Good evening everyone. Welcome to the April 28th, 2026 regular meeting of ISD 194 school board. Um, we'll start with roll call to my right. Tony Akenberg. You're on. Red is on. I wasn't on before. Carly Anderson. Amber Cameron. Emily McDonald. Kim Baker. Paul Carbone. Brian Thompson. Great. And if everyone could stand as they're able to say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. All right. Oh, sorry y'all. I switched the roll call. But we did that. All right. I'll let turn over to Emily McDonald for good news. Wonderful. Get comfortable everyone. We know we have amazing students and we have a lot of good news to share this evening. We'll start with Lakeville weightlifting teams continue championship tradition at state. Student athletes from Lakeville North and Lakeville South weightlifting teams delivered outstanding performances at the 2026 state weightlifting championships. Lakeville South captured its seventh consecutive varsity team state championship. In [snorts] total, Lakeville athletes earned 14 individual state championships and 23 medals. Is that the end of it? This is the end of it. [applause] That's great. All right. Uh, three Lakeville students from Lakeville South and six students from Lakeville North earned awards at the 2026 Minnesota Scholastic Art and Writing Awards. >> [snorts] >> Entries were awarded based on originality, skill, and the expression of voice or vision that stands out from classroom assignments and social media trends. Gold Key Awards will go on to compete at the national level. So, congratulations. >> [applause] >> Uh, Lakeville artists make their mark at the South Suburban Visual Arts Exhibit. 10 pieces of student artwork from both Lakeville North and Lakeville South were recently showcased at the South Suburban Conference Visual Arts Exhibit. Highlighting the creativity and talent of Lakeville's young artists, the exhibits featured a wide range of mediums and styles reflecting the students' skill, originality, and artistic voice. Among the outstanding submissions, five Lakeville area high school students earned awards for their outstanding work. Please take a look at the amazing artistic talent we have at Lakeville Area Schools at isd194.org/news. >> [applause] >> Lakeville South Encore represents Minnesota on a big stage. For the second year in a row, Lakeville South Encore proudly represented Minnesota at the Varsity Vocals International Championship of a high school a cappella Great Lakes semifinals held in Milwaukee in late March. Encore earned their spot after an impressive second place finish at the Great Lakes quarterfinals, advancing as one of just 10 top groups in the region. While Encore didn't advance to the final round in New York City, the singers left everything on the stage and made it an unforgettable performance. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Lakeville students shine at the State HOSA Leadership Conference. 20 students from Lakeville North and 14 from Lakeville South, HOSA Future Health Professionals chapters, recently demonstrated their knowledge, leadership, and passion at the State Leadership Conference. The conference provided students with hands-on experience that build leadership and career-ready skills while connecting with peers from across the state. >> [snorts] >> HOSA helps students explore healthcare pathways, develop professional skills, and prepare for future opportunities in high demand fields. >> [applause] >> Lakeville North eSports team earns top finishes at the state tournament. Congratulations to the Lakeville North eSports team for taking home second place in the Minnesota Varsity League Winter State Tournament. Each Lakeville North team that participated in the tournament placed in the top four in their respective game. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> And in sports, the Cougars take the court to state. Congratulations to the Lakeville South boys basketball team on an incredible season. The Cougars secured a section championship with a hard-fought 76-71 victory over the Farmington Tigers and advanced to the state tournament quarter-finals at Target Center. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> Uh Century Middle School student earns top honors for cancer research project. Century Middle School seventh grader Nam Do has gained major recognition for an innovative science research project focused on cancer treatment. His project uses machine learning to identify key biomarkers and dependencies for targeted focal adhesion kinase cancer therapies. At the State Science and Engineering Fair, he received the De Saron Merit Award given to just five middle school students for outstanding experimental design and strong application of the scientific method. Congratulations, Nam. It's exciting. >> [applause] >> Lakeville North student selected for 2026 Electric Cooperative Youth Tour. Congratulations, Alexander Reens, a sophomore Lakeville North, on being selected by the Dakota Electric Association as one of five local high school students to participate in the 2026 Electric Cooperative Youth Tour. This incredible opportunity will take her all the way to Washington, D.C. this June to explore how government and electric cooperatives work together, meet with members of Congress, and connect with students from across the country. Congratulations. >> [applause] >> And we are very excited to share that we have two appreciation weeks. Um the first one is student nutrition. The week of April 27th through May 1st is student nutrition appreciation week in Lakeville Area Schools. We're proud to celebrate the incredible staff who keep our students fueled and ready to learn each day. From preparing nutritious meals to creating positive, welcoming cafeteria environments, their work supports both student well-being and a sense of community. Through their dedication and care, they play a vital role in helping every student succeed academically, socially, civically, and personally. We're very lucky to have an amazing nutrition staff. So, thank you for your work. >> [applause] >> And lastly, we have educator appreciation week coming up the week of May 4th through 8th. Next week, May 4th through the 8th is educator appreciation week in Lakeville Area Schools. We're proud to celebrate the extraordinary educators who make a lasting difference in the lives of our students every single day. Through their passion, dedication, and care, they inspire curiosity, build confidence, and open doors to possibility. They create meaningful connections and engaging experience that shape not only what students learn, but who they become. Their impact reaches far beyond the classroom, helping prepare every student for academic, social, civic, and personal success. So, we're excited to celebrate our teachers next week. And that concludes the good news. Great. Wonderful. Thank you. Um I have two things on board communications. One, um on behalf of all of us, all the board members here, I just want to extend a thank you to the Lakeville City Council for inviting us last night for a joint meeting. We met at Lakeville City Hall to discuss the growing Lakeville community and how that relates to student enrollment projection and building plans for our district. And so I think I saw it's been over a decade I think since the two bodies have gotten together for a joint meeting. And so it was a a nice time to connect to learn about each other's work but also build relationships. So thanks to [clears throat] our board for being there for an extra meeting as well. Um the other thing I wanted to just oh you want to clap. Okay. Great. [applause] I agree. Um >> [laughter] >> The other thing I want to mention on behalf of the board is at the end of our April meeting we went into closed session to do superintendent evaluation of Superintendent Bauman as a mid-year evaluation. Per state statute those are closed session meetings but that we are to kind of provide a summary of the things that we discussed with Superintendent Bauman in that closed session. Um so at that during that time there were three goal areas that we reviewed with Superintendent Bauman. The first was around student achievement including curriculum and instruction. The second was around finance and budget management and the third was around operations and resource management. Um overall the board is very pleased with Michael's leadership especially in his efforts to create consistency throughout the entire system in many areas including teaching and learning and co-curricular activities. We know that there is a long way to go still with that, but um that um his leadership is is um moving in the right direction and kind of making sure that every student within our community has the same relative experience on no matter what school they attend. Um the board was also very pleased with the budget trajectory of our district. Um well, there you probably see in the news, there are many districts that are having to face budget cuts at this moment. Um 194's budget is stable and the fund balance has been brought to a to a level um that we are very comfortable with as we continue to work towards the 10% uh goal that the board set. Um the board also noted that Michael excels at communication, especially with the board and members of of the community and um giving time for people to voice their their needs and and opinions about how to improve our system. Um and then the board had continued discussion about um identifying district needs and having Michael with his team prioritize those needs and associated costs so that um as we can consider with a limited resource um environment, um what are the things that um can help move the dial on um the number of goals that we we um discussed with him. So, um we'll do another final evaluation at the end of the academic year with Superintendent Bowman, but this was a check-in um for the board with him and um that's a a summary. Anything anybody would like to add to that? Or anything I missed? Okay. Um great. With that, we'll move to approval of agenda. Um is there a motion to approve? So moved. >> Make a motion to approve. >> All right. Um first um motion by Reckenberg, second by Carbon. Um any discussion? All in favor of approving say I. I. I. Any opposed? All right, motion passes 6-0. And with that, we'll move to public comment. Um I'll read the the information about public comment. We have two names tonight. Uh the board will open up the floor for 30 minutes to allow the public to address uh the board with comments and concerns. To participate in public comment, individuals must have registered in advance using the form provided on the website by noon on the Monday before the scheduled public comment session. There will be no board response during the session. Public comments framed as complaints and or concerns about students and or staff are not appropriate in a public forum due to data privacy laws. These comments should be addressed to the administration outside of a public meeting. Likewise, complaints about school board members should be privately directed to the board chair and or superintendent. No formal action will be taken on a topic presented during public comment. As necessary, the administration will follow up with the appropriate personnel and any concerns that need to be addressed individually. Also, if necessary, the board will follow up during board communications at the next regularly scheduled board meeting. Individual remarks are limited to 3 minutes. The board will provide a signal. Thank you, Kim. Do you have a signal? Great. No, that's fine. When the participant has 30 seconds remaining of their time. Please try to keep audience noise to a minimum to allow everyone the opportunity to speak uninterrupted. So, with that, um I'll draw the first name. It is Janna um Spanovich. Did I Did I get that right? Yeah, okay. And friends, yeah, great. And friends. Does this go low enough? Yes. Thank you, Kim. I am a short girl. Okay. Tell me Tell me when when to start. Tell Tell like tell me. I was like I heard that. >> [laughter] >> Good evening. My name is Janna and I'm a classroom teacher at Cherry View Elementary. This past fall, several members of your team visited my third grade classroom. Hi to you. We are here to let you know that our elementary schools have a clear and immediate need for access to IXL. IXL is a comprehensive K through 12 digital learning platform that supports instruction in math, language arts, and more. It provides adaptive practice, real-time data, and alignment with state and district standards. Most importantly, it meets students exactly where they are and helps them grow. While our current math curriculum lacks a digital component for individualized practice, IXL provides adaptive standards aligned supports that meet students again at their level and promotes measurable growth. I was delighted to learn that it even has skill plans for our Bridges math curriculum broken down into each specified unit. Woohoo! To IXL is already a district-approved resource used in our middle schools and elementary schools are requesting access for both math and language arts. One of IXL's greatest strengths is it it's it's ability to support students with diverse backgrounds, languages, and learning needs. It's adaptive design allows for targeted differentiation, making it especially valuable in classrooms with a wide range of abilities. Lakeville is seeing an increasing number of students with limited English proficiency and in some cases limited prior formal education. These students require immediate individualized support, something IXL is well equipped to provide. From my personal experience this year, access to IXL would have significantly improved my ability to support newly arrived multilingual learners. It would support immediate level-appropriate engagement while eliminating the need for extensive paper-based materials, something that is neither sustainable nor particularly popular with my personal principal. >> [gasps] >> Additionally, students are expected to complete multiple digital assessments each year on the iPad including FastBridge Test, ACCESS Test, CogAT Test, MAP Growth Test, MCA Minnesota Comprehensive Assessment Tests, all on an iPad. Yet, we lack adequate tools to help them build these skills. IXL helps bridge that gap while also reducing the unsustainable reliance on paper-based materials. At an estimated cost of $5 to $10 per student annually, this is a practical and impactful investment. While we understand the 2026-2027 budget is set, we strongly encourage the district to explore alternative funding sources, grants, or PTOs to make this possible. Providing access to IXL is not just an enhancement, it is a necessary step to ensure equity, to support our teachers, and improve student outcomes. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. >> [applause] >> Okay, and our second speaker is Shalom Ewald. Did I get that right? Yes. >> Okay, great. Come on up. So, I second that, but that's not mine. So, I come here as a school district employee and a volunteer coach for Girls on the Run after school program. Alongside four of my one of them back there colleagues, we stay after school at twice a week for 8 weeks and lead this program for our students. Girls on the Run uses an experienced curricula Excuse me, an experience-based curriculum that integrates running while building physical, emotional, and social skills in students grade 3 through 5. The program is intentionally inclusive and welcomes all third through fifth grade participants regardless of income, regardless of who they are, everyone can be included. I respectfully ask for you to consider waving facility usage fees for this program. There are also several There are several reasons why I request this. First, mission alignment. Girls on the Run and District 194 are very similar in this. Girls on the Run directly supports the district's strategic goals around social, civic, and personal readiness. Its curriculum reinforces the same exact social-emotional learning outcomes that our schools always prioritize. Two, market comparison cuz we always have to compare ourselves to others. Finances, student achievement, everything. Here it is. Neighboring districts 191 of Burnsville and Rosemount Apple Valley Eagan 196 charge zero fees, none at all, for the programs that run in over 12 schools in those districts. In fact, many schools throughout Minnesota [clears throat] waive these fees to ensure accessibilities to all of the families that want to participate. Number three, equitable access. Girls on the Run operates pay what you can model ensuring that no student turned away due to financial hardship. Facility fees create an added burden and may limit the number of students who can participate. Notably, the fees paid by my school, Christina Huddleston, and Oak Hills alone would be enough to fund the participation of approximately eight students who might not otherwise be able to have access to this program. Four, community partnership. This program is delivered at zero cost to the district and the school or the school and it's staffed entirely by volunteers. Many of whom whom are district employees demonstrating a strong commitment to students way beyond the school day. Waiving these fees would be a meaningful way for Lakeville Area Schools to demonstrate its commitment to being both community connected and student focused. And most importantly, it would directly support the growth and well-being of students at Christina Huddleston and across the district. Today, someone asked me why I was coming to school board. I said, "It's because we get charged for Girls on the Run." And they said, "Oh, that's crazy." I said, "There's an opportunity cost everything." I chose to be a volunteer. That was my opportunity cost. I ask you to look at your opportunity cost and choose to make that available. That's it and thank you. >> [applause] >> Well, thank you. That concludes public comment for tonight. Um we'll move to consideration of the consent agenda. Um items in the consent agenda tonight include board minutes from our March 24th and April 14th meetings. Uh B employment recommendations including leaves and resignations, >> [clears throat] >> payments of bills and claims, wire transfers and investments, a resolution regarding acceptance of gift donations, approval of extended field trips, an update to the 2025 calendar, which changes one day for secondary students, I believe. Is that correct? Okay. For high school. Um and then prior discussion at our work session, what is being presented for policy updates in the consent agenda are all of the policies from the MSBA MSBA audit that had technical updates only. No no substance changes for any of the policies listed. So with that, is there any item that any board member is interested in discussing more? Um and and pulling from the consent agenda. Can I make a motion to approve the consent agenda? Motion to approve. Is there a second? I'll second it. Okay. Any discussion? Uh Brian. Yeah, there are I think 25-ish or so policies that are that are going through a technical update. So what I've read was a lot of the changes were just removing the Board of Education and replacing it with school board. And so I think that the red lines are pretty clear with what what changed and what didn't change. Uh but, what I did notice that there were a lot of policies that had notes inside. Uh and there's a lot of policies that uh refer to the model policy to MSBA. And so, are those going to be removed from the final version? And or and will they be up the updated uh to reference Lakeville policies so that a uh community member would be like, "Well, I don't have access to MSBA. Like, how how do I get this model policy?" All right. Thanks for that question. And