e e e e e e with the change of pulling policy 206 from the consent agenda right next um I'm looking for a motion on the minutes Madam chair uh zic makes a motion to approve the agendas or pardon me the minutes for uh February 20 21 and March 7 and March 18 right can I get a second beer Meer seconds any discussion all right all those in favor say I I right with none opposed motion to passes to approve the meeting minutes from February 21st March 7th and March 18th next I'd like to take just a moment to recognize the visitors in our room we have a full room tonight thank you all for coming out and supporting Hastings Public Schools uh also I'd like to thank the folks who are online right now and who will be watching in the future all right and next up we have Raider Spotlight and um we have new little tokens for our Raider Spotlight folks so this is exciting all right superintendent Champa all right so this is my very favorite part of the board meeting so we have uh Raider Spotlight we have four different groups tonight that we are going to be recognizing and it's always fun just to recognize and hear some of your background or the experience that you were a part of um but we also wanted to give you something so we have little tokens tonight that will be uh giving to all of those that we recognize so with that the first group that we'll ask to come up is our elementary Allstar choir good cool um so these are just some of the students that we were able to select for the first ever Minnesota music educators Association Allstar Elementary choir um we it was up to our discretion for the kids we chose um so we looked for musicianship but not only music ship leadership um and the positive qualities that of kids that we would want to represent Hastings so these are just a few of those students um they spent a lot of time outside of school with us practicing music that was pretty difficult compared to some of the stuff we do because the honors choir went all the way up to sixth grade and these are fourth graders which is cool um and then they spent all day on Saturday February 17th um at the Minneapolis Convention Center rehearsing with hundreds of students from around the state um and it culminated in a really awesome concert this was a great learning experience for them I liked all of it it was it's fun it's fun to do and I've been really into theater and music so I'm I'm very I feel like I'm very talented in this can you tell us your name I am Victoria Jones my favorite part was making new friends and seeing some people that I might already know Charlie neighbor um my favorite part was I met someone new there and I didn't know that I sang that good so I found out that I sang it so yeah um Elanor senson I wasn't there I was sick I wish I could be there though next my name is Liam RSA I liked learning all the different songs and exper um exploring new varieties Sy neighbor all right well we are very proud of you and we have some Raider recognition for you so [Applause] congratulations did I BR grab one more hold on right back so can I ask are you guys excited about middle school next year yeah looking good yeah yeah for the most part yes all right I think you'll be rock stars in Middle School it'll be all right all right well thank you and thank you parents for um not only bringing them here tonight but for all of your support and with it all and thank you too very much so thanks thank you all right next on our list we have wind ambo so please come forward all right as you know our Wind Ensemble performed for the State uh music convention in February uh the group is about 45 members and I think we have about half of the group here today so um so thank you so much for the support uh that you give to the program things like that don't happen without Community Support without Schoolboard support Administration support parental support um and it was just a fantastic uh experience I know a few of you were there uh wonderful performance this group just is is something else so uh I think all of us know that from um you work with a sports team or even in the business world you know when you have a group that just comes together uh and really works together pretty spectacularly uh it's something else it's it's really a magical experience so uh that's what this group did so it's fantastic I have repeatedly said I knew it was a really big deal I did not know it was that big of a deal and you were just phenomenal I played a little snippet of of your work at the board table and just could not be more proud and supportive of your work so congratulations questions anyone has for well I just have to make the same comment I made last month uh I was sitting next to Dr Champa at the at the uh event and it was absolutely phenomenal but it it was literally like I was sitting next to the proudest mom in the room she was taking so many pictures and videos of you guys it was it was amazing so great job thank you for representing Hastings so well any comments from you on your experience I'll give you yeah sit down yeah not much to say it's just we worked really hard on our pieces and it was a college level program and I just think that we performed it really well and it was really fun hi my name is Julia um we have sophomores through seniors in our group and a lot of times we spend maybe two months on our music and this music we started basically in September and worked on all the way through February so I think it really says a lot about the group and about our director that we were able to spend so much time really honing and perfecting our music and that we got to perform it at such a big event thank you how many of you are returning next year know a couple of you you oh fantastic I just want to say the support at that event was like insane literally every single director I've ever had in my entire career was there there were so many parents there it was so amazing to see the community of Hastings and everywhere surrounding that come together to come watch us perform and after that performance there were so many people that were just like amazed at how good we played and I could really I could feel afterwards like a a fulfillment from how many people were there just saying that we did great and they loved watching us enjoy ourselves performing so everyone who came there thank you small token for you congs it's a it's a block of wood show anyone else want to say anything see it's open it even turned well I guess I'll just say that like as a percussionist I like that we also got to do like a percussion Ensemble piece to kind of like cuz sometimes music you don't always do like the most in percussion part so it was nice to have a separate piece that we got to do we needed a chop um it was a lot of fun and it was really like cool to see how well like I knew that like we had the potential to do good but like it sort of blew my mind how good like we ended up being when we like worked on everything for so long so yeah that just blew my mind well we are so proud of you so congrats again thank you and to any of your parents are here too just a shout out for your continued support all right next we have employee of the semester recognition so we have six employees that were recognized as employee of the semester come on [Applause] up hi everybody hello come on all right these are our employees so twice a year there are nominations go out and you were all recognized for the good things that you do and then that was turned out over to a committee uh some of you recognized multiple times and then um they decided on our top our top employees for the semester so we're so incredibly proud of you and anything you'd like to say or favorite parts of being in Hastings we'd love to hear anything from you so whatever you'd like to share and your name and your name of course yeah and your name is this on here okay I'm Josie Sean I am at Pine Crest this year um and as a fellow Hasting gr graduate coming back here in the last two years I just feel really fortunate to be here and I'm really loving my experience here I've recognize a lot of faces around the table so it's good to be here and I'm really loving my time this year I'm in a little bit different role um as an mtss coach and so I get to work with kids K through 4 and that's been a really fun ride this year so I'm just happy to be here more happy that my grandfather's here the former superintendent so it's fun to share this one with him [Laughter] yeah hi my name is Melinda zjack I am an administrative assistant at McCulla Elementary School um I worked in the district for seven years I also a former graduate of Hastings and I have two kids at the middle school so I'm very fortunate to be able to work in the community that I grew up in and the community that my kids are growing up into so I love Hasting schools and I'm looking forward to more years [Applause] thanks I am Samantha peralt I am I work at so I get to work with the littlest of Learners here in Hastings and I am born and raised graduated from Hastings High School I have two boys one in middle school and one in uh high school so yeah I love it here I'm a lifer well just to break the street I am not from Hastings but I'm happy to be here so I'm Kristen Habor and I teach sixth grade communications class so communications class um is kind of a partner to language arts class where we focus on writing read word work research grammar things like that so I love it I have a great team to work with and it is fun to help students develop as writers thank you the one we miss I was hoping there was no speech Lindsay Samson I work at JFK uh Elementary um my sixth year I have a high schooler and a middle schooler and I married into Hastings I didn't graduate from here but um Love myob I'm the janed perah so we are missing Trent Hansen who was our sixth um one and when you just said you love your job I think it's obvious because you wouldn't have been recognized if you didn't so thank you for your service and I have a small token All [Applause] rights and our final group we're recognizing tonight is our Career and Technical department so if you can please come forward February was Career and Technical month and we are just fortunate to have you and your roles and so come on up introduce yourselves and how long you've been here and what you [Music] teach can join me uh my name is Eric Deets I teach at the high school uh drafting woodworking photography driver's ad um and I think 17 years is how long I've been here um I'm John D wall um it was kind of crazy walking in here today um Mr lroy he was the first superintendent that hired me um 43 years ago um I was 22 years old um when I got hired I was literally teaching here in Agra business um we had all farm kids in the furthest Road you could go west out of here was Westview Drive and I was coaching cross country and the kids go I do you well we got to run on Featherstone which was a Farm trail going up into Farm Fields where the high school is right now so a lot of memories from this high school I've actually met my wife here um she taught music here at Hastings for 20 years or for 10 years um and then she uh retired and stayed home when we had our son Lars was born um when we built a new school um I with Mr Johnson he was our principal and we designed the greenhouse and everything at the high school off of Bachman's Bailey and whatever so I teach horiculture um it uh it's a phenomenal program at the high school we got about 350 students that are in the heart program we got floral landscape Greenhouse natural resources um I love this community um I just would say you know I wouldn't be doing it 43 years later if it wasn't for the support of administration over the years the faculty working with these guys it's fun to come to work every day um you know I I I just enjoy it actually the last three years I've coached for 40 years in Cross Country Nordic and track and I haven't done that for three years but it just gives you such a revitalizing feeling working in the classroom um it's been like the last three years have just been probably the most fun years I've ever been teaching so enjoy the program enjoy you guys as administrators and the community um I can't tell you how supportive this community has been over those years so just a thanks to everybody that um has worked with me over the years and all the kids and families that um that I've had a lot of fun with so anyway um thanks you guys I didn't know we had to give our life story actually that's good name's Dave dport Hastings High School let just backtrack there as well uh he's now getting grandkids of kids he taught okay so that puts things in perspective it is true it's absolutely true so I just put that in perspective for you uh so Dave dport hings High School been here approximately about 30 years now and Ken was in charge when I uh first came here there was two people in District's office there was Ken and who's the secretary Ken who's a sh Meer shy Meer shy mea there's two people in the office and so times have certainly changed and uh when I first met Ken in fact I was walking out the district's office one day and the well went to the district's office and the door was locked and um and he was coming out and I thought it was a janitor and uh cuz he was the last man in the building I said oh I said he said can I help you I said yeah I'm after the office he says oh it's closed and uh I always thought he was someone like out the mafia he always like reminded of someone out of the mafia Ken when I got to know him but good guy good solid guy so we go back sometime cuz he's got a great Accent on him Etc I'm not local by the way as you can probably tell I'm not local uh but I've been here 30 years and uh great you know when I first came here um actually came around this building and around the outside of it and there was no graffiti there was no trash and I wasn't sure if I'd go back into teaching I've been teaching in England wasn't sure if I'd go back into teaching got offered various jobs and I was just impressed by the whole school the area and I went down down toown some of the local coffee shops and just went in the shops antique shops and asked what's the school district like there was nothing but positive comments and it's been like that ever since I you know I enjoy working here and just like John I wouldn't be here for 30 years if I didn't enjoy my job and uh and and and in support the students I mean great students the majority of students we have 99.9% of students are solid kids with hearts of gold and uh that's that's the bottom line um what do I teach I teach Electronics houseing we do a holes SE of things now we we kind of Bounce Around between different areas but those are the main areas and small engines and uh and that's where the jobs are that's where the kids want to be often and uh that's where the future is for a lot of these students and uh so we always push those areas the trades and and similar uh not that 40 degrees is good and uh but uh it's $100,000 as my daughter knows spent $100,000 on a foure degree to be a teacher lasted one year and then got out of it it's now working in the shop so choose wisely parents Choose Wisely so I'll leave that with you uh I'm Nathan Newman I've been here for 14 years thank you for having us here to just talk a little bit about our classes I teach automotive and Machining and Welding for the most part and I really enjoyed my time here with the students and just the supportive family and Community uh we get a lot of support from the community businesses and they've always uh uh been the differen maker and just having a class that can run and provide a lot of