- Good evening. I now call this meetingof the School Board of Independent SchoolDistrict 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll? (indistinct talking) - You can look at our name tags. - I think she got tomake sure she records it. All right. - Ellison.- Here. - Skaar.- Here. - Streiff Oji here. Thompson?- Here. - Arcand?- Here. - All right, the firstitem, discussion item B1, overview of back to school events. We're now back to school. Dr. K, yeah. - I was going to ask, can we, this is a work session anda little bit more informal. I got two requests, one for tonight. Can we talk about theconstitutional amendment on school funding? Just have a brief discussion on it. I don't know why she'sshaking her head no, but- - I could explain, Mr. Chair.- Yeah, go ahead. - I'm not prepared totalk about that tonight. I haven't had time tolook at the information and I would much ratherhave time to prepare so I could make an intelligent decision and conversation about it. - What about the other people that have, board members that have prepared- - There was no notification that we would be talking about it, and I would prefer not toput anybody in a situation where they weren't prepared. - Dr. K, we're planning to have that on the September work session agenda. - Okay.- Thank you. - Is that the work sessionor the public session? - Work session.- Why not have it on the public session? - Point of order, all sessions are public. - No, I'm talking aboutthe public meetings. - It's a public meeting on-- Public comment. - It's a public meeting on September 28th and that's when it'sgoing to be discussed. - But there are no publiccomments there, right? - Correct.- Yeah. So why don't we have it on a meeting where we get the benefitof public comments? - Can I, Mr. Chair? - Okay, we're going to need to move on. - Yes, but I just want to say that, so all meetings are public, and public comment is simply a way, like sending an email to the board for people to shareinformation with the board. It doesn't have any bearing necessarily on whether or not on the things that we discuss in a meeting. And I'm not finished.- Okay. - And because all meetingsare open to the public, we can't call the businessmeeting, which is what that is, is our meeting in public is any different fromthe work study in access. And people have access toemail us at any point in time and share their comments. And so, I would prefer thatwe had a chance to discuss it and then people can sendus comments afterward. - Well, I think all of our meetings serve the public interest andwe should allow them to speak and we should listen to them and have a dialogue with them. I don't separate board work with the work that we do for the community. It's the same. - Okay can I just bring us back? Because we don't havea motion on the table and we have an agenda item. We haven't changed our agenda. - We have shared the protocol for adding items to theagenda, is that correct? Have we gone over that?- Yes. - Multiple times, okay, all right. And it's not right before a meeting where we have not had time to prepare. I have learned a lot aboutthe constitutional change and it's not on the agenda and there is a way toadd things to the agenda so that everyone is prepared. And I appreciate that andevery meeting is public. - Chair, I'd like to respond.- No. - We don't have anything in front of us. - I've made 11 requests via email. - Thank you. - None of them have been honored. I've made 19 requests to add agenda items at this meeting. Zero have been honored, zero. - Okay, thank you. So if we could get backto the agenda at hand? - I have another item that I'd like to- - Yes, sir, do you want tomake a motion to add something? - Yes.- Okay, please make a motion. - This would be for the public,the next public meeting. - I'm a little bit confused. When you say public meeting, I thought all meetings were public. - I'm talking about, I make a distinctionbetween the working session, which does not include public comment versus a public meeting,which includes public comment. - Okay.- So what I'd like for the board to consider isat the next public meeting where there is public comment that we discuss thewhistleblowing statute related to school safety. - Okay, so you want to put that. We'll look into that. I don't think it's not calledthe whistleblowing statute. I'm not sure what it's called, but I know that we'll look into it. Thank you.- Thank you. - All right, can we geton to discussion item B1, back to school? - All right, thank you, ChairArcand, members of the board. So tonight I'm goingto provide an overview of some back to school events. When we come back in September, we'll have a more detailedopening school report, but tonight I'll justprovide a brief update of some of the activities here as we enter the new school year. So as we gear up for this new school year, our back to school pageis live on the website, which recently got a new look. The page is a one-stop resource for everything families needfrom school supply lists to annual family update links. And we've streamlined it toensure it's easy to navigate so parents and students can quickly find the information they need. Each school is sending out tailored communications to families. These updates include important details, like classroom assignments, key dates, and any