Hello. I'm calling to order the Columbia Heights Public Schools um independent school district's uh board meeting for November 25th, 2025. Um if I could have everyone rise for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Okay. So, the first order of business today is we get to swear in our newly appointed school board member, Laurian Mueller. If you want to come up here, All right. It is an honor that you were elected um or actually appointed to guide the education of our community's children as you recite the oath of office to assume a tremendous responsibility as a director of our school district with the duties empowered by the Minnesota legislature. This power puts you and the other members of our school board in the position of being both morally and legally responsible for equitable quality education of every student in the district. In carrying out this responsibility will be asked to fulfill the roles of vision structure accountability and advocacy. In providing vision, the board with extensive participation of the community envisions the community's educational future and then formulates the goals, defines the outcomes and sets the course of the the public schools. To achieve the vision, the board establishes a structure and creates an environment designed to ensure all students the opportunity to attain their maximum potential through a sound organizational framework. Because as a board, we must be accountable to the community. We must ensure a continuous assessment of the student achievement and all conditions affecting the education of our children. As board members, we serve as education's key advocate on behalf of students and our community schools to advance the vision for our schools. Furthermore, we must strive to work together with the superintendent and staff to lead the district towards fulfilling the vision we have created, fostering excellence for every student in areas of academic skills and knowledge, citizenship and personal development. And anyway, so having signed the acceptance of oath of office and oath of office, I hereby publicly affirm my office. So you want to repeat after me? >> I swear affirm that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state. I swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and of the state and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office of school board member of independent school district. >> And that I will discharge faithfully the duties of the office of the school board of school board member of independent school district of my judgment and ability. Congratulations. Thank you. >> Welcome back. >> Welcome back. >> H >> We haven't done >> Oh, you have? >> No, we haven't done the uh the roll call yet. Uh, and next, Director Pway, can you please do the roll call? >> Absolutely. >> It would only be right. Uh, Mueller >> here. >> Um, Palmer >> here. >> Pway here. Maderas >> here. >> Granland. >> P >> here. >> Superintendent Stimbe >> here. >> Okay. Thank you. Uh, next up is our mission statement. Um, creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. All belong, all succeed. And our core values of course are community, excellence, collaboration, integrity, respect, courage, and innovation. Uh, next up is our agenda approval, adjustments, and announcements. Can I get a motion? >> So moved. >> And a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. All right. Um, and yes. Um, do I actually do I'm Can I get a clarification here? Do I uh make the announcements or write the say the announcements and then we'll move on. Okay. >> But you have to vote on >> All of a sudden I got flumxed here. I apologize. >> Oh, you're right. >> Huh? >> We have to vote. >> Hm. We have to That's what Yeah, that for some reason I was thinking it was before that. Okay. Um All right. Um all those in favor? >> I >> opposed. Any obstessions? Okay. Motion has passed. Okay. Uh next up are announcements. November 26th, 27th, and 28th, there is no school. Uh November 27th, and 28th, the district will be closed. December 9th at 6 p.m., we'll have the schoolboard meeting here in the community room. J December 22nd through January 2nd, there is no school. December 24th, 25th, and 31st, and January 1st, the district will be closed. Uh next up is our communication to the board. Um, at this time, citizens and employees, uh, representatives, um, can briefly address the school board. The board will listen to brief remarks, ask clarifying questions, and if desired, request that the administration followup. The board will not take action at this meeting on requests presented at this time, and time will be limited to three minutes per speaker. And I do understand we do have a couple of individuals that would like to address the board. >> Are we good? Okay. >> Okay. Good. Okay. Okay. So, we're back. Um, so we did have a um a couple of uh uh uh union representatives come forward to um express some of the um some of the concerns and some of the things that would be best for their students and for our district at large. And I appreciate their input. Thank you. Okay. Next, we are going to move on to our cons uh consent agenda, which is going to include the personnel report uh school board minutes um from November 18th work session uh policy second reading. Um the policies were originally on on the October 28th, 2025 meeting at uh meeting at first reading. 401 equal employment 403 discipline suspension and dismissal of school district employees. 404 um employee background checks. 406 public and private personal da personal data. 408 subpoena of a schoolboard a school district employee 422 policies incorporated by reference and 722 uh public data requests. Uh can I get a motion to move this forward? >> So move. >> Thank you. And a second. >> Second. Okay. Um, and any discussion? >> I just wanted to note that the policies that are up for second reading are um went through the policy uh subcommittee and there are all very minor changes to those policies. So, thank you. >> Thank you. Um, anything else? No. Okay, let's move forward with a vote. Um, all those in favor, please say I. >> I. I. opposed. Any abstensions? >> Thank you. Thank you. Okay, that moves forward. Everyone voting affirmative. Uh next up is our acknowledgement of contributions. Now, this is going to be a resolution. Um there it's a very very very long list. I'm going to apologize beforehand about um there's a lot of names on this list and I'm not the best at this. So, I'm going to apologize. I practiced for what about 15 minutes in the office trying to say everybody's name and I'm sure I'm gonna get something wrong and I'm just gonna apologize ahead of time. So, um the next up is going to be uh the acknowledgement of contributions and I'm trying to remember. Do I read the whole first thing and then I don't know why I'm so off tonight. >> It's okay. >> You can read the portion at the top. >> Yeah. I'm sorry. I apologize. Yeah. So uh uh acknowledgement of contribution resolution Minnesota statute 123b.02 permits school board districts to receive for the benefit of the district bequest donations or gifts for any proper purpose and apply the same to the purpose designated on that behalf. The board may act as a trustee of any trust created for the benefit of the district and for the benefit of pupils thereof. All right. Um okay. So let's get a motion to move this forward. >> So moved. >> Okay. And a second. Second. Okay. Okay. Now discussion >> or we do that for after I read the whole thing. >> I think you read >> Yeah, you read the the entire resolution. >> I guess I've been trying to put this off. So I apologize. Um Mary owes me big time. So >> you got this. >> Okay. Okay. So there uh the school uh school board of Columbia Heights Public Schools and Pendit School District number 13 resolves to accept with appreciation $15,37425 in monetary contributions detailed in the background. The detailed background monetary Beatric Carter donated $10. Melanie Kennedy, Melanie Kennedy, Mary Williams, Sarah Bond, Sher uh Axon, and Cindy Souls each donated 25. Jessica Johnson, Jennifer Klene each donated 100 to the boys swim team for Sam Alexon Swimathon. Uh Sarah McCoy uh donated $16.50. Grandma Whit Whitlinger donated 30. Uh Kelly Kaye and Sarah Susan Kaye each donated 50 to the boys swim team for uh Josiah's Kayle's uh swimathon. Uh Sarah McCoy donated 1750. GPA. Uh Whitinger donated 40. Uh Susan Kaye donated 50. Amanda Jacobson donated 80 to the boys swim team for uh Joshua Kaylee swimthathon. Uh Katherine Carter donated $25. Chris Carter donated 40. Carrie Carter and Carrie Park each donated 50. Uh Michael uh Barrett and the Carters each donated $100 to the boys swim team for Sunshine Carter Swimathon. Uh Samantha Alexan donated $15 to the boys swim team for the swimathon. Beatatric Carter donated $6. Uh uh Isles uh donated 12 $12.50. Hannah Losos uh donated 15. Uh Elizabeth Buchcci uh donated 20. Abby Duza, Hannah Nicholson, and Paul uh Ashes each donated 25. Kelsey Krauss donated 30. Uh Kyle Holmes and Anna Chalmer's each donated 100. Um Werta Makitra Mahatma >> Mahatma >> Tama uh donated 200 to the girls swim team for Kelsey uh Ashes uh swimathon. Uh Scott Rivenberg, Nick Ziment each donated 10. Uh Arena Kush donated 25. Joyce Goki donated 50 to the girls swim team for Anika Nelson Swimathon. Molly Olsen donated 25. Cynthia Hendris. Uh Carol Shelac Shellac. Uh uh Ruth Lamir uh Beth Florence each donated 50. Julie Shellac donated 75 to the girls swim team for Amelia Martinez Shellac's swimathon. Uh Anita Annette, excuse me, Annette O'Brien, Janet Gford, Nathan Roberts each donated 25. Uh Susan Schwanki donated 50. Uh Rachel and Leo James uh donated $61 to the girls swim team for uh Wia James uh swimathon. U Michael uh Jordan and Evelyn each donated 25 to the girls swim team for Maria Samoy's uh swimathon. Uh Camille Gross donated $50 to the swimathon. Um, Deb Lure donated $50 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Daphne Kleinmidt. Halfway there. Lynn M. Peterson donated 20. Celeste Rouse, uh, Christian Evan each donated 25. Lane Anderson donated 30. Stephanie Bulchie uh, donated 35. Lane A donated 40. Stacy Nora donated $5067. Susan and Scott Nos uh donated 75 VNB and James Kaine. Uh Nikki Wall uh each donated 100 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Ella Anderson Nicora. Uh Virginia Mulaney donated 50. Casey Thrash and Katherine Kurthers um each donated 100 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Elliot Kurthers. Uh Grace George, Pablo Hoyos, uh Sarah Dietrich each donated 20. Patty Ericson donated 30. Bobby Harper, Maline Jonas, uh Chuck Jonas, Uncle Dave and Connie and Cindy each donated 50. Mark Jonas donated 100 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Jenna Jonas. Uh Nama uh Osman donated 20 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Mary Ahmad. Uh Doc Cartenzen uh donated 100 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Maya uh Viticury. Uh MG donated 100 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Olivia Candela. Uh R Cheetah uh donated $10. CH theater department donated 15. Bryley Torqulson donated 20. Leo Fam uh 20 $20. Dawson Bengry family donated 40. Nola Benry and Eric Jensen each donated 50 to the girls tennis team on behalf of uh Sophia Johnson. Uh Fen Baga donated 50. Ahmed Sik Sadiki uh donated 100 to the girls tennis team on behalf of Yamni Ali. An anonymous parents donated 200 to the band at North Park in kind. >> You're almost there. >> Camp Digital donated food valued at 1,500 to the Columbia Heights High School for student use. Columbia Heights Lions donated food valued at $700 to Columbia Heights High School for student youths. Diane Scully donated a camera, an extra lens, and a camera bag valued at $900 to Honeywell's photography classes at Columbia Heights High School. And donors choose donated bins valued at $163 to Valley View for classroom use. The total fiscal year 2025 to 2026 mon monetary contributions to date are 21,37428. Just a moment any discussion go right ahead. Um, I mean it's so amazing to see all the individual help, right? We always hear about, you know, the the general picture sometimes and donations. It's so nice to see people giving to individual students for individual um events or um things that they're into. Um, I also use this list as like a help to me because I don't always know everything that we offer and so it is really nice to see some of the stuff that we do um that I'm not aware of. And so this list is also important to me because that's where I learned a lot of that stuff. So thank you everybody for all of your contributions. We really appreciate it and I'm sure our students do. >> And anyone else? >> Okay. Thanks as always to our extraordinarily generous community, our staff. I see staff, community members, for former students on here, businesses in the community, and um and just all of the support that they give to our students. So much appreciated. All right. So, this is a resolution. Um so, this requires a roll call vote. >> Yes. Uh Mueller, >> I. >> Granland. >> Palmer. >> I. >> Pway. Maderas. >> I thank you. That has passed. Thank you very much. Right. Next, let us move on here. Okay. Uh, next up is our discussion, reports, and information items. So, um, now is where we get um, information, our reports from members of the board. Um, Michelle, would you like to start? >> Sure. Um, I feel like I forgot some things, but I couldn't think of them. So, you're going to get what I have. And then as other people talk, I'll be like, "Oh, yes, that." Um, so I attended the schoolboard um rep conference, uh, which was amazing. U, we took, um, ASA and Autinon out to Farmington and, uh, we got to, um, learn more and pass some of our own tips, um, off to other schools about how to, uh, create a space for student voice on our school board. Um, and it was so nice to see all of our students get together and kind of just do their own thing. Like they didn't even need us because like they're them. And um, they kind of took over and just had their own space and it was really nice to see everybody come together for that. Um, so we took some things away. Um, and and I like that we were able to also share some things that we do well as um, as well. Um, I also attended uh, parent teacher conferences at Columbia Academy um, to which is home now. I love you North Park. And um I had a meeting with um the homeschool leaison um so that I could introduce myself to them. We have our bipok family group that has just gone districtwide. Um and our next meeting is going to be at North Park on December 3rd and I really wanted to introduce myself to the liaison who are going to help us with our parents um with communication and reaching out and things like that. So that was a big deal um to kind of put a face to names and get to know the people who are going to be helping me reach out to parents and families. Um, I attended last week's work session and um, this past week I got to meet Amelia Heheart and Albert Einstein and Oprah and um, Benjamin Franklin, Barack Obama, John Adams and Anne Frank to name a few. Um, when I went to North Park's Wax Museum uh, presentations, it was amazing. I had never attended before. um my child wasn't a part of it. And so it was so amazing to see all the students do so much hard work and be so excited to have their button pushed and to repeat the same thing over and over and over again. Um they were they were very ready and they were dressed and they did the things that they were supposed to as those people. Um and I shook a few hands and and validated a couple people's roles and it felt really good to see them really step into their roles. So that's all I have for now. Thanks. >> Thank you. Thank you very much, Jessica. >> Sure. So, um, uh, like all of you, I attended the work session and close session last week. Um, and then, uh, I've also attended the Columbia Academy conferences and their PTO meeting a few weeks ago. Um, and their PTO's growing a little bit over there, which is nice to see. And then I've been spending a lot of time at Highland lately because there's been a lot going on there. So, um I think some of the historical figures were uh doing double duty because I saw >> some on your list at the wax museum at Highland. So, that was exciting. And one thing I really also loved about the wax museum was that they brought classes through. Um, and so seeing um the kids from all the other grade levels come in and um get to see their their classmates all dressed up and uh giving their spiel was really fun to see. They were very excited about it. There was a lot of jumping up and down from the the the younger kids. So that was cool to see. Um Highland also had their conferences uh since on two nights since we last met. Um so I attended that as well. Uh the PTO there provided meals for the teachers on both nights. Uh and I volunteered at the bake sale at Highland. And then um you know I have to give a little shout out since we got through turkey bingo and silent auction last Friday. I saw some of you there. Um we had over we had lots of parent volunteers which was awesome. But we had over 30 high school student volunteers that were there and volunteering at all facets of the event, running around the um gym, helping with bingo, helping with the silent auction, helping with concessions, which was fantastic. We had really great turnout. Um and the PTO there raised over $5,000, which is great. So, I just wanted to report that back since I pushed that event so hard. So, thank you. Thank you. >> Sure. Um I have a very short report. Um so thank you. First I wanted to just thank the board um for having the trust in me to ask me to come back to fulfill this role in the interim. Um I am truly honored um to serve. I did not think I'd be back this quickly. Um and I will say it was not an easy decision but yet it was an easy easy decision. And so I am glad to be back and thank you for having faith and confidence in me um to ask. Um I also attended the work session um and the close session last week as I officially took the oath of office last week. It was ceremonial here tonight. Um but uh yeah, so I did that and that was that was about it. Mine's also short. Um I attended the the um board Thanksgiving dinner before our work session and attended the close session as well. Um and um that's it. Okay. My mine is fairly short as well. Um I attended the work session last week um a board uh chair meeting prior to this as well as the close session. and um superintendent if you would like to give your if you have a report for us this evening. >> Thanks. Uh it's been lots going on very busy but just a few highlights. Um this week I've joined two is it this week already? Yes. I've joined two meetings on AI artificial intelligence. Um the first included a national speaker metro area superintendent the U of M and AMSD. Um, and then piggybacking on that was our first district AI committee. And since AI is evolving so quickly, um, I really do appreciate the community and staff members coming together to help shape our approach in our district. Um, various events at the schools. Last week, I attended the Native American Heritage Family event, which was beautiful. um stopped by Turkey Bingo at Highland uh wax museum at Valley View and I can't help myself but I have been peeking in on basketball practices and the rehearsal the theater rehearsals looking forward to newsies next week and next weekend. Um assistant superintendent Namboy and I um we were able to meet with each principal for our regular walk-in talks and got through our November ones. Um, so it is really great to get out into all the classrooms and the buildings each month. And that's it. Thank you. >> All right. Um, next up will be um information about the full service community school grant at Valley View. Um, and that will be presenter Jason Kman, uh, principal of Valley View. Uh, Kevin, I practice the same. I'm sorry. Centenno Centenno, >> uh, community school coordinator. >> Thank you, Vice Chair Palmer. Uh, members of board, Superintender Stenick. Um, thank you for having us, uh, so we can kind of update you on our full service community school. Um, so Bono, do you want me to go through? >> All right. Thank you. Um so our mission um Columbia Heights Public Schools creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. All belong all succeed. Um our core values community excellence collaboration integrity respect courage and innovation. Umformational presentation of the CHP board of education. No governance questions please. Um, and we are addressing head, heart, and hands. 