Brenda, if you want to come up, you're welcome. But, my understanding is that all notes are going to be removed, correct? And then, I'm looking at Brenda. I'm not trying to bypass your um and that yes, anytime um it was cross-referenced with an MSBA policy, we need to change that to 194 um and ensure that it's not just matching numbers, but ensure that the topic is matched correctly. So, that that will be done right before publication. Okay. Brenda's saying yes. Shaking her head. Yes, yeah. Any other discussion? Okay. All in Oh, go ahead, Brian. And and while these are technical updates, uh I do think that we we probably need to establish a cadence. And we did talk about that at the working session to kind of talk through this. There's a lot of policies in here that might need another lens. And so, when we make updates uh to the respective policy, do we have clear designation in each policy that says the latest update was X date and it was a technical update. It was not an official board review. It is not official, whatever. There may be instances where a um a community member will say, "Well, this this whole policy was reviewed on and approved on April 28th. So, everything in there must be accurate." Which it is cuz that's what it is in there. But, it I just want to make sure that we're mindful that when we make edits to the document, we're clearly articulating a technical update, but the Board of Education did not do a full review on the policy itself. Does that make sense? Yes. Uh-huh. Is there Carly? I don't know that we're I I don't want to speak for the whole board. I don't know that we intended to put like clarify that on the policy specifically. I think when we met for our work session just to update the public who maybe weren't con- connected to that. Um we had an expert from MSBA come and talk about where we are with our policy and it is very clear that we're outdated and putting our um legal team and our HR team at risk with where we are. And so this is kind of a cursory review of a lot of policies to make sure we're up to date with statute and other things we need to be in compliance with. And then we go back and we take an approach of how we're going to or comprehensively look at each series. Um so I don't I don't know that we would have on you know how it says updated this date. Yep. I don't know that we're going to add technical up We can talk about that as a board. I don't know that we would want to do that versus let's get all of our ducks in a row and then tackle it from a okay, we're going to look at the 200 series or 500 series from there. I don't know how other people feel. Other thoughts? Brian? Yeah, I'm not opposed to the updates itself. I think it what I want to be mindful of is that how does this look to uh to the public where if they go to the website, they see that it was that that the policy was updated on 428. And I think when I joined 3 years ago, we were looking at policies that weren't even touched until like 2013. They were like 10 years old or something like that. And so maybe those policies were touched and revised, but the actual policy revision date wasn't updated. I I know. That's a separate conversation. What I'm trying to get to is that if we show that this policy was updated on April 26th, uh will a consumer I'm sorry, would a stakeholder view that as oh, the board looked at it, the board approved it. They They They agree that everything is what they uh What What I'm trying to get to is I don't want to put my name on these policies because we didn't have any discussions on them. So, if you want to put that they were uh a technical update on April 28th, and then a full update wasn't reviewed by the board. Uh the previous full update by the board was 4 years ago. You know, there there needs to be a differentiation. If this is what I'm trying to get to. For you personally? For me personally. I mean, I cuz I like then Cuz if that's the case, then I'm going to say no to all of this cuz I didn't We didn't review. We didn't discuss any of these topics. And And so, I'm putting my name on that. So, that's where That's where I want to be mindful of. Brenda, do you want to Yeah, typically technical updates of this nature would not be listed on the policy as reviewed or revised on X date because the board isn't reviewing the policy. We're just approving some technical updates, which are typically school board or an update to a statute number, something like that. So, nothing like that would be changed on the policy that's posted on the website. It would just be the redlines, taking the notes out. That's it. So, Brenda, your recommendation is we would retain the previous approved date, whatever that is. >> Yes. Yes. Correct. What What So, then So, then how do we know if someone looked at it and said that that that the school board was changed today and all the references were updated today because if they look at that policy and if the policy states that the last revision was in 2013, I, the next school board member would come in like oh these these haven't been touched since 2016 2013. Like that you know what I mean? So there has to be some sort of version history is but we don't have that is what I'm hearing. Uh well it >> make sense? Does anyone tracking? I get what you're saying. >> It would be in the agenda, the board agenda, the board minutes. Um it would be referenced there. Um But not in the policy. It not not in the policy but it's not I don't Is it Is it necessary? I I I don't know you guys tell me. I mean if if if I looked if I was a new board member and looked at the policy date and said 2013 and and it and hasn't been reviewed, I would have I assume that no one's touched it. No one has looked at it. No content has been updated. No references has been updated. But if we're doing it now and we're not documenting it anywhere on the policy itself then someone will say like well you guys you guys haven't touched the this this stuff for 10 years. Mhm. Does that make sense? Yeah but tech I'm sorry. Kim and then Paul. Sorry, I'm getting used to which which is on and which is off. Um I get what you're saying Brian but technically we haven't updated the policy so what you're saying is essentially correct. It hasn't been looked at since 2013 because it hasn't been reviewed. So this is just a language update switching school board for or board of education for school board. So um yeah I'm fine with it staying that way because we haven't reviewed it. So then as a new board member coming in you would know that that policy still needs to be reviewed because it hasn't been reviewed. Right? Yeah. Paul. Yeah and and I think that um I want to go back to something that Carly said because when when we were at the work session one of the things that we all acknowledged was that we're putting HR at risk and and some other areas at risk and we wanted to move that along so that you're you're you weren't vulnerable. And that was part of the reason that we're doing a list like this and just mass mass approving it. Um, you know, one of the things I know we also talked about was no matter what we do, any board member or multiple board members can pull a policy and say I I don't think this is good. We need to sit down and revisit it. So, there's always that ability to do that, of course. So, again, I want to come back to I don't think it would be responsible if we made HR and some other areas vulnerable to um I'll just leave it at that. I think it would be helpful and maybe this is a work session discussion of how to document these things beyond this, but I think to your point, Brian, it would be helpful to put even if a even if a like let's say we're going to well, tonight we're going to talk about other policies, right? And let's say we decide to change nothing. I think it would still be a good idea to put um reviewed on X date by the board. So, that the community knows that if we get in this 3-year cycle, right, of reviewing all of our policies, that it's clear that we are holding true to that and reviewing them as part of our cycle. And so, maybe we need to think about how we how we address that, but I'm in agreement that we're not we're not reviewing these. We're just updating them for technical right? So, perhaps the date shouldn't change yet, but when we get to them, it could. >> again. But but we're making changes to the policy, whether you agree with it or not agree with it. And and and so, there's certain levels of those changes and there and if there's a little bit of governance controls that we need to have in place. And and so, I know we don't have the definitions that aligned. I'm okay approving this if we can add it to a working session to say what would be those change control designations, like a technical update or it was brought to the board, nothing changed, or major revisions, or something of that nature. But but but it it has to have some sort of uh versioning history cuz we're about to make changes and if we don't have it listed anywhere that we changed it, then it just looks Is like we haven't touched it. >> specifically for the public. Like we got to keep an internal list, of course. We can, yes, yes. >> For the public, too. Yes. >> Charlie and then Paul. Yeah, I mean, I think that when um Terry was with us, Terry Morrow from MSBA, I feel like he provided a very good document for us in terms of where we were in the color coding. And so I can see us developing something internally that documents all of that in terms of where we are. Um I'm not necessarily opposed to creating something that is public-facing as well if we think that the public would be interested in such a document. So I think it's super important to follow internally. Um so we make sure we're doing our proper cycling. Um we could like you're saying, why don't we in our next work session and talk about like how we're going to be communicating that to the public. Oh. Yeah, and Brenda, is there a spot on the on the website or wherever might be appropriate to Brian's point, where we could put on on uh you know, April 28th and list the the uh policy numbers. All of these were technically changed or whatever Brian is saying here. Is Is it Can we just do like a like an asterisk type of thing as opposed to putting something in each in each um policy or is that >> of I kind of see like a grid like a visual grid where we could cuz Terry did a good job kind of like like we're saying kind of color coding. We could just have something that kind of more states these were reviewed by the board versus these were technical edits on such such a thing. >> Yeah, and and I think then But I don't think we put them on our policy in our listed policies. >> And I think that's that's the discussion. Do we put it Do we put it on 25, 30 each policy, or do we or or do we just have a blanket statement that says policy 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 had this on this date? I mean, can I jump in? Is that okay? Yeah. Um I I think you were going to say more, but I mean to Brian's point, I think we are figuring out how to get back in alignment with with a consistent process, right? Here with policy. So, I don't I mean, [clears throat] Brian, to your point, I don't think it would be it would be harmful to put this to put April 28th technical edits in one place. I don't think so, either. And so, I mean, we're going to be going in and updating every PDF or whatever is however it's posted on the website. It's probably not PDF. So, to add this, I don't think would be a tremendous amount of work. But, I think it would be easier. I think it would be if we're looking at public monitoring of things, I think it would be easier to have something that shows our cadence of things online as opposed to us having to search individual documents for technical edits. So, instead of it's on a policy under the policies, just have a table that lists the policies and when they were technically updated. Brian. So, so when you go to the Lakeville website right now and you look at a policy, it it has two designations, the date that it was adopted and the date that it was revised. That's it. And so, we've got two different pathways. I think Director Brekken said that leave the revised date as is and don't touch it. Well, we're making revisions, and so that date is wrong. And so, I get that the board hasn't reviewed it, and so it's an indication that we should go back and go look at it, but if we're making updates to references, changing Board of Education to School Board and other miscellaneous things like that, you've made an update to the policy and so it was revised. But those are the two designations adopted and revised revised how again I would view that as if I was a community member I would review that as the board looked at this document. They agree 100% with everything in it. They've discussed about it. They revised it on April 28th and they agree with everything that's in it. That's that's how I would look at it because they're not going to know the difference between what we're doing and what revised means on the policy document itself. So I I would I would propose that if all these documents that we're doing technical updates that we do say leave leave adopted, leave revised and then we can say revised technical revised April 28th, 2026. So a method potentially that I know I think I believe the legislature uses, correct me if I'm wrong, but they list their updates at the end of the policy and anytime something is revised they they include the date that by which it happened. So, you know, we have it at the top of the policy which I think as a header you don't want it to become this giant thing before you can actually get to the policy. But what if we what if Well, I don't mind if it's fine at bottom. I'm okay with that. It's fine at bottom. >> is like what if instead of we moved it to a footer where we had the history of anytime the policy was reviewed and or edited we we retain a record of that. Which I think is what you're getting to. Yeah, cuz I think MSBA has that on their website. So when you go look at policies at MSBA's website you'll see any updates that they have and you'll see the redline version and then the previous year's version to that. And so then so what I'm hearing then if we go down that path now we're going to solutioning and we should probably if she Brenda wants to sit down she probably can. Brenda, what do [laughter] you think about Well, sitting down? Well, no. About about the idea of like No, no. She can [laughter] sit down if she wants to. That's what I'm saying. But um Just one second. Will you wait one second? >> I don't I don't want like we shouldn't have two policies listed. Uh like if the if the 201 policy, someone clicks on it, yes. But if from what I'm hearing you uh correctly is that you want the 201 original policy that the the most recent one that was approved. And then in addition to that, the previous policy that was after. So, a policy that might be two pages actually now four pages cuz it's showing the revision history. >> no, no. What I'm saying is we have our current policy published just like they are. Move the move our content that's in the header, which is more succinct of when it was adopted and revised to the bottom. >> the site in here. What? >> list it as that as a policy. >> on what policy you're on. If you're on like 101, it has that. There are policies that have that at the end versus the header. >> we just need to create a consistent method whereby any revision or review is documented. But only the current version is published. Yes, but but we but we need to label it correctly. That's what I'm trying to get to. >> That would be part of this. >> Is this a technical update? The board didn't read the didn't do a full assessment. Didn't didn't do a full review. >> have a full paragraph, but it would just say technical. >> I I think you guys are on the same page. >> Yes. Okay. So, as long as that happens, we have a we we make consistent the way that we're recording that the times the board has reviewed or edited. Yes. Which we can talk about it in the work session exactly how it could look. Are you comfortable moving forward? No. Until then, because we may not have that meeting and then are we going to go retro or are we going to come back to these meetings and get these updated and saying that these these were technical updates? Because I'm not going to vote yes if we're not going to have All right. Can I make an amendment to the motion? Sure. Um so, I'd like to make an amendment to the motion whereby we're approving the consent agenda and we are creating for every policy in starting with the ones approving in the consent agenda a documentation in a footer of the dates by which the policy was approved and any time it was revised or reviewed by the board with the appropriate notation on what happened. So in this case these would be listed as technical edits on April 28th. Okay. Does that Then I'll second that. Okay, second that. Okay. So first and a second on the amended motion. What? >> Can we do that during the consent agendas? I don't know if you can or not. I yeah, sure. Sorry. Um any discussion on that amendment? No. Okay. Carly. I guess my only question is like if are we the only people doing this in terms of getting to this level of granular detail? And that's the only thing I ask the board, but it's time to be effective with all of this. So this is the way forward then this is the way forward, but I think >> They literally copy and paste and put it on the bottom of the policy revision or document like Kim. I guess my only question would be if we have the work session and make a different decision as far as what this looks like. Maybe a majority of the board says they want to do um a table. Like what are we going to do then if we've already voted on this because we said we are going to discuss it at a work session. I think we're kind of putting the cart before the horse. I think my personal feeling is that we could have this documentation on the individual policies and then also to your earlier point and and now yours having a table that explains to the public when we're going to be reviewing which policies like the cycle. But I mean yes, we needed to discuss that more in work session. Paul? >> Right. And if something different did come out of the work session, we can always bring it back here for a vote and and make the the adjustment. So, I'm I'm not concerned about that. Yeah. I Again, I think we we we do need to move some of these forward. Did you Did you have your hand up? No. Any other discussion? Okay. I'm hearing none. With a first and second, first we need to vote on that amendment. So, this would be basically changing the header to the footer with more detail. All in favor of that, um, say I. I. >> I. I. Any opposed? Okay. Um, the amendment passes. Um, so going back to the original motion to approve the consent agenda um, with the approved amendment, um, was already first and second. Any further discussion? Okay. Hearing none, um, all in favor of approving the consent agenda, uh, say I. I. >> I. Any, um, uh, nays? All right. Um, motion passes 6-0. All right. Um, with that, we will move to the district reports and discussion. So, I'm excited to invite up our, um, high school team, um, Principal Booty, Principal, um, Murphy, and, um, Principal Gore. Gair, sorry, Gair. All right, Board Chairman Cameron, Assistant Princ- uh, Assistant Superintendent McDonald, and members of the Board, we're really excited to be here as we were introduced. I am Kim Booty, I'm the Principal at Lakeville North. Sean Murphy, Principal at Lakeville South. Margaret Gair, Principal of Alternative Programs. We are, um, do we do this? Do we run this? There we go. All right. We are We are all all moving now. Uh, we are grateful to be the combination of