Good evening everybody. I'd like to start off by calling the March 18th school board business meeting to order. If you would like to, we would uh stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. Thank you everybody and welcome. Uh we're going to start off with the uh approval of the agenda, but before that um Dr. Lewis, do we have any changes? Actually, I have a change. Okay. I have a change to the agenda. Um, I propose we remove item D5, strike it from the agenda. D5. Okay, I have that as DE, but that'll work. Um, do I have a second to amend the second by Jones? Um, I do not think we need a roll call for this vote. Um, so all those in favor of amending the agenda by striking uh items D5, please signify by stating I. I. All those opposed. Uh motion passes. So with that, I would entertain a motion to accept the amended agenda for tonight's meeting. So moved. Uh motion made by Meisner. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Keeler. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes. With that, I will turn it over to Dr. Lewis for her superintendent update. Thank you so much, Chair. It's with absolute delight that I get to welcome our students and our staff to give us an update on youth and government. And I'm a former YAG mom and hopefully soon to be YAG mom again at some point. So I am just thrilled to hear from you and so proud of your leadership and action. So this is the most exciting part of the meeting for me. So come on up team and you can take seats right here. Yep. Just pull another chair. Everybody can fit. Thank you. Perfect. Well, hello. Thank you so much for having us. I'm Steve Holt. I'm a really high school teacher. Um, taught at the middle school. Um, and I'm really honored to be part of this incredible group. We've had I'm not going to lie, you're not supposed to say this, but this may have been my favorite year in in many years at Youth and Government. Our leadership is our student leadership is strong. We're losing some great leaders as seniors, but we have some incredible leaders coming up. And if I can just take a moment, I like to kind of and how did I end up here in front of you tonight and and all these years doing youth and government. Um, I I taught down in Ecuador for five years and I love the diversity and when I got up uh the end near the end I started a model a model club there and I was able to take a group of students up to the South American Mio United Nations with kids from Argentina down to from down in Argentina up to Alaska and everywhere in between and I kind of fell in love with that. I didn't get to do that as a student. And when I when I interviewed with Fidley in 97, I think the two questions I remember asking was first about diversity and at the time it was a very different uh population and I was really looking for a very diverse school and I was a little bit like uh I don't know and Margaret Life think I thank her for like encouraging me that we're changing um and that it's going to be exciting voyage and boy has it been. It's been great. And then I asked about if you have model UN and they mentioned something about Yig and I had never heard that before. I didn't know what that was. Um despite despite the fact that it's been in this country for whatif 70 77 years. See, I knew they would know a long time. Um I did not get to do that as a student. So I somehow managed to take 82 eighth graders my first year. Um out of a class of about 200 and um it's been a ride ever since. Um we at that time it was $275 per student. um we had very few students that applied for financial aid and now we have um we took 90 students this year 8 through 12 to the Y conference and almost all of them require huge amounts of financial aid and the cost is now $500. Um so um I want to thank the school board really without um and the district it support for youth and government over the years and the community has been incredible with our families, our admin. It's just it's just we're we're so lucky um because this is as you'll probably hear from them tonight such an important part of not just some of our leaders here tonight but for our students this is for for many of them their most important and most favorite uh part of of high school. Um I do also want to tie in a little bit to the IB internationalmindedness. One of the reasons it's such a joy to take these students is um you know Fidley students we we live in a bit of our own bubble and for them to go and represent Fidley and represent some diversity that for a statewide program to have kids come down and and you know some of them have never say talked to a kid in a hijab they they've never spoken with hijabi and our kids representing their lived experiences is so valuable for the state and and vice versa. They get to talk to students where, you know, when I first started teaching frilly, it was hard to teach on the first day of of fishing and when fishing opened up and hunting. I'm not one of those people. I don't know the terminology, but I knew all of a sudden half my class was gone. I'm Oh, okay. And now it's now it's such a neat part of that experience to step back and watch our students shine. So, thanks again for all the support. I'm going to let the students kind of walk through what the FR what the Yig program is. Uh, hello, my name's uh So, yeah. Hello, my name is Jesus and I am the treasure of the club. Youth of government is split into uh three parts. Um the conference itself uh Yig and uh model UN and Kona which Yahhira can cover later. Uh just wanted uh not it's not today's focus but just wanted to point out a bit of about MUN. uh to uh in spring break uh we'll have around 28 students uh in the mother UN conference but what is mother UN mother UN is Mach United Nations and uh students choose the nation that they want and they represent it yeah that's basically all I've got think that's it oh sorry guys common mistake Yes. All right. So, um what is the conference? So, as Mr. Holt said, we brought 90 Fly students to the student le um simulation of our Minnesota government. We bring kids from all over from Wisconsin to Minnesota to take part in this conference every year. This year, we brought over 1,500 students to this 4-day conference in Minneapolis where kids go all the way to Minneapolis and to the capitol to do different activities. Um for this conference it's all student led like we hardly see the adults I think ever. Um you can be a de like a normal delegate who do more of the what some of us call grunt work or you can work your way up to be an appointed or an elected that run the different program areas from a day-to-day basis. Um if you choose to do Oh. Oh hey. Sorry about that. Um promise we won't make you start over. Um if you want to do like being an elected or being appointed then this conference becomes more of an all year thing you are planning these different training things where you children are training other kids to take part in this conference. Um from a day-to-day basis we are probably in our different program areas for about 9 to 12 hours a day depending which area you're in. And we're working like a normal government would, passing bills, debating arguments, um, writing our own bills. There's about a million different things every different student does. Next one. Oh, I did it again. I'm sorry. Okay. And then each year before we get to conference, we host a launch to train um, all of our delegates for the actual conference in the year. It's an all day thing and this year Fidley hosted our statewide training event. Um so again we brought about 1500 students to Fidley High School and we trained all of these kids to lead them for the conference. Um our leading sessions prepare all the different students for their different program areas. So they teach them how to write a bill, how to debate an argument, how to win an argument, different all different speaking aspects, how to speak properly, what's the current legal jargon, and how do you use it properly. It's a lot of work and we spend a lot of time there. I think launch is what 9 hours. Oh my gosh, it's an extreme 7 a.m. till like 4 or 5:00 p.m. Yeah, it's an extremely long day. Okay. Um, and before launch, all of our students have to write and submit written work for their program area to make sure that they have an understanding of what we're going to do when we get to the conference. So, students are just, you know, going haywire. Um, and luckily this year, all of our Fidley students submitted their work on time. So, we were on top of things this year. And just to add for that, that has never happened in Fidley history where um all students have submitted their written work and their bills on time. And that was just it's really impressive as like someone who leads that and is in charge of that. Having that happen was really really nice to have. And I would credit the leaders. They they had all these extra trainings where they did extra workshops. Yeah. Well attended. It was fantastic. On top of launch we do weekly meetings and for lead delegates ourselves to make sure that we're prepared for everything and know what's going on. So this conference is a lot of work. Yes. Um okay. So, we'll be talking about some of the program areas in Yig. Oh, you want I'll get There you go. Sorry. Thank you. I was going to project. But um so the one of the the biggest um program area in Yig is legislative. There is underassman have lower legislative where they're in the hotel the whole time, but they have two senates and two houses just so it runs quicker. But then the upper classman, they get to go to the actual Senate and the actual House of Representatives and they get to sit in the actual chairs of our Minnesota lawmakers. You see their names on it. It's really, really cool. and you can click the button of yes and no and it lights up on the screen like it's a it is the real deal and it's for upper classman there and then I'll get to lobbyist real quick it's actual lobbyists like you get trained with actual lobbyists so you can become an appointed write your reason to become a lobbyist we have many lobbyists in Fidley and actually I got the opportunity to work with one of lobbyists from Fidley so we work together on my bill to get it passed in the committee it's we do the exact form how we pass bills in the Minnesota um government so it's really nice to have that and we're going going to go on to courts. So, I didn't state this earlier, but um I'm actually afford delegates court specialist. I've been in the for uh in the courts for four years now. Um and with all of these, the trials, court of appeals, district and supreme, they're all held at um the judicial center or the actual um Why am I blinking? Oh, the capital itself. Um, we have district court is held at the hotel this year, but soon it's going to be moved to the actual building once it's finished renovating. So, that'll be really cool. Um, but it's it's such an amazing experience because these court of appeals students and the Supreme Court students actually sit where our actual courts leaders sit right where they are in their chairs. Like you see the name plate. We have our own microphones. We're standing at the like the stands. And um sometimes for different launch sessions and whatnot, we'll have actual attorneys and lawyers or sometimes from college to come in and teach us how to pro like actually argue from somebody who's learning how to do it right now. We'll have mock mock arguments from actual attorneys and lawyers to teach us. I was a Supreme Court appointed official this year and we um brought some people in and it was a super amazing experience experience just to see. And then with me and my group of appointed and electeds, we then did our own mock trial. And yeah, and then with district and trial, they do a lot of the same things. It's just for the younger students to get them into the the courts courts area and kind of teach them some of the the easier parts of the courts. All right. Um hello guys, my name is Yahira and I am the chair of Fidley Youth and Government and I am going to talk about the um cabinet like the executive branch of Fidley, not Fidley Youth and Government, Minnesota Youth and Government. Um I have been a part of the executive branch for three years now. My first two years I served as a com well my first year I served as a commissioner for the governor and then as the press secretary for the governor and then this year I got to serve as a youth secretary of state and the executive branch is exactly like the real world executive branch. There's a youth secretary of state, a youth lieutenant governor and a youth governor. All of the governors have commissioners. Um they have press secretaries, a chief of staff, an executive assistant. You name it, they have it. Um, and it's pretty much the same with the Secretary of State. I think I had about I had eight staffers and then I had two deputies. One for the legislation and one for for elections. And it works exactly like the real government would work. The commissioners are running back and forth from committees and running back and forth from the House floor or the Senate floor trying to get bills that the governor wants signed um pushed forward. and the secretary of state is kind of bossed around by the commissioners to try to get uh the house or the senate to push bills forward. Um the governor, the lieutenant governor, and the secretary of state are known as the three highest offices of the entire conference, which is really really cool because we get to stay in a suite. So I got to stay in a really nice suite with the governor and the lieutenant governor. It was a really cool experience. We would have our nightly elected officer meetings in there and because we were um quote