1E family relationships, 3A, family engagement and communications. And 3F, family engagement and communications um with business and community partners. Um, the definition, and I wanted to talk a little bit about this because I think we're exemplifying um what a true fullervice community school is. The full service community school strategy transforms a school into a place where educators, local community members, families, and students work together to strengthen conditions for student learning and healthy development. As partners, they organize in and out of school re resources, supports, and opportunities so the young people thrive. Um, we are knocking it out of the park. I'll be honest. So, I'm not trying to be um boisterous, but I think um with Kevin's support um and organization, Valley View is really transforming into a full-ervice community school. Um the hub of that is our site council and I want to invite uh the board if you if you have time and would like to participate. We meet um the second Monday of every month from 5:00 to 7:00 and it's it's one time I'm super proud of our site council. Um, you know, last year was a growing year where we're kind of developing it, um, getting to learn each other, learning to trust each other, and now this year it is taking off. Um, the the amount of perspectives being shared. Um, the ideas flowing is immense. Um, and it's generating a lot of the things that you will see tonight or hear about um, from uh, Kevin here. Um, but it it truly does exemplify um the real values that that make Valley View so special um and captures our community members and our parents' perspectives. And I think that's truly important when we're looking how to support all of our families um in everything they do. So, I'm going to turn it over to Kevin to talk about some of the activities we have going. >> Yeah. So one of the pro uh multiple of the things that I help coordinate through the school is uh de leasgo free arts uh first started as a program that um we invite parents uh within the organizations that are coming to us to provide different leadership programs to have families to give a voice out there. Uh especially in the worth in the environment that we're are in right now. Uh it it empowers our families to be able to speak up and have a voice. you know sometimes either within a different aspect of communication you know especially in technology with our youth growing and like uh uh super Zena said with AI it is transforming a lot of our kids how to make sure our students are and children are welcomed and loved you know especially those individuals who are uh growing up in a foreign country and be making that their home uh and sometimes so we partner with Espedencia United, a nonprofit organization that supports uh domestic violence survivors. Um and from there we also partner up with uh uh the free arts programs that they carry through different organizations for students to do art but also have these conversations that might be difficult and open away a channel and give a channel for those students to grow. Uh this is going to be one of our new programs uh that we're going to be creating at value uh bridge to lead which is a mentorship program with the fire department uh CHPD and different members of the community of heights and it's just to build a relationship with the kids to be able to like the acronyms lead uh leadership engage engagement accountability and development because a lot of our kids want to have that voice but they sometimes fear mom and dad might be judgmental or might not might not be able to have those conversations. So, we're trying to create a space for these kids to have a voice, you know, not just with mom and dad, but with different members. So, when they do go in our in our community, they know like, oh, I know who that is. I know who this police officer. I know this uh fire department uh uh fireman or woman out there. So it's not just a uniform for the for the kids to see, but it's also a person a person that actually cares for them. Uh this is a new program that I started at Columbia Academy actually that I'm going because we work very closely with uh this uh Columbia Academy. Uh so we formed uh G uh Gals through WISE which is girls uh getting ahead in leadership and with this program it powers are specifically our girls who are undocumented or uh new c new to country or refugees and giving these girls a way to one uh learn leadership skills within their community academics and also uh go on to post-secary education. So from there or even have finding a job if they need to find a job and even from there once they have children of their own they come back and look for the same resources for their own families. This is another exciting event that I'm I'm looking forward to is one for tomorrow uh which I invite you guys to join is our community giving uh especially with the tight community that we have here in Columbia Heights. We're off we're we're offering a free meal for our families in this and during this holidays that might be a little struggling to build a community, you know, because a lot of times what I like to say is sometimes you got to break bread to have a conversation to build a community. Why not during during a meal, you know? So, we invite uh we're inviting hopefully serving about 600 families, 600 individuals meals, and we will have leftovers for sure, but we're looking to uh create a meal and a space for families to enjoy and be loved. >> And just to clarify, this is not only for Valley View. It is open up to Columbia Heights as a whole. Um I know the other principles have shared out this invitation, too. So, we're welcoming everybody um to say thank you for all the support that our CI community has given us. We'd like to do a little bit in return. Upcoming events. Um so, some of the stuff that we we pride oursel in is not only supporting our children, but also supporting our parents because we know if our parents are supported, they're giving us their best product. They're giving us their children. So, we are offering English and Spanish classes. Uh we had uh a class graduate last year. Uh so one of our pair of professionals has volunteered and we're paying um to put on classes Monday and and Friday nights. Um and I think we had right around 28 graduate last time. She is also starting that um shortly. So another round of that. And then also hearing from our English-speaking parents they'd like to learn Spanish. Um so we are offering that class as well to our families. um winter dinner and gift giving in December. So, as last year, we did our Toys for Tots. Um it was wildly successful. So, we were going to expand on that and hopefully um with the success of tomorrow's dinner, be able to replicate that in December. Um and again, it's just giving back and it's bringing us together. Um definitely in times of need. Um we have to learn to depend and reach out. And so, how do we create those relationships? As Kevin said, having a dinner together and learning who our neighbors are, um, is a great way to do that. Winter extravaganza or mutapalooa, we'll see. Um, you never know in Minnesota, so some years we go sledding, some years we play in the mud. Um, so who knows? It's a it's a guess. Uh, Culture Night and then also Ready Set Smile is one of the the providers we work with. Um, I believe we had 175 of our students serviced uh, this fall. Our goal is 300 um by spring. So we're we're lofty, but we're working hard towards it. >> So So continuing with within our visions for future partnerships, uh we're uh trying to see how to get Boys and Girls Club here in Columbia Heights. Uh as is our closest uh mentorships that are within Boys and Girls Club. It is in it is in northeast Minneapolis, but why not why not Columbia Heights, you know, and bringing especially with a lot of families that are always asking, "Mr. Kevin, where can I send my kids after school at? I don't get home until 4:00 or 5:00." Well, hopefully crossing my fingers and working with uh the city of Columbia Heights to see uh where we can host and house our Boys and Girls Club will be an exciting thing that we continue to have. Uh ice fishing and snowshoeing. Um, a few years back, uh, before we became a a community school, I wrote a grant out and we got snowshoes. So, we're going to be snowshoeing hopefully crossing our fingers, uh, if there's snow. Uh, and also ice fishing, you know, especially living in Minnesota with our family. A lot of families are from out of country or even from out of state, they've never been ice fishing, you know, so why not teach them besides ice fishing, but also ice safety, you know? It's big part, especially when people see driving by a lake and say, "Oh, look, they're walking by the lake." like well it's a thick enough it's this and that. So educating our families as well. Um one thing I'm looking forward to especially uh this year uh coming the spring is maple syrup tapping. you know, especially being here in Minnesota, it is gets quite interesting because the last time we went uh hosted event, uh the whole week was beautiful, the 30 40s and the day we decided to go, it was negative negative weather and we were freezing out there, but families were out there enjoying their time. So, >> needless to say, there was no sap flowing. uh but also open gym for families, you know, including all the different sports that we're doing. I know uh last year was very successful with our basketball for the all three elementary schools. Why not soccer? Why not basketball, val volleyball, baseball, softball, all these other sports that we do have here in Columbia Heights? Why not get our students being successful there? So by the time they're in middle and high school, we're bringing home championships. uh but also well as know your rights especially with uh situations that are going within our community. what is a what is a the constitutional rights for a lot of our families but also for a lot of our families who do have citizenships they their first question they ask is how can I help what can I do so also guiding them how to be able to be within uh understanding that there is certain rights that families can do and also as a bystander effect what can else can you do as well >> questions you might have >> thank Does anybody have any >> Geesh? My goodness. So, no questions, but a lot of praise. Um, I appreciate the fact that you guys are thinking outside of the box and outside of the classroom. Um, because like learning doesn't always only happen in the classroom. It's not always academics, right? Um, they're going to go out into this big world and there's going to be so much more than just, you know, math and reading and science. So, I appreciate you guys looking more into what it would take to create uh well-rounded uh students as they go off um and as they advance. Um I guess I do have one question. Um and this it's probably a selfish ask. Um is the Spanish and English classes only for Valley View parents? >> We we we strive to get everybody, but we do serve Valleys first. Um if there's room, we welcome everybody, but >> Gotcha. We we try to take care of our own first. >> But I appreciate that. Um so, you know, I I have a kiddo um who didn't attend Valley View, but her concern was always that she can't really um converse or speak with the students in her class who are mainly Spanish speakers. And so, I think that this is kind of a a great start to something that could grow for all of our students to be able to also learn again, >> you know, more Spanish because I remember when we had it. Um, and so I appreciate that. So, thank you so much and thank you for presenting. This is awesome. Awesome. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Yeah, I'm done. >> Okay. Um, thank you for the presentation. And I actually just wanted to echo um and add on to what Director Pway said about um kind of all of all of the things that Valley View is doing. Um, when I think about our public schools really being at the heart of the community, and when I look at that definition of what a community school is, that it's about strengthening conditions for both learning and healthy development, I can see the components of all of those things that you're doing. Um and um you're really on the forefront of as the first comm full service community school in our district and trying things out and seeing what's working and then thinking about how you know we as a district might be able to scale or sustain some of these things to um some of our other school communities. So I think that that's really exciting. So thank you for kind of sharing some of that. Um I am interested in the site council and you mentioned some of the the partners that are involved in that and I'm just wondering um if you could just tell us a little bit more about who outside of the you know student staff families are part of that site comp. >> Absolutely. We have um we have Angela College who is our equity uh coordinator. She is there. Um we also have Cahi who is a a former teacher um but a member of the community. um Pastor Mike Leen um our former pastor I know it's uh that pastor Drew now from St. hymns. They're there. Um th those are our three really community members um that are there to participate. Um it was very interesting. Um by happen stance um we had a group of CA students um and CA or were they high school? >> High school. >> Um so they were older kids um were going to be doing some um daycare for us. Well, a lot of kids didn't show up. So they sat in in our meeting. We actually got more ideas uh from them sitting in and sharing um and talk about honest perspectives. You know, parents are there um and and now it's becoming more open, but last year it was kind of more training on what what we want our site council to become. These kids just jumped right in. I mean, they gave us the raw the raw information we need we needed um to really start pushing and and promoting. Um one of the things that came out of that uh were home visits. Uh, so Valley View um this year tried and again this is nothing new. I know Columbia Heights has been trained, the union's been trained. I know it's been happening at other schools in the past, but we renewed it um just to start breaking those barriers uh to get out and see our community, see where our students live and our families live. Um and it was we've we had a little push back. Um but I think after teachers went they seen the power of it you know and some of our senior teachers who have been here um Mark Rener being one of them who spoke earlier today um loved it um it was just a truly great experience for them and so that's a good foot in the door um to see how we can leverage that to even go further. >> Great. Thank you. And as the parent of a middle schooler I can attest that they do have a lot of opinions and so I'm going to try that at home. My response is going to be, "Thank you for that raw information." I'm going to try that and see see how that goes over. Um I did have just a couple more questions if that's all right. Um so um some of the the partners you're working with and you talk about the different activities and opportunities for students and families. Um are those integrated into the school day at Valley View or are they are they all out of school, before school, after school? >> We um Yes. And so I think um reading partners um is one that we have during the school day uh before, during and after uh because they are in our encore programs as well. I believe North Park um is in going to engage in that as well. Um so they're during the school day um reading buddies uh which is an opportunity for different community members to come in to read with our second graders. That's during the day. A lot of the other opportunities are after school. Um and we try to get it later in the evening so that uh adults can go. Um we offer daycare too because we know it's hard. Um once parents are home, what do they do with their kids if they're coming back to school? So that's been a big conversation of how do we offer uh child care uh for those those times too. Part of that is open gym. Um so families express that their kids need to burn off some energy in the evenings because they want them to go to bed. I said, 'Yes, we try to do that during the day as well, but we'll see what we can do in the evening. Um, so a lot of that is there. Um, we're stretching Kevin. Um, I said, "No, he doesn't have to work a 14-hour day." Um, we can flex some time and come in later, but it's the it's the evenings that work best for us. >> Great. >> And then I did just have a couple questions about the grant itself. >> Um, uh, if you could remind me, what's the duration of the three years >> and is it a renewable grant or >> It is. Yep, there's a renewal process. um once we get closer. >> Okay. And then um are there reporting elements to you have to report out on Yep. >> outcomes, participation, things like that? >> Yep. There's annual reports that we have to report in. Um there will be a plan that is due. Um we will have and bring to our site council for approval that will be pushed up onto our full service community school web page. Um that's linked to ours. >> Okay. Thanks. because I'm just thinking about again if we're thinking about um being able to scale some of these successes in the future or at least be able to sustain them, thinking about um how we're evaluating, you know, what what you're doing. >> One of the the big things that I we have to be fiscally conservative, you know, um we we have a good amount of money that was awarded to us through this grant. However, we need to have sustainable programs. Um, and I think that's what when Kevin and I and the site council, we have these discussions, it's how do we sustain it? Um, we just had a meeting of the other coordinators from around uh the metro area and there one of them and I thought it resonated very well. We just received the grant. Well, now what what happens after that? You know, that's the first thing that was said after you got that renewal or you know, we're awarded it. What if we don't? My thinking is and we've always started it before we had the grant. Um it just money helps with Kevin and organization and all that. We can do a lot of the things that we're doing. It just takes longer to get them done. Um and they're not as robust. I mean the funding streams that we have make it easier uh the community giving dinner uh to bring us all together. That's a hard lift if we didn't have the grant. Um we just augmented the food shelf out in front of our our in our lobby um with different cabinets um to be able to contain more food. That would have been a heavy lift. So I mean there's things that yes but we can also do it um sparingly on a a limited resources. >> Thank you. Um >> I think that's it for me. Thanks. >> Thank you. They're great questions. Um anybody else? >> Okay. Um I I really want to thank you for putting when when this first came um you know doing the community school, you know, it's an idea, but it's so much bigger than just than just the initial presentation. I like um I I love how it's branched into many different activities, you know, so and and different ways of contact. And I I I really look forward to seeing what happens in the future. And this is just tremendous. I'm very very very impressed. keep up the good work. >> Thank you. >> And I'm sorry, I did have one more question. You go ahead and then it came back. So I just um again just because