many years of school experiences for the students in Lakeville. Principal Moody, can I interject one real quick? Can we hold questions of the board until the end of the presentation? Just cuz sometimes we get you all get to things that we ask questions about. So, if we can just have that as our practice. Margaret, are you okay with that? Is that okay with that? Okay, I think we're good. Yeah. I'm okay with that. >> [laughter] [gasps] >> Um I will start again. We are grateful to be the combination of many years of school experiences for the students of Lakeville. We want to acknowledge that through the help of all teachers, staff, and administration, pre-K through 12, that we are able to celebrate the journey through graduation. It is important for us to be seen as not the ending point in a student's life journey, but the connection between their school career and their student's future. We like to say that high school is the time of life where we help students turn their passions into professions. While the journey includes many chapters of growth and academics, we feel our work is just as meaningful in teaching problem solving, communication, health and wellness, and future readiness. These lessons come through many classrooms, stages, fields, hallways, lunchrooms, and after-school experiences. We'd like to share with you just a little bit what we our students have to say about what they've learned in high school. >> [music] >> I would say the hardest thing I've learned in high [clears throat] school in general is just how to manage [music] my time. I'm a three-sport varsity athlete for the majority of my high school career. I take a lot of APs. I am a good student. I try hard to get good grades. Balancing sports, [music] sleep, nutrition, friends, family, it's a hard struggle, but I'm like proud to say that I think I have done my [music] best in high school and I think I've really mastered it and I think that's a really important skill that I'll carry with me to college, too. The hardest thing I learned this year, I don't know the specific name for it, but it was in my calc BC class. It's like there's this one sort of problem, but there was like 20 different ways to solve it. I like couldn't figure out how to do it for the life of me, but thankfully my teacher, he doesn't care how far behind you are. He's always like open to give you a helping hand. I think the hardest thing I learned this year is how to connect with my teachers. I finally got it by like talking [music] to my teachers and realizing that they're humans like us also. I realized that it's really important to have that connection cuz it helps you a lot and I just think that it really improved my like [music] academic experience and it made me enjoy school a lot more. Honestly, all of the teachers really do a good job. Like they're always smiling, they're always happy, but like one of them for example is the AP bio [music] teacher. She's always like willing to laugh at her jokes, always willing to smile [music] and always just being a great person, but this is also just almost every single teacher at this school also. I would say my math teacher, Mr. Pearson, he's really helpful like going in before or after school like for math help especially cuz math is really hard. Um and Mr. Roth and all my friends are really just like encouraging. I like security guard Peter. He always has a smile on his face and he greets me every morning when I come in before our jazz. And he always just makes me smile. Picture the person I walked in. You realize your personality now is off the hit parade. I think the staff is that a big part of that. >> [music] >> For me as a ninth grader, I was pretty in my shell. I didn't socialize as much, but after the course of these [music] four years, I've learned how to come out and be myself and have fun all the time. They're only dedicated to like making [music] a change and dedicated to like our students and the staff and everything. We are proud. We are a strong community. I think that we have a really [music] good pride and we just really are like a group of people here that really want to see each other improve and [music] do the best we can. >> [music] >> I feel like a parent right now. I'm so proud of those kids. All of those kids. All of the schools are great. Uh we want to just give you an overview of our enrollment and demographics. As you can see, the total enrollment continues to grow at our high schools. As we become more diverse, we celebrate the growth and learning that happens in our buildings. We continue to focus on how to responsibly use our spaces. However, we are beginning to run out of room and our sites do need modernization. We'll talk about that at the end of this presentation. My turn. My turn. One of our greatest additional supports to our schools has been the addition of counselors. We have constant interactions with our counseling team between admin, staff, and students. The bridge uh the the bridge they gap in many ways that is something that we didn't have before. At the time of gathering this information, the counseling offices had over 3,000 scheduled appointments since the start of the school year. And as you can see by the chart on this graph, over 58% of the scheduled appointments are for academic support in our building. These appointments do not count the drop-ins, the career center our career lunch table visits, the hallway interactions that occur over the course of an entire day. Since following the state of the high school presentation we'll be reporting in more detail about our counseling team, we will continue our conversation then. All right. We We been very busy uh since the last time we had did this presentation last year Um to ensure that we have a guaranteed and viable curriculum across all three of our buildings LOA, Pathways, Lakeville North and Lakeville South. So as you can see this year we dedicated five full staff development days for curriculum alignment across all the high schools. So we work together as a team. We came to one building five times and we mapped out a scope and sequence for all of our courses. So all our students in Lakeville Area Public Schools are learning the same thing as they go from each course. Next year we will work together to create common assessments for each unit of study in the high school. We did one this year and next year we plan to to make common assessments for each unit of study across our high schools. Year three, we will be in full PLC implementation mode to examine data from those common assessments and have meaningful professional discussions on how we can improve. We talked about BAR last year as well. So we have an update for you. We told you we'd bring you some data and we brought you some data. So as we complete year two of BAR implementation for our ninth grade students, we have some very positive data to show you on the screen here. So what we know nationally students who pass all their classes in ninth grade are four times more likely to graduate on time than those who fail one or more courses. So we really targeted our ninth grade students with the BAR program. As you can see from our failure rates, our ninth grade students have the lowest percentage of failure rates in our buildings, which is very impressive cuz that's not typically the case as students adjust to high school. Typically ninth grade can be the most common year that students fail courses. I believe that BAR is the main reason for this. All of our students in Lakeville Area Public Schools benefit from BAR. So every student is put into a BAR team with a group of teachers, counselors, and administrators who talk about them weekly and intervene when needed to ensure they are successful. Students feel connected to the school because of this. Typically, um you know, we're seeing uh high results in our freshmen also with attendance. You can see there with attendance rates, uh it's it's the best out all four grade levels. That is very important uh cuz there's a direct correlation between attendance and passing your classes. Um finally, you can see the major behaviors there. Um they are the highest, but that's typical. We do expect as students age that they mature and display fewer behaviors. So, that's not atypical um that they are the highest, but it's not by much. Um so, they're they're behaving well as well. So, we're getting a lot of uh a lot of results out of our our bar program. We do have a sneak peek. Uh I don't know if you've seen these results yet, but they're very positive. And that's a testament to everybody in this room, I believe. The school board, our superintendent, um our our teachers, our support staff, our administrators. We're seeing a lot of good results from our daily desired experiences. Lakeville really is an amazing place to be um and and and the results show that. Um you can see um is there attendance uh especially with the Link Crew. We talked about Link Crew last year as well, but making uh freshmen feel connected to our buildings is extremely important. And you can see the last 3 years it's steadily increased and their sense of belonging to our buildings, which is very important to us. We want them to feel like they belong. We want them to feel like they have classes that are relevant and engaging. Uh and we also want them to be able to explore their interests. And and we're seeing those results. So, we're going to show you more of those results later, but that's a sneak peek. All right. I'm here to celebrate this slide with you. This is our graduation rate and our credit recovery groups. As As can see in the chart to the left, main chart here, um all of our subcategories for our graduation rates have gone up for the '25 school year in every category. This is This is amazing for all of our students. I believe that counselors, the bar program, like every piece that we've put in place and systematically put in place, slowly increases those graduation rates. Off to the right, you'll see um our four little boxes there. Those are our graduation numbers for each building and myself. So, that total number is 937. That's how many students walked across stages, received diplomas, and it really got to celebrate their journey K-12. High school is just the end of it. Their whole journey is 13 years. Down in the bottom right-hand corner, you're going to see the credit recovery. That's kind of my baby there. Um over the summer, we completed 400 or 245 courses. That means those students completed those courses, got back on track for graduation. Those are core classes, science, math, all the ones that are absolutely necessary in their building blocks. During the school year, currently, when this presentation was put together, there were 130 school uh students or credits recovered. Sorry, credits and classes recovered um throughout the school year. These are students who are taking full course loads at either of these buildings, and then they're coming after school a couple of times a week to work on these classes in advance or get on track for graduation, and be on time with their classes. Um We see them. They love our credit recovery. Our counselors actually have stopped in after school. They make And those are those stop-ins that you don't know about, but they've made it a priority to connect with the students and actually get them there so they complete their their materials. One of the areas we talked about last year was concurrent enrollment. We want to give you an update of some of the action steps that we took this year uh to pursue that goal of concurrent enrollment. We have spent the the year exploring different programs that would support our growth of concurrent enrollment in our schools. We've looked at College in the Schools, which is offered through the University of Minnesota, as well as other concurrent enrollment programs offered by the MNSCU system. Our highest priority is to select programs that will allow our teachers to be accredited through the college system and support our student needs of support by staying on our school campuses. We are intending to offer transferable curriculum, which is entry-level courses in subject areas that NACEP, which is the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships, has aligned to and is honored within the state of Minnesota. We are continuing our work to find fiscally responsible and academically appealing courses for programming, and it is our hope that we will be presenting these courses in the fall to be included in our 27-28 program of studies. All right, future needs. >> [laughter] >> Uh we know that the bubble, which is currently in fourth grade, will be headed our way in just 5 years. And just as the elementary schools have put a little additional pressure on the space in our middle schools right now, the high schools will be facing that same pressure in 2030. So, we are already future planning and visioning for what a destination high school looks like. We are looking at our spaces and updated needs within our schools. Um it's important to know that our classrooms were never meant to have the numbers of students that we do have in our classrooms. They were never built for the number. Um our furniture needs to be updated. We currently have, at least in my building, um furniture that on the bottom is labeled Kenwood, and that is when the high school was at Kenwood. So, we have made really good use of that furniture. We've given it a really long life, but we're also having students who sit in desks and they start to cave because the the welding just is it's done. Um and then we'd like to make a a really good effort of looking at our trades and professional programming in our high schools and we know that they need to be updated to be current with the the job market. So we are already planning what the future of our high schools look like so that when we come to you in the future, our plans will be carefully considered and researched. Okay. I get the personnel slide. Um one of the requests or what we see as I see as a need is an assistant principal or an administrator with LOA and LPA. Currently my numbers um and I run these out of uh out of Kenwood out of the basement, but we have about 181 students to date with after school, summer school, and my LPA program. The um pathways program right now holds about 80 students, but they're all students that qualify under the graduation incentives act, which means they're students of need. Most of these things are they're not just one-offs. They are consistent pieces in their lives that demand attention because otherwise they won't function in school. Um also LOA, we when we merged, we have the Lakeville online. Currently I have about 1,068 students full and part-time that we've provided service for this year. They're not all currently enrolled. They might take a class first semester, but not second semester, but all the tracking, all of the pieces that go with that to make sure that we are on track for graduation. It doesn't matter if they're full-time or part-time, we still have to do that along with the PSCO, uh coordination of outside agencies, which could mean hospitalizations or any of those pieces that go along with it. Then, there's the intervention support for literacy and math. The high schools currently do not have a dedicated staff to implement our interventions that are needed for our students. Many students have a skill that could be a building skill that that's all they need. If we can supplement and build that skill back up, they will then in turn be able to scaffold that up moving forward in the curriculum and be successful. This should, in theory, decrease the number of special ed referrals because we've tackled that skill and made our students successful in the process. These interventions are structured and involve progress monitoring so that we can see they're actually doing something for our students. And then the final one is a district-wide registrar. The number of students that are coming into our district and when they move in and out, to be able to focus on this, I see it at the high school level. We have PSEO transcripts that come in. We have transcripts that come in from all over the world. And part of it is having to interpret those transcripts, post them on our transcripts so they make sense, and process that paperwork through. Currently, it runs through our administration and our counselors. For me, it just runs through my office. All right. Some system needs, the top two structured interventions in reading and math are very important that we have identified as a need, and also the continuation of the BAR programming. All that can be made a lot easier if we have flexible scheduling. You heard me last year upon that drum pretty hard about flexible scheduling. I've been in Lakeville going on almost 25 years now, and it's it's something that I'll continue to preach and until I'm here. My daughter graduated from Lakeville South last year, as many of you were witness to, and she was one of those students that had a world language and was in in music. She was in choir. So, if you have that as a student, you don't have any elective opportunities till your junior or senior year. Well, that really handcuffs you when you're trying to explore college and career ready and nest in the at the high school level. Um and so, talking to my colleague over at Prior Lake High School, who was experiencing some budget cuts and they're going to a six-period day, he's like, "How have you guys done it for so long?" And I you know, for us it's just, you know, we've always done it this way, but we've come up with some creative ideas such as academic seminar and then we move to advisory. Now we have some win time, so we try and bed some time during that six-period day, but it's not enough time uh to creatively explore for students and to get the interventions that they need. So, um we're really really going to ask you, you know, to explore this in the future because it would benefit all students. It benefits students who who participate in after-school activities uh with minimal time to study or complete work. Obviously, students who are struggling and fall behind, uh if they're struggling in math, say they have math in the beginning of the day, they could have a structured study hall later for math at the end of the day, so we could do some interventions. Um and it really helps uh uh students turn passions into professions by exploring electives. So, uh finally, you heard about infrastructure. Um our buildings are getting older, even South. They're over 20 years old now and once, you know, if you're a homeowner, you know, 20 years things start, you know, crumbling uh and expenses start occurring. Kim talked about furniture. We also have needs for special ed program spacing. Um we're really packed to the gills there and and we need larger spaces for our activities as well and our cafeterias are bulging at the seams as well and of course IT needs and spaces. So, we're going to be exploring that with you and in the years to come. Uh we know we're getting an influx of students coming our way and so we're going to be as creative as as we possibly can and look at what other districts are doing and how to maximize our resources. >> In conclusion, we are incredibly proud of our students and our staff in our schools. We sometimes reflect that while the world gives teenagers a lot of side glances, we probably look to the future and the future of our world in our students. We do not look at it with concern. We see the best and the brightest in professions that haven't even been dreamed of yet. We are grateful for this opportunity to share with you a small look into our daily practices and systems and we look forward to sharing with you again in the future as we never tire about talking about how proud