unquote like the highest branch, we also got like snacks and that kind of stuff for breakfast. So, uh that was really nice. But yeah, I mean like I said, it's pretty much how the real government works and you really only see commissioners running around back and forth and the governor sitting back and just waiting for the commissioners to come back with a paper for them to sign. So, it's it's it's pretty much how the real government works. [Music] Okay. Okay. Oh. Oh, no. Never mind. Okay. Oh, okay. Uh, National Issues Forum. Where do I start? uh un uh it's believe it's the similar to uh legislative but a little bit more upscale national issues forum I believe is the second largest program area I don't know someone fact check that for me um but yeah what we do in national issues forum is that we focus on current problems and basically find a solution to them uh uh at this year's conference I was focused on the housing prices and the housing crisis on how uh the the prices of houses were increasing. Unfortunately, uh mine didn't go that far, but there's a lot more fiddly kids that really did well there. And yeah. Um and then we'll jump to media. So media covers the entire conference all the way from the hotel to the capital. There's buses going every 30 minutes mainly for media kids to jump back and forth to record the entire um conference. They write newspapers like actual physical newspapers that you'll find in different stands around. Um and then at the end of every night they do a broadcast where it's like it's the act everything that happened throughout the day. There's live recordings and videos of everything everyone's done. And then they also go in and they interview the governor, the lieutenant governor, different electeds, stuff like that. and just kind of do a recap of all the days so everyone knows what everyone else was up to. Okay. Uh so the benefits of youth and government. So obviously you got to hear how fun it is for us to go on and you know play pretend for a weekend and you know just mess around in the capital for a weekend which you'd get yelled at if you were going on just as on a regular tour. Um, but youth and government does so much more than just having us play pretend for a weekend. It teaches us a lot of how we can be better people to the world, how we can be better citizens, and most importantly, it gives us confidence to be here sitting in front of you guys today and tell you tell you guys our um how it went for us, what it has done for us. I mean, Youth and Government has connected me to many other programs outside of Youth and Government. It's run through the Y. It has brought me to things like Model United Nations and the Conference on National Affairs, which you saw in a previous slide. Um, I was actually also picked to go off to Washington DC and advocate with the YMCA. I think it was two weeks ago. And it was all because of youth and government. This is where I learned where and how to be the person that I am today. I always knew that I had like passion for the government and how our politics work, but I never knew where to start. I never knew how to speak up for myself. I did not know where I could develop these skills. And Youth and Government was the place for me. Youth and Government has been life-changing, not just to me, but to every single one of these students that is sitting here with us. And I would say every single student that has been to Youth and Government has come back with a positive story. they have either come back with knowing how to speak up uh with learning on other issues around the state that they didn't even think were issues around the state. It is a place where you learn so much knowledge and you just learn to be a better person for our world. All right. And um Fidley youth and Fidley kids are actually a pretty big deal in the leadership world for the YMCA. So Amamira um actually ran to be the National Issues Forum presiding officer and she won um by one vote. It was a very very scary election but she won. She did it and she is not able to be here with us today but it was something that she is she was truly passionate about. she is still truly passionate about and she was so excited when she won and it is something that she has been wanting to do for a while so that she can give back to this program area that she loves so much. Um and then the second name on there is me. I'm Yahira. Um I am I have been able to be one of the conference on national affairs students. So it's also known as Kona. Um every year the YMCA picks 25 students from the state to go off to the national conference. It's basically youth and government but on a national level. Um and I have been picked for two years in a row now which has been truly life-changing. It has brought me to hear some more extreme issues that are going on in in the world as it is a n like we talk about worldwide issues there. And I was also actually a committee chair for that conference which is also which is also a pretty big deal because I think it's about 600 students and only about 20 are committee chairs and yeah it's just it was I don't even I I can't even explain to you guys how magical that was for me as as a student that has always been like really passionate about politics and government. And the second thing on there is Secretary of State. So this year I got to serve as the youth secretary of state which I was voted in LA at last conference. Um and then this conference I was able to serve in that position. But leading up to that conference I had to work closely with the center for youth voice and with the governor, the lieutenant governor and with all of the other elected officers to make this conference run as smoothly as possible as the secretary of state is the one in charge to move bills from committee to chambers. And if we lose a bill, then it's over for all the other chambers. Um, which is something that can be challenging sometimes when you only have about eight 10 people working on that and you have over a thousand kids that have built. Um, but we were able to do a pretty good job at that. As far as I know, my staff did not lose a any bills. Um, which they could have hid from me. They could have hid that information from me, but even if they did, I'm just going to act like I didn't hear that. Um, and we also run elections which I actually got to see every single one of these students win or lose their elections and was also well I also went to one of our like every night we have like delegation meetings and I ended up at our delegation meeting and I was like oh my god cuz I knew how the results were going and I knew who had won and I knew who didn't and I just wanted to hug students and be like like I'm so happy for you or I'm like so upset for you, but I couldn't. So, here I was in the corner just like, "Oh my god." Like, um, it was a super great experience as well. And the second thing on there, oh, the third thing, I'm sorry. Uh, sorry, there's just a lot of things underneath my name, but uh, state steering committee. State steering committee. So, as chair of Fidley Youth and Government, I have to go to these meetings, which I adore going to. I think there's like one meeting every two months which is every single every single delegation has to send a representative to this meeting and essentially it's just a studentrun meeting on how we can improve the conference. So I get to meet with all of these other amazing leaders on how we can continue improving youth and government. And within the state steering committee, I am also the chair of the election rules committee where I get to write the election rules and I get to say, "Hey, this is what we're going to do and this is what we're not going to allow to happen." And this year it was actually a pretty interesting state steering committee because I passed a pretty controversial election rules. Um, it passed. So, if anything goes wrong, that's a next year problem. Sorry to you guys. But um it is incredible meeting with all of these other student leaders and getting to work with other students to continue to improve the conference. And then the last thing on there is the national being a national youth advocate. So as I stated, youth and government is where I have been able to learn to develop my leadership skills, my public speaking skills, my confidence. This is where it all started for me. And the staff at Fidley Youth, not only at Fidley, but at the YMCA, have been super super supportive. And they have heard my story. They have heard where it all started. They know that youth and government has been life-changing and a really really big deal for me. And that is why I was chosen to be um one of two students to go on to Washington DC and speak on the YMCA's priorities where we got to talk about more funding for programs like youth and government, more funding for child care, uh ensuring that the YMCA keeps their tax exempt uh status because they are a nonprofit. And it was incredible. Uh I got to speak to staff members of every single representative and senate office of Minnesota. And I got to I also got some Senate and Gall Gallery Senate Senate gallery passes which is really nice and cool to like just go into the gallery of the Senate. Um but essentially this program is like incredible. Like that's all I could really say. Um and then Sophia Good is on there who will be serving as next year's chair of youth in Fidley youth and government. uh she was not able to be here with us today, but she actually served as the president of Spear Senate. Um and I know that she completely fell in love with that. She decided to actually run to be youth secretary of state this year. Unfortunately, she lost by 1.5% I think it was, which again was super heartbreaking for me as a Fidley student to see another Fidley student lose such a competitive race. Um but I know that this program has been truly life-changing for her as well. Forgive me for not introducing myself. I'm Siccilia Felner. I'm the vice of Fidley. Um, just a little thing about Sophia. I've known her forever. In her first year conference, she didn't know how to talk to anyone. She would try to hang out with me as much as possible. She was in eighth grade and I was a sophomore in N. So, we didn't see each other as much. But this year, like she spent months advocating her media and campaigning and getting to know a bunch of people around the state. And if that doesn't tell you from one example of how youth government can benefit Fidley students, well, there will be more in store, but this is just one like I know I know she's not here, but she is seriously like came out of her shell with the government and with Fidley this would not be able to happen. So, thank you. Um, we will get into some other highlights. So, Sophia Good, she did run for Secretary of State, but then lost by the 1.7% unfortunately. um my dear friend Ari, she she ran for the Supreme Court justice, one the highest honor in the Supreme Court and also lost by one vote. And then Malik Va, he so he's in lower ledge cuz he's a a sophomore now, but he campaigned to run for an upper classman legislative, not knowing anyone, never even stepped foot in that capital for the four days. And him and I, we we were down in the hotel by 7:00 a.m. ready to go, ready to advocate. He came there and he owned the the youth and government. He knew people and he did great. Unfortunately, he lost by like two votes, too. So, it it's very competitive in there. But those are just some stu like we have so many other students that ran for positions, appointed they filled out their appointed official ballots, so many other leadership opportunities that for the youth and government gets to have and it's truly truly remarkable. And then we have some other highlights. So Becky Jang, she was voted most outstanding delegate in her program. There is how many eighth graders do you think there is a 200 out 200 she was one of the top like five that got voted this and then Eleanor she was selected um out of to to give a speech the closing speech 2,000 people in the closing ceremony. Now personally Elanor she reached out to me and she was like you're because we had closing speeches you hear her and I for our delegation and she was like your speech was so amazing. I don't know how I'm gonna beat that for the closing speech. And I was like, "Don't worry, Eleanor. You're gonna do amazing." And when I tell you, I was standing there like a Facebook mom recording Eleanor so proud. I was like, me and Mr. Cutthur, our eighth grade adviser, were the only people standing. I was like, "Do you think it's really?" And I was like, "I don't even care." Like, she's just so cool. But and that was really, really special. And then within our 90 delegates that went to the Fidley Youth and Government, the sorry, the Youth and Government Conference, 13 of them were appointed. Getting appointed is hard and that is truly honored to have so many leadership roles amongst Fidley. Um and then to close it, I have a couple words. Okay. As we wrap up our youth and government showcase, I want to talk about the impact youth and government. How it impact government, how Fly Youth and Government truly impacts the Fly students amongst our community with a lasting influence that brings youth and government students. Learning about advocacy, learning about other students among the state, and overall learning about democracy within our state and our nation. Now, my youth and government jury and I think all of us, us three, it has, sorry, us four, it has not been the smoothest. It is difficult spending 14 hours walking around the cap with the craziest debates like I've ever heard and busting to the cap from St. Paul to Minneapolis. It's in the snow. In the snow, by the way, it's