you're you know you're our first sight trying all of this out um and you're you're a little ways in now. I'm just wondering um if there's anything that has surprised you in this process. >> For me it's the amount of time after you know that comes with it you know. Yes we can do it. I can do a lot of it during the school day, but like as principal Jason Coleman has mentioned, a lot of a lot of events have to happen during after school. >> There's days that I he asked me what what time you're leaving. I'm like, "Oh, well 8:00, 7:00." Sometimes I have my parent groups and we're like I have I'm like 7 o'clock. Okay, time to go. But because of the conversations that we have with our parents are so enriched. They're all asking, "Can we stay longer? Can we do this? Can we do that?" And I'm like, >> "Okay, another half an hour and then we got to go." And then because looking at me look peeping through the door like Kevin are you almost done are you almost done just because the conversations are going and then once one family's are talking with another family they're like when can I sign up for the next one? So sometimes I'll be Monday Monday to Thursday they're late and I have to tell Jason like hey uh I'm gonna leave early today just so I don't burn out completely for next week because it burn a lot of families just want to continue these a lot of these programs and like how can we get more how and then they're asking >> family members hey do can you join do you want to join and they're not just not just me families are or community uh families that are from Columbia Heights they're bringing other families that want to learn about what's going on with our what about mental health about their personal life? How can they have a conversation with their kids and then they're bringing their own kids to be able to like hey go go see about this free art program and also talk about all these things and be able to have these conversations and I have a lot of families that come up to me afterwards and have mentions like hey Kevin thank you for having this conversation. I couldn't have this conversation with my kid because my kid will shut the door and like I don't want to talk. Like, well, have you tried doing A, B, and C? No. Well, that doesn't work. Well, let's have a conversation. How can we get that more in depth? It's like, well, a lot of times if we look at our own kids, like, well, how was your day? Good. Yeah, whatever. It's like versus like my I use my son's like, well, who's only a kindergartener, but I'm like, how how what you what kind of toys did you play with today? open up the conversations and kind of guide them in a in a way that I want to have this conversation so we can have a healthy relationship with them as well. >> Also think the one thing that surprised me is the amount of need. Um I think when you sit in site council and you hear uh parents perspective and it gets deeper as the trust levels grow, the the concerns get deeper. Um the the the concerns for other parents um is huge. But then also the resources out there and how there are so spread out and how do we bring them all together. Um, so you know, we we really worked with Pastor Drew from Hope Community, um, Pastor Mike Leen, um, Pastor Renee to say, what are the needs? And so, how do we unite to bring all those resources together? Because I think there's a lot of great things happening in isolation in our community, but how do we unite them and bring them together so that we can do more with less? You know, there there's a lot of people out there and the community giving dinner is one of those. I mean, that was a a collective effort. um that that idea came out of sight council and I said, "Well, let's do it." Um you know, we have some funds, they have volunteers, we have people that want to help. Um so, it's really bringing it together and I don't I don't know if we would have come upon that if we didn't have the grant or we didn't go as deep into the full service community school. >> I appreciate that. That really is like the superpower of public community schools, right? Is the the bringing bringing those resources together in one place. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. >> I just have one question. I It's kind of piggybacking off of what just member Madera said. Um the grant I assume has statistics or data that you're supposed to re rein. What are the measurements of success for this program? What are those basic levels? So I think um level of participation um we're not only talking about our our typical school events. I mean Valley if you always had one big event um but measuring the number of people that are participating is huge. Um looking at our communication survey um and that to say are parents feeling supported are feeling successful um are they feeling that there's strong communication and ties between the school. Those are metrics that we use to say all right, are we successful? We're also looking at uh the number of classes we can offer. You know, um we know it it attendance can go up and down u based on family need and stuff like that, but are we able to offer them? Are people re asking for more? You know, like Kevin said, are they staying that extra half an hour and and and we're done and say, "Oh, where's the next one? Give us a little break." Um but it it's it's great to see that. Um, and when you walk into our front lobby in the morning, the number of parents that are sitting there and just sitting and existing, um, I I use the litmus that when we have an event, do we have to kick parents out? Um, in a positive way, but they feel comfortable, they feel safe, they're uniting, they're they're getting to know their neighbors and and who their children are playing with. They're not leaving. Um, you know, the Valley View uh picnic is one of them. you know, thank goodness we got rained out, but we will clean up at 8:00 in the evening and they're still playing on the playground well after 9:00 and parents are there. They enjoy each other, you know. I think that's a it's not a quantitative um element, but it it sure is qualitative. Like, we're creating quality relationships between our families. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thank you very much. I really look forward to seeing the great things that are going to happen in the future. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. So, next up is the vision uh 2030 with elementary school. And who is presenting? Ah, you're back again. All right. >> I didn't go very far this time. >> All right. And uh North Park and Highland and Hundo. Everybody is here. >> Crew. >> The whole crew. >> The whole crew. the whole group. Okay. All right. >> Welcome. >> Good evening, Vice Chair Palmer, Superintendent Stanvvic, and members of the board. Uh I am here tonight with uh my colleagues uh Principal Khman, Principal Jenkee, and Principal Sussex to present the elementary school vision 2030 update. Our mission, Colombia public schools, creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. All belong, all succeed. All our core values will be represented in tonight's presentation. It's anformational presentation to the Colombia Public School Board of Education and no governance questions. Uh we are climbing to new heights guided by the Columbia Heights public school vision 2030 strategic plan. And to kick us off with the elementary school uh vision 2030 presentation is Principal Jenke. I can use this one. >> Good evening Vice Chair, Superintendent Zenbeck, members of the board. Thankfully I brought papers because I won't be able to see behind me. >> Oh yeah. So, make sure we're on the right slide. During the 2425 school year, Highland experienced a steady increase in our numbers of multilingual learners. We've also increased since then. We're closer to 50% now. Um, we've stayed consistent with our percentage of students who are receiving special education services and also who are qualified for free and reduced price lunch. We also look at Highland um about how families and students belong at our school. Over 90% of our students felt they have opportunities to express themselves and develop leadership skills. And 88% of our families reported they expressed a fe or they expressed feelings supported at our or by our school community. Our peaks of progress all belong. I'm proud to say that all teachers who were were required to take the redac professional train professional development training phase one last year completed the training and that was not a small feat. That was all of us up here. Superintendent Stenvvic. It was many many hours um and pretty intense learning. Also, we are continuing our focus with our professional development this year of providing cultural culturally responsive instruction. And I'll talk about that a little bit further into the presentation as well. All succeed. So, we're going to look at growth on our fast in literacy. 50% 56% of our students made typical or aggressive growth as measured by the fast assessment. And in math, over 60% of our students made typical or aggressive growth. Also looking at our multilingual learners, Highland continues to show strong academic growth. With our multi-ingual learners, especially in the area of oral language, we have out our growth has outperformed the state average. creating worlds of opportunity, our areas of growth. I'm sorry. Um, worlds of opportunity. So, this is our communication with families. So, I wanted to highlight a few of the things that our f or that our teachers do to welcome families at Highland and to continue to communicate with them throughout the school year. So we begin with many teachers doing a welcome call to families prior to open house. At open house we do have about 80% of our families who participate that are able to make it in. We extended our time this year to move to orientation sessions. So we had two sessions, one right after the other rather than cramming everything into a short two-hour window. We also do two rounds of conferences. We had our first round just the la or two weeks ago and they were very well attended. I don't have the exact percentage yet but we I know we'll be at least 80% based on the signup. Teachers also make phone calls, email, and regularly use Seesaw. We complete progress reports for quarters one through three and then the end of the year report card. last year to to cap our family contact. I do ask teachers to log contact with families. So, it's any family they have not had contact with yet. We only had one family by the end of the school year where we weren't able to reach them in any of those method methods. So, Seesaw is a way we can track whether a parent is looking at it or not. So, we would consider that that we've made contact. Now, opportunities on the horizon. So, going back to our culturally responsive instruction, we began this process last year, but we didn't want to sit back on our kind of change and activities that we were doing. So we continued our implementation of functional phonics and witten wisdom last year but this year we have adjusted our witten wisdom groupings at Highland so that we are able to have a co-taught class at each grade level as well as two other classes. It's a method that we can put more support to the students who need it. We also have implemented functional morphology guidance for their extra time. So we've really established parameters of how that time can be used. So typically functional morphology lasts about 25 minutes compared to 45 minutes of functional phonics. So with the extra 20 minutes, our teachers have been working on fluency as well as comprehension skills. Our reading interventionists have also adjusted this year to keep students longer and to move into comprehension work as well. And our last main area of focus this school year has been imple or has been a implementing math and focus 2020 but also doing a considerable amount of math PD. We had the opportunity to go over to North Park on our last inservice day and do kind of a co-school PD session which was very informative. I actually spoke to the superintendent after the training and said it was one of the better math trainings I've had in a long time. So just a few pictures of us at Highland, our full staff in August in the middle. And then looking at Highland school goals in literacy by June 2026, we want 65% of our students making typical or aggressive growth as measured by the fast spread screener. And we also look at proficiency as well. So, we want over 40% of our students being proficient as measured by the fast. In math, we want 65% of our students making typical or aggressive growth as measured by fast. And we also want 40% or more of our students proficient by spring. Our last goal is looking at our PLC work that the teachers do. And we our goal is that our PLC teams will complete at least five cycles during the 20 25 2026 school year. So most of the teams at Highland are already in their second cycle or have completed their second cycle by now and are ready to start the third cycle when we return back next week. >> Thank you. >> So that concludes island presentation. I don't know if you want to ask the question for Highland or if you want to listen to the other school and then ask the question later. >> I just had one clarifying question about that last piece if that's okay. >> Just can you clarify for us like what constitutes a a cycle of PLC? >> Yes. >> So we use we use a piece of data for each grade level. So a lot of the grade level teams for our first cycle chose math because it is new. So they would start with all of the teachers in that grade level gave a pretest and then we looked at the pre-EST scores and determined um a goal for where we wanted the students to be at the end of the unit when they took the post test. So sometimes we're not using the exact math and focus test because it doesn't have enough questions of what we're really looking for. So for example, third grade started with um multi-digit addition with regrouping and there weren't enough problems on one particular page. So we used a retach page to measure that and then we were re it we were so desperate there the third grade teachers were so desperate I actually worked with students in my office teaching them how to do that. So just trying to really make sure that everyone in the grade level was successful but talk we part of the cycle is talking about strategies. We talk about interventions that we're using. People share ideas. People offer to help. I know my reading specialists have helped with some of our reading cycles that we've had because they're just as much a part or EL teachers as the grade level classroom teachers. And I attend all of the meetings. Um, and then Carolyn Tymer, my peer reviewer, also attends all of the meetings. >> Okay. So, a cycle is >> is about a unit. >> A unit. Okay. >> So, sometimes depending on what we're looking at, um, it might be a little bit longer. Right now, for example, in kindergarten, we've shifted to literacy, so we're working on site words. So, we're going to take that all the way to the winter break, but then we're we're starting another math cycle at the same time because we need enough time for the kids to all grow in the site words, but we wanted to keep going with another cycle. So, we went to the next unit of math. >> Thank you. That's helpful. >> Um, so I guess I'm wondering about the um communication to parents and families. Um I believe you said something like um um faculty have their own records of the families that they have kept track with and that they've sent communication to through Seesaw. Um and there was like one family left at by the end of the year. I guess I'm wondering if it's only through faculty records or does Seesaw have some sort of way of uh notifying you guys if >> someone has seen some. That's what it sounds like. >> Yes, it does. >> Okay. Okay. Gotcha. Thank you. That makes way more. And I actually can see too all of the families who open my Blackboard messages as well. We didn't count those because we were really looking at two-way communication with the classroom teachers. I also asked teachers to log their parent phone calls in synergy. >> Awesome. >> So, it's a method if they're communicating about something about kids falling behind or a behavior concern, I can see that in synergy as well. >> Okay. Yeah. Thank you. Are we gonna come back to questions or should I ask my question? >> It's it's entirely up to you. >> It seems easier to just stick to one question at a time. >> So um you mentioned that you want 65% of students at typical or aggressive growth. Um how did you come up with those percentages 65 and 40? >> We look at where where we were at from the year before. >> Okay. and we look for logical increases. So, it's not just a oneperson team. We actually bring together in now it's June. It used to be later um right before school started in August. Actually, I think we met in May this year. Um because it's part of our title one grant. So, it's a team. We have several staff members. All of my leadership team members, myself, um parents come together. So, we talk about where we were at. We go through all of the data from the previous school year and then we look at where we want to be setting a logical goal. I mean, we'd all love to be 100% but we just know we're not going to logically get that. >> Right. Right. Where were we at last year? Do you have that? >> Um >> 56. >> 56. >> 56. Okay. Thank you. >> You're welcome. So, it's quite a a jump almost 10%. Yes. >> Thank you. All right. Hear all about North Park now. >> Oh, Vice Director Palmer. It's good to see you. >> Superintendent Stenick, members of the board, welcome back. Laurian, good evening. I promise I'm I'm I'm looking at the I'm looking at the presentation on my phone. I'm I'm not watching Netflix. Um, I haven't actually been to the board since we rearranged the furniture, so this is a bit of a surprise. And you know, Superintendent Janke, Superintendent J, sorry, Principal Jenkey's uh paper has has paid off. So, Superintendent, you're almost there, I guess. Sorry. >> All right, I'll stop now. Um, so, uh, our report is going to look similar, uh, to what you all saw with Highland. There are a few numbers, uh, that a few things that we looked at a little bit differently. Um and uh so our first slide here is our demographics. Um there's no big change there. Um I think we're all fairly similar um with demographics. We of course in the last couple of years have had a massive flip um with more Hispanic students. Uh we used to have more uh black students um than than any other. Um but that that of course has flipped. Um and I' like to bring your attention to our percentage of special ed students. is 19.5%, that was last year. Um, we're actually closer to 23% this year. Um, we do have three setting three programs and um we have always been a little bit higher than the other schools. Um, but with the extra programs now um in some cases we're we're about 80% higher than some of the other schools. Okay. Uh this one we're looking at uh survey data, student survey data. Um the question was uh my school provides opportunities to express myself and develop leadership skills and 87% of our students um replied in the positive and that is something that uh we take pretty seriously and and take to heart at North Park. Um and so we're very pleased to see those results. And as we move on to the next page, um this is attendance. Um you can see that there's been a steady uh pretty solid climb in the last three years. Um we finally uh have a better attendance rate than the state average um which occurred over the last year. A lot of that has to do with the uh attendance grant um that uh that has helped us help support us to have an attendance team that meets every week. Um, and it's it's really it's it's freed up um time for our social worker um to really be able to make a lot of those phone calls and we have a better system in place for teachers to contact parents um when their students have missed three or more