school specific procedures. That's our goal to makesure everyone feels informed and prepared for the first day. Back to school events hosted by each school are a great opportunity for students and parents to meet teachers, tour the school and connectwith other families. It's all about building a strong sense of community right from the start. Our enrollment process is running smoothly and we are still seeing newstudents joining our district. For those who haven't yet enrolled, there's still time to do so. We're here to supportfamilies every step of the way to ensure a seamless transitioninto the school year. We're actively hiring tofill remaining positions across our schools. If you know anyone interestedin joining a dynamic and supportive educational environment, please encourage them to apply. We're looking for passionate individuals who are eager to make a difference. And this morning's convocationwas a special moment for us to come together as a district, set our intentions for the year and celebrate the incredible work we do. It's always a highlight welook forward to each year. And thank you, Lily, you're one of the student performersthis year, so thank you. Construction crews are working to complete projects at buildingsthroughout the district, so we're ready to go for the school year. Thank you to the crews for your work in crossing the finish line, whether the project was alarger building our future bond referendum project or asmaller summertime project. Homecoming is always ahighlight of the school year and this year's celebrations include a fantastic lineup of events. On October 9th, we'llhave our homecoming parade at 4:30 in downtown White Bear Lake, followed by the big football game against Stillwater at 7:00 PM. These events are a greatway to show our Bear pride and come together as a community. And to close out the week, the homecoming dance willhappen on October 10th in the high school union. And as part of the homecoming festivities, we also have a community open house here at Sunrise Park on October 7th. Attendees will have an opportunity to check out the community hub that now houses fourimportant district programs, early childhood center,transition education center, senior center and district service center. So we're prepped andready to go for 26-27. We look forward to welcoming K through 12 plus students back next week and for our early childhood programs to begin starting September 8th. - Thank you.- Thank you. - If I could add and remind people that many of our young men and women are representing the Bears this week. They'll start their season, whether it's on the volleyball court or the soccer field or cross country. I apologize if I missed a sport, but in football we'llstart, I believe next week. This is their week of beingable to hit with pads on and then next week they'llstart their journey. So a lot of things are happening and let's get out andsupport our Bears, thank you. All right, with that, I'm going to move on to discussion B2. Yes.- Are you taking questions? - Sure, what was your question? - On our preparations for this year and each year, do we do, internally, do we do, like a security assessmentof each facility or any security training like that for our staff every year? - Tim, do you want to touch base on that? - So you can answer that question. - Sure, I could. - I answered, go ahead. - The district's safetyand security training is conducted by building principals along with Kevin Klecker, our safety and security coordinator, and they occur at different touch points throughout the year. And at the beginning of the year, the building level provides training and then throughout the year, Mr. Klecker works with building principals and teams around theirbuilding plans for safety. - So Tim, do we do periodic perimeter checks on the doors, whether they're secured or not? - Yeah, yep. At the buildings, they're checking doors and exit points and entrance points to make sure they'relocked throughout the day. - Throughout the day, thank you. - You done?- Yeah, thank you. - And thank you. And thank you, Dr. K forusing your staff like this. It's the appropriateway to go, so thank you. We're going to go to technology update, Dr. Gillespie, Ms. Herder. - Good evening, ChairArcand, members of the board. I want to introduce Susan Herder, our director of technology and innovation will provide our technologyupdate for tonight and then we'll both be availablefor questions afterwards. - Chair Arcand, Dr.Kazmierczak, and board members, thank you for the opportunity to talk about instructionaltechnology in the district. Tonight, the focus willbe on the intentional and structured use of technology, which is when we are using it for a clear purpose alongsideour in-person experiences and to help develop specific skills. When we're doing that, we're leveraging technology for education. So this is the focus for tonight. As a reminder, currenttechnology and learning spaces includes interactive boards and monitors. There could be one, therecould be multiple in the room. There's also wired andwireless connections to the monitors for all of the teachers and actually students can also wire into those devices for group work. It works with all oftheir student devices, and new and renovated spacesalso have audio amplification to help all