Good evening. I'd like to call to order tonight's meeting of the ISD 191 school board. Uh the date is February 26th, 2026 and the time is 6:30. Uh I'd like to start by welcoming uh the folks that are with us in person as well as those that are joining us virtually. always appreciate the folks that are joining us to learn more about our students, our schools and our work on their behalf. Um, Dr. Chester, I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. Uh we will start uh by approving tonight's agenda. Uh is there a motion to approve the agenda? Moved by Director Anderson, seconded by Director Chester. Any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Oppose. N. And the motion carries unanimously. Uh we will start our meeting with the information portion uh of the agenda. Uh starting with the 2026 um American Indian education program and vote of kids currents. I'd like to welcome Madison McKini, American Indian Education Specialist, and Marlene Bagwart, Warrior, Indigenous Cultural, as well as Kelly Sunquist and Brian Ber, American Indian Parent Advisory Committee co-chairs. Welcome all. Hi. We talk about and in English I go by Madison McKini and I'm the American Indian educational specialist. Shining God warrior Yania. Hello, my name is Marin Godwarrior. We are so excited to be here tonight. And keeping up with our tradition of gift giving, our parents wanted to share with each of you one of our program buttons and a bag of wild rice. Both of these items is that okay that okay. Both of these items represent work that has been central to our program this year. Um highlighting our identity and our nourishment. And before we dive into our programming, I wanted to briefly highlight Oops. I wanted to briefly highlight our student count data. Um, this year we saw a significant increase in the number of students identified as American Indian. And this growth is largely due to more accurate reporting and um stronger identification systems. This work has been rooted in our dream catcher project um with the efforts of our district dream catcher team. So, um I just wanted to show that because that is a huge jump, but mostly due to just being able to better identify and accurately report our student count. But as our numbers grow, so does our responsibility. Last week, ICSB Canon mention or their last meeting, sorry, ISIS Buchanan mentioned, um to you all about our culture trunk project. So, um in front of you when you guys walk in and over here to the side, we have an example of one of those culture trunks. Each trunk holds items and each item holds stories. Um stories that help our students see themselves reflected in their learning and their education. and they help they're we're hoping that they'll help our educators build stronger bridges within their cultural bridges within their classrooms. This project is a great example of our district living into our strategic partnerships. So, this work is funded in part by the Minnesota Humanity Center with money from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund created by the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008. We are grateful to be beneficiaries of this grant with Black Bears and Blueberries Publishing serving as our fiscal grantee. So through this partnership and in collaboration with our community leaders, we have been able to bring the vision of last year's recommendations to life. And so at the heart of this project is oral storytelling as a form of education deeply rooted in our indigenous ways of being. Tonight we wanted to share with you all our story. The story of our students, our program, our district, and our community, and all the bridges that we have been building this year. So with that, Marlene is going to start us off by sharing about the work that she's been leading with our secondary students. At the American and Education Program, we root ourselves in culture first. Our cultures and background within within them are what help guide this entire program from principles to virtues. Our individual lived experiences from each of our tribal backgrounds is how we educate not just our students but our colleagues and all those we encounter through our partnerships this year. Part of that partnership was done in collaboration with Shakapei public schools American Indian education program to bring in TEDT talk speaker Redwing Thomas for our Native American showcase. Redwing is a nationally recognized Dakota speaker, teacher, and singer. To have me speak on our behalf for our program to present a showcase of Native American dancers and tell their stories to our families, staff, and students was an immense honor. Without our partnership with another Indian education program to share the cost and time for Redwing to visit our communities, that invaluable presentation would not have been possible. Redwing was highly impressed with our program, classroom, and high school during his visit. This successful event brought in 15 dancers and five seniors to share their culture with us, and the audience attendance was up significantly more than last year's. In addition to our cultural roots, we want to help our students explore post-secary options through a Native American lens. This year, we were able to take several of our students from grade school to high school to the National Advancing Indigenous Science and Engineering Society Youth STEM Day. Students were able to explore STEM activities from medical organizations like Boston Scientific and participate in coding mini robots among many activities of the day. And you got free t-shirts. This leads us to our virtues and action day. This day was entirely curated off of our student athletes who expressed frustration with their sports teams and how hard it was to play for teams that weren't the best in rankings. It was difficult to convey through words the importance of the leadership skills, team building, and integrity through the through adversity for them. But we built an entire day that showed them these skills and how to apply them to school work, school teams, and school activities. We gave them the tools and virtues and how and how to put them in action in real life. We also had three NCAA Native American college athlete leaders talk to our students about leadership, individual strength, and the importance of carrying your culture into college. On this day, we created modern warriors among our students. Thank you so much, Marlene. And part of what makes this work possible is our community. So, our AP pack co-chairs understand that our education doesn't just happen through instruction, but through active modeling and engagement. And so, not only do they