opportunities for the kids the kids that go to Hastings are lucky to be here I feel lucky as a teacher as as everyone said to uh be able to work in this district with the people we work with and the students we work with so thank you excellent thank you just a comment that in our survey this past fall we asked our families and staff what our priorities were and you you know this but number five was career in technical education and we have watched that pendulum over a number of years but really valuing and understanding that we have a lot of choice our students have a lot of choices and that's exactly what we want them to have so thank you for all your work uh we celebrate your work and we have a small token for you so thanks thank you thank you [Applause] guys thank you thank you so much app all right next we have the listening session summary from tonight uh tonight we had three folks who came up for public comment uh the first person had two points uh one was comments on policy 417 which is up for our first reading tonight that is related to um drug and alcohol use I can't sorry I don't know the exact name of it off the top of my head um but the concern is that we've added a current practice into the policy and the concern is that we are potentially creating a liability for staff and in in general there's a concern about adding procedure to policy um uh there was also a statement during our working session when we talked through this policy that uh when when five students found out that their parents would be involved regarding um drug or alcohol use they requested to not be um not be not receive any help um and so that was the first the first part the second part of the comment was uh data request so for those who were here in January we had a Minnesota data practices request report where we reported on how much money how much uh legal money we were spending on data practice requests and we did not have it last month last month we didn't have any expenditures on that which is why it wasn't on the agenda um and the there's an additional request that we and I'll say we have it on tonight's agenda as well so the plan is to continue to report on that um but there was another request to include the cost of board member questions and the legal fees associated with that the second speaker came to address US was a former School Board member herself and is also a an election judge um she was involved in the redesign of Elections when she was on the school board and so she stated that she would she encourages our board to have the conversation to avoid polling place confusion um and also for it to be a cost savings she would like us to have a conversation to move our School Board elections to even years um and I would just like to make the comment that this is perfect timing because this is actually slated for the board to have a conversation on this within the next couple of months and then our third um commenter came up and spoke about the curriculum we have um read act curriculum that is on tonight's agenda for this the literac for literacy in the district for K through 5 and she stated that she understands that there's State money tied to the two curricula that we have to consider and that wit and wisdom is the most liked curriculum however uh when she did an internet search she stated that she's found concerning ideologies in the curriculum uh inappropriate topics for when we're teaching kids to read um including suicide gender fluidity race cannibalism and dark imagery overall and I was writing really fast but I know there were a couple more that I missed um and she stated there's a concern because the the framework for this curriculum is where kids read a book and then they basically um spend weeks having the conversations and working with that specific book so one of her concerns was that they would speak spend basically weeks working on this piece of Darkness type of thing um and so she asked that we reconsider the curricula that we're considering all right did I sum it up I'll right miss anything board members all right okay and um all right so next up we have reports and discussions superintendent Champa all right I really don't have much of a report other than um this is testing season so we as soon as we move into spring we also call it testing season we had Act and uh MCA at the high school yesterday and that just kind of kicks everything off so we'll be really busy with that um moving forward um obviously we just had some inclement weather so if you ever doubt um your decision- making and how the a community feels about just make a weather decision and then you know really quickly and so um one of the things in one of the raidar updates I did include an overview of what it looks like to close school or make a weather decision and I will say that if looks very different when you're a student because I was there as a um parent as a teacher and now as a superintendent so um you're just always your lens is in so many different places and and really the late start was uh thinking about 16y olds on slushy roads for the first time and and just having that concern so um with that the weather never plays in our timelines the way we'd like it to and uh hopefully that's it for the for the season or here but all right next we have our Cadence of raer responsibility so all of our administrative uh team members have goals in all of those three anchor areas and Report monthly on where they are they also have a narrative on each of those all you see is collectively where we are and I know before this in progress and Pursuits and some of the onboarding you heard us some samples of what those look like any questions looks like progress pardon me it looks like progress it is progress yes how high does the scale go 10 okay good MH next up we have our uh Native American parent advisory committee non-c concurrence plan review superintendent champ again okay so um we had our committee provided a vote of non-c concurrence a month or so ago so we have 60 days to respond to that that this is not that response but what this is is a review of all of our measurable goals um and then what is our progress towards that and many of our goals were that liaison position and that we have um interviews on April 10th so we're excited about that however we're quite far into the 23 24 school year so in that area um was progress sufficient no we hope that it will be for the following year and along the way you can note um all of our goals that first one support the academic achievement of American Indian students that was a six part goal again largely um based on having the liaison in place uh the next area is making curriculum relevant to the needs interest and cultural heritage of American Indian students number of things there um the note in review is progress has been made but much of the action plan is for the 2425 school year and then the next one is provide positive reinforcement of the self-image of American Indian pupils and that um you can see we have two goals there and we have uh made some progress there but we'll continue to um expand that and develop Intercultural awareness among people parents and staff on this one has U multiple Parts as well so all of these goals are in progress and they were partially um completed and oh the one I missed there was completely um done and that's the positive reinforcement of self-image so we had two um celebrations one of them was the winter meet and greet the second one will be the when our seniors are recognized with a quilt and feather ceremony and then develop Intercultural awareness and finally the last one is supplement state and federal education and co-curricular programs and we have attended two Consulting events with the tribal Nations and we have completed both of those so in some of those areas yes we were successful some are in development um any questions this is a requirement by the state to include with our plan I should know this but this isn't anything we need to vote on you do not okay looks good thank you all right moving on uh the next item on our agenda is an update on the building construction fund from Miss subbert thank you so the building construction fund accounts for the money the district received from the voter approved bonds and the money can be used for school Renovations and improve improvements the updates since last month um the high school carpet project we're kind of doing in phases so phase one and phase two are complete um so that's been moved to that top section and then you'll see there's still another project that's in process related to the high school carpet um overall there's about $3 million left in this fund with approximately 297,000 um unallocated we've had a discussion that we do um owe some money for Arbitrage so that um unallocated amount will mostly remain there until we take care of that final payment and then can be used for other projects as we go through um the final completion if there's any questions I can take them all right thank you next on the agenda is a data request up date from Miss Moen good evening I have had since we reported in January we have had three additional data requests all of them have been completed and responded to okay do we have any costs associated with those or no uh yes so with these bills the there was very small amounts that were for data request out of there was three bills that were attached there is a total of $425 that's directly related to data requests thank you any other questions all right uh next up we have our Schoolboard committee reports and from our um or Schoolboard representative reports out first up is district 9917 report with director zusik thank you the the first one is so darn boring I don't even think we should look at it it's the nuts and bolts it's the it's the meeting minutes from 9:17 but miss lewig if you could put up the the the next set of SL perfect excellent and whatever you can do to to make that readable for actually it's pretty readable thank you I appreciate it so one of the things about 9917 that I appreciate most is they have a remarkable focus on vision and culture and board members we have this in our packets and I I just ask that you go back to your packet and look at this later and if you want to see culture embedded into an environment and if you want to see goals based on culture embedded into an environment this is a remarkable uh ideal of that then the next slide if you will please Tammy thank you this one just from uh oh gosh from 30,000 ft this is what we all and I thought it was the reason I asked to keep this slide in the deck is this is what we're all facing I mean look at that middle category the purple one critical race Theory covid era we we're the George Floyd human- centered sense of belonging upper left if you go to the upper left you've got global national state local Pol politics are our issues aren't quite the same as 917s I would say that our issues in Workforce although they are somewhat more challenging than they were eight years ago 9917 faces a higher degree of challenge in regard to workforces next one's please Tammy thanks and again this buttons it all up for what are they trying to do remember that we have at 9917 we've we've developed a program where teachers from abroad prominantly right now from the Philippines can come in and teach the standard for them is they have to have a master's degree or higher in the Philippines to come here and teach so these are not like left overs or or people that are not qualified these are incredibly well-qualified people that we have teaching and some of them are coming here and we don't have the number of vacancies in teaching so they're starting as prayer professionals and they're making multiple times what they could have made in the Philippines so it it's a it's a win-win situation and then the last one and I won't read through it but the the point is in regard to Clarity of vision mission core beliefs and strategic directives 9917 has always been good at that and the clarity of this document is and the last two slides are what I think we as a group should aspire to move toward I mean when you can get it to one page when you can get get it to two pages when you can get it to three pages you're you're so much better off so I'm just really proud to serve on the board on the school board of 9917 each one of the districts represents uh one of nine districts and I'm so proud to serve in that spot thank you thank you any questions all right great information uh next we have the community collaboration committee update with director Pine uh last week we had our first coffee and conversation at the high school lecture hall um guessing maybe 50 to 60 attendees give or take a little bit it was hard for me to count but um it was fantastic really great dialogue from the community um Dr Champa kicked it off with just expression of gratitude for the tech Levy um some of the survey results and kind of where the district's at um she gave some updates on some grants that have been received and then we just opened it up for dialogue and it was amazing conversation I tried to bullet on the agenda um some of the talking points I think I captured most of them but there was questions about the elections off year onye uh staff retention Esser funds you know planning special education additional IEP support you know where the district was at with safety discipline um just providing some additional Insight on the like the free breakfast and lunch and how it's different now versus you know prior to co um some questions about the diversity position um and then we got to share the excite you know the announcement with the Native American position open U then of course just legislation we you know tried to get a plug for everyone to you know reach out to their legislators to help support our mission and goals with the board and unfunded mandates um there's a staff appreciation coming up next month um and then just some different dialogue about how the conferen have been handled you know perspective from parents and teachers and then uh there's some dialogue about just back to school open houseal so the teachers and the parents can have better interactions you know getting to know one each other before the school year starts you know they did it last year in September so they just were tossing out ideas so you know there can continue to have that additional support from families um and then tentatively we're going to have our next quarterly meeting in May and the 15th is out there I know there was some feedback that maybe Wednesday nights weren't the best night to do it so we'll reconvene and do our next planning session and and get that posted soon did I miss I I want to say I I thought this was a great event um and uh people can judge it but I don't know how you can judge it because it hasn't been done um and this forum so I think this was a positive um it turned into the Dr Champa show a little bit but you know if if that's the worst thing we do is uh show off her talents um that's we're doing good she was able to meet a lot of the 80% who aren't normally involved so I I thought and for me you know I'm a woo person um there's never enough people to meet there's never enough ideas to get and uh I I I want to build and a network and and let's make this better I think a couple of the things that uh it kind of was all over the map for a little bit kind of got a little too many topics but we can take that and streamline it and make it a lot better I think this is going to be very efficient and all the feedback I got from the public was thumbs up so uh great job chair Pine and uh I'm just