studentsbe able to hear better. As you know, the back of the room can often be a littlebit challenging to hear. The picture you see thereis actually from one of our new early childhoodspaces here at Sunrise Park. And if you go into one of those rooms, you'll notice that the monitoris at a much lower level than you think it would be normally. So we have a standard thatwe're using to make sure that the video isaccessible to all students at an appropriate heightand this would actually be the height I would have preferred when I was teaching middle school because I could reach the top of it. Our student technology differs by level. Our elementary students have Chromebooks that are stored incarts in the classrooms. The secondary studentshave similar Chromebooks that are in a take home model. In both cases, they'reused at the discretion of the teachers. The educators determine when they're out, when they're being used, andalso they're used in support of all of our core instructional tools. Keep in mind also that thereare students who have needs, and assistive technologyis also available to them. And assistive technologyhas changed quite a bit in the last few years, asI'm sure Lisa can tell you. So a lot of times it willlook just like a device that they're carrying anyway and it will have speechto text, text to speech, communication boards, everythingcan be included in that. So we want to make surewe're providing that to our students as well. Filtering is done on allstudents' counts and devices, so both on and off campus. So for our students who are taking home their devices in the secondary levels, that filtering works off campus as well. So they are receiving access to materials required by level. Also, we filter required by law, but it's actually a littlebit stronger than that. And as part of our workwith curriculum materials, we review applications usedby students on a regular basis for both learning and instruction and also any changes in third party data privacy agreements as required by the Minnesota Student Data Privacy Act. So we are keeping a close eye on those. The act requires all school districts to provide informationon online curriculum, instructional and assessment tools. We have a sample there. And we have partneredwith our filtering company to provide a new portal. As you may have seen in previous years, it was a spreadsheet that wasa little awkward to manage. We now have a searchable databasethat provides information. In this case, the sample thatwe've put here is Clever, which our younger studentsuse to help them log in because they can use a QR code, but it also helps us onthe back end to roster all of the courses with theirappropriate materials. And so additional information is provided. There's a description. You also have the linkto the privacy policy and the terms of service. There are some additionalinformation there around what type of tool it is, what grade level it's being used. This is a searchable databaseby site and grade level. Also, there's a third party called 1EdTech that does a lot of workaround student privacy. It's an independent organizationthat takes a look at that. So you can see how they've rated this particular app when itcomes to data collection, security, third partydata and advertising. Recently, what's been popularin the news is screen time. So I wanted to againprovide some screen time, some background on screen time. And I want to be specificabout the type of screen time that we're discussing today. The Blaschke Report was put out by the Consortium of School Networking, also known as CoSN. It's a tech leaders organization,national organization. So what we'll be doingis looking at ed tech. So that's, again, addressingthe instructional core, teaching specific knowledge and skills, aligning with our currentstructure and systems, filling specific learning needs, and then supportingeducators and students. Additionally, you canlook at entertainment, technology, tablets, televisions, things that might havean impact on students before they even get a cell phone. And then social media and cell phones, items that are used toincentivize engagement and to keep students coming back to it, which as you can imagine would pose a significant distraction. After I prepared thispresentation for you last week, the US Department of Educationcame out with some guidance on screen time and onartificial intelligence, and this falls in linewith their discussion. They call it, they classify technology as instructional versus recreational. So we would say the edtech is instructional while the other two are recreational. It's a very similar definition. The National Parents Union recently did a survey, and 74% of parents say their school's use of technology is about right. 