give us formal recommendations, but they also lead us to informal recommendations on who to partner with and how to build a stronger community. So, as indigenous women, Kelly and I have found community through Native Women Run, um, which is an international platform for indigenous women, um, founded right here in Minneapolis. And so, we wanted to model for our students the power of our community. Through our virtues and action day, we model that for our students that cultural connection is not just a unit of learning, but it is a lifelong journey. And to ensure that that our work continues to meet the unique needs of our American Indian students, we've been studying um Indian boyhood um which is written by Dr. O'HiA Eastman who is in Minnesota Dakota. Um he graduated from Harvard Medical and became the first Native American physician. Um his book helps us get an idea of what learning looked like before boarding school. And so part of our virtues in action um came from curating what we've learned from his um from his books to community resources that are applied in modern context. And so um the Minneapolis American Indian Center offers these community- based um fitness classes that um many of our students and um their parents and myself included attend. And so we curated this day based off of that. Um, and then they took a little bit of a break over the holidays and when they came back and we saw their advertisement, we got to see that our shirt was highlighted in that advertisement. So, it was just a really full circle moment for us to be able to see ourselves. Um, you know, it wasn't just seeing our shirt in a photo, but it was really a sense of visibility and belonging, not just within our school, but also within our broader community, which is huge. I have chills just saying it. Um so um but with that we know that even with wonderful curated programming um we know how critical our teachers are to providing a sense of belonging for our students. And so over the past few years we've been really diving into why our data is the way that it is. And one of the things that we've heard from staff is they need more support. Right? Um, so a lot of the standards that are changing, um, teachers felt like they really needed support on how to integrate that into their classrooms and to help them build those connections with indigenous students in ways that are meaningful and authentic. So, um, that's where our culture trunk project comes into play. Um we have nearly uh reached the completion of curating the actual trunks and all the items that will be in it and we are now working with our curriculum coordinators to ensure that it aligns with the state standards. Um at our elementary levels we're focusing on implementing it into the um new reading curriculum and then at the secondary we're focusing on ELA, social studies and then even our new personal finance class. So by 2027 when we come back into the school year um we are hoping that every tr every site will have a cultural trunk that will be ready for teachers to use. Um we have a couple of opportunities coming up to pay our um pay teachers to go through professional development to know how to use the trunks and how to connect them into their classrooms. Um and so we're really hoping that um by the end of this year we'll have a solid group of team who will kind of be our keepers of each trunk at each site. So um we know that when culture isn't embedded in the classroom, our students don't have to separate who they are and how they learn. Um yeah, and so over the course of this year, our program and our district and our community has received meaningful recognition for this work. And people always ask us, how do you do what you're doing? And our answer is always simple. We have all hearts on deck. So from our students to our staff to our AP pack leadership to the trust that we have from you all um this work is how like just having hearts in the right place goes a long ways. So we want to say thank you for you all for your trust and for your partnership that we have been building and growing over the past several years. And so with that I want to share I want to pass it along to our APAC cheers. >> Okay. I mean, we know uh just a Ojiway protocol introduction. My name is Brian Griffet. I'm Bar Clan. Um I'm from the Little Rock district of Red Lake uh band of Chiba and I currently live in Burnsville. Uh I said good evening. So um you know she said leave with a heart and this entire time all I could think about was um that virtues and action day and just the whole year in itself. Um, I feel like everything that we've done is by example and um, it's easy to to tell people what to do, especially kids, but it's it's it's difficult to lead by example, but it's also when you do with the heart like we do, um, it's it's easy um, when you see the actual work being done and and like actually making an impact. Um it it's easy to have these conversations and and have disagreements with one another while we're in this room. Um and the one thing about um being a part of the AP pack that I'll say um is that it's an extended of my family. Like we're a family. We know that on Wednesdays uh once a month we're going to see each other. Then on craft night again the next week and then if it's not craft night we're going to see each other drum and dance. Um, so that's something that, um, I know that I took with me this year is that, you know, we we had it's like family every week. So, um, another thing that we did differently this year is native harvest every time that we need to eat. Um, and in years previous it was like fast food and um, just food that wasn't exactly the best, right? So, that was one of the first things that we thought about was like how can we do better? And we did that. We decided that we're going to do something difficult in Madison and uh Mike worked hard and and planned it out for the entire year to have native native harvest, you know, feed us every every meeting and it was great food. It was wild rice, it was bison, it was elk, it was I mean the squash, it was amazing. So that was probably um a small change but also something where we were leading by example too, right? So, um, did I miss anything? >> No. I'm sure I'm sure I'll something on my way. Hello, my name is Kelly. nationality through white earth and um this year for me has been amazing. Uh the culture trunk has been something that lives I have envisioned for a really long time. We had one um back in 2018 and I really wanted to expand it but I didn't know how. And so um what started as a simple idea grew into something much bigger. Um I mean I wanted to do more with than just thinking of