- I now call this meetingof the School Board of Independent SchoolDistrict 624 to order. Will the clerk please call the roll. - Daniels here, Ellison? - Here. - Skaar.- Here. - Streiff Oji.- Here. - Thompson.- Here. - Arcand.- Here. - Thank you. - All right, we're gonna goon to discussion items B1, Oneka Elementary Update. Dr. Gillespie? - Yeah, good evening, chair,our members of the board. I will introduce Lori Mosser,principal at Oneka Elementary, who will update us onwhat's going on at Oneka. - Welcome, Lori. - Hello, welcome.- Thank you. So I just wanna startby saying just thank you to the school board foreverything that you do for us, for our district, for our teachers, especially for our leaders. Like I am just, I'vealways been so impressed and just have alwayswanted to say thank you, but I've really neverhad that big of a chance. So today I just wanna say thank you and thank you for having me tonight so I can share everything about Oneka. Alright, so I started with this photo. I love this photo. It was shared by a parentduring the pandemic, and I've loved thebackground with the rainbow, so you're like, yes, weare gonna come out of this. So that's why this is the first photo. All right, so tonight I'lljust talk, give you an overview of Oneka, kind of gothrough our academic goals, our family engagement, ourfuture goals and plans, and then just a summary at the end. So demographics, we areK-5 Neighborhood School. We have approximatelyright now 443 students. We have 23.65% on free and reduced price lunch,22% students of color. And then we have five different special ed programming in our building. So an ASD, a DSD program or DCD program, sorry, a cross-categorical, a cluster pathway program,and then a tier two program. And then 7% of our studentsreceive multilingual services. So different student experiences that we have through our building Wargo, we partner with them, they come out and do different lessons and experiences for our kids on site. And then our fifth graders actually travel to Wargo twice a yearto experience, you know, like everything that hasto do with what Minnesota, you know, native speciesare plant life, et cetera. So that's a really greatprogram that we have. And we've been doing thatever since I started in 2019. And then Ashland Theater has been a part of our building too, since 2019. So they will come in, we have kids that start fromsecond through fifth grade, they can audition to be apart, and everybody gets apart. It's a great little theater program that they put on then inthe theater in Maplewood. And they practice at our schoolfor, I don't know, months. Like they start in November,they put it on in March, and then they do a, so thisphoto down there was taken, they'll put on part of their play for the entire school in the spring, right before they just, it'skinda like a dress rehearsal before they do their whole thing. So, and it's great. You can just see students that you would never thinkwould go up on stage in front of people and act do. And it's just such a rewarding experience and their self-esteem just grows. I mean, it's just phenomenal to see what our students can do. It's just great. And then Boosterthon, we do a fun run through our PTA and we've done it all kinds of different ways. So we've done it in our gym, and then it's a glow, so you can see that they turn the lights off and it glow in the darkand then they have music and it's fantastic. We've also done it outside. And then we have a bunchof parent volunteers that come in and they run with the kids. I run with the kids the whole time. I usually get up toabout 20 miles that day. I'm not joking becauseit's like all day long, so kids come through duringtheir specialist time and we just run and we run around the gym or we run outside on the field. So it's just a really good wayto have the kids raise money. And then the boosterthonitself, they come in and do a week long group oflessons where they learn about, you know, like anti-bullying, self-esteem, how to be like a goodcitizen, service learning. So it's a whole programwithin itself that actually, you know, the kids are learning and experiencing things, you know, to be a better citizen too, as well. And then it culminates with the fun run. So that's what that is. Coding, so Molly Lee, one of our media specialists has been doing this with our kids. So this is a kindergarten class that works with robots andthey program these robots to do specific tasks around just, this is in our media center, so they, like color code them tomove from color to color or to do like different tasksto go and pick up something and then bring it back to them. So this is something that'sbeen pretty fantastic that the kids absolutely love doing. So they set up how the robot moves and how, so they control it. And then they, as you can see, they're just so excited to see, like, I did some things in a computer and then this robot moved anddid what I wanted it to do. Like, it's just, it's sucha fantastic experience and they do that for all grade levels. So K through five, we'll do this. Alright, so now academic goals. So this, I just put ourschool's mission there. I don't know, do you want meto read it or does you, okay. So we have been working on this and we've kind oftweaked it over the years since I started in 2019. And so this was our last iteration when we met in August. And so we made sure that wewanted to incorporate everything that we've been doing and working toward, to ensure that all of our students, are accounted for and have a voice. And we make sure thatcommunity is part of that, not just our school community, but our outside the community of Hugo, and what we're doing toteach the whole child and not just academics. So we have, we split up ouracademic goals, kindergarten to second grade primary, and then third to fifth grade intermediate to like really look at whatdo we want our students to do and know and grow. So, and we have twodifferent percentages there. So you may be asking, like why we have 80% here, 75% there. And at looking at our data, we wanted to have a stretch goal,yet an attainable goal. So when we looked at what our inter, or what our primarystudents could do, we knew that 80% was somethingthat was attainable, and we know that we can reach it, with our FastBridge assessments. And then for third throughfifth, we looked at our data and said, you knowwhat, 75% is attainable, with our MCA scores. And then really focusing this year, all of us have been onfirst grade and literacy. So what I wanted to show you here was where our first gradestudents were this fall versus where they were in January