days. The next slide actually well I I like this slide a lot. Um this is this is these are results of both student and and parent surveys from last spring. And it's uh um you know for the students it's like you know what do you enjoy uh learning about sustainability outside we put outside there because we do a lot outside um and in the STEM lab and 96% of the students um responded positively and that's up from 92%. Um I was actually quite thrilled with the 100% of parents um and that was up from 97% the year before. um that uh it was it was a little bit surprising and we're not used to seeing 100% um in this business. Um but it definitely uh it it tells me that that our staff is doing something something right. So moving on to our fastbridge scores uh 50% of our students made typical or aggressive growth um in literacy last year. Um and literacy of course it was it was a major focus um for for all of us in the elementaryaries last year. Um and in particular um we were looking at flat growth and we cut our flat growth by 50% um from the previous year. That's something that we would we want to see aggressive growth and we want to see the flat growth lowered. We know that our students in many cases they need to make aggressive growth. Um and the uh 16% aggressive growth is a really good number and our hopes are our or intention is that there it's going to be much higher this year. So um again we're going back to uh our parent survey. So the question is as a as a parent um I feel welcomed and included as an educational partner um and we had 98% positive response there um which uh we've worked really hard um to uh try to uh engage with our families and our parents both uh with uh fun events um and then also more serious events like our BIPO family advisory um which I know um of course director Pwe um has been instrumental in and uh they've become a very influential group and of course it's something that uh that we are trying to scale up um to uh to bring to the district level um because we've seen such success with it at North Park which leads into our next slide. Um so some of our um um opportunities on the horizon of course uh I believe it was Principal Khman mentioned um in his previous presentation reading partners someone that uh is an organization that that Valley View worked with last year and again this year and we are working with them this year. Um we are we we actually we've kind of hit um our maximum in a way uh with uh um interventions uh because we can't pull kids out of any more things. Um we found that that we were pulling kids out of out of math to do literacy interventions and so we had to do some massive revisions of our schedule. Um and it was so it's it's really nice to have reading partners and it creates a tricky good problem um where we have to to figure out um where we can pull students from um because everything that we do that's the thing is like every minute of the day is important and we're doing something every minute of the day and so there are some really big decisions that have to be made um which minutes do we decide um that we're going to pull kids so that they can get the interventions that they need. Um, and with that, of course, we're we're focusing on our intervention block as much as possible, but the reality is it's only 30 minutes a day. Um, so another area um that that we're continuing to grow, as I mentioned before, is our BIPAC family advisory, and we're trying to scale that up to the district. It's actually been wonderful. We had our first meeting here um in October, and it was in this room, and we had a wonderful turnout. Um, our next meeting is December 3rd and it's going to be at North Park and we're going to rotate uh around to all the schools um for our meetings this year um in an attempt to to attract as many families from across the district as possible. Um and um that's that's been our main family engagement uh endeavor over the last few years. Um this year uh we've actually added some more family engagement um activities during the day. Um we are having uh uh family morning meetings where families are invited in for morning meetings uh by grade level. And then uh after the morning meeting um we have coffee and donuts uh with me um in the cafeteria and uh it gives parents the opportunity to have conversations with me to ask me questions. Um for our prek uh um coffee we brought in the specialist because they hadn't met the specialist before. Um, and we had recently we had it with a with our LEAP program which is new to us this year. And so we had the 15 parents strong in that one out of a class of 21 and uh and we spent an hour in in the cafeteria um talking about the new program so that parents could uh could feel as comfortable as possible um with with trying something new this year. And of course there's our our yearly photo in front of the building. And uh if we move on to our goals um you know similar to Highland um for both literacy and math um our goals are that 60% of our students um will be proficient or will make uh will make typical or aggressive growth um and 40% of the students will be proficient and then our PLC cycle is a little bit different. Um we um uh it is it's our goal that the teams will meet their self-identified cycle gains 80% of the time. Um, and so it's a little bit of a different perspective, a little bit bit of a twist uh from what you saw um with Principal Jankee's um um presentation. So questions. Um I will start by saying um I know that winter is coming because you're growing your beard back. So thank you for being that. Um but no I um congratulations on uh on all your success. I think that parents really do value um having a voice there and even asking them about the STEM learning which is a little bit different from uh some of our other schools focus like I think that that is a big deal to get such you know increase in numbers. I mean there's no such thing as past 100%. So >> congratulations on that. Um uh I think that's a a big deal because that was a big part of the the um rebranding of North Park. Um and I was happy to be a part of that conversation too when we were deciding like what do we want to do when it comes to how we want um that school to be fit for our students. So I appreciate that. And um so I have a question. It may not just be for you but also um Principal Kman um and I'm not sure if Highland has it as well but the reading partners. How would um a parent volunteer for that? And uh if there's space, what does that look like? >> Actually, they are uh looking for volunteers uh um quite a bit. And a lot of our interventions, we're we're kind of a a test site this year. They're doing most of our interventions online um with volunteers online. So, they've been able they they can really meet the need um a lot more so. Um, but if there's interest, um, we do have an on-site coordinator with reading partners and, uh, he does a lot of the recruiting and, um, and that's actually, you just gave me an idea for the next newsletter. >> Yay. Let me know if you need help. Um, no, that's awesome. Um, also, two more things. Um, I hope that you guys can sled this year. It has been a very uh not so fun winter at North Park for that for that moment. Um I think everybody's kind of used to that. So I'm praying for snow and >> I don't know what you guys have done to me. >> We we we get we smartened up like Valley View and we have a backup plan this year. So >> let's go. We'll we'll wait for the surprise. Um and then um I just want to say to all of our schools because I know it's a big to-do for the BIPO family group. Um, it is something that I'm very passionate about. Um, and so there will not be a good time to say it because everyone's going to speak at different times. So, I'll just say it now. Thank you guys for all of your participation and for getting on board and um, being passionate as well about our families belonging and succeeding through that belonging. Um, I think that it's a big deal here and I just want to say thank you. Um, I I I will never stop singing your praises for that because I know it's not a small task um, that we're asking everybody to coordinate on and come together and do the work on. So really really thank you guys so much. I'm going to look back too because I know that um our other principles who are going to be coming up are also involved in that. So thank you guys so much for the work you're doing for our students of color. >> Oh and thank you. You've had a pretty heavy lift in all of that. >> It's been fun. I'll call it >> I have a question. Um, do do these metrics eventually get um measured against those MCAs that the kids are going to have to test? Are we helping them test at all on those things? Because I know for me as a CPA, >> you know, I take practice tested, you know, I I took a ton of it. And I was just wondering is that part of some of this growth that we're I I know we're using this fast bridge, >> but how are we connecting that with those MCAs to make sure that our community who >> aren't necessarily in the midst of this kind of conversation. >> They just look at what MDE is posting and they see that percentage of, you know, math is at 15% or whatever. How do we how are we going to kind of translate this to that and hopefully it improves that because it's closer you know is when you are testing you kind of go okay I'm getting better now doing these things hopefully it translates when I sit for that silly test later on right so how do we kind of communicate that or or look at this and see how it impacts those MCAs. I'm sorry. It's >> That's all right. I loved I loved your descriptor of silly. Um because I think a lot of us feel the same way. Um these are two very different tests with two very different purposes. Um what FastBridge, the information FastBridge gives us is it's real-time information. We get it on the spot. Um we take it three times a year so we can see growth for every single student. Um, and then we use those data um to to adjust our programming accordingly. The data that we get from the MCA from an ed from from like instructional standpoint is utterly useless because we don't get it until the following year. Um, and and so because it's not timely, it's not something that we can use to really adjust our programming. Um, FastBridge again is timely, it's real time. Um, and and and so we are able to use the data in that way. um the MCA. I mean, basically what it is is it's it's it's an advertised test. Um and I I would love to see our FastBridge results um get the kind of attention publicly that MCA results get. That doesn't mean the MCA is not not important. It doesn't mean, you know, we don't take it seriously, but the reality is is a snapshot of one hour in in a child's life. Um and while it does uh uh it does tell us a bit about proficiency according to the standards which again is also important um it doesn't give us the information that we really need um to be able to make sure that we are programming for our students the way that they deserve. >> Yeah. I think um from the community who who don't have kids in school and or those in the older ages like me, >> you know, we look at those MD MCAs and at the at the state level and the question always comes up, why is it so low? When we were kids, >> we all had to take the test, you know, and you hear that, right? So, I'm trying to help our community understand that that test, although relevant, it's not as relevant as a a much more closer look at what we're doing on a on a a yearly basis, doing this three times a year, making sure kids are more proficient, >> but and growing from year, you know, early in the year to later in the year, right? >> And um still building proficiency. So, I wanted to get that out so that anybody watching today that they understand we are trying to address >> um the improvement of of students and measure it so that they're not just relying on those MCAs. They can look at at what we're doing here and rely on this kind of data. And I think I think it's also important um for the community to to know about the state standards um because really everything that we do is based on standards. That's how we make the decisions as to what it is that we teach. You know, because we need to meet the state standards and those standards change um every five to six years. And and they change by becoming more rigorous. And if we can extrapolate that to when you and I were in school, that's a lot of rigor that has been added. And when I just look at what the where the standards were from a rigor standpoint when I started at North Park 22 years ago, um the the tests looked nothing alike. Um I would say that our third graders are probably taking tests with an equal amount of rigor that our fifth graders were taking back then. Um that's not a bad thing. I mean rigor is a wonderful thing. Um it makes it hard to understand uh scores like MCA score. um you know it's it's it's you're really comparing apples and oranges when we're trying to look at you know back back in the day when I was in school. >> When I if I could add too I think you have to look who the MCA is normed for. Um and it's for majority a monolingual student um taking that test. Our students aren't that. You know you've seen our our demographics change and the number of EL students uh taking this test. they're learning two languages. And so coming in being a non-English student um and taking the test and counting in year three, we know that that's going to be a struggle to be proficient. Um and I speak for my own children who are in a a dual immersion and learning Spanish. Their scores weren't equal to a native or English speaker who was in a only English- speakaking classroom. Uh so there was some some ground to build even though they had English- speakaking parents. Um, so I think it's it's yes, apples and oranges and we have peaches. I mean, throw that into the mix. I think that's a good analogy to look at. It is these tests are are >> best thing I've ever heard. >> It It's just our students are learning and growing and they're doing amazing things. Is it showing on the MCAs? No. Is it showing on some of the fast bridge? Yes. Um and as I get in and the access the access definitely as you'll see and and and will come up in my presentation and theirs too. Um they are succeeding. It takes a little longer. And I know the research says oh you know if you're fully immersed our classrooms are more than fully immersed. Most of them are over 50% English learners. Um and so when we're going in it takes longer. You know they say and I superintendent probably knows it better than anybody. I think seven years. >> 7 to 10. >> 7 to 10 years. If you have two to three non-English speakers in your classroom, well, we have classrooms over 50% if not twothirds of our class, they don't have to speak English if they really don't want to and if we don't force them to. So, I mean, it's it's learning to really force our our students um when maybe they don't want to. >> So, it's Yeah. >> Yeah. As you can see, we could talk about this all night. But I really really appreciate um you guys working a process and coming up with a way to measure because this is it's complicated. >> It's complicated. And I just wanted our community to hear you and understand that we are addressing their concerns about those MCAs >> and we're doing it in a way that makes more sense by using a tool like FastBridge to show growth because our our students are a different kind of community than others in let's say out in the suburbs. >> And so I just wanted them to hear that and I appreciate all your comments. Thank you. Thank you. Um I I guess I want to check something that I heard too based on uh member Hull's questions that there's also a proficiency standard that's embedded within the fastbridge tool as well. Right. So that tool is measuring uh both growth but there's also the proficiency standards and I saw that in your in in the goal for North Park. Right. There's a goal around the fastbridgeidge proficiency standard. Okay. Um, thank you. And then, um, I did just have a question about the intervention blocks that you mentioned. If you could just, um, let us give us some understanding of kind of how what those are and how you use them in school. >> It's 30 minutes of the day. Back in the old days, um, you know, the teachers would take small groups because, you know, we we had a, you know, a different kind of, uh, a different need at that point. Now, um it is the time that our EL teachers can pull um ELEL students um without missing instructional time. It's a time that our special ed students can be pulled without missing instructional time. It's a time that our reading interventionists can pull students without missing instructional time. Reading partners, same thing. And of the children that are remaining um there are small groups that then the classroom teacher um can work with uh and and whether it's it's to to enrich students um that that are remaining that don't require that type of intervention um or if they're also um intervening um because the numbers are such and it just like everything else we we wish it was more you know we wish we wish we had more time and and our kids are already there for a really a long time. >> Are you asking for a hint hint a longer day? >> That's no not out not out loud. >> Are there are there designated intervention blocks at all three of the elementary schools? I think one of the things that we're most proud of is the elementary division is aligned um in a lot of the things we do, our schedules, how we implement our tier one instruction all the way down to intervention blocks, how we push in with our EL supports and our special ed supports. Um this year out of all years, I think we're we're strongly aligned. So >> I've never seen it like this. Yeah, >> I would agree. >> Thank you. >> I have a question. Um so the the PC's are being run at grade level amongst all all three of the schools >> sites >> and departments too because art fed and music all have PLC's as well districtwide >> special ed reading interventionists every everybody who's participating. That's wonderful. It it must feel really good and supportive to not be siloed, >> you know, in in different locations, especially, you know, with something that's maybe a little bit more unique like FIAD, for example. It's not like you have 12 teachers that are teaching at your school. Um, I did have gosh, one other question, too. It'll it'll come to me later. So, we've got a little bit we had another presentation I would love to hear. So, >> all right. Valley View. Um the the perks of going last is you've seen all of the formatting so we can go through it a little quicker. Um so our our population is changing um and it's changed drastically since I've come to Columbia Heights. Uh last year we're at 57% English language learners. I believe we're at 65% this year. And so we've taken some leaps in the last few years. Um special education has stayed the same at 12.5 right around there. And same thing with the free and reduced. Um like I said um the question or all belong uh my school provides opportunities to express myself and develop leadership skills. Uh 90 95.7% uh strongly agree um or agree. So we're very proud of that that our our students are becoming leaders. So um when we're looking at consistent uh the northstar accountability which is attendance um we are hitting 84.9%. Um so we are exceeding the statewide expectation I think as of all three elementaryaries are doing. Um I think we can contribute that. Uh we all have bi-weekly or weekly uh behavior and attendance meetings. So we're tracking that more. uh more family engagement um but also more outreach uh to say, "Hey, if your if your student is sick or you don't know for sure, bring them in, let our nurses evaluate them." Um and that's been a real plus. Um but I also think our families are feeling more comfortable to call and say, "Hey, you know, they're a little sniffle or this or that. Send them we will let you know if they're not feeling well and send them