healthy items but whole stories and knowledge of who we are. Uh receiving a grant to create enough trunks for every school was I imagine it was not just funding but validation that our stories and culture matter. Our knowledge deserve space. uh this great opportunity to bring history and culture to the hands of learners see my best uh to touch and experience and play and that is what these super about. Um the to feel the tide the weightlessness of wilders and uh what the porcupine quil actually looks and feels like. Um we ask questions and their culture not just with us but adding their own into it and um it's really happening with the work that we have done. I'm very very proud of it. And um also the wild rice that you see that is being harvested from the earth is being parched and uh we made by people. we did we did vote uh concurrent um and every year whether it's concurrent or non-concurrent I I do want you guys to know that like we spend 2 days essentially um having conversations diff conversations looking at like within like not necessarily pointing at fingers at people but like what did we do wrong what do we want like is this really did this happen like no I don't agree with that like so um I think as mentioned like our partnership and everything like that and in past we've had conflict if you will but it's like not necessarily conflict but friction right and healthy friction is something that we've talked about quite a bit and that that it's okay that we disagree on things so when we do vote and we do vote for concurrent this year um it it's never easy, but um it's something that we take very seriously and that we we um take a lot of responsibility in. So So with that um with as much as we share tonight, um just know that this is still only part of the story and part of the work that we've done this year. Um and so again, we want to thank you not just for your time, but for your partnership and for your support. Um, we do have a new classroom this year at VHS. It's upstairs inside the media center M 202. And we would want to just invite you all at any point. It doesn't have to be formal. If you just happen to be at VHS, feel free to swing by. We have program t-shirts that we give everyone who comes to visit us. So, um, we would love to be able to share that with each of you. Um, yes. But with that um that concludes our presentation. Um and I believe that if there are questions that just get Thank you. Awesome. Thank you all very much. Appreciate um your your stories and the context. Uh greatly appreciate it. I'll open it up for uh questions and comments. Director Nichlson, I just want to say a couple of things. just thank you very much for um the lights. I can't wait to have it. I so appreciated the smudging kits last year. They were great. I loved it. I can't for sure. Um so that was much appreciated and thank you for the hope. I'll be at BHF soon. Um I really just hope that this partnership can really continue. It just seems like such a positive presentation this year and that things are moving in a real positive direction and we really hope that that we can help keep that momentum going. So, you know, thank you so much with everything that you shared today with the chunky sample and everything was really wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um once again, always a pleasure to have you guys here before us. Um so appreciate the work that you guys do. It's invaluable. Um just bringing forward um your community and and standing up for what is right and good and what we need to be held accountable for in our district. Um and I know that you will continue to do that and we are here for that and and supporting it. So, I just, you know, I want to express that um it means a lot um that we have that representation in our district and we'll continue to have it. So, and the trunks I think are amazing. I didn't have time to look at them before I came in, but I definitely want to before I leave, so hope you won't take this away, but um yes, thank you um for coming. Thanks. Thank you, Dr. Chester. Yes. to agree and pretty bad with what um director had shared was um I really really value the the work that has been accomplished this year and just showing like having what was your vision come to fruition I think is so exciting. Um, and hearing that he had a lengthy dialogue in order to make these decisions is something we expect. And we also know that all of us are on a journey. We never really fully arrive. And so that we also expect that there's more work to do. Thank you. taking just a couple of quick comments. Um, first I agree with everything my colleagues have said. Um, also thank you for the clarification around enrollment. I did I definitely jumped out at me when I would reviewing before the meeting and I appreciated that update. So, thank you. Um, and definitely thank you for your for your partnership. I mean, I think I've been I don't think I know I've been on the board since 2019, and I think the spotlight has gotten brighter and the partnership has gotten stronger each year that I've been on the board. I'm really grateful for that. I appreciate it. Um, and to your comment, healthy friction can lead to positive changes and I think this is a good example of that. So, thank you, >> Director. I don't have anything new to say, but but I I do want it on record that um I really I agree with everything everybody said and I I so so appreciate all the work that you do. I know that it's um it's it's hard personal work on top of um all the physical work that you're doing to do that. And I I really appreciate that. and um your group is is one that I've followed before I joined the board. Um and and uh I just um I truly appreciate and um try to learn from the way you do things for other um areas of my life, other groups I'm in. I I really appreciate the um the thoughtfulness of all the things that you do and the intentionality of all that you do. Um so thank you not only doing very important work but you're doing it very well and I see that actually from kids perspectives and my own kids their friends they excitement that they have opportunities to learn um from different events and different things like that it's definitely that's inspiring to see that it's breaking Thank you. So I will close this out. First I want to thank you back for this and for what it represents. Um but most importantly I want to recognize uh that our relationship relationship with allies will always be a work in progress. Um I want to provide cultural awareness in understanding the rich past and present of indigenous people. Um our schools reside will continue for students staff this board. Um as point out