when we did the winter assessments. And so this is testing on their fluency, this is testing on their lettersounds and nonsense words and how they decode. And you can see that the first graders, made great gains, from goingfrom that green, that low risk. So we gained almost 11% or 10% of our kidsmoving from that middle, that yellow, that 40% some risk. So we've closed those,even though you say, well, you've gone from 10% to 12% in high risk. And yes, and we are addressing that. So I'm gonna go to the next slide and tell you how we are addressing that. But to see that we are makingthose gains is very positive, and I'm very excited about whatour teachers have been doing to make those gains from fall to winter. So in order to do that, what we've been doing is our teachers, we have our WIN time or What I Need so we have 30 minutes ofliteracy WIN time every day, and 30 minutes of math,WIN time every day. So our teachers are constantlyworking in those small groups to ensure that we are lookingat targeted instruction and interventions for ourstudents that are in those, that low and that high, or that, sorry, some and high risk group. And then we, as myinstructional coach and myself, we set up data meetings withour teachers to go through and we look at every student individually where they're at, what their scores were from fall to winter, where they currently are at, and the assessmentsthat they've been doing since the winter assessments. And then we progress monitor to make sure that those students that are in the high and some risk are makinggains towards moving out of those risk bands and into the low risk. So right now, since thatwinter screener has happened with our first grade students, and they've been doingtargeted interventions, they've mixed up their groups. You know, they have certainteachers going, I'm going to work on these fluencypieces with these students, and I'm gonna work onthis with these students. So out of 22 students thatwe are really focused on, 59% are moving into that lowrisk category out of those 22. So our teachers arereally focused on making, like really targeted instructional plans to make sure that that happens. And that's just untilnow, so with another two and a half months of school,I'm really excited to see where they'll be at theend of the school year working towards that 80% or more. All right. So family engagement, that'sa photo from our bingo night. Our bingo night is a huge draw. Like we have a lot ofpeople that come to that. So I'll get to that in a second. So game night. Yeah, that's my beard. So I sent my glasses. So we had a game night thisfall, and it was fantastic. We had the community comeout, we had all kinds of different games set up in the gym, and our focus was play withyour family, find another family to play with that youhaven't ever met before, and do something fun together. So we had games, youknow, like active games, like lawn games, youknow, think of, you know, we had actually pickle ballsset up, we had bags, we had, the golf thing where you throw it and the little ball, likecatches on the ladder thing. So we had all those different games that were going on in the gym. Then in our media center,we had like board games or card games set up sofamilies could travel. And then this was in between,it was a photo booth. So then kids would come and like dress up like this and be funny, with their families or with their selves. And yeah. So that was kind of afun way, an engaging way for people to meet each other. And then during that timetoo, kids wrote their goals and hopes for the year, and then we put 'em up on one of the main walls in our schoolsso that they could walk by and see their goals and dreamsfor the year on the wall. So that was great. So here's our bingo night. So our gym has a capacity of 1300, and we fill up the whole gym. I don't think 1300 people came, but I mean, it looks like we have like a ton of people there. So it's always the bigdraw, it's so much fun. We always, like plan for this many people. We always run outta tables, even though, we planned, okay, wehad this many last year, I'm gonna go 20 more this year. Oh, I need 20 more next year. You know, or same with food. It's like, oh my goodness, how many times are wegonna run out of pizza? So, but it's just, it's so much fun. People come and go. It's just a great event. So it's a fun way to connect with the community and bring them in. And then last year was our first, very first ISI, IntentionalSocial Interaction. And we're planning another one next week. So next Thursday night, fiveto seven if you're available. And so we provide, you know,like really fantastic food. We're dividing it up thisyear, so we want everyone to eat first and kindof meet people that way. Have some table starters. And then we're going to divide off. We're going to send the kids out to the playground,hopefully it's not raining. And then we will bring theadults down in the media center, and then we'll engage them in some really deepconversations about everything. You know, like what, how do you feel about yourstudent here at school? You know, what morecan we do academically? What more can we do withsocial emotional learning? You know, how do you feel? Do you feel welcomed? And how can we, youknow, like address that. So it's all of those things that we'll be doing at this dinner. And it's, and we alwayshave a great turnout, or we did last year for that too. So I'm hoping for greatturnout this year again. Our art party is another great draw. So this was last year's, but we are planning onefor this year in May. And so what the kids do withour art teacher in the fall that we had our artteacher for semester one and the kids, like whatever projects they were doing and making,which were fantastic. So we saved all of those. And then in May, we'llhave an art gallery walk. So we'll put up all theartwork throughout the school, in the gym, and then invite families to come in and see all the artwork. And then they can take their students' artwork home at the end. And then in the interimthen we'll have chalk, we'll have bubbles, we'll have face paint,tattoos, food trucks. Food trucks were a big hit last year and it was really cold. And everybody went to Kona ice, even though it was like20 degrees outside. That was the longestline was our Kona ice. It was fantastic. So we're gonna do the same thing again and hopefully the same kind of turnout. All right. And then our future goals and plans, we hope to continue to increaseour student achievement and closing that opportunity gap with our students that are marginalized. And then strengthening ourfamily