home." So it's it's been good. Um all succeed. So same thing with FastBridge. Um we have 61% uh in literacy typical or aggressive growth. Um oh sorry take that back 52% um and then in uh a math we are looking at uh 56% typical and aggressive ghost. This is up a little bit from years past. Um but we struggle with this. Uh, and I think, uh, as our EL population grows, um, we have some serious questions on how to interpret these scores, and I'll talk a little bit more about that, um, in one of our other slides. Um, our EL students, um, so we are very proud of this, and I think, uh, both other schools are are hitting this, too. Um, our EL students are meeting their goals based on access testing, uh, far exceeding the state. So, 66.2% 2% um of our students met their goals um set by the access test um compared to 46 uh at the state level. So our EL kids are growing faster than what um our EL students across the state are doing. So um creating worlds of opportunities. Uh family engagement is a strong one for Valley View. Um so when we look at family engagement, we have language classes. We have multilingual family nights as do the other elementaryaries. um fall picnic and then um a little bit of a typo here. We have our fall picnic for Valley View, but we have a fall festival that we combine with Columbia Academy um just to join and also to um help those fifth graders feel more comfortable as they walk across the street even though it's 300 feet away. Um it's still pretty scary. Uh leap night, book fair, carnival, uh fun run, conferences, and much more. Uh we really try to engage our families and again um my colleagues do the same. Um, so we're not doing anything more or less than them, but it's it's fun to see that our families are taking off. Full service community school as we did in our previous presentation. Um, looking at site council and how that domestic violence castes, uh, reading partners, Minnesota reading corps and math corps, um, we have in our buildings, reading buddies, uh, the partnerships with Medronic, uh, especially for our fifth graders and all three schools and the the wonderful uh, experience they get up there. um food shelves and then every meal so that uh students who are um or parents who ask we are able to put meals in their backpacks and again I believe North Park and or Highland do the same thing um so the opportunities on the horizon uh continuing to focus in PLC's uh using a variety of data points um so we're not only just using our our core curriculum but digging deeper into that if it's a specific area in a unit um really pinpointing that So looking at it further um in all of our uh content areas and our ancillary fields uh special ed as uh Michelle and Jeff had said as well uh analyzing data. This is what I wanted to talk about. So we are entering into a partnership with the University of Minnesota. Um we stumbled across uh across this researcher who specializes in um how to best use test scores. And I think as I spoke before, our ELEL students uh bring a special set of gifts into our schools. How do we acknowledge that and how do we use them? Uh because when you think about uh English learners, uh they're coming either literate in their home language or not literate. And when you're talking those two skill sets, how we approach, how we intervene is very critical. Um and then also how we look at data. And so she is a researcher. She is a school psychologist um at heart. That's how she began and now she is a um researcher who specializes in in looking at uh data and how to best support our students and EL learners. She was in um the the what the Fastbridge labs so she helped created FastBridge. Um so she comes with a wealth of information and so we're working with her um again she's doing a research project um so that all the data is um redacted so there's no names to it but our benefit is is how do we set accurate goals uh so director I think you uh said it best is how how do we look at that and how do we use our data how do we cross reference so we have PLC data that we do we have core content data so unit data or or module data and then we have MCAs we have access and how do we triangulate at all to say what is a realistic goal. You know, each year we sit up here, we work with our titles, um, and we try to come up with a goal. You know, I cannot, you know, ethically come up and say, well, I think, you know, 50% of my kids should be reading at grade level. That's not right. You know, I I I want more of my kids. I want more of my students excelling. How can we analyze that data to make sure that we're getting a goal that's attainable and not such a reach that we'll never get there, but also looking at a goal that we're really identifying the needs of the students and applying those interventions. Uh I think that's critical because we have to meet them where they're at and then we grow them from there. So, and then uh vertical articulation, that's a mouthful, vertical articulation to port standards. Um so Jeff and Michelle um worked with MDE in math. Um, we've been doing quite a bit of work with that already. Um, because I'm a math person and that's my my passion. Um, but just seeing how that aligns to all the grade levels and when you're looking at a fifth grade problem, how do you backtrack that all the way down to first grade? You know, what are those foundational skills that we need to get so that if they can get this, they can build on the next and they can build on the next so that we're not having gaps. um the the biggest hindrance to the middle school and high school is if they have gaps in their learning and they have to plug those holes. If we can fulfill that right from the get-go, they will be much more successful. And then focusing on tier one instruction uh using the the district adopted curriculum. This has been a reach. This has been a a hard push and a hard lift. Our teachers have done some amazing work, but when you look at wit and wisdom, um it's been a hard lift. There's been a lot of tears. And I think I can say that safely for all three schools at PLC's because they're going, "Oh my word, this is a lot of work. We're pushing our kids." Are we see the benefits? You bet we are. Um, does it make it easy? Nope. Um, same thing with Math and Focus as we went to the new new addition. It's it's some learning or growing pains and how do we meet their needs? So, that's it's fun and we're seeing results and it's hard work. and the obligatory uh picture of Ali View as we all got in there. Uh director Stunkle likes to get us all in there. Um and then this is our goals. So the goals are are a little bit different. Um as we're working with Dr. Newell from the U um we're doing contentbased measures uh CBMs uh to see really kind of digging in. So we're we're using as an experiment. Um we have two goals very similar uh to North Park and Valley View. That's the second two you see there. The first one is set by us um to see if we can use a different metric to measure the growth of our students. Um and we will we will look at this year and then reanalyze for next year to see where we should be. Um so it's fun. It's working with the data. It's working with the numbers. Um it's always fun working with a researcher from the U because it gets us thinking in different directions. Um and then our bottom one are PLC's. um a 100% of PLC's were said goes focused on growth of the four developmental categories along with proficiency of standards. So what we're saying is when we look at and we all do this when we look at assessment um there's needs more time beginning developing and exceptional or exceeding and so how do we make sure that we're pushing kids in all of those categories up um instead of just looking at one of them. Um, so it's a little bit more robust, but our our kids who are exceeding need to be pushed just as much as our kids who needs more time, you know, and how do we meet all of their needs? And I think that goes with our all belong, all succeed, how do we do that? So questions >> I just want to make a comment when you said you know those expectations are are kind of higher you know all we all know and maybe this is maybe we don't all know but if you set expectations low they'll meet them >> and if you set them high they will really reach to try to meet those. So I I get excited when I hear that because it's really important that we set expectations high and help them reach it. >> Um so I'm excited to hear that and just really excited about this process that you guys have developed. I know this was a lot of work and um looking forward to seeing how the end of the year looks. So uh thank you for all the hard work. Appreciate it. I did remember the question thing that I wanted to ask about um the intervention blocks now that is new now rather than pulling the students ex that was one of the things I I remember hearing in some of the seminars and talks that I had is is that you know they're learning content and then you're pulling them out so they're not hearing that content you know when they're getting their intervention so it's not it doesn't really get them forward so now how much intervention blocks are we how much time are we setting aside to be able to set aside so we're not pulling them out of basic content. >> So there none of them are pulled out of basic content. >> I well I knew that. Yeah, that's what I was saying. I like that. So >> I I think it it depends. I mean when you're if they're dual identified and e and special ed, they might get pulled out more. Um but we really really um insist that they are not pulled out of that core content because you said it best. if they're not in there for tier one and we keep intervening, we're never going to get to where we need to be because they're always missing something. Um, so there is what do we we call them? Non-negotiables. These times are sacred. You you cannot touch them. Um, but there's also times in a math block where you have your mini lesson and it's done and then you have some eye time. So, what do I need time or small group time? Those are the times where it's almost like a tier 2 support. They can pull out in those areas. Thank you. Um and then um is everyone now certified with the new um the new reading curriculum, the new training? So at least that's done then, right? >> All the the first round >> the first round phase one because the EAS are all working on it this year. >> Okay. >> And then another phase two. >> Yeah. And if we hired new teachers this year, uh last year, uh we all went through that OLA training. Um, the new teachers have to go through it this year. >> What if they had I mean, does it have to be specific to this district? I mean, if they had received the training elsewhere, then that would count. >> Yeah, there's three I believe there's three different trainings they could achieve to reach that certification level. So, if they have that from a previous district, it counts for us as well. >> Okay. Well, be it be nice to have that all done because um you're doing some great work and um it's it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a big ask to do all this extra stuff. So, I appreciate that. Does anybody else have any questions? Okay. Oh, thank you very very very much. Thank you for all the great information and I like this new format much better. >> Thank you. >> Okay, next up we get to hear from the secondary schools. If I can read this here. uh vision 2030 uh secondary. Um we've got uh uh principal sherk and uh principal win and again thank you. >> Well, you guys haven't moved and uh we're continuing uh since we missed our last board meeting um because of Veterans Day. uh Vice Chair Palmer, Superintendent Stan Vic, and members of the board. Uh I am here with my two secondary school colleagues, Principal Sherk and Principal Wen. And uh they're also presenting the secondary school vision 2030 update. Our mission, Columbia Public Schools, creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner. All belong and all succeed. I think you've heard a lot of successes from the elementary and uh the second they will grace you with more success. And again in tonight's presentation all our core values will be highlighted and this is anformational presentation to the Colombia public school board of education. No governance question and uh we will continue to climb to new heights as we are guided by our Colombia Heights Public School vision 2030 strategic plan. all belong. I'll succeed in creating worlds of opportunity. And to start us off, I'll pass the mic to Principal Sherk. >> Uh thank you, Vice Chair Palmer, Superintendent Stenvik, and members of the board. I'm very excited to be here tonight. I have presented to you before, but this is my first time as principal of Columbia Academy, so it's very exciting. So, thank you. So, remember that when you're asking me hard questions, okay? Because I'm still new at this. Um, but this is Columbia Academy. We have some great pictures up here. I absolutely love and am very proud to present the following information to you about things that we're doing um at CA. Uh so this is who we are in this next slide. This is our demographics. This is the exact same kind of format as what you've seen from my from my other three colleagues up here too. Uh again, this is last year's data. So things have changed a bit. um especially um our students receiving EL services that's gone quite quite uh a bit higher. We're over 50% now. Um special education those receiving those services comes in at about 14% and again about 80 81% are receiving free and reduced uh price meals. Um as we look at those strategic priorities in all belong um it states that students will have opportunities to find and develop their passions and interests and make connections in CHPS through diverse inschool and extracurricular activities. Um so this is kind of a graph that breaks down those who participated um based on race and ethnicity. But over on the right there um are just some highlights. We have encore programming at the middle school still um and we have a lot of students that are very excited about that. Some of those um opportunities that they do is mock trial um which is really exciting. We have lots of attorneys that come in um and mentor our students and they they get to go down to the University of Minnesota in March and they get to try the case and it's it they're very excited about it. Um also Latin Rhythms Club, art club, things like that. Our activities um you can see there uh we have the musical Mima Jazz Band. If you've been to a middle school musical, super exciting. Um they're already excited for this year and the the um auditions are happening in early December, so everybody's all, you know, middle school. Um and then sports, we have a lot of different offerings at sports. Um a few years ago, we actually made it possible for sixth graders um to join sports, and that has been a huge boost. We just had a girls basketball game. Both teams won. Fidley, yay. Exciting. Um so, it's been um it's been very exciting to see their participation after school. Um again that strategic uh strategic priority all belong. Um this is a very strong um data point um and something that we continue to work towards every time a family comes into our school. But this is from the family survey, the 2025 family survey um that my family feels supported by our school community. 93.7 uh people and and for a middle school that's really exciting. Um, we want our families to feel like they belong and they feel supported um when they walk in the door and when they send their students to us. Um, moving on to that next strategic priority, I'll succeed. Uh, students will demonstrate academic success as measured by growth and proficiency on assessment and graduation rates. So, again, I'm going to be talking about that fastbridge data. um you know when we take the data from fall to spring and we look at their growth there's some there's some expectations for typical growth that we expect a student to achieve from fall to spring um but then there's aggressive growth which the elementary principles talked about too um and that means that they are having they're they're catching up they're closing gaps they have this accelerated learning so that's really exciting to see so last year 58% of our students had typical or aggressive growth in a reading and 66.3 in math um which is very exciting um to see. Uh and then again, strategic priority all succeed. Um we we talked a little bit about access testing for our multilingual learners. If you're not familiar with this test, it's a it's kind it's a grueling assessment that we ask our students to take. Um Superintendent Stenvik knows this very well, but it's four parts. It's four domains. It's listening, reading, writing, and speaking. We take this over four days. There's lots of requirements and and mandates from MDE about how we give this the studenttoteer ratio. But one of the areas that students typically perform the lowest in is the speaking domain. And that's because if you've ever been into, you know, seen this this taking place, um students have to put on this headphone and this microphone like, you know, a rock star on stage and they give them prompts and they have to talk into this computer for as long as they possibly can. Well, that's really an inauthentic way to test students speaking ability. So, we don't always do as well as we could. So, last year our our EL uh team, six teachers, um set a goal like we really want to help our students with the speaking part so they can kind of overcome the barriers of this exam. And so, we did a lot of practicing not just in their EL classes, but across the board. our ELA team got on board, our math teachers got on board to have them have more collaborative structures with within the classroom to be able to talk about the content that they're doing. And I'm happy to say that actually if you look at level two, threes, and fours, that's the the um access level testing. We have improved quite a bit in all of those areas. So, it really paid off and they're actually working on this as a goal for their PLC team again. So, I'm very excited to see um the growth when we look at this again in June. Um again, uh creating worlds of opportunity. This also comes from the family survey. As a parent or guardian, I feel welcome and included as an educational partner. This is really important to me because when my own children were in school, I wanted to walk in and feel like I had a place. I had a purpose. That I was one of the team members to help my kids be successful. Um I want our parents to feel like that every time they walk in. Again, um this is an exceptional stat. 94.7 at a middle school agree or strongly disagree strongly agree that they feel included as a partner at CA. That's to me that's incredible. Um we still have work to do. We have a lot of work to do. Um uh but we want staff to provide culturally responsive instruction that meet the unique needs of each student uh using approved curriculum. So one of the things that we are doing as Jason mentioned um that we want to help kind of fill in gaps. So the elementarymentaries have started uh functional morphology um and so uh they started that last year and not all the fifth graders got to the levels that they wanted. So CA is helping out because we think it's really beneficial. So um our sixth, seventh, and eighth grade teachers have actually started to do functional morphology in addition um to their uh literacy uh curriculum that they're doing. and we're it's it's great. It we're already seeing it pay off in the students writing, spelling, syntax, grammar. Um so that's that's exciting. Um we also in addition to that have two new sixth grade uh curriculums u math the envision curriculum and our ELA curriculum amplify. Next year I have been um assured by director Tucker that we will be uh purchasing the rest of that for seventh and eighth grade so that there'll be articulation throughout the grade levels. Um, we're also working with the University of Minnesota to implement