is created in a variety of ways. I appreciate the weather to as a result of hearing your presentation. I personally look forward to seeing us as behind us already. So, thank you so much. All right. Um, next on our agenda, we have a school report um from Eagle Ridge Middle School with speakers Dr. assistant superintendent Hy principal Maddie Carter teacher Cole Rogers reading interventionist and Don Smith interventionist welcome all superintendent members of the board of education um I'm excited we're excited to be here to share our story of school improvement for this year um as a principal it's been pretty exciting working with our leadership team and really feeling that big ears are aligned with our work. So, we're going to just take you through our story. I'll go through some broad aspects of the school improvement planning process and then uh the teacher will share kind of what some of that looks like on on the level with the kids. So, it all starts with obviously setting goals. Um and so what you see on this slide are the goals that we've set. So, you're building leadership team identifies the goals which really are your priorities really becomes the focus of your work. um aligns the work that you do, aligns the efforts. Um and in every case is a bit humbling and a reminder of the work that we have to do cuz when you look at these goals and we look at the numbers, we know the urgency. Um I I know the urgency being at the high school in my previous life that we have to get these right at our level with the middle school so that our kids can access all the wonderful opportunities that are ahead of them. So we set goals in three areas. reading um and attendance are pretty self-explanatory. That one in the middle around data was really um our effort to say when we looked at all the things we do in our school improvement planning process and self-rated ourselves how we were using data came out at the lowest and so we said we need to do more with we have the data we got to do more with it. So you set the goals and then we really worked on taking more of a systems approach. So we're working really hard in three very distinct areas or systems. One is linked teams really making sure that all of our teams um are using data all of our teams are collaborating and all of our teams are actually working with each other. So a lot of intering and supporting each other in this work. We also are looking at the system of our tier one. So you often hear tier one tier one instruction that really is about making sure that our curriculum um is aligned and that it's implemented with fidelity so that we know that all students are being exposed to grade level standards and it's also about the instructional practices in the classroom. So it's making sure that our practices are rigorous. So tier one is what we really say all of our teachers are doing in their classrooms for all of our kids. Um and then the other system is tier 2 and that really is where the intervention work comes in. Um that work to support students who based on the data are not necessarily experiencing the level of growth or the level of success just with the tier one practices that are occurring in the classroom. And so tier 2 then becomes much more smaller group type instruction, sometimes individualized instruction, um, which you'll hear a little bit more about in a in a few slides. So we'll start with relates to that whole system of how do you organize your school? How do you organize your people to get the work done? Um, and we have all kinds of different teams within our school. um building leadership teams, our administrative leadership team, our AVID team, we have an MTSS team, we have a student support team. All of those teams need to be linked and they need to be aligned to what we've set as our goals and what we've set as those systems we're working on. And and so um you know a lot of times the building leadership team's role is to support the work of all of those teams and then those individual teams really have people on them and teachers that have a higher interest, a passion, skill level in those areas and and they can be then empowered to really do the work in some of those specific areas. through it all, we're always looking at data and um we have definitely used a lot more data this year. I can say that as a principal, I don't think I've ever looked at as many different charts and graphs and data. Um but data is really where you start to see what you need to do, what's working, what's not working, what do you need to shift. And so we often refer to the pyramid, the MTSS pyramid. And um on the left, that's just a representation that we really want to aim to get 80% of our students that are being successful in whatever criteria we set for attendance, for grades, for behavior, 80% of being successful with the tier one, the practices that we just do for all kids. Um and then obviously for the tier 2 and the tier three, you want a smaller percentage and and tier three is really that very individualized. on the right, I think, is the more important representation of that pyramid because it's really important for people to understand that when we say tier 2, we're not saying that we're replacing tier one. All of a sudden, a student doesn't just go into a tier 2 type program. No, every kid, 100% of the kids are getting tier one and tier one continues as students receive additional interventions at the other tiers. One way to look at this or one way I'm going to share that we use this data um is I put two examples on here um one on the left is regarding behavior and for that particular one you can see that there's 87% of students fall into uh fall into the tier one at the bottom. You want that you want to be over 80% in that tier. Now when we look at that though we also see that we have more than what we'd like up in the tier three way up the top. So when you look at that as a team and you start to analyze it, you start to look and say, "We don't have enough tier 2 interventions. What are we missing? What are the things that we have to do so that we can intervene a little earlier so that we don't get up to that tier three?" The opposite is on the right with attendance. If you look at the attendance one, we're under 80% in tier one. So what that tells us is we we're not doing enough tier one just things for all kids. we need to strengthen our tier one. We somehow need to figure out strategies to make tier one stronger um so that we don't have as many students that we're trying to serve in tier 2 and tier three. So that's just a quick snapshot of the data work that can happen within these teams. And now I'm going to actually turn it over