excited to move forward with uh these two talented people and Dr Champa also I thought it was a great event so once again thank you it's true that there weren't enough people for field of meet I think you started greeting them when they walked in and then said goodbye to everyone so it's like a sandwich model that was great um what I found is that we were a really good educational platform for the folks that were there they had questions that nerds who live in it no and understand but we were able to communicate what we know and then Harvest micro and and macro uh needs from the community or questions that they have and then begin putting together answers and some of them were on the spot and some of them require work beyond that point but that seemed to be the role we were playing um providing an education where we could and breaking things down in terms that people understand and and not using the lingo that has been adopted in education but then being able to follow up on specific things or connect even people with each other when they talked about the community event and other pieces um it brought parties together that probably were never in the same room and got some things going on some other other things so great event I'm excited to move forward with them and and do some tweaking to see if we can make it even better well yeah I just want to say I had I I heard a lot of great feedback from the people who were there and it sounds like there was a good mix there were staff there were um parents there were you know just taxpayers so it was a great mix of of um community that we represent so I I I heard great things thank you yes that is the one thing I forgot to say I I loved it that there was staff there I would love there to be more next time please I'm reaching out uh we want you there I it's important so thank you that they came any other questions or comments all right thank you next up we have the facilities committee update with director Milner well how do I follow that massive excitement wow no actually this meeting was um we did a joint Powers meeting uh that was held on March 25th and I didn't know this was present before so part of what we learned about was what they had done in the past and the cool things that we've collaborated on as a as a community between the city and the school district um so I would say my takeaway from the meeting was It was kind of overwhelming and exciting wrapped together because one of the things we discussed was how last year for instance there was only 20 and let me get it right here uh 207 live births in Hastings and so that definitely poses a problem as far as the population of the district so how do we get young families excited to come into Hastings and what do we do collaboratively and once the idea this is the exciting part the overwhelming part was thinking about that the exciting part was once the ideas started flowing it was like you almost had to tell us to shut up because there was just idea after idea after idea and so it was just super exciting and you know kind of get yell tingly like okay we've got tons of Poss this community has so much to offer I mean we just really do it's just a matter of working together and revitalizing some things and so um just to kind of hone it down and keep it into a small chunk one of the big things is we know that Highway 61 is going to be under construction and we don't want any more businesses to leave Hastings than have already left and so how can we support those businesses and make sure that we're um telling people to keep help keep them alive um and what action steps can we take because the more businesses that leave Hastings the less this community looks exciting for young families so um those are the ways which we're going to start working together and I'm super excited about that um I think everybody there was had good like Visionary qualities that's exciting as well too just to see that we can think about the possibilities um and last thing I'll say is the next official facilities committee meeting is May 3rd at 8:00 a.m thank you any questions all right next up is the finance committee update with director zic again thanks uh Finance committee update um the gist of it was that and and we've heard a little bit of the most important drips about this at our work session as a school board we heard a presentation from from Aaron neelsen who is a um mmkr uh auditor and Jen subbert helped us to understand that Aaron Aaron wasn't here but but Jen subber talked to us about at our work session the value in doing another updated budget and that's ahead of us in today's in tonight's agenda and the gist of it is that there's a better way to report some of the funding that's happened and it there's a way in transferring that that reporting from state to federal or between state and federal I should say that actually Nets us a a a benefit and so that was one of the reasons that we met when we did it was a little bit based on the the timing of the information that came out from well actually came out but Aon from mmkr and Jen subbert from Hastings Public Schools were both thinking the same way and then came together with that recommendation and we'll hear about that a little bit more there were some more important things or some other important things that happened I think one of the coolest things was uh the the people on the finance committee which would be director Tate and myself heard just a wonderful presentation about all of the things that happened to make sure that all of the internal controls are there within our district and for a district of our size often districts of our size get bumped for internal controls because there's not enough people in the business office that they get bumped they get they get knocked they get tagged because there's not enough separation of Duties and Jen and her team in their Brilliance have decided and determined a pathway so that every single dollar that comes in gets counted X number of times and gets a attributed to the right accounts and then gets supervised making sure that it goes into the right account that's accounts receivable every single dollar that goes out gets supervised and accounted by multiple people on the way out to make sure that we're spending things on the right things and that we're following the statutes and the laws that are required so I it was just it to me it left me feeling very very proud of what's happening in Hastings public schools in regard to finance and our next meeting is let me see what it says here it says March uh let's see June 5th 20 uh March 29 or June 29 and that's proposed and uh and it might change but so June June 29 my calling my months AR wrong so the June meeting is occurring on May 29 got it got it timing wise so the got it it'll be May May 29th thanks thanks thank you thank you any questions all right next up student Schoolboard committee update we are in an exciting time right now for this committee the committee has not met again since our last meeting but the application for the student School Board representative closes at 5:00 pm on March 31st um after that point in time the committee will meet and bring back discussions for our next working session I have one question do we know how many people have how many kids have applied I have reached out and I can get that information back to you as soon as I receive it I'm excited all right you have it any other questions while we're waiting all right I will just mention the policy for the student School Board representative is on our agenda for first reading tonight as well thank you it is it's number you want me to we have nine nine applicants for four spots so far so students there is still time to get your application in all right yep it's a fun party all right if there's no other questions uh next up is the very lengthy policy committee update again from Vice chair gley I will yes sorry I will start with okay so um form 2061 uh this is the form that's going to be signed for public comment um ideally we want to have this form in place before the April meeting I'm assuming that policy 206 will be adopted tonight which means public comment will be moved back into the regular agenda during the televised portion of the meeting starting next month um and with that we're updating the form so uh I met with our attorney to have a conversation about the form this was just attached after 4 P.M today so my question to board members is I completely expect that you haven't had a chance to read this yet so my question is do we want to take a f minute recess to allow you to read it and have commentary here the other option would be just review we've got two forms attached right now one is the new form which is the recommended language from the attorney the other one is what um we had been talking about in the policy committee so the two options are take a five minute recess to read it we can come back and discuss it here tonight or read it and send your all of your comments concerns questions whatever to the chair of the policy committee um and then we will discuss it in committee during our meeting next week so every obviously everything has to be done in the public so um it would just be one-way email to Vice chair dressle so that's the question what do board members want to do about this I'd prefer to do the latter if we can me if we can just make recommendations yep um the only thing that I saw missing and my eyes aren't good enough to see it from across the room so and if it came in at 4 p.m. I might have missed it but I we talked about in bullet number one mhm which was you have to be a resident of the district we added or a student or family member of a student attending school and then something about or and employee of school district isd2 200 so if that's in there I'm golden okay and if not just let's consider it as a committee yep for sure thank you all right is that is that the desire of the board we want to you you guys take a chance to read it later and then just send an email and we'll discuss it in policy head noding General head noding okay sounds good so at least the public has a chance to see this now so that you can also provide comment um should you choose all right now on to Vice chair drle for the rest of the policy committee update there are three policy committee summaries included in board book um I'll give a brief discussion of each but for anyone who wants to follow along it's in board book under Section 7 E6 um po or the committee summary for 21624 2024 the policy committee received feedback regarding a new model policy from msba it's policy 66.5 Library materials the committee has no recommendation at this time and expects to look at this at policy 66.5 Library materials after the legislative session ends the policy committee summary for 228 2024 the policy committee reviewed four policies that will be detailed during the policy readings the committee also reviewed procedure policy 61.1 PR School District curriculum and instructional goals this is an outdated District procedure and based on the feedback that we received from Administration it it has been removed from our policy manual please keep in mind that District procedures do not require board action this is just for informational so that everybody's aware of where it went and then the policy summary for 36 2024 the policy committee reviewed five policies in one form four policies will be detailed during the readings I just want to mention that policy 709 student Transportation safety policy was reviewed and the policy language ensures student safety bus route efficiency and is an effective use of District fund therefore the committee is recommending that there be no changes made to the language of policy 709 um this based on our three-year policy review cycle policy 709 will be up for review in January of 2025 good so the the reason that we discussed this policy was because um there were some uh constituents who brought up um suggestions for changes they requested that it be considered to have some changes made correct y so that concludes my summary of the three um policy summaries I our next policy meeting is on April 5th at 10:00 a.m. do you want me to move right into first readings okay so tonight for first readings we have policy 220 which is Schoolboard student representative there's no msba model policy um and the committee drafted the policy 220 using Bloomington South St Paul and oana student board representative policies as a guide and also received feedback from msba on what to include in the policy does anybody have any questions concerns requests for this policy seeing none I'm going to move right along policy 417 chemical use and abuse many of the updates that were made um aligned with msba model policy the committee did receive guidance and is recommending the addition to section 4f do we have any comments recommendations request for policy 417 I uh in addition to what's already there and I would bring this up I will be bringing it up at the policy committee the legal advice that we received had some additional recommendations and I just want to make sure that we end envelop those additional recommendations into the language of this policy which might mean that it would get a paragraph longer and be a little bit more descriptive on on what our employees need to do to either report or not report things to families and and there's just just a little bit more language that needs to be added to beef that up and we need to go back to all of our groups of people like counselors and social workers and school syes and make sure that we're honoring their their con their their contracts and their licenses and we're not offending that and and I think we'll be okay but there's the next step might take a little bit longer and and both of you uh director or pardon me chair T assistant chair dressle know what I'm talking about there's some language that is a little bit prescriptive legally that might determine a little bit more procedure on the part of our employees which supports them more than anything else I'd like to make a comment I I I think I I said this before but I remember when we were having a conversation about uh something else actually um principal Doran had said uh that you know the employees really appreciate when you get into these types of situations they really appreciate the guard rails being well established um in policy so um that has been well taken and and we'll keep that in mind in developing policies going forward well all right any other comments yes Dr Bruns on just two points so when you meet on that will you be inviting those stakeholders into the room to kind of guide that and then go over that legal ease that's being recommended so that's why it might take a little bit longer than just by the next meeting is because we'll have to we'll have to request that those individuals be invited or that the conversations be had by our superintendent with those individuals to bring feedback back to us and I would just comment that uh director Brun sometimes it's best that we invite them in the room to have the conversation but uh from the advice of Dr Champa sometimes it's better that we have somebody else have that conversation with them because they might it I as odd as it might seem to us they might be intimidated by sitting at the meeting with three board members and so making sure that we can mine that data mine that information in a way that everybody's free to make their own um professional comments clear it we're just really sensitive to that based on a couple of other things that that we've done when we when we make policy if we have