absolutely insane. Working with 1,500 students for 4 days, learning about everyone in your group is truly remarkable. And I can say with full confidence that youth in government taught me how to delegate students in our friendly community to fully ensure that students can use their voice and learn how to use voice to advocate for issues in their community and advocate for themselves which is a lifelong which is a lifelong skill that makes you have a lasting impact as a person within this. In addition to leading the Fley delegation I got the opportunity to learn more about our Fley students. As a PSO student, I don't really get to see our Fly students, but with this program, I get to learn about Fley students, learn about what they're passionate for, learning about their issues, and learning about how they can rise as a leader. And as a senior leading, this is one of the most remarkable things I get to have and get to learn. Um, and it truly reminds me how bright for these students are in our small community. We're actually the fourth largest delegation in the youth and government community. Like the top three are Shaka, Weisetta, oh my gosh, Mountains View. I'm so sorry. And so having those like 2,000 student schools and we're fourth, it's truly like it's truly truly remarkable. Number one per capita. Yeah. Number one. Thank you. Number one per capita. Um with this frilly students being benefited from the youth and government program, it lets me have insurance that our Frley students can benefit our home, school, and community with a lifelong lasting impact. Now my biggest takeaway from the youth and government program is the influence I brought upon other delegates. helping delegates to make sure they become their leaders, become their advocacy, and to remind themselves that your voice matters. Within this, I truly want to thank the Fly Steering Committee, all of our members, Yhira, Ari, uh, Jesus, Malik, Amamira, our team, we worked tirelessly like August, even before when school, the year before, we worked, we met, we had meetings where kids can come in the week before Yig being like, "Cece, I don't know what I'm supposed to do." And I'm like, well, that's okay. And it I know we previously said this, but having a 100% of our bills turned in. Last year was about 50%. So having this and students can come in being like, I don't even know what should I write my bill about. I'm like, well, what is one thing you want to change in our state and how would you do it? And learning what students want to learn about and what they want to change is one of the biggest factors that Y can bring to all students in our state. Now, it really wouldn't be possible without our adviserss, Mr. Cuthbert, Mr. Tryan, Miss Shy, Mr. Anderson and Holt I owe all of for the youth and guns recognition and legacy to the administration team of Fredley during my old during my own experience these four years. I truly own all of it to Mr. Holt. So I'd like to thank Mr. Holt for always listening to me, encouraging me and believing in my in me in these past four years. I truly would not be here today without the guidance and support of Mr. Holt no matter what. Even with applying to colleges, he still gives me the encouragement to do whatever I can do. And it truly Mr. Mr. Hall has dedicated his passion and his love for Fidley Yig. He works tire. See, I'm going to jump in and you're going to see why in a second. Okay, that's fine. So, we were semi lied to you, but semi told the truth. So, our next slide. Oh. Oh. So, we um I was able to meet with Cece. um she sat me out and said all of your accolades and we met for probably over a half an hour and she still wasn't done telling me about all of your accolades. So Cece, with all the love in the world, I cut you off just to resume, but I wanted you to see Mr. Hull the value that you bring. This is a student recommendation. We all agree. Um, often the supervisor of the person that's our employee of excellence um, talks about them, but Cece, as you can see, can speak to how we all feel about you. So, Cece, pardon me for interrupting you and please resume. We're so proud of you, Mr. Holtz. Thank you. Okay. Um, I forgot where I was. I'm sorry. No, no, no, no. Something about grade or something. Okay. Make it sound. I'll try my best. Okay. I would like to thank Mr. Holt for always listening to me, encouraging me, and believing me these past four years. Okay. Life lost. With the words of Yhira, our president, M and these quotes, I quote, "Yahhira has sorry, he has always been encouraged to apply others in their positions and was incredibly supportive when I ran for you secretary of state. Ethan government has become a second home to me and for many other students. That home has always started with Mr. Holt. I am forever grateful for Mr. Holt's efforts and adviser as a mentor. Mr. Holt has always given students encouragement no matter the circumstances. With his efforts, I'm forever honored to award Mr. Holt the Furley Public Schools Foundation the Employee of Excellence [Applause] Award. Cece's mom, do you want to come up and take a pick from the front? Yeah. You can come right up here. It's just fine. You're gonna be on TV, though. Well, I want you to get a good shot. Or should I stand here? Yeah. Do you want to stand with me? Oh, congratulations. Thank you. So nice of you. We're gonna get We're gonna get a good picture. Yeah. Can we get a good photo? Yeah. So cute. So cute. So, that's all we have for our presentation. We're open for any questions if you guys would like some. That was a short version. So, yeah. Uh, so I'm gonna defer to Miss Stark. So she's like our political government guru. Like if you guys want to get involved in politics, grab her. Like she will put you in the right direction. So with that, so I was pulling up some photos um because we Well, so first of all, I have to say that thank you, Mr. Holt. Every time I've reached out with a crazy idea and said, "Hey, if you want to send some kids to me, send them to me." Um, and so a group came to our annual event called Brunch for Better where they met Mayor Fry and a bunch of legislators. So I pulled up the pictures. So if anybody wants to see pictures, um, Representative Hornstein, Representative Jordan, um, Senator Mchuan, and everybody was so excited to meet the the students. As soon as I saw lawmaker come in, I was like, you have to go to that table over there. Um, and so I just was so impressed that so many students got up on a Sunday morning, no less, um, to come and experience this event with all these legislators. Um, I was at the so my full-time job, I am the state director of a nonprofit, but during the legislative session, I'm there. Um, I'm the principal lobbyist, and I used to be Senate staff. So, we were in the legislative session right now. And as I'm at the legislature, I'm sitting in the Wrath Skeller, which is the little cafe under the Capitol eating. And all of a sudden, I'm like, "Those are Fly kids. I know them. I know them." And I just was so impressed by the way that they were holding themselves and so respectful and so excited. And they, you know, I chatted with them for a brief minute, but they're like, "I got to go. I got stuff to do." Like, they were on a schedule. Um, and so the offer is always open if you want to spend a day at the legislature, if you want to testify on a bill, if you want to go into legislative meetings, if you want to learn about that process, you can come hang out anytime. Um, there's a lot going on right now. Um, and it's it's good that you already kind of know how the sausage gets made because it can be kind of messy. Um, so it's really exciting to hear about young people getting excited because right now is a really hard time to be excited about politics. So I'm just more curious about what you want to do next. Where do you want to go to school? What do you want to study? Who do you want to be? Like what do you want to do? How does this prepare you for the next step? Yeah, you can talk. That's for the students. I mean I'm 41 and I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. Um so as I mentioned I have actually always been interested in like politics and how like our government works and all that. So what I actually plan on taking on from youth and government is well one I was able to create so many connections within government which gave me really good recommendation letters for college. Um, and right now I am debating between a couple colleges of where I want to go to, but I will be majoring in political science. And my plan is to hopefully work for a um a senator or a representative while I'm in college and gain some experience in that field. Hopefully become a legislative assistant. And I do hope to one day become a lawyer. Uh to be more specific, an immigration lawyer, open my own law firm, and maybe maybe who knows, one day run for office. Um I would really like to be a US senator. That's like my dream, like my all-star dream to become a US senator. Um especially after I saw what their offices look like, I was like, "Oh, that's so nice." Um, but yeah, like with Fidley with with one, not just Fidley, youth and government having all of that support, but youth and government itself, like I always knew I wanted politics, but I did not know what field what I wanted to actually do. But youth and government showed me, hey, so there's more than just actually being a representative and a senator. There's staff people that work underneath these representatives in the in these senators, and you can do that, get paid really well, and live a really good life. So, I'm like, "Hey, that is what I want to do." Cuz I don't know if I want to go right away and be on TV or be shown as a controversial person, but I can be behind the scenes for like my first 10 years after college, and then maybe after that, I plan to run for office. Oh, yeah. Is that where I can It's going to be hard to be e-hero with her college plans. I'm not going to lie. But with this, I do plan to major in sport administration with the inner workings and businesses of sport leagues and professional teams. And with the leadership and the lessons I've learned from youth and government, I will 1,000% carry in that and carry the characteristics that I've gained with that pro with this program and just learn how to like overall delegate like sports teams and making sure that advocacy is within the sports teams and just make sports just a better place for all people. The only thing more political than politics is sports. Yeah, I totally agree actually. And then do you want anybody else? Yeah, I was say um I'm sorry. You hear and I are both seniors, so that's we kind of have it. Yeah. Um I'm a PSO student at Bethl University and I actually got into the nursing major program. So I'm planning to be a nursing student, but um because of my uh advocacy in youth and government, I'm going into the more political field field of healthcare. Um, once you get your nursing degree, you can actually go into the political side of things and become a nurse on different cases and give your actual like opinion like nurs's opinion on different cases and spread political views and whatnot on that. And so, yeah, that's hopefully my end goal right now. We'll see if that changes, but I don't know how Well, I'm still a sophomore, so I got time. Uh, but with what I know right now and I'll probably majoring if I were to major something, I'd probably go like around political science because it's what I know know most and it's what I've been doing basically ever since 8th grade. Uh, recently me and my family were able to be at the capital last Thursday to talk about a specific bill or well hostile how they describe it over there. Uh and yeah, I think it's a very promising future if I do go for it. And apart from that, wherever the wind takes me. That all sounds wonderful. Um and I have very specific advice for you related to that. So will you connect? Wonderful. Great. Thanks, B. Anybody else? Oh, and I have a a boatload of photos if anybody wants to see them of them like being fabulous and meeting. Uh, Director Stark, if you can send those to uh, Miss Anler, we'll put them in the soup update. Awesome. Thank you. Yes, chair. Um, just there's so many things that I could say from the inspiring uh, comments and efforts and accomplishments that you have, but I will just sum it up in one comment. You give me hope for the next generation. Well said. Good job. And the the future certainly bright with the four of you in it. So, congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm excited to you have to sorry follow that up. Well, I think we have two people that can. So, we have two fabulous seniors of ours. So, I am absolutely thrilled to invite up our AAA recipients, Maya Karsten and Aiden Andler. So, we are so excited to welcome you. Uh, coaches, can you help with the mic there? Um, just that it's on. Okay, you're good, Maya. Yep. Yep. So, these two, they're a little more on the shy end. I like Cece there. So I thought I'd do a quick introduction for them. So we have Adrian Adler here and Maya Carson who are been friendly students through and through since third grade. It was actually in the same third grade class at Hayes. So that's pretty cool. Um they truly exemplifies what we look for in a student athlete in in activities here. Like they both were part of all the musicals and plays. In addition to doing that, they're um in multiple sports. It's been many years where, you know, Aiden, he ran track for us and did tennis in the same season. Maya played soccer and kick for us on the football team in the same season. And they did all of this while still maintaining over a 4.0 GPA. So to receive this award is truly what we look for in friendly