1% only want an outright ban. So we want to be really aware that as we're using technologytools with intention that most parents really want them to have that experience that they realize that this will have animpact on their future. So what we'll do for this year is focus on collectingsome average screen time on their devices bygrade level and by sight. And this will happenthrough our filtering. We did do an initial proofof concept study with them, but it was from the lastpart of the school year. The data was encouraging, but we don't want to relyon the last several weeks of school to have any idea of what's going on during the year. So we will continue to do that. And as the Department of Education and also as a group, we don't want to use just screen time as any kind of measure of how our students are doing with technology. So we'll be taking a lookat the digital resources in support of teaching and learning, what came with our core resources, plus what are some other tools. We also want to be really aware of where we're overlappingsome of these tools because, as we know, parentsmay have multiple students in our district and thatgets to be a lot of tools that they're trying tohelp their students with if we start replicating some of these. Additionally, we'll berolling out a parent portal that will provide some additionaltransparency for parents, especially those parents who have students who are bringing their devices home to look at time on devicesas well as some of the items that their students might be researching. And again, as I said,we're looking at more than just how much are they on computers. So one of the things we will also look at is what does our mediacenter use look like? So this is out of Destiny, our district library ofcirculation by sight. So as you can see, we still have many, many students reading lots of books. We're looking at anywhere from 10,000 to 20,000 checkouts in one school year, not including the classroom libraries that are also available to our students. So we continue to take a lookat other resources as well. We'll look at printing,we'll look at this, we'll look at other consumption as needed. Another topic that continues to be discussed isartificial intelligence. So I just wanted to update you on a few things that we have happening. We currently have 10 educators who are participating ina pilot group directly with Google on using Gemini to create efficiencies in their work. And this is sponsored by Google and they've actually justannounced that they would like to expand and asked us for more educators who might like to participate. And our ELA educators at the high school have been working with Disa Fabeck, who's our ed tech coordinator on how AI might be used in their work, supporting the teaching of writing. Again, that NationalParents Union survey says basically that they want schools to disclose when AI is used. They also wanted teachers toteach students to use AI well, and to say they say thatAI skills are important to their child's future career. This is not going away, so we need to make sure we'repreparing students for this. So in order to do that, we're going to convenea group of students, parents, educators and administrators to guide the developmentof procedures and protocols on using artificialintelligence in the classroom. So we'll come back in October, October to discuss policy around AI and then we'll convene this group to start discussing whatdoes that actually look like. We will also continueto provide opportunities for staff to learn more about how AI can be used to support their work. And we'll work closelywith the education union, the educators union to create some more of those opportunities as we can and to really embed them intothe work that they're doing. And as a reminder, today'sstudents are going to graduate into a world where it's justgoing to continue to change. AI is constantly changing. It's going to touch everyaspect of their life, computers, data literacy, all of that. And these tools can helpstudents build critical skills. So we want to be surethat we're preparing them for this increasingly digital world and very quickly changing digital world in support of our strategic plan. Okay. - Thank you.- Thank you. - I have one question. I want to make sure Iheard this correctly. So you're going to be looking at doing, is it a policy for AIor how are we going to. Because I'm asking is when youkind of get the information, are you going to send itto the policy committee? - Mm-hmm.- Okay, that's what I want to. - Yes.- I didn't know the path that was going to go. - Yeah, there's a few policies. I don't remember the exact numbers, but they're around acceptable use AI, and then also some cell phone clarity. So our goal is to have them ready for policy committee in October. - Okay, that's what I was wondering. Other questions? Ms. Streiff Oji? - So I have a question on, you said looking at screentime by grade level, and did you say you looked at it last year at the end of the year, but you don't want touse that year end data, so this will be the baseline this year? - This year will be the baseline. - Okay.