somebody come into the room and we're already talking about policy it's it might overshadow their perspective and we want to not do that and then in section 4 B1 there's a there are five words strung together that been bothering me since the first time I read it it says that may be evidence-based so this qualifying statement about um programs and activities just saying it may or may not be evidence-based to me that feels extraneous that if it's not going to be evidence-based you don't need to bring it up if that's a qualifier but if you want it to be evidence base just take just revise that piece captur that I have captured that and that'll be a discussion during our next meeting the it is it is the model policy language but it is definitely something that we'll talk about based on your your re or requests to me absolutely anything else on this policy all right okay the following policies I think there's four of them okay so there are four policies policy 604 instructional curriculum policy 618 assessment of student achievement policy 619 staff development of standards and policy 802 disposition of obsolete equipment and materials all four of these policies are new policies to our district and they are we are recommending the adoption of these four policies using our three policy procedure um using mba's model policy so we're just recommending the adoption of mba's model policy with no no other changes to them is there any questions about these I just have one with the a math statement in the instructional curriculum I'm just reviewing to make sure that that language is accurate but absolutely I'm on it okay thank you does it capture the new um requirements like in social studies and those other pieces so if you look at sections two and section three on the requirements of like ethnic studies and personal finance and those it does say social studies and some are delineated and maybe it's captured in that broader term in which uh 604 I'd recommend that we hold that as a question to ensure that it matches goodness it was uh economics it was there were three or four different social studies standards that changed let's make sure that it's included in this so that we're not making a policy for last year we're making a policy for next year so can I just comment those um new requirements are not requirements until the 2025 2026 school year so it may make sense to look at those adding those in for this policy before we adopt it so put it on I'll put it on the agenda well done thank you okay so now we'll policy 616 School District system of accountability this policy has been on the committee's agenda since February of 2023 the committee is recommending the revisions um to align with msba model policy are there any questions or concerns on that one okay then we're going to go ahead and move right into second readings we have three policies for second reading policy 415 mandated reporting of male treatment of a vulnerable adult is there any comments concerns requests for policy 415 seeing none we'll move right on policy 49 tobacco free environment any comments or concerns requests for policy 419 see none policy 421 gifts to employees and school board members any comments requests or concerns okay that wraps up second reading we're going to go ahead and move right into third readings policy 620 credit for learning as a reminder this policy had its first and second reading in 2023 um the committee is recommending that we stick with the model policy language from msba and that this be a third reading for tonight and policy are there any questions requests concerns Matt um I I don't know if it's my spring break brain but I was ruminating on Section seven credit for employment with Healthcare Providers and that may come directly from statute but I wondered if we're moving towards Pathways that we make that language more Global so um credit for employment leave it at that and then tailoring the statement because everything works just for that credit for that employment piece so like a kid has a skinny course and then they go out and they work and they're getting their certifications and they're getting job coaching and they're getting credit for it um if we remove language that's specific to help healthare and it might come from statute I I end my time thank you so just to clarify that that language does come from statute and that's why it's in the policy the way it's in the way it's in there um any other questions or concerns with 620 then we're going to move on to policy 206 public comments um this is on our agenda for hold on one second can we actually do that because it's now it's own item that's what I was just going to say individual action item sorry it's been moved to an individual action item so we will discuss it at that point in time all right thank you sorry didn't interrupt no that's okay that wraps up policies okay thank you we've been busy policy committee all right next up we have action items um and the first item on our agenda is the consent agenda so I'm looking for a motion and a second on this item I motion to approve the consent agenda zusik second all right any discussion all right all those in favor say I I all right with nonone opposing the motion passes unanimously to approve the consent agenda next item is or next items are all of for individual action the first item is policy 206 policy 206 the reason that I pulled it from the consent agendas to consider revision of the language in section 6B um the what the suggestion is can you pull that up please thank you I think it's highlighted maybe yep right there so it's highlighted right there and what the suggestion is is to remove the word citiz strike the word citizens and add those who want to participate in public comment and if everybody agrees with that Amendment or revision then we'll go ahead and move that for third reading and adoption do you want to speak more to that chair Tate uh no this just came up um in a conversation again I I had with legal and and um Miss Moen on the phone and we were talking about the fact that it was previously any citizen was open to doing public comment and so now that we're saying that it has to be people who have a direct connection somehow to the district we would just change that verbage just slly okay so any comments or questions everybody fine with that language change okay all right then with that looking for a motion on this item in a second I motion to adopt policy 206 as revised second Pine any discussion all right all those in favor say I I I all right the motion passes unanimously to adopt policy 206 which again means that we will have public comment back into the regular portion of the meeting during the agenda and televised moving on on the next item on our agenda tonight is bills payable I'm looking for a motion and a second on this item runs will make a motion bear mayor seconds any discussion all right all those in favor say I I hold on we need an exstension from you so again I'm GNA I'm going to do it again sorry yep two more weeks um just to be there uh director Bruns Works in District 9917 so there are Financial transactions there so uh the plan is for him to abstain um not to change make you change your vote but I'm going to make you change your vote I'm sorry all those in favor say I I all those oppose say nay and all those who abstain all right two weeks so we had we had uh director Bruns made the motion which is accept acceptable uh the second was sorry was IT director Pine beer Meer sorry beer Meer was second so we had six in favor one exstension to pass uh to adopt bills payable right all right um it helps when I'm paying attention right all right uh next on the agenda is the revised budget um and I believe uh Miss subbert will just give us some additional information on this before we vote so this is a second revised budget for this fiscal year and the revised budget includes a change related to special ed expenditures and revenues um the reason for the change is that there was an updated model released by mde in February which is showing a favorable Trend in revenue for the district in addition there is an ability to take advantage of the increase in special Le cross subsidy Aid so in summary it's more financially beneficial for the district to use our federal special ed funds towards reducing our tuition costs in order to do this the district needs to move some salaries and benefits out of federal and into State special ed um this will allow the district to apply more of our federal funds to tuition which will increase the state funding that we receive so Miss lewig if you would pull it up and go to page two um you can see there's some updates that happen to both revenues and expenditures within both state and federal but overall it's an increase of $500,000 to our budget and then if you go to the next page and kind of go down to the bottom where you can see the yellow line um our previous budget had the the district for unassigned overspending by 79,000 now with this additional 500,000 um our unassigned is positive $420,000 and I can address any questions if there are any thank you all right so I am looking for a motion on this item on the revised with an expression of gratitude for the creativity and the the prudence and and efficacy of M Miss subbert I I really want to encourage all of you to vote Yes on this and therefore I bring the motion that we approve although it's somewhat atypical to do a a second revised budget I I vote I I will recommend that you approve a second revised budget for the school year second address Le all right any discussion okay all those in favor say I I all right motion passes unanimously to approve the revised budget number two all right uh earlier tonight I had mentioned that I was not going to put words in your mouth with a motion but on this one I am so um the school school board has received a proposed separation agreement with employee a to resolve terms related to the employment relationship that have been agreed to by the employee and are recommended by the School District administration I am requesting a motion and a second for approval of the separation agreement I move to approve the separation agreement of employee Pon second any discussion all right all those in favor say I I hi hi all right M motion passes unanimously to approve the separation agreement with employee a you all right next up on the agenda is the read act curriculum Mr Lon would you like to come up so this is our continuation um of looking at we first did the professional development and since we have been looking at the curriculums which it was um address that there are two that are applicable to Hastings out of the five three were foundational and we already used one of those so one was a combination with the um knowledge wi and wisdom and the other was the comprehensive one which was e open up thank you Dr Champa um Bard I I want to bring uh to you tonight um kind of an overview of everything that we've gone over um Dr Champa just did a brief one and I'll dive just slightly more into it um for everyone's reference but then also bring to you the um recommendation of um the Hastings staff so um the Minnesota Department of Education did approve those five resources um as Dr Champa said um those resources were all um put through a very strenuous and um highly regulated PR uh process for determining which of the programs um were closely related to the science of reading um three of those programs were foundational skills so those would be the skills that we would focus on mainly in our primary grades um focusing on phics vmic awareness and other early literacy skills um of those three Hastings had begun this year piloting a program um from the University of Florida Florida literacy Institute um which was called youly foundations um that program has been met with great Applause from our teachers and they um overwhelmingly support continuing that so of those three that is the one that um we support using and then of the two remaining programs that were approved um they were El education and Wht and wisdom those two programs um focused on the other three pillars of literacy which were fluency vocabulary and comprehension so during the state's review process 24 programs were closely evaluated and only the five mentioned earlier were um passed that evaluation process so the states mandated that in order to receive funding through the state to help pay for the curriculum a district must select one of the approved curriculums um I will note because I know this was brought up um mde is allowing a resubmission process for the curriculums that were not meeting approval um there's a turnaround for a resubmission of two months um I will confidently say that it is impossible to change a curriculum in two months so I honestly don't know what could change about a curriculum to have it be resubmitted to meet a higher quality of standard um I do believe that curriculums can be changed and altered to me the higher quality I don't believe it can be done in two months so I don't anticipate hearing that a whole bunch of more curriculums were approved if they contined to use that same process for evaluation uh we have been going through uh this review process for a um Elementary literacy curriculum for the last year and a half so this started back in uh really in September of um 22 being able to start talking about what a new curriculum in our district would look like um over that time the the teachers in our district have dedicated innumerable hours to being able to make this decision they have put in time outside of school to be able to review the materials they have gone through um an entire process of looking through uh a variety of resources last spring coming to a near conclusion and decision and then being told to wait because of the decision of the react um we've been able to look at um probably close to um 10 curriculums over the last year and a half um and even though only these two have been approved these two were the ones that stood out to us the most even before that approval process happened um just as a review I shared these numbers with you last time our teachers uh of those two programs felt um 75% felt that they could Implement effective lessons with elel education 89% with wisdm sorry yep uh uh pardon me m uh Mr Larson may I please in in interject a question absolutely um slow down and look at the data and what does this mean grades 1 through two sorry I remember remember that whole thing yes there was confusion about that do you mind slowing down absolutely and just making sure that all of us understand the data because this data is is worth slowing down for pardon me slow down no absolutely appreciate that director zic so we asked our teacher to rate each of those programs on a 1 through five scale so five was I feel very confident and one is I don't feel confident at all so when you look through the numbers here those are not grade levels those are the numbers of um staff or the numbers that staff selected for their confidence level in that question so the reason that we grouped three through five on the bottom was we felt that that meant that they were either okay or very confident in that program so if you look that 75% says that of the teachers who responded to this evaluation 75% of them felt that they were okay or very confident in being able to implement effective lessons in their classroom with E and 89% felt the same way with Whitten wisdom director milman so do you know what made the teachers field that they could you know what what were they basing that on like the training that's involved or what are they basing this