having all the Aurora Borealis. I just, this is like my favorite photo, like of all time of Oneka. - [Participant] That's beautiful.
- [Lori] I know, it's just fantastic, so yes. All right, so that was my last slide. And oh, and then of course, you know, like we were voted best school for 2024. (audience applauding) Throw that in there. - [Participant] Throw that in there at the end. - Just throw that in there, yeah. But we're really proud of that. We've been a finalist for the past couple years, so it was fun to finally, so maybe we'll repeat in 2025, so. - All right, thank you. Do we have any questions? Yes. - I'm just wondering, do all students take the FastBridge?
- Yes. - Whether they're in special ed or not? - Yes. - I was just looking at the number of cluster programs or high needs programs you have in your building. I'm thinking that the students that would be in the high risk or maybe some risk, those programs might impact and have a more challenging effect on moving some of the students out of those. So I didn't know if you were just measuring them by their IEP goals, which we have to do. - Yes. - But you still do the FastBridge.
- Some of them do not all, so they're whatever it says. Okay, yes. - Good question. You were at 59%, now you're saying you're gonna be at 80% by the end of the year. - We hope to be at 80% by May. Yep, at the end of May. - [Participant] Okay and then on the third through fifth graders, where 75% is the goal, where are we at today? Or the most recent assessment that was done? - The most recent for, well, that is the MCA goal.
- [Participant] Right? - So from last year we were in the 50s, like the 50 percentile for MCA last year at that time. So we only take MCA once a year. So I don't have that to compare it. - [Participant] Sure. - But you know, like our fast screeners, I'm trying to remember like our exact percent, it was pretty good. I mean they were still like around that, like where first grade was as far as the fast screeners for moving towards that 75%. But it's a different test, so yeah.
- [Participant] So that's a pretty aggressive goal too. - It is aggressive and our teachers are working as hard as they can to hopefully attain that. - [Participant] So you mentioned on the demographics we have 443 students there. - Do you know offhand just ballpark, what's the capacity for the school for students? - Oh 720 I think is what our capacity will be eventually. And we have, when pre-K, we have a hundred students that are in our pre-K, they're not there every day,
because some are half day, some are every other day, some are whatever. So we do have, like if you count our pre-K in there, we're close to 600 kids right now in the building. - Thank you. - Okay, thank you. Streiff Oji. - Thank you. - Yes. - For everything that you're doing and your teachers are doing. My question is why would you use the FastBridge assessment for K two and not continue using that same assessment for the three five goal?
- Right, and that's something that we are going to address this year coming up. So when we met in August with our building leaders, we talked about that. And our third through fifth grade teachers really wanted to use the MCA data for their stretch goals. You know, because they saw like where we had been since the pandemic and they're like, I know we can do this. I know we can do this. So that was part of our third through fifth grade teachers deciding on that goal, and sticking with the MCA. Next year, I would love us to be all the same. I'd love all of us to be like with the FastBridge assessments
because that's a three, like three time a year thing that we can consistently see that we are making progress. It's easier. - Yeah. - To use that as a goal. So we've talked about that, that was good. That's great question. - My question was, it seems like it would be easier to monitor the progress on that. So thank you. And thanks for everything you're doing. - Ms. Thompson. - I don't have any questions. Just as a parent who kids went to Oneka, I, thank you for the presentation. It's great. And I just had to add the boosterthon,
that was one of the races that the PTA group I was in got started in the school. And I think I still have my t-shirt. 'Cause the kids would run around and they'd sign the shirt. They would mark it on the back and that's great. And I have, it's just full of everybody's names. And the bingo night, yes, big hit. My husband works in trade shows and we would bring in those extra tables that we always ran out of and the extra chairs. So yeah, it's always a great, it was a great event that the community really comes together. So it's great to see those things are still happening. And yes, so thank you. - Absolutely.
- All right. - Ms. Daniels. - I have one more question. Did you say the booster fund, that was a fundraiser? - Yes, yep, our PTA does that? - Yeah, can I ask, what they do with the funds? What are some of the wonderful things? - So we use it kind of to pad our budget for the year. So we usually bring it around $20,000 from that one fundraiser. So then the PTA uses that for how it funds things for teachers and kids throughout the school year. - Great. - And I just wanna remind us that their individual organizations, so they actually choose.