- The end of the year data was very encouraging,but we also recognize it was the end of the year. And so testing can impact that. There's any number of issues that can. So we would rather get a baseline over the course of the entire year. - And then I'm wondering, I just remember, and I see classes that usedifferent platforms that show, give them data. Are we looking at any of that data and the impact of whateverplatform that they're using and its impact on our student achievement? - That's a place of growth for us, an area of growth for sure. And that's one of thethings we definitely want to look at moving forward is, is it having an impact on student growth in their common assessments as well as on other measures that we have. - And then last question, is there an acceptable use platforms for each grade level or not? Or will that be partof kind of calibrating what tools are used atdifferent grade levels and for what or is- - There's one acceptableuse policy for students, one for staff, but as weevaluate those digital tools, we look at all of those pieces. So this new tool that wehave to share that data might include things like an application or a resource that'sappropriate for high school, but not appropriatefor elementary students or not appropriate formiddle school students. All of that will be noted in there. So the general acceptable use is all, it's the same for allstudents that we're providing, but the individual instances for each individualresource can be different. - And I just am thinkingif there's a teacher using a platform that's moving kids in a good way towardshigh academic achievement in a specific area,especially around literacy, if there's a way to capture that. - Yeah, and we've worked really hard to streamline all of those things. So we have a process that if someone wantsto use an application, they need to submit itto teaching and learning because we want to make sure it's aligned with our guaranteed viable curriculum. And so we do have tools and we're working very closely. This year we'll have a new math curriculum and we'll be able to track data with that. Jen would be able tobetter speak specifically, but we have a process becausewe don't want to have people, there's multiple reasonswhy you wouldn't want to have different individualplatforms with teachers and it allows us tomake sure this database is up to date and families canaccess the specific privacy for whatever applicationsthey're looking at. - Perfect, thank you.- Other questions, yes. - So I think it's great seeingall of the library reports, but I do have a question. Are you guys tracking the difference between books that arechecked out for classes and books that are checked outfor, like, just fun reading? - That's a great question. We'll have to dive into it for you. I don't know off the top of my head. - Okay, I just think thatwould be really interesting to know and to see which schools are promoting more of that excitement around just reading in general. - Yeah, we'll see what we can track if we're not tracking it. Yeah, okay. - Other questions? Mr. Skaar?- Thank you. For the student liaison, that was a good insightfulquestion, thank you. Can we get the person's name instead of just studentliaison maybe next time, so that we know the person that's, because it changes from time to time. But anyways, questions. So I was on a call where MSBA introduced their AI policy and they said it was just a start. Obviously more not detailed is what you're envisioningfor these procedures that you're going to present in October going to be more detailed and is staff going to preparesomething for people to review as opposed to just doinga blank sheet of paper? - So what we're envisioning right now, but that's why we needsome time to work through, is really because AI changes rapidly, is having less detail in the policy, but are more administrativeguidelines to help us so that we can be morenimble and respond to that. It doesn't mean we bring those to policy committee when we have them. And then there's various policies where it's still posted online, but, yeah, they go throughthe same policy practice that you'll have two reads of them. - Okay, that sounds like a good approach. On metrics and screen, do you have metrics around screen time? We had a public... During a public meetingwith public comments, we had a commenter talking about having their student, I think it was a secondgrader or third grader, having access to YouTube and a lot of parents don't want them to have access to YouTube. Do we have metrics or monitoringscreen time by students so that we know if they're on YouTube and what they're watching? - Our filtering does have the ability to capture student screensand what they're looking at. The teachers have an option to do that. I will say that YouTubeis highly filtered, especially for elementary, but we do allow someof those videos through because they're instructional. So there are some companiesthat actually use YouTube as their means of providingsome of those videos. The tool that we will roll out will give them some additional guidance, but I will say the amount of time we've seen so far hasbeen very encouraging. I know it's been under 45 minutes a day typically for elementary. It's very low for elementary. - So do we provide the filtering routines and our approach tofiltering to the parents so that they understand that? - I believe we have. I don't know that we'vecommunicated it as well as we could, but I think by rolling out this new parent information portal, they can get more insights into what their students are doing online. - Can there be like a button where it says our filtering approach is this so that they know right off the bat? That would be helpful, I think.