of our students and staff we are. Okay, well thank you so much for that presentation. I'd like to open it now for discussion with all of you and questions. Paul? Yeah, please. Thank you. Um last year the board had a number of discussions on curriculum alignment and and common assessments. So I'm really glad to see that you focused on it and that you literally have deadlines that that you've given yourself. I think that's terrific. Um I did have a question about the ninth graders and failing one or more course courses. Uh it was just just not quite 7% of kids were failing one or more. My question is how many are failing multiple and is there a specific class or classes that seem to be the ones that people are failing or is it just random across the board? I don't know that we can give a straight answer on that one without having the data in front of us. I mean I do think we often see students who struggled in middle school in a particular class will struggle that first year coming in. So if it was if they struggled in math, they might struggle as well in um math their freshman year. I don't know that I mean I think the core classes are always hard because the rigor is is up, right? So, it's that transition into high school. Um and that is why we've really focused on our core teachers being those bar leaders to really bring students forward to have discussions to help them make that transition uh to notice what's going well, what isn't going well, and how we can support them as we work through that. Okay. And then the the second question I had was um with America 250, you know, Declaration of Independence this July, and I know seniors, everybody's going to be out of school, but are the high schools doing anything special in regards to focusing on the you know, the founding documents, the Declaration, the Constitution, um civics, citizenship, anything to sort of uh celebrate that with the country? Um Tracy, how are you? Sandy? >> [laughter] >> Uh so, no, uh I fully anticipate that Yes, there will be some some of our social studies getting together. They do that anyways every year. Uh they do a great job >> Yeah. of uh of of covering that. And anytime there's a significant milestone in our country, Right. uh we make it a point as a district um to really emphasize on that and our our teachers will be probably working with teaching and learning and they usually do a great job of providing us lessons and some history and some context for our teachers to to give to our students. Good. Thank you. Kim. So, I have several points I want to make real quick. Um first of all, we have an online school program within Owatonna schools as well, and I know the amount of work it takes to keep that running. It's It's no simple task cuz you have kids that are moving in and out of that program all the time. So, every time an end of the quarter comes, I'm like, "Oh god, it's starting again." And they come. So, I understand like that's a lot of kids and a lot of movement and a lot of paperwork that happens with that. Um number two, like one of the things that I noticed when I was watching your presentation and listening to you speak was that the ALC campus wasn't included and the need. I think that that that should be added. That's something I continue to advocate for. It was never supposed to be a place where those not those students but our students stayed and I'm hoping that in this next phase when we think about expanding the high schools or what that can look like and adding those technical programs that it will include some type of program or plan for our ALC campus as well. Last question for all three of you. Something the board has discussed in great detail is interventions at all levels elementary as well as middle school and high school. So are there interventions that you have investigated as a team that you feel would be beneficial to your students? Do you have suggestions along with the flexible scheduling because I'm going to say it so you can continue to hear that flexible scheduling is included in the intervention process there. So just curious to what your thoughts are and what work you've done with your teams. Yeah, you kind of nailed it there. The teachers are the primary resource. So re-teaching and having time in the day to do that is critical. You heard about IXL. We've utilized that program in math. Programs such as that when you can leverage technology for students to to get re-taught information that they missed is crucial as well. So but just time in the schedule flexible scheduling having students be able to have time to to do this cuz many students maybe don't necessarily have time to do this after school. Maybe they're babysitting a sibling. Maybe they have a job that doesn't provide for this. And so time during the school day we found to be the most impactful especially with our experts or educators. Carly. Okay. So I would have a couple questions. One I want to clarify for the public, flexible scheduling, and maybe for myself, means the 7-hour day that we keep coming back to, correct? Yeah. Okay. Or [clears throat] or another model. Just to investigate other models. >> that offers more time. >> Flexibility, yes. >> Cool. Okay. All right. So, I want to say I'm so excited to see the BAR data. Um, and I do have a question I have two questions, one about BAR, and um, then I'll remember my other one. But, with regard to BAR, I know we've talked about would it be helpful to be extending BAR? So, I know you're Or do you feel that BAR is really for that entry and transition? And I know in an ideal world, maybe we'd have it at all levels, but are you feeling you need anything beyond ninth grade at this point? Um, some schools have experimented with doing it in 10th grade. It it gets more difficult to do because of scheduling, uh, because ideally, the teachers in the BAR team have at least 80% of the students that they share. Um, so, as you get in the older grade levels, it becomes more difficult. What we've seen districts do is go downward, um, into lower levels, like middle school. Um, and so, you'll you'll see that that's really effective at those lower levels. So, we have talked about it with our BAR coach, both Kim and I. Um, and right now it's uh, we do believe obviously with the freshman year, getting them connected and having teachers make those personal connections with students really is beneficial, but it's not something that, you know, we haven't looked at, but it's just right now it's, you know, not in the cards for us. So, expanding it. Okay. And then, the one other question I have, um, very excited to see you guys, um, exploring the concurrent enrollment that many of us have been asking about. Um, is there, I guess when you're talking about fall exploration or fall discussion of what's going to be on the next year's curriculum, potentially, is there a need from the district in terms of preparing teachers or have you explored that there's already teachers who are qualified to do this? That is part of our our exploration process because teachers must have a master's degree and then additional 18 credits in content. And so what we're finding is there are programs where you can get that 18 credits at a reduced rate. And we just found a program that actually provides as long as your teachers are committed to following through on the concurrent enrollment, um they will give you a grace window and help do the training over a course of a a year. Um so we're hoping that having it not be an expense on top of the teachers' backs will help us recruit and retain some great teachers that would give that concurrent enrollment uh the accreditation it needs in order for us to actually teach those concurrent courses and to um ensure that we can continue to grow in a way that is logical and and makes a lot of sense for our students. Thank you. Yeah. Matt. Uh thank you. I have a couple of questions on a couple different subjects. Um but just going off concurrent enrollment, do you do you have an estimate of how many courses you're thinking that you'd be able to add to our current offering come 2028? Uh I don't know that. It's going to depend on the number of teachers accredited. So we're hoping that over the course of this next year we can really push that. I would hope I mean if nobody This is Kim's This is Kim's world, right? I would hope that we would add courses in all core uh all four cores um the first year and then continue to build off of that into uh multiple levels in those courses and then into electives as well. Right. And are we looking at other districts and what they're doing as far as and I I want to say it might even be one might be Burnsville where you can come out with your associate's degree. Yeah, and is a pretty intentional structure. Um and I do think that that is a long-term vision for us is that you can you could come out with an actual AA degree in a in a content area. Um You can keep going. All right. Uh on the bar program can you explain just a little bit. I know we talked about it a little bit last year. I mean, what what exactly does it look like from a practical matter um as compared to what we would do normally? Like what does it add? Um and then how do we know that we can tie, you know, that investment to this performance and these results? Yeah. I I'll start and Sean can fill it finish cuz he he does a good job of of filling in the gaps for me. What we do is we do have students scheduled so that they have the same uh science, math, and English teachers. They meet weekly uh with their students and they actually go through data based on their classrooms. The things they notice, things that they um things that are going well, things that uh process processes and progress that students have made. So we try to celebrate the good too, like we've we've made some good progress. In addition, some of the there is a monthly curriculum that is kind of a connection curriculum. It's it's different lessons, they're called I times. And what they're really set up to do is give teachers kind of a qualitative look at a lesson of who's interacting, who is choosing not to. What are the things that our students are talking about? What what kind of interactions are happening? So again, it's it's to build community, it's to build uh to break down some of the barriers of of freshmen not knowing each other and trying to get to know each other. So uh I think that once students realize that their teachers are paying attention to them, paying attention to the details of who they are, acknowledging when things are going well, that all contributes to the data. Yeah, so just to add a little bit to that. Um, so we have small block means or the teachers are meeting those teams talking about students and looking at data. And so they know the students cuz they share the students. Before you had a a building of close to 2,000 students and it was just there you go. No nobody's sharing students, nobody's really talking about them cuz it wasn't built into the structure. Now it is. We've also both Kim and I have been intentional on making sure that our ninth grade class sizes are a little bit lower um than the other grade levels. Um that's important. Uh so teachers, you know, are able to have that time to meet with those students and and really intervene early. Um we also have our counselors working and our administrators now freed up because of our counselors working on during the big block meetings. So they meet monthly to talk about students and just to catch students early when they're falling. Um to get them tier two support, to get them tier three support if needed. That's extremely important to catch students early um when they're struggling. And now all our students are being talked to as Kim talked about our I time lessons, these are the best lessons in the country that these bar coaches have gone around the country learning from the best teachers in the country, getting the best SEL lessons, get to know you activities and making still students feel included in the building. So still students feel valued when they walk into our high schools now cuz they're doing these activities with their teachers which we hadn't done before to this level. Um and then you're seeing it in our results in our daily desired experiences. So bar has been great. It's it's it's a proven formula. It's it's spreading all across the country. It started in Minnesota which is very unique um and and now it's out out east. It's very big out east. It's very big out west and it's proven. It's it's data driven which is important Uh, for us um, and it works on academic, mental health, college career readiness, and and all of things. So, it's Yeah, I could sell it all day, but it's really good stuff. Okay. So, I mean, is it kind of similar to what we have at the the middle school level then, like a teams model? Yes. Kind of, and then you're just implementing that in ninth grade. >> It's a high school version of a teams model. Okay. Is that the biggest change that comes with BAR, would you say? Well, it's you're also provided a BAR coach from from BAR, that comes in and that basically takes that middle school model and provides, data, eye time activities, professional development. We have two days of training in the summer with all our teachers. So, it really takes that and it it gives it a lot of structure and proven strategies that have worked in other high schools across the country. So. >> Mhm. All right. Are there any other questions on BAR before I go to a different subject? No. Um, back on the curriculum alignment, which I'm excited to hear about. Uh, wondering if you could provide a little background on you you'd said that you have one common assessment completed. Uh, I just wondered if you could talk about that. What what's the process of creating a common assessment? You know, what does that mean for you as principals, you know, as educational leaders of the school? Um, and and outside of the common assessment, like what are you using currently, you know, to analyze performance of students and teachers within your school? So, it's probably three questions there, but So, obviously you have, you know, the the macro level of the MCA results, ACT results, graduation rates, all that stuff. But then you you go down to the micro level and see how our students are doing. You can't PLC without common assessments. Okay? So, you can't grow professionally if you can't talk about data and how you're doing. And so, the goal of common assessments is to look at data and see how we can help each other improve. And we're in that journey together, all as educators. And it's not about taking away any creativity of a teacher or anything like that. You still have your creative craft as a teacher when you go in the classroom and teach. Um however, if we have common assessments, we can now look at data and see how we're doing. So, if I'm if I have three teachers in my PLC and teacher C is just really doing really well. I taught social studies. So, is doing really well on the World War II unit. And maybe my scores weren't as I'm going to ask him, "Hey, what did you do um for lessons that week?" And [clears throat] the best teachers are the best pirates. I I firmly believe that. The best educators are the best pirates. Um and then they they steal from each other and they they make each other better. They talk about how we can improve uh experiences for our students. Cuz ultimately at the end of the day, we want our students to do well. I just want to add I think that one piece that is that that you might be expecting that it's already in place or should be already in place. You There was a uh a good number of years where the curriculum revision process was on pause or slowed down. And so, we've had some years where yes, some people are in standards-based review right now. So, they are talking about this at this time. And there are some people who over time it's been a long time and we've had a lot of people change and move in and out. So, it it this year was really about grounding ourselves to make sure that we had a scope and sequence and that we truly were teaching the same things. And we we agreed on what those same things were in alignment with our standards. And so, um it it might feel like, "Well, why haven't we been doing common assessments forever?" It's because we haven't we haven't slowed down and sat down next to each other, compared notes, and really planned out our school years between the three schools. Um middle schools also did the same thing and and this is the first time we really slowed down to do that process. So, maybe that helps a little bit. Maybe I could see the concern like maybe well, what the heck have you been teaching? Um it is the reality is is we we grounded ourselves so that we're all in the same point. That was a big piece of work this year and our teachers did an amazing job of truly agreeing on what that looked like over the course of a school year. Yeah, and again, I'm all for it. I hope that it comes across, but I guess my question was if we're we're getting the curriculum in alignment, is the curriculum that we're putting into place does it not have like unit assessments already built into the curriculum? Is that what Not necessarily. I mean, we we don't always just use a textbook chapter one, textbook chapter test, go on to chapter two. It is when textbooks are put together and and things like that, it not is it's not always Minnesota standards when they put those together. So, there is some negotiations and some moving things around that would cause teachers to uh be in a different spot or to work through that a little bit. All right. So, the goal is to have the common assessment reflect what's being taught in the classrooms, which will be in alignment with the state standards then. For each unit. Correct. Okay. I mean, so we have one and you're thinking next year we'll have we should be set. Should have a year's worth, yeah. That is the intention. >> [clears throat] >> Great. That's good. Yeah, I I Funny, do you have Oh, sorry. I just just to piggyback [clears throat] on what what Matt said, I think he was right. I mean, I I just want to share that from my understanding, 80% of the curriculum that we purchased is at the national level and 20% is missing Minnesota standards. And so, we got to go back and either recreate it, have a bunch of teachers figure it out, and then every school district has to do the do it themselves cuz there's no centralized unit. And so, when you go to each individual, I'm assuming chapter, 80% of that is Minnesota standards is going to be 20% is not. So, you got to fill that gap, and then you got to create a new assessment on top of that to make sure it meets the Minnesota standard. And you got to do that for every single chapter, every single class, every single subject. And so, that probably You can't do that with AI maybe, I don't know. So. You could probably you could but that was just my my comment. I've got a bunch of questions but I'll pause because I know you know Director Reckenberg has his hand up. Are you done, Matt? First off, I want to say congratulations. I'm looking at these graduation rates you guys offer here and having numbers nine nine points higher than the state average, the number of substantially higher across all these various areas. That is an exceptional an exceptional mark. I think that's reflective on the school district, it's reflective on the principals, it's reflective on it's reflective on the educators, on the teachers within the Oops. Thank [clears throat] you. Um the educators in the schools and I I just want to say congratulations and thank you. That is an exceptional exceptional mark and it shows that Lakeville schools are doing something pretty impressive. Um and congratulations to all the all the seniors who are