- Yep. - So the school doesn't tell them how to spend it. They actually, - Yeah, the PTA. - Choose on their own. - Chooses. - Yeah. So they select if they wanna spend it on a sensory room or? - Correct. - Playground or a? - Yes. - Okay, thank you. - Any other questions? Okay, I just wanna say thank you. One of the things I noticed is all how we really emphasize the parent and community engagement. And I think it's important to remember that that engagement is so important in helping our students succeed. So that was good to see. - Yes, absolutely.
We're partners, we can't do this alone, and we see their kids sometimes more than they do during the week. So it's really important that we can do that. - Well thank you very much. We appreciate all your hard work. - Thank you. - Okay, now we're gonna go on to B2. We're gonna get an update. This is exciting on the Spanish elementary Spanish dual immersion program. Dr. Gillespie, you wanna go ahead and introduce our guests? - Yeah, chair, our kin members of the board all. We have a big team coming up. We've had a lot of fun work going on. So introduce Ang Nelson, principal at Otter Lake.
John Leininger, principal at Matoska International. Ayan Ibrahim, one of the assistant directors at the district center. And then Jen Babiash, director of Teaching and Learning. I'm not sure who's gonna take it away. So the team at level. - Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to update you on the Spanish dual immersion programming. So today we're gonna update you on the progress of how things are going so far. So for our agenda today, we're just gonna go over the background information on how we got here. We're gonna provide you with a little bit of progress
and then our plans and then our goals. We're gonna share some updates on accomplishments, some enrollment information, staffing and curriculum and what our next steps are. So how did we get here? So we started exploring immersion programming last year. We had a wonderful team that we got together for the steering committee. And our goal was really to establish the framework of what dual immersion programming would look like here
at White Bear Lake. But we dig deep into the research. We looked at, we focused mainly on these three things at the beginning. What were the best practices for dual immersion programming here at White Bear Lake and what would that look and how it would look here. And then we also, if we had Spanish dual immersion here, where would it be? So we looked at different areas of like different buildings, what looking at like the different models and how it would look in each building
and then what are the needs and desire of the community. And then on October 21st, 2024, the board approved the launch of three sections of Spanish dual immersion for kindergarten, both at Otter Lake Elementary School and Matoska for the next school year. So these are the different phases. And now we're in the final phase, which is phase four. We are currently working with the program design team to develop program specifics. We're looking at curriculum instruction assessment,
we're looking at PD, we're looking at different resources that we should have within each school to really be successful as we launch this program for the next school year. - [Ang] All right, hi everyone. Ang Nelson, principal at Otter. So when we went around and we talked to the different elementary schools about the new programming, we offered up the opportunity to be part of a design team knowing that we didn't know exactly what they would be doing, but we needed help and creating this awesome new program.
The idea of the program though is that it really is embedded into each of our schools. So it's not dual language, Spanish immersion, Otter Lake. It's Otter Lake that offers this program, it's Matoska that offers this program. With that said, we felt it was really important that the program itself had its own vision statement. It would work under the mission statements of each of the individual schools, but we needed some guiding force for the team as we started
to bring the program together. So we pulled together people who volunteered to be part of the design team and it was a pretty good sized group actually. And we put them into two separate groups. And we used a process very similar to what we've used before in the past with our lovely Dr. Cook who's no longer with us. But in terms of reviewing the research, reviewing best practice, reviewing all of the work that the steering committee had already done, to really say
what we want this program to mean for us in White Bear Lake. The team then created two different draft vision statements that then we very quickly pulled together a parent focus group night. So when we had, prior to the board meeting, we had gathered some information sessions and at those sessions we had offered to families, if you ever wanna be part of something for dual Spanish immersion, give us your contact information. Every single person that attended said they wanted
to be part of something moving forward. And I would say 75% of them came to this focus group night, which was really exciting. So what we did was we separated them out into two different groups and we had them review both of the draft vision statements along with just giving input on some general questions. And the members of the design team were there to gather all of that information back. What we did then we brought the design team back together and we took all the data from the families and we combined it into one vision statement.