and community engagement. Wow, this photo was-- Beautiful. - [Lori] Fantastic, it wastaken by one of my paras. So that was at the height of, when we were having allthe Aurora Borealis. I just, this is like my favorite photo, like of all time of Oneka. - [Participant] That's beautiful. - [Lori] I know, it'sjust fantastic, so yes. All right, so that was my last slide. And oh, and then of course, you know, like we were voted best school for 2024. (audience applauding) Throw that in there. - [Participant] Throwthat in there at the end. - Just throw that in there, yeah. But we're really proud of that. We've been a finalist forthe past couple years, so it was fun to finally, so maybe we'll repeat in 2025, so. - All right, thank you. Do we have any questions? Yes. - I'm just wondering, do allstudents take the FastBridge? - Yes. - Whether they're in special ed or not? - Yes. - I was just looking at thenumber of cluster programs or high needs programsyou have in your building. I'm thinking that the students that would be in the high risk or maybe some risk, thoseprograms might impact and have a more challengingeffect on moving some of the students out of those. So I didn't know if youwere just measuring them by their IEP goals, which we have to do. - Yes. - But you still do the FastBridge. - Some of them do not all, so they're whatever it says. Okay, yes.- Good question. You were at 59%, now you're saying you'regonna be at 80% by the end of the year. - We hope to be at 80% by May. Yep, at the end of May. - [Participant] Okay and then on the third through fifth graders, where 75% is the goal,where are we at today? Or the most recentassessment that was done? - The most recent for,well, that is the MCA goal. - [Participant] Right? - So from last year we were in the 50s, like the 50 percentile forMCA last year at that time. So we only take MCA once a year. So I don't have that to compare it. - [Participant] Sure. - But you know, like ourfast screeners, I'm trying to remember like our exactpercent, it was pretty good. I mean they were still like around that, like where first grade was as far as the fast screeners formoving towards that 75%. But it's a different test, so yeah. - [Participant] So that's apretty aggressive goal too. - It is aggressive andour teachers are working as hard as they can tohopefully attain that. - [Participant] So youmentioned on the demographics we have 443 students there. - Do you know offhand justballpark, what's the capacity for the school for students? - Oh 720 I think is what our capacity will be eventually. And we have, when pre-K, we have a hundred studentsthat are in our pre-K, they're not there every day, because some are half day, some are every otherday, some are whatever. So we do have, like if you count our pre-K in there, we're close to 600 kidsright now in the building. - Thank you.- Okay, thank you. Streiff Oji. - Thank you.- Yes. - For everything that you're doing and your teachers are doing. My question is why would youuse the FastBridge assessment for K two and not continueusing that same assessment for the three five goal? - Right, and that'ssomething that we are going to address this year coming up. So when we met in August with our building leaders,we talked about that. And our third through fifthgrade teachers really wanted to use the MCA data fortheir stretch goals. You know, because theysaw like where we had been since the pandemic and they're like, I know we can do this. I know we can do this. Sothat was part of our third through fifth grade teachersdeciding on that goal, and sticking with the MCA. Next year, I would loveus to be all the same. I'd love all of us to be like with the FastBridge assessments because that's a three,like three time a year thing that we can consistently seethat we are making progress. It's easier. - Yeah.- To use that as a goal. So we've talked about that, that was good. That's great question. - My question was, it seemslike it would be easier to monitor the progress on that. So thank you. And thanks for everything you're doing. - Ms. Thompson. - I don't have any questions. Just as a parent who kids went to Oneka, I, thank you for the presentation. It's great. And I just had to add the boosterthon, that was one of the races that the PTA group I was ingot started in the school. And I think I still have my t-shirt. 'Cause the kids would run aroundand they'd sign the shirt. They would mark it on theback and that's great. And I have, it's justfull of everybody's names. And the bingo night, yes, big hit. My husband works in trade shows and we would bring in those extra tables that we always ran outof and the extra chairs. So yeah, it's always agreat, it was a great event that the community really comes together. So it's great to see thosethings are still happening. And yes, so thank you.- Absolutely. - All right.- Ms. Daniels. - I have one more question. Did you say the boosterfund, that was a fundraiser? - Yes, yep, our PTA does that? - Yeah, can I ask, whatthey do with the funds? What are some of the wonderful things? - So we use it kind of topad our budget for the year. So we usually bring it around $20,000 from that one fundraiser. So then the PTA uses thatfor how it funds things for teachers and kidsthroughout the school year. - Great.- And I just wanna remind us that their individual organizations, so they actually choose. - Yep. - So the school doesn'ttell them how to spend it. They actually, - Yeah, the PTA.- Choose on their own. - Chooses.- Yeah. So they select if they wannaspend it on a sensory room or? - Correct.- Playground or a? - Yes.- Okay, thank you. - Any other questions? Okay, I just wanna say thank you. One of the things I noticed is all how we really emphasize the parent and community engagement. And I think it'simportant to remember that that engagement is so important in helping our students succeed. So that was good to see. - Yes, absolutely. We're partners, we can't do this alone, and we see their kids sometimes more than they do during the week. So it's really importantthat we can do that. - Well thank you very much. We appreciate all your hard work. - Thank you. - Okay, now we're gonna go on to B2. We're gonna get an update. This is exciting on the Spanish elementary Spanish dual immersion program. Dr. Gillespie, you wanna goahead and introduce our guests? - Yeah, chair, our kinmembers of the board all. We have a big team coming up. We've had a lot of fun work going on. So introduce Ang Nelson,principal at Otter Lake. John Leininger, principalat Matoska International. Ayan Ibrahim, one ofthe assistant directors at the district center. And