graduating, too. Um you mentioned you brought up the facilities for trades that are going to need to be upgraded. Um trades as far as like you know facilities and as as far as equipment and machinery, that represents a relatively large capital expense and I'm just thinking ahead. I'm just throwing these ideas out here to you. If there are particular areas um as far as individual trades that you see needing immediate upgrades or areas where we should start looking as far as an investment as far as putting money towards certain aspects of these areas. Are there ones that we need Yeah, any immediate and then anything on the long term as far as like where we should be focusing our attention as far as increasing the investment as far as these trade programs. I I'm going to just jump in. One of the things that I would really one of the pieces that we have in place right now is that we have concurrent enrollment for welding. And so I would want to partner with our technical and career colleges in the neighborhoods to figure out how can we utilize their resources as well as our resources so that it's not just an investment on ours. Like how can we partner? How can we bring our students to the level of what is happening in those facilities because it it's they are the ones that are cutting edge really. They are the ones that have the training and ready to go. So building those partnerships, do I know that it's going to be welding, woods, IT? I don't know that yet. I'd want to spend some time as we begin that journey of what our schools are going to look like in the future to know what are the what are the solids and what are the the reaches for us to build those tech and trade programs. Yeah, I would just tack on we're running into space issues right now at South with our engine technology program. So we have students that want to take the class but we only have X amount of space to to host these classes. And so there's a there's space constraint for everything but to expand and answer your question some of the some of what we're seeing students really getting interested in are welding, HVAC, plumbing, electrical especially. And then of course the engineering so electrical engineering and that all requires space, that all requires equipment. We we do a great job with what we have. Right now North has welding and so the South kids go over to North for welding classes and South has a wood shop and carpentry and some electricity stuff that we're doing. So North kids are coming to South so we get to share our students. But you can imagine the space constraints that we have with all these programs. So our STEM teachers would be more than happy to talk to you about what they're seeing and and some of the technology that their students are telling them. And I invite you anytime you want to come in and listen to our capstones. We do them. We'll be doing them starting next week, I believe, or the week after. Our seniors will be giving their capstones on the projects they work with local companies and we invite people in the public to come in all the time to listen to those capstones and you'll get a really good snapshot of what's going on. So, but yes, that's a great question. Space is a is a real issue. I can [snorts] add on that. I can also add on that. As a former work coordinator, I have worked with a number of businesses over time. We have lots of them in our area that want to pair with our schools. We're talking our trade unions like the 49ers Union has actually already developed part of the curriculum, works with the state of Minnesota, and it is a cost neutral to us if we get that implemented where our students will be able to take classes now and go out into their sandboxes, work the big equipment, and they will be able to use those hours for their apprenticeship programs. They're different HVAC ones that are built that way also because our two-year colleges are on waiting lists right now. So, anything we can do in our schools is giving our students that leg up when they go out into the workforce. Great. Tony, do you have more? No, I don't. Matt, should we circle back to your last one and then over to you? Sure. Um IXL. Uh Sue mentioned leveraging technology and using IXL. I think I've seen it at the lower levels with our kids where it's like they're trying to get to 90 or whatever. They do a problem, if they get it right, it goes up. If they get a problem wrong, it goes down, right? Is that the same kind of IXL? It's the same program. >> Something similar you guys using? Just focused on with algebra, intermediate algebra, and geometry are the two two classes that we align or use IXL. And I know there's a discussion we still have to use on the board or have on the board, but has there been any discussion about using like an AI tutor program at the high school level where it's actually, you know, doing some teaching as well as not just giving you questions. >> about it. I think we're talking about it through the curriculum revision process as well to make sure that we're we're using products that we feel good about. We're we're nowhere near the discussion full implementation yet. Brian. Yeah. So thanks. There's a lot of topics that were discussed. I've just got three, but I probably have like a bunch of questions within each one, so bear with me. One is the the academics. Second one is counselors and then future plans. From the academics perspective a category, there was a credit recovery. I saw 120 and the 255 number on the slide. It showed a massive reduction or based on kind of where we were at the end of of April. I'm just curious does the credit recovery influx as you get into summer with people not graduating on time? So I'm just curious if the 120 is slightly skewed or is 120 Those are two separate numbers, Brian. Summer numbers and academic year and then there'll be summer numbers again. Correct, Principal Guard? >> the academic year was 130 and then the summer numbers down here are the 245. So we had 245 students who had to do academic recovery over the summer? No, 245 classes. >> I think it was about Don't hold me to this completely. About 158 students give or take for that 245 that was recovered. Got it. And so then put the 120 as a reduction from the previous year. Is that what you're saying? No. >> No. All of those are >> say that then. Okay, so the current numbers are classes that they have done in the 25-26 school year. So I don't have a reduction number on here. I didn't compare the two for Okay, would it would it be fair to say Principal Guard that the summer is a more more time for credit recovery? So So, why those numbers are high and then during the academic year you have fewer. Correct. >> you'll probably have high numbers again this summer. Right. Currently, we don't have an academic credit recovery program for 15-year-olds. The application is into the state. So, that summer we get a number of kids that turn 16 so we can do our independent study credit recovery. So, you see that larger influx. Yeah. And I'm able just to have more students during that time because everybody else is gone. So, I can have multiple classrooms and we're in South. >> Got it. Got it. Yeah, I I I'm sorry. I I I was uh I didn't understand the numbers very well. So, that I I I interpreted the 255 was the total at the end of summer and then we're at 120. And I'm like, well, are we going to get an influx going into summer? But thank you for the clarity. Um Uh Director Swanson, I think I think you're right the in regards to the the iPads, the technology, the IXL, how do we have um AI uh education uh as a supplement to what what what our students can do? I know they all have iPads right now. Every single one of them. I think we approved one and they get a brand new one uh or not a brand new one, but it's like 100 bucks a year for each one that we end up uh leasing out for an iPad. But the the the tools there, we just need to find the program. And I I'm assuming the cost of the program can't be that expensive. And so, if there are opportunities where whether it be Khan Academy or IXL. I know that my son when he was about to take his algebra class to get into Normandale PSCO, he had to do this thing called Alex A L E K S or something like that. It was just a self-study math course. He did it for about 4 weeks. Uh it showed him his proficiency and then he took the exam. And so, there's capabilities out there now. It's got to be uh I I I really think there's a that scenario for us as a board to decide if that's something that we want to uh nudge even further or faster so that we can implement that cuz if we've got win time, we've got breaks, uh they all have iPads, they just need the software license to just do it. That that might be something for consideration. Um the the academic advising piece, I saw 58% on the on the graph that said they were doing uh the school counselors were doing academic advisors or advising. Curious, is there a requirement at the high school level where the counselors need to meet with every single student at least once a year? Kind of like you were a financial advisor, you meet with your student so that you they know where they are where they are, what classes that they're taking, or is it just more of whoever signs up gets to go see them? Uh at this point, there is no requirement that they need to, but I do think students work pretty hard to connect with their counselors, especially those juniors and seniors who are looking for what comes next. Um in that whole academic piece, you know, the 53 58% 53 whatever the percentage was, um we'll talk about that a little bit more break it down a little bit more in the next presentation, but it it could be everything from uh letters of recommendation, PSCO, college planning, college applications, changing schedules, um needing help with some advice about how to study, how to how to do better in the classes. So, it could be that whole range. >> where like a student doesn't talk to their their counselor at all. >> At this point, there is that is true. At this point, there's not a requirement. >> then and when they pick classes uh with the assumption that they're assigning they're picking classes that the parents are helping or the guardians or their friends are helping, but no one is providing oversight on class selection, either. Not sitting down individually checking boxes, but they are in the registration spaces to answer questions to make sure that they are on track with their career plans or with their their school plan. Uh and so my last uh commentary may maybe less of a question. Well, I do have one question in this this is just the future plans. Uh the concurrent programs, 100% I think that sounds like there's lots of uh enthusiasm by the board for implementing that. Super fortunate for me I my son is going through a PSE program and and will and is taking advantage of that. Because of the limitations of concurrent, I know that my son had to fill out some applications to even get into these collegic programs. So I'm assuming that if we do concurrent programs, students are going to have to follow a similar pathway. They have to meet certain GPA, certain XYZ to to get into that and then based on just class size availability, you know, we're we're only going to be able to take so many. I mean you're going to run the course of we're going to run into probably scenarios where AP students are going to be like, "Hey, I'm going to just take a concurrent concurrent class and and then go from there." So interesting. The future plans also had I think seventh hour I wrote that down so that was a big thing. So maybe over the summer we need to have conversations about that looks like because I think that's a huge um that's a huge huge not a deal breaker but like an unlock to give our students more capacity to pick and choose. But more importantly that seventh hour can be used for remediation and then if you've got into technology tools that can be used during those remediation sessions, it just makes our students get to the level that they need to much faster. I think the last thing I wrote was Lakeville West High School. Was that? No. >> [laughter] >> Okay. But but but back to >> [laughter] >> But back to what you said earlier about having some sort of trade center, trade hub. 100% agree. We've got And so this is where it's like super fascinating like philosophically like what is the intent of an education institution? Like is it to provide reading, math, science? Is it to you know, give your kids well roundedness before they leave or is it to give them something more tactical, tangible skill set so that they are productive members of society as they leave. Not everyone will go to college. Some will want to be welding and we've got components of that now. But we don't have an electrician program. We don't have a cosmetology program or a nursing program or a pre-pilot program. And so these are things that, you know, as a school board, do we want to make a case to the community to say this is something we should invest in. There is value in having your kids academically ready, but also have something tangible ready when they're post high school. Because I don't know, a college degree nowadays with technology where where is it where it is today in 4 years, you know, someone can spin up an open claw and cloud code and create something over the weekend and next thing you know, right? They've got They got it an app. They've got a product. They've got a company. And so when we have AI so involved with day-to-day life today and and I'm not sure how much AI is integrated into high school life today, are we setting our kids up to be not as successful because they're not well versed in the pros and the cons of that respective tool. But if we wanted to consider Lakeville West High School later, something we can talk about over the summer or a tech center, I'm 100% on board with what that future state might look like. So look forward to to an update from you guys. So thank you. You have your hand up? I was looking at Kim. I do, but So I was going to wait until board communications to share this where the board members talk about the different things because at 9:17 our last meeting we did have a career and technical presentation that was provided to our board. And since 9:17 is our partner district and we um partner with them for special education, they also have a career and tech program. We used to participate in this to a certain extent. Um the thing that we struggled with with it is the scheduling because they only have certain blocks of time and so we kind of struggled with scheduling some classes. We also had a difficult time with transportation for students to get there. So at one time we did provide a bus and then we stopped providing the bus because it was a budget cut. But they have really invested this last year specifically in the current tech program. So I have all of these wonderful brochures of things that you can get now with their current tech program which is nail technician, power sports, cyber security, mechatronics, construction trades, heavy duty trucks, that's a really popular one. Graphic design, video game design, um total auto care, um and career seminars. So these are things that our students can access now through a member district that we have. We just have to provide that opportunity for our students. So I would love to get it here as much as we can, but knowing that kids need access to these things now, this is an opportunity for our district to take advantage of. I will say that my son participated in all of the welding classes. He was a South student and um had transportation over to North. He did that the entire high school career. As soon as he graduated, he was on a waiting list for the welding program. It was quite a waiting list. He waited so he did Tesla while he was waiting for that at 917. He finally got into the program and he's graduating May 7th with his welding certificate. So thank you to Lakeville schools for that. So it is there, but again I speak to the concerns that you have with the waitlist for it. We do have opportunities for kids right here. We just need to be able to take advantage of it. So if you'd love to see the things from 917, just let me know I can share those. And also Dr. Favor and his team would love to come and present to the board about that. So those are things that we can all look into because they were options that we had for our kids and we just don't have them anymore. So Thanks Kim. Kelly. I just wanted to um say two things. One, some things that have come up um in discussion tonight. One being kind of with the flexible day and some other things that we've explored as a board in terms of uh one thing that um Chair Cameron and I have talked with the superintendent uh about is how do we kind of bring forth the various things that you know, not just the high school principals, but the middle school and elementary principals have brought to us in terms of needs or desires. And so, that's something I think we're trying to put more numbers to like in terms of like what we can explore going further. >> [snorts] >> And then the other thing, and I'm going to be I'm going to be the neuropsychologist in the room. Um I am very concerned about tech and how we implement tech in the schools. And so, I think um people are bringing that up as if we know that it's going to be a clear benefit. And I think we were talking about just um how ex- exploration on this is needed and will be discussed at a future board meeting. So, that's to come. Right. I have a couple of things. Um kind of waiting my my turn to the end. But, I echo what Carly just mentioned. I think we need to do um our due diligence in making sure we are using tools that we can afford, of course, but are also best practice in in education. And um I think looking at the data and how those tools um would be effective or not um is is critical. And so, while AI might be an option and can be an option to explore, I am also seeing a lot of literature coming out recently. Like Sweden, for example, with their conservative majority now has banned iPads and technology um in terms of an instructional strategy because the research for Sweden is showing that that's not how kids learn and that we've had this like push from EdTech to spend all this money over, you know, the last decade or so. And so, I think it's interesting that like an entire country is now moving towards textbooks and paper-based instruction again because that's how our brains retain information better. So, I think I think there's movements both ways, right? And there's there's pros and cons of both and pressures that we need to consider. I was just talking last night to my husband and and he's a dean at at Shakopee, I think you know, and he was saying for for students at Shakopee at least, the number one issue he hears from students is issues with math. And that because they don't have a textbook, they have to refer back to. And so, they're struggling because they can't flip a page. They have to go watch an entire video to be able to relearn a skill rather than when we could just flip a page and be like, oh yeah, this this is working me through it. And so, I think I think there's things to think about here, right? And and I think ultimately is like what is the data saying? Are numbers in student achievement going up with that tech or are they going down? And and there's I think um things to explore there. Um I also love the data on bar and and I'm really excited to see the success of that and if it makes sense to expand it, I think that's something to to think about for the district, but I think it also speaks to me that we need strong curriculum in our district and we need strong programs like bar. A student just doesn't excel because we put um you know, a digital