And then we did the very detailed work of going word for word to see, is this what we mean? And so, and it was really, really important to the team that the words weren't even, the words were what we wanted for in English, but it needed to be translated exactly how we wanted it to as well. So for example, and I'll just be honest, I actually am not a very proficient Spanish speaker yet. But the word dynamic in the vision statement
was very carefully chosen because of the way that translates in Spanish. So it's very intentional, the wording that was used. Once we had this final draft set before it was even sent off to all of the families, we sent that back to the, to the focus family groups and they were just very happy with the end result. And this really is been our kind of guiding force as we continue to work on establishing the program. - [Presenter] Great, I get to talk about curriculum and instruction. So what are our students gonna learn? The program team, we met a couple times already this year
to really focus on how will our curriculum align within state and national standards and then how are we going to organize that for our kindergarten teachers so they feel supported with their instruction and then the materials that they have are in Spanish and can support the student outcomes. So I'm happy to say our board approved curriculum that we have been using in all of our programming at the elementary we have,
they have Spanish versions of that. And so it's actually been really nice to be able to just be able to look at the Spanish version of our Spanish language arts, which is Caminos. And then looking at our social studies curriculum. We use Teachers Curriculum Institute, Amplify Science, and our second step, our social emotional learning curriculum. So all of those are available in Spanish. And so our next step, we've worked with the design team
to really focus in on, okay, how can we help support our kindergarten teachers coming in? And we've kind of done all we can at this point and now we're waiting till we actually have our kindergarten teachers come in and look at that scope and sequence, the how we're gonna organize those daily lessons closer to the summer when the new teachers start. And then just an update with math. We are looking to pilot a new math curriculum next year
with all of our elementary teachers. Not all of them, but in all of our grades. And so that will be determined then, which math curriculum we will use for kindergarten Spanish immersion at that time as well. I'm also gonna talk about how we're gonna prepare not only our incoming kindergarten teachers, but also the teachers that will be working alongside our new kindergarten dual language immersion teachers and all of our teachers in the district.
And so we are partnering with the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition, CARLA. We're really fortunate that we have the University of Minnesota and that programming, just downtown that we can provide professional learning. They really are the experts. So we are offering that up to some of our design team members to learn more about Spanish dual language immersion in the schools and offering that to our principals as well. And some of our instructional coaches. And then when our kindergarten teachers come in,
there is some training in July that they'll be able to attend if they're able to, so that we can really kickstart the year. And then just like we do with all of our schools in August, they'll be building specific PD working on how we build a climate and culture with multiple programming at our building. And then we'll have ongoing training for all of our teachers as well around dual immersion, instructional strategies, best practices, family engagement,
all those important pieces of the program. - [Presenter 2] Alright, thank you. I get to talk about our enrollment and staffing process. It's actually really pretty exciting. When we first met with the families and the community focus groups, I remember we were, you know, there and it was so well attended, we were like, oh we've already have a program just in this room, in this community. And sure enough they have turned out, I checked the enrollment with Ang between our two schools about actually half and half. There're already 96 students enrolled.
One of my sort of has with that as I was thinking about this, it's like that's one of our largest programs. If we land them all in one place, that would be one of our larger schools. Which is a great testament to how we're doing this, but also the needs and the desires of our community. And I'm especially proud that to be part of a system that listens to our families, listens to our community and says, we hear you. We know what you are asking for and we are going to develop this and pull this together. The other aha I have with that, we are at 96 students
and we still have five months until school starts. So we would expect that to continue to grow and to serve more of the people in our community. Staffing as we know, as we hear about all over staffing is always an interesting challenge. But again, so proud to be part of White Bear Lake. I remember Mr. Mons talking about we are a desirable place to work and yes we are a desirable place. We have candidates coming in. We have three great candidates that we are in the process of onboarding. We're excited to get them and that we have interviews scheduled ready
for this coming week. You know, expecting at this point we'll have two sections at Matoska, two sections at Otter and we have room to grow that if we needed to continue to move on. So again, we'll continue to monitor that enrollment as we get more students in, we'll be able to fit them in and then expand if we need to expand. But you know, having worked at at a Choice school here in White Bear Lake for a long time, I can say it's really exciting when you have this many kids at this time of year, you got a winner.