activities. And I'm going to pass it on to Maya. Who's going to start? Oh, I'll start. Yeah. So for the winter season in activities, we had for up first concert band. The concert band performed at Anoga High School. They had the opportunity to work with Dr. Heidi Miller, director of bands at Gustavis. We were specifically praised for playing with a lot of heart and an impressively big sound considering our relatively small size. And we received an excellent rating for our performance. And up next, we had HOSA. Fidley completed at the HOSA conference and represented Fidley High School very well, beating teams from Weisetta and Lakeville North. They won the first and second rounds of medical knowledge competition. And then we just had Yig. So I think I'll skip that one for now. Up next then speech where we had three allconerence winners. Nathan Gonzalez in poetry, Amina Nagosh in informative and Mimi Fowler in storytelling. We had many second and third place who received all conference honorable mentions including Nazerdine Hussein in discussion, Kale Hol and serious pros, Wong Xiang in storytelling, Jana Catham in discussion, Hebo Ysef in informative, Amamira Hussein in poetry, Vivian Neely in storytelling, and Natalie Larson and Kashan Caldwell in duo. Then for student council, student council attended a leadership conference last month. Ava Wilson was voted in as a student council Eastern division officer for next school year and the trimero leadership conference. Nine student nine Fley students attended the winter trimetro leadership conference at Richfield High School on Friday January 24th. They participated in three different team building exercises with leaders of from each of the trimetro schools. This helped all of the leaders learn how to collaborate, communicate, and complete an objective with people from other schools. Lastly, we have the one act. The Sparrow advanced to the section final at Stillwater High School. And for the last thing in activities, we have the AAA award winners. So, I'll just speak a little bit about myself and then Maya. So, I came to Fidley in third grade and ever since it has been an amazing experience. It has taught me so much and I first started doing activities in seventh grade. I started with cross country and then I eventually found tech work in the high school auditorium helping out with shows and it was a lot of fun. And then once I got into sophomore year, I decided that I wanted to take on a little bit harder classes. And so I decided to do PSO when I became a junior. And that's what I'm currently still doing. But I still try to stay involved with my activities and athletics here at the high school and I think I've done a pretty good job of doing that. Maya. Um I'm Maya if you uh forgot my name. Um uh I have been in Fidley since kindergarten. I went to Hayes. Started in Hayes uh through and through. Um I've been in activities ever since I could probably touch a ball or shoot a ball. Um I play basketball, softball, I played soccer and then kicked for the football team. I was actually here in the fall for the superintendent update. Um, and I've been in band since fifth grade and I participate in the band, the jazz band. Um, I play in the pit orchestra for the shows. Um, marching band. Marching band season is right around so that's fun. Um, and then in all types types of academics. Um, I obviously I'm a student before an athlete. Um, and it's just been really fun. and Philly has been a a good place to get involved in all sorts of athletics and activities. Um so to recap the winter season in athletics, uh to start with dance, um dance had both JV and varsity jazz and kick teams this year, which is um almost double the participants compared to last year. So that's a big update. Um boys basketball, boys basketball did pretty good this year. They won their first round of sections as a five seed against a four seed. So, they were the upset. Um, also in one of the last games of the season season, uh, senior Trenton Woodall Jones broke the most or broke the record for the most three-pointers made in a game with nine at home, which was pretty exciting. Um, girls basketball also had a pretty good season. We had a new coach this year with coach Kennedy Johnson, and it was a pleasure to have her, a young, energetic, very energetic um, person, but she was good to rope in a bunch of, uh, new kids. We had three teams this year, which we haven't had three teams in a while. Um, and senior Aubrey Cochran Star hit her a thousandth point. And senior Brandy Washington was also a Miss Basketball nomination. Um, and we also won our first round of sections as a six seed against a three seed who we had lost uh pretty badly to during the season. So, that was good to have a little comeback. Um, Fidley Wrestling had five state participants this year. Um, multiple allconerence and honorable mention athletes. Uh, senior Brian Weston also won his 70th match this year. Um, which is extremely impressive because he's only wrestled for three seasons. Um, and then coach Eric Anderson was also the section 5A coach of the year. And then lastly, swim and dive had multiple state participants this year. Um, Ugo finished 24th in the state for diving. Um, the 200 yard freestyle relay also took 24th in state and Quinn Hendrickson took 21st at state for the hundredyard butterfly and that is winter sports. Awesome. Uh, thank you for that update. It's really cool to to hear it from your your lens. Um, the the AAA like it's it's cool, right? Like we we know that, but I think it's you guys are like the epitome of Fidley. like you can you can play multiple sports and and then at halftime go play at the halftime band, right? So So the fact that we have those opportunities here, I think you guys really highlight that. You really took advantage of it. I was joking with both of them. I don't know who who Justin's going to get to do these reports when you guys leave. Uh but yeah, so congratulations. Great job. Finished the year strong. Um I know we have some proud parents or at least a proud parent. Lori, do you want to have anything to say? I'm always proud of him. Any other uh board members, comments, questions? Impressive. Well done. You two. Well done. Congratulations. So proud of you both. [Applause] Next up, I'm so excited to welcome Renee Arbagas to talk to us about what's cooking in our kitchens. Welcome, Renee. I think that's Oh, there it is. Um, thank you so much school board and um, Superintendent Lewis for letting me come today to just kind of talk a little bit about what's going on in our kitchens, what's going on in nutritional services, um, and how we support what is um, happening with our students. Let's see if I can get this right. Nope, wrong way. Nope. Sorry, Rene. That's okay. Do you need to do it for me? You'll be able to click in just a moment. Okay. Yeah. Yep. There you go. Okay. Okay. So, um what I wanted to kind of highlight was some of the things that we're doing um in nutritional services. I first want to mention that every photo that you are going to see in this presentation um is representative of what we serve our students um as well as you will see some of our students enjoying our meals. Um I find it's very important that um you guys and the community get to see what we serve because um school lunch has changed um and it's changed a lot and it continues to evolve and change. Um, currently I have um 22 um dedicated school nutritional professionals. That those are my cooks, those are my servers, those are my cook managers who day in and day out um are committed to giving our students the best quality meals that we can um within our um restrictions and every single one of them is very passionate about what we do. Um we all want to make sure that our students are receiving good nutritious meals so that they are able to learn um in the classrooms. Um also too I want to make sure that we are really looking at how we purchase our meals. Um and I'll talk a little bit about this later. Um we are really embracing um purchasing a lot of locally grown items. Um, I realize that, you know, some of the things have been changing, but we continue to purchase a lot of our our cheeses, our fruits, our vegetables, all of that from Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Midwest. Um, we continue to um prepare new and different items um for our students. Um but while we're doing that, we're also making sure that we include student voice, we include taste testing, we include um them in the conversations so that what we are serving our students is what they are most excited about. Um which is very difficult because we have a wide variety of students here. Um and one of one of the things that all of my team look at is we really look at our cafeterias and our kitchens as an extension of the classroom. So we really try to embrace those IB um values in what we are doing on a daily basis. Um just a little bit about our menus. Um actually the picture to the left with the penet Rosa today um is actually we serve for lunch. Um and this was a new recipe for our elementary students this year. Um and it's been so successful that it's going to roll out to our middle school and high school next year. Um where we're making the homemade sauce. We're making everything from scratch um as much as we can in there and our students are loving it. Um as well as we have increased the number of roasted vegetables that we are doing. We've gone beyond potatoes and carrots. We're now doing zucchini. We're doing hikima. We're doing brussel sprouts. We're doing um a lot of broccoli. a lot of those types of things just to promote those um healthy nutrients to help our kids be able to focus while they are in um the classrooms. We all know that this is an important time of the year and that is our role in helping support our students here at Fidley. Um, as well as when we are serving our items, we're really focused on decreasing the amount of sodium, decreasing the amount of sugar, um, and really looking at those whole food items, which is really challenging because we still have a large percentage of students who are only familiar with chicken nuggets, hamburgers, um, and things that aren't prepared at home. So, trying to find that fine balancing act has been a challenge for us. Um, and then the item that you see on the right hand side is actually the sweet potato cobbler that we made as part of Black History Month. Um, and we do continue to um try to embrace our um, students culture. This year we did celebrate three different um, cultural months. We did the um, Hispanic Heritage Month where we um, served tamales and we served papooseas with um, El Salvador and klela. um when we got some input from our students on how to make the kleslaw. We also did um Native American month where we did a wild rice medley, we did Wajapi, and we did three sister salad. As well as we did black history month where we did baked okra, we did hush puppies and we did our sweet potato cobbler. And I would say the sweet potato cobbler was a elementary school favorite. We had a lot of kids come back and ask for additional servings, which was very exciting for us. Um just a couple of things about what we are focusing on within my department. Um is really encouraging kids to try new foods. It is really um challenging at times to encourage them to be risktakers, but we really provide a lot of positive reinforcement, a positive encouragement to make sure that they are trying items, even if it's just giving them a little taste when they're coming through and getting the alternate item. Um, and we really do embrace what we're doing um, to help them try new items, which is why you see a lot of whole fruits and vegetables on our salad bars. We continue to focus on our team development. Um, we're really focusing on our culinary skills. We're focusing on how to use our equipment. Um, a lot of our staff are not as familiar with our comi ovens and our skillets. So really helping them feel comfortable so we can then take our menus to that next step in making more and most of our items from scratch so we can control the seasonings, we can control the sodium, and we can control the amount of um sugar that we're adding to it. Um and finally, really focusing on those whole foods. Um we do purchase a lot of whole apples, whole produce. Um, if you go to the middle and high school at lunchtime, there is about five to six different fresh vegetables. There's two to three different servings of fruits on the salad bar. Middle or um, elementary school has at least three servings or three different types of vegetables that they can choose from to allow them to be able to pick what they want. Um, as well as two to three different types of fruit um, plus our um, hot items. So we are really trying hard to encourage them to try new items, try different things um that we have going on in our kitchens. Um as I mentioned too for procurement this year I had over 50 different locally grown produced items that we purchased. Um previous years I've been about 25 to 30. So we've really been focusing on that to make sure that we are providing those nutritious meals. Um, and what you'll see too, um, is we may take some items that are partially, um, cooked and then we will modify them. A good example of that is the middle one with our pickle pizza. Um, super popular at the at the high school. Um, when we have homemade pizza day, um, they frequently go and get that as well as our Alfredo pizza and our taco pizza. Um, sambouas are still the favorite of our students. Um, continue to serve them. Um, and those are made right here in Minnesota. They're made in Minneapolis. Um, and they were recently just featured on Care 11 for their their work. So, um, we do continue to embrace