curriculum in front of them, but they succeed because of things that have been mentioned like belonging and in wanting to be there and feeling positive about who they are. So, I think that is critical to academic success and sometimes we parse them separately, but to me they are fully integrated. Um a question for Principal Garr, probably primarily, but or Garr, so I keep saying Garr. Last I I was calling you Margaret and then I'm just Okay, I know. I feel like my my husband was an ALC guy and like everyone goes by first names. So, um Okay, so Margaret, um with credit recovery, do you feel like we are kind of at at the the right numbers for student interest and in capacity or do you feel like there's opportunities to increase increase our program to allow more students to benefit. We identify all of them. We invite all of them. We have multiple levels that we do the identification. I work really closely with both buildings. We use our IST process for identifying them. We run percentage rates during the middle of the semester and quarter to try and identify them even earlier and if we see low percentages, we we'll call the counselors in the other buildings and say, "Hey, can you pull this kid? Do you want to find out what's going on?" So, we try and get down to like the micro level when we identify. So, the engagement portion is always the tough part because we're working with kids that have failed and and they don't want to look stupid. They don't want to look like different from everybody else. So, finding those after-school times where they come in and those pieces, um, could it be bigger? I hope not. With all the other implementations we put in place, I think that number should be a 10% or less less of overall population. >> Okay, great. And then, um, my other question was around common assessments and um, I think I I'm I'm come from a liberal arts background and so I appreciate having a test where we can quickly verify like a student got a 98 or a 90 and we can yep, one is better than the other, right? But I'm also wanting to make sure our students are getting assessed on things like writing and and more nuanced ways of or or presentations and, you know, how are we thinking about common assessments? Are we only thinking about tests or are we integrating kind of a diverse range of assessment types? They're both formative and summative, but most of the, um, as- common assessments are just agreed upon based on the scope and sequence. So, but back to an earlier question about the CAN tests or things that come with the curriculum, that's where those questions of depth of knowledge come in. So, they're created by the teachers. So, most of those are kind of a comprehension question and they can't be faked cuz the student actually has to write them and it's not just multiple choice, which are really important as we're changing and meeting the standards so that they understand the depth of the standard. Um that's how those created tests are created. I think also with a liberal arts background, I think it's important to know that not every assessment has to be a test. It could be a rubric. Um that [clears throat] measures a speech or a performance or a paper or a whatever that that assessment that is the common is measuring the standards and what level they're proficient at it. It doesn't necessarily need to be a bubble answer test. >> Okay. And if there's pros and cons that depending upon the topic, right? Of when that those should be implemented. Okay, great. Any other questions or discussion? All right, great. Well, thank you. Okay, but one more question. >> Oh, oh, sorry. Go ahead. Um on the uh the 7-hour 7-hour class day, would that affect, you know, students being able to earn credits in order to graduate? I mean, is that cuz when we're going to have one more class period, so there's going to be less time in each class period. So, how how does that affect >> No, you Yes, that will impact the amount of credits required to graduate. And so, that would be something that we'd have to work with with Dr. McDonald. We've talked We've had many discussions on that and how we would reboot that. So, absolutely that would that would impact that. Anything else? I do have a comment on common assessment. I think you guys explained it really well. But yeah, when I keep saying common assessments, it's really the goal should be how how well are the students learning what we're we're supposed to teach them or trying to teach them, you know? And then having that a a consistent assessment across the district as you know, uh Principal Murphy said it very well, so we can compare like where where we excelling and where do we need more help and what practices are really working that we can mimic across the system and be most efficient. So, cuz otherwise we're just waiting for FastBridge results that don't necessarily align with our curriculum or uh the MCA results which are once a year and by the time we get the data it's the year's done. So. Appreciate Appreciate that effort though. Great. Thank you. Thank you for being here. All right. Um next we'll move to our next presentation. Thank you for waiting it out. Um we have uh Director of Student Health, Safety, and Wellness, uh Karen Cowan. Thank you. With an update on school counseling. Yes. Excuse me. Um good evening Chair Cameron, board members, and Assistant Superintendent Dr. McDonald. Thank you. Middle button. >> [snorts] >> Okay. Um as you heard from the previous presentation, our school counselors play an important role in student success. So now we're just going to go a little bit deeper in um kind of what that looks like and day-to-day, why we made that shift, and um you're we're in year year two. So we're going to look at both the impact and maybe some future needs. So, the research consistently shows that school counselors play an important role in student outcomes. Schools with more access to to counseling services see improvements in attendance, performance, and graduation rates. Can counselors play a critical role in helping students plan for life after high school with research showing that significant a significantly um increase in college access, financial and completion financial aid completion, and post-secondary enrollment. They also support students in exploring career pathways, identifying their interest and strengths, and completing key post-secondary planning steps. Research shows that academic success is not only about content knowledge. It also depends on skills such as self-management, goal setting, and problem-solving. And as you heard in that video, they talked about time management and making connections. All students benefits [snorts] benefit from developing these skills, including those who already are demonstrating proficiency in those skills. School counselors play an important role in building these competencies and helping remove barriers that may interfere from learning. So you can see here the high school adoption began in spring of 2024 with the planning to for this transition. It started with the defining roles of the school counselors, the assistant principals, professional development opportunities for those prospective roles, and some training on BAR. In 2024 25, we started with three high school counselors, and then this year, 25-26 school year, we added a fourth school counselor. Just like our academic programs, our school counseling model is grounded in standards and MTSS, which is multi-tiered systems of support, and in data. The American School Counselor Association, or ASCA is what we call it provide standards that guide our comprehensive counseling model and the Minnesota Department of Education provides a socially social emotional learning framework. Together, these ensure we are helping students build the skills they need to be successful in school and beyond. Second, our model is aligned with MTSS or multi-tiered system of supports. This means that we provide service for all students, tier one, tier two, and tier three. So, we can match the level of service to the students' needs. And in the next slide, we will be talking more about tier one, tier two, and three might look like. And finally, data. Data plays a critical role. We use data to identify the student needs. We target the supports. We measure the results by analyzing attendance, academic, and behavior data, and we monitor student progress and evaluate our interventions. So, we're continuing to build out these data systems so we can clearly demonstrate impact over time. All right. Hello again. Um I get to talk about how counselors are supporting all our students. So, at the tier one level, they're supporting all of our students and they've done a really good job in both buildings during advisory time. So, that's the time that we've been creative during that sixth period day to get some extra activities and supports in for our students. Particularly, they've been creating MCIS lessons, college and career readiness, skills inventories, etc. throughout the school year. But they've also been doing some other activities, SEL activities during the advisory period. Um, and then yeah, as you can see, uh, tier two has more targeted skill acquisitions, um, interventions based on screening data. They'll identify groups that maybe need help with study habits, uh, social skills, etc., organization. And sometimes they'll do those in smaller group settings, uh, to help students during that time period. And of course, tier three is where they really stepped up, um, where we just didn't have the resources at the high school level when you need that highly individualized, intensive services, meetings with parents and providers to get students that intensive support that they need so we can get them back, um, to learning and and at a high level. So, they're they're constantly doing risk assessments and crisis response support for our families, uh, and they've done an outstanding job at both buildings with that. Typical day on the job, obviously, this is very, uh, going going to fluctuate greatly. Uh, all it takes is one crisis to to side rail a day like this, but um, they came together and and worked with actually Margaret Geary during the those five days and, you know, what would a typical day look like if it was kind of that perfect? Yeah, you actually followed your schedule type of day. And this is what they came up with. So, you can kind of see how it's chunked out, and and you can see all the different activities that they're doing. Uh, what has this done to improve our systems at the high school level? Well, it's really freed up our administrators, uh, to do the instructional leadership, to do the common assessment, uh, writing with our teachers, the scope and sequence development, uh, to lead the their different areas that they lead. And then obviously, um, our students are getting more one-to-one attention. You know, I think it was Brian that asked, you know, have they attempted to meet with every student? I think that's a great question. Yes, they have some of them have, uh, Uh, and they're getting there. I think that should be a goal for them to have 5-minute meetings. Uh, I know they tried to start with our freshman and our seniors and then work their way in. Not that the sophomores and juniors aren't important, but um, I I do believe we're going to get there. Where they're going to at least have a contact with each student. I think that's extremely important. So, um, you can see that there this is the first year we've had a full team and they've they've really done a good job kind of dividing what they've done. We're going to look this summer as administrative teams with our counselors cuz they have time in the summer to work in addition to the school year, which is very nice. And we're going to kind of enhance this every year. And, you know, what can we give up? What can we enhance? Is it those 5-minute meetings with every student, which I think is very important so every student at least meets their counselor in person. All those things are important. So, we got to prioritize this and it's going to hopefully get better every year. Sean got excited and stole some of my thunder. So, >> [laughter] >> um, these are some of the things that we're seeing in our school since the adoption. We're seeing that we have more collaboration with our staff and with our families. More student More parents are coming in to have discussions about the the 4-year plan and beyond. Um, we are spending a lot of time, especially this time of year, getting our students to graduation. It's another person on our team to help our students get there. Um, we continue to refine and define systems and processes to help our students get the support they need, whether that is academic or it is social emotional. Um, I think one of the things that as an administrator I see most uh, and where I've seen the greatest change is how we do operations within our building. Uh, the operations now allow our administrative team to be actively engaged in the school system process. We are in the halls, we're meeting with teachers, we're supporting behaviors, we're working on prevention and and any disruptions of learning. It gives us a chance to really focus on the system's side and not try to spread ourselves so thin. Uh, Many times in the past before we had this model as a principal, I found myself rather alone in trying to run the systems of the building, the academic portion of the building, the check-ins with the teachers, and many times ended up also side by side with my team doing the disciplinary issues on top of all the other things. And so, it feels like we all are now in the right lane of the the carpool lanes. We have the right people in the right places so that we can continue to move more quickly through the city as we work through how to support our students and our families as they go through their school system. >> [sighs] >> So, yes, our counselors have been a great addition to our high schools. So, we look to building our future. And take a look at that. I'll give you a minute to take a look at that table. Um the American School Counselor um Association um recommends a ratio of 250 students to one counselor. As you can see from those surrounding districts, all are above that recommended ratio, but Lakeville is amongst the highest. That directly impacts the amount of time counselors can spend providing service to all of our students. While we've made improvements and progress adding these two positions, you can still see that there's a wide gap and um currently um capacity um where we could increase so we are um more to the recommended ratio um of the American social sorry uh school counselor association. So as our district continues to grow moving closer to the recommend recommended ratio will allow counselors to spend more time working directly with students supporting their academic progress well-being and their post-secondary education. In addition there's always an addition to that an important opportunity we would like to see is expanding this counseling model to our middle schools. Earlier support in the middle school levels would be strong would allow them to have stronger skill development and earlier intervention which would hopefully go to fewer escalated challenges as students enter into our high schools. So ultimately the work is about ensuring that every student has the support they need to stay engaged succeed academically and graduate with a plan for their future. That's not the ending. No. Okay wait pause. We'll start there. Okay so we talked about the systems and the impact but the work is really about our students. So this video gives you a chance to hear directly from students across grade levels so you'll see both elementary and high school students working with high school and elementary counselors. I know our focus was on high school tonight but it gives you a chance to see more of a broader perspective and how the counseling can work system-wide. I'm going to read it. I think I'll go back. Okay, look. Maybe they can run it from the back. Here it goes. Yay! >> [music] >> Show >> [screaming] >> and tell! Hi. Welcome back to Show and Tell. My name's Lisa. >> Welcome back to Show and Tell. I'm Layla Perkins, and we're going to be talking to our student services today. >> [music] >> Could you tell us what it's like being a school counselor? So, the days go really fast because there's [music] a lot of work to be done, and no two days are the same. >> And can you tell us what's something that you've learned in your time of being a [music] school counselor? I've learned that it takes a lot of practice to do something new, and it takes a lot of courage, and that's something that I want my students to know, too. And can you tell us what's your favorite part about your job? >> Well, I love [music] to see students succeed, and I'm their biggest cheerleader. How about you show us some things? Can you show me something that really helps students? So, [music] I want to show you this. It is a breathing ball. We work a lot with slowing down breathing, um and [music] this helps students to take slow, deep breaths. And let's tell me how awesome did I do as an interviewer? >> [music] >> You were amazing. >> [laughter] >> So lucky. Hey, can I ask you guys a couple questions about student support? >> Yeah, of course. Greg, how do you like the counselors and student [music] support at Lakeville South? Um I I love them. They're like um available like in any way, shape, or form. It's like um a a welcome place, an open place. You can just go in there, talk to them, ask them questions. So, obviously, as all of us are juniors, we're getting ready to prepare for college, making sure we have all of our credits. Have you guys gone to counselors to help with any of that? >> Yes, definitely. I've gone to her to ask about kind of just like what I want to do in the future cuz I kind of have like a bunch of different paths that I could choose and she's very helpful with that. And then college, they're all very good resources. They all know what they're talking about and you can go to them and ask them and help you kind of decide what your path you want to take. So Katie, how do you like the counselors here at school? I feel like they're always very supportive and are always there for you whenever [music] you need them. How do school counselors make school easy for you? They really help me when I feel like for example like sad or I'm annoyed [music] about something. They can really just help me with how I'm feeling and then that can lead to just overall doing a lot better [music] in school. How about you Jackson? Having a school supportive dog really cheers kids up when they can like pet it and stuff. [music] Thank you guys for answering these questions and giving us your time. And Piper, how do you like being the school counselor's dog? >> [laughter] >> Good girl. You can go back to her. There you go. What is something that you think the students should know about student supports that you don't think they do? With how new counseling [music] is this year, kids don't really know what we're here for. So, we're just here to help whatever that might look like for each student. [music] So, if it's I'm having a bad day, come on in. We can help with schedule changes or we're working on creating groups so that we can just work with multiple students at a time that maybe [music] have a shared experience. We just want kids to know that we are here and we're available for whatever they might need. >> Okay, so you've told us a bunch of stuff, but now can you show us what's going on right here cuz I've been looking at that the whole time. So, these are just a bunch of fidgets. Sometimes it's just nice to hold on to something and to just squish something or you know, distract yourself