some content area literacy. We really wanted to focus on that functional morphology, but also explicit vocabulary instruction. Uh, you know, it's one thing like when we were all in school, not calling out anybody for age here, but when we were all in school, we took the two column notes. You put the word on one side, you put the definition on the other side. Well, research is telling us now that that is not the way that students learn vocabulary. They have to, you know, work with it. They have to use it. um they it has to you know cross all content areas. So we're working with University of Minnesota to come in and coach our teachers in how to do that and make that come alive to really improve those reading um and and um understanding comprehension. Um and then let's see staff will meet in learning teams and collaborate with colleagues throughout the district in support of student learning and achievement. Um, one of the things that is is different from the secondary, which my colleague here will agree, is what PLC's look like, professional learning communities look like at the secondary level. It's not like it looks like at the at the elementary level. Um, when elementary usually elementary teachers have common prep, that's more difficult um to do at the secondary level. and finding those times where you have the right teachers in the right grade level in the right content area common time to really look at data is really difficult. So one of the things that we have restructured this year is how we do PLC's. Um so instead of having one whole content area we've brought that down to two people uh two people teams I should say. And so uh for instance our sixth grade ELA team that is their twoperson PLC team. So when they're looking at data between those two teachers, that's truly applesto apples data how Mr. Gustiffson does and Miss Matthews uh does uh with their students in that particular unit with that particular data. They can really dig into that and they can see what instructional practices work, what doesn't work, what we need to try, what we need to do differently. And the whole school is structured like that now. Um, so it's easier to find time for them to meet, it's easier for them to collaborate, and it's easier for them to find that data to talk about. So, um, again, there's us, the group picture, and some of our amazing web leaders. Um, and then our goals, this is kind of wordy, so um, but again, we have, uh, literacy and math goals. Um, we have a growth and a proficiency goal. So by June of 2026, the percentage of students making typical or aggressive growth as measured by the spring fast a reading growth by start score will be 5% higher. So we want that growth to go 5% higher than it even did last year. Also proficiency the same from spring to fall. We want that 5% higher than it was last year. We also added in because I have a phenomenal EL teaching team. Um, we also added in an EL goal because um, we do those uh, curriculum based measurements. So those those passages where students have to read in a minute to because we're looking at fluency and accuracy. Um, that is the uh, measurement that our uh, multilingual students get very excited about because at the beginning of the year, especially if they're newcomers, they might be only able to read five or six words in that first line. By the end of the year, they're reading paragraphs. And it is so exciting to see. and we're given high fives and had one little girl even start crying. I've worked so hard last year. So, that's one of the things we really wanted to set a goal for based on what we've seen um in their scores. And so, we did that for the first time this year. So, we're excited to see if we meet that goal. Uh math, again, we have a growth goal. Math, last year we met our goal um and so they wanted to make it even higher. Math wanted to stand out um and do a 7% um higher than last year because they kind of blew that one out of the water. So uh for growth it's 7% and proficiency proficiency it's 5%. Now PLC's because we have restructured the PLC teams this year we really want to make sure that we're doing the full PLC cycle with this new process of PLC. So when they start with the pre-EST so that they have data so that they look at the instructional strategies so then they go back and look at the data what worked what didn't work what do we need to change and how do we need to inform our instruction based on what we're seeing with the data. So, this is a very wordy goal. It doesn't have to mean things to you, but it it means things to us. It um so we understand what that means, but we're going to be using the the focus. We're focused on the four guiding uh questions for PLC. So, those guiding questions for every teacher is what is it that I need my students to learn based on the standards? Um how am I going to teach it and assess it? The last or the next two are what do I do if they don't learn it and what do I do if they do learn it because we don't always want to focus on the students that aren't meeting that because some students actually are exceeding that and so we want to make sure that we have bookends to support all of our learners while we're here. That's a lot. What questions do you have for me? >> Um you're you're saying you want growth of 5%. What is last year's number? So, we can see the >> I knew you were going to ask. I can't remember. I could pull that up if I had my computer here, but I'd be happy to um provide that for you what it looks like in each grade level uh for math and for reading. I'm happy to do that. I think too, you asked some questions earlier about the metrics for FastBridge. It might be helpful. Um, one of the things we uh presented to our um parents at conferences was not only the fast bird scores about how their students did in September, but we actually um gave them a little uh kind of cheat code or a legend of what those numbers mean um according to that. It might be helpful for all the board to have that K through 12 so that you know when somebody says my student got a 515 or a 473 or whatever that is so that you can you know >> translate it. Yeah, you can translate it if you have a community member say, you know, I don't know what this means. These are just numbers. Then, you know, kind of what that means as well. It might be helpful. >> I think that would be very helpful. >> Sure. Because I'm all about the data. >> So, I appreciate that. >> Yeah. >> So, if if I may, Principal Sherk, if you send that information to me, then I will include it in my >> I don't know the protocols yet, but yes, I will send it to you. Yes, absolutely. you got this. From what I hear, you did an awesome job. Um, so I have a couple of questions. Um, my first one is, um, and it might be something for both of you since you're at kind of two different levels with the students, but, um, since the kind of streamlining of processes for the elementary schools that they're, you know, they said they're seeing a lot more progress and this is not something they've seen before. Um, are you guys seeing a different um, level uh, of I don't know, I guess streamlining when they get to you? So, like probably more for you at the middle school level. They're all coming from three different schools. Like by the time they get to you, are you noticing that they are more in the same place? Yeah. >> Um, than they were before or >> Yeah, I um actually I just uh joined our sixth grade um, uh, literacy PLC on th last Thursday. Um and that's they were showing me um some examples of student writing. Uh we can already tell um the positive impacts of witten wisdom at the elementary level. Um then in recent years the students are able to write paragraphs coming into um our our sixth grade which is amazing. So now we can start to focus on okay you wrote these five paragraphs but did you answer the thesis question? So, you know, th those fine-tuning those things, which is great. Um, and they they're they're doing a they're doing a great job with it. They like to write. They like to reflect. They like to answer the questions and and you know, have the I'm we're seeing more complete sentences. That's one of the things that um our teachers noticed. And um capitalization, punctuation, you know, some of those things that you really have to work for. Not all. I mean, they're still middle schoolers, so we got we got some work to do. um and they're used to this kind of stuff, you know. So, um but no, we are seeing those uh those effects already at the sixth grade reading level. Yeah. >> And I'd say the same thing with Pit Way. You know, it's going to take a while for Witten Wisdom to come all the way up to the high school, right? It's a big system in a lot of years, >> but um this year's freshman group that have come in, we've been so excited about what they've come in with. I hear it over and over again. Um, and to your point, Miss HooL, about um, you know, raising the bar and having higher expectations, we use some of the work that they've already that they came in with saying this is where some of our kids used to end with. And so we've got to raise the bar and of expectations for kids. Um, and so that's really really exciting. And there's so many more indicators than just the academic side. So just the behaviors have been good and kids being kind to one another and just the amount of calmness that have come in and their problem solving skills. So we have seen quite a bit and >> you know we also hang some stock into the the strictness of our phone policy too. >> You know last year we really buckled down throughout all you know the elementary did a great job with that but I really think the middle school really reinforced it and the high school did as well and this year we've went even farther. So, I mean, I I think some of the phone stuff as well as the the great prep they're having coming in. >> I love that. Yeah. Awesome. Um I appreciate you guys implementing the um the functional morphology. I think that's what it was called. I get it right. Okay. I know nothing about this stuff. Um um at the middle school level. I appreciate the extra work that goes into that because right, you already have what you're going to do and then you're adding that in. So, I love that. And then um I can attest to the um the progress of uh the difference in how you guys approach the vocabulary usage versus just learning the definitions. We can't watch anything. We can't talk about anything. We are getting vocab usage as we are having conversations. So um just a little validation there that um >> Thank you. Thank you. >> Yeah. Some teachers will, you know, give a high five or or a shout out to students if they can come back and tell them how their vocab was used in a song, in a television show, at home with family, so they're listening. Yeah, >> that's awesome. And then my I have a question. My last question is um do we have a number on how many um families fill out the surveys for some of the >> We do. I don't have all that data broken down, but we can. Yeah, we can definitely take a look at that to um and I know I can't remember the exact number. Um, Superintendent Stenvvic can um get us that, but uh it's always not as many as I would like. So, that's my goal this year is to make sure that we um continue to get people to, you know, share their voice as well. Um and that that is one thing that I'm working on too as as far as communication with families. I hope you're receiving my newsletter on Saturday. >> Absolutely. Enjoy. >> And Jessica, too. Yeah. Um but just making sure that parents really feel connected um and that they do have a pathway for a voice there. >> Awesome. Thank you. >> Congrats. You did your first presentation as a present. It was not painful at all. I thought it was great. No. My turn. >> Your turn. >> Good evening, Vice Chair Palmer, Superintendent Envic, and members of the board. Miss Mueller, great to see you back again. Um, so we're really excited about the high school. Uh, since Principal Kman talks so much, I got to go really fast because I don't have much power on my computer here. Okay. So, um, looking at the first slide, uh, similar to the middle school as far as the demographics go, um, I would say that we're almost in almost perfect alignment with that. Um, as far as activities for students will have opportunities to find and develop their passions and interests and make connections um, through diverse inschool and extracurricular activities under our all belong activities. 559 students are involved in 24 opportunities. And as far as sports go, 594 in 22 different opportunities. And I I want to be clear, some of those kids are the same kids. So some kids are in the play and then they are in the band and then they're playing a sport. And it's really amazing. Um I'd like to highlight just this year. I know we're talking about last year, but our speech team did such a great job last year. Um and it was the largest speech team that we've we've ever had. We had actually had a state champion at Columbia Heights High School um in Tamoy EPS. So really amazing job and this year they've propelled that. There's a group of kids that and myself that are going to go to Harvard to be in a speech competition this year. And so what I've seen from last year is our arts and our speech and our our actual art. Um it's just grown to to the highest numbers I've seen in in my four years now my fifth year. So really excited about that. and uh as well as our sports continue to um have a high membership. Um as far as all belong students will be valued and included at every level allowing them to grow self- advocacy and leadership skills. Um in this slide um 90% said that my school provides these opportunities to express myself and develop leadership skills. Uh, and then for the other one, adults at Columbia Heights High School care about students and that's at 89%. That's really important to me. We lead by serving our kids and for our kids to feel that and say that almost 90% of the kids believe that the adults there care about them at a high school uh is very very important. Um, we we want our kids to feel seen and heard. Uh, and I do know the number for our kids. How many kids took the survey was a little over 500. The survey was offered in English and Spanish. >> I was like, "How did you do that?" >> And so we did it in English and Spanish. The really neat thing is this wasn't just um a one-time thing. This data is almost identical to the data the following year with over 500 kids served. So that's what we um celebrated with our staff is that to have it once is is sometimes lucky. To have it twice is intentional. And so, um, I'm really, really proud of our staff. And the other thing I want to say is everything we're talking about tonight, you know, yes, the high school when we start talking about gradu graduation rates, things like that, this is a K12 process. So, you're seeing the the end of the the book end here, but this started with the preschool, right? So, uh, this is not just about the high school. um all succeed students will demonstrate academic success as measured by growth and proficiency on assessments graduation rates. As you can see the blue is our high school and the yellow is the statewide graduation average. So last year 88.3% of our kids beat the state average by 4%. The year before that we also beat the state average. And so when you think about the students that come in and all the impact factors and all the things our kids go through and we still continue to beat the state average is another really strong highlight for our high school. Under all succeed students will demonstrate academic success as measured by growth and proficiency on assessment and graduation rates. So you saw the graduation rates prior. This is a we we too take the fast bridge test for our ninth and tth graders. And so uh 40.6% made typical or aggressive growth um in language arts and then 55% made typical or aggressive growth in math. Our math team was really excited about that because math has been our high school's biggest struggle as far as test scores go. um it's been our biggest struggle and to see 55% making that aggressive growth is a great thing. Um we've addressed this and we'll see that in a second, but when we're looking at 40.6% with aggressive growth or typical growth, um we came up with a literacy plan to try to support that for this this year. When we're looking at creating worlds of opportunity, uh, 3F exploration, business, and community partners will have access to engage with CHPS in variety of ways that support students, families, and staff. This is who we're working with, and I can tell you that this is probably half of who we're really working with. Um, you have your boosters and Lions Club. Um, the Lions Club, they're part of our Key Club um, organization as well. Northeast Bank provides um I mean a lot of these provide money for our scholarships as well for our kids and opportunities for our kids that go postsecary but some of the curriculum that we use in our finance class. Medronic we have um students doing um some of their internships or doing some work experience with them. Uh our rotary I mean Washurn Family Services is providing mental health services within our building. Promise fellows. We have uh two right now that are coming from our and two more that we've just added that have not uh been on site yet, but four promise fellows coming in to support our students with our project for attendance um and to give them support and we do that in both English and in Spanish. Um our food shelf, how we partner with them. Um our transition students go in um a couple times a week. They go into Cub and they go into um Target. And these are our students that are 18 to 21. 