I can can assure you that, thank you. - So really we believe that part of the success of that is how much engagement that we've had with families. We've touched on a few of these things already. So just kind of as a reminder, you know we've had the introductory open house before the board meeting, we had the focus group for the design team meeting. One thing that we both did at our sites is we had two nights that was just registration nights. So we really wanted to make sure that if families,
especially families that might have a language barrier, could just come in and register on the spot. They could get a tour, they could ask questions, they could register and they could leave with their, I'm gonna be a Bear t-shirt and a welcome packet and get it all done in one night. They were wildly successful and we found that most of them were immersion. So I do think a lot of families thought, oh that must be specific to the dual language, Spanish immersion program. 'Cause we still have lots of kindergartners
to still enroll for our, well they could choose still either program, but we have lots of kindergartners still to enroll at both of our schools. So, but they were very, very successful nights and families were really happy with that. Then we really do transition, so they are part of our school. So each year we both do spring gatherings for all incoming kindergartners where they get to have to have a little more specialized attention with the kindergarten teachers specialized tour,
ask lots of questions. They get a little goody bags and little treats and then that's coming up in April for both of us. - So ours is next week and a school bus ride. - Well there you go, next week 'cause April is next week, which is wild. And that's for all kindergartners. So while it is a specialized program, they are still kindergartners in our building and they all get the same thing when it comes to that. And same with the ongoing communication plan. They're kindergartners in our building. So we have lots
of other touch points throughout the summer in terms of coming in for different assessments and welcome back conferences and all of those things of just being part of our school. So it becomes much less about, oh you're in Spanish dual language immersion. It's like, you are welcome to Otter, you're part of the Otter family. Welcome to Matoska, you're part of the Matoska family. So it's important to us that they are not seen as a specialized separate piece. You know, Otter, just to speak for Otter, we have lots of specialized programs at Otter
in terms of different special ed programs and they too are part of the Otter Lake family and would not be treated differently or separately. And this is just the same, so. This piece then, this really is specific to Otter. So Otter has several different preschool opportunities and one of those preschool opportunities now will be a Spanish exposure class. So we have, one of our preschool opportunities is kind of based on the nature outside experience like Tamarack offers
and they are outside a lot and they have their cute little orange jumpers and they change their clothes and socks, I swear three times a day. They're so cute and funny. Then the next, the other one will be a Spanish exposure preschool class. So it's not immersion, it's not preschool immersion, it's Spanish exposure. So they'll get to learn some about the culture, they'll learn some about the language and it will be a great opportunity for students because a lot of the students who do preschool at Otter stay at Otter for kindergarten.
So it makes a whole lot of sense that if they were interested in that they would then join the immersion program at Otter. And that is starting now. So those fires are up and around. So Ositos, Hello Little Bears. So make note of that. - So for next steps we are hoping to finalize enrollment and staffing like John and Ayan stated, that has been really being part of this process and seeing the excitement from the community, parents future kindergartens, refining our curriculum
and professional development, making sure that our emergent programming is really embedded in there in the strategies. And then continued outreach and engagement and prepare for August, 2025 launch as we have a smooth start to the school year for next year. Thank you. - Alright, thank you. That's very exciting to hear. Do we have any questions yet? Streiff Oji. - 96 already enrolled. That's crazy and exciting. Do we know if they're open enrolled? If we are getting open enrolled students?
Are we attracting students from other districts or is mostly? - We definitely are, I think it's about half and half. - Yeah, we'd have to dig into the data, but I know a lot of interest within our community and as well as lot of interest in the neighbors right around us as well. - That's great, and you're interviewing now? - Yes. - You're interviewing now, okay, great. Any problem finding? - I just had someone email today, two people this weekend emailed about this, so they are really starting to come out. But the hiring process does start a little earlier
for immersion programming, so. - It's a little bit like what we see with enrollment. We see a really big, you know, right when we open enrollment, sort of a big influx when we open, when we first started our recruiting process. Sort of a big influx then like the enrollment, it's now sort of a continuous trickle. We're getting a continuous trickle. So one of the things, like a week ago with our latest posting there, there wasn't any in there. But now there's three or four that have submitted as well as another half dozen that have, are in the process of submitting.