then Jen Babiash, directorof Teaching and Learning. I'm not sure who's gonna take it away. So the team at level. - Thank you for allowingus the opportunity to update you on the Spanishdual immersion programming. So today we're gonnaupdate you on the progress of how things are going so far. So for our agenda today, we're just gonna go overthe background information on how we got here. We're gonna provide you witha little bit of progress and then our plans and then our goals. We're gonna share someupdates on accomplishments, some enrollment information,staffing and curriculum and what our next steps are. So how did we get here? So we started exploringimmersion programming last year. We had a wonderful teamthat we got together for the steering committee. And our goal was reallyto establish the framework of what dual immersionprogramming would look like here at White Bear Lake. But we dig deep into the research. We looked at, we focused mainly on thesethree things at the beginning. What were the best practices for dual immersion programminghere at White Bear Lake and what would that lookand how it would look here. And then we also, if we had Spanish dual immersionhere, where would it be? So we looked at different areasof like different buildings, what looking at like the different models and how it would look in each building and then what are the needsand desire of the community. And then on October 21st, 2024, the board approved thelaunch of three sections of Spanish dual immersionfor kindergarten, both at Otter Lake Elementary School and Matoska for the next school year. So these are the different phases. And now we're in the finalphase, which is phase four. We are currently workingwith the program design team to develop program specifics. We're looking at curriculuminstruction assessment, we're looking at PD, we'relooking at different resources that we should have within each school to really be successfulas we launch this program for the next school year. - [Ang] All right, hi everyone. Ang Nelson, principal at Otter. So when we went around and we talked to the different elementary schools about the new programming, we offered up the opportunity to be part of a design team knowingthat we didn't know exactly what they would bedoing, but we needed help and creating this awesome new program. The idea of the program though is that it really is embeddedinto each of our schools. So it's not dual language,Spanish immersion, Otter Lake. It's Otter Lake that offers this program, it's Matoska that offers this program. With that said, we feltit was really important that the program itself hadits own vision statement. It would work under the mission statements of each of the individual schools, but we needed some guidingforce for the team as we started to bring the program together. So we pulled together peoplewho volunteered to be part of the design team and it was a pretty goodsized group actually. And we put them into two separate groups. And we used a process very similar to what we've used before in the past with our lovely Dr. Cookwho's no longer with us. But in terms of reviewing the research, reviewing best practice,reviewing all of the work that the steering committeehad already done, to really say what we want this program tomean for us in White Bear Lake. The team then created twodifferent draft vision statements that then we very quickly pulled together a parent focus group night. So when we had, priorto the board meeting, we had gathered some information sessions and at those sessions wehad offered to families, if you ever wanna be part of something for dual Spanish immersion, give us your contact information. Every single person thatattended said they wanted to be part of something moving forward. And I would say 75% of themcame to this focus group night, which was really exciting. So what we did was we separated them out into two different groupsand we had them review both of the draft vision statements along with just giving inputon some general questions. And the members of thedesign team were there to gather all of that information back. What we did then we broughtthe design team back together and we took all the data from the families and we combined it intoone vision statement. And then we did the verydetailed work of going word for word to see, is this what we mean? And so, and it was really,really important to the team that the words weren't even,the words were what we wanted for in English, but it needed to be translated exactly how we wanted it to as well. So for example, and I'll just be honest, I actually am not a veryproficient Spanish speaker yet. But the word dynamicin the vision statement was very carefully chosen because of the way thattranslates in Spanish. So it's very intentional,the wording that was used. Once we had this final draft set before it was even sentoff to all of the families, we sent that back to the,to the focus family groups and they were just veryhappy with the end result. And this really is beenour kind of guiding force as we continue to work onestablishing the program. - [Presenter] Great, I getto talk about curriculum and instruction. So what are our students gonna learn? The program team, we met acouple times already this year to really focus on howwill our curriculum align within state and national standards and then how are we going to organize that for our kindergarten teachersso they feel supported with their instructionand then the materials that they have are in Spanish and can support the student outcomes. So I'm happy to say ourboard approved curriculum that we have been using in all of our programming atthe elementary we have, they have Spanish versions of that. And so it's actually beenreally nice to be able to just be able to lookat the Spanish version of our Spanish languagearts, which is Caminos. And then looking at oursocial studies curriculum. We use Teachers CurriculumInstitute, Amplify Science, and our second step, our social emotional learning curriculum. So all of those are available in Spanish. And so our next step, we'veworked with the design team to really focus in on, okay, how can we help support ourkindergarten teachers coming in? And we've kind of doneall we can at this point and now we're waiting till we actually have our kindergarten teachers come in and look at that scope and sequence, the how we're gonna organizethose daily lessons closer to the summer when the new teachers start. And then just an update with math. We are looking to pilot anew math curriculum next year with all of our elementary teachers. Not all of them, but in all of our grades. And