to um Maddie Carter. Um she's one of our eighth grade science teachers. Well, she is our eighth grade science teacher. Um, and if you can share a little bit about tier one as it applies in our science curriculum because I do think it's a really good example of tier one. >> Hi. Yes. So, I'm Maddie Carter. Um, this is my second year teaching at your also my second year working with amplify the curriculum. I have to say starting off with it last year for the first time, it was actually very helpful with how structured it is. And when we started throughout the year working on adding things for like Avid with liquor and all that, a lot of the stuff with Amplify really aligned with what we were looking at for that. Uh it just had it under a different name. Um on the side you'll see one of the examples for um the W, which is writing, is going to be what we call a CER, which stands for clan evidence. And it's basically just an argumentative essay for proving um some type of problem that they come up with. And we do that with each of our units. We have one big problem and as we build up knowledge, we start gathering the evidence for it and then they get the problem again. They're able to figure out what is the answer and they can start to back themselves up. Um, this is also something that we see some of the times on MCA. I know from looking at some of like the examples, there's always going to be at least one that is structured like this. and they use very similar words using claim and evidence and reasoning. Um, another thing we do is we really try to focus on our key vocab words. A lot of them tend to overlap with each unit. And one of the great things about amplified is they give us um these cards that have the vocab words printed out on so that they can be up on the board. Um, and it's supposed to go like as you learn them, they go up on the board and you add them on for the units. Um, we've changed that slightly this year, our structure. And so instead of doing notes every single day, we've changed to doing them all in one. So then they're up there for the entire unit. So then we can go back and we can look at them like, oh, like what vocab word works with what you're talking about right now? How can you use this scientifically? Like what scientific language can you use instead? So really trying to get them to start using that language so that when they get on to high school, they're more able to articulate what they're saying. Um lastly would be the sentence starters. Um, Invoy does give a lot of good ones earlier on and we've started to continuously use them throughout our other units and kind of like tack them on things for like how to write an observation like I notice or the patterns are and um a lot of those come up in like their slides and we've just made sure that we put them onto posters. I work alongside with Marine Aqua at um Nicollet and both of us have found out that using um posters and making sure those things are posted continuously tend to help a lot. We've also tried to make it so these sentence starters are on their work every single time so they can start seeing them, start recognize them, and they know where to go if they start to struggle at all. And yeah, >> no, that's great. and and I think I' I've been in the Amplify classrooms quite a bit and it's a great example of a very solid curriculum but with a lot of rigor built in and so there's a lot of reading and a lot of writing going on in those science classrooms. Thank you, Maddie. I'm going to let Paul and Don kind of talk now about tier 2 specifically our win time at Eagle Ridge. So when is what I need for all students and all students receive it regardless of where they're at in their academics right now. um they are target construction they go throughout the building to receive the services that they um require but there will point from the different types that they may receive of the what I need is interventions different types of services and then enrichment opportunities um there's lots of collaboration that we are continuing to develop and build off of um that go between the classroom teachers special education staff um multilingual teachers and then like our interventionist and our other who is not here today. >> Um, and you've heard data, data, data, right? Um, our small group instructions are based on data. One of the data pieces that we use is called FastBridge. It's a universal screener um that the district here uses to track reading and math scores over the years. So, they're able to um we're able to look at that as kind of at least one piece. Um we are also in the ridge um blessed to have a uh 84minute block which it provides um 50 54 minutes core instruction in the classroom both reading and math and then we have our 30-minute room time where um the interventionist will then pull a small group to work with them and then the classroom teachers are able to concentrate on a smaller class size where they're able to to pull in small groups um throughout that 30 minutes and give them what they need um depending on what what skill they're they're struggling also. And of course, um the last one is just build student confidence. You know, if if they if they're struggling in something and based on the whole whatever the classroom is doing, if they're able to pick that up, then they're able to maybe the next couple days to to do what the regular class is doing. So, >> thank you, Don and Cole. Um, and then there's just there was highlight just a couple quick examples that they they've had. But uh I wanted to share we were pretty excited. Um we set our goal um you know in terms of the growth. We wanted to see the percentage of kids that we wanted to see typical aggressive growth and that's what you want. You need you need your children and 80% plus is what you really want. That's what we got to get to. Um but the change from last year um we had about 52% fall through. This year we're at 58%. Um this is growth. So I know um you know some people look at this and and they'll they'll say this benchmark standards and I just want to make sure that people understand this set of data is really about growth. It's it's it's showing that 58% of our students from the fall time to the winter time demonstrated typical or aggressive growth. So for us that tells us that we're on the right path. um it's just how do we continue to strengthen all of it even more so we can get that number even higher and so that really then becomes the work at the tier two level to get the covid share. Yeah. So I work with um six different groups approximately throughout the day and then during other times of day I have one intervention that I push