decision on so a large number of the teachers um or I should say a large amount of that recommendation comes from teachers diving into the materials themselves and being able to look at um all the aspects of teaching when it comes to it so it would be the planning side of it it would be the actual core content it would be um the way that we engage students in those lessons I think the engagement piece was something that we spent a lot of time looking at um because we know that students who are engaged and um activating their minds are learning better and are also um better able to U be a part of a classroom community in an effective way so when we looked at that one of the things that I did encourage or I should say discourage our staff from doing was looking on social media because as I told them all social media has a strong tendency to lean in a negative Direction no matter what it is that you're looking at um many of our staff found online both programs had negatives and positives from people on social media saying oh this is extremely hard to teach this is um something that um after you teach it the first time you won't want to teach it again that was one of the things for eel and I think that was one of the the swaying factors for some of our staff despite the fact that we told them to try stay away from that as much as possible I do believe that the people who took this review and everyone who um gave an honest effort did not use social media as their their main driving force behind it they really did take an in-depth um look at those materials yep director jley I just have a question about the youly um so that's a pilot program that we're using currently that has we haven't paid for that as a district yet correct that's correct okay well we haven't paid for it through teaching and learning funds so it was paid for through um building level funds at this point yes okay so is that that we're going to take that on as curriculum then um and it will no longer be a pilot and that'll obviously be something that gets paid for out of the general fund out of the curricular side of the yes the general fund yes thank you yep and that is sorry that is eligible for reimbursement the youly so are we eligible for more than one reimbursement of curriculum or just one no more than so whatever makes up the whole so the one the eel is the one that is the comprehensive and the other you would have to blend those together and have one foundational and then that knowledge so yeah thanks thank you for explaining that uh on the following slide we had um engagement as I talked about before um 68% of Staff felt that um eel was engaging and 75 uh% felt that um wit and wisdom was engaging and then the last one feeling comfortable using this curriculum in our district um it was 64% for El and 86% for Wht and wisdom are there any other questions about those numbers before I move on Dat yeah I'm just wondering about the do you know why any specific reasons why teachers may be uncomfortable using curriculum in our district so um one of the um biggest resounding answers from teachers who had said I don't feel this and it wasn't written in those comments this is just from my conversations with teachers as we've gone through this process um was a um concern about the rigor that we were asking kids to undertake um I would say that the process that we will through in whatever curriculum we adopt um is going to be a much more rigorous expectation for our kids to I think a very positive effect um I think there is Extreme value in making sure that we understand what that rigor looks like and that our teachers are ready to be able to um to to deal with that with our students um I think specifically from the writing side was where a lot of that concern came from um for both programs it was a concern of um we're having our students write too much if if we're um doing this at our K And1 levels director zizak uh uh Mr Larson can you go back two slides please thank you I just wanted to capture that those numbers and then one slide forward please okay then I'm just going to make this comment um we should not be afraid of rigor because rigor is challenge and when we have some teachers that are saying that our students are aren't quite ready for it by golly two years from now when they get the fourth graders that went through a good solid curriculum from second and third grade they will be ready for for it so and we cannot improve our reading scores and our writing scores without improving our rigor so rigor although I understand that as being something that uh as a lifelong teacher and educator myself it alarms me like gosh can my kids really handle it we have to always presume that they can handle it and that they're ready to go and and that leveling up of rigor is so critical that and I appreciate that that's probably the concern that came from the earlier grades in particular prek through second grade we see that lower number of teachers that are comfortable with it it's probably due to rigor and we can't get there unless rigor improves pardon me that was just a comment thank you can I ask a question on that too I hate to blame everything on Co but if Co hadn't happened would rigger even be a question so I I think that's a good question and and I I'm probably not the most knowledgeable to speak on this but I would say um that the rigger comments are not necessarily a result of um what our students are or aren't able to do at this point it's a matter of what we have been asking them to do for the last five six pre-co years even um I there has been a variety of different resources that we've used over the last six seven eight years um and whenever that happens the level of rigor drops just because there is no continuity between classes between grade levels um I do think Co is a factor in some of the things that we are seeing uh but the further we get away from that the the less we can use that as a an issue so director Pine um how long has wit and wisdom been around part one of the question then part two is you know if we stay away from looking at social media like have we looked at other districts that have implemented this program in the last you know let's just say 3 to five years and what have we seen as a result from like academic achievement in their students sure uh so wien wisdom has gone through many different iterations as all companies you do um they um started off I I I don't even know what the number is 15 20 years ago um the curriculum that we are looking at now is um the 2023 revised version um so again in accordance with a lot of the the um legislative mandates they have updated their material um but as we looked around the um General Minnesota area there were not a ton of public schools that were using Whitten wisdom at that point um obviously that's something that will change um but looking at um other districts across the United States wit and wisdom has become a program that many states have used I don't want to speak to numbers just because I don't have them off the top of my head I do know that um the the states that have used them have been through a very similar process um some of the states that have used them have been through a very similar process that are State Legislature went through and found um that to be the same case that would was was a high quality program I think that's really what I would encourage you to um lean on is the fact that this is not a program that our teachers have single-handedly reviewed this is not a a program that I have single-handedly reviewed this is a program that was reviewed by our department of education and deemed to be high quality just just a couple of things so St Paul uses this but I believe this is their first year second at most and so that's a hard one to compare and then just a quick comment about scores I was going to mention this when I talked about being in the season of test taking um one of the areas of kind of a double-edged sword right now is when we first talked about State Testing that's how all of our districts were reviewed and compared and I think that's true again today however the opt outs that we have has that wasn't present years ago right so now we have a lot of students opting out that does that goes against our scores and so it's really hard to have I'm not saying they shouldn't go up we all talk about that often and what that rigor is and what that looks like but it's really hard to get a an accurate picture with those today and I do understand MCA scores are important and there are the the number that we are used and judged against U towards the other districts in our state um however I will say talking to the Middle School teachers who um obviously have our elementary students come into um into them the level of um writing that our students have been able to do over the last five six years um has significantly decreased according to them they have not seen that same level of um ability to um write a a substantial piece uh and I think Again part of that is just a lack of consistency in how we were um having our curriculum in the past um Wht and wisdom has been um recognized by many districts as a very good tool to increase writing ability in students that's one of the reasons that many of our third and fourth grade teachers were very excited about it was the level that we were asking students to write at so I have a question and I'm I don't mean to put on spot and if you're not able to answer it just get back to me when you can what is the cycle for our our um curriculum review for a curriculum like this this like say wh wisdom was the choice and how long would it be before that curriculum was reviewed or it came back just out of so um we have not been following the procedure that we should have been because of covid and other factors um and that would be a conversation with our new director of teaching and learning um however I will say that typically it's about a seven-year cycle um unless Dr Champa you want to speak to that yeah to be safe I would say 10 sure is typical and the current materials and right now there's a lot of created materials but the current materials I have that from fifth grade on but do you know that off the top year the current materials that fifth grade is using Mr Esty does 11 11 years 11 years sure thank you okay I will move on uh I do understand that there are concerns I know that that is something that was brought up at the um public session as well as um things that you have been looking at um and and um learning about as you've investigated this curriculum um I think that anytime that concerns about curriculum concerns about the things that we are um having our students do come up it is very important for us to be able to talk about that um and talk about it in a open way so that people can understand what is it that we are doing and and how can we um address those concerns so I want to just take you briefly through um what is our review process for all of our curriculum and this isn't just as we Implement a new program this is what our teachers do year after year with all of their curriculum that they do so the resources that we have available to us are only resources so when we get this curriculum whatever we end up choosing it will be a resource for us our curriculum that we teach are the state standards and I think that's really important for us to understand it's something that we have really had a mindset shift in the last five or so years as we've gone through a lot of professional development on literacy we are responsible for teaching the standards that means that a nationwide curriculum isn't always going to cover every Minnesota state standard and I think it's really important for us to to recognize that because what that means is that no matter what we go with there will have to be additions there will also be times when we look and say that's probably not something that's going to meet our standard so we don't necessarily have to teach that um as we go through this process we do have to ask ourselves what standards does this resource cover this isn't something we can do just in a day or even in a week with teachers it's a year-long process as we go about this teaching so even though we're calling this a curriculum recommendation it really is a resource recommendation um as we go through this process we preview everything before we teach it our teachers are very intentional and methodical about going through the materials and looking and seeing what are we asking students to do what are the standards that the resource covers and is it appropriate for what we are um for for the students that are in front of us um we sit down with grade level teams and we plan out this unit when we do a brand new curriculum like this it will be even more intentional than it would be normally so our teachers would normally as a new unit comes up they would sit down with their team they would look through they would plan out what does the next 3 to four weeks look like and they would go through and talk about what are the materials that we're going to use to teach these um these standards that we need to cover so as we think about that with a new curriculum we'll have to be even more intentional and we've already um discussed the idea of having after school planning times set up for for teachers to be able to look at those materials ahead of time so during this time we also decide which ones are age appropriate so when we look through it's not just about um you know is there is there violence in a book that we might not want to feature is there um uh facts that are no longer accurate um I was talking with my wife about curriculum review last night um she's a a state tax auditor so this is all foreign to her as much as hers is to me uh and she said what what happens if like there's a big huge change like Pluto is no longer a planet do you just continue to teach that Pluto is a planet and I said no we're not robots we don't just grab the the book and and read from start to finish there's a sophisticated and professional review process that all of our teachers go through and this happens with any program that we have we may have a social studies program that has a National Geographic component with it that might just have pictures in it that we don't want to have shown to our second grade students if that was the book we might have a um a math curriculum that teaches a skill that is not a standard for us and so we'll skip over that part of that program when we go through this process it is not we're going to take this book and teach it from page one to page 300 start to finish there is a a meticulous process that we go through it's what good teachers do and it's what our teach teachers do and um everybody knows that this is going to mean more work for them and I think that's one of the things that all of the teachers have acknowledged is that the things that we're going to be doing over the next year moving forward with whatever curriculum is is chosen it's going to be a lot of work but it's the work that we do and that's what has to happen regardless of the resource regardless of the subject that we are teaching so there are going to be materials that when we look through them we are going to decide not to teach them there are going to be materials that we'll have to add in in order to teach our curriculum which is the state standards however resoundingly from teachers over and over again we know that the quality strategies and rigorous thinking that Whitten wisdom is asking our students to do is going to raise their level of achievement so we bring to you our unified resource recommendation for