so that will be determined then, which math curriculum we will use for kindergarten Spanishimmersion at that time as well. I'm also gonna talk abouthow we're gonna prepare not only our incomingkindergarten teachers, but also the teachers that will be working alongsideour new kindergarten dual language immersion teachers and all of our teachers in the district. And so we are partnering with the Center for Advanced Research onLanguage Acquisition, CARLA. We're really fortunate that we have the University of Minnesotaand that programming, just downtown that we canprovide professional learning. They really are the experts. So we are offering that up to some of our design team members to learn more about Spanish dual languageimmersion in the schools and offering that toour principals as well. And some of our instructional coaches. And then when ourkindergarten teachers come in, there is some training inJuly that they'll be able to attend if they're able to, so that we can really kickstart the year. And then just like we do withall of our schools in August, they'll be building specific PD working on how we build a climate and culture with multipleprogramming at our building. And then we'll have ongoingtraining for all of our teachers as well around dual immersion,instructional strategies, best practices, family engagement, all those important pieces of the program. - [Presenter 2] Alright, thank you. I get to talk about ourenrollment and staffing process. It's actually really pretty exciting. When we first met with the families and the community focusgroups, I remember we were, you know, there and it was sowell attended, we were like, oh we've already have aprogram just in this room, in this community. And sure enough they have turned out, I checked the enrollment with Ang between our two schoolsabout actually half and half. There're already 96 students enrolled. One of my sort of has with that as I was thinking about this, it's like that's one ofour largest programs. If we land them all in one place, that would be one of our larger schools. Which is a great testamentto how we're doing this, but also the needs and thedesires of our community. And I'm especially proudthat to be part of a system that listens to our families,listens to our community and says, we hear you. We know what you are asking for and we are going to developthis and pull this together. The other aha I have withthat, we are at 96 students and we still have fivemonths until school starts. So we would expect thatto continue to grow and to serve more of thepeople in our community. Staffing as we know, as we hear about all over staffing is always an interesting challenge. But again, so proud to bepart of White Bear Lake. I remember Mr. Mons talkingabout we are a desirable place to work and yes we are a desirable place. We have candidates coming in. We have three great candidates that we are in the process of onboarding. We're excited to get them and that we haveinterviews scheduled ready for this coming week. You know, expecting at thispoint we'll have two sections at Matoska, two sections at Otter and we have room to growthat if we needed to continue to move on. So again, we'll continueto monitor that enrollment as we get more students in,we'll be able to fit them in and then expand if we need to expand. But you know, having workedat at a Choice school here in White Bear Lake for a long time, I can say it's really excitingwhen you have this many kids at this time of year, you got a winner. I can can assure you that, thank you. - So really we believe thatpart of the success of that is how much engagement thatwe've had with families. We've touched on a fewof these things already. So just kind of as a reminder, you know we've had theintroductory open house before the board meeting, we had the focus group forthe design team meeting. One thing that we both did atour sites is we had two nights that was just registration nights. So we really wanted tomake sure that if families, especially families thatmight have a language barrier, could just come in andregister on the spot. They could get a tour,they could ask questions, they could register andthey could leave with their, I'm gonna be a Bear t-shirtand a welcome packet and get it all done in one night. They were wildly successful and we found that mostof them were immersion. So I do think a lot of families thought, oh that must be specificto the dual language, Spanish immersion program. 'Cause we still havelots of kindergartners to still enroll for our, well they could choosestill either program, but we have lots of kindergartners still to enroll at both of our schools. So, but they were very,very successful nights and families were really happy with that. Then we really do transition, so they are part of our school. So each year we both do spring gatherings for all incoming kindergartnerswhere they get to have to have a little morespecialized attention with the kindergartenteachers specialized tour, ask lots of questions. They get a little goodybags and little treats and then that's coming upin April for both of us. - So ours is next weekand a school bus ride. - Well there you go, next week 'cause April is next week, which is wild. And that's for all kindergartners. So while it is a specialized program, they are still kindergartnersin our building and they all get the samething when it comes to that. And same with the ongoingcommunication plan. They're kindergartners in our building. So we have lots of other touch pointsthroughout the summer in terms of coming in for different assessments and welcome back conferences and all of those things ofjust being part of our school. So it becomes much less about, oh you're in Spanishdual language immersion. It's like, you are welcome to Otter, you're part of the Otter family. Welcome to Matoska, you'repart of the Matoska family. So it's important to usthat they are not seen as a specialized separate piece. You know, Otter, just to speak for Otter, we have lots of specializedprograms at Otter in terms of different special ed programs and they too are partof the Otter Lake family and would not be treateddifferently or separately. And this is just the same, so. This piece then, thisreally is specific to Otter. So Otter has several differentpreschool opportunities and one of those preschoolopportunities now will be a Spanish exposure class. So we have, one of ourpreschool opportunities is kind of based on the nature outside experience like Tamarack offers and they are outside a lot and they have their cutelittle orange jumpers and they change their clothes and socks, I swear three