those types of things as well. Um, and when we are purchasing, we're purchasing from Goodacre, we're purchasing from Bix. Um, we are purchasing wherever we can, um, to make sure that we are getting the freshest items. Just a little bit about who's eating. Um actually we have about 65% of our um K through 8 that eat um breakfast with us every single day. Um and then we have about 50% of our 9th through 12th graders. I just want to mention that our lunch participation continues to rise. We have um about 85% of our K through 8 students eat lunch with us every day. Stevenson's actually closer to 90% um that they're coming through and having lunch. Um, high schoolers were at about 70%. Which is very typical for a high school student. Um, but we are definitely a little bit above the state of Minnesota average. So, thank you for your time. Any questions? It looks all wonderful. I always appreciate I always I don't know. I always appreciate how you care so well for our community and that you have just our students and our families and um their needs at the very front of what you what you are doing in the work and how that is so important in the classroom for our kids to be able to learn. So I am so thankful for your contribution to their success and the way that you're leading your team. Thank you. Thank you. I was at the the middle school for a a field trip, but before that they fed them all and there were a lot of clean plates. Yep. So that's usually a good sign, right? It is. Yeah. Yep. Thank you for your work. Anybody else? All right. Thanks, Renee. Thanks, Renee. Much have a great night. Appreciate it. [Applause] All right. Next up, I'm so honored to introduce Dr. Amy Cochran, principal of Fidley Middle School, as well as Mr. Matt Inglehart. And before you get started, I have to share that I have an absolute proud superintendent moment of how far you have gone in leading the work around centering teaching and learning at Fidley Middle School. I also want to let the board know that Dr. Cochran as well as Matt and others will be presenting at the Minnesota Association of School Administrators on Thursday. This is a highly competitive um process for a proposal to get through. So they will be showcased um about different than achievement season, but next year we'll put in for achievement season um but on our summer programming. So I just continue to be so proud of the transformative work that you've done around um just all of things uh student achievement. I do want to end by sharing a quote that I saw yesterday and I couldn't stop but thinking about the two of you and it says test scores don't change climate and culture. Climate and culture changes test scores. So with that I'm just thrilled to have you tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having us tonight. We are really excited. um to share what we've been doing at the middle school and I think some of you have students there and and know kind of what we're up to and I'm also just really excited to share our big focus on um math and literacy and just a really big um push on academics this year. It's been really fantastic. So our Oh, one second. Lori leaves for 30 seconds. It's job security. Okay. I have it in. Hold on one second. I think you can click now. Perfect. Okay. Um so tonight we're just going to share with you um you know why did we decide to do this? Um what we're calling achievement season. What is it? Um kind of the phase that we're in right now with it. Um a big piece of it is really about building a culture of confidence in students. Um, and then just kind of some of our key takeaways. So, um, first and foremost, just to center us kind of in our data, um, and this is not a surprise to anyone, but this is just where we are currently at. These are our MCA scores in both math, reading, and science over the last four years. So, really, um, coming out of the pandemic, um, you can see from 2021 to today, um, our scores have been pretty flat. So um in last spring we had about 22% of our students were achieving proficiency in math, 35% achieving proficiency in reading and then in science our eighth graders and our fifth graders takes the take the science MCA test. And so about 21% of our students were proficient in science. And so knowing um that this has been our data, there's again been not a lot of change over the course of the years, even pre- pandemic, this is pretty much what you would see. Um, and so we want to take away the excuses of this was because of COVID and really just frame it in the sense that this is where we're currently at and that we need to have a focus on academics and really know that we need to think about teaching and learning differently um, as we've entered into achievement season. So this year we set out with a lofty goal um, and have really had an very very intentional focus on our math and reading scores. This year um we have a a goal to improve by 10% in the number of students that are scoring proficient in our math MCAs. And then in reading, same thing, a 10% growth in the students scoring proficient. So that means that we're hoping to move students that are either in the below or um partially meeting up to proficiency. Um and that would bring us from 22% up to 32% in math and from 35 up to 45 in reading. So as you can tell, we still have a lot of work to do. Um, but we also know that that's going to take kind of baby steps year by year. And so our 10% growth um feels really loftly, but we're really hopeful with our really intentional focus um that we're going to get there this year. All right. So, um why achievement season? Dr. Cochran just named it. Uh our data, right? Everything is rooted in data. And the reason that we're doing this is because we have seen the same results for multiple years. Um, we talked a lot about how to break out of that and we have to try something new. Um, achievement season has been this revelation in our building. It has been something that has started in the summer and we'll talk about that at NASA later this week. Um, but it's really gone from the summer throughout this entire school year. The focus on academic achievement throughout the entire building has just stepped up another notch because we know our kids need that, right? We the data that we show that doesn't reflect our kids and we talk about that a lot. The data is a very quick snapshot but we know what our kids can accomplish. Um and so you know the four bullet points on here are really all rooted in data. So yes we um are really trying to build that strong foundation. Uh Dr. Cochran will talk uh specifically about some different plans that we are using but it is really building that strong foundation within our kids for math and literacy. We are also developing useful skills for the future uh giving kids the strategies that can be applied in different subject areas. Okay, this is math and literacy but this is happening across our entire building. Students are implementing these plans in PE, in health, in college and career, in science. they are doing it in all of their classes and so we really want to make sure that it is a buildingwide focus uh where we are teaching students strategies that they can use in different subject areas. We are also um looking to support our students in the understanding of using language effectively again in all subjects. Um yes, again we look at the snapshot of our data, our MCA data, but realistically um these skills that our kids are learning benefit them across the building. The second they walk in, no matter what classroom they walk into, they utilize the skills that they are really learning and these strategic plans that they are utilizing in all of their skill or in all of their classes. And then finally, equipping students with the skills to um ensure lifelong learning and success. One of the questions is are we doing this to go towards a test and the answer is no. We are preparing our students for life because everything that we do right there is generally a test whether it is your permit test whether it is the ACT whether it's a job test whatever it may be the skills that our kids are learning now are transferable across life. So Dr. Cochran also talked about like the intentionality and the structure behind what this is. Um we are currently in week uh seven of our 9-week plan that is focused on academic growth. Uh the plan is very scripted and it is very specific for math and reading but it is really work working on the transferable skills that are um applicable no matter where students go in the building. Uh it is tied again to MCA state standards. Um, and one of the coolest things is I talked about data earlier, but we progress monitor throughout this entire thing. Our our teachers, our students, we are looking at data every single day to make sure that we are seeing growth in our students. Um, and if we're not seeing growth, areas that we can really target to make sure that our students are continuing that learning. It comes in three different phases. We are currently in phase three. We just kicked it off this week. uh and fa the phases really build upon one another. So to start there is a focus on participation because this is new. This is new for our teachers. This is new for our students. This is new for our building and our district, right? Um and so we really are trying to kind of like rope our kids into like this idea that this is going to benefit you, right? And the the participation really was weeks one through three. Um four through six was goal achievement. All of our students wrote individual goals um really centered around like completion of different things. Completion of the strategic reading plan, completion of different things. Um and in phase three, which is what we're in now, we are focusing on mastery. All right, we are looking to see mastery of skills um that our students have built across the first six weeks of this um achievement season. Um and students are again making their own individual goals for what that looks like. This does end in MCA state testing in reading, math, and science. Uh but again, this is not just working directly towards a test. This is building skills that benefit our kids for their lifetime. All right. So essentially, you're probably thinking, what does that look like in the classroom on an everyday basis? Like what sorry, what does that look like every day in the classroom? Or like what are students learning? Um, and so we're talking about the transferable skills that students are learning specifically around reading. They're using something called a strategic reading plan. And really, it's all about how what do good readers do every single time they pick up a text. Um, and so it helps students learn again whether I'm reading a text in science, social studies, um, health class. Again, I pick up the newspaper, a magazine at home, no matter what I'm reading, we know that reading is a lifelong skill that really is going to um, you know, benefit our students throughout college and into life. And so this is a skill that they can take with them no matter where they are. Essentially, as a student approaches a text, the first thing that they're going to do is again using these different skills that they've learned is previewing the text to be able to identify the genre. Right now, our students are rock stars at this. They can pick up a text right now. They can tell you if it's poetry, informational, or fiction. And then based on that, when they're reading their specific thinking work, we call it that they're looking for as they're reading. And so it's the way that they're annotating their text when they're reading. And there's some anchor charts up there so you can kind of see what that looks like. They're hanging in the classrooms for students to have reminders. At this point, they can pretty much do it without looking no matter what they're reading. So for example, if a student identifies that it is aformational text, um when they're reading the things that they're looking for is like what is the topic of this? What is it teaching me? And then what is the author's point of view? Anytime we read anything that's informational, the author that's writing it is always going to have a specific stance on what they're trying to write. If a student's reading poetry, they're really looking for what's the literal meaning of it and what's the deeper meaning of it. So as they are writing or as they are reading, these are the things that we want them to think of. So it's a a lot more focused way for students as they're reading instead of just saying highlight, right? Like if you have ever read a, you know, a text and you start highlighting everything, you're like, why am I highlighting this? This is really intentional for students to think about these are the things we want you to think about. By the time they're done reading and they've been able to identify each one of these areas of their thinking work, students then are able to typically pull the main idea. Um, and so the the idea is that if you're doing the thinking work correctly, the main idea of whatever it is that you're reading should really stand out at you. And when you can find the main idea of whatever it is that you're reading, it helps with your comprehension. So again, this the the first part of this plan is really about how we do we develop good readers. The second The second part of it is then is where we come in with our test taking strategies. And so if students are taking a multiple choice, like if they're going to do multiple choice questions, which is what we've been practicing right now, we know that that's what our MCA test is going to be. So we're really wanting to mirror the work that they're practicing right now after what the questions are