a little bit. It's a lot easier to talk when you're just kind of having fun. What is your motivation for why you chose this path? I had an incredible counselor in high school and she was just the most impactful person on my life. She just helped me feel loved and cared for and supported and and I just think every kid [music] should have that. Thank you for watching Show and Tell and I'll see you later. Thank you guys for watching this Show and Tell. I [music] hope you learned something new and interesting about our counselors and I hope you guys have a good rest of your school year. >> [music] >> So, yeah. What? Um you just heard it gets me every time. It really does. Um but what you heard just brings their work to life. Um behind the systems and the data and the structure is students. And students they are feeling more connected, they're feeling um more engaged and they're feeling more that they're better prepared for their futures. And that's the true impact that we're working to really build and sustain here. Great. Thank you. I will open it up for our questions and discussion. Dr. Thompson, I'm sure you already have your hand up. I appreciate you sharing kind of the metrics around I think uh 58% was related to um academic focus and uh some some other 38% for social emotional learning. Uh so I get the the I think the goal was 250 to 1 or something of that nature. You guys know it's about 271 and we're like 500 uh which is a a huge number for cuz you got one counselor for every single student for each grade. But I don't think you guys have You're not We don't have them separated by grade it's based on alphabetical order so that's the same counselor for the rest of their four-year term. Great. Great. Um I guess what I'm I'm I'm I'm curious and and and not to ask that counselors are not the are not valuable, but it's like uh I think I'm trying to think of it I'm trying to use the data to just understand um uh the volume of work that they did that they're doing. And and so as I listen to this uh it's it's an individual doors open pretty much any topic from A to Z is what I'm is what I'm hearing and and there's certain categories of XYZ that that that we try to kind of classify that that particular reason or request of why they come came in. So is there a ticketing system that says hey student came in there is a this is the topic and then it's it's checked off. Is there a backlog counselor is booked out two weeks in advance and they're just they're just full because they've got appointments scheduled or is it based on first come first serve basis. I'm trying to justify or not just so I'm just trying to understand the volume of work. Is it busy work because they're just busy or is it busy value added work? Does that make sense? It's busy because there's lots of students that have needs different needs and so we have the different tiers of support. So they might be doing like a session for planning and looking at schedules for all students or their their alpha. They could be doing a small group as um Principal Murphy explained a small group on how to time manage how to manage your time and how to do some study skills or they might be doing some individual supports. A student might feel they're in crisis. So it really depends on the needs and they have to prioritize their day every day and they do have a logging um they log when they see students. >> Got it. Got it. And so can students schedule appointments with them for a future day? So so are they are they booked out for like two weeks out or is it is it Yeah. And and the reason I'm asking is that I get the the 250 number but and while we have 495 to one is it just because kids are just randomly coming in? There is no schedule. I'm just trying to understand the volume and the type of kind of requests that are coming in that might justify the need of we need to have four more for each for each high school. And so if we have eight, is it going to be more I don't want to say busy work, but it's like you know what I mean? I'm like what because you can only do so much academic planning, you can do so much of XYZ, but if people are are if students are coming in just to go hang out I I don't know. Does that make sense? Yes. So I think one of your other questions was um do they see all of their students? Currently, I would say no they don't they're not able to like like Mr. Principal Murphy said they started with ninth grade and 12th grade and they're trying to, but they just have so many students. So if you had a smaller ratio, you'd be allowed you would have the time available or you would be able to see all of your students on your alpha. You would have that connection. You'd be able to have more of a personal relationship and we all know that the more engaged students feel at school they will come to a school, they attend and they have better academic performance. >> Well, but but you can do that now. You can have every morning blocked where you would see I mean you we've got 500 students. You've got what 180 school 170 school days. If you see three students a day for 10 minutes, that's 30 minutes. So every morning if you block from 9 until 11 or 10:30, you can bust out five to 10 students and so that they are they are guaranteed to be connected and touched and then you leave the rest of the afternoon open for walk-ins for whatever you may want to do. And so like that that is a governance scheduling structure that could be considered. So I'm wondering at the the building level, like do you have a perspective on how this plays out? >> Yeah, I I just wanted to add you're doing a great job, but I just wanted to add that what it looks like at the school, um we do have they do have times that they set aside for appointments, of course. Um every student that comes in does log in, they actually have to sign in and with their purpose. So, we we do have the the numbers and the metrics to show that they are busy all the time. It is it is uh one of the pieces that we probably didn't go into great detail is when there is a a crisis situation, whether it's through the random the anonymous reporting system or it's through our um kind of our technology lens, there are a lot of times that they are the first person that will then respond. And in those situations, those aren't 5-minute or 10-minute meetings. So, then what happens is then things get shifted around, they get so kids may be rescheduled, they get moved around. I I would say it is rare for a a counselor not to have somebody in their their room or in their counseling office um because they they are intentional about if there was a moment or there was time that they didn't have something scheduled, they're in the hallway, they're in the lunchroom, they're wherever. They really are doing a good job of being really visible, so that students know who they are and that they can connect with them. Yeah. Curley and then Kim. Yeah, I was going to say I think one of the things that I'm hearing come through that I know we talked about before was and I I do hear that this would be lovely to extend to the middle level is um when you have deans or APs serving various roles, that can get really confusing for students and not feeling like they know who to go to for support or that personnel is also there when they are getting in trouble for something or etc. And so, I think what I really appreciate and why it makes sense to expand is obviously they're doing a lot to help prep on the kind of what comes after high school. And also when we see them serving in that role that allows APs and deans to do what they need to do. That allows our principals to be freed up to do the other things. So I guess the one question I have is I I have been hearing about space issues. So let's say you did get a wish and your wish came true or you had a wish and it you had more counselors or are there space? Are those student services centers sent set up for more counselors? Yeah. We would we would figure it out. >> [laughter] >> Make We are very good at being resourceful with the spaces that we >> And is there any cuz I know were these positions on grant money or are So I guess I'm wondering like are there opportunities Do you see opportunities to increase funding for these positions that might be grant-based or Yeah. I can respond to that question. Thank you and Bill feel free to jump in here. Um these positions were created um a number of years ago by the previous executive director of student services who first did a restructure of his department. So you know the budget is the budget and it's tight and you can't keep adding things without taking some things away. So he looked at it through that lens, did a restructure and then the state provided us with some dollars um specifically to support student service work exclusively, right Bill? And that's how it was sort of cobbled together. Yeah. Two years ago um there's a brand new revenue stream for school districts called student support. And that's where we got by far the majority of the funds to put the new counselors in place. Cuz we went for a levy on this and it did not pass. And so I think a lot of people are like, well, where did this come from? It came from pursuing other avenues. And so I guess are we at our max with that? Is there any opportunity for more funds? >> Yeah, we don't currently see any opportunity for for additional funds either internally or from the state. So it was one of those things to give up some things and to utilize the new funding that was available to us. This was a priority and specifically with the funds from the state, they could only be used for certain positions and this happened to be one of them. So it sort of worked all in our favor in that way. But as far as additional capacity, I don't I don't see that at this time. Is that funding ongoing or is that just a a two-year funding model? It is ongoing at this point, but the state legislature, you know, is has a pretty tight budget. So I don't know what's going to happen. Cuz they could cut it, too. Okay. Kim, are you done? Kim? Um so one question cuz I think this is where members of the community kind of get confused on who does what. So we also have social workers and then you have counselors and then deans and you know, all the different things. Who is managing the 504 plans within the building? Currently at the high schools, the social workers do. Okay. So that ties up our social workers time considerably. 504s you don't have to I've I've been I manage the 504s, too. So it's it's a big job. It takes up a lot of time and there's a lot of students on that and they need to manage those accommodations, make sure they're met, update the plans, like all the different things. So that would fill up like a social worker's time making it difficult for the counselors too. Some of that's going to going to spill into the counselor's role as well, correct? Okay. Yeah, I also have a high schooler who tries to see his counselor and struggles to get in because they're always full. So, yeah. Okay. Um, Matt? Yeah, and kind of kind [clears throat] of going off of what Carly said and mentioned the the I think it was the levy that failed back in 2023, um, you know, to add additional supports. And I would just say I'd like to see um, you know, in future presentations just for the public's sake, you know, actual data from our district and what has changed since, you know, we've put in these counselors. Um, because I don't think just saying research shows, you know, gets the point across, you know, as far as if we want to go out and ask for additional funds. Um, because research can you can find research to show anything you want it to show. Um, and so I would just encourage that and I don't know if there's any way we can track it more specifically with the benefits. I mean, there's obviously the benefit of these counselors are doing work other people were doing, you know, and if you didn't have the counselors, somebody else at the at the school would have to be doing utilizing their time. So, it is, you know, an additional resource, but if we can show, you know, the public, you know, with concrete evidence like, "Look, this is what it was like before we had counselors. This is what it's like now." I mean, I think that puts us in a lot better position to go to the public and say, "Look, this is you're getting a benefit from it." You know, our schools are benefiting from it. Um, one of those I had a question, you know, this is a slide regarding decreased behavioral risks. Um, in relationship to the the counselors. I I was wondering one, what does that entail? And two, how are the counselors involved in that that relationship with the decreased behavioral risks? I think that comes into play when we've identified students who have some behavioral risks or have some concerns about the their their time at school. And so we create small groups. Um groups that might talk about anger management. They're groups that are talking about We have groups that talk about homework, um prioritizing, organization, how to use planners. Um so there are different different groups based off of the needs that we're discovering. A lot of times in our bar groups when we are having discussions about groups of students and behaviors that we might be seeing that we can then support them. Um you know, every every behavior is is a way of communicating. And if we can help our students learn to communicate in positive and constructive ways rather than being frustrated and and communicating in um destructive ways, that gives us a chance to really work on how to how to better change those behaviors in the process. I I also think the counselors are able to make um relationships with these students and with their students. And the more relationships you have, and I will say that, the [snorts] better relationships you have and the more engaged you are at school, your attendance will improve, your grades will improve, you'll feel safe at school. It's a good place to come. So I think that has um our counselors have had the um ability to establish relationships with our students. And that also decreases behaviors. Yeah, and and I appreciate all that. And I don't doubt their value at all. I'm just saying, you know, from the position of the board and the district will have to settle this, you know, if we want to go back, being able to tie it to actual data. I even think it helps showing like this is how many visits they have, you know, for you know, helping with FAFSA forms, helping with college applications. Um and I don't know I know we talked about this little last time you were here being able to track the before and after. You know, I know there's some privacy concerns which you guys can probably address. But I don't know. And maybe that's something you guys can think about, you know, what how could we how could we track you know, the utilization of our counselors better in order to convey to the community that hey, there's value here that you should look at. Are there questions or comments? I just have two brief ones and I think it goes to what Matt is talking about and Carly, too. Um I know it's difficult to say that because we have counselors X's happened in some cases, right? Because we're implementing all of these various things at one time to help our students succeed, whether it's bar or a new curriculum or maybe there's a new athletic co you know, there's so many things that influence the success of a kid, but I think to the extent that we can parcel it out would be helpful. And so one question I have is on the desired daily experience survey, which I know the numbers are more positive, right? And they were they were positive, but they're even better now. Are there questions related to counselors specifically and or and and if not, are we seeing in any of the open-ended questions like with qualitative data students choosing to speak about the counseling staff and their experience and are we are we do we have the expertise to then code that data to make the make the connection on on a student's um success. I can speak to to one, not the um daily desired experiences necessarily, but um I had mentioned that we still want to build out. We're in implementation implementation year number two. So we still want to build out what what data we can collect and what we want. And one of those things is a is a school-wide or high school-wide kind of needs assessment and to see some some those some of those questions and and are we being in in are they being impacted? Are the students, you know, finding this their value? Okay. Great. So, do you want to And then my other you can jump in No, I have another one. I think my other question might be for more of the building stuff, but Karen, if it's more you, that's fine. Um and it comes from my own husband's experience working at another high school right in our conference and I'm I'm aware at least at his building the team environment that's created amongst the administrative staff to connect students to counselors and vice versa based on whatever's happening. Can you speak to like how the principals, dean {slash} APs, counselors >> mind. Okay, great. >> And so that that's part of the tandemness that I I think that's um we have a a couple things that that they actually cited that you guys are starting to get at and uh how can they track data better and um to justify the the work they're doing. So, talking about um you know, um data regarding uh tier two interventions when students are really struggling, you know, we have the tier one stuff that every kid's getting, but then that tier two intervention and how can we track that better is something that they're looking at doing next year. Uh but they do work in tandem with our assistant principals um and they get to know families really well. And so um oftentimes um uh when there's a behavior, you know, they're able to to come at a different angle than the assistant principal would be able to come from or the dean uh during this this process and be an advocate for the student uh making sure they get their homework if they are suspended um making sure that they work with the family to get the supports that they need for the reason for the behavior and being very proactive at those intake meetings when students come back cuz the goal of an intake meeting is to be successful and to not make the same mistakes twice and then to get the help and the supports you need. So, data tracking that uh uh and the interventions that they do. Uh I think you're right on with that. So, they are looking at that. They're also looking at how they can intervene with with drugs and alcohol and chemicals and and get some some separate training on that to get some certification training with that and then obviously you can track that data very easily in a school. You know, how many students are getting help with with chemical needs, how many students are getting caught with chemicals. I have seen a decrease. We do have a data there at South and I can't speak to North, but we have seen a a dramatic decrease in vaping in our school. And a lot of that's information. So, you know, counselors giving lessons during advisory and giving family resources of the harmful effects of vaping, but then also just getting them the help they need. So, there is data that they can track and they can report to you and they are looking at that. Okay. Great. Any other questions or discussion? All right. Well, thank you very much for the presentation. Appreciate it. All right. Moving on to some policy discussion. So, we're going to start with policy 512 school sponsored student publications and activities. Director Alberg, did you want to come and I forget. Are you are you wanting to frame this or do you want me to? Okay. Oh, wonderful. Great. Okay. Um nope. That's fine. I think one point