18 to 20 um right they term out 21 years old um that are working still in our school and learning some life skills. Um pounds and pounds and pounds of um food that they go collect from Target and then go over to Cub and they they take the school van with their instructors. They fill it up with the food. They go into Seikka, they weigh the food, they stock the food, they look at the expiration dates, they they it's just amazing what they're doing. Um it's great learning skills for them and it's providing for our community. It's a really neat partnership. Um I won't go through every one of these, but it's we've just been really blessed to have such good partnerships. Um, as far as exploration, students have access to multiple pathways and learning experiences that support their growth and post-secary options. Something that we've been working on for the last couple years, if you read about this in the paper, is called direct admissions. Direct admissions is um a Minnesota based, it's through the Department of Education, and it is meant to give our kids access to college in an easier way. And so all of our seniors uh have uh have the their grade their grade point average that we provide um all the colleges and just by having a certain grade point average are and filling out this application through direct admissions our kids are accepted immediately. And so one button applies to every college in the state. And then the colleges, certain colleges require a certain grade point average and they only select or say yes to this group of kids. And then other colleges, maybe some of the community colleges have a have a a less stringent um um um what am I trying to say? Acceptance rate. Uh compared to like maybe I'm just throwing numbers. May the University of Minnesota says we'll take all kids from 4.0 to a 3.8 or 3.7. They are automatically accepted. And so it goes in a tiered system. And so all of our kids with the filling out an application and pushing a button have access to be accepted to college in one shot. The financial part of it something different, right? That doesn't mean that they all went through a financial aid process, but this is whether or not the schools will accept them in Minnesota. So really, really exciting. Not every high school does that in Minnesota. Um, but I think that number has doubled in the last two years. We're also focusing just like all the other um schools on having more consistent attendance. So, we too have attendance and behavior teams that that look through attendance and where you have reports every week. We're making lots of phone calls and trying to figure out how we can best support students to get here consistently. Um and then for exploration staff will provide appropriate academic interventions for identified students through multi-tered system of support. Um and that is through curricular alignment with um multiple departments as well as the sit or sat team that focus on providing students with additional supports. There is our crew um for this year. I think we have 76 some teachers and very proud to say that we did not as far as retention goes we didn't lose a single teacher. It's the first time in my entire career that we had to hire not one person. So that talks about the culture and the love that the teachers have for our kids and for this organization. So our goals by June of 2026 the percentage of students making aggressive growth from fall to spring as measured in fast will be 7% higher. Um this is for literacy and then math has a goal similar um their math will be 15% higher um with aggre getting aggressive growth to 40%. And our math team is they're just bearing down and they're excited about this. they truly believe they can get there which would be absolutely amazing. Uh and then we have PLC goals as well just like the other schools and we'd like our school to be at 100% of the uh all departments have high functioning PLC meetings with a focus on increasing student data through effectiveness of the teacher and then 100% of the PLC teams will meet four times per month as well as update their folder including their data cycle. And when we say they're folder, that's something in a high school when you have that many teachers that that's our way of looking at whether or not the PLC work is being done or not. And so we have department heads in the high school. So we meet with the department. I meet with the department heads and go over I can't be in every single meeting because not only is it not just like all fifth grade teachers, it could be in a math department. It could be just the two um algebra teachers or the three geometry teachers or like there's so many breakout sessions and that goes through every department. English is the same way as well. So with that, any questions? So, um I believe it was in the spring you talked about, um helping your students take the MCAs, like helping them actually take them in a sense that excuse me, don't have much of a voice tonight. Um so like practice testing or helping them actually go and take the test in a sense that they were not taking you know a lot of them didn't want to take the test or and you were encouraging them to take the test. >> Yeah. I don't think that what just to be clear we didn't really help them take the test. >> Not like >> right I just want to make sure that's right. But I hear you said >> what did you do? >> No absolutely did not happen. But but we did I think I I know >> best board meeting ever. >> I know exactly what you're talking about. So one of the things that we talked about was we wanted to encourage our kids to have testing endurance. Yes. >> And that testing endurance is a real thing. So some of our kids that want to go on into college, you know, we we've got to be get a little bit more gritty and and try to take a test because a lot of the tests are similar, right? Yeah. >> And so what we uh had a conversation with our kids is the why. because to do an MCA test and get your results the next year really doesn't mean anything to a kid. And so what we've really focused on is to have kids learn how to take tests and go through a testing process and to to remain engaged to have testing endurance. And so our um I'm very proud of the work we've done. And when I say we, it's really our teachers that have done the work to encourage kids to not opt out and to take the test even though we do believe there's biases in tests and things like that, but to have kids still go through the process. Um, and we're not trying to torture anyone. We're trying to teach them that they the more they test, the better they'll get at test. And you said that earlier. And so that's what we were doing. And so our testing participation has has I don't know I don't know the data but at least increased >> by a lot a lot. >> That's what I >> Yeah, I understood. >> I I couldn't get that out every >> It was a com comedy moment. I had to use it. >> Yeah, that's okay. >> Yeah, we don't we don't want on a recording take test. >> I just felt like God could save >> good memory though and we did achieve that. >> But you're right. Um, testing endurance is a thing. I mean, if you take it, you're not as nervous after you take it the first time or second time. >> Um, but you also said that our GPA, the kids with certain GPA are getting accepted automatically in certain colleges. They don't have to take the ACT or SAT. >> No. No. >> Okay. >> No. And this is a Minnesota thing. So, there are some schools and there's private schools and there's I mean a college uh that's private gets to name their how they want to have um kids brought in, but in Minnesota um it I think it originally started in COVID where they just quit looking at >> um the ACTs or the SATs. >> Okay. >> And so there's still some carryover from that. >> Okay. Thank you. I just didn't know. >> Yep. And I think too that that testing stamina kind of translates to a lot of things for our students right now, which is probably something that you're facing and and and we're facing at the middle school, too, because they everything is so immediate and everything is instant gratification. And just helping kids have that productive struggle in whatever they're doing is challenging, right? Sticking with an assignment, oh, you can't get the first one, so you're just going to give up. Nope, we got to work through this. what can we do? So that it's not just in testing. It's with it's that grit and that determination and that stamina in every assignment or activity that they're doing that's that's rigorous and challenging. That's that's a challenge for us as educators >> and you know special to us. I we we love the kids sitting in our classrooms but I couldn't imagine being here for two years and trying to learn language and be put have this test in front of me how humiliating that is. >> It really is. And so just to have a kid sit there and try to fight through that as we're talking, there are some points of pride if they can get get some see some words they recognize and right. So even though they're high school kids, >> you know, they're looking at this and saying, I this isn't for me. >> Know what that means. >> Correct. >> Gotcha. >> Thank you. >> Um yeah, I I also had a question about testing. Um, is fast brbridge testing structured the same way at your level say at as it is at the elementary level or does it kind of change over time as they >> So it's it's yeah it's it moves with it with the skill level of students. So it's based on the standards at that at that age, >> right? And so then that's how like fifth graders are taking a test that's at that level. But it it is what's the word how it's adaptive. >> Adaptive. >> So it's an adaptive exam. So, some of the kids will, you know, come back in in the spring and they'll say, "That was way harder in the fall." I'm like, "Yeah, that's because you're answering more questions correctly." And the more you answer corre correctly, the harder it's going to get. So, a lot of them take a lot of pride in that is that, "Oh, it was so hard this time." Well, that's because you're getting smarter and you're making those connections. So, yeah. So it it is um the benchmarks are for that particular the standards at that particular grade level but kids can show that they've mastered you know if they're in seventh grade or eighth grade and nth grade content on there. Yeah. >> And if you you know you had said about wanting to see some of the data if you ever want to come over to the high school we have these data walls that have every kid's name on it and where they're at and we that we spend a lot of time engaging with the data. Um, and there's some pretty amazing things that are going on right now. We're really excited. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. I just had a question around one of the opportunities on the horizon. You mentioned curricular alignment within multiple departments and I'm just wondering if you could expand on that a little bit and help us better understand what you mean. >> For sure. Um so last year our um English department language arts department and math just had started working with a a rce group a group that's come in um and it's through the state the Minnesota department of education that um work in these disciplines right and so our English department uh as you know having a husband in the in the English department >> well I didn't know about this >> okay perfect okay so there you go um you know they they worked really hard um to look at the standards and look at making them aligned with the grade level expectations and try to offer things that kids would be really engaged with. So, for the first time, our high school has given kids choice on the classes that they take. So, they're not just taking 12th grade English anymore. You could take uh there's four options right now. There's actually more, but we um we use four this first semester where you could be an 11th grader or a 12th grader and and choose which one as long as you get four years of English in the high school. So, not only was it about choice, it was also about laying over the standards and then coming up with um the curriculum that matches it along with the assignments and assessments that come with it. It was a huge lift for our English department and aligning the standards. And so now um the the the high school math team is doing the same thing um working with the same organization but with the math with um the people that are in the math discipline. And our social studies is looking that at that as well um through um reorgan or organizing where we're going to have to teach government. And so civics has always been taught in the high school and nth grade. And now it's gonna where they're looking at teaching government in the 12th grade per the department of education um for where they want 12th graders to have to take government. And so we've taught them economics and now it's going to be government as well. Um so as the state moves so does schools and so we have to make adjustments and it looks a lot different than elementary especially when it comes to curriculum. Our teachers get the standards and they have to design the curriculum that meet the standards >> along with the assessments. Thank you. That's helpful. I do remember that because as a board we approved the Yes. the the change in the English curriculum. >> Yes. >> Um and so when you're talking about aligning the curriculum, >> you know, within like math and social studies and looking at these things is the primary driver for that as an opportunity. This the changes in standards like within social studies. Is it the opportunity to work with this with the rce organization? Is it to have the outcome of choices for students? Like what's the primary for that >> to all of it? Um so the first thing we need to make sure is that that the kids when they and you know we don't you had asked a question earlier about do we teach to the do we are we teaching kids what's on the test. Well, if the test is what is measuring the standards, then the answer will always be yes, and we're foolish if we're not giving kids an opportunity to be successful on a test. So, we want the kids to see and be able to do what they're expected to at every grade level. So, that's called a standard alignment, right? And then we also want kids to have engagement and see themselves in the curriculum, right? And be responsive to who we have in front of us and make sure that they have choice where they this is about them as well and they can connect with the curriculum. So that's another layer of that. And then the progression of when kids take the classes, we have to be in alignment with what the state expects us to do. And so now, like this is a big deal right now with social studies. We're looking at where do we put like if we're going to put government here. The social studies teachers are saying we still want to teach civics because we believe that our kids need civics as a foundational piece. And we're trying to figure out can we do both? Should we do both? Do we require both? And so it's aligning with the state state guidelines as well. >> Did I answer your question? >> Yeah. No, I think that's helpful because when you're talking about alignment w within departments, I'm thinking about like at the level of the school, right? At the level of the department, not necessarily the alignment with the state standards, right? Because that's that's something we've always I mean we've always aligned with >> but they're always moving things and Yeah. So how do we best hit those standards, too? And are we hitting that? And that's the PLC work like are we really capturing this? If our kids are struggling, what are we missing? And so really trying to align that. And so it would be like our freshman um like I'll just use language arts for an example. It would be our freshman teachers working together and then our 10th grade teachers working together because it doesn't make a lot of sense besides the um like understanding the progression, making sure we we're hitting it 10 or 9 through 12, but still having some alignment amongst grade level. >> Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah, absolutely. >> If I could just add, I would say that there's a fourth component to that as well, which is the district curriculum cycle, which about every seven to 10 years, you know, courses are relooked at or subject areas are relooked at depending on the that curriculum cycle that we have. Um, and then when things like the read Act come in, that has to like things on that cycle have to shift. And so, you know, it's some sometimes it's like, man, it's been over 10 years and the social studies department really needs that new curriculum. We need to get back to our cycle when things like the read act disrupt it. >> Or Matt Townsen would say, >> be a fourth layer. >> Sorry to cut you off, but um like Matt Townsen is in our CTE department. He's in a curriculum cycle every single year because the CTE standards are just moving so fast and he's like, you can't keep up with it. very very interesting. >> You guys are awesome. >> I look forward to seeing what's going to happen. I love >> Yeah, >> rather than just flat number. Um, and I was um actually kind of intrigued to see that there were smaller flat numbers at the high school level than there were in other areas. So that's always a concern. Are they students that are are earned? Is it an engagement issue or is it just a foundational issue? I I think when we look at those those flat growth numbers, that's um especially if we see that over several years, you know, for us coming in from elementary and looking at that again at the middle school level, that's an indicator that we need to take that student to our student intervention team, our SIT team to find out the answer to those questions that you're asking. Is it a lack of engagement? Um is it a a barrier to learning? Is it language acquisition? Is it something that's going on in their home? Um, you know, something that maybe some social emotional um supports could do. So, we take a look at all of that in our SIT teams. Um, all the data goes into one referral form for each student and then we have a pretty I have 12 members um on our SIT team at CA and we take a look of all at all of that so that we can determine the best course of action for interventions for that for that student. >> Yeah. I'd also just like to make sure that you're keenly aware of the excitement that I have um with Miss Sherk here at the at the helm. I I do miss Dwayne a lot, but the Leslie's really pushing because she's asking a lot of questions and sometimes when you're trying to answer them, you think, am I doing that? And she is really pushing me. and to have Matt there as well. I'm just so excited for the the the way that the middle school and the high school are connecting and being in more of alignment than we have uh in my in my time here. So, really excited about that as well. I hope you will feel that with your own children making the move through high school to middle school to high school. >> And we invite all of you to come check out Yeah. anytime you want to come walk the halls of CA >> or do lunch duty. >> Yeah, exactly that. Or hallway supervision. We would we would love to have any of you come and check it out. So, you're welcome anytime. >> I do have one more question. So, I mean, it's kind of easier at the elementary level, right? They're all littles and so when people come to volunteer, it's a little easier to get people in. But, do you guys have volunteer opportunities for >> We do. Yeah. There's a lot of different things. Um, we can maybe talk more offline, too. But I know that we always need help um in the library um because there's lots of classes that come in and there's a lot of books that get checked out and need to be resheld. So, that's one that comes to mind right away. Um, it's actually a little bit quieter in the library than it is the lunchroom, but if you ever want to come volunteer, um, Marinara Day is really fun to be >> right >> in there. But, uh, yeah, we can definitely talk. We would love for that. And then, of course, our events and things, too. We'd love to have you there. Yeah. >> And at the high school, typically it comes with the event. So, like our, you know, there's so much things that are just there's so much stuff going on. And so, you know, our our parents of kids that are in choir, they're they're fundraising for this or our parents that are in band, they're doing that or the parents that are volunteering for our kids that are in newsies coming up here soon. So, it's really comes along with what we're doing. And then um things like having parents at dances and things like that, you know, kids are like, "We're good. We're good. Don't even come." >> Parents are not allowed. I want I don't want to be there. >> Yeah. Correct. They're cutting the cord and they're like, "We're we're good. You're you're >> But thanks. I, you know, newer to the secondary level and so I know it splits up a little bit differently, right, than it would um in the primary. So, thank you. >> You're welcome to come to our end of quarter dance nights if you want to come. >> Oh gosh, she doesn't want me there. I I truly don't want to see it. >> Okay. >> Thank you guys. >> All right. >> Thank you everyone. Appreciate you. >> Thank you. It's been a long evening. Appreciate that. All the information. >> Notice the elementary teachers left us. >> They did. Thank you for your patience. Right. You did. >> All right. >> Way to welcome their new colleague. Huh. >> So, next up we have Valley View Construction Bid Results. And our director of finance, Brian Finneans, is here to present. And this is specially for you, Laurian. >> Like, it's so exciting. >> Welcome back. >> You've been waiting for this one all night. >> All right. All right. Uh, thank you, Vice Chair Palmer, members of the board, and Superintendent Steenbeck. Um, so this evening I have the Valley Elementary indoor air quality uh, bid results. Um, and um, uh, we're still in the process of vetting um, our biders. Um, I will send the full bid uh bidder's lists for each scope um to the superintendent's office so she can send that out in the Friday packet. Um, and I think we're about twothirds of the way through the vetting process and uh then we had some best value um bid scopes