going to be. Um, and so again, this is where those test taking strategies come in. again, whether it's the ACT test, whether it's an MCA test, whether it's my permit test, how can I really utilize this strategy to help me be able to work through the answers using what I just read or what I've comprehended. Um, and so it's again, the strategy is that students cover the answer choices, that they're not trying to use the multiple choice questions, but they really want to cover them up first. Um, a lot of times we get stuck in like what is the question actually asking me? Um, we know that sometimes when there's questions on exams or whatever it is, sometimes they can be lengthy, confusing. So, it's really helping students like narrow down what does it actually want to know and then what is my plan to answer this using the work that I've annotated, using my main idea. What am I going to use to tackle this? Um, they have a fun little saying. Then they kind of go through um to find evidence in the text to help them answer the question. And then going through and thinking about we're calling it slash the trash right now. So, we get rid of all the answers that don't make sense. there's no evidence in the text to match them. Um, and then you're narrowing it down to be able to to be able to find the evidence um of what you've done. So students are able to do this. Again, right now we are we've been doing this again across our building in every single subject area um for the last five weeks. And so they're pretty experts at it right now. Students are I would say their comprehension skills have just significantly gone up because of this strategy. Very similar in math. A lot of what we are talking about in math is just about work habits again. So yes, we are still working on math, but it's also about the habits that students form when they're working on any math problem. And again, this is the transferable skill that is going to be able to be no matter what math class you're in, doesn't matter what level math you're in, if our work habits are solid and strong, it's going to be something that will be transferable for students. And so again, um thinking about the different areas first, um asking students to read and interpret the question. Again, if you've looked at a math problem lately, it can be really lengthy. They can be really confusing. And if they're word problems, even like times 10, right? Because it's like, what in the world does this problem really want me to solve if it's a word problem? So, it's asking students to be able to kind of slow down, pick out what is the question actually asking me and then what is my plan to solve it. Um, again, if it's multiple choice, which sometimes in math it is, sometimes in math it's not. We know that on our MCA test or any kind of standardized test, it typically will be multiple choice. So again, similar strategy of covering the answers because we don't want students to think again, let me use these multiple choice answers to help me solve it. We want students to be working through the problem and then finding see if their answers on the multiple choice. Um, also it's just really about organizing their workspace or really thinking about how they are solving the problem. Are they labeling their work as they go? um because again oftentimes that is where students will get caught up and they're not labeling, they're not thinking about how they're organizing their space, their paper as they're writing, taking notes with math. So a lot of the math that we are really focusing on right now is again the work habits within whatever math class students are in. So we mentioned that this was like a three-phase plan. So students have been really really solid in learning both of those, the strategic reading plan and the mathematicians plan in all of their classes in all of the grades. As we've entered phase three now, um we've been taking daily data with students, entering it into um daily data trackers. We're having daily data conversations with teachers. How are our students growing? Where are the misconceptions? What do we need to help students with? Where are those gaps? Um we've just started phase three this week. So a little bit of a change in their schedule. So from 8:00 to 9:10 um in the morning we've altered our bell schedule a little bit. Every student in our building is working on literacy and every single teacher has become a literacy teacher. And so they've all had training on what the strategic reading plan is. How do we help students and coach students around where they're struggling? We might notice, okay, everyone is really struggling with this part of understanding this text. And so as as the teacher, how am I going to coach around that? Um and so for the next three weeks, everybody will continue to be literacy teachers from 8 to 910. Um while students are working on this in math, students are placed in strategic groups, but they are doing that through their math class. So they've they've been placed in a little bit smaller group that's really focused on um you know, maybe Mr. Inglehart needs help with this particular area in math and then I need help with something else. So we're really being able to kind of divide up in order to close those content gaps. But that's happening during their math class. And again, this is happening just in the three weeks leading up to our MCA test so that we can really focus on like closing those those gaps. Um, and then also a piece of our phase three is that we are going to have some dress rehearsal days. So, never before have we practiced the MCA test before we've taken it. And one piece of that and Mr. Ingart's going to talk next about building that culture of confidence is test anxiety. And just that students are really nervous about it. Like when you are taking a standardized test, a lot of kids have test anxiety. And so how do we by the time they take the real MCA test, how can we have really helped eliminate that? Like how can we make it the most comfortable? They know what room they're going to test in. They know who the proctor's going to be. They know exactly what to expect. They know how to use all the tools on the MCA exam. Um so that by the time they walk in, they're like, "We got this." Um so actually this week, Thursday, is dress rehearsal for reading. So, we're going to practice taking a practice reading test on a um web- based app. We are it's not the exact MCA site, but we are using another um web- based app called Lumos Learning that is going to again simulate the MCAs and it also will give students a really good idea of where their score is at. So, leave leaving out a dress rehearsal, students should kind of have an idea of what where they are at as far as growth goes. All right. Um as Dr. Cochran mentioned uh one of the biggest things that we're trying to do is give our students um just practice of what this is going to look like, right? A lot of our students have gone through the MCA tests. Um but a lot of students when they get to the test on that day, it's really scary, right? Things are different. Things feel different in the building. It just feels a little heavier, right? Like I have so much on my shoulders today. Um, and so one of the things that we want our students to come away with um, from these nine weeks is really feeling confident about what they're doing. We want them to feel like, okay, it's MCA test day today, but I got this. I've been here before. I've done this. Okay, like this is not scary to me anymore. Because like Dr. Cochran said, we are doing dress rehearsal days. we are using um computer-based programs um and uh paper that students are getting questions that mirror what they see on the MCA. So when they get that piece of paper, they get um that computer in front of them, it's not scary. It's not new. They have done this work. Um and our goal is to build that confidence in each and every student to make sure that that when that day arrives that they're ready. Um part of that is is to uh make sure our kids are seeing data all the time, right? Seeing their improvement, seeing what is happening. Um but part of that also is understanding that it's 9 weeks long. Um and 9 weeks to us might not seem that long, but 9 weeks to students who are very used to instant gratification. Uh 9 weeks seems like seven years. All right? And so they feel it, right? They they're like, "Oh, it's a really long time." But for our students, what we want to make sure that we are showing them is how proud we are of each and every one of them. So what we are doing every single week um is I talked about the three different phases. Um phase one we are doing incentives for our students right to say I am so proud of how you have done and what we are doing is our students get these um it's a small example up there but um it's like an incentive tracker or an incentive sheet um students either we set a goal every single week for what we want our students to accomplish currently right now students uh created their own individual goals because we want to make sure that again this is also individualized, right? Our students, we want to see them push themselves um and feel that sense of comp accomplishment and confidence. Um and so students go through and as they are meeting their goals in the classrooms, um all of our teachers got these really cool little tiger paw stamps. And so they go through um and every time they see a student accomplishing their goal, they give them a little stamp on their sheet. Seems really simple, but our kids are so excited to show that off. Um we have done different incentives up to this point. Phase three, we're really excited about it. We're taking a little page out of um the high school's book and we're doing something called fun lunch. Our students have really worked and and shared their perspective of like they want experiences, right? They want to go and do something fun. And so we have been able to plan something across our building that during lunchtimes we're going to offer them a couple different choices. Um a game room, an art room, open gym time. Um and we have worked really really hard to make sure that our students we hear what they want too, right? This is what we want them to be incentivized um to grow um during phase three. Um and so our kids are really excited. This week we are upping um and for the next three weeks kind of upping uh what we are expecting out of our students because as we said earlier phase three is really about mastery. Um the other part of it is I just have to put the plug in. Um we have had amazing donors um so far as we approach this achievement season. Um we have had amazing donors who have donated to uh things like bingo night which was our kickoff event for this. Um, we've been able to provide a lot of amazing incentives for our students. Um, we on Fridays we do a golden ticket award. So, if students win or if students get uh 10 stamps throughout the week, they get entered into a drawing. We've been able to uh get donations that have got kids gift cards to Starbucks and McDonald's and and different um stores around Fidley as well. And it's just been super great. So in this uh setting I just want to say um some of you have been vital to that as well. So I just want to say thank you um not only to the group here but also to our overall Fredley community. The other thing to uh with this culture of confidence um again what I started with is this idea of tracking our data. All right. um tracking our data is how our students see that growth and how they feel that um sense of confidence as they approach our MCAs. Um our this is an example of what is happening in a couple of our sixth grade classrooms. Uh like I said, students set their own individual goals and as they accomplish it, they get to track their own data. There's something very powerful about looking at my own personal goal sheet and crossing something off. It resonates with students. It resonates that I have done something really great. Um and so we are putting this back on our students to say be proud of yourself. Again, going back to that culture of confidence um is a huge component of what we are trying to accomplish during these nine weeks. All right. Well, we'll just we'll just end with we've got some key dates coming up and we can't wait to come back and share with you our MCA results. we will be back with some really awesome results. But um this week, Thursday, Friday, we are doing our reading dress rehearsals. Um and then the week before spring break, we are going to do our math dress rehearsals so that students have an opportunity to practice, see where their scores are at. Again, really get comfortable with where they'll be testing. Um and then we know that our MCAs for both reading and math are coming up at the end of April. And if they are in fifth and eighth grade, they will take the science test immediately following that the last week of April and then 1st of May. And then we just have a QR code here that has lots of information. So if you want to read more about it, it has a folder full of all sorts of everything and all things achievement season. Okay, chair. I'm just going to take a moment here. Can you two see yourselves? Like were you talking like this last year? It's pretty great. I mean, this is phenomenal. I'm going to go on camera and say I'm terrified that other districts are going to take you. Um, I am so proud you are grounding in academics. You are grounding in our core mission and you are modeling it. Also, our high school is right there like we want this too. Our elementaryaries are like we want achievement season like right now Brenda we need it. We want it summer rise you know the expansion of that. Um, I am beyond proud of your transformative work, chair. Thank