times a day. They're so cute and funny. Then the next, the other one will be a Spanish exposure preschool class. So it's not immersion, it'snot preschool immersion, it's Spanish exposure. So they'll get to learnsome about the culture, they'll learn some about the language and it will be a greatopportunity for students because a lot of the students who do preschool at Otter stayat Otter for kindergarten. So it makes a whole lot of sense that if they were interested in that they would then jointhe immersion program at Otter. And that is starting now. So those fires are up and around. So Ositos, Hello Little Bears. So make note of that. - So for next steps we are hoping to finalize enrollment and staffing like John and Ayan stated,that has been really being part of this process and seeing the excitement from the community, parentsfuture kindergartens, refining our curriculum and professional development, making sure that our emergent programmingis really embedded in there in the strategies. And then continued outreach and engagement and prepare for August, 2025 launch as we have a smooth start tothe school year for next year. Thank you. - Alright, thank you. That's very exciting to hear. Do we have any questions yet? Streiff Oji. - 96 already enrolled. That's crazy and exciting. Do we know if they're open enrolled? If we are getting open enrolled students? Are we attracting students from other districts or is mostly? - We definitely are, I thinkit's about half and half. - Yeah, we'd have to dig into the data, but I know a lot of interestwithin our community and as well as lot ofinterest in the neighbors right around us as well. - That's great, andyou're interviewing now? - Yes. - You're interviewing now, okay, great. Any problem finding? - I just had someone email today, two people this weekendemailed about this, so they are really starting to come out. But the hiring processdoes start a little earlier for immersion programming, so. - It's a little bit likewhat we see with enrollment. We see a really big, you know, right when we open enrollment, sort of a big influx when we open, when we first startedour recruiting process. Sort of a big influxthen like the enrollment, it's now sort of a continuous trickle. We're getting a continuous trickle. So one of the things, like a week ago with ourlatest posting there, there wasn't any in there. But now there's three or four that have submittedas well as another half dozen that have, are in theprocess of submitting. So now we work with our HR department, we go through our vetting process, looking at references and then setting up, interviews based on, who are the candidateswho we feel qualified as a kindergarten teacherfor all of our kiddos. And then with our dual immersion program. Thank you. - Thank you.- Ms. Allison. - Yes, this is very exciting. Although I will say as aformer Matoska parent, John, this is coming like 13 years, but it's really, I'm so excited. So my questions are, whenyou're hiring, is it, this is just total ignorance on my part, are you looking fornative speakers of Spanish or Spanish as a second language? Is it a preference or? - That's a really great question. And there's, you know,what we are looking for and as we talked about first, first all great kindergarten experience and then, as we said, we have, on our interviewing team, we have people who are very fluent in Spanish. Next is that proficiency to which we, we need our students to have in there. So I wouldn't say there'snot a bar of native or heritage versus someone. It's really about the fluency and the ability to teach the content in that Spanish language to the students. - Okay, great. And then the plan is thento add a grade every year? - Yes.- Right? So that this class of 2057 or whatever it is that'scoming into kindergarten, they're gonna, they'llhave the opportunity. - Yes. - To continue.- Correct. - Right, okay. And then my last question is, I appreciate that you addressed this idea of all of these studentsbelong to the school community because I can imaginebecause kids are kids, they're gonna understand that there's a differencebetween their students who are speaking in Spanish and classes and students that are not. So what are your plans forhelping teachers then at Matoska and Otter to ensure that thoseteams feel really cohesive? - I can go for a step, go for a step. - Well, I just know,'cause I've already talked to the kindergarten team at Otter and really the firstquestion they had for me is how can we support thenew kindergarten teachers? And so they already are so collaborative and partner on so many things. Like Lori mentioned withthe grade level teaming and all of those things, theywill still operate as a team. The times where they'll break off is when it comes to planningand using unit plans, that will look different because the pacingguides will be different and things like that. So in that way it will, they'llhave like another branch of the tree, if you will. But otherwise I imaginethey'll work very similarly to how they work at any grade level team. And I would say for students, I don't think it's gonnabe as big of a deal as we might think. Again, Otter has somany different students with so many different needsthat have many different types of amazing things. And some have some unique challenges and some of 'em are very visibleand some of them are not. And students just treateveryone with respect. They wanna play with them,they're their classmates. And so I really think it'sabout the culture in the school, making everyone feelincluded and being inclusive. I feel like we have that. So I don't see it being a barrier, especially because we have students now that speak Spanish in classroomsthat are multilingual. So in my eyes, at least for Otter, it's more about like continuingto build the school culture where all students are valued for what they bring and who they are. And it's a really inclusive atmosphere because we do have a lot ofstudents with different needs and all sorts of things at Otter. So, and the kids are just amazing and they just welcome people. - I would also add to that too, it's one of the reasonswhy we wanted to make sure that our English track students are also having Spanishlanguage as a part of one. I was already highly valuedat Matoska as an IB school. It's expectation, but it's also one ofthose unifying things. They come from our different lenses, but we have those connections. I'd also say, you know, atMatoska with our IB school is we have our units of,in inquiry, we have sort of the framework of whowe are already built in. And now we're just addingdifferent sort of tracks and layers to how we implementand do that curriculum. Wonderful, I have one thing, Scott. - So can you describe what astudent day would look like? 