Whitten wisdom and I will take any other questions that you have it's my first swing at this Mr LaRon but um you know that there's some discomfort on the board about adop ing wit and wisdom in its uh fullness and in its um entirety and is there a way that we could move forward to say that in regard to pedagogy which means the the development of a learning structure for children that's what pedagogy means based on the pedagogy and the data that the state and and the 11,220 hours of people within our district have looked at wit and wisdom and bring for this recommendation is there a way that we can say yes and and yes and might be yes and no matter what comprehensive Pro program we adopt whatever no matter what program we adopt there will be literature in it that will be offensive to some I would say that every single program that we looked at some kind of push back to it yeah 100% and and and there's two or three that I know of that have more of a push back than wh wisdom did but can can we would you accept this isn't about you pardon me but would it be appropriate to make an adaption with a thoughtful review of the literary choices that wit and wisdom chose and then move forward from there like there may be some some that are gosh I'm not I'm not ready with this I'm not okay with this literary Choice I'm not ready with this literary choice but there might be 30 books per year per per curriculum cycle and there there's several that are being challenged and no matter what curriculum we adopt there will be many that will be challenged there will be several that will be challenged but is there way Mr Larson that we can say yes to this and take a careful slow look at what we're doing and look at the ones that other people have caused alarm about and review those and with a high degree of discernment consider those and I and I wonder as I asked Mr LaRon I wonder if the board can think about it in that way and I I don't know what else to say but I I mean wit and wisdom clearly in regard to a pedagogy is clearly a good choice but for us to say yes to something that is objectional to some we need to we need to raise a yellow flag and say hey caution here caution here caution here and Dr Champa you have the I apologize I'm putting you on the spot for this but but but we have some of the systems in place for that and there's some systems that we can put in place between now and full adoption I'm asking that yes so one thing that I just want to clarify so I don't move s of it uh the 11,250 hours of review that was the department that wasn't us locally so I just want to make sure iify that well I'm still on a hot mic so give me the moment uh if if that's true I know that we've had two and a half professional days looking at this so we're way the heck Beyond 11,200 hours so this is oh goodness I didn't realize that I mean there's a lot more than that when you look at just our district level and all of our special Leed and reading teachers that have been looking at this and all of our elementary teachers so pardon me I I I I'll close my mic and just is there some way that we can uh Solomon ontically cut the baby in half on this deal so if I could just speak a little bit to um some of that uh it would be well within the the school board's um decision right to be able to say we would like to create a committee or a group over the summer even if it's a group of teachers that we will pay to come together over the summer to review the materials at each grade level prior to that review process that we will still go through before teaching them each time that makes absolute sense to me um one of the things that I always want to make sure that we think about when we think about um the the challenges that go towards a book or um the discomfort that goes towards a a book before we make any decisions on that and before somebody decides that they should that should or shouldn't be taught I really encourage you to read the book uh I I I think that's a really important piece to this um I I got a chance to look at some of the same material um over the last couple of days that I'm sure you have been able to see um that I know some of our people who have presented concerns have been able to see um and when I went and got the books and and read them it wasn't necessarily through the same vein that it was presented on social media or on those sites so I do encourage people to to read the books and whether that's the school board deciding to read those books you certainly can do that um parents are always welcome to um ask for the books that we um have for our students in our curriculum to read um absolutely but I could also see uh a spot where we could ask some teachers to come together and read the books in their curriculum for um you know a day or two in the summer thank um I'd like to make a comment um or I guess several I'm going to so first I just want to give some background so when we had a working session several weeks ago all of the board members took curriculum home to read I had this book this this stack fourth grade curriculum to to read through and I did um it was funny because I have a fourth grade son and and he came out of his bedroom the next morning I said did you see what I got for you and he was he was horrifying um but anyway I I read the curriculum and I have to say I absolutely agree with between these two curricula hands down wit and wisdom seemed like the better choice um I'm no expert for sure but it just seemed like a much better structure much easier to execute all of that um so I was I was good with wit and wisdom and then I um went to the implementation Guide online and started reading that and it's got a lot more of the books for all the other grades and everything and I spent vast majority of that entire day the good thing about this is it's it's Elementary curricula it's Elementary books you can find many many many read alouds on YouTube on Elementary books I listen to book after book after book in its entirety and um my concerns are my biggest concerns are yes with with the books um not being age appropriate there's a lot of very I'll say dark subjects as our our public commenter actually spoke to there's a lot of very dark subjects and um and so when you have this kind of Darkness um combined with the fact of the structure is that the the the students read the book and then they spend weeks and weeks on this book right and so there's there's that aspect of it but a bigger concern for me was if we do have books that the parents find objectionable and they have the the right to opt their students correct so if a parent were to choose to do that their student would miss out on weeks of instruction which would obviously put them behind so in my head right I'm thinking why does teaching kids have how to read have to be so controversial right like we can't we find books that every single family is comfortable with and you know with having their kids exposed to and make sure that we don't have anybody opting out of so that's that's one of my concerns in I mean in general is is yes the books and can we find more and obviously we can um my other concern frankly is the the um the social emotional learning piece that is intertwined throughout the entire thing is through CLE and I've done a lot of research on CLE and I've actually opted my own uh daughter out of some of our seal type um lessons which is from a derivative of CLE um because there's a lot of uh social justice type themes in there and activism and all this kind of stuff and I I don't find it appropriate for school districts to teach kids how to become activists I simply don't I think that if parents want to teach their kids that that's great go right ahead and do it but let's focus on right now let's focus on teaching kids how to read right and and and yes I agree we need to teach kids how to be good people but it's the activism part of it that I just I am OB I I object to um so I guess along with the books is there a way to peel back that activism type those themes that I'm I'm sure are interwoven within this because it flat out says in the implementation guide that it is through CLE uh I I don't want to speak to that large amount of um what would be required to be able to do that um strictly because I have not been able to look through every lesson of every you know grade level of this curriculum um that's a a comment that maybe your fellow board members can address and decide on how they would want to um talk about that I would say um the the way that we have taken um to teaching social emotional learning at our elementary schools has been through our second step program and that would be where that would remain the the um focus of that I can't say that we would be able to extract those pieces completely again not knowing how they're interwoven into um the fabric of of of that program um but what I can say is that the social emotional learning that we have done with our program Second Step has shown and you've all had a chance to hear our elementary principles um come up here and share numbers and share changes it has shown to be an improvement in our buildings and that social emotional learning is a part of that I can't speak to Cle I can't speak to the complexity that is Whitten wisdom but I can say that that is not a that is not something that we would abandon to completely go with having Whitten wisdom teach our social emotional learning thank you I director Pine may u pardon me can I it's a direct follow-up question can I ask um pardon me director Pine what I'm hearing you say is there may be some social emotional lessons embedded in some of the instructional materials of wit and wisdom but it wouldn't replace what we're currently doing just to be clear that's correct and and as I think about um chair Tate the the other question that has come up about this um a few times tonight is um the depth of learning that we go into around a particular book I can't address that because that was something that was brought up by our teachers as as different than than the strategy that we use now um so when we look at that and we think about what is happening over those two weeks or 3 weeks it's usually only about two weeks of um of of a single book if that um it is done through the lens of different standards so when we think about a specific book A book can teach us more than one strategy a book can teach us more than one um standard to look at so when we think about character development which is one of our standards that's going to be able to be looked at in a way that learning the moral of a story is going to be in a different way so we're still um examining the text the other thing that I appreciate about wit and wisdom is that we for many many of our texts are using bigger thicker complex texts that take more than just one day to read um I think one of the things that um we have learned over the last couple of years is that um having sustained learning from day to day with the same kind of text can help deepen that understanding um one of the big flaws in the way that we have been teaching is we haven't had a vocabulary Rich program and when we talk about a um a a a thematic program like wit and wisdom we can have an in-depth vocabulary that may be above what a normal first second or third grader would be able to use on a specific subject but because we're spending more time at it we can get into those deeper level vocabulary talk about morphology talk about prefixes and suffixes all of those kinds of things that would allow our students to have that greater depth of vocabulary so when we think about um the the number of days on a on a book yes it's the same book but it's not the same subject matter over and over again so mine is more of a comment I I am grateful that you said you know if we adopt this curriculum that the teachers and or and or a committee or whatever could decide this book isn't right because in doing my research that was one of my con concerns I have four kids they couldn't be any different from each other I mean even parenting them has been really challenging because they're so different my first one would have read can I say the topics that are kind of dark like I can okay so I mean scalping is in one of the books um the mom the boy Witnesses a mom having a miscarriage and bleeding um I'm trying to think of what the other one was uh I mean there there are heavy subjects and so my first kid would have read that that book yes we have an actual dictionary in our house he wouldn't have said a word to me he would have went to the dictionary looked up the words he didn't know moved on with his life my second kid would have read over the words not knowing what they meant and just kept going like who cares right um my third kid would um come ask me but then make all kinds of faces at me and run away my fourth kid that stuff would cause nightmares sure she'd be up um we wouldn't sleep um she'd be clingy I mean we have anxiety mental health issues in our school so just a comment more or less that it does help me to know that maybe if that book is not age appropriate that we can just say let's replace this with something else there's tons of great materials out there it doesn't have to be blood and gore and things that maybe their hearts just aren't quite ready for no matter how B good the book is I'm sure the book is great I'm sure it is but for the age and the world we're living in right now I mean kids are growing up so fast as it is I just like them to maintain their innocence and still just think of the fun in the world rather than the heaviness of the world so one of the the books um that you brought up um specifically referencing the the sculping situation um that was brought to my attention um yesterday along with a variety of other aspects of that book um and so I did reach straight out to the company once I read the book and said yep these are the things that are in it um and they um helped walk me through what the the guide would be for that and in that book that is again super thick there are only chapters of it that are read and those chapters that include some of that gorier material is not read by the student or the teacher in that in during those lessons so yes the book is still there but the specific aspects of it are not taught according to that lesson and again that would be something that as teachers we could look through and decide Yep this is they have cut out the right amount of Parts um and and we're feeling comfortable with it or we're not um you know I think one of the things that um all of you who have gone through a system and have had a great teacher and everybody has had a great teacher um for me one of the things that I have always really enjoyed um is read alouds I I I loved reading allow to my kids I loved when my teachers read aloud to me and I remember reading books in fourth and fifth grade um and just loving them loving them loving them and then going back to read them later on as a as a young adults or even as an adult and realizing that my teachers changed like a dozen to two dozen words in that book because that wasn't appropriate for us at the time uh and we didn't know and I'm not saying that every teacher is going to be able to do that and that's why we need that review process but this is something that we do all the time okay so one thank you and your staff for all the research um I dove through fifth grade and I didn't look at social media I didn't even think to um I was just really trying to get my head around like what you know what am I really looking for you know trying to navigate these so I appreciate the work that your staff has done th% with W wi