into the classroom. Um and I work with currently about I believe 40 students. I just counted today and my uh the other interventions at our school works about the same. So in total 70 to 80 students that we're working with um at one time. Phonics, and comprehension are the biggest three pillars that we are working on when we are doing that. Some of them are at the same time and some of them are just very focused and individualized depending on the data and what students need. Um so this the percentages that are on there are just from one specific um intervention that for students most of the all of the students I've been working with for most of the school year. Um and so 70 this is a phonics intervention. Um our school is currently using SIP um SIP challenge and then six plus as well. We're piloting um a phonics intervention as well and we're seeing really promising results and we're continuing to monitor that. It's been about a month but we are really um enjoying the new curriculum so far. So of that students who are in the phonics um intervention 72% of those students which is 18 in total have been made typical aggressive growth on their auto reading which includes decoding words um of which is one of the subtest of that overall score. And then of that same group of students 67 um% made typical aggressive growth on their fluency. their progress monitoring data. It does show that that number was higher around 70 to 80% of students of that same population um was making 70 to 80% of typical aggressive growth on their progress monitors. Um for whatever reason that data when they took the winter test um they just didn't have a good time for that opportunity. Um and then lastly, those are just some uh student examples to for students to track their growth. I have students after their progress monitor and their benchmarks record their scores. And this is a good way for students to reflect on how they did and for them to see the growth that they are making. And I just want to bring it back to again like increasing their confidence. I've seen slowly but surely that all of the students I've been working with have been making confidence like they've been building their confidence and it's really really great to see. So and then Don for math. >> Yeah. And Don Schmidt um one of the math interventionists at Eagle Ridge and um as you can see one of our m major focuses at the beginning of the year is whole number operations that you're adding, subtracting, multiply and divide. Um we know that building a strong validation with those skills can help them be successful in all of the other math skills. Unfortunately, there are some sixth and seventh graders that go in and and they're they're not surrounding those areas. Um, one of, if you can see the the um fast bridge data at the bottom, I I took this Fastbridge data from um one of the girls that I service now. And I went back to fifth grade. If you can see it at the fall, winter, and spring scores, she kind of fluctuates between and then again in sixth grade. Sorry. Um again the fall, winter, spring, she kind of fluctuates between high risk and and some risk and just kind of has been doing this. I actually went back to third grade. It's the same. Um 7th grade though, as you can see in the fall, she had a 205 and then in the winter it was 214 and um during conferences I showed her her parents this and I said that was huge growth. It was nine points. um and fast um fast bridge put her in the 91th percentile for growth percentage of students who have the same start score. So it's huge right? Um, so I asked her, I said, "What do you think we what, you know, what's the difference between, you know, all these other squares of this big huge jump?" And she said, she looked at her dad and she said, "Honestly, because I know how to multiply and divide down without using a calculator." And I'm like, you know, it's just one of those things that to me it just kind of gave me chills. And I think from here on out, I'm hoping that we see the score in the spring just really shoot up. Um, but the confidence level again, she just had it with big smile and just it just, you know, we know that in math class they didn't use the calculators a lot and we kind of assume that they know some of these skill but they don't. So anyways, it was fun to it was fun to see that. >> Well, thank you for sharing and and again, we wanted to tell the story of our school improvement efforts. There's lots of things that we're seeing that are are positive. There's lots of really good stories that are coming out of it. Um, we know that to work is only beginning. Um, we don't give up on kids. I'm I'm a firm one over the course of my career. I will not give up on kids. Um, and we will continue to do whatever we can, figure out what works um, and and spread that and uh, tweak things that maybe aren't working. But um I think what's most important on the right side of that slide is as we're doing all that work, honoring who they are, embracing them as human beings, and finding joy in the work that we're doing. So, thank you for the chance to share our story. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> Great. Thank you very much. I will open it up for um questions and comments. Um, well, I would like to firstly say I I went to Eagle Rich for all three years of my life. That's a great cry. Um, but I just want to touch on what you talked about at the end and building students confidence, not only through the interventions, but I think one time is such an important opportunity for students to be proactive and taking initiative and asking questions, talking about what they're confused on. I think having that foundation in middle school is so so important when they get into high school and the materials get harder, but being self assured is kind of what I assume middle school is all about and transitioning children to young adults um and eventually graduates by the end of their high school career. Thank you. Very nice comment very um thank you really uh always enjoy the uh school presentations uh they're really fantastic um and uh also kept two things um one kind of talking about the student there toward the end at the end you know how um the how the growth and and really emphasizing that and really celebrating that growth. Um, you know, there, you know, that with those scores, you know, when you're looking at just a single score, you know, red, yellow, that, okay, it's not in a green, but that that could be um impacting that confidence and being able to really uh recognize and celebrate the growth is is really fantastic. and having that opportunity because you have the data. Um and and kind of