you. Well said. You guys, you guys are killing it. Um, we had conferences last week, last week. And, uh, just a shout out to Miss Maulville. Uh, so she's EMTT's science teacher, but she's got him for math. And she did a fantastic job of explaining what that looks like, right? He's he's not getting math, but he kind of is, right? Not his normal math. Um, but you can you can really tell about the leadership in a building when your teachers and staff can duplicate what you're saying and and not just duplicate it because you're a parrot, but duplicate it because they mean it. And like Miss Mullville, she meant it. She understood it. We had a great open, frank conversation about what his small group will look like. So, she's she's buying into that. And I'm and I'm pretty sure that's pretty consistent throughout the the school. So, you guys doing a fantastic job. Um, I do have just a couple questions. Yeah. When will you guys have the data back from the tests? I know we get them in the mail and all that stuff, but when when will you guys be back to report? Take this and then I'm going to put it to you. We have it, but it's not public. I mean, we don't have it currently. Um, we get it pretty quickly, but it's not um it's embargoed and so like our licenses depend on that. Um, so Amy or Dr. Dr. Cochran, I'm going to let you then share when it will be available for our board to actually see and the board um does not have the ability to see that data before it's unembarged. Go ahead. Yeah, we can share individual scores with students when they're embargoed. Um as long as students know that they're not official, we can't aggregate the data. So, we won't be able to say we've made a 10% growth in our data or more um until they're official, which won't be until the fall. Okay. But students can have their individual scores, which is just as important because students right now um this week actually, we you will see them go up soon in the hallways, made little tiger paws. We had students look at their scores from last year, really have an understanding of what their scores mean. They each set individual goals on what they want their scores to be. We're going to put those on pause around the building so students can see their goals hanging up on the walls. So really important for students to be able to see their scores so they can have their individual ones. But the whole thing But the whole thing we won't know our whole overall growth until the fall. We'll wait but it'll be great. Any other questions or comments? Uh yes, chair. Yeah. Uh you guys kind of brought me on a roller coaster with this presentation because you started with a chart that none of us like, right? that has been the bane of education's existence for a long time. It's a it's a stressinducing, discouraging chart. Um, and we've been working on it for years. And I'm like, man, we've been working on this stuff for years, administration, staff, board, um, and trying new things that that we're being data driven, which I really appreciate. And you acknowledged this is not what, you know, we've been trying. We got good people working hard. Um, so I'm delighted to hear about this new effort. We got to keep trying. I last year and the year before we probably tried new things, too. My memor is not good enough to remember, but somebody was saying they're going, "Well, we didn't do it in 2021, so we're doing something now in Right. We keep trying. I really respect that and appreciate it." Um, and so I started off on the low end of the roller coaster and then I I came up as uh I heard about the and this is all students participating. Is that correct? Yep. Right. Because the summer the other one was not all students, right? So it's open to all. Right. All right. It was choice, right? Yeah. Um and then I hope I hope we get the results that that you want. We all hope that. Uh, and then I'm going to be really curious to understand if nine weeks of focused effort through some new lens that you have and some new execution works. That's huge. I mean, we can do a lot of nine weeks, right? And I know that this is kind of targeted a little bit to the MCAs and I know that we don't want to teach to the test and I don't advocate for that. But I also know as an engineer and a business guy that you can't fix what you can't measure. So the tests play a role, love them or hate them. Um and I and and presumably those tests are designed to measure things that we think are generally important across the state. So this kind of effort I'm I'm really going to be curious about the experiment that you guys are doing and I'm very encouraged like like the chair said uh that it seems to be working or that you seem to be on the right path and then I'm going to have one last little nitpick point and this is because I've had this conversation with many of my past employees and my colleagues for 40 I don't think you want a 10% improvement because that would be 2 and a.5%. You want a 10 percentage point improvement. 10 percentage points. And so this goes on in business world all the time. And um I believe we want a 10 percentage point improvement. And I hope you get it. Thank you so much. I I will just say I just want to shout out our teachers. I like I really do that that this is a lot for them, right? I am a science teacher and I'm a math teacher, too. I am a Chinese teacher, but Miss Nordine has taught math for us in summer school. She's a rockstar in math. She's helping with the math small group. So, I mean, this is not a small undertaking for teachers to be able to really um help and support in content areas that they might not be specialists in, but they have knowledge in. And we really tried to say like this is every single person in our building is helping and this is a full-fledged effort, right? And again, we are all reading teachers. It doesn't matter what your content area is. We all teach reading. You read in every single subject. We read in our life, right? So everybody can teach reading and we can help train you to do that. We can help give you the skills to do that. So I just want a huge shout out to our teachers. They've been just true rock stars. Our pair educators, again, schedules have been changed. They're assisting in classrooms that they haven't been in. Um, and our students are also just so resilient. I know kids are like, "Okay, what are we doing today?" Like, "Here we go." Like, but our students have been our students are so resilient and they are ready and they are rocking it and we are seeing on our daily data trackers, we're seeing that growth go up. So, we're really excited. I I actually meant to say one of the one of the high points on the roller coaster uh was some people would look at this data and say, "This is an all hands- on deck problem, right? Low reading scores, low math scores." And you just demonstrated all hands on deck. Okay, we're taking 70 minutes in the morning and we're all g because reading is fundamental. I meant to I meant to acknowledge that. And I think that's that's how you solve the problem. You get all hands on deck. I would just add one more thing. Um I I think one of the things that we are so excited about is what you flip your mic. I think it's on. It's supposed to be on. Okay. Can you just use Dr. C? Thank you. I think one of the things that you touched on that we have talked a lot about is it's nine weeks, right? However, when we see our growth, it gives us such excitement going into next year to be able to say look at we put this focused effort in 9 weeks. think about coming into next year having our teachers feel that sense of accomplishment, having our students feel that sense of accomplishment and just what we can build upon that, right? To say we are trying something for 9 weeks and we see growth from it. We can come into next year being like look what our kids are made of, right? Our kids can do anything that they put their mind to. And coming into next year after this, it is a lift. but also telling our teachers this was new change is hard but at the same time look what you did right celebrate yourselves as well because again this is an all hands-on deck thing and it's an all hands-on deck thing with our students our staff and our community like I referenced before. So um we're just really excited to see where we go from here. Okay, awesome. I'm just going to do a tech check, David. Um, I'm getting notification that we're not live streaming. So, if you can look into that, that would be great. Um, excellent job, team. Thank you. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you so much. Um, board, can't wait to hear. Thank you. Sorry. Uh, Director Meisner, uh, chair, ready for me to go to the next slide? Okay. Board, very similar to what we did with referendum. You're going to hear the same legislative advocacy update every meeting because it's important that we get this message out in multiple formats. So, I just want to say firstly, last week's was exceptional Monday and Tuesday full days. Getting Fidley's voice and public K12 in Minnesota voice and I ordered that the way I did for a reason out there. I want to also acknowledge and state that we have fantastic representatives for the Fidley area. What I think is even better demonstration is we made our voices heard to lawmakers that won't don't want to hear our voice. And we locked in on that. We gave the facts and the data points. We approached it from a nonpartisan viewpoint. It is not in our control how they vote on bills. However, it is in our control that we clearly messaged and I think we brought preparedness, advocacy, data, and we are actually not there on emotion. We're there on facts and numbers. So, I want to start that way and I'll actually end with a statement about that. So, our legislative agenda and I am so hopeful. Um, team, this isn't in the slide deck, but um I'll just talk from it. You've all seen this more than once. I am very hopeful that I can pull these off as we go through. Maybe we'll have some um bills make it through earlier rather than later, such as compensatory. Um so what our first item is compensatory uh absent an adjustment uh bill or the governor's proposal or something um like that Fidley is slated to lose $1.2 million. Some districts are choosing to make budget cuts uh in anticipation of losing that. I refuse to make budget cuts on that. That is money that is a technical issue right now that we are entitled to get. And in fact, the formula when our forms and our direct certification are counted correctly, we are actually because of our increase in enrollment slated to get $200,000 more than that 1.2 million in cut. I do not think it's wise for us to make cuts at this time. Also, if we demonstrate that we are able and willing to cut into bone marrow, not bone, we will never get that money back. So, I stand before you to say the budget that will come forward to you in May will not include cuts to compensatory at this time. However, if something happens and it's firm that we are losing that, which that will not be without a fight, then I will recommend potentially some adjustments, but I'm not budging on that. Secondly, equalization. We have talked this again and again and again. Fidley Public Schools taxpayers run three times around the track for the same amount of money when Minneapolis runs one time around the track. Those of us that attended the staff advocacy day last week, it was awful to see the comps on that and we're going to put that in the update, uh, the superintendent update. We're just having a problem with the format because we don't have an electronic version. However, it is absolutely unacceptable to see where Fidley sits. We're I mean, let's not even talk about Metro because we know where we sit metro. We are one of the biggest losers in the entire state. Um, and that's unacceptable. Something has to be done about that. Tomorrow, Chair Carnup and I are testifying uh to the Ed Finance Committee. Um, we're testifying differently than was testified on by Fidley Public Schools last week on equalization. However, the bill we're testifying on also carries an equalization factor. Um, what we are testifying on tomorrow simply keeps up with inflation. $200 more a student. We're not asking for astronomical things here. We are asking to be funded at a level that creates and sustains fairness in our district and throughout the state of Minnesota. QC comp. I messaged or I happened to say to Governor Walls last week. I said probably not the prof most professional, but I said, "Dude, give me my compad back." I mean, my cucumber back. I did mention compensatory, too. I said, "Dude, give me my cucumber back." So, he's like, I said, "I'm over 700K." So, I had enough said about cucumber, right? um literacy aid. We believe in the mandate around literacy. We believe in that. Our Fidley students are not reading at grade level. They aren't right. You heard about that tonight. The efforts that we're working just fund the mandate. So, we're asking for that to be fully funded. Also, there's an introduction that there's not a lot of details on around poverty indexing that could benefit Fidley public schools. However, we saw for compensatory education, were one of the poorest districts in the state and it did not benefit us. So, I am very concerned about poverty indexing and there's no runs out of MDE yet on that unemployment. We believe in our um non-year round employees that are eligible parah educators, student nutrition services. If we had bus drivers employed through us, bus drivers, we believe in them getting unemployment that sustains a healthy workforce for us. Uh our funding for that ends after this summer. We also do not have the ability to levy for that under current law. And I would lobby that we should not levy for