and wisdom right I thought it was much easier I kind of tried to apply it to my kids but we got the the guide and then I started seeing like trying to follow that along and tie it in with the other grades but then I saw some just the names of the books right so then of course that led me down the path and you know thinking back to like our students you know mental health has been brought up in like multiple venues and and you know every kid is at kind of a different spot when it comes to some of the gruesomeness but the one piece that I think everybody could a thousand per agree on is some of those books had some suicidal ideations and like safety being the number one priority versus rigor in my mind like sitting at this board table that's my huge alarm is you know there was like shaming and you know then there was research about like that's the number one cause of suicide in adolescence so my biggest concern is like my vote is yes but the butt is entirely around the safety and you know that review process you know I think we have to be very you know very very cautious and you know invite parents I mean let let this selection process you know have some depth to it and some selection because that is honestly my biggest takeaway you know to Melissa's point or director Miller's point like we all have kids that would have looked at it differently you know some are just reading it turning the pages just to get done with it and not probably grasping it but the safety piece is by far what I think we need to probably Focus most of our attention on or you know is kind of my biggest concern um I love when you're here Andy we get to talk about reading and I love to read um and I appreciate to the accommodations you've extended to the board you could do this summer work and that um but I am wary of the conversation that we're having at the table um steering towards micromanagement I mean our that is not our role and I feel like we're we're losing the trust and and honoring the work that your crew has dedicated to this uh even even if you look at like mtss as an example like that captures 75 to 80% of kids right any curriculum we buy is probably going to satisfy 80% of folks and then there's going to be some OB objectional pieces in there um so I think you've done a lot to defend the art and craft of teaching and the work that you do every day and um I don't know if if you should be put in that spot um that we are micromanaging like that that teacher behavior that like we trust them with our kids and I trust them with that work so I just want to say thank you for everything you've done and put into this and and keep it up thank you so much that that stakeholder input is huge and that should really guide our decision those are the folks that say this works for me and I can crush it I want to thank you too this has been a tough thing for me um director Bruns I the only thing I take exception to there I don't think we're mik managing I just don't think uh we're not here to rubber stamp okay so and there's a definite difference there and uh families have an ability and should have the ability to be part of this too right so I just don't think it's I don't think we're trying to do too much here I just don't think we're just I trust teachers first of all I don't want that I don't like being told I don't trust teachers if I don't necessarily just want to rubber stamp this I just want to do my homework on it and it's there's a lot of work here um and I am hesitant to move forward with it I'm not going to lie but I don't think it's because I want to micromanage it I think it's because I just don't want to slap it down and we're done so that's all I want to say on that well it's a 10-year commitment and a huge investment too right so to that point it's you know we're not just making a decision for you know tomorrow and obviously curriculums do have adjustments and I'm sure the state's going to have different you know changes over the years too but I just want to make sure that we're fiscally managing you know the investment and I mean I I know it's never one siiz fits all I mean that's evident I do have another question so I I get what you're saying when they say they're reviewing new curriculum and can they really change something in 2 months time but is it possible that these curriculum companies knew what the new standards would be and had been working on it prior so that when the review process came oh golly we're on top of it we know what the state of Minnesota wanted um and that the new curriculums coming are going to be approved would be good ones and kind of a second question to that is you said you had already reviewed 10 of them mhm M and these two these two were top like top two yeah so before we went through and found out that these were the ones that were covered y these two programs were the ones that had already stood out to us as these are exceptional okay so that was kind of my next question is were there any that were above these two that could possibly be you know on the list of being approved and should we wait to look at those or do you just still think wit and wisdom's the way to go I don't think any of the others even compare sure um I I guess I can't speak to whether a curriculum company was was ahead of the game on that um I guess my thought process would be um the the expectations around what we're calling the science of reading now are is not a Minnesota based thing this is something that is global and National now and has been the the research has been around for 40 50 years and it has really just come into the spotlight in the last 10 but this process has been ongoing in other states for years and years so I I I don't anticipate I I hate to be little Minnesota but I don't anticipate somebody saying oh well we better change everything for Minnesota I've reached out to companies and asked if anybody has a Minnesota curriculum and that's just not a thing no one has a curriculum that has Minnesota standards in it hence you know the the conversation that we talked about earlier about that needing to be selective and and um you know being able to replace things that that we need to um my other hesitation with any with any waiting would be it would be extremely hard to implement something for next year um the earliest that they would reveal that list of names would be May um it sounds like May 1st is the plan for that um and even from there I don't think we could line up time to look at materials until beginning of June earliest it it it's quite a process um so thank you is the plan to implement the wit and wisdom beginning of next school year the 2024 2025 school year that would be the plan yes all right first and foremost I applaud you for the work that you did and came tonight and and knowing that since just yesterday there have been some concerns and what that might look like and so um thank you for the work that you've done so really uh your comment about the baby you you do have some qu some options right um so I added to my list of your options though so your options really are uh approve wit and wisdom we've walked this journey for a while and like anything the um concerns came up recently um you can approve it wit and wisdom with modifications as was discussed you can delay and ask some additional questions and to a point a question that was asked of Andy with the number of curriculums that are being relooked at um that list is supposed to be out May 1st first um we tried to be really proactive and remember we were using Ed reports to try to decide which ones were going to be on the list and so we did look at a number of them um however as soon as that list came out we didn't do the Deep dive we did not do the full day with our staff and have the companies come in and and so that was the level that we reviewed those and then uh the final one that I had oh with modifications with that we can change books out we can do that kind of thing um but I just want to be careful with that as long as that's the extent of what those modifications are because if it's what might be skills or something like that I just don't want our teachers to be burdened with additional concerns that they're going to be criticized or um that is just not what we want for our staff so there's really four options and wait for MD's um reposting was the fourth one I apolog iiz Dr Champa for my ineptitude in following it but one is to embrace it and say heck yeah let's go so that was one one is to say none of these and let's wait please take a little bit more time to talk about the other two and I the two that I said were heck yeah let's go and uh none of these and let's wait and then what were the other two cuz you said that there were four and and I I just I didn't capture cognitively uh what the other two were that's probably because I wasn't very succinct with that so number one is to approve wit and wisdom number two approve wit and wisdom with modifications that can be accomplished um number three would be delay to answer any additional questions and number four would be wait for MD to publish the outcome of the re-evaluated materials Madam chair I would recommend that we approve wit and wisdom with accommodations with modifications pardon me and I I seek a second only to open the conversation for more conversation so just one thing to be clear this is also one thing that I learned in the um msba um training we can have as much conversation as we want before we make a motion to make sure that we know where we're going with a motion um so if that if that's your concern um I don't know that we're at a point yet where I'm necessarily comfortable with making a motion but I appreciate and I agree with your comment that we can converse and then make a motion in a bit I will also say that uh um a bio break might be a good idea yeah in the next few minutes well I would agree we're at 8:15 it's been over two hours um yeah let's let's um call a let's say a 7 minute recess um folks can absorb things and think through things a bit too good idea I I agree so let's let's come back at 8:23 yeah pardon me thank you ma'am you e e e e e e e e e e e e e e all right it's 8:23 folks so we will get back to um our discussion on the curriculum um first I want to make sure I want to clarify do do we have a motion on the table because we have to deal with that if we do uh Madam chair I I think based on our conversation so far and I I made a motion to inspire conversation and and it might have even been seconded if it was I I don't it was not seconded I'm looking at Tammy lwig she's saying it was not seconded and correctly it wasn't seconded and so we're still just conversing and there's no motion on the table okay all right good I just want with that in case we needed to all right so opening it up for discussion so that we can make our way to a motion we obviously understand the four options for motions tonight so looking for input feedback Etc and actually I'll just I'll just I I'd like to say one thing so we've talked about the fact that this this is a possibly a 10 plus year commitment it's extremely expensive um and uh to your point director Bruns I I totally understand we don't want to micromanage however in statute it clearly states that school boards are responsible for curriculum so this is a a big part of our um our responsibility statutorily um so we want to get it right right so I want to make sure that we do have a robust conversation so that we get to a point where all board members are um comfortable because I don't want uh I don't want to frankly I don't want to vote in anything that is divisive and and we can't get folks on board right so that's our objective all right so looking for input feedback from board members on where you're sitting at this moment so that we can understand where we're kind of gauging for by the way our district needs to move forward with with a choice with a decision I don't really want to task Mr Larsson and his team with more work you know that's a concern I know the hours that they've spent on this um I think before I saw that you know whatever the implementation guide was I thought it was a pretty clear decision so I'm comfortable moving forward with the option two with motion to approve with the ability to amend or modification thank you I uh I would be okay with modifications also um I think it helps with um transparency accountability all of that I think I would I would consider that yes so I know we've asked a lot of questions tonight thank you so much for all of your answers and knowledge and the time you've put in because I do feel this is a massive decision and the reality is we answer to the public and during our election we definitely know families have left due to content in school so if we're to serve all students kind of becomes easy to know that we need to just remove certain things that don't fit all students um like Gore might not be age appropriate you know um and I know that touches some boundaries and I Know It Ruffles feathers and I know all of that but the reality is there's millions of books that we can choose from um to make it very enjoyable reading experience for our children and keep families here and not lose families um so just just like the example of my kids each and every child in this district has a different heart a different background a different everything and so you know if we just keep it more neutral so I do like option to as well that I trust you and your team um I trust Dr Champa and it makes me feel even better to know that you guys had looked at this curriculum prior and it was top one and two um that you know I'm not a teacher so it's good to know that it's teacher backed and that you guys trust it and and know that you can implement it well so um that's kind of where I stand in the circle in the round um I believe that a delay is a non-starter there's going to be PD we need to get and have that secured so our staff are rolling through and we can implement this and have the materials so we can do this for fiscal year 25 um if the modifications are coming down to the professionals and people using the classroom that I'm I'm comfortable with that I would just be wary that that becomes too much of our business and we don't leave that in the hands of the administrators and the teachers that are charged with the care of those children and to be clear if there is anything left over that is questionable there is a process that parents can follow to request a curriculum review right um so that's a good point to make right if if any of this is um does make it that far um so and I do want to thank your team uh I commented to Dr champo yesterday I said I think the um process that has been followed to go through this has just been phenomenal um just tons of work and just done right uh which I absolutely appreciate um so this is honestly why and I told her I said Monday night I literally I was sick to my stomach and I didn't sleep because I was like I was all for wit wisdom and then I started listening to books and I was like oh my gosh I don't what are we going to do right this is a massive decision um so and I I my only my con my concern and I guess hearing that you guys didn't really um consider any of the other ones that the that MD is considering now um that's you know that's good feedback um so I over the last two weeks I have reached out to every single resource I have to ask questions about this across like the the state basically and one thing that I did hear come back several times was the amplify curriculum so you want to ask specifically about that if you know much about that and I know that that was actually implemented in