- Yeah. - The other thing is using Gemini versus, I mean, it sounds likewe're captive with Google as opposed to ChatGPT or Claude or some of the other tools. It seems like each industry is going towards one. So I mean, why Gemini andare we captive with Google because they're providingthis free service when there might be something much better for educators and school districts? - Currently, we're using Gemini because it provides usthe ability to use AI without having any ofour information be used for training their AI. So anything that is put in... I still do not recommend putting in any personal information into an AI. Just want to be very clearabout that or any student data. But as you're using AI, if you're using it withinyour ISD 64 account, Google does not use any of that data to train their AI externally. So we're not sending anyof that data back to them, but it can pull in that information. So it's a little more of a guardrail for us at this point. - So is the fact that Geminiis integrated to Google and we're a Google district, it would be very difficultto switch to something else. Is that true?- I don't think that's true because the power of AI isreally around the prompting. It's still the human that's first. And so, if you learn to prompt an AI well, that can be carried over to any other tool that's out there. - Okay, thank you. And then on the use of AI, I've given this a little bit of thought, so I'm just going to give you, and then I have just a questionoff the top of your heads. But when we look at the metrics around AI, what we would measure forimproving our district, it would be like improving quality, improving curriculum quality would be a really good metric or KPI. I think we use the term metrics here. Improving speed of deliverywould be another one. And then reducing costs. If we leverage AI right, weshould get better quality, we should improve our speedand we should reduce our costs. I think as we implementthat to develop metrics around those three elements,there might be other ones, but that's kind of what my thinking was. - Can I ask what do youmean by reduce our costs? Like curriculum costs orwhat are you referring to? - Yeah, reducing costs. Yes, reducing curriculum costs, reducing costs within the classroom, reducing, you know, if you increase speed, typically you reduce costs as well. - Got it, I just wanted to clarify. - You know, it should costless to develop curriculum and it should be faster and higher. It should be better quality, I think. That's what I'm thinking. I mean, that's my thesis on that. - I would disagree on some of that. I think AI can be used in partnership, but really the lens isthrough the professionals that develop that aligningwith state standards. Developing curriculum isextremely complicated. And so, I just don't want tounintentionally oversimplify that AI could replace something that's a pretty in-depthprocess that we do with a lot of wonderful professionals. - Yeah, I also don't think we tend to over complicate things as well. So we have both of the spectrums that we tend to drift towards. So I think keeping an open mind on how it can be used to increase speed, improve quality and lower costs, we need to do that. The other thing is my opinion, you know? I've given you my feedback on that. The other one is, I thinkI read in your presentation to teach our kids how to use AI. That would be like when my kids used to try to teach me howto use, you know, Xbox, I couldn't do it. They're way ahead of me on this. So one of the things I think about is, especially for teachers and maybe for some of our older students in high school are the ethics around using AI and what's ethical behavior and what's ethical usage of AI versus where you're maybestraddling a line there. So, thank you. Oh, when is the typical age that a student has a cell phone? Is it sixth grade, seventhgrade, fifth grade, off the top of your head? - I would say it's gettingyounger and younger. - It is. - But I think themajority by middle school, perhaps people who'vehad kids in middle school might know better than I do, but for sure in middle,I would say sixth grade is when we see, yeah.- Sixth grade, thank you. I need the advice. - Also keep in mind thata recent study showed that 50% of two year oldshave a dedicated tablet. - Yeah, tell me aboutit, I understand that. And they tend to reprogrammy wife's phone as well, and then I'm stuck figuring it out. Thank you. - I'm going to ask a questionand I'm going to go with that. I think you guys have it. I'm just curious whenwe talk about Gemini, the issue comes up with hallucinations and how are they getting andpreventing the hallucinations because that's the danger when you use AI. - I think that's oneof the critical skills we need to teach is howdo you judge the responses as they come through. One of the things that I would hope that we would want to move forward with is around those critical thinking skills. I think that's really thekey to this whole piece is that students need to understand that whatever they getback, or anybody actually, whatever they get back,they need to verify because we know that AI makes up case law, it makes up all sorts of things, and so we can't takeit just at face value. - And AI can't think it can only go out and grab data and pull it together. And so, if there's something out there that's not exactly correct, it may not know that. So that's my comment. - And the hallucinations onthe hallucinations is too, because once it's outthere, it's out there. - Yeah, okay. Ms. Ellison?