'Cause I think part of it isthat with specialists too. - Oh, for like for our specialists. So part of our specialists,so you know, every day, you know at Otter, the students go to PE, they'll go to music and then they'll have ahalf a year of Spanish and then a half a year of art as well. So that's part of that. - So art instruction, for example, will not be in Spanish? It will be.- It will be in English. It will be in English, yeah. - So that's part of our 8020 model where 80% will be in the target language,20% will be in the English because just sort of to review, our dual language programis really designed so that when we reach fifth grade and go into middle school,it's going to be dual language. We're going to be proficientin both English and in Spanish. So our heritage speakers will come out with strong English skills and our English speakers will come with strong Spanish skills. So it's that dual language concept. - So all of the specialists will be, besides Spanish will be in English? - Wonderful.- Thank you so much. - Another question, Mr. Scar. First of all, I had a hard time with asingle immersion program when I was in school. How are you, I mean, 96 enrolled what, six,what was your expectation with this program? Was it 96, was it a hundred, was it 200? Like what's our break point where this, not lack of a betterterm, but we make money or it pays for itself. Do you know what I mean? - I don't know if I could, I don't know if I could speakto like the per pupil funding, would the expectation, again, my advantage had been working at Matoska where we've been a choiceschool for a long time. And I knew that it would be because we're an IB school international, I knew just from thecommunity that I work with, it was gonna be a lot of interest, a lot of connections to it. I can kind of give aconcept related to IB. We know that IB keepsstudents in the district. It provides an interesting opportunity for those residents who are here. It also draws in people and that threshold and we'd have to do alittle bit of research of, does it pay for itself? It clearly pays for itself. I know when we first brought it in, we did that math and then whenwe had a review about four, five years ago, we also looked at and said, yes, this is actually, it's a fiscally responsible and most importantly really meets the needs of our community. It's what our families are hoping for and expect for us to do. - I can take that one as well. Just from the standpoint that when we hit ourminimum class size target that we have expressedfor each grade level, whether it's immersionor not, once we hit that, then we're in that zone where, we're running as expected forcost versus revenue there. And so in this case, we'll be well over that minimum threshold and we are making sure thatwe wind up with full sections where we're going to beopening an additional section. So every section ofdual language immersion that we open will fit that criteria of being essentially fully funded there. - So do you screen the students before they come in to make sure that they have skill set for success? Or is it just allstudents are, can come in? - All students can come in and then just like anyof our kindergartners, everyone will get screened to see kind of where people are starting at. And then we really haveour tiers of support that we would use for either our English or our Spanish dual language immersion. So if students are struggling, we offer the supports justkind of across the board. We do have a plan for thatin our immersion programming. If students are strugglingwith their English proficiency, what that's gonna look like. If it's Spanish proficiency, what's that gonna look like? What does research say is best practice? And really learning from our neighbors that have immersion programs. You know, what work haveyou seen working well, but really supporting in that way. So we don't wanna limitopportunities from students, we wanna keep the doors open and then support them kindof through that experience. - But seemed to me like retention rate would be really importantfrom one grade to see. So that, do you guys have a feel for what your expected retention rate would be in this program forpeople to stay in versus or for students to stay in versus not? - That's a great question,I mean, we hope it's 100% - Sure, of course. Research would say that attrition is normalin a program like this. So it would be normalfor a student to say, oh, that's actually not what I thought it wasgonna be about at all. Or a family to say thisis not the right fit and wanna kind of switch over. But we are not expectingthat to be the masses, which is why we are lookingat having the ratios be a little bit higher so that a cohort does not dwindle down to like 10 students by fifth grade that would not be fiscallyresponsible to run a class of 10. And it's not good for the students either. So that's why a lot ofthose decisions have come into play in terms of class size. What does that support look like? Being really open andtransparent with families about what the program isand also being really open and transparent that when astudent comes into kindergarten, just being in kindergarten is really hard. You know, and kindergartenteachers have been really open and honest about this too. You know, it's normalfor students to go home and be so tired and they sleep and it's normal forthem to be really cranky and kind of tired and hungry. And those are all justkindergarten normal things. And if you're learning thelanguage on top of that, it could be even harder and we're gonna help you through that. And so, just like everyoneshould just stay calm and we know that assessment scores could look a little different because they're learningtwo languages at a time that you might not see thehighest scores right away and that's okay becausethat's also normal. So it's really just working with families and being transparent, continuingthat education and support and reassurance, I think. To holding that retention. But relationships with families is gonna be just criticalthrough this process. - Right, well I think it's great that we can grow enrollmentthrough this program and thank you for thepresentation and the briefing. - Yeah.