of clarification maybe is that at our last work session it was noted that we did not have a 512 by Terry Morrow, correct? And then what is being presented in our board packet is [clears throat] the MSBA version of um of the MSBA model policy for for 512. But then I'm I'm noting that it says original and revised. Is that MSBA's original and revised at the top of what's in our board packet. I just want to make sure that everyone's working off the same document. Sorry. That's okay. Um it correct it it it wouldn't it would be MSBA's revised not ours because we don't have our policy. >> Right. So um Thank you. Yeah, what I what I have is just that there there are there aren't any recommended changes because we don't have the policy yet. So um it's being recommended to adopt it as is. Um if the board has any clarifying questions on the content of the policy um uh principals Booty and Murphy are here to assist in any questions that you may have but um yeah, other than that it's a new policy. >> to our earlier conversation I was I wanted to make sure I was understanding what what the revision was on here for. So um tonight's uh charge with this policy in particular is that this would qualify as a first reading. Um we're not voting on this policy tonight um but if there is questions or discussion on this um this is the time um and per our conversation at the work session um Terry Morrow from MSBA strongly urged us to just get policies that are required of us um uh passed as quickly as possible and then um of course if there's extensive reviews that we want to go through at some point we can do that as well. Um but he I think he really pressured us to think about how to make sure we're in compliance um both both just to have them on our website but to help our our um administrative staff have the right tools to to do their jobs effectively. So yep. Matt. Um just for context I was wondering I mean cuz this is related to school sponsored media and activities. I was wondering what that all entails and uh how frequently are people students involved in this? I mean is there a school newspaper? I know I know I've seen like videos of kids interviewing. >> Yeah, I Do you want us to go up there or can we do it You can do it from here. That's fine. Um this would entail things like a school newspaper, a literary magazine, uh a news broadcast, or a a show that students write the content for. Um at this time North does not have any of those type of programs. I don't think you have We do have a broadcast [clears throat] media course where students do a a show and we show it during advisory about once a month. It's usually a news story on a sports team, um or a staff member, or something interesting in teenagers' lives. Dinner Danny? Okay. Yeah. Are there other questions or Yeah, Brian. Yeah, you know, when it I'll ask, I mean, who reviews controversial content? And like and who decides what content is appropriate and not appropriate? And while it is a school-sponsored uh student publication or or or an activity, um like is there rules and guidelines that need that we need to talk about that? I think, you know, obviously, you know, a few months back we we had the there was a ice had a bunch of folks that uh there was an ice march or something. Folks were coming out of school or out of classrooms uh to do uh to >> That's not related to student publications. It could be. I mean, could it be? I mean, >> But that situation wasn't. So, let's just I mean, Yeah, I mean, what's what's considered school-sponsored publications? Um I- i- if So, any faculty can support it a publication of a student. And so, any faculty, do they Does a Does a school teacher have the rights to say, "Okay, this is going to be a school-sponsored activity for my classroom." And so, then that student can, you know, there's publications that go out with that as well. I Like, what are the guardrails? Like, and who's Who's providing those guard rails? And the governance structure around it. And then can students can students say like I don't I don't like that? Can students say they like that? Can parents say they don't like it? I don't know. These are my These are the >> practices in place right now even though we don't have a policy? Well, in in the case of the [snorts] we have a a class teacher oversight and it's called broadcast media. So, the teacher obviously if there's anything vulgar or offensive or controversial is going to um be a supervisor of that course. So, so so is that so what we're relying or we are given the the the authority at the at the end of at the teacher level for them to decide what's controversial, what's not controversial, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. And so, does that that individual have guidelines or other policies that guide their what guide that framework? >> I think the hard part is right now we don't have policies in place to guide that. So, it is then on a teacher opinion or a practice that has been in place. Um there students have a lot of First Amendment rights when it comes to student publications and things like that. Without us having anything in place, we we are pretty limited to how we can coach and support students in that process so that they can understand how to do journalism, how to do those pieces. So, I think we have to have something in place so that we can even have the discussion about what is what is the practice or what is the the policy for that. Kim, do you have your hand up? Yeah, so I was just saying before we start asking these questions, maybe we should review the policy cuz I feel like a lot of the questions are in this policy. That people are asking. >> Yeah. Okay. I mean I assume everybody had a chance to read the policy, but if not, we could table it, too. Um, Tony? Yeah, um this kind of gets into that. Um, the definitions, there's some definitional problems here. Um, it says a school-sponsored media um, is material that's prepared wholly or substantially written, published, broadcast, or otherwise disseminated by a student journalist, distributed to the students in the school, and prepared by a student journalist under the supervision of a student media advisor. And the student media advisor basically means a qualified teacher that the student the school district employs, appoints, or designates to supervise student journalists. Um, so I think the issue is are the schools going to be specifically designating somebody who's going to be the student media advisor in all of these situations, or can any teacher essentially be a student media advisor Mhm. um, instructing a kid you want to start a podcast, do you want to put together a newsletter, something of that nature. Um, I think narrowing that down and and clarifying that um, would help um, provide some instruction not just to the board, but to the the people who are going to be implementing this. Mhm. Right now, Shawn, you and us have one opportunity, so you have one person. Is that That's right. Okay. >> used to have newspapers that were distributed, and probably when this policy was written Mhm. it was more geared towards, and those newspapers were given at lunch once a month. That practice has been outdated. Um, so yeah, I think some of it maybe still applies um, but it's it's different. And I'm taking note of all of these questions, and obviously there's the recording that I would I I would ask that our administration bring to our next working session so that these things can have more recommendation going for it on on how we might handle this for the board to consider. Um obviously we get to make the set the policy, but um I think a recommendation on how this would play out in practice would be helpful. Matt and then Paul. Yeah, go ahead, Matt. Yeah, I I just wonder if the board would consider having um the principals be another layer of oversight. Uh cuz if we're just leaving it to student student media advisor, I mean there is no reference to, you know, our building leaders in the policy, but just having them be just another layer of oversight to if there is anything questionable that gets challenged, that it would go to the principal as well. Mhm. Paul. Yeah, and and I think one of the things um when I was at the University of Pittsburgh, one of the things you couldn't do, and you know, you could argue First Amendment, free speech, but one of the things you couldn't do was use the brand or the brand equity and community goodwill and leverage off of that to express your opinion. So let's just use politics for a moment. Um whether you're left, right, or or in between, you couldn't use Lakeville schools brand or community goodwill to express or leverage off of that to get your political opinion out to the public. So I mean, I think that's something back to Brian's guardrail comment. I do think we need to have something that encapsulates that, so it's it's not the wild west. Okay. Other comments or questions? We do not have that policy at the University of Minnesota, by the way. For faculty at least. Faculty can say what they want whenever they want. >> [laughter] >> Staff cannot. Okay. So can I charge Emily um and related people um to think about these and then we can bring these to the work session for further exploration and revise as needed for a second reading at our next meeting. Absolutely. Okay. Great. The next policy is 606.5 library materials and form. I would like to make a recommendation to the board that we or like I would like to make a motion to table this particular policy. I apologize if people spent a lot of time on this for this meeting. However, it will not go you'll need it in the future. And that is that we don't have the content expert. She was unavailable to be here any longer tonight and I think it's important there's many things in this policy that require kind of decision decision points. And so my recommendation is to table this. We can bring it to the next work session to kind of hash through some of that, but then we would have a first reading again and a second reading. So apologies for kind of the duplicate work, but that's my suggestion. Yes. I second that motion. >> All right, seconded by Swanson. Any discussion on that or a desire to do it right now? Okay. All in favor of tabling this Say I. I. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes to table. And then the last policy for review tonight is 704, which is related to fixed assets. So this is also considered as a first reading because we're changing some of the some of the language in the policy. We currently have this policy, so this is not a new one. And the change change really actually was spurred by our auditor as I understand it. Correct? Who was looking for us to put the $100,000 language into our policy. And so what Brendan Bill did is presenting to us the MSBA model policy and the redline edit that you see is our auditors request for changing MSBA's recommendation which was the $25,000 threshold. They want it to be at the $100,000 threshold. Is that am I summarizing this correctly? Okay. So that is what's on the table for discussion regarding edits to this policy. So any questions? Bill probably could answer them the best but Is there any other things you want to add Bill about why they wanted this added or is that sufficient? The the biggest the biggest changes we've had that $5,000 threshold for many years. 20 years ago we had to start putting fixed assets together when when the uh the rules came from GASB saying you need to capitalize >> [clears throat] >> and make your books more look more like a business. Okay, so now we have two sets of books. We have a set of books that makes you look like a business. Now we have our regular books like we always did our our fund accounting, right? So this is this ties back to the what makes us look like a business. So we're going to capitalize any large purchases that we have and depreciate those ex- over a period of time, right? Well, we had a threshold of $5,000. So anything that costs more than $5,000 we're going to capitalize that and um depreciate it, okay? Well, what happens is we have some really large expenditures like when we buy iPads for our our students, well, they don't cost $5,000 but as a group they do. So now we're looking at uh a group expenditure. So when I ex- when we when we spend $2 million, well, we're going to take that and we're going to capitalize that and we're going to expense that over a period of time. Whereas before we weren't capitalizing or or you know including that into our fixed assets or capital asset. Um because of the larger school district we are, we have many, many, many expenditures that are over $100,000. And that's why we're picking that $100,000 cuz the smaller district we'd be be doing so much work I'd have to hire more people to do the work. So, our auditors and other big districts around us, you look at 1 196, you look at um up the west side, you know, Eden Prairie and what Wayzata, they're all going to this $100,000. So, it's not just us. If you bought a vehicle for $45,000, that wouldn't be capitalized. Is that what I'm hearing? Yes, because that's one item that's over $5,000. >> Is over, okay. It's it's a larger purchases or bulk purchases. >> one pieces or air handler, we're getting all of those pieces. >> Okay. But the little piece, like you buy a bunch of furniture, like our our budget's over 600 grand for furniture, right? Well, we weren't capitalizing on those cuz all the little pieces never hit $5,000. >> Got it. Yep. Any other questions or comments? Does the board Anyone feel the need to bring this particular um policy to the work session? Um because I'm hearing no further conver- Okay. So, we'll bring it to the next meeting for um for a second reading and then consideration for approval at that meeting. So, I'll uh we'll bring 512 um to the next work session and 606.5. Okay? Great. Um there are no reports with recommended action for tonight, so we can move to board member reports. Anyone with a report? Okay, thank you, Kim. Yeah, Kim already previewed hers. Anyone else? Yep, Carly. Uh Chair Cameron and I had a lovely time at the Suds for Scholars event last week. So, uh want to uh put a special thanks out to our chamber again for raising money for our students. I think I don't know I didn't hear this was official, but I heard someone mention $61,000 in scholarship money. Um and so it was a great event. Lots of people there and um yeah, it was wonderful. Thank you to the chamber. It's great. Brian? I don't I don't have a report, but is Did I hear something about high school graduation, something about removing the day? About what? Removing the day or is that not true? High school graduation? Is there anyone who can speak to high school graduation? Is there Are there rumors or swirls or no? I don't know. Are you talking about the consent agenda item to >> No, you're not. You're talking about like weather? No, the uh Did I miss it? Oh, never mind. >> Oh, yeah. This calendar? Okay. Okay, okay, you're fine. >> Um just a couple updates from me. Um my family and I went to see Mamma Mia at Lakeville North and it was phenomenal. Um like very high quality and so just grateful for a talented arts program here in our district. Um I know Lakeville South also has um a production right now, so I'm hoping to catch that, but um both schools Oh, I might be done. Okay. Well, both schools are putting on um tremendous um experiences for kids. And then I I I believe since our last meeting I attended the gifted and talented advisory. Um the it was the last meeting for that advisory and what we looked at was how other school districts um both within our conference and then both like the higher performing districts, how are they um offering gifted and talented services? And so I think um there was um breakout group discussions and a lot of um thoughts [clears throat] collected and people examining the different websites and offerings and that that information I think will be collated for um further discussion on how we might um enhance some programming here in 194. Um but I think the consensus among many people were that m- um many districts of our size have more more opportunities around gifted and talented programming. More students are able to participate, um which likely is due to funding and and resources cra- probably. Um and so I think there was interest in thinking about, um you know, that tension between making it this like highly selective experience for only the kids who kind of are at the very very top, or is there or it should a district have a philosophy of trying to get, you know, the second or third crop of students who could really benefit from advanced learning who maybe aren't getting the opportunity right now and um thinking about what's possible given our resources. So, I think the gifted and talented team is thinking about that. Um but that was the focus of the of that meeting. So, Kelly? I think that's lovely because when you think about like the superior range of intellect or high-level learners, that is above the 90th percentile. And so, when we're talking about our kids only qualifying for something like ignite at the 99th percentile for only reading or for both reading and math. And then what qualifies for discover, we're losing a a fair percentage of kids who are at the superior level. And so, that's great. I love that. >> I think what I appreciated, too, is um Dr. Labat from Oak Hills, principal of Oak Hills, is on that committee because his school hosts the ignite program. And one thing he talked about was the desire for all classes, gen ed classes, to incorporate more project-based learning like they do in more of the gifted, um to help foster critical thinking skills and and higher levels of achievement. And I think that's an interesting topic to to think about, and that's related to curriculum, right? But um I I I jived with that perspective, so. All right, any other updates? Okay, we'll move to superintendent update. Thank you, or um assistant superintendent. Thank you so much, Chair Cameron. Yes, I have one update uh tonight for you. Um with just 2 weeks left until our May 12th growing together referendum, Um Superintendent Baumann and I want to encourage all the voters in the district to take advantage of early voting opportunities, if you haven't already, of course. The district office is open for early voting from 8:00 to 4:00 p.m. um through this Friday, so for the rest of this week. Um and that's uh through May 1st. Um we will also be open for extended early voting hours next week, May 4th through 8th. 8th, so we will be open here at the district office from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday, May 9th from 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Monday, May 11th from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Um election day is May 12th. Um polls will be open on the 12th from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Please note that polling locations have changed um since 2026. Um so visit um minnesota mnvotes.org. I'll say that again, mnvotes.org, and enter your home address to find your combined polling location. Um just a note, the district office site is only open for early voting. It will not be open on election day, so you will have to go to your appropriate polling location um on the day of the election if you choose to vote on that day. Um you can learn more about early voting in person and by mail, election day voting, and anything else you want to know about our growing together referendum by visiting our website um isd194.org/vote. Thank you so much. Great. Thanks, Emily. Uh is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Uh first by Anderson, second by Reichenberger. Any discussion? All in favor? Any opposed? All right, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. >> I got it. Okay.