- Yes. It's interesting, I had neverconsidered the use of AI to write curriculum and someonewho's written curriculum, I would be strongly against moving in that direction in the future. It needs humanity andit needs the expertise of people who have studied these things. Writing curriculum is incredibly complex, and so I hope that thatis not the direction that we are headed. AI is here, like you said. We have to learn how to live with it, but we also need toremember that the humans are the ones making the decisions, especially in such a human-focused field. I'll be really interestedto see those policies and the procedures in particularbecause Dr. Gillespie, what you said ringstrue that it's changing so fast and we need to have that ability to be nimble with our procedures. - I just want to... We don't always maybe, we'regetting really a lot better, but we're collaborating with a lot of different districts around this too. And Susan's very connected toother directors of technology because I think it is sucha complex opportunity, but also with its concernsthat we want to work together. So we will absolutely havesomething to bring to you and then we'll be able to talk through what other districts are doing as well. - Great, question about the filters. So based on what my children cannot access on their Chromebooks, that makes them really mad. I think it's doing a good job because there's a lot of things that they cannot accesson their Chromebooks. And so I appreciate that, and have for the last several years. Does the filter prevent students from using things like ChatGPT and Claude? - Currently, it does.- Okay. - So that's part of the discussion and it does create a haveand have not situation for students who have their own devices, although most of them have phones and we can't block iton phones obviously, so. - So now I'm thinking about their phones in the buildings and I understand that we have a cell phone policy and kids are not supposed tohave their phones in class, but when they're in the halls,what are the filters in place for the phones in non-classroom spaces? - If they're going through our internet, they are more filtered, I should say, than they would get on oursecure network on their device. So it's more of anelementary level filter. It's very basic. If they turn that, notto give any suggestions, but if they turn it off- - They're clever, I mean, they know how to work the technology. - If they turn off their Wi-Fi access and they're just going through 5G, it's basically whateverthey can get access to. It's whatever is setup through their phone. It's an independent connection, although I hear thatthere are some dead areas in the high school, sothat might help a little. - Thank you, and then another question about cell phone use. I know that we put inplace a policy a couple of years ago limiting cell phone use, and there was a whole lot of conversation with parents, with students. There were surveys thatwent out to educators. There was a lot of conversation. And I work with districts andteachers all over the country and there are a lot of folks moving to a complete cell phone ban. Just wondering what is happening in Minnesota that you know of, of surrounding districts ifyou have that information or if that's even in therealm of what we're thinking? - It's definitely aconversation around Minnesota. We, I think, really feel goodabout what we've had in place. What I want to do before webring that updated policy, because what we've done thus far is had it embedded in ouracceptable use policy. Now there's a model policy fromMSBA that separates it out. So deciding whether we'll work with Matt and kind of figuring out what we need and then I'll revisitit with administrators. I think it's a balance. When we worked with parents, absolutely people wanted us to limit it. They also really wantedtheir kids to have access to phones in particular forkids who maybe are more anxious or families when you thinkabout security and things. I'll be curious, I haveto get more feedback from the principals, butevery time I bring it up, they really feel like theway we have it is working and we absolutely cansee less distractions. So we'll see and bring it to you. And then that policy, we have room still. It's not like an out andout across the board yet that we have it bell to bell. - This is really hard work, thank you, because it changes every five seconds. So thank you for your work. - Other questions? - Yes. I mean, I guess maybemore comments than anything, but I'm not sure what faster means, but educating students takes time and care and I wouldn't want us to rush it. I think AI is definitely here. It's not going anywhere. I'm very appreciativethat we are taking steps to ensure that the students accessing AI are only accessing AI thatwill be a tool in the classroom and not a tool that will help them write their paper completely for them, right? This is something I'vebeen thinking about. How are we ensuring that our students are doing the work still and not using AI to not do the work? Because that scares me to have students not digging into the work, which we really want them to do. We want them to use theircritical thinking skills. We want them to think about things. We want them to try to do research and understand what they're being taught and to really dig intothat so they can learn. And it's a little terrifying for me where we're going with AI. So I appreciate taking time to consider how