- Okay, Ms. Daniel. - Yeah, this is kind of aquestion for down the road, but this is just something I've thought about over the years. We have talked, we have informally talkedabout an immersion program for years, which those of youhave been around for years, so this is so exciting that we're now gonna take that big leap. But, so I was thinking about the MCA and how those work withimmersion programs. I know kindergarten doesn'thave to worry about it, you don't have to worryabout it for a couple years. But how does that work? - They have to take them in English. They have to take 'em in English. They have to take FastBridge assessments and they do have to take them in English. - Okay. - And that's one of the things, our communication is so important. One of the thing thatresearch actually plays out that we know, we know because they'relearning two languages. The progress is going tolook a little different. It takes a little bit longer. So we put our, we carry that weight and we know that we have toprogress in both languages, but also know as wecommunicate to families, it's gonna look different. And that's okay 'causethis is what we expect. - And the research really putsa lot of emphasis on that. Like just having thedifferent models of the 80:20 and slowly, like thepercentage changing over time. It really shows like with like all the differentimmersion programming, by the time students are in fifth grade, you see them like scoring twiceas high as their classmates. So eventually they get there, right? Like it takes a little bitof time in the beginning because they're learningthis new language. But as soon as they reach fifth grade, like you will see like theirscores being really high. 'Cause now they're at the point where they comprehended Spanish and they're doing their English work too. - Thank you.- Ms Beloyed. - So if we have two sections at Otter and we have two sections, Matoska, I'm assuming we're talking four FTEs is what the plan is. - As of now?- As of now. - We think it'll be.- More. - Probably three and three,would be what we're hoping for. - Do we think it'll be threeand three by next year? Or is that a whole four. - By four. - We do think it'll be up by four. - I would.- So the class size would, - That's my prediction. (audience laughing) Because it is so early.- Right? - So we're talking about, you know, a total of 120to 140 or 145 students and we're already almost at a hundred. So it's likely thatwe'll get to that point. - So then I looking. - Which then helps with the attrition, 'cause families move in and out too. And so, as they gothrough elementary school, it'll hopefully thatwill be a solid number that will carry through. - Then what's the typicalclass size for kindergarten is? - So between 18 and 22.- 22, yeah. - So we're already at 24. So what is the attritionnumber we're trying to get to? So that the number we're trying to get to, because we know we're going to. - Right. - Three sections is whatwe're hoping for, right? - Yep, three sections.- And if this, if the sections are alittle higher than that, we might have some additionalsupports in those sections. - Yes, correct, so six six all together. - Yep, six all together. - So for the people that areapplying to be teaching this, where are we pulling them from? Is there a particular area at school? - All over, really. - All over. The opportunity is available to anybody that would like to apply. - So we've had a lot of interest from local people whoare currently working in other immersion schools. We've had cold calls from other states. You know, it's really, it'skind of exciting place to be where we see people from all over with qualifications and experiences, some people right hereborn and bred in Minnesota with wonderful language skills and you know, heritagespeakers from other states who are moving to Minnesota. It's really a fun time to belooking at that candidate pool. - Have we done any specifictargeting for these positions? - No, we haven't. Mine is more informal reach out. We're really following kindof our classic recruitment. - Okay, and then for the Ositos, how large is thatprogram, how many littles? - I'm like, I look at Tim, I'm like. - The reason I ask is Iknow every single year we have a hard timegetting the teachers in for a lot of those preschoolclasses we get a lot well. - Yep. No, we follow our regularenrollment practices for that class as well. So we would shoot for somewhere around 17. - And then two people would then be. - Yep, typically a licensedteacher and a para. - Is there a reason whywe're not hosting it at both Matoska and Otter. - Space? 'Cause if the basic answerfor that one is space. - We don't have the spaceat Matoska in the summer. - It's the school year. - It's a school year program. - Oh, school year. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I think that was it. This is exciting, thank you. - Last chance? Yes, go ahead. - It's just, I didn't have a question but then in everyone talking,so what will be the tool that we will use to make surethat they are becoming fluent in Spanish if we'regonna use the FastBridge and all those tests in English? - That's a great question. - How are we gonna ensurethat they're learning Spanish? - So there are a fewtools that we're looking and exploring that other districts use that are comparable to FastBridge. We have to do FastBridge, sowe kind of teeter on this. We don't wanna over assess the students because then they're justtaking so many tests. And so making sure thatour unit assessments that teachers are giving isgonna be really critical in this because yeah, we just have to be careful when we're not over assessingin these standardized ways. But there are tools thatcan give both English and Spanish proficiency, but we also are reallystill bound to FastBridge. So we haven't decided that yet. But that's a really good question though. - And some of our curriculums that we're looking at and bringing on have tools built into it. Like our Caminos, which is our CKLA, it has benchmarking tools built into it. We've been having someconversations with other schools. I know we've talked to some schools that have already adopted Caminos and they say, hey, wereally like these tools. See what do you likeabout 'em, which ones? So those are the thingsthat our design team and curriculum peopleare working on right now. - So a FastBridge doesn'thave a Spanish version? - I don't know. - Not that we want to use in that way. Yeah. - Okay. - Well, thank you.- Yeah. - All right, well thank you. We look forward to hearingupdates as we go along. - Thanks for having us. - Thank you very much. Well, we are now at the adjournment. Can I get a motion to adjourn? - Mr. Chair, I move to adjourn. - Ms. Ellison, then a second. - Second.- Second by Ms. Thompson. This is a voice vote. All in favor say aye.- Aye. - All opposed, same sign. We are now adjourned.