that because of our already problematic low tax base. We just need unemployment to be fully funded as it was meant to be. Formula allowance. Um we're asking for 3% each year formula enhancement. Special education transportation. There's a call for a 5% reduction in transportation. Uh special education transportation reimbursement for our districts. That's for our district that's 66,000 and rising. Special education cross subsidy. The federal government is supposed to fund us at 40% by us I mean all school districts in the nation. We're funded at um 12% on that. Uh state of Minnesota is trying uh to do their best. we still pick up uh about 20% of the cost of legally required and um morally justified uh services. That's nearly $2.6 million. The one non-fiscal item is around school board elections um moving to uh solely eveners that impacts Fidley. So, we are um simply asking for boards to retain the ability to uh locally decide on their election. Before I open this up to board members to comment on uh the lobbying efforts, I have a statement that I'd like to read. I first want to state thank the board for your steadfast advocacy on behalf of our students, staff, and families. Your commitment to ensuring that every child receives a highquality education regardless of their background is what makes our district strong. In times when public education is under scrutiny and in some cases under attack, your leadership matters more than ever. As we heard in the governor's recent remarks at Fidley, the challenges facing public schools are not abstract. They are real. And the impact they impact the daily lives of our students and educators. Here in Fidley, we serve a beautifully diverse student body, many of whom navigate economic and systematic ba barriers. We don't just teach our students. We provide critical supports, you heard this, academic, social, and emotional to ensure every student has a pathway to success every single day. Our ability to meet these needs is directly tied to funding. State and federal dollars support everything from academic intervention to special ed services, career pathway programs, and professional development for our teachers. These resources are not excess. They are essential. Yet time and again, we see efforts to cut or undermine this support, placing the burden on local districts to do more with less. This is unacceptable. Our students deserve better, and we are doing more with less. Public education is not a partisan issue. It is a fun uh fundamental right. And while we will always seek solutions and adapt to challenges, we cannot remain silent when the future of our schools is at stake. We must continue to advocate for fair funding, for policies that uplift rather than restrict, and for the recognition that investing in our students and is is an investment in our collective future. I am proud of our board, our educators, and our Fidley community for standing firm in this belief. Together, we will ensure that every child who walks through our doors is met with opportunity, support, and the promise of a bright future. I will not be quiet, and I will ask you all to not be quiet. Chair, I try to follow that, my friend. So anyways, no Doc Dr. Lewis, thank you for your leadership not only in Fidley, but to be quite frank in the state of Minnesota. I do not see many superintendents putting the effort legislatively that you are doing in the state of Minnesota. So, thank you for that uh leadership. Thanks for pushing us to get involved. And to my colleagues on the board, thank you for the work that we've already done. uh it's certainly not over and look forward to pushing that agenda. So, thank you. Thank you board. We'll open it up to anyone that participated or wants to weigh in on last week and our lobbying efforts. It was definitely time and energy well invested. It was even, you know, having the conversation, answering questions, providing information, making it tangible, making it real about the students and the districts being affected. Um, my appreciation to the administration, the staff here for uh arranging it and helping us all do that. Thank you. I appreciate the uh encouragement to not be quiet since I'm typically so quiet about things. Um and I just appreciate the freedom that when I'm at the legislature and I'm testifying on other things that I'm able to weave in schools, right? So like right now we're advocating that if data centers are coming to Minnesota, they should be taxed fairly. the fact that they're walking away with between 115 to $250 million a year without paying taxes. I'm able to then loop that in and talk about the reason we have to tax them is because the schools are struggling. One data center being taxed would cover the entire state funding that we're looking for. And so I just appreciate that freedom that while I'm doing my day job, I'm able to be like, "Hey, the environment also cares about schools." So I appreciate that. Anybody else? I would just um like to express gratitude to our representatives and our local representatives, but also the other representatives that we were able to meet with throughout the state that they were willing to share their time with us and um in multiple different ways. We met with several of them multiple times. So we really do appreciate that. Awesome. All right, move on. Last slide of the soup update. This is two hours, so thank you for that. This is the first agenda item, but we will we'll pick up speed here, team. Um, I would like to um ask board members to uh give any updates that they have on various committees and boards that they serve on. Great. I have 9:16. Um so in our March meeting this month um we uh just a start with their important calendar dates. Um there were many 916 representatives that were at the lobbying dates additionally but um very relevant to our board is that they are doing board tours. If anybody wants to come with me on any of the board tours, I will be at each of them at each of their facilities. And we have Fley students um that Fley is home district at each of the sites that are left to tour. So, if anybody wants to come with me, I would love to bring you with me um and get to go see these spaces. The one that is very close to us is North um Heights Academy or excuse me, Metro Heights Academy. I'm so sorry. Metro Heights Academy. and their tour is on April 16th at 8:00 a.m. It is just off of University across from the city campus. So, if anybody wants to come with me, let me know and that would be fantastic. Um, we received in our superintendent update from 9:16 a presentation on least restrictive environment and for our special ed students, how they are working to make sure that their system is um, aligned and supporting students returning back to their home districts when their goals are met and when that is the most appropriate setting for them. Um so they shared with us what that system is looking like and how they are um collecting data, tracking data, flagging when students are potentially at that point and then what that looks like in alignment through the systems and the connection between the 916 district and their home districts and making sure that that's standardized throughout all of the districts. I heard that in our district, we meet each year um around each of our students in our special eds department and that there's a point to evaluate each of their goals and skills and make sure that they're still in the most appropriate fit and that transitions don't need to happen yet or transitions do need to happen and that that can be planned and prepared and um that we have the right fit for each of our students to be getting the education that they deserve and are required to have. Um, we also talked through or our finance director also um presented their budget assumptions to us and I just wanted to share those with you really quick. So from 9:16 as they're preparing their budget um they had six assumptions that they proposed to the board and that the board approved. The first one was that the salaries and benefits would be budgeted to reflect the negotiated contracts that were already done and that the budgets would then the budget would then be set for any open contracts based on the board's um parameters that they set. The second assumption was on prior level of revenues and expenditures will be maintained in their certain funds um to achieve fund balance targets uh that the board sets and that the projected the actual and projected variances will um impact the determination on final operating budgets and membership rates and tuition rates once those assumptions are all laid out here. Um the third was that the district will budget a preliminary membership fee of $25 per adjusted pupil unit and that that will be finalized as the um budgets are final but that they will continue to um maintain their target fund balance. they are not able to levy in the same way that we are um as they don't have property in their district and so their fund balance management looks a little different than ours does. Um districts the fourth assumption is that districts will provide a set of career and teched programs on behalf of the member districts. Career and teched program costs will be calculated on average um on an average slot basis and uniformly charged to member districts. The district will budget a preliminary slot fee of $21 for regular education students and $24 for special education students and those will be um based on maintaining their targeted fund balance as the um budget is finalized. Fifth is that all special ed tuition rates will be calculated um by MDE's by MDE the department of ed the revenues and will be projected to match the expenditures and special ed funds. And the last one is that districts will the district 916 will establish a fee for non-member stu school districts to access their programs. The district will budget um $25 per hour for non-member districts to be receiving their services. And that is my report from 9:16 this past month. Thanks, sir. Thursday. Okay. And I do not have a AMSD report. Sounds good. I am the superintendent rep for tomorrow night for Northwest Suburban. Is that No, not me anymore. Who's Northwest Suburban? Avana, I'm sorry. We made Do we meet Thursday? Thursday. Okay, perfect. I will adjust that on my calendar. Thank you. Um, so we will be there together virtually. Um the next item that Oh, I'm done with my superintendent report. Chair Carnop, I jumped ahead here. Okay, so now we're on to business action items. Yep. All righty. Um so with that, looking at the agenda, I would entertain a motion to accept the Frley Public Schools health insurance bids for 2025 through 26. So I have a motion by Stark. Do I have a second? Second by Anna. Uh, all those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes. Next up, I would entertain a motion for the approval of the Fidley Middle School cooler replacement bid. So moved. Motion by Jones. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Anna. Um, again, all those in favor, please signify by saying I. All those opposed? Motion passes. Um, next up we have I would entertain a motion for the second reading and adoption of policies specific to policies 522 and 524. Do I have a motion? So moved. Motion by Mr. Meisner. Do I have a second? Second. Second by Keeler. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. All those opposed. Motion passes. Um, next up, I would entertain a motion for the approval of our student school board representative stipen. um in the amount of $750 per year. Do I have a motion? So move. We'll go a motion by Jones. Do I have a second? Second. We'll go a second by Keeler. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those posts. Awesome. Good work there. 100%. Well deserved. Um next up on the business items, I have just a consent agenda. Uh the chair would entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda which discusses the meeting minutes of the February 18th meeting, new contracts, amendments, lane changes, leaves of absences, resignations, terminations, and our monthly financial reports. Do I have a motion? I have a motion by Stark. Do I have a second? Second by Anna. All those in favor signify by saying I. I. All those opposed. Motion passes. And next up, we've got our important dates that have been slightly amended. Um, we have the Fidley Middle School Musical, um, which will be featuring High School Musical Junior, March 20th through the 21st at 7:00 p.m. and March 22nd at 2 p.m. at the district auditorium. Uh, there will be no school on March 28th for evaluation and planning. And then of course we have no school for spring break March 31st through April 4th. On April 7th at Hayes we have the Hayes Better Together family meeting at 5:00. Obviously at the Hayes Elementary uh school. On April 10th at 7:00 at the district auditorium we have the Fidley High School spring concert with all Fley High School bands and choirs. Ourly um free family movie night, the movie Flow will be on April 11th at 7:00 at the district auditorium. And we have an American Indian Powow scheduled for April 2nd from 1 to 3:00 at Champlain Park High School Fieldhouse. And our next board meeting will be on April 15th here at the Fley Community Center. Work session at 5:30, public comment at 7:00, and a business meeting at 7:30. And I'd also note that Dr. Lewis will be having a discussion at this freely city council meeting coming up here on March um 24th and I believe the comments will be at 7 o'clock. So looking forward to that. With that um unless I missed any dates uh I would entertain a motion to adjurnn. So move motion by Stark. Do I have a second? Second. All those in favor signify by saying I. I opposed. And the marathon ends at 9:26. Thank you everybody.