we're going to do this. I guess my question wouldbe around the parent group that we're going to bring together with students and parent, have we started that or thatsomething we're going to start before we bringrecommendations in October? - I was thinking after we bring the recommendations inOctober around the policy because then we can saywe have this in place. We can start looking atwhat are those procedures that can help us meet thelanguage in that policy. - Great, and then I guessit's like a suggestion maybe. As we're looking at policies, I'm no longer on the policy committee, but when we start to talk about policies around cell phone use for our students in classrooms when we wantthem to be paying attention to what they're being presented with, I would say that us adultsthat are sitting here at a school board meetingalso need to make sure that our cell phones are not something that we are looking at or doing things on while we're sitting uphere and we're supposed to be paying attention to the presentation and the information we're being provided. In the past, we had been asked to turn our phones offwhen we're at meetings because it kind ofinterfered with the tech back in the old building that we were in. And I'm grateful we havebetter technology today, but I still think that it is something that maybe board members should not have their phones out when we're up here. Unless you have an emergency and somebody's going to call you because something is happening and you need to be readyto head out of here. Sometimes we have family emergencies and things that we're waiting to hear, like did something happen? Do we need to get somewhere? But even then we couldmake sure that Rachel has that information andRachel could let us know so-and-so has called and youneed to leave the meeting because I think our cell phonesup here should not be used while we're sitting hereat this table listening to you all present to us. So thank you so much. - Okay.- Just a couple of comments. The ship's alreadysailed on this AI stuff. I mean, it was brought up, Ithink a year and a half ago. We didn't talk about it, asked for it to be on anagenda, wasn't on there. We're already behind on this. So the go slow approach is not the right approach. We need to speed up to getto where we need to be. Districts are already doing this. Other states are already doing that. They're leveraging it forcurriculum development. Doesn't mean the human teachersare out of the loop on this. It means it helps curriculum development. However, one of the issues that we have, maybe that's why it'staken a year and a half, is we have a policy governance model that was developed inthe 1970s that is rigid and does not adapt to change very well. Thank you.- Thank you. - Could I have a follow-up? - No, everybody said, "Can I have a studentliaison speak first?" Go ahead. - Just a comment basedoff of Chair Arcand's comment on delusions and stuff like that. - Hallucinations? - I know when I do abasic search in Google and the Gemini thing comes up, it gives me links to thosespecific websites that it uses. So that's a very helpfultool when it comes to trying to figure out what we'resupposed to be using, what's credible, what's not. And I think that's a reallynice perk of Gemini personally. - Thank you. Ms. Thompson, you hadsomething you wanted to add? - I guess I would just, when we're talking about we're behind, it was a comment made, we're behind and we're not up to speed with all these other places. Can you give an example of who is above us and doing better of what they're doing and where this is happening? - Well, I listened to, I can't remember the name of the academy, but it's in Texas wherethey're leveraging AI significantly in curriculumdevelopment and deployment. And I want to say, I can't remember the guy's name, but they're like charter schools, they're not-- Okay. - And also, I listenedto the head of education from the state of Mississippi as well as Governor Huckabee from Arkansas on how they're leveraging AIin their school districts. - So you have informationon what Minnesota is doing as well and you'relistening to people here? - No, not other than MSBA and their policy, but myfeeling, okay, my gut feeling is that we seem to be a little bit behind and we need to speed things up, I think, to accommodate it, that's all. - I would just say thatopinions are not facts and what we feel as a gut feeling is not something we caneducate our students off of. And the professionals thatcome to these meetings and our inner schoolbuildings are very much on top of these things. This is what they went to school for. This is what you all do. Yes, AI is new, but I justwant to say I have faith that we are moving the waythat we're supposed to be and you're keeping our students safe by not allowing them to have access to other the AI. - That's your opinion too. - That's your opinion.- It is. - Point of order, shehas the floor to speak. - I can be done.- Okay. Ms. Streiff Oji, do you have something? Okay, any other questions? All right, well, with that, we are coming to the point C, adjournment. May I get a motion to adjourn? - Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Ms. Ellison. Is there a second? - Second.- Second by Thompson. All in favor say aye. - [ALL] Aye. - Opposed? Okay, we're adjourned, go Bears.