So now we work with our HR department, we go through our vetting process, looking at references and then setting up, interviews based on, who are the candidates who we feel qualified as a kindergarten teacher for all of our kiddos. And then with our dual immersion program. Thank you. - Thank you. - Ms. Allison. - Yes, this is very exciting. Although I will say as a former Matoska parent, John, this is coming like 13 years, but it's really, I'm so excited. So my questions are, when you're hiring, is it,
this is just total ignorance on my part, are you looking for native speakers of Spanish or Spanish as a second language? Is it a preference or? - That's a really great question. And there's, you know, what we are looking for and as we talked about first, first all great kindergarten experience and then, as we said, we have, on our interviewing team, we have people who are very fluent in Spanish. Next is that proficiency to which we, we need our students to have in there. So I wouldn't say there's not a bar of native
or heritage versus someone. It's really about the fluency and the ability to teach the content in that Spanish language to the students. - Okay, great. And then the plan is then to add a grade every year? - Yes. - Right? So that this class of 2057 or whatever it is that's coming into kindergarten, they're gonna, they'll have the opportunity. - Yes. - To continue. - Correct. - Right, okay. And then my last question is,
I appreciate that you addressed this idea of all of these students belong to the school community because I can imagine because kids are kids, they're gonna understand that there's a difference between their students who are speaking in Spanish and classes and students that are not. So what are your plans for helping teachers then at Matoska and Otter to ensure that those teams feel really cohesive? - I can go for a step, go for a step.
- Well, I just know, 'cause I've already talked to the kindergarten team at Otter and really the first question they had for me is how can we support the new kindergarten teachers? And so they already are so collaborative and partner on so many things. Like Lori mentioned with the grade level teaming and all of those things, they will still operate as a team. The times where they'll break off is when it comes to planning and using unit plans, that will look different because the pacing guides will be different and things like that. So in that way it will, they'll have like another branch
of the tree, if you will. But otherwise I imagine they'll work very similarly to how they work at any grade level team. And I would say for students, I don't think it's gonna be as big of a deal as we might think. Again, Otter has so many different students with so many different needs that have many different types of amazing things. And some have some unique challenges and some of 'em are very visible and some of them are not.
And students just treat everyone with respect. They wanna play with them, they're their classmates. And so I really think it's about the culture in the school, making everyone feel included and being inclusive. I feel like we have that. So I don't see it being a barrier, especially because we have students now that speak Spanish in classrooms that are multilingual. So in my eyes, at least for Otter, it's more about like continuing to build the school culture where all students are valued
for what they bring and who they are. And it's a really inclusive atmosphere because we do have a lot of students with different needs and all sorts of things at Otter. So, and the kids are just amazing and they just welcome people. - I would also add to that too, it's one of the reasons why we wanted to make sure that our English track students are also having Spanish language as a part of one. I was already highly valued at Matoska as an IB school. It's expectation, but it's also one of those unifying things.
They come from our different lenses, but we have those connections. I'd also say, you know, at Matoska with our IB school is we have our units of, in inquiry, we have sort of the framework of who we are already built in. And now we're just adding different sort of tracks and layers to how we implement and do that curriculum. Wonderful, I have one thing, Scott. - So can you describe what a student day would look like? 'Cause I think part of it is that with specialists too. - Oh, for like for our specialists. So part of our specialists, so you know, every day, you know at Otter, the students go to PE,
they'll go to music and then they'll have a half a year of Spanish and then a half a year of art as well. So that's part of that. - So art instruction, for example, will not be in Spanish? It will be. - It will be in English. It will be in English, yeah. - So that's part of our 80 20 model where 80% will be in the target language, 20% will be in the English because just sort of to review, our dual language program is really designed so that when we reach fifth grade and go into middle school, it's going to be dual language.
We're going to be proficient in both English and in Spanish. So our heritage speakers will come out with strong English skills and our English speakers will come with strong Spanish skills. So it's that dual language concept. - So all of the specialists will be, besides Spanish will be in English? - Wonderful. - Thank you so much. - Another question, Mr. Scar. First of all, I had a hard time with a single immersion program when I was in school. How are you, I mean,
96 enrolled what, six, what was your expectation with this program? Was it 96, was it a hundred, was it 200? Like what's our break point where this, not lack of a better term, but we make money or it pays for itself. Do you know what I mean? - I don't know if I could, I don't know if I could speak to like the per pupil funding, would the expectation, again, my advantage had been working at Matoska where we've been a choice school for a long time.