going back to the data when uh you were showing the pyramids uh and you know for example like the attendance um you know definitely identifying uh the issues through the data cuz I think you alluded to it in your comment toward the end of discussing that slide that's kind of that first step and then it's okay now we got to figure out what to do about it and that's kind of sometimes the it is definitely the hardest part. So um I look forward to hopefully uh next year when you come you know saying hey here are the strategies here's what we came up with and you know this is how the data has changed I you know look forward to uh seeing what you're able to present that next year um with it. So good luck continuing to work with the data and finding ways to to change it. So thank you. Thank you. Other comments Dr. Um, just want to say as always, appreciate you coming to share uh what's going on in your school and the the um measures you're taking to improve um the the students outcomes. Um I do appreciate too the um using the data especially to identify where interventions are needed. Um I think that's key because I don't know, you know, how you're going to make a difference without like first identifying who needs it. Um, but that's huge. Um, and specifically like just comparing the two pyramids. I thought that was um very interesting just to see the differences between the um the two. um and seeing where the different needs were at like how there's you know more need on one than the other and um but just curious as far as like cuz I know attendance has been a big one with a lot of the other site locations and they were doing the pilot. Um so are you using any of the um the the measures that were being used in the other schools as far as those? >> Yes. So we were we were one of the pilots. Yeah. And so yes, we have an attendance team, a formal attendance team has become one of our linked team. Okay. Um we also are leveraging the advisories. Um I believe that's across all the secondary schools now, but we'll be leveraging our advisory teacher so that when a student hits that third kind of absence that's on excuse, the advisory teacher gets a notification and makes, you know, kind of contact with the family. Um to to sometimes really just see what what is the story there. um attend. Yeah. And I think um just lots of good conversations and just trying to figure out best ways to um support our families in in getting their children to school. Um I my experience sitting in some of the attendance team conversations is it truly is just individual one by one. I mean their stories are so different. Um and then just trying to be creative in terms of how to support Thank you. Great. Any other questions, comments? Great. I will wrap this up then. Uh yeah, I think the thing that struck me was, you know, we have our data and of course, um growth in many instances is really where we want to start, right? And then the confidence. We need our students to be confident in in what they're doing and kind of reassure them and and allow the achievement to flow from there. Um so good to know that you've got we're we're data rich. We continue to be data rich. That's always a a great place to be. Um and appreciate all the hard work that um that you and your colleagues are are doing. And thank you for being with us and for sharing your information. Much appreciated. >> Thank you. Thank you. >> All right. Uh next we will turn to committee of board appointment and school assignment reports. We will start with the legislative committee with director Chester as chair. Yes. Um the legislative committee met on February 17th 19th 17 something to 17. Yes. Um uh it was a short agenda uh mostly in preparation for MSBA day on the hill which is Monday March 9th. And so um finding out and confirming who is attending and um kind of talking a little bit about u meeting strategy and any materials we want to be equipped with for when we are there. Great. Thank you. Uh next policy review with um Dr. Nicholson. >> Uh so the policy review committee on February 17th uh we have policies on both the consent agenda and new business. um today. Um and uh definitely looks to be a busy year uh this year for policies. Uh there's uh policies on the three-year cycle, for example, that are coming up for review this year. So, it's definitely going to be busy. Uh also just want to mention that because of spring break next month. Uh we will be meeting on March 24th instead of uh March 17th, which would normally be the third uh you know, Thursday, but because of spring break, it will be the third in March. Thank you. Negotiations with Dr. Thank you, Director. Are there any other board assignments for school reports? Director W. Uh, yes. On Wednesday, February 4th, Brisbane muster and festival board of directors committee met virtually for the first time in 2026. Um, two vice chairs were voted into office and one non- voting youth member. Um the topics that were discussed were the proposed budget, the possibility of moving the date to the third weekend in August for 2027 or 2028 with with many considerations surrounding this. However, the carnival will be replaced this year with a family fun zone. There was also a discussion on whether fireworks and drone show should be featured on both Friday and Saturday or if just one on either night. Um the meeting was very productive and I am sure the community will be excited for all the great things planned for this year's festival. Awesome. And that concludes my report. Okay. Any other reports? Director Tes uh in Intermediate District 917 that um February 3rd if that was the Tuesday. Yes. Uh February 3rd. It's the first Tuesday of every month that the that the school board meets. Um and uh the we had reviewed the and approved the revised budget for this year and gave guidance and had aformational piece on um budgeting for the next school year. Okay. Thank you. Any other director Anderson? Yes. Um I just want to say officially that um Foundation 191's spring plant sale is now open. Um so go to the website girttonf funraising.com and get yourself springplants and support our um students and their scholarship foundations. Thank you. Any other reports? Director Nicholson. Um, I just wanted to mention that uh on Thursday, February 19th, uh, Chair Al, uh, and I attended the, uh, Savage City of the City presentation um, was hosted by the City of Savage and the Savage Burnsville Chamber of Commerce, um, kind of before uh, during kind of a little meet and greet kind of uh, time. Um, both Cheryl and I had a chance to, uh, talk with a public works director uh, who our pathways program. uh used an example of a district 191 student