Pine Island what last year two years ago last last year so I heard a lot of good things about that one and I know that that is on the consideration list the short list for mde right now if you know anything about amplify I'd appreciate hearing about that sure um and Dr Champa please don't uh come down on me hard for talking negatively about your your old District's program um so amplify was one of the programs that um we looked at um in depth this um this fall as we started to get more ideas about what was coming down the pike and and um that it was on the list for review um I think there were two um major flaws that we saw in amplify one of them was um from a literary standpoint and one of them was um just from a more Global standpoint so the from the literary standpoint um we found that the texts that they had for students to read um were not of the highest quality so amplifies program is based 80ish around their own created texts so they write they they commission authors to write and illustrate their own texts with without the ability to have authentic texts in front of kids it's really hard for us to be able to say this isn't this is a high quality text because of course your company says it's a high quality text you made it um and and so it's it's a lot harder for that um from the the global perspective um we did not find that there were any um parts of amplify that really gave um a Viewpoint that was outside of the United States and and I don't say that from a um divisive standpoint I say that from there was no um reference to any kind of work that was not Centric around the the United States history or um the United States um literacy so um a lot of the the other programs have um authors from Europe or authors from Asia um African authors um authors that have a variety of different viewpoints that come together to be able to to Showcase um what it looks like around the world um amplify did not provide um a window um or a mirror that would be for all of our students um we felt that it just wasn't really where we wanted um our um kids to be at in terms of um the content I think from the content side that was one of the things that Drew us to these two curriculums specifically was the um ex you know very close tie-ins with science and social studies so thank you appreciate that I'll just add to that that there's there's a lot of controversy with amplify so if you Google that or you you will find probably a little bit more um so with that there was an very intentional approach to that and there were some texts that were replaced so all right any other go ahead so I I was just going to say one of the things that I think will need to be clear um even if it's not tonight um if we decide to move forward with modifications we'll need a framework of what that modification system looks like what are the expectations for that um as I said I I'm confident that we could find some teachers if we want to do a summer review um if if the if an overall review ahead of time is what we would prefer to do I would encourage it to be in the summer um it would be a time when we could pay teachers to come in it wouldn't take very long um to read through those texts and and have um an evaluation um program that they could go through for that um but we would need some kind of of framework for that and that was my reservation about the modifications pieces who's developing that framework and it becomes subjective less so with an objective so how do we make sure that that maintains um the all the pieces that we needed to be and then the the Fidelity that that curriculum requires Madam chair I'm I've uh I I I'm passing around do you have enough of them M dressle I believe okay just I want you to look at this which we're all very familiar with and to those viewers at home we're looking at the the board governance model between what is the role of the school board and what is the rule of school administration and School staff and the instructional experts and and here's what I think happened if I may be so bold we went around the cycle and we got we said on the bottom half that's this the superintendent manages this on the top the Schoolboard manages this and we said starting I'm starting at 9:00 if you will I'm starting at 9:00 we said let's look at our curriculum and see what needs to happen to you know Implement a good curriculum and then we came back to 12:00 and we said these are the expectations that we have and a lot of work happened from mid summer till now with alignment of of what we asked to establish and then adopt we got to adopt and we felt a little bit uncomfortable we felt uncomfortable we felt uncomfortable so then you go into developing the plans again where does it go we're not asking the group to go back and redo everything we're asking the group to go back and look at the implementation of this and we're going to ask them to monitor it what what we've really done here I think is if you look at 12:00 again we've said we're establishing new expectations expectations that weren't there 12 months ago and we're saying don't move forward without including a thoughtful consideration of the content and what might be objectionable content so then what do we do we say hey team we've done what we can do we're going to adapt with modifications and that that that meets with what's there at 3:00 adopt with modification and now we let the team work and the team is not us the team is Dr Champa and whomever she said is on the team but I I think that's the way that I see this model playing out and it's a little bit complex right because this is different than what we were taught in our in our uh School Board 101 because today it got a little bit got a little messy but I can still see a way through it I I like this um um yeah well you know I just I'm at 12:00 yet okay and right now we're still at 12:00 yeah and any successful organization or anything that operates well doesn't end at the adopt part right and that's why I I'm not here to micromanage but if we want to be good at something we have to be adaptable right I mean as a as a as a board as a district um I think we've worked well together I think so because we can adapt a little bit um but to adopt this with some parameters is and I understand the concerns Mr Bruns I I I do director Bruns I I I do I respect that totally but we should have an expectation of bettering ourselves too right um so I don't think we're asking anything come this summer that's over and above anything that's not that's unreachable I think now seeing this again you know I like what I see here and I it just doesn't end at adopting it to me right I don't think so either uh director beer Meer I I think it ends up back at us looking back at it scratching our heads and saying yes and there's some new expectations yes and there's some parameters and when I think about modifications I think that would be up to the director of teaching and learning and our superintendent to set those parameters and I hate to add more to her plate but I don't see anybody else that could be um we're interviewing tomorrow well that's where I would see the modifications it coming from anyways or the parameters for the modifications that's I would trust the professional and that's below the line pardon that but that's management not y govern yep I I think right we all of our concerns have been heard comes down to age appropriateness um and not controversial not what we don't want kids opting out of this right or parents opting their their kids out of this so um what whatever that means I mean yeah you guys are the experts you know what what might cause a trigger and I know there might be some kid who has nightmares about clowns and you pick a book about clowns and you know and there there's that but um but regardless I I think I think um the parameters are right we want we want every family to feel comfortable with what that's the goal we want every single family to feel comfortable with what their kids are learning in learning how to read any other dror thank you madam chair I I think we want every family to feel comfortable and we want to make a good ped ological decision about which curriculum we adopt and it is it seems from what I've heard hands down wit and wisdom is the best and so let's build off of wit and wisdom and pump the brake pedal and ask Dr Champa to meet with the people on her team to do the right thing all right any director beer Meer big a ask is that I mean I really I honestly I I guess I need to know yeah so of course my wheels are turning over here really fast and what that wants to look like because I'm not in favor of adopting something that's not going to look like this at the end of it right and so I I would want to go back and look at that and look at what we want to do with options and given those two items as the parameters sorry uh respectfully I think we have a starting point with the 31 different um texts that were concerning to other people as they looked at this curriculum and then looking at those and figuring out which ones are problematic I don't think we have to look at every single text pardon me so I guess um is is your preference to actually vote on this tonight or to give you some time first before we and bring it back to the table at a later time I think my preference is that you vote on it tonight and then in the meantime that gives us some time to come back you can always move in another Direction okay with that I think we're ready for a motion Madam chair I'd make the motion that isd2 200 adopt the wit and wisdom curriculum and take a cautious step between adoption and implementation to make sure that the texts that are adopted are appropriate I'm not going to get that motion complete in my recap but I will give it a try all right Miss lewig we can go back tomorrow and you can look at that and we'll get it so the motion on the table table is basically the motion on the table is to adopt wit and wisdom with a cautious thoughtful review and consideration to ensure that the with modifications with modifications thank you save me all right then I am looking for a second to that motion Brunsell second all right any further discussion all right I just want to say um thank you board members and uh for the due diligence that was done on this um I have to say that that uh yeah this was definitely our first curriculum review and I'm I'm not going to say when I saw that box of curriculum over there knowing that probably this much of it was going to be mine to take home and read it was it was intimidating right and I think we probably all had the same the same thought um but uh thank you for putting in the work in this and the thoughtfulness and the collaboration um I think it was a good a great demonstration of working together here and um again thank you to Andy and and team and all of the staff who have spent a lot of time doing this thank you to the parents who've taken the time to review this um everyone it is a big decision so with that is there any further commentary or discussion so that night is already I believe 4 and A2 hours long um so we have a to add in a closed session for negotiations a closed session for security overview and a special working session or an additional working session question is um one of the things that we were discussing addressing at the working session is the um student School Board member applicants is that has to happen soon we could potentially tack that on to the already scheduled working session I don't know that it would take a lot of time um if you're comfortable with that as long as my fellow committee members were comfortable with that I'd be because that's was the plan to give the feedback um for give an update for who's going to be interviewed on the April working session so okay so this looks like a long list but the idea is to get it into one night so um if we're comfortable with doing that on the 9th then I'm wondering um if folks have availability for next week possibly um like the second or the third for the closed sessions for the closed sessions and and the additional working session dates the April 2 or 3rd next Tuesday or Wednesday April 2nd I have a board meeting at 9:17 okay so third I'm clear Okay the third third does the third work for third works for me we can be flexible six or later yeah ideally six or later for sure i' able to be here six or later okay I'm okay director suzic you're good with six six on Wednesday night and that's closed for negotiations uh negotiation is that enough time we had talked about this and it's closed for security no it's oh no parameters security it could be security can be later right or not well we just have to check with the presenter we can put it on and then I can check well we we don't have to list anything yet but okay but the main the main reason was for the negotiation parameters so if that's not going to be ready then we need to look at different dates I think the two together is going to be a really long meeting okay so I think it should be two two separate meetings so put this put the security one on April second and we'll just verify that our third um we'll verify that our presenter is available and then we can look out a little further for the other so so yeah so April 3rd tentatively for a security overview um all right and then are we adding to the April 9th how like 15 minutes 10 minutes yes for the student School Board member yes that will be April 9th for a working session um front end or back end or the meeting I think the meeting the meeting starts at like 5:30 right or 5 5 o' five but if you want to move it to 4:30 to give the extra time I don't know if folks who work in which one the nth the 9th of April building tours no no that's our teach back the teach backs with yeah the strengths work yeah we only need 10 minutes to be completely honest 10 15 minutes I don't think the discussion will take much longer than that we're going to have time for meeting before then as a committee okay so the ninth you want to do it first yeah that's 4:30 445 445 and would that be that would be in the district office then so for the 15 minutes okay 445 would that work okay 445 on the 9th okay so we have 40 45 on the 9th for that and then the tentative closed session on the 3D for security Overview at this point and then we need to find time for the negotiation parameters corre which would that be acceptable to tack that on to our regular school board meeting on the 24th or that's going to be lengthy it will Bey okay so we don't want to do that is what you're saying but not saying okay how about the 23rd the night before the regular meeting so we can or the 25th no I can't do the 25th 23rd is something that's going to become a vote at the regular meeting no yeah yeah developing contract parameters for um negotiations negotiations for the contracts for all them all the nine contracts we coming up okay so the 23rd is that doable or not works for me okay see that'll be another CL session today are we looking at 6 p.m or I think so 6 p.m. on the 23rd okay so got that scheduled thank you um and then I usually like to tell folks what we're expecting to do here um as I said we don't we don't really have that working session a normal working session scheduled for April um um we let's see sorry I don't have much of a framework coming up for the April regular meeting sorry about that so that's where we sit at this point all right and with that I am looking for a motion to adjourn Madame chair I motion to adjourn this is Mark susek second drle right any discussion all right with none all those in favor say I I all right motion passes unanimously to adjourn at 8:55 p.m.