And I knew that it would be because we're an IB school international, I knew just from the community that I work with, it was gonna be a lot of interest, a lot of connections to it. I can kind of give a concept related to IB. We know that IB keeps students in the district. It provides an interesting opportunity for those residents who are here. It also draws in people and that threshold and we'd have to do a little bit of research of,
does it pay for itself? It clearly pays for itself. I know when we first brought it in, we did that math and then when we had a review about four, five years ago, we also looked at and said, yes, this is actually, it's a fiscally responsible and most importantly really meets the needs of our community. It's what our families are hoping for and expect for us to do. - I can take that one as well. Just from the standpoint that when we hit our minimum class size target
that we have expressed for each grade level, whether it's immersion or not, once we hit that, then we're in that zone where, we're running as expected for cost versus revenue there. And so in this case, we'll be well over that minimum threshold and we are making sure that we wind up with full sections where we're going to be opening an additional section. So every section of dual language immersion that we open will fit that criteria
of being essentially fully funded there. - So do you screen the students before they come in to make sure that they have skill set for success? Or is it just all students are, can come in? - All students can come in and then just like any of our kindergartners, everyone will get screened to see kind of where people are starting at. And then we really have our tiers of support that we would use for either our English
or our Spanish dual language immersion. So if students are struggling, we offer the supports just kind of across the board. We do have a plan for that in our immersion programming. If students are struggling with their English proficiency, what that's gonna look like. If it's Spanish proficiency, what's that gonna look like? What does research say is best practice? And really learning from our neighbors that have immersion programs. You know, what work have you seen working well, but really supporting in that way. So we don't wanna limit opportunities from students, we wanna keep the doors open
and then support them kind of through that experience. - But seemed to me like retention rate would be really important from one grade to see. So that, do you guys have a feel for what your expected retention rate would be in this program for people to stay in versus or for students to stay in versus not? - That's a great question, I mean, we hope it's 100% - Sure, of course. Research would say that attrition is normal in a program like this.
So it would be normal for a student to say, oh, that's actually not what I thought it was gonna be about at all. Or a family to say this is not the right fit and wanna kind of switch over. But we are not expecting that to be the masses, which is why we are looking at having the ratios be a little bit higher so that a cohort does not dwindle down to like 10 students by fifth grade that would not be fiscally responsible to run a class of 10. And it's not good for the students either. So that's why a lot of those decisions have come
into play in terms of class size. What does that support look like? Being really open and transparent with families about what the program is and also being really open and transparent that when a student comes into kindergarten, just being in kindergarten is really hard. You know, and kindergarten teachers have been really open and honest about this too. You know, it's normal for students to go home and be so tired and they sleep and it's normal for them to be really cranky and kind of tired and hungry. And those are all just kindergarten normal things. And if you're learning the language on top of that,
it could be even harder and we're gonna help you through that. And so, just like everyone should just stay calm and we know that assessment scores could look a little different because they're learning two languages at a time that you might not see the highest scores right away and that's okay because that's also normal. So it's really just working with families and being transparent, continuing that education and support and reassurance, I think. To holding that retention. But relationships with families is gonna be just critical through this process.
- Right, well I think it's great that we can grow enrollment through this program and thank you for the presentation and the briefing. - Yeah. - Okay, Ms. Daniel. - Yeah, this is kind of a question for down the road, but this is just something I've thought about over the years. We have talked, we have informally talked about an immersion program for years, which those of you have been around for years, so this is so exciting that we're now gonna take that big leap. But, so I was thinking about the MCA and how those work with immersion programs.
I know kindergarten doesn't have to worry about it, you don't have to worry about it for a couple years. But how does that work? - They have to take them in English. They have to take 'em in English. They have to take FastBridge assessments and they do have to take them in English. - Okay. - And that's one of the things, our communication is so important. One of the thing that research actually plays out that we know, we know because they're learning two languages. The progress is going to look a little different. It takes a little bit longer. So we put our, we carry that weight and we know that we have to progress in both languages,
but also know as we communicate to families, it's gonna look different. And that's okay 'cause this is what we expect. - And the research really puts a lot of emphasis on that. Like just having the different models of the 80:20 and slowly, like the percentage changing over time. It really shows like with like all the different immersion programming, by the time students are in fifth grade, you see them like scoring twice as high as their classmates. So eventually they get there, right? Like it takes a little bit of time in the beginning
because they're learning this new language. But as soon as they reach fifth grade, like you will see like their scores being really high. 'Cause now they're at the point where they comprehended Spanish and they're doing their English work too. - Thank you. - Ms Beloyed. - So if we have two sections at Otter and we have two sections, Matoska, I'm assuming we're talking four FTEs is what the plan is. - As of now? - As of now. - We think it'll be. - More. - Probably three and three, would be what we're hoping for. - Do we think it'll be three and three by next year?