who would work for the city uh during high school and uh this student has since graduated and based on uh that program and you know the classes and uh the experiences uh working for the city uh during um her high school uh career. uh she's now working for the city full-time uh adding to um their skills and really that they gained through pathways and through their experiences and you know is now uh is building uh her career uh through that um which was you know just a really wonderful uh example uh to hear a real world example. Um, also, uh, during the Q&A portion, um, of the, uh, presentation, uh, Jennifer, uh, Hermaning, the president of the Burnsville, uh, Chamber of uh, Commerce that partners with the Savage Chamber, uh, reminded those in attendance that the chamber does provide a lot of information, uh, about school districts and school boards, uh, such as need the candidate forms uh, during election years such as this one. uh you know when people are looking for resources um to be able to uh find information about what's happening uh with the boards uh which I thought was you know really wonderful um that was pointed out that that concludes my report. Thank you very much. reports. We did we did report. All right. So, uh we will now move on to the business portion of our meeting. Um starting with the consent agenda. Although board action is required, it is generally unnecessary to hold discussion on these items. In the event a board member wishes to discuss an item, that item will be moved for separate consideration. Does anyone wish to remove an item from the consent agenda? Hearing none. Um, is there a motion? >> So moved. >> Moved by director Hume. Second. Second. Seconded by Director Worb. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. And the motion passes unanimously. Moving on to new business. Uh we are the first item is uh we're being asked to accept the American Indian parent advisory committee vote of concurrence uh with our speaker Isis Buchanan director of educational equity. Welcome Isis. Thank you chair al superintend Dr. family and members of the board pursue with Minnesota statute section 124D78 subdivision 2. It is recommended that the school board accept the American Indian parent advisory committee's recommendation um the rule of concurrence to testing that our district is compliant with Minnesota statutes and working to meet the needs of our European Union students. Okay, thank you very much. Uh do I have a motion? Second moved by Director W. Second. Second. Seconded by Director Chester. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Nay. The motion carries unanimously. Thank you very much. Thank you. Uh, next we're being asked to approve a joint powers agreement for childhood vaccinations between Dakota County and ISD 191. Uh, welcoming speaker Amy Petroski, director of student support services. Welcome. Thank you. Good evening, director, Dr. Daniels, and members of the board. Um, I am here to talk about the joint powers agreement for the child vaccinations between Dakota County and the district. The purpose of this agreement is for Dakota County through its contract with homeland specialists to provide childhood vaccinations at school district locations. This initiative um helps break down the barriers that prevent families uh from accessing the necessary vaccinations for their children. By organizing vaccination clinics within our schools, the district supports families in getting their children immunized, promoting a healthier and more prepared student body. So, um I recommend that the board of education approve the joint powers agreement between Dakota County and the ISD 191 to provide childhood vaccinations. Thank you. Do I have a motion to approve the recommendation? Uh moved by Director Anderson, seconded by Director Saxi. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I. Oppose. Nay. And the motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Uh, next we're being asked to approve the collective marketing agreement with the Burnsville districtwide administrators. Uh, welcoming speaker Stacy Silverine, executive director of administrative services. Welcome, Stacy. >> Good evening, Director Alt, Dr. Daniels, members of the board, bringing to you tonight the tenative agreement with the districtwide administrators, otherwise the DWA is often referred to. uh we met uh late last year early this year had about five language items with some economic pieces. Uh there are 15 individuals within the group that's represented. Uh you see the list of uh different language items and economics there. We we did bump up our recognition for those who have a doctorate degree but we also realize that this group represents not only educators leaders, it also represents leaders for our operations. Um so there isn't really that path to get a doctorate. Um but there are other certifications and leadership responsibilities and trainings that are quite um rigorous. So we're also recognizing that within this contract. Overall the MSBA total package was uh 4.5 4.54% um and roughly $190,000 over two years. So therefore, it is my recommendation that the board of education approve the proposed revisions and readopt the unchanged language in the 2527 master agreement with the burn districtwide administrators. Great. Thank you. Is there a motion to approve the recommendation? >> So moved. Moved by director Hume. Second. Second. Seconded by Director Nicholson. Is there any discussion? Hearing none. All those in favor, please signify by saying I. I oppose. Name. And the motion carries unanimously. Thank you. Thank you. Next, we are being asked to approve on a first reading basis changes to policies 209, code of ethics, and policy 299, student representative to the school board. Uh the speaker, Dr. Daniel, superintendent. Thank you to your all. Yes. The following policies were reviewed during our February 17th policy review committee and as a part of the regular review process. We reviewed the policies and just made minor changes um to be more inclusive in our language and policy 209 and also for policy 299 to encompass what we are currently doing by having a state representative as well as alternates. And so I am recommending that the board approve on a first reading basis changes the policies 209 and 299 um this evening. Thank you very much. Uh is there a motion to approve these two policies? So moved by Director Anderson, seconded by Director Saxi. Any discussion hearing? None. All those in favor please signify by saying I. I oppose nay and the motion carries unanimously. Um that being the last item on our agenda, I will declare us a journ. And the time is 7:35. >> Yes.