and so with the best values we have interviews um and we have our interviews scheduled for next week. So, this takes time. Um, and then that'll come to the board um later. Um, so I just wanted to kind of preface that. Um, our mission, Columbia Heights Public Schools, creating worlds of opportunity for each and every learner, all belong, all succeed, and our core values of community, excellence, collaboration, integrity, respect, courage, and innovation. So, again, this is with our Valley View indoor air quality project. Um, so this evening justformational on where we're at with our bid results. Um, and then December 9th, we'll have an action item to approve the bids. And then we'll also have a resolution for approval of the bond sale that the board previously approved. Um, so um reminding everybody the LTFM plan and and that um IQ projects fitting in with that and the bond sales. Uh that's how we're raising the revenue for this. Um, so I'm going to step through these things and um, uh, and then, uh, I'll kind of show just a summary um, of where we're at. So there's a lot of scopes in this project. Um, and I'm going to try to go through this pretty quickly, but just want to make sure that everybody hears them. So, uh, these are the, um, either confirmed low biders, um, or the apparent low bidder. We haven't confirmed their bid cor yet. Um, so, uh, Krauss Anderson reaches out to them and and verifies with them, um, that their bid is accurate and they didn't miss anything within their bid. We had a couple biders uh, that bid and they were significantly lower than everybody else and to most people's eye could see that they missed something and they withdrew their bids um, after bid day. So, we've had that a couple times. So, um, uh, for a fairly significant amount because one was in mechanical, which was like over a million dollars lower than everybody else. And so, uh, they clearly missed something and and have withdrawn. So, it wasn't as good as it was when they were reading the low bids out, but we're getting there. So, uh, we do a construction final clean. So, there's a bid for that. Um, SPAR LLC for 45,000. Um, work scope number 2A, demolition, Ramsey Excavating Company for 30 331,970. Those have been confirmed. Concrete and masonary Eert um um well, at least as of yesterday, it wasn't confirmed yet. Um so they could have confirmed some more today, but base bid of 162,200, which is our apparent low. Uh combined structural steel, red cedar steel erectors with a base bid of 196,000 is our parent low. uh carpentry uh railing um construction company with a base bid of 343,56 343,5610. We don't usually have a sense but um 10 cents uh which was confirmed. >> Was confirmed. >> Uh roofing uh Central Roofing Company um confirmed $170,670. Um drywall, commercial drywall, base bid 268,700. Tile precision floors base bid 102,000 also confirmed. Um and drywall was two ceiling and acoustic treatments. Jannings acoustics base bid uh $243,50 which was confirmed. Uh flooring and resilient uh or flooring resilient and carpet um superset flooring and tile. Um parent uh parent low haven't been confirmed yet 61,000 wall covering and painting uh painting by uh Nakaone um base bid $74,442 confirmed uh Stafford Smith um for food service equipment base bid $194,57257. Um, food service was a separate project that we were working um with uh at bas basically coinciding with this conversation about this project and it made a lot of sense and efficiencies and saving money and bringing that project into this project. It's still going to be funded through food service dollars for the equipment and the things that don't qualify through capital projects levy and or capital dollars. So, they're still going to be funded in in the way they were going to be funded before, but we're saving money by looping them in with this project. Um, for example, they're tearing the entire ceiling out in there. Um, so there's a lot of work that can be done um while that entire ceiling is out to get the new mechanical basically duck worked in there. So, um, you know, combining this is is really efficient for us. Uh, gymnasium equipment, um, new curtain is what that is. Sports Con, uh, $17,884. Um, manufacturer Casework, uh, Woodside Industries, base bid, 193,445. Again, parent low, fire suppression, Summit Fire Protection Company, parent low, 145,000. Here's our best values. Our best values are the big guys. Um so the geothermal uh or the u component itself so the wells um and uh Midwest mechanical solutions that's Darcy um system that we've talked about in all of our presentations previously um that's been confirmed already because the second bid um S SVL was which is the other player in the market um was uh about a million dollars more. Um, so in the best value interviews, um, in the pointing system, there's no way that they can make up that many points, um, in the difference in their pricing. And so that's been confirmed with Midwest Mechanical Solutions. We will still interview them um, and still make sure that we like what we hear. >> Um, but we're not going to interview SVL because it just doesn't make sense to bring them in because they just can't make up the difference. Um mechanical however which is the biggest um at um best best value we have three different companies that we'll bring in for interviews next week. They are Widener Plumbing and Heating, Musco Electric, and Northland Mechanical contractors. Um and so the low bid was 8,647. Um the uh Northland Mechanical is 9,121 and Musco was in between there. Um so it could go with any three in all likelihood based on what we know from Widner. um you know we'll see what happens but that they uh Carl Anderson has a system um that they and have appointed points for low bid or for experience with geothermal projects or connection with geothermal projects um experience in school settings um and uh so they'll they'll have those things and we'll work through so it'll be committee of Krauss Anderson district staff and mold architects our architectural firm um whoops electrical um which is LTLE um base bid $619,585 confirmed and then um earthwork and paving keb excavating base bid is apparent low at 85,82869 another sentence one um so then overall All um bids. So construction costs and contingencies, construction management fees in the top category. After bids 15,225 386, preliminary budget was 15,445. Um so uh just under um which is good news. Um soft costs roughly the same. Uh they didn't change a whole lot really. The only thing that changed is um after um while we were working through the bids and uh process um and we put the ad in the paper, we had confirmed uh what our commissioning costs were going to be. So the commissioning costs got added in. Um so that's why it's a little bit more than what the preliminary was because the preliminary didn't have a commissioning cost in there. So 2,834,000. So overall total project $18,59,386 thou uh $59,386. So um the good news overall under budget by $160,614. So that's a good thing. It's close. So there's not a lot of room there, but we do have contingencies built within that. So we have contingencies built within the construction costs. So um you know as we move forward the actual project once we get done with it because if we don't tap into those contingencies or we don't tap completely into them you know that we'll have that money left over. Um so um we'll see what happens. It's a long process. We have two years um to get through. So things can change within that. We can find problems within that. you know, we have contingencies built in there for, let's abatement. Um, we know that our buildings have asbestous. We know we do abatement. We may run into more than we anticipate. Um, you know, we've looked at the abatement report. We looked at everything that's confirmed. So, we have, you know, estimated cost what that looks like. But, you know, that's an example that we ran into at North Park where, you know, we anticipated I think we anticipated like $93,000 and we ended up spending $160,000 in abatement at North Park project. So, um, it can change. So, that's where we're at. Um, so the school board, uh, again, the 14th, October 14th, we took action, um, to post the bids. Uh, the 24th and 31st is when they were in the paper. We had a pre-bid walkthrough on the 10th, and we had about 25 different companies at that. So, great participation in that walkthrough. We had a whole army of people walking through, it felt like. Um, we opened bids on the 18th. Again, it was a good bid day because we're under budget. Um, and school uh board informationational item on this tonight. Um, and then on the 9th, we'll get the recommendation as well as the resolution for the uh to approve the sale of bonds. The sale of bonds will happen that morning. Um, so um there was a lot of benefit for us in waiting. Um, one, we wanted to wait. biggest thing we wanted to wait for the sale of bonds, even though you approved them a while ago, um was to actually know what the number was. Um we wanted to know what the bid number was because there's options and opportunity for us to uh change the dollar down or change the dollar up. But given where we're at, we want to stay exactly where we are um with that uh dollar, what we're selling the bonds for and or how much we're selling the bonds for because we're right at that number. Um so then June 2026 um after approval of the bids we'll be able to start a project and um completion of the project scheduled for August 2027. So it'll be two summers summer 26 summer 27th 27. So that's where we're at right now. I was just going to say very impressive. I feel like when you see the numbers kind of line up like that, I'm sure you get like a little little moment of pride, right? Cuz I mean I mean I know there's a method to it, right? And you're good at you've been doing it for a while, but like that was so satisfying and I didn't understand numbers a couple years ago. So I I got it. So I appreciate that work that you do. >> Thank you. It feels good. Um, bid day was a little stressful because the first I think three bids that we went through sections, we were over budget in each one of those three. Um, when the prices came in, we're like, "Oh, no, here we go." And after that, when then we started seeing things underneath, those were the ones that hinged everything whether we get that right or wrong. And so they look good. Um, which is awesome. Great. I just want to clarify what we'll see at the December 9th meeting then would be a recommended motion around the recommended biders and it'll be one motion. >> It'll be one action item for all of the project. Yes, for the entire project it would be one action. Um for the bid um award um action item and then the for the sale of the bonds it'll be a separate resolution. >> Um I do anticipate having um Ellers at the table with me for that. Okay. >> Um to give more context, he's going to be here anyway for our truth and taxation um meeting. Um, so that'll be really good um to have him there um because he can easily obviously answer any of our questions in that area as as they come up. Um he'll do a good job of explaining things with this. Um there's some additional components that'll come forward. Now we when we sell the bonds um you know we have to manage that money um you know over the next two years here and um there'll be some investments uh along with those dollars and Ellers will manage that for us as well you know these funds are going to be um you know there's some controls that you know have to be in place for these additional bonds will help us make sure that those components are in place um and then as well as investments there's some things like arbitrage where we can only make so much money on the investments um but we want to maximize that too um because the IRS will um hold their hand out and we'll have to pay money if we make too much um and so they can manage that for us and make sure that you know we ride that line. So there will be some additional action items um that he'll forecast um in January at an organizational meeting potentially that we'll have to do. Um there's additional policy that we'll be looking at um and that I just got a draft for today um that'll that'll help guide this. Um so there's a few things that we need to do. Um but again, he'll be here on the 9th to help forecast those things. >> Thank you. Um, since I'm just kind of coming in at the really end of this, if I wanted more information on the breadth and scope of the project, was that presented at the for meeting on the 14th or should I watch that meeting? >> Yeah. You know, u, we'll have to go back in time a little bit. Okay. >> Um, and so what I can do is I can provide uh the presentation and and maybe a phone call if you want. >> Sure, that'd be great. Thank you. >> It's a very >> it's pretty deep, >> very extensive project. from >> from the numbers at the >> she's like okay old there's more >> hence my question yeah >> yeah thank you >> very interesting though >> yeah truly >> it it is very it's very cool very cool >> yeah we started the process quite a while ago >> to lead up to this point >> literally literally >> I think it was May >> a while ago >> is when that meeting was that everybody came out >> approved yeah May June >> it's about four hours I So, yay. Fun. >> That's what we're all saying. >> Appreciative for the the private meeting. >> Yes. >> We'll catch up. >> Thank you. >> Anybody else? >> We're great. Thanks so much. Thanks for sticking with us. >> Oh, yeah. >> It's been a long day. >> Okay. Now, we are going to come up on our action item. Um, so this is going to be our student school board representative appointment and our superintendent is >> Thank you, uh, Vice Chair Palmer, members of the board. Um, the board received eight applications for student schoolboard representative and reviewed and discussed those applications at the November 18 work session. So this evening I'm seeking board action for approval of the student schoolboard representative appointments of Cadence Hansen, Christian Pña um for the duration of January 2026 through December 2026 and Ainan Anoir to continue her role um as a student school board rep through um June 2026 because she's graduating. >> Can I get a motion to move this forward? So moved >> and a second. >> Second. >> Thank you. All right. Uh any discussion? >> Thank you. Uh Vice Chair Palmer, members of the board. Um the board received eight applications for student schoolboard representative and reviewed and discussed those applications at the November 18 work session. I looked at all of your mouths and I was like, >> who's talking? >> I think I'm losing this. >> It was me. It was It was Well, not echo. Re replay. >> It was what she just said. >> Oh, Shar's asking question. Stephanie, will you just go tell her what happened? Thanks. >> So, should we pause for a sec? >> Um, >> that was bizarre. Didn't you have something? >> Oh, yeah. I had discussion if we're back in meeting mode, but >> we're gonna wait. >> Okay, >> that was fun. >> I was very confused. >> Okay, thank you. >> She was testing something. So yes, >> I just wanted to say that we had um great discussion about this at the work session and we were all very excited about the applications and about the students that have been selected. Um, I am I've been really happy to see students grow in their leadership on the board and this is still a pretty um new program for us having student school board representatives and we're continuing to talk as a board how to make it um more meaningful and valuable and I think um um having uh mentorship as a role for our continuing board member is going to really you know add to that program. Um, and I'm just excited to see what the um, new student representatives are going to bring to the board and how they're going to grow in their leadership. So, I'm happy that they've accepted and I'm excited to welcome them >> and and I I was very excited to see that we had eight wonderful applications and um you know and it it continues to be an item of interest and um I hope we continue um uh um finding different ways of improving our communication with our students by improving our student voice and um with the increase in our applications. I I think that we are we are starting to make some inroads if the students um are wanting to get involved because they feel like they're being heard and we just need to, you know, keep keep that up and keep our ears open and and seek out all those different opportunities. So, I'm very excited about this and I'm very very excited about uh the the fact that they have accepted these positions because we're we're I know we're we had some great discussion and we're very excited Anyway, does anybody else have anything? No. Okay. So, um let us uh proceed to a vote. All those in favor of appointing uh these three representatives to our school board or two representatives to our school board as well as our mentor for the following the rest of the school year. Please say I. >> I. >> I. Any opposed? Any abstensions? No. Okay. I didn't think so, but I thought I'd ask anyway. All right. Okay. Everybody's in favor. Sounds wonderful. Thank you. That's it. >> We have >> We have to adjourn. >> Oh, >> we have board topics. >> We have board topics yet topics. Okay. So, do we have any board topics? Now the turkey bingo is over. >> I don't know what to do. >> Well, tomorrow is the community giving. >> Community giving >> from 4 to 7. >> Yes. Um, I just want to remind the board that there will be no Friday packet this week, holiday week. Um, and since there's no packet this week, I did want to let you all know that we have an opportunity on December 11th um, for one, two, or three board members, not a quorum, please. Um we were reached out by um Representative Sandra Feist's um office and she's part of an exchange program where political um elected officials of different political parties do kind of an exchange program and so Representative Feist spent um the day in um Stillwater, no St. Cloud, excuse me, um in St. cloud with I believe Representative Perryman. Um and now they're doing that exchange and coming um to our area and would like to have a tour of North Park's School for Innovation on December 11th at 3 p.m. I did request that board members be um allowed to also attend and they were thrilled with that idea. So just if you want if you're interested, mark it on your calendar. I'll put it in the next packet or send an email out. But December 11 at 3 p.m. if you're available up to three board members though. >> Oh, that's exciting. >> It's really exciting. >> It really is exciting. >> All right. >> I just wanted to when you were speaking about that, I just wanted to note to other board members that the um NPR recently did a story on that exchange program like I think just in the last couple of weeks and it the recording is probably available on their site if anyone's interested in learning more about it. It sounds really cool. >> Okay. Well, barring any other board topics, why don't we adjourn this meeting at Looks like >> I just had I just had one more. I'm sorry. Absolutely. >> Um just because we're not going to meet before Newsies opens. I thought it was important to just reinforce that newsies is happening. >> Newsies. Yeah. >> Um because you had mentioned it at the top of the meeting, but I know our students are working really hard on it. And so I was just looking it up. I know that information went out in the district-wide email today. >> Yes. >> Um but it is next weekend which is the what the fifth, 6th and I think it starts on the 4th maybe. >> Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. >> Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Um and so I I don't I didn't want that to go past us before we have our next meeting. So >> yes, >> that's all. Thanks. >> Wonderful. You should maybe get tickets and seize the day and see it. All right. >> Or a couple >> would be wonderful. >> Okay. All right. Okay. So, adjouring now at is at 9:02 p.m. Thank you.