Or is that a whole four. - By four. - We do think it'll be up by four. - I would. - So the class size would, - That's my prediction. (audience laughing) Because it is so early. - Right? - So we're talking about, you know, a total of 120 to 140 or 145 students and we're already almost at a hundred. So it's likely that we'll get to that point. - So then I looking. - Which then helps with the attrition, 'cause families move in and out too. And so, as they go through elementary school,
it'll hopefully that will be a solid number that will carry through. - Then what's the typical class size for kindergarten is? - So between 18 and 22. - 22, yeah. - So we're already at 24. So what is the attrition number we're trying to get to? So that the number we're trying to get to, because we know we're going to. - Right. - Three sections is what we're hoping for, right? - Yep, three sections. - And if this, if the sections are a little higher than that, we might have some additional supports in those sections. - Yes, correct, so six six all together. - Yep, six all together.
- So for the people that are applying to be teaching this, where are we pulling them from? Is there a particular area at school? - All over, really. - All over. The opportunity is available to anybody that would like to apply. - So we've had a lot of interest from local people who are currently working in other immersion schools. We've had cold calls from other states. You know, it's really, it's kind of exciting place to be where we see people from all over
with qualifications and experiences, some people right here born and bred in Minnesota with wonderful language skills and you know, heritage speakers from other states who are moving to Minnesota. It's really a fun time to be looking at that candidate pool. - Have we done any specific targeting for these positions? - No, we haven't. Mine is more informal reach out. We're really following kind of our classic recruitment.
- Okay, and then for the Ositos, how large is that program, how many littles? - I'm like, I look at Tim, I'm like. - The reason I ask is I know every single year we have a hard time getting the teachers in for a lot of those preschool classes we get a lot well. - Yep. No, we follow our regular enrollment practices for that class as well. So we would shoot for somewhere around 17. - And then two people would then be. - Yep, typically a licensed teacher and a para.
- Is there a reason why we're not hosting it at both Matoska and Otter. - Space? 'Cause if the basic answer for that one is space. - We don't have the space at Matoska in the summer. - It's the school year. - It's a school year program. - Oh, school year. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I think that was it. This is exciting, thank you. - Last chance? Yes, go ahead. - It's just, I didn't have a question but then in everyone talking, so what will be the tool
that we will use to make sure that they are becoming fluent in Spanish if we're gonna use the FastBridge and all those tests in English? - That's a great question. - How are we gonna ensure that they're learning Spanish? - So there are a few tools that we're looking and exploring that other districts use that are comparable to FastBridge. We have to do FastBridge, so we kind of teeter on this. We don't wanna over assess the students because then they're just taking so many tests. And so making sure that our unit assessments
that teachers are giving is gonna be really critical in this because yeah, we just have to be careful when we're not over assessing in these standardized ways. But there are tools that can give both English and Spanish proficiency, but we also are really still bound to FastBridge. So we haven't decided that yet. But that's a really good question though. - And some of our curriculums that we're looking at and bringing on have tools built into it. Like our Caminos, which is our CKLA,
it has benchmarking tools built into it. We've been having some conversations with other schools. I know we've talked to some schools that have already adopted Caminos and they say, hey, we really like these tools. See what do you like about 'em, which ones? So those are the things that our design team and curriculum people are working on right now. - So a FastBridge doesn't have a Spanish version? - I don't know. - Not that we want to use in that way. Yeah. - Okay. - Well, thank you. - Yeah. - All right, well thank you. We look forward to hearing updates as we go along. - Thanks for having us.
- Thank you very much. Well, we are now at the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Ms. Ellison, then a second. - Second. - Second